I faint. Bring rosewater! - Obama is not MTV; he is just Lauren

It's been fulminating in certain circles in past weeks, a vague, generalized discomfort almost palpable.

They can't quite put their finger on it, but something just isn't what they expected somehow.

Of course, the last several months' worth of victims could have told all of them, nothing has changed. The bombing, the torture, maiming, dispossession, all the smorgasbord of atrocities that has defined the USA since early genocide enthusiasts first declared itself to be a nation, continues apace.

This is, from the standpoint of politics, a shrewd move. Obama did not win by a landslide. Nearly half the US voting class preferred the old white dude who has been hit in the head one time too many.

And of those who did want Obama, few of them oppose the policies themselves, though many have strong opinions on how the various invasions, occupations, kidnappings and slaughter should be conducted.

The Obama administration is, very simply giving the people what they want.

And doing so with no small level of aplomb, as evidenced by decrees to the effect that the door will be left open on this or that, deftly avoiding an increase in outrage on the part of detractors, and at the same time reassuring the majority – and of course the corporate sponsors – the beneficiaries of those policies, that it will be business as usual in Palestine, in Occupied Pakistan, and naturally in the two more public theatres, Iraq and Afghanistan.

The "interrogation facilities" will continue operating, with some text about looking into considering the advisability of forming a task force to examine the possibility of re-evaluating the "public" item in that grisly little column, to assuage the vague discomfort of the miniscule minority opposed to seizing human beings and hauling them off for "interrogation." Indefinitely.

Very occasionally, one runs into someone, typically very young and very idealistic, who will unabashedly acknowledge that they fully expected the US to cease aggression and disarm the afternoon immediately following the inaugural parad, and that by sundown, Leonard Peltier – and the victims in all the dungeons – would be free and in or on their way to the bosoms of their loved ones, and by the next morning, the gunmen, torturers, and various operatives infesting the various theatres of atrocity would be repatriated, and a national health care system announced at lunchtime.

None of that has happened, nor will it, because those atrocities, those invasons and occupations, the massacres and killing sprees and maimings, the torture, will go on, not only because they make big money for big companies, but because it is the will and desire of the American people – at least the mainstream demographic, the (at least erstwhile) affluent "voting class," that it be so.

Suppose that the United States is The Hills (which, of course, it is, but that's a whole nother rant) Obama is not Adam DiVello, he's certainly not a sponsor. Obama is not MTV, he is just Lauren.

According to the Gallup.com website, the poll released on April 28 showed that the margin of pro-torture Americans was just a few percentage points above the margin of popular votes received by Obama, according to data made public shortly after the election.

Beliefs are beliefs. They are not about logic, they have no obligation, nor do they come with a guarantee, that they and facts will not have their differences.

Beliefs can, and as we see in this case, sometimes do, cause harm to others, including the believers.

They can also, and as we see in this case, frequently do give very real comfort to the believers, even when, and I think we might even say especially when, those believers have little else.

It would be different if it were just a matter of persuading one man to wave a magic wand and turn back time, unclick the "Submit Order" button, and magically "fix it."

The reality, however, is that he is just one man, and quite without magical powers. Obama is just Lauren, who does not have the power, for example, to single-handedly void a contract for advertising time signed and paid for years ago.

The US population has made some choices, not once, but over and over, consistently, for quite some time now.

To suggest that they did not know what they were doing, that they do not really want the merchandise that they ordered, and that is now being unloaded onto the dock, but were helpless to do anything about it, is to insult both their intelligence and their integrity.

Granted, not all are agreed on the subject of photos.

Some want documentation that their wishes are being carried out, their tax money spent as they ordered, while others just want it done, but consider photos to be "in bad taste," and anyone who publishes them to be motivated by a mean-spirited desire to "make America look bad."

The absurdity of this view, when considered from the perspective of the victims and their loved ones, is not without pathos.

Suggest to an "average American" that its thugs on a killing spree foreign policy might enjoy the same popularity globally as domestically, or, if you're a real badass, dare to imply that the world and its population are not the property of the US, and 99 times out of 100, the response will be something about how the US has much bigger weapons and just might have to whip them out to stamp out dangerous ideas like that.

If it did not kill people, it would be a cute and comical folkway.

There are some gaps that can't be bridged, and this is one.

That does not change the reality that there are whole huge swaths of the earth where it is now almost impossible to find a single soul whose life has not been touched by US "policies," who does not at least know someone who has been kidnapped, murdered, tortured, maimed, invaded, occupied, generally dispossessed courtesy of, and in accordance with the desires of the American taxpayer.

Events set in motion so long ago cannot be turned back, no more than time itself.

Notwithstanding the illusions of those who may understandably feel some vague discontent that may come to identify itself as a prick or several of buyer's remorse, as the fine print is read, and the clarity of hindsight reveals writ large upon the wall the lines of the sad last hour we players of all the world will collectively strut, Obama is but a mortal man, a human being, and as such no less deserving of compassion than the victims of the bloodlust, the personification of which is his chosen destiny.

To Greed has ever gone the spoils, our species will fall, not to some unique and new malevolence. Greed is a tired old rag of malevolence, our mortal blow is simply a matter of degree – and timing.

Aggressors deliver their own future into the hands of their victims, and while in a perfect world, those victims would show themselves to be a better class of folks than those aggressors, this is, due to human nature, unlikely, and just how unlikely is born out by human history.

Every empire since recorded history would have done the same thing, had it had the means, just as surely as all have eventually fallen on their own sword. The difference in our own time is that the US-dominated empire of "key industries" will fall on a sword that – plainly speaking again – blow us all up.

Societies make choices, and choices have consequences. The choices the US society has made, and has been allowed by the rest of the world to implement – choices like consolidating all but a fraction of the world's resources into a very few hands, the development and collection of weaponry capable of destroying the earth several times over, are not compatible with the survival of our species.

Is there, then, to be no hope?

That depends on the goal.

If we, as a global society, truly have a shared goal of a future – any kind of future, then we would do well to heed the wise words of Derrick Jensen's seminal article "Beyond Hope:

"hope is a longing for a future condition over which you have no agency; it means you are essentially powerless."

We the weak are far from powerless. In fact, as T.S. Eliot reminded us long ago,

"Beware the weapons of the weak. The strong have no defence against them."

Perhaps Eliot was having a premonition of Jensen:

"When you give up on hope, you turn away from fear.

And when you quit relying on hope, and instead begin to protect the people, things, and places you love, you become very dangerous indeed to those in power.

In case you're wondering, that's a very good thing."

NOTE:
This was originally posted to my Baywords Blog over a year ago, but in light of the recent decree that the activities of US gunmen and assorted "wet work" operatives in this or that ancient land shall cease, effective immediately, to be referred to as "combat," it seems appropriate to make it available here.

Obviously, one could make the argument that in the reality-based universe, the victims are equally dead, maimed, dispossessed, tortured, and/or all of the above regardless of what terms the US taxpayers are instructed to use or refrain from using when thinking or speaking of the actions that are, to them, more precious and desirable than their own lives, even the lives or a chance for a future for their children.

To do so, however, would be disingenuous, as it would ignore the very real comfort that so many of those taxpayers receive from obeying the decree.

Think of those Xtreme horror movie scenes where the monster wins, where no hero arrives at the last minute to save the group of helpless huddled victims.

As the savage beast is smashing through the door, the mothers cover their children's eyes, and in broken, halting voices, begin to sing lullabies or whisper happy tales of magical castles and beautiful princesses, fighting to the death, that one last battle - to give their babies the only thing they can hope to give them before their inevitable grisly doom - a few seconds of comfort.

Can he call himself humane, who would yank the mothers' hands away?