It is true that since time immemorial, the wealthy and powerful of
human society have exploited and preyed upon the poor and vulnerable.
The tendency to abuse power is an inherent aspect of the shadow side
of each human being.
A spiritually healthy human being acknowledges their shadow side and
integrates it into their being, hence minimizing the shadow’s
destructive tendencies.
However, when repressed and denied, the shadow side of the human
psyche often manifests itself in a variety of violent and malevolent
ways. And throughout its history, social, economic, and political
forces in the United States have served to nurture the growth of the
collective national shadow into a loathsome monstrosity.
What feeds the beast?
.
America’s Collective Delusion Must Endure
Written by Jason Miller
Thursday, 05 October 2006
Domestic Genocide of an Economic Nature
By Jason Miller -- World News Trust
http://www.worldnewstrust.com/content/view/291/lang,en/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=293
“The beauty of the dream vanished, and breathless horror and disgust
filled my heart.” --Mary Shelley’s Victor Frankenstein
Accomplishing a logic-defying feat, the wealthiest nation in the world
has “attained” the highest rate of homelessness amongst developed
countries. Three-and-a-half million human beings experience homelessness
each year in the United States. Almost a million are homeless every
night (1).
In the most heavily militarized nation in the history of the human
race, 30 percent of its homeless men are military veterans (2). What
happened to “support the troops”? Obviously once military personnel
return home, the slogan changes to “good riddance to bad rubbish.”
Ready for some “shock and awe” on the home front? According to the
National Mental Health Association, “on any given night, 1.2 million
children are homeless” in the United States.
And what is one to make of a self-proclaimed Christian nation
(overflowing with material resources) that allows such travesties of
economic justice to persist?
How can a Christian nation ignore the compassionate teachings of Jesus?
“For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me
something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked
and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in
prison and you visited me.' Then the righteous will answer him, "Lord,
when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and
gave you something to drink? And when was it that we saw you a stranger
and welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing? And when was it that
we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?' And the king will answer
them, "Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these
who are members of my family, you did it to me.'”
Yes, it is morally and ethically abhorrent that there are indigent,
starving, and homeless human beings in a society of people awash in a
sea of wealth.
Yet it gets even uglier…
According to Sixty Minutes, the latest extreme means for teens to
alleviate adolescent ennui involves savagely beating the most vulnerable
human beings in the United States.
This so-called “bum hunting” has resulted in the murder of at least
one homeless person per month for the past 60 consecutive months.
Accurate statistics are elusive at best (since few people notice when a
homeless person “disappears”). However, the National Coalition for the
Homeless determined that 500 of its lost souls have been victims of “bum
hunting” since 1999. 180 of them met violent deaths as a result of this
appalling blood sport in which the hunters stalk human prey (3).
What could inspire children to commit such depraved, barbarous acts?
Sixty Minutes suggested that a wildly popular DVD series called Bum
Fights was the principal catalyst for “bum hunting.” Apparently, the
producers of Bum Fights paid homeless individuals a pittance (and bribed
them with alcohol) to brawl and attempt ridiculous stunts similar to
those shown in the Jackass series. Bum Fight movies also involve a
character dubbed the “Bum Hunter.” In producing Bum Fights, the “Bum
Hunter” attacked randomly selected sleeping homeless people, forcibly
restrained them, and sealed their mouths with duct tape.
Twenty-three-year-old Ryan McPherson was the producer of Bum Fights.
He and two partners sold the rights to their creation for $1.5 million
(4). Sixty Minutes interviewed two of their victims, including a
homeless man named Rufus, who confirmed that McPherson paid them less
than $10 and a “couple of beers” to fight and do degrading stunts.
When Sixty Minutes interviewed McPherson, he had this to say:
"We’re merely exposing something that I don’t think a lot of
people know exists. I think it's interesting. I can't imagine what would
make somebody do the things that Rufus was doing to himself...."
Not surprisingly, McPherson claimed to see no connection between his
DVD productions, the millions of teens watching them, and the
proliferation of “bum hunting.” It is interesting to note that one of
the teens who participated in the slaying of a homeless person told
Sixty Minutes that he had watched Bum Fights “hundreds of times” before
the murder.
While the reprehensible McPherson and his grotesque digitally captured
exploitations of miserable souls almost certainly contributed heavily to
the popularity of “bum hunting,” McPherson, his perversities, and “bum
hunting” are merely symptoms of an insidious disease afflicting the
collective psyche of the United States at a profound level.
Beware the shadow…
It is true that since time immemorial, the wealthy and powerful of
human society have exploited and preyed upon the poor and vulnerable.
The tendency to abuse power is an inherent aspect of the shadow side of
each human being.
A spiritually healthy human being acknowledges their shadow side and
integrates it into their being, hence minimizing the shadow’s
destructive tendencies.
However, when repressed and denied, the shadow side of the human
psyche often manifests itself in a variety of violent and malevolent
ways. And throughout its history, social, economic, and political forces
in the United States have served to nurture the growth of the collective
national shadow into a loathsome monstrosity.
What feeds the beast?
Moral superiority has been a critical piece of the argument the United
States has used to justify the genocide of the Native Americans, the
enslavement of Black Americans, the support of numerous murderous
dictators supporting U.S. interests in developing nations, unwavering
support for the Palestinian genocide, and the slaughter of millions of
civilians in imperial wars waged under the pretext of fighting for
freedom and human rights. People in the United States are
psychologically conditioned to believe that their nation is the
salvation of humanity and to ignore or destroy evidence to the contrary.
Nearly endless streams of propaganda extolling the virtues of the
United States enable large numbers of U.S. Americans to support a
ruthless empire because they believe it to be a benevolent superpower.
Aside from people suffering a serious deficit of conscience, those
living in a nearly perpetual state of denial are virtually the only ones
capable of pledging their loyalty to a nation with a predacious foreign
policy and a morally bankrupt economic system.
How else would one explain the corporate media and the Empire’s loyal
adherents celebrating Congress’ passage of the Military Commissions Act
as a “victory?” Even after viewing numerous explicit photos of the
blatant torture committed by the United States military at Abu Ghraib, a
frightening number of U.S. citizens remain unperturbed by the fact that
a man who would be fortunate to flirt with a score of 100 on an IQ test
now has the power to define and authorize torture, to imprison virtually
anyone as a “terrorist,” and to negate Habeas Corpus.
Remember when the Magna Carta was the basis for our legal tradition?
How absurd that people actually believed that this excerpt from that
other “goddamn piece of paper” was a cornerstone of a just society:
No freeman shall be taken, imprisoned ... or in any other way
destroyed ... except by the lawful judgment of his peers, or by the law
of the land. To no one will we sell, to none will we deny or delay,
right or justice.
Many in the United States have welcomed shredding both the Magna Carta
and the Constitution by entrusting a feeble-minded tyrant with nearly
absolute power. In their delusion, Bush will protect the United States
from the “evil terrorists” by continuing to kill hundreds of thousands
of innocent human beings who had nothing to do with 9/11. Denial is
indeed a potent force. It enables supporters of the Bush Regime to
continue believing that they live in a benevolent meritocracy that
actively pursues peace, freedom, and justice for the entire human race.
And it prevents them from even considering that they might become The
Decider’s next victim.
And the profound suffering of the past, present, and future innocent
victims of the “Torture Bill” is not even on the radar screen of the
Empire’s loyalists. Empathy and compassion are scarce commodities indeed
in the United States. And why wouldn’t they be?
Saturated with spiritual perversions…
Employing a bizarre reverse aversion therapy -- let’s call it
saturation therapy -- corporate news outlets, the government, Madison
Avenue, revisionist historians, television, and Hollywood work in
concert to proliferate the spiritual cancers of narcissism, avarice,
hubris, materialism, self-absorption, pornography, gluttony,
pathological nationalism, obsession with external beauty, and xenophobia.
It is not a leap of logic to conclude that perceived superiority over
the rest of humanity, deeply rooted denial, an inculcated devotion to
rapacious capitalism, and the spiritual ills resulting from “saturation
therapy” combine to form a strong impetus for sociopathic behavior.
Bludgeoning a defenseless human being to death is one such behavior
that immediately leaps to mind…
Genocide?
The United States has the financial resources to end homelessness
tomorrow through the intelligent use of public money. Instead its
decision-makers elect to line the pockets of corporate cronies and war
profiteers by pouring $600 billion per year into entities and programs
that exist to kill human beings.
By deliberately lavishing obscene sums of public money on the
murderous military industrial complex, while seriously neglecting
programs to attack the root causes of poverty, the ruling elite of the
United States are waging an agonizing form of economic genocide against
homeless people.
Preserving the delusion
In a society that worships money, material success, youth, and beauty,
homeless human beings are anathema on several levels. Ultimately, to
preserve the delusion of the American Dream, those caught in the
American Nightmare must be eliminated in some fashion.
The number of U.S. homeless people relative to the number of the
homeless in other developed countries exposes the brutality of the U.S.
“survival of the fittest” socioeconomic system.
Don’t think about them. You could become one of them.
The very existence of these indigent vagabonds reminds U.S. Americans
how fleeting and unattainable the American Dream truly is.
Don’t look at them. You could become one of them.
3.5 million deeply impoverished human beings forage in garbage
dumpsters while heirs like the Waltons and the Mars hoard fortunes large
enough to sustain hundreds of thousands of people.
Don’t touch them. You could become one of them.
Homeless people are the antithesis of the American ideal. They are
often impoverished, unemployed (or under-employed), unattractive, dirty,
beaten down, and addicted to drugs or alcohol.
Kill them so you don’t become one of them.
If horribly misguided youths don’t eradicate our homeless population,
the United States’ woefully inadequate (and rapidly shrinking)
publicly-funded safety nets will leave homeless people wallowing in
their misery until they are dead.
All the while the wealthy elites of the United States will smile with
the satisfaction of homeowners who are successfully exterminating a
roach infestation.
And as each homeless human being dies, people like Barbara Bush will
have one less “blight” on which to focus their beautiful minds.
(1) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homelessness_in_the_United_States
(2)
http://www.helpusa.org/site/PageServer?pagename=HELP_ProgServ_VerteranServices
(3) http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/09/28/60minutes/main2049967.shtml
(4) http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/09/28/60minutes/main2049967.shtml
Jason Miller is a wage slave of the American Empire who has freed
himself intellectually and spiritually. He writes prolifically, his
essays have appeared widely on the Internet, and he does volunteer work
for a homeless shelter. He welcomes constructive correspondence at
[EMAIL PROTECTED] or via his blog, Thomas Paine's Corner, at
http://civillibertarian.blogspot.com/
