Thanksgiving 2021

 Happy Thanksgiving, America.

That once innocent sentiment has become bitterly controversial as our society has evolved.

Traditionally, this occasion celebrates the white man's deceptive friendship with the indigenous population - ending of course in two centuries of imperialism and near genocidal war.  To the 'victors' it is a time of romantic reflection on a first meeting between two cultures.  To the native American, it is a remembrance of sorrow.

For all, it is a time to reflect.  So, what have we to be thankful for, as a nation, on this Thanksgiving?

This past year, we've seen American troops withdraw from Afghanistan, only to be replaced with lightning-swift rapidity by incoming Taliban forces.

Are we to feel thankful that no more American blood is to be spilled on a country we occupied for 20 years?  Or, sorrowful for the tyranny and brutality against women, minorities and dissidents sure to come?  Or, for the scores of American dead sacrificed in a war that proved as futile - and, twice as long - as our involvement in Vietnam?

Both, perhaps.

  The sorrow, for us, lies perhaps not in our idealistic albeit naive belief in fighting the good fight for freedom, but in our apparent refusal to learn the historic lesson that freedom must be won by the oppressed, not handed to them by the liberator (or, occupier posing as liberator.)

Are we to be thankful that three self-appointed racist vigilantes who killed an innocent man have been justly convicted?  Or, sorrowful that a 17-year-old all-American boy-next-door can legally obtain a military-grade assault rifle, travel across two state lines and kill two unarmed men exercising their right of political protest all in the name of self-defense?

Both, perhaps.

The sorrow perhaps lies not in the fact that our criminal justice system still ocassionally works - but, in the fact that the 2nd Amendment - which clearly refers to a well-regulated militia, and the collective right of the people to bear arms in upholding national sovereignty - has been woefully twisted and distorted by right-wing judges into a sacred right of the individual to bear arms against his neighbor, developing in tandem with the principle of "stand your ground" which seems designed to encourage vigilantism over law and order.  And, over free speech.  How many more "good American" white vigilantes armed with automatic weapons can we expect to see turn up at the next demonstrations against racist police brutality in the name of self-defense?  How many armed protestors can we expect to see in response?  And, is this the path to ultimate dissolution of social cohesion?

Are we to be thankful that the mad talk of wall-building is over?  Or, sorrowful that refugees are still being driven in droves from our borders?

I vote sorrowful.

The hope for a better, more compassionate approach to those yearning for safe haven and freedom - the American ideal - is not being realized.  Not here, in the land of the free, the shining beacon of hope - or, in Europe.  On both sides of the Atlantic, tides of refugees are being turned away, with no solution in sight.  In a world where the effects of climate change are being felt more painfully every day - this can only get worse before it gets better.

And, in addition to society failing refugees from abroad - it is also failing to address the plight of the homeless right here inside our borders.  Tent cities may be torn down and refugees may be turned away, but people have to go somewhere.  If the causes of international refugees and homelessness are not effectively addressed, what is the inevitable outcome as the storms and floods and wildfires and wars continue?  What is society ultimately to do with all these displaced people?  Slavery?  Extermination camps?

On a holiday meant - however hypocritically - to celebrate different cultures coming together in friendship, our country seems to have come full circle to division and alienation.  The police - and, to a growing extent, the white civilian population - seem to see African Americans as the new Indians, America itself as the new frontier.  And, there's no second great Thanksgiving dinner on the horizon, it seems.  Just automatic weapons.

And so...as we give thanks for family, friends and good fortune...let us seek ways to give back more than we take...to honor what this holiday is supposed to be about...in seeking common ground and common effort for a better tomorrow.

God of the pilgrims ... Great Spirit ... if you're there ... We need all the help we can get.

Thoughts on "The Last Duel"

 

Ridley Scott's visually striking and highly disquieting new film "The Last Duel" is a based-on-fact drama derived from Eric Jager’s 2004 book, “The Last Duel: A True Story of Trial by Combat in Medieval France,” the historical drama of  France’s last government-sanctioned trial by combat, held between Jean de Carroughes, a celebrated knight and war hero and his friend-turned enemy, Jacques Le Gris, a politically connected and duplicitous court noble.

 A bitter and agonizing tale of a loveless marriage and bitter male rivalry, rape, legal and political intrigue and a vicious duel to the death.  A tale set in a barbarous age which in some respects bears a disturbing resemblance to our own, supposedly enlightened age.

Three stories in one, the film tells the same sequence of events from three perspectives:  Carrouges, Le Gris, and Marguerite de Carroughes, the heroine of the film, whose version of the story is presented as the truth.  Visually potent, the film transports us through war, poverty and a dark, gritty age.

Jean de Carroughes is depicted as a brutal man, a primitive more at home on the battlefield than at court.  His best friend Jacques Le Gris, is a suave, charming political manipulator who's outwardly cultured manner hides a brutal and evil nature.  His gangster-like methods of rent collection gain him favor with his superiors, land, power and all the women he desires (assuming his appetite in that area can ever be satisfied.)  A predator in every respect, he advances while Carroughes is left deprived and embittered, the rivalry between them developing quickly into hatred.

The key object of contention between them is Margueritte, a wife Carroughes brutishly treats like a head of stock.  In a time when women were regarded as property, Margueritte is expected to perform her wifely duty and lie through her teeth in saying she enjoys her husband's ape-like sexual performance.  She notices Le Gris noticing her, and at his first opportunity, he forces himself upon her.  In a strictly factual sense, Le Gris' version of the act itself and Margueritte's are virtually identical; it's the textures that differ.  To him, it's a game of pursuit that always characterizes sex.  For her, it's torture and violence.  When she urgently begs him to stop, her face twisted in anguish, he continues remorselessly to climax.  Le Gris' version of reality claims an affair; Margueritte's does not.

Upon learning of the rape, Carroughes' reaction is one of personal wrong; the final attack of his rival upon him, personally.  The first thing he does is unbuckle his pants and order his wife to submit to him, unmindful of her post-traumatic pain, insisting Le Gris will not be the last man to have his trophy wife.  For, he knows Margueritte insists upon publicly accusing her rapist and that she can be put savagely to death by public flaying and immolation if her account is not believed.

What follows is timelessly familiar.  Margueritte's best friend turns her back on  her, disbelieving her account.  Her unsympathetic mother-in-law tells her she should have kept her mouth shut, to avoid scandal, as is any woman's duty, rape described as a normal fact of life that women simply have to learn to live with.  Le Gris' powerful friends rally around him.  The church publicly humiliates Margueritte in court, asking her to publicly swear she has achieved orgasm with her husband.  Margueritte's humiliation is compounded by the fact she is pregnant with her rapist's child.  All-too-familiar pseudo-scientific claims that rape cannot result in pregnancy are leveled against her.  The misogynistic core of the patriarchal culture is laid bare in the statement by a church official that this is not a case of a crime against a woman; this is a property crime against her husband.  

Finally, Carroughes defends his honor by invoking the right of a sanctioned duel to the death with Le Gris.  This barbaric ritual is expected to reveal God's will in the survival of the righteous.  If Carroughes loses the duel, it means Margueritte lied and will be put to death.  The duel itself, beginning with a joust and culminating in a vicious hand-to-hand struggle is like something out of a Roman gladiatorial match, the spectators...including the king himself...gleefully cheering on the slaughter.  Neither combatant has earned our sympathy, but we must root for Carroughes, the suspense building as Margueritte's life depends on his victory.  She sits in a spectator/defendant's box, her ankles in shackles, tears in her eyes as she watches the match play out.  Visceral brutality rivaling Gibson's "Passion" culminates in a feast of blood and gore that takes the brutality and senselessness of the age to its devastating climax.  Carroughes emerges victorious, saves Margueritte's life and proudly walks off with her surrounded by cheering crowds; the traditional ending of classic patriarchal fantasy.  But, that is only what's on the surface.  The closing scene shows Margueritte alone in a sunlit garden with her beloved baby son, her husband nowhere to be seen.  The closing credits tell us he is later killed in battle and Margueritte goes on alone, never to remarry.  The true victory is hers, not his.

The numerous rape scenes in this film were, in my opinion excessive.  But, its message was clear and spared us nothing.  The movie's limited success in box office sales suggests that many may dismiss it as yet another Hollywood "message" movie.  Historians may quarrel over its accuracy and critics may pan its social preachiness.  But, on a very basic level, its harsh truths are undeniable.  A system which claims to hold Christ at its heart, like any other patriarchal culture holds at its true core an evil born of an underlying hatred of women and all the deceptive illusions it spawns.

Time in Reverse...

 Time Flowing Backwards...

Time in reverse is not something unique to science fiction.  We just saw it happen in the state of Texas.  After nearly half a century of women having the right to control their own bodies, Texas has passed the most restrictive anti-abortion law on record.  Using not law officers to enforce it, but civilians encouraged to file lawsuits against anyone who performs or "aids and abets" an abortion.

Now, that's one for science fiction.  Where but in some dystopian future world would one see citizens encouraged...financially rewarded, in fact...to employ lawyers as hired guns to enforce a repressive law?

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One has to wonder how far we are from seeing Texas...a state that wants to ban the need for gun permits altogether...start posting "dead or alive" bounties on abortionists.

This reversal in time...this temporal regression towards the days of back-alley abortions is one fraught with contradictions and hypocrisy.  Texas is a state that refuses sex education or contraception to its young people.  A land of chastity pledges and fire-and-brimstone piety.  It is also the state with one of the highest rates of teen pregnancy and abortion in the union.

Why do anti-abortion elements in this country continue to wage war on a woman's right to control her own body?  Certainly not out of compassion for the unborn.  Conservatives won't stand for "welfare states" or "big government" picking their pockets to care for the children of unwed teenaged mothers.  If babies starve or die of disease, they couldn't care less.  Just as they don't care if children die in detention on our southern border.  They're all for war and capital punishment.  They'd slaughter whole populations if they could...They'd "make the sands glow in the dark" if they could.  They'd execute illegal aliens, LGBT people...and, probably African Americans en masse if they could.  (Look what was done to the native American.)

No, it's not the word of Jesus Christ, the Prince of Peace that motivates them, that's for sure.  What they want is to dominate women.  That, they will not let go.  Patriarchal culture in its most primitive form...the macho cowboy culture that shaped the great American west...that goes to the soul of the anti-abortion movement.

And, that movement employs an almost science-fictional approach to equating abortion with murder... something that was never done, biblically or otherwise, in all the centuries before Roe v. Wade.  Abortion was legal under English law for a hundred years after the American Revolution.  It was outlawed in the 1800's for 2 reasons:  

1) The procedure was dangerous and life-threatening in those days, so the doctors didn't want to perform it.

2) Women had no individual rights to speak of in those days and, in the eyes of the church, their primary role in society was to produce children.

A century later, neither of those reasons applied anymore, so the forces wanting to maintain men's control over women had to invent a whole new reason why abortion was wrong.  Even while dropping napalm on children on the other side of the globe, they told scientific and medical half-truths, implying that abortion was the moral equivalent of infanticide.

So, here we are, half a century later...perhaps on the verge of waking up in the past.  Coat hangers, knitting needles...garage mechanics performing surgery in back alleys.  Illegal abortion drugs sold on the black market.  Women and girls dead by the hundreds.

But, perhaps we're waking up into a dark future, as well.  A nightmare world of state-sanctioned vigilante goon squads herding women into detention camps in the desert where they're force-fed and maybe even cut open like livestock to safeguard their unborn babies.  Could it happen?  If a woman can be forced to carry a pregnancy to term against her will...if that's not considered a violation of her most basic human rights...then, why not?

The clock is ticking backward...how long before we wake up?

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Illusion vs. Reality

 

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Fluidic existence...The solid state of reality shifting into the fluid realm of thought, desire, dream...

And, nightmare.  Shaped by fear.  And, hate.

The foundations of democracy...once thought as solid as bedrock...were recently shaken by an explosion of those who trust more in the unseen.  The claims of unseen conspiracy.  Of election fraud, deep state manipulation and fake news.  Nightmares usually confined to the pages of science fiction.  As was the sight of angry mobs storming the nation's capital in this day and age.  Fiction and fantasy seem to have broken down the walls of reality.

And, it goes on...

Not just in the perception of physical reality, but something else that may be even more basic...The basic definitions of right and wrong. Of the cornerstones of moral norms which define civilized life.

In a dystopian future science fiction like "Star Dancer" social norms are horribly distorted, basic human rights and values giving way to futuristic versions of the dark ages.

In contemporary reality, such basic norms seem no more solid than wax reshaped by the fire of politics.  In a nightmare vision, our nation's capitol is besieged by rioters, many openly brandishing banners antithetical to the ideology of this nation.  Openly calling for the mob rule executions of public officials.  Many of those officials had to barricade themselves in their offices, their lives in apparent danger.  Now, half those officials (the half of the ousted party) are downplaying the incident as a minor occurrence, no more rowdy than an ordinary tourist visit.  (I wasn't aware tourists made a regular habit of breaking windows and building gallows with the Vice President's name on them.  Someone really should look into hiring better tour guides.)

One made the comment that (as he was cowering in his office with the door blocked, presumably) he took comfort in the fact that the people attacking capitol police officers, smashing in doors and storming offices were people who "loved this country" - seriously?  And, he went on to make the blatantly racist comment that if it had been Black Lives Matter protestors doing the same thing, "I'd worry."  (Yeah, you have to be particular about who's lynching you.  I mean, one has to have standards.)

More recently, people who've downplayed the storming of the capitol and flatly refused to investigate it have also taken great moral outrage at an elected official denouncing human rights abuses at the hands of America's friends and foes alike, claiming the statement blurred the moral lines between American allies and enemies.  Huh.

So, let's get this straight...It's okay to lay siege to America's capitol and threaten to kill its elected officials, so long as you do it waving an American flag (albeit alongside a Confederate flag) but it's not okay to criticize American friends and foes in the same breath for committing the same illegal acts.

The reason for this moral ambiguity is clear.  The ousted party lives in fear of the same element that launched the siege and which still controls the party by sheer numbers.  An element which embraces the blatant lie that the election was rigged.  They control the vote, so they define the truth.  And, the shape of the party.  Of reality itself, as far as the party "leaders" are concerned.  The party has ousted one of its own leaders simply for not following this obvious lie, in the name of "unity."  Their unity...their "truth"...flies in the face of actual reality.  And, of conventional morality.

A party which has always called itself the standard bearer of "traditional morality" has proven by its own actions that truth is meaningless to them and that reality is whatever their voters choose to believe it is.  Morality is not bedrock.  Truth is fluid.  Numbers are what count, not facts.  Fear is what defines the party platform, not integrity.  And, justice is extremely selective.

This today is the opposition.  Tomorrow, it may again be the dominant party.  In the long run, though... The question is... can the country survive without a common sense of basic values?  Or, even a basic understanding of what those values are?

No democracy can survive if its words are divorced from its values, and if its direction is determined not by moral codes and standards of civilization, but by armed mobs at the gate.

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A Dream Remembered...

 

Today, we honor the memory of Dr. Martin Luther King.  And, of what he represented.  A dream that one day, this nation would celebrate the true meaning of its creed.  That all human beings are created equal, regardless of race, color or creed.

There was a time when that dream...noble and profound as it is...would be considered as something akin to science fiction.  Many might still see it as such.

But then, that is the true creed of America, is it not?  Not equality at the end of life, perhaps, but certainly at the beginning of it.  "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal."

Do we still believe in the truth of those words, the meaning of which resonate through the words of Dr. King?

On the day we remember Dr. King's dream, how does the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave stand in the world?

Our democracy, once a shining beacon to the world, seems now to hang in the balance, fighting for its life.  Not against foreign despots, but against our fellow Americans.  Predominantly white Americans who waved Confederate and neo-Nazi flags as they stormed our nation's capitol and cried for the murder of elected officials.

That is how far we've come since Dr. King voiced his dream to cheering crowds so long ago?

That dream lives, in the hearts of many.  But, hate lives in the hearts of many, too.  Hate, despair, anger...and a desire to build walls, not bridges.  To look only to ourselves, not to help those less fortunate.  And, to see only the worst in those different from ourselves.

The dream of a better America, an idealized America seems more under siege at this juncture of history than ever before.  With the presidency of Barak Obama, that dream seemed to advance a step further towards realization.

With the election of Donald Trump, the country took a horrifying step backward.  Now, like a wanderer slowly regaining his direction, the country takes a step back towards hope, back towards idealism.

But, the road ahead is rocky and unsure.  The journey along it may or may not succeed.  But, the dream is the beacon that leads us in the right direction.  That's what matters.

Dr. King promised a path to the Promised Land.  The quest is long.  But, the direction at the heart of the quest is what defines us.  

 

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13 days to history's next chapter...

In fiction, the story unfolds, chapter by chapter, building towards a conclusion. Life can be like that, too. History unfolds, chapter by chapter, the outcome shaping the future of nations and cultures. We look for patterns in history which shape our beliefs and cultures. The nature of good and evil. Of truth and lies. What we value in life.

 The American dream is a young one. One that changed the world, and ushered in a new age of hope. Hope that the people can choose their own path, in effect their own future through democratic rule of law. Is that dream now, once again, in danger of dissolving into carnage? Last night, we saw a sight that will forever remain burned into our collective consciousness. The sight of an angry mob storming the Congressional building. The seat and symbol of our democracy. Who were the insurgents? People who have lost all faith in the institutuions of American law and government. Who believe the words of a pseudo-populist demagogue who condemns and slanders the system itself rather than admit political defeat. The sheer madness of the moment lay in the hypocrisy of a movement that claims to treasure law and order, which condemns and even brutally suppresses protests by African American citizens challenging racism and destroying monuments to white patriarchy while itself brutally vandalizing the nation's capital and disrupting the system of government they claim to revere. One can only imagine the extent of police brutality that might have occurred had this riot been led by Black Lives Matter instead of the Proud Boys.

 What flags do these pro-Trump insurgents carry? Some carry the American flag (whatever that still means to them). Some carry the Confederate flag. The symbol of rebellion, racism, and slavery. Most, of course, carry the Trump banner. The cult of one man who, it seems, must rule this country or destroy it. White supremacists, misogynists, neo-nazis and Klansmen invariably rally to the Trump banner. That is no coincidence. These insurgents refuse to believe in the system because it will not give them what they want. What they want is what Trump has promised them. Isolation. Walls to hide behind. A system of white rule in which racist brutality is practiced but never acknowledged. Where the past is romanticized and never questioned. Where science is suppressed, truth malleable and all things unwelcome...global climate change, pandemics...are simply denied. The path to disaster and desolation.

 At its heart, the age of Trump is based on racism, homophobia and above all...anger and ignorance. Will this insurgency continue and grow beyond the end of the Trump presidency? More urgently, what will Trump do next in the 13 days remaining until the end of his presidency? 13 days with one man's finger on the nuclear trigger. A man with no respect for the system, the republic, freedom or truth. History holds its breath through each of those 13 days to come. Like a prelude to the conclusion of some fictional melodrama. This time reminds us how fragile our democracy truly is. How our arrogant comfort in all our wealth and military might comes to nothing if we turn on eachother. And,our national unity seems now undeniably marred by fissures, racial, economic and ideological which seem to strain at the fragile veneer of our supposedly indivisible nation. One nation under God? Whose God?

 Could America be at the brink of a second civil war? Who would win? What would follow? Could our nation even survive in any unified form? 

 13 days and counting...