Hannah Arendt coined the phrase "banality of evil" when she studied one Adolf Eichmann, a mid-level Nazi bureaucrat who made the trains run on time and carried out his logistics duties according to orders. Eichmann "had consoled himself with the thoughts that he no longer 'was master of his own deeds,' that he was unable 'to change anything'" (Eichmann in Jerusalem, p.136).
Arendt's wider critique of society relates directly to Democrats today. Eichmann "internalized the cliches" of the day and therefore abdicated his own personal responsibility to stand up and to oppose a murderous system. So many in the US -- for a long, long time -- have also "internalized the cliches" of the two-party system and remain joyfully ignorant of any and all third-party alternatives. That is the key fact to bridge the analogy between Eichmann's banality and that we have witnessed on stage at the DNC this past week.
According to comedian Sarah Silverman, expecting to be represented and having the people's votes actually count for something is "being ridiculous." Maybe so, but ridicule travels in any number of directions, Sarah. Watch out.
What you don't do is as important, in the larger scheme, as what you do. Economists even have a formal definition of this phenomenon: opportunity cost. By spending energy, money, effort, work, etc., in supporting a corrupt Democrat, you are denying all those tangible benefits to a non-corrupt alternative candidate and party. By legitimizing one, you de-legitimize the other. You. Your actions, Sarah Silverman, et al. I suppose it's a subtle point to some but more valid than anything Silverman or the Hollywood glitterati on stage at the DNC mustered up this past week.
With the coronation of Queen Hillary in Philadelphia in a deluge of scandals, the main narrative had to become that of the "first woman" nominated to run for President of the United States. History was made! Headlines said so.
That is where my personal involvement enters the story. I'm not having it. Hillary Clinton is, of course, not the first woman to run for President of the United States. When I point to these inconvenient facts, the celebratory slogans quickly morph into, "the first female candidate of a MAJOR PARTY!"
A corrupt party controlled by big money interests is what that translates to in the real world.
That's where I live.
I personally voted for Cynthia McKinney in 2008 (Green) and Jill Stein in 2012 (Green). My choice had zero to do with the presence or absence of a vagina, however. I find that concern beyond trivial, although I do accept the view that putting a woman in the White House holds some potential symbolic meaning. It is of several magnitudes less importance than what a corrupt warmonger will do to the world once she seizes the Superpower.
The Democrats exploit these symbolic bait-and-switch strategies, as with Barack Hussein Obama. Now we've had a black man in office. Worse than Nixon was the expert assessment. Obama's numerous crimes, indistinguishable from those of the previous administration -- including protecting the previous administration from prosecution -- don't seem to be understood by most run-of-the-mill Democrats. They simply, and always, remain blind to the crimes of their own party, believing their own spin as if it held the entire story. Anything negative must be a Republican plot of course, or perhaps the Russians; it must be anyone's fault but their own.
My go-to rebuttal to camp Hillary is to simply play back her own statements vouching for George W. Bush's fabricated "WMDs" in Iraq. HRC's special touch was to add the word "undisputed."
Average Democrats, guilty of wholesale hypocrisy as a fact of life, simply don't care that Hillary Clinton's hands are already soaked with the blood of Syrians, Libyans, Yemenis, Haitians and Hondurans. That she was directly involved with the rise of ISIS and associated radical Islamist proxy armies. That she approved arms to Gulf dictators after receiving millions in "donations" to her foundation. They don't care that she's an imperialist mentored by the likes of Henry Kissinger and Zbigniew Brzezinski. The Democratic National Convention even applauded the war criminal Madeleine Albright, one of the most despicable politicians ever to come out of the United States, who brushed aside the murder of half a million Iraqi children as if she was combing lint off of her gown.
War crimes then become "mistakes," the kind only the elites can make and get away with. It's a tired story with an outrageous body count.
And so we get symbols instead of accountability. That is Hillary Clinton's only remaining card to play: the female card. She clearly stole the nomination from Sanders, clearly lies to get what she wants, and clearly commits crimes with impunity (that is unless Wikileaks nails her to the Cross as Julian Assange has hinted).
My unshakable and bitter disgust lies then with common Democrats, those who believe today that the vagina trumps all (no pun intended), facts be damned.
If female empowerment is suddenly so important to you in 2016, then why wasn't it in 2012, nor in 2008? These people have already abdicated responsibility and bought into the grand deception. They have already mindlessly supported a criminal party that had never before offered them a female candidate, while ignoring the party that clearly did. That should be a mark of shame, not some marketing victory to garner more votes.
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