Hatemongering in America—the Post-Carter Dilemma Versus Conservative Opposition

By Pied Pipe

“A nation of sheep will beget a government of wolves” Edward Murrow

The venom and vile the spews forth from America’s body politic is endemic of a people infected with fear and prejudice; but this learned hatred of a democratic agenda is not one based primarily on racism—yet hostility and resentment is very much its spirit. Rather this anima of animosity is one that seeks scapegoats for any instability felt or imagined of America’s middle and lower class realities, and all presumptions of a relatively naïve and misinformed society.

Although this society’s brand of governance was forged during the American Revolution, primarily from the educated thoughts of leading European intellectuals, the industrial revolution began. America itself, it seems, has added little to any kind of intellectual revolution, and stays rather stuck on economic ideas that are essentially two hundred years or so old. It was France’s economic physiocrats who came up with laissez faire capitalism that Adam Smith advocated. But Adam Smith, being a moral philosopher, advocated the advancement of all people by economic means despite the fact that the industrial revolution displaced small farmers for cheap labor, and so wide gaps in wealth quickly ensued.

Furthermore David Ricardo’s Principles of Political Economy and Taxation (1817) argued, based on Thomas Malthus’ Essay on the Principles of Population (1798), for an Iron Law of Wages, that is wages needed to remain at a subsistence level in order that poor people would not as readily find the means to sire as many children, which would ultimately lead to more famine and starvation. Issues we contend were envisioned many years ago.

And even if some of the physiocratic ideas proved themselves wrong, it is still a rather naïve notion to expect that billions of children born today, throughout the entire world, automatically are entitled to every form of human right imaginable—despite an inability or reluctance by world leaders’ to deal directly with over-population.

But it is presumption by all who live in wealthy societies to expect a sharing of the immense well-being and welfare—rather than question the societies exploitation of other lands and people by the aristocratic financial class. Nevertheless the idea that tax revenues can be found for more and more government programs is a tad idealistic. Whereas the ever-increasing population bomb is one fear factor few are willing to directly address.

This is to say that even common folk intuitively know there are finite resources in respect to various kinds of wealth and privilege. Nature, providence, or God, never created modern medicine—and yet this is one illusion the modern man has come to presume—that he is some how entitled to every form of expensive medical procedure and pill made available from a capitalistic and entrepreneurial society. This illusion of heaven on earth that we equate with progress and prosperity suggests that there should be no suffering and no death; but nature and ecological system looms to suggest otherwise.

The whole notion of John Lock’s natural rights was intellectually opposed by Jeremy Betham, another moral philosopher of democratic bent (happiness for the greatest number), as he claimed rights were created by the conventions of society—that is no one is born with rights. Yet rights are what people are willing to define and defend—meanwhile Americans have willingly sold their Bill of Rights down the river—because of fear mongering and political machinations. Now the Obama Administration wants more of the Patriot Act—go figure.
However, it is not fair blame one or the other party president for the ruling elite and governmental bureaucratic establishment (like wanting to blame Obama’s war in Afghanistan), as both parties do the bidding of the same behind the scenes puppeteers. Obama was allowed to win the election by the powers that be because it was presumed that he would follow a program more or less engendered by others. Still it is the evolving police state, including the private companies within the surveillance industrial complex, that wants the Patriot Act and all this entails.

But this country was founded, at least partially, on escapees from the religious wars of Europe as well as England’s deported criminals. And America has a history of a criminal nature that started by killing off the natives and importing the black slaves. Still it was religion that they turned to rationalize their behavior in the same way the Moses, via the conspiracy theories of later Torah scribes rationalized God’s commandment to kill off the inhabitants of Canaan. They simply needed to create a propaganda that claimed that a monotheistic God gave Hebrews the land and normal moral questions or scruples could be ignored. But human history is about power and wealth and utilizing whatever means can secure the ends—even if it includes massive lies that must be passed down from generation to generation in the name of religion. Controlling the masses by brainwashing them is nothing new.

We should not forget the fascist personality has a propensity to disdain human rights and intellectuals, find scapegoats, control the media, obsess about national security, become corrupt etc. Much of America’s right never really dug very deep to identify with those who played their prejudices and fears. For example if the hate Michael Moore it is because they have been lectured to about him rather than most going to check out his film for themselves to weigh its messages.

But the same can be said to some extent for some of the left. The idea of giving the government the right to take away our rights to own guns is extremely foolish giving the history of mankind. No one in their right mind would ever trust a government that much. Still the idea of brandishing guns at political rallies seems a form of disrespect by cowboys of a simplistic nature. The bottom line is the average American asks little in the way of explanation—save what he or she wants to hear—and ninety percent of the people believe what they want to believe irrespective of the truth and the rightwing has known this for quite some time.

In respect to nationalizing medicine, while the insurance companies may hate socialized medicine other medical suppliers and pharmacies will reap plenty of reward. This of course presumes that the U.S. government can pay its bills which it cannot. The U.S. is too busy supporting the socialism of the Military Industrial Complex and its arms manufacturers—which has found convenience in keeping Americans in a state of fear and panic. Practically every state senator and congresspersons constituency has federal contracts with the Pentagon, and there is always another war to espouse or create—which eats away enormous portions of our tax revenues. But our corrupted Congress of both parties are literally bribed by lobbyists. Besides who wants to sacrifice federally funded jobs or enormous profits to investors when it comes to the war machine, that has become addicted to war and instability (see Naomi Klein’s The Shock Doctrine).

Meanwhile the wealthy class that profits most by investing into the war machine does not send their kids to fight these wars. These wars are fought by the middle and low class kids who can’t find jobs and who cannot afford to go to college. The war is an economic civil war that allows for all sorts of divisiveness within our culture.

Still the biggest delusion for the body politic is the ability of the wealthy class and mega-corporations to foment divisiveness between the lower and middle classes by misinformation and hate politics par excellence—that is allowing demagogues to manipulate the fears and prejudices of the common people on talk radio. This is where the working classes listen—since many are not readers.

Most Americans are too naïve to realize the levels of corruption that are possible and taken for granted by the power elites. Yet one merely study the real intellectual behind the NeoCon Artist game, namely Leo Strauss at the University of Chicago to understand how the Kristols of the world turned from communism to totalitarianism. (see the film series called The Power of Nightmares). Here we learn about a political philosophy that finds a common enemy outside a community to unite the community and a belief that people need to live in fear to get them to accept compromises they normally would not accept. Then study the NeoCon Artist agenda and you can begin to understand how the Bush Administration worked.

Many political issues are complex and require expenditures of time and intellectual effort to grasp. But the American media and political elite has managed to seduce the average person to think he or she is capable of knowing reality on a minimum of sound bites and clichés—not to mention fear and loathing. Hatred is a motivating force that many can identity no matter how retarded on an intellectual scale.

So this is why so many hard working Americans are lead to believe that the average Senator and Congressperson cares about them when they really do not care that much. This society has been almost thoroughly corrupted. We accept a government that rewards criminals who tricked the less sophisticated into taking loans and mortgages they should not have even contemplated (and this is not to argue the home buyers are innocent). We believe those who claim some industries and companies are too big to fail—why because we have a huge industry of finance that does nothing but reshuffle paperwork and sales pitches—they can’t get off their asses and do some real work and create real material benefit for the nation. Rather we simply print money as if it were paper. We have a Federal Reserve and banking system that operates on mysticism and has the federal government’s taxpayers in chains.

The American people have lived the good life of circus and bread. We have invented many machines to replace manual energy with the energy of machines that the rest of the world not feels entitled—that is in our exportation of laissez faire capitalism around the world—like the new model government we tried establishing in Iraq. Now peoples around the world want our life styles and cultural wealth that the ecological system cannot sustain.

Meanwhile the wealth classes have cynically taken the view that it is all against all, and the poor are just going to have to suffer and die while chasing their socialist castles in the sand. The right-wingers are right in knowing that there are limits to what a community can support—that increasing populations cannot expect unlimited rights—be they medical or otherwise. Still the medical industry grows and grows and bills and bills.

So we can regress to the days of Roman bully bludgeoning. Hatred is infectious just as the fear mongering that has worked so well throughout the ages. The fact is that most Americans are not sophisticated enough to see how they are being manipulated by the Powers-That-Be. Nevertheless they feel frustration and fear. But it is not even politically correct to examine any ideas labeled “conspiracy theories” to any real depth despite the fact that both words have been in existence for eons—and for a very good reason—because both have referred to actual human enterprise. People who reject examining all conspiracy theories are people who are easily mislead to follow a pied piper. They have neither the curiosity nor skepticism of a wise people. They are the demagogues dream.

Yes there is a truly mean and uncivil spirit in the American nation. After all we have intellectually bought into the notion that businesses should not be fettered by laws or morals—this is the equivalent of criminalizing corporate America. The naïve notion that there are natural economic laws that work themselves out by the invisible hand and supply and demand ignores the reality of laws of nature and human nature. A society based on the notion that much is fair game for corporations, and that they have a legal right to free speech of personhood, and to funnel as much money to political candidates and think tanks as they wish is to declare that criminality is legal. (see Mark Achbar’s film The Corporation).

Expect more hatemongering—it is within the fear or our cultural DNA. Yet funny how the hate laws that Congress is so ready to legislate don’t seem to apply to talk radio—especially right wing radio—which is the engine behind much of what we witness as hate mongering in politics.

Pretentious "writers" need to learn to proofread, unless they want to garner a reputation for posting swill that will be rejected by every landfill on the planet (such as from Bob Ness):

Die Like a Dog
by nessie Sunday July 18, 2004 at 05:19 PM

Tip was a good dog. He was murdered in cold blood by a cruel and heartless man who got away with it because he is a cop. Tip is dead, but not forgotten. He lives in the hearts of those he left behind, and in the hearts of all who love dogs and justice more than they love the cops. Last Friday night, Tip's extended family held a candlelight memorial for him in front of San Francisco's main cop-shop/courthouse at 850 Bryant St.


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When Tip was murdered, one of his human companions became quite understandably hysterical. Her name is Janet. She wasn't trying to hurt anybody. She was just screaming. She couldn't have hurt anybody if she wanted to. She was recovering from hip surgery, and was only able to walk with a cane and great difficulty. The cops wrestled her to the ground and restrained her. In the process, one of them broke his own sunglasses. So Janet was charged with assaulting an officer.

When I heard about this, I made it my business to be at the so-called “Hall of Justice” at 850 Bryant St. when Janet showed up for her first hearing. I interviewed her and two other witnesses. I have refrained from publishing it until now because I didn't want to jinx her case. Eventually, a judge threw the case out, but not before the ordeal had extracted time from Janet's life, and caused her a great deal of worry. As the SFPD take such joy in reminding the people they bust on bunk charges, you can beat the rap, but you can't beat the ride.

Some people would consider Chuck, Janet, and Dusty to be homeless people. Actually, they are vehicle dwellers. Their home is on wheels. The day Tip was shot, they were parked close to a dog park, along with a number of other similar vehicles. It is technically illegal to live in a vehicle on the street in SF. The loophole is you only have to move every 72 hours. There are several communities of vehicle dwellers in SF. They comprise a couple hundred individuals. They tend to look out for each other. They have to. The police push them around. All too often, the police murder their dogs, just because they can. All too often, the police also murder dogs who are companions of the truly homeless people, the ones who live on the sidewalk and under the bridges. While this happens fairly often, it is seldom if ever reported in the media. On the rare occasions that a middle class dog and the police tangle, it's news for days. Ask Max Castro, of San Francisco's Sunset District, or the Smoak family of North Carolina.

There are said to be ten to twenty thousand homeless people in SF. My guess is there are a lot more, and they just hide. There are a great many other people who are technically not homeless because they couch surf. My guess is based on personal experience. Giving away 1600 pounds of food every Thursday morning for six years in the eighties brought me into contact with a lot of hungry people. They included homeless people, couch surfers, vehicle dwellers and just plain poor people who have somehow managed to still hold onto their rooms and apartments. There are many of different kinds of poor people. They have little in common but poverty. But that's enough. Poverty is a full time job. Among the homeless, women are in the majority, a lot of them with children. You don't see them because they hide.

Back in the day, many vehicle dwellers drew a class distinction between themselves and the people who sleep in the bushes. Consistent and uniform persecution by the police has eroded this attitude by blurring the line between them. So has the increasing number of people who can’t afford to pay rent. Real estate speculation and Bush’s recession have made rent an unaffordable luxury for even many working poor. Then there’s the cops. If they tow your vehicle, it’s gone, and everything you own with it. you’re “kicked to the curb,” as the saying goes, and have to start over from nothing. None of Tip’s friends draw the distinction between those who live on wheels and those who live on their feet. Poor is poor. All poor people are in ever so slight variations of the same predicament. All are persecuted by the police. So are their dogs.

When you think of homeless people, you tend to think of disheveled winos, begging on the street. They are the ones you see, because they are the ones who don't hide. They are the tip of the iceberg. Far more common are people like Chuck and Janet, who are neither disheveled nor substance abusers, and their friend Dusty, who despite the moniker is clean and well dressed, and who is in recovery.

Tip was Chuck's dog, or rather, Chuck was Tip’s person. Chuck is Janet's significant other. Dusty is often their neighbor. Chuck, Janet and Tip were a family of three. Now they are just a grieving couple. For a living, they scavenge scrap metal. It pays only slightly better than welfare, and takes up a lot of time. But you don't have to punch a clock, or take orders from a boss. To some people, that's worth more than money. Scavenging is good exercise, too. It keeps Chuck in shape. I wish I looked as healthy as he does. The guy is built like a line backer. His size alone made the point in the narrative where he breaks down be a particularly heart rending moment. I gave him a big hug when it was over.

My connection with Tip is my friend Jane. Chuck saved Jane's life once. She made friends with him and Janet. Tip made friends with her. He was a very friendly dog. He made many, many friends. Most were poor. That's why he died the way he did. Rich people's dogs don't die this way.

Jane can't keep a dog where she lives, and she can't afford to move. She has a real deal on housing, and in this town, that's not something one walks away from. Rent is very expensive here. When you have a deal, you stick with it, or you have to leave town. New rentals are through the roof.

When Tip was alive, and Jane was feeling depressed, she would borrow Tip and they would go walking. He always cheered her up. Sometimes she borrows my dog for the same reason. Dogs are good for this sort of thing. Mammalian emotions are contagious, and it is very easy to make a dog happy. A dog can feel much greater happiness than its little brain can hold. The rest spills out, and gets all over whoever is nearby and has feelings. They act as a sort of amplifiering happiness reflectors. If you are so devoid of feelings as to be unable to share a dog's happiness, you're a psychic cripple. Get help. If that doesn't work out, you can always get a job with the SFPD. They hire people like you. You'd fit right into their culture.

For years, Jane tried to introduce me to Tip, whom she assured me I would like a great deal. She told me all about his personality, and how smart he was, and all the tricks he did, and how many friends he had, and how friendly he was, and how much people liked him, and how much I would like him, and when would I come and meet him? But I always kept putting it off, and now it's too late.

I'll never get to see him catch a tennis ball on the fly and drop it into the wire panniers of a moving bicycle. I'll never get to see him run along side and untie the cyclist's shoelace as he ran. I'll never get to see him lift from Jane's shoulders the crushing weight of depression that medication could never touch. I'll never get to shake his paw or rub his belly or feel his soft, warm tongue on my cheek. He's dead and gone, murdered in cold blood by a cruel and heartless man.

But he's not forgotten. He lives in the hearts of those he left behind, and in the hearts of all who love dogs and justice more than they love the cops.