The Eclipse Of Reason
“Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities.”
― Voltaire
It may have been around the time of the U.S. ceasefire that our president conceived the idea of posting an AI image of himself as Jesus. Well, why the hell not, I’d like to know? Weren’t the Christian-Zionists all telling him he was anointed by God? And what about the gang of hammerheads that surrounded our orange-haired messiah in the oval office, praying and laying hands on the goober, as he sat behind the Resolute Desk?
Why, then, did they get so incensed over this image? Well, one never knows what’s going to piss these people off. Genocide sure doesn’t do it. Trump’s reaction to their umbrage was to take that image down and post another showing Jesus with his arm around him. Now, I would argue this is a decided improvement over the one he took down. Go on, look! The homo-erotic overtones are palpable. Both Jesus’ and Trump’s heads are touching, both have their eyes closed, as if in a state of near ecstasy. You can almost hear our president panting. Like the homely girl at the prom singled out by the captain of the football team for the first dance.
Well, if Trump is Jesus, then Bibi Netanyahu must be God. In fact, in his recent Passover speech the Israeli leader asserted that he was visiting the ten plagues on the Iranian people, which included killing of the first born--i.e. murdering off Iran’s leadership. So. . .God, right?
Meanwhile, at his monthly prayer meeting at the Pentagon on March 25, our Secretary of War (Crimes), Pete Hegseth. called on God to bring “overwhelming violence against those who deserve no mercy.” Again referring to Iran, which did not attack Israel or us and had no intention of doing so. They also possessed no nuclear weapons nor planned to build any.
John Mearsheimer, a scholar on international relations at the University of Chicago, says “It’s unthinkable that a Secretary of Defense would ever talk like this. Furthermore, in a secular nation like the U.S., people should be horrified by those comments.”
If they are, I don’t hear too many complaints.
Hegseth asserts, “The era of the ‘Department of Defense’ is over.” Hence, the new name: the “Department of War.” Pistol Pete believes the armed forces have a Christian mission endorsed by God, which includes bombing a Muslim nation back to the stone age.
So, it seems the talks in Islamabad are a fiction, designed to calm the markets. Vance kept leaving the room to consult with his boss—Netanyahu. Our nominal president, Trump, spits out a new batch of lies every time he’s on camera, telling the press the war will end soon, we’re on the road to peace, and so on, as if we’re winning, when clearly we’re not. In the land of make-believe there’s always a victory no matter what happens on the ground. At any rate, the ceasefire is ending and we’re preparing for something akin to total war—the destruction of a state.
As Hegseth has said, “We negotiate by bombing.”
The Iranians are prepared to respond by destroying the Gulf states; the restraint they’ve shown so far will end, and with it, major sources of energy for India, for Europe, and elsewhere will be wiped out; Britain is going to run out of jet fuel and heating fuel in a matter of weeks. Major depletions of fertilizer and the ingredients to make it could cut global food production by half.
Again, all this is the result not of any rational thought but of fictions the American people have been fed for decades with help from their fractured news media and pro-Israel think tanks like the Washington Institute—that Russia is evil, Iran is evil, Muslims are evil, Communism is evil, Socialism is evil, and on and on.
Pete Hegseth, with his silver streaked hair, crusader tattoos, the cute little sliver of an American flag peeking from the breast pocket of his skin-tight suit, is a fully realized cartoon character out of some bizarre horror comic. Looking at him brings to mind the German expressionist artist George Grosz, who brilliantly portrayed the political and economic corruption of the Wiemar Republic during World War I. His cartoon-like characters often appear as autocratic brainless buffoons.
Too bad Grosz isn’t around now. Hegseth, Trump, Netanyahu--this trinity of mindless killers is made to order.
In Grosz’s most famous painting, Eclipse Of The Sun, President Paul Von Hindenburg sits at a table surrounded by headless financiers. A corporate industrialist whispers in his ear, suggesting the mindless obedience of political and military leaders to the commands of capitalist oligarchs.
Meanwhile, a donkey with blinders is poised over a skeleton--the German people blindly accepting whatever is put in front of them. Behind them—an American dollar sign shines through a darkened sun hovering over a city in flames.
With a few minor differences, the painting precisely describes our country today. Von Hindenburg, teeth bared, in his skin-tight uniform, could be a bloated Hegseth. Is the donkey with blinders now standing in for the American people?
While the Secretary prayed, quite a few in his military audience sat with eyes closed, their hands opened palms up. What does that mean?—I wonder. If it means surrender, something tells me these people aren’t much into that, even when it might save the world from starvation or total destruction.
During Holy Week, Hegseth fired Major General William Green, Jr., the Army’s Chief Of Chaplains, along with a number of high-ranking officers, including the Army’s Chief Of Staff--all without cause. He has also blocked promotions of women and Black generals. Hegseth replaced Chaplain Green with Doug Wilson, a Christian Nationalist pastor, whose church — the Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches — believes that homosexuality should be a crime, women should submit to their husbands, and the 19th Amendment granting women the right to vote should be repealed.
I know it’s getting more and more difficult, but let’s try to remember we’re not living in the 9th century, but the 21st. Although I suppose we could be revisiting the Wiemar Republic. Or the Third Reich, for that matter.
Well, I guess we shouldn’t be too surprised that Christian Nationalists and Zionists have taken possession of our government. You can hardly blame them, given the support of a god whose enthusiasm for wanton destruction and mass murder precisely matches their own. Isn’t it God, after all, who does most of the killing in the Bible? The Great Flood springs to mind. Then you have your divine plagues, your military conquests, pestilence, fire and brimstone. God’s “kill count” far exceeds his pal Satan’s with his measly 10-count of Job’s children. Talk about an under-achiever! But in that instance, of course, Lucifer only acted on God’s orders.