Sheep and Goats

Category: Government

  • Few Odd Fellows But Plenty of Weirdos

    Mrs. Sheepandgoats and I blew into Ithaca just as the whole city was about to “stand up for peace.” Of course, we didn’t know they were going to do that. We’d just come down to catch the tail end of the three day music festival. But we hadn’t been in town more than half an hour before some counterculture type person urged us to get to Stewart Park where, at 3 PM, folks would congeal into a giant peace sign. They planned to photograph it from the air and submit it to the Guinness World Record organization. Instead, we risked being seen as warmongers and stayed in the Village Court section, where a cajun band called Bayou Road Krewewas playing.

    For a quick mini-excursion, you can’t go wrong traipsing down to Ithaca. My wife and I do it a lot. Just 90 miles southeast of our Rochester home, Ithaca is a college town. SUNY (State University of New York) at Ithaca perches high on the hill to the south and Cornell University straddles the eastern one. The city proper is crammed on a shelf at the foot of Cayuga Lake, but it doesn’t really fit, so it flows up into the surrounding hills, climbing as if ivy. Up there, the streets…commendably gridlike on the shelf…throw off all restraint and writhe here, there, and every confusing where. Descending one of those hills on a snowy day is no job for an atheist.

    Four or five creeks cascade from the heights into Cayuga Lake. “Ithaca is Gorges” say t-shirts and bumper stickers. It’s true. Gorges cut deep into the earth right through the heart of the city – two of them pass through Cornell itself. Students bustle on campus above while, two hundred feet down, others hike the gorge as if in a different world. Within ten miles of the city can be found over one hundred waterfalls…I’ve heard some say as high as 150 (Mrs Sheepandgoats and myself strive to find them all).….and some of them are truly spectacular. The local earth museum highlights the fossils and sedimentary layers thus exposed. Try visiting sometime, as I have, with Tom Pearlsandswine. Hear him muttering throughout about the “wiles of Satan,” and challenging museum staff at every exhibit. You’ll want to bury your own head in that sediment.

    So alluring is Ithaca that some graduate from the colleges and stay put. They obtain four year or six year degrees, then they hole up in some commune on the hills growing organic food. Or work at the local bookstore. Or start an earth-friendly “green” business. According to this webmaster, Ithaca’s been called "One of America's Most Enlightened Communities" and one of "The Top 10 Places to Drop Out of Society." Perhaps the two titles aren’t as mutually exclusive as they at first appear.

    An eclectic bunch….some of them. Generally quite pleasant, though you can’t be one who clucks his tongue at unusual characters. Opening day parade for the music festival consisted of “an automotive ballet composed of a procession of Volvos in synchronized driving formation. A group of burly He-Men toting chainsaws as if they were trombones…..A distinct absence of Odd Fellows, but no shortage of weirdos,” according to the Ithaca Journal. I’m told by the local congregation that these folks tend not to be real receptive to the Bible’s message, perceiving it as a ploy to restrict their freedom. I once worked with a young woman whose divorced father turned up years later as a nudist in Ithaca. So I’m not so sure I want to run down to Stewart Park and make a giant peace sign with them. Besides, what would Winged Migration Man (WMM) say? Were any of his old buddies among those who called the peace sign the "footprint of the American chicken?"

    WMM is the retired fellow who spent 24 years on a nuclear submarine (see comment section) keeping the world safe, he maintains, by deterring Soviet attack. It sounds plausible enough to me. And if he plays the “Neville Chamberlain” card, I will absolutely acquiesce to him. Mr. Chamberlain was the British Prime Minister…there were several like him… who “stood for peace” just prior to WWII. He reached agreement after agreement with the tyrannical Nazis, each of which was broken, yet each time he was lauded to the heavens as a great peacemaker. But history judges him harshly. Had he and his peers stood up to Hitler early on, tens of millions might not have died. Unfortunately, hawks tend to see Hitler everywhere, and are ever ready to strike. Many say the current President is like that. Only in hindsight do we know which concerns were appropriate and which were overrated.

    Besides, an aerial peace sign strikes me as a frivolous gesture…..appropriate for a music festival, okay – but for a serious political statement? What if it had rained that day instead of the picture perfect weather that was really had? Would even half of the participants have shown up? You must understand that I come from a people (Jehovah’s Witnesses) that have stood for peace when it cost them their freedom and, in some cases, their lives. Over 10,000 Witnesses were incarcerated in Nazi Germany for their neutral stand during the 1930‘s and 1940‘s. In the United States, 4300 were jailed for refusing military service. To this day, our draft-age people in certain countries are routinely incarcerated for their peaceful stand. So having seen people really stand for peace, I don't read too much into a human peace sign on a sunny day of leisure.

    About 6000 people assembledfor the big sign. It will be a record if Guinness accepts it, since they’ve not yet kept track of peace signs. An organizer enthused that "we're not going to trash any weapons because of this, but if everybody has the same idea in their mind, that they are coming together in peace and unity, then there's a community started." Um….yeah….I guess….whatever that means.

    Actually, there is one circumstance in which I gladly would have taken part. If I could have driven down with a busload of my friendsfrom the home. It would have been a win-win for all. My friends would have had a ball…..they’d each have gotten a peace sticker. Since about half are in wheelchairs, they'd take up more space when seen from above, a plus for the organizers. Civilians could easily be drafted to wheel them around, especially in Ithaca. And if Carolyn decided to indulge in her favorite ranch dressing and milk beverage, or if Jackie ate her peace sticker, no one would bat an eyelash. They’d chalk it all up to our beautiful diversity.

    ……………………………………………

    Wolfgang Kusserow, a 20 year old German executed by the Nazis for refusing to go to war, made this answer to the military tribunal:

    “I was brought up as one of Jehovah’s Witnesses, according to God’s Word contained in the Holy Scriptures. The greatest and most holy law he gave mankind is: ‘You shall love your God above all else and your neighbor as yourself.’ Other commandments read: ‘You must not kill.’ Did our Creator have all this written down for the trees?

     

    ******  The bookstore

  • Taking a Pass on World War

    They buried a WWI soldier back in March. There’s not many of them left. This one, Lazare Ponticelli, was 110 years of age. Yet some things he had never figured out. Like why he had been fighting in the first place. Or why they had, for that matter, his enemy. Of course he must have known the reasons supplied by national leaders, but how did it ever get so human….worldwide slaughter that took the lives of 14 million. “One of the paradoxes of 1914 is that in every country huge numbers of people, of all parties, creeds and blood, seem, surprisingly, to have gone willingly and happily to war,” states British historian John Roberts.

    “More than anything, [Ponticelli] was appalled that he had been made to fire on people he didn’t know and to whom he, too, was a stranger. They were fathers of children. He had no quarrel with them” (The Economist, 3/22/08, italics mine)

    Hermann Goering, the German Air Force leader from the next World War understood these things quite well:

    "Why of course the people don't want war. Why should some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece? Naturally the common people don't want war neither in Russia, nor in England, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country." (italics mine again)

    Don’t think it’s easy to resist the "leaders of the country who determine the policy." It is these who form the backdrop of popular thinking, the unconscious elements that everyone draws from. That’s why today’s new age “follow your inner voice” philosophy is such nonsense. It works great when times are easy and fails utterly when they are hard. Nationalism has proven more than equal to the task of molding one’s “inner voice.”

    In God’s new system of things on earth, when war is no more, I would worry about anyone who has shown in this system that he will blow my head off if some “leader” tells him to. Surely that was among the factors that attracted me to Jehovah’s Witnesses: their track record showed that they could not be pushed around by leaders.

    In Nazi Germany their refusal to support Hitler’s totalitarian efforts led to incarceration for all that the tyrant could lay hands on. It’s well known that Jehovah’s Witnesses were among the first consigned to concentration camps, preceding the far more numerous Jews. It’s also well known that once in the camps, they were the only inmates with opportunity to get themselves out; Nazi policy was that if they renounced their faith and pledged allegiance to the regime they could go free. Only a handful took advantage of the offer.

    Pressure to resist war fever was also no cakewalk in America either, especially so since perception was, and still is, that this was a necessary war, a righteous war even, and……well, what was wrong with anyone who would not rise to the occasion? But Jehovah’s Witnesses think of themselves as almost a nation unto themselves, and their first loyalty is to God, Jehovah. If German JWs had not contributed to the bloodbath, why should American JWs do so? In contrast, an American Lutheran, say, might feel obliged to go to war, since German Lutherans readily put nation before God.

    The overwhelming majority of all Germans in that era were of two Christian faiths: Lutheran and Catholic. If even one of those faiths had stood up to Hitler as did Jehovah’s Witnesses, might WWII have been averted, with its 60 million or so casualties? (And critics rail against us for our blood transfusion stand, which at most has contributed toward a few hundred deaths) Is this what Revelation 18:24 means when it blames Babylon the Great, that conglomeration of unfaithful religion, for not only the blood of the prophets and the “holy ones,” but for "all those who have been slaughtered on the earth?" The slain "prophets" and "holy ones" are acts of commission, but the far more numerous third group represent a staggering act of omission…..the failure to train members in ways of peace. Jehovah’s Witnesses proved it could be done back then. They prove it yet today

    Yes, in her was found the blood of prophets and of holy ones and of all those who have been slaughtered on the earth.   Rev 18:24

    …………………………

    More on Neutrality here    

  • On Day 439 Everything Changes: From Spitzer to Peterson

    Taunters are taunting me. “What’re you going to do with your Eliot Spitzer category, Sheepandgoats, hmmm? It’s right there on your front page. What you going to do, now that he’s gone down in flames?….sigh….Oh, very well. I guess we can close out the category. He’s been such a colorful character, and local, that I just had to post a few times about him, here, hereand here.

    “On Day One, Everything Changes!” That was the promise following his crushing (69%) victory to become New York State Governor. We all waited for day one to arrive – he was almost a messianic figure. He’d nailed several Wall Street firms with billions of dollars in fines and sent some fat cats to jail. The Sheriff of Wall Street, he’d been nicknamed. Some pictured him a future President. What he did with corrupt financiers surely he could do with the obstructionist politicians that plague New York! But on Day 439 everything changed in a way he hadn’t foreseen, or anyone else. He was caught with prostitutes and  resigned in disgrace. Cheers broke out on the NYSE trading floor [!], and  prices soared*, temporarily snapping a dismal down trend.

    *perhaps not for that reason, though there are pundits who maintain it was exactly for that reason.

    These were no ordinary prostitutes. The one that triggered his downfall cost him $4300. For a single stand! Who would have thought they could cost so much? Had he economized with cheaper ones he might have escaped detection, for he had to transfer large sums of money to various shell corporations to pay the bill… allegedly $80,000 through the years! Now, in the United States, if you transfer $10K or more from a bank, that bank must notify the feds. And you can’t bust up the transfers into lesser amounts to avoid the $10K trigger…that’s a crime here, and that’s what they say Spitzer did. They dreamed up that law to thwart terrorists. But it’s netted many unintended victims, like philandering politicians. Crossing state lines to promote prostitution is also a crime here (the Mann Act).

    Spitzer resigned on TV, wife at his side. “I cannot allow for my private failings to disrupt the people's work. Over the course of my public life, I have insisted — I believe correctly — that people take responsibility for their conduct. I can and will ask no less of myself. For this reason, I am resigning from the office of governor." The couple has three teenaged children. The wife’s plight provided silent ammunition for those feminists who say that a woman should never, ever, put her career on hold  (which Mrs Spitzer had done, sort of) for the sake of raising children – you just can’t trust husbands and when they go bad you’re behind the 8-ball.

    Learned psychological types, the sort who buy into evolutionary psychology, quickly weighed in. At last we know the real reason for Spitzer’s zeal in crushing wrongdoers, they lectured knowingly. It was all a sham! He’s just an alpha male, with all the vulnerabilities of the species. And what about the prostitution rings he’d broken up? Even more Freudian: he was just exorcizing inner demons, purging his own soul through nailing others! But I’m not so sure how valid that argument is, or how relevant. After all, he was elected to knock heads together, not to teach Sunday School. Still, once exposed, he hadn’t a chance. Americans want their politicians squeaky clean, a reflection of what they imagine themselves to be.

    Besides, his “knocking heads together” style hadn’t worked well of late. Opposing politicians aren’t like corporate shysters whom who can throw in jail. They get mad, and they fight back. Though Spitzer scored some impressive early wins, he later bogged down amidst a style so abrasive that there was nobody to stick up for him when he got in trouble.

    I’m not so sure the abrasiveness was wrong. At any rate, what had proceeded it sure hadn’t worked. New York is well known among states for its dysfunctional government. Years ago then-Governor Pataki appeared on TV with leaders of the two opposing parties. He hoped to project the image of firm and steady moderator, guiding these powerful but noble opponents to a consensus for the lasting good of New Yorkers. Instead, the two foes squabbled like children, and Pataki looked like an ineffectual ass, the other parties themselves being immune to embarrassment. The governor steered clear of TV after that.

    With Spitzer’s resignation, state leadership defaulted to David Peterson, the Lieutenant Governor. Unexpected, the politically correct media had something to swoon about, for not only is Peterson black, he is also blind. A new category! He’s black and he’s blind, they gushed, as if one quality somehow augmented the other. Plus, he’s amiable. He gets along with everybody, they gushed again, forgetting that a year ago they had praised Spitzer for his being the exact opposite.

    No sooner had Peterson been sworn in than he, too, confessed to some extramarital affairs. He wasn’t going to be blindsided the way Spitzer was! But all was cool with the media….he’s black and he’d blind, after all, and he enters with lots of good will. We’ve never had a black and blind governor! Besides, his marital woes were more garden variety. He hadn’t broken any laws, and he hadn’t hired any prostitutes.

    A week later he admitted that in his younger days he had used marijuana and cocaine.

    Alright, Mr. Peterson, don’t push it! Sure, Bill Clinton smoked (but didn’t inhale) pot and George Bush drank (but didn’t swallow) booze, but you’re only a governor. He’s probably okay for now, but one more Oprah confession, like shoplifting at K-Mart, and he’s outta here.

    As NYS Attorney General, Eliot Spitzer took a lot of bad people out of circulation, including some high finance types usually thought untouchable. That should not be taken away from him. New Yorkers can be grateful. Advocates for market fairness say he’s done more to clean up Wall Street than anyone else in decades. For that, anyone who invests can be grateful. Still, I confess I wondered a bit when I read about the Theodore Sihpol casein the Wall Street Journal.

    Mr. Sihpol wasn’t a Big Guy, at least not in the financial world. He was mid-level. He had allowed a hedge fund to secure some closing prices after hours. There was no price favoritism. The fund got the closing prices, but it was after hours. Spitzer’s office threw everything they had at this fellow. He might even had settled, but the plea bargain they offered included jail time. So he fought back. At trial, his attorneys called no witnesses. They simply read the law. And it was clear he’d not broken any! Case dismissed.

    Now, what are we to make of this apparent abuse of power? You can’t make omelets without cracking a few eggs? But as George Orwell said, any time someone uses that line on you, you should immediately ask to see the omelet.

    All in all, it’s rather a sad story. Isn’t there some scripture somewhere about humans not being able to rule themselves?

    *****************************

    Tom Irregardless and Me          No Fake News but Plenty of Hogwash

  • The Nixon-Mao Talks

    In the summer of 1970, student demonstrators camped outside the White House night after night, demanding an end to the Vietnam War and hurling insults at President Nixon. This had not happened before. Prior wars had enjoyed popular support, or at least acquiescence, and the young had always fallen into line. Not this generation. Why weren’t they in class?

    Richard Nixon, inside, was deeply conscious of it all. Moreover, it seemed like miscommunication. After all, Vietnam was not his war. He had inherited in from the previous President and the one before him. Nixon was trying hard to end it, though doing so in the manner of all politicians before or since: peace with honor, no appeasement for aggressors, these colors don’t run, etc, etc, and so forth. Perhaps more than most politicians, Nixon wanted to be loved, yet here he was hated, and hated unjustly, he felt. So late one night, he strolled out and spoke to the demonstrators, to the dismay of security and staff.

    He rambled, vacillating between explaining his policy,  his ideals, and how the world worked, reminiscing, and dispensing fatherly advise. Those students should widen out, he suggested, travel some, even outside the country. For his administration, he hoped “that the great mainland of China be opened up so that we could know the seven hundred million people who live in China and who are one of the most remarkable people on earth.” But if Nixon had hoped for understanding, he got none. From my admittedly sketchy recollection of news accounts back then, students were steamed that they had come with serious adult concerns, and he had engaged them with memories of college football! They didn’t want to hear about football, and they certainly didn’t want any fatherly councel. They wanted what they wanted, and they wanted it now.

    Later Nixon expanded his China theme. Weeks later he said to Time magazine “if there is anything I want to do before I die, it is to go to China. If I don’t, I want my children to.”

    That might seem strange coming from Richard Nixon. He’d built his political career on anti-communist rhetoric. But by the late 1960’s he was reassessing. “Red” China had no diplomatic relations with any non-communist country, yet it was the largest nation on earth. Did it not make sense to try to assist them into the community of nations? Wasn’t China suffering from it’s isolation? At odds with its two huge neighbors, the Soviet Union and India, and reeling from its latest Great Leap Forward, a venture which starved millions, might it not respond to a helping hand? Nixon, from the beginning of his Presidency, purposed to visit China, meet with Mao Tse-tung, and end decades of Chinese isolation.

    Diplomats laid the groundwork, doing so with utmost secrecy. For example, Henry Kissinger flew to Pakistan on some backslapping mission, but feigned illness so he could retire and escape media limelight, Then, unobserved, he flew to China to meet with Mao’s number two, Chou En-lai. Of course, the secrecy was decreed so that Nixon’s political enemies wouldn’t prematurely discover his “heresy,” chumming with communists, and pound him into the ground with it. Not to mention the American allies that would surely be unsettled. The Chinese played along, but never quite understood American secrecy. “If they want to come,” said Mao, “they should come in the open light. Why should they hide their head and pull in their tail?”

    But it was young people, acting in innocence and sheer good will, who also moved plans ahead. Conscious of American attitudes thawing and looking for an appropriate response, neither too cool nor too cloying, in April 1971 China invited over the American table tennis team. They were right next door in Japan at the time. Mao made the decision himself. As he termed it, the small ping pong ball could be used to move the ball of the earth. Chou ordered the Chinese team to let the Americans win some games, which were televised live.

    One of the American youngsters, Glenn Cowan, was thought of as a hippy. Toward the end of the tournament one the Chinese players unexpectedly presented him a silk brocade scarf. The Chinese team leader panicked at this unauthorized contact, but the player brushed him aside. “Take it easy. As head of delegation you have many concerns, but I am just a player.” Mao heard of the incident and said with approval: “Zhuang Zedong not only plays good Ping-Pong but knows how to conduct diplomacyas well.

    During a reception at tournament’s end, Chou En-lai entertained questions from the foreigners. “What do you think about the hippy movement?” the unselfconscious Cowan asked. Chou didn’t know much about it, but suggested it was restless youth looking for change and not sure how to bring it about, much as things had been in his day. The hippy movement runs very deep, the American youngster countered. “It’s a whole new way of thinking.” But Chou suggested that “spirit must be transformed into material force before the world can move ahead.” The boy’s mother apparently sent Chou flowers for educating her son.

    One year later, following the groundwork of the diplomats and the kids, Richard Nixon set foot in China, the first American President ever to do so. Days of talks and banquets ensued. Thorny issues were hashed out: Taiwan and Vietnam, for example, and each country tried to get a feel for the others' relations with the bellicose Soviet Union. Everybody toasted everybody. Mao approved of Nixon: “He speaks forthrightly….no beating around the bush, not like the leftists, who say one thing and mean another.“ At the Great Wall of China, the President declared: “A people who could build a wall like this certainly have a great past to be proud of and a people who have this kind of a past must also have a great future.” To this day, the Chinese value those words.

    Late evening, the final night of his visit, Nixon reviewed goings-on with aides Kissinger and Haldeman. He had seriously stirred up the pot of international relations. He had taken great personal risk to his legacy and reputation. Would it all turn out well in the end? Kissinger felt Nixon was asking for reassurance and he gave it, moved by “an odd tenderness for this lonely, tortured, and insecure man.”

    Hard to believe that all this happened not yet forty years ago. China was then a populous, but backward country. Today it is the world’s rising power. Scores of gleaming skyscraper-packed cities stand where, just a few years ago, there were only barren field. Business Week recently opined that the remaining good jobs in America are to be found in health care and education….can you really base an economy on that? Manufacturing and technology jobs are moving abroad, much of it to China. Now that China’s star is so dramatically rising, will they get cocky? one commentator wondered. No, for China has always thought of itself as a great power, and only now is it finally reemerging after shaking off a century of Western exploitation.

    Richard Nixon revisited China in 1993, as a private citizen. “The growth of this place is really unbelievable,” he told chums. “And you know, I like to think that I had something to do with it.” Nixon died in 1994.

    ……………………………………………………………………….

    All specifics taken from the excellent new book Nixon and Mao, by Margaret MacMillan, c 2007. The book includes a 16 page photo section chronicling the Nixon visit.

  • Engardio, Gobitus, and the Flag Salute

    As a teenager, Joel Engardio broke his mother's heart. He declined to pursue the Witness faith in which he was raised, diving into journalism, which he imagined could change the world now, not later.

    As a young man, he broke it again. He declared he was gay. That’s a problem within JW congregations. Scriptures are scriptures and we're not authorized to change them. We don't go on anti-gay rants and witch hunts, like the fundamentalist groups, but to say we "discourage" homosexual practices would be an understatement.

    But as an adult, he's done his mama proud.

    Mr. Engardio has written, produced and narrated Knocking, probably the best documentary ever about Jehovah's Witnesses. Others think so, too, not just me.

    Best Documentary, Jury Award, 2006 USA Film Festival (Dallas)

    Best Documentary, Jury Award, 2006 Trenton Film Festival (New Jersey)

    Best Documentary, Audience Award, 2006 Indianapolis International Film Festival

    Its website, www.Knocking.org, lists 10 other film awards.

    Some aspects of Jehovah's Witnesses, Mr. Engardio relates better than the Witnesses themselves do. For example, while it's well known that the U.S. leads the world in protecting basic freedoms from government abuse – freedom of speech, of press, of assembly, of expression, of worship – the reason is less well known. It is, in large measure, Jehovah's Witnesses.

    Towards the end of ensuring freedoms, Jehovah's Witnesses have tried 50 cases before the U.S. Supreme Court. Except for the government itself, no other group has done so more often. The victories they've wrestled trickle down to groups of all stripes, including some with principles quite opposed to those of Jehovah's Witnesses. Such groups owe a large debt to JWs, but instead they take pot shots at our beliefs! Freedoms defined in the U.S. set the standards for other nations as well, particularly emerging ones.

    An example of a basic freedom defined:

    We all know that there is true patriotism and there is phony patriotism. There is the flag salute that reflects true love of country and the flag salute that is just going through the motions. The symbol means nothing in itself; it’s what the symbol means to a person which is significant. We all know that terrorists, spies, scoundrels, and what-have-you feel no compunction about saluting someone's flag, if only so as to avoid drawing attention to themselves.

    All the same, politicians are sometimes satisfied, not with true patriotism, but with the appearance of true patriotism. In the late 1930's, shortly before America's entrance into WWII, "patriots" [real or phony?] thought it a good idea to make all schoolchildren salute the flag. Some communities wrote it into school bylaws. It was to be obeyed upon pain of expulsion. This created a problem for the children of Jehovah's Witnesses, who do not salute any country’s flag. Their reason is religious, not political. It’s based on the Ten Commandments. (1 and 2)

    You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. You shall not bow down to them or worship them…       Ex 20:4,5  (NIV)  Saluting a flag, for them, violates this command.

    Granted, not everyone interprets those verses as we do, yet it is clear that JWs’ not saluting the flag has nothing to do with love of country. It’s a religious stand, based on avoiding "idolatry."

    Their motives made no difference to a certain Pennsylvania school board. With World War II threatening to draw in the United States, they wanted patriotism, or at least the appearance thereof. Further, they imagined that forcing students to salute the flag would instill the real variety. Religious conscience was of no concern to them. There was the flag – salute it! Two Witness children, William and Lillian Gobitus, would not. They were 12 and 10 years old, respectively. They stood their ground, and were expelled from public school. Through their father, they took the matter to court.

    Early court decisions went in favor of the Gobitus children. Two lower courts ruled in their favor. The second wrote into its decision the words of a certain Colonel Moss, who had authored several WWI training manuals:

    "Another form that false patriotism frequently takes is so-called Flag-worship – blind and excessive adulation of the Flag as an emblem or image – super-punctiliousness and meticulosity in displaying and saluting the Flag – without intelligent and sincere understanding and appreciation of the ideals and institutions it symbolizes. This of course is but a form of idolatry – a sort of "glorified idolatry," so to speak. When patriotism assumes this form it is nonsensical and makes the "patriot" ridiculous."

    "The court also noted that "there are schools all over the United States in which the pupils have to go through  the ceremony of pledging allegiance to the flag every school day. It would be hard to devise a means more effective for dulling patriotic sentiment than that. This routine repetition makes the flag-saluting ceremony perfunctory and so devoid of feeling; and once this feeling has been lost it is hard to recapture it for the "high moments" of life."

    Nonetheless, those who wanted the appearance of patriotism appealed each victory. The case reached the United States Supreme Court, which reversed the lower court decisions by an 8:1 vote.  [!]  "…We live by symbols," the Supreme Court declared. "The flag is the symbol of our national unity…" The school board could indeed compel students to salute the flag. Get over it, they seemed to say to minorities. Religious (or any other) conscience, though it harmed nobody, was stomped upon so as to please the majority.  Justice Harlan Fiske Stone, the only one who voted against the decision, wrote the dissenting opinion. Three years later that dissent would become the majority opinion. 

    The year was 1940, and war fever ran high, a mood hard to imagine today. Any action thought to be snubbing the flag brought public vengeance,  and everyone knew by then that Jehovah's Witnesses would not salute it. The Court decision lit a fire of intolerance. Mobs formed, waving the flag and demanding Witnesses salute it. When they would not, they were attacked and beaten, even into unconsciousness. Their homes, automobiles and meeting places were torched or wrecked. In small towns run by the “good ‘ol boys,” some were rounded up and jailed without charge. In four years over 2500 mob-related incidents occurred.

    The Solicitor General of the United States took to the NBC airwaves:

    “Jehovah's Witnesses have repeatedly been set upon and beaten. They have committed no crime; but the mob adjudged that they had, and meted out punishment The Attorney General has ordered an immediate investigation of these outrages.

    “The people must be alert and watchful, and above all, cool and sane. Since mob violence will make the government's task infinitely more difficult, it will not be tolerated. We shall not defeat the Nazi evil by emulating its methods.”

    First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt echoed the plea of the Attorney General. The ACLU also spoke out:

    “It is high time we came to our senses regarding this matter of flag-saluting. Jehovah’s Witnesses are not disloyal Americans….They are not given to law-breaking in general, but lead decent, orderly lives, contributing their share to the common good.”

    Was it this vigilante atmosphere that led three of the justices to declare, in another case, that they believed Gobitus had been wrongly decided? Yet another two justices retired, and they were replaced by ones thought to be more on the side of individual liberty. If compulsory flag salute was presented anew to the Supreme Court, would the decision be the same?

    The children of Walter Barnette, Paul Stull and Lucy McLure, in West Virginia were expelled from school for non-salute, and their parents were threatened with prosecution for raising delinquents. In response, they filed suit, just as the Gobitus children had done three years prior. The first court to hear the case, the United States District Court for the Southern District of West Virginia – has this ever happened before? – refused to follow the precedent of the Supreme Court decision and ruled in favor of the Witness children!

    Ordinarily we would feel constrained to follow an unreversed decision of the Supreme Court of the United States, whether we agreed with it or not…. the developments with respect to the Gobitus case, however, are such that we do not feel it is incumbent upon us to accept is as binding authority….The tyranny of majorities over the rights of individuals or helpless minorities , has always been recognized as one of the great dangers of popular government. The fathers sought to guard against this danger by  writing into the Constitution a bill of rights guaranteeing to every individual certain fundamental liberties….We are clearly of opinion that the regulation of the Board requiring that school children salute the flag is void insofar as it applies to children having conscientious scruples against giving such salute…

    The issue was again appealed up to the Supreme Court, and this time that body reversed itself! By at 6:3 majority, the Court ruled that compulsory flag salute was unconstitutional. Their verdict was announced on June 14, 1943 – flag day!

    In writing the dissenting opinion, Justice Frankfurter grumbled: “As has been true in the past, the Court will from time to time reverse its position. But I believe that never before these Jehovah’s Witnesses cases [there were several more besides those concerning flag salute] …..has this Court overruled decisions so as to restrict the powers of democratic government.”

    Yes, that’s how it is with these governments, democratic or not. They want more power. They don’t want to give it up. A certain amount is necessary, of course, so as to maintain public order and safety. We cede it to them willingly and render obedience. But when they grab for yet more – the consciences and souls of their citizens, someone has to call them on it. And that someone has often been Jehovah’s Witnesses.

    …………………………………………

    Knocking concludes with the observation that Jehovah's Witnesses are, at present, litigating 400 human rights cases worldwide.

     

    ………………..

     

    More on Knocking here

    ***************************************

    Tom Irregardless and Me     No Fake News but Plenty of Hogwash

  • Pool Alarms and Parkinson’s Law

    The legislators of New York, eager to safeguard us all, have decreedthat, from now on, any new swimming pool deeper than 2 feet must come equipped with an alarm that will raise all hell inside & outside the house should someone (or something) fall in. Thus, Rochesterians who live in the poverty zone (trust me, there are many) who have no air conditioning but several broiling kids, who used to cool them off on a hot day with one of those cheap, inflatable pools, are now protected from that relief, since the price of an alarm exceeds the price of the pool. We just snapped a short spell of 90+ degree weather, with obscene humidity, the first of many this summer. In the air conditioned Albany State Legislature, some legislator is hero of the day. "If it saves one life, it's worth it!" he says. 

    Trouble is, there's not many things that won't save at least one life. What of the imposition for everyone else? Mind you, I have nothing against pool alarms. They seem a good idea. It's the mandating of pool alarms!

    Folks who remember when you could ride a bicycle without a helmet, indeed, even drive a car without a seatbelt, may need help to know what to make of this. That's why this post is written. In Europe, by the way, where they bicycle far more than we do, nobody wears a helmet. "It would muss up my hair," explained one Frenchman to the Wall St Journal.

    This new pool alarm requirement must be looked at in the light of Parkinson's Law, (the 2nd one) which suggests that, having utterly failed to acheive anything of real value, officials nevertheless must justify their existance. Therefore, they redouble their efforts to accomplish nonsense.

    Parkinson's Law, derived in the 1950s by C. Northcote Parkinson, is actually a body of business and organizational laws which are usually stated in economic terms, but can be amended to fit swimming pools. The law which specifically applies, the 2nd law, states that the time and money spent on any item in any organizational agenda is inversely proportional to its importance. In his definative book "Parkinson's Law," Dr Parkinson illustrates his second law with a business board meeting:

    The lead item on the agenda is a nuclear reactor for the company plant. It is approved immediately, not because it is a good idea, indeed, it is suspect, but because few people on the board know what a nuclear reactor is, and those who do have no idea what one should cost. The two people who do know something have no idea where to begin with explanations. They would have to refer to the blueprints. No one present can read blueprints, yet no one present would ever admit they could not!  Easier just to say "yes." The reactor is approved.  Time spent: about 2 minutes. However, several members have inward misgivings. They wonder if they've really been pulling their weight. They resolve to make up for it with the next item.

    The next item is a bicycle tool shed for the employees. Here is something most can get their heads around. They bicker over its design, its materials, its location, indeed, even its necessity, since the ungrateful employees only take whatever you give them and demand more! Time spent: about 1 hour.

    The next items concerns the coffee that is served at board meetings: its brand, supplier, and cost. No one is present who doesn't know all there is to know about coffee, and the ensuing discussion lasts the rest of the day!

    Now, if we postulate that Parkinson's 2nd law applies, and that requiring pool alarms is an accomplishment relatively trivial, then there has to be some "big fishes" that got away. Are there?

    The day before the local paper reported on pool alarms, it reportedon a new "academic excellence" surcharge for nearby SUNY Geneseo State college. The surcharge, which kicks in a year from September, adds $1000 to the annual tuition of $4350, a 23% increase! Where one SUNY college goes, soon the rest can be expected to follow. Lawmakers are clearly not interested in saving that "one life" of a poor child so that he may attend college!

    Besides the bruising economic threats people face, there are the ever-growing threats to education quality, public morality and decency, even threats to spirituality. All these areas are ignored while legislators piss away their time on physical safety, a comparatively insignificant area which even a Frenchman knows how to keep in proper perspective so as not to muss up his hair!

    As if to underscore the point, New York Governor Elliot Spitzer is crisscrossing the state, challenginglocal citizens to play "Where's Waldo" with their state senator. He'll hold up a picture of the empty Senate chambers. "Where is your Senator," he asks. "He's not here. We've looked all over." He's mad because Senators voted themselves a pay raise and then took off for the summer, leaving stuff on the plate. Important stuff. Necessary stuff. Fundamental stuff. (Most importantly) Stuff Eliot vowed to get done.

    They did, however, make it tougher for poor kids to cool off. And that's something.

    ***********************

    Tom Irregardless and Me    No Fake News but Plenty of Hogwash

  • Eliot Spitzer and Jesse Ventura

    Sometimes celebrities run for office and, if elected, they make for the best leaders, or at least they're the most fun to watch. Like that pro wrestler, Jesse Ventura, elected Minnesota governor a few years back….remember him? Voters might have asked: can he really do better than professional politicians? But they didn't. They asked: how can he do worse? Minnesotans, briefly basking in national attention, sported bumper stickers boasting "My Governor can beat up your Governor." When they asked Jesse about it, he agreed. He'd been to a Governor's conference. He'd looked those guys over, he told us, and there wasn't one of them he couldn't whip. But he was not so triumphant with the media, with whom he fought all the time. He spoke his mind, and that's probably why he fought with them all the time.

    For example, on religion: "Organized religion is a sham and a crutchfor weak-minded people who need strength in numbers. It tells people to go out and stick their noses in other people's business."

    Or on promoting the Pledge of Allegiance in the schools (he opposed it): "I believe patiotism comes from the heart. Patriotism is voluntary. It is a feeling of loyalty and allegiance that is the result of knowledge and belief. A patriot shows their patriotism through their actions, by their choice. No law will make a citizen a patriot."

    David Letterman asked him on TV which of the Twin Cities was better: Minneapolis or St. Paul. Now, any politicians knows that you have to play cute and say syrupy drivel about both towns, even if they both stink to high heaven. Jesse answered: "Minneapolis. Those streets in St. Paul must have been designed by drunken Irishmen."

    Such blunt remarks….there's others, too…. made him an easy target for the media. They treated him as a big joke, so he called them "media jackals." When they sought access to the governor's press area they had to show their press pass which, per Jesse's decree, identified each one of them as a "media jackal."

    He only served one term, but said he would have run again had it not been for family considerations. The media pestered them always, he charged, ignoring policy issues so that they could wallow in cheap gossip.

    Frankly, the more I read about this guy, the more I like him. He reminds me of Mickey Spillane.

    So that was Jesse. Here in New York we have Eliot….Eliot Spitzer. Is he cut from the same cloth as Jesse? He didn't crack skulls in the ring, of course, but he sure did on Wall Street, fining lots of white collar crooks and sending a few to the Big House. Like Jesse, Eliot doesn't hesitate to speak his mind; decorum-laced politicians and media types are incredulous at his outbursts, to the point of questioning his sanity. "I am a [ahem] f**king steamroller and I'll roll over you or anybody else," said he to an opposing Assemblyman, according to the New York Post.

    And….. "I've done more in three weeks than any governor has done in the history of the state." Not real modest, and chiding reporters quickly trotted out lifetime accomplishments of other governors, like DeWitt Clinton, the one who dug the Erie Canal 200 years ago. How's that for lifetime accomplishment, Mr. Spitzer, they nyaah nyaahed, as if imagining Clinton had dug it personally (which he did not).  At a news conference they asked him whether his words were overly boastful. "No," he answered, Next question."

    Still, you don't want to mess with Eliot. He has done a lot in a short time, he's hugely popular, just like Jesse who enjoyed a 73% approval rating, and New York State is almost on the embalming table. Everyone knows it, so they don't mind a guv who'll crack the heads of those who put it there.

    The really big battles are still shaping up. Mr. Spitzer's 2007 State budget, the one that's due April 1rst, though previous budgets have been as late as six months, sending all State agencies and schools into conniptions, proposes cuts of $1.2 billion in health care, mostly from Medicaid, hospitals and nursing homes, with increased emphasis on preventative care. Now, lest anyone think that Eliot is just a mean spirited miser, it should be noted that New York leads in Medicaid spending and spends more than the next two states combined. Even with the new cuts, the budget is a 9 percent increase over last year, says the new state comptroller Thomas DiNapoli. That's almost two times faster than revenues….and 2 and a half times the rate of inflation. It's unsustainable, says DiNapoli, who as comptroller, may turn out the be a major Spitzer asset, even though the latter opposedhis appointment.

    Former Governor Pataki tried to rein in health spending, but it's hard to do. The hospital and health care workers unions saturate TV and radio with tearjerker stories of sick, neglected people, and it's game over. Pataki, in the end, learned to shut up and sign the check.

    "Eliot Spitzer says he wants to reform health care, and he's right! But he's going about it the wrong way." This was the health worker union's first TV salvo. Trust me on this: the "and he's right" is only because it was Eliot Spitzer. They never did it for Pataki. But mess with Eliot and you mess with the people who like him, which is nearly everyone.

    Spitzer was not in the least appeased by "and he's right." He served up his own TV ad. Set in a hospital nursery full of babies crying…..they were crybabies…. the narrator spelled out facts about New York's bloated system, full of fraud and waste and huge salaries for the top dogs.

    The next round of ads was predictable. Televised health aides, almost in tears, sniffling why does the governor wants to hurt them, when they work so hard and save lives!

    There's lots more to come. Mr. Spitzer and Joseph Bruno, the Senate Majority leader, a firm ally of the hospital people, got into a screaming matchthe other day in the Senate chambers. Even F-bombs were flying! A scared secretary took cover and fled the room.

    Yes, there's more to come.

    ****************************

    Tom Irregardless and Me             No Fake News but Plenty of Hogwash

  • Rochester and the Curse of the Fast Ferry

    It's the curse that keeps on cursing.

    Anyone from Rochester will know what is referred to….the fast ferry, that lake-going vessel that is yet plunging the city through descending levels of financial hell which even Dante never imagined.

    It seemed like such a good idea. Bring a high-speed ferry to Rochester, so that the folks in Toronto, whom we all know are itching to visit our town, could hop over the big lake in no time. Sure, it was expensive, but then, great ideas are never cheap! Where's that checkbook? Whadyamean, you're opposed? You got something against progress? But the operation lost money the instant it touched shore….like a million dollars a month. A new administration decided, within days of taking power, that enough was enough, and put the boat up for sale, pleased to escape with a taxpayer tab of only $20 million (now $28 million), assuming they could sell the boat. It was an optimistic assumption.

    There was this outfit, Euroferries, that straight off said they wanted the vessel, and city luminaries gave each other high-fives. But that was almost a year ago. You can only drag your feet so long, and so Mayor Duffy sent the city lawyer to go eyeball to eyeball with those guys. Yes, look them in the eye, just like a TV anchorman, and peer into their soul. It was a wise move, for their soul revealed that they did indeed like the boat, but they didn't…um…have the….uh….dough. So the city cut them loose and retreated to square one. That way the boat won't sit ten years awaiting a new owner, or at least awaiting Euroferries as a new owner.

    Alas, throughout this long saga, it's hard to avoid the impression that sharpie businesspeople have been playing city officials like Prince played his guitarat the Superbowl. I mean, our boys are politicians, for crying out loud! It hardly seems fair.

    Many projects are achieved by trampling the opposition under your feet. If you wait for all the bickerers, backbiters, and foot draggers to come on board, you’ll never get anything done. Noble projects get done this way. This, they tell me, was the story behind the fast ferry. If it works out, the doer is a visionary. A hero. Who cares how he got it done? Running down the whiners is brilliant, an absolutely essential, strategy! But God help that doer if the vision doesn’t pan out!

    Isn't there a war somewhere following this general pattern?

    Too bad for the first mayor, Bill Johnson. He worked tirelessly and obviously had the city’s interest at heart. But he will be remembered only for “Johnson’s folly.” Fortunately for him, since the next administration scuttled the deal, he will always be able to say "if only." If only they had hung in there. If only they had marketed more. If only they had gone to other places, say the 1000 islands, not just Toronto. If only they had prayed more. And maybe he's right. Nobody will ever know for sure.

    Nor can they say they weren't warned. Contrary to popular belief, the city was advised beforehand that the project didn’t have a snowball’s chance in you-know-where. Not wanting to rush blindly into a deal of such magnitude, the city engaged the Carriertom Into-Wishin Research Institute to provide a feasibility study.

    Carriertom completed its report in record time, a mere three days, since they are fun-loving people there at the Institute, and could not resist calling their report the fast fast ferry study. True, the haste was at the expense of accuracy, but it was not thought to be out of harmony with the company’s motto “That’s Close Enough!“ After all, Carriertom doesn’t charge much, and in these days of high fuel prices, that’s always a valid consideration. As it turned out, it didn’t matter anyway.

    For, not wishing to be ambiguous nor make local politicians do a lot of reading, the report arrived in a dust jacket with bold lettering: Fast Ferry Won’t Work! Alas, this tactic backfired, because they are very politically correct over there at City Hall, and the mail room clerk, upon seeing the dust jacket, misinterpreted it to be a slur against gay people! And a groundless slur at that, since the city has hired several gay persons, and has found they work just fine. Indeed, they are model employees. Enraged, the clerk hurled the report into the trash! Thus, valuable research, which city fathers desperately needed, never reached their eyes.

    The next day, the city of Rochester spent God knows how many millions to purchase and transport the boat to harbor. Six months later, a new administration canned the floundering operation, and it's been root canal sailing ever since.

    That’s the true story, which the Carriertom Institute is eager to tell so that it may not be unjustly blamed for the failed project. They tried, they really did.

  • Eliot Spitzer and the Comptroller

    Like in Network, Eliot Spitzer is mad as hell and he's not going to take it anymore! The odd thing is that he's not taken it very long. It was just 6 weeks ago that Spitzer was sworn in as governor, wearing his new Hickey-Freeman suit. But it's clear he means to make his mark. Cross him at your peril

    The big blowup comes after Spitzer fired the former state comptroller, caught with his hand in the till. He then assembled previous state comptrollers to recommend new candidates. The state assembly said they'd go along, but then they reneged and gave the job to one of their own.

    Spitzer was spitting nails. The Assembly's move showed a ‘‘stunning lack of integrity that is deeply troubling … You have just witnessed the insider game of self-dealing that unfortunately confirms every New Yorker’s worst fear and image of all that goes on in the Legislature of this state,” he fumed. There was some party coming up….some get-to-know-you wing ding with Assembly members. Spitzer cancelled it!

    It's an odd place to pick a fight. Yes, he lost the skirmish, but it's a petty skirmish. The Assembly's constitutionally empowered to do just what they did….choose their own guy. Moreover, the guy they chose gets high marks all around, and seemingly fits in well with Spitzer's reform program, except Spitzer didn't think of him himself.

    No matter! Spitzer is here to kick some butts. And New Yorkers agree that butts need kicking, even if their not really sure….who actually follows state politics?….exactly which butts need it most. This is the Assembly that has presided over an ever more hopeless basket case mess-of-a-State, and the perception, right or wrong, is that these guys care for little else than protecting their own turf. So New York's indebtedness is second only to one other state, it's taxes are second to none, Medicaid expenditures are twice the national average, businesses can't leave fast enough, and the school graduates behind them. Only once in 16 years has the annual state budget passed on time…it's been up to six months late….these guys stake out territory and refuse to budge. Schools and municipalities can't do their own budgets, not knowing what aid they'll get from the state. Witty New Yorkers say things like (trust me, I know) "Last one out of New York, turn out the lights." The former governor tried to address some of these problems and these guys handed him his head. He learned to shut up and smile.

    Rochester's quirky Bob Lonsberry suggests that Spitzer should have been more conciliatory. These guys (the Assembly) aren't going away, he points out, and unlike Eliot's former Wall Street foes, you can't throw them in jail or run them out of business. But it may be that Spitzer thinks nothing will change if he simply plays the game nice. No, Mr. Spitzer was elected in a landslide. He has lots of good will. The assemblymen have none. Many would agree with Ed Rooney …. "I’m all for a tyranical dictator. The beauty of hitting rock bottom is that you have no where to go but up."

    Meanwhile, journalists are stocking up on popcorn. It's gonna be an interesting few years.

    *************************

    Tom Irregardless and Me            No Fake News but Plenty of Hogwash

  • Psst! Hey….Buddy! Wanna be President?

    Everybody is running for President next year, because of easy publicity on the internet.

    The current President is decidedly unpopular, and I just read a pertinent article:

    Only 32% of Americans approve of his job performance. Forty three per cent say that his war was a mistake. Critics deride him as too stubborn and inflexible. Others dismiss him as a intellectual lightweight. But the president sticks to his guns. "I wonder how far Moses would have gone if he’d taken a poll in Egypt?" he writes. "It isn’t polls or public opinion of the moment that counts. It’s right and wrong.

    The article is by Kenneth T Walsh. It appears in the 2/5/07 USNWR. And the president he writes of is not you-know-who.

    It’s Harry S Truman, now thought to one of the great American presidents, though trashed in his day!

    George W Bush hopes the same opinion reversal will someday blow his way, but not everyone buys it. Says Robert Dallek: "Everybody who gets into serious trouble in the presidency invokes the Truman history and the Truman experience. But there’s only one Harry Truman."

    Be that as it may, I bring up the subject to talk about Truman, not Bush. He was the most ordinary of men when circumstances made him president.  And today he enjoys history’s highest assessment.

    Now, what other recent president has received universal praise?

    It’s Gerald T. Ford, who died last month at age 93. Gerald T. Ford, who "healed" the nation by pardoning Nixon, though it ended his political future. But it was a wise thing to do…what’s the point of reducing a former president to car wash attendant?….and historians now praise Ford for his action ….throwing himself on a grenade is how Peggy Noonan puts it. I’ve read nothing but "he was precisely what the country needed at the time." High praise, indeed.

    Do these two former praiseworthy presidents have anything in common? They do indeed. Neither one ever wanted the job!

    Ford, of course, was never elected president or even vice-president…..he became VP when Spiro Agnew went down in flames, enmeshed in some sort of corruption scandal…I forget the details, and president when Nixon resigned. Nixon was always making comments….they weren’t chums…. about what a lunkhead he was. Mean remarks, though not so mean as those of Lyndon B Johnson, the crude sonuvagun, who opined that Ford couldn’t fart and chew gum at the same time, which observation the press sanitized to he couldn’t walk and chew gum at the same time. (You’ll notice that historians have not been especially kind to Johnson)

    Neither was Truman ever elected president. And almost not vice-president. He never campaigned for the office, but was put there by party brokers who didn’t like him much but saw him as electable, in contrast to several other luminaries who they liked better but knew they were too polarizing to bet on. Like Nixon’s view of Ford, Roosevelt couldn’t stand Truman.

    So two men who never aspired to the office are now judged to be among the greats. In contrast to the turkeys who run, who get elected, and we’re still licking our wounds! The lesson ought to be obvious. For the upcoming election, whenever someone declares his or her candidacy, scratch that person off the list of those you will consider. Instead, look for someone who does not want the job and will not accept it, preferably someone hiding in the coat closet amidst the luggage.