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

 Institutions don’t represent a monolithic community. Consider:

He came from the same America as I.

He enjoyed the same advantages as I.

He went through the same Navy Bootcamp as I.

He took the same oath as I.

He served in the same unit as I. In fact, he often stood watch in the next outpost. He chowed in the same mess hall as I. He knew the Vietnamese mothers in the adjacent village craved oranges for some reason connected with dietetic deficiencies, as did I. He was able to pilfer oranges from daily meals the same as I.

I would sometimes bring them and pitch them over the concertina wire to begging mothers wanting them for their babies.

He would taunt them and burst oranges on the street that separated our compound from the village of Tien Sha.

So when people ask me if I understand that there are Vietnamese Veterans, just like me, that worship fascism and vote for the most depraved man ever to run for office in my country, I must say I’m not surprised.

Neither veterans nor alumnae represent monolithic groups

For example: Harvard University graduated:

 John Adams

John F. Kennedy

Neil deGrasse Tyson

Barack Obama

T. S. Eliot.

But also:

Ted Kaczynski

Ted Cruz

Tom Cotton

Stephen K. Bannon

Jeffrey Skilling

The religion we call Christianity produced Jimmy Carter and Pope Francis, but also Jim Bakker and Paula White.

The United States Supreme Court produced Ruth Allen Ginsberg and Clarence Thomas.

Perhaps we should stop seeking validation through groups and look within ourselves. Ideas produced by groups tend to diverge.

EPIPHANY OF THE DAY

 BRIBERY

Years ago, in an Arkansas far away, it was a well-established situation that a professional services firm wishing to do business—when the contract was governed by a specific state cabinet agency—would have first to make a “campaign contribution” to the constitutional head of that agency. It was a dirty but necessary cost of doing business, one deemed and declared to be legal. How the head of the agency turned the contribution to personal use was a process that led him to a prison sentence.

Too bad for him. If the people and process were in operation today, there is good news. The United States Supreme Court just ruled that it would be perfectly okay to pay the favor off openly, in cash, and without danger of indictment as long as the payment occurred after the work was done and not before.

Only Sam “The Flag” Alito and Clarence “Big Cigar” Thomas could have developed that logic stream.

There is one catch. That lies in the fact that the public official must have sufficient trust in the paying party that such emolument can be delayed until the proper and legal moment. Since the deal can’t be included in the contract, both sides must trust one another. It could be done with a nod and wink implying “I know as much on you as you know on me.” In botanical terms, the leaves must be as rotten as the roots.

In other words, there must be a level of trust not normally extant in such people.

It has taken awhile, but we are there.

Coda: Supposedly it would work like a "reverse tip." Now if only there were some way it could be made tax deductible.

TODAY'S EPIPHANY

 LAWYERS

 I’ve always gotten on well with attorneys. I admire them for their logic and willingness to see that all, not just the favored, receive a fair trial. Do some push the limits? Sure. But some physicians prescribe antibiotics for viruses. Some engineers designed the crematoria at Auschwitz. Heck, some urban planners even promote bike paths when kids are starving in the Mississippi River Delta.

Oh, and part of my feelings for attorneys are mercenary. They always made sure I got paid for expert testimony. Mostly my feelings stem from admiration for their knowledge. I might have followed the law, but I thought all attorneys had to do what Perry Mason did. That image shied me away. The thought of standing and speaking in public was more terrifying to me than thoughts of snakes, vampires, sci-fi monsters, or meeting a Catholic nun in the dark.

One of my best friends is an attorney. We jogged many a morning together and shared thoughts. He is a Harvard Law School grad, so unlike the venom-spewing Ted Cruz or Tom Cotton that they might be from different planets. I learned logic, dedication to the law, and concepts of the advocacy system of jurisprudence from him.

Imagine then, my dismay at the condition of the current United States Supreme Court. I always imagined it as a pinnacle of dedication, Knowledge, fairness, and legal righteousness. Along came the current majority.  Now I feel as I might have, as a youth, to find that Roy Rogers, Gene Autry, Red Ryder, Tex Ritter, Lash Larue, and Hopalong Cassidy, were really Nazi spies.