RevolutionZ
RevolutionZ
Ep 278 The Devil In No Longer In Disguise
Episode 278 of RevolutionZ takes the character of and support for MAGA fascism, Mideast genocide, and earth-wide ecological suicide as focus, but spends little time on their cause, texture, or impacts. Rather, we consider why and how there is any support for the first two and massive obliviousness to the third. What is going on in various constituencies to produce much less sustain such alignments? I want to know, and I assume you want to know. Indeed, unless we know, how can we effectively address people with such horrifyingly harmful views? That is our topic this time.
Hello, my name is Michael Albert and I am the host of the podcast that's titled Revolution Z. This is our 278th consecutive episode. It is about our times, I suppose you might say. Seen through my eyes. It addresses the massive confusion that what I am seeing out there, which has taken up residence in my mind, which is probably pretty much like what you're seeing out there, which likely also occupies your mind.
Speaker 1:I will confine myself to commenting on what are perhaps the three largest current instances of mind madness. I suppose for a great many people, including myself, the three are the orange here Trumpist or fascist, as you choose, whichever you prefer onslaught on the United States, the still raging and even spreading genocidal violence in the Mideast. And the steady ecological devolution of survival prospects worldwide. I'm sorry that all that horribleness is center stage for this episode, but at least the confusions these phenomena arouse in me as I speak with you are about potential corrections, that is, how to deal constructively with them. So what's with my title? The Devil is no Longer in Disguise. Well, it's either clickbait and I got you, or by that I simply mean the evil of all. Three of these current issues that I'm going to address are not hidden. The rot is not even trying to hide. You can't avoid the horrific details, not least because the perpetrators brag more than they even try to hide.
Speaker 1:Okay, so for the first topic, I came across a description of Trump by a British writer, nate White, who I otherwise know absolutely zero about. His description of Trump goes like this why do some British people not like Donald Trump? A few things spring to mind. Trump lacks certain qualities which the British traditionally esteem. For instance, he has no class, no charm, no coolness, no credibility, no compassion, no wit, no warmth, no wisdom, no subtlety, no sensitivity, no self-awareness, no humility, no honor and no grace All qualities, funnily enough, with which his predecessor, mr Obama, was generously blessed. So for us, the British, the stark contrast does rather throw Trump's limitations into embarrassingly sharp relief Plus we like a laugh to embarrassingly sharp relief Plus we like a laugh.
Speaker 1:And while Trump may be laughable, he has never once said anything wry, witty or even faintly amusing. Not once Ever. I don't say that rhetorically, I mean it quite literally. Not once, not ever. And that fact is particularly disturbing to the British sensibility. For us to lack humor is almost inhuman, but with Trump it's a fact. He doesn't even seem to understand what a joke is. His idea of a joke is a crass comment, an illiterate insult, a casual act of cruelty.
Speaker 1:Trump is a troll and like all trolls, he is never funny and he never laughs, he only crows or jeers. And, scarily, he doesn't just talk in crude, witless insults, he actually thinks in them. His mind is a simple, bot-like algorithm of petty prejudices and knee-jerk nastiness. There is never any underlayer of irony, complexity, nuance or depth, it's all surface. Some Americans might see this as refreshingly upfront. Well, we don't. We see it as having no inner world, no soul, and in Britain we traditionally side with David, not Goliath. All our heroes are plucky underdogs Robin Hood, dick Whittington, oliver Trist.
Speaker 1:Trump is neither plucky nor an underdog, he is the exact opposite of that. He's not even a spoiled rich boy or a greedy fat cat. He's more a fat white slug, a Jabba the Hutt of privilege. And worse, he is that most unforgivable of all things to the British, a bully, that is. Except when he is among bullies, when he suddenly transforms into a sniveling sidekick instead. There are unspoken rules to this stuff, the Queensberry rules of basic decency, and he breaks them all. He punches downwards, which a gentleman should, would, could, never do, and every blow he aims is below the belt. He particularly likes to kick the vulnerable or voiceless, and he kicks them when they are down. So the fact that a significant minority, perhaps a third of Americans, look at what he does, listen to what he says and then think, yeah, he seems like my kind of guy, it's a matter of some confusion and no little distress to British people, given that Americans are supposed to be nicer than us and mostly they are.
Speaker 1:You don't need a particularly keen eye for detail to spot a few flaws in the man. This last point is what especially confuses and dismays British people and many other people too. His faults seem pretty bloody hard to miss. After all, it's impossible to read a single tweet or hear him speak a sentence or two without staring deep into the abyss. He turns being artless into an art form. He is a Picasso of pettiness, a Shakespeare of shit. His faults are fractal. Even his flaws have flaws, and so on ad infinitum. God knows. There have always been stupid people in the world, and plenty of nasty people too, but rarely has stupidity been so nasty or nastiness so stupid. He makes Nixon look trustworthy and George W looks smart. In fact, if Frankenstein decided to make a monster assembled entirely from human flaws. He would make a Trump, and a remorseful Dr Frankenstein would clutch out big clumpfuls of hair and scream in anguish my God, what have I created? I react, it would seem.
Speaker 1:This British writer, nate White, can turn a phrase. You might wonder, however, why there isn't any reference to Trump's actual views. But wonder not, I would guess Nate's point in that regard is that, beyond what Nate offered, trump's views don't actually exist. In any case, I am here in America and I look around, mostly on YouTube, where I look at interviews of Trumpers and at descriptions or quotes of his utterances nowadays about his trials, and I look at his talks and what all else, and I find myself confused about the same concern as the Britisher why does, let's call it, a third of the US population support Trump in any way at all? And why does what some subset of that group support him to the point of what appears to be worship? He seems to be oxycodone incarnate, an addiction which, once it's got you, ravages you, or your brain at any rate, but that isn't much of an answer to why. So what is?
Speaker 1:Before trying to answer, however, let's get the second and third top stories that confuse me and confuse many others. On the table, israel goose steps bombs across Gaza to demolish hospitals, homes and pretty much everything else, and even beyond that, to make it as openly intentional as possible. Israel starves people as overt policy and acknowledges that that is the idea. And, as with Trump, worship, many wonder how do we understand the reactions to Israel's genocidal policies, which are often baffling as well as nauseating? And my third focus of confusion is the trajectory of the world that is currently right out in the open, displaying for all to see its steadily worsening ecological dissolution. And again, how do we explain people's reactions to that? So back to the orange blight.
Speaker 1:How is it possible for so many people to support Trump? And then, how is it possible for the vast bulk of Israelis, otherwise sane souls, to support massacre and mayhem, genocide that calls itself well, revenge unto death, revenge unto death. And also, how is it possible for too many otherwise seemingly sensible souls in the United States, presumably caring souls, to also support genocide and be horrified by and even repressive toward support for Palestine? And finally, how is it possible for an incredibly large number I will confine myself here to the United States, but it is generally true, I think of sentient humans elsewhere as well, to effectively ignore or tut-tut the suicidal trajectory of the planet they inhabit. A hard rain is falling and so many ignore or even run from, but don't rise up against the already raging and everywhere impending floods. In a nutshell, on this score, what's going on in people's heads? It feels to me like one has to have a feel for that to impact where we are headed.
Speaker 1:In a book titled Mother Night, kurt Vonnegut has a passage where a character tries to address what I think is basically the same underlying question as is vexing me, though far more creatively than I can muster Vonnegut's character comments. I have never seen a more sublime demonstration of the totalitarian mind, a mind which might be linked onto a system of gears where teeth have been filed off at random. Such snaggletooth thought machine, driven by a standard or even by a substandard libido, whirls with the jerky, noisy, gaudy pointlessness of a cuckoo clock in hell. The boss G-man concluded, wrongly, that there were no teeth on the gears in the mind of Jones. You're completely crazy, he said. But Jones wasn't completely crazy.
Speaker 1:The dismaying thing about classic totalitarian mind is that any given gear, though mutilated, will have at its circumference unbroken sequences of teeth that are immaculately maintained, that are exquisitely machined. Hence the cuckoo clock in hell, keeping perfect time for 8 minutes and 23 seconds, jumping ahead 14 minutes. Keeping perfect time for 6 seconds, jumping ahead 2 seconds. Keeping perfect time for 2 hours and 1 second, then jumping ahead a year for two hours and one second, then jumping ahead a year. The missing teeth, of course, are simple, obvious truths, truths available and comprehensible even to ten-year-olds in most cases. The willful filing off of gear teeth, the willful doing without certain obvious pieces of information. That was how a household as contradictory as one composed of Jones, father Keeley, vice Bundesfuhrer, kropftauer and the Black Fuhrer could exist in relative harmony. That was how my father-in-law could contain in one mind an indifference toward slave women and love for a blue vase. That was how Rudolf Hess, commandant of Auschwitz, could alternate over loudspeakers of Auschwitz, great music and calls for corpse carriers.
Speaker 1:No-transcript, that is the closest I can come to explaining the legions, the nations of lunatics I've seen in my time. So that is Vonnegut's attempt. But what does that moving dismissal say one should do when a great many one hears of, works with one even lives with, seem to have in their heads one or another cuckoo clock in hell, or when one fears there may be missing truths even in one's own head. My answer is I can only guess. I'm not sure I'm confused, but I think how we answer matters for a host of reasons. First, to prevent fascism, curb wars and preserve planetary habitability is going to require that many who favor insanity, injustice and or social suicide change views. And second, that I think whatever allows people to take otherwise absurd, self-denying, other-denying, reason-ignoring and even suicidal stances in these three cases that I have mentioned occurs in countless other domains as well, albeit perhaps less screamingly visibly. Here are some Guns, immigration, artificial intelligence, health, medicine, salaries and income, book banning and all kinds of fundamentalism, including sectarianism, as well as, of course, sexism, racism and classism in all their forms.
Speaker 1:So back to our topics. First, why do folks like, or even purport to love Trump? I think we can confidently answer, but only for a very few. For example, the rich and powerful who support him expect largesse in return. There's no confusion there, and I suppose a connected or ancillary explanation is those who see him in the Oval Office for four more years and don't want to be on his enemies list.
Speaker 1:A second oft-touted explanation is that a subset of his supporters. Trump's supporters are simply little Trumps. Little Trumps who he has released from hiding their vile side by his parading his violent side. This explanation says Trump's vulgar, racist and, I think, easily as attractive to some sexist outbreaks, wherein the devil struts about in all his resplendent finery, has freed others from making believe, or even from having actually sublimated or otherwise no longer felt similar inclinations to let go and be them ugly selves, to also strut like their pied piper. Then the question arises why do, however many of these folks exist, have these inclinations in the first place? But it is in any case a plausible explanation for some of Trump's support. So one group so far supports him as a lackey to serve their interests. A second group supports him as a pied piper, legitimating their preferred inclinations.
Speaker 1:Next, there are what folks looking on like to call the ignorant and deceived followers, that is, trump supporters, who actually believe Biden stole the election and believe Trump cares about them. There are those, that is, who have fallen down the rabbit hole of Fox reporting. But if you think about it for a minute, if you do believe those things, then the behavior becomes pretty rational. Finally, we also have two more groups, or perhaps it is two components of one group, the encompassing constituency can see that Trump is a horrible person. For one part of them, however, he is also a wrench in society's works. He is not more same old, same old, but instead he is so wildly berserk that he just might upset existing norms and habits long enough for things to get better. So these folks support him literally because he is off the rails and they hope for good to come from the messes that he creates.
Speaker 1:I think the last group I see ironically supports him as the lesser evil. These folks quite reasonably trust very little that comes out of any politician's mouth. They know they are hurting, they feel it. They don't really know what another Trump regime would mean, but they do feel that they know what another Biden regime would mean. It would mean more of what they have already suffered. So for them Biden is just business as usual and they tend to think that nothing in place of that could be worse than that. So Orange man is the new lesser evil, and politics is sleight of hand anyhow. So let's at least beat the system. We could stop there.
Speaker 1:But why even guess at what yields support for Trump, for fascism? It ought to be to ask is there any way to address Trump-supporting views constructively. So okay, how about talking to the rich who want to get richer? We know that will go nowhere. Power alone will affect them. We get that. It's lesson one of activism. Next, how about the previously closeted or out in the open but significantly restrained racists and sexists who now happily follow Trump's bombastic lead? Can we address them with evidence, reason and even empathy? Maybe Sometimes that might work For us to say no, don't bother. Is that evidence of a clock with very nasty flaws? What about the group who thinks Trump will do less harm? In that case, evidence and reason should matter. They dislike things worth disliking. They just think that with Trump, there is more chance those ills will be muted or even stopped. They don't see the error that involves, and so making a case to demonstrate that error seems worth undertaking seems essential.
Speaker 1:I know that lots of people think that supporting Trump, and especially that workers supporting Trump, is the really inexplicable mindset of our times. They chalk it up to untouchable broken gears. I am not one who thinks that. I agree there is some ignorance and myth involved. But whose fault is that? The stacked system, of course, and beyond that, arguably activists like me who have known otherwise, but who in 50 years haven't communicated sufficiently well with working people for them even to be immunized against supporting a billionaire buffoon.
Speaker 1:And before throwing rocks at Trump's working class male, female, white, black supporters, consider the upside-down views of the non-Trump millions who think that attacking our government is vile. Who think hating politicians is vile. Who think rage at doctors who push drugs, at lawyers who plea bargain lives into prisons, at teachers who purport to know more but actually know less and teach inanities, are vile. Who think society deserves support. So yes, of course there are also Trumpers out there, out of their minds, who were drawn slowly into a cult-like defense of their prior support for him and who now manifest, grotesquely, deep racism and sexism. But I actually think most of the support for Trump is no more peculiar, given the facts, than actual positive support felt by many for Genocide Joe. I certainly want Biden to win absolutely, because Trump is an outright megalomaniacal, egomaniacal, fascist, lunatic. And as horrible as neoliberalism is, fascism is a hell of a lot worse. But really to feel literally positively for a guy who is armed, rationalized and even cheered on Israel's brazenly open extermination policies, does that evidence a clock in good order? And that brings us to our second example. How do we even explain, much less relate to support for such visibly, undeniably genocidal policies as perpetrated in Gaza.
Speaker 1:Consider a subset of the Jewish community in the US. They video saw Hamas horribly kill Israelis. They assessed and presumably decided right off or later that decades of open-air imprisonment, random deaths, colonial occupation, denial and indignity being labeled vermin didn't justify that it was terror, it's true. Then they decided people who have also suffered through history genocidal attack, denigration, death, more depth genocide to unleash their American emblazoned military might in unyielding assault. They do unto others what had been done unto them. They announce it, they prepare it, they do it, they celebrate it, they sing praises to it, they admire their intentionally aimed bombs blasting everything homes, hospitals, limbs and souls until there is nowhere for Palestinians to run. That isn't bursting with death and destruction because Hamas's actions justify it. Bursting with death and destruction because Hamas's actions justify it.
Speaker 1:What do Israel's actions now justify? Well, some in my country think they warrant praise, some think they warrant support. Some think that to oppose Israel's genocidal, planned, praised actions and US support for them is anti-Semitic and the protesters should be shut down. And those people? But well, what would Vonnegut, who described Nazi cuckoo clock minds say about this round. So two down, and what I have offered may be just a little clarity along with a whole lot of confusion my apologies, I don't have better for you along with a whole lot of confusion. My apologies, I don't have better for you.
Speaker 1:And so we come to our third focus. Outside your window, every window, the world facing fire, facing ice, facing flooding, facing starving high water rising. On the one hand, mired in the rat race, fancy captains of industry clutch at profit to enrich themselves, one would think their offspring even while they pursue the oil-drenched death of everything that breathes, including their offspring. Is that cuckoo clock brains or just profit-seeking identities wedged into perpetual self-aggrandizement, even unto death? And on the other hand, so many heads. Just look away, don't look. See only what you want to see. Is that fear? Is it ignorance? Is it surrender? Is it being too busy? Are we going over the edge? Because well, that's where the mob is going? What do you say to that if you would like to try to help save everything?
Speaker 1:Dylan, in a different time, but distraught at what he saw, said this when I heard it back then I turned left, hard left. He didn't. That was a pity, but maybe give it a listen. Dylan's a poet, but this isn't meant to be read, though I will anyhow. So sue me, and seeing it well, whatever you want which I hope is less like what Dylan apparently saw and more like, dare I suggest it, what I saw Darkness at the break of noon, shadows, even the silver spoon, the handmade blade, the child's balloon eclipses both the sun and moon.
Speaker 1:To understand, you know, too soon. There is no sense in trying. Pointed threats, they bluff with scorn. Suicide remarks are torn from the fool's gold mouthpiece. The hollow horn Plays wasted words, proves to warn that he, not busy being born, is busy dying. Temptations plage flies out the door. You follow, find yourself at war, watch waterfalls of pity roar. You feel to moan, but, unlike before, you discover that you'd just be one more person crying. So don't fear. If you hear a foreign sound to your ear, it's alright, ma, I'm only sighing as some mourn victory, some downfall.
Speaker 1:Private reasons, great or small, can be seen in the eyes of those that call to make all that should be killed to crawl, while others say don't hate nothing at all except hatred. Disillusioned words like bullets bark as human gods aim for their mark, make everything from toy guns that spark to flesh-colored Christ that glow in the dark, it's easy to see, without looking too far, that not much is really sacred. While preachers preach of evil fates, teachers teach that knowledge waits can lead to hundred-dollar plates. Goodness hides behind its gates, but even the President of the United States sometimes must have to stand naked. And though the rules of the road have been lodged, it's only people's games that you got to dodge. And it's all right, ma, I can make it Advertising signs. They con you into thinking You're the one that can do what's never been done, that can win what's never been won.
Speaker 1:Meantime, life outside goes on all around you. You lose yourself. You reappear. You suddenly find you got nothing to fear. Alone, you stand with nobody near when a trembling, distant voice, unclear, startles your sleeping ears to hear that somebody thinks they really found you. A question in your nerves is lit, yet you know there is no answer fit To satisfy. Ensure you not to quit, to keep it in your mind and not forget that it is not he or she, or them or it, that you belong to.
Speaker 1:Although the masters make the rules for the wise men and the fools, I got nothing, ma, to live up to For them that must obey authority that they do not respect in any degree, who despise their jobs, their destinies, speak jealousy of them. That are free, cultivate their flowers to be nothing more than something they invest in, while some on principle baptize to strict party platform ties, social clubs in drag disguise, outsiders they can freely criticize, tell nothing except who to idolize, and then say God bless him, while one who sings with his tongue on fire gargles in the rat race choir, bent out of shape from society's pliers, cares not to come up any higher, but rather gets you down in the hole that he's in. But I mean no harm, nor put fault on anyone that lives in a vault. But it's all right, ma, if I can't please him.
Speaker 1:Old lady judges watch people in pairs, limited in sex. They dare to push fake morals, insult and stare. While money doesn't talk. It swears Obscenity. Who really cares? Propaganda, all is phony, while them that defend what they cannot see with a killer's pride, security, it blows the minds most bitterly for them that think death's honesty won't fall upon them. Naturally, life sometimes must get lonely. My eyes collide head-on with stuffed graveyards, false goals. I scuff at pettiness which plays so rough, walk upside down inside handcuffs, kick my legs to crash it off, say okay, I have had enough. What else can you show me? And if my thought dreams could be seen, they'd probably put my head in a guillotine. But it's all right, ma, it's life and life. Only. What can I say? Fuck the devil, in disguise or not, I'll be back, don't quit. And that said, this is Michael Albert signing off for Revolution Z. Until next time.