It is interesting to watch the political establishment implode. Having slurred critics of the war system and the rapidly expanding growth of political power as “anti-Semites” and/or “racists,” the champions of a system of state-dominated society have kicked their sense of desperation into high gear. While Reuters reported an opinion poll showing nearly 80% of Americans saying they don’t trust the government, the voices of state power work feverishly to characterize critics of the state as did one historian who informed the New York Times that the Tea Partiers, for instance, “are the same angry, ill-informed, overwhelmingly white, crypto-corporate paranoiacs” who embrace the “blithely narcistic presumption that the vast majority of Americans . . . already agree with them.” Given the aforementioned opinion poll, one has to wonder just who is “ill-informed.” What with the American government conjuring up wars based upon lies, forged documents, and other acts of deceit; with the economic system in a state-created turbulence; with the shoveling of hundreds of billions of dollars into the coffers of corporations friendly to the state; with major corporations (e.g., General Electric, Bank of America) paying no federal income tax this year; and with Washington endeavoring to create a situation to justify an unprovoked, “preemptive” attack on Iran with nuclear weapons, it is the height of elitist arrogance to charge tens of millions of Americans as “extremists” for objecting to such moral and intellectual corruption. A twisted logic is now in place amongst the establishment voices: those who object to government practices = militia extremists = Timothy McVeigh (CNN has devoted numerous hours these past few days to the Oklahoma City bombing of fifteen years ago).

It is important to bear in mind the admonition of the late George Carlin: “I never believe anything the government tells me!” At the same time, be aware that political systems — ALL political systems — are grounded in the unprincipled use of violence. Their machinations — while outwardly cloaked in the language of “public interest” — very quickly erupt into the self-serving violence dramatized so effectively in the Godfather films. When their special interests are threatened, such as by most members of the public no longer buying into their racket, they have the legalized force — and the willingness to exert it — to resort to whatever desperate measures they deem necessary.

The Best of Butler Shaffer