Back In The US of A

“Nationalism has again become a seductive but treacherous antidote to an experience of disorder and meaninglessness.” Pankaj Mishra, Age of Anger: A History of the Present

If I was struck by anything during our trip to Italy it was the concept of time, time measured in centuries, marked by monuments and statues, columns and frescoes, by monarchs and popes and princes, by invading armies, by rise and fall, by ideas that took hold in one place and spread to another. For an American, whose country is still a toddler by these standards, it’s instructive to walk along cobblestone streets that were laid long before Europeans discovered the New World. Walking those streets, standing awestruck in St. Peter’s basilica in Rome, one considers the continuity of the human species, and how from ancient times to now, human beings haven’t changed all that much. There have always been saints and prophets, men (and a few women) with an unquenchable thirst for power, artists and poets, and average people trying to eke out an existence. Always tension between the powerful and the powerless, questions of who should rule, and why? The church? The king? The military commander? The philosophers? One thing is certain -- in whatever nation, in whatever era -- the powerful are loath to share their power with the masses.

George Herbert Walker Bush, father of W, husband of Barbara, passed away while we were traveling. When I saw the news on my phone I knew an outpouring of hagiography would follow, as it always does when a former American president dies. The major media outlets, pundits and talking heads, of whatever political persuasion, close ranks and heap praise on the deceased leader, obscuring, or ignoring altogether, the deeds of the man. Thus, George H.W. Bush becomes a kindly grandfather, devoted father, collector of colorful socks, faithful and decent husband, friend to political foes, and solid servant of the American empire. But like his son, Bush Senior was a man whose hands were stained with the blood of innocent people, from Central America to Iraq, women, children, infants. Father, like son, lied to the American people. Broke the law and lied his privileged ass off. Father, like son, pardoned his co-conspirators. The Bush family yacht is anchored in a cove of blood. We shouldn’t forget this or allow the subservient media to whitewash history.

Leave it to the French to stand up to the neoliberal world order and declare, enough! Enough catering to the wealthy at the expense of the masses. Enough with a government that fosters economic inequality and makes the lives of ordinary, working people more precarious and difficult. I’m not a proponent of violence, but on the other hand, property damage and disruption of commerce seems to be the only way to get the attention of those who wield political power. Do you remember how much good the largely peaceful protests around the world did in 2003 when George W. Bush launched the illegal invasion of Iraq? Bush laughed, Dick Cheney smirked. I wonder if the French Yellow Vests, who are not tied to any recognized political movement, left or right, have spread seeds that will land and propagate in other countries wracked by neoliberalism. I wonder if a corner has been turned and if France has pointed to a way out of this disastrous wilderness of free markets, mobile capital, and privatization.  

During our travels I read Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino and was struck by this passage: “It is the desperate moment when we discover that this empire, which had seemed to us the sum of all wonders, is an endless, formless ruin, that corruption’s gangrene has spread too far to be healed…” Sounds like the United States to me.