Stochastic Terrorism In America!

 

Stochastic Terrorism is defined as "the public demonization of a person or group resulting in the incitement of a violent act, which is statistically probable but whose specifics cannot be predicted".  Stochastic Terrorism is being committed in America every day and the source of the most serious portion of that terrorism is the illegal occupant of the White House.  Stochastic Terrorism results in hate crime attacks on members of targeted minorities all across this country.  Rampant ignorance about targets of Stochastic Terrorism is being spread like wildfire by the primary source of that terrorism, his appointed co-conspirators, and hundreds of  thousands of other voluntary co-conspirators who believe his lies.  

 

 

 

This week in Lansing, Michigan, at least 13 Domestic Terrorists were arrested in a plot to storm the state capitol, kidnap Governor Gretchen Whitmer, place her on "trial for treason", and eventually kill her.  These people were known members of a group called "The Wolverine Watchmen" had conducted surveilance on the governor's vacation home and had, at one time, talked of using up to 200 men to attack the state capitol.  The group had been infiltrated by FBI agents and large numbers of recorded conversations and telephone calls had been obtained detailing the plot along with other acts of terrorism which the group wished to perpetrate.  The two leaders of this terrorist group had been involved in public protests with at least one elected county sheriff in Michigan.  Dar Leaf, the sheriff in question, has refused to disown the group and was a vocal opponent of Governor Whitmer's active interventions into the Covid 19 pandemic.  That action should tell you that this sheriff is also a Domestic Terrorist and should be charged. 

 

 

 

The question which  many people are asking about this incredibly treasonous and violent plot is "how could this happen in America" or "why are people in America engaging in such domestic terrorism".  There is a simple answer to such questions: a Domestic Terrorist has been allowed to live in the White House for nearly four years and, as a pubic figure, has been engaging in Stochastic Terrorism for at least 5 years.  At least since, Gretchen Whitmer began her run for governor of Michigan in 2018, TRAITOR Trump has often, randomly, unduly, and falsely attacked her because she has not only opposed him and his TREASON,she has publicly opposed him and always been correct and on target in her negative assessments of him.  Immediately after this plot was announced and the 13 people arrested by the FBI, TRAITOR Trump attacked Governor Whitmer again without saying one negative word about the Domestic Terrorists who had just been arrested for plotting her kidnapping and murder. TRAITOR Trump has variously attacked nearly every elected Democratic official in statewide offices, Democratic senators and congress members at the federal level, and even attacked retired Democratic officials in his efforts to incite such groups to acts of violence.  

 

 

 

The most often stated support of American Domestic Terrorists by TRAITOR Trump has always been the occasion after the Charlottesville, Virginia, murder of an innocent protestor when he stated that there were good people "on both sides of the protests".  Yet, somehow, a major portion of the American electorate was willing to ignore these blatant occasions of Stochastic Terrorism from TRAITOR Trump against non-violent protestors expressing their constitutionally guaranteed right to free speech, ongoing Stochastic Terrorism against Democratic office holders, candidates, and activists.  Anyone who utilizes their right to free speech, public assembly, or freedom of the press to question the motives, actions, or intentions of TRAITOR Trump has always been a target for his virulent rabble rousing and Stochastic Terrorism.  Finally, his TREASONOUS actions have reached a point in their consequences that only the most ignorant or uncaring Americans can ignore them any further.  It is long past time for the decent, law abiding citizens of this country to stand up against TRAITOR Trump and his Stochastic Terrorism, his TREASON with Russia, his burgeoning insanity, his crimes against humanity, and his complete incompetence in a job to which he was not legally elected.  Impeachment failed because he had 51 Right Wing Radical Repugnican co-conspirators in the US Senate.  Now, the only option is to vote STRAIGHT DEMOCRATIC, elect Democratic officials nation wide, and support them in the necessary work to ensure that TRAITOR Trump is not allowed to incite civil war in the nation, ensure that he is removed by force if necessary from the White House on January 20, 2021, guarantee that he is indicted, convicted, sentenced, and imprisoned for life for his crimes against this nation and the entire human race. 

"The Nick Adams Stories" by Ernest Hemingway--Book Review

Hemingway, Ernest. The Nick Adams Stories. (New York, NY, Bantam Books, 1972)

This has always been one of my favorite books and this is the second or third time I have read it from cover to cover.  I have probably read a few of the individual short stories in this collection such as "Indian Camp", "Big Two-Hearted River", and "The Last Good Country" a dozen times or more.  This book shows a side of Hemingway that is not the commonly understood man and writer in many ways.  The 24  stories are divided into five sections and arranged in something close to the chronological order in which they were written.  The sections, in order, are called "The Northern Woods", "On His Own", "War", "A Soldier Home", and "Company Of Two".  These sections are intended to present the stories as they fit into the key segments of Hemingway's life and also correspond fairly closely to the order in which they were written.  

The stories in "The Northern Woods" are all set in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and the character Nick Adams after whom they are entitled is generally conceded to be primarily an autobiographical presentation of a youthful Hemingway in the home of his father.  "Indian Camp" has always been one of my favorite stories by any writer.  It is direct, brutal but realistic, and shows Hemingway approaching the issue of suicide which was a major family issue with his father, brother, and several other family members either attempting suicide or succeeding in ending their own lives.  The short story tells the story of the doctor, his son, and an uncle attending the birth of a child in the home of a Native American couple in the Upper Peninsula.  The woman's husband is bound to his bed by a recent injury and they  are actually in a set of bunk beds during the childbirth.  At the end of the procedure, the doctor discovers that the father has quietly committed suicide in the upper bunk as his child is being born immediately below him.  The dialogue at the end of the story is some of the most linguistically simple and yet brutally powerful you will ever find by an writer anywhere.  The boy asks, 

"Do many men kill themselves, Daddy?"  

"Not very many, Nick."

"Do many women?"

"Hardly ever."

"Don't they ever?"

"Oh yes. They do sometimes."

"Daddy?"

"Yes."

"Where did Uncle George go?"

"He'll turn up alright."

"Is dying hard, Daddy?"

"No, I think it's pretty easy, Nick.  It all depends." 

When we consider the fact that both Ernest and Clarence Hemingway died by suicide by gunshot, we can almost visualize Ernest Hemingway, in Ketchum, Idaho, in the early morning hours of July 2, 1961, replaying that very dialogue in his mind as he loaded his shotgun to end his life.  I have always suspected that this section of dialogue from "Indian Camp" may well be the most purely autobiographical words Hemingway ever wrote.  But the stories are not all that dark and Nick Adams and his fictional father are not overly dark characters.  Nick Adams love to fish, hunt, drink, and have sex and those are three of the areas of life in which Ernest Hemingway wrote at a level which few writers ever achieve.  Some of the hunting and fishing language in these stories is pure poetry.  the sexual language is totally devoid of all those socially unacceptable locker room words so often found in the work of lesser writers.  But when Hemingway wrote about sex, he did not leave  his readers to wonder what he was talking about.  His meanings are crystal clear.  His language is admirable and accurate.  When he writes about any of these three topics, you know you are reading the work of an individual who has done sufficient homework on his topics to be considered an expert and a connoisseur.

"The Last Good Country" is a fascinating story about Nick Adams on the run from two local game wardens as a teenager in the company of his younger sister who is going with him to protect him from himself and his dangerous tendencies.  They are hiding in the "...last good country..." in the Upper Peninsula with streams full of hungry trout, berries to pick, warm beds of vegetation in which to sleep safely, and far too much country for two fat, liquor loving game wardens to ever find them.  The relationship between the siblings borders on things which most readers would not appreciate and Hemingway never crosses any of the lines which would make the difference for reader.  But he walks directly up to those lines, stares across at his doubting readers, and leaves answers hanging in the air to be considered, doubted, appreciated, and never found in the open.  It is also a wonderful story.  

 "Big Two-Hearted River" is, perhaps, the best known story in this collection but I would not go so far as to declare it flatly the best.  It is a wonderful story and is also one of my favorite stories both from Hemingway and from the greater body of American literature.  It is, on the surface, a fishing story about an isolated section of river which Nick Adams loves to fish in the Upper Peninsula but it also about a soldier returning home from war and remembering his friends in the war.  The fishing sections of the story are some of the best written descriptions of fishing from any writer, anytime, anywhere.  Isaak Walton would have been proud to know this version of Hemingway.  It is also a great story about a solitary person in a very solitary situation in a wilderness.  This story is one of those which no person should ever say they are a well read aficionado of either Ernest Hemingway or American Literature without having read. 

While the Nick Adams stories are not always the first of Hemingway's writing we hear mentioned, they are well crafted, introspective, autobiographical stories by and, at least in part, about a very complicated man.  They are well worth reading and rereading.