Odysseus & Penelope – a meeting of wiles

This classic story keeps on giving. Emily Wilson has given us not only a new translation of the 3,000 years old “Odyssey”, the first by an American woman, but also an introductory essay in the New Yorker. In the intro, she addresses several aspects of how women were treated in ancient Greece and specifically whether Penelope can be viewed as an ‘empowered woman’.

It is hardly surprising that women were frequently and casually abused back then, behavior codified in law and societal norms, as they have been mostly up till the present day. The fact that ‘gender-fluid’ Athena (as Ms Wilson describes her) was powerful and successful in protecting her pet Odysseus should, I think, count little in this situation; Athena was a god, and what gods do is not relevant to mortals (though their status may reflect an ‘ideal’ condition not fully acknowledged by the mortal author and admired and honored only unconsciously by the listeners and readers).

So what about the trick? No, not the trick Penelope pulled on the ignoble suitors, keeping them waiting for her ‘hand’ (actually, her dominion) while she wove a burial cloth for her husband during the day and unraveled it at night. The real ‘trick’ was when she fooled ‘wily Odysseus’, her husband, into revealing his feelings about her. Odysseus had kept his cool through a couple decades of war and travel. But when Penelope hinted that their bed’s post, a living olive tree, had been cut, he had a melt down! He gained control of himself after a few sentences, but those were enough to let her know he cared about more than just reclaiming his land: he was also claiming her.

Perhaps by some modern standards, that may not earn her the badge ‘empowered woman’, but by god that was a pretty empowering and ‘wily’ trick – and probably reminded old Odysseus more than anything elso of just why he had praised like-minded (“homophrosyne”) couples and found her so attractive way back when, and now. Pretty empowering stuff.

Another fascinating aspect of this new translation/interpretation is the killing of the suitor’s ‘consorts’, female slaves who had consorted with the suitors. I must admit that the unfairness and the especially the brutality of their killing, practically a slow strangulation, had eluded me before now. The observation that Penelope was told by her son to 'shut up', according to the expert translators, is overdramatized, I think (FWIW), because she was empowered amply to practically order the that the bow be put into Odysseus' hands, which led to the ultimate 'show down' in the Ithaca corral.

The GOP will Impeach Trump!

After Trump has assumed the presidency, the long knives will come out.  Many of his ideas, insofar as they can be discerned and distinguished from mere posturing and off-the-cuff remarks, run contrary to long-standing GOP positions.  He has personally insulted almost every Republican stalwart. They suffered the indignities because they are not as skilled at schoolyard bullying.  They had little choice but to allow Trump to become their nominee and then back him, albeit half-(or less)-heartedly.  However, once they have seized the presidency, Trump becomes largely a liability to their usual program: free trade, deficit reduction, counterbalance to Russia.  They can impeach Trump secure in the knowledge that Pence, a toadying conventional conservative, is next in succession.  A palace coup by legal means.

Trump is trying to appease enough Republican constituencies to avoid this fate.  Nominating Goldman Sachs bankers to financial posts, an anti-union CEO to labor, an anti-school crusader to education, an anti-Palestinian to Israel, a fossil-fuel enthusiast to energy, are just a few examples of currying favor.

If Trump follows-through on his promises of massive spending – he tossed off a figure of $1Trillion for infrastructure and defense – and cuts taxes, the deficit will explode. Such spending might well have been beneficial in 2009, when it was proposed by Obama in the depths of the Great Recession but vociferously opposed by the Republicans, because unemployment was soaring above 10% and interest rates were threatening to go sub-zero.  Now, however, with unemployment very low and inflation/interest rates stabilized, such a fiscal stimulus will dramatically increase inflation and create an enormous debt with a relative high interest payments, constricting future leverage.  What will Speaker Paul Ryan and other opponents of deficit spending do?

If he follows-through on promises of stopping illegal immigration and deporting illegal immigrants, many businesses will suffer labor shortages and wage increases.  This will be opposed by many business owners, a group that is a mainstay of the GOP.

If he follows-through on closer relationship with Russia, and reduces our ties to our NATO allies, countries in eastern Europe will be pressured into a functional new Russian Empire.  This will be opposed by inter-nationalists and small-d-democrats, including many Republicans, who believe the US must counterbalance such ambitions.  

If it were just the deficit, no problem because Republicans in the past have ignored their ‘principles’ in similar circumstances, going along with Reagan’s and George W. Bush’s spend-don’t-tax programs and the deficit doubled each time.  But they were ‘real’ Republicans.  And it is not just the deficit but several key Republican positions.

But nobody knows whether Trump will even try to keep any of the promises he made.  Many are contradictory and early signs are many will simply be ignored. He just now appointed a serious deficit hawk to lead his own budget office, suggesting that he does not intend to follow-through with significant infrastructure spending, or tax cuts, or both.  We must become accustomed to a President who evidently cannot formulate coherent or even consistent thoughts.

The Cause of, and Cure for, the Trumpocalypse

What passes for “elites” in the US electorate (some college) looked at Trump’s history and behavior and concluded that he is a charlatan, a fraud, a con-man, a liar, a demagogue. Oh, and unfit to be the US President. But “the people”, no college, “low information” voters, convinced themselves that he would do the most important things for them: remove the low-wage job competitors (AKA undocumented workers). Similar voters elected GW Bush in 2000; he was grossly unprepared and consequently we suffered 9/11, were pushed by Chicken hawk neocons into Afghanistan and Iraq, then dragged down in the Great Recession.

Trump is even less fit than W for the presidency. It is a small blessing that VP Pence does not have the turpitude or twisted malevolence of Cheney. But the other deplorables that Trump is herding into his administration are failures desperate for a return to any sort of prominence: Rudy Giuliani (a gnome, a noun, a verb, and 9/11), Chris Christie (a bridge too far), and Newt Gingrich (amoral moralist). Instead of #DrainTheSwamp its’s #FeedTheCrocs. Not promising.

Trump voters can hardly complain if he fails to implement incoherent or even inconsistent policies. Bringing back many manufacturing jobs would be hard, slow, maybe even impossible work, not suited to an evanescent attention. And making America great “again” in some voters’ minds would entail turning the clock back a half century. But his voters will be upset if simple promises are broken. Simple promises like “build the wall” or “lock her up”. He can finesse who’s paying for the wall or what charges to bring. But Trump has already backed away from or explicitly renounced these promises. Will we “dig coal” or not? How long before his supporters feel like the #TrumpChumps they are?

On the other hand, Trump has selected a woman who was his strong critic to represent the US at the UN. Our allies the Germans say that because of the uncertainty Trump brings, they will increase their defense spending, maybe even up to the 2% of GDP that they’ve promised but never met. The Danes whimper that spending even 2% would break their social system. (Did all the real men leave Denmark when the Vikings went to England a millennium ago?) For the past 4+ years Obama has begged the Euros to pay their share. Maybe it will take a loose cannon to get some jobs done.

Nov 8, 2016: The end of Democracy as we know it?

--> [written Sept 1, 2016, posted Nov 9] 
If Trump wins in November, at least historians will have a date-certain for when the American experiment in democracy returned the definitive null result.  That differs from the ends of the Roman empire (too many choices with civil wars and goths) and the British (when is a crumbling empire finally toast).  Although the end was abrupt, like the death of some elderly people we can note in the late US empire a history of increasing frailty.  We recall an abrupt personality change, toward meanness (1968), thankfully transient, a return to decency before a fall (1980), compromised intellect and onset of dementia, again a recovery and compos mentis ('92) then a hard fall with serious injury (2001) that produced delusions of grandeur and power, then a final, brief remarkable lucidity and partial recovery (2008) before the terminal plunge into madness, self-absorption and fantasy (2016).

We hail our new vulgarian Overlord.  

déjà vu, 1968 all over again?

College students came “clean for Gene” in 1968, supporting Eugene McCarthy, a principled, poetical anti-war Senator from Minnesota.  McCarthy’s close second in New Hampshire Democratic primary convinced President Johnson to withdraw.  McCarthy kept the kid’s attention only until Robert Kennedy sensed the opportunity and announced his candidacy.  Handsome, young, and with a whiff of Camelot about him, the kids left Gene and hoped to go "all the way with RFK".  After Bobby was murdered, Hubert Humphrey was nominated in a fractious convention amid violent street protests.  The Democrats never recovered.  Humphrey was painted as a staid war-monger despite a lifetime of liberal achievements.  Nixon’s henchmen (a fair characterization for this crowd), probably ruined Johnson’s promising peace negotiations by promising the South Vietnamese better conditions after the election. Richard Nixon was elected president.  The war continued for another 6 years, with 30,000 American deaths, and untold numbers of wounded and dead Vietnamese.  
 

Today, we see students excited about Senator Bernie Sanders, who to his immense credit withstood the pressures and voted against the wrong and disastrous Bush war against Iraq. (The measure authorized force, not exactly war, but everybody knew they were putting matches in the hands of neocon chicken-hawks).  Bernie also channels the deep frustration and anger against “Wall Street”, the big banks that made huge fortunes on very risky bets that they ultimately lost, but were saved by the government, only to continue their high risk semi-demi-criminal ways.   Bernie’s people are adamant that Hillary Clinton is complicit with the war and Wall Street crowd, despite reasonable evidence that she has worked hard her whole life for peace and fairness. 

The Republicans seem to be settling on Senator Marco Rubio.  He’s no Nixon.  For one thing, Nixon had a ton of experience: as Senator – actually showing up for the job – and as Eisenhower’s Vice President for 8 years.  (Senator Cruz seems a more Nixonian character, albeit wrapped in Goldwater extremism, and could probably do Nixon’s both-arms-up-V-for-victory much better.)  But Rubio shares Nixon’s lax personal finances and coziness with big industry. 

Are Democrats going to divide and lose?  Despite a sober debate marked by a lot of agreement, in stark contrast to the rabid personal attacks among the Republican candidates who can only agree that Obama is bad, Bernie or at least his people are casting it as he-good-she-evil.   The stakes do not seem quite so high now as they were, in retrospect, in Vietnam.  But Rubio, striving to capture right wingers, echoes Cruz’s call for indiscriminate bombing in the middle east, Syria and Libya, which would put us very deep in a quagmire that could eclipse even Vietnam in horror and loss.  Domestically, the Republicans are likely to reduce corporate and social responsibility, leading to more outrages like the selfish Shkreli and disasters like the poisoning of Flint.  We must help bend the arc of history toward truth, justice, and freedom.  

Hair he is... Mr. America?

Donald Trump has managed to blurt his way to the top of a hoard of candidates vying for the Republican nomination. I like the way he is willing to say what he thinks, including about his competitors. The problem is, he apparently doesn’t actually think very much or very clearly. No "Reagan Rules" for him (never speak ill of fellow Republicans, a rule Ronnie’s handlers never followed).

He inherited wealth, went broke, and was bailed out by his bankers but he struts around like a self-made man. When you owe the banks thousands or even millions, that’s your problem. But when you owe them even more, that’s their problem. He was their problem and they took care of him.

His contribution to America is building casinos, a fancy word for grim warehouses of hopeless obsessives throwing their money away. He has no style or taste yet he claims his name alone is worth $3B and maybe that’s true because America has plenty of vulgarians.

What does it tell you about a man’s ability to (literally) face facts when he so desperately tries to hide his baldness? His “do” is structural: a comb-over-under-around that swirls over his eyes. I say dump the chump.

Fifty Shades of Pale

The bestselling book "Fifty Shades of Grey" has now been followed with a blockbuster movie, at least in its opening weekend. Will voyeuristic soccer moms keep it up or was this a quick "girls night out" fling?

Full disclosure: I have not read 50SoG. I understand that it depicts adults agreeing to "play rough" in sex, using bondage, dominance/submission, and maybe even some pretend or mild sadism/masochism. The keywords here are "adults” and “agreeing" (note that only adults can agree; children need their guardian to agree, legally). Compare this to scandalous dramas in the past, such as "Lolita", brilliant book and movie by geniuses Nabokov and Kubrick, where a young schoolgirl is the object of an old professor's lust. That his lust is inappropriate is integral to the story. (That she proves more, ahem, experienced than him...is twisted for sure.) Or the movie "Manhattan", where a middle aged nebbish Woody Allen's girlfriend is 17 years old. (That she proves more mature than him does not mitigate the fact that the obtuseness of the "relationship" is never even hinted at). The blockbuster movie “Pretty Woman”, where an improbably beautiful and delicate prostitute is cast as Cinderella, swept off her feet and away from her hovel by a Wall Street buccaneer, is disturbing but at least it depicts adults (behaving badly).

50SoG is not beyond the Pale.