A *Pet Sematary* country ruling a *Saló* world; and then, the deluge?

A child’s misspelling of “cemetery” gives the film its title

The horror film Pet Sematary always struck me as offering an explanation for the United States.

Sure, it bypasses the actual historical chain of causation that led to the current atrocity of an empire, with all of its “collateral damage” at home and abroad. That history (and there is little evidence of a biological component) wouldn’t fit into a movie; so the film uses magic or spirituality in its place. The pet cemetery in the film was a Native American burial ground desecrated by European settler-genocidaires, who buried their dead pets in it. This moral violation (not the genocide and ethnic cleansing, mind you) compelled god/gods or spirits or something immaterial to get revenge, by reanimating the dead pets’ corpses and turning them into zombie killers attacking the settlers.

And what is the United States today other than a country built on top of Native American burial grounds and mass graves alike? A country created out of exterminating some tribes in whole and others in part, with survivors ethnically cleansed out of desirable land and concentrated in inhospitable land. (Until natural resources were discovered; then, treaties would be broken and people ethnically cleansed into even less desirable land.) Thousands of peoples, their cultures and languages, annihilated, and their sacred lands paved over into soul-sucking suburban sprawl, an interchangeable geography of nowhere.

Breezewood, PA on Allegewi territory? Or Courtland, AZ on Hopi territory? Or Seaside, FL on Calusa territory? Or Collinsville, IL on Inoka territory? Or… etc.

In Pet Sematary logic, this is the sort of crime that cries out for vengeance, and the gods/spirits would answer with an appropriate curse. (Nothing approximating justice, mind you – these were the same gods/spirits twiddling their thumbs while the genocide was ongoing – but a curse regardless.) Something like inspiring at least one mass shooting per day. Or spreading mental illness so far and wide that one out of every ten people experience a mental health crisis each year, and one out of every three people have to take anti-depressants. Or, driving hundreds of thousands of people every year into such deep despair that they kill themselves via alcohol, other drugs, or other means.

As if by a curse its ruling class merited, the United States is very much a Pet Sematary country. But what of the world that same ruling class rules?

…

There have been only two films that have emotionally disturbed me to the point of having to turn my eyes away. Not sexually disgusted, like Lust, Caution; or causing a gag reflex, like The Platform. But so emotionally disturbed I had to abort the suspension of disbelief, turn away from the screen, and remind myself that I’m only watching actors on a film set. These were The Untold Story, and Saló, or the 120 Days of Sodom.

Dramatizing the story of a serial killer in Macau, The Untold Story (八仙飯店之人肉叉燒包) tricks viewers into complacency with some comedic elements, before culminating in a horrific scene where an entire family is murdered. The scene is so gruesome and evil – the family includes little children – and the acting/directing so well done, I had to turn away from the screen and distract myself. And the difference between what this psychotic mass murderer did in Macau, and what the Israeli military has done countless times with its “Where’s Daddy?” bombings in Gaza, is that the individual serial killer only murdered one family, but did so far slower and more personally than pushing a button from kilometers away that crushed dozens of families to death with the weight of rubble that used to be their homes.

Saló was Pasolini’s final film before being murdered by his right-wing political opponents. It depicts a horrid fascist dystopia, or utopia for fascists, in which a few oligarchs, representing the bases of power in Europe, kidnap teenage boys and girls for torture and murder.

These victims have little to say in the film. There is some pleading for a quick death by one or two of the characters, but in the main, they seem shocked or terrified into paralysis. As if by remaining silent, their tormentors might overlook them and pick someone else to rape, or force to eat excrement. Or perhaps not even so hopeful: maybe by remaining silent, their torture and eventual murder will be just a fraction less painful.

As several viewers have noted, in Saló these characters seem like mute bodies, existing only to be abused for others’ gain and pleasure.

Now if you have been reading aloud, and someone starting paying attention at “mute bodies existing only to be abused for others’ gain and pleasure,” that someone is doubtless now convinced that you are reading about Europe.

I have long maintained that Europe, after breaking its own mass-murder records with WWII, managed to begin flirting with civilization for several decades; but has lately been reverting to its traditional barbarism. It is heading back to grotesque levels of wealth and income inequality, of course, but even Europe’s ancestral servility is returning – this time, not to a local monarch or aristocrat or bishop, but to a foreign government. And this servility is not of the masses toward the elite (as far as I know), but of the elite toward Daddy.

(from Saló) Inspection time: finding no evidence of courage, independence, or shame, the U.S. ruling class deems these candidates suitable to serve the empire as PMs and MPs in Europe

But to be fair, and to repair what might otherwise be perceived as an insult to the fictional characters in Saló by equating them with European leaders, the victims in the film had no real choice. Death wasn’t even an option; any attempt at rebellion or escape may well have been met with even worse tortures.

But Europe’s leaders today? What do they face by refusing to submit to the fascists in Washington? Losing their position, sure, and being replaced by a suitably obedient rival. But that’s a far cry from being scalped, or being forced at gunpoint to eat bread with sharp nails baked inside.

They also fear the loss of U.S. military support for NATO, or rather, the loss of NATO as it is: the U.S. military in European forward posture, with a few European divisions for U.S. generals to command. With such a loss, Russian tanks will be driving down Lisbon’s avenues in a fortnight.

Hence support for the most documented genocide in history? If that’s what Daddy wants, that’s what Daddy gets. Support for a flagrant war of aggression, differing from Russia’s 2022-ongoing war of aggression only in that the latter was at least provoked? Daddy gets what Daddy wants. Tear up international law, or at least make it undeniable that it has been turned into cobwebs, strong enough only to catch flies and gnats but letting wasps and hornets break through (as Jonathan Swift noted)? Daddy knows best.

But send our own naval assets to fight the Iranian military in the Straight of Hormuz? Um, Daddy, about that…

Cowardice, which secures U.S. dominance in Europe in every other respect, here results in what might otherwise be mistaken for a courageous show of independence. For now. But Daddy will keep trying.

And all to keep fighting a war with Russia that could easily be ended, if the theory were true that the Russian government has been acting predictably (or as was predicted by foreign policy experts from left to right since the 1990s) in reaction to NATO expansion. And that this – not fantasies of a greater Russia or metaphysical mumbo-jumbo about ethno-national roots – was the driving factor behind the Russian government launching this war of aggression. This theory could of course be tested via diplomacy; but it has not been, and seemingly will not be by the current European misleadership class.

Better do what Daddy says, or else the war that we could end by creating our own security architecture that would secure peace and independence… won’t end… and that… would be bad. Because Putin would win? Or something. Whatever, just don’t talk back to Daddy. Daddy didn’t pick us for our smarts, after all, he picked us for our subservience.

It isn’t only Europe that is now Saló-land; it is the world. Japan’s and South Korea’s leadership, the emirs and sheikhs of the Gulf Statelets, and the ruling classes of the Americas, all are bound to Daddy. Even when Daddy takes the military defenses you bought and gives them to its 51st state, Israel; even when Daddy’s protection, bought at an exorbitant price in oil, proves to be worse than worthless, the opposite of a deterrent that instead attracts attacks; and of course when Daddy economically bullies you, your only acceptable response is to bow ever more deeply.

Japanese PM Sanae Takaichi, center, with the UAE’s MBZ (left) and Saudi’s MBS (right)

The only other option would be to pay the costs of solving the collective action problem. To fashion a parallel if not alternative world order excluding the U.S.

As of writing, the Pet Sematary country is threatening a new round of war crimes against Iran, to begin in a matter of hours: attacking civilian infrastructure including power plants and bridges. Will Trump TACO before his thrice-extended deadline? Morality aside, that would be the rational thing to do, to avoid the retaliation against U.S.-ally Gulf Statelets threatening their viability and existence. But the rational thing to do a mere several weeks ago would have been to not wage an illegal war of aggression.

And would that even be rational from a Unitedstatesian crackpot’s perspective, that is, the U.S. government’s? Or from Israeli fanatic’s perspective, that is, the Israeli government’s? Or vice versa? Maybe it would be better to destroy the GCC countries, Libya-fy or Syria-fy Iran and Yemen, and have the 51st state rule over the resulting hell. If the unthinkable actually happens, and the Iranian government does not capitulate to the U.S. in several hours from writing, then the “logic” of many of the U.S.’ brightest wannabe Machiavellis working in the administration will be to commit more mass murder and destruction. Seemingly only The Market – Its will expressed in the Dow and S&P graphs of rich people’s feelings – and its relationship with Trump’s ego, could prevent this.

And so it is with a Pet Sematary country ruling a Saló world. After this: the deluge?

Or rather, the deluges, fires, superstorms, and droughts, leading to famines, mass migrations, and (more) wars. Because while attention has swung from Covid to Ukraine to Gaza to Iran, in the interim the laws of physics haven’t been repealed, and we are still in the midst of an ecological crisis that has only gotten worse. It promises more, far more, of what we are already in the grip of: mass murder and destruction.

Even if we were to end the wars of aggression in Ukraine and Iran, the genocide in Gaza, the strangulation of Cuba and the imperialism-via-kidnapping in Venezuela, we would then face the challenge of fundamentally transforming the global economic system for long-term sustainability. This would of necessity be a page-one rewrite: decarbonization and electrification for starters, but also reshaping global supply chains for energy efficiency and resilience, redesigning products for maximum lifespan with repairs, transforming agriculture and aquaculture, and more. The scope of this existentially necessary project is mind-boggling.

The chances of it actually happening?

No comment.

Except to say that the way out of this disastrous and monstrous clusterfuck remains the same. Whether you only recently got a rude awakening to the state of the world via the Gaza genocide or any other recent event, or have been watching the species circle the drain in horror for a while now, it doesn’t matter.

I never liked Mao’s writing when I first encountered them. Too simple, poetic, enigmatic. But now, using it for language learning, I’m developing respect. To wit, the third sentence in the Little Red Book: to make a revolution, there must be a revolutionary party.

This is the sort of line I would have barely noticed in my youth, but now it thunders. All that matters is organizing the minority who understands the problem and its solution; forming an organization, out of a mess of impotent individuals, capable of executing a revolution. And then growing that organization, by educating and recruiting more people.

Right now, the chances of success look poor. But that’s a fallible interpretation, and moreover, it’s irrelevant. Have pessimism, optimism, or anything in between of the intellect; of the will, only optimism.

If you have not already, join that least deficient but still woefully deficient party/organization in your country, which is the closest to what you believe to be the correct political line, albeit still terribly far from it. And once in it, do your damnedest to educate others inside and outside the organization, and fashion it into what we need to end the Pet Sematary country’s rule over a Saló world.

– Peter