Reading these articles just makes me want to cry. These principles and ideals are now an impossible dream, tilting at windmills. It shouldn't be like this.
Liz Gauffreau: Our friend, Kate Morgan Reade, says it well in her comments below.
We today are inspired by Roman literature from Cicero through Ovid and Vergil, through Livy and through Seneca. Different genres -- rhetoric, poetry, history (in Livy's case, historical fiction), and philosophy.
That time was characterized by terrible civil wars and triumvirates that would draw lists for decimation.
Yet Cicero, who lived through those storms, provides streetwise philosophy today.
Seneca was murdered by Nero, and he provides Stoic wisdom today.
Tacitus lived under Domitian, who killed Stoic Senators. Tacitus, of the Senatorial class, shrank in horror to survive. But he helped the widows.
Tacitus lived on to write Annals and Histories that provide inspiration to classical political theory, as to our Founders or John Locke.
We are living under Caligula and Nero.
But we have great, great people.
Several of these include Professor Ruth Ben-Ghiat (NYU Professor of Italian Language and Culture -- who writes of Italian fascism -- a beautiful writer who represents the beauty of Italian culture that even shined through times of fascism).
Another is Sherrilyn Ifill, cousin to the much missed, dear, dear Gwen Ifill. My God, she does good and great work. She is Professor of Law at Howard University. Ms. Ifill is like Director of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund.
Another is CellyBlue, whose Substack is full of beauty of heritage. My God, CellyBlue inspires mel. CellyBlue dwells in Alabama (I think Montgomery), and occasionally she would do a video with her sister from Maryland. CellyBlue's site is full of wisdom from a beautiful culture.
Do not think that Eleanor Roosevelt lived through better times.
It was in the crucible of Jim Crow and epidemic lynching that Eleanor Roosevelt developed her deep humanity and spirituality of the Great Statesman of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
In the Republic, Plato tells the myth of the cave and the shadows and the singular person who sees the real world.
It is the masses, as in The Republic's CAVE, that see only the shadows.
Kate Morgan Reade gives me the hope that the fever reaches its high and breaks.
What is terrible is not that our times are new. Rather, they reflect the deep-seated hatreds of Jim Crow.
The racism that committed genocide among the First Nation peoples.
The epidemic lynchings.
But we have always had lights from Ralph Waldo Emerson, through Henry David Thoreau, Emily Dickinson, Walt Whitman, Zora Neale Hurston, James Baldwin, Richard Wright, Toni Morrison, Jesmyn Ward (a writer today).
We have always had moral leaders from Harriet Tubman, through Frederick Douglass, W.E.B. DuBois, and the leaders of the civil rights movement of my time from Rosa Parks all the way through John Lewis and Elijah Cummings.
Is today's Corey Booker LESS?
Is today's Sherrilyn Ifill LESS?
Is today's Bernie Sanders LESS?
Was the epidemic lynching, the genocide of First Nation, the massive slaughter of the bison . . . were these LESS than today's destruction?
When I was born in 1948, I lived in the fourth term of FDR (who died in April '45, but whose term was completed by Harry S Truman).
Hitler and Himmler had just been crushed.
The worst murderers were in power: Joseph Stalin and Lavrenti Beria -- two men who in the annals of history will go down among the most evil of mass murderers. I was almost six years old, before the both of them passed away.
When I was seven, Emmett Till was lynched.
During my time, fire hoses and billy clubs were wielded against civil rights protesters.
And yet the lyrical rhetoric of Dr. Martin Luther King rocked the country.
The evil, the hatred has been there not only my whole 77 years, but for the history of all mankind.
My Mom is from Charleroi (in the Francophone part of Belgium -- the artistic part was in Bruges, in Flanders -- where Flemish is spoken, a dialect of Dutch).
My Mom was, like me, born less than three years after the World War. In her case, WWI.
She was reared on the horrors suffered by her neighbors and family during the Kaiser's occupation of Charleroi and Belgium during the "Great War" (WWI).
At 18, my Mom, in a better family, hoped to debut in Society.
Instead, she was treated to the invasion by the Third Reich. All of her friends -- young women and men -- were shipped to forced labor in Düsseldorf.
My Mom was an RN, thanks be to God, so she was spared.
For all of that, her Mom, stressed by the Third Reich, developed cancer and died.
Mom said the cancer was caused by the stresses of Nazi occupation.
I think, as the daughter, my Mom had the right instinct about that.
If Mom was reared on the horrors of The Great War (WWI), she reared me on the horrors suffered by our family and family friends during both wars.
So, the struggle for human equality, for the dignity and worth of each human person, has been uphill my entire life, and the life of my Mom, God rest her good soul..
We have great souls today.
We lost Elijah Cummings and John Lewis.
We have Corey Booker and Sherrilyn Ifill.
And many, many more.
As Professor Joyce Vance says, "We are in this together."
We have to stick together.
We have to be realistic, but there will be always those who struggle for the dignity of each person. The worth of each person.
We have always been, and always will be the few that Plato describes in The Republic as the Ones who See. The sad majority will be in the firelit cave and only see the shadows.
Plato lived 400 BC.
It is the same now as then.
Liz Gauffreau, you are a wonderful, a magnificent person, who has the core human values of love and mutual respect and the worth of each individual person.
You will stay strong by linking with friends who share core values.
We can differ on many, many points. I love chocolate, you may love mint. I love red colors, you might love yellow. But we share the core values of Eleanor Roosevelt.
Liz Gauffreau: J. Edgar Hoover reigned over the FBI from the beginning in 1919 until his death in 1972.
Edgar Hoover viewed the Civil Rights Movement as pro-Communist and had FBI agitators provoke hostility and honey-traps to disrupt the marriages of Civil Rights Leaders.
As if that use of brutal power was not enough, Edgar Hoover committed extortion on Dr Martin Luthier King to induce Dr. King‘s suicide.
That is an exercise of enormous, destructive power without restraint from any force — not the Executive, the Legislature nor the Judiciary.
From my perspective, there were no checks or balances to tame Edgar Hoover‘s gross abuse of power.
The darker it gets, the more hope I have, because it is like a terrible disease whose fever is dangerous but must break. This festering carbuncle will not kill the patient, although many good people will have suffered because of it. It will leave an ugly scar, which will serve as a reminder of our folly. But we will survive. Behind the real fear of immigrants—aka: all of us who arrived by choice or were forced, except our indigenous friends—is a subconscious, gut level understanding that our national fabric is woven from the same diverse elements that make a wild field stronger against disease and destruction than a mono-cropped one. We are kevlar.
My erudite friend, Armand. You are such a shining light of reason and hope, cutting through the dark world of this time by highlighting the convictions of Eleanor Roosevelt—indeed, one of the greatest leaders of the twentieth century.
Thank you for the referral to Carol's Substack!
I look forward to learning about Willi Brandt!
I am verklempt by your words, and remain profoundly grateful for your friendship, my very fine friend! Thank you! 🌷
Chris Andrews: Thanks so much, to a writer who gets it just right conceptually and in all ways with „Men on Pause,“ a wonderful bit of whimsy I always, always enjoy!
Reading these articles just makes me want to cry. These principles and ideals are now an impossible dream, tilting at windmills. It shouldn't be like this.
Liz Gauffreau: Our friend, Kate Morgan Reade, says it well in her comments below.
We today are inspired by Roman literature from Cicero through Ovid and Vergil, through Livy and through Seneca. Different genres -- rhetoric, poetry, history (in Livy's case, historical fiction), and philosophy.
That time was characterized by terrible civil wars and triumvirates that would draw lists for decimation.
Yet Cicero, who lived through those storms, provides streetwise philosophy today.
Seneca was murdered by Nero, and he provides Stoic wisdom today.
Tacitus lived under Domitian, who killed Stoic Senators. Tacitus, of the Senatorial class, shrank in horror to survive. But he helped the widows.
Tacitus lived on to write Annals and Histories that provide inspiration to classical political theory, as to our Founders or John Locke.
We are living under Caligula and Nero.
But we have great, great people.
Several of these include Professor Ruth Ben-Ghiat (NYU Professor of Italian Language and Culture -- who writes of Italian fascism -- a beautiful writer who represents the beauty of Italian culture that even shined through times of fascism).
https://lucid.substack.com/
Another is Sherrilyn Ifill, cousin to the much missed, dear, dear Gwen Ifill. My God, she does good and great work. She is Professor of Law at Howard University. Ms. Ifill is like Director of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund.
https://sherrilyn.substack.com/
Another is CellyBlue, whose Substack is full of beauty of heritage. My God, CellyBlue inspires mel. CellyBlue dwells in Alabama (I think Montgomery), and occasionally she would do a video with her sister from Maryland. CellyBlue's site is full of wisdom from a beautiful culture.
https://substack.com/@cellyblue
Another is Zuri Stevens, "We need a Black Woman in Charge":
https://weneedablackwomanincharge.substack.com/
Do not think that Eleanor Roosevelt lived through better times.
It was in the crucible of Jim Crow and epidemic lynching that Eleanor Roosevelt developed her deep humanity and spirituality of the Great Statesman of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
In the Republic, Plato tells the myth of the cave and the shadows and the singular person who sees the real world.
It is the masses, as in The Republic's CAVE, that see only the shadows.
Kate Morgan Reade gives me the hope that the fever reaches its high and breaks.
What is terrible is not that our times are new. Rather, they reflect the deep-seated hatreds of Jim Crow.
The racism that committed genocide among the First Nation peoples.
The epidemic lynchings.
But we have always had lights from Ralph Waldo Emerson, through Henry David Thoreau, Emily Dickinson, Walt Whitman, Zora Neale Hurston, James Baldwin, Richard Wright, Toni Morrison, Jesmyn Ward (a writer today).
We have always had moral leaders from Harriet Tubman, through Frederick Douglass, W.E.B. DuBois, and the leaders of the civil rights movement of my time from Rosa Parks all the way through John Lewis and Elijah Cummings.
Is today's Corey Booker LESS?
Is today's Sherrilyn Ifill LESS?
Is today's Bernie Sanders LESS?
Was the epidemic lynching, the genocide of First Nation, the massive slaughter of the bison . . . were these LESS than today's destruction?
When I was born in 1948, I lived in the fourth term of FDR (who died in April '45, but whose term was completed by Harry S Truman).
Hitler and Himmler had just been crushed.
The worst murderers were in power: Joseph Stalin and Lavrenti Beria -- two men who in the annals of history will go down among the most evil of mass murderers. I was almost six years old, before the both of them passed away.
When I was seven, Emmett Till was lynched.
During my time, fire hoses and billy clubs were wielded against civil rights protesters.
And yet the lyrical rhetoric of Dr. Martin Luther King rocked the country.
The evil, the hatred has been there not only my whole 77 years, but for the history of all mankind.
My Mom is from Charleroi (in the Francophone part of Belgium -- the artistic part was in Bruges, in Flanders -- where Flemish is spoken, a dialect of Dutch).
My Mom was, like me, born less than three years after the World War. In her case, WWI.
She was reared on the horrors suffered by her neighbors and family during the Kaiser's occupation of Charleroi and Belgium during the "Great War" (WWI).
At 18, my Mom, in a better family, hoped to debut in Society.
Instead, she was treated to the invasion by the Third Reich. All of her friends -- young women and men -- were shipped to forced labor in Düsseldorf.
My Mom was an RN, thanks be to God, so she was spared.
For all of that, her Mom, stressed by the Third Reich, developed cancer and died.
Mom said the cancer was caused by the stresses of Nazi occupation.
I think, as the daughter, my Mom had the right instinct about that.
If Mom was reared on the horrors of The Great War (WWI), she reared me on the horrors suffered by our family and family friends during both wars.
So, the struggle for human equality, for the dignity and worth of each human person, has been uphill my entire life, and the life of my Mom, God rest her good soul..
We have great souls today.
We lost Elijah Cummings and John Lewis.
We have Corey Booker and Sherrilyn Ifill.
And many, many more.
As Professor Joyce Vance says, "We are in this together."
We have to stick together.
We have to be realistic, but there will be always those who struggle for the dignity of each person. The worth of each person.
We have always been, and always will be the few that Plato describes in The Republic as the Ones who See. The sad majority will be in the firelit cave and only see the shadows.
Plato lived 400 BC.
It is the same now as then.
Liz Gauffreau, you are a wonderful, a magnificent person, who has the core human values of love and mutual respect and the worth of each individual person.
You will stay strong by linking with friends who share core values.
We can differ on many, many points. I love chocolate, you may love mint. I love red colors, you might love yellow. But we share the core values of Eleanor Roosevelt.
Thank you for proving the larger context. What finished me was when our governmental system of checks and balances failed.
Liz Gauffreau: J. Edgar Hoover reigned over the FBI from the beginning in 1919 until his death in 1972.
Edgar Hoover viewed the Civil Rights Movement as pro-Communist and had FBI agitators provoke hostility and honey-traps to disrupt the marriages of Civil Rights Leaders.
As if that use of brutal power was not enough, Edgar Hoover committed extortion on Dr Martin Luthier King to induce Dr. King‘s suicide.
That is an exercise of enormous, destructive power without restraint from any force — not the Executive, the Legislature nor the Judiciary.
From my perspective, there were no checks or balances to tame Edgar Hoover‘s gross abuse of power.
I think you’re right about Hoover’s destructive power. I remember my dad talking about it.
The darker it gets, the more hope I have, because it is like a terrible disease whose fever is dangerous but must break. This festering carbuncle will not kill the patient, although many good people will have suffered because of it. It will leave an ugly scar, which will serve as a reminder of our folly. But we will survive. Behind the real fear of immigrants—aka: all of us who arrived by choice or were forced, except our indigenous friends—is a subconscious, gut level understanding that our national fabric is woven from the same diverse elements that make a wild field stronger against disease and destruction than a mono-cropped one. We are kevlar.
Thank you, Kate. I sure hope you’re right.
My erudite friend, Armand. You are such a shining light of reason and hope, cutting through the dark world of this time by highlighting the convictions of Eleanor Roosevelt—indeed, one of the greatest leaders of the twentieth century.
Thank you for the referral to Carol's Substack!
I look forward to learning about Willi Brandt!
I am verklempt by your words, and remain profoundly grateful for your friendship, my very fine friend! Thank you! 🌷
Great piece and links, Armand.
Chris Andrews: Thanks so much, to a writer who gets it just right conceptually and in all ways with „Men on Pause,“ a wonderful bit of whimsy I always, always enjoy!