The Fascism of Madagascar 3

The one who stands in our path to progress, is humanity. So, in its anti-human rant, Madagascar sets up humans to fail before we try, placing us right in the center of a Master; but in this case, the Master isn’t just a master in the typical sense, but also as a master-signifier. [Very simply, a master-signifier is that which calls out to us and frames our language, beliefs and identity and ties our system of thought together. – an Example would be: Evangelicalism]. So, as long as we our tied to our origins defined via some form of progress – there will always be competition – there will always be an ‘us’ and ‘them’ – history will always be behind and the future in front. In the most perverse sense, we then have no future, for are fate is sealed. We never can never talk about an apocalypse or even a zero-point in history – because fate has our future grasped tightly in its clutches.

Is this not the radical space that the Jewish Rabbi Jesus offers to those who want to view the human experience the very space that does not yet exist? “You have heard it said, but I say…” – is not this phrase about the end of contingency. The radical negation of history in one fail swoop? Also, does not it radicalize our individual identity over the supposed dogma of some unseen collective [known as ‘history’ or ‘those’ before us?]. Jesus offer us a new way to view epistemology and our experience of us. That our personal subjective experience ultimately trumps the collective; he does so by insinuating that there is a we [the ‘you’ is plural] and that there is a historical quilting point [‘said’] on which his audience have relied upon for far too long. He then offers a different perspective, he highly values subjectivity; he does so by then removing the historical point and replacing it with an ‘I’. It centers on the eye.

That the way we ‘know’ is by experiencing knowledge. That knowledge is not some static entity outside of us, but rather that we [and yes, at times, come together via ‘struggling’ toward knowledge] encounter iota’s of truth also by challenging what has been historically claimed. That historical claims do not have the last word. That identity also is continuously influx.  Because the ‘I’ is shifting based on the historical claims that place it. If those claims are being challenged, then the ‘I’ (you or I; no pun intended!!) is constantly changing. Simply put, Jesus seems to claim that knowledge and knowing are two sides of the same coin and that, ultimately, knowing changes our very ontology [the essence of what it means to be ‘I’].

This is the problem with Obama’s politics, it relies upon a historical contingency. This more specifically refers some of his catchphrases, but in this case: “America, Yes We Can!” America has a history; it has a time and place. But the history relies upon former knowledge of its existence. Meaning, America has a self, well, that’s what Obama wants you to think! By using the term America – he is implicating everyone who listens, everyone who pays taxes, and even those who don’t.  The word ‘America’  is an ultimate master-signifier for it dictates to us and the world who we are, who we are meant to be, how we should speak of it and even why we should be American. So, when Obama ties the Big Idea of America to capability [aka, Capitalism] – Obama is [dis-abling] the rest of the world – by claiming that ‘they’ can’t. In a Marxist sense, he is turning the country and its people into the bourgeois and the rest of the world, the proletariat. And its only a matter of time, when the proletariat will rise up! In Obama’s nationalistic power-hungry claim we find something else quite sinister lurking in plain sight; that those who can’t, have no value.

For what does ‘can’ mean if not some form of ability/ableness. So, what does the can relate to? We can find in hint in the former words of choice: Yes!. What is yes if not an affirmation. A word of spoken presumption. For Obama speaks it for the ‘we’. He assumes there is a collective identity already in place – one need to venture to America for only week to find that this is not sociologically the case at all. “Yes We Can” are the words of a dictator told to a people who are awake just enough not to notice that they’re still sleeping. What Obama doesnt realize is that he marginalizes those who ‘don’t or ‘can’t’ – those who might see a third or fourth option waiting in the wing. This is not about the person, moreso this is about the words of a puppet-king who has become the prodigal. His political tactics now have mirrored some of the more vulgar fascism of history gone-by. Drone Attacks. Guantanamo Bay. Unnecessary War [creating victims where they’re aren’t any]. For if politics are about sustaining the image of a countries nationalistic identity, then ultimately, this will happen at any cost. Victims are a necessary casualty; a luxury of causation.

Maybe a radical place to begin, as social beings who desire to be actively involved in overcoming reality [be in the world of it, not of it] – maybe, just maybe our response should be: No, no we can’t!