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What If I Told You The Lesser Of Two Evils Isn’t Lesser?

By Mickey Z.

09 February, 2016
World News Trust

“Between two evils, I always pick the one I never tried before.” -Mae West

No presidential election year would be complete without denial, delusion, deception, and de-friendings. And we couldn’t possibly get through the every-four-years charade without those four magic words: “lesser of two evils.”

Since we’re on the topic of useless, time-sucking rituals, please allow me to re-introduce one of my own: Asking liberals to define “lesser.”

Define Lesser

For starters, I’m gonna take the foolishly optimistic step of trusting readers to actually click on hyperlinks. Here goes nothing…

I’ve written volumes about our most recent lesser (sic) evil, Barack Obama, so I’ll just direct you to something I penned during the 2012 de-friendings, I mean, elections: Define Lesser.

Also, this site is chock full of hope and change we can bereave in!

Very recently, when Noam Chomsky dutifully followed his own lesser (sic) evil script, I detailed plenty of the previous lesser (sic) evil, Bill Clinton.

Just last summer, I deconstructed the saintly myth of 1970s lesser (sic) evil, Jimmy Carter.

Moving right along, we also have…

Lyndon Johnson

When George Papandreou was elected Prime Minister of Greece in 1964, his slightly liberal reputation did not sit well in Washington. Things went from bad to worse when Greece further annoyed its superpower benefactor by squabbling with Turkey over Cyprus, and then objecting to U.S. plans to partition the island. LBJ summoned the Greek ambassador for a brief lesson on non-Republican policy: "Fuck your parliament and your constitution. America is an elephant, Cyprus is a flea. If these two fleas continue itching the elephant, they may just get whacked by the elephant's trunk, whacked good ... We pay a lot of good American dollars to the Greeks, Mr. Ambassador. If your Prime Minister gives me a talk about democracy, parliament, and constitutions, he, his parliament, and his constitution may not last very long."

JFK

I'd need a book to do this justice, but for now: The Cuba Project (a.k.a. "Operation Mongoose") was initiated under Camelot (the Kennedy administration) in January 1962 with the stated US objective of helping the "Cubans overthrow the Communist regime from within Cuba and institute a new government with which the United States can live in peace." Noam Chomsky describes Operation Mongoose as such: "What has happened is a level of international terrorism that as far as I know has no counterpart, apart from direct aggression. It's included attacking civilian installations, bombing hotels, sinking fishing vessels, destroying petrochemical installations, poisoning crops and livestock, on quite a significant scale, assassination attempts, actual murders, bombing airplanes, bombing of Cuban missions abroad, etc. It's a massive terrorist attack."

Again, I wish I had lots more space but let's face it, Truman did what Reagan, Nixon, and Ike never dared to do: He purposefully dropped a nuclear bomb on civilians. "We have used (the bomb) against those who have abandoned all pretense of obeying international laws of warfare," Truman later explained, thus justifying his decision to nuke a people that he termed "savages, ruthless, merciless, and fanatic." He summed up: "It is an atomic bomb. It is the greatest thing in history."

FDR

I could go on for pages and pages (and I already have) deconstructing the hagiography but, for now, remember that FDR's America fought the good (sic) war against racism with a segregated army. It fought that war to end (sic) atrocities by participating in the shooting of surrendering soldiers, the starvation of POWs, the deliberate bombing of civilians, wiping out hospitals, strafing lifeboats, and in the Pacific boiling flesh off enemy skulls to make table ornaments for sweethearts. And Roosevelt, the leader of this anti-racist, anti-atrocity force, signed Executive Order 9066, interning over 100,000 Japanese-Americans without due process... thus, in the name of taking on the architects of German prison camps became the architect of American prison camps.

Obviously, all of the above is but a minuscule sample. Before you whip yourself into an apoplectic fit, I suggest you activate the google function on yer interwebs machine to find more fun facts about how your good guys operate.

Closing Thoughts

To paraphrase Oscar Wilde: A pessimist is anyone who, given the choice of two evils, chooses both.

To directly quote Lucy Parsons: “Never be deceived that the rich will allow you to vote away their wealth.”

Mickey Z. is the author of 13 books, most recently Occupy these Photos: NYC Activism Through a Radical Lens. Until the laws are changed or the power runs out, you can “like” his Facebook page here and follow his blog here. Anyone wishing to support his activist efforts can do so by making a donation here.



 



 

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