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The following books by Robert Paul Wolff are available on Amazon.com as e-books: KANT'S THEORY OF MENTAL ACTIVITY, THE AUTONOMY OF REASON, UNDERSTANDING MARX, UNDERSTANDING RAWLS, THE POVERTY OF LIBERALISM, A LIFE IN THE ACADEMY, MONEYBAGS MUST BE SO LUCKY, AN INTRODUCTION TO THE USE OF FORMAL METHODS IN POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY.
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NOW AVAILABLE ON YOUTUBE: LECTURES ON THE THOUGHT OF KARL MARX. To view the lectures, go to YouTube and search for Robert Paul Wolff Marx."





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Friday, January 20, 2017

HISTORICAL CAUTIONS

I will remind you that both Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini came to power through legitimate democratic elections and only then transformed their regimes into one-party dictatorships.  Both men were quite popular.  Am I being melodramatic or hysterical.  I do not believe so.   

Trump attempted, unsuccessfully, to arrange for a Soviet, North Korean, or Nazi style military parade, complete with tanks and rocket launchers, to commemorate his ascension to power.  He had to settle for an air force fighter jet flyover.  It would be a very bad mistake to adopt an air of superior, passive amusement.

4 comments:

Chris said...

Been listening to O'Fortuna Carmina burana and Johnny Cash - God's Gonna Cut you Down all morning in the office.

Ugh, dark times.

Unknown said...

The only consolation is that trump is extremely, historically unpopular. He would have LOST the election in any other democracy in the world, and even some of the fools who voted for him are regretting it. That, of course, won't stop him from inflicting terrible damage on the us and the world

levinebar said...

The closest the U.S. has come to the challenge Trump poses was the presidency of Richard Nixon. Years later, Nixon would summarize the problem as "when the president does it, that means it's not illegal". But we aspire to be ruled by laws and not by men. A robust Press and a Democratically-controlled Congress and some noble jurists (Archibald Cox, Leon, Jaworski...) joined forces to turn back that threat.
In 2017, Congress is in Republican hands and the credibility of all news sources has been impugned. (but Jeff Bezos is making the Washington Post something of a bastion against Trump's lies) And as far as I can understand, current statute doesn't provide for a "Special Prosecutor" like Archibald Cox, but rather only for a "Special Counsel" reporting to the Atttorney General of the U.S. (i.e. not independent of the Executive)
John Dean remembers; no one alive knows presidential malfeasance more intimately. He fully expects criminal abuse from the incoming Trump administration

Barry H. Levine

Andrew Lionel Blais said...

Thank Gawd it's not Hilary....