Carl Wells Books

We come to the second of three bleak movies about which you will have to decide whether or not they are worth your time. We discussed the English film “Nil By Mouth” written and directed by Gary Oldman, last week. Today we will move to the heartland of the U.S. “Nebraska” takes place largely in . . . well, yes, “You’re more than a match for me, I can see that,” as Monty Python would say. It starts out in Billings, Montana, and moves through Wyoming, into South Dakota, and finally into Nebraska, where most of the action takes place.

Once again I offer fair warning. There will be vulgar things spoken, including the f-word. (Not nearly as often as in “Nil By Mouth.”) So count the cost. Also be warned that the following discussion will reveal the plot completely.

“Nebraska” is a black and white 2013 film written by Bob Nelson and directed by Alexander Payne. It was nominated for six Oscars, although it won none. Bruce Dern won the Cannes Film Festival award as best actor for 2013. The film was a modest financial success: made on a $13.5 million budget, with $27.7 million coming in at the box office.

The plot is simple. Woody Grant (Bruce Dern) is an aging man who receives something in the mail that leads him to believe he has won a million dollars. He wants to go to Lincoln, Nebraska (from his home in Billings, Montana) to pick up his winnings. He is an alcoholic, and thus has lost his driver’s license. He starts out walking. The police pick him up before he gets far, and he is soon back at his (very modest) home with his frustrated wife Kate (June Squibb).

The couple has two grown sons. The one who figures most prominently in the story is David (Will Forte). He and the rest of the family fully understand that the “million dollars” prize is simply a way to cause people to subscribe to magazines. But Woody doesn’t believe them.

David is not doing all that well himself. He has a job selling stereo sets (or something of the sort), and it is not necessarily going well. We see him interact with a couple who are potential buyers, but he fails to close the sale. Financially he is simply getting by, we sense. Worse, his personal life is in a shambles. His live-in girlfriend Noel has just left him.

We see them together briefly. The filmmakers have made a wise decision in the casting and portrayal of Noel. She is chubby, and not gorgeous. She seems like a real person, not a Hollywood actress. David misses her and wants her back. But of course not enough to commit to a marriage.

To spend some time with his father (and also to get him to shut up about the winning prize) David decides to drive his father to Lincoln, Nebraska. David tells his employer that he is sick, rather than straightforwardly ask for time off.

They leave Billings and begin the long journey to Nebraska, dipping down into Wyoming, into southern South Dakota (where they stop to see Mt. Rushmore). Woody’s drinking leads to a fall and a brief stay in a hospital. In Nebraska they stop to visit family in Hawthorne (a fictional name; it is real life Plainview).

In Hawthorne we meet lots more of the Grant clan. Woody has many brothers, most still living but some deceased. The living ones are almost as silent as the dead ones. In one scene the brothers sit watching a pro football game. There seem to be about seven living brothers. They have almost nothing to say, except a few words about cars. The contrast between the articulate and fast-talking announcer and the silent brothers watching the game, is very real, and darkly humorous.

The two sons of one brother are the fully grown Cole and Bart. They are not doing well. They don’t work; they live at home. David tries to make cousinly friendly conversation, but Cole and Bart are mean mockers, only partially redeemed by the saving grace of stupidity. One of them sometimes has to pick up trash as part of his community service for his conviction for sexual assault. They provide comic relief. (Of which there is a lot in the movie; it has been called a comedy-drama, and correctly so.) The mother puts as good a face on the situation as she can. She tries to paint them as doing voluntary work; she scolds them to control their vulgar tongues. Here is another dysfunctional family. The older generation may be quiet and hard working and polite, but Cole and Bart give us zero hope for the future of that branch of the Grant clan.

The news of Woody’s million dollar winnings gets around, thanks to Woody talking about the prize. (David advised him to say nothing, knowing that there are no “winnings.”) Here we get a realistically mixed response. Some people want to take advantage of Woody, cashing in on his success. Many others are genuinely happy for him, and hope he will enjoy his new-found cash.

Kate and Ross eventually join the family gathering in Hawthorne. Kate visits the cemetery with Woody and David. Her crudeness about her late sister-in-law shocks David. Woody silently endures it.

David gets revelations about his father and mother from other people. Some revelations are good. Others are very bad. The vicious Ed Pegram (played very believably by Stacy Keach) reveals that before David’s conception Woody had been engaged in an extra-marital affair with a “half-breed” Indian, and had wanted to divorce Kate. All this is news to David.

Kate, frequently angry with Woody, comes to his defense when one branch of the family claims Woody owes them some of his winnings. Here we get one of the few uses of the f-word, as she sets the record straight about who owes whom.

In one extended part of the movie, Woody, Kate, Ross, and David visit the dilapidated home place of the Grant clan. They see the room where Woody’s brother died at age two. Kate snidely says that the house looks about in the same condition Woody’s mother kept it years ago. The place is falling apart. Life brings hard changes.

Later the four are still touring the countryside. Ross and David, to get revenge on Ed Pegram, steal back the old air compressor Pegram has stolen from Woody years ago. But they are at the wrong house. They hurriedly turn around and return the air compressor, just as the innocent owners are returning to their home.

Cole and Bart the Mensa rejects mask themselves and rough up Woody and David outside a bar, stealing the letter announcing the million dollar winnings. Alas, even they are bright enough to see that there are no winnings. David readily understands who has stolen the letter. When he returns to their home, the brothers are offended that there is not going to be a million dollars. They have thrown the letter away.

David and Woody return to the scene of the crime, trying to find the missing letter. No success. David suggests they take a break. They enter a bar, where they find Ed Pegram reading the letter to the hilarity of the other denizens of the bar. Now they all know what a fool Woody has been. Woody quietly takes the letter back, and folds it up and leaves. David starts to follow him, but reconsiders. He turns back and slugs Ed Pegram on the head. (If you are unable to rejoice that Ed Pegram gets a fist to the face, “You’re a better man than I am, Gunga Din.”) No bar fight follows. Shaking his wounded fist, David rejoins his father.

His father has a dizzy spell, and they make another trip to a hospital. They are going to return to Billings. Woody agrees.

Except that in his inner soul he has not agreed. David wakes from his chair in the hospital room to find that his father is missing. Once again Woody is walking toward Lincoln.

David tracks him down and picks him up. They head for Lincoln. They arrive at the address on the letter. The young woman waiting on them types the numbers on the letter into the computer. There is no off the charts miracle. The numbers don’t match the million dollar prize. Woody has not won a million dollars. They start to leave, but the woman offers them either a seat cushion or a cap. Woody chooses a cap. It says “Prize Winner.”

As Woody goes outside, the (very polite, friendly) woman says that they occasionally have other people who come for their possible prize. Does Woody suffer from Alzheimer’s? David says that it’s just that “He believes things that people tell him.”

David starts to drive them home, but warns his father that he wants to make a couple stops on the way. At the first stop, he goes inside while his father waits in the car. When he gets back, he tells his father that the truck in front of them is Woody’s. It is not exactly new, being five years old, but it is a very good used truck. David has put his father’s name on the title. He has traded in his car for the truck. (Possibly adding a good deal more payment for the truck, via credit card, although we are not told this.)

They make a second stop. This time David emerges with a new air compressor, which is loaded in back of the truck.

They resume their journey. In Hawthorne, David stops the truck and tells his father he can drive. The road is clear of traffic. Woody drives through Hawthorne. He tells David to get down. David obligingly hunkers down on the floorboard, and Woody makes his way through the town where they had mocked him. Only a few people see him, but one of them is (providentially, we may say) the vicious Ed Pegram with his wounded head.

Outside of Hawthorne they stop, change places, and David is once again driving. They resume the journey back to Billings. The picture fades to black.

This is a movie about a United States that is wounded and dying. The ravishing beauty of the countryside (even in black and white) is contrasted with the confusion of the lives of many of the people. At one time the protagonists drive by a simple but handsome Christian church building. But the Christianity of the heartland is largely a “whiff from an empty bottle,” as one famous phrase has it, just as is the Christianity of the rest of the U.S.

The family of Woody and Kate may have had some sort of Christian background. (At the cemetery there are Lutheran and Catholic sections.) But the children have not really been raised to believe anything about Christianity. Ross says to David of his father, early on in the movie, “He never gave a s— about you and me.” Woody’s was not a mean desertion of his children; he just did what he wanted and if that was self-indulgent, well, so be it. David knew at age six or eight that his father was an alcoholic.

The family has been profoundly wounded. But among the father, mother, and two sons, we are glad to see family solidarity of a reasonable sort. Ross is correct that his father had not cared enough about the boys, but Ross later rises to the defense of his family just as did Kate and David in times of crisis.

There is sadness here. The future looks dim. Woody has his truck (which he quite properly will not be permitted to drive on the roads of Billings). He has a new air compressor. David has shown himself to be generous of nature, and we have come to care for him deeply. But will he understand that if you are going to lie down with a woman you need to marry her? We have no sign that he has begin to think his life through from a biblical perspective. Except that he has indeed honored his father. His father is a profoundly flawed man, but David has honored him. That is a good start.

The performances, even of very small parts, are consistently excellent, for which the director surely must deserve some credit. He had a thoughtful script with which to work. The movie-makers probably have no clue that a dying out of biblical Christianity is the root cause of the problems of these dysfunctional families. But they are not making fun of heartland Americans. They have given us a bleak movie, but one with a few gleams of hope and humor. At the worst, surely they are making us think.

DVDs of “Nebraska” can be obtained for a very reasonable price. Today I saw used copies available for as low as $5.33 (sales tax extra) at Amazon.

If you can stand the vulgarities–every person must suit himself–“Nebraska” is a thought-provoking and moving film. It is the kind of film which two or three like-minded people could watch and discuss and enjoy together. But it is certainly not a film for everyone. I’m glad I have seen it three times, and if I keep on living there will probably come a time when I will see it again.

Today I want to discuss a bleak, relatively unknown British movie entitled “Nil By Mouth.” It came out in 1997, garnered multiple awards, and only three years ago was voted the 21st best of all British films. So it has not escaped notice, although it is not terribly famous.

The first thing I need to make clear is that this movie is definitely not for everyone. It is dark; horrible and depressing things happen. The language is incredibly vulgar. At one time it was the heavyweight champeen of the world in uses of the f-word in its various forms–428 by one count. It was subsequently surpassed in that regard by “Summer of Sam,” but when it comes to utterances per minute of film it still may hold pride of place even half a generation after its debut. So consider yourself forewarned. This is not family viewing, nor is it viewing for a lot of adults. Count the cost.

“Nil By Mouth” is very bleak. I first heard of the film years ago, not long after its release. It sounded like it might be interesting. It was written and directed and produced by Gary Oldman. I think Gary Oldman first came to my attention as the corrupt DEA agent Norman Stansfield in the 1994 film “The Professional.” He played a deliriously and murderously evil man, and I was impressed with his performance. “The Professional” is another bleak film laced with bad language–again not for everyone. (It is also a love story, and love survives even after much violence and death. I repeat: not for everyone.)

“Nil By Mouth” was inspired by the facts of Gary Oldman’s own life. His father was an alcoholic who deserted the family when young Gary was seven.

The discussion which follows will give away part of the plot.

The working class family in “Nil By Mouth” is hugely dysfunctional. Raymond (Ray Winstone) is a drinker, and abusive to his wife Valerie (Kathy Burke). He beats her savagely at one point in the film. As a result she miscarries. She decides to leave him. Kathy’s brother Billy is a drug addict and is likely headed for prison. (Bullseye.) The plot holds together logically, but chaos is the way of life of all these people, and is the true star of the show. Among friends and family, there is no one who has more than a faint clue as to how life could be and should be lived.

It all plays out in unrelieved misery. Kathy and Ray are back together at the end, but we know it will probably be only a temporary peace. More alcohol abuse, more beatings, more drug use are the way the smart money is betting.

What is the value of this film? Well, this really is how life goes on in a very large subsection of British society. If you think I am kidding, please read Theodore Dalrymple’s masterpiece, Life at the Bottom: The Worldview That Makes the Underclass (2001) which came out just four years after “Nil By Mouth.” It confirms that the behavior in the film is the behavior that goes on in real life for many people in the England of our era. (We in the U.S. have no such problems, of course.)

Gary Oldman, born March 21, 1958, escaped his environment and is “regarded as one of the greatest actors of his generation” (Wikipedia). Well, he sort of escaped, anyway. He has been married five times; that’s not an encouraging sign. He, like his father, became an alcoholic. It seems he is in recovery, living a teetotal lifestyle now, and quite willing to praise Alcoholics Anonymous for being crucial to his sobriety. So he escaped, but not without lingering demons.

Kathy Burke won the Best Actress award at the 1997 Cannes Film Festival for her portrayal of Valerie. It was well-deserved, and the other players in the film are also superb. The film won, or was nominated for, many awards. However, it is not surprising that so celebrated a film nevertheless runs under the radar of great fame. It is too depressing to gain a large audience. I have seen it only twice, and I suspect it will be quite a while before I get the nerve to watch it again. Or maybe twice in my life will prove enough.

The main takeaway for me is that once you give up the principles of Christianity, the elevator only runs down. These people need to anchor themselves in Christ. But of course that option is never considered.

I don’t necessarily “recommend” the film to anyone else. It is extremely well done, but hard to watch (and to listen to, given the language employed). Understand what you are getting yourself in for if you decide to watch.

“Nil By Mouth” DVDs are not cheap. It will cost you close to $20.00 for a copy at Amazon. Or you can just read Life at the Bottom, which you can find for about $10.00, also at Amazon. The book and the movie are telling the same sad story. The fictional movie wonderfully shows us the consequences of the worldview ruling and ruining countless lives. We see on the screen the world that Theodore Dalrymple describes in print.

Jesus Christ understood the value of fiction in helping us understand real life–thus the parables. He was able to tell his stories without the use of vulgar language, but then I suppose we might agree that He was a greater artist than Gary Oldman, gifted though the latter certainly is.

That is the first of three bleak films I want to review. It is also the bleakest of the three. In weeks to come I hope to discuss “Nebraska” and “Detachment.”

What is hormegeddon? Well, it is a play on words, for one thing. We have all heard about Armageddon, right? We may be a little bit vague on the exact meaning, but we have a rough idea. Here is what Wikipedia says, which is close enough for us to go on with:

‘Most traditions interpret this Bible prophecy to be symbolic of the progression of the world toward the “great day of God, the Almighty” in which God pours out his just and holy wrath against unrepentant sinners, led by Satan, in a literal end-of-the-world final confrontation. Armageddon is the symbolic name given to this event based on scripture references regarding divine obliteration of God’s enemies.’

So, sort of “a bad day at Black Rock,” at least for some people.

Hormegeddon is a word apparently made up by Bill Bonner, to talk about disasters of a financial nature. The cover of the book features a picture of an atomic bomb exploding. We might be heading for that magnitude of disaster, because of the policies we insist on following. Hormegeddon is Mr. Bonner’s “shorthand way of describing what happens when you have too much of a good thing in a public policy context.” (p. 6)

Hormegeddon: How Too Much of a Good Thing Leads to Disaster, was published in 2014 by Bill Bonner. Mr. Bonner heads a successful financial firm. But more fundamentally he is a thoughtful and intelligent guy who likes to think about how the world is put together.

He says Hormegeddon has “a modest ambition: to catch a faint glimmer of truth.” (p. 5) Actually, the glimmer is there, but I think it is more than faint. He has told us a lot of very true things. If we listened we as a nation could avoid disasters. But, as he points out early on, who ever listens to good advice?

Napoleon, for example, had enjoyed a spectacular military career. He decided to invade Russia. His aide-de-camp, obviously a supporter of Napoleon, knew that was a mistake.

“He knew better. He had actually been to Russia. Napoleon was the one who sent him there as France’s ambassador to St. Petersburg. He knew invading Russia was a bad idea. He warned the emperor of the terrible weather, the bad roads, and the savage people. He begged him not to go. It would be the ruin of France, he said.

“The Emperor ignored him and a few months later there they both were, freezing their rear ends off as they fled the smoldering ruins of Moscow.

“We have a chart in our library at home that shows what happened next. It records the temperature dropping to minus 30 degrees centigrade…as the size of the French army dropped along with it. Soldiers burned down barns to try to get warm, but many of them froze. Many of those who survived the cold got shot by the Russian army while still others were attacked by partisans on the roads, packs of wolves in the forests, and prisoners the state had released into the city streets. If that didn’t get them, they starved to death. Napoleon entered Russia with 300,000 troops. Only 10,000 got out.

“I told this story to my kids over and over again as they were growing up. And I can tell you with some confidence that it has had beneficial effects. None of my children will ever invade Russia. They won’t make that mistake!” (p. 3)

Food, he points out, is a very good thing, and necessary. But if we eat too much, the benefit goes down, and the bad consequences go up. “You feel bad. You look worse.” (p. 7) Life expectancy is cut.

He asks himself when do nations begin to throw their weight around and begin to act like empires? “‘When they can,’ we answered.” (p. 9) This is almost a throwaway line, but this insight is extremely important. I doubt if he has read Leopold Kohr’s wonderful The Breakdown of Nations, but Kohr made the same point. If the U.S. would look in the mirror, we would see that we have fallen into the trap warned against by Kohr/Bonner.

Mr. Bonner gives an example of what he calls “‘public thinking.'” A man making conversation at an investment conference responded to the fact that the Bush administration wanted to invade Iraq.

‘”I guess we’ll have to go in and clean that place up,” he said.

‘Had he ever been to Iraq? Had he ever met an Iraqi? Did he speak the language? Where was the detailed, specific, precise real knowledge that you would need to make sense of it all? What, exactly, was unclean about Iraq? And how would this lack of hygiene be scrubbed up by a foreign invasion?

‘A million nuances, an infinite number of real ‘facts’ based on experience and direct observation, a whole universe of assumptions, misapprehensions, muddled thinking, all reduced to a single phrase. And that, there, is ‘public thinking.” (p. 23)

Gosh, I wonder if we in the U.S. conservative/Christian community might ever have been involved in such public thinking? Oh, probably not. But I digress.

Mr. Bonner points out how difficult it is to reverse bad policy, because “predatory sub-groups” benefit from bad policies, and defend the bad policies’ continued existence with fervor. He calls such people zombies. (p. 12) It is a favorite word with him, and summarizes the situation perfectly. The people that live on tax money and produce nothing of value, are indeed zombies. But try getting rid of them!

Mr. Bonner points out how dishonest are the numbers given for inflation. Numbers?

“But in North America as in South America, the quants work over the numbers as if they were prisoners at Guantanamo. Cristina [Fernandez de Kirchner] is right. The numbers all wear orange jump suits. The Feds are the guards. Waterboard them a few times and the numbers will tell you anything you want to hear.” (p. 43)

Such sentences are quite typical of Mr. Bonner’s writing style. Not only does he have great insights to make, he quite often makes them with superb humor. This reminds me of the gifted writer Bill Kauffman. Both men seem to have an approximate attitude which might go something like this: “Hey, just because unprincipled scoundrels are running things and hurting all of us and quite frequently ruining (or even ending) lives, doesn’t mean we have to be grumpy about it.” This type of attitude is an inspiration to me–at least aspirationally. Let’s at least try to salvage a giggle or two out of the nonsense these scumbags put upon us. No need to be bitter about it all. (Remember, I did say “aspirationally.”)

Here is another bit of humor. People who want a truly free market economy are pretty rare.

“Even those who call themselves friends say nasty things about it when its back is turned. Believers and supporters are so few that they could all probably be rounded up and gunned down in an afternoon.” (p. 170)

Funny–and probably exactly accurate.

These few words above just scratch the surface of the value of Hormegeddon. Anyone, and I do mean anyone, who wants to begin to think honestly (about economics, but also just about life in general) will greatly benefit from reading Hormegeddon–and be entertained as he reads. Mr. Bonner is not a quant working over the numbers. He is a man trying to give us a faint glimmer of truth–and succeeding perhaps far beyond what he might have hoped. May his tribe increase.

Bill Bonner publishes an Internet daily column under the title “Bill Bonner’s Diary.” Or the name “Diary of a Rogue Economist” will probably work as well, if you start searching for it.

Hormegeddon is a superb book of 298 pages, still readily available on the Internet, and for a pittance. Today I found several used paperback copies available at AbeBooks for the astonishing price of $3.74 (free shipping, but sales tax will be additional). $3.74! Is this a great country or what?!

The Bagthorpe Saga was the creation of Helen Cresswell, an English writer of children’s books. She actually wrote more than 100 books! (Only ten are about the Bagthorpes.) She was born July 11, 1934 and died Sept. 26, 2005, at age 71, of ovarian cancer. Her marriage lasted about 32 years before it was “dissolved.” (Wikipedia) Here is how Wikipedia describes the Bagthorpe Saga:

“The saga follows the farcical, satirical and blackly comic lives of the eccentric, ultra-competitive, friendless, relentlessly self-absorbed and largely disloyal Bagthorpe family, who live at Unicorn House in the fictional village of Passingham, near the small market town of Aysham.”

Pretty close. The books are written for children, but I think most adults would would enjoy them–that is, if you enjoy dark humor. The ten books in the series are written over 24 years. I have read nine of them, while the tenth is notoriously elusive (read expensive) and so far I have not read it. I haven’t given up. Checking the inside cover, I see that I have read each of the first four, three times, while once each for the next five.

However, not all the Bagthorpes are self-absorbed and disloyal. Jack, age 11, is the third child of four. The other three, William (16), Tess (13), and Rosie (8) [all ages are as the first book opens, and I am sure about only three of them], all have specialties–often called “Strings to their Bows.” They are legends in their own minds. But Jack is “ordinary.” Hence the title of the first book in the series, Ordinary Jack. Jack, moreover, has a more kindly nature than his siblings, or his father. (His Uncle Parker calls Jack ‘”a pearl among swine.”‘) Most of us readers will probably find ourselves identifying with Jack–a boy ‘”who hasn’t got anything to boast about.”‘ (p. 6)

Jack has a dog, Zero. His name seems to sum up his accomplishments. Zero is even known to have been chased by cats. However, in volume two, Absolute Zero, Zero turns the tables on the arrogant Bagthorpes. You can find out exactly how if you read the book.

Beyond the four children, the household consists of the father Henry, the mother Laura, and the grandfather and grandmother. The grandfather is “selectively deaf”–choosing not to hear everything going on (showing great practical wisdom), while the grandmother is a force for chaos. Laura writes a newspaper advice column. Henry is a semi-successful writer of television plays. He is often sarcastic.

Uncle Russell Parker has married Celia, sister to Henry. Uncle Parker is financially successful, loves Celia, and annoys Henry constantly. Uncle Parker and Celia have a child, Daisy (age 4). Daisy has a genius for creating mayhem, and often joins forces with the grandmother in bringing misery to the lives of others. Daisy often blames Arry Awk, her imaginary friend, for the horrors she unleashes.

Mrs. Fosdyke comes in to work daily for the Bagthorpes. Here is one description of her, from Ordinary Jack:

“Mrs. Fosdyke had to a fine art the ability to move around fast without actually doing very much. Mr. Bagthorpe said a lot of people in the army had this gift, and in the civil service, but that it was rare in a Daily.” (p. 38)

In book three Daisy put some maggots in a box of chocolates for Mrs. Fosdyke. This does not go over well with Mrs. Fosdyke, as you can imagine. Daisy is encouraged to write an apology to Mrs. Fosdyke, which she does.

‘”Dear Miz Fozzy I am sorry you got my magots in your choclots and pleese can I have them back becos I reely love them and can play with them instead of bruthers and sisters becos mummy says I cant have anny bruthers and sisters. I hop your teef is beter and we al reely and trully luv you we reely do and reely mean it that we luv you. Daisy.”‘ (Bagthorpes Unlimited, p. 114)

In volume four, Daisy is described to Mrs. Fosdyke as ‘”original”‘ by Mrs. Bagthorpe. When Mrs. Fosdyke is unimpressed by that description, Mrs. Bagthorpe ungrudgingly adds ‘”tiresome,”‘ but Jack sees that for Mrs. Fosdyke, “even this description came nowhere near doing justice to the case.” (p. 59)

One of themes of the Bagthorpe family appears on the cover of volume three: ‘”If A Thing’s Worth Doing, It’s Worth Overdoing.”‘ The Bagthorpes have a lot to do, and thus a lot to overdo.

I checked out the availability of the first four books in the series. I looked only at AbeBooks, usually the best place for such a search (but not always). The first two are very reasonably priced. Ordinary Jack was only $4.97 total (sales tax extra), Absolute Zero even less at $4.19 (sales tax extra). Volumes three and four started to climb in price, at about $10.72 or $10.76 before sales tax, shipping again included. No need to panic, however. Try Ordinary Jack and then Absolute Zero and you will know if you feel inclined to follow the series further.

There is actually a 6-part television series adaptation of the first two books. I have not seen that yet, but will explore its availability and price.

The Bagthorpe Saga is fun for children and adults–well at least for some children and adults. The humor can be dark. Jack and Zero are our ordinary allies as we watch the chaos unfold. I for one have enjoyed looking on from a safe distance.

Does the Deep State even exist? If it exists, what is it?

Today I will spend just a few words mulling over the Deep State. These thoughts are preliminary, at best. First, let’s look at what Wikipedia says about the Deep State:

“A deep state (from Turkish: derin devlet), also known as a state within a state, is a type of governance made up of networks of power operating independently of a state’s political leadership in pursuit of their own agenda and goals. In popular usage, the term carries overwhelmingly negative connotations, although this does not reflect scholarly understanding. Potential sources for deep state organization include organs of state, such as the armed forces or public authorities (intelligence agencies, police, secret police, administrative agencies, and government bureaucracy). A deep state can also take the form of entrenched career civil servants acting in a non-conspiratorial discretionary manner to further their agency mission or the public good, sometimes in contravention of the current political administration. The intent of a deep state can include continuity of the state itself, job security for its members, enhanced power and authority, and the pursuit of ideological or programmatic objectives. It can operate in opposition to the agenda of elected officials, by obstructing, resisting, and subverting their policies, conditions and directives.”

[Note: supposedly the overwhelmingly negative connotations do “not reflect scholarly understanding.” So, think for yourself. Overwhelmingly negative connotations works for me, but it may not work for you.]

I think the U.S. is definitely largely in the control of the Deep State. This does not necessarily mean that there is a conscious conspiracy on the part of individuals or groups to be the Deep State. Conspiracies do exist, I think. But it seems to me that the Deep State has come about in a kind of natural progression, with lots of people acting the way they act for simple and understandable reasons.

“Occam’s razor is the principle that, of two explanations that account for all the facts, the simpler one is more likely to be correct,” to quote an Internet definition of Occam’s razor.

I think the Deep State has come about because lots of people want to protect (and increase) their large salaries, and their large prestige. Plus human nature is that unless we really watch ourselves, we enjoy pushing other people around. And we like to think well of ourselves, and like to assume that anything we do is automatically good because we do it and we are naturally good. All these factors are motivating people in the Deep State.

I looked up a the money involved in just a few government agencies or government responsibilities. The FBI has a budge of $9.6 billion, the CIA $15 billion, the Department of Energy $31.7 billion, the Department of Education $68 billion. The Department of Agriculture dispenses $146 billion. Federal welfare payments are $668 billion; state and local payments drive the total figure over $1 trillion. The budget for the military is $738 billion. (Industry joins the military to form the military-industrial complex; both like huge budgets. Thus we are “shocked, shocked” to find that both are part of the Deep State.) The financial services people are all private people, but they too are part of the Deep State, because they manipulate the system so as to receive large amounts of bailout money.

All the above are involved in the Deep State. They want their huge salaries. They want jobs that don’t really require production, but which bring a lot of money for themselves. There is prestige. If you are deputy director of this or that, you are somebody special.

George Orwell warned us: “the object of power is power.” Countless people like to be powerful, and like pushing other people around. (What does the CIA do except try to push other people around?)

Look again at the paragraph detailing the budget of various government agencies. What do you get for your $68 billion spent on, for just one example, education? You get zero, or rather less than zero. You could teach kids to read, write, add, subtract, multiply, and divide, for a few hundred dollars a month. The kids would perform better, probably hugely better, than they do now. The $68 billion just means thousands of people are removed from the possibility of doing productive work, by being in the Department of Education.

Military? Countless idiotic foreign interventions, with more tens of thousands removed from the possibility of doing productive work. Are they defending this country? Of course not. They are making this country more hated. Our country is defended by two huge oceans, and by a sparsely populated Canada on the north, and by non-military power Mexico on the south. Mexico may conquer us, because we refuse to enforce our border, but that won’t be because we were militarily defeated.

One could go on and on. We are getting nothing, or rather far less than nothing, for our money. The denizens of the Deep State don’t need to come up with a conspiracy to want to run the country. They just instinctively support everything that enlarges their budget, and instinctively oppose anything that threatens their budget.

There are people who are part of the Deep State, but there are also countless tens of thousands of what I would call fellow travelers of the Deep State. Public education teachers and administrators are fellow travelers. Their instinct tells them that a large budget for public education is helping preserve and possibly increase their income. So they instinctively vote for people who want to keep spending more money for public education.

Most of the people in Mainstream Media are fellow travelers of the Deep State. Why? I am not completely sure. To make a guess, as enemies of God they hate freedom and responsibility and truth. They prefer lies, they fear truth. It is instinctive for them to suck up to power, rather than to do the hard work of pointing out how those wielding power are doing evil.

None of this has happened in a corner, as Paul would say. We ordinary people let it happen. The church? Please, don’t make me laugh. The church has decided that biblical Christianity has no application to real life. Therefore, it follows naturally that the state, including the Deep State, can do whatever it wants. I even know of one church which sent one (probably two, actually) men into the Deep State. Of course with the church’s blessing.

With Nehemiah, we lament,

‘”Behold, we are slaves today,
And as to the land which Thou didst give to our fathers to eat of its fruit and its bounty,
Behold, we are slaves on it.”‘ (Nehemiah 9:36)

The Deep State exists, it is parasitic, it instinctively does evil, it thinks well of itself and holds the rest of us in contempt. Sadly, it has good reason to hold us in contempt! We preferred our pietism, our antinomianism, our public education, our Social Security, our Medicare, our unemployment compensation, our this and our that. Many of us are fellow travelers of the Deep State, and most of us are compromised one way or another. So we are slaves today in a land in which we were once largely free.

The Deep State is the enemy of freedom. But to defeat it, we are going to have to love freedom and responsibility and truth. To do that is simple but by no means easy–or we would have done it already.