When Sixty Minutes interviewed McPherson, he had this to say:
"We're merely exposing something that I don't think a lot of people know exists. I think it's interesting. I can't imagine what would make somebody do the things that Rufus was doing to himself...."
Not surprisingly, McPherson claimed to see no connection between his DVD productions, the millions of teens watching them, and the proliferation of "bum hunting". It is interesting to note that one of the teens who participated in the slaying of a homeless person told Sixty Minutes that he had watched Bum Fights "hundreds of times" before the murder.
While the reprehensible McPherson and his grotesque digitally captured exploitations of miserable souls almost certainly contributed heavily to the popularity of "bum hunting", McPherson, his perversities, and "bum hunting" are merely symptoms of an insidious disease afflicting the collective psyche of the United States at a profound level.
Beware the shadow...
It is true that since time immemorial, the wealthy and powerful of human society have exploited and preyed upon the poor and vulnerable. The tendency to abuse power is an inherent aspect of the shadow side of each human being.
A spiritually healthy human being acknowledges their shadow side and integrates it into their being, hence minimizing the shadow's destructive tendencies.
However, when repressed and denied, the shadow side of the human psyche often manifests itself in a variety of violent and malevolent ways. And throughout its history, social, economic, and political forces in the United States have served to nurture the growth of the collective national shadow into a loathsome monstrosity.
What feeds the beast?
Moral superiority has been a critical piece of the argument the United States has used to justify the genocide of the Native Americans, the enslavement of Black Americans, the support of numerous murderous dictators supporting US interests in developing nations, unwavering support for the Palestinian genocide, and the slaughter of millions of civilians in imperial wars waged under the pretext of fighting for freedom and human rights. People in the United States are psychologically conditioned to believe that their nation is the salvation of humanity and to ignore or destroy evidence to the contrary.
Nearly endless streams of propaganda extolling the virtues of the United States enable large numbers of US Americans to support a ruthless empire because they believe it to be a benevolent superpower. Aside from people suffering a serious deficit of conscience, those living in a nearly perpetual state of denial are virtually the only ones capable of pledging their loyalty to a nation with a predacious foreign policy and a morally bankrupt economic system.
How else would one explain the corporate media and the Empire's loyal adherents celebrating Congress' passage of the Military Commissions Act as a "victory"? Even after viewing numerous explicit photos of the blatant torture committed by the United States military at Abu Ghraib, a frightening number of US citizens remain unperturbed by the fact that a man who would be fortunate to flirt with a score of 100 on an IQ test now has the power to define and authorize torture, to imprison virtually anyone as a "terrorist", and to negate Habeas Corpus.
Remember when the Magna Carta was the basis for our legal tradition? How absurd that people actually believed that this excerpt from that other "goddamn piece of paper" was a cornerstone of a just society:
No freeman shall be taken, imprisoned, . . . or in any other way destroyed . . . except by the lawful judgment of his peers, or by the law of the land. To no one will we sell, to none will we deny or delay, right or justice.
Many in the United States have welcomed shredding both the Magna Carta and the Constitution by entrusting a feeble-minded tyrant with nearly absolute power. In their delusion, Bush will protect the United States from the "evil terrorists" by continuing to kill hundreds of thousands of innocent human beings who had nothing to do with 9/11. Denial is indeed a potent force. It enables supporters of the Bush Regime to continue believing that they live in a benevolent meritocracy that actively pursues peace, freedom, and justice for the entire human race. And it prevents them from even considering that they might become The Decider's next victim.
And the profound suffering of the past, present, and future innocent victims of the "Torture Bill" is not even on the radar screen of the Empire's loyalists. Empathy and compassion are scarce commodities indeed in the United States. And why wouldn't they be?
"We're merely exposing something that I don't think a lot of people know exists. I think it's interesting. I can't imagine what would make somebody do the things that Rufus was doing to himself...."
Not surprisingly, McPherson claimed to see no connection between his DVD productions, the millions of teens watching them, and the proliferation of "bum hunting". It is interesting to note that one of the teens who participated in the slaying of a homeless person told Sixty Minutes that he had watched Bum Fights "hundreds of times" before the murder.
While the reprehensible McPherson and his grotesque digitally captured exploitations of miserable souls almost certainly contributed heavily to the popularity of "bum hunting", McPherson, his perversities, and "bum hunting" are merely symptoms of an insidious disease afflicting the collective psyche of the United States at a profound level.
Beware the shadow...
It is true that since time immemorial, the wealthy and powerful of human society have exploited and preyed upon the poor and vulnerable. The tendency to abuse power is an inherent aspect of the shadow side of each human being.
A spiritually healthy human being acknowledges their shadow side and integrates it into their being, hence minimizing the shadow's destructive tendencies.
However, when repressed and denied, the shadow side of the human psyche often manifests itself in a variety of violent and malevolent ways. And throughout its history, social, economic, and political forces in the United States have served to nurture the growth of the collective national shadow into a loathsome monstrosity.
What feeds the beast?
Moral superiority has been a critical piece of the argument the United States has used to justify the genocide of the Native Americans, the enslavement of Black Americans, the support of numerous murderous dictators supporting US interests in developing nations, unwavering support for the Palestinian genocide, and the slaughter of millions of civilians in imperial wars waged under the pretext of fighting for freedom and human rights. People in the United States are psychologically conditioned to believe that their nation is the salvation of humanity and to ignore or destroy evidence to the contrary.
Nearly endless streams of propaganda extolling the virtues of the United States enable large numbers of US Americans to support a ruthless empire because they believe it to be a benevolent superpower. Aside from people suffering a serious deficit of conscience, those living in a nearly perpetual state of denial are virtually the only ones capable of pledging their loyalty to a nation with a predacious foreign policy and a morally bankrupt economic system.
How else would one explain the corporate media and the Empire's loyal adherents celebrating Congress' passage of the Military Commissions Act as a "victory"? Even after viewing numerous explicit photos of the blatant torture committed by the United States military at Abu Ghraib, a frightening number of US citizens remain unperturbed by the fact that a man who would be fortunate to flirt with a score of 100 on an IQ test now has the power to define and authorize torture, to imprison virtually anyone as a "terrorist", and to negate Habeas Corpus.
Remember when the Magna Carta was the basis for our legal tradition? How absurd that people actually believed that this excerpt from that other "goddamn piece of paper" was a cornerstone of a just society:
No freeman shall be taken, imprisoned, . . . or in any other way destroyed . . . except by the lawful judgment of his peers, or by the law of the land. To no one will we sell, to none will we deny or delay, right or justice.
Many in the United States have welcomed shredding both the Magna Carta and the Constitution by entrusting a feeble-minded tyrant with nearly absolute power. In their delusion, Bush will protect the United States from the "evil terrorists" by continuing to kill hundreds of thousands of innocent human beings who had nothing to do with 9/11. Denial is indeed a potent force. It enables supporters of the Bush Regime to continue believing that they live in a benevolent meritocracy that actively pursues peace, freedom, and justice for the entire human race. And it prevents them from even considering that they might become The Decider's next victim.
And the profound suffering of the past, present, and future innocent victims of the "Torture Bill" is not even on the radar screen of the Empire's loyalists. Empathy and compassion are scarce commodities indeed in the United States. And why wouldn't they be?
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
