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This is what passed for satire exactly 20 years ago
(hexbear.net)
A justification for American militarism from the South Park guys in the form of "dicks have to fuck assholes" or whatever.
Racism towards Middle Easterners and Kim Jong-il too, because why not?
The real problem is that some Hollywood actors said the Iraq War was bad.
See, I don't understand something. It is satire but it also is just genuinely what Americans believe. Is that because Americans are too illiterate to process satire, or is it because America is so devoid of morality that participating in a self-deprecational circlejerk of "satire" provides American libs and chuds with the moral license to keep supporting atrocities?
I think the same underlying phenomenon applies to the way a huge majority of Americans distrust their government, but they still functionally put their trust in government in every conceivable ways. A tax strike in the US is unthinkable. Voter turnouts are low, but the majority of elegible voters still vote, despite saying they don't trust their government. Electoral candidates with negative approval win elections. Nobody believes in anything, it's a walking zombie of a country.
The problem is everything Trey Parker and Matt Stone ever did is satire about believing in literally anything except nihilistic libertarianism. It ends you up at this "satire of the americans that's also just what the americans think"
Dude, it's therapy. When you have to do something, out of necessity or because it's what's right it can be an intense burden! just doing basic stuff sometimes! But, especially if it's wrong and kinda fucking evil - the human psyche - being fallible and often damaged - needs to process stuff. Team America was group therapy. This kind of genre of thing is about putting the anxieties, pains, morality, of the conscientous part of the American psyche forward - and to absolve itself without changing direction. It is confessional, it is ritual hail maries, it is baptism - and where the repentant might change their behavior, the guilty, the bloody handed, the passive and the cowardly just cleanse themselves in the purifying waters before carrying on with the soiling work of turning the crank on the meat grinder.
What a hypnotist might do 1 on 1; slop does for the collective.
"The weight of what i do is heavy on my shoulders, but in the end we're good people trying to heal and do good, right?" the nation asks itself, all at once, processing itself in the shattered visage of the humanity that belies its callous mask - a finger snaps, the body relaxes, and the mind forgives itself under instruction
love your posts on here just wanna say
i always feel insane making them so i'm glad to hear it tbh
Very well put
Like 90% of US taxes are collected automatically, I don't think it would work even if people were into the idea. A little over half of Americans get money back on their taxes when they file them, because the government automatically took more than it should have from their paychecks.
But yeah it is a huge contradiction that Americans seemingly don't trust their government, but love their military and police. Personally I think the rhetoric around not trusting government is just a cultural shibboleth that right wingers hijack to justify reducing social spending and not a real thing that people believe.
I don't think it's "right wing" (it is bourgeois, but not right wing in the cultural sense). I think it's just as prevalent in all sectors of hegemonic culture: Americans are superior people because they are free thinkers who know better than to trust their government. From the moment the nation came to be that's more or less been a constant. But it's wholly contradictory to the absolute subservience to empire that the American state demands (Actually Existing Liberalism).
I've wondered about whether something like this was even possible; the moment you suggest going on a tax strike, wouldn't you get arrested on the spot along with everyone who agrees? Getting people to agree to a tax strike would be difficult enough, but sticking around long enough to drum up support would be the real issue.
Gonna be honest, people are blase about everything until it affects them, and even then they can be convinced to be okay with it because it has yet to break their backs (like criminally low wages and rising living costs). Modern day America is still not 1900's China, and corporations are very cleverly easing us into it rather than just a straight drop; as long as they don't make any drastic mistakes, they may actually successfully advance modern day America into early 20th century China. Ever wanted to roleplay as a peasant from 1920's China but with infinitely less of the rich culture? Well maybe it's still to early for you, but your grandkids will love it (surely).
That meme is too true; born too late to be a 1920's Tibetan serf, born too early to be a comparable 1920's Tibetan serf.
Yes, that's exactly correct, but the fact that this would be seen as the best outcome by the vast majority of the same people who say they distrust the government is why I say the situation is so bleak. Same thing with all the people who "agree" with climate protesters' intentions, but disavow their methods. The working classes of the imperial core are lulled into inaction by the subtle trick of being convinced their fruitless beliefs matter in a world where their masters have already preempted those beliefs from crystallizing into change.