Can America Admit What It Is?

As so many things have become obvious in the transition from Bush to Obama, ie, large portions of Congress are wholly bought and paid for, Wall St. is a rigged game, The Republicans are just plain batshit insane…so did it become obvious yesterday that no matter who the titular head of America is really does not matter.

For all the fooforaw, hoohawing, hair pulling and trench digging that surround Barack Obama, is is now plain that he being president matters just about exactly as much in the Realpolitick as who or what caused Tiger Woods to hit a tree in his car. It is the coverage and titillation and angsty sturm und drang that matters. The sensation. And how that sensation makes we American consumers of emotion ….feel…that is the important thing. Apparently.

Because as long as the American people feel good, nothing else matters.

What matters in the Real World, in the Realpolitik, is that Obama can make Americans feel good about killing more people. Including our own sons and daughters. That he can do that makes him valuable. That we all felt that he could do that is what made him president.

It doesn’t matter that Obama used nearly word for word the same speech to sell his surge that Bush used to sell his wars, it feels better when Obama says it, because we like him better than we liked Bush.

(warning: commercials)

Or at least, we haven’t learned to dislike him…yet.  

Bush taught us that it is important for the American Empire that the American People LIKE the figurehead of the American Empire…so now we have a titular head of Empire that is much more likable. It just makes things ……..easier. Spoonful of sugar and all that.

Nothing against Obama, like all presidents he is sandwiched between overwhelming pressures and events and “invisible forces” as well as the highly visible ones that pretty much dictate what he does. I like him too. But he, or anyone, is not really in control of the American Empire. Bush loved being the head of the American Empire, it made him ….feel good. McCain would have been a rabid participant, Clinton a willing one, and the fact that Obama seems like a reluctant participant in our Empire just makes him that much more charming and ….likable.

For whatever reason, due to whatever opposing forces and conditions, the American Empire is the American Empire and the American Empire is going to do what the American Empire is going to do. No one is REALLY in charge. At this point it is a rolling juggernaut careening down the highway of history with no one at the wheel, and it’s participants…and victims…are all rather reluctant to look at or think about where it is going or what it is going to do when it gets there.

Especially the American People, the Mob of the Empire. Nor do we really care all that much. As long as the ride feels good, who cares where we are going?

We LIKE the feeling of Empire, just as with George Bush, being an Empire makes us feel good. If we do some damage along the way on this wild road we are going down…well, that’s the breaks! It IS just an amusement park ride right? A SenSuround animation, a video game, a dramatic recreation, a continuing weekly series that we watch from our ergonomic recliners on our plasmas.

Those aren’t real people dying, everyone knows that no one really dies on Television, haha.

And if things get to grim….well that is why the American God of Manifest and Exceptional Destiny invented the remote, right? These days there is always something else on.

It’s just a click away, and we are immersed in a whole new show, a whole new experience in our home theaters, just push the button and we can feel something else.

And besides, WE certainly have nothing to do with the making of whatever show we are watching, it is ….them. They do it. WE are powerless consumers of Empire, bearing no responsibility and at no risk…so why should we have to, ya know….feel bad.

About anything?

Or face anything.

Or …admit… anything?

Anything at all.