July 5, 2004
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(Swans - July 5, 2004) The empire will continue to unravel regardless of who holds the titular
office of the President of the United States. Corporate "leaders," like
feudal lords, will continue to fight for power and dominion over market
shares and public treasury plunder regardless of the outcome of the
presidential election of November 2004.
The delusion of the so called "free market" will continue to be our culture's defining mythos; its corrupt priesthood will continue to fleece its dazed and hapless flock. American roadways and freeways will remain as clogged as the arteries of the junk-food-bloated commuters, who sit stalled within their grotesque, oversized motor vehicles, stranded and stupefied, in the time-grinding, soulless limbo created by the international petroleum state. Wealth, power, and privilege will continue to be consolidated by the already wealthy, powerful, and privileged. Public schools will continue to fail to educate. The over-fished, pollution-afflicted, global-warming-decimated oceans and seas will continue to decline. Pop music will continue to be as vapid as the dreams of the consumerist princes and princesses it reflects. The fabled, shining city on the hill will suffer ongoing brown-outs and power outages. Official lies will proliferate like swarming locusts. As a result, the public will grow outraged and demand more of their own rights and civil liberties be curtailed. The poor will starve while the rich will sleep the untroubled sleep of the kleptocratic class. Amid all of this dissolution and decay -- a vote for Bush, Kerry, or Nader -- what possible difference could it make? -- A system in the throes of entropic decline cannot be reversed by political cant. What sort of person would want to be president of a dying empire? Only a madman would wish to board a runaway train. And: in the insane asylum of contemporary American life, we, the other inmates gibber, rave, and argue among ourselves over who should stand upon the rumbling tracks and shout, "stop train!" for us. This begs the question: What kind of madmen are we talking about here? Of course, all of our candidates for president seem grandiose and delusional. But only one, among them, the incumbent, is psychotic. And (I believe) he must be stopped. And one among them, it would seem, is dangerously delusional -- for he appears to believe he can do it alone. You see: the psychotic one believes the runaway train is the sweet chariot of Christian deliverance. The remaining candidate, representing the foundering, out-of-power, so called "opposition" party, seems to suffer mainly from the kind of grandiosity inherent to the privileged class: Perhaps he sees the hurdling train as a very, very large stretch limo arriving to take him to an exclusive party. Though deep down, I believe, he knows the dangerous folly of it all; although, repression of the knowledge has caused him, through the years, to have grown rigid from the act of suppressing its casuistry-sundering truths. He, as is the case with many of those who survived the Vietnam War, knows the carnage runaway lies will incur. Tragically, both challengers see the oncoming train for the danger it is -- and even though, between them, the independent challenger addresses the situation with greater depth, honesty, and clarity -- he is delusional if he believes pushing his rival into its path will have any effect in preventing its inevitable derailment... that is, any effect -- other than producing sensationalistic visuals for the outlets of the corporate news media. (Although, I must confess: I find this dark fantasy appealing... for no other reason than to see if a single hair on his stiff head will be displaced by the resulting impact.) In these grotesque times, what is required is the gaining of some sense of proportion here in the national nuthouse: for, not all nutcases are created equal... and not all the delusional are psychotic. For instance, it is psychotic to believe one is on a mission from God. This is textbook criteria for evidence of psychosis. (You can look it up.) And it is a matter of public record that George W. Bush clearly believes he is on a mission from God. What will it take to shake us from our complacency and denial about the dire nature of the situation? Perhaps, something on the order of: It is revealed that President Bush has ordered the walls of the White House be covered with tinfoil wallpaper... or, maybe, for him to begin raving that aliens are bombarding him with invisible beams -- and it was such beams, emanating from extraterrestrial mind-control weapons -- that caused him to fall off that Satanic Segway scooter, and then from his bicycle, and then to drop his poor dog... or for him to claim he is falling in the polls because red-blooded American patriots are being replaced by enemy combatant-loving, French-looking pod people in key battleground states. Though it is not psychotic for Nader to help enable Bush (a man whose extremist right-wing views and the anti-progressive policies of his presidency are antithetical to everything he has stood for his entire public life -- plus -- which -- present an acute (as well as) long-term danger to the entire planet at large) to retain power -- it is a dangerous misapprehension of the reality of the situation (borne, perhaps, of a stubborn streak in Nader that approaches the point of being outright willful ignorance and is rapidly reaching the line of demarcation where cognitive dissonance becomes borderline delusion....) on his part. While it is true that only a small minority of psychotics is dangerous, the present occupant of the oval office is clearly both... Tens of thousands of dead (and counting) in Iraq, alone, testify to the fact. The crazy bastard has so much as stated that he believes that he, and his cadre of true Christian believers, will ascend to heaven by climbing the piled corpses of all wicked non-believers. And I believe the progressive's equivalent of this belief system is: the fantasy that a third party will ascend to power upon the rubble of the Democratic Party once it has collapsed due to the fact that its foundation will have rotted to its core because it could no longer sustain the weight of its own corruption. This is the leftist version of Endtime/Rapture mythology. Entertaining and compelling as these stories are: To me, they do not provide accurate sounding auguries of the way organizations fail, nor empires crumble, nor worlds come to an end. The Christian fundy fantasy informs us that all true believers will be saved from the Endtime conflagration by way of divine intervention. Then: They, the good and the righteous, will be given dominion over the reborn, pristine earth, now scoured of sin by Godly ice and fire. Clearly, this is a dangerously psychotic belief. Actually, it sounds less like a system of belief than a murder/suicide pact with their imaginary God. On the other hand -- though, I have little affection for nor affinity with the corrupt establishment of the Democratic Party -- I don't believe they are murderously insane apocalypticists; however, I do believe that a craven desire for power and privilege by the party's elite has transformed them into morally bankrupt, suck-ass, corporatist stooges. And, for this, I believe, they have disgraced themselves. But given the choice of my sharing a ward here in Asylum America -- between a homicidal, Christian fundamentalist psychotic and a denial-ridden, pompous (to point of mildly grandiose) sell-out -- the choice, for me, is not difficult. Therefore, I will vote for the stiff (non-incumbent) patrician (the one with the long face, not the simian one) -- even as he stumbles over his huge, privilege feet attempting to walk like a populist hero. This is why I cannot support the candidacy of Ralph Nader (even though I have admired him all my life): I believe, Nader has disgraced himself, as well, by allowing his candidacy to be used as a tool by Republican operatives, who are, presently, canvassing to get him on the ballot in closely contested states such as Oregon and have been providing him with campaign funds to boot. Is it possible the Republicans are taking these actions because they harbor a secret desire to create a system where a greater diversity of views can be promulgated? Yes, and Jack the Ripper stalked the streets of East London because he wanted to draw attention to the plight of the dispossessed in class-stratified Britain. Accordingly, the question must be asked of Ralph Nader: By your acceptance of Republican funds -- are you now tainted by the same corporate money that has corrupted both the Democratic and Republican Parties? Not that I, in any way, believe that Nader would ever truckle to serve the agenda of the ruling corporatist power structure. I believe this, for two reasons. One: I think Ralph Nader once had integrity; a study of his (pre-presidential aspirations) life will bare out the fact. Two: he will never get any where near actual power. Caveat: that is, unless he meets secretly with John Kerry and cuts some sort of a deal. Though, I think that is as unlikely to happen as George W. Bush going into therapy to work through a few issues he has with power. And I sincerely hope I'm proven wrong -- on both accounts. But, of course, if we lived in that sort of nation -- an Oprah/Doctor Phil ticket would win the presidency... and the empire would still collapse, by way of self-help platitudes and positive affirmations. · · · · · ·
Resources US Elections & Democracy on Swans America the 'beautiful' on Swans Phil Rockstroh on Swans (with bio). Do you wish to share your opinion? We invite your comments. E-mail the Editor. Please include your full name, address and phone number. If we publish your opinion we will only include your name, city, state, and country. Please, feel free to insert a link to this work on your Web site or to disseminate its URL on your favorite lists, quoting a few paragraphs or providing a summary. However, please DO NOT steal, scavenge or repost this work, text and graphic on the Web without the expressed written authorization of Swans. This material is copyrighted, © Phil Rockstroh 2004. All rights reserved. |
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