But is this way of thinking relevant to the timely demise of American political festering orbs, be they democratic suppurating spherical bags of pus or republican excremental planetoids roiled by wriggling worms? Would it not be profoundly disingenuous of you to do anything other than cry out joyfully at their final consignment to the nether regions of Hell? Did you not feel a tiny spasm of exaltation upon hearing that Richard Nixon had died? Did you not feel the urge to do a little happy dance when John McCain bought the farm? And will you not have to restrain yourself from pumping your tiny fists in the air and shouting “Yesss!” when you hear that Henry Kissinger has finally kicked the bucket?
Well then, don’t hold back now either! Rejoice, ye nation, for a festering orb has been loosed from your firmament and has been harmlessly sucked into a black hole where it belongs. Feel the joy! Should you feel pangs of conscience at rejoicing over someone’s death, please consider that these festering orbs are not exactly human. Some people consider them to be reptiloids from outer space, but I believe this is fanciful.
I believe them to be humans who have had the extreme conceit of thinking themselves to be pagan deities; hence, thinking of them as heavenly orbs, most of which have been named after pagan gods, seems most apt. Their standards are high—so high that they are, in fact, double standards: one for them, another for everyone else. Their modus operandi seems to be the old Latin phrase Quod licet Iovi, non licet Bovi: what is permissible to Jove is not permissible to a bull. To wit, every US president has been a war criminal guilty of multiple war crimes, crimes against humanity and countless atrocities up to and including acts of genocide. For them, this is allowed; for the leaders of other nations—not so much, unless they happen to be allies, of course.
Jimmy Carter can dine with Indonesia’s dictator Suharto and sign weapons deals with him even has his troops carry out acts of genocide in East Timor. Reagan/Bush41, then Bush43, can flip-flop between considering the same bunch of vile miscreants as valiant, freedom-fighting mujahedeen, then as dastardly terrorist al Qaeda operatives, and first arming and equipping them, then battling them inconclusively for 17-odd years. For the festering orbs, the battle for all that is good and against all that is evil is made easy by the fact that the two are interchangeable on a whim: one moment Noriega is a CIA asset, his efforts in running Panama and in enhancing CIA’s cocaine trade much valued by the CIA director George Bush, and the next moment he is a criminal to be apprehended by staging a military invasion and imprisoned for life.
Humanitarian atrocities—in Kosovo, Libya or Syria—can be concocted on a whim, to justify humanitarian interventions that then involve real humanitarian atrocities (which are studiously ignored). The list of examples can be extended virtually ad infinitum, but the pattern remains the same: everything that the festering orbs do is by definition for the good of the country and the world, and if you disagree than you are by definition evil. Such logic takes us beyond any conception of morality and is therefore perfectly evil. Therefore, the festering orbs are incarnations and emanations of evil, and their deaths reduce the amount of evil in the world and are to be celebrated, not mourned.
Over my years spent living in the US, I have become quite entrenched in my view of American national politicians as a blight upon the heavenly firmament: festering orbs hanging low over the horizon. I fancifully imagine the democratic orbs, such as the Clintons and the Obamas, as suppurating spherical bags of pus, while the republican ones—the Bushes, mostly—as excremental planetoids roiled by wriggling worms. This exaggerates the differences between them somewhat, which are mostly cosmetic. It might have been possible for me to learn to ignore them altogether if only people would have stopped pointing at them and talking about them, but they never did, there being so little them to discuss beyond the choice between the two types of festering orbs.
Which is not to say that this topic is worthy of too much discussion either; rather, it is simply irritating, like an itch that wants to be scratched, because no matter what sort of orb happens to be in command, their responsibilities remain the same. These include:
1. Making sure that the dollar-based wealth pump, which drains countries around the world of their savings and keeps them in perpetual debt peonage, keeps running
2. Attending to the care and feeding of the military-industrial complex, which always needs terrorist dictatorships to arm and new, undefended targets to bomb back to the stone age
3. Perpetuating a sham democracy which grants the wishes of business lobbies and oligarchs while doing its best to ignore everyone else
4. Catering to the needs of certain privileged ethnic groups—the Anglos and the Jews, essentially.
These, along with keeping the prisons full and making sure that the rich keep getting richer while the poor stay poor, are bipartisan concerns. Non-privileged Americans can vote, jump in a lake, stave in each others’ heads with 20-pound sledgehammers, or just sit there Buddha-like, arms and legs folded—politically, the effect will be exactly the same.
One particular excremental planetoid roiled by worms stands out in my memory. When I was being granted US citizenship, the stuffed shirt administering the procedure asked me (to make absolutely sure that I was fit to be an American) who the vice president was. I was of an age at which young men aren’t too concerned with retaining such useless bits of information, and so I just shrugged. I was granted the citizenship anyway. The correct response would have been “What is George Bush.” But it was definitely the wrong question. The right questions would have been:
1. Do you understand that once you accept US citizenship you will be made to pay US taxes no matter where in the world you decide to live? (The US is one of two tax-slave states; the other is Eritrea.)
2. Do you understand that, once you accept US citizenship, no matter in the world you live, all of your children, even if they never set foot in the US, may be forced to pay US taxes too?
3. Do you understand that should you ever decide to relinquish your US citizenship, you will have to pay $2,350, pass an IRS audit and will probably be forced to part with a large share of your savings?
4. Do you understand that your children will not be allowed to relinquish their US citizenship under any circumstances until they turn 18?
5. Do you understand that while the US is the prime money-laundering spot for the world’s oligarchs, you as a US national will be made toxic to foreign banking institutions because of onerous and excessive US financial regulations?
6. Do you understand that, unlike many other countries, the US doesn’t grant its citizens any particular rights beyond the vaporous and abstract “life, liberty and pursuit of happiness”? Specifically, you will not have the right to a living wage, to affordable housing, to medical care, to merit-based education or to a dignified retirement, and that all you can ever count on as a US citizen is your own luck and a bit of charity.
These are all very useful and helpful questions to ask anyone about to accept US citizenship, as a fair warning. But instead I was expected to mouth the words “George Bush,” and when I didn’t, that was fine too. Apparently, they’ll take you as long as you have a heartbeat. As long as you have a heartbeat, you can be all that you can be—cannon fodder, a debt surf or a drug addict living on the street. You can even dream of becoming a festering orb yourself one day!
Well, George Bush no longer has a heartbeat: he is finally dead. Hallelujah! Let the heavens rejoice!
28 comments:
I felt the same way when Margeret Thatcher Died. (The grasping old hag).
"George HW Bush, Where were you on November 22nd, 1963?"
GHW Bush - "I can't remember".
For Americans over the age of 6 in 1963, this must put him in a minority of one.
Gotta hand it to him though, he had a sense of humour. (see link)
https://streamable.com/hbq73
So hold on- if I go to a foreign country & have a kid with a foreign woman, then my kid gets a job later on, he or she is taxed on that income? If so, what do they do if they don't get it? Supposing someone doesn't send those taxes?
"Ding Dong! The Wicked Witch is Dead!"
If the Munchkins can speak ill of the dead, even going as far as to rejoice over a house falling on their enemy by awarding the key to the city to Dorothy, then why not the rest of us?
During the many times actors and actresses were made to wait between shots, American film icon, Bette Davis, was famous for her story-telling, gossip, and holding-forth. She had a career of dirt to get off her chest. She spared no one. During one of these episodes she was really laying on the dirt about recently deceased Joan Crawford, a long-term professional and personal enemy. A young starlet reminded Ms. Davis about how it was wrong to speak ill of the dead, to which Ms. Davis replied: "Why? Just because they are dead doesn't mean they have changed."
I am reminded almost daily of this, now that I am at the age where I am out-living many of the more unpleasant people who have come in, and are now going out of my life. There is great satisfaction gained in surviving your enemies; even when you had no personal stake in the living and breathing of some of them. Ah, but the dying. You can be just as glad they have stopped tormenting you, as you are they have stopped tormenting the world.
Of course, one day, and probably closer than we would like to think, the Ruling Class will find a way to circumvent the great equalizer called death, and illicitly gain immortality.
Just look at the great leaps in mad science these Chinese scientists have made recently in Eugenics. Unfortunately, anything is possible.
Truths. Thanks Dmitry. It will surely cause American's tiny heads to explode. - KK
Before I go on to read the rest I just have to thank you for the wonderful memory of my father that just popped up in full colour in his voice and left me with a huge grin and a few tears, the good kind that remind you you have a soul.. He had not had the opportunity to learn Latin but knew a few sayings. If he claimed a small privilege that us kids found not quite fair he would intone “Quod licet Jovi, non licet Bovi”. Another favourite was De gustibus non est disputandum.
I remember when I became a U.S. citizen the examiner asked a bunch of questions. I had read the U.S. Constitution that morning just as a review. One of the questions was something like "What is the 13th Amendment?" I did not remember which was which after the first ten, so a rattled one off. Let's say, the 14th Amendment. The examiner said "Right."
What really mattered was an earlier question: "What is your occupation?" My answer was "Electronics Engineer working on anti-submarine warfare for the US Navy." This was soon after the Soviet Union had put up Sputnik and several US Vanguard satellite launches had failed. So my occupation was so right that they overlooked that I answered the Constitution question wrong.
Excellent article and the truth. The United States is based on racism and exploitation of various racial and ethnic groups.
When Papa Bush insinuated himself one night into americas living rooms via the aptly named boob tube, for a very important chat-update that all citizens apparently critically needed to hear, and proceeded to tell us all how drugs were taking america down (even going so far as to employ the sad prop of a "bag of crack cocaine" that was actually captured that very day right in front of the White House gates) it was classic lying sociopathic BS of the highest order since he was indirectly responsible for its existence in the good ole USSA in the first place. In the classic words of Hunter Thompson "How long can this blizzard of shame go on?"
I think if you are an American but your child is born abroad with foreign wife, that doesn't make them an American, if born on American soil, I think you are automatically considered an American. I think Dimitry knows more about this, he made sure his child was not born in the US.
Is miserable to speak without respect about dead persons.
Between states the only law valid is the jungle law, and a head of state cannot rule according ethic principles
Here's an expansion of your concise euology:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FxRLVj8z2x4&t=493s
The problem is the innate logics, and human interaction instincts and emotions, which guide rational planning sense, of the operations of the social organization itself. The individuals as components are not initially at fault, nor does it matter which individual gets to occupy whatever designated system role. Therefore, their are no special rare talents for any of the government, power, elite position occupiers. The human hive has hive society logic of oil, power and war particularly oil, to power the hive. These kinds of adaptable roles and rules are evolved and inherited from the very first human city-states. Before that inherited from group selection working on primal human tribal primate instincts, which implies the Dunbar Limit.
Selection for higher office is from the candidates with the most desire to ascend to the next level Faustian pact with maintaining power of the hive by any means possible. To achieve pre-selection candidate eligibility probably requires a certain evil personality type, cultural and socio-pathology, incubated in trusted national institutions for bringing up the princelings from the master breeder families. (Royal Breeding Queens and Royal Jelly Stuff)
All inhabitants of major system positions have signed on the dotted lines, sold their souls for the hive institution goals, logics and technology, and of course signed up for the continued necessary survival sacrifice of all of nature, and most other people, who are now consigned to climate and biosphere collapse hell.
Simple reasoning says such systems will only change after these hive species destroy the natural biosphere and resource supplies that enable this highly successful hive species generational reproduction, no matter how much we laugh at their ridiculous ant-like individual simple component behaviours, and their amazing ant-like communication and co-ordination abilities.
Michael Rynn,
Yes, American psychopathic Brahmins like the Bushes climed down from the trees in African savannah 3 million years ago fully formed. A likely theory.
Anselmo,
You don't get around much outside the jungle you hail from, do you? And so you think that the entire planet is one big jungle. It isn't. Rogue states are actually quite rare.
"Hatred serves as an antidote to fear, which renders you impotent. Hatred brings courage back, it comes up with the impossible, digs tunnels under the barbed wire. If the weak didn’t hate, power would forever remain in the hands of power, and empires would be eternal."
["La haine sert d'antidote à la peur, qui rend impuissant. Elle redonne courage, invente de l'impossible, creuse des tunnels sous les barbelés. Si les faibles ne haïssaient pas, la force resterait éternellement à la force. Et les empires seraient éternels."]
--Régis Debray: Le Feu sacré. Fonctions du religieux
Thank you for your honest appraisal of the Us Presidents. Every day I learn more about the heinous things they have done and feel shame. America had the money and the wisdom to do so much good for the world and we blew it.
VPK
Can't thank you enough for your write-up on the reality of the US political system.
I could not watch television the past few days once the media began covering the funeral of this man, turning him from a wat criminal to a saintly figure.
You wrote the truth, not only about him, but all former Office holders of President of the United States. Seems there is a fratenity as the way they all hang together.
Yes, Obama is in bed deep, so much for Hope...
As an Orthodox Christian we are to love our enemies. We should be praying for the now reposed George HW Bush.
Rex -
As an Orthodox Christian, I suggest you go to the nearest pet cemetery and pray for some pets, especially the ones who died of rabies, and may or may not have bitten you.
Dmitri, wonderful post but I wish to correct you on one point,
"Do you understand that, unlike many other countries, the US doesn’t grant its citizens any particular rights beyond the vaporous and abstract “life, liberty and pursuit of happiness”? Specifically, you will not have the right to a living wage, to affordable housing, to medical care, to merit-based education or to a dignified retirement, and that all you can ever count on as a US citizen is your own luck and a bit of charity."
The US Constitution grants no rights and was never intended to. It was only intended to recognize and protect natural rights. These other things you mention are NOT rights as they require others to provide these things to you, and that sort of thing can't be a right, we have no right to the fruits of another's labor, that is to enslave a person, take his money to pay for a home or medical care or whatever.
Of course the Constitution is useless as a set of laws these days, but in the society imagined by the founders, wehave the to peacefully persue anything we like as long as we do not take away the rigths of others to do the same.
There are great writing on this topic, start with Rothbard.
All the best
AEP
Paulsen seems to think that there are such things as "natural rights". Well, rights do not exist without responsibilities, and what are "natural responsibilities"? Well, the most natural responsibility of all is to take care of one's family, neighbors, kin and tribe. And if you want to be anything more than a hill-dwelling troglodyte, you'll need to find a way to take responsibility for lots of other people as well. Without that key element, any constitution you draw up will simply be a tool of subjugation and enslavement of the weak by the excremental planetoids, for which Paulsen is an apologist, paying lip service to the soiled piece of paper they fetishize, called the US Constitution.
The disease is cultural and social. It then is irremediable in America.
I wonder why you never reserve this level of contempt for so many Soviet leaders in all the posts you've featured. I'm sure many have been guilty of making their own people and the world similarly worse off. Or is that not really true?
I must express my admiration for that queasily apposite picture of the Elder Shrub. That is one freakazoid moffermucker.
@edmund: I'm sure Dmitry could deliver a resounding denunciation of the actions of Russian despots and bureaucrats. In fact, he's done so in the past.
What, are we supposed to be equal opportunity haters? Is that the new justice for all? He writes the articles in English for a seemingly mostly western Caucasian audience.
But babelfish could translate them to Russian if ye like. Love them cute curly Cyrllic letters, I duz.
I felt conflicted when Thatcher died, I hate her, and yet was somewhat proud of her( Helmut Kohl, a 200 cm, near as dammit, German Chancellor, was reportedly scared shitless of her). He was a dignified patrician, but an absolute monster. I'm glad he died, I hope it wasn't a good death.
Now I feel peavish...
The question we need to ask is if the world would be a better place if the Bush family never existed. I believe their is no argument to be made for no the answer is clearly yes. If you were not in a coma it would be clear to you he wanted to be a negative force he wanted to be a merchant of misery he wanted people to die. I am relieved he is dead. No quotes form brilliant men are needed just be happy he is gone.
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