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IRRATIONALITY -- A SITE TO BE HOLED / A SIGHT TO BEHOLD |
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by Tara Carreon
"All my life I've been harassed by questions: Why is something this way and not another? How do you account for that? This rage to understand, to fill in the blanks, only makes life more banal. If we could only find the courage to leave our destiny to chance, to accept the fundamental mystery of our lives, then we might be closer to the sort of happiness that comes with innocence." -- Luis Bunuel, "In Curiosity" _______________ See "A Site to Be Holed," by Ron Rizk
See "A Proposito de Bunuel (Regarding Bunuel)," by consejeria del Gobierno de Aragon
See "Project Democracy's Program -- The Fascist Corporate State," by Webster Griffin Tarpley Fascist ideology, whatever its specific predicates, repudiates human reason and exalts irrationalism and irrationalist violence, often in the form of wanton military aggression and imperialism. A fascist mass movement is the most aggressive form of militant irrationalism. From Mussolini's Romanita through Hitler's Herrenvolk to the Great Russian master race conception of "Moscow the Third Rome," fascist ideology is based on notions of racial superiority and race hatred, extreme chauvinism, and blood and soil mysticism. Fascism is neo-pagan and ferociously hostile to Augustinian Christianity, as can be shown from Mussolini's early career and from Hitler's private conversations. This same neo-paganism is perfectly expressed in the predilection of Russian totalitarianism for the Russian Orthodox Church. In the Western world, fascism can be correctly called the politics of cultural despair. See "CIA -- Secrets of 'The Company,' by Mick Farren: To head up the new OSS, Roosevelt selected General William Donovan, a hero of World War One who had been a military advisor to the President even before the Japanese attack. Burly and dauntlessly energetic, "Wild Bill' Donovan was a millionaire Republican, educated at Columbia Law School, and very much a part of the East Coast establishment. After serving in France, he had returned to civilian life and a partnership in a Wall Street law firm. Even though a political opponent of Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal, Donovan enjoyed Roosevelt's trust, friendship, and -- most crucial of all -- direct access to the inner sanctums of the White House. "Wild Bill" Donovan's jovial, outgoing personality and upper-class social background played a considerable part in setting the overall tone and style of the agency that he was creating. It was a tone and style that would outlive the OSS and do a great deal to shape the actions and attitudes of its successor, the CIA. As Donovan began to recruit the potential agents and controllers who would form the backbone of his brand-new spy network, he deliberately selected individuals who were, for the most part, simply younger versions of himself. To some extent he was just borrowing from the methods used by the British M15 and M16, whereby the hierarchy were sons of the upper class, who could combine perfect manners and exquisite taste with a brutal ruthlessness -- the models that Ian Fleming used in fiction when he first created James bond. While the British recruited their operatives at Oxford and Cambridge and on the playing fields of Eton, Donovan looked to Harvard, Yale, and the other Ivy League Colleges of the American East Coast. His ideal agent profile was a football hero with a talent for languages and lateral thinking who wasn't afraid to mix it up if the game got dirty. Indeed, Donovan was so successful in his efforts that the OSS gained enough of a reputation for elitism that the other armed services dubbed it the "Oh So Social." Donovan particularly sought two qualities that would, over the years, as the OSS grew into the CIA, prove to be a double-edged sword. The first was a marked tendency for his potential agents to perceive themselves as a cut above the common herd -- and thus not feel bound by the legal or moral constraints of lesser mortals. The other was the ability to carry out their assignments without question or any need for detailed explanations. One of the earliest catch phrases of the fledgling OSS was "to reason is treason" -- a phrase that, in hindsight, has an extremely ominous ring to it. |
