The Folly of Foibles
Lies are to the political maven the sweet nectar hidden in the flower that entices the bee. Politics, by its nature, doesn't really allow for much else, even when politicians take office with the most earnest of intentions they're forced into becoming "Delusory satchels of fecal debris" by necessity.
This includes Attorney Generals, Secretaries of State, Presidents or even the local dog catcher, the process remains essentially the same. You've always got to satisfy the boss first and, then, satisfy the many and diverse constituencies that are bosses as well.
You can lump them all together or subdivide them into groups based on their specific priorities—pods of like-minded folk with personal agendas articulated as fundamentalist's beliefs—meaning that you must become a fundamentalist too, sharing the light hidden from view, signified by esoteric handshakes and a silent wink and a nod. That way, the bosses can rest assured that you are one of them. To do otherwise would be to invite assassination, if not literally, then the character kind would be good enough.
Most of us, whether we intend to or not, engage in this process, either by commission or omission, offering little opportunity for indifference—because, to be indifferent is to engage in inaction, which only empowers those actively engaging. It is a circular nightmare, a Gila Monster that clings to its prey so fiercely that the only way to sever the connection is to cut off its head, even then, it refuses to let go.
You can try to silence the endless voices by diving deeply into the stream of electrons being spewed from IPods, computers and televisions, but it still seeps in, in fact, it only makes it worse. Messages about who you are, who you aren't (but should be), the product of diabolical methods that were scientifically designed to tweak the unconscious mind. Politicians and other fiends have adopted these methods, hoping to produce Manchurian Candidates who will respond like Pavlov's dog and begin drooling when they hear the appropriate triggers.
The narrative becomes all-important in this process—stories shaped out of bits and pieces of selected data and fashioned into propaganda—with an eye focused sharply on those all-important advertising dollars that tell us exactly what kind of truth has the greatest value. No one knows this better than story tellers.
When Norman Mailer was in his playwriting phase, he found professional actors to be that infinitesimal percentage of the population that could call upon a deep reservoir of emotion as needed. "Everyone can act, at least a little." he'd say, but he knew that only a very few could produce the appropriate emotions on cue. He also suggested that they were a seriously boring bunch. They would talk endlessly about the artistic process, but, in reality, were more obsessed with stage props. When the actor would pick up the saltshaker at the same moment every night in the play, the appropriate emotion would be triggered and then sent into the audience, a meme in search of a willing subject. This meant that the director had better make sure that the saltshaker was where it was supposed to be. The actors would call Mailer at all hours of the night and endlessly ask "What happened to the saltshaker"? Like an obsessive compulsive trying to straighten a crooked picture, eyes shifting from right to left, they would question his lack of concern. Mailer, a man of substantial appetites, was forced to drink heavily in order to endure the grilling. To move the saltshaker was to invite calamity, the actor disconnected from their moorings would become confused and not know whether to weep or laugh.
Inside, all of us are actors caught up in a narrative, trying hard to remember our lines, searching for familiar symbols to make sense of it all. If that's a cliché, and it certainly is, it makes it no less true.
Symbols and their meaning are deeply personal. How we respond to them depends on who we are and how our particular brain has been conditioned to work. Which is why once someone has unlocked the power of symbols and knows how to use them, they can control humanity, creating armies of automatons lurching silently forward, unable to extricate themselves from the demonic spell. Think of Hitler, Stalin and most Televangelists as reference points.
We all understand this, if only subliminally. That unsettling sense of never being good enough, attractive enough, successful enough. A vague discomfort that settles like a lingering Nimbus cloud, compelling us to fix things, preferably by buying stuff, lots of it. The “Stuff” is what lets you know which category to fit yourself into. It is a heinous form of mind-control, the piper's flute calling to the rats as they scurry from, or towards, the sinking ship, depending on the direction of your metaphor. It is the group that provides safety in numbers, similar to a herd of Wildebeest scrambling into crocodile-infested waters, hooves and limbs meet crushing jaws and ruptured flesh. If a few of them have to go, so be it, as long as its not me, or anyone I care about.
There are the much sought after demographic groups. The wine and cheese crowd, being one, those bohemian-sophisticates with money to spare, young enough to be easily manipulated, but old enough to have plenty of filthy lucre, with a social conscience that can be satisfied with a membership in Greenpeace, bought for a nominal fee (I used to be a member of Greenpeace, which makes me an expert, so don't try and argue).
They've yet to reach that phase in life where popular culture falls on deaf ears, making them worthy only of death to all the hucksters selling forks and tremendous spatula sets to the unwitting via endless infomercials. They're still young enough to care about popular culture; the new bands, the cool movies, even if their notion of cool isn't exactly what it was when they were sixteen.
They've moved well beyond their first cars, the old parental rejects that were sufficient, because to have a car at all, was good enough. They've moved on to better cars, more expensive cars, with good stereos—cassette tapes will no longer do. You are what you drive—and what you wear. Clothes, like cars, are powerful symbols, proffering Alpha Male and Female status on the owner. But only until they cross that invisible demographic line, then, like the Eloi, from the H.G. Wells novel "The Time Machine" they become food for the savages.
It is a great, and therefore universal truth, that there is power in inanimate objects, which can carefully showcase our true nature, a well-placed book that says, "He's read Freud? He must be smart"! An old record album carefully placed in order to achieve maximum Feng Shui can aid us in transcending our awkward social standing. We pretend this isn't true, but we all operate on this level. Our symbols are simply a different kind of language, carefully telling our story where words alone fail. How we tell these stories empowers us to define who we are, before others do it for us.
This includes Attorney Generals, Secretaries of State, Presidents or even the local dog catcher, the process remains essentially the same. You've always got to satisfy the boss first and, then, satisfy the many and diverse constituencies that are bosses as well.
You can lump them all together or subdivide them into groups based on their specific priorities—pods of like-minded folk with personal agendas articulated as fundamentalist's beliefs—meaning that you must become a fundamentalist too, sharing the light hidden from view, signified by esoteric handshakes and a silent wink and a nod. That way, the bosses can rest assured that you are one of them. To do otherwise would be to invite assassination, if not literally, then the character kind would be good enough.
Most of us, whether we intend to or not, engage in this process, either by commission or omission, offering little opportunity for indifference—because, to be indifferent is to engage in inaction, which only empowers those actively engaging. It is a circular nightmare, a Gila Monster that clings to its prey so fiercely that the only way to sever the connection is to cut off its head, even then, it refuses to let go.
You can try to silence the endless voices by diving deeply into the stream of electrons being spewed from IPods, computers and televisions, but it still seeps in, in fact, it only makes it worse. Messages about who you are, who you aren't (but should be), the product of diabolical methods that were scientifically designed to tweak the unconscious mind. Politicians and other fiends have adopted these methods, hoping to produce Manchurian Candidates who will respond like Pavlov's dog and begin drooling when they hear the appropriate triggers.
The narrative becomes all-important in this process—stories shaped out of bits and pieces of selected data and fashioned into propaganda—with an eye focused sharply on those all-important advertising dollars that tell us exactly what kind of truth has the greatest value. No one knows this better than story tellers.
When Norman Mailer was in his playwriting phase, he found professional actors to be that infinitesimal percentage of the population that could call upon a deep reservoir of emotion as needed. "Everyone can act, at least a little." he'd say, but he knew that only a very few could produce the appropriate emotions on cue. He also suggested that they were a seriously boring bunch. They would talk endlessly about the artistic process, but, in reality, were more obsessed with stage props. When the actor would pick up the saltshaker at the same moment every night in the play, the appropriate emotion would be triggered and then sent into the audience, a meme in search of a willing subject. This meant that the director had better make sure that the saltshaker was where it was supposed to be. The actors would call Mailer at all hours of the night and endlessly ask "What happened to the saltshaker"? Like an obsessive compulsive trying to straighten a crooked picture, eyes shifting from right to left, they would question his lack of concern. Mailer, a man of substantial appetites, was forced to drink heavily in order to endure the grilling. To move the saltshaker was to invite calamity, the actor disconnected from their moorings would become confused and not know whether to weep or laugh.
Inside, all of us are actors caught up in a narrative, trying hard to remember our lines, searching for familiar symbols to make sense of it all. If that's a cliché, and it certainly is, it makes it no less true.
Symbols and their meaning are deeply personal. How we respond to them depends on who we are and how our particular brain has been conditioned to work. Which is why once someone has unlocked the power of symbols and knows how to use them, they can control humanity, creating armies of automatons lurching silently forward, unable to extricate themselves from the demonic spell. Think of Hitler, Stalin and most Televangelists as reference points.
We all understand this, if only subliminally. That unsettling sense of never being good enough, attractive enough, successful enough. A vague discomfort that settles like a lingering Nimbus cloud, compelling us to fix things, preferably by buying stuff, lots of it. The “Stuff” is what lets you know which category to fit yourself into. It is a heinous form of mind-control, the piper's flute calling to the rats as they scurry from, or towards, the sinking ship, depending on the direction of your metaphor. It is the group that provides safety in numbers, similar to a herd of Wildebeest scrambling into crocodile-infested waters, hooves and limbs meet crushing jaws and ruptured flesh. If a few of them have to go, so be it, as long as its not me, or anyone I care about.
There are the much sought after demographic groups. The wine and cheese crowd, being one, those bohemian-sophisticates with money to spare, young enough to be easily manipulated, but old enough to have plenty of filthy lucre, with a social conscience that can be satisfied with a membership in Greenpeace, bought for a nominal fee (I used to be a member of Greenpeace, which makes me an expert, so don't try and argue).
They've yet to reach that phase in life where popular culture falls on deaf ears, making them worthy only of death to all the hucksters selling forks and tremendous spatula sets to the unwitting via endless infomercials. They're still young enough to care about popular culture; the new bands, the cool movies, even if their notion of cool isn't exactly what it was when they were sixteen.
They've moved well beyond their first cars, the old parental rejects that were sufficient, because to have a car at all, was good enough. They've moved on to better cars, more expensive cars, with good stereos—cassette tapes will no longer do. You are what you drive—and what you wear. Clothes, like cars, are powerful symbols, proffering Alpha Male and Female status on the owner. But only until they cross that invisible demographic line, then, like the Eloi, from the H.G. Wells novel "The Time Machine" they become food for the savages.
It is a great, and therefore universal truth, that there is power in inanimate objects, which can carefully showcase our true nature, a well-placed book that says, "He's read Freud? He must be smart"! An old record album carefully placed in order to achieve maximum Feng Shui can aid us in transcending our awkward social standing. We pretend this isn't true, but we all operate on this level. Our symbols are simply a different kind of language, carefully telling our story where words alone fail. How we tell these stories empowers us to define who we are, before others do it for us.
There is that peculiar and very human need to have our stories be more than just subjective experiences. We long for something more substantive, we ache for it. But, generally speaking, it's nowhere to be found. Not in all the symbolic shouting from the rooftops, “Top of the world ma”! (By the way, I'm not quoting Leonardo DiCaprio from the “Titanic”, I'm quoting James Cagney from the movie “White Heat”! I want to make sure no one thinks I’m some kind a "Nancy-boy!")
There are the patriots, sitting just right of center with a dollar-store flag and a radio tuned to the country channel and their favorite talk shows. Where America is spelled in caps and parenthetically given a place of honor with the fallen heroes of our near endless wars. And, just right of the throne, we sit, enshrined with Jesus, who is slapping senseless some wayward hippie with a misguided peacenik agenda. America, like biblical Israel before them, knows full and well that if you want peace, a little war can go a long way.
So, no one should be surprised by my statement that all politicians are “lying sacks of crap.” It’s just the nature of things. I’m not sure any of us has the right to complain. After all, if we weren't equally “Delusory satchels of fecal debris” they couldn't get away with it. (It always helps one’s self esteem to carefully select your language when referencing one’s own foibles. This will help cushion the blow.) And remember, a little lie, now and again, never hurt anyone! I'm not sure we could survive without them.
Mark Magula
There are the patriots, sitting just right of center with a dollar-store flag and a radio tuned to the country channel and their favorite talk shows. Where America is spelled in caps and parenthetically given a place of honor with the fallen heroes of our near endless wars. And, just right of the throne, we sit, enshrined with Jesus, who is slapping senseless some wayward hippie with a misguided peacenik agenda. America, like biblical Israel before them, knows full and well that if you want peace, a little war can go a long way.
So, no one should be surprised by my statement that all politicians are “lying sacks of crap.” It’s just the nature of things. I’m not sure any of us has the right to complain. After all, if we weren't equally “Delusory satchels of fecal debris” they couldn't get away with it. (It always helps one’s self esteem to carefully select your language when referencing one’s own foibles. This will help cushion the blow.) And remember, a little lie, now and again, never hurt anyone! I'm not sure we could survive without them.
Mark Magula
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