“And then, quite suddenly, summer was over. He knew it first when walking downtown. Tom grabbed his arm and pointed gasping, at the dimestore window. They stood there unable to move because of the things from another world displayed so neatly, so innocently, so frighteningly, there. “Pencils, Doug, ten thousand pencils!” “Oh, my gosh!” “Nickel tablets, dime tablets, notebooks, erasers, water colors, rulers, compasses, a hundred thousand of them!” “Don’t look. Maybe it’s just a mirage.” “No,” moaned Tom in despair. “School. School straight on ahead! Why, why do dime stores show things like that in windows before summer’s even over! Ruin half the vacation!” ― Ray Bradbury, Dandelion Wine
“June dawns, July noons, August evenings over, finished, done, and gone forever with only the sense of it all left here in his head. Now, a whole autumn, a white winter, a cool and greening spring to figure sums and totals of summer past. And if he should forget, the dandelion wine stood in the cellar, numbered huge for each and every day. He would go there often, stare straight into the sun until he could stare no more, then close his eyes and consider the burned spots, the fleeting scars left dancing on his warm eyelids; arranging, rearranging each fire and reflection until the pattern was clear… So thinking, he slept. And, sleeping, put an end to Summer, 1928.” ― Ray Bradbury, Dandelion Wine
I was looking for something to watch on tv tonight and I noticed that I had recorded “A Man for All Seasons” recently. But when I started it, I saw that I had missed the beginning and it started in the middle of Henry VIII’s visit to Thomas’s home. I was disappointed but then realized that even watching part of this movie was more enticing than watching any one of a hundred movies that I had ready in their entirety. Now why I haven’t already added this movie to my collection is a mystery for which I should be rebuked. It is indeed an inspirational film.
But what struck me while I was watching it was a line that two of the characters used in the story. At two separate points someone says, “This isn’t Spain you know, it’s England!” And this is meant to mean that England is a free country and not full of religious zealots that would burn you at the stake for superstitious nonsense. But of course, one of them is Cromwell who arranges perjury to have Thomas More beheaded for refusing to sign an oath confirming Henry’s legitimacy as head of the Church in England. Even more amusing, the Cardinal who assisted Cromwell in this witch hunt was literally burned at the stake a few years later.
And now the reason I’m writing this essay. That little phrase that the characters recited reminded me of what we used to repeat, “It’s a free country, I can say what I please.” It was a trite saying. But it was true. You could say or believe whatever you wanted to.
But is that still a true statement? No, it is not. There are many things you may not say. The COVID episode proved that. The government proved that. They ordered the social media platforms to censor anything they didn’t like about COVID. And they did it. And they hid the fact that they did it. So, most people never knew there were other sides to the story. They did it so successfully that most people still don’t know just how many lies the government told about COVID. And they did the same sort of thing about Hunter’s Laptop and a host of other stories that were embarrassing to the Biden administration.
And it’s gone well beyond political issues. They censor stories about pediatric transgender drug therapies and surgeries, illegal immigration criminality, price increases on food and housing, unemployment figures; basically, anything that makes the Biden administration look bad. And of course, the biggest coverup was the fact that Joe Biden was suffering from dementia.
So, is this really still a free country? I would have to say that since the “Patriot Act” was signed into law we have ceased to be free. The government knows everything we say and the government now censures anything we say that they don’t like.
Well, that’s where we are. It’s a discouraging thought. But watching More’s story helped. Here was a man surrounded by jackals and yet he lived his life in service to the good. He exemplified intelligence, honesty and humanity. His enemies ultimately destroyed him and yet history has recognized his excellence while branding his persecutors as pernicious, dishonest and cowardly.
I hardly see myself as martyr material. I enjoy annoying Camera Girl too much to want to end up on the chopping block either figuratively or literally. But I do think we should all be willing to pay some price to oppose the forces that have gained a stranglehold on America. We’re all guilty of laziness in some sense or other and it behooves us to step up and try to make a difference in our families and local communities. This isn’t Spain you know!
The world is dying of machinery; that is the great disease, that is the plague that will sweep away and destroy civilization; man will have to rise against it sooner or later.
George Moore
Update:
From Master Diver:
Well, we did celebrate the 7th Anniversary of the Day Skynet Awakened on August 29th.
Skynet2
photog replied:
We may live to think that Skynet’s actions were the better bargain compared to what seems to be ahead for us.
Bash: Hi, I’m Dana Bash and I’m here with Vice President Kamala Harris and Governor Walz and this is the first CNN interview for her presidential campaign.
Walz: That’s right Dana. It’s the first!
Bash: That’s right Governor. That’s right. Madame Vice President, how would you describe the direction that your campaign is taking now that the convention is over?
Harris: I would describe it as joyful Dana.
Walz: That’s right Dana, joyful. Full of joy.
Bash: Okay. Full of joy. That’s good. But is there any more, uh, concrete policy statement or theme to the campaign.
Harris: Yes Dana. Without a doubt. My administration will use all of the resources of the federal government to find, prosecute and imprison that guy that made the compilation of me saying, “unburdened by what was.” Anyone who would belittle and mock a woman of color who is also Vice President of the United States is obviously a racist and a misogynist.
Walz: Uh, wait a minute.
Harris: Hey, I’m talking here Tim!
Walz: Yes, Madame Vice President. But…
Harris: But nothing! And not only will we convict and possibly execute this monster…
Walz: Execute? Wait a minute.
Harris: Shut up Walz! I’m going to find everyone who shared this video and arrest them. And then I’ll find anyone who watched it and arrest them too. They must all pay.
Bash: Madame Vice President, maybe you remember how President Biden’s debate performance had a very deleterious effect on his re-election campaign. Basically, not being able to answer simple policy questions or even speak in complete sentences caused the American people to doubt his competency to continue as president for another term. What the American people want to know is how they can trust you to tell them the truth about all the important events and policy questions that presidents handle if you withheld the important fact that Joe Biden was a dementia patient for most or all of his term? How can they find you trustworthy?
Harris: Trustworthy. When we say that someone is trustworthy, we are saying that that person is worthy of trust. And a person who is worthy of trust is trustworthy. And that is what I am. I am a trustworthy person who is worthy of trust. That’s what I am. And the American people can see a future of me being trustworthy unencumbered by a past where I didn’t tell them that Joe Biden was a little bit demented.
Walz: Okay, that’s enough. I can’t do this anymore. I’m willing to do that tour in Iraq now. Anything rather than listen to any more of this. I thought I could just ignore the idiocy. After all I made believe that BLM was a legitimate cause and that letting them burn down Minneapolis and St. Paul was a reasonable thing for a governor to do. But listening to Kamala Harris for four years would land me in an asylum. (STALKS OFF STAGE).
Bash: In light of current events should we maybe postpone this interview until a later date?
Harris: I can imagine 2028 unencumbered by memory of this interview. Maybe 2032?
For a thousand years from roughly 500 BC to 500 AD the most dynamic civilization on the planet was the Greco-Roman world. This consisted of a number of Indo-European speaking pastoral tribes who had earlier invaded southeastern Europe and disrupting the existing Mediterranean civilization there, borrowed heavily from their predecessors and founded city states in Italy, Asia Minor and the Balkans while competing with the more civilized Phoenicians and struggling to resist even less civilized Indo-European tribes like the Celts who periodically invaded from the north. Two of these cities; first Athens in Hellas and then Rome in Italy, stumbled upon the dynamism that comes when some measure of freedom from oppression is codified into a government.
In both cases the limited form of democracy unleashed a power that dominated its neighbors for an appreciable time. Eventually in both cases this freedom decayed and was replaced by autocracy.
A little more than a thousand years after the remnants of the Greco-Roman civilization collapsed the English resurrected a different but similar form of government. And the English colonies around the world have continued and adapted this form of government including the former colonies that became the United States of America. A case can be made that the last four hundred years have represented the practical extent of this experiment in democracy. And like the Athenians before them the American and the British have tried to force their vassal states to emulate their form of government, so that today the number of democracies in the world is impressive, unless you look too closely.
But four hundred years is a long time. Athens maintained democracy for most of one hundred and eighty years and theoretically the Roman republic hadn’t devolved into a dictatorship for almost five hundred years. But truly the last century of the Roman republic was a series of dictators vying to stay in power and unleashing endless wars on the state.
So, four hundred years is a pretty good run. But the current Anglo-American project is showing many of the warning signs of an exhausted civilization. And probably the most damning is the plutocrats trying to eliminate the middle-class and replace them with serfs. Even back in 4th century Athens, Aristotle knew that only with a numerous middle-class can a free state maintain itself. Well, we are quickly devolving into the condition that the Roman plebians found themselves in the first century BC. Their farms were bought up by the rich who used slave labor to outcompete the small farmers and left them forced to enlist in the army just to keep from starving.
Our predicament is even worse. The plutocrats don’t need us at all, not even as cannon fodder. All they want us to do is disappear. So that leaves us with Donald Trump. He says he wants to make us great again. He’ll have to answer two questions:
Is it too late to get an honest election?
Is it too late to restore the middle class?
Of course, if the first answer is no then the second answer is no by default. I am hoping he can pull it off. Getting a fair election is a long shot. But there’s no reason to hope against it. Restoring prosperity is a larger and more complicated story. And finally, if he manages to get some things done, the next question is can he recruit honest men to succeed him and keep the effort going. Because, let’s face it, there is a generation of work to even begin to fix our problems. It’ll take a whole pocket full of miracles.
One thing that the Athenians had over us is honest comic poets. Aristophanes openly mocked the failures and foibles of the leaders of his country. All we have is Saturday Night Live and the late-night show hosts. And they’re all in the bag for the Democrats. And on top of everything else they’re not even funny. Well, we have this guy.
