Coward

Posted 2 days ago, under Uncategorized, government, judgment, patriotism, politics
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The email’s subject line was “coward.” I had written unconventionally about the armed services of this great nation, and the subject line referred to me.

The sender, a local businessman, opened with, “Your article regarding the terrorist act at Ft. Hood is despicable. You do not deserve to live in this Great country. You are are a coward of the worst variety. How dare you sit back and pontificate on the evils of America and suck its teat for all the liberties and freedoms it provides your sorry . . .” and so on.

He also said I was a “mental pervert”—he’s got me there—who didn’t “deserve any of the blessings and protections . . . afforded by the courageous patriots that serve a greater good.” I thought being from Chicago was enough. I have a birth certificate.

The reader also accused me of hiding behind our brave warriors and simultaneously feeling superior to them. I’m not hiding behind anybody, and I’m not feeling superior either. It’s not that soldiers aren’t brave, it’s that they kill people they don’t know because somebody else said to—like the Manson family—and their indoctrination, strict obedience, and hierarchical structure are consistent with other cults.

A lot of people want the rest of us to agree with them. On everything. Hardly anybody agrees with me—you may have noticed that yourself—and I grant everybody the right to think anything, no matter how goofy I think it is. No matter how unhelpful to the thinker it might appear to be, I stay out of it and I keep my trap shut. It’s a radical approach, like thinking of all murder as just killing with various stories attached, which is my working hypothesis.

Take Iraq. One story was “freeing innocent people from the devil, who by the way had something to do with nine-eleven, and preventing him from hurting us, which he would totally do if he got a chance.” Another, and much older, story is that billions of dollars would change hands for all the stuff to kill people with trillions more for reconstruction and new military bases and whatnot for years to come, in addition to the oil. Same corpses, same invoices, different story. I’m not arguing with the reality in Iraq or Fort Hood, but the story is never reality, which is more than any story.

For our souls’ communion, perhaps, this reader closes, “I’d love to get together with you face to face and see just how tuff you are. . . . Let me know when and where you would like to meet, or just stay in your dark little cave and spew your hate until you need a brave soldier to cover your worthless. pitiful self. Call soon Mr. Big.”

Check me out—“Mr. Big”—like “Dr. Evil.”

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Sam Kinison

Posted 4 days ago, under Earth's resources, Uncategorized, children
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Mayhem

Posted 2 weeks ago, under Uncategorized, compassion, government, judgment
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Nidal Malik Hasan, who has been a member of a large cult of murderous followers since just after high school, recently shot up a bunch of other cultists and killed several of them. He was soon shot by Kimberly Munley and at the moment still lives.

Hasan’s group exists to destroy people and things at the behest of their commander in chief. That’s what they do. Oh, sometimes they build stuff—bridges, buildings, the occasional levee—but that’s a sideline to destruction. Hasan was in a heavily guarded training compound when he went off the deep end and started killing the wrong people.

Although all of the cultists go through a process designed to make them act alike and look alike and to do whatever they’re told without question—essentially to dehumanize them—they’re still people. More and more, even after months of training, killing people is proving to be emotionally difficult for the cult’s members, and before the shootings Hasan’s job had been to counsel people who had been traumatized by witnessing and participating in murder and destruction. Hasan tried to help them feel better about themselves even though they might have done horrible things to people they didn’t even know, helped destroy a country halfway around the world, and might be expected to do it again. At least they killed the right people.

The organization exists to inflict mayhem on any target designated by their overlord and paymasters in Washington, D.C. They all approve of murder, but only with the right story attached. The cult is dedicated to the preeminence of its nation only and has bases and thousands of people stationed around the world. They’re not supposed to kill each other, though, and that’s why Hasan was shot four times by Kimberly Munley, who belongs to an allied cult. He shot the wrong people. Conversely, Munley is a heroine because shot the right people—Hasan.

Hasan was scheduled to go to a killing zone soon and apparently wasn’t looking forward to it. Maybe he was afraid of getting shot.

Hasan apparently got a poor performance review and counseling at the hospital where he worked for six years until last July. Yet he seems to have done reasonably well as a counselor himself and had attained some rank in the organization. One of his superiors, Kimberly Kesling, said, “Up to this point I would consider him an asset.” I foresee another poor review.

Hasan clearly suffered tremendous anguish and inner conflict. He was in greater emotional pain than most of us can imagine, and no wonder. Here’s a telltale. The Huffington Post says, “Hasan’s family said in a statement Friday that his alleged actions were ‘despicable and deplorable’ and don’t reflect how the family was raised.” I can see why he left home right out of high school, but it was already too late. Poor guy.

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Veterans Day Quotations

Posted 2 weeks ago, under Uncategorized, government, patriotism
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“Is not a matter of whether the war is not real or if it is. Victory is not possible. The war is not meant to be won. It is meant to be continuous. A hierarchical society is only possible on the basis of poverty and ignorance. This new version is the past. And no different past can ever have existed. In principle, the war effort is always planned to keep society on the brink of starvation. The war is waged by the ruling group against its own subjects. And its object is not the victory over either Eurasia or Eastasia, but to keep the very structure of society intact.”  George Orwell (1903–1950), from 1984

“When elephants fight it is the grass that suffers.”  Kikuyu proverb

“I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. The record of racketeering is long. I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909–12. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras “right” for American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went its way unmolested. . . . Looking back on it, I feel I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three city districts. We Marines operated on three continents.”  U.S. Marine Corps General Smedley D. Butler (1881–1940)

“I hate war as only a soldier who has lived it can, only as one who has seen its brutality, its futility, its stupidity.”  Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890–1969)

“If my soldiers began to think, not one of them would remain in the ranks.”  Frederick the Great (1712–1786)

“There are no warlike peoples, just warlike leaders.”  Ralph Johnson Bunche, U.S. diplomat (1904–1971)

“Naturally, the common people don’t want war, but after all, it is the leaders of a country who determine the policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in every country.”  Hermann Göring, famous Nazi (1893–1946)

“The fetters imposed on liberty at home have ever been forged out of the weapons provided for defence against real, pretended, or imaginary dangers from abroad.”  James Madison, 4th U.S. president (1751–1836)

“They wrote in the old days that it is sweet and fitting to die for one’s country. But in modern war, there is nothing sweet nor fitting in our dying. You will die like a dog for no good reason.  Ernest Hemingway writer (1899–1961)

“Governments lie.”  I. F. Stone, journalist (1907–1989)

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Compassion

Posted 3 weeks ago, under Uncategorized, compassion, molestation
One comment

Rape is a touchy subject for many people, including the professional journalists at the Chico News & Review, which refused to print this.

A few weeks ago I wrote that government goons should leave Roman Polanski and his rape victim alone, and a reader of this blog was moved to respond. The woman Polanski was convicted of raping when she was 13 in 1977 wants to forget the whole thing, but government agents want Polanski in prison. Never mind compassion for the victim, let alone for Polanski. Vengeance is more important.

The reader, Oliver Steinberg, is a friend of mine, knows women who’ve been psychologically scarred by rape, and is concerned mostly because of the difference in their ages—30 years. That means child molestation, and he thinks child molestation warrants prison time.

I don’t recommend child molestation, and I haven’t molested a child since I was one, and still I recognize that some people thinking of children as sexual beings and even sexually desirable has been going on forever and is unlikely to go away, no matter how vindictive you are. If you’re interested in the nature of children’s sexuality, I suggest reading Harmful to Minors, by Judith Levine.

Mr. Steinberg says, “I don’t think you can persuasively say that a 13-year-old consenting to sexual activity with a 30-year-old has anywhere near the comprehension of the potential risks and consequences involved, compared to the sophistication of the older partner.” I see his point, and yet I still think victimless crime—remember, the woman wants to drop the charges—is oppression. No matter how we compare levels of sophistication, nobody has a beef but her.

There was a song about statutory rape from the 1950s called, I think, “Jailbait,” wherein the singer extolled the attractions of teenage girls and promised the judge not to succumb to their charms again. I thought legal age limits on sex unreasonable then, and I still do. I don’t expect reasonableness, though, and I no longer mind its absence.

I know women who have been raped. I feel sorry when things like that happen, and still I think that what goes around comes around and that the rewards of the men involved are as sure as yours and mine. I don’t have to do anything about them, and neither do the goons. I’d support victims choosing a consequence, but it’s nobody else’s business. If we’re opposed to rape—and not all of us are—the main thing we can do about it is not do it. Tell your friends.

At this point what affects me most about Polanski’s situation, other than momentary dismay at the extent to which politicians and cops and lawyers are all in cahoots, with the necessary support of corporate media, to control us at least and oppress us if possible, is that I’ve spent several hours thinking about something that’s none of my business, and that even the victim doesn’t want to think about. We could all—especially other rape victims, I suppose—emulate her and think about something else. I suggest a winter garden. Consider chard.

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) is quoted as saying, “The reformative effect of punishment is a belief that dies hard, chiefly, I think, because it is so satisfying to our sadistic impulses.” Those sadistic impulses feed on the fears in our heads and support the punishment industry. Include me out.

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Direction

Posted 4 weeks ago, under Chicago, Chico, Uncategorized, old
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I am without direction. That doesn’t mean that I have no burning quest that propels my life and fires my soul, maybe retiring Wally Herger or achieving democracy in the United States. I no longer have such an overriding objective, because I’ve achieved it and now I’m taking it easy. My goal was to change the world, and your reading this reconfirms my success.

In this context, without direction means that I have no sense of direction in a cardinal sense—not the bird, which California could use a lot more of by the way—north, south, east, and west, the cardinal directions.

As a young man, I always knew where I was, because I was in Chicago, where west is west and a compass points smack down the middle of State Street. No only that, all street numbers start at the same place and proceed in all directions at the same pace, 800 numbers per mile. Twenty-four hundred west was as far from State Street as twenty-four hundred east, namely three miles. Nowhere else I’ve been is as easy to get around in as Chicago, and that early experience spoiled me.

Saint Paul and Minneapolis exist because of the Mississippi River, which doesn’t know from cardinal directions, and streets tend to dash off in unexpected directions from the river or in a mad rush to get to it and abruptly disappear.

Chico’s orientation to Highway 99—lying beside it licking its lips and trying to be alluring, or some other unpleasant simile—has made its grid align with the highway’s northwestern rush to get the hell away from Sacramento, a common sentiment in Northern California. Some intrepid neighborhoods have managed cardinal alignment, but they are few and obscure.

Chico’s planners, or the naming contingent anyway, also apparently loved nothing more than randomly renaming a street, whether it required it or not. I know of no other place where a person can travel on a street with so many names—Fair, Mulberry, Cypress, Mangrove, and Cohasset, for instance—and never need a turn signal. It’s quite an achievement and confusing for a newbie.

Most of the time I carry a compass. Not many people carry a compass, it seems. Everyone who’s seen me consult one of mine has been amazed and amused that I have such a thing on me. They’re probably amused at other prostheses, too. I don’t mind being confused, but I don’t have the energy for much wandering around and a compass keeps me from veering far off my optimum heading.

So in any new place, I first imagine it on Chicago’s grid, like comparing women to my mother, but without the therapy.

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Men on Love

Posted 4 weeks ago, under Uncategorized
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Men on Love yesterday at 1078 Gallery was very good. The members of the Jtown Men’s Club—Luis Chavez, Jim Dwyer, David Guzzetti, Troy Jollimore, David Kensinger, Jaime O’Neill, and Robert Speer—spoke up with their and others’ words about love, and the audience seemed pleased. I enjoyed it. Next time, Women on Love.

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Love

Posted 5 weeks ago, under Uncategorized, love, tolerance
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I think about love a lot. It fascinates me—how, who, why not. Peter Ustinov said that “Love is an act of endless forgiveness, a tender look which becomes a habit.” I like that, but it’s clearly inadequate as a description of what I feel for a growing number of people who aren’t even habitual, and it seems to feed on itself. I am that I am, like that.

I find some people hard to love, or even to sympathize with sometimes. I can clearly see myself in another person and still not want to be with that particular expression of spirit while it’s doing that. Of course, that’s just a failure of imagination and has no effect on the range of human behavior. That’s what I have to contend with. I look for ways to love others because I feel good when I do, and I don’t pretend to be doing anybody any favors.

I find some people easier to love at a distance, but I usually want to be with my several loved ones now and again at a frequency appropriate to our individual proclivities and comfort. Love is one thing, personality is quite another. Some of my loved ones would drive me even further round the bend if I had to deal with them every day, and goosing my spiritual practice, I suppose.

A buddy of mine says parents should say “I love you” to each child every day. That strikes me as a bit rigid, but he used to be an altar boy and loves rules.

I’m not as free with “I love you” as I could be, and I think it’s because of the way things were when I was growing up. I don’t remember either of my parents ever telling me that they loved me. I’m probably not as free with anything as I could be.

“I love you” admits that you and I are related at a vibrational level, in the aethereal plane or whatever, and I acknowledge our common humanity and divinity, a lot like “Namaste.” When I was young the guys would ask each other, “Did you tell her you love her?” Saying “I love you” was a commitment and declaration, and sometimes it still is.

So I manage to love a lot of people and circumstances that would’ve annoyed me no end when I was twenty-five, maybe including you. Nowadays I may well love you, but I’m probably not gonna be telling you so. And I might not love you, but I’m willing, and whom I love is none of your beeswax anyway, even if it is you.

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Lest We Forget

Posted October 19, 2009, under Uncategorized
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Doing Without

Posted October 15, 2009, under Uncategorized, materialism
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I’ve been addicted to several things over the years, and I’m an addict now. Addictions can rule your life and sometimes ruin it, although the ruin is likely to be caused by government goons protecting society from outlaw medicine. Millions of people are addicted to sugar and caffeine, including me.

I’m addicted to coffee with sugar in the morning, a cheap, legal kick. I wonder if there are coffee abolitionists, anti-coffee crusaders. Probably. I’ve given up coffee more than once, but not for long. At least it’s not cocaine. That would be a hassle. I like my drugs easy.

Doing without is a good exercise for me. I like knowing that I can function independently—okay, thinking that I can function independently—that I can get by on little or nothing. I don’t have a lot of needs beyond the basics, and my physical life is relatively simple. Inside my head is another world altogether.

I live without television. We see television shows collected on DVDs and plenty of video trash online, but no broadcast television, no commercials, and especially no corporate news. I recommend it.

I could do without a car. I could. I just don’t want to. I lived for years without a car, and I’ll do it again. I will.

I could do without most people. Excepting a tiny group of family and friends, I have little need or desire for frequent social contact. I could be a good monk.

I like my yard, but if I had to give it up, I could get by as long as I had somewhere else to sit outside privately. That’s what I want a yard for. It can be pretty and smell good, too, but mostly it’s somewhere for me to be alone outside.

I have been addicted to the Internet. Several years ago, after lightning fried my modem, I realized how hooked I was. I did other stuff on my computer—writing and bookkeeping mostly—but the Internet was the primary attraction. Even after I could no longer get online, I’d wander over to my computer out of habit, expecting to get online. Sick. Now I work online, and at the end of the day I’m glad to get off and stay off.

I may be addicted to indoor plumbing. And central heating. Air conditioning I’m not so crazy about, but it’s mighty useful in July when it’s 115 degrees and I’m inclined to ignore the ozone.

As much as anything else I do habitually, I read. I read all the time, whenever there are words I can see. Reading has been important to me as long as I can remember. We didn’t have nerds when I was in school, so I was a bookworm. I do it every day. I’m glad it’s legal now, although I know that nothing in any book is the absolute truth, even if it comes with a DVD.

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