Goodnight, America
As I write this, behind me on a screen there runs tonight's news footage.
An hysterical, flailing woman is screaming at the top of her voice while being physically restrained by two ushers: "We have to stop them!! Or we'll turn into Russia!!"
A perfectly ordinary looking middle-aged man suddenly goes wild, shrieking "They'll kill us! They'll kill us!!"
It is a town hall meeting in America.
Venerable old crank of my native city H.L. Mencken always hated you. You are mad, nothing short of mad. The majority of you have proven yourselves, for generations, incapable of actual thought. You are mad, and you elect other mad ones. People as divorced from reality as yourselves. Thought has no more formidable enemy. You are absolutely indefatiguable, an unstoppable army against that terrible menace called "intelligence."
Yes, "(The alternative Republican plan) is pro-life because it will not put
seniors in a position of being put to death by their government." Yes, in
the halls of congress. Yes, but one of many, many.
Pavlov didn't need the dogs, really; he could have thrown a rock in any direction and found a subject even more pliable, more programmable than his furry charges. Press a button; the subject reacts. Without reflection, without thought, without even a trace of autonomy. Simply deploy one dread word, and you react. Without reflection, without thought, without even a trace of autonomy. Reliably, like a machine. A thousands times, push the button, a thousand times, seamlessly, the automated response.
It is a widely held assumption that the Cold War is long over; it isn't. It can never be, in any ontopolitical sense, "over". So powerful is the specter of "socialism" in the pathological American imaginary that it long ago ceased being tied to any referent in the actual world; it is not however, therefore merely some linguistic analogue to simulacra -- something even more dangerous inheres in this phenomenon. But I'm not going to talk about that here, now. I am tired, here, now. Because this is what's happening all around me today:
Catch the sign on the left around the 2 minute mark? "SStop SSocialist Obama."
Cliche now, so ubiquitous. The conflation of "democratic" with "socialism" with
"Nazism." It is easy, soft. Without thought, anything is possible; everything is so
easy, yielding, like clay. You are empty vessels; they need only pour in the desired
effect. It is laughable, this conflation, baldly absurd, and so we just chuckle at you.
We forget you have guns. Piles and piles of guns. We laugh it off because it's easy
to equate stupid with harmless. In fact, few things are more dangerous.
"They'll kill us! They'll kill us!!" A perfectly ordinary middle American. He's screaming. He's terrified, hysterical. A perfectly ordinary middle American is screaming "They'll kill us!" simply because one of his neighbors heard from one of his neighbors who heard it from someone the next street over that Bill O'Reilly said Obama's healthcare plan includes a euthanasia van that will go door to door killing the elderly. Remember the children's game of "Telephone"? Oh, but no one at the end of the row actually believes the twisted final result. Children are bright enough to understand that that resultant sentence is nonsense. Is an absurdity. Children are bright enough to recognize nonsense. Children are bright enough to.
Democrats are scrambling chaotically to regroup, "absolutely shocked" by the level of hysteria and resistance. They were caught so radically off-guard because they forgot - or never knew - that this is always there in you, circulating quietly, part of you. There is nothing "sudden" about this reaction; it lives there, always, just below the surface of your collective skin, waiting to erupt the split second the right button is pushed.
In my field, we use the language of pathology in our work on cultural studies; laypersons often regard it as essentially metaphorical, philosophical; in sum, figurative. But we know. We know that it is all too literal. You are very ill. And very, very dangerous.
The entire world finds you laughable tonight; you are an embarrassment. If they only knew the whole story; you are not a buffoon, America. You are a psychotic. A Republican senator this afternoon remarked that he was thrilled to see "Main Street stirring."
A healthful and wholesome awakening.
An hysterical, flailing woman is screaming at the top of her voice while being physically restrained by two ushers: "We have to stop them!! Or we'll turn into Russia!!"
A perfectly ordinary looking middle-aged man suddenly goes wild, shrieking "They'll kill us! They'll kill us!!"
It is a town hall meeting in America.
Venerable old crank of my native city H.L. Mencken always hated you. You are mad, nothing short of mad. The majority of you have proven yourselves, for generations, incapable of actual thought. You are mad, and you elect other mad ones. People as divorced from reality as yourselves. Thought has no more formidable enemy. You are absolutely indefatiguable, an unstoppable army against that terrible menace called "intelligence."
Click to viewYes, "(The alternative Republican plan) is pro-life because it will not put
seniors in a position of being put to death by their government." Yes, in
the halls of congress. Yes, but one of many, many.
Pavlov didn't need the dogs, really; he could have thrown a rock in any direction and found a subject even more pliable, more programmable than his furry charges. Press a button; the subject reacts. Without reflection, without thought, without even a trace of autonomy. Simply deploy one dread word, and you react. Without reflection, without thought, without even a trace of autonomy. Reliably, like a machine. A thousands times, push the button, a thousand times, seamlessly, the automated response.
It is a widely held assumption that the Cold War is long over; it isn't. It can never be, in any ontopolitical sense, "over". So powerful is the specter of "socialism" in the pathological American imaginary that it long ago ceased being tied to any referent in the actual world; it is not however, therefore merely some linguistic analogue to simulacra -- something even more dangerous inheres in this phenomenon. But I'm not going to talk about that here, now. I am tired, here, now. Because this is what's happening all around me today:
Catch the sign on the left around the 2 minute mark? "SStop SSocialist Obama."
Cliche now, so ubiquitous. The conflation of "democratic" with "socialism" with
"Nazism." It is easy, soft. Without thought, anything is possible; everything is so
easy, yielding, like clay. You are empty vessels; they need only pour in the desired
effect. It is laughable, this conflation, baldly absurd, and so we just chuckle at you.
We forget you have guns. Piles and piles of guns. We laugh it off because it's easy
to equate stupid with harmless. In fact, few things are more dangerous.
"They'll kill us! They'll kill us!!" A perfectly ordinary middle American. He's screaming. He's terrified, hysterical. A perfectly ordinary middle American is screaming "They'll kill us!" simply because one of his neighbors heard from one of his neighbors who heard it from someone the next street over that Bill O'Reilly said Obama's healthcare plan includes a euthanasia van that will go door to door killing the elderly. Remember the children's game of "Telephone"? Oh, but no one at the end of the row actually believes the twisted final result. Children are bright enough to understand that that resultant sentence is nonsense. Is an absurdity. Children are bright enough to recognize nonsense. Children are bright enough to.
Democrats are scrambling chaotically to regroup, "absolutely shocked" by the level of hysteria and resistance. They were caught so radically off-guard because they forgot - or never knew - that this is always there in you, circulating quietly, part of you. There is nothing "sudden" about this reaction; it lives there, always, just below the surface of your collective skin, waiting to erupt the split second the right button is pushed.
In my field, we use the language of pathology in our work on cultural studies; laypersons often regard it as essentially metaphorical, philosophical; in sum, figurative. But we know. We know that it is all too literal. You are very ill. And very, very dangerous.
The entire world finds you laughable tonight; you are an embarrassment. If they only knew the whole story; you are not a buffoon, America. You are a psychotic. A Republican senator this afternoon remarked that he was thrilled to see "Main Street stirring."
A healthful and wholesome awakening.