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--- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], "cosmicdot" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
--- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], "cosmicdot" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
"All in all, a pretty well orchestrated affair, wouldn't you say?"
Generalized Anxiety Disorder
Or Is It Dystopia?
by Gilles d'Aymery
May 20, 2002
"Duas tantum rex anxius optat, panem et circenses."
("The king longs anxiously for two things, bread and circuses.")
� Juvenal
Dys-to-pi-a n. An imaginary place, as a country, of total misery
and wretchedness.
In a recent interview (April 24, 2002) with Gary Kamiya, the
Executive Editor of Salon, Gore Vidal comments that geography is no
longer taught in US high schools. Vidal goes on, "They asked a cross-
section of Americans, they showed them a globe of the world with all
the continents and islands and oceans, and asked them to identify the
United States. Nothing was labeled. And something like 80 percent
couldn't find it. And a great many of them had a sense of humor, they
picked Panama, because it's a nice little thing with two big globes,
one above it, one below it. "
In an April 30, 2002 New York Times essay by Lawrence M. Krauss, the
chairman of the physics department at Case Western Reserve
University, in which Krauss debates the perennial confrontation
between science and pseudoscience -- "young earth creationism" (aka
intelligent design), UFO's abductions (those little
aliens..."regularly visiting, abducting and experimenting with our
fellow earthlings."), the "health benefits of weak magnetic fields, "
etc. -- he remarks, " [A]t least half of Americans polled in a recent
survey by the National Science Foundation did not know that the Earth
orbits the Sun, and that it takes a year to do so. " Poor ol' Galileo
must be muttering from his resting place, "eppur se muove" ("yet it
turns").
We all know, or at least somewhat sense, that the Enlightenment Era
is coming to an end and that humanity will have to develop a new set
of values if we do not want to become one of those 200 species that
are disappearing each and every day as their biomass is being
ineluctably transferred to our present feeding frenzy. But it'd take
a seriously twisted mind to think that the road to extinction passes
through a return to the Middle Ages!
Then, Vidal again: "I think that the whole world is going to have to
face up to the fact that we are in for a kind of religious
fundamentalism, whether it's (radical Islam) in the Middle East or
Christian fundamentalism in our hemisphere," and "I suspect we're
going to have to face head on that the great disaster that befell the
West was monotheism -- Judaism, Christianity, and Islam" [the Sky God
religions]. In Vidal's opinion, following the theory developed by
Giambattista Vico over three centuries ago, we are entering an age of
chaos that will turn into theocracy.
Say welcome to the world of Attorney General John Ashcroft.
"The last eight months have showed the world the American character
is incredibly strong and confident. Yet, prayer reminds us that a
great people must be humble before God, searching for wisdom --
constantly searching for wisdom from the Almighty," said US Supreme
Court-selected President George W. Bush the Second a few days ago
when the front pages and TV News of the main media began running with
the latest breaking story of the day, that possibly the
administration had a foreknowledge of the dramatic events that took
place on September 11, 2001.
Punditcracy and the elitocracy (they are not the same: the pundits
serve the elite) are salivating. The American people want to know,
have the right to know. We need full disclosure; a full investigation
is de rigueur. "Clearly there is a lot more to be learned before we
can come to any final conclusion about all of the facts, but it
clearly raises some very important questions that have to be asked
and have to be answered," declaimed Senate Majority leader Tom
Daschle. "I am gravely concerned."
As MSNBC puts it, "What did President Bush know about hijackings?
When did he know it? And, what did he do about it?"
Did He or did He not? That is the question.
Is it really?
Strangely, no one seems to be asking the correct question. Why did
the White House disclose that Bush had been briefed in August 2001
that the al Qaeda network might hijack US passenger planes?
Disclosure is not the forte of this tight-lipped, fortress-like
administration, viz. the refusal to disclose the paper trail of the
Energy Task Force Commission headed by "[criticism is] thoroughly
irresponsible and totally unworthy of national leaders in a time of
war" Vice President Dick Cheney, or the communications between the
administration and Enron. They did not have to make this revelation.
And why is it that NBC News came up with the story that "U.S. planned
for attack on al-Qaida" (MSNBC, May 16, 2002)? "President Bush was
expected to sign detailed plans for a worldwide war against al-Qaida
two days before Sept. 11 but did not have the chance before the
terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, U.S. and foreign
sources told NBC News."
"The document, a formal National Security Presidential Directive,
amounted to a 'game plan to remove al-Qaida from the face of the
Earth,' one of the sources told NBC News' Jim Miklaszewski.
The plan dealt with all aspects of a war against al-Qaida, ranging
from diplomatic initiatives to military operations in Afghanistan,
the sources said on condition of anonymity. "
Anonymous sources, White House revelations, noisy uproar from the
blabbering crowd, all in a timely fashion....for stories that are not
even particularly newsworthy. On October 29, 2001, in "Osama Bin
Laden: Convenient Scapegoat?" we reported on the fact that the Afghan
operation had long been in the making and was planned to begin in
October of that year. The presumption that the US Administration had
had to have some information about the coming attacks, even if not
necessarily specific data (how, when, what, where), surfaced almost
immediately in the wake of the disastrous events -- the US is not
spending tens of billions of dollars or more (the exact amount is
classified) on intelligence gathering without....gathering
intelligence! -- and has led to countless conspiracy theories.
So, nothing new and nothing that cannot be dealt with in an
efficient, emotional and political fashion. Listen to the vice
president: "An investigation must not interfere with the ongoing
efforts to prevent the next attack, because without a doubt a very
real threat of another, perhaps more devastating, attack still
exists" (May 16, in New York). Listen to the president: "Had I known
that the enemy was going to use airplanes to kill on that fateful
morning, I would have done everything in my power to protect the
American people" (May 17, in Washington). Listen to First Lady Laura
Bush: "I think it is very sad that people would play upon the
victims' families' emotions, or all Americans' emotions. I know that
my husband and all Americans know how he has acted in Afghanistan and
in the war with terror" (May 17, in Budapest). And the president
again: "Unfortunately, [Washington] is the kind of place where second-
guessing has become second nature." Then, Ari Fleischer, the White
House spokesman, went after N.Y. Senator Hillary Clinton, a sure
thing to rally the troops. Finally, the ever so affable and paternal
vice president, Dick Cheney, appears on the NBC Sunday morning news
program, Meet the Press, to oh-so reasonably emphasize the ongoing
dangers and de-emphasize the hoopla (May 19). All in all, a pretty
well orchestrated affair, wouldn't you say?
In the boonies, the famed American people can disregard the entire
hoopla as yet another internal bickering taking place within the
rehashed feud of the bicephalous Washington family, the single party
of American politics, the Republicrats. And they inherently believe
in the compassion and goodness of the president. He could not have
known, could not have. And, what the heck, they all lie anyway, don't
they?
So, what's going on here?
Have you noticed that other stories are apparently no longer
newsworthy? Take the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It's off the front
pages, allowing Israel to pursue its urbicidal policies in complete
impunity under the radar screen. The coup and counter-coup in
Venezuela has long been gone and forgotten. The continuing and ever
expanding blunders in Afghanistan (failed operation Anaconda,
increased 'collateral damages' -- and where's Osama, by the way?)
does not deserve much attention. We still have yet to hear about the
connection between the $3 billion Enron-owned gas processing plant in
Dabhol, India, and the 'War on Terror' that had been planned and
decided long before 9-11. This has consistently not made the news.
The California natural gas swindle made it for a day or two before
being relegated to the business pages and largely buried. We don't
hear much about Colombia these days and the near implosion of
Argentina is left unreported. Former President Carter's visit to Cuba
was just a blip. Iraq comes and goes. One day it's about the revamped
sanctions (how many times have they been tweaked?), the other it'll
be how about going and get Saddam and nuke him if needed. Walking
away from a signed but not ratified treaty (ICC) is a one-day item at
most. Soon, we may hear again about the latest suicide bombing in
Israel or India and Pakistan nuclear chess game, and we'll move on to
the new story of the day.
But while it's an in-and-out cycle, a series of issues is more often
out than in. From Tyco International to Global Crossing, Qwest,
Worldcom and myriad other technology and communication firms (we're
talking about a $2 trillion amount that has evaporated into thin
air), from AOL-Time-Warner (they 'shaved' $54 billion in one big
swoop) to the shattering accounting scandal, they're all buried. The
ransacking of Social Security is definitely out as well as the blow
suffered by pension funds or the States' revenue shortfall leading to
increased local taxes and curtailment of services, and the
reappearance of a mushrooming national budget deficit. The
pauperization of the bottom two quintiles of the American people
(that's 40 percent of the population or more than 100 million lives)
deserves no more than a paragraph or two on page 18 or whatever of
your favorite daily. Obsolete and dilapidated infrastructures (roads,
bridges, etc.), soil erosion, deforestation, global warming, ice
melting, droughts, and the ever-accelerating environmental
despoliation of our habitat make the news here and there, when a
report sponsored by a governmental agency or a university --
immediately contradicted by another report doctored by whichever
other side of the issue -- before rapidly and quietly accumulating
dust on some library shelves and adding a line or two to the r�sum�s
of the authors. Some news is not worth repeating, it would appear.
And some are: the US Catholic Church sexual abuse scandal has some
leg left in the story and has been running for weeks now. Security-
related news keeps abounding. Did the vice president not warn the
public again that "without a doubt a very real threat of another,
perhaps more devastating, attack still exists?" It's a dangerous
world out there, full of 'evildoers,' but we have the "strength and
the confidence" to overcome all these looming enemies. We are ready
but we need to be more ready, and more still. So, the news showers
the concerned but thankful readers and viewers with the need for
increased defense spending and reminds them over and over that the
reductions of their civil liberties is a modest and necessary price
to defend their security and their freedom.
Overall, always left off-balance, with a sense of instability and
anxiety, people cannot process all the information that comes
stumbling on them repetitively and are more than happy to let
the 'authorities' deal with the problems.
But there is something more profound going on, something to do with a
general dissatisfaction with the status quo, a sort of uneasiness on
the part of the population. Remember Abraham Lincoln, "You can fool
some of the people all of the time and all of the people some of the
time, but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time." There's
been a flurry of ideas and activities disseminated and organized on
the Internet for the past decade that are essentially threatening to
the elites. There is a larger segment of the population being more
informed on the State of the World (disparity in revenues, abject
poverty, etc.). Perhaps, more importantly, the worldwide economy is a
basket case and the complexity of the many predicaments are such that
any rational solutions (they do exist) would inherently be
detrimental to the immense privileges of these elites -- or so they
are convinced. At a more personal level, a lot of people have been
negatively affected by layoffs and all the financial swindles of the
expansion-without-end 90s that began to come to roost last year. Lots
of people, ever deeper in debt in the pursuit of happiness, have seen
their savings dwindle in a calamitous turn of the market when at the
very same time the top executives bowed away smelling like a rose
with huge financial compensations.
Francis Fukuyama, a grand priest of the elites (RAND Corporation,
Council on Foreign Relations, Foreign Affairs, George Mason
University), author of "The End of History and the Last Man" (Free
Press, 1992) is the object of much attention and trepidations in
Britain. In the last issue of Spiked, British writer and sociologist
Frank Furedi writes that, "[m]uch of the critical reaction to
Fukuyama's 'end of history' thesis missed the central point of his
argument. Fukuyama did not seek to imply that history had literally
ended and that nothing new would ever happen again. Rather, as he
explained, he used the term 'history' in the specific Hegelian sense,
to mean the 'history of ideology' or the 'history of thought about
first principles'.
This version of the end-of-ideology thesis does not exclude change.
But it does exclude the further evolution of human consciousness, and
the development of a new and superior vision of how society should be
run. History has ended in the sense that there appear to be no ideas
that can credibly offer to take humanity beyond the status quo."
The status quo is very much what Fukuyama's patrons are all about.
Change is welcome, even venerated like some totem or god-like
creature, so long as it is quantified (always more of the same
output) -- but never qualified -- within a specific social structure
with defined rules, order and stability.
Fukuyama exemplifies what author Daniel Quinn denounces in his work.
For the rulers "nothing different is possible. Nothing can be beyond
civilization. Civilization is a final, unsurpassable invention."
Their imagination stifled, their privileges potentially threatened,
they circle the wagons, ready to defend their way. "Ours is the RIGHT
way for people to live and everyone should live like
us." "Civilization must continue at any cost and not be abandoned
under any circumstance." This is in essence a reactionary discourse
and ultimately a self-defeating paradigm that has been going on
across the ages. It's nothing more -- or less -- than a deadly power
play.
The rulers need the status quo to remain in power. Bring up the
walls; unleash the guard dogs; fabricate insecurity and destabilize
any dissenting voices or movements; invent and manufacture enemies,
especially weak enemies to better crush them; keep people off-
balance; create anxiety and the high-priced drugs to dull it; and,
above all, blind everybody through carefully-planted stories. Seed
deception and drown people's attention under a torrent of information
(misinformation?) so that one cannot make sense of the events and is
left with nothing but emotional, irrational reactions.
Mind manipulation may not work forever when discontentment grows
beyond control, but a disenfranchised, uninformed and poorly educated
people that believe the world revolves around them, and call upon the
sky gods for comfort and solution when feeling threatened in their
daily lives by fabricated dangers and poor economic circumstances,
will almost certainly veer further, as witnessed in Europe and all
over the world, toward the expected direction: that of reaction.
So, tune in and hang on to the rails, for the sailing toward dystopia
is increasingly encountering rough and foul weather!
http://www.swans.com/library/art8/ga129.html
Other Swans' Readers commentaries:
Subject: Swans' Release: May 20, 2002: Patterns which connect Bush
clan to
worldwide oppression: "Must We Always Learn Too Late?"
http://swans.com/
May 20, 2002 - in this rendition:
Patterns which connect: Bush and Enron? Ashcroft and theocracy?
Ignorance, fear and reactionary politics? The Bush administration's
roundup of "evildoers" in Afghanistan, paving the way for hugely
profitable oil and gas pipelines?
The most powerful country in the stratosphere with intelligence
agencies full of holes bigger than those in the Swiss cheese that
makes up the moon? Hello, is anybody out there?
Not likely, you'll see, when you read "General Anxiety Disorder: Or
Is It Dystopia?" and Steve Gowans' "Must We Always Learn Too Late?"
Manipulated at will by the Washington-controlled guard dogs, we are
kept off balance, left ill-informed, fearful and confused, allowing
Corpocracy to have its way with the world while the news stories
quietly come and go. And the dance carries on. Michael Stowell may be
correct in seeing a "House of Cowards" that is an old, dilapidated
shack ready to fall. but, meanwhile, the powers-that-be stand atop
the ivory tower of the oligarchy while proceeding to bulldoze their
way to world domination, carving a path to imperial sovereignty
across the globe, always in the name of freedom and "democracy," of
course!
Perhaps we've succeeded in exporting our form of democracy to
Botswana, whose government is rounding up the hunters and gatherers
because it's "no longer a viable way of life," and relocating them to
nice little settlements rife with instant unemployment, alcoholism,
violence -- and a nonviable way of life... (A footnote would read
that there may be mineral rights issues involved, given the joint
venture between the government and De Beers, the diamond powerhouse.
Bush and Enron?) But, what kind of democracy are we talking
about anyway? As Steve Gowans shows in his piece on the subject,
those who profess to be committed to democracy are prepared to
abandon or limit it whenever it moves in an undesired direction.
Where does this leave us?
Myths and realities again...
We've tried and tried to export "our" US democracy to Cuba, even with
exploding cigars and hair remover, as Deck Deckert describes. If
Cubans adopted our wonderful system, would that mean they'd have to
forfeit their free education and health care, adopt a 1:400 income
disparity and return to being a casino island for the rich and
famous? Whatever... When reluctant governments don't yield to our
demands, we'll find a way to make them -- through sanctions and/or
military intervention, and we're preparing for immunity as ever from
our "friendly" bulldozing practices -- oops, sorry, for the
collateral damage, just know we could have nuked you! -- by making
sure we're above the law (ICC treaty, what
treaty?) ... "Operation 'Infinite Power,'" as Aleksandra Priestfield
aptly defines it.
Is there a chance to reach beyond the deafening silence of the main
media? It is the writer's duty, the poet's duty to help man endure
and prevail, said William Faulkner in his 1950 Nobel Prize acceptance
speech. So, here it is, another series of essays and poems (as well
as letters to the Editor) that we hope you will read and savor.
As always, form your OWN opinion and let your friends (and foes) know
about Swans. It's your voice that makes ours grow.
Here is the list of the links to all the pieces:
http://www.swans.com/library/art8/ga129.html
Generalized Anxiety Disorder: Or Is It Dystopia? - by Gilles d'Aymery
http://www.swans.com/library/art8/gowans32.html
Must We Always Learn Too Late? - by Stephen Gowans
http://www.swans.com/library/art8/mws023.html
House Of Cowards - by Michael W. Stowell
http://www.swans.com/library/art8/rdeck021.html
Exploding Cigars & Dueling Presidents - by Deck Deckert
http://www.swans.com/library/art8/alekp020.html
Operation "Infinite Power" - by Aleksandra Priestfield
http://www.swans.com/library/art8/gowans33.html
Democracy? Count Me Out: Along With Ralph Nader, Richard Swift, Fidel
Castro And The US Government - by Stephen Gowans
http://www.swans.com/library/art8/aah024b.html
Going Home: iii - Rainbow's Arch - by Alma A. Hromic
http://www.swans.com/library/art8/xxx085.html
Wild Geese - by Mary Oliver
http://www.swans.com/library/art8/xxx084.html
Nobel Prize Speech - by William Faulkner
http://www.swans.com/library/art8/letter08.html
Letters to the Editor
Thank you for reading Swans
Gilles d'Aymery
--
Swans
"Hungry man, rush for the book: It is a weapon." B. Brecht
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