DEFEAT FASCISM

 Sometimes I catch myself wondering just what America is all about. It changes over the years. It was once a bountiful land for stone-age tribes who sometimes lived in harmony, sometimes fought, sometimes traded but respected the land and left no great scars upon it.

Sometimes it was about a place where one could practice religion without government guidance or interference or the threat of being burned at the stake for one's beliefs.

Sometimes it was place where land was so plentiful that a family could not harvest its share without the help of slave labor.

Sometimes where men who had never owned a slave were willing to die in a war that meant the end of slavery.

Sometimes it was a place where opportunity was unbounded for some, restricted for others, and prohibited for others.

Sometimes it was a place from which brave men would storm beaches in the face of death to defeat fascism.

Sometimes it was a place where good people struggled to make the opportunities of this great place available for all.

For long periods, it was a land of opportunity and progress for many, a light that attracted people from all over the world who sought its promises.

Sometimes it took great steps forward to extend its promises for all.

Every once in a while, it seems to take a step backwards.

DEFEAT FASCISM

 There is a scene in the film version of Red Badge of Courage—the one starring Audie Murphy—in which the actor Andy Devine plays a character called “The Cheery Soldier.” It is an odd scene. During a frantic battle, the protagonist (Murphy) runs away. He joins a sad caravan of defeated and dying men. That night, lost and bewildered, he encounters the Devine character who exudes joy and hope, leading the young man back to his unit. Next day, he performs bravely and becomes a hero.

The allegorical example of heroism born of positivity and duty is so inimical to the standard thirst for revenge and power that it makes one tremble.

This echoes the New Testament account of Paul and Simon “locked in jail” as accounted in Acts 16-25-26:

“About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the other prisoners were listening to them. Suddenly there was such a violent earthquake that the foundations of the prison were shaken. At once all the prison doors flew open, and everyone’s chains came loose.”

Perhaps we could all learn from these examples, those of us who believe that the forces of darkness have descended upon America. They have won. There is no doubt. The depravity of their actions has served to prove that there is no limit to what their followers will tolerate. Now they are "rubbing it in." What can we, the losers, do?

Maybe quit trying logic and anger and become the “cheerful losers.” Perhaps a display of what we consider righteousness, displaying how that makes us cheery instead of argumentative might work to make the prison doors fly open.

Who knows? It might, in some redeemable soul, cause a moment of “winner’s remorse.” If we are cheery with loss, might they develop some sense of over-optimism about the value of what they have won?

After all, they are so fond of the scriptures. Isn’t it written “ For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?”

It is indeed, in Mark 8:36

THE CENTER

 Heard a new phrase today that fits me perfectly: "The sensible center." Do you sometimes feel like you are in a crater in the middle of "no man's land" and both sides are firing heavy artillery at one another and it passes over you in a dreadful exchange?

That's me. I don't think there is a place in the center for me. Not to trivialize the poor, but I feel that I, and many of my friends, represent the politically homeless. Life wants one to choose from the extremes these days. I don't feel comfortable with either. Here are some examples, not intended to change your mind but to illustrate how I feel as the bombs pass overhead.

I believe strongly that I have no standing on the abortion issue, and I support the privilege of a woman's deciding, along with her physician, what is best for her body.  On the other hand, the use of abortion to determine the sexual makeup of a family's children bothers me.

I believe that there is a portion of my homo sapiens colleagues, some 0.6 percent of the adult population, born with a condition called gender dysphoria. I believe they deserve acceptance, grace, and treatment. On the other hand, I accept the consensus of scientists who state that there are two sexes, male and female. Telling young children that gender is an arbitrary choice from which they may choose disturbs me.

I believe that capitalism, along with the exercise of life, must be regulated. On the other hand, I think America is often over-regulated. When one's job is to address the problems that confront dense living, one must often use regulations to meet those problems. When one's job is to write regulations, one does so, regardless. Using regulation for aspirational purposes and not for the betterment of society disturbs me.

I believe, as Oliver Wendell Holmes stated, that taxes are the price we pay for civilization. On the other hand, waste and pork-barrel spending suck the lifeblood from America. Rewarding loyalty with government largesse disturbs me.

In short, I think that societal choices are complex and not to be addressed with sound bites or on social media. For example, I think the dropping of nuclear bombs on Japan was a horrific act. But then, I was not a 22-year-old man who had landed on the beaches of Normandy in June of 1944 and had helped defeat the Nazis only to be assigned to a legendary infantry division that would have been in the first boats ashore if the United States military had landed at Kyushu.

Don't get me wrong, my safe place tends toward the left. But I don't choose blind dogma. I think, and therefore I ponder and evaluate. At the end of the day, I love America more than I love a political party.

DEFEAT FASCISM

 It dawned on me this morning, the 77,302,580 didn’t make a vote, they took an oath. It wasn’t like the oath I took to protect the United States and its Constitution. It was an oath to follow a single man, Donald J. Trump.

How do votes and oaths differ?

A vote is a formal indication of a choice between two or more candidates or courses of action, expressed typically through a ballot or a show of hands or by voice.

An oath is a public pledge that a person will perform some action or duty, generally with the promise of doing so truthfully. An oath can also be used as a way of promising oneself to support a cause or an entity.

It came to me while walking with my dog this morning. We like to listen to audio books as we walk and this day’s fare was “The Last 100 Days” by John Toland, a detailed recounting of the end of WWII in Europe.

I was struck by the number of high-ranking German officers who would not surrender in the face of overwhelming odds, a surrender that would have save thousands of lives and avoided the destruction of many German cities. As their armies collapsed, generals prolonged the carnage with, “I have taken an oath to the Fuhrer never to surrender.”

I was struck by the fact that, even after Himmler told the concentration camp guards to flee and save themselves, many chose, instead, to march their prisoners until they died of fatigue or starvation.

I was struck by the thousands of suicides by those who couldn’t live in a world without Hitler, and the horrific insanity of Josehp Goebbels and his wife Magda who took their six precious children with them into death by poisoning them.

Then while walking through a quiet city park, a cold thread of abject terror ran down my spine.

This isn’t going to end well.

DEFEAT FASCISM: READ REBUKE RESIST

Make America great again: The slogan that killed a dream. A nation died while we searched for a moment, the moment when America was her greatest.

Was America greatest when the troops of George Washington crossed the Delaware River and won a victory that energized her revolution? Patriots would have it so.

Was America greatest when her Supreme Court issued the Dred Scott decision which stated that African slaves and their descendants were not considered citizens of the United States and therefore could not sue in federal court, essentially declaring that enslaved people had no legal rights to protection under the Constitution? Our current administration thinks it so, wishing to apply it now to the country’s first inhabitants.

Many Americans now think greatness occurred sometime in the 1950s. That is when income tax rates were near their highest, and

-         when citizens were being slain in the South for aspiring to vote,

-         when our children faced a life in iron lungs as a result of polio,

-         when women couldn’t obtain credit on their own,

-         when young men faced the military draft to go unwillingly into undeclared and unmotivated wars,

-         when veterans who had fought for America in WWII and in Korea faced denial of the GI Bill of Rights due to the color of their skin,

-         when drafty, leaky, shabby, and unsafe houses were good enough for some, and

-         when education in America existed on a binary system of quality.

Moments are difficult to pinpoint. Defining them requires thought, bravery, and compassion. America was at her greatest when these factors came into play, long ago in a country far away.

DEFEAT FASCISM: READ REBUKE RISIST

 It is an evolutionary irony that those to whom America has been most generous are now the chief demons of her destruction. Perhaps it goes back to our primal instinct to gorge on food when the supply was always unpredictable. Plenty never seems enough to those who have it.

It wouldn’t seem to come from our religious background. In the Christian gospels, for example, Luke 12:48 states, "From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked."

Later, the phrase Noblesse Oblige was a byword for any noble action of merit. Translating to "nobility obliges", the words represent the idea that nobility has an obligation to demonstrate impeccable conduct and to protect and serve one's subordinates.

Even the military seems rooted in the concept. From and address by Col J. D. Willis, commander of the Air Force’s 17th Training Group:

“Gen. George S. Patton, the WWII-era general known for his bluntness and battlefield acumen, espoused one component of Noblesse Oblige when he stated 'you are always on parade.' An effective leader must always conduct him or herself in a manner they would like their subordinates to emulate.”

We have arrived in America at a point where the rule of conduct for our present leaders is that power is  granted for one’s self-aggrandizement and profit. It also serves to reward the loyal, notwithstanding their use of the favors granted.

The concept of "Noblesse Oblige" historically meant that nobility had obligations to give. In modern society, it means each person sharing his/her special talents or gifts. Unfortunately, our present rulers exhibit no special talents other than those of using inherited wealth for the purpose of making more money, building power, and punishing those with differing opinions.

What a model for our youth to emulate.

DEFEAT FASCISM

 Read Rebuke Resist

I've always been lucky with friends. Many were attorneys. I never joined in any defamation games. Instead, I tried to learn from their applications of logic and law.

The law is a precious thing, It stands between us and destruction at times, between anarchy and peace at others. Can it be used for specious purposes rather than for good? Yes, but so can a surgeon's scalpel. So can a shovel. So can a hammer.

Today I think even more fondly about the attorneys I've known. Almost all have been honest and dedicated to the rule of law and logic. Not a single one I've known has ever crapped on the floor of the United States Capitol

Today we find ourselves besieged by the forces of evil and darkness. The purposes of those in power seek are to create an America composed of a binary population of favored rulers and proles.

Standing on the walls of the Fortress of America and defending us are a few brave lawyers. Let's send them our love.

DEFEAT FASCISM

 Read Rebuke Resist

Perspectives change. Once I thought the “Easy Rider” guys were cool. Now I have seen neighborhoods, even cities, destroyed by the actions of drug dealers like those two. How many died while they rode across America pissing people off.  (The music is still great, though.)

 I thought the characters in “The Big Chill” were cool as well. Now I see that they were the self-absorbed assholes that would go on to ruin America. (The music is still great, though.)

The hero of “The Graduate?” Now I watch the final scene and say to myself, “She just ran off with the sorriest son of a bitch in Southern California.”

Now it’s “Animal House.” (The music is still great, though.)

Many, if not most, college graduates of the 60s saw that film and said, “That was us.” I've even heard high-class attorneys say so. What a group of colorful characters doing wild things.

Yep. They were funny as hell.

Now I realize that we just elected them to run our state and national governments.

Maybe it's not enough just to have good music.

DEFEAT FASCISM

 Read Rebuke Resist

Even with all the news, I have to admit that I’ve seen a worse January. That of 1968 comes to mind. I’d only been “in-country” a few weeks when what was then called “North Vietnam” decided to launch the historically infamous Tet Offensive.

In brief, all hell broke loose, and I was cast into it but certainly not to the extent that the Marines in Hue were. I was in Naval security on the Tien Sha peninsula outside of Da Nang. We pulled six-hour watches, six hours fortifying our bases, and six hours sleep for 26 days. But we made it through.

Despite what you read, it was not a surprise. Everyone knew it was coming. It’s just that those in charge, following the lead of General William C. Westmoreland, didn’t take the warnings seriously. As our modern dilemma shows only too well, things go badly when we don’t take danger seriously.

Truth is, there was one major difference between what I experienced in 1968 and what I fully expect to experience in short order.

The people wanting to destroy me in 1968 were not people whom I had once considered dear friends who loved America as much as I.

EPIPHANY OF THE DAY

 HYMNS

 Still thinking about the little white church as I remember as child. Actually I don’t remember much about it. When I was just getting old enough to remember things, all the young adults who had grown up with the church, and moved to the city, started their own church. It will warrant its own time later.

What I do remember, and treasure to this day, is the music.

There is something unexplainable about those songs that leapt from the pages of the Baptist Hymnal.

Something so primal and emotional they seem to me more spiritual that many of the passages in the Bible.

There was so much joy unbridled in the likes of I’ll Fly Away that it makes a mockery of the hateful, venom-spewing tirades of modern TV evangelists. No matter if one has suffered greatly in life, or has enjoyed its many blessings, “Like a bird from prison bars has flown, I’ll fly away” can, depending upon the singer, voice freedom from an unkind world or the promise of continued happiness in another.

Among the hymns was one written by an African American after he learned that he just lost his wife and unborn child, who met the tragedy with Precious Lord take my hand.

They don’t write them like that anymore. As a speaker whose name I can’t remember once said, the likes of “Just as I am without one plea” type offerings has given way to “Jesus is my boyfriend” babblings. Another said that “Comparing the old hymns to the modern ‘praise music’ is like comparing a Shakespearean sonnet to a Halmark greeting card.”

I’ve made a long journey intellectually from that little white church to a life of secular humanism. I deplore the hatred and divisiveness that erupt from so many modern evangelical meetings. I can’t reconcile the screeching of a Kenneth Copeland with the Sermon on the Mount. I’ve lost friends over the misanthropic shrieks of so-called Christian Nationalism.

I still like those old hymns, though.

EPIPHANY OF THE DAY

 DANGER

Some years ago I read a scientific treatise stating that we have a genetic trigger withing us that alerts us to danger. This made sense. When we roamed the savannah, danger, immediate and unforgiving danger, lurked everywhere. After the old and weak, the overly complacent probably found themselves eaten next. One might even say stress was good. Maybe it still is, within certain boundaries.

The piece, more interestingly, stated that the genomic trigger still activates when all seems safe and calm. Perhaps it is there to tell us that seeming safety is the most prevalent forecaster of danger. In other words, when all seems safe and secure, that's the time to be most alert. Ever know any of these feelings?

• Something just didn't seem right.
• I had this feeling something was wrong.
• It was too quiet.
• Some sixth sense told me to be careful.
• I felt as if someone was watching me.
• What had I done to make everyone suddenly start acting so nice toward me?

Perhaps we shouldn't be so critical of a little stress in our lives. I say, "a little" for when genetic triggers suffer negative mutations, chaos can result. Responses can seize and direct us when there are no modern-day lions and tigers in the vicinity. What is even more alarming is that scheming people and institutions can use these triggers to generate responses, to accomplish their own ends, within those willing to listen without reasoning. Whether danger exists or not, we mentally stand ready to take action.

When that goes to an extreme, we don't simply plan a safer route through life, we climb onto a building and start shooting people.

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.

Decency

I’m not sure what it is about conservatives and veterans. In recent memory, one political party has demeaned the service of a pair of Navy veterans who did two of the most dangerous jobs during the Vietnam war. One commanded a river boat and one flew missions from an aircraft carrier. The latter spent six years in a prison after the North Vietnamese shot down his plane. The first saw his Purple Hearts ridiculed at the Republican national convention.

 

Then the party insulted the family of an American soldier killed while serving his country in the Middle East wars. Don’t know why, just to get votes I suppose.

 

A highly decorated officer received his crass treatment recently while in the full, ribbon-bedecked uniform of his country. The insignias include the Combat Infantry Badge and the Purple Heart. The vast majority of American have no idea, nor do they seem to care, what a CIB is. It’s the blue image with the wreath and rifle on top. It means that foreign enemies of our country have tried to kill you physically. You don’t get one for having internal enemies of our country hurl insults and stereotyped accusations at you. If you did, I guess most of us would warrant one. Maybe if it were the president of the United States making the insults, the badge would come with a star attached.

 

You’d think it couldn’t get any worse. It did. The party then made sure that a World War Two veteran, now deceased as almost all of them are, received his treatment. Many of them have called his kind “The Greatest Generation.” This party suggested the veteran was burning in Hell. (That’s a fiery pit of eternal fire where evangelical “Christians,” (and those who would exploit them) mentally send people who don’t believe exactly as they do—the ultimate act of judgement by their loving god.)

I don’t understand it. Is it their religion that makes them so mean-spirited? It’s not Christianity itself. I watch a Methodist service each week and it is founded on love and grace. I always feel better toward the human race after I watch it. What is it on the outer fringes of that same faith that makes faces turn red and veins bulge with hate and anger?

Like I say. I don’t know, but it sure would make me happy if they would leave the veterans out of it all. Haven’t they suffered enough?

My father-in-law wore a Combat Infantry Badge and a Purple Heart home from World War Two. He told me once, “You’d think: just let me live one more second … just one more second.”

When I think that some draft-dodging asshole would have the gall to dishonor men like that, it makes me very sad for America. It may not bother some of you, but it does me.

Sorry for the tirade. Sometimes it pours out and I fail to stop it.