Saturday, November 28, 2015

Sane Zombies

Sane zombies?  It’s a contradiction in essence.  But that’s the point.   

 

In my last post, I talked about werewolves and vampires as symbolisms of human monstrosity.  For instance, our devastating effect on the meteorological homeostasis of the planet.  Our relationships revolve around ugly poles: exploiter and the exploited; consumer and the consumed; nobles and toadies.  

 

The potential to actualize gets sacrificed to this maleficent trench. 

 

The zombie theme adds another component:  the teeming senselessness.  Idiot conformity.  Our airwaves endure an orgy of zombie parades, and small islands of the besieged.  The last stand of true awareness.  Ragged heroes, surrounded by a sea of compromised flesh.

 

There are two conclusions.  We have a huge amount of subconscious disgust for our fellow citizens.  Moreover, there is catharsis in acting out the role of a mass slaughter.   A brutal judge, taking a machete or shotgun to the skulls of the lost.

 

Violence simmers in our subconscious.  We see our fellow humans as idiots.

 

There are those who feeds off this, and magnify it. 

 

Warnings about Donald Trump’s trajectory have already been written, excellent op-eds in newspapers like the Washington Post and the New York Times.  Here’s a few, one is explicitly Hitleresque:

 

www.nytimes.com/2015/11/27/opinion/donald-trumps-police-state.html

 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/for-todays-gop-thanksgiving-is-the-ultimate-hypocrisy/2015/11/25/3c66f29c-93a3-11e5-8aa0-5d0946560a97_story.html

 

http://www.politico.com/story/2015/11/all-hail-der-donald-216197

 

 

We all partake in the furtherance of the zombie, vampire, and werewolf themes.   We may not be aware (hence zombie?), but we buy things, all kinds of things, made by the oppressed.  We suck the life blood of sweatshop workers, and plod along the path of consumerist devouring.  

 

Another form of it:  We in the USA contribute to greenhouse gas emissions at a grossly disproportionate rate.  With the boomer generation as bellwether--frontline zombiedom, we are blithe in our habits, our driving of fancy cars, our casual flipping of the coal-hungry electric switch.  

 

The vertical production chains showcase ways in which we support (effectively revel in) the degradation of Gaia, and the extirpation of Her creatures.

 

Despite all this, as mentioned in the last blog entry, there is a difference between monsters.  That we are all to blame does not make us equally culpable.  Werewolves and vampires can decide to do good acts.  It’s never too late.  Zombies can become more aware, even if it is in paltry increments.

 

Trump could become President.  He erects a wall between the USA and Mexico.  He registers Muslims in a data base.  He feasts on bloated social veins of ethnic antipathy.  He has said America must do the “unthinkable.”  

 

Are we to assume his gross narcissism will stop short of nuclear options?  Should we hope he won’t go too far, as many did with Hitler?  Narcissists and sociopaths--and he is both--need to up the ante, constantly, to get their rise.

 

Too often we use the idiom ‘nuclear option’ in casual ways.   We need to be alert to the tens of thousands of ICBM’s launchable by a hate-monger like President Trump, or by any one of the other leaders in other troubled countries that possess such doomsday weapons.  

 

India and Pakistan are a rancorous pair, locked in mutual seethe.  North Korea, absolutely Orwellian, has nuclear weapons.  And so on.  

 

It comes down to how we deal with our disgust and rage.  I think Martin Luther King, Jr. had it right.  Only love has a chance to overcome hate.   Hitler’s hatespeak led us into WWII.  We can’t afford to let Trump’s hatespeak reign.

 

It’s tremendously hard not to mock and taunt the Trumpites, their starry-eyed chants. They are zombies, though even less aware, more ignorant, due to their acceptance and spread of White heteronormative patriarchy.

 

This article came out yesterday:

 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2015/11/27/donald-trumps-various-rude-and-offensive-comments-havent-hurt-him-at-all

 

 

Love is the only way to challenge the momentum of such rancor.  Jesus was compassionate toward the poor and the weak.  If liberals respond to Trump's followers with agape, the kind of love MLK endorsed, or Buddhist compassion, or any other spiritual tradition of care, as opposed to attack, it will make it harder for Trumpites to see those outside their in-group as subhuman.  It could disrupt the black-and-white worldview.  Perhaps more importantly, it could influence those who are still undecided, apathetic or unaware.  Those on the fence.

 

Still, humanity seems to be marching in good zombie-fashion toward doom.  The USA, with its supreme military, harbors tens of millions of citizens foaming at the mouth before the infectious vitriol of their grand hotspur--a needy man of huge ego who, according to his ex-wife, kept a book of Hitler’s speeches next to his bed.  

 

White protesters with guns in Dallas, standing near an Islamic sanctuary.  Scary, scary photos:

 

http://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/editorials/20151123-editorial-armed-protest-at-irving-mosque-out-of-bounds.ece

 

Sane zombies.  That’s impossible.  So… what?

 

 “The great way is easy, yet people prefer the side paths” -- Lao Tzu.

 

"When the power of love overcomes the love of power the world will know peace."

-- Jimi Hendrix 

 

 

 

 

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