FREDRICH NIETZSCHE - MENSCH UND UBER-MENSCH

 

I hope they leave Friedrich Nietzsche alone. I understand why they wanted to dig him up, of course.  And I understand why, if he was still around to offer an opinion,  he would say it really didn't matter.  He’s been dead a hundred years and what is left of him has long since turned to dust. What Nietzsche might say is, what does it matter where his dust resides, or if they set it on fire.

Clearly it mattered to his sister, Elisabeth  (above, center), but she was an anti-Semitic witch. She loved Friedrich but her attachment to his dust was her opiate, not his. He didn’t worry about such things, so why should I?   In any case,  the threat to his dust turned out to be a nasty joke. The very ground they buried him in was briefly considered too valuable to be allowed to simply rest where it was, with him in it.

I care because although there is much about Friedrich that is troubling and contradictory, there was also one thing in particular which Friedrich wrote, words that spoke to me like a clarion call of honesty and integrity; and which dispelled half a lifetime of conventional pandering and route idiocy. These were the words he wrote which convinced me that intellectually I was not alone on this earth;  "Plato was a bore.” God, yes, he certainly was: a fascist, hate mongering snob and a bore; and Friedrich Nietzsche was the first man I ever read who was brave enough to say that out loud. Sometimes I feel like shouting it. PLATO WAS A BORE!

Friedrich, on the other hand, was nuts; toward the end of this life, a literal raving lunatic. He ordered the Kaiser to go to  Rome, so he could be executed by the Pope. And Friedrich wasn’t kidding. He wrote to friends to explain why he had done this, as if they were going to disapprove of the Kaiser’s imminent demise and hold Friedrich responsible, as if the Kaiser was imminently about to demise. Maybe that is how you know he was crazy; he could not distinguish between what he wanted to do and what he could do. Still,  you know, might have prevented World War One, and Two.

Perhaps insanity is that simple, the inability to divide in the mind between what is and what ought to be, some kind of hormonal imbalance of the chemical hierarchy of the brain, encouraging you to stuff your pigeon into the wrong hole. It was probably a symptom of the syphilis or gonorrhea he had contracted as a young soldier in the service of the crown. He was a medical orderly who in retrospect hated war and all the justifications for it. The crown he served as a young man was the last thing he had believed in, outside of his own brain.  As Friedrich himself wrote, “A casual stroll through a lunatic asylum shows that faith does not prove anything.” And who would know that better than Friedrich?

But that was yesterday, the age of mensch and uber-mensch. Today the mensch (or men) of Germany are far from uber (or super), with smaller minds and smaller dreams. Unemployment in the first decade of the 21st century,  in what was recently the corrupt East Germany, was over 20%. 

And the little village of Rocken (above), where Friedrich lies in the church yard, buried next to his father, sits atop a vast reserve of lignite, politely known as “brown coal”.

It is ugly and burns dirty. But Germany has over six and one half billion tons of such lignite reserves. The heat produced by burning lignite (as opposed to anthracite) is so low as to be uneconomical unless the power plants are built right next to the vast open pit mines. Twenty-five German villages had  already been eaten up by such open pits since World War Two. And it seems Rocken would be number twenty-six or twenty-seven.  

And they had to burn the coal. Who could ever imagine a world without burning coal?  But then, whatever would become of Friedrich? Then, in a nasty joke on all of us, the world changed. 

And it’s an old joke. A dead atheist is one who is all dressed up with no place to go. And then there is the story of the rabbi, the priest and the atheist, sentenced to death by the French Revolution.  (According to Nietzsche the only poet of the French Revolution was the guillotine".)

Asked if he has any last words, the rabbi proclaims, “I believe in the one true God!” The executioner yanks the rope and the blade flashes down and -Thud! - it stops just short of the rabbi’s neck. He is immediately released, much to the crowd’s disappointment. The Priest is next, and he proclaims, “I believe in the son, the father and the holy ghost!” The blade flashes down and – Thud! – stops just short of his neck. To the disappointment of the crowd, he is also released. Then the atheist is tied down and asked if he has any last words. And he says, “Oh, here’s your problem. You’ve got a bone stuck in the gears.”

And then of course there was the indecisive insomniac/dyslexic agnostic who lay awake all night, pondering the existence or non-existence of dog. Is Friedrich laughing yet?

Friedrich Nietzsche usually gets the blame for providing the philosophical justification for Hitler and Nazis, and the “final solution”, but that, again, was his sister. In fact Friedrich considered anti- Semitism to be foolish. He wrote that it should be “…utterly rejected…by every sensible mind”. He hated the ultra-nationalists, like the Nazis. That’s why he broke off his friendship with the composer Richard Wagner.

Friedrich called the idea of a “master race” “…a mendacious swindle” which was a polite way of saying that Hitler was full of manure, or would be full of manure, since Hitler was 11 ½ when Friedrich died in 1900. As Friedrich wrote, “Although the most acute judges of the witches and even the witches themselves were convinced of the guilt of witchery, the guilt nevertheless was non-existent. It is thus with all guilt.” Could a man who could write that really have condoned killing Jews for having killed Jesus Christ?

Friedrich answered Rene Descartes bold claim of "God’s logic" (I think, therefore I am) with a desperate appeal for compassion: “I still live, I still think: I still have to live, I still have to think.” 

Or, to put it another way, logic once dictated that eventually Friedrich and his father and all other "less important" graves in the Rocken church yard, and the church and the entire village, would  have to be dug up. Logic dictated that every drop of oil that was burned made each remaining drop that much more valuable, and that increased the value of every ton of lignite beneath the little village of Rocken. 

The mining company, Milbrag, insisted the mining must start by the year 2005. But it did not. Well over half of the residents (64%) opposed the idea of selling the land and moving their village, and in 2008 the plans were dropped. Today Germany is moving to shut down all coal burning power plants. 

You might still argue with Fredrick as to weither God is dead , but then that is not what he said. The full quote is, "God is dead. And we have killed him."  But there can no longer be any doubt that coal is dead, As a door nail.  While Friedrich Nietzsche lives on in his words. Not bad for a crazy old atheist. To have outlived what was once ubiquitous and thought to be essential for modern existence. Makes me wonder what we will decide we can live without, tomorrow.

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A WAKE FOR THE GODS

 

I pity those Bronze Age civilians who lived  next door to that collection of sociopathic drama queen “heroes” of Greek mythology, like Hector and Agamemnon.  Consider the adolescent Patroclus, who murdered his boyhood friend over a game, then did time "up state" guarded by centaurs, where he hooked up with another thug named Achilles. 

These two terrorized half of Asia Minor, fighting a ten year gang war which eventually killed Patroclus in a chariot drive by.  Achilles then avenged his death by killing the rival gang chiefdom and dragging his body all around town. Then Achilles was slain by Paris. What a bloody mess! But consider the modern day collision of similar heroes at the ironically named “Family Focus Community Center”.

On 19 February, 2008 , 31 year old Javor Brooks of Chicago was visiting friends when he was shot and wounded several times in front of a home on Florence Avenue in the suburb of Evanston. Javor was found conscious and transported to St. Francis Hospital, where he died of his wounds 12 days later, on 9 March.

On Saturday, 15 March his family gathered for a memorial and luncheon at the Family Focus Community Center  (above) to celebrate Javor's life when what might best be described as a Dionysiac Frenzy broke out. (The cops just called it a brawl). After it was all over, according to the Chicago Tribune, “… Elmo Hatfield, 39…was charged with mob action and marijuana procession. Sheldon Morales, 26,…was charged with mob action and obstructing a police officer. Dale Rafael Miguel Richardson, 28,…was charged with aggravated assault. (And) Zipporah Saphire Morales, 24,…was charged with disobedience to police, mob action and obstructing police.” So many arrests at a funeral: it sounds like a funeral rite only someone like Althaemene could appreciate.

The gods had warned Catreus, the king of Crete, that he would be killed by his own child. Learning this and loving his father, Catreus's son, Althaemene,  decided to distance himself from his father and moved to Rhodes. Years later, as he neared death, the elderly Catreus sailed to Rhodes to inform his son that he was about to inherited the crown. 

But the fishermen on Rhodes mistook Catreus and his men for a rival gang. They called for help and Althaemene arrived and immediately opened up (threw his spear) on the intruders.  That spear struck and killed Catreus, thus fulfilling the prophecy.   In his grief and guilt, Althaemene staged a grand funeral for his father, inviting all the kings from the Greek world - including Menelaus, the King of Sparta. And this is why, when Trojans Hector and Paris stopped off at Sparta to pay their respects to Menelaus, they found his wife Helen, home alone. So in a way it was the funeral of Catreus that caused the Trojan War.

When Agamemnon returned after ten years at that war, his wife, Clytemnestra (above, center), promised him a huge banquet. But as Agamemnon stepped from his bath before the festivities Clytemnestra threw a heavy robe over her husband’s head and while he fumbled in it she stabbed him to death with his own sword. Then she quickly married Aegisthus, who had been her lover for the seven years the king had been absent.   And if there is one man alive today who might understand how poor old Agamemnon felt, trying to defend himself under that robe, it would be Andrew Scullen, of Hastings, Minnesota, who looked upon the face that launched a thousand ships and two nasty lawsuits.

Andrew, at age 36, married the lovely Kimberly, aged 26, on 10 March 10, 2006.  Just five days later he shipped out for Iraq with his National Guard unit. But before he left he granted Kimberly power of attorney, so she could take care of any little legal things while he was away a war. However, when he returned home in July of 2007, the lovely Kimberly greeted Andrew with divorce papers. 

He then discovered that Kimberly had spent all of his combat pay and emptied his savings. She had bought a new car and then let the payments lapse “…giving rise to various fees, penalties, interest and foreclosure”, and destroying Andrew’s credit rating. 

Kimberly also ran up huge debts on their credit cards, paying for trips with and making straight cash payments to one Nicolas Hale, age 23, Kimberly’s new boyfriend. Andrew then sued Kimberly and Nicholas to get his money back, (good luck with that) and he is demanding a trial by jury, under the theory, I suspect, that no jury could refuse to convict a petty pretty gold digger like Kimberly. It might make a good plot for Aristophanes’ next play.

And how could you describe the tragedy of Jeffery Gillham (above), a 37 year old engineer, except to say it was mythological, but in the original Greek meaning of the term, “Mythos”, meaning a traditional tale. 

On the night of  28August, 1993, Jeffrey’s father, 55 year old Stephen Gillham, was stabbed 29 times and died in the master bedroom of his home (above) in Woronora, a western suburb of Sydney, Australia.. His body was then soaked in turpentine and set alight. 

Jeffery’s 58 year old mother, Helen (above, right), was stabbed 17 times, and died in the family room. Then her body was soaked in gasoline and set afire. And finally Jeffery’s 25 year old bother Christopher was stabbed 17 times and also died. His body was burned in the fire that severely damaged the family home. But who could have committed these horrible acts?

If this was truly a Greek Tragedy, one of the gods would be the chief suspect. But the age of heroes has passed, and in our logic driven world chief suspicion fell on the only surviving family member, Jeffery (above), who by surviving had inherited $916,717.59 Australian. At the time of the murders Jeffery was a 23 year old student earning $8 an hour and had just $8 in the bank. But Jeffery’s version of events confounded the prosecutors.

He admitted to chasing down, stabbing and killing Christopher, but only because Christopher 

had just confessed to him of murdering their parents. 

Jeffery could offer no motive for Christopher (above, center) to have murdered their parents, but claimed to have even seen Christopher set their mother’s body on fire, just before a rage drove Jeffery to avenge his parent’s death by murdering his elder brother. A jury was swayed by Jeffery’s testimony and he was only convicted of manslaughter. He was given a 5 year suspended sentence. And for 14 years his success at swaying a jury proved a Gordian Knot too complicated to unravel.

But thirteen years after the massacre the Director of Public Prosecutions for New South Wales reversed his two earlier assessments of the case. In February of 2008 Jeffery was finally charged with the murder of his parents. 

At trial the jury was lead into the labyrinth of the case. A fireman testified that when Jeffrey met him at the front door his hair was wet and his clothes were dry and clean (above), but “smelled of petrol”. The Coroner testified that all three victims (including Christopher) had been stabbed in the “region of the heart”, while probably lying motionless on the floor, by an assailant who was probably kneeling over them. He also testified that all were stabbed with the same knife and that the assailant would have been covered with blood. Unless he showered, and ran his clothes through the washing machine and dryer. 

Detectives testified that they had found Christopher Gilliam’s eyeglasses, which he needed to find his way across a room (or to defend himself), in the laundry room. Sitting atop the Washing Machine.

Under direct examination Jeffery insisted that he loved his parents and had not wanted for money. And he insisted that he had seen the fire spread quickly into the master bedroom, even though a forensic expert testified that turpentine burns very slowly. But he did admit that he should have thought about helping his parents rather than chasing after his brother. 

Under cross examination he was asked why, if he had called the fire department immediately after killing his brother (and there was blood splatter around his brother’s body and the room) the only blood found on Jeffery was on his knuckles and fingernails. Jeffery had no explanation. Nor could he explain how Christopher could have murdered their parents without his glasses, or how they had gotten into the laundry room. 

And if there is a difference between our reality and the ancient Greek Mythos, it may simply be that had Jeffery Gillham committed his crime in the bronze age he might have been blinded and banished to a slow death by disease. In our more reasoned age, he only had to go to jail for the murder of his brother, 

But the fact based court system then began to meditate on the subject. First there was a push to try him for the murders of his parents. In 2009 he was convicted and sentenced again to two life terms in prison. He appealed. 

In December of 2011 his convictions were overturned by an appeals court. And in 2012 a three judge panel freed Jeffery Gillham completely, with one judge dissenting.

I would call his 11 year journey through the court system epic, not to say mythological.  You might call it justice, I suppose. But only the gods know if that is true.

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BY ANY OTHER NAME

 

I have often pondered the ids and egos which thrive in the moral swamp which passes for modern American democracy .  As an example consider Byron Anthony (Low Tax) Looper (above), a politician, who in the words of his own defense counsel, certainly knew how to lose an election. It is a skill more valuable than you might first imagine.

He might have been a gentleman by act of Congress, but in 1985, according to Byron, in his third year at the United States Military Academy at West Point (above), he was thrown from a horse and so badly injured his knee, he was given an honorable discharge. West Point has a "no comment" on the details of his release.

He finished his education at the University of Georgia, majoring in Political Science.  Then he might have been a Democrat, thanks to his uncle Max Roach Looper, a state Representative from tiny Dawsonville, Georgia. But Byron lost his first election there in 1987, and after three years as a legislative aide, legend has it, that he went to Preto Rico

He claimed to have worked there as the sober assistant to a university president. But the university does not seem to have existed, nor did the president.  So what was he doing on The Island of Enchantment", and did he really go there?  It remains a mystery, which doesn't actually interest many people.

According to Miss Modesta Blansett, who dated him for awhile,  Byron was a real charmer and a political junkie.  Except when he drank, which was often. On those occasions he “exhibited a dark, angry temper”.  Byron had two traffic tickets for drunk driving in Hall County, Georgia, and in March of 1986 he pleaded “no contest” to a third. In 1987 he picked up another DUI conviction in Atlanta. Then, like many people approaching thirty, Byron felt the need to re-invent himself. So in 1993 he returned home, one hundred miles north as the crow flies, to the 931 area code, to the Cumberland Plateau of central Tennessee.

As a small boy Byron had left Cookeville, the farming and industrial community bisected by Interstate 40, 80 miles east of Nashville and 100 west of Knoxville. But times and circumstances had changed Byron. His “pinstriped oxford cloth and double-breasted suits” and power ties no longer fit in among the 24,000 overhaul wearing farmers in the Putnam County capital, nor even with the 11,000 students attending Tennessee Tech, nestled in the center of town. 

Still, shortly after his arrival, Byron decided to register to run as a Republican against the popular local Democratic state Representative Jere Hargrove (above).  Mr. Hargrove remembered being puzzled just a few days after Byron had filed paperwork to run against him when he received a letter from "Low Tax", seeking help in getting a job with the Farmers Home Administration.   Hargrove says he never responded “because I thought it was crazy.” He remembered the campaign which followed as “dirty”. And for Byron it was unproductive. He lost. Again.

Still, Byron refused to give up. As the Republican county Chairman Scott Ebersole remembered, “He was playing politics all the time.” Byron even took out an ad in the political magazine, “Campaigns & Elections”, seeking the help of a consultant. 

Consultant William Lindsay Adams, based in Louisiana, answered that ad, but found his interview with Byron made him “uncomfortable”. “Byron told him that if a candidate wasn't in the race at the end, it wouldn't cost him very much to win”. Adams quoted Looper as saying it would just be “about 35 cents” – the price of a bullet. After that conversation, Adams stopped answering Bryon's calls.

Then in 1996, Byron found Republican backing for a run against the 14 year Putnam County Tax Assessor, Bill Rippetoe. Their support was understandable, since if elected, Byron would be the first Republican to hold a county wide office since the civil war.  Byron took part in no debates, and made no public appearances. But he did run a lot of negative radio ads, claiming that Rippetoe had fixed tax assessments for his friends.  There was no evidence for this, of course, so Rippetoe was not prepared to respond.

And to prove his philosophy on property taxes, Byron invested $4.95 to legally change his middle name from Anthony to “(Low Tax)” - parentheses included.  He did run one positive ad, promising he was “a new kind of leader”, and introducing his wife Terry to the voters. However, Terry Guess was not his wife, but merely his girlfriend, who was also his landlady. He was renting a room in her house. But by the time the truth had come out, Bryon had finally achieved his dream – he won the election by 1,100 votes.

A week after taking the oath of office, on Thursday, 12 September, 1996, "Low Tax" (above) called a press conference to announce he had discovered $100 million worth of property taxes had not been paid. But before the reverberations from that headline had reached the farthest corners of Putnam county, from Hanging Limb to Muddy Pond, the County Commission, to which Byron reported, responded that $100 million was the “normal backlog” for property taxes at that time of year. They also suggested that Bryon should just do his job and stop holding press conferences. After further checking, Byron held a press conference to announce they were right. Then he left town – for Puerto Rico.  Or so he said.

This time Byron was gone three weeks, which in a town the size of Cookeville did not go un-noticed. When he returned he cleaned house, firing dozens of staffers, and hiring a “Security Chief”, who swept the office for listening devices. None were found. 

"Low Tax" also assigned three employees to photocopy more then 5,000 pages of County Commission records. When this expense was questioned, he held a press conference to announce he had uncovered “a good ol' boy network” and was suing to make the documents public. In response the County Commission revealed that the documents already were public. This time “Low Tax” was forced to issue a written apology.  Said County Executive Doug McBroom, “His attitude was that we're all dumb, and he was here to save us...but he kept getting caught.”

At one of his many press conferences, Byron was faced with an allegation that he had fired staffers because they were Democrats. But Byron had a ready answer for that charge. It was preposterous, he said, since he was secretly a Democrat, too. A quick look at the records revealed that for once Byron was telling the truth. He was a registered Democrat. Still. Whereupon, the Democratic Party  had him purged from their rolls. The Republicans were perfectly happy to have him as a member since, in heavily Democratic Putnam County,  beggars couldn't be choosers.

Meanwhile, the work in the Tax Assessor's office became increasingly chaotic. Byron would disappear from the office for days at a time, and when he did show up, he spent his time trying to transfer properties to the tax rolls of neighboring counties – specifically properties owned by members of the County Commission who were giving him such a hard time. His new Security Chief got into a fist fight with a voter. Some property owners charged Byron had “shaken them down” for political contributions. And when they did not contribute, Bryon increased their property tax assessments. Under Byron's stewardship, records went missing, and his remaining employees had spent 90 hours working on his next campaign, for the congressional seat held by Democrat Bart Gordon.

His congressional campaign had barley gotten off the ground when in March of 1998, the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation hit Byron with a 14 count indictment for official misconduct, theft of services, misuse of county property and misuse of county employees. In the primary Bryon came in third in a field of four Republicans.  

But the resourceful young man had an ace in the hole. In the same election, he was the only Republican who had filed to run against the popular five term Democratic State Senator, Tommy Burks (above) . By default Byron thus qualified for the general election in November.

Nobody expected Byron to win, evidently not even Byron. But Tommy Burks (above) had been a politician to long to never be over confident. He told a friend, “This Looper boy is absolutely crazy. I believe he's capable of doing anything.” And then in August, another lawsuit was filed against Byron, from an unexpected source. 

It was filed by Byron's former girlfriend and landlady, Terry Guess. She alleged that in December of 1997, after they had broken up, Byron had assaulted and raped her. And when she thereupon ordered him out of her house, he had filed a false transfer of ownership, putting her home in his name. But Terry's breaking point came when she discovered she was pregnant. Now, with the baby due in a few weeks, she sued Bryron, asking for $1.3 million in damages and child support. 

Byron did his best to “handle” the suit. He held a press conference. He referred to Terry as “a former stripper”, and complained “She left me with heart palpitations, a small box of memorabilia, and a red G-string.” It was a good line, but it did not help his career.

But Byron had uncovered a “quirk” in the election laws of Tennessee which he felt certain would bring him victory. Early on the morning of 9 October, 1998,  Byron (Low Tax) Looper drove a black sedan onto a pig and tobacco farm, and stopped next to a pumpkin patch, along side of a pick up truck. Then he fired one 9mm round into the skull of State Senator Tommy Burks, killing him instantly.

According to Tennessee law, a candidate who dies within 30 days of an election, must have his name removed from the ballot. Byron figured he would win by default - emphases on "fault".  Because   Byron had not counted on  his clever cover up dissolving like salt in a Tennessee thunderstorm. 

In a matter of hours the cops had discovered that Byron had bought the sedan in Georgia, resold it there to a different Georgia car dealer a few hours after the murder. And worse, Byron had been recognized at the scene by two of Tommy Burk's farmhands. 

Plus there was his confession to a childhood friend (above) a few hours later after the murder.  

On election day Byron was in jail, and although he was still the only living candidate on the ballot, and although his radio ads continued to be aired, Charlotte Burks (above. left), Tommy's widow, received 30,252 write in votes against Byron (Low Tax) Looper's 1,531 votes. The lady finally retired from politics in 2014, after 4 terms in the state senate. 

Yup,  that Byron (Low Tax) Looper (above) sure knew how to lose an election. And a court case. He changed lawyers eight times, but in August of 2000,  Byron was finally convicted of first degree murder. Even after his conviction the tried to run  for another term as assessor from jail, until the State Attorney General removed him from office. 

Eventually he was sentenced to life without the possibility of parole in the Morgan County Correctional Complex (above). And that was when he got yet another name change, becoming  inmate #323358 .  That name stuck until  26 June, 2013, when a female counselor informed Byron that he was losing his private cell and being transferred to the prison's general population.  Byron slapped her face, and was subdued by a guard. Later that day he was found dead in his isolation cell. 

A pair of autopsies revealed he died of a combination of high levels of antidepressant and "deterioration of his heart muscle". Just as if he ever had one.  His unofficial epitaph was provided by his last (of 8) attorney, McCracken Poston. He called Byron " a colorful character in both Georgia and Tennessee politics" . But Poston was forced to add, "The fact that Byron was an unusual, if often difficult, client is well documented."  That .it was. And that it is  .

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