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Now You Tell Me!

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AP Photo/Julio Cortez, File

I was reading the last short story in a collection by Marshall N. Klimasewiski entitled Tyrants, when I came upon this quote by an Arctic explorer (via hydrogen balloon) from Sweden named Salomon August Andrée. It struck me right between the eyes.

The conservatives are always more active in their own behalf than liberals. The reason is that the liberals or progressives feel sure of the ultimate triumph of their cause because they know they are supported by the law of evolution, while the conservatives feel themselves constantly threatened and are therefore busy protecting themselves.

A Hyphenated American

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Although I was born in the United States, I prefer to think of myself as a hyphenated American, specifically a Hungarian-American. My native language is Magyar (Hungarian). I did not speak any amount of English until I was six or seven years old. Something happens when you grow up as a bi-lingual person: You find yourself not quite so committed to the land of your birth.

Let me be more direct: I find myself intensely disliking the political and religious beliefs of approximately half of our population, such as the young idiots in the above photo. At present, I am not likely to fly on any American air carriers because most of their passengers are Americans, and I don’t want to be involved in any violence in the air because some yahoo refuses to wear a mask as required by law. I feel safer on a foreign carrier.

When some stranger addresses me in public, I invariably reply to them in Hungarian. The last instance was on a commuter train on which two African-Americans were arguing about Covid-19, and one of them solicited my opinion. I politely told them, in Magyar, that I didn’t (really: wouldn’t) speak their language.

I typically do not celebrate national holidays because I find them more productive of stress than of enjoyment, particularly Christmas, which has evolved into some sort of national potlatch ritual.

Perhaps these responses of mine are the result of a growing lack of faith in my fellow Americans. Particularly white males, though the Republican Party has given us some really monstrous travesties of women.

Does that mean I am withdrawing in any way? Not really. I vote in every election. And I try to remain close to my friends. I’ll stick to being a Hungarian-American, even though the American side of things is going to hell in a hand basket.

You Can’t Stop the Change

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Walter Mosley, Author of the Easy Rawlins Mysteries

Yesterday afternoon, I “attended” the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books symposium entitled California Dreamin’: Los Angeles in the 1960s and 1970s. Actually, the event was virtual, so I tuned in with my computer for what turned out to be an excellent discussion. The moderator was USC Professor David L. Ulin, and the guest speakers were novelist Walter Mosley and political analyst Ron Brownstein.

One of the most interesting points made was about political mobilization against cultural change. Irrespective what the hippies tried to do in the 1960s, enough voters were freaked out to elect Republicans like Ronald Reagan and Donald Trump. As Mosley said at one point, the voters’ response was along the lines of “T don’t want to hear the truth; I want to hear what makes me feel good.” However, cultural change eventually wins out. For example, today’s youth do not tend to oppose homosexual marriage or transgender identification.

The Atlantic Editor Ron Brownstein

This was an interesting conclusion to someone like me, who is amazed that a shrinking demographic like that of the Republican Party can still win elections. For now, anyhow.

After the one-hour discussion ended, I immediately ordered the featured books by Mosley and Brownstein shown in the above photographs.

I arrived in Los Angeles at the tail end of 1967. One would have had to be deaf and blind to recognize the ferment that was taking place—only to be replaced by the 1970s and the onrush of a paranoid political conservatism.

Adieu to Politics

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I Keep Saving Goodbye, But I Never Leave

I earnestly hope to stop writing about politics. I’ve said this before, but I kept being pulled in against my will. The fact of the matter is that I have nothing really to add to this stinking mess. My political opinions are too predictably anti-Republican, anti-Trump, anti-Conservative. Given that, I would rather just vote quietly in every election and keep my mouth shut.

No doubt, I will be severely tested the next time I am confronted with political infamy. And sad to say, the infamies are coming fast and furious.

There are several friends with whom I do not wish to discuss politics, even when they agree with me. It’s just that they get so caught up that our friendship becomes nothing but a political debate. My friends mean too much to me for me to imperil the friendship by something so dreadful as today’s political reality.

My fingers are crossed.

America Subterranean

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This Is a Book That Got Me Thinking

I have just finished reading a book recommended to me by my friend Suzanne: Tara Westover’s Educated. Ever since 2016, I have been pondering what it is about the United States of America that gives rise to all these anti-governmental splinter groups that are directly or indirectly associated with Trump’s base.

Tara is an attractive young woman who was raised in a small town in Franklin County, Idaho, of a Mormon survivalist parents. Her father ran a junkyard; and her mother, starting out as a midwife, became a producer of essential oils called Butterfly Express. What the author describes is almost an archetypal experience of a religiously conservative familial craziness:

  • The father is a staunch survivalist who collects guns, including one that could shoot down helicopters such as those involved in Ruby Ridge.
  • Insists that all the children be home-schooled and work in the family junkyard and essential oil business.
  • Doctors and hospitals were to be avoided. Instead, Mrs Westover effected all cures using natural remedies.
  • There was an emphasis on the Old Testament (and, in Tara’s case, The Book of Mormon).
  • Women were expected to dress modestly lest they be considered sluts.
  • There was no involvement with government. Tara did not get her birth certificate until she was nine. (She was born at home.)
  • The males in the family tend to be bullies that enforce compliance with their fringe beliefs.

Tara Was Not Only Smart, But Tough As Nails

Somehow, Tara showed that she had the brains despite her desultory home schooling to get into Brigham Young University, and then Cambridge University in England and Harvard, where she got her PhD.

I don’t normally read best sellers, but Educated was an exception that was definitely worth reading. There was something about her upbringing which was truly horrifying, such as the repeated life-threatening auto and junkyard accidents that had to be dealt with using only the mother’s natural remedies. Today, Tara Westover is no longer in touch with her parents. She, for one, managed to escape.

 

The 190th Rule of Acquisition

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The Ferengi Have Begun to Influence Me

The quarantine has resulted in my watching television more than usual. The one show that I like most is Deep Space 9 with its plethora of interesting characters, one of which is Quark (played by Armin Shimerman), shown above. If you are familiar with the series, you may have heard of the Ferengi “Rules of Acquisition” of which there are some 300, which can be viewed here. (Interesting that the website comes from Belgium.)

These Rules of Acquisition would be much loved of Ayn Rand and most Tea Party conservatives. They include such admonitions as:

  • Once you have their money, you never give it back.
  • The best deal is the one that brings the most profit.
  • Never spend more for an acquisition than you have to.
  • A woman wearing clothes is like a man in the kitchen.
  • Never allow family to stand in the way of opportunity.
  • Keep your ears open.
  • Small print leads to large risk.
  • Opportunity plus instinct equals profit.
  • Greed is eternal.

My favorite is one of the most simple (and most true):

190. Hear all, trust nothing.

In these days of False News—both real and imagined—that is excellent advice.

Trust Nothing from This Notable Liar

I will continue to watch Deep Space 9 with interest.

 

 

I Don’t Feel at Home Here, Either

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No Brie and Chablis for Me, Thanks … I’ll Just Have a Coke

“Here” is a part of town not far from me, but that I haven’t visited for several years. I decided to take a walk down Main Street in Santa Monica, hopefully ending up at Small World Books in Venice—but I never got that far today. I noticed that a lot of my favorite places, like Röckenwagner’s, were gone. The whole street was thronged with young Liberals. Now, I consider myself a Liberal, but without the cachet that usually comes from belonging to an in group.

For lunch, I stopped in at he Samosa House, a newish Indian Vegetarian place that was quite good. With my masala dosa and Indian tea, I sat at a counter that faced the line of customers coming in. Almost all of them were younger than me, and started flashing smiles of approval at the decrepit old man who was eating the approved Liberal vegetarian diet. After a while, I not only did not seek their approval but wished I had been gnawing on a pig’s knuckle instead.

I walked a little further on to a Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream. Now some of my contrary feeling was still with me, because I ordered their Kale and Quinoa Ice Cream topped with fish eggs. The guy who took my order laughed heartily with me, and made me feel good about it. I settled for a scoop of Chunky Monkey in a dish instead.

It seems funny to me to feel neither part of the Conservative scene (which I have always abhorred) nor now the Santa Monica Brie and Chablis Liberals. Oh, well, I guess I am marching to what Thoreau called a different drummer.

Just to drive home the point, the bus I took back was full of retarded kids attending some institutional sporting event.

 

Why I’m Not in Politics

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Would I Be an Enlightened Ruler? Mebbe Not

Many years ago, a very cute young woman of my acquaintance thought I would make a good president. I looked at her, laughed, and said that I would probably be seen as another Caligula or Heliogabalus. Just look at some highlights of my first hundred days:

  • The following conservative pundits would suddenly be found dead: Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, Alex Jones, the hosts of the “Fox & Friends” television show, Steve Bannon, and Bill O’Reilly.
  • Certain functionaries of the present administration would have their tongues removed, including Kellyanne Conway, Steve Miller, all of the Trumpfs, and Betsy De Vos. In addition, the head Trumpf would be physiologically unable to use Twitter once this thumbs were removed and hammered into his ears.
  • Selected weasels in Congress would be too crippled to show up for duty, most especially Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan.
  • Anyone associated with the so-called “Alt-Right” would be considered guilty of treason and treated accordingly. Rope is cheap.

In certain conservative circles, I would be seen as the bloodiest ruler in American history. So, perhaps you all would think better of me if I were a most reasonable and non-violent member of the opposition.

Power has a way of changing people—and not always for the best.

Serendipity: ¡Viva La Muerte!

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Some of the Issues from the Spanish Civil War Seem Very Contemporary

I am currently reading the First Edition of Hugh Thomas’s The Spanish Civil War (New York: Harper & Row, 1961).  Many issues between the Nationalists (Franco’s Fascists) and the Republic (very like our Democratic Party) seem to ring equally true for today’s overcharged political environment. On August 15, 1936, the Nationalists adopted the flag of the Spanish monarchy and made a number of speeches. After Generalissimo Francisco Franco and Gonzalo Queipo de Llano y Serra, there was a third speaker:

Next to speak was [José] Millán Astray, a man from whom there seemed to be more shot away than there was of flesh remaining. He had but one leg, one eye, one arm, few fingers left on his one remaining hand. ‘We have no fear of them [the Leftists],’ he shouted, ‘let them come and see what we are capable of under this flag.’ A voice was heard crying‘¡Viva Millán Astray!’ ‘What’s that?’ cried the General, ‘no vivas for me! But let them all shout with me “¡Viva la muerte! ¡Abajo la inteligencia!”’ (Long live death! Down with intelligence!). The crowd echoed this mad slogan. He added, ‘Now let the Reds come! Death to them all!’ So saying, he flung his cap into the crowd amid extraordinary excitement. [Page 272]

Fascist General Millán Astray

How like the Fascists to praise death and downgrade intelligence. “Don’t think too much,” they seem to be saying. “Just follow orders!” The Spanish left was like our Democrats: A Circular firing squad. There was the CNT (Anarcho-Syndicalist Trades Union), the FAI (an Anarchist secret society), POUM (Trotskyites), PSUC (the United Catalan Socialist-Communist Party), and UGT (the Socialist Trade Union). On the Left were militias, propagandists, the International Brigades from all over Europe and the Americas, and a whole plethora of irreconcilable beliefs and opinions. On the Right was the Spanish Army led by Franco and supplies and manpower from Nazi Germany and Mussolini’s Italy.

Where Are Our Courageous Reporters?

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Norman Mailer (1923-2007)

The late 1960s were a bad time for the United States. We were in a fiercely unpopular war in Viet Nam. I had gotten radicalized and joined the Resistance, which not only protested the war but attempted to interfere with the draft induction process. I returned by draft card to the Selective Service System in Cleveland and told them politely what they could do with it. Running for president that year was Richard Nixon for the Republicans, with Democratic candidates to be chosen later in Chicago.

Reporting on that convention was Norman Mailer, who within a short time became like a god to me. (So he went off the rails a bit later: He was human after all.) Mailer had come out with a number of nonfiction books that I read and re-read religiously. They included:

  • Advertisements for Myself (1959)
  • The Presidential Papers (1963)
  • Cannibals and Christians (1966)
  • Armies of the Night (1968)
  • Miami and the Siege of Chicago (1968)

I just finished re-reading Miami and the Siege of Chicago, which made me shake my head sadly that there was no such quality reportage during the ongoing train wreck that is Trumpf. Mailer died ten years ago, and the only other candidate—Hunter S. Thompson—blew out his brains two years earlier. There are thousands of voices raised against Trumpf, but they seem tinny in comparison to what Mailer and Thompson were capable of.

Take this prophetic quote from Mailer’s description of Nixon’s convention win in Miami:

Of course, Republicans might yet prove frightening, and were much, if not three-quarters, to blame for every ill in sight, they did not deserve the Presidency, never, and yet if democracy was the free and fair play of human forces then perhaps the Wasp must now hold the game in his direction for a time. The Left was not ready, the Left was years away from a vision sufficiently complex to give life to the land, the Left had not yet learned to talk across the rugged individualism of the more Rugged in America, the Left was still too full of kicks and pot and the freakings of sodium amytol and orgy, the howl of electronics and LSD. The Left could also find room to grow up. If the Left had to live through a species of political exile for four or eight or twelve good years [try 50!], it might even be right. They might be forced to study what was alive in the conservative dream. For certain the world could not be saved by technology or government or genetics, and much of the Left had that still to learn.

Perhaps the biggest lesson they had to learn was unity. The Left is known today as a circular firing squad, wounding itself repeatedly over minor issues and leaving the major ones to the Right.

Chicago Riot Police 1968

The conservatives of 1968 were nothing compared to the Alt-Right, the Ku Klux Lan, and the other fascist forces brought into prominence by Trumpf’s 2016 victory. I will write what I can, when I can, but I am far from being either a Mailer or a Thompson.

And in this, our time of maximum danger, the media have failed America by bowing instead to the wishes of their corporate overlords.