GoFuckYourself.com - Adult Webmaster Forum - View Single Post - Do Americans have any idea what will happen if Bush does NOT bombs Iran??

dig420 · 03-06-2007, 01:58 PM

That is why so many of them who have never been anywhere near the military -- and will never go near it even as their wars are endangered by a lack of volunteers -- have a monomanical obsession with military glory, with constant displays of how "resolute" and "courageous" they are, with notions of forced "submission" and "humiliation" of their opponents (just take notice of how central a role those concepts play in neoconservative "arguments"), and with depicting those who oppose the wars they cheer on as "cowards" (even when the cowards in question are decorated Marines with 30 years of service).

John Dean and Bob Altemeyer have both documented this dynamic as clearly and convincingly as can be. People who feel weak and vulnerable crave strong leaders to protect them and to enable them to feel powerful. And those same people crave being part of a political movement that gives them those sensations of power, strength, triumph and bravery -- and they need a strong, powerful, masculine Leader to enable those feelings. And they will devote absolute loyalty to any political movement which can provide them with that.

That is just the basic dynamic of garden-variety authoritarianism, and it is what the right-wing, pro-Bush political movement is at its core -- far, far more than it is a set of political beliefs or geopolitical objectives or moral agendas. All of it -- the obsessions with glorious "Victory" in an endless string of wars, vesting more and more power in an all-dominant centralized Leader, the forced submission of any country or leader which does not submit to the Leader's Will, the unquestioning Manichean certainties, and especially the endless stigmatization of the whole array of Enemies as decadent, depraved and weak -- it's just base cultural tribalism geared towards making the followers feel powerful and strong and safe.

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwa...ult/index.html

A nice long article explaining why actual war heros and soldiers are cowards in conservative eyes (Kerry, Murtha, Carter) and rich momma's boys and hollywood tough guys (Bush, Reagan) and heros.

This is a sick movement and a very real threat to American democracy. It's amazing to me that people like Splum and Daddy Halbucks - paranoid, stupid and oblivious - exist in such numbers in our society. I guess if you didn't have a bottom 50% on the IQ scale, you couldn't have a top 50%. My only concern is that the median seems to keep sliding downward.

03-06-2007, 01:58 PM
dig420 Confirmed User Industry Role: Join Date: May 2001 Posts: 9,240	That is why so many of them who have never been anywhere near the military -- and will never go near it even as their wars are endangered by a lack of volunteers -- have a monomanical obsession with military glory, with constant displays of how "resolute" and "courageous" they are, with notions of forced "submission" and "humiliation" of their opponents (just take notice of how central a role those concepts play in neoconservative "arguments"), and with depicting those who oppose the wars they cheer on as "cowards" (even when the cowards in question are decorated Marines with 30 years of service). John Dean and Bob Altemeyer have both documented this dynamic as clearly and convincingly as can be. People who feel weak and vulnerable crave strong leaders to protect them and to enable them to feel powerful. And those same people crave being part of a political movement that gives them those sensations of power, strength, triumph and bravery -- and they need a strong, powerful, masculine Leader to enable those feelings. And they will devote absolute loyalty to any political movement which can provide them with that. That is just the basic dynamic of garden-variety authoritarianism, and it is what the right-wing, pro-Bush political movement is at its core -- far, far more than it is a set of political beliefs or geopolitical objectives or moral agendas. All of it -- the obsessions with glorious "Victory" in an endless string of wars, vesting more and more power in an all-dominant centralized Leader, the forced submission of any country or leader which does not submit to the Leader's Will, the unquestioning Manichean certainties, and especially the endless stigmatization of the whole array of Enemies as decadent, depraved and weak -- it's just base cultural tribalism geared towards making the followers feel powerful and strong and safe. http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwa...ult/index.html A nice long article explaining why actual war heros and soldiers are cowards in conservative eyes (Kerry, Murtha, Carter) and rich momma's boys and hollywood tough guys (Bush, Reagan) and heros. This is a sick movement and a very real threat to American democracy. It's amazing to me that people like Splum and Daddy Halbucks - paranoid, stupid and oblivious - exist in such numbers in our society. I guess if you didn't have a bottom 50% on the IQ scale, you couldn't have a top 50%. My only concern is that the median seems to keep sliding downward.