The Devil’s Spawn and the Exorcist

“And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?” (William Butler Yeats, The Second Coming)

Thanks to print media, digital communication, and broadcast television, we Americans and the world of human beings watch as a horror movie unfolds in real time. Color the protagonist orange and the antidote or exorcist as the quiet man, the detective described by Raymond Chandler, who said, “Down these mean streets a good man must go who is himself not mean.”

The foundation myths of east and west or narration of symbolic truths, whether of art, scripture, poetry, or spiritual practice are being tested in practice as the melodrama of good and evil plays out whether in Helsinki or at the once and future “White House” (now in the hands of Brujas and Brujos). Yesterday, Putin’s puppet presided over a meeting in the White House and dissuaded, by doing nothing, the intelligence establishment from taking measures to protect elections against Russian interference, the Agent’s backers.

Even as Agent Orange poisons discourse with perverse meanings i.e. “Fake News,” “Witch Hunt,” “Winning,” or “Make America Great Again,” so his language means the opposite of commonly understood terms. Via the great “Lie,” spectators participate in their own demise at the hands of a demagogue (or demigod) in the second coming of Orwell’s 1984 and the Book of Revelations.

The fanatics and supporters, products of “resentment” and single-issue politics, the right to lifers, tax cutters, deregulators, gunners and others join in moral failure with corporate puppets on the right and the left, all of whom thrive on the notion of “greed is good” (derived from real estate development philosophy). So-called conservative names like Fox and Breitbart, or progressives with names like MSNBC or CNN can’t wait for the next installment because “sensation sells” and satisfies “immediate gratification.” Like Esau, the progenitors of the melodrama have sold their souls for a “mess of pottage.”

For in plain sight the U.S. government kidnaps children and sells them for votes while the NRA, thanks to prior decisions by SCOTUS and current policies by POTUS, unleashes serial killers to shoot down and kill innocent men, women, and especially children across America.

Now the faithful depend for hope on Joan of Arc figures named Elizabeth Warren, Emma Gonzales, and Ocasio-Cortez.

Shows like the “Apprentice” and the “Candidate” spawned Agent Orange with help from Facebook and Google. Even as Orange Hair out-maneuvered his duller rival, dressed in wonky pant-suits, so the true representative of the social contract, Bernie Sanders, was “shelved” as too old-fashioned by corporate “greed-heads” (as Hunter S. Thompson used to call them).

But the Monster has escaped the box and the spectators wait with baited breath to see if the hunter and gatherer, a Marine, who leaves no fallen comrade behind, can capture and squeeze Bad Juju back into the bottle and exorcise the Leviathan.

Meanwhile, as the Apocalypse approaches, the human race confronts its termination at the hands of fire or is it ICE? And so we live in “interesting times” (while amusing ourselves to death).