The Woke Mind Virus

"The only thing that matters, is the individual, clearly..."  Tucker Carlson.  E Pluribus Unum, indeed...

It's always important to understand what a Republican actually means when they say something; when Republicans or rightwingers denounce "Woke", understand they are attacking basic human compassion.  The simple dignity of calling someone what they'd like to be known as becomes the biggest affront to conservatives.  "Woke" is simply the latest rightwing talking point disseminated to every conservative automaton who dutifully absorbs and retransmits en masse the totally original idea of anti-Wokeness.  You see this expressed all over social media where uniformly and ironically every conservative calls liberals "NPCs" or "Sheeple" as they celebrate their individuality by all telling the same damn unfunny joke; My Pronouns are...

"This is what happens when you swim in warm baths of wokeness..."  Ben SShaprio complaining about Twitter.

The real end goal of being "anti-Woke" is the coarsening of American society and weakening the bonds of shared humanity between Americans.  This is not a new effort, we saw it clearly post-911 with the Republican mistreatment of Muslims and we have seen the brutal rightwing Government violence directed at immigrants coming to the Nation.  Previously, gay people were targeted for violence from conservatives and concerted violence from Police across the Nation.  Remember the incident which led to the SCOTUS Lawerence v. Texas (2003) happened 25 years ago.  Rightwingers are hoping to get the chance to dust off criminal charges for "deviance".

Never forget Rightwingers always lie about what they supposedly believe in.  Conservatives don't believe in freedom or liberty or individuality those are just phrases right-wingers intone as shibboleths as Republicans have shown time and time again they are more than willing to use the awesome power of government to harass, harm, and kill individuals whom they have deemed as engaging in unAmerican activities.  One need look no further than the coordinated and murderous effort to eliminate the LGBTQ community.  Chaya Raichik and her Libs of TikTok site produces daily false outrage to goad conservatives into acts of stochastic terrorism and elected Republicans like Attorney General Ken Paxton have used their office to prepare lists of Transpersons.  Why would Ken Paxton want to create a database?  Well... Republican rhetoric towards LGBTQ persons has been eliminationist for a long time, in response the Proud Boys have attacked queer businesses, Matt Walsh fans threaten to blow up Boston-area Hospitals, and a Lauren Boebert inspired gunmen committed mass murder at Club Q in Colorado.

Republicans & Rightwingers have undermined the concept of American society through a steady barrage of propaganda designed to divorce people from unity and community.  Now, several generations shell-shocked by Republican efforts to slash the Social Safety Net and consistently fed agitprop of Makers&Takers 24/7 have turned their backs on The American Melting Pot and adopted the phony Rugged Individualism Republicans were offering. 

Much of this goes back to money and destroying the middle class (a goal of Republicans since the 1960's) It was a brilliant maneuver to slash taxes on the Ultra-Wealthy and Big Businesses thus shifting the bureaucratic burden of the US Government onto the backs of the White Working Class and then following up that legislative coup by incessantly telling White people that they are poor and broke because of lazy you-know-whos, illegal immigrants, drug users, and liberal activism instead of the true causes, namely Republican economic policies.

The overarching arc of Republican propaganda of phony Rugged Individualism is one in which, You, the Real American can only rely on yourself, you should only care about yourself and maybe your immediate family, anything which helps someone else hurts you, there is a limited pie of wealth and benefits and anyone who gets something (say Obamacare) means you don't get it.

The current anti-Woke Mind screeds by Tucker Carlson, Jordan Peterson, Dennis Praeger, Shapiro, Elon Musk, Tim Pool, or whatever rightwing propagandist you can cite are designed to create the Pavlovian Fear & Anger response in their rightwing drones. Eventually, the goal is to afford the conservative the shorthand of saying "Woke" derisively the same way they say "Socialism".  Then the term can be applied to everything and anything Republicans wish to scuttle or complain about, no matter how inappropriate or paradoxical the claim is.

Of course, the coarsening of American society doesn't just harm the enemies of MAGA.  The targets of the propaganda campaign the White Working Class have absorbed these messages of Fear & Anger and turned it upon themselves as well.  In 2019, Jonathan Metzl called this Dying of Whiteness.  And since these segments of society can not have compassion for others they in turn end up not being able to have compassion for themselves and engage in self-abnegation, self-medication, and suicide.

Republican Hatred for the Individual

Do I Hate You? Do I Hate You? Yes
Do I Hate You and Placate You? Ohh ~ H8Red Anthrax

This might as well be the lyrics for the Republican Party, because they clearly hate the individual and want them to die an early death after having squeezed every ounce of labor from them.

I thought the Republicans wanted people to earn as much as possible, I thought they were the party of the individual. Isn't that what they've been telling people for years? We want you to keep as much of your money as possible. Well it's obviously bullshit.

The Republicans so-called principled stand against the bad business model of Detroit has been shown to be a lie with the recent news Toyota is going to run a loss of $1.7 Billion USC this year.

The real reason the Republican Party lead the charge against the UAW and the US Auto Industry is because they represent a small cadre of plutocratic elites who wish to re-instate a feudal dictatorship in America in which the rarified 1% control the majority of wealth and ensure no one else earns a living wage.

To Republicans the people of this nation are cogs for the gears of industry or war to be used up and worked to death so they can't retire as useless eaters, draining the coffers of the state from which the Republicans enrich themselves.

This is why the Republican party is committed to destroying the middle class. Because a middle class exercises political power and votes against being squeezed and worked to death by the Republican Feudal Overlords.

David S. Chu stated benefits to wounded veterans and retirees, "are taking away from the nation's ability to defend itself." Meaning stop spending money on soldiers who can't be sent to fight and gain money for Republicans.

The son of auto executive, not a filthy line worker, Republican Presidential Candidate Mitt Romney wants Detroit to go bankrupt and millions lose their jobs and benefits. That way the poor will have to take whatever wage he and his Kleptocratic friends deem them worthy of, which is just enough to ensure they work themselves to death before the age 67. Romney even cites the Toyota Avalon being superior to Detroit autos. The same Toyota which is losing $1.7 Billions USC this year.

Conservative bloggers strive for the deaths of workers. Confederate Yankee offers this insight seemingly taken from Romney's Op-Ed:

"What separates the successful companies that aren't asking for a bailout from the leaches grubbing for tax dollars from your already empty wallet? Greedy, bloated, self-serving and uncompetitive union labor, particularly the United Auto Workers (UAW). Non-union car factories are cranking out the smaller, higher-quality, more fuel efficient fleets that America wants to buy, while the unionized Big Three are cranking out bloated beasts that carry and estimated $2,000 of overhead per vehicle because of concessions the automakers have made the unions over the years in noncompetitive benefits and pensions."

Of course, he's not satisfied with just crushing the UAW,

"For that matter, much of the manufacturing in this country doesn't deserve to live, particularly that created with non-competitive union labor so prevalent in the Northeast and upper Midwest."

You see we need to reduce workers to the status of wage slaves as we find in Vietnam or Nigeria, receiving whatever their feudal lords deem them worthy of earning, i.e. just enough to live; while using up their youth and discarding the workers as worthless when they get old, sick or injured. (Sadly, No has an excellent dissection of Confederate Yankee's H8Red of the plebeians)

Republican Richard Shelby, who spent more than $1 Billion USC in taxpayer money to lure in foreign auto manufactures to Alabama doesn't want taxpayer money to help domestic auto manufactures. Why? Because Republicans want to destroy the political power of workers in the US to reduce them to the status of workers in Indonesia.

And the mouthpiece of the Republican party Rush Limbaugh clearly stated how dare the individual not work until his death. Limbaugh "You're not supposed to retire when you're 55. You sound to me like you are totally capable of still working." (From Crooks and Liars 11/19/08)

And to point out the irony of Republicans working for the Death of Individuals, Pat Buchanan points out while Shelby and other Republicans are trying to destroy Detroit and impoverish individuals, General Motors didn't bomb Pearl Harbor, Mitsubishi did. So Republicans support companies that directly killed American Troops.

The Worst Crime (the Shoe Thing)

Every Nation-State makes the removal of the Government the Worst Crime. Even being charged meant imprisonment, conviction meant a slow tortured death. The brutal case of Damiens in 1757 being one of the best recorded. In the United States, even threatening the life of the President (or those in the Succession) can lead to a fine and a maximum imprisonment of 5 years.

This is good, a civil society can not abide having people going around issuing or proclaiming death threats to anyone.

But... But, removing a nation's Government and killing it's citizens is exactly what happens during war. Individuals under the direction of Tipsy Canoe accomplished the removal and deaths of members of the Iraqi government, including the "elected leader". Along the way, innocent individuals were killed.

Usually the venerable Just War Theory is raised, but with Iraq a strange heresy was created by Dick Cheney when he morphed the Just War Theory into his 1% Doctrine - supposedly if there is a 1% chance of a threat facing the United States, military action is called for - which according to Ron Suskind became the foundation for invasion of Iraq.

So the Smoking Gun/Mushroom Cloud Raison d'etre was invoked. And Iraq was invaded sans War being declared.

Why is the overthrow of a government, not to mention the deaths of tens of thousands of innocent people, acceptable when a government claims it is, but unacceptable for the individual?

But, to answer my own rhetorical question, Governments, including the vaunted US one, grant themselves an exclusive Monopoly on the Use of Force. Allowing themselves the ability to circumvent laws at their whim. Occasionally this backfires and the pawns of that government rise up, but the US has little fear of that because it has evolved the greatest System of Controlling it's citizens seen in the history of the world.

The idea the State should be the sole arbiter and controller of force is very old but was given a political-philosophical coating by Thomas Hobbes in Levithan. Hobbes describes the creation of the Sovereign to whom and from whom all rights and powers derive. Bush, Cheney clearly hold to the Hobbesian view of the Sovereign. According to Hobbes, once placed in power the Sovereign can do no wrong and can commit no crime, nor can he commit an injustice. His actions can not injure his subjects because what is good for the Sovereign is good for the people.

This is evidenced by Bob Woodward's assertion Bush told him, "I'm the commander – see, I don't need to explain – I do not need to explain why I say things. That's the interesting thing about being the president. Maybe somebody needs to explain to me why they say something, but I don't feel like I owe anybody an explanation." ~ Bush at War

So, who cares how many American subjects died when they did have to die? Who cares if the subjects don't like the Iraq Occupation? So what if Al Qaeda wasn't in Iraq until the US invaded? Who cares about Illegal Wiretapping? Who cares about Signing Statements? So what if we do Torture? So what if the Sovereign lies? These actions are taken in defense of the Leviathan and as such the actions of the Sovereign are by axiom not illegal.

But, of course, real world actions have real world consequences. And while Ole Tipsy Canoe may believe his lies and is on a whirlwind tour to claim he kept America safe, including saving the largest "skyscaper" in Los Angeles. So, while excepting that whole 9/11 thing and the Amerithrax attacks others, especially those in the ravaged country of Iraq, seem to have a dimmer view, hence the Shoe-Throwing Attack. And Bush's clear ignorance is on display when he states, "I don't know what the guy's cause is..."

The bigger problem than Bush is the mess he leaves us with. Tipsy Canoe has allowed The United States to inherit the role of the Latter Roman Republic in Mesopotamia. Ahmed Chalabi used the US the way the Satraps and Deposed Princes of the fragmented Seleucid Empire called upon the military might of Rome to gain the throne. Of course, after civil war and repeated invasions by the Armenians and Parthians and Ptolemaic Egypt, Rome eventually took direct control of the Middle East. The results of the Roman entanglement in the Middle East (the creation of christianity and the unfortunate rise of islam) are the building blocks for the problems still facing the world today.

Despite all his crying Bush's actions have really only managed to "keep us safe" from prosperity, worldwide respect, and medical advances. But as the Sovereign, he views himself as absolved or rightly above and beyond punishment for crimes, which if perpetrated by an individual, would result in a sentence far worse than having two shoes thrown at them.