5/10/2026

 Sunday, May 10, 2026

1960 John F. Kennedy won presidential primary in West Virginia

1968 Vietnam peace talks began in Paris between the US and North Vietnam

1969 US troops began the attack on Hill 937 ("Hamburger Hill"), Vietnam

1976 Paul Harvey's daily syndicated program "The Rest of the Story" premiered on the ABC Radio Networks, continuing until his death in 2009

2012 Pope Benedict XVI signed a decree of canonization of the Benedictine nun and composer Hildegard von Bingen, completing the sainthood process started in 1228

2017 President Donald Trump shared classified information about ISIS plot with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Ambassador Sergey Kislyak in the Oval Offic

In bed at 9, awakened at 1:40 by Low Glucose Alarm, moved to LZB at 3:25, did weigh-in at 3:40, and moved to Tv room by 4.  Several consecutive low glucose warnings yesterday afternoon/evening.0350112/54/32 133 205.0; 39/57/37, sunny morning, cloudy afternoon.   

Morning meds at 7:30 a.m., half dose of Bisoprolol at7:10 a.m.   

I've started reading The Consequences of Capitalism: Manufacturing Discontent and Resistence (2021) by Noam Chomsky and Marv Waterstone.  They posit that there are two forms of government: hegemony and coercion.  Hegemony is government by and with the consent of the governed and coercion of course is the opposite.  They acknowledge that this is actually a continuum and that even hegemonic governments have aspects of coerciveness in some circumstances.  They argue that governments that claim to be hegemonic must claim that the governors act on behalf of and for the benefit of the governed.  This is the source of their hegemonic legitimacy and it requires that the governed believe that the governors act on behalf of the whole.  It's clear that they will make the case that America's capitalist government does not act on behalf of us governed, but rather on behalf of the interests of capitalists, corporations, banks, and financial institutions of many sorts, all representing what I call Big Money, accumulated capital.  I come to the book already believing this and I don't know whether I will get through the almost 400 pages of the book.  I know that I live and learn in a silo, like perhaps all of us, and my silo is philosophically anarchistic, anti-capitalist, anti-authoritarian, deeply distrustful of Power and the powerful, and of claims of Authority.  I don't believe that the American government acts on behalf of and for the benefit of all Americans.  I don't believe that it derives its authority from the consent of the governed.  I don't believe that it is very "democratic." I don't believe that 'all men are created equal,' nor that 'they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights.'  I believe those notions are what we used to call in Vietnam "happy horseshit," propaganda issued by the powerful in Washington and Saigon to persuade, to cajole, to inveigle or mollify the powerless to do what is necessary for the purposes of the powerful.  I believe that, as Thucydides wrote in his history of the Peloponnesian War, "The powerful do what they will, and the weak suffer what they must."  I believe, alas, that the miscreant Stephen Miller was correct when he said "We live in the real world that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, and that is governed by power.  These are the iron laws of the world since the beginning of time."  One may argue with Thucydides and with Stephen Miller, but it seems to me that they have all of human history on their side.  Did Thomas Jefferson have anyone or any evidence on his side in arguing that 'all men are created equal' or that governments derive their authority from the consent of the governed?  Wasn't that just a pipe dream until the rebels (who constituted probably a minority of the colonists) defeated the Brits and their allies militarily?  That is to say, until they killed them and otherwise sufficiently hurt them to persaude them to go away? to give up?  Wasn't the Revolutinary War just another contest of strength, force , power against competing strength, force, power?  One review of the book that I read describe this book as "a horror story to read" about our country, but that's only because the truth hurts.  

The cartoon is one I drew of myself, on a piece of cardboard, with my signature beret, in 2021, wide-eyed, fearful, and chagrinned over the world we were living in then, signified by the name of Samuel Alito because of all that he portended, and Vladimir Putin (ditto), and references to climate, atomic weaponry,  abortion by coathanger, election corruption, the MAGA movement, and the coup/insurrection on January 6th of that year.  Little did I suspect, though, at that time, that the American public would re-elect Trump, voting in 2024 in even greater numbers than his 2016 numbers, to put him back in power and lead to the nightmare we are living through now and will suffer from for many years.