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                        *** SPECIAL NOTICE!! ***

Courage to Resist podcast featuring little ol' me! Courage to Resist, in collaboration with the Vietnam Full Disclosure Project of Veterans For Peace, has compiled a collection of oral histories of GI resistance to the American War in Vietnam. My contribution to this was edited down to 28 minutes and, for whatever reason, the stories of my most militant acts were excised. The full story will appear in my written memoir when I'm able to publish it. For now, here is the link to the audio and a transcript via Courage to Resist:

                         https://couragetoresist.org/podcast-greg-laxer/
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ALSO, COMING SOON, NEWS OF A CROWDFUNDING CAMPAIGN SO I CAN SELF-PUBLISH MY MEMOIR! STAND BY FOR ADDITIONAL NEWS! 
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Battleship Potemkin blog

Commentary on current events, never lacking in fury and possibly even signifying something.

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[NOTE: Continuation of current article and previously published ones can be viewed on the Past articles page but you must click on "Details" on that page to view content.]


​Carl Sagan and I
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Carl Sagan, 1934-1996
Photo credit: NASA, public domain

Published March 27, 2021   

     Carl Sagan (1934-1996) and I were co-thinkers to about a 98% degree; I will expound on our disagreements below. I was still in high school when I first encountered his name. He had co-authored Intelligent Life in the Universe (published in the US in 1966) with a Soviet colleague in the field of Cosmology. The book argued that, given the astounding number of stars in the known Universe—and the authors were arguing from estimates that have been increased virtually exponentially by subsequent studies—a certain percentage surely had planets orbiting them, and a certain percentage of those planets should be at a distance from their own star that would be friendly to life developing. It was already known that the chemical compounds essential to life as we know it here on Earth appear to be quite abundantly sprinkled throughout the Universe. It is a shame, for multiple reasons, that Dr. Sagan is no longer with us to exult in the confirmed discoveries of many “exo-planets” (planets orbiting other stars in our own Milky Way galaxy). This mid-1960s collaboration with a Russian scientist would lead to the FBI keeping tabs on the Brooklyn-born head of The Laboratory for Planetary Studies at Cornell University. Carl Sagan was a great communicator and public popularizer (with multiple guest appearances on “The Tonight Show, with Johnny Carson,” for instance) of Science in general, and a proponent of international cooperation for exploration and peaceful use of outer space.
     Another reason to miss Dr. Sagan is the rise of politically motivated hostility to Science in our society. Carl had to combat a potent strain of this trend during the presidency of Ronald Reagan (1981-1989), when the Republican Party was drawing so-called “Evangelical Christians” to its ranks in a major way. The teaching of Evolution was under fire with a renewed vigor, and the disease of intentionally cultivated ignorance was spreading. Even Dr. Sagan would not have predicted, I dare say, that being anti-Science would become a virtual requirement for membership in the Republican Party. It goes without saying that he would publicly campaign in favor of vaccination against Covid-19 and be appalled at how many Americans are voluntarily offering their own bodies as a refuge for the deadly virus, and a base from which it can spread further. I can almost forgive Mr. Reagan for his own frightening ignorance of Science, for I believe it was genuine. Remember, this was a president who declared that “Trees don’t help reduce air pollution, they cause air pollution”!! But the all too clever and devious ideologues in his party picked up this ball and ran with it for every gain of political yardage (oh no, the dreaded sports analogy!) they could. Ignorance and hostility to Science were enshrined and worshipped under the tutelage of Donald Trump. The construction, and belief in by millions of our fellow citizens, of an alternative reality, where mass shootings of schoolchildren are “hoaxes,” along with the Covid pandemic, continues post-Trump. But I won’t elaborate on this further here, as this article is meant as a personal reminiscence. I was privileged to be in Dr. Sagan’s physical presence twice, once at very close range (read on).

Article continued on "Past Articles" page; click on "Details" for content there.


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Why "Battleship Potemkin"? Sergei Eisenstein's 1925 movie about the mutiny in the Tsar's Black Sea fleet during the failed 1905 Russian revolution is acknowledged as a masterpiece of cinema. The author of this website endorses the film's message: To rise against cruel oppression is not only justified, it is essential for the preservation of human dignity. ​
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Previous two blog articles, available on Past articles page:

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My current writing projects

I will be publishing the memoir of my resistance to the American War in Vietnam from within the ranks of the active-duty US military this year, if I succeed in raising funds from the public. TAKE THIS WAR AND SHOVE IT! A Most Unwilling Soldier 1967-1971 consists of approximately 100,000 words of text, plus several appendixes, excerpts from official government documents, and photos.
FOR ADDITIONAL INFORMATION, GO TO "MEMOIR" PAGE (click  HERE) [coming soon, I swear!]
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In the meantime, I am having fun writing my first novel. It is a savage satire of the Music Industry, with which I have had some personal experience. Its title is classified (Top Secret!) for the time being.

This blog site addresses and comments on these topics (among others!): peace, war, US politics, American politics, political analysis, climate crisis, climate change, climate change deniers, Donald J. Trump, social commentary, social criticism, social satire, current events, racism, anti-war movement, anti-racism, religion, religious extremism, religious fundamentalism, atheism, Buddhism, fascism, anti-fascism, socialism, communism, American war in Vietnam, the Vietnam War, Ken Burns, Lynn Novick, "The Vietnam War" PBS TV series, GIs, GI resistance to war, US Army, US military, militarism, anti-militarism, 'Bowe' Bergdahl, national debt, Pentagon budget, literature, books, authors, writers, cinema, music, movies, environment, ecology, anthropology, evolution, human race, humankind, misogyny, homophobia, philosophy, resistance, "Star Trek," "Star Trek: The Next Generation," United States Constitution, The Federalist Papers, James Madison, "The Simpsons," Bob Dylan, "Tombstone Blues," Commander-in-Chief, al-Baghdadi, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Iran, endless wars, Major Danny Sjursen, Fritz Lang, Peter Bogdanovich, The Testament of Dr. Mabuse, Dr. Mabuse the Gambler, M, The Thousand Eyes of Dr. Mabuse, Josef Goebbels, Hollywood, The Picture of Dorian Gray, Herman Melville, Moby Dick
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​INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS NOTICE: Unless otherwise indicated, owner of this site is the sole author and owner of all material posted (with exception of public domain graphics). Permission is granted to share contents of this site elsewhere on the Internet or by other means of reproduction provided original author (Gregory Laxer) is credited. Please include a link to this website as a courtesy. If only excerpts are shared, original context must be accurately conveyed and, again, credited to original author. Please include a link to this website. EXCEPTION: Selections from my as yet unpublished memoir (see Memoir Page of this site) may not be reproduced elsewhere without express permission of the author.
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