Lost Architecture, Martin Luther King, Jr., Blvd., Vicksburg, Mississippi

Martin Luther King, Jr., Boulevard in Vicksburg was formerly known as Old Jackson Road. It ran along a ridge crest and was once lined with tens or maybe over a hundred cottages. Some of them had their front doors at street level but the backs were perched over the hillsides on stilts, often quite precarious-looking. This road has occupied this approximate right-of-way since the Civil War, and many of the cottages may have been from the late-1800s or early 20th century. In the last decade, many houses been lost to fire or neglect. I have photographed along here over the years. This quick survey is oriented from downtown heading east, so the house numbers will increase. (Click any photograph to see more detail.)

1404 MLK Jr. (Fuji X-E1 digital file converted to B&W)

This little cottage at 1404 was occupied when I photographed it in 2014, but it definitely looked precarious. As of 2020, the house is still standing but the center is curving downward even more.

1412 MLK Jr. (Fuji X-E1 digital file converted to B&W)

1412 MLK Jr. (Fuji X-E1 digital file converted to B&W)

1412 MLK Jr. interior (Fuji X-E1 digital file converted to B&W)

This old cottage at 1412 once had a fireplace for a stove insert, probably a coal stove. Being a railroad town, coal was readily available.

1416 MLK Jr. (Fuji X-E1 digital file converted to B&W)

This big cottage is probably late-1800s vintage. I think it was occupied when I took the picture in 2015, but the boarded windows were a bit perplexing. These were once floor-to-ceiling windows, very handsome. As of 2020, the house is standing and the windows have been uncovered.

1499 MLK Jr (Panasonic G-1 digital file converted to B&W, 5cm ƒ/2 Leitz Summitar lens)

1499 was a pink house almost across the street from the old Kuhn Charity Hospital. The house was demolished around 2013. The Kuhn hospital has also been totally demolished.

1618 MLK, Jr., Blvd. (Kodak Panatomic-X film, Hasselblad 501CM, 80mm ƒ/2.8 Planar-CB lens)

No. 1618 is one of a diminishing number of shotgun houses. Vicksburg, like other southern towns, probably had dozens or hundreds of these little houses in the early 20th century, but one by one, they have been torn down.

1705 MLK Jr. rear view (Fuji X-E1 digital file converted to B&W)

This is the back of a small house at 1705. The trash was tossed down the hillside.

1711 MLK Jr. (Fuji X-E1 digital file converted to B&W)

Interior room in 1711 MLK Jr. (Fuji X-E1 digital file)

Books in 1711 MLK Jr. (Fuji X-E1 digital file)

Kudzu mountain and 1711 MLK Jr. (Fuji X-E1 digital file)

Basement 1711 MLK Jr. (Fuji X-E1 digital file)

1711 was a handsome cottage up on one of Vicksburg's many loess ridges. The rear of the house was over the hill and supported by rather precarious-looking brick pillars. There was enough headroom in the crawl space for a sink and (maybe) a residence room? A student left his/her books behind. As of 2020, the kudzu has engulfed the entire lot where the house once stood.

1756 MLK Jr. (Fuji X-E1 digital file)

Side entrance, 1756 MLK Jr. (Fuji X-E1 digital file)

1756 was an example of a house whose front porch was at street ground level but whose rear was perched over the hill. On this house, concrete blocks had been added as a basement wall, but the original supports were likely wood piles. In Vicksburg, these houses can remain occupied as long as they are in maintained condition. But if the house is condemned, the land changes zoning status where no future house can be erected.

1826 MLK, Jr., Blvd., Vicksburg (Fomapan 100 Classic film, Fuji GW690II camera, 90mm ƒ/3.5 lens)

This house at 1826 looked reasonably sound, but the lack of an electric meter meant it was unoccupied (or at least had no electricity).

1832 MLK, Jr., Blvd., Vicksburg (Fomapan 100 Classic film, Fuji GW690II camera, 90mm ƒ/3.5 lens)

This house with concrete cladding (to resemble limestone blocks) is still standing but has the notation from the city inspector spray-pained on the front. .

1844 MLK., Jr., Blvd. (Tri-X 400 film, Fuji GW690II camera, 90mm ƒ/3.5 lens)

1900 MLK., Jr., Blvd (fire damage) (Fomapan 100 Classic film, Fuji GW 690II camera, 90mm ƒ/3.5 lens)

This fire-damaged house at 1900 sat unrepaired for a long time. Status: unknown.

1904 MLK, Jr., Blvd, Vicksburg 

1917 MLK, Jr., Blvd (Fuji X-E1 digital file)

1920 MLK, Jr. Blvd (Fuji X-E1 digital file)

2228 MLK Jr., Blvd., Vicksburg (Tri-X 400 film, Fuji GW690II camera, 90mm ƒ/3.5 lens)

2228 MLK Jr., Blvd., Vicksburg (Tri-X 400 film, Pentax Spotmatic camera, 35mm ƒ/3.5 Super-Takumar lens)

This duplex at 2228 is right next to historic Beulah Cemetery. This part of the road once had access into the Vicksburg National Military Park, but this entrance has been closed for decades. As of September 2020, the house was still standing and the pillars had cheerful turquoise paint.

Beulah Cemetery (Panatomic-X film, Hasselblad 501CM, 50mm ƒ/4 Distagon lens)

Beulah Cemetery was neglected for many years, but now the City maintains it. This was from a rare snow day in 2017.

Dear readers, this has been a short tour of historic MLK, Jr. Blvd (Openwood Road). I have more photographs among my color Kodachrome slides, but they will wait for a future effort at scanning. I will show more lost Vicksburg architecture in future articles.

More Neglected (Soon to be Lost?) Houses: a Vicksburg Urban Decay Tour

In an earlier article, I wrote about a handsome but neglected early 20th century house on Howard Street. I found more traditional houses nearby, on Spring and Crawford Streets. After looking at them, we will take a quick tour of urban decay in other parts of Vicksburg. This is a convenient way to combine photographs from around town. It is a long article, so please be patient. Click any frame to enlarge it; enjoy the view.

Spring Street

Spring Street near junction with Crawford Street, view north (Tri-X 400 film)

Early 20th century cottage, 1304 Spring Street, Vicksburg (Tri-X 400 film, Hasselblad 501 CM camera, 50mm ƒ/4 Distagon lens)

Chimney at 1304 Spring Street (50mm Distagon lens, 1 sec. ƒ/8)

This cottage may be on its way to demolition. The chimney was once likely set up for a coal stove insert.

Cottage at 1322 Spring Street, Vicksburg

1322 Spring St. rear.

This house at the corner of Spring and Crawford Streets looked like it was in reasonable condition. The roof was recent. But the two electric boxes missing meter domes meant there was no power in the building. Usually this means there are no occupants - but not always.

Crawford Street

1720 Crawford Street (Hasselblad 80mm Planar-CB lens,  ¹/₁₅ ƒ/11.5, green filter

A short article in the Vicksburg Post reported that the city inspector had condemned several houses in town. This little cottage on Crawford Street was on the list. The bridge in the foreground crosses Stouts Bayou, which is channelized in a concrete trough here.

Georgia-Sycamore Avenues

Georgia Ave. looking uphill towards MLK., Jr., Blvd. (Tri-X 400, Fuji GW690II camera, 90mm ƒ/3.5 lens)

Unknown address, Sycamore Ave. (Fuji X-E1 digital file)

Georgia and Sycamore Avenues drops down steeply to the south from MLK., Jr., Blvd. Twenty years ago, there were several homes on this lonely U-shaped road, but now I think all houses are gone. I am surprised that the city still maintains it. Kudzu is engulfing everything. It is like Vicksburg's version of a Secret Garden (apologies to Frances Hodgson Burnett).

Lovers Lane

246 Lovers Lane (Fuji X-E1 digital file converted to B&W)

Detroit iron, 246 Lovers Lane (Fuji X-E1 digital file converted to B&W)

Lovers Lane is an unusual street, with its romantic name. Unfortunately, some of the housing stock is distinctly unromantic. The lane ascends past the Cedar Hill Cemetery towards the Vicksburg National Military Park. For a stretch, Lovers runs parallel to Confederate Avenue in the Park but just south of the Park boundary. A few houses are scattered in the woods, one of which was the abandoned no. 246. In the garage was a big chunk of Detroit iron awaiting restoration. I think I will pass.

Harris Street

706 Harris Street, Vicksburg (Kodak BW400CN film, Leica IIIC, 50mm ƒ/1.4 Canon lens, 1/200 ƒ/8.05, yellow filter)

This old cottage on Harris Street has been empty for years, maybe decades. But it is not abandoned. Status: unknown.

Grammer Street

Grammer Street, Vicksburg (Tri-X 400 film, Hasselblad 501CM camera, 250mm ƒ/5.6 Sonnar lens)

Grammer Street was once lined on both sides with these little shotgun houses. One by one, they have been torn down. As of January 2021, these houses have been razed.

Hunt Street

Hunt Street shotgun houses (BW400CN film, Leica IIIC, 50mm ƒ/1.4 Canon lens, 1/200 ƒ/8.05)

2314 Hunt Street (BW400CN film, Leica IIIC, 50mm ƒ/1.4 Canon lens, 1/200 ƒ/8.05)

These two shotgun houses 2314 and 2316 Hunt Street, have also been empty for years. I think they are undergoing some degree of rebuilding. (Update Feb. 2021: the two houses are gone)

Washington Street

This store at 2408 Wahington Street has the word "DEMO" spray painted on the front. Does that apply to the whole building or just the unit on the right?

Oak Street

2312 Oak Street in process of being demolished (Panatomic-X film, Fuji GW690II camera)

Oak Street runs semi-parallel to the river and has an impressive view. Many of the historic cottages have been torn down or been lost to fire over the years.

Bowmar Avenue

1221 Bowmar Avenue (Fuji Acros film, Leica M2, 35mm ƒ/2 Summicron lens, 1/125 ƒ/2.8)

1303 and 1305 Bowmar Avenue (Panatomic-X film, Fuji GW690II camera, 90mm ƒ/3.5 lens)

The severe duplex on Bowmar Avenue just east of the Drummond Street intersection has been demolished. The two shotgun houses are also gone.

Marcus Street

1515 Marcus Street, Vicksburg

Marcus Street (now called Sturgis Street) has lost many older wood cottages. Some have been replaced with modern brick structures. This house at 1515 is clearly modern, but I am not sure if it was from the 1960s or 1970s.

Franklin Street

2501 Franklin Street (Fuji X-E1 digital file converted to B&W)

2503 Franklin Street (Fuji X-E1 digital file)

2505 Franklin Street (Fuji X-E1 digital file)

Franklin Street had three similar-looking duplexes. When I photographed them in 2018, all were empty and overgrown.

Grove Street

2212 Grove Street (Panatomic-X film, Fuji GW690II camera, 90mm ƒ/3.5 lens)

2329 Grove Street, Vicksburg (Fuji X-E1 digital file)

Grove Street is one of Vicksburg's historic streets with many older houses and cottages.

Pearl Street

2509 Pearl Street (Panatomic-X film, Spotmatic camera, 55mm ƒ/1.8 Super-Takumar lens)

This is an unusual cottage on Pearl Street because it was made from cinder blocks. One by one, houses along Pearl have been torn down, and the area feels empty. I met a gent who grew up near here in the 1950s and 1960s, and he said it was vibrant with families and children then.

Levee Street

Machine shop, tank farm, Levee Street (TMax 100 film, Spotmatic camera, 24 mm ƒ/3.5 SMC Takumar lens)

This old tank farm on Levee Street, at the west end of the old Fairground Street bridge, has been unused for at least three decades. The machinery building has lost its roof and has a Stonehenge collection of concrete support pillars. I can smell fumes here, so some of these tanks hold some chemical. There has probably been leakage into the ground.

Johnson Street

754 Johnson Street, Vicksburg (Tri-X film, Hasselblad 501CM, 50mm ƒ/4 Distagon lens, 1/30 ƒ11.5)

Johnson Street has been methodically deconstructed, and there are progressively fewer and fewer houses as the years go by. I wrote about Johnson Street early in my blogging efforts, in January of 2010.

(Update April 2023: this house is gone.)

Yerger Street

2602 Yerger Street, Vicksburg

2604 Yerger Street, Vicksburg

Here are two traditional shotgun houses from Yerger Street. They are long gone. These are 4x5" Fujichrome frames.

Warrenton Road

Warrenton Road store (4×5" Tri-X Prof. film, 90mm ƒ/6.8 Angulon lens)

This former gas station/store at the junction of Warrenton and Wigwam Roads has been unused for years. (Update April 2023: the building is being cleaned and possibly upgraded. I photographed this store with the Hasselblad XPan panoramic camera in 2022 (click the link)).)

Rubber Recycling Factory

Former U.S. Rubber Reclaiming, Rubber Way (Fuji Acros film, Leica M2, 24mm ƒ/3.5 SMC Takumar lens)

U.S. Rubber Reclaiming (Fuji Acros film, Leica M2, 24mm ƒ/3.5 SMC Takumar lens)

U.S. Rubber Reclaiming (Fuji Acros film, Leica M2, 24mm ƒ/3.5 SMC Takumar lens)

This disgraceful mess is part of the remnants of U.S. Rubber Reclaiming, at 2000 Rubber Way. According to the Vicksburgnews.com:

The Mississippi Secretary of State’s Office announced Tuesday, Dec. 10, that it has transferred approximately 12.6 acres of tax-forfeited property to the City of Vicksburg effective Dec. 4, 2019. 

The Warren County tax collector conveyed the property, once owned by U.S. Rubber Reclaiming, Inc. to the State of Mississippi for the non-payment of property taxes in August 2010, the same month the company ceased its operations. The company was wholly owned by Obsidian Enterprises of Indianapolis, Ind.

So this rubber and other debris has rotted here for a decade. How many mosquitoes breed in the water? Any other pathogens? I wrote about the site in more detail in April of 2019.

US 61 South

Hopewell Church, US 61 south (Panatomic-X film, Hasselblad 501CM, 50mm ƒ/4 Distagon lens)

Side of Hopewell Church (Fuji Acros film, Leica IIIC, Jupiter-8 lens)

The Hopewell Church sits on a bluff on the opposite side of US 61 from the Municipal Airport. I do not know its history. The poor old church is being engulfed by vines, and you can only see it in winter.

Glass Road

Church, Glass Road (Panatomic-X film, Hasselblad 501CM, 80mm ƒ/2.8 Planar-CB lens, ¼ ƒ/11, green filter)

This little church is on Glass Road near the former entrance to the Marathon LeTourneau industrial complex. LeTourneau once built jack-up drilling rigs and other industrial machinery. At one time, a small neighborhood existed here. The pavement can still be seen in the woods, but all the houses are gone. I assume that this church once served the community.

Dear readers, this has been a rather haphazard tour around Vicksburg and Warren County. There is a lot of old architecture here, and we are gradually losing it. If any of you readers have suggestions of more places to see and photograph, please let me know.

UPDATE: I found a 2018 photograph of the tanks at the Levee Street tank farm.  

Unused tank farm, Levee Street, Vicksburg (Kodak Ektar 25 film, Rolleiflex 3.5E, 75mm ƒ/3.5 Xenotar lens)

Old Railroad Machine Shop, Levee Street, Vicksburg, Mississippi

Kansas City Southern (KCS) rail yard, Levee Street, Vicksburg (Panatomic-X film, Spotmatic camera, 135mm ƒ/3.5 Super-Multi-Coated Takumar lens, ⅛ sec ƒ/11.5)

Levee Street runs along the Yazoo Canal waterfront following the west edge of Vicksburg. Formerly, warehouses, silos, and machine shops of various types lined the road. Many have been demolished over the decades, but it still has an industrial look, especially with the presence of the Kansas City Southern railroad shunting and work yard right next door.  

Levee Street view north (28mm ƒ/3.5 Super-Multi-Coated Takumar lens)

Levee Street view south (28mm ƒ/3.5 Takumar lens)

I have seen this old workshop since I moved to the area. It is clad with miscellaneous materials of interesting textures.

 

I see junk inside the shed but never any activity. I assume the railroad owns it.

South side of workshop with railroad track and parts (28mm ƒ/3.5 lens)

The building was secure and I did not want to trespass. I do not know if railroad tracks ever went into the work area.

This brick shed is on the grounds of the KCS rail yard and may be decades old. The mid-century buildings are steel utility construction, so I assume this brick shed is early 20th century. Long-term readers may remember that I wrote about a handsome 1890 brick office/utility building that once stood in the rail yard. Sadly, the railroad demolished it in 2011. 

Kodak 135-36 Panatomic-X film, expired 1991

I took these photographs on 35mm Kodak Panatomic-X film. Kodak discontinued this wonderful, fine-grained, black and white film around 1990, but an eBay seller offered a brick which he claimed had been frozen. My experience with cold-stored 120-size Panatomic-X is that it is almost perfect, with no fog or other deterioration. These frames are from the first roll of three that I bought from that vendor. I exposed the film at EI=25 in a Pentax Spotmatic camera. I also tested my newly-acquired 28mm Super-Multi-Coated Takumar lens. Praus Productions in Rochester, New York, developed the film in Xtol developer. I will show more Panatomic-X examples in the future.

You're Fired!!

You lost. Now please go away and take your corrupt family with you, especially Uday and Qusay.* And also take Pence, Barr, and the other cowardly sycophants in your administration.

Don't worry, you won't be lonely; you and the other traitors will soon are already relegated to the cesspool of history, like Jefferson Davis, Muammar al-Gaddafi, Nicolae Ceaușescu, and Mobutu Sese Seko.

As Robert Reich wrote in The Guardian:

Most of the 74,222,957 Americans who voted to re-elect Donald Trump – 46.8% of the votes cast in the 2020 presidential election – don’t hold Trump accountable for what he’s done to America.

Their acceptance of Trump’s behavior will be his vilest legacy.

 

Other Destructive Elements of this Grotesque Legacy

• Environmental damage 
• Attempted sale of public lands to industry
• Concentration camps for immigrant children as a key element of the border separation policy
• Corrupting the judiciary with the appointment of Attorney General Barr** and hundreds of semi-competent right-wing ideological judges
• The cheapening of awards like the Presidential Medal of Freedom, given to political suck-ups
• The deaths of thousands of Americans who were told to deny the science behind the Covid vaccines
• Corrupting the the nation's voting system
• Warping "patriotism" into an invitation to insurrection and civil war
• Grifting his followers by soliciting funds for bogus reelection campaigns, scam PACs, and media companies
• Unanswered questions about Russia's influence in the 2016 election
• Normalizing brazen corruption, nepotism, vindictiveness, and self-dealing among government officials
• Joining blatantly criminal intent to comically inept execution
• Weaponizing science hatred, distain of education, racism, nativism, and hatred of competence
• Using presidential pardons as rewards for corruption and loyalism
• Condoning private raids on public funds and resources
• Corrupting the census to warp the national count to achieve racial and political goals
• Destroying the respect that the Supreme Court formerly held in the United States among most citizens

* Uday and Qusay were Sadaam Hussain's brutish sons. Both were killed by US troops.

** Update:  On Dec. 14, 2020, Barr announced that he was quitting and sent a Dear Leader love letter to Mr. Trump containing sickening fawning. 

Update, June 9, 2022:  "I say this to my Republican colleagues who are defending the indefensible: there will come a day when Donald Trump is gone, but your dishonor will remain." 

Representative Liz Cheney, vice chair of the House select committee investigating the January 6, 2021, Capitol riot, Washington, DC.

Quotes for the Darkness

Over the years, I wrote down quotes that summarize the darkness of evil and lies that overcame us in USA during the 2017-2021 period and that continues to this date:

"Concentrated power has always been the enemy of liberty."

    Ronald Reagan, The New Republic (16 December 1981) 

"There are none so blind as those who will not see. The most deluded people are those who choose to ignore what they already know."

    Attributed to John Heywood, 1546

"Above all, don't lie to yourself. The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to a point that he cannot distinguish the truth within him, or around him, and so loses all respect for himself and for others. And having no respect he ceases to love." 

    Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov

"Evil has a way of making friends with the good and dragging them into darkness."

    CSI Crime Scene Investigation, Season 11, Episode 16, 2011

"Totalitarianism can flourish where people systematically refuse to engage with reality, and are ready to replace reason with ideology and outright fiction."

    Emily Haber, German Ambassador to the USA, 2020 (commemorating Hannah Arendt, b. 1906) 

“In a dying civilization, political prestige is the reward not of the shrewdest diagnostician, but of the man with the best bedside manner. It is the decoration conferred on mediocrity by ignorance” 

    Eric Ambler, The Mask of Dimitrios, 1939

"The sadness of evil men is that they can believe no truth that does not paint the world in their colours."

    Eric Ambler, The Schirmer Inheritance, 1953

"The mob mentality relieves individuals from having to distinguish between right and wrong." 

    CSI Crime Scene Investigation, Season 3, Episode 9, 2002

"It's a hell of a lot easier to jump into the sewer than to climb back out." 

    Philip Marlowe, Private Eye, Series II, Episode 1, 1986

"Many just went along, step by step, down the road. They were the people next door," and they got violently drunk because "they were in physical pain because of the shrapnel in their bodies and in emotional pain from what they saw or did. It all started with lies, and lies, and lies, and intolerance."

    Arnold Schwarzenegger video message to Republicans, Sunday January 10, 2021

"Yes, democracy thrives on contradiction, even disagreement. But it dies when brute force silences the other, when sheer hatred breaks all bounds of decency and respect."

    Heiko Maas, Foreign Minister of Germany, in Spiegel International, January 7, 2021

“Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities.”

― Voltaire, Questions sur les Miracles à M. Claparede, Professeur de Théologie à Genève, par un Proposant: Ou Extrait de Diverses Lettres de M. de Voltaire

“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.”

    Attributed to  Nazi propaganda chief Joseph Goebbels (from the Jewish Virtual Library)

"Silence enables the liar,” .... “And silence helps it to spread. And so the first thing you have to do is say no, I’m not going to accept that we’re going to live in a post-truth world. It’s a toxin ..... in our political bloodstream." 

    Senator Liz Cheney, September 26, 2021

"From enthusiasm to imposture the step is perilous and slippery; the demon of Socrates affords a memorable instance how a wise man may deceive himself, how a good man may deceive others, how the conscience may slumber in a mixed and middle state between self-illusion and voluntary fraud." 

    Edward Gibbon, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

"People always believe the lies," ...... "They want to believe any lie that hurts someone they envy."

    Richard McKenna, 1962. The Sand Pebbles, p. 426

"The ego cries out for either silence or assent. In the modern media environment, this fear expresses itself as a demand for the comfort of massive doses of self-justifying rage delivered through the Fox or Newsmax or OAN electronic EpiPen that stills the allergic reaction to truth and reason."

    Tom Nichols, "What Are Trump Supporters So Afraid Of?", The Atlantic, June 22, 2022

"At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide."

    Abraham Lincoln, Address on January 27, 1838 to the Young Men’s Lyceum in Springfield, Illinois 

"And so the enabling lies spread. They poison hearts. They poison minds. They fill you with rage and hate, until along comes the activating lie, the dangerous falsehood that pushes a person towards true radicalism. How does a person come to the conclusion that cannibal pedophiles dominate Hollywood? Or that a vast conspiracy of politicians, lawyers, journalists, and tech executives (including conservative politicians, lawyers, and journalists) brazenly stole a presidential election?

"You believe that when you know your enemy is evil. You believe that when you know they will destroy the country. In that context, fact-checks and rebuttals aren’t just wrong, they’re naïve. All too often, when you’re arguing with the person who believes the activating lie—the falsehood that immediately motivated them to take to the street—then you’ve already lost."

David French, "Only the Church Can Truly Defeat a Christian Insurrection; It’s time to combat the right’s enabling lies." The French Press, January 10, 2021.

"America cannot remain free if we abandon the truth. The lie that the 2020 presidential election was stolen is insidious. It preys on those who love their country. It is a door Donald Trump opened to manipulate Americans to abandon their principles, to sacrifice their freedom, to justify violence, to ignore the rulings of our courts and the rule of law. This is Donald Trump's legacy, but it cannot be the future of our nation. History has shown us over and over again how these types of poisonous lies destroy free nations.:

      Representative Liz Chaney, August 11, 2022, Iowa State University

  

"Few lies carry the inventor’s mark, and the most prostitute enemy to truth may spread a thousand, without being known for the author: besides, as the vilest writer hath his readers, so the greatest liar hath his believers: and it often happens, that if a lie be believed only for an hour, it hath done its work,"

    Political Lying by Jonathan Swift (1667–1745)

"in the big lie there is always a certain force of credibility; because the broad masses of a nation are always more easily corrupted in the deeper strata of their emotional nature than consciously or voluntarily; and thus in the primitive simplicity of their minds they more readily fall victims to the big lie than the small lie,"

    Adolph Hitler, Mein Kampf, vol. I, ch. X. (from the Jewish Virtual Library)

"One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we've been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We're no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It's simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we've been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back."

Carl Sagan, The demon-haunted world: science as a candle in the dark. New York: Random House. 1995. Ch. 13: Obsessed with Reality, p. 241

"The only path to a subversion of the republican system of the Country is, by flattering the prejudices of the people, and exciting their jealousies and apprehensions, to throw affairs into confusion, and bring on civil commotion. … When a man unprincipled in private life, desperate in his fortune, bold in his temper … is seen to mount the hobby horse of popularity … he may ‘ride the storm and direct the whirlwind.’” Alexander Hamilton writing in the early 1790s

 

World of Lies and Corruption

I recommend that everyone watch the 2019 HBO mini-series, Chernobyl. It describes a world where every facet of life was dominated by lies, corruption, cover-ups, incompetence, vindictiveness, and lack of accountability. How far down this path have we descended here in USA? Just look at the highest levels of the Federal government in 2017-2021 and consider where we are heading: 

“What is the cost of lies? It’s not that we’ll mistake them for truth. The real danger is that if we hear enough lies, then we no longer recognize the truth at all." Scientist Valery Legasov, Episode 5

"We're on dangerous ground right now, because of our secrets and our lies. They are practically what define us. When the truth offends, we lie and lie until we can no longer remember it is even there, but it is still there. Every lie we tell incurs a debt to the truth. Sooner or later, that debt is paid." Episode 5

"...on our search for truth, we fail to consider how few actually want us to find it. But it is always there, whether we can see it or not, whether we choose to or not. The truth doesn't care about our needs or wants. It doesn't care about our governments, our ideologies, our religions. It will lie in wait, for all time." Episode 5

Banning Books

Republican governors and legislators have been banning books from schools and libraries in their attempt to impose thought purity and pander to the fears, racism, hatred, primativism, and nativism of their followers. My mother and her parents saw this in Germany in the late-1930s. Eliminating books and manufacturing a false and mythological past is an ultimate form of lying. Ray Bradbury addressed these issues decades ago.

“They began by controlling books of cartoons and then detective books and, of course, films, one way or another, one group or another, political bias, religious prejudice, union pressure; there was always a minority afraid of something, and a great majority afraid of the dark, afraid of the future, afraid of the past, afraid of the present, afraid of themselves and shadows of themselves.”

Ray Bradbury, The Martian Chronicles and Carnival of Madness

"There is more than one way to burn a book. And the world is full of people running about with lit matches. Every minority, be it Baptist/Unitarian, Irish/Italian/Octogenarian/Zen Buddhist, Zionist/Seventh-day Adventist, Women’s Lib/Republican, Mattachine/FourSquareGospel feels it has the will, the right, the duty to douse the kerosene, light the fuse. Every dimwit editor who sees himself as the source of all dreary blanc-mange plain porridge unleavened literature, licks his guillotine and eyes the neck of any author who dares to speak above a whisper or write above a nursery rhyme."

Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451: A Novel