Saturday Morning Mockery of a Sham: A few notes on tyranny

I tried to watch Mr. Obama's immigration speech on Thursday night, but wonder of wonders, it was rained out.  The satellite signal was lost because of a violent downpour.  That has not been the weather pattern here in recent years, but I can always watch the speech on instant replay.  Heavy rain is not so easily reproducible these days.

MSNBC loved the speech and Fox news believes it is grounds for impeachment.  This is the way it works in modern America.  How decisions are arrived at no longer matters; what matters is whether you like the decision.  Liberals like the immigration "policy" (whatever it may be - I'm not really sure), while conservatives detest it.  Liberals like it because it seems "nice."  It's nice to be nice to people, and what could be nicer than saying to a vast array of human beings inside the borders of the United States illegally that they no longer have anything to worry about.  While Mr. Obama, in his usual let's-try-to-please-everybody way, made sure we understood that "criminals" will still be deported, what he really meant was that the immigration laws, such as they exist in the United States Code Annotated, will no longer be enforced, because when you enforce them, the natural outcome is deportation.  What else could happen?  Anyone in the country illegally is by definition a criminal.  Adding the fillip that a person who has committed the crime of illegal entry has compounded matters by committing another criminal act while in the United States, as a basis for a "get tough" stance, sounds pretty lame.

The President excused his executive action by saying that Congress had failed to act.  Well, you know. Congress doesn't have to act.  There are many immigration laws on the books already, such as the omnibus immigration reform act of 1986.  That law has not been rigorously enforced; as a result, we are now in the position of having roughly the same number of illegal immigrants in the country that we had when the 1986 law was enacted.  Since that law was not enforced, after its amnesty provisions were effected, we're back where we started.  So now we have to reform the immigration reform bill, and Congress hasn't done that.  So Obama feels that he must do it alone.

So that brings up the first point: why does anything have to be done?  As Mr. Obama said in the speech, we're not going to round up 11 million people and send them back where they came from. We're not going to separate illegal adult parents from their American citizen "anchor" babies who were born on U.S. soil. We're not going to do anything about the problem, in fact, because America doesn't do anything about problems.  So what is the thinking behind making a "policy" out of continuing to not do the very thing we're not doing?

To give this oddity the patina of legality, Mr. Obama made reference to "prosecutorial discretion." Just to point out the obvious: this doesn't make any sense at all.  Deciding not to enforce federal laws which are on the books, in the maroon volumes of the United States Code Annotated, is not what "prosecutorial discretion" is.  Prosecutorial discretion applies to discrete cases; yes, the district attorney says, there may be a prima facie violation of the law here.  On balance, however, it is not advisable in this particular instance to seek an indictment. The proof necessary may be difficult to obtain. The crime does not seem to have resulted in much personal damage to anyone.  Another remedy, such as a fine, might be more appropriate.  Bankrupting this defendant by forcing him to defend against this charge seems disproportionate to the gravity of his offense.  These are criteria for prosecutorial discretion.

Declaring that a giant cohort of people are immune from the statutes of the United States because it is the President's preferred approach is not "prosecutorial discretion."  It is the granting of blanket amnesty. Here's how Paul Krugman, the liberal's Liberal, sums up what he takes to be the universal progressive attitude:

That’s why I enthusiastically support President Obama’s new immigration initiative. It’s a simple matter of human decency.

That’s not to say that I, or most progressives, support open borders. You can see one important reason right there in the Baldizzi apartment: the photo of F.D.R. on the wall. The New Deal made America a vastly better place, yet it probably wouldn’t have been possible without the immigration restrictions that went into effect after World War I. For one thing, absent those restrictions, there would have been many claims, justified or not, about people flocking to America to take advantage of welfare programs.

But of course he does support open borders.  If an immigrant can acquire citizenship by crossing the border and settling down, then the border is open.  Why is that so hard to see?  If this is what Mr. Krugman means by "human decency," then he should support open borders.  Rather than make (largely Latino) illegal immigrants go through the difficult transition period (the "shadows," as Mr. Obama called it) of quasi-legality, just use the border crossings to identify people as they come through, give them a Social Security number, and wish them well.  Why the charade of adding another 3% to the American population in one fell swoop every couple of decades or so in an amnesty program when the same effect can be accomplished gradually by allowing anyone to walk in on any terms they want? All those future amnesty cases living in an underground economy could have been paying into Social Security all along. 

If an American president decides not to enforce immigration laws, as a matter of policy, he is legislating, because his policy amounts to a recission, or amendment abolishing, existing law. As the Chief Executive, his job is to "faithfully execute the laws" of the land.  That is is his oath.  What Mr. Obama is being applauded for is his decision to rescind existing statutes because Congress will not rescind those existing statutes.  Again: how can anybody miss this?  But as I said, it isn't the job of Congress to rescind existing statutes because the President would prefer a different situation.

George W. Bush gave this sort of unconstitutional mischief a quantum push when he decided that complying with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act was too much trouble in the post- 9/11 era, so he ordered wiretaps whenever he wanted them.  The Congress found out, and one senator, Russ Feingold, brought a censure motion against Bush.  He got three other senators to go along with him. Many others agreed that what Bush was doing was illegal, impeachable, a violation of both federal statute and the Fourth Amendment to the Bill of Rights, but...it's not a big deal.  It's too complicated for Americans to follow.  So now we have wholesale, unimpeded, 24/7 spying by the NSA on everybody about everything, all presided over by President Obama, and no one says anything about it anymore for fear they'll wind up living in the Moscow Airport.  Wars are now begun on the whim of the executive.  A formal declaration of war under Article I of the Constitution is absolutely unthinkable, and the Declaration-Lite of the War Powers Act is also omitted.  No need anymore.  Congress fulminates, but they don't really do anything except grandstand with "lawsuits" filed against the President based on violations of the "separation of powers," but that's just because they can then say they did something.  Something quiet that can disappear quietly after a few months when America is distracted by the next raping and drugging celebrity scandal.  The Republicans want the Latino vote just as much as the Democrats, and you have to carry Florida to win the presidency.

This is how we do things now.  You decide what you "Like," sort of like Facebook, and then approve of anything tending in that direction, regardless of how we get there.  All tyrannies begin this way, with the casual acquiescence in methods you know are wrong, but you like the results, so you let it go. Until the same arbitrary methods are turned against you, and then you wish, too late, that we had a Constitution again.

Sunday Morning Mockery of a Sham: Notes on being an American

Personally, I'm glad I was born, raised, have lived and will undoubtedly die here.  There was a time, around 2004 or so, following the re-election of George W. Bush, when, absolutely convinced the nation had completely gone off the deep end, I considered expatriation.  I took evening classes in conversational French at the local community college, in fact, and found myself among other Boomers who had rededicated themselves to the French of their high school years because George W. Bush had just been re-elected President.  We become inured to such lunacy as the Bush years, however, and consulting history, we recognize that other Palookas have occupied the White House throughout history and the country nevertheless survived.  James Buchanan is frequently cited, or the short, unhappy, highly controversial reign of William Warren G. Harding, who, with very little time to work with, embroiled himself in the Teapot Dome scandal and died colorfully at the Palace Hotel on Market Street in San Francisco.

As to expatriation:  I really would not want to live in Europe.  As Saul Bellow wrote in the first line of The Adventures of Augie March (perhaps the book that lays claim to the true title of The Great American Novel), "I'm an American, Chicago born and bred."

Yep, I know what he means. I've lived almost my entire life in California.  It works.  You can get the general idea of being alive by living your life in California.  I've been to Europe a fair number of times (I'm guessing about eleven such journeys, some for fairly long stretches), and what I've noted, while feigning my European-ness, becoming for a while socialized, gracious, thoughtful, all those things I rarely am at home, is that it didn't take long to want to leave.  Europeans begin getting on my nerves because they're so socialized, gracious, and thoughtful.  They're so damn cultured.  I suspect, in fact, that the reason Europeans have traditionally started massive land wars which have reduced the entire Continent to rubble on a pretty regular basis is that they get sick of it themselves.  Americans let off steam gradually by engaging in random murder.  We must remember that what is suppressed gathers force.  It's in the first chapter of every self-help book.

So I didn't leave America.  I read with bemusement the essays of Dmitry Orlov, who was born in the U.S.S.R. and now lives on a boat usually moored in Boston Harbor.  The pages of cluborlov.com are regularly filled with advice to Americans to get out of America while they can.  Dmitry has of late developed a huge bromance with Vladimir Putin, Russia's President For Life, and extols Vlad's anti-American defiance.  I note, however, that Dmitry, who holds dual citizenship, keeps his boat anchored in Massachusetts.  It's a shtick, a "branding" (as the marketers say, and Dmitry does work in that very field, which can be very lucrative in America), we have to recognize that, just as the faux-patriotism of many of America's leaders, who simply use their professed devotion to America as a way to make a living, is a shtick and a brand.

Obviously I don't think America should be above criticism.  "I love my country, but I love it in justice," as Albert Camus once said.  That's a useful touchstone.  America is a sprawling mess.  Americans are probably the descendants of ancestors with undiagnosed Adult Attention & Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD).  This is an hypothesis that is au courant - restless and adventurous people are the ones who migrate, who leave their settled lives and take on the unknown world.  Still, one would imagine that 400 years after it all started that this genetic inclination would revert to the mean, with a slight bias in favor of being a little jumpy.  Mostly you can figure out America's advantages by looking at a globe.  Let's face it, look at that real estate!  In the temperate latitudes, with varied biospheres, scenic diversity, right smack dab in the middle of the world's two great oceans.  After gaining a beachhead in New England, those early ADHD cases kept looking West, kept acquiring real property (like a couple of Beverly Hills sharpies trolling for land in the 1950's - men of vision!), until they owned everything, at one point, from Maine to the Phillipines. 

And even if you find parts of America particularly repugnant, there is solace in knowing it's a federation of states with their own government systems.  Living in California is not the same thing, culturally, politically, as a matter of mental health, as living in Mississippi.  The political absurdities that afflict modern America are the result of a couple of critical miscalculations of the Founding Fathers.  In particular, democracy has gotten skewed (and screwed) by the basic arithmetic of the bicameral system coupled with the political inclinations of the (mostly sparsely-populated) hinterland, as noted here on various occasions.  Every state, even if it's mostly cows and Big Horn Sheep, gets two senators, and control of one House in Washington, D.C., is enough to wreck effective governance.  Still, when you look at guys like Mitch McConnell, John McCain, Lindsey Graham and James Inhofe, all products of our One-Cow, One-Vote system, you're glad they're not more effective.

Maybe there will come a time when the Tenth Amendment will undergo its renaissance, and the central government will revert to its basic functions of running the Post Office and...well, that ought to do it, actually.  Eliminate the income tax in favor of partnering up with Indian casinos.  Any shortfall could be made up by a National Liposuction Drive, selling the resulting 60 million or so Average-Sized Humans (represented by the surplus adiposity drained away), as a non-fossil fuel alternative to whale oil on the world market, thus sparing the actual cetaceans under duress in the world's oceans.



 

When in doubt, blame Israel

I enjoy reading Counterpunch, the leftist ezine maintained by the Cockburn family.  It's one of the first places I check when I'm reading around the Net in search of some alternative to the Press Release Media that now constitute our source of Official News.  For one thing Counterpunch gives a forum for such Marxist oriented writers as Rob Urie, who criticizes Darwinian capitalism in unsparing terms reminiscent of Leon Trotsky, if not quite with the same rhetorical, true-believer flourish.  What is going on in the United States economy, with wealth disparity having reached utterly absurd levels, with academic studies confirming what we already knew, that the U.S. is a political oligarchy controlled entirely by money, should not be nibbled at around the edges, the way the MSM do.  If you "deregulate" Big Business, if you allow such legal excrescenses as the Citizens United case to go unremedied by legislation, if you do not (as the Justice Dept. does not) enforce anti-trust laws, and if you allow an unfettered "globalization" to set the agenda for domestic legal frameworks - if you do all that, as the U.S. has done, then inevitably, as a matter of human nature, you will wind up with a system like we have.  Karl Marx was wrong only in his "scientific historicism" and his somewhat naive and fairy-tale view that the proletariat would arise and establish a workers' paradise.  That was the cover story in the U.S.S.R. and Red China, and just as inevitably a different kind of hierarchical system, enforced by secret police and suppression, came to dominate wherever Communism was attempted.

What you have to put up with in browsing Counterpunch, however, is the other kneejerk tendency of the hyper-intellectual Left, the tribally-enforced, automatic denunciation of Israel...whenever Israel comes up, and quite often when no one has even mentioned Israel.  Quite often when the topic has nothing to do with Israel, say in an essay by Andrew Levine about President Obama's "spinelessness," which are sometimes enjoyable to read in a pox-on-both-their-houses way.  Suddenly, in the middle of reading about the corruption of American electoral politics, Mr. Levine will suddenly careen off in the direction of "Israeli war crimes" and you suspect, probably correctly, that the Censors and Guardians of Ideological Purity at Counterpunch have sent a memo to Mr. Levine that he is not meeting his quota of Israel-bashing digressions this month, and if he wants to continue publishing at this fine Leftist tabloid, well...just sayin', as we just say these days.

I was thinking about this in the context of the Bill Maher/Berkeley campus speech hullaballoo recently, which had the customary two-day shelf life recently in public consciousness.  Students at Berkeley did not want Maher near the 50th anniversary of the Free Speech Movement because of some anti-Muslim statements Maher had made on his "Real Time" show.  Okay, sometimes irony just writes itself.  Or as Tom Lehrer (Jewish, admittedly) once answered in response to a question about why he had given up writing political songs - when Henry Kissinger won the Nobel Peace Prize, Lehrer knew satire was dead.

So the Berkeley students did not want Maher exercising Free Speech on their campus, not if he was going to say things they didn't approve.  Personally, I thought (based on a Berkeley education) that this was the whole point of free speech, at least as formulated by the great John Stuart Mill in On Liberty.  This was why the (mostly Jewish) lawyers of the ACLU, led by Burton Joseph (guess what) won the landmark case permitting the Nazi Party to march in Skokie, Illinois in 1977, where one in six residents was a Holocaust survivor.  The Nazis were being a little ...politically incorrect, wouldn't you say?  No matter.  Prior restraint is unconstitutional under the First Amendment.  Except, perhaps, at Berkeley.

This came as no huge surprise to me, based on undergraduate experiences.  Ideological purity on the Left is perhaps more decisively enforced, niggle for niggle, than on the Big Tent Right, where, after all, all the Republicans really want is more money.

Sam Harris, militant atheist and rarefied, almost bloodless logician, was on the Bill Maher show that nearly caused Ben Affleck to plotz.  Ben knew, and shouted everyone down who tried to disagree, that everyone is the same, and that the anti-Muslim comments by Maher and Harris were beyond the pale, were racist, ethnocentric, et cetera.  I did not take Sam Harris's comments as a general condemnation of all Muslims; indeed, after Harris gets through with his limitations, codicils, refinements, reservations, statistics, demographics and airborne footnotes, it's not always altogether clear what he's saying. Nevertheless, Sam Harris lays out a clear argument against moral equivalency in Gaza, Israel versus Hamas (in my view), in this podcast.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=HX-UPcrejHc#t=679.
This is the sort of thing that an ideologically pure writer at Counterpunch must never say: one can never refer to Israeli self-defense, territorial integrity or anything of the kind.  Israel's job is to cease to exist, period.

Beginning at about minute 12:30, Harris brings up ISIS, and its Genghis Khan-like campaign of rape, murder and pillage that it is currently conducting throughout Syria and Iraq, although details have become sketchy lately because of an ISIS practice of beheading, on camera, any Western journalist who gets too close to the action.  This brings up a point frequently (as in always) neglected in the polemics of the Left: the real threats, in the main, both currently and historically, to the safety and security of Muslims throughout the world originate with other Muslims.  The deaths inflicted by Muslims upon other Muslims exceed by several orders of magnitude all deaths ever inflicted by Israelis on Arabs or Muslims more generally, beginning in 1948, counting all wars since including Intifada I and II and Gaza.  I also find the tongue-tied approach of the Left to the predations of ISIS a little puzzling.  The only way that Cockburn & Co. permit discussion is in the context of "blowback;" that is to say, if the Sunni umbrella group known as ISIS is killing Kurds, Shia, Alawites and other Muslim sects by the bushel, by the carload lot, by corpses measured in the gross tonnage, well - it's the USA's fault for taking the lid off of Muslim sectarian tensions. 

You've heard the argument, and honestly speaking, doesn't that lead to a somewhat uncomfortable position for our ideologically pure Leftist?  The argument amounts to a recognition that without an authoritarian police state ruthlessly controlled by a dictator, such as Saddam Hussein in Iraq or Bashar Assad in Syria (under full power), militant Muslim sects will immediately resume ethnic cleansing to finish up some old business that's been bugging them since the 7th Century about who the rightful heir to Mohammed really is. Yet the United States prides itself (through lip service anyway) on the notion that freedom and democracy are blah blah blah, so that these internecine, sectarian bloodbaths are the price that must be paid, or something like that.  Or we must invade Iraq again (and Syria too) to prop up (a, in Iraq) our puppet democracy, or (b, in Syria) the corrupt dictator Assad until we have a chance to overthrow him and install an anti-Russia puppet government on more favorable terms.

There isn't much to choose among these various unpalatable outcomes.  Where it gets excruciating for the anti-Israel left is that all the arguments must be stood on their heads when it comes to Hamas and Gaza.  One could conclude, on the basis of the lessons learned in the greater Middle East, where blood is flowing like the Tigris & Euphrates used to flow, that Israel's misfortune is that it's another branch of the kafir, the infidel or heathen that cannot be tolerated in Muslim lands.  Yet that's no fun for the American anti-Israel Left.  You can't talk about that because then you're foreclosed from blaming Israel and its "imperialist" enablers, which is the Chomsky - Counterpunch Standard Approach.  And no self-respecting, ideologically pure, Prior Restraint Advocate wants to be caught dead doing that.

Up In Smoke

I will be very curious to see the effect of Oregon's marijuana legalization law (Proposition 91) on the "underground" economy of Northern California's Emerald Triangle of Humboldt, Trinity and Mendocino Counties.  Some surmise that growing and selling pot (mostly illegal, although business boomed when California passed its medical marijuana law a few years back) accounts for about $1 billion in annual revenue to these mostly rural, sparsely-populated counties.  A lot of ganja farmers up there in the redwood forests.

The Oregon law essentially handles pot like alcohol, and the regulation and taxation of marijuana will be under the aegis of the state's alcohol commission.  It will probably raise a lot of tax money.

Summary: Currently, cultivation, possession, delivery, sale of marijuana are unlawful, excepting regulated production, possession, use of medical marijuana. Measure allows production, processing, delivery, possession, sale of marijuana to adults, licensed, regulated by Oregon Liquor Control Commission (OLCC). Marijuana producer, processor, wholesaler may deliver "marijuana items" (defined) only to/on licensed retail premises. OLCC collects tax imposed on marijuana producer at different rates for marijuana flowers, leaves, immature plant. "Homegrown marijuana" (defined) not regulated, taxed. Tax revenues, fees fund OLCC suspense account, Oregon Marijuana Account distributed: 40% to Common School Fund; 20% for mental health/alcohol/drug services; 15% for state police; 20% for local law enforcement; 5% to Oregon Health Authority. "Marijuana paraphernalia" (defined) excluded from "drug paraphernalia" laws. Other provisions ^[5]

That's a nice touch: 20% of the tax revenue will be devoted to mental health/alcohol/drug services.  I mean, why not?  And 40% to the Common School Fund -generally speaking, taxes on our vices often wind up funding public education, like California's lottery.  A realistic nod to the inevitable, always laudable in these hypocritical times.

It is sometimes reported (say, by the Emerald Triangle News, the voice of the Norcal ganja farmer), that California's own similar initiative was voted down in part because of an ad campaign financed by the - Norcal ganja farmers.  Well, that's just good business.  Just as the Mafia were ardent supporters of Prohibition, so the underground pot growers understand the basic law of scarcity, demand and price.  Illegality keeps the price up and the tax collectors away.  Granted, it invites the unwanted attention of the DEA, but the pot growers have thrived despite such nuisances.

One article I read in the aforementioned ET News while "researching" this blog post observed hopefully that Oregon would now be a brand new market for the Triangle's black market dope.  This strikes me as wishful thinking raised to the level of whistling past the graveyard.  When Portland becomes the New Amsterdam, why, exactly, would Oregonians want to buy the Triangle's overpriced, environmentally-dubious shit?  

Rather, this situation presents what Mr. Krugman would call a "natural experiment" in economics.  Oregon growers can get in the legal business of growing dope (just as if they were vineyard owners or winemakers) by paying $1,000 a year for a license.  It all becomes legal next July, 2015.  My guess is that the line at the Dope Window at the Oregon Liquor Control Commission is already forming; it will make the lines for Springsteen tickets look puny in comparison.  Oregon dope will be organic and non-GMO.  Although admittedly the actual cannabis will probably be inferior to the Norcal variety, because of climate factors, Oregonians have lived for decades under the delusion that the wine they make is drinkable, so this should prove no hurdle to brisk sales.

In the relatively short run, what will actually happen is that Oregon's breakthrough will lead inevitably to California's passage of its own initiative, on which, ironically, the Oregon law was based.  The farmers of the Emerald Triangle will then have a great deal of competition all over the Golden State.  Prices will drop, tax collections will ramp up, and our public schools, full of dope-faded kids smoking up the parents' stash, will be flush with cash.

The Democrats' Historic Drubbing

"Fellas, I think I know a little bit about politics."  Fielding Mellish, "Bananas," laying it out for members of the San Marcos junta who have summoned him to dinner.

The Democrats' historic drubbing, of course, was preceded by the Republicans' historic drubbing in 2006, followed by the election of Barack Obama in 2008 and the retrenchment of the Democrats, who for two years controlled the White House and both houses of Congress.  Followed by the shellacking of the Democrats in 2010, when they lost control of the House and tenuously held on to the Senate. Followed by the next voting-booth coup d'etat yesterday where the Republicans extended their lead in the House and took over the Senate.

The schizophrenic electorate in those areas of the country where there are competitive races (where they are not overwhelmingly Blue or Red to begin with) follow a predictable pattern of throwing the bums in that they just threw out, then throwing those bums out and throwing some new bums back in, all bums designated with the (D) or (R) trademark of the oligarchy brand to which these candidates belong.

It is possible that the above employment chart sheds light on the reasons for the observed electoral thrashing around.  It's always important, when talking about the "jobs" added by any particular President, to talk about (a) what jobs?, and (b) who got them?  The chart above tends to demonstrate that a lot of old people went back to their old jobs, or began new careers as Wal-Mart Greeters, since the recession hit, and the nest egg that was going to fund their bocce-ball playing (the equity in the residence) disappeared.  It also demonstrates that the life blood of the economy, the energetic, creative sector of the economy, young people in the prime of life, cannot find work.

Please note that I do not blame President Barack Obama for this; that is a childish, reflexive, pointless exercise in distraction from the real issue.  As the brilliant Bill Clinton used to say, the real issue is that the Republicans, who more directly and openly support the interests of the uber-wealthy, "believe they have a congenital right to lead."  So imagine their frustration at their inability to topple Obama in 2012 with their candidate, the corporate takeover artist and shop-window mannequin, Mitt Romney.

Fortunately for the Republicans, there are plenty of morons among the booboisie in the Red states who exercise their franchise, come hell or high water.  In the Red states with heavily gerrymandered House districts (that is to say, all such states), electing (R) Representatives borders on the automatic and has for years and years.  The Republicans really have to screw up (say, by electing someone like George W. Bush) for the House to swing over to the Democratic side.  The Senate, that profoundly undemocratic institution which allocates two reps to each state regardless of population, can effectively stymie any initiative by the President all by itself.  There are enough Red states in a "swing year" like this (referring to "swing" in the same sense that there are manic and depressive "swings" in bipolar disease) that a mobilized populace can take over the Senate and defeat everything a Democratic President wants to do, even without the help of the House.  No judicial appointments, no treaties, nothing, if these corporate errand boys and girls don't want it.

The economy of the United States has been in the doldrums for a long time, as the chart above suggests.  The misery can be taken much farther back, of course.  The housing boom between 2000 and 2006 was an attempt to jolt the cooling cadaver of American society back to life with monetary defibrillation.  It will not get any better, and very likely will get worse, now that the Republicans are back in power.  The Republicans, in general, take the position that approaches such as "fiscal stimulus" (deficit financing of the government with money pushed into public works), Quantitative Easing (expansion of the Federal Reserve's monetary base by "asset purchases" of Treasuries and mortgage-backed securities), are all "financial games," are evil, are even, as Governor Rick Perry said of Ben Bernanke, the Fed Chair at the time, capital offenses.

So what are the Republicans going to do? They don't have a plan, of course. They will "obstruct" President Obama, except where the president seems inclined to expand wars in the Middle East or blow up terrorists with drone strkes.  They will support his worst tendencies, blockade his best intentions (such as those involving "science"), and bide their time hoping they can take over the whole show in 2016 in order to completely run the country into the ground.  "Secular stagnation," as Mr. Krugman calls it, will continue, only worsen.  Old people will stay on the job, college graduates will live in their basements, and Chris Matthews will report on the next devastating attack on ISIS.

Saturday Morning Travesty: A Few Notes on Organized Religion

Brought to you by Peet's Garuda blend...

The religion of my youth was highly organized in the sense that my time had to be organized around it. The basic schedule was as follows:  Arrive at the church, a bunker-like facility on the frontage road of the 101 freeway, at around 9:45 a.m. on Sunday morning. Wearing a suit and tie, hair slicked, highly presentable as one of the family's three boys.  Endure about one hour of instruction in an "age-group" Sunday school class, taught usually by a hardware store salesman or other learned man of letters.  The curriculum was not particularly organized.  We were as likely to hear the story of the parting of the Red Sea as we were to listen to another account of Jesus turning the water to wine at Cana. Were you aware that the guests at Cana were amazed that the host had saved the best wine for last, contrary to the usual practice of bringing out the swill after the celebrants were already blotto? The hardware store salesman never explained this episode in full because, you see, along with dancing, smoking, gambling, swearing, fornication and instrumental accompaniment to our singing, drinking was strictly off-limits.

Sunday school lasted about an hour, and there was then a brief recess before taking our places in the lightly-populated pews in the auditorium. The church service then began. There were two main preachers who presided over the religion of my youth, Clint L____ and Noah H____.  Clint was an older Okie and Noah was a younger, somewhat sketchy cornball.  Morning service lasted about an hour, and consisted of a few hymns (a capella, as noted), a few prayers, communion (Welch's grape juice and matzoh bread passed along the pews in round wooden trays), and then the offering. These events killed about a half hour.  Then the preacher took his place at the rostrum and delivered his sermon, which tended to last close to 25 minutes.  I think that the tendency of my mind to wander during any sort of oral presentation was probably firmly inculcated during these sessions. In about twelve years of sitting through such homilies, I only remember one brief snatch of sermon from one of Clint L's classics.  He was confronted with some cosmological number in his notes.  Let's just make one up for the sake of explanation.  It was 112, 358, 987, 354, 235, 098.  The 112 corresponds to the quadrillion's place.  I don't think Clint was familiar with such numbers, and it was a mistake to wade in thus unprepared.  So he read the number as "million," and the whole number was read out as follows:  "One hundred twelve million, three hundred fifty-eight thousand, nine hundred eighty-seven million, three hundred fifty-four thousand, two hundred thirty-five..."  (Emphases in the original sermon.)

The ellipsis indicates the point at which Clint L___ realized he was stuck.  Given his method, one would expect that two hundred thirty-five would again be followed by "million," but Clint said "thousand" (twice in a row, so to speak) and then finished nicely with "ninety-eight," bringing it all back (down) home.  As I listened to this astonishing passage, a frisson of fear passed up and down my spine.  Four hours per week, fifty-two weeks per year for twelve years, not counting Vacation Bible School (and I'd rather not think about that).  The Sunday morning service, you see, was repeated in its entirety Sunday evening, and then on Wednesday night an indoctrination session was held (mostly in the class rooms, but preceded and followed by songs and prayers).  Over 12 years that adds up to 2,496 hours of tedium.  I won't call it wasted time; life is really mostly about wasting time, although we seldom admit to ourselves that's what we're doing.

Each of the three weekly sessions was brought to a close with the "invitation."  Generally speaking, during the Sunday and Sunday evening sermons I was glad to hear the preacher begin edging into his buildup.  A mention of the tragedy of being "almost persuaded" to accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, and then the tri-partite invitation itself.  Come forward to be baptized (the Big Enchilada), confess wrongs (second-rate, but usually the most titillating), or place membership with the congregation (small-bore administrative stuff).

As I say, I was mostly glad to hear the denouement of the sermon except for that brief period of vulnerability we called the Age of Accountability.  Generally, you knew you were in this danger zone when girls began causing funny feelings within your body on a regular and uncontrollable basis.  Let's say this is around 13 or 14 years old, corresponding to the age of bar or bat mitzvah in Judaism. In the Fundie cult sect in which I was trained, there were expectations but no strong Jewish parents to make sure it happened.  You had to make the call yourself, walk down the aisle in response to the "invitation" to be baptized, get dunked and get it over with.

Life can be weird, can't it?  How did we ever come up with that one?  John the Baptist baptized Jesus in the Jordan River, and now I'm supposed to take the plunge with Clint L___ in a walk-in hot tub behind a curtain up behind the rostrum in a Northern California town during the early stages of the Kennedy Administration.  Two thousand years later.  This tends to demonstrate that humans have never managed to come up with anything.  We're still completely clueless. We're stuck within a universe the physical laws of which seal us off from ultimate enlightenment; thus, we are left only with the shit we can make up.

Anyway, moral suasion, peer-group pressure, fear of parental wrath - they all worked together one Sunday evening in late January, 1961.  I was running out of time.  I was bar mitzvah age, I was Accountable, one false move and it was the hot flames lickin' my ass forever and ever, amen.  With roaring in my ears, with the plaintive strains of "Almost Persuaded" gently lifted on high in the characteristic off-key way by the sparse audience to this momentous event, I stepped out from my aisle seat in the second pew (this had all been carefully choreographed for maximum down-low exposure), I stepped the two feet to the front into the waiting mitts of Clint L____.

My late cousin, the novelist James D. Houston, described his own more-or-less identical experience in his novel A Native Son of the Golden West.  (TJR is moving and he found the book I had loaned him years ago.)  It's inscribed, "all good wishes - us Native Sons got to stick together, Jim May 22, 1971."
I bought the book at Jim's reading at Cody's Books, Haste & Telegraph in Berkeley.  I had finished my "higher" education at Berkeley, majoring in existentialism and heathen studies.  I was very proud to sit in the audience and listen to Jim read.

Jim's maternal grandmother was the older sister of my maternal grandmother.  His mother and mine were first cousins and best friends.  In a sense they spent their entire lives together.  They were both devoutly faithful to the Old Time Religion.  They both married taciturn Southerners of exceptional intellect who were not religiously observant if religious at all.  Both died of cancer at fairly young ages. 

In his novel, Jim becomes Hooper Dunlap (the sounds and letters of the names can be unscrambled to derive their origins), and he grows up in Glendale, California.  The old Fundie religion is clearly recognizable, but Hooper's parents are both faithful attendees, unlike Jim's real life.  Hooper is in the Danger Zone and he has to make the call.  The congregation is singing "Almost Persuaded" on a Sunday morning (Jim was always a more standup guy than I have been). So here he goes:

"Head expanding where round notes tingle, he imagines it's his own voice filling the hall and he never decides to step into the aisle.  Later he can't remember walking down. One moment he's singing, the next the light is blinding him, the stage is cracked and tilted bending through the wet he tries to blink away.

"Brother Dailey's old face is right in front of Hooper's, tears streaming, smiling, broken-voiced. He takes Hooper's hand in both of his and whispers, 'Are you coming forward to be baptized?'

"Scarlet nod. 

" 'God bless you, boy.'

"He asks Hooper to sit.  The last notes fade. Brother Dailey announces, eyes brimming, that someone has come forward.  Hooper's face is feverish again.  The preacher takes his hand, helps him stand.

" 'Do you believe with all your heart that Jesus Christ is the son of God?'

"Hooper had forgotten about that. The main reason he waited this long in the first place, and he'd forgotten it entirely. He doesn't see how anyone his age can believe that. "

I think the sentence, "Hooper had forgotten about that" is one of the funniest lines Jim ever wrote, and he wrote a lot of them.  It captures the sense of utter craziness in ritualized behavior in general, and the madness of religious conditioning in particular.  Ten years before Jim inscribed the book to me near the godless sidewalks of Telegraph Avenue, I had been asked the same question, and I think maybe I had forgotten about that, too.  I was up there to get submerged, take the pressure off and move on to the increasing pleasures of all those girls in school. I reasoned there were only about four years left in my sentence, and good behavior usually helps to make the stretch run more smoothly. Very few of us, I guess, ever get through life without impersonating someone else entirely, at least from time to time.