Disconnect

In a Common Dreams essay Chris Hedges points out the surreal, down-the-rabbit-hole quality of contemporary popular discourse and states "This growing disconnect with reality is the hallmark of a totalitarian state." The economist Charlotte Twight homes in on the vast corporate system of spectacle and democratic collapse which she labels "participatory fascism". Guy Debord's trenchant critique of Spectacle was done almost forty years ago but is still the best analysis of the deep"bread and circus" corruption and dehumanization by societal commodity fetish. Hedges and others lately have directed their attacks at "neoliberal capitalism" or "monopoly capitalism" or "corporate capitalism" as deviations from some kindler, gentler, "managed capitalism", but I feel they miss the whole logic of capitalism and it's necessary fascist and totalitarian nature. A well managed , tastefully decorated concentration camp is no less brutal.



The true danger to me is the increasing number of people I encounter who say" It's hard to know what to think." Break that message down and there is cause for much alarm. Hard to know. Hard to think. What to think? What to know? The real crisis for me is not a war in Iraq but the mothers who raise sons that can't wait to get there. The true crisis is not global warming but the increasing number of teenagers who want to join the Army just so they can buy a brand new three-quarter ton pickup!



"Before they sieze power and establish a world according to their doctrines, totalitarian movements conjure up a lying world of consistency which is more adequate to the human mind than reality itself." Hannah Arendt



Commencement ceremonies in Greenville S.Carolina : "President Bush called Saturday for a new 'culture of responsibility'...Mr. Bush's message resonated in this conservative community." He then called for a return to the 18th century through "atomic time machines" and called their invention a "national priority." Claiming to be the reincarnated Napolean Bonaparte, Mr. Bush said he thought all gay people should be sent to "a massive space station ,yet to be developed." This message also resonated well in this conservative community. He ended with these pearls: "So my call to those of you entering the business world is to be honest with your shareholders", and he added, "All of us have a responsibility to be good stewards of the environment." This too resonated well with the lobotomized citizens. Can you guess which quotes are real? Exactly.

"Among todays adept practitioners, the lie has long since lost it's honest function of mis-representing reality. Nobody believes anybody, everyone is in the know...the downward urge of the intellect loses it's inhibitions and all the detritus dumped in the individual by barbarous culture and half-learning, slackness, heavy familiarity, coarseness, comes to light."
Theodore Adorno