Old Geezers Out to Lunch

Old Geezers Out to Lunch
The Geezers Emeritus through history: The Mathematician™, Dr. Golf™, The Professor™, and Mercurious™

Friday, August 18, 2017

An Angry Geezer

I'm now categorized as an "young old guy" or "mature middle-aged fellow," depending on who is doing the labeling. To my 87-year old mother-in-law, I'm relatively young, while to my kids, I'm clearly a dinosaur.

But however I'm labeled, I will tell you that in my six-plus decades on the planet, the last year or so has seen a level of social, political, and cultural rest the likes of which I have not seen since the 1960s and early 70s. And I'm fairly certain its going to get worse before it gets better.

Now, philosophically I believe in principles that lean in the Buddhist direction. In other words, I believe that on a universal level it is tolerance, compassion, and equanimity that have the power to eventually create peace and happiness for everyone.

What I believe and what I'm able to practice are two different things, though, and I fully acknowledge that I'm not a great Buddhist yet. In immediate terms, I'm pissed as hell at our president and his chief priest Steve Bannon and the 35% of Americans who appear to be their disciples.

The problem with a Ghandi philosophy of peaceful, non-violent social resistance is that it takes so damned long, and in my American experience, I observe that it is usually genuine physical action that brings about change. And yes, sometimes that action borders on the violent. In the 1960s and 70s, it was only at the point where the Black Panthers stopped being peaceful neighborhood activists and began stocking their headquarters with guns in defense against police raids that civil rights change began to accelerate. And it was at the point where college protestors began throwing tear gas canisters back at police that we as a nation grew truly weary of the Vietnam war.

It's now been shown that Donald Trump's most recent fake fact—that the violence in Charlottesville, VA involved equal culpability by white supremacists and members of the Antifa crowd—is so much bull dung. Objective reports verify that the right-wing crowd arrived with clubs, helmets, shields and pepper spray in anticipation of conflict, and that Antifa members became physical only when the right-wing began pushing and shoving and punching ordinary counter-demonstrators. Left-wing violence was indisputably an act of self-defense. After all, who was it that drove a car through the crowd in an act of murder?

Nor does the insistence that there were "fine people" to be found on the white nationalist side of demonstration seem to hold any water. Virtually all the advertisements and posters announcing the Charlottesville event either featured the confederate flag, or more blatantly stated things like "White People, Take Back Your Country from the Jews!" Where, I wonder, are the fine people who come out to participate in an event defined in such a way?

I'd like to be able to frown and discourage all violence wherever it occurs. Maybe white supremacists and Neo-Nazis can indeed be defeated through peaceful disagreement over a period of many decades. And I'd also like to be that guy who gathers up cockroaches, takes them outside and releases them into the wild. However, I'm an imperfect human being, and in practical terms I feel that cockroaches of any ilk need to be stepped on, or at least chased back into the shadows and made afraid of the light.

This is not to say that I believe we necessarily need to physically assault members of the Neo-Nazi crowd wherever we find them. There are levels of violence that can be pursued in a war against these bastards. On one level, all disagreement—verbal and political—is an act of violence. I do believe that we need to make it clear, at least through the verbal and political violence of word and opinion, that we do not tolerate that which is intolerable. White supremacists need to be insulted, derided, chastised and in every way made to understand that we do not tolerate their beliefs and do not accept their right to spread the disease. And decent people do need—and in fact have a responsibility—to physically protect themselves when attacked. To practice tolerance with this crowd is like accepting the right of small pox to exist.

As for Steve Bannon, if he were to suddenly step in front of my car on the street while jaywalking, I would apply the brakes—but I fear that I'd think for a long, long moment before doing the right thing.


17 comments:

  1. You are entirely correct -- we cannot tolerate the intolerable. And we MUST step up and speak up and act up. Peacefully.

    The young old among us have seen great change in our lives but one thing never changes: we are our brother's keeper. Our sister's, too. Each of us can be part of the solution.

    Thanks for this great piece.

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    1. I agree with you—or want to. It begs the question, though: what is the proper response when decency is attacked, as appears to be the case when a couple thousand right-wing fanatics try to occupy a public park while carrying clubs, mace, helmets and shields. Meeting violence with violence only escalates things, but what is the price of turning the other cheek? I have no easy answers, only troubling questions.

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  3. And isn't it striking how his staff stood by? Elaine Chao, Asian American secretary of transportation, Gary Cohn, Jewish director of the national economic council and Steven Mnuchin, Jewish secretary of the treasury are each silent. Isn't that the definition of an enabler?

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    1. Yes, it most certainly is enabling. The Republic Party in general has some explaining to do.

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  4. In the former dark years, when I taught college English, and made a stupid, anti-Vietnam remark, a young man in the back of the room responded with a glazed eyed recitation of how it was to kill a soldier on the other side with piano wire, rather than be killed himself, together with his troop. The class ended, everyone walked out, dazed, and I apologized to the kid. It was a revelation to stupid young me that we are all in this together. The fellow quit my class; I never saw him again. I tried to open a dialogue with the others, but failed. Most of them were draft material, and I understood that.
    We need to keep talking. The image of a teenager garroting a teenager has never left me. Violence will not cure us. Hate will not solve anything.

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    1. A sobering story with a valid point. I don't think I advocate violence, but neither can I promise not to shove back when white supremacists try to push me aside in order to occupy a public park.

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    2. Now you're talking personal. Shove back.

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  5. Whilst I sympathise with what you say - and I have a powerful antipathy towards all things ultra-right wing - there are a number of issues that arise here. Freedom of speech, for the few? Or is that for all, regardless of what they say? Should we be free to insult others, their beliefs and so on? Freedom of the press is closely allied to this issue.

    Did this business not start with the proposed removal of a statue [of General Lee?]. Whatever sort of man he was, can we arbitrarily suppress certain aspects of history.

    For the far right, and the far left - not involved in this Charlottesville business, issues have simple answers and remedies. It is the caring, thoughtful middle ground that suffer the agony of morality and ethics.

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    1. As a friend pointed out, perhaps such statues of what can only be described as traitors belong in museums rather than displayed in public spaces with nostalgic fondness. In Germany, exhibits on Hitler are found in museums, not celebrated as testaments to "history" in public places.

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  6. Back in the dawn of bipeds we somehow came to an arrangement about modes of behavior and conduct. Over the centuries we have learned, lit up new areas of the brain and "evolved." The American experiment is at least a high point in the evolution of congenial behavior-flawed even though it and its architects were.

    We have continued to make improvements in civil behavior. Reprehensible and repugnant behavior have rightfully been marginalized, even to the point of being outlawed. In the exercise of our free will we make choices-what to think, believe, how to act, co-exist and respond. Here again the human evolutionary process points to better ways, though some choose to be errant or are simply ignorant or defiant. However when it comes down the Nazi mindset-neo or otherwise, it is possessed of insanity, irrationality, ignorance and has no place in civilization.

    We don't allow babies to eat rat poison or put their fingers in wall sockets. As a society we need not make a place or tolerate repugnant insanity. The right to free speech does not extend to insanity. I agree with your thought the alt-right is a disease and should be treated as such. It is a social disease to think or say the kind of things we hear from this sad and marginalized minority of self loathers, inadequate, ignorant, confused, losers who contribute nothing-NOTHING to the social order or the common good.

    Bannon, a primordial traditionalist, saw in the gaming community an ethos and demographic that he realized he could tap for his own economic gain. Through his alt-right pandering he saw he had amassed a cluster of people who also had the privilege of votes. Lighting struck and the monster was animated. It will take the best of civility, reason and logic to repair the damage. Bannon's departure is a start. But I fear a stake must be driven into the blood pump (it is not a heart) of the remaining chimera.

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    1. Exceptionally eloquent commentary, as always, Tom. I did not yet know about Bannon's heave-ho when posting this. I'll be interested now to see if Bannon turns on Trump like the weasel he is, or continues to manipulate him.

      This would be interesting if it weren't so horrifying.

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  7. I know how you feel about Bannon stepping in front of your car. And as such, I feel your pain. :)

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  8. Bannon, as we now know, has taken back the reins at Breitbart. He will be able to espouse his right wing, nationalist views without restraint. What will be interesting to see is how trump responds. Will he start quoting Bannon in his early morning rants? Will he agree with him in his rare press meetings? Will Bannon turn on him if he thinks trump is not being nationalist enough?
    Oh, and I think I'd have a brake failure, Silverado 2500 are notorious for that.
    Cheers,
    Mike

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  9. Tomorrow, there is going to be "white supremacist" rally about 4 miles from my house (in Laguna Beach). Antifa and "democratic socialists" are apparently very ready to do whatever it takes to disrupt them. I can't imagine a big turnout by anyone, because it's small city, and there is only two ways to get there, and hardly any parking at all.

    In my humble opinion, I think the beating of nazis, white nationalists, and white supremacists is a good thing, and totally appropriate.

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  10. I'll be interested now to see if Bannon turns on Trump like the weasel he is, or continues to manipulate him.


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