Dallas Erickson vs Life As We Know It

A mere few years ago, when Dallas Erickson mounted his “Not In My Bathroom” campaign to fight a Missoula ordinance to ban discrimination based on sexual orientation, I agreed with him. There are certain kinds of people I would not want to be alone in a public bathroom with my kid. Dallas, who has worn his sexual insecurities on his sleeve for as many years as I’ve associated the city “Dallas” with the name, “Erickson”, was top on that list and that hasn’t changed. Not that the Flat World Right has a corner on the “insecurities” market. But in my experience, most Lefties, if they suffer, don’t do so in such a public manner. That’s what our superficial labellings boil down to when you get to the burnt scrum at the bottom of the political pot, which is where we are now. The Left, for all its many, many faults, is not an ideological haven for open perverts and misanthropes. The Right, on the other hand, is.

If I were doing the boiling, I’d say the gist of the matter as to whether we want our grandkids to remember us as “Righties” or “Lefties”, is enclosed within the following two recent news items:

On May 29^th, in a letter to the Ravalli Republic, Mr. Erickson wrote that “Ravalli County is made of a great number of people who call themselves Christian Conservatives. As such we feel that abortion is even more evil than the holocaust because we consider it the taking of a human life. Scientists are in virtual consensus that life begins at conception and unlike their vocal stand on “man caused global warming” they are silent as thousands of babies are killed.”[i]

Never mind, for the moment, that “Science” is in no such virtual consensus that life begins at conception, while it is in virtual consensus on the question of “man caused global warming”. Just let Dallas’ jabbering be for the moment, because he make his own point, which is also mine.

To point, Item Two: Five days before Dallas' local dogmato-screed, on May 24, 227 Republicans (and four Democrats) in the U.S. House of Representatives voted for an amendment that would prevent the Department of Defense from addressing climate change. In justifying this example of jaw-dropping hubris, the author of the bill, Rep. David McKinley (R-WV) posited the rhetorical question that should be on everyone’s lips these days.“Why should Congress” he opined, “divert funds from the mission of our military…to support a political ideology.”[ii] To rephrase this in geo-political terms, 231 of the most powerful people currently on the face of our dear Earth found this statement to be without screaming inconsistencies, and voted to divert funds for Rep. McKinley's (and Dallas") more perfect political ideology.

I don’t think I could say it any better than Mr. Erickson or Rep. McKinley. What can be more disturbing than a “Christian Conservative” or any other confused person sharing one-on-one bathroom time with any of my kids? How about enough self-righteous, dogmatically blinded voters agreeing with the likes of such an open homophile like Erickson in this time of our own extremity, to the point of allowing these flatworlders who have no intention of dealing in any meaningful way with Humankind’s survival to occupy positions of vast power where they debate that very subject? Change begins at home, remember, and if we Bitterrooters put up with Dallas' screeds without consistently condemning them then we are complicit. If you don't believe this, just remember three words. Family Planning Clinic. Extinct in our community today because too many of us are simply not paying enough attention to the fascists in our midsts. And I do mean fascists. Remember: Dallas made $100,000 (gross--and I do mean "gross") as Walmart's frontman in shoving their corporate agenda up ours just before the international corporate bank heist that tanked our economy and temporarily made their super-sized mega-store a moot point and also sent the likes of Swiss-owned insurance vice presidents, Rep. Nancy Ballance (R-Victor), up from Southern California to be one of our moral den mothers. (Let us pray...).

Many Righties, such as Erickson and Harris Himes (remember him?) actually want our world to go to hell. They believe in this outcome, and they and theirs say so every day. Let that reality stare you in the face for a bit and then know that our grandkids, whether we self-identify on either the Right or the Left, will rightfully damn us, each and every one, for allowing this collective insult of reason to have gone on for so long. 

How about we get busy and start effectively counteracting this utter nonsense? 

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[i] http://ravallirepublic.com/news/opinion/viewpoint/article_bea70ab8-e6dd-11e3-8b63-0019bb2963f4.html

[ii] http://www.policymic.com/articles/89887/house-republicans-just-passed-a-bill-denying-something-99-of-scientists-agree-on

The Rapture

Jesus was much-misunderstood and misquoted even in his own day, but in His infinite wisdom He knew that this human flaw, presently referred to as "disconnect", would get much worse over time. To speak to this concern, He said to His followers that when this 'love your neighbor" movement they were attempting really got off the ground (so to speak) He would eventually be misquoted, misrepresented and downright lied about so shamelessly by those who forever have taken good things and knocked them on their asses for the sake of selling a more perfect snake oil that eventually things were bound to get really, really bad for everybody. 

Then did Jesus see the furrowed brows ripple like wind across a still lake through countenances his on his disciples and He admonished them. "Oh, ye of little faith! Do you think I don't have a fix for this. Dad promised Me that when things got truly unbearable, He (My Dad) would suck all of these troublemakers up into the sky, which is where they, in their misguided zeal, will be wanting to go anyway so, verily, everything will work out just fine.  It will be a win-win-win. 

Jesus did admit to his still-worried followers that this sucking will necessarily be inconvenient, but will ultimately be cleansing and will therefore worthwhile and also be known as the Rapture for Reasons Inscrutable. All who would yearn for Good Things should pray for it every day.

You're welcome.

Dworshak Dam/ North Fork Clearwater River, Idaho

Political Correctness--A Definition and Some Advice

Political Correctness is a term invented by Sen. Jesse Helms, one of the most far-right politicians of the Reagan years, to denigrate anyone to the left of Atilla The Hun, and it's common usage has not strayed from its origins one iota since then. 

When someone to the left of Atilla uses the term "politically correct" they are declaring solidarity with, or at least demonstrating the internalization of a philosophy that a man who proudly proclaimed his first-name status with the Salvadorean Death Squad leader Roberto D'aubuisson and other first-rate murderers of his era would thank you for perpetrating.

Therefore, in the face of the Ubiquity of Stupid (I just made that up--you're welcome to steal it!) in an era when we should be trying to elevate our level of discussion on the critical issues of our time one has to ask: Are we doomed, then, to repeating vicious banalities invented by monsters?

At the very least, don't use that goddam phrase on me or mine. Thank you and, please, think.

Libertarianism Definitively Defined

I was in a Target store the other day and overheard a conversation between two twenty-something guys, loudly identifying as "Libertarians" and trying to agree on what that actually means. I left before they came to consensus, which is common with "libertarians", but it got me thinking. "Libertarianism", IMHO, is a squishy word that is in the process of being weaponized by the Whacky Right but has never been properly-defined. Given our options in these Interesting Times, maybe a little history would help.

The result is this hopefully-helpful, fact-checkable definition that merely connects the 18th-and-19th-Century observations of Jonathan Swift and Lewis Carrol with the doings of 21st Century billionaires who would convince 20-something (mostly) guys that it's in their own, best interest to allow said-21st-Century billionaires to destroy a whole planet in order to accumulate enough wealth to: A. launch themselves from said Wrecked Planet into Outer space or B. build prepper fortresses staffed with 20-something "libertarians" guarding the gates to keep all other 20-something "libertarians" out.

Sound fair? Here goes:

Libertarianism 

1. A political philosophy invented by and tailored to those who love to hear themselves talk. 

2. A cunundrum: a state of being so impossible to cogently and rationally explain that for one identifying as such attempting to do so feels obliged to chase their tail until they talk themselves into a knot just returning to the back end of their original question. 

3. A 21st Century, fantasy-besotted billionaire who invests millions of dollars convincing twenty-somethings who are not billionaires to enlist in their cause. 

4. A snake eating itself.

You're welcome.

Pete Seeger, May 3rd 1919 to January 27th 2014

"I make my living as a banjo-picker. Sort of damning, in some peoples' opinion."

Pete Seeger before the House UnAmerican Activities Committee (HUAC), 1955

Being hauled before Senator McCarthy’s House Un-American Activities Committee and then defying it should have long ago been elevated to a badge of honor in this country. If anyone should have a day named after him, or a Nobel Peace Prize given to him, it’s Pete Seeger.

And yet Pete and his ideals were vilified by the false patriots, the powerful and the ignorant right up to his death yesterday, while at the same time being deeply loved by literally everyone else, which is practically everyone in this land, which is you and me.

It’s far past time for us to decide whose land this is. Not for them to decide. For us, and you know what I mean. You also know the answer, just as I know it, and we all know that if we live morally and ethically by that answer we will be shunned and vilified by the powerful, the false patriots and the ignorant for being the thoughtful Americans that we know we are. Pete was our shining example for the right way to live, to speak out, to sing out. During these current times of hi-tech snooping and moralistic Teabaggery, we need to remind ourselves that there’s nothing new under the sun, and that, along with grieving Pete’s passing, that Pete is and will always remain the answer we seek.

How do we answer those hate-driven reactionaries who would drive us over the edge of the world while daring to vilify us as “traitors” for the sake of enriching those who are already too rich? Ask Pete. How do we answer the techno-crazed N.S.A. and their apologists when they flush our most basic tenets of Privacy and Democracy down the toilet for the sake of “security”? Again, ask Pete

There’s so much I could say about what Pete Seeger meant to me. A lot of it, I suppose, I’ve already said or could go without saying for now. What I need now, during this time of Pete’s passing, is a good laugh along with a good cry, and so I’ll steer you to Pete’s testimony before the HUAC on August 18^th, 1955 http://www.peteseeger.net/HUAC.htm . I can’t do justice to the whole thing, because it’s a masterpiece, much like Martin Luther King’s “I Have A Dream” speech, and it should be similarly enshrined as one of our touchstone democratic documents, the definitive Truth spoken to the immoral, self-righteous misuse of Power we will be fighting against for the rest of our lives.

I’ll just present a few of Pete’s gems, spoken before this whacked-out committee, so we can laugh with him as he answers the chairman and the lawyers trying to trick him into incriminating his friends who would have the audacity to believe that they could make Democracy work.

Did I say "whacked-out"? For context, let’s remind ourselves who the committee’s chairman was, the guy asking Pete the self-righteous questions. Francis Walter was a Democratic congressman from Pennsylvania. He had a reputation as a “staunch anti-communist” which in those days translated into virulent anti-immigration policies. He once presented President Roosevelt with a letter opener made of an arm bone of a fallen Japanese soldier. Additionally, he served a stint as director of the Pioneer Fund, a racist “foundation” that funded “studies” to prove that whites were superior to other races. He had a dam named after him.

There's nothing new under the sun.

House UnAmerican Activities Committee, August 18^th, 1955

The committee had been directing Pete, under threat of contempt charges, to answer numerous questions, the answers to which would have, in the committee members’ minds, implicated Pete’s friends and associates with a supposed “plan” by the Communist Party to “subvert” America. The following is his response:

PETE: “I am not going to answer any questions as to my association, my philosophical or religious beliefs or my political beliefs, or how I voted in any election, or any of these private affairs. I think these are very improper questions for any American to be asked, especially under such compulsion as this….I feel that in my whole life I have never done anything of any conspiratorial nature and I resent very much and very deeply the implication of being called before this Committee that in some way because my opinions may be different from yours, or yours, Mr. Willis, or yours, Mr. Scherer, that I am any less of an American than anybody else. I love my country very deeply, sir.”

CHAIRMAN WALTER: “Why don't you make a little contribution toward preserving its institutions?”

PETE: “I feel that my whole life is a contribution. That is why I would like to tell you about it.”

CHAIRMAN WALTER: “I don't want to hear about it.”

The questioning continues. Pete politely and consistently refuses to participate. At one point, Frank Tavenner, chief counsel for HUAC, asks him if he performed a certain song at a Fourth of July summer camp in New York the committee has labeled a “communist front” organization.

PETE: “Again, I say I will be glad to tell what songs I have ever sung, because singing is my business. But I decline to say who has ever listened to them, who has written them, or other people who have sung them.”

MR. TAVENNER: “Did you sing this song, to which we have referred, "Now Is the Time," at Wingdale Lodge on the weekend of July Fourth?”

PETE: “I don't know any song by that name, and I know a song with a similar name. It is called "Wasn't That a Time." Is that the song?”

CHAIRMAN WALTER: “Did you sing that song?”

PETE: “I can sing it. I don't know how well I can do it without my banjo.”

The questioning continues. Pete politely and consistently refuses to participate. Finally Tavenner hands Pete a photograph of himself in a military uniform with a placard titled “censored”. He asks Pete to identify himself.

PETE: “It is like Jesus Christ when asked by Pontius Pilate, "Are you king of the Jews?"

CHAIRMAN WALTER: “Stop that.”

And on and on....

Pete was finally sentenced to a year in jail for contempt of Congress. He appealed his case, and was exhonerated after a seven year legal battle. In the meantime, and even after he was exonerated, he was blacklisted, which meant that he was not asked to perform at any venue run by anyone with less courage than Pete who felt they had something to lose by associating with him. For example, although Pete was central to the folk revival in the 50s and 60s, including the revival of the concept of the “Hootenany”, when network television aired a series called “Hootenanny” in the early sixties, Pete was not asked to appear. A few artists, such as Joan Baez, boycotted the show, but many, including some of Pete’s friends, did not.

That’s how you fight it, this ugliness we struggle with now. It’s always the same. If you’re serious about it, you do the right thing. 

"I still believe," Pete said in 1979, "the only chance for the human race to survive is to give up such pleasures as war, racism and private profit."                           

Pete is not at peace now. Pete is Peace. Be strong. Be kind. Be unapologetic.

Long live Pete Seeger!

Bring Them Home by Pete Seeger

If you love your Uncle Sam,

Bring them home, bring them home.

Support our boys in Vietnam,

Bring them home, bring them home.

It'll make our generals sad, I know,

Bring them home, bring them home.

They want to tangle with the foe,

Bring them home, bring them home.

They want to test their weaponry,

Bring them home, bring them home.

But here is their big fallacy,

Bring them home, bring them home.

I may be right, I may be wrong,

Bring them home, bring them home.

But I got a right to sing this song,

Bring them home, bring them home.

There’s one thing I must confess,

Bring them home, bring them home.

I'm not really a pacifist,

Bring them home, bring them home.

If an army invaded this land of mine,

Bring them home, bring them home.

You'd find me out on the firing line,

Bring them home, bring them home.

Even if they brought their planes to bomb,

Bring them home, bring them home.

Even if they brought helicopters and napalm,

Bring them home, bring them home.

Show those generals their fallacy:

Bring them home, bring them home.

They don't have the right weaponry,

Bring them home, bring them home.

For defense you need common sense,

Bring them home, bring them home.

They don't have the right armaments,

Bring them home, bring them home.

The world needs teachers, books and schools,

Bring them home, bring them home.

And learning a few universal rules,

Bring them home, bring them home.

So if you love your Uncle Same,

Bring them home, bring them home.

Support our boys in Vietnam,

Bring them home, bring them home.

Below is one thought of mine at Pete's passing. I don't feel as negative as the verse below suggests, but I think if you substitute the word "squelch" for "kill", it'd be about right. If you're a folksinger and are familiar with the song "Victor Jara", this works as an extra verse:

You can kill the singer
but you cannot kill the song

Unless you can kill everyone 
who wants to sing along

Let your hands be gentle 
let your hands be strong.