Category: Culture

The Entitlement Narcotic

“Theodore Forstmann and George Will are the latest in a long series of writers and national leaders who have warned against the seductive appeal of government handouts. For example, 1960’s lecturer / columnist Henry M. Wriston, politician George Romney, and even a Vogue magazine editorial once admonished Americans about ‘luxuries-become-necessities’ leading to a complacence in which security is valued over freedom. Today, the typical scenario for weaning the masses from independence, says Forstmann, goes like this: ‘Give as many people as possible a taste of entitlement — give everyone, as our President likes to say a ‘stake in the system.” Notice this is not the same as a stake in liberty, or a stake in being an American. A ‘stake in the system’ means dedication to milking as much from the bureaucratic process as possible….

In pushing the Universal health care scheme, the Clinton Administration sought technical advice from countries already awash in socialized medicine. What most people don’t know, says Forstmann, is that the administration also sought political advice from those countries regarding how to push the idea. For example, ‘the German parliament advised that the most certain path to becoming a permanent governing entity was to socialize health care.’ Presumably, as soon as everyone had a taste of ‘free’ health care they would be reticent to give it up and, in fact, would insist on more. In the end, no amount of health care provided would ever be enough…”

From B. K. Eakman’s
Cloning Of The American Mind

In the state we live and move and have our being

Melinda woke up at 6:00 am realizing that her water had broke. Quickly she woke up her partner Gladys who was sleeping next to her in order to drive her to the hospital. Melinda and Gladys had recently been married after the state had passed the gay marriage law. Melinda and Gladys had decided to get pregnant in celebration of their marriage. Fortunately, the provision in their state run health care insurance paid for the procedure.

Gladys had just dozed off after getting home from working the late shift as a data organizer for ACORN. Melinda was thankful that the timing of her water breaking was such that she could drop off her 4 year old Eddie at his school for the early school program. Melinda briefly wondered if she would have time to fix Eddie breakfast until she remembered that Eddie could get the state provided breakfast and lunch at government school.

So, within 15 minutes of her water breaking Gladys, Melinda, and Eddie were out of the door of their house — a house recently purchased with the help of both the Government owned Freddie Mac and one of the area Government banks. Melinda slid into the passenger side of their sleek new government motors hybrid “Medusa.” The state run hospital was five miles away, with the state run school being a mere two blocks away from the state run hospital. So, the three of them went from their state owned house mortgaged by state run financial institutions, to the state manufactured car, to the state run school, to the state run hospital all in a matter of 20 minutes.

Once in the doors of the hospital the state employee informed Melinda that there was at least a 95 minute wait for the labor room and that instead they were going to have one of the state internee doctors deliver the baby in the emergency room — which they hoped would be available sometime soon. While Melinda was being informed of this Gladys was being reminded that according to the state hospital records that Eddie had not been brought in for the state required vaccinations. Gladys was told that if she didn’t see to it that Eddie came in soon there would be both a fine and a government medical worker coming to the home to visit.

Finally, all the red tape was finished and Melinda was wheeled into the emergency room while Gladys took a detour in order to purchase one of the state run media newspapers.

45 minutes later Melinda gave birth to a baby girl. Upon birth the baby girl was put through the government mandated measurements and assessments. After baby Cher was determined to be worthy of life by the state, the state hospital assigned a government care worker to Melinda and Gladys in order to make periodic check ups and provide “counsel” as to how to raise baby Cher. This “benefit” of a government care worker coming into the homes of parents with newborns was part of Gladys and Melinda’s health care insurance.

Michael Jackson

“The idol is the measure of the worshiper.”

James Russell Lowell

With the preoccupation of the news cycle with Michael Jackson apparently large number of Americans continue to live vicariously through people who become embodiments for their individual and collective existence. A person, such as Jackson, becomes abstracted and reified by the image making media with the result that people find large measures of their identity in the identity of the celebrity idol.

This would be bad enough if celebrity and hero were synonymous. They are not. The celebrity, unlike the hero who was known for his character, is known for being known. The celebrity has a skill but is launched into celebrity status for his signature personality or identifying habit. With Michael Jackson the identifying habit was his overall bizarreness. We love the celebrity — and this is the scary part when it comes to Michael Jackson — because in loving the celebrity we are loving ourselves because the celebrity is just us said loudly. Don’t fool yourself. This Jackson funeral isn’t so much an outpouring of love for Jackson as much as it is an outpouring of love for ourselves. In mourning the deceased Michael Jackson people are affirming how much they love themselves.

And what is it that people love about themselves that was embodied by Jackson? Could it be superficiality as exemplified by the lyrics of Jackson’s songs? Could it be the ability to remake ourselves in any image that was exemplified by Jackson’s surgical morphing? Could it be the ability to live beyond norms that was exemplified in Jackson’s life?

The whole funeral then becomes an exercise of self-congratulation. Michael Jackson was worthy of all this maudlin attention because we are worthy of all this maudlin attention. In the end the funeral is all about cultural narcissism.

Next as we look at this funeral what we see is the American Pravda media pushing and much of America apparently swallowing is an abstracted and reified idol, who, in a normal culture, would be considered anything but a hero. Indeed, I have been wondering with the Michael Jackson death marathon if this is more about the media elite pushing a distorted lifestyle then it is about pushing Michael Jackson and his music.

Consider that Michael Jackson in many respects is the perfect poster child for Cultural Marxism. He was not white. He was sexually dysfunctional. He had a non-traditional family. He was not Christian in any historic sense. Are not these descriptors the very thing for which the culturally Marxist elite are angling? So, Michael dies and suddenly cultural Marxism has the opportunity to glorify those very things that the cultural Marxist elites are trying to main stream. With the exalting of the twisted the overthrow of the normal is achieved.

I hope I won’t be misunderstood with this piece. This isn’t about whether or not someone liked or didn’t like Michael Jackson’s music. This is not about not having sympathy for a man obviously hurt and damaged by those things that marched through his life. This is about the meaning surrounding Jackson’s death as defined by the circus surrounding it.