It's worse : if we take "decent" to mean "in conformity with prevailing moral standards", we're talking about the wholesale descent into depravity of a nation that once gave us Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King.
i no longer watch television but I still see various segments posted on social media and you have nailed it. It is beyond disgusting to see them normalize this slaughter and even demonize anyone opposed to the genocide
The ancillary to "decent" in this context is the expectation that one remain "respectful" of rank and power, especially toward those who invariably are behind the murder and mayhem rippling through human history.
Being "respectful" means never looking directly into the face of power, and never, ever, asking pointed questions or speaking forthrightly.
If I might add, I see this in the context of US politics, in which the use of the word, "decency' in connection with Biden, is being used in direct contrast with Donald Trump, to whom such an appellation could never be applied. This is true, even if Trump were to come out in opposition to Israeli genocide (which of course, he would not). This use of the word is detatched from anything other than certain observable personality traits, as you point out.
I would also suggest that the word 'decency' is in contrast to the famous remark asked of another Joseph, "You've done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?" That question being asked of Sen. Joseph McCarthy by yet another Joseph, Joseph Welch, chief counsel for the US Army. At that time, the idea of having no sense of decency was meaningful. In today's world, it is as quaint as apparently are the notions in the Geneva Convention, per the claim by former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales,
As a long time Bruce Springsteen fan imagine the anger and disappointment with this quote from him
“Joe Biden is like one of the fathers in the neighbourhood I grew up in as a kid. They were firemen and policeman, and there was an innate decency to most of them that he carries naturally with him. It’s very American”
Really Bruce? You are saying this about a senile fanatic who is co-producing a genocide? No longer a fan, I’m done.
Analogies to Nazi events when they're so spot on are great to learn from, especially when it's Hitler, Himmler, Goebbels or Göring giving the remarks. Biden is at the head of the US imperialist cabal after all though he can barely speak himself any more. When he was younger he was less "decent". His speeches were neocon propaganda barrages, delivered with all the usual presumed righteousness, while peddling lie after lie.
Excellent article. There are many ‘decent’ people currently ignoring a genocide because even to entertain the idea defiles their sense of mental decorum.
For Jost et al. to even ‘think’ of, let alone find mutual resonance in, the notion of decency reveals a form of disturbing rationality they are mired in. Consider the following from Foucault:
“All human behavior is scheduled and programmed through rationality. There is a logic of institutions and in behavior and in political relations. In even the most violent ones there is a rationality. What is most dangerous in violence is its rationality. Of course violence itself is terrible. But the deepest root of violence and its permanence come out of the form of the rationality we use. The idea had been that if we live in the world of reason, we can get rid of violence. This is quite wrong. Between violence and rationality there is no incompatibility.”
Decency is one of a plethora of vile, blood-stained platitudes that allow folks to remain in their own minds — sane and sanctimonious, untainted and undisturbed.
The pomp and decorum of such gatherings are also part of an apparatus of sustaining a distant, sanitized, yet giddy state. But here too courses (and lurks) a form of rationality where repetition of tropes and comedic asides — retain the needed veneer of shared pathology. Jost’s speech requires due effort, cleverness, curation, as well as an amnesic caesura, to achieve its effectiveness of droll and drool. Deleuze:
“It is not the slumber of reason that engenders monsters, but vigilant and insomniac rationality.”
Remember when Decent Joe plagiarized another persons biography, then claimed to have graduated at the top of his class (bottom quintile, actually)?
When he had prosecutors visit the whole house and coordinated lawfare campaigns with them in an unprecedented effort to steal an election he could never win fairly?
When he traveled the country making speeches that perpetrated lies about his opponent (“bloodbath” “he hates our military !”)?
“Decent” is the last resort of the propagandists assigned the task of selling this senile old liar. The decent man who lied about the auto accident that killed his wife, claiming that the innocent man who stopped for the stop sign when Joe’s day drinking wife didn’t was responsible, until the poor man committed suicide.
“Decent” doesn’t really describe the man who has made millions peddling influence in Ukraine and Romania. “Decent” doesn’t even describe his record as President, as “Abysmal” would be more accurate.
It seems another intent of creating a parallel reality with words, a virtual one to replace the perception of the ruins their empty dried souls are, in this case by a boatlicker trying to climb the ladder ... to hell.
The circular returning of the "decency" word in another genocidal context is remarcable. Thanks to show it.
It's worse : if we take "decent" to mean "in conformity with prevailing moral standards", we're talking about the wholesale descent into depravity of a nation that once gave us Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King.
i no longer watch television but I still see various segments posted on social media and you have nailed it. It is beyond disgusting to see them normalize this slaughter and even demonize anyone opposed to the genocide
The ancillary to "decent" in this context is the expectation that one remain "respectful" of rank and power, especially toward those who invariably are behind the murder and mayhem rippling through human history.
Being "respectful" means never looking directly into the face of power, and never, ever, asking pointed questions or speaking forthrightly.
If I might add, I see this in the context of US politics, in which the use of the word, "decency' in connection with Biden, is being used in direct contrast with Donald Trump, to whom such an appellation could never be applied. This is true, even if Trump were to come out in opposition to Israeli genocide (which of course, he would not). This use of the word is detatched from anything other than certain observable personality traits, as you point out.
I would also suggest that the word 'decency' is in contrast to the famous remark asked of another Joseph, "You've done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?" That question being asked of Sen. Joseph McCarthy by yet another Joseph, Joseph Welch, chief counsel for the US Army. At that time, the idea of having no sense of decency was meaningful. In today's world, it is as quaint as apparently are the notions in the Geneva Convention, per the claim by former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales,
As a long time Bruce Springsteen fan imagine the anger and disappointment with this quote from him
“Joe Biden is like one of the fathers in the neighbourhood I grew up in as a kid. They were firemen and policeman, and there was an innate decency to most of them that he carries naturally with him. It’s very American”
Really Bruce? You are saying this about a senile fanatic who is co-producing a genocide? No longer a fan, I’m done.
Analogies to Nazi events when they're so spot on are great to learn from, especially when it's Hitler, Himmler, Goebbels or Göring giving the remarks. Biden is at the head of the US imperialist cabal after all though he can barely speak himself any more. When he was younger he was less "decent". His speeches were neocon propaganda barrages, delivered with all the usual presumed righteousness, while peddling lie after lie.
Excellent article. There are many ‘decent’ people currently ignoring a genocide because even to entertain the idea defiles their sense of mental decorum.
For Jost et al. to even ‘think’ of, let alone find mutual resonance in, the notion of decency reveals a form of disturbing rationality they are mired in. Consider the following from Foucault:
“All human behavior is scheduled and programmed through rationality. There is a logic of institutions and in behavior and in political relations. In even the most violent ones there is a rationality. What is most dangerous in violence is its rationality. Of course violence itself is terrible. But the deepest root of violence and its permanence come out of the form of the rationality we use. The idea had been that if we live in the world of reason, we can get rid of violence. This is quite wrong. Between violence and rationality there is no incompatibility.”
Decency is one of a plethora of vile, blood-stained platitudes that allow folks to remain in their own minds — sane and sanctimonious, untainted and undisturbed.
The pomp and decorum of such gatherings are also part of an apparatus of sustaining a distant, sanitized, yet giddy state. But here too courses (and lurks) a form of rationality where repetition of tropes and comedic asides — retain the needed veneer of shared pathology. Jost’s speech requires due effort, cleverness, curation, as well as an amnesic caesura, to achieve its effectiveness of droll and drool. Deleuze:
“It is not the slumber of reason that engenders monsters, but vigilant and insomniac rationality.”
Remember when Decent Joe plagiarized another persons biography, then claimed to have graduated at the top of his class (bottom quintile, actually)?
When he had prosecutors visit the whole house and coordinated lawfare campaigns with them in an unprecedented effort to steal an election he could never win fairly?
When he traveled the country making speeches that perpetrated lies about his opponent (“bloodbath” “he hates our military !”)?
When do we get to lock him in the basement again?
“Decent” is the last resort of the propagandists assigned the task of selling this senile old liar. The decent man who lied about the auto accident that killed his wife, claiming that the innocent man who stopped for the stop sign when Joe’s day drinking wife didn’t was responsible, until the poor man committed suicide.
“Decent” doesn’t really describe the man who has made millions peddling influence in Ukraine and Romania. “Decent” doesn’t even describe his record as President, as “Abysmal” would be more accurate.
Senile liar in chief.
In Ireland, ‘ decent’ is almost a superlative. Jost is sucking up too.
It seems another intent of creating a parallel reality with words, a virtual one to replace the perception of the ruins their empty dried souls are, in this case by a boatlicker trying to climb the ladder ... to hell.
The circular returning of the "decency" word in another genocidal context is remarcable. Thanks to show it.