Eric Erickson, in his finest book, Childhood and Society, writes wisely that “An individual life is the accidental coincidence of but one life cycle with but one segment of history.” In my 91st year, as I approach the end of my lifecycle, I often reflect on how much my view of the world has been shaped by the particular accidental coincidence of my lifecycle with one segment of history. My father’s father was born in 1879. He devoted his life to the Socialist party in New York City and died in 1944, just before the second world war ended. I was born late in 1933, as Franklin Delano Roosevelt began his first term as president. I was a senior in Harvard College before I saw a Republican elected to the White House. My early years were obsessed with the dangers of nuclear war and as I grew older, despite the terrible inequities of race and sex and class that beset my country, it was possible for me to believe that things were getting steadily better. The last half of my life has been spent in an increasingly frustrating struggle against the retreat from those early advances. Now, I await the outcome of an election that may effectively end whatever dream of democracy I had as a youth.
This past semester, I had the great pleasure of leading a
study group at Harvard in a close examination of volume 1 of Capital, a book
which I remain convinced is the greatest work of social and economic analysis
ever written. In the last of my 12 two hour lectures, I spoke to those young
people about the necessity of continuing the struggle without Marx’s confidence
in the eventual victory of socialism to which he devoted his life’s work.
I am constitutionally unable to give up the struggle or retreat
into a literary quietism, but I no longer believe alas that the arc of history
bends toward justice. Bound by my
Parkinson’s to a desk chair or television set, I must take my pleasures where I find
them and hope during this coming week to see Trump convicted in a court of law.
I do not believe that will change the world, but it will certainly give me some
pleasure, and that is perhaps the most I can ask of it
13 comments:
Good to hear from you!!
No, the arc of history doesn't bend towards justice; there's no arc of history.
However, I don't believe that Trump will be elected. That he was booed at the libertarian convention is a good sign. Some people who didn't see through him in previous elections now see through him.
I'd be willing to bet money that Trump will lose if I believed that people whom I only know in this blog would pay me when they lose.
Dear Professor,
this coincidental overlap, or confrontation, of our life cycle with a historical situation perhaps leads to the realization that we cannot change the latter. But that does not mean that we cannot or should not understand it. Perhaps it is this understanding alone that changes history. While his crew plugged their ears with wax, Odysseus let himself be tied to the mast of his ship so that he could listen to the sirens' song. Tied up, mind you, dear Professor, perhaps in the same way that your illness ties you to the chair in front of your desk.
Michael Llenos,
I don't see how Trump can usurp power unless he has the support of the Pentagon and I don't see why the Pentagon could support a pro-Putin jerk like Trump when Biden, supporting wars in Ukraine and Gaza, is the military industrial complex's best friend and no jerk, a rational actor surrounded by other rational actors.
I don't doubt that Trump will cause trouble if he loses the election (and if he wins), but his supporters can't do much real damage and are in no position to face the U.S. Army, the CIA and the FBI.
Trump's 15 minutes of fame are over, I contend.
Well let's hope so. They say Trump could have held the Congress hostage if the General in charge of the National Guard troops would have listened to Trump. The idea is that Trump would have certain present allies in certain areas of government that would eventually lead him to a Second Term gradually over time. Then gradually, like a Domino Effect, surely and slowly Trump would gain ultimate power. Now I don't know how this would be done in specifics. The fear is that Trump's political allies know how to do this & have told him how.
The existence of the Electoral College and the polarization of the electorate, as is well known, mean that this presidential election is going to turn on the results in seven or so "swing" states, just as the previous few elections have. It's been widely reported that, as of today, Trump is leading polls in six of the seven. Things could change between now and November, but right now it doesn't look good, assuming one credits these polls as roughly accurate (which some people don't).
Another factor is that many voters are what is euphemistically called low-information voters. For instance polls show that many voters think that unemployment in the U.S. is at an all-time high (actually the reverse is true), that the stock market has been doing poorly (which is false), and so on. Swimming in a sea of information and misinformation and apparently deprived of any means of telling one from the other, they are easy prey for the lies and bullsh*t that Trump and many of his surrogates are constantly spreading, backed up by what one writer referred to as the right-wing resonance machine (or something like that).
Trump himself, meanwhile, recently appeared at a rally in the Bronx at which some of his remarks, to judge from clips of the speech, were incoherent and irrelevant even by his standards. But it's not clear that that matters to "swing" voters or that it's getting esp. wide circulation.
s.w., there's a war in Ukraine because Russia invaded that nation with no provocvation. Supporting Ukraine is doing well by doing good (Russia delenda est, after all). The war in Israel is due to the far right Israeli government miscalculating as to the extent of the Hamas' capability then figuring it could get away with war crimes and genocidish behavior.. Biden and his national security team are addicted to "escalation management" instead of simply doing the right thing - properly arming Ukraine and cracking down on Israel.
The military isn't necessary to do a coup.. Bush v. Gore was a coup. Take Pence to a "secure location" - Grassley was in the tank. Throw the election to the House - a coup. The cadres in the Jan. 6 mob could have compromised the ballots. Or they could have killed a handful of Democratic Reps which would have allowed the new Republican majority to elect a Republican Speaker who would have become president on Jan. 20 if the chaos continued. Lots of possibilities - we depend on norms and it seems norms are fragile.
For those that understand Spanish here is an interview of the Palestinian ambassador in Peru from April 9
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ymQeqVkvnTY
it starts at 8:35
@LFC
I apologize for the late reply to your reply to a long ago comment I made. I remember you saying that I had posted the same quote several times but in reality the comment you replied to was the first time I had used a quote. I do like using quotes though because I value evidence over rhetorical tricks. Maybe this is my bias as a statistician. In any case I want to recapitulate my point that the early mainstream Zionist leaders (including Ben-Gurion) knew that the Palestinians were going to have to be rid of. I don't remember the rest of your points, but I am less busy now to answer them.
@ MAD
Thank you for the reply. I am somewhat busy myself now, so I think we can view our exchange(s) as concluded. In any case I would have to do some further reading (or, in some cases, re-reading) to continue our historical discussion.
@MAD
You claim you have the facts proving the Israeli leaders even in the Labor Party such as Ben Gurion conspired to dispossess the land from the Palestinians.
Somehow your being a "statistician" guarantees your assertion is not rhetorical. Yet the "trust me I only go for the facts" is itself a rhetorical trope.
The natural follow up question is to insist you source these facts, and don't cite Wikipedia for God's sake.
What have you read on it and we can compare notes. It is doubtful you ever visited the territory in question or even speak Hebrew or Arabic, for you in your eyes being statistician is evidence enough.
But statistics lie and so do, apparently, statisticians.
I'm willing to have a serious talk on the topic if you are up to it.
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