Category Archives: Social comment

Investing, Social comment, Sports

What happened to sports cards

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I remember a time when sports cards were toys.

Then I remember a time when they were everywhere.

Now I see people unloading boxes and boxes of them for $30, or trying to.

What happened?

I grew up in the 1960s and 1970s. In those days, make no mistake: we were concerned with the value of cards, or at least the heaviest buyers were. But only one major company produced them. That was Topps, which had held an effective corner on the market since the mid-1950s. In those days, production was often sloppy. Cards came poorly centered, color overlays were messed up, and one card in every pack had waxy residue from vile-tasting gum that was so hard you could shatter it just by dropping it on the floor. Reverses were not glossy or white, most years, but the natural dirt brown of the basic cardboard.

Cards could be unintentionally hilarious. In addition to some pranks and errors (Billy Martin flipping the bird, Bob Cerv’s arm airbrushed out, Claude Raymond pictured two years in a row with his fly open), card manufacturers had to struggle to say something good about each player. When a guy hit .171 and fielded as if wearing oven mitts, that wasn’t easy. We would hear about his great performances in the minors, his tremendous potential, and if all else failed, his achievements outside sports. This was more of a problem in baseball because baseball players were more likely to get cards. With 40+ people on a football team and some 20+ professional teams, anyone could see there wasn’t going to be a card for every reserve offensive guard. Basketball was easier, because there are something like twelve people on a basketball squad. Hockey (about 18 per squad) just didn’t produce that many cards. In baseball, you could expect cards for about 75% of a 25-player roster, with full sets being 500-700+ cards. Which meant that the writers at Topps could end up trying to convince us that a washed-up 2-9 pitcher with a 5.58 ERA was, in fact, an important personage.

Through the 1970s, cards were still playthings for most kids. This meant that they became worn, creased, impaled, water-damaged (I’ll really never forgive our cat for peeing on my 1972 Roberto Clemente cards, even though the cat has been deceased since about 1985), and otherwise mutilated. Very savvy forward thinkers did protect their cards from wear, but many cards that avoided damage did so because someone forgot about them in a shoebox.

After a court ruling, the Topps monopoly broke in the 1980s. Around that time and shortly thereafter, now-adult collectors began to see small fortunes in those old shoeboxes. Some began to buy up others, transitioning from collecting to investing. Early birds got the best bargains. As non-Topps companies got into the game, production values improved. Bad centering became rarer; metallic decor began to show up; the photos improved. The mud-colored reverse became something of the past. Imagining value, kids and also some adults started to buy the flood of new cards–and they didn’t play games with them. Gum went away, an impediment to value. For the next twenty-five years, it was all about so-and-so’s rookie card, or stars, stars, stars. Price guides told everyone what the cards were supposed to be worth, and a grading system emerged. Guys even bought cases of unopened card packs, figuring to sell them for good money some day.

I didn’t collect during this period. It all looked like flashy garbage to me. But neither did I get rid of my own cards. Some were worn playthings, some were in pretty good shape, and they all represented one of the happier memories of an unhappy childhood. That quarter-century simply happened without me.

After 2000, in my estimation, enough buyers figured out that most of the money in cards was already made. The bubble burst. Nowadays, people sell boxes of them on Craigslist for bargain basement prices, usually trying to tell potential purchasers that these in fact are worth thousands. Few seem able to anticipate the obvious rejoinder: “If they’re worth that, then why are you dumping them for $20, which no one seems willing to pay you?”

Things seem to have come full circle. Last I saw, only two major producers were still making cards. Everyone who sank thousands into cards during the glut is hoping to get a bit of the money back. Sitting pat, I was unscathed. I found other ways to lose and waste money, but not on cards.

Got some old cards? With noteworthy exceptions, if they are post-1980, don’t expect much. Anything from the 1950s has some value just for showing up in decent condition. 1960s, less so, but there’s a little value. 1970s cards go cheaply.

I still remember when they were toys. And I still hate to think how much of my limited disposable income went into them, but what the hell. I had fun with them.

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The Cold War: Cliff’s Notes for millennials

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If you came of age after 1990, I’m not sure what the Cold War (traditionally 1946-1990) means to you. I can speculate:

  • A past period in which people somehow got by and had fun (if one can call it that without computers and cell phones) in spite of knowing that, at any minute, everyone might learn that their world could have twenty minutes to live.
  • A weird time full of fallout shelters, black-and-white duck-and-cover films in school, conscription (which means when you turn 18, it’s either go to college and be in the military later, or just get it over with now), and anti-Communist hysteria.
  • Nothing at all, since it’s before your time, and history is boring.

In fact, it is your time. Control of nuclear weapons technology is looser than it was during the Cold War. The threat of nuclear mines is greater than ever. The bomb doesn’t have to create a mushroom cloud: nuclear weapons exploded in the upper atmosphere would create electromagnetic pulses, disrupting everything within a certain very large radius that contains electronics (including most refrigeration). Chemical and biological weapons still exist, and can even be produced in homebrew fashion (though none of that would do as much harm as their military grade versions).

If anything, we were safer then than you are now, because the few Cold War nations with the capacity to deploy such weapons had very vested interests in ensuring that no one dared deploy them. A bunch of religious or political fanatics might not care. So, unfortunately, we didn’t win or end the Cold War. In the end, we just shifted it around. I know I feel less safe now.

But I promised to explain our Cold War to you. I will. It will explain a lot about your parents and grandparents.

During the Cold War, US policy involved combating avowedly socialist and communist world powers and their proxies or pawns. We did this by fostering and promoting our own proxies or pawns, which we called ‘allies.’ Non-aligned nations, of which there were many, would play both sides or just try to stay out of it all. Some, like Finland, had to do so as a matter of national prudence. Others, like India, realized that they had nothing of value to gain from embroilment in the Cold War, or had quite enough to deal with at home and on their own borders.

As a people, we liked to see the world in terms of ‘friends’ and ‘enemies,’ blinding ourselves to the truth: nations don’t have friends, just interests. But that has always been our besetting sin, has it not? The desire to see the world in terms of good and evil, white hats and black, with us of course always as the good guys and gals in the white hats? Old Western movies and series did more to foster this mentality than many may realize, but if so, it only worked because it was what we liked to hear and think.

Few of the avowedly socialist or communist countries were actually making an effort toward those political philosophies; they were simply blinds for authoritarianism. Even there, at the top, the leaders lived like royalty and the population suffered exploitation. The most successful model, in hindsight, was the Eurosocialist model. However, during the Cold War, US military power and protection gave northwestern Europe security it could not obtain on its own, greatly facilitating the Eurosocialist model. Not always, though; Finland and Sweden were among the most successful examples, and both were non-aligned, then as now. But make no mistake: nations who could take advantage of our defensive shield did so, because it was in their interests, and that helped them raise their standard of living above ours.

That also helps explain how Europeans decided to create an economic union that would become increasingly political. Divided, they would remain more vulnerable. United, they would gain economically. Europe is a much more stable place without fear of war between France and Germany.

It worked like this. ‘Socialist’ was a dirty word; ‘communist’ a dirtier one. In the 1950s, during the Red hysteria, we did what every country does in time of hysteria. We committed gross, ignorant miscarriages of justice. The logic was that one could look at the USSR and PRC (People’s Republic of China) and see where that led: shortages, general poverty, forced labor camps, secret police and zero popular voice in government. And it was true, though decreasingly true over the years in the case of the more developed USSR. Both countries eventually learned that a profit motive, while guaranteed to create wealthy elites who would surely take over the show, was also more conducive to economic growth and plenty than Utopian notions of the selfless evolution of the human spirit. Both countries kept up the fiction for a long time. Even in the 1970s, the Soviet government was promising ‘True Communism’ by 1980. The PRC still tries to present its system was ‘socialism with Chinese characteristics,’ which only the uneducated can fail to identify as ‘capitalism.’

It was bullshit. However, our own elites used it to get richer. If you were in a Latin American or African or south Asian country in the 1960s and 1970s, both sides warred for your soul; we, the US, also warred for your money. In many cases, US political activity during the Cold War was designed to further our corporate interests. So, if your country elected a pro-Soviet or pro-Chinese leader, we did our all to destabilize him; your people’s interest and choice did not matter. If it elected a pro-US leader, we did our all to sustain him; your people’s interest and choice did not matter. And it was nearly always a him, because this was when women in political leadership were very rare. We justified this at home by repeating over and over: “Capitalism is always better. Look at how they live in Russia and China.” In reality, for developing countries, there wasn’t that much difference, because they did not have the means to live at a First World standard. They were the playing pieces of a global political game.

At home, our politics were far saner than today. Leaders on both sides were less tied to ideology and more to the national interest, which meant we had the concept of compromise. That has changed greatly between my day and yours. The landscape was very different, but it was a time of great social change. The Civil Rights movement got traction. Open racism fell out of fashion. What we called Women’s Liberation (which must now sound very quaint to you) sought progress toward gender equality. We still had domestic secret police, though, and they were still mostly focused on counter-insurgency; in most cases, however, it was necessary to identify the supposed insurgency as communist or socialist (the average American never learned the actual meaning of either word, and still has not). There were exceptions, such as the infiltration of the Ku Klux Klan. In the 1960s and 1970s, we had a low-level domestic terror movement which openly boasted that it was communist or socialist, which obviated the need for a scorecard. Despite this, most people did not live in fear of becoming terror victims, though anyone attending a university might think a little bit about detouring around the ROTC building.

We had national moods come and go. I wasn’t alive during the 1950s, but I would describe them as prosperous yet paranoid. The 1960s were radicalized and manic-depressive, alternating between bummers like the King and Kennedy assassinations, the realization of futility in Vietnam, and the grossness of hippies who didn’t want jobs or baths, and happy stuff like the space program, relief of the Cuban missile crisis, and advances for blacks and women. In the 1970s, we lost our first war for real and for true, gas prices suddenly quadrupled and more; to imagine the impact, picture gas going to $15/gallon within a week. Nixon and his VP both resigned after evidence emerged of their scumbaggery, and Carter chose to deal with double-digit inflation and interest rates by pestering the world about human rights. (My student loans were at 9%, payable beginning 1986, and they were a bargain by the standards of the day.) We tied up the shit sandwich of the 1970s with a neat little bow when the Shah of Iran was overthrown (making us notice radical Islam for the first time), most of our embassy was taken hostage, and we couldn’t even mount a rescue mission without a fiasco. The 1980s saw a major investment in US military power under Reagan, and whatever one may think of him today, the national mood became buoyant and proud. And everyone born in 1965 or earlier will never forgive or forget the Iranians. They occupied the place of the Imperial Japanese of my parents’ generation, or the Bin Laden of yours: enemies to the grave. To understand your parents, understand that a significant number of them still think Iran is owed punishment with weapons of mass destruction.

It must seem bizarre to millennials, raised in an era in which everyone in military uniform receives instant promotion to Hero, and sports all begin with orgies of obligatory patriotic expression, but the military and the flag got no respect between 1965 and 1980. Patriotism and nationalism were very unfashionable. If you raised a flag outside your home, people thought you a weirdo. Even in the early 1980s, when I was in uniform on occasion, older hands would counsel me on how to avoid friction with the public. They had served in the 1970s, when it meant mostly abuse. I’m dead serious. Your great-uncle, whom everyone says was never the same after Vietnam, very probably did get off the plane Stateside to verbal abuse as a supposed “baby-killer.” I am not sure which was worse for the Vietnam veterans (many of whom were drafted): the horrors of guerrilla war to the knife in Vietnam, or the rejection and ridicule they faced back home after surviving the war. So why the enormous pendulum swing? In 2003, I was watching with my Vietnam vet father-in-law as the country fell all over itself to gush about our troops in Iraq, brushing aside the little detail that the war itself was stupider than a ‘social media consultant’ on a reality show. He was an old Texan with a heavy drawl. “Know what that is?” he asked, as the news showed the patriotic bacchanal. “Guilt,” I said. “Yep.” That’s what drives this. You are looking at people who are trying to make it up to the ‘Nam vets without actually giving the VA any money to help take care of them.

The Cold War supposedly wound down when the Soviet economy began to collapse in the late 1980s. It is popular today to attribute this to Reagan’s new arms race, but I’m not convinced that was the main cause. I’m sure the arms race didn’t help the Soviet economy, but a lot of other things were also changing at the time. In my college days (1981-86), the personal computer was a rare and costly luxury. By 1988, I was selling them for a living. With PCs came modems and networking, and the conversion of Arpanet into the Internet you know today was visible in the distance. I am not sure the USSR would not have come unglued on its own. In any case, it did disintegrate. It happened so fast that there wasn’t time for things to sort out before the Olympics, where the former USSR’s components competed as the ‘Unified Team.’

At that point, we faced an existential crisis. Our leaders had always had a Main Enemy to teach us to fear and hate. They did not adapt well at all. Until Bin Laden managed to get our attention with his second World Trade Center attacks in 2001, which you remember (his first was in 1993, but since it didn’t kill enough people or knock down a building, it didn’t get our attention), our leadership was in the unfamiliar position of not knowing who to tell us to hate. Showing a tremendous lack of imagination, they simply continued the Cold War as best they could, railing about socialism (communism being too bankrupt for anyone to get worked up about).

Now we reach your times, and you know what happened as well as I do. But that’s how we got there.

In my view, to understand an age group, it’s helpful understand the world in which it came of age. Let’s take my parents, born in 1935 and 1941. They came of age during the Red hysteria of the 1950s, and even today my mother worries about ‘falling into socialism,’ a term she cannot even define. They married and had children in the 1960s, where they saw large-scale civil disobedience and more prevalent drug use. They feared greatly for their children, that we might either be drawn into hippieism and drug addiction (they equated these two automatically), or worse yet, that we might all be incinerated by nuclear weapons. As their children hit their teens, my parents’ sense of national power and pride fell with the economy and the increasing struggle to make a living. Unsurprisingly, they turned heavily toward religion. They could not understand why their children rebelled and rejected it. In the 1980s, the pace of technological change empowered my father (who was perfectly positioned, educationally speaking, to embrace it), but bewildered my mother (who wasn’t and still isn’t). My father would be nearly eighty today; my mother turns 73 in exactly two weeks. The world looks nothing like the Kansas of their youths. Not even the Kansas of today looks like that of their youths.

Looking at your elders’ world, you can reach your own conclusions about why they now do and say what they do and say. I think it’s worth your time to do so, even if only because they expect you to pay into their benefits. Same for your parents’ world: if you know the times they lived through, you can understand them better. In my case, that meant understanding Depression-era grandparents and what it did to them. (Short version: epic cheapskates.)

There’s another reason, and let’s be blunt. Your generation is taking a lot of flak, most of which I happen to think is not deserved. I’m betting that you, quite reasonably, would like to be understood and respected. I’d like that for you as well. Life has taught me that the best way to get is to give, which is why I took a couple hours to write this piece about a world mostly witnessed through my own eyes. If you then give by seeking to understand those who came before you, one of two things will happen. Either you will get understanding in return, or if not, you will at least know what you are dealing with.

You can’t lose.

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Some geopolitical education

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When we have a situation like that in Crimea, or as we have had on the Korean peninsula in recent years, I hear a lot of highly uneducated questions. I hesitate to call them ‘dumb’ ones, because after much shaking my head, I came to realize the many Americans’ understanding of geopolitics is as flawed as their understanding of history and geography (and the former is probably a function of the latter two). What is also flawed, and grievously: an understanding of the military science that underlies the military balance that underlies each geopolitical situation.

In short, a bunch of people blop about asking “Can we win a war with Russia?” without realizing how incomplete, oversimplified, and thus nonsensical the question is.

Hear me, please. Here is a question as pointless and incomplete: can the Washington Huskies beat the Washington State Cougars in football next November?

Ah, one might say, but we have some measurables there. It’s in Pullman. We know who’s returning for each team. UW has the historical edge. And I would rejoin: yes, one may speculate very generally, bearing in mind that we do not know how UW’s new coach will do, which key players for either side will be injured or emerge from obscurity, how the other 11-12 games will have gone and what impact they will have had, or even what the weather will be like. And because of all those variables, which we can not quantify, any ‘analysis’ by us is flawed. In the week before the game, when we quantify those variables, it will be less flawed.

And even then, things can go crazy. Mike Leach could get arrested for piracy. Chris Petersen could decide that if having to answer questions responsively is the price of major conference coaching, he’d rather coach at Nevada. College football could unionize. The National Conspiracy Against Athletes could, and probably will, do something stupid and petty that only benefits the money machine. It could snow four feet. A Palouse version of Cliven Bundy could have a militia confrontation.

“Can we win a war with Russia?” is on a par with predicting that football game seven months hence.

Okay, so let us supply some facts in overall reference to geopolitics and military science that might get us closer to an educated assessment.

Most Americans’ grasp of military science seems to cling to World War II thinking. You can tell that any time someone says ‘he had to fight in the front lines.’ Such thinking is outdated. Technology has blurred those front lines tremendously. Drones are flown from US domestic airbases. Cruise missiles deliver artillery from submarines. Heliborne operations and guerrilla warfare mean that much or all of a theater of combat may be a threat zone. ‘Front lines’ do not mean the simplified thing grandpa experienced.

It is impossible for the United States to raise a WWII-size military with remotely modern equipment.

  • For one thing, it’s too expensive, and if you think our defense contractors will sacrifice profit as a noble gesture to defend their beloved country and ease the burden on taxpayers, you need to go to rehab. A WWII Sherman cost about $50K in 1940s dollars, and enabled five guys to wage war. One might guess that to amount to about $700K now…if we proposed to build Shermans. We wouldn’t. We’d be building M1 Abrams, costing about $4.3M a pop. And that’s just one bit of the equipment needed to put that costly weapon into the field and support its mission. Our WWII ground forces went into action on foot or in trucks or halftracks. Infantry of today that has the speed to keep up with the modern battlefield pace rides in armored personnel carriers that run about $3.1M as well, carrying one rifle squad.
  • Some rough math gives me about 600 squads in an infantry division, each needing a $3.1M ride unless it’s meant to walk. It takes roughly 300 of those M1s to equip a armored division. And bear in mind, that does not consider the time it takes to build such complicated equipment, nor potential wartime shortages of key materials. That does not consider rifles, supporting artillery, helicopters, signal equipment, ammunition, everything it takes to equip a modern division of roughly 17,000 men and women.
  • Today I think we have about six active divisions, maybe eight in reserve. In WWII we had something like seventy. Of course, today’s division has far, far more firepower, but it can still only defend so much ground. But I trust I’m getting through to you about the tremendously higher cost.
  • And that doesn’t consider ongoing ammunition costs, much less the cost of combat aircraft, which can exceed $200M for a single multirole fighter. Nor is it all just the cost of a plane; there is the whole logistical tail required to keep that plane fighting.
  • We also have a navy, that lives in the weapon (that hasn’t changed). But its weapons are far more destructive; that has. A single surface-to-surface missile, or torpedo, has potential to sink a $3.3B destroyer. The weapon takes a long time to build. Its crew are highly skilled and take a very long time to train.

Perhaps you now begin to grasp the magnitude of costs involved in a fully national war effort for our lives/freedom/corporate profits/whatever you consider at stake.

For another, we’d need a draft. We’re too fat to draft. In the Vietnam era, guys went to Canada. Today all they’d have to do is eat more McDonalds. The Golden Arches: draft evasion for the new millennium. The military would either have to skip them, or set up fat camps, or develop special fat units that can handle domestic responsibilities without having to meet weight standards. I don’t see the latter two happening.

For yet another, a private soldier’s training today takes much longer. His or her weapons are much more sophisticated (and expensive). His or her death or disablement will cost the military a great deal in terms of lost training value, setting aside considerations of simple tragedy. But modern war tends to happen very quickly. No enemy would fool around for a year or two while we get our full battle rattle on.

I trust you are satisfied that our modern situation is radically different from past wars on which many of us still base assumptions. The hypothetical WWIII, NATO vs. Warsaw Pact with the WTO as aggressor, was expected to last from two weeks to two months–barely enough time to equip and deploy existing reserves to the theater. There will not be another WWII, and it’s foolish to think in those terms.

Now let’s talk about the wars we might fight. We might fight a full-scale nuclear war, for example. Once. It would have the virtue, I suppose, of obviating all need for future defense spending. We might fight a limited nuclear war, if anyone imagines that remotely likely (I don’t). We might fight a brushfire war; say, assisting Ukraine or Finland against a Russian invasion, or helping to defend the Republic of Korea. We might fight a brief conventional war followed by an ongoing and agonizing guerrilla struggle; we have painful recent experience of this, teaching us that in the main, we aren’t equipped for it.

So let’s imagine a brushfire war. Back in the 1930s, a fellow named Seversky published a book on air power. Not everyone fully got what he was saying, but here’s the gist: if you can achieve and hold air superiority in a theater, you win the land war. In conventional warfare, he was right then and he’s even righter now. So when you look at this brushfire war, you must, to be realistic, look at what air power can be deployed to it. That is largely a function of airbases. In Ukraine, the theater is within easy range of the majority of Russian air power, which has always been quite capable. While we might deploy enough air power to match it, it is harder for us to deploy enough to overwhelm it–and to do so, we would have to strike targets in Russian territory. What happens then?

In the Korean War, we could hold air superiority if not air supremacy, mostly because the Chinese air arm couldn’t beat ours–but it could base in China, which we were not eager to strike. Imagine a Second Korean War. If you think about it, all hinges on China, because this isn’t your grandpa’s China. If China intervenes, we lose. If China stays out, we probably win. Last time, China came in when we got too close to its border. We’d have to expect a similar situation this time, and either have to restrain ourselves or prepare to place all our gains at risk–because this time, China would not leave that border irritant as a future threat.

Notice the key factor? Homefield advantage. The farther from US territory we deploy, the more we must rely upon nearby allies and their willingness to participate, if in no other way than permitting overflight. It gets very complicated. To defend Finland, for example, we could likely not overfly Sweden–but the Russians might, and one could expect the Swedes to resist them. Bases would be in Norway or Germany, most likely. How would we land there? Could we get sea transport across the Baltic in wartime? How would Norway play a role, it having a border with both Finland and Russia? None of these questions exist if we are defending, say, Florida. Or invading Cuba, though I’m pretty sure even our leaders are not that stupid.

Then there’s the conventional-followed-by-eternal-guerrilla-warfare version, like Iraq II and Afghanistan. Defense contractors love these, because they chew up a steady flow of spendy equipment and ammunition that must be replaced; for them, it’s like milking a cow. For militaries and taxpayers, it is like being sucked on by dozens of leeches. Fatigue sets in. Everyone gets some combat experience, but the cost of turning a soldier into a survivor changes him or her forever. For the next fifty years, society must reap that result. If we intervened in Syria, it is probable we would face this sort of war: we could crush the Syrian conventional military, most likely, but eventually both sides would agree on wanting us out, and we’d end up fighting the people we just helped. It happened in Afghanistan, when we failed to look at the Soviet experience there.

Okay. So what is really wrong with “Can we win a war with Russia?” Let’s count the ways:

  • It doesn’t specify the intensity of the war. Nuclear? Conventional? Chemical? Might it require full national mobilization, as if that were even plausible today?
  • It doesn’t specify the location of the war, nor how one imagines it might be confined there. A war against Liechtenstein can probably be confined to Liechtenstein. Russia spans something like half the time zones on earth. Sarah Palin can see it from Wasilla.
  • It doesn’t specify the aims of the war, nor how one proposes to hold onto those once achieved, when we live happen to live here and they live there.
  • It probably doesn’t even know the basic geography. Hint: if you can’t name two of Ukraine’s non-Russian neighbors without effort, or refuse to consult a map, your opinion is based on nothing because you don’t even know where the flashpoint is.

Ah, some might say, but all our soldiers are heroes, and ours is the greatest, strongest, toughest, most fantastic military on Earth! The only reason we don’t conquer the world is because we are also the noblest! We can beat anyone!

Okay. You’re not going to like this, but I guess you need to hear it.

  • Some of our soldiers rape each other and torture enemy captives. That’s not heroic. It’s just a function of the evil in mankind that comes out when mankind has power. We are human, and war brings out both nobility and evil.
  • Even imagining ours is a mighty military, there isn’t that much of it. If you think it could conquer China as it is, then you need to go to rehab. We could destroy China, at the cost of our own destruction, but we can’t conquer it.
  • No, the only reason we don’t conquer the world is because not only can we not, it would be stupid of us. If we thought it were advantageous, and we could, we would. It isn’t and we can’t. It’s beyond our interests and capacity.
  • If we can beat anyone, why are we leaving Iraq and Afghanistan with stalemates and propped-up governments that will not long survive the removal of the props? Why didn’t they just fall on their knees and praise Allah that they would now have democracy, which guarantees earthly paradise?

The reality is that our military is not all-powerful, nor always noble. It’s composed of real men and women, led by the same. It can be sent into unrealistic situations by dumb politicians. Its leaders, who do know which countries border Ukraine, can make mistakes. Our military is formidable, but before we commit it to war and put it at risk, we need to understand a given situation and have attainable goals. “Well, we had to do something” is not understanding, nor is it a goal.

So. With that in mind, now that I’ve told you that most of you have no idea what you’re talking about when you contemplate intervention in Ukraine, or what it would mean to just invade North Korea and make Kim get a decent haircut, how do you learn what you’re talking about? How do you educate your opinion?

  • Get a map, and look at some population figures. How big is the population of each country? Population isn’t a perfect guide to strength, but quantity does have a quality all its own.
  • Figure out what most of the people involved probably want. Most Iraqis didn’t want an American puppet government. They would rather have an Iraqi government, even a bad one.
  • Of countries involved, assess their stomach for conflict and how it might affect their interests. How badly do most Ukrainians even want to be independent of Russia? Would Belarus care? Would German troops, or Polish, dare join in, given that it wouldn’t be either’s first time in Russian memory, and the ghosts that would stir? Would either country even consider it? What of Turkey, a NATO ally with two Russian frontiers, one land (in effect…unless you believe Georgia could really stand in the way) and one sea? (Sea is a frontier in modern warfare. Oh, how it is. And the air is the eternal frontier of every theater of war.)
  • Ask what the participants would have to gain. Sometimes it’s popular approval, such as the historic motivation for Russia to feel protective of Serbia. Sometimes it’s resources. Sometimes it’s ‘fight them here now or fight them later on our own ground.’ Sometimes it’s an American bribe, or the fear of American commercial wrath.
  • Get an idea of relative military strengths available to all potential participants. The whole Russian military, which must watch the single longest land border of any nation on earth, can’t go. How much of it can? How quickly could reserves be mobilized?
  • How sane are the leaders? If you’re dealing with Kim, of the People’s Democratic Republic of Korea, well, is it sane to rattle the nuclear saber every time one wants a little attention? What of leaders who don’t care how many of their own people they lose? Not everyone thinks the way we expect our own leaders to think.

When you examine all those factors, you educate your opinion. About Iran, Ukraine, Finland, Korea, anywhere.

And when you do, you understand that the question is never as simple as “Can we win a war with Russia?”

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Asatru: the reality

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This post addresses religion as well as a social issue. If religion is not your cup of tea, then it may not be your favorite post on the ‘Lancer. For those who stick around to the end, you will see why I had to write it.

On Sunday, April 13, 2014, a rabid anti-Semite from Missouri named Frazier Glenn Cross allegedly committed lethal violence at a Jewish Community Center and a Jewish assisted living home in Kansas City, Kansas. Reminding us that bigots usually aren’t too bright, the killer couldn’t even commit a gutless hate crime against defenseless people according to intentions. So happens that the three murder victims were all Christians.

That’s kind of like if Cliven Bundy had fired on the BLM, but through poor aim, killed a couple of sagebrush and a Steller’s jay.

That was bad enough. Then CNN got into the act, focusing on Cross’s ties to the Ku Klux Klan, the ‘White Patriot Party,’ and Odinism. Odinism might best be described as a subset of Asatru, the modern incarnation of the pre-Christian heathen beliefs of the ancient Germanic peoples (Norse, Goths, Suevii, etc.). I happen to be Asatru, so that randomly flung grenade sent shrapnel my direction, and I didn’t like it. It was careless and ignorant–but I know why it happened. The primary reason, which is that CNN is sloppy, lousy and sensationalistic, is becoming evident enough to most people that I don’t see a need to belabor that.

Some ass was chewed, and CNN presented another viewpoint–without, of course, demonstrating integrity by openly admitting that it had thrown a grenade blindfolded. This piece was by an Asatruar, and it presented an extended version of what I call the Standard Heathen ‘We Aren’t Nazis or Racists’ Disclaimer. You will find it on nearly every webpage associated with Asatru. You even get it from some representatives of some Asatru groups whether you ask about it or not, as one of their first points of description/explanation. When it is presented pre-emptively, one may fairly say they are touchy about it. It seems to anticipate the first question as: “Are you Nazis?”

Maybe that usually is the first question. I don’t know. No one ever asks me if I’m a Nazi.

Why would they be so touchy? Partly because of stuff like this CNN business. You might be touchy too, firing off pre-emptive disclaimers, if verbally incontinent and factually challenged news organizations periodically did stuff like this to your religion.

But its journalistic and ethical bankruptcy is not the only reason CNN conflated Odinism with racism; that simply made it possible. Nor did they do it simply because we are presumed weird, non-mainstream, fair game for such things–true as that may happen to be in a theocratic nation where the theo- in question is not our own.

Partly it was because there’s a grain of truth in there. Not enough to justify the way the article put it, but one that we must address. We cannot say we have addressed it until we confront it. We cannot confront it until we admit it.

Before we talk about what Asatru is not, let’s talk about what–for most of its adherents, including all of those who were paying attention when they read the ancient materials–Asatru is. The term means ‘true to the gods,’ as in, the Aesir (Odin, Thor, etc.). However, it’s not precise that way, because the Vanir (Frey, Freyja, etc.) are also revered by most Asatruar. There are people who self-identify as Vanatru, but that splits a hair. There is nothing fundamentally racist about Odinism, which is not to say an Odinist cannot also be a racist. A few are. Some keep it on the down low. It speaks well for us as a movement that they need to keep it there, but not well enough to satisfy me.

For most of its professing believers, Asatru is not just loyalty to the ancient gods. It also means a code of conduct based upon nine Noble Virtues derived from ancient lore: courage, truth, honor, fidelity, discipline, hospitality, industriousness, self-reliance, perseverance. A failure in any of those areas is shameful for any Asatruar (adherent).

Asatruar (it’s also the plural term) greatly esteem the ability to give and keep an oath. Politically, we lean right/libertarian on average, with a high emphasis upon personal responsibility. If an observant Asatruar fairly owes you money, you won’t have to send a collection agent after him or her. S/he will see to it that his or her obligations are met, or stand accountable. We have no salvation from the consequences of wrongs we do, save that granted by those wronged (and it isn’t recompense until the victim or his/her kin say it is). Asatru is not a pacifist belief system; we believe there are times when one must fight, and that one should do so with valor and ferocity. I dislike that I even need to mention that cowardly murders, such as those of innocent people at community centers and old folks’ homes, are diametrically opposed to Asatru values. A more Asatru behavior would have been to guard such places, and gun this murderer down in his tracks at the first sign he demonstrated a threat. And your typical Asatruar would own the firepower and will to do just that. Most Asatruar would have tackled him even unarmed, and if they died doing so, reckoned that an admirable end.

Let’s relate this to the hate criminal in Kansas City. As we reckon it, he was not only an idiot, but a coward, and he deprived innocent people of life. No amount of prayer will do him a damn bit of good. If the world operated according to our values, he would be outlawed, meaning that he could legally be killed as a public service. By anyone. He would owe weregild (compensation) to the kin of his victims, if they would accept it, which they would not need to do. His status is one of odium, not Odinism.

I often wish you, society, would let us do it that way.

Asatru is not an easy path, but it satisfies those of us who follow it, and helps guide us toward right conduct. Such conduct makes us outstanding friends, partners, hosts, guests, neighbors, business contacts, employees and warriors. It is completely egalitarian, recognizing no gender bias. We do not proselytize, so you will never find Asatruar at your door handing out tracts about Thor. I suppose we have some homophobes, but most of us don’t care who you boink.

The Asatru movement has several large, loosely-knit organizations that have zero say in the way local Asatruar handle their business, either individually or in groups. It could not be any other way. We don’t boss around easily, especially when one bears in mind that we don’t turn the other cheek. Many Asatruar are firearms or blade enthusiasts. Military service is an esteemed career among us. If oath-keeping and courage lead us to a grave, we esteem that a worthy way to die. Just as we are good friends, we make bad enemies, and a threat from an Asatruar is good enough reason to make plans to defend oneself. We are a fierce people, without apologies for that.

Asatru and Wicca (a far more numerous neo-pagan belief system, of which more people have heard) differ markedly. Many Asatruar heap scorn upon Wicca, though many also found their way to Asatru through Wicca. As for the greater neo-pagan movement, the best capsule summary of Asatru I’ve ever read is that we are ‘the Klingons of neo-paganism.’ Far nearer the truth than not, even though most Asatruar dislike the label ‘pagan,’ preferring ‘heathen.’ I’m not touchy about it, but most are.

On race, the subject brought to the fore by this event and its perpetrator, we vary. This variance of belief is generally accepted with comfortable mingling. For the most part, that is a good thing, because we don’t have very many real racists, let alone racial supremacists. However, in one area, it exposes a serious problem within Asatru. I’m going to talk candidly about it, and it’s going to offend and/or alienate some people.

Some will be mad because they know I’m right, but am saying the thing we aren’t supposed to say, making public an issue that most prefer to paper over. In my view, Asatruar need to face facts and take a stand themselves, for the sake of honor, truth and courage.

Some will be mad because I will have explicitly taken a stand against them. They need to build a large fire and leap in, because they are the members of the hate groups who call themselves Asatru. I am their enemy. I refuse to make nice, or to pretend comradeship I don’t feel.

We might assign Asatruar ‘wings,’ resembling political divides, for the sake of discussion and understanding. The primary questions that divide us involve views on ancestry and racialism. For purposes of this discussion, please use this definition of racialism: the notion that ethnic heritage is worthy of note, or can ever play a valid role. I would define racism as the notion that ethnic heritage is a grounds for exclusion, discrimination or antipathy in any form. I would define racial supremacism as racism with the added component of assumed superiority.

Far left: essentially Norse Wicca, which is to say, Wicca with Norse overtones. This view rejects racialism. There is minimal consideration of the Eddas and examples from the sagas, or the differences between Nordic and other pre-Christian pagan beliefs. Norse Wicca tends to be near-standard Wicca with Germanic deity names. I won’t go so far as to say they are not Asatru, but I suspect the Norse Wiccans would decline the label. Let’s say that if they adopt the label at all, their version minimally resembles mine, except in the ways that most life-affirming religions resemble each other.

Moderate left: universalism. Universalist Asatruar also reject the notion that race or heritage play any role in being Asatru. So far as I am aware, neither the Eddas nor the historical record say anything directly about race or heritage as they relate to religion, so they are on firm ground. In the first place, the universalists would point out, the Germanic peoples got around a lot; other peoples also got around to them. In the second, deeds and conduct matter far more. In the third, short of a mandatory genealogical study, we can’t really know anyway. (One could have great hilarity compiling and publishing genealogies on known racist leaders, considering that the typical ‘white’ American is probably about 10% nonwhite.) Anyone can get in, and deeds and conduct are all that pertain.

Center: tribalism. Tribalist Asatruar, like myself, consider it fairly natural that Germanic ancestry is a draw to the belief system (as best we understand it today) of one’s ancestors. The best I can describe this, from my own experience, is that it felt like coming home to what and who I was. However, a tribalist does not concern him/herself much, if at all, with whether others profess or possess Germanic roots. Put another way, if someone shows up, and feels truly drawn to Asatru ways, and lives an Asatru lifestyle, we reckon that common ground. If they ain’t blood kin, we can adopt them as such, strengthening us. Just because I feel drawn this direction by my own roots doesn’t mean I can assess anyone else’s commitment, or how they came to it, except in terms of how their actions demonstrate it. This is slightly racialist, but only on a personal level.

Moderate right: folkish. Folkish Asatru teaches as a core tenet that Germanic peoples are descendants of their ancient gods. However, that does not mean that folkish groups make a habit of inquiring into one’s heritage, or that they consider themselves superior to any other culture. The most similar (if not precisely analogous) examples would be some Native American belief systems, or Judaism. Folkish Asatruar respect such beliefs, and do not place themselves above or below any such group. In fact, if you took a poll of folkish Asatruar, you’d probably find that many admire Israel’s warrior spirit and strongly support Native Americans’ right not to have their culture strip-mined by outsiders. The Noble Virtues matter greatly to folkish Asatruar, but they would at least wonder why someone with zero discernible Germanic heritage might be drawn to Asatru. It’s fair to call that racialist. If grounds for exclusion, it is racist.

Far right: basically, Team Adolf. There is an extremist wing calling itself Asatru that is avowedly racist. Such groups are not necessarily violent, but for me, the key breaking point is that their doors are flatly barred to non-whites, and that many are racial supremacists. Many sympathize with Nazism, which means they favor a viewpoint that committed mass murder of many innocent people. Many, probably most, are Holocaust deniers, which means they are idiots concerning the historical record. Team Adolf is an embarrassment to respectable Asatruar at the very least–you can infer that from The Disclaimer. At mainstream gatherings, if Team Adolf shows up, it is usually sensible enough to keep its real beliefs toned down. Put another way, if a bunch of assholes start singing the Horst Wessel Song at a mainstream Althing, they’ll be squelched (I know of one instance where this actually occurred). A lot of Team Adolf is in jail, and/or joined Team Adolf there. That usually results in some symbols.

So let’s talk about symbols. The Nazis misappropriated a number of honorable and venerable Germanic emblems, making them hateful in most people’s eyes. There’s a lot of debate among Asatruar about symbols. I can tell you where I stand: I believe that we must reject and disfellowship racists and hate groups, which begins by calling them out in noisy and vulgar fashion. I believe we must not legitimize such groups in any way. I believe that the Holocaust was the ultimate dishonorable action, and that it is honorable and right for us to show respect for the many innocent people dead, brutally mistreated, robbed, tortured and otherwise subjected to unwarranted cruelty–not so much because we’re Asatru, but because we’re decent human beings with a sense of justice and compassion.

One way to show that respect is to set aside the swastika. We don’t have to concede that a very ancient good luck symbol is now fundamentally evil; I for one will not concede that, not least because it concedes a victory to Nazis, who will get nothing from me that they’d like. We should, however, abjure its display and use in public or private. This serves to nail our colors to the mast, emphasizing our hostility to the Nazi movement and its modern illegitimate spawn. I believe that, while no one has the right to demand this of us, they shouldn’t need to; we should do it for our own reasons and by choice, because it’s the right thing. I also believe that, with this done, we have the moral right to reclaim and use other symbols that were perverted in the name of evil, provided we do so in honorable causes and with consideration and common sense. I think it would be a stupid overreaction to remove the S-rune from the Elder Futhark, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to think it’s cool to tattoo two of them side by side on one’s body. Rights must be balanced with consideration and compassion in their exercise, if that exercise is to be thought honorable.

So. Mainstream modern Asatru is not racist, though some aspects have racialist overtones to one degree or another, not unlike some other groups. The racists are the fringe. But our movement has a problem. And if bringing this up makes some people angry, maybe they should ask themselves why.

Here’s the problem: we don’t always draw the line firmly enough, take the right stand. I have seen a desire to avoid making waves, or a reluctance to exclude, taken too far in many Asatru situations. This can take the form of tolerating the presence of Team Adolf, as long as it behaves (in essence, lies about itself by omission). Part of the logic probably stems from the strong individualism of Asatruar, and our nonjudgmental tendency concerning professed belief (and one that has positive sides, which is how universalist, tribalist and folkish Asatruar can find common spiritual ground). Part of it is just fear of confrontation. There may be other motivations I don’t understand, but I don’t really care what those are. There are no valid excuses.

To me, non-confrontation and tolerance toward evil serve to sweep the problem under the rug, where it is never disposed of. That’s just not good enough. Where it exists, tolerance of Team Adolf harms our movement. It lends a fig leaf of respectability to those who have forfeited all respect. It leads to stuff like this CNN article, which offends me with its ignorance, but we would have a stronger foundation against such ignorance if we did our rightful part by slamming the door in Team Adolf’s face at every turn. Why does the Southern Poverty Law Center keep suggesting that the smoke of racism, that some associate with Asatru, has its source in a small but actual fire? Because the fire does exist. And it exists because we do not hose it down with cold water, as noisily and fiercely as we can arrange. We post The Disclaimer, but we do not all refuse every association with members of Team Adolf.

There’s another reason to be vocal, a personal one. I’m the one who often points out that if other religions do not want to be lumped in with the scum who pollute their belief systems, they need to step forward and be vocal in that opposition. Christians should shun and condemn the late Fred Phelps’ picketing club, for example (and most do). Muslims should not make nice with extremists who murder (and I think most do not). Every group has low-lifes who wave its flag and do wrong. I can’t tell others they ought to take out their own trash unless I’m willing to help haul ours.

Take for example the pedophile priest revelations within the Roman Catholic Church. The pedophiles themselves were disturbing enough; what compounded the issue was that the church hierarchy warehoused pedophiles rather than defrock them and turn them over to the police. If your religion has an internal problem that some of your people aren’t taking seriously enough, and your religion matters to you, you will stand up. And you won’t be intimidated by big-name religious leaders. If a Catholic, for example, you’d make your point to your clergy hierarchy. And if they tried to pressure you to silence, you’d refuse. If they hinted at consequences, you’d tell them to bring it on. You either live by your principles or not. Sometimes leaders need to be clocked on the head and dragged back to their principles.

Was I eager to write a post calling out some Asatruar (whom I would otherwise respect) for lack of action? Of course not. I’m no social activist. Am I glad that this post will stay with me, and make it problematic for me to fit into some Asatru social circles? Surely not–but going-along-to-get-along, refusal to make waves, legitimization through silence, is less bearable to me than solitude. If not a form of outright enablement, at the very least it fails to answer the bell for action.

To the degree that it associates itself with Asatru, Team Adolf makes itself our problem, because the world notices. The Disclaimer is not adequate. We must reject Team Adolf, refuse kinship with it, and cuss it up and down the floor. We must stop looking the other way. The standard disclaimers aren’t good enough.

One of my greatest pet peeves is people who don’t believe their own philosophy. Do I really believe in courage, truth, honor, fidelity, discipline, hospitality, industriousness, self-reliance, perseverance?

Either I do or I don’t, and sometimes living our beliefs means we have to fight, or that we may pay a price.

And now you see why I had to do it.

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My new Idaho State Song

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Idaho’s state song is ‘Here We have Idaho.’ It’s not very stirring, and suffers from a tune best suited to a third grade tonette band, but it’s what we’ve got. Here are the lyrics:

HERE WE HAVE IDAHO

  • You’ve heard of the wonders our land does possess,
  • Its beautiful valleys and hills.
  • The majestic forests where nature abounds,
  • We love every nook and rill

CHORUS

  • And here we have Idaho,
  • Winning her way to fame.
  • Silver and gold in the sunlight blaze,
  • And romance lies in her name.
  • Singing, we’re singing of you,
  • Ah, proudly too. All our lives thru,
  • We’ll go singing, singing of you,
  • Singing of Idaho.

Great. Except that it doesn’t fully capture the practical realities of Idaho life. But happily, Idaho, I’m here for you with my own version. Dear reader, if you would like to sing with me in unison, here is the tune:

STRUGGLING IN IDAHO

  • You’ve heard of call centers our land does possess,
  • Its gigantic pawnshops and bills.
  • The majestic ballfield where football abounds,
  • We used to have sugar mills

CHORUS

  • And here we have Idaho,
  • Hocking her guns to live.
  • Silver and gold shops on every block,
  • But charities nag you to give.
  • Searching, we’re searching for jobs,
  • At minimum wage. Fed minimum wage,
  • I’ll be hungry, but never a jerk,
  • Struggling in Idaho.

Lyrics © 2014 J.K. Kelley

Book reviews, Scumbag studies, Social comment

Scumbag studies: Major Vidkun Quisling

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I’m proud to announce a new category for one of my favorite topics: Scumbag Studies.

Vidkun Quisling so betrayed Norway during World War II, from the Norwegian perspective, that a number of things happened:

  • His Nasjonal Samling (NS, meaning ‘National Union’) party had cooties even when it was the only permitted party in the country. Few joined it willingly, and many shunned it no matter the consequences. Put another way, it couldn’t even put the puck into an empty net.
  • Part of that was because it was so clearly identified with the Nazi invaders, though it predated them. In spite of Adolf’s notions of Nordic brotherhood, Norwegians preferred not to be invaded by anybody, much less ordered around by outsiders.
  • Part was just that Quisling was about as popular in Norway as arthritis, even before the war. As you may imagine, his behavior during the war lowered his approval rating to one notch under ‘some guy named Sverre from Lokisvik who doesn’t get out a lot.’
  • His very name became nouned and verbed into a synonym for sordid collaboration and treason with a hated enemy invader. It remains so to this day.
  • Not even the Nazis trusted him with any real power, listened much to him, or did anything but string him along and brush him aside when stuff got real.
  • His countrypeople, not known for brutal judicial punishments, stood him against a wall after the war and shot him.

At which point, given all of the above, his last thoughts may well have been: Ja, ja…det gikk jo til helvete. (Loosely translated: “Well, that definitely sucked.” Thanks to Gjermund Higraff for supplying the suitable Norwegian rendering.)

To understand Quisling, I believe one must understand Norway. It is one of the most rugged countries on Earth, very narrow in many places between the Swedish or Finnish border and the North or Norwegian Seas. Its lowest point has a latitude about as far north as Juneau, Alaska, Churchill, Manitoba, or the very northern tip of Scotland. Its mainland’s northernmost point is farther north than about a third of Greenland, well north of Iqaluit (Baffin Island, Nunavut), and nearly as far north as Barrow, Alaska. From a topography and form standpoint, it bears some resemblance to Chile. At one spot, a Norwegian Sea fjord extends inland to within two miles of the Swedish border.

These days they have oil, but in the 1940s, the Norwegians mainly had fishing, some timber. A great percentage of Norwegian travel was by coastal watercraft, still quite common today. Norway is just not that easy to get around. It wasn’t very populous (still isn’t), with a minimal standing army (like now). Building and maintaining roads is challenging enough in good weather, and for part of the year, Norway does not have gentle weather.

Norway became independent of Sweden in 1905, having been owned by Sweden or Denmark for centuries. Consider that: when Adolf invaded it in 1940, Norwegian independent nationalism was a relatively recent phenomenon. War left Norway alone in WWI, but for WWII it was going to be another story. Germany’s main year-round ice-free source of quality iron ore was the mines in northern Sweden near Gällivare. The easiest mode of transport was for the Swedes to ship the ore overland to the Norwegian port of Narvik, then south by sea. Without that iron ore, the German war effort was screwed. Once war broke out, the Allies would be certain to run great risks to interdict this supply, and the Germans would go to great lengths to protect it. Whether Norwegians like it or not–and they did not–Norway was going to find itself caught up in WWII.

This was Quisling’s country, and he was at heart an ardent if deluded Norwegian patriot. He was a tall, dour, anti-social man not given to small talk; he was great at math, and may perhaps have had Asperger’s. He would have been first one voted off the island in Survivor. His military career might have gone better but for the length of time he spent on missions to the Soviet Union, mostly on humanitarian work. The early Soviet Union found creative ways to starve many of its people despite some of the best farmland in Europe, and this didn’t endear the socialist model to Quisling. One can see why.

He returned to Norway in 1929 under somewhat of a cloud, bringing a big art collection he’d bought on the cheap. He envisioned a more militarized Norway, hewing toward fundamentalist Lutheran values, very hostile to organized labor and anything that might make Norway lean toward or imitate the USSR. By the standards of his day, he was a rock-ribbed nationalist and socio-political conservative. He authored a rather odd philosophy called Universism, which as near as I can tell, asserted nothing profound. (In more recent times, a group of freethinkers seems to have gotten this title on sale at a thrift store, and is now using it to describe a philosophy they can’t seem to summarize with any brevity.)

Not long after he got home, Quisling left the Norwegian Army to enter politics. It only took him about four years to rise to Minister of Defense, then alienate most of Norway. The population at large rejected not only Quisling, but many of his more extreme ideas. He formed a fringe party, which became the aforementioned NS, with himself as Fører. To mainstream Norway, especially with Hitler’s rise to absolute power in Germany right around that time, the NS looked and sounded a lot like a Norwegian variant of Nazism. It couldn’t get a single candidate elected to the Storting (Parliament), and Quisling remained a fringe character. When he started cozying up to the Nazis, and growing increasingly anti-Jewish in his rhetoric, Norwegians figured they’d read Quisling correctly. By the outbreak of war in 1939, he’d have had trouble getting elected dogcatcher. He was political poison.

One wonders: with so few Jews in Norway, how the hell did Quisling find a reason to become an anti-Semite? Where did he manage to find some Semites to be anti-? Well, turns out that he got ripped off trying to sell some of his art in the US through his brother, and he believed that the people who ripped him off were Jewish (I haven’t verified whether they were). So it became something of a personal thing, but the issue originated outside Norway–he had to hunt up some Semites elsewhere. Of course, once he got the racist bee in his bonnet, his mind could come up with Jewish/leftist/atheist dangers anywhere it wanted to see them. In my view, the warped aspect of this thinking is that he could somehow conclude that the Nazi outcome had any chance of being better than, say, the rise of a strong left/labor movement.

In 1940, before the British and French could get saddled up to invade Norway, the Germans struck first. The Anglo-Franco-Polish force originally designated to help Finland (but which dawdled all winter until the Finns had to sue for peace), but then was intended for use invading Norway, now showed up to help the Norwegians. The Allied troops fought bravely, but did not change the ultimate outcome very much. Most of Norway’s real help came from its own army, which hadn’t even been mobilized and was taken by surprise in that state, but nonetheless resisted for sixty-two days–something France would not manage, despite more and better tanks than Germany. The Germans paid a price, though, losing the heavy cruiser Blucher to land-based torpedoes in the Oslofjord. That pissed the Germans off, as Germany didn’t have many capital ships.

Early in the invasion, Quisling had an Alexander Haig moment (“I’m in control here…”), got onto the airwaves, and started telling the Norwegian armed forces to go home. He had no authority to do that. He assumed that he would now, as Fører, recondition Norway into the model Nazi ally and regain its domestic independence. He spent the whole war trying to do that, with the Germans promising him more independence and reneging most of the time on the grounds that Quisling couldn’t deliver the goods. He could not inspire Norwegians to accept the end of their multiparty constitutional monarchy and learn to love being good worker bees within the Greater Nazi Area, moving iron ore and catching fish. Several hundred thousand German troops occupied Norway throughout the war, which is extraordinary considering the Norwegian wartime population of about three million. Imagine one German to guard every six Norwegian men, women and children.

While the Germans grudgingly installed Quisling as a puppet leader (setting aside the gradual details leading up to that stage) almost two years after they took charge, the real power remained with Nazi German Reichskommissar Josef Terboven, who preferred to work with more reliable, less scrupulous domestic traitors (notably Jonas Lie). For all his associations and unpopularity, Quisling showed minimal will to brutalize Norwegians, or to extend foreign power over them. His entire concept was to influence Norway to regain its domestic if not foreign policy independence. Treasonous? Uh, hello. You’re saying we should work our way into the status of Axis minor power, and forsake our legitimate government and monarchy for that imposed by our invaders? Your treasoning is flawed.

The Swedish press drove both Quisling and Terboven nuts, because the Swedes were reporting the truth about the occupation/collaboration police state in Norway, and nothing offended Nazis and their sympathizers like accurate portrayal of their deeds. (Today they would be on Twitter wailing about “Fake news!”) A great many Norwegian refugees fled to Sweden during the war, with stories to tell. Nazis never did like a press they could not control. But there were worse collaborators than Quisling in World War II, notably Pétain, Chautemps, Laval, and Darlan of France, Degrelle of Belgium, and Kaminski and Vlasov of the Soviet Union. All those had far bloodier hands than Vidkun Quisling, and in most cases far more sordid motivations.

When the war ended, Norway was one of the last large areas to be liberated. The government returned from exile, and high on the to-do list was the arrest of collaborators. Quisling never seems to have considered flight abroad, which he might have managed with some effort. This is where it starts to get ugly in a different way. Quisling’s confinement was debilitating, and he wasn’t allowed to peruse all the evidence that would be used against him in court. By the time trial came along, he was in questionable condition to defend himself, deprived of the necessary means. Judicial conduct was not to a high standard. All that may or may not have been legal under the Norwegian system–I don’t recall having ever been admitted to the Norwegian bar–but it does brush against the reasonable definition of ‘show trial.’ Not as bad in some ways as the Rosenberg case in my own country, but worse in others. Emotions were high, and when that is the case, jurisprudence bends and breaks.

It’s dumb, though, because the entire nation had seen Quisling commit treason. Might as well make the whole trial squeaky-clean-fair, since it’s not as if he had much chance of acquittal. His name already the accepted term for ‘traitor’ or ‘collaborationist,’ a Norwegian firing squad shot Quisling to death on 24 October 1945. The Fører claimed to the end that he was innocent, and in his mind, he probably was.

Had Vidkun Quisling reported for duty with the Norwegian Army and become a resistance leader, he might today be a revered Norwegian hero in the mold of Gunnar Sønsteby, Knut Haukelid, Otto Ruge, or King Haakon VII himself.

Then again, in his mind, he’d only wanted the best all along for a country he loved. He just forgot about the part that says: ‘Your country already has a legitimate government, and the electorate has rejected you, and the patriotic act is to accept that.’

He also forgot about the key proviso that says: ‘If a brutal dictatorship invades us, and you side with it, when we catch up with you, good intentions are not going to cut it.’

Homeownership, Social comment, Technology

My ant crack dealership

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Bugs are so valuable to the ecosystem we live in. Wipe out a vector of that ecosystem, and the damage ripples through the rest of it. If I weren’t married, I would leave yellowjacket nests alone outside my house, and spider webs alone inside it.

Yet even with my wife absent from the home, there’s no way I am going to tolerate ants in the house. No way. None. I generally support environmental protection, but it’s not as if I feel the need to show it off by being as conspicuously crunchy/green/Whole Paycheck/tilth/organic/etc. as possible. And in any case, that’s not going to change my approach to pest control. If you see a few ants, there are more, many more. If I thought it would work best, without harming the interior health environment of the home, I’d have zero compunction about putting down the insect equivalent of heavy nerve gas, strychnine, or whatever.

For millennials, who of late find themselves much maligned by the very generation who raised them and made the rules for them, I have a fun suggestion. Next time a middle-aged person tries to tell you that everything was better back when, that the old ways and old everything are the best, and that everything now officially sucks (including, by implication, your generation), ask them this:

“Okay, sir/ma’am. I’ll play. So, in 1970, when you had ants in your house and wanted to find the best way to kill them, you would not have preferred a five-minute online search? It was better, right, when you had to go to a library, or hunt up some consumer magazine, or ask your neighbor Vern, and do trial and error while the ants multiplied to invade your entire house? Just so I understand you here, sir/ma’am? Or, as an alternative, are you saying you liked ants in your kitchen just fine, and that it was better that way?”

They’ll harrumph. It’s all they can do. Because in reality, they just want a simpler time in the ways they liked, while continuing to use their Keurigs and research their osteoporosis on the Internet. They only want back the old parts everyone liked, such as cheap gasoline and pensions. I’m not even an old person yet and I am already making plans to call my peers out on hypocrisies to my dying day. (It helps to plan ahead.)

As for me, I’d like cheap gas and pensions back too, but I like even more the fact that I can find the answer to a pressing problem in a short time. Is it always correct? No. Is it a higher-percentage shot than spending the afternoon trying to track Vern down, going from store to store, wasting money on stuff that will not work, and ruining my day? Well, you tell me.

In this case, I went on a net.mosey for ant killers. I found lots of granola vegan non-toxic cruelty-free organic hippie home ingredient methods. Some of them may work very well in some situations for some people. I have never had any such method work for me on much of anything, which is why I tune most of those out. In this case, I found a product called Terro, which isn’t quite non-toxic, but isn’t exactly dioxin either.

Of course, it had a number of product reviews.

Of course, any cretin can post on the Internet, thus any given review might be wrong.

Of course, 933 product reviews does represent at least some sort of a sample base.

Of Terro’s 933 reviews, 750 gave it five stars.

Well, again, I’m not much of a fundamental believer in group opinion or the wisdom of the public. In fact, when I find myself in a majority, I’m tempted to ask myself what I might have overlooked. Even so, I started reading the reviews. Most said some variant of: “I put down these traps, and more ants than I had any idea were in my house swarmed all over them. Two days later there was not a single living ant.”

It didn’t take that many of those to get my attention.

 

Terro is some form of sugar glop–ant crack–mixed with borax. The ants hog it down, tell the other ants that the Ant Pizza Buffet is open, and take some samples back to the colony to share with others. One of those others is the queen, who gets waited on by the proletarian ants. Borax fatally injures the ants’ digestive systems (think of it like Taco Bell taken to its logical conclusion). When the queen dies, that’s disastrous for the colony, but in any case, it’s also disastrous for it when most of the regular ants croak.

Shortly after I put down the traps, long lines of little ants came pouring out of tiny openings in the wall, going crazy for the traps. Some died in the glop, like that kid in Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory. Some died before they got back to the colony, which I hope were taken back to be cannibalized and poison some more. Many, I presume, took ‘food’ back to the colony to poison it on my behalf. Some managed to drag little chunks of dirt into the glop, gods know how or why.

It wasn’t over yet. In fact, the little bastards just about cleaned out some of the traps. A week in, I had put down a second box of traps. More armadas sallied forth to scarf it up. Just when I’d think it was over, a bunch would discover a new trap that others had walked past for a week, and swarm on it.

Three weeks to the day after I first started slinging ant crack, and whatever the fates of individuals, it very much appears as if the colony has gone the fate of Carthage. My ant crackhouse can shut down. I have seen exactly two ants around the traps all day, and neither looked real lively.

Somewhere in the ground near my house is Ant Jonestown.

Terro delivers, if you’re patient. I would recommend Terroism as a potential solution to ant problems in the home. Just follow the rules for the conscientious Terroist:

  • Keep animals and kids out of it, obviously. Wouldn’t kill them, I’m told, but borax is not in the food aisles of your grocery store for a reason, and is not one of the four food groups. If you have cats, they may actually have to endure some temporary freedom restrictions.
  • Put down all the traps (six in my package). I had good luck with stringing them out along the ants’ path, so that even the hardiest who ranged farthest would be able to find some poison.
  • Resist the temptation to mess around with the traps once they’re down. The ants could be frightened off, and you want them pouring out to eat hearty. Think about your placement beforehand, and leave them alone thereafter.
  • Don’t spill the gunk on the floor, as I’m told it’s tough to scrub up. While you’re cutting off the ends to open the traps, I recommend leaning them against something, colored (cut) ends up. Make sure they don’t fall, or tip the wrong way when you’re emplacing them.
  • If you have to, use a second box of traps. I bought two the first time, in case that happened, and it was a wise move. Job ain’t done until there are no living ants in sight for a while.
  • To use these outside, I think you’d need a small, heavy cover to put over each trap. Otherwise, something else would probably get into it. They sell outdoor ones, though, so that’s covered.

Yeah, it took a while, but it beats having someone come and fill the house with tabun, or whatever the pest control people use. It was also much less expensive. I spent $30 and I destroyed a large, persistent ant colony. I bet the Bug Brigade doesn’t come out for $30. Plus, if I have a way to rely on my own sense and observation rather than a contractor, after many, many examples of shoddy work, apathy and arrogance from contractors, I’ll do that every time.

Book reviews, Scumbag studies, Social comment

Scumbag studies: my quest for SS-Sturmbannführer Alfred Helmut Naujocks

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Some people are fascinated by serial killers. Some seek out evidence of conspiracies. I’m fascinated by enigmatic scumbags. SS-Sturmbannführer (SS Major) Alfred Naujocks was one such.

In Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, William Shirer described Naujocks (pronounced ‘NAW-yokes’) as an ‘intellectual SS ruffian.’ I wouldn’t say that the ‘intellectual’ part is well supported by the record. Not that he was an idiot, but Naujocks wasn’t much of an idea guy. He did excel at carrying out dirty deeds when so tasked, and thought very well under pressure. He was daring, clever and ruthless. And of all the old Nazis who needed to answer for crimes, he is one of those who eluded justice. In fact, I still haven’t been able to learn that much about him.

The body of work on Naujocks begins with Shirer’s mentions of some of his deeds. It then proceeds to an affidavit he gave while in U.S. captivity in late 1945, presented at the Nuremberg trials. Naujocks himself escaped custody before he could face the tribunal. His trail went cold until 1960, at which time a journalist named Gunter Peis penned an autobiography called The Man Who Started the War. Here are the tantalizing lines from end of Chapter One, which tells of his surrender to U.S. troops:

He pulled his chair up to the table, sat down and began to think. Soon he was typing slowly, carefully. The story he wrote at length was fascinating, incredible and very detailed. It was also quite untrue.

What follows is the story that in 1945 would have hanged Alfred Naujocks.

Peis knew his storytelling work; that’s a lead that makes one want to believe, and to read on in any case. Here’s the problem: there’s no more reason to take this book at face value than there is to believe his entire Nuremberg affidavit. That’s not to say it’s all lies, just that it’s from a source with plenty of motive to lie. By 1960, as I understand it, Naujocks wasn’t in the best of health (he was born in 1911, so that would make him only 49), hadn’t been much of a success in business, and probably needed money. A lurid tale would sell better, one would think, and not many people were likely to come forward with authoritative knowledge to refute his account. Most of those who could have, one supposes, would have preferred to remain inconspicuous. The book may have been his last special operation, and surely his most self-serving.

In any case, we now know that he died in 1966 in Hamburg, where he had apparently lived unmolested. For years many had assumed he must have escaped to Spain or South America, as did many Nazi fugitives from justice, and there is now reasonable evidence now that he did not. He probably managed to lose himself in the postwar chaos and ocean of damaged or destroyed records that resulted from the bombing, invasion and final collapse of the Third Reich.

There are two other books on Naujocks. One is in German, and a very kind native speaker is reading and digesting it for me. I have an e-copy which I could feed with great effort to an online translator, but I hope that my Austrian friend will be able to point me toward the parts that answer questions. The other is not a book yet, but a manuscript by an English author, for which the agent has evidently not yet found a publisher. I wish he would self-publish it, or at least accept my offer of free and confidential proofreading, but neither seems forthcoming. Not knowing what it says, I have no way to evaluate its research or historiography.

What I have pieced together so far, and feel reasonably certain is true except where I label doubt, is this much:

Born in 1911 in Kiel, perhaps with some Baltic forebears (‘Naujocks’ originates from the Lithuanian surname ‘Naujokitis’), he joined the Nazi party in 1931 after being attacked by a left-wing gang. At that point, Hitler had not yet taken over full power in Germany. It didn’t take Naujocks long to make a name for himself as a thug. In 1934 he joined the SS-SD, the SS and Nazi party intelligence organization. He was involved in special operations in Czechoslovakia prior to its partition and absorption. He claims, unconvincingly, to have propagated the disinformation that triggered Stalin’s purges of his officer corps.

His autobiography’s title refers to the Gleiwitz (Polish: Gliwice) incident, a faked Polish attack on a border radio station just prior to (and meant as a pretext for) Hitler’s declaration of war on Poland in 1939. It is the event most notoriously associated with Naujocks, thus the one you would be most likely to see mishandled on a History Channel special (if they ever get tired of dippy reality shows about pawn shops and storage lockers). Later that year, he carried out the abduction of two British intelligence agents on Dutch soil, spiriting them back to Germany. Peis tells tales of Naujocks counterfeiting British currency and operating an espionage brothel in Berlin, which might be true. Naujocks worked for one of the most powerful and feared Nazis alive, SS-Obergruppenführer (SS General) Reinhard Heydrich, and stories differ as to how he managed to incur Heydrich’s personal wrath. Naujocks’ amusing story is that he made the mistake of listening in when Heydrich himself was using the brothel.

In any case, Heydrich was one of the worst possible people any German could piss off, which meant Naujocks was lucky not to be shot in the neck. Heydrich instead saw Naujocks kicked out of the SS-SD and sent to the Eastern Front with the 1st SS Panzer Division (Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler), one of the Waffen SS’ elite divisions. Wounded in action, he was sent back to Germany. In the meantime, a couple of daring Czechs had managed–at the cost of their lives and many others–to assassinate Heydrich, thus removing the practical obstacle to Naujocks’ re-employment with the SS-SD. He is implicated in murder/reprisals against the Belgian and Danish resistances in 1943-1944. With the writing on the wall for Hitler’s Thousand Year Reich, Naujocks surrendered or deserted to the Americans, gave the aforementioned affidavit, escaped, did whatever he did for twenty years besides sell his story to Peis, and died in 1966.

And I may soon know more. Or have reason to believe more. Because whatever the truth of Peis’ tale, there is little doubt that it would take minimal amendment to make his lead accurate: if the Allies had learned the full truth in 1945, they would have hanged Alfred Naujocks.

Book reviews, Epinions (reclaimed), Social comment

Recent re-read: George Orwell’s 1984

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He loved Big Brother.

Those are the final four words of 1984. When I first absorbed them, they hit me rather hard. It’s been thirty years, but it may as well have been yesterday.

I first read it in a very superficial manner in high school. It didn’t really hit me until the actual year 1984. In fact, on the first date referenced specifically by the main character (April 4, 1984), I may well have been reading it. It was a text for my modern European history survey in college, so a superficial reading would not do–especially for a course in my major.

This time, I was engrossed in Winston Smith’s long, lonely, forlorn struggle against a world of contradictory statements designed to systematically break down the faintest trace of humanity and individuality. Winston, a faceless bureaucrat, declares war against a society whose raison d’être is to possess his mind. The system intrudes constantly; it functions the same whether Winston consents, just passively lies there, or fights back. He twists viciously, flings off the grunting weight of indifferent, impersonal oppression, and decides that he has not really lived until he began to fight.

I’ve been there. In fact, that describes my upbringing.

Winston discovers allies, but hope as one might to the contrary, he confronts a system that handles rebels with an inexorable spirit-grinding mechanism. It is not enough that he die. It is not enough that he submit under duress. It is not enough that he confess to various low crimes. Nothing will suffice but utter submission of the essential self.

Been there too. That describes how the world feels to me in adulthood.

The pressure of conformity insinuates from every direction… not just against me, but against all. My fourth rereading of 1984 left me with the belief that its message grows more relevant every day. I wonder how it can be that our school systems do not ban it, as it is a threat to the conformity that society employs schools to inculcate.

  • “You have no privacy. Get over it.”
  • “It’s just a business decision; don’t take it personally.”
  • “If you don’t vote, you can’t complain.”
  • “Wear a Tommy Humdinger shirt. Be individual. Be unique.”
  • “Surely you don’t believe those fairy tales about a god and a cross.”
  • “Don’t be rude to telemarketers; they are just doing their jobs.”

“My self-confidence has soared since I got my breast implants.”
“If you want to get hired, you’ll wear a real suit.”
“You don’t understand; this drug replaces a chemical your brain doesn’t produce.”
“A computer on every desktop, running Microsoft software.”
“The nail that sticks up is hammered down.”
“Only ‘liberals’ truly understand the human condition.”

  • “It’s too wordy. If you can’t get the message across in ten words, forget it.”
  • “What do you mean, she’s black (/white/Jewish/Thai)? How could you do this to me?”
  • “Just ignore the bully. Names can never hurt you. Never throw the first punch.”
  • “I still need to lose ten more pounds.”
  • “You don’t want to have children? You’re sick!”
  • “Oh, sure, you’re bisexual. We all were too, before we really confronted our sexuality.”

“Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.”
“It’s dirty down there.”
“If you don’t like this country, why don’t you just leave?”
“If you value your Temple Recommend, you’ll do as Elder Sanctimoni and I tell you.”
“You know what the neighbors would say.”
“Nice girls don’t use those words.”

  • “So, John…your mother tells me you haven’t taken communion for two years.”
  • “Ever have those days when you just don’t feel ‘fresh and feminine’?”
  • “Drive the sporty new Acura Spatula LX!”
  • “All my friends listen to Rage Against the Machine, so I will too.”
  • “If you don’t stand up during the national anthem, you’re a Commie.”
  • “Everyone has a car. You have to have a car.”

“How could anyone possibly survive without cable TV?”
“So just throw the junk mail away if you don’t like it.”
“Everyone else is cooperating with us.”
“You, young lady, look like some kind of whore.”
“I watched the Super Bowl just for the commercials.”
“The two-party system may be flawed but it’s still the best ever designed.”

This sort of conformist rhetoric pummels us daily, and it is what comes to my mind when I read the propaganda presented by the authorities of Winston’s IngSoc overlords. I do not believe that a page of the book goes by without a statement that will come as a body blow to anyone who believes in freedom of writing, speech and thought. It does not matter what form those freedoms take for you. Orwell depicts a world in which they are gone.

When Winston loves Big Brother, the light of liberty and determination in him fades to darkness. In the contradictory spirit of 1984, this is portrayed as a moment of dawning light and joy. Ironic. I have read that some women, to their magnified mortification, find that they become aroused and even orgasm during rape, and that this renders it still more traumatic; like having not merely one’s body taken but one’s soul. Maybe that’s what happens to Winston in the end–though in his case, the ecstasy is the closing act, his last thought and feeling. He does not get to grieve.

Contradictions are the mechanism by which the Ingsoc (English Socialism) of Winston’s Airstrip One (formerly England) of Oceania (formerly the English-speaking countries plus Central and South America) breaks down the independence of the psyche. Freedom is Slavery. War is Peace. Ignorance is Strength. When constantly bombarded with contradictory statements, in time they may pound one’s unique grip on perceived objective reality down into a numb receptiveness, the mind a blank canvas on which the propagandist can paint today’s version of history–or edit yesterday’s version when its message becomes inconvenient.

It is as though the mind were a collection of odd-shaped stones and Ingsoc the rock crusher; when it is done, the gravel all looks the same. You can use it in cement, or pave a road, or crush it further to make sand, or do as you otherwise wish.

What makes 1984 an important work of literature is the fact that a single page of it can supply the thinking reader with enough questions to last a week. I offer a sampling from page 66 of my copy, said page chosen by confidently closing my eyes and opening the book:

“Rutherford had once been a famous caricaturist, whose brutal cartoons had helped to inflame popular opinion before and during the Revolution. Even now, at long intervals, his cartoons were appearing in the Times. They were simply an imitation of his earlier manner, and curiously lifeless and unconvincing.” (What does this say about the basic value of creativity? Of art? What do we lose when a Bill Watterson quits writing Calvin & Hobbes because he’s simply not willing to conform?)

“And then a voice from the telescreen was singing: ‘Under the spreading chestnut tree; I sold you and you sold me. There lie they, and here lie we; Under the spreading chestnut tree.’ The three men never stirred. But when Winston glanced again at Rutherford’s ruinous face, he saw that his eyes were full of tears.” (How many times has each of us looked into the face of living human ruin? Have we fled from it? Can we confront it? Am I a living ruin?)

“A little later all three were rearrested. It appeared that they had engaged in fresh conspiracies from the very moment of their release. At their second trial they confessed to all their old crimes over again, with a whole string of new ones.” (Why is there so much pressure to make public confession? Do we believe in any sort of rehabilitation? If so, is our ‘rehabilitation’ simply a means of promoting conformity? For whose benefit is it… that of the rehabilitated individual, or so that we may congratulate ourselves on our humanity?)

1984 is not about the repression of individuality, but its systematic destruction. All that makes us unique individuals: love, family ties, our own perceptions of history, an enterprising spirit, egotism, modesty, courage, trust, greed, lust. At one point Winston observes that, contrary to his historic perception, the proletarian masses are still human, and the Party members largely no longer are.

The designation of the Party’s main enemy, Emmanuel Goldstein, as stereotypically Jewish would be easy enough to interpret only at a shallow level. Orwell wrote in 1949, and it is tempting to consider his writing merely a polemic against totalitarianism, as best understood by the world in 1949–either recently-shattered Nazism or triumphant Stalinism, neither of which meant world Jewry any goodwill. That’s only part of what I take away.

Orwell’s message is timeless: any authority that rules by strength of power is shaken by the notion of someone it cannot bribe, intimidate, ingratiate or hoodwink. Short of just stomping with the jackboot, those are authority’s primary tools. Anyone whose values will not be compromised disturbs those who just went along, and those who pressured them to do so.

So it isn’t enough for IngSoc to obliterate Winston, the man. They must steal his newly-discovered soul, and those of all who oppose them. Winston’s thoughtcrime is the disease, to be attacked with antibodies until driven out. What’s left of him can then go ahead and die.

The final line of 1984 affected the path of my life. I would, over the course of life, face many pressures to conform. I learned, with effort, to put on the necessary fronts that may get one by. I did not take that so far as to validate what I despised, and concede that it was really okay. No matter how many people do a stupid thing, or a wrong thing, it will still be stupid or wrong. It reached a point where I learned to begin with distrusting the wisdom or value of an act or attitude in proportion to the number of people doing, touting and flaunting it. This was alienating, but the more things I learned that many people believed were in fact ridiculous, the better that felt. It came to a point where I had to remind myself that now and then, the masses get it right. I still keep reminding myself that mindless nonconformity isn’t much better than mindless conformity, and can easily be worse. Difference for the sake of principle, yes. For its own sake, nah.

When I read the final line of 1984, and grasped its import, something broke inside my own brain. I saw my future in terms of choices, either to go along and say it’s all okay, or to stick to my guns and have a harder life. It meant that a lot of people would make fun of me, ridiculing my choices as irrational–especially when I failed to let law, government and corporations force me to rationalize their actions as acceptable.  There was nothing noble in my decision to hate Big Brother; it was the simple survival choice. It was a choice of humanity. It might shorten my life, but at least  for a time I would be truly alive. My soul might be damaged, but it would be mine. I would look about me and see mostly persons whose souls had been sold–not because they cooperated with oppression, but because they had been unable to combine cooperating with hating, so they redefined oppression as not-oppression, then proceeded to make fun of those of us who hadn’t sold out. Our refusal remained an irritant, a reminder of sordid collaboration, and it must be demeaned by the collaborators at every turn.

The Vichy régime of France during World War II, representative of a France that chose to abandon its liberty and principles rather than fight and defend its beautiful capital to that capital’s destruction, treated its own French countrypeople more cruelly than the Nazi occupiers in many ways. I scorn and despise AT&T, for example–but not half as much as I scorn and despise the mentality that can look at the way they do business, and rationalize blessing that way while cursing the consumer who speaks out against it. The collaborator, who chose the evil side, is more to be despised than the evil side itself, which lacked ability to be good in the first place.

Here’s to Emmanuel Goldstein.

===

This review was originally published in different form on Epinions, a site now deceased. I have reclaimed my work.

Book reviews, Epinions (reclaimed), Social comment, Sports

Book review: The David Kopay Story

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(This review was originally submitted to Epinions. I am reclaiming my work in edited and updated form.)

So Michael Sam, a linebacker from Missouri with legitimate hopes of being taken in the NFL draft, has come out as gay. He did so knowing that this might impact his opportunity to play at the sport’s highest level. Evidently he had already come out to his college teammates, who respected his confidence and continued to treat him as a teammate.

This takes guts. You know how, when a windshield cracks, it can be repaired provided the crack doesn’t reach the edge? This may be the blow that cracks the glass barrier of discrimination to its edge. While those of us who advocate an end to homophobic discrimination are cheering on Michael Sam, I’d like to remind the world of the man who first struck at the barrier. I have more in common with him than some might realize.

David Kopay was a tough college running back who made it to the professional football ranks through sheer determination and obstinacy, staying there for a decade as a backup and special teams hand. A craggily handsome fellow who ‘came out’ in the mid-1970s while writing The David Kopay Story with Perry Deane Young. And a University of Washington Husky.

David and I, therefore, have walked the same collegiate paths. I’m proud of my alma mater; while no university is perfect, UW (we usually say ‘U-Dub,’ often without the definite article) combines a square mile of carefully landscaped lakeside campus with some of the finest educational tools that exist. As far as I know, it is still the very finest nursing school in the land, and maybe the world. For those with the self-discipline to till them, UW can offer impressively fertile grounds for learning in a rich variety of studies.

We also have good sports teams. But when I think of famous fellow Dawgs who inspire me, the first one that comes to mind is not Football Hall of Famer Hugh McIlhenny. Nor is it legendary quarterback Warren Moon. It is not statesman Warren Magnuson, flying ace and Medal of Honor winner ‘Pappy’ Boyington, activist and decorated veteran Col. Margarethe Cammermeyer, former Speaker of the House Tom Foley, newsman Chet Huntley, actors Richard Karn, Dawn Wells, Joel McHale or Patrick Duffy, or civil rights activist Gordon Hirabayashi–though I’d be honored to meet any of them.

No, when I think of fellow alumni whose hands I would like to shake, David Kopay is the first-stringer.

We must remember that this book was first published in 1977. Jimmy Carter was President. The nation was mired in a post-Vietnam funk. The economy was a hot mess. We had begun to make meaningful the civil rights gains of the 1960s. The Cold War was a reality. We were expecting the next war in Europe, possibly soon, and our military was the next thing to a broken force.

The ex-hippies were just starting to be promoted to lower management, but going home and listening to the Beatles and the Stones on vinyl at home, and clinging to their VW microbuses as tokens of a bygone time when ‘all you needed was love.’ We had partied the hearty party of post-WWII prosperity, we were about done throwing up the morning after, and we were mopping up the puke with a throbbing headache and drinking cranberry juice. And telling everyone to turn that damn music down.

The popular perception of male homosexuality in the 1970s was that it was a personal choice, like becoming a Jehovah’s Witness or a disk jockey. Many also saw it as a dangerous perversion, felonious in many states. Family and friends tended to treat it as a major disgrace. Society treated male homosexuality as a rare, contagious, emasculating disease.

In this timeframe, at the finish of a ten-year NFL career, David Kopay let it be public knowledge that he was homosexual. No one else had done this, especially not someone who had spent nearly a generation in men’s locker rooms where he might–omigawd–see other men naked. It sounds stupid now, but remember the times, and you’ll be able to imagine the reaction.

With Young’s able assistance, Kopay tells us the story of his path to ultimately living as an out gay man. The conflicting desires. The intoxicated sexual incidents with friends and fraternity brothers. How hard he tried to be heterosexual, and the ways in which that hurt women who truly cared for him. The cracks and comments from teammates who had no idea how correct they were, and the way Kopay enjoyed hitting them extra hard in practice. The format alternates between Kopay’s narrative and Young’s commenary, and flows well, with no sense of reading a tennis match. (Not that it’s really germane, but the two were never lovers. Of course, if you co-author a book with someone, you might as well be.)

Kopay’s book impacted popular perceptions of athletes similarly to Jim Bouton’s Ball Four. For many years, the public had practiced voluntary ignorance concerning professional athletes’ humanity. Bouton, another of my great heroes (although it should not be glossed over that Ball Four contains some crude homophobic references that I suspect Bouton regrets today), had made athletes look more human. By coming out, Kopay humanized them in yet another. If part of the population is gay, part of the athlete population will be gay. Kopay’s work destroyed that comfy ability to pretend that wasn’t so.

I find Kopay’s description of his upbringing to ring with truth, which is why I’d recommend it for anyone who wishes to better understand the experience of being gay. Of course he found his early desires and thoughts confusing; he was raised in a very religious home, and there was no manual available in any case to explain that some people happened to prefer same-sex partners. His only clue was that he knew, deep down, that he was more interested in males than females, try as he might to live otherwise. The candor of this self-discovery story, and his coming to terms with it, makes Kopay’s book relevant nearly two generations after its first publication.

By modern standards, his family’s reaction to his coming out would be considered very disappointing. For the 1970s, their reaction was commonplace and mainstream. Kopay lets us see the pain that caused him, the ‘we cannot truly accept you as you are’ hurt that continues to bleed long after. His African American teammates who knew or suspected he was gay were also the most understanding. While the book is explicit, it’s not pornographic. it is more about football than sex, and again, Kopay is straightforward. He was not a big star. He hung on in the pros by sheer force of will. He just wanted to play the game.

That explains another part of the kinship I feel with David Kopay. Armed with moderate athletic talent, he lowered his helmet and charged, pounding his way to a respectable ten-year professional football career. Unlike Kopay, I lacked athletic talent, yet I battled my way to two high school varsity baseball letters, a varsity football letter, and the slightly fear-tinged regard earned by someone lacking a commonsensical regard for his own safety. The only thing that got me any respect was the reckless use of the hardshell helmet against joints, soft parts, and so on. (I once hit a kid hard enough to break one of the steel bolts holding my face mask in place.)

After college, I took up amateur hockey and played it for six years, leaving memories of myself with many; I also played ten years of amateur baseball, making solid contributions to competitive teams (and, I daresay, leaving a few physical calling cards along the basepaths). I refused to accept lack of talent as a disqualifier. I wanted to win, and to do well, and I wanted it bad enough to give all of what little ability I did have. I’ve learned that it’s about 80% what you do with what you have and about 20% what you have to work with. The same ratio held true in college academics, as I learned by underachieving my way through my first two years of school, while others of comparable natural talent made me look rather dumb by comparison.

Kopay set forth to be a collegiate and professional athlete, not an activist. His career was not spectacular, but certainly successful (he was particularly tough on special teams). After that career ended, a challenge far greater than the Rose Bowl came his way. Kopay faced and met that challenge. His account doesn’t dwell on the courage that took; nor should it, because it speaks for itself. Sure, he was afraid; I also would have been. He felt the fear, and did it anyway.

I wish I’d had David Kopay on any or all of my teams. Skills, talents, sexual preference; all secondary considerations. Give me someone who’s honest; give me a comrade; give me someone who wants to win with all his or her heart; give me guts under fire; give me someone who never quits; give me someone who’ll angrily tell me I’m full of it; give me someone who will lead me if I falter, follow me if I lead, and avenge me if I fall.

Let me draft a team loaded with that mentality, and we will make a way.

In the first round of that draft, my team selects David Kopay.

Michael Sam’s step is of similar magnitude. I am glad that today, unlike Kopay’s day, he may look behind him and see not merely a few confidential well-wishers, but a great multitude in which straight allies outnumber those who are gay. This is one of those rare crowds where I feel comfortable. Good luck, Michael.