Charles Bukowski's Take On Presidents (1 Viewer)

D

dermaface

In an 1982 letter to Steve Richmond, Buk wrote: " Reagan? No, I don't like him. But, hell ,man,, I've never liked any of our presidents. Even the favorite of all time the Kennedy kid. He was too smooth, and self- satisfied for me. He knew he had the gleam and leaned into it, he bathed himself in it...He was the big clever playboy who had just decided to come around by the swimming pool and all the extra-secret fucks on the side, he had just decided to come around and charm us for a while and run the country...Too much ultimate personal satisfaction.But for brains and leadership he was leaning to the masters of the past, mainly Franky D...."
Has any one found quotes from Buk about American presidents? He always claimed to be apolitical but John Martin said he was a political liberal?
And, what would Buk say about George W. Bush, who has the distinction of wresting the crown of being the worst president in US history from Warren G. Harding?
 
Thats what they use to say about Truman -- but in 50 years his policy of containment worked -- Truman Doctrine, etc, etc. Just about everybody hated the guy, including many in his own party (My Dad was a FDR dem who hated the guy). History will judge the guy, just as history, like 50 years from now will judge Buk -- right now all the stuff is hype, hype, hype. If you read Buk you got to know that you never know anybody - right? I don't think he was political.
 
Hi,
Bukowski was political and he was a liberal. That being said, this place is not the best forum for politics. This line of discussion only serves to divide this Buk community.

I say that we should try, at all costs, to avoid this becoming a political forum where half of us hate the other half because of our party affiliation.

Bill
 
I think you have a valid point there. Hopefully not many buk fans are republicans and Bush supporters..:)
 
Republicans or Dems

Buk would probably piss on them all -- no difference -- and if you can't see that then you are no Buk reader.
 
bospress.net said:
I won't get myself into an argument with a forum member who clearly wants to pick a fight...
Click to expand...
You talking about dermaface or grayxray? ;)

I think Bukowski's take on politics was very clear. He didn't care for or trust politicians any more than he did any other authority figure.
 
grayxray said:
Buk would probably piss on them all -- no difference -- and if you can't see that then you are no Buk reader.
Click to expand...

mjp said:
You talking about dermaface or grayxray? ;)
Click to expand...

hi mjp,
I was talking about Grayxray. With all respect, he seems to want to keep the thread going and I think that it will go in a direction that will only serve to divide the forum. Plus, we have many members that are not in the US and probably don't care much for Dem or Rep any more than we care about the Labour Party....

Best,
Bill
 
politicians of whatever persuasion are there to grab votes, to win power, to appeal to the majority...and we know what b thought of the majority...ha ha ha.
 
politicians -right, center, left, up, down- are but a sad bunch of puppets of the BIG corporations addicted to power... I think here in Europe most people think Bush is sort of a cowboy who became the sheriff in town and -almost- took the law into his own hands...
 
My good friend Bill, when I posted the thread, I never even contemplated any division of Republicans and Democrats on the site-just getting a dialogue going about whether Buk was apolitical just like the thread asking if Buk was bisexual or was Buk a Nazi sympathizer. People can disagree without being disagreable. The whole purpose of this forum is to have dialogue with fellow Bukaphiles. That is why it is called a forum.I agree with MJP. Buk did not like politicians or "any other authority figures." (like employers etc). Bill echoes what John Martin says, that Buk was a liberal in thought, but saying that, I believe he was apolitical. Maybe me too , now that I think of it. I think Republicans and Democrats are Tweedlee and Tweedledum. I examined the contributions to Republicans and Democrats in the election of 2006. Just what we all know, to run for Congress in America you either have to be a millionaire or take massive contributions from PACS, or most often both. The United States is a democracy as Michael Parenti writes in Democracy for the Few only in the sense that poor and middle income Americans can choose between elites. It has been that way since the American Revolution which did not create change for Native Americans, African Americans, women or white men without property who were all not even given the right to vote. I love my country-but as Albert Camus said, "I would like to love my country and justice too." My friends, I am not for Republicans or Democrats. So no reason for a dialogue on the relative goodness of the parties -just on Buk's politics if he had any.
 
When you have such a strong individualistic stance -such as B- then you don't look up to many people, least of them all politicians.

and, sure, you can sit at a table with your enemies and still break bread, can't you?
 
While thankfully this is not a political newsgroup and Bukowski was essentially apolitical in nature"”ie. that he felt humans can't expect the politicians to solve the problems of human nature through rent control and other such means, (I'm paraphrasing)"”he still observed and still had a first-hand point of view on this game of politics, even if it was a contrary one. So I call that being political, whether he voted or not, and I remember him from his Open City days commenting on the cultural turbulence going on at the time of the Vietnam war, Bobby Kennedy, Reagan (as governor), dope, youth...you name it.

Not that it would have been any of Bukowski's business, but I reserve the same right to have my own first-hand point of view, and I damn well felt like voting in the recent mid-term elections. I'm reminded of a quote from artist/photographer Man Ray, who said words to the effect that "all artists are sacred beings, because they do no harm; but the bad chef, the bad doctor, the bad politician"”can kill you." (Man Ray knew what he was talking about, because he was forced out of his beloved France by the antics of a certain A. Hitler.)

So I found a certain satisfaction in voting some of these sonofabitches out of office, whether B would have done so himself, and I consider myself an astute observer of the human condition, starting with my own pitiful nature, sometimes taking political sides and sometimes going way beyond politics in my thinking, and valuing the wisdom of the heart that such outside-the-box-thinkers as Bukowski, Miller, Man Ray, Anais Nin . . . stood for: to be attentive and use the head on your shoulders, and to be yourself.

Bottoms up . . . . Poptop
 
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cirerita said:
politicians -right, center, left, up, down- are but a sad bunch of puppets of the BIG corporations addicted to power... I think here in Europe most people think Bush is sort of a cowboy who became the sheriff in town and -almost- took the law into his own hands...
Click to expand...

and who was deputy dog?

b saw the ultimate futility of politics - "politics is like --- sucking a ----through a straw." (what's the quote?) - the ultimate futility in everything, that's what made him a poet. i recall what henry miller wrote in a preface to kerouac's subteraneans: "there is nothing pure in this age but the telling." amen
 
dermaface said:
And, what would Buk say about George W. Bush, who has the distinction of wresting the crown of being the worst president in US history from Warren G. Harding?
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Letting off a little steam.

Let me add one other thing that is not a direct political statement: The arts are important. It seems that we have had in the US, and elsewhere in the world, one or two generations worth of cultural illiterates"”and with few exceptions, the shallowness seems to be getting worse; for how many today are willing to go back to our cultural past and understand the sacrifices of those who came before?"”the terrible lives they lived, the lessons learned, and their triumph over all, starting from within themselves?

Sometimes when my ass is twitching comfortably in a chair, I ask myself, "When was the last time any of these political icons, of any persuasion, ever read something by Whitman, Miller, Hemingway, or listened to a Chopin nocturne"”and was affected by it?"”deepened by it?"”softened by it?" The arts can potentially make people more human, more rounded and whole, so they can better understand the suffering they may be inflicting on others out of fear, ignorance or stupidity. And yet the arts mostly get such little recognition or promotion within the ethos of the officials in charge, and we end up with a bunch of political caricatures sitting in office and making decisions based upon their grade-school understanding of both the light and the dark side of human nature. As apolitical as Bukowski was, he might have echoed a similar point of view, because he came from an artless home, with two numb and insensitive parents, and transformed himself through his own creative intelligence and profound sense of beauty. Becoming an artist was his salvation, and he learned that just to react to events wasn't enough; he had to find the power of love.
 
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Hi,
this is why I love this forum! I thin kthat I underestimated you all as a group. You can actuially have a cilvil discussion about politics. This is one of the few times that I have seen a discussion like this where it has not fallen apart in a hail of insults.

Damn, you guys are pretty amazing.

Bill (Democrat, for the record).

p.s. I agree that all politicians are corrupt. I think that just about everyone here realizes that they are a sorry lot that we are forced to vote for.
 
2 cents ,

all politcians are not corrupt. this is insane. it is like saying all lawyers are corrupt. it is like saying all people are corrupt. i never read anywhere bukowski saying all anyone is corrupt. bur forget bukowski for a second. you cannot say these things and expect to be taken seriously as a thinking thing. have met each and every politicain and plumed the depth of his or her soul? if you have, and found out that they are all and each corrupt - then so be it. but man - watch what you say. end of 2 cents.
 
Paul B. said:
have [you] met each and every politicain and plumed the depth of his or her soul?
Click to expand...
I have. It took all summer, but it was worth it. I found that they are, indeed, all corrupt. Every one of them.

I tried to plumb the depths of all the lawyers souls as well, but couldn't find a lawyer with a soul, so I had to abandon that project.

There you have it, undisputable truth from someone who has been there.
 
mjp said:
I found that they are, indeed, all corrupt. Every one of them
Click to expand...

I may be too naive,
(Or too optimitstic, but I'm getting old (as we all tend to do) for that)
But I Still Think
An honest man (/woman-Hillary?!) can become President.

Oh it's good
(and life-saving)
To live in an ideal world :)
 
All????

Remember the multiple choice questions in school -- the one that said ALL was always wrong because there were exceptions? All is alway wrong.
 
grayxray said:
All is alway wrong.
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ha. that's kind of funny if you think about it. pot, kettle, etc.
no, I'm not talking about the typo, typos happen, but the whole issue of the certainty of uncertainty or vice versa.
christ, I think I read too much beckett. that made little sense. time for my meds...nudge nudge...
 
Paul B. said:
2 cents ,

all politcians are not corrupt. this is insane. it is like saying all lawyers are corrupt. it is like saying all people are corrupt. i never read anywhere bukowski saying all anyone is corrupt. bur forget bukowski for a second. you cannot say these things and expect to be taken seriously as a thinking thing. have met each and every politicain and plumed the depth of his or her soul? if you have, and found out that they are all and each corrupt - then so be it. but man - watch what you say. end of 2 cents.
Click to expand...

I agree with you,all lawyers are corrupt as well as all people. I disagree with when you say all politicans are not corrupt, they are.
 
Hi,
I know two laywers, both poets that have spend decades helping the poor to right wrongs, many times at their own cost. One of them is on this very forum. I can say that there are some great laywers that practice law to help those that need help, sometimes at great cost to them financially and personally....

Bill
 
I agree with you, Bill. In most countries there are lawyers (not many probably) who prefer helping people in trouble for free, instead of making a lot of money in more profitable areas of the law such as, say, real estate.
I also believe that there are (some) honest politicians, especially in left wing parties, who are into politics because they want to change the status quo in favour of the working class. It's not all black and white...
 
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bospress.net said:
I know two laywers, both poets that have spend decades helping the poor to right wrongs, many times at their own cost. One of them is on this very forum. I can say that there are some great laywers that practice law to help those that need help, sometimes at great cost to them financially and personally....
Click to expand...

I believe what you say is true. I also think it's blasphomous to write such thoughts on a Bukowski forum;)
 
2 more cents ,

jesus , i can't believe you guys really jumped on this lawyer thing so heavily. everyone is (i guess) in it somehow for the money - but to believe that most humans just want cash above all consideration for the welfare of humanity - i don't want to think that. maybe i am just stupid and will remain so no matter what anyone says. at least with a lawyer - you pay him and he's on your side as long as you can pay him or her or it or whatever. "send lawyers guns and money - the shit has hit the fan..." to quote warren zevon. well i just want to name one politician and i want someone to explain how he was corrupt. it was the first one i ever voted for - back way back when - Jimmy Carter. he is a good man. he was a good president. life is insane, i know that, but there are good people out there trying to make it better. and anyway - i did know a lawyer - and he did help me out of a jam - and he didnt try to extract the money i owed him with some kind of crowbar device - i actually think i ended up never paying him off - i was the bad one. anyway - forgive me, dan (his name) - i am trying to be better - a better human - if that is at all possible in this nothing bullshit world.

thanks for the time.
 
Hi,
I know a lawyer, that would take cases from people in need and then when they offered him money that they could not afford, he told them to take the money and buy the kids school clothes. He said that as long as they showed him that the money was used for the kids, that he would not charge them. She had a drinking peoblem and did not want the money to go to herself, while the kids had no decent clothes....

He also refused to take cases from very wealthy people that belittled the people that worked for him.

I don't like most lawyers (Shit, I don;t like most people), but there are a few great ones out there..

For those that love the old movies and balck and white, I agree. All lawyers are crooks...

See. I'm like a politician. Riding both sides of that fence!

ha,

Bill
 
zoom man said:
I may be too naive,
(Or too optimitstic, but I'm getting old (as we all tend to do) for that)
But I Still Think
An honest man (/woman-Hillary?!) can become President.

Oh it's good
(and life-saving)
To live in an ideal world :)
Click to expand...

They do enough little things that are "acceptable politics," but would be considered more than likely corrupt (pork barrel legislation, etc.).
 
My wife worked as a legal secretary for 20 years so she's probably met more lawyers than most people on the board. She has a pretty low opinion of them. It does not seem like a profession that attracts the best of people but then I guess that could be said of doctors, too.
 
grayxray said:
yea until you need one
Click to expand...

AHAHAHAHAHHAH yes, indeed, you are correct sir.
truer words were never spoken.
It's a little ironic too because I just lost my get out of jail free card and spent seventeen hours in a regional jail. LOL
i stand corrected, attourneys are a blessing.
 

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