In regards to this strangeness, I've no wish to rank myself among those who feel passion vicariously through other people's blood feuds, so this is not a post on Israel/Palestine per se, and I've no interest in weighing whether the occupation of West Bank/Gaz is more or less atrocious than Hamas etc; nor what if anything the supposedly vital question of who is worse should entail for American policy.
This is not about them at any rate but specifically about us. There has quite clearly arisen a cult of Israel within American politics that has gone far beyond normal friendship between democracies. Criticism of Israel is viewed as more innately controversial than criticism of friends who are frankly more strategically value as allies, (Canada, the UK, and, yes, France) for reasons that not just irrational but consciously and willingly anti-rational.
Some have attributed right-wing passion for Israel to an apocalyptic strain of Protestantism which holds an extant and triumphant Jewish State as necessary for the glorious end times to come about according to schedule. I personally don't think this is quite it. While it may be disturbing to lsuppose that a major facet of US policy is determined by such morbid superstition; it is also a false comfort to suppose that irrational beliefs are a product of silly superstitious people and their unchosen mental limitations. The truth is that there are no dumb rednecks and that there are no dumb Bible thumpers. People who believe brutal things are not inherently dumber than you or I and irrational beliefs are as I've said a conscious rejection of rationality. There's something else going on here and I'm remineded of this piece of loveliness from one Robert Stacy McCain...
Swear to God, if they ever want a Gentile prime minister, my first order would be to deploy the IDF in a north-south line, facing east. My second order would be “forward march” and the order to halt would not be given until it was time for the troops to rinse their bayonets in the Jordan. After a brief rest halt, the order “about face” would be given, and the next halt would be at the Mediterranean coast.
I also recall reading George Will columns in the nineties in which he deplored the loss of nationally distinctive for more general imagery on the then brand-new euro notes. It struck me then and strikes me now as an odd thing for the Very Serious Will to trouble himself about; if a central bank somewhere decides to put the Monopoly Man on true & legal tender what of it? All the same Will was well and truly bothered.
Let us return then to the point that their are no Dumb Rednecks. Conservatives are not ignorant to the fact of national and cultural identity being arbitrary things, they are in fact inclined to be more deeply preoccupied with this fact than the loudest stereotype of a post-modern continental. But whereas the stereotype might feel liberated or amused by the artifice of identity the conservative is depressed and horrified by it. The various bigotries that hold one's social identity as the only alternative to being evil or lesser is a common way of addressing this existential pain.
This applies towards our relationship to Israel because Israel is in many ways the last self-consciously 'natural' nation-state to arise out of the nationalist era of the late 19th and early 20th century. The nation of Israel is avowedly founded upon one common ethnicity and belief system; the very seemingly tangible & true identity that conservatives have always longed for the US to have in defiance of us having always been a land of polyglot mutts. And Israel has of course always had enemies, which have always served the role of reenforcing one's own identity through negative comparison. These enemies have also compelled Israel to impose a perpetual military draft upon its youth, which may fulfill all sort of authoritarian fantasies of sublimating one's small mortal self to the strong institution, of the mass becoming invincibly strong through universal agreement to partake in some great struggle.
I do not mean to imply that Israel is a fascist country. It is nothing remotely close to such and it would of course be a horrific slander to say so for obvious reasons. I say only that 'Israel', not the actual place with flesh & blood people but the "Israel" of the TV news that pops up in the barrroom, is the sort of place that an American who is closer to being fascist than you or I can passionately and unconditionally support as a ritual display of strong identity while he sips his jack & coke.
There are of course issues of Islamophbia as well. There are those who would Israel as are one true ally against terrorism, and it is clear that such people do not and have never had any interest in winning the 'War on Terror'. They are not interested in actually reducing the danger of being blown up on a sunny day, but actually long for an eternal and apocalyptic struggle between civilizations so that 'the West' can always be measured as inarguable good against an evil other.
In the main though; in the age of global media; and with the US melting pot adding more and more ingredients at an ever faster clip; the Cult of Israel isn't really about seeing them as heroically besieged by 'terror' but in seeing them as the last great bulwark against post-modern post-nationhood.
Monday, January 26, 2015
Wednesday, January 14, 2015
FC top 10
1. Real Madrid
2. Bayern Munich
3. Chelsea
4. Barcelona
5. Juventus
6. Manchester City
7. Cruziero
8. Atletico Madrid
9. Lyon
10. Racing Club.
2. Bayern Munich
3. Chelsea
4. Barcelona
5. Juventus
6. Manchester City
7. Cruziero
8. Atletico Madrid
9. Lyon
10. Racing Club.
Wednesday, January 7, 2015
I Tried So Hard, And Ran So Far, or Is that How it Goes?
I
I awoke in what I took to be a Skinimax porn house except no. Upon reflection it was in truth an unpretentious clapboard house such as one finds in every unpretentious city or town between the Rockies and Atlantic. It was in California though. This I sensed infallibly and I'd confidentally guess that it was in San Luis Obispo or there abouts on the central coast, not so far north as Steinbeck country. At the front door I opened to find a large beach concert in perfect 90's MTV style down to the very look and grain of the film. The Scissor Sisters were playing. It was 'Take Your Mama' because I find their newer shit to be too conventionally pop and without distinction. Still they were playing 'Take Your Mama" in this new pop style of theirs and this saddened me, made me feel my age in a way the 90's of the film did not.
It was then I looked down to find that I was pantsless, I slammed the door mortified in the classic dream trope because it was a papal-sized crowd outside see, at least two stadiums worth. A white bro asked me who needs pants when I'm having fun and then disappeared.
A woman had been following me this whole time. I knew this but didn't consider her important enough for acknowledgement until I acknowledged her now. "Who needs pants when you're having fun right?" She was wearing a red shirt and also no pants. Her face was at least a near-clone of a woman I've seen in waking life. One who I have never spoken to and have never felt any attraction no frustrated repressed or any other attraction except now I looked up her thighs and thought of the smell of sweat upon the bodies of past lovers, and as I kept looking up to find her vulva the tenderness was such that it was like I was cumming already and I don't know. It's as if I was my penis at this moment in time as in seeing through the eyes of my penis but that's impossible even if it's true. It's just too preciously spiritual to be true even if it is true because I am a very serious thinker and writer you see. James Baldwin was never his own penis through all temptations of Paris fluff.
I woke up, anyway, without dreaming through the actual rhythms of having sex, neither flustered or aroused, as if I had dreamed of nothing or penicillian.
II
I see the big picture now. I'm melancholy in June because I know there will be just a handful of days with enough silken warmth to still be loving at 4 AM. While in earliest January I am energized by the sun being out for not quite a minute more each day, growing stronger as it comes home from Argentina. Summer at any rate can be gross and fetid, which in certain moods makes it hard to find bodies attractive because I take only dispride in being a body. Winter on the other hand is clean. The bloodsuckers are all dead and nothing smells like anything. It's clean. You've heard the romance of warmth spoken of but I tell you I never feel more aroused then I step out of the shower on a frozen wan noon. On these days I want nothing but a kitchen of pots boiling distilled water in preperation for nothing. I want the smell of new paint pristinely white on the walls seven coats worth except dry though and I want the mother-goddes what's her name from Metropolis to have my way with. If I were a mad billionaire I would waste the earth's water on perpetual showers, giving prostitutes however much extra was required for them to follow the winter with me from pole to pole or camped in the most foodless highlands through fall and spring.
If one more discerning were to suspect some racial element to all this I'm afraid that I cannot tell you for a certain that this isn't so. It might be and if it were somehow proven so I'd feel bad. My own guess is that, while I'm quite confident, very much so, of having transcended all that cultural virgin vs. slut nonsense; the more ephemeral notion of 'purity' has evolved into a different form within me that shall probably live for as long as I do. There's no such thing as being o.k.
I awoke in what I took to be a Skinimax porn house except no. Upon reflection it was in truth an unpretentious clapboard house such as one finds in every unpretentious city or town between the Rockies and Atlantic. It was in California though. This I sensed infallibly and I'd confidentally guess that it was in San Luis Obispo or there abouts on the central coast, not so far north as Steinbeck country. At the front door I opened to find a large beach concert in perfect 90's MTV style down to the very look and grain of the film. The Scissor Sisters were playing. It was 'Take Your Mama' because I find their newer shit to be too conventionally pop and without distinction. Still they were playing 'Take Your Mama" in this new pop style of theirs and this saddened me, made me feel my age in a way the 90's of the film did not.
It was then I looked down to find that I was pantsless, I slammed the door mortified in the classic dream trope because it was a papal-sized crowd outside see, at least two stadiums worth. A white bro asked me who needs pants when I'm having fun and then disappeared.
A woman had been following me this whole time. I knew this but didn't consider her important enough for acknowledgement until I acknowledged her now. "Who needs pants when you're having fun right?" She was wearing a red shirt and also no pants. Her face was at least a near-clone of a woman I've seen in waking life. One who I have never spoken to and have never felt any attraction no frustrated repressed or any other attraction except now I looked up her thighs and thought of the smell of sweat upon the bodies of past lovers, and as I kept looking up to find her vulva the tenderness was such that it was like I was cumming already and I don't know. It's as if I was my penis at this moment in time as in seeing through the eyes of my penis but that's impossible even if it's true. It's just too preciously spiritual to be true even if it is true because I am a very serious thinker and writer you see. James Baldwin was never his own penis through all temptations of Paris fluff.
I woke up, anyway, without dreaming through the actual rhythms of having sex, neither flustered or aroused, as if I had dreamed of nothing or penicillian.
II
I see the big picture now. I'm melancholy in June because I know there will be just a handful of days with enough silken warmth to still be loving at 4 AM. While in earliest January I am energized by the sun being out for not quite a minute more each day, growing stronger as it comes home from Argentina. Summer at any rate can be gross and fetid, which in certain moods makes it hard to find bodies attractive because I take only dispride in being a body. Winter on the other hand is clean. The bloodsuckers are all dead and nothing smells like anything. It's clean. You've heard the romance of warmth spoken of but I tell you I never feel more aroused then I step out of the shower on a frozen wan noon. On these days I want nothing but a kitchen of pots boiling distilled water in preperation for nothing. I want the smell of new paint pristinely white on the walls seven coats worth except dry though and I want the mother-goddes what's her name from Metropolis to have my way with. If I were a mad billionaire I would waste the earth's water on perpetual showers, giving prostitutes however much extra was required for them to follow the winter with me from pole to pole or camped in the most foodless highlands through fall and spring.
If one more discerning were to suspect some racial element to all this I'm afraid that I cannot tell you for a certain that this isn't so. It might be and if it were somehow proven so I'd feel bad. My own guess is that, while I'm quite confident, very much so, of having transcended all that cultural virgin vs. slut nonsense; the more ephemeral notion of 'purity' has evolved into a different form within me that shall probably live for as long as I do. There's no such thing as being o.k.
Tuesday, January 6, 2015
Totes Recall
I remember one of the Cut Scenes from 'The Family Guy' where Ralph finally straight punches Alice. Before I had entertained vague notions myself that this might be funny but no it wasn't funny.
My memory is dim. I watched 'The Honeymooners' with my grandparents as a toddler and never since. Ralph Alice and the neighbor buddy guy were as I recall the only ones ever shown on screen, the last three people in existence. They chose to live in a New York apartment because, emotionally, spiritually, they had decided that if there were only enough people to settle one place it should be "New York" and I agree. If I awoke to find myself the last man the first thing I would do is find my best dead neighbor,s bike (or the best bike of a dead neighbor. It wouldn't matter how good a person they were) and peddle east. In the practical sense it would be some time before wild predators would lose their fear of urban cores with all their disorienting straightness; and there would be canned olives that I could eat forever. Billions.
I in no way excuse Ralph's threats of violence but charity towards all radical acceptance and all the rest of it yes? (And with just the three of them to accept anyway it can't be all that radical.) We should understand that the pressure to reproduce is of course overwhelming. Alice could be eaten at any time, or wake up newly aware that she has always been a lesbian. Even so Ralph's longing to be 'the husband' to our new Gaia are in these circumstances quite clearly insane. The temptation to be a literal God Father to all emerging generations would be there for all of us I suppose and I do not claim that I'd be innocent of this myself. Still at this reduced human scale it is every bit as evil as any well-known tyrant who scoured his own land to ruin just to remain its only true master. It is quite obvious that Ralph and the other guy should both be 'The Husband'. Genetic variety needs every boost available and Alice is going to be 'The Woman' under any arrangement. She is always going to have this power and both men need to get well and the fuck over if this bothers them.
It disappoints me truly that these allow the prejudices or mores of the old dead world to effect their minds at all. Theirs is the power to invent How It's Always Been or What Everyone Knows out of whole cloth, through whim or will; to seize the language of those protest-too-muching dogmatists who are the most likely culprits for murdering everyone, to take this omnicidal cant and rearrainge it to kqehwporhweirjheopr
My memory is dim. I watched 'The Honeymooners' with my grandparents as a toddler and never since. Ralph Alice and the neighbor buddy guy were as I recall the only ones ever shown on screen, the last three people in existence. They chose to live in a New York apartment because, emotionally, spiritually, they had decided that if there were only enough people to settle one place it should be "New York" and I agree. If I awoke to find myself the last man the first thing I would do is find my best dead neighbor,s bike (or the best bike of a dead neighbor. It wouldn't matter how good a person they were) and peddle east. In the practical sense it would be some time before wild predators would lose their fear of urban cores with all their disorienting straightness; and there would be canned olives that I could eat forever. Billions.
I in no way excuse Ralph's threats of violence but charity towards all radical acceptance and all the rest of it yes? (And with just the three of them to accept anyway it can't be all that radical.) We should understand that the pressure to reproduce is of course overwhelming. Alice could be eaten at any time, or wake up newly aware that she has always been a lesbian. Even so Ralph's longing to be 'the husband' to our new Gaia are in these circumstances quite clearly insane. The temptation to be a literal God Father to all emerging generations would be there for all of us I suppose and I do not claim that I'd be innocent of this myself. Still at this reduced human scale it is every bit as evil as any well-known tyrant who scoured his own land to ruin just to remain its only true master. It is quite obvious that Ralph and the other guy should both be 'The Husband'. Genetic variety needs every boost available and Alice is going to be 'The Woman' under any arrangement. She is always going to have this power and both men need to get well and the fuck over if this bothers them.
It disappoints me truly that these allow the prejudices or mores of the old dead world to effect their minds at all. Theirs is the power to invent How It's Always Been or What Everyone Knows out of whole cloth, through whim or will; to seize the language of those protest-too-muching dogmatists who are the most likely culprits for murdering everyone, to take this omnicidal cant and rearrainge it to kqehwporhweirjheopr
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