Chris Hedges Interviews Peter Oborne - worthy and unworthy victims
Posted by Der on April 30, 2022, 6:13 am
Extract:
Oborne: Oh, I can just give you a personal story, actually. I was a schoolboy in a boarding school in the West Country, England, called Sherborne, in the early 1970s, and there was a wonderful history teacher called Graham Stephenson, who was not at all liked by the school authorities. He was quite dangerous. He had a stick which he’d hurl at you in class, and that didn’t… But it was to keep us alert, and he did keep us alert. Before my time, but he wanted to take a school trip to the Les Événements in Paris in 1968 so that the boys could see history in motion.
But what I remember, and I really learned from it, this was the height of the Cold War, just around the time of the Chilean coup d’état, created by the CIA. It was a very dangerous time in the world. He brought down, and he used to do this a lot, the political officer of the Soviet embassy to speak to us about dialectical material and give the general Soviet view of the world. Soviet Weekly would be there alongside The Times Literary Supplement and New Statesman in the school library so we could read it. Now, the situation vis-ŕ-vis Russia, between Russia and the West, was marked by deeper hostility then than it is now. It was the existential enemy of the West. It was perfectly reasonable at this school for us to be introduced to people who were going to tell us about how the Soviet Union saw the world. Now, that’s a brilliant thing.
By the way, Tim Garton Ash, who was another student there, just a year or two above me, who’s written a book about free speech, was another student of this great, great, truly great school teacher, history teacher. I’d like to know what he thinks. Because it really upsets me, for instance, that in Britain, Russia Today, RT, has been closed down. It’s not that I agree with RT particularly, but it’s just that it’s… We were allowed, as 16-year-old schoolboys, to read Pravda, Soviet Weekly. We were introduced to the officials from the regime, and we learned how the other side thought. We learned, we understood. And they had some decent points, by the way, I seem to remember. It didn’t mean that I ended up joining the Communist Party.
I saw that interview a while back and, as with most things Hedges, well worth watching. I can tell Oborne what Timothy "garbage and trash" thinks about it without having to ask him; he'll be all for it.
I presumed that was Oborne's point in mentioning him (that "garbage and trash" is a fully fledged neo-con cheerleader and lover of censorship even after having this education and writing a book on "freedom" of speech) although perhaps there may be something else there. It looked like a typically English subtle dig or at least I hope so. TGA is horrendous.
From the blurb on his (TGA's) "Free Speech: Ten Principles for a Connected World":
Drawing on a lifetime of writing about dictatorships and dissidents, Timothy Garton Ash argues that in this connected world that he calls cosmopolis, the way to combine freedom and diversity is to have more but also better free speech.
"better free speech". What a giveaway :D...no amount of cajolery, and no attempts at ethical or social seduction, can eradicate from my heart a deep burning hatred for the Tory Party...So far as I am concerned they are lower than vermin.
Obviously the best free speech being from and confined to the educated elite of the global north. nm
So I don't rock the boat, I hate and fear and cry and laugh as directed, And I certainly will not vote for anyone who I'm told is like Them
So hoodwinked, That despite the non-stop lying and corruption, Despite the huge gap between richest and homeless, The hideous amount of bombs we drop on people, Or sell to others to drop on people for billions of pounds for the already filthy rich bomb-makers,
Not an ounce of 'morality' in any of it, The opposite
Despite that and more, we still carry this fuzzy reassuring stewy feeling that tells us: "It's ok, because we're basically Very Good here. There are just a few mistakes and a few small issues".
The lying conning bastards.
In fact, there is only Us.
Though I see too now that some of Us aren't satisfied with being 'just one of Us', Instead want to be in control over Us, Look down on Us, Own far more things than the rest of Us, While also being loved by Us.
They're still Us, There is only Us,
Even the nazis and apartheid supremacists are Us, Us with very twisted delusions of greatness,
Still Us, but perverse elitist bigots, propagandising, stealing, self-enriching, while others starve, they are the closest anyone can get to being Them,
But still Us.
The same in every country.
Whoops, that was just half of it. Whole poem or something:
I've seen it from the other side! I've worked it out!
Maybe it was that knock on the head or that brush with the law, Or seeing those kids painted as terrorists when really they were just very poor, Throwing stones at soldiers in their town, Who killed their older brothers and blew holes in their school,
Or seeing how trees branch from one trunk, All languages, all people, all life on our planet from one source, One egg
I'm a victim of manipulated groupthink, Used by powerful self-serving faceless forces in my own country,
Elitists, indoctrinating me from birth
A stew, loaded and seasoned from early primary, Kept simmering on lowest heat, mostly lidded, throughout secondary,
During later secondary and studies after, for those who go, the stew's lid often pops off and its contents tasted and questioned,
Sometimes the seasoning is found dull and changed, Even whole chunks can be pulled up from the depths, considered and replaced with fresh,
But it's rare that the whole concoption is emptied and re-made from scratch,
Arts and history and philosophy, And don't get me started on Media Studies, So much carefully made stew thrown away,
But the pressures of money, mean that fewer and fewer choose to go on to learn anything of stew-making,
One way and another, most of those who in their wild days altered the seasoning, switched some of the contents, And even threw their bowls at the wall,
Come back prodigally to be refilled again with the same essential mix
Free from education, the story of our greatness is picked up by News that seamlessly carries us on
We think we're free-thinkers, Choosing a red-top or a clever paper,
But we're eating different-shaped printed or broadcast fishfood, And it all tastes of stew under the top layer
Getting us to love and take pride in Good Us Over Here, And to fear and look down on Evil Them Over There
We're automatically hoodwinked into supporting and believing in the truth of
Our Great Way,
Everything
Our flag is better than theirs, Our history, Our food, Our language, Our beer, obviously, Our politics isn't perfect by any means, But it's better than Theirs,
So I don't rock the boat, I hate and fear and cry and laugh as directed, And I certainly will not vote for anyone who I'm told is like Them
So hoodwinked, That despite the non-stop lying and corruption, Despite the huge gap between richest and homeless, The hideous amount of bombs we drop on people, Or sell to others to drop on people for billions of pounds for the already filthy rich bomb-makers,
Not an ounce of 'morality' in any of it, The opposite
Despite that and more, we still carry this fuzzy reassuring stewy feeling that tells us: "It's ok, because we're basically Very Good here. There are just a few mistakes and a few small issues".
The lying conning bastards.
In fact, there is only Us.
Though I see too now that some of Us aren't satisfied with being 'just one of Us', Instead want to be in control over Us, Look down on Us, Own far more things than the rest of Us, While also being loved by Us.
They're still Us, There is only Us,
Even the nazis and apartheid supremacists are Us, Us with very twisted delusions of greatness,
Still Us, but perverse elitist bigots, propagandising, stealing, self-enriching, while others starve, they are the closest anyone can get to being Them,
The problem with the Chomsky/Herman idea of 'worthy and unworthy victims' is that -- as not seldom -- the name it has been given obscures its meaning. 'Worthy' and 'unworthy' are nitwit words to use in this context: all they do is confuse people; and the thought is diluted or lost as a result. 'Significant and insignificant victims' would convey the meaning far better, as would several other terms.
It's a very common problem. Lots of people encountering, say, Popper's idea of 'piecemeal social engineering' will think, from his inept choice of words, that he's talking of something he considers bad.
Distinction without a difference.Clio the cat, ? July 1997 - 1 May 2016 Kira the cat, ? ? 2010 - 3 August 2018 Jasper the Ruffian cat ? ? ? - 4 November 2021
on April 30, 2022, 6:13 am