The Man in the Mirror (James Howard Kunstler)

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.

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http://www.worldnewstrust.com/wnt-reports/commentary/the-man-in-the-mirror-james-howard-kunstler.html

"A nation addicted to lying to itself tells itself fairy tales instead of facing a pathology report."

Not so much for the machismo at the end:

"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."

words about Rachel Maddow and Eleanor Roosevelt? :wtf: does that have to do with comparing musical male talents to political women?

Kunstler is a sexist dick, imho. He's all man....the worst thing one could say to Jim is: 'You write like a girl.' He probably kill that person.

All I gotta say about Michael Jackson as a performer....he sure the hell could dance!

Add that to the bullshit machismo crap.

I usually find it. I emailed this Kunstler guy many months ago about his sexist crap and boy did he ever get mad!!! It was really funny.

Not my quote. Not sure who's it is, but I remember it from the opening of the film CSA: Confederate States of America.

I always remember the attitudes towards the two competing movies that came out at the same time "Pulp Fiction" vs. "Natural Born Killers".

"Natural Born Killers" tried to hold up a mirror to society, and was ruthlessly and repeatedly attacked as being over the top as well as reprehensible.

At the same time "Pulp Fiction" was roundly beloved as a "cutting edge tour-de-force" and other high praise.

IRONY ALERT! But the bottom line is, well, the bottom line is pretty much what Kunstler lays it out to be.

Don't try and tell people, though. They'll kill you.

The people who loved Michael Jackson...that is, the ones who weren't paid to show up at his events to give the impression that people loved him...are ones that saw him as an eternal Peter Pan, someone who managed to beat the system through "magic."

And their current agony over his death, which I personally STILL think is due to drug abuse and his surgery fetish, is their way of denying that the magic is a lie.

And yes, it's the same kind of celebrity worship that involved Elvis, who also isolated himself from the real world of his fans, whose music grew increasingly irrelevant, whose whole purpose was self-pleasure and acting like a big shot.

My ex-girlfriend was an Elvis fanatic. And that was one of the reasons she was an EX.

Spectacularly bankrupt, artistically & financially, delusional to the point of disfiguring one's own face, and with dark intimations of corruption beyond nightmare.

No, MJ fans -- I'm talking about the United States.

P.S. ELVIS did it first. The second guy wasn't even original.

ironic his references to masturbation since this pap is little more than an exercise in it.

What was that all about?