Originally
posted from 12-08-02 to 12-30-02
Why They Hate Jonathan Farley - In America
by Lewis Goldberg
Vanderbilt Math Professor Jonathan David Farley wrote a clever little
article titled Why
They Hate America - in Britain, and so this equally clever-titled
response is similarly designated. Since Professor Farley was kind enough
to superimpose the views of a select group of individuals [Oxford students]
on a whole nation [England,] it seems meet to superimpose the views
of everyone in my living room [Mrs. Goldberg and several small children,]
on this nation.
Click
here, and take a good look at the man, and who is in the picture
with him. I'm talking about Marxist revolutionary Ernesto 'Che' Guevarra
[the other guy is Farley.] That Vanderbilt allows this type of political
statement may come as a surprise to some, but shouldn't. Vandy is simply
putting in the open what most people know in their hearts - that America's
entire educational system can be summed up by this one picture, taken
from a faculty biography page on a major American university's website.
Farley's is, in essence, an official position supported by the school.
In reply to a citizen who wrote Vanderbilt complaining of the 'art'
in Farley's picture, Vandy stated that they allow their professors to
make whatever statements they wish without interference. But do we really
think a professor posing with Hitler as backdrop would even make it
back from the photo studio to his office in time to retrieve the contents
of his desk before his dean had it emptied and burned? Don't be silly.
Vanderbilt...Farley...Che Guevarra - they all go together nicely.
Get used to it.
The aforementioned Oxford geniuses can't imagine why we were a little
upset at having two skyscrapers knocked down with 3,000 people in them.
They think we should exercise 'restraint,' and wonder to where our 'moral
leadership' has gone off. Well, in one sense, they're right...for if
we had true moral leadership, we'd have taken every step necessary to
protect our citizens, including expelling from our midst each and every
foreigner from every country known to support terrorism. But England
left its sanity behind much longer ago than we did, and to demand from
us that which their own Tony Blair cannot deliver is the height of gall.
But there are other reasons to hate Jonathan Farley in my livin...er,
in America. Farley is undeniably racist against whites, but for a black
man, this is fashionable and acceptable. As a demonstration of his bigotry
and hatred, Farley exposes his complete ignorance of history in his
recent Tennessean editorial, in which he likens the South's Confederate
heroes to the Nazis, and states that "the Confederacy aimed to
destroy the United States." Were such the case, Lincoln would have
been dead much sooner, and the White House burned to the ground, as
Washington DC was left unprotected from Lee's Army most of the time.
The South wanted nothing of destroying the United States, but to be
left alone [a conclusion which a seventh-grader with a set of World
Book encyclopedias should be able to draw.]
And now Southerners still want to be left alone...by the Farleys of
the world. And there are plenty of them. The entire parade of human
refuse from the 60's has moved into all the positions of power, influence,
and trust. As David Carr at Samizdata once wrote, "The fiery radicals
of yesteryear became the outreach workers, counsellors [sic,] legal-aid
lawyers, community activists, environmental campaigners, journalists,
professors, social workers, teachers and union delegates. Carlos the
Jackal became Charles the Educator and he lives next door to us now.
He wears a well-tailored suit, expensive shoes, drives a car, sends
his kids to private schools and writes a column in the Guardian..."
To that I would add they are training the Farleys in their footsteps.
Real Americans, who have not yet bowed to the golden calf, reject Farley
and his fellow travelers. We hate everything they stand for [ and the
word hate is in the Bible, so get over it.] We will fight against their
ideas until they are shamed out of existence. In a more civilised era,
their treason would be dealt with by rope...we, being modern and 'with
it,' will settle for a paradigm shift.
Some of Jonathan David Farley's other articles:
Where
next - Alabama?
Remnants
of the Confederacy glorifying a time of tyranny
Your comments and questions are encouraged. [editor@patriotist.com]
Originally
posted from 11-24-02 to 12-01-02
Data Strike!
by Jeffrey Quick
Well, they did it.
The Senate rammed through the whole Homeland Security bill, domestic
spying and all. The opposition was too little and too late. And even
now, it's too little. Somebody sent me this on a list I'm on, from the
ACLU:
To learn
more about this initiative and what you can do to defend your right
to privacy, please click
here.
Oh yeah, send a
free fax to President Bush. That's the ticket. "Please Massa, don'
spy on me!" How about $3 in dimes to every Senator who voted for
it? At least it would make the Post Office work.
Well, we certainly
didn't get any help from the Democrats, who couldn't get beyond, "But
the Republicans have filled this with pork" (which is basically
what the Republicans were accusing the Democrats of, pre-election),
and were only too happy to vote for the stinking mess. In fact it was
a conservative (Safire) who blew the whistle on Poindexter's Peek 'n'
Pry.
Let's look at who
has created the working guts of Total Information Awareness (TIA). If
the government were to put together such a data system from scratch,
they'd fall on their faces. Government has seldom if ever created anything
really effective on its own. But private enterprise has already done
the heavy lifting for them; all they have to do is tap in. And the IG
Farbens of dem Amerikanischen Reich (scumbags like Larry Ellison) will
be only too happy to help. Unless we give them an incentive not to.
What I am proposing
is a data strike....something that really should have happened years
ago, but which must happen now. This strike can consist of several "job
actions", which people can participate in as they feel able. Here
are some concrete ideas:
1. No more customer
cards.
Store customer
cards are one of the most gratuitous forms of data mining. If you
have a card, shred it and send them the bits, and a letter telling
them that you are protecting your data from the Office of Information
Awareness. If you don't have a card, quit patronizing stores that
offer them...and send them a letter telling them why. Of course, stores
that require cards (warehouse clubs) are right out. If one wants to
be a real activist about this, one can stand near stores and pass
out flyers encouraging the people to strike.
2. Minimal credit
card use
If possible, don't
use credit cards at all. If enough people deal in cash, not only will
banks lose cash flow, but the government will have to print more of
it, or see the money supply contract, which is bad for business. A
further advantage would be to reduce personal debt and thus increase
personal freedom. Much credit card usage comes from laziness; it's
easier to slip the plastic into the gas pump than to come in and pay
the cashier. I am sympathetic to the need for credit cards in online
transactions. But there are sometimes ways around direct use of cards
(PayPal, eGold). And if the strike impacts Amazon et al, so much the
better. An additional twist to the cash strategy would be to stamp
all your paper money with a slogan such as "spent to avoid Total
Information Awareness". Or paste informational ("Simon Jester")
stickers on gas pumps.
One possible government
response to this might be to phase out cash so that one MUST use an
electronic system. If this happens, I might just re-evaluate my religious
affiliation, because the Mark of the Beast will be here.
3. Use encryption.
People have been
resistant to this for awhile, partly because it hasn't been an AOL/WebTV
kind of tech, partly because they figure they will make themselves
a suspect by using it. Well, we're all suspects already, so we'd might
as well act like it. If more people use encryption, it will no longer
arouse suspicion. For that matter, one could send encrypted Spam to
government offices, just to confuse people.
The Left has been
saying for years that the multinational corporations call the shots.
Here's a chance to put the theory to the test. If enough people withhold
their money from data-mining companies, they will fight to keep the
government out of their data, or perhaps stop collecting it at all.
Originally
posted from 10-13-02 to 11-07-02
Chet
Rollins' Dixie
by Lewis
J. Goldberg
Chet
Rollins, a Baton Rouge writer for TheInsiders.
com [an LSU publication] on 9 October penned an article entitled
Dixie
has no place in Death Valley. Having never been to LSU, or Louisiana,
for that matter, I am having a hard time figuring out what Death Valley
has to do with Dixie [having been raised in Southern California,
the only Death Valley of which I know is far away from the deep South.]
Besides that point, due to my ignorance, there is much to critique in
Mr. Rollins screed. And while he fends off any attempt at response from
the inevitable "great chorus of rednecks, " I cannot, in good
conscience, allow Mr. Rollins lies and stupidity to stand unanswered.
Since Mr. Rollins admonishes respondents to write with "cogent
thought and lucid, intelligible language, " I will go one step
further and try to keep the number of syllables down for him, as well.
For purposes of introduction, this redneck works in the high
tech industry as a consultant, has six children [all of whom are well-fed,
adequately clothed and shod,] and cares enough about their education
to do it at home [whilst simultaneously paying the taxes to school other
people's children.] This redneck has been writing political commentary
for almost four years, and has been published in a number of commentary
websites and a couple of magazines. This redneck has been around long
enough to figure out that there are more righteous men wearing greasy
coveralls than business suits.. .don't know why that is, but the observation
bears out well. This redneck wears the label proudly - it is the highest
complement in light of most of the alternatives.
From the first sentence, Mr. Rollins establishes that his article is
based upon personal sentiment and emotions, rather than the facts of
history. Mr. Rollins places not a shred of historical evidence in his
work, which is, in essence, a critique of history itself. He would not
dare break the spine on a book of true record, instead relying on the
mush he has been fed through the prevailing culture of Lincolnolatry,
which seeps into the brains of our children through television, radio,
print media, and the popular maxims and folk sayings of an imprisoned
and conquered people.
The tune of Dixie is neither an "horrid screech" nor
a reveling in the "darkest, most evil chapter in this great country's
history." It is a reveling in the same spirit of freedom that won
this country's independence from Britain, and if Mr. Rollins enjoys
the freedoms secured by the veterans of WWI, WWII, Korea, Viet-Nam,
and the latest conflicts, he might check the home states of those veterans...he
may be surprised to find out that the Sons of the South overwhelmingly
turned out to made it possible for him to comfortably watch LSU football
whilst imbibing enough lager to float the QE-II [note: I know nothing
of Mr. Rollins' drinking habits, but it seemed a clever phrase...]
Mr. Rollins expresses gratitude for LSU's shedding of its "curious
and macabre preoccupation ... with romanticizing the institution of
slavery," yet fails to make the case that such is what they were
ever trying to do. Mr. Rollins, you cannot make it so just by writing
the words. Do today's post-9/11 flag wavers engage in a curious and
macabre romaticization of the institution of Indian Massacre? If not,
then why do you make the same connection for Southern sympathisers?
Mr. Rollins next tries his hand at race baiting, wondering if the white
athletes might feel "even a splinter of shame at Ole Miss when
Rebel fans wave their cute, little rebel flag sticks, yelling, 'Go,
Rebels!'" By this, he assumes that all people must think like he
does, else they must suffer from defective consciences. Your self-righteous,
freebase moralizing falls on tired, deaf ears, Mr. Rollins. If you want
to talk facts and history, there's a thousand of us rednecks out here
waiting to test your 'Civil War' smarts. My guess is you're too yellow
to take the challenge. Why don't you talk your buddies at the LSU website
into running a debate series between you and me...six articles, three
from each of us - and I'll let you have the final word. What say ye?
Mr. Rollins states that he's glad he's not in the Land of Cotton, which
is a good thing, because the Land of Cotton doesn't need him. He can
only see a "plutocratic antebellum South, where the institution
of slavery poisoned every aspect of culture," because he's too
afraid to look beyond the brainwashing rhetoric and see the chains that
were forged for his own bondage during, and in those years following,
the War. Mr. Rollins only dares speak what he is allowed, else he would
be punished by the 'polite society' he relies on for his artificial
status.
"At's
a good boy, Chet."
Arf.
Originally
posted from 09-22-02 to 10-12-02
Let Us Pray
by Jeffrey Quick
Liberty has faced
dark times before. In 1940, during the Battle of Britain, the witches
of England gathered, as they had for Bonaparte and for the Armada, and
worked their spell, chanting "Can't cross the sea! Not able to
come!" After that, the weather got bad for flying. Goering got
stupid and rerouted the Luftwaffe from RAF bases (which they were close
to knocking out ) to civilian targets, the German Naval Staff got cold
feet, and Hitler decided to pick on his fellow mass-murderer Stalin
instead. Coincidence?
In 1787 as the Constitutional
Convention bogged down, Benjamin Franklin suggested that each session
should open with a prayer, as had the Continental Congress. Hamilton
said that the Convention was not in need of foreign aid; Williamson
observed that there were no funds to pay a clergyman. Only 4 of 55 delegates
showed any interest, and the proposal was never acted on. We see now
just how badly that Constitution has protected our liberties. Coincidence?
In 1918, the English
magician Aleister Crowley had his students meditate on the number 11.
The Armistice was signed on November 11 at 11 AM. Coincidence?
All creation begins
with thought, and thought in itself is creative. One can believe in
the power of prayer, meditation, magick or whatever you wish to call
it, without believing in a Higher Power, though many of us do. To ignore
the spiritual dimension of the battle for liberty is to fight with one
hand tied behind one's back. "For we wrestle not against flesh
and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers
of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high
places." (Ephesians 6:12) It follows logically of course that to
only focus on the spiritual dimension is also to fight with one
hand (and both feet) tied behind one's back. But it is possible for
everyone to set aside a regular time for prayer, without taking energy
from mundane activism.
What to create with
our thoughts and how to create it is a complex question. Those of us
who accept the Non-Aggression
Principle (and I hope all readers here do), will apply that to our
prayer life, seeking as little harm to others as possible; visualizing
colorful and fitting ways for our enemies to be smitten does not help
us. Our work will be based on what we believe is possible; some of us
think that it's too late to work within the system, that catastrophe
is inevitable, and will pray for a soft landing. We should not specify
the mechanism by which our prayers should be answered; the universe
has possibilities beyond our imagining, and why should we limit it?
There are people
who focus on praying for peace. Often their God is the guy who said,
"I came not to send peace, but a sword."(Matthew 10:34) To
pray for peace without freedom is to pray for exactly what the enemies
of freedom want. As the neo-pagans say,"Be careful what you ask
for; you might get it."
The best reason
for a regular spiritual practice is to preserve your own sanity. When
the cause appears hopeless, prayer affirms hope, either in the power
of your own mind or in the power of God. Most religions believe that
God wants us to live like God. And God, by definition, is not a slave.
Originally
posted from 07-24-02 to 08-01-02
A Modest Proposal for Slave Reparations
by Jeffrey Quick
OK, accept that
we're going to have some form of reparations for the descendents of
slaves. Not because their cause is just, but because American thinking
has been thoroughly collectivized through the press and public schools,
and because most Americans can't tell the difference between paying
off living Japanese-Americans who survived government internment camps
and paying off the multi-great-grandchildren of privately-owned slaves
with the incomes of the multi-great-grandchildren of people who were
nowhere near the scene of the crime. So how do we have reparations in
a way that avoids race war and maximizes justice for all concerned?
Black slaves were
unjustly bought and sold by African slavers, unjustly and cruelly transported
to this country, and unjustly deprived of the fruits of their labor.
Any reparations program should deal with all of these injustices.
The last is the
easy part, the part most reparations activists are fixated on. "Give
us 40 acres and a mule, or their cash equivalent". That was an
emergency measure by General Sherman, and not an official government
promise. But it's a talking point. They want 42 grand each; I have no
problem with this, or even more, as long as all the injustices
are corrected.
One of those was
bringing them to America to begin with, ripping them away from their
culture. To make them whole requires returning them to Africa. One of
the conditions of accepting any reparations settlement must be to renounce
US citizenship for yourself and for any minor children, and to leave
for Africa within 90 days of the check being cashed. Any children born
in Africa would be eligible to immigrate under whatever limits currently
apply, but former US citizens would be permanently excluded.
The advantages to
both America and Africa would be many. We'd be rid of a bunch of whiners
who think that the world owes them something, while retaining black
Americans who want to contribute to their country. The skills and capital
of the émigrés might go far to improve the economies of
the host countries. $42,000 is 191 times the annual per capita gross
national income of Burkina Faso. Even the average gangsta drop-out has
more schooling than the typical African, and often has experience retailing
agricultural commodities, and in free-market contract enforcement. The
émigrés might even foster democratic institutions, though
that's a more questionable assumption; the difference between Jesse
Jackson and Robert Mugabe is largely one of opportunity. The development
of Africa would help foster world peace, and give us a reason to quit
shipping foreign aid over there.
This leaves us the
problem of how to pay for it, without creating a parallel injustice
to those not responsible for slavery. Lo, the solution of the first
injustice solves this problem. Since there is no right to sell human
beings, the Africans who sold their brothers into slavery took the white
man's money under false pretenses, and owe us reparations for having
cheated us. The coastal sub-Saharan countries from which most slaves
were sent have many natural resources, and could be occupied and looted
for several years, long enough to cover the slave reparations as well
as reparations for tragedies subsequent to slavery (such as both sides'
expenses in the War for Southern Independence, costs of race riots,
etc.) It might be argued that the current inhabitants of those countries
had nothing to do with the slave trade, but then, neither did the current
US government. And it's our right, as a wronged race, to collect what
we are owed. Isn't it?
Originally
posted from 07-17-02 to 07-24-02
Pretending Not to Notice
by Louis J. Goldberg
The debate over
racism cannot be put to bed because the debate is inherently dishonest.
Economics are at the heart of the racism issue, but not in the way one
would think. We are told that racism causes poverty, yet it would seem,
from a greater perspective, that the opposite is the case. Racism tends
to be inflicted on those minorities who are in poverty and spared from
those who are not. Case in point being Asians, who, in general, arrive
in this country ready to apply themselves to get ahead as fast as they
can. Their perspective is entirely different from native minorities.
Escaping the bonds of affliction in the present tense gives one a tenacity
for freedom when they get a shot at it, while those who have freedom
from birth don't have the first idea what it can do, or has done for
them.
The predominant
liberal academic culture plays on the collective shame and guilt of
the nation's mostly white Christian population. We don't like to be
perceived as being on the wrong side of social issues. Such an image
presumably leads to lack of acceptance by conscientious peers, which
thereby may limit career and social progression. The power of shame
and guilt is such that it masks truth, preventing it from reaching open
debate. Matters of truth are discounted out of hand, and the lie becomes
policy.
Shame and guilt
mask the truth behind so-called hate-crimes. When was the last time
someone killed or assaulted someone they truly liked? All violent crimes
are hate-based because they reflect a basic disdain for civility and
order. In remembering an assault, which took place a few years ago,
of a white couple and their son in front of a downtown restaurant, it
was not billed as a hate crime, because in that case the law functioned
as it ought to have. The perpetrators were brought to justice, which
is the best result anyone could have expected. During that same month,
there were other cases of violence, of the white-on-black variety, and
they were immediately billed as a hate-crime. The media and judicial
circus then kicked in, thereby ensuring that fair and impartial justice
would not be served.
Shame and guilt
cover up the reason that whites, in general [and Jesse Jackson, in particular,]
fear black male youths walking down the street. There is a greater percentage
of blacks in the prisons than whites [in relation to total population
by race] because more blacks turn to crime to solve their problems,
not because the police pick on them unfairly. Racial profiling stems
from real police experience, not bigotry. A police officer would be
incompetent if he did not apply previous experience to his police work.
Shame and guilt
prevent us from confronting race-card dealers like The NAACP. This organisation,
more than save perhaps Jesse Jackson's syndicate, is responsible for
more racial strife and misery in the last decade than the last century
of Klansmen. Outrageous statement, you say? "Hey, like, didn't
the Klan lynch people, man?" Well, yes they did...maybe a handful
in the early part of the last century. How many hundreds of thousands
of blacks have died due to violence and drug addiction - the product
of marginal lifestyles supported by the NAACP and other organisations
that profit from keeping a good percentage of their people poor, illiterate,
and stupid? I'd take my chances with the Klan, thank you.
Our nation's government
and institutions try to play along with the feel-good, multi-cultural
rhetoric and policies that dominate public discourse on matters of race.
Our elected representatives are committed to this strategy, despite
the fact that it has never been shown to improve race relations for
anybody, anywhere, at any time. In fact, the more attention we call
to race, the more racism we create. How can we ever be a color-blind
society if we don't stop counting people by the shade of their hide?
How can Dr. King's dream of his children being 'judged by the content
of their character and not the color of their skin' ever occur if we
avoid honest assessments of character when discussing race relations?
The best and brightest
minds have worked to combat racism for the last 35 years or longer,
all with little or no success. We can set up all the 'sensitivity training
seminars' and 'race-relation task forces' in the world, but it will
not make a bit of difference as long as racism is treated exclusively
as a 'white problem.' People can and do change, but they have to be
won over one at a time, and on an interpersonal level. That means that
if black people want to be treated better by employers, police, and
Denny's™ managers, they need to present their best image to the
public and work with their enslaved brothers to bring them out of their
hatred for whites. Maybe some sensitivity training is needed on the
other side?
Lewis J. Goldberg
is an internet columnist and editor of The
Patriotist.
Originally
posted from 05-24-02 to 05-30-02
On Pork Patrol
by DracoDei
I'm
chubby, and I know it. I have been so most of my life, including in
high school when I played soccer, running my ass off chasing the ball
(not to mention the daily practices, etc.) Even with all that caloric-burning
exuberance I had a bit of a pot-belly, and was always soft on the edges.
I've gotten a little older now, and admittedly am not in as good a shape
as I was then.
I try
to eat right but it doesn't always happen. I also know that I need to
exercise. I have the best intentions to lose weight and get in shape,
but they haven't happened yet. And whose fault is it? Mine. Not society's,
not the food industry’s, not anybody's fault but my own.
My
employer - indeed, most full-time employers these days - have fitness
centers for people who want to work out at lunch, or before or after
work. Many employers have health fairs, devoted to giving dietary and
other health-related advice. Healthy workers are better workers; they
take fewer sick days, and though I don't know if there's proof, I'd
suspect there's a study somewhere showing that a fit worker is more
productive. But obesity lurks, fat nightmares stalk the streets of our
communities, just waiting to pounce on unsuspecting persons deciding
to finish off the last french fry or contemplating dessert. To save
me from this horrible nightmare, anti-fat crusaders want to reach into
my life to make sure I do what they know is best for me. After all,
we're in an "obesity crisis", an epidemic of porkers, pot-bellies,
and cellulite thighs.
We
know this because of a new method of calculation, called the Body Mass
Indicator (BMI) released in 1998. This method of calculation has resulted
in making "...30 million Americans fat overnight," according
to Mike Burita of The Center for Consumer Freedom. But the newfangled
obesity crisis is caused by a standard few can meet. Burita adds that
the BMI is so misleading that actors like Russell Crowe and Tom Cruise
are considered obese, while sports stars Cal Ripken Jr. and Michael
Jordan are classified overweight. But because of the “crisis”,
doctors and others who are concerned about this alleged epidemic have
decided they must take action for my own good, and are planning to act.
Because
being overweight is a health issue, there are calls for adding a "fat
tax" to foods they deem unworthy. They want to see soda machines
ripped from their locations, menus downsized rather than supersized,
and some have even proposed making sure exercise walkways and other
things are built into communities. This is the issue of the day, the
rescuing of the fattening America.
But
there is a deeper issue - the for-your-own-gooders completely miss the
fact that most problems are a matter of personal responsibility. If
I fail to exercise, eat right, etc., I accept the greater health risk.
That's my choice. Nobody forces me to have a bacon double cheeseburger
or to finish the piled-high portion at a restaurant. Nobody bars me
from the exercise room. I'm sick and tired of do-gooders constantly
on the lookout to protect me from myself.
Heaven
forbid I make that decision the wrong way! After all, if I choose poorly
there is a chance that the public might be forced to spend more money;
thus is the basis for intrusion into my life formed. And this rationale
is truly insidious, for there are few things not touched by it. Overweight?
Let’s enact “fat taxes” and other incentives to make
sure people eat better. Coming soon: mandated diets and doctor-approved
and supervised exercise plans. Too tired due to lack of sleep? Monitored
sleep periods to make sure you get the requisite eight hours, and enforced
nap times besides (wait, come to think of it, I might go for this one).
Even sex would not be immune, for the “Protection Police”
would be authorized to check to make sure you and partner are properly
equipped. After all, diseases or unwanted children could cost public
money!
Some
will laugh at my examples, but only a few years ago the idea of a "fat
tax" topped the giggle scale. And there will doubtless be more
to come. The for-your-own-good nazis will never stop, for they justify
their anti-freedom lunacy with the noblest of intentions, soothed by
their own conscience that their unprecedented - and likely unending
- meddling with peoples' lives is the right thing to do, freedom and
personal responsibility be damned.
Originally
posted from 05-16-02 to 05-24-02
Chief
Wahoo on the Trail of Tears?
by Jeffrey Quick
On
April 30, the Anaheim Angels slaughtered the Cleveland Indians 21-2.
The next day, I read that the legislature of the People's Republic of
California is considering a bill to ban mascots and team names deemed
derogatory to any racial or ethnic group from all K-12 schools and colleges
(click
here for the story). While the bill would not affect professional
teams, it's still interesting timing.
And
it suggests a thought: the real problem behind Native American names
of sports teams is not that they are ethnically insulting, but that
they idealize Indians as some kind of big fierce savage unbeatable fighting
machine. I mean, come on, the Indians got creamed. Not even the Jews
or blacks were so thoroughly subjugated. And with both the Cleveland
Indians and Atlanta Braves in freefall, it might be time for baseball
to embrace the true reality of native life.
We
can start with promotions. Why not offer free blankets and smallpox
vaccinations to the first 1000 purchasers of season tickets? (I mean
we can't offer the smallpox on the blankets... there are terrorists
out there.) Or genuine Sand Creek-style tobacco pouches for dipping
snuff. Let's redo Chief Wahoo's teeth, to reflect the change from a
hunter-gatherer diet to the crappy sugar and starch meals on the rez.
A couple nice black cavities ought to do it. Maybe a antique Gatling
gun in the Atlanta stadium to hose down the fans when they start that
tomahawk chop. After all, it's what we did the last time.
And
let's redo the concessions. Why is it you can't get a good chunk of
pemmican or bowl of succotash in any major-league ballpark? Hell, you
can't even get fry bread. Get rid of that yuppie food like sushi. And
forget beer. What chief ever traded land for beer? Good cheap rotgut
whiskey, that's the stuff, with fans puking all over each other and
being even more abusive than they are now. Anything that encourages
fan alcoholism will foster identification with the team mascot.
Let's
change the names of some of the other teams. We can leave the Yankees
and the Mariners alone; they did their part to kill Indians. But the
National League really needs help. The Cincinnati Custers, the Pittsburgh
Firewater, the Montreal Mounties could all keep the Braves in their
place.Get rid of modern technological safety equipment. Make the batters
swing wearing a Plains war bonnet. Let the guy with the highest batting
average call the pitches. Let the strategy of the game reflect the strategies
of the Indian wars. And ditch the organ and accompany the national anthem
with a drum.
If
the Indian teams do their best to act like Indians, they'll lose like
Indians. And when fans realize that Indians are losers, they'll desert
their teams. The owners will have to switch names and image voluntarily,
without government coercion, not because it's politically correct, but
because nobody wants to be on a losing team. And the Atlanta Shermans
will again claim their place in the sun.
Originally
posted from 04-26-02 to 05-03-02
An Open Letter to Elton John
from Morgan Freeberg
My
dear Sir Elton John,
Congratulations
on a successful appearance on your part, by all accounts, before my
United States Senate last week, during which you demanded
"the richest nation" immediately end the AIDS epidemic.
I’d
like to discuss with you your purpose in doing this, whether it was
to make impassioned arguments that would resonate with the American
people, or force our hands by using your celebrity status to pressure
our lawmakers. You appear to have thought you were meeting with a slice
of Americana under the Capitol Dome. Nothing could be further from the
truth. Generally, when a senator is re-elected, he has convinced his
constituents that their problems are caused by some among the other
ninety-nine senators; he himself is blameless. We have a tough time
relating to senators. No senator has successfully completed a presidential
election campaign since 1968.
No,
you did not see Americana at our nation’s capitol. Americana is
what you are reading now. If you are interested in explaining to us
why we should spend more money on AIDS, instead of simply forcing us
to do so, you should keep reading.
America
is the most generous nation on earth. We believe in charity by choice,
not by mandate. To our way of thinking, the height of human existence
is to willingly sacrifice what we have salted away, to help someone
less fortunate. Simultaneously, the nadir of human failure is to require
such a thing through statute. To Americans, charity is voluntary, or
it is nothing.
Must
we prove our generosity? While Ground Zero was burning in Manhattan,
America flew over to the country from where the attack originated, and
dropped – food! Food and money! Have you ever heard the like? If
I were you, I wouldn’t bother checking English history for a precedent.
To
your credit, before asking us to eradicate AIDS, you established a $35
million foundation to do likewise. Some American celebrities could learn
a thing or two from this. I respect that. At the same time, examples
abound of your penchant for lavish and frivolous spending. They are
not consistent with someone overly concerned about funding a health
crisis: £293,000 for flowers, £357,353 for a picture, £120,000
for your own birthday. "I could find a shop in the Sahara desert,"
you boasted in a BBC
Times article.
When
you sued your former manager and accountants a year-and-a-half ago,
it was revealed that you whittled through $43 million in 20 months from
1996 to 1997. That works out to half a million every week of lavish,
needless, excessive personal spending. You seem to be cognizant that
this is your right. You were quoted
as saying, "I have no one to leave the money to. I'm a single man.
I like spending my money."
Sir
Elton, the spirit of America champions your defiant defense. It is the
one place on earth where such an argument will enjoy the greatest momentum.
In our culture, individual choice is what life is all about. People
here are expected to prosper and to suffer from the efforts they put
out, and the decisions that they make.
My
beef with you concerns your inconsistency. You emerged from your mountain
of clothes, jewels, flowers – and lawsuits you started once you
belatedly realized your purse was getting light. Living large by personal
choice, you came to the place where personal choice is most-treasured,
and evacuated your bowels on that concept of personal choice. You infer
we have these obligations because we’re so "rich," "nobody
else comes close," etc. Well, that offends the hell out of me.
Where
is all this money? Our state governments are, with few exceptions, awash
in red ink year after year. Our federal government would be bankrupt,
were it not exempt from accounting standards incumbent on everyone else.
Some say if you want to get technical about it, our country has been
voluntarily bankrupt since March 9, 1933.
Do
our richest citizens possess this money? We have the most generous rich
people on the planet. They set up foundations just like you do. They
donate to AIDS research, Cancer research, at-risk youth programs. They
"gave at the office," as it were. Do you know of any wealthy
Americans who do not contribute to charity? Point them out. I’d
be interested in seeing such a "miser" list, but I doubt it
will be very long.
I hope
you don’t have the cojones to infer that this wealth is in the
standard-of-living of our more modest citizens. If you do, I must be
part of this; there are more Americans making less than me, than those
who make more. My head spins when I compare my weekly personal expenses
to your $537 thousand. What I spent in the seven days before you showed
up at my nation’s capitol, is dwarfed by your own weekly budget
by a factor of, oh, where’s my calculator – Twenty-Three Thousand
Six Hundred Fifty-Eight Times! No flowers or pictures that week. A little
gas to get to work, some Kleenex and eye-drops, a co-pay for my doctor’s
visit, that’s about it.
America
spends enough money on AIDS, as it is, to match 500 Elton John clones
shopping 'til they drop. On a per-patient basis, that blows all other
disease research away. I believe more lives could be saved, not with
more cash, but with better oversight from your new friends in the Senate
regarding where
the money goes. Seminars on masturbation, flirting classes for gay
men, tickets to Disneyland, luxurious hotel rooms at $329 apiece –
it sounds more like a page from Elton John’s diary than extirpation
of an epidemic.
Your
speech came days before American tax returns were due. Could you enlighten
me on the mindset? Brighter
minds than mine have already pounced on you for spending half a
mil a week on bull-squeeze, boasting about it, and then haughtily intoning
to my country that it’s our job to end AIDS because we’re
rich. Did you not see the criticism coming or did you simply not care?
Regards,
Morgan K Freeberg
AMERICAN TAXPAYER
Originally
posted from 04-19-02 to 04-26-02
Witch Hunt 2002
by
Jeffrey Quick
I and my sweetie,
She Who Is Not Fooled (SWINF), were discussing the latest local
eruption of the Catholic sexual abuse scandal. A priest was put
on furlough because he was accused of giving a 12-year old a bare bottom
spanking, even though he wasn't even serving in that parish in that
year. I don't think spanking is a priestly function, myself. But officials
of my public school were giving out bare-bottom spankings in the 60s,
and nobody considered it sexual abuse then. And anyone now who thinks
that corporal punishment of children is a sexual act is twisted beyond
any help.
"But what about
this one?" I asked. "This woman said she was spanked for something
she said in confession, when she was in her early 20s. That's not discipline;
that's kink."
"A 20 year
old let herself be spanked?!" SWINF said. "That's consensual.
Or more likely, she's just nuts, and wants her 15 minutes of fame."
Later in the day, I read about accusations in LA, brought by a paranoid
schizophrenic, and knew she was right, and Hell was out for recess.
As a Wiccan, I must
admit to a touch of Schadenfreud that the sponsors of Sprenger and Kramer
are getting a dose of their own medicine. But witch hunts are destructive
and wrong, no matter whose foot the shoe is on. The gay community may
be breathing a little easier now that it seems that not all priestly
pedophiles are queer. Still, mass hysteria is unpredictable, and nobody
knows where this generation's version of the McMartin
Preschool case will lead.
But it might be
worth asking "Qui bono?" and "Why now?" It's not
like priests have suddenly developed itches in their britches, after
all. They've been regularly falling from grace for two millennia, and
the Church, like any other major political institution, has always engaged
in damage control. Granted, that's not moral leadership, but it's to
be expected.
In the Satanic ritual
abuse scandals of the 80s, it was the Evangelical Right and psychologists
with dubious theories who were the pushers and chief beneficiaries of
the myth. The goal was to defame the newly resurgent and competitive
pagan religions, as well as scaring mothers away from rejoining the
workforce and keeping them home with the kids. There was also fame,
money and glory for a few Christian hucksters, of which the most notorious
was Mike Warnke,
finally exposed as a fraud by his own co-religionists. In this round
of scandal, the chief agents seem to be the news media and trial lawyers,
both practically arms of the Democratic Party.
How does the Left
benefit from damaging the Catholic church? Painting the church as a
dangerous place for children drives a further wedge between ethnic Catholics
(who traditionally vote Democratic but have been drifting right) and
the Church which has been leading them Right, largely through the abortion
issue. But more importantly, the Church is a threat to the New World
Order, in spite of the Marxism which infects it, because it is a separate
power base. John Paul II is to the Church what Reagan was to America:
one who put the brakes on the downward spiral and pulled the organization
back to traditional values, through force of charisma and will. In either
case, it may have been too little, too late, but it has definitely thrown
off the timetable. And now that the old Pole is too feeble to boldly
combat the scandal, there's an opportunity for the Left to influence
the church. It would be interesting to analyze the politics of those
priests and bishops who have been discredited or driven from office,
in comparison to those of the church as a whole, and the effect on the
next conclave.
"Do you think
this will bring down the Church?" SWINF asked me. No. An egregore
that old and central to Western civilization isn't going to just blow
away. Even financially, the wealth of the Church is the wealth of its
believers, and largely beyond lawyers' grasp. And the legal reasoning
behind making the Pope a defendant in a civil suit is tenuous at best,
and the burden of proof near-insurmountable. These nuisance suits and
scandals are distractions. The Left is too smart to fight the church
head-on. All they need to do is weaken it enough to grab temporal power;
after that it will be largely irrelevant to their design. While it's
clear that the Church should make amends in the cases where it enabled
abuse, it must resist bending over. And no matter how deep our contempt
for religion might be, there's no point in scapegoating the priesthood.
Originally
posted from 04-09-02 to 04-19-02
Andrea Yates and the Legally-Mandated Calgon Moment
by Morgan Freeberg
Unless my eyes and
ears deceive me, Andrea Yates is back in the news again. She's locked
up for life, but now we have to figure out how culpable her husband,
Russell, is in the deaths of their five children. The ones she held
underwater with her own two hands until they all drowned.
I don't understand
how this is possible. I thought we lived in a culture that despises
excessive news coverage. Three years later, my ears still ring from
"censure and move on!" Poll after poll, I was told, revealed
that we didn't care if the President lied to us and was ready to lie
to us about anything else that suited his purposes. News anchors condescendingly
explained to me that current events, both domestic and foreign, had
only a few minutes in the spotlight before people grew fatigued. Blockbuster
awaited, after all. Triple-fudge frapaccinos were waiting to be brewed,
sprinkled with vanilla flakes for $6.75 a cup. The real things in life
mattered, and we were tired of the news.
Never mind that
by consuming air-time to explain this to me, the anchors were practically
contradicting themselves. I got the message: News is for nerds. Why
then, three years hence, this perpetual thirst for more updates on the
Yates chronicle?
Because we're a
nation of selfish bastards, that's why.
Clinton and Lewinsky
don't hit home; Yates does. Lazy, selfish men are waiting out there
to see how much they can ignore the daily maintenance of their young
children while their wives handle everything, before those men are criminally
culpable. Self-pitying, teary-eyed women, weary of keeping the home
fires burning like grandma used to do, want their husbands to pitch
in and help - with the force of law. They want a legally-mandated Calgon
moment. They want to say to him: If I'm stressed out, you better notice
it and pitch in, pal. You are responsible for my sanity. The Russell
Yates conviction, or lawsuit, proved it.
For however little
it is worth, the men have a better case here. If a woman is on the edge
of a nervous breakdown or is legally insane, and someone else is responsible
for her, that someone-else has to be as competent as any of the rest
of us if not more so. People who have been through such a family crisis
know this. They need to have both oars in the water, to make up for
the other person's weakness. Russell may be a lot of things, but he
is not that. I've followed the case as close as anyone else. He's a
matchstick short of a cord.
Are we really to
believe that impregnating your wife time after time after time, against
a doctor's advice, is evidence of negligence - and therefore competence
- and then the extinguishing of those young lives is indicative of insanity,
and therefore innocence? In John Marshall's words, this is too extravagant
to be maintained.
Besides, this is
a misguided and counterproductive way to rejuvenate the carcass of feminism.
Such a supervisory capacity would effectively make every husband his
wife's boss. The teary-eyed bitchy women evidently haven't thought that
all the way through. You put legal responsibilities on someone, you
have to give them the authority to back that up. I doubt that's what
they want to do.
But it really doesn't
matter. Three years ago, the Lewinsky scandal was universally regarded
of having overstayed its welcome. That is much more true of the Yates
case, which is more important than many other domestic tragedies only
because several of the spectators figure they have a stake in
the outcome.
I say, a pox on
both their houses, the men and the ladies. This is more selfishness
than our society can stand for long. Somewhere out there, someone is
thinking "I care more about stories that impact me, and people
like me, than stories that impact how the entire nation is governed
and affect the lives of millions of other people." And then there
are millions of more people, who think like that person. This appears
to be a value system held by a majority. If it lasts for long, we, as
a free society, will not.