Comments for Meat Cutter Blues: The 'Soft Totalitarianism' of the American Elite at http://www.chris-floyd.com , comment 1 to 3 out of 3 comments http://www.chris-floyd.com Mon, 12 May 2008 06:19:27 +0100 FeedCreator 1.7.2 http://www.chris-floyd.com/content/view/1469/135/#comment-7240 Just for the record, if anyone is looking for it, "Who Paid the Piper" was also released as "The Cia and the Cultural Cold War" and also as "Who Paid the Piper: the Cia and the Cultural Cold War." - jim p Sat, 29 Mar 2008 18:29:09 +0100 http://www.chris-floyd.com/content/view/1469/135/#comment-7239 I liked Sauders' use of the term "idolatry". That's exactly how I've been describing the cultish, fetish-like behavior of some of our greatest self-proclaimed uber-patriots and their endless array of faux-controversies over 10 commandment monuments, lapel pins, flags and "the troops". This is especially true of their behavior towards "the troops". Their love of the "the troops" really only seems to apply in the abstract, as vicarious, nameless and faceless vessels for the idolator's blood-thirsty fantasies. But when a "troop" comes home and needs care for his injuries that love they profess vanishes. While the "troop" is away the rhetoric takes the form of cult-like worship (i.e. "You'd better thank the troops for the freedom THEY GAVE you" -- that one, by the way, has always amazed me because I've gone through life under the radical impression that my rights were endowed by my creator and that the troops were actually organized by free people like me. Go figure.). In peacetime, when the "troop" returns in need of care for combat wounds the rhetoric shifts to something less reverential (i.e. "It's a volunteer military, loser! You knew the job was dangerous when you took it, BITCH!"). So it's clear it's not the flesh and blood "troop" that's being supported here. It's more a glorified, inhuman image of the "troop" as a global ideological hitman that interests them. That is an idol too. Very good of Saunders to use such terminology. It fits perfectly. - EPeoples Sat, 29 Mar 2008 17:56:07 +0100 http://www.chris-floyd.com/content/view/1469/135/#comment-7235 Excellent piece. - Johnh Sat, 29 Mar 2008 12:03:39 +0100