Tuesday, September 02, 2008
Good Cop, Bad Cop
From my progressive political perspective, getting excited about Obama is pathetically delusional. That's a corner of consciousness where corporations excel. They define the world in the mass media to suit their own narrow, pecuniary interests, forcing citizens to either face the reality of class warfare and exploitation, or to sink into the available delusions of democracy.
The fact is this country is run by the rich, for the rich, but you would never know it from watching TV or going to a public school.
Obama and McCain are fundamentally dishonest. The entire game of American politics is dishonest. They're playing a corporate game of Good Cop, Bad Cop. They are both working for the rich. Neither want significant change. The campaign rhetoric from both sides is sheer moronic nonsense. The differences are so minuscule as to engender ridicule.
Iraq War:
Facts: The Iraq War is an immoral, illegal violent aggression (invasion) of a sovereign nation, initiated and justified on the basis of lies. Everyone knows this now. This isn't even a point of debate. Colin Powell lied to the U.N., Bush, Cheney, lied. Rice lied. Everyone knows this. It is an act in violation of international law causing death and destruction. This isn't even debatable.
What do the people want? According to recent CNN polls, a substantial majority of U.S. citizens think the Iraq War was a "mistake" (about 60 percent) and about two-thirds "oppose the war."
We do not live in a democracy, folks. The country is controlled by big business. The candidates and elected officials lie to us repeatedly. The mainstream news media is owned by a half-dozen corporations. These corporations have a deeply vested financial interest in war.
Two-thirds of the American people want out of Iraq.
What are the policy positions of the candidates?
McCain: Has stated the U.S. could be in Iraq 100 years.
Obama: Has recently stated that he would move some troops from Iraq to Afghanistan.
That's it, folks...
Good Cop, Bad Cop.
McCain, everyone knows is a cold-hearted shill for the rich.
Obama is the "kinder, gentler" shill for the rich.
Neither candidate intends to do what the American people want. Both candidates are screwing the American public. Other candidates reflecting the mainstream views of the people (Nader and McKinney, for example), are kept out of the mainstream media and out of the mainstream political process.
Both mainstream candidates for president, Democratic and Republican, have policy positions which are distantly removed from the mainstream of the people. The media game, and the Dem/Repub game, is to marginalize the mainstream wishes of the American people, while presenting the radical right-wing policies of both main political parties as if they represent the current thinking of the people. Nothing could be further from the truth. It's a scam.
Why do the media collude with the mainstream candidates to offer public policies which ignore the wishes of the people? The ostensible "mainstream" candidates are functionaries in service to wealth and power, while feigning populist policies.
The corporate mass media present constant false images of a functioning democracy.
In contrast, the American political reality presents itself as long-term abandonment of the wishes of the poor and middle class.
The American body-politic is a victim of political abuse. Such conditions are represented by long-term abandonment, and powerlessness to confront the political abusers.
The combination of powerlessness to stop the abuse and the denial from the abusers, creates the classic symptoms of the abused: inappropriate attachment to the abusers, denial of abuse, and the repression of the rage of injustice.
That part of the American body-politic self capable of knowing the reality of abuse goes underground, while the conscious self encapsulates into pragmatic denial.
The protesters at both the Democratic and Republican national conventions represent the return of the repressed knowledge of the healthy body-politic self. Concomitantly, the delegates to the conventions represent that part of the self which has chosen a delusional state in the interest of survival. For the abused, the aphorism, "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em," becomes a mantra for sheer survival, but no amount of posturing by the false self can deny the truth of the abuse. The truth is always known, though repressed. The truth shall always make itself known.
The return of the repressed is an ineluctable event, but it is always in conflict with the more "accommodating" component of the self.
The repressed self represents the eternal search for truth and justice. whereas the mask of accommodation is more politically pragmatic. This is where Obama-mania makes meaning: me thinks you celebrate too much. (With apologies to Shakespeare.)
The great moments in political history arrive when the pragmatic, accommodating part of the body politic recognizes that the angry protesters outside, are in reality falsely excluded from the self. When the body political forces of accommodation embrace the fearful truths carried by the externalized angry protesters, forces are joined in healthy human social solidarity. Good things happen.
As in the life history of a single individual victim of abuse in the nuclear family, a crisis typically is required to precipitate the meeting of the false (accommodating) self and the externalized, ostracized angry self bearing the truths. So it goes with the self of the body politic of any nation.
When the body politic recognizes the Good Cop, Bad Cop game of the public-policy abusers, in rushes overwhelming feelings of exploitation. Out of the conflagration of the accommodating false self, rises the phoenix of social change.
The rich fear the legitimate political power emergent from the synthesis of the "accommodating self" and the "defiant self." Divide and conquer.
Ending the abuse of the American body-politic will not come without roiling pains of catharsis.
Heed the nagging motivation to resist respectability. The respectable element of society represent passive bystanders to the crime.
Criminals are in charge of America, but they are "our" criminals. The betrayal and abuse can be rationalized. "Surely, they had an honorable motive for such ostensibly heinous actions. They were actually interested in bringing freedom to the Iraqis. See, even though they lied to us, the death and destruction really is okay!"
To acknowledge the crimes of the political establishment, is to acknowledge the crimes of the American pater familias. To acknowledge the political rape of the poor and middle class by the patriarchal political institutions of America is enormously painful, and scary. Daddy doesn't love me.
Good Cop, Bad Cop. Presidential election, 2008.
The fact is this country is run by the rich, for the rich, but you would never know it from watching TV or going to a public school.
Obama and McCain are fundamentally dishonest. The entire game of American politics is dishonest. They're playing a corporate game of Good Cop, Bad Cop. They are both working for the rich. Neither want significant change. The campaign rhetoric from both sides is sheer moronic nonsense. The differences are so minuscule as to engender ridicule.
Iraq War:
Facts: The Iraq War is an immoral, illegal violent aggression (invasion) of a sovereign nation, initiated and justified on the basis of lies. Everyone knows this now. This isn't even a point of debate. Colin Powell lied to the U.N., Bush, Cheney, lied. Rice lied. Everyone knows this. It is an act in violation of international law causing death and destruction. This isn't even debatable.
What do the people want? According to recent CNN polls, a substantial majority of U.S. citizens think the Iraq War was a "mistake" (about 60 percent) and about two-thirds "oppose the war."
We do not live in a democracy, folks. The country is controlled by big business. The candidates and elected officials lie to us repeatedly. The mainstream news media is owned by a half-dozen corporations. These corporations have a deeply vested financial interest in war.
Two-thirds of the American people want out of Iraq.
What are the policy positions of the candidates?
McCain: Has stated the U.S. could be in Iraq 100 years.
Obama: Has recently stated that he would move some troops from Iraq to Afghanistan.
That's it, folks...
Good Cop, Bad Cop.
McCain, everyone knows is a cold-hearted shill for the rich.
Obama is the "kinder, gentler" shill for the rich.
Neither candidate intends to do what the American people want. Both candidates are screwing the American public. Other candidates reflecting the mainstream views of the people (Nader and McKinney, for example), are kept out of the mainstream media and out of the mainstream political process.
Both mainstream candidates for president, Democratic and Republican, have policy positions which are distantly removed from the mainstream of the people. The media game, and the Dem/Repub game, is to marginalize the mainstream wishes of the American people, while presenting the radical right-wing policies of both main political parties as if they represent the current thinking of the people. Nothing could be further from the truth. It's a scam.
Why do the media collude with the mainstream candidates to offer public policies which ignore the wishes of the people? The ostensible "mainstream" candidates are functionaries in service to wealth and power, while feigning populist policies.
The corporate mass media present constant false images of a functioning democracy.
In contrast, the American political reality presents itself as long-term abandonment of the wishes of the poor and middle class.
The American body-politic is a victim of political abuse. Such conditions are represented by long-term abandonment, and powerlessness to confront the political abusers.
The combination of powerlessness to stop the abuse and the denial from the abusers, creates the classic symptoms of the abused: inappropriate attachment to the abusers, denial of abuse, and the repression of the rage of injustice.
That part of the American body-politic self capable of knowing the reality of abuse goes underground, while the conscious self encapsulates into pragmatic denial.
The protesters at both the Democratic and Republican national conventions represent the return of the repressed knowledge of the healthy body-politic self. Concomitantly, the delegates to the conventions represent that part of the self which has chosen a delusional state in the interest of survival. For the abused, the aphorism, "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em," becomes a mantra for sheer survival, but no amount of posturing by the false self can deny the truth of the abuse. The truth is always known, though repressed. The truth shall always make itself known.
The return of the repressed is an ineluctable event, but it is always in conflict with the more "accommodating" component of the self.
The repressed self represents the eternal search for truth and justice. whereas the mask of accommodation is more politically pragmatic. This is where Obama-mania makes meaning: me thinks you celebrate too much. (With apologies to Shakespeare.)
The great moments in political history arrive when the pragmatic, accommodating part of the body politic recognizes that the angry protesters outside, are in reality falsely excluded from the self. When the body political forces of accommodation embrace the fearful truths carried by the externalized angry protesters, forces are joined in healthy human social solidarity. Good things happen.
As in the life history of a single individual victim of abuse in the nuclear family, a crisis typically is required to precipitate the meeting of the false (accommodating) self and the externalized, ostracized angry self bearing the truths. So it goes with the self of the body politic of any nation.
When the body politic recognizes the Good Cop, Bad Cop game of the public-policy abusers, in rushes overwhelming feelings of exploitation. Out of the conflagration of the accommodating false self, rises the phoenix of social change.
The rich fear the legitimate political power emergent from the synthesis of the "accommodating self" and the "defiant self." Divide and conquer.
Ending the abuse of the American body-politic will not come without roiling pains of catharsis.
Heed the nagging motivation to resist respectability. The respectable element of society represent passive bystanders to the crime.
Criminals are in charge of America, but they are "our" criminals. The betrayal and abuse can be rationalized. "Surely, they had an honorable motive for such ostensibly heinous actions. They were actually interested in bringing freedom to the Iraqis. See, even though they lied to us, the death and destruction really is okay!"
To acknowledge the crimes of the political establishment, is to acknowledge the crimes of the American pater familias. To acknowledge the political rape of the poor and middle class by the patriarchal political institutions of America is enormously painful, and scary. Daddy doesn't love me.
Good Cop, Bad Cop. Presidential election, 2008.
