My Stuff

https://umass-my.sharepoint.com/:f:/g/personal/rwolff_umass_edu/EkxJV79tnlBDol82i7bXs7gBAUHadkylrmLgWbXv2nYq_A?e=UcbbW0

Coming Soon:

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.
Now Available: Volumes I, II, III, and IV of the Collected Published and Unpublished Papers.

NOW AVAILABLE ON YOUTUBE: LECTURES ON KANT'S CRITIQUE OF PURE REASON. To view the lectures, go to YouTube and search for "Robert Paul Wolff Kant." There they will be.

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."





Total Pageviews

Friday, May 10, 2019

YOUTHFUL LONGINGS


As I watched my senior senator, Richard Burr, exhibiting the barest sign of a spine, issuing a subpoena for Don Jr. and holding firm against the contumely of his Republican colleagues, I thought back to my first visit to Washington, DC in the summer of 1961, my eleventh and last year at Harvard.  I wrote about the experience in my Autobiography, and posted it on this blog nine years ago.  I was young in ’61, not yet an anarchist and still filled with a longing for genuine popular democracy.  I think it is worth re-posting.

I spent that last summer finishing my manuscript and preparing to leave Cambridge.  In late August, I wrapped up the book and decided to take a little vacation.  Since I had never visited Washington D. C., and now knew several people in the new Kennedy Administration, I took the train down to spend a week there.  I checked into a hotel near the train station and went round to various office buildings to visit my friends.  They were tremendously excited by their new jobs, but as I spent time with them, I grew more and more uneasy.  It was all a bit like the court at Versailles under the ancien rĂ©gime.  There was a great deal of gossip, and a constant anxiety about the thoughts, the feelings, the preferences, the moods of one person, the President.
When I went over to the Capitol to take a look at Congress, my view of the government changed entirely.  I spent several days in the visitors' gallery of the Senate, watching debates and votes.  The fact that it was the one cool place I had found in a steamy town may have had something to do with my reaction.  I watched with great amusement as Everett Dirksen protested his love of duck hunting and hunters, imitating to great effect a duck settling onto a pond at sunset.   Apparently the government had imposed a tax on duck hunting in order to raise money for wetlands preservation, and then had used the money to drain swamps for development.  The duck hunters of America wanted a five million dollar appropriation to make things right, and Dirksen, who was opposing all spending that week on grounds of fiscal responsibility, was trying to convince the duck hunters of Illinois that he felt their pain.  I watched the great maverick, Wayne Morse, bellow to an empty chamber that he was not going to kowtow to the Catholic Church, with regard to what I can no longer recall.  And I watched as all but two of the senators came to the floor to vote on the renewal of the Civil Rights Commission.
What attracted me so greatly was the fact that each of these men and women was an independent person, beholden only to his or her constituents, and not subservient to the President, regardless of how charismatic and powerful he might be.  These were men and women with honor, not servile courtiers hoping to be given pride of place on a balcony or in a presidential jet.  Exactly the same sentiments welled up in me as I watch octogenarian Robert Byrd deliver speech after speech calling George W. Bush to account for the damage he did to the U. S. Constitution. 
It was fun visiting Marc Raskin in the Executive Office Building, and listening to the rumors about Kennedy and Marc's secretary, Diane DeVegh.  It was interesting hearing Dick Barnet talk about the inside story at the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency.  But it was ennobling to watch the debates on the floor of the Senate.  I think it was that week in a hot Washington summer, rather than any of the books I had read, that once for all time soured me on the Imperial Presidency.


9 comments:

Dean said...

This puts me in mind of part of a broadcast I heard on our local Pacifica radio station yesterday, the third of a three part series about Ancient Rome:

1. https://kpfa.org/episode/letters-and-politics-may-7-2019/
2. https://kpfa.org/episode/letters-and-politics-may-8-2019/
3. https://kpfa.org/episode/letters-and-politics-may-9-2019/

Well worth listening if you have three hours to spare.

David Palmeter said...

Marc Raskin's son, Jamie Raskin, represents Montgomery County, MD, and adjacent areas, in the House.

David Palmeter said...

Here's Jamie Raskin a day or so ago:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oepc-BOY7Ig

Robert Paul Wolff said...

I know. Lately he is on TV a lot. My wife, Susie, knew Marc in Chicago way back.

Christopher J. Mulvaney, Ph.D. said...

Dean,
Now that's good talk radio! I knew they would be talking about Tiberius and Gaius. It is one hell of cautionary tale.

Charles Pigden said...

So the question is, why spine and perhaps principle (however silly) then but not now – at least on the part of most Republican senators? Why have they mostly metamorphosed into a set of Trump flunkies?

Anonymous said...

To Charles Pigden:

Perhaps one reason for the spinelessness of Republican politicians is that Trump currently has a 91% approval rating among registered Republicans. (I just heard this figure a few minutes ago, on a national news show. It was cited by a liberal commentator.) The party as a whole has metamorphosed into a set of Trump flunkies. Maybe a lot of them like what Trump says. It seems to me to be a cult. Then again, the politicians may just want to keep their jobs and hold onto power. –Fritz Poebel

David Palmeter said...

Charles,

The difference indeed is in Trump’s approval rating among Republicans. This stems, I believe, from the big difference in TV coverage of Nixon/Watergate in the ‘70s and Trump/Russia/Obstruction today.

In the ‘70s there were three “mainstream” TV networks, and Rupert Murdoch didn’t own any of them. At some point, the network coverage convinced enough rank-and-file Republicans that Nixon was a criminal. When this happened, his Republican support in Congress melted away. No such chance today. In the mid-90s Fox news arrived, and today that’s pretty much the sole source of “news” for its viewers. Consequently, the profiles in courage on Capitol Hill are nowhere to be seen.

While I have your attention, I have to tell you about my hearing what is probably a stale bit of humor in New Zealand by now. I was at a conference a number of years ago at which a New Zealander introduced a speaker who had been born in New Zealand but at some point had emigrated to Australia. “And with that single voyage,” the New Zealand introducer said, “he raised the average IQ on both sides of the Tasman.” All of us in the audience just loved it.

Anonymous said...

I guess, then, when Russell Crowe moves from Australia to the US for his professional engagements, the average IQ in Australia falls back again. On the positive side, it skyrockets in America.