* * Glen Martin is trying to save the world

It’s a tall order, saving the world. But Professor Glen T. Martin of Radford is a determined man. Originally an upstate New Yorker, Martin has taught philosophy at Radford University since 1985, researching, exploring, and sharing his thoughts on the purpose of mankind. We sat down at a local restaurant to talk about it, daytime TV blaring in the background.

“I’m originally from Rochester. I did graduate work in philosophy at Hunter College in New York City, moving there in 1971. I got my PhD at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. My primary focus was the problem of nihilism, the philosophy of Nietzsche, the problem of value, what a human being is about. Nietzsche thought humans had lost their roots, their foundations and values. Religions had various ideas about nihilism, addressing it in different ways.

“I was interested in peace. The Vietnam War was going on and I resisted the war in part by filing for conscience objector status. I risked going to jail, which I would have chosen rather than going to war. In the meantime, we have all learned that our government, at the highest level, knew our effort there was futile long before we left, dooming tens of thousands of our own soldiers and millions of Vietnamese to needless deaths.

“I came to conclude that war is never a solution of our basic human problems. I became a non-violent revolutionary. All humans need to operate in fundamentally different ways than we’re now operating. Capitalism. Exploitation of the poor to the benefit of the rich. They all began to converge in my thinking. War is a manifestation of a world that has lost its way. It doesn’t base its practices on human dignity or love or brotherhood or peace.

“I wanted to be a professional philosopher. I wanted to understand the world. I had to go into teaching to achieve that.”

Martin explained that his opinions in social work were controversial, so he needed a tenured position to have the freedom of writing, working, and expression. He was offered a tenure track position at Radford University 34 years ago. He is now Professor of Philosophy.

“The word ‘radical,’” he continued, “comes from the Latin word for ‘root.’ To be radical implies looking for the root of problems rather than staying on the surface. I was concerned about war, violence, materialism and exploitation when I started at Radford. I joined the International Philosophers for Peace and the World Constitution and Parliament Association (WCPA). I was trying to put everything together regarding the system of world empires, global exploitation, and lack of values. I came to conclude that the world needs to work together under the rule of law to solve its most pressing problems.

“I got on the board of the WCPA. They had written a Constitution for the Federation of Earth.

 “When you look at the world from space, there are no lines. Those lines are arbitrary and historically contingent; they change. There is nothing innate or natural about nation states. Those lines are sources of problems not just in the United States but everywhere. People are displaced by war and environmental disasters. In some countries, when a child is born to refugees, they get no citizenship papers, so they’re effectively non-persons. How can you have human rights and human dignity if you are an illegal person, a citizen of nowhere? The borders make it worse.

“The Earth Constitution is not trying to eliminate those lines or nation states. But it attempts to place laws of human rights and human decency on everyone. The Constitution guarantees those rights.

“Like stated in our (USA) Constitution, everyone, by virtue of being born, deserves inalienable rights. Right to speech, assembly, movement, and social and economic rights. And of course we have the right to peace, because in the absence of peace, there can be no other rights.

“We have been under the threat of nuclear holocaust since the 1950s. We face impending climate collapse. We need to be thinking differently in terms of our common humanity. We need to end the waste of $1 trillion in military spending worldwide. We’re pointing to planetary civil disaster.

“These ideas are more popular throughout the world than here in the USA. I find the most resistance here. Small, poorer, non-imperialist countries understand the industrialized world has used them as resource colonies. People here don’t see that.

“We are in a race between the totalitarianism of One World Order, of economic domination, and a world system that is democratic, a federation guaranteeing innate freedom and basic human rights to all, in harmony with nature and natural processes. Transformations of human consciousness have happened very rapidly on occasion. People are beginning to think as global citizens. We have the potential in us.

“We don’t have a lot of time.”

* * The Grey Grizzlies return from Alaska

The Grey Grizzlies are home from their epic motorcycling journey to Alaska.

It’s been said that motorcyclists are just like everybody else, only more so. As one myself, I know that motorcyclists consume life in big, hearty gulps. Three men “of a certain age,” rode their BMW motorcycles to the Arctic Ocean and back, and met me to talk about it.

Jim Burger is a retired Forestry professor at Virginia Tech, as is Richard Kreh. Jim lives in Blacksburg and Richard in Patrick Springs. Don Edmonds, the youngster of the group at age 62 is retired from Volvo and lives in Riner. All three men had been with their employer for over 30 years.

Burger spawned the idea. “Alaska had been on my ‘bucket list’ for a long time; I’d never been. Richard and I had gone out west to British Columbia two years ago and that gave us a taste. I was ready for another big trip. I’ve been thinking about it ever since.” 

Richard said Jim had been subtly urging him to go to Alaska. “He casually planted little seeds of maybes and what-fors and casual hints that stirred me up. He was talking about it on that trip all the way from Alberta (Canada).”

That trip was 31 days. The Alaska trip was 50.

Jim invited Don along, but “I had to ponder it for awhile. I thought it was a neat thing to do, something I always wanted to do. I wasn’t sure if I didn’t do it, whether I’d have another opportunity. Sometimes you don’t.

“It wasn’t something I wanted to do myself. So you want to go with guys you’re interested in.”

Richard added, “I’m 77 years old. I had an anxious moment about whether I could make the trip. So I decided to drive a pickup and tow a camper trailer with my bike on it. I could provide support to Jim and Don and ride when I wanted.”

They put a date on the calendar and started making plans.

They attended a BMW rally in Tennessee, and then kept on going. In Whitehorse, Yukon Territory, they changed from street tires to knobby tires, in anticipation of the dirt roads to follow. From there they went to Dawson City, and into Alaska on the Top of the World Highway, the most northerly international border crossing in the world, then into Fairbanks. While Richard stayed in Fairbanks, Jim and Don rode to Deadhorse at the Arctic Ocean, nearly 500 miles on a dirt road.

From there, they rode the Old Denali Highway south to Denali National Park, and then to Anchorage. They explored the Kenai Peninsula, then the Wrangell-St. Elias National Park, which according to Jim is the largest national park in America, “Larger than Switzerland with higher mountains.” Then they rode through British Columbia, eventually to Montana’s Glacier National Park.

Jim said he’d done lots of research on Alaska, but, “I was delighted by going north from Fairbanks northward over the taiga and into the tundra, watching the landscape change. The wildlife was amazing; we saw grizzly bears, musk oxen, and caribou. You’re never adequately prepared until you see it.

“The other thing that surprised me is that there is more human infrastructure. There are lodges everywhere. Unlike the Yukon and northern British Columbia which are more wilderness, I (thought) that Alaska would be the ultimate wilderness.”

Richard agreed, “The changing landscapes are quite dramatic. What hit me was evidence of climate change. When we arrived in Fairbanks, it was 91F! Imagine, 91! We saw depleted glaciers, melting away. Fortunately, there weren’t many mosquitoes.” They took head nets but didn’t use them.

Don said, “It was fascinating and beautiful. On a motorcycle, you smell the smells, from flowers to dead carcasses. It’s very different than being in a car. It’s more challenging. We dealt with heat and rain and wind.”

Jim said, “I don’t think motorcyclists every really outgrow their love for it. You’re a motorcyclist until the day you die, even if you have to give it up beforehand. If my wife, who is not a rider, wanted to go, I’d drive a car and accommodate her. But I’d never want to go on my own any other way.

Richard echoed, “It’s risk-associated. To some of us, that’s desirable. It tunes your skills and tunes your perceptions. You’re always looking and reacting. Curves give me a rush.”

“You ride every mile,” Jim said of their 12,500 miles, “with a high level of awareness. Eight hours (riding) is about all guys our age can do in a day.”

Next year? They’re talking about riding to the Canadian Maritimes. I hope I can go with them.

* * Under the gun

Let’s talk about freedom.

For the past several years, I’ve been an exhibitor at Blacksburg’s signature street fair, Steppin’ Out, selling the books I’ve authored. Sadly, this year’s event was clouded with controversy.

The pro-gun Virginia Citizens Defense League (VCDL) was denied a booth due to concerns that this family-oriented event featuring music, food, arts, crafts, and games was not the place for advocacy on political or social issues.

VCDL President Philip Van Cleave was quoted as saying, “They’ve been trying for years to keep us out of there. ... It was a silly move, all because they don’t like guns.”

The truth is that many attendees, myself included, were uncomfortable with all the guns being carried around, and complained to organizers. Historically, VCDL passed out free orange, round stickers that said, “Guns save lives.”

In denying access to booth spaces to VCDL, Downtown Blacksburg Inc., which runs the festival, decided also to deny space to other political organizations.

Having no booth, VCDL’s adherents instead wandered about the festival passing out these stickers. I saw children, even babies in strollers, wearing them.

I deeply resent the presence of the VCDL and hate everything they stand for.

Our community has suffered too much tragedy already from bullets. Steppin’ Out’s predecessor festival, Deadwood Days, was marked by the murder of teenager Edward Charles Disney by another teenager in 1979. The event was discontinued for a year, then resuscitated and renamed Steppin’ Out. Then of course our community was rocked by the mass murder on Virginia Tech’s campus in 2007, one of the worst in American history.

“Guns save lives” is the worst of Orwellian double-speak. Saying “Guns save lives” is analogous to saying “Matches put out fires.” Inarguably, the more guns you have around, the greater the likelihood that one will be used and people will be hurt.

The weekend before Steppin’ Out, at a similar festival in Gilroy, California, 15 people were shot, 3 fatally. At that event, the assailant, who according to witnesses was wearing Army fatigues, just “rose his gun up, and just started spraying out rounds left to right and right to left.” Within a minute, policies engaged the shooter and he shot himself fatally. Wrap your head around this: within 60 seconds, that bad guy with a gun wounded 15 people and killed three before good guys with guns could intervene. If guns had saved lives, nobody would have died.

In publicizing my appearance at the festival, I learned that several of my friends had decided not to go, feeling fearful and intimidated. Think about this; our friends and neighbors purposefully stayed away from one of our town’s biggest annual celebrations because other people, many like Van Cleave from distant places, bring their in-your-face open-carry tactics to terrorize us.

Sure, there are always anecdotal tales of armed citizens using guns to protect themselves from assailants. But statistically, more often than not, more people are hurt with their own guns than by someone else’s. If guns saved lives, America, with the highest per-capita gun ownership in the developed world, would be the safest and instead of one of the most deadly.

Don’t get me wrong; I believe in the First Amendment and the rights all of us have to express ourselves publicly. But at the same time, don’t we have the responsibility not to intimidate each other? Shouldn’t we have the freedom to gather in public spaces without fearing for our lives?

I want to get up in Van Cleave’s face, scream expletives, and tell him to take his weapons and stickers and go home. He would probably shoot me.

ç==è

P.S. As I do the final edits on this, I learn that two more deadly shootings have occurred, one in El Paso, Texas and the other in Dayton, Ohio. The El Paso gunman released a screed in which he boasted to seeking the most lethal weapon he could find, including hollow-point rifle ammunition designed to expand and fragment on impact, creating catastrophic wounds. He described it as a “bullet unlike any other.” A self-avowed white supremacist, he specifically targeted Hispanic people and killed at least 20, with two dozen more injured. Two of the fatalities were a 24-year-old mother, who died shielding her 2-month old son, and her husband. This shooting lasted a mere 60 seconds before police shot him dead.

The Dayton shooting lasted only 32 terrible seconds. The shooter, who wore a bulletproof vest, killed 9 people including his sister. He was apprehended and taken into custody.

We need to wrap our heads around how tragically abnormal this is. Large groups of people routinely gather around the world without these instruments of death and without violence.

Folks, we are living in a traumatized nation at war with itself. It only stokes the fire when people come into our communities with messages of intimidation and violence.

* * America got old

A couple of weeks ago, many of us watched documentaries about the first landing on the moon 50 years ago; they sure brought back memories! That summer day in 1969, which incidentally was on my 15^th birthday, was indeed a great leap for mankind; it was the first time humans had ever left our planet, set foot on another world and returned safely.

What a tremendous technological achievement that was! Space program research brought innovations that quickly entered the consumer market, many of which are still benefiting us today. Some like memory foam, space blankets, digital cameras, and scratch resistant lenses were direct results of space program research, while others like Teflon, Velcro, and solar panels were greatly refined for space use. Between 1960 and 1973, NASA spent $28 billion on its space program, an estimated $288 billion in today’s dollars.

My formative years fell during that era, and the anniversary got me thinking about how our country and the world has changed, in so many ways, for better and worse.

It was a mere 16 years after our nation helped defeat Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan when a young, handsome President John F. Kennedy committed this nation to send an astronaut to the moon and back, before the end of the decade. The audacity of the commitment was bolstered by increasing competition the nation felt from the technologically advancing Soviet Union. We were embroiled in a Cold War, a race for technical and ideological superiority, and sending a man to the moon would be a powerful psychological weapon.

We were a growing, developing, emerging powerhouse nation, and seemingly there was nothing we couldn’t do. In addition to the space program, we were fighting a foreign war, building an interstate highway, and embarking on a vast war on poverty, designed to give every American access to the basics of food, water, and shelter. How did we afford all that? Largely, it was in insisting our wealthiest citizens pay a significant share of their upper-income in taxes. Marginal tax rates on annual income reached over 90% during this period, and corporations pay twice what they pay now.

Then, it seems to me, the country got old.

Conservatives and libertarians screamed that government was too big, and started shouting, “kill the beast.” In one of the most potent political expressions of all time, Ronald Reagan said, “In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.”

People heard this expression as if applied to any issue of government, but Reagan didn’t say it that way and his tenure shows that he didn’t behave that way. Nevertheless, the impacts were widespread and lasting. The federal government didn’t actually shrink much if at all, but the burden placed on our wealthiest citizens shrank dramatically, and while that money was supposed to “trickle down” to the rest of us, it generally never did, and the income gap between the über-wealthy and the rest of us has been growing markedly for more than 30 years.  

Meanwhile, back at home, big box stores like Hills and Cheds sprang up on the edges of our towns, sapping the vitality of our locally-owned downtown retail stores. Then the malls came along and they killed them both. Then Walmart came along and it wounded the malls, as has Amazon. All this has worked to siphon local dollars into the pockets of the Walton family and Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos. Much of the sense of community people felt back then, of seeing friends at the stores that were owned by neighbors, was lost.

Those Interstate highways radically changed not only how we travel but how we inhabit our communities. Passenger railroading atrophied and pedestrian travel for purposes other than recreation largely ceased. We now need a car for virtually every trip we take anywhere, and traffic is an intractable, increasing nightmare. Our passenger rail system, now run by Amtrak, is for most of us a novelty rather than a serious travel option, due to infrequent service and snail-slow trains. Meanwhile, France, Italy, Germany, Japan, China, and much of the industrialized world continues to build train networks that whisk large numbers of passengers around at upwards of 200-mph. And in spite of our current President’s boast for an infrastructure bill, even when he had a compliant Congress, he got nothing passed.

The national debt is skyrocketing and seemingly we can’t collectively afford any far-reaching goal, even if we could envision one.

I don’t mean to sugar-coat the 1960s, because we had many systemic problems (e.g. political assassinations, civil rights struggles and riots, widespread poverty, and a futile and misguided war). But as a child, the space program gave me and so many others the framework to be proud of our nation and dream big. And to think of what we could do collectively, together, beyond what was best for each of us individually.

Nowadays, of what do our kids dream?

* * Caldwell Butler would impeach Donald Trump

Only those of us in the Medicare set remember Caldwell Butler, a Republican congressman from Roanoke who served Virginia’s 6^th District from 1964 until 1972. A bookish looking man with a mop of dark hair, heavy black eyeglasses, and a massive double chin, Butler was known for his integrity, courage, and bipartisanship. Butler was one of few Republicans to call for Richard Nixon’s resignation over the Watergate scandal.

We’ll return to him momentarily.

While I’m guessing not too many people read the entirety of Special Council Robert Mueller’s Report on Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, millions of Americans did watch all or part of Mr. Mueller’s testimony in front of Congress last week.

We learned that:

Russia made a purposeful and successful attempt to interfere with our election.

Candidate Donald Trump and his inner circle were fully aware of it, and were complicit. We know that Trump lied and directed others to lie to hide those facts.

After his election, Trump fired people and attempted to fire others who were investigating his actions.

Mueller documented 10 textbook instances of obstruction of justice.

Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee and House Intelligence Committee spent their time asking Mueller to clarify and justify his conclusions. Republicans spent their time discrediting Mueller and marginalizing his conclusions, asking why anybody should care.

Caldwell Butler would have known why people should care.

We all should care.

We know that if Mueller is correct, the President and many of his inner circle are guilty of helping Russia help Trump, and if that’s giving aid and comfort to an enemy, it is treasonous. The remedy our Founding Fathers gave us for a renegade president is impeachment.

Let’s refresh our memories from high school government class what impeachment is. Impeachment of the president in the United States is the process by which the House of Representatives brings charges for crimes allegedly committed, analogous to an indictment by a grand jury. Then the matter moves to the Senate where a trial is held. The result is either guilt, necessitating removal, or acquittal. Historical note: only two presidents (Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton) have been impeached, and both were acquitted.

The bipartisanship that Butler knew in his day is all but gone now. Without Republican support, any vote for conviction seems wholly unlikely. So many Democrats are reasoning that with the inability to force removal, perhaps their chances for limiting Trump’s term are better served by advancing their own legislative ideas and winning at the 2020 ballot boxes.

Both Nixon and Trump (allegedly) cheated to win an election. But Trump’s manner was far more pernicious in that Nixon only involved domestic assistance to win while Trump benefited from assistance from a hostile foreign power. And Mueller found that not only did the Russians interfere in 2016, but are actively laying and executing plans to do the same in the 2020 election. Republicans seem unmoved by that, because hey, their guy won!

We must impeach now. Here’s why.

Trump has (allegedly) lived a long life of criminality, and has never been punished. His campaign manager, personal lawyer, and former national security advisor are either in jail or are awaiting sentencing. And yet Trump continues to live in our White House and play golf at his resorts on our dime. Knowing he can flaunt the law with impunity guarantees he’ll only continue, and the abuses will worsen.

A fair election in 2020 is by no means assured.

Even a failed impeachment effort would provide an enquiry that would reveal the extent of Trump’s criminality, perhaps enough to convince independent voters to abandon him. Mueller’s report is damning enough, but a trial in the Senate, where the American people could hear for themselves testimonies from Trump’s inner circle about what they’ve done, might convince them. Transcripts would create a perpetual record of Trump’s crimes for the history books.

In a speech a decade after Watergate, Butler admitted that his deliberations were neither fun nor easy. But he reasoned that while standards for impeachment often seemed imprecise and vague, he felt that an impeachable offense was to be judged by a simple standard: “the reasonable expectations of the American people.” Conspiring with a hostile foreign power to throw an election is, in the words of Mueller, not only an unethical thing to do and a crime, but is unpatriotic. Ask any group of 100 Americans, Democrats or Republicans, if this is within their reasonable expectations of a president, not one would say yes.

The Founders gave us impeachment as a remedy for a lawless president. If we don't use that power, we may as well not have it. Russian interference is ongoing, as is Trump’s criminality. Both must be stopped.

Where is today’s Caldwell Butler?

What do you think?