Craig Russell's Columns
Taking Responsibility for Freedom
"We generally recognize that a teenager who whines like that just doesn’t understand how the world works, that freedom requires responsibility, and that until we take responsibility for our lives, we will not have the freedom we want. It’s harder for us to recognize that same failure to understand how the world works in our own situation." Column by Craig Russell.
"But mass production requires mass consumption, and mass consumption requires mass thought, for if people remain unique and independent in mind and spirit, then mass production will fail. It can succeed only when the masses have the same tastes and desires, the same wants and needs and beliefs. It can succeed only when, in short, most everyone thinks alike." Column by Craig Russell.
In Celebration of Martin Luther
"And then, suddenly, one of these learned men, one of these priests, a professor at the university, had the audacity, the boldness, the courage – had the unshakable conviction – that the Church, this most powerful and holy of human institutions, was wrong." Craig Russell on the heroic Martin Luther.
"They based their government on the law of Frankpledge, which meant that 'the village community were themselves responsible for keeping the peace and maintaining law and order within their own boundaries. Frankpledge was thus the essence of self-government as opposed to a form of control from without such as our modern forms of government represent'." Column by Craig Russell.
"In fact, the more I know, the more I know I don’t know. And this leads me to believe that the arrogance, the rigidity of 'knowing' results in the desire, perhaps even the need, for Power, thus creating the stiff, unyielding golem we call the State." Column by Craig Russell.
Recommended "Most Americans believe they are 'free' because Power insists again and again that they are. For nine months of the year, beginning at age five and continuing to age 18, the State requires that people spend almost half their waking weekday hours in government facilities under the direct control of government employees. They begin each daily session by facing that big, imposing, red white and blue symbol of the State, holding their right hand over their hearts, and pledging their allegiance both to it 'and to the republic for which it stands...with liberty and justice for all' (and, as I have said before, the irony of saying such words under such coercive conditions rarely if ever occurs to them)." Column by Craig Russell.
"Plato likened most people’s sense of reality to a shadow play put on by society’s masters. If that was true thousands of years ago, how much more true might it be today with the power of television broadcasting the official State interpretation to millions at once?" Column by Craig Russell.
"I see government 'schools' as a prime way in which the State works to keep people as dull and stupid as possible. What the State insists on calling 'kindergarten' is just the first step in that long daily indoctrination process – a process which will teach reading in such a way that few will ever actually read anything on their own, for their own reasons...a process that will teach writing in such a way that almost none of them will ever sit down to focus their thinking onto a page and thus actually find out what they believe and why. Shouldn’t the idea that 'everything you do from birth...is in one way or another helping your child to prepare' for the takeover of his mind by the authorities scare you, or at least make you wonder its validity?" Column by Craig Russell.
"Why do we believe that the State can protect us from the vagaries of life? We believe that partly because we want to and partly because the State wants us to. Such belief, after all, grants the State that much more power over individual lives....This fear of chance is one of the State’s best friends. When something goes awry, the State makes a 'law' to prevent its reoccurrence. But so often that only causes even more things to go awry, thus paving the way for even more laws, more rules, more 'preventative measures,' which, the State hopes, will simply continue ad infinitum, thus increasing its Power while reducing yours." Column by Craig Russell.
"Our culture has conditioned us to think of speed as 'improvement,' as 'advancement,' as 'progress,' but nothing comes without cost. And what psychic costs have we paid for this 'progress'? Think of how impatient cars have made us – and not just cars: we want fast food, too. We want fast, instant gratification in every way." Column by Craig Russell.
The Significance of 'Herb Brooks'
Recommended
"Sports, then, combines with
television to implant in the inner mind a connection between the game, the
players, and the State. This becomes
even stronger with an Olympic contest pitting one 'nation' against another
because this allows, as happened at Lake Placid during that game in 1980, the
home crowd to chant 'USA, USA' and wave American flags from the stands.
"The last 40 years have seen a disastrous decay, a terrible decline in both public and private morality. We no longer as individuals have either the strength or the desire to limit or to control ourselves in any way, large or small. We live like greedy, half-wit children, totally without regard for others. We weave in and out of traffic, risking the lives of ourselves and others in our desperation to beat the other guy to the next red light....We dress like total slobs. Obscenities pour from our mouths and litter what little reading we’re still capable of. We become grotesquely fat by consuming everything in sight with no regard for, or even any comprehension of, the life it once possessed....We buy bigger televisions, faster computers, and require more and bigger explosions at the movies. We divorce and we breed almost indiscriminately without any regard to what it might do to the children or to society as a whole. We either ignore or excuse the mass murder we euphemistically call 'abortion.' We know next to nothing about anything at all and then we laugh at our ignorance." Column by Craig Russell.
"We seldom think, 'Who the hell are these people to tell anyone what to do?'....Our culture has almost everyone convinced in one way or another that such a set-up is not only right, even 'moral,' but that the survival of freedom and liberty require it. But we have to remember that bar we’re playing at Friday night does not belong to anyone in the legislature (if it did, it would no doubt have some kind of exemption), and that the only person in the world with any moral right to determine whether or not people smoke there is the owner of that bar: not you, not me, not the customers, and certainly not some immoral, self-obsessed gang of Power hungry, money grubbing, lying little weasels in Albany. The owner of the bar is the one with the investment. He alone has the moral right to make these decisions. Like any government, the NYS legislature has no right whatsoever– it has only Power." Column by Craig Russell.
"So how does this relate to freedom? Simply put, such thinking forces you to think more exactly and precisely about life. Rather than think about how you think the world is or how you would like it to be, you have to think about the realities of the world and how things actually work." Column by Craig Russell.
"...it wasn’t till the end of Terminator 3 that I saw another graphic visualization of the fearsome and overwhelming Technological Power at the disposal of the United States Government. I was reminded as I watched that the Technological Power each of us enjoys is but a mere fraction of that enjoyed by the State; that the more we have, the more the State necessarily has as well; that our greed, our will to Power, fuels that of the State; and that our continued dependence upon Technological Power--our dependence upon man’s greed instead of nature’s acceptance, upon the State instead of God and ourselves--will, in the end, doom us." Column by Craig Russell.
"It
only stands to reason, then, that if we are such people – and we are – then
the government we create, the government which stems from our wants and our
desires, would reflect those qualities. We
are a greedy, desperate, soul-less people who seek Power over everything.
Why then do we wonder that the government seeks the same thing?"
Column by Craig Russell.
John D. Rockefeller and the Magnificent Bribe
"In fact, many of us even today fail (or refuse) to see this as a bribe – to see the dangers and consequences of our eager, unquestioning acceptance of the technology that, in return for material comforts, gives the State such control and authority over us." Column by Craig Russell.
Art, the Individual and the State
"What
have we lost in allowing others to play our games for us, in allowing others to
sing our songs for us – in allowing the mass production even of simple
entertainment? Is this mass
production not just another tentacle of the State reaching into our souls –
just another way to convince us all to think and feel and imagine the same way?
Is it not just another way for the State to disarm us, to make us feel
weak and inadequate and thus in need of the saving Power of the State?"
Column by Craig Russell.
"It
used to be that, when I drove or rode my bicycle down the Parkway, I’d
look at Taylor’s Tiny Town and see the past: small town America,
kindness, mutual respect, the power of the individual entrepreneur.
I saw family and fun, freedom and happiness.
But that’s gone now – gone forever –
replaced by Power, by force and greed and arrogance and
selfishness: the same qualities, the same characteristics, that have
sent the American military, those efficient, highly trained, and
well-equipped government-financed mass murderers, into Afghanistan and
Iraq and perhaps soon into Iran to kill for us so that we might have the
Power we so crave, the Power we’re so desperate to have – the Power
we’re terminally addicted to." Column by Craig Russell.
"I’m
not paying $37.50 to be treated like a suspect, to be treated like a potential
terrorist, to be scanned and frisked so I can sit on a lawn in the rain with
thousands of other sheep to hear aging millionaires play aging songs to make
even more money than they already have. The
dream, as even John Lennon had to admit, is over.
Adelaide's Whooping Cough, the Annihilation of Space, and You
"... if we’re serious about individual liberty, we need to wean ourselves away from the trivializing, indoctrinating media, from the television and the radio and the newspapers. We have to stop filling our minds with 'news' about Adelaide’s whooping cough." Column by Craig Russell. Thoreau said, "Read not The Times, read the eternities."
"In taking time and effort to look good, to dress well, we add a little beauty, a little grace, a little elegance – a little dignity – to a world that could use more of all those things. Without uttering a word, we tell people that we respect not only ourselves but also every individual with whom we come into personal contact. And unless we can regain that sense of mutual respect, any desire for freedom, any chance of ever obtaining it again, is just another impossible dream. It’s time for those of us who cherish liberty, then – as silly and superficial as it might at first seem – to dress the part." Column by Craig Russell.
Recommended "To regain our freedoms as individuals, then, we first have to rebuild and regain our character. It will not work the other way....To eliminate the State, we must eliminate our need for the State, our desire for the State, and we can only do that by regaining character....The path to freedom is not through the voting booth. It’s not through revolution or violence. It’s not through war. It’s through your own individual mind – through your mind and my mind." An excellent column by Craig Russell.
"This,
then, is the sort of thing that most Americans consume mentally.
This is what they put into their minds – the sort of stuff with which
they construct their minds, their spirits, their souls.
Multiply it by several hours a day and by seven days a week.
Multiply it further by all the other shows and their various kinds of
degradation: wresting, stock car racing, 'reality' programming.
And then multiply it by the millions of people in America who devour this
stuff.
"Perhaps we should think more about the benefits of the bicycle. Yes, a bicycle can be impractical, slow, cumbersome and tiring – especially when you’re used to an automobile. But to lessen your dependence upon the automobile is to lessen your dependence upon the State. And in doing so, you not only make your life simpler and less stressful, you also, at the very same time, help to weaken the State and its power." Column by Craig Russell.
Memorial Day 2003: Remember Why They Died
"Oh, I will indeed observe Memorial Day on Monday. I will indeed remember the dead. I will think about how they died, and where – and why. And I will honor their lives and their memories as best I can: by working toward reducing the chances of others joining them in those brutal, cold, eternal graveyards." Column by Craig Russell.
"The Twentieth Century saw the coming of indoor heating and plumbing, automobiles and television, movies and computers. It also saw governments in Russia and Germany and China and Cambodia murder millions of their own people – and it is not a coincidence that they coincided. They came hand-in-hand. The Twentieth Century was the Century of Power in all its forms, all its ramifications – all its terrible glory." Column by Craig Russell.
Grammar and the Passive American
"Our
vague, passive thinking has made us a vague, passive people, unwilling and often
unable to take responsibility and act because we not only can’t conceive of
what to do, we can’t even conceive of doing.
So many of us live, like my students, in a conceptual world in which nothing happens and everything simply is." Column by Craig
Russell.
Elections and the Lesson of Frodo
"We must destroy the Ring of Power. There is no guarantee that we, like Frodo, will succeed. But we must try. And the first step is to stop dignifying governmental electoral politics by giving it any credence whatsoever. We have to recognize its inherent immorality and realize that any participation in electoral politics, any belief in political solutions, is participation in our own degradation, our own slavery." Column by Craig Russell.
"We must liberate literacy from the vast and powerful American government indoctrination system. As long as it remains in the clutches of the State, national commissions will always be shocked at the State’s inevitable failure, more of the People’s money will always be needed to rectify an un-rectifiable situation, and the People themselves will remain the dull, stupid, illiterate, TV-fed fools the State wants them to be. As long as it remains in the clutches of the State, the young will never learn the true power of the Word." Column by Craig Russell.
"...it’s
the power of the picture, the unreasoning emotion of the right brain, that
allows the growth and acceptance of the
"Each
of us only has so much time allotted to him.
We glow but a short while upon this earth, and then the flame dies.
Why would we spend even a second of it in the fatal radiation of an
infernal device that promises 'entertainment,' that promises 'enlightenment,'
but delivers only weak facsimiles?" A great column by Craig Russell.
"What if, in the minds of G. W. Bush & Co., conquering and occupying Afghanistan and Iraq are necessary, an emergency measure to keep the power on in the United States? Let’s be as blunt as possible: What if this war is not metaphorically but literally a battle for 'our way of life'? What if that way of life depends on killing those people and taking that oil, and taking it now?" Column by Craig Russell.
"We need to remember this April 19th why the citizens of Concord and Lexington began to fight their Government in 1775. We need to remember the principles upon which this nation was founded. We need to think upon what it has since become. We need to think about what this Government did ten years ago, what it’s doing now, and what it may do tomorrow. We need to think about what it’s capable of. We need to think about the lies it’s willing to tell and the people it’s willing to kill to keep its money, to keep its power and to keep the people weak, fearful, stupid, and submissive." Column by Craig Russell.
On Tim Robbins, the Hall of Fame, and First Amendment
"But restricting the actions and reactions of individuals to speech would only result in the diminution of freedom. If someone’s speech offends me, I must be free to disassociate myself from him." Column by new Root Striker Craig Russell.