America has bought the lie that the market place will solve all the ills of society. It has been defrauded by this confidence trick, this brazen formulation from the most piratical inflection of Wall Street and the corporate sphere. That the self-serving orb of high finance would ever volunteer to fix a social disease or problem is as likely as an elephant piloting an aeroplane. Yet this is not only political orthodoxy but the most very virulent Anglo-Saxon strain of private-capital thought. For this reason a legitimate left, or a European style left would fail in America because it goes against the culture as well as the politics. Only 'a fair shake' poem aligned with a true left force could ever have a chance, and even then its scope would be limited.
And so that virulent strain has mutated into Donald Trump. A man who understands culture and media more than politics, a man who is not very far from a goon, a man who is more the head of an ochlocracy than the president of the voter of sober judgement. Not for Trump is the slow and careful Swede. This election, among many things, was also an election between Dionysos and Apollo. And the laughing grimace of the mad, dancing drunk, won. Thus confirmed is the disease, the virus. The virus of legitimized greed, the confirmation of poverty, the stratification of people, the arrangement of quality and capital. This is the result of any society that puts money at the centre and not ideas. A few people benefit now from money but, everyone, always will benefit from good ideas. Donald Trump will expand the remit of what money can do and will assail on the wellbeing of millions. If history will remember him, it won't be for kind reasons.
And what kind of vigorous opposition is there? There are mealy-mouthed murmurings. Let the con-artist govern, they say. Give the most diseased, selfish money-grabber the chance to rule. This is no more an opposition than saying nothing as you are being robbed. The political class and their pundits wind on. When anyone winds on, windy in their speech, a solid breaking of the wind is the only decent response.
The liberal left is too busy deciding if it should be 'manhole' or 'person-hole' to be rallying against crypto-fascism. Relativism has dissected the very language they need to post a solid defense or mount a stout attack. If all language can be interpreted any which way than no words have meaning and all words have no meaning. This abnegates the purpose of language as a means of communication. It quite possibly nullifies thought. Words must have meaning and they should have a precise meaning. If we cannot quantify things then we cannot understand anything. All leads out from that. If the liberal left think to defend the ever-increasing meaninglessness of objects and defeat the most libertarian and libertine promises of capitalism, then they must possess a power unknown to history. That is possible but its certainly not a decent or honorable position. The liberal left is post-modernism taken to its logical conclusion and so has concluded the liberal left.
And what of the radical left? The angry left? The left that calls a spade, not an earth moving object operated by an individual possessing mammalian qualities and by their own will, but simply, a spade. It is understood that if the crazy right has not only defeated the sensible right, but the sensible left then the radical left has some prospect. And this has explained to a degree the rise of Bernie Sanders, a man more qualified than Hillary Clinton to be president because moral, social, political and philosophical experience is deeper than public office or title. This left has more legitimacy because it derives its power from the foot of suffering in the state, and thats where sits the just seat of government. And Bernie has lit a fire with plain speaking. He has lit a fire under the soles of feet destined otherwise never to march. And they have sung a sweet song. Maybe dear Bernie can win. Maybe he can shoot for the moon and get it. And maybe America could inch closer to the just state, where ideas rule not men and their money. Or maybe not. Que sera sera.
There also remains an iron-faced fact. If all seven billion people had the middle-class life of the average American, a middle-class existence in decline, than we would need four planets worth of resources, not to mention four atmospheres, to effect it. This has two implications: 1/ Either we must lower our expectations of being middle-class or 2/ keep two-thirds of humanity in poverty. The latter surely cannot be the stated position of a forward thinking mind. Which means we must work on the former. Our society is long on things and short on ideas, precisely because money is the centre of the argument, not ideas. And money is thing. Money is greed codified, poverty confirmed and power consecrated. Unless we rise above its gravity, its thralldom of the primitive brain and our weakness for primordial rule, we may not survive.
What we must do is decide that there exist a thing called the dignity of man and that that it belongs to everyone. And that it will be defended against the egregious privations of the market place. It will be defended against the wool-minded brains of the liberal left. That it will be defended against the tyranny-creep of foreign despots. That it will be defended against self-defeat, and the anarchy of the religio-fascists. That it will be defended against the internet, a thing as yet that is high on knowledge but low on culture, a thing that awaits sentience as the primordial ooze awaited single-celled organisms. And yet everyone knows it. This project may appear too heavy and really should be buried, but it keeps recurring and so we must answer it. We should answer it honestly rather than with craven procrastination.
A wise man once said that only a fool learns from his own mistakes; a wise man learns from the mistakes of others. We have known for a good long while that that Anglo-Saxon virus was unsustainable. Not only are we to repeat those mistakes, but we are to fail to learn from our own. Thus we are worse than fools. Old Europe looks on and weeps. We have anchored ourselves to a doctrine that only guarantees poverty. Worse than this it sponsors the rich, gives them welfare. Is this the just city? What happened to the seat of Lincoln? The pen of Jefferson? The courage of Washington? Usurped. Stolen by money. And by the con-artists. And America, too stupid to save itself, lays the machines out for its own torture. Plaudite omnes.
Therefore we must rally. We must march. We must stand. We must fight. We must resist. We must not let what little that separates stop us from mounting a defense. We must join in what we have deepest in common to square us up for the fight. We must neither let the thralldom of money distract, nor trinkets nor favor dissuade. Ours is the right and dignity, and it is maintained only with strong defenses.
And so that virulent strain has mutated into Donald Trump. A man who understands culture and media more than politics, a man who is not very far from a goon, a man who is more the head of an ochlocracy than the president of the voter of sober judgement. Not for Trump is the slow and careful Swede. This election, among many things, was also an election between Dionysos and Apollo. And the laughing grimace of the mad, dancing drunk, won. Thus confirmed is the disease, the virus. The virus of legitimized greed, the confirmation of poverty, the stratification of people, the arrangement of quality and capital. This is the result of any society that puts money at the centre and not ideas. A few people benefit now from money but, everyone, always will benefit from good ideas. Donald Trump will expand the remit of what money can do and will assail on the wellbeing of millions. If history will remember him, it won't be for kind reasons.
And what kind of vigorous opposition is there? There are mealy-mouthed murmurings. Let the con-artist govern, they say. Give the most diseased, selfish money-grabber the chance to rule. This is no more an opposition than saying nothing as you are being robbed. The political class and their pundits wind on. When anyone winds on, windy in their speech, a solid breaking of the wind is the only decent response.
The liberal left is too busy deciding if it should be 'manhole' or 'person-hole' to be rallying against crypto-fascism. Relativism has dissected the very language they need to post a solid defense or mount a stout attack. If all language can be interpreted any which way than no words have meaning and all words have no meaning. This abnegates the purpose of language as a means of communication. It quite possibly nullifies thought. Words must have meaning and they should have a precise meaning. If we cannot quantify things then we cannot understand anything. All leads out from that. If the liberal left think to defend the ever-increasing meaninglessness of objects and defeat the most libertarian and libertine promises of capitalism, then they must possess a power unknown to history. That is possible but its certainly not a decent or honorable position. The liberal left is post-modernism taken to its logical conclusion and so has concluded the liberal left.
And what of the radical left? The angry left? The left that calls a spade, not an earth moving object operated by an individual possessing mammalian qualities and by their own will, but simply, a spade. It is understood that if the crazy right has not only defeated the sensible right, but the sensible left then the radical left has some prospect. And this has explained to a degree the rise of Bernie Sanders, a man more qualified than Hillary Clinton to be president because moral, social, political and philosophical experience is deeper than public office or title. This left has more legitimacy because it derives its power from the foot of suffering in the state, and thats where sits the just seat of government. And Bernie has lit a fire with plain speaking. He has lit a fire under the soles of feet destined otherwise never to march. And they have sung a sweet song. Maybe dear Bernie can win. Maybe he can shoot for the moon and get it. And maybe America could inch closer to the just state, where ideas rule not men and their money. Or maybe not. Que sera sera.
There also remains an iron-faced fact. If all seven billion people had the middle-class life of the average American, a middle-class existence in decline, than we would need four planets worth of resources, not to mention four atmospheres, to effect it. This has two implications: 1/ Either we must lower our expectations of being middle-class or 2/ keep two-thirds of humanity in poverty. The latter surely cannot be the stated position of a forward thinking mind. Which means we must work on the former. Our society is long on things and short on ideas, precisely because money is the centre of the argument, not ideas. And money is thing. Money is greed codified, poverty confirmed and power consecrated. Unless we rise above its gravity, its thralldom of the primitive brain and our weakness for primordial rule, we may not survive.
What we must do is decide that there exist a thing called the dignity of man and that that it belongs to everyone. And that it will be defended against the egregious privations of the market place. It will be defended against the wool-minded brains of the liberal left. That it will be defended against the tyranny-creep of foreign despots. That it will be defended against self-defeat, and the anarchy of the religio-fascists. That it will be defended against the internet, a thing as yet that is high on knowledge but low on culture, a thing that awaits sentience as the primordial ooze awaited single-celled organisms. And yet everyone knows it. This project may appear too heavy and really should be buried, but it keeps recurring and so we must answer it. We should answer it honestly rather than with craven procrastination.
A wise man once said that only a fool learns from his own mistakes; a wise man learns from the mistakes of others. We have known for a good long while that that Anglo-Saxon virus was unsustainable. Not only are we to repeat those mistakes, but we are to fail to learn from our own. Thus we are worse than fools. Old Europe looks on and weeps. We have anchored ourselves to a doctrine that only guarantees poverty. Worse than this it sponsors the rich, gives them welfare. Is this the just city? What happened to the seat of Lincoln? The pen of Jefferson? The courage of Washington? Usurped. Stolen by money. And by the con-artists. And America, too stupid to save itself, lays the machines out for its own torture. Plaudite omnes.
Therefore we must rally. We must march. We must stand. We must fight. We must resist. We must not let what little that separates stop us from mounting a defense. We must join in what we have deepest in common to square us up for the fight. We must neither let the thralldom of money distract, nor trinkets nor favor dissuade. Ours is the right and dignity, and it is maintained only with strong defenses.
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