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tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-206683592016-08-30T09:20:54.491-07:00Once Upon a Time...Arthur email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-20668359.post-66091019571324511472016-08-30T09:20:00.001-07:002016-08-30T09:20:54.498-07:00Status UpdateI'm deeply sorry for my long silence. I'm especially sorry with regard to those people who so kindly responded to my last cry for help, five awful months ago.

 The explanation for my silence is very simple: I've been a bedridden invalid for most of this period. On several occasions, I thought I might well be dying. That didn't happen, so ... yay, I suppose. I say "I suppose" only because I still feel so godawful most of the time. But not quite as awful as I had been feeling. I manage now to get out of bed for a few hours each day, although I can't accomplish all that much when I'm up.

 But goddammit, there's still some writing to be done. Just recently, I discovered -- quite by accident, as it happens (where are my spies when I need them? I can't believe no one told me about this book) -- Tribe, by Sebastian Junger. I've just begun reading it, and -- oh, boy. The short Amazon description accurately provides the book's perspective:
We have a strong instinct to belong to small groups defined by clear purpose and understanding--"tribes." This tribal connection has been largely lost in modern society, but regaining it may be the key to our psychological survival.
Those readers familiar with my work will know that this subject is one I've addressed in some detail. They will also know that Junger's perspective represents the complete inversion of what I consider the correct and psychologically healthy approach.

 Once I've finished reading Junger's book, I expect to have quite a few articles to write, to clear up confusions, to explain many issues he appears to neglect entirely, and to offer some new material to build upon my earlier argument. (For that earlier argument, see this essay and this one in particular. They contain some of the best analysis I've ever offered here, in addition to which I am convinced that my thesis is both true and important.) I suspect that reviews of Junger's book might also provide illuminating material for analysis. If any of you come across reviews that strike you as particularly interesting, please let me know. Junger's book has been very successful, and most readers think his ideas are absolutely swell. That explains a lot.

 So there's that to be done. And I suppose I should try to offer a few words about this Marx Bros. election. I apologize: what a terrible insult to the Marx Bros. They were inspired and wonderfully funny. This election is merely ridiculous and nauseating, although not for the reasons offered most frequently.

 Now I have to go back to bed, and try to regain some energy for this work. I must add that I only was able to survive these last months because of a few dear friends, as well as all those donors who have been so generous -- and among that last group, I also must especially mention the few individuals who continue to make donations even when silence prevails here. And, of course, my financial situation remains extremely dire, so any and all assistance is greeted with tremendous gratitude, as always.

 P.S. Here is something that is very cool. Be sure to explore the map for at least a few minutes.Arthur email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-20668359.post-62342224064649090532016-04-03T09:07:00.000-07:002016-04-03T09:11:07.917-07:00Eviction, Starvation and Other Unlovely ThingsI've always said (along with many others) that, if there is a God, He is one unbelievably nasty, sadistic SOB. It would be just like God to have arranged events in this manner. After all this time, when I am finally able to write again -- and when I am eager to do a lot of writing once more -- I will be unable to pay the rent. After publishing a new essay several days ago, I put up a comparatively brief post offering a few observations about this and that, at the end of which I mentioned that I only have enough money to pay about half of this month's rent. I have no money at all for anything else: internet service, a few other bills and, oh yes, non-essential items like food. I offer my sincere thanks to the seven people who responded. They made donations totaling $220. I still can't pay the April rent.

 If I'm still unable to pay the rent by the end of tomorrow, my rent will officially be late. (It's not considered late until after the fifth, but if I don't have the rent payment by the end of tomorrow, the landlord won't get it until the sixth or later.) The new owners may well decide to begin the eviction process as soon as I'm late. They are definitely planning to demolish this building and the one next to it and then to construct one big new apartment building, with many more units than the two small buildings now contain. That's the business they're in; we know these buildings are on their list of projects, but we don't know exactly when they will get around to them. It appears most likely that it will be sometime in the next year. A local ordinance mandates that owners must pay tenants certain amounts as relocation expenses when they tell the tenants they must move so that the building they live in can be torn down. Given my age and the length of time I've lived here, they will have to pay me about $20,000. I'm one of only three or four tenants due to receive that much. I think we can assume that the owners might well be delighted to avoid that payment in my case. If I hand them an easy excuse to get rid of me, they might pounce on it eagerly.

 I'll also be unable to pay the internet bill. So in a couple of weeks, that will be gone. I have four or five days' worth of food. After that, nothing. A couple of weeks from now, I'll be in very bad shape. I can't buy other items, either --- like toilet paper. Almost out of it. Well, I have some notebooks where I sometimes write down ideas or issues I'm thinking about (I make lots of notes on the computer, but yes, I occasionally still make notes with an actual pen on actual paper). I can tear some pages out of those notebooks, and use that paper to wipe my ass. I won't be able to flush it down the toilet, so I guess I'll collect it in a bag and throw it out with the garbage.

 Donations to the blog are my only source of income. If I'm unable to gather sufficient funds to pay these basic expenses, this is over. I obviously won't have money to move anywhere else, so ... Well, I've known for quite a while that this day might come, if I lived long enough. Frankly, I expected to be dead by now, given the number of physical ailments I contend with, starting, but hardly ending, with a steadily weakening heart. But I am unaccountably still here. And after a long absence, I'm ready to do some writing.

 I suppose I could point to some of my articles to try to convince people to make donations. The posts listed under "Major Essays" in the right-hand column should take care of that. And all of those articles contain many links taking you to still more essays. That's what I have to offer. I'd like to offer more along those lines.

 Hey, God! Here's an idea: go damn Yourself, you sickening bastard. Now, now, don't worry. I was going to Hell anyway.Arthur firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-20668359.post-82965474973983613432016-04-01T11:38:00.000-07:002016-04-01T12:58:45.615-07:00Hey Now!"Hey now!" was the catchphrase used by Larry Sanders's sidekick on The Larry Sanders Show. Garry Shandling played Sanders, and Jeffrey Tambor was the sidekick; both were wonderful. The show was genuinely smart and clever, and very, very funny. The derivation and significance of "Hey now!" became the subject of some philosophical and psychological investigation in one episode. One hugely funny episode involved David Duchovny's crush on Larry; here's a bit of it. I loved that show, and I liked Shandling's earlier show a lot as well. You probably know that Garry Shandling died recently. He was a wonderful talent. I found his death somewhat unnerving. He was only 66. I'm at the age now where people who've been around for most of my life are dying in significant numbers; Shandling was a year younger than I am, so his death was a bit more startling to me. Another recent loss was Patty Duke. She was also just about my age. I saw Duke in the original Broadway production of The Miracle Worker, which I still remember very clearly. I was 12 when I saw it; Anne Bancroft had already left the production and been replaced by Suzanne Pleshette, who was absolutely wonderful. Patty Duke was utterly astonishing as Helen Keller. The 1962 film made from the play is very fine, and Bancroft and Duke are both superb. But the impact of that play in the theater was overwhelming; the extended "fight" scene between Keller and Annie Sullivan was often terrifying.

 Since I'm nattering here about this and that, I'll mention that there has recently been an extended discussion on my opera list about declining attendance at the Metropolitan Opera. Apparently, attendance has dropped to alarmingly low levels. Some of those at recent performances describe "acres" of empty seats. Most observers agree that prohibitively expensive ticket prices are a large part of the explanation. "Prohibitively expensive" for all us ordinary folks, that is. But we don't matter, of course. As one person noted, the huge rise in ticket prices at the Met is merely another part of the incredibly expensive cost of living in Manhattan, a phenomenon which is now spreading to the other boroughs, too. As this commenter noted, the message from the ruling class is: "Get rich or get out." I'd put the general issue a bit differently: "Get rich, or die." The ruling class would prefer that we simply die, you realize. I've discussed this New York problem, as it were, in this essay (and the ruling class's die-off plan is discussed here -- briefly glancing at that essay reminds me that we should properly call it a "kill-off" plan). And the New York problem is now, of course, spreading to other cities. It's become very noticeable in Los Angeles; from my reading, it appears that similar developments are occurring in many other places.

 Well, that's enough of that for now. I hope you've seen the new piece from yesterday. A new piece! Hooray! I know, I know; it's been a long time coming. This last month has been godawful. I've had a bunch of computer problems. I seem to have fixed the worst of them, although the computer still does a few peculiar things at unexpected moments. I'm not entirely sure how much longer this computer will hold up (or until it requires serious professional attention), but it seems to be sort of okay for now. On the health front, I was confined to bed for most of March. All that rest seems to have helped a bit, and I feel somewhat better now. Not good, by a long shot, but better. And I finally decided I had to start writing again. Either that, or just die and get it over with. So I started writing. I was very glad to find that I still could write. I think the new article is pretty good, and it has a few nice touches. If I felt stronger, I probably wouldn't have split the essay into two parts, but made it one long article. But that would have taken a full day's work, easily eight or nine hours, given what my speed has been in the past and the material I have yet to cover. I just can't do that any longer. It took me five to six hours to put that post together; I powered through the last two or three hours on sheer will power, because I felt like absolute shit. I wanted nothing more than to curl up in bed with Sasha. That's not true; I wanted one thing more than that: to finish at least the first part of the article. So I did. I got a good night's rest, and I'm into the second part and hope to publish it in the next several days. It's complicated material, so it may take me a while to pull it together.

 Part of the reason I nattered at the beginning of this entry is that writing something helps me a lot. When I'm unable to work on "serious" posts (ugh, dread word, "serious" -- yeah, screw that, let's just say more "complicated"), I've often thought of posting little entries, just a few paragraphs about a story I've seen or an issue I've been mulling over. So I may do that. I finally feel again that I must write; if I don't, I may truly go mad. So when I feel especially rotten physically, I may write some lighter, even frivolous items, just to keep my hand in.

 Oh, yes: it's the goddamned first of the month again. I'm very sorry, but I have to report that I have only half of the April rent. And I have some other bills that have to be paid, including the internet bill. I'm a prisoner of Time Warner Cable. I first got the Time Warner service three, maybe four years ago; I can't remember exactly at the moment. They offered five or six different levels of service; I opted for what I recall was the second from the bottom (i.e., the next-to-cheapest), which then cost $50 a month. Now, the bill for this month is $80! I hate these people. The bill just keeps going up and up and up. It increases a little bit almost every month. Did I mention that I hate these people?

 I should get the money for the rent together by Monday, if I'm going to be timely and all. So I would be tremendously grateful for any help you dear readers might be able to provide. I wouldn't be here at all but for you; I wouldn't have come back but for you. And for my own sanity, natch. As always, I offer my sincere and deep gratitude for your attention and kindness.Arthur email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-20668359.post-86896450402716626432016-03-31T14:00:00.000-07:002016-08-30T08:49:43.333-07:00Desperation and Rage in the Time of Trump (I)Donald Trump is a deeply sickening, horrifying person. It is an abomination to be forced to consider seriously the prospect of Trump becoming President of the United States. He vomits forth hideous, vicious ideas, he insults and condemns large swaths of humanity, and he offers idiotic policy prescriptions, to the extent he offers prescriptions at all, but which are almost always so vague as to be meaningless, except for being horrifying and abominable. Obviously. Trump lives in the gutter and seeks to drag all the rest of us down into the filth- and disease-infested waters with him. He is utterly classless, and he is unspeakably vulgar. His vulgarity is overwhelming. It is unspeakable, or, rather, it once would have been unspeakable for a presidential candidate to brag -- in a debate, mind you, in a debate! -- about the size of his member, as if that were a qualification for office. Any decent human being recoils from Trump and thoroughly condemns his pollution of our civil discourse. He is a blight on our country, indeed on the world. Trump embodies a pestilence that must be eradicated, completely and, one would hope, for all time.

 There. Everybody happy now? Have I managed to pass the stringent test that determines whether I might lay my head on the gentle bosom of the civilized world? (Note: You may employ words such as "bosom" only when they plainly carry no sexual meaning whatsoever.) May I be admitted to the delicately manicured gardens of oh-so-polite society, to the world of genteel civilization. where no one speaks above a whisper and we all partake of our afternoon tea with pinkies gently crooked in demonstration of mastery over our baser nature?

 As an unspeakably vulgar person might say: What a load of crap. Hell, let's give our inner Trump freer rein: What a load of shit. The spectacle that arrests one's attention is not Trump himself, but the near-unanimity of the chorus that condemns him as a horrifying abomination. A caution is in order: when you condemn Trump in this way, you must eschew too vehement a manner. You certainly must never raise your voice, or allow your visage to reveal your disgust, except in the subtlest manner. The image you should hold before you as your infallible guide is that of a doddering dowager who beholds a lowly maid with a wrinkled apron, or perhaps a water spot on but a single crystal goblet on a dinner table set for 30 of the finest people. "My dear, such things are simply not done. Fix it immediately, and we shall never speak of this again." Your condemnation increases in lethality as it approaches inaudibility.

 But those who condemn Trump appear not to be acquainted with the doddering dowager. Their condemnation erupts out of barely controlled hysteria; on many occasions, the hysteria is not controlled at all. Trump has undone them. You would be correct to recall an overused cliche, one which is all too apt in the instant case: "The lady doth protest too much, methinks." I am not referring to the condemnations to be heard from the small, self-selected audience that finds its way to the offerings here. If a person is genuinely and consistently opposed to the U.S.'s murderous policies abroad and at home (or, more broadly, to the West's same policies), that person will understandably and legitimately condemn much about Trump and his views.

 The spectacle of interest here is the non-stop barrage of raging condemnation offered by those who are full-time members of the political mainstream: those who dependably inform us of the unique, world- and history-altering significance of a presidential election every four years, who refuse to even consider the idea that the 2003 invasion of Iraq was a monstrous war crime that unleashed a genocide of historic proportions, who endlessly lecture us about the proper "tone" that we must use whenever we wish to register even the mildest of complaints, who steadfastly ignore the fact that every recent president has been -- and is -- a war criminal, just as any president in the foreseeable future will necessarily be a war criminal as well. What is the source of the condemnations of Trump from all these people? The source cannot be that they view Trump's proposed policies with horror, that they think his policies represent the embrace of evil. While they may differ with Trump on specific prescriptions, the policies they favor proceed from the same premises. In that sense, Trump's policies and theirs are variations on a theme; in many cases, Trump's policies are indistinguishable from those advanced by those who condemn him. We therefore must wonder: What is it about Trump that has caused them to become so unhinged?

 And it is beyond dispute that they are unhinged. Take a look at this column from Andrew McCarthy. McCarthy is a useful specimen, and we have dissected his blatherings before. (We have a long memory.) I don't read McCarthy regularly; I may not, unfortunately, be a stranger to self-punishment, but even I have limits. On that occasion in 2007, McCarthy was hysterical about "militant Islam" which "wants everything." In the current piece, he is hysterical about our "sick society," where "the gutter became mainstream." He's also hysterical about "Trump's vulgarity." Considering these two articles penned nine years apart, it appears that hysteria is McCarthy's natural state. Remember the dowager, Andy! Crook your little finger before it's too late!

 To assure us that he is an actual human being and not merely a mechanized program that churns out exercises in hysteria at regular intervals, altering only the source of his derangement of the moment, MCarthy insists that, "I'm hardly a prude." I dunno about that. When you're screaming about our culture's "rot" and "deterioration," and the first example you offer to prove your point is Viagra commercials on television, prude may not be the first word to come to mind, but it's certainly the second or third. ("Idiot" is probably the first.) Add to that McCarthy's paragraphs-long frothing concerning Trump's boast about the size of his penis, coupled with McCarthy's refusal to use the word "penis" and his use instead of euphemisms such as "Trump Tower" (that's an improvement?), along with his inclusion of other "jokes" that would embarrass a semi-intelligent teenager ("the 2016 erection election"), and the prude's self-portrait is complete. (There are further examples of McCarthy's prudery, but I wouldn't dream of depriving you of the fiendish delight in discovering them for yourselves.)

 McCarthy reveals the phoniness of his alleged outrage at Trump's boorishness when he turns to what he regards as genuinely grave errors in Trump's policy prescriptions. McCarthy begins the final section of his column by stating that "[t]he most egregious part [of the debate], though, was Trump's vow that, as commander-in-chief, he would compel the finest, best-trained armed forces in the history of the planet to commit war crimes — because there are evil people doing unspeakable things, as if that never happened before." And then, in the very next paragraph, McCarthy states:
For a number of years in the mid-aughts, we debated the merits vel non of waterboarding. I defended the legality of this interrogation method — in the restrained practice of the CIA, not as cruelly administered historically — mostly based on a strict interpretation of the federal torture statute. It was not an endorsement of the tactic in any particular case.
That is: McCarthy defended the legal use of torture, provided it's "restrained" torture. And he certainly wasn't saying, "Go out and torture!" He was only saying: "If you go out and torture, it's perfectly legal. No problem." That is, McCarthy advocates the "legal" commission of war crimes, which aren't actually war crimes according to McCarthy, because they can't be war crimes if we've defined them as "legal." See how simple that is? That boorish Trump is unable to grasp this elementary exercise in logic.

 McCarthy goes on to say:
What I most remember about the waterboarding debate, though, is that it was an anguished one. We confronted excruciating choices, aware that we were talking about the outer margin of right and wrong — and burdened, as serious people must be, by the very real possibility that we were on the wrong side of the margin. Most of that happened only eight to ten years ago. Now a man running for the Republican nomination to be president of the United States has repeatedly promised to discourage terrorists by having our soldiers kill their families — women and children — and to liberally use interrogation tactics more extreme than waterboarding. And he's winning.
Thus, McCarthy tells us what are, in his view, the actual requirements for admission to the hushed garden of civilization. You may advocate war crimes, you may endorse the most barbaric practices (being careful not to endorse their use "in any particular case"), you may advocate and implement policies that necessarily result in the deaths of many thousands (and even of over a million) of entirely innocent human beings -- you may do all of this, and more, as long as you are properly "anguished" about it, as long as you state that you know you are making "excruciating choices."

 In other words: you may be a monster, as long as you are an exquisitely well-mannered one. Provided you never raise your voice (except to hurl screaming denunciations at those who lack your unmatched gentility) and always remember to crook your little finger in just the right way, no one will call you a monster. You may be steeped in blood, notably including the blood of countless innocent people, and none of your friends or colleagues will ever remark upon that fact. It's only the polite thing to do, after all. As for McCarthy's feigned horror at the brutality of Trump's proposal -- note how his alleged horror is underlined by McCarthy's italicization of "women and children" -- honest to God, what can one say? How many innocent women and children have been murdered by the policies that McCarthy enthusiastically supported? How many innocent people are being murdered today and will be murdered tomorrow, and will be murdered for all the tomorrows to come, as the direct result of policies that McCarthy endorses? Trump has proposed nothing that differs from U.S. policy in the past, or from what the U.S. does today and will do again tomorrow. But those in the political mainstream have agreed to lie about all of it, and when they speak of these crimes (which, of course, are not crimes when we commit them), they writhe in anguish about these very serious and excruciating matters.

 Trump dispenses with the lies and the pretense. He gives us the horror straight and undiluted. Trump does this not only in connection with this example, but with any other example you care to name. The pattern is the same. Trump has ripped off the fig leaf of "civilization" and revealed the mangled corpse that lies beneath. This, I submit, is perhaps the most significant unacknowledged element that explains the mainstream's neverending, ear-splitting denunciations. If people were forced to confront the horror head-on, and if they ever made the connection and realized that the nauseating corpse is now what the United States stands for, who knows what might happen? In time, they might understand how sickening and destructive the reality is, and they might demand that it be changed. On that day, McCarthy and his numerous compatriots would be out of business. The dowager's version of "civilization" would be finished. Trump represents a threat that the political mainstream cannot tolerate, or forgive. From one perspective -- although I acknowledge that the perspective can only be maintained for a brief moment, given the amount of blood that has been spilled, and that is all too likely to be spilled in the future -- the justice is perfect. Trump took them at their word, and he embodies the full reality of their policies. He is a monster -- and they created him. But for them, the monster would not exist.

 Although the general public might one day reject the monster if they came to understand these connections, that day is tragically not here now. Many people respond positively to Trump; the most common explanations for Trump's success are his "authenticity" and that he gives voice to the profound anger that many people feel (which most observers acknowledge is largely justified anger). I agree that these two factors are very significant in Trump's success, but not in the way most people conceive them. To explain these dynamics, we must delve deeper into the underlying causes. I will turn to those issues next time. Arthur firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-20668359.post-29628637667561963822016-03-01T09:42:00.000-08:002016-03-01T09:42:44.226-08:00Double TroubleA very quick emergency bleg. I've been bedridden for most of the past month with horrible health problems. Very sorry for my continued absence. And I thought I had about $400 more than it turns out I actually have for the March rent. So I'm short by that amount.

 And then this morning, I'm having all kinds of problems with my computer. Still trying to figure out what's going on. But I no longer have a backup computer. The computer I'm using is it. If anything dire happens to this one, I'm pretty much sunk. I honestly have no idea what I'll do if this computer craps out. But it will be pretty terrible, no doubt about that.

 If you can spare anything at all, I would be hugely grateful. I swear I'll make all this (by which, I mean approximately the last year) up to you somehow, someday. If I can just manage to get through this next, hopefully-not-awful-and-world-ending bit...

 Many thanks, as always. I'll give you an update on my situation with rent, computer, health, etc. in the next day or two (assuming the computer still works).

 My deepest gratitude as always. Now if I can just get this massive anxiety attack to subside...Arthur firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-20668359.post-924774663974836502016-02-03T10:52:00.000-08:002016-02-03T10:52:23.362-08:00DamnThis morning, I crawled out of my sick bed and, after greeting my sweet Sasha, playing with her for a few minutes and then feeding her breakfast, I reread what I posted here last month.

 As I thought again about the writing I would love to be doing, and how my awful health continues to make that all but impossible, I started crying. A few of you have told me how much you miss my writing, and how you long to hear my "unique voice" (not my phrase) again. I'm enormously grateful for those messages; they mean a great deal to me. How do you think I myself feel? For the last ten years or so, my writing here has been my primary activity. In many ways, it's how I define myself, how I express my soul, for want of a better word. When I'm unable to write, I feel as if part of me vanishes with each day that passes. I wonder how much of my "self" is left now. So I am filled with despair, anger, frustration, sadness. And I cry.

 I'm only able to write these short, "begging" posts because my terror of being unable to pay the rent, and then being evicted, briefly overwhelms even that despair and sadness. But that terror is losing some of its power over me, so these posts come closer and closer to the deadline for rent payment. I suppose that someday, I may just let it go, and proceed to homelessness and the end of me. I occasionally think it would be much easier to stumble into the middle of the street and get hit by a truck. Don't worry: I no longer experience depression that fixates on suicidal thoughts. I wrestled that demon to the ground some years ago. only because of Alice Miller's work, which finally enabled me to understand and conquer it.

 But the profound sadness remains, and the wretched health. I'm still trying to work through it. If anything saves me, to any extent, it will be my ability to write. As I read those words from a month ago, I thought: "If only I felt physically the way I did on my better days even two or three years ago. Just think what I could get done!" That's when the tears come.

 I have done some work in the past month. Not a lot of writing, but to compose the essays I've planned, I have to read (and sometimes reread) a number of articles and some books. Those people who have read me for several years will know that I don't simply put down whatever random thoughts happen to be rattling around the vasty spaces of my brain, such as it is. My strong preference is to offer essays grounded in facts and research. I once heard a writer say, with regard to nonfiction, that you are only ready to write one essay when you know enough to write at least ten essays on the same subject. I've always thought that proportion is about right; it has certainly been true in my experience. By contrast, think of the posts offered by many writers and bloggers, where it is painfully obvious that they are writing at the outermost edge of their knowledge and understanding (and frequently exceeding whatever understanding they have, when it's clear they don't know what the hell they're talking about).

 As to the current cause of my practical terror: I am a few hundrd dollars short of the February rent. If at all possible, I should have the rent payment ready by the end of tomorrow, which will enable me to get the payment to the landlord on Friday (the last day before the rent is late). And I'm still trying to gather sufficient funds to get Sasha to the vet. I wasn't able to raise enough last month, which is attested to by the fact that I don't have the rend money I need. My anxiety (and guilt) about Sasha is doing nothing to help me overcome the other problems. She still seems fine, so I hope nothing terrible is happening.

 I would be more grateful than I can say if any of you still think this is a cause worth supporting, looking to the day, hopefully sooner rather than later, when I can focus long enough to put some articles together. I try every day; this battle is one of the hardest I've ever fought. And let me offer my deepest thanks to all those who have made donations recently. I'm still here only because of you.

 Many thanks for listening, and for your understanding. Now back to my battle.

 P.S. I can't resist saying that, in addition to my wanting to offer some thoughts about the Trump candidacy, I also want to spend some time considering Ted Cruz. He is one of the creepiest public figures I've seen in my life, which is not short at this point. He's also very, very scary. I'm astounded that people don't recoil from him in terror. But a lot of people don't, which is very interesting and worrying in itself. Never fear: this idiotic presidential election is not one of the major subjects I want to write about, although some of my themes intersect with issues related to Trump, Cruz and the rest of this group of mass murderers, mass murderer wannabes, liars and criminals. They are all deeply disturbed individuals; no one who wants to be president is remotely close to what I consider normal and healthy. And many people also fail to understand that, which is similarly interesting. And extremely worrying. Arthur firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-20668359.post-17821757130757551382016-01-02T10:52:00.000-08:002016-01-02T10:57:50.831-08:00A Few ThoughtsI offer this genuinely sincere wish for all of you individually in the New Year: that you find peace and happiness in your personal lives. I would offer the same thought in a more general sense, but that would obviously be worse than futile. On the broad cultural level, it's most likely that nothing much will change, except perhaps to get worse (but not, of course, for the most powerful and affluent, for they are never subject to the laws that govern the rest of us, in any sense). And this is, of course, a presidential election year, so God help us. The mounds of bullshit will be far larger and higher than usual, and they will frequently threaten to topple over and suffocate us all. So I say: fuck 'em.

 There may be a few issues relating to the election that will merit discussion, although that subject deserves far less attention than most will give it. It ultimately matters not at all, but dear Lord, almost everyone will endlessly shout about how important it all is. If Trump makes it to the general election, that could be somewhat interesting. I do find it fascinating to watch the commentariat (of every stripe) as they try to grapple with the Trump candidacy. What does it all mean?, they ponderously intone. It's always instructive to watch our prominent debaters when they consider any event or person that deviates in any significant way from the usual script. They have nothing to say -- except what everyone else says, beginning with everyone else in their particular political tribe. So I suppose I will need to address the Trump eruption, and at least try to make some sense of it.

 As for the election: I continue to wish fervently that most people would do what I describe here. I had never intended that fable to be a blueprint for political action, certainly not when I wrote it or for several years afterward, since I recognize that reality is hardly likely to follow a peaceful script of that kind, not if history is any guide. But as I noted a few years ago, when I consider events of the last 10 or 15 years -- many of which neither I nor most others (including most others much smarter than I am) ever dreamt we would see in our lifetimes -- my imagined scenario seems less fantastical to me by the day. Events just might unfold in that general manner, if what I describe occurred. I'll put it another way: voting, that is, taking part in a grotesque, meaningless charade designed to camouflage the hideous, ugly truth of the system that rules us, represents the abandonment of hope. By contrast, from the perspective that informs my fable, not voting is a deeply hopeful act. (Thinking about this also causes me to reflect that it would be worthwhile to consider the overall cultural and psychological effects of the ghastly later stages of a corporatist system like ours. In fact ... hmm. I almost blurted out further thoughts about that, but I think this might make a swell new article, so I'll keep those thoughts to myself for the moment.)

 I'm still determined to write a series of essays that I've been mulling for months now. That series, thankfully, has nothing to do with elections, at least not directly, although I think some of the themes in that series may help to explain the Trump phenomenon, too. Among other issues, the essays will consider how most of our lives and virtually all of our "national debate" revolve around colossal lies. Lies are the staple of our existence; unfortunately, that remains true even for many of those who profess to be opposed to the lies.

 As regular readers know, I've been slowed down, and almost entirely absent from this space, because of my awful health. It remains awful, even though it's been blessedly cool here for a while now. But my body simply doesn't recover any longer, at least not to any substantial degree. So I'm in pretty terrible shape. It's horribly difficult for me to get anything done, even the simplest of tasks. A trip to the corner store wipes me out for a good part of the day; taking out the garbage constitutes all I'm capable of for a morning or afternoon. A pathetic state of affairs. Ah, well.

 But it's a New Year. So I will try my best to get some writing done. I certainly want to; I can only hope that my body won't stop me entirely, as it did for most of last year. (And honestly: thank God that year is over.) And despite the fact that I absolutely loathe doing it, I have to begin the year by asking for donations. (I couldn't do it yesterday, on New Year's Day, for that would have been just too ugly.) I only have half of what I need for the January rent, and damn it if January isn't actually here already. If possible, I need to pay the rent by Monday or Tuesday. The rent isn't considered late until after the fifth of the month, so I have a few days to try to raise the funds. And I also have to pay for internet service, as well as a long postponed electric bill, plus food and the like. And if I can raise enough, my darling Sasha needs to go to the vet. She has a small lump on her left side, just behind the front leg. I hate writing that; seeing the fact in print gives it greater weight. But that is the fact: she has a small lump. I hope it's nothing, just a little cyst or something else easily dealt with. But I would want to kill myself if it turns out to be serious, and especially if it turns out to be something serious that could have been addressed successfully if only I had gotten her assistance sooner. So I should try to get her to the vet in the next couple of weeks. She seems completely fine otherwise, so even if it is something serious, we can hope it hasn't advanced too much.

 So that's where I am at the outset of 2016. As always, I offer my profound thanks to all of you who are so unaccountably kind and generous. This weekend, I will begin some serious work on the new series; I already have lots of notes, but now to the actual writing. I will try to complete the introduction this coming week, wherein I will explain why the "Amityville Horror" is more significant in terms of what it reveals about our culture than you might think upon first consideration. Like me, you might have long regarded it as just another weirdly stupid manifestation of a certain kind of idiocy. It certainly is that -- but I also think it's much more than that, and far more disturbing.

 I will see you all here again, and soon. So let it be written, so let it be done! Arthur firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-20668359.post-67940565744729256572015-10-30T08:26:00.000-07:002016-01-02T10:53:26.374-08:00BrieflyOf necessity, this will be brief, because that's all I can manage.

 Less than a week after my last post, and after some promises from weather forecasters of cooler weather, Los Angeles had the worst heat wave of the year (and the worst heat wave in 25 years, if I recall correctly). It hit 100 degrees in my neighborhood three days in a row, and temperatures were very high for several more days. That proved to be far more than my body could take. I ended up immobile in bed for that week, and for most of the time since. I began to get a little better this past week, but now we're having a few days in the mid- to high eighties; at this point, that basically makes me want to lie down and die, just so all this ends.

 I still trust that the mood will pass, when the goddamned weather finally gets cooler. They say that will happen next week -- but that's what they said a month ago. I just pray they're right this time. Regardless of the weather, I fear I will be calling 911 one day fairly soon. Some of the symptoms I've been experiencing are extremely unnerving. I've become accustomed to very bad shortness of breath when I walk to the store a block away, where the nearest ATM is located. Over the past several years, I've gone downhill from having to stop and rest once or twice when walking that block, to now having to stop and rest five or six (or more) times. The periods of rest have gotten significantly longer, too. It now takes me 45 minutes to an hour to make the round-trip; five years ago, it took me 10 to 15 minutes. And now, I sometimes experience bad shortness of breath just from slowly moving around my apartment.

 I had sworn to myself that I wouldn't ask for donations again until after I'd published at least two or three major posts. I'm sorry, but I just haven't been able to do it. Not even close. This past week, I did begin collecting all my notes -- and, thanks be to heaven, I finally found what I think is an interesting way to approach a large amount of material. I wanted to publish the first in a series of articles by the end of this week, but then it started getting warmer again. Fucking weather.

 And now it's the end of the month again. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Don't know what else to say at this point. I'm almost flat broke. I have a little over a hundred dollars, and that's it. Nothing for rent, nothing for food, nothing for any other bills. Nothing at all.

 Here's hoping it actually does get cooler in November, and that I finally can get some writing done. But if I can't pay the rent, it won't matter. If I'm dealing with the likelihood of eviction, nothing else will matter. It will be over for me at that point. Maybe that wouldn't be a bad thing now. (Gee, do you think I'm depressed? Can't imagine why.)

 So, as always, I would be deeply grateful for any help people can provide. I wish I had something "meaningful" to say about all this; I don't. So my apologies once more, along with my gratitude.

 I hope to survive all this, and to see better days again. But people hope for all kinds of things... Arthur email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-20668359.post-26340771592552581232015-09-29T11:38:00.000-07:002015-09-29T11:51:04.532-07:00The Good, the Bad, and the UglyThe Good: Dmitri Hvorostovsky is a much-loved operatic baritone. He's a fine artist, with a beautiful voice. Earlier this year, he announced that he had been diagnosed with a brain tumor. He immediately began treatment, and he cancelled all his engagements for several months.

 He was supposed to perform in the Met's current revival of Il Trovatore, but most people expected that he would not be able to take part. But he and the Met announced about a month ago that he would do the first three performances; he was originally scheduled for several more, but after the third performance, he will return to London to resume treatment.

 So when he took the stage at the Met last Friday night, the audience gave him a warm ovation when he first appeared. Then, during the final curtain call, something wonderful happened. You can see it here; Hvorostovsky is the very attractive man with his trademarked white mane, who first appears at 0:32. You might want to watch the whole sequence to get the full effect (it's only five minutes long), but the wonderful thing starts at about three minutes in. A lot of people in the audience and on stage cried; I did, too. (The curtain call is described here.)

 I fervently hope that Hvorostovsky enjoys a full recovery. It's just too awful to think these performances might be the last ones he does at the Met. He's 52 years old.

 And here's a special treat for all those interested: the second performance of Trovatore, with Hvorostovsky, will take place tonight. It begins at 7:25 pm EST, and you can listen to it on the Met's free audio stream: right here.

 The Bad: From time to time, I mention that I frequently challenge myself about the truth of the ideas I regularly discuss, and whether those ideas do, in fact, explain certain phenomena in the manner I claim. I am convinced that anyone who takes ideas at all seriously, and certainly anyone who writes about politics and culture with any regularity, must do this. I could say I exaggerate when I remark that I say to myself, at least once a week (and more commonly, at least once a day), "Arthur, everything you think is wrong." But I'm not exaggerating: that's exactly what I say to myself. If more people followed this practice, we wouldn't read as many pathetic. exhausted, moth-eaten explanations and defenses of people's views as we unfortunately do.

 I submit to this self-imposed challenge with regard to one subject more than any other: my view of the crucial nature of Alice Miller's work. A critical part, indeed the critical part of Miller's thesis is the devastating impact of parents' major lesson to their children: the primacy of obedience to authority. All of us are subjected to this lesson. It is most commonly delivered by our parents; if by some miracle, we escape that lesson at home, the idea that obedience is the primary virtue is reinforced by teachers (and by "education" in general), and by numerous factors in the culture at large. In many essays, I've traced the development of this pattern and how the lesson is taught. I've also described the immensely destructive consequences of this lesson, personally, politically, culturally, and in just about every way you can imagine. (The opening sections of this essay provide a good overview of my argument.)

 But as I say, I often ask myself if I claim too much for this thesis. Yes, to insist on the critical importance of obedience is bad, even terrible, but perhaps it doesn't explain all that I say it does. I usually have to reflect on the matter only for a few minutes, before convincing myself once again that the situation is at least as dire as I say, and perhaps even worse. And then there are times when I read passages similar to the opening two paragraphs of this New York Times article about the Volkswagen scandal. Take a deep breath (which is not a warning I myself received when I innocently began reading the article, completely unprepared for the horrors that awaited me), and consider this:
BERLIN — As Germany has emerged as the dominant actor in Europe, it has lectured Greece and other debtor nations on the virtues of thrift and lately wagged its finger at countries that balk at receiving a share of refugees from the killing fields of Syria. Its right to lead, based on a narrative of self-sacrifice and obedience to rules, was generally acknowledged.

 That is one reason the Volkswagen scandal has shaken the country's very core. More than just a tale of corporate misdeeds, the disclosure of systematic cheating by one of Germany's most iconic companies has delivered a sharp blow to its conception of itself as an orderly nation and tarnished its claim to moral leadership of the Continent.
The reporter returns to this theme later in the article; it is clear that she means it.

 The idealization of "obedience to rules" and "order" is breathtaking; such qualities are not only virtuous in themselves, but legitimately constitute the basis of the "right to lead." For writers of this kind -- and the overwhelming number of such writers is too hideous to contemplate -- history appears not to exist, including the recent history of Germany itself. It seems that the twentieth century is utterly irrelevant to understanding political and cultural events. One might have thought that "obedience to rules" and "order" were qualities that Germany in particular had learned could lead to destruction and death on a world-horrifying scale. As usual in these matters, one would be wrong.

 There is more to be said about this article and its meaning (particularly for those not familiar with my many articles about Miller's work), and I would already have gotten to it -- but that brings me to ...

 The Ugly: "Ugly" is perhaps too strong a word; extremely unpleasant is more accurate. Despite my plans to publish at least several posts in September, this month was lost to me. The excessive heat leaves me completely exhausted; even when it gets a little cooler, it takes me several days to get my bearings back. And the heat in September has been truly awful and ghastly. It was frequently in the mid-90s, and it rarely went below the high 80s. The effects on my already bad health have been horrible. Add to that the ongoing intestinal discomfort (not as bad as it was, but still not great -- probably another malady that requires examination, which I won't be able to manage until it gets permanently cooler), and the month was barely survivable. My apologies for the lack of new writing. But as I hope even the brief items above indicate, I'm anxious to get back to posting regularly. There are even more "good" items that I want to share with you. And of course, we continue to be subjected to a full menu of the horrors with which we are all too familiar.

 And now we're at the end of the month. As is almost always the case, funds are low. I'm short on the rent, and have no money at all for internet service, and so on. As is always the case, I am profoundly grateful for donations, without which I cannot keep going at all. I've begun sending thank you notes! Yes, I have; I can provide witnesses if required. If you haven't received a note from me yet, you should be receiving one in the near future. I'm determined to learn a few new tricks, even in my aged, decrepit state. If we can't learn some new tricks, we might as well die and decrease the surplus population, as someone observed.

 My deep thanks, as always. And now, while we have a somewhat cooler day (they claim that cooler weather arrives more permanently starting next week), I'll return to looking over my numerous notes for new posts, to see where I might begin again.Arthur firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-20668359.post-88347530204247315252015-08-27T08:24:00.000-07:002015-08-30T13:52:39.904-07:00Some Good NewsUPDATE, Sunday afternoon, August 30: The heat has been beastly; that, in combination with the turmoil in my guts, has left me unable to do anything except lie in bed, trying to rest but remaining extremely uncomfortable as a fan blows 85-90 degree air over my body. Kind of a preview of hell, I suppose. It's been awful.

 The weather is supposed to break tomorrow, and the week ahead will be substantially cooler, so they tell us. I hope to get back into the writing beginning tomorrow, with the post ready for publication several days later, if all goes according to plan.

 My very deep thanks to those who have made donations. I can cover the rent and a few other bills, including internet service. But finances remain very tight for the rest of the coming month, with funds for food that will last only ten days or so. I'll have to consult my list again for all the ways to make a baked potato interesting. But with the intestinal problems, I'm not terribly hungry in any case. One benefit is that I have lost some of the weight I've been wanting to get rid of; I think I've lost at least five or six pounds in the last few weeks. Every cloud, and all that.

 So I should be back later this week, with a new post (or two!). See you soon. Many thanks again.

 **********

 About ten days ago, I finally started working in earnest, and regularly. As is my wont, I've chosen a theme which is hugely complicated, and often difficult to explain in a (hopefully) comparatively simple and persuasive manner. But I am writing again, and it's going well. I had hoped that I would have completed the first article in this new series of essays several days ago, but I've been slowed down by two primary factors. These two factors are in addition to my grief about Cyrano, which went deeper and lasted longer than I had expected -- and I had been prepared for it to be very deep and long-lasting. I continue to miss Cyrano terribly, and I think about him all the time. Since we lived in this apartment together for almost 17 years, every inch of this place is filled with memories of him. But Sasha is wonderful company, and she and I are beginning to fall into new patterns of our own, now that only the two of us reside here. And Sasha is a wonderfully affectionate and sweet girl. I'd be utterly lost without her.

 The terrible heat has come back to Los Angeles. I've had to develop strategies for dealing with it, especially in the last several years, since excessive heat has awful effects on my already faltering health. So that's been manageable for the most part, but it does mean that for fairly long stretches on very hot days I'm mostly immobile in bed, conserving my energy and (remaining) health as best I can.

 The second problem has been some sort of intestinal problem, which resulted in the worst case of constipation I've ever had. I finally had some relief last weekend after dosing myself with Dulcolax -- no help at all, for me at any rate -- and Ex Lax. The Ex Lax worked, but I went through almost two full days -- TWO. FULL. DAYS. -- of hours spent in the bathroom, waiting, hoping, straining, praying for relief. During those two days, I constantly thought of calling 911. Straining of that kind (of any kind, but particularly of that kind in certain ways) is not recommended for someone with a bad heart. I wasn't sure what would explode first -- my heart or my ass. I came thisclose to calling 911 many times. It's only because of the horrible experiences I've had with hospitals and caregivers (the last time especially) that I resisted, and continue to resist. I will call if I think some kind of ultimate crisis might be starting, but determining whether such a crisis has finally arrived is the damnable part, obviously.

 In any case, my heart hasn't given out yet, although I'm still exhausted from that lengthy period of extreme discomfort. And the relief, when it finally came, was terrifying, let me tell you. Unbelievable. I'm amazed I didn't pass out. And my bowels still haven not returned to normal. I'm concerned that something may be going on that will require serious medical attention at some point, but I continue to hope, for the moment at least, that this too shall pass (so to speak... sorry). I also think it's entirely possible that the constipation may be some sort of traumatic bodily reaction to Cyrano's death. So let's hope that things slowly return to normal, as my body and soul absorb the reality of the loss of Cyrano.

 Meanwhile, yes, it's that time again. I desperately wanted to finish this new article and publish it before asking for further donations (I will tell you that it's a lengthy essay, as well as being very complex) -- but this morning, I'm again struggling with bowel movements and the lack thereof. So my concentration is likely to be significantly undercut for at least much of today. And the first of the month is almost here, and my anxiety is beginning to overwhelm me. I only have half of what I need for the September rent, and there are also several other bills (including for internet service) that have to be paid shortly after the first.

 So once more, since I have no other source of income, I must ask for donations. Please allow me to emphasize again how profoundly grateful I am for the support of all those who help keep me going. And an extra helping of thanks goes to those who regularly send donations, whether I'm able to write or not. Without the help from all of you, I would have been out on the street a long time ago, which means I would have been dead a long time ago. (Survival on the street is not an option in this scenario, given my already existing health problems.)

 A multitude of thanks to all of you. When I'm not in the bathroom, or prostrate in bed (from the heat and/or from exhaustion after the bathroom episodes), I'll continue working on the new piece as best I can. I still hope to publish it by the beginning of next week, and perhaps sooner if the gods smile on me. They haven't done that much lately, so a few smiles would be lovely indeed at this particular moment.

 Many thanks, dear friends. As I've been writing this new piece (and making notes for additional articles on the same general theme and related issues), I've discovered once again that I have a lot to say. That probably sounds strange or even stupid, but I have felt written out at certain times in the last few years. But I don't feel that way any longer. And I swear to God, I'll do my best to keep writing about the issues I care most about until the whole damned world agrees with me. Actually, five or ten percent of the world would be more than enough to see the start of major changes. So, yes, five percent. I'll shoot for that.

 See you soon. And I'll add an update over the weekend, if I'm not able to complete the new piece by then, to let you know how I'm doing.Arthur email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-20668359.post-21163073226478863902015-07-24T09:21:00.001-07:002015-07-29T07:51:56.300-07:00Loss, and RededicationUPDATE: Cyrano died shortly before noon today, Saturday, July 25. He would have been 17 on August 15.

 Long farewell my dearly beloved, wondrous, loving, beautiful boy. May flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.

 ----------

 This may be a very strange post. There is so much I want to say, but I simultaneously feel that I don't have the faintest idea what to say. I am indeed sorry about my very extended period of silence; I was quite startled to see that my last post here was two months ago. I had thought I published it perhaps only a month ago. Among all the other losses, I seem to have misplaced my sense of time altogether.

 This entire year has been captured by my own deteriorating health, together with Cyrano's. I don't think I misread the signs of Cyrano's ill health last winter, but I was wrong when I predicted that he probably only had three or four months left. My beloved friend and companion is still with us -- but now he is definitely close to the end. No mistaking it at this point. Since I have been almost entirely housebound for too many years to contemplate, Cyrano and I have spent virtually all our time together and. in recent years, with the wonderfully sweet Sasha as well. I don't see the cats only in the morning and when I return from my day in the evening. I don't/can't go anywhere, so we're always together.

 Cyrano has been with me almost the entire time I've lived in this apartment (17 out of 18 years), and he's also been with me all of the time I've written the blog. He's kept me company, inspired me, delighted me, given me endless love and invited me to shower him with love. His imminent passing shatters me. I know I'll survive, but I can't bear to think about it.

 Months ago, several very kind readers wrote to me with suggestions about supplements and similar ideas that might help with Cyrano. We tried a few of them, and those suggestions may be largely responsible for Cyrano surviving this long. I cannot express how grateful I am to those individuals for their care and concern. I think I also seriously underestimated Cyrano's strength and determination: he simply wasn't ready to leave. He's ready now.

 For the last eight or nine months, my days have been shaped by the limits of my health and caring for Cyrano. I'm only able to be up and at the computer, or preparing and eating meals, or washing dishes, and so on, for a few hours at a time. Then I have to return to bed to rest for several hours. Then I get up again, and the cycle repeats. It's been easy to lose track of time, as I obviously have done. I spent a great deal of time taking care of Cyrano, and especially in trying to keep him interested in food. His likes and dislikes have changed a number of times, as have the times he prefers to eat. I've known when he wanted to eat because he would yowl to tell me about it. For a month or two, his hunger yowls began at 4:30 am, and recurred about every four hours thereafter.

 I was delighted to comply, and I tried a huge variety of foods and treats to find those things that he particularly liked. The cries for food have stopped now. I'd give anything to hear that insistent 4:30 am demand for food once more.

 I wish I could have continued writing essays during this time. I tried many times, but I simply was unable to do it. My overriding feeling has been only this: Just let us have one more good day together. I didn't have room or the emotional resources for anything beyond that. And for more months than I expected, we managed that.

 I also wish I could have managed to compose some thank-you notes, but I was unable to do that either. I am truly sorry about that; a full explanation of this particular failure would require that I tell you far more about the twists and turns of my psychology than you care to know. It would also take a very long time. But please know that I am profoundly grateful to all those who have been so kind. And I send special thanks to some particular personal angels, including K.R., H.A., D.K., B.C., A.N.. E.W., and others I'm criminally forgetting for the moment. I offer a huge thank you to all those who have helped us during this terrible time.

 My experience with writing for the blog has left me with ambivalent, deeply painful feelings. I had thought -- especially from roughly 2004 through 2010 -- that my writing would find a larger audience. And as part of that recognition. I would find some financial security. On a very modest scale, to be sure, but I certainly didn't think my audience wold dwindle to almost nothing. If you read my work from that period (and, I would add, a number of pieces from the last several years, too), I think you might agree that my work deserved a wider readership. I don't intend such statements to be obnoxiously boastful, but as observations of plain fact. I consider my best writing, including all the articles concerned with the meaning and implications of Alice Miller's work, and I set it side by side with work that brings its authors fame and fortune in varying degrees, and I'm aghast at the insanity and injustice of it. My feelings are made better and worse by the notable fact that Miller herself endorsed my work in this area. That fills me with great joy, and it also causes me to wonder: Christ, what does the world want from me?

 I am not on good terms with the world. If I were, I may not have written the articles I have. I know that, too. So, ambivalent. But as my life with Cyrano comes to a close, I feel I must ready myself to write more, especially on the Miller themes, and on a few other subjects as well. I'm beginning to feel a very strong need to make certain issues as clear as I can, to explain why the world constitutes an enormous source of pain to me, and to others similarly situated. The world can also be a source of great joy, even of ecstasy, and I've written about that. Living ecstatically is the prescription I must now reclaim. I will reclaim it for Alice Miller, for Cyrano, for all those I care about and love, for myself, for those of you who still wish to journey with me.

 I will never think that the bastards have won. Those individuals whose attitudes and actions lead only to pain, suffering, destruction and death can win nothing. They may prevail in particular instances or in certain periods, but domination is not victory, except for those who are irreparably damaged psychologically. I live, I write for a world which places no values higher than justice, compassion, empathy and love. I would be on the best of terms with that world. I had temporarily forgotten that when I write about what makes such a world possible, I live ecstatically now. As I observed in that earlier essay, that is everything.

 **********

 Yes, I could use some help at the moment. I've spent a small fortune on Cyrano, especially in the last few months. Now we'll have the end of life expenses, and the first of the month is almost here. The cupboard is close to bare. Donations in any amount will be received with enormous gratitude.

 I realize the plea for help may strike some as crass and calculated, especially after this particular post, but I mean every word of what I wrote above. It took Cyrano's imminent passing and the prospect of utter financial ruin to wake me from the trance of the last half-year. It's awful that such terrible events were needed to snap me out of it, but as I said, this world and I do not get along very well. Writing again will enable me to immerse myself in the world I want to see, the world I dream about. When the writing goes well, I am living in that world. Now, I must get back there.

 And this time, I will be back here very soon.Arthur firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-20668359.post-669738294783948272015-05-25T08:27:00.000-07:002015-05-25T08:27:24.601-07:00Terrible, Dreadful TimesI'm very sorry about my absence from this space, and for my extended silence. I'm sorrier about the nonstop barrage of attacks on my physical and psychological health. The last two and a half months have been close to unbearable. I've survived, but in pathetically bad shape.

 In the last week, I've begun looking at my mail (of both email and snail variety), but only for a few minutes each day. That's all I can manage right now. In the next week or two, I'll try to write thank-you notes to some very kind people. In the meantime, please let me offer my immense thanks to all those who have expressed their caring and generosity.

 I would like to return to writing, but I can't put a date on it at the moment. My thinking is not yet what I'd like it to be, but I'm working on it. It goes slowly.

 And that's about all I can do this morning. Time to crawl back into bed, where I spend inordinate amounts of time. Being seriously ill is unbelievably boring.

 P.S. For yet another nauseating, infuriating, goddamn Memorial Day, this, one of my better efforts in all the years of this blog. And if you haven't seen The Americanization of Emily, you've committed a crime against humanity, including your own. It's wonderfully funny, passionate, and bracingly, deeply intelligent. Go watch it. You'll feel better.

 And there's considerably more about Emily here (including a close analysis of the crucial final scene, which seems to trouble so many people, the fools), also a good effort in these parts.Arthur email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-20668359.post-46830281750736759232015-02-17T08:52:00.000-08:002015-02-17T08:52:32.965-08:00Not So Casual This TimeAs Cyrano is writing his last chapter, I realize I may be writing my own final chapter at the same time. The simple fact is that there appears to be only barely detectable interest in what I do here these days, or whether I do anything at all.

 I published two posts a couple of weeks ago (here and here). Each of them got five or six tweets, and a few hundred readers. In a time when a photograph of an ingrown toenail offered by some schlub in Lower Flatass, Michigan, routinely garners several thousand tweets (at a minimum), that's humiliating.

 A week earlier, I'd posted an update about my personal situation. I mentioned that I was close to completely broke and asked for donations. But I made it sound sort of casual. Not a huge deal. So six people responded to my request. As a result, I've been living on fumes for the past week. Well, not fumes: peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. A lot of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. I don't have any other food and can't afford to buy any.

 I had my last cup of coffee four days ago. I only drink decaf these days, as I have ever since my heart condition was diagnosed six years ago. But I do like my cup of decaf in the morning. And I like to drink (caffeine free) diet soda during the day; I drank the last of those two days ago. I almost ran out of toilet paper, but I raided my stash of quarters for laundry to buy some at the corner store.

 But what causes me to lose sleep is wondering what I do if Cyrano should have some kind of crisis when I'm this broke. I have no idea what I'll do. Probably I'll take a cab to the vet, beg the vet to treat him (even if it's only to put him to sleep), and swear to the vet that I'll manage somehow to get the funds together to pay him for his services. If Cyrano should die here at home (as happened with the last three cats with whom I went through this process), I'll have a different problem. The pet crematory service I've used in the past charges about $220 to pick up the body, cremate it, and return the ashes to me in a plain wooden urn. I think if I skip the urn, it's about a hundred dollars less.

 But I won't have the money for that, and the crematory service requires payment in advance. So what do I do with the body? What do very poor people generally do? I guess they wrap the body up in a garbage bag or two, and throw it away with the garbage. I suppose that's what I may have to do.

 And if I do that, I may kill myself afterwards. I suppose I probably won't, but I'll certainly feel like killing myself. Imagine throwing away the body of a pet you've adored for almost 17 years with the garbage. Poverty is disgusting, which I suppose is news to no one. (I would bury Cyrano in a yard somewhere, but there isn't any such yard anywhere around here. I also suspect that burials of that kind are prohibited by some health regulation or other law. Not that I care about that. There simply are no yards in this neighborhood.)

 So I have $63 in my wallet, which I hold onto in case I need to make that emergency trip to the vet. If I have to make an emergency trip to the hospital myself, I'll be calling 911, so I won't need cab money, except to come home, of course (assuming I come home).

 In the midst of all this loveliness, I've been working on some new articles. They are a continuation of my exploration of Alice Miller's work and how it applies to cultural and political events. I'm doing those pieces since I think that is the one area where I can offer something new that is of some importance. But now, it seems that no one agrees with me, except for the same five or six people who continue to show up (and bless them for it). Even people who have proclaimed their immense admiration for my work don't tweet links to my new articles any longer.

 And in less than two weeks, I'll have to pay next month's rent. My joy has been notably increased with the new owners' announcement to the tenants here that, beginning with this New Year, they will be strictly enforcing late penalties for rent payment, as well as aggressively pursuing eviction when rent is not paid. Additional pressure of that kind is exactly what I needed.

 Christ. I don't have anything else to say at the moment. So I'll stop.Arthur firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-20668359.post-83372992660407382002015-02-05T12:44:00.000-08:002015-02-05T13:04:04.808-08:00The Internet as You Know It Will Cease to Exist, Part IIThis is one of the major news stories today:
Health insurance giant Anthem Inc. said hackers had breached its computer system and the personal information of tens of millions of customers and employees was possibly at risk.

 The attack on the nation's second-largest health insurer could be one of the largest data breaches in the healthcare industry, experts said. Anthem said hackers infiltrated a database containing records on as many as 80 million people.

 Hackers appear to have accessed customers' names, dates of birth, Social Security numbers, member ID numbers, addresses, phone numbers, email addresses and employment information, Anthem said. Some of the customer data may also include details on their income.

 At this point, it appears that the data stolen do not include medical information or credit card numbers, according to the company.
I don't think anyone can be at all confident that medical information and credit card numbers (and perhaps still more personal data) were not compromised; Anthem obviously isn't all that sure itself ("At this point, it appears..." -- the language of professional weasels).

 One of the more astonishing aspects of this story is that "the information involved was not encrypted in [Anthem's] database." The lack of encryption is altogether baffling and mind-crushingly dumb because Anthem has gotten into trouble of this kind before, and has been assessed fines precisely because of security weaknesses. Just goes to show: you can't count on large bureaucracies to do anything, except fuck up. (Well, and oppress, brutalize and kill people, but let's not go into all that for the moment, mmkay?)

 Effectively buried in the middle of the story is this:
Suspicious activity was first noticed and reported Jan. 27. Two days later, an internal investigation verified that the company was a victim of a cyber attack, the company said. The unauthorized access to the vast database goes back to Dec. 10.
Get a load of that timeline. The first unauthorized access occurred almost two months ago. But no one noticed anything at all until January 27. And then it took two more days to verify that the company had been hacked.

 So, a few thoughts. What Anthem admits makes the company appear to be run by some of the clumsiest amateurs in the world. Give them this month's prize for Outstanding Stupidity. And even though their admissions establish them as colossal dunderheads (Dumb and Dumber, indeed), I don't believe their story, except (possibly) in its most general outlines.

 I don't believe it for several reasons that apply to all stories of this kind. Anthem has to acknowledge what happened in some form; if they tried to cover it up, they would eventually be in even worse trouble. But the company's leading executives will do everything in their power to save face, which means they will minimize the impact of the cyberattack in every way possible. When I say they're saving face, I mean they're trying to salvage what remains of their reputations, and of their future employability. (Would you hire the clowns in charge of this operation?) In situations like this, I always assume that the truth is far, far worse than anyone admits.

 In a related story, and surprising absolutely no one who followed the story of the Sony hack, it is finally being reported that Amy Pascal is "moving on" from her position as co-chair of Sony Pictures Entertainment. Pascal was provided with the requisite face-saving deal (lots of face-saving in these stories, and Sony may also want to avoid a protracted battle over contractual obligations and the like): she's becoming a full-time producer, which is what Hollywood does to executives when it wants them to die. Pascal's bosses undoubtedly have some concerns about the hack itself, but of far greater significance, especially in image-conscious Hollywood, is that Pascal's emails revealed her and those with whom she exchanged messages to be sophomoric, asinine jerks. (And racist, too, let's not forget that detail. And honest to Christ: begging Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson for meetings, so she can begin the "healing process." Pascal's life is like a truly shitty Hollywood movie, which will have to suffice as consolation.)

 But we can't have the general riff-raff thinking that Hollywood people are stupid (racist) jerks! Hollywood people are special people, much smarter and better than everyone else. The general public can't learn that the people running Hollywood are the"adult" (I use the term loosely) version of the kids you hated in high school (you know, the shitheads who ran everything and made your life hell). Granted, Hollywood being concerned about its image is not unlike Jack the Ripper claiming to suffer sleepless nights because he's been accused of employing unsanitary practices, and being messy on top of it. Still, there you go.

 Okay, what I really want to talk about is this. The story about the Anthem hack provides a brief summary of the major hacks in recent years (Target, Home Depot, the State of California, etc.). Hacks aren't news any longer; they're a regular feature of a world which has become alarmingly dependent on the internet. I say "alarmingly," because it's the internet -- that is, there's only one. That is very, very weird. It's the opposite of a decentralized, distributed system. In the United States, the internet is controlled by a handful of telecom companies -- and the State, of course. Can't forget the State. Worldwide, more companies are involved (but still not a large number), and more States. So the internet is basically at the mercy of a limited number of very large corporations and States. You can't make up a nightmare worse than that.

 And since more and more information is available on the internet, more and more people will try to get access to it. There will be more and more hacking. For more than ten years, I've assumed that everything I've ever done on the internet is available to anyone, if they're determined enough to get it. I don't know why anyone assumes their information will remain confidential. I assume it's all public record. (That doesn't mean I like or intend for all my information to be public record; I simply recognize the possibility that it all could become known, and proceed accordingly.) And, yes, I'm aware of the Deep Web, but I don't think that alters my comments here, at least insofar as most of the general public is concerned. But feel free to correct me if you think I'm wrong about that.

 What will save us from the future wave of increasingly frequent cyberattacks? Why, the State, of course. Late in the Anthem story is this:
The wave of cyber attacks, including the recent hacking at Sony Pictures Entertainment, spurred President Obama during his State of the Union address to urge Congress to pass legislation to fight cyber attacks and identity theft.
One of the more remarkably stupid viewpoints of recent years -- and you've all heard it, since it's repeated by vast numbers of people -- is that the internet will save us. The internet will make us free. Since so much information is available to more and more people, more people know the truth than ever before in history. Despotism and tyranny are doomed! The people know the truth now! We will be free forever!

 I recently heard a commentator (with admittedly excessively limited mental capabilities) offer this catechism almost word for word. I am always astonished by the possibilities of human ignorance and self-delusion. The truth is precisely the opposite, and that is particularly true as long as we have the internet. I've been over this ground before (that's why this post is designated "Part II"). From the earlier post:
If you understood the possibilities that might be realized by the internet, do you seriously think those people and interests possessing the most power and wealth did not? Yes, we're all special and unique and all that keen stuff, but the ruling class is people, too (revolting thought, I understand, but also true). And the ruling class is not stupid. It is certainly not stupid about this kind of thing. So our betters will do everything in their power to harness and redirect every advance to their own purposes. Again, consult history. This is always the pattern.
I expect that, as there are more cyberattacks, there will be growing calls for increased State regulation. One possibility is that no one will be permitted to access the internet until they are provided with a personal ID number. Everything you do on the internet will be tied to that ID number. For most people, that will be the end of internet anonymity -- although, following the historical pattern, as more obstacles are erected, more ways to evade them will also be created. Just as people get fake IDs now, people will get fake internet IDs -- but it will be harder to do, and most people will simply succumb to State control.

 If you consider the matter, I think you might agree with me that the internet is one of the most diabolically clever means for population control ever devised. Why, it's almost like someone did it with that very purpose in mind ...

 Is there a solution? Yes, and one possible solution was suggested in my earlier post. I quoted one commenter to a story I discussed as follows:
Just open your wireless port, call it parasite.net, and then set yourself up as an 'ISP' with an FTP, web server, torrent tracker, etc. If you can convince enough people in your area to create access points and mirrors of the content we'll eventually cut out the telecoms and have a truly distributed data and communications network.
You can call it "going local." See the earlier post for more.

 I'm sure some people are already setting up their own networks, in this or similar ways. And that's just one possibility. As I suggested in the conclusion of the previous post, the pattern remains the same. The ruling class consolidates and expands its power; those who would escape, or at least minimize, the depredations of the ruling class devise means of eluding their grasp; the ruling class then does its best to take over the newly devised means of escape from their rule and integrate them into its own powers, which are thereby expanded once more; still new means of escape are devised, and so on. I am profoundly skeptical of any claim that X changes everything. Nothing changes everything, except mass extinction or a means of making humans immortal. But in the last case, we wouldn't be talking about "humans" any longer, not using the current definition, so that would be a new ball game. Short of that...

 So. Some ruminations for a Thursday. On we go...

 P.S. I encourage readers to contact me with their thoughts about the future of the internet. I especially welcome comments from those with technical expertise in this area, which I sorely (and perhaps obviously) lack. I'll be happy to publish interesting and informative replies. You can write me at: arthur4801 at yahoo dot com. And please indicate if you give me permission to publish your comments (I never publish emails without permission, unless I do so anonymously, but that happens very rarely). Arthur email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-20668359.post-24186696978685602222015-02-04T13:31:00.000-08:002015-02-04T16:37:22.250-08:00Embalmed Dissent, or the Fault in OurselvesAlmost exactly three years ago, I read an article by Michelle Alexander that I regarded as especially significant and revealing, and I have intended to discuss it ever since. As you may know, Alexander wrote the very valuable, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness. More recently, in the concluding part of "God Damn You, America, and Your White, Privileged Grief", I excerpted a similarly valuable article by Alexander.

 In the article that lodged itself in my memory -- which was published by The New York Times, a salient point to which I shall return -- Alexander recounts some of the basic, inescapable facts of the United States' system of profound injustice. For example: "More than 90 percent of criminal cases are never tried before a jury. Most people charged with crimes forfeit their constitutional rights and plead guilty."

 The overwhelming majority of people give up their rights -- "to be informed of charges against them, to an impartial, fair and speedy jury trial, to cross-examine witnesses and to the assistance of counsel" -- because, as Alexander, summarizes the point, "the system is rigged."

 In their ignorant devotion to the mythical, utterly false view of America as "a shining city on a hill," most Americans prefer to believe that torture was an aberration that the U.S. government practiced for only a short period of time. And America will, of course, never do it again, as we have been assured by Obama and every other political leader. They're all lying, of course. America was founded on torture: how could it be otherwise for a nation which arose out of a centuries-long genocide of Native Americans and the centuries-long institution of slavery? As I have expressed the point: torture is as American as Mom and apple pie. (See the second part of this article, subtitled "Torture and the American Project," for much more on this.)

 The genocide of Native Americans and the abomination of slavery mean that torture is woven into the fabric of America and its system of government. In recent decades, America's version of late capitalism has ossified into a kill-or-be-killed system, where the killers are the State, and its multitude of enforcement mechanisms, in alliance with the richest and most powerful individuals. All the rest of us -- the 99% which obviously far outnumbers the oligarchs and their friends, but remains almost entirely powerless -- are their victims. Today, this system metastasizes at nightmarish speed, and the cruelties inflicted on those without privilege or power multiply by the hour.

 America's injustice system is a large-scale example of a (comparatively) refined form of torture. We tend to think of torture as physical acts causing horrifying pain and suffering. We recognize the reality of psychological torture, but even there -- as with sleep deprivation or subjecting a prisoner to intolerably loud music (or other sounds) for lengthy periods of time -- the psychological torture is inextricably linked to physical acts. The ruling class encourages us in our understanding of torture as a narrowly circumscribed phenomenon: this makes it far easier for them to assure us that torture is "un-American," and that "we'll never do it again."

 It's harder to offer such assurances, and it's impossible to believe them, when we grasp that torture is the skeleton upon which increasing aspects of American life are constructed. In her article, Alexander notes, as among the reasons explaining why more than 90 percent of criminal defendants plead guilty rather than going to trial, that the Supreme Court has held that "threatening someone with life imprisonment for a minor crime in an effort to induce him to forfeit a jury trial did not violate his Sixth Amendment right to trial." The Court has also held that lifetime imprisonment for a first-time drug offense does not constitute cruel and unusual punishment.

 In this manner, terrorizing tens of thousands of individuals (and probably more than that) is made a regular element of State practice. Whatever the resulting monstrosity is, it is certainly not any kind of a justice system. Alexander then relates the following story:
Take the case of Erma Faye Stewart, a single African-American mother of two who was arrested at age 30 in a drug sweep in Hearne, Tex., in 2000. In jail, with no one to care for her two young children, she began to panic. Though she maintained her innocence, her court-appointed lawyer told her to plead guilty, since the prosecutor offered probation. Ms. Stewart spent a month in jail, and then relented to a plea. She was sentenced to 10 years' probation and ordered to pay a $1,000 fine. Then her real punishment began: upon her release, Ms. Stewart was saddled with a felony record; she was destitute, barred from food stamps and evicted from public housing. Once they were homeless, Ms. Stewart's children were taken away and placed in foster care. In the end, she lost everything even though she took the deal.
I have described torture as follows:
Torture is the deliberate infliction of unbearable agony on a human being -- a human being who is intentionally kept alive precisely so that he will suffer still more and for a longer period of time -- for no justifiable reason. This is the embrace of sadism and cruelty for their own sake, and for no other end whatsoever.
Apply that description to Erma Faye Stewart. The American injustice system tortured her and destroyed her life -- even though she did precisely what that system forced her to do. In addition to the injustice system, the welfare system, including the availability of public housing (and most likely additional subsystems as well), all worked together to make her life one of unbearable, endless agony.

 America "will never torture again"? America tortures countless numbers of people in these ways and others every single day. Torture is what America does. Torture is America's major domestic product, and its primary export to the rest of the world through a neverending series of barbaric war crimes.

 All of this is deeply horrifying. When I read Alexander's article, I was already familiar with these aspects of America's injustice system, and I'd come across many stories like Ms. Stewart's before. None of that was the reason I've remembered Alexander's article for three years.

 I remembered the article because Alexander proposed a means of crashing this system, of causing it to collapse into itself utterly and completely. In fact, that proposal was her major impetus for writing the article. The suggestion was not hers initially, but an idea offered by a woman Alexander knows, Susan Burton. This is what Burton said:
"What would happen if we organized thousands, even hundreds of thousands, of people charged with crimes to refuse to play the game, to refuse to plea out? What if they all insisted on their Sixth Amendment right to trial? Couldn't we bring the whole system to a halt just like that?"
Here is Alexander's response to Burton's question, as offered in the NYT article:
The answer is yes. The system of mass incarceration depends almost entirely on the cooperation of those it seeks to control. If everyone charged with crimes suddenly exercised his constitutional rights, there would not be enough judges, lawyers or prison cells to deal with the ensuing tsunami of litigation. Not everyone would have to join for the revolt to have an impact; as the legal scholar Angela J. Davis noted, "if the number of people exercising their trial rights suddenly doubled or tripled in some jurisdictions, it would create chaos."
It is the elegance and simplicity of the idea that made it so memorable to me. All our politicians and public figures preen and strut, proclaiming the superior virtues of the American system of "justice." Burton's proposal takes these goddamned bullshitters at their word: Fine. You say we have the best justice system in the world. So we'll utilize all the rights that are the bedrock of that system, at least in theory. But we'll actually exercise those rights. Let's see how well your system works then.

 And the lie will be revealed before the world. The system will collapse. I repeat one of the sentences I highlighted in the above excerpt: "The system of mass incarceration depends almost entirely on the cooperation of those it seeks to control." Burton's proposal is a marvelous example of non-cooperation: take away the element of cooperation that is essential to the system's operations -- just as all our public figures constantly tell us we have the right to do -- and it will cease to function.

 But. Ah, you're smart. You knew there was a "but." Alexander writes:
"As a mother myself, I don't think there's anything I wouldn't plead guilty to if a prosecutor told me that accepting a plea was the only way to get home to my children," I said. "I truly can't imagine risking life imprisonment, so how can I urge others to take that risk — even if it would send shock waves through a fundamentally immoral and unjust system?"
Burton replied: "I'm not saying we should do it. I'm saying we ought to know that it's an option." Burton goes on to say that it "would be nice if reasoned argument would do," but we know that it won't be sufficient. Burton mentions the example of slavery as a great evil that was only eradicated because people were willing to risk their lives.

 Alexander's article concludes with this observation from Burton: "So maybe, just maybe, if we truly want to end this system, some of us will have to risk our lives."

 I also remember my reaction when I read Alexander's article for the first time, in March 2012. I was furious. I felt as if I'd been slapped in the face. Here was a marvelous idea that could very well stop a monstrous system of injustice in its tracks -- and after the proposal was explained, I was told: "But ... never mind."

 I'm oversimplying my reaction, which contained many other elements. As just one example, although a very important one: I am well aware of the terrible risks attendant on challenging the system in the manner Burton proposes. It's awful to ask others to take risks of that kind. But we also know -- and Alexander and Burton know -- that anything short of risk of that kind, and even decades' worth of all that lovely "reasoned argument," is going to accomplish only minimal changes at the margins, if even that. Nothing short of mass non-cooperation has a chance in hell.

 Three years ago, when I sorted through my thoughts after reading Alexander's piece, I realized that I was more depressed with respect to these issues than I had been before I read it. That is the effect of articles of this kind: a wonderful idea is held out as a tantalizing possibility -- and before you even have time to digest it fully, the proponent adds, as Burton does: "I'm not saying we should do it. I'm saying we ought to know that it's an option."

 You can almost hear her subdued tone of wistful, yearning resignation. To me, it's the sound of defeat: "Yes, we could do this, if enough people were willing to take huge risks. But how can we expect people to take risks of that kind? Is it right to even ask them to do it?" And nothing changes, except to get worse.

 Certainly, nothing has changed in the three years since that article appeared, except that the system has become even more solidly entrenched. And remember where the article was published: in The New York Times, the leading newspaper presenting the ruling class's point of view, and which props up and further strengthens the ruling class's stranglehold on power in every way it can. For the ruling class, articles like Alexander's are a godsend. I'm sure I was not alone in my reaction. I'm certain most people who desperately hope for fundamental change were angry and depressed by it in largely the same way I was. The article holds out the promise of change -- but then tells you it's too difficult, it carries too much risk, it might be possible, but it's not something we'd actually want to do.

 The result, whether it is intended or not, is a deepening resignation to the way things are. I do not look to Wikipedia for information when accuracy about specific matters is a major concern, but the opening of its article on embalming captures an important aspect of what concerns me:
Embalming is the art and science of preserving human remains by treating them (in its modern form with chemicals) to forestall decomposition. The intention is to keep them suitable for public display at a funeral, for religious reasons, or for medical and scientific purposes such as their use as anatomical specimens.[1] The three goals of embalming are sanitization, presentation and preservation (or restoration).
In the past, I have sometimes referred to articles like Alexander's as examples of what I termed "institutional dissent." I intended the phrase to refer to (among other things) dissent which, while supposedly honorably registering protest, perhaps even passionate protest, offers no serious threat to the State or the ruling class in any manner whatsoever.

 But as I was reflecting on these issues again recently, I decided that "embalmed dissent" captures the dynamic of this kind of dissent with more precision. Embalming preserves human remains, often (when cosmetics are also used, as for an open casket) "to keep them suitable for public display." Embalmed dissent is protest with the life safely drained away. But when life is drained away, any danger, any spontaneity, any mass arousal -- and any genuine possibility for significant change -- are also eliminated.

 I chose the Alexander article as a starting point for this discussion because it offers this dynamic is an especially dramatic form. But we see embalmed dissent in endless numbers of articles by self-identified dissenting writers: All too often, the effect of such writing is very similar to my reaction to the Alexander article. As we read along, our understanding of the horrors with which we contend may be deepened. Our revulsion at the operations of the current system will cause us to wish even more intensely that change could occur. and we momentarily will want to grasp at any possibility for bringing about such change.

 But if the possibility of bringing about change is even mentioned (and it often isn't), it will be only to state that such fundamental change is too dangerous, that it would require action by more people than we could possibly enlist in our cause, that it's just too hard. So resignation claims more of our souls, and our lives grow bleaker.

 This leaves us with a number of questions, including the one suggested by the second part of my title for this article: Is the fault in ourselves? Is it fair to call it a fault? And if we choose to abstain from the public ritual of embalmed dissent, what do we do?

 I will take up these questions and some others in the next article on this subject. Arthur firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-20668359.post-15677692010710762602015-01-28T10:58:00.000-08:002015-01-28T10:58:12.865-08:00This and ThatI am long overdue in offering my profound gratitude to those who made donations in response to my post about my wonderful Cyrano. I'm more grateful than I can say, and I was very touched by many of the personal messages people sent.

 And Cyrano is still with us! I'm very sorry I haven't offered an update about his condition before today, but I found it very difficult to write about him. I love him so, so much. And, although I know it sounds completely stupid, part of me was afraid I'd jinx things in some way if I wrote to say that Cyrano was better. He didn't get a lot better, but he did seem to gain some strength in the few weeks following my earlier post. I got some medicine to help him with intestinal problems, which was the only symptom that had been readily apparent. I skipped the several hundred dollars on a battery of tests (I was already spending close to the limit I could manage), partly because I most likely couldn't have afforded the expense of ongoing treatment (and still can't) -- and also because I might well have decided to skip treatment for cancer (as just one possibility) even if I could afford it. I don't see the point in subjecting an almost 16-1/2 year old cat to unpleasant treatment (and perhaps very unpleasant treatment), only to possibly gain a few more months.

 Without the benefit (if any) of test results, the vet said that Cyrano is probably suffering the usual symptoms of old age -- failing kidneys and so on. Weight loss is very common for old cats, of course. It tears my heart apart when I pet Cyrano now: he used to be a big boy, not fat, but very good-sized and strongly built, and these days he's a much too skinny, bony guy. He still manages to get around well, but I think that will begin to go soon. Oh, God. See, these are the kinds of things I can't bear to write about.

 But Cyrano was somewhat better for several weeks. Now he seems to be fading again, not eating very well and so on. As I've now done with several cats in this last stage, I offer Cyrano a veritable banquet of foods -- lots of different varieties and kinds, hoping to find something he will chow down. And for those several weeks, it worked. It's not working so well now. Later today, I'll order some chicken from a delivery place. He loves that chicken. I hope he'll eat a big plateful, as he has in the past when I've ordered from them.

 I still found it too difficult to write about Cyrano a few weeks ago -- but I finally felt that I could write a few essays. I hadn't written anything substantive in quite a while, so I was full of doubt (more than is usually the case) about whether I could write at all. It seems I still can, which is an enormous relief. (You may think that sounds crazy, too -- but honestly, sometimes I glance at older pieces, particularly ones where I felt I did a decent or better job, and I wonder: How in the world did I write that? Did I actually write that? Was I in some kind of trance? I realize such feelings are fairly common among writers, but it still can feel awfully weird. And sometimes when I'm writing, and often particularly when it's going well, I do actually feel that I'm in a sort of trance. I could explain much more about all that, and maybe I will someday, although I'm not sure how many people would find it all that interesting.)

 So we're all still here. Sasha has been a darling through all this, and she and Cyrano both spend much of the night with me in bed. They both like to sleep right next to my face, but Sasha gracefully cedes that place to Cyrano when he comes to claim it. So Sasha moves down and sleeps against my belly. It's truly blissful when we're all curled up together.

 Unpleasant usual announcement: thanks to the generosity of some regular donors, I have just enough to pay next month's rent. But I have no more than that -- nothing for other regular monthly bills, and nothing for food, including food for the cats. (And as you may have gathered,the cat food bill is far higher than usual at the moment.) So if anyone can manage a donation of any size, it wold be most gratefully received, as our little band slowly continues its journey.

 I'm working on some new essays and hope to complete a few of them very soon. So more new pieces should be published in the near future.

Many, many thanks again to all of you. And additional thanks to those who sent such lovely messages. I read some of them to Cyrano, and told him that it's not just Sasha and I who love him so much. Lots of people love and care about him. He tried to act nonchalant about it all, but he didn't fool me. He was very moved, too. He's a real softie.

 Ta for the moment.

 P.S. Oh, I wanted to mention a TV show I watched recently, primarily because of a funny coincidence. About a month ago, I read an article about "Black Mirror," a British futuristic, sci-fi-y kind of show that's available on Netflix. I watched the first two episodes of the first season (there are four additional episodes I haven't seen yet). The first one is deeply bizarre and very watchable, and also quite disturbing. (With a nice twist at the end with regard to the perpetrator of the deed that is the core of the story.)

 The second episode -- "Fifteen Million Merits" -- is very interesting, for reasons I won't explain (don't want to spoil it), except to say that immediately after it was over, I thought: "Hehe, it's 'The Glenn Greenwald Story'!" I must add, however, that the actual Greenwald is not (and never was, in my not at all humble opinion) anywhere close to as genuine and admirable as the protagonist in that episode. But Greenwald does share the protagonist's ability to pursue dull, boring, plodding, repetitive work day after day after day. You'll have to watch it to see what I mean.

 The coincidence: just a few days after I'd watched "Fifteen Million Merits," I saw it mentioned in a tweet from Sassy. From the comment he offered, it seemed he may have had the same thought I did, or a very similar one. The show is well-done, not exceptional, but good and interesting, so you may want to give it a look. Arthur email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-20668359.post-38602802802006613592015-01-20T10:24:00.000-08:002015-01-20T10:35:49.069-08:00American Sniper, and the Murderers Hall of InfamyJust ten days ago, our wondrously life-affirming Western, and especially American, culture offered the spectacle of talk radio hosts giggling as they tried to determine the best way to celebrate the murders of those accused of the Charlie Hebdo killings.

 But our glorious culture is capable of achievements greater by far than a few hosts laughing about the deaths of less than a handful of people. When it comes to nauseating spectacles that celebrate violence and bloody death, we are always outdoing ourselves. Perhaps "celebrate" isn't quite the right word in this context. "Consecrate" captures the dynamic more accurately; truly, violence. especially gratuitous violence, and bloody death, the bloodier the better, constitute our civic religion these days.

 So this week began with the inspiring news that huge audiences flocked to see the new film, American Sniper. The enormous success of the film, which according to most reports took all the Hollywood-watchers and predicters by surprise (important reminder: so-called "experts" in any and every field -- foreign policy, economics, even Hollywood -- are the last people whose judgment you should trust, save for exceptions so rare they fail to constitute a serious challenge to the rule's application) is described as a "juggernaut," with the film expected to gross more than $105 million for the four-day holiday weekend: "The film is still setting mega-records including the largest January-February opening ever, the largest MLK four-day haul and an uber-career high for [Clint] Eastwood [the director[."

 American Sniper is the story of Chris Kyle, a Navy SEAL who served four tours of duty during the war in Iraq. He is considered to be the most lethal sniper in American history, with 160 confirmed kills, out of 255 probable kills. I have not seen the film yet (and have no plans to do so in the near future), but I'm reading Kyle's book. A number of reviews of the movie confirm that Kyle's own view of what he did, as stated in his book, is faithfully rendered in the film.

 Kyle's view of his actions is very straightforward and uncomplicated. He considered all those he killed to be "savages" who represented "despicable evil." Kyle's total of 160 confirmed kills may represent a record, but Kyle declares: "I only wish I had killed more."

 Kyle also says this:
I loved what I did. I still do. If circumstances were different -- if my family didn't need me -- I'd be back in a heartbeat. I'm not lying or exaggerating to say it was fun. I had the time of my life as a SEAL.
After reading many reviews and comments about the film, I am confident in stating that the consensus view of Kyle and his "achievement" is that he was a hero. The film, and most members of the audience, are profoundly sympathetic to Kyle. They are keenly aware of the enormous pain Kyle suffered -- all of which had to do with fellow Americans who were killed, especially those Americans whose lives he thought he might have saved. Neither Kyle, nor his book, nor, it appears, the film expends even a moment's energy or thought for the suffering of the Iraqis. (There are brief mentions in his book of concern for those Iraqis who were "loyal to the new government," but it is hardly a subject of great moment to him. And those are the only Iraqis who merit a glimmer of compassion. All the rest of the Iraqis embody "despicable evil.")

 Kyle's attitude toward the murders he committed -- that "it was fun," and that he "had the time of [his] life as a SEAL," immediately put me in mind of Matthew Hoh. You may recall that five years ago Hoh was much praised and lauded by the usual suspects among "dissident" writers because he resigned from the military "in protest about the Afghan war." Hoh did not deserve such praise: his only objection to the Afghan war was that it was "ineffective" and "counterproductive," not that it was a war of aggression, or that he objected to the U.S. government's foreign policy of ceaseless bombings, invasions, covert operations, and so on, all for the purpose of American global hegemony. Hoh had no objection at all to any of that. He supported that policy.

 I explained why I assessed Hoh's actions in a radically different way from those commentators who praised him in two articles: "The Denial Continues, and the Horror Remains Unrecognized," and "Desperately Seeking Peacenik, Pot-Smoking Hippies." In the first piece, I set forth what I regarded as the worst of Hoh's own comments about his military experience:
"I'm not some peacenik, pot-smoking hippie who wants everyone to be in love," Hoh said. Although he said his time in Zabul was the "second-best job I've ever had," his dominant experience is from the Marines, where many of his closest friends still serve.

 "There are plenty of dudes who need to be killed," he said of al-Qaeda and the Taliban. "I was never more happy than when our Iraq team whacked a bunch of guys."
Chris Kyle: "It was fun. ... I had the time of my life as a SEAL." Matthew Hoh: "I was never more happy than when our Iraq team whacked a bunch of guys."

 Bloodthirsty killers, brothers-at-arms, soulmates. If you wish to nominate Kyle and Hoh to the Murderers Hall of Infamy, I will offer no objection.

 Following Hoh's comments, I offered a concise explanation of why Hoh's view is unforgivably wrong. I repeat it here, for this passage can be applied with full force to Kyle's evaluation of his experience. (Kyle provides a "justification" of his kills which is unsurprisingly identical to Hoh's: "Everyone I shot in Iraq was trying to harm Americans or Iraqis loyal to the new government.") I wrote:
The critical facts are few in number, and remarkably easy to understand: Iraq never threatened the U.S. in any serious manner. Our leaders knew Iraq did not threaten us. Despite what should have been the only fact that mattered, the U.S. invaded and occupied, and still occupies, a nation that never threatened us and had never attacked us. Under the applicable principles of international law and the Nuremberg Principles, the U.S. thus committed a monstrous, unforgivable series of war crimes. Those who support and continue the occupation of Iraq are war criminals -- not because I say so, but because the same principles that the U.S. applies to every other nation, but never to the U.S. itself, necessitate that judgment and no other.

 While it may be true that some "dudes" threatened Hoh's life and the lives of those with whom he served, Hoh could never have been threatened in that manner but for the fact that he was in Iraq as part of a criminal war of aggression. In other words, he had no right to be in Iraq in the first place. And if he had not been, he would never have been in a position to "whack[] a bunch of guys."

 Hoh joined the U.S. military voluntarily. He was obliged to understand this.
Kyle and Hoh could have acted differently. In the earlier article, I discussed the notable, genuinely inspiring example of Ehren Watada, who refused to serve: "My participation would make me party to war crimes." Watada deserves great praise and admiration; Kyle and Hoh absolutely do not.

 In the last few days, I've heard and read many awful and frequently idiotic remarks about the great "success" of American Sniper. I've heard how many audiences apparently cheer wildly at the conclusion of the film, in approval of this portrait of a great American hero. A number of commentators insist that Americans are "starved" for this version of "unapologetic patriotism."

In the midst of this blood-drenched celebration of unnecessary, avoidable murder, I heard one especially stupid comment. A local Los Angeles radio host lamented that, during his time in office, Mr. Obama has never uttered Chris Kyle's name. Obama has failed to grant the recognition due this great hero. When I heard that, I had an odd, funny thought. Of course Obama isn't going to mention Kyle, I thought. Kyle is his competition.

 Obama is the Murderer-in-Chief. He devoted years and enormous energy to becoming the Murderer-in-Chief. And you expect him to share this great achievement with some two-bit sniper? 160 confirmed kills? That's a morning's work for Obama. Surely we recall that Obama devotedly continues -- and expands -- the infernal work of American Empire in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Libya, Syria, Somalia, and in countless countries around the globe. Surely we recognize that Obama considers the lives of tens of thousands of people, most of them entirely innocent by any standard, as completely expendable in the pursuit of American global hegemony.

 On top of this, we surely recall that Obama has a Kill List, and that his Murder Program has been widely publicized in the nation's leading newspapers. The U.S. government has been at great pains to make sure that we all know about the Kill List and the Murder Program in excruciating detail -- and that we know that Obama himself is critical in directing all these operations. The U.S. government, led by Obama, claims that it may kill anyone it chooses, anywhere in the world, for any reason it offers, or for no reason at all. Why would Obama even notice a pipsqueak like Kyle?

 Yet the truth is that the overwhelming majority of Americans recognize and remember none of this. Although the Kill List was much written about for a brief period, it has joined the long list of horrors in the cesspool of Americans' amnesia. It's ancient history; who cares about it any longer? Almost ho one. The truth is far worse than that: as I have noted, even during and immediately after the extensive coverage of the Kill List and the Murder Program, as far as most Americans were concerned, all the stories and discussion "caused almost no reaction at all ... It was as if nothing of any significance had been said."

 And so we have huge numbers of Americans eager to see this celebration of murder in a criminal war of aggression, and a film which offers an undiluted version of Kyle's view of the Iraqis he killed as embodying "despicable evil." While I've seen a few reports indicating that the film may offer a somewhat more complex perspective, and might even cause a viewer to wonder if the war was "worth it" -- but solely because of the great suffering endured by Kyle, not by the Iraqis -- this obviously is not the primary reason for the film's success. Even the reviews that claim this greater "complexity" for the film stress that the film is enormously sympathetic to Kyle. It is certain that the film does not even begin to approach the idea that Kyle was a serial murderer, who killed people when he had no right to do so -- and when he had no right even to be in their country.

 In short: Kyle committed a series of unforgivable crimes. What he did was unforgivably wrong. and unforgivably evil.

 That view does not translate into boffo box office, not in these United States of America.

 What, then, do I consider the real explanation for the film's notable success? One of the essays linked above provided that explanation, in two brief opening paragraphs. From "To Honor the Value of a Single Life: The First Murder":
 We live in a culture drenched with cruelty, violence and blood. From our earliest days as children, we are taught to hate those who are not like us. We learn that compassion and empathy are signs of weakness, and failings to be viewed with contempt. By the time we are adults, most people have internalized these lessons completely. They refuse even to question them. They will despise you, or simply ignore you, if you dare to challenge these beliefs.

 We are also taught that the fundamental virtue is obedience to authority. Whatever else we may question -- and, in truth, there is no longer much at all that may be questioned -- the inherent goodness of the primary authority figures we are taught to revere is an absolute that we must accept. The authority figures we are told we must obey, if, that is, we wish to be civilized and decent, are our parents in the first instance; as we grow older, and when the roots of obedience are left to grow and strengthen, as they are in almost every case, the same mechanism encompasses additional authority figures: political leaders, and the military and police, are among the prime examples.
American Sniper mixes these elements together in a lethal combination. Americans' comfort with extreme cruelty and violence, and their unquestioning acceptance of the necessity of obedience to authority (Kyle repeatedly stresses that he was "simply" doing "his duty," but any questions as to why he chose this duty are ignored entirely), are offered to audiences as a version of themselves they view with great favor. Indeed, they revel in it.

 The great success of American Sniper immediately follows the latest exercise in the ongoing demonization of Islam and Muslims. Americans' penchant for violence and unending aggression requires the existence of targets who "deserve" whatever they get, even and often especially when what they get is brutality, torture and murder. Empire is greatly skilled and inventive at feeding the appetites of this ravenous monster. Given recent developments, the horrors will not be ending anytime soon. It is more likely that the pressure grows for new explosions of these hatreds. The dedication to violence demands an outlet. Tell many Americans that their hatred and their desire to wreak vengeance are "justified," and they will love you for it.

 At this point, it doesn't appear that most Americans can even imagine a profoundly different way of living, let alone begin to make it real. The deadly disease that consumes America can be described in many ways -- but, at least for me, "living" isn't one of them. Arthur email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-20668359.post-77351324358310891372015-01-13T11:18:00.002-08:002015-01-13T11:29:12.042-08:00The Propaganda War: The Horror of the Paris RallyTo amuse myself for a brief moment -- and perhaps you, too, dear reader, for I assuredly shall do my best not to lose sight of your concerns in what follows -- I might invoke the spirit of Master Dickens, as revealed in his work celebrating the holiday just recently passed. I therefore state:

 Any significant intellectual culture, especially any aspect of that always exceedingly fragile enterprise that rises to challenge established authority and its numerous, labyrinthine dictates of shoulds and should nots, what is permitted and what is not, the limits of correct thought and professed belief, and uncountable and often incomprehensible related matters, is dead: to begin with. Any significant intellectual culture is as dead as a door-nail.

 I state this proposition in Master Dickens' manner: emphatically.

 I do this not only to amuse myself, if only momentarily, but to keep from going mad. As I further consider the Charlie Hebdo spectacle, its significance and implications grow ever more ominous and threatening. I watch this spectacle, and I want to scream: What is wrong with everyone? Don't you understand what is going on here?

 A few people do, and I am always deeply grateful to encounter them. But for the most part, everyone -- and here, I speak of everyone in the West, which is where I reside, most unhappily at present, and where you probably read this -- has enthusiastically rallied to the cause of "freedom," and "freedom of the press" and "freedom of speech" more specifically. Almost everyone screams: Je suis Charlie!

 So many damned liars. Allowing for the extremely rare exception, not one of the throng shouting "Je suis Charlie" is at any kind of risk at all, nor do they ever intend to be, not if they can help it. I see a crowd of millions, every single goddamned person holding aloft a sign emblazoned with big, bold lettering:
I AM ONE OF A KIND!

 I AM UNIQUE!!

 I AM UNREPEATABLE!!!
The message loses its charm around the fifty-thousandth repetition, roughly speaking. As I noted a few days ago, uniqueness, as well as courage, abhors a mob. We might be so bold as to say that seeking the comfort of the mob vitiates the message.

 So. Goddamned liars, a lot of them. Before proceeding to far graver matters, let us consider a ridiculous incident that reveals just how transparently dishonest the Hebdo spectacle is. At the Golden Globe Awards this past Sunday night, Margaret Cho appeared in a running comic bit as a North Korean general, Cho Young-ja. (It was very labored and not notably clever or original. Perhaps you expected Oscar Wilde? This is Hollywood, my dear.) Without missing a beat, numerous critics pounced on this offensively "racist" attempt at humor.

 Even Deadline Hollywood made the connection in its opening paragraph:
Comedian Margaret Cho has responded to critics who deemed her North Korea-skewering Golden Globes appearance racist – ironically enough, in an evening filled with achievements for diverse voices and cries of "Je Suis Charlie" in the name of freedom of expression.
Aside from the fact that "freedom of expression" allows some racist or otherwise offensive statements but not others -- hardly an unimportant point, and one which will become worryingly significant as we proceed -- doesn't Cho get some kind of special dispensation here? As she pointed out in one of her responses: "I'm of mixed North/South Korean descent - you imprison, starve and brainwash my people you get made fun of by me" Since Cho is of of mixed North/South Korean descent, doesn't she have the right to engage in this sort of humor, in the same way that blacks can use the word "nigger"? I'm just asking; there are lots and lots of rules about all this, and it's easy to get confused.

 But any confusion dissipates when we consider the Paris rally. Let's begin with the description in The New York Times:
More than a million people joined over 40 presidents and prime ministers on the streets of Paris on Sunday in the most striking show of solidarity in the West against the threat of Islamic extremism since the Sept. 11 attacks.

 Responding to terrorist strikes that killed 17 people in France and riveted worldwide attention, Jews, Muslims, Christians, atheists and people of all races, ages and political stripes swarmed central Paris beneath a bright blue sky, calling for peace and an end to violent extremism.

 The Interior Ministry described the demonstration as the largest in modern French history, with as many as 1.6 million people. ...

 The world leaders — including President François Hollande of France, Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority and Prime Minister David Cameron of Britain — joined the march in a solemn line. They moved slowly, clasping arms to show solidarity with the victims. The crowd roared in approval.
Two facts of paramount importance must be noted. First, the target of this massive demonstration was Islamic extremism. The Times (as well as various commentators) tries to camouflage this a bit, with the reference to "violent extremism" -- but, c'mon. When a million and a half Charlies gather together -- each one as unique as a fucking snowflake, don't you know -- they do so in response to the Hebdo murders. The world's view is that those murders are a horrifying instance of barbaric Islamic extremism.

 The second fact is painfully obvious, and that obviousness is an essential part of its camouflage. Most of the coverage of the Paris rally focuses on the size of the crowd -- over a million and a half people, all marching in support of freedom of expression! -- and adds as a kind of postscript that over 40 "world leaders" "joined" the demonstration. This is completely backwards. When over 40 "world leaders" enthusiastically take part in an event of this kind, that fact alone establishes a single incontrovertible, irrefutable fact: whatever is happening, whatever views are being expressed, none of it is any threat whatsoever to power and authority. More specifically, it is no threat whatsoever to State power. No wonder all those world leaders were eager to take part: the largest demonstration "in modern French history" was nothing less than a glorification of State power.

 This truth becomes still more obvious when we remember the actual records of the world leaders in question. Of course, almost no one chose to remember these particular facts. But Daniel Wickham did (via Chris Floyd) in a series of tweets. Here are a few examples of, as Wickham puts it, "the staunch defenders of the free press attending the solidarity rally in Paris today":
Prime Minister of Davutoglu of Turkey, which imprisons more journalists than any other country in the world

Prime Minister Jomaa of Tunisia, which recently jailed blogger Yassine Ayan for 3 years for "defaming the army"

Sec-Gen of NATO, who are yet to be held to account for deliberately bombing and killing 16 Serbian journos in '99

Prime Minister Kopacz of Poland, which raided a magazine to seize recordings embarrassing for the ruling party
Perhaps it would be unkind to say that all those Charlies in Paris (and the millions of additional Charlies around the world) are fools, but the characterization is not inaccurate. But it is more to the point to state that all these Charlies are pawns in a spectacle that served to strengthen the foundations of State power. Moreover, and in an especially hideous twist, the demonstration -- with all those world leaders greeted by a crowd that "roared in approval" -- served to bestow specifically moral approval and encouragement to State power.

 Given the growing swaths of destruction, brutality and murder that are the product of State power in recent years, and of Western State power in particular, one might have thought that moral approval and encouragement is the last thing one would choose to gift to the monsters who lead those States, at least if one seeks a better world that is significantly more compassionate and caring than the world in which we now live. And note how cheaply the States in question purchased this gift: their leaders offer a few grunts indicating their supposed approval of "freedom of expression" and "free speech," and the crowd happily accedes to their power. No one troubles to recall the chasm that separates what these States claim to support and what they actually do. The leaders of these States now have still further confirmation that as long as they mumble the right words and slogans at critical moments, they can act in the most oppressive and brutal ways -- and they will never be called to account.

 And, my friends, we must add still one more element to appreciate more fully the horror of the Paris rally. Here I turn to an article by Rafia Zakaria, "Let's talk about the other dead journalists" (via The Angry Arab News Service). I encourage you to read Zakaria's article in full. Here are some key excerpts (the highlights are mine):
In France, as elsewhere in the Western world, the attack on Charlie Hebdo is being lamented, and the dead journalists are being celebrated as heroes whose work exemplifies a fearless and defiant pursuit of freedom of expression. However, this fight for freedom of speech is not always seen as a Muslim struggle. Yet the number of Muslim journalists killed defending journalism tells a different story. More than half of 61 journalists killed in 2014 were Muslims, many working in conflict-affected countries such as Iraq, Syria, Pakistan and Somalia. But few have received the recognition or commemoration accorded to Western journalists or a handful who worked for Western media outlets. ...

 [T]he evident double standard and selective outrage illuminates the hierarchy of privilege in our moral reckoning in response to acts of terrorism. It is a dynamic that becomes visible only when Western journalists are targeted. ...

 [The] invisibility [of the deaths of Muslim journalists] is part of the routine eliding over terrorism's brown, Muslim victims that allows the extremists' unexamined xenophobia and divisive narrative of us versus them to prevail and persist. Failure to mourn and recognize the sacrifices of terrorism victims equally carries enormous risk. The aversion to terrorism only when it reaches the West or kills Westerners suggests our ease with the banishment of terrorism to some distant terrains. ...

 Muslims are more likely to experience war and displacement than any other religious group. Swaths of predominantly Muslim countries such as Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan are in the throes of civil strife. Millions of Syrians, Iraqis and Afghans have become refugees in already taxed neighboring countries such as Jordan and Pakistan. Not a single person in these countries remains unaffected by the ravages of violence, by grisly massacres at schools and mosques and restaurants and markets. Yet there are some in the West who insist on turning to these beleaguered, injured and maimed populations to demand collective apology for the acts of any and every killer with a Muslim background.
Perhaps the most profoundly disturbing part of Zakaria's argument comes toward the conclusion of her article:
While our selective outrage ignores the pain and sacrifices of Muslims, the generalization imagines all Muslims as perpetrators of terrorism. ...

 The horror of terrorism is meant to eviscerate context. It incites the desire for protection and revenge. The collective blame placed on Muslims, the thoughtless investment of blame and suspicion and the highlighting of freedom of expression as a solely Western value is a victory for extremists. Our selective indignation also gives credence to the idea that all the world's Muslims are already terrorists or potential terrorists. Muslims should not be recognized only when a few of them kill for terrorism and be ignored when thousands of them die at its hands.
For over a decade, the West, led by the bloodthirsty and barbaric government of the United States, has made war on Muslims. The West has invaded and bombed Muslim countries, and tortured, imprisoned and murdered Muslims in a procession of horrors that continue today, and that stretch into a limitless future of pain and suffering. Western leaders have sometimes been at pains to insist that the West is not at war with Islam, but only with Islamic extremism. More and more, the mask slips. More and more, we hear people say, occasionally with regret, but usually with barely concealed glee, "Oh, yes, the real problem is Islam itself." The record amassed to date establishes that the West's enemy is indeed Islam, and Muslims: not only does the West ignore the deaths of Muslim journalists, but the deaths of Muslims in general. The number of murdered Muslims who are "innocent" even by Western standards is beyond reckoning, although Western leaders and opinionmakers steadfastly refuse to acknowledge the fact.

 In that connection, consider the difference in scale involved. Twelve people were murdered at the Charlie Hebdo offices. Yes, that is a terrible crime. Some years ago, in September 2007, I attempted to capture the difference in scale by addressing Western narcissism, and the narcissism of Americans in particular. Because Western lives, and Western deaths, are of special significance, and unquestionably of far greater importance than the deaths of assorted brown people in other parts of the world, I made some calculations:
Since Americans' narcissism is so all-encompassing, and because the superior value of American lives and goals as compared to those of all other peoples is regarded as an axiom never to be questioned, let's put these horrors in terms that Americans might understand. Let's make it about you.

 For ease of computation, we'll use approximate figures. Assume the U.S.'s war crimes have resulted in one million deaths. That is roughly 1/26 of the total Iraqi population. An equivalent number of American deaths would be 11.5 million people. 3,000 Americans were murdered on 9/11. In terms of casualties, 11.5 million deaths represent 3,800 9/11s -- or a 9/11 every day for ten and a half years.

 Let me repeat that: a 9/11 every day for ten and a half years.

 Perhaps you think these casualty figures are highly inflated. Fine. Cut them in half. That's a 9/11 every day for a little over five years.

 Every day.

 Do you begin to understand now?
The United States Government was so pleased with its work that it has done its best to replicate this notable achievement in a series of other countries -- Libya, Syria, in Asia, in Africa, anywhere the United States has "vital national interests," which is everywhere in the world. The primary target never alters: it is Islam, and Muslims.

 With regard to these issues, what most people take away from the Hebdo story is that some cartoonists were making fun of Islam and they were murdered because of it. They were making Islam an object of ridicule. You may rest assured that the millions of instant Charlies in the West have no deeper understanding of the subtleties to be found in the cartoons, if subtleties there in fact be. As these events have demonstrated, capped by the "historic" rally in Paris, to make Islam an object of ridicule is fine with tens of millions of Westerners. It is certainly fine with Western political leaders. For those leaders, making Islam and Muslims objects of ridicule is an invaluable aid to their plans for ongoing, perpetual war. Ridicule is an indispensable element in the demonization of the "other." As just one of innumerable examples from history (as noted by Thomas Fleming, excerpted here):
Everyone from journalists to President Roosevelt routinely used the dehumanizing slang term "Jap," and regularly compared Japanese soldiers and civilians to monkeys, baboons, and gorillas. Admiral Halsey was especially fond of the monkey metaphor, invariably attaching "yellow" to it. At one point Halsey said he could hardly wait to put to sea "to get some more monkey meat." ...

 New Dealers and others around the president made no attempt to alter this dehumanizing war against the Japanese. In September 1942, Admiral William Leahy, Roosevelt's White House chief of staff, told Vice President Henry Wallace that Japan was "our Carthage" and "we should go ahead and destroy her utterly." Wallace noted this sentiment without objection in his diary. Elliott Roosevelt, the president's son, told Wallace some months later that he thought Americans should kill "about half the Japanese civilian population." New Dealer Paul McNutt, chairman of the War Manpower Commission, went him one better, recommending "the extermination of the Japanese in toto."
Yes, there were many, many cartoons portraying these themes, replete with "Jap monkeys." The Hebdo cartoonists would have felt right at home.

 It is a tragically common historic pattern: ridicule, demonization, extermination. The consolidation of the United States in its current form and its spread across the North American continent were founded on just such a program. Today, we have a program that, in Zakaria's words, "imagines all Muslims as perpetrators of terrorism," and "gives credence to the idea that all the world's Muslims are already terrorists or potential terrorists."

 Despite all the lip service to "freedom of expression," we know that indiscriminate ridicule remains definitely off-limits. The heated, instantaneous criticism of Margaret Cho is but one of numerous proofs. If you're a white comedian, incorporate an offensive joke about "nigger monkeys" (also a common historical trope) -- and wait to see how many of the newly-minted Charlies noisily clamor to defend you. But Islam and Muslims as objects of ridicule have now been officially put on the "approved" list.

 To all of this, the huge crowd in Paris has given its enthusiastic blessing, along with its roars of approval. In so doing, they also blessed the States that are so intent on continuing this program into the future. All those Western leaders must be pleased beyond measure. They procured an enormous propaganda victory with no effort or cost on their own part whatsoever.

 I genuinely do not mean to be presumptuous in offering the following thought. It is impossible for someone who is not a member of a persecuted group to understand or feel fully what that persecution is like, although I do have some experience of this kind as a gay man (and as a gay man who is now 66 and was a teenager, with a growing awareness of his sexuality, during the 1960s, which was a terrifying experience in many ways). But if I were Muslim and I contemplated these recent events, and if I further considered the implications and possible ramifications of what has transpired, I would probably be very, very anxious.

 In fact, I might be scared shitless.Arthur firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-20668359.post-24011347856807842472015-01-10T08:48:00.000-08:002015-01-10T09:07:20.288-08:00These crimes "will never be purged away, but with Blood"
Nothing can justify the Charlie Hebdo murders. All civilized people must condemn these murders absolutely and unequivocally.
 Endless variations of such proclamations have issued from almost everyone in recent days. These titans of virtue and proper thought offer their judgment as if its mere utterance embodies courage of ungraspable dimensions. Truly, moral giants walk among us.

 Genuine moral courage does not require the company of a mob. The contrary proposition states the truth of this particular matter: genuine courage forbids the company of a mob that includes almost everyone -- from all political leaders, including those who direct the operations of the most terrifying terrorist organization on Earth, which goes by the name "the United States Government," to every well-known writer, to public personalities of dubious intellect and questionable character, to the most sickeningly bigoted and hate-filled ignoramuses.

 Following the news yesterday that several of those people accused of committing the murders had themselves been killed, listeners to one Los Angeles radio station were regaled with whooping laughter and gleeful chuckles, as two hosts tried to determine "the best way to celebrate the death of a terrorist." Shall we order a special cake? Or perhaps, suggested another host, we should buy pigskins and, amidst great fanfare, bury the terrorists in them. "That'll show 'em!" this monster trumpeted. "Attack us, and we'll visit terror on you -- and for eternity!"

 A very simple rule of thumb can be applied here: if you find yourself repeating the moral judgment of a mob that shouts views such as these from every available rooftop, you are sure to be wrong. Of course, no one to whom the mob pays attention, no one who "matters," will tell them they are wrong. The mob has completely insulated itself from all views that might seriously challenge their perspective. Indeed, the mob's society has been structured so that those views that are most unwelcome are heard only by individuals so few in number that their existence barely registers. Especially unwelcome views need not even be ignored: you need not ignore that which you have rendered undetectable. This is true not only of these recent murders, but of every matter of consequence. This is what the mob calls "freedom of speech."

 These observations of mine are not accompanied by any claim that they represent "the truth." I claim no special connection to the mind of God, to speak in the mob's terms. But I know this: it is obscene that the Hebdo murders should be singled out for an orgy of spluttering condemnation and outrage when the West, led by the monstrous U.S. Government with able support from most European nations, routinely murders more innocents in a single day (and, often, in less than a single day) than were murdered in Paris. The United States commits its murders across the globe -- from Afghanistan, to Iraq, to Syria, to Libya, on through other countries in Africa, and Asia, and in every corner of the world. England and, yes, France, and other countries provide significant aid in this unending campaign of terror.

 I also know this: when the U.S. and its accomplices commit murderous acts of terrorism -- when the U.S. and its accomplices murder innocents -- with a regularity and on a scale that would be the envy of the most barbarous and bloodthirsty criminals in all of history, there will be resistance. "Nothing can justify the Charlie Hebdo murders." Nothing? This is the voice of the master, the imperialist, the slaveowner, the sadist: "We can bomb you, we can starve you, we can torture you, we can eviscerate you, we can visit every imaginable horror on you, we can utterly destroy you -- but you are forbidden to ever attack even one of us in any manner at all."

 "Nothing can justify the Charlie Hebdo murders." The certainty is impregnable. Perhaps these robotic barbarians are indeed connected to the mind of God: they certainly have no minds of their own, at least of the human variety. I also recognize that when faced with the horrifying crimes of Empire, resistance will necessarily claim innocent lives. Even if the resisters did everything in their power to avoid the deaths of innocents, innocents will die in a war of this kind. The Empire could end the war, if it chose to. It does not.

 In his efforts to win the Republican nomination for President in 1860, Abraham Lincoln repeatedly distanced himself from John Brown. As Tony Horwitz notes in Midnight Rising: John Brown and the Raid that Sparked the Civil War: "Like many in the North, he admired Brown's courage and antislavery conviction, but condemned his resort to violence." Honest Abe had more to say when he addressed leading Republicans at a meeting in New York in February 1860. He particularly wanted to reassure and placate Southerners who feared Republican rule:
You charge that we stir insurrections among your slaves. We deny it; and what is your proof? Harper's Ferry! John Brown!! John Brown was no Republican; and you have failed to implicate a single Republican in his Harper's Ferry enterprise.
Stirring oratory! Show Abe how to use a smartphone, explain teevee to him, and he'd be ready to make the rounds of the talk shows tonight.

 As Horwitz documents in his book, Lincoln was driven to embrace emancipation, finally, only because of the press of events: he was intent on winning the war, and emancipation was the most powerful weapon he had to utilize toward that end. Support of the abolition of slavery throughout the United States "would bring the North both manpower and European support, while at the same time weakening the southern war effort." As he left jail to go to his execution, John Brown handed a jail guard a note containing the final thoughts he wished to make known: "I, John Brown, am now quite certain that the crimes of this guilty land will never be purged away; but with Blood." Brown's terrible prophecy was made true, and Horwitz notes the irony that it was Lincoln himself who ultimately adopted and repeated Brown's vision.

 The occasion was Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address, delivered on March 4, 1865. I offer two short notes about the following excerpt from that speech. In the first phrase, "If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offenses," replace "American slavery" with "American Empire." Apply Lincoln's theme to this week's events, and to events of recent decades. And it is in the final lines, which I have highlighted, that Lincoln acknowledges the truth that Brown had earlier perceived:
If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offenses which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offense came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to Him? Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said "the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether."
"...and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword..." I offer this not as a justification of the Hebdo murders, or as approval of violence. The obsession with "justification" and "approval" in this manner -- an obsession shared, it appears, by almost every semiconscious human being, who is breathlessly eager to tell us what he thinks of world events, on the assumption that masses of idiots can't wait to hear what one additional idiot thinks of it all -- is the mark of an arrested narcissistic adolescent, who still believes at the age of 30, or 40, or 50 or more, that the world, and history, require his approval to move forward.

 In the summer of 2011, I wrote about this phenomenon in connection with the London riots: "Your Approval of History Is Irrelevant and Meaningless." I conveyed my general perspective, somewhat informally as it were, in a brief fragment of imagined conversation:
"But surely, surely you don't condone the violence in England?" Since I doubt I will ever hear the only sensible response from anyone else, let me offer it myself:

 "Whether I condone it or not is fucking irrelevant, you pompous ass."
After explaining the reasons for my view, I summarized my position:
[D]o I "disapprove of" and "condemn" the violence itself? No, I don't. In this context, I don't know what such condemnation even means. Violence is a completely understandable response, particularly when every other means of amelioration and recourse has been systematically closed off. When you leave people no choice but to engage in violence, they'll engage in violence. You want to condemn someone as responsible? Look in the goddamn mirror, fuckhead.

 History happens. Try to understand it. Otherwise, get the hell out of the way.
The terrible vision that possessed John Brown still lives with us today. The enemy Brown faced was a campaign of terror within his own country. Today, our enemy is a campaign of terror that encompasses the world. Do I desperately hope for a far better world, one that can be reached by only peaceful means? Of course. As I said in the earlier essay, I consider the recourse to violence to be always deeply tragic, even when it is thoroughly understandable. Today, when faced with an enemy more powerful than any the world has ever known -- when the West's ruling class continues to be ruthlessly intent on amassing ever more power and wealth, when it is determined to eliminate and murder all those who stand in its way, when there is no place on Earth to make oneself safe from the barbaric violence unleashed by the ruling class every minute, of every hour, of every day -- resistance which includes violence is not only understandable, but inevitable.

 Facts can be awful things. This is but one example, albeit on an unusually large scale, which makes the awfulness that much more terrifying. Facts do not ask for your approval, or for mine. Your unhappiness or fear will not cause them to dissolve.

 You may find comfort in the mob, with its gutter talk of "justification" and what is "approved," and what kinds of resistance are permissible. Always remember: the mob that comforts you today will kill you tomorrow.

 **********

 I've read enough of the commentary about the Hebdo murders to know that most of what has been written on this subject is unsanitary garbage which will damage your intellectual health and well-being. I can recommend only two articles (there may be a few others worth reading that I've missed, but they are certainly very, very few in number): this one, and this one.

 As for all the rest of it: reader beware.Arthur email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-20668359.post-64742185010265240162014-12-15T18:56:00.000-08:002014-12-15T18:56:09.438-08:00For a Loving, Furry, Orange AngelI was ready to start writing and publishing some new posts last week. In addition to the Alice Miller pieces I want to do, there are several current news items that I find of considerable interest. But all that got knocked to hell when Cyrano took a major turn for the worse.

 I thought I was going to lose him toward the end of last week. But he rallied -- for a very sweet, loving cat, he can be a pretty tough guy. He was better for a few days. But now he's having troubles again.

 I always go through agonies when my cats reach this stage. I never know how much vet care I should inflict on them, and I do often feel that "inflict" is the operative word. I've put cats through lots of tests in the past, and the net result was that we knew almost nothing at the end of it all that we hadn't known at the beginning. I'm speaking here of old cats; my remarkable cat Elyot did have his life extended for about four years after the diagnosis of cardiomyopathy -- but he was only seven when that started. (And Elyot showed them: one vet predicted he would only last a year, if that. Another vet said nuts to that, and Elyot agreed. He was fine for three and a half years once he was on medication, but then it finally got him. He was a wonderful, superb cat, very much like a person, if you know what I mean.)

 In any event, I have no money to take Cyrano to the vet at the moment. But I think he needs to pay him a visit. If you'd like to donate a little bit to help that along, we'd be tremendously grateful. I have a very strong sense that we're only talking about palliative care here, but I want to be sure Cyrano suffers as little as possible. I owe him at least that much, if I can manage it.

 It's been an awful year here. Can't wait for it to be over. Given how things have gone in 2014, it would be horribly, morbidly appropriate if Cyrano finally left us on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day. Yes, my mood is very bleak and dark.

 He's such a darling boy. He's been with me since he was eight weeks old, and we've only been apart a few days in the ensuing many years. (When he was still a tiny kitten, he used to snuggle in one of my old sneakers, with just his orange behind sticking out. He was convinced he had rendered himself invisible. I played along. "Where has Cyrano gone? Where is he?") He's now exactly 16 years and four months old. For most of that time, we've had great and grand fun. He's been an absolute joy.

 Thanks for listening. And I will try to get one or two posts done in the next week. Among other things, I have a few observations to offer about the Sony hack, and about that white, straight, rich, incredibly privileged asshole named Aaron Sorkin. (Yes, I realize that description is redundant. Can someone be white, straight, rich and a man and not be an asshole? Not in my considerable experience. I will allow for the theoretical possibility of the rare exception, say one in a million or two.)

 Christ, give me cats any day. So far superior to humans in every respect. Same is true for dogs, of course.

 Give them the world. It could only make it better.Arthur firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-20668359.post-28786197829882018512014-10-27T09:04:00.000-07:002014-10-27T09:04:44.859-07:00One More TryAfter my last post about the record-breaking heat wave in Los Angeles, we had another record-breaking heat wave. It was unbelievably awful. I truly think I should be dead by now; I have to say there were more than a few times in the last couple of months when I wouldn't have minded dying all that much. There were some mornings when the worst moment was when I first woke up, only to realize an entire day again stretched before me, to be survived ... well, somehow.

 Despite a few warm days here and there, the terrible heat is gone. But I feel considerably weaker than I did just six months ago, and it's harder for me to walk even very short distances. I think I'll probably end up in the hospital again sometime fairly soon. I continue to resist it mightily after my last soul- and body-rending hospital stay. But if I'm convinced a major crisis is upon me -- I've come very close to being convinced a number of times recently -- off to the hospital I shall go.

 Meanwhile, at the age of 16 and two months, Cyrano appears to have entered the final stage of his life. I've seen it often enough by this time; I know what it looks like. And I'd thought that was starting to happen about four months ago; that was when I saw the first signs. But I'd hoped I was wrong. Sadly, I wasn't. I think we're talking about months now -- perhaps three or four, maybe a little longer, maybe sooner than that. Particularly in light of the other things I'm contending with, it feels like more than I can bear. Among the many joys of Cyrano's presence in my life, he's the lone companion who has been with me at every moment of my writing over the past 12 years, beginning in September 2002.

 There is one group of articles I very much want to write. I've made a start; I've outlined several of them and begun writing the first one. They concern a critical aspect of Alice Miller's work that I feel I haven't explained sufficiently or effectively enough: the implications of Miller's identifications with regard to political matters. I think there are a number of misconceptions about the complex interrelationships of psychology and politics. Obviously, a multitude of issues in the political realm do not concern psychology specifically (d'oh!) -- but it is also true that, since politics is practiced by human beings, psychology is always present in one form or another. And Miller's work helps to clarify much that otherwise remains unexplained, at least in part.

 I also want to address some other matters (some of them indicated in my last post), including some cultural/artistic issues. Among the latter is the phony, manipulated "controversy" about the Metropolitan Opera's production of The Death of Klinghoffer. In the midst of many aspects of that furor that were not at all amusing, there were a few moments of high hilarity.

 So that's my plan, assuming body and soul hang together for a while longer. As difficult as it is for me to get anything done at this point, I realized this past weekend that I needed to get off my ass and do a few things since the first of the month is almost here again. I'll spare us all the boring repetitions (no source of income other than donations, etc., etc.), and simply note that if I have to move because I can't pay the rent, that will almost certainly be the end of me. I simply couldn't do it, financially or in any other way. And homelessness would certainly be it for me, The End. But right now, I have no funds for rent or the internet, or for a few other bills that must be paid. Any help that readers can provide would be received with great thanks and gratitude.

 Some of you have been wonderfully generous. I cannot thank you enough. Given the non-existence of my writing for a number of months, I'm somewhat stunned by the kindness I've received. I don't know if it's because of work already done, work you hope to see done, or simply because you want to help a fellow human being in rather dire circumstances, or some combination of factors. And I'm not sure why I'm still here at all. But the habit of life is very strong in us; it's certainly very strong in me. I'm not one who believes that "everything happens for a reason"; sometimes (very often, in fact) shit just happens. But since I am still here, I want to make something of it, if I can. And I do feel that my work is not done.

 Onward we go, stumbling, trying to find our way, muddling through. I shouldn't be presumptuous and say "we" in that way, but that certainly describes how I feel at the moment.

 As always, many thanks for your thoughtfulness and kindness. I don't acknowledge it as much as I should, but rest assured, I never forget it. Arthur email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-20668359.post-23470369191311036792014-09-21T10:18:00.000-07:002014-09-21T10:18:38.084-07:00I'm melting, you awful, terrible, rotten little girl!So, yeah, you may have heard that we had a record-breaking heat wave in Southern California. In my non-airconditioned, second-floor, no-cross-ventilation apartment, the temperature stayed around 85 or 90 degrees for the better part of ten days.

 But the cats and I survived. They seem to be okay, although Cyrano -- who celebrated his 16th birthday last month! -- should definitely take a trip to see the ve---...well, you know, that nice man with all the needles and tubes and stuff. Fun! I'm beginning to function again, but very slowly.

 I spent much of September in a quasi-comatose state, waiting for the misery to end. Lay in bed, barely moving, eating rarely (although the cats insisted on eating all the bleedin' time). Who wants to eat, when flexing your fingers makes you break out in a sweat? If it had gone on a few more days, I might have been driven to desperate measures. (I dunno what they would have been -- running down the street stark naked at 3 AM, something exciting like that.)

 Yesterday, I took stock of where I am. Among other things, I discovered I am very close to flat broke. Have about $140 to my name. That's it. (I guess that counts as flat broke. since the two credit cards I have are maxed out.) In a week, I have to pay rent, an internet bill, an electricity bill ... also food, now that I'm able to think about eating again, also the vet for Cyrano, if at all possible.

 Reviewing the situation, there is one good aspect to the past several weeks, that is, "good" in the sense that it provides me with scads of material for articles: some of the leading news stories, including the NFL business and the domestic violence and child abuse horrors, provide endless evidence of themes I've written about for years. And, as usual, some of the most crucial connections, including the numerous ways in which violence, cruelty and coercion in our personal lives is connected to and explains our politics, go unremarked by almost everyone. So I need to fill the gap as best I can. I've already collected lots of articles and stories. Once my brain has cleared a bit more, I'll get to work on all that.

 In the meantime, I know some of you must be tormented by your suspect possession of evil, capitalistic lucre. You can unload some of it in my direction, and reclaim your natural status as a person of superlative character and rarified discernment. (Ha! I can still shovel the shit. All is not lost.) Cyrano, Sasha and I would be very grateful.

 The three of us will now proceed to splash each other with cold water. Contrary to widely-held, typically baseless belief, some cats, definitely including the two who permit me to live here, adore water -- to play with, to splash, to generally make a mess with. They are too adorable, the little angels.Arthur email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-20668359.post-31375382548734702062014-08-27T11:24:00.000-07:002014-08-28T16:52:58.045-07:00Listening, and Being There, without JudgmentA number of people have sent me emails in response to my post the other day, more than is usually the case. I'm enormously grateful to all those who wrote, and I especially appreciate their sharing very intimate, and occasionally painful and even frightening, personal matters with me. Some of the messages moved me deeply.

 As I was reflecting on one particular aspect of these messages, I had a very odd thought. "Wait a minute," I mused. "Do some of these people think that I view suicide as a good thing?" I found the idea enormously upsetting. So I looked over my post again. I wrote that I regard any suicide as a "horrible and horrifying tragedy." The same idea is repeated several times in the course of the essay; the article as a whole unmistakably conveys the idea that when anyone is driven to suicide, it is a terrible, awful calamity.

 As an important side note, I add that I think it is a terrible, awful thing even in those instances when suicide is an entirely rational decision -- when, if you will, taking one's own life might even be regarded as the "right" action to take. I'm thinking in particular of the person who murders another human being (or more than one person), and does so not in self-defense, but as a act of gratuitous, unspeakable cruelty. When you have killed an innocent human being, it is impossible to make amends in any complete sense: you cannot bring the person back to life. It is an irreversible crime, one for which atonement is impossible. In such cases, if a person finally grasped the nature of what he had done, including the fact that he could never make amends in any way that would approach the full meaning of that term, I would consider the person's decision to kill himself as completely rational. I would still view it as an awful tragedy for all concerned, most particularly for those who had been the murderer's victims. I further note that this is one unassailable reason that no one should join the military -- or, these days, probably the police department or any other agency that utilizes lethal force -- of a government which murders innocent people with the systematic regularity employed. for example, by the United States government.

 Much has been written about the suicides of U.S. military personnel. But this is one critical issue -- and in many ways, I think it is the critical issue -- that I have never seen discussed: How do you make peace with the fact that you have murdered entirely innocent people, people who never wished to harm you, if only your government had left them the hell alone? How do you make amends to their families and friends, to all those who lives have been grievously wounded for the remainder of their lifetimes? Such torments will certainly be felt by those who kill innocent people themselves, but they also might very well be experienced by those who provide indirect, but necessary, support to the murderers. That is, these people will be tormented if and when the full reality and nature of their actions begins to take definite form in their minds and souls. Given the rash of unprovoked, aggressive military operations undertaken by the U.S. government around the world, and in light of the huge number of utterly unjustified murders that are an inextricable element of such operations, is it any wonder that so many people in the U.S. military suffer the torments of hell? Aside from the meaningless, vacuous phrases often associated with religious or quasi-religious viewpoints, what comfort can anyone offer them?

 When I thought about the messages I received concerning my post a bit longer, I realized that it wasn't that my correspondents thought I viewed suicide as a "good" thing, for I clearly don't. They obviously don't think it's a good thing, either. What I had picked up was enormously important, but for a very different reason: the people who sent me messages did so out of a profound feeling of relief. They knew they were writing to someone who would not judge what they wished to say about these matters, who would only listen as openly and compassionately as he could. And that, of course, was one of my central themes in that essay. In my own case, readers know that I myself have experienced episodes of deep depression, including thoughts of suicide. But it's not necessary for the listener to have had these feelings and lived through such episodes. What is necessary is that the listener be entirely open to what the person wishes to tell him, and that he do so in a completely non-judgmental way.

 In the previous article, I wrote that some of those people who strongly condemned Robin Williams for his suicide claim that they offer such condemnation to "help" others who might be experiencing suicidal thoughts; in some way, they consider it a helpful preventive measure. I said that this could not be the real reason, and that I would take up this question again. Think about it for a moment. A person who is thinking of suicide -- even if he does not have a specific plan in mind (I never did) -- is in the depths of unimaginable despair. He is also assaulted by feelings of inadequacy, of worthlessness, even of self-hatred and self-loathing. For all these reasons and more, he is immensely vulnerable and suggestible. And you're going to help him by vehemently condemning him for what are, at this point, only thoughts, and often only partially-formed thoughts? You're going to tell him: "To commit suicide is the act of a coward. It's weak, and it's selfish. And it's incredibly cruel to all those who care about you." This is going to help him?

 To the extent he believes you, and given his tremendous vulnerability it is all too likely he will, he'll conclude that he now has still more reasons to kill himself. He's much more worthless and even loathsome that he himself had thought. He's thinking of suicide! What a terrible, disgusting, horrible person he is! Obviously, he should kill himself immediately.

 I underscore that the person who claims he is trying to "help" in this particular manner adds a new, devastating element to the unbearably painful feelings of despair and helplessness that the sufferer already endures: the "helper" is piling an enormous amount of guilt onto feelings that are already unendurable. If he believes that he is weak, selfish and cruel for even having thoughts about suicide, he'll hate himself still more.

 As I indicated, all these observations should become apparent after even a few moments of serious thought about the subject. And yet, we know that many people -- actually, I would say most people -- offer "help" of this kind in varying ways and degrees. There is an explanation for this, but it is an explanation that many people do not care to consider. A story will help to make the explanation clearer. It's not my story: it's one that Alice Miller tells in For Your Own Good: Hidden Cruelty in Child-Rearing and the Roots of Violence. Here are two brief excerpts from Miller's chapter entitled, "Sylvia Plath: An Example of Forbidden Suffering." Miller writes:
 Sylvia Plath's life was no more difficult than that of millions of others. Presumably as a result of her sensitivity, she suffered much more intensely than most people from the frustrations of childhood, but she experienced joy more intensely also. Yet the reason for her despair was not her suffering but the impossibility of communicating her suffering to another person. In all her letters she assures her mother how well she is doing. The suspicion that her mother did not release negative letters for publication overlooks the deep tragedy of Plath's life. This tragedy (and the explanation for her suicide as well) lies in the very fact that she could not have written any other kind of letters, because her mother needed reassurance, or because Sylvia at any rate believed that her mother would not have been able to live without this reassurance. Had Sylvia been able to write aggressive and unhappy letters to her mother, she would not have had to commit suicide. Had her mother been able to experience grief at her inability to comprehend the abyss that was her daughter's life, she never would have published the letters, because the assurances they contained of how well things were going for her daughter would have been too painful to bear.
In the book of Plath's letters, her mother relates that a pastel still-life of Sylvia's gets blurred accidentally when an apron brushes up against it. Sylvia said, "Don't worry, I can patch it up" -- but later that night, she wrote her first poem, "containing tragic undertones." Plath was fourteen.

 Miller goes on:
If a sensitive child like Sylvia Plath intuits that it is essential for her mother to interpret the daughter's pain only as the consequence of a picture being damaged and not as a consequence of the destruction of her daughter's self and its expression -- symbolized in the fate of the pastel -- the child will do her utmost to hide her authentic feelings from the mother. The letters are testimony of the false self she constructed (whereas her true self is speaking in The Bell Jar). With the publication of the letters, her mother erects an imposing monument to her daughter's false self.

 We can learn from this example what suicide really is: the only possible way to express the true self -- at the expense of life itself. Many parents are like Sylvia's mother. They desperately try to behave correctly toward their child, and in their child's behavior they seek reassurance that they are good parents. The attempt to be an ideal parent, that is, to behave correctly toward the child, to raise her correctly, not to give too little or too much, is in essence an attempt to be the ideal child -- -- well behaved and dutiful -- of one's own parents. But as a result of these efforts the needs of the child go unnoticed. I cannot listen to my child with empathy if I am inwardly preoccupied with being a good mother; I cannot be open to what she is telling me. This can be observed in various parental attitudes.
Let me repeat the two most crucial sentences from these passages:
Yet the reason for her despair was not her suffering but the impossibility of communicating her suffering to another person.

We can learn from this example what suicide really is: the only possible way to express the true self -- at the expense of life itself.
The vast majority of parents are not concerned with attending to their child's genuine, firsthand emotions and needs, certainly not to any consistent degree. Instead, they are concerned with behaving "properly" and "correctly," with acting and even feeling the "right" way. They first learned this as children, when their own parents made the same demands of them. And now, they make identical demands of their children.

 While I would not claim this is the explanation in every case, it is certainly the explanation for the majority of parents who behave as Plath's mother did (which is most of them), and it is also the explanation for all those who rush to condemn the person who kills himself. As I have observed, if we make real to ourselves the immense, unbearable pain experienced by someone who considers suicide, however briefly and in however vague a manner, we would quickly realize that the absolute last thing we would wish to do is add to their suffering, by criticizing them for cowardice, weakness, and the like. This is not a sophisticated, complex point encountered only in advanced texts on therapeutic techniques: it is simple common sense, a matter of what could be everyday understanding. But most of us are so bound up in the commandments imposed on us by our parents, and then internalized within us as we grow to adulthood when they are only very rarely dislodged, that we have rendered ourselves impervious to ideas that would otherwise be grasped quite easily.

 There remain many additional issues to discuss about this subject, and I will shortly take up a few more of them. For the moment, I'll conclude with some thoughts I offered once before:
Finally, here's some unsolicited advice. If anyone you know ever makes a tentative effort to discuss obviously painful feelings with you, and perhaps even thoughts of suicide, do not judge them, do not condemn them, and above all, do not attempt in any way to shut them down. Listen, listen as carefully as you can -- and communicate to the person in every manner possible that there is someone who cares about them, who hears and sees the pain they are in, and who wants to help, if you can. Just be there, as a friend, as someone who empathizes, and make real to yourself what their pain feels like.

 Just be there, with understanding, with compassion, with affection or love, as the case may be. As Miller indicates, be open to what the person is telling you. Sometimes, just being there, being there in the most meaningful sense, is the hardest thing in the world to do -- and the most important.

 And perhaps, someday, the horrors will end. I still choose to believe in miracles.
Now, more than ten years later, I feel exactly the same way. That passage is from an article I published in February 2004, when I first related the Sylvia Plath story as discussed by Alice Miller. While my understanding of these issues has thankfully increased in the past decade, just as I have encountered (and sometimes written about) many other examples of these same dynamics, I did a decent job all those years ago. Perhaps the presentation is more effective this time, if only because Robin Williams' tragic death is still so recent.

 Until next time.Arthur email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-20668359.post-42437585215484128082014-08-25T12:49:00.000-07:002014-08-27T21:01:46.475-07:00When the Pain Never EndsI'm just so tired, he thought. And the pain won't stop. What is it people say? Everything ends eventually. But the pain doesn't. He stood looking through the window, his eyes seeing nothing. His face was expressionless; to convey even the smallest emotion now required too much effort. He felt that merely breathing was too difficult a task to be managed any longer.

The voice behind him wouldn't stop either. His lover continued his litany of complaints. "You just won't do anything to help yourself get out of this mood. At my job, you get three days off for a death in the family. That's it. Then you carry on. But you lie around and won't do a damned thing. When I get home at night, you haven't even moved the newspaper on the table, or your morning coffee cup. It's time for you to snap out of it. You could do it if you wanted to. But you don't. I never would have thought you could be so weak."

He could recite the complaints from memory now. He heard them every two or three days. Does he think I'm enjoying this? he wondered. Does he honestly believe that I'd choose this grim, bleak existence? Doesn't he realize I''m desperate to find pleasure again in something, anything? But I've lost the trick of it, and I can't get it back. And I'm so, so tired.

He tried to calculate how long the agony had been going on. It stretched back almost eight months. His closest friend, the woman who was the nearest to a true soul mate he'd ever found, had grown progressively sicker and was finally diagnosed with metastasized lung cancer. She was dead two months later, faster than anyone had expected. She was gone so quickly that he never had the chance to see her a final time, for she lived across the country. But he would have long phone conversations with her, even during the final couple of weeks when she was heavily drugged and increasingly incomprehensible. He would talk with her for an hour at a time, letting her take the conversation wherever she wished. responding as if she were expressing thoughts that were intriguing and worthy of close examination. But in those last weeks, what she said was gobbledegook. She was a brilliant woman: it was as if she retained the form of her intelligence, including the ability to construct a long, complex argument, offering many specific examples to demonstrate what she meant, but the content had been obliterated to be replaced with nonsensical gibberish. Other friends of hers marveled that he and his friend had these conversations at all, but it was all he could offer her, just to be with her in any way he could. She wanted to talk, so they talked. That was when the profound exhaustion first struck him; after these conversations, he would collapse for hours, more tired than he had ever felt in his life, unable to grasp how the world, how life could be so ungraspably cruel. She had just turned 61 when she died.

Exactly one week later, his lover announced that he had fallen in love with someone else, and he felt they needed to discuss ending their relationship. He pointed out to his lover that his comments about this miraculous new love mirrored completely the way he had talked about him when they first met. He explained why he thought his lover was simply repeating an old pattern of avoidance, of pursuing a fantasy and fearing the genuine intimacy that comes with a relationship that lasts more than a couple of years. They agreed they would go to a couples counselor, to examine their problems and what they might do. He paid for it, for he had much more money than his lover at that time. He still paid for the counseling as he listened to the repeated complaints, for he thought his lover was committed to working through their problems if they could. It subsequently turned out that his lover had lied about that (undoubtedly to himself, as well), for he lied about many things. His lover spent the weekend his soul mate died -- when they knew she would die at any moment -- with his new boyfriend. He had lied about that, too.

A few weeks after his lover had announced his new infatuation, one of his beloved cats got terribly sick. It appeared he would die. He was finally diagnosed with a heart murmur and cardiomyopathy; the medication the cat was given led to stabilization and substantial recovery. But for a few months, the cat was at death's door. During this same time, his mother was dying; her breast cancer had returned, and there simply wasn't much they could do for her any longer. As his mother was dying, he and his lover continued their faux-work with the couples counselor. He thought it entirely possible that his lover might disappear at any moment. As tension-filled and nervewracking as their relationship had become, he felt that he would die himself if he experienced another major, final loss. All this happened just as he was trying to start a business of his own. It proved to be much more difficult than he had anticipated. Luckily, he had enough money at that point to support them (with a small contribution from his lover).

His mother died five months later. The accumulation of losses finally paralyzed him almost completely. During all this time, he was seeing no less than two psychologists and one psychiatrist: the couples counselor, a psychologist for himself alone, and a psychiatrist whom he saw once a month, who oversaw the medication he was taking, including an antidepressant. None of it helped in any substantial respect. He simultaneously felt entirely numb, as if he would never experience a vivid emotion ever again, while he also felt assailed by a pain that was unendurable. He felt there was nothing left to hold onto, nothing left to support him in any part of his life. And he had no strength to take even the smallest step in any direction. He wanted only one thing: he wanted the agony to stop.

But it wouldn't stop. And now his lover's complaints wouldn't stop. "You could change if you wanted to! You can snap out of it, but you won't. It's your fault! You're weak. And selfish." Finally, his lover stopped talking. He still looked out the window, unable to move, terrified that the next moment might bring still worse pain, seeing nothing, expressionless, feeling nothing but the desire for all of it to stop. After a few moments, he quietly murmured, strangely aware that he was choosing his words with great care, even though they seemed to come from someone else, "Sometimes I feel that the only thing I can do is kill you, kill the cats, and then kill myself. What else is there to do? What else can I do to make this stop?"

The words hung in the air for a minute or two. His lover said nothing. I've finally shocked him into silence, he thought. Good. He felt an odd moment of clarity, as if saying the words defined the issue in some way. After another few moments, he murmured, still more quietly, "But I can't do that, of course. So ..."

He couldn't complete the thought. So ... so what? What was he going to do? What could he do? He had no idea. He knew he was incapable of becoming a murderer, at least he hoped he was. So he prayed, a man who had never prayed in his life -- and it was the only thought that remained to him, and he clung to it with all the fierceness left in him -- that the pain itself would finally kill him, relieving him of all choice and responsibility, forever and ever.

 Maybe tomorrow, he thought. Maybe I'll die tomorrow.

********************

 I have been painfully aware for a very long time that most people understand next to nothing about suicide. I view this particular ignorance as a derivative issue: it is a narrower expression of most people's ignorance about psychology in general, including their own. Nonetheless, the avalanche of heedlessly aggressive and cruel ignorance following the suicide of a celebrity, as in the recent case of Robin Williams, always takes me aback. It isn't simply that most people understand almost nothing about the subject. It's that they know nothing -- and their unblemished ignorance doesn't cause them to hesitate even for a moment before offering diagnoses cribbed from lousy books and crappy movies, or picked up from their favorite phony guru of the moment. All that would be sufficiently deplorable, especially when, as is usually the case, these pretenses at scientific understanding are announced in the loud, brash tones of an overbearing sideshow barker offering his latest secret patent medicine that will cure you of all ailments, present and future. "Drink Dr. Schmoo's Magic Elixir, and not only will you never think of suicide again. You'll be dizzily, deliriously happy!" These days, the barker can add that, if you still harbor violent thoughts, you can go to work for the U.S. government and kill countless people around the world. Not only can you do so with utter impunity; you will be celebrated for it. At present, if you work for almost any government entity at any level, you can murder innocent people at home, too. Truly we are blessed to have such a beneficent government, so devoted to our well-being that it provides numerous outlets for the repressed rage that is so widespread in our culture.

 But no, all that is not enough for the amateur geniuses in our midst. It's the goddamned moralizing that so many engage in, and with such feverish glee, that horrifies me. What is this irresistible compulsion that so many people feel to pass judgment on someone who has just killed himself? In the case of Williams, as in every similar case, including those involving non-celebrities, we're offered a choice between sympathy for someone who suffered from "mental illness," or condemnation for someone who was weak and selfish. Some try to combine the alternatives; the result is only a monstrous hybrid destined for an early death, a hybrid that is singularly unconvincing during its brief life.

I find it difficult to convey how bizarre I find this need to pass judgment on the person who kills himself, whether the judgment is positive or negative. When I say "positive" in this context, I do so simply to stress the distinction between the "understanding" and "condemnation" approaches. And for most people who utilize the understanding-"mental illness" approach, the understanding is frequently heavily tinged with tones of forgiveness. "He committed a horrible act, but we understand why he did it and that his action was not truly voluntary. Therefore, we cannot blame him for it." The clear implication is that we should "forgive" him for an act that was not within his control. But to preach sermons of forgiveness or condemnation at a dead person is a singularly odd way to pass one's time. I often wonder if such people actually grasp what death itself is. Some polls suggest that many people do not. A few years ago, a poll found that just over half of people around the world believe in God and an afterlife. A Huffington Post poll focused only on the afterlife question had a similar result. The Huffington Post poll employed a dubious methodology, in that readers voluntarily selected themselves to participate. Regardless of the methodology, the result tracks many other polls on this and similar issues. Many, many people choose to believe in fantasies that comfort them in some manner. People can believe whatever they want, but they should not expect to be taken seriously when there is not a shred of evidence to support their delusions.

Robin Williams (or any other suicide victim) is <i<>dead. He doesn't give a damn whether anyone forgives or condemns him. There isn't a small collection of "Robin Williams" particles floating somewhere in the universe, and who is now comforted by the voices of forgiveness or tormented by the condemnations hurled at his (somehow conscious) atoms. Here, most people's tangled attempts to grasp the nature of suicide run straight into our culture's inability to face death squarely and maturely, as well as colliding with most people's failure to grasp the idea of nothing. Death isn't followed by another form of being. You may hope it is, but hope does not constitute evidence. I frequently have the sense that many people believe their own deaths will be followed by a few of their atoms (or "spirit" or whatever they wish to call it) sitting around (or whatever such atoms or "spirit" do when they relax) thinking about how terrible it is that they died. Your death is followed by nothing, by the void. Not a single piece of evidence exists to suggest otherwise, in however inchoate a manner.

 Judgment of whatever kind cannot be offered for the benefit of the person who is now dead. So, for whose benefit is the judgment being announced? Some will say -- usually those people who strongly condemn suicide -- that they do it for the sake of those who might be considering suicide themselves. But this cannot be the genuine reason, not if one thinks about it seriously and honestly for a few minutes. I'll come back to this issue.

 When I hear about a suicide, anyone's suicide, my first thoughts always concern what a horrible and horrifying tragedy it is. Life -- and the fact that we are aware that we are alive, with everything that entails -- is a miraculous gift. I am an atheist, but I consider the gift of life, and conscious life in particular, on the order of a miracle. Yet the person who kills himself has chosen to wipe himself out of existence for all time, to obliterate himself absolutely. Do you have any idea how unbearable the pain must be for a human being -- who is aware of the incredible fact that he is alive, and how precious that is -- to commit such an act?

 I wrote the story that opens this essay in the hope that readers might understand the nature of that pain more completely. Attentive, regular readers will have realized that it is an autobiographical story; it's about me. It describes my life from roughly August 1993 through March 1994. And, yes, I was the person who thought that the only way to end the torment was to murder my lover, my cats, and then myself. Does that shock you? Do you condemn me for it? I'm sure some people will. I'm well aware that revealing this much about myself carries certain dangers, but I concluded that the dangers were outweighed by the importance of shedding more light on certain matters, and by a large margin. I left out many details, some of which were hardly insignificant in terms of adding to my torments. As just one example, in the midst of all these calamities, the Northridge earthquake occurred on January 17, 1994. It was terrifying, and it caused a lot of damage to the apartment my lover and I then shared. So when I write: "He felt there was nothing left to hold onto, nothing left to support him in any part of his life.," I am referring not only to the psychological agonies I was experiencing, but literally to the earth under my feet. And the aftershocks from that earthquake went on for weeks, even months. Experiencing that on top of everything else, I sometimes felt I would truly go insane.

 Regular readers know how devoted I am to my cats. Perhaps you're horrified that I could even think of killing the cats that I had at that time. I would suggest that you should first try to understand the psychological process involved. My life was nothing but unendurable pain. I couldn't imagine any kind of life that would be free of that pain. If I were to die, what would happen to my cats? At that point, I realized I couldn't depend on my lover to see that they found good homes; this was especially true of my wonderful Elyot, who was still recovering from his brush with death and would require special care for the rest of his life. And I doubted that any of my friends would exert the effort required to see that they were safe and happy. So I thought it most likely that they would be taken away by the animal control people, to live in cages, to be miserably unhappy and terrified, until they were finally put down. More than anything, I wanted to spare my cats that pain and unhappiness. So I would kill them to protect them. There is a terrible, inexorable logic dictated by depression that is this severe. I raised this issue with the psychiatrist I was seeing during that period. He told me that he had testified on several occasions in the cases of mothers who had killed their children, and then tried to kill themselves. When the mothers survived their attempts at suicide, they were prosecuted for the murders of their children. The psychiatrist explained that the mother was attempting, in a cruelly, horrifically distorted way, to protect them from future pain and suffering, which she viewed as an absolute certainty. (Please note that this issue is entirely separate from what might need to be done to prevent these people from inflicting harm on others. Once a person has actually committed such acts, clearly certain steps are required to prevent them from committing similar acts again.)

As I say, I've known for a long time that most people have very little understanding of these issues, which admittedly are especially difficult and painful. But in the aftermath of Williams' suicide, we were all treated to a variant on the general cultural ignorance that was new to me. I first heard it from an outstandingly awful Los Angeles radio talk show host, Tim Conway, Jr. I have sometimes found his father very funny, on the old Carol Burnett show, for example. But my appreciation for the senior Conway's work has been entirely negated by the fact that he raised such an ignorant and bombastically offensive son. (Conway, Jr. employs only two modes of speech on his show: a normal conversational tone and screaming. I don't refer to talking loudly: I mean screaming. And with regard to the proportions of each, screaming wins in a knockout.) Conway, Jr. often talks of his reverence for his father, and about how his father was "tough" in the way he raised him, teaching him the value of hard discpline. All of this is directly relevant to what follows, as we shall see.

 Conway, Jr. announced a moral principle that had escaped my notice until he enlightened me: it appears that, once you have children, once you have even one child, you forever forfeit the right to kill yourself. When a parent kills himself, he visits irreparable damage on his children, subjecting them to a lifetime of unending psychological torment. A parent must never, ever injure his children in this way. When I first heard this, I was struck by how strange it was to select this one issue to focus on in as single-minded a manner as Conway, Jr. did. As the week following Williams' death wore on, Conway, Jr. returned to this theme repeatedly. I must have heard him deliver this sermon at least three or four times. One question about this message presents itself immediately. What is the justification for carving out an exception for parents, and only for parents? We certainly would not wish to condemn young children for killing themselves, but such suicides are very rare. If we confine the argument to children aged 18 and older, isn't it true that a child who commits suicide subjects his parents to immense suffering and torment in precisely the same way? We know that it is. What about people who are married or share their lives with a partner, especially if the relationship is one of many years' duration? Isn't the person who commits suicide visiting terrible suffering on his spouse or partner? We know that's true, as well. For that matter, what about any of us? We all have friends and acquaintances, people who care about us, sometimes very deeply and for many years. Aren't many of those people going to be devastated by our suicide? But spouses, partners, and all the rest of us apparently retain the right to kill ourselves. To this way of thinking, parents constitute a unique class, set completely apart from everyone else.

 If Conway, Jr. had been the only person I heard offering this view, I probably would have let it go. But then I heard several other public voices proclaiming the same notion: parents are a breed apart. When you become a parent, suicide is permanently off-limits. And then this column by Henry Rollins intruded into the cultural conversation. It is one of the most profoundly ghastly pieces I have ever had the misfortune to read. The concluding section is a monument to the obliteration of understanding, compassion and empathy; it is also an astonishing and shocking psychological confession. But the final section and those particular issues require a separate discussion, which I will get to in the next article.

 Earlier in his column, Rollins offers his version of the position put forth by Conway, Jr. and others I heard. Here is Rollins' version of this theory:
 I am sure some will strongly disagree with what I'm about to say. And I also understand that his personal struggles were quite real. I can't argue with that.

 But I simply cannot understand how any parent could kill themselves.

 How in the hell could you possibly do that to your children? I don't care how well adjusted your kid might be — choosing to kill yourself, rather than to be there for that child, is every shade of awful, traumatic and confusing. I think as soon as you have children, you waive your right to take your own life. No matter what mistakes you make in life, it should be your utmost goal not to traumatize your kids. So, you don't kill yourself.
It was when I read the Rollins article that I finally grasped what was happening here, and the source of this bizarre argument. It was then that I knew that I would have to write about Williams' suicide and some of the many issues it raises.

 The source of this argument is what I will refer to as the Fable of the Good Parent. To put it another way, it rests on an inaccurate, false idealization of parents in general, of the parent as parent. The argument only makes sense if one assumes that the parent, any parent, is, at least for the most part, supportive and nurturing: that he or she deeply values the child as a unique human being in his own right, and that the parent is dedicated to encouraging the child to find and develop his own, genuine sense of self. But all of this is precisely what the majority of parents do not do. In fact, the goal of most parents' methods of raising their children is entirely and profoundly opposed to these aims. The simple, awful fact is that most parents inflict terrible damage on their children, damage that is often irreparable and that always leaves, at a minimum, wounds that last for the child's lifetime. And most parents do this in the name of "good parenting" and "responsible child-rearing."

 The truth -- the truth that most people vehemently deny, the truth that most people will not seriously consider, and the truth that Williams himself could never face (as we shall see next time) -- is that most parents behave in ways that are "awful, traumatic and confusing" every day, and usually multiple times a day. Most parents "traumatize [their] kids" with a frequency that would shock us to the core, if only we had the courage to acknowledge the truth of the parents' actions. Much of what happens in the world, including in our politics and foreign policy, is explained by the fact that many parents regularly and consistently teach their children that cruelty, and even violence, are love. New horrors erupt in our country, and around the world, every day in very significant part because this is one of the primary lessons parents teach their children.

 To single out suicide as a uniquely traumatic event that a parent visits on his children strongly testifies to the enduring power of our cultural denial about this subject, and to the unending delusions with which we seek to falsely comfort ourselves.

 All of this requires a lengthier explanation, to which I will turn next time. Until then, you might want to read this article, particularly Part I (and look at some of the linked articles, if you wish), which will provide some of the background for my argument.

 UPDATE: This discussion continues here.Arthur firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-20668359.post-21199001092590180942014-08-04T08:48:00.000-07:002014-08-04T08:48:41.491-07:00Still (Barely) HereProfuse apologies for my long silence. I truly am terribly sorry. But I haven't known what to say. I'm in scarily horrible shape physically, incapable of little more than moving a bit around the apartment a few times a day. It's taking me enormous energy and willpower to write just this. And I know most people want to be reassured, to know that I'm "okay." I'm not okay, and I have no reassurance to offer.

 But the cats and I still do have a home for now -- and for that a multitude of thanks to those of you who have been very kind. So in addition to being unable to reassure you, I feel like the world's most ungrateful bastard. People are very generous, and I can't even write a couple of posts.

 I've tried to do some writing, and I can't shape anything to my satisfaction. As much as I dread the subject, I would like to offer some commentary on the horrors in Gaza; I have the beginning of a draft, titled "Drowning in the Blood-Dimmed Tide." While I'm unable to summon forth that new post, I will refer you to two past ones, both of which remain sickeningly timely.

 The first is from November 2012, and it begins with this:
Gaza is a concentration camp. It is not like a concentration camp. It is not a metaphorical or figurative concentration camp. It is a concentration camp. Our culture, our political leaders, and the cacophony of voices in the media have all agreed that this truth must never be spoken. If one wanted to be momentarily charitable about people's absolute refusal to recognize the obvious, one might argue that a land area of approximately 140 square miles, containing a population of roughly 1.7 million people, could not possibly be a concentration camp. But size and the number of prisoners are not the distinguishing characteristics of a concentration camp. The most essential characteristic of a concentration camp is what is permitted, and what is not. Only one question matters: Under what conditions are the people within its borders permitted to live?
The second article goes back further in time, to January 2009. In "The Slaughter of the Diseased Animals," I described the pattern repeatedly engaged in by both the United States and Israel, and perhaps it bears repeating:
For a very long time, the United States government has specialized in the pattern pursued by Israel. The vastly more powerful nation wishes to act on a certain policy -- almost always territorial expansion, for purposes of access to resources, or to force itself into new markets, or to pursue the evil notion that economic and ideological success depend on brutality and conquest -- but a specifically moral justification for its planned actions does not lie easily to hand.

 So the powerful nation embarks on a course designed to make life intolerable for the country and/or those people that stand in its way. The more powerful nation is confident that, given sufficient time and sufficient provocation, the weaker country and people will finally do something that the actual aggressor can seize on as a pretext for the policy upon which it had already decided. In this way, what then unfolds becomes the victim's fault.
This is one of the most common, and one of the most damaging, patterns in human behavior, and we see its operations in many forms. A more recent example from the more personal realm will be found in this discussion about "tone."

 Israel's attacks on Gaza always make me think of a horrifying sequence from the film Hud; I've thought of that scene often in the last two weeks, and it was that scene that provided the title for my earlier essay. I described it this way -- and I defy you to formulate a meaningful distinction between what happens to the cattle in the film and the nightmare that Israel inflicts on the Palestinians:
The story concerns a cattle rancher and his family. It is discovered that some of the cattle have contracted hoof and mouth disease. To prevent the spread of the disease, and because he can think of no other means to control it, the head of the family decides that all the cattle must be destroyed.

 A large pit is dug, deep enough to prevent the cattle from getting out. The cattle are driven into the pit, with all means of escape closed off. The men stand around the edges of the pit, and they lift their rifles. They begin to shoot -- and they shoot, and shoot, and shoot, and shoot.

 Finally, after endless, terrifying minutes, all the cattle are dead.
That is what Israel is doing in Gaza: it is engaged in a program of extermination. Minimal decency and intellectual honesty should compel us to speak the truth about this matter.

 At least the cattle were actually diseased, or at least some of them were. What is the disease carried by the Palestinians? It's very simple: their conviction that they, too, have a right to exist.

 For that, they must be destroyed.Arthur email@example.com