Matt Taibbi: Is He Secretly Jesus?

You should read this story by Matt Taibbi from Rolling Stone, in which he travels to Orlando to volunteer for the Bush campaign. As I've said before, if you are not familiar with Taibbi's writing, your life is a barren and empty one.

The thing about Taibbi is that, beyond being damnably funny, he's also genuinely insightful. For instance, he says that for America's right wing

...permanent war isn't a policy imposed from above; it's an emotional imperative that rises from the bottom. In a way, it actually helps if the fact is dubious or untrue (like the Swift-boat business), because that guarantees an argument. You're arguing the particulars, where you're right, while they're arguing the underlying generalities, where they are.

Once you grasp this fact, you're a long way to understanding what the Hannitys and Limbaughs figured out long ago: These people will swallow anything you feed them, so long as it leaves them with a demon to wrestle with in their dreams.

THIS IS SO TRUE IT MAKES MY FACE BLEED. Let me explain why I think this.

Everyone is a mixture of emotions and impulses. For instance, part of me would like to rob a bank, because that money is rightfully mine. And part of me would like to be President of the World, because then everyone who disagrees with me would get what's coming to them.

But problems arise when people don't recognize and accept the negative aspects of their psyche. (Or to be more accurate, the parts of their psyche they perceive as negative.) The more people are unwilling to accept these parts of themselves, the more they MUST project the characteristics they don't like about themselves onto others. Thus, such people absolutely must have enemies. Without enemies, without someone to fight, they will feel as if their mind is going to fly apart. Without enemies, they run the risk of examining themselves, AND THAT MUST BE AVOIDED AT ALL COST.

That's why in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus asks, "Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?" It was precisely for asking such questions that Jesus had to be killed by the powers of first century Judea. They were desperate to avoid examining themselves, and were willing to crucify anyone who suggested they should. Not so much has changed in the past 2,000 years. (See: Chomsky, Noam.)