Phantasmagorical USA
Ultimately common sense must prevail over morally bankrupt ideologies.
“Adjective. having a fantastic or deceptive appearance, as something in a dream or created by the imagination. having the appearance of an optical illusion, especially one produced by a magic lantern.”—Google
"Many Americans hunger for a different kind of society -- one based on principles of caring, ethical and spiritual sensitivity, and communal solidarity. Their need for meaning is just as intense as their need for economic security." - Michael Lerner, American journalist, rabbi and actvist
We live in trying times where the world is going through tumultuous change. Each of us reacts in our ways. Some like myself are totally transfixed by the spectacle we behold. It is the greatest human drama ever. The stakes are very high and futures are being decided. Not only by things happening and human dispositions sane and otherwise; but by the passage of time. As what we do and how we respond are windows closing. There are further casualties to come and futures arbitrarily decided.
This is the age of the magic lantern where we are continually bombarded by words and images and we have to decide what is real, what is illusion? What is the lie being told, or is it the truth we must embrace?
We know there are powerful anti-democratic forces at work making every effort to destroy our ability to distinguish between what is real and what is illusory. They are attempting to impose their self-serving reality on us against the dictates of history and the truths of the natural world. They want to drive us into the dark caves of cynicism, despair and passivity.
We have to ask ourselves who are the phantasmagorists frantically flashing the magic lantern trying to blind us to their craven immoral behaviors, waging endless wars for endless profits, for endless plunder on a finite planet.
The above art work by Susan Bartfield is an outstanding example of phantasmagorical art. Art is always a mirror of the human experience and the world is suffering at the hands of those whose behaviors are outside reality perpetuating chaos and anarchy.
Bartfield’s Eagles and Cats and Picasso’s world renown Guernica, are both phantasmagoric surreal art depicting chaotic worlds gone mad. Chaos that is self-inflicted and ultimately ruinous. Chaos driven by ideology, greed and stupidity.
Pieter Bruegel’s Fall of the Rebel Angels is five hundred years old. Even so I consider it a contemporary painting as the theme rings true to our times.
In his time life was short, brutal and impoverished. Death from plague, illness and wars were always on the door step. The church was the center of every day life in feudal communities. People lived in the fear of God and his wrath directed at earthy beings.
Still today life is short, brutal and impoverished for too many, there are various unconfirmed reports as to God’s non-existence. My guess is that he has taken early retirement on stress leave very much regretting he granted us free will, seeing the mess we have made of things. He has afforded us so many chances but his children refuse to grow up.
The immoral empire advertises itself as trusting in God; but it is fair to say God does not reciprocate.
As to plague, illness and wars we have become masters of the craft of killing as we have developed so many new technologies for eliminating peoples, proportionate to the times, the avaricious greed that drives us, and the vacuous immorality consuming our souls.
A few thousand years later we have created the new Sodom and the new Gomorrah on steroids. Human intelligence becomes as robotic as the Artificial Intelligence we use to calculate and fight our wars.
US President Ronald Reagan’s “shining city on the hill“ is as phantasmagoric as the America of today. Like a few other politicians he sang its virtues but was this mere
propaganda or the expression of a sincere aspiration? He was also the president advocating Star Wars. Every American president is elected to serve the country but inevitably becomes the puppet of the empire.
Empires ruin countries, rationality, and human values. Until the dark forces are clearly identified, honestly confronted, and held accountable America will remain a phantasmagorical country in full decline.
Ultimately common sense must prevail over morally bankrupt ideologies.
In case you missed it:
So many American myths need to be 'de-mythed'...Propaganda and lies.