During the 1950s in France, there was a show over French radio and, eventually, on French
Television called “You’re Terrific”, hosted by Jean Nohain. In the years following the end of
World War II, the French turned a blind eye to their atrocities against the Algerian community,
imposing their colonial oppression upon them, while Nohain and his ilk were telling the French people c’est formid, c’est sympa, c’est sensass , which roughly translate to: you’re great, you’re nice, you’re terrific. Every week, Nohain would have on his show some supposedly downtrodden, needy family, and the French people would call in and offer their possessions,
from mattresses to food to cars, to these poor, poor souls. And every week, they would be
applauded for their “generosity”, even though people were aware that doing this helped no one,
in the same way that people who got nice cars from Oprah almost immediately lost them or had
to sell them because the property tax on them were outlandish. As they continued to fund
colonial oppression, accept forms of Petainist anti-Semitism, and allow police brutality against the working class, the French people were told they were great, they were nice, and they were terrific.
Sound familiar? Welcome to America; home of police brutality, corporate indentured servitude,
for-profit prisons, and overseas interventions against democratically elected leaders in other countries. A land where a reality TV show con man became President, a bourgeois journalist accosted a congressman asking for just $2,000 more for people who had to survive a pandemic on $1,200 over a whole year . Where a Vice President being a woman is more important than her record as an Attorney General, where she contributed to the imposing of racist and classist laws
on communities who were brutalized by the police. As we celebrate our “peaceful transition of power”, we hinder the transfer of power around the world. Americans are not only distracted by shiny things, they celebrate being easily distracted. How dare I not chase the shiny lights being reflected off the gold coins that the rich hold on to as we fight each other to be in these reflected lights?
And here comes Biden. He will fix it all. He is great, he is nice, he is terrific. And so are you, for
the low price of your loyalty. The number of people who have taken Biden and his
administration as some kind of savior has caused my muscles to cramp from cringing so much.
Whether it is accosting Senator Sanders for appearing unhappy (even though any observer,
including those with thick glasses like myself, can note that his mask covers his face so we do
not actually know what his facial expression was), the variously expressed “fantasies” about
Kamala Harris and Joe Biden, to the declaration that Biden’s inauguration was a “historical moment”, one finds themselves wondering why goats are cheering for jackals because they are wearing different hats. If you want, that badly, to be in Mrs. Harris’ thoughts, start dying of thirst; you might become a part of one of her tasteless jokes.
One thing I love to do is watch our society act out primitive traditions, closing its eyes and
calling it “modern”, “peaceful”, or “proper”. This inauguration, and the steps leading to it, is nothing but a modern play acting of a primitive instinct, with Trump as a scapegoat, whom we have spoken our sins to and sent out into the deserts. But people should read about this practice, perhaps take an uncolored glance to the past; there are always two goats, and where one gets sent into the desert, carrying away our “sins”, the other is kept here as a blood sacrifice to a god. If we are watching Trump leave , what does that mean for us, who have stayed ?
The orgasmic response to Biden by the petit bourgeoisie is almost as frightening as the orgy the lumpenproletariat in the name of Trump for the last four years; one’s ability to think finds new lows after one has satiated their sexual longings. That's why one never notices they are getting fucked until a little later, because shame is always an afterthought. Their prejudices are up, their suspicions are simmering, and their introspection doesn’t exist; the American electorate is not made up of voters, but of different mobs, and all we saw yesterday was a different mob win control of the ability to tell you what to do. That is the cheapness of democracy; when you say to the mob, “You realize this won’t change anything”, and you get a screaming reproach. You don’t understand, the mob doesn’t care about that kind of change, and they won’t stop to consider that the change is purely performative. They want it to be completely performative. They are just happy to no longer be wandering the desert, carrying the “sins” of the last performative ceremony, to have been invited back into the fold, to once again be part of our social blood
sacrifice, sending out the new scapegoats with a kick to the ass.
Because they are great, they are nice, and they are terrific.
