Life with Jeeves, by P.G. Wodehouse

#20 for 2011:

Life with Jeeves by P. G. Wodehouse- An omnibus containing The Inimitable Jeeves, Very Good, Jeeves, and Right Ho, Jeeves.  (Yes, this is where the name Jeeves is so popular from.)

Quite wonderful!

Watchmen, by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons

#19 for 2011:

Watchmen by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons

Intricate plots woven together to form a mesmerizing storyline, amazing and realistic world development, great character development- except for the women, who were one and all blithering idiots too wrapped up in themselves to care about anybody else and too stupid and insecure to do anything but have dramatically emotional meltdowns.  (Don't even go into the "but I maybe I wanted him to rape me" bit- you will never see this in a work by a female author; it is only males who project this onto women as a means to justify rape, which is unjustifiable.) The men, too, seemed amoral and apathetic and too caught up in their own egos and games of war...   But unfortunately both these are a sign of the times, and a product of the society, and therefore too believable (except for the rape bit!).

Ah, Rorshach, it wasn't the dog's fault.  And yet you were probably the sanest of all.  At least you cared, and meant to do something to make things better (and not just for your own ego).

May the cats in my life be blessed

for taking time out of their busy schedule to remind me:

Mostly by lying on any book, laptop, or reading material whatsoever that I am trying to see; but they have an impressive repertoire of additional techniques, ranging from touchy-feely to ouchy-bleedy.

Custer Died For Your Sins, by Vine Deloria Jr.

#18 for 2011

Custer Died For Your Sins, by Vine Deloria Jr. 
(1969)

-Quotes, notes, thoughts in progress...

Life on this continent and views concerning it were not shaped in a post-Roman atmosphere.  The entire outlook of the people was one of simplicity and mystery, not scientific or abstract.  The western hemisphere produced wisdom, western Europe produced knowledge.  (p.18)

x

Some tribes keep their rituals and others don't.  The best characterization of tribes is that they stubbornly hold on to what they feel is important to them and discard what they feel is irrelevant to their current needs.  Tradition dies hard and innovation comes hard.  Indians have survived for thousands of years in all kinds of conditions.  They do not fly from fad to fad seeking novelty.  That is what makes them Indian.  (p.23)

x

Three books, to my way of thinking, give a good idea of the intangible sense of reality that pervades the Indian people.  When the Legends Die by Hal Borland gives a good picture of Indian youth.  Little Big Man by Thomas Berger gives a good idea of Indian attitudes toward life.  Stay Away, Joe, by Dan Cushman, the favorite of Indian people, gives a humorous but accurate idea of the problems caused by the intersection of two ways of life.  Anyone who can read, appreciate, and understand the spiritual forces brought out in these books will have a good idea of what Indians are all about.  (p.23)

On my list...

"What," people often ask, "did you expect to happen?  After all, the continent had to be settled, didn't it?"

We always reply, "Did it?" And continue, "If it did, did it have to be settled in that way?"  For if you consider it, the continent is now settled and yet uninhabitable in many places today.  (p. 55)

x

America has always been a militantly imperialistic world power eagerly grasping for economic control over weaker nations.  The Indian wars of the past should rightly be regarded as the first foreign wars of American history.  As the United States marched across this continent, it was creating an empire by wars of foreign conquest just as England and France were doing in India and Africa.  Certainly the war with Mexico was imperialistic, no more or less than the wars against the Sioux, Apache, Utes, and Yakimas.  In every case the goal was identical:  land.

When the frontier was declared officially closed in 1890 it was only a short time before American imperialistic impulses drove this country into the Spanish-American War and the acquisition of America's Pacific island empire began.  The tendency to continue imperialistic trends remained constant between the two world wars as this nation was involved in numerous banana wars in Central and South America.

There has not been a time since the founding of the republic when the motives of this country were innocent.  Is it any wonder that other nations are extremely skeptical about its real motives in the world today?  (p.57)

Speaking in 1969 (about Vietnam in particular) but applicable in every aspect still today and for all the foreseeable future as well.

Into each life, it is said, some rain must fall....  But Indians have been cursed above all other people in history.  Indians have anthropologists.  (p.83)

x

The explanation of the book [Man's Rise to Civilization as shown by the Indians of North America from Primeval Times to the Coming of the Industrial State, by Farb], as found on the jacket, indicates sufficiently the assumptions under which the book was written.  In the foreword, by Elman R. Service, Professor of Anthropology at Michigan, it is noted that "beginning with the most pitiful and primitive Indians found by explorers, the Digger Indians of Nevada and Utah, Mr. Farb shows that even they are much above the highest non-human primate."  Thank you, Mr. Farb, we were pretty worried about that. (p.100)

x

One classic statement [from the above]- "Modern American society has little place for institutionalized rites of rebellion, because it is a democratic society; it is characteristic of a democratic society always to question and challenge, never to be certain of itself"- blithely dismisses social reality.

American society has, in face, institutionalized rebellion by making it popular.  Once popularized, rebellions become fads and are so universalized that not to be rebellious is to be square, out of it, irrelevant.... [In America] Unless a man is rebelling, he is not really a man.  And to achieve relevance in American society a person must always be the pioneer, the innovator, against the establishment.

[]

Democratic society is always absolutely sure of itself.  It could not be otherwise, for the be unsure would call into question the very basis of the political institutions which gave it existence.  Even more horrifying would be an examination of the economic realities underlying the society.  (pp.101-102)

x

For the time is coming when middle class America will become credit-card-carrying, turnpike-commuting, condominium-dwelling, fraternity-joining, churchgoing, sports-watching, time-purchase-buying, television-watching, magazine-subscribing, politically inert transmigrated urbanites, who, through the phenomenon of the second car and the shopping center have become golf-playing, wife-swapping, etc etc etc suburbanites.  Or has that dawned?  If so, you will understand what has been happening to Indian communities for a long, long time.  (p.103 )

x

For the wheel of Karma grinds slowly but it does grind finely.  And it makes a complete circle.  (p.104)

x

At one time or another slavery, poverty, and treachery were all justified by Christianity as politically moral institutions of the state.  Economic Darwinism, the survival of the fittest businessman, was seen as a process approved by God and the means by which He determined His Chosen for salvation.... Few mastered the harp before departing for that better life, however.  (p.108)

x

The Great Spirit was exchanged for Santa Claus with some misgivings.  Substituting toys for spiritual powers created a vacuum, however, and the tribes secretly preferred their old religion over the religion of the Easter Bunny.  (p.113)

 x

Christianity has proved to be a disintegrating force by confining its influence to the field of formula recitation and allowing the important movements of living go their separate ways until life has become separated into a number of unrelated categories.

Religion today, or at least Christianity, does not provide the understanding with which society makes sense.  Nor does it provide any means by which the life of the individual has value.  Christianity fights unreal crises which it creates by its fascination with its own abstractions. (p.122)

x
Pages 122-123, death, esp:
When it is suppressed- as it is in the Christian religion- death becomes an entity in itself and is something to be feared.  But death also becomes unreal and the act of an arbitrary God.  When death is unreal, violence also becomes unreal, and human life has no value in and of itself. (p.123)

More, less, or no responsibility is irrelevant to the problem.  When we talk about ["giving"] responsibility, in these terms we are talking about play acting.  Responsibility can never be given unless it is welcome and desired.  I could no more give my children responsibility than I could give them the far side of the moon.  They must have a real status and stake in the process or they will recognize my overtures as tricks.  (p.145)

There is no real freedom without responsibility, and no responsibility without real freedom.

The more desperate the problem, the more humor is directed to describe it.  Satirical remarks often circumscribe problems so that possible solutions are drawn from the circumstances that would not make sense if presented in other than a humorous form.  (p.149)

x

When a people can laugh at themselves and laugh at others and hold all aspects of life together without letting anybody drive them to extremes, then it seems to me that that people can survive.  (p.168)

x

During the 1964 elections Indians were talking in Arizona about the relative positions of the two candidates, Johnson and Goldwater.  A white man told them to forget about domestic policies and concentrate on the foreign policies of the two men.  One Indian looked at him coldly and said that from the Indian point of view it was all foreign policy.  (p.157)

x

For Indians to continue to think of their basic conflict with the white man as cultural is the height of folly.  The problem is and always has been the adjustment of the legal relationship between the Indian tribes and the federal government, between the true owners of the land and the usurpers. ....

It is foolish for a black to depend upon a law to make acceptance of him by the white possible.  Nor should he react to the rejection.  His problem is social, and economic, and cultural , not one of adjusting the legal relationship between the two groups.  (pp.174-175)

x

Before the white man can relate to others he must forgo the pleasure of defining them.  (p.175)

x

When we begin to talk of Civil Rights, therefore, it greatly confuses the issue and lessens our chances of understanding the forces involved in the rights of human beings.  Rather, we should begin talking about actual economic problems; and in realistic terms we are talking about land.

No movement can sustain itself, no people can continue, no government can function, and no religion can become a reality except it be bound to a land area of its own.... So-called power movements are primarily the urge of peoples to find their homeland and to channel their psychic energies through their land into social and economic reality.  Without land and a homeland no movement can survive.  And any movement attempting to build without clarifying its goals usually ends in violence, the energy from which could have been channeled toward sinking the necessary roots for the movement's existence.  (p.179)  Peoplehood is impossible without cultural independence, which in turn is impossible without a land base.  (p.180)

x

Civil Rights is a function of a man's desire for self-respect, not of his desire for equality.  The dilemma is not one of tolerance or intolerance but one of respect or contempt.  The tragedy of the early days of the Civil Rights movement is that man people, black, white, red, and yellow, were sold a bill of goods which said that equality was the eventual goal of the movement.  But no one had considered the implications of so simple a slogan.  Equality became sameness. .... In the minds of most people in 1963, legal equality and cultural conformity were identical.   (pp.179-180)

And another word bites the dust.  Oh, equality. (Coming soon to join you:  unity.)  Of course, it bit the dust a long time ago, and was resurrected as a zombie to do its master's bidding.  People are always appropriating words and distorting the meanings thereof in order to manipulate and deceive other people.

In our hearts and minds we could not believe that blacks wanted to be the same as whites... As far as we could determine, white culture, if it existed, depended primarily upon the exploitation of the land, people, and life itself. (p.180)  Blacks seemed to be saying that white society was bad, but they wanted it anyway.  (p.186)

x

Indians simply cannot externalize themselves.  Externalization implies a concern for the future.  Indians welcome the future but don't worry about it.  (p.219)

x

What, after all, is unity but the fellowship of people? ....

Indians have always rejected unity as a weapon, though a number of young Indians want unity precisely for that reason.  Most of the tribes want unity as a fellowship of equals where they can play their Indian games with a minimum of outside interference.  Indian unity is what the churches mean when they say brotherhood, but which they dare not practice.  It is what the white man seeks in his fraternities and exclusive clubs.

Like everything else, the white man has turned the idea completely inside out when he has put unity into action.  He has defined the right to be oneself as the right of exclusive privacy, never realizing that to be alone is to be dead.  (p.220-221)

x

In place of the traditional family has come the activist ["active"] family in which each member spends the majority of his time outside the home "participating".  Clubs, committees, and leagues devour the time of an individual so that family activity is extremely limited....  At best it is a standoff, with each member giving half-hearted recognition of the multitude of tribes to which the family as a conglomerate belongs.  (pp.227-228)

x

Hippies, at least as I came to understand them, had few stable clan structures.  They lived too much on the experiential plane and refused to acknowledge that there really was a world outside of their own experiences.  Experience thus became the primary criteria by which the movement was understood.  Social and economic stability were never allowed to take root.

It seemed ridiculous to Indian people that hippies would refuse to incorporate prestige and social status into their tribalizing attempts.  Indian society is founded on status and social prestige.  This largely reduces competition to interpersonal relationships instead of allowing it to run rampant in economic circles.  Were competition to be confined to economic concerns, the white conception of a person as part of the production [and consumption] machine would take hold, destroying the necessary value of man in his social sense.

With competition confined within social events, each man must be judged according to his real self, not his wealth or educational prowess.  Hence a holder of great wealth is merely selfish unless he has other redeeming qualities besides his material goods.  Having a number of degrees and an impressive educational background is prerequisite to prestige in the white world.  It is detrimental in the Indian world unless the person has the necessary wisdom to say meaningful things also.  (pp.229-230)

x

Non-Indians must understand the differences, at least as seen in Indian country, between nationalism and militancy.  Most Indians are nationalists.  That is, they are primarily concerned with development and continuance of the tribe.  As nationalists, Indians could not, for the most part, care less what the rest of society does.  They are interested in the progress of the tribe.

Militants, on the other hand, are reactionists.  They understand the white society and they progress by reacting against it.  First in their ideas is the necessity of forcing a decision from those in decision-making positions.  Few militants would be sophisticated enough to plan a strategy of undermining the ideological and philosophical positions of the establishment and capturing its programs for their own use.

Nationalists always have the option of resorting to violence and demonstrations.  Militants shoot their arsenal merely to attract attention and are left without any visible means to accomplish their goals.  Hence militancy must inevitably lead on to more militancy.  (p.237)

x

No one is going to hand over decision-making authority to people who have no base within the community other than their ability to articulate commands  (p.250) 

x

Consider the history of America closely.  Never has America lost a war.  When engaged in warfare the United States has always applied the principle of overkill and mercilessly stamped its opposition into the dust. ....  But name, if you can, the last peace the United States has won.  Victory, yes, but this country has never made a successful peace because peace requires exchanging ideas, concepts, thoughts, and recognizing the fact that two distinct systems of life can exist together without conflict.  Consider how quickly America seems to be facing its allies of one war as new enemies.  (pp.250-251)
x
The United States operates on incredibly stupid premises.  It always fails to understand the nature of the world and so does not develop policies that can hold the allegiance of people.  It then alienates everyone who does not automatically love it.  It worries about its reputation and prestige but daily becomes more vulnerable to ideologies more realistic than its own.  (p.251)

x

Ideological leverage is always superior to violence.  People are always open to ideas even though they may appear to reject thought itself.  (p.251)

Then there is hope yet!

Tribalism looks at life as an undifferentiated whole.  Distinctions are not made between social and psychological, educational and historical, political and legal.  The tribe is an all-purpose entity which is expected to serve all areas of life.  (p.259)

x

Consider what he said on page 83:  "Churches possess the real world" and combine it with what he said on page 270:  "I have no realistic hopes that the churches will become real." 

The church as an organization is real, it has real power in the world.  But the religion itself isn't "real", the culture it fosters isn't "real", and nothing about it encourages people to deal with the real world- rather the opposite.  It encourages people to "abide" this world and set all their hopes and sights on the afterlife, because to the church, that's what's "real". 

Pages 203, 216 leadership, flexibility on issues, insistence on indirect action, general consensus, silent understandings.

Page 234, compensation instead of retribution in criminal law, Bill of Rights as stifling.
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You should read this book.

You should also read this:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vine_Deloria