Cult of Personality

I'd kill for a Nobel Peace Prize
--Steven Wright

I sell the things you need to be
I’m the smiling face on your t.v.
I’m the cult of personality
I exploit you still you love me
--Cult of Personality, Living Colour
_______________

The basic break between totalitarianism and liberal government is the orientation of the government to the governed. The story of democracy is that We the People matter, and government exists to serve the individual. Totalitarianism is supposed to be the opposite.

In our myth, citizens are unique individuals, not drop-forged identical personalities. We take pride in our rugged individualism, but a survey of the environment says otherwise. We are, in fact, interchangeable and stereotypical. Rappers don't wear Brooks Brothers, and congressmen don't wear their pants around their knees (though a shav may sport a Burberry cap, exercising his maximum ability to infiltrate corporate culture.)

Our educational and religious systems teach conformity and compliance. Bankers, lawyers and tradespeople are all die-stamped and interchangeable. The same is especially true of military personnel. Yet we continue to perpetuate the lie that we are all unique, when the reality is quite the opposite.

Dictators are always considered to be exceptional people, beyond the norm and above the law; supreme. To Americans, Stalin, or Mao or Il Duce or Der Fuhrer are all considered unpalatable, to be charitable. And yet . . . there has been a recent transference of these ideas onto our perception of our own leaders. Call it an American hagiography of the ruling class.

Americans like to think themselves so classless and free, but we do have a caste system, and it is economic and political.

If we do not clearly see the delusion of our exceptionality, how can we address world issue objectively?

Fiddler Crabs

We live in an age lit by lightning
After the flash we're blind again
--Over You, T-Bone Burnett

Blessed are the peacemakers:
for they shall be called the children of God
--Matthew 5:9

Somebody, help me now
(I'll take you there)
Help me, y'all
(I'll take you there)
--I'll Take You There,
The Staple Singers
________________

We support. . . fill in the blank.

American's reality has been condensed into bumper sticker slogans. It's all we have time for. It is a patriot's duty to have a flag lapel pin and a magnetized yellow ribbon. However, the simplicity of our rhetoric fails to encompass our reality. Shibboleths do not substitute for rationale.

Ranger feels a free-floating anxiety when contemplating the changes occurring in the U.S. To say we are moving towards socialism is inadequate to the complexity of the problem. All eyes are on the economy, but the bailouts are merely symptomatic of an underlying disease and are merely palliatives.

America has become a sound byte parody of what we once were. The dearth of rational thinking destroys the concept of democracy as the bailouts destroy the concept of capitalism, as practiced in the recently deceased U.S.A. (of blessed memory).

The slogans guide us, like, "Too Big to Fail." What does this mean? Simply: The fat cats in government that grew fat through financial dirty dealings are bailing out the fat cats who are too big too fail, in a masturbatory cycle. The government and the financial houses are now interbred and have become common law partners.

The Obama bailout is exactly similar to Bush's. Paulson and Geithner are pressed from the same mold. The national treasury is being transferred in large part, and the voters have no control. It would be instructive to have a congressman -- any congressman -- discuss the long-term consequences of the success or failure of the bank bailouts.

It seems the U.S. government and the taxpayers have become underwriters for big finance, while the little guy is always one flush away from catastrophe. If the bailouts are successful, are our leaders going to break up the banking interests, or will it be business as usual until the next crisis? What is this griffin financial beast that has the government and taxpayers in a stranglehold?

Everybody wants the president to succeed, thereby allowing the nation to do so; to wish otherwise is absurd. But while the bank bailouts may help the bankers, it is not addressing the underlying systemic problem. It is time to get real and beyond any cult of personality. There are no national saviors.

Bush, Obama, et. al. are meaningless constructs re America. It is not the man that must succeed, but the nation. If the man falters, Congress must take the lead. Disturbingly, they have not shown that ability in the past eight years.

If Chrysler has a 60-day window to come up with a successful business plan, our leaders should be held to the same stricture.