The Miserable Parade

Empress Trudy

What is important to understand is that contemporary race in America and I suspect most of the west, is a business like any other. Race needs professionals to tell you you're surrounded by racism that only they can address.  Or, without being cynical, it's a part of the connection between government and  the NGO's and GONGO's that do its bidding in exchange for grants and access. If there were no professional racism, someone would invent it. Just as they create a desire or a fear for any number of other things.

Does this mean there are few legitimate concerns? Does this mean that civil rights aren’t bona fide worries? The precise answer to that depends on whether you’re a professional in the race industry or not.  Ordinary people getting through the day experience a blend of good and bad of the trivial and the egregious. If you’re Hillary Shelton or Al Sharpton then the answer is one of permanent outrage. It has to be. Hoof by claw by tooth by fin the forces of massive implacable horrendous racism are everywhere. Just as Spike Lee once recounted that all White people are racists, even if they don’t know it, even if they aren’t, they still are. Yet we suspect that Hillary Shelton, Al Sharpton and Spike Lee haven’t themselves suffered from the slings and arrows of racism in a very very very long time. If anything they’ve profited by it since.  And we celebrate their success. We are happy they’ve made a great boon of whatever circumstances were theirs to have.  But be clear, it’s a profession.  They’re offering few paths to the overall success of the vast collection of lower middle class black people in America. What they offer is disappointment, indignity, anger – a sense that someone should do something about something somewhere because things aren’t right. That they missed out on every opportunity in America and it’s universally racism’s fault. Or pick whatever engram for that: “republicans”, “white people”, “southerners”, ad infinitum. 

Pick up any women's or men's magazine. What is it? Diets, food, exercise, fashion and sex. Turn on the TV - did you even know you had all these maladies that required drugs they're selling? Create a buzz, make a tweet, start a group, make a march, make a noise, get paid. It’s the answer for what ails you. It's a con, right here in River City like Dr. Harold Hill selling imaginary band instruments to the imaginary band. Are the law firms on TV advertising their services to write you a will or incorporate your small business or set up a foundation for orphans? They’re rattling your cage about mesothelioma, pelvic mesh, failed hip joints, bad drugs and SSI denials. Better Call Saul!

In that way it's bit like terrorism. Terrorism functions like an NGO or nonprofit. It takes money in, it's organized, structured. It recruits, it advertises. Two things though are very crucial. 1) the people at the top aren't getting their hands dirty and 2) it has to create a demand for its services.

There are no old suicide bombers. But the people who create them are. And how do they do that? They sell a message of hate and grievance, they sell the image of a supernal enemy and they hold out the promise of an abstract ineffable unattainable badly defined goal that’s always out there out of reach, barely.  Like any good marketing pro they have to sell the sizzle not the steak. They have to sell the agony not the aspirin. They have the sell the DESIRE in big blinking letters not the afterglow.

Terrorism sells. Anyone can tell you that. It’s romantic, it’s attractive it’s sexy, it’s a day off work from your drab job selling fruit.  Arab terrorism works on many different levels this way – the sense of entitlement, the disappointment, rage, the thirst for revenge, romance, violence, suicide.  Terrorism sells all those things.  Or as someone mentioned to me once “If you want to see what a world run by oversexed irrational teenagers looks like, it’s the Middle Ages – literally”.

The Arab terrorism business creates a demand for its services by singling out Jews and Israel, and building up that enemy until it is so massive that the only sane act is mass murderous. As a business it has to control the supply and demand of its own message. It has to ensure that THEY are the people who are asked to lead the way. Whenever you hear someone say ‘power to the people’, THEY are the people who the people will happily give the power to.

So like any other NGO or nonprofit or foundation or TV ambulance chaser or professional race baiter, terrorist organizations create 1) a target, 2) an aura of hatred, despair, revenge and entitlement, 3) an organization, 4) an executive of themselves, 5) fundraisers/rainmakers, 6) recruits and finally, 7) a brand.

Professional race baiters are driving to the protest in a limo and whipping up the crowd. They're shouting that everyone is a racist and the only way to smash the chains of bondage and hate is to burn down a Starbucks. And then miraculously like a faith healer the professionals swoop in and broker a ceasefire making them indispensable. They created the racial buzz, they created the riot and they created the temporary solution to it all, all the while working the government grant and cocktail circuit for more money. If they were terrorists they’d be hitting up friendly governments for cash while whipping up the local lower middle class into yet another frenzy aimed at the Jews. The poor people are otherwise occupied with surviving, the middle class is protecting what they have and the rich are utterly disconnected from it all or leading the effort themselves. But the lower middle class – that’s the sweet spot.  Be it race or racial hatred, be it riots or rockets it’s the same stupid angry mob being cynically manipulated by greedy nihilists in nice suits.