Ten Commandments, Dixie Style

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Commandment I – Ex. 20:1-6

I am YHVH thy god (elohim), who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of bondage.

The Unpronouncable Name represented by YHVH was unpronounceable in the sense that only the Kohanic priests (by definition patrilineal descendants of Aaron the brother of Moses) were allowed to pronounce it, and that only sotto voce, when called for in the divine services which they alone were permitted to conduct.  The only thing that is known for sure about the tetragrammaton (the four letters yod he vaw he, represented as “Lord” in the King James translation) is that it was meant to conceal the actual pronunciation of the Name.  The Y and V are variously transliterated as J and W, depending on how the Hebrew letters are equated to Roman letters.  Since the letters were not meant to spell the actual Name, the issue is moot.

Out of a sense of the sacredness attached to any written reference to their god, observant Jews read “adonai” for both YHVH and Elohim, and in their ordinary Bibles (as opposed to sacred scrolls) that is the word that is printed – except one or two vowels are replaced by a punctuation mark, as a reminder of the sacredness of the word.  This is even carried over into translations and original compositions in other languages, which is why Orthodox publications in English are littered with “L*rd” and “G*d,” neither of which is ever given its proper English spelling.

“I am the Lord thy god” is typographic sacrilege to Orthodox Jews.  Even if the Louisiana law were amended to permit “I am the L*rd thy g*d” on the mandated posters, the many other omissions in the Lousiana text would probably leave it objectionable to the Orthodox, but the spelling of that which must not be spelled is a quandary of which we may be certain that the lawgivers Dodie Horton and her companions were and are entirely unaware.

When the new law is challenged in court, it is likely the objections of pious Jews will receive a more sympathetic hearing than Muslims demanding “I am Allah thy god” or Hindus calling for “We are Brahma-Vishnu-Shiva thy gods.”

The pronunciation of the tetragrammaton was revealed, among Cohanim, from father to son.  Since the destruction of the Second Temple, the knowledge of the correct pronunciation has been lost, as was proven when a number of Cohanim were recently brought together by Third Temple enthusiasts in Israel.  It was discovered that various traditions did not agree.  Considering that (Lev. 10:1) YHVH sent fire out from the altar to consume Aaron’s first set of sons because they offered incense when it was not called for by the rubrics, one would think that caution is called for.  Nobody likes having his name mispronounced.)

The tradition treating the Name as a sacrosanct arcanum revealed to Moses at Mount Horeb is, however, hard to square with the fact that men had been calling on it since the days of Adam’s grandson.  Gen. 4:26.

In the abbreviated and bowdlerized version whose publication is decreed by the Louisana legislature, the KJV convention, YHVH = theLord (in large and small capitals), is observed only in its truncated first commandment.  Elsewhere YHVH is simply “Lord.”  Giving the new law the Talmudic attention it deserves, it will be noted that the authors have cleverly sidestepped controversy by adopting Ten unnumbered Commandments.

But the very words “I am (particular name represented, or rather misrepresented, by YHVH) thy god (Elohim, elsewhere – including in the next verse – translated as “gods”) reveal a problem in our understanding of ancient Hebrew religion.  If it was monotheistic in a modern theological sense, the First Commandment was in effect “I am God your God,” an assertion which falls flat without the “cloud and majesty and awe” that had the Hebrews begging Moses to make Him be quiet.

Ye shall have no other gods before me.

Here the pronoun translated as “before” has the primary lexical meaning “above.”  A god allowing the possible existence of other gods but claiming primacy over them, among Hebrews, for having brought the Hebrews out of Eqypt is different from God, the Ground of Being, knowledge of Whom makes the idea of other deities irrelevant, if not absurd.  “Before,” as in “in My Presence,” and “above,” as in “superior to Me” are two very different meanings.  But pronouns are not uncommonly challenging for translators.

Anyway, if YHVH is to be the supreme god of the Hebrews because he brought them out of bondage in Egypt, what does that mean for other nationalities?  Couldn’t proud Teutons reply “We are the sons of Siegfried and have never been slaves to any man”?

Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.

The gloss “graven image = cult statue = idol” would solve any problem with this verse, but for the obvious generality of “any likeness.”  Very few today, and probably just as few in ancient Israel, would think it sinful of a child to draw a picture of his pet dog or cat.  This commandment is a fine example of the “off again” side of the on-again, off-again literalism of today’s Christian fundamentalists.  As in many other instances, the Muslims can lay better claim to vital piety as measured by this commandment.  As for the Louisiana lawgivers, they have simply repealed all after “graven image.”

Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me, and shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments.

Commandment II – Ex. 20:7

Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain; for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain.

Considering all the mystery surrounding the sacred Name YHVH, it is far from clear what all might have been encompassed by taking it “in vain” to the ancient Hebrews.  Actually, the word here rendered “in vain” generally means “falsely.”

Perhaps the commandment refers to “swearing” in a sense similar to modern English, though it seems a bit of a stretch.  The human tendency to acknowledge deity and at the same time invoke it irreverently is witnessed by, among many other examples, the incessant  “mehercle” (my Hercules) that served as an all-purpose intensive in classical conversation.  No doubt it reflects an improperly irreverent attitude, and on that account ought not to be indulged in.

Maybe this injunction got the status of its own commandment because the sacred Name was not so universally treated with reverence as later Jewish sources would have us believe.  The interpretation “If you make a vow to YHWH by name, keep it or else” would imply that the sacred Name was uttered for other than liturgical purposes.

Commandment III – Ex. 20:8-11

Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy.

Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work:

But the seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates:

For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.

The Seventh-Day Adventists and other sabbatarians, including all observant Jews, are qute correct in condemning the dishonesty of “sabbath” in this supposed translation.  The word simply means “seventh,” referring to the seventh day of the week – that is, Saturday.

Whether one believes that the church did well or ill in transferring the one-out-of-seven observance to Sunday, the weekly Feast of the Resurrection, mystifying the simple word “seventh” into a mysterious “sabbath” is clearly not honest translation.

The lawgivers of Louisiana omit all but verse 8, while retaining the non-translation “sabbath.”

It will be noticed that our contemporary literalists, even the most extreme fundamentalists, apparently have no strong objections to the two-day weekend, despite the divine injunction to labor six days out of seven.

There is no need to interpret the words “and rested the seventh day” as implying that Omnipotence gets tired and needs an occasional rest.  Rather, having caused the coming-to-be of a moral agent other than Himself, God fulfilled His creative purpose. 

This commandment may be accurately translated, and appropriately summed up, as “Remember to make your Saturdays special.”

Commandment IV – Ex. 20:12

Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.

We arrive at last at a recognizably moral command, even if a prudential rationale is attached.  Note that it is a positive command, as distinct from the “thou shalt nots” which constitute the remaining recognized commandments.

Commandment V – Ex. 20:13

Thou shalt not kill.

It is not clear why King James’ scholars chose “to kill” to render the Hebrew verb here.  Although the lexical meanings are not quite so clear-cut as the corresponding modern English verbs, the Hebrew verb used is certainly better translated as “to murder” rather than “to kill,” a much broader and simpler concept.  Where humans are concerned, the Hebrew word is used of violent, wrathful or vengeful slayings.

Commandment VI  – Ex. 20:14

Thou shalt not commit adultery.

The Hebrew term seems to have required that the female participant be married to someone other than the male for this offense to be committed – in other words, this commandment does not forbid fornication with an unnarried woman. On the other hand the word is used for conduct ranging from idolatry to _.

Commandment VII  – Ex. 20:15

Thou shalt not steal.

Of course the concept of theft requires a developed sense of personal property ownership, but to the extent that the furtiveness  of the act is implied, knowledge that others would object to the act as wrongfully depriving someone of the thing stolen renders theft immoral however underdeveloped the concept of property might be.

Commandment VIII  – Ex. 20:15

Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour.

This commandment leaves plenty of room for “white lies,” little or big.  If no one is injured, the commandment is not violated.  Moralists will argue that a knowing untruth is like a stone thrown into a pond.  The extent its ripples will travel cannot be known, but truth-telling and trust themselves are diminished.  However, embroidering on the Commandments is virtually a cottage industry.

Commandment IX & X  – Ex. 20:17

Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbour's.

The lawgivers of Louisiana follow the Roman Catholics in dividing verse 17 into parts a (ending with “house”) and b (through “wife”) and c (all the rest).  Their version gives 17a in its entirety.  Then in 17b, they elide “nor his ox, nor his ass” into “his cattle.”  Does their knowledge of their juvenile captive audience give them the right to alter the Word of God?  What should be the fate of pious grade-schoolers who mark up their classroom poster to restore the Biblical words?

Various traditions use different divisions to stretch verse 17 into two or three commandments.  The discourse delivered directly by YHVH Himself, greatly annoying the Hebrews, is referred to more than once (though not in Ex. 20) as “the ten words.”  The problem is that if we don’t stop with verse 17, the next “thou shalt and shalt nots” come at verses 23 through 26:

23: Ye shall not make with me gods of silver, neither shall ye make unto you gods of gold.

24: An altar of earth thou shalt make unto me, and shalt sacrifice thereon thy burnt offerings, and thy peace offerings, thy sheep, and thine oxen: in all places where I record my name I will come unto thee, and I will bless thee.

25: And if thou wilt make me an altar of stone, thou shalt not build it of hewn stone: for if thou lift up thy tool upon it, thou hast polluted it.

26: Neither shalt thou go up by steps unto mine altar, that thy nakedness be not discovered thereon.

Verse 23 doesn’t seem to add anything to verses 4 and 5, already comfortably ensconced in Commandment I.  Verse 24 would involve the State of Louisiana in requiring burnt offerings.  Verse 25 talks about “altars,” an uncomfortable subject for most Louisiana Protestants and it also raises the vexed subject of the pollution of stone by lifting up one’s tool upon it.  Worst of all is verse 26.  In Moses’ day, men didn’t wear pants (over or under).  If they walked on top of the altar, God could and apparently would peep up their skirts and not like what He saw.  No, all in all it’s clearly best to stretch verse 17 at any cost.

The Fart of the Deal

 The great oracle of today’s Republican party has just announced that Abraham Lincoln could and should have been made to disappear from history, if only some stable genius of a negotiator had been around to avert the Civil War.

It’s possible that tough-lady Haley’s recent back-and-forth on the cause of that war provoked some interest in the subject on the part of Donald Trump and that one of his flunkies actually scrounged up enough knowledge to put together a large-print brief for him, describing the Peace Conference of 1861.  All right, I only said it’s possible.

The Conference was a veritable Who’s Who of the bipartisan Establishment as it existed before the rise of the Republican Party, and the proposed “Peace Amendment” it produced would have perpetually enshrined slavery in the slave states and written both Dred Scott and Stephen Douglas’ “popular sovereignty” into the Constitution (effectively enshrining it throughout the rest of the country) – all in hopes of keeping the border states that had not yet seceded from doing so in time to join Jeff Davis in hoisting the Confederate battle flag.

The Americans of that day who had a hard time envisioning negro slavery prevailing through the Nineteenth and into the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries, along with those Southerners who were skeptical about an unamendable Amendment, were less than impressed.  But that’s only because those benighted folk lacked a Leader and divinely inspired Deal-maker with the fantastic skill and vision of the founder of Trump University and Trump Casino.

Gosh, how different all of history might have been!

https://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/peace.asp

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peace_Conference_of_1861

A Great Waterfall of Souls

 

A Great Waterfall of Souls

“Personhood” bills are pending in six state legislatures, and since Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health has emboldened “pro-life” forces more such bills will probably be introduced in red state legislatures.  It is said that the Oklahoma bill has a good chance of becoming law soon.  A personhood law defines a human zygote (fertilized ovum) as a person for all legal purposes.

By the time a zygote gets into the uterus it will ordinarily have divided about 12 times and become a blastocyst, a sphere one to two tenths of a millimeter (about the thickness of a sheet of paper) in diameter.  A blastocyst that is going to engender a normal pregnancy must attach itself to the lining of the uterus in such a way as to make it possible for a functioning placenta, which will hold the growing embryo in place and give it access to the mother’s bloodstream, to develop.  Such attachment is referred to as the “implantation” of the blastocyst.  If it fails to implant, it sails on through the uterus and continues hopefully dividing until a hostile environment kills it.  About half of all blastocysts fail to implant and are excreted in the urine.

That means that in the U.S. more than 10,000 zygotes/blastocysts miss their chance of implantation each day.  Under a personhood law, every one is a person with all the same rights as any living person.  According to “pro-life” rhetoric, American mothers are murdering their babies by callously flushing them down the toilet at the rate of 10,000 precious babies a day!

Even if it has no chance of surviving to become a live baby (in the usual sense, i.e., something that looks and metabolizes like a human born alive), the living zygote/blastocyst is still a person whose life is as precious, and as protected by law, as that of any other.  Is the mother guilty of child abuse if she doesn’t hold her urine as long as possible, then urinate into a jar and immediately call 911?  Fishing the "baby" out and putting it into a normal saline solution at body temperature will surely prolong its life, and who knows when progress in in vitro gestation might make it possible for the pinhead-sized person to turn itself into a bouncing bundle of joy?

The (predominant) religious portion of pro-lifers should be considering the question: “What is the eternal fate of the 10,000 blastocyst-persons dying every day?”  Some of the major denominations have a clear doctrine on the afterlives of unbaptized infants but some do not.  The most strident pro-lifers are mostly from "independent" evangelical factions that have never officially considered any such abstruse question.  By and large they don’t accept infant baptism anyway, but for other groups serious questions arise: Isn’t baptizing one of these babies before it dies the greatest possible act of spiritual charity?  If the baptizand is already by necessity immersed in water, need the baptizer do anything more in the way of splashing or immersing, and if so, how?  For the sacrament to be valid, must the baptizer be able to sense the presence of the baptizand?  Should a sexually active woman, whenever she tinkles, pronounce conditional baptism over the toilet before she flushes?  (For traditional Roman Catholics, how many years’ indulgence does she earn each time she does so?)

Of course similar questions present themselves to anyone who claims “Life begins at the moment of conception” (by which they mean the life of a human person begins at that moment) whether or not they have the reinforcement of a personhood law.  And of course no answers to any of these questions will be forthcoming from that quarter.

Many-Kettle Winter

 

I.                    Many-Kettle Winter

In 1978 I went with my mother to an Indian arts and history event being held in Tempe, Arizona.  I found what was being sold as a Sioux winter count.  One of the earlier scenes depicted a few lodges around a space with four or five little black kettles with handles floating in air.  Four or five scenes further on there were unhappy Indians lying around with spots on them.  Much further on, toward the last scene, blue-coated soldiers were firing rifles.  I thought the object just a little out of my price range but on the way home started having non-buyer’s remorse.  Mother said if I really wanted to buy it she would make me as small loan, so we turned around and headed back to Tempe.  But as we got back to the river even the old Tempe Bridge was closed.  (The new bridge on the National Interstate and Defense Highway had started to collapse the preceding night.)  The worst surge from heavy rains on the Salt watershed had reached the Valley just behind us.  For the moment the state was split in two, at least as far as ground transportation was concerned.

For me as a collector it might have been just as well.  I was not equipped to judge the authenticity of such an artifact, and it could very well have been a fake.  If so it was a charmingly produced fake.  In retrospect I wonder if the scenes I noticed and have described don’t make it suspiciously Eurocentric.

However, that early depiction of a many-kettle winter is a very striking image.  European trade goods arrived on the Atlantic coast of North America at the beginning of the 17^th century, but the volume of trade picked up significantly after the French and Indian War.  Bartering tribe to tribe, how long before metal knives and cooking vessels made it west of the Great Lakes?  How many more seasons before such an object was less than a treasured rarity? What a certain presage of doom were the domestic conveniences whose sudden abundance impressed the counter-of-winters!  And how impossible for even the most intelligent of Sioux to interpret rightly.

When worlds collide one world is likely to be heavier than the other.

II.                  Heraclitus at Bay

It was a very great sage who observed that War is father of all and king of all.  Economy of expression more than excuses his personification of a sociological phenomenon or rather, an anthropological fact.  He meant that the society that doesn’t win its wars is superseded by the one that does and therefore the requirements of victory in war take precedence over all other social needs. This is a simple fact and will be, so long as there are two or more sovereigns on earth.

Capitalism began to convince itself that war is too bad for business – or what is the same thing, too economically destructive – to be tolerated.  Thinkers were solemnly announcing that technological advances had rendered war unthinkable long before Leo Szilard had his brainstorm.  But in fact it was war that was tolerating capitalism and not vice versa.  Hiroshima gave a huge boost to unthinkability, ushering in an interregnum during which not-quite-war was not quite father or king of all.

III.               Probabilities

I consider it highly likely that:  (1.) If Ukraine continues to beat Russia Putin’s regime is doomed.  (2.) Putin either knows this now or will soon recognize it. (3.) Putin also knows that he must either remain in control or suffer the fate of Gaddafi and Mussolini. (4.) Putin is a cowardly narcissist who would do anything to anyone to avoid that fate. (5.) Russia has thousands of tactical nuclear weapons and plenty of means to deliver them within a range of 600 kilometers or so.  I infer from these propositions that (6.) if Ukraine continues to beat Russia, Putin will order the use of tactical nuclear weapons against Ukrainian forces in Ukraine. He will do so with a smirk that says to the world, "What're you gonna do about it?" And the "Make Russia great again" Russians will admire his "strength" all the more.

It is possible that the Russian generals will refuse the order and use it as the occasion for Putin’s arrest and execution.  This is unlikely if only because Putin is much cleverer and more ruthless than his generals.

Perhaps there is a chance they could convince him that the use of tactical nuclear weapons would not be of sufficient military effectiveness to counter the negative effects of the international political backlash, but this too is unlikely.  The hypothesis is that Ukraine is continuing to beat Russia.  Russian generals arguing against employing bigger Russian guns are not likely to be heard.  Besides, Putin tends to believe in the effectiveness of his own propaganda, and his line will be “See what the decadent West has driven us to?”  Tucker Carlson will back him up, even if Donald Trump is too confused to do so.

IV.               The Unthunk-About

The risk of escalation posed by any military response will be enough to deter the Biden Administration, and as usual the U.S. will keep Europe in check.

A global economic panic is predictable, and might be as attractive to Putin as any effects on Ukraine.  His coterie will be tempted to short the S&P 500, and this might provide the best early warning.

For a few days the international chorus of cluck-clucking will be deafening.  There will be talk of stricter sanctions, but the ability and willingness to take part in any greater economic pain will be limited.  There will be a lot of talk about not letting Putin profit from the use of nuclear weapons but it is not clear to me who will make him pay, or how.

Longer term the world will recognize that it has been living in denial for the last three-quarters of a century – which may be remembered as an improbable halcyon period.

V.                 Maybe Not?

The hypothesis of the foregoing discussion was that Ukraine continues to beat Russia.  Given genuine enthusiasm on the part of NATO countries for supplying Ukraine with heavier and more modern weapons (were it unbridled by sub rosa American reticence) this seems likely.  However, Obama-Biden never really had a problem with a great-power “spheres-of-influence” deal.  The problem has been that Putin is far too many for them; also that unlike good old Uncle Joe, he cannot be trusted to keep to a deal.

Washington is still the center of the universe even though 20^th century bipartisanship is truly dead.  The Republicans no longer care about (former or soon-to-be) Captive Nations or repressed Russians but would dearly love to deepen Biden’s embarrassment.  The Administration realizes it must appear to be eager to support Ukrainian resistance but would be delighted if Little Russia were simply swallowed into the earth overnight.

The situation is challenging for those who profess belief in a secret all-powerful world-ruling cabal, which if it existed would surely be clamping down on a conflict that threatens to normalize the use of nuclear weapons.  One need not imagine a round-table of international Jewish financiers, though.  Presumably Putin needs practically nothing to support a victory proclamation по русски.  He ought to jump at Donbas + Crimea + an end to sanctions + some other economic sweeteners – unless he really is crazy.  He may be, however, and even if he’s not the question would remain whether a Biden White House worried about the mid-terms can bring Zelenskyy to heel.

In short even though powerful interests are vitally interested in avoiding it, within months we may see what Putin is capable of when he feels he’s backed into a corner.  I think that easily includes the use of tactical nukes, and that if it does our world will change – and not for the better.

The Defense of Old Main

 

In the fall of 1968, during Freshman Orientation at Claremont Men’s College (for so it was still called, then), Rob B. and I noticed a commotion at the table of a campus organization.  Some young men in uniform were being hassled by a crowd of students.  It was soon apparent that this was the ROTC table, besieged by an impromptu antiwar protest.  Immediately we sidled to the front of the crowd, conspicuously greeted the students manning the table and loudly announced our interest in signing up.

Easily the most unattractive feature of prevailing student attitudes was the hostility manifested toward those who had served, were serving or even seemed to be contemplating serving in the armed forces.  The root of this antipathy was a sense of guilt, of course, though I’m not sure this was apparent to me at seventeen.  It was my (and Rob’s) first encounter with this phenomenon, and I’m glad our spontaneous reaction was to demonstrate solidarity with the beleaguered cadets.  For Rob it was purely a political gesture, of course.  He knew that, with his nystagmus, he couldn’t get into the military if he tried.  For myself, I hadn’t until that moment begun to think seriously about the draft.  That both the war and the student deferment would continue indefinitely wouldn’t have seemed likely to me, and I would not then have formulated the strategy of staying in college or grad school for the duration.  I did have a vague sense that a commission might be the ticket to a less undesirable posting, as well as a sense that being in ROTC would be a defense against shirker’s guilt.

Anyway, Rob and I signed up for ROTC on the spot, to the jeers of long-haired men from Pomona and short-haired Scripps women in sweatshirts (these schools, together with Harvey Mudd, Pitzer and CMC constituting the “Claremont Colleges”).  Later in that academic year, the science and math departments at Pomona were targeted as tools of the military-industrial complex.  After some picketing a mail-bomb exploded, taking off the right hand of a secretary in the math department.  My parents’ marginal enthusiasm for keeping me at Claremont, a significant financial strain on them (despite the $300 per semester stipend of my National Merit Scholarship), evaporated.  For Rob, the terminal prognosis of his mother’s cancer imposed a compelling reason to stay at home for the next school year.

And so we became sophomore ROTC cadets at Arizona State University.  The way ROTC works (or did then) is: the first two years you’re just a student taking introductory courses in the Military Science department; junior and senior years you are enlisted in the reserves and as such become subject to military discipline.  The pace of campus protests was picking up during the ’69-’70 academic year.  I think it was late in the fall semester that a crowd marched on the big campus flagpole, intent on hauling down the stars and stripes.  Whether they had a Tonkinese or Viet Cong standard ready to hoist I’m not sure.  Rob did yeoman’s service, rapidly recruiting a pick-up band of music professors to ring the flagpole to reinforce the two or three maintenance men who had been defending the spot, and to play the national anthem plus some other tunes (including “Stars and Stripes Forever” – how fortunate there was a piccolo-player among them!).  The crowd soon moved on.

Early in spring semester ROTC was targeted nationwide.  Departments were taken over, and two or three ROTC buildings were burned to the ground, though I’m not sure whether the burnings had yet happened at the time of the incident I’m about to relate.  At ASU on this day word got around campus that something was going to happen involving ROTC.  I hurried to the department, and on the way in I was not surprised to meet Rob.

The Department of Military Science (vulgo ROTC) occupied the main or second floor of Old Main, built in the 1890s to house the Territorial Normal School, the height of Central Arizona’s pride (below the Territorial Capitol but above the Insane Asylum, that is).  The main floor, fifteen or twenty feet above ground level, is approached by a big stone staircase on the east end of the building that is flanked by rooms then devoted to faculty and administrative offices.  Rob and I entered a disconsolate space.

Typical of the McNamara Defense Department, CONARC had issued strict orders: there was to be no trace of resistance.  Cadets and instructors (serving officers) were to leave and stay away from the premises, without locking them or making any attempt to secure their contents.  Departing personnel could quietly take their personal belongings, but otherwise everything was to be left exactly as-is.  The officers, conditioned to obey orders or used to this kind of idiocy, simply related the orders and packed their briefcases.  Some of the senior cadets murmured, but they, too, were bound to obey.

A senior cadet arrived, reported that a large crowd had assembled on the main mall listening to speeches about the evils of ROTC, and left.  We watched Capt. Medina – whose decoration with the Bronze Star the corps had recently witnessed at a special weekend drill – and a couple of gung-ho seniors descend the steps together, go north and turn the corner; but Rob and I were just university students enrolled in MS 202.  Alone in Old Main, we were as free to ignore Pentagon commands as any commie-hippie peace-creep.

Not long before we had heard Maj. Buckley’s lecture on ruses de guerre.  One of his historical examples was strikingly reminiscent of our present situation, and it took little more than an exchange of conspiratorial grins to concert our plan of action.  Plenty of materiel was at hand. With a hat-stand as armature, an officer’s overcoat on a hanger, a bent manila folder, mirrored sunglasses and peaked cap made a passable dummy.  Positioned a few feet back from the entrance doors it would suggest a senior, supervisorial presence.  Probably best to shift it around every once in a while.  The room serving as HQ to our “Desert Ranger” seniors yielded camo items of various kinds which we laid out to facilitate quick changes of costume.

We had barely begun such preparations when a tightly-spaced crowd of two to three hundred was observed moving along the adjacent mall toward our position.  I found a short-sleeved blouse and garrison cap for my principal role, that of junior spotter-at-the-doors.  Because of his coloring and stature we decided Rob should be more covered-up and hang back further, possibly suggesting another officer’s presence.

The leftists formed up at the foot of the stairs.  As I was conspicuously watching I had plenty of opportunity to observe the small gaggle in the front.  With walkie-talkie and bullhorn, they were clearly in command.  When they halted the whole crowd stood still.

I had been pretending to report back over my shoulder, but as it was apparent the crowd-commander was communicating with somebody by radio, I decided to imitate him.  I forget now what box-like object of suitable size I found, but I grabbed it and acted like I was reporting observations into it.  Soon I turned smartly and walked away from the door as if ordered to report to someone, then put on a camo jacket and helmet (those Desert Ranger guys were really gung-ho) and returned to a slightly different position.  Rob was near the window in the administrative office space, putting on a performance of his own.  I returned to my spotter-at-the-door role.  The crowd, at first stock-still and silent, had begun to look restless and ragged around the edges, and there was obvious consternation in the commanding clique.  The guy with the walkie-talkie looked for all the world like a front-line junior officer trying to convince his senior that the intel of an undefended enemy position was faulty.  After a few exchanges on the walkie-talkie he barked something at his companion who held the bullhorn.  A different destination was announced. The crowd of spontaneous demonstrators did an about-face and withdrew from the Old Main objective, showing as much discipline as, an hour earlier, the armed forces of the United States had when they abandoned the position.

When we were sure the leftists had gone Rob and I deposited our costumes and props at the foot of the hat-rack dummy, hoping the Army would guess how the post had been held, and left the building truly deserted.  To us it was just a lark.*  The only real effort for me was maintaining a suitably grim expression during my act.  I had no doubt that if a large number of protesters came into the building – which I fully expected to happen – I could simply slip away through the crowd.  It didn’t occur to me until later that Rob might have had more trouble being inconspicuous.

*   I don’t recall the name of the colonel who was our C.O.  Whoever he was, in light of knowledge acquired much later I have wondered whether our escapade might have blasted his hope (if he had any left) of retiring as a general officer.  The ROTC takeover at ASU didn’t proceed as many another did that week.  If word got back to Washington (remember, the CIA was still subsidizing SDS in those days) the excuses that unauthorized resistance had been offered only by persons not technically under his command and that the “resistance” was only a bit of make-believe would have availed the colonel nothing.  This consideration was many miles off my radar then, and probably would not have made any difference to me if it had occurred to me.  To Rob, however, it likely would have made a great difference.

A Mystery to Me

 

Why has Congress not given slain Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknik a state funeral, culminating in interment at Arlington National Cemetery?  An enormous cortege, consisting of unit after unit and band after funeral march-playing band, winding slowly past the White House – what a great way to give Donald Trump the parade he always craved and make an unanswerable political statement at the same time!

Why are Democrats insisting on another impeachment of Trump “to demonstrate that a President can’t get away with inciting insurrection in an attempt to keep Congress from performing one of its Constitutional duties” when they know it would likely only result in another Senate acquittal –thus ending up by establishing that a President can do exactly that and get away with it?

Why do they persist in this effort even though the President-elect they have installed at such great effort and expense has signaled it’s not his preference?  Why so ready to refuse to be led, now that they have a clear leader?

I’m afraid the answer is that the Democratic Party is lacking in political imagination, savoir-faire and, worst, instinct.  Their sense of political theater is desperately deficient.  Maybe it has been since Adlai Stevenson.  How can this be, with the vast preponderance of creative artists on their side?

Don’t know. It’s a mystery to me.

Another Great Work of the Indefatigable BKS

 

Here’s a link to a compilation of everything filed in my still-pending case challenging Gov. Ducey’s eviction ban, Gregory Real Estate and Management, LLC v. Keegan.  The first appellate decision should be handed down in a month or two.  Important questions of Arizona constitutional law are involved, even though as a practical matter these gubernatorial orders have been superseded by the CDC’s federal moratorium (itself due to expire in another three weeks) –

Gregory R.E. and Management, LLC v Keegan