I realize that it's now antisemitic to try to live up to the best Jewish moral tradition, whereas cozying up with actual Hungarian Nazis is peachy, but I'm self-hating like that.
Gaza is the largest prison on earth. It is a concentration camp, full stop, and Israel is well on its way to pulling off one of the biggest ironies in the irony-filled history of our species: step by step, well on the way to real fascism. They've already long since achieved apartheid.
So proud. So very proud.
Actually, "proud" is wrong: they have nothing to do with me and vice versa. Because we're all Jewish? Did I choose that? Nah, not into mystic chords of ethnic union beyond half-ironic joking about the spicey variety. I don't need unearned glory -- or shame. I can provide plenty of both myself.
And the truth is, it's not an irony. It's closer to inevitable that victims become perps. That's what people generally do -- in families or writ large, as peoples, nations.
The dearest wish of your average narcissistic loser is not to transcend trauma and spread justice but to slime around like a wormy little bitch, waiting in the wings to strike when it's nice and safe, pretending to have rejected The Bad Stuff when it's really just a pose, a tactical pose, until they can grasp the mantle of power and self-glorification for themselves. What else is Uncle Trump-lover, whose racism you sorta knew was there but is now blasting in your face 24/7?
You know, hypocrites. And cowards -- what, you can only be your racist prick self when you have Trump's skirts to hide behind?
Of course, when confronted they not only deny but turn on the victimhood. You're familiar -- it's what our Dear Leader does nonstop all day long. And you see the trope: rightwing crybabies whining about how racist Democrats are -- or whatever bullshit du jour is on offer. No, I have no idea to what extent they're aware, not aware, doublethinkingly both aware and unaware. Nor do I care.
The biggest laugh is that those people think they're well camouflaged. The biggest sadness is that they often are, from most people, who insist on remaining forever naive. And, of course, when you get a lot of these hypocrites together, the alliances form and melt away with truly hilarious, if disgusting, alacrity, governed by pure self-interested cynicism.
It's an annoyance -- or an amusement -- within a family, where the stakes, even for family members, are usually pretty low, and if not, then obviously limited to within that sad family.
But in the nation's or planet's political life? This manipulation-complex, this generational dissemination of essentially mental illness (if not just pure assholery; determining which or how much of each is philosophy-seminar stuff) is poisonous and extremely dangerous.
Weak egos are easily led, and to very bad things, all the while, as I said, whining about how wronged they are. "Shooting and crying" is how a sane Israeli observer, whose name I forget, dubbed it. (Yes, you get relatively honest, relatively sane, relatively courageous people from time to time. Whatever faults such people have, sometimes severe, they get umpteen times those failings back in narcissistic rage from the frauds who pretend at relative honesty, sanity, courage. Can't have that evidence of personal non-perfection and -aggrandizement in one's field of vision!)
Of course, this age-old form of manipulation would stop, at all levels, if we all simply refused to want to grasp the mantle. Walk away. Refuse to play; refuse to "win" by those rules in that framework. Takes some minimal spine.
Yeah, good luck with that, I know. Homo sapiens is an invertebrate; don't I know that just from my own personal history, or at least far too much of it. Far too many damaged losers out there who simply cannot just be one of a crowd, nothing super-special, no longer Mommy and Daddy's special wittle boy or girl.
(If we're talking family dynamics, as opposed to the politics that consciously and purposely takes advantage of graduates of such family dynamics, yes, the same Mommy and Daddy who abused and warped them. Why are you surprised? You have no right to be. Such people are protecting themselves from the pain of the truth about themselves, about their parents -- from growing up. Finally. Because if enough coddling and cash is provided along with the abuse, some (many? most?) can be bribed to permanently sell themselves and others out. Good little sadomasochists -- which is to say, cowards. And, moving back to the macro realm, that's what Trumpism is, at least psychologically speaking -- they love being alternately coddled and abused by Big Daddy. That's why he was cheered when he said he could shoot someone in the street and his moron fans wouldn't bat an eye. See, it feels so familiar; that old authoritarian family background is just so warm and fuzzy! And not just Trumpism: many a putative anti-Trumper is Trumpy as fuck, which is another of life's little non-ironies.)
Moreover, it certainly takes a spine, and you need a strong one, to withstand the endless socioeconomic pressures to be a total selfish prick. Whatever family issues obtain.
But the key is that a weak ego can't handle political, let alone economic, equality (roughly speaking); it craves dominance. From thence stems, as every moral thinker has noted since the last Ice Age, all evils.
Gaza is the largest prison on earth. It is a concentration camp, full stop, and Israel is well on its way to pulling off one of the biggest ironies in the irony-filled history of our species: step by step, well on the way to real fascism. They've already long since achieved apartheid.
So proud. So very proud.
Actually, "proud" is wrong: they have nothing to do with me and vice versa. Because we're all Jewish? Did I choose that? Nah, not into mystic chords of ethnic union beyond half-ironic joking about the spicey variety. I don't need unearned glory -- or shame. I can provide plenty of both myself.
And the truth is, it's not an irony. It's closer to inevitable that victims become perps. That's what people generally do -- in families or writ large, as peoples, nations.
The dearest wish of your average narcissistic loser is not to transcend trauma and spread justice but to slime around like a wormy little bitch, waiting in the wings to strike when it's nice and safe, pretending to have rejected The Bad Stuff when it's really just a pose, a tactical pose, until they can grasp the mantle of power and self-glorification for themselves. What else is Uncle Trump-lover, whose racism you sorta knew was there but is now blasting in your face 24/7?
You know, hypocrites. And cowards -- what, you can only be your racist prick self when you have Trump's skirts to hide behind?
Of course, when confronted they not only deny but turn on the victimhood. You're familiar -- it's what our Dear Leader does nonstop all day long. And you see the trope: rightwing crybabies whining about how racist Democrats are -- or whatever bullshit du jour is on offer. No, I have no idea to what extent they're aware, not aware, doublethinkingly both aware and unaware. Nor do I care.
The biggest laugh is that those people think they're well camouflaged. The biggest sadness is that they often are, from most people, who insist on remaining forever naive. And, of course, when you get a lot of these hypocrites together, the alliances form and melt away with truly hilarious, if disgusting, alacrity, governed by pure self-interested cynicism.
It's an annoyance -- or an amusement -- within a family, where the stakes, even for family members, are usually pretty low, and if not, then obviously limited to within that sad family.
But in the nation's or planet's political life? This manipulation-complex, this generational dissemination of essentially mental illness (if not just pure assholery; determining which or how much of each is philosophy-seminar stuff) is poisonous and extremely dangerous.
Weak egos are easily led, and to very bad things, all the while, as I said, whining about how wronged they are. "Shooting and crying" is how a sane Israeli observer, whose name I forget, dubbed it. (Yes, you get relatively honest, relatively sane, relatively courageous people from time to time. Whatever faults such people have, sometimes severe, they get umpteen times those failings back in narcissistic rage from the frauds who pretend at relative honesty, sanity, courage. Can't have that evidence of personal non-perfection and -aggrandizement in one's field of vision!)
Of course, this age-old form of manipulation would stop, at all levels, if we all simply refused to want to grasp the mantle. Walk away. Refuse to play; refuse to "win" by those rules in that framework. Takes some minimal spine.
Yeah, good luck with that, I know. Homo sapiens is an invertebrate; don't I know that just from my own personal history, or at least far too much of it. Far too many damaged losers out there who simply cannot just be one of a crowd, nothing super-special, no longer Mommy and Daddy's special wittle boy or girl.
(If we're talking family dynamics, as opposed to the politics that consciously and purposely takes advantage of graduates of such family dynamics, yes, the same Mommy and Daddy who abused and warped them. Why are you surprised? You have no right to be. Such people are protecting themselves from the pain of the truth about themselves, about their parents -- from growing up. Finally. Because if enough coddling and cash is provided along with the abuse, some (many? most?) can be bribed to permanently sell themselves and others out. Good little sadomasochists -- which is to say, cowards. And, moving back to the macro realm, that's what Trumpism is, at least psychologically speaking -- they love being alternately coddled and abused by Big Daddy. That's why he was cheered when he said he could shoot someone in the street and his moron fans wouldn't bat an eye. See, it feels so familiar; that old authoritarian family background is just so warm and fuzzy! And not just Trumpism: many a putative anti-Trumper is Trumpy as fuck, which is another of life's little non-ironies.)
Moreover, it certainly takes a spine, and you need a strong one, to withstand the endless socioeconomic pressures to be a total selfish prick. Whatever family issues obtain.
But the key is that a weak ego can't handle political, let alone economic, equality (roughly speaking); it craves dominance. From thence stems, as every moral thinker has noted since the last Ice Age, all evils.