The Clown Prince

I have no interest whatsoever in knowing the Great Pretender's reading habits. (I sometimes envision the White House bookshelves lined with hundreds of copies of the ghostwritten The Art Of The Deal.) But I digress.

Whatever his reading habits might be, someone at some point in his life must have told him about Nicolo Machiavelli. The Italian diplomat and writer is best known today for his book The Prince, which many people associate with the concept "divide and conquer."

In The Prince, written in 1513, Machiavelli discusses ways in which the ruler of a government, whom he calls simply "a prince," might govern his land, offering different approaches to princes who have come to power in various ways, from the affirmation of his people to crookedness and villainy. (What might he have thought of an ex-host of a wretched TV "reality" show?) Sorry, digressing again.

He does have some blanket suggestions for all princes:

     "A prince ought to have no other aim or thought, nor select anything else for his study, than war and its rules and discipline; for this is the sole art that belongs to him who rules, and it is of such force that it not only upholds those who are born princes, but it often enables men to rise from a private station to that rank." *

That last idea would certainly resound with the unpresident.

Machiavelli's ideal prince is:

     "[A man who] deems it necessary in his new principality to secure himself against enemies, to gain friends, to conquer by force or fraud, to make himself beloved and feared by the people, followed and reverenced by the soldiers, to destroy those who can and may injure him, introduce innovations into old customs, to be severe and kind, magnanimous and liberal, suppress the old militia, create a new one, maintain the friendship of kings and princes in such a way that they are glad to benefit him and fear to injure him." **

This ideal prince shows different faces in different situations and speaks with a forked tongue. This is, in a sense, one way of dividing and conquering: set different sides at odds by telling them different "truths."

To the best of my knowledge the actual phrase "divide and conquer" does not appear in the original The Prince. Nor do I believe it to be in his later book, The Art of War.

Machiavelli was a soldier and strategian who knew war, which raged in greater or lesser conflicts all over Europe during his time. Today we're not talking a violent war, although the Clown Prince seems to think of himself as a generalissimo in the war on an invisible enemy (Movie: Superclown vs. The Virus From Outer Wuhan). But I digress yet again.

Machiavelli's ideas can still be applied, not in terms of actual war, but in the ideational struggles of our time: politics, corporate takeovers, stock market shenanigans, more politics.

This we know about the Clown Prince: The press is told one thing, the people another, then both stories are denied. At a public appearance one set of plans is proposed; at a meeting of people who can lend megabucks to a campaign something else is said; governors hear yet another swindle.

Fears about COVID-19 are raised, disputed, then argued some more. Qualified experts are touted, then denigrated when they start telling the truth. We get lie upon lie, hoax upon hoax, disrespect upon disrespect. It's the oldest con trick in the book: Keep your mark off balance.

"Deceive, Inveigle, Obfuscate." I've used that line from "The X-files" elsewhere, but we're seeing it everywhere now as the unpresident pulls out every dirty trick imaginable finagle re-election. 

I know I'm preaching to the choir, but shall we not put down our music books and pick up bullhorns? 

 --- Diogenes, 5/7/20

* Machiavelli, Niccolo: The Prince, tr. Luigi Ricci. Oxford: The Oxford University Press, 1909, ch. 14.

** Machiavelli, Niccolo: The Prince, tr. Luigi Ricci. Oxford: The Oxford University Press, 1909, ch. 7.

On The Booboisie

I'm bringing out my man H. L. Mencken for an encore.

A couple of days ago I noted that Mencken called the American species Boobus Americanus. He refined that tag for "plain folk," as he called the middle class. He referred to them as the Booboisie, and wrote this about them:

"Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance. No one in this world, so far as I know--and I have researched the records for years, and employed agents to help me--has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people. Nor has anyone ever lost public office thereby."*  [My emphasis]

Yes, that is harsh. Mencken was a snob, but he was also an astute observer of human behavior, and he called them as he saw them. An unfortunate fact of today's American society is that so many of us have become so politically correct we no longer actually say anything. We prevaricate, hedge, circumlocute and tergiversate** all over the place in our attempt to avoid insulting anyone.

I'm going to adopt Mencken's straightforward approach temporarily and do some generalizing.

Most of us have asked at one time or another who voted for Trump. Some of us have found the answer, which turns out to be what we expected, but for those who haven't yet got there, here it is, based on four independent studies of voting patterns.*** Most of these traits are found in a majority, but not the totality, of Trump voters.

The typical Trump voter in 2016 was most likely to be:

• White
• Male
• Older than 45
• Conservative
• A high school graduate, possibly with some college
• Protestant or Evangelical
• A rural or suburban resident
• Earning more than $50,000 per year
• A veteran
• Primarily concerned about terrorism and immigration
• Supportive of the Mexican border wall and similar projects
• Angry with the federal government
• Convinced that Trump was honest, trustworthy, and qualified to be president. 

And there, my friends, is the Booboisie.

--- Diogenes, 5/6/20

* Mencken, H. L., Notes On Democracy, 1926
** A great word; I just learned it.
*** Business Insider: https://www.businessinsider.com/exit-polls-who-voted-for-trump-clinton-2016-11
    CNN: https://www.cnn.com/election/2016/results/exit-polls
    Pew Research Center: https://www.people-press.org/2018/08/09/for-most-trump-voters-very-warm-feelings-for-him-endured/
    Roper Center for Public Opinion Research: https://ropercenter.cornell.edu/how-groups-voted-2016
    

Death In Ohio

I was forcibly reminded today that yesterday was the 50th anniversary of the Kent State massacre in Ohio. To my shame, I had forgotten the date. But not the event.

On May 4, 1970, armed Ohio National Guard troops who had been mobilized by Republican Governor Jim Rhodes confronted a group of students on the campus of Kent State University in Kent, Ohio. The students were protesting the American bombing of Cambodia, a neutral country. It was a major escalation of the Vietnam War.

Members of the Guard shot four students to death and wounded 9 others for exercising their First Amendment rights. Governor Rhodes denounced the protesters as terrorists, comparing them to communists, Nazis and the KKK, and calling them "the worst type of people that we harbor in America."

Say what? These were Americans exercising their rights. But Richard Nixon was president, and protest was not well tolerated.

I am aware that the Constitution gives us the right peaceably to assemble, and that passions were high at Kent State. The mayor of Kent and officers of the university had been spooked by rumors of everything from LSD in the water supply to plans to blow up the ROTC building.

The National Guard continues to deny any order to fire. Some of the guardsmen had been pelted with bricks and pieces of concrete. Some claimed they were responding to small-arms fire, others to reports of a rooftop sniper.

In fear or anger they fired indiscriminately, and 13 people, some of whom weren't involved at all, were hit.

Most of us who were active in what we naively called the Revolution abhorred violence. Kent State shocked us deeply and changed the protest movement in America. We had to decide how we would respond to the use of force.

One of our major goals was to get American soldiers out of Southeast Asia; but now we had a new concern. If they did come home, would the president turn them loose on us?


--- Diogenes, 5/5/20

 

A Moron In The White House

I've been thinking about H. L. Mencken recently, wondering what he might make of today's political situation. I admire the irreverent muckraking, wisecracking journalist whose work for The Baltimore Sun, The American Mercury, The Smart Set, and other journals enlivened American journalism from the 1920s through the '40s.

Mencken was an archetypal curmudgeon. He disliked everything: government, marriage, religion, politicians and people. He poked the rich, prodded the poor, and disparaged the middle classes. He coined the phrase "monkey trial" for Tennessee v. Scopes and referred to the American people as Boobus Americanus.

A bit less than a century ago he wrote this as part of a piece on elected officials:

"As democracy is perfected, the office of the president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. We move toward a lofty ideal. On some great and glorious day, the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron."*

We have reached that day, perhaps for this reason: "The men the American people admire most extravagantly are the most daring liars; the men they detest most violently are those who try to tell them the truth."**

Mencken claimed to dislike all forms of government including democracy, but he was well aware of the value and potential fragility of the American system: "The only good bureaucrat is one with a pistol at his head. Put it in his hand and it's good-bye to the Bill of Rights."***

Mencken may have disliked government, but he certainly had his finger on its pulse. He even anticipated Mitch McConnell: "Moral certainty is always a sign of cultural inferiority. The more uncivilized the man, the surer he is that he knows precisely what is right and what is wrong."****

Mencken was not just a complainer. He had suggestions for righting social and political wrongs, and gave us some challenges for defeating government oppression (sorry for the sexclusive language):

     "All government, in its essence, is a conspiracy against the superior man: its one permanent object is to oppress him and cripple him.  The most dangerous man to any government is the man who is able to think things out for himself, without regard to the prevailing superstitions and taboos."***** (My emphasis).

And he reminds us: "It doesn't take a majority to make a rebellion; it takes only a few determined leaders and a sound cause."******

We have the cause, getting rid of the moron in the White House. Let's find a few leaders.


--- Diogenes, 5/4/20



*Baltimore Evening Sun, 7/26/1920
**The Smart Set, vol. 67, 1922
***Baltimore Evening Sun, 3/13/1933
****Mencken, H. L., Minority Report, p. 282
*****"Le Contrat Social", in: Prejudices: Third Series (1922)
******The Smart Set, Vol, 71, p, 144

Apologies

My apologies to everyone who has commented on a post and received no response. The fault was mine, a mistake in setting up the program.

I knew I should have asked a grandchild to do it.

Diogenes will be back tomorrow with H. L. Mencken.


---  Richard Brown, 5/3/20

В «Правде» нет «Известий», в «Известиях» нет «Правды»

The Russian title is a pun about newspapers in the Soviet era. There were two national papers: Izvestiya, which roughly translates as "News," was the official newspaper of the Soviet government; Pravda, which means "Truth," was the official news outlet of the Central Committee of the Communist Party.

The pun says, "There is no 'Izvestiya' in 'Pravda,' and no 'Pravda' in 'Izvestiya'." That is, "There is no news in the truth and no truth in the news," and speaking it in the wrong company could get you tossed in jail.

That is why the framers of the Constitution insisted on free speech and a free press.

As Americans we have the right not only to say what we think, but also to publish it. If the government takes a position we do not agree with, we are free to speak and publish protests against it. 

American journalism has been something of a rough-and-tumble enterprise almost from the beginning, but it has always been imbued with a kind of nobility, especially when reporting the news. Such was the case through the era of radio and the first few decades of television.

Sadly, it has not been the case since the mid-1980s when Rupert Murdoch began infecting American news media. Through the 1980s and '90s, entertainment gained primacy, which led to news programs that had more in common with entertainment than with traditional news reporting.

We have now reached a pass where it can be said of much American news reporting, "There is neither truth nor news in the news."

I am not going to comment on any network or station or channel, or make any recommendations based on my own opinions. What I have to offer, for those of you who might be interested, are a few links that might help navigate the sea of un-news and disinformation.

A Wikipedia article on the history of false news and how to detect it:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fake_news#Detecting_fake_news_online

The transcript library of Rev.com, where you can find verbatim transcripts of almost everything newsworthy:
https://www.rev.com/blog/transcripts

For purposes of comparing and contrasting, here's the official White House transcript site:
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/

Another site for identifying falsehoods in the news:
https://www.factcheck.org/2016/11/how-to-spot-fake-news/

There are many more such sites and I urge you to find some you like so you can do your own fact checking. I trust those above--well, except the White House, of course.


--- Diogenes, 5/2/20


 









Fox News is a brand name, not a descriptor of content.

Freedom to Think, Part 2

Yesterday I wrote about the most important freedom we have: the freedom to think, because all the types of expression enumerated in the First Amendment spring from thought. I also urged you all to exercise those First Amendment rights frequently.

I like to believe that everyone who receives these posts is an active advocate and practitioner of First Amendment rights, but I am aware of the chronic lack of interest in action, not to say apathy, that infects many Americans.

I recently mentioned the "Know-nothing" party and their habit of saying "I know nothing" when asked about their political affiliation. Here in 2020 America we say "I don't want to get involved," or "One person never makes a difference," or  "No politician ever looks at letters," or "Nothing I can do can matter."

Wrong on all counts. If you are a United States citizen you are automatically involved because the laws and rules of the nation apply to you. Changes made by politicians can affect nearly everything in your life, and you have the right to speak for or against those changes. Not exercising your rights is tantamount to not having them. If you do nothing else, vote.

One person can make a big difference. I always recall the Chinese proverb quoted by JFK: "A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step." To paraphrase, "A world-changing movement must begin with a single person." You don't have to act alone. Find an organization, locally or online, that suits your political and/or social interests and join it.

It is probably true that you won't get a personal response from letters to politicians; the best you can hope for is a form letter sent by an intern. That's not to say your action was wasted. Letters are counted and sorted by subject, and numbers count. If your representative sees a huge influx of letters on one issue, you can bet that it's going to get to a higher rung on her agenda.

Finally, the nihilist excuse: "Nothing matters." Horsefeathers. Every person matters, and every action has an impact. Where do you think you would be today if the framers of the Constitution had thought that way?

As an independent blogger with limited resources and a short reach I've asked myself more than once if researching material and sitting in front of my computer for hours is worth the effort, when maybe only a dozen people might read it. And I always come back to the same answer: Yes. We can't know where our words go. We can't know they won't make a difference to someone with influence. Above all, we must have hope and faith, and belief in our cause.

If you decide to write a letter, don't worry about your abilities, or about grammar and spelling. Do the best you can to get your point across in clear language. Don't wander off the subject. Keep it short and to the point, even if it's just one typed line. Remember the numbers game: every piece of mail helps.

Above all, regardless of how you feel about the person you are writing, be respectful. Think that you are writing to the office, not the person. Government offices in the United States are always due respect, no matter what a schlump the incumbent might be; and never, never, never, use profanity or foul language.

Finally, do not write in anger. It will go nowhere. I ask you to trust my personal experience in this. If you write an angry, inflammatory letter, save it and go away from it until you cool down. Passion can be communicated in civil language and be more effective for it. 

Happy May Day.


--- Diogenes, 5/1/20

Freedom To Think, Part 1

The freedoms guaranteed to Americans in the First Amendment are usually referred to as freedoms of expression: to worship as we choose, praising whichever deity we revere; to speak freely on any subject, and to publish our words and ideas without fear of censorship or reprisal; to gather peaceably together whenever and wherever we wish for any reason; and to approach representatives of the government freely when we have a complaint.

We take these freedoms for granted; and why not? They have been the foundation of our society all our lives, and for all the lives of our American ancestors for generations.

Using his own country as an example, Winston Churchill succinctly described the difference between democratic and totalitarian governments: “In England, everything is permitted except what is forbidden. In [Nazi] Germany, everything is forbidden except what is permitted."

The rhetorical question "It's not illegal to think, is it?" pops up frequently in crime shows, usually when a person is feeling undue pressure from police. In point of fact, in some regimes it is technically forbidden to have ideas the rulers perceive as a threat.

As far as the public knows, police and other investigative agencies haven't developed mind-reading techniques. But profiling, close watching, and electronic surveillance are the next best thing. In totalitarian societies those techniques are routinely applied to everyone. A few innocent unusual acts, an "inflammatory" word uttered, a chance meeting with a stranger, and a citizen of North Korea, Syria, or Uzbekistan might find themselves arrested on suspicion of being an enemy of the state; and suspicion is sometimes all it takes to make a person disappear.

It's not exactly thought control, but when every person in a country is automatically under suspicion of subversion and only a misstep away from arrest, it might as well be. All expression except that in praise of the government is throttled, and eventually no one but extreme revolutionaries dares to think anything else.

There are individuals in this country, many of them in power at the state or federal level, who would prefer to see such a condition in the United States. Happily for us, that would be very difficult to achieve.

But not impossible. Edmund Burke* wrote that "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”

Rights are like muscles. If not exercised, they atrophy. We the people of the United States owe it to ourselves, our ancestors and our descendants to exercise our rights, letting the present administration know our extreme displeasure with it.

Let your voice be heard. It's the most powerful weapon you have. Speak truth to wannabe tyrants in blogs, tweets, letters to editors and to your senators and representatives. Use any medium available to voice your resistance to encroaching tyranny, because you have the right to think, to speak, and to protest.

Please check in tomorrow for some thoughts on the process of protest.


--- Diogenes, 4/30/20


*The statement is attributed to Burke, with some uncertainty.

There Are None So Blind As Those Who Will Not See

The proverb in the title continues, "The most deluded people are those who choose to ignore what they already know." The biblical saying first appears in English in 1546, in "The Proverbs of John Heywood."

In the early 1860s a political movement called the Know-nothings emerged in the United States. Their philosophy was in fact not one of ignorance. The name stemmed from their desire to keep the party more or less secret; when a member was asked anything about it he would respond "I know nothing."

The phrase, however, resounds in a tendency in this country to value ignorance.

I have lately been contemplating a pair of epigrams that encapsulate our ambivalence toward learning. On one hand we say "Knowledge is power," but on the other, "Ignorance is bliss." The dichotomy is difficult, if not impossible to reconcile.

Don't we all seek power in some form? We are a competitive species; we seek to overcome others in school by getting better grades; in sports by scoring more points; in business by making more money or having a more prestigious office location. Each of those requires knowledge and understanding, whether of an academic discipline, a playbook or a corporate strategy.

But don't we all also seek bliss? We scrimp and save for Fantasyland vacations, we spend thousands on computer gaming and virtual reality systems and dream of winning the lottery, all to the end of shedding stress, relieving ourselves of work related concerns and trying, as The Beatles sang, to "turn off your mind, relax and float down stream."

Such scenarios, however, do not in themselves imply ignorance. Indeed, we have to work to earn money to get a little bliss, and working implies knowledge of something.

Who, then, can achieve bliss through ignorance? Let's define ignorance. According to the Merriam-Webster online dictionary it is "lack of knowledge, education, or awareness." Blissfulness results from not having to worry; if one knows nothing, one has nothing to worry about.

If bliss is the absence of worry and stress it follows that there is also absence of thought, as worry and stress are byproducts of thought. Having no thoughts implies the inability to think, which I doubt sounds blissful to most of us.

Still, there are some among us who are able to achieve a bliss-like state not through absence of thought but through wholesale denial of reality. They believe that problems will go away if they don't think about them; they deny their existence then deny the denial; they flout rules that they don't like; they operate outside normative behavior, and they answer to no one. 

They are Heywood's "most deluded people . . . who choose to ignore what they already know."

And they are in charge of this country.


--- Diogenes, 4/28/20

Donald John Trump: an overview and the last Trumpcentric post for a while.

Ethnicity: German/Scottish/American; Trump's grandparents were German immigrants. His mother immigrated from Scotland. 
Education: High school: New York Military Academy; B.S., Wharton School of Business, University of Pennsylvania. 
Profession: Real estate developer. 
Marital status: Married, twice divorced. 
Current Occupation: President of the United States of America.

Consider the facts, starting with the fact that he is only a third-generation American, a newcomer. Yet he led the "birther" challenge against Barack Obama. This might suggest more than a bit of hypocrisy if it weren't such common knowledge that the attack was racially motivated.

Given his family's short tenure in the United States and his mixed blood, one wonders why Trump is so rabidly xenophobic. Foreign-born though they were, Trump's ancestors appear to have been exclusively white. His phobia of Mexicans and dislike of Orientals suggest a deep-seated problem with persons of color.

The New York Military Academy uniform was the only one Trump ever wore. Presidents without military experience are no longer rare, but this one never served his country in any way prior to running for its highest office.

A bachelor's degree in economics is the extent of Trump's education. Yet he routinely challenges medical doctors and other highly trained professional experts.

A boor and a bully, Trump has routinely paraded facts of his failed marriages and sexual conquests through the press, victimizing his wives and partners and soiling himself with the filth of his ego and libido.

He must be brought down and cast out.


---Diogenes, 4/26/20