Ben Stein’s Last Column

For many years Ben Stein had written a biweekly column called ‘Monday Night At Morton’s.’ (Morton’s is a famous chain of Steakhouses known to be frequented by movie stars and famous people from around the globe.) Ben terminated the column to move on to other things in his life.

An Excerpt from:

“Ben Stein’s Last Column…”

How Can Someone Who Lives in Insane Luxury Be a Star in Today’s World?

…how can a man or woman who makes an eight-figure wage and lives in insane luxury really be a star in today’s world, if by a ‘star’ we mean someone bright and powerful and attractive as a role model? Real stars are not riding around in the backs of limousines or in Porsches or getting trained in yoga or Pilates and eating only raw fruit while they have Vietnamese girls do their nails.

…they can be interesting, nice people, but they are not heroes to me any longer. A real star is the soldier of the 4th Infantry Division who poked his head into a hole on a farm near Tikrit, Iraq. He could have been met by a bomb or a hail of AK-47 bullets. Instead, he faced an abject Saddam Hussein and the gratitude of all of the decent people of the world.

…I came to realize that life lived to help others is the only one that matters and that it is my duty, in return for the lavish life God has devolved upon me, to help others He has placed in my path. This is my highest and best use as a human

Faith is, not believing that God can. It is, knowing that God will.

By Ben Stein

 

What a crock Bob Stein’s last column was. Good Riddance I say to his column. The way an essay starts and ends is always a giveaway to the point the writer is selling. He starts his “point” by writing:  “…a real star is the soldier of the 4th Infantry Division who poked his head into a hole on a farm near Tikrit, Iraq. He could have been met by a bomb or a hail of AK-47 bullets. Instead, he faced an abject Saddam Hussein and the gratitude of all of the decent people of the world…”

 OK…So he is selling WAR and the technique he is using is called, Propaganda.

 Propaganda is a concerted set of messages aimed at influencing the opinions or behaviors of large numbers of people. Propaganda is the deliberate, systematic attempt to shape perceptions, manipulate cognition, and direct behavior to achieve a response that furthers the desired intent of the propagandist.

 But why is it propaganda? Because the truth is that soldier of the 4th Infantry Division and the others, will not face the “gratitude” of all of the decent people of the world. PULEASEEEE. Sadly, oh, so fucking sadly, they will face what all the soldiers that fought in Nam have endured since they got back home after going off to “liberate”, “free”, and “fight for democracy”, and, “gratitude”, is not what they faced. If it was hell that they faced and endured behind the lines, then it was a subtler kind of hell they endured once they were back home.

 A beautiful Egyptian girl I met in NY once said some words to me that will always remain within me. “FIGHTING FOR PEACE IS LIKE FUCKING FOR VIRGINITY”.

 Too bad Stein didn’t point out the obvious by writing that a real star, is not a President who orders these boys to go kill Evil in the name of Good like Bush did. A real star is a President who convinces the Evil to be Good. Not with bullets to the head that ends consciousness but with words to the heart that light the darkness.

What President Barack Obama was doing today in Cairo, Bush could have chosen to do 8 years ago after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 instead of creating the the U.S.- led war in Iraq. After all, since, according to the White House, Obama’s planned speech contained no new policy proposals on the Middle East, all Obama was doing was calling for a “new beginning between the United States and Muslims “, saying that “together, we could confront violent extremism across the globe and advance the timeless search for peace

For Stein’s last point, he ends by writing, “Faith is not, believing that God can. It is, knowing that God will.”

So, he is also trying to sell Religion and give the reader the feeling that God was supporting the war. What a crock that is. None of Christ’s teachings, which are really all packaged neatly in his “Sermon on The Mount”, hint that what Bush did is right. We just have not truly gotten, or have not understood, what the teachings of Christ were all about.

On my next blog, more about that sermon and possibly, whatever quirky philosophical statement I’m trying to make.

Love/Peace

GhostRider

By the way: Ben Stein served as speechwriter for U.S. presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford and a piece of the Radical Religious Right. He has frequently written commentaries on economic, political, and social issues. Recently, he has become an outspoken critic of evolutionary theory, which he describes as “Darwinism,” and an advocate for intelligent design. He is the son of noted economist and writer Herbert Stein who worked at the White House. On May 3, 1976, Time magazine speculated on the possibility of Stein having actually been Deep Throat. In 2007, Stein chastised the police and the GOP leadership for their response to the Larry Craig scandal. Stein said that Craig’s sexuality should be a non-issue: “A party that believes in individual rights should be rallying to his defense, not making him walk the plank. I guess Ben must support the installation of GLORY HOLES in public toilet partitions.