Thursday, October 9, 2014

Edification from Ed

     Somewhere in the convoluted mess that was my adolescence, I became aware of a certain fellow named Edward Abbey through a book that I found titled "The Monkey Wrench Gang".

Here's a pair of things from him, first a wonderfully weird drawing he did of himself:



Then, this quote from his collection titled "The Journey Home, Some Words In Defense of the American West" going way back to 1977 and an essay to be found therein titled "Freedom and Wilderness, Wilderness and Freedom".

"As I see it, our own nation is not free from the danger of dictatorship. And I refer to internal as well as external threats to our liberties. As social conflict tends to become more severe in this country - and it will unless we strive for social justice - there will inevitably be a tendency on the part of the authoritarian element - always present in our history - to suppress individual freedoms, to utilize the refined techniques of police surveillance (not excluding torture, of course) in order to preserve - not wilderness! - but the status quo, the privileged positions of those who now so largely control the economic and governmental institutions of the United States."

Hayzoos H. Creeping Christonaut on a Double Acting Rubber Crutch, Ed Abbey had our current situation nailed to the barn door like an unfortunate coyote hide way back then.... The question going begging at this point is just why the fuck we, as a collective species, have not done enough to counteract the evils perpetrated by these nefarious, greedy, reckless and awesomely evil assholes that have gotten away with dominating the globe despite the warning so eloquently given by Dwight David Eisenhower at the end of his Presidency?


Thursday, October 2, 2014

Short and Sweet

From David Weber & Eric Flint's 2014 book Cauldron of Ghosts, part of a quick libertarian sidetrack:

"More than legal scholars like to admit, the concept of a protection racket was hard to distinguish on the ground floor from what people got from legal authorities. To a crime boss, you turned over a portion of the proceeds of your business or profession and in return you got protection, stability, stable supplies and prices - even, in the best run areas, a measure of social welfare. To a legitimate government, you turned over a portion of the proceeds of your business and profession and in return, you got...."

Seems to me we have the best/worst of worlds going on in 'Murica right now, today and, for the foreseeable future, ad infinitum. Worrisome to me is the possibility of a seriously wrong-headed bunch of irresponsible, deceitful and well and truly delusional maniacs abusing the system to drag us, kicking and screaming, into a world shaped by the 1611 King James Bible. They don't seem to care if they use the gubmint or la cosa nostra to achieve their wretched ends.

Fuck. Those. People.