"Workin’ The Second Shift For Vlad The Impaler"

"Workin’ The Second Shift For Vlad The Impaler"

by The Cat

"History is all too frequently punctuated with tales of tyrants, tormented by their own psychopathic personalities, free of the burden of a troubled consciousness of the suffering they cause. The names are familiar: Mao, Stalin, Hitler, Pol Pot, Genghis Khan, on and on the sordid list goes. But among these infamous characters, one stands out for the sheer magnitude and barbarity of his cruelty. Vlad Tepes - Vlad the Impaler - is a name that causes one to shudder at the level of suffering inflicted not just on opposing troops, but even on women and children. His method of execution was one designed to prolong the most extreme torment for days, at times.

This was the process of impaling the victim on a stake through the rectum or vagina, and letting the weight of the body slowly force the stake up through the torso. It is a torture that inspired extreme fear of being used for any reason Vlad might decide was appropriate. This could include treason, disloyalty or doubted allegiances, in addition to actual combat. But it was applied also to women and even infants, as a way to terrorize through psychological aversion any who might waver in their unconditional support of Vlad, or who dared confront him in war.

This gruesome context is used to set the stage for the real question at hand: how was Vlad able to employ human beings in the non-stop infliction of such mind-bending evil on others of our kind? How was the psychological disassociation of the perpetrators able to mask such monstrous suffering that they beheld literally face to face as they skewered the hapless victims of this methodical savagery?

These were not isolated instances of insanity. They were the routine use of practices that required an industrial-sized level of brutality, sustained over time. As an example, one such massacre involved over 20,000 victims on stakes, collected into a forest of horror that apparently was sufficiently persuasive to repel invading forces. In other words, it worked for Vlad. The impaled were just “collateral damage.”

The answer to the question of how this is possible is not easy to come by. Human psychology is complex. We often do what we do under the influence of herd mentality and a desire to ingratiate ourselves to others we identify with. The Othering of outsiders has also been a clearly understood dynamic of tribal cohesion in most societies. Threats to our tribe are often used as the catalyst for severe repression of the alien elements that seemingly threaten us.

The so-called Strong Man is a figure of human behavior that seems to hold a fascination for a large segment of our species, who look to the Alpha Male types for both inner and outer security. Obviously, the reality of disobedience with someone of Vlad’s temperament likely meant you would be looking at the scene from a vantage point atop your own stake in short order.

Even with all these elements, it still becomes hard to fathom how human beings can lay hands on another under these circumstances, knowing the awful fate that awaits the victim, a fate our involvement makes possible. And to do this not once, not twice, but so often a forest of the tormented grows before our eyes. This requires a level of dehumanization of the victim that seems impossible to comprehend.

Modern warfare has allowed the State to employ stand-off weapons that don’t need to bloody the hands of the perpetrators. Thousands may die, seen only through a sighting screen. A switch is thrown, a bomb is dropped or a missile fired…and the carnage is neatly kept away from those whose sensibilities might object to a more direct experience of the suffering they are causing.

Bird-sized drones with explosive warheads hunt down and dismember the enemy one by one. Civilian infrastructure that supports life in a modern society is destroyed, denying clean water, sanitation or electricity to non-combatants. We are every bit as thorough in our cruelty as our 15th century example, it’s just that we have found ways to torment without having to tax our self-image of decency too strenuously.

We can almost imagine today’s headlines of ordnance shortages in hostilities against civilians being echoed by Vlad’s supply line staff: “Stakes, I need stakes stat, Grigore! You promised me 1,000, I’m looking at, what, 100, I guess. These folks aren’t going to impale themselves!” The macabre and malevolent, clothed in the banality of inventory control.

Over 80,000 have died in Gaza while the world looked on. They are not to be found on stakes set up where they were sacrificed. They are buried under rubble, to be paved over in the name of a statecraft that can justify wholesale death by the promise of luxury redevelopment.

Humanity can never progress beyond its present level of punctuated barbarity and soul-killing lust for money and power until there are enough of the “stakeholders” inflicting the suffering who are willing to turn on the tyrants and destroy the cancer they represent. As has often been said, we are many, they are few. Will we be able to finally escape the nightmare of our species held hostage by the oppression and inhumanity of a relative handful of the worst of our kind?​"                                               - https://www.theburningplatform.com/