The Fatuity of Sean Lennon

"Imagine there's no country...."

Well, that's pretty much what Putin imagined for Ukraine, you twit.

This is a Test

This is a Test

This is a Test

Thank you for your patience  

 

 

                     

                  Another Trumpian Yeats Parody
                  (Because apparently I can't help
                  myself...)

                  Under Steve Bannon 
     

                    I     

 

                              Swear by what The Donald spoke
                           Round some polluted lake,
                           That the Witch of Coulter knew,
                           Spoke and set the jerks a-crow.

                                Swear by those horse’s asses,
                           Complexion and form all sub-human,   
                           That pale, long visaged company
                           That airs in imbecility
                           Completeness of their jail terms won;   
                           Now they haunt the chat room screens
                           Where Steve Bannon sets the scene.

                                Here's the gist of what it means.   

                                II

                                Many times some live and die   
                           Between their two certainties,   
                           That of blood and that of soil,   
                           And MAGA world knows it all.   
                           Whether one dies in bed   
                           Or a warrant is one’s dread,
                           A brief sentence or a fine   
                           Is the worst one has to fear.   
                           Though jury members’ toil is long,   
                           Sharp their minds, their patience strong,   
                           They but thrust their convicted men   
                           Back into society again.

                                III

                              You whom Rudi's prayer have heard   
                           `Send armed combat in our time, O Lord!'   
                           Know that when all words are said   
                           And a crowd is fighting mad,   
                           Nothing drops from eyes long blind  
                           They erase their partial minds,   
                           For an instant stand alert,   
                           Squawk aloud, their pants a-squirt,   
                           Even cowards can grow tense   
                           With some sort of violence   
                           Before they can accomplish fate   
                           Skip their work or lose a mate.

                                IV

                             Blogger, podcaster, do the work   
                          Nor let the modest plotter shirk 
                          What his Russian precursors did,   
                          Bring the soul of man to Don,   
                          Make him fill the dockets tight.

                             Bewilderment began their flight:   
                          Forming nihilistic thought,   
                          Forms the putrid Limbaugh wrought.

                             Roger Aisles made a bet    
                          On the Fox Channel set,   
                          With half-witted Sean   
                          Then produce one like Ingraham   
                          Till the viewers are in heat,   
                          Proof that there's a purpose set   
                          Before the ratings-conscious mind:   
                          Profane degrading of mankind.

                            The Twentieth Century put in relief
                         An historical background beyond belief,   
                         Swamps where no soul's at peace;   
                         Where everything that’s bequeathed:
                         Wars and camps and death   
                         Resemble forms that seem (or are)   
                         When nightmares end, but still declare  
                         Without, perhaps, a bedmate there,   
                         That Hell had opened.

                            Pseudo-Christians run on;
                         When their faith had gone   
                         McClary and Rutler, Dreher and Ruse   
                         Prepared a trap for the people of God,   
                         Then an Evola phase, but after that
                         Confusion constituted all their thought.

                            V

                            MAGA-heads, learn your trade   
                         Scorn whatever is well made,   
                         Sing the sort now growing up   
                         All out of shape from toe to top,
                         With unremembering hearts and heads   
                         Base-born products of base beds.   
                         Sing the exurbs, and then   
                         Gun-toting militiamen,   
                         The cleverness of trolls, and after   
                         Bud Light drinkers' belching laughter;   
                         Sing the boys and ladies gray   
                         That were molded into clay   
                         Through several paltry decades;   
                         Cast your minds on those days   
                         That in coming days you may be   
                         Still the indomitable Wankery.

                            VI

                            Under Steve Bannon’s lead
                         Lies America close to dead.   
                         Our ancestors once lived here
                         Long years ago; a Capitol stands near,
                         Assaulted once in blood and fear.
                         No marble, or conventional phrase,   
                         From speeches made near the spot.    
                         By Steve’s command the word is out:

                                             Cast a cold eye   
                                          On lies, on truth.   
                                          Reality, piss off!

  

                         

                         

                  
                  

                 

                 

                        

Blogging Cross-Pollination Redux

Late to report this, of course, but last Wednesday I woke up to find on Leiter Reports a link to my parody poem "The Second Don-ing," which I had posted back in 2017.  As a result, I have had more than 1500 visits since October 9.  That, of course, moves my Google earnings up only a few pennies, but the psychic income was nice.  I actually received a Real Life Comment noting a typo, so I fixed that and now the date of "The Second Don-ing" is moved up to last week (see immediately below) - I don't know how that works, being a Techno-Rube, but that's okay.  Anyway, thank to all.   

The Second Don-ing (with apologies to the shade of W.B. Yeats, as well as to my fellow Americans)

              

               Twisting and turning to alternative facts

               The viewer cannot bear to read Twitter;
           The swamp remains un-drained;

               Mere commentary is loosed upon the world,
           The Putin tide is loosed, and everywhere
           Millennial innocence is drowned;
           The 'best' lack all connection, while the worst
           Are full of passionate insecurity.

               Surely some new leak is at hand;
           Surely the Second Don-ing is at hand.

               The Second Don-ing!  Hardly are those words out

               When a vast image from Art of the Deal

               Troubles my sight: somewhere in a sand trap

               A shape with growing gut and small hands,

               A gaze blank and moronic as can be,

               Is turning its slow thoughts, while all about it

               Reel law suits by indignant human beings.

               The screen goes blank; but now I know

               That umpteen news cycles

               Were vexed to nightmare by some Russian agents,

               And what orange beast, his hour come round at last,

               Slouches towards Babylon to resign?   

Martin Mayer (RIP)

Once more, a significant death to
note.  https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/01/books/martin-mayer-dead.html.  My apologies for being late with this one.  This was one of the few obits I could find for this very important author, who in his time, and ours, was celebrated for his long journalistic march through the institutions.  All I can say now is what a tragedy that his prophetic work, The Bankers (1974, updated 1997) went largely unheeded.  Another misfortune is that age and illness kept him from being able to do more than make the occasional comment about the financial crisis of 2008 and its aftermath, and that he was also not able to complete his biography of the very important economist Hyman Minksy (1919-1996).  

יהי רצון שהוא ייקלט בכבלי חיי הנצח.  

John Lukacs redux

Per what I wrote the other day, here are some very selective pointers to a few of the works of John Lukacs.

His great work, Historical Consciousness: The Remembered Past, was first published in 1968, re-issued with new material by Schocken Books in 1985.  That is the edition to get if you can.  (Transaction Books re-issued that one in, I believe, in 2002, with a characteristically useless introduction by Russell Kirk.)  This book is seminal to understanding Lukacs' historical philosophy (precisely NOT a "philosophy of history") and toward developing one's own.

The Last European War: September 1939-December 1941 was published in 1976.  This was, apart from Historical Consciousness, Lukacs' magnum opus, full of insights about this turning point in the history of the world.  It should be read in conjunction with The Hitler of History (1997) - not a biography of Hitler, but a profound consideration of how Hitler has and is being dealt with by historians and the world generally - and also how (counter-intuitive as it seems) a full reckoning with Hitler's massive significance is still to come.

Three articles are especially important to read these days.  "The Universality of National Socialism (The Mistaken Category of 'Fascism')" is full of insights about the endurance of ideological appeal across borders and through time, very much including our time.  "Happy Birthday, Benito" (yes, dear reader, the title and article are chock full of ironies) is a great examination of the dictator Mussolini.  Finally, "Our Enemy, the State?"  is a clear-eyed essay about the proper view of government, the state, and civilization at this time.

The auto-historical John Lukacs can be discovered best in these volumes: Confessions of an Original Sinner (1990), A Thread of Years (1997), and Last Rites (2009).  Finally (I write this as I think of so many writings I would like to recommend by name) Remembered Past: John Lukacs on History, Historians,and Historical Knowledge (2005) is an excellent anthology, with a bibliography of his work going up to about 2003.

Lux perpetua luceat eis.