Ever fewer people, particularly those in institutions of power, but also in the general populace in developed countries, most especially in the United States, appear to be aware of, much less devoted to enlightened or humanistic values.  Interest in the betterment of humanity, in the hope of minimally ameliorating our worst human impulses, or perhaps peeking at transcendence if only occasionally and imperfectly, or even hypothesizing about potentially preferred realities, is no longer a core concern, having given way to raw economic and military subjugation.

Ever since men became capable of free speculation, their actions, in innumerable important respects, have depended upon their theories as to the world and human life, as to what is good and what is evil. This is as true in the present day as at any former time. To understand an age or a nation, we must understand its philosophy, and to understand its philosophy we must ourselves be in some degree philosophers.

~Bertrand Russell

Major Ralph Peters expressed succinctly and nakedly the dominant philosophy in America today (and across the past two centuries), in his book, Endless War:

There will be no peace. At any given moment for the rest of our lifetimes, there will be multiple conflicts in mutating forms around the globe. Violent conflict will dominate the headlines, but cultural and economic struggles will be steadier and ultimately more decisive. The de facto role of the US armed forces will be to keep the world safe for our economy and open to our cultural assault. To those ends, we will do a fair amount of killing.

~Major (psychopath) Ralph Peters, US Military

In short, the dominant American philosophy is to violently impose American-style capitalism on the rest of the world, to enslave them to it or kill them, wherein “them” now evidently also includes most of “us.”  

Amirite?

Legally, Ross Douche Bonnet believes in the decidedly liberal ideals enshrined in the Constitution.

Culturally, however, he sees American racial bigotry, xenophobia, and religious intolerance as good things that will help speed the assimilation of Muslims in America.

He says we’d be right to split that baby down the fucking middle.

In the meantime, no “mosques” for Muslims until we’re reassured Islam can even fit into America.

Way to go, Neanderthal York Times.

Obama-heddo!

Obama’s complete bag of tricks, including poseable hands for flipping off liberals.

Chumming the anti-enlightenment waters, beautifully (pdf)

Like it or not, we are all children of the Enlightenment, utterly incapable of escaping the clutches of ideals and arguments put forth over two centuries ago. Or so, at least, many critics of the Enlightenment seem to believe. Michel Foucault claims, for instance, that the Enlightenment has largely determined “what we are, what we think, and what we do today,”1 and John Gray insists that “all schools of contemporary political thought are variations on the Enlightenment project.”2 There is, of course, something to such claims: given the number of values, practices, and institutions that we have inherited from the eighteenth century, it is difficult to imagine what our world would look like without its Enlightenment heritage. Yet it is remarkable how few political theorists still defend this heritage; in fact, I can think of few topics on which recent work in political theory has displayed greater consensus than on the conviction that the Enlightenment outlook is radically problematic.

Obama is an anti-liberal, a post-modernist without conviction, against a two-century-fucking-tradition.  Fuck ’em.

Let’s rock’ems.  Gibbs can suck an anus.

“We can do this!  Just tells us where you want it!”

Drug-addled fifth columnists: “C’mon, Holmes.  We don’t want it.  At all.”

“Uh-oh.  Robert Gibbs is going to be very, very cross come November.”

“Yeah?  Well, he can suck my fat debt!”

In a piece titled “The Obama agenda and the enthusiasm gap,” and by “gap” I hope he doesn’t intend something on the order of a “spark plug gap” when many of us are seeing a “no man’s land” between existentially warring armies littered mostly with our dead bodies, Robert Reich looks to the November elections and sees storm clouds, due to Obama’s tepid policies:

Whatever the outcome of the upcoming midterm elections, the activist phase of the Obama administration has likely come to a close. The president may have a fight on his hands even to hold on to what he’s already achieved because his legislative successes have been large enough to fuel strong opposition but not big enough to strengthen his support. The result could be disastrous for him and congressional Democrats.

Activist phase?  Is “legislative success” akin to “staying the corporate course?”  By “opposition” Reich probably means utterly predictable gun-toting, racist, Randian, war-mongering, just-say-no wingnuts, but how about the resentment fueled amongst hope-and-changers who have been completely shafted on just about every issue from GITMO to the economy?

Huh.  Notice the vast wastelands of war and finance. Click here to see larger original.

At least war gives us the hard on of a “stimulus package.”  Plus, it’s fun killing some people.

According to Rep. David Obey:

We were told we have to offset every damn dime of [new teacher spending]. Well, it ain’t easy to find offsets, and with all due respect to the administration their first suggestion for offsets was to cut food stamps.  Now they were careful not to make an official budget request, because they didn’t want to take the political heat for it, but that was the first trial balloon they sent down here. … Their line of argument was, well, the cost of food relative to what we thought it would be has come down, so people on food stamps are getting a pretty good deal in comparison to what we thought they were going to get.  

Dear Fucking White House,

At the risk of unduly adding to “liberal lamentations unhinged from historical context or contemporary political realities,” I’d recommend someone on your staff taking a crash course in biology, or perhaps taking a quick peek at Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.  The un-fed are not the self-actualizers you might think.  Fuck you very much.

Sincerely,

A Lacrimose Liberal