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Saturday, August 27, 2016

Let It Be War!

I remember my mother telling me when I was an idealistic teenager about a person who she called an "ignorant old man," who she heard say in public prior to WWII, "If it means higher prices for corn, then let it be war!"
 I could not help but think of those callous words when I ran across the esteemed Mr. Kudlow's words, which I cited in the epigram to this essay.  Now Mr. Kudlow by no stretch of the imagination could you be considered "ignorant" like the poorly educated farmer my mother mentioned so many years ago
 Mr. Kudlow is CEO of Kudlow & Co. and Economics Editor of the National Review, a respected (by Republicans anyway) conservative periodical.  I took a couple of economics courses in college, and I know that the subject is quite difficult even if it still retains (somewhat erroneously) Thomas Carlyle's nineteenth century moniker,  the "dismal science." 
 Thus, Mr. Kudlow, you are no lightweight—at least with respect to financial theory and market savvy, and since you are a CEO of a your own corporation, you must also be well versed in management, and human relations.  (I may have that last bit about the human relations wrong, since in today's corporate world, the winners are the sharks that excel at corporate infighting.)
 Aw shucks, Larry (May I call you, Larry), I am only a sometime journalist and writer, but I can't help but wonder what all those soldiers may think about your statement.  Having served one hitch in the U.S. Army, I might have felt pretty good about keeping the "families safe," and maybe even have agreed with some of that keeping the businesses open since that implies keeping the breadwinners working to support their families.   
However, I do know what I would have felt about elevating the "stock market a couple of thousand points," and it probably would have involved procreation with your self in a darkened room.
 Now, I know playing—excuse me—investing in--the market is supposedly not the same as "making book" on sports action or the "ponies," as there is research done by a whole lot of smart people—probably like yourself--who attempt to time the market and pick the securities that are on the way up or down (since knowledgeable investors make money  either way).  Then again, maybe my naiveté exceeds that of a little old lady buying Enron stock with the last of her nest egg from a trusted broker at Merrill Lynch. 
 Hey, Larry, you know; it just dawned on me--in spite of my persistent 3rd grade view of American history and society.  People at your socio-economic level with your inside knowledge of markets, access to the corporate "old boy" network and good friends over at the SEC most likely only bet on sure things—like the fact that wars drive up the stock market.  After all, it took the entire mobilization of the country during WWII—not to mention a few tens of million of deaths--to end finally the Great Depression.  Hey, Larry, I guess I just made your case, didn't I?
 Still, Larry, dying for one's country, making the ultimate sacrifice for the survival of our people and our democratic republic is one thing.  I could probably have even died peacefully while serving my country knowing that my parents were living well and my children, eating hamburgers and fries under the flawed economic system that some now worship as free-market capitalism. 
 However, I don't think that I would have been exactly thrilled to die for the greed of you and your cronies, no matter how much it is couched in your quasi-patriotic language expressing "that our businesses will stay open, that our families will be safe, and that our future will be unlimited." 
You go on to say in the same paragraph, "The world will be righted in this life-and-death struggle to preserve our values and our civilization."  Since when did the upward mobility of Dow Jones have anything to do with preserving anything of our values and civilization other than the most crass—much less the gallantry of our young men, Larry?
 All too often the deaths of a brave soldiers merely to preserve entrenched political and business interests smacks of the "rich man's war and the poor man's fight."  I cannot help but think of World War I British poet Wilfred Owens' lament
The old lie: 
Dulce et decorum for patria mori.
 Those Latin words translate to "Sweet and glorious it is to die for one's country."  Those words are not always a lie used by elites to rally the population around the flag; occasionally those deaths may be necessary for the greater good.
 Nevertheless, Larry, it is not sweet and glorious to die for greed and crony capitalism.  Besides, I wouldn't want to shock my sweet, 80-year old mother with the truth of your well-wrought words about truth, money and the "American Way."  After all, she still, in all innocence, thinks that only a low-class, semi-literate old dirt farmer would wish for the deaths of young men and women just to drive up the price of corn.
Certainly, she would never in her wildest dreams believe that a man as well-educated, well-connected, and literate enough to write for a prestigious national magazine would want to unleash the dogs of war just to chase a few bears on Wall Street.

 

Beethoven's Revenge


Author: Thomas James Martin
Published on: April 18, 2003
The haunting beauty of the melody played by the solo violinist from Vilvaldi's The Four Seasons literally pierced my basically liberal, ex-hippy, mostly vegetarian soul as I stopped for the red light at the corner of Broadway and Hall in the City of Trees, Beaverton, Oregon.My whole body swayed to the music; who cared if the people in the cars behind or ahead of me thought I was crazy. Then, a rusty-looking ancient Pontiac Trans AM pulled up beside me, its juiced-up amplifiers spewing some god-awful heavy metal through the huge speakers that I could see lurking in the back seat.
That this "jump car" was playing music loud enough to drown out the screaming decibels of a landing jet was bad enough, but that it drowned out my violin solo was just too much. Caught between the twin vises of the sanctimoniousness of the lover of harmony and classical music and the cantankerousness of a balding, heavyset man near fifty, something in me snapped!
Deliberately I lowered all the windows that I could reach from the driver's seat. My hand snaked out, found the volume knob and with a sudden, violent twist turned the knob all the way to the right.
For one glorious moment I could not hear the pounding of the bass of Guns and Roses or Ozzy or whoever was putting out that noise. Then, I saw the windows in the jump car lowering and the violence of their music began assaulting my eardrums.
You don't mess with a guy who grew up on assorted Warner Brothers cartoons.
"Of course," I thought to myself a la childhood chum, Bugs Bunny, "You know this means war!"
Opening up the glove compartment I reached for my CD case and with a flourish withdrew Alexander Scrabin's Ninth Piano Sonata, also known as the Black Mass. "Let's try a little Russian justice!" I muttered to myself.
"Let's just see who knows more about darkness—Ozzy or Alexander!" I thought to myself as I ejected the Vivaldi and put in the Scriabin! Quickly, I adjusted the tone until the treble from my small speakers challenged the raw bass emanating from the Pontiac.
The effect of the" Devil's own music" was unnerving to many of the people in the cars around me. Those who had their windows down enjoying the cool spring temperatures quickly rolled them up.
The rather large, hulking fellow sitting in the passenger seat of the Pontiac with a gold earring dangling from his ear, smiled sickeningly and stuck his hand out the window with a single middle digit showing. Somehow, they found some more volume and drowned out the demonic but lucid notes of the Scriabin.
Madly, I dove into the glove compartment again and rummaged again through my CDs. I quickly discarded a Chopin, dropped Mozart's 40th to the floor, brushed aside a Bach 3rd Brandenburg.
Pawing through Tchaikowsy's, Brahms, Bartok—even a little Gershwin—until I finally found what I was searching for. With a mad gleam of triumph in my eye, I looked over at the grinning barbarian in the Pontiac, ejected the Scriabin and threw in Beehoven's Ninth Symphony, and hit the button until I found the final track.
I fired this salvo of Ole Ludwig at them point blank.
I turned up all the tone controls clockwise as far as I could. I made sure the volume was turned up as far as it would go. Slowly the music built, and I could see it was having an effect on the guys in the jump car.
As evil spirits caught in the headlights of God, they were cowering before this masterpiece of western music. "Take that!" I thought, as the baritone began singing the eloquent, opening lines of Schiller's Ode to Joy stirred by Beethoven's masterful music:

</>Freude, schöne Gotterfunken,
Tochter aus Elysium,
Wir betreten feuer-trunken,
Himmlische, dein Heiligtum!
The stoplight turned green, and I watched in amazement as they writhed and screamed in torment. God help me, but I love the sound of heavy metal tearing in the afternoon. . .
I thought sure that horns would start honking, people yelling, and motorcycle cops would arrive and take me away in chains, but, no, as far as my eye could see, people were getting out of their cars and heading toward me.
Oh God, Martin, I thought, you're going to get it now! I closed my eyes, knowing that I would probably next awaken with every limb of my body in heavy traction or be peering down at my body in the local morgue.
When I opened my eyes, I beheld in profound wonderment that dozens of people from the stopped cars had formed a circle around my small Honda. They were cheering and applauding, and holding their thumbs up. They didn't care that the stoplight circled through several more cycles of red, yellow and green.
Flaxen-haired girls and dark-skinned maidens alike were blowing kisses and showering me with rose petals. A smile started from one ear toward the other. . .then the stoplight changed to green, and I shook my head a couple of times and drove off with Vivaldi into the spring afternoon. . .

Editor's Notes: Ode to Joy is the English title given to the poem An die Freude by the German classical poet Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller (1759-1805). The poem is famous because of its setting in the fourth (and final) movement of Symphony Number 9 in D Minor, the "Choral Symphony", by Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827).
The verse that I include translates:

Joy, fair spark of the gods
Daughter of Elysium,
Drunk with fiery rapture, Goddess,
We approach thy shrine!
A full translation of the poem is available at Beethoven.
Alexander Scriabin (1872-1915) is often said to be the first "modern" composer. You may find out more about this enigmatic Russian figure at Scriabin Society
Copyright 2003, Thomas James Martin, all rights reserved.