I've Been Thinking Lately

There's a good chance you've seen this old chestnut somewhere.

"The problem not only with fundamentalist Christians but with Republicans in general is not that they act on blind faith, without thinking. The problem is that they are incorrigible doubters with an insatiable appetite for Evidence. What they get off on is not Believing, but in having their beliefs tested. That's why their conversations and their media are so completely dominated by implacable bogeymen: marrying gays, liberals, the ACLU, Sean Penn, Europeans and so on. Their faith both in God and in their political convictions is too weak to survive without an unceasing string of real and imaginary confrontations with those people — and for those confrontations, they are constantly assembling evidence and facts to make their case.

But here's the twist. They are not looking for facts with which to defeat opponents. They are looking for facts that ensure them an ever-expanding roster of opponents. They can be correct facts, incorrect facts, irrelevant facts, it doesn't matter. The point is not to win the argument, the point is to make sure the argument never stops. Permanent war isn't a policy imposed from above; it's an emotional imperative that rises from the bottom. In a way, it actually helps if the fact is dubious or untrue (like the Swift-boat business), because that guarantees an argument. You're arguing the particulars, where you're right, while they're arguing the underlying generalities, where they are.

Once you grasp this fact, you're a long way to understanding what the Hannitys and Limbaughs figured out long ago: These people will swallow anything you feed them, so long as it leaves them with a demon to wrestle with in their dreams."
Matt Talabi

And thenyesterday came this nugget from Andrew Sullivan on the tranquil (for us) 1990's:

"...There's always a paradox in professional conservatives lamenting happy times, because it both encourages less government and increases their irrelevance as public commentators. But there's a strain in some neoconservatism that can sometimes appear actually hostile to tranquillity because it is seen as a cause of what Krauthammer calls ennui, of boredom, of decadence. "Trivial history" is another term, in some ways, for peace and prosperity, in which our private lives take center stage and the tedium of politics, folly of war, and grinding millstone of poverty are kept at bay."http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2009/12/conservatism-and-the-1990s.html#more

The human mind is,of course, hard-wired to focus primarily on other people. It is nearly impossible for the mind to form a self-imagethat isn't based on comparision against other people, and it is very difficult to produce an image of moral self-worth beyond that of better than.

Conflict with 'The Other' than, is not based only on ignorant assuming the worst of what we don't understand, but also on a concious belief that right and wrong can not exist without conflict with those things and those people who are clearly identified as wrong. Those who subscribe to Eco's ninth point of instinctive fascism " For Ur-Fascism there is no struggle for life but, rather, life is lived for struggle." do not consider a life that consists of eternal struggle to be a grim curse, rather they are thankful that the life of struggle has provided them with a meaning that could not otherwise exist. The existence of evil is the basis of morality, and good cannot exist in any other form except violent opposisition to evil. Those who pursue peace pursue nihilism. The murderers of Ghandi, Sadat, and Rabin believed that they were saving virtue from extinction.

When Don Quixote is brought back to his senses, he enters a despair that lasts until he dies soon after. Alonso Quixano would rather be dead than live in a world in which damsels are not being eternally threatened by giants.

It is only natural that it is the right who is most enamored with the idea of hatred of the enemy as the basis of both personal and social identity and virtue; because all traditional social structures are predicated on chivalry. Those at the top of the hierarchy earn their privledges by defending (In the case of the West) the eternally childlike poor, brown, and female from an uneneding stream of outside threats. In order for "The Man" to be justified in his power it is essential for society to be forever on the brink of collapse. Anything less than eternal crisis betrays the old gender, race, and class based distinctions as arbitary and imaginary, which of course is nothing but the truth of what they are.



This is why, with the exception of some riot-happy anarchist chuckleheads (who are just as enamored with conflict as the institutional right, and for largly the same reasons) the left has historically been so vehemently opposed to war. The opposition to war is not based merely on a squeamishness towards death, (though I for one freely admit to being squeamish towards death and am disgusted by those who brag that they are not.) but on the knowledge that war is the primary means of creating false conciousness.(Yeah. I went there) The essense of war is not conflict with the enemy but religious sacrifice to the ideal of conflict with the enemy. It is the means of engineering an existance that is both much shorter than it otherwise could be and also wholly fraudulant. War is the means for creating and perpetuating a fraudulant society, fraudulant loyalty, fraudulant identity, fraudulant love, fraudulant hate, and fradulant morality.

And at the risk of coing across as a hypocrite, it is a fraud that I fear we are stuck with forever. As long as humans are unable to accept life on its own terms, for as long as we are made dull by the mundanities of working, sleeping, and eating, for as long as we are aware that even joy, sex, dance and beauty will eventually become mundane, for as long as we are unable to look out of eyes and conclude, "we are here and that is enough." the fraud will be irrisitibly seductive. It is only the ability to feel and inflict pain that enables us to become heroes, and it is only by being a hero that one can become a god.

Earthquake Update.

I have just received word that the Auburn tremor has opened up a pathway to hell itself, and that President Obama has taken advantage of the situation to summon Anwar Sadat from the underworld to lead an uprising of undead Muslim socialists against against the brave Christian warriors of real America. Stay tuned.

EarthQuake Strikes Auburn Nebraska!!!

Stay tuned to Mr. Heartland for further developments as they happen.

In Honor of The Decade: Remembering the Clear Channel post-9/11 Censored List

Here's some songs on the list that never would of reminded any sane person of the attacks, but now make you giggle darkly and feel like a horrid bastard afterwards. (Or perhaps I should speak for myself)

Barenaked Ladies "Falling for the First Time"


Pat Benatar "Hit Me with Your Best Shot"

Boston "Smokin"

Dave Matthews Band "Crash into Me"

Dio "Holy Diver"

Filter "Hey Man, Nice Shot"

The Gap Band "You Dropped a Bomb on Me"

Elton John "Rocket Man"

John Mellencamp "Crumblin' Down"

The Smashing Pumpkins "Bullet with Butterfly Wings"

Sugar Ray "Fly"

Van Halen "Jump"

And finally the one in which the black humor is undeniable to even the most patriotic and God fearing

Elton John "Bennie and the Jets"

I think "Bennie and the Jets" really catches the deranged, meth-high feeling of liberation that is the true inspiration for terrorist acts, that joy of anti-sex, destroying what has been created. "Bennie" is the obvious anthem for any hyper-intelligent merry prankster terrorist in the vein of a Joker or a Tyler Durden. It would certainly be my theme song if I were a terrorist, unless Ween's "Push the Little Daisies" hasn't already been taken.

You Learn Something new everyday

http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2009/12/025144.php



Note the identical, professionally printed, color-coordinated yellow and black signs. This is what Astroturf--fake grass roots--looks like. The signs use the same colors as the International ANSWER signs that are ubiquitous at far-left rallies here in the U.S., but carry no identifier. It would be interesting to know who paid for the signs, and whether the same organization that bought the signs also paid for the demonstrators.

Pre-prepaired, coordinated picket signs are indisputible evidence of insincerity, in ways that are never quite explained or need to be.

It trully must be marvelous to be a Real American, what with the power to create your own reality and all. The rest of us are reduced to downing cheap bathtub acid. Pity us.

Post 601

I've been coming down from a cold I've had since Tuesday, not quite well enough to take up smoking again but well enough to stay awake for more than three hours at a time. Slept through the hellstorm for the most part and couldn't be happier that I did, though the snow-party shenanigans did sound kind of fun in my sort of semi-consciousness.

It might have been the punches I took to both sinuses on Saturday Night,when I tried to break up a fist fight between a fat Lakota fellow and his mother, that left me susceptible to the cold. I met them and his cousin at the Beacon Lounge, the cousin is a nice girl of 25 who took a liking to me. She called back after I made it home to see if I was okay and I said yes. She called back the next day to ask me why I hadn't met up with her like I said I would. (?) I told her I had forgotten the exact address of her apartment which was the truth. I've also forgotten her name which I didn't mention. She texted me from a couple of different phones that night and hasn't contacted me since and that will do.

I don't remember if I took any swings back at the big fellow. I said something about what a disgrace it was, to see a son fighting his mother. I took offense. I was drunk; the punches didn't hurt all that much, and I was surprised to have two black eyes the next day. They're mostly cleared up now. The cousin, she told me they all went to jail, mother son and someone else. Whether they've been bailed out by now or not I don't know. She hasn't called me back, like I said, and I'm not going to call her.

It was also at the Beacon where I saw a thirty-something woman get a tooth knocked out by the man she shot down. This was Wednesday night. It started out as a brawl between the suitor and the woman's friend-with-benefits, he turned on her when she tried to pull them apart. He knocked her to the ground and than I tried to pull him off of her but couldn't do it until a couple of black guys coming out of the Night Before helped us out.

Three cops showed up. They surrounded the black guys until me and the woman told them three or four times that they weren't involved, this in spite of the fact that they were wholly unbruised and I was the only White cat in the crowd who wasn't. The cops were clearly acting on autopilot. Accuse them of bias and they'll deny it with perfect conscious honesty.

And of course I'm back in Nebraska for a little bit. I don't mention that any of the white people are mentioned because here we are nine out of ten as always. Well not quite always. It really would be better if the Indian woman didn't call back though I like her well enough, and feel bad about not knowing her name.

I waited with the Wednesday white woman for a few minutes until her boy had convinced the cops that the other fellow was the aggressor and they let him go. She spat blood on the sidewalk and mourned her lost tooth, and rightfully so. She's average looking, one of the most average looking creatures of any kind or sex I've ever seen. Give her a full set of teeth and she's average in a comforting sort of way. Take a away a tooth or two and she's average in a slow decay of life sort of way. God damn disgrace that rat fuck. Clearly a low-level sociopath; she would have been beyond stupid to get anywhere near him. Now here she was spitting blood on the sidewalk as a reward for not being stupid.

Hell of a game Saturday Night wasn't it? It reminded me of the old big 8 games between Nebraska and Oklahoma, Nebraska and Colorado. Any touchdown at any point of the game could be the one that wins it and every inch was such a God-Damned struggle. I think I learned to tolerate and even appreciate the low scoring nature of soccer watching these games growing up. Hopelessly bashing your way towards the impossible goal that you must have. It's the sort of game where even the rational and libertine become fascists at heart for a couple of hours. We start to believe that success or failure depends solely on our collective will. We will win as long as I keep staring at the screen very hard and think of nothing else and we will lose if I blink, and all the while the teams pound each other to hopeless stalemate while the clock dwindles and the inevitable big fuckup looms larger and more unsurvivable. That's what entertainment is; absolute power over an audience of millions and total impotence on a field of twenty two. That's fucking Midwestern man, to find diversion in other people creating your unwinable struggles for you on some wretched December night.

POST 600

In the future, when your children ask what that burning smell is, your answer will be 'everything'.

Currently

I am watching the Alabama Crimson Tide disprove Christianity.

World Cup Predictions

Group A
1. South Africa
2. France
3. Mexico
4. Uruguay

Group B

1. Nigeria
2. Argentina
3. Greece
4. South Korea

Group C

1. England
2. USA
3. Algeria
4. Slovenia

Group D

1. Germany
2. Ghana
3. Australia
4. Serbia

Group E

1. Netherlands
2. Cameroon
3. Denmark
4. Japan

Group F

1. Italy
2. Paraguay
3. Slovakia
4. New Zealand

Group G

1. Brazil
2. Ivory Coast
3. Portugal
4. North Korea

Group H

1. Spain
2. Chile
3. Switzerland
4. Honduras


Round of 16
Argentina 1-0 over South Africa
England 1-0 over Ghana
Netherlands 2-0 over Paraguay
Brazil 4-1 over Chile
Nigeria 3-2 over France
Germany 2-1 over USA
Cameroon on PK's over Italy after 1-1 draw
Spain 3-2 over Ivory Coast

Quarterfinals
England 2-1 over Argentina
Brazil 2-1 a.e.t over Netherlands
Nigeria 1-0 over Germany
Spain 2-1 over Cameroon

Semifinals
Brazil on PK's after 1-1 draw with England
Spain 2-1 a.e.t over Nigeria

3rd place
Nigeria on PK's after scoreless draw with England

Championship
Spain 3-2 over Brazil