1/18/19: “The Rick Blog Show” of 12/1/17

Below is a video of my “show” of 12/1/17. I’ve lost weight since then. The camera angle is inept, but you can view it as an outre art video approach if you are feeling generous.

I never posted this video before. I decided that I just wanted to write, and not perform.

I post it tonight because it is prescient. I was right about everything. I don’t like how the woman piece turned out. I would cut the first half of the immigrant piece.

The show was originally called “The Death of a Nation.” The director coined the title. I didn’t really like his direction. By the time of this performance, I ignored most of it, and regretted what I followed.

I produced the show myself. I am the worst producer in America. My marketing director chastised me for talking about politics at a production meeting. She had a great feel for my material — NOT! She sold zero tickets. When I asked her for an audience count she said she and her husband might make it if they could find a sitter.

A cellist who was to provide musical accompaniment quit. It was no loss. She apparently thought that she was playing my memorial service.

I liked the 19 year-old kid who stage managed and ran the lights — poorly, but he was a good egg.

The audience was a group of invited friends. We had a party afterwards. They were lovely.

I think the main reason I am sharing this is that Paula and I just binge-watched “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel,” which is, well, marvelous. I think it made me nostalgic.

I love this form — just getting up and talking to an audience, but my great weakness and strength, I suppose, is an over-sensitivity. I just can’t take how crass the venues are where this kind of work is done. If I knew of a place where all of this would be welcome, I’d be there in a New York second.

I think I am a better writer today than I was in December 2017, but I think this is pretty good writing.

I consider this the culmination of Phase 1 of “The Rick Blog,” a phase that ended on December 1, 2017.

The copyright covers the text and the video.

Sigh — all I want to do is live and talk about it.

The director wanted all Trump and no me. He must have been talking to the marketing person. He did send me a video of a terrible comedian. I thank him for the pain.

1/12/19: Why I Write

A thoughtful reader challenged the moral tone of much my writing. Below is his comment and my reply. I thank him for the challenge. I think it inspired my clearest statement regarding why I do what I do.

Reader: Human history has never been about morality. We simply aren’t a very intelligent species. What kind of beings invent bombs that will destroy themselves permanently? Kinda dumb ones. There are billions of planets, some have been in the warm zone for a billion years longer than we have. I hope for the best, or shudder to think what they are like.

Me: As Joyce said (James not Sloane— ha! — in joke for Second City readers) “History is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake.” Morality makes an appearance every once in awhile in history, MLK, Gandhi, Havel. Individuals can be moral, which I think is the same as being aware of reality. It’s the reason I chose to be a writer and teacher instead of an entertainer and lawyer, and I think, but I don’t want to speak for you, that you chose to be a musician. Art and real spiritual experience — not bullshit religiosity —-are what really change the world. The competition for material power is stupid and it is what historians write about. Art is the long game. The consciousness of mankind can evolve, just as an individual can transform and grow. It is humbling to have that perspective. It means that I know far from everything and have to always work to be more aware, and also to know whatever change I bring to the collective mind is very, very tiny. It’s the reason I chose to do my writing from a personal perspective and not from an academic one. My writing is simply about my trying to understand the world. It’s all autobiographical, even when I write about politics. When you wrote a comment about the curse of the hick Cheney and the Queens Trump in a limo, I related in a very personal way. I’ve dealt with assholes like that in my life. All that is different is the size of the stage. I want to be a good man because I think that is the smart way to live, best for me and the world in general. Wisdom doesn’t come naturally to me, so I work on it in my writing. I am not making a claim for the writing’s quality, but I honor its goal. The goal of art. Then we leave these notes to each other — written notes, musical notes, paintings whatever and we stumble to perfecting history and touching eternity in the here and now. That’s what I believe, I hope it is for better reasons than simply to keep living my own life with some freedom and meaning, as a tiny speck in the train wreck of history.

But if it is only that, and a conversation with others trying to do the same, it’s enough, I reckon.

1/7/19: Christian Bale Politics for an Oscar and Sells Tickets for “Vice” — Amoral

I would like to drop the subject of the movie “Vice,” but it won’t let me go.

I enjoyed “Vice” as an entertainment, but intuitively disapproved of it.

I now have more evidence for my disapproval.

Bale reportedly told Fox News that he admired Cheney. He said that Cheney was a great husband and father, “with a brain like a vice.” He was selling tickets to conservatives.

At the Golden Globes, Bale compared Cheney to Satan. He was trying to get votes from liberal Oscar voters.

Regular readers will not be surprised to know that I don’t give a damn about “Vice’s” box office take or Christian Bale’s career.

I do give a damn about the people of America and the world.

The subject matter of “Vice” is too important to merely serve the personal ambitions of its creators.

Shame on you, Christian Bale. You are a very talented man. I am sure that you can find a way to be rich and famous without dishonoring the truth.

I have included below my recent entries that discuss “Vice.”

I hope I can drop the subject, but who knows?

A real artist can want money and success for his work. Hell, I do.

But he wouldn’t change a word or brushstroke in order to get it.

Bale, you could be a great artist, but right now you’re just a salesman of questionable ethics. Do better with your enormous talent.

Muddy water pollutes people’s minds.

Here is what I wrote previously about “Vice.” I am sorry that I can feel so certain of what I wrote from insight that is now buttressed by facts. Bale’s contradictory statements before contradictory audiences are admissions of cynicism. If you think he is just an actor and unimportant, you don’t get the power of speaking to people who innocently look to you as an aid to make sense of the world. We all have that responsibility. People who have big stages have the greatest responsibility of all.

1/7/19: Movies in the Time of Trump

I am interested in the movies. Good movies, bad movies, movies, movies that reflect the current collective mind — commonly called “common sense”, movies with insight that lead the common mind to new places, movies that pander to markets of prejudice, movies that exploit human fear and desire …

Movies. I don’t want to make movies. I don’t want to just watch them. I want to talk and write about them.

Movies are documents of our inner world.

And our outer world reflects our inner world.

I am interested in power. More on what I mean below. Power is in the mind.

Movies reflect the consciousness of the world.

And that consciousness determines our fate.

I care nothing for aesthetics. To me an assessment of a movie begins and ends with what the movie says. To focus on the rest is to reward showing off which is just a distraction.

I feel the same way about politics. George H. W. Bush cared about being a good man. The only concern that he had above that was winning. He wanted to govern in a decent and responsible way. His1988 campaign was racist, however — see the Willie Horton ad, and it fostered the rise of the anti-religious right, see the Moral Majority. That tainted the way that he governed. He asked Viet Nam to apologize to America. He executed an unnecessary war, Iraq War I. He wanted to overcome the shame of the American military in that war. Overcome, not deal with … He also didn’t gloat at the fall of Russia and respected our allies. He wrote warm thank you notes, and treated all in his immediate orbit with respect. I could generously assess him as a mediocrity, but I won’t. The presence of a good man makes the world better. Bush did not make the world better. He promoted his namesake son George W., and his Defense Secretary Cheney, and the malevolent and misbegotten modern fanatical Republican party.

George H. W. Bush won office and riches, but he didn’t achieve what he set out to achieve — goodness, the minor to his major. The world is worse off as a result of his victories.

People often think, well — that’s life, and decency mixed with a struggle for power and glory is the best we can do.

People often think wrongly.

We all can do better.

George H. W. Bush was a failure.

I’ll define power now, my personal definition. Power is successfully accomplishing something good.

I’ll grade the movies of the time of Trump that I have seen in this awards season on a pass/fail basis. I’ll use George H. W. Bush as the template for failure.

Vice: Christian Bale’s Golden Globe acceptance speech in which he compared Dick Cheney to Satan, and wondered if Mitch McConnell should be next in line for a political biopic, was better than the movie Vice. And my recent article on Vice was better than Bale’s speech. The movie makes Cheney’s stealthy rise to power look sexy. Phallic bombers soar over Iraq. The movie portrays Cheney as a Citizen Kane, a mystery. The accurate take would have shown him as a cross between Babbitt and Chaplin’s Great Dictator. Vice shows authoritarianism as a point of view instead of the crime that it is. The movie disagrees with Cheney when it should condemn him. There aren’t two legitimate sides on this. FAIL.

Mary Poppins Returns: Set in Depression Era London, the film offers imagination, perseverance, friendship, community, faith in magic, family and another faith in a spiritual security never given by political and economic power structures as the antidote to the condescensions of greed, and class oppression. PASS.

The Favourite: An examination of the prison of competitive power relationships. One character is redeemed, a George H.W. Bush figure who transcends less than mediocrity and chooses the good for good by seeing the emptiness of winning. A Trump figure lies in her own filthy bed while narcissistically posing with the trappings of political power for its own useless sake. A third character is the rich powerful figure, a Koch brother, Robert Mercer, Sheldon Adelson type, who is beyond having to bother with the work of useless power, but pathetically sets all the objectives motivated by her own petty concerns. A portrait of privileged despair and personal liberation. PASS.

Roma: A story set in Mexico City in the early 1970s, it is about the United States today. The movie shows how the rise of violence and authoritarianism affects the lives of ordinary people who just want to go to the movies, watch TV, eat good food, celebrate New Year’s Eve, get married and have babies. The price of fascism, paid by the innocent. PASS.

See you at the movies, even if you aren’t there.

The movies are the common mind and heart.

And mine.

All the writing about Trump and the movies is autobiographical and mirrors the events and feelings in my own private life — events that I sometimes share with you, and sometimes keep to myself.

12/27/18: Vice

I don’t know why I ever thought that I wanted to be an actor.

I love Amy Adams. She is beautiful. I like her nose. She can play a Disney princess or Lady Macbeth.

I’ll just say it. She never went to college and she is waiting for someone else to tell her what to think. Or if she has a mind of her own, it has limited scope and she is happy to serve someone else’s idea if they are a nice person or the money is good.

It’s so silly that such a big deal is made of Academy Awards because acting is such a powerless occupation.

Amy Adams was at the service of Adam McKay in his movie, “Vice” which is like working for a high school history teacher with flair.

Vice does not reveal one journalistic fact that I didn’t already know. I don’t go to the movies to get my journalistic facts. I go to the movies to get insight, to get some better understanding of what it is to be a human being.

Or (most often) I go for the popcorn and a dark place where I can think my uninterrupted thoughts.

Amy Adams serves Adam McKay’s vision by making it seem wise and plausible.

She makes Vice look like a serious piece of work. It isn’t.

McKay is not a real writer. He is a great showman. He makes things interesting — Vice moves, it’s not a boring movie. It lags a little at the end because showmanship only takes one so far.

McKay never explores what the essence of Dick Cheney is, and since he doesn’t, I wonder what the fuck was I doing there.

Oh yeah. The popcorn and the thoughts.

I’m not really a critic. A critic looks at an external object with detachment. A critical tone is all about the object. With me, it’s all about me. All me, all the time. The world and me are on an even par. I write about my experience of the world. Most of the time, that experience isn’t too dramatic. But my responses are. I’m alive and everything interests me, even boredom as I discussed in my last entry.

I’m no Amy Adams. I’m the one who makes the vision of my world. I don’t serve someone else’s point of view.

I am a decision maker. Or an explorer of the decisions made for me by some divine source that ordained that I am the way I am.

I don’t want to be critical of Adam McKay per se. I am sure he works very hard and he is making good money. A lot of people enjoy his work. Hell, I enjoyed it. I looked forward to going to see Vice, and I am glad that I went.

I just think that Adam McKay’s vision is not nearly as mature as mine. I don’t think McKay understands Dick Cheney as well as I do. McKay gets distracted by how Cheney does what Cheney does. Mckay doesn’t bother himself with why.

That makes sense too. McKay is an engineer. He has done a lot of stuff. He learned how to direct a movie. That must be hard. He navigated a career and amassed a fair amount of power in his field, just like Cheney did in government. That is hard. A lot of brains. A lot of effort.

McKay opens the movie saying that Cheney didn’t talk much. He listened and never revealed his thoughts. Cheney patiently and stealthily amassed power.

I knew that already. Cheney wanted power and was cunning. He was a master of manipulation of bureaucracy.

Again, my question is why. McKay recites commonly known facts about Cheney: he flunked out of Yale, he got DUIs, his wife gave him direction and purpose.

After reviewing the facts as presented me by McKay in his engaging review of what is known, I conclude — not McKay ‘s conclusion, he really doesn’t have one— that Cheney has lived a life of sublimated despair. The source of evil is negation. Cheney’s intention was to throw his life away as a dropout and a drunk. His wife read him the riot act, and then he threw his life away as a powerful politician and business executive.

I saw Cheney discuss the surgical insertion of a stent into his heart on TV one time. His entire focus was on the procedure. He tellingly did not discuss the emotional or spiritual aspect of facing his mortality. Cheney was born without a soul. He wasn’t a man. He was a monkey wrench.

McKay has a scene in Vice where Lynne and Dick Cheney speak to each other in iambic pentameter. McKay would have been better off trying to be like Shakespeare instead of just making the shallow claim that the Cheney story is Shakespearean.

Check that, let’s leave Shakespeare out of it. There is no comedy or tragedy about Cheney. Nothing human is there.

Cheney was nothing masquerading as a lot. That’s what has been running America for the last forty years. The real story is the nascent life force that is pushing from under a pile of dead bodies to reclaim the world. And that story has nothing to do with Cheney.

I can see why McKay was drawn to Cheney. McKay likes the technical for its own sake too. McKay uses a waiter to explain the Unitary Executive Theory and other abstractions the way he used Margot Robbie in a bathtub to explain concepts of high finance in The Big Short.

Cheney and McKay are both materialists. They admire the thing for its own sake. Making war, making movies.

But if meaning is not given to the thing, the thing is no thing.

“Why ?”is the most practical question.

Cheney hit bottom when his wife told him to stop drinking and make something of himself or she was out of there. That was the turning point of his life. He could have gone inward and found a real purpose. Or he could be distracted by power. He didn’t even consider the possibility of meaning. He wasn’t equipped to do so. Power for 23 million, Alex.

And the rest is history.

McKay gave himself a very tough assignment. How do you make a story about a nullity, a void?

I was criticized by some for my anger when my writing focused on Trump. I am not angry now, but I am proud that I was. Anger was a phase of death, before acceptance. The death was not my own. Trump, and his supporters, and those that can’t be bothered about Trump, are dead. I was trying to jolt their hearts with paddles and bring them back to life. That was noble in its futility. I had to learn that they were dead already.

Let the dead bury their own dead.

McKay doesn’t want to argue with “conservatives.” He wants to talk with them. He is learning that you can’t get to them. I was the type kid who would stick it in my father’s eye. I never accepted the idea of his authority. McKay was the type kid who liked to please his father. That’s why McKay’s work gets money, power and awards.

And why he walks on eggshells instead of getting to the point.

I fought the dead. McKay romances the dead.

I’m now free.

Freedom is better than money, power and awards.

I am not being competitive.

I used to envy people like McKay, a long time ago.

I used to rage at people like Cheney, a lot more recently.

I have learned that the powers that be only reward what serves their morbid concrete ends.

And the answer to Cheney, Trump and the Boss in all of his forms, is to live in the real world not the worlds of their escapist visions because their egos think God’s creation isn’t good enough.

And that the ultimate reward one bestows upon oneself — the right to life — life as an important thing to care for and participate in, not to use and destroy because you stupidly think life’s not worth it.

Hollywood and The Unitary Executive Theory are abstractions and distractions. Life is the stuff of poetry, and poetry in its broadest sense is what gives meaning to my life.

I live my life with meaning and I tell you about it.

I’ve come to a humble place. And all the grand places that I thought were so important are pathetic.

You see Dick Cheney, and Adam McKay and Amy Adams, and me, of course, the dramatic personae of this little exercise are all me, of course. And I thank God for my frustration.

I escaped the prison of being an actor, whoring (sorry Amy) my gifts for others’ worthless schemes; I escaped the prison of power — amassing money and power through the exploitation and manufacture of suffering; I’ve escaped the prison of commercial art, restricting my depth of feeling to the outer edges of popularity, sacrificing my meaning to the sensation of technical mastery for its own sake.

On the local PBS show, “Check Please,” people from all walks of life get to be food critics. They review Chicago restaurants.

I’d rather hear the story of what happened at the restaurant, the alchemy of the person and the world. I don’t care about what those people like or dislike.

But then again, they are real estate agents and such. I’m the writer. So I do that part.

The alchemy, I mean.

The real writer.

Ha!

Postscript:

A friend of mine, who has been very supportive of my writing and sincerely wishes me the best commented about this piece on Facebook. Here is his comment and my reply.

Bill: I get all of this, but first and foremost, the guy’s gotta get asses in the seats. I think the quote was merely Hollywood PR.

My reply: Bill, I love you and I respect your point of view. I have a different “first and foremost.”

Bale said on Fox that Cheney was a good family man. Cheney betrayed his lesbian daughter to help his straight daughter win an election. Raw power trumped family for Cheney.

Bale said Cheney had a vice like mind. Cheney is a war criminal. The war was a disaster in every way. Like all criminals, Cheney is stupid. He made money by killing hundreds of thousands of people. He made money like all thugs make money. That’s cunning, not brains.

My “first and foremost” is searching for truth — that’s what artists do. I listed several movies that are doing big box office, getting awards and telling the truth.

Bale hypocritically called Cheney Satan to impress liberal Oscar voters. He misrepresented the movie as a condemnation of Cheney, which it is not. Bale puts his personal ambition ahead of the truth. The truth is more important than Hollywood PR. What good are asses in the seats if there is an asshole on the stage? Bale is an entertainer who could be a great artist — something much better!

I would love money and popularity, but I wouldn’t compromise a word to get it. And I would never misrepresent my work, because the misrepresentation becomes part of the work. Like I say in the piece, all my writing is autobiographical. The piece isn’t about Bale. It’s about me. I disdain his choice. I would never do it. I didn’t write it to criticize Bale. I admire what a trooper you are, and I love you for wishing me success. I thank you for your friendship. But I’m playing a different game. Best to your son. He has a great father.

1/7/19: Movies in the Time of Trump

Movies. I don’t want to make movies. I don’t want to just watch them. I want to talk and write about them.

Movies are documents of our inner world.

And our outer world reflects our inner world.

I am interested in power. More on what I mean below. Power is in the mind.

Movies reflect the consciousness of the world.

And that consciousness determines our fate.

I care nothing for aesthetics. To me an assessment of a movie begins and ends with what the movie says. To focus on the rest is to reward showing off which is just a distraction.

George H. W. Bush won office and riches, but he didn’t achieve what he set out to achieve — goodness, the minor to his major. The world is worse off as a result of his victories.

People often think, well — that’s life, and decency mixed with a struggle for power and glory is the best we can do.

People often think wrongly.

We all can do better.

George H. W. Bush was a failure.

I’ll define power now, my personal definition. Power is successfully accomplishing something good.

I’ll grade the movies of the time of Trump that I have seen in this awards season on a pass/fail basis. I’ll use George H. W. Bush as the template for failure.

The Favourite: An examination of the prison of competitive power relationships. One character is redeemed, a George H.W. Bush figure who transcends less than mediocrity and chooses the good for good by seeing the emptiness of winning. A Trump figure lies in her own filthy bed while narcissitically posing with the trappings of political power for its own useless sake. A third character is the rich powerful figure, a Koch brother, Robert Mercer, Sheldon Adelson type, who is beyond having to bother with the work of useless power, but pathetically sets all the objectives motivated by her own petty concerns. A portrait of privileged despair and personal liberation. PASS.

See you at the movies, even if you aren’t there.

The movies are the common mind and heart.

And mine.

All the writing about Trump and the movies is autobiographical and mirrors the events and feelings in my own private life — events that I sometimes share with you, and sometimes keep to myself.

1/4/19: Impeach the Motherf—er! a Poem

1/4/19: Impeach the Motherfucker!

A poem by Richard Thomas, J.D., attorney, writer, college professor and not your fucking coffee boy you miserable condescending cowardly pricks

Civility has its limits.

The racist tyrants are offended. It’s part of their M.O.

The Muslim Ban was a false accusation on a grand and global scale.

The act of a mob of racist motherfuckers.

Bullies are fundamentally insecure.

So they mock and condescend, and abuse and if allowed to keep going — kill.

To feel superior.

To fill the void created by their ignorance and fear.

Then, when the people they want to oppress stand up to them with equality

An expression of equality that is angry in the face of the bullies insults, grifts, thefts and beatings

The bully lectures the potentially oppressed person on his or her professionalism or civility.

The bully is shocked, shocked that someone would be so mean to them.

It’s just a ruse to control their targets for victimhood when they are called on their bullshit.

I have lost more than one job by telling the boss to fuck off.

In each case the boss made a deal with me and broke his word.

In each case, the boss ridiculed me mercilessly until I finally had enough.

In each case, the boss refused to recognize what I had accomplished.

I learned to recognize myself.

The Muslim-American congressperson recognizes herself too.

She is as American as Trump or his white nationalist base.

She actually won an election.

She wants to create and solve problems, not scapegoat groups of people to steal money and power.

Impeach the motherfucker!

The words are an assertion of equality.

I used to worry about the recognition of others.

That was a weakness the bullies exploited.

I recognize myself.

I am proud of myself and my accomplishments: improviser, writer, lawyer, college professor.

Italian-American, Catholic, seasoned …

And human.

And worthy of respect.

Impeach the motherfucker!

All men are created equal.

And lock him up!

To steal one of their lines

Except we have evidence

Have you ever watched a Chicago cop arrest someone?

It’s not too civil.

We are a few steps from civility.

Let’s get the criminals in jail first.

Then shame the people who offend the Judaeo-Christian and any other legitimate religious tradition and trash our culture

while claiming moral superiority.

Then let’s make things fair and just.

Take care of the weak

Make sure that everyone who deserves it gets paid.

Justice and dignity now.

Civility later.

Impeach the motherfucker.

Destroy the current Republican Party of 2019, which has done nothing fair or good.

Jail the motherfuckers.

Shame the motherfuckers.

Drive the toxic fucking words that demean and belittle us from our brains.

Stand up with our shoulders back.

Fuck them!

We don’t have to get along with them.

We have to put them in their place.

Civility comes later.

We have to be kinder and fairer to them than they ever were to us

After our equality is clear to all involved.

1/1/2019: Why People Support Trump

Another email to my college roommates (in the same stream):

Wow. I agree with all of that, Jim. You went into the particulars.

I think that the support of Trump is immoral. Period. That is my rejoinder to a thrust of your rejoinder.

Whatever the rationale: right wing judges, screwed by the elites —- justifiable feelings or not —- it’s immoral. It’s overused but true. It is the same psychology as what happened when Hitler rose in Germany. Anyone who voted for Trump after seeing a minute of a Trump rally in 2016 made an immoral decision.

The dirty little secret is that the middle American religion of “hard work” “tough on crime” “blame the poor for being poor” “rich people are rewarded by God” “The Bible is a users manual to be read literally” and on and on has created a lousy, mean-spirited culture. Oh add ignorant too.

I feel like an abolitionist at the time of the Civil War. I’m sick of the con that this evil is a political point of view to be debated and compromised with. It’s evil.

“Conservatives” (not really what they are) are selfish. Full stop. They worry about their money at the expense of children, the old, the sick, anybody in trouble, anyone with a problem. Jack Kemp wasn’t like that. A government program v an enterprise zone is a debate. “The weak can go fuck themselves” is an abomination.

Whether solutions are in the private sector or the government, in a democracy they would still be controlled by the people. People pass the laws of incorporation. People indirectly make the laws. At least in theory. Businesses should be regulated —- justly. The government should have checks and balances and oversight. I don’t see a difference. I lean to government answers because the individual generally gets more respect there because they have a vote. In theory. The idea that the boss with the most money should call the shots is anti-democratic and therefore anti-American.

The boss takes your work, your education and skills and then pushes you around? God made us equal. A good boss, business or govt or anything else sees the dignity of every person.

Trump supporters want to dominate. They could give a fuck about God or equality. They think it’s all bullshit. Their “arguments” are designed to get power for themselves, not to get things clear or right.

Republicans like to talk about results. They — and corporate Democrats have run things since 1980. Everything is worse. Sounds like an overstatement. Not really.people are less prosperous, less safe. Environment is in crisis. On and on.

I completely agree with Jim. The big question is how people can support this evil — my word not Jim’s.

I personally relate. My life took a detour with right wing Christians and bullying right-wing business people a long time ago. I was just looking for a job and I wound up in that cesspool. I was naive. I had to learn the difference between decent business people and the assholes, and find public sector progressives.

And I had to learn to protect myself and get as far away from the right wingers as I can. And whenever they cross my path, I still do. (Sometimes they masquerade as progressives. There are bullies at the University of Chicago. And there are people who say they are progressive who secretly cheer him. An asshole prof at UIC whispered after Trump’s election, “Good, they can’t govern themselves.” He taught a diverse population for 30 years as a closet racist.)

I also make sure that my words and deeds have nothing in common with them.

You can’t compromise with evil.

Can’t debate it either.

I get in trouble for this all the time, but Trump is in office because there are a lot of really shitty people in this country. And they are shitty in the way they conduct themselves in everything, not just their vote.

There are a lot of good people too and I am on the constant look out for them.

A lot of people support Trump because a lot of people are assholes.

Eventually, they will self-destruct. The shit of it is, how much damage will we have to endure?

That fascist child abuse and murder on our border is the type thing that if a person is OK with it, there is something seriously wrong with them. How can a decent person support a govt that does such things and brags about it? I know it’s not new for the govt to do such things, I’m saying it is now so obvious how wrong it is even if someone isn’t paying attention.

I think the problem is moral. All I can figure out to do about it is be different —- they make me want to be the best man I can be, create the alternative, and confront and oppose them whenever I have the power.

Nothing to do with politics ultimately.

Rick

12/31/18: New Years’s Email to College Roommates

This is such a thoughtful conversation. I really appreciate it.

Jim, for what it is worth, I think it’s great that you are passionate about ND football. I have my passions too. I don’t think life has any meaning. I think we give it meaning. I enjoyed becoming a slightly more sophisticated college football viewer listening to you here.

Bob, I love how you examine all the seemingly small choices and transactions of daily, ordinary and mundane life. It’s kind of poetic. You have an unassuming spirituality that feeds others’ souls.

We shared predictions on Trump’s fate. I hear Jim’s depression related to Trump’s existence and it’s awakened my own. It grounds me.

I don’t know what will happen re Trump. Cancel my optimism.

Here’s what I know. If the rule of law holds, he will go to jail. He is a major criminal. A criminal complaint against him would have multiple counts. I’ve done a few prosecutorial investigations and this guy is filth. I won’t list everything here — it’s too much. But if you combined Gotti’s counts, Nixon’s counts and the counts against treasonous CIA double agent spies in the 80s, you get Trump. He should depress. He is too horrible to think about.

The question is will the rule of law prevail. Has it ever? Are we just run by criminals with money and influence? Has that always been so?

If democracy holds, Trump won’t survive his term. But are we a democracy? It’s an important question. People are dying because of this evil, the way that they always have. Will money and lying public relations thought control deny us the country that we want?

As to ND, and any other community I’ve ever been a nominal part of, I’ve always loved individuals —- like you guys —- and never loved the community or institution as a whole. That says a lot more about me than ND. I get no pleasure out of belonging to things or identifying with them. I’m kind of a wanderer. I want to figure out and experience life on my own terms. I always feel like groups interfere with that.

Maybe, that is why I like to write. I kind of create my own community —- one where people don’t have to think alike or cheer, cheer.

My passions are democracy, the rule of law, education and art. I wonder if they are all abstractions. I guess they are, and if my life is the futile attempt to make them real, I guess I have to take it. No choice.

I’ll tell you this. I completely reject the pursuit of money, power and status. They are empty pursuits, and worse, their pursuit hurts other people.

I love you, guys. You are a combination of friends and family. There is a kind of intimacy with you that time and distance can’t erode.

Rick

12/27/18: Vice