How Green was My Valley
Rainer Hachfeld, Neues Deutschland
I kick arse for the lord
--Dead Alive (1992)
You get nothing! You lose! Good day sir!
--Willie Wonka
and the Chocolate Factory (1971)
But look at Epitaph. He wins it by a half
According to this here in the Telegraph
"Big Threat" -- "Big Threat"
--Fugue for Tinhorns, Frank Loesser
_______________
Ranger had a dream recently that America was in a deep valley, an impossibly steep crevasse. Try as they might, the people could not scale their enclosure.
This scene of desperation sent him into a reverie on American pathology, via media feeds:
1. If the U.S. were an NCAA team, it would be sanctioned for contrived unnecessary roughness, and letting the water boy take control of the team.
2. If the U.S. were a church, it would be sued for child abuse.
3. If a family, Family and Child Services would intervene and force the parents into counseling. The children would be given supervision and assistance in daily living issues. Outside professional help would be mandatory for the entire dysfunctional family system
4. If an individual, the person would be adjudicated "incompetent" to handle their personal affairs. They would be given a court-appointed guardian. As with #3, counseling for personal and life skills would be emphasized.
5. If a business, it would be in receivership or bankruptcy.
6. If it were an organized crime syndicate, it would break more legs.
7. If a medical patient, he would be in Intensive Care on life support. If a Living Will mandated it, we would pull the plug. The patient is currently only alive via feeding tubes and external life support systems.
8. If a reality show, the country would be voted off the island.
9. If a Dancing with the Stars episode, we would be a solo clogger, since all our partners would have moved on to new partners.
10. If an episode of Who Wants to be a Millionaire, we'd be exhausting the Lifeline option grasping for answers.
11. If a game of Jeopardy, we'd be in the minus figures, and would not make it to Final Jeopardy.
12. If a game of Wheel of Fortune, we would not know any words, even if they were missing only one vowel.
13. If we were in court, the judge would be absent.
14. If a bank, we would solicit loans from the customers.
15. If a horse race, we would be riding a jackass.
16. If it were a movie, there would be no happy ending (if a porn flick, no erections.)
17. If we were on The Biggest Loser, we would be.
In a phenomenal bit of conspiracy theory, Political Ponerology, the author asserts,
"A pathocracy is a social movement, society, nation, or empire wherein a small pathological minority takes control over a society of normal people. The pathological minority habitually perpetrates evil deeds on its people and/or other people."
I know neither what constitutes "normal" or "evil," nor if said "pathocracy" could flourish in the midst of such an allegedly psychologically healthy constituency. One thing is certain.
We have yet to collectively arrive at the mountaintop.
Labels: america 2009, sick country
posted by rangeragainstwar at 6:21 PM
6 Comments:
Look up Ryan Frederic if you really want to see a pathocracy in action.
i've seen pathocracy take hold. in vietnam it happened, the 15 years of american involvement made it worse. not only did nixon not get anything from paris that wasn't on the table for eisenhower and truman, the bitterness and cost of fighting us made the northerners seriously and crazified implacable victors. they had been fighting one foreigner or another for nearly an entire century by that time. many of them knew of nothing else from life. they were second and sometimes third generation fighters who had grown up in the jungles eating snakes and bugs and trying to figure out how to fight modern armies with bamboo sticks and chickenshit bombs.
afghanistan is that way right now, so is israel and the surrounding states. they have been at war for enough generations that they simply have no idea what peace means.
you will meet old women on the street and they will tell you "i pray for peace many times each day." then you mention that it might involve some accomodations for the "others" and the response is "there is no peace with them, they have to be crushed, killed, destroyed every last one."
you find the same thing in sudan and somalia.
i too see america as being in a low point. the thing that can save us is our own bright promise. returning to the constitution, that wonderful document which was forged by an assembly of some of the most brilliant minds in history gives us the tools.
pericles, in his funeral oration for the athenian dead at the beginning of the war with sparta not only made a textbook deliniation of the differences in culture and system "they are born to war, we are born to theatre..." he ended with a warning to the athenians that if they allowed the war to change who they were as a culture and a people then the spartans would have won, regardless of the outcomes on any battlefields. the athenians began the war as a democracy. they ended as an oligarchy, and finally as a colony, occupied by the spartan army and administered by persian satraps. never again would athens regain its stature. of course, niether did sparta. 35 years of constant warfare had culled the populations and bankrupted both states. when alexander began to take control of greece he didn't even bother to attack the spartans. epaminondas had already dealt them a crushing blow.
the romans later made sparta something like a themepark. they would send their wasterel sons to the spartans for a disney version of military training, with a heavy emphasis on the sexual sadism.
athens, simply never recovered as an independant city/state.
the shrinks in ww2 put a limit on combat effectiveness of 280 days as being about all even the strongest of us can take without going around the bend.
the afghans have been involved with one war or another since 1920. they are incapable of grasping peace as a concept.
the iraqis have been enduring seven years of a brutal invasion and occupation which is chaotic enough to make them long for reasonable order under saddam. much like the italians used to wax poetic about mussolini being an asshole "but at least the trains ran on time..."
there might be hope, if we leave the iraqis alone long enough to find their way. maybe the three state solution is what will happen. who knows? about all i can see is that what we've done not only didn't solve any problems, we made them worse. it's time to go.
obama has needed to make specific orders to close the secret prisons, end torture and reinstate habeas corpus. the fact that those steps needed to take place, the fact that there was even a debate over americans torturing captives, is much like having to explain to a truckload of teenagers that the proper way to dispose of puppies does not include tossing them at freeway signs from a speeding vehicle. the fact that you find a need for the conversation in the first place shows a high level of disfunction right there.
MB,
An excellent historical perspective, as always.
As with the Italian affection for Mussolini, so many of the old Germans for Hitler (but only when they are in their cups, or amongst friends.)
Yes -- that Obama must make these specific orders reveals our current level of dysfunction. One of our recent commenters said that if Obama could accomplish even 10% of what he sets out to do in terms of restoring civil rights, that would be something. How little to be satisfied with!
The greatest wish would be that people (re?)gain their eyesight and voice, and use it for their own good, which they will see is to restore rights to everyone.
another worrying thing for me is that obama might fall in love with the easy power of the executive order. when he has used it to begin undoing some of the damage that was done over the last eight years will he be strong enough to step away?
or will he be like the sorcerer's apprentice and wave his wand over an army of water lugging brooms?
MB,
That's it, and we hope we have a leader wise enough to find that golden mean.
(oh, the water buckets...if there was one animation that gave me nightmares as a child, that was it! Brilliant!)
MB,
Between you and FDChief I'm gonna start understanding history.You guys keep dipping me in it:)
So far all is impressive with BHO 44 but to date there is no word on what's happening with extraordinary renditions.This too needs to be addressed.
Your puppy analogy was good- we've been throwing people at roadsigns.
Yesterday a stranger made a cmt to me. He said-t's are not warriors and they should not get GC treatment.So BHO is moving in the right direction but a large part of America is still in the spirit of the Phony war.
It's a start.
If T's are what we know they are them BHO will be stressed soon to try to force him into an overreaction. I would expect the DOD/intel heirarchy to force the moment to a crisis and railroading the new Chief into a lose -lose scenario..One must ask who is benefitting from this fiasco.
jim
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