We were not born on the moon, we don’t live in seventh heaven. We have the good fortune and the misfortune to belong to a tormented region of the world, Latin America, and to live in a historic period that is relentlessly oppressive. The contradictions of class society are sharper here than in the rich countries. Massive misery is the price paid by the poor countries so that 6 percent of the world’s population may consume with impunity half of the wealth generated by the entire world. The abyss, the distance between the well-being of some and the misery of others, is greater in Latin America; and the methods necessary to maintain this distance are more savage.
-Eduardo Galeano, “In Defense of the Word”, 1976
Today – July 17th 2020 – in Portland, Oregon we have reports that Federal law enforcement officials are driving around in unmarked cars, picking people up off the streets, taking them into Federal buildings, and interrogating them:
Blinded by his hat, in an unmarked minivan full of armed people dressed in camouflage and body armor who hadn’t identified themselves, Pettibone said he was driven around downtown before being unloaded inside a building. He wouldn’t learn until after his release that he had been inside the federal courthouse.
“It was basically a process of facing many walls and corners as they patted me down and took my picture and rummaged through my belongings,” Pettibone said. “One of them said, ‘This is a whole lot of nothing.’”
Pettibone said he was put into a cell. Soon after, two officers came in to read him his Miranda rights. They didn’t tell him why he was being arrested. He said they asked him if he wanted to waive his rights and answer some questions, but Pettibone declined and said he wanted a lawyer. The interview was terminated, and about 90 minutes later he was released. He said he did not receive any paperwork, citation or record of his arrest.
Portland follows on the heels of Washington DC where Federal officers – again wearing uniforms without insignia in most cases – were lining the streets, menacing protestors in riot gear and often indistinguishable from right-wing paramilitary groups who march unmolested wearing camo, vests, and brandishing military weapons.
If you’re nodding, these events should elbow you awake. People are protesting racial and social injustice, income inequality, the gross mishandling of a pandemic, and the looming climate omnicide and the response from the US government at nearly every level is brutal crackdown. Which is now escalated to secret arrests by unnamed state actors.
These are scenes that wouldn’t be out of place in one of Eduardo Galeano’s essays on Latin America during the 70’s and 80’s. And it is a fluke that this week I read a collection of those essays titled “We Say No”. I thought it was going to be a book about the past but instead, it’s a book that could predict the future for the United States and many other democracies.
In the essay Chronicle of Torture and Victory, Galeano describes the apprehension and torture of Joge Rulli. Rulli was a member of the Peronist party, which had been outlawed after the Argentinian military ousted President Juan Peron. Rulli spent time in jail and when he was released worked as a journalist. The Argentine federal police called him one day and asked him to report on a story, it was a trap:
They were waiting for him across from a certain house on Pazo street: federal police agents without epaulets or badges on their shirts, or uniformed coats or hats, or holsters.
Rulli ran and was shot in the leg. When the police caught up to him they took him to a hospital where the slug was removed but where the police torture started. Eventually, he was handed over to the police by an orderly and two doctors and that’s when his nightmare started:
They put him in a police van. The seven policemen who ride with him are laughing about what awaits him: “You’re going to the machine, kid. You are going to repent for a lot of things.” They arrive at the Ramos Mejia police station. They go to the officer’s clubhouse, a small room with a chair in the middle. Some twenty agents surround him there, nearly all of them without uniform. The “ball game” begins, question after question with no time to answer, threats, some blows.
I’ll spare you the grizzly details that ensue. Rulli was beaten and tortured for weeks by various state actors.
“We Say No” covers Latin America (mostly) from 1963 to 1991 and owing to the times depicts a world oppressed by wealth, which then pushes back and demands justice. The result in nearly every case is that the wealthy seize power and use the military, police, and most importantly paramilitary commandos to rule.
One of many examples, in the essay “In Defense of Nicaragua” Galeano describes the work that that Sandinistas did to restore some balances of power: eliminating Polio, increasing literacy, reducing infant mortality, and giving land back to the people.
This was a democratically elected leadership, implementing reforms that the people wanted, but as Galeano points out “Calling for a change is permitted, proclaiming it to the sky may even turn out to be necessary, but making a change, transforming reality, that scandalizes the gods.” And the gods of the 1980s were Ronald Reagan, Oliver North and their soldiers, the Contras. The gods regarded democracy in Nicaragua as something too precious for Nicaraguans to hold, and simultaneously as something that those gods didn’t need to listen to. And so Ollie North defied the elected officials of the US Congress, sold missiles to the enemy of the US, Iran, and used the money to buy guns for the Contras in a civil war against the Sandinistas. Thousands of Nicaraguans died and are still dying in this conflict to this very day.
And what would Galeano have to say about Daniel Ortega now? Nicaragua’s one-time Marxist rebel is now part-time pro-business, full-time brutal dictator. His military forces are disappearing opposition leaders; paramilitary forces roam the land brutalizing people at random. Instead of Luke Skywalker putting down his laser sword, he cut Darth Vader down and stood by Palpatine’s side.
“We are for democracy, but democracy is not for us.” Galeano starts the essay “The Structures of Impotence” one of his most powerful essays in the collection. In here Galeano argues that capitalism – a word which makes US Citizens either laugh derisively or stiffen in fear the author might use its supposed opposite “communism” or “socialism” – is the structure which is hostile to democracy.
The misery of the Third World is turned into a commodity. The wealthy nations consume it from time to time as a way of congratulating themselves on how well life has treated them. The Universal System of the Lie practices amnesia. The North behaves as if it had won the lottery. Its wealth however, is not the result of good fortune, but of a long, very long, historical process of usurpation, which goes back to colonial times and has been greatly intensified by today’s modern and sophisticated techniques of pillage…
These techniques of pillage force the South to pay the bill for what the North squanders, including the broken dishes at the end of every party: the crises of the system’s centers are unloaded onto the backs of the outskirts.
You can see the same structure in place in the United States, in everyday discourse. Wealthy people are described as “hard working” and “worthy” of their wealth: and yet there are no amount of lifetimes one person could work at back-breaking labor to earn even 1 millionth the money that someone like Jeff Bezos has amassed. He doesn’t “earn” that money. He wasn’t just “lucky”. He puts structures in place which extract money from other people’s labor. And what he’s done is made a structure so large that he can extract incredible amounts of money. More than he or any of his children would ever be able to spend.
And what if he did spend it? What if he used that power to consume? What natural peril would the earth suffer if Bezos used his money to just buy “stuff” from his own store?
There is no good which comes from massive wealth inequality and yet the Lie tells us that “greed is good” and one day this money will “trickle down” like a reservoir overtopping. But the problem is that the water behind that dam leaves all the land barren below it, the people dying of thirst, and the military and police are merely there to protect the property rights of the owner. It’s Bezos’ water, damnit, and you can’t have any, unless he generously says it’s ok.
And what makes most people nervous in the United States and other wealthy nations is that the people of those places know that their wealth hasn’t been earned. The luck of a man born in Nogales Arizona versus Nogales Mexico – mere yards from each other – condemns one to an almost certain life of poverty and struggle and the other to a much greater chance of a less painful life.
Galeano would correct me: it’s not luck. The system created that “luck” and depends on those differences. It needs the man born in Nogales Arizona to be “proud to be an American” and requires him to ignore (or even outright support) the structures in place which prevent the man born in Nogales Mexico from fully participating in his “elevated” form of humanity.
This is the structure of impotence. It is a system in which democracy exists but only so long as it doesn’t threaten the system. “Democracy is treated like a child who may not go out without permission, and then must walk around on tiptoes, begging pardon for having disturbed anyone.” And if Democracy gets too loud, Karen and Jeff call in the cops.
Where Galeano gets a lot right is in describing the problem and I’ll be interested to see how many people will respond not to the arguments Galeano is making but rather to the straw man which is “communism” or it’s synonym “socialism”. Both are scarecrows brought out any time anyone criticizes the current system as if there are only two options: capitalism or UTTER WORLD DESTRUCTION.
The only two options aren’t just Oligarchy/Fascism/Military Dictatorship in the service of the wealthy or Socialism. This is a thing that I think Galeano missed: that if you take too much from the wealthy, they will organize force to resist and then the state needs to respond with force in kind. Either way, we have force being used against the people, who are mere pawns in the system. That’s essentially what happened in Guatemala and is still happening in Nicaragua: power protects itself regardless of the system.
That also seems to be what is happening in the United States and other countries. It’s clear that the current system isn’t working, people are demanding change, and that the system is reacting to challenges in the same way that it did for centuries before: through violence. And what’s eerie is how closely the state violence of today resembles what happened in many of the countries Eduardo Galeano wrote about during the 70s and 80s.
It’s also clear that people can’t keep consuming the way that we are; that way of life has polluted the ecosystem to the point that it threatens not just our own existence but the lives of nearly every creature on the planet. Even that ding dong Elon Musk can’t really believe that he can just fly off and make another Earth on Mars (or go there and live out his life in a quonset hut). Surely, a mega-narcissist like him doesn’t think he’s more powerful than the forces of the universe. Actually, I take it back, he probably does but that doesn’t mean we need to listen to him and his science fictions.
And a lot of folks aren’t listening to this clowns. A lot of wealthy people and people inside powerful countries are starting to demand change. We are asking for less inequality and many folks I talk to (in my bizarre little spot of the world) are willing to give up more. But this can’t just be about individuals driving less or recycling more: we need our governments to act. For example;
We need gun control laws in the United States. We can’t have roving bands of right or left-wing men acting as para police forces in the service of political ideals. That is literally terrorism. The literal definition. And that’s exactly what you see time and again in these essays. My first thought at seeing the “Boogaloo Boys” in DC was “oh man, they are ruining Hawaiian shirts for me. But now, with their message of “civil war 2”, I see them for what they are: barely different from any terrorist group that uses guns and the threat of violence to insist on certain political dogmas.
We need to reduce police budgets and move that money into community based services which benefit the people. More treatment, less policing. More housing, less policing. More mental health professionals, less policing. More jobs for people, less policing. The list goes on.
We need to fix the use of force policies in the United States: people shouldn’t be executed for selling cigarettes.
We need to provide healthcare for all.
We need to tax the wealthy and corporations. Including a massive inheritance tax which reduces generational wealth.
We need environmental regulations which are strict enough to prevent companies from moving from state to state in order to exploit poverty and need.
WE.NEED.TO.LISTEN.TO.THE.PEOPLE. Galeano argues time and again in this book that only by listening to the people can we make a change:
For democracy to be democracy, one must start by letting it out of the cage. Deep changes are loudly demanded by this country (Uruguay) which was once kissed by the gods, before the politicos and the generals ruined it: but no real change will be possible while democracy remains strapped in the straightjacket that forces it to be a democratorship and nothing more.
And we need to gut the military budget and use that money to build a sustainable energy infrastructure. You don’t need to seize the oil rigs and wells, you can just hire engineers to build massive solar power farms, wind farms, tidal farms, dams, geothermal plants and other energy sources which will make energy cheap, renewable, and destroy the giant polluters.
This has to happen quickly because these protests for racial justice and equality are just the tip of the lance: as climate change begins to truly squeeze the poor, food shortages become the norm, and our atmosphere more toxic, the people will have no choice but to demand action.
And those folks will be willing to risk much more: for what is the value of my life if I am being told to just waste away under a bridge somewhere (preferably out of sight)? A person with nothing to lose, no hope, and no future is the most dangerous person in the world.
But the biggest lesson I took from We Say No is that what the USA has been doing to countries around the globe for decades has come home. And if we don’t correct that course, the country and probably a lot more will be lost.
Before I close, I don’t want you to think that this book is nothing but a Marxist diatribe against Reagan/Bush capitalism: he touches on many topics including an interview with Pele, a small collection of reviews of works by the Brazilian master photographer Sebastião Salgado, a philosophical piece on the value of the people’s voice (outside of books), a vibrant portrait of Carnival, and some interesting experimental essays in which he honed the voice which he would later use in his beautiful history of football “Soccer in Sun and Shadow”.
And Galeano also has a journalists’ economy of words and packs in so many thoughts into a single paragraph that in just 317 pages I have marked over 50 passages as beautifully written or philosophically dense. I could have quoted so many more essays for this piece that I feel like here at the end I didn’t do him justice.
But I will leave you with one which moved me the most:
Creating and fighting are our way of saying to the fallen companeros: You didn’t die when they killed you.
This certainly has nothing to do with the Great Beyond. It has to do with the Great Here and Now, with the joy of the continuing human adventure on earth. We have the joy of our joys, and we have the joy of our sorrows, because the painless life that consumer civilization sells in the supermarkets doesn’t interest us, and we’re proud of the price of so much pain that we pay for so much love. We have the joy of our errors, stumblings that prove the passion of moving and of love along the road. And we have the joy of our defeats, because the fight for justice and beauty is also worthwhile when it is lost. And above all, above all we have the joy of our hopes, with a dull measure of disenchantment. When disenchantment has become an article of mass and universal consumption we go on believing in the astounding power of the human embrace.
Eduardo Galeano – We Say No
ISBN 0-393-30898-7
Do not purchase this book: check it out from your local library
I’m glad you write things on the internet.
Ditto
Brilliant, Tim. Reading this made me think of how the right has demonized social programs by calling them entitlements. As if social security is not something people have paid for over the course of their lives. Instead, it’s some government handout to which people feel entitled. But after reading what you’ve written here, it’s clear the right are the ones who are entitled. They believe it’s their god-given right to consume and pillage. That anything that puts limits on envornmental destruction is limiting their ability to accumulate more wealth that they’ve earned with “hard work.” Don’t ask them to drive cars with less environemtntal impact. They have a right to live their lives the way they want to. That is the definition of entitelement. Destroy the earth and subjugate other people and nations because their right to live freely – aka without masks, without regulations and without taxes – is what they’re entitled to. Then co-opt Jesus to justify their consumption and wrap it all in the flag, and threaten anyone who challenges them with a 2nd Amendment entitlement that supersedes all other entitlements. It’s not sustainable. And it’s going to be ugly when the reckoning happens.
And we think Arsenal have problems. Thanks for a very thought-provoking post.
Unidentified stormtroopers in full tactical gear rocking up in rental minivans and arresting peaceful protesters is just the logical consequence of electing a dictator admiring, morally bankrupt sociopath.
Consider it a trial balloon for when he loses a close election and decides to stay in office because of some “irregularities “.
Fu#k Trump and all his flag hugging enablers who wouldn’t hesitate to wipe their collective a$$es with the US constitution ( the original) if it meant staying in power.
Soo…. This was great.
It made me feel a lot of things. The ugliest of which is a smugness about it coming home for the US. I don’t like it, but it’s there.
Not trying to be superior here. We have our own demons in India and our people have a lot to answer for too. These guys came in as saviours against a (manufactured) crisis, and they’re still manufacturing villains to justify their abuses -big and small- and solidify their hold on power, even as the country’s wealth is being sold off, the environment and natural resources being destroyed, and favoured businesses get sweet deals. And, even though they’ll deny it officially, their end goal is to change the Constitution and end secular democracy in favour of a theocratic authoritarian state. So yeah. Big yikes.
But does this right wing hit job sound anything like US foreign policy? Because it is exactly what it has been, at least since I became politically aware, and probably longer.
Renditions and torture were never punished by even the ‘good guys’. Candidates talking about gun reform say these guns that I used to kill on the streets of Afghanistan don’t belong on American streets. I wish you guys all the best. I believe the people will triumph. But I don’t know how ready they are to actually challenge structures instead of personalities.
PS. My observation is that the recent rise of the RW in electoral terms happened as a direct result of the invasion and destruction of Libya. I was in the UK when their liberal media started painting the coming of refugees as a moral, financial, even existential, crisis. The RW didn’t create the crisis, nor even the narrative. They simply picked it up and ran with it all across Europe, and that filtered through to the rest of the world. The question I ask myself is if it was accidental.
The type of US foreign policy changes you’re talking about can only come from the Republican side. You give the rich and corporations enough in tax breaks, put enough young, ultra conservative judges up for lifetime appointments to satisfy the religious right, and make all the right noise on immigration no matter how racist( the more racist the better) and you could get away with reshaping the country’s foreign policy, like getting out of Afghanistan and other places the US has no business being in.
There isn’t a snowball’s chance in hell of a Democrat running on this sort of platform against the Fox News’ “ weak on national security” onslaught and succeeding.
If 911 had happened on a Democrat’s watch the R’s would’ve used it to their advantage in every election till the end of times.
There are different rules for both sides and if a Democrat wants to win or stay in office, like Obama for example , they need to overcompensate in , let’s say , drone attacks to avoid any criticism from the hawks.
In short, I can’t see it happening any time soon.
Interesting observation about Libya. I definitely think that there is an anti-Islam problem with this first wave of anti-immigration hitting the West. I would probably, however, trace that issue back to Iran, then down to 9/11, and then over to Libya/Syria/”The Arab Spring”. The utter chaos that we are sowing in those regions is causing people to flee, which in turn is increasing asylum seeking in the West, and then there’s a totally normal response for one society to react negatively when they have a huge influx of foreigners.
That’s when it takes leaders who understand that and calm people.
What we have right now are leaders who understand that and use it to keep winning elections.
I think it’s pretty evil.
9/11 was a government fund raiser and “causus belli” on the Middle East to justify sending ground troops. Only Americans think it was actually solely conceived and delivered by Bin Laden. It’s so blindingly obvious and yet… people don’t want to hear it because it’s too upsetting.
=Somehow, four commercial jets are hijacked by the same terrorist group on the same day and nobody notices until it’s too late
=The planes crash into the most iconic structures in the most iconic city in the USA at 9 AM (to make sure we’re all awake to see)
=The planes hit offices hundreds of floors high. Somehow though, the buildings collapse AT THE SPEED OF GRAVITY. Bystanders even hear the explosives go off.
=Neither office fires nor jet fuel burns hot enough or long enough to MELT STEEL. This is a laughable explanation, yet it’s the one your government endorses.
=The fires at 9/11 burned for OVER A MONTH after the event including UNDER WATER. Jet fuel? Naw, thermite, actually. How did that get there?
=An entire building that WASN’T EVEN HIT also collapses at the speed of gravity. Curious… Must’ve been all the dust.
=Despite all this carnage, a perfectly intact passport of an Arab terrorist is recovered from the scene (do they think we’re this stupid? Yes.)
=The entire FBI was away in California as this goes down. Almost like it was planned that way. Then after it happened they are grounded there. Upon their return, all relevant records have perished… in the fires of building 7, the one that collapsed despite never being hit.
=Bin Laden happily confesses to the crime on camera, wearing his turban, goatee and everything. This London educated Arab intelligentsia became the perfect pantomime villain. “Amazingly,” he isn’t caught for 10 years and after he is, we never see the body because it received a very convenient sea burial within 24 hours.
=The government is ready with a pithy, unassailable, perfect mobilization slogan and deploys it on billboards nationwide: Support your troops! It’s almost like they thought about it ahead of time.
I’m sorry for everyone who lost friends and family at 9/11 or in the US military deployments that it precipitated. It’s a modern tragedy, created by the US government to serve its own ends. The Middle East is still paying the price today.
Folks, it’s not just Trump. The American government is rotten to its core. It will go on just as it is until it can no longer go on because too many people with power are invested in its perpetuation, which makes it just like any other government in history. It’s just that now it’s responsible for millions of lives within and outside of its borders, which makes these administrations the most impactful in history. There’s a scary thought.
I didn’t even mention… 9/11! A number that means panic and fear to Americans! What poetry! They didn’t pick this date on purpose, did they????
Thank you Tim for that thought-provoking and moving piece. Getting rid of that preposterous narcissist in the White House might be the start of some improvement. The fact he got into power is the ugly symptom of a social disease of entitlement and greed. We have a similar preposterous narcissist here in the UK. You may (lets hope) jettison your monster before we have that chance.
Thank you for pointing out that Trump isn’t just a problem but is also a symptom of the bigger problem.
That’s exactly the issue. He is democratically elected. Even if you buy into the Russian interference thing, he was still the champion of the Republican party. He’s here, in our lives, because there were enough people living in this country who liked what he had to say that he had a legitimate shot at the presidency. This is where democracy fails: the assumption that masses of people will make good decisions. More granularly, that masses of people will critically and objectively appraise candidates is a fallacy. Individuals are infinitely complex and impossible to predict, but masses of people are predictable and easy to influence. That’s why “marketing” is a career and we have to suffer through advertisements. They work because we are lazy and suggestible by nature. Politicians are just marketing themselves on the campaign trail and like our choice of detergent, our collective choice of politician often comes down to liking the way the label looks or simply recognizing the name, or just always buying Dawn because that’s what our mom used when we were kids.
And not even the Athenian Democracy has benign roots. Bunburyist can help me out here, but I recently learned that in Athens, Democracy meant that every land-owning Greek man would have a vote, and it came about only because out of two candidates vying to be chosen as the city’s ruler, one became so politically isolated by his enemies that he turned to the common people for support. In other words, he became a demagogue. As a consequence of his demagoguery, he granted his supporters what they craved: a say in the political process. But even then, it was only men, and only men who had means, and it was in one city which was large-ish by the standards of its time but tiny by modern measures. Our current situation of millions of people, all having a vote, choosing between one of two candidates, is unprecedented in the annals of history. And yet, the themes are the same.
Thanks Tim. Appreciated
Wonderful writing, Tim, both from you and Snr. Galeano. Very timely, of course. And can I put in a plug for the importance of education in all of this? Democracy is doomed if so many of its participants are unable to think and analyze in a rational and informed way. (Democracy may be doomed anyway when the system allows the candidate with fewer actual votes to still take office). But as you rightly point out, we haven’t really explored the various possibilities that could define a more equitable and workable system of governance. Instead we bounce back and forth between the absurd ideal of Democracy and the outraged hatred of Communism as though they are our only choices. No wonder we are so polarized. And it’s no coincidence that when dictatorial powers move in, they always target the intelligencia. We’ve seen that already in the undermining of scientific research and news media over the past four years.
We live on a planet with 7 billion other humans. The idea that everyone can or should have/do everything they want ignores this reality, and is rooted in a childish selfishness. Our political system is 250 years old, it’s time it grew up.
Your democratically elected leaders don’t want you to be well educated. That makes you a lot harder to predict and to manipulate. Why else would a country with the world’s greatest resources per capita have one of its worst educational systems, a system that encourages crippling student debts? It’s an embarrassment, but it’s completely deliberate.
Brilliant post Tim and as some1 else posted very thought provoking. I am not smart enough to know the answer but if change isn’t forthcoming I like many, know the outcome
That was thought provoking and beautiful .
It’s amazing how in all the internet and freedom of access to information that the lies and the propaganda have only become stronger . This information assymetry and ideological warfare has insidiously crept up on us and now I find otherwise educated people supporting genocidal right wing dictators (trump , BoJo , modi , bolsonaro , etc) just because they share one aspect – be it anti-muslim , anti-abortion, pro-religion (it’s not same as anti-muslim IMO) , less taxes , etc.
The idea that someone who is an educated decent and moral person who isn’t racist or xenophobic or authoritarian , who isn’t against welfare for poor and is for gender equality votes for trump because of abortion laws is both expected and hard to contemplate . One-issue voters get drawn into this polarized narrative and get stuck on it through propaganda and fox news and internet bubbles that are enforced
The american foreign policy of the 80s in central America is nothing but a disgrace and the actions of CIA is beyond morally repulsive. I never understood how it was that these people could get away it.
I assumed it was because of Cuba and the tensions which almost led to a nuclear war 1962. Because Central America after that was considered American territory.
But to me it was of personal matter as it rocked my world. Good or bad didn’t matter. It was just power and all the ideals that filled my world became bullocks. We protested, demonstrations for Nicaragua, Sandinistas and it meant nothing.
We were just naive and I abandoned my ideals, beliefs as that was not how the world functioned and went into finance where a new set of beliefs came in to play. Quite a different scene.
And it’s still going on today with Morales, Maduro etc etc
There was that event recently where Trump introduced Guaido as the real Venezuelan President, to a standing ovation from everyone including democratic leader Nancy Pelosi.
(It’s understandable if anyone missed it because the big news was about how Nancy Pelosi tore up a piece of paper.)
Great post Tim. Thanks again.
Josh
Sorry I didn’t get back to you in the previous comment section regarding your comment about Wengerball. To me there is often a difference between eye catching and effective. Playing effective football means you score more and/or you concede fewer goals then the teams you trying to compare yourself with. That seems like a complete no brainer. In the case of the Wengerball years we certainly played an eye catching attacking style but despite all the bluster about being an attacking team we never very effective because we were out scored every season by the teams who were not sacrificing their ability to prevent the opposition from scoring. Bottom line is to each his own and it depends on what’s more important to you. Obviously the ideal situation is to be both eye catching and effective. However in our case we didn’t have both and is eye catching or effective more important to you.
I think that result today is even more amazing and awesome then last Wednesday. I heard somewhere that for the second game in a row we have the lowest ball possession percentage of any Arsenal club since then started keeping the stat. That’s amazing for a manager who has come thru the wenger/pep managerial prep school. Arteta certainly chooses effective over attractive/eye catching. Much as he hated bus parking I wonder what Arsene thinks or if he was even cheering for us to win
I can’t say for sure what he was thinking about that performance, but Arsene was definitely cheering for us to win.
Thanks for this. The thoughts expressed in this post are some of the reasons I’ve played one of Patti Smith’s signature songs over the years:
“Vengeful aspect became suspect
And bending low as if to hear
And the armies ceased advancing
Because the people had their ear
And the shepherds and the soldiers
Lay beneath the stars
Exchanging visions and laying arms
To waste in the dust
[Pre-Chorus]
In the form of shining valleys
Where the pure air recognized
And my senses newly opened
I awakened to the cry
[Chorus]
People have the power
People have the power”
Lol…it’s funny, but at the end of the game streamed on ESPN+, you can just hear Clive Allen say, “I’m done, then!” in disgust. He really doesn’t like the Arsenal and I’m so glad he got quieter and quieter as the game came to the end, since he couldn’t trash talk the team that was winning by a clear margin on the scoreline. I loved it!
I’m so done with the old guard of commentators.
Somebody should tell Clive, Sky, BET and anyone else who broadcasts football: nobody cares about your backwards proper football man morality and defense first Scrooge McDuck mentality. Let’s have some new blood in the call box!!!
Holy sh*t, Doc, this post really brought out a side of you I had… I had no idea!
Can’t help you with Athenian democracy, unfortunately. Political history not my thing.
Hope you’re doing well, and thanks to Tim for this good post.
😬
Sometimes I get fired up and then I’m slightly embarrassed. But I hold these truths to be self evident.
It’s not a uniquely American thing to always assume the worst of your government, no matter what, and allow no exceptions, but I do find it uniquely American just how far some are willing to go in attributing the absolute worst motivations. No doubt, American is responsible for some atrocities, at home and abroad. But I find it strange that nobody talks about what American has done well as a nation. Or maybe this is just typical of leftist Americans. And by the way, I say this as a non-American.
With the whole 9-11 thing, I don’t know. I see some conspiracies as part of the narrative commitment to self-loathing no matter what. I also catch a whiff of the doctrine of original sin (I can’t talk Athenian politics, but I can talk Augustinian theology!), which became orthodoxy in large part (I think) because of the human need to ascribe meaning and explanation to the meaninglessness of suffering and death. In this case, it is strangely comforting, not upsetting, to know ‘why’ 9-11 happened. It insulates you from the terror that this is just life.
…and more than insulation, there’s also a weird nationalism at play in this form of self-loathing: simply put, t*error*sts do not have the wits to pull this off on their own; it can only be the result of a perverse but unique form of American ‘ingenuity’.
…and the constant confusion of adjective and noun above is just embarrassing. American made me do it!
I suspect that part of the problem here (in the US, please) is that we have largely whitewashed our history of atrocities or worse passed them off as beneficial.
-Genocide of the Indigenous peoples
-Nuclear atrocities against Japan (also the firebombing, which was worse)
-Horrific wars in South Asia
-Oppression in Latin America
-SLAVERY
-The South’s treason and war to own people
-Jim Crow
-The Jim Crow of the North (which we still don’t talk about often enough)
-The war on Terra
-Obama’s continued war on Terra
-The US’s role in the coming climate genocide
Because our children are taught that either these things didn’t happen, that they weren’t bad, that they were actually good (for example nuking Japan), or they aren’t even taught them, when we learn about these things on our own or at a later age we get kind of “radicalized” and start to question everything.
In fact, I think that most of the intractable differences between the left and the right are that the right doesn’t believe the reality of US history.
That’s what I see as a US citizen, a parent, and someone who works at a University.
“-Nuclear atrocities against Japan (also the firebombing, which was worse)”
This one I never had a problem with considering the alternative – a land invasion and the subsequent casualties, which by all estimates would’ve been higher even for the Japanese, not to mention up to a million on the Us side.
Japan might’ve been defeated by then but there’s a world of difference between defeat and surrender.
Yeah, but that’s my point, in a way. There isn’t a country that hasn’t tried to cover up their atrocities. America is not unique in that regard. It is, however, somewhat unique in that it does a very good job–and I say this as someone who works at a university where it is impossible not to hear how terrible the US is–of self-criticism. It actually wants to expose and call it out. And I think that’s a good thing that America does (and other countries that do it, too). Although, maybe I live in a leftist bubble.
I agree with the main points of your article. The income inequality, racialization, lack of proper health care, gun violence, single-issue voting, fundamentalist religion, etc. There’s a lot I’d love to see changed about this country. I also see a lot of kindness, a lot of people like you who want to make this a fair and just society.
The trick is to convince the people on the other side that your ideas are worth taking on board. And that doesn’t usually happen by yelling at them about how evil and r*cist they are (I’m speaking generally, not to your article). Remember, we want to change minds. I’m kind of old school in that I don’t think the solution to hatred is hatred.
Interesting stuff. I fear that your second civil war is going to be far worse than your first. Meanwhile the resulting vacuum in global leadership will be filled by a far more authoritarian regime.
Last night we got a glimpse of real leadership on the pitch and on the sidelines. Behold! A glimpse of Arsenal’s future. Determined and committed with not a little skill. Outhought, outfought and outplayed the best team in the land over the past several seasons.
COYG
I’ve been following tim and this site for almost ten years now. And in that time I have made maybe 2-3 comments. I came here looking for an analysis on the Arsenal vs Man City game and what i found was an analysis on the world and my country. Thank you Tim for saying the things that need to be said.
Thank you!
Thank you Tim. Dare I say you speak truth to power. Every time you write something like this , my enlightenment levels up
I love you Tim.
Tim – are you commenting on the Man City game 🙂