Surreal Segue: Traditions & Crisis

“Perhaps my life is nothing but an image of this kind; perhaps I am doomed to retrace my steps under the illusion that I am exploring, doomed to try and learn what I simply should recognize, learning a mere fraction of what I have forgotten.” ― André Breton

“Kilgore had a pretty good day for himself. They choppered in t-bones and beer and turned the LZ into a beach party. The more they tried to make it just like home, the more they made everybody miss it.” ―Captain Willard

{Present Context 0.0z} Cynicism ameliorated by welcoming death and revisiting the desert of The Real

The only thing more jarring than the pandemic itself is the pictures, videos, and articles exhibiting smiling Americans slurping apple cider while chopping down Christmas trees with the family. Equally vexing, the Americans running around buying presents and generally going about their holidays as if we’re living in 1950, a half-decade removed from defeating German Nazism, Italian Fascism, and the Japanese Empire.

Ah yes, plenty of reason to celebrate back then. The ‘Golden Age of American Capitalism!’ Life was good, as long as you weren’t black, gay, a woman, or poor. You know, the good ole’ days.

On the contrary, today, nine months into the worst pandemic since 1918, with over 1.6 million people dead worldwide, 270,000 of them Americans, there’s nothing to celebrate, unless you’re alive, in which case, count your lucky stars. Right now, the virus spreads exponentially in many regions of the U.S. American Capitalism is on the ropes. American Empire is in decline. And the country is fractured, some say irreparably.

Interestingly, the more tragic and grim the situation, the more likely people will revert to symbolic behaviors and reassuring acts that evoke pleasant memories, however warped they may be. At first glance, this seems like a reasonable response to sadness/depression/crisis, but upon further inspection, we begin to see the inherent problems with such an approach and the countless pathologies that come with it.

Holidays Ghosts in Mesopotamia

{Dream Context | 0.1a} Stormtroopers fighting a mechanized war in an asymmetrical context of lies, illusions, and illegalities

In Iraq, I vividly recall marines decorating their bunks, posting Christmas cards on the plywood walls of our Quonset huts, and playing holiday tunes on their portable CD players and battery-powered boom boxes during the holiday season of 2004, trying their damndest to rekindle an emotional-psychic-social feeling that could never possibly arise in such a harsh and alien environment. Yet they tried.

Other marines took the opposite approach: we understood that our new context, the fragmented and surreal experience of modern war, was so fundamentally removed and incompatible with our fond recollections of holiday gatherings and traditions that it made absolutely no sense performing feeble attempts at replicating those organic and joyful emotions. In hindsight, I’m glad I took this approach. New realities call for new traditions or the death of existing ones.

There we were, in the middle of the desert, with snow flurries falling from the sky (it got quite cold in far-western Iraq), smoking cigarettes, joking about missing our loved ones and sweethearts, fighting a bullshit war for a bullshit country with bullshit equipment and a bullshit plan. Hard to muster Holiday Cheer in that environment.

After the war, many marines attempted to go about their lives as if they were simply ordinary civilians picking their kids up from soccer practice, going to the pubs with their friends, never quite coming to terms with what we experienced in the war, let alone how significantly those experiences changed us all, for better and worse.

Much like the marines who tried to celebrate Christmas in Iraq, the marines who came home and tried to immediately assimilate without properly coming to terms with the war (both the internal and external war) experienced great difficulties: mental breakdowns, arrests, addiction, and suicide, to name a few. Their psychic and social coordinates were jumbled, mismatched, confused. That’s what happens when one is catapulted from utter chaos to relative normality.

This year will mark only the second time in my life that I will miss Christmas dinner with my family. The first time, as noted above, was because of an immoral and illegal war, the consequence of allowing oil tycoons and religious fanatics to run roughshod over the country.

This time, I won’t see my family because of incompetent political leadership and bankrupt economic policies that stem from bankrupt ideologies. But those aren’t the only reasons: those of us avoiding family gatherings this year will be doing so also because of trillions of dollars Uncle Sam has spent on the empire while the republic crumbles from within.

Viral Traditions at Home

{Past Context | 0.1b} The viral nature of American viral culture — pathologies induced by ideologies creating disassemblies

Today, a very similar phenomenon has been playing out in the context of the pandemic. When the virus first reached the U.S., people shared pictures of their fresh-baked sourdough bread on social media, played music on the balconies of their apartments, and gave standing ovations to first responders as they returned home from their shifts. Americans were scared, but spirits were high.

Less than two months later, cities across the U.S. were ablaze. The bloody and violent aftermath of George Floyd’s murder showcased the numerous and deep-seated fissures underpinning American society. Armed right-wing protesters stormed capitol buildings and plotted to kidnap governors, while armed left-wing protesters marched through the streets of Louisville and Portland, and set up a self-governed autonomous zone in Seattle (later deconstructed due to multiple shooting deaths).

As the months rolled along and summer passed, it became shockingly apparent that the U.S. had given up on containing the pandemic. Lack of political leadership, intentionally underdeveloped and gutted public health infrastructure, and the ideological insanity of right-wing Republicans and Democrats who refused (and continue to refuse) to provide abundant economic stimulus to poor and working-class people guaranteed the response to the COVID-19 pandemic would be an utter calamity. And a disaster it’s been, no doubt.

The economy is absolutely wrecked, although the stock market is doing well (yay!). Workers lack even the most basic economic assistance. Millions of people face evictions on January 1st. Teachers cope with the dual pressures of family life and school life, taking care of children at home and at work, trying their best not to spread the virus in either setting. Doctors, nurses, lab technicians, EMTs, and public healthcare workers of every stripe bust their asses day and night, some relegated to holding up iPads for dying patients so they can say their final goodbyes to family members who cry and wave to their loved ones for the last time through two-dimensional screens. What a way to go out…

Meanwhile, suburban moms zip over to Starbucks, load up on caffeine, and hit the shopping malls for some blockbuster deals as their husbands pack into sports bars and throw back some cold ones with the boys. For many Americans, life goes on unimpeded by pesky safety guidelines and mask protocols.

Celebrating in the Midst of Chaos

{Future Context | 0.1c} Americans singing Christmas carols as sea levels rise and nuclear warheads fly across the night sky

Publicly celebrating the holidays this year doesn’t seem like the healthiest approach in the context of a global pandemic that’s killed 1.6 million people, ravaged our nation, and vaporized an entire year of our lives. 2020 was, one could argue, a hallucination of sorts — a shocking but fleeting moment in human history. As a result, humility, mourning, and reflection are the remedies needed this holiday season. To quote Oliver Stone, “Maybe it’s time for America to eat a big slice of Humble Pie.”

I know what you’re thinking: “But Vince, all of those poor and working-class Americans didn’t do anything to deserve this. How could you or Oliver tell them to be humble?” Well, you’re correct: no one deserves what we’ve lived through for the past nine months. No one. That said, everyone could use a dose of humility, including those who take pride in false Gods (ghosts), flags (symbols), or countries (places) they had no part in creating, bettering, or preserving. That includes many poor and working-class people. No one is innocent — some (the elites) are just guiltier than others (the rest of us).

Everyone, however, in the good ole’ U.S. of A. could use a moment of silence, a period of deep reflection, a serious atoning. The non-stop high-tech culture of ‘click and go’ is destroying the fabric of this nation, our culture, political systems, physical bodies, minds (even our dreams), and the planet.

Here, one should recall the beginning of the pandemic when TV commercials failed to change their tone for several weeks: Americans watched as the world around them collapsed in real-time, meanwhile, Mercedes, Amazon, and McDonald’s continued hawking products on prime time. The Machine never stops. The Spice Must Flow.

Right now, the U.S. is one or two momentous events away from total catastrophe. One can easily imagine a significant terrorist attack derailing U.S. society. One can also imagine future economic and ecological shocks to the system. Imagine all of those hitting at once. It’s not only possible but likely.

What if the vaccine doesn’t go as planned? Do Americans really believe the U.S. is capable of properly distributing vaccines (two doses per person, plus multiple follow up exams to test for antibodies) to the 70% of people (231 million to be exact) who must take the vaccine (assuming it works) in order to reach herd immunity? When was the last time the U.S. successfully implemented a project of this magnitude? 50–70 years? Have our institutions and culture improved or declined during the period since? There’s the answer.

As this potential (some would argue likely) debacle plays out, the economy will remain stuck in neutral, meaning even more economic pain and suffering for poor and working-class people — those who’ve already born the brunt of the pandemic and subsequent economic fallout. How much more can people take? Apparently, we’re about to find out.

Reflecting on the past nine months (how Americans acted during the pandemic, yes, but more importantly, how the many institutions and systems that dominate our lives failed us) and the months and years that lie ahead, one can easily imagine a disturbing and bizarre future context in which Americans, at least those financially capable, go about their holiday activities — watching Christmas Vacation, drinking eggnog, shopping, baking cookies, and playing board games — while climate refugees traverse the countryside in search of water, shelter, and food.

Such a scenario may seem far-fetched, but it’s a fast-approaching reality and one that will shake this nation and the world to its core. The very existence of the planet is on the line, indeed, the future of the species. Stakes couldn’t be higher. And yet, it’s increasingly difficult to imagine a meaningful response to climate change and ecological devastation when people (and the institutions that dominate our lives) have had such a difficult time coping with a relatively small-scale (in historical terms) pandemic.

The Machine Never Pauses

{Machine Context | 0.0d} Social sublimation coordinated through psychological schisms and technological prisms

In my lifetime, I’ve never seen The Machine pause for anything, ever. Never. Not for wars. Not for climactic disasters. Not for economic calamity. Not for a pandemic. Not for oil spills. Not for racial uprisings. Not for anything, ever. Never. American Capitalism doesn’t pause. Quarterly earnings and daily stock trends rule the day. According to recent reports, holiday travel in 2020 should be within 10% of what it was last year. The markets are pleased.

After 9/11, Americans were told: “Go shopping!”

We’ve been shopping ever since…

Vincent Emanuele is a writer, antiwar veteran, and podcaster. He is the co-founder of PARC | Politics Art Roots Culture Media and the PARC Community-Cultural Center located in Michigan City, Indiana. Vincent is a member of Veterans For Peace and OURMC | Organized & United Residents of Michigan City. He is also a member of Collective 20. He can be reached at vincent.emanuele333@gmail.com