7/10/24

 Wednesday, July 10, 2024

1917, Emma Goldman was imprisoned for obstructing the draft

1919, Woodrow Wilson delivered Treaty of Versailles to Senate

1972, the Democratic convention opened to nominate McGovern

In bed  Lights out around 9 and awake at 12:50 to let Lilly out.  I tried unsuccessfully to fall back to sleep until 1:25., thinking about a middle-of-the-night snack: cottage cheese, borscht, herring?  I chose cottage cheese, blueberries, and blackberries, finished loading and turning on the dishwasher, and turned on the dryer with my compression socks inside, and then tried 'lights out' at 3:10 and slept until 4:30 when I let Lilly out again.  Nodded off again at some point until 6:20.

Prednisone, day 59, 10 mg., day 2.  I took my pill at 4:40, relying on my earlier breakfast of cottage cheese, etc.

VA Eye Clinic, today, 12:45 p.m.  Docs say I'm OK.  Hard for me to believe with my difficulties reading and even with far vision.  All because of dry eyes?  That's what they say.

Pathetic, pitiable, ridiculous.  There are the words that come to mind as I recall Joe Biden's welcoming speech to the leaders attending NATO's 75th anniversary gathering in Washington this week.  Television cameras at the event show Biden standing at a lectern with the ever-present two teleprompters on his left and right sides, providing him with the words to utter to the audience, words written not by Biden but by his speechwriters.  He spoke the words forcefully, too forcefully, in his pathetic effort to signal strength, vigor, and determination, but all his public utterances now are play-acting, efforts to persuade the world that he is more energetic and focused than he was at last week's debate and that his newfound vigor will last throughout his 82nd, 83rd, 84th, and 85th years.   I am reminded of the drawing I did of Biden as a puppet or marionette in my 5 watercolor sketchbooks, "Life in the Time of Covid".  His handlers - most significantly including wife Jill, sister Valerie, and son Hunter (!?!?) - have kept him out of public view for most of his presidency, avoiding as much as possible opportunities for him to misspeak, to make a gaffe, to reveal his senescence.  Press conferences and probing interviews have been rare as have all unscripted public appearances where an unwelcome camera or microphone might pick up an embarassing utterance.  Now the whole world is watching his every step, listening to his every word, waiting for the embarrassing mishmash, word salad, or grbled word or syntax that will inevitably come out of his mouth.  Pathetic, pitiable, ridiculous.

Meanwhile, I keep hearing adulatory comments from Democratic politicians and talking heads about the need to respect Biden's years of "public service," as if his lifelong pursuit of high office and political power were altruistic, self-sacrificing rather than self-serving.  Does anyone really believe this happy horseshit?  Can anyone really believe that Joe Biden was motivated by a drive to serve his fellow man when he ran for the Senate at age 29 or when he ran for the presidency in 1987-88 and toyed with running again or did so in every subsequent presidential election cycle?  Give me a break.  We fool ourselves if we think that, at bottom, Joe Biden and Donald Trump are not driven by the same desire for power, Nietzsche's Machtgelüst, and egoism that drives most politicians.  They both tout the same delusion: "Only I can fix it."  Each sells himself as The Chosen One, sent to save the rest of us from the approaching Fascism or whatever label of opprobrium he can successfully associate with the other.

Anniversary thoughts.  First, Emma Goldman, the most dangerous woman in America, not much to look at but a powerful anarchist organizer with a clear understanding of the power relations in the U.S. under Capitalism.  "If voting changed anything, they'd make it illegal." "How long would authority ... exist, if not for the willingness of the masses to become soldiers, policemen, jailers, and hangmen." "Conceit, arrogance, and egotism are the essentials of patriotism... Patriotism assumes that our globe is divided into little spots, each one surrounded by an iron gate. Those who have had the fortune of being born on some particular spot consider themselves nobler, better, grander, more intelligent than those living beings inhabiting any other spot. It is, therefore, the duty of everyone living on that chosen spot to fight, kill, and die in the attempt to impose his superiority upon all the others."  "Men and women ... do you not realize that the State is the worst enemy you have? It is a machine that crushes you in order to sustain the ruling class, your masters. Like naïve children, you put your trust in your political leaders. You make it possible for them to creep into your confidence, only to have them betray you to the first bidder. But even where there is no direct betrayal, the labour politicians make common cause with your enemies to keep you on leash, to prevent your direct action. The State is the pillar of capitalism, and it is ridiculous to expect any redress from it."   She was ruthless and lethal, but I love her.  In 1892, she and her lover and lifelong friend Alexander Berkman plotted to assassinate Henry Clay Frick, head of Carnegie Steel.  Berkman's air was poor and Frick survived the shooting.  Frick's former mansion on 5th Avenue is one of my favorite places in New York City, especially the Living Hall with its portraits by Hans Holbein the Younger of Thomas More and Thomas Cromwell on either side of the big fireplace, and the El Greco portrait of St. Jerome above it.  A digression: have I long been taken by the image of Thomas More because of the extraordinary portrait by Holbein, or because he was a Catholic martyr, patron saint of lawyers, and namesake of the Thomas More Societies, or because I used to accompany Charlene Wegge to Sunday mass in her home parish of St. Thomas More, 2825 W. 81st Street?  I still get a palpitation thinking of those days of young love.  How strange the discursive thoughts that come along with thoughts of Emma Goldman.

Second, the end of one world war and the beginning of another.  Europe, the Dark Continent of Death and Destruction.

Third, what seems so remarkable now is not that the Democrats would nominate so liberal a candidate as McGovern (whom we used to see at Shorewood High School events) but that McGovern was a senator for South Dakota, now Deep Red and governed by Kristi Noem, puppy killer.