America: Imagine the World Without Her is the newest propaganda hit piece from confessed criminal and Right-wing operative Dinesh D'Souza.
During my weekly visit to the movies, I saw Deliver Us From Evil. It was a movie with great potential (the connection to PTSD and the "demons" that our veterans carry home with them from war could have been more thoroughly developed) that needed a thorough rewrite and editing. I am a sucker for movies about the supernatural and occult. Therefore, I felt obligated to see Deliver Us From Evil.
Dinesh D'Souza's new "documentary" "America" was also playing at the same movie theater (I had already suffered through a viewing of that Right-wing tract). Thus, I decided to do some reconnaissance/observational research on the attendees of D'Souza's newest fairy tale propaganda hit piece.
The actual members of the Right-wing public who are high on the political meth of the Fox News echo chamber are more fascinating to me than the media which is used to create and propagandize them.
While listening to the impromptu debriefing and cult meeting in the lobby that followed a viewing of America: Imagine the World Without Her, I realized that 1) Deliver Us From Evil is far less frightening than D'Souza's newest creation and 2) "America's" view of empirical reality and history is also supernatural, existing outside of the realm of normal logic and reality.
Talking in the abstract about the dangerous and noxious civic culture which has been created by the Right-wing media is one thing; actually listening to and observing this public in person is an altogether different experience. There is nothing harmless about the impact of the Right-wing propaganda machine on the thinking and reasoning processes of conservatives in the Age of Obama.
As I learned earlier this week, their warped logic and skewed perception of social and political reality is extremely dangerous and can/will lead to more incidents of Right-wing domestic violence, because how else would a reasonable person deal with a government that is led by "traitors" and under the control of Satan?
What did I observe while listening to the people who went to see America: Imagine the World Without Her?
1. The small group of people who attended America: Imagine the World Without Her here in Chicago skewed older (50s to 70s). It was, surprisingly, a racially integrated group with several black and brown folks mixing in comfortably with the white viewers.
2. "America" seemed like a reverential and defiant experience for the viewers. Interpreting their chatter, it seemed that they were excited to stick it to Obama by seeing America: Imagine the World Without Her in his home town. The Right-wing troglodytes were also worked up about the fact that their--and America: Imagine the World Without Her's real nemesis--Saul Alinsky, is also a Chicago native.
3. An African-American man, a black conservative, led the sermon/cult meeting in the lobby of the movie theater. Playing the standard role of black conservative in contemporary movement conservatism, his presence gave permission to the other members of the group to talk freely about Barack Obama without the fear of being labeled as "racists".
4. America: Imagine the World Without Her is a cinematic conduit for standard Right-wing talking points. The power of "America" is rooted in the shared group experience that comes with going to the cinema. The Right-wing echo chamber is a fantastical and bizarre world where the paranoid style and conspiranoid thinking is the norm. This effect is amplified by the face-to-face communal experience of attending the same propaganda film. The insider and special knowledge given to them by "America" can then be disseminated by the "elect" to the "non-believers".
The idea that D'Souza's movie has special knowledge--that the viewer is now obligated to share in order to counter "liberal lies" and "bias"--was repeated by several of the people leaving the theater.
5. America: Imagine the World Without Her should be taught in public schools as a corrective to the "indoctrination" of the state and liberal teachers. One viewer enthusiastically suggested to another member of the tribe that "kids" should be given a choice between America: Imagine the World Without Her and their standard history textbook--the latter is supposedly full of lies that will be exposed by D'Souza's "truths".
6. The black conservative suggested to his congregation that Obama is the devil and a tool of Satan. I was unsure how those two figures are related to one another in his cognitive schema. He also said that the movie was powerful for showing in clear terms how Saul Alinsky--a "communist America hating traitor"--met with Hillary Clinton at some point decades ago and has been orchestrating the destruction of America from behind the scenes.
In playing his role as black gatekeeper who grants permission to his fellow conservatives to be racists, the black conservative cult leader used the rhetorical strategy of "code switching" where he adopted "black" affected speech to talk about how he works "in the 'hood" and that black Americans--unlike him--are brainwashed and controlled by Obama and the Democratic Party.
Of course, the obligatory talking point, that the Democratic Party is the party of Jim and Jane Crow was referenced as part of his performance.
7. I also learned that Margaret Sanger was in cahoots with Charles Darwin's brother, and that they were all eugenicists who pioneered abortion in America as a "racist" tool for "liberals" to kill black babies.
8. America was apparently a "Christian Nation" at the Founding and the United States has been ruined by godless liberals led by Barack Obama. The United States will apparently be destroyed unless the Bible and "biblical values" are renewed and made the center of public and private life.
9. There were white indentured servants in the American colonies. This is an important part of "America's" narrative as that fact somehow makes chattel slavery a less unique and less vicious social institution as practiced for centuries in the United States.
10. What did the lone white conservative do during this cult meeting/debriefing? He was quiet. He nodded enthusiastically when the black conservative would speak. The lone white conservative also smiled and seemed very pleased when his black conservative pet said that "black people have been tricked and brainwashed" by Obama and the Democratic Party.
America: Imagine the World Without Her's oeuvre is not new. It is a cinematic version of the Right-wing talking points and lies that are circulated on a daily basis throughout the Fox News echo chamber.
Epistemic closure is a real phenomenon. America: Imagine the World Without Her is a helpful reminder of how the use of technical and social scientific language often masks the real human experiences that underlie and are spoken to by theory and research.
To point. The audience members who I observed after their viewing of "America" were enjoying the sense of community that comes with encountering like-minded people...a feeling that is amplified if you have been told that you are somehow "oppressed" or "marginalized" by "the system", "liberals", "big government", "atheists", etc..
America: Imagine the World Without Her's lies and disinformation are poisons to our civic culture. However, I was most disturbed by seeing living and breathing examples of the people who have been brainwashed by the Right-wing media. Interacting with online trolls is tedious. Seeing online trolls made real, in person, alive, and not as ephemeral digital representations, is a reminder of how serious these political matters actually are.
Contemporary movement conservatism is a cult and religion. Its believers are immune to normal appeals to logic and fact. America: Imagine the World Without Her is a crystallization of Right-wing fantasies and distortions presented through the cinematic imagination. It is an artifact of the Tea Party GOP's madness. Consequently, the movie's real social value is how it serves as an insight into the paranoid style and conspiranoid fantasies that have possessed the Right-wing's foot soldiers and public--and which are a threat to all Americans' safety, security, and prosperity.
34 comments:
I prefer this movie, this scene, from The Great Dictator:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QcvjoWOwnn4
Me too. Me too.
I read the rantings of these guys all the time. The few times I have been in the presence of someone like that holding forth unencumbered by any social graces or niceties was fascinating in almost a train wreck kind of way. The first thought is, how can someone "think" that way and be rational, but then you realize; they aren't rational.
The other thing you notice is these outbursts seem to be done to get attention and spark reaction. This childlike aspect of it also seems to be an emotional/psychological tell of some sort.
Then there is the cult aspect of it. Fox, Limbaugh or some tea bagger comes out with some irrational talking point, and seemingly within minutes its being repeated verbatim across the wingnutosphere by even the most disparate and remote members of the group. Which apparently speaks to the extent to which the movement has harnessed media to spin out its propaganda en mass and ensnare its members. They are always up on whatever the latest talking points are, and will repeat them ad nauseum as trolls or in public encounters.
And once ensnared, they know what to do with them. Check out some of the online watering holes, and many are chock full of schemes to separate the rubes from their money. Read all about the "retirement plan Obama doesn't want you to see," or the need to "get in on gold before the UN takes over the US currency." Or my favorite, the scheme Obama has to rewrite the Constitution to give himself a third term. Never mind the fact that a President cannot do that himself.
But facts don't matter; they believe. And then they are told to give money to the "patriots" to prevent that from happening. And they do. Way back in the paleolithic era I had a girlfriend who worked as a secretary for one of these direct mail shops. The "account managers" were responsible for coming up with these letters designed to scare mostly elderly people into sending money, and they raised a ton of money that way. Its the same thing today, only they are relying on the internet, and leveraging conservative and even in some cases mainstream media to do a lot of the scaring. Making their job easy; all they have to do is ask.
A Barnes and Noble? A dinosaur. So lucky you have a bookstore to go to. But as you alluded to w. your story, there is real ugliness out there. I have something that you may be able to relate to for next. I have been thinking about it for some time; now we need to be direct.
Why are people who are probably illiterate spending time in a Barnes & Noble? Coffee?
most of the books they peddle are barely literate. Most bookstores with new material have a plethora of contemporary conservative screeds from Glenn Beck, Limbaugh, O'Reilly, Carson, Coulter and others.
Conservatives have a highly potent brew of respectability politics. There are two things they need to hear:
"Jobs" and "Values"
In their minds, liberals are encouraging sex out of wedlock, killing babies (some even believe we agree with post-birth abortion), we hate this country because we have the audacity to challenge its failings. We also kill jobs by asking for taxes for the many government programs that exist. They don't have a common platform for scaling down the size of government, they just need to say they think the government is bad and that helps them, especially with the ignorance and psuedo-patriotism rampant in their party.
I think they are deep down Christian supremacists and Islamic terrorism has entitled them to a whole new level of xenophobia and nationalism.
Bingo! They have elaborate displays of that tripe in some stores.
The next Sarah Palin tome, of course!
They are also steeped in victimology, and the other thing they need to hear as they wrap themselves in the flag or what they see as Christianity is who's to blame for their current state, whatever it is perceived to be.
Not only that, most of these books are cut and paste regurgitation of previous books. Its all the same stuff, just warmed over and repackaged. If you've read one you've read 'em all.
As I've said before, my fam is rife with conservatives. They are openly racist, which makes their politics completely transparent. They are a cult.
Thank you for this space and community where I have been able to come and learn and share to help me better frame their perception.
I know. Amazon is so convenient, too. I have been going to bookstores for a long while now. I used to love to sit on the floor in front of a section and browse different titles. We've had a Borders close a few year back and there is constant talk of B&N going out of business. I wish it were an independent bookstore but, those have been pushed out by the big chains. I make a regular pilgrimage to the one we have, though. Call it nostalgia. Can't wait to see what you have next.
D'Souza got quite a hustle in the movie biz. His white counterparts are likely grumbling to themselves.
Did you know when he was at Stanford he wrote for their conservative student paper? I read about two of his pieces, one described as a "light-hearted interview with a KKK leader" and another parodying ebonics to mock black college students for their relatively lower graduation rate. Who knows what else he wrote during his time there, geez.
"with a government that is led by "traitors" and under the control of Satan" one can at least pretend that Jesus will save you in the end. But with a government that is led by "operatives" and under the control of The Corporate State, to whom does one turn?
Alinsky, of course, was not communist, and in fact had little use for them saying "Quotes from Mao, Castro, and Che Guevara - are as germane to our highly technological, computerized society as a stagecoach on a jet runway at Kennedy airport”.
He was successful in organizing Back of the Yards because he teamed up with the Catholic churches there telling the priests if you don't deal with me then you'll have to deal with the socialists and communists.
Thank you for contributing your intelligent, honest, and sensitive voice!
D'Souza is a self-hating South Asian whose family are "untouchables" and/or part of a scheduled caste. He then gets his hustle on being an operative for white racists. Beautiful ain't it?
That is the joke ain't it. Look at the drug use, unemployment rates, and gov't tit sucking of Red State America. Never mind their idols in the 1 percent are parasites.
That is the question ain't it. My thoughts about democracy have gotten more than a few folks upset at me.
Keep your facts to yourself! They hate Alinsky, Fox and Piven, etc. I am surprised they haven't gone after Jonathan Kozol yet.
"9. There were white indentured servants in the American colonies. This is an important part of "America's" narrative as that fact somehow makes chattel slavery a less unique and less vicious social institution as practiced for centuries in the United States."
It's Maafa denial, plain and simple. Although the history of White indentured servants is useful in that during the colonial era, colonial legislature and courts dictated that only Negroes were deserving of enslavement, starting in 1640 with the first life time enslavement of a Black man. In short, the fact that White slavery didn't persist until 1864, or even 1784, is evidence of America's deep rooted racism.
They still have a way to blame liberals for that. They really have their hate mantra down.
Why, to those believe the Government is Evil, of course. Now, you have to convince the people that you and your particular group aren't a part of that Evil Government.
You're so right about the self-hatred part. Just another dark-colored individual drooling over the "superiority" of the white folks. Then he goes on and on about us black folks and our "inferiority". What a pathetic tool!
I recently went off on a conservative tool myself. He called me an idiot because I was pointing out how the "anti-communist" proxy war policies of Reagan (et al) in Central and South America were a disgrace and were nothing more than racist-motivated excursions to stop nations of color from developing and challenging the USA. He went on about his time in South America and how he works for an airline, etc. I promptly shut him up and reflected on my time in the US military and challenged him to explain all the good US policy has done in El Salvador, Chile, etc. Not even crickets from these fools. Unfortunately I know that it is the corporate boardroom that determines our troop deployments. After all, our Navy is in Bahrain to protect a centuries old dictatorship and having done two deployments to Saudi Arabia, I don't even need to get into the Saud family's shenanigans!
"Epistemic closure" is a good term. I prefer "epistemological break with reality." Your ten points are excellent with a common thread of fundamentalist Christianity, whether it be actually fundamentalist, evangelical, or pentecostal. The commonality is that it starts with an inerrant, literally true word of God applicable to all human issues for all times and places. Once this is your starting epistemological point, all else follows--a social-political-economic system based on a racial hierarchy of white, fundamentalist, Christian rich men, and, opposition to all ideas, philosophy, and science which contradicts or calls into question their claims derived on the Bible.
However, there is an interesting dichotomy in the Black Church. Many adherents in the Black Church hold conservative theological views, but their personal-historical experiences lead them to a different view of the federal government, the free market, and the role of religion in protecting the oppressed and downtrodden.
However, a small part of the Black Church adopted the Reaganesque "prosperity gospel" and the "name and claim it" theology that leads their congregations into the conservative fundamentalist outlook. Those black pastors tend to be in the New Apostolic Reformation movement--non-denominational churches or evangelical/pentecostal churches promoting the view that the Bible and God's word ought to govern not only their lives (God's plan for you), but for the nation and the world.
What your ten points eloquently point to is that we are not faced with a political conflict, but a religious-political conflict which is not open to compromises and finding common ground. After all, if Obama is the agent of Satan or Satan himself, how could anyone find common ground?
But, I'm unclear as to how many white conservatives were in the lobby. On the one hand, the black conservative gave the group permission to engage in language without fear of being labelled a racist--thus suggesting that the group was predominantly white. On the other hand, there was a "lone white conservative" who apparently did not say anything.
Michelle Malkin is another one.
It would have to be an audiobook, of course.
I'm one that boycotts that local biz, Amazon. They refuse to pay taxes and have some serious ethical issues all around. Barnes and Noble is my favorite place to shop. I prefer to go into the store but will use their website for whatever I can't get locally. And yes, I prefer printed books, not the "e-books"!
But you can never pretend if you arrived at the point beyond where it is impossible! You can then kiss you ass goodbye or fight, in whatever way you feel is necessary!
Oh, yeah, that's the way I talk to Richard Feynman. He's really gotten cranky since he died.
Read "White Cargo." It lasted beyond the 1700's just as slavery persisted past the Civil War. Whites had to be separated from making common cause with blacks in the early days. Bacon's Rebelion showed that. Still, indentured servitude continued to be useful and was sustained. The British loved it as a way to rid themselves of surplus human beings who were often sentenced to transportation to dreaded Virginia. They kept trying to revive the practice.
Just saw the movie america. While I agree it had a propaganda edge, it contained a lot of truths as well. It demonstrates that the lefts identified wrongs about America applied to much of the rest of civilization during those times. The difference with America, is that over time it has tried to right those wrongs, unlike other countries. America aids it friends, and even it's enemies. Americans who want to hate America for its past wrongs have countless other nations more guilty for past transgressions, while contributing far less for the good of mankind. And lastly, the alinskys, obamas, ayers, and Clinton's of the world make me ashamed I am of the same generation. They have taken the good intentions of that era, and used them as tools to try and destroy a great country.
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