On the Road with Jack Kerouac by Tom Donelson

Jack Kerouac “On the Road” is a book that was ahead of its time along “The Dharma Bum” with a stream of consciousness to it.  He was part of the Beat movement that arrive post World War II.  World War II punctured the idea that technological and economic progress will lead to a utopia but yet for many Americans, the economy took off to another level as jobs were plentiful, the GI bill allowed many veterans to finish college and United States become the economic superpower while much of Europe and Asia had to rebuild from the war.

As American rebuild from the war and many Americans went to work and moved to suburb so for a few Americans, it was time to look beyond the “rat-race”, traditional values and the conventional worldview.  The Beat Movement was a precursor to the 1960’s countercultural which included dissing traditional families, departure from the prevalent work experience, focus on sexual liberation and individual freedom plus the general opposition to military industrial complex even though the Beat Generation had no war to oppose.  Jack Kerouac “On The Road”, Allen Ginsberg “Howl” and William Burroughs “Naked Lunch” were the three manifesto of the Beat Generation.   Time Magazine in 2005 rated On the Road as one of the top 100 best English novels from 1923 to 2005 and is one of the great works for American literature.

The Novel is semi-biographical based on his travels Neal Cassady (Dean Moriaty), Allen Ginsberg (Carlos Marx), Old Bull Lee (William Burroughs) and other eccentric characters he knew.  The journey of Sal Paradise begins with his first trip to San Francisco and after a divorce, he meets up with Dean Moriarty, who is “tremendously excited with life” and the both are excited over the freedom of the road.  With fifty dollars in his pocket, Sal set off on the road as he thought, “”Somewhere along the line I knew there would be girls, visions, everything; somewhere along the line the pearl would be handed to me.” He meets Remi Boncoeur and Lee Ann.  Sal gets a job as a night watchmen at a boarding camp for merchant sailors due to Remi effort and working for a short time, he moves on the world where he meets Terry on the bus toward Los Angeles.  He ends up with Terry, working on cotton field but Sal decide this is the life for him before heading him to New York and back to his Aunt house.

Dean is the most interesting character maybe he is the least moral value as he showed in Part Two when he shows up to Testament Virginia where Sal is staying with his relatives with Marylou while leaving his second wife Camille and new born baby, Amy back in San Francisco.  They go back on the road and start with driving to New York where Dean wants Sal to make love to MaryLou but Sal declines.  They meet up and Party with Carlo before heading to New Orleans and meet up with morphine addicted Old Bull Lee and his wife Jane.  Back in San Francisco, Dean leaves Marylou to go back to Camille and Marylou noted, “Dean will leave you out in the cold anytime it is in the interest of him,” and Sal leaves to go back to New York but before he does, Dean and Sal visit the jazz club scene.

During the Spring of 1949, Sal travels to Denver and San Francisco on yet another journey and as he move on the road again but he finds when he get to San Francisco, he finds that many of old friend have their own issues.  Camille is pregnant and is irritated with Dean and his friends, so he throws them out. They travel back to New York but another friend Galatea tells the truth about Dean to his face, “You have absolutely no regard for anybody but yourself and your kicks.” Sal knows that she is right but still defends him as he notes, Dean ” got the secret that we’re all busting to find out.”  After a night of partying, hitting the jazz joints and being proposition by a “fag” (Written in the 1950’s, Kerouac phrases includes words that today would be totally politically incorrect and not acceptable in most college literature classes.”

This is the point where both have their disagreement as Dean reminds Sal that Sal is the older of the two.  They get an assignment to drive 1947 Cadillac but in the process of driving the car, they speed the whole way and the car is delivered disheveled shape and Dean looks for his father on skid row. Once again, they go back to New York and continue their partying ways while Dean jumps in bed with yet another woman, Inez, who he gets pregnant while Camille is expecting their second child.

In 1950, Sal hits the road once again as Dean is working as a parking lot attendant in New York while living with Inez.  Sal simply lives for pleasures, attending basketball games or looking at erotic playing cards.  And we get into the part of the book, where Jack Kerouac takes us to Mexico where relationship are tested.   They go to Mexico with another friend Stan Shepard, and visited bordellos, smoked dope which easily accessible and party all through the country side before Sal gets dysentery while Dean leaves him in Mexico.  Sal reflects, “”when I got better I realized what a rat he was, but then I had to understand the impossible complexity of his life, how he had to leave me there, sick, to get on with his wives and woes.”

Dean gets his divorce in Mexico and marries Inez only to leave her.  Sal starts going out with a new girlfriend, Laura and consider moving to San Francisco, even contacts Dean to let him know his plans.  Dean offers to come to New York to accompany them to San Francisco and even shows up five weeks earlier.  Sal is not ready to move as he is short of money and Dean decides to head back to San Francisco.  Sal’s friend, Remi Boncoeur, refuses Sal request to give Dean a lift to 40th street on the way to Duke Ellington concert.  Dean leaves and the book ends with Sal reflecting on his road trip buddy, “I think of Dean Moriarty, I even think of Old Dean Moriarty the father we never found, I think of Dean Moriarty.”  On the Road reflects a life of loneliness and betrayal.  On the Road was supposed to a book about liberation but instead it reflects a life in which the main characters dispensed with loyalty, in particular Dean Moriarty who leaves women he gets pregnant to go on the road and live a carefree life, independent of responsibility.

Jack Kerouac died of complication to alcohol at the age of 46 with 25 titles including prose and poetry and he became the Godfather of the Beat Movement, and from the Beat Movement, came the counter culture.  There was spontaneous style to Kerouac with uninhibited view of America.  On the road was the travel bible, and the original counterculture manifesto.  Dean character believes that travel itself freed them of following the rules and anxiety suffered by those around them.  Embrace the now was their creed.

Kerouac had a libertarian streak and this is seen in his character Old Bully as Kerouac noted, “Bull had a sentimental streak about the old days m America, especially 1910, when you could get morphine in a drugstore without prescription and Chinese smoked opium in their evening windows and the country was wild and brawling and free, with abundance and any kind of freedom for everyone. His chief hate was Washington bureaucracy; second to that, liberals; then cops.”  Note the line, second to that liberals.  The counter culture and the political left would also show similar disdain for liberalism of the 1960’s as the Vietnam war blazed. The Vietnam war was a war expanded by liberals of the 1960’s and the liberal mindset dominated the post War II era so much of the Beat Generation and counterculture. Kerouac understood that he helped bring in the Counterculture but he found himself abandoning the counterculture.

Fury and Wilder, The Fight

Deontay Wilder and Tyson Fury fought an entertaining fight in which most pundits viewed Fury as the winner. This was not the controversial decision everyone made it out to be.  Many of the rounds were close and while Fury fought a good defensive battle, most of the rounds were decided by one punch or two. The closet to dominant rounds according to Compubox numbers for Fury was the third in which he connected on 11 punches to 4 for Wilder and the tenth in which Wilder was credited with only one punch landed to Fury’s ten punches. Contrast those rounds to Wilder dominant rounds in the ninth and twelfth round in which he sent Fury down.

Dan Rafel of ESPN had the fight in favor of Wilder 114-112 and I could easily see that decision and the 113 to 113 draw was equally reasonable since this card had Fury winning 7 rounds but when you lose two rounds by 10-8, which is negative four points for those rounds.  115 to 111 card was reasonable since that judge had Fury winning 9 rounds and that is not reach either.  Could you give Wilder 7 rounds as one judge in his scorecard 115-111?  Yes, you could since many of these rounds were simply too close and throughout the bout Wilder was the aggressor.  There is no doubt that the two knockdowns matter since on the 113-113 card, those two knockdowns matter as the judge gave two 10-8 rounds as he should have.  Those two knockdowns allowed Wilder to keep his version of the titles as if Fury had not been knockdown twice, he would have won the fight.

So let not pretend this was outrageous robbery for it was a tough fight to score but the majority of pundits had Fury winning in spite of the knockdowns.  I leaned toward Dan Rafel’s card and I could easily live with any of the other cards.

There was two things that came out of this fight. One is that Fury is an underestimated boxer who limited Wilder to 17% connect rate and six punches per round just as he limited Wladimir Klitschko to 4 connects for round.  His mobility is surprising for someone who is 6’9” and he slipped many punches.  While he never had Wilder in trouble, he did some effective counterpunches in spot but he was not consistent in landing punches.  While he landed 25% of his punches compared to Wilder 17%, he only landed 84 punches and many of his power punches were hardly devastating punches.  Wilder landed the two big punches of the fight and nearly ended the fight in the final round as Fury was laid out on his back but he got up.  What helped Wilder with the judges was that he was the busier fighter as he threw 430 punches to 327 punches.   This doesn’t mean that judges should give a fighter credit for throwing punches if they are not effective and many rounds, Wilder threw haymakers that missed their target and his jab inaccurate.  Fury’s defensive skills were impressive enough to win the fight and if he didn’t get knock down, he would have prevailed.

Wilder weakness on the other hand showed up including throwing his right hand in haymaker fashion. Many of his right hands were telegraphed and avoided by Fury.  His failure to set up his right hand with an ineffective jabbing hurt him.  He could not set up his right hand often but twice and those two times showed what happens when he does connect.   His power was his strength but his boxing skills still needs refining.  Fury at times made Wilder look amateurish and wild misses with his right hand were frequent.

Should we have a rematch? Yes, since Wilder as a fighter needs to defeat decisively Fury in a rematch or many fans will view Wilder as a beneficiary of a bad decision. For Fury, he came close to winning a heavyweight title and should be given a second change since there was enough controversy.  Hopefully they won’t make us pay 75 dollars for the privilege.

wilder-fury-compubox-punch-stats

Another bout was that got no headlines was the Oleksander Gvozdyk-Adonis Stevenson in which Gvozdyk dominated from the third round as he connected on accurate punches and put the pressure on the 41 year old Stevenson.  In the eleventh round, he nailed Stevenson with combination that sent Stevenson to the ground and the referee stopped the fight.  Stevenson reign as light heavyweight is over and now he clings to life as he was admitted to critical care.  Last report is that he is an induced coma and hopefully he will survive and recover.

Jarrett Hurd stopped a game James Welborn with a devastating body shots.  Welborn jumped on Hurd and forced him to the rope at the beginning of the fourth round before he got nailed with a counter body punch that stopped Welborn in his track.  Jermell Charlo challenged Hurd for his Super Welterweight belts and who knows what will happen if Jermell Charlo wins his next bout later this month.

 

A letter to a friend

(Most recently I had a liberal friend ask me about being a Republican and compassion.)

I saw your tweet on the Republican Tom and the divide you view in my heart. I am guessing the implication that one can’t be a Republican or conservative and still have a heart.  There lies a confusion on what is conservatism is and represent.  I think you were responding on a tweet on climate change. I will leave that issue alone and want you to understand a little deeper into what makes a American conservative.  Never confuse compassion and political ideology and as someone who has been in politics for five decades, and who has moved from left to right, I find that most people on both sides truly believe that their philosophy will benefit America including helping the poor but I will tell you I have seen my share of those who view government as the path to power over the rest of us.

My own view has been shaped in what I has observed over the years and the trends I detailed in my book the Rise of National Populism and Democratic Socialism, and we are at important junction in our history.  For me, I fear a bigger government than even the worst of corporations since government have police power to compelled their citizens to their will and history has shown the abuse of power to goes with that.  As I noted in my book, fascism in America will come from the left and not the right.  Let deal with the obvious, is Trump is a Fascism?  No, while Trump complains about media coverage, he has done nothing serous to impede freedom of speech but the left has been more serious about restricting freeom of speech.  Speech codes on college campus in the guise of reducing hate speech is nothing more than attempt to thwart freedom of speech.  I would suggest anyone to review the Wisconsin DOJ review of the John Doe 2 investigation in which supporter of Scott Walker were treated to midnight raids on their home under the guise of finding campaign finance abuses.  Just imagine yourself in your home at 11 pm at night when several police cars with cherry top blazing and police officers ransack your house while demanding all of your computers, and then being warned by the DA, talk to your lawyer and we will send you to jail for contempt.  This happened n 2012 through 2014and I talked with those involved.  This is Gespto tactics in action and this is what Fascism in Europe and US will look like.  http://thefederalist.com/2017/12/07/bombshell-report-political-persecution-scott-walker-swept-high-level-gop-officials/

Most Democrats like most Republicans would oppose this but it has happened over the past couple of decades.  I have witnessed first hand attempts by many politicians who have used their power to restrict freedome of speech and most of them have been Democrats. I have seen Radio stations threaten with their FCC liscenses if they don’t remove ads the other side don’t like. (So far I have yet to see a Republican or conservative group threaten a radio station with FCC licensing but I have seen Democrats do this in three states.) https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2014/07/the-real-war-on-women-and-speech-dick-durbin-edition.php

 

Trump is many things but a Neo-Nazis, Hitlerian character is not one of them.  The biggest difference I have seen over the past four decades is the actual criminalization of political differences.  There is no golden age of politics in which we treated each other with respectbut there was a feeling that after a election, we are all Americans and moved on to the next elections.  Today, that is being lost. Spend a day on twitter and you see it, the hatred often spew on both sides.    We still have our freedom but it is fragile and the greatest threat to the Press is not Trump but his opponents. Nor does the media help itself with own bias being shown on a daily basis. Consider what NPR and Pew Reserch found, there were eight times as many positive stories about Obama than Trump and for every positive story about Trump, you had 12 negative stories.  If the media themselves refuse to be accurate in their coverage, they are merely sowing the seed of their own destruction since they have thrown away the one thing they can never get back, their reputation.  I don’t spend my night worry about what Trump will do or won’t do since he is limited by the Constitution about what he can do when it comes to the media. I worry more about those who favor weakening the constitution and use the power of government to criminalize the political difference.  This I document in my book with enough references.  Having both dealt with this on a personal basis and seen it first hand,  the very same people who consistenly warns us about Trump have been doing far worse over the past decade.

Now for the compassion.  The story Christmas Carol is one of my favorite for Dickens in his own way, in which he tells those asking for his aid, “are there no poorhouses?” as he makes the point, he pays his taxes for “welfare for the poor” and this is enough.  He refuses to part with his own money for charities for he is selfish but equally bad, he view it is the role of government and not individuals to care for the poor.  This is complete opposite of most Americans believe.  There have been a chartible aspect to Americans that impressed even Tocqueville in his Democracy in America plus. 5% of our economy is the charity sector and the number of people involved in charity could be as much as 1/3rd of our work force.   Bernie Sanders in the early 80’s told the Unite Way in a speech he didn’t believe in charity suggesting that government handles all that charity does.  For many on the left, there is no room for private charity and that is now extending to the private sector in general.  Scrooge own view was that he wasn’t responsible for his fellow man but let others through government deal with it.  I have heard this myself from individuals over the years who have made similar statements.  When I lived in Kansas, I worked with a breakfast club at our church in which we offered free breakfast before school to many of our poor children.  I had members of our church ask why we did this, couldn’t the government handle it?  Eventually we discontinued the program when the state government expanded their own breakfast program for 10 time the cost but what was lost, the breakfast included something that government didn’t provide, love for those children, many of whom didn’t see it often in their own home.  As the Vermont governor who followed Sanders noted, “You can’t buy caring.”  I will point out the majority of studies that dealt with charitable giving among different groups consistenly show that on the average conservatives donate more to charities than liberals to make a point that many conservatives do indeed show real compassion with their own resources.   This is not to say that government doesn’t have a role in helping the poor, they do but that role is limited and can never be permanent aspect but a mere helping hand to move up the economic ladder.  We have spent litterally trillion of dollars on poverty programs since the 60’s and poverty have ranged from 11 to 15% and the biggest drop in poverty rates came from the late 40’s to mid 60’s before the war on poverty began.

Can a Republican and conservative have a heart, yes and often they do.  As a liberal pastor of mine admitted that her pew were full of conservatives and Republicans on a Sunday morning and provided the money needed to run the church including the various outreach the church provided.   A functioning market economy is the most efficient way to relieve poverty ever seen and while like any human endeavor, it is imperfect but as James Madison observed in the Federalist paper, If men were angel, we would have no need for government.  Conservatives don’t disavow the role of government but understand that government needs to be limited to protect our liberties and not be a threat to them.  There is a difference between a safety net and a government that attempts to provide for all needs. The former allows individuals to move up the economic with temporary help and a permanent welfare system that traps individuals and provides obstacles to moving up the economic ladder.  The state with possibly the greatest inequality and highest number of people living in poverty based on Census buearu is California which spends plenty on a state wide basis to compliment what they get from the Federal government to deal with poverty.  In California, infrastructure is failing to go with the schools, housing and energy prices exceeds that of other states with the middle class and the poor unable to find even decent housing for the price.  If you are a middle class living in San Franscico or LA, you barely making ends meet.  US News and World Report rated California as the worst state overall based on host of items includig business climate, affordability and providing for the basics.  Liberal policies don’t alway  provide compassion even with all the best intentions.   Politicians like Trump come and go but ideals stay with us. How can a Republican have a heart, I could ask the same thing of most liberals, how can you be a liberal and have a heart when the very basis of their policies is coercing others to give through a government police power.

Sincerely

Tom Donelson

Brexit and Europe

(With Marcon call for a European Army supported by Merkel and the challenge that Nationalism is presenting to the EU along with Brexit, this was adopted from my book, https://posthillpress.com/book/the-rise-of-national-populism-and-democratic-socialism-what-our-response-should-be and I explained these movements in Europe.)

The English monarch was never as absolute as his or her counterparts in continental Europe. From the Magna Carta onwards, the powers of the monarch were restricted. The belief in limited government has given Americans and the rest of the Anglosphere an advantage over their competitors. In the Anglosphere nations, entrepreneurship has flourished and spread beyond their borders. From the time of the American Revolution and development of the Constitution, the French have endured two Napoleons and five Republics. Outside of England, no European nation has had more experience with democratic rule than the United States. The development of a strong civil society and long time understanding of constitutional rule has fostered both political and economic freedom within the Anglosphere and led to its present domination throughout the world.

Within the Western traditions, there are now two competing ideas. For the French, there is a continental system that features extensive government intervention within the economic sphere and beyond. Many French have derided what they call “Anglo-Saxon” Ideas. In the 1960s, de Gaulle envisioned a block of nations as a separate world power that stood as a counter to the Soviet Empire and the American led “Anglo-Saxon Empire.” Whether it is attacking American culture or complaining about America hegemony, much of the French intellectual and foreign policy apparatus viewed American ascendancy as counter to their goal of dominating Europe through the EU. France wants to become a major player on the world scene through various international bodies such as the European Union and the United Nations. For many French intellectuals, the EU represented the both the political and economic counterweight to what they view as “cowboy capitalism.” (The problem is that EU and the euro aided Germany in being the dominant economic power within Europe, and it is no longer the French leading the way but they are becoming a tail wagged by the German dog.)

One of the future key issues for the Anglosphere nations will be Great Britain’s relations with Europe. The present EU and continental system favors more bureaucratic control over the economy and increased industrial policies targeting specific industries. The harmonization of taxes and budgets within the EU is designed to maintain high taxes and support an ever-expanding welfare state. The policy of harmonization is being used as wedge against lower tax countries such as those in Ireland and in the emerging democracies in Central Europe. Britain’s goal of being “the Anglosphere voice” would have been compromised by dealings with the French and Germans, the present leaders of the EU. James C. Bennett observed in 2007, “Were the United Kingdom to leave the Union and join NAFTA, it would lead to far more productive partnership.”

For Bennett, Britain needs to be more closely integrated into the Anglosphere through inclusion in NAFTA and the other Anglosphere pacts. This is a more logical alliance as Bennett observed that having the United Kingdom join NAFTA would, “accelerate the existing trend toward mergers, partnerships, and alliances between U.S., Canadian, and British infotech companies. It would extend them into allied defense and defense-impacted fields such as aerospace and commercial aviation.” In other words, Brexit.

Many European leaders have learned the wrong lessons of the past fifty years. At this moment, Europe is at peace for the first time in a millennium but with the resurgence of Putin’s Russia, there exists for the first time a prospect of a major European war. This peace came as a result of American steadfast military support of Western Europe. During the 2016 campaign, Trump refuse to committing American support for NATO and European collective security.  (Even though since then, he has maintained support for NATO while trying to strengthen it.  Marcon and Merkel are doing the opposite, weakening NATO. )

 

 

Beatles White Album, Their Best? By Tom Donelson

https://www.weeklystandard.com/dominic-green/the-beatles-white-album-at-50-when-they-was-fab  The author makes the case that this was their best album but the Beatles produced so many great albums.  Starting with Rubber Soul, Beatles began to change from being pop hits to serious artists.  Revolver continued that process with one of my favorite Tax Man, which the Beatles sang about the marginal high rates under the Labour Party. These lyrics sums up any conservative observations about taxes:

Let me tell you how it will be
There’s one for you, nineteen for me
‘Cause I’m the taxman, yeah, I’m the taxman
Should five per cent appear too small
Be thankful I don’t take it all
‘Cause I’m the taxman, yeah I’m the taxman
If you drive a car, I’ll tax the street,
If you try to sit, I’ll tax your seat.
If you get too cold I’ll tax the heat,
If you take a walk, I’ll tax your feet.
Brilliant analysis and Sgt. Pepper was the combination thematic melodic album and while many view this as the first conceptual album but Beach Boys Pet Sounds was one of inspiration for Sgt. Pepper.
White Album was the continuing maturity of the Beatles of a group that was soon destined to end.  From the early 60’s to end of the sixties, the Beatles was the greatest rock and roll band.