Clutching our values aboard the death train of empire

[Jcrowley]

A journey through the mind of contemporary conservatism: Clutching our values aboard the death train of empire
By Phil Rockstroh
Online Journal Contributing Writer

Oct 13, 2006, 01:14

<snip>

Our values are as precious to us as life itself. Accordingly, one and all can see how precious life is to us by the realities of our present day healthcare system. Also, our values include honest, hard work. Many of us value work to such a profound degree that the ruling class corporatists have allowed us to hold down two or even three, low-wage, zero-benefits jobs so that we can vainly attempt to make ends meet. What sorts of values are these? Who has the time to answer such a frivolous question -- we have to get back to work.

But we the people of The United States know this much: There are people, very bad people, in this world, who want to destroy our values. And there are consequences for this. For example, the people of Iraq are suffering so badly due to the fact that their belief in their false god has made them a callous and cruel people. So much so, that it leaves them indifferent to the suffering of us Americans who feel a deep sense of betrayal due to their cruel rejection of our charitable desire to share our values with them.

<snip>

As an empire grows grotesque, its populace mirrors its ugliness in mind and action. Yet, in this era of authoritarian corporate rule, just below the level of our conscious understandings, we’re aware of the sad fact that all this nonsensical palaver about values is simply a desperate gambit to keep reality at bay.

Why is it so difficult to face facts? Perhaps, because, in an age when we’ve lost any semblance of economic independence and have forsaken so many of our rights and liberties, what do we have left to call our own? What we're left with are our values.

http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_1311.shtml

[pberq]

1. Great article!

A reminder that we are dealing with out of control conservatism trying to maintain an empire.

From the beginning of the article:

http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_1311.shtml



<snip>
Day-to-day life within an empire consists of the deceitful leading the disengaged. Although when the artifice shielding a nation’s populace from the ruthlessness of their leaders begins to fall away, hysteria and displaced rage rises in the land. Ergo, in the American empire, we’re witnessing these demented days of congressional boy love and despotic rockets.

Day after day, the pace at which insane tidings arrive quickens: it’s as if we’ve become passengers on a high-speed train, commandeered by lunatics, that only stops at insane asylums in order to board more lunatics . . . Naturally, it follows that the train has gone runaway, careening down the buckling tracks, blue sparks spraying from its steel wheels, while any approaching curve becomes a threat to derail the whole hurdling madhouse.

For many years, these episodes of mass psychosis have been gaining velocity. Empires are inherently bughouse crazy, because, by their very nature, they grow conservative to the point of becoming totalitarian. After a time, the singular raison d'être of this form of pathological conservatism is to fiercely cling to the things it has gained through expansionist practices and policies. In addition, it must find ways to rationalize the brutal and deceitful means required to sustain itself.

Accordingly, when its imperial ambitions are thwarted, rage and hysteria will seize both its elites and hoi polloi alike. The ensuing scene is similar to an inmate riot in the cafeteria of an insane asylum when the traditional Saturday night dessert of chocolate pudding has been withheld.

[Jcrowley]

4. That very first line says alot

And this:
...just below the level of our conscious understandings, we’re aware of the sad fact that all this nonsensical palaver about values is simply a desperate gambit to keep reality at bay.

[IDemo]

2. This line sorta says it all-->>

"Indeed, it’s unnerving to realize: we are being ruled by a collection of totalitarian, frat rat, date-rapists endowed with the introspective capacities of rampaging fire ants."

[Karenina]

3. GOOOO PHIL!!!

:loveya:

[earth mom]

5. K & R!

Bravo! :applause:

[Jcrowley]

6. Really is a good read

Hopefully one more soul will catch this and put it out there.

[undergroundpanther]

7. Good one Phil!

Rrawr!