America is "the man in the mirror,"
the gigantic, floundering Narcissus, sailing into the stormy seas of
history.
James Howard Kunstler -- World News Trust
June 29, 2009 -- As America entered the horse latitudes of summer, befogged in a
muffling stillness on deceptively calm seas, we were distracted for a
while by visions of a pale death angel moonwalking across the deck of
collective consciousness. Eerie parallels resound between the sordid
demise of pop singer Michael Jackson and the fate of the nation.
Like the United States, Michael Jackson was spectacularly bankrupt,
reportedly in the range of $800 million, which is rather a lot for an
individual. Had he lived on a few more years, he might have qualified
for his own TARP program -- another piece of expensive dead-weight down
in the economy's bilges -- since it is our established policy now to
throw immense sums of so-called "money" at gigantic failing enterprises
(while millions of ordinary citizens wash overboard, without so much as
a life-preserver). Anyway, Michael Jackson was on the receiving end of
one huge bank loan after another long after his pattern of profligacy
was set and obvious. They threw money at him for the same reason that
the federal government throws money at entities like CitiBank:
the desperate hope that some miracle will allow debt servicing to
resume. Michael could burn through $50-million in half a year. It
didn't seem to affect his credibility as a borrower. When his heart
stopped last week, he was living in a Hollywood mansion that rented for
several hundred thousand dollars a month. You wonder how the landlord
cashed those checks.
Like the USA, Michael Jackson was a
has-been. He hadn't recorded a song worth listening to in over two
decades. He had done almost nothing but spin his wheels, hop around the
globe from one place to another at enormous expense, and make himself
available for award ceremonies to stoke his ego (and give advertisers a
reason to promote some televised award show). He existed strictly on
image, an anorectic figure nourished by moonbeams of attention, famous
for saying that he loved his worshippers when the truth was he merely
sucked the life out of them. In his last years, he even looked a bit
like Nosferatu, the personification of the un-dead, and his fascination
with ghouls was the basis for his biggest hit way back in the last
century. A zombie nation deserves a zombie mascot.
He was a
poseur, vamping in weird military outfits as though he were a five-star
general in the Honduran army, or a character from a melodrama by the
reprobate Jean Genet. He once materialized during halftime at the
Superbowl in a shower of sparks, thrilling the multitudes while
grabbing and stroking his sex organs, as though that was a heroic
activity -- and indeed the nation seemed to emulate him as its culture
became dedicated more and more to acting out masturbation fantasies.
America was a fat man jerking off on the sofa watching a vampire of no
particular sex vogue deliriously on the boob tube.
More than
once the authorities tried to pin charges of child molestation on him
for suspicious activities at his boy-trap, Neverland Ranch, with its
carnival rides, private zoo, video game galleries, and inexhaustible
supplies of sugary treats. The first time he settled with the alleged
victim's family for $22-million. They just walked away with the loot
and happily shut up. The second time, he moonwalked out of a
court-of-law while weeks later jurors mysteriously went on TV to say,
well, they did kind of think after-the-fact that he really did those
things he was accused of, but, you know.... The defendant himself
behaved as though his trial were a TV celebrity challenge show on
another planet, arriving on one occasion twenty minutes late in pajamas
with some lame excuse about a backache. He spent the last years of his
life wandering a few steps ahead of his creditors, gulling concert
promoters into "comeback" schemes (with walking-around money up front),
and with three bought-and-paid-for children, obviously not his own, for
consolation.
When he dropped dead last week, the nation's
morbidly maudlin response suggested a cover story for the relief of
being rid of him and all the embarrassment he provoked. One CNN
reporter called him a genius the equal of Mozart. That's a little like
calling Rachel Maddow the reincarnation of Eleanor Roosevelt. A nation
addicted to lying to itself tells itself fairy tales instead of facing
a pathology report. Yet, like Michael Jackson, the undertone of horror
story still pulses darkly in the background. The little boy who grew
up to be the simulation of a girl was really a werewolf. The nation
that defeated manifest evil in World War Two woke up one day years
later to find itself stripped of its manhood, mentally enslaved to
cheap entertainments, and hostage to its own grandiosity. Maybe in
grieving so exorbitantly over this freak America is grieving for
itself. All the loose talk about "love" from the media and the fans
gives off the odor of self-love. America is "the man in the mirror,"
the gigantic, floundering Narcissus, sailing into the stormy seas of
history.
LINK: Kunstler.com