September 1, 2011 at 00:32:45
By Dan Mage (about the author)
Author's Note: When I first published this on associated content in November of 2010, the TP seemed more like an annoyance than an actual threat. Now it is becoming apparent that they can do some real damage. This is unfortunate, however I firmly believe that they are still doomed.
Witch Hunters, Queer Bashers, Cross Burners and The Thanatocentric Culture
Hope is the opiate of the liberal. It feels good until you run out of it. Hope is sold to the poor, sometimes by pushers who "get high on their supply" too, and it provides symptomatic relief without touching the pathology at the root of the pain.
Obama has failed to bring the "change we can believe in," and while he is guilty of dealing in and indulging in the hope-dope, he warned us even during his inaugural address that if we wait for the federal government to fix things, we might be waiting a long time.
Although Obama never presented any real threat to the status-quo, and has done more or less the same things that Bush was doing, and would have done too, (with the exception of the "Obama Care" debacle, and stances on cultural issues that turned out to be mostly talk), he's brought the haters out of the woodwork.
They hate taxes, but then again most of us do. They want to eliminate "entitlements" except for the ones that pay their bills. They are divided on issues of personal liberty. When former New Mexico governor Gary Johnson suggested to a Tea Party rally that the time had finally come to legalize cannabis, he was met with both cheers, and boos mingled with shouts of "No, that's wrong!" The most horrified voices seemed to be those of middle aged and elderly women.
The more sophisticated leadership carefully avoids taking a stand on cultural issues, sticking to the theme of fiscal responsibility; something the GOP is incapable of if recent history is any indicator. However, regardless of the outcome of elections, the biggest pigs at the trough needn't worry. When the spending cuts come, they will harm only those incapable of mounting any significant counterattack.
However, it is racism, pure and simple that created the revolting displays of claws and fangs. Obama is no "leftist ideologue;" LBJ's social and economic policies were far to the left of anything Obama's tried, yet the protest against LBJ came from the left*, due to his loyalty to The War State (in this case, the Vietnam "police action").
War Spending, Drug Enforcement, Prisons, and subsidies of banking and industrial interests will continue. Business as usual will not be disrupted, although various sectors of society may be temporarily inconvenienced by legislative temper-tantrums.
What is frightening is the "culture war;" the clamoring of "Real Americans" to return to Reagan's "culture of intolerance," on steroids. Comments appear online attacking the very idea of diversity, and claiming that by protecting the rights of persons they don't like, the government has deprived them of their right to "not put up with it."They know, much like their Islamic Extremist counterparts, that things are changing, in ways that even governments will be unable to stop. The advancement of technology, and the relegation of religious doctrine to the realm of mythology and metaphor have shaken the very foundations of their reality model, and they want it back. The old formula applies "They hate what they fear, and they fear what they do not understand."
As far as I know, I came up with the term "Thanatocentric" on my own. It just means "Death Centered." Thanatos is the Greek name for the personification of death. It is the opposite of Eros, the child of the Love Goddess and root of the term "erotic." We can look at the obvious and see where this culture has influenced the laws, customs, individual behaviors, and collective impact of American society on the planet.
When John Ashcroft covered the exposed nipple on the statue of justice, it probably summarized the ideology of the death culture more concisely than any single action could. They hate female nipples and all genitalia. They worship the bullets and bombs used not only in reality, but in cinematic and televised fiction. A film centered around the penetration of flesh by genitals is called "pornography;" a film featuring multiple deaths resulting from penetration of flesh by bullets and the use of other weapons is called an "Action Film," and will rarely receive anything more than a "PG" rating, unless it features much in the way of profanity, and, of course, frontal nudity or exposed female nipples.
Recently, at an informal gathering, I listened to a retired film-industry fight choreographer hold forth on the finer points of the S&M lifestyle. His knowledge of S&M, including S&M ideology and philosophy was quite extensive. A fight choreographer must often act out the scene with a partner before placing it in a script. The possible fringe benefits of this profession for a sadomasochist are plentiful.
Participation in an authoritarian structure is also an exercise in S&M, in which each participant gets their chance to dominate, and submit to domination. Add lethal weapons to this mixture, and you have a full-blown torture and death cult. Wilhelm Reich correctly identified this as the result of the suppression of overt sexuality. I personally don't understand the appeal of S&M sex, however it seems that it is predominantly consensual, and employs safeguards against injury and levels of pain above and beyond what the masochist requires, unlike its desexualized and mainstreamed version.
Business and Government suppress the overtly sexual elements of their practices. In War sexuality is suppressed and destroyed, appearing only as rapes that all too often are a prelude to murder.
Thus war is glorified, and anything remotely associated with the unknown, the living, and the female is held in the utmost contempt. As the sources of life are and condemned as distasteful parts of God's creation, meant only to increase the numbers of the chosen ones through equally distasteful practices, the cultists will then offer up their own offspring for sacrifice in the ritual mass murder more commonly known as "War." Heaven forbid that a fetus be aborted before it can be put to use by those who arrange these rituals.
Only the state can engage in the practice of human sacrifice with impunity; yet without the willing labors of the masses, wars cannot be fought. Patriotism and pride, or hunger and fear work well enough, but nothing compares to pure hatred as way of creating popular support for a war. Wars cannot be arranged without the cultivation of hatred and fear of the "others" those who are not like "us." Vicious old men, safely quartered far from the actual danger of a battlefield, convince the young and strong to kill and die in the service of their power. Some use visions of paradise after sacrifice, others use sentimental and patriotic rhetoric, or even promises of strength, honor, monetary rewards and great success in life for survivors.
Recently America was attacked by someone or something, for reasons I cannot honestly claim to know. I personally suspect that this war crime was a genuine terrorist attack by religious fanatics. I also leave open the possibility that arrangements were made by persons unknown to ensure that the attack would be successful and that the devastation would be complete and visually impressive.
Whether the profiteering and misdirected counterattack that ensued afterwards was premeditated, or simply a brilliant opportunistic response to an atrocity is something that might matter in a court of law. The fact is that we don't really know.What we do know is what happened next. The War State and its primary beneficiaries had a field day. A brilliant series of war crimes, political crimes, thefts and con games ensued. The audacity of the gang using the hapless and gullible figurehead George W Bush, AKA "Chimpy," exceeded anything that this nation has seen during my lifetime. At the end of this orgy of looting, killing, and desecration of the constitution, Chimpy was anathema even to his own party.
Even with no "smoking gun" the trail of money and dead bodies leads to certain people and places; the following is mere speculation on my part supported only by circumstantial evidence:
Somewhere in a back room, persons rarely if ever seen in public discussed how to handle the negative publicity and growing anti-war and anti-authoritarian sentiment.
Particularly troubling was the concept of "libertarianism" finding its way into the mainstream media. Suddenly, it was not necessary to be a "liberal" or a "leftist" if one wanted to oppose the war state and its crimes. The candidate Ron Paul, an intellectual with a genuine knowledge of history and a common-sense view of recent events spoke the unspeakable, and people listened. The nominal "right" was in danger of falling under the control of persons opposed to war, and in favor of the restoration of civil liberties. [Note: I'm still undecided about Ron Paul]http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/541801/ron_paul_libertarian_dreams_and_corporatist.html
They made a strategic decision, to let the masses have their temper tantrum, to allow them to elect a "liberal," even a woman or a person of color. The frustration with Chimpy and the Gang would be taken out on aging and expendable members of the club, and fresh new faces would emerge from the rubble, ready to lead the inevitable backlash.
"Let them have their way; no matter what the new regime does, things will get worse. As always, any change significantly affecting the power structure will be obstructed by any means necessary. The focus of the war will shift, and will again escalate, and the masses won't care. The unemployed will be angry at whoever appears to be in power, regardless of how the economic devastation started, and those who are still employed will live in fear, work harder, complain less, and productivity will rise.After four years of this, they will be glad to have us back, and by the time they realize that they have yet again been duped, we will have again achieved record profits and body counts."
The strategy succeeded. The even dealt with the annoying problem of "libertarianism, through the classic Orwellian tactic of redefinition(newspeak). They distorted and removed basic principles of libertarianism systematically; eventually, the word became synonymous with less exciting and romantic sounding terms, including the vulgar Marxian pejorative for the market system, "Capitalism."
They restored the myth that property rights can exist separately from civil liberties, self ownership, and privacy. A confused reactionary populist movement seized on elements of this new definition of "libertarianism" and called itself the Tea Party in commemoration of a pre-revolutionary tax protest.
The Tea Party co-mingled the legitimate discontent of decent people with the sheer hate-ridden ignorance of others, and a modern day "peasant rabble" marched onto the battlefield, lead by cynical career political operatives, who carefully avoided all issues unrelated to money and power. A streak of radicalism remained within this divided movement, but the power brokers laughed with contempt, even as they used this movement to their advantage.
We can sit and watch now as the first wave of the backlash hits, and the War State begins to regain its public support. It was there all along, never really lost any power, but somewhere along the line, its masters sensed the possibility of a possible impedance to their agenda, perhaps a drastic reduction in funding by a government actually intending to cut spending. Whatever threat existed is eliminated for now.
I'm not here to sell hope now, because a sense of hopelessness is called for. We need to stop hoping that "things will change," or that a leader will emerge; someone we can elect who will fix things for us. Whatever it is that must be done, it is up to each one of us as individuals now. As the hate-mongers, greed-freaks, control addicts, and professional sadomasochists rub their hands together with glee, neither do we need to live in fear.
It should be clear by now that our federal government is too hopelessly befouled with corruption and incompetence to be counted on for help with anything, when it comes to repairing the damage that has been done to the economy. As for our rights as individuals, regardless of religion, political affiliation, race, gender, sexual preference etc, it us up to us to defend them each and every day of our lives; the courts and elected officials will only recognize these rights when it becomes impossible not to. Ballot initiatives are too slow, and allow for tyranny of the majority. Economic tactics hit hard and fast, and do not require a numerical majority to succeed.
Corporations and religious groups have used these tactics to their advantage repeatedly; they are also vulnerable to them. A church can't function without a congregation; a corporation can't survive without laborers and consumers, and lately it seems, without government subsidies. Just thinking very carefully about where you are willing to work and where you are willing to spend your wages is a good place to start. Defend your own rights, because authoritarian religions, business and government will try to violate them.
Although we may not live to see it, if the planet survives long enough War State will in be relegated to a museum of historical deviance and horrors. The Neocons, Neofascists, Stalinists; and the Jihadi - Muslims, Christians, and Jews- of the extreme religious right, sense the coming their own doom; the terror and misery they spread, and the hatred that drives them is rooted in fear. They have much to fear, and even more that they simply do not comprehend.
Their struggle for dominance and attempts to hold the planet hostage are death spasms. Their world view and their world are dying. There is precious little we can do to speed up the process, other than to remain awake, to keep the light of reason, science, and compassion alive, but even less they can do to stop it or even slow it. What they can do, is create untold suffering as they themselves die, just as Hitler's SS kept slaughtering even as allied troops approached the camps.
A torture and death cult will in the end torture itself to death. The question remains: will they take the rest of the planet with them?
*I use the terms "left" and "right" online with great reluctance, they have lost nearly all meaning in the 21st century, except in a historical context.
I was born in NYC in 1959. I grew up in the DC area, the product of suburbia and liberal parents with doctoral-level educations. I dropped out of the public school system in eighth grade, and from all schooling by the age of 16. My life rapidly (more...)
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