The barkeeper on one good reason to vote Bush.
Back to Main
August 12, 2004
Billmon: The Death Candidate
Comments
I’m in winding up mode at the moment but Billmon could have done far better in this post.
Meanwhile no fucking news from Najaf.
Posted by: Cloned Poster | Aug 12 2004 19:56 utc | 1
Goodnight all
Let’s just bomb the fucking ragheads
Posted by: Cloned Poster | Aug 12 2004 20:05 utc | 2
Billmon says:
Further, the more someone thought about Sept. 11 or their own mortality, the more prone they were to support President Bush [Billmon’s Bold]
One of our aMERICAN dilemmas today, is our lack of mindful and psychological connection with birth & death.
Therefore it becomes relatively simple for the hedonic engineers (PR professionals) to prey on our deficient psyches.
The species wide electronic/neurological communication happening now (e.g. this blog) portends a more cooperative/interdependent future for we all.
Posted by: Juannie | Aug 12 2004 22:08 utc | 3
One of our aMERICAN dilemmas today, is our lack of mindful and psychological connection with birth & death.
Not just American – also Europe. Not accepting death anymore is the most severe long term problem for the western world today. Look in depth at health care economics and you will find that some 40% is spend on prolonging life where it is senseless, while at the same time other people suffer and die much too early because of lack of resources.
Nobody likes to touch this discussions and while you are running for office (my best wishes Juannie!) you better never mention this.
Religion tries and should/could answer the question on death and provide a calming picture of the consequences. Todays ironie is that the most “religious” party is delivering the least answers to the ultimate question.
Posted by: b | Aug 12 2004 23:13 utc | 4
I’m not sure about our “lack of mindful and psychological connection with life and death” (which is probably true); I’m just totally disturbed about the mentality of the American public–at least most of it, so it seems. I no longer feel there is a place for me in this country, which makes me sad.
Posted by: beck | Aug 12 2004 23:19 utc | 5
Funny-
Mark is a colleague of mine- we were both teaching assistants for Research Methods in Spring ’03. I saw this research all over the Psychology news the last couple of weeks, but didn’t see where Billmon came across it. Good for Mark for making the blogosphere… and another account of his work in the lovely student paper.
There are certainly some caveats that go along with this research, but more than that, I’d say it’s important to understand Becker’s Terror Management Theory, which this research is aimed at supporting. The basic premise, as I understand it, is that all human behavior can be seen as a means of avoiding the catatonic state of pure terror that the awareness of our inevitable mortality would otherwise cause.
Which I was always thought was pretty indefeasible and thus nonscientific. But then, I’m not a social psychologist- cognitive, rather. And it sure goes a long way towards explaining religiosity, as far as I’m concerned.
And, apparently, Shrub-lovin.
Posted by: æ | Aug 12 2004 23:39 utc | 6
Oh, b, not for prolonging life, that is not proven, afaik. In Switzerland, for example, 40 % of the health costs over a persons life-time are spent in the last year of their life. It is entirely unclear whether the medical procedures implemented on them at that time prolong their life or shorten it. Naturally, the short time span involved makes it very hard to resolve the question. On the one hand, they may be dying because they fall into the hands of the butchers; or they may be ill and be helped somewhat – as much as possible – giving them a reprieve of some months, usually in hospital.
Off the cuff. It is complicated…
Posted by: Blackie | Aug 12 2004 23:59 utc | 7
ah-ha! so this explains the dreadful new W ad running nonstop on tv at least here where W sits next to a very old looking Laura and talks about how hard it must have been for parents on 9/11 to chose which child to pick up first from school – it’s the most scaremongering bit I’ve seen yet.
Posted by: Siun | Aug 13 2004 0:13 utc | 8
@ Siun…
Yup, couldn’t help but notice the new and improved school-marm Laura anti-Jenna image…
Isn’t this the way Atwater went with Battlin’Barb when Carville put Hilary front and center first time around?
@ ae
Thanks for the insight. Always interesting how far-off the mark most of the quisling shallow-end media is when you hear from somebody who actually knows something about the subject under consideration.
@CP
The last thing I wanna be for anybody is an apologist for anybody, including folks I respect, but geez, don’t forget Billmon is actually on holidays….
Posted by: RossK | Aug 13 2004 0:51 utc | 9
Come om people. Lets just say what we want to say. As long as you keep the dum ass sheeple scared half to death they’ll fall into line and vote for the stupid ass (Bushie) even though they should know better. As long as Bushie can scare the crap out of sheeple, cut down Kerry here and there, the dum asses will fall for it. Oh those poor people. How could they watch this happen? Oh sweetheart, “I feel your pain.” Sorry, that was another prez
As far as mortality goes, this was started with the god kings. In their great wisdom, they said to themselves, “is this all there is?” There must be something beyond this life. It can’t end. I’m a god. Puff, the priest were born and immortality created. But, I must say, the truest statement in the Bible is, dust you are and to dust you will return, or something like that.
On the other post, Bernard is talking of shorting the market. Hedge funds are killing the market and stealing everyones hard earned money.
Posted by: jdp | Aug 13 2004 1:23 utc | 10
@RossK
Yeah, my apologies to Billmon, I was tired and emotional. But when I see that chimp smiling and hear his rhetoric I boil over.
Posted by: Cloned Poster | Aug 13 2004 1:58 utc | 11
The opposite of sex-
or, another reason why Bush might find it useful to scare the shit out of people and run as the grim reaper…
Over in GD at DU, Will Pitt is saying (based on an email he received) that the Pentagon is investigating the abuse of women and children at more than one prison in Iraq (airport and Abu G.)
Email info says that girls were dragged to showers by drunken guards/MI and were raped.
Kids were, as Hersh reported, used as leverage, and were kept “off the record,” which is also in the ICRC complaints.
With recent history as precedent, there will no doubt be some major distractions coming from the white house as this story starts to hit the newspapers. (and as an aside, the WaPo is talking terror in Aug/Sept, not Oct, while the AP is saying that the info for the end of July Ridge psyop was not based upon any new information…scouting financial centers is info that has been known by the Bush junta since this spring.)
…also, according to the email Will relates, soldiers who have been coming back to the U.S. have been talking to reporters about the abuse, and the information most likely will not come from the big national papers.
Posted by: fauxreal | Aug 13 2004 4:36 utc | 12
One of our aMERICAN dilemmas today, is our lack of mindful and psychological connection with birth & death.
***
One of great illustration to support this is an American mother of the solder (killed later) in F 9/11. She had no any connection with reality of the death even having her daughter in USA Army first and then her son later. Till the moment she found out about son’s death she actually cheered ohh so convenient opportunity for her children to join USA Army. I also remember in the beginning of Balkan wars how many Serbs and others too incredibly felt about war as a football match. Like they all are immortal.
————
Quote:
But, I must say, the truest statement in the Bible is, dust you are and to dust you will return, or something like that.
***
Of course…dust of the Universe…but we still look for the meaning…of this dust…If anything I don’t believe in accidents and I don’t see how accidentally Universe (or what ever you name it) could exist in macro and micro sense being so perfect. I am more worrying about human imperfection and our inability to understand (find meaning) of birth and death. And in between. Some crooks just exploit this inability of people to make (grab) more of what they stupidly believe is a purpose of living (money, power etc.). It’s sad. Honestly when I hear news how genetic engineering is going to make people live 500 years or for ever I can’t but ask my self “ Who would like to live that long?”. It’s sickening. I can’t remember exact words or who is author but I’ll never forget this as long as I live. It’ goes something like this: “Who would with clear mind and palpable intellect who managed to live LONG ENOUGH ever wish to go through this journey (life) all over again under ANY circumstances not to mention same circumstances?” I keep asking my self this all the time…
But it takes intellect and life long enough to come to this thinking I suppose…
Posted by: vbo | Aug 13 2004 4:45 utc | 13
Becker’s Terror Management theorem sounds good to me (hadn’t heard of it before, thanks for the educational hint). I’ve often said that our species’ remarkable capacity for denial and self-delusion has something to do with our need to deny, every day, our horribly developed sense of time and futurity (which leaves us staring into the grinning face of our own skull, so to speak).
We must have become very good at denial to be able to handle our grasp on futurity and mortality, which (we think) other critters on Earth may not be cursed/blessed with. I mean, when you think about it too much you get a bad case of the Why Bothers or the Oh Christ Why Not Just Get It Over Withs. So a daily injection of denial seems to be a survival characteristic for us.
Unf it is also a non-survival characteristic, when it comes to denying fervently the clear and present threats to our civilisation, economy, and collective survival…
Yes, DeA, it remains to be understood how people distinguish between real threats which may lead to some preventative action, fake threats that are intimidation only, and threats that may have some validity but are repeated so often without any result that people become bored, numb, innured. (Cry Wolf..) Too complex!
Terrorism fears no longer helping Bush, study finds Chicago Sun-Times, 12.08.04
…. A new study reveals a surprising twist on the conventional wisdom about November’s presidential election: While political pundits seem to agree that news of terrorist threats and other dangers from abroad is good news for President Bush’s re-election bid, the opposite might be true.
Michigan State University political science professors Darren W. Davis and Brian D. Silver say their study found that the more worried people are about the possibility of another terrorist attack, the more likely they are to vote for John Kerry. The research will be presented at a meeting of political scientists in Chicago next month. ….
Link
Posted by: Blackie | Aug 14 2004 19:31 utc | 15
Shades of Madrid.
Or: the more aware, the more worried part of the US public (worried about everything, from the education of children to the price of milk to the happiness of cows to terrorist attacks..) tend to be progressive rather than conservative, Democrats rather than Repubs – if the study is correlational only, that is all that can be said.
Going forward, it is possible that the endless empty, false terror threats and the lunatic color codes, and so on, exist only to keep on board those who support Bush from the get-go. To maintain that base! If that is so, one can go on to judge that the threats and warnings and exhortations (etc.) must have, to be effective, some surface validity, carry some expected public acceptance (as delivered by authority, presented as credible and real) but be at the same time covertly understood as mythical and unreal.
See also here (description of Time survey): Link
Posted by: Blackie | Aug 14 2004 19:59 utc | 16
re: our lack of mindful and psychological connection with birth & death.
Advice (Langston Hughes, 1932)
Folks, I’m telling you,
birthing is hard
and dying is mean–
so get yourself
a little loving
in between.
Posted by: Anonymous | Aug 15 2004 0:10 utc | 17