Chapter 1: Professor Thompson’s Roadtrip Sabbatical
The rhythmic cha-click of his office door felt somehow symbolic as Professor Thompson made his way into the department’s hallway. He was running late for an “end of semester” convocation and awards ceremony. He broke into a light jog to reach his colleagues heading for the university’s grand auditorium, an annual review attended faithfully over the last fourteen years as a member of the “informatics/new media” faculty at a mid-western state university.
Catching up, between panting breaths, Professor Thompson asked anyone inclined to respond, “Do we have a new theme?”
“Yeah, but it’s the exact wording used by one of those networking technology companies,” said Jack Dean, long-time friend and department colleague.
“Damn! The least they can do is come up with their own idea,” said Janice, a marketing specialist, beloved by students for her exceptional creative flair. “I don’t know why they do that,” speaking of the university president’s promotions team. “They recently hired a couple of my students for internships. Surely, they were able to come up with something original.”
“Nah… they always seem to mail the ‘theme’ in,” said Jack. “Maybe they’re overwhelmed by the latest funding cuts.”
“Who knows?” Professor Thompson wasn’t interested in the regular end of semester gossip. “I’m just glad this week is over.” He had a frantic final week as some big changes were on the horizon… exciting changes. He finally nailed that lucrative new media grant guaranteed to keep him busy for the full year of his earned sabbatical.
And it was a perfect day… the campus was in full springtime bloom. The smell of lilac and freshly cut grass filled Professor Thompson with a sense of well being and gladness as the group made their way along impeccably groomed sidewalk landscaping. Workers busy with graduation preparations made their way to and fro in golf carts from the sports coliseum. Students had long since retreated to their dorms, off campus housing, and local restaurants. The air was electric, as if any moment the party of newly minted university graduates would break out with a vengeance. Professor Thompson was intimately familiar with the scene as his undergrad years were spent right here.
“Lovely day for a great escape,” asked the interim department chair? “I bet you’re itching to get out there on the road.”
Professor Thompson was deep in reverie. He had dreamed of exploring the country, sea to shining sea. With the new media grant, he was not only free to do it, he was getting paid to do it with companions. Meeting people across the nation, asking them about the recent descent into fractious national politics. The nation had been clearly divided by tribal identities. Policies to address the problems were no longer a matter of good-faith negotiation and reasoned compromise. It was now all about which jersey you were wearing.
Professor Thompson called this phenomenon, “the fibrillating heart of our divided nation” and he was determined to get his arms around the dysfunction. Though not delusional enough to believe his research could cure the problem, he knows sunlight is the best disinfectant. And so, he was excited to get the process started. As an added bonus, he would be traveling with friends, Jack Dean and Billie Schmidt. Jack, Billie and Professor Thompson shared a long and eventful history as they were band mates in the 1990s… Grunge Metal band mates, in the Soungarden, Nirvana mold. All of this was in a previous life. The band broke up around the time they realized no one was gonna put up sufficient cash to get a video up on MTV. And besides, MTV seemed more into so-called “reality” anyway. Jack followed Professor Thompson into academe and Billie went to work for her father in the ever more technical world of auto mechanics.
As the convocation rambled through various department accomplishments, individual faculty and staff awards, and notable student accomplishments, Professor Thompson beamed with pride when he was called up to the stage to accept the grant award. His colleagues could be heard over the general applause with whistles and cat calls. The moment was sweet and all over as fast as it began. His portrait was flashed on the jumbo screen along with the title of his research and a photo of his department’s building. And with that, the adventure was about to begin. Just a few logistical matters, such as routing and interview appointment schedules. As well, Billie was still working on the vehicle that would take this motley crew on their journey. A luxuriously converted bus recently acquired from the local school district. The gang christened it the “Chool Bus” (the H is silent). Somehow, the “S” had been removed or worn away and rather than spend more money branding the vehicle, the gang agreed to leave well enough alone.
Stay tuned… next week… Chapter 2: Billie Schmidt and the “Chool Bus”
Ch-Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes: In the years of our lord 2024-25 the Loopcircus blog roared along with consistent weekly glimpses into our “Hot Springs or Busk (HSoB)” travels. This was a settled workflow, quite manageable, rendering weekly 4-10 minute posts and illustrative graphics (thanks to various AI image generation tools). The posts were accompanied by audio versions of the text in narrative podcast form. Presently, a few developments have altered our expectations post-HSoB. 1.) Since we have a perfectly serviceable set of vocal folds, we can’t continue to justify maintaining the AI voice-track crutch. 2.) The current creative focus is thus: Instead of brief snapshots of various topics, we’re aiming to create a long-form narrative, eventually cobbled together in novel form (audio & print). And 3.) We’ve shifted gears in our travels, where the original goal was to visit each of the 48 contiguous United States, a blog post for each (several for Florida… of course). And now, we’re letting a bit of moss grow under our feet, making travel decisions determined by favorable Van-Life weather.
And so, we’re currently approaching week #4 with the new project, and we’re finding those aimless moments of formless drifting, some call it “writer’s block” where, at the end of what could have been a productive day, we reflect with a bit of slothful guilt that nothing of consequence had been produced. This is anathema to your typical Type-A personality, no matter HOW retired i think i am. So, this morning, it hit me. In those heady days when we had a weekly publish deadlines (a mere four weeks ago), things got done. In fact we were able to work so far ahead of deadlines to be three to six weeks ahead of publishing targets. Of course, this provides more time for reflection and review, and that’s a good thing as it’s hard to catch mechanical errors when the work is rushed. Anyway, we decided to roll this narrative out as a Loopcircus serial. Many fine works got their public introduction thusly. Oscar Wilde’s Dorian Gray comes to mind, among others, Twain, Dickens, Dumas, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Joyce, etc..
So, we’ll get back to weekly postings with an eye toward minimizing the use of artificial intelligence tools. Starting with the voice tracks. We’ve decided to fall back to tracking my own voice for the audio supplements… AI will be removed from the workflow in that regard. That said, my graphics talent is right up there with Kurt Vonnegut’s (if you know, you know). So, we’ll continue to enlist a robot’s assistance for the weekly post’s “featured images”. We’ll engage a human artist should the finished product ever make it to professional publication.
And now… without further adieu… a brief introduction: In this story, the eminent and amiable Professor Mork Thompson (Professor T.) and his bandmates, known as “The Forks” in their youthful heyday… wander around United States of America indulging a preternatural interest in human nature. This shared interest inspires a question which eventually earns Professor T. a lucrative research grant. Early on, Professor T. recruits a young cowboy and recent graduate of the University of Wyoming for research assistance and aid de camp. Buck Wellstone, whose unhurried country gentility and forthright attitude adds contrast to the sometimes naive and uptight countenance of the former grunge guitar flogger/songsinger, Mork Thompson. On the back roads and freeways of this vast nation, The Forks bear witness to many sometimes perilous, sometimes awkward, sometimes comic adventures that culminate with resolution in a nagging, ongoing inquest/lawsuit concerning Professor T.’s alleged Title IX violations brought by his long-time administrative assistant.
Okay… back to the weekly posts, back to appeasing the Type-A gods. Please join us checking in on the adventures and misadventures of Mork T. and the Forks as they make their way around our precariously vacillating experiment in pluralistic democracy, searching for “the fibrillating heart of our divided nation”.
May whatever you call the infinite mystery of existence swoop in and help us all.
Ok… i confess. While piecing together the second “HSoB: Notes from the Road” post, there was a nagging itch in the back of my buzz-cut cranium. Something was still missing. What was it? Well… the answer came roaring into awareness as i was bumping around West Colfax in Denver. I was there to celebrate T-Day with my aforementioned Texas comrade from the 2000s (the Bush Years) but also wanted to visit the new Casa Bonita as long as i was there. Anyway… i had some time to kill before my reservation, so i took a little detour, further west on i70 to “Lookout Mountain”, a peak overlooking the Coors brewery in Golden, and the final resting place of “Buffalo Bill”, a famous 19th-century Wild West entertainer whose comings and goings had him in good ol’ Hays America on occasion.
So… paying homage to Bill, it hit me. When pressed, i declare Kanorado, half Kansas, half Colorado, my home base. And though the first “This Land” post dedicated to Kansas was given due attention, circumstances had me juggling too many priorities and restrictions to give Colorado a fair hearing at the time… more on that, later.
COLORADO…the other half of Rohlfie’s formative experience. As is typical in post-feminist-revolution fractured families, kids spend school months (work) with one parent, and summer months (play) with the other. And so, this was my childhood story. School in Kansas, “God’s Country” as Mother would put it, and summer nature explorations in Colorado, home of my father’s family. These two humans may have been mismatched from the jump, but, we aren’t here to talk about childhood trauma, so let’s just leave it there.
Colorado is a landlocked mountain state with distinct southwest flavor. In fact, the best green chili burritos in the world are served there (fight me). Sharing the Four Corners region with Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah, it is also bordered by Wyoming to the north, Nebraska to the northeast, Kansas to the east, and Oklahoma to the southeast. Colorado is noted for its mountains, forests, high plains, mesas, canyons, plateaus, rivers, and desert lands. It encompasses most of the Southern Rocky Mountains, as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the western edge of the Great Plains.
The region was originally inhabited by Native Americans and their Paleo-Indian ancestors for at least 13,000 years and possibly much longer. The eastern edge of the Rocky Mountains was a major migration route for early peoples who spread throughout the Americas. More recently, the Pike’s Peak Gold Rush created an influx of pale-faced settlers traveling through Colorado via Santa Fe Trail, which connected established eastern states to Santa Fe and the Camino Real de Tierra Adentro southward. Others made their way overland west via Oregon Trail to the goldfields of California, or the Mormon settlements of the Salt Lake Valley, by way of the North Platte or Sweetwater Rivers, the easiest crossing of the Continental Divide between the Southern and Central Rocky Mountains.
Alongside humans, wildlife found in the mountains of Colorado include deer, bear, squirrels, marmots, moose, pika, and red fox, though moose are not native to the state and the bear are fairly rare. The foothills include deer, squirrels, cottontail, coyote and mountain lion. The prairies are home to prairie dog, fox, badger, and jackrabbit. I have to admit, i have stories a-plenty for nearly every variation of Colorado’s landscape. Here’s a Grand Junction example. A somewhat gonzo road-trip tale, only slightly embellished, but mostly true (wink).
Within the urban sprawl of Denver, a place i have spent many a season, Littleton, Centennial, Northglen, Westminster, Thornton, Broomfield, Arvada, Aurora, and the Denver Tech Center (i wouldn’t know where to start). As well, i have stories for Colorado Springs, Pueblo, Steamboat Springs, Lyons, Estes Park, Dillon, Frisco, Breckenridge, Glenwood Springs, La Vita, Cuchara, Longmont, Loveland, Aspen, Woody Creek, and Boulder. For example, here’s another gonzo road-trip tale. Destination, Laramie Wyoming, but we started from the Keystone Ski Resort where my traveling companion and i were employed and living at the time.
Finally, a shock to the system as my foggy impression of the Northern front range was of middle to lower middle-class living standards… mountaineers, if you will. To my surprise, in my attempt at selling a Rough and Ready camper trailer in Fort Collins, i found myself in a veritable paradise of a college town. It was a pleasant surprise, but since Colorado registration/tagging laws are different from those in Kansas, i was not in possession of the proper paperwork to sell, so therefore had to hightail it to Nebraska on the quick step. We sold the trailer there, but the HSoB tour had me pushing North for the summer leaving me in a time crunch. This, combined with the frustrating Fort Collins experience ended up unfairly influencing my mood at the moment of documentation.
So, yeah, Colorado, half of my home base. As i peck this, my sister and brother in law are pulling up steaks from their Georgia home and transplanting themselves back to Colorado. This fills me with gladness as now i have an excuse to spend more time in a place my father and his eventual life companion would call… “God’s Country”. They would not be wrong in saying that, but neither would my mother saying the same about Kansas… i agree with them all… Kanorado is God’s Country, and i’m proud to call it home.
Now, as my attention has turned full speed to the book project, these blog posts will most likely be restricted to no more than one per month. It’s been a wild year of constant travel and posting, but now it’s, how did Jack Torrance put it… oh yeah… “All work and no play…” Just kidding, we’ll try to strike a balance, and we’ll make sure not to, as Clint Eastwood would put it, “let the old man in”, and hopefully, by the time we head back to Kanorado, we’ll have something to say about the “fibrillating heart of our divided nation” and a manuscript for my shot at the Great American Novel.
OK: Roland the Roadie, a man whose soul had been pressure-washed by the sonic assault of a hundred death metal concerts, found himself back in the beige stillness of Kansas. Because, of course. For months, his universe had been a rolling thunder-dome of Marshall stacks, sweat-soaked leather, and the high-pitched whine of a tour bus generator. But now, in the quiet, his brain kept replaying the scene from Bethel, New York. Bethel! A name that was supposed to conjure images of peace and love and naked people in the mud. Instead, it conjured for him a single, vibrating image: one deeply patchouli-soaked hippie, a walking potpourri of BO and self-righteousness, lecturing him on vibrational energies.
The whole psychic episode had left Roland feeling untethered. He decided, in a moment of profound spiritual desperation, to reconnect with the simple carpenter from Nazareth he’d learned about in Sunday School. A tune-up for the soul. The first step, apparently, was having a beer in Kanorado with an old classmate, Buster was his name, but might have been Biff or Buddy or something equally percussive.
Buster was now full-on MAGies. That’s what he called it…Make America Great In Every State! He said it with the kind of thermonuclear conviction usually reserved for multi-level marketing pitches. He was a walking, talking embodiment of the movement… a cyclone of star-spangled certainty in a Cabela’s cap. Roland, who hadn’t been inside a church since Y2K, admired the dedication. He truly did. But a few things didn’t quite add up.
“So, help me out here,” Roland began, watching the condensation snake down his bottle of suds. “Jesus was all about welcoming the stranger, the whole ‘Good Samaritan’ bit. Now, how does that square with, you know, the screaming on TV about immigrants being an invading army of… well, Bad Hombres?”
Buster took a mighty pull from his beer, his eyes gleaming with the reflected light of a flatscreen broadcasting the gospel of NewsMax. “Roly, Roly,” he said, shaking his head with a sad, paternal chuckle. “It’s an invasion. The enemy within! You gotta protect your house before you can invite people over. It’s just common sense!” Roland wondered if the biblical Good Samaritan had checked for Roman citizenship papers first.
On they went. Roland brought up humility. The washing of the feet. The first being last and the last being first. A beautiful, revolutionary kind of logic.
Buster countered with a sermon on the Prosperity Gospel. Yessir! It was a whole new, New Testament, one seemingly ghostwritten by a real estate developer from Queens. Buster spoke of the President, a man so obviously blessed that his success… the towers, the gold, the winning… was a sign of divine favor.
“It’s a blessing!” Buster roared, a bit too loudly for a Tuesday. “You model the behavior of the blessed to get blessed yourself (Because God, you see, is a big fan of winners)! Damn the torpedoes!” He finished with a belly laugh that shook the barstool.
The conversation, naturally, turned to money. Out on the prairie, a lone steer bellowed for its evening feed, a primal scream from the feedlot heartland. “It’s easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle,” Roland quoted, “than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.”
Buster’s face soured. “That’s communist talk, Roly. Wealth redistribution. That’s theft. And there’s a commandment about that one, an old one. A good one.”
And so on.
Roland pivoted to peace. “Love your enemies,” he murmured. “Be peacemakers.”
“You have to crack a few eggs to make an omelet,” Buster said with a shrug, finishing his beer. “It’s a simple recipe.” Roland felt a sudden, powerful urge to test the idea on Buster’s nose, but he resisted. He had, after all, sworn off violence after the “damn hippie” pepper-spray incident.
The final frontier was Truth itself. Roland lamented a world gone funhouse-mirror mad, an upside-down where experts were fools and feelings were “alternative facts“. Buster then launched into a magnificent, thirty-minute jazz solo of pure, uncut conspiracy, a verbal firehose of YouTube links and podcast prophets about how the only way to find truth was to “do your own research.” Roland performed a quiet face-palm, a gesture of complete and utter exasperation.
“Jesus challenged worldly power,” Roland said, one last gasp. “He taught that leadership was about service, not control.”
Buster saw his opening. “Exactly! He was against the Deep State, just like us!”
Roland drained his beer. It was over. He and Buster were standing on opposite sides of a canyon, shouting into the void. They lived in two different sectors of the multiverse, occupying the same space. An irreconcilable parallax view. He realized there was no argument to be won here, only a friendship to be cautiously maintained across an ideological event horizon.
He clapped Buster on the shoulder, managed one last drop from his beer, and walked out into the vast, starry Kansas night. Roland the Roadie resolved then and there to just keep living by the simple, baffling example of the Nazarene, hoping his friend might one day meet him somewhere on the spiral of spiritual originalism.
The air above Bethel New York, on that muggy June afternoon, hung thick and viscous like raw maple syrup, but with a distinct, cloying undertone that set Roland’s teeth on edge. It wasn’t the sweet, innocent scent of verdant fields or the faint, hopeful whisper of a summer breeze. No, this was the unmistakable, unholy reek of patchouli – a pungent olfactory assault, clinging to the very molecules of the atmosphere like desperate, unwashed barnacles. Roland, a man whose befuddlement had, with each passing year, calcified into a semi-permanent state of bewildered indignation, felt a familiar tremor of primal loathing course through his very soul. He’d embraced post-hippie Americana with the zeal of a Trappist Monk. Glad to have purged himself of the “Happy Days” and “Leave It to Beaver” plastic conformity and suburban blandness. But a patchouli come-back? That was a bridge too far, a community sensory violation of the highest order.
Roland was on break from managing a fairly obscure death metal band on tour (hey, it’s a living). And since the band’s last stop was near Bethel, New York, he was on a pilgrimage of sorts to the hallowed, if now slightly commercialized, grounds of Woodstock. He walked with the determined, slightly off-kilter gait of his youth hero, Raul Duke (Hunter S. Thompson’s alter-ego)… his mind a furious, churning maelstrom of conflicting philosophies. He’d always championed the counter-culture’s crowning achievement: calling bullshit on the whole ghastly charade of using deadly force as the default geopolitical negotiation tool, specifically, the War in Vietnam. By God, those flower children had a point! Turning teenagers into stone-cold killers, risking life and limb for some phantom anti-socialism cause, all before they could even vote or legally drink a damn beer! That, he understood. That, he respected.
Feel the energy, man?Eric loathes hippies.Welcome!Don’t eat the brown acid.Forever YoungLoopcircus Was Here
But then, the mutation. The festering, unholy blight that had slithered out of the psychedelic garden and into the crisp, digital air of the 21st century. The same crunchy-granola crowd, now with eyes glazed over by YouTube algorithms and a disturbing reliance on memes as verifiable truth, had morphed into the right-wing, conspiracy-obsessed, anti-vax movement. And that was Roland’s personal hell. That was the unholy alliance of utopian delusion and outright, fact-averse idiocy that made his blood boil like a forgotten stew on a low flame. He, Roland, the man who couldn’t fathom anyone seriously considering themselves “researchers” simply because they’d skimmed a few vax-skeptical tracts, was now face-to-face with the horrifying reality: formerly eradicated diseases, like Polio, was threatening a triumphant, macabre return.
Polio, for God’s sake!
His internal monologue was abruptly shattered by a voice, strained and vibrating with the nervous energy of a hyperactive squirrel on a double espresso. “Hey, brother! You feelin’ the energy of this place, man?” The voice got even more strident, “…the REAL energy… not what THEY want you to feel!”
Roland turned, his gaze falling upon a figure that looked like a bad acid trip had decided to grow a beard and buy a t-shirt that screamed, in distressed, tie-dyed font: “TRUST YOUR GUT, NOT BIG PHARMA!” The man was a former hippie, no doubt, but the peace-sign tattoo on his leathery forearm seemed to twitch with a manic, Meth-fueled intensity. His eyes, behind wire-rimmed glasses, darted around like desperate moths trapped in a jar, and strapped on his shoulder was a woven, multi-colored man-purse, embellished with some vaguely occult symbols. The patchouli, Roland realized with a fresh wave of nausea, was emanating directly from him. A walking, talking, perfumed monument to everything that had gone wrong.
“Excuse me?” Roland managed, his voice a tight, strangled rasp.
“The mandating, man,” the QAnonner railed practically vibrating with indignation. “They want to mandate our very bodies! The CDC, man, they’re just puppets for the globalists! It’s all connected! The RONA, the ‘vaccines’—” He leaned in conspiratorially, his breath, thankfully, less patchouli and more stale coffee and weed. “—it’s a control mechanism! A depopulation agenda! Do your own research!”
“Do my own research?!” Roland exploded, his composure shattering like a cheap vase dropped from a great height. His face, already a patchwork of indignation and bewilderment, now mottled to a furious shade of beet-red. “My ‘research’ involved listening to doctors, to scientists! Not some basement dweller with a Wi-Fi connection and a penchant for YouTube conspiracy theories! What about Polio? What about the millions who’ve died from ‘the RONA’ while you’re babbling about ‘control mechanisms’ and ‘depopulation agendas’?” He was fuming, a human pressure cooker teetering on the brink of catastrophic breach. The audacity! The sheer, unadulterated stupidity of politicizing public health, of weaponizing fear against the very tools designed to protect us! This was no longer about geopolitical chess games; this was about basic, communal survival! Roland was teetering on the precipice of falling into a sort of “Incredible Hulk” rage. He was on the verge of running amok.
The QAnonner, startled by Roland’s sudden eruption, recoiled slightly, then squared his shoulders, a glint of self-righteous fury in his meth-charged eyes. “You’re a sheeple, man! Blinded by the mainstream narrative! You just follow what they tell you, like good little consumers! The truth is out there, man, but you gotta open your third eye—”
That was it. The straw that broke the camel’s back, then stomped on it, then set it on fire. The “third eye” drivel, the smarmy condescension, the reek of patchouli – it all coalesced into a single, unbearable affront. Roland’s hand, almost independently, shot out like a startled cobra, snagging the QAnonner’s flimsy man-purse. The man yelped, a high-pitched squeak of surprise, as Roland yanked him closer, fumbling with his other hand into the deep pocket of his cargo shorts.
It was a Keystone Cops moment of pure, unadulterated slapstick. Roland’s fingers scrabbled, missing the canister once, then twice, before finally wrapping around the cool, metallic cylinder. The QAnonner, still yelping, tugged at his man-purse, an absurd tug-of-war unfolding on the very ground where Hendrix once wailed. Then, with a decisive grunt and a theatrical flourish, Roland aimed the nozzle.
Pssssshhhhhhhht!
A thick, orange cloud erupted, engulfing the QAnonner’s face. He shrieked, a sound that could curdle milk, his hands flying up to his eyes. He stumbled backward, tripping over his own Crocs, performing an impromptu, flailing dance of agony and confusion. He spun around, arms windmilling, looking for all the world like a psychedelic dervish suddenly possessed by a swarm of angry bees. He crashed to the ground in a heap, kicking and gasping, his protests dissolving into a series of moaning gurgles.
Roland stood there, breathing heavily, the pepper spray canister still clutched in his hand. A thin sheen of sweat beaded on his forehead, but a strange, savage satisfaction bloomed in his chest. “Go home,” he rasped, his voice hoarse but firm. “Go home, and reevaluate your damn life choices. And for God’s sake, take a shower. And burn that goddamn patchouli.”
The irony wasn’t lost on him, even in his befuddled state. He, Roland the Roadie, who applauded the youth of ’69 for standing against forced participation in global carnage, had just used a weapon designed to hurt other lifeforms, on a man who once probably preached peace and love. But this wasn’t about bullets or bombs; this was about basic, societal survival, about the return of ancient scourges, ushered in by the very spirit of individual enlightenment gone horribly, batshit crazy wrong. And sometimes, even a bumbling tired death metal tour manager had to put down the decibel meter and pick up the pepper spray.
And so… a lot has transpired since our whirlwind swing through the New England and the D.C. swamps. To be more explicit, we’ve wrapped the HSoB tour in a bow visiting all 48 mainland states. Admittedly, some got less attention than fairly warranted. Texas most egregiously. So, after taking care of health, dental, optical, and vehicular care in good ol’ Hays, America, we (Rocinante and i) made our way south when the Late October chill started infiltrating the great state of Kansas.
1st stop… Tejas…
Since the time is neigh for diving head first into the book project, i couldn’t in good conscience leave the current snapshot of Texas stand unfinished … we’re searching for that “fibrillating heart of our divided nation”. And Texas in an important pole in the current energy disturbance. So, we HAD to spend more time here. And so we did. Starting with a stop in Red Rock, a rural berg roughly 30 miles from Austin. We have friends there, including one bass player who i assume wishes to remain nameless. He’s the one from whom i learned the expression, “just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you.” He was a literal comrade in arms as we stumbled through a giant swath of the 1980s in the same Rock-n-Roll platoon… we took no prisoners. As well, a brief detour to celebrate Thanksgiving with a Texas comrade from a different war, the 2000s… the Bush years. Another fellow soldier whom i’m assuming wishes to remain anonymous. From him, i learned that there are no problems in Civil Engineering that, “can’t be solved with a bullet.” He has effectively estranged from his home state, but i suspect he still harbors a deep connection to this storied “whole ‘nuther country”. One thing for certain, he has a keen Texas ear for good music.
Anyway… Texas… after escaping the late autumn chill in Kansas, cruising over the vast tabletop of the Texas prairie, listening to Crime and Punishment via audio book, deep in a reverie, my concentration started wafting in and out with disjointed strains of a song i once knew by heart but hadn’t heard in many years. The voice was that “high lonesome” distinctly Texas lilt, and as the miles rolled by, the music grew more intense and i couldn’t ignore it any longer. When the song started drowning out the book, i turned it (the audio book) off, and racked my memory for a door that could lead me into the song properly, but it didn’t appear. Finally, wishing to get my concentration back in order to track the Dostoevsky novel properly, i pulled over in one of those Texas prairie parking areas for a quick Google search. I HAD to get a bead on that song. And here it is… Lilah, by Don Henley. From a record released the year my first marriage was falling apart. The song evidently embedded itself in the hole where my soul had been before the divorce. Anyway… it was the endless Texas prairie that stirred the song from its resting place, and that impression will be with me for the rest of my days.
Now, in Rocinante’s slipstream as we made our way South, an early November arctic blast ravaged the Eastern Midwest, and more, reaching all the way to Georgia, even Northern Florida. And since we have no interest in climates dipping into the 30s, we beat a burning path to Corpus Christi after sharing a few beers, reminiscences, and current doin’s with my old Rock-n-Roll war buddy.
After crossing the prairie, escaping the white knuckle traffic snarls of Austin, and finally spending a few weeks here in South Texas, i have a better impression of the Lone Star State and with that, ready to dive head first into the book project.
For that purpose, back to the River of Grass… back to South Florida and the Miami-Dade Public Library Network. I’ve begun the process of world building and character development, and i know i have a lot to learn before screwing up enough courage to present a manuscript to publishers. I also know the chances of snagging a professional deal are slim to none. But i’ve read Stephen King’s comments “On Writing,” and from that, i know rejections come in bushel baskets. So dear loopers, please understand, i don’t do any of this out of an expectation for something more than, how did Papa Vonnegut put it? Oh yeah, renewing, “feeding, and growing my soul”. And by some lucky coincidence, this has been my retirement plan all along… #winning.
And now, another desperate yawp from my perch atop a high rise bar-stool in the Texas A&M “Tejas Lounge”. Not really a bar… more like a living room in a co-ed dorm… people saunter to and fro. Holiday lights are hung by student workers piloting mobile telescoping scaffolds that make that garbage truck reverse warning BEEP BEEP BEEP whenever moved. Now, that sound is somewhat annoying, but nothing bothers me… i’ve raised boys… and if you know… you know. After that, NOTHING in the way of annoying sounds can break my concentration.
Anyway… i’ve been meaning to compose a piece aimed at one of the many things that keeps my beloved loopers at each other’s metaphorical throats. And yeah, some of them are prone to discuss the possibility of moving from bellicose words in the social chat threads to destructive action in the real world. My hunch is much of that talk is just that, empty posturing… just words. But i also believe there are loopers out there that would spring into action if they thought the “boogaloo” was actually on. This is a bothersome thought, but i was raised in an era where, at any moment, we could be coping with the chaos of city-obliterating nuclear exchanges. After surviving the Cold War, a few deluded psychopaths with guns and terminal bloodlust isn’t really that scary. In fact, these poor creatures desperate for validation are kind of pathetic, and i can’t help feeling sorry for them. Now, this is not a political statement. I know loopers on both sides of the artificial divide who take pride in their gun handling skills and unabashed hostility regarding political “enemies”.
So… today, i’d like to take a stab at defanging the ideological “boogeymen” cited in weak justifications for contemplating the murder of neighbors, acquaintances, or participants in distant social unrest (looking at you, Mr. Rittenhouse). Now, to be clear, distrust, and ill-will is clearly coming from the very top of our political hierarchy. From the right, the smoldering embers of racist fear and loathing leveraged to the maximus surpacity, with some success as politicians take steps to rid the nation of anyone not in possession of certified proof of citizenship. On the left, we have protesters warning of some sort of impending fascist coup, aimed at eliminating the democratic ship of state, among other issues. For one, the documented fact that law enforcement officials are far more likely to perceive bodily threat to the point of deploying lethal force when the threat is a person of color. This all came to a head with the death of George Floyd, and it led to a “summer of racial reckoning” leaving quite a bit of property damage in its wake.
Then came the #metoo and #blacklivesmatter movements infuriating those wishing to preserve what’s left of a patriarchal power structure favoring white dudes over people of color, but especially women, let alone women of color. So, imagine the seething fury of one of these “rugged individualist” alpha male types trying to cope with the likes of a Michelle Obama, Kamala Harris, Jasmine Crocket. Right? So many social media keyboards are coated with spittle flecks coming from the rabid foaming mouth of an alt-right edge lord, putting those uppity folk who have clearly forgotten their place in their rightful cages.
All must be “made great again”.
And so… both sides get on their favorite hobby horses with their metaphorical spears and magic helmets to slay the forces of their chosen ideological boogeymen. For those on the left, the boogeyman is turning the U.S.A. toward an ethnonationalist “fascism” similar to the one that infected Western Europe in the wake of the great depression. For the right the boogeyman is the Marxist camel trying to get its nose into their sacred Constitutional Republic’s tent. Because, you know socialism ALWAYS leads to injustice and mass atrocities… everybody knows, right? Besides, the camel stinks and makes funny noises.
So, shall we now pour some cold water on this dichotomy? Let’s open a few historical cautionary tales starting to look familiar as current events unfold. Starting from the left… the most egregious examples of regimes widely described as authoritarian socialist ruling as single-party states include the Soviet Union (especially under Stalin), the People’s Republic of China (especially under Mao), North Korea, and the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia.
In Stalinist U.S.S.R., there was a rapid, forced buildup of industrial capacity and collectivized agriculture. These efforts to strengthen the nation, unfortunately, contributed to mass starvation, most notably some areas of Ukraine. It also featured extensive political repression, including the Great Purge, a campaign of surveillance, mass arrests, and executions of perceived enemies of the state, with many sent to Gulag concentration camps.
In China, Under the leadership of Mao Zedong, extreme social and economic upheaval featuring a similar push for societal change, including the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution led to widespread famine, social chaos, persecution of the educated classes, and millions of deaths. The Chinese Communist Party has maintained a single-party, authoritarian system since taking power, which is considered highly repressive of dissent and civil liberties (see Tiananmen Square massacre).
Today, countries like China, Cuba, North Korea, Laos, and Vietnam are considered by many observers to be authoritarian states with ruling communist parties that exercise significant control over the economy and suppress political opposition. Loopers conflating U.S. socialist public policy (Social Security, Medicare, ACA, etc. ) with the abovementioned authoritarian communist examples, unfairly brand Democratic politicians with a scarlet “S”. But this is understandable considering the “conservative” mindset of eternal vigilance against the constant threat of “barbarians” outside their doors… they truly fear their Boogeymen.
Now, from the right, the most egregious examples of authoritarian fascism in history are considered to be Nazi Germany under Adolf Hitler, Fascist Italy under Benito Mussolini, and the Empire of Japan during the 1930s and 40s.
Nazi Germany is widely regarded as the most extreme and devastating example due to its systematic use of genocide and state terror. And though there’s really no need to belabor decades of History Channel cautionary tales, it’s important to note Nazism was based on a pseudo-scientific theory of racial hierarchy, promoting the idea of an “Aryan master race” and identifying Jews and other minorities as scapegoats for Germany’s problems. Their Atrocities include the well documented systematic, state-sponsored genocide of millions, including Romas, people with disabilities, political opponents, and roughly six million Jews in concentration and extermination camps.
And then there’s Il Duce. Mussolini’s fascism emphasized extreme nationalism, the glorification of war, and a corporatist economic model designed to suppress labor movements and consolidate state power. The regime utilized black-shirted paramilitary forces to dismantle free speech, intimidate and murder political opponents. It later passed antisemitic racial laws and cooperated with Nazi Germany during the Holocaust.
And rounding out the WWII Axis Alliance was Imperial Japan who’s military committed widespread atrocities, including mass murder and human rights violations considered on the same level as the European genocides. The ideology centered on emperor-worship, extreme nationalism, and the concept of a “Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere” to justify military conquest and imperial rule across Asia.
And let’s not overlook the Balkans and Spain. The Independent State of Croatia under Ante Pavelić‘s Ustaše regime committed some of history’s worst atrocities and advocated for a “Greater Croatia” at the expense of Serbs. And Francisco Franco‘s long-lasting Spanish military dictatorship, while not a pure fascist regime, absorbed many elements of the Falange fascist movement and implemented mass arrests and human rights violations.
Sam Clemons put it best. History may not repeat by rote, but very often rhymes with current events (see above… astonishing deja vous bars). And we’ve already mentioned how, with just about every attempt to build and maintain government run enterprise under the heading of “serving the people” in matters too big for private enterprise to manage without coordinated planning, the political left is branded with the Scarlet “S”. But now, with the right, loopers who have determined government run enterprise inferior to the invisible hand of market forces, have been hoping for a chance to “drown the U.S. federal government in the tub” after shrinking it down to a drownable size. These loopers are now in power, and the tactics they have employed look a lot like authoritarian fascism.
Sam ClemonsBoogaloo BoysThe Stupid ShitElmer Fudd puts on his “war face”Vigilante Justice
But, here’s the deal. Democratic leadership has yet to employ the authoritarian communist policies conservatives fear (Jade Helm, gun confiscation, etc.), and, so far, the right has not begun rounding up undesirables for mass extermination (that we know of). And they haven’t yet succeeded in overturning U.S. democracy in favor of an all powerful executive with a lifetime appointment (yet). They do make these kind of noises in the form of online trolling (Bannon’s “flood the zone” strategy), but getting their political opponents riled up is most of the point. Worst-case scenarios are most likely not part of the plan (call me overoptimistic, i’ve heard worse).
Bottom line, neither of these political boogeymen are anything more than red herrings, mirages meant to keep their respective bases outraged enough to make sure to vote when the time comes. So, if we can take a couple steps back from the outrage machines, acknowledge both sides have good and bad ideas. And since neither side will be free to put members of the other in ovens, it behooves us to get back to reasoned debate. Stop demonizing the “other” and look for ways for all of us to work together, identify common concerns, and draft policies that can accomplish agreed upon goals.
And with all of that said… seriously, the left is not going to “Cultural Revolution” the right out of existence, and the right is not going to march undesirables into ovens. OK? Ok! So, let’s now address the elephant in the room… let’s talk about religion. As much as i’d love to avoid the topic altogether, it’s unavoidable. We have at least two, maybe three supreme court jurists identifying with a sect of Christianity that is actively working toward a power structure placing apocalyptic Christians in total governmental primacy. They are literally working on ways to delete secular, pluralistic governance in favor of an ethno-nationalist monarchy. Do i believe they will succeed?? Hell… to the no! But the fact that this is in the works, and they’ve managed to capture the White House, the Speaker of the House and at least two SCOTUS justices is beyond anything i would have imagined in all of my adult life.
And the founders were unambiguous about the prohibition of religion capturing the levers of power. There will be no “official religion”. The sooner we can get the wall of Church/State separation rebuilt, the better. This has to be job #1! After that, time to drop the wedge issues and rancorous, bad faith rhetoric. Seriously, i don’t know ANYONE who wants to eliminate local police departments. Maybe divert some of the “socialist” resources to “community policing” and counseling, but only a delusional crazy person would take us back to the libertarian “wild west” days of vigilante justice. Full stop… there will be no defunding of the police. At the same time, no one i know wants their neighbors to stop going to their chosen church, or stop celebrating Christmas. It’s all just rage bait…. grow up people! Please let’s cut the stupid shit all the way out.
If you were to put a gun to my head for an answer to our current state of divisiveness, i would say forcing mainstream news organizations and health care practitioners into capitalist imperatives comes closer to the core of our cultural and economic strife than the spittle-flecked pseudo-debates over extreme abstractions such as “communism” or “fascism”. I know… it’s an opinion, and my opinion is about as good as anyone else’s. I’m just another slob … like Werner Herzog, or David Letterman, or Jesus… you know, one of us. But i do have skin in this game. I want to see a tenable future for my kids… that some day they too can thrive in a world they would be glad to welcome new souls into.
Right now, it’s not…! So let’s do this thing, what do you say? Let’s 86 these boogeymen together… OK? Ok!
So, you’re not free to determine the path your life takes? Why? Is it like the song? Because your love is, “too much, Baby?” Is your autonomy actually restricted by the attachment to which you’ve surrendered? Or, have you, like another song, “the kind of debts no honest man can pay?” Or maybe, you just want to “fit in” or be “normal,” but that normality severely restricts the frontiers of your authentic self? Well… what to do? Will you roll with the imprisonment, or will you take action and do like a whole ‘nuther song, and choose one of the fifty ways?
First, i guess we need to define terms starting with, “freedom”. What does it mean to be “free”? For the narrow purpose of this mental snapshot, let’s go with a less than conventional definition (from A. Bierce’s sarcastic dictionary)… “FREEDOM (noun): Exemption from the stress of authority in a scant half dozen of restraint’s infinite multitude of methods. A political condition that every nation supposes itself to enjoy in virtual monopoly. Liberty. The distinction between freedom and liberty is not accurately known; naturalists have never been able to find a living specimen of either.” Could it be the effort is futile? We’ll save that questin for later. For now, let’s just agree the condition of “freedom” is slippery at best.
And what does it mean to be “caught in a trap”? Is this a good or bad, pleasant or painful condition? Again, an elusive concept to pin down. Do restrictions imposed by the trap cause pain, or are they more like liberators, freeing our minds to explore expanses of thought without the burdens of engineering and executing an escape plan? The question might take you back to those wild and wooly “salad days” when you KNEW you had to generate enough income to feed yourself and secure a warm place to sleep in those bone-chattering winter weeks or a cool oasis in the “dawg days.” This might have required a duel life, one that makes room for the tasks for acquiring necessaries, and another that feeds your restless soul. You didn’t want either to interfere with the other, so you found a normie gig that wouldn’t sap what creative bandwidth you had, and you avoided creative gigs that might jeopardize your meal ticket.
And finally, what exactly is “normal?” After all, science finds itself baffled by some serious inexplicabilities. For one, if gravity is an attractive force, what explains the dramatic “red-shift” observed by light from distant galaxies? According to what we know about the Doppler Effect, those pups are speeding away from each other at roughly the speed of light… WTF? Shouldn’t gravity be pulling them together? And what about that spooky “quantum entanglement” nonsense? If nothing travels faster than light, how can anyone explain the “instant” response of entangled particles across vast distance? How can those particles possibly move in synchrony with no delay? These and other paradoxes have to be reckoned with before we can stand on a box and declare what should and should not determine the boundaries of knowledge. After all, have you seen Escher’s art? How long can you stare at those images before giving up and just accepting the notion that sometimes you just have to be satisfied with a non-resolution resolution.
So… are you really not “free”? Are you really caught in a trap? Can someone or something actually force your soul into a restrictive box?
Seriously… have you ever tried to put yourself into the slippers of those unlucky bitches and bastards locked in cages? Sing-Sing, CSP Canyon City, Club Fed, the Hanoi Hilton, Auschwitz, Dachau, Siberia, and Gaza? What sort of redemptive discipline does it take to survive those literal “traps”? And can that sort of resilience be applied to the regular routines most of us endure on the daily? I imagine that sort of superpower would come in mighty handy for those elderly neighbors waiting out delays in medical procedures or the brief and scarce visits payed by over extended loved ones? Folks who were once strong and vital, free to move around with supple limbs and grand ambitions. But now they’re grounded by failing health and limited monetary resources? When they finally realize no one is coming to save them, what sort of mental expanse can they exercise to endure the quiet hours that comes with chronic sedentary existence?
Could it be efforts to reach gold-plated states of “liberty” or “freedom” are futile? Einstein was right about time… it’s relative to local conditions such as pleasure and pain. If we could find a way to fill our days with service and purpose, even if that means dealing with… ugh… people or worse, our own nagging regrets or admonitions, maybe then time would be a friendlier companion. And so, if those literally confined in cages can do it, so can we. Even if we think we’re “trapped” by conditions beyond our control. Don’t wait for a savior, no one is coming. Get up, stand up, find a purpose and fill your days working for it. Give it your all… and don’t let disappointing results stop you. It’s like the lessons of geology and the Shawshank Redemption. Time… time and pressure. Time and pressure create diamonds and the possibility of genuine freedom.
What will time and pressure do for you? How will you reconcile the non-resolution resolution?
Seems we’re coming up on some hard scrabble times for citizens down on their luck. And hard scrabble times call for hard scrabble responses. We’re going to have to grapple with how to handle the consequences of gutting the social safety nets. Nothing new, we’ve seen this play before. In Les Misérables, Victor Hugo’s novel uses the theft of a loaf of bread by Jean Valjean to illustrate the harsh and unjust nature of the justice system in his time. In more recent times, Willie Smith Ward, a Texan, received a 50-year sentence in 2013 for stealing a $35 rack of ribs. Now granted, this was the logical conclusion of this man’s incorrigible behavior in the light of Texas’ habitual offender laws, allowing for lengthy prison sentences to repeat offenders. Yes, he was a pervasive violator of civic good faith, but the final straw was the theft of food.
It’s probably no coincidence original sin is connected to behavior inspired by hunger. According to the Judeo Christian holy book, we’re guilty as soon as we hit the ground. And guilty of what? And why? Because the first XY chromosomes in our hereditary line fell for a cock-n-bull story about an apple being verboten per maximum overlord’s command? And why the prohibition? Because consuming the apple would drop the scales from our minds regarding the existence of good and evil? And the consequences of gaining this knowledge is… death? But not until one experiences a veritable parade of humiliation, pain, sorrow, and general suffering? Again… we get to ride this roller coaster of woe because some dipshit, 10,000 years ago chose to enjoy a spot of fruit with his girlfriend? Yeah… i don’t know if i can get behind this allegory. It seems a bit unfair to the XX natives. It paints them in a devious light. Like, both of them were instructed to avoid the fruit, but the devil’s serpent chose XX as an ideal target for corruption. And XY was just too gullible or dumb to mount an effective argument. Bottom line, XX is an hedonistic schemer, and XY is a goofy simpleton that just wants to eat. Naw, we’re not gonna fall for that misogynistic bullshit. XX and XY are born equally innocent, if they go bad as they grow, it’s the result of non-optimal environmental conditions or physical chemistry, but mostly… bad behavior is taught by irresponsible caretakers.
The whole “bad behavior inspired by hunger” issue might grow into a nagging problem in this age of prioritizing gilded ballrooms, machine automated labor, and antiquated energy policies over the well being of the XX and XYs who happen to lack connections in society’s power structures. And how might that play out? We could look to historical record for cues. Has hunger ever been an issue for working and doomed classes through the ages as economic and technology conditions change? Indeed it has, is, and will continue to vex policy makers… Victor Hugo’s novel is a vivid example.
And outcomes have varied widely. The most recent encounter with abject mass deprivation in this country got defeated by what was known at the time as a New Deal for the nation’s people. This, many would acknowledge was a best case scenario. Things didn’t go so smoothly in Russia or France as they transitioned away from monarchical rule. You could say, for the ruling classes, these are a couple worst case scenarios. Given that, what’s driving the U.S.A. away from democracy, careening toward authoritarian ethno-nationalist governance? Time will tell, but for now, it might behoove the ruling classes to recognize working people and the doomed are talking to each other. They’re not as hampered by ignorance as has been a hallmark of previous socio-economic upheavals. Consolidating power may not be the golden ticket they think it is.
Now… how will all of this shake out? I wouldn’t venture a guess, but i do see chatter crisscrossing the social networks, and i can confidently predict how some will approach the oncoming hunger dilemma. As we advance into this age of machines automating repetitive rote tasks, and jobs continue to evaporate, people will ask for opportunities to earn the means of feeding their families. When no useful work is available, they will ask for food assistance, and when no food assistance is available, they will take the food from whatever source is handy. And there will be plenty of XX and XYs with the resourcefulness and discipline to create their own redemption. Regarding original sin i, for one, am grateful for the flood of knowledge passed down by the original XX and XYs. I’m GLAD they ate the apple. And if supporting tax dollars for food security to people i’ve never met makes me a communist, well, pepper-spray my ass and call me “Comrade!”
I gotta black bomb… It’s tickin’ away… Gonna take it out… On the Blue Highway.
People love stories! Coherent frameworks for making sense of the often-unintelligible chaos of existence. If a truly good story is unavailable, a vapid stinker will do. And this desperate embrace of the easily digestible is what we might call the Deification by Default… the human brain settling for any compelling fiction, no matter how empty.
And the believers… they congregate in concrete echo-chambers, modern-day amphitheaters for a new kind of spectacle. Their gaze is fixed on an angry face projected onto a giant, 16k screen, a digital idol spitting vitriol like a croaking raven or territorial baboon.
They see our guy up there. And what a Guy. He is not merely human… he is a creature of pure, unadulterated id, a walking monument to the most cherished American religion… Getting Away With It. He is a living testament of the belief that consequences are for them. That rules are for suckers, despite the fact that he’s been tried and convicted of transgressions that would usher lesser mortals into country club prisons. And so on. The universe, in its indifference, allows such animals to prosper. This particular specimen has been fined millions for frauds so brazen, so loud and brassy, they transcend mere criminality and achieve a perverse kind of art. He’s the zero-sum game personified, a playa whose existence dictates that for him to win, others must lose. He is a babbling font of perpetual-grievance, forever the victim, endlessly fueling his sad tale of victimhood and defiance. He can’t even stand up straight, a physical manifestation of his moral scoliosis. He is covered in a fine orange paste, a desperate veneer masking the gray, clammy, countenance of a moldering corpse.
And the people… the God-fearing, the church-going, the hands-praying people, look at this babbling, orange vessel, and astonishingly proclaim: “Yes. Him. He is our champion.” Not so much admiration as an act of religious conviction… a leap of, what Mr. Bierce’s sarcastic dictionary might define as: “FAITH, n. The acceptance without evidence in the words of one who speaks without knowledge of things inexplicable.” It is the suspension of critical thought in favor of comforting delusion, the embrace of narrative that fills a void, regardless of its factual basis or internal consistency.
The human brain is funny about credulity. It needs reasons, rationalizations, even if they’re entirely bogus. The brain conjures prestige labels to slap onto zircon-encrusted baubles in order to justify worship. So, in this desperate search for legitimacy, the people dug up a relic from the annals of biblical history. They found Cyrus the Great. Cyrus! The Persian! And they told themselves, with remarkably straight faces, that this tangerine-hued Nero… was the new Cyrus. They called him a “flawed vessel,” which is precisely what you call a boat that has already sunk to the bottom of the sea.
Very well: “VIRTUE, n. In a king, that quality which keeps his subjects from sharpening their knives.” It is not necessarily about moral uprightness or inherent goodness, but about the practical efficacy of governance, the ability to maintain order and loyalty through action, not just rhetoric.
Cyrus II was a profoundly practical man, a shrewd statesman and a brilliant conqueror. His actions were dictated by strategic advantage and pragmatic necessity. Tolerance? It was not a deeply held philosophical conviction but a calculated policy. He observed the Jews moping by the river, exiled and dispossessed. Click-click-click went the imperial abacus, weighing the costs and benefits. He permitted them to return home. He didn’t smash idols or persecute local religions. Why? Because it was simply cheaper than cleaning up the inevitable riots and rebellions that religious intolerance would provoke. Mercy? A merciful conqueror, in Cyrus’s view, was one who spent less on garrisoning ruins, who avoided the costly and protracted business of subjugating a rebellious populace. Generosity? A king who hoards all the gold for himself, who starves his populace and his armies, soon finds his head in a basket, a grim lesson in the economics of power. Cyrus understood math, the cold, hard logic of imperial administration.
And now, our guy. The Cyrus of the Golden Commode, a man whose reign is marked by ostentation and vulgarity rather than strategic brilliance.
On Tolerance: Cyrus the Great managed a vast, multi-ethnic empire, understanding that stability required a degree of accommodation. Our modern Cyrus, however, manages a cable-news cycle, a perpetual loop of manufactured outrage. His entire machine runs on intolerance, a relentless jihad against phantom gremlins labeled “wokeness,” creating divisions rather than bridging them.
On Inclusivity: Cyrus the Great let diverse peoples in on the grift of empire, integrating them into its functional framework. Our Cyrus, conversely, wages a cultural war on letters… specifically D, E, and I (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion)… and openly dreams of an America built solely of pale, northern European peoples. He welcomes an imagined homogeneity while demonizing actual diversity.
On Compassion: Where Cyrus the Great understood the practical value of a measured mercy, our guy’s philosophy can be succinctly summarized as: “Fuck the doomed.” There is no pretense of empathy, no concern for the less fortunate, only a brutal, unvarnished disdain.
On Wisdom: Cyrus the Great was a strategic genius, a master of statecraft. Our guy’s intellectual prowess, by his own proud admission, extends to being able to identify the difference between a camel and an elephant.
On Fortitude: Cyrus the Great was a formidable warrior and empire-builder. Our guy’s most celebrated display of “fortitude” was his aggressive and ultimately successful war against the Vietnam draft.
On Generosity: Cyrus the Great understood the strategic importance of a king’s generosity. Our guy’s much-vaunted “generosity” extended to giving billions to Argentina… a country, not coincidentally, where many unhappy Germans went for a long vacation in 1945 and conveniently forgot to go home. Astonishing Coincidence?
So, what is this comparison, this desperate attempt to link a modern figure with an ancient legend? It is not history… it is a pet-rock fad, a shabby attempt to pass off an empty metaphor as genuine good, to assign a false provenance to something entirely unworthy. It is a magical story for magic junkies, a comforting fable for those who have abandoned the pesky demands of reality for the soothing embrace of fantasy. It gives us a new definition, a diagnosis of a collective delusion… sound familiar?
Now, back to our Bierce-esque sarcastic dictionary: “CYRUS-COMPLEX, n. The political hallucination wherein one mistakes a bankrupt casino boss for a Persian philosopher-king.” It is the fond, almost childlike belief that a man who cannot manage a golf score without cheating can, in fact, be trusted with an empire… a testament to a complete divorce from logical reasoning. It is a bedtime story for those who, having consciously abandoned reason and critical thought, must now shop for their saviors not in the marketplace of ideas, but in the remainder bin of historical analogies, grasping at any discarded narrative, no matter how ill-fitting or absurd.
It is all very, very silly. And so on. The endless, circular dance of self-deception continues, with profound and often tragic consequences for the bewildered animals who crave a story, any story, to light their way.
And… there it is… warts and all.
I got a black bomb… It’s tickin’ away… Gonna take it out… …on the Blue Highway!
Loopcircus 