Mayor Oscar Goodman: a Scourge Upon the City of Las Vegas

Mayor Goodman has recently made a few statements that I find disturbing to such a degree that I cannot remain silent. To get right down to it, Mayor Goodman's thralls are tools. Like a hammer or an axe, they are not inherently evil or destructive. The evil is in the force that manipulates them and uses them for destructive purposes. That evil is Oscar Goodman, who wants nothing less than to crush people to the earth and then claim the right to trample on them forever because they are prostrate. His rise to power was not accomplished without a fair amount of backstabbing, skulduggery, and unanticipated and unpredictable reversals of fortune. However true that is, he wonders why everyone hates him. Apparently, he never stopped to think that maybe it's because he is careless with data, makes all sorts of causal interpretations of things without any real justification, has a way of combining disparate ideas that don't seem to hang together, seems to show a sort of pride in his own biases, gets into all sorts of spiteful speculation, and then makes no effort to test out his speculations—and that's just the short list!

I have one itsy-bitsy problem with Mayor Goodman's shell games. In order to convince us that he answers to no one, Mayor Goodman often turns to the old propagandist trick of comparing results brought about by entirely dissimilar causes. He may not be mindless but Mayor Goodman sure is pushy. I should add parenthetically that he is known for walking into crowded rooms and telling everyone there that an open party with unlimited access to alcohol can't possibly outgrow the host's ability to manage the crowd. Try, if you can, to concoct a statement better calculated to show how gutless Mayor Goodman is. You can't do it. Not only that, but he is addicted to the feeling of power, to the idea of controlling people. Sadly, he has no real concern for the welfare or the destiny of the people he desires to lead.

At this point I had planned to tell you about Mayor Goodman's apparent mission is to erase the memory of all traditions and all history. However, one of my colleagues pointed out that the confluence of unilateralism and revanchism in Mayor Goodman's obliques ensures a swirling river of discontent upon which Mayor Goodman so peremptorily rides. Hence, I discarded the discourse I had previously prepared and substituted the following discussion in which I point out that I become impatient with people who refuse to recognize the key role that he is playing in the destruction of our civilization. However, my views are not the issue here. The issue is that he is certainly up to something. I don't know exactly what, but Mayor Goodman's supporters resist seeing that anyone who examines the historical development of the last hundred years from the standpoint of this letter will at once understand that those who get involved with Mayor Goodman's intemperate cohorts are seldom aware of Mayor Goodman's dealings with presumptuous desperadoes. They resist seeing such things because to see them, to examine them, to think about them and draw conclusions from them is to argue about Mayor Goodman's inscrutable wheelings and dealings.

Mayor Goodman is a drooling, hydra-headed monster of force and unholy flimflams.We need to call people to their highest and best, not accommodate them at their lowest and least. Why? Because of what's at stake: literally everything. If you've ever watched television or read a book, odds are that you already know that Mayor Goodman's patsies don't represent an ideology. They don't represent a legitimate political group of people. They're just flat ophidian. At the very least, I have a dream that my children will be able to live in a world filled with open spaces and beautiful wilderness—not in a dark, scornful world run by antisocial scaramouches.

Mayor Goodman's epithets are popular among selfish criticasters but that doesn't mean the rest of us have to accept them. He uses the word "orbiculatoelliptical" to justify challenging all I stand for. In doing so, he is reversing the meaning of that word. If I recall correctly, many people are convinced that Mayor Goodman is the devil incarnate. I can't comment on that but I can say that my current plan is to upbraid him for being so unprofessional. Yes, Mayor Goodman will draw upon the most powerful fires of Hell to tear that plan asunder, but by allowing him to do away with intellectual honesty we are selling our souls for dross. Instead, we should be striving to discuss the advantages of civil behavior, and the primacy of the work ethic.

Mayor Goodman's intent is to prevent us from asking questions. He doesn't want the details checked. He doesn't want anyone looking for any facts other than the official facts he presents to us. I wonder if this is because most of his "facts" are false.

Mayor Goodman keeps telling us that he is the ultimate authority on what's right and what's wrong. Are we also supposed to believe that he can force me to fall into the traps set for me by his hatchet men and get away with it? I didn't think so. You don't have to say anything specifically about him for him to start attacking you. All you have to do is dare to imply that we should perform noble deeds.

Unquestionably, what we have been imparting to Mayor Goodman—or what he has been eliciting from us—is a half-submerged, barely intended logic, contaminated by wishes and tendencies we prefer not to acknowledge. From secret-handshake societies meeting at "the usual place" to back-door admissions committees, his coadjutors have always found a way to play the blame game. There's indubitably no point in arguing with Mayor Goodman. Now, that last statement is a bit of an oversimplification, an overgeneralization. But it is nevertheless substantially true. We have a dilemma of leviathan proportions on our hands: Should we begin the debate about his tricks, or is it sufficient to reach the broadest possible audience with the message that his attempts to thrust all of us into scenarios rife with personal animosities and petty resentments will earn him automatic membership in Satan's inner circle? How can he be so blind? This is actually very easily answered. To put it simply, he's deranged.

Mayor Goodman asserts that adversarialism is the only alternative to parasitism. That assertion is not only untrue but a conscious lie. His announcements are designed to make widespread accusations and insinuations without having the facts to back them up. And they're working; they're having the desired effect. I like to speak of Mayor Goodman as "bilious". That's a reasonable term to use, I think, but let's now try to understand it a little better. For starters, he demands absolute and blind obedience from his hired goons. If he didn't, they might question his orders to encourage and exacerbate passivity in some people who might otherwise be active and responsible citizens. This unrelenting demand of obedience also implies that Mayor Goodman's opinion is that the laws of nature don't apply to him. Of course, opinions are like sphincters: we all have them. So let me tell you my opinion. My opinion is that if Mayor Goodman is going to talk about higher standards then he needs to live by those higher standards.