The Soapbox View: INVESTIGATIONS IN PROGRESS

ACT II

continues

Yurmony's response to the file included "Chatter doesn't matter" and uncrossing a leg to recross the other. And his agreement, "When people have the end of the line drawn for them, you can stretch it however you want. But ultimately? Citizens don't care." Then his right eyebrow rose questioning whether I understood normal is following the rest in line with the façade?

So I pointed out for the lawyer that, "Ruthless jargon rules the world. Mere layers of more nonsense. Everything's just Goofy ruled by subterfuge and espionage. If evil's the problem? Stop raising it. Except for the various conspiracies of individuals' benefit, bitter rivalry hasn't been the solution for countless generations. Prosperity and patriotism shouldn't just be signaled by the ability to make and threaten war. Because as things cluelessly stand, we've proven to have not advanced past the Medieval Age. The future's here and we're a shameful lot. Crying shame. But, suitingly, look darn good on the business page."

Imagine lawyers getting digitally shortchanged but for a minute? Lighting out of there. Running away. Getting lost. Were my best options to elude repercussions. If there were any? While Yurmony's look just meant this should cost me. So he smirked, "Goofy's all you are," and waited a response.

Squirm my eye.

He sighed shutting off his screen. Then inserted finality in his voice, pausing after, "Well. It'll go this way."

But I interrupted, "Sure it does. But by always going that way. Things can be turned a bit. Or there's no point. Unless it's the conspiracy that manipulates most has all the power. Where's the consent of the governed in that?"

The attitude was all there in his answering me. The grinning self-assured mockery. Accusingly asking, "And you call others' jargon?"

So I gave him his shrug back.

He smiled, "Uh huh. Be realistic. Management is controlling people. Not what dissent fabricates and convolutes to mean tyranny."

"Ditto," I said because whatever he meant was questionable too. Power running roughshod.

"Uh huh," Yurmony pretended to have heard what I thought. "Individuals aren't successes by themselves."

"Why everything's a conspiracy."

"Except for nothings."

"Ah. You mean it's fruitless encouraging voters not to be sycophants?"

He said, "I'm telling you. Twisting logic doesn't make you correct. Makes you a muddler."

Nice to hear at least.

But he continued. "To the point. Since this makes no difference. Why bother? It's impossible to be in everyone's corner disagreeing with both sides. Look"

"Look? Lawyers profit defending everyone. Even pro bono's good for business. Plus I don't advocate poaching. Tolerance doesn't mean tolerating crime. Our problems are deeper than the rule of law. Cultural and perhaps chemical, the way people, beneath the skin, always bother each other."

"O-kay. Let's stick to not making a case of this."

"There's no case," I replied.

While Yurmony'd moved on and smiling, waved me through the Sliding Glass Door onto the balcony. Even designating a lounge chair, opposite him, where I sat on the edge.

Grinning he, started a cigar and, waving it around, asked if I knew, "why people confer with lawyers?"

"Paid to keep their mouths shut."

"Besides that, cynic. People need someone doubting them on their side to come to grips with the truth."

"You're psychiatrists?"

"Dude. The law supervises people's shortcomings in dealing with others."

"Noble calling. But The Fine Society? Culture by punishment. Crime should end because it's really not polite. There are solutions for problem people. Among which is releasing them from the internal cages their anger's in.

"I can't help feeling one thing could help with disharmony. Start at the top and see how it trickles down. George W. Bush should apologize for opening the floodgates on aggression and prejudice. More permission to go off the deep end.

"It was just bullcrap blaming God for any facet of our endless cycles of revenge. Revenge, the attitude that raises every generation's criminality in the first place. No one can actually pay for crime and we live with that result every day. Viciously recycling The Criminal Enterprise System's Criminal Industrial Complex. Supporting this cockamamy idea that not only fools go to war. Civilization's not war."

"Okay there," he said. "There you go. Whether you are or not. You're a hard case. Anyway. You can't land or shed light on anything critically when you sporadically, but consistently, use, but never criticize, The New York Times."

Theodore Roosevelt

"That's not sarcasm? You mean never bring up something like the May 23rd essay in The New York Times, The Making of a Great Ex-President? Where the author, Boise State University's Justin S. Vaughn, slipped in a humble reference to Ronald Reagan's consideration among the near-great presidents. Presidents are important.

"Yesterday even, David Leonhardt's A Ruling Even Reagan Could Embrace began a paragraph with - Reagan, whose political instincts were generally fabulous, understood this point. To, maybe lighten the blow for a paragraph later lead with - What Reagan got wrong, however, was the definition of socialism.

"Capitalism is socialism is the truth. And it would be nice if people weren't so numb to the meaning of ideology they're hoodwinked by the catchphrase, 'socialism doesn't work.' Private companies are social cells. The Fire Department is socialist. Reagan rode a bandwagon contraption that defined political debate as narrowly as possible. A game of ping-pong really. This idea of conservatism vs. liberalism. Caging each others' ideals in warped senses of righteousness. Intellectually lazy and not at all what the public could understand. But what's simple to sell. There's really no freedom from the slant.

"Basically all of history's notorious ride their era's crest. Ivan The Terrible rode the military state that held off the Mongol Horde and made Moscow king. President Reagan kept intolerance profitable while Californians re-wired the world. Cut.

"I'm past hoping it helps America to understand its' political veneers perpetuate simplistic façades. A joy ride of hype in a propaganda store. Meaning nothing's getting us through this obstinacy power has towards being influenced by substance of depth.

"What history keeps repeating at a poundingly numb rate is, we're so far, far advanced and happy that, for the most part, things falling apart's profit and loss too. Because there's already tickets to the moon and beyond for anyone feeling threatened enough to get away from any deep thinking going on about planet Earth. No matter anyone's status. We're all a bunch of losers when it comes to handling money. Everyone working their hearts out for something worth less every day. End inflation or the madness never will. Because otherwise pretending to catch up seems to have irrevocably damaged us forever already."

"Listen," he said.

So I retraced, saying, "This is that Justin S. Vaughn quote. 'Favorites like Abraham Lincoln, Franklin Delano Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy died as presidents, and others, including near-greats Woodrow Wilson, Ronald Reagan and Lyndon B. Johnson, suffered health problems that severely constrained their post-presidential activities.'

"Heavier than sound-bytes. The consolidating appraisal's meant to leave marks. Everything matters. But it's beginning to look a lot like history's become the number of times it's published you're an idiot."

Yurmony grinned like I wouldn't shut up.

So I said, "What about Theodore Roosevelt's picture in that Professor Vaughn piece?" I threw up my hands. "He didn't like that name Teddy they used for the caption. Yet there the name sat under his picture in The Times. Naming him exactly against what he'd wish. Characterized. A small isolated incident. Yet there it was in The New York Times. A fact. In effigy over the Manifest Destiny attitude toward life and war that he hadn't created but built 19th Century America that raised him. Plus he even came to regret that warrior mentality after his son, Quentin died a WWI hero. But to conquer a nation you have to break a few heads and have no room for shame on the mantelpiece? That's what our world's been taught their elites thrive on for victory. Why I'm willing to lose repeating don't be anyone's sycophant.

"Meaning where there's a bandwagon? I prefer getting off. George W. Bush Should Apologize. Our American military has an obligation to go to war only as last resort. What's at question from my point of view is God was blamed for deciding this holy war nonsense could handle escalation. Beaten to submission never works except for those without a conscience. George W. Bush Should Apologize

"I can accept Reagan was an adequate president. But not when it comes to pinning responsibility for the forward progress many are responsible for achieving. Near-great denies the obvious. Permission for the hard____s to persecute life-style choices is on Reagan's mantelpiece and to take it off is lying. Exploiting America's flaws is not a sign of greatness but the petty opportunism all America hopes and wishes were out of the boardrooms and our lives. Tough enough to thrive has been made a joke when political identity's proven a comedy. Saying we're lost without presidents is like claiming William Henry Harrison contributed much more meaning than symbolizing a military general's reward coming late in public life."

Yurmony was stupefied.

___________

Governor Gateway favors Criminal Enterprise System.

Quick. Take a look. Is your view asphalt as far as the eye sees?

c/o Paul Kotas

The roads of America built this country one journey at a time. Still what's right for the future is right now. Bicycles and trains or smart cars for the perpetually entertained traffic living the excuse they're too rich to sit next to the poor?

Hopelessness lashes out. - literal propaganda

Patriotic purity? As if there's no clue how nationalism's been historically used to cover the public's eyes to blind ambition. The pragmatic jargon that's marginalized concerns for centuries. But what today's modern world's meaning for history, will mean to the future, is that with the potential for so much, we failed to deliver ourselves from profiting from evil. For instance, Pope on Weapons Industry.

Forget the dystopian future.

It's this present pragmatic one heads will shake about. Perhaps laugh at our well-rewarded, laurel-sitting, generation that let festering passions fester on when we're smarter than this.

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