About Flagpole. (Athens, Ga.) 1987-current | View Entire Issue (Jan. 19, 2011)
f } )« SUPPDDT DUD SOCIALIST FUNDDAISINC AGENDA! VOTE FOR THE FLAGPOLE BAND IN THE BATTLE BF THE BANDS BENEFIT FDD NUCI'S SPACE iUUiUl.ATHENSBUSlNESSBDCKS.COM id Panic, Don Chambers, Sgoldensummer, A Postwar Drama 3mi many, many more. Contact marketin^athf^LiHim or visit www.athfestcomidg -for.more information*® Previously unreleased material is preferred but not required. Deliver your CD and completed submission form to the AthFest office at 220 College flve., 3rd Floor. Athens. Submission forms are available at AthFesicom and at the AthFest office. CD will be released May 2011. Proceeds benefit AthFest, Inc., a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization dedicated to music and arts education. D0UCHEN0ZZLE DAYS To riff on the tired old phrase, some of my best friends are conservatives. I know that as an unapologetic leftie writing for a hippie socialist rag like this one. I'm supposed to eschew the company of our brethren on the right, but the fact is that there is nothing wrong with big-C conservatism of the well- considered kind. We do need a strong mili tary, government bureaucracy is bloated and wasteful to the point of uselessness in many areas, and the deficit is going to cripple our grandchildren if we don't get it under control, pronto. My conservative friends make sense, and that's why they're my conservative friends. The Tea Party is nobody's friend, liberal or conservative. In a nationwide assault on the sense and sensibility of the Republic, the Teabaggers have advanced an agenda of regressive policy, hate mongering and an appeal to all the worst aspects of the human character. The notion that a movement full of white property owners paying some of the lowest taxes per capita in the world can pass themselves off as an oppressed minority should never have passed the Giggle Test on day-one, and yet not only are they thriving, we elected them into office and many of them are sitting down to make public policy even as we speak. So, we must wait out the next two years of inevitable gridlock as the Teabaggers play obstruc tionist games within the GOP, the divided Congress stonewalls and lets Obama take the heat for failed or stalled policy, and Sarah Palin plays coy about running for presi dent while cashing in on her baffling cachet. We need something to get us through the douchenozzle days. Here are a few recommendations from my desert-island list (and I've never wanted to be on a desert island more than now): The Collected Works of William Shakespeare. I recommend the Riverside edition or the Arden Shakespeare series. Uncle Will may have been writing for the masses, but you will find a passionate political streak running through his work, particularly on the subject of what makes a good ruler and why bad rulers should be removed. Look at Julius Caesar, Richard III, Hamlet and King Lear for examples of this, but you'll find it everywhere, even in The Tempest. A The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain, and To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. Perhaps the ugliest aspect of the Tea Party's ascension—and there are so many to choose from!—is the naked racism the Party allows and condnr.es. It is no accident that the Party coalesced during the current administration and it's clear that many of the Teabaggers have less of a problem with their taxes than they do with a black president. Witness the rally with the charming graphic of Obama in witch-doctor drag or the one famous sign calling him a "niggar" (if you can't even spell the N-bomb correctly, you just may be a redneck—Jeff Foxworthy can send me a check c/o Flagpole). If we're still having these issues on the national stage in the 21st century, then perhaps it would do us all some good to get back to some of the seminal texts on why being a racist asshole is wrong. I, Claudius and Claudius the God oy Robert Graves. The classicist Graves is never better than in these two books, adapted from The Twelve Caesars by Suetonius, about the Roman emperors Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula and Claudius, told by the last as he grew up dan gerously close to the first three. It's become a weary cliche to compare the U.S. to ancient Rome, but there are lessons to be learned from this historical soap opera of unbridled ambi tion, treachery and madness, particularly in Augustus' drive to consolidate his power while claiming it was all for the purpose of restoring the Republic. The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress and Time Enough for Love by Robert A. Heinlein. A Libertarian in the real sense, not whatever Neal Boortz thinks he is, Heinlein didn't just believe that an armed society is a polite society, he believed that a smart society is a sane society. He's taken a lot of flak over the years for his supposed fascism, but it's hard to argue that a government run by the smartest people beats all hell out of a govern ment run by dumbasses, "populist" though they may claim to be. That's the central message of Mistress. Time argues, through Hein lei n's immor tal alter-ego Lazarus Long, that a free society is one that is run intel ligently and with as little interference in the lives of its citizens, including who they can choose to be with, as possible. The latter book is Heinlein's sweeping manifesto on a wide range of subjects, all of it dedicated to the principle of true common sense. Ain't Nobody's Business If You Do: The Absurdity of Consensual Crimes in a Free Society by Peter McWilliams. This one is a bit hard to find, though it's worth tracking down. McWilliams makes an eloquent case for the legalization and regulation of drugs, pros titution and gambling, along with the repeal of personal safety laws, as opposed to the Prohibition stance that clogs our legal system, endangers lives and makes those activities profitable for criminals. You may not agree with everything in the book (I don't) but McWilliams loads his book with so many good arguments and supports that it is a virtual bible for anyone who actually wants to have an intelligent debate on these subjects. And that's what we're going to need in the coming days: books and resources to keep us sharp and inspired until the rest of the coun try realizes that calling the president a social ist Muslim and telling him to go back to Africa are no substitute for actual governance. Those are my picks; got any suggestions? John G. Nettles 12 FLAGP0LE.COM • JANUARY 19,2011
