Evanston: swine and fall
Evanston: swine and fall
In Australia earlier this year, I heard a radio interview with David Rieff, Susan Sontag’s son, who has made his own career as a writer and political analyst. Responding to a question, he said, “In every country, the people who go into politics are swine.” What I found most striking was his matter-of-fact tone. He wasn’t angry. He wasn’t attacking anyone in particular. He was just stating the obvious.
This morning on television I saw and heard a couple of the swine, members of Congress who were defending their vote against the financial bail out package. They were pompous, smug, self-righteous and stupid beyond endurance, so I turned the television off. I wish I could remove their pernicious influence as easily.
When I first read Gibbon’s THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE, I was surprised at how early he dated the decline. It was at a time that I thought the Empire at its greatest. Only a moment’s thought is needed to realize that of course it would be. From where else would a society or a individual decline?
The United States was a great country. In my reading of history three brief periods saw inexplicable concentrations of great men: Periclean Athens, Elizabethan England, and Revolutionary America.
The United States was strongest when I was a child. For a few years after WWII, when we alone had nuclear weapons, Harry Truman was the most powerful man in history. He was also probably our last great president; and it is to his honor that he did not abuse his power. Imagine if Hitler or Stalin or a good many other more benign politicians had been in possession of nuclear monopoly.
Perhaps the United States has been in decline ever since. Yet the country has only been in existence for a little over two hundred years, which in historical perspective isn’t much of a run.
I have long thought that American used to be a great country and now is only a great market. Finally the swine have even messed that up.
The country needs change. But I wonder if it is possible. I fear that no matter who is elected--and in this television age, to be elected President of the United States, you must either be a fool, or be willing to appear to be one--the next president will not be able to effect fundamental change because real power lies in the hands of lobbyists and swine.
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The other fall began two days ago.
Today was cool and crisp. I wore Levis instead of shorts, and a light anorak instead of a tee-shirt on my bike ride. The lake was blue, and the sky covered with what almost looked like trade wind clouds pressed too closely together. The wind was from the north. Leaves have begun to turn and fall. A few people walking dogs. A few other cyclists. Some students near Northwestern. And on the beaches only flocks of sea gulls facing into the wind.
Tuesday, September 30, 2008