Snuffing Hope

Dear George,

What’s with all this hope bullshit? All of a sudden the solid citizens of Iowa are going dewy-eyed on you and acting like a bunch of flower children. This is not a healthy development, and if it isn’t nipped in the bud it could create all sorts of havoc and unrest. The outbreak of populism was bad enough. Once you add hope into the mix, you get a brew that could be positively lethal for the State.

The problem, as I see it, is that terrorism is losing its charm as a vote getter. The implications are unnerving. Fear fragments; hope restores community. And the Corporatist State needs a fragmented society to thrive.

Ever since the end of World War II, fear has driven the political process. Through clever marketing Americans have learned to be anxious about everything from Communism to body odor. As they slowly turned from their neighbors to the blinking screen that held them in a hypnotic trance, an increasing isolation deepened this fear until it was so totalized the proles were not even conscious of being afraid. Fear became a way of life.

Fear produces a need for security both at the macro and micro levels of existence. On the macro level, the proles became suckers for the mantra of “National Defense” as they sat benumbed while their children’s inheritance was squandered on even more sophisticated military hardware. At the micro level they found that consumption provided a temporary antidote against the anxiety that lay like a pool of bile at the base of their souls. Of course, the delicious irony of it is that the more trappings of security one acquires, the more insecure one feels, thus necessitating even more layers of security through an exponential increase in military hardware and the charging of even more stuff.

The result was a society so fragmented it didn’t even care as you started chipping away at the Constitution, using your Eternal War of the Empty Policy as an excuse.

Then Obama wandered onto the scene with his message of hope, and things began to unravel.

The last thing the Corporatist State can afford is an energized mob, especially an energized mob of young people. This nation suffered through an outburst of youthful idealism in the sixties and it threatened to bring down the status quo. We don’t need a repeat.

The danger of community is that people start talking to each other. And as they do that, they begin to realize how badly the State has been screwing them. This is okay as long as it is limited to a bitch session that ends with a sigh, a shrug and the question, “So what can you do?” But once hope joins the conversation, the question becomes, “What in the fuck do those assholes think they are doing?” That is when the trouble begins.

Hope is too damn refreshing, too invigorating. It boosts energy as it wakes people up. The next thing you know, people start believing things can improve, and once they believe that, they start working to actually improve them.

It is time to rehabilitate fear. If terrorism no longer works, then it is time to make the public afraid of the State. Democracy is on its deathbed; Corporatism must deliver the coup de grace. You know all those camps built to hold “illegal immigrants”? Start using them. Incarcerate in the name of freedom. Nullify the Constitution in order to save it.

But, what ever you do, act quickly. The window of opportunity is slowly closing. Act now while Congress is controlled by the most craven group of Democrats ever to blunder their way up to Capitol Hill. No matter how outrageously you behave, they are quite willing to give you retroactive approval. The Beltway is so isolated from America it isn’t even aware that the tide of hope has started to rise. Strike hard before hope starts to seep through the fissure and cracks.

Your admirer,
Belacqua Jones