Assholes

Bear with me on this, the off-color language does have a point.  I used to like Charlie Sheen, but his recent misbehavior is off the chart.

 Private Assholes.  I’ve had the misfortune to deal with assholes in my life; unfortunately it’s impossible to completely isolate yourself from them.  Basically we’re talking about people who assert the right to get their own way and don’t care how they do it.  Their take on non-assholes is two-fold.  First, they look down on non-assholes as being too weak, lazy or incompetent to assert their will on others the way they do.  To the asshole, a non-asshole is simply hiding behind vague and irrelevant assertions of “morality” and “honesty” to justify their lack of nerve.  Second, assholes would have us believe that everyone behaves the way they do, so what they’re doing is nothing special; but the existence of non-assholes refutes that assertion, embarrassing them.  So they go on the offensive and accuse non-assholes of being pussies.

 I can’t say I agree with the Parker-Stone Dick-Asshole-Pussy Theory (Team America).  It sounds funny but doesn’t explain the difference between dicks and assholes beyond biological terms.

 Good Faith and Fair Dealing.  This is a legal concept usually brought up with respect to implied warranties and commercial dealings.  It’s hardly a novel idea or difficult to grasp.  We can recognize that some dishonesty is inevitable.  Car buyers pretend not to care about the car, so the dealer won’t jack up the price, and dealers fudge on the invoice numbers, but outright fraud (dealer doesn’t have title, or tries to sell a completely different car, or the buyer makes a credit purchase expecting to file bankruptcy soon thereafter and yet still retain the collateral) is unacceptable. 

 The Jungle.  This was Upton Sinclair’s 1905-06 critique of capitalism in Chicago in the early 20^th century.  Although it’s usually described as an expose of the meat packing industry, Sinclair’s overall goal was to discredit the system itself; he only narrowed the focus to the meat packing industry to satisfy the publisher, as he could not find a socialist publisher.  Michael Moore takes a similar approach: instead of attacking the system head on, he simply hits individual targets on consistent points, leaving the viewer to make up his or her mind, having been guided along a rosy garden path by Mr. Moore.

 Anyhow.  Most of the problems which the Lithuanian immigrant family have in Chicago stem from dishonest, abusive behavior by various capitalist villains.  Here are some examples:

1.         The family is “sold” a “new” house for $1500 with a mortgage.  What they actually find is that the house was used, simply repainted, and originally cost the builder only $500.  Their “mortgage” is actually a lease with an option to buy, meaning that if they miss a single payment, the lessor can evict them and they lose their entire investment; on a mortgage default, the borrower can cure the default by paying the arrearage and his/her investment is much better protected.  The lessor actually expects that at some point in the lease, the “owner” will default.  Their neighbors beat the system by paying off the mortgage.  Thus the real problem is fraud and dishonesty by the lender – an “asshole” problem.

2.         The wife’s employer takes a fancy to her, and wants to sleep with her.  He threatens that if she doesn’t agree to this, not only will he fire her, but he will get her husband fired and both of them blacklisted in the entire city.  Naturally she agrees, having been economically coerced into cheating on her husband.  And of course, he eventually finds out.  He beats the crap out of her boss and gets thrown into jail for a month.  Of course in the meantime, he’s lost his job and his position has been filled by the time he gets out of jail.  Another “asshole” problem.

3.         The meat packers pay off the Federal meat inspectors, so diseased or rotten meat is allowed to be mixed in with the wholesome meat, and no one is the wiser.  If a worker loses a finger, limb, or falls into the vat altogether…”shhh!”.  When the book was published in 1906, Theodore Roosevelt went ballistic, accusing Sinclair of slandering the meat packers.  When Sinclair produced proof of the payoffs, Roosevelt then took aim at the packers, the end result being the FDA.  Again, what we have are asshole meat packers (or meat asshole packers).

We’ve seen ENRON, BP, and other more modern examples of corporate bullshit.  So clearly, there are problems.   But what the socialists – whether they call themselves socialists or Democrats or whatever – don’t seem to acknowledge is that under other systems, assholes still persist and cause problems.  Instead of asshole corporate types we end up with asshole bureaucrats, as determined to abuse their positions of power as anyone in a corporate power structure.  We The Living, Ayn Rand’s first novel, showed how the idealists of the Russian Revolution are pushed aside and marginalized by the schemers and opportunists, and the revolution is very quickly corrupted and abused by these assholes.

 Finally, we’re seeing asshole behavior in Libya today, by their dictator.  And the assholes are still in power in Iran and North Korea.  Really, it should have been called the Axis of Assholes.

Devil, Sin and the Jungle

  Here are three books set in Chicago, two are contemporary and one written back in 1905 – but all covering late 19^th and early 20^th century Chicago.  They complement each other fairly well, I found, so I felt that reviewing them together was appropriate.

 Devil in the White City, by Erik Larson.  This is a non-fiction account of the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair.  It focuses on two major characters, Daniel Burnham, a prominent Chicago architect who organized the fair, and HH Holmes, a serial killer operating in the Chicago era at the same time as the fair.  The obstacles Burnham had to overcome, and all the innovations introduced at the fair – the Ferris Wheel being the most obvious – made this impossible to put down.  Plus I seem to have a fascination with late 19^th century USA.  The juxtaposition and interweaving, chronologically, of the two stories, was remarkable.  I don’t know if a book about either topic on its own would have been nearly as compelling.  Supposedly they will be making a movie version of this in 2009.

   In an attempt to answer France’s stunning 1889 World’s Fair, at which the Eiffel Tower was debuted, the big shots in the US finally turned to Chicago for their own 1893 attempt.  They built an entire city – the White City – and stuffed it full of all sorts of marvellous wonders.  The Ferris Wheel was one; Wild Bill Hickok’s western show was another; Krupp, the German arms manufacturer, had its own hall of martial products to show off.  Belly dancing got its first major demonstration in the US – and the famous belly dancing tune (childhood lyrics: “there’s a place in France where the naked ladies dance”) was also invented.  Gustav Eiffel himself proposed to contribute to the Fair, but the organizers felt it would defeat the purpose of “out Eiffeling Eiffel” if Eiffel himself was responsible for doing so – so the first Ferris Wheel served that purpose; but the Ferris Wheel is no longer there, while the Eiffel Tower still stands in Paris.  Products such as the zipper, Cracker Jack, and Shredded Wheat (slammed as “shredded doormat”) made their debuts.  Pabst beer won a blue ribbon award, forever changing its name.  The fair attracted celebrities and royalty from all over the world.  Finally, close to the end of the fair in October 1893, the attendance records shot up dramatically, completely blitzing the ones set in Paris.

 Sin in the Second City, by Karen Abbott.  Although a good complement to Devil in the White City, it’s by another author entirely and has no intention of being any sort of sequel or companion thereto.  This is about Chicago’s brothels at the turn of the century (the events in question take place about 15 years after those in Devil), with a particular focus on the Everleigh Club, the most expensive and most exclusive. 

   The book seems to be neutral between the brothels and the crusading religious zealots who ultimately succeeded in shutting down not only the Everleigh Club itself, but Chicago’s entire brothel system by late 1912.  Apparently the Mann Act, originally designed to prevent the unscrupulous panderers from kidnapping immigrant girls and trading them to brothels, has long since been warped beyond recognition to cover other behavior.  But it also gave teeth to federal efforts to shut down brothels around the country.

   On one hand, these panderers were obnoxious: they tricked girls who had no intention of becoming prostitutes into that lifestyle, after drugging them and gang-raping them, clearly women who were involuntarily “recruited” into the profession.  Once they were traumatized by the experience, most had little choice, after having been “shamed” and “disgraced” against their will, but to remain as prostitutes.  Very few men would accept them as wives, so returning to respectable society was not really an option for them.  Many of them committed suicide.

   On the other hand, the Everleigh Club, the top, premiere brothel not only in Chicago but arguably in the country, had no need to resort to such tactics.  By raising their standards well above the other brothels and charging the most, the Everleigh sisters, Minna and Ada, could afford to be selective, so there was actually a waiting list of girls applying to work there.  All their “employees” were experienced and recruited from other brothels; although they weren’t head-hunters, as they didn’t recruit madams, they did cherry pick many of the top earners at competing brothels.  The most intriguing example was Suzy Poon Tang, a stunning harlot from Shanghai, who had a rose tattooed below her navel.  She was a bit too charming: the customer for whom they had recruited her ended up marrying her after her first night with him at the Everleigh Club.

   But because the sisters were so provocative and defiant of the authorities and reformers, they embarrassed the mayor (Carter Harrison II, son of the famous Carter Harrison Sr assassinated as the 1893 World’s Fair drew to a close) to the point where they had to be made an example of, and shut down.  Once the Everleigh Club was closed – permanently – it was a short time before the entire Levee district (as Chicago’s top red-light district was called) was shut down as well. 

   There are some oblique references to the 1893 World’s Fair, and also to an up-and-coming crook by the name of Al Capone.  Overall, an extremely fascinating book, yet another “can’t put it down” one.

I’ve never been to Chicago, but both Devil & Sin inspire a modest desire to visit, but for one major problem: 90% of the “White City” (the 1893 Worlds Fairgrounds) is now long gone, with only one building surviving.  Oddly, the grounds are now partially taken over by Soldier Field, home of the Bears.  The huge, first, Ferris Wheel is, of course, long gone, as are all the other buildings, the Island, and the gateway.  There is little point in visiting Chicago solely based on the 1893 World’s Fair.  Likewise, not only is the Everleigh Club long closed, the building itself was demolished in 1933, and the entire neighborhood is now completely razed and is now the grounds of a housing project.  So neither book lends itself to nostalgic tourism as of 2008.  

The Jungle, Upton Sinclair. This is the original 1905 version, not the 1906 version which actually got published.  In 1988 someone tracked down the original manuscripts as the book was serialized in socialist newspapers; Sinclair had to edit it down in 1906 to get published by a normal, capitalist publisher.  As originally written, it’s a widespread condemnation of capitalist society overall, merely focusing on the Chicago packers as one example.  It is VERY cynical and depressing. 

This is a fictional story about a small family from Lithuania trying to survive in early 20^th century Chicago.  They face perpetually uncertain job security, bitter cold, a deceitful mortgage holder (they ended up with a lease with option to buy, not a mortgage), and countless other heinous injustices perpetrated by a cold, heartless, deceitful capitalist system.  To give one example of the many obnoxiously unfair things which happen: Jurgis’ wife is blackmailed by her boss into having an affair with him.  When Jurgis finds out, he attacks the boss, is thrown in jail, and loses his job during his brief jail sentence.  They have absolutely no safety net: no disability insurance, no unemployment insurance, no health insurance, and are subject to layoffs and arbitrary termination at will.  Practically every representative of the capitalist system is portrayed as callous, uncaring, ruthless, and deceitful.  By Lewis’ analysis, even Friedrich Engels – an enlightened, compassionate capitalist – should not exist. 

            Since it takes place in Chicago around the same time as Sin and the Second City, some of the same issues pop up: Jurgis’ cousin Marija becomes a prostitute at a brothel in the Levee, there is a brief discussion of the “white slave trade” (kidnapping girls and doping and raping them, then selling them off to brothels) etc., which is more interesting here because Sinclair was writing contemporaneously.  And since Jurgis finds himself homeless and tramping briefly, even parts coincide with Orwell’s Down & Out in Paris and London, though he’s not tramping through London.

            Again, as originally published it was targeted at the meat packers.  Sure enough, the packers themselves have enough substantive crimes on their plate, well beyond their ruthless personnel practices (shared by the other firms in the book).  Due to payoffs to the Federal meat inspectors, countless unsavory practices occur, not the least of which are various human body parts – or even entire unlucky workers – getting mixed in with the meat.  Rotten meat and diseased animals are used anyway, simply surreptitiously mixed in along with the more wholesome and healthy meat. 

            Of course the book caused a scandal when it came out.  Theodore Roosevelt, upon learning the truth about the payoffs of the inspectors, spearheaded the movement which resulted in the Food & Drug Administration.  But a general hatred of capitalism, and an open revolution against the system, never materialized – even during the height of the Great Depression, when public dissatisfaction with the system was at its peak.  As it was, the other Roosevelt, Franklin Delano, managed to co-opt the socialists with his New Deal, so much so that the socialists were reluctant to run their own candidate against him.  Ultimately they did so to avoid giving the impression that they endorsed him, and thereby discrediting him.  The Communist Party-USA (CP-USA) had orders from Stalin to support FDR’s election efforts behind the scenes. 

            Despite my own views, I found the book extremely informative and compelling.  I cannot, however, track down the silent version of the film done ages ago – maybe someday it will turn up.