END OF ARGUMENT!

“Never try to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and it annoys the pig.”

~ Robert Heinlein


I was just re watching a PBS film about the Medici.
I watched again because I was writing about a recurring theme in my life, futile debate with an obtuse nit wit,
and the historical familiarity was deeper than any similar exchange I might have had with any "reality challenged American" from the last few weeks.
Throughout history, people of good will have been optimistic and thought mankind would evolve and all would be explained through logic, scientific observation, and art.
During the Renaissance, the Medici family were patrons of Botticelli, Michaelangelo, Leonardo and Galileo and...well you get the idea.
The Medici knew talent.
This monumental leap forward from the dark ages should have led us to a very different world than the one we are looking at today.
We should have no disease, poverty, or hunger. And we should be flying around in cars like the Jetsons.
But into this flowering of humanity
stepped the first of the wet blankets,
a monk named Savonarola.
This demented kid toucher hated everything the Medicis had encouraged; humanism, science, art.
And he used fear.
Fear of damnation and the ruin of the city.
He preached and fanned the flames of fear and started to gain an audience for his hatred and fear mongering.
While Lorenzo de' Medici was strong and was taking care of his people, Savonarola was just an early Rush Limbaugh.
But as Lorenzo’s wealth started to decline, he could no longer keep the network of friends and friends of friends that had made the city prosper.
And when his health failed, he actually called Savonarola to his deathbed and of course Savonarola being the loving christian that he was told a fearful Lorenzo that he was going straight to hell.
What a dick! But this twisted fart wasn’t done.
He got more and more fearful followers including Botticelli who was persuaded to throw his own paintings on the lovely bonfire Savonarola’s followers had already started with books.
Then after a nice fire, they liked to go around and beat up homosexuals.
Sounding familiar?
Then came the second turd in the punchbowl,
The Inquisition. (No one expected them!)
When Galileo, who’s evidence that he earth revolved around the sun was right there in the eyepiece of his telescope for all to see said,
"Here look for yourselves fuckers!"

The Inquisition replied,

"We don't need to look. The sun, stars, and planets are all fixed and the Earth is at the center of it all."
"Now would you like to recant or would you rather have a hot poker up your ass?

"END OF ARGUMENT!"

If this still sounds strangely familiar to you, you are not alone.
I have caught myself arguing with people who don't think evidence is an important part of argument.
So often I have labored and presented evidence, even off of Fox, only to be told it's liberal bias or have it ignored completely in some sort of psychological version of  "LA LA LA! I CAN'T HEAR YOU!"
The wittiest of come backs has been,
"Oh yeah? Well you're fat!" and the idiot's quod erat demonstrandum,

"END OF ARGUMENT!"

What argument? You ignored or couldn't understand what I said and you presented no evidence yourself!
My mistake was an assumed intellectual bipartisanship.
To discover the true nature of the solar system,
I was looking through the telescope and and they were listening to Glenn Beck.
I think all things can be resolved with a meeting of minds,
they had closed and boarded theirs up against any assault or dangerous light.
As long as mobs of people are so violently and mindlessly swayed by fear and dogmatically follow the rantings of a modern day Savonarola and need to consult a poorly written piece of fiction to see if their hand is right in front of their face,
we will need people of good will and optimism to continue to make two steps forward for every one step back.

Meanwhile I'll be giving money for swinette* lessons in lieu of singing lessons.


*ask my brother Mike. He made me laugh so hard my nose bled!

Another Sam Adams please!

I’ve been struggling with a one man play about Sam for a while.
I think my interest started when I was doing a lot of speaking to large groups of people, usually in character with scripts by my friend Jon Lipsky. 
I love Jon and his knack for making history and information accessible is unequaled.
But I couldn’t afford Jon so I started thinking about the minimal history I have with Sam Adams brewer Jim Koch. Jim was starting his now wildly successful company and I was managing a bar next to the photographer who was helping design his label.
Jim gave me some bottles with type written labels, I tasted them and ordered right then and there.
His first sale. I think.
Before I could approach Jim with my hand out,
I needed to do the research and write an outline for the pitch.


That was a while ago. Very long while ago. 
The frustrating thing is Sam was concerned he might get his friends hanged so he burnt all of his writing and correspondence.
 He has also been the victim of bad press from early biographers.
(Untrue and poorly researched)
He also didn't care about his place in history. He just wanted it done.
He was also overshadowed by cousin John and Ben Franklin. 
Both of whom came way late to the game and were very interested in their legacy!


But Sam was the firebrand. 
Ahead of the crowd and could not be bought or dissuaded. 
He risked all when John, Ben, and most everyone else were hedging their bets and afraid to take a stand. They must have thought him mad. There were some early life lessons that may have led Sam to get radical before everyone else, but I’ll save that for the play.


Sam Adams became my personal hero then and there. He didn't bow to kings, he didn’t bow to money, and he didn’t bow to public opinion.
He knew right was right and eventually everyone knew he was right.


He was the first American advocate of hope and change.
The first radical liberal and true progressive.


Is it any wonder why I get heated when I see Republicans wrapping themselves in the flag, donning tricorns, and picking up the drum & fife?


Put away that flag you revisionist posers! You were the Loyalists/Tories! 


The conservative thing to do was to protect your interests and siding with the crown was where the money was.


It’s where the money is now. 


Republicans knock idealism, hope, and change. 


So when you get sucked into a debate with Fox “News” watchers, remember Sam. 


Who better to side with than the founding father who had genuine ideals, stood his ground because his heart was right, and saw that a country could be built for generations on hope and real change.

Hi I'm a lazy welfare cheat and I want to "WIN BEN STEIN'S MONEY!"

Ben Stein was out talking about how Obama want's to "punish him" by raising his "TAXES!"


Two important things to remember.


Firstly: Bandying about the word "TAXES!" is a hot button.
    The Republicans know this and have linked "TAXES!" not only to the Democrats but also social programs unpopular with the GOP and further criminalized "TAXES!" with the the stain of "lazy brown and/or Spanish speaking people. 
This is called *N word baiting and has been used by those with the means to distract the general public since day one.
* insert Irish, Jew, or whatever ethnicity was the goat in that era.


I pay "TAXES!" no matter who is in office and I bet you do too! 
Eight years prior to Obama's inauguration we had a record surplus. The subsequent loss of that surplus and then record deficit wasn't done by welfare moms driving Cadillacs nor Obama in some sort of psychic violation of the space time continuum. 
 It was pissed away by a government led by a Republican president, controlled by that "fiscally conservative" Republican majority, and enabled by a wussy Democratic minority.


The second thing: Ben Stein is fulfilling his duties as a republican shill AND LYING. 
The man worked for Richard Milhous (Ben Stein wrote these lies for me) Nixon for the love of Cheebus!
I suspect If you subjected him to an independent audit after said laws were passed, he'd still be rich. (He's made enough money to dodge "TAXES!" with greater ease than you or I.) His income only reduced because of the network's, "No ugly old people" policy and dwindling Bueller residuals.   


If a Republican wanted my vote, he'd guarantee he would close all tax loops and everyone would pay a fixed flat tax. 
Yes even that non tax paying criminal Rupert Murdoch. (If that doesn't make you mad but seeing someone using food stamps does you are not only bad at math, you are an idiot.)


We both know that kind of tax reform ain't going to happen. 
They'll continue to hit the "Tax panic button", 
Play pin the goat tail on the beaner, 
and laugh when you pull the big R lever in November because-
a. It won't help you a bit.
b. It probably will hurt you. 
c. You don't even own a yacht you silly working class person.

Secession now!!

What if Lincoln was wrong? 


I worked a job that required me to research American history for many years and I wound up a pretty enthusiastic if not good historian.

Like many Americans, what turned me into a history buff was the Civil War Series by Ken Burns.

I recently re-watched it. The feeling I always have after the conclusion of that comprehensive series is great sadness and a sense of the futility of such a war. It was the bloody price paid for the compromise on slavery during the revolution.

Like with any unpaid bill the interest was huge and as historian Barbara Fields says, "It's not over, we're still fighting it, and it can still be lost.


We appear to be almost as divided as we were then, I thought, why not?   Let's lose.

I got some heat for a comment I made about nothing good ever coming out of the south.  
Further qualifying it by saying any southerner worth his salt came north and if I met you it was in the north.  
“Frank, desperately shallow. Desperately” said a southern man, WHO WENT TO UNIVERSITY IN THE NORTH!”  
I was being simplistic and absurd, slightly. 


We have a line already laid out (Mason-Dixon) and if we are to agree to disagree why not an experiment.


Abolition was a progressive idea. Slavery was a necessary evil  for economic reasons. 

It was the conservative thing to do and the current conservative movement in America has more in common with the CSA than the America forged by every major event in American history from both (or all ) parties.

What if we had split along the Mason Dixon line and become two separate nations?

A list of conservative assets for one. Fundamentalism, Creationism, Libertarianism, protectionism, no government services, corporate tax shelters, free guns, banjo lessons, etc.


The Progressives can keep progressive educational and social programs, free medical care, diplomatic relations with the rest of the world, all those Ivy League elitist universities and all that wacky science stuff from the north that led to things like the moon landing ,  breakthroughs in medicine from those elitist medical schools, stem cell research, Al Gore’s internet, etc.


Two countries. Let's see who thrives.


They can still call themselves America and fly Old Glory.


We can choose a cool new name like Dave and fly a flag with a big arrow pointing down that says, "I'm with Stupid."


I know what your saying, "Buddy, I'm living down south and I'm a liberal." 
You can stay as a resident alien. 
Same for conservatives in the north. 


But I suspect after the the neighbors start leaving brand new trucks up on blocks, setting up revival tents and speaking in tongues to you in the south and womyn's drum circles and LGBT mosques appear in the north, you'll both want to move.

Agitate Agitate Agitate! ~ Frederick Douglas

This is something I wrote in response to concerned friends & family who thought me too agitated


The fire has subsided a bit but I felt compelled to write why.


Well I was one of those who thought no fucking way are Americans dumb enough to put that faux Texas chimp into the White House....TWICE!


Though now I think the Republican party has gone a good way toward making themselves irrelevant in 2012, 
 I ain't taking no chances.


Or as W says
 "There's an old saying .... fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can't get fooled again." (Sheer genius!)


If you have a friend or loved one lost to FOX, I am sorry for your loss.


If you are a FOX viewer yourself, who's reading this to you?


BUT!  If you know some one who says, "Calm down. Let's all get along. Don't get all heated up. They made the trains run on time, etc."


Grab them by the collar, yell, slap them, wake them up!


Is this "Let's not hide the Jews in our attic, it's not our problem, and it will all turn out ok" time?
No, but fear led us to the dark side. Fear led us to the worst 8 years in American history.
Yep I'm counting all wars and the great depression because the vote is still out and we need the full eight to recover. I'd hate to lose that chance because of sheer mugwumpery.




If another fear mongering chimp gets into the oval office next election it won't be because I didn't pester my friends and family to be as agitated as me.


Sorry guys. I love you and I'm going to be a pain in the ass a little while longer.