The Banality of evil & the fires of Bosnia, Kosovo, & Graton
As a Not-so-innocent by-stander to Life, and as an Outsider to the West-County Community, who dwells on, and still "possesses" a clear title to fifteen acres of land facing the ridge which is the eastern perimeter and rim of the bowl of Sonoma County, I find the portent of this fire down in the valley, in Graton, to be very ominous - and the account that was rendered in the Press Democrat, to be really very appalling: The article, which accompanied the photograph above, was entitled:
“Two houses burned in Graton fire exercise”
Reading the article in the Link above, I was reminded of Hannah Arendt's observations about the "banality of evil," in her book, "Eichmann in Jerusalem." Neither the author of the article in the Press Democrat, nor the fire chief and captain quoted in the article, question what they are doing - either the legality of the seizure of the lands of this heretic - nor the injustice inherent in the act of burning down the houses on it - houses that rightfully should still belong to a seventy-two year old senior citizen; who was once a respected and honored Country Squire, in the days when Graton and Sebastopol were still the apples towns of my lang memory; and in the days before September 11, 2001...
Here is the complete article:
Published: Saturday, May 21, 2011 at 6:57 p.m.
"Two houses on property that Graton activist John Jenkel has lost to winemaker Paul Hobbs in a civil dispute were burned by firefighters Saturday during a training exercise.
“We don't get to train on that many structure fires, it is a good opportunity for training,” said Occidental fire Capt. Dennis Sandberg. “The available houses are few and far between, on average once every year or year and a half.”
The homes were burned between 7 a.m. and 2 p.m. by firefighters from Occidental, Forestville, Gold Ridge and Graton. The property is located in the Graton district.
Hobbs acquired the property, which borders Highway 116, as part of a Sonoma County civil judgment of $350,000 against Jenkel that stems from a 2006 dispute between Hobbs and Jenkel.
Fire officials said that Hobbs gave them permission to use the structures in a training drill.
“We try and get the word out to the community as much as possible that if there is a home to demolish, we would love to use it for training,” Graton fire Deputy Chief Bill Bullard said. “It is an opportunity you can't duplicate in any type of training.”
-- Bob Norberg
Like the Germans who participated in the holocaust, these firemen are only doing their job - as is the journalist who gets paid to produce such banal, vapid copy. He too, is "only following orders," to write such drivel, in which, an event which resembles something from a chapter in "The Highland Clearances," - {a must read, by John Prebble} - is presented as a good thing, almost a picnic : "It is an opportunity you can't duplicate in any type of training." These firemen are not goose-stepping "fanatics or sociopaths," paraphrasing the the wikipedia, " but rather ...ordinary people who accept the premises of their state and therefore participate with the view that their actions are normal.""
Again, from the wikipedia:
"Explaining this phenomenon, Edward S. Herman has emphasized the importance of "normalizing the unthinkable." According to him, "doing terrible things in an organized and systematic way rests on 'normalization.' This is the process whereby ugly, degrading, murderous, and unspeakable acts become routine and are accepted as 'the way things are done.'"
The fire itself reminds me of the fires that burned in Kosovo, in Bosnia, in Serbia, and of the ethnic cleansing that went on there in the 1990's. The difference is: this is not "ethnic cleansing" - it is "dissident cleansing." = It is the Inquisition = It is the Bloody Assizes = it is the Burning Times = it is the Highland Clearances. A telling photograph; that speaks to those with eyes to see, a different story than the cover story that is presented to us in the newspaper. Here is a short video of the same scene:
- If you will note, there is a sequence of John Jenkel, himself towards the end, in the moment of his anguish and loss. sadly, there is no footage extant from any cameraman present that day who had the time to ask him any questions - or let him speak for himself.
But let us be thankful for small things : here is an image
{image} of the man himself; who was for many years the Coachman for the Bohemian Grove , who pulled the Casket, with his team of horses and wagon, in the Cremation of Care Ceremony = and this is the indignity he has merited from his former Masters, who are, verily, Drunk, on the Wine of Babylon, a' because he turned away from a life of Comfort and Ease... & Prosperity & becam' instead, a Turncoat to THEM, Inc., after he saw through the charade of the media coverage & send-up of September 11, 2001, and cam' to realize that 9-11 was an Inside Job.
John Jenkel, I would argue, took the moral highroad, & embarked on a higher path - and a much more difficult one I may add, Chilluns & full of rigor and Resistance from the powers-that-be = And also, shame & spitting from those wha' should hae both listened to, and heard his message.
And so has he lived, awkwardly - chaffingly, and vexingly, too - for the past eight and a half years, ever since he "came out," as an anti-War, & anti-Imperialist, old-school nineteenth-century style "left" republican & is now cam to this.... Because, by his own Voltaire -ian Light, & in his own eighteenth century, Rationalist Mind, he had to become a strident warner of the citizenry; a canary in the coalmine; a blunt & brusque Cassandra, telling All, high and low, that we have been under Martial Law = that we are still under Martial Law = ever since Public Law 107-243 cam' into effect.
And he had to follow this Course, because he is a Man, and Constitutionally, very much the opposite of a Wuss. And he is even a Constitutionalist. And also, because he loved humanity, and he loved & remembered the gone days in America whan there was mair Freedom - and out of Love for his own Children, and his Grandchildren he did not want to see them living in the Future World of Fascism.
Are we simply to leave him there, as a faceless, and voiceless object, at the edge of the final frames on this film strip? =or= will we come to the Realization=Voila ! that John Jenkel is We-uns Chilluns = He is the Old Man Down the Road = … And, as Dylan told the Judge, in “Percy’s Song” : “What happened to him, it could happen to Anyone…” =and= as Phil Ochs sang, “There But For Fortune, Go You, or I...”
Indeed, what they have done to John Jenkel is a foretaste of what is to come. If we -
if you - who dwell in the West County, do not do anything more to Resist this evil than just "boycott Paul Hobbs wines" there will be more of it. Mark my words: If you will not learn, Soon, to practice Town Hall meetings, you will soon find that you have no Freedoms left at all - except for plenty of sexual freedom, of course, and consumer freedoms, and yummy culinary freedoms, too. Yes, and the freedom to drink plenty of wine. The oligarchy doesn't mind bestowing favors like that. They are beneficent.
Here is another Image, from April, of this year; just one month before the fires that burned down a house, bunkhouse & barn of One of the last, strident, practitioners of Free Speech in America were lit, just down the Road, in Graton. O = and before the land was utterly altered and turned into a Moonscape. It was taken by a photographer from the Times Light:
Its Just a Photograph; the Remembrance of Things Past…
-=La Recherche du Temps Perdu=-
He’s a Jacobin, John Jenkel;
he is a Heretic, too.
They’ve bound him to the Stake,
& They’ll do the Same to you
-=-
If you Speak out, like Jenkel,
and Dare to speak your Mind
They’ll Rope you, Brand you,
Rack &, Stretch you,
& Drive you
Out O’ your Mind.
Also, there's a Quotation,
sometimes attributed
-to- =Voltaire=
– but which I learned,-
+for sure, from my dear,+
Socialist,
=Jewish grandmother,=
at the age of four :

“I may not agree
with what you say,
but I will defend to death
your right to say it.”
=
=Voltaire=
- as simplified by -
+Ewelyn Beatrice Hall +
& and &
as recited by
=Edith Fleischer Liggett=
to her little
-mischelling-
grandson,
+ % +
=Mark Walter Evans=
+as a small+
- tidbit, of -
+her gift +
@ of Ethical @
-=Cultcha=-
=to this one=
-in or around-
1954
""""
""""
And so,
Dear Readers,
I leave it
to Y-All
as my Own
Gift
to
the
Stream
O'
Conscious-
ness.