Into the Abyss

Tue Aug 15 11:07:26 CDT 2017

I think the America is hooked on” argument i goes both ways. Right now, most of the people I see on a daily basis are what is now considered liberal, and they are just as addicted to the spectacle of what the right is doing as the followers of fox new that I see at the gym every day, and the people I used to hear drooling over whatever the recent Obama "outrage" was. Many of my friends and family get up and spend their morning, and free time later in the day, going over  trump’s recent tweets and messaging, or talking to other people about the craziness. I see people everywhere salivating over MSNBCon their tablets and discussing things excitedly with anyone who will listen. It reminds me of people talking about last week’s Sienfeld or GOT episode. If you, like the majority of people, are only going to gossip about the spectacle and post memes (nicely renamed as “spreading awareness”) for 4 years until you vote against whatever republican runs, what is the point of fixating on the situation; unless you are hooked on the drama of it? I think that the insanity has become a great thing to focus on for a lot of people who’s lives aren’t very stimulating or exciting, that it has become enormously satisfying for a lot of people. It is entertainment and diversion, and America LOVES to be entertained and diverted.

Also, since addiction has come up, I’ll take it a little farther. I doubt I’m the only person here to have experienced, or been effected by, substance abuse and addiction. So, I’m sure that some of you are aware that just taking the drug away from the addict doesn’t fix the problem. There is a lot of time spent trying to fill the gap left behind and finding a new purpose to get up in the morning. If all of the meth in the world dissaperaed forever, the core issue of the fixation and dependence on outside stimulation would still be there, many would just find something else to throw themselves into, and it probably wouldn’t be hang-gliding If we are thinking of America as being hooked on white supremacy, or how awful trump is, or GOT, what do we think happens when the substance is gone? Because before long, they will be. What will fill the hole? How will/would America deal with things if they didn’t have somebody or something to point at and say “they're whats wrong with everything!”? It seems like people have become very dependent on having an enemy. I suspect that until there is a shift in this mentality, there will always be the spectacle of “awful people that we are better than" because people crave it as much as they crave real change. 

As much attention as is being paid to the alt right and Trump and these fuckheads down the street from me with their tiki torches, the world is evolving past those idiots at a pretty impressive rate. The fact that the downtown mall here in C-Ville (which is a part of Dixie - we are an hour from Appomattox, home of the R. E. Lee museum) is usually full of people of all races, genders, sexual orientations, and appearances interacting pleasantly and peacefully. This was not the case very long ago, and the fact that the area is swarming in KKK members, most of which were not there the other day, has done nothing to impede this progress. 

> On Aug 15, 2017, at 7:33 AM, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> To Joseph's sense of this in history. See also Democracy in Chains, new book, for deep relevance. 
> https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/aug/13/america-white-supremacy-hooked-drug-charlottesville-virginia <https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/aug/13/america-white-supremacy-hooked-drug-charlottesville-virginia>
> 
> 
> 
> On Mon, Aug 14, 2017 at 11:54 AM, Joseph Tracy <brook7 at sover.net <mailto:brook7 at sover.net>> wrote:
> I am not at all persuaded these alt right ideas ever receded very much or that they are only present when they take on the most blatant expressions of racism and celebration of international aggression. They have always had major voices in US mainstream politics from
> Mcnamara to Kissinger, from Clintonian economics to Friedman.
> 
> I believe most of US history has been steeped in this same aggression and racism and post WW2 is not the exception but simply a time when these forces were more expertly disguised because they were overseas or otherwise made invisible( poor black areas becoming dumping grounds for toxics, stop and frisk). The only reprieve and change of direction with any lasting impact was FDR era socialism. The democrats have slowly but surely betrayed the best of those reforms while allowing a token inclusion of Black americans. For many individual americans of color this has been a dramatic positive thing, but statistically the problems remain as severe in Democratic regions as in Republican ones. Clinton’s policies of large scale incarceration as nasty in its long term effects as Bush era policies.  Meanwhle the growth of international militarism at huge taxpayer expense has been consistently supported by both parties and most Media and is profoundly racist.
> 
> Bernie showed there can be another voice with broad public appeal but the media clearly saw that as a threat.
> 
> What I am saying is that the answer is not just a rejection of the undiluted fascism by imperial tweet, but the creation of a new body of values and practical solutions that look toward the end of hegemonic imperialism, and the beginning of  sustainable local economies and politics. To give up on big ideas at this time seems wrong-headed to me.
> 
> 
> 
> > On Aug 13, 2017, at 4:35 PM, Mark Thibodeau <jerkyleboeuf at gmail.com <mailto:jerkyleboeuf at gmail.com>> wrote:
> >
> > Well, Drudge IS Jewish, after all. So theee must be at least a tiny
> > speck of consciousness about this kind of stuff... race memory, if you
> > will. At least enough to give him a frisson of uncanny, generational
> > recognition.
> >
> > Re: the look and attire of the right-wing mob this time... on Twitter
> > the self-described "scumbag left" (like the Chapo Trap House gang) are
> > calling this "the Pussy Riot" and comedian Doug Stanhope has stepped
> > up with a great solution for the next time there's a tiki
> > torch-wielding bunch of Nazis marching through your town: water
> > balloons filled with gasoline.
> >
> > The footage of that Nazi plowing through the crowd of peaceful
> > protesters is harrowing and disgusting in its blatant, brazen
> > cowardice.
> >
> > But I have to agree with you, Gary. Positive (by which I mean
> > negative) reactions to this affront set aside for the moment, I do
> > believe that the waters of the Rubicon are lapping at our collective
> > toes. It's like the Powers That Be (or, in this case, the rogue Deep
> > State faction that I've been calling the New Fascist International)
> > have perfected some new form of brainwashing - a technique that leaves
> > the subject/victim's mind not only altered, but booby-trapped against
> > any and all attempts at reasoning with it.
> >
> > Real journalism is "Fake News". Lies in the service of the Far Right
> > agenda are Truth. BLM = KKK. Immigration = White Genocide.
> >
> > Booby-trapped brains. Impervious to reason, logic, or empirical
> > evidence that contradicts their erroneous beliefs. And with every
> > passing day, everywhere you look, there's more of these fuckers. For
> > fuck's sake, they're working in the WHITE HOUSE.
> >
> > We are so royally screwed.
> >
> > Jerky
> >
> >
> > On Sun, Aug 13, 2017 at 4:02 PM, gary webb <gwebb8686 at gmail.com <mailto:gwebb8686 at gmail.com>> wrote:
> >> I don't know about the rest of the list but I've been unnaturally disturbed
> >> about the events of Charlottesville. As an American, I suppose I should be
> >> more cynical, and actually come to expect this sort of violence, but there
> >> is something off. Looking at the pictures, these Unite the Right guys look
> >> pretty unremarkable, like VCR repairman,not what I'd associate with
> >> storm-trooper, AKA Puck Beaverton, the resemble Arendt's depiction of
> >> Eichmann, not paramilitary types, which I've come to expect, but its
> >> nonetheless remarkable in 2017, that the "Blood and Soil" movement nonsense
> >> feels it can make a big PR-push into the mainstream.
> >>
> >> I found the President's silence to be remarkable, and David Duke's tweet,
> >> and this all goes back to that NRA video Jerky posted a while back, a
> >> campaign is afoot to provoke and demonize the left, and that's what these
> >> Alt-Right Nazis do, then the right has images which they spin to scare the
> >> hell out of paranoid suburbanites...
> >>
> >> It looks like the plan backfired, and an innocent woman was killed
> >> protesting, and others injured by some kamikaze white nationalist from Ohio.
> >> But I'm sure in the coming months or years, they will have their Horst
> >> Wessel... and the Right will continue to use these assholes as blunt
> >> instruments, just like the Weimar right did, thinking that they can control
> >> them, until its too late...
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> > -
> > Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l <http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l>
> 
> -
> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?listpynchon-l <http://www.waste.org/mail/?listpynchon-l>
> 

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://waste.org/pipermail/pynchon-l/attachments/20170815/e1541a52/attachment.html>