Aide-toi, le ciel t’aidera! says Hercules to a cart driver in La Fontaine’s fable of Le charretier embourbé. This proverbial bit of moral code goes back to antiquity. It made sense as part of the Greek notion of freedom and autarky, when it didn’t hurt that authority over oneself was enhanced by dominion over women, children, strangers, and slaves. This authority over others did not trouble the moral luminaries of the time and could be assumed to be part of the natural world. The English version, “God helps those who help themselves,” is often attributed to Benjamin Franklin but was first formulated in these exact words by Algernon Sidney in the seventeenth century. What is peculiar is that many people in the US think that the idea and even the formula originated in the Bible. For some, it might even be a commandment. In fact, it is not biblical at all, in spite of somewhat similar statements in the late book of Proverbs, and in spite of attempts to interpret some parables in the synoptic gospels—the faithful servant or the ten virgins—along this line. It is part of the mishmash of notions purporting to support a proudly conquering capitalism. Believing that it is a biblical verse is a way of surrendering one’s independence of thought to a mythic authority, while sugarcoating what can often be bitter and cruel. As many know, including a minority of Christians, this view of the person is a radical misunderstanding of the notion of grace. Jesus’ words and deeds were mostly concerned with those who need other people’s help and the biblical god doesn’t seem interested in those who help themselves, or at least not that barefacedly. The biblical god helps widows, orphans, strangers, oppressed Israelites, precisely in circumstances when human solutions are hard to come by.
All posts by Gildas Hamel
Exultet
It doesn’t seem appropriate at all to even think of singing the exultet hymn of praise at this coming resurrection mass. Exultet iam angelica turba caelorum… More adequate for our times would be to continue Lent and rogations for another year and keep asking: a peste fame et bello libera me domine…
There were times — in 541 under Justinian, or in 1347-48, the Black Plague, as recalled by Walter Scheidel in his article in yesterday’s NYT— when the demographic loss was so severe that the survivors could free themselves for a generation or two from the pressure exerted on them by the political or religious elites. Salaries doubled or trebled, no matter the early efforts by kings or aristocracy to reestablish the old order of hierarchical division and labor exploitation. Land redistribution happened by default.
We are unlikely to see the same redistribution of wealth happen this time. The limited size of human losses, from a global perspective, and the solid integration of the economic and political machinery make it unlikely. No matter our efforts to move towards a more just and sharing world, and in particular the generosity and courage shown by all workers in the pandemic, it seems that deregulated market capitalism will continue to dominate our lives during and after this catastrophe. The support given by a Democratic majority to Biden rather than to Sanders shows that most Americans are not ready (or were not ready, a few weeks ago) to reject the present capitalist disorder and its myths. Disorder in the USA: no insurance or security for workers, some seventeen million of whom, to date, have lost their jobs, contracts, and wages (that is about 11% of the non-farm work force, which totaled about 155M recently, according to the department of labor figures). More will lose their jobs, and with them their so often endorsed employers’ health plan. A one-time temporary help has been granted ($1200 per individual, $2400 per couple), but what is that in regard to the coming months of food bills, rent contracts, car payments, heating expenses, and especially eventual health insurance? What is that for people whose sense of isolation and abandonment will only grow? Tax payments have been delayed, but no sick leave, or so little, no insurance in the event of job loss, no affordable universal health insurance in sight, except perhaps some adjustments that will not threaten the income of insurance companies, hospital groups, pharmaceutical companies, or manufacturers of medical instruments. Congress is devising new financial packages to support large and small employers, but what happens if about a third of the total economy cannot restart because many people will have no income for several months?
Tamise
As I walk along the ocean this morning, I start to think of my own steps, I expect them to calm the strange feeling—a mix of anxiety and nervousness— that has engulfed all my thoughts for the past few days. Listening to the noise my shoes make on the path reminds me of the slow walk of the old mare Tamise on the road after an afternoon of hoeing. She was a quiet, smart, stubborn mare on the farm. The recreated memory of her measured pace comforts me, and perhaps even more the fact that she accepts to be bound to me by the rope of her bridle which I hold by old reflex but which she does not need to find the trough and her stall.
Leben? oder Theater?
Financial values went back up somewhat in reaction to the Federal Reserve’s resolve to inject up to 1.5 trillion dollars into the banking system and in reaction to the White House’s Rose Garden show Friday March 13. Trump was awful in his emcee role: health authorities were paraded before the microphone, and so were Pence and a number of CEOs of some large pharmaceutical companies and distributors like Walmart, Target-CVS, Roche, etc… They spent much of their time thanking a president who managed to get a number of facts wrong. He uttered a few lies. And he didn’t own up of course to terrible decisions made by his government, like the dismantling of the National Security Council’s global-health office. At least, small consolation, he didn’t talk anymore about a “foreign” virus. The take away from this Rose Garden exhibition was a belated recognition of the seriousness of the situation. And more practically, access to testing would ramp up by next week although Trump managed to still claim that it is not really necessary! No mention of course that a preliminary test had been developed by the end of January, about a week after China identified the gene structure, that the World Health Organization recommended this test for now, and that it was broadly distributed and used systematically in countries like South Korea but not in the US.
Other news that are diagnostic of the social chaos in our country: the democratic majority in the House voted for a package last night that was meant to support workers if they or their family members get sick. We learn today that the main provision—universal right to sick pay for ten days for any sick employee—will apply only to about 20% of workers, strictly speaking. It will exempt small and large companies. This was apparently the price that the House Democrats had to pay for getting Republicans and the White House on board, though about forty of the Republican representatives did not see the wisdom of such a watered down version of the law and still voted no. Today’s NYT editorial said that the Democrats should have pushed for the universal plan and forced the Republicans to explain their opposition to paid sick leave. But perhaps the most important thing was to get any legal package, no matter how imperfect and unjust, to be approved by a chaotic White House and a servile Senate. One may also think that not only Republicans but a number of Democrats worry about the economic cost of a protective, fairer, less exploitative labor law?. It looks like the Democrats wasted an opportunity to make some real progress in support of labor. This decision means that too many employees will show up for work even if they are sick, and that the virus will spread at a greater rate than would have occurred otherwise. I hope that our leaders are not choosing the economy over life.
right and left up and down
Super Tuesday came and went yesterday. There was a broadly shared, nervous expectation that Sanders would win big especially in the western states, collect many more delegates for the convention in Milwaukee than Biden who won a decisive victory a few days ago in South Carolina, and end up being the nominee. I wished for that outcome even though I don’t agree with some of Sanders’ suggestions and hoped he would tone down his message if he won. But it is Biden who clearly was chosen by the majority of democrats and mainstream media to represent them against Trump and defend entrenched interests this fall. Bloomberg declared for Biden, as did Klobuchar and Buttigieg last week, which probably helped some during the vote, as did the rain of media articles warning about a Sanders nomination… It would be nice to know the proportion of voters by revenue and age bands this Super Tuesday. In any case, it looks as if the attention given to cultural and morality matters in the past forty years continues to be an effective cover for both the Republican and Democratic parties, though from different so-called right and left angles. There remains a fundamental agreement about accepting the mechanisms of market capitalism as they developed under the aegis of the USA (see Rubin two days ago in his NYT piece), the absence or relative weakness of regulations in business and banking, the continuation of private health insurance programs, the role of the Federal Reserve, and need to go deeper in reshaping federal programs, except war (= aka Department of defense). Social Security and Medicare are in the crosshairs of Republicans and could be retooled with the help of the right of the Democratic party. How far private banking would go in replacing federal programs would be the object of intense discussions. It could happen with the assent of many people at the helm of the Democratic and Republican parties. I suppose that Biden would be willing to negotiate an arrangement with McConnell if it were presented as an element of freedom. Social Security and Medicare would be transformed into what the 401K funds, education costs, and health have become: fragile, exposed replacements for older public pension, education, and health systems in which the risk used to be much more broadly shared (except for health). The stench of Trump gone, one would be relieved for a while to breathe the fragrant air of ethical capitalism.
UCSC grad strike
Third day of wildcat strike by graduate students. Heavy police presence: 102 helmeted officers according to a person who counted them a bit before 3pm. Panorama below taken at that time:
grad strike UCSC
Here is a view of the picket a little after 2 pm:
ink and graphite
I walk in the cold air that moves from the north,
a folded sheet of paper in my pocket,
torn from a notebook left by the dead.
No phone or fiction where I stop and sit.
I cast graphite waves on the leaf,
bits of tightly bound lace,
and still wait for the promised swell.
Hand and pencil shiver,
the streaks become smaller.
An age-old scan of the imagined horizon
turns into a quiet and patient wake.
The memory of dipping a steel nib in ink reappears,
the slow drawing of purple sticks and ells along faint lines,
down the slope of a school desk,
and the miracle of painted words.
trump-Nineveh
A stunning 2700-year-old cuneiform inscription written across the winged body of a bearded, bull-like, and Trump-like figure has recently come to the world’s attention. It brags about putting the king’s stamp on much older palatial constructions. Pundits hesitate to accept the authenticity of the document. Could it be a forgery? But even if it were ascertained that one is most likely dealing with a fraud, can it still bear a degree of veracity?
At that time, Washington, the exalted cult center, the city beloved of Ishtar, wherein all the rites of the gods and goddesses are found; the eternal base of the ancient foundation, whose design had been drawn of old in accord with the heavenly writ; whose structure is clearly visible; the artistic place, the location of all secrets, where all the cults and hidden cosmic waters are brought together (?); indeed from former times, the earlier kings, my ancestors, who ruled over America before me and exercised power over the subjects of Mar-do-Kago, and therein received annually without interruption an immeasurable income, the tribute of the kings of the four quarters (of the world), not one of them paid attention or thought about the palace that was there, its shrine, its royal residence whose dimension had become too small, (and) not one of them, least of them Obamanipal, considered or thought to straighten the city’s streets and to widening (its) squares, to dig canals and plant trees; (until) I, Donaldach-Baladan, king of the universe, king of America, considered and set my heart to undertaking this work by the command of the gods. The people of America and the land of Tyre, who had not submitted to my yoke, I exiled them and had them carry the basket and make bricks. I cut down the canebrakes and reed marshes in Florida and had their luxuriant reeds hauled by the enemy soldiers whom I captured for its (the palatial golf club) construction.
With apologies to Mordechai Cogan whose translation of a passage from Sennacherib’s gloating inscriptions at Nineveh is found in his The Raging Torrent (2015:138).
No on recall
Regarding the March 3, 2020, upcoming elections: vote NO on the abusive recall of Santa Cruz’s council members Chris Krohn and Drew Glover. ALSO, vote for Tim Fitzmaurice and Katherine Beiers. It is critical to do both, i.e. NO on the recall and YES for Fitzmaurice and Beiers. Yes also for a general effort to restore civility…
Bad Animal will host an event in support of Tim Fitzmaurice, on poetry and politics, this Saturday Jan 25, 2020, 5:00 to 8:00pm.
For more details, see Tim’s information regarding running for the term ending December 2022. There is further information on the No on Recalls site. The Rose Investigative report is also available (full report), as well as letters to the council and community by Krohn and Glover.
The pro-recall site, called Santa Cruz United, seems to me singularly focused on furthering real estate interests under the guise of defending moral standards. By not waiting for the end of Krohn’s and Glover’s short mandates, the main real estate supporters of the recall are trying to score on a larger issue, namely protect their investments by pushing for a more conservative Santa Cruz Council.