An Open Letter to the Democratic Party

It is almost intolerable to sit by and watch while the Democratic Party prepares to lose yet another election. In spite of the polls there is a deep underlying weakness in democratic strategy that could turn November’s election from a golden opportunity to reverse the country's direction under Trump, to yet another unexpected and humiliating defeat. That weakness revolves around the party’s apparent inability to understand that right now it is, crazily enough, the Republicans who are winning the votes of the Democratic Party’s natural core constituency, working class and poor white Americans.

For all of its appalling ethical debauchery, the Trump administration knows what it’s doing when it attacks immigration, because they know it’s a divisive issue, and dividing people is the Republican’s stock in trade. The more they can focus people’s attention on race and immigration, and keep it away from the unifying issue of jobs, wealth, and class, the better off they will be in November.

It is amazing, that while the Democrats have such legitimate contempt for Trump’s intelligence, it is Trump who, through this strategy of keeping the dialogue on race and immigration, is now controlling the agenda, and in so doing will be able to claim at least a partial victory in the next election by effectively limiting the damage to his party, in what should be a decisive Democratic landslide. The results of this to the Democrats would be devastating, and might even user in a chapter of American neo-fascism.

For all of our legitimate hared of Trump’s agenda where race and immigration are concerned, the Democrats must not allow themselves to be distracted from the one essential, uniting, issue of our times – the one that will lead to inevitable victory or defeat, the issue of economic inequality.

Look at the deplorable state of the American working class. The destruction of trade unions has left millions with work that cannot support even a marginal standard of living. Medical care for all is still a far-off dream. The minimum wage hasn’t been raised in decades. We have an epidemic of opium addiction. Our standing in the world community has declined to a once inconceivable degree and all of is primarily due to the ever widening gap between the rich and poor.

The point is that we will not make progress on immigration, or racism, or sexism, or anything else unless we win back political power in America, and we can’t do that without the while middle and working class. That is stark, obvious, political reality, and the Democratic Party seems utterly blind to it.

Brent Hightower

The Great Ten Dollar Bank Caper (A True Story)

This morning I went to a bank to get a roll of quarters. I went to the counter, and said, "I need a roll of quarters."
"Do you have an account?"
"NO."
"Then we'll need to see an ID."
Wait a minute, I thought to myself, I need an ID so I can get quarters?
"Okay," I said, taken aback, like a dutiful drone.
So I gave her my ID. She looked at it, then looked skeptically at the ten dollar bill I put on the counter and proceeded to spend literally two minutes typing away on her keyboard.
I'm thinking, just what the hell can she be looking at on her screen and what the hell does she have to type for 2 minutes and why the hell should I have to tolerate this bullshit?
Finally, her printer spitted out a piece of paper. She looked at it, looked at me skeptically, again, and then showed the paper to her supervisor who came over and also scrutinized, closely, first my ten dollar bill and then me. (I should add here that I have no criminal record whatsoever!)
At last, she whispered something to the teller, who finally passed over the contraband - I mean roll of quarters - and I sort of furtively slunk-off to my get-away car, feeling pretty mean now - pretty bad you might say - like Machine Gun Kelley.

Does this seem as weird to anyone else as it seems to me? It's like we're all criminals now, trying to prove our innocence.

Brent Hightower
Copyright 2018, Brent Hightower
21stcenturyperceptions.blogspot.com
*Image source unknown

The Tragic Reality Underlying Our Terrifying School Shootings

Several weeks ago I wrote an ironic article recommending that we arm special education students, as a solution to the tragic number of school shootings in the U.S. today; and given the superficial nature of the solutions bandied about by the media, and by our malodorous current "leadership," that seems about as good an idea as most, and better than some. But now I'd like to address the question in all seriousness.

Firstly, I think we must realize that school shootings can't be stopped by putting more guns into the schools, in anybody's hands. A student with violent intent can only be given more opportunity to commit violence by bringing guns into the schools. To think otherwise is to think that these kids aren't intelligent enough to get their hands on those guns, with the element of surprise on their side, and to believe that is a fatal flaw in our own reasoning. It's difficult to believe that it's even necessary to point this out.

Likewise, the view of gun control itself as a solution is almost equally superficial. Though gun control is a good idea in general, and many killings would undoubtably be prevented by it, school shootings are among the relatively rare percentage of murders that are calculated, in which case the perpetrators can overcome the inaccessibility of guns, through premeditation.

Our notion (or more accurately the notion of the NRA) to inject guns into our schools is a tacit admission that our culture's degenerated to the point we are no longer civilized, and that most certainly is not a problem that can be solved with more guns! What we must do is ask why our culture is producing such maladjusted kids, how to deal with these kids in the short run, and ultimately, what aspects of the culture itself must be changed to solve the problem.

Recently, the NRA has been funding advertisements, in effect blaming these shootings on a "liberal, permissive society". . . Well, whether America is permissive or not, it certainly isn't liberal. The far-right now controls virtually every element of American society from the Presidency, to Congress, to the Supreme Court, to Wall Street, to corporate business, to most of the governorships and state legislatures. Yet somehow the NRA, the conservative think tanks, and their obsequious puppet media, blame school shootings on liberals! The question of exactly how liberals are responsible is kept very vague, of course, because it can't stand up to a moment's scrutiny on either the grounds of logic, or morality.

This effort to blame liberals is a spoiling attack, intended to preempt the much more logical argument that these shootings result from the unjustified increase in militarism, and authoritarianism, in America - and our incessant promotion of guns and violence. Because these things, along with increasing wealth disparity, are indeed among the most obvious culprits. There isn't any other country in the developed world where this is happening - not in democratic societies, socialist societies, communist societies, or among the Inuit. It doesn't happen in Denmark, France, or Holland, which are socialistic countries, and far more "permissive," (if I understand that also vaguely defined term) than the United States.

No. School shootings are a singularly American problem.

In all of this one very important thing is missing, and that is to ask these kids themselves why they are doing it. I haven't seen a single interview with a kid at risk for this kind of behavior (and there are many), asking them why they think others like themselves are doing it; and such omission is not unusual in America. It's become standard practice over the last forty years, or so, in the media. We ask everybody else. We ask "the experts." We ask school principals, teachers, housewives, the man on the street, dog catchers, or anybody in short, but those who would actually know! Could it be that we're afraid that their answers might bring up aspects of our culture and ourselves we find unpleasant to examine?


For about five minutes after 911 there was an attempt on the part of common Americans, (as reflected on the internet), to ask the obvious question, "Why are they doing this?" But those who asked were quickly drowned out by the roar of the offended, and the self righteous. They were chastised by the "America is greatest country in the world" crowd, who seem to believe we never have to introspect, we never have to think, because we are Americans. And then, as always, the media re-affirmed our preconceptions, and so few of us ever heard the views of those actually responsible.

Personally, I find the restrictive fundamentalism, either Islamic, Christian, or any other stripe, abhorrent, but I also know that when we refuse to engage in a dialogue with those who oppose us, we will never see an end to wars and enmity. I also know that many people in the Middle East have a legitimate grievance over who profits from the wealth of their oil fields, because in most cases they themselves do not. This is to some extent a digression, but the point is, our persistent belief in our own inevitable rightness, and our refusal to engage in self-examination, will finally prove more dangerous to us than most of our supposed enemies will ever be. . .


So, we don't ask these kids why they're so desperately unhappy. Nevertheless, some of the reasons are transparent. These are, in no particular order, that many of these kids are rootless. Their families have often moved from place to place, and they haven't been able to establish permanent connections. Most Americans no longer have farms, own no land, have no animals to provide these kids companionship and allow them to learn empathy. They have no sense of place, or room to roam freely, no appropriate spaces to play with each other, and later, to safely congregate. In many modern tract housing developments today children don't even have a cursory strip of grassy yard in front of their house to play in. Their world is built for cars and for degraded adults, not for them.

We are continually told (by Republicans mostly), that more guns and more law enforcement will solve our problems, when all the evidence shows they have done the opposite. The more money we spend on added "security," and take away the things that comprise a civil society, like decent schools, the worse our problems become. The fact is by now obvious even to a sub-par intelligence that the "Reagan revolution," with all it's emphasis on selfishness, and on police and security, has all but destroyed the once great United States. And yet the lunatic liturgy goes on. . . Deregulation! More police! More "national security!" More guns!

We must face the truth, that everything about current American culture tells these kids we don't really value them. Even after so many school shootings there are a grossly insufficient number of qualified counselors in the schools, and counselors are the most important mechanism for preventing these attacks! Except for a tiny minority of the overprivileged, who get whatever they want without having to earn it, everything in these kids' world is now sub-par, starting with the condition of the schools they attend. We no longer build city parks for the great majority of American children, or athletic fields, or public swimming pools. They will have no jobs that pay a living wage when they graduate from high school. College is too expensive, and even college graduates are now lucky to find jobs that can support a family.

Many of these kids are also tormented daily, by peers allowed to vent their Darwinian instinct towards domination on them unrestrained. In many schools even teachers, and particularly athletic coaches, have encouraged this pecking order out of the very subconscious impulses that drive the schoolyard bullies themselves. When children are exposed to a value system like that, is it any wonder they sometimes lash out in rage? With boys this "hazing" is often looked upon as something positive, as "toughening them up." But children can learn physical toughness, and discipline, without being encouraged to torment and humiliate. It should be especially evident we need to do whatever is necessary to reform this simian social hierarchy when, with modern weaponry available to anyone determined to get it, this bullying behavior is increasingly getting the bullies themselves shot with high powered rifles.

Perhaps the reason we don't ask these kids why they're so angry is that we don't really want to know. If we did, we might have to confront the fact that it is we ourselves who must change, if we want them to change. If we really care about ending the school shooting tragedy we have to repudiate the outlook that gave rise to it. Partly that is the "Reagan revolution," which takes as it's first tenet the abdication of all social responsibility.

We need to care about something beyond the wealth of a few bankers and corporate executives, and show these kids that we actually do care about them, by taxing those bankers and executives and putting that money into the things these kids desperately need, starting with school counselors. For the price of one military contract boondoggle, like the obsolete-off-the-assembly-line B1 bomber, or the osprey aircraft that isn't safe at any speed, we could have built new high schools for just about every state in the union. And even those kids who don't know this can sense it. In their hearts they know exactly how much we really care about them.

If we want them to care we have to care about them - not just pay lip service to caring about them - while a few unconscionably greedy individuals cheat them of a life. Even more importantly, far more so in my judgement, we need to subdue our acquired cultural arrogance that prevents us from critically examining our culture, and ourselves - that prevents us from introspecting, and therefore from making any positive change, in any area of our society at all now for over 40 years. For if we continue down that road, even these school shootings will prove to be a drop in the bucket of the social chaos to come.

Brent Hightower
Copyright 2018, Brent Hightower
21stcenturyperceptions.blogspot.com
*Image, Washington State Psychological Association

Eulogy For a Demigod

I'd like to preface this essay ( as I've often felt compelled to do ) with a disclaimer - in this case to say I believe that science is a valuable tool, and likewise modern technology, but with serious reservations. Firstly, we can only believe in them to the degree we can believe in the people who practice them, and, like the rest of humanity, some of these people are first rate, and some are dastards. Secondly, we can only believe in them with an awareness of their limitations as guiding forces in life. The reason I say this is that the Western World has, at the present moment, no cohesive worldview. That is, we have no worldview that incorporates reason and factual analysis with the spiritual and ethical aspects of life traditionally provided by religion.

It seems clear that to have a life worth living, our disintegrated outlook must give way to one that incorporates these differing aspects of human life into a whole. And I believe that through a number of modern insights ( particularly those provided by Darwin and Freud ), combined with Platonic philosophy, such an integrated view is now possible. But this latter question cannot be addressed in depth here.

The subject of this essay is, at least in part, Steven Hawking, the influential physicist who passed away just recently. Again, I have nothing against Steven Hawking personally, in fact I have great respect for his courage in facing a debilitating and terribly protracted disease. I hope people will see it's possible to criticize a person's views, or what they have come to represent, without criticizing them as human beings; but based on experience I wouldn't be surprised if, in spite of what I say, some people do take this essay as a personal attack. Be that as it may, as George Orwell said, I'll "write as I please." I don't think a writer who's afraid of controversy can say anything worth one's time. . .

Hawking had been held in very high esteem. So much so that for all intents and purposes he's been held out as an oracle, a sort of modern god. Yet to me, in many ways, he represented everything wrong with modern, technological society. His presentation always struck me as that of a disembodied brain, a mere mechanical utterance, empty of all emotion, of all passion, holding forth from some bloodless nether-world on the great questions of human life.

His voice seemed almost to be the very voice of modern technology itself. Nor, does it seem to me, did Hawking do or say anything to deny or deflect such an interpretation. Among other proclamations he held forth on how we should close all the philosophy departments in modern universities because they are antiquated, and have now been superseded by science. . . Because apparently, they have now been superseded by Hawking himself!

It did seem he was a perfect god for our times - one incapable of touching us, of moving us to any higher state of consciousness, or bringing us even the smallest drop of solace. In his sterile monotone he presided over a universe of neutered numbers. The answer is "String Theory," or "Dark Matter," or as Douglas Adams said so wryly in his novel, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, 42! Meanwhile children continue to go hungry, polar bears (along with tigers and too many other species to count) are forced every day closer to extinction, and the world strides on blithely one step closer to destruction. They are answers that answer nothing, that can change nothing, and that is why the established order, bent only on it's own wealth and self-aggrandizement, embraces them.

We are enthrall to our own self-destructive power, enslaved by the very forces that we believe make us great. Let's look at the world today, one dominated by the scientific outlook, and ask ourselves, "Is it the kind of world we'd like our children grow up in?" I believe few of us could honestly say it is. Those who wholeheartedly support applied science and technology would argue that too many people have failed to adhere to that outlook. If only we all complied all would be well. The irrational and destructive elements in human nature are responsible for our decline, in spite of the civilizing influence of science - and there may be some truth in this view, but I believe it's mostly a comforting rationalization.

Firstly, it begs the question. For if science is to succeed as the guiding principle of civilization (and it certainly is put forward as such, whether scientists themselves say so or not) then it must command widespread compliance. Even a small minority of irrational people can wreak havoc with the smooth functioning of a social system based on science. So in this light the argument of insufficient compliance itself becomes evidence the scientific outlook can't meet the exceedingly high standard of a guiding worldview. For if science can't achieve the first prerequisite of its own success - namely, sufficient compliance, then it can't solve humanities problems.

Clearly some contrary element of human nature can't be persuaded, mitigated, educated, eradicated, or nullified, by science; and if practicality is the measure by which we judge a system that claims legitimacy through its superior practicality then, here again, we find evidence of failure. This isn't to say that some other existing paradigm is better, merely that science hasn't overcome this impediment any better than religion has, or any other social principle to date. Yet the influence of science is so great it's acquired almost godlike status. Whenever people want to bestow on something unquestioned legitimacy, from a brand of toothpaste to "channeling" alien beings from the Pleiades, they try to wrap the thing in an aura of scientific legitimacy. So if science is the answer we think it is, why are we teetering on the brink of destruction?

Twenty-five-hundred years ago Socrates said science couldn't answer the only questions he believed really mattered to human beings. It wasn't that he didn't believe science could, for example, increase the grain harvest. It was that he saw that the meaning of life could not be determined by increasing the grain harvest. Of course it's good thing to increase the grain harvest (unless resulting increased populations merely become a precursor to greater disaster) but that the search for real meaning has nothing to do with such questions. Science may be able to increase the grain harvest but it can't explain the mystery of being, and it can't prevent some strong man from seizing all the grain for himself, regardless of whether he needs it or not. Science can simply do nothing about greed, prejudice, hatred, envy, narcissism, revenge, or the thousand other human flaws primarily responsible for the misery on this planet. We are the dominant spirits among the only known living organisms in the entire universe, and yet we really know little about the meaning or purpose of life.

Socrates said, "know thyself," and that "the unexamined life is not worth living." That wasn't an inconsequential abstraction. Without self-knowledge (that is introspection, a genuine search for the truth about our own natures, and the meaning of our consciousness) science and technology are useless, because they cannot save us from ourselves. Until we have control of our own psyches, and find a path that satisfies our spirits, we will be driven to acts of war and hatred, and forced to re-live the cycle of destruction and misery that has been our fate since time immemorial.

People demand more of a worldview than an instrument to explain the workings, and manipulate the essence, of purely material phenomena. They demand a means of hope, a means of fulfillment, and even a means of attaining exaltation. The real questions of life - the questions of human relationships, of love, of hate, of loyalty, of the spirit - these questions are not addressed by modern society, and so are now left to a hodgepodge of mostly charlatan spiritualists. And we wonder why there is an epidemic of loneliness, why we have so little real caring for one another, or the other living things on this planet.

In this hyper-technological society billions grope for a reason to live. Given our values we are making ourselves irrelevant. Computers will be able to do everything we now care about better than we can, and judged by these end results, the scientific outlook can be seen as actually insane. Life is worth living, or not living, according to what we believe - according to whether we love, or do not love, or we only love ourselves, or all we do is hate.

In our pursuit of mastery over the physical universe, to the exclusion of honor and spirituality, we've created a species of inverse human evolution worse than the Darwinian principle of survival, and the classical conception of human aspiration has been supplanted by one that elevates men like Dick Cheney and Karl Rove to the highest echelons of society, while so many people of courage, spirit and vitality - the natural leaders in any sane world - are made pariahs, or even hunted down like dogs.

This is no exaggeration. People of exceptional character and aptitude, from such diverse origins as Martin Luther King, Sitting Bull, Bernadette Devlin, Mohandas Ghandi, and Paul Robeson have all been outcasts, or even murdered precisely because they were too whole in mind and spirit to accomodate themselves to the truncated and vivisected condition of modern man. Yet someone like Steven Hawking is accorded the status of a deity! Why? Precisely because he doesn't threaten this inverse evolution that is enslaving modern man; he exemplifies it.

The meaning of life cannot be found in a mathematical formula - in some new technological "marvel," In our search for meaning, and the foundation of a society worth living in, materialistic philosophies fall short. The true seekers - those who stand facing eternity - know there's more here than "dark matter" and the next trip to the shopping mall. Those who've had the courage to truly live, who've stood up to the implacable soullessness of the age, have at best a mild contempt for the pronouncements of men like Steven Hawking. Likewise, the great masses of suffering humanity, who struggle daily with the real questions of survival, will never worship at the alter of science. They will never be satisfied by "string theory" or 42. They know better.


Brent Hightower
Copyright 2018 Brent Hightower
21stcenturyperceptions.blogspot.com

It's Time to Consider Arming Special Education Students

Given the number of school shootings over the last several decades it seems time we considered innovative approaches. It's been suggested that we employ armed security guards in the schools, but given budget constraints I think that's inadvisable. Likewise, we could arm our teachers, but discipline problems have become serious enough ( due to those same budget constraints) that that might entail the possibility of students and/or teachers being shot on a fairly regular basis, so we probably don't want that. There is an approach, however, that could potentially solve these problems and a number of other problems in our schools at the same time. That is arming our special education students.

I know at first glance this might not seem the most obvious solution, but let us consider the benefits: Firstly, arming students in special education programs could do wonders for their self esteem, and their feeling of empowerment. For example, in the past they may have tried to make themselves inconspicuous on the bus going to school, or shied away from social encounters with other students and so they might greatly benefit from such a show of trust on the part of their their communities. Moreover, the savings to the taxpayers would be considerable and it would give us the opportunity to introduce more guns into the community, an asset for those who believe strongly in the Second Amendment. Furthermore, for those of strong faith, we should remember the words from the sermon on the mount... "The meek shall inherit the earth." An approach like this might just give them a fighting chance.

Arming our special education students could also prove a deterrent to bullying in the schools, so there could be savings on anti-bullying programs, which might even prove to be no longer necessary. These students should, I believe, be given plenty of firepower for the above reasons. This is not to mention that almost any potential shooter would be discouraged by the thought of 50 or 60 such students in every school armed, not only with Glock 9 mm pistols but M16 rifles, M60 machine guns, with ten or twenty thousand rounds of ammunition and for more serious situations, shoulder-fired stinger missiles.

The combined benefits of higher self-esteem, the reduced need for bullying programs and a positive cost/benefit ratio achieved through no longer needing added security are, however, only the most obvious benefits of such a program. At the same time we would be training these kids to take a positive role in their communities after graduation. Such training could give them the experience necessary to join our very special forces, or work in our big-city police departments, where recruits of this kind are clearly valued very highly. Beyond that, they could look forward to careers in the American intelligence community, in the CIA, or the NSA and other agencies where such abilities are much appreciated by their country.

When it comes to protecting our children and honoring our tax cuts by making solutions cost effective, while also protecting the second amendment, there are not that many options. I hope the Trump administration, Congress, and state and local governments can all get on board and see the potential impact of such an approach!

Brent Hightower
Copyright 2018 Brent Hightower
21stcenturyperceptions.blogspot.com

The State of Art in Fort Worth

I came across the above sculpture in an art magazine from Fort Worth, Texas. How I came across an art magazine from Fort Worth I cannot fathom, or recall, but until that moment I'd never confronted the notion of artwork in Fort Worth. It was a terrible thing to ponder, and I must say the art in the Magazine generally served to confirm my worst fears, but of all the atrocious art featured, one piece stood out - the absolutely appalling 42 inch bronze sculpture, Harvest, by Seth Vandable. I must admit it has a certain power; in fact I was staggered at first sight of it! How in Gods name, I asked myself, could a single artwork embody so many "iconic motifs?"

The sculpture (depicted above) is of a bald, heavily (one might say over-muscled man) leaping into the air, as though he were light as a feather, with a sort of ecstatic gusto, like a ballerina. Yet, not only can he leap like a ballet dancer he can harvest wheat at the same time! For over his shoulder rests that great symbol of rustic virility, the grain scythe. In spite of the balletic overtones, this gives the sculpture a decidedly masculine air. Yet again, there's something more about the thing with the scythe. There's a bit of a hip, racy, perhaps even slightly communist aspect to it, which gives the whole thing that bit of necessary controversy, that bit of essential cachet.

Oh, wow! I get it! He's not just a bald, body-building, ballet dancer, who can dance while harvesting grain with rustic implements, he's also a political activist! (As everyone is in America today, and probably nobody will be again tomorrow, or whenever they feel that that's what's expected of them). Well, probably he's not an actual communist (this is Texas after all,) but maybe a little inclined towards politically correctness of some variety or another. Whatever.

At all events, the artist has really covered some ground here! A bald, virile, macho, ballet dancing, body building, rural rustic, sod-buster, with a political edge! Who'd have thought it possible? But wait, there's more. He's also, apparently, trying to nurse a baby! Wow, this guy can really do it all. He's a bald, virile, maco ballet dancing, body building, rural rustic, sod buster, with a political edge, who can also nurse a baby! Now here is a man for our times! A real multi-tasker! And I bet he does it all for $7. 50 per hour. This is Texas after all.

Brent Hightower
Copyright 2018 Brent Hightower
21stcenturyperceptions.blogspot.com

Who The Hell Are These People?

In seeking out what's responsible for the degeneration of American culture over the last 70 years, one finds many culprits to choose from. Pro wrestling, Joe McCarthy, cage fighting, Richard Nixon, Ayn Rand, country music, Milton Friedman, Texas, charter schools, Donald Trump, punk rock, Henry Kissinger, a congress of anti-social misfits, Clint Eastwood, Richard Nixon and Dick Cheney all come readily to mind! But of all the injuries of an insulting age, perhaps the worst, from the standpoint of pure nausea, is our vast array of "TV personalities."

Like many people I only use television to watch movies now and have for decades. The reason is primarily these supposed human beings thrust on us by television networks night and day, week after week, year after year - people who in a sane world would only appear in mug-shots or the case notes of baffled psychiatrists. Yet they are, to a very great degree, the people who set the tone of our era.

American culture used to be created by the people themselves, but in our media obsessed age, through their incessant domination of communication, TV personalities now largely shape our culture - if you could still call it a culture.

I'll start with a single example, Joan Rivers! How in God's name did such an obnoxious, caterwauling, twit-wit find her way onto the national scene? It would be one thing, of course, if she was an exception, but just FORGETABOUTIT!!!

Let's have a look at a few of the wonderful people who've graced our public stage over the last half century. (I'm in my mid-fifties now, so some of these luminaries may be unfamiliar to younger people. If so, they should be deeply grateful!

Let's take Willard Scott! Under what rock did they find this simpering, jello-brained, hayseed? Or the film and theater critic Gene Shalit?! I guess they thought his absurd mutton-chop mustache and his mangrove swamp of hair made him resemble a circus clown and that was a good thing, but for one problem, he lacks the charisma! I can't see any other explanation, because he knew less about film or any other art form than a sedimentary rock! Like that other odious cream puff, Roger Ebert, he was just a cheerleader! Neither of them ever saw a movie they didn't like.

JACKASS 14. . . "A stellar cast give scintillating performances in this never to be forgotten Hollywood classic, blah, blah, blah. . ." Or take that vain, preening, beetle-brained closet-Nazi, Geraldo Rivera. How could he have been hired to clean the bathrooms of television stations, much less host his own show?

What kind of a society are we likely to have with people like these given a national podium from which to confound us with their babble? Then there's Egregious Philbin! What more need be said?

Even a partial list of such people would be shocking - and no, you can't tell me that someone like Geraldo Rivera is there because of insatiable public demand! I'm not buying it. He's there to facilitate a collective American IQ drop of another five points, because an educated public isn't in the interests of those who now own this country.

Okay, just for the hell of it, let's have a look at that partial list: Joan Rivers, Geraldo Rivera, Regis Philbin, Gene Shalit, Willard Scott, Pat Boone, Kaitie Couric, Bob Barker, Ed McMahon, Laurence Welk, Matt Lauer, Maury Povitch, Zsa Zsa Gabor, Al Roker, Andy Williams, Anita Bryant, Kim Kardashian, Howard Stern, Bill O’Reilly, Jay Leno, Barbara Walters, Martha Stewart, Paris Hilton, Ann Coulter, Sean Hannity, Roger Ebert, Jerry Springer, Rush Limbaugh, Pat Sajak. . .

You'd have to hunt far and wide to find such a cast of morons to insult the intelligence of the public! We all know this; we all complain about it. It's a truism. Yet for all that it goes on for decades unabated, as if it were ordained by God. These people combined with a relentless attack on public education have contributed greatly to the decline of American intelligence and moral character in our lifetime. Why do we tolerate it? The excuse, of course, is ratings and by extension that holy of holy's, profits. Well, I'm sorry, there simply is no excuse for allowing such people to turn us into a nation of imbeciles. By giving clowns the public podium we've turned life into a circus.

Brent Hightower
Copyright 2018 Brent Hightower
21stcenturyperceptions.blogspot.com

Lucy, The Dog

We got Lucy unexpectedly, when the director of the mental health clinic where my wife worked went crazy, as they all seemed to do eventually. She (the director of the clinic) had to leave the island to go back where she came from, and one of the things she turned to my wife and I for was to take her dog, which was a year-old, and had been left alone in the house most of the time since birth. I was hesitant to take Lucy. We have a small apartment, and I'd never had a small-breed dog before. In my experience they were yappy little things, high strung, not really worthy of the noble title "Dog."

Well, I was wrong. Lucy, who was with us for 12 years, turned out to be truly amazing! I know that it's trite, and perhaps even a touch unseemly, to go bragging on your own little dog. But if anything in life has buttressed my belief in some essential goodness in the cosmic scheme of things, it has been Lucy. Two things about her became immediately obvious. One, that like a lot of dogs she was absolutely loyal, and two, she had tremendous intelligence. Yet there was more to it than that. She was half Lasha Apso. These were the dogs that guarded the interiors of Tibetan monasteries, and according to Tibetan lore the souls of Buddhist monks reside in Lasha Apsos, awaiting their entrance into Nirvana, and coming to fully discover Lucy's temperament I found the thought a little disconcerting. It was simply too appropriate.

There's a spirit in some dogs that, lets face it, puts we human beings to shame. They are courageous, forbearing of our faults, and endlessly loving. Unless sick or wounded they are ever optimistic; their spirits never falter. I've heard people put this down to stupidity, but Lucy knew well the sadder aspects of life. She had been unwittingly abandoned for her first year, and had been desperately alone. No, her good nature wasn't due to stupidity. I'm convinced it was due to gratitude, and moreover, to wisdom.

I once heard the facetious prayer, "God, please help me to be the man that my dog thinks I am." That seems to be something towards which we all should aspire, to live up to our dog's good opinion of us. They never give up on us, no matter how far we fall short of their hopes and expectations. No matter how shabby our behavior, they always believe we can do better!

Lucy was a beautiful dog. Her hair was of gold, copper, and platinum - the platinum mostly on top of her head. Several people ask me if we dyed it that color. This caught me off guard. I'm not the type of person to dye my dog's hair. When we walked her downtown people would stop and say, "Oh my God, what a beautiful dog!" Kids would beg us to let them pet her, and after awhile total strangers called out with great enthusiasm as she passed, "Hey, there's Lucy!" This also caught me off guard. As far as I recall nobody's ever made such a fuss over me, personally. I can't remember anyone calling out as I passed by, Hey, there's that Hightower Guy!" It was an experience to which I'm not accustomed.

But all of that was, at least to me, not very important - though it did serve to make me aware of how very important external beauty is to some people, and I don't even mean that as criticism, really. The darned dog was just that adorable.

In 2005, I came down with a serious and mysterious illness, and lucy took it upon herself to became my nurse. She always knew which of the sores (that are one of the worst aspects of this illness) needed treatment most, and she whined at me until I did it. She chose to spend countless hours cheering me up, even though she really just wanted to go to the park.

She never barked without a good reason, and had an instinct to seek out high places from which she could view everything going on, and report back to us if anything was amiss. She was an omnivorous food critic, with very selective tastes. Thai red curry was one of her favorite dishes, but we couldn't let her eat it because dogs aren't supposed to eat Thai red curry. She didn't know that.

There was a time she was with my wife at the park and a woman was walking two rotweillers that slipped the leash, so lucy (all ten pounds of her) ran right at them and stood them off until the woman got control of them again. She didn't hesitated for an instant, and it was lucky she wasn't bitten in two.

In the days when I occasionally drank hard liquor she once took a sip from my glass of scotch on the rocks. She savored it a moment, looked at me a little patronizingly and never touched it again. That was just one of many ways in which she was smarter than I am.

When she got older, and sick herself, she couldn't jump up on our bed anymore, so I had to lift her up. I called this the advent of Pooh, because one of her many nicknames was Luscious Pooh. (Her most official nickname being Luscious P. Codwagon, I don't know why.) She felt awkward, and touchingly, a little embarrassed about needing help to get up on the bed. So often, before I picked her up, she'd stick her head over the top of the mattress, judging the distance, to decide if she could jump, then her head would go down again. Then up again, then down again. I never saw anything as cute as that little head going up and down, like a little periscope.

Whenever I decided to leave the house, just as I would make the decision, even before I stirred from my chair, Lucy would come running and stand by the door, boyant, expectant. "Can I come too dad?" her whole being seemed to say. She knew, almost before I did. How is that even possible? They say the eyes are the windows of the soul. What do we see in Lucy's eyes? Gentleness, patience, loyalty, love, hope and a very keen awareness. I wish that's what I saw when I looked in the mirror.

Goodbye Lucy.


Brent Hightower
Copyright 2018 Brent Hightower
21stcenturyperceptions.blogspot.com

The Seventy Years War

There's been much talk in America over the years about war. Aside from the unjustified, and unforgivable, wars the American right has instigated against so many essentially innocent foreign nations since World War II, we've also had a war on drugs, a war on crime, etc. Even in the use of such terminology we see the inherently aggressive thrust of American policy in our era. It seems we're willing to declare war on anything, real or imaginary, living or dead! But one war that's been going on throughout my lifetime, and even long before, that's never been declared or acknowledged, is the war on education - and on the educated.

This war was spawned, in it's most modern incarnation, by The House Un-American Activities Committee (the creator of which was shortly thereafter imprisoned for corruption) leaving the field open for those men who went so far to destroy America as a nation respected and respectable - Joseph McCarthy, and Richard Nixon. The purging of liberally educated people from government, and from so many prominent areas of public life during the Mccarthy era, in the guise of expelling communists, left a dearth of qualified people in important positions. And this in turn led to the incalculable waste of excess military spending on the cold war, the grievously mistaken foray into Vietnam, and a hundred other horrible decisions made by the the stupid, and the corrupt, who were left in place once so many of the idealistic and intelligent were purged from prominent positions in American life.

It's a little, if ever, acknowledged fact, that though the McCarthy purges were not as murderous as Mao's cultural revolution, the purging of the most educated from positions of leadership and influence produced similar results as it did in Mao's China. America was set back generations; judging from the perspective of Donald Trump's America, one feels it not an exaggeration to say centuries! America's long long slide over the last seventy years from a great nation, to a mediocre nation, and finally to the butt of jokes and international derision, has been a sickening spectacle, and that fall lies squarely at the door of the McCarthy followers, and those who elected so many of his fellow travelers.

One feature of the modern war on education, and on the educated, is that so many of the original perpetrators of that war (such as Henry Ford, and Prescott Bush: George W. Bush's Grandfather) had active ties to Hitler's Nazi Party. This is readily verifiable fact - a simple google search will find innumerable valid sources of documentation - but though amply documented, it somehow remains an open secret. Even today the vast majority of Americans either don't know, or don't want to know, that many of our most prominent industrialists supported Nazi Germany. *1

The driving motive for the ultra-right's war on education should be obvious, but if the point needs elucidation, it is that education, ideally at least, leads to critical thinking, and thus to an understanding of the true nature of the state, and whether the state is run with the interests of the individual at heart. Since the ultra-right is inherently dictatorial in goals and outlook, it is not interested in the welfare of the individual, but only of the few, and therefore inherently opposed a quality education for the majority of citizens.

The latest among these seemingly limitless efforts to undermine people's ability to reason is the much trumpeted (by Donald Trump) notion of "fake news." Yes, fake news exists, in the guise of Fox News, and many other spurious sources. But these false media sources were mostly created by the wealthy vested interests who seek to undermine democracy by undermining people's ability to reason. Now, in order to muddy the waters further, and hopefully render their already deluded followers even more so, they use the existence of the false media they created to discredit what remains of genuine news media, by referring to it as "fake news!" Though the end is to destroy critical thought, the means are often very clever indeed!

Those who believe that public education is failing because it is in itself deficient, need only look back at America in the 1950s, when our public education was the best system of education in the world. It can't be said that human beings themselves have changed so essentially in the intervening years that what was possible in the 1950's is no longer possible today. No... It is precisely because our system of education was so good that the amalgamated forces of plutocracy and of aspiring oligarchy set about undermining it.

The end result is that our democracy has succumbed to oligarchy, and we are scarcely a skeleton of what we were 70 years ago. The great corporate leaders who instigated all this believed (and apparently still believe) that they were acting in their own interests. It is as if they believed they were living in some kind of vacuum, completely insulated from the destruction they've wrought on society, like some kind of mad doctor who believes he can destroy the body to improve the mind, forgetting that the mind and the body are mere aspects of the same organism. That is what Socrates meant when he said that we can't blindly follow the interests of the strong, because they may not be intelligent enough, wise enough, or good enough, even to know what's in their own best interests, much less in the interests of anyone else!

In all of this it's the triumph of private interest over public representation that's the essential mechanism, and so a referendum to end private financing of elections must be the single, overriding, goal of all reformers until it's achieved. For until that is achieved nothing can be achieved of lasting value or significance. Beyond this, we need to again set the goal of achieving the world's highest quality public education and to acquire a strong liberal arts education for ourselves. It's not just students and technocrats who need an education, and education is not just a pre-requisite for a job. It's a matter of survival. It is the only way to prevent the stupid from instituting policies, the far-reaching ramifications of which they themselves are not smart enough to understand, a situation that will, ultimately, result in our destruction.

Democracy has proven itself to be an enduring, even a great system of government, but it can only save us if we are willing to recommit to it. We must disregard the ubiquitous slogan, the false assertion, that government is bad and that all things provided by government (such as education, or healthcare) are bad, when the facts bear out just the opposite. Social security, medicare and medicaid are excellent systems, far better than the for-profit monstrosities some swindler created to get rich insinuating themselves between you and the services you need, while adding nothing of real and tangible value themselves.

Democratic government is not bad. The corruption of democratic government is bad. It is the corruption of our democracy, if left unabated, that will destroy us. So let us look again to the figures of that past who came forward when democracy was threatened with extinction - those figures like Franklin Roosevelt, whom we have to thank for that excellent government program, social security, and like Winston Churchill, who for a brief period stood almost literally alone against the Nazi terror. Let us finally rise in righteous anger against the dark forces ensnaring us.

Brent Hightower
Copyright 2018, Brent Hightower
21stcenturyperceptions.blogspot.com


1. I intend shortly to write an essay on this subject, including the most monumentally covered-up story of the 20th century, the attempted military coup against Franklin Roosevelt's administration by American industrialists, one foiled by an unsung and now almost forgotten American hero, the most decorated Marine in U.S. history, Major Gen. Smedly Butler, U.S. Marine Corps.

Voices In The Wilderness (A review of A Question of Values, a collection of essays by Morris Berman).

...For all sad words of tongue, or pen,
The saddest are these, "It might have been."

-John Greenleaf Whittier


In A Question of Values, Morris Berman presents one of the most articulate voices lamenting the breakdown of civilized society in America in the 21st century. In his introduction, explaining why he left the United States for Mexico in 2006, Berman says... "In substance, America [under Barack Obama] is still dominated by corporate and military values; by a pathetic philosophy of "We're No. 1!"; and by a way of life that's aggressive and competitive to it's very roots." These are the words of one with the courage to face the reality of our lives today, and the honesty to chronicle what he makes of that reality. And if these things were true under Barack Obama, the celebrated banker's clerk, who as Mr. Berman accurately points out started his populist bid for the presidency with a 750 million dollar war chest provided by investment bankers, then they've become a pathology under Donald Trump.

I'd like to interject here, if it's necessary, that I see Mr, Berman as a patriot of the highest order. It takes great courage and love of one's country to sound the alarm when one sees their country barreling headlong toward self-destruction, especially when they know they'll get nothing from their effort, other than the knowledge they've done the right thing. Because they know they will most likely be ignored or actively hated for their pains. Yet conscience calls them to do so regardless. Such people are the voices in the wilderness who serve to keep a society sane, to keep it grounded in reality. While conversely, the vastly more common kind of blind patriotism that wears its heart on its sleeve, is generally either a mere expression of utter-unsophistication, or worse, in the words of H.L. Menken, the last refuge of a scoundrel.

I concur with Mr. Berman's assessment of our social decay entirely. During the Clinton Administration I decided to leave the mainland U.S. for the Island of Hawaii for the same reasons, a decision I've never regretted. I felt also, as Mr. Berman goes on to say, that "America... had no heart; it was a callous place, with a death instinct hanging over it, like a huge dark cloud... The place, in a word, was and is toxic; it is making its citizens ill both physically and spiritually; it is a place from which the human dimension of life has largely been purged."

Powerful words. The ring of truth in them could bring tears for my lost country - for what it was, and for what it might have been.

The essays in A Question of Values are divided into four parts: 1. Lament for America: 2. Mind and Body: 3. Progress, True and False: and 4. Quo Vadis. Together they present an eclectic look at our society from the approaches indicated under the subheadings. The first part, Lament for America, I found to be the best. It is, I think, essential reading for those willing to take an objective look at our society; and in these essays Mr. Berman frames our central conundrum as he sees it, which is, in fact, our inability to see ourselves objectively. (*) We are, in Berman's view the victims of our own national myths, and of the fact that we've defined ourselves largely in terms of what we oppose, rather than by what we strive to be. As a result we're unable see ourselves objectively, and are therefore doomed to stride forth blindly down a road of self-deception that can only lead to self-destruction.


Brent Hightower
Copyright 2018 Brent Hightower
21stcenturyperceptions.blogspot.com



* Please note: I am aware of the irony in the paragraph, being that if only those who are able to see themselves objectively are willing to read such a work, what hope have those unwilling to see themselves objectively? This is, in fact, exactly the problem!