The modern discussion on taxation, pension, and health insurance in modern capitalist democracies is often framed as an either or. On the one side, a capital- and competition-driven option, tolerating regressive taxation, and presented by many so-called freedom seekers as being the only solution on which the whole bank needs to be waged, or else, and on the other side, a vast majority of people accepting the idea of progressive taxation and that some basic level of universal support is needed.

I find it interesting to reflect with Maimonides on these issues. Text below. Long ago, he described social aid as constituting a seven-step ladder. He added to it an eighth step, following a powerful rhetorical and religious tradition of transforming (wishing to transform?) the expected into the unexpected. Another example of this 7 + 1 = 8 sort of transformation is familiar. It is the Christian cooptation of the Jewish sabbatic week and resumption into an eighth day, Sunday, a day of sharing in a resurrection.

If you map the behavior of modern societies on Maimonides’ ladder of charity, modern tax, health and security systems are his level 7 (Mishneh Torah 10.7–14):

he who gives charity to the needy without knowing to whom he gives, and without the needy man knowing from whom he takes, for this is a divine command.

I’m translating ‘oni by needy rather than poor to point to a more general situation. That’s where modern democratic systems are, or are called to be: anonymity of the “gift” (which used to be imposed more or less by traditional Jewish, Christian, and Muslim communities for centuries), anonymity of the recipient, requiring a system of evaluation of need, then as now. Whereas level 8 of charity for Maimonides is

he who puts within an Israelite’s hand [his] livelihood, and gives him a gift or a loan, or creates [business] associations with him, or finds an occupation for him, to strengthen his hand until he is not in need of people (creatures) and doesn’t beg.

It looks like Maimonides’ highest level in social help fits the modern extreme right wing’s argument. The “teach the man to fish” argument. All the steps are actually necessary to each other. There is no step 8 without the first seven steps. On the other hand, to stop at step 7 and turn social security systems into individualistic, solipsistic solutions, is a recipe for catastrophic upheavals whose form no one can predict. Risky generosity and forgiveness (including that of debts) has to be part of step 7, without which there is no step 8, the step where a well-capitalized economy Maimonides did not see can risk making loans by the thousands and enable anyone so inspired to become an abrahamic figure, hospitable and blessed.

Maimonides’ text on charity and help of others is from Mishneh Torah, Laws of Charity, 10:7-14 (or 10–14). Text (from Mamre.org):

NYT opinion piece on Iran today by Ryan Crocker, career ambassador to Lebanon (1990–93), Kuwait (1994–95), Syria (1998–2001), Pakistan (2004–7), Iraq (2007–9), and Afghanistan (2011–12), specialist of the Middle East (Persian and Arabic speaker), and presently dean of the Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A & M. His argument regarding Iran: that the US should engage it directly. Why? Because there is solid, tested, evidence for the existence of a rational calculus on the part of the post-78 Iranian authorities. Iran has provided help regarding the situation in Afghanistan initially, presumably because of its own fears of Sunni Islam, especially the latter’s radical version. It has been willing to help even with certain aspects of Iraq.

How should the US behave towards Iran, according to Crocker? It should hold direct, confidential, multi-issue, non-ideological talks. What is in play? The lifting of sanctions, versus verification to the satisfaction of the “international community” (US + economically and militarily subject states) that Iran’s nuclear program will not be weaponized. His conclusion, after showing what is possible and should guide the negotiations: “the Iranians will have to move first. There can be no question of easing American sanctions until Iran has demonstrated its seriousness in confining any nuclear program to peaceful purposes.” In other words, we have the upper hand, their move.

But is it their move rather than ours? Why does Croker publish this kind of letter today if not because it has slowly dawned upon various Washington circles that the war we have been conducting economically, financially, and technologically against Iran has failed or is in danger of failing *and* leading to unintended, negative consequences for the US? This undeclared war has failed to bring compliance and is likely to continue to fail, given the new foreign policy and energy landscape. Because of this failure, and the tendency of Washington under Obama to hedge its support of democratic movements in the Levant, one aspect of the question is that the Saudis and emirates feel very nervous when considering the US energy landscape for the foreseeable future (short) and the potential strength of Iran in the region. If the US wants to continue to control the area in other ways than by purely military means, it needs to talk to Iran before the regional situation deteriorates further to the detriment of local reactionary US allies.

Interesting that a career ambassador, dean of the Bush School of Government at Texas A & M, is willing to print today that Bush’s “axis of evil” speech of early 2002 in effect killed any possibility of continued diplomatic work with Iran on essential security issues. To many of us from afar, even though we had access only to biased and government-fed newspaper articles (including the NYT), it was obvious that the march towards war with Iraq after 2001, increasing all along 2002, was crazy even from the most conservative, radical capitalist point of view. To attack and weaken the main enemy of Iran and risk changing the equilibrium of forces between Iraq and Iran, no matter the claims of democratic expansion, seemed contradictory and very dangerous, let alone immoral in the number of victims the actual war made. I remember intelligence specialists at the time (2002) recommending not to do it. Crocker seemed to think along those lines too (Burns-Crocker memo to Colin Powell, late 2002?). I wonder what the other US government officials were really thinking at the time, given the nauseating but comprehensible logistical and supportive role in Saddam Hussein’s favor towards the end of the Iraq-Iran war (1988) when Iran was in danger of running over Iraqi defenses. Myths and stories, says Rumsfeld? At the time, were Rumsfeld and coterie of friends ready to contemplate not only the weakening of Iraq but that of Iran, if need be, by surrounding this country physically (Turkey, Iraq, Afghanistan, Persian Gulf, emirates and Saudi Arabia) and strangling it in all possible ways?

A different attitude to Iran and other countries in the region at that time would mean a different outcome now in Syria. I should be glad, I suppose, that Crocker and others are having second thoughts, even if it is still at the service of a certain idea of a US-enforced ideological and economic order.

Birds fishing for anchovies at Mitchell’s Cove (end of Almar in Santa Cruz), this afternoon, around 1pm:

I am surprised to see this in early November. But what do I know? I’ve only been living here since 1974 or so. In August, when pelicans gather in large numbers to fish anchovies, halibut may also come close to the beach (Mitchell Cove). Time for me once upon a time, if water was relatively free of seaweed, to take a sturdy pole, 3 oz to 3 1/2 oz metal lures, finger protection, and step into the water to cast as far as possible for lledan (halibut in Welsh).

Holl sent = All Saints’ day. I walk to the library through the forest and find myself contemplating and puzzling over shadows of images from a childhood in Brittany. Perhaps because a raven is making knocking sounds, xylophone like. The Pacific ocean is reassuringly to the West, as was the Atlantic way back. Fall has come, winter is near, and children last night reminded me of a world of spirits and bogeys that are invited to come out on the night of October 31. To set the mood, Shostakovitch’s piano trio No. 2 in E minor, op. 67, will do. There was no Halloween in the Tregor of my youth, just stories told about ghosts in many a winter’s evenings. Stories of young men going around a countryside of isolated farms in the middle of the night to scare sleeping families. They put lit candles in carved out beets and turnips and hoisted them on a pole long enough to be waved across windows, even second floor windows if farmers were rich and deserved to be frightened by vengeful spirits. Or so we were told, round and round.

Largo movement of the Shostakovitch. On the first day of November, the village celebrated All Saints’ day, Gouel an Holl Sent. It was followed by the Day of the Dead, “jour des morts” in French or “deiz an Anaon” in Breton, day of the souls. This was part of a tangled history, a long-in-coming victory by the Church, since the early sixteenth century or so, when the idea that the dead were not really dead and one could live with them, even cajole, threaten, and use them, was put to rest. Nearly. Christianity was about the dead being really dead. A Mantegna already showed so (below: The Dead Christ). And soon after Mantegna, Holbein and his portrait of the deposition of Christ (below). We were to be birthed on the day of our death. Our saint’s day—which was the date of their death—was what counted, not the day of birth of our biological machine. Life was a long parturition. A project.

And yet. To prepare for these two days, in the cemetery surrounding the village church and not yet replaced by a parking lot and commercial mall, graves were straightened, weeded, cleaned, no matter the weather at this time of the year. We helped plant daisies and bring large bouquets of chrysanthemons or peonies. Unattended tombs could be cleaned and flowered by a neighbor who remembered the family. With her bucket and brush, kneeling on the creaking gravel, an aunt brushed and washed her family’s tomb with such intensity her knuckles bled. We couldn’t tell if hair was disheveled and cheeks wet because of wind and rain. One day, a saints’ day or other, one of the great tides or our forgiving ocean would swallow and wash away all of these bloodied and pained souls. Graves would list, and we would forget how to sing In paradisum deducant te angeli.