Here in this crumbling empire once known as the American republic, here in a nation that, at present, for all practical purposes, only produces Cheetos and killer drones, whose architecture is being winnowed down to thriving rural meth houses and foreclosed upon suburban mchouses, whose corrupt corporate culture has bequeathed upon our suffering planet dying oceans and the hyper-caffeinated tsunami of Red Bull Capitalism -- the essential question confronts us -- how does one retain (not retail) one's humanity amid the catastrophic machinery and inane accouterment of our age?
"Show your wounds," exhorted the late 20th Century artist Joseph Boyce. The wound becomes the womb, poets tell us. Out of painful truth, beauty is born. But, antithetical to the orthodoxies of consumer capitalism, there are no shortcuts. According to legend, Faust sold his soul for a glimpse of eternal beauty and the hidden knowledge of the world. Sadly, we've done likewise (but worse, pathetically) for a glimpse of Paris Hilton's privileged (but hardly gated and guarded) cooter.
Here, now, sprawled upon the detritus of our dignity, we are confronted by the exponential dynamics of decay known as the US Presidential Election cycle. In this, all three corporate candidates are of little use to us. Although all three have done very well for themselves by the present and prevailing arrangement known as Disaster Capitalism.
What motivation do they have to change the system by which they've thrived? McCain, Clinton, and Obama must serve the interests of the corrupt corporate class -- or else they would be marginalized. Paradoxically, as we have witnessed, as of late, if they make even the most minute rumblings to the contrary -- as for example, blundering into a steaming pile of the obvious such as the observation that the battered laboring class of the nation might be embittered by their lot --- they risk political immolation by being labeled an elitist.
Of course, Obama is an elitist. (As are Clinton and McCain.) And he has been put on notice by the Powers That Be that they have no problem with him being among their ranks, as long as he doesn't go rattling off at the mouth about those the rigged system benefits and those it kicks daily in the gut. Because in a political culture as far down the rabbit hole as is this one, the surest way to be branded an elitist is to refuse to serve the elite. (Not that Obama threatened any such thing.) This is the modus operandi of the lacquered, autoerotic dudes and dolls of the corporate media and the K Street cash-flushed phonies of the American political classes: Pose as protecters of the beer-bleary multitudes, as, all the while, carrying vintage Cabernet for a privileged few.
This is not a situation fraught with layers of ambiguity in which any deeper meaning can be mined: Below the corporate media's electronic cloud of nebulous phoniness lies a dense core of calcified phoniness. Thus it is difficult not to harbor contempt for this cartel of narcissistic strivers who have networked the nation into a perpetual state of cataclysmic ignorance. Seemingly, their creed is: Let the ignorant multitudes languish on the low nutrient, junk news we serve them from the drive thru windows of our corporate media outlets, while the political and business elite cannibalize what is left of the republic.
The ongoing tragedy in Iraq and the ecological and economic turmoil roiling the globe are consequences of the domination-driven mindset that the mainstream media protects. Ergo, increasingly violent responses from outside forces, both of the human and natural variety, are rising across the planet. America, many shocks and sorrows are coming soon (probably sooner than you think) to that vacuous bubble known as "your way of life."
It should be increasingly clear to see that the corporate media's job has never been to be unbiased chroniclers of the events and circumstances of a free republic. Rather, they are active agents serving to protect and promulgate the pernicious myths of free market capitalism. And they are a highly partisan lot. Moreover, they have been highly successful in their mission. Hence, our lives, both inner and outer, have been conquered and colonized by the corporate empire, and a resultant forced occupation dominates our days determining the trajectory of our brief lives upon this earth.
"[S]ick with desire And fastened to a dying animal It knows not what it is; and gather me Into the artifice of eternity." -- W.B. Yeats
Yet, we, against all evidence, believe we are free actors in a spontaneous, unfolding democratic drama. When, in reality, we have been cast as dehumanized supernumeraries in a lethal farce that renders all concerned both oppressor and oppressed. This is the central paradox that binds us. And it is why the average American cannot see our imperial occupation of Iraq and our increasingly dangerous belligerence towards Iran for what it is. How can we have a modicum of empathy for the people of Iraq when we refuse to even glimpse our own degraded condition and our complicity therein?
"God Damn America," the people of Sadr City must rage, as the bombs shake their homes and tear the flesh from their friends and family. "God Damn, America," I mutter, echoing the good Reverend Wright, as I witness the indifference of the American people to the war crimes committed by our nation's leaders.
By the insidious technique of propaganda by omission, the public has been manipulated into a state approaching criminal obliviousness. "What is this crazy talk about the calamity of class stratification that defines and divides the nation, and what sort of demented, leftist loser would even raise the topic among decent company?" our present mandarins of media scoff when the topic of class inequity is broached. Add to that, the ongoing ruse of the ceaseless dissemination of fear perfected by the right-wing media noise machine and then parroted in the mainstream media that goes something like the following: "There are evil entities afoot in the nation known as radical liberals who scheme to take away your guns and give them to islamofascist terrorists so that those agents of Satan over at Planned Parenthood will be free to rip fetuses from their mothers wombs in order to expose the unborn to porn."
This is the reason for the cacophony of inanity that dominates the coverage of the political events of our time: It serves as white noise that drowns out unpleasant truths. It is the mood music piped into our national bubble. Accordingly, trivial and specious narratives drive and dominate our national political debate and it has, as a consequence, rendered the nation's public too shallow to even apprehend the extent of the damage inflicted by official treachery, professional cupidity, and the degree of their own degradation therein.
Otherwise, the collective psyche of the nation would be shaken to the core. Tragically, there is no longer any core to be found. There is merely the surface sheen of the American bubblescape ... its surface taut with inner tension as it is stretched to its limits, as, all the while, reality bristles ever closer to its over-stretched skin.
Phil Rockstroh, a self-described, auto-didactic, gasbag monologist, is a poet, lyricist and philosopher bard living in New York City. He may be contacted at phil@philrockstroh.com Visit Phil's website,
http://www.philrockstroh.com/
Phil Rockstroh, a self-described, auto-didactic, gasbag monologist, is a poet, lyricist and philosopher bard living in New York City. He may be contacted at: phil@philrockstroh.com Visit Phil's Website
One of your sentences is perhaps all too accurate -
"Tragically, there is no longer any core to be found."
I'm not 100% certain that that's the case, but I often suspect that it is; and that this is why no outrage, no matter how blatant & grotesque, is able to produce the necessary & completely justified mass uprising that by any rational measure should have taken place years ago.
In the face of outrage after outrage, the political system has already succeeded in winnowing out all candidates who were in any way a threat to the status quo. Of the final 3, two are 100% status quo candidates, and the third does a very creditable impersonation of a status quo candidate, while occasionally signalling that he might possibly have other intentions.
Even with the most charitable possible interpretation of Obama, this array of 3 finalists is fantastically close to what a Politburo system might produce, in terms of serious challenges to the system. The whole f*cking rest of the campaign is very likely to be at the level of Ayers, Rev Wright, flag-pin, and "bitter." This must be regarded as very nearly a 100% victory for corporatists.
The idea that there's "no longer any core to be found" is as good an explanation as any, for a population that tolerates this degree of abuse with no more than what amounts to a bit of grumbling.
by
Richard Mynick (2 articles, 3 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 1168 comments)
on Monday, April 28, 2008 at 1:58:27 PM
Yes, the last days of the dinosaurs are upon us, and how much will be left when the Great Turning finds its completion is uncertain. And yes, Phil, more pain is coming to us in America. "The birds are coming home to roost."
Obama may be different. He's the one candidate that must avoid talking too radically as corporate media already tries to supplant him with Clinton.
Our leaders must learn to reflect our interests, and we must find a way out of the madhouse of distraction and misinformation. The two will come together.
by
Jim Prues (15 articles, 33 quicklinks, 10 diaries, 73 comments)
on Monday, April 28, 2008 at 7:39:48 PM
Albeit a very cynical view of our state-of-affairs, it rings generally true in my concept of the condition we are faced with. The press has become the tool of the powerful (read "wealthy and connected"), the people are scared of speaking out, are too busy trying to keep their economic lives together with both parents and the kids now (or soon) having to work, or are otherwise unconcerned as long as the pro-sports games are still accessible on the weekends and increasingly available on week nights as well.
Thus we have fear, survival and ignorance becoming the three horsemen of our decline. Yet, somehow, as I interact with the everyday American people I come into contact with...my cynicism does dissolve to a degree where I still think we are a unique blend of diversity, energy, creativity and resiliency I have not found in the many places I have visited throughout the world.
by
Daniel Broggel (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 3 comments)
on Tuesday, April 29, 2008 at 12:04:57 AM
Nobody writes like you Phil, sometime I have to go back and re read but it's sure makes the point. You are so right about, if we can't empathise for our own we sure ain't gonna for funny dressed far away folks. How much more sureal can it get ? Got a bit of "the debate" in Britian and fell out of my "very comfy" chair. WHAT? lapel pins? Who's more patriotic? O Dude put the life boats over the side.
by
davy (1 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 240 comments)
on Tuesday, April 29, 2008 at 2:23:03 AM
Another Arresting Truth To Power Statement From Phil
I never tire of your too infrequent wake up calls. After 30 years of soulless corporatism's completely shaping our decaying culture, it is little wonder we are infected with outrage burnout. Your unique voice is one of the view capable of demanding attention ! Thanks, Phil.
by
Roy Murtishaw (14 articles, 0 quicklinks, 9 diaries, 78 comments)
on Tuesday, April 29, 2008 at 9:06:45 AM
This was a artful use of the English language... an artifact describing in colorful brushstrokes the times for future voyeurs into their hidden history. I would add that even we chroniclers of current events somehow seem impotent, even though we can see the carnage and can almost identify the disease. Still, we have not yet found or focused our attention on a cure. To me that says that a little more introspection is still needed... by us. Why is it that the so called conscious observers can't seem to agree on a course of action that is any more effective than the unconscious oblivious ones?
how to get together to accomplish what needs to be?
OK. Phil Rockstroh excellently put into words what I have been feeling (and been aching about) for a long time - since my too-long delayed political/social etc awakening. But now - how do we get together to 'man' the barricades? In this age of electronic surveillance, immense public apathy and ignorance of the true picture (I would need a whole book to describe all the glaring injustices - no other word encompasses what is taking place, has been building up and is still building up, till the dire happenings described by Phil finally get cemented irrevocably in place), the primal needs of the populace to first merely survive each day in an economic world hugely out of whack (the disparity screams at us - "let them eat mccake??") and so on, HOW?? It's one thing to dispose of Marie-Antoinette and her regime - today, HOW?? HOW do we get said populace to get motivated and then to ACT?? And HOW in an "accepted/acceptable" way, so that the results achieved do not in turn themselves get out of whack, twisted, distorted, till they become the very thing they tried to replace? Which is the process that has been duplicating itself so far - though not on the scale required now. When I think about what is to be done, I feel very alone, groping in some formless fog, not connected anywhere, with no plan, no companions, and facing such an array of powerful adversaries that command unimaginable fortunes, the vast power of the media, the corporations, the politicos, and what else have you. Sure, there are loads of cries for reform that are read in blog upon blog, of voting for the "right" candidate (but HOW, considering the putrid corrupt state that the voting process has become - a well-orchestrated manipulation mastefully helped by the slanted media to elect the candidate the Powers choose?) I could go on and on - but Phil pretty well said it best, except for explaining how to defeat the impossibilities of being able to vote for the "right" man in this impossible (sic)atmosphere. I repeat and will keep repeating - HOW?? Where are the nearly "right" candidates and their ilk - the Kucinichs, the Bidens .... how quickly they were winnowed out ... how sadly we are watching the transformation of Obama from the hope of things to be into what "they" want - or else. So - HOW??
by
V. da Vinci (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 6 comments)
on Tuesday, April 29, 2008 at 1:30:00 PM
8 comments
How would you rate this?
You must be logged in (if signed up) to do ratings.
It's free to signup! And easy. And takes just a minute or two....
Must Read (
Well Said (
News (
Touching (
Funny (
Supported (
Interesting (
Inspiring (
Valuable (
