Memoir, from just outside the box
Mansplaining
April 10, 2011
How am I conservative? I am cautious in my thinking, sometimes to a fault, especially in business. Conservatism ties into traditionalism. Without a doubt, I am a traditionalist. I am polite, well mannered, gentlemanly, thoughtful and trustworthy. I am not saying that liberals do not have these traits, but I do feel that liberals are not traditionalists. If they were, they wouldn't wear tee shirts and shorts on the golf course, and they would repair their goddamn divots. And they wouldn't talk during my back swing or walk on the green while I am putting. Fucking liberals!"
June 21, 2012
At Truthdig ("This Hero Didn't Stand a Chance"), Chris Hedges reports that Tim DeChristopher is facing jail time and a hefty fine for "fraudulently bidding on parcels of land." The land in question was put up for grabs to the oil, gas and mining industries during the Bush administration. Some of these parcels border protected wilderness and state and national parks. DeChristopher won bids totalling 1.8 million dollars. Chris Hedges states, "DeChristopher's prosecution is evidence that our moral order has been turned upside down."
I would add that DeChristopher's actions prove that the ongoing revolution is alive and well. He embodies the guts and imagination that it will take to outplay the bankers and the swindlers and their D.C. lackeys and henchmen.
I look forward to more of this subversive eccentricity, actions that are full of intrigue, efforts that are moral, clever and utterly right-on, political action that "derails the corporate and governmental destruction of the ecosystem.
February 21, 2013
Your last rant is true to form. Your view is that the business elite are corrupt, bloodthirsty and soulless. I agree with your analysis, as far as it goes. And yet, I think you are missing something important, which is that this elite, devils though they may be, are essential components in our indivisible nation. Their slimy graft is part of who we are and what makes America tick.
You suggest that we can somehow carve out the bad stuff and shave off the toxic layer at the top. Nope. That's not going to happen. American white collar crime is part of our national synergy. In the plainest terms, you wouldn't enjoy your jury-rigged retirement without the bad boys at the top. Like most of us, you need the high octane these bastards provide. All you and I need to do is sort things out and make sure we're not the ones who get trampled. You said it yourself: "Try to live the Good Life, in spite of the assholes."
I still like how things are working out. I'm glad Alexander Hamilton got his big bank and we didn't all become Thomas Jefferson's yeoman farmers. The banks and the likes of the Rockefellers, Vanderbilts, Carnegies...ruthless, pitiless creatures that they are... spawn our astounding commercial free-for-all that somehow, some way, produces all this unbelievable stuff I enjoy so much. I hope Elizabeth Warren doesn't screw it up.
October 15, 2014
I was an accountant with expertise in finance, specifically the financing of large orders for passenger jets. There are complexities when doing business in Russia. Everyone I dealt with was looking out for himself, looking for a way to personally gain from a multi-million-dollar deal. We offered no suitcase full of cash. A Russian businessman might say, "My son will soon graduate from NYU. I would like to see him accepted into the MBA program."
In accordance with the Federal Corrupt Practices Act, there are some things that our corporations are not allowed to do when making deals with foreign countries. I was aware of these laws. Two workshops per year kept me updated and clear about how to handle the Russians, and the Turks, and even the Danes. Selling airliners to foreign businesses requires massive and arcane financing, much of which filters through banks in the Cayman Islands. Offshore bank accounts are legal thanks to a treaty between the US government and the Cayman Islands. The US government, while maintaining some semblance of regulatory power, is also a facilitator, an extension of age-old greased-palm bribery.
We all know that there is a lucrative, powerful, and often lethal world alive and well beneath the surface of the media headlines. Behind the laughable smoke screen of the Washington D.C. circus is the serious and amoral buying-and-selling market of ruthless corporations, mafias, tribes, arms dealers and oilmen.
We barely comprehend the machinations of the world of big money, big trade and the business model we call never-ending-war. Most of us live the best we can… parenthetically… in a world strewn with environmental degradation and bloody collateral damage.
January 11, 2015
We are alive and sentient, living on a small planet that is spinning around in space. I know you want proof of the deeper meaning of life. The fantastic entirety of the Universe is enough proof for me. The human life form is at the very beginning of its adventure. The Small Picture, our finite human lives, is of deep concern to us. The Big Picture, however, is not about the individuals residing on planet Earth. The Big Picture is not about the love, greed, crime, gratitude, bigotry, friendship and war we humans have created. The Small Picture, our little game, our blunt-force drama, oozes greatness and madness, genius and stupidity, Eden living next door to the bloodbath, "the thrill of victory, the agony of defeat." The Big Picture is utterly indifferent to all of us.
We all play by the same rules… "Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.” From the realm of magical thinking, I like the idea of the light at the end of the tunnel. When I die, I want to walk down the tunnel and greet everyone who has gone before me. If, after that celebration of life, the light fades into oblivion, then, as newsman Walter Cronkite so aptly put it, "That's the way it is."
In some strange way, this is the most hopeful thing I’ve heard in a long time.