Sunday, September 22, 2013

Do Not Call Up That Which You Cannot Put Down


-The famous maxim of Howard Lovecraft. 



Here is something I've believed about Lovecraft, which has been largely ignored by his devoted readers (I am one too).  Lovecraft's work was actually very prophetic and politically significant.  From the early 1920's Lovecraft was virtually the only writer to envision a rapidly approaching time when one person or a small cabal would have the power to destroy humanity.  Nuclear science made this a military reality within ten years of his death, but advances in communication and propaganda technology, coupled with the concentration of previously inconceivable wealth in the hands of a few, have now made it possible politically.

Over the last half century, and with ever increasing intensity, the Republican party has set about creating in the United States a cadre of living zombies, people filled with rage and hunger, and immune to any kind of introspection or critical thinking.  Like any Lovecraft villain, the leaders of the Republican party were absolutely sure they could put down this army of the mentally undead whenever it suited their purpose.  And like all Lovecraft villains, they were wrong.

We have seen a long succession of leaders now, who have nothing in the world to offer except their willingness to pander to the mindless, voracious minions they have created, telling themselves at every step that they are in control and that the minions will do whatever suits the interest of their betters.  Palin, Bachmann, Ryan, both Pauls, Gohmert, Alan West, and now perhaps the most vicious of them all, Ted Cruz, who openly states that he believes the entire Senate should consist of 100 people like the unrepentant race hater and corupt corporate tool, Jesse Helms.

Today, we are confronting an ugly reality- similar to, for example, the one faced by Weimar Germany in the 1920's- it is far easier to destroy democracy than it is to create it.  The hordes of ignorant, greedy, hate-filled intellectual zombies the Republicans deliberately called up out of the swamps of American dysfunction are now running things, and those oh, so wise grifters like Gingrich, Boehner and McConnell are now helpless captives on a runaway train, with disaster the only conceivable future.

Now, this disaster may be only days away.  Paul Krugman (as usual):

"...at the moment, it seems highly likely that the Republican Party will refuse to fund the government, forcing a shutdown at the beginning of next month, unless President Obama dismantles the health reform that is the signature achievement of his presidency. Republican leaders realize that this is a bad idea, but, until recently, their notion of preaching moderation was to urge party radicals not to hold America hostage over the federal budget so they could wait a few weeks and hold it hostage over the debt ceiling instead. Now they’ve given up even on that delaying tactic. The latest news is that John Boehner, the speaker of the House, has abandoned his efforts to craft a face-saving climbdown on the budget, which means that we’re all set for shutdown, possibly followed by debt crisis."

And a very real likelihood of a collapse of the world economy.   Here's some more Krugman:

"...this story is all about the G.O.P. First came the southern strategy, in which the Republican elite cynically exploited racial backlash to promote economic goals, mainly low taxes for rich people and deregulation. Over time, this gradually morphed into what we might call the crazy strategy, in which the elite turned to exploiting the paranoia that has always been a factor in American politics — Hillary killed Vince Foster! Obama was born in Kenya! Death panels! — to promote the same goals. 

But now we’re in a third stage, where the elite has lost control of the Frankenstein-like monster it created."

Frankenstein's monster, only because he didn't think of comparing it to its real literary equivalent:  Cthulhu- a single entity with the capacity to destroy all humanity.  Krugman suggests that the momentum behind this apocalyptic fit of destruction is now inevitable- the Republican party we have today is, against all rational self interest, intent on pulling the house down around them.  Well, I guess that is what I believe too.  At this point, as I said recently, they may as well get on with it and do all the damage they can, and then we can either exterminate them like the vermin they are and get on with repairing the damage, or we will succumb to their violence and irrationality, and the United States of America will vanish from the world like Rome, Assyria, Babylon and so many other great civilizations that exist today only as vague dreams of a distant glory.

-Cross posted from my own blog

10 comments:

  1. In his house at R'lyeh, dead Cthulhu waits dreaming.

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  2. At first, I heard the alarmists and thought, "Things are bad but not that bad...". But with time and continued detrimental, obstructionist tactics continuing unabated out of the GOP camp I am hopping the "disaster train" because I believe it is coming. They will bring this country down rather than admit defeat.

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  3. You're kind of on to our plan. Republicans now trust me as one of them Rocky. Our plan is to bring down the bottom 98%. So far it's working. Granted, we still have work to do getting more people to hate Obamacare seeing as how 59% of the people don't want it defunded, and 90% of the people, once they see it will work really good for them, will love it, only means our lies and misleads and threats and brinksmanship which most of our base of idiots, zealots and homophobes don;t know what is, love.

    You're never wrong to use political bullying to appease your base if you're a republican.

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  4. By George he's got it - it's not about America, it's about winning.

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  5. .

    This isn’t about winning, it is about not having to admit defeat.



    "House Republicans are no longer “the loyal opposition,” they exist only to seek revenge for the shame of their party’s loss to Barack Obama. Their uncompromising extremism drives them forward oblivious to all else, fixed on a single unobtainable goal that they will never reach even as their civilization crumbles unnoticed around them. Their unreasoning rage and boiling arrogance blinds them to the very people who they are supposed to be representing and they leave us all sitting out in the open, unprotected, while death falls from the sky.

    Americans as a nation had a clear opportunity to end Obamacare themselves.

    Last November they could have elected a president who promised to repeal the ACA by executive fiat on his first day in office. Instead they overwhelmingly reelected Barrack Obama. The message to congress, to conservatives, and most especially to the Tea Party extremists, was clear and unequivocal: their philosophy was soundly rejected by the people and the country they claim to represent."
    (Jim Wright (http://www.stonekettle.com/2013/09/conservikaze.html))


    House Republicans exist only to seek revenge for the shame of their party’s loss to Barack Obama!!

    House Republicans exist only to seek revenge for the shame of their party’s loss to Barack Obama!!


    Ema Nymton
    ~ @ : o ?
    .

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    Replies
    1. Ema,

      That's a very insightful comment. I agree.The diehard faithful try hard to sound reasonable, but it's motivated reasoning, not objective and dispassionate analysis and the goal is to protect against threats to the self. "I'm a conservative" is the cornerstone of many limited people. Protecting that self and it's props and buttresses is far more important than anything else.

      The unreasoning rage and boiling arrogance may in fact be explained by the fear of being wrong and losing that fragile self esteem belonging to an extremist group gives, or at least that's my opinion and I'll get really angry is it's challenged (just joking)

      And yes, it seems odd to claim that the will of the people is not illustrated by the repeated election results, when Romnibus made such an issue out of health care and had little else to say.

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  6. Ema, I think you are correct about the Republicans' lust for revenge, but it goes back further than the election of Obama. They are still furious about Nixon; they still refuse to accept that it took FDR, a Democrat, to clean up the mess their Republican administrations caused in the 1920's (and can't bear the thought of another Democratic President having to clean up another Republican mess today); and many of them are still intent on revenge for the North's victory in the Civil War. Shame and revenge are strong with them, and it has been going on a long time.

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    Replies
    1. Brilliant post, Green Eagle! As a fellow fan of Lovecraft, I find your analysis so on target.
      I don't know when I've agreed more with a summation regarding the GOP's intentional manipulation of a substantial segment of Americans to create an easily bamboozled public nurtured on resentment and distrust of their neighbor.

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  8. A lesson in hospitality I learned from the great Master Cthulhu:

    Since my natural habitat precludes my kind from enjoying an open fire or a cooked meal, table etiquette is a simple matter of “catch-n-crunch,” i.e. we catch it alive and kill it in our beaks. Simple enough, we measure fine cuisine by a higher standard: What dies in our mouth melts in our mouth, and our taste buds are finely attuned to the five stages - and flavors - of death and dying: Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, and Acceptance (with a dash of salt and pepper to taste).

    Bon appetite!

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