MAGAt Fear

While it’s true that some MAGAmericans are simply stupid, I have a different perspective regarding the most of them: 

They're scared. 

Humans are not infinitely adaptable, and the pace at which society and technology have changed since WWII is mind-boggling, with no indication that it's going to slow down any time soon. Liberals tend to be curious stimulus-junkies, hence our strong support of Diversity. Conservatives are more Tribal and have difficulty dealing with world 'cultures in collision,' particularly when it challenges the traditional understanding of their privileged social-order and the myths that support it. They need to deny and suppress changes, even though it's them against the zeitgeist.  

Yoda got it right:" Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering."  

This does not in any way excuse their actions, but I think it serves as a useful perspective as to why they act out their outrage and worship a false prophet who validates their fear and urges them to push back, push them back into the closet, expel them, whitewash our history, reestablish the traditional pecking-order, and put their trust in the predators 'who have made it' to the top of the heap and "promise" to bring back the mythological "glory days." It's entirely emotional, which is a far older, powerfully reactive, evolutionary heritage than the rational intellect. In addition, they aren’t entirely wrong in that the economy and availability of public supports has short-changed them and their families. Unfortunately their fear prevents them from joining together with liberals who have been broadcasting that same message. 

I would feel sorry for them if they didn’t enable such dangerous politics. 

I think we need to understand that that's what we're up against, and adjust our strategies accordingly. Facts won’t change their minds, even if they have sufficient education to recognize them; and Insults will only cause them to double-down triumphantly, because they will have made the Resistance sink to their level. We need to utilize an emotional strategy that challenges them in a way that causes them to question their own positions. 

I think we need to persistently ask them “What are you afraid of?” Do you actually know any “illegals” who took someone’s job away? Do you actually know any “illegals” who are fraudulently receiving public benefits, or who have voted? If not, what makes you think those things are true? Why is a murder by an “illegal” worse than a massacre by an angry white boy? Do you think that Fox News is any more truthful than CNN or MSNBC? 

Do you really believe that having a story read to your children by a drag queen will turn your straight child gay? Are you worried about them watching comedies like “Mrs. Doubtfire” or “Tootsie?” How does a married gay couple who love their parents, are good co-workers, pay their taxes, take good care of their property, and volunteer for charitable events affect your life? Why are you so interested in their sex lives? What makes you think that your “God” has deputized you to be His enforcer? 

Why are you afraid to raise taxes on billionaires to pay for your and my health care and education? What do you think they are going to do to you if they have to pay another 2%? Do you think the Wealthy treat everyone else fairly? Do you ever expect to be “rich?” 

Politely: “What are you afraid of?” They won’t like the questions. They’ll deny that they’re afraid. Some of them will definitely become angry. None of them are going to cry “Hallelujah, I have seen the Light!” But perhaps civil questions will set a burr under their saddle, and they’ll spread the word, “Hey, you know what some fool Libtard asked me today?!” Maybe questions will beget more questioning. Maybe they may start some uncomfortable exchanges. 

Let’s turn down our own outrage, stop with the all-caps rants, turn the volume down from 11. It’s not good for our blood pressure, and screaming “Did you hear the latest Lie?!?” is wasted bandwidth, preaching to the choir. It doesn’t advance our Cause. Correct the lie with blunt information, then move on to calling our representatives, attending Town Hall meetings, writing to the Editors, and simply, bluntly, and without heat stating “You’re wrong, and I disagree; What are you afraid of?” 

Let’s see if they might tap into some hidden empathy. Kindness costs us nothing.

Can The Center Hold?

 I regularly participate in an online political group which despite having a wide spectrum of members including Democratic Socialists, Libertarians, Marxists and Greens, tends to be mostly (mostly) civil, regularly challenging each other to back up their positions and opinions with – gasp! – facts. Two years ago I posted a poll there, asking if States had the right to secede. The response was firmly “No” - that had been clearly decided in 1865. 

However, as I read the current delight that all too many are expressing as a wrecking ball is being applied to governmental departments and legal norms, I have also just read the 1777 “Articles of Confederation.” It occurs to me that I had asked the wrong question. The Articles suggest that we are a loose affiliation of Nation-States rather than the Federalist assumption of a unified nation – the “United States.” I therefore asked the group whether they consider “State’s Rights” superior to Federal law instead of the liberal Nationalistic interpretation of the Constitution. I followed that with a second question, one often raised regarding the supposed “State’s Rights” argument made in support of the old Confederacy: Rights to do what? While the major argument made by the Confederacy was ‘the right to manage their own economies’ particularly as Western territories became States, those economies were largely predicated on slavery, a legalized underclass.

I asked the question noting that I am less interested in particulars such as modern State’s economies regarding “Right to Work” laws, taxation, or use of State resources, but instead in terms of “Human Rights” and public participation in the political process.

Numerous States clearly want their governments actively promoting their majority Christian religious beliefs; should Utah therefore be able to declare its official religion as Mormonism? Many States seek to restrict marriage equality to traditional religious interpretations as heterosexual marriage; can Utah, therefore legalize polygamy despite the Edmunds Act of 1882? Various States clearly want to restrict non-traditional sexual roles including homo- and trans-sexual expressions; should they also have the “Right” to legislate classes of individual rights including those of pregnant women, children of immigrants, and the opportunities available to women, people of color, and the disabled? Should a hierarchy of legal privileges be determined by wealth? Should States have the Right to determine who may vote, what Parties are allowed to campaign, and can State Legislatures overturn the vote of its citizens?

I can be broadly called a “Progressive” – Green Social Democrat is my self-label - and my position on these questions can be broadly guessed at. I am pleased by how much discussion my essay has generated, but am dismayed how deeply the Federal government is mistrusted and how many, without citing specifics, suggest that the States should have the right to restrict personal conduct regardless of whether their expressions are actually harmful other than in their appearance.

From my educational background and on-going interest in cultural anthropo-socio-psychology I can’t help interpreting this as a reversion to Tribal behaviors under the stress of the on-going, rapid transition from centuries and millennia of traditional expectations. The Soviet Union balkanized; I have to wonder if this same process is at work in the United States. I’d prefer to believe otherwise, but history, of course, will have the final say.

 

Letter to the Editor

 To the Editor,

Suppose that early in your employment you decided to set up 401(k) or IRA pension plans, contributing to them with each paycheck in the understanding that it would accrue you continuous modest interest and be available to you as an annuity at a planned retirement age. Suppose then, as you approached your retirement, the financial institution you had invested with declared: you need to work five more years to become eligible, and we’re taking a percentage of your accruals to provide bonuses for our managers. We would all be rightly outraged and call foul.

Isn’t this exactly what various members of Congress have proposed to do to Social Security? Oh, they’re using weasel-words to advance their plans - we hate to do it but we have no choice - but if you bother to listen or read, many among them have been broadcasting their intention very clearly. It’s no surprise; conservatives have hated Social Security since it was passed in 1935. Apparently they are uninterested in any government program that doesn’t turn a private profit.

 Make no mistake: Congressional Republicans plan to steal from our - mandatory! - Public pension plan financed directly from our earned personal wages, not from any other taxes. Their stated plans to “fix” it amount to “how can we best steal it?” They fully intend to break a public trust that insures we will have a small source of income after our retirement and don’t have to work until we die.

 We members of the public should threaten the continued employment of any Congressional member who attempts to advance this larceny.

 

 

Getting Ready To Die

No, as far as I know, it’s not imminent, but you never know. An awful lot of people are checking out in the seventh decade that I just began in February, with undoubtedly more to come. Statistics, after all. Seven of my ten maternal relatives made it into their nineties - the last remaining aunt turns ninety-eight in December - and two made it to a hundred. On the other hand, my father and grandfather only got sixty-six years, so I've bested them by four.

Various doctor's examinations, including emergency room reviews for what turned out to be false alarms, have indicated that other than the pacemaker that Lyme disease gifted me twenty-three years ago, I'm in pretty good shape. Surprise! because I know how I've mistreated this meat that makes me "Me." Regardless, I expect my personal extinction will happen sometime over the next thirty years. And I don't believe in the Supernatural: no Other-Judgement, no reward, no punishment, no do-over any more than for any other being on this planet. I’d prefer my end to be not-unpleasant and I'm unsure whether I'd prefer a conscious, or unconscious exit, but there's rarely a choice involved. Que sera.

My first personal, emotional recognition of death's implications occurred at my maternal grandmother's funeral in 1967 when she was 84 and I was 14. Somehow I came to the understanding that she had once been younger and birthed my mother, aunts, and uncles; one girl-child grew older, and birthed me; that meant that someday my mother would herself grow older and... eventually die. But wait: I was a child, and children grow up, and I suddenly realized that eventually we all grow old and..!  I experienced decades of late night anxiety among the adventures and tragedies of Growing Up.

I don't think that religion, which comforts so many, ever "took" in me because I was learning my Catholic catechism at the same time very-early-reader me was learning about Egyptian, Greek, Roman, Norse and Hindu legends and myths, so the Judeo-Christian realms after death appeared likewise just the legends and myths of the Middle East, like Valhalla or the Elysian Fields in other regions. l learned about the Indian and Buddhist belief in reincarnation, but my observation of the Natural World indicated that while there is a Circle of Life and Death, the organized matter we call “Life,” once broken down into its basic elements, does not come back as the same conscious life or reincarnate to give it another go. Fear, hopes, and dreams do not reality make.

Around this time I learned about Taoism (a naturistic philosophy, not a religion) with its advice to accept one’s self as a part of Nature, to recognize that consciousness exists only in the Here and Now, and the recommendation that one should “go with the flow” through life’s challenges. This perspective affected me deeply and has given me a modicum of peace as I’ve grown older. “Seasons don't fear the reaper, nor do the wind, the sun, or the rain,” after all. 

So there is no inherent "meaning" to life. Then, what's the point? It’s a short trip when compared to any geologic or cosmological time-scale. However, if you ask the wrong question, any answer given may itself be meaningless. The point seems to me that, having won the lottery of sperm and egg and survival, we have received the opportunity to create meaning as a personalized monument, temporary though it may be. Our society suggests numerous strategies to do so, many involving pleasing others or leaving some sort of “mark” on the world. Many of those efforts can be pleasantly socially productive, while others can be callous and selfish. But eventually, if we are not psychopaths, we are called to Self-Judgement.

“Was it good enough?” According to whom? History does not seem to provide any social measure that is set in stone. “Compared to what?” Ultimately, all we have are our own life experiences that occur in a swirl of competing cultures that we may address with our particular inclinations and talents. Or not. The Universe requires nothing of us.

Some consider this sort of introspection and conversation morbid. I myself see it as a type of meditation, albeit a somber one. As I review my life’s successes and failures, I note that when I offended others it was rarely deliberate, but almost always a result of my own short-sighted and narrow ignorance and the absence of effective role-modeling as a youth as to how to manage my anger. Most of my disappointments are for things that I did not do, that I could have done. And I have to admit to some envy of other’s deeds while recognizing not having done some things as My Own Damn Fault. Poor self-initiative, focus, and inconsistency are solely on me.

But overall I have been well-Blessed by the circumstances of my life. I have been privileged, and comfortable, and without being too prideful, I think I have Done Well For Others, and am growing in Kindness. Even though I talk too damn much. I have largely had the opportunity to enjoy my life. Though I am not at all religious, I admire this prayer: “”To those I may have wronged, I ask forgiveness. To those I may have helped, I wish I could have done more. To those I neglected to help, I am truly sorry and ask for understanding. To those who helped me, I am deeply Grateful.”

I hope that as my Light fades I can lay back and think, “Veni, Vidi, Contentus Sum.”I Came; I Saw; I am Satisfied. Then let it go, and never know it again.

From Reykjavik to The Meadows

 

From Reykjavik to The Meadows

My Lady and I were unable to go on a hoped-for vacation to Belize due to hurricane season and her limited finances but I needed a spontaneous getaway nevertheless, using the opportunities retirement affords me.

 I came across a news blip that talked about Play Airline’s cut-rate flights to Europe thru Reykjavik, Iceland from Stewart Airport, a convenient location to me. Round-trip to Iceland was under $400.! Wouldn’t THAT be off the usual beaten path of adventures!

 My Manhattan-dwelling brother is reluctant to travel, to his partner’s regret, and seven years ago she and I had traveled to Cancun with his approval. She is intrigued by all things Scandinavian, so I gave her a call and got a fully positive response, and we exchanged links and downloaded information and schedules all day. The nearest volcano and closest glacier were each only 60 miles (in kilometers) away, and car rentals were comparable to American! And there are natural hot springs, and a spot where the Mid-Atlantic Tectonic Plates are breaking apart!

 The plan ended the next day after she injured her knee, and realized that her organization would shortly be entering busy season. Such are life’s disappointments.

 I was scheduled a visit my old college chum, The Green Man, at his home in Albany later that week, and enjoyed the road trip and chatting and catching up with him on his porch and at the pub where we went to eat. He had recently gone to a wedding in France and expressed interest in doing more travel, to add a check mark to the visitation of another State. After some cell-phone searches for trips originating at his local Albany Airport, we found a natural incentive for two Olde Guys:  a round-trip two-hopper to Las Vegas – Spanish for “The Meadows” – for only $475! Can we find a package deal including a room? The next day, Verde discovered that his mother-in-law had a Wyndham time share available, and the year’s credits would be running out at the month’s end. Our schedules would allow us a four-day adventure!

 A quick pivot, lock that puppy in, yeah! Par-tay!

So we did this thing, even though we had never previously travelled together, and it was good. The Meadows are an adult playground dedicated to separating your money from you, but they provide fine entertainments beside gambling (which we did not) in exchange. Walking down the Strip, dodging hustling street performers, eating a great jambalaya in a sports bar while watching the last quarter of the Raiders – Steelers game that was playing live three-quarters of a mile away! Exploring the two blocks of Old Las Vegas, Fremont Street, domed over and offering a zip-line down the street’s length above curio shops and gambling dens! Wandering through Meow Wolf, a surrealistic and psychedelic warehouse-sized experience of disorienting objects and light, visual effects and curious environments, and a mystery, if you care to solve it! Who needs drugs?

 On the last day we got tickets for the Cirque du Soleil “Beatles Love” performance at the Mirage hotel. A fine indoor amphitheater, and they upgraded the location of our seating. A magnificent show, blending the Fab Four’s songs in a full-bodied mashup while fabulous athletes interpreted the music along with the effects of high technologies, and counter-cultural, nostalgia-inspiring, props. A spectacle WELL-worth the $80.admission. After that, a very tasty meal at a Vietnamese restaurant, now let’s prepare for the flights back.

Which included a broken plane in Detroit.

Travel, can’t help but expand one’s horizons. And companionship is always a good thing, adding a measure of security and choice-making to the expedition.

 And Reykjavik will still be there in the Spring, when the Aurorae flicker in the Icelandic skies.

ANIARA:

Passing Our Time in a Meaningless Universe 

 I was a very early reader, quickly graduating from Golden Books and Dr. Seuss to fables and mythologies, then to mature literature like the Iliad and the Odyssey, and on to Superman comics and the works of various Masters of Science Fiction. When I was about twelve years old I discovered a volume of poetry titled “Aniara” in the Woodstock Library. Written in 1956 by Swedish Nobel Laureate Harry Martinson, it was a work of 103 cantos telling the tale of a great, eponymously-named space liner ferrying passengers from a ruined and dying Earth to a refuge on Mars. The vessel is knocked off course and doomed to drift over the eons toward the distant constellation Lyra, and those aboard it are left to live out their remaining years beyond contact with home or hope of arrival at that far destination.

Martinson had written Aniara in the aftermath of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and the suppression of the Hungarian Uprising in 1956 by Soviet forces. On the space ship the passengers are initially comforted by blissful memories projected by an intelligent machine called Mima, but that device itself finally succumbs to despair, and the people turn to drugs and orgies, develop new religions and sensory-engaging media in order to fill their lives rendered so meaningless by the eternal Void. It was a tome discussing existential concepts at the limits of my young mind, and it has haunted me for fifty-four years.

"Aniara" was performed as an opera in Stockholm in 1959, and in 2018, the Swedish studio Magnet Releasing produced a cinematic version which was released at the Toronto International Film Festival. I bought the DVD this year. It was certainly no hit movie, and many will consider it dull and boring in a Swedish minimalist style; but I found it engaging and true to the tremulous spirit of the original writing. It follows the lives of various crew members and the passengers as they struggle to keep despair at bay, with abrupt transitions between the years as the journey drifts through the gulf of space. Many succumb to ennui and suicide, some bear offspring, then regret bringing innocents into an ultimately doomed existence. They all stare out at the uncaring universe beyond the fragile hull, wondering, is there any Ultimate Meaning, or is it just a pointless exercise? The film, to my surprise, takes one brief step beyond the conclusion of the somber poem, but the irony of the finale faithfully echoes the existential voyage of the lost ship Aniara. It is not a film for those struggling with their own depression. It is a film for intellectuals and for contemplation and is anything but comforting. You will find no answers in its viewing, but the questions it asks are the eternal ones we ask ourselves as we stand alone and stare out into the stars.

Today is the Future

 

The background buzz had been increasing for months with articles in the papers and excited chatter among family and friends, but now the impending reality stood before me. The behemoth then-named brontosaurus rose up above me next to stegosaurus, and t-rex was still under construction in the nearby hanger. My fifth grade class was on a field trip to a fiberglass artisan’s workshop near Hudson, N.Y. where they were constructing full-sized dinosaurs for the Sinclair Petroleum exhibit at the New York World’s Fair which would be opening in a few short months.

We had all heard tales of the 1939 World’s Fair from our aunts and uncles, those hopes and dreams running into the harsh realities of the Second World War. The Cold War, the Korean War, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and the Assassination of the President had followed, but now the Space Race and new electronic technologies were inspiring the global civilization, and the upcoming fair was due to showcase the changing world. Better Living Through Chemistry! Our Friend the Atom! Bringing Good Things to Light!

My class roamed among the life-sized saurians, touching their flanks and examining the exposed frameworks over which layers of fiberglass were laminated. Scattered boulders of volcanic pumice accented the statues while they waited transport to Flushing Meadows, and my teacher chastised me for chipping off a lava fragment as a souvenir. I may still have that bubbled lump in a box somewhere.

Then, to international fanfare, the 1964 World’s Fair opened, with the stainless-steel Unisphere the focal point about which a jetpack-wearing daredevil flew orbits! Every Sunday the New York Daily News color magazine section would print gorgeous full-page pictures that highlighted an exhibit, glowing colors splashing the sides of pavilions or illuminating the Fair’s many fountains. My brothers and I eagerly anticipated our families and our classes traveling to behold these wonders with our own eyes.

Finally the day came, and the parking lot looked like the rows of cars lined up at a drive-in theater, only bigger. The globe of the Unisphere gleamed in the sun and colorful flags fluttered in the breeze. The buildings were something out of science fiction, truly “The World of Tomorrow!” They lined great fountains into which visitors flung coins for luck and were composed of domes, planes, rotundas and turrets. The scents of exotic foods wafted on the breeze, and an international chatter of voices delighted the ear. America was the crossroads of the planet! Heroic sculptures depicted men flinging stars across the sky, and full-size replicas of spacecraft stood erect around rippling, glassy buildings.

I clicked away with my Kodak Brownie 127 camera which I had received for my First Holy Communion, winding on fresh rolls of film and dropping the exposed film into pre-paid mailers for development and printing. The resolution might not have been great, but the images would resurrect memories for decades to come. Then came nightfall, and alas that the price of color film was prohibitive! Fortunately bright postcards and Ektachrome slides were available by the rack full, because the Fair was transformed into a fairyland of colored lights and beams streaming up into the sky! The GE dome was an expanse of swirling colors and the panels of the Tower of Light were transformed into rearing planes of glowing crystals. Buck Rogers, Flash Gordon, and Commander Cody could not hold a candle to this exhibition, and I have only described the architecture! Let us discuss the wonders of science!

Drop a dime in the slot and out popped a neutron-irradiated coin to insert into a souvenir holder and carry in your pocket when you visited the Atomic Energy Commission! Nuclear power would be “Too Cheap to Meter!” Walk through jungle and mountaintop and desert environments and smell the indigenous odors sprayed into the air at the Coca-Cola exhibit! Walk through a sound-deadening corridor that made your ears pop in the Bell Telephone pavilion on your way to the videophone which would periodically take a call from Walt Disney across the continent in Anaheim, California! Watch lab-coated jugglers in the DuPont exhibit pull long polymer strands of nylon out of beakers, or combine flasks of colorless fluid that suddenly glowed yellow-green like the tail of a firefly! Miracles and Wonder! Period-piece android families complete with tail-wagging dogs told the tale of advancing home-convenience items as the audience rotated around GE’s Carousel of Progress. Cities of the future, undersea and on the moon, were practically close enough to touch in the GM and Ford exhibits, and their prototype automobiles looked like they could take off and fly, as one of them would periodically drive out into a lake before returning to dry land.

The news entertained us with stories of runaways who slept in the Coke pavilion, fishing the coins out of fountains on which to sustain themselves with hotdogs, hamburgers, Belgian waffles, and cola. The free economy was transforming the world!

No one was talking about Vietnam. Not loudly, yet.

We knew that this marvelous world was coming to pass; my father brought home portable cassette recorders for his sons, then a color television. Party-line telephones were vanishing, and the newspapers printed pictures of the new, smaller computers that were only the size of bank desks! Cars were available in multiple hues, the roar of jet airliners thundered in the sky, and Polaroid cameras produced pictures virtually instantly – just don’t forget to apply the fixer! The Soviets and Americans competed to send men into orbit with eyes set on the Moon, and there was anticipation of satellites replacing the trans-Atlantic cable to carry conversations across the Big Puddle. In South Africa Dr. Christian Barnard transplanted a heart into an ailing patient. Oh, brave new world! Bi-planes would annually fly over our neighborhood, spraying DDT to eradicate those annoying mosquitos, and we waved to the pilots as the dust settles around us. Toy stores carried walkie-talkies, no longer the province of the military; and the robotic Great Garloo did your cable-controlled bidding. Colorful bug-like transistors were quickly replacing the tubes glowing within the radios, TVs, and “Hi-Fi” record players. AM radios could now be carried in your palm. Did anyone doubt that we teetered on the edge of Utopia?

How did we arrive at this pinnacle? The General Electric audio-animatronics told us about the last century, and Bell Telephones and International Business Machines displayed the evolution of electronic and calculating devices. Westinghouse encouraged visitors to inscribe their names in a register to be included in a time capsule that would be buried next to a similar container from 1939 to present the 20th Century to the world of the year 6939. The Traveler’s Insurance exhibit presented dioramas of “The Triumph of (White) Man,” from cave dwellers to the walls of Ur, the Roman Empire( subtly promoted Christianism), and the Renaissance thinkers observing and calculating the celestial realm. You could purchase the stirring soundtrack on a red vinyl 45 rpm record to remind yourself that you were a jewel on the crown of creation.

In two years the festivities concluded and visitors packed away their assorted souvenirs and pamphlets which that they might view with nostalgia in later years. Most of the exhibits were razed and Flushing Meadows was planted as a park, the Unisphere still gracing the center, a few sturdier constructions left to perhaps be utilized at some future date.

The Future did not come as advertised although the marvelous technology highlighted at the World’s Fair was, in retrospect, quaint, far outstripped by its future’s reality. As communication and transportation brought nations closer together, it brought them into fricative conflict. The marvels of chemistry and medicine have disturbed our environment and challenged our ethics. Poor policies were implemented and mistakes were made. Utopia has receded like the chimera it has always been. But the experience of walking the lanes and corridors of the World of the Future for these brief two years in the middle 60’s still gleams like a bright dream. We can erect tower in short years and send robots to the Outer Planets. We can do whatever we set our minds to do.

But grownups need to be mindful that the choices we make can turn our dreams into nightmares.