Friday, December 11, 2015

How Ideology distorts the real Message

If you want to know how a normal process that's developing along a normal evolutionary line is seen by those whose mind's eyes have been mutilated by the acid content of a virulent ideology, there is a case study that shows you how it happens. It is an article that came under the title: “President Obama is the last hope for Latin America's lefty thugs,” written by Benny Avni and published on December 9, 2015 in the New York Post.

Ever since there was a political process in which the people voted for those who would represent them in government, the natural process of swinging back and forth from one side of the political spectrum to the other, has proved to be the norm when looked at through the eyes of normal people. The appearance of that process changes, however, when looked at through the eyes of those whose mind's eyes were mutilated by the ideological acid that's gushing from the boundless hatred they have in their hearts.

In addition, because the modern means of communication allow news to travel at the speed of light, what happens in one place becomes known everywhere on the planet almost instantaneously. And because the means of transportation have improved greatly, people travel to various destinations around the globe more often than ever before. They go to places where they intermingle with others and exchange cultural tips with them. As well, the trading in goods and services has increased exponentially between the nations.

Together, those two phenomena made possible the creation of blocs of economies whose fortunes rise and fall in tandem with each other. The result has been that voters in the nations of the same bloc have tended to move in concert to one side of the political spectrum or to the other. In fact, they went back and forth … to the left, to the right and back again on several occasions in Europe. And now the nations of the Asian and Latin American blocs are following suit.

This lends credence to the notion that the process is becoming the new normal, one that is nevertheless interpreted abnormally by the likes of Benny Avni and others who look at it through mind's eyes that were mutilated by the acid content of the virulent ideology to which they adhere.

Avni has noticed the phenomenon unfold in Latin America, and refused to see a naturally occurring process. Instead, he 'connected the dots' in such a way as to make himself see the conspiracy of a Left that has been weakened by events – something that should cheer him up. However, he fears that the old arrangement can still be rescued by the hated bogeyman that's Barack Obama, President of his country of birth. What Avni hates about Obama, is that the latter refuses to place America in a position of servitude to the caprices of Israel, his country of the imagination – come hell or high water.

It is not that our writer doesn't know what happened to the South American trading blocs that prompted the electorate to vote for the candidates who sat to the Right of the outgoing government. He said it himself except that he spun the reality of the situation to make a false point. What is left when you take out the spin is this: “Like elsewhere in the region, Venezuela is reeling under the collapse of oil prices.” And that’s the whole story.

Despite that knowledge, Avni has allowed his ideology to construct a narrative that bears no resemblance to reality, and has drawn conclusions that are far fetched and totally unrealistic. Motivated by an ideology that's based on hating the Castros, Obama and the Tehran ayatollahs; he put together a narrative that goes like this:

“They ran the country's economy into the ground for 12 years, cozying up to bad actors from Caracas to Tehran … Will the collapse of the Latin American Left next reach the Castro brothers? The only hope left for these regimes may be a lifeline from us [Obama]”.

Furthermore, because America is going through a period of election fever, Avni could not refrain from moving the discussion in that direction, and help the anti-Obama forces in the process. But to do this, he had to argue against himself, which he did.

He says that when Obama renewed relations with Havana, he gave Cuba a shot in the arm but trade has not materialized. Because of this, he predicts that Cuba's unsustainable economy will tank, and people will escape the island, washing ashore in Miami.

To prevent that spectacle from happening, Obama may lean on Venezuela's newly elected right wing government to continue subsidizing Cuba – just like the old days.

What Avni did not say is that Cuba's economy has sustained itself through thick and thin since the 1950s.