The Banana Republic of America

 Is this the end of American democracy?  Pretty much, says David Kurtz,  an informed observer at the excellent Talking Points Memo. Josh Marshal, the founder of TPM, and the most penetrating observer of current American politics, concurs.

1,000,000,000 Voters

You read that right.  There are very close to ONE BILLION qualified voters taking part in the Indian election.  There is likely to be a high turnout because some issues important to Indians are effectively on the ballot.

You want another impressive number? How about  24,341,055,613.7 (earlier today)?

 That's the distance from Earth to Voyager 1 in kilometers.

From the Jet Propulsion Lab:

From the Daily Mail, sometime back.

Comments on

 Some months ago I turned off Comments on this blog, for reasons I can't recall.  I have now turned them back on.  Perhaps one of you can give  it a  try?

It Takes A Village Where No One Is Above The Law To Bring Down A Tyrant

It Takes A Village Where No One Is Above The Law To Bring Down A Tyrant is a post at toays Morning Memo at TPM.  Here's an excerpt:

So it has warmed my heart this week to hear multiple prospective jurors in the Trump hush-money case assert that no one is above the law. As a statement of fact, that is unassailable. But it’s more important as a civic virtue. It states an expectation and an aspiration for who we are and what we want to be.

Nothing is quite as succinct a distillation of the American revolutionary experience: No one is above the law. (Where we have been at our worst is putting people – enslaved peoples, minorities, women, immigrants – outside of the law.) We are seeing random citizens who are imbued with an innate understanding of what the rule of law means. That civic-minded understanding of the rule of law is the bedrock foundation for the legal structures we erect upon it. Without it, we have nothing. It’s a small sign of hope in a troubled time.

This reminds me of the brilliant speech Ursula K LeGuin put in the mouth of her character Shevek in her novel The Dispossesed. Have a look.

Star Trek will not save us

 The Honest Sorceror argues that there is no conceivable technological fix for the decline of our civilization. All civilizations depend on key resources which will eventually be used up. When they are it will be impossible to replace them and our network of technologies and  institutions will unravel.

This is an economist ' argument, clearly stated. 

Don't forget

 

Forwarded this email? Subscribe here for more From Heather Cox Richardson:  On March 21, 1861, Georgia’s Alexander Stephens, the newly-elected vice president of the Confederacy, explained to a crowd that the Confederate government rested on the “great truth” that the Black man “is not equal to the white man; that…subordination to the superior race is his natural and normal condition.” Stephens told listeners that the Confederate government “is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth.”

The English language, Canada, yesterday

 I was listening to the  CBC 1 program "Commotion" where they were discussing  Canada's music awards.  One of the commentators used these two phrases:  "Jetson-realistic" and "super-iconic."

Once in the early days of the breakout of rap I told my academic adviser -- who had been an important dean in the turbulent days 1968-72 that soon it would be impossible for my generation -- the rock and roll generation -- to understand what younger people were talking about.

He gave a small smile and said "Couldn't happen to a nicer bunch."

Umair Haq, the Everything Crisis and the Crisis of Democracy

 The eccentric economist Umair Haq is the blogger I have the most respect for.  Why?  Because he is always looking at the big picture, and he is always right.  Sure, it is a deeply pessimistic picture he paints, but he has consistently analyzed trends before prominent commentators have even thought about them.  If you want to know more about him, look  at his most recent essay

Umair Haq and now everybody else have written about the crisis of democracy, and sure enough it is real enough and alarming.  But there is a positive side to this.  Reading high quality news sources (the CBC, the Guardian) and even mediocre ones (MSNBC) I am struck by the fact that people in many countries know that on a very basic level know that elections, honest elections, are essential for sane public life, and  are willing to organize and fill the streets to get them.  And even Putin and  Lukashenko have to present themselves as elected leaders.  The news is filled with wars and even genocide, but also coverage of elections and how honest or dishonest they are. The CBC routinely does this.

One reason that American democracy is in so much trouble is that no one is willing to say how ridiculous the American "system" is. Indeed, Americans hardly seem to reccognize there is a problem.

Nomadic empires

If you are interested in nomadic empires, you surely will want to read this substantial article at Medievalists.net. If you want to know more, it will link you to the original scholarly article Genetic population structure of the Xiongnu Empire at imperial and local scales. 

I feel much smarter than I did before I read this material😄.  It's really a matter of attitude -- my attitude.  The traditional literary sources  for the steppe seemed to be dominated by mythological stories of Genghis  Khan and efforts of more modern historians to estimate how many gazillion Mongols were in his armies.  The latter efforts were influenced by a fear of the Ottomans, which kept alive the fearsome reputation of the Mongols and the Huns.  (Not so much the Avars and the Magyars.)

This recent DNA research gives me reason to visualize the steppe peoples as real peoples with economies, graves and other tangible attributes.

Image:  A multi-ethnic dinner on the steppes.  No doubt they will be discussing the state of the herds and potential marriage alliances.

To my readers : January 30, 2030'

 Friends,

My Parkinson's is progressing, and I find myself tired and too often afflicted with brain fog.

So  if you've got something you've always meant to ask me or tell me, this would be a good time.

Maybe you'll want to send anything too personal or confidential via email.

Some good news out of Nunavut

We hear that the Federal government of Canada has turned over control of resources and other areas of federal jurisdiction to the territorial government of Nunavut, the farthest northern territory of Canada, inhabited mostly by Inuit (formerly called Eskimo). This is a big deal. More later.

Here's the "More Later."

In Canada, as in the United States and I believe Australia and New Zealand and other colonies (Brazil?) the indigenous people were forced to surrender their claims to the land they lived on in exchange for small reserves.  These settlements, whatever they said gave control  of valuable or potentially valuable resources to colonial settlers.  The resources have become ever more valuable and strategic in recent years.  This Nunavut settlement seems to put the territory on the same footing as the Canadian provinces, which have a great deal of practical autonomy (see the case of Alberta and oil).

We'll see how it works out.  And if it has any effect on other countries' approach to indigenous issues.

The Honest Sorcerer talks about resource depletion and the collapse of the civilization of the Colombian Age

 The Honest Sorcerer is one of those economist guys who looks at the long trends and comparative histories.  Honest Sorcerer says that  all the easy resources that made possible Western domination of the globe (the Colombian Age) have been used up and there are no substitutes.  H.S. also sketches out the politics and culture of civilizational pre-collapse and collapse.

This quote (grammar adjusted) will give you a taste:

P.S.: Save this article and send it in a few years time to anyone who insists that all this could not possibly have been foreseen.

Noah Smith opines on the significance of People's Park and where America is today

 Just about everybody with an internet connection has opined on the current state of American culture and how it got that way.   Many of these analyses are very much the same -- after all, the problems are pretty obvious.

Noah Smith (at Noahpinion) has a different take -- and it may be worth your reading time. If you have ever wondered about the significance of Berkeley in the cultural wars of the last few decades, this may suggest some interesting perspectives.

Q -- Brilliant

 Back when CBC Radio One introduced the interview show Q some years back, I was unimpressed. I found the host, Tom Power, irritating in the extreme.  Power is a musician and in his numerous interviews with other musicians he always seemed to ask them whether music was a big factor in their childhood homes.

How many electrons were wasted asking such a lame question?

Well, Power and his producers are putting together a superior product these days, one that approaches brilliance.  Let's take today's episode as an example of what they can do.

Here in Canada, eminent people are honored by being inducted into the Order of Canada.  (This is what chivalric orders of the Middle Ages have evolved into.) Today's interviewee, just inducted into the Order was  Deantha Edmunds, advertised as the "first Inuk professional opera singer." She was  an intelligent, even profound guest (although the issue of music in the home came up😁which gave me a laugh).  She spent much of her time in the chair explaining the Inuk tradition of classical music.

When Edmunds says classical musical, she means what you mean, Mozart, Handel, etc.  She is not a throat singer, which is the tradition most familiar to non-Inuk.  She is a professional opera singer, and as such may be a  first, but she is also working in a centuries-old tradition on the Labrador coast.  Two undred years ago missionaries from the tireless Moravian church came to Labrador,  bringing among other things classical music and European instruments that made it possible to play the new stuff. The

Inuk have been at it ever since, playing and adapting what once was a purely European  (should we say German?) repertoire.

I had no idea.

Go to it Tom!  You are doing great!

At Bethlehem

My lady and I went to a choir service this evening. As you might expect, the imagery of Jesus in the manger was predominant. I couldn't help but think repeatedly "At least he's not lying in a pile of rubble."

Timothy Burke looks forward to next year with foreboding

Timothy Burke in 8 by7:

The thing is, in 2024 I think the mass of humanity will remain what it basically has been all along in modernity: full of decency, ready for justice, open to change. Sorry for their trespasses, hoping not to be trespassed against. Wanting to just live their lives and be left well enough alone. If the powerful could only manage to keep things running well enough for everyone, share some wealth and leave space for the vast rest of their societies, I think most people would return the favor and leave them to scheme and jostle amongst themselves. I wish it was just a moral failing of power and that would could wish reasonably enough for a better class of millionaires and ministers. But there’s something systematically rotten in the world we’ve made and it will take something with systematic energy to push things to being good enough for the world to go on being enough for everyone, as it plainly can be. We have the tools, just no hands worthy of using them and no plan to build what they’re capable of making.

1670

I just finished watching 1670, a serial TV historical by Netflix about Poland in the era of Louis XIV. It's a savage satire that reminds me of The Servant of the People, which showed the Ukrainian people as very much responsible for buying into the corruption of their country. In 1670, there is one sensible charachter: a visiting Lithuanian. Recommended.