"No, George, it is hypocrisy"

Hat tip to Case Wagenvoord, who forwarded this dissent letter to me from the Salon.com blog. It was written by dissenter-extraordinaire and Patriot, Belacqua Jones.

Here it is (and enjoy!):

Dear George,

The foundation of American prosperity and success is neither democracy nor freedom nor capitalism nor our military strength. No, George, it is hypocrisy. It is the ability to raise one hand to the Lord God Almighty while the other is down in the muck throttling decency. You decry the moral mildew that is rotting the fabric of American society while you elide over the fact that this moral decay emanates from the corridors of power.

You see, George, the Corporatist State would wither and shrink in the face of any sort of value system. Values involve self-discipline; the Corporatist State thrives on instant gratification. Instant gratification demands the deconstruction of everything except the ego, and, as one thinker put it, this results in a crypto nihilism that can only be filled by toys and noise. Were the masses to buy into the axiom, “Use it up, wear it out; make do or do without,” our whole economic house of cards would come crashing to the ground.

To make sure this never happens, the Corporatist State has developed the concept of “identity,” that pack of lies the masses tells themselves so they can believe they are something other than place-holding ciphers. “Identity” is a commodity that can be picked up and discarded at will. They speak of “reinventing themselves," which requires them to buy a completely new wardrobe, a new car and new toys to accessorize their new identity. Once the novelty wears off, it becomes necessary to assume a new identity, and the cycle of compulsive consumption continues, as they tap out their home equity, and max out their plastic. The poor fools never realize that the whole concept of “reinventing themselves” is one big ontological fallacy since a subject can never be its own object. Identity is simply the articulation of make believe.

The beauty of make believe is that it generates insecurity since they are never free of the nagging doubt that their make believe is simply that. Just as a weakened immune system is receptive to disease, so this pervasive sense of insecurity makes them receptive to your fear-mongered War on Terror, andthey are quite content to remain silent while you torch the Constitution.

The way all the parts of this system fit together so completely and perfectly mean it must be the result of divine intervention.

Your admirer,

Belacqua Jones