Governor Moonbeam declines spliff

At left: back in the day, when Governor Brown was more open-minded.






California Governor Jerry Brown was once MY governor when I lived on the West Coast. At that time, over 30 years ago, he was known as Governor Moonbeam.

There was a reason for that.

Now that he is old, staid, respectable and not hanging with sexy rock stars with well-documented cocaine issues, Governor Moonbeam has sobered up and got himself re-elected in 2011 ... and with a straight face, claims he doubts marijuana legalization is a good thing:

California Gov. Jerry Brown (D) said Sunday that he is not convinced legalizing marijuana is a good idea because the population needs to "stay alert."

"The problem with anything, a certain amount is okay," Brown said on NBC's Meet the Press. "But there is a tendency to go to extremes. And all of a sudden, if there's advertising and legitimacy, how many people can get stoned and still have a great state or a great nation? The world's pretty dangerous, very competitive. I think we need to stay alert, if not 24 hours a day, more than some of the potheads might be able to put together."

A recent poll found that for the first time ever, a majority of Californians support legalizing marijuana. More than half of U.S. states are also considering decriminalizing or legalizing marijuana since Colorado and Washington did so a little over a year ago.

Brown noted that California already allows medical marijuana, but said he is not completely sold on legalizing the drug for recreational use.

"I'd really like those two states to show us how it's going to work," he said.

Unbelievably, the MEET THE PRESS media flunkies actually let the governor of the state with HUMBOLDT COUNTY in it, get away with that shit.

This is hypocritical, to say the least. Marijuana is a major cash crop of California, and it is reasonable to assume the governor is well aware of that, as is the rest of the world.

Ah, wait. I get it. (((strobe light comes on))))

Wow, Governor Moonbeam has come a loooong way since he allowed fruit fly infestations to get out of hand.

He has turned into a politician! Finally, at long last. He is hustling for his state's economy, as any other governor would. Stay alert, yeah, and get re-elected, those are the goals. Brown knows that California's economy will be hard-hit if marijuana is at last LEGAL. The enormous profits in Humboldt County are a direct result of its illegal status and the inflated prices that have resulted. There is huge concern that certain counties will totally financially collapse if marijuana is made legal.

Certainly, Governor Brown doesn't want that sort of economic crisis on HIS watch.

From Vice:

In the run-up to the vote for California’s cannabis regulation bill in 2010, which would have largely legalized the drug, there was a sticker plastered on trucks, shacks, and homesteads in this secluded, densely forested wilderness area that said, "Save Humboldt County—Keep Pot Illegal." That attitude is based on simple, rational economic reasoning: Experts predict that if weed were to be legalized in California (which is very likely to happen by 2016 at the latest), the price of Humboldt weed would plummet, taking down local businesses with it.

The plants have become so entwined with the local economy that economists estimate a quarter of all the money made in Humboldt comes from marijuana cultivation. And because many of the growers don't pay taxes (or even use banks; they bury their money underground in plastic tubes and glass bottles), local services are maintained by marijuana money, which has been used to buy fire engines and set up a local radio station, two community centers, and small schools.

...

Of course, there are problems with basing an entire economy around an illegal activity. Police raids, although less frequent than they were in the 1980s, can sweep up a family’s entire harvest, and there's plenty of opportunities for gun-toting thieves who prey on grow operations. In one recent raid, a couple in their 60s were relieved of seven pounds of processed marijuana—along with several guns and thousands of dollars in cash—when gunmen turned up at their home. Of the 38 murders that occurred in Humboldt between 2004 and 2012, 23 were drug-related.

Read the whole thing, highly recommended.

After reading that, it will be obvious to you why the former hipster governor is suddenly wary of weed. Alertness, as we see, has little to do with it.

Re-election does.

The AA ballad of Hugo Schwyzer

My enduring silence on this past summer's Hugo Schwyzer debacle, has been wholly deliberate. For those who need the background, check it out HERE, HERE and HERE. (Warnings out the wazoo, as we say here in the South.)





One of those primary "recovery rules" is that you do not judge another addict, or doubt that they are sober.

Just look at the fallout here when I (correctly) called the cause of Brittany Murphy's death before it was official. I was considered ableist and out of line. (And when I was proven right, none of these people apologized to me either.) I learned from that, and decided I would be more circumspect the next time.

And so initially, I did not plan on saying anything at all about Hugo's now-famous, bizarre meltdown. But since then, folks have pointedly asked me for my opinion, since I mentioned him in my post about my own AA anniversary... and so I have now decided to comment at length.

~*~

At some point, I think after I read the famous jizz piece, I decided feminist-professor Hugo was using and/or drinking again.

The problem was (see Brittany Murphy, Michael Jackson, et al), these were undoubtedly perfectly-legal, professionally-vetted, prescribed meds that he had started abusing again... and this is one reason hard-core Alcoholics Anonymous people like my sponsor were so categorically anti-drug. Prescription drugs are still drugs. Of course there are always "good reasons" for them; I got a million Rxs in my life, with no trouble. Had good reasons for them all. Primary among these reasons: I was an addict, I wanted them, and I knew how to get them.

The onslaught of anti-depressants, sleeping aids and anti-anxiety meds for recovering addicts/alcoholics, has been an unmitigated disaster. Its also an old feud within AA and NA (Narcotics Anonymous), as well as within other recovery circles. The concept is that people were "self-medicating" with alcohol (and so what else is new) and so they just needed the "correct" meds and ... then they somehow magically won't want those naughty "bad" drugs anymore. This is self-serving, narcissistic, addict-apologist bullshit. Always has been. Thing is, those of us who clung to this uncool, supposedly-outmoded view (that it's bullshit), invariably lost the war. Drugs flooded into recovery circles like the proverbial tidal wave. (NOTE: I have been alcohol-free for 32 years, and I refer to the advent of Prozac and similar drugs in the early 90s.)

At one point, I refused to sponsor people who were using prescription drugs to 'cushion their fall' into reality. And I learned (to my alarm) that I could spot them fairly easily. They didn't LEARN anything. They retained many/most of their negative personality-issues and character defects. They didn't "work on themselves"--and I think it's because, frankly, they didn't feel enough pain to find it necessary to change. Pain is instructional. Depression is instructional. Guilt and shame are instructional. When you do not allow yourself to FEEL these emotions/states of mind (self-medicating, the reason you drank in the first place), you do not learn the REASONS for them, which are usually: personality disorders, erroneous views of reality, childhood traumas left to fester and infect the psyche, self-esteem in the toilet, PTSD run amok, a puritanical/punitive world-view, etc. Drugs are a band-aid solution. As soon as I would get close to any of these issues in a sponsoree, they would have a meltdown (much like Hugo's!) and then go robotic; that particular, tell-tale type of robotic-reaction that is made possible by the psychological BUFFER OF CHEMICALS that is DRUGS.

No work could get done.

"I think I have PTSD," says the recovering person.

"Let's work on it," I'd say.

(((HYSTERIA))) followed by the robotic, predictably drugged-up countenance.

Like clockwork.

I would finally cut them loose, and I'd say, get another sponsor or come back to me when you cut out the drugs. I don't care if Sigmund fucking Freud himself gave them to you, NO. I will not work with people who are buffering the world with drugs. WON'T DO IT. And most of these people would hang around awhile, then leave. This has become known as the "revolving door of recovery"--because it just happens over and over and these people never learn to DO WITHOUT SUBSTANCES. TOTALLY.

At this point, readers are thinking/saying, "You are not a professional! Danger, Will Robinson, danger!" And they are right. I am not. That is how AA works, and how it worked for me. I do not go to professionals, I do not BELIEVE in bullshit elitist, over-educated professionals, who have over-prescribed drugs to the point that we now have multiple-epidemics of junkies on the level we have never before had in history. PROFESSIONALS ARE PART OF THE FUCKING PROBLEM. I believe in peers, I believe in equality, I believe in people who have been through what I have been through, I believe in the power of regular human beings connecting with each other. That is what worked for me, and I still believe in it. Professionals pretty much destroyed AA, as did the courts forcing people to attend meetings after being arrested for drunken driving or drug possession (in direct violation of the 11th Tradition, which originally stated that AA membership should be based on "attraction rather than promotion"). The overarching resentment of these court-ordered maybe-alcoholics just smoldered, and their anger was palpable in many meetings, destroying the cozy family-atmosphere we once enjoyed. Meanwhile, the professionals brought in all kinds of psychobabble and Dr Feelgood jargon, correcting the scruffy street-people and (ever so politely!) reinterpreting their experience for them with big words and medical concepts, alienating them even further.

As I said, unmitigated disaster.

In short, old style AA might have helped Hugo. The moment I learned he was still "on meds" (which I'm sure were duly prescribed by one of the all-holy and infallible professionals) --I knew the implosion was just a matter of time. I just waited for it, wincing, because I figured it would be a flame-out of Biblical proportions. (I have also been waiting for something like this from Glenn Beck, and he has disappointed me so far, unless he has been able to keep it out of the media.) I have seen countless of these in AA. It usually manifests in these kinds of people (Hugo and Glenn Beck), who make "recovery" part of their identity. It's okay to do this for awhile, even necessary at first. (e.g. I once saw myself as party animal, so it was necessary at first to see myself as recovery animal; I had to put something IN ITS PLACE as a substitution.) But eventually, the idea should be that we MOVE ON. (I have not been to an AA meeting in about a dozen years now.) After a decent length of time has passed, we should even be able to figure out if indeed a certain drug might be helpful and/or good for us. I am old, and my joints are falling apart; there ARE good drugs, and I fully understand that now. Similarly, a toke at the bluegrass concert, did not hurt me. I have learned the MIDDLE PATH at long last, but only because I made learning that a priority. I did not want to be dependent on AA (or drugs) my whole life. I know the important thing: my drug of choice, alcohol, and highly addictive drugs (Valium, sleeping pills, Oxys, opiates, meth, questionable "appetite suppressants" such as the now-disgraced Preludin, which I ate like candy) are totally off limits for me. I avoid them like the plague. I do not take any psych meds daily, since I believe they interfere with my judgement and make it more likely that I will forget this personal boundary and break this rule. I have managed to maintain my sobriety, although sometimes tenuous, through remembering my triggers: bad temper, familial stress (and attendant co-dependency; trying to run other people's lives to my specifications), feelings of inadequacy, hypochondria... and more importantly, I know where all of these traits came from and how they originated in my life (meaning: I no longer hate myself for them).

I DID THE WORK, SO I KNOW THESE THINGS.

Hugo didn't. So he doesn't.

One of his triggers: WOMEN. He should have been forbidden from any and all relationships for a period of time, until his sponsor told him it was safe, and then the sponsor should have properly vetted the relationship. No sex; celibacy until you figure out what sex is doing to your life and why you compulsively seek it out. (This is true for MEN AND WOMEN regarding what is called "sex addiction" --which often goes hand-in-hand with other addictions, just as co-dependency and eating disorders do.) I know, this sounds cultish, but THAT IS WHAT I MEAN: Hugo went to the new, improved (snark), Rxs-for-everybody AA, not the cold-showers-and-root-canal version I went to in 1982. When I entered AA, NOT cooperating was really not an option if you wanted to hang around for an extended length of time. The Alcoholics Anonymous I went to was categorical: No serious decisions for a year. This rule includes jobs (if you are employed, do not change jobs or quit your job; if unemployed, try to stretch this out as long as you can), relationships (no changing them, no divorces, no "falling in love", no fucking around), and living arrangements, unless you are in an emergency situation (and many addicts are). Every stress-making decision was talked over carefully first, in meetings or with your sponsor. Everything you did and thought was thoroughly interrogated and examined, first by yourself, and if you still weren't sure, you brought it to "group conscience." [When I was faced with attending my grandmother's wake in Indiana, after only six slim months of sobriety, I fully realized this would be a rowdy and hyper-emotional occasion in MY hard-drinking family. The group counseled me, en masse, do not stay with a family member, stay in a motel instead. Wow, I said, isn't that RUDE? Someone replied, "Is getting howling drunk and fucking everything up rude?" Hmm, good point. I stayed in the motel. I managed. It was okay. I got through it, and the group's collective wisdom was the reason why.]

It was a hard-ass approach, but it is the one I think is necessary, because ADDICTS LIE TO THEMSELVES EVEN MORE THAN THEY DO TO EVERYONE ELSE.

And that way of life now seems extinct. I mourn its loss. It might have saved Hugo.

This is why I did not initially comment on Hugo's flame-out, because I knew I would have to say all of this. I think recovery itself FAILED HUGO, because it got soft.

In fact, let me be clear: the new and improved (snark again) recovery was TAILOR MADE for attention-whores like him. He then could use the fact of recovery to become a star and pump up his self-importance and toxic ego even more. For some of us, particularly down here in the working classes, addiction and alcoholism are still stigmatized; even admitting it is in your past, is still stigmatized. I often do not tell people, unless they finally ask me if there is a reason I never drink.

We don't have "stars" in the working classes (who do not eventually become recovery professionals themselves)... you have to be an academic or writer or media-figure to be a "recovery star"--and Hugo was. He used this fact about himself to boost his star-appeal, which tells me that he still hadn't worked on one of his major personality defects: attention-whoredom.

This has been difficult to write. In AA circles, what I have just done is called "taking Hugo's inventory" and is considered really bad form. I apologize, but felt it was necessary after I was asked the 6th or 7th time, and by people I deeply respect. I "defended" Hugo the last time (actually I just said he needed to be able to write honestly about what had happened--although interestingly, I don't). After his most recent flip-out, a couple of people got nasty with me and asked me if I had rescinded that post. No, I haven't--but then, I was writing it about someone I thought was actually recovering. (Notably: I had not seen the infamous jizz piece at that time.)

I would issue a warning, just in general: If you see people leave AA and then take up with some hard-core religion? Warning. DANGER. This person needs rules and boundaries, and they feel they are not getting them. So, they/we go where there are rules, lots and lots of rules. I did, my sponsor did, Glenn Beck did, and I notice, Hugo did. It is NEVER a good sign. It can work for some of us, as a sort of "transition out" of AA, a halfway-house into the regular world. But for others, it just means CARTE BLANCHE and gives them a whole new playground to play in. Aha, they think, I just needed GOD! I was never an alcoholic, I just needed JEEZUS! (And since we know that now, why not have a drink to celebrate?)

Watch out. As the Grateful Dead song said, trouble ahead, trouble behind. Hugo easily found the trouble, and took a nice long bath in it.

If AA had stayed true to itself, the revolving door of recovery would not exist, and the revolving door into the Church/Synagogue/Mosque/Ashram wouldn't either. As it is, we have all been betrayed, and Big Pharm bears a lot of the blame. But we have also lost our way, we have also declined the rougher, more unpleasant aspects of recovery, such as taking a big, bold look at ourselves as we really and truly are, putting all those pesky psychic-dramas under the microscope for close inspection. We have not wanted to look at the damage we have done--at least I never did. This means people like Hugo can write dramatic accounts of almost-murder/suicides and make them sound like Movies-of-the-Week, instead of the horrific, desperate acts they actually are (if his dramatic tale is true at all, of course. I have come to doubt it, or at least, wonder what parts of the story were edited/left out/trumped up, etc.)

I hope this is a satisfactory reply to the people who have asked me to comment on Hugo. I did not mean it to be so long... but then again, that is why I didn't want to write about him in the first place. I do see Hugo as a casualty of his own hubris... but the difference is, in the old days, he couldn't have used recovery as an excuse to GET WORSE. And now, it seems to be a rather common phenomenon.

I weep for those of us who will never recover. I hope Hugo can. But first, he needs to shut up, and for a good long time, too. Attention is his enemy. Although for some, it is a balm, since they were often totally ignored and relegated to the back of the room. That's the thing: One size does not fit all.

And once upon a time, AA knew that and counseled us accordingly.

I miss those days.

Monday linkage, with Joe Pye weed

Some random linkage, starting (of course!) with my own radio show: Thursday, Friday and today.

We were a bit off our game today, since Gregg and I had to soldier on without Double A. Next week, I am going to Texas, and they will have to soldier on without ME... so I am not complaining.

I just get nervous when we change anything.

~*~

Just back from Atlanta, where I caught a very personal story in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution (unfortunately, behind a pesky paywall, or I would link it) about the former Miss Georgia, beautiful Leighton Jordan. In the AJC account, Jordan's eating disorder is presented in stark, primary colors. It was harrowing; the unending treadmill of ballet, pageants and thinness seemed less like the life of a princess (the fairy tale we all hear about) and more like being caught in a trap.

In her work as Miss Georgia, Jordan describes a personal appearance wherein she spies a 13-year-old girl, very thin and obviously "jittery" as she is confronted with a table full of food. Jordan takes the girl aside and tells her that she needs to hear her story.

It was an amazing moment of sisterhood, self-sacrifice and love.

I promise never again to be mean to the pageant-participants. Jordan has redeemed you all.

Namaste.

~*~

At left: Joe Pye weed, from Linky Stone park. Ain't it just so purty?!?

I used this photo as the background for my new Tumblr, which you should all check out.


~*~





Other stuff--

6th big cat dies at Texas animal sanctuary (USA Today) -- I did not know that big cats caught feline distemper, as domestic cats do. :(

~*~

Also covered on our show today, CNN doctor-on-call Sanjay Gupta reversed himself on the weed. And yes, we are now waiting on the rest of you 'experts' who have said stupid things in the past; you too may be regarded as respectable once again! SAVE YOUR REPUTATIONS NOW! FREE THE WEED!

~*~

[Attorney General Eric] Holder seeks to avert mandatory minimum sentences for some low-level drug offenders (Washington Post) Better late than never.

~*~

Speaking of marijuana (doing radio has taught me the importance of a good segue!), Erin Tatum's feminist review of "We're the Millers" at Bitch Flicks accurately articulates my concerns about the movie, which I haven't yet seen (but I have been subjected to oodles of trailers):

Really, you are lying to yourself if you thought the powers that be would waste any opportunity to showcase Jennifer Aniston's legs. The ensuing montage is pure wet, slow-motion fan service. The dance ends with Rose releasing a steam valve, disorienting their captors enough to let their "family" escape. I'm torn about this scene because although it's trying almost too hard to show that strippers can be smart and intuitive, Rose’s most valuable asset is still her body and her ability to be objectified. I take issue not so much the objectification itself so much as the fact that the definitive aspect of Rose’s character seems to be “LOL WHAT 40+ and still hot?!?”. Certainly Aniston's boldness and athleticism are praiseworthy, but given the amount that the actors talk about it in interviews, you would think the strip routine was her sole appearance.

~*~

I am greatly looking forward to Elysium, a new film containing one of my very favorite scifi plots ever: Earth evacuated by the rich as a festering shithole, while only the poor, sick and unlucky are left behind. This was a favorite theme of my beloved Philip K Dick, as in his great masterpiece Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, which became the film Blade Runner. (It is also the scenario in The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch, a novel of obsessive importance to your humble narrator.) Elysium was directed by Neill Blomkamp, the director of DISTRICT 9.

Unfortunately, Elysium is getting rather mixed reviews, even though it easily won the weekend box office. I still intend to see it, so stay tuned.

The Conjuring got on my nerves, because I really wanted to like it.

~*~

And for you musically oriented folks: I finally "cleaned up" my infamous three-year-old instrumentals post... I profusely apologize to the people who Googled "instrumentals" (which are notoriously VERY HARD to find, since there are no lyrics to look up) and came upon my post with so many songs missing. I blame YouTube! (Again, time to plug the invaluable YouTomb, a fascinating website that chronicles the whys and wherefores of various videos getting the plug pulled.)

I especially got a chock full of searches after MAD MEN used "Love is Blue" over their closing credits in one of this past year's shows.

And so, here it is.

Love is blue (L'amour est bleu) - Paul Mauriat (1968)

Take me back to the place where I first saw the light

Since the dreaded Super Bowl is over, its time to get your political seriousness back on!

For the record, I have never seen so many Tweets over somebody giving the middle-finger on live TV; there were probably more Tweets about that than about the entire war in Afghanistan.

~*~

I once told the story on this blog (or touched on it briefly), of the time I was shaken very hard by a bigshot leftist.

If you are up-to-date on your true-crime scandals, you have likely heard of the death of Yeardley Love, University of Virginia lacrosse player, who was shaken so hard by her ex-boyfriend/defendant, that her head hit the wall. (First-degree murder?) The trial of the accused, George Huguely, starts today.

As the young feminists say, this story has triggered and upset me, as I consider the fact that the only unpleasant repercussions I had from my shaking episode was a terrible headache, neck and shoulder pain. It could have been far worse, I realize now.

And what were the repercussions for the important lefty honcho who shook me in front of 5 witnesses? Nothing. Not a goddamn thing. I now realize I could have had him arrested for assault, but who thought of such things in those days? Cops were widely regarded as "the enemy". It would never have occurred to me, and so it didn't.

The fact that men "shake" women, as you would discipline a naughty child, is something that has greatly bothered me ever since. It's one of those things that simply doesn't happen in reverse: women do not "shake some sense" into grown men, or at least, I never heard of anyone doing that, never read about it, never seen it in movies or on television. As I increase my participation on various blogs that deal with men's gender issues, I am highly skeptical when they tell us men are raped and harmed by women, just as often as women are raped and harmed by men (some even claim MORE often). Although I am sympathetic to the male dilemma (as I have tagged it), we just don't hear about male lacrosse players shaken so hard by their girlfriends, that their heads hit the wall and they die. (Such a story almost sounds laughable, doesn't it?)

And how exactly would one prove that a male was raped by a female, unless some object was used? Vaginal bruising and tearing are one form of evidence for rape of women, but is there an equivalent for males?

I am open-minded enough to listen, but I remain skeptical that gender-violence goes both ways as often as the Men's Rights contingent insists that it does.

Where are the dead male lacrosse players?

Further, I think many women could tell a story similar to mine--random violence (or threats of violence) from men (not necessarily domestic violence).

Can most men tell similar stories about women?

I don't know any who can.

~*~

Chris Hedges, whom I usually respect, has written a rather hysterical piece titled, THE CANCER OF OCCUPY. (Cancer? Really? Somebody has not read Illness as Metaphor by Susan Sontag, and has not learned of the inappropriateness of the term.) Hedges' piece reads exactly the way so many alarmist anti-war movement screeds once did, back in the day--particularly concerning the Yippies: THE ANARCHISTS ARE INVADING, AIYEEEEE!

First, like the poor, the anarchists we always have with us. Deal.

Second, the Malcolm X/Martin Luther King dichotomy stands. The radicals make the liberals look reasonable. You're welcome, Chris! Take the position of the reasonable liberal and SHUT UP. The radicals are helping us. Only scared liberals afraid of not staying in charge, could fail to see it this way. Hedges announces:

Because Black Bloc anarchists do not believe in organization, indeed oppose all organized movements, they ensure their own powerlessness.

Is 'Anonymous' powerless? Like, when they brought down PayPal? Bullshit. They have power that can't be quantified, can't be controlled, and that is what the Hedges-types (whom I usually respect, as I said) do not understand.

Occupy is about the 99% and unfortunately, the 99% (includes even Republicans) are not going to agree on What Is To Be Done. Further, everybody in the 99% seems to have an opinion, even people who haven't actually spent lots of time Occupying. Although Hedges distinguished himself by getting arrested in front of Goldman Sachs, Occupier John Penley comments on Facebook:

I am tired of these intellectuals getting more fame and money writing about and attempting to direct the movement. By the way Chris... The Zapatistas wear masks and carry guns. I have spent a lot of time in Chiapas and much of the material aid and physical support for the Zapatistas came from black bloc types and I am sure they would not be happy about Hedges speaking for them like I am not sure why he feels he can speak from his high profile position so much about what the Occupy movement should or is doing.

The so-called "split" in Occupy, between pacifists and direct-actions protesters, mirrors every other political group I have ever been involved in. This is an old split, it is PRIMAL. Some people always want to chant and pray and sit, and some people always want to throw rocks. There are always ill-mannered punks who invade the porn store and trash it (I helped do this once, after solemnly promising I would not join the breakaway-faction that ran in to trash the mafia-owned business that specialized in violent "beaver loops") ... and some want to inflict even more damage and/or openly confront (and fight with) police.

What they do, you do not have to do.

What they do, is NOT ABOUT you, unless you choose (as I did, during the aforementioned 'Take Back the Night' march/demonstration) to jump ship and join the anarchists. The nice N.O.W. ladies did not approve of us young ruffians running in there and ripping up rape-pin-ups, and that is exactly why we didn't tell them what we were planning to do. They had a march-permit and were terribly well-behaved--and could therefore honestly claim to law enforcement that they had no clue a bunch of punk-rock-witches would suddenly break away and run inside the porn store, shrieking like Furies (that's what we were going for, anyway). As a result, we protected the march from possible arrests, AND we managed to inflict the damage.

But you know, you should not PLAY at rabble-rousing. If you give a bang-up speech saying 'women take back the night!'--do not be surprised when someone actually does.

When you say "We are the 99%--hoo ha!"--do not be surprised when the actual 99% shows up. Like, ALL of them; bikers, ex-cons, angry veterans, etc... and they may not have your peacenik, lets-get-in-a-circle-and-chant-OM values. Are you ready for that?

If not, Occupy is not for you. Because it really is about the 99%, that isn't just empty propaganda. Be prepared when the 99% really does show up... and they are, like the rest of us, extremely pissed off.

They may not show their anger in the nicey-nice way that you have come to expect.

~*~

If you missed my non-interview of Noam Chomsky, it is here.

Also recommended: 29 days on Drugs – Day 2: The President’s Pot Problem. The best analysis I have read, of why Obama seems so terrified to discuss freeing the weed.

Mentioned in the post is The New Jim Crow, by Michelle Alexander, a book about the drug war (and its focus on minorities), which I will certainly be reading and discussing on my radio show.

~*~

Caution: bluegrass ahead! This lovely, traditional old song is apparently now in the public domain; author unknown. The first line of the song is today's blog post title. (What would I do without WPCI?)

Take me back to the Sweet Sunny South - Jerry Garcia and David Grisman

Ron Paul in Greenville

At left: Presidential candidate, Congressman Ron Paul today in Greenville.



What does it mean that so many working class people packed into a drafty, cold, wet airplane hangar to listen to a rather unremarkable-looking 76-year-old doctor talk mostly about his interpretation of the Constitution?

And they hollered, screamed, and stomped appreciatively?

I dunno, but as usual, I am impressed. I met about a half-dozen or more people I knew, too. I can confidently tell you that I could never say the same about any other Republican candidate... and possibly even the Democrats, at this stage of the game.

The Ron Paul folks (see below) are real people and I like them. They are friendly, and not a single one said anything nasty about the Obama bumper stickers I have not gotten around to scrubbing off my car. One sign on the back of a pick-up, pointedly read: DEMOCRATS-YOU CAN VOTE IN PRIMARY! (You certainly don't see signs at other candidate's rallies, openly asking for votes from 'the other side'.) Just like the last time, I enjoyed the event.

Until someone can explain away Ron Paul's populism, I can't dismiss it. On my radio show tomorrow, I will be addressing the race-baiting politics of the South Carolina primary, which have notably been from Newt Gingrich, not Ron Paul. I will be talking about why Ron Paul is considered by many to be the most progressive choice at this point.

One out of four young African-American males is in prison (the percentage may even be higher here in South Carolina), largely due to the failed and expensive drug war. The sorrowful end-results of the drug war have decimated black communities, and left heartache, gangs and poverty in their wake. (Meanwhile, Goldman Sachs coke-fiends have all of their bills and legal fees paid for by OUR money.) Of all candidates, left and right, only Ron Paul calls for a total end to this barbarism.

And it must be underscored, this is a radical and anti-racist position.

However, I must be honest... I am disappointed the Paul campaign here in South Carolina has radically downplayed the good doctor's anti-drug war positions. Recent Greenville News articles did not mention Ron Paul's controversial positions a single time, even though it certainly was news the last time he debated here! Ordinarily, I would attribute this to the usual shoddy job by the Greenville News, and yet, I noticed the info table at the rally today featured position papers about the Patriot Act, Civil Liberties in general, and virtually everything else but the drug war specifically. Hmm. Why not? (The mainstream media keeps repeating that Paul has 'widespread youth support'--surely they know his opposition to the drug war is a big reason why?) Is this because they believe their best chances are with conservatives here in the Palmetto State?

I think Ron Paul's anti-drug-war politics are a big draw with Independents, liberals and other civil-libertarians, and in fact, I am disappointed the Paul campaign didn't target minority communities with political ads seeking crossover voters and support. (Or would that compromise support among conservatives?)

If the guy with the pickup truck gets it, surely the people running the campaign, can too?

~*~

I saw my old comrade, the venerable Ted Christian, who ran for congress against Bob Inglis in 2008. He informed me he would be voting for Ron Paul "from now on."

I offered that Dr Paul was 76 now and probably would not run for president again.

"I don't care, I will keep on voting for him after he's dead," he said. He then informed me that the van outside with "Ron Paul 2012" on it, was his.

Not at all surprised.


Below, some photos of the rally, starting off with Ted's van--and that's Ted and me in the last photo. As always, you can click to enlarge.

Onward and Upward

At left: Occupy Greenville has kept our plucky heroine from dissolving into hopelessness during her long period of unemployment this year: THREE CHEERS FOR THE OCCUPY MOVEMENT, which has restored many folks' faith in America.

~*~

I used to wonder why people (usually women) deleted their blogs. No longer. I get it now.

As net-denizens Google various religious-and-Christmas-oriented-posts I have written over the past four-and-a-half years, I feel theologically and emotionally bereft. I was so certain, and now I am not.

Or rather, I am certain that uncertainty is the state of humanity. I no longer unequivocally declare that particular existential points of dogma are true, except to say, this is what I feel right now. This is what I believe is true right now.

And this is, in fact, what we are always saying, we just don't seem to realize that our personal truths collide over time. We re-arrange the biography to make our wildly different, disparate truths make sense. But they simply don't.

This is because we are not the same people we were.

The person that started this blog is me, yet it is another me, a past-me. I do not agree with everything the past-me wrote, in fact, I wince at a good deal of it. I can understand why people feel the need to delete that which makes them embarrassed and makes them wince. And women, specifically, can find this nearly intolerable. On the above-linked thread, Feminist Avatar wrote:

I almost deleted my blog as I was fed up with discussions going on in my online community, which I disagreed with and felt had been done so many times before, with no resolution. And, my gut response was- get out of here- and I think I saw leaving my blog up as leaving a part of myself 'there'; in that conversation, even tho' I wasn't and hadn't posted in ages.

A wiser person than me once said that women were more reluctant to 'let go of the authorial signature' than men (that is to stop owning their words- seeing cultural products as a creation of society and context rather than individuals), because they had only recently won the right to own them in the first place (ie women's right to a public voice is historically new and hard won). Perhaps, as a result, when we need to walk away from particular online communities or just the internet as a time suck, we feel we can't leave something of ourselves there- we can't stop owning our words (even if they may be out of date or not where we are any more). And perhaps, because of that sense of ownership, if we move beyond those ideas or no longer agree with them, we also can't leave them out there, as it is no longer us.

Yes, I understand that, as well as the Buddhist concept of impermanence.

~*~

I nearly titled this post "Can Ron Paul win the Iowa primary?" and then thought the better of it. Nah. But I am once again voting strategically for the good doctor, as I did in the last South Carolina Republican primary four years ago.

I heartily recommend Conor Friedersdorf's piece in The Atlantic, titled Grappling With Ron Paul's Racist Newsletters--currently up to a whopping 633 comments. The money quotes:

Do I think that Paul wrote the offending newsletters? I do not. Their style and racially bigoted philosophy is so starkly different from anything he has publicly espoused during his long career in public life -- and he is so forthright and uncensored in his pronouncements, even when they depart from mainstream or politically correct opinion -- that I'd wager substantially against his authorship if Las Vegas took such bets. Did I mention how bad some of the newsletters are? It's a level of bigotry that would be exceptionally difficult for a longtime public figure to hide.

For that reason, I cannot agree with [The Weekly Standard's Jamie] Kirchick when he concludes that "Ron Paul is not the plain-speaking antiwar activist his supporters believe they are backing -- but rather a member in good standing of some of the oldest and ugliest traditions in American politics."

On the other hand, it doesn't seem credible that Paul was unaware of who wrote the execrable newsletters, and although almost a million dollars per year in revenue is a substantial incentive to look away from despicable content, having done so was at minimum an act of gross negligence and at worst an act of deep corruption. Indeed, Paul himself has acknowledged that he "bears moral responsibility" for the content.

Given its odiousness that is no small thing.

For the record, I certainly agree. I also agree with this quote--although regular readers might recall that as a true believer, I defended both Jeremiah Wright AND Bill Ayers:

For me, the disconnect between the Ron Paul newsletters, which make me sick, and Paul's words and actions in public life, which I often admire, put me in mind of the way I reacted when candidate Barack Obama was found to associate with Jeremiah Wright and Bill Ayers, both of whom had said execrable things. I couldn't defend any of it. But I could never get exercised about the association in exactly the way that writers like Victor Davis Hanson wanted, because it seemed totally implausible that if Obama was elected he would turn out to secretly share the convictions of the Weather Underground, or hope for God to damn America. It always seemed to me that those relationships were the unsavory product of personal ambition. I don't mean to suggest that the two circumstances are entirely analogous, but I do find it hard to believe that if Paul were elected, he'd turn out to be a secret racist, implement policies that targeted minorities, or drum up support by giving speeches with hateful rhetoric.

And then, he makes the points I wish I had been smart enough to make, says the things I wish I had been smart enough to write. YES!:

[Congressman Ron Paul] has a long history of doing what he says when elected, and no more.

"How could you vote for someone who..."

Isn't that a thorny formulation? I'm sometimes drawn to it. And yet. We're all choosing among a deeply compromised pool of candidates, at least when the field is narrowed to folks who poll above 5 percent. Put it this way. How can you vote for someone who wages an undeclared drone war that kills scores of Pakistani children? Or someone who righteously insisted that indefinite detention is an illegitimate transgression against our civilizational values, and proceeded to support that very practice once he was elected? How can you vote for someone who has claimed to be deeply convicted about abortion on both sides of the issue, constantly misrepresents his record, and demagogues important matters of foreign policy at every opportunity? Or someone who suggests a religious minority group should be discriminated against? Or who insists that even given the benefit of hindsight, the Iraq War was a just and prudent one?

And yet many of you, Republicans and Democrats, will do just that -- just as you and I have voted for a long line of past presidents who've deliberately pursued policies of questionable-at-best morality.

In voting for "the lesser of two evils," there is still evil there -- we're just better at ignoring certain kinds in this fallen world. A national security policy that results in the regular deaths of innocent foreigners in order to maybe make us marginally safer from terrorism is one evil we are very good at ignoring.

Prison rape is an evil we're even better at ignoring.

It is a wonderful thing that Americans are usually unable to ignore the evil of outright racism. It hasn't always been so. The change is a triumph. But important as rhetorical issues of race and ethnicity are in America, we're by necessity choosing the lesser of two -- or three or seven -- evils when we pick a candidate. And so it's worth complicating the moral picture with some questions we don't normally consider when we talk about race.

For example: What American policy most hurts people who'd be a minority group in this country? I'd say cluster bombs, missiles and bullets that inadvertently kill them while we try to kill terrorists or convert tribal or sectarian societies into democracies. Or perhaps an even graver harm is done by the subsidies we give to agribusinesses, destroying Third World agricultural markets and opportunity. To think of the damage done over the decades by sugar dumping in Haiti alone! And isn't it uncomfortable to think about how race and nationality is implicated in the priority we assign to folks who suffer from the aforementioned policies? The policies aren't rooted in personal racism, like the lines in racist tracts -- sugar dumping is rooted in an amoral agricultural lobby that wants to enrich itself -- yet it's hard to imagine such policies would persist as uncontroversially if "people like us" were the victims.

In the U.S., the War on Drugs arguably does the most grave damage to poor communities, especially in black and Latino neighborhoods, where the majority of arrests take place, though whites use drugs more often. The greatest threat to an ethnic minority in the United States isn't that doctrinaire libertarians are going to reverse the Civil Rights Act -- it's that Muslim Americans or immigrants are going to be held without trial in the aftermath of a future terrorist attack because we've allowed our and their civil liberties to erode.

Were it 1964, I'd never vote for Paul, precisely because my desire to protect and expand liberty would've placed the highest priority on the passage of the Civil Rights Act. Paul once said in a speech that "the forced integration dictated by the Civil Rights Act of 1964 increased racial tensions while diminishing individual liberty," despite the fact that it clearly enhanced the individual liberty of blacks, the group the state was most implicated in transgressing against.

But it is not 1964. Other injustices better define our times. In 2012, when accused terrorists are held indefinitely without charges or trial, and folks accused of drug possession have their doors broken down by flash-grenade wielding SWAT teams in no-knock raids, Paul would arguably protect the rights of racial, religious or ethnic minority groups better than Obama, regardless of whether Paul is now or ever was a racist, and irrespective of the fact that Obama, as the first black president, has in some ways transformed Americans' thinking on race. (LBJ, who signed the Civil Rights Act, was not know for his personal progressivism on race or women's rights, but he nonetheless backed policies that had powerful consequences for women and minorities).

What I want Paul detractors to confront is that he alone, among viable candidates, favors reforming certain atrocious policies, including policies that explicitly target ethnic and religious minorities. And that, appalling as it is, every candidate in 2012 who has polled above 10 percent is complicit in some heinous policy or action or association. Paul's association with racist newsletters is a serious moral failing, and even so, it doesn't save us from making a fraught moral judgment about whether or not to support his candidacy, even if we're judging by the single metric of protecting racial or ethnic minority groups, because when it comes to America's most racist or racially fraught policies, Paul is arguably on the right side of all of them.

Read it all, and at least a few of the hundreds of brawling comments, well worth your while if you care about the Republican primary and the next election.

~*~

Check out our show tomorrow, where we will be doing a year-end round-up. In upstate South Carolina, join us at 9am on WFIS radio, 1600 AM and/or 94.9 FM on your radio dial. We have online streaming, so drop by.

And winding up with some holiday tackiness/nostalgia. At left: The Great Southern Shopping Center in Columbus, Ohio, my hometown. As you can see by the cars, this photo was probably taken some time in the early-to-mid 60s, and certainly, my fondest Christmas-shopping memories come from this period. (This shopping center was only a short distance from one of my very favorite and beloved Drive-In movie theatres, which I know I have rhapsodized about here before.)

The shopping center featured the SEVEN WONDERS OF THE WORLD in miniature, and we used to walk around them as kids, taking photos and gawking as if they were real. Surely, this was as close as most of us were ever going to get. My absolute favorite was the Taj Mahal, which apparently even had real water for awhile, but mostly I remember dried-up water with dirt and leaves in it. Unfortunately, my dogged net-searches could NOT bring up the Taj Mahal or Eiffel Tower, presented right alongside Woolworth's and hardware stores and everything else. At Christmas time, the tacky Christmas lights and faux-evergreens were draped around the SEVEN WONDERS OF THE WORLD, and we thought it was the greatest thing we had ever seen.

Confession: I still think it was, but I have since learned how uncool it is to say so.

Thanks to Otherstream for the photo of little-Pisa, which brought back a nice Christmas memory.

PS: And if you have never read Truman Capote's amazingly wonderful A CHRISTMAS MEMORY, you should. Too wonderful for words, but get out those kleenex.

"Why the mainstream media are clueless about the religious right"

At left: Street preacher sign from Bele Chere. (Any questions?)





Suzan links AlterNet's interesting Why the Mainstream Media Are Clueless About the Religious Right by Adele M. Stan, which not surprisingly, offers some cluelessness of its own.

As I have said (so many times) before, as long as the language of religion is generally dissed by the mainstream media and the elite Left, you have allowed it to remain the language of the religious right, by default. And this highly-moral language is then used to talk to the masses, right over your heads.

If an exotic dialect is used only by one group, even if others understand it, it eventually becomes theirs.

And yes, religion is regarded by the media as some weird, exotic dialect from flyover country, which means the copious dog-whistles and covert winks offered by the Religious Right sail right past the well-paid hotshot media analysts and pundits, as in the famous "Obama is the antichrist" TV ad. They just MISSED it. (Antichrist? Who?)

In comments in this thread, I gave an example, and rather than type it all again, I am hereby quoting myself:

[Years ago], I watched Mother Theresa's funeral on late-night TV (India time), and several of the "official" commentators seemed totally ignorant of the derivation of the banner over her casket, which read "You did it to me"...and they all just seemed to go blank. They didn't seem to be able to look it up, either, since the KJV says something like "Ye have done it to me" if I'm not mistaken. (The quote would be from the RSV, which was favored by the Missionaries of Charity.)

They mumbled, they ummmed and they ahhhed, but you know, they just didn't seem to know. All of these hotshot commentators and none seemed to know. Finally, someone triumphantly announced it was from the New Testament (well duh) but they didn't seem to understand the reference or why it was the phrase hanging over her casket, and not some other phrase.

I listened to the entire commentary, as they didn't seem to have any idea why people STAND for the Gospel reading (really? Is it that hard to figure out?) or anything else about the Mass. That day, I realized how ignorant the media elites are of religion and religious traditions... even something as simple as standing for the Gospel reading. (I suddenly realized they didn't know the difference between that part of the Bible called "Gospel" and the rest of it.)

Then they trotted out that huge fan of Mother Theresa, Christopher Hitchens, author of a famous hit-piece on her. For her funeral. (I ask you, when was the last time the author of a hit-piece was invited to comment at their subject's funeral? A bit rude, maybe?)

This is what passes for knowledge of religion among the elites. Then they try to psychoanalyze people for whom religion is EVERYTHING. And they, um, invariably get it wrong, of course. How could they not? They don't know the dialect.

And Stan knows some of the dialect, but like an anthropologist studying the oddly-dressed natives (she compares some of the reporters to Margaret Mead, which IS funny), she isn't actually going to get down in the dirt with em either. Instead, she translates the dialect for the elites, or tries to.

For example, she attempts to analyze Ron Paul's fan base:

While mainstream media dismiss Paul as a quirky, secular libertarian, progressive reporters sometimes express a certain affection for Paul because of his anti-war stance. But Paul's anti-war position stems from his far-right isolationist views...

First of all, isolationism per se is not strictly left or right, and that explains the far-reaching appeal. In the Midwest, where I grew up, isolationism is its OWN thang, and often transcends traditional left/right definitions and categories. This is frequently my stance on this blog, likely because (as I have said many times), I was greatly influenced by my grandfather, a Christian Scientist and Taft Republican ("isolationism" barely describes it). To these folks, isolationism WAS the progressive position, since it kept the rest of the world from hating us so much. Isolationism insured peace, was the idea. Now, of course, the opposite view (which can be totally summed up in Orwell's phrase, 'War is Peace') is politically dominant.

In short, just as military-interventionism is now an equal-opportunity left/right ideology, so is isolationism.

Does Adele Stan know that Ron Paul ran for President as a Libertarian in the 70s, before he was ever in Congress? His views have changed little since Vietnam, and THIS is why progressives have respect for him: Ron Paul does not stick his finger in the air to test the political winds, and never has. (see CORRECTION, below)

At left: Fundamentalists invade Bele Chere festival in Asheville, NC. Most people considered them just another part of the show, but a number of intrepid festival-goers engaged them in some intense debates and heated conversations.



Adele Stan's commentary in AlterNet advances the opinion that the overall media-dilemma is denial, rather than elitist ignorance, even though she mentions the elitism a few times:

The mainstream media -- and to an extent, the progressive media, as well -- are made up of elites, people who went to good schools, most of them raised on either the east or west coasts. To these elites, the thought of someone espousing the sort of frightening beliefs that Paul embodies having a serious impact on American politics is just too much to bear, so denial becomes the default position. It's not conscious -- not a deliberate attempt to cover something up, just something too weird and awful to be true, so the notion is simply dismissed. Yet if you look at Paul's positions and look at how successive GOP fields have moved closer to them (with the exception of the anti-war stance) over the last three election cycles, his impact is clear.

"With the exception of the anti-war stance"? Earth to Adele! Somebody does not keep up with the drug war, which is BANKRUPTING THE COUNTRY and decimating poor and minority communities. Maybe Adele doesn't know any teenagers whose lives have been ruined over a tiny and inconsequential puff on a joint, but poor people have plenty of examples to share with her. Ron Paul proposes to legalize and tax marijuana and end the super-expensive drug war altogether... and that is a damned radical position that no other Republican AND no other Democrat has dared take.

The unbridled destruction of poor communities and the mass-imprisonment of young minority men is a fucking SCANDAL; the drug charges that the privileged kids from good schools can safely giggle about years later ("Oh man, my dad was sure pissed!") are the very same drug charges that will get you locked up for life if you are too poor to afford a lawyer or your daddy doesn't know the right people.

Ending this VICIOUS ATTACK on the poor is a PROGRESSIVE POSITION and only Ron Paul will take it.

You know this, right Adele? That one out of four black men is in prison for some BULLSHIT? Aaaarghhh, don't even get me started.

The fact that you have ignored this point in your piece, Adele Stan, is rather clueless as well. The fact that you don't seem to know what is happening in minority communities? Marks you as one of the elite media that doesn't know what's going on out here in the fabled Heartland.

It's going to get ugly, as the traditional left/right categories topple to the ground. I made a prediction that Obama was a one-termer, but that was before I knew he had stashed away a billion dollars for his second coronation. I now believe he will win, but it will infuriate a lot of people and might lead to insurrection; the British riots light the way. Democracy has been supplanted by the wholesale purchase of political office. (This huge money-stash now marks Barack Obama as a member of the elite that he successfully challenged upon first entering politics; Ron Paul's plucky little "money bombs" are very small potatoes by comparison.)

Adele winds up:

As a nation, we've been headed down this path for more than 40 years. As the economic fortunes of the U.S. turn downward, we should expect the attraction of right-wing religion, especially its more charismatic and viscerally-felt forms, to expand. Anyone who doesn't just hasn't been paying attention.

Ya think? And how about you talk to some of US, the progressives who can speak the weird Biblical Ron Paul language? How about you even consider FUNDING SOME OF US out here, who might be able to help, since we are already wearing the clothes and speaking the dialect?

Ha, am I funny or what? As we already know, that ain't never gonna happen. After all, they know everything, don't they?

~*~

EDIT, CORRECTION: Ron Paul was repeatedly interviewed as a Libertarian before he entered congress, but when he eventually ran for Congress in the 70s, ran as a Republican. He first ran for president (on the Libertarian ticket) in 1988.

Ben Masel 1954-2011

Lots of other people have memorialized Ben Masel, most of them far better writers than I am. But I was unsatisfied. There is a word missing in these obituaries, from Daily Kos, to NORML, to TalkLeft and everyone in between.

That word is YIPPIE.

Ben was a YIPPIE.

Why are the lefty honchos avoiding the word in the obits? Because the "serious" leftists never liked us, that's why. But they loved Ben, who was extremely lovable. So, they avoid the word. It's their way of being polite.

Ben would say, hey, you gonna mention that I was a Yippie?

I can hear him now. And my reply to him, is to write this.

He sure was. He was THE Yippie.

~*~

At times like this, I wish I had a scanner, and I wish I was more organized. Somewhere in all the detritus, I have several photos of Ben, including one of us together on a skanky old couch, looking particularly wide-eyed and paranoid. This photo has someone's thumb in the corner of it, and I remember: peyote and lots of it. We are looking at the camera, but not really. I was wearing a Jeff Beck t-shirt, and Ben is holding a cigarette. (Now that we know his cause of death was lung cancer, I dearly wish he wasn't holding it.)

Ben looked exactly like Cat Stevens when he was young, and I had a ferocious crush on him. He was witty as the dickens, and I loved provoking him to see what kinds of funny things he would say.

I have a couple of Ben-stories to add to the collection.

The first one involves an endless journey, and I am not quite sure where it began and ended, but it took us through most of the Midwest, Madison and on into the Dakotas, to the Black Hills Alliance Survival Gathering in 1979. I do remember a van breaking down in the dead of night, leaving us stranded in what seemed like a vacant moonscape, as we had just left the Badlands. We walked or hitchhiked (a little of both?) to the rest area, which was designed as a giant cement teepee, appearing quite formidable from a distance.

After using the restroom, I come out of the giant cement teepee, and some clean-cut fellow approaches me out of nowhere. "Hey!" says this strange person good-naturedly, "Ben is already in the van!" The van? Which van? And so I follow the stranger to a gleaming new van with Missouri plates, where Ben is already sitting in the passenger seat, holding forth, talking to the other passengers about the Black Hills Alliance.

Okay, what!? Who are these people?

So, I go ahead and get in (glad they weren't serial killers or anything), and it comes together: these are friends of Ben's. Well, of course they are. But... damn, in the middle of South Dakota? He has friends at a rest stop in the middle of South Dakota????!!!

Yes, he did. Ben had friends everywhere, all over the place. When I told other Yippies this story, they just shrugged: "Ben knows everybody." And I think of all the other people I've known who supposedly "knew everybody"--and it usually meant they only knew a lot of people. I can't imagine them getting picked up by strangers at a rest stop in God-knows-where.

But Ben knew everybody. I mean, he really did.

~*~

Unfortunately, my next story is somewhat garbled, since the two principals are no longer with us.

I can't remember who was in jail, Steve Conliff or Ben. This was during the Republican National Convention in Kansas City in 1976, and one of the two (often known as the Glimmer Twins in Yippie parlance) was in jail for some silly traffic violation (and probable possession of marijuana) in Raytown, Missouri. If memory serves, it was Ben who was in jail, while Conliff took to local talk radio to threaten to bring a thousand Yippies to Raytown, to spring Ben. (Of course, there were never "a thousand Yippies"--which was the inside joke.)

"We aren't gonna let a punk town like Raytown get away with this!" Conliff bellowed over the airwaves.

And so, magically, the authorities let Ben go. That afternoon. And they specifically told him to tell his friend on the radio: "This is not a PUNK town!"

Ben assured them he would pass the word along. He then repeated the charge later that night to a reporter for the Kansas City Star: "I got busted last night in some punk town called RAYTOWN!" he pointedly said.

They quoted him, too.

~*~

A young photo of Ben; I told you he looked just like Cat Stevens!



And finally, THIS colorful and insane event, the Republican National Convention in 1980 in Detroit, wherein Ben was busted and Conliff miraculously avoided detection by shaving his head.

In the Detroit courtroom where about a dozen Yippies were arraigned, one Yippie was given 10 days for contempt of court. Ben spoke up: "Your honor, you have to give me 20 days, because I have twice as much contempt for your court as she has!"

They obliged.

Ben went to jail a lot, and sued them all later for arresting him. He won, too, frequently joking that it was a good living if you could wait forever to get paid.

~*~

This is the obit that gets quoted here on DEAD AIR, since it dares to use the dreaded word YIPPIE:

"Ben knew the laws better than the police did," explained his longtime friend Amy Gros-Louis, echoing a sentiment shared by judges, lawyers and the many police officers who came to regard Masel with a mix of frustration, awe and, eventually, respect.

So it was with Masel, whose death Saturday at age 56 robbed Madison, Wisconsin and the United States of one of the truest champions of the Constitution, the rule of law, and the founding faith that the freedoms outlined in the Bill of Rights are not just ideals; they are practical tools to be used on a daily basis to challenge the powerful, to offend the elites, to tip the balance toward some rough equivalent of justice.

These commitments made Masel a supreme annoyance to prickly policemen, prying prosecutors and pretenders to the presidency. Before he reached the age of 18, Masel made it onto the list of Nixon White House enemies, and he would later earn national headlines for mocking segregationist George Wallace and spitting at conservative Democrat Henry "Scoop" Jackson, who earned the wrath of Masel and his Yippie compatriots for his steady service to the military-industrial complex.

In later years, the exuberant agitator would express a measure of remorse for some of the more extreme acts of his youth. But he never apologized for exercising every right afforded a citizen.

No one pushed harder against the limits on dissent in what was supposed to be a free society. That pushing earned him dozens of court dates. But Bennett Masel, the New Jersey native who came to Madison as a UW undergrad and remained to become a local icon, was never merely a provocateur. He was, for all the theatrics, a serious believer in a left-libertarian analysis of the individual liberty that lawyers and judges came to understand as a credible extension of the thinking of Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas, the longest-serving justice on the high court and a hero to 1970s radicals such as Masel.

Goodbye Ben, and thank you for teaching me to be a Yippie. It was the major lesson in civil disobedience that I never forgot.

~*~

More:

Ben Masel, an activist's activist

Activists and Visionarys

Ben Masel - Professional Activist

Fox News Republican debate in Greenville

... last night at the Peace Center, was rowdier than I expected.

I refer to the action outside the venue, where us scruffy anarchists and sign-carriers were assembled under the watchful eye of Greenville's Finest. In addition, it was Cinco de Mayo and downtown Greenville was packed with inebriated revellers.

I was verbally assaulted upon arrival, as a drunken right-winger asked me if I knew what L stood for????? He was leering/grimacing at me, and if there had been no cops around, I think there is an even chance he would have hit me.

I answered, "Love!"

He sneered. (I know he was thinking some variation of: Damned hippies!) He shouted in my face, stinking of beer, that it stood for LIBERAL and LIAR.

"I think it stands for love," I repeated. He wasn't having any.

"One reason! Just ONE! That you hate Fox News!"

I thought a second, "Glenn Beck," I answered.

"What about him?" he demanded, red-faced.

"He's insane," I answered.

"You just said A LOT about yourself just now!" he half-grimaced at me, yelling, "You just said A LOT!!!"

"I hope so!" I smiled, and backed away from him. In doing so, I nearly backed into Mark Sanford, about 3 feet away, babbling into a microphone. (((scream))) I turned in the other direction, as a low-country accented woman with hair piled high, accosted me. "You have NEVAH seen Fox News, if you believe that! NEVAH!" Republican onlookers offered some scattered applause, and I shouted, "I've seen far TOO much of it!"--the Ron Paul boys guffawed, as various other Republicans filing into the Peace Center offered some boos.

The overt hostility reminded me of the old days of you-know-who back in 1980, the last time a Republican screamed at me over a sign.

The Greenville News accounts of the Fox News debate are here and here, but the links may not work... as stated before, they usually nab me by the end of the day. A Republican account (warning, not safe for liberals, click at your own risk!) is here, in which Herman Cain (!), the black conservative former CEO of Godfather's Pizza, is regarded as the winner. The other participants were Tim Pawlenty, Rick Santorum, Gary Johnson and the redoubtable Ron Paul.

The Ron Paul people are just so likeable and INVOLVED, you can't help but get enmeshed in conversation with them. Most are respectful of all views, unlike the nutjobs who verbally assaulted me upon arrival. All stopped and complimented our anti-war signs. And I think it DOES matter that they seem like nice people.

When I heard that during the debate, Ron Paul had actually proposed legalizing prostitution, marijuana and even heroin and bringing all the troops home from God-knows-where, well, I was practically ready to sign on... even as I worry he would destroy the social-service safety net and Medicare. The sheer BALLS of talking this way on Fox News; you just want to reward him. Damn, why don't the other candidates (including the president and everyone on the left) TALK LIKE THIS??? They talk about money, money, save money, but where are they gonna GET that money? Dr Paul has figured it out; he doesn't talk about saving money without, you know, talking about where that money will actually come from, as Lindsey Graham and other pro-war neocon hacks do.

Suddenly, the hypocrisy of the Republican Party is shown in stark relief, and as I said, you just want to give the dude a medal.

Keep holding their feet to the fire, Dr Paul. It's fun to watch them squirm.

In fairness, former New Mexico governor Gary Johnson also offered an anti-war line, so good for him.

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Photos below:

1) Ron Paul supporter I talked to for about 15 minutes, very nice person.

2) Fox News people wait for their close-ups. (Those TV-lights are incredible; I need to take them with me from now on, particularly whenever I shoot photos at night!)

They deliberately backed their chairs up to a turn lane on the corner, so we couldn't get right in back of them with our signs. Cagey!

3) Herman Cain supporter. A Fox News poll at the end of the evening, declared Cain the winner of the debate.

4) Police.

5) Demonstrators.

6) Gregg Jocoy, my co-organizer and co-chair of South Carolina Green Party. Yeah! The anti-war sign got mentioned on TV, woot!

7) and 8) Rev. David Kennedy and his group Chimuranga, added some fire to the sidewalk action.

And more photos HERE.

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