Tales
Of Angst, Alienation
And Martial Law
By Phil Rockstroh
26 July, 2007
Countercurrents.org
In
this summer of angst and grim foreboding about what further assaults
against common sense and common decency the Bush Administration might
inflict upon the people of the world, how many times during the day
do those of us -- still possessed of mind, heart and conscience -- take
pause, hoping we've seen the worst of it, then, fearing we haven't yet,
attempt to push down the dread rising within us, so that we might simply
make it through the day and be able to rest at night? Accordingly, those
who have been paying attention are aware that the outward mechanisms
of martial law are in place. We shudder knowing that Bush has issued
an executive decree that grants him dictatorial power in the event of
some nebulously defined national emergency. In addition, the knowledge
nettles us that a vast network of internment camps bristle across the
length of the U.S., standing at wait for those who might raise objections
to the fascistic fury unloosed by the American empire's version of the
Reichstag fire.
Moreover, a closer look would reveal that the inner processes by which
an individual begins the act of acceptance of authoritarian excess --
the mixture of chronic passivity, boredom, low grade anxiety and unfocused
rage inherent in the citizens/consumers of the corporate state that
primes an individual for fascism -- have been in place for quite some
time within the psyches of the American populace, both elites and hoi
polloi alike. Although, don't look for torch-lit processions thronging
the nation's streets and boulevards; rather, look for a Nuremberg Rally
of couch-bound brownshirts. Instead of ogling the serried ranks of jut-jawed,
SS soldiers, a contemporary Leni Riefenstahl would be forced to film
chubby clusters of double-chinned consumers, saluting the new order
with their TV remotes. In the contemporary United States, the elation
induced by the immersion of one's individual will to the mindless intoxication
of the mob might only be possible, if Bush seized dictatorial control
of the state while simultaneously sending out to all citizens gift certificates
to Ikea.
After the catastrophes spawned by the rise of European fascism in the
1930s, a number of brilliant, original thinkers (including Hannah Arendt,
Roberto Freire, Wilhelm Reich, and R. D. Laing) set out to study the
phenomenon in order to learn how future calamities might be prevented.
Although the methodologies and conclusions of these thinkers varied,
each noted that alienation and dehumanization festered at the core of
the death urge of fascism.
Nowadays, in contrast, the elites of the corporate media have proven
themselves useless in this regard, believing, as they do, they constitute
the thin line between the rabble at large (me and you) and the chaos
begot by freedom. At present, mega-churches attract alienated suburbanites.
Right wing talk show hosts misdirect their listeners alienation towards
so-called illegal "aliens" and exploit their audience's sense
of powerlessness (created by the rigged system of corporate capitalism)
against elitist liberals (who themselves, ironically, benefit from the
present system and who only want to change it to the degree that their
own privilege will not be affected. In other words, not at all).
Combine the above with the American character trait of being hostile
towards introspection and it becomes evident that the present disaster
has been building for quite a while now. And it can (and most likely
will) get worse -- far worse.
Most Americans alive today have been trained since birth to adapt to
and serve the corrupt corporate structure by means of the shunning of
critical thinking and have been conditioned to be in constant (empty)
motion or in the thrall of mass media distraction. We have been taught
that passivity is for losers, yet we find ourselves nearly powerless
before the corporate/consumer/military/police/entertainment state. In
this way, we serve our corporate masters; it serves the corpocracy that
the lower orders refuse meaningful self-awareness. If one were to glimpse
one's own illusions, then it follows one might begin to question collective
delusions -- and this would upset the social order.
Those who have studied the dangers of authoritarian rule have advised
us to be wary of people who carry an inner emptiness. Of course, these
unfortunates yearn for the void to be filled. But with their hearts
and minds mortared closed -- what makes it through the self-constructed
prison is loud, stupid, and fascistic. At present, what penetrates is:
Fundamentalist Sermons on Armageddon; violent video games; the empty
spectacle of steroid-induced professional sports hype; the lethal fantasies
of American exceptionalism; the exercise in Rock and Roll imperialism
that U.S. foreign policy has become. In short, all the banal Sturm and
Drang necessary to pierce those protective walls and penetrate the pervasive
inner emptiness.
When the people of a culture have been conditioned to worship power
-- but feel powerless -- there's trouble ahead. The elites must displace
the public's rage by a demagogic sleight-of-hand such as the demonization
of marginalized groups. In the US, we've been inundated by years of
state and commercial propaganda that has degraded and demonized the
country's permanent underclass by the labeling of them as welfare parasites
and career criminals.
It has been noted that the mindset, methods, and procedures of America's
punitive, profit-driven prison-industrial complex was a prototype for
the systemic cruelty of Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib; furthermore, it is
a given that those institutional affronts to human decency will have
served as prototypes for the methods and procedures that will be practiced
upon those who are swept-up in the purges and detainment mania following
the declaration of martial law in the United States.
We push this knowledge away from us, fearing we will be paralyzed by
its crushing implications. Worse, what is nearly impossible to admit
is, most likely, the system crushed us long ago. Apropos, R. D. Laing
averred that being able to adapt and function within an insane, authoritarian
system renders one for all practical purposes insane -- only insane
in a manner acceptable to a power mad ruling elite.
This is the knowledge we push down, every hour of everyday. Otherwise,
we would be driven to admit outright that the system has crushed our
individual hopes, aspirations and yearnings. We must, at all costs,
keep these feelings concealed; otherwise, we might be compelled to contemplate
what we have forsaken, what passions and truths we have traded away
for the false sense of security that the corporate order offered us
when we tacitly agreed to surrender what was most sacred, vital and
alive within us. One psychological manifestation of this phenomenon
is the incessant chanting of that mantra of the American corporate workforce:
"I'm not my job. I'm not what I do all day long."
For a moment, meditate on the calamity implicit in such a sentiment.
Because If we cannot locate and engage our true selves during our waking
hours -- then who the hell are we anyway? This is a profoundly troubling
circumstance. Moreover, if we've condemned our daylight selves to a
void of non-being, what then remains of us?
We experience this dislocation of the life force as a sense of nebulous
dread. Everything, these days, the architecture and accouterment of
our lives seems so fragile and unreal; it feels as if everything could
just fly apart, at any given moment. The world and our place in it seems
so flimsy: an empire built of eggshells; it could all shatter in an
instant.
Living on credit, the house of cards of the real estate market, jobs
evaporating, most of us languishing only a couple of paychecks away
from ruin: The empire is coming undone. As it is, it seems the nation
is only being held together with hydrogenated fat, wheat gluten, over-extended
credit and particle board. Ergo, there is one law the lawless Bush administration
and their keepers from the plundering class cannot flout: the second
law of thermodynamics. They won't be able to claim executive privilege
to avoid the consequences of negative entropy.
In a similar vein, we, the underlings of empire, stand helpless before
the prevailing madness. Individual reason rarely acts as a countervailing
force to stem a drowning tide of cultural cognitive dissonance. Because
the more epic and all-compassing the mistake, the more epic and all-encompassing
come the rationalizations, the scapegoating and the compulsion for do-overs.
If the surge isn't working as fantasized, then we'll double-dog surge
you and then bomb Iran. If police state tactics fail to alleviate a
sense of anxiety, then we must construct more detainment camps, more
maximum security prisons, enact more federal death penalty statutes.
"Bring back the electric chair; being put to sleep, like stray
pets, is too good for the traitors," the mob will rage. That's
the solution, but (cognitive dissonance being what it is) we need to
go bigger -- we need an electric sofa -- yet, bigger still -- an electric
dining room set! "Aahh ... the smell of deep-fried dissidents in
the morning."
And over the smoking corpses, let us pray. We need to pray for ... what?
... more prayer. These prayers would work, the homicidally faithful
will insist -- if every single doubter was induced to drop to their
knees and pray. Hence, we need prayer in the public schools. We need
prayer on public transportation. We need prayer in public restrooms!
Animus, ignorance, and magical thinking are a tragic mix -- and I'm
afraid that vintage of mind is the hideous wine of our times. The social
criteria that gives rise to fascism is in place in the U.S. and those
in positions of power have a strong interest in seeing things remain
that way. All we can do is what folks (a minority) have always done
... exile or resistance.
In my opinion, both are honorable. The other options are varying degrees
of "little Eichmann[ism]" -- Ward Churchill's much scorned,
career purge-inducing -- but never-the-less accurate phrase. If one
does the "soul work," to appropriate archetypal psychologist
James Hillman's term, it is still possible to resist complicity. Training
yourself to avoid lying for provisional gain is a time honored means
of prevented alliances with exploitive assholes. They will avoid you,
fire you, curse your name from the darkness of their inner abyss --
but this will solve the problem of dependance on them -- and you'll
be forced to live by other means. Generally, one is more adaptable than
one believes.
Keep yourself as healthy and as sane as possible: we're going to need
you around after the inevitable collapse of the present system. Also,
beware of those reductionist demons of the mind who diminish the soul-making
possibilities of "mere" words. The acts of writing and reading
are seen as passive; to crackpot realists, these activities seem useless,
unproductive -- the feckless indulgences of a class of the thin-wristed
effete.
Accordingly, Americans have all but ceased reading. Worse, they displace
their feelings of self-loathing borne of their own corporately induced
passivity upon writers and thinkers. If the tenets of democratic discourse
are to survive, it is imperative that writers and thinkers begin to
engage in a passionate defense of themselves against the kvetching armies
of crackpot realists that have encircled and laid siege to our collective
hearts and minds.
But don't expect to be lauded with praise for the effort. It's doubtful
our adversaries will be moved by our entreaties: There cannot be a rapprochement
with reality for those who have never had a relationship with it in
the first place. Yet verbal imagery and depth-inducing insights are
the DNA of compassionate engagement. It is not a coincidence that George
W. Bush is an inarticulate oaf. Conversely, there are many things in
this world that require being touched by words, for there are occasions
when words alone can suffice to take us deep and lift us up and serve
to ameliorate our alienation.
It is in this spirit that I offer the words above to you; I'm traveling
light; they're all I'm carrying with me, at this late hour, in these
dark and dangerous times.
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: [email protected]
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