Gwen Berry, the Star Spangled Banner, and Black Advancement
An Army Awaits the One to Come
The Forever Pandemic and the Existential Philosophy of Disease
Diverse, Divisive, and Panarin
LIBERTY
Two quotes to get us started:
Benjamin Franklin: “Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.” …
George Orwell: “If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stomping on the human face, forever.”
It’s easy to use worn cliches and quotes to reinforce our views but these have been around for a while precisely because they are so true. Franklin recognized that the very act of living involves inherent risk. It would be nice to say we could eliminate all risk but that is impossible so we’re reduced to drawing lines in the sand regarding what MOST people believe to be acceptable risk.
Jefferson declared that we have certain inalienable rights….given by our creator and therefore not subject to the control of any human or any institution created by humans. Among these rights are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
Now we approach a crossroad in our journey. The convergence of digital money, Universal Basic Income, loss of privacy, control of our own bodies (vaccine passports), and surveillance by big tech and government.
Government accrues more power over every aspect of our lives. The elimination of cash (for our own protection!) will be a major step toward more centralized power. At the same time, there are calls to restrict the ability of the people to resist government power. Cue boot on face.
Proposed legislation increasingly takes tax money from productive states and gives it to those states whose policies cause many of the problems in the first place. This subverts the entire purpose of a Federal system of governance in which each state acts independently and the nation can see which approach is most effective. It is wrong to reduce the purchasing power of productive citizens by creating money out of thin air to bail out states that spend more than they earn as they try to keep their failing agendas afloat. This monetary policy is unsustainable and the sooner we face that fact the better. This is all way beyond any partisanship. If you believe in the old adage that says, “if you want to spend money, you must first earn it”….perhaps you grasp the fact that we are on an UNSUSTAINABLE path. A free population is not composed of debt slaves – whether personal debt or national debt. The truly liberated are not in debt.
BEECH FORK FARM
My earliest memories of Mam and Pap are at the farm on the Beech Fork. There were nights I spent in the little bedroom upstairs. In the winter, it would be cold enough that there was frost on the inside of the window that looked out over the side porch toward the barn where the old mare stood in her stall waiting for me to bring her another couple of ears of corn. I would drop them in the crib and she would pin them in the bottom and strip every kernel off the ears. That old barn had a central stall that was made of logs. You could see right between them.
In the morning, I would wake to the smell of sausage frying and the smell of coffee drifting up the stairs. Pap would pour his coffee cup full and then let a little run over into the saucer. Then he’d drink a little out of the cup, set it aside and then drink the coffee out of the saucer. On the radio, we’d listen to the farm report with Barney Arnold….I guess it was coming from WHAS in Louisville.
In the living room, on the TV, sat the Forest Fire lamp. All the grandkids were transfixed by the spinning lamp shade that gave the illusion of a fire in the woods. On Saturday evenings, we’d watch Porter Waggoner on TV. Dolly Parton was a relatively unknown 18-year-old in those days.
At Christmas time, there was a cedar Christmas tree with some brightly colored ornaments. And I think that very early, a coal-fired stove warmed the living room.
Oftentimes, my uncle Kenny (named after president McKinnley or so I was told) would come to visit and I can remember asking him to take me “hunting”. I’d grab my Daisy BB gun and we go out and wander through the pasture across the road. I secretly thought I was a great hunter because of the way I followed the cow paths worn in those fields. One time, someone had a few head of horses in that field and I can still feel the rumble of the earth below as they ran by.
Once, Marty, Ike (nicknamed for President Eisenhower or so I was told), and I were all together on some horse there at that farm and when it reared, we all fell off like a stack of pancakes. I’m not sure who was on the bottom when we hit the ground but it was an unpleasant experience for all. Years later, Ike and I ended up at the farm together for a couple of days and we resolved to ride Pap’s old mare to my other grandparents to pick up a pair of dress pants I had left over there the week before. We rode that two or three miles and picked up the pants but they never made it back with us. They fell off the hanger in a big hay field we cut across and my uncle found them months later bleached out and ruined by the sun.
Mam would always have some Dentine gum to share when I was visiting with them and in the summer she would make some Kool-aid popsicles. Sometimes the Hourigan kids would come up and play and they always remarked that I would always be wearing shoes rather than going barefoot.
I remember well Mam’s laugh which sounded like tinkling bells to me and the way she would say “prenurt” for pretty near. I would lay in bed and mock her at night and listen to her laughing about it. Later, they moved back in to Texas, KY but when I think about my grandparents, I recall memories of the Beech Fork farm and the adventures that occurred there.
Lanham Farm
The room was darkened with a single lamp burning in the corner. My Grandmother (Ethel Lanham) leaned into the light reading the local newspaper while faintly whispering each word. On the mantle, the tambour clock marked the passing seconds with its precise tick-tock. Papaw (Johnnie Lanham) nodded in his chair sleeping quietly while I was not far behind. In those days, we were content to be alone with our thoughts as the hands crept around the clock. The morning milking would come soon enough and we moved through time at our own pace. I remember still evenings spent like this when I visited the farm on Logan Road as a child.
Later, everyone would begin to stir and it would be time for bed. In an upstairs bedroom abandoned by the children who were now uncles, I would lie in the old feather bed and listen to the cacophony of myriads of katydids calling in the surrounding woods. The sound was deafening as it filtered through the screen window along with some of the smaller insects. The house sat on a hill. To the south was a little stream that flowed and joined with another. In this creek bed, as a child, my mother, sister, and I watched a snake swallowing a frog. Cow pies dotted the dry, rocky soil where the cows congregated twice daily. The sky was that blue cast that seems to be impossibly high. Grasses drying in the late summer sun stood at attention. The evening promised a cool end and quiet filled the whole expanse of the farm as the frog disappeared from view.
I remember the sound of milk hitting the bottom of the pail and the swish of the cow’s tail as she swatted at the buzzing flies. My cousins and I rode the young calves like miniature rodeo cowboys. There were days spent helping Uncle Burnam chop out tobacco, bike rides on dirt farm roads, running down hills so fast it felt like your legs would fly off, and blackberry picking with ants all over my tennis shoes. Then summer came to its end and it was back to school with thoughts of fall festivities.
Thanksgiving on the farm was the stuff of storybooks. The early holidays were the best. Before the big family room was added, there were relatives in every corner of the house. Some of the men would be at the barn in the stripping room if the tobacco was in case. A little coal fired stove warmed the burley and the men hand-tying it. Open the door to put in a lump of coal and the orange flames danced in the black-soot innards of the stove. Then someone hollered and we knew it was time for Thanksgiving dinner. After trudging up the cold hill, we’d burst into the warm house. The many conversations mingled with the smell of all the food. Papaw would say grace in a hushed voice and then we’d line up. The men went first and sat at their own table….then came all the women and kids. Mamaw’s biscuits and rolls were heavenly and I’ve never since tasted the like of her dumplings. All manner of good food – country ham, turkey, dressing, cranberries, oysters, corn, gravy, and so much more. We would pile our plates and then come back for more. For dessert, pumpkin pie was the best choice. At Christmas, a little cedar tree and more good food but this time a little gift from Mamaw and Papaw or maybe we’d draw names.
Then it would be spring again and my sister, Pam, and I would be dressed in our Easter best for a trip to Pleasant Hill Baptist Church. The friends of our Grandparents would say we had grown like weeds since they had last seen us. I learned later that many of our people were buried there in the church cemetery. My mother’s genealogical efforts paid off in tracing a line of Lanhams from their settlement in Maryland and their migration to Kentucky where generations lived and died.
A family is a curious thing….you have no choice in the matter but sometimes providence smiles upon you and the hand of God works to insure that faith, wisdom, and honor are passed on. Generations went before Mamaw and Papaw who are only names written for me. But it appears that they also lived by this code because I carry it and my cousins too….all representatives of a faith that has lasted for thousands of years. Mamaw and Papaw provided a work ethic and sense of right and wrong that we all honor. May these still be found in you, gentle reader, descendant of this same blood, in your own time. And let’s pray that you carry on with your children and they with theirs.
Time has weathered my memories and it’s many long years since I roamed the farm. But still the scenes of those old days are drawn up now and then like water from the well. And in that pail, I see the reflections of Mamaw and Papaw and visions the farm and the times we all spent there.
The Age of Emotion
One morning you wake up and think that there are no more surprises. You’ve reached that age where you’ve seen it all. The days march on and a certain numbness sets in. You may remember a certain admonition from a wise man – emptiness all. You are untouchable, unreachable in your ennui. You think the weariness with the world has settled in the very marrow of your soul. You are done. And then, from nowhere….a song…. or a sunset bores a laser light into your core and a tear falls. You have reached the age of emotion.
Waiting for Breath
One winter’s day, I saw someone born. It was all planned because the child was past due. The mother and father went to the hospital in the morning and the nurses and doctors made all their preparations. Hormones were administered and all began the wait. Hours passed and measurements were repeated like the soundings of depths by a river boat captain. What depths are these that presage the birth of a new human? What currents and eddies carry us forward from this moment in time? Later, every swirl, sparkle, and ripple appears in slow motion from a distant prospect to which you all race with distracted abandon. Finally, we are in the deep water and it is time. An epidural ensures no pain with this gain and then the whole company repairs to delivery. Above, a mirror so father and mother can see this debutant arrive. Labor progresses and there’s word that a head is visible. It’s an easy and quick birth…. a rush of child and a little more fluid. Then silence. All wait with anticipation. A slap…and then? Did we hear the tiny intake? No matter, the subsequent exhale was clear. The first cry and then all did sigh.
PRAYER
I will still talk to you….I find it difficult to give this up even though experience has shown me that it is pretty much futile. I was yours for many years; I believed it all and was, and am, a better person for it. Thanks. But with the passage of time and people who never should have died, I realized that my requests didn’t carry much weight….probably less than a mustard seed, I would conclude. So, I quit talking to you about myself at all. I thought that asking for anything, even growth was kind of selfish and I stopped. I focused all my supplications on family and friends and that was good for a while. Then, when our friend, who had worked with our children and was part of our community, was about 20 and suffered the aneurysm, I prayed very hard for you to heal him. He lingered a couple of days in the hospital; I had visions of a miraculous recovery. I saw myself laughing with him, hugging him, and telling him it was my prayer that pulled him through to live to be an old man. But that didn’t happen and the funeral home smelled like formaldehyde and his dad comforted all his friends that were heart-broken. I was heart-broken too…. for our friend and for my faith that didn’t seem relevant. I think that was the big paradigm shift. Everyone says you have your plans, etc. I’m OK with that and I understand but….well, like they say it’s complicated and I recognize that you, if you’re really there, well, you’re God and we’re just people but I found it more and more difficult to go on. I know, I know, faith and all that, right? I’m not going off the deep-end or anything. I did learn a lot and it has served me well. I taught my children those lessons. Anyway, I’m still here and will be until the end…..in case you want me for anything.
Life, Crisis and Literature
So, something happened and you felt that glitch in the matrix, right? Maybe it was the loss of a relationship. Maybe the death of a loved one. Maybe that secret you will never tell. Or a transition of some kind…..a new job, new school, or a move to a new city, or retirement, or perhaps a spiritual reckoning. Or maybe just the dawning realization that the life you were leading is not your true destiny? Whatever the reason, you were able, for a brief instant, to peer through the veil that surrounds us all, keeping us from seeing the real lives that we lead. And now? Now you find that you cannot un-see that truth.
Almost everyone, I think, has those moments when the distractions of life are temporarily brushed aside and you know that something is not right; perhaps you’ve thought that you may have gotten off on the wrong planet or been born in the wrong time or place….perhaps to the wrong parents! It just doesn’t feel right. But you shake off this sense of dismay and soon return to your “normal” routine.
Others live with this sense of incompleteness their whole lives. Sometimes succumbing to excesses of one kind or another in an attempt to understand or deal with the vacuum that life has become. Or perhaps you chose to just live an ordinary life, finding some work to support yourself, meeting someone you could love, starting a home and a family and filling your time on this earth with obligations, responsibilities, and duties that limited your unease and the questions you could never answer.
Then, one day, you again feel the glitch and this time, there is no avoiding it….you must go down that rabbit-hole to find the answer to what ails you. This is a journey that frightens you because you know you will confront some unpleasant truths about yourself, others, and your life but there’s no turning back now, no retreat. You will never be the same after you start down this path but you don’t know that yet….you don’t know where this trail leads and what you’ll find along the way.
But….don’t despair. Others have trod this well-worn path to the Holy Grail of understanding. Socrates frequently referenced the Delphic maxim, “Gnothi Seauton” – Know Thyself. This is the start of knowledge. Classical literature is filled with stories written by authors who have seen what you’ve seen and gone searching. Looking for truth….that most elusive substance. Take for example Dante Alighieri who begins The Devine Comedy with this verse:
“In the middle of the journey of our life
I came to my senses in a dark forest,
For I had lost the straight path.” – Dante
Or look to Pascal who in Pensees 393 writes, “When I see man’s blindness and misery, when I survey the whole silent Universe, and man without light, left to himself and, as it were, lost in this corner of the Universe, not knowing who has put him there, what he has come to do, or what will happen to him when he dies, and incapable of any sort of knowledge, then I am seized with terror.” – Pascal
So Pascal has identified the three questions that plague us all: (1) where did we come from (2) why are we here, (3) where are we going?
The great writers of the classics all recognize the unanswerable questions that come like thieves in the night, robbing us of sleep and contentment, whispering their doubts in our ears and reminding us of the fate that awaits us all. And these doubts fill us with nausea and dread as we admit to ourselves that too much time has passed, that we will never reach our goals, that somehow we missed our connection to the life we were supposed to lead and the happiness that eluded us.
So don’t feel so alone. Pick out a list of the “100 Best Books” and start reading, you’ll see that most of those tomes describe exactly what you feel at those times when you are able to see most clearly, the times you feel that your life is an illusion and you are not in control. The great authors are masters at describing the problems we all face….but beware, they have no more answers than you!
Gwen Berry, the Star Spangled Banner, and Black Advancement
I don’t know Gwen Berry or what she has experienced. I don’t know her level of education or what she has learned on her own. News accounts indicate she is concerned about the disenfranchisement of the black community in the US and the level of injustice suffered by her people. We all should be concerned about the welfare of our people….that is, ALL Americans because we’ll never solve any problems or reach our full potential until our people all are contributing toward the progress of our nation.
Many people currently identify the greatest problem facing the Black community as institutional racism. They define this concept as an inherent bias that remains hidden in most of the white population and expresses itself as small prejudices that collectively inhibit black progress. This certainly exists but its effects are insignificant compared to the larger issues facing Blacks….and especially the young.
The Black community needs a charismatic leader to step forward and identify the changes people can make right now. Like every worthwhile goal, there are no easy shortcuts. Solutions involve dedication, perseverance, and hard work. Three things would begin to elevate the Black community within a generation: (1) stable nuclear families (2) peaceful neighborhoods (3) education. We have supposedly been devoting billions of dollars toward civil rights for decades and yet conditions appear to be worsening in many ways. Does this mean that the situation is beyond hope? Lets hope not…. lots of lives and resources are in the balance as is the future of our country. We won’t know if we can do this until we devote our collective efforts to try to improve conditions.
Now about the Star Spangled Banner….one news account claimed Gwen Berry turned her back partly to protest the word “slave” in the national anthem. If so, one must assume that she thought it referred to black slaves in the US. If you read much about the War of 1812, you soon learn that Britain impressed sailors to man their ships and this was a big reason for the conflict. Why did they impress (enslave) sailors? The US merchant marine grew rapidly in the early days of the Republic partly because of the Napoleonic wars in Europe. The US paid higher wages and drew many British sailors to US ships. This is likely the reason for the word “hirelings” in the poem/song. When the War of 1812 started, the British could not even staff their ships and so began the practice of impressing or enslaving sailors from US ships. Thus the word “slaves” in the anthem. The entire poem was about the details of the war and to assume that one line and one word jumped to a completely different topic is not logical. The most likely interpretation of the lyric is that it referred to sailors who were hired and subsequently impressed.
An Army Awaits The One to Come
People rally behind a nebulous cause not fully understanding the goals or intentions of their puppet masters nor the implications of their actions. They suppose they are in the vanguard of a new era in which justice will prevail. Filled with self-righteous fervor, they imagine themselves the heroes of their own narratives, their polemics calling out all who oppose a just, fair, and free society. They align themselves with other “right-minded” citizens of many compatible creeds. They do not think deeply about history or the future or the meaning of movements of the past. Raw emotion is the fuel that fires their thoughts and they begin to believe their own narrative more and more.
As passions rise, the disaffected are drawn to the cause because they crave meaning in a purposeless existence. The new recruits are swept up in the firestorm of their new theology; their discourse a sermon to the unbeliever and a chastisement of the timid. Soon their voices become a diatribe to drown out any opposition. Eventually, mere words yield to action when the opposition will not see or recognize the need for the change required by the cause….the glorious cause.
Now, on the streets and in the very homes, the cause drives a wedge between the believers and the heretics. The opposition, whether stranger or family is unsophisticated and obtuse….not willing to see the very truth placed before them. Soon, there is no reasoning with them and all communication becomes futile. Those who do not cleave to the cause are not worthy of participating in the benefits of modern society. They must be shamed and ostracized.
At this point, all that is required to ignite the fuse is a tiny spark. In any other time or place an event of this insignificant magnitude would pass unnoticed but now, with both sides pressing a hair trigger, the time has come for a revolution. That enemy you castigated now deserves to die for his sins and you call for this death in a public forum. A line has been crossed and there is only one left.
Finally, the unthinkable…..the horror of contagious violence. It will start with a single confrontation but with passions high and both sides at the breaking point, it will race through multiple cities like a wildfire.
When it ends, there will be dead people, ruined lives, destroyed property, less freedom, fewer economic opportunities, and no lessons learned. The poor will still be poor, the uneducated will still be uneducated, the oppressed will still be oppressed, the rich will have more money, the powerful will gain power, and the life of humans will continue as before. There will be martial law and even more civil rights will disappear. The country will be “changed forever”……once again.
And the puppet-masters who planned and executed this travesty?….they will revel in their ability to remake the world in their image. Their army grows and awaits the one to come, the one slouching toward the new age.
The Forever Pandemic and the Existential Philosophy of Disease
Disease: A particular abnormal condition that negatively affects the structure or function of an organism and may result in death.
So, this would include everything from the common cold to cancer.
Humans have lived with disease from the beginning; the causes of disease predated us on the evolutionary tree. For most of our history we were resistant subjects to the terrible maladies wrought by the miasmas, demons and Gods thought responsible for disease. Our spells, incantations, prayers, potions, and poultices were no match for our persistent antagonists and we reluctantly accepted a certain level of casualty in this war of attrition….hoping that we would be victorious and reunited in the world to come.
Sickness and death were familiar to all for millennia. Average life spans were much shorter primarily because of infant mortality. The history of medicine is filled with stories like that of Ignaz Semmelweis, a Hungarian doctor, working in maternity wards who first made the connection between puerperal (childbed) fever and handwashing. It was 1847 and the doctors performing autopsies routinely went directly from the corpse to the birthing room where they infected the new mother with the Streptococcus pyogenes bacteria carried on their unwashed hands. Within days the women died horrible deaths after suffering from fever, abscesses, and sepsis. Semmelweis instructed doctors and medical students involved with deliveries to wash their hands in chlorinated lime and deaths from puerperal fever plummeted. Nevertheless, there was tremendous resistance to handwashing in the medical community….doctors were incensed that they were blamed for the numerous infections and deaths.
We look on these failures of medicine with shock because we modern people, with our knowledge of germ theory, are vastly more sophisticated than our forebears. We have eliminated many of the scourges of human populations. Indeed many remember the terror of polio and the vaccinations and sugar cubes we used to eradicate the disease in the 50’s and 60’s. Now we are incredulous upon hearing of fatalities due to simple infections, insect and reptile bites, and many conditions that once were a death sentence and which now are just inconveniences.
Still, we suffer many deaths from (2019 US data -rounded) heart disease (659,000), cancer (600,000)respiratory disease (157,000), stroke (150,000), Alzheimer’s (121,000) diabetes (87,000), and influenza (50,000). And some of these deaths come after years of medical procedures and drugs meant to postpone the inevitable.
So we have reset the bar from the time when the shaman muttered his incantations around a smoky fire in a cave but we still grudgingly relinquish more than a million souls a year to disease in the US alone.
Even though this data is available to all and the deaths and sickness touch many lives….many families, others seem to believe that we are in some post-disease era in which they are exempt from the ravages of these maladies. There is a pervasive attitude that doctors should be able to “fix” everything that might befall a human.
And this may be the reason for the unrecognized existential angst which is the basis for the fear of Covid-19. A population that has little experience with death or even sickness can’t imagine that a virus could conceivably take away everything….dreams of material wealth, hopes for the perfect love, the perfect life; in fact, any life at all! Faced with the realization that we’re all finite beings, it’s no wonder that those seeking safe spaces and total elimination of risk should be so fearful of the virus that now plagues us.
Even if the current Covid-19 vaccines work their magic and we could relegate the virus to the dustbin of history, there is no indication that the other deaths listed above are going away any time soon. We have always had disease and for the foreseeable future we will continue to have it and to die from it. We must continue to progress toward greater control of disease but in the meantime, what can we do?
When you cannot control events, all you can hope to do is control your response. So while taking all proven, and reasonable precautions against a disease with a 98+% survival rate, it would appear that those with concerns for their lives might want to think about the nature of existence, our finite bodies, and the words of Marcus Aureilus who said: “You have power over your mind – not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.”
― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations
Diverse, Divisive, and Panarin
In 1998, Russian political scientist Igor Panarin predicted the fracture of the United States into six regional polities. He believed that the values of the people were drifting further from the center that had held the nation together since the Civil War. That fracture resulted in two governments, one believing that the promise of liberty was for all people and the other holding that the Constitution gave it the right to secede from the Union. Six hundred thousand Americans died to settle this. Millions more suffered in ways that still echo in our lives today.
Panarin’s predicted map of the post-fracture 2010 US showed the lower 48 controlled by the rising powers: China and the European Union along with the neighboring Canada and Mexico. In a nutshell, he thought that immigration, economic failure, and diverse values would lead to Civil War. In the aftermath, China would control/influence the western US, the EU would control/influence the eastern US, Canada would get the northern tier of the heartland and Mexico the southern tier.
When the recession hit in 2008, Panarin’s prediction suddenly got new attention. He pointed out that the dollar no longer is secured by gold and might be replaced as the global reserve currency by a basket of currencies. Panarin added that US debt had continued to grow and would eventually lead to total economic collapse. In the ensuing chaos, he said, the country will break into the six predicted regions.
Scholars and pundits dismissed Panarin’s vision of the US from the beginning and again when it received renewed attention in the aftermath of the 2008 recession. But, now, in 2021 following a hotly-contested election, an “insurrection”, a pandemic, the subsequent lockdowns and their economic repercussions, a nation-wide review of race relations, the resulting focus on BLM, Critical Race Theory and the 1619 project, a bungled withdrawal from another forever war, rumors of all manner of crimes and irregularities by multiple agencies led by the CIA and FBI, the printing of trillions of dollars to pay for legislation putting the US further in debt, and the prospect of evictions of many tenants after the end of the rent moratorium (a violation of the Constitution in the view of some), gender confusion, the interest in homeschooling because of school mask mandates (and the rejection of CRT and gender fluidity), the possibility of vaccination passports, the completely open southern border with millions of immigrants crossing this year and no one seemingly worried about their Covid status, the rise of the surveillance state, etc, etc, etc. – fill in your own blanks! By the way….who is this John Galt, anyway?
And where does all this leave us? Well, we may find Panarin’s predictions worth considering again. Even if you don’t see Civil War and Chinese control in our future, it is clear that the divisions in our country are growing. About 40% of the country sees every one of the issues listed above through one lens and another 40% has a totally different view….the remaining 20% may not care at all or they have a mixed opinion.
Whether the country breaks up is above the pay grade here in the hinterlands but I’m willing to bet that you have friends and family who see the issues with totally different eyes. And what happens when you try to reason with them? You’ve got to make them see the truth before the whole country implodes, right? How’s that going for you? Just hardening both sides, right? How do I know? I’m right there too and trying to decide which partition I might want to join after the big split.