Imperialist Beasts & the Denial Syndrome

Painful truths are avoided. Denied. A biological mechanism of the human condition generates this defensive strategy. Ridiculing or condemning the person who clings to beliefs that conflict with reality serves no purpose. We all fall victim to denial at times. Some forms of denial are minor and temporary, others major and stable. Even the best and the brightest can imprison their intellect under the denial syndrome.

Our brain consumes enormous quantities of energy in proportion to its size. It’s a very expensive organ. We form mental structures to conserve energy and these structures resist change. Reasoning has little effect on stable beliefs fashioned in strong mental structures. If they are to change, they must be battered by reality. Time and time again.

The character of the USA can serve as an example of how the denial syndrome works. Many people, particulary in the West and especially Americans, have grown up with a positive view of the USA as a great democracy. They cling to this view despite overwhelming evidence that the so-called democracy behaves like an imperialist beast, devouring justice, nature and people.

Guantanamo prison should be enough to expose the merciless and criminal character of the USA. The treatment of the prisoners violates international law and is ”malum in se”, that is to say, wrong regardless of laws.

Invading a country (Iraq) on false premises and killing a million people qualifies as the ultimate international crime, but is, at best, regarded as a mistake.

Drone bombing ”suspected militants” in foreign countries and ”collateral damaging” children to death in the process should also lay bare the merciless and criminal nature of these beasts, but it passes with barely a ho-hum.

Support of the vicious Israeli treatment and attempted annihilation of the Palestinians should function as a spotlight on immorality. Yet the rulers can parade as honorable people despite the purity of their evil.

Fracking, supporting criminal banksters, allowing exploitation of underpaid workers, overfilled prisons, lack of child and health support …

The denial of the average propaganda-saturated citizen victimized by consumerism and the me-me-me culture is understandable. The denial of many ”aware”, critical and progressive people, on the other hand, demonstrates the full extend of the denial syndrome. These people try to influence the beasts. They demonstrate for them, petition them, appeal to them, hope that they will change, etc.

The denial syndrome!

 

“Fear not the weapons of fire and steel,
they are not as powerful as truth,
as helpful as solidarity
or as determined as love.”
Dartwill Aquila

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