Is Bush a demagogue?
A common dictionary will give you the following definition:
dem·a·gogue also dem·a·gog (d m -gôg , -g g )
n.
1. A leader who obtains power by means of impassioned appeals to the emotions and prejudices of the populace.
2. A leader of the common people in ancient times.
I prefer the definition by Henry Louis Mencken, a 20th century journalist and free thinker, perhaps best remembered for The American Language, his multi-volume study of how the English language is spoken in the United States, and his contemptuously satirical reporting of the Scopes trial, which he is credited for naming the "Monkey" trial; he defined a demagogue as "one who preaches doctrines he knows to be untrue to men he knows to be idiots."
I would not be as harsh and I will define it as “one who preaches doctrines he knows to be untrue to people he thinks to be idiots”. It is not true that one would have to be an idiot for a demagogue to exist and be successful; after all, he only has to think of a person as an idiot for him to exist, but to be successful he only needs for his target to be intellectually lazy and naïve, that is, don’t question anything and accept the demagoguery as truths.
Case in point will be George W. Bush this past Thursday addressing the 88th Annual American Legion National Convention. “If we give up the fight in the streets of Baghdad, we will face the terrorists in the streets of our own cities.” A false statement, only a naïve and intellectually lazy person would believe. Iraq is primarily an internal civil war among the different ethnic groups fighting for control of their nation; they will not be coming to fight on the streets of our cities if we leave the mess we started.
However, it is election time, it is his duty to rally the voters for his party and what a better way than some demagoguery around his claque which will be televised nationwide. Of course this is neither the first nor the last impassionate appeal he would use to cause the American people to make a premature judgment and/or an irrational decision without knowledge or examinations of the facts. It was this demagogue and his cast of idiots which got this country into a war with crippling strategic mistakes in such a way that the resulting insurgency became inevitable.
One should think that even the most credulous and uncritical person must have realized, by now, that this country reasons for entering into a war was based on lies of the demagogue, that we are not safer, that our civil liberties are eroding rapidly, that our elderly population is being cast to the side, that the health care system is non-existing for millions of poor Americans.
Unfortunately, the demagogue still finds big audiences with a mental attitude that his political rhetoric is believable and should be accepted as true. It is sad, with today’s technology the truth is there for you to find, if not for you being so lazy and apathetic.
dem·a·gogue also dem·a·gog (d m -gôg , -g g )
n.
1. A leader who obtains power by means of impassioned appeals to the emotions and prejudices of the populace.
2. A leader of the common people in ancient times.
I prefer the definition by Henry Louis Mencken, a 20th century journalist and free thinker, perhaps best remembered for The American Language, his multi-volume study of how the English language is spoken in the United States, and his contemptuously satirical reporting of the Scopes trial, which he is credited for naming the "Monkey" trial; he defined a demagogue as "one who preaches doctrines he knows to be untrue to men he knows to be idiots."
I would not be as harsh and I will define it as “one who preaches doctrines he knows to be untrue to people he thinks to be idiots”. It is not true that one would have to be an idiot for a demagogue to exist and be successful; after all, he only has to think of a person as an idiot for him to exist, but to be successful he only needs for his target to be intellectually lazy and naïve, that is, don’t question anything and accept the demagoguery as truths.
Case in point will be George W. Bush this past Thursday addressing the 88th Annual American Legion National Convention. “If we give up the fight in the streets of Baghdad, we will face the terrorists in the streets of our own cities.” A false statement, only a naïve and intellectually lazy person would believe. Iraq is primarily an internal civil war among the different ethnic groups fighting for control of their nation; they will not be coming to fight on the streets of our cities if we leave the mess we started.
However, it is election time, it is his duty to rally the voters for his party and what a better way than some demagoguery around his claque which will be televised nationwide. Of course this is neither the first nor the last impassionate appeal he would use to cause the American people to make a premature judgment and/or an irrational decision without knowledge or examinations of the facts. It was this demagogue and his cast of idiots which got this country into a war with crippling strategic mistakes in such a way that the resulting insurgency became inevitable.
One should think that even the most credulous and uncritical person must have realized, by now, that this country reasons for entering into a war was based on lies of the demagogue, that we are not safer, that our civil liberties are eroding rapidly, that our elderly population is being cast to the side, that the health care system is non-existing for millions of poor Americans.
Unfortunately, the demagogue still finds big audiences with a mental attitude that his political rhetoric is believable and should be accepted as true. It is sad, with today’s technology the truth is there for you to find, if not for you being so lazy and apathetic.
posted by mydadsblog at 2:46 AM
2 Comments:
I love Mencken, and the demagogue reference is very appropriate. The Head Demagogue's pool of idiots is shrinking, and its actually quite sad to watch him these days. He desperately needs to get a positive message out to prop his party up for the mid-term elections - cultivating turd-blossoms, as it were. But he and his demagogue cronies (Rummy and The Dick) are reduced to appearances before veteran groups and hard-core supporters. They know they can't sell those turds elsewhere.
But I'm afraid I must part with you a bit on the question of U.S. withdrawal from Iraq. Its not that I disagree with the premise that if we come home Iraq insurgents will follow us here to fight on American streets. Its ludicrous for them to even suggest it. But I think there is a connection there that will keep us in Iraq for a long time. We toppled a tin-pot dictator and declared MISSION ACCOMPLISHED! Of course, there were no WMD's and they knew that. Their real goal, naive as it seems, was to plant a seed of democracy that would transform the Middle East and eliminate terrorism - and yet, incredibly, there were no plans for what to do after the inevitable fall of Baghdad. Its as if they really believed that bullshit about being greeted as liberators, and that everything would magically fall into place once Saddam was gone. Now we're mired in a fractured state that has no real seat of power and is plunging headlong into civil war.
I think the vacuum that people speak of is real - if we pull out, every terrorist group in the world will be free to move in and set up shop. Given the unmitigated F#$%ing mess we've created over there, if we just pull up stakes and leave, these groups will have people lined up for miles to join them - swelling their already growing ranks. Saddam Hussein may have been an asshole, but he would never have tolerated terrorists setting up camp - he'd have seen it as a threat to his absolute power.
So what Bush and company have done by invading Iraq is to create instability, chaos and a credible threat where once there was stability, order and harmless bluster. And the turd blossom is that we're "fighting them over there so we don't have to fight them over here" - the American people are safer because of the courage of our "War President".
Well, I suppose this is true, isn't it? There really is no way to make the situation better as long as we are there. A point that illustrates there is no good solution - we've created a mess that will be there whether we stay or go. And our children (and grandchildren) will continue to feel the ripple effects, from a financial and a security perspective, for a long, long time.
While I agree with your premise, I think its a pipe-dream to think that the United States, and this administration in particular, will ever stop meddling over there.
I keep hearing Bush and company talk about "standing down when the Iraqi military stands up" (which seems counter to their sound-bite policy of "fighting them over there so we don't have to fight them over here", but that's another story). Because of our stupidity, we've created a situation that pits Sunni against Shi'a, and each group is bent on the other's destruction. What their militias can't murder or destroy, they take care of by infiltrating the military, police and political parties. So what exactly do they mean by "standing up", and how and when will this happen? It seems that if that's what we're waiting for, we'll never get out of there.
Let's face it, we'll be there for at least two more years. Rove and company would never consider withdrawal - our presence over there is as much a political strategy as a military one.
You asked if this administration is capable of listening to our allies. That makes me think, if a demagogue shouts in a forest, and no one is there to listen, did he really say anything at all?
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