I just finished reading Dave Cullen’s amazing expose Columbine and I am reeling. I knew when I started reading it that I would be digging into some sensitive areas of my psyche but I had no idea how deep those scabs went and how painful it would be when I hit the live tissue.

The first thing I learned reading this book is that I had no fucking clue what really happened at Columbine; I only knew what the media erroneously reported and what became myth had very little to do with reality. The myth of the bullied, video game addicted, death-metal loving, weaklings who huddled together under the shelter of the fabled Trenchcoat Mafia, to target their athletic popular oppressors was, from the beginning, complete and utter bullshit.

The second thing I learned is that the Columbine Incident was not a school shooting; it was a mass murder bombing that failed. The plan, which came nauseously close to succeeding, was for the propane bombs to destroy hundreds of students and teachers, collapsing support columns and killing dozens of others in the resulting implosion. Klebold and Harris would then take up arms outside the school and pick the fleeing off one by one. They would then die in a fiery standoff with police. None of that happened. They killed thirteen human beings and wounded a dozen or so more, then committed suicide; the whole event an escalating series of murders without honor.

The third thing I learned is that the Columbine Massacre was executed by Darth Vader and Lord Voldemort. That sounds crazy, I know so let’s back up. Dylan Klebold was very likely a manic depressive, so in love with the idea of being in love that failure to achieve the impossible gave way to an eruption of rage that spiraled out of control and flamed from the barrel of his Tec-9. The character of Anakin Skywalker also had an ideal of love and security that he fought for, gave everything towards and watched burn before his eyes. When the death of the ideal was stripped clean before him, Anakin lashed out and destroyed everything his puppet master directed him to; from what I read, this was Dylan Klebold and such were his final acts.

Eric Harris, if the book is accurate (and I believe it is), was a complete psychopath; his mind was twisted and incapable of higher emotion. While he functioned and mimed the behavior of the sympathetic, his psyche writhed at the level of the lowest crawling snake. People meant nothing to him, especially those closest to him. Murdering kids was nothing more than the Brahmatic act of tossing logs onto a fire, the ever-burning blood sacrifice. This is Lord Voldemort. This is Emperor Palpatine. This is Sauron. This is Megatron and the Joker. Pick your enemy; any one worth their salt is a psychopath.

I was 24 when Columbine happened, just six years older than Eric Harris and it was not so long ago that I can’t recall the American youth culture prior to September 11, 2001. I was at the tail end of my post-adolescence, well on my way to becoming a husband, a father and building my career, to becoming what Eric and Dylan would very likely have called a “zombie.” American youth was fucked up at the close of the Millennium; so many of us were on a path of self-destructive thought and emotion that it’s amazing that little Columbines didn’t spring up all over the country (this is what the killers believed would happen).

It sounds ridiculous to suggest the literary analogy. Human beings are complex creatures but murder itself is a simple act, one which animals participate in every day. When these two young men began their plan for NBK (“Natural Born Killers” as they referred to it), they assumed the characters of cartoon villains and they did so in an age without mythology. In April of 1999, Star Wars Episode I was still a month away from being released, an act which would relaunch and reframe the mythology of Star Wars to encapsulate the downfall of a boy who grew up too quickly and became consumed with love and rage; just like Dylan Klebold did. In April 1999, there were only two Harry Potter books published and the full development of Voldemort as a born psychopath had yet to be revealed, a sycophantic, sadistic man-boy with a twisted mind hell-bent on bringing the world under his boot heel so he could crush it in one blow; just like Eric Harris.

Just before he died, in 1987 Joseph Campbell told Bill Moyers that the human species is in an age of mythological freefall, a wasteland of faith, a terminal moraine where tombstone systems of religious metaphor, systems that once built and sustained entire civilizations, have become wells run dry.  In their dissection, a generation arose that put no value on their lives and held the lives of others even cheaper. But that was all before 9/11/2001. One has to wonder, if Eric Harris had held off another two and a half years, if the events of that clear autumn day would have refocused his madness into a military use to defend the country; he wouldn’t be the first pyschopath to have turned his sickness into a benefit to society through military effort.

And Dylan Klebold is one of the saddest figures in this whole tale. I believe there was love in his future, love that would have paid off dividends if he could have held off. He should have experienced what it is like to love someone and have them reciprocate, to feel the collapse and shudder of a woman in love after orgasm, to know the happiness of a young child exploding with joy as he walked in the door after a hard day at the office.

But none of those things happened. Instead we got boys who refused to grow up and fizzled down into cartoon antagonists, a sad retreat from the true power and godship both claimed to be in possession of over others. Perhaps the greatest lesson we can all take away from the Columbine incident is that the ability to take the life of another person is insignificant next to the power of inspiring others to achieve greatness in their own lives; that is the true power that echoes through the generations, long after we’re gone.

photo credit: My soul in pixel..

I highly recommend you read Dave Cullen’s book Columbine.

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My grandfather taught me two great things:

1. A real man grows a beard out every year in the Fall/Winter”
2. Never argue with an idiot because they’ll drag you down to their level and beat you with experience.

You can’t argue with a fool who believes the literal “End of the World” which will look ridiculously like the whole Fire Breathing People Eating Jesus portrayed in the final novel of the Left Behind series of books.  They’ll defeat your logic with their imagination every time and you will be left frustrated and demoralized at the depths of ignorance that the human psyche can still mobilize a base of operations from.

And it’s impossible to prove a negative with reason and the scientific method (which are the only rituals of practice the intelligent amongst us should still be indulging in); but morality factors into this also.  Consider Kant’s work in The Metaphysics of Morals where he asks the question why human beings will spontaneously risk their lives to save the lives of others–without even thinking about it.

Kant’s answer, simplified, was that a metaphysical realization takes place when we see that little child about to get hit by a moving vehicle–the realization that on the ultimate level of being, we are all of the same source energy and we are all one.  This realization supersedes all temporal experience, reason, emotion and the entire mechanism of thought which produces the collectivized image of ourselves (which upon examination is actually a loosely held together ball of seemingly distinct memories with attached emotional responses).

As any other intellectual masturbator will tell you; there are few things more satisfying that getting lost in the evolution of a great series of connected thoughts on a topic.  There are few better “mental pumping sessions” than this ground shaking little bit of philosophy from Kant.  But I learned this past few weeks that it’s not just abstract.  I saw this happen on a large scale in my community when the wind storms blew through and knocked out a majority of the state’s electrical power on Sunday September 14th, 2008.

I was driving home from Cleveland in a hunk a hunka Cadillac which was still getting pushed all over the road like a geek on a bad day. For a brief span of hours, it was the year 1901 in central Ohio again.  Kids weren’t sitting with dilated pupils in front of liquid crystal displays with 1,080 lines of high definition resolution.  They were huddled up on couches with books and flashlights (probably not available in 1901). Neighbors were helping each other (and continue to this day) take cover and recover from the storm.  Neighbors were talking to each other because talk is all we had left to take control of in the aftermath of those warm and dangerous winds.

Ohians are good people–I can’t speak for you people in other states.  When it comes down to it, we Buckeyes (and I’m not just talking about the football team here) will make it work with what we got.

photo credit: Bob Jagendorf

• “If you plant ice, you’re gonna harvest wind” is a Grateful Dead line from “Franklin’s Tower.”

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Today is the seventh anniversary of the second worst attack on American soil (I count the British attack which burned the White House during the War of 1812 as the worst attack but I don’t measure by body count).  This is the day that the Illuminati of our country would like for us to come together on to renew our hatred of all things Islam and our commitment to the war against Arab control of our planet’s fossil fuels.

But I’m not going to renew that commitment today.  I’m going to propose something different.

Instead of congregating to affirm our hatred and commitment to war for resources as the primary driving engine of our economy; how about if we commit instead to improving the human condition through application of our creativity, ingenuity, and compassion?

What if instead of sending aid to foreign dictatorships and struggling democracies, we allow those tyrants and starry eyed freedom fighters to wade into the evolutionary gene pool of history and test their own meddle to see if they have the stuff it takes to found, fund, and fight for a Republic based on individual freedom?

Despite what the haters of George W. Bush say; he and his father and Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld and the entire cadre of oil warriors did exactly what needed to be done to preserve the possibility of making the choice that we Americans are about to make (and I’m not talking about the pending national election here).  Those Oil Warriors had to secure what little remaining fossil fuels are available on this planet because the function of any organism is to survive and the blood of our country is oil–love it or hate it you must accept this fact.

But just because it’s a current fact doesn’t mean it has to be a future fact.

We can make a choice right now to act responsibly in our environment beginning with the demands we make on ourselves and our families in our own homes.  Then we must hold our elected representatives responsible to these expectations as well.  We must hold the businesses we work for accountable for their actions and if they refuse to comply–this is an at will work world my friends and we have the power as individuals to choose where we dedicate our time and skills.

Responsibility begins with individual choices, continues with individual expectations of our political and economic systems, and ends with confirmation that these expectations are being carried out.  And severe punishment should fall on any system that doesn’t comply with the will of the people up to and including it’s total and absolute dissolution.  This is not a new idea–go pick up the Declaration of Independence and you’ll bear witness that the scream I just made is but a dismal echo compared to the group of men who layed it all on the line 240 years ago to create a society based on the pursuit of individual happiness where protecting each citizen’s body and one’s property was the only business of law.

So I don’t blame our 43rd President for the state of the world any more than I can blame Abraham Lincoln for the Civil War.  These men were products of their time and their presence and function met a need of history.  But the needs of history change and if the citizenry is too demoralized, too ignorant, and too apathetic to follow the current when it changes, they will end up in a stagnant swamp–sinking to the depths and drowning slowly.

Like Maynard said in “Swamp Song”:

My warning meant nothing–
you’re dancing in quicksand.
This bog is thick and easy to get lost in
when you’re a stupid belligerent fucker.
This bog is thick and easy to get lost in
when you’re a dumb ass belligerent fucker–
I hope it sucks you down.

The war for oil has served its purpose–the purpose of giving the global human community a choice of whether we ride the wave of change that history, ecology, and the better angels of our natures are demanding of us right now or if we retire to the evolutionary cess pool to await the inevitable drop at the gallows pole.

We still have the capability of turning this slobbering and bloody machine around.  It’s time we grew some balls and did it.

photo credit: h.koppdelaney

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photo credit: Earthman

I am not a fundamentalist about anything.  I will always reserve the right to change my ideas but I will never change my core values.  In college, I avoided thinking about politics at all; opting instead to get my spiritual and artistic core values down.  After matriculation though, I made it my task of tasks to find out what I believed in morally, economically, and politically.

I’ve read a lot of books in the past eight years.  I’ve listened to a lot of political speeches.  I’ve read lots of blogs and articles and I have twice sat on the steps of Thomas Jefferson’s back porch at Monticello and pondered what individual liberty really means.

The other day, I wrote about my core values of economics, law, and politics but I want to apply it to a political reality in America that I am surprisingly very hopeful about.  For the first time in our history a candidate of darker skin color than my own has been seriously nominated for the Chief Executive position in what still remains a very proud nation despite being erroneously taken off track by Low Men in Yellow Coats who have tried their best to make war the organizing foundation of our economy, our politics, and our social relationships with each other.

This sad detour is about to have a jarring course correction back to ascending altitude.

The energy I have seen coming from the Democratic National Convention has been nothing short of sublime.  The media was not successful in driving the wedge between the two major candidates up for nomination.  One hundred years ago in Denver, the “Dixiecrats” as the Democratic Party called themselves back then, held their Presidential Nomination Convention where they voted down, by a majority, a woman’s right to vote and the nomination of a candidate of color as part of their party platform.

Look at the difference 100 years makes.  It’s astounding.

And as much as I have been impressed with the speeches of my own Governor Ted Strickland, Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer, Michelle Obama, Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, and Bill Clinton–there is much I disagree with in terms of my core values.

• I believe that the IRS and the current form of taxation in America is economic slavery and should be peacefully revolted against as a tyranny opposed to individual liberty.
• I believe the War on Drugs is one of the most tyrannical social programs ever subjected upon any people by any governing entity and should likewise be revolted against through the peaceful means of argument and legislation.
• I believe any action taken by a government beyond protecting the lives and property of its citizens is an act of tyranny and must be struck down peacefully through the collective action of concerned and educated citizens.

I simply cannot support any candidate for office who believes that the ends justify the means because eventually the ends end up justifying the ends and the purpose gets lost.  The purpose is always individual liberty and it always will be and governments will always be subject to the will of their people if they want to last.

I have been mentally trying Barack Obama on as Commander in Chief for the past three days and I have to say that it feels right in my gut.  But it doesn’t feel right in my heart or my head and I’m still writing in Ron Paul on election day.  But if Obama wins, I hope my gut feeling is right–that it would be a good thing for this nation at this time (of course I felt the same thing about Bush in 2000 and 2004 so take this all with a grain of salt).

If the solidarity and focus on fixing what’s wrong in our country and in our hearts and minds as free individuals (the precious content of our republican democracy) remains in the Democratic Party; when the sums are measured, I believe America will be in a greater place than it has ever been under Barack’s leadership.

But until his party renounces wealth redistribution and social meddling in the affairs of free individuals around the world–I cannot support their candidate and will remain firm in my decision to write in Ron Paul for President in November on the Ohio ballot.

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photo credit: Azalea Long

Check out this quote in the September 2008 edition of National Geographic in the Letters Section. He is writing in response to last month’s amazing feature about China:

In 1998 I was a 19-year-old student in Hangzhou, China. The doors were “open,” but no one really had come through them yet. I remember thinking, if everyone here lives like Americans, the planet is screwed. The photo of the suburbs is my prophetic nightmare realized. Jackson A. Long North Oaks, Minnesota

The greatest act I ever committed towards my understanding of social economics (which is still too involved and conceptualized for me to grasp on an expert level) was to read Basic Economics by Thomas Sowell.  In that book, the main thing I learned is that Economics is the allocation of scarce resources which have alternative uses.  It’s a battle for survival by securing the resources the planet offers for human life and comfort and it takes place on an unconscious level at all times around us every day.

The world cannot live like America does because America can’t live like America does.  My country has been living so far beyond the margins morally, politically and economically that it’s amazing we’ve made it this far.  One thing about my country–every citizen is still born with the heart of an immigrant along with a portion of their hunger.  We have heart.  The intellect is usually our short suit.  Not that there aren’t brilliant people here in my country–it’s just that they haven’t figured out a way to execute that brilliance in a team-based environment whose ultimate goal is social justice.

The second best thing I ever read was the book The Law by Frederic Bastiat.  That little book is an absolute blessing to the concept of social justice.  In it I learned that the fundamental source of all law is the individual’s inherent right to protect their lives and their property from infringement by other citizens.  In this Maxim of Human Law, it is established that a citizen’s property is an extension of their body and is protected by the fundamental right of self-defense.

From this individual right, each of us agrees to partition a little of it away to a social authority (The Executive Branch in our country).  Our Executive Branch enforces the laws that our Elected Representatives pass.  The current problem is that we have elected representatives who want to be career politicians and they go to Congress and rot away on the fat pockets of special interest groups.  And we have a judicial branch appointed by the Executive Branch and approved by the Legislative Branch.  All of these people are supposed to be creating and maintaining a social structure that allows as many individuals as possible to be protected in terms of their lives and their respective properties.

That’s all government was meant to do when America was founded not even one revolution of the comet Pluto around the Sun ago.  Like everyone else, we hit some hard times in the 20th Century.  We sacrificed almost a generation of our young men’s minds and hearts to a global war against tyranny.

The ironic result of all this is that, according to Bastiat, when the collective body of Law for any society steps over the boundaries of protecting peoples lives and property from being infringed upon  by other citizens; the social order has crossed the line of tyranny.  We will know when the people have taken back control of the process of government when you see the IRS abolished.  Seizing the product of someone’s labor before they even have an opportunity to barter with you on its value and their compensation for it; it essentially slavery.  Not to be too dramatic about it.  But on an intellectual level, we must agree on this.  According to Bastiat, when any governing body seizes a portion of someone’s payment for work they rendered, prior to them even receiving the funds–the Massa’ is still crackin’ dat whip.

Honestly, I have no idea what to do about the global economy.  That is neither my passion nor my expertise.  There are far brighter people out there capable of juggling these concepts even when they’re on fire.  But I do know that we must change our habits and living situations as Americans before we ask anyone else to.  With the evolution of digital entertainment delivery and social networking, there is no reason for the ridiculous amount of travel we have to do for business.  There is high definition delivery of video and audio for a reason–let’s  get smart and start using it.

We also need to outlaw plastic sacs at grocery stores and start carrying our shit out of the store the Costco Way and have our own boxes and bags available at the ready for getting them into our houses.  We need to pay off our unsecured debts–they eat away at our labor and curb our creativity.  These are my first draft suggestions but I’m open to the ideas of others as well.

In the end, pay what you owe and don’t step on your neighbor’s toes–this is the fundamental definition of creating social justice in your world.

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