Category Archives: Thought for the Day

Thought for the Day – March 31, 2017

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Bacevich’s ten principles for reducing U.S. tendencies toward militarism:

  1. Pay attention to the nation’s founders,
  2. Bolster the separation of powers,
  3. Treat the use of armed force solely as a last resort,
  4. Strengthen U.S. self-sufficiency,
  5. Emphasize national defense,
  6. Control defense spending,
  7. Use more soft power,
  8. Emphasize citizen-soldiers,
  9. Use the National Guard and reserves properly, and
  10. Improve U.S. civil-military relations.

Thought for the Day – March 30, 2017

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A liberalism that needs monsters to destroy can never politically engage with its enemies. It can never understand those enemies as political actors, making calculations, taking advantage of opportunities, and responding to constraints. It can never see in those enemies anything other than a black hole of motivation, a cesspool where reason goes to die. Hence the refusal of empathy for Trump’s supporters. Insofar as it marks a demand that we not abandon antiracist principle and practice for the sake of winning over a mythicized white working class, the refusal is unimpeachable. But like the know-nothing disavowal of knowledge after 9/11, when explanations of terrorism were construed as exonerations of terrorism, the refusal of empathy since 11/9 is a will to ignorance. Far simpler to imagine Trump voters as possessed by a kind of demonic intelligence, or anti-intelligence, transcending all the rules of the established order. Rather than treat Trump as the outgrowth of normal politics and traditional institutions — it is the Electoral College, after all, not some beating heart of darkness, that sent Trump to the White House — there is a disabling insistence that he and his forces are like no political formation we’ve seen. By encouraging us to see only novelty in his monstrosity, analyses of this kind may prove as crippling as the neocons’ assessment of Saddam’s regime. That, too, was held to be like no tyranny we’d seen, a despotism where the ordinary rules of politics didn’t apply and knowledge of the subject was therefore useless.

–Corey Robin

Pitbulls and pigs

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Years ago I remember someone commenting that pitbulls trained to fight were too aggressive to survive in the wild.  All they know how to do is to kill.  They’re too aggressive to hunt effectively and they pick fights.  They lack the skill to feed themselves and eventually they pick a fight with the wrong animal.  Either way they end up dead before they can propagate the species but oh they can do some serious damage before their ignorance and/or belligerence does them in.   That’s a segue to Jeremi Suri’s, How Trump’s Executive Orders Could Set America Back 70 Years.  See also Ambassador Haley’s comments at the UN today.  Imbeciles.

Musical accompaniment –

Reading material – January 24, 2017

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Kasserian Ingera

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Patrick T. O’Neill, And How Are the Children?:

Among the most accomplished and fabled tribes of Africa, no tribe was considered to have warriors more fearsome or more intelligent than the mighty Masai. It is perhaps surprising, then, to learn the traditional greeting that passed between Masai warriors: “Kasserian Ingera,” one would always say to another. It means, “And how are the children?”

It is still the traditional greeting among the Masai, acknowledging the high value that the Masai always place on their children’s well-being. Even warriors with no children of their own would always give the traditional answer, “All the children are well.” Meaning, of course, that peace and safety prevail, that the priorities of protecting the young, the powerless, are in place. That Masai society has not forgotten its reason for being, its proper functions and responsibilities. “All the children are well” means that life is good. It means that the daily struggles for existence do not preclude proper caring for their young.

I wonder how it might affect our consciousness of our own children’s welfare if in our culture we took to greeting each other with this daily question: “And how are the children?” I wonder if we heard that question and passed it along to each other a dozen times a day, if it would begin to make a difference in the reality of how children are thought of or cared about in our own country.

I wonder if every adult among us, parent and non-parent alike, felt an equal weight for the daily care and protection of all the children in our community, in our town, in our state, in our country… I wonder if we could truly say without any hesitation, “The children are well, yes, all the children are well.”

What would it be like… if the minister began every worship service by answering the question, “And how are the children?” If every town leader had to answer the question at the beginning of every meeting: “And how are the children? Are they all well?” Wouldn’t it be interesting to hear their answers? What would it be like? I wonder…