I remember...

From atop the Stoa this day, I sit, elbow to knee and hand to chin, thinking about continuity, time, people, events, and their places in our collective memories.

Rush Limbaugh made a great observation many years ago. He stated, basically, that "One's view of history begins with the year of their birth." Or something close to the effect.

He is right on. People always look to the times just around them to draw conclusions to a future that they can know nothing about. History was simply a stupid class in school that the teachers used to push modern environmental and socialist agendas, leaving out the context from virtually everything and ignoring that which would have been too difficult to fit into their templates.

I am a Gen-Xer. Born in 1969, several weeks before the moon landing. I don't remember that. I have vague remembrances of helicopters evacuating Saigon and sharper memories of burned out helicopters and decomposing bodies in the Iranian desert. I remember the landslide victory of Reagan in 1980.

I remember my father selling our broken boat to an out of work autoworker for a penny.

I remember my stern Grandfather on my mother's side who could keep the peace in the house by simply bending the corner of his newspaper over, fixing us all with his glare.

I remember him crying at the dinner table as death crept ever closer to him. I also remember his funeral.

I remember the Challenger exploding during launch. I was in High School and struck dumb with silence, as was everyone else around me.

I remember graduating from high school. It was a warm night. I spent time standing in the parking lot, talking to my other set of Grandparents.

I also remember each of their funerals as well.

I remember my first job. Washing dishes at a local restaurant. I remember my second job even more...heavy construction on the New Jersey shore during the height of summer.

I remember laying on a pontoon platform out in Lake Erie, late one night, with most of my childhood friends. It was our last night together and we all knew it. The moon was full and the sky was partly cloudy. We lay on the platform talking about life as we knew it then.

I've never been with more than one of them at a time since then.

I remember basic training in the US Army. The endless days and nights of discipline, regimentation, and fatigue. I am a far better man for having endured that experience.

I remember meeting my future wife for the first time. Language barrier or not, I was taken aback by how fiercely intelligent she was and how she effortlessly deflected the advances of one of my idiot friends.

I remember telling her some months later that she could not go back home since I told her we were going to be married.

Oh, how I remember so much. The birth of my children and the gray hair they give me on a regular basis.

Today I'll remember the day after the Supreme Court called ObamaCare a Tax. They essentially booted the issue back to Congress and told them to clean up their own mess. I have no faith in Congress to do the right thing.

Every one of us remembers things differently. Sometimes we remember the same thing differently from time to time. We are fallible like that. The strongest memories are always associated with the strongest emotions or pain. Back before computers and even books, events were passed from eldest to youngest and remembered. If a particularly important event took place, the elders would find the younger (not the youngest) among them, recount the event over and over, and then beat them severely. This would fix the memory of the event and when it happened firmly in their minds.

9/11 was like that for many. So was the shooting of Reagan and the killing of JFK for my parents. Pearl Harbor for my Grand Parents (GI Generation). The Stock Market crash and WWI for my shadows, the Lost Generation.

What will my children remember? Will I be that grumpy old man who has to put down his archaic iPad to glare at my son's or daughter's children making too much noise in the living room?

I hope so.

Live well,

Zavost

Rodney King, We hardly knew you.

Atop the Stoa this day, I'm pondering truth, reality, and perception.

Some say that perception is reality. To me this is akin to saying that when David Copperfield makes an elephant disappear in a parking lot in front of thousands then it must me magic, since that was my perception.

Yep, bunk.

That phrase gets tossed about in business as well and it is just as much bunk, designed to provide cover for people who refuse to think for themselves...but I digress.

Rodney King catapulted into the national consciousness in 1991 when, while intoxicated on booze and dope, lead police on a high speed chase through the streets of Los Angeles.

Needless to say, the cops were not pleased with Mr. King, who resisted arrest and tried to flee the scene. The police began to spell out to him that he was being rude by beating him senseless with night sticks and boots.

The entire event was immortalized on tape and broadcast all over the country with the tagline, "Police beat innocent black man".

Well, the police did beat a black man, but I'd hardly say he was innocent. That is perception. Was Rodney King guilty of driving under the influence? Even without blood tests I'd have to say yes. No one takes the kind of beating he did and keep trying to get up. He was feeling no pain.

The police were guilty as well. They failed in their civic duty to protect and serve. Sometimes, the police must protect us from ourselves. Rodney King was not in his right mind when he was pulled over. It is like trying to reason with a newborn.

Guilt, innocent. They are cultural terms that mean different things to different cultures. Specific to our culture, people are LEGALLY innocent until proven guilty. In terms of absolute truth, he was guilty the instant he tried to run from the police. He must be held partially accountable for his actions.

The police were certainly guilty of using excessive force. They could have just sat on him until he got tired enough to put cuffs on. No need really to break his bones. He was trying to flee, not attack. Both parties were wrong on so many levels.

Then, our legal system failed yet again. It looked to stark right and stark wrong. That kind of truth was there, but only on one side. Was Rodney King at fault? Yes. He ran from the police, and he refused to follow their instructions. Guilty.

Was the police at fault? Yes. They used excessive force to apprehend an unarmed man. They continued to beat him even after it was apparent that bones had been broken, not realizing that his continued movements were really just twitches from the muscle spasms caused by the beating.

The ruling that was handed down for the police, "Innocent" sparked the famous LA race riots of 1992. In the end, it was decided that the police acted as they did because they feared Mr. King was on major drugs to continue to resist them after the initial beating. Perhaps there is something to that. Perhaps not.

Mr. King was made famous when, interviewed during the riots, he said, "Can't we all just get along?". I think that was the smartest thing said by anyone involved in the entire case, bar none.

53 people were killed in the resulting riots. Whites, like Reginald Denny, were pulled from their cars and beaten, many to death. Mr. Denny was saved by a black man who rescued him and drove him to the hospital. More than 2,000 were injured. Damage ran over billion dollars (1992 dollars).

His incident was a hot coal that sparked a wild fire in history. Even he was horrified by the death and destruction that resulted in his decision not to pull over. The moment he decided that it was fine to drink, get high, and then drive, he sealed the fates of those who died.

Mr. King had a hard time staying out of trouble. At the time of the beating he was out on parole. After the beating he continued to get arrested for petty offenses.

He has been largely out of sight and out of cultural mind for quite a number of years. Recently, his fiancé called 911 saying that Mr. King had been found at the bottom of a pool. Apparently, after a night of drinking and smoking dope, he fell into the pool and drowned.

An ignoble passing for a man who was the focal point of so much death and destruction in 1992. He was 41 years old.

The civil rights leaders today are hanging many labels around his legacy in an attempt to turn him into a totem for their cause. Some say he was a civil rights leader, others say he was a martyr for the civil rights movement.

Its all bunk. Even according to Mr. King himself.

The only time he made the news after the riots was when he got arrested for any number of things. He was not a great leader, nor was he even a follower. He did his own thing and his arrest record can attest to that. He was not well spoken or well written.

It was quite possible that he could have crashed into a telephone pole and died in 1991. This happens a lot in this country and his death would have gone unnoticed. In 2012, he got drunk and high and fell into a pool and died. This too would have gone unnoticed if not for his run in with the law in 1991. Would we have been better off had he hit that pole?

The truth of the matter is that he was a poor black man that was as much a victim of the civil rights movement as he was the poster child for that movement.

The perception of the matter is that the media and the black civil rights movement will use him in death in ways they could never use him in life.

The reality of the matter is that a man has died a meaningless death, having contributed so little to our society. I mourn his passing as I mourn the passing of any living creature.

His life created a spark that burned out 53 other lives. His actions released pressure that had been building. Perhaps someday, others will look to him and run in with the law and see it in the proper context.

Can't we all just get along? That is good stuff. Really. Rodney and I seem to have wished, and still do, for the same thing.

Live well.

--Zavost

Evil Triumphs when Good People do Nothing

From atop the Stoa this bright and warm day, I wish to ponder the title of this blog entry.

It is an oldie but a goody. In fact, this quote was featured prominently on my mother's blog site. The truth of it is painfully obvious.

Some points in history:
Nothing stopped the Arabs from taking over the classical world.
Nothing stopped the Mongols from murdering 20 million Chinese simply for more grazing land for their horses.
Nothing stopped the Europeans from nearly exterminating the Native Americans from both the North and South continents.
Nothing stopped the French from murdering thousands of nobles for the crime of being of noble birth.
Nothing stopped the North from crushing the South in the Civil War.
Nothing stopped the South from continuing to persecute blacks right up to the Civil Rights era.
Nothing stopped Stalin from murdering 20 million Ukrainians for not bowing down to him.
Nothing stopped 9 people in black robes from discovering a right to abortion in the US Constitution.
Nothing stopped the Nazis from conquering the known world....hold on, something DID stop them. WE stopped them.

We who chose not to sit back and watch yet more evil spread into this world.
We who chose not to allow humans to be bred like cattle.
We who chose not to allow the conquest of the civilized world.
We who chose to bleed and to sacrifice for the betterment of others.

It was we who chose to rebuild the world after WWII instead of simply taking the world, for there were NONE strong enough to have stopped us, had we wished it.

It was we who chose to harness the Atom for power and not simple destruction, though we mastered that as well.

It was we who chose not to be racist, and it was WE who welcomed the world to live with us, as long as they respected our laws.

It is we, through our neglect and intellectual laziness that permitted the Fabians to erode our values.

It is we failed to call Socialism out for what it is.

It is we that have begun to wake. It is we who are realizing, in horror, what has become of the country of our Grand Parents.

It is we that realize now what our hard work and treasure has been perverted and warped into.

It is we that have now begun to correct the errors of our neglect.

Yes, we are busy and yes we all have lives of our own. We wish that we did not have to work at the organs of self-rule as much as we must.

Life is like that. It is hard and requires constant attention. It is We who must put down our novels and our soaps, our Internet and our weekend trips. It is we who must turn back to the organs of government and remove the corrupting influences that have been allowed to gather and fester.

It is up to WE the PEOPLE to fix what we allowed fall into disrepair.

Thank you Tea Party. Thank you III percent. Thank you to Country Music and NASCAR. Thank you for remembering what our country is about.

We the People, we the silent majority that occupies "fly over country". We the people have awoken and we are filled with a terrible resolve.

We will remove, with only the power and the memory of the Constitution of the United States, the errors we allowed into existence.

We will remain vigilant for a generation or two, and then the Fabians will once again begin to encroach. It is the way of things, for as long as we make "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" our goal and not the mundane maintenance of government, then We the People must always have to relearn what made us great.

The evil of Socialism, of Fabians, and of ignorance itself must not be allowed to enervate the fabric of our souls, as it has in the old country of Europe. Their path leads to ruination. We must maintain the path of our Founders, for there lies the Last, Best, Hope of Humanity.

Live well, everyone.

--Zavost