The
Democratic Party And The Infantile Omnipotence Of The Ruling Class
By Phil Rockstroh
21 June, 2007
Countercurrents.org
Why
did the Democratic Congress betray the voting public?
Betrayal is often a consequence
of wishful thinking. It's the world's way of delivering the life lesson
that it's time to shed the vanity of one's innocence and grow-the-hell-up.
Apropos, here's lesson number one for political innocents: Power serves
the perpetuation of power. In an era of runaway corporate capitalism,
the political elite exist to serve the corporate elite. It's that simple.
Why do the elites lie so
brazenly? Ironically, because they believe they're entitled to, by virtue
of their superior sense of morality. How did they come to this arrogant
conclusion? Because they think they're better than us. If they believe
in anything at all, it is this: They view us as a reeking collection
of wretched, baseborn rabble, who are, on an individual level, a few
billion neurons short of being governable by honest means.
Yes, you read that correctly:
They believe they're better than you. When they lie and flout the rules
and assert that the rule of law doesn't apply to them or refuse to impeach
fellow members of their political and social class who break the law
-- it is because they have convinced themselves it is best for society
as a whole.
How did they come by such
self-serving convictions? The massive extent of their privilege has
convinced them that they're the quintessence of human virtue, that they're
the most gifted of all golden children ever kissed by the radiant light
of the sun. In other words, they're the worst sort of emotionally arrested
brats -- spoiled children inhabiting adult bodies who mistake their
feelings of infantile omnipotence for the benediction of superior ability:
"I'm so special that what's good for me is good for the world,"
amounts to the sum total of their childish creed. In the case of narcissists
such as these, over time, self-interest and systems of belief grow intertwined.
Hence, within their warped, self-justifying belief systems, their actions,
however mercenary, become acts of altruism.
The elites don't exactly believe their own lies; rather, they proceed
from the neo-con guru, Leo Strauss' dictum (the modus operandi of the
ruling classes) that it is necessary to promulgate "noble lies"
to society's lower orders. This sort of virtuous mendacity must be practiced,
because those varieties of upright apes (you and I) must be spared the
complexities of the truth; otherwise, it will cause us to grow dangerously
agitated -- will cause us to rattle the bars of our cages and fling
poop at our betters. They believe it's better to ply us with lies because
it's less trouble then having to hose us down in our filthy cages. In
this way, they believe, all naked apes will have a more agreeable existence
within the hierarchy-bound monkeyhouse of capitalism.
This may help to better understand
the Washington establishment and its courtesan punditry who serve to
reinforce their ceaseless narrative of exceptionalism. This is why they've
disingenuously covered up the infantilism of George W. Bush for so long:
Little Dubya is the id of the ruling class made manifest -- he's their
troubled child, who, by his destructive actions, cracks the deceptively
normal veneer of a miserable family and reveals the rot within. At a
certain level, it's damn entertaining: his instability so shakes the
foundation of the house that it causes the skeletons in its closets
to dance.
By engaging in a mode of
being so careless it amounts to public immolation, these corrupt elitists
are bringing the empire down. There is nothing new in this: Such recklessness
is the method by which cunning strivers commit suicide.
Those who take the trouble
to look will apprehend the disastrous results of the ruling elites'
pathology: wars of choice sold to a credulous citizenry by public relations
confidence artists; a predatory economy that benefits one percent of
the population; a demoralized, deeply ignorant populace who are either
unaware of or indifferent to the difference between the virtues and
vicissitudes of the electoral processes of a democratic republic, in
contrast to the schlock circus, financed by big money corporatist, being
inflicted upon us, at present.
Moreover, the elitist's barriers
of isolation and exclusion play out among the classes below as an idiot's
mimicry of soulless gated "communities" and the pernicious
craving for a vast border wall -- all an imitation of the ruling classes'
paranoia-driven compulsion for isolation and their narcissistic obsession
with exclusivity.
Perhaps, we should cover
the country in an enormous sheet of cellophane and place a zip-lock
seal at its southern border, or, better yet -- in the interest of being
more metaphorically accurate -- let's simply zip the entire land mass
of the U.S. into a body bag and be done with it.
What will be at the root of the empire's demise? It seems the elite
of the nation will succumb to "Small World Syndrome" -- that
malady borne of incurable careerism, a form of self-induced cretinism
that reduces the vast and intricate world to only those things that
advance the goals of its egoist sufferers. It is an degenerative disease
that winnows down the consciousness of those afflicted to a banal nub
of awareness, engendering the shallowness of character on display in
the corporate media and the arrogance and cluelessness of the empire's
business and political classes. It possesses a love of little but mammon;
it is the myth of Midas, manifested in the hoarding of hedge funds;
it is the tale of an idiot gibbering over his collection of used string.
What can be done? In these dangerous times, credulousness to party dogma
is as dangerous as a fundamentalist Christian's literal interpretation
of The Bible: There is no need to squander the hours searching for an
"intelligent design" within the architecture of denial and
duplicity built into this claptrap system -- a system that we have collaborated
in constructing by our loyalty to political parties that are, in return,
neither loyal to us nor any idea, policy nor principle that doesn't
maintain the corporate status quo.
Accordingly, we must make the elites of the Democratic Party accountable
for their betrayal -- or we ourselves will become complicit. The faith
of Democratic partisans in their degraded party is analogous to Bush
and his loyalist still believing they can achieve victory in Iraq and
the delusion-based wing of the Republican Party who, a few years ago,
clung to the belief, regardless of facts, that Terri Schiavo’s
brain was not irreparably damaged and she would someday rise from her
hospital bed and bless the heavens for them and their unwavering devotion
to her cause.
Faith-based Democrats are
equally as delusional. Only their fantasies don't flow from the belief
in a mythical father figure, existing somewhere in the boundless sky,
who scripture proclaims has a deep concern for the fate of all things,
from fallen sparrows to medically manipulated stem cells; rather, their
beliefs are based on the bughouse crazy notion that the elites of the
Democratic Party could give a fallen sparrow's ass about the circumstances
of their lives.
In the same manner, I could never reconcile myself with the Judea/Christian/Islamic
conception of god -- some strange, invisible, "who's-your-daddy-in-the-sky,"
sadist -- who wants me on my knees (as if I'm a performer in some kind
of cosmic porno movie) to show my belief in and devotion to him -- I
can't delude myself into feeling any sense of devotion to the present
day Democratic Party.
Long ago, reason and common sense caused me to renounce the toxic tenets
of organized religion. At present, I feel compelled to apply the same
principles to the Democratic Party, leading me to conclude, as did Voltaire
regarding the unchecked power of The Church in his day, that we must,
"crush the infamous thing."
Freedom begins when we free ourselves from as many illusions as possible
-- including dogma, clichés, cant, magical thinking, as well
as blind devotion to a corrupt political class.
I wrote the following, before the 2006 mid-term election: "[...]
I believe, at this late hour, the second best thing that could come
to pass in our crumbling republic is for the total destruction of the
Democratic Party -- and then from its ashes to rise a party of true
progressives.
"[...] I believe the
best thing that could happen for our country would be for the leaders
of The Republican Party -- out of a deep sense of shame (as if they
even possessed the capacity for such a thing) regarding the manner they
have disgrace their country and themselves -- to commit seppuku (the
act of ritual suicide practiced by disgraced leaders in feudalist Japan)
on national television.
"Because there's no chance of that event coming to pass, I believe
the dismantling of the Democratic Party, as we know it, is in order.
It is our moribund republic’s last, best hope -- if any is still
possible."
I received quite a bit of flack from party loyalist and netroots activists
that my pronouncement was premature and we should wait and see.
We've waited and we've seen. Consequently, since the Republican leadership
have not taken ceremonial swords in hand and disemboweled themselves
on nationwide TV, it's time we pulled the plug on the Democratic Party,
an entity that has only been kept alive by a corporately inserted food-tube.
In my opinion, this remains the last, best hope for the living ideals
of progressive governance to become part of the body politic.
Phil Rockstroh,
a self-described, auto-didactic, gasbag monologist, is a poet, lyricist
and philosopher bard living in New York City. He may be contacted at:
[email protected]
Leave
A Comment
&
Share Your Insights
Comment
Policy
Digg
it! And spread the word!
Here is a unique chance to help this article to be read by thousands
of people more. You just Digg it, and it will appear in the home page
of Digg.com and thousands more will read it. Digg is nothing but an
vote, the article with most votes will go to the top of the page. So,
as you read just give a digg and help thousands more to read this article.