Category: nonviolence

Happy Non-Election Day

Every two years, Wisconsin has a wonderful first Tuesday in November in which there is no election. Although there are monster elections elsewhere, as in New Jersey and Virginia, Badgers get to stay home today.

Although I have never gone as far as my late lamented friend-I-never-met Wally Conger, who refrained from voting altogether, I tend to agree with him that voting is a futile exercise that “only encourages the bastards,” in that it lends an air of legitimacy to the corrupt enterprise responsible for most of the misery rampant in the world, most significantly the horror of war.

Freedom does not depend on choosing the right ruler — no political leader cares about you or your loved ones anywhere near as much as you do. A friend I see in the mirror regularly once wrote, “Freedom means understanding that I am the boss of me.”

One man I gladly cast a ballot for, Lee Sherman Dreyfus, once said, “Government should defend our shores, deliver the mail and leave us the hell alone,” and that’s where I stand most days. I can think of no task that government assumes that the rest of us couldn’t do better and more efficiently. Any politician who wants my vote needs to be committed to liberty and ending war — as a result, very few politicians earn my vote.

My ideal world would be one where we all voluntarily buy into what Jesus called the two greatest commandments — Love God and love your neighbors, understanding that by “neighbors” we mean every human being on this speck of dust in the universe. 

Alas, it is not an ideal world, but I for one do buy into those two laws, and my soul has been more at peace ever since I made that decision. Therefore, I heartily commend the idea for your consideration.

In the meantime, I plan to very much enjoy this bi-annual Non-Election Day.

Happy Godzilla Day

It was Nov. 3, 1954, that the film Gojira premiered in Japan, introducing one of the great film monsters of all time. The date means that I am older than Godzilla, but my younger brother is not.

Thanks to the American remix that appeared in 1956 and became a staple of “Chiller Theater” type TV shows, the big kaiju that destroyed Tokyo is an indelible feature of our childhood — as he said the other day, “That means our entire lives have been consumed by ‘Ah, a trilobite!’ and ‘Godzilla must not be destroyed.’”

Godzilla and I were 50 years old when the original Japanese film was finally given general release in the U.S. — I was in Walmart to buy the DVD the day it went on sale. I had always heard it was a powerful movie that took a strong stance against the proliferation of nuclear weapons, but I was staggered by just how powerful.

I could imagine the military-industrial complex, the one Eisenhower warned us about, feeling so threatened by the movie that they not only suppressed the original Japanese movie for a half-century, they produced an edited version that downplayed the peace message, and who knows? Maybe they even encouraged the silly sequels that transformed a metaphor for nuclear destruction into a cartoon.

The film that Toho Co. Ltd. released to commemorate the 70th anniversary, Godzilla Minus One, is another powerful anti-war film in its own right, set as it is in post-War Japan and showing the effects of World War II on the side that surrendered, as well as doubling down on the original metaphor. They are two of my favorite films for that reason: They are so much more than idle entertainment.

It’s amazing to me how the Americanized version of the 1953 film, starring Raymond Burr, used almost the same scenes in a different order to soften the impact of that anti-war message. Some of it was simple omission — there’s a touching scene after the destruction of Tokyo with an auditorium full of children singing a mournful hymn. To erase the original message, all they had to do was not translate the words of that hymn until 50 years later:

May we live without destruction
May we look to tomorrow with hope
May peace and light return to us

Seventy-one years after the world met Godzilla, may we redouble our efforts to end the horror of war wherever it rears its ugly face, and eternal shame on the merchants of destruction and their political allies.

Make more music

The algorithm sent me the other day to an August 2022 post where I attempted to choose 25 albums I would take if I was exiled to a desert island and could only bring two dozen plus one.

It was an impossible task. I reached the requisite number and then realized I’d forgotten to include anything by “The Beatles, The Beach Boys, The Bee Gees, Bachman Turner Overdrive, Rolling Stones, Kinks, The Who, Buffalo Springfield, CSNY, John Kongos, Simon and Garfunkel, Rodney Crowell, Van Morrison, Tommy James, The Monkees, Jason Mraz, oh dear oh dear oh dear …”

What really grabbed my attention was the closing observation:

“So much music to love, so little time, and humans keep making more music every day. How do we find the time and energy to hate each other? More important, why?”

I had a similar epiphany when I heard the Monkees theme song with new ears one day: “We’re too busy singing to put anybody down.”

If you’re having trouble loving your neighbor and you’re tempted to voice that opinion, try listening to some music or, even better, making some music. It’s almost impossible to stay angry or hateful when you’re making a joyful noise.

If only the unhappy humans who purport to be our leaders would spend more time with music. They certainly would lead us to a better place than they are now.