Knight Time for Bonzo (essay)

Dream it.

Knight Time for Bonzo (essay)

7/10/18

Then and now…

Now and then…

When Ronald Regan as Prof. Peter Boyd tried to teach human morals to a chimpanzee it seemed humorous, funny. That was then, not now.

The ape was named Bonzo. It’s a pet name for a bonobo, a pygmy chimpanzee.

The great apes include orangutans, gorillas, chimpanzees and us humans.

Known scientifically as Hominidae, Prof. human Hominidae tried to teach what he felt were our superior morals to a lesser Hominidae.

Build it.

Make my day, Hominidae.

Now morals are knowing right from wrong: correct from incorrect and the just from the unjust. (Sounds like I copied that line from somewhere.)

Sitting in church in the nude, will offend most people.

(Wikipedia- don’t believe me? Check it out.)

Now we all have our dark side. Maybe I’m wrong. Some people seem happy all the time. I never trust them.

Now if all people, under their social masks have a dark side, I’m the first to admit that. One of my internal family members is a threatening knight in shining armor. He stands with chain links and a spiked ball. He is very stiff. Can’t forgive me for all the people I’ve offended, all the wrong choices I’ve made, all the coulda, shoulda, woulda... A hint of life seems to exist within his dark eyes.

Now I invite him to Madison Square Garden. He’d rather be in the Roman Coliseum, a gladiator, a lion killer, a hero on a public battlefield, a justified monster- showing off, using his violent, pent-up rage to get the approval he craves. He feels he is amazingly controlled. That he only lets out the steam from his ears is a Herculean achievement. His addiction to approval seeking stems from early unmet needs, being alternately raised by a loving but highly inconsistent and volatile father and a mother with attunement issues.

Now, in the Garden, I give him plenty of room. 

Now there is a still more violent member of my internal family. He or she or it is so hidden I can only know its existence by its intrusive thoughts. Who is this? What is its history? This is the one with whom I am still so attached. Oh Hidden One, reveal thyself so your pain can be heard and healed.

Healed you say?

How dare you disturb my retreat into myself, my fortress, my respite from fear that my unexpressed, inexpressible anger might hurt myself again or injure another. That is not what I want. I want peace. So I hide. Do not wake sleeping Knights – or drag queens and kings kicking into the light of day when all they want is solitude, escape from the torment of guilt and self-recrimination…

Whoa! Where did that come from?

Oh, the Gladiator, the one who shall not be named V or W or X, Y or Bonzo.

Now think about it: have you ever seen or heard of a charismatic chimpanzee lying, cheating, stealing from those less fortunate, abusing and institutionalizing sadism?

Maybe Bonzo should have taught saint Ronald that trickle-down economics is voodoo or worse, that it would spawn a vicious, self-righteous tribe of anti-knowledge bigots.

I have heard said Reagan started out as a New Deal Democrat. He supposedly switched because he felt he was paying too much in taxes- that and because he wanted to carry a gun – after he was shot. Not to make light of his suffering, but perhaps he could not understand. His son said he saw early signs of Alzheimer’s while his father was in office. Or maybe the intricacies of the Presidency were beyond his nice guy, likable actor personality.

Obviously, this is simplistic. All people are complex. It might even be possible he did not understand the harm he did our country and the world.

May he no longer be used to evil purpose.

From a NYT article by Nathanial Rich , Aug. 1, 2018

Reagan considered plans to close the Energy Department, increase coal production on federal land and deregulate surface coal mining. Once in office, he appointed James Watt, the president of a legal firm that fought to open public lands to mining and drilling, to run the Interior Department. “We’re deliriously happy,” the president of the National Coal Association was reported to have said. Reagan preserved the E.P.A. but named as its administrator Anne Gorsuch, an anti-regulation zealot who proceeded to cut the agency’s staff and budget by about a quarter. In the midst of this carnage, the Council on Environmental Quality submitted a report to the White House warning that fossil fuels could “permanently and disastrously” alter Earth’s atmosphere, leading to “a warming of the Earth, possibly with very serious effects.” Reagan did not act on the council’s advice. Instead, his administration considered eliminating the council.

Prof. Peter Boyd should have known better. After all, he was a professor. Oh, he was just an actor. An actor playing President. This sounds so familiar:

Today, his legacy in the dumpfian era, is increased hurricanes, flooding, fires, mud-slides, melting polar ice caps caused by unending reliance on fossil fuels, increased profiteering by drilling in the artic and other formerly healthy seas and lands. Farmers losing income by the double hit of climate change – global heating and weirding and dumpfian tariffs. Yet they are convinced our great leader has their best interests at heart: an escalating commitment to their decision to vote out of hate and fear coupled with reality TV upbeat unending campaign poison candy for group think.

May Reagan, father of the current Republican machine no longer be either a first in the line of political evil, nor a joke nor a saint, just a complex person who tried to do his best using the gifts he had. He would have been horrified by the machinations he set in motion.

May he rest in peace.

And may we all do better… now.