The Sweltering Summer Of Fear

If it is to be, then let it be. It will take another attack on the homeland to quell the chattering of chipmunks and to restore America’s righteous rage and singular purpose to prevail.

-Stu Bykofsky

Baseball, hotdogs, apple pie and jackbooted government thugs kicking down your door after your name turns up on the hit list after the illegal spying and data mining just given a seal of approval by the Vichy Dems, this is the vision of the grand experiment of the dismantling of democracy in the post-9/11 through the looking glass world of The Homeland. It is now mid-August, the sweltering heat and dread of the summer of fear combine to choke off reason and logic as the grand house of cards that is the stock market teeters precariously and those strange words of Rick Santorum that “a lot of things are going to happen” resonate with each and every terror warning like the latest threatening a reported plot that there is chatter about a pending dirty bomb attack in New York City.

Dick Cheney and the neocon junta are also ratcheting up the rhetoric and pushing their plans for the looming attack on Iran that will take the bastard conflagration that is the wet dream of madmen global and turn the United States into pariah of Nazi like proportions. Hitting Iran would be like Hitler invading Poland and you can bet that any justification such as a false flag attack will be just as steeped in utter bullshit as the Gleiwitz incident was back in 1939. The PNAC boys and Clean Breakers have obviously studied Operation Himmler and how in your face would it be if the next ‘terrorist’ attack to take place within the borders of Der Heimat were to occur on August 31st? Then again, who would care because in a nation of mindless drones and hateful lemmings it is incomprehensible that anything resembling recall of history extends past the latest bust involving Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan or the most recent winner of the American Idol.

Many Republicans are already on record longing for another terrorist attack with the same sort of uncontrollable lust that drives degenerate pederasts, the same sort of bad wiring in the head that drugs just can’t cure and nothing short of removal from civilized society (or this mortal coil itself for that matter) can remedy. The latest example of this sort of mass dementia is exemplified in the recent column of one Stu Bykofsky entitled and I shit you not –“To save America, we need another 9/11”. Sweet Fucking Jesus, what has happened to us as a country when these sick, demented ghouls can wrap themselves in old glory and openly cheer for the deaths of thousands of innocent people for the sake of political expediency and some twisted version of nationalism that more fittingly belongs in the Weimar Republic than in the sad mockery of the remnants of what was once the land of the free and the home of the brave.

One of the most often misquoted and abused statements in the brutal word wars that pass for political discourse these days is that of Carl Schurz who in 1872 said:

“My country, right or wrong.” In one sense I say so too. My country; and my country is the great American Republic. My country, right or wrong; if right, to be kept right; and if wrong, to be set right”

Of course in the attention deficit disorder afflicted land of suckers that is the post 9/11 wasteland that is mid-2007 America it is much more familiar in its shortened form-“My Country, Right or Wrong” and is regularly bandied about for political purposes. This has become a standard denunciation for the extremist right in its diluted form and serves the same purpose as the standard “Love it Or Leave It”. Either one is absolutely guaranteed to get the backs of ‘patriots’ up and the red, white and blue blood flowing for another round of rousing demagoguery. If the nationalist ranting of our beleaguered national fascist party in this latest round of bunting draped vitriol is any indication the Republicans won’t be satisfied until there are brutally violent pogroms being conducted and the blood of liberals and gays is flowing in the streets.

There is something very dark locked away in the American psyche that makes for fertile territory for sick fascist fucks like Bykofsky seeking to catch that good ole 9/11 style lightning in a bottle for a renewal of the foaming at the mouth, dissent quashing, authoritarian tyranny that ruled the land in the direct aftermath of that day of infamy now nearly six years past. Those were the good old days when rallies were held to destroy Dixie Chicks CD’s and every home was festooned with American flags (many made in China) that were the requisite talisman to prevent the owners from having visited upon them a terrible pox of ‘unpatriotic’, it was as necessary as the blood of the lamb on doorposts in biblical times to keep the angel of death at bay. There has always been a considerable segment of the population susceptible to the siren song of authoritarianism, a good study on this is John Dean’s outstanding book Conservatives Without Conscience” which examines the mutant strain of virulent ‘conservatism’ that exists today. From the days when Father Charles Coughlin railed against the New Deal to the heir to his throne of hatred Rush Limbaugh who has the benefit of high technology and a king hell infrastructure to back him the need for scapegoats and a return to days of yore have hooked those that I refer to very easily.

A childhood friend who I will call ‘Rocky’ fell under the spell of the grand poobah of white populist propaganda years ago. The last times that I talked to him was immediately after the news of his hero’s taste for Vicodin and Oxycontin had broken and Rocky this with a line of crap along the lines that at “any given time that at least half of the population was high on something or the other”. He of course became quite angry when I told him that thrice divorced, racist, drugged out hypocrites who hold others to higher standards by proclaiming that they are morally superior deserve exactly what they get. Then again Rocky never really did get it. He always was dumber than a bucket of shit and to borrow a line from Matt Taibbi was “a total zero, a loser and 200-odd pounds of the world’s purest pussy repellent” although in Rocky’s case it was far closer to 300.

‘Rocky’ always had a low sense of self esteem as well as a wide yellow streak bordering on neocon chickenshit and had an irrational fear of dogs. When we were going around door to door soliciting donations for whatever charitable cause we were tasked with doing by our school (which we did quite often as kids) he could be confronted by a toy poodle and would practically shit in his pants out of pure primal fear, he acted as though it were the crazed, rabid monster canine ‘Cujo’ himself bearing down on him with a blood scent. It was a good thing that he had the fear though because it made for good exercise both for myself and the little pudgeball who would often make us walk blocks out of our way so as to avoid any yards where there were barking dogs.

After about thirty years of cowardice and shame ‘Rocky’ found Rush in much the same manner that some diehard losers turn their lives around by finding Jesus. It was as though he became possessed by an evil spirit because practically overnight he was transformed into a blowhard, ditto-head bully, parroting Limbaugh in going off on anti-liberal, Clinton bashing diatribes and visiting the gathering places that were then known as ‘Rush Rooms’ that were areas set aside in local dining and drinking establishments where fans of the great one with borrowed talent from the heavens could gather and network while his radio show was played every day to the cheers of the aspiring beer hall putschers. As it is with other conscripts in ditto head angry army, my buddy was a mass of contradictions, a bigot of immense proportions both in girth and flawed ideology, you see he became one of those angry white man without a clue as to the true reason for their anger but the big fat bastard who was of Hispanic descent really wasn’t white at all.

In retrospect my old buddy was a latent dittohead from his earliest days. He once tried to coax me into participating in a mutual jack-off session back when we were in our early teens one night when I was sleeping over at his house which was something that I did often due to the fact that my parents were going through a very ugly divorce and it was a refuge from their fighting. So there you have the latent homosexual tendencies that drive many of those angry Alpha males into outwardly projected self-loathing and ripe for the picking for the high and mighty Limbaughs and lesser stooges like Bykofskys of the world. I know that his parents who are devout Catholics would be absolutely horrified at this revelation so hopefully they will never read this blog. They are really very nice people who still send me a Christmas card every year and I certainly wouldn’t ever want to give them any idea that their son may in fact be a repressed closet queen who may have been far more qualified for the priesthood than they ever would have otherwise imagined. Given the mass appeal of Limbaugh it is an absolute certainty that there are millions out there just like ‘Rocky’ who are all too easily ensnared by their tentacles.

Author Kevin Phillips is a longtime conservative whose most recent book American Theocracy is a must read as it offers an excellent analysis of the triple threat that radical religion, foreign oil and massive debt pose to our nation’s future. This is his follow-up to the equally excellent American Dynasty that stripped away the veneer of respectability and shined a light into the foul den of iniquity that is the House of Bush and the family ability to discard that pesky morality which far too often serves as an impediment to the accumulation of wealth and power. Phillips wrote another book back in 1982 that accurately and prophetically forecast many of the contributing factors to today’s poisonous political environment.

Post Conservative America was bold and daring in the examination of the caustic effects of the triumphal ascendancy of Ronald Reagan as the heir to Barry Goldwater style conservatism and made the comparison between the U.S. in the 1980’s and the Weimar Republic of Germany that preceded the rise to power of the Nazi Party and Adolf Hitler. Phillips noted that there were certain similarities in the legacy of a nation reeling from the effects of a “lost war, diminished faith in institutions, the gap between an elite ‘cabaret culture’ and the beliefs of the more traditional masses”. The combination of these as well as the Reagan political machine’s reliance on the seductive siren song of nostalgia that fed off of a longing for a better time that although itself a myth was widely accepted due to the fantasy world of television. For years there were shows and movies that presented a distorted version of white picket fenced, small town Americana that was overly simplistic and totally lacking in the portrayal of the complexities and contradictions of life itself in regards to human history in general and our own revisionist American history in particular. Phillips theorized that such mass misconceptions as well as their cynical exploitation by amoral political operatives could potentially result in an “apple-pie authoritarianism” in our society.

Phillips stated that such fantasy and a growing influence of the south in the political arena could result in a country in which:

“Corporatist policies would manage the economy more than is being done today, mobilizing a U.S.A. Inc. to cope with France Inc. or Japan Inc. The morality of the majority would be upheld and enforced, though with politically convenient lapses; “The Star-Spangled Banner” would wave with greater frequency and over many more parades; increased surveillance would crack down on urban outbreaks and extreme political dissidents”.

Sound familiar? I find it strange that some of the biggest defenders of American liberties are disenchanted principled conservatives like John Dean, Kevin Phillips, Vic Gold and the spot on Paul Craig Roberts among others. In Post Conservative America the author also addresses the foul aftertaste of Vietnam that has lingered in the mouths of so many whose bitterness at the first lost war in American history would remain so firmly lodged in their exceptionalist craws and be embodied as huge chips on their shoulders that the propagandists could exploit to the maximum value when it came to promoting the ultra-right movement’s agenda. Phillips very accurately predicted not only the increasing radicalism of the religious right (which is covered in depth in American Theocracy) and the backlash against the perceived excesses of the 1960s but he also warned of the open wounds left by the lost war in Vietnam. These wounds have lingered, never being able to completely heal due to their value to certain elements of the political realm who relish not only tearing away the scabs but in rubbing salt into them for good measure as well as added impact. He warned of revisionism in re-fighting this war, a devastating blow to the national psyche and never a political party to continue to exploit divisive tactics like the infamous Southern Strategy the Reagan administration wasted no time in capitalizing on simmering resentment when the ‘Gipper’ himself stated in a speech shortly after taking office:

“Several years [ago], we brought home a group of American fighting men who obeyed their country’s call and fought as bravely and well as any Americans in our history. They came home without a victory not because they had been defeated but because they had been denied permission to win”

The war was then re-fought at cinemas with vengeful fantasies like Rambo II, Chuck Norris’ Missing In Action series, Uncommon Valor and a number of lesser films all featuring the same theme…winning it this time! Vietnam era resentment is still alive and well, ready to be sprung like a bouncing betty from the subconscious whenever the Republican party needs to tap into it. And when our loss in Iraq is firmly established in history then Karl Rove and his minions will use the exact same tactics to blame the loss on the clueless and cowardly Democrats who can only be counted on to roll over repeatedly while Americans are stripped of their civil liberties and a dictatorial police state becomes more deeply entrenched.

It has already started, don’t take my word for it though. Just look around.

The summer of fear is entering the dog days now and the scent of blood is dangerously close to wafting in on the breeze much to the delight of the apple pie authoritarians and dangerous demagogues who are coiled and ready to strike whenever the next ‘terrorist’ attack provides them with the opportunity that they have been slavering for.