Oct 05 2007
THE HEROIC MUST BECOME THINKABLE (AGAIN)
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“The flabby underside of American liberalism, and why the Corporados needn’t worry about a thing…”
By Patrice Greanville
10/6/07
As Americans we are so conditioned to avoid pain and inconvenience, so pansified by the endless mendacious ministrations of the system, and so unthinkingly devoted first to matters of home and the pacification of the insatiable “me, me, me” instead of principle (whose very “abstract” quality is clearly sheer pain to most of our fellow citizens), that even something as basic and risk-free as an article on progressive politics has to be formatted and spoon-fed in a way suitable for advanced hedonists, or chances are it won’t be read. Not even by people who define themselves as activists.
The acceptance of this realization —of which I have been in denial for years if not decades—came after talking to a dear friend whose noble and empathetic character is beyond doubt, and whose political leanings are impeccably on the left…and yet, not even this excellent human being could escape being an unplugged American. Her suggestion, if she was to read Cyrano’s materials [or any publication, blog or text that requires a bit of investment and true dedication to the subject], was to make them more “like People Magazine.” “Make the type larger. Make the articles shorter, so anyone can read them.” Well-meaning, she was also apparently oblivious to the oxymoronic implication of that very sentence. In other words, write like the system if you want an audience. Produce soundbites. Otherwise, don’t count EVEN on me to read the stuff, as my attention will drift elsewhere.
How far can we go with this unexamined catechism of always making everything totally “accessible,” “easy,” even “fun,” in order to gain and retain a political audience? (Just think of the gigantic pandering implicit in these recent ludicrous, accomplish-less-than-nothing Live 8 concerts.) What kind of foundation would that be anyway? Social change requires patience, sacrifice, steadfastness, precisely the virtues eviscerated by the marketing-consumerist logic that, like an invisible and unstoppable cancer, has metastasized to every last nook and cranny of America, and is now extending itself like a plague in literally every other nation imprudent or helpless enough to copy America’s DNA.
In any event the friend in the example is so overwhelmed getting her child out the door every morning, what with the other chores of keeping house and holding down a job, plus whatever other routines happen to fill the day of the holy American family (in this case a single-mother household), that I’m ready to extend far more sympathy, and yet…dear folks…let’s look at this for the impossible equation it is: how can we reconcile this pathetic level of willingness to make even minor extra efforts with the humongous, and eventually risky tasks that enlightened Americans will have to discharge in the near future if this monstrous world system is to be brought to heel? For whether we like it or not, given our position as denizens of the empire, besides our own fate we are also proxies for the rest of the world. In Annie Hall Woody Allen hit the nail on the head. The dialogue between Alvy Singer (Allen) and Annie Hall (Diane Keaton), right after her first obligatory immersion in The Sorrow and the Pity, captured rather pithily the self-paralyzing complacency that may render the revolutionary project in America a stillborn child:
ALVY:
Boy, those guys in the French Resistance
were really brave, you know? Got to listen
to Maurice Chevalier sing so much.
ANNIE:
M’m, I don’t know, sometimes I ask myself
how I’d stand up under torture.
ALVY:
You? You kiddin’?
If the Gestapo would take away your Bloomingdale’s charge card, you’d tell ‘em
everything.
ANNIE:
That movie makes me feel guilty.
ALVY:
Yeah, ’cause it’s supposed to.
This is art giving it to life double, redouble and vulnerable! Good for you, Woody. Annie’s case is emblematic of the soft-belly disease prevalent in contemporary America, epidemic among liberals, many of whom don’t even know they are liberals—meaning by that not real leftists, not real progressives, but hopelessly confused establishmentarians—not so much because of their creaky self-serving political consciousness, which is often, in some sectors, surprisingly lucid, but because they suffer from a recalcitrant inability or unwillingness to implement even a minimal part of the implicit program. They’re not just risk averse: they’re morally and physically lazy. A check or a demonstration here and there is enough to assuage their conscience and the call to duty, sometimes for years. Am I being unfair? Tell me that I am.
Thus, it didn’t come as a terribly shocking surprise that still other acquaintances, who fiercely avow, and who have also shown, on occasion, deep environmental commitment, are now sworn enemies of spending any “more” time reading about the issues of the day. “It turns them off,” and besides “they know already what’s going on.” Plus, again, their children and requisite parenting chores leave them exhausted at the end of the day. To which I reply: If you’re not reading, if you’re not arming yourself with ammunition to struggle more effectively against the current nightmare, are you already in the trenches, doing something real and tangible to change the world? Have you even examined your own personal routines, your way of life? Have you thought about the implications of this unexamined egoism, this family-centered narrow-gauge approach to life, this obsession to ensure advancement for the kids by chauffering them from coach to coach without factoring in the larger picture…that they may well be the wonders of tomorrow, well-educated and accomplished, and still inhabit a living hell, a world defined by ecocide, mass joblessness, endless war, pestilence, violence, and almost inevitable personal tragedy?
Well, you know what the response to that kind of prodding is. After the initial blank stare, the look of pained discomfort, or, far more common, the torrent of justifications… usually comes the indignation at the audacity of your questioning their progressive bona fides, not to mention the right to organize their lives as they see fit. Who made you a prophet? Who made you God? How can you sit there in judgment? A long overdue conversation about the grotesque disparity between what needs to be done and what is being done suddenly gets derailed, transmogrified into a battle over individual sovereignty. You are now fast becoming a pariah in what moments ago was a charmed inner circle: you’re making everybody uncomfortable. Uncomfortable, for Chrissakes! In today’s corporatized, utterly, terminally blandified America, the America that gave us hedonistic Esalen instead of revolution, in this America…among way too many people, and given the fragility and impermanency of so many social bonds, this is a capital sin, a huge no-no, real friendship-busting stuff. Historical sociologists will probably shake their heads one day and take note of this peculiar feature of American civilization, this pervasive brittleness in social interactions, should there be some history left in the cosmic clock of our martyred globe, but I doubt they’ll come up with any satisfactory explanations.
And so it goes, dear friends. It’s a cruel joke that so much of the destiny of humanity and the planet itself should depend today on such flaccid and easily cooptable legions. Spartacus and others like him at least went down fighting. Our armies, unwittingly sabotaged from within, may not even show up for battle. They might have better things to do. Just busy. Just too busy, I suppose.
Patrice Greanville is Cyrano’s Journal’s publisher and founder. A former economist, he’s been a full-time critic of corporate media for at least 30 years. He makes ends meet somewhere in Southwestern Connecticut. He may be reached at .
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Patrice,
Thank you. Valid, insiteful, and accurate.
Personally, I am not quite sure where I fit in Ideologically. I believe in some of the “leftier” bullet points - compassion, assistance to those in need, regulation, at a minimum, of industry, health care and education available to all. But am way to cynical to trust “State” any more than I do “Corporatism”. Again and again, history shows power becomes centralized, and thereby corrupted. I also am realistic enough to know that there must remain a competitive impetus to drive participation. I believe in some “right-ish” ideas, like private property, right to individual success or failure, personal responsibility and determination.
So, probably, like many, I am not so easily defined, as I trust that despite professions of “leftist’, you and the bulk of us aren’t. An educated and pensive mind is more fluid than to be so rigid, I trust.
I generally do consume more “liberal” blogs and sites these days, as the great sea of dissent welling up in the US, even if it is “flaccid and impotent” looks past complete Ideology and finds comfort in the mutual dissent. Dissent is being normalized and it’s currently an amazing common bond unifier, though I suspect in the end, fragile and short lived; easily, and eventually, just as completely dissolved.
To the point; even the dissenting blogs and sites, despite a plethora of links and wonderful essays posted, and a mountain of resources, it is true that for the most part, I believe the human race is now rendered incapable of research, discipline, and action. Thats a very bleak pronouncement, but it’s real. There is no amount of persuasive writing or water cooler evangelism that can or will change that. Unless there was a revolution of the media, and ability to project truth to the globe, which there will never be, it just isn’t going to divert from it’s self destructive course. We would have to start with Sound bites of our own, from the boob tube, and silence the corrupt and contrary to truth voices like Limbaugh. And that idea, flies directly against what we seek to achieve.
We can lead a horse to water…..
The dissent you speak of needs to be channeled into a movement Reason > Politics. The mass media are the primary obstacle to that. The Interent is truly our only tool right now to mobilize being that the various factions of the “left wing” are so fragmented, confused, and therefore unable to organize into any substantive force. We also need to get off the net, and let people see us in the streets. Actions truly speak louder than words.
We need to drag more numbers into the fold, and being we live a society that is conditioned to be selfish, apathetic, apolitial, and fearful, compounded by the fact the left has no mass vehicle for revolution, or worker’s rights, it makes getting those percentages we need to act in any significant way far more difficult to make reality.
Things will continue to get worse, and as the middle class feels the burn more and more, we MAY see people start to make a more serious effort for change. Right now, Patrice generally summed up what the attitude of many is like. They simply don;t realize, or want to realize how seriously dangerous the times we are living through are. Hopefully, the consequences of the various reasons why things are as bad as they are don’t reach full maturity before the proverbial frog is boiled.
Patrice’s friend was correct, our need for reading is keeping us from awakening more Americans to the coming shit-storm. If the answer to stopping the Iran war and the coming dictatorship is in making the American majority aware, and the people refuse to read our proof, then we have to start thinking in terms of audio formats, especially sound bites, suggested by “Reason > Politics.”
This builds on the theme of my last article “Ideological Struggle of Twenty-first Century.”
We have to lodge an all-encompassing grain of truth into the distracted eye of the American sheeple. We need words that unthinking people can absorb from radio and tv, something full of meaning but short on content.
Of course, “We The People” must lay down the laws, written in the Constitution that governs us, to bring elected or appointed officials who commit crimes against humanity to justice. Why should 21st Century war criminals be exempt from International Laws?
These laws were adopted by an international consensus of conscientious world citizens to prevent extremist crimes against humanity. These 911 crimes and the subsequent obstructions of justice (via the perpetual cover-up) were nothing less than treason domestically and serial mass murder on a global scale, especially when the local crimes lead to unjustified wars against sovereign countries and thereby become international war crimes.
I am sure that simply “laying down the law” was the driving force that motivated 1000 plus United States citizens to attempt a legal “Citizen’s Arrest” on the steps of the New York based UN building when Bush made his recent appearance there. It was certainly the appropriate action in the appropriate city by the appropriate local representatives of this “democratic” country. They weren’t looking for hero idolatry. The people who acted to make the legal “Citizen’s Arrest” in 9-07 (6 years after the crimes!) were simply being responsible American citizens.
“I am sure that simply “laying down the law” was the driving force that motivated 1000 plus United States citizens to attempt a legal “Citizen’s Arrest” on the steps of the New York based UN building when Bush made his recent appearance there”
Well, that took some serious courage…If the French did something like that we may hear about it, and applaud it…Americans attempt to arrest the President and this is the first place I am hearing about it.
Oh…1,000 Americans tried to arrest the President in front of the United Nations, eh…
flip the channel.
Maybe there is hope after all…
Good!
http://www.roguegovernment.com/news.php?id=4181
You pose the rhetorical question as to whether you’re being unfair. In truth, you’ve cogently summed up the essence of my angst with an economy of words. Over the years, you and I have often been accused of writing “over the heads” of our readers–absurdly implying that we should “dumb ourselves down” to the lowest common denominator. In this instance, anyone with a pulse can grasp the lamentable disparity between word and deed of most “progressives.” The buzz words used to rationalize running in place are growing by the millisecond, ranging from “overload,” to “compassion fatigue” to “futility syndrome.” As we’ve discussed ad nauseam, the complex behavioral dynamics that speak to courage of one’s convictions are rooted in character–the fundamental principles that define us and calibrate our moral compass. We shouldn’t be surprised that there’s a dearth of such character in our narcissistic and avaricious culture. Anyway, my brother, BRAVO on a superb piece!
E.
I recognize that what follows may chiefly apply to the life of an activist who focuses mainly on the plight of animals, but I believe the concept still packs validity in many other areas of social reform and revolution.
We are morally and ethically unevolved creatures and who are only concerned with ourselves and our immediate loved ones. We are too stupid and shallow (and, yes, lazy) to see the bigger picture, that we are connected to this dying world and all the suffering people and animals in it.
I never watch TV. But, I had to hem my son’s pants, so I flicked on PBS. There was a special on about the making of some documentary film (which I had obviously just missed) about a mother whose soldier son was killed in WWII. The filmmaker made a good point. We cannot fathom huge numbers like 6 million Jews killed by the Nazis (or 56 *billion* animals killed world-wide EVERY YEAR for human gluttony). But we can relate to the individual.
The filmmaker, from his description, completely captivated and engaged the audience with the intricacies of this one soldier’s life and relationships. By the time he dies, the audience feels like he is a member of their own family.
Maybe that’s what we have to do to drive our messages home to Johnny Public. Spell it out for them, spoon-feed them, if you will, and relate the suffering to their lives. Most people I know would not dream of harming a hair on the head of the family dog. In fact, as soon as there is any sign of illness or pain, they whisk their little Fifi or Fido off to the veterinarian.
However, they do not think twice of going to the supermarket and purchasing the flesh of another sentient creature, who lived a miserable, tortured existence in a factory “farm” and died a painful, violent death. It’s overwhelming and inconceivable to imagine that 10 billion animals (we cannot even fathom those numbers) are killed every year in this country alone for food. Maybe it would be a bit more realistic to imagine one’s beloved Fido caught in the agribusiness machine, and suffering horribly in a filthy, cramped pen, where he cannot turn around, being fed a slop of grain, antibiotics, and steroids, and being led off to watch all his fellow canines being brutally slaughtered, while, frozen with fear, he awaits his turn.
I have *SO* had it with my species and their lack of compassion and insight.
But, unfortunately, they are the ones we need to appeal to in order to change the world for the better.
We sovereign people, who inhabit the land of central North America plus certain off-shore Territories, have already instituted amongst ourselves a government to secure these birthright liberties and rights. We need only continue to stand on the fundamental principles of our ancestors’ 1776 Declaration of Independence from earthly rulers, which are that: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from consent of the governed.” The just government which was instituted following the War of Independence, and which still remains in full force and effect today, is The Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union — a ‘Law of Nations’ Treaty.
That Treaty, creating the Confederation united States of America, established a governing process that respected the supreme law of the land. We have been deceived into believing that the CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES replaced the Confederation Treaty as the supreme law of the land, but that is not true. The U.S. Constitution, along with all subsequent, subsidiary State Constitutions, were merely incorporating documents that created private political/commercial entities ordained by their signers, and not enacted by the informed choice of the sovereign people. Our unwitting ignorance of this truth has culminated in the present police-state under which we unnecessarily struggle to retain individual righteous dignity, the sanctity of the family, the fruits of our labor, and even our physical security along with the physical security of fellow people inhabiting the earth.
It is up to us sovereign people to re institute law and order. Time is of essence. Therefore, we must cease giving these corrupted and illegitimate governments ‘agreement.’ That means ostracizing them, by ceasing to interact with them even via protest initiatives. The effective means of restoring order is to activate the initial governing agreement amongst the people of the 50 independent nation-states (plus Territories) — the Articles of Confederation, inclusive within the Northwest Ordinance that created states beyond the initial thirteen. To access that governing process, we must also activate the ancient, dormant, Office of Man established under the laws set forth by our Creator. That law is administered in the present-day at the county level, by trustees who serve the sovereign people upon that county or anywhere within the land boundaries of the Confederation (per the terms of that Treaty). We currently may rely upon certain individuals who have voluntarily chosen to occupy the county office of notary and who also competently fulfill the duties of judge of the sovereigns’ courts. They are located upon York county, the nation-state Pennsylvania Republic. [See our posting of “A Voice of Freedom” by notary, David Clarence, following our Mission Statement.] The notary or judge processes our entitlement to our land and our commercial immunity from any trespass upon our inherent liberties.