Saturday, February 1, 2014

The Problem of ‘Oppullsion’ as Opposed to Oppression.



In political discourse, we often hear of the problems of oppression, a state of being tyrannized by the powerful. The power could be political, economic, legal, spiritual, media-related, educational, or cultural, but then, all kinds of power tend to be interlinked one way or another. After all, consider the number of Churches in the West that have converted to worshiping Jews and supporting — and even proselytizing ‘gay marriage’. Since many members of the new generation of clergy were educated under a system governed by Jews and homos — and since they also rely on the ‘Liberal Media’ for news, information, entertainment, and opinions — , even the very people training to lead Christian Churches are likely to share and serve the agendas of the dominant ‘secular elites’ made up of Jews, homos, and Wasp traitor-collaborators.

Given the nature of power’s tendency to concentrate in the hands of a tightly organized and dedicated group of people toughened by ambition and sharpened with cunning, it’s hardly surprising that the long-running theme of historical and political moral discourse has revolved around the problem of oppression. Those with great power, whether it be political or economic(or whatever), own the means and control the methods by which to make us obey, follow, serve, and/or kill-and-die for them. They have the power to shape our perception of ‘truth’ and ‘reality’. Through education and media, they can turn children against parents, turn one set of white people against another set of white people, or turn white women against white men. They can steal untold amount of fortunes while distracting the masses with crass bread-and-circuses. And in every society, those with the power have tremendous advantages against those who don’t, though, to be sure, power is always a relative and unstable than permanent and stable thing. But however unstable and impermanent all forms of power may be, when the governing power structure collapses and a political vacuum ensues, it’s only a matter of time before a new power structure arises to fill the void and gain power over people. (Indeed, many people prefer tyranny that delivers stability over freedom that unleashes chaos.) Whether a society is democratic or dictatorial, those with great power will always dominate those without. And even when those with great power fall from great heights — as with the upper classes during the Russian Revolution — , a new elite will rise to replace them and may prove to be even more powerful and tyrannical.

Given the problems stemming from the imbalance of power in all times and all places, it’s only natural and reasonable that we fix most of the blame on those with power. Also, blaming the powerful has the psychological advantage of simplifying and clarifying the perplexing complexities of the world, not least because our DNA is encoded with the scapegoat gene. When things don’t go right — which is often — , we are prone to look for explanations or excuses, and everyone would rather blame others than himself. Thus, even among friends and family members, there’s a lot of finger-pointing, as often unjustified as justified. Such a tendency is often associated with evil, and it can certainly lead to evil acts such as torture and murder in extreme cases. But more often than not, the tendency to scapegoat others happens all-too-naturally-or-habitually without premeditation. It’s almost like second-nature, something we find ourselves doing even though we consciously know better than to give in to such urges. But then, so much of human behavior happens without reason or calculation. Often when we rationalize our behavior, we aren’t so much thinking through them as relying on mental habits to shift into automatic and make us feel righteous and justified, regardless of whether we are right or wrong.

Even so, most people are strangers to one another, and their range of human relations is restricted to a small number of family members and friends. Even in a large company, most people are working with a fixed number of colleagues or co-workers. Also, most people don’t have the kind of power to affect society as a whole. Therefore, the number of people who can be scapegoated for problems related to personal or professional life tends to be very limited. As far as most people are concerned, society-as-a-whole is way beyond their scope and control, and therefore, if something goes wrong on a large scale, it must the fault of those in power. Thus, in times of social duress, those in power are the target of blame, justly or unjustly. Even if the powers-that-be aren’t entirely at fault(or hardly at all), they still have the power to ‘do something about it’, so naturally, people will look to them as either the savior or the failure. Hebrews felt this way about Moses as he led them out of Egypt. George W. Bush was seen as a failed Pharaoh during the Katrina disaster, whereas Obama was seen as the successful Moses during Hurricane Sandy, though both, of course, were tricks of the Jewish-controlled media manipulation.
At the very least, those with the power came to claim it on the basis of the promise and trust that they are competent and responsible enough to lead and manage the world. Thus, the powerful cannot be like everyone else. They must always be striving to be better, more knowledgeable, and more far-seeing than most people. Given this contract(written or unwritten) between the leaders and the led, all rulers should know that the possibility of being scapegoated is part of the terms of agreement that accompanies power. Just as rulers are credited with success during good times — even if largely the product of lucky convergence of factors — , they are blamed during bad times even if the disaster was beyond their control. So, George W. Bush got blamed for the problems arising from Hurricane Katrina even though there wasn’t much he could have done about a city like New Orleans that has too many crazy Negroes. But in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, all Bush needed to do was stand atop some rubble and make a speech to be admired by the great majority of Americans who willingly suspended their skepticism and looked to him as the leader in his ‘finest hour’. We can all be very sentimental(or dementimental) that way.
Bush as King of the Hill
Half-baked Bush
While there’s endless discussion of the oppression by the powerful, there’s much less discussion of the problems stemming from the ‘powerless’. On a pound-for-pound basis, of course there’s great difference between the powerful and the ‘powerless’. Someone like Mugabe has infinitely more power than some dirt poor Zimbabwean scrounging through garbage dumps. On the other hand, while the number of the truly powerful always tends to be small, the number of the ‘powerless’ can be virtually limitless.
In the modern West, most people are neither in the powerful nor powerless category. Despite current economic problems, the majority of Americans still regard themselves as part of the middle class, and the same goes for much of Europe, perhaps even more so. The middle class ranges from the affluent but far from very rich to well-to-do but considerably above the poverty line, especially since, at least in America, the concept of the working class and the middle class essentially merged in the post-war yrs, with even factory workers preferring to see themselves as lower-middle class than as members of the ‘working class’.

But even rich nations have the underclass, and in some rich nations, certain elements of the underclass seem permanent and even growing bigger — due to high birthrates or continuous immigration of low IQ folks from poor nations. Though class is defined socially than biologically, one could argue that some people are naturally middle class while others are naturally underclass. After WWII, the vast majority of Germans faced hardships, and even formerly middle class Germans found themselves selling their bodies to Allied soldiers for bars of soap. Socially, the great majority of Germany had slipped into underclass status, their lot made even more desperate and precarious by the massive flood of impoverished Germans who’d been expelled from eastern parts of Germany ceded to Poland. But the average German was still a person of considerable talent and, if given the chance and opportunity, could work to elevate himself to middle class status. Therefore, we need to make a distinction between the natural underclass and the social underclass. After WWI, the effect of the Versailles Treaty was the ensuing economic crisis that sunk large swaths of German middle class into the underclass, but such an outcome had been forced upon Germany by foreign powers. And in East Germany during the Cold War, most people lived in conditions far below their counterparts in West Germany, but even there, the communist system had been imposed on East Germans by a foreign power, namely the Soviet Union. But if given half the chance, most Germans have been capable of working and cooperating with one another to develop and maintain a social order where most people can be part of the middle class. To be sure, one can be culturally or ideologically underclass even if one is naturally middle class. Let’s suppose a German has a natural IQ of 115 and therefore the basic ability to do rather well in a modern society governed by rule of law. He could master some trade and lead a productive and comfortable life.
Germany post-World War II
But suppose his creed or ideology forsakes material ambition and leaves him in a state of self-willed poverty. Or, suppose he’s immersed in a culture of drugs and rebellion that prevents him from using his energies in a constructive manner. In the French film VAGABOND — originally SANS TOIT NI LOI, or ‘without roof or law’ — , the wandering female character may be of above average intelligence and with the innate potential to make something of her life if she put her mind to it, but she ‘philosophically’ chooses to be a bum. Thus, one can choose underclass-ness through willful self-denial(as among many religiously ascetic folks) or willful self-indulgence(as many hippie types in the 60s who opted to ‘drop out’).
Vagabond aka Sans Toit ni Loi
But there are some people who are naturally underclass. They have low IQs and low levels of natural talent. They are not fit for mastering anything beyond simple skills. Worse, they may be emotionally unfit towards activities requiring patience, cooperation, respect, diligence, discipline, and dedication. Negroes are especially problematic since many of them not only have low natural aptitude — except for punching people out, cussing from morning to night, and rapping about other people’s mothers — but bad attitude when it comes to constructive emotional self-control and concentration in life. Like wild apes, they can easily be distracted by whatever might offer them the biggest pleasure, thrill, or laugh.
Gots to have me some chicken.
The reason why humanity made a clear distinction between class and nature was because, for most of history, most people belonged in the underclass. Prior to the coming of capitalism and the rise of industrial society, humanity simply didn’t have the means to allow much in the weay of ‘middle class’ existence for most folks. With crude technologies, humans had to work drearily for long hours just to produce enough food to feed one’s own family and to pay the rent and taxes to the landlords and the kings/governments. Thus, the very concept of the middle class hardly made any sense to most people. And when something like the ‘middle class’ first emerged as a genuine social phenomenon in Europe in the form the ‘bourgeoisie’, it was small in number and meant nothing like how it is defined in America, where ‘middle class’ and ‘middle America’, though different in meaning, are often used synonymously. We have this idea that the ‘middle’ must be the largest part of any entity, i.e. the middle of a society should be like the middle of a person. The head and neck are the top, shins and feet are the bottom, and the torso/arms/thighs comprise the grand middle. Such methodology would have designated European serfs and dirt poor peasants during the Middle Ages as the ‘middle class’ since toiling peasants comprised the vast majority of the population. But the ‘middle class’ that emerged in Europe consisted of a relatively small and increasingly well-to-do business class who lived well-apart from the peasants who were the great majority of the working populace. Since the opportunity for social progress and economic improvement was limited to a relative few in such a social order, it made little sense to speak of some people as being naturally fit for the middle class if given half the chance.
To be sure, the concept of class as linked with biology(or genetic lineage) seemed natural at least within the realm of the upper class from the very beginning of civilization. As monarchic orders were hereditary and as noblemen gave birth to noblemen, the aristocracy was united in nature and class, thereby forming what came to be known as a caste. Back then, the aristocracy as it existed in Europe and all over the world was nothing like the concept of the ‘natural aristocracy’ as conceived by Thomas Jefferson. Even though European noblemen were naturally born into the aristocracy, there was no guarantee of natural talent to be good rulers. Thus, the traditional aristocracy was often the case of natural inability(of idiot aristocrats) protected by social power than social power supported by natural ability.
Alfonso XIII the Royal Dummy
At any rate, prior to the rise of modern society, since most people had to toil from sunup to sundown on farms or at menial tasks like making horseshoes, it didn’t much matter if someone had natural ability or not. He was going to plow the earth like the next guy, and since the task of farming was relatively simple — even if hard work — , a diligent dim person could do as well as a diligent bright person. And since there was no welfare and the like, there was no room for laziness even among the naturally lazy, just like even naturally gluttonous folks didn’t have enough to eat and remained slim. Everyone had to work and work or starve and die.
Thus, there was a time when vast numbers of the toiling poor — most of humanity — were seen as part of a teeming mass. They weren’t seen as smart people or dumb people but just as poor ignorant people with aching backs and tired limbs.
But with the arrival of industrial society, the expansion of universal education, the availability of technology that vastly improved living conditions, and new opportunities in skilled occupations, many of the formerly poor masses could make the transition to what came to be known as the ‘middle class’.
If originally the ‘middle class’ referred to the kind of people involved in certain special trades and enterprises, it later came to encompass all those who could afford to live the ‘middle class’ lifestyle. Thus, even if one worked in a factory, one could feel as part of the ‘middle class’ if he could make a down payment on a home and afford to own his own car.
American Working-Middle Class
Since so many people who’d once been part of the underclass, the toiling working class, or the dirt-poor farming class made the transition to the new middle class in a rapidly transforming and industrializing society, people became fixated on the concept of ‘class mobility’, i.e. in a free and democratic nation, anyone who is willing to work hard can make it to the middle class, gain respectability, and live the ‘American Dream’. Thus, middle-class-ness was something for all Americans to aspire to and could conceivably be attained with effort and commitment. Indeed, during the Civil Rights Era, there was the hope among many white liberals that if social laws and norms were changed — with some government assistance and guidance — most blacks too would be finally move up to middle class status and respectability. But things didn’t exactly turn out that way. While some blacks did rise to middle class status, many didn’t. And even many who made it to the middle class did so less out of skill and achievement than by expansion of government jobs that filled a lot of useless positions — a huge drain on tax dollars — with lots of blacks with second-rate college degrees earned via ‘affirmative action’. Without such government programs, the black middle class would be drastically smaller. Democrats therefore want ‘bigger government’ to provide spoils to the black community, and Republicans don’t really want to ‘smaller government’ since a lot of blacks will lose their middle class status, and that would be ‘racist’.

Anyway, even though sociologists have long discussed class as a concept distinct from nature, more and more ‘social scientists’ are beginning to notice the relation between class and nature(and even race, a grouping of natural attributes). Charles Murray did so in the recent book COMING APART that addresses the divide emerging within the white community between the elites and the underclass. It’s a divide that isn’t merely economic or cultural but natural, i.e. rooted in biological differences in IQ. As smart whites tend to move to cities or college towns and marry other smart whites while dumb whites, often in small towns, depressed suburbs, and rural areas, tend to have children, in or out of wedlock, with other dumb whites, class and nature may be merging into a single entity, more or less. While smart people can have dumb kids and dumb people can have smart kids, the chances are smart parents will have smart children, and dumb parents will have dumb children. Of course, this is something everyone sort of knew for a long time, but it was something most ‘social scientists’ were loathe to discuss. Sociologists on the ideological left — and sociology has been almost synonymous with the Liberal agenda with a few exceptions like Samuel Huntington, even though he also began as a liberal — have tended to denounce and even suppress discussions of the possible relation between biology and society; they’ve explained the problems of poverty and underclass status in relation to the history of oppression, lack of government funding, the inherently unfair system of capitalism, or one of the various isms: ‘racism’, ‘sexism’, ‘imperialism’, or etc. But conservative social commentators have also been loathe to discuss class in relation to nature since, according to Mainstream Conservatism(defined by Christian universalism, libertarianism, and moral inferiority complex vis-a-vis the Liberals, Jews, Negroes, and even homos), America is the land of the free and home of the brave, and just about anyone, with the right attitude and proper values, can improve themselves and make the social climb. Though conservatives are more likely to acknowledge the role of nature to account for differences in human ability, it’s an article of faith among them that America is so great, prosperous, and filled with opportunities that, given the right kind of encouragement, training, and chance, just about anyone can become a respectable member of the middle class. To an extent, the idea of the ‘ownership society’ under George W. Bush was predicated on this notion that had many conservatives — perhaps even the majority of them — believing that with some sort of ‘compassionate conservatism’ and a little taste of ‘private property’, even the dumbest Negroes, Hispanics, and ‘white trash’ elements could become part of the American Dream. Though not as harebrained as the Great Leap Forward under Mao, it too was based on fantasy and ‘hope’ than on reason and hard assessment of facts.
Bush's American Dream
Given the nature of politics and socio-economic competition — intense rivalry for the top seats of power — , there’s naturally more discussion of the elites than the masses. Also, the underclass or the poor are seen as the ‘powerless’, even as the victims of history, economic conditions, or exploitation by the rich/powerful. When the Right holds the seats of power, the Left covets what the Right has, and vice versa, and since both sides are focused on winning the elite bastions of power, much of the political discussion is about the top than the bottom. Even when the problems of the bottom — the poor and underclass elements — are debated, it’s generally a point of argument exploited to win the top seats of power than to hammer out any workable solution to fix the problem. Thus, the Left will say there is an educational crisis among the poor mired in desperation and ignorance, and since the Left has the best solution, it should dominate elite power. The Right will say the same thing, of course. Neither side wants to blame the poor since they want the votes — not only of the poor but of affluent people who see themselves as compassionate and caring than ‘greedy and mean-spirited’ and who tend to donate to the party that not only protects their wealth but strokes their ‘progressive’ moral vanity(and geeks like Bill Gates and George Lucas want to impress their wives with their wonderfulness to compensate for their lack of macho manhood) — and also because, given the populist nature of democratic politics, it generally won’t do for corporate heads and rich political candidates to blame the people for their own problems, even if the people in question, the underclass, tend to be disliked by the vast majority of the middle class(who don’t want to live anywhere near them, especially if they happen to be black, as blacks are physically stronger and more aggressive than non-black races). Middle class folks may dislike the underclass, but when they hear rich politicians denouncing the poor, they think of THE GRINCH WHO STOLE CHRISTMAS, and besides, who’s to say that rich politicians who look down on the poor don’t also look down on the middle class? Besides, many middle class folks aspire to be rich themselves, and over the years, they’ve duly noted that the proper way to be rich is not only to stuff oneself with vanity and luxury — like Paris Hilton or nouveau riche boor Rush Limbaugh — but to put on airs of being classy and caring, which is why one of the main features of being rich in America is attending galas and fund-raisers for all sorts of special causes. So, even if many middle class folks know that the underclass is to blame for its own problems, they prefer politicians who speak of hope and panaceas than ones who lay it straight and say ‘poor dummies will remain poor dummies’. Furthermore, even though middle class folks aspire to be rich, most of them know deep in their hearts that they will never be rich, and so, they don’t want to hear rich politicians sneering at the ‘have-nots’ and ‘have-lesses’. And in their what-if-I-were-rich fantasies, they want to believe that they would never forget where they came from: the world of humble folks. Of course, once people do become rich, they rarely ‘go home’ and hang with old buddies; they lose connection with their roots. So, they try to reconnect with the ‘people’ by championing all sorts of causes for the poor. Or, they do something exotic like adopting an African baby and hiring a nanny and governess to raise him/her while running off to shop at luxury stores or attend fancy cocktail parties.
Money, that's what I want.
Also, the Christian foundation of Western morality has a way of discouraging overt bashing of the poor whom Jesus adored as the ‘salt of the earth’. To be sure, in Jesus’s time, most people were poor than rich, and that meant even men of quality and intelligence were generally poor; also, as the poor back then were genuinely powerless and unrepresented in the bastions of power, they tended to be meeker because troublemakers were often punished in cruel ways. Of course, what goes by the label of the ‘poor’ in America is something very different. Many ‘poor’ Americans are given free everything and often tend to be obese, and there’s nothing meek about them, especially among blacks who believe that they are owed everything by ‘racist white America’. If anything, the power of the law is often afraid of unruly blacks. But the cult of the poor as ‘salt of the earth’ has stuck, and the so-called ‘left’ continues to milk it for what it’s worth, even though, of late, the ‘left’ is far more concerned with the privileges of affluent urban homos in so-called ‘creative’ professions than about the bottom half of the populace.

Even libertarians and conservatives couch their arguments in terms that would have us believe that their pro-individualist and pro-liberty policies will do most wonders for the poor because, after all, many formerly poor nations have been lifted out of poverty thanks to the introduction of market economy and the spread of individual liberty and entrepreneurship. If masses of formerly poor people climbed to middle class status under capitalism and free markets, why wouldn’t such methods work for all the poor people in all corners of the globe? The problem with this line of argument is, of course, that it’s falsely premised on the notion that EVERYONE is reasonably intelligent and responsible.

As stated earlier, even in a society where most people are poor and the economy/technology is backward, there may be lots of people with latent middle-class abilities. Such people can be characterized as naturally middle class but stuck in social underclass-ness because their society hasn’t manage to make the shift to a modern economy. But if its social policies were modernized along with the infusion of modern techhnologies, people who are naturally middle class(possessed of the ability to socially climb up the ladder under improved circumstances) would make it to middle class status, but those who are naturally underclass(possessed of low intelligence and/or emotional problems such as overt hostility and/or laziness) will remain in the underclass. The reason why nations like Japan aind Germany are made up mostly of middle class folks in the modern world is because most of their peoples are naturally middle class. In the pre-modern past, most Germans and Japanese were poor and socially underclass as the economy relied on most people plowing the fields and working from sunup to sundown to eke out a living. But modernity brought better social organizational principles and better modes of production/communication/transportation/trade, thereby allowing for the naturally middle class people of Germany and Japan to make the climb to social middle class status. Of course, there still remain underclass peoples in Germany and Japan, and they generally tend to be the naturally less intelligent and/or emotionally troubled. There are also, to be sure, boom times when things are so good that even naturally underclass can make it to middle class status, at least as long as the boom lasts. For a while during the Housing Boom under George W. Bush, even skeptics thought masses of poor Hispanics would be lifted to social middle class status thanks to rising home prices. One also thinks of America in the go-go years of the 1960s when there were so many jobs and opportunities, indeed even for high school dropouts, but in the long run, such times are anomalies than normalities.

Many naturally underclass folks will remain in the social underclass(even in a modern society despite all the freedoms and opportunities) for the simple reason that they lack the smarts and the drive to make it. If some of them have great athletic or creative talent — especially in popular music — , they might make millions, as Mike Tyson did, though his naturally underclass mind burned through the fortune in no time. Just as it’s very difficult to lift the naturally underclass to the social middle class, it’s nearly impossible to lift the naturally middle class to the social upper class. A naturally middle class person might be smart enough to go to a good public university and find a job as an accountant or some such, but no amount of education and investment in his limited talents is going to turn him into Einstein, Sergei Brin, Bill Gates, or Enrico Fermi. It’s like no amount of athletic training and investment is going to turn a naturally average person into a Tony Dorsett, Alexander Karelin, Too Tall Jones, Roberto Duran, or Terry Bradshaw. In most cases, self-made social elites are made of naturally elite stuff. If someone is a very good boxer but lacks the naturally elite qualities as a top boxer, he will never be a Muhammad Ali or Tommy Hearns. (He may, on occasion, luck out and throw a lucky punch that brings down the champion — as happened with Ingemar Johansson against Floyd Patterson — , but, as the saying goes, two swallows don’t make a summer.)
The fluke
The reality

The ‘natural middle class’ tends to be not only of above-average intelligence but emotionally stable and ‘naturally moral’. While moral values are instilled to a large extent by society, some people tend to be more receptive to them. They are naturally inclined to grasp the idea of fairness, mutuality, accountability, and conscience. They are more mindful of the opinions and feelings of others, more eager to fit well into the community. Of course, communal morality isn’t necessarily the highest form of morality as, sometimes, society-at-large or the great majority could be wrong, even evil. The problem of Germany and Japan in the 1930s and 1940s, respectively under National Socialist and militarist rule, was that the people were high on community morality(of cooperation) but woefully deficient in individual morality(of conscience). They wanted to be approved by the national community as revamped by the new ruling elite than to follow their own conscience and think critically as individuals. (To be sure, even those who remained conscientious couldn’t do much since most of the power was concentrated at the top that controlled the media, education, and secret police; the moral issue was further complicated by the fact that for every bad thing the Nazis did, the did something good, whereby even conscientious people had to admit the Nazis were doing as much good as bad, at least until the outbreak of the war.) Thus, to be moral, one needs to be mindful of others(and work to win their approval) but also have the courage to go against the grain when he believes he is in the right and the majority(or the power elite who controls the institutions) are wrong. To be sure, a radical moral individualist can be problematic and even immoral(and blind to his own immorality) because he is so invested in the conviction that he is right and everyone else is wrong; such mind-set may fallaciously lead him to believe that he is right simply on the basis of his contrarian nature. Thus, there is a need for a balance of communal morality and individual morality. Nevertheless, given the history of human development, communal morality preceded individual morality. Tribes of early humans had to survive as a group, and unity meant power, and therefore, the main moral emphasis was to ensure cooperation and loyalty within the group above all else. (After all, the survival of a wolf pack depends on group cooperation than individual conscience. If a wolf began to wonder, "Gee, was it right for us to attack the other pack and take their kill and turf", its pack will suffer and become divided.) And as civilization developed, ruthless force from above was necessary to maintain stability among the increasing masses, and in order for the elites to justify their use of force, they had to indoctrinate and convince the populace through a combination of exhortatory propaganda and repressive violence.
Obey the Lord
In contrast, in a modern liberal democracy it’s possible for us to be moral individualists to some degree instead of just going with the flow(as if the established ways, majority views, or elites are always right). Of course, each side feels the temptation to define Correct Morality according to its officially sanctioned Truth or Agenda, which is why both the Right and the Left haven’t insensitive to individual morality rooted in sincerity and courage of conscience.
Traditionalists pressure everyone to remain faithful to received wisdom and ways, and radicals pressure everyone to nod his or her head to the new official ideology, which, in time, becomes the new tradition. And populists would like to maintain that the majority always know best, though, to be sure, what goes by the name of ‘populism’ is really just elitists cunningly using demagoguery to sway the masses, as Mark Anthony did in JULIUS CAESAR when he slyly turned the people from hating to hailing Caesar .
Most ‘naturally middle class’ people tend to be communal moralists than individual moralists(who tend to be relatively rare), but most ‘naturally middle class’ people have some degree of moral individualism, i.e. they have some sense of right and wrong independent of the prevailing orthodoxy or hysteria, even if most may choose to keep their heads low so as to avoid controversy and/or ostracism. In contrast, while some ‘naturally underclass’ people are simply unintelligent, some face problems that have less to do with low intelligence than low ‘natural morality’. While all people can be educated and trained to be moral or more moral, some people are naturally not very receptive to such influences. Some people have naturally disruptive, aggressive, and egotistical personalities, and they, even if not unintelligent, may still remain in the social underclass because they cause too much trouble and prove themselves to be untrustworthy — and therefore are shunned by responsible elements of society. (To be sure, a society where too many people are so eager obey authority and render themselves trustworthy to the system can be problematic too. In East Germany, so many people conformed to the official morality of the state, and naturally they informed on others — even family members and close friends — to the system. It was a nation of obedient dogs who trusted their masters. East Germans went out of their way to make themselves trustworthy to the system because they didn’t trust that the system trusted them, so they felt they had to prove their trustworthiness to the system by acting as informers on other East Germans. Though the habit of informing on ‘class enemies’ and ‘foreign elements’ was meant to create a more unified and trusting German society, it had the opposite effect of making everyone distrust everyone, but of course, such effect was also the hidden purpose behind the system of informing: to sow seeds of distrust so that East Germans would fear to unite against the system. I mean who really knew who was and wasn’t an informer?) Needless to say, such psychopathic traits are most common among Negroes, which is why even intelligent blacks can be a lot more troublesome than unintelligent non-blacks. As blacks mostly evolved in hot and violent Africa where their ancestors spent a good deal of time chucking spears at dangerous beasts like hippos and rhinos — and competed with vicious lions and hyenas for food and land — , their sense of morality barely rose above tribal needs. Since survival was precarious among Negroes who had to hunt dangerous animals and raid other tribes to survive, the main morality among blacks was ‘sticking together’ and acting punkass.
And yet, even ‘sticking together’ was problematic for blacks since the best hunter-warriors tended to be egotistical ‘badass mofo’ types who had the extra-balls to leap out in front of others and chuck the spear at the lion who be feeling, "dat nigger’s craaaazy!" Indeed, we see the problem of black manner of ‘morality’ all around America. In some ways, blacks are the most tribal of all Americans, always ‘sticking together’ and sticking it to the ‘honkeyass cracker’. But blacks are also the most violent and disruptive among theyselves, with black dudes whupping black dudes, black biatches whupping black biatches, black dudes whupping black biatches, black biatches shooting black dudes who be whupping them, black dudes and biatches whupping black chillun, and all that over a bucket of fried chicken. Though blacks are often loud and assertive as individuals, there is almost no sense of individual black morality among them. When a black individual starts speaking(or hollering) in moralistic terms, it’s rarely a case of careful thought given to complex issues but making the most noise to act as THE LEADER of the pack and to intimidate the other side with threat of violence unless his or her mighty-ass words be heeded. It’s a matter of who has the biggest mouth than who has the biggest heart or biggest mind. It’s like the African hunter-warrior who steps out in front of the others to chuck the spear at the lion. He be trying to impress others that he be the top honcho, the most badass dude, and this style of black ‘moralism’ was the norm among MLK and others for whom volume and volatility mattered more than truth or sense. Even when black individuals admit their guilt, they spin their contrition to emphasize their ‘tragic’ fall from grace, as if they should be admired for their self-serving exhibition of remorse, as if they — and not their victims — should be the object of pity. So, when Jesse Jackson Jr. was embroiled in a scandal, he feigned depression and sought clinical help to be the object of our sympathy. When Jayson Blair was caught with his pants down for faking so many NY TIMES stories, he spun his admission into some diatribe about "burning down the master’s house" even though silly New York Times white Liberals had gone out of their way to protect and promote his career.
MLK or the Bouncer of the Mall. "Kiss My Ass, Honkey"
Incidentally, if social losers or failures tend to be loudly and brashly psychopathic, thus making the world know what a menace and pain in the ass they are, the highly successful tend to be silently psychopathic. Their guns come with silencers and so are more lethal. If individuals like Obama were loudly psychopathic, they would be dismissed as ‘crazy niggers’ — even by Liberals who, deep in their hearts, cannot stand Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton. But if, like the Will Smith character in SIX DEGREES OF SEPARATION, a psychopathic operator learns the art of smooth talk, propriety, and diplomacy, he can go very far. Indeed, such people go farther than people with normal morality since morality is about scruples and principles, which are about limits, obligations, and give-and-take. Often, in order to rise high(especially in politics), one must lie, cheat, betray, abuse, and exploit people left and right, and it just so happens that if one has ‘too many’ scruples, they can prove to be stumbling blocks to one’s ambition. Also, to be moral means to help others in the spirit of camaraderie and mutuality, but that can be a drag on one’s own aggrandizement and elevation.
Anyway, even as powerful Liberal politicians and activists speak of doing things for The People, they tend to be devious, shrewd, and unscrupulous in making and breaking alliances to push aside the competition to grab more power and privilege for themselves. Same goes for business. While the likes of Bill Gates and George Lucas would have us believe that they are ‘progressives’ who care about the People, they’ve done everything to grab more power and share of the pie for themselves. This doesn’t mean that such people are necessarily clinically psychopathic or even intrinsically psychopathic. For example, they are not the kind to feel no pity for a dog horribly being tortured by wicked Asians, nor are they the kind to take pleasure in acts of sadism. But their ambition blinds them to what we would consider to be moral norms. In their game of wealth and power, anything is(or must be) possible. In many cases, success compels one to be quasi-psychopathic. Power has its own logic. When George Lucas made STAR WARS, he wasn’t trying to be the blockbuster king of Hollywood. His early dream was to make films like THX 1138 and AMERICAN GRAFFITI. And he thought STAR WARS might be successful, but he had no idea it would be that successful. But once this mega-gold-mine landed on his lap, he just couldn’t let it go. It’s like the character in THRONE OF BLOOD(by Akira Kurosawa) doesn’t start out as psychopathic. He’s a noble warrior who serves his lord with faith and courage. But once he gets a taste of power — with all its potential and paranoia — , he succumbs to its logic that urges him to seek yet more and more power.
Throne of Blood and the web of power
George Lucas from auteur to mogul
Of course, some people have naturally sinister personalities. Take Max in ONCE UPON A TIME IN AMERICA. Though not without a soft side — especially his affection for Noodles — , it was always about himself from day one. All those who seek power must be willing to betray right for might. Rightness is a sentimentality that serves families and friends well, but mightiness has no use for such ‘petty’ considerations. When John, Paul, and George finally had it in their minds to become the ‘toppermost of the poppermost’, they ordered Brian Epstein to can Pete Best who’d been with them through thick and thin. If you’re a star athlete of a team and much beloved by people of a city and if a team of a bigger and more glamorous city offers you a better contract, you will likely go over to the new team regardless of what your fans might think. When Obama had to ‘throw someone under the bus’, he did so without qualms, and of course, the Liberal Jew Media covered up for him to preserve the myth of him as a principled politician. If you have the power and money — and the cult of morality on your side(as Jews and Negroes do according to the Politically Correct Narrative) — , you can get away with almost anything, and even your enemies will be afraid to criticize you lest they be accused of ‘hate’, ‘insensitivity’, ‘bitterness’, ‘extremism’, ‘neo-McCarthyism’, ‘racism’, and/or ‘antisemitism’. It’s like what the villain in A BETTER TOMORROW(John Woo movie) says: "You see, I have money. A few days in court, and I'll be a free man. If you have money, you can turn black to white. This, I learned from you. I pity your brother."

Anyway, we were saying something about the power of the ‘powerless’ to be a drag on society. And yet, we tend to dismiss than discuss this problem because we’d rather focus on the power of the elites and the rich. Power is concentrated at the top — thus easier to target — whereas it’s dispersed at the bottom. (To be sure, Jewish elites at the top of the hill hold a mirror before our gaze and tilt it to reflect the ‘rednecks’ in the valley, thereby giving the impression that ‘white racists’ are at the most fearsome power in America who hog the top of the hill. This strategy might be called ‘deflection’. Jews project their own nastiness — hatefulness, supremacism, and paranoia — onto other groups, especially white gentile conservatives, but they also deflect their power to give the false impression that other groups are as or even more powerful than Jews, which is why we sometimes hear silly stuff like Saudis really own Hollywood or that Mormons dominate finance.) Poor thugs have the power to cause trouble in public places, but they don’t coalesce into concentrated front of power, and many of them eventually end up dead or in jail. Young Mike Tyson would have been frightening to anyone who crossed his path, but ignoramus punks are barely able to organize into anything bigger than a street gang.
Also, it sounds like poor sport to blame the poor — even if it’s really no one’s fault but theirs — since they are losers of society. Why beat on those who are already beaten? Those prone to leftist ideology might argue that blaming the poor is like ‘blaming the victim’, as if poverty is primarily the product of oppression instead of poor decision making, low intelligence, and/or impersonal market forces.
But there’s another reason why we would rather prefer to attack the rich. It’s because the rich elites oftentimes enable the poor against the middle class. The rich are not only ‘greedy’ materially but morally, and their moral vanity and narcissism lead them to strike poses as champions of the poor and oppressed. As such, they often fix the blame on the middle classes for the problems of the lower classes. So, if the middle classes are more likely to oppose ‘affirmative action’, the rich classes will wag their fingers at the middle classes for lack of sympathy for blacks. Never mind that rich classes have higher IQs and better connections to ensure access to elite positions for their own kids, and never mind that the main beneficiaries of ‘affirmative action’ are affluent blacks and white Hispanics at the expense of middle class, working class, and poor whites. Or, if the middle classes complain about massive immigration, especially the illegal kind from Latin American countries, the rich classes will admonish the middle classes for their lack of compassion for those who believe in the American Dream. Never mind that it’s a lot easier to feign compassion if one has millions or even billions and, furthermore, will profit by lowering the wages of American workers. Never mind that the American Dream is about success through rule of law, not by violating the law. And, if middle classes complain about black crime, the rich classes turn up their noses and decry such concerns as ‘paranoia’, ‘hysteria’, ‘bigotry’, ‘racism’, and etc. Never mind it’s easier to be more ‘understanding’ of ‘black problems if you live in a safe prosperous community where your own children go to the best schools and don’t have to worry about being bullied by Negro kids.
Anders Breivik. Giving the elites taste of their own medicine
And it was for this reason that Anders Breivik attacked the elite classes. He figured if he attacked the Third World invaders, he would be condemned for his ‘racism’ by the elites who live in their own paradisiacal communities and routinely turn up their noses at the masses. So, he decided to attack the elites and their children. He turned the elite moral logic against the elites. Elites have been saying that the West is evil because privileged whites lord over everyone else, and so, Breivik attacked the very source of future power and privilege, the children of the elites. He also perversely and cynically made common cause with Zionism, which made Jews uneasy. The reason why the Western media have blanked out on Breivik since his trial is because he put forth a truly dangerous template for dealing with Western elites, i.e. the notion that white nationalists who want to preserve their own nations and heritage should attack the elites who are the ones enabling massive immigration from the Third World and massive indoctrination of white children to hate themselves if they want to preserve their race, culture, and land from Jews(and their radical homo mini-me servants), Negroes, and Muslims. Western elites, while hogging all the power and privilege for themselves, have used the poor Third World masses against their own middle class citizens. Even as things get worse for the masses of whites as the result of immigration from Third World nations and of brainwashing of white children with globalist Jewish supremacist dogma, the white elites and their children will lead privileged neo-aristocratic lives as they rub shoulders and shmooze with fellow elites from all over the world. Though white elites purport to fight ‘white privilege’, in practice it means they get to guard and even increase their own privilege while undermining even the basic rights of survival and freedom for the vast majority of ordinary white folks in the Western world who are to be sacrificed to the gods of ‘globalism’, ‘diversity’, and ‘equality’, the negative effects of which never touch the white elites who are little more than willing collaborators with Jewish supremacist globalist power. This is why the obsession with IQ among the White Right is rather self-defeating. If higher intelligence is all that matters, then the smarter elites must know what’s best and maybe we dummies should just shut up and do as they tell us. And if higher intelligence is all-important, maybe smarter whites should favor smarter non-whites over fellow whites who are not as smart. For a true White Rightism, whites must prefer whiteness over all other considerations. Even low IQ whites should be preferred over high IQ non-whites for the same reason a parent should love his/her less intelligent son/daughter as much as the more intelligent son/daughter. That’s what the national family is all about, and indeed, Jews and non-whites understand this about their own peoples. There are lots of dumb Jews in Israel, but smart and rich Jews support even dumb Jews over smart goyim. Smart Jews recruit smart goyim but to make them serve all Jews, even dumb ones. White folks must think similarly. The hell with IQ. Smart white, middle white, and dumb white, they should all be seen as part of the same family. When so many high IQ whites have chosen to collaborate with Jewish globalist supremacists at the expense of masses of mediocre whites, it’s time to stop yapping about intelligence and support something along the lines of national socialism. Too much of HBD follows the libertarian streak of fixating on intelligence and meritocracy. While such considerations are crucial in certain areas — who wants to be treated by a dumb white doctor than a smart non-white one? — , when it comes to racial, cultural, and political interests and unity, White Rightists should forget about intelligence and emphasize shared histories, identities, and cultures of all white people in America. Smart whites shouldn’t be like the indigenous elites of European colonies who sneered at their own people while sheepishly and cravenly collaborating with the imperialist alien masters. Today’s white elites are no different from the Indian elites who served the British overlords during the age of Empire. The only difference is white elites serve their Jewish globalist-supremacist masters.

Be that as it may, the fact remains that a lot of people(of all races) are dodos, more so in some nations than others. If the majority of some nations are ‘naturally middle class’ — with the mental ability and emotional attributes to make it to social middle class status under a system of freedom, rule of law, enterprise, and technological progress — , the majority in some nations are ‘naturally underclass’. But even in nations with smarter people, there’s going to be a good deal of people who are nincompoops. Also, with the degradation of culture(which today is mostly popular culture as the influence of the churches, family, and traditional communities has precipitously waned — and in many cases, churches, parents, and civic groups like Boy Scouts go out of their way to pander to the ‘new normal’ as promoted by trashy popular culture and mindless political correctness pushed by the Jewish-homo elites), even people who are ‘naturally middle class’ can easily slip into cultural trashiness that leads to social decline. Not every underclass white person is a real dodo. They’ve slipped socially and economically because their cultural attitudes have come to revolve around ‘get paid and get laid’, childish libertine hedonism, and shallow narcissism.
In the much-lauded Romanian film 4 MONTHS, 3 WEEKS AND 2 DAYS, we see the problems of what might be called ‘oppullsion’ as well as the problems of oppression. The theme of oppression will be more apparent to most audiences. (To be sure, the political morality serves neither a neat leftist or rightist paradigm. As the world depicted is communist, conservatives might be tempted to see the film as an indictment of communist totalitarianism and tyranny. But Ceausescu’s regime forbade abortion — thus putting him on the same political page as many American conservatives — , and liberals might be tempted to see the film as having a ‘pro-choice’ message. The setting will strike many viewers as a strange combination of ultra-totalitarian radicalism and ultra-reactionary traditionalism, and because the film isn’t easy to pigeonhole one way or another, it aspires toward the complexity of art, which it may well be. Despite the film’s loathing of the political order under Ceausescu and its sympathy for the two female characters, there are no easy heroes or villains. It’s a film of fine print than blaring headlines.) Communist Romania under the rule of corrupt, inept, and stupid Nicolae Ceausescu imposed what some would consider a brutal policy of prohibiting abortion in order to boost national demographics. Due to draconian punishment for those seeking abortion, a young pregnant woman undergoes all sorts of troubles to be rid of the fetus or unborn baby or whatever you wish to call it. Her friend — who is emotionally like a wiser older sister — who sticks by her through thick and thin ends up going through hell too. What’s especially interesting are the layers of oppression, from top to bottom. Not only is the government policy ruthlessly enforced but the illegal abortionist takes advantage when the woman offers him insufficient money. Her friend offers her body to the creep to finalize the deal. If we focus on the two women as a single unit, we can see the film in terms of male-dominated society oppressing helpless women. However, if we focus on the two women as individuals, we can’t help but think that the friend is not only oppressed from above but ‘oppulled’ from below. The friend, Otilia(Anamaria Marinca), feels compelled to help out the pretty but dim-witted and absent-minded pregnant woman. Gabriela(Laura Vasiliu), the pregnant girl, may tug at our hearts — as her plight does to her friend’s — , but she’s the sort of idiot who makes a mess of things and then leans on others to clean up the mess. Because she’s shy and timid — unlike wild-ass Negress ho’s, ‘white trash’ lunatics, or self-centered spoiled brats(like the insufferable younger sister character in NEWLYWEDS by Edward Burns) — , she seems helpless and blameless, but it seems much of her problem is the result of her stupidity and irresponsibility. (Indeed, even in a nation like the UK where any woman can have any number of abortions and enjoy full access to all sorts of government benefits, there’s an endless supply of idiots who find new ways to drag the rest of society down. Consider the disgusting hag in LADYBIRD LADYBIRD — that should be called Ladyturd Ladyturd — by Ken Loach, a leftist film director who too often wastes his sympathy on the wrong kind of people.) She isn’t pregnant because she was raped but because she has little control over her body or her personal affairs. Even though Otilia goes out on a limb to be a good friend, Gabriela messes up at every turn — in this respect, the film is anti-Hollywood for a Hollywood movie would likely have made Gabriela much more of a sympathetic ‘victim’ type — , even leaving Otilia no choice but to let the creepy abortionist screw her as compensation for insufficient funds brought by Gabriela. So, if we focus on Otilia as an individual, she is both oppressed by the system and oppulled by the idiot Gabriela.

And this is a universal problem all over the world. When we discuss what’s wrong with Africa or some Third World country, we blame the leaders, tyrants, or rulers, as if the problem is squarely with the those with the power. But as the cases of Egypt and Libya have made all too clear, the problems go much deeper. The Who sang, ‘meet the new boss, same as the old boss’, but equally problematic is ‘meet the new masses, same as the old masses’. Mubarak was a corrupt son of a bitch, but too many Egyptian people are corrupt, stupid, idiotic, childish, ignorant(oftentimes willfully), and mentally deranged — and Libyan masses aren’t any better. So many African nations have undergone changes in leadership, but the same problems fester because there’ so much corruption, ineptness, stupidity, nincompoopery, knuckleheadedness, jive-ass-ness, tomfoolery, jungle-ape antics, and etc at all levels of society. Same goes for Detroit. "What brought down Detroit? The city of Detroit declared bankruptcy July 18th, and there's been much ruminating on the reasons for the collapse into dereliction of what was once the Paris of the West... The ruminating, so far as mainstream publications are concerned, was severely handicapped by our country's racial neurosis, which sent respectable commentators off in all directions searching for explanations that would excuse them from mentioning the r-word. Among conservative commentators it was popular to blame liberalism, leading some impertinent souls to ask which bastion of liberalism would be the next to implode: Burlington, Vermont, perhaps? Or Portland, Oregon? The decline of the auto industry was another popular culprit. Again, people who'd forgotten to take their blue pills pointed out that Pittsburgh had been at least as hard hit by the decline of Big Steel, but Pittsburgh is doing fine. There is also the small point that hardly any of the auto plants are actually in Detroit, or have been for decades. Most are outside the city, and most of the people who work in them live outside the city; and that's been the case for decades too. My friend Paul Kersey has written a book... arguing that Detroit was killed by demography; that once it became a black city run by blacks, incompetence, corruption, and crime brought Detroit down, as they brought down Camden and Newark, as they are bringing down Birmingham and Atlanta... The lesson from Detroit is that blacks can't carry the black underclass." Indeed, in many places, it would be better to replace the people than the leaders. Suppose a society has rotten leaders and rotten masses. What would improve it faster? Replacing its rotten leaders with good leaders or replacing its rotten masses with good masses. I dare say, if you were to take control of an average black African or Muslim Arab nation and if you were to keep the same leaders but remove the original masses with Germans, the nation will begin to improve overnight and eventually become rich. Indeed, Germans will even demand better leadership, and, in time, even the government will be run by people with talent. But suppose we keep the masses as they are in a black African or Muslim Arab nation but replace the corrupt native leadership with hardworking and clean Northern European leadership. Society might improve somewhat, but most of the problems will remain as too many black Africans and Muslim Arabs will carry on like silly children due to reasons genetic and/or cultural. In LAWRENCE OF ARABIA, the silly Arabs come to the brink of tribal warfare over who can carry water where and when, and Lawrence reaches a point where he’s just about had enough. It was easier to lead the Arabs to kill and loot, but when it came to organizing them to build a stable society, it was a fool’s errand for the meaning of the common/public/civic good hardly exists in the Arab vocabulary. As for Negroes, the only economic idea they understand is ‘gimme mo gimme mo, honkey-ass motherfuc*er’ and ‘loot me some shit before other niggaz do’. This is why the notion that any white mayor is going to save Detroit — as long as it remains majority black — is a joke. You can change the leadership, but you can’t change the people(unless there is some massive effort at gentrification as happened in Washington D.C.). If the spine is broken and the body is paralyzed, changing the brain is gonna restore mobility.
Though most people still use the rhetoric of oppression — even libertarian ‘conservatives squarely place the blame of failure in Detroit and black Africa on ‘socialist oppression’ that supposedly forbade free marketeers from turning things around — , the problem around the world today is as much a case of ‘oppullsion’ as oppression. While North Korea and maybe communist Cuba(at least the parts that are still white) are cases of poverty and backwardness caused by oppression — current regimes preventing their peoples(who are possessed of some talent) from living up to their true potential — , the problems in many parts of the world cannot be blamed primarily on the elites. As often as not, the rottenness of the regime is a reflection of the rottenness of the people. During the Cold War when so many nations were ruled by either totalitarian leftist regimes or authoritarian rightist regimes, many peoples around the world could legitimately gripe that they were denied the freedom to work and fight for a better society. But since the end of the Cold War and the spread of democracy — and weakening or liberalization of existing tyrannies(Gaddaffi had loosened his grip on power in the years leading to his downfall) — , it’s no longer very convincing to blame only those at the top. We must come to the realization that some nations remain poor, corrupt, and rotten because too many of their people are corrupt, rotten, dumb, childish, and/or stupid for reasons that are cultural and/or genetic.
And we must look at the problems within the West and draw up the courage to admit that some people remain on the bottom or slip to the bottom because our freedom allows(and encourages) the stupid to be massively stupid. Indeed, for the ‘naturally underclass’, authoritarian police state or even totalitarian rule can sometimes be better than boundless freedom and liberty. If underclass Negroes in America got the Cuban treatment, they would lead much healthier and saner lives. They would have no freedom to own guns, no freedom to sing ugly rap music, no freedom to use nasty demagoguery against whites, no freedom to follow worthless ‘leaders’ like Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson, no freedom to pig out and become hugely obese, no freedom to cause so many problems in schools, no freedom to bitch and whine about police brutality. Like Cuban blacks who know they better behave(or else), American underclass blacks would live in stabler and safer communities. Indeed, there is a devious side to Liberals who sort of agree with this view(though they dare not admit it openly). Though Liberals are loathe to say there was any social or moral justification for Jim Crow laws and such for the sake of keeping order among the Negroes, they have admired communist regimes for keeping the order among the populace. Though Cuban blacks have had none of the freedoms and rights of American blacks, many ‘progressives’ praised the Cuban system for ‘taking care’ of the Negroes. Of course, American system of welfare has provided far more to American blacks than Cuban blacks ever got from Castro, so the Liberal line of argument is disingenuous. Since American blacks got more from the government than Cuban blacks got from the Cuban government, shouldn’t Liberals argue American blacks have much less to complain? So, what was the real subconscious reason for the Liberal admiration of Cuba? It was that the communist elites had total control of the masses, especially them crazy Negroes. Cuban blacks behaved; they did so not because they were so grateful for what they got under Castro but because their hearts, minds, limbs, and asses were totally controlled by Castro’s regime. If Castro told them that they were totally free and equal in new Cuba, they had no choice but to agree. If Castro told them to behave well or else get thrown in prison, they understood what the great leader meant. If Castro told them to respect police men and teachers, they had no choice but to comply. If black Cuban students acted like black American students, they would be beaten on the spot and forcibly reformed with no recourse to ambulance chasing lawyers, politically correct media, or angry ‘black leaders’. If Castro told them to support the current regime at all times with all their hearts, they obeyed since, from cradle to grave, they were taught and informed that Castro is like god and Yanquis are shit.



Anyway, a good illustration of the problems of ‘oppullsion’ is found in the documentary COUNTRY BOYS by David Sutherland, which makes an interesting contrast with his previous documentary THE FARMER’S WIFE. I have no issue with Sutherland’s big heart and his passion for documenting the live of ‘little’ people — who are too often neglected by Hollywood and MSM that prefer to fall back on stereotypes when it comes to poor or rural whites despite their endless protestation against stereotypes, but then, Liberals actually love positive stereotypes(which really should be called fanta-types since they have little to do with reality, e.g. the mountain-sized Negro who wuvs a wittle white mouse in GREEN MILE), and their real issue is with negative stereotypes of their favored groups, even if such stereotypes(often regarding Jews, Negroes, and homos)have more than a grain of truth to them — , and COUNTRY BOYS beautifully captures a time and place. And the two boys are not bad kids and, to a degree, worthy of our sympathy.
Nevertheless, the overall thrust of COUNTRY BOYS seems to miss the mark. Sure, the boys were born into far-from-ideal situations and faced serious disadvantages. Chris’s father is a drunkard, and his mother isn’t much either. And he lives in a trailer. And Cody’s mother is gone, and his father killed his stepmother and then killed himself; that’s certainly enough to mess up anyone’s childhood. And anyone who’s gone through the growing years can see something of himself or herself in the mistakes, excuses, and foolhardiness of Chris and Cody. Even so, the two clowns go about messing up their lives in stupid and insipid ways that defy the imagination. They are from being the worst kids in America, but the documentary errs in pretending that there’s more to their stories than knuckleheaded nincompoopery.
Chris the knucklehead
Chris comes from a poor family and his the alcoholic father is hardly a role model, but there are well-meaning and hardworking people at his school who go out of their way to help him. At one point, he comes up with an idea of starting a school paper. All he has to do is gather up some articles for a page or two of news sheet, surely a cinch even in his depressed community that provides computer access to the students; he also has a computer at home. Anyone who has run a blog knows how it’s easy to write some shit and post it. All Chris had to do was get some people together, write some bogus articles, and ‘publish’ the stupid thing as the ‘school paper’. But he drags the project on and on seemingly forever and comes up with every excuse imaginable and then some to rationalize his endless missed deadlines. His well-meaning teachers and counselors encourage and press him with all the support and compassion in the world, but the chubster just can’t put anything together, that is until much later when he finally produces a few pages. In some ways, I do admire the patience, commitment, and resilience of the teachers and counselors. They seem like ‘good Christian folks’ who wanna do everything to help these less-than-ideal kids achieve something in life. But they are like Otilia in 4 MONTHS, 3 WEEKS AND 2 DAYS in relation to ditzhead Gabriela. The difference is, of course, that Otilia is doubly pressured by oppression from above and ‘oppullsion’ from below. Gabriela is so irresponsible and stupid that you wanna throw things at her. Though nominally a ‘victim’, her problems are as much her own making as something imposed from above. Indeed, if she had more sense, she wouldn’t have gotten herself into a bad situation in the first place. In contrast, the teachers in COUNTRY BOYS seemed to be weighed down lazy students with low IQ and even lower motivation. Though the elites of this country don’t favor ‘white trash hicks’, the people of the depressed community seem to be generously provided for by Big Government. Also, despite the poverty, it’s an idyllic place with beautiful scenery. While we cannot blame the two guys in COUNTRY BOYS for the circumstances they were born into, I find it ridiculous to see them as ‘victims’, ‘tragic figures’, ‘heroes struggling against the odds’, or ‘youthful souls against an uncaring world’. Unlike the folks who faced truly tough circumstances in, say, THE GRAPES OF WRATH, Chris never has to worry about hunger. Loretta Lynn’s song "Coal Miner’s Daughter" about a poor family struggling to make ends meet breaks your heart, but Chris’ endless excuses about the school newspaper roll your eyes.

In fact, he has none of the worries that weighed on his forebears: having enough to eat, clothes and shoes to wear, and etc. There’s ample evidence of enough government programs — and lax enforcement against possible fraud, as Chris says more than once that his ‘learning disability’ was faked to collect social security — to keep everyone well-fed. Also, he seems to spend an inordinate amount of time collecting anime stuff and other silly gimcrackery — rather like that idiot Jesse Jackson Jr. who blew his ill-gotten loot on celebrity memorabilia.
Cody the dufus
As for Cody, he turns his father’s tragedy into a tasteless heavy metal shtick and gets some kind of Beavis-and-Butthead-like kick from not only acting the school clown(with tattoos and body piercing) but justifying it on moral-and-spiritual grounds. (For example, he complains of a church for turning him away for his outlandish looks, his reasoning being that Jesus loved everyone, even sinners and the wretched. So, shouldn’t a real church open its doors to everyone, even one as outlandish and weird as he? But here’s the difference. The wretched and the diseased during Jesus’ time didn’t choose to be sick. And Jesus opened His arms to sinners in the hope that they will repent and choose the right path. In contrast, Cody goes out of his way to make himself look ugly, wretched, and foolish. Vanity is a form of sin, and Cody, a wanna-be rock star, petulantly indulges in it even when he enters a church. If a church turned away an ill-dressed person who can’t afford anything better to wear, I would agree with Cody. But if someone who can afford decent clothes goes out of his way to look disheveled and hideous, the fault isn’t with the church but with the person who is refusing to show respect in the House of God. It’s like a hospital exists to treat the sick and injured. It doesn’t exist just so people can willfully injure themselves or feign sickness to be accepted. Cody doesn’t need to do half or even all of the foolish things he does; he does it out of infantile vanity and then whines that the world doesn’t appreciate him when, in fact, he gets a kick out of being ‘different’. Also, though what happened to him as a child is horrible, it’s tasteless on his part to turn the tragedy into a never-ending self-aggrandizing song-and-dance, especially in brainless Goth metal mode.) He disgraces his hair, face, and body with all sorts of ugly tattoos and piercing — which much cost a good amount of dough as I never heard of a tattoo ‘artist’ offering his service for free.

People like Chris and Cody exist in any society as part of the demographics of idiocracy. And unless they are kicked in the butt and disciplined, they will be a drag on rest of society. To be sure, not all draggers are a menace to society. Beavis and Butthead are serious draggers but totally harmless, and I don’t see people like Chris and Cody causing direct harm to society. At the very least, their problems seem their own even if they may leech off tax payers. At the very least, they are not rapists, thugs, or murderers like so many wild Negroes, and indeed, some poor white communities are surprisingly crime-free.
Such people might actually do better under an authoritarian and spartanist system that kicks them in the butt, hardens and toughens them up, and provides them with basic tasks. Though America has been a democracy — or, more accurately, a representative republic — for centuries, it was not the welfare-libertine society before the postwar boom that funded the expansion of the welfare state and the spread of the anti-virtues of unchecked hedonism. Also, prior to the rise of economic globalism and automation of so much industry, there were simple jobs for simple folks — or people had to till the land to grow food to eat — , and since there wasn’t much in the way of welfare or charity, people like Cody and Chris in the past would have had to grow up fast and be like the Joad family in THE GRAPES OF WRATH.
The Grapes of Wrath - John Ford movie
Cody would have no time to waste on piercing different parts of the body and wailing his dumb lyrics into a microphone at a ‘Christian heavy metal rock concert’, and Chris wouldn’t have been wasting his time sitting around the sofa playing with silly collectibles. Though Chris grew up in relative poverty, he wasn’t slapped hard enough by reality and its set of priorities. If he really were hungry and had to take care of his family, he might even work as a sharecropper to earn enough to eat. But as long as the government provides welfare, there’s no incentive to really get off one’s ass and scramble to work. But to be fair to Chris and others of his community, simple jobs for simple folks are harder to come by as globalization and automation have rendered so much of low-skilled American labor force useless. If people like Chris and Cody had more brains and ambition, they might turn their communities by linking it to the New Economy, but the truth is that most people in Chris and Cody’s community are dodos who make Sarah Palin seem like Einstein. Then, it is no wonder that so much of the economic boom in parts of the South are fueled by high IQ urban Liberals from other parts of the country looking for low taxes and living costs than by the local residents with deep roots there.

At any rate, we should do away with pretenses and false hopes. We should not hype people like Chris and Cody as something more than what they are. Yes, watching COUNTRY BOYS, I came to sympathize with them, even feel affection for them — and David Sutherland is an excellent documentarian with a kind heart and good eye — , but they are really a couple of dodos or nincompoops, a real drag on society(so different from the real-life characters in THE FARMER’S WIFE who work like crazy to sustain their way of life). And as much as I respect the teachers and other professionals in the community who give their best to help kids like Chris and Cody, I think it’s a fool’s errand. The FRONTLINE trailer for COUNTRY BOYS talks about ‘triumphs’, but what are they? Cody graduates as valedictorian in a class of, get this, six or seven students(who are, incredible as this may sound, bigger dufuses than Cody), and Cody is later heard pronouncing ‘valedictorian’ as ‘vale-victorian’. And golly gee whiz, Chris did finally manage to edit a few pages of school newspaper and, golly gee whiz still, after dropping out of school, manage to pass the GED. Well, if grade inflation is good enough for Harvard, I guess we gotta cut some slack for hillbilly kids too. What’s really amusing is we hear Chris and Cody say in interviews that people have a wrong impression of communities such as theirs, i.e. it’s not true that people like themselves are dumb ‘white trash’. Okay, they have a point, and Sutherland’s documentary is to be lauded for presenting the people of the community as real people with real problems than stereotypes so familiar through Hollywood movies and TV shows(made by urban Jews and homos who have little contact with such people; incidentally, one interesting thing about homos is they are, paradoxically, the most dispersed and the most concentrated of demographics. While homo power is concentrated in urban areas where homos tend to stick together, homos come from all walks of life as every community — Christian, Muslim, Hindu, white, black, Asian, Arab, Mexican, rural, conservative, etc. — will produce its share of homos, even from parents who think homosexuality is wicked and sinful. Therefore, if most Jews in elite fields may indeed be urban Jews who only know the urban environment, a good deal of urban homos could be ‘exiles’ from rural regions less amenable to homo power and demands. Thus, even as homos find success and power by catering to and rubbing shoulders with rich urbanites, they may have remembrances of a very different world, indeed as Truman Capote did when he wrote a short story about a childlike woman who says, "it’s fruitcake weather, it’s fruitcake weather" during Christmas time). Every person is more than a stereotype, and COUNTRY BOYS does present a portrait of a world that digs deeper and listens with greater sensitivity that most Hollywood movies that fall back on stereotypes, negative or positive. Even so, given the repeated tomfoolery of Chris and Cody, we can’t help but feel that some of the stereotypes about Appalachian hillbilly folks aren’t all that off the mark. It is a world of draggers who ‘oppull’ on the rest of us.

Incidentally, the problem with 'hillbillies' may be less related to impulse control than to lack of pulse.

3 comments:

  1. Look at this hilarious article.
    http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/16/business/yes-the-wealthy-can-be-deserving.html

    Rich people take risks? They run away from everything. You can't even talk to them.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Rich people's idea of risk is to try something that they might not like, but which is free of any real risk.
    Like watching a movie, or dabbling in some safe shit that might get someone else in trouble, but not them.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Here's some music for you, Andrea.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R8IwsCqB464

    Breivik was nothing worth making a fuss about.

    No one except crackpots like himself like him.

    If he was any good, he would have talked to those kids and recruited them instead of killing them.

    ReplyDelete