"In a newly released tape broadcast on Al-Jazeera televison, Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden expresses views that are nearly indistinguishable from those of radical environmentalists, European anarchists, or many Congressional Democrats."
Wonderfully helpful stuff for the redstate news there. This argument from analogy (not strictly logical, since 'X is like Y in n respect, therefore X is like Y in any respect whatsoever' can easily be proved to lead to endless contradictions) only works, of course, if you engage with the rhetoric of good and evil (probably why religion is leaned on so much by both far-right Americans and extremist Islamist groups such as the Taliban), another example of that in this interview (which is admittedly not new), where Bill O'Reilly stops a man from giving a balanced and considered opinion - that other religious leaders in the Arab world may agree somewhat with Bin Laden's gripes but not with his violent actions - by claiming they can only be scared of his 'evil' and that if they were less cowardly they would say he was going to 'hell'. Remember Bush's speeches about good and evil?
As we address these challenges — and others we cannot foresee tonight — America must maintain our moral clarity. I have often spoken to you about good and evil. This has made some uncomfortable. But good and evil are present in this world, and between the two there can be no compromise. Murdering the innocent to advance an ideology is wrong every time, everywhere. Freeing people from oppression and despair is eternally right. This nation must continue to speak out for justice and truth. We must always be willing to act in their defense and to advance the cause of peace.
Well what luck we didn't kill nearly 800,000 Iraqis to win their 'hearts and minds' to 'democracy' then! Cause of peace! Cause of peace! Cause of peace!
I have often thought of the way we talk about Hitler as unhelpful in a similar way. Was he evil? No, although a lot of the things he did were almost unprecedented in their vile inhumanity and we should condemn these actions totally. He wasn't evil, though, because he was a human being, and human beings are complex biological organisms. Only characters can be evil. Characters are capable of being two dimensional exhibitions of an idea, but people can never be. Distorting the likes of Hitler, Mugabe and Bin Laden into two-dimensional faces for primitive moral dichotomies (with whoever is making the comparison cast as the wholly distinct alternative: the good) solely serves to obscure the truth: that we all commit both good and bad acts. Of course, if you are the President and you want people to follow you, you don't want them to believe you have committed a bad act, so you appeal to the notion of good vs evil and paint your enemy as evil. That way you must be the good.
If your actions have clearly brought terrible consequences, but you wish to preserve the notional goodness of your character, you can always claim that your intentions were good, and no-one can ask more than that (I've used this - even invoking Kant to support my claims - during a very messy break up when I acted like a complete arsehole and didn't want to admit that I had been bad). And so to possibly the most self-righteous man in the world - let alone the most self-righteous war criminal - Tony Blair, who this week gave evidence at the Chilcott enquiry. Blair is a master story-teller, and he is always the hero. He was such a post-modern PM - plausible things Blair could have said: 'I don't believe in beliefs, but I believe them very strongly', 'truth is just belief multiplied by conviction', 'the facts are whatever we tell you they are, and anyone who says otherwise is lying'. It was never about truth, it was about conviction. As long as he believed himself to be right, and followed that belief to whatever disasterous consequences, he was right, in his own eyes. Good job he wasn't a mathematician or a scientist or a chef then. Much better to be a PM, where even if everyone tells you you're wrong you can just say "Well I'm the PM, so I actually get to decide what's right and wrong." Like a God, but a really shit one.
Talking of story-tellers (that was pretty smooth, right? Look, I'm still learning here), Michael Moore has a new film out soon - Capitalism: A Love Story. I always used to think of this man as an annoying childish irritant, immature and unrealistic and just not playing the game. But then I used to be a right wing young tory from Beaconsfield with his head up his ass. The guy may be irritating, but good! He is making some good points, and if you don't think so, have a look at this from an interview in the Guardian today:
The film is certainly shocking. Early on, Moore sets out the meaning of "Dead Peasants" insurance. It turns out that Wal-Mart, a company with a revenue larger than any other in the world, bets on its workers dying, taking out life insurance policies on its 350,000 shop-floor workers without their knowledge or approval. When one of them dies, Wal-Mart claims on the policy. Not a cent of the payout, which sometimes runs to a $1m (£620,000) or more, goes to the family of the dead worker, often struggling with expensive funeral bills. Wal-Mart keeps the lot. If a worker dies, the company profits.
Wal-Mart is not alone. Moore talks to a woman whose husband died of brain cancer in 2008. He worked at a bank until it fired him because he was sick. But the bank retained a life insurance policy on the unfortunate man and cashed it in for $4.7m (£2.9m) when he died. There were gasps from the audience in a Washington cinema at that.
Right, off to the shops! Weekend!
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