It’s fun to hate and look down on people we think deserve it and yes it was entertaining, but looking back after the turmoil we’ve been through – was it worth it?
About 10 years ago Top Gear had an episode that went viral, where they painted provocative (to Southerners) slogans on their cars and then got chased out of a filling station in the middle of trailer park nowhere by rock throwing country boys.
When I saw that as a newly-minted liberal, or progressive or whatever I was – I wasn’t sure what I was, only what I wasn’t – I was livid with rage. At Top Gear.
Not that I identified with the rock throwers. I knew what they were. I hate the term “white trash” that just reinforces their bitterness and keeps them hating, but let’s say poor ignorant white people. (I have my own problems with the word white, but I’ll save that for later.)
I hated those types when I was a kid. Guys who lived up to the stereotype, who would throw down at the drop of a hat, drink their futures away, mistreat their wives and kids, blame others for their self-sabotage. But at least I respected them enough to know they could be dangerous.
The guys in Top Gear were joking about trying to get each other killed. And then were surprised that it almost happened. If you lived down here you would know that absolutely could get you killed.
What did they expect? Humiliating people like that on their home turf is insane, even if you think they deserve it. Deep down they may agree they deserve it. Which makes them even more dangerous.
If you’re not going to try and improve their lot, LEAVE THEM ALONE.
I’ve expressed that sentiment before to my liberal friends and they never seem to get it. One friend’s response was “fuck ’em.” I don’t know what to say at that point. But if that’s the attitude our society is going to have, don’t expect anything to change for the better.
People who do understand those people are dangerous – and like it – will swoop in and use them for their own purposes. Condescending and humiliating media portrayals of poor white Southerners like that Top Gear episode helped get us where we are today.
I stood on a hill with many others, excited and terrified. The Rapture was upon us. Those found worthy would ascend to heaven. The rest would be left behind on a doomed earth.
The Rapture would take place inside a building in the valley below. I donāt remember what it looked like on the outside, but inside, it looked modern. Businesslike. I tried to put aside my doubts.
A loudspeaker directed us to a row of turnstiles, where you would learn if your name had been written in the Book of Life, or if you would be left behind to burn.
My name was called.
I was so relieved I didnāt think to ask questions. Like why was I not flying to meet Jesus in the air, like Iād been taught to expect? Why did God need technology, turnstiles, or loudspeakers?
The next part was jumbled. I was on my way to heaven when I realized I was lost in a maze. Then I had a monotonous job operating machines, then another, then another. Heaven never followed. I had to escape.
Iād been fooled. This was some kind of trap. A trap full of traps.
I donāt know how, but I found my way out. Only to find that everything was gone, charred, replaced by rubble, charcoal and ash. It looked like the aftermath of Hiroshima.
There was no Rapture. The building was a machine. Wealthy men built it to destroy the world, using our faith and labor. The machine was meant to eliminate the population so they could start from scratch. We had helped bring about the Apocalypse we sought to escape.
Last thing I remember I was wandering through rubble, feeling dejected and used. Feeling like a fool.
U2 – Until the End of the World
What it meant
That dream has haunted me for half my life. What was the Rapture Machine? Iāve spent the last 30-plus years trying to figure that out.
It took a long time, but I understand what the dream was telling me: The religion I knew, the one that taught me my values, had been seduced and hijacked.
The Rapture Machine promises a materialistic version of Heaven. You don’t have to die to get there, just be willing to sacrifice others or look the other way.
The Machine makes it easier by distributing the sacrifices widely. No one may opt out. They can only be cast out. How could any kind of spirituality survive that?
The Religious Right had turned Christianity into a doorway to The Machine.
I had that dream in the late 80s, when I was still trying to be a Christian, though I was souring on the Baptist church.
Churches I attended in college only seemed to care about the offering plate. One church started every service with, āThe Bible Teaches it, God Commands it: Tithing.ā As a college student with no job and no money, that left a bad taste in my mouth.
I went to Baptist Student Union events, hoping to make friends and meet girls, but ended up feeling lonelier than ever.
I couldnāt discuss my doubts with anyone. āRead your Bible and ask the Holy Spiritā was the signal to quit asking questions.
Meanwhile the influence of the televangelists, of Prosperity Gospel, was overwhelming the version of Christianity I learned in my little unadorned Baptist church, with its old farmers, teachers and other small town folks.
Poor Man’s Poison – Give and Take
Itās not just a Christian thing
What does the Rapture symbolize? Escape. Everyone is born in a vessel that must toil, suffer, fear and die. For Christians who believe in the Rapture as I once did, itās a promise of heaven, the antithesis of suffering.
It isnāt just a Christian motivation. Itās universal. If you find yourself in a trap, you want to escape. Unfortunately, life is full of traps. Escape from one trap inevitably leads to another.
Promise of a better life is strong motivation, no matter your religion or lack thereof. Modern life, with conveniences our forefathers never dreamed of, will tempt anyone who wants to survive.
The Machine
The Industrial Revolution gave birth to the monster we refer to as the Machine. Or maybe itās been with us since the dawn of civilization itself and modern machinery just raised it to adulthood.
I donāt know if itās sentient (yet), but the Machine has a purpose: Never stop growing.
Now, with advanced AI threatening everybodyās livelihoods, it seems weāve decided to make The Machine smarter than we are, when most of us already serve it without knowing. Feels like my old dream coming true.
The ultra-wealthy only think they control it, but theyāre in a trap just like the rest of us. The more they have, the more they feel like targets. They grow their castles to keep out the poor and before you know it, theyāve built their own prisons.
The rest of are kept in The Machine by promises of heaven or wealth. Someday, always someday. False promises are the carrot, Poverty is the stick. Miserable, degrading poverty.
Premonitions and Predictions
Was my dream a premonition? Did my dream predict the future? Almost certainly not. My head was stuffed full of science fiction and literature as well as religion. My unconscious made an educated guess.
I think the unconscious part of us, the part we mostly deny in the ārationalā West, can solve problems and draw conclusions based on fewer clues than our conscious minds. The problem is, the unconscious communicates through symbolism we cannot easily understand consciously.
Just read about Craig Robertson, the 70-something man in Utah who got killed by the FBI as they were serving a warrant. Based on his social media content where he threatened to assassinate Biden and other officials, it looks like the FBI did what it had to do.
On one level, he got what he deserved. He asked for it and he got it. But I got to thinking, what would this man be like today if America hadn’t made this lurch to the right?
Would he have been bragging about his sniper rifles and Ghillie suit. I imagine he’d be your basic, slightly racist grandpa. Maybe not the greatest guy, but fewer guns and a good Santa for the grandkids.
Or maybe I’m wrong and he just was what he was. Who knows.
It got me thinking about how shitty it is that a sophisticated propaganda machine decided to weaponize people like that guy. Most old men, even those with a shit ton of guns, would never do something like that.
But a lot of them have gone far enough right to alienate their children and grandchildren. Which is a tragedy in itself.
Why am I lucky? Because I was born right in that generational sweet spot. Too young to get hooked on Fox News, too old to get sucked into the Manosphere on social media. Aloof enough to avoid parasocial attachments to my favorite entertainers who decided to catch the wave of crazy, for the money or the crazy.
Old enough to remember Walter Cronkite and actual journalism. Young enough to enjoy the Internet, when it was a place to open minds rather than close them. Old enough to get a college education, while that was still in reach.
Lucky I had the teachers I had, read the books I read, had the parents I had. Lucky I was able to tell the Republican party was a runaway train and jump off early enough so I can sleep at night.
I’ve been wrestling with thoughts about what it means to be a progressive in MAGA country who saw it coming. The inner conflict, the feelings, the divided loyalty… You just can’t win.
Someone recently asked Beau of the Fifth Column if he expected Trump to win in 2016 . Beau, who lives in Florida and is as rural a Southerner as they come, said no, he “didn’t think it could happen here.”
I was a little surprised, because I did know. I didn’t know at first, but by November 2016 I knew.
One night I jolted awake thinking, “Oh my God, we’re gonna do it again aren’t we?” Horror, dread and grief washed over me.
“Why must we always sign up to be the bad guys of history?” I thought. “They use us for power and money and leave our culture in shambles? Why do we do it?”
Shame over the past masquerading as pride…
Interesting that I thought “we.” I spent most of my life trying not to be country, or Southern, or redneck – as if I wasn’t raising hell on the back roads as a young man, just like my snuff dippin’ beer drinking friends. Who exactly did I mean by we?
Like Beau, I came up in the country. Not as country as him, but close. Texas isn’t exactly “The South,” but we’re kissing cousins. We once waltzed into a meatgrinder together on behalf of The South.
I knew Trump was going to win. Maybe because I was a newspaper reporter who covered small towns for 20 years.
Or perhaps it was because I’d quit wanting talk to people I considered close as brothers over the hateful things they said on Facebook, and got the cold shoulder from others over my anti-Trump memes.
I had an inkling that we were headed in a bad direction during Obama’s presidency. I was hearing more racist jokes. Infowars turned up at a boring ass economic development meeting, shouting conspiracy theories. Tea Party members almost scuttled plans for a college campus our poverty-stricken town needed desperately.
I felt dread when Hillary got the Democratic nomination, Hillary who was synonymous with Coastal Liberal disdain in my part of the country, going way back to Rush Limbaugh. Rush used that very hook to fool me at first: “We’re nothing but ‘flyover country’ to them.”
I knew because Coastal Liberals who chose Hillary over Bernie didn’t know how badly the well was poisoned against her or didn’t think it mattered.
I knew when Hillary made the fatal mistake of uttering the words, “basket of deplorables.” And didn’t seem to know it was a mistake – or care.
I still voted for her in the general. She would’ve been so much better for America – and the South, whether they knew it or not. Almost anyone would’ve been better. But I knew my neighbors.
I knew because wealthy Coastal Liberals who have controlled the Democratic Party, as well as naive city liberals who supported them didn’t understand how they are perceived and don’t know how to talk to us without stepping on every cultural tripwire.
I knew because Trump might be a buffoon, but he’s a talented conman. I interviewed a local conman once and I learned how it works: Find out who your mark hates and you can take him for every penny.
Liberals were sure they were going to win because they had a better candidate – they did. Anyone would have been better. But future MAGA knew the Democratic Party didn’t care and Trump (who also couldn’t give a shit but pretended to care) got to them first.
Couldn’t write a thing for a few days thanks to my shingles vaccine. The microchip doesn’t play well with the Covid version apparently š
But I felt well enough today to write another one of those drafts that sits in the app, 90 percent done waiting until it’s just right or chickening out. I don’t want to be seen as someone I’m not, but I have thoughts. So I write drafts…
I’ve seen some signs that more people are craving the real, the sincere. Maybe I can get in on that early and catch the wave.
Still it’s risky to be sincere on the Internet, especially when you’re between tribes like I am, trying to grow and stay out of boxes.
I have some sincerity lined up for tomorrow. Maybe folks will be charitable with me. I’m going to talk about being a progressive in a MAGA state, and why I saw it coming.
I don’t have any answers, but I know that we’re not going to get anywhere if we can’t talk. So tomorrow I talk.
The Internet feels like End Stage Tower of Babel these days. Even when you think you share a language, you don’t.
Maybe it won’t stay that way. Maybe people will take me as sincere and return the favor. Like I said, rays of hope.
Still I better give that draft another once-over in the morning.
My father died on this day in 1997. On the Fourth of July. Does that spoil the holiday for me? Not exactly. Iāll just say itās complicated.
It wasnāt always. July Fourth was a time to reminisce about Dad, who one of the most patriotic people I ever knew. He was literally buried in a casket with a flag under the lid.
He was a soldier musician – a clarinetist in the National Guard band with a sharpshooter medal .
Independence Day was his holiday.
He liked to celebrate with fireworks, as did I. Mom would send him out to stop us kids from blowing each other up and next thing you knew heād be tossing them in the air, saying āhereās how you do it.ā Ā
He grew up playing with cherry bombs, which can totally blow your hand off, so Black Cats and pennyrockets didnāt faze him in the slightest.
I inherited that from him. Iād be in a firecracker war right now if I could.
But now on the Fourth I just wonder what Dad would make of America if he was still around. Iām kind of glad he didnāt live to see it now.
I used to see myself as a patriot and I guess I still do. I was in Boy Scouts. I learned how to raise and lower the flag, how to fold it, how to display it.
These days I donāt think much about the flag unless I see it in public. I have one in the house somewhere, but I canāt find it.
I know how I used to feel about the American flag, but how am I supposed to feel now that Iāve seen it carried next to Nazi flags and Confederate Battle Flags? Now that Iāve seen someone beaten nearly to death with one on TV?
Now Iām kind of afraid to display the flag. I have to wonder what it will say about me to others who saw those same images. I wish I didn’t have to feel that way.
So the saga of the billionaire submersible comes to an end. It seems the underwater craft imploded, ending CEO Stockton Rush and his wealthy passengers in the blink of an eye.
Itās been interesting to see how people have been reacting. There are exceptions, but for the most part people donāt seem very fazed by the tragedy. Iāve seen a lot of ātoo soonā jokes and not much finger wagging.
The Titanic – A spiritual field recording by Alan Lomax at St. Simons Island, April, 1960. Performers include John Davis, Bessie Jones, Emma Ramsay and Hobart Smith.
A lot of it has to do with the hubris and foolhardiness of the CEO. He apparently did it on the cheap, used off the shelf parts and ignored the warnings of people who knew how dangerous it was.
James Cameron made a good point. Kind of ironic how similar Rushās fate was to that of Captain Smith of the Titanic. One thingās for sure, Rush will be remembered. Heās become a myth, like Icarus flying too close to the sun.
I canāt say I wouldnāt have done myself in if Iād had the resources to make a submarine. How hard could it be? I grew up on shows like Salvage 1, where Andy Griffith plays a junk man who makes his own spaceship. A lot of the Golden Age sci fi I read had premises like that.
TV in the ’70s was so dumb – and fun. Pretty sure I watched every ridiculous episode.
Mostly though, the lack of empathy toward the CEO seems to be about class. Like why should we care about billionaires when they donāt care about us?
I understand the sentiment to an extent. I was excited when Robert Ballard discovered the wreckage of the Titanic. The thought of colonizing other planets excites me. I have a much harder time caring about āextreme tourismā for the wealthy. Billionaires in space or billionaires under the sea – the rest of the world could really use those resources.
If youāre not careful though, you can get carried away. The guys who died in that sub didnāt deserve it just because they were wealthy.
If you think of it, the wealthy are just as trapped by the system as the rest of us. Iāve actually met a billionaire and I like the guy. He runs an ethical company and believes in paying his taxes (heās European).
Money is survival and wealth is security. If you donāt have enough, the system will let you die. But how much is enough? If you have a lot, youāre gonna want more, just in case.
The more you have and the less everyone else has, the more you have to close yourself off. You can do it with walls and surveillance, private security, or distance. You can use your influence to keep the people youāre scared of away.
The Bastille was a prison, but so was Versailles. Nobody wants to get robbed or Marie Antoinetted. But the worse life becomes for those people you never see, the more likely it becomes. Poverty is a trap, but so is wealth.
I donāt know how weāre gonna get out of this mess, but billionaires do have a lot of resources. If enough of them could be convinced that we’re all in this together, they could do a lot of good.
Itās worth remembering that FDR, who helped the country out of a depression and got us through a world war, came from the wealthy class.
March Slave by Pyotr Tchaikovsky, Leonard Bernstein conducting the New York Philharmonic Orchestra.
To say I donāt like the direction much of Southern culture has taken would be an understatement. Though not all of us are so resistant to change. I know I changed a lot over my lifetime.
But thereās another reason I canāt give up on us: My dad.
My wife and I were chilling out, listening to music yesterday.
Out of nowhere, I suggested we listen to some classical music. I especially wanted to hear Tchaikovskyās March Slav and Capricio Italien.
But it wasnāt out of nowhere. Sunday was Fatherās Day.
If I ever wanted proof that the unconscious mind is always busy…
Dad has been gone for almost 30 years now, but I still miss the guy. Dad had failings. He was a man. But he gave me the parts of myself Iām most proud of.
When I discover a new band or a new type of music I always have this impulse: I have to see what Dad thinks of this. Then I remember I canāt. Dad was all about music. He played clarinet, directed high school band for many years.
He taught me to love music. Music was always playing in the house. He especially loved classical. I learned to love it myself. Also turned him onto the Alan Parsons Project late in life ā he finally gave rock a chance.
When I read a book that makes my head spin, I wish I could talk to him about it. I can still see him lying on the couch with his nose in a book, or sitting at the kitchen table with a book and a bowl of popcorn.
He turned me onto science fiction by handing me a copy of The Star Beast by Robert Heinlein when I was 9 or 10. He turned the walls of our house into a library, full of history, literature and science. I could read anything I wanted.
Capriccio Italien byPyotr Tchaikovsky, Berlin Philharmonic Conducted by Herbert von Karajan
He’s the reason it almost seems like Iām still in college. He talked to me like an adult, and could converse about nearly anything. I canāt stop reading the hard books and searching for Truth. Thatās how he was.
He was a deacon in the Baptist Church. He directed the choir. He had four or five versions of the Bible, all highlighted and marked. He regularly consulted Isaac Asimovās Guide to the Bible, even knowing that Asimov was an atheist.
If you couldnāt tell already he was not a typical Texan, Southerner or Baptist. But he had a curious mind and he grew, and changed. He came from poor and working class Southerners transplanted to West Texas. He served in the military, went to college and found a way earn a living from music in rural Texas.
Many of his best qualities came via education and the military, but some of them came from Southern culture. If Southern Culture managed to produce someone like my dad, there has to be something in it worth saving.
It’s true that I’ve been dealing with joint and muscle pains that make it hard to write, but that’s not the real reason I haven’t posted much over the last few weeks.
Truth is, I’ve been constipated. Mentally constipated.
I’ve been trying to express some complicated thoughts that are just not coming together. As a matter of fact I have been writing. I just haven’t been finishing. I get two thirds of the way through a post and realize I’m stuck.
There is a general theme: What to keep, what to discard? I come from the country. I had a connection to the land once. I shared the religion and politics of the people in rural Texas and the broader South. Today, I very much do not.
I’m educated, progressive, “cultured.” I live in the city. I thought I had left it all behind. But something in me doesn’t let me forget. I think of old songs and get a lump in my throat. I dream of the hills, the wildlife, the cattle. The stories I was told. I remember Trivial Pursuit with my favorite preacher. I remember the old farmers and their wives’ casseroles.
How to explain to the people I identify with most today why I still care about those people? People whose politics threaten their very existence? Those who are being targeted by reactionary politics have every right to be angry.
I just can’t help thinking it would be a mistake to let it all go. That culture made me who I am. There has to be something of value. Some wisdom that can be extracted.
I’m still mildly constipated, but deep down I’m still working on the problem. Those thoughts want out. It’ll happen sooner or later.
Vlad Vexler on why it’s so difficult for someone to let go of an identity they’ve created for themselves even when it no longer makes sense – it feels like death.
Why do people become so extreme and resistent to change? Why do they not say, “enough!” when their leaders and role models go rogue? In a word: identity.
An identity is very hard to let go. I’ve been through that process more than once, and each time it was as if somebody died. Because they kind of did. Or more accurately, they melted into the rest of me.
But it was traumatic and I grieved. Suddenly I didn’t know who I was anymore or who my friends were. Ultimately, those changes made me a better, more whole person, but it’s a scary prospect. Too scary for many.
As we became more isolated in the real world, people began looking to the internet for a sense of identity and belonging. Social media algorithms naturally promote the most extreme positions, because they get the most engagement.
If you’ve attached your sense of self to a group of people who become convinced to follow an extreme ideology, you’re likely to go along.
I can go on an on about how the West seems to have lost its ability to think critically, but Vlad nails it so succinctly in the above video. In case you think I’m talking about the MAGA phenomenon, I am, sort of. But it’s not just about Trump. It’s about everyone.
I’ve seen this dynamic affect the left wing as well. Witness the drama and infighting over the last few years among progressive YouTube creators. I respect a lot of them for their ideas, but I’ve learned not to let them or their communities decide who I am. That’s not up to them.
I can’t let myself get pinned down by groups that become dogmatic or that violate my principles, because then I can’t grow. There were times in my life when I thought I reached my final form, but that always turned out to be an illusion. I’m 58 years old, but I have not stopped growing, and I don’t intend to.
Late Boomer's Den 
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