‘Under the spreading Chestnut Tree I sold you and you sold me’
— George Orwell, 1984
In accordance with Jeremy Bentham’s definition back in the 18th Century of ‘Panopticon’ as being a ‘new mode of obtaining power of mind over mind, in a quantity hitherto without example’, the 21st Century American realisation of same has ‘walls’ which would not be seen?
On the contrary, The United States of America has one of the best Political Constitutions which the World has yet seen, and in the Declaration of Independence – which Lincoln argued was a statement of principles through which said Constitution should be interpreted – there is a marvellous statement of human rights:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
The contention of this small article is that what prevents such perspicacious statement of human rights being realized – as in economic demonstration of morality prevalent accordant the ‘State of the Nation’ as America represents today- is a ‘power of mind over mind’ as has come to constitute the ‘invisible walls’ of that form of imprisonment which is a Panopticon ideological, and which is perpetuated, and willfully furthered, by those among us not of the belief that all men are created equal with regards to rights as must accordingly be ‘prioritized’ as to said division, as in when a small minority of ‘Ubermensch’ with greater rights, such the arrogation, come to prevail over a minority of ‘Untermensch’ on the basis of a favoritism, however slyly practiced, but which none the less amounts to mere ‘nepotism’?
Over the years nepotism can accrete as a slur of degeneration upon Humanity and the Democratic ideal of equality, in parallel to form of dominance of an ‘Oligarchic Collective’; as Orwell delineated in his masterful work of prescience, ‘1984’. That is, the Democratic majority in America has become as ‘the Proles’ or ‘Untermensch’, and there is an ‘Outer Party’ and an ‘Inner Party’ as ‘Ubermensch’ to a manifest denial of the principles enunciated in the Declaration of Independence and a willful subversion of The Constitution in what amounts to ‘Treason’ – should Justice and Truth be allowed under the shadow which the ‘spread of Chestnut Tree’ represents?
That nepotism is manifest and demonstrable in such concepts as ‘Gini Coefficient’ as a measure of the relative distribution of wealth in an economy; manifest within such statistics as relate to the percentage of the population as are homeless, without employment or even those as are incarcerated in prisons where the walls are apparent, is a contentious issue – though what goes on within such primitive institutions of incarceration is not so clear, despite the publication in ‘non mainstream’ media of revealing analysis concerning American prisons with visible walls such as represented here.
The ‘power of mind over mind’ exists within the shadows which are of the repression of ‘Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness’ – the oldest chestnut such sense is that the pursuit of the daily crust can lead towards a betrayal; towards a profit made thru the cleave of ‘Brotherhood’ where there is a ‘selling out’ in the service of such sad division as under the utilitarian pragmatic of ‘necessary hegemony’ – and sufferance seen as but collateral damage to the attainment of a ‘survival’ so readily cast as being of the fittest, in what is proposed, such the degenerate paradigm, as ‘evolution’ leading to a (Brave) New World Order?
The current epitomic realization of such ‘sell out’, as an ‘advance’ upon Libya, Iraq and Afghanistan, is represented by the issue of Syria and Iran, and is as occurs under a monotonous drumbeat as a funereal dirge of war in which the ‘power of mind over mind’ figures large concerning ‘apperception molded’. The epicenter of such mould is ‘demonization’; of Sovereign State as a regime, of the Leader as a brutal dictator, of the apperceived activities which summate to ‘Genocide’ as a ‘war upon humanity’ by an identified ‘enemy of freedom’ which demands answer by way of the deployment of ‘superior firepower’ of the righteous in form represented by the ‘Israeli/American Axis’ as ‘Military Industrial Complex’?
All good humanitarian stuff, as deadly intervention goes under the shadow which the spread of the old chestnut tree represents?
For Corporatist mainstream media of the Western World it is become as a race to the bottom; some struggle to advance upon harbourers of terrorists, nonexistent weapons of mass destruction, babies being torn from incubators, Viagra fuelled army of rapists, premature born babies being killed by shelling; some struggle to portray a ‘Genocide’ by a brutal dictator which must be prevented by the lovers of Life; by the reluctant warriors who are of the true faith, by those who uphold ‘Peace’ by way not of ‘jaw, jaw; but ‘war, war’ – and there is little admiration of Churchill these small quarters – because such ‘Peace’ resultant of the application of bomb and bullet, and let us not forget depleted uranium, is as of the shadows of a valley unto which there can only be an accelerated march towards death?
Where there is such sickness of the soul endemic to a basking in the shadows of betrayal then are generalizations possible, such as that attributable to the Nazis ‘the only good Jew is a dead Jew’ – or indeed as to the Zionists where ‘the only good Arab is a dead Arab’?
To attempt to be beyond the shadows of the old Chestnut Tree is not an easy task these days – not that it ever has been. ‘Everything is relative’ as they say, but it is an even harder job when relative betrays relative for mere monetary gain – as becomes ever the more prevalent the deeper the valley of the shadow of the Chestnut tree entered into?
Footnote
‘Israeli/American’ as opposed to ‘American/Israeli’?
Consider the statistics of Representation as concerns the proportion of the population in positions of Political office – in Gilad Atzmon’s excellent work ‘The Wandering Who?’ the example is offered concerning the United Kingdom, where, as per Stuart Littlewood’s elaboration of eight times over representation of Jews, British Muslims would have 200 seats in a Parliament constituted of 650 seats. What parallel does the United States of America represent concerning ‘over representation’ – the power of ‘AIPAC’ aside?
Is this an example of a question only permissible ‘beyond the spread’ or out with the Panopticon?
Stephen Martin can be reached at: stephenmarti@yahoo.com