Life in the K-Hole.
The mood was brooding and feverish today at the Mouse Circus, where the Three Rings were evenly divided between the fascism-dressed-up-in-a-clown-suit Buffoonionism of Glenn Beck's tent-revival freak show
the sobering fifth anniversary of Katrina, and the somewhat fatuous discussion of the failure of the US Education system led by a man whose credentials consist mostly of running the Chicago Public School system for about 11 minutes under Da Mare...and being in the right place at the right time with the right outside jump shot to earn him a place as one of Barack Obama's b-ball buddies.
It came across as a strangely unrelated grab-bag of odd ends, unless you were inclined look at it from a different angle...
Consider that we pissed away the Clinton Surplus on tax breaks for George Bush’s friends.
Then we pissed our way into endless deficits so that Dick Cheney’s friends could loot Iraq on the American taxpayer’s dime.
Now we find ourselves dead-ass broke and with really serious problems.
We find that we have not spent nearly enough money to fix New Orleans (Conservative answer: blame the darkies.)
We have not spent nearly enough money to fix our busted education system (Conservative solution: blame the unions.)
We have not spent nearly enough money to rebuild our economy on fundamentally sound foundations (Conservative solution: blame...well...anybody but us.)
So, what should we do?
Well, according to the commercial I saw today by the newly-embearded Fred Thompson on Fox News, apparently the Greatest Threat to Our Way of Life are scary, America-destroying “Automatic Tax Increases”.
This guy
is in danger people!
Call!
Write!
Email!
Fred Thompson’s shilling for the plight of poor, victimized billionaires was directly preceded by 30 minutes of babbly incoherence by Glenn Beck as one of Rupert Murdoch's employees interviewed another of Rupert Murdoch's employees on what he thinks of yesterday’s epic flop of an exercise in one-man Rupert Murdoch-promoted ego-onanism.
Exclusively!
Beck’s advice? He thunders that the country's troubles have nothing to do with economics or social justice. He rages and weeps that we are in trouble exclusively because people have turned from God.
Just like the Founders warned about!
Got that?
The Fox prescription for American salvation is a nation on it’s knees: half the time servicing the wizened dicks of its plutocrats, and half the time praying to Glenn Beck and his Mormon Mammon for salvation and redemption and maybe, petty-please, someday if you are very, very good you can have a nice paper route with enough benefits so you can take your sick kid to a doctor.
And don't forget to never look up and into the eyes of your masters, but instead to always, always, always blame your plight on "Those People". Whoever your masters designate as "Those People" this week.
Because this is all part of your New and Better Life inside the K-Hole.
Never heard of the K-Hole?
I’m not surprised.
It is an expression with two, distinct meanings -- one drug-related, and one borne out of the Katrina experience that never took off because I think it was just too damned depressing. The Katrina-inspired meaning comes from the idea that we are now not only seeing big, important pieces of America break down at genuinely catastrophic levels, but in our Brave New Conservative nation -- for the first time in our history -- we are also seeing leaders who really didn’t give a shit about it.
Sadly, the primary definition of the term --
“When consuming too much special k (ketamine)...you fall into this thing where you’re awake and know what’s going on but can’t move or do anything...”
-- works identically well to describe both a drug-induced wide-awake-coma, and the status quo in American politics.
Life in the American K-hole means life inside the cultural bubble of an empire whose rulers have begun a long, craven retreat from the responsibility of maintaining the nation’s basic territorial and economic integrity.
Life in the American K-hole means life under leaders who are content to let whole cities slide into oblivion. Who plunged us into disastrously ill-conceived wars. Who watched the whole nation -- the whole world -- teeter on the brink of economic oblivion, slapped a few Band-Aids on the problem, and then moved with lightening speed to further enrich the looters who nearly killed us in the first place.
Life in the American K-hole means life under a new aristocracy who have decided they no longer want to be burdened with performing the basic functions to governance, and who know they have finally rigged the game to completely that they let us the rest of us rot without any personal consequences to themselves. Who know they can shrug it all off because they own the media and the government.
Who have slapped their own, private padlocks on the levers of power.
Who are perfectly happy with feudalism, because they are its Lords and Ladies.
Who are perfectly cool with an exhausted and distracted America slowing collapsing into a totalitarian corporate state, because the power of that State will never be pointed at their heads.
Who believe the world is a pretty fine place as long as they and are theirs are still piling up obscene profits.
And if the rest of us are basically fucked, well maybe you should just pray harder, loser!
Understanding life in the American K-hole means understanding why this creepy exchange between two of of Rupert Murdoch's employees on Rupert Murdoch's “Fox News Sunday” makes such weirdly perfect sense on the 5th anniversary of That Huge Bush Fuckup Which Must Never Be Mentioned during which the call-and-response consisted of Wallace asking "questions" and Beck barking out clusters of 10-syllable wingnut bumper stickers.
Chris Wallace: There may have never been anything like Glenn Beck’s Whitestock on the D.C. Mall, ever in all of American history. What was the message of the day, Glenn?
Glenn Beck: Message for the day? Screw that. This was a message for the fucking ages!
Wallace: Whether it was tens of thousands…or hundreds of thousands…or billions and billion of people…what was the political message?
Beck: Whether it was 300,000…or 600,000….or a scajillion -- however many it was -- I don’t know what they’re trying to say. They were saying that they’re unhappy. They want to know “Where are you taking us?”
Beck: I don’t know what they want.
Beck: You should demand the truth!
Beck: Stand in the Burning Bush!
Wallace: As to the date, you claim it was both a coincidence and “divine providence” (yes, he literally said “divine providence”). What exactly are you reclaiming?
Beck: People talk about the “damage I have done to racial politics”. But speaking as a rich, white demagogue, I think race shouldn’t be in politics. I wasn’t even born during the Civil Rights movement.
Beck: We’re seeing justice perverted. This is about people of faith and not politics!
Wallace: But the civil rights movement had an agenda. Had some fucking direction or purpose. The civil rights movement was always about an economic agenda.
Beck: That’s part of the part of the Civil Rights movement that I disagree with. Just like the New Black Panthers! OMFG!
Wallace: But Martin Luther King was assassinated while leading the “Poor People’s Campaign.” Which was explicitly about economic justice.
Beck: I didn’t intentionally put it on 8/28. Believe in the power of one person. Everyone wants a shot. Beyond that it’s politics. This not about politics.
Beck: People of faith!
Beck: Equal shot!
Beck: Justice!
Beck: Equal shot!
Beck: Justice!
Beck: Shot!
Beck: Justice!
Beck: Shot!
Beck: Justice!
Beck: Shot!
Beck: Justice!
Beck: Content of character!
driftglass: And regarding your hideously bigoted comments about Obama being a racist which would have gotten your ass fired from any organization other than Fox or Aryan Nation.
Beck: Obama’s viewpoints are Black Liberation Theology. That’s what I was sensing at the gut level.
Beck: But this is not about politics!
Wallace: The central message was to get straight with God. Who made you the God Squad?
Beck: Obama is Marxism disguised as religion!
Beck: But this is not about politics!
Beck: What does Obama believe? That your salvation it tied to Collective Salvation! Because he is the fucking radical Marxist stalking horse for Jeremiah Wright!
Beck: But remember, this is not about politics!
Beck: The country is in trouble because people have turned from God. Just like the Founders warned about!
Beck: But let me repeat, this is not about politics!
And now let us pause for a word from Fred Thompson about the Evil Marxist Democrats and their radical plans to destroy the Greatest Country in the History of the World by taxing the blood-money of American Heroes like Rupert Murdoch to help pay the maintenance costs of the Greatest Country in the History of the World.
End of Part 1.
2 comments:
Shoooooooot (me down) in mid flight, Dg.
No one but you would see the metaphor so clearly and easily.
Excepting, of course, GWB, who was the first President "chosen" because they knew he didn't care.
You are the MAN of this hour.
Applause. Applause.
S
The Katrina-inspired meaning comes from the idea that we are now not only seeing big, important pieces of America break down at genuinely catastrophic levels, but in our Brave New Conservative nation -- for the first time in our history -- we are also seeing leaders who really didn’t give a shit about it.
_____________
Life in the American K-hole means life under a new aristocracy who have decided they no longer want to be burdened with performing the basic functions to governance, and who know they have finally rigged the game to completely that they let us the rest of us rot without any personal consequences to themselves. Who know they can shrug it all off because they own the media and the government.
Absolutely amazing piece. Thanks.
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