I find the Gary Snyder poem "For the Children" beautiful in its simplicity;
“stay together,
know the flowers
go light”
And hopefulness;
“In the next centuryor the one beyond that,they say,are valleys, pastures,we can meet there in peaceif we make it.” Being simple and hopeful is fine but it’s also good to be grateful for all that we have. Fun fact- Gary Snyder is the basis for the character Japhy Ryder in Jack Kerouac’s novel ”Dharma Bums”. ________
The video below is called "A Grateful Day" with Brother David Steindl-Rast at Gratefulness.org. It’s worth watching imho
If you're interested in some of what's happening in the right-wing YouTube media sphere I highly recommend RM Brown. I think his show is funny and he has some smart takes on controversial topics. Like any humor it's all subjective and I imagine his humor is not everyone's cup of tea but if you have some time to get into the audio drops and history of the show it's pretty fun especially if you are a little high (on life or "whatever trips your trigger" as my Navy DI in boot camp would say about a hundred years ago when I was a recruit).
Watching the weird, but popular, right-wing/grifter stuff - is hard to do.... so much of it seems so idiotic, predatory etc., but I'm afraid in some ways necessary for those wanting to retain a semi-sane society in the good old US of A.
But RM Brown watches it for you and gives lots of funny summaries...so you can keep up with some of the weird shite that is popular with a surprisingly/alarmingly large number of YouTube viewers.
Apple's version of The Velveteen Rabbit will be available Wednesday November 22nd. I love the book. I wrote a little bit about the Skin Horse on this blog almost 20 years ago...my how the time does fly.
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An excerpt from The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams
"It doesn't happen all at once," said the Skin Horse. "You become, It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't often happen to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand."
He proved that prediction right with the failed insurrection he fomented on January 6th, 2021.
As a general rule if you attempt to overthrow a government either you are successful and called a liberator or you are unsuccessful and branded a traitor.
Since Trunk and his supporters were unsuccessful in their attempt to overturn a democratic fair election, they are correctly identified as traitors to our country.
Protecting our Democracy has required great sacrifices over time including by the brave men and women who served in the military and gave the ultimate sacrifice, those who lost loved ones and those who supported our American democratic form of government in myriad other ways - teachers, parents, election volunteers, and some political figures - to name a few.
I think on this Veteran's Day it's a good idea to remember all those heroes and also to recognize the threat Trunk and his cultish followers pose to that precious gift.
It's probably a good time to remember also that some people are more easily fooled than others and to show some compassion for the weak-minded until they become an actual threat to what we hold so dear.
There are more people that love our country for what it stands for and what our heroes fought and died for (he wrote hopefully), than those easily fooled by right-wing propaganda intended to make the obscenely rich more rich, the too powerful more powerful and the working class scared, angry, confused and subdued lest they recognize how poorly they have been treated over the last 40 plus years of neoliberal rule by both political parties.
Thanks vets, thanks teachers, thanks parents we owe you more than we could ever hope to repay.
It seems cool to me that the Barbie Movie is such an opportunity for learning either by the cool (like this video) or the uncool but hilarious mojo dojo casa house.
Since this is St. Patrick's Day and people are thinking about Ireland maybe it's a good day to think a little about Irish history.
The segments below are from the book "The Age of Voltaire" by Will and Ariel Durant
Chapter III section VI Ireland 1714-1756
"Rarely in history has a nation been so oppressed as the Irish. Through repeated victories by English armies over native revolts, a code of laws had been set up that chained the Irish in body and soul. Their soil had been confiscated until only a handful of Catholic landowners remained, and nearly all of it was held by Protestants who treated their agricultural laborers as slaves. "The poor people of Ireland," said Chesterfield, "are used worse than Negroes by their lords and masters." It was "not unusual in Ireland," said Lecky, "for great landed proprietors to have regular prisons in their houses for the summary punishment of the lower orders." ...The tenants - racked by rents paid to the landlord, by tithes paid to the Established Church which they hated, and by dues paid to their own priests - lived in mud hovels with leaky roofs, went half naked, and were often on the edge of starvation; Swift thought "the Irish tenants live worse than English beggars." Those landlords who remained in Ireland, and the deputies of the absentees, drugged themselves against the barbarism and hostility of their surroundings with carousals of food and drink, extravagant hospitality, quarreling and dueling, and gambling for high stakes"......
"The structure of Irish politics made impossible any resistance to English domination except by mob action or individual violence. Since no one could hold office except by adherence to the Church of England, the Irish Parliament, after 1692, was composed entirely of Protestants, and was now wholly subservient to England. In 1719 the English Parliament reaffirmed its paramount right to legislate for Ireland. Laws that in England protected parliamentary or individual liberty, like the Habeus Corpus Act and the Bill of Rights, were not extended to Ireland; the relative freedom of the press enjoyed in England had no existence in Ireland. The two parliaments resembled each other only in the corruption of their electors and their members. They differed again in the dominant influence of Anglican Bishops in the Irish House of Lords."
"The established Church in Ireland included about a seventh of the population among it's adherents, but it was supported by tithes taken from the peasantry, nearly all of whom were Catholics. A small proportion of the people followed the Presbyterian or other Dissenting creeds, and received a measure of toleration, short of eligibility to office. Catholics were excluded not only from office but from all learned professions except medicine, and from nearly every avenue to higher education wealth of influence. They were forbidden to purchase land, or to invest in mortgages on land, or to hold any long or valuable lease. They could not serve as jurors, except where Protestants were not available. They could not teach in schools; they could not vote for municipal or national offices; they could not validly marry a Protestant."...
"The disorder of religious life shared with the poverty of the people and the hopelessness of social advancement in demoralizing Irish life. The ablest and bravest Catholics - who would have raised the level of Irish capacity, morality and intelligence - emigrated to France or Spain or America. Many Irishman sank into beggary or crime to escape from starvation. Robber gangs hid in the countryside, smugglers and wreckers lurked near the shores, and some property owners kept as many as eighty bravos to do their bidding regardless of the law. Thousands of cattle and sheep were slaughtered by roving bands, apparently as Catholic revenge upon Protestant landlords. It was difficult for a people to respect the laws passed by an Irish Parliament that often spoke of the Catholics - three quarters of the population - as "the common enemy.""
"There were some brighter elements in Irish life. The cheerful, easygoing, laughter-loving temper of the people survived through all their hardships, and their superstitions and legends surrounded their lives with magic and poetry without leading them to such violence as marked the witchcraft persecution in Scotland and Germany.....There were many instances of individual Protestants helping indigent Catholics, and of magistrates applying leniently the Draconian regulations of the penal code."
By and large the Irish scene was one of the most shameful in history. A degrading poverty, a chaotic lawlessness, a nomadic pauperism, 34,000 beggars, countless thieves, an upper class living in drunken extravagance amid a starving peasantry, every crop failure bringing widespread starvation - "the old and sick," said Swift, "dying and rotting by cold and famine and filth and vermin" - this terrible picture must find a place in our conception of man."
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I've been thinking about the history of people who are able to overcome adversity
in the form of poverty and oppression and exploitation by those with money and
power. I recently finished the book "Unfree Labor - American Slavery and Russian Serfdom" by Peter Kolchin. It's an interesting book showing some of the similarities and differences between American slavery and Russian serfdom. A key takeaway may be that the percentage of unfree labor aka slaves/serfs in the general population was much higher in Russia than in the U.S. Of course this means today that more Russians are descendants of slaves/serfs than Americans. Slavery in the U.S. and serfdom in Russia were both ended in the mid 1800's. In Russia in 1861 voluntarily by the aristocracy and in the U.S. in 1865 via the Civil War.
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The Chesterfield mentioned above is Lord Chesterfield aka Philip Dormer Stanhope 4th Earl of Chesterfield. He was, among other things, the lord lieutenant of Ireland in 1745. Will and Ariel Durant write, "His one year in Ireland was the most successful of his career. He established schools and industries, cleansed the government of corruption and jobbery, administered affairs with competence and impartiality. He ended the persecution of Catholics, promoted several of them to office, and so earned the respect of the Catholic population that when the Young Pretender invaded England from Scotland, and England expected a simultaneous revolution in Ireland, the Irish refused to rise against Chesterfield."
What I find fascinating about Lord Chesterfield is the book of letters published after his death to his illegitimate son Philip Stanhope. Wikipedia describes this book as -
Letters to His Son on the Art of Becoming a Man of the World and a Gentleman
(1774), comprises a thirty-year correspondence in more than 400
letters. Begun in 1737 and continued until the death of his son in 1768,
Chesterfield wrote mostly instructive communications about geography,
history, and classical literature.
with later letters focusing on politics and diplomacy, and the letters
themselves were written in French, English and Latin to refine his son's
grasp of the languages.
As a handbook for worldly success in the 18th century, the Letters to His Son give perceptive and nuanced advice for how a gentleman should interpret the social codes that are manners:
... However frivolous a company may be, still, while you
are among them, do not show them, by your inattention, that you think
them so; but rather take their tone, and conform in some degree to their
weakness, instead of manifesting your contempt for them. There is
nothing that people bear more impatiently, or forgive less, than
contempt; and an injury is much sooner forgotten than an insult. If,
therefore, you would rather please than offend, rather be well than ill
spoken of, rather be loved than hated; remember to have that constant
attention about you which flatters every man's little vanity; and the
want of which, by mortifying his pride, never fails to excite his
resentment, or at least his ill will....
Samuel Johnson said of the letters that "they teach the morals of a whore, and the
manners of a dancing-master" as means for getting on in the world as a gentleman.
I found the book interesting, but slow reading, with what seems like some timeless advice for how to get along and get ahead (if that's your thing) in the world. It's an incredibly sad book in a way - Lord Chesterfield means well and wants his son to thrive in the 18th century world of politics, salons and society (as did Lord Chesterfield). The son gets a seat in the English parliament thanks to Dad but gives only one speech which he doesn't finish because he gets so tongue-tied. Philip marries without his father's knowledge and dies at 36. After Philip's death, Lord Chesterfield learned of the existence of Philip's wife and
children. He received them kindly and took upon himself the cost of
education and maintenance of his grandsons and became very attached to
them.
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Finally...you might ask yourself why Will and Ariel Durant titled this 900 page book "The Age of Voltaire", or if you are like me you might ask yourself - "who is Voltaire?" One way to get to know him a little is read his book Candide, although it would be useful to read a bit about the political, religious, and philosophical climate of his time to understand what that book is about - a fairly devastating attack on the ideas of philosophers like Leibniz, and theologians of the Calvinist stripe, who propose that all things are predetermined by God i.e. free will does not exist and even terrible disasters that kill innocent people (like the Lisbon earthquake in Voltaire's case) are the best thing that could happen in this - the best of all possible worlds. Voltaire had seen to much of humanity's inhumanity to think one could find the best of all worlds in the world at large....so not totally unlike Chance the Gardner (if we take away Chance's constant TV watching) he recommended we tend our own gardens.
You could also listen to this 40 minute BBC Radio 4 podcast about Voltaire's Candide to see if any of this interests you.
Marxist philosophy appears to me somewhat like a cartoon we had at work of a person writing a giant complicated equation on a chalkboard and the equation has a term "and then a miracle occurs". One miracle Karl Marx believed in was that post-revolution society would be conflict-free. This results in Marxist regimes having no way to accommodate pluralistic values, but rather they must punish/remove/silence those not adhering to the party line.
“The philosophers have hitherto only interpreted the world in various ways, the point, however, is to change it.” - Karl Marx
"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy." - Hamlet Act 1
Words like woke, conservative, and liberal are often used in political discourse to label people, groups, or ideas. But what do these words actually mean? And why are they so vague and controversial?
One way to approach this question is to use the concept of **empty signifiers**. An empty signifier is a word or phrase that has no clear or fixed meaning but can be filled with different meanings by different people. For example, the word "democracy" can mean different things to different people: some may think of free elections, others may think of human rights, and others may think of social justice. The word "democracy" does not have a single or objective definition, but rather depends on how people interpret it in different contexts.
Similarly, words like woke, conservative, and liberal can be seen as empty signifiers that have no precise or universal meaning. These words can mean different things to different people: some may associate them with certain values, beliefs, policies, or identities; others may use them as insults or compliments; and others may reject them altogether. These words do not have a clear or consistent signified (the thing that they refer to), but rather depend on how people use them as signifiers (the symbols that represent something).
One reason why these words are empty signifiers is because they are often used in **hegemonic** ways. This means that they are used to represent a diverse and complex set of demands or interests as if they were unified and coherent. For example, the word "woke" can be used to represent a variety of social justice movements or causes as if they were all part of one single agenda. The word "conservative" can be used to represent a range of political views or ideologies as if they were all based on one common principle. The word "liberal" can be used to represent a spectrum of economic or cultural positions as if they were all derived from one core value.
By using these words as hegemonic empty signifiers, people can try to create a sense of identity or solidarity among themselves and their allies. They can also try to exclude or oppose those who do not share their interpretation of these words. However, this also creates problems and contradictions.
Words like woke, conservative, and liberal are not clear-cut categories or labels but rather fluid and contested signs that can change over time and across contexts.
These words are not neutral or objective but rather loaded and subjective symbols that can evoke emotions and reactions.
Therefore, it is important to be aware of how these words are used and what they imply. It is also important to be critical of how these words are abused or manipulated. By doing so, we can avoid falling into simplistic or polarized views of ourselves and others.
We can also engage in more nuanced and constructive dialogues about the issues that matter to us.
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“When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.’
’The question is,’ said Alice, ‘whether you can make words mean so many different things.’
’The question is,’ said Humpty Dumpty, ‘which is to be master — that’s all.”
The comedian and YouTube political commentator RM Brown was using samples of this video to illustrate how ridiculous partisan political name-calling can be. RM Brown has some funny (in my opinion) and smart takes on a variety of political and social issues. He is good at pointing out the absurdity of the messages promoted by various right-wing paid propagandists who are popular with frightened old people and confused young men.
