Imaginarians: They're All Around Us

Bill Clinton's critics seem to believe his opposition to the Vietnam War disqualifies him for the Presidency. If that is so, we are doomed to an endless succession of Presidents who will need help feeding and dressing themselves.

I'd vote for Hillary for President in a heartbeat. After her years of trying to keep Bill from screwing everybody in a skirt, keeping the Arabs and Israelis from screwing each other should seem like a vacation.

Donald Trump can pack more words into fewer ideas than any other presidential candidate -- and politics is an occupation which rewards that capability above all others.

Let's start a senior circuit in pro wrestling. Give Jesse something productive to occupy his time.

People refer to Pat Buchanan as a revisionist historian, but he's really just a revisionist. Historian is an honorable and legitimate profession, and the only legitimacy I can discover about Pat Buchanan is the trivial one that evidently his parents were married when he was born.

Gerry Trudeau in Doonsbury characterized George Bush as a blank spot on the page when our former President found his principles more flexible than his passion for the Vice Presidency. Junior? The hat seemed inconsistent at first, but then, how would you characterize a carbon copy of a blankspot?

The fall of Communism in eastern Europe was the event of the last 25 years. Historians have not completed their analyses of the causes, but numerous groups have already taken credit. The Cosmic Convergence people claim that the alignments in the heavens destroyed the Soviet Empire and the Berlin wall. Right-wing hawks claim they drove Communism bankrupt by forcing an escalating arms race (I thought they always told us that the Commies were forcing the escalation.). The Transcendental Meditationists say they sent out such good vibes that nothing as rotten as Communism could possibly survive. Since all these claims seem about equally plausible, I won't try to choose among 'em. I'll just extend my heartfelt thanks to all claimants. 'preciate it, guys. Good job. The world owes you a debt of gratitude. OK, we've got Glasnost explained. Now, who's going to take credit for Tiananmen Square?..... Don't all speak at once.

An unending chorus of guardians of everybody else's morality has told us that naked bodies are offensive to God. Now let me see if I've got this straight. These same people believe that God created the human body. Yet He is offended by the sight of it. So why is God ashamed of His handiwork? Did He get something wrong?

Flying saucer buffs believe we are being visited by entities from another planet. In fact, some of the more enthusiastic seem ready to qualify for frequent flier miles as abductees on alien spacecraft. The Airforce, believers claim, has lied to us about this so we won't get alarmed. Does the military lie to us? You bet! Routinely. Constantly. However, this doesn't sound like their kind of lie. They exaggerate the seriousness of threats to our security just to alarm us into authorizing yet another astronomical budget. You've watched them do it. Can you swallow the idea of the Pentagon's supressing for some namby-pamby pseudo-humanitarian reason a fact that would quadruple their budget overnight? I can't; there isn't enough salt in the Pacific Ocean to help me get that one down.

I wonder if flying saucers are really visitors from Imaginary Reality. Certainly, J. Allen Hynek seems out of contact with the reality I live in.

I shouldn't say that the Pentagon lies about threats to our national security. We create the threats, ourselves, by peddling weapons of mass distruction to every tinhorn dictator who spouts the right anti-communist mantras. Then, of course, we have to be prepared to defend ourselves against our customers. Don't forget who sold Iraq much of the weaponry they turned on our soldiers.

The Pentagon's treatment of our soldiers during the Gulf War reminds us for about the millionth time just what sort of a credibility gap these defenders of democracy suffer from. Actually, it's the soldiers and the rest of us who suffer. The Pentagon doesn't seem to be suffering a bit. There will always be enough gullible voters out there to keep the golden goose laying eggs, no matter what atrocities are revealed.

Whenever I see members of the lower and middle economic classes rushing to return to Congress sponsors of tax-break legislation that will benefit nobody but the richest 5% or so of our citizens, I can't help but think of the way a little dog rolls over on its back with its legs in the air to appease a stronger dog by its submissiveness. Well, we, like the canine family, live in tight-knit groups. Maybe that explains why we seem to be going to the dogs.

The 'new' Jerry Fallwell still believes that homosexuality is a sin against God. It seems that almost any day you look at the news you find this jackass or that charlatan spouting some bit of vicious fatuity he claims God instructed him to inflict upon the world. I can't help but think how frustrated God must feel, not being able to find anybody but frauds and fools to speak for him. You'd think the job of Spokesman for the Almighty would attract a higher class of applicant, seeing it pays so well.

I am still haunted by news footage of Mrs. Martin Luther King and company on their knees praying for the defeat of a referendum requiring that consititutional guarantees against descrimination be extended to gays and lesbians (not special rights -- that statement was downright dishonest -- just the constitutionally guaranteed rights some of the rest of us want to deny them). And recently, Jerry Falwell, in spite of his 'liberalization' has reiterated his stand that homosexuality is a sin against God. The Bible tells us so. It isn't bigotry; it's God's word.

Apparently, those who look hard enough can find something in the Bible to justify just about anything they already believe; hatred, love, murder, charity. It's all there. The Bible acts as a huge Rorschach test. You find in it exactly what's already in your heart. If you have hatred, intolerance, bigotry, thievery, and murder in your heart, you'll find justification for it in the Bible. If you have love, tolerance, acceptance, generosity, and charity in your heart, that's what you'll find.

I find myself drawn to a fantasy in which the Bible is a test designed by God to measure our fitness for heaven. If we find the love, tolerance, and charity He put there, we pass. If we find only the hatred and bigotry he hid it behind, we flunk. Certainly heaven would be a much nicer place if He let in only the loving, tolerant, generous, and charitable.

I hope while she was down on her knees Mrs. King prayed for wisdom. It seemed to me that was what she most needed.

The world seems to be divided between those who believe headstart and school lunch programs are too expensive and those who believe gifted and talented programs are inegalitarian. Wonderful! The conservatives repudiate human dignity, and the liberals repudiate human excellence. How nice for our children! Makes you optimistic about the future, doesn't it?

I taught my first class at Humboldt State University in the late 1960s. That means I've been in and around the education business for at least 30 years. And I still don't know what to do with people who think something as artificial as a score on a test reveals anything meaningful about an individual. I really don't even know how they get that way. Until I learned about Imaginary Reality, I didn't even know where they get that way.

The writer of a recent letter to the editor of the Bangor Daily News undertook once again to inform us of God's Will, this time in reference to the recent referendum on abortion. The history of the human race is little other than a series of violent conflicts among factions that each KNOW that they and they alone are legitimate interpreters of the Divine Intention. The founders of our country established a secular government partly to keep these self-appointed disseminators of God's Will from murdering each other -- and the rest of us in the process.

It seems that devout Christians are divided into two groups -- overlapping, certainly -- by the prayers they offer. The one group undertakes to set God straight on how He is to run His world; the other group just asks for wisdom. I doubt that either group will be satisfied by what they get for their efforts without a hefty helping of self-deception.

The first group tells God which bad guys to zap, which good guys to reward, and which borderline guys to awaken so that they might hear the TRUTH the current speaker is trying to impart to them. Then, of course, He needs to know how to solve such problems as war, poverty, disease, corruption, drugs, free will, sex, and fun. Now, the God both these groups pray to has been around longer than time and has a consciousness wider than the known universe. He encompasses the farthest stars and looks with understanding upon the least bacterium and knows its history and its needs. Is He is going to allow himself to be instructed by someone who couldn't find Providence on a Map of Rhode Island and is self-righteous on top of it? Well, maybe, but then again, maybe not. Or maybe only in Imaginary Reality.

And group two? They just want to understand the world they live in, their relation to God, and how He wants them to live to best serve Him. But these folks, too, are doomed to disappointment. Wisdom addicts, like heroin addicts, alcohol addicts, gambling addicts, day-time television addicts, and self-righteousness addicts never feel like they have enough of their particular lust to satisfy their cravings. On the evidence, these group two types already have more of the commodity they seek than most people. Yet even if they receive additional helpings of wisdom from on high, they'll never feel that they know enough, understand enough, feel deeply enough, or are worthy enough.

Still, I think the world could do with more unsatisfied group two types and fewer group one types.

Like countless others before me, I remain amazed by the apparent success of the Imaginarian tactic of using a person successful in one field to sell a product or point of view he or she has no more claim to expertise about than Goofy. Thus we have movie people, singers, and jocks -- especially jocks -- who couldn't say "Duuuh" without cue cards advising on the most sophisticated medical, technical, and moral questions facing our society today. People who can't even spell IQ expound learnedly on information technology, international finance, social behavior, nutrition, hygiene, and which brand of athletic shoes will best fit YOUR feet. When it comes to making millions on trivial capabilities, some of these folks might really be experts. O.K. Talk about that, and I'll listen.

Do you remember who it was who said, "It may not be true that most conservatives are stupid people, but it certainly is true that most stupid people are conservatives?" I read that or saw it somewhere, but don't remember who made the comment. Whoever it was had probably just been reading the letters to the editor page in the newspaper.