THE UNCIVIL WAR

Today marks the symbolic end, 161 years ago, of the Slaveowners’ Revolt that tore our country apart for four long years. It had cost the lives of some 750,000 soldiers on the two sides, roughly two percent of the population. That would equate to six million deaths today. It left cities in ruins and farms in ashes awaiting the return of the armless, the legless, and those suffering from “soldier’s heart” as they called it back then.

Though it officially ended slavery it did not end the vicious cruelty imposed upon those who arrived in our country in chains, a sin still visited upon their descendants.

Now we are engaged in a great, but differently fought, civil war to determine whether the imbedded promises of April 9, 1865 will prevail. How long, we wonder, must the battle for human decency last?

We can hope, but the monetary resources of a great international cabal face us as the murderous artillery faced American soldiers from Missionary Ridge and the cliffs of Omaha Beach. Their power flourishes within from the likes of Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and Mark Zuckerberg. Even the purchase of a chicken sandwich or hobby tool bolsters their power. What we need more than ever is the will to prevail against monstrous odds.

We could use a man like Ulysses S. Grant again.

Sunrise With Schubert: April 10, 2018

Tempted to feel sympathy for Mark Zuckerberg today? Instead, why not have a moment of silent sympathy for other victims of the U.S. Congress? How about a bit of remorse for the victims of the House Un-American Activities Committee? Add to them the victims of Senator Joe McCarthy and his venomous aide Roy Cohen. Many of those victims saw the loss of their jobs, their savings, their homes, and even their families in a particularly sad moment in our history.

Who were the victims and what was their crime? Most times, the crime amounted to having attended meetings, perfectly legal at the time, with known communists or about communism. These would have occurred in the 1930s, when the poverty and cruelty of the Great Depression spawned an interest in the government’s helping the poor, in whatever way possible.

Most of the victims had toyed with the ideas of communism and abandoned them, much as college sophomores read Ayn Rand, become enamored, then abandon her foolishness during their junior year.

The greatest transgression in appearances before HUAC seems to have been a refusal to provide the names of others who had attended meetings or read communist literature in their younger years. The committee went after those in the arts with particular vehemence: artists, entertainers, actors, and writers.

Some actors, like Ronald Reagan and Robert Taylor, gleefully supplied names from among their friends and colleagues. More honorable people, like playwright Arthur Miller, refused and were found guilty of contempt of congress.

In a particular example of dark humor, a HUAC Chairman offered Arthur Miller, who was married to Marilyn Monroe at the time, a deal to drop Miller’s upcoming hearing if he would arrange a photograph of the Chairman with Marilyn. Miller refused, and we can each decide the more honorable of the two.

It was a dark time in America. The tactics of the committee were repeated by Joe McCarthy and Roy Cohn. Cohn, if you remember, was, before he died of Aids, was a legal advisor and confidant of the now President of the United States of America.

Mark Zuckerberg walks into the halls of congress today as a billionaire genius. He will be a billionaire genius when he leaves, and will be a billionaire genius when he wakes up tomorrow, the day after, and the day after.

Weep not for the billionaire. Weep instead for the innocents who saw their lives destroyed by the darker forces of government.

Oh, and read about the new museum dedicated to the thousands of victims of lynchings in our country. Sorrow and sadness should always appear to us through the prisms of time and context.

One of the few memorials in
our country to true victims.

Marching To Oblivium: March 22, 2018

It’s like finding out that your favorite malt shop is really making its money by selling heroin to teenagers outside the back door.

It’s like finding out the quaint bookstore on the town square is connected to a large building where the same owners who would sell you the works of Kurt Vonnegut Jr. also offer teenaged prostitutes to wealthy old men.

It’s like finding that a charming small-venue music hall puts on dog-fights out back for selected customers.

I’m talking of course about what we’re finding out about Facebook. Sad and scary don’t begin to describe the feelings. How can something that has offered so many wonderful opportunities to make contact with, and maintain contact with, old friends and forgotten acquaintances be actively engaged in offering help and succor to those who hate and would destroy our country?

It’s like finding out that Mr. Rogers was buying opium from Afghanistan and reselling it in the neighborhood.

In a sense, America just struck the tip of the terrible iceberg called “Citizens United.” President Barack Obama tried to warn us. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito mocked him on national TV for his warning. “Corporations are people,” he said. “Get used to it, boy!”

Now we see one of the world’s richest computer nerds evading the issue of how Facebook enabled foreign governments and domestic terrorists to poison an American presidential election. He says maybe we will do something about it. Maybe we won’t. Maybe after the next election. Maybe not.

Get used to it, he implies, strutting around like El Duce. Corporations, he suggests, cannot make decisions, they are too complex and multifaceted. Besides, we haven’t the technology yet to create a fully operational soul within a corporation.

But they are supposed to be human, we say. The Supreme Court of the United States of American said so. Where is their soul?

Unrestrained greed is their soul.

What to do? I seriously don’t know. Should we give up something that has given us so much pleasure?

It’s like finding out that having sex can make you die.

Oh wait, never mind.

I’ll curtail my FB use while I think about it. Meanwhile, I sure as hell won’t buy anything advertised on it. I'm becoming a celibate capitalist and, I’m changing my metaphor.

Meet the new me, a 21-year old home-schooled libertarian who believes that a no-government model of administration, similar to that in effect in Somalia, is the ideal form as envisioned by my Guiding Goddess Ayn Rand.

I’m deeply religious and I tithe to my church, the NRA.

My greatest dream in life is to shoot to death the last surviving member of a vanishing species.

I want our country to have the world’s largest military machine and the world’s most elaborate transportation system (for the delivery of internet sales only). I will never support a politician who believes in exacting taxes for the support of government. I’m with the “no taxes, no time, nowhere, for no purpose” crowd. If we need money, borrow it from the Chinese until we get ready to “nuke” them.

I think the Galilean was a little squishy and don’t care much for him, but I like what Paul (of Paul and Timothy) said about queers. And I worry about killing them babies before they are old enough to join the military.

I don’t like anyone who isn’t a white Christian. Kill them all, I say, maybe keep all the young girls.

I don’t read, and my entire knowledge base derives from Fox News, can’t you tell?

Now, Mark Elliot Zuckerberg, sell that information to Vladimir Putin with my blessings and enjoy your profits.

It’ll be like finding out your favorite target has just voted to get rid of your best pals’ sorry asses.

I'm this rich.
I'll sell stuff to
anyone I wish.