The Comments of Torgny Jansson

Torgny Jansson has made two very good comments on my posts ‘Dismantling America‘ and ‘Capitalism: A Love Story.’

(Torgny’s website: Esoteric Astrology )

I therefore decided to bring them front and center, to make them a part of the main post on my blog.

Torgny said regarding "Dismantling America":

This tactic reminds me of the strategy developed by Lee Atwater. What matters is to win, ‘the end justifies the means.’ What is true does not matter, it is about destroying your political opponent. Ethics is not important, only winning. The aim is not to serve the nation, it is to destroy the character of the political opponent. It is by spreading the message of fear and hate, and by negative campaigning also make the followers of the political opponent lose faith. This tactic may win the election, but what kind of society will it create? A society of fear, mistrust and where truth does not matter.

In the end of his life Atwater apologized for what he had done, but it was a little bit too late. Shortly before his death he wrote; ‘I was wrong to follow the meanness of Conservatism. I should have been trying to help people instead of take advantage of them. I don’t hate anyone anymore.’

As Torgny pointed out, in a February 1991 article for Life Magazine, Lee Atwater wrote:

My illness helped me to see that what was missing in society is what was missing in me: a little heart, a lot of brotherhood. The '80s were about acquiring — acquiring wealth, power, prestige. I know. I acquired more wealth, power, and prestige than most. But you can acquire all you want and still feel empty. What power wouldn't I trade for a little more time with my family? What price wouldn't I pay for an evening with friends? It took a deadly illness to put me eye to eye with that truth, but it is a truth that the country, caught up in its ruthless ambitions and moral decay, can learn on my dime. I don't know who will lead us through the '90s, but they must be made to speak to this spiritual vacuum at the heart of American society, this tumor of the soul.

And regarding ‘Capitalism: A Love Story,’ Torgny wrote:

I think that the idea of a small government that will not interfere with the world of business is an illusion. If the decisions are no longer made by the people who are choosen by democratic elections, who will then make the important decisions? We will instead have a strong government run by big business, with secret meetings and who owns and controls media.

The idea that no regulations of business would transfer the power to the individual I find as unrealistic as the utopia of many socialists that all power to the government would mean that ‘the people’ are making the decisions.

‘The liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it comes stronger than their democratic state itself. That, in its essence, is fascism - ownership of government by an individual, by a group,’ Franklin D. Roosevelt

Torgny’s two comments are at the essence of those two blog posts.

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