Back in the late 1980s and early 1990s, a spate of books and articles extolling the word “soul” became the rage in the United States. Soul became the chic word. It popped up everywhere. Everything seemed to acquire soul – cars, toasters, underwear, cats’ pajamas, assorted crap, kitsch, etc. Soul sold styles from boots to bras to bibelots from The New York Times to O Magazine.
The vogue in soul talk spread to every domain as everyone was commodified and capital was financialized. While political, economic, and ecological reality spun out of regular people’s control and they felt unable to feel connected to a religious tradition that cut through the materialistic and war miasma, they were ravaged with a hunger to devour, to consume. It was soul propaganda, highbrow New Ageism at its finest, the religious equivalent of an old-fashioned Ralph Lauren interior. It was the era of consuming souls in a society that had become a spiritual void. At least for those who had become divorced from their bodies and tradition at its best. Fantasy started to rapidly replace reality.
The great popularizer of this new sense of soul and self (though no-self would be more accurate) was Thomas Moore, the author of the best-selling book – Care of the Soul, “a pathbreaking lifestyle handbook” and soon to be soul franchise (The Soul of Sex, Soul Therapy, The Soul of Christmas, etc.) His works replaced the idea of an existential self with a precious, epicurean conception. “You have a soul, the tree in front of your house has a soul, but so too does the car parked under the tree,” he said, adding that things “have as much personality and independence as I do.” Ah, soul!
Not soul as I once learned in Catholic school: the essence of human freedom and consciousness in God united with the body.
Definitely not soul as the essence of a person bound by conscience to God and other human beings.
Not soul as in “For what shall it profit a man if he should gain the whole world and lose his soul.”
Not even soul as the dictionary defines it” “the immortal essence of an individual life.”
Although I have seen this soul-talk used for decades now to sell all sorts of bullshit and thought I couldn’t be surprised by any more usage, I just stumbled on one that took my breath away. I read in Life Undercover, a memoir by RFK, Jr.’s presidential campaign manager, daughter-in-law, and former CIA spy under nonofficial cover in the Middle East, Southeast Asia, and North Africa, Amaryllis Fox (Kennedy), that CIA work is “soulful work.” I didn’t know this. I thought its job was to spy, kill, and foment chaos for its Wall St handlers (with certain exceptions being some analysts who gather information). I recall former CIA Director Mike Pompeo saying, “I was the CIA director. We lied, we cheated, we stole. It’s – it was like – we had entire training courses. It reminds you of the glory of the American experiment.” Or as my friend Doug Valentine, an expert on the CIA, puts it, the CIA is “Organized Crime,” not a bunch of soul-force workers out to feed the hungry and clothe the naked. He writes:
CIA and military intelligence units now operate out of a global network of bases, as well as secret jails and detention sites operated by complicit secret police interrogators. Their strategic intelligence networks in any nation are protected by corrupt warlords and politicians, the ‘friendly civilians’ who supply the death squads that in fact are their private militias, funded largely by drug smuggling and other criminal activities.
Yet Fox effusively thanks her CIA colleagues for their great work and for making her the woman she has become. “Your allegiance is to the flag, to the Constitution, to some higher power, be that God or Love,” she writes in gratitude.
For some reason, I don’t think the assassinated JFK or RFK would buy her love talk; rather, they may quote another eloquent Irish-American, the playwright Eugene O’Neill: “God damn you, stop shoving your rotten soul in my lap.”
The man Fox is trying to elect president of the U.S., Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., also wrote a memoir – American Values – that revolves around an indictment of the CIA for an endless series of crimes: “What are we going to do about the CIA?” he quotes his father saying to his aide Fred Dutton at the beginning of JFK’s presidency, before both Kennedys had yet to be killed by the soulful CIA. Kennedy, Jr. writes:
Critics warned that the ‘tail’ of the covert operations branch would inevitably wag the dog of intelligence gathering (espionage). And indeed , the clandestine services quickly subsumed the CIA’s espionage function as the Agency’s intelligence analysts increasingly provided justification for the CIA’s endless interventions.
Fifty-six years later his campaign manager Fox Kennedy – you can’t make this weirdness up – married to RFK, III, is touting the soulful work of the Agency. She replaced Dennis Kucinich, who was a strong a supporter of the Palestinians. Is Fox and RFK, Jr.’s relationship a matter of what the Boss says to Luke in the iconic movie Cool Hand Luke – “What we got here is failure to communicate” – or the kind of communication that takes place in elite circles behind closed doors?
Sometimes sick people utter truths that lead to sardonic assent. They remind you of history that is so shameful you cringe. Fox and Pompeo also seem to live in separate realities, their psyches twisted by some deep evil force for which they both worked.
And here we are in another presidential election year. When you think about presidential politics, you have to laugh. I like to laugh, so I think about them from time to time. It’s always a bad joke, but that’s why they are funny. It makes no difference whether the president is Ford, Nixon, Carter, Reagan, George H. W. Bush, Clinton, Bush Jr., Obama, Trump, Biden, or anyone who tries to square the oval office for their special sort of big change that never comes. Those who tell you with a straight face that the lesser of two (or more) evils is better than nothing have not studied history. They choose the evil of two lessers and wash their hands. They live on pipe dreams, as Eugene O’Neill put it in his play The Iceman Cometh:
To hell with the truth! As the history of the world proves, the truth has no bearing on anything. It’s irrelevant and immaterial, as the lawyers say. The lie of a pipe dream is what gives life to the whole misbegotten mad lot of us, drunk or sober.
I am reminded of advice I was given during the immoral and illegal Vietnam War when I had decided to apply for a discharge from the Marines as a conscientious objector. But if you don’t go to the war, people said to me with straight faces, some poor draftee will. The military needs good people. To which I would often respond: Like the country needs good commanders-in-chief such as Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon. It’s like what people say about buying a lottery ticket when your odds are 1 in 500,000,000 – someone has to win. Ha! Ha! Never reject the system is always the message.
Contemplating U.S. history for the past fifty-five plus years confirms the continuity of government policy for war and economic policies that enrich the wealthy at the expense of the working class and massacre the innocent around the world. But we can pretend otherwise. For an egregious recent example, the three leading candidates in this year’s election – Biden, Trump, and RFK, Jr. – all stand firmly behind the Israeli genocide in Gaza that any human being with a soul would condemn.
That these men are controlled by the Israel Lobby is obvious, but we can pretend otherwise.
That this is corruption is obvious, but we can pretend otherwise.
We can pretend and pretend and pretend all we want because we are living in a pretend society.
What’s that old Rodney Dangerfield joke: the problem with happiness is that it can’t buy you money? Well, the problem with presidential politics is it can’t buy you the truth, but if you do it right it can fetch you money, a lot of corrupt money to help you rise to the pinnacle of a corrupt government. For the truth is that the CIA/NSA run U.S. foreign war policy and the presidents are figureheads, actors in a society that lost all connection to reality on November 22, 1963.
Scotte Ritter has recently written the following about the CIA and its spearheading of the U.S. war against Russia through Ukraine:
Now, amid such a tense environment, it appears the C.I.A. has not only green-lighted an actual invasion of the Russian Federation, but more than likely was involved in its planning, preparation and execution.
Never in the history of the nuclear era has such danger of nuclear war been so manifest.
That the American people have allowed their government to create the conditions where foreign governments can determine their fate and the C.I.A. can carry out a secret war which could trigger a nuclear conflict, eviscerates the notion of democracy.
If this is soulful work, God help us.
Ask the 32,000 + dead Palestinians in Gaza whose voices cry out for justice while the top presidential contenders cheer on the Israeli/U.S. slaughter.
“The terrible truth is,” writes Douglass Valentine, “that a Cult of Death rules America and is hell-bent on world domination.”
And yes, presidential politics is a funny diversion from that reality. Eugene O’Neill could be humorous also. He played the Iceman theme to perfection, the Grim Reaper of two faces.
There was a tale circulating in the 1930s that a man came home and called upstairs to his wife, “Has the iceman come yet?” “No,” she replied, “but he’s breathing hard.”
Your blog is a gratitude celebration, and I’m thankful for the joyful atmosphere you create. Thank you for the constant festivities!
I differ with the agreeable opinions thus far in the comments.
Time makes more converts than reason said Thomas Paine.
One reality test IS which of the 3 top candidates for President would free Julian Assange. Biden and Trump did not when they had the executive power to do so, yet RFK will. I see RFK Jr, whose uncle JFK was assassinated, his father assassinated, and his brother’s plane “disappeared” over the bay, has some reality checks and understandings that we dear readers do not. There are things I do not like or agree with that RFK said … BUT he comes up on top of the Donkey and Elephant is the room.
Thanks, Ed.
I think the case of RFK JR is rather instructive. Here’s a man who knows what the score is because it happened to his own family and his eyes are not shut like other members of the family.
And yet, he buys into the “security” nonsense of the theocratic ethno-state which conducts assassinations as a matter of state policy and employs close to himself a member of the murderous bureaucracy that destroyed his family …
Little displays the diseased soul of the nation better. So, in a way, Ms. Fox was right in celebrating the soul of her past agency …
Edward: Another great revolutionary progressive article, i really enjoyed reading it. The US government and CIA would do a real soulful if it cared about the buying power, and real wages of the creators of wealth of the country (The working class) by elevating the minimum wage to 15 dollars per hour, increasing the amount of money for the food stamps program and raising the amount of money for the coverage of the medicaid and medicare programs.
Here is a letter from the US government to Karl Marx, when the US government was progressive:
Source: https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/iwma/documents/1864/lincoln-letter.htm
Sir:
I am directed to inform you that the address of the Central Council of your Association, which was duly transmitted through this Legation to the President of the United [States], has been received by him.
So far as the sentiments expressed by it are personal, they are accepted by him with a sincere and anxious desire that he may be able to prove himself not unworthy of the confidence which has been recently extended to him by his fellow citizens and by so many of the friends of humanity and progress throughout the world.
The Government of the United States has a clear consciousness that its policy neither is nor could be reactionary, but at the same time it adheres to the course which it adopted at the beginning, of abstaining everywhere from propagandism and unlawful intervention. It strives to do equal and exact justice to all states and to all men and it relies upon the beneficial results of that effort for support at home and for respect and good will throughout the world.
Nations do not exist for themselves alone, but to promote the welfare and happiness of mankind by benevolent intercourse and example. It is in this relation that the United States regard their cause in the present conflict with slavery, maintaining insurgence as the cause of human nature, and they derive new encouragements to persevere from the testimony of the workingmen of Europe that the national attitude is favored with their enlightened approval and earnest sympathies.
I have the honor to be, sir, your obedient servant,
Charles Francis Adams
All empire’s since Rome are but half lives to the one preceding.
Thanks for the pointing out instructions Ed. Remain fearless. The source of danger is fear.
Fox is a bimbo.
Her babbling about her job in the CIA is hilarious exaggerations and foolish mischaracterizations.
Anything she has to say about her “work” there should be ignored.
The term “lost soul” is now at least a double-entendre. The Day The Music Died is 60 years behind us, and it’s been downhill ever since. I doubt we’ve hit bottom yet.
Your clear-headedness is much appreciated. The truth must have a voice, even if it’s currently submerged in a dominant cacophony.
You are right, the song Bye, bye Miss American Pie would be a good song for today, and maybe when we will see US working class and poor peasants rising up, the song “The Times are Changing” by Bob Dylan and the song Renegades of Funk by Rage Against the Machine
Lyrics of Renegades of Funk by Rage Against The Machine
No matter how hard you try, you can’t stop us now
No matter how hard you try, you can’t stop us now
We’re the renegades of this atomic age
This atomic age of renegades
Renegades of this atomic age
This atomic age of renegades
Since the Prehistoric ages and the days of ancient Greece
Right down through the Middle Ages
Planet Earth kept going through changes
And then no renaissance came (Came)
And times continued to change (Change)
Nothing stayed the same, but there were always renegades
Like Chief Sitting Bull, Tom Paine
Dr. Martin Luther King, Malcolm X
They were renegades of their time and age
So many renegades!
We’re the renegades of funk
We’re the renegades of funk
We’re the renegades of funk
We’re the renegades of funk
From a different solar system
Many, many galaxies away
We are the force of another creation
A new musical revelation
And we’re on this musical mission, to help the others listen
And groove from land to land, singing electronic chants like
Zulu Nation
Revelations
Destroy all nations
Destroy all nations
Destroy all nations
Destroy all nations
Destroy all nations
Destroy all nations
Now renegades are the people with their own philosophies
They change the course of history
Everyday people like you and me
We’re the renegades, we’re the people with our own philosophies
We change the course of history
Everyday people like you and me
Come on
We’re the renegades of funk
We’re the renegades of funk
We’re the renegades of funk
We’re the renegades of funk
With Popping, socking, rocking putting a side of hip-hop
Because where we’re going there ain’t no stopping
Popping, socking, rocking, putting a side of hip-hop
Because where we’re going there ain’t no stopping
Popping and socking and rocking and putting a side of hip-hop
‘Cause we’re popping, socking, rocking putting a side of hip-hop
Popping, socking, rocking putting a side of HIP-HOP!!
We’re the renegades of funk
We’re the renegades of funk
We’re the renegades of funk
We’re the renegades of funk
We’re teachers of the funk and not of empty popping
We’re blessed with the force and the sight of electronics
With the bass, and the treble, the horns, and our vocals
‘Cause every time I pop into the beat, we get fresh
Come on
Come on
There was a time when our music
Was something called “The Bay Street” beat
People would gather from all around
To get down to the big sound
You had to be a renegade in those days
To take a man to the dance floor
Say jam sucker (Jam sucker)
Say jam sucker (Jam sucker)
Say groove sucker (Move sucker)
Now groove sucker (Move sucker)
Now dance sucker (Dance sucker)
Now dance sucker (Dance sucker)
Say move sucker (Move sucker)
Now move sucker (Move sucker)
Say jam sucker (Jam sucker)
Say jam sucker (Jam sucker)
Say groove sucker (Move sucker)
Now groove sucker (Move sucker)
Say dance sucker (Dance sucker)
Say dance sucker (Dance sucker)
Say move sucker (Move sucker)
Now move sucker (Move sucker)
We’re the renegades of funk
We’re the renegades of funk
We’re the renegades of funk
We’re the renegades of funk
We’re the renegades of funk
We’re the renegades of funk
We’re the renegades of funk
We’re the renegades of funk
Ed, thank you for this essay.
It would appear that the mystical nature of the CIA’s “soul” was recently on display earlier this month when the U.S. embassy somehow divined that a terror attack would occur in Russia soon – and low and behold – right on cue. The embassy “warned” U.S. citizens to be on the “alert” – though it wasn’t made clear just “what variety of alert” Americans should be on – red, orange, yellow, blue, magenta polka dot, or whether one should be sure to – “say something – if you see something.” It was more like a – “you know, just be careful, things happen” – kind of an alert. The kind of “alert” your local mafia extortion collector might issue if one is late on the weekly “protection racket” payment.
Repeated recent predictions by other U.S. and Ukrainian officials of a coming – “nasty surprise” – awaiting Russia only add to the mysterious mystical predictive nature of the CIA’s “soulful work.”
Yes indeed, politics in America, and the West in general these days, is nothing but a “funny diversion” from reality. As my wife Annie likes to describe the bi-partisan war machine’s efforts to appear to be instead mortal enemies – “its all just theatre.” In the case of American presidential politics – the most extravagant theatre production on the planet, bar none.
You have brilliantly nailed it once again Ed. Thank you. As a friend of my says, as he watches the craziness: “It is beyond parody.”
RFK Jr. had credibility. But he blows up his entire campaign by embracing Israel and its killing machine (giving away the anti-war vote), the deep-state via his new campaign manager Fox (giving away the anti-deep-state vote), and picking a leftist lawyer climber hack to be his VP (losing the Libertarian vote). Truly amazing. You could not have scripted it that badly if you tried.