Wednesday, June 22, 2011

ameriKan decadence: is it the drug lingo or the vulgarity?

I've been meaning to start a new unit at PN meetings on the sheer decadence that saturates every department of modern "enlightened" society. My trawling of a friend's supermarket tabloids brings up stuff that is just shocking beyond belief on the part of the Beautiful People -- the super-rich dominating politics, business, the arts, higher education, religion and virtually everything else. The question becomes whether to drag PN meetings down to that level or to leave that major aspect of conspiracy reality unmentioned!

Decadence is, I believe, the word that sums up the whole problem at large. Moral decadence means politicians (especially presidents) that "model" the worst possible sins before the whole world, robbing youth of its innocence and wrecking what's left of ameriKa's reputation. Political decadence means the same as the word does anywhere else -- stomping on the eternal standards of right and wrong and rewriting the rules capriciously as you go, in this case the Constitution and more importantly the divine law code.

God knows manufacturing is part of it: how many products are specifically aimed at trashing the old morality without even getting into pornography per se? Clothing seems to lead the way many times. A few years back Abercrombie and Fitch shocked even liberaldom with its lurid catalog and advertising. Clothing for small children is turning "sexier" and real makeup is manufactured for little pre-teen girls. Anybody remember the "fcuk" follies?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FCUK#fcuk

Toying with taboo words is, in fact central to the deeply puerile, maladjusted, hebephrenic nature of promotions and entertainment today. The latest scandal there brings in yet another distinctive of decay -- snickering use of drug lingo:

http://boston.cbslocal.com/2011/06/21/menino-to-niketown-take-down-controversial-t-shirt-display/

Menino To Niketown: Take Down Controversial T-Shirt Display

BOSTON (CBS) – Mayor Tom Menino doesn’t like Niketown’s new window display at its Newbury Street store and he wants it taken down.

Menino said he was walking in the Back Bay with his wife recently and noticed T-shirts in the window with the expressions “Dope,” “Get High,” and “F**k Gravity” on them.

He believes the shirts promote drug use.

“Why would a national organization do that? Except to try stoop to the lowest common denominator to get people to buy their t-shirts,” the mayor told WBZ NewsRadio 1030 Tuesday.....

The real stunner here may be the setting of the drama: Boston was once a byword for propriety, even prudishness, but has since come to embody sheer uncut liberalism. One would like to think Mayor Menino is responding out of genuine outrage and not merely playing politics.

It recalls the time 30-odd years ago in New Jersey that I wrote public broadcasting honcho Bill Baker to protest a recent ETV series that sentimentally revisited the hippie era. It had simply glorified the drug abuse of the period, making it seem as "cute" and "naughty" yet "visionary" as much of the dominant culture had done back then.

The alien-looking, sepulchral Baker sent a personal reply, and then another one to my response -- but nothing. No slightest indication of the evil of it, merely a suave "I'm sorry you got offended" type thing.

"If God doesn't destroy ameriKa, he'll have to apologize to Sodom and Gomorrah".......

/\/.\/\/.

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