Here Eisler joins forces with many other social scientists who now acknowledge that human beings appear to have a built-in need for a system of "stories" and symbols. As Victor Frankl, a psychiatrist who was imprisoned for three years in Auschwitz, has said, that we carry within us a hunger for meaning and purpose and a yearning to satisfy it: "Man's search for meaning," stated Frankl , "is a primary force in his life (and not a secondary drive)." Such myths can be ascertained in the slogans, "Make America Great Again" and "American Exceptionalism".
Unfortunately, this very drive -- precisely because it is so fundamental to us -- is vulnerable to manipulation. We will return later to briefly examine some of the ways in which public support for authoritarian political agendas can be generated. What is highlighted here is simply the strength of our inner "will to meaning", which, as Eisler has noted, is, "seemingly beyond the power of any rationalistic or logical system to provide".
Eisler offers a precise assessment of humanity's actual situation at this time: the reality is, she forcefully asserts (and I am in wholehearted agreement with her on this point), that totalitarians and would-be totalitarians "still block our cultural evolution at every point today, aided by both old and new androcratic myths".
We can now turn to the ascendance and governing policies of George W. Bush and Donald Trump. Steven Jonas in a 2/20/2020 article on OpEdNews, titled "Trumpite Fascism: A view from 2016", defines fascism as follows:
"A politico-economic system in which there is no separation of the powers of government: that is the Executive branch controls its own functions as well as the Legislative functions; there is no independent Judiciary; there is no Constitution that embodies the Rule of Law standing above the people who run the government; no independent media; no inherent personal rights or liberties; a single national ideology that first demonizes and then criminalizes all political, religious, and ideological opposition to it; the massive and regular use of hate, fear, racial and religious prejudice, the Big and Little Lie techniques, mob psychology, mob actions and ultimately individual and collective violence to achieve political and economic ends; all designed to support a capitalist/corporate economy; with the ruling economic class' domination of economic, fiscal, and regulatory policy." https://www.opednews.com/articles/Trumpite-Fascism-A-view-f-by-Steven-Jonas-2016-Campaign_2016-Election_2016-Election-Fraud_2016-Presidential-Election-200220-473.html
The two-term ascent to power of George W. Bush included serious problems with voting machines in result-determining states. There were credible allegations that intelligence services and private companies had installed "back doors" in voting machines, which manipulated the final totals.
In the first election of George W. Bush large numbers of Jews and African-Americans (traditionally scapegoated groups) were disenfranchised; this created an opportunity for the constitutional separation of the branches of government to be broached; in the case of the first term of George Bush Jr. the winner of the presidency (the executive branch) was effectively determined by the justices of the Supreme Court (judicial branch), although the conservative majority in Congress (the legislative branch) was set to function in this capacity as well.
It seemed that many Americans breathed a sigh of relief -- not simply because certainty and resolution had been established -- but also, I believe, because a party with more "black and white", less ambiguous views of the world would now be in power. These voters were not concerned about "creeping fascism", and they saw nothing amiss with the fact that Gore, who "lost" the election is now estimated to have received a half million more popular votes, and enough ballots to have captured the electoral votes in the pivotal, election-determining state.
Many Americans simply appeared to be apathetic about (or immobilized by) the fact that our new president's single-minded focus in the post-election process was not allowing the Florida votes to be counted.
It can also be remembered that 9/11 occurred during the first term of this G.W. Bush and thus provided a prelude to the "war on terror", which according to the vice president, was "not expected to end in our lifetimes" (thereby setting a course for a predictable geo-political future).
A November 2018 paper titled, "The Human Cost of the Post-9/11 Wars: Lethality and the Need for Transparency" (https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/files/cow/imce/papers/2018/Human%20Costs%2C%20Nov%208%202018%20CoW.pdf),
reported that:
"All told, between 480,000 and 507,000 people have been killed in the United States' post-9/11 wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. This tally of the counts and estimates of direct deaths caused by war violence does not include the more than 500,000 deaths from the war in Syria, raging since 2011, which the US joined in August 2014."
In the almost twenty years since the attacks occurred, many questions that have been raised about the tragedy of 9/11. Numerous books and videos contend that the World Trade Center structures -- especially Building 7 across the street that wasn't struck by airliners -- couldn't possibly have fallen straight down as they did, without controlled demolition.
Some high-rise architects and construction engineers are now providing testimony to a grand jury to demand a fresh investigation of what occurred. Discovery of thermite in the Manhattan debris supports this theory -- as do videos of Building 7 dropping directly downward in seconds. Many other anomalies have raised further serious questions.
"On April 10, 2018, attorneys from the Lawyers' Committee for 9/11 Inquiry, together with more than a dozen family members of 9/11 victims, filed a petition with the interim U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, Geoffrey S. Berman, demanding that he present evidence of unprosecuted federal crimes at the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, to a special grand jury." A federal grand jury has broad powers to investigate the alleged crimes and to return an indictment for signature and prosecution by the U.S. Attorney. (https://www.globalresearch.ca/911-inquiry-lawyers-and-victims-families-file-petition-for-federal-grand-jury investigation/5635854?utm_campaign=magnet&utm_source=article_page&utm_medium=related_articles)
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