Just a few nuggets.

The first is a passage in Kurt Vonnegut's "Fates Worse Than Death," a book of autobiographical essays. And the second, a conversation on the Ralph Nader Radio Hour with Phil Donahue.

This is the kind of illuminating and challenging stuff one stumbles upon and seeks to share in the hope that it could help lead to more enlightenment in these dark days. The first uses satire to get to a fundamental truth about a deranged society that needs re-framing through humor in order to understand just how far adrift we've gone. And the second is through the noble example of two stalwart truth-tellers who have long, illustrious careers of challenging the powers that be. Great examples of how it's done. Mock them, and stand up to them.

Here's an excerpt from an essay in that Vonnegut book (I'm guessing Kurt wouldn't have minded us excerpting so much of his wonderful text, given today's seriously gloomy context). Maybe the guys responsible for the propaganda generated to accomplish these insane poll results should be forced to read this.

What has been America's most nurturing contribution to the culture of this planet so far? Many would say Jazz. I, who love jazz, will say this instead: Alcoholics Anonymous.

I am not an alcoholic. If I was, I would go before the nearest A.A. meeting and say, "My name is Kurt Vonnegut. I am an alcoholic." God willing, that might be my first step down the long, hard road back to sobriety.

The A.A. scheme, which requires a confession like that, is the first to have any measurable success in dealing with the tendency of some human beings, perhaps 10 percent of any population sample anyone might care to choose, to become addicted to substances that give them brief spasms of pleasure but in the long term transmute their lives and the lives of those around them into ultimate ghastliness.

The A.A. scheme, which, again, can work only if the addicts regularly admit that this or that chemical is poisonous to them, is now proving its effectiveness with compulsive gamblers, who are not dependent on chemicals from a distillery or a pharmaceutical laboratory. This is no paradox. Gamblers, In effect, manufacture their own dangerous substances. God help them, they produce chemicals that elate them whenever they place a bet on simply anything.

If I was a compulsive gambler, which I am not, I would be well advised to stand up before the nearest meeting of Gamblers Anonymous and declare, "My name is Kurt Vonnegut. I am a compulsive gambler."

Whether I was standing before a meeting of Gamblers Anonymous or Alcoholics Anonymous, I would be encouraged to testify as to how the chemicals I had generated within myself or swallowed had alienated my friends and relatives, cost me jobs and houses and deprived me of my last shred of self-respect.

Not every member of A.A. or G.A. has sunk quite that low, of course--but plenty have. Many, If not most, have done what they call "hitting bottom" before admitting what it is that has been ruining their lives.

I now wish to call attention to another form of addiction, which has not been previously identified. It is more like gambling than drinking, since the people afflicted are ravenous for situations that will cause their bodies to release exciting chemicals into their bloodstreams. I am persuaded that there are among us people who are tragically hooked on preparations for war.

Tell people with that disease that war is coming and we have to get ready for it, and for a few minutes there, they will be as happy as a drunk with his martini breakfast or a compulsive gambler with his paycheck bet on the Super Bowl.

Let us recognize how sick such people are. From now on, when a national leader, or even just a neighbor, starts talking about some new weapons system which is going to cost us a mere $29 billion, we should speak up. We should say something on the order of, "Honest to God, I couldn't be sorrier for you if I'd seen you wash down a fistful of black, beauties with a pint of Southern Comfort."

I mean it. I am not joking. Compulsive preparers for World War III, in this country or any other, are as tragically and, yes, as repulsively addicted as any stockbroker passed out with his head In a toilet in the Port Authority bus terminal.

For an alcoholic to experience a little joy, he needs maybe three ounces of grain alcohol. Alcoholics, when they are close to hitting bottom, customarily can't hold much alcohol.

If we know a compulsive gambler who is dead broke, we can probably make him happy with a dollar to bet on who can spit farther than someone else. For us to give a compulsive war-preparer a fleeting moment of happiness, we may have to buy him three Trident submarines and a hundred intercontinental ballistic missiles mounted on choo-choo trains.

If Western Civilization were a person--

If Western Civilization, which blankets the world now, as far as I can tell, were a person--

If Western Civilizations, which surely now includes the Soviet Union and China and India and Pakistan and on and on, were a person--

If Western Civilization were a person, we would be directing it to the nearest meeting of War-Preparers Anonymous. We would be telling it to stand up before the meeting and say, "My name is Western Civilization. I am a compulsive war- preparer. I have lost everything I ever cared about. I should have come here long ago. I first hit bottom in World War I." Western Civilization cannot be represented by a single person, of course, but a single explanation for the catastrophic course it has followed during this bloody century is possible. We the people, because of our ignorance of the disease, have again and again entrusted power to people we did not know were sickies.

And let us not mock them now, any more than we would mock someone with syphilis or smallpox or leprosy or yaws or typhoid fever or any of the other diseases to which the flesh is heir. All we have to do is separate them from the levers of power, I think.

And then what? Western Civilization's long, hard trip back to sobriety might begin.

A word about appeasement, something World War II, supposedly, taught us not to practice: I say to you that the world has been ruined by appeasement. Appeasement of whom? Of the Communists? Of the neo-Nazis? No! Appeasement of the compulsive war-preparers. I can scarcely name a nation that has not lost most of its freedom and wealth in attempts to appease its own addicts to preparations for war.

And there is no appeasing an addict for very long.

"I swear, man, just lay enough bread on me for twenty multiple re-entry vehicles and a fleet of B-1 bombers, and I'11 never bother you again."

Most addictions start innocently enough in childhood, under agreeable, reputable auspices-a sip of champagne at a wedding, a game af poker for matchsticks on a rainy afternoon. Compulsive war-preparers may have been encouraged as infants to clap their hands with glee at a campfire or a Fourth of July parade.

Not every child gets hooked. Not every child so tempted grows up to be a drunk or a gambler or a babbler about knocking down the incoming missiles of the Evil Empire with laser beams. When I identify the war-preparers as addicts, I am not calling for the exclusion of children from all martial celebrations. I doubt that more than one child In a hundred, having seen fireworks, for example, will become an adult who wants us to stop squandering our substance on education and health and social justice and the arts and food and shelter and clothing for the needy, and so on--who wants us to blow it all on ammunition instead.

And please understand that the addiction I have identified is to preparations for war. I repeat: to preparations for war, addiction to the thrills of de-mothballing battleships and inventing weapons systems against which there cannot possibly be a defense, supposedly, and urging the citizenry to hate this part of humanity or that one, and knocking over little governments that might aid and abet an enemy someday, and so on. I am not talking about an addiction to war itself, which is a very different matter. A compulsive preparer for war wants to go to big-time war no more than an alcoholic stockbroker wants to pass out with his head in a toilet In the Port Authority bus terminal.

Should addicts of any sort hold high office In this or any other country? Absolutely not, for their first priority will always be to satisfy their addiction, no matter how terrible the consequences may be--even to themselves.

Suppose we had an alcoholic President who still had not hit bottom and whose chief companions were drunks like himself. And suppose it were a fact, made absolutely clear to him, that if he took just one more drink, the whole planet would blow up.

So he has all the liquor thrown out of the White House, including his Aqua-Velva shaving lotion. So late at night he is terribly restless, crazy for a drink but proud of not drinking. So he opens the White House refrigerator, looking for a Tab or a Diet Pepsi, he tells himself. And there, half-hidden by a family-size jar of French's mustard, is an unopened can of Coors beer.

What do you think he'll do?

Here's the The Ralph Nader Radio Hour, with guest Phil Donahue.

And while the country cycles on with one obsession and outrage after the next here's something to contemplate:

"According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, the average American child watches 18,000 TV murders before it graduates from high school."

And we wonder how people have become so desensitized to things such as police murder, bombing of defenseless countries, drones, dying from lack of healthcare coverage, beating up or killing journalists etc.

Some, however, lead the way by example.

This woman Medea Benjamin is a titan; a fearless, selfless, empathetic humanitarian of the highest order. As was suggested in Dore's show, imagine what effect it might have if at every one of these smug Institute gatherings (which are really private clubs with the facade of somber and thoughtful thinkers, but are just thug operations underwritten by the oligarchs who use create them solely to push their evil agenda) it were interrupted constantly by courageous folks who are tired of this shit.

Comrades at NYU disrupting Henry Kissinger’s talk at the Stern School of Business. #NoWarCriminalsAtNYU pic.twitter.com/FbgkmXGbY3

— Esor (@EsorFas) October 16, 2018

Anybody know of similar speaking engagements that we can upend? Carlin, at the end of his days, thought we as a species had become too soft, content and self-involved, that "nobody wants to cause any trouble anymore. Because everyone's got a cell phone that makes pancakes and rubs their balls. No one wants to rock the boat."

Well, here are some guys who are also completely dedicated to thrashing boats, so to speak.
The Yes Men are another group of all-time prankster heroes in the vein of Benjamin's Code Pink but with a different tact (think Abbie Hoffman, but modern day clean-cut Yippies). Look up their prank appearance on the BBC which resulted in sending Dow Chemical stock into a tailspin.

FAQ:

What are Yes Men? What's a Yes Lab?

Since 1996, the Yes Men have been aiming media attention at issues related to the corporate takeover of our society. They also help other activist orgs do the same. On this website you can:
• learn techniques for causing trouble
• read about Yes Men and Yes Lab projects
• arrange to do a Yes Lab
• contact us or get on our list
The through-line of Yes Men actions is that they highlight the idiocy of the neoliberal delusion. Most recently, we have focused on the Democrats' responsibility for our current apocalyptic situation.

Every time I hear Crosby sing this I get goosebumps (here he is looking gloriously more and more like fellow dissident Mark Twain, albeit it crossed here with Paul Bunyan):

Who are the men
Who really run this land?
And why do they run it
With such a thoughtless hand?
What are their names,
And on what street do they live?
I'd like to ride right over
This afternoon and give
Them a piece of my mind
About peace for mankind
Peace is not
An awful lot
To ask.

And in closing, as can almost always be the case with espousing any and all radical ideas, Howard Zinn gets the last word:

"I can UNDERSTAND pessimism, but I don’t BELIEVE in it. It’s not simply a matter of faith, but of historical EVIDENCE. Not overwhelming evidence, just enough to give HOPE, because for hope we don’t need certainty, only POSSIBILITY."