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Red Hat

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Entrance to Louisiana’s State Penitentiary at Angola

Located in West Feliciana Parish is Louisiana’s fearful Angola State Penitentiary. And within that penitentiary, by far the worst place to be incarcerated was the Red Hat Cell Block, which also contained the state’s electric chair, known as “Gruesome Gertie,” which was used for 87 executions between 1956 and 1991.

The Red Hat Cell Block was named after the red painted straw hats the inmates wore when working on the prison farm. It contained thirty cells that were 3 × 6 feet (0.91 meters × 1.8 meters), with a single window near the ceiling that was 1 foot square (0.3 meters square). Inmates slept on an iron bunk without any mattress. Temperatures frequently soared to slow oven levels; and the cells were infested with rats and other vermin. There was no toilet: prisoners had to eliminate in a bucket that was emptied each morning.

Naturally, most of the inmates of the cell block were non-whites. And, needless to say, even prisoners on death row in Angola had it better.

Entrance to the Red Hat Cell Block

Why am I describing such a terrible place? It is because I am becoming increasingly of the role that racism has played in the history of our country—a history which many Americans are trying to whitewash.

It goes all the way back to the Constitution of the United States. In an article by Steven Mintz entitled “Historical Context: The Constitution and Slavery,” it states:

The word “slave” does not appear in the Constitution. The framers consciously avoided the word, recognizing that it would sully the document. Nevertheless, slavery received important protections in the Constitution. The notorious three-fifths clause—which counted three-fifths of a state’s slave population in apportioning representation—gave the South extra representation in the House of Representatives and extra votes in the Electoral College. Thomas Jefferson would have lost the election of 1800 if not for the Three-fifths Compromise. The Constitution also prohibited Congress from outlawing the Atlantic slave trade for twenty years. A fugitive slave clause required the return of runaway slaves to their owners. The Constitution gave the federal government the power to put down domestic rebellions, including slave insurrections.

Lest we pat ourselves on the back for not being Southerners, I have seen enough in Cleveland and Los Angeles in my time to feel a deep sense of shame. How many decades, how many centuries must pass before the blot of slavery and racism are wiped out?

The Pill of Murti-Bing

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“The Tower of Babel” by Peter Bruegel the Elder

When I used to write ads for the software company whose director of corporate communications I was, I was always running afoul of management, who always insisted that I put a positive spin on every point I made. Anything that could possibly be seen to be negative was to be avoided at all costs.

Being a bit negative is a part of my Hungarian heritage. When your country is on one of the two main invasion paths into Europe (the other being Poland), you can’t help a certain amount of negativity. It’s part of our nature.

I feel there is something wrong about always being positive. It tends to encourage the persons on the other end to be passive and accepting. Polish poet Czeslaw Milosz, writing in The Captive Mind, a book about why people accepted the promises and lies about Communism, quotes an earlier Polish novel from the 1920s:

In this story, Central Europeans facing the prospect of being overrun by unidentified Asiatic hordes pop a little pill [the pill of Murti-Bing] which relieves them of fear and anxiety; buoyed by its effects, they not only accept their new rulers but are positively happy to receive them.

In an article entitled “Murti-Bing Conservatism” written for The American Conservative, Rod Dreher develops this idea:

For Miłosz, Polish intellectuals who capitulated to communism and Soviet rule had taken the pill of Murti-Bing. It was what made their condition bearable. They could not stand to see reality, for if they recognized what was really happening in their country, the pain and shock would make life too much to take.

This is why people who have no financial or status tied up in protecting abuse of corruption within an institution can nevertheless be expected to rally around that institution and its leaders. Those who tell the truth threaten their Murti-Bing pill supply, and therefore their sense of order and well-being. To them, better that a few victims must be made to suffer rather than the entire community be forced to wean itself from Murti-Bing.

In the United States, we are facing a similar situation today—all the way from the opposite end of the political spectrum. It is not Communism that is the cause, but Trumpism. Millions of voters who are either ignorant or disingenuous choose to believe that water runs uphill and that the current President is spouting truth when in actuality he is lying like a rug.

I recommend that anyone interested in what happens to this country read Milosz’s The Captive Mind. It is by far the best book about Communism I have ever read.

Oh, and the Tower of Babel? That’s what happens when our sense of reality has become so fragmented that our society begins to fracture.

Eluding the Trumpster Dumpster

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Notes for Those Attempting to Flee the U.S. of A.

After the November 5th election, many voters are considering the possibilities of becoming an expatriate in a country where the next President (hopefully) could not touch them. After the recent threats to Mexico and Canada, this may not work.

There are two possibilities for a safe passage away from the Trumpster Dumpster. First, choose a country that the next President does not know exists. Here are a number of possibilities:

  1. Azerbaijan*
  2. Belize
  3. Benin
  4. Bosnia and Herzegovina*
  5. Burkina Faso*
  6. Burundi
  7. Cabo Verde
  8. Comoros
  9. Djibouti*
  10. Eritrea*
  11. Eswatini*
  12. Guinea-Bissau*
  13. Kiribati
  14. Kyrgyzstan*
  15. Lesotho*
  16. Liechtenstein*
  17. Malawi
  18. Nauru
  19. Niue*
  20. Sao Tome and Principe*
  21. Tajikistan*
  22. Timor-Leste
  23. Tuvalu
  24. Vanuatu*

To provide an extra level of safety from MAGA-hatted provocateurs, select one of the above countries marked with an asterisk (*). These are countries it is not likely the next President would be able to pronounce correctly enough to be understood.

Fade to Black

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This will be my last election-related post for a while. Not because I am satisfied with the Trump dictatorship, but because my own personal happiness depends on a positive response to bad government. Most countries go through bad spells, and it was inevitable that, over a long lifetime like my own, I would encounter it at some point.

I am reminded of a quote from Russian Nobel Prize winning poet Joseph Brodsky: “If one is fated to be born in Caesar’s Empire, let him live aloof, provincial, by the seashore….”

Well, I am some 2 miles (3.2 kilometers) from the Pacific Ocean. I do live in the provinces, so to speak, compared to New York City or Washington, DC. And I am becoming increasingly aloof, especially when someone tries to engage me in a political discussion.

Times like these call for a more creative inner life. I will spend more time reading, meditating, and watching classic old movies. And much less time watching late night comics or news on TV. Also, most important, I will spend more time with my friends.

Get Ready for Election Nite!

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John King and His Magic Chart

Above all else, DON’T WATCH THE NEWS, at least until Thursday or Friday. The way that news channels make money is by instilling fear, You don’t want that. Read a good book. If you absolutely must watch television, tune in to a channel that has no news—like Turner Classic Movies (TCM).

If you have friends who like to discuss politics, AVOID THEM until the weekend. They will be agitated and all too willing to make you feel as terrible as they do.

DON’T VOTE IN PERSON. You will be in line with hundreds of agitated people; and you may run into people who openly express contempt for your political choices.

STAY AWAY FROM SOCIAL MEDIA. It’s an instrument of the devil and his tools: Zuckerberg, Musk, et al.

Be extra good to yourself and the people you love. Eat foods you like. Once you’ve voted, just distance yourself from the whole process. And whatever you do, DON’T GIVE MONEY TO POLITICIANS. It only encourages them.

Avoid posting political signs or bumper stickers. Stay away from political rallies. Don’t wear any red baseball caps made in China.

You might just want to lock yourself in the closet. It’s going to be a rough week.

Tomorrow’s Mug Shots

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Trump “Rally” in Grand Rapids, MI

As we head toward the culmination of another anxious election season, I suddenly had an inkling of what could happen. Donald Trump has always relied on rallies where he speaks with a bigly group of mostly young supporters with posters and MAGA hats at his back.

These rallies vaguely resemble the rallies that Trump’s hero, Adolph Hitler, staged in the 1930s. Of course, they couldn’t hold a candle to the giant 1935 rally in Nuremberg which was filmed by Leni Riefenstahl and released under the title Triumph of the Will. Now that was a real rally, with over 700,000 supporters in attendance.

Hitler Rally in Nuremberg 1935

The thought came to me that the whole Trump moment in American history will end badly. The electorate is largely made up of two groups:

  • People who hate Trump with a passion
  • People who idolize Trump with a passion (but who will come to hate him when they wake up and find out they have been used)

What I think will happen at some future date is that those faces at MAGA rallies will become a mark of shame, and that people will scan photographs of the rallies with magnifying glasses to find neighbors they could blame for their predicament, which will probably get worse over time. (Even if it doesn’t, the voters will think that.)

I look at cars that bear political bumper stickers and think, “What happens if they park their car in a neighborhood which is strongly ‘anti-’ their candidate?” That’s one of the reasons my car is devoid of bumper stickers and decals.

The blame game will only get worse.

“Look Upon My Works and Despair”

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In this election season, with all those overweening ambitions in play, I like to think of Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822) and his poem “Ozymandias.” Can you guess why?

Ozymandias

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: “Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert . . . Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed:
And on the pedestal these words appear:
‘My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!’
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.”

Years Evenly Divisible by Four

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That’s Right: Keep Waving That Flag

The worst thing about years evenly divisible by four is all the political activity that is conducive only to nausea. Oh, and there’s an extra day in the calendar just to rub it in even more.

I do not care what political beliefs you hold. No doubt they are very true—because they’re your beliefs and you will stick by them come hell or high water. Ho hum.

What is particularly galling to me is that this electoral cycle started four years ago and continued in high gear with rallies and other events. Well, although I will vote in November, I have no intention of donating money to any party or candidate, taking any political surveys, following the political news on TV, engaging in political conversations with my friends, wearing any candidates’ buttons, or slapping any bumper stickers on my car.

Effective immediately, I am not playing the game. I am stepping off the merry-go-round and not caring who gets the brass ring. Whoever wins the 2024 election, my goal is simply to survive. The 24-hour news cycle can go fish.

On Doubling Down

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The Term comes from Blackjack

If winning is everything, it is important not to ever appear to be a loser. In reporting about politics, one often hears about someone “doubling down.” What that usually means is that one takes a position and sticks with it come hell or high water.

Probably the best example is Donald Trump who after four years still claims that he won the 2020 election, and that the Democrats and Joe Biden cheated him out of the presidency.

The term comes from the card game Blackjack. According to Technopedia:

Double down in blackjack is an option where you add an extra bet, equal to the initial one, and you only receive one extra card in the hand.

This feature is available in most blackjack games and is required for optimal strategy. However, it can be a risky move since you stand to lose more money in the hand. That is why it is very important to know when to do it.

Eric Cartman

Other than Trump, the person on television most associated with the practice of doubling down on almost every issue is Eric Cartman on the cartoon show “South Park” Typically, he will take a wrong-headed stance and hold to it until he fails openly and utterly.

This type of behavior is associated with a fear of making mistakes. The fact that we are human means that we will often make mistakes. It is far better to own up to them and learn from them than to double down on a dubious position. As writer Neil Gaiman wrote:

hope that in this year to come, you make mistakes. Because if you are making mistakes, then you are making new things, trying new things, learning, living, pushing yourself, changing yourself, changing your world. You’re doing things you’ve never done before, and more importantly, you’re doing something.

IIn my life, I have always distrusted people who always claimed to be right. That’s just one of a thousand reasons I would never vote for Trump or any of his ilk.