thucythucy
thucythucy's JournalThe great thing about being alive
is you're not dead.
Doesn't work though for the children who will die of preventable diseases because of RFK Jr., the hundreds of thousands who will starve now that AID is dismantled, all those who might die because their health care is cut off, those who will lose their lives to shoddy drugs and contaminated food thanks to the FDA being compromised by corporate greed-heads, not to mention victims of gay and trans bashing, immigrants who have and will be "disappeared" by ICE detention....
All of this is and will be permanent to the people affected, just like the hundreds of thousands who died during Covid because Dear Leader opposed wearing masks on account of not wanting to smear his make-up. Who told us precautions weren't necessary because the virus would magically disappear with the warm weather...
Yes, Germans who supported Hitler and survived the regime and the war were able to "change their minds."
But then that didn't do much for all the innocents who died because of that support.
I want to discontinue Facebook. Need other options
since it keeps screwing up my account, among other reasons.
What would people suggest as an alternative?
Thanks! I have to go now but will check back in a couple of hours.
The Rape of Lucretia and the Fall of the House of Trump
Trigger warning: sexual assault/suicide/Trump
It would be quite the comeuppance, quite the ironic but exquisitely just outcome if the fallout from the Epstein case were to lead to the collapse of the Trump cult and the fall of his benighted administration.
You have to go back in history quite a ways to find another instance of sexual violence against a single woman or even a group of women leading to the overthrow of a government. The one example that comes immediately to mind is the Rape of Lucretia, in the sixth century BC, which more or less directly resulted in the fall of the Roman monarchy and the institution of the Roman Republic.
The story has been recounted by some of the greatest minds in literature, and alluded to by many others. In English these include both Geoffrey Chaucer and William Shakespeare, who used the story as the subject of their poems, anglicizing her name to “Lucrece.” In Italian Lucretia appears as a character in Dante’s Inferno.
Rome at this time was governed by a king, much like all the other city states of the Mediterranean world. The Tarquins had ruled for centuries and through some seven generations, but they over time become more and more arbitrary, more and more tyrannical. According to Livy, Tarquinius Superbus was particularly despotic—“superbus” in Latin meaning “arrogant, proud”—while his son Sextus Tarquinius or Tarquin was equally arrogant and dissolute.
“Under Tarquin the Proud brutality and decadence flourished. Tarquin did not hesitate to use violence to maintain power. He disrespected the Senate and most Roman traditions. While he and his relatives devoted themselves to pleasure, his henchmen carried out campaigns of political murder to remove any and all opposition.”
The Rape of Lucretia and the Birth of the Roman Republic
http://www.vta-romae.com/lucretia.html.
Lucretia was the daughter of a Roman magistrate and the wife of a prominent Roman general. She and her husband Collatinus were known for their devotion to each other, and both were respected and well liked by the public. While Collatinus was away on a military campaign, Sextus Tarquinius snuck into Lucretia's apartment and raped her, threatening to kill her if she didn’t comply and keep his crime a secret. After he left Lucretia instead sent messengers to her husband and father, asking them to each bring some other member of the elite whose word would be trusted by the citizenry. She told them what had happened and made them all swear that Tarquin be punished, even if a member of the royal family. And then, before the eyes of her shocked onlookers, she produced a knife and stabbed herself to death.
Her body was taken to the Forum, where her husband, father, and the other notables told both the Senate and the crowd what Tarquin had done. Seeing Lucretia’s body and hearing what had happened, the Senators and citizens in general were so outraged that they determined to end the rule of the Tarquins and drive them from the city. Hearing of the rage of the people, the Tarquins fled for their lives. The Roman monarchy was then abolished and a republic formed in its place, which lasted until the advent of Caesar Augustus some four centuries later.
I can’t think of another instance in history where violence against a single woman, or even a generation of women, has resulted in the complete overthrow of a tyranny and a fundamental restructuring of government. And given the depth of MAGA delusions and the control Trump and his enablers have over the media and all three branches of government, I tend to doubt that the Epstein case will have the same effect, even if documents are released that directly and convincingly connect Trump to the sexual abuse of underage girls. Which I suppose is a statement about how far the re-election of Trump has undermined my faith in the strength of our democracy and the sagacity and even the basic decency of the American people. It is indeed sad to think that the people of 21st century America—“the Land of the Free and Home of the Brave”--seem to care less about the morality of those in their government than people living in a late Bronze Age city state some 2500 years ago.
Then again, this just might turn enough of his base against him to significantly lessen Trump’s grip on our body politic. I’ve been hoping against hope that Trump would end up subject to a well-deserved prison sentence, but at this point I’d quite happily settle for his exile, along with that of smarmiest members of his family.
I think of these lines penned so many centuries ago:
“Courageous Roman, do not steep thy heart
In such [un]relenting dew of lamentations,
But kneel with me and help to bear thy part
To rouse our Roman gods with invocations
That they will [not] suffer these abominations,
Since Rome herself in them doth stand disgraced….
[And] when they had sworn to this advisèd doom,
They did conclude to bear dead Lucrece thence,
To show her bleeding body [throughout all] Rome,
And so to publish Tarquin’s foul offense,
Which being done with speedy diligence,
The Romans with applause did give consent
To Tarquin’s everlasting banishment.”
William Shakespeare, “The Rape of Lucrece.”
"The perception of decline" is what stands out for me in your post,
along with terms such as "relative" and "potential."
A "relative decline" might be no decline at all. "Shrinking military advantages"--compared to what other nation? Russia? India? Those nations that are making the most significant new investments in military infrastructure, and are most rapidly growing in military capability happen mostly to be our allies. And it seems every day I read something on DU about China's now faltering economy, its demographic problems, its environmental issues that are only now being recognized. China in recent years has managed to alienate the other major nations of the Pacific rim--its neighbors--with its bellicose rhetoric and muscle flexing, to the point that Japan, the Philippines, Australia and others are now beefing up their own armed forces. If anything, China may now be at the peak of its relative power. In the past it had mainly to deal with the US military on the Pacific rim. Thanks to its sabre rattling-- and its support of North Korea--Japan is now making or about to make an enormous expansion of its own military. Even tiny Singapore is hastily arming.
I think the referenced "shift" in "moral, social and behavioral issues" is code for increased rights for LGBTQ peoples. Often when I hear of "America's decline" it is precisely in reference to the increased acceptance of gay people, especially by post Boomer generations. As you point out, "the rhetoric of American decline" is a long standing American tradition, most especially by the right. William F. Buckley wrote about the "decline" of American "civilization" caused by the impending passage of the Voting Rights Act. Right wing groups have long bemoaned our "decline" in morals--meaning their distaste for women's increasing opportunity to control their own sexual lives, the increased visibility of gay people, the rise in multi-racial families--all of these are to them evidence of "American decline."
All of this is tried and true right wing BS, and often echoed down the decades by those on the extreme left. Indeed, various Marxists have been touting American decline since the 1920s. In today's political climate this feeds into MAGA delusions. And when Trump tells us "only I can fix it," he's not talking about the disparity in wealth or declines in health outcomes. He means the relative loss of white male privilege and hegemony, which I for one don't at all see as a "decline of America."
That I think is the most significant factor in the rise of Trump and Trumpism. The existence of gender neutral bathrooms and the increased visibility of trans people were salient issues in this past election--thanks to clever targeting and messaging by the right. The fact that our candidate was a Black woman was also a major factor in how this past election played out.
Racism and sexism and homophobia are long standing American realities. They are major factors in explaining where we are today.
This illustrates the problem inherent in so many people
getting their news and other information from social media.
These sorts of disinformation and misinformation campaigns go a long way to explaining what's going to happen tomorrow. Facebook, Tik Tok, X, and Wiki, all apparently have been swamped with nefarious posters whose job seems to be to spread as much hate and conspiracy shit as they can, or in the words of at least one prominent MAGA strategist, "to flood the zone with shit."
Good for Wiki for at last dealing with this--though it's been a problem for years now. Holocaust denial, "Lost Cause" racist revisionists trying to rewrite the history of the American Civil War, conspiracy crap about Covid, all have been rampant. You can see it in the comments sections of YouTube videos, where some posters push back against this garbage, while some content providers turn off their comments sections entirely.
With so much of our media--social and legacy--now in the hands of right wing billionaires, we face an uphill battle trying to work our way to having an informed electorate. Until then, expect Trump, MAGA, and oligarchs and tyrants around the world to ride this tide of bullshit for all its worth.
The same could have been said about "good Germans" in the 1930s.
Yes, there were lots of decent, kind people who tried to live good lives to the extent that they could. No doubt they were good neighbors, kind to their children and elders, generous and helpful.
But this didn't stop their society from descending into a prolonged fit of xenophobic and racist madness. Their politicians solicited and then encouraged the worst among them to take charge, with the horrific results we all must remember.
I hope, of course, that the next four years won't see that level of depravity here, but at the moment I don't see much by the way of barriers to check our own descent.
The saddest part, to me, is that unlike Germany in the 1930s we aren't in the midst of a widespread depression coming on the heels of hyperinflation, or recovering from the trauma of a lost war in which millions of our citizens died. Ww haven't suffered a "Starvation Blockade." We haven't lost hunks of our country to any foreign foe. No, the USA is, we keep telling ourselves, the richest, most powerful nation on earth. Most Americans are relatively comfortable, certainly far more comfortable than the average German in 1932. And even at the height of their misery, the majority of German voters actually rejected Hitler and his Nazis, who were installed into power after losing an election by a cartel of senile and corrupt politicians.
By contrast, fully half of our voters evidently need targets for their hatred, and are entirely comfortable with an adjudicated rapist as commander in chief. At the very least millions of them have bought into various narratives that are as absurd as they are obscene. Immigrants eating our pets. Schools operating on boys to turn them into girls. Medical scientists who've spent their lives in public service as part of some conspiracy to bring down the nation via a "phony" pandemic.
I'm glad you run into kind people. I have many kind and generous people in my life as well.
To me this doesn't cancel out the fact that our national government is about to embark on an exercise in calculated cruelty in which the most vulnerable among us, and those least deserving of abuse, will be made to suffer.
And for what? Why is it so many "decent" Americans felt compelled to set us on this course?
No doubt there's no simple answer. But then, there's also no way for so many of us to avoid he consequences of this most recent election.
Best wishes to you and yours--
There are so many problems, not with the message but with
the astounding level of misinformation and plain ignorance with which we have to contend.
One example: some voters voted for Trump because his name was on the stimulus checks sent out during the worst of the Covid pandemic. They thought it was Trump personally writing them a check.
A quote heard by a friend of mine:
"Trump sent me all this money, but Biden never sent me a cent!"
As a culture we are beyond neck deep in BS.
And I have no idea how to go about fixing it, certainly not in the short term.
It's relatively easy to explain how Shakespeare could have set his plays
in places he'd never visited.
For many of them he relied on older plays or--in the case of the history plays--biographies or other works of history, most notably Raphael Holinshed's Chronicles of England, Scotland and Ireland. Romeo and Juliet, set in Italy, was a well known story that had already been published--as poetry--in French, Italian, and English. The English poem was a best seller in its day, written by Arthur Brooke, and several plays based on his poem were acted even before Shakespeare's.
Similarly, Shakespeare's work is full of nautical expressions and allusions. Although there's no evidence--none that I'm aware of anyway--that he ever went to sea, the pubs of London at the time were always filled with sailors, and Shakespeare might well have gotten his nautical knowledge from them.
Of course much of his work is totally original--at least we don't know of earlier versions. This is especially true of his characters. While the main plot of "Much Ado About Nothing" is based on a story by Matteo Bandello, the subplot about the love/hate relationship between Benedick and Beatrice is entirely Shakespeare's and is far and away the best part of the play. This happens quite often. Shakespeare takes a rather mediocre source--and Bandello's story is in fact pretty awful--and punches it up almost beyond recognition. Mark Antony's speech in Julius Caesar is another example of this. Shakespeare's source was evidently an English translation of Plutarch's Lives, but Plutarch only mentions that Antony used his speech to inflame the crowd. The speech that famously begins, "Friends Romans countrymen lend me your ears" was entirely Shakespeare's.
Just an aside: if you want a treat, find Marlon Brando's rendition of this speech. An absolutely amazing performance.
Yes, Shakespeare was a genius. But it isn't any magical knowledge of places and people he never saw or met, but rather his stunning use of language that sets him so far above other writers.
I watched the episode.
It makes me want to delve into the series some more.
I think there's a growing willingness to look at the post war period with a bit more nuance, "nuance" seeming to be one of my favorite words these days.
Even in Germany there was a reluctance to bring up the miseries and violence of the post war period. The publication of A Woman in Berlin: Eight Weeks in a Conquered City, was somewhat controversial at the time, with some people uneasy about dredging up this part of the past. Have you read it? There's a movie now based on the book but I haven't seen it. I'll give you a trigger warning, since the book describes in some detail what the Soviet soldiers did in the immediate aftermath of the battle.
There were a few accounts earlier on that didn't flinch at the reality, and I'll post trigger warnings for these as well. The Last Battle by Cornelius Ryan came out in 1966, and describes the mass rapes during and in the aftermath of the battle for Berlin. Susan Brownmiller, in Against Our Will: Men Women and Rape devotes some pages to the topic as well. And there's a movie, Town Without Pity, the fictional account of a German girl gang raped by a group of American soldiers that came out in 1961. But by and large the topic was brushed under the carpet. And all of these early accounts, the ones I know of anyway, are by American or British authors, not German. When Gunter Grass describes a rape in The Tin Drum, he even turns it into something of a joke.
The damage the Nazis did is incalculable, and the fact that the ideology still holds an attraction to so many people is appalling.
I'm holding my breath until the election, and probably won't feel totally relieved until President Harris is sworn in on January 20.
Thanks again, and best wishes.
You're right about these horrid aspects of American history,
and I should have qualified that statement to recognize these cardinal sins of America's past.
And it's also true that the descendants of ethnic Germans make up the largest single block of current American citizens.
Which is interesting given how little attention is paid to their role in American history, both good and bad.
For instance, Ronald Takaki in his book A Different Mirror: A History of Multicultural America, is virtually silent on this aspect of our multicultural history. In fact, "Germans" as a ethnicity are mentioned only twice in his 493 pages. One of these references is to German Jews, one is to note that, unlike Japanese Americans, German Americans weren't sent to camps during WWII. "Germany" as a nation is mentioned once, in relation to the murder of ethnic Turks in that nation. Nothing about, for instance, the intense persecution of German Americans during WWI, which included the closing of most German language newspapers, laws passed banning the teaching of German in public schools, and so on:
https://www.immigrantentrepreneurship.org/entries/german-americans-during-world-war-i/
The role of ethnic Germans in American society is also nuanced.
The failed revolutions of 1848, when uprisings across Germany and Austria sought to replace the various autocracies, led to thousands of German liberals and radicals having to flee for their lives. Many came to the US, where they joined progressive causes here. German-Americans, for instance, became a major part of the abolitionist movement, and were a significant pro-Lincoln voting block in 1860 and 1864. They also volunteered for service in the Union army in disproportionate numbers. Ironically, the common belief of the time was that Germans made poor soldiers, on account of their perceived pacifist beliefs.
Similarly, the rise of the Nazi regime in 1933 led to more thousands fleeing the country, with many again coming to the States. Scientists, artists, authors, film makers all made significant contributions to American culture. There was, again, a dark side to this in that after the war the US government brought over German scientists, Werner von Braun being the most famous, who were pro-Nazi or at the very least had been willing to put their talents in the service of a genocidal regime.
You perhaps already know all this history, and I post this here simply to add to the discussion.
In terms of "complicity," German-Americans such as myself have benefited from and continue to benefit from all the advantages of white privilege. This part of my heritage is in fact much more problematic than my ties and roots to Germany. For instance, my various though trivial interactions with the law might have had a very different outcome had I had a darker complexion. And my parents, as white immigrants, no doubt had an easier time making their way in America than so many others, both immigrants and native born people of color, and I of course have benefited from their advantages. Then too, my status as an American, hyphenated or not, means that I accrue advantages not open to many people around the world. My carbon footprint--though much smaller than your typical American--nonetheless is no doubt considerably larger than the majority of people on this planet.
So even though my immediate family only participated in American culture post 1940s and into the '50s, I still can't escape my own part as a beneficiary, so to speak, of all the horrors that came before. Indeed, the very land on which I live, this plot of ground on which I'm typing these words, was no doubt stolen from peoples who received no compensation and have largely been hounded out of existence.
Please forgive the length of this post. I do tend to ramble some, don't I?
And thank you again for your post and kind words.
Best wishes.
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