Masopher's Mind

People still haven’t gotten used to recycling. Throw away the old, get something new. They’ve made the “mistake” of recycling a Bush Whitehouse and they don’t want to make the mistake of recycling a Clinton. With the dirt that was dug up on the Clintons and Rodhams back in the 90’s I’m surprised that this dolled up Hillary dared resurrect herself with her “war stories” and animated gestures. It looks very unnatural for her to do that, because people with long term memory or footage of her from the 90’s know that Hillary Clinton is nothing like that. She has never been in danger and she doesn’t have a dynamic personality no matter what her PR manager makes her up to be. Those with memory remember how “cold” she was and I am pretty sure that we genuinely speculated of the purely strategic nature of Hillary and Bills relationship. If America genuinely wanted a woman in candidacy they would have forced Oprah to run. Biologically Hillary qualifies as female but so do cadavers and blow up dolls.

Let’s not forget events like Whitewater, role in controversial presidential pardons, her relationship with Walmart, and her strategic bandwagon hopping along with the entire Democratic party. I don’t accuse Mrs. Clinton of anything other than being part of the wallpaper of a boring unmotivated and equally corrupt democratic house. She has currently painted herself as a door to somewhere else but it’s just paint there is nothing behind it.

The question on everybody’s mind is: will she pick up the marbles and go home? Will she kill the Democratic Party’s chance for presidency if she is unable to lead it? Masopher believes that she will. The Democratic Party has suffered infighting for many years now, even when Bill Clinton was in power the party could not hold it together to lock the Republicans out of congress. Their previous nominations have been abysmal and the current “rerun versus mystery box” ticket is another example of their inability to say anything other than, we won’t do what the other guys are doing. Jumping on the war bandwagon, hopping off it when things looked bleak; using anti-war as their platform to gain congressional power, remaining silent now that they are in charge of it; voting according to personal agenda and opinion polls rather than for what is right. A divided house cannot stand.

Clinton may lose nothing for the party if she locks Obama out with her delegates. Many of her supporters will refuse to vote Obama further reducing his opportunity at presidency. John Edwards has done so and Hillary may be looking beyond the horizon to being the hero of the Republican Party and returning to being a senatorial power broker. Her tenacity is dogged and true to form, if there is still an ounce of modern woman left in Hillary Rodham Clinton, she will make this fight dirty and disgraceful and Masopher eagerly awaits this.

Pakistan stumbles along the road to democracy as the elections that were predicted by Opposition to be flawed and filled with irregularities…were won by the Opposition! Now that was a surprise! Here too the PPP leadership threatened regional security by wanting to “take it to the streets” if they did not get their way. The Judiciary still is not getting its chance to flex its muscles. With Musharraf it was easy to befuddle the military man with talk of constitution. Now with both Sharif and the not-better half of Bhutto at the reigns one could expect a quick return to Tribalism, Sharia law and good old fashioned beheadings so that the constant flow of bombers in Pakistan may be curtailed. Law and democracy; two things highly incompatible with Pakistani way of life will not be any time soon. Here too a power sharing deal might be useful, so that everyone benefits from the misappropriated aid, drug money and oil pipeline deals. And of course (for I don’t want to be cynical) all three men do what the best for their failed state. Political enemies should be last on their agenda. Defeated though he is by his own attempts at legitimacy, Musharraf is still a powerful force in Pakistan. He is trusted in the military. Powerful also in that he can safely draw the fire of the judiciary and militants while Saudi backed Sharif and (hopefully still) US and UK backed Zardari play power games to gain influence over the region. With India happily growing to the East and Pashtun-Taliban sliding in from the South and West, there is something worth fighting for and that is peace.

No matter how it is spread, propaganda comes in four basic varieties, said Arthur Siegel, social science professor at York University in Toronto, whose 1996 book Radio Canada International examines World War II and Cold War propaganda.
“The first level is the Big Lie, adapted by Hitler and Stalin. The state-controlled Egyptian press has been spreading a Big Lie, saying the World Trade Center was attacked by Israel to embarrass Arabs,” said Siegel.
“The second layer says, ‘It doesn’t have to be the truth, so long as it’s plausible.’
“The third strategy is to tell the truth but withhold the other side’s point of view.
“The fourth and most productive is to tell the truth, the good and the bad, the losses and the gains.
“Governments in Western society take the last three steps. They avoid the Big Lie, which nobody here will swallow,” Siegel said.
— Beth Gillin, U.S. intensifies the war of words, The Philadelphia Inequirer, October 21, 2001
With this in Masopher’s mind we watch events ongoing in the Middle East, Africa, South America and the Far East. Propaganda has grown up a lot and evolved over time. In the more experienced countries propaganda is selective truth telling and distractions, parroting press releases, word association and deliberate ignorance. In other places it’s just saying what the people want you to say or think or outright falsehoods. Here in Masophers mind we watch numbers, cross reference sources on both sides of the real events and not the interpretation of events. Cynicism is not allowed to overtake Masopher’s mind. Propoganda in its most benign is a tool of winning support of getting people to see your point of view the point of view that ensures that co-operation and progress happens in a particular direction. When Obama says that he was “the only” voice against the Iraq war, when Hamas plunges Palestine into darkness and claims that Israel is harassing is oil supplies, and Israel in turn complains about the regular rocket attacks. When the western powers fail to acknowledge the immense pressure both factions face as they try to integrate millennia old enemies on a single piece of land; when two black tribes go to war and start using refined but ignoble words like genocide; when the British Government begins “losing” millions of citizens information; or attacks foreign governments in its media for harassing their spies. When scandals of blonde women with names reminiscent of European cities or countries attract more media focus than the actual scandals of the European cities and countries.
It is all propaganda; it’s not a bad thing, it marketing, spin, and impression management, telling a story in a world where people look for right in matters of two wrongs.