Quote of the Day -- Sunday Edition

"My own view on religion is that of Lucretius. I regard it as a disease born of fear and as a source of untold misery to the human race." --Bertrand Russell, philosopher, mathematician, historian

Quote of the Day -- On Insurrection. And Treason. And Traitors

Michael Beschloss     @BeschlossDC

January 6 should be an annual day of national remembrance from now on. Americans should never forget exactly how close our democracy came to being fractured and how zealously we must always work to protect it.

Thanks, Mr. Trump!

Thanks, Republicans!

Quote of the Day -- Soon to be Ex-President Edition

"Trump will leave office with an approval rating of 34%, dismal by any measure. He is the first president since Gallup began polling never to break 50% approval. After the attack on the Capitol on January 6, the House of Representatives impeached him for a second time, and a majority of Americans think he should have been removed from office."

--Heather Cox Richardson

So Hoping This Historian and His Predictions are Incorrect

An article I think most, if not all adult Americans should probably read, if not adults across the planet, even.  It's from The Atlantic this week, online.

The Next Decade Could Be Even Worse

(Peter) Turchin likens America to a huge ship headed directly for an iceberg: “If you have a discussion among the crew about which way to turn, you will not turn in time, and you hit the iceberg directly.” The past 10 years or so have been discussion. That sickening crunch you now hear—steel twisting, rivets popping—­­is the sound of the ship hitting the iceberg...

...The fundamental problems, he says, are a dark triad of social maladies: a bloated elite class, with too few elite jobs to go around; declining living standards among the general population; and a government that can’t cover its financial positions.

The fate of our own society, he says, is not going to be pretty, at least in the near term. “It’s too late,” he told me as we passed Mirror Lake, which UConn’s website describes as a favorite place for students to “read, relax, or ride on the wooden swing.” The problems are deep and structural—not the type that the tedious process of Demo­cratic change can fix in time to forestall mayhem. Turchin likens America to a huge ship headed directly for an iceberg: “If you have a discussion among the crew about which way to turn, you will not turn in time, and you hit the iceberg directly.” The past 10 years or so have been discussion. That sickening crunch you now hear—steel twisting, rivets popping—­­is the sound of the ship hitting the iceberg.

“We are almost guaranteed” five hellish years, Turchin predicts, and likely a decade or more. The problem, he says, is that there are too many people like me. “You are ruling class,” he said, with no more rancor than if he had informed me that I had brown hair, or a slightly newer iPhone than his. Of the three factors driving social violence, Turchin stresses most heavily “elite overproduction”—­the tendency of a society’s ruling classes to grow faster than the number of positions for their members to fill. One way for a ruling class to grow is biologically—think of Saudi Arabia, where princes and princesses are born faster than royal roles can be created for them. In the United States, elites over­produce themselves through economic and educational upward mobility: More and more people get rich, and more and more get educated. Neither of these sounds bad on its own. Don’t we want everyone to be rich and educated? The problems begin when money and Harvard degrees become like royal titles in Saudi Arabia. If lots of people have them, but only some have real power, the ones who don’t have power eventually turn on the ones who do.

This next part is especially concerning if the author is correct. Note I'm only posting snippets of the original Atlantic article, too, reader.

Also unwelcome: the conclusion that civil unrest might soon be upon us, and might reach the point of shattering the country. In 2012, Turchin published an analysis of political violence in the United States, again starting with a database. He classified 1,590 incidents—riots, lynchings, any political event that killed at least one person—from 1780 to 2010. Some periods were placid and others bloody, with peaks of brutality in 1870, 1920, and 1970, a 50-year cycle. 

Here's hoping the author is wrong, of course. Somehow mistaken.  You wouldn't think we could possibly get worse than Donald Trump President and the worst, most killing, deadly international pandemic in the last more than 100 years.

Would you?

The original article appears in the December 2020 print edition with the headline “The Historian Who Sees the Future.” It was first published online on November 12, 2020.

Important, Even Required Reading--- From a Renowned, Presidential Historian

Anyone who knows anything of presidential historians does or should know at least of Michael Gerson. He's been around for years, writing and speaking on at least every President since Nixon and everywhere from many PBS broadcasts to the Washington Post and more.

In recent days, he's been still writing, of course, on this current President, Trump.

And thank goodness.

Herewith, just a few of his columns on this man and his Presidency. I consider them required reading for all adult Americans. Especially for all adult Americans who care for or about our nation.

Trump’s diminished moral capacity is on full display

Saying nothing while Russia pays to have U.S. soldiers killed would be a new ethical low.

Jun 29, 2020

Trump has raised the white flag 

in the fight against covid-19

As his Tulsa rally confirmed, the president is choosing his own interests over those of public health.

Jun 22, 2020

The stage is being set for the repudiation 

of Donald Trump in November

The president is a failure without peer.

Jun 18, 2020

Twitter is our window into Trump’s shriveled soul

If the president’s behavior doesn’t revolt you, you have lost the capacity for revulsion.

Jun 11, 2020

Every crisis America faces has been made worse 

by Trump

Enough with explaining him. Just defeat him.

Jun 1, 2020

And for all of this, all of this that is and/or because of Donald Trump, I just want to importantly say "Thanks, Republicans!"

This is all on you.

Forever.

On the Republican Candidate

Historian David McCullough on the possible Donald Trump presidency.

A small tribute to HG Wells, a brilliant man

Quotes from HG Wells (with some commentary in parentheses)

In England we have come to rely upon a comfortable time-lag of fifty years or a century intervening between the perception that something ought to be done and a serious attempt to do it. (how does that not sound like us, now, in the US? ke)

If we don't end war, war will end us.

If you fell down yesterday, stand up today.

Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe.

Crime and bad lives are the measure of a State's failure, all crime in the end is the crime of the community.

Cynicism is humor in ill health.

Every time I see an adult on a bicycle, I no longer despair for the future of the human race.

A time will come when a politician who has willfully made war and promoted international dissension will be as sure of the dock and much surer of the noose than a private homicide. It is not reasonable that those who gamble with men's lives should not stake their own. (Thinking here, specifically of now-former President and Vice President George W. Bush and Dick Cheney).

Adapt or perish, now as ever, is nature's inexorable imperative. (applicable to the ongoing Copenhagen talks, at least)

Advertising is legalized lying. (ow)

Affliction comes to us, not to make us sad but sober; not to make us sorry but wise.

Moral indignation is jealousy with a halo. (I'd like to give that one to someone in particular).

One of the darkest evils of our world is surely the unteachable wildness of the Good. (hear that, all you fundamentalists around the world?)

Man is the unnatural animal, the rebel child of nature, and more and more does he turn himself against the harsh and fitful hand that reared him. (makes me think of global warming, chemicals in our food, all kinds of pollution and a lot more)

Our true nationality is mankind. (or should be, anyway)

The path of least resistance is the path of the loser. (another potential ow)

The uglier a man's legs are, the better he plays golf - it's almost a law. (man he was a funny guy)

What really matters is what you do with what you have.

Go out and have a great day. (me)

Link to more information on HG Wells: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H._G._Wells