OK, folks. This may be it. Click and see. My February 3rd lecture at Marist College on Liberal Education You need QuickTime Player to view it, and it may take a while to load. Correction: It takes a really long time to load. I hope it is worth the wait.
http://darwin.marist.edu/Lectures/pwolfffeb3.mov
Sunday, March 7, 2010
THE OLD GUY APPEALS FOR HELP FROM THE BLOGOSPHERE
Here I am again, seeking technical guidance from those younger and wiser. [This is the first generation in the history of the world in which the young explain to the old how things work. Talk about revolutions!]
Here's the thing. Five weeks ago, thanks to the efforts of Ann Davis, I spoke at Marist College in Poughkeepsie. One of my talks was called "What Good is a Liberal Education?" The talk was videotaped, and eventually, again thanks to Ann's persistence, the video was posted on a Marist server. I would like to post a link to the talk on my blog, because I think folks might find it interesting. Ann emailed me the link, and when I click on it, up comes the talk. BUT when I copy the link into my blogt, or even highlight it and copy it to a WORD document, and try to open it, I get an error message. I am pretty sure I am copying it exactly correctly. One needs QuickTime to open it, but my Windows Vista has that, even though it is an Apple ap, so that is all right. I even now have a CD of the talk. When I put it in my CD drive, it starts automatically. But look though I have, I cannot find any way to download it onto my own computer, so even that route is denied me. I figure there is some code embedded in the email message that does not copy, but how can that be?
I think it is a good talk, and since on this video my facial tics and twitches are almost totally quiet, I am not mortified by the sight of myself. [For those of you who know me only through this blog, I have had these twitches since I was five, and I will apparently have them until I die. Such is life.]
Does anybody have an idea? I could mail the CD to you, if that would do it.
Here's the thing. Five weeks ago, thanks to the efforts of Ann Davis, I spoke at Marist College in Poughkeepsie. One of my talks was called "What Good is a Liberal Education?" The talk was videotaped, and eventually, again thanks to Ann's persistence, the video was posted on a Marist server. I would like to post a link to the talk on my blog, because I think folks might find it interesting. Ann emailed me the link, and when I click on it, up comes the talk. BUT when I copy the link into my blogt, or even highlight it and copy it to a WORD document, and try to open it, I get an error message. I am pretty sure I am copying it exactly correctly. One needs QuickTime to open it, but my Windows Vista has that, even though it is an Apple ap, so that is all right. I even now have a CD of the talk. When I put it in my CD drive, it starts automatically. But look though I have, I cannot find any way to download it onto my own computer, so even that route is denied me. I figure there is some code embedded in the email message that does not copy, but how can that be?
I think it is a good talk, and since on this video my facial tics and twitches are almost totally quiet, I am not mortified by the sight of myself. [For those of you who know me only through this blog, I have had these twitches since I was five, and I will apparently have them until I die. Such is life.]
Does anybody have an idea? I could mail the CD to you, if that would do it.
Saturday, March 6, 2010
AND NOW, A WORD FROM OUR SPONSORS
Things are slow at the moment for a serious blogger. I have said as much as I wish about the Tea Party crazies. The health care reform package is on track to pass in the next three weeks. Palin pales. So, this is a good time to stop, step back, and ask where we are, in the largest possible sense. Some of my readers may not share my diagnosis, but at the very least, it will be useful for me to articulate my vision of the political and economic world in which we live, as a way of getting some perspective on the passing scene. As you will see presently, my conclusions may come as a surprise, after my analysis.
In my view, America is fundamentally on the wrong track both economically and with regard to its foreign and domestic policy. Although the roots of these errors, if one can call them that, go back centuries, I shall concentrate on the stretch of time that I have experienced personally, which is to say the sixty-five years since the end of World War II.
Emerging from the period of the New Deal, America could have taken the path adopted by many European countries, and developed a social democratic version of capitalism that kept the gap between rich and poor relatively small and underwrote a large public sector. There were early efforts to achieve something like this, and some of them were moderately successful, but at least since 1980, this country has chosen a particularly virulent form of capitalism that has progressively beggared the public sector, consigned millions of Americans to poverty, and destroyed for tens of millions more the promise of a comfortable middle-class existence. This choice, let me emphasize, was bi-partisan, as much traceable to the Democrats as to the Republicans.
During the past fifty years or so, there have been major advances in social policy and justice in America, sparked by the Civil Rights movement, the Women's Liberation movement, and the Gay Liberation movement. These have transformed for the better the lives of enormous numbers of people, and they constitute, in my view, the saving grace of this two thirds of a century period. I rejoice in these victories, all of which I fought for in different ways. I am convinced that they are irreversible and unstoppable. But they have been achieved in the context of a capitalism that is ever harsher and more inequitable.
During this same period of time, the United States has pursued an imperial foreign policy with the aim, covert or overt, of world domination. There are, as I see it, two root causes for the choice America made to thrust itself onto the world scene as a hegemon. The first was the enormous temptation of nuclear weapons, which set America first above all other nations in military power and then above all but the Soviet Union. The second was the desire to make the world safe and amenable to capitalist exploitation, and to protect capitalism from the supposed threat of communism, as represented by our nuclear foe, the Soviet Union.
It is useful to recall that at the end of the Second World War, there were vibrant Communist parties, or at least sentiments, in France, Germany, and Italy. America, in partnership with the Vatican, successfully engendered Christian Democratic Parties in those countries as bulwarks against communism. The Franch medical delivery system that some of us now view with such envy was in fact an achievement of the post-war French Communist Party.
At every opportunity in the past sixty-five years, America has taken the wrong turn. Instead of embracing Castro and pouring money into Cuba to make his popular revolution a success, we mounted a feckless invasion, and imposed an embargo explicitly designed to impoverish the Cuban people. Instead of embracing Noriega, we conspired to defeat him. Instead of supporting Mossadegh, we engineered his overthrow and foisted a puppet Shah on the Iranian people. Instead of applauding the defeat of French colonialism in South East Asia, we stepped into their shoes and fought a bloody war on the wrong side of that struggle. Rather than force Israel to make peace with the Palestinians when we were in a position to do so, we have sold our Middle Eastern foreign policy into bondage to the most reactionary forces in Israel. And so forth and so on.
These economic and foreign and military policies have been thoroughly bi-partisan for the entire period I am discussing,. Every single president, Democratic or Republican, since FDR has endorsed and advanced these policies, as has every Congress, regardless of the balance of Democratic and Republican votes. There has been no serious opposition to these policies at any time by any major figure in American politics. The difference between Democrats and Republicans has been merely one of tone and emphasis. This general proposition is as true of Barack Obama as it was of George W. Bush.
How should someone with my views act in the world?
There are, as I see it, two possibilities. [I am reminded of Jacobovsky in the great play, Me and the Colonel, which I know principally in the comic film version starring Danny Kaye with Curt Jurgens as the colonel. Kaye is always saying, "Well there are two possibilities,' and Jurgens replies, "No, there is only one possibility." But I digress.]
First, I can step back from involvement in American politics, on the ground that every realistic alternative simply continues policies that I consider profoundly misguided and immoral, and say, in effect, "A plague o' both your houses." [Little Shakespeare allusion there -- Romeo and Juliet]. Viewed from a sufficient distance, a hyena and a gazelle don't look all that different. I can wash my hands of the electoral process and call down the wrath of heaven on all parties. Heaven knows, they deserve it.
Or, I can control my revulsion and throw myself into the political struggle, striving always for whichever candidate or party offers a hope of even a slight amelioration of the wrong-headed policies this country has been pursuing for as long as I have been alive, and will certainly continue to pursue long after I am dead.
God knows, I freely admit that I am tempted by the first alternative. But do I have a right to embrace it? Stop and think. I was awarded tenure at Columbia University in 1964. From that moment, until I retired from the University of Massachusetts forty-four years later, I had an assured income, first-rate health insurance, and the certainty of a comfortable pension. Not for one day during that long period did I have to ask, Where will I get money for food? How will I pay the rent? Can I afford to take my child to the doctor? Not once in all that time was I threatened with death or injury from an invading army or a suicide bomber, nor was I even menaced by a hostile policeman. If the truth be told, every time I published a book condemning the powers that be, I was rewarded with a promotion or raise by those whom I was excoriating.
During this same time, hundreds of millions of people in America and around the world have suffered all of these evils, sometimes directly at the hands of American forces, often not.
Now, suppose that by involving myself in the political struggle, distasteful and compromising as that may be, I can help to provide health insurance for those who lack it, or ease the pain of unemoployment for those who are afflcited by it, or diminish the baleful impact of American military might on those abroad who suffer its depredations. What right do I have not to make that effort? I do not consider myself in the slightest responsible for America's economic, military, and diplomatic wrongdoings. I have been speaking out against all of them since I was a teen-ager. But if I can help to ease their impact on others, it seems to me that I am obligated to do so.
This is, I realize, more a counsel of despair than a promise of hope. But as I sit here in comfortable retirement, I simply cannot allow myself the luxury of generalized revulsion.
I welcome your thoughts and responses.
In my view, America is fundamentally on the wrong track both economically and with regard to its foreign and domestic policy. Although the roots of these errors, if one can call them that, go back centuries, I shall concentrate on the stretch of time that I have experienced personally, which is to say the sixty-five years since the end of World War II.
Emerging from the period of the New Deal, America could have taken the path adopted by many European countries, and developed a social democratic version of capitalism that kept the gap between rich and poor relatively small and underwrote a large public sector. There were early efforts to achieve something like this, and some of them were moderately successful, but at least since 1980, this country has chosen a particularly virulent form of capitalism that has progressively beggared the public sector, consigned millions of Americans to poverty, and destroyed for tens of millions more the promise of a comfortable middle-class existence. This choice, let me emphasize, was bi-partisan, as much traceable to the Democrats as to the Republicans.
During the past fifty years or so, there have been major advances in social policy and justice in America, sparked by the Civil Rights movement, the Women's Liberation movement, and the Gay Liberation movement. These have transformed for the better the lives of enormous numbers of people, and they constitute, in my view, the saving grace of this two thirds of a century period. I rejoice in these victories, all of which I fought for in different ways. I am convinced that they are irreversible and unstoppable. But they have been achieved in the context of a capitalism that is ever harsher and more inequitable.
During this same period of time, the United States has pursued an imperial foreign policy with the aim, covert or overt, of world domination. There are, as I see it, two root causes for the choice America made to thrust itself onto the world scene as a hegemon. The first was the enormous temptation of nuclear weapons, which set America first above all other nations in military power and then above all but the Soviet Union. The second was the desire to make the world safe and amenable to capitalist exploitation, and to protect capitalism from the supposed threat of communism, as represented by our nuclear foe, the Soviet Union.
It is useful to recall that at the end of the Second World War, there were vibrant Communist parties, or at least sentiments, in France, Germany, and Italy. America, in partnership with the Vatican, successfully engendered Christian Democratic Parties in those countries as bulwarks against communism. The Franch medical delivery system that some of us now view with such envy was in fact an achievement of the post-war French Communist Party.
At every opportunity in the past sixty-five years, America has taken the wrong turn. Instead of embracing Castro and pouring money into Cuba to make his popular revolution a success, we mounted a feckless invasion, and imposed an embargo explicitly designed to impoverish the Cuban people. Instead of embracing Noriega, we conspired to defeat him. Instead of supporting Mossadegh, we engineered his overthrow and foisted a puppet Shah on the Iranian people. Instead of applauding the defeat of French colonialism in South East Asia, we stepped into their shoes and fought a bloody war on the wrong side of that struggle. Rather than force Israel to make peace with the Palestinians when we were in a position to do so, we have sold our Middle Eastern foreign policy into bondage to the most reactionary forces in Israel. And so forth and so on.
These economic and foreign and military policies have been thoroughly bi-partisan for the entire period I am discussing,. Every single president, Democratic or Republican, since FDR has endorsed and advanced these policies, as has every Congress, regardless of the balance of Democratic and Republican votes. There has been no serious opposition to these policies at any time by any major figure in American politics. The difference between Democrats and Republicans has been merely one of tone and emphasis. This general proposition is as true of Barack Obama as it was of George W. Bush.
How should someone with my views act in the world?
There are, as I see it, two possibilities. [I am reminded of Jacobovsky in the great play, Me and the Colonel, which I know principally in the comic film version starring Danny Kaye with Curt Jurgens as the colonel. Kaye is always saying, "Well there are two possibilities,' and Jurgens replies, "No, there is only one possibility." But I digress.]
First, I can step back from involvement in American politics, on the ground that every realistic alternative simply continues policies that I consider profoundly misguided and immoral, and say, in effect, "A plague o' both your houses." [Little Shakespeare allusion there -- Romeo and Juliet]. Viewed from a sufficient distance, a hyena and a gazelle don't look all that different. I can wash my hands of the electoral process and call down the wrath of heaven on all parties. Heaven knows, they deserve it.
Or, I can control my revulsion and throw myself into the political struggle, striving always for whichever candidate or party offers a hope of even a slight amelioration of the wrong-headed policies this country has been pursuing for as long as I have been alive, and will certainly continue to pursue long after I am dead.
God knows, I freely admit that I am tempted by the first alternative. But do I have a right to embrace it? Stop and think. I was awarded tenure at Columbia University in 1964. From that moment, until I retired from the University of Massachusetts forty-four years later, I had an assured income, first-rate health insurance, and the certainty of a comfortable pension. Not for one day during that long period did I have to ask, Where will I get money for food? How will I pay the rent? Can I afford to take my child to the doctor? Not once in all that time was I threatened with death or injury from an invading army or a suicide bomber, nor was I even menaced by a hostile policeman. If the truth be told, every time I published a book condemning the powers that be, I was rewarded with a promotion or raise by those whom I was excoriating.
During this same time, hundreds of millions of people in America and around the world have suffered all of these evils, sometimes directly at the hands of American forces, often not.
Now, suppose that by involving myself in the political struggle, distasteful and compromising as that may be, I can help to provide health insurance for those who lack it, or ease the pain of unemoployment for those who are afflcited by it, or diminish the baleful impact of American military might on those abroad who suffer its depredations. What right do I have not to make that effort? I do not consider myself in the slightest responsible for America's economic, military, and diplomatic wrongdoings. I have been speaking out against all of them since I was a teen-ager. But if I can help to ease their impact on others, it seems to me that I am obligated to do so.
This is, I realize, more a counsel of despair than a promise of hope. But as I sit here in comfortable retirement, I simply cannot allow myself the luxury of generalized revulsion.
I welcome your thoughts and responses.
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
ATMOSPHERICS
As a commentator-at-a-distance, with no inside information whatsoever about American politics, I am reduced at times to wetting my finger and holding it up to sense which way the wind is blowing. [I know, having watched King Solomon's Mines many times, that I want to be downwind of Washington, so that I can smell them but they cannot smell me. Not always an enticing prospect]. Well, right now I am sensing something blowing in the wind. After a long bad patch for the Democrats, what with the ugly business of health care reform and the loss of Ted Kennedy's Senate seat, I can feel the very first shift of the wind in the direction of the Democrats.
Most important, of course, is that health care reform seems now on track to be passed sometime late this month. Everyone's exhaustion with the issue may tend to diminish in our minds the enormous importance of such a victory. In politics as in war, winning matters. Presidents have been trying to do health care reform for forty years and more. If Obama succeeds, suddenly his presidency will look like a success, and Democrats will be emboldened to move on other fronts. Pelosi and Reid will be heroes, and even Rahm Emmanuel won't look quite so egregious.
The shift in the wind is being strengthened by the sheer stupid, callous, mindless incompetence of the Republicans. Drowning in negative commentary, the Democrats were thrown a life preserver by Jim Bunning, who leaped from obscurity to the top of the charts as worst member of the U. S. Senate. [Stupidest is still firmly in the joint control of Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III and Jon Kyl, but there are many competitors.]
Of course, I may simply be responding to the fact that this long, chilly North Carolina winter, universally characterized by locals as quite unusual, is finally coming to an end, and 60 degree days lie ahead.
To celebrate, I gave $100 to Bill Halter's challenge of Blanche Lincoln in Arkansas. Keep hope alive!
Most important, of course, is that health care reform seems now on track to be passed sometime late this month. Everyone's exhaustion with the issue may tend to diminish in our minds the enormous importance of such a victory. In politics as in war, winning matters. Presidents have been trying to do health care reform for forty years and more. If Obama succeeds, suddenly his presidency will look like a success, and Democrats will be emboldened to move on other fronts. Pelosi and Reid will be heroes, and even Rahm Emmanuel won't look quite so egregious.
The shift in the wind is being strengthened by the sheer stupid, callous, mindless incompetence of the Republicans. Drowning in negative commentary, the Democrats were thrown a life preserver by Jim Bunning, who leaped from obscurity to the top of the charts as worst member of the U. S. Senate. [Stupidest is still firmly in the joint control of Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III and Jon Kyl, but there are many competitors.]
Of course, I may simply be responding to the fact that this long, chilly North Carolina winter, universally characterized by locals as quite unusual, is finally coming to an end, and 60 degree days lie ahead.
To celebrate, I gave $100 to Bill Halter's challenge of Blanche Lincoln in Arkansas. Keep hope alive!
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
BAD BEHAVIOR
I should like to apologize publicly for my bad behavior. I just received a call from some Republican organization [do not ask me how I got on their call list.] A sweet young thing who sounded about twelve began by asking me very politely whether I thought that President Obama, Harry Reid, and Nancy Pelosi should use my tax money for their socialist schemes. I said, "yes, I do." There was a pause, as she frantically leafed through her call script looking for the correct response to this clearly unexpected answer. Things went downhill from there. I told her I was pleased that she had a job, unlike all those folks whose unemployment insurance was being blocked by Senator Bunning. So it went, until she came to a place in her script where she could get off the phone.
Why do I behave so badly? you may ask. I am afraid I am so angry that I have forgotten my manners. Sigh. I suppose if I had gone to a good parochial school instead of P. S. 117 in Queens, the nuns would have beaten better manners into me. Religion does have its uses.
Why do I behave so badly? you may ask. I am afraid I am so angry that I have forgotten my manners. Sigh. I suppose if I had gone to a good parochial school instead of P. S. 117 in Queens, the nuns would have beaten better manners into me. Religion does have its uses.
Monday, March 1, 2010
THE SEDUCTIVE DANGERS OF GOOGLING
As readers of this blog are aware, I indulge from time to time to the narcissistic pleasures of self-Googling. This morning, I plunged more deeply than usual into the 434,000 or so sites that came up when I input my name, and I stumbled on the following newspaper report from Florida. It gives one pause.
Charlotte County law enforcement chases fugitive
9:14 P.M. — The Charlotte County Sheriff’s Office is asking the public for help in locating a fugitive. At approximately 4:05 p.m. today, members of the Charlotte County Sheriff’s Office conducted an investigative traffic stop on a red in color Ford Escort at Tamiami Trail northbound and Hancock Avenue (Parking lot of ABC Liquors). The traffic stop was based upon a BOLO that was put out for the vehicle in regard to an interrupted occupied burglary in Port Charlotte on Tuesday.
The driver of the vehicle was identified as being Robert Paul Wolff who had a suspended driver’s license and a confirmed warrant for his arrest out of Leon County. The warrant was issued for violation of probation with an original charge of stalking. While deputies were placing Robert under arrest, he took off running towards Tamiami Trail. Deputies and K9 chased the subject across Tamiami Trail and through the parking lot of Publix. The subject ran through Publix and out the rear loading dock door. The subject was last seen running on Lister Street towards Edgewater Drive at approximately 4:16 p.m.
CCSO Aviation responded to the area along with several members of the agency, perimeter was set up and a search with K9 was conducted. The Charlotte County Sheriff’s Office is asking for assistance in locating 20-year-old Wolff, a white male approximately 6 feet, weighing 150-170 pounds, last seen wearing dark colored shorts and a white in color basketball type jersey with red lettering and the number 23 on the back.
HAVE YOU ANY SPARE CHANGE?
My sister, Barbara, asked me how to find good Democratic candidates to whom she could contribute money. Some of you may also wonder about that. Check out www.dailykos.com Moultisas keeps track of Congressional and other races all over the country, with a specificity that is hard to match. Sometimes, he offers the opportunity to make one donation to a bunch of them, which is then parcelled out. [I once did this, and got a whole lot of thank you letters for my $5.25 donation!] He keeps track of primaries, too, and that is where money can make a big difference.
Just a thought.
Just a thought.
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