Monday, October 23, 2017

I am re-reading books from the past, some that influenced me, some that pissed me off, and some that created movements that piss me off today.

Today’s book fits the latter category. As I was browsing through used books a few weeks ago, I came across a paperback anniversary copy of Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged, so I picked it up.

Atlas Shrugged is a 1032-page unreadable novel, in which Ms. Rand misrepresents ideas from some rationalist philosophers, mostly of the 19th Century variety, without attribution (probably a good thing), adds the wonder of solipsism, ices the concoction with a dollar sign, and brags about inventing a new political philosophy/religion called “objectivism”.

The capitalist god Ms. Rand uses to present this “objectivism” is John Galt.

The “nut” (pun intended) of the book is found on pages 927 through 984, which comprises God Galt’s rant to the public. My favorite part of this condescending soliloquy:

…. With the sign of the dollar as our symbol—the sign of free trade and free minds—we will move to reclaim this country once more from the impotent savages who never discovered its nature, its meaning its splendor. Those who choose to join us, will join us; those who don’t, will not have the power to stop us; hordes of savages have never been an obstacle to men who carried the banner of the mind.

Then this country will once more become a sanctuary for a vanishing species: the rational being.

It is worth noting that “rational being” is one divorced from any belief in higher beings—God.

On page 984, God Galt states: “I swear—by my live and my love of it —that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine.”

Ayn Rand, God Galt’s creator, atheist evangelist for selfishness (her word), preacher against anything smacking of “welfare”, and heavy cigarette smoker, found herself, as she was facing death, becoming a “welfare queen”. She considered Medicare a form of welfare. She had no choice in the end but to ask for help from “another man”—the state.

This atheist author, and this novel, with its ill-conceived ideas and poorly constructed paragraphs and sentences, became a bible for the likes of Ronald Regan, Ron Johnson, Ron Paul, Rand Paul, Clarence Thomas, Gary Johnson, etc. It became an integral part of the tea party and today’s Libertarian Party, and a sizable sect of today’s Republican Party.


These “Christians” cheery pick from Ms. Rand’s novels, as they do from their Bible, what they want to believe, and what they want to use as cudgels with which to mold this country to their ideas.

I wonder where the rational beings are?

Thursday, April 28, 2016

Game of Thrones


Game of Thrones

It was an ugly building
No matter the attempts to dress it up.
Rough lumber formed sides and door.
Tin on the roof, sometimes.
Surrounded by flies in Summer,
And poke berries for color.
Winter brought frost.
Ice and snow found the wall’s cracks
And covered the seat
Which had no lid.
Scraping was required
Before business conducted.

The building
In winter taught self control.
The path was not trod unless
There were no other options.
In summer it taught tolerance
For odors, textures, and flies,
And snakes.

The building
Was educational,
Housing reading material
That served multiple purposes.
I learned about the latest
In bicycles and toys,
And ladies’ undergarments.

The building
Had one hole.
Churches in the country had two.
I marveled at the fact.
Rich people may have had two, too.
Perhaps.

The building
Was my hideout,
Separated by the three-rooms
By twenty feet of scrub grass.
I owned this three-by-four feet of space.
This was my building for years.
Until it disappeared,
And four-by-six feet of warmth
And comfort
Was brought into my house on Ice Plant Hill.

We now share special,
Porcelain-endowed, spacious rooms, indoors.
We now, in comfort and privilege
With time on our hands,
Devote ourselves to wondering who
Used these special places before us,
Who occupies them with us now,
And whether or not these imagined people
Are worthy of us.
They scare us, these imaginary people,
More than the flies and snakes,
The ice and snow,
That used to greet us each morning
In the building that sat outside in the cold.







Tuesday, March 1, 2016

Lying Again, Again




I did a blog post on April 10, 2012 called “We are Lyin’: Are we Dyin’?”.   This is an update of that 2012 post.

In 1978, Sissela Bok published a book, Lying: Moral Choice in Public and Private Life.  On page 19 of the Vintage paperback sitting on my desk, Ms. Bok invites us to:

“Imagine a society, no matter how ideal in other respects, where word and gesture could never be counted upon.”

I do believe that, in politics at least, we are there. In 2016, politicians have become brazen about lying—saying things they know are lies, knowing that people will know that they are lies, and knowing that people won’t care because they expect to be lied to. So as long as the lies reflect what people want to believe, the lying politician will win votes. It is happening today. When caught in a lie, they lie about having lied, win more votes, and are praised for “telling it like it is”.

In fact, in 2016 not a small number of people are asking politicians to lie to us. The larger the lie,  the more we support them. Evidence, the 2016 GOP primaries.

We have actually codified the legitimacy of lying. Evidence:  (1) As a result of U.S. vs. Alvarez, I may lie with impunity about my war record (sic); (2) This week, an Ohio law that prohibited false statements about a candidate for office bit the dust. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit stuck it down, using the Supreme Court’s money-is-free-speech decision to support their decision.

And we just elected a man whose lies are documented, blatant, and loved by his followers. He in turn has chosen an expert in propaganda as his chief advisor.

Lies are now legally considered a part of self-expression, politicians who lie to us cannot be held legally accountable for those lies, and we the people beg them to tell us bigger and more bodacious lies.

Bok says, again on page 19, “Deceit and violence—these are the two forms of deliberate assault on human beings,” and “society could scarcely function without some degree of truthfulness in speech and action.”

And I again wonder if anyone is grieving for our loss.







Monday, December 29, 2014

Guns again


Another senseless killing involving guns, which have now become religious symbols in the U.S. This killing was "inspired" by another favorite U.S. religion: racism.

So here I go again, re-publishing this same old piece I wrote several years ago.

On hot Saturday afternoons in Kentucky, in the 50s, my sister Betty Zane would give me fifty cents to take my niece Karen Lee by the hand and go “uptown” to the Lido Theatre. Karen and I would watch a few commercials, a cartoon or two, an episode of a serial, like Flash Gordon, and at least one movie—sometimes it was a double feature. Usually the movies were westerns with flashy guns figuring prominently. I lusted after pearl handled toy six shooters.

I remember how I felt when we walked out of the cool, dark theater into the heat and glare of a late afternoon. Surreal and high. In the two or three hours inside, I had become Flash Gordon, Whip Wilson, Lash LaRue, Gene Autry or whoever the hero happened to be. Being the older uncle (I was maybe 9), I kept these feelings to myself as Karen and I walked home. When I got home, though, I’d head for the woods with my imagination for a horse and fingers for guns and kill the bad guys or Indians with the appropriate gun sounds and death sounds coming out of my mouth. I was transported into another reality, and I enjoyed it a lot.

As I got older, I enjoyed driving nails from as far away as possible with my daddy’s .22.

The only part of the Army’s basic training that I enjoyed was the rifle range. The M-16 was light weight and accurate and fun to fire. I was good at it. I have a medal to prove it.

Guns, real and imagined, have been a part of my experience all my life. I currently own several real ones; fewer imaginary ones as time passes.

In 1992, my son was a precocious 16-year-old student in a small (300 student) private college tucked away in the woods of Western Massachusetts. Christmas was approaching. One of his fellow students bought an assault rifle and ammunition and killed a professor and a student and wounded others. Luck (or God or fate or Karma or….) intervened on my family’s part and he was not physically injured. We still deal with it psychologically.

Every time there is a new tragedy involving a school or mall or street corner, or whatever, it gets dragged out again.  The incidences are increasing. Blame is placed at everyone, except for one major U.S. group, who manages to shape public policy, using fear and money.

As I sit in Colorado on a cold December day, I wonder why:
1.     We pledge allegiance to the flag “and to the Republic for which it stands,” BUT
2.     We believe that our founders believed that the elected “government” of this Republic might someday take our guns away and subjugate us
3.     We, therefore, believe we have the right to own as many guns of whatever kind as we want—not the smart bombs, drone planes, tanks, and dirty weapons owned by our “government”, but GUNS—with which to protect ourselves from the smart bombs, drones, tanks, and dirty weapons our government might throw at us in order to subjugate us
4.     Our elected representatives (those same government people who might come after us one day) pledge allegiance to The National Rifle Association to act on our behalf against the government that we fear is going to enslave us—themselves
5.     The NRA (the largest lobbying group in the country) collects boatloads of money from us, which they use to support those representatives (the people who might subjugate us) in their continued reelections.

I admit I’m not all that smart, but I wonder where the logic and reason went. "Guns don't kill, people do." "God (via the first amendment brought down from the mountain) gave me the right to bear arms." 

Think about that. I wonder if people would worship the same mantra if it read:

1. Atomic bombs don't kill, people do
2. I have the God-given right to bear arms
3. By all definitions, the A-bomb is "arms"
4. Therefore I have the God-given right to my own bomb

I find myself feeling that same sense of the surreal I felt leaving the Lido Theater all those years ago. Without the high.

I make no judgment about my friends who continue to hunt, shoot for sport, collect, and love guns. God bless you.

But I do hold some ill will toward the NRA (not the rank and file, but the “NRA government” that controls the organization). I also hold ill will toward cowardly politicians who support the NRA government over that of the U.S, and pass laws that fly in the face of reason, humanity, and love of country, in the name of guns.

I wonder if these people think I’m calling them ignorant and un-American.

I sure hope so.