Voodoo Nation

As the nation moves closer to election it should not be necessary to reflect on the largely epideictic mode of the McCain-Palin campaign. It’s impossible, however, not to look at how far out and downright creepy things have gotten. Images surrounding this campaign are bizarre, and they show us how desperate politicians tap into voter anxiety and fear. While the Arizona “maverick” senator professes change for America, his campaign thrives on images of self-mutilation, leaks unsubstantiated claims that link Obama to terrorism, and, with Palin, pledges oath to a convenient form of “feminism” that professes submission to primitive religious practices and atavistic rituals of spiritual expulsion. The anti-Enlightenment freakery of the McCain-Palin ticket is now spinning itself out of control.

Kenneth Burke was no stranger to the relationship between magic and rhetoric. In the Rhetoric of Motives, he based his claims of identification largely in this psychic realm, wherein properties are evaluated, consumed, and digested in an unconscious drive toward singularity. With this work in mind it’s safe to say that persuasion, at the level of national election, does not only (or often enough) work through careful deliberation, but through images constructed to form a psychic shit storm that stirs up voter anxieties and prejudices. McCain’s narrative of heroism (panned in this Rolling Stone article) and Palin’s wolf-pack feminism, however, are now beginning to lose some luster as reports of witchcraft and spiritual warfare erupt around Palin and her submission to a Kenyan pastor in 1995.

Many by now have seen images of Kenyan “witch hunter,” Thomas Muthee, praying over Palin in a 2005 Assembly of God service in Wisilla. The New York Times even printed a recent article about this. Others in the media—particularly in the blogsphere—have reported on the event along with other incidents surrounding Palin and her religion’s odd and violent messages. Muthee, reports The Nation’s Max Blumenthal, recently told the Wisilla congregation that “[w]e come against the spirit of witchcraft! We come against the python spirits!” Indeed, claims pastor Muthee, “[w]e stomp on the heads of the enemy!”

Palin’s response to a New York Times reporter indicates how far the American Right has drifted from our national, Enlightenment-based foundations: “My faith,” she said, “has always been pretty personal.”

It is perhaps satisfying to know that American politics can inspire spiritual battle—but I worry about the Dark Forces out there in that warfare. McCain now seems to thrive in a wilderness so extreme that the results of next week’s election will reveal a new vision of national identity. Recent polling suggests that it’s unlikely that he’ll win, but he has nonetheless set in motion an irrational and violent potential in the electorate that even goes beyond what G. W. Bush brought to national politics. A president always represents an imagination of ourselves, to a large extent. I doubt we’ll wake November 5th a Voodoo nation, but the zombies of the far-right hate wing of American politics will still certainly be alert to their next claims on our national attention.

Taking Care of Life

Forrest Gander paid tribute the other day to David Meltzer's book of poem-biography, No Eyes: Lester Young. That got me digging through my files in search of the following review of his Penguin selected, David's Copy, that I published a couple of years ago in Bookforum. David is one of the great poets we have--fine ear, wit, and attention to the rotations of the wheels of Amrika.

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On another (though not unrelated) note, I will begin gathering words (in the spirit of Ed Dorn, of course) to describe our new arrival in the arms of world poverty and fascist dictatorship by financial oligarchy. So far I have:

Post-sumerism
Sleep-walkery
Neo-assholery
Dip-stick-inventory
Insta-narrativity
McCain-McCant
Democrazi
Mock-Fordery
GMismo
JPMorgana
JP Morgotcha
Insolvensory
Compound-debtory
Survivalisticks (term used by smug armchair strategists, otherwise known as See-it-all-comerists)
Saharah-Liquidity
Heads-on-Pikery
Republicannotsee
Constitutionistick
Bill-of-Rightsish
Dow-Jonesin'
The Federal Reservation
Going-Paraguay (reference to the fleeing of corporate and political leaders from death star amrica to one-time outpost of llamas and escaped ex-nazis)

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As I write (it is game day at the University of Texas) Longhorn fans march by my window with signs reading, "God Hates Missouri." I imagine He hates a good deal more than Missouri just now, but I hope baby Jesus can hold off the apocalypse in the minds of the ruling elite shadows. A number of disturbing things are happening behind the scenes of world finance--including, no shit--the abduction of half the world's heroin supply. What does that have to do with anything, you may ask. Plenty. Here's the link to the BBC report.

And on a similarly disturbing note, CNN headlines have been running the story about the boy kidnapped by drug dealers in Las Vegas because of millions owed by the boy's grandfather to that shadow economy. Get ready for more of this. Goons dressed as cops breaking down the door to haul off whatever it is that satisfies debt in an increasingly cashless world. And what happens to the millions of dollars of home debt when Citibank or Bank of America or someone like that gets bought up by financial organizations in the Emirates, Russia, or China? Uh, well....

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The narrative of conquest left by Cortez, Bernal Diaz, and others in North America is perhaps prelude--or intermediary--to the ongoing transit of peoples into this region of bounty. Make that potential bounty. Or whatever can be mopped up. "After the Gold Rush," as Neil Young said.

In the darkness of present days, it's easy to slip into vortexes of doom-n-glooming. But an economy, a good friend reminds me, is just people working with other people to do things and to take care of life.

"The Assholes of Assus": New at Bookslut

This month's column at Bookslut discusses Kent Johnson's Homage to the Last Avant-Garde, available here. Please check it out.

Rolling Stone on John McCain

"Make-Believe Maverick: A Closer Look at the Life and Career of John McCain Reveals a Disturbing Record of Wrecklessness and Dishonesty"

The Challenge To Rhetoric

One thing I have always admired about the art of rhetoric is its essential premise in the plausibility of communication. Unlike the sciences--with a bias for logic and proofs--rhetoric has focused on language situations that do not rely on demonstrations, but on persuasion. Most of our communication is made in semi-rational contexts. Thus, rhetoric is an art, not a science. And yet, as shown tonight in the Palin-Biden debate, rhetorical machineries exist--poise, elocution, general intelligence regarding key issues, charm and chagrin, etc, all can be used to manage the moment. One big slip from Palin would have had significant reverb effect.

But as to plausibility--it seems as though our situations as "citizens" or semi-citizens in a "democracy" are unraveling at a rapid pace. America has for many years oscillated between corporate welfare and the stressed needs of the demos. Right now the solid middle class wants to trust in government. And I want to trust in government--despite my antithetical perspectives and deep mistrusts. But Bush has no credibility. Our leaders operate as if in a perma-state of confusion; they submit to desperate apprehensions of a reality they no longer fully understand (or they are, indeed, orchestrating a final liquidation of American assets—for personal gain, of course).

All sense of the plausibility of language to communicate meaningfully in our current situation is under question. Just as fear reigns among those on Wall Street about a run on banks or a freeze of credit, I worry that there has already been a run on ethos--a carefully practiced aspect of communication. No one knows who to trust, as if we were standing, spaghetti western-style, around the grave in which the hidden treasure is buried. Only, there is no treasure--only speculation, paranoia, greed—and curiosity about the stakes of mere survival.

It is one thing to lose faith, or to oppose truth with possibility. But to lose the plausible premises of society brings out much more sinister aspects. The middle class will continue to appear to trust in the system a while longer, I assume. But this too will pass. From there, the challenge to rhetoric will be to re-construct the plausible. Otherwise, we must submit to the dialectic process of the corporate threat: render, serve, receive, and continue. At any rate, the plausible is absorbed now in the fantastic--and that poses a dire threat to us all.

Fiction?

Here's a story: As the global economy sinks into a deflationary depression of tsunami-like magnitude, the wealthiest families of the U. S. (and elsewhere, I presume) begin liquidating national assets. They invest in gold, having thick bricks of it trucked to farms or ranches tucked away in picturesque backwaters where they will retire on stolen stockpiles of seed and wine to await the nuclear holocaust of the northern hemispehre. Linh Dinh links to a terrifying report about the Bush family's purchase of land in Paraguay for just this purpose. I don't recall if it's mentioned, but under the land bought there lies the world's largest aquifer.

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Gadz--the gloom-n-doom.

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And yet.

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Poetry?

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$700 Billion could establish a rail system in this country that would rival France.

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The Corporate States of America: Waiting for a Disaster Near You!