A favorite blog has a new home:
Dear George,
We live in exciting times! New ages are breaking out faster than farts at a baked-bean cook off. There is the New Age of Financialized Ruin, the New Age of Preemptive Peace and the New Age of Free Impoverishment.
Now we are seeing the emergence of another one: the New Age of Progressive Bigotry.
Happy is the nation grounded in bigotry. This is a nation that revels in the stasis of certainty, a certainty that is a bulwark against the trauma of growth and maturity. Bigotry is a Fountain of Youth, and those who drink deeply of it never change.
Life has not been easy for bigotry. Starting with the end of World War II and continuing on through the trauma the civil rights movement, bigotry was forced into the closet. That is changing. Thanks to your Global War on Terror, bigotry can finally come out and stand before the world in all of its liberated glory.
This New Age has given us something new, something bigotry never had: its own manifesto. I am speaking of a document titled, Towards a Grand Strategy for an Uncertain World: Renewing Transatlantic Partnership, issued by a throng of ex-NATO commanders. It sings from its opening paragraph which reassures us that, “What the Western allies face is a long, sustained and proactive defense of their societies and way life. …International terrorism today aims to disrupt and destroy our societies, our economies and our way of life. …What they have in common is an assault on the values of the West.” (Granted, western values gave us the holocaust and Hiroshima; but, hell, nobody’s perfect.)
I ask you, George, have you ever seen a more eloquent way of repositioning bigotry’s traditional threat that “they” are going to rape our women and marry our sisters?
Among the dangers the document outlines is that of Demography. It warns us that, “Population growth and change across the globe will swiftly change the world we knew. The challenge this poses for welfare, good governance and energy security…is vast.” There you have it; the world’s skin is getting browner and we have to act.
The document goes on to warn us that, “There is also the more philosophic problem of the rise of the irrational—the discounting of the rational. Though seemingly abstract, this problem is demonstrated in deeply practical ways. [These include] the decline of respect for logical argument and evidence, a drift away from science in a civilization that is deeply technological. The ultimate example is the rise of religious fundamentalism, which, as political fanaticism, presents itself as the only source of certainty.”
And, hell, that’s only the United States. It’s even worse in the Arab world!
Not to worry, the good generals have our backs covered. Their response to this threat is both far reaching and visionary. The solution is nothing short of “escalation dominance, the use of a full bag of both carrots and sticks—and indeed all instruments of soft and hard power, ranging from diplomatic protest to nuclear weapons. (Emphasis mine)
Doesn’t that just give your follicles a hard on? General Jack Ripper is back and kicking ass. We whisper a protest while we’re nuking them! That’s diplomacy at work protecting our freedoms.
What we are talking about is the greatest lynching the world has ever seen. But instead of nooses, we’ll be using nukes. (When lynching was a way of life in the South, it was a practice to sell souvenir postcards with photographs of the victims. Would not souvenir postcards of irridated babies and toddlers be a potential revenue stream? We always did say the Middle East would finance its own liberation.)
It is good to know that our military leaders are hard at work protecting the purity of our bodily fluids. It is high time we scrubbed clean the face of the earth, and the B61-11 nuclear bunker buster will be our mop.
Your admirer,
Belacqua Jones
We live in exciting times! New ages are breaking out faster than farts at a baked-bean cook off. There is the New Age of Financialized Ruin, the New Age of Preemptive Peace and the New Age of Free Impoverishment.
Now we are seeing the emergence of another one: the New Age of Progressive Bigotry.
Happy is the nation grounded in bigotry. This is a nation that revels in the stasis of certainty, a certainty that is a bulwark against the trauma of growth and maturity. Bigotry is a Fountain of Youth, and those who drink deeply of it never change.
Life has not been easy for bigotry. Starting with the end of World War II and continuing on through the trauma the civil rights movement, bigotry was forced into the closet. That is changing. Thanks to your Global War on Terror, bigotry can finally come out and stand before the world in all of its liberated glory.
This New Age has given us something new, something bigotry never had: its own manifesto. I am speaking of a document titled, Towards a Grand Strategy for an Uncertain World: Renewing Transatlantic Partnership, issued by a throng of ex-NATO commanders. It sings from its opening paragraph which reassures us that, “What the Western allies face is a long, sustained and proactive defense of their societies and way life. …International terrorism today aims to disrupt and destroy our societies, our economies and our way of life. …What they have in common is an assault on the values of the West.” (Granted, western values gave us the holocaust and Hiroshima; but, hell, nobody’s perfect.)
I ask you, George, have you ever seen a more eloquent way of repositioning bigotry’s traditional threat that “they” are going to rape our women and marry our sisters?
Among the dangers the document outlines is that of Demography. It warns us that, “Population growth and change across the globe will swiftly change the world we knew. The challenge this poses for welfare, good governance and energy security…is vast.” There you have it; the world’s skin is getting browner and we have to act.
The document goes on to warn us that, “There is also the more philosophic problem of the rise of the irrational—the discounting of the rational. Though seemingly abstract, this problem is demonstrated in deeply practical ways. [These include] the decline of respect for logical argument and evidence, a drift away from science in a civilization that is deeply technological. The ultimate example is the rise of religious fundamentalism, which, as political fanaticism, presents itself as the only source of certainty.”
And, hell, that’s only the United States. It’s even worse in the Arab world!
Not to worry, the good generals have our backs covered. Their response to this threat is both far reaching and visionary. The solution is nothing short of “escalation dominance, the use of a full bag of both carrots and sticks—and indeed all instruments of soft and hard power, ranging from diplomatic protest to nuclear weapons. (Emphasis mine)
Doesn’t that just give your follicles a hard on? General Jack Ripper is back and kicking ass. We whisper a protest while we’re nuking them! That’s diplomacy at work protecting our freedoms.
What we are talking about is the greatest lynching the world has ever seen. But instead of nooses, we’ll be using nukes. (When lynching was a way of life in the South, it was a practice to sell souvenir postcards with photographs of the victims. Would not souvenir postcards of irridated babies and toddlers be a potential revenue stream? We always did say the Middle East would finance its own liberation.)
It is good to know that our military leaders are hard at work protecting the purity of our bodily fluids. It is high time we scrubbed clean the face of the earth, and the B61-11 nuclear bunker buster will be our mop.
Your admirer,
Belacqua Jones
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