The Statement of Purpose Page

What can a web site do?

1. It can entertain.
2. It can educate.
3. It can influence opinion.
4. It can make money.

My intent is to make this web site educational. It will occasionally be satirical, but even then the intent will be educational. It will educate by interpreting events, both past and present, from a perspective that I rarely encounter in the United States. If the effect of these interpretations is to make the world less inexplicable to its readers then it will ultimately influence their opinions. Even if it doesn't influence their opinions, they will at least know that there is another way of looking at things. A way that is totally neglected in the dominant media and indeed, if it were not neglected, it would challenge the underlying assumptions which guide public policy decisions in favor of the corporate-connected elite, a subset of which controls the mass media.

This web site will not make money.

To the extent that the role of the mass media is to manufacture and sustain a climate of public opinion which permits the state to implement the policies requested of it by the corporate-connected elite and to the extent that this website undermines that role of the mass media, this web site is subversive of the established order. As a practical matter we can safely regard its subversive potential as purely theoretical, but it may interest the reader to know about it.

One of the unifying themes that is present on this web site is that of American imperialism. Interestingly, almost everyone outside the country and almost no one inside the country thinks that it is imperialistic. Inside the country, America has "interests" as in, "America needs to be involved in the Mideast because it has interests there." This media obfuscation on behalf of the state provides rich material for the discovery of contradictions and for satire, which will certainly be used here.

Another unifying theme derives from my long-standing interest in the fascisms of Germany and Japan in the first half of the 20th century. This leads to four interesting areas of analysis.

1. What significant goals, if any, survived their defeat in 1945?
2. What similarities, if any, exist between them and the United States?
3. What were the characteristics of their arch enemies, their respective communist parties?
4. How did these parties survive their shattering defeats at the hands of the fascists, where are they today, and what can their history teach us?

These then are the primary areas that will be covered by this website.

Last updated 21 May 2001 0251 GMT