MORNING THOUGHTS

More thoughts on obsessions.

Continuing my thoughts inspired by my current reading of “Moby Dick,” let’s return to the concept I call, “exclusionary obsession.” This refers to an obsession so strong and overpowering that it eclipses any concern for the welfare of all. Once afflicted, one will support, vote for, and follow the most otherwise evil of persons who swear to address the obsession.

Last trip, I mentioned abortion, now let us consider what may be the next in order of prevalence, the obsession regarding devices that use explosive force to propel a projectile through a metal tube at a high velocity. Yes, a gun.

Now I would never demean a gun owner. We store nearly a dozen, well-hidden and secured. Two we purchased. One served as gift to a 12-year old raised in a “cowboy culture.” The rest drifted down from the ownership of deceased relatives or their friends.

There was another. The federal government confiscated it from me on the second happiest day of my life.

But I digress. From whence comes this obsession that would cause a person to actually vote for a Donald Trump? Confiscation would be an impossibility. Future purchases fall under the protection of the United States Constitution.

As a result, some 46% of American households own a gun. They have that right.

The Constitution protected flintlock muzzle-loading firearms with a rate of fire of, maybe, three rounds per minute in the hands of trained users.

One of the heaviest weapons today that might be carried (by a strong soldier) today is the M-60 machine gun capable of firing between 500 to 650 rounds per minute using a caliber known in the civilian market as the .308 Winchester. A well trained and hefty father could protect his home and family with one, I suppose, if it were kept ready, handy, oiled, locked, and loaded.

Why would a person support the most despicable candidate possible simply because they feel denied personal ownership of an M-60?

Let’s return to “Moby Dick.” We might say Ahab hated the whale because he no longer owned both legs, but no. It was something more cosmic. The whale demoted him to a secondary status in the Universe, impelling him to vow, "I'd strike the sun if it insulted me,". What created and then nurtured this obsession? One wonders, but:

What if, each morning of his life, a messenger came to Ahab with a note from a trusted source saying, “The whale has plans to take your other leg?”

DEFEAT FASCISM

Journal of a Left-Wing Radical: Spent the evening watching a video about Blues Music in America. Of course it covered the enduring myth of the man who sold his soul to the devil in return for mastery of the guitar. This morning, my “hair shirt hour” featured reading Adam Smith on the development of currency. From Abraham's paying four hundred shekels of silver for the field of Machpelah to the modern evangelicals selling their decency for political power, we love the concept of bartering. This is true even though we’re not quite sure why Judas wanted his 30 pieces of silver. Sadly, we’re now bartering the life of our planet for a few generations of mobility and the fun it brings. And a cult is bartering the health of our children for the strained concept of “owning the libs.” When someone asks me why I accept being labeled a liberal, and thus “owned,” I’m reminded of the tale, a wonderful but likely apocryphal one, featuring Henry David Thoreau in jail for not paying his poll tax. According to the story, when friend Ralph Waldo Emerson visited Thoreau and asked why he was in jail, Thoreau is said to have responded, "Waldo, why are you not here?”

This draws one to the line from John Steinbeck’s "Sweet Thursday": “There are people who will say that this whole account is a lie, but a thing isn't necessarily a lie even if it didn't necessarily happen".

THE SLAVEHOLDER REVOLT

For some reason I have these weird flights of thought. Oh yes. I know you do too, but I have this horrible habit of writing them down and posting them. For example: At my age one thinks a lot about heart attacks. I take it to extremes.

Consider this. If Ulysses S. Grant had succumbed to a heart attack on November 6, 1860, one could find his name on the West Point class of 1843. With effort one might find mention of First Lieutenant, then Brevet Captain Grant’s performance in the Mexican American War. That’s about it. Maybe an obscure obituary in some Missouri or Illinois newspaper might appear. Then no mention of him in the files of either of the Americas.

Had, on the other hand, Robert E. Lee succumbed likewise on that date, he would rate mention as an ideal army officer and West Point Superintendent—overall the very picture of a modern Regular Army Colonel. Writing a glowing biography would be a simple task.

There we have it.

From failure to savior.

From paragon to traitor.

Isn’t it remarkable what the effects of a couple of bouts of good health will have upon a country? Is it fate that is granting us longevity?

Certified Non-AI generated

LONG MAY SHE WAVE

DEFEAT FASCISM

 Journal of a Left-Wing Radical:

Watching a video of historian H.W. Brands, from the U. of Texas talking about his book on Ulysses S. Grant. He shared an interesting question he poses to a group of 18-19 year-old students: “What would make you go to war?” He admitted to a plethora of answers, and it made me think. Why did I?

Know what? It was my Sainted Mother. Anyone who has observed life at all knows how Southern boys are about their mommas. I know it figured as high as the rigging on a topmast in my decision.

I remember standing before the Great Tidepool near Monterey, California after a long walk from my Navy Base on the grounds of what was once the old Del Monte Hotel. In one pocket of a Navy Peacoat, I carried a letter instructing me how to begin an escape to Canada. In the other I carried orders for training as a member of U.S. Naval Security Forces at Da Nang, Vietnam. This meant I would carry a weapon for a year with the option of killing other human beings if ordered to.

I needed to decide that day.

That’s where Sainted Mother came in. Daddy? He didn’t care. He never thought I should have gotten involved in the military anyway, as if I had a choice.

SM wasn’t for war, but she disliked cowardice more. I remembered her words, “You don’t want to be like [unnamed relative]. They took him into the Army and he bawled and squalled and wet the bed until they sent him home.”

In the long run, I could not accept the fact that I might not ever see a woman with that kind of American spirit again.

She won.

Why would you go to war? Might better decide today for we are near one. The Forces of Darkness are closing in upon us fast.

I’ve decided. America took the place of Sainted Mother. Join me.

DEFEAT FASCISM

 Journal of a Left-Wing Radical

Remember reading once (can’t verify the veracity)  that Archibald Alec Leach, a young performer, fashioned a persona for himself by mimicking a number of famous personages, one for voice, one for accent, one for bearing, and so forth. Whatever, it worked for the result known as Cary Grant.

I’ve been thinking. These increasingly seem to be the “end times” for the American Experiment. How would I like to be perceived as the final curtain falls? Let’s amalgamate the personages, real and fictional:

• -          The Andy Devine character of the “Happy Soldier” in the 1951 film version of “The Red Badge of Courage.”
• -          The unidentified character in the 1958 film “A Night To Remember” who, as the Titanic sinks, retires to the smoking room and calmly reads on a tilting deck.
• -          Joseph Campbell, the American scholar who once sought refuge at Woodstock, NY and read for five years.
• -          Bill Moyers, who produced the marvelous documentaries on Josehp Campbell and then on the song, “Amazing Grace.”
• -          The actor Keanu Reeves who appears, from all accounts, to be one hell of a great person.
• -          Liberace: A person highly skilled in his profession who never denied who he was and never took himself too seriously.
• -          Any journalist who saw early on that Donald J. Trump was a total fraud and grifter who had the magaligarch backing and degenerate moxie to destroy our country.
• -          Oh, best of all: Mr. Rogers, from one who will pass from this mortal coil wondering how the same country produced him and Cadet Bone Spurs.

Certified as Non-AI Generated and not ICE approved.

DEFEAT FASCISM

 Journal of a Left-Wing Radical: There came a blessed day in my life in which I thought I would never face fear again. Oh, I’m not talking about the temporary scare of a spring storm, a near automobile accident, or being lowered from a ship in a small boat into six-foot seas.

I’m talking about that gnawing, primal fear that forms when you have no control over your life and you are well aware that there are forces all about you that wish you dead. It’s that “any minute, any second” fear that some know more about than others and which most have never known. It is at its rawest and most fearful on a dark night between midnight and dawn.

Extended fear can seep deeply into places you desperately want to be sacred and untouched. It changes a person, sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse.

I was right for over 50 years. There were storms and there were moments of deep concern, any number of temporary fears. There was even fear that she would say, “No.”

But there wasn’t the raw kind that steals your soul and makes you shrink from strange faces.

Until now.

DEFEAT FASCISM

 It appears that the planned trip to Gettysburg and Antietam stands in jeopardy because our government has ceased to function. It presents a personal loss but a minor one in the great scheme of things.

 Still, I reread this book in anticipation, this time with an eye focused on General George McClellan. There have been some attempts in recent years to defend his timidity and define it as justified caution. We’ll see. He faced obstacles, no doubt. The fact remains that his opponents faced the same obstacles.

To this untrained, uneducated, and unqualified mind, one of the apparent factors in this battle was speed. One army had it. One didn’t. Even though the discovery of the Confederate Special Order 191 gave “Little Napolean” the disposition of the insurrectionist forces, he delayed any major attack for 18 hours and then deployed his forces in piecemeal fashion.

At countless times during the battle, delays by the United States forces gave General Lee time to assemble his smaller army for maximum deployment. A.P. Hill’s Division rushed from Harper’s Ferry in hours. The typical federal unit would have taken days, arriving just in time to form burial details.

 The final result? Some call it a stalemate. Some credit the federal forces with repulsing an invasion into the northern states. Some point out that it was enough of a victory to convince Abraham Lincoln to issue the Emancipation Proclamation which pretty much eliminated the possibility of foreign involvement in our tragic war.

Today’s emphasis is about speed. We see it in the current invasion into all that was ever good and decent about America. One side is unleashing havoc upon the poor, the different, the least of those among us and the ones who believe in the teachings of the Sermon on the Mount. The other side says we must wait, in the manner of General McClellan, until we decide what pronouns define us ere we set our defenses.

As in any battle, the side weaker in numbers and moral basis must move faster and with the most force.

Why is that so important now? Anyone who can read knew what might happen. Hell, it was published and available, much like Special Order 191. No one, however, seems to have believed it would happen so quickly.

It must. It gives the forces of darkness time to weaken the American resolve with what we might call their “political artillery.”

At the proper moment, then, with resolve in shamble, “I declare martial law and declare that elections are no longer useful” will sound simply like another day in the park.

DEFEAT FASCISM

 Journal of a Left-Wing Radical: Reaction to this latest abandonment of government illustrates the famous idiom known as "Miles Law," i.e. "Where you stand depends on where you sit." My words will change no minds.

One thing troubles me though. The oligarchs who finance the President of the United States of America have had him command that the elected officials of my state publish and transmit easily discernible lies concerning the origins of this abandonment of responsibility.

You say, "Oh, but politicians lie all the time. Yes, but they are seldom this transparent about it and often hide falsehoods under the cover of contextuality.

Politicians shall not lie. I'll have to ask my attorney friends if this has legal weight. They say police officers can lie if it suits a public purpose. The Supreme Court of the United States has ruled that a president can to it, and worse, any time it is convenient and there is a backup majority of both houses for protection.

But I'll tell you, these folks that claim to be Christians are going to have one hell of a time with it.

DEFEAT FASCISM

 Journal of a Left-Wing Radical

No contacts yesterday. The imaginary basement of HC's pizza parlor is empty once again.

Mostly I spent the day in rapt confusion. See … I'm not the least bit confused about Donald J. Trump. Anyone who pays attention at least 30 minutes a week knew, by the end of 2020, that he was an unprincipled, depraved, opportunistic, greedy and gloated grifter unfit for any role of responsibility.

Enough for his good points.

The thing that troubles me is that I could name without wrinkling a brow at least 20 about whom I once trusted to be kind, generous, loving people who now fully support the machinations of the MAGA Cabal.

Most of these people claim Christianity as their cultural and moral base. Oh, they are not the Galilean Christians of years gone by. Lumped largely as "evangelicals," they are what I call "ABC" cult members, as in "Anti-Beatitude Christians."

They belong, mostly, to that lemming-like cohort of devotees who will follow the MAGA leaders over any cliff proposed. They now claim allegiance to the doctrine whereby 10,000 children may starve or die from polio if it would prevent a single same-sex couple who love one another from enjoying the legal sanctity of marriage.

Inexplicable ain't the word for it. But I miss our friendship.

DEFEAT FASCSIM

 Journal of a Left-Wing Radical: No confirms yesterday.

That’s a full week in which we added no victims to HC’s imaginary pizza parlor basement. Oh well. We did win the “Battle of the obstinate tractor seat” on B's tractor. The damned thing wouldn't slide up and down and she couldn't push the clutch all the way in.

It was our third day in which to work on it to no avail

In this post-factual age, we could have used the MAGA Technique, named after the president who hates me. That would be simply to say, “It works,” and "voilà." Fox news would have proclaimed that it worked better than any tractor seat had ever worked in history. But we would have had to strap clogs to her feat. She said, “No.”

She didn’t actually say it that way, so we persisted until victory. All it took was a bit of extra profanity, a lot of WD 40, and some muscle power.

I plan to return to the path of treachery today. Gonna create some sawdust making Christmas presents. Look out you decent people. I’m coming for you.

DEFEAT FASCISM

 Confessions of Left-Wing Radical: Couldn’t “treacheryize” much yesterday. Had a stump removed in the yard to keep the neighborhood looking nice.

Truth be told, I spent my extra time in introspection. Namely, I searched for an answer to the question, “How did I become the sort of person that the President of the United States of America hates.?” (Yes, he said so in public. In my “demented” way, I consider it one of the honors of my life.)

Why?

My playmates and I grew up under the auspices of the men who waded ashore at Tarawa, Anzio, and Normandy and the women who received the dreaded telegrams from those places. Tears of sorrow and happiness rolled down the cheeks of people cheering the heroes of that “good war.”

Their places became filled by younger uncles who survived the Frozen Chosin and the widows and fatherless children thereof.

So we grew up basking in the glow of American heroes. Every comic book, magazine, movie house, and radio show (later television) sang their praises. When our time came, our minds saw only the beckoning of glory.

Ours was, though, as the immortal John Prine put it, “a dirty little war.”

But we served. I, myself, left the service with shipmates who had stood by me, and me them, from the TET Offensive to storms at sea.

Problem was, many of those shipmates couldn’t have entered the ground floor of a movie theater with me in my hometown.

But America improved, grew, assimilated, and flourished. Then came the night—I think America’s greatest—when our country elected a person of color as its president.

We expected an outpouring of love. Instead, we suffered the most volcanic explosion of hatred and bitterness since April 12, 1861. The explosion covered our shores with a sulfuric layer of filth, lies, and outrage that smothered our progress like the clouds of iridium that killed the dinosaurs.

From the stench grew the cult led by the president who hates me. Rather than succumb to reciprocal hate, let me just say that I love the country I served, and despise everything that he, his supporters, and his financiers stand for.

Today, I don’t feel much like apologizing.

DEFEAT FASCISM

 Ya’ll, this isn’t the America I served, hoped for, and then lauded when it elected a person of color as its president. To me, she’s a mighty structure rotting from its roots. To wit:

There was a man who used his immense, and inherited, wealth to publicly demean, besmirch, dishonor—and spread lies about citizenship—a good and honest man. Yes good. He might not have shared your political views, but a good man with a good family. The creature who dishonored him? Ya’ll elected him president.

When another man won the presidency, this same fiend daily published personal smears against him, lying and besmirching him without pause. This lowlife? Ya’ll elected him president again.

Now Americans are losing their livelihoods for commenting on the quotes of a talk-show host.

I’m not worried so much about myself. What ya’ll gonna do, cut off my hair and you know what?

I worry about young folks growing up in a country that has gone from Mr. Rogers to anti-American talk-show hosts in less time than once imaginable.

That has gone from Jonas Salk to Robert Kennedy Jr.

That has gone from Thurgood Marshall to Clarence Thomas.

That has gone from the men who stormed shore at Normandy to ICE.

That, in one state, has gone from Winthrop Rockefeller to … well take a look.

Yes, and from your perspective, we’ve gone from:

Civil rights to political correctness,

Care for those with gender dysphoria to arbitrary gender selection,

Respect for science to abolition of unharmonious scientific findings, and

From Kumbaya to “Defund the Police."

I think something is dreadfully wrong. If you want to meet and talk about what might be done, I’m here.

A SHORT STORY

 

MEMORIES OF A COUNTRY CHURCH

By Jimmie von Tungeln

Mama used to say us girls picked on Eula Faye or else egged her on, but I can tell you that she gave about as good as she got. Like the time we stole her Bible verse. We all had a good laugh out of it at the time but we didn’t get ahead of her. No sir. Not at all.

Now there are those who wouldn’t think this little episode was important. They have never lived out at the end of the world where everybody you knew was either direct-kin or step-kin, or sometimes both. It didn’t take much to create a story that would last forever. Particularly if you were as poor as we were.

After Daddy died, Mama raised us as best she could. While she didn’t hold out much for preaching, or churches in general, I think it had something to do with the hardness of her life, she did send us off to church when we got to aggravating her.

Ever third Sunday Brother Elmer Tisdale would ride out from Caldron with his old mare pulling his wagon and hold services in Pleasant Grove Church. I guess this must have been about 1930. I couldn’t have been over twelve or thirteen, I reckon since I was married and gone by the time I was sixteen.

The church was nothing but a little frame building set off from a cemetery that went way back almost to the civil war. My granddaddy had been a charter member but he had died young so Mama could barely remember him. The church building rested under the shade of three enormous oak trees. We kids called them “The Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost,” but not around any grown-ups for they had no sense of humor whatsoever about religion.

We would gather up around nine-thirty in the morning and have an hour of Sunday School before the services began. Mama made us leave early to get there to serve the complete sentence. Naturally she didn’t trust us as far as she could spit and I can still see her on the porch as we took off, threatening to cut a switch and wear us out if we didn’t get there in time.

The older ones were gone by then and it was just Sister and Jim and me had to go. Mama made us because she said it wouldn’t do us any harm and might do us some good. She was welcome to her opinion. We had our own, but we went just like she told us to.

We dawdled around as much as we could. Jim would usually cut us off some grapevines to smoke on the way and we would make up all sorts of imaginary trips that we were really going on. None of them included a church house. Hog Eye Bend Creek would be the River Nile and a clump of oak trees would be a pyramid. We used clouds for the Alps and the road we were on was the main street through Paris. For a bunch of country kids, we weren’t bad at making things up.

Anyway, Hattie Ruth Turner taught school up at Armistead so they had her teach Sunday School to the girls on preaching day. There were about seven or eight of us. Eula Faye was distant kin and her daddy had a pension from World War One. They also owned a grocery store out on the state highway, so they was about the richest family in the community. She was a round-faced thing with freckles ever place they had a spot to be in. Her mamma kept her hair done up in curls to tight I bet you could have played music on them. She kind of had this little bounce when she walked and we would giggle that someday she might just bounce off like a rubber ball. She would hear us and say that rich women in the city walked like that. We liked her okay, I reckon. We didn’t mistreat her. It was just that she would sometimes create the opportunity for a laugh or just create one on her own.

All the girls had to have a Bible verse memorized to recite first thing in Sunday School. This was supposed to help us into Heaven in some way, but it wasn’t real clear to us how and we didn’t care much for it. It might have been due to the lack of scriptural resources available to a bunch of little country kids. Some of those girls were from families that couldn’t even afford a Bible. We had one but our step-daddy wouldn’t hardly let us touch it. So we were in a constant of agitation about it. It sure wasn’t our favorite part of this whole salvation thing.

Miss Hattie, since she was a regular school teacher too, had to remember what side her bread was buttered on so she would always let Eula Faye go first. We would start to snicker even before she stood up. We met in the back of the church house and the boys in front. Eula Faye would make sure the boys were watching her and then when the room got real quiet, she would brush a hand across her hair and say it just like some movie actress.

“Jesus wept, John 11:35”

She got away with it ever Sunday.

Then we would have to stand up and quote some regular verse. And you weren’t allowed to repeat someone else’s choice. It got to where it played on our nerves.

Well this one Sunday, we fixed it up so Sister held Eula Faye up outside the door on some pretense and she hadn’t come in when we started. So Eloise Covington jumped up and asked if she could go first. What could Miss Hattie say?

Eloise was in on it, see? She stumbled around until she saw Eula Faye come in then Eloise shouted out loud enough for the whole church to hear: “Jesus wept, John 11:35”

You could just about see the color drain out of Eula Faye’s face when she took her seat. We swallowed our giggles until our stomachs started to swell, expecting to see Eula Faye have a nervous breakdown. But she didn’t miss a beat when Miss Hattie called on her. She stood up and took a deep breath. The boys knew something was up and had all stopped talking and were watching like a bunch of hounds at hog dressing time. She nodded to them as if they were her audience and then gave us her best “You ain’t seen nothin’ yet” look. Then she announced to the world, as if she might be telling the Red Sea to part.

“Moses crept, John 3:15.”

She said it real loud and then just set back and smiled the same as if she had just recited some long-winded psalm. We all broke up laughing until Miss Hattie stared it out of us. The boys didn’t know a Bible verse from a horse-collar so they mostly just stared with their mouths all open. Then it was all over and we re-commenced our recitation period. Miss Hattie never let on like anything unusual happened at all.

That was the day we knew it wasn’t going to be easy to get something by Eula Faye. But Sister and I laughed all the way home over it anyway. Jim just smoked a grapevine and looked puzzled over the whole thing.

DEFEAT FASCISM

 Been much talk lately about how such a frightening percentage of Americans accept buffoonery and debauchery from so many of our political leaders. I'm not too smart nor well educated but I have my thoughts. I think an appropriate analogy for the American psyche at present aligns with the old sci-fi films of the 1950s.

I think the evil is always there within us. It's tribal and genetic. Distrust and violence are embedded in our genes. Tendencies for warfare with strangers are natural.

We haven't subdued them through religion or philosophy. Rather, what we call morality is a result of social contracts, agreements, and barters. I won't kill you or steal from you if you won't kill or steal from me. Let our villages trade with each other, not raid each other. Let us see how peace and harmony works to our benefit. Let us develop a monetary system so we don't have to steal animals for survival. Let us talk, not fight. Peace results from rational thought.

So evil becomes subdued like the 1950s monsters, deep underground.

Then an explosion opens a path for evil to rise, a path to destruction. It isn't from a bomb, but from evil-minded politicians who use our distrust as a detonator. We become engulfed by the results of evil. We need a John Agar to develop a plan of survival that, "Just might work.

With apologies to Steven Pinker.

DEFEAT FASCISM

 A synopsis of the 1935 novel It Can't Happen Here by Sinclair Lewis:

"In 1936, American Senator Berzelius "Buzz" Windrip enters the presidential election campaign on a populist platform, promising to restore the country to prosperity and greatness, and promising each citizen US$5,000 per year (equivalent to $113,000 in 2024). Portraying himself as a champion of "the forgotten man" and "traditional" American values, Windrip defeats incumbent President Franklin D. Roosevelt for the Democratic nomination, and then beats his Republican opponent, Senator Walt Trowbridge, in the November election.

 Having previously foreshadowed some authoritarian measures to reorganize the government, Windrip outlaws dissent, incarcerates political enemies in concentration camps, and trains and arms a paramilitary force called the "Minute Men" (named after the Revolutionary War militias of the same name), who terrorize citizens and enforce the policies of a corporatist regime. One of Windrip's first acts as president is to eliminate the influence of Congress, which draws the ire of many citizens as well as the legislators themselves. The Minute Men respond to protests harshly, attacking demonstrators with bayonets. In addition to these actions, Windrip's administration, known as the Corpo government, curtails women's and minority rights, and eliminates individual states by subdividing the country into administrative sectors. The government of these sectors is managed by Corpo authorities, usually prominent businessmen or Minute Men officers. Those accused of crimes against the government appear before kangaroo courts presided over by military judges. A majority of Americans approve of these dictatorial measures, seeing them as painful but necessary steps to restore American power." - Wikipedia

DEFEAT FASCISM

 Reading “Murder Among Friends” by Candace Fleming. It’s the latest recounting of the murder of 14-year-old Bobby Franks in 1924 by teenagers Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb. All lived in Chicago near one another and the murder shocked the world, created new standards in criminal law, and caused generations of concern about mental capabilities.

The two murderers were from wealthy families and well educated. They lived under the Nietzschean idea that some individuals were superhuman and marched to a different moral drum than mere mortals. They chose their victim because he was walking home from school. They simply wanted to experience the thrill of murder.

Disclaimer. I’m no psychiatrist. Nor am I a psychologist. I’m not overly educated. Both degrees originated from state-supported public universities. I do claim the right, however, to be fascinated. I am.
Some analysts suggest that two people acting together will participate in horrific actions that neither would consider when acting alone.

Some increasingly accepted scholarship suggests that interactions with peer groups largely determine our adult proclivities and that parental upbringing contributes little. See “The Nurture Assumption: Why Children Turn Out the Way They Do” by the psychologist Judith Rich Harris. (Don’t yell at me.)

What fascinates me is this: In a younger life, I joined thousands of youth, some as young as 17 years, who learned from respected authority figures that it was perfectly acceptable to do what Loeb and Leopold did, i.e. murder a randomly selected youth from another tribe. The burden posited that it was not only okay, but our duty, to murder on demand, whether by hand, pistol, rifle, knife, artillery, or (for the more timid at heart) with bombs dropped from thousands of feet in the air. Almost all of my peer group would have complied if ordered to.

Now we ask ourselves why millions of Americans blindly follow a command to murder the American dream.

Further reading: The Milgram Experiment On Obedience to Authority.

Oh, clicking on an ad helps me fund these efforts.

DEFEAT FASCISM

A Song For The Victors 

One might consider a continuum of justice applied by the victorious to the vanquished. At one end we might find “occupy and govern.” This is a relatively benign situation in which, assuming there is order and tranquility, the defeated peoples go about their business. The Romans often used this, creating the so-called “Pax Romana." Napolean did at times. Even some of the Ottoman conquerors found it efficacious. Within this model, the victors may even contribute to the safety and reconstruction of a ravaged nation.

At the other extreme is the choice of “demolish and destroy.” The defeated are vermin who deserve no modicum of morality or shred of legal equality. The Spanish conquerors found little use for the native inhabitants of a country other than slavery and exploitation. The Nazi hierarchy had determined that Hungary would serve as a vassal state wherein its citizens existed only to serve German masters. Victors “own” the defeated under this concept.

Oddly, America offered a unique path, one hardly mentioned by history. After its Civil War ended, both sides simply went home.

It needs no saying which route America’s current victors have chosen at present. It will be interesting, though excruciatingly painful, to see how it works out.

The Russians have found on two occasions that it is hard to "own" large populations of dissatisfied people.

DEFEAT FASCISM

 A Song For The Victors

Some things make sense. Some things don’t. To a degree, i understand the genesis of what has happened to America. By this I mean that a majority has voted in a government designed to repudiate everything I feel my life has stood for.

Am I justifiably aggrieved? I don’t know. My life has been somewhat disjointed. But, and I believe this sincerely, it has exhibited seeds of goodness. I firmly believe in the views of the Galilean as presented on the Sermon on the Mount.

In short, I am on the losing side of this segment of American history.

As an amateur reader of history, I understand the attitude of the victors. I even appreciate their long-view approach to achieving their ends.

One can easily date the beginning of their war to August 14, 1935, some few days short of 90 years ago.

Yes, that’s a long time to hold a grudge. It is the day that the Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Social Security Act. It is fair to choose the act as mascot of the New Deal Legislation, the most hated output of laws in history to social and economic conservatives.” Key benefits included providing direct relief to the unemployed, stimulating economic recovery through public works projects, and establishing long-term social safety nets. These programs also aimed to regulate industries, strengthen labor rights, and provide relief to farmers.” (AI)

The battle to overturn these wasn’t always successful. Americans learned first to appreciate them, next to depend on them, and finally to accept them as a part of America’s greatness.

Brilliant political maneuvering reversed this view. A big step was mentally to disassociate the benefits as being a part of every American’s life and to lock it into the public sentiment of millions as simply tools of the lowest dregs of society, as defined by the ultra-conservative leaders of the opposition. Anyone with a view that government could be a positive force in their life was a sexual deviant, a criminal, an economic leach, or someone who didn’t belong in America in the first place.

It worked. It now forms the governing philosophy of a majority of our elected officials at the national and many state levels. Whether their government will be good or not remains to be seen. What is true is that Americans are about to get it good and hard, as H.L. Mencken once observed.

What is one thing that is hard to understand? They’ve won. They now rule. The battle now must shift to the underground. What is strange about it all is that those at the highest levels of command, each unknown like the mysterious “Mr. X” of old movie serials, have chosen such a dismal, decadent, depraved, and decency-challenged clown as their front man.

DEFEAT FASCISM

 As the news of a great American victory at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania seeped across America 162 years ago today, another, some say even more important, event occurred some 1,000 miles away at Vicksburg, Mississippi. There, after a five-month campaign and a siege of 47 days, General John C. Pemberton surrendered the city and 30,000 rebel troops to a United States Army under the command of General Ulysses S. Grant.

This opened the Mississippi River to traffic and separated the insurrectionist states of Arkansas and Texas from their eastern counterparts.

President Abraham Lincoln observed, "The Father of Waters again goes unvexed to the sea"

The campaign to capture Vicksburg resulted in 48,000 killed, wounded, captured, or missing, counting both sides. The three-day battle at Gettysburg resulted in as many as 51,000. But on July 4, 1863 the dreams of two separate nations, instead of one, had faded.

Freedom isn't free. That makes it even more precious.

DEFEAT FASCISM

 Today we continue to honor an event of 162 years ago, one which did much to save America from an insurrectionist invasion. On a hot July day, in a small crossroads town in Pennsylvania, some 13,000 men trudged up a one-mile ascent of open land with the intent of doing enough damage to our country to preserve the institution of slavery.

At the top of the rise, near a spot immortalized as “the copse of trees,” a bloodied American army waited, its center containing the Second Corps of the Army of the Potomac led by Major General John Gibbon and under the overall command of Major General George Gordon Meade. As mentioned in an earlier post, General Meade had commanded the army for six days, or the equivalent today of since last Saturday.

The assault involved three Confederate divisions Pickett's, Pettigrew's, (formerly Heth's division) and Trimble's (formerly Pender's division).

Up until, and including, this war, battles featured heroic charges by massed men against unreliable weaponry. Improvements to rifles and artillery would make such charges insanely horrible to imagine. Defensive warfare would become the strategy of choice until air power rained destruction far and wide and mobile tanks replaced horse-drawn warfare.

No, children, neither side had air power back then. The president was wrong.

Let us pause and imagine the carnage before us after the assault as the remnants of the insurrectionist army retreated down the hill back to their beloved general who, despite his masterful attempt at preserving slavery, would become one of, if not the, most revered, warriors for many Americans, even some so-called historians.

Because Pickett’s division consisted of mostly Virginian’s, and because Virginians contributed substantially to writing the immediate history of our Civil War, the assault, commanded by General John Longstreet, has come to us in history as “Pickett’s Charge,” a shameful moniker to the other divisions and a lesson to us that history is a complex affair which can’t be learned from watching “Gone With The Wind.”

DEFEAT FASCISM

 So often when a particularly odious law drifts down upon our cities, it contains the admonition that, when trying to adjust to it, a city must employ the "least restrictive option." This occurs even when lives are not threatened but protected. These laws generally originate in far-right think tanks. That's where most of our proposed land use laws originate these days.

I guess the Protocall for ICE didn't emerge from one of those. Their actions call not for "strict scrutiny" but for no scrutiny, thought the lives of individuals and their families are greatly affected.

I think the first thing the panspermian aliens will do when they start putting it all back together is to resurrect the concept of hypocrisy.

DEFEAT FASCISM

 One of our state’s treasures, a journalist much more intelligent than I and eons better at expressing ideas in words, wrote a piece this week about lingering stress and worry. Seems he’s bothered too.

It caused me to think of a bit I heard on NPR once. A prominent scientist said that there is an archaic genetic trigger in our DNA that serves a mysterious purpose. Its only function is to alert us, when we feel safe, that there is still danger lurking about and we should remain aware.

We could call it the “you just think it’s all okay, Jocko” trigger.

It instantly made sense to me. Complacent animals on the savannah were probably the next ones eaten after the old, infirm, and devotees of Fox news. A feeling of safety probably sent all sorts of inviting pheromones to greedy lions, tigers, crocodiles, and primordial TV evangelists.

As they say in my home territory of LA, “Ain’t no sich thang as being too careful when you walk in tall grass.” Best watch where you step. And keep an eye on the clouds. Calm before the storm and all that. Black swan.  Après moi, le deluge.

They all trigger the sense of pervasive doom in the midst of optimism.

I think I felt it the day after Barack Obama was elected for the second time.

THOUGHTS ARE FREE

 Just finished “The Ship That Wouldn't Die: The Saga of the USS Neosho- A World War II Story of Courage and Survival at Sea” by Don Keith. What a story of a brave ship, not a massive warship or aircraft carrier, but a workaday oiler attacked by two squadrons of aircraft but who kept herself afloat for four days until rescue arrived.

It is such a thrill to know my beloved U.S. Navy produced such ships and men. If you have never served, you have no idea how disheartening today’s America has become. I'm sure that that the shipmates, men and women, who serve her now want to carry on the tradition.

The top of the Chain of Command, however, is rotten, and I fear that the rot will begin to seep below decks. 

I have no control over our government. But I have the Oath, music, literature, memories, and a wonderful life to make me keep smiling. Oh yes, there is a life-partner whose father fought fascists through France, Belgium and Germany. We have his Combat Infantry Badge and Purple Heart, … and I have a DD 214.

Life is good because thoughts are free.

Salute a brave ship for today.

USS NEOSHO (AO 23)

THE ELDERLY PLANNER

 Notes From The Elderly Planner: Walking with the young dog who rescued us and now manages our house, I thought about some ideas that young urban planners have. Some involve parking automobiles. They’re “agin” it. Some suggest if we eliminate parking requirements, world peace will descend upon us. I’m not so sure.

Truth is, cities do often over-require commercial parking. That’s a topic for another day. Today I’m stuck on residential parking.

On each day’s walk, we often have to take to the street because a car, actually usually a pickup truck, sits athwartships to the sidewalk (when there is one.) This is one of those problems that didn’t plague us so badly 50 years ago. Why? One reason is that people had more concern for their neighbors 50 years ago. Another is that a modern middle or upper middle-class family now with two teenagers may possess four automobiles and a hunting jeep. Visitors usually come in cars.

As Mayor Furlow Thompson of Pot Luck, Arkansas says, “Where the hell you gonna put ‘em?”

It's gonna get worse. Our state just passed a law that requires allowing accessory dwelling units in all residential districts (good idea) but prohibits cities from requiring parking for those extra units (what the hell were they thinking?) Somehow, things will work out. It’s called “pixie dust planning.” That’s the same thinking that allows if we build enough trails, people will walk or ride bikes to work. (Today here: 95 degrees F and 97 percent humidity.)

As Ernest Hemingway said (not about urban planning but it often fits) “Isn’t it pretty to think so?”

THE ELDERLY PLANNER

 Notes from The Elderly Planner: Years ago, many years ago, I was present at a public meeting in my hometown. The room was packed. I forget what the original topic was, but the discussion turned to affordable housing, back then called "decent, safe, and sanitary" housing.

As public input progressed, a woman in her late 20s, known about town as a "neo-hippie" rose at one point and said, "I don't think anyone should profit from providing an essential human need like housing."

Everyone in the room laughed. I'm sure I did. With each passing year, I have found the statement less funny.

DEFEAT FASCISM

 America and the world still suffers from the last time a dim-witted American president got us into an unnecessary war.

We can at least blame a majority of the U.S. Supreme Court for that one. The elected him.

This time thought, 77,302,580 Americans will do the "walk of shame."

DEFEAT FASCISM

 The “listen to” book for Bessie and me is now “The Ship That Wouldn't Die: The Saga of the USS Neosho- A World War II Story of Courage and Survival at Sea Paperback” – by Don Keith. It is another tale of great heroism, by my beloved Navy.

The name "Neosho" refers to a river in America. They named tankers like the Neosho after rivers for anyone thinking the name sounds Japanese.

Oddly, I’m finding it a precise allegory to our present condition in America. We are now experiencing the historical equivalent of the second wave of the attack on Pearl Harbor. The brave protests of last Saturday mirror the fury with which Americans responded to an attack on their country. Anchors Aweigh!

DEFEAT FASCISM

 It appears that people who love America are in for some rough times. A missive (Project 2025) written for a dictator in exile is now the operating manual for our country. (Yes, the similarities are devastatingly terrifying.) Will these times make us hate America the way our current leaders do? They don't have to. Let us consider other groups that have lived through hard times. There are several.

One includes our African American brothers and sisters. They descend from those who suffered the unimaginable effects of raw slavery here from 1619 until 1865, and economic slavery until now.

Do they hate America?

No, they have served honorably in every one of our wars since the one that freed them.

They have contributed to every aspect of story of America's greatness, including science, work, service, art, literature, and sports almost always without the recognition afforded their Caucasian kin.

Role models exist for us as the darkness descends. Let us draw strength from their bravery.

DREAMS

 America has forgotten how to dream. I saw something like that in a quote and it started me thinking. My thoughts: Yes we have. No we have not.

It seems to me that we have forgotten to dream of the things that make our country stronger.

We once dreamed of eliminating poverty. Lyndon Johnson tried. It may have represented a classic example of applying the right solution to the wrong problem. Perhaps the problem wasn’t poor people in poor areas. Perhaps the problem was the exploitation of poor people in almost every segment of our country since 1619.

Ronald Reagan dreamed of accommodating poverty by enabling the rich to become richer and the poor to become ashamed of being poor. More wealth was to trickle downward from the rich to the poor and obviate the need for the ones he pictured as being like his “Welfare Queen.” Wealth, falling from the sky like manna from Heaven would enable those below to free themselves from the quagmire of poverty.

It may have contained a twinge of applying the wrong solution to the right problem. It is a characteristic of the rich that that last thing on earth they want is to share in their hoard.

Our poor still wait like hungry pets for the largesse to fall their way.

Oh, we dream alright. The rich dream of a pure capitalistic society in which they face no regulations or pay any taxes.

The poor dream of not having to make a choice between food or shelter.

Many of the rest of us dream of our state’s college sports team winning a national championship.

REASON

 Binary arguments plague us these days. These are situations which offer only two opposing sides or choices, often implying that if one is true, the other must be false. A form of "either/or" thinking, it is sometimes considered a logical fallacy because it may ignore the possibility of more nuanced or complex realities.

If I am a MAGA, I can’t say that I don’t believe in abortions, but health care choices should be determined by a woman and her physician, making abortions safe and rare.

If I am a far-left progressive, I can’t say that gender dysphoria is a medical phenomenon affecting less than one percent of the population who should be loved and cared for, but that some gender-selection advocates have pushed the extremes of thought to uncomfortable levels.

If I am a MAGA, I can’t say that regulations stifle the economy, but some are necessary to protect the health, safety, and welfare of the general population.

If I am a far left progressive, I can’t say that protection of the welfare is essential, but that America has become over-regulated when we fine companies for not placing "Do not stand." warnings on the top of stepladders.

We must, as in some Biblical admonition, choose whom we will serve and how we will serve them, never in the lukewarm, or rational, middle, but hot or cold.

 Increasingly, we don’t seek to serve the vast general public.

Increasingly, we avoid reason to guide our thinking.

Increasingly, we approach life from the extremes of thought.

That’s how we have ended up where we are.

YOUTH

 Sometimes I miss the America we are discarding.

Next door to our country grocery in south Arkansas was the shop of a man (long deceased) who did body work on cars. Each day, he would wander in when the delivery man for a local bakery and selected others showed up. They would gather around on nail kegs in the back of the store and solve the world's problems. The gatherings were genial, and what one might expect from a disparate group of southern rednecks.

Some were veterans of WWII. All were survivors of a devastating tornado in 1947 that killed 32 people in the community. All, to a man, were yellow-dog FDR Democrats.

Sometimes during deer season, they would all bring ingredients and cook a "Mulligan's Stew" on the old wood-burning stove. A FB friend is the daughter of the man mentioned above. She was a young girl, quite pretty as I remember, at the time. She says they used to tell her that the stew wasn't complete unless it contained an old sock.

What I remember, since our kitchen connected with the store, was when my mother would notice that the conversation had suddenly gotten very low. She would lay an iron aside, look at me and say, "They're telling jokes in there now, ain't they?"

I don't think things like that go on at the local Walmart.