No one considers that Jezebel has any power left. But alive, she had a narrative: Israel was to join the other states of the Levant in glory, and worship as they did. All the prophets of God were to be destroyed, idols placed in all cities, and the memory of the law was to be erased.
What mattered was power, and nothing else. Jezebel was a post modern, though ancient: she considered truth to be flexible, and required all bowed to her. It was the mercy of God that bought Elijah and Elisha to be prophets in that time. The current post modern autists are akin to her, but without the charm.
I do not want to see the post-Civil-War settlement undone. Thus, I’m in favor of letting Southerners keep their statues and their myths. We should let Southern heroes remain American heroes because that is what worked to pull the country back together – and because after the war so many of them really did argue for reconciliation.
There’s another reason I’m opposed to the statue-smashing that has nothing to do with the great settlement. That is: I believe the statue-smashers have a larger aim unrelated to any kind of justice.
Many of these people are, in effect, Red Guards. They don’t just want to erase icons of Confederate pride, they want to smash American pride. Statues of Columbus have already been defaced; I am pretty sure Washington and Jefferson will be next. The actual agenda is that Americans must be made to feel their nation was born in sin and cannot be redeemed – patriotism must be replaced with obsessive self-criticism and eternal guilt. Anything positive in our national mythos must be razed and replaced with Marxist cant.
If there were no other good reason for it, I’d defend everybody’s statuary just to oppose the Red Guards.
What does the end of this look like? The answer is that it is ugly, and that there is blood on the streets. The lies of the king no longer have power. The mantle of heaven has moved — in the case of Joram, literally, because Jehu had been anointed by the prophets as the new King of Israel, and shot Joram as he stood.
Joram was Jezebel’s son, and the last of that line.
17In Jezreel, the sentinel standing on the tower spied the company of Jehu arriving, and said, “I see a company.” Joram said, “Take a horseman; send him to meet them, and let him say, ‘Is it peace?’” 18So the horseman went to meet him; he said, “Thus says the king, ‘Is it peace?’” Jehu responded, “What have you to do with peace? Fall in behind me.” The sentinel reported, saying, “The messenger reached them, but he is not coming back.” 19Then he sent out a second horseman, who came to them and said, “Thus says the king, ‘Is it peace?’” Jehu answered, “What have you to do with peace? Fall in behind me.” 20Again the sentinel reported, “He reached them, but he is not coming back. It looks like the driving of Jehu son of Nimshi; for he drives like a maniac.”
21Joram said, “Get ready.” And they got his chariot ready. Then King Joram of Israel and King Ahaziah of Judah set out, each in his chariot, and went to meet Jehu; they met him at the property of Naboth the Jezreelite. 22When Joram saw Jehu, he said, “Is it peace, Jehu?” He answered, “What peace can there be, so long as the many whoredoms and sorceries of your mother Jezebel continue?” 23Then Joram reined about and fled, saying to Ahaziah, “Treason, Ahaziah!” 24Jehu drew his bow with all his strength, and shot Joram between the shoulders, so that the arrow pierced his heart; and he sank in his chariot. 25Jehu said to his aide Bidkar, “Lift him out, and throw him on the plot of ground belonging to Naboth the Jezreelite; for remember, when you and I rode side by side behind his father Ahab how the LORD uttered this oracle against him: 26‘For the blood of Naboth and for the blood of his children that I saw yesterday, says the LORD, I swear I will repay you on this very plot of ground.’ Now therefore lift him out and throw him on the plot of ground, in accordance with the word of the LORD.”
27When King Ahaziah of Judah saw this, he fled in the direction of Beth-haggan. Jehu pursued him, saying, “Shoot him also!” And they shot him in the chariot at the ascent to Gur, which is by Ibleam. Then he fled to Megiddo, and died there. 28His officers carried him in a chariot to Jerusalem, and buried him in his tomb with his ancestors in the city of David.
29In the eleventh year of Joram son of Ahab, Ahaziah began to reign over Judah.
30When Jehu came to Jezreel, Jezebel heard of it; she painted her eyes, and adorned her head, and looked out of the window. 31As Jehu entered the gate, she said, “Is it peace, Zimri, murderer of your master?” 32He looked up to the window and said, “Who is on my side? Who?” Two or three eunuchs looked out at him. 33He said, “Throw her down.” So they threw her down; some of her blood spattered on the wall and on the horses, which trampled on her. 34Then he went in and ate and drank; he said, “See to that cursed woman and bury her; for she is a king’s daughter.” 35But when they went to bury her, they found no more of her than the skull and the feet and the palms of her hands. 36When they came back and told him, he said, “This is the word of the LORD, which he spoke by his servant Elijah the Tishbite, ‘In the territory of Jezreel the dogs shall eat the flesh of Jezebel; 37the corpse of Jezebel shall be like dung on the field in the territory of Jezreel, so that no one can say, This is Jezebel.’”
It is worth noting that Jezebel liked having eunuchs: those who had gelded themselves. They were seen as tame, useful, but they cast her down. Her charms would not work on those who have the sexual desire of a plastic duck, if they were to work on anyone: Jezebel was no longer a young thot, but an aged tart. People had told her that she was beautiful too long, because that was the lie of the time.
But the big lie is an exercise in power, and it is hated.
Weaver explains that this form of propaganda is aimed at demeaning, humiliating, and eroding the self-respect of those who oppose the regime. It is an expression of pure power, in that the propagandist can force the victim to repeat a doctrine that both people know is untrue. There is no potential gain for the propagandist except insofar his enemy is psychological broken and defeated. There is no intention for the “Big Lie” to have any effect outside the torture chamber. Whether or not transgender individuals are accepted by society is irrelevant to the exercise of power by the Cathedral elites over marginally right-wing individuals.
The best illustration of this type of propaganda is the famous scene from 1984 when O’Brien asks Winston how many fingers he is holding up. O’Brien knows that he is holding up four fingers. He knows that Winston knows there are four fingers. O’Brien is not trying to torture Winston to the point that he will forever be incapable of distinguishing four and five fingers. O’Brien is simply exercising power by demonstrating that Winston is utterly powerless and that his very words and actions are controlled by the Party. As soon as he walks out of the room, O’Brien does not care how many fingers Winston sees, only that Winston recognizes the power O’Brien, and by extension the Party, wields over him.
In the end, Winston’s broken state is such that he no longer feels the capacity to resist the Party. When Winston says that he “loves Big Brother” at the end, this is not to be taken as an act of will, that somehow he has been “brainwashed” and now believes in Ingsoc. Winston has been hollowed of the capacity to love at all. The only thing he is capable of doing is mimicking the commands of the Party. Insofar as he “loves” Big Brother, he is simply repeating the motions commanded by the Party robotically.
The idea that everything is politics is a lie, and that lie does not last. We are not new soviet man. We cannot be made better. We are human. Glorious… and at times broken. The idea that we can progress is a lie that Jezebel taught.
And that error always ends in blood.