Dr. Guy Standard

WHAT IS A GOPSTER? You’d like to know. Well, allow me, it is to say that in terms of the latest of lights at tunnel’s end where at last the bridging rubber road meets the words to be told like beads on a string, a Gopster is, definitively, one to mumble a dozen times each matin: Benghazi, Benghazi, , , one in a million, that is, who each and every one throws in a 9/11, now and again, just to flavor the phrasing.

Only get to thinking about it and about: a Gopster is an arse upon which everything has sat but a man, but/and shall nevertheless have authority to play poet, to conjure images for some us who are, say, Americans. Mr. Gohmert, bless his heart and pointy head, would be bard. Mr. Gohmert himself, as it turns out, is enlarged, by office, to be a very figure of speaking petomanically-controlling flatulence. As Casey Stengel might have pronounced it, little Louie Gohmert is not an educated man, but, variously and on the other hand, he is not at all troubled in any recognizable way by (say) intelligence. Really, quite the opposite. Mr. Gohmert can pass without comment as bellwether bleater of Gopster poesy — a merry merry little metaphor, a Gopster, of a mind, that is, never to have been, never to be, violated by an idea.

I just got through ruminating a bit about courtesy — common or not — and I am instantly re-minded of generosity, because some we (who dare call ourselves Americans, and more… patriots) might have made infinitely-better use of what should be the best use of true diplomacy: generosity. Now, just have a look at Iran, just now: does no fucking body recognize what might best be done if you were John Kerry his boots on the ground, so to speak, and, say, it wasn’t a drag to see him, what might he do, if he had sense — barely — enough to pound sand down an effing rat-hole — if (if only) the Lanterned-Face One had noticed he had half a year to play with not being nasty and narrow and, incidentally, very cruel to women and children, being “nice”, for a change what would you do about those sanctions — ? why, you, the jawed and jawing one — you would observe that this is pounding, not bothering to knock, being for once nothing less than yet another word… opportunity: pull back all sanctions for the six-month period — treat the kiddoes and their mommies with foods and medicines. MORAL: Ford had his faculties when he started handing out a fiver every day. Here, Kerry wouldn’t have to once again try to buy respect; just don’t charge for being on someone else’s turf. Watch this space, for a change, Mr. Secretary. Offer to pull back all sanctions. Be a legend, be beloved. It may be habit-forming, but it’s good for you. Be generous.

IT WAS OSWALD, this time it is massively clear,” we are told. No kidding. No use denying, by this time…

Sorry, it was someone else, or some others, it was, very occamistically-shown, not a weakly-hostile, derangedly-dreaming sensibility that did a job of work. Watch now, watch how:

Oswald did not shine as part of a firing-line trying out for a job. Oswald was a lousy shot, even a KGB defector would (and did) tell you that.

And this sensibility is parked, for the kill, six stories (and storeys) up and has a 6.5 Carcano carbine (not a rifle) with a deserved reputation of blowing up in your face… a bolt-action which emphatically is a dim idea for an assassination. Then there is the telescopic sight which is not/was not sighted-in; either that or someone tampered with irrelevant evidence. Pretty much the only sole truth spoken was said by Oswald, namely, that he was a patsy. As the poet says, I thirst for accusation.

DID WE MAKE HIM WELCOME: that is, isn’t it, the question. Does he have a background differing from the rest of some us? Damned straight he does. His skin color, in his history, served as slave. That means, doesn’t it, what it means, and which includes some us who have a different color of skin: everything that Mr. Obama is, and more, was supposed to elicit from some us a heartfelt welcome to all you are and come from — half African, half Caucasian — weren’t some us even mildly curious to see how this accomplished hybrid might turn out — as a President, say — weren’t we supposed to welcome some that which bid fair to put the house in-order, so to speak — even Rodney, as well as Martin Luther got it right: Cannot some we, at this time, get along?

Instead, what did some we do? One thing, we got to see Mr. McConnell prove he was more handsome on the outside; and some we are privileged to observe Mr. Gohmert’s mind, at-work; some we set the dogs loose as if it were all games, as well as fun; just don’t let it go more than one term, and that is how some we, as well as Goldman-Sachs, said hello to the man — some we didn’t, really, manage to extend President Barack Hussein Obama a courtesy that is (or was) supposed to be common.

TWO MEN SET OUT on a tandem bike and pedal down a road; call them Ed & Ned, for short, Ed at the head and Ned, puny little fart, bringing up the rear.

Good thing Ed is young and strong because a big hill comes up in front of them, long and high and steep and Ed yells back at Ned that they are in for it.

Sure-enough, this is one of those hills that loom — a badass hill, no doubting it — and Ed’s muscles and splendid thew and bone are sorely taxed by a hill that gets steeper as the crest approaches. Ed’s starting to tire, no doubting that, and…

…and Ned back there complaining how worried he is they’ll never make it. Well, they do, at last, and Ed looks back and comments, “Damn, that got bleak toward the tipping-point of the angle of repose — not terribly memorable. And Ned says “Yeah, we’d have gone backward if I didn’t have the New Departure brakes on, all the way!”

Ed just smiles, what you going to do? A MORAL? You don’t always get what you deserve. Neither do we who get to ride; and look out for Fred, and then, Ted, by all means.

MADNESS: Isn’t the situation (as Sartre operationally defined the term) — isn’t the situation rather more than a little mad? A fair, an eminently fair question. The worst as well as the best lack all conviction and the sheer intensity of the situation is of a crazed nature. And? And not a bloody one god-damned vetted psychologist willing to risk a word about it. No psychiatrist willing to come forward in mini-manner, much less get grand about it. Where is our Freud and Fromm to diagnose Mr. Gohmert’s case and at least leave a few comforting words with him before passing on to the cases that can actually be saved. Seriously, if no one by specialization licensed to deal with mind and its pathology, why then at very very least, mightn’t Senator Paul submit his wordings scientifically (i.e. tested against falsification) like a good family doctor examining one’s eyes that one might best see the bigger picture and what is wrong with it. Is that too much to hope? Hope. Is hope (as a true Spaniard once put it) — is hope to throw a shoe into a bird-cage and wait for it to sing? As the Fugs sang it, I sometimes wonder. Was Geo. Washington the lesser of two evils? Had enough? Welcome to the funny house.

RELIGIONS: There is indisputably among us humans an impulse that might only be described as religious — an awe inspired by the fact of existence — an oceanic feeling that there is that about existence to be reverenced, and it has to have been an impulse there from the time of the earliest human. As that impulse finds its way into language, however, and is, inevitably, used more and more promiscuously and put to institutional service, what began as wordless worship turns into an example of the fallacy called the argumentum ad baculum — the appeal to the club — believe on Jesus or, variously, Allah, or be lit up at the stake as a candle for a singularly odd God, or, variously, lose your literal head to the sword by way of conversion. The legendary southwest painter Paul Milosevich gets it spot-on to say that there is that about existence that makes us hold it to be holy, and there is the rest of it that is just bullshit.

RACE: As we are Caucasian in a country called the United States of America we are racist. I never noticed as a boy reading Penrod that Tarkington was racist any more than Richard Dawkins as a boy did reading the Bulldog Drummond stories. But we Americans kept slaves and practiced genocide. Africans didn’t come into this country on their own as immigrants and a population north of the Rio Grande of 12 to 15 million natives was by 1800 reduced to 200,000 and we, we Caucasians I am saying — we never really noticed one thing or the other. We played at cowboys and Indians and the cowboys were the good guys — nobody wanted to be on the Indian “side,” not even the Indians as often as not; and whites blackened their faces with burnt cork when they wanted to be funny. There is an “N” word, and more than one little African-American girl has cried through tears, “Why do they hate us so much?” And what is the only good Leonard Peltier? There is no “W” word, notice. James Baldwin got it right: We the people made up the Blacks, made up those Indians — we all had a hand making up those blacks and browns and… yellow-tinted (uh) Americans: there are things in that melting-pot, boys ad girls, there are things in there don’t belong to the recipe — like throwing in a duck, feathers and all: won’t end up tasty.

TO OCCAMIZE a few things: The Kochs are not your friend, no Bush was ever anything but your worst enemy; no Cheney ever gave a flying fuck about you, and do not get me going about a Bain, a Cargill, an IMF. Had enough? I sound like a socialist? Really? I’m flattered. You must have read things said by Victor Debs. You say what? You do not agree that this is madness. If only you had studied the classics!

NUMBERS AGAIN: To pay back a trillion-dollar debt we had taken on and agreed to pay back at a rate of a dollar a second would take 32,000 years. One hears, however, that we, the people who make up the United States of America, owe varying pluralities of trillions here and (especially) there. Former Senator Everett Dirksen would have agreed, after a while it starts to add up to real money: hundreds of thousands of years. Mild but tempered Query: Might we not have pinched off a few billions, here (especially) and there for free schooling, a bullet-train, a few bridges, and a road or two? We mightn’t. I see.

I CAN’T STAND TO LOOK AT YOU: It is more than passing pleasant to turn away from a half-black face and encounter by eye countenances much more handsome and comely. Gohmert, perky devil; Sessions, un-baked dough-face, but enriched, if bleached, and a real southern gent; Cruz, a portly tankard of self-promoted command, a mask; Cantor, chief planner of waste-paper basketry; Ryan, sous-chef wiper of clean pan; Boehner, visage of Simpson (Homer) complexion; McConnell, a class with one member in looks; a Koch and a Koch and a Bush and a Bush and a Bush, yes, much easier on the eyes than that unsightliness presently-seated in a White House. I can’t stand to look at you.

AND THIS IS AMERICA? Bush, Bush, Koch-Koch, Gohmert, Broun, Stockman, Imhof, Cruz, Norquist, Palin, Ryan, Romney, Bachmann, Issa, Boehner, McConnell, uglier on the inside than out, just no looks out there to like: and is this America? Koch-Koch?

DOWN THE DUMPER TIME: schooling in America: is that the way it’s going to be for (it’s supposed to be) a public education? Supposed to be free? Supposed to be as good as a journey-person in an orchard, ready to advise, don’t plant a ten-dollar tree in a one-dollar hole; plant a one-dollar tree in a ten-dollar hole. To educate: to draw oneself out of (precisely) one’s self. Gohmert — it is like a unit of exchange, as in I’ll raise you two, no, three Gohmerts. And this, this is America. If only America had studied the classics! Schooling in America. Ah.

RELIGIONS (as they are called): Einstein was without a doubt the closest anyone ever came to knowing what an Old One would have to be, to be any decent sort of god at all, at least as good as Einstein ever was. Hawking in all of this? Let us ask Gohmert about it all. Yes, and we ever more come out, at the same door wherein we sometime went. Religions? One should weep, confronted by the beauty of a mountain, cry to feel the current of an ocean and wander in-mind through an imagined universe. Can a measly Pope top that? No, I’m not “religious” and I never was, but there is, after all, something holy about the sea.

A NUMBER OF PEOPLE have commented on the ways in which Mr. Cruz seems anxious to re-do Tail Gunner Joe; that sells the boy-senator short, I think. McCarthy was just a drunk bluff. Mr. Cruz’s ambitions are more schicklgruberian, as if he found himself in, not Washington, but Weimar. Mr. Cruz would be, not President, but Chancellor: for a real change.

“INFLUENCE IS NO GOVERNMENT.” Who first said those words?

WE SAY OF SOMEONE (or of something) that they are evil, but that is not the superlative term in what is really a brede of words open to declension: evil is one thing, after all, but to be recognized as actually wicked is something else: you have to be bright to be wicked, a power of mind informing actions all of which are as mad as cruel. The yo-yo who gets his rocks off torturing a humanity can be as stupid as ever being evil. A comment in this regard — Mr. Cruz is considerably more evil than wicked.

THE EVIL KOCH BROTHERS are not, finally, any more evil than Gohmert, lately of Texas. They are equal to two Gohmerts, priced at a double-gohmert’s worth, if the matter were a market. Those Kochs poison a world’s water making money made money. Still a chattering lunatic such as Mr. Gohmert takes time and trouble to present before a god and everybody a self which is every bit as evil as a Koch.

NOW, A WORD ABOUT TEXAS, a state I dearly love. As a Texan, Mr. Gohmert is a Texan like a pig staring at a wristwatch. I like a different kind of Texan: Hightower, Ely, Hancock, Gilmore, Allen, Maines, Dixie Chicks — Guy’s kind of people, Judge.

“INFLUENCE IS NO GOVERNMENT.” What was that supposed to mean. What does it mean. Whatever does it mean? Who said it.

EDUCATION: All schooling, pre-school through post-doctorate should be free, as Jefferson insisted. A democracy, that is to say, an educated electorate cannot, otherwise, subsist. Cost should be no object, but only think for a moment what stupendous sums have been encumbered for warring — think for a moment what trillions (plural) of dollars have been luxuriated on perpetual warring. How large a number is a million — how long would it take to spend a million dollars at a dollar per second? That would take about 11.574 days. To spend a billion dollars at a dollar per second, however, would take almost 32 years. And a trillion, just one trillion dollars at a dollar per second? That would take almost 32,000 years. America cannot afford to spend a trillion or two at a dollar a second on education? America cannot afford not to spend on education what it has spent and spends on war. The United States of America cannot afford not to make dead certain that no Mr. Gohmert ever even for a split second thinks about running for some office; and no Dr. Broun ever feels free to be stupid before, please, a political public.  Query: Dr. Broun, what do you suppose Bishop Ussher would have made of carbon-14 dating? More to the present point, Doctor, what do you make of carbon-14 dating?

MR. GROVER NORQUIST is a pander, interestedly self-appointed to procure what is by purchase prostituted, which is influence of government. Influence is no government.

A GERRYMANDERED VOTE is said to occur when one has been encouraged to select the ugliest, least intelligent couple invited to a party to be married, after which one gets to take them home to be safely admired and luxuriantly supported only to learn they are of hateful disposition, not to be trusted around the silverware and given to wholesale lying straight to one’s face. They can be depended upon to cackle unceasingly to one’s children about God, family values and patriotism.

WAR is the ultimate luxury. Rulers of every political flavor apparently find war irresistibly addictive and speak of it as an art.

A DISHONEST POLITICIAN is a pleonasm. An honest politician is Senator Bernie Sanders.

THE TAIL WAGS the dog, yes, and it isn’t even the dog’s own tail.

IF ONLY, the poet keened, if only America had studied the classics—well, it troubled his sleep.

JEFFERSON: All education, all schooling must be free: an electorate, a democracy makes no sense otherwise.

MR. CRUZ of Texas is a sober Joseph McCarthy, hence, more disgusting even as (to stengel it) he is more dangerous.

MR. MCCONNELL is a good deal less pleasant-looking on the inside.

THE DRS. PAUL ought to ask themselves what a medical schooling would award them tested in diagnosis (that particularly) and intern-practice and onward. Father and son are quacks, graded in any competent way. And there are other doctors in the house, residing as flunkies.

WHAT, after all, must Mr. McCain think of Mr. Bush the younger? Will his memoirs be reminiscent of those of McNamara?

Is this America?