"Nothing appears more surprising to those, who consider human affairs with a philosophical eye, than the easiness with which the many are governed by the few; and the implicit submission, with which men resign their own sentiments and passions to those of their rulers. When we enquire by what means this wonder is effected, we shall find, that, as Force is always on the side of the governed, the governors have nothing to support them but opinion. It is therefore, on opinion only that government is founded; and this maxim extends to the most despotic and most military governments, as well as to the most free and most popular." - David HumeThe question of who is responsible for government atrocities is not an easy one to answer, but we have to face this urgent social and political question as it is now clear to anyone who is honest and open-minded that the war on terror is a gigantic crime against humanity based on a complete lie about the 9/11 attacks which was conceived and executed by the psychopathic rulers of the United States. Using deception, a grand historical myth, and the scientific techniques of mass propaganda the invisible masters behind the U.S. National Security State unleashed the forces of destruction and barbarism which are unlikely to be suppressed without a complete political, spiritual and cultural transformation, and a changing of the guard in Washington.
The people of Germany struggled with the blame question after they became fully aware of all the details of the Holocaust and the mass atrocities caused by the Nazis. The domestication and destruction of a large and innocent population was beyond anything previously attempted by a ruling clique, and showed the evil depths of the Nazi system. It also showed what a government is capable of doing if people avoid asking hard questions, and thoughtlessly support their leaders.
In his popular, thirteen-part BBC documentary series, "The Ascent of Man," a short clip of which can be seen here, the mathematician, biologist, and historian Jacob Bronowski said that the evil destruction at Auschwitz was done by arrogance, dogma, and ignorance. "When people believe that they have absolute knowledge, with no test in reality, this is how they behave. This is what men do when they aspire to the knowledge of gods," said Bronowski.
Germany was a highly civilized society, and its people enjoyed a lively political debate in the 1920s and early 1930s. Its transition from a free society to a closed one didn't happen overnight. The German people experienced economic, cultural and social trauma beginning with the defeat in World War One, the inflation and economic instability in the tumultuous 1920s, followed by the Great Depression of 1929, and high unemployment which humiliated millions of men and dramatically altered the lives of the German people. All these events produced a fragile and shaken national psyche which the Nazis, armed with the modern methods of mass propaganda that were mastered in the United States, exploited for their own evil agenda.
The Nazi brainwashing machine was simple and effective. It was based on the use of scapegoats: communists, Jews, and foreigners. The people were trained to hate, fear, and ultimately, destroy these groups. The same instruments and methods of collective brainwashing have been used by America's psychopathic rulers who want total domination, and permanent mastery over the masses. Two main scapegoats can be identified so far. Radical Islam is the scapegoat for the 9/11 attacks, making possible the permanent war on terror, and the other is "domestic terrorists" and terrorism in general which allows public support for the police state infrastructure in America, and other Western countries.
Under the rule of sane and honorable rulers there would be no state terrorism, no war, and no police state. But the current rulers of America are psychopathic and barbaric and have an evil global agenda that is dictatorial and destructive. They are cruel monsters who hate humanity and freedom, and enjoy torture, deceit, and getting away with mass murder and mass theft. But these immoral rulers are not the only problem. People who deny obvious truths such as 9/11 was an inside job are not completely innocent. They deliberately avoid the harsh truths because they don't want to accept responsibility for the massive suffering caused by the war on terror. This attitude of evading the truth can't be defended, it is cowardly and ugly, and allows the psychopathic dictatorship to continue uncontested.
Bronowski warned us:
"There are two parts to the human dilemma. One is the belief that the end justifies the means. That push-button philosophy, that deliberate deafness to suffering, has become the monster in the war machine. The other is the betrayal of the human spirit: the assertion of dogma that closes the mind, and turns a nation, a civilization, into a regiment of ghosts--obedient ghosts or tortured ghosts."Bronowski's informative and timely documentary can aid us in our quest for a greater understanding of how America was turned upside down, and why millions of people resisted the truth about 9/11 for so long, and stubbornly repeated the dogma about that event to the detriment of their own well-being.
I remain hopeful that at some point in the time the facts of history will dawn on all of us, and people will accept, above all the American people, that the titanic bureaucracy which the U.S. National Security State has become over the years, especially since the September 11 attacks, is not only obsolete but it is wholly evil and poses the gravest threat to the freedoms of the American people, and global stability. Individuals and institutions who serve the U.S. National Security State, and those who work for other intelligence agencies around the world won't be able to defend their privileges, and positions once the truth about 9/11 is fully known by all of the people. There may even emerge a global consensus that every country's Security apparatus is unnecessary and fraudulent which wouldn't exist without national propaganda, and national self-deception.
The end of the Security State can only happen if people reject the fear-based arguments made by those who stand to gain from such a state. All states are based more or less on public opinion, so the power ultimately rests with the people. It is our individual responsibility to treat our opinion like it is our own, and safeguard it against government lies, and media propaganda. Many of us have already accepted this responsibility by doing hours of research about events like 9/11 and the murder of JFK, and using the internet as our main source of information and news. This trend will likely continue as people are turning away from the establishment media in record numbers.
The American media's responsibility for its government atrocities is beyond question. But aren't we all on some level responsible for not stopping an open-ended global war on terror that will consume us all? Where does the buck stop in a democracy, is it not the people?
Luckily, the question of guilt was probed not that long ago. We can learn from the case of Germany. The country's reconstruction and renewal after the war is instructive to our own time, especially to America. In particular, the great philosopher and psychiatrist Karl Jaspers, who was one of the leading public intellectuals in post-WWII Europe, helped opened a public dialogue about how to understand their country's collapse into corruption and barbarism, and sought to awaken his fellow countrymen to their responsibility to rebuild Germany on a renewed moral and spiritual foundation that was historically grounded.
Prior to the war, Jaspers lived a philosopher's life, staying above the fray, and rarely commenting on political affairs, but the total devastation wrought by the war made him rethink his previous views about the non-political role of the philosopher in society. He entered the public square with a task of heightening the public's understanding of the past, and critically challenged his intellectual peers and country to look within, and start fresh without suppressing the lessons that needed to be learned.
Mark W. Clark wrote a great book in 2006 called "Beyond Catastrophe" that focused on the efforts to rehabilitate Germany's politics and culture by four of Germany's top intellectuals: Friedrich Meinecke, Karl Jaspers, Thomas Mann, and Bertolt Brect. I hope this book gains a wider audience because the themes that it covers are as important today as they were then, and perhaps even more so because we face greater consequences if we do not wise up, face the difficult truths of our age, and uphold our responsibilities as citizens.
The excerpt below from Clark's book describes Karl Jaspers's ideas about who is guilty for government atrocities like the Holocaust, and to what degree. Mark W. Clark:
"Crucial to any proper understanding of the recent past was the question of guilt and responsibility for World War II and the destruction of European Jewry. Jaspers argued that pointing to general historical causes was not enough; Germans had to admit that the Nazis could not have accomplished what they did without a willingness in all circles of German society. Though he had spoken about guilt in his August speech in Heidelberg and in his introduction to Die Wandlung, he first joined the public debate in October 1945, with his published response to an article by the Norwegian novelist Sigrid Undset. Undset had written an article for Neue Zeitung on 25 October 1945, in which he expressed pessimism about the reeducation of the German people. Even more provocative was the suggestion that Germans were collectively guilty for the atrocities committed by the Nazis.Jaspers's most critical point is that there can't be transformative change if the individual does not take responsibility for the society he lives in, and the government he lives under. "By his way of life," said Jaspers, "by his daily small deeds, by his great decisions, the individual testifies to himself as to what is possible." Ultimately, the buck stops with the man in the mirror. Society still requires political representatives and political leaders to act on behalf of the community but each individual must be critically engaged with social and political issues, otherwise you can't have a healthy and functional democracy.
In his reply, Jaspers admitted that Undset's reaction was understandable in light of all that had transpired over the previous twelve years. Yet to condemn all Germans collectively was to think like the Nazis. He pointed out, as well, that "whoever is hopelessly condemned will never be able to respond. Insofar as he still had the will to live, he would be powerless to do anything but obey and suffer. This is not our condition. . . . The victorious powers. . . have said to us: the German people shall not be destroyed. . . We may rebuild and further develop our own unique, good intellectual life." Granted this freedom, Jaspers continued, the Germans themselves had to undergo a fundamental change of consciousness.
Jaspers sought to promote this moral change in his lectures on the intellectual situation in Germany at Heidelberg University in the winter semester of 1946, parts of which would be published later that same year as The Question of German Guilt (Die Schuldfrage). He reasoned that only after Germans had been purified through "guilt consciousness" would Germany be put on a solid footing for future political and cultural development. Purification was the premise of German political liberty, "for only consciousness of guilt leads to the consciousness of solidarity and co-responsibility without which there can be no liberty." Individuals had to recognize that they were "jointly-liable for the politics of their community."
Jaspers encouraged Germans to admit their responsibility for the catastrophe, to discover the roots of that catastrophe, and thus to try to understand their current situation. Above all, he saw two necessities: first, Germans had to "learn to talk with each other"; second, they had to "understand and accept one another in [their] extraordinary differences." Communication and understanding required not just reiterating opinions. It also required more than pat acceptance of responsibility and ritualistic admissions of guilt. Individuals had to "weigh, visualize and examine. . . reflect connectedly, listen to reasons, remain prepared for new insight."
Jaspers argued that in order to guard against superficiality, Germans had to differentiate between the different levels of complicity. He delineated of four levels of guilt: criminal, political, moral and metaphysical. Criminal guilt was the result of "acts capable of objective proof and [violating] unequivocal laws." Jurisdiction for criminal guilt rested with the court, in particular the international tribunal of the victorious powers. Only relatively few Germans, Jaspers continued, were criminally guilty and faced legal punishment. Even fewer had to atone for "National-Socialist activities." Political guilt involved "the deeds of statesmen and the citizenry of a state" and resulted "in my having to bear the consequences of the deeds of the state whose power governs me and under whose order I live. Everybody is responsible for the way he is governed." Thus, as citizens of the German state, all Germans were politically guilty. Jurisdiction for political guilt rested with "the power and will of the victor." Metaphysical guilt, stated Jaspers, "was the lack of absolute solidarity with humanity as such." And this solidarity was violated by one's "presence at a wrong or a crime." On a metaphysical level, jurisdiction rested "with God alone."
Even more important than these other three categories was the category of moral guilt. Coming to terms with moral guilt entailed admitting that each individual was morally responsible for his or her actions, "including the execution of political and military orders." Because the jurisdiction for moral guilt rested with the individual conscience, "and in communication with my friends and intimates who are lovingly concerned about my soul," each German had to examine his or her own responsibility for the German catastrophe. Everyone shared a measure of moral guilt, except "Hitler and his accomplices, that small minority of tens of thousands," who were "beyond moral guilt" because they were "incapable of repentance and change."
The moral level of guilt was the one level that all Germans could work through themselves. It was on the individual moral level, moreover, that real change had to begin. Individuals had to recognize their guilt, come to terms with it and make radical moral change. Individual moral reversal was so crucial for Jaspers because he believed it would lead to collective transformation. As he wrote in his Philosophical Autobiography "the future depends upon the responsibility of the decisions and deeds of men and, in the last analysis, of each individual among the billions of men. It depends upon each individual. By his way of life, by his daily small deeds, by his great decisions, the individual testifies to himself as to what is possible. By this, his present actuality, he contributes toward the future." In order for individual change to lead to collective change, however, individuals needed to be accountable to each other and the world; thus he sought to promote public discussion about the Nazi past in the university, in journals and newspapers, in public speeches, and in his books." (1).
Public intellectuals in all areas also have a responsibility to contribute to the public discourse, and lead public discussion since they have a deeper grasp of certain issues and can help expand public understanding. If we want to maintain our freedoms, and truly live under accountable governments then politics, and the course of civilization, can't strictly remain the task of an elite, but of all the people. This means that we must inform ourselves about the issues and all the political personalities, and vote for the candidates who inspire us and who we believe will do the best job - not the guy who we think is going to win, or the guy who is better than the other guy, but the guy that we think has the best record and best policies.
But voting in the current political system is counter-productive since it will only give it legitimacy which it does not deserve. Before we can properly vote for statesmen to represent us in restored representative governments in our countries, we must first expose the global psychopathic masters who have given us 9/11, the war on terror, the Iraq war, and the transnational police state. And many of us are already beginning to do this, which is a good sign that we may defeat the global crime syndicate that is criminally responsible for 9/11, the Iraq war, and the war on terror.
The crisis of confidence in Washington, London, Ottawa, Melbourne, and other capitals will grow larger in the coming years. The psychopathic rulers can't lie about terrorist attacks to the public, and then hide forever behind a permanent state of secrecy in order to avoid accountability and punishment. Just because they're invisible doesn't make them invincible. The truth is catching up, and the political crisis that will ensue will shake up the current order in Washington, and the West, and give us the opportunity to walk a clear path to political, cultural, social, and economic renewal.
Notes:
1. Clark, M. W. (2006). Beyond Catastrophe: German Intellectuals and Cultural Renewal after World War II, 1945-1955. Lexington Books: Oxford. Pg. 63-65.
