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POPSThe State Religion: The myth of national security stands between us and the future
I repeat: "Toughness" and strength through militarism speak to the myth of nationalism but will get us only deeper into the quagmire that President Bad Example has bequeathed us as his legacy. We won't stop terrorism with shock-and-awe bombing, torture and pre-emptive global bullying. Almost everybody knows this by now, but our presidential candidates still genuflect before the almighty defense budget, varying only in the fervor they are able to project. This is scary, is it not -- that we might wind up with More of the Same as our next commander-in-chief, simply because we lack the capacity to step outside the stagnant mythology of macho nationalism. "Preachers warn of hellfire to offer rescue from it, which is available to those who submit," writes Carroll. "This feedback loop of damnation-salvation-submission serves the people by offering meaning, and it serves the elite by protecting the structure of power. In religion, all of this is overt. In presidential politics, it is im
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POPSHate Bombing: the Sleep of Reason The rise of Fascism - not in this or that form, or this or that leader, but among the ordinary people - was marked by a descent into hatred of modernism, enlightenment values, irrationalism, superstition, an existential dread that sort security in myth. It is this current today, not the easy targets of Bad Wolf Bush or X or Y, which is the more alarming of background indicators of what has the potential to erupt.
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