“I am satisfied that I’m not gonna do anything. I abide by the jury decision. I will do that, and I will not pardon him.”
There Are No Words For It!
Category: Politics
What Happens Then? Trump’s Myopic Climate Change Agenda
Caring about Mother Earth like many of you, I lament Trump’s myopic approach to climate change reflected in his pledge to curtail the provisions of the Inflation Reduction Act and withdraw from the Paris Agreement.
Renewable energy alternatives like solar, wind, and electric vehicles will be curtailed, prolonging our fossil fuel dependency.
Unfortunately, climate change didn’t resonate as an important issue for many voters, inflation, job security, healthcare, and immigration taking precedence.
Not infrequently, public attention to climate concerns follows the oscillations of natural disasters and temperature rise, snuffed out shortly after each by more immediate local concerns.
As is, we’re already behind in our efforts to mitigate climate change, hastening earth’s demise and dooming future generations to apocalyptic consequences formerly the realm of science fiction.
Unlike the biblical Joseph, we are unlikely to stow up for the future. Alas, the seemingly distant phenomena of melting glaciers, droughts, famines, and biodiversity loss may falsely shelter us from their unfolding consequences.
The danger looms that Trump’s intransigence on climate change may motivate developing nations to do the same in view of budget restraints.
An excerpt from poet Neil Gaiman’s moving tribute to Rachel Carson, “After Silence,” speaks to our malaise.
What happens then?
Are consequences consequent?
The answers come from the world itself
The songs are silent,
and the spring is long in coming.
There’s a voice that rumbles beneath us
and after the end the voice still reaches us
Like a bird that cries in hunger
or a song that pleads for a different future.
Because all of us dream of a different future.
And somebody needs to listen.
To pause. To hold.
Beyond Identity Politics: The Case for Economic Unity
Two weeks to go until America decides!
I’m with those who believe Kamala Harris will win. Even so, America will remain deeply divided, unless the grievances of America’s working class, transcending race and ethnicity, are addressed.
Healing lies in abandoning the separation of the political and the economic.
While minority rights matter, they musn’t be set against the economic rights of all Americans to a fair share. Otherwise, we reap continuing resentment, social fissure, and exploitation.
What matters isn’t who you are, or where you’re from, but what you believe. Identity politics conversely promote discord.
Unions have shown us the way, promoting shared economic interests transcending identity factions of Left and Right.
Achieving class unity, America secures a vibrant future, true to its promise of shared equality in the pursuit of happiness.
As distinguished economist Robert Reich rightly observes, unless the new administration enlarges the economic franchise, “future demagogues like Vance will almost surely exploit the same bitterness for their own selfish ends.”
“The strongest defense we have against a future of Trumpist fascism is a large and growing middle class comprised of people who, although they may have supported Trump, come to feel they have a stake in America.”
—rj
Sending the Wrong Signal: The Obamas
We have an economy that is out of balance. It’s one in which most of the people in this room have benefited enormously over the last decade — and I include myself in that group. But it is an economy that has left millions of Americans behind” (Obama, political.com).
It’s the DNC, August 20, 2024: A crestfallen Michelle Obama, dressed in a belted, sleeveless, navy blue pant suit costing $3000 plus, shares lessons she’s learned from her family legacy, her audience, mesmerized and adoring:
…they were suspicious of folks who took more than they needed. They understood that it wasn’t enough for their kids to thrive if everyone else wanted around us was drowning.
Her words trigger flashback, a former president, his trademark poise and eloquence, exhorting the wealthy to give back.
As she speaks, millions of Americans struggle daily with making ends meet. Thirty-eight percent of Gen Zers, born since 1997, think themselves less secure than their parents at the same point, their living expenses ceasingly escalating (cnbc.com)—groceries, housing, transportation, clothing, their jobs tentative or inadequately remunerated. Even with a college degree, obtained at considerable debt, the American dream eludes their quest.
In a CNN poll conducted earlier this year, 71% of Americans rated the economy “poor”; another 38%, “very poor.”
Millennials (born 1981-1996), find themselves burdened with crushing debt, subjecting them to losing it all if another financial crisis occurs like that of 2008.
Since 2022, house prices alone have mushroomed 20 to 30% and interest rates jumped from 3% to nearly 8%. It’s become cheaper to rent than own.
Having children is a luxury (“What Broke the American Dream,” CNN, 2024).
The tab for childcare at a day care center runs an average $800-$900 monthly per child (care.com).
A family’s outlay for a health insurance policy reimbursing 70% of medical expenses averages $3,682 as of August, 2024 (kff.org).
While Michelle speaks, 132,232 homeless seek nightly shelter in NYC, 45, 745 of them children (June, 2024; coalition forthehomeless.com).
They’re the lucky ones. Thousands more sleep in subways, in parks, on the streets, or in cars.
Across America, you see them on city street corners with their cardboard signs, begging help.
As for racial demographics, 52% of heads of households in NYC shelters are disproportionately black; 32% hispanic (coalition for the homeless).
In 2021, an estimated 300,000 of all races and ethnicities in NY state lived doubled up with relatives and friends.
HUD reports an estimated 653,100 people across America are homeless, up 12% since 2022. Their numbers include not only the mentally ill and drug addicts, but the unemployed and underemployed.
Those numbers include 200,000 veterans, suffering post-traumatic stress from conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, sleeping nightly on city streets (National Coalition for Homeless Veterans).
All too often, we’ve this tendency to compartmentalize: it’s them, not us.
Truth be told, millions of Americans are separated from homelessness by a thin thread of tentative circumstance in a market economy where jobs can vanish in an inkling amid economic flux.
Meanwhile, the Obamas have financially estranged themselves from the the middle class they claim ro champion, their estimated net worth between $70 and $135 million, and climbing (NY Post, September 26, 2024).
Why shouldn’t the Obamas, having decried greed on many occasions, not be scrutinized, their feet held to the fire?
Let’s take a closer look.
After leaving the White House, the Obamas purchased a home in D. C.’s plush Kalorama neighborhood of diplomats, the wealthy, and the famous, for $8.1 million (2017). At 8,200 sq. feet, it features 8 bedrooms and 9 1/2 bathrooms. They’ve since made extensive revisions, adding a pool and a brick wall surrounding the property. Parking is available for ten cars.
Not long after (2020), they purchased a 29.3 acre property on exclusive Martha’s Vineyard with pristine water views and a dedicated pathway to the ocean beach. At 6,892 sq. feet, it has 7 bedrooms and 8 bathrooms and special design features. Cost: $11.5 million.
In 2000, the Obamas purchased a residence in Kenwood, a suburb adjacent to Chicago, featuring six bedrooms and six baths for a modest $1.65 million. They lived there from 2004-2008, or until Barack Obama became president. Frequented by tourists and blocked off, the Obamas are seldom there.
In 2015 Obama’s close friend, financier Marty Nesbitt, purchased a three acre Oahu property for the Obamas in a proxy deal for $8.7 million. Its $15 million dollar mansion, formerly home to Magnum PI TV series, has been leveled to accommodate something more grandiose, a compound consisting of three homes, one of them presumably for Secret Service.
It hasn’t hasn’t been without controversy. Despite state and county laws protecting the coastal environment against the intrusion of sea walls, believed to inhibit beach migration inward, loopholes were exploited and exemptions granted to build a 70 foot seawall.
Obama, the environmental president, is keeping silent, deferring any comments to Nesbitt’s office.
Setting the record straight, the Ivy League Obamas have never been absent from privilege, victims of white bias or corporate exclusion—or bluntly, unemployed.
While a Senator, Barack and Michelle collectively earned $1.6 million.
As President, he made $400,000 along with a $50,000 expense account, a $100,000 tax free travel account, and $19,000 entertainment account (afrotech.com).
In retirement, former presidents receive $1 million in travel expenses yearly; their spouses, $500,000 (ntu.org).
There’s also a generous allowance for office space and staff.
According to Business Insider, Obama garnered $15.6 million in book royalties from 2005-2016.
He presently receives a $246,424 pension, indexed to inflation (National Tax Union Foundation).
With more than five years in Federal office, medical care at the nation’s best hospitals, is free, unlike for millions of retired Americans paying up to $200 monthly for Medicare that excludes vision, hearing and dental benefits and makes it necessary for seniors to fill in the gaps for deductibles and copays with supplemental insurance and a drug plan.
Their social security is likely to be taxed.
Longterm care for a dehabilitating illness or injury is out-of-reach for most middle class Americans, averaging $35,000 to $108,000 annually (National Council on Aging).
Since leaving the White House, Obama reportedly received $850,000 for two speeches and $2 million for three talks in 2017.
In 2018, the Obamas entered into an estimated $50 million production deal with Netflix.
Business Insider estimates the Obamas will ultimately earn $250 million in post White House earnings for books, speeches, tours, and movie productions.
As for Michelle, last year saw her walk away with $750,000 for a one hour speech in Germany before the Bits and Pretzels forum in Munich associated with the annual Oktoberfest (NY Post, September 26, 2024).
Her normal speaking fee starts at $200,000. Barack commands a minimal $400,000, matching Joe Biden’s annual presidential salary in every speech.
For her memoir, Becoming (2018), Michelle received a $65 million advance.
In Becoming, Michelle wrote, “When you’re president of the United States, words matter.” They do, but doing matters more.
Exemplary leadership seeks not its own gain, but the welfare of the many. It sets precedent for a new politics that eschews platitude, the ethereal, and the partisan. Centering on doing, it knows its limits. Simplicity and restraint govern its personal conduct in daily life. In its moral construct, it sets an example that inspires and achieves a democratic altruism transcending the factional.
On the other hand, economic advisor and Huffington columnist Zachary Carter writes, “Obama isn’t running for office again, but his sellout sends even uglier signals to the electorate.”
As for the Democratic Party, dominated by managers, venture capitalists, Hollywood and media celebs, it can no longer boast being the party of Franklin D. Roosevelt: “The test of our progress is not whether we add to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have so little.”
–rj
Freedom’s Warrior: Timothy Snyder
Chances are you don’t know who Timothy Snyder is, though all who love a free Ukraine should. Snyder is an esteemed centrist Yale historian, graduate of Brown University (B.A.) and the University of Oxford (D. Phil).
Snyder specializes in central and eastern Europe, the former Soviet Union, and the Holocaust. Fluent in English, German, Polish, and Ukrainian, he reads in ten languages.
He’s also a permanent fellow at the Institute for Human Science in Vienna. Prolific, Snyder has authored sixteen books to date, translated into forty languages, with a forthcoming book to be published in September, 2024.
Raised by Quaker parents in Ohio with leftist leanings, there’s a moral insistence conveyed in unadorned prose throughout his many books. In his classes, he uses no notes and with ease can blend Plato, Hegel, DuBois, and polymath René Girard to make his point (Baird, The Guardian, March 23, 2023).
His international awards are numerous. They include Carnegie and Guggenheim fellowships and Hannah Arendt Award for Political Thought. He was a Marshall scholarship student at Oxford.
I hadn’t anticipated an ardent defense of Ukraine, buttressed from someone at Yale, but there he was, Timothy Snyder, forthright, unapologetic, in his op-ed appearance in the New York Times:
“As in the 1930s, democracy is in retreat around the world and fascists have moved to make war on their neighbors. If Russia wins in Ukraine, it won’t be just the destruction of a democracy by force, though that is bad enough. It will be a demoralization for democracies everywhere. Even before the war, Russia’s friends — Marine Le Pen, Viktor Orban, Tucker Carlson — were the enemies of democracy. Fascist battlefield victories would confirm that might makes right, that reason is for the losers, that democracies must fail” (NYT, May 19, 2022).
I’ve been following Snyder ever since.
Snyder has his detractors, of course, some regarding him more as a pundit, offering personal opinion in the guise of expertise. For a good summation, and counterpointing (see LA Review of Books, Unshared History, Oct. 16, 2012).
His Marxist critics principally object to his inclusion of Russia as fascist under Putin, as they like to reserve the term for their right wing opponents. Historically, fascism was a term used by the Soviets to denounce Nazis and other factions opposed to its dictates.
Snyder answers that “People disagree, often vehemently, over what constitutes fascism. But today’s Russia meets most of the criteria that scholars tend to apply. It has a cult around a single leader, Vladimir Putin. It has a cult of the dead, organized around World War II. It has a myth of a past golden age of imperial greatness, to be restored by a war of healing violence — the murderous war on Ukraine” (NYT, May 19, 2022).
If you’re curious about Snyder’s political biases, he endorsed Biden in 2020 and in a Guardian interview, shared, “I vote Democrat!” He sees Trump as an autocrat appealing to popular prejudices inimical to American democracy’s survival. Trump’s policies are about making White people feel comfortable.
Snyder’s immediate concern, however, is the war in Ukraine, about to enter its third year, pitting a David against a Goliath, pitiless and unpausing in attacks on Ukraine’s civilian infrastructure in a crucial struggle presently overshadowed by events in Gaza.
To his credit, Snyder has tried valiantly to keep the Ukrainian conflict center-stage: “If Ukraine does not win, we can expect decades of darkness” (NYT, May 19, 2022).
Hospitals, churches, shopping centers, apartment dwellings, it’s all fair game to Putin, whose aim is to inflict maximum terror, destroy food supplies, disrupt the electricity grid, and deny water resources to a nation he regards as historically integral to the Russian empire.
Much of Putin’s onslaught comes from not only cruise missiles, but thousands of drones, many of them supplied by North Korea and Iran.
The Biden administration and its NATO allies have been slow to respond. Patriot defense batteries are just now arriving, antiquated, and short of the seven President Zelensky says Ukraine needs to ward off the daily aerial assaults.
In contrast, Israel has 32 up-to-date batteries proven highly effective against Iran’s massive missile and drone response of April 14, 2024 (Defense Express, April 15, 2024).
If Ukrainian skies are safer now, it’s because Timothy Snyder stepped in, not the White House, raising $2,300,000 for Safe Skies, a program allowing Ukraine to install thousands of sensors throughout eight Ukrainian regions.
Safe Skies provides an early-warning alert and rapid response to drones and cruise missiles: “I visited one of the sites and saw some of the technology at work, as well as the impressive cooperation between the Ministry of Digital Transformation and the armed forces,” Snyder said (The Free Press, Substack, August 17, 2024).
Donations were largely individual worldwide, with a few corporations also contributing.
We nearly lost Snyder in 2019 when, feeling ill, he resorted to ER in New Haven, spending seventeen hours there, before being diagnosed with a baseball-sized tumor in his liver along with sepsis. Snyder would subsequently spend the next three months in five hospitals.
But you don’t mess with Snyder, who kept notes on his hospital sojourn, the later basis of a scathing indictment of American healthcare: Our Malady:
Lessons in Liberty from a Hospital Diary.
Thankfully, he’s still with us, a boon for freedom lovers everywhere,
–rjoly
Let’s not change horses in midstream: The case for another Biden term
The news hadn’t bode well for Joe Biden even before his disastrous debate with Trump.
The NYT, tracking 47 polls, shows Biden trailing Democratic senate candidates in the upcoming election in all, but one poll, where he’s tied.
His low polling doesn’t come as a rebuke of his policies, at least among Democrats. If one rightly judges the merits of a presidency by its ability to promote change bettering America, Biden outpaces his predecessors, including Obama, putting him in good company with Abraham Lincoln, Franklin Roosevelt, and Lyndon Johnson.
The problem is that most voters view Biden as lacking the physical and mental capacity to carry out the duties of office for another four years.
His ninety minute confrontation with Trump simply buttressed the public’s hesitancy.
Watching the debate was painful for me. Biden seemed laboring to reach the podium, stuttering repeatedly, losing his train of thought on one occasion, digressing in several of his responses, and looking down repeatedly as if searching for a response prepared by his handlers.
It was like watching a boxer, trapped in the ring corner, staggered by repeated blows.
Trump’s best line nailed it: “I really don’t know what he said at the end of that sentence. I don’t think he knows what he said, either.”
A healthy, nimble candidate would have atomized Trump quickly in fact-checking rebuttal. Trump was his usual self, hyperbolizing and mendacious, though to his credit, he exercised discipline in not interrupting his opponent.
Though just four years younger than Biden at 77, Trump came across as consistently energetic. “It seemed like a thirty year difference,” one reporter said.
So where do we go from here?
Despite a groundswell of party cohorts urging his withdrawal from the race, seconded by formerly friendly media, Biden is unlikely to heed their counsel—that is, unless there occurs another stumble, both literally and figuratively.
But here’s my take: With six weeks to the Democratic National Convention, August 19-21, an open convention would produce political chaos with a rush of candidates, inadequately assessed.
Kamala Harris is the likely designee. Biden, of course, could immediately resign, allowing Harris to assume the presidency. Any other choice, say a white male replacement at the convention, would spell unmitigated disaster, and assure a Trump victory.
Black and brown voters would abandon ship. As Areva Martin, a California convention delegate pledged to Biden, put it: “If you pick a white man over Kamala Harris, black women, I can tell you this, we gon’ walk away, we gon’ blow the party up.”
The caveat, however, is the improbability of Harris winning in November, polls indicating she enjoys even less favorability than the president.
I say, better not to panic. I believe Biden can still win. Twenty percent of Republicans distain Trump. In a close election, they could provide the margin of victory for Biden, whether by crossing over or not voting a presidential preference. I think it reasonable they’ll do just that.
As for a future four years, if Biden can’t carry out his duties, he can either resign, with Harris succeeding to office, or the Congress can implement the 25th Amendment, Section Four:
“Whenever the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting President.”
Let’s not change horses in midstream. We can still win and smooth out any winkles. The alternative is unthinkable.
—rj
Sad news out of India: a vindictive government persecutes its critics
The news out of India is disturbing, violence and repression of those opposed to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Bharatiya Janata party (BJP) daily occurrences.
Recently reelected to a third five-year term, but with diminished support that’s resulted in a loss of his parliamentary majority, Modi must now rely on a coalition government to maintain power.
This hasn’t proved a roadblock to his recent cabinet appointments, none of them Muslim, though India has a burgeoning Muslim population exceeding 200 million, presently 14% of the country’s population. Nor has it tempered his embrace of a Hindu hegemony (Hindutva).
Speaking out against his policies and the BJP risks severe consequences.
Many of his political opponents have been jailed on trumped up charges of corruption, while others are under investigation.
In March, 2024, Modi’s government froze the bank accounts of its main adversary, the Nationalist Congress Party, alleging non-payment of taxes.
In 2023, it eliminated the country’s chief justice as one of three commissioners overseeing elections. The BJP now enjoys a majority vote.
For another example, there’s the ongoing harassment of Waheed-Ur-Rehman, arrested in 2019 and held for two years, much of it in solitary confinement, for his opposition to the crackdown on Kashmir resistance to the suspension of Kashmir’s semi-autonomous status.
Now comes the BJP’s newest outrage in pursuing prosecution of 1997 Booker Award winner Arundhati Roy (The God of Small Things) for her remarking in 2010 that Kashmir was never a part of India.
Kashmiri academic Sheikh Showkat Hussain, who appeared with her at the rally in Delhi, will also be prosecuted under India’s Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (1967).
Roy has been a longtime critic of Modi policy.
If media pundits thought the Modi government would learn from its election setback, they’re sadly mistaken.
The BJP has become even more vindictive—more arrests, more violence.
In 2023, the Biden administration gave Modi a lavish welcome, replete with a state dinner. Talk about Kissinger, expediency is still in vogue.
Entrepreneurial moguls Bill Gates and Elon Musk, who view India as an investment quarry, sent their congratulations to Modi on his win.
At the just concluded G7, a lengthy queue assembled to do acquiescence to its invited guest.
The casualty is India’s secular constitution.
—rj
Dr. Henry Marsh’s And Finally: Matters of Life and Death
Am reading Henry Marsh’s And Finally: Matters of Life and Death. Marsh is a retired brain surgeon, who recently was diagnosed (2021) with advanced prostate cancer, presently in remission, but with a 75% chance of reoccurrence.
His previous books include Do No Harm and Admissions: Life as a Brain Surgeon, both well received. Professionally, he has published 179 papers in peer reviewed journals and performed 50,000 surgeries over a 40-year span.
In his fulsome writing, Marsh reminds me of the late neurosurgeon Oliver Sacks, gifted in eloquence, humble, and unfailingly compassionate.
Perhaps I’m stereotyping, but he’s unlike many in the medical sciences, consumed by professional interests and profit motive, insensitive or ignorant of the arts and, professionally, objectifying their patients rather than seeing them as individuals, each with gradients of need and longing.
One of his cherished accomplishments is the creation of two balcony gardens for neurological patients at St. George’s hospital
Impressively, he’s been working pro bonum with colleagues in Ukraine since 1992. Neither cancer nor the Russian 2022 invasion of Ukraine has deterred the good doctor visiting the country regularly to consult and advise colleagues.
At home, Marsh is an assisted dying activist.
Of his previous Do No Harm, now translated into 37 languages, The Economist wrote that it’s “so elegantly written it is little wonder some say that in Mr Marsh neurosurgery has found its Boswell.”
Marsh reads widely, owns several thousand books, keeps a garden, raises bees, and enjoys woodcrafting.
I’m early in my reading of And Finally, so I’ll delay full commentary for another post when fully read. But let me share a passage I read this morning that amplifies Marsh’s writing talent infused with observation and an affinity for nature, under assault by climate change:
The {COVID} lockdown coincided with perfect spring weather – so fine, prolonged and warm that it spoke of climate change. The bushes in the little paradise of my back garden almost all burst into flower all at once, and the trees went from being bare winter skeletons to towers of spreading green leaves in a matter of days. The bees came rushing out of their hive in front of my workshop and shot up into the sunlight, rejoicing in vertical zigzags. And the lockdown brought complete peace and quiet. The air felt as fresh as if you were in the countryside and the sky was a clear and deep blue. The only sounds were of birds singing, children playing and the wind in the trees. And at night, at first there was a full moon, looking down kindly on the suddenly silent city, and you could see the stars. It was a vision of heaven, here in London, SW19. Time had stopped. Eternity is not the infinite prolongation of time but instead its abolition.
The silence and clear air, and the return of birdsong, reminded us of what we have already lost with cars, pollution and the changing climate, and the unnaturally fine weather told us that Nature is out of joint, and that there is much, much worse to come.
I feel it in my bones. This is going to be a great read.
—rj
Biden plays politics: The Gaza fiasco
On one hand, President Biden urges a ceasefire in the nearly six month Gaza conflict; on the other, he has stealthily authorized a potent new military aid package to Israel that includes jets, 1,800 MK84 2,000-pound bombs, and 500 MK82 500-pound bombs.
Although 2000 pound bombs are capable of taking out whole city blocks and have been abandoned by most Western militaries for employment in urban locales, they have dominated Israel’s aerial assault on Gaza, with the death toll currently estimated at 33,000, the vast majority of them civilians.
Anonymous Pentagon sources disclose the armament transfer includes transfer of 25 F-35A fighter jets and engines at a cost of 2.5 billion.
Biden isn’t mandated to disclose any of this to lawmakers since Congress had approved the transfer in 2008, presently unfulfilled.
Israel is currently the largest recipient of U.S. aid since the 1970s, receiving on average $1.8 billion in military and $1.2 billion in economic aid annually.
Such aid incentivizes documented Israeli violations of Palestinian rights by humane organizations such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch. They have included ongoing abusive detention practices (including the torture of prisoners), restrictions on freedom of movement of Palestinians, the targeting of medical personnel and facilities, and severe damage to infrastructure such as water and electricity to Palestinian civilians prior to Israel’s current Gaza incursion.
It does not move the needle to a two state solution.
All of this comes even as Biden expresses concern over a pending Israeli assault on the alleged remaining Hamas stronghold of Rafah along the Egyptian border and UN warnings of incipient mass starvation. 1.2 million Gaza refugees have sought refuge in this enclave.
Jewish pressure weighs heavily on the Biden administration in an election year with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee donating millions to unseat Democrats deemed unfriendly to Israel. A recent Pew Research survey indicates 80% of American Jews regard aid to Israel as essential.
Those constituencies calling for suspension of aid to Israel are branded as anti-Semite, with surging efforts to pass legislation abridging their First Amendment right to free speech.
Republicans, even more than Democrat leaning Jews, have vigorously supported aid to Israel, though increasingly resistant to approving aid to a besieged Ukraine.
Biden would do well to mind an increasingly assertive Muslim-American electorate that threatens to boycott him in November.
Meanwhile, any full scale attack on densely populated Rafah, gateway for food convoys, would conceivably result in thousands, not hundreds, of killed and maimed.
The morally compromised Biden administration has been complicit in Israel’s blitzkrieg that includes mosques, churches, hospitals and refugee camps, abetted by American armaments.
For this, the U.S. proves deserving of world condemnation.
The elephant in the room is Biden; but then again, endeavors to dislodge him by voting for his Republican adversary are surely non sequitur.
Conversely, efforts to encourage divestiture at home and abroad of Israel merit encouragement. They brought down South Africa’s apartheid regime.
America must do what is right, not what is easy.
–rj
Democracy’s Failure
While democracy has been widely touted as the best form of government, it’s had many detractors in Britain and America, who fearing a working class majority of the uninformed, intellectually unprepared, politically manipulated by partisan interests, proposed education in the liberal arts as a safeguard for assuring an informed, discriminating electorate.
One thinks of Matthew Arnold’s classic Culture and Anarchy and John Henry Newman’s The Idea of a University as examples. The truth is it hasn’t worked to salvage democracy. As Costica Bradatan comments in his insightful book, In Praise of Failure, “Populism and authoritarianism are flourishing today in places with remarkably high educational levels. For all the self-flattering talk about civic-mindedness and political engagement, the citizenry in the West is in no better shape than it was one hundred years ago. And we seem resigned to the situation.”
Derek Bok, former president of Harvard, comments in his Universities in the Marketplace that the arts and sciences faculties “display scant interest in preparing undergraduates to be democratic citizens, a task once regarded as the principal purpose of a liberal education.”
Viewing our current political milieu, I see only the debris of a once heralded idea to make government truly feasible in the best interests of our nation. Alas, not since the Civil War, has America been so fractured in its allegiances.
Alexander Hamilton, suspicious of public sovereignty, supported the idea of the Electoral College. That certainly hasn’t worked.
Back in England, John Stuart Mill proposed a plutocracy of the educated allowed multiple votes. Fortunately, it wasn’t well-received.
As for the prototype Athenian democracy, women couldn’t vote, nor foreigners and slaves.
I confess I don’t know the answer, except to offer that democracy, for all its liabilities, surpasses those protocols previously attempted.
—rj
Brimmings: up from the well 