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Saturday, December 15, 2007 |
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Thursday, December 06, 2007 |
Dear George,
Tripartite metaphors make life so much easier. They take its messy bedlam and reduce it to a set of manageable categories that explain everything. How much saner our insanity becomes if we reduce our fevered brains to super-ego, ego, and id. Our forefathers blamed the Devil; we blame the id. As a scientific category, the id drains the evil out of evil, because natural instincts are amoral.
We also simplify things when we reduce the cosmos to the Father, Son and Holy Ghost. This reduction frees us from all that confusing scientific data that only clutters up our minds and makes it difficult to take any sort of manly action because scientific laws are few and hypotheses are many.
The only exception to our propensity for tripartite metaphors is in foreign affairs where a bi-polar Manichaeism rules. Here we reduce diplomacy to the simple proposition, “You are either with us or against us.” It is sweet; it is short; it is simplistic. It does not get much better than that.
I ran across another useful tripartitical metaphor in Zygmunt Bauman’s Liquid Times. Bauman uses his metaphor to describe the historical progression that has gotten us to where we are gotten today. I was stoned when I read his book, so I may distort his thinking, but what the hell, that is something you do sober. What his metaphor details is our relation to the natural balance that has the earth crawling with too much life.
He starts with the gamekeeper, that apparatchik of yore who sliced off peasants hands when he caught them poaching in the lord’s forest. The gamekeeper’s concern was maintaining the natural balance of the forest by discouraging over hunting by starving peasants.
Next came the farmer who moved mankind from a natural balance to a planned balance through crop rotation and other responsible agricultural practices.
Then came the corporatists whom Bauman describes as the hunters. Hunters do not give a shit about balance, be it natural or planned. All they care about is the kill, and they will destroy balance to make it. The history of the hunter is a history of increased efficiency. In the early days, spear, bow and musket did not cut it. Kills tended to be few and far between. Hunters obsess over the efficiency of maximized returns. It was only a matter of time before a bean counter, in a stroke of genius, realized that you maximize the kill by destroying the animal’s environment. There are not many hiding places in clear-cut forests; trout croak and rise to the surface in polluted streams.
Thus, was our prosperity born.
You are a master huntsman, George, and oil is the kill you pursue. Like the hunter you live by the corporate Golden Rule: kills count; the environment doesn’t The only hope we have of maintaining our standard of living is to create a global wasteland, and you are the man best qualified to do the job.
Your admirer,
Belacqua Jones
6:04:47 AM 
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Wednesday, December 05, 2007 |
Dear George,
In order to flourish, brutality and oppression need a thriving superstition. The more fanciful this superstition, the greater the barbarity it produces. Superstition succeeds because it is simplistic. Truth will never generate oppression because it is too complex and nuanced. The bigger the falsehood upon which a superstition is grounded the more stridently is it proclaimed an absolute truth.
For example, a belief in witchcraft in the late Middle Ages yielded a well-regulated relationship between the sexes. Capitalism flourished because of a superstitious belief in an invisible hand of the market. When blended with Social Darwinism, the two allowed the strong to cement the firewalls that separated the classes. Throughout history, vibrant myths and fancies have contributed to a society’s prosperity and order.
To live, a superstition must be so thoroughly ingrained into a people’s psyche that they cannot possibly conceive of it as a superstition. Rather, they accept it as an immutable fact. If the real world reveals this “fact” to be a superstition, the superstition simply reframes itself in language that returns it to the “real” world.
We are fortunate that we have such a dynamic fancy that is instrumental in maintaining a dynamic world order. That superstition is race; the deluded believe that we can classify whole peoples by hanging a racial label on them. It is pure fiction. Superficial morphological differences in no way imply substantive differences. Of all of the determinants of diverse human behavior, skin color does not even qualify as a footnote.
But by God, it is a great justification for our foreign policy. The fairy tale that White males of northern European descent represent the highpoint of civilization makes us ready to brutalize anyone of a different hue. If they dress funny and talk funny, the brutalization is all that more effective.
Racism whispers and cloaks itself in altruistic language. We are going to bring democracy and unbridled free enterprise to the ignorant natives because only their Great White Father can guide them. We will partition Iraq because those of a brownish skin tone are unable to govern themselves. Natives cannot control their own natural resources because they lack the racial gene the make the maximization of profits possible.
However, we will fight racism wherever it raises its ugly head, except in the corridors of power.
We are a noble race, George, and we are prepared to share our nobility with all the lesser peoples of the world. We are giving them the gift of civilization, but, just as with children, we must do so with a firm hand and superior firepower.
Your admirer,
Belacqua Jones
5:39:20 AM
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Tuesday, December 04, 2007 |
Dear George,
What happened? I thought you had them pussy whipped! I mean, their marching orders were simplicity itself: you provide the policy; they shape the intelligence to support it. It was working like clockwork. You charged Iran with trying to build nuclear weapons and rightfully assumed that the CIA would build its intelligence around your accusation.
Now the CIA has turned around and stabbed you in the back with their latest report that says Iran ceased their nuclear weapons program in 2003, four fucking years ago! To make matters worse, they said you had read the report before you started with your World War III talk.
I think a little housecleaning is in order. Ideology, not facts is the order of the day when it comes to intelligence gathering. Lopping off a few heads would be a good wakeup call for Langley.
Thank God, your administration is the Bullshit Meister of the world. I am confident you can defuse the report’s negative impact with some creative reframing.
You took your first step when you pointed out that this stellar member of your Axis of Evil had intended to develop nuclear weapons at one point in its three-thousand year history. Under your comprehensive redefinition of the international legal system, intent is sufficient to convict. Therefore, Iran continues to be a danger to our national security and a threat to Israel’s existence.
Now is the time to shift the emphasis and start dragging out more Iranian-made IEDs. This is where you want to bring in the human element. You have to reframe the Jessica Lynch saga that was so effective until it turned out to a fairy tale.
What you need is a dead American body. Actually, a live one with its legs blown off would do, though dead is better because the dead cannot contradict your bullshit.
This body would need certain characteristics. It must be White from a photogenic small town family-also White. Two or more years of college would help.
Assemble the fragments of the IED that took him out and tell the world the device came from Iran.
Then you trigger the media saturation that will keep this young man’s tragic death on the front page for weeks. Flood the airways with tearful interviews with his family. Show America snapshots of him as a baby, as a toddler, as a little boy, as a teenager. Interview his pastor who will tell tales of all the young man did to help the poor and the elderly. If he is not an Eagle Scout, make the Boy Scouts of America award him one posthumously. Interview the girl he left behind. Between sobs, have her tell of the wedding plans now shattered. Show her boxing up the wedding gown she will never wear. Attend the funeral and arrange a photo op of you comforting his photogenic family.
Monger fear and anger with a vengeance. We must avenge this outrage. Demonize the Iranians as barbarians who think nothing of taking the lives of innocent young Americans. Proclaim his death to be an act of aggression and a potential threat to the security of our boys serving in Iraq.
As soon as passions are boiling, strike! If the dead body’s name was Brad Bellingham, call the attack Operation Brad.
The bottom line is that you need the chaos and disaster such an attack would yield if you are to complete the transition of America from a democratic republic to a Corporatist State. Without another war, all your efforts to date could be undone. So, ignore the CIA and do what you have to do. Remember that history will vindicate your every screw-up.
Incidentally, take John Bolton out to the woodshed and give him a few lessons about running his mouth. He made a rather intemperate remark when he said,“I never base my views on this week’s intelligence.” This implies that all intelligence is bullshit, which we know it is, but it is one of those things best kept between us boys.
War is beautiful, George. It creates all sorts of exciting possibilities. I am confident you will not let reality stand in the way of the next one.
Your admirer,
Belacqua Jones
7:12:01 AM
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Monday, December 03, 2007 |
Dear George,
You have many hidden allies in the form of trends, developments and styles that have supported your consolidation of power. Beltway power hacks overlook these because they blend so well into the fabric of the everyday. One I am thinking of is postmodernism. Granted, it is problematic because of its refusal to acknowledge moral imperatives such as greed, exploitation, and violence, which make the Corporatist State possible.
However, there is one postmodernist dictum that has proven to be the key to your power: Be yourself whoever you are today. This dictum allows you to the warrior chieftain you are not. Only a dyed-in-the-wool postmodernist like you could have put on that flight suit and treated the world to your hemorrhoidal strut across the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln.
The strength of postmodernism is its ability to isolate and quarantine the soul, which leaves only the ego to run things. Ego is a superficial hodgepodge of articulated feelings that is pure fiction. Our essence as human beings rests in that great, silent void that is the soul. Since nobody wants to listen to silence, we prefer to chatter away and believe that in our meaningless chatter we have a firm grip on reality.
Isolation of the soul is crucial if the state is to survive. Out of the soul come all of the viruses that weaken the state such as community, altruism, and morality. The firewalls that seal off the soul promote the self-absorption that makes consumers out of citizens and equates happiness with having lots of “stuff”.
Your greatest ally in keeping the soul in isolation is the mental health profession. The only sane response to a culture grounded in the greed and fragmentation of free market theology is despair and anger. Our mental health professionals view these sane responses as treatable conditions and have at their disposal an entire arsenal of medications that numb the senses and turn would-be rebels into a well-adjusted member of society.
Souls rebel; egos submit.
In the end, it is all make believe everyone thinks is real. This is why people are so receptive to your make-believe. They are busy spinning their own.
Your admirer,
Belacqua Jones
Your admirer,
Belacqua Jones
5:46:32 AM
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Sunday, December 02, 2007 |
Dear George,
Thanks to you, America is becoming an honest woman. There are no more phony songs about freedom and democracy, no platitude-laden speeches on the Fourth of July, no more talk of independence or of the American Way enlightening the world. You have transfigured Liberty’s Torch into the Golden Arches behind which the working poor flip burgers and bag fries for the prevailing minimum wage. Where America once gave the world jazz and rock, she now gives it sweatshops and child labor.
This is what happens when you value corporate efficiency over democracy: prosperity oozes upward. It is able to do so because America still clings to the deluded belief that she is a classless society when, in truth, she has never been. The reason she clings to this illusion is that she still uses traditional European terminology to describe the classes, as in upper, middle, working, and poor. It is a given that Americans refuse to accept any category unless it can be quantified which means there has to be agreement on the numbers. In addition, the traditional European classes are defined by birth, manners, and dress. This led to rather fixed class in which there was little mobility.
Few such distinctions exist in America. Add to the mix the American myth of upward mobility, and you have a country in major “class denial.”
However, when we look at class from the standpoint of household budgets, the picture changes.
There are three classes in America. From the bottom up, they are those with a deficit household income, those with a sufficient household income, and those with a surplus household income.
For households in the deficit class, every day is a challenge to put food on the table and keep a roof over the family’s heads. The parent(s) have to work two or three minimum-wage jobs just to keep the family from going under. The children raise themselves, and that guarantees they will never move up to the next class.
Households in the sufficient class manage to stay afloat with the parent(s) working one job, providing the fuel pump on the ’86 Chevy doesn’t break and nobody gets really, really sick, because what health coverage there is sucks.
Here is where things get a little tricky. Between the sufficient and the surplus classes, there is the neither/nor class. These people take whatever surplus income they have and convert it into a crushing burden of debt. They are the people who live well as long as they have a credit card they have not maxed out and some home equity left to tap into.
Finally, you have the surplus class who cannot spend their money fast enough. They are the one with the marbled bathrooms and the designer kitchens. They do not watch Home and Garden Television; they live it. They send their wives to gourmet cooking schools and their children to soccer and cheerleading camps. They are the models for the neither/nor class which uses debt to emulate their life style.
The beauty of class denial coupled with the myth of social mobility is that it minimizes class discontent. If the proles in the deficit and sufficient classes think of themselves as middle class, they tend to view their misfortunes as fate rather than class exploitation since there are no classes in America left to exploit. So they accept their lot and hope a lucky break or the right lottery ticket will allow them to move up to the next class. It rarely happens, but they keep on dreaming anyway, and if life gets too rough, which it usually does, there is always booze, drugs or the tube with its glitzy commercials that show them the good life that one day will be theirs.
With no classes to exploit, the surplus class is able to exploit the underclasses with impunity, and nobody is ever the wiser. This is why America is the greatest country in the world in ways she never expected to be.
Your admirer,
Belacqua Jones
6:46:25 AM
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Saturday, December 01, 2007 |
Dear George,
I always knew Simone de Beauvoir was a great philosopher, but I did not realize she was a prophet, as well. She certainly foretold the Corporatist State when she said:
To protest in the name of morality “excesses” or “abuses” is an error which hints at active complicity. There are no “abuses” or “excesses” here, simply an all-abusive system.
Under your guidance, her dream has metastasized because you have known all along that the key to the realization of the Corporatist State lies not in any specific act such as Ronnie firing the air traffic controllers. It must become a systemic state of being in which abuses and excess become parts of the everyday norm.
You made a great start with your deft exploitation of 9/11. This allowed you to erect an authoritarian framework upon which to plan to build an even more comprehensive state. Your finest moment came when you sold a preemptive war with all of the skill of a used car salesman selling a lemon.
However, there is still work to do.
A preemptive strike against Iran would precipitate the chaos that would allow the Corporatist State to come into its own. It would be the greatest application of Milton Friedman’s Shock Therapy the world had ever seen. In the nuclear and financial holocaust that would follow the attack, you could transform America from a democratic republic to a well-run corporation. There would be no more annoying congress or court to obstruct your grand vision, no more irritating demonstrations or snarky blogs, and no possibility of you or your minions being kicked out of office since elections would be an anarchistic remnant of an inefficient past.
And the public is ready, George. In their state of flaccid passivity, they are looking for firm leadership to lead them by their collective noses.
The successful Corporatist State needs an obedient society, and an obedient society is made up of what Zygmunt Bauman describes as “communities of similarity” as opposed to communities of participation which are always problematic for the state.
Bauman describes a community of similarity as a place that,
Promises…some spiritual comfort: the prospect of making togetherness easier to bear by cutting off that effort to understand, to negotiate, to compromise that living amidst and with difference requires. The process of forming an image of community occurs in the first place because men are afraid of participation, afraid of the dangers and the challenges of it, afraid of the pain.
The passive yearning for comfort and security is the Petri dish in which systemic evil is able to flourish. Fear grows as security increases, and the frightened person sees in the state the security blanket that will calm his fear even though his fear will increase in direct proportion to the thickness of the blanket.
That odor of burning rubber you smell is history screeching to a halt as it crashes into the brick wall that is the Corporatist State. As history is totaled, the memory of a country that was once free fades, citizenship goes comatose and the public falls face down in the muck where they worship the heel that is pressed down upon their necks.
Systemic evil is benign, George. Gone is the tension and anxiety born in the anticipation of disaster, for everyday becomes a disaster from sunup to sunset, and anxiety fades in the struggle for day-to-day survival.
Your admirer,
Belacqua Jones
6:41:56 AM
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