11/4/24

 Monday, November 4, 2024

1958 Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli was crowned as Pope John XXIII

1979 500 Iranian students loyal to Ayatollah Khomeini seized the US Embassy in Tehran

1980  Ronald Reagan was elected President of the United States

1989 Alexanderplatz demonstrations for political reforms drew over half a million people in East Berlin, a significant event that led to the fall of the Berlin Wall

2008 Barack Obama became the first African-American to be elected President of the United States, defeating John McCain

In bed around 8:oo, awake around 3:15, and up at 3:30.  Let Lilly out at 3:45.  Very painful upper back, both sides.   

Prednisone, day 174, 5 mg., day 25/28.  Prednisone at 4:50.  Morning meds later. . .  I took another 15 mg.s of prednisone when I returned from the visit with Dr. Ryzka.  

Dr. Ryzka at 11:30.  It looks like it is a recurrence of the PMR.  He increased my prednisone dosage to 20 mg. today, then 15 mg. for 5 days, then 10 mg. for another 5 days, then back to 7.5 mg. until our next visit.  He also had me undergo another blood draw to ascertain that I'm eligible for an alternate treatment which he may order at our next meeting.  I write this note at 3:15 p.m. I'm semi-exhausted after being more thoroughly exhausted all morning and napping for the last hour.  How much of this fatigue condition is prednisone, how much is the change from daylight savings time, and how much is it from old age?

Will tomorrow's election help or hurt the country?  Odds are we will be more polarized, divided, at one another's throats, after the election than we are today.  In one sense, it's hard to believe we could be more divided, but it seems almost certain that we will be.  If, as I think is more likely, Trump prevails, by hook or by crook, anti-Trumpers will be devastated, aghast, disgusted, and angry at those who enabled his accession to Power.  If he wins while losing the popular vote again, the anger and disgust will be deeper.  If he wins by shenanigans, it will be deeper still.  We already know how Trump supporters will react if Harris wins: claims of voter fraud.  God only knows how some of them will behave but my money is on violence of some sort, more destructive and more lethal than January 6, 2021.  As I often said to my dear sister after one of my Cassandra prophecies, I hope I'm wrong.  I'm pretty good at being wrong as my predictions of the outcomes of the 2022 midterm elections show.  From my journal a year ago:

Denny the Downer

    For years I burdened my dear sister with predictions that America is turning hard right.  I still feel that way though I recognize that as much as anything my fears are rooted in a deep-seated pessimism in me.  I'll see how rational a prognosticator I am next week.

Wisconsin: Barnes loses, Evers loses

Pennsylvania: Fetterman loses to Charlatan, Mastriano loses

Arizona: Keri Lake beats Hobbs, Mark Kelly loses to Blake Nimrod

Georgia: Stacey Abrams loses to Kemp, ?? Herschel Walker, Warnock

Florida: Val Demings loses to Rubio, DeSantis beats Crist

Texas: Greg Abbott wins over Beto O'Rourke

Ohio: J. D. Vance wins over Tim Ryan

New Hampshire: Hassan over Bolduc

North Carolina: Budd over Beasley

Nevada: Laxalt beats Cortez Masto

NBC News is reporting that Trump intends to announce his candidacy for a second term soon after the midterm next week, hoping to follow in the footsteps of his corrupt right-wing buddy, Benjamin Netanyahu. Israel is always facing the issue of National Identity, whether it can exist as a Jewish state and a democracy with its demographics. We have been going through an Identify Crisis since at least the political campaigns leading up to the 2016 selection of Trump's the Republican standard bearer and the defeat of Hillary Clinton, who won the popular vote.  Ditto the 2020 campaign when compromise candidate and perennial Joe Biden was selected and won both the popular vote and the Electoral College, but occasioned a widespread rejection of election votes by Republicans.   Joe Biden gave a big speech the other night warning that 'democracy is on the ballot' next Tuesday, seemingly thinking that everyone considers 'democracy' and specifically American-style 'democracy' is a universal value.  Niebuhr asserts, correctly I think, that no one wants democracy for its own sake, but rather one accepts democracy as a compromise out of the realization that we can't always get our way.  If we could count on always getting our way, we would scrap democracy in favor of Power.  

Niebuhr: " . . . . when collective power, whether in the form of imperialism or class domination, exploits weakness, it can never be dislodged unless power is raised against it. . . . Conflict is inevitable and in this conflict power must be met with power. . . . Contending factions in a social struggle require morale that is created by the right dogmas, symbols, and emotionally potent oversimplification. . . . The world of history, particularly in man's collective behavior, will never be conquered by reason, unless reason uses tools, and is itself driven by forces that are not rational.

Reminded of Oriana Fallaci: "No matter what system you live under, there is no escaping the law that it is always the strongest, the cruelest, the least generous who win."

It's similar to the situation with the touted "Rule of Law."  No one really believes that Law is always a Good to be valued.  Sometimes Law is good, often it is not.  Law in one way or another reflects the will of the Powerful, not the will of the Good.  Witness the American tax code.  Witness our 'sacred' Constitution and its minoritarian bias.  Republicans today simply act out their self-interest. If Democracy disfavors their interests, the hell with Democracy.  Limit the franchise by restrictive laws and gerrymanders and acquire control of the apparatus of vote-counting.  Truth be told, Democrats would operate the same way if they could.  The Republicans are just much much better at instrumental politics than the Democrats are: stronger, most cruel, least generous.  Look at Mitch McConnell's handling of the nominations of  Merrick Garland and Amy Coney Barrett.

Anniversaries.  Anelo Roncalli, my favorite pope.  Vatican II, a good try.

 The seizure of the embassy and the American hostages meant Jimmy Carter never had a chance in the 1980 election, especially after the rescue attempt blew up.

Reagan over Carter, what can one say?

The fall of the Berlin Wall and the blow-up of the Soviet Union gives one hope that that would be a tomorrow after a second Trump term in the White House but the political future looks bleak, even if Harris wins.  America's coming apart.

Obama's election gave us hope.  It also led directly to the formation of the Tea Party and the White backlash that gave us President Trump.  Be careful what we wish for.