THE ROBERT W. WHITAKER ARCHIVE

SOME REALLY TOUGH GUYS | 2006-07-02

I am still a bit taken aback that Joe was actually an amateur boxer. Let me explain something about that word "amateur." You may not get paid for it, but when you go into the ring you are still there to knock the other guy cold or be knocked out cold. Joe only mentioned this because I talked about Rocky Marciano, and Joe knew him psersonally.

A pal of mine was an amateur boxer. He, too, met a boxing celebrity. The poor bastard got into the ring with an eighteen black boy whose name was Cassius Clay, still in his golden glove days. Joe had the chance to talk to Rocky. When you meet a celebrity it's good to have something they said to talk to your grandchildren about. Unfortunately my buddy remembers very little about Cassuis Clay.

Pastor Peters of Scriptures for America was the first man who had the guts to inverview me. He is one of two people who has my books and promotes them:

http://www.scripturesforamerica.org/

Pastor Peters amd his sons are all rodeo riders.

I was watrching a documentary about Neandertkal Man. Even thought their bones were much thicker than ours, they went after things like mammoths with sticks, and the death and injury rate was phsenomenal. To illustrate this, the experts pointed out that Neranderthal skeletons looked like rodeo riders'.

On a regular basis, some young man in the military will take the risk of contacting me. Their address usually shows they are in something mean. For some reason, affter a lifetime of listening to the self-styled Greatest Geneation tell me how tough they were, a disproportionate number of the guys I deal with really are tough guys.

And they were not part twelve million who put on unforms. They do it vcluntarily and individually.

But even the toughest young guy has the psychological vulnerability of youth. I will never lie to them. But I will never discourage them.

The war never ends. The war is never won. We are taking losses we can never repair. But I volunteered for this war, and if I didn't think we could win, I'd say so. I would still fight, but I would never encourage any young person to get in the trench with me if I thought he had no hope.

Joe believes there is no hope and he will not encourage others to have it. I see victories and I see daylight.

Yes, EVERYTHING humans do starts with a lot of talk. Humans are the compulsive communicators. We are the only animal that chokes becasue our larynx is far down in our throat to accommodate our costly larynx. Nature does not pay an evolutionary cost like htat if the larynx were critical to us, real world critical, not theoretically critical. If it's evolutionary, it WORKS.

The USSR did not fall because of the game of containment all those administrations played. It fell because of WORDS.

Joe is honest and I am honest. We disagree.

I think we can live with that.

COMMENTS (3)

#1 Shari | 2006-07-02 17:27

The Bible says that things would get worse and worse and so they have. But if there is no hope then evil is the only reality, and how can that be? I don't say this because I am a naturally cheerful person, as I'm not. I can't say that I see daylight either. I just think that there has to be daylight.

#2 joe rorke | 2006-07-02 18:51

In his honesty, Joe will not encourage people to be foolish, to be stupid, to engage in nonsensical behaviour. Joe will advocate that people look at the record. What does the record show? It's not even a question of being pessimistic. It's a matter of contacting Reality. What is actually happening on a moment by moment basis? What has happened and what is continuing to happen? What is the reality of the situation? Not some private "reality" but the actual reality. What does your community look like? Did it look like this fifty years ago? Or is it worse? Much worse? Why? Is anything being done to correct a bad situation or is it getting worse as people talk on and on and on about everything but the actual solution to the problem? Is some boneheaded "conservative" advising you to read yet another book as the country collapses around you? Are those questions the questions of a pessimist or someone looking reality in the face? So the eyeglasses are rose-colored then, are they? Well, that's just the eyeglasses. That's not the reality. It's OK to be an optimist but not if that optimism is a veil of illusion. To see things as they really are, that is the thing. Blabbering about empty victories is so much nonsense. It gets in the way of real solutions. Maybe that will cause you to think about real solutions.

#3 LibAnon | 2006-07-02 21:18

"Joe believes there is no hope and he will not encourage others to have it. I see victories and I see daylight."

This reminds me of a line from Lawrence of Arabia: "Young men make wars, and the virtues of war are the virtues of young men: courage, and hope for the future. Then old men make the peace, and the vices of peace are the vices of old men: mistrust and caution."

Bob keeps telling us he's an old man. However, what's he's really telling us is that he's a young man. Bob has taught me a bit about interrogation, you see.

Joe asks, magnificently, "All you have to decide upon is whether you want wisdom or knowledge. Which do you think is more important?" Joe has thus demonstrated that he is a wise man, because he knows you have to choose. You can't have the joys of creativity and the responsibilities of wisdom, too. Trying to have both is tempting the gods and leads to destruction. You must choose one and forsake the other. Two names illustrate what happens when artistry is confused with statecraft: Hitler and Nero.

Knowledge and wisdom are opposites, although each relies on the other. An Ashbrook needs a Whitaker and a Whitaker needs an Ashbrook. A life dedicated to knowledge and contemplation is the opposite of wisdom: it is indeed foolishness, as Joe calls it, but in a holy way. as the myths of Aryan culture have recognized. When Joe asks, "What kind of genius is this?", my answer is that it's the best kind of genius: foolishness and idiocy. Fool as Wagner's Parsifal, idiot as in Dostoevsky's "The Idiot".