Ichabod's Kin
A place for politics, pop culture, and social issues

Aug
04

IT’S NOT ALWAYS AMERICA

Leave a Comment

          One of my favorite bands begins each performance with the national anthem and a tribute to all military, living and dead, who have protected our country.

          Well and good. This time, at tribute’s end the lead singer added that while all may not be perfect America, honoring those willing to risk life to defend the rest of us is, as he put it, “non-negotiable.” Ditto that.

          I suspected that the words he added were occasioned by his notice of one member of the audience not standing, hand-over-heart, but head down and on one knee in obvious protest. That person too is a huge fan of said band.

          Such a public stance is not altogether welcome even in liberal Massachusetts; others who share such feelings may choose to avoid occasioning a disturbance. Overall, people of our Commonwealth are more prone to tolerance than others in this much-divided Republic.

          I am equally uncomfortable with some patriotic displays—many of which are over-played and intimidating to those who are as sincere in their passion for freedom as those who wrap themselves in flags. There is a difference between Patriotism and what are called Nationalism, Super-Patriotism—and jingoism. None of us is happy with demonstrations of the latter three when manifested by powerful countries other than our own—like Russia.

          Pure patriotism is the deep love of the land that birthed or welcomed us as immigrants. Words and music of such anthems are passionately beautiful, marking its natural beauty and the better angels of its people, not menacing and despotic. It is the reason I was part of a movement many years ago to make “America the Beautiful” our Anthem in place of the more militaristic one long in place, regardless of the fun fireworks and booming cannon.

          It is no flimsy choice on the part of the aforementioned who chooses to kneel at the playing of it. It is her awareness in these times that too many Americans choose to look away at our national failures. She feels we will be stronger, not weaker, to face what is and has been wrong, thus to be a more perfect union–steps common as well to individual therapy and motivational programs.

          I feel as strongly about that as does the petite blonde beside me at such public events. My choice is that this is my country and flag too and have right to protest those who deny our imperfections. That does not make me better than the one next to me and when she kneels, I know why and I love her for it; and as I stand next to her, hand over heart, my other hand is on her in solidarity of our common passion for a more perfect union.

          Honoring our military is correct in that it is largely comprised of the young and willing who trust their country to call them to do what is truly necessary The harsh fact is that such is demonstrably not so.

          The Mexican War of 1845 was opposed by future president Abraham Lincoln and young soldiers forced to fight it. The taking of Texas and the entire Southwest was papered over by the bogus “Alamo!” cry, a bogus “patriotic story” crafted in its aftermath.

          In Vietnam again, the young and willing lost lives, limbs and futures while their leaders merely “made mistakes.” Defense Sec. Robert McNamara later revealed how he and many others misrepresented the course of that war to the public, and its misguided planning and execution—a betrayal of the innocent patriotism of our young warriors.

          The slave trade was an unforgivable disgrace—as was the euphemistic “sharecropping” that replaced it with economic slavery; as is the overt racism that continues; as has been the inequality of women and ongoing violence against Jews and LGBTQs.

          What travesty and tragedy! As long as we strut along without self-assessment and redress of our failures, we will worsen as a society and tempt an ugly end to the great American experiment.

          Colin Kaepernick took a knee and the world hates him, but no one died—and NFL owners, commanders of the epitome of male strength, are revealed as the worst of cowards, fearing the wrath of super-patriots who mix their politics into everything, including sports.

          That’s why I prefer “America the Beautiful” and its call to “mend thine every flaw.” And we can’t do that without self-reflection, confession and atonement.

         

Categorized in Patriotism
Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

Jul
20

RELIGION AND CHANGE

Leave a Comment

          When clergy gather to update the state of religion amid divisions over LGBTQ+, racism and antisemitism, the entire world should turn out. But don’t look for that to happen even if the world were coming to an end.

          Still, a goodly turnout met four such panelists the past month and all found it helpful for threading the issues. Christian and Jewish reps explored scripture and the stresses of modern society through the lenses of current attitudes and the violence that often accompanies them.

          There was some honest admission to having a learning curve regarding LGBTQ+ matters, but all were on the same page when it came to race and antisemitism. Religion, at times of change in any age, is among the more conservative institutions in America. Even when more liberal in theology, in practice there’s no little foot-dragging. And that is something that simply won’t do when it comes to the equality and belated inclusion of minorities in society as a whole.

          A good part of the evening featured a close look at the Good Book itself and the troubling verses that keep God’s faithful from stepping up their game when needed most. There was skillful interpretation of biblical sources and, aye, therein was the rub. Really, how does one handle teachings from long ago when the world was radically different? When religion is hoped to be among the enlightened leaders of human progress, retrogressive notions stick out like sore thumbs in confounding and embarrassing ways.

          Such are present in both Christian and Jewish books of their respective bibles—views of sexuality and the judgments on people who are different from those declared to be “righteous”; views and behavior towards women and their subservience to men; assumptions of lesser races in a hierarchical world; and blaming Jews for everything from the death of Christ to justifications for their persecution through every age and time thereafter.

          My takeaways from all the above are as follows:

An assortment of teachings, many highly contradictory and out of date, that are put together in one cover and declared eternal truth, is problematical to the max. There is no reconciliation possible between such opposites and indeed has led to caste systems, inquisitions, incessant hatred and the worst of wars.

There is a point when leaders of any kind must bite the bullet—especially after all attempts to rationalize or to explain away that which cannot be justified. They must stop worrying about how many members they will lose and what it will temporarily cost in precious dollars to religious groups, institutions of learning and society overall.

The absence of dead wood from the forest encourages new and healthier growth in the future.

Modern translations of Scripture have long made wise adjustments such as italicizing the concluding verses of Mark’s gospel to indicate that such were later additions to the original document–as for the final words of the “Lord’s Prayer”—“…for thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory forever…” another non-original inclusion.

The same is in order for the most inimical verses that condemn good people for merely existing and thereby outside the social acceptance of ruling races and parties. They too could be put into italics with footnotes explaining their incompatibility with the other, more enlightened teachings—or placed with such notations in addenda to holy books, thus apart from the better wisdom of each religious tradition. The most beneficial solution would be for authorities to remove them altogether, declare them heretical and thereby provide truly living documents for their respective adherents to follow.

Perhaps most needed is one we use in our own national Constitution—room for amendments that accommodate changing times. What a world that would be. But such would take the best of leadership.

And if we have a problem with that, what does it say about us?

Categorized in Religion

Jul
20

GOOD PEOPLE, BAD THINGS

Leave a Comment

          Rabbi Harold Kushner died this month. His 1981 book, “When Bad Things Happen to Good People” was a #1 bestseller. He said he had been hurt by life and he wrote what he learned, hopefully to the benefit of readers.

          I felt the title was better than the book. I had a problem with the idea that what we don’t like is “bad,” and the notion that we are “good” people, whatever that is supposed to mean. Suffering, or the threat of it, is always there even in the back of our minds and right now living in a hail of bullets isn’t helping.

          But such is our illusion of security that the thought of being plunged into suffering is greatly suppressed. Add to that the illusion of immortality: why else dye our hair, cosmetize our skin, and jack up our bodies with implants did we not think thereby to cheat the ravages of time?

          Literature has tons of examples of the worst suffering—the Biblical Job being one; he was so downright-upright that God took a bet that he could stand anything and not lose his grip. Sadly, the risk was a lot worse for Job: Satan took everything he valued and everyone he loved, the advice he got from several knuckleheads was good for nothing and—spoiler alert–Job lost his vaunted “patience” and cursed his existence.

          Unlike real life, all ended well and Job got everything back plus a chance to gripe at God, who decreed that Job needed to shut up and take his lumps when need be and for whatever reason. At least Job got to ask, though a fat lot of good it did.

          Today people pray to “understand.” Understand what? We too can ask and complain, but the world is not arranged to suit us, and even if we feel we learn something from our suffering, we never want to go through that again, or wish it on our worst enemies. At best, there is time, maybe therapy, and some healing.

          My real problem is why good things happen to bad people. We know about the jerkwad Nazis who got their comeuppance at Nuremberg for war crimes but there were a hell of a lot who got away with it all and lived out lives of ease in places like Argentina. What about that? And what about the best of people who get the biggest kicks in the head and we know it’s not because they deserve it?

          In Job’s case, what else could be said but to suck it up? God’s big speech to him was no answer. There isn’t any. God is God, if such there be, and we are we. Apples and oranges. Take God out of Job’s story and it’s all the same: good people suffer; sometimes there’s no justice; and worst of all there is no answer. Besides, what answer could we ever accept or possibly be happy with?

          The answers Job got were largely in the form of questions, like, where was he when the world was made? DUH-uh! Job was left with, “What can I say?” Indeed, what could he say? He didn’t make the world, he just showed up, without asking to. Would another world be perfect? Maybe. It might be worse.

          It borders on heresy when someone wonders if the god we have is an underachiever. Or that there is a “God of the Gaps,” meaning that the more we find out in order to help ourselves, the less there is for God to do—and the Gap is shrinking.

          A Hassidic tale is about two people lost in a forest who come upon each other. Together they find their way out. And that‘s it; that’s the story.

And that’s what the sciences are for: live and learn. And that adaptation is the soul of living.

           

Categorized in Religion
Tags: , , , ,

Mar
31

FOOLS, CRUELTY–AND POETRY?

Leave a Comment

          On its first day, April is all about fools. What is it that we so love being fools or making fools of others? Google this if you really care but it’s been practiced by virtually every nation and culture. The ancient Romans did it. And St. Pat’s day should move to April, given those pesky leprechauns that pinch folks who don’t wear green for the occasion.

The month always makes me think too of T.S. Eliot’s remark that it’s the cruelest of the twelve. I remind readers annually that for cruelty the sinking of the Titanic in April of 1912 is second to none. Ironically, insult is added to injury that over the years it’s become a punchline too—that the world’s biggest metaphor hit an iceberg, prompting passenger John Jacob Astor to cry, “I rang for ice but this is ridiculous.”

          I can’t think of a month that isn’t cruel when I look at the historical calendars of both ancient and modern worlds. Byron, one of my favorite poets, died at an early age this month in 1824. He forced my respect by the sheer bulk of his output and its insight. I like people who make me respect them. . I had no use for him till I had a lot of use for him. I was just a late bloomer.

          Of course Spring shows its first promise this month, and the resurrection of nature is arguably the most glorious natural occurrence of the entire year. St. Paul used it as a metaphor of human corporeal resurrection which, ironically, modern science asserts is an impossibility, that the atoms and molecules that comprise all things, including people, have always been around and re-arrange but do not “resurrect.” Admittedly, all religions, different as they are, comfort and inspire, world-wide, but the cosmic pageantry revealed by the James Webb telescope is as moving as scriptural assertions that it’s made by an invisible, divine hand.

          And who cannot be moved by what humanity itself creates in the musical, visual, theatrical and literary arts? Locally, we have a Literary Festival in April that brings established and emerging writers into our community and draws book lovers from near and far—an event not to be missed.

          This is also National Poetry Month where we can celebrate in verse what was or was not originally in prose. We still read and study Homer and other ancients. Greek and Roman poets have been a study of mine from early youth. Here and nearby are groups like the Powow Poets, the River Bards in Haverhill and the young versifiers at the Press Club in Portsmouth.

          To me, poetry is a sacred scripture of its own, and is as democratic as all other forms of art. Through the centuries poets have broken molds traditional to their time—as Walt Whitman tore down barriers of meter in American verse and was famously despised by Emily Dickinson for his iconoclasm but whom Emerson, though a bit of a prude himself, nonetheless applauded.

          I have no claims to make but am pleased to display poetry this month at Nu Kitchen on Pleasant Street, with a mix of rhyme, free verse and experiential forms in a variety of themes. Nu is a recently-established popular and “happening” healthy-food and coffee place that Joshua Van Dyke has brought to our community after success in Somerville and Worcester.

I hope to see friends and readers there throughout the month where will be seen poetry about Love, Nature, the pandemic, asteroids, Artificial Intelligence and even Laws of Thermodynamics.

What a concept: that where many public establishments might exhibit works of visual art, a new, iconic one like Nu will proffer poetry!

Categorized in Poetry and Science
Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

Mar
13

CHECK YOUR STATE FLAG AND SEAL

Leave a Comment

(I did, and therein hangs a tale in Massachusetts. Read on what was said to my fellow citizens. You may wish to do the same where you live).

          There’s a sad, sorry history of our coming to these shores. Some strive to face and correct the injustices covered by such truth; others may care not a fig.

          In that rough-and-tumble of what is a proud narrative to us, forgotten are the indigenous people who occupied what is now “our” territory by dint of force. We are among the guilty of the world for taking what we did because we could: either we outnumbered or out-gunned those already occupying what was their homeland.

          A bloody conquest it was and we know it if we’ve taken the time or someone wisely brought us to knowledge of it as good teachers and mentors. Others, not so much: despite the relics of this grand theft being before our very eyes, they give it not a thought; the more enlightened need to stand for the forgotten people, and for the promised land of history’s redemption.

          The Massachusetts flag and seal bear all the marks of what we need to know and do. As this was written, local citizens were before the Newburyport City Council with a Resolution to make the true, moral, and necessary changes to our state flag and seal as a formal step toward righting the wrongs those images bear.

          The first seal, dated a mere nine years after our intrusion, shows a half-nude native calling for someone to “Come over and help us”—a notion that fit the invaders’ smug excuse for a takeover. Two years before the 20th century a new flag and seal must have been created by Dr. Frankenstein himself—a hodge-podge representation of the vanquished people, molded into one figure, with facial features of a Chippewa chief from far away Montana; parts of a native skeleton dug up in Winthrop; and a bow nabbed from a native killed in Sudbury–but lacking a quiver to let the observer know the pieced-together man has been “pacified.” His belt was patterned after that of Metacomet’s, leader in the first Native war and known to us as King Philip, whose head had been impaled upon a spike for all to see in Plymouth for over 20 years, a rewarding sight for our gentle forebears who were all too glad to be rid of his kind.

          The Resolution calls on our fair city to adopt it in support of a Special Commission of the Commonwealth, in hopes of creating a new flag and seal. Hopefully it will end in the hands of state Sen. Collins and Rep. Cabral, co-chairs of the Joint Committee on State Administration and to legislators overall, that the necessary changes may be made.

          In Washington, D.C. one can walk in the very steps of Lincoln—something that sends tingles up the spine. Here we walk where once trod the Abenaki, Pennacook and Massachusett, et al, and their present descendants–a reminder from the Resolution that we share a rich history with them. We should also know much more of earlier ones and those still among us.

          The 400th anniversary of the settlers’ landing was three years ago. If we’ve managed some reflection of that, the work is not done. We still appropriate their symbols for school, athletic and other self-interests that came at a cost, not to us, but to them.

          No one likes to hear the particulars of bloody history so I’ll spare you that, but as the Resolution winds its way through our local government and comes to a vote next month, you may wish to be there on behalf of those who live, sadly, in the recesses of our minds as if from a galaxy faraway.

          We all stand on someone’s shoulders in our private lives: forebears, mentors and sometimes angels unaware. But other shoulders were there as well and they count too. What a world it would be if we honored them to the fullest, that their legacy never die nor recede into our social amnesia.

          Some of you were there not long ago when we rescued another twist of history to its deserved name of Indigenous Peoples Day. I’ll say now what I said then: be there or be square as we take another step to right grievous wrongs.

         

Categorized in Uncategorized
Tags: ,

Mar
13

WHAT’S LOVE GOT TO DO WITH IT?

Leave a Comment

          Hello, Valentines. Each February, storefronts are sick with every color of red and within are the obligatory flaming crimson cards and all the candy that’s bad for us. It’s also Black History month and, aye, there’s the rub.

          Love for people on the basis of their common humanity takes a back seat to the romantic kind. We don’t like people generally. At Christmas the prophet Isaiah is invoked for his vision of universal peace, something impossible without a sense that we are all in this together. Isaiah was Hebrew so it’s curious that he’s our poster boy for peace when he and his people are victims of the oldest hatred in the world. 

          Then there is our lack of love in the systemization of police brutality that led to Tyre Nichols beaten to death by five cops of his own race in the selfsame city where Martin Luther King, Jr. died over half a century ago fighting for the rights and equality of black people.

          In another life I was clergy in the American South. I had the naïve notion that if people merely heard the truth they would change. Silly me. I was rather popular till I found some parishioners were ex-KKK and proceeded to enlighten them. Their least favorite was my pulpit remark that some people would never accept blacks until they turned white.

          Then I invited a black minister to exchange pulpits, at which there were threats to torch the church and the kindly old deacons who had first approved the exchange reversed course for fear of losing that historic structure. I ventured to say that if such occurred we could wear it like a badge of honor and when anyone said there was no racism in those parts, we need only point to the ashes of the church.

          It was one that prided itself on freedom of the pulpit so the next Sunday I resigned saying that they were denying the preaching and presence of someone whose religion was closer to theirs than mine was. They urged me not to leave, just to stop the nonsense about civil rights—for me, a non-starter and in two weeks I was gone. But I would have thought that by 2023 we of all colors would have kissed, made up and got along.

          Then came the corollary to our dislike of Jews and Blacks, which is, “We Don’t Like Gays Either” when I served a church up north that didn’t like such persons. So my foot was in it again and the faithful fled my pronouncements. Call it out of the frying pan and into the fire. It didn’t help that I opposed the Vietnam war either, so I was off to a great start in my chosen profession.

          In time one could be disliked for a lot less than that, at which point I realized that many folks didn’t have enough to worry about but the wrong things. Sure enough along came the iconic heated town hall meetings around the U.S., the ultimate politicizing of any and everything, the blatant hypocrisy of American religion, and here we are. Hence it’s hard to be a big fan of those who say one thing and do the opposite.

          I know that all too soon this planet will be unfit for habitation, human or otherwise, and we’ll live in cities in the sky while plotting how to get to, and ruin, other planets—the way we grabbed territory here, forcing its natives to be the first to defend the homeland.

          An old B.C. cartoon depicted an ant orating atop a pillar before an immense number of other ants. When he predicted that humanity would destroy itself by war and hatred, and that ants would come to rule the world, a voice came from the crowd: “Red or Black?” Copy that.

          We’re not lovers. We’re haters. Our beliefs are not what we are, they’re what we think we want to be. If it’s Valentine’s Day, what’s love got to do with it? And if I’m wrong, prove it.

Categorized in Gays in America and Race and Racism in America
Tags: , ,

Dec
09

HOLIDAY LOVE, LIGHT–AND HEAT

Leave a Comment

          Our winter holidays are a mishmash of many religions and historical events and thought of in general as celebrations of peace and love. Fancy that, given it’s often a time of anything but.

          Start with love—as in Barbara Love, a young denizen of Greenwich Village who morphed into a lifelong advocate for lesbians to have a place in the American Dream. She and they could have used more love then they got, and most often they suffered hostility and violence.

          In my headier journalistic days in Atlanta I never encountered her. I did catch up with feminist leaders of the time for interviews—including Gloria Steinem and Love’s bestie, Kate Millett. Love’s nemesis though was Betty Friedan with whom I made the mistake of asking the big question too early in the interview, about her opposition to lesbians in the feminist movement. Upon which she abruptly walked out on me—a signature move, as she was already on record for not wanting them around lest it damage the image of the larger movement. The “Lavender Menace” Friedan called them. So Love got little love from every direction but she moved mountains too. She died last month at the age of 85. She would have cheered that Brittney Griner got some big love due to a blockbuster deal that brought her home from Siberia.

          Then there is holiday heat, of which there seems to be more than light at this or any season. It’s best to call a spade a spade but when anyone points out that too much hatred is spewed at minorities, the perps always resent the accusation. What then shall we call it when people don’t want to serve same-sex couples and are willing to go all the way to the Supreme Court about it? A “difference of opinion,” a “spat,” “a mild contrast”?

          No, when you want to push or keep people at the margins of society to the point you interrupt all else you’re doing to make a stink about it, you’ve got some very strong feelings, for which hate is hardly a misnomer. Making laws against others is a way of hurting them and, if unsuccessful, what comes next? Well, book and Cross burnings, along with lynching are old school but now that a good many haters are fully armed, such is now a more favored method of choice. And that’s exactly what’s happening in many places.

          My gift of light this time of year came years ago from a family of German Jews who gave me the treat of a lifetime: the lighting of their Holiday Tree adorned with candles, which necessarily lit for but the briefest moment was a glorious sight. I’ve seen many dramatic Trees but that glimpse is the only one I recall vividly.

It was also emotional because they told me how they came to America: Many Jews early in the Nazi regime first got postcards urging their presence somewhere—after which they simply disappeared. My new friends decided, with various others, to ignore such summonses and quietly leave Germany, which they were allowed to do as what turned out to be, at the time, a simpler, pre-Dachau solution for the government. How symbolic the light of their Tree after the heat of hatred had chased them from their native land.

          So a thought for this time of year: Let’s just love people and try to understand them. Let there be no port for hate here. We lose too many angels unaware as it is, and how many might we miss, unless we get to know them.

Categorized in Social Issues

Dec
08

TURKEY IN THE RAW

Leave a Comment

          Thanksgiving nears, an iconic time for family and all such traditions supposedly held dear. It was the occasion of another Big Lie many years ago which manifested three quarters of a century later as a demon of our generation—the demon of tobacco, which any thinking person at that time knew to be a killer. But thinking people being ever in short supply, and the ones who did think being also short of power, the capitalist profiteers of the day made the bed in which millions would die painful and untimely deaths. My family so suffered and so did yours in all likelihood.

          The power of big tobacco was so great that many thought it would be the last of tyrannies to fall, if ever. So who was behind the real killer-weed? Its name is Legion, as the Good Book says, because it is many. Best to laser in on one of those many so we can see how times have changed.

          It was when Henry Luce bought the venerable Life Magazine and launched his maiden issue in November of 1936 in which Food Editor Dorothy Malone showed how best to purvey Thanksgiving dinner for both family and friends.

          She spoke of the classic turkey and all the fixin’s of said meal. But each was given rather short shrift, save for one constant: Camel Cigarettes. With an array of pictures Malone showed how to offer them the moment guests darkened the door, after the first course, between the expected first and second helpings of the Bird, following the Waldorf Salad, and as top-off to dessert and coffee for an end to a perfect day.

          And she had good reasons: cigarettes, she said, were aids to digestion, to clear the palate, increase alkalinity and add good cheer to the occasion. Said Malone, “It’s smart to have Camels on the table (for) a sense of digestive well-being.” Sadly, she never used the words “cancer-sticks,” but that’s what they were. It would take decades before leaked documents told the truth, including how Joe Camel became the go-to symbol for a new generation that was to embrace a deadly practice that evolved, thanks to the down-played ingredients, into their social habit, along with an older generation that should have known better.

          Thus the Turkey Day of that earlier time was a raw deal and not the kind of impression from Norman Rockwell’s Saturday Evening Post cover that said, sans words, that God was in his heaven and all was right with our blessings–aside from the hidden horrors of a certain aromatic weed.

          I use the word “weed” because it most often refers to marijuana, the thing that hundreds of thousands went to jail for selling, using or even being around and was thereby a threat to–you guessed it–Big Tobacco. Along with more potent substances, it was deemed a “drug,” while alcohol, also a drug, escaped notoriety—though its cost to society is more than all other drugs put together; hence the misleading phrase of the time, “alcohol ‘and’ drugs.” Among the heroes of all such consumption were rock stars, who were aware that their millions of adorers knew and modeled their drug-infused life-styles. They too are overlooked when assigning shame and blame for that tragic toll; but, hey, they’re musicians!—and idols!

          So what’s on and around your table this Thanksgiving? Betwixt spoonfuls, you may be treated to the wisdom of Trump Nation guests, willing to ruin everyone’s good time, not to mention digestion, with tales of a prior stolen election and the paybacks to be visited on both friend and foe.

          Be advised that your turkey may be another raw deal for the occasion.

Categorized in Uncategorized

Oct
29

WAIT, IT’S GETTING WORSE

Leave a Comment

          There’s a saying: “Cheer up, things could be worse; so I cheered up and sure enough—things got worse.’ Bobby McFerrin’s decades-old ditty, “Don’t Worry, Be Happy,” won’t work now, if it ever did.

          There’s plenty of fright left over from Halloween–and in biblical proportions: war, famine, earthquake, pestilence, fires and either too much water or not enough–some called acts of God, i.e., God’s fault (funny that). The rest is our doing, like nuclear weapons and political sadism, like Putin–and our own abuse of all minorities that come to mind or deign to get in our way.

          All mischief was once the work of a very scary Devil, portrayed as such because real evil often appears harmless when it’s really much worse. Salem, MA comes alive (or dead?) this time of year and all in fun, though it was no joke to the targets of social hysteria in 1692. Victims weren’t really witches, but that hardly mattered. Authors ever since have teased readers’ imaginations with whether a real Devil was at work back then—as if that were a serious question.

Marion Starkey’s landmark book, “The Devil in Massachusetts,” set the record straight: it was but the meanness of a gaggle of pubescent girls who cornered a ton of social power and rid their town of anyone they didn’t like, later begging off with the excuse that they had no idea what had gotten into them. Whoever doubts that kind of sway over others need only look at how kids that age now have driven classmates to suicide with another vehicle of hysteria—the internet.

But the same has been used by adults to convince others of big and little lies—and a Big One that plagues our electorate today. Not only does nearly half the population believe any and every glaring deception they hear but, while not coming out and saying so, are willing to forgo democracy for dictatorship.

What knuckleheaded history are they reading? Some twisted fantasy of the Confederacy or a glamorized narrative of slave owners and the human capital they cornered, trapped and cruelly used as chattel? Politically, are Washington, Jefferson and Lincoln not to their liking? All that money spent for more than a century to build new schools and universities—what went wrong? Or is it just the bewitchment of a tone-deaf, ignorant crowd whom soulless politicians will jump in front of once when they see where the mob is going?

It’s a cult with cult leaders. Give us a bit more rope and we can party like ancient Rome where might made right and the most depraved and violent got to be leader of the band. We thought it couldn’t happen in America, but it’s at the door and not at all like the one in our history books. Not that it hasn’t been tried, and luckily failed: a looney-tuned priest, Fr. Charles Coughlin, once championed such nonsense from behind a pulpit in Detroit; it looks like a mere blip of the past now but had it not been for the political mastery of FDR, things would have taken a nasty turn back then.

But the well was poisoned and it’s a direct line from that to Lee Atwater and his “politics of personal destruction,” to the banal journalism of Murdoch and Fox News, to Donald Trump and the evil that now lurks. 

So enjoy your Brain-Eating Living Dead—whatever they are—at your next movie, but there’s worse ahead. The popularity of the old Disaster movies has been explained as our watching someone else’s horror with the perverse satisfaction that it wasn’t us. The next mash-up may well have us in it, and the next act of God be one of the Devil for sure.

Al Capp’s mouthpiece Mammy Yokum said that good is better than evil because it’s nicer. We can lose the next elections not because democracy is nicer but because the alternative is worse than we imagine.  

Cheer up if you will, but after Nov. 8 buckle up, it’s apt to get a lot worse.

Categorized in Politics
Tags: ,

Oct
04

QUEEN OF HEARTS

Leave a Comment

          Not a big fan of royalty. I take no hankering to kings and queens on thrones or in decks of cards.

          Let’s admit that when we left the Empire we didn’t entirely: Hollywood is our re-creation of royalty, with its unending Red Carpets—as is the world of athletics. In all, we pay obeisance to a lot of people.

          But we also let them go easily, when the next pretty face or the next G.O.A.T. comes along which, by the way, is our saving grace. We’re good at “moving on,” as the saying goes. The Brit’s “grace” is not a saving one. He or she is the next thing to a figment of imaginations, emperors with no clothes–and no real power,as in the bad old days, but ones on which the great impressionable population can project its fantasies.

          Royals more or less do nothing but sit on a pile of money, rear the worst dysfunctional families, play and go to parties. They also know how to put on a show: lift a finger and it’s to the tune of long-horns, parades, men dressed in fine but funny costumes—and the sound of cannon to drown out all who dare complain.

          The past queen outdid them all except for her namesake, in whose time all the world went on the move: to Rome, Canterbury, Jerusalem, et al, to look for bones and relics of the dearly departed saints. By the end of our Liz’s time we’re on the move, all right–apparently to hell and back, amid national and world disunity while peering into the chasm of god-knows-what.

          With her passing, the best we can say is: here we go again. Any and everyone who dislikes monarchies gets another dose of pomp and circumstance and maybe a tinge of guilt about being rough on all the grieving family. Then we’ll go through it again with Charles’ coronation, and who knows how long he may or may not live, or when he may just give up. Then William and his pretty little bride will have the hopes of all to be another young Charles and Diana but without all the drama.

          Sadly, I’ve mentioned Charles in passing and that won’t do–a man we first knew as young and dashing, and now an old fuddy-duddy, along the way having messed up his marriage to the people’s ab-fab favorite and is now with his dearest darling from the beginning—she who has no business being anything royal. Don’t expect Camilla to go hugging AIDS patients, the world’s hungry or hopscotching land mines. But the Buckingham press is already doing all it can to make her look presentable while she dines at the table that’ll never be empty. What’s really going to hurt, though, is that William and Harry, for the time being, literally have to bow to Camilla, oh, excuse me—the Queen Consort—trying all along to forget that it should be Diana, their own mum, instead.

          Charles actually thought about changing his name, given the checkered past of the earlier ones: Chaz I brought on the English Civil War and lost his head for it; and son C-II had a scandal-ridden reign in which he fathered more than a dozen illegitimates and took up sympathy for the wrong religion. This makes us ask why, along with all the other mistakes of our most-recent royalty, did they name our Charles that in the first place? But after he and his brain-trust mulled it over, they stuck with the moniker; hence, two mistakes over the same matter. This is going to be a pip of a reign.

As for the cornucopia by which the Royals barely survive, we also learn that Charles will not pay inheritance tax on his mum’s private estate: such a dun might put a harmful dent in that $750 million property. Our Bonnie Prince Charlie had already built his own empire whilst fumbling his youth away, but money breeds money and his own estate’s now worth a billion in its own right. The article heading that revealed this fact was headed, “King Charles Inherits Untold Riches, and Passes Off His Own Empire.” At first I thought the word “Passes” was a misspelling, but an outcry was unheard; it seems adoring Brits will care more which shoes the first family’s ladies will wear to the funeral and following coronation.

What Charles is truly blessed with is luck. After having been anything but a poster child for a New Royal Order—and whom his mum had no wish that he long wear the crown—he gets a fresh start at the top of the heap. All he has to do is emulate her as a “constant” that smiles, waves, and otherwise does nothing.

Meantime, we’ll all be subject to the big show, and the next and the next. Liz will always be the Queen of Hearts for all who care for that nonsense, and for the rest of us, our mantra will ever be, until this silly monarchy runs its course: “Here We Go Again.”)

Categorized in British Monarchy
Tags: , , , , ,

« Previous Entries
Next Entries »