My Sit(ting) Room – My Own RE:public

We have a situation …

In the wake of the February 24th 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, the ultimate rejection of reason (and of international law) which had been preceded by weeks of diplomatic initiative (and hectic) in response to the unpredictable and irrational arguments and demands of President Putin, the reality of a new situation now existing upon this continent has firmly taken hold in the hearts and minds of many here in Germany. A reality that has, in only a matter of days, seen this country abandon many of the principals – not always principled one has to say – which have guided its defense and security decision-making processes since (at least) the end of the Cold War and Reunification.

As one who has only lived in Germany during times of peace and relative economic and political stability – granted, often disturbed by, amongst other things: financial crises and economic fluctuations, contrary continental folk (EU) and even more contrary island folk (Brexit), populist politics, climate change, and during the last two years, the pandemic, but all seen as irritations of various degrees of magnitude that were all somehow manageable – I now find myself struggling with uncertainties and scenarios I had not previously entertained.

German angst is a stereotype of course, but even as such is strangely contagious. The abstract nature of distant conflicts can gain in nearness with every iteration of “just two flight hours from Berlin”. As though Kyiv was something other than two hours from Berlin last week, last year, in 2014 …

How often have I reacted with barely disguised annoyance at the prevalent rhetoric in Germany on any and all matters military, resplendent as they are in phrases such as “given our history…”, “never again …”, at the monumental hypocrisy of allowing an arms industry to arm the rest of the world but not themselves and of imposing sanctions against Russia’s territorial aggression whilst at the same time extending economic cooperation (and refusing to recognize the geopolitical implications!), and a willingness to accept the security afforded by the US presence at home but a reluctance to fulfill their role as ally abroad. And, sometimes my reaction took a milder turn; simply to accept that my socialization at the other end of the world (where “duck & cover” was an unknown exercise) made me less sensitive to “the near and constant dangers” – and hot air – of the Cold War, and my failure to accept the accompanying relief and good will at its end, and just quietly wondered aghast at the German “naivety”. In the last days that word has often been taken out of my mouth, as the belatedly self-reflective identification of a “certain naivety” has found wide echo in all corners of the political spectrum, the media and, seemingly, amongst the volk.

No, I didn’t want to be right about these things, and I didn’t want to write about these things – but maybe I will have to. Yes, there is some measure of guilt attached – too much time spent foraging about in this rarefied world that I have created for myself; a space that then seems, in times such as these, too constrained and inconsequential … or just plain too small.

Of late I have been watching (again!) the hit US political drama from the noughties, The West Wing. Years not so long gone one would think, but in terms of the radically changed (and changing) face of media delivery and consumption, seemingly from a distant epoch. (My viewing observations include: firstly, in style already dated perhaps, but not not necessarily in substance – the more things change, the more they stay the same; and, secondly, a veritable minefield of political incorrectness to be excavated – a playground for ‘woke’ warriors of whichever persuasion!) When all else fails and the proverbial shit hits the fan, Leo will say something along the lines of: “Excuse me, Mr. President, we have a situation”, and with Jed in tow, or vice versa, together they march – or à la Aaron Sorkin ‘walk & talk’ their way – to the closeted security of the “sit. room”. So, it may well be, when I need to have my say on any new and what CNN would refer to as developing situation, I’m to be found in my very own more domesticated version of the Sit(-ting) Room (accessible from the top menu).

Politicum! (x 2)

I am not even going to attempt to explain my silence throughout much of this year, but as the leaves fall, and the grey sets in, and it is almost done, I return here only to make note of two extraordinary political events of the last days:

It was election day in the US last Tuesday, 5th November 2024. Donald J. Trump was not only the 45th President of the United States, he is now also the President-elect, that is, will be the 47th President of the United States. Unbelievable but true. As I write, each day brings new appointments to his White House or cabinet – most of them stranger than the one that came before. And then there is Elon Musk! At the same time, I sense an organisation, a plan, that was not discernible the first time round. That is not necessarily good news.
The next day, 6th November 2024, this news hardly digested, the Bundeskanzler der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, Olaf Scholz, decides to sack his finance minister, Christian Lindner, in effect leading to the impending dissolution of the coalition. Lots of stuff in between, but as it stands now, Germany is effectively without a functioning government and new elections will be held on 23rd February 2025.

This at a time when wars still rage in the Ukraine and the Middle East, and insecurities predominate in almost all of the western liberal democracies being reflected in many of the electoral outcomes. Things bode not well into the foreseeable future.

With some justification

… Again, like, HE doesn’t HAVE to, THEY don’t HAVE to. For him, maybe a matter of conscience and good citizen of the world -ship. For her, perhaps too, but it is also her job; which gives authenticity to the project.

The Clooney Foundation for Justice – of celebrity put to better use I am unaware. A whole lot better than the cesspool of US politicking.

Good night and good luck

… What follows is not about that precisely – the 2005 movie, the expression that gave the title, but George Clooney has been on my mind of late, and said movie is not only one of my favorite Clooney films, but I also became aware a short while ago that he is to produce and star in a Broadway adaptation next spring – the twenty year interim reflected in him this time playing the Murrow role. This was very surprising to me because I have never associated Mr. Clooney with the stage, but as I remember it the fixed interior (TV studio) and dialogue does indeed lend itself to that medium.

But this is not about the biz, but something else in which Clooney has, quite extraordinarily, not played an insignificant role. Others, with names like Pelosi and Obama, have of course played more significant roles.

On Sunday, at about 2:00 in the afternoon Eastern Time, Pres. Joe Biden withdrew from seeking (the seemingly assured) Democratic nomination for US President. This came after weeks of mounting discontent amongst the ranks of the party; from the foot soldiers, to the officers – elected and not, to the money sources. I will not re-litigate the arguments parlayed in the sad saga of a man in decline, and in denial, of the ravages age brings with it, or of its tragic pinnacle in a humiliating television debate with Trump.

Clooney? As an influential Democrat, a major fund raiser, he wrote an opinion piece – sorry, ‘guest essay‘ – for the NYT making a case that Biden should leave the race – and one of the first to publicly do so. One could ask: well, what has HE got to lose? But, still … A big star in a supporting role – most just wouldn’t touch it. Yes, I am an unabashed fan – seriously dating from the early ER days – but in recent times I have been more impressed by his presence on the theater of real life, albeit of the highest Niveau. (See, for instance, in a role reversal of the marital solidarity norm, his ‘standing by his … what? partner?’, after Amal Clooney was harshly criticized for her work for the ICC in respect to potential crimes – by both parties – during the Gaza conflict.)

As I write, following an immediate endorsement by Biden, and an ensuing closing of ranks, the Vice President Kamala Harris is now all but the presumptive Democratic nominee. Can a Black woman do what an eminently qualified white woman could not: be elected President of the United States of America, and do so against the same opponent?

By the way, did I mention the bizarre assassination attempt perpetrated against that person the previous week? I thought not. I will return to this.

In these days, as in his own, Ed Murrow’s sign off is more wish than promise, and luck an unreliable quantity.

A changing of the guard …

in London, today. Performed outside Buckingham Palace this morning and, as I write, a short distance away in Downing Street; granted, without the royal pomp and ceremony but with some very civil good cheer and good will.

An interesting (almost) all-nighter behind me; this time ending with some hopeful signs. Which can not be said of some previous experiences, nor represent future expectations. After fourteen years and a series of leaders, the United Kingdom has rid themselves of an appalling generation of Tories and a Labour government has been elected with a huge majority.

05/07/2024. London, United Kingdom. The Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer and his wife Victoria arrive at Number 10 Downing Street Picture by Rory Arnold/ No 10 Downing Street

The new Prime Minister (the 58th -and an elected one this time!) is Keir Starmer. A serious man has left his audience with the King and, as I write, with the midday sun shining after a rainy morning, approaches the lectern in front of No. 10 to make his first address as Prime Minister.

An overtly thumping majority not to be taken for granted, for a closer analysis indicates a complicated result with tensions from the Right (and to a lesser extent Left), the potential for messy intraparty conflicts and a fickle, unenthusiastic electorate.

The center holds…

albeit only just.

Sunday saw the completion of the European parliamentary elections, and the results were fairly much in line with the gloomy predictions. Some member states moderated or at least stabilized – Poland, Hungary, Spain, Portugal, for instance. Some continued a marked rightward tendency, including the big three – France, Germany, Italy.

Primary sources are always the best, so here are the results on the European Parliament site. For the curious, a multitude of resources – data, diagrams, FAQs, etc. – invite to further research.

For orientation, the EPP (European People’s Party) is the largest group and consists of members sent from national center-right parties of the European ‘Christian Democratic’ tradition, e.g. the largest being the CDU in Germany. To its left is Renew – broadly described as Liberal, e.g. Renaissance, France; then Greens and Socialists to various degrees and of various persuasions. Messy is it right of the EPP – the ECR (-Conservatives and Reformists), think Meloni, and ID (Identity and Democracy), think Le Pen.

On the last mentioned, in the wake of the Rassemblement national blow out victory in France, and his own coalition’s dismal performance, President Emmanuel Macron immediately dissolved the Assemblée nationale (that is, the legislative body) and called snap elections for June 30. An absolute political bombshell! The logic is hard to get around, but I think it probably is something like this, if you were to imagine Monsieur le Président in conversation:

So, beloved citoyens de la république, you have made clear in recent times and in a myriad of ways your collective disapproval of my politics and my person and I understand that sentiment to have been cemented with this vote, from which I can only take away that many of you would prefer a right wing nationalist government, so I give you now a chance to vote for one. I say many of you and I hope that it is not a majority. But I say, should you give them – or other extreme factions – a majority you will soon see whether they can deliver on what they promise, whether your life is any better. I’m betting not and hope that Le Pen’s chances of the presidency in 2027 will diminish accordingly. On the other hand, I remain optimistic that reasonable minded coalitions may ultimately (in the second round on July 7) coalesce to block RN’s path, as they have done previously. And, then, my beloved citoyens and those newly elected members of the Assemblée, perhaps during these last years of my presidency we can pursue a more conciliatory course for the benefit of our grande nation.

A god almighty risk, to be sure, but all power to him. Such balls are not to be had in Berlin.

Moving forward

“Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards”

So said the Danish theologian Søren Kierkegaard, or approximately anyway. More precisely:

Det er ganske sandt, hvad Philosophien siger, at Livet maa forstaaes baglænds. Men derover glemmer man den anden Sætning, at det maa leves forlænds.

It is perfectly true, as the philosophers say, that life must be understood backwards. But they forget the other proposition, that it must be lived forwards.
Søren Kierkegaard, Journals IV A 164 (1843)

As this year ends, with all the demands it has made upon so many, a look back in anything but anger seems impossible, therefore I do so with no more than a glance, and done (and off the top of my head) in just a few brief paragraphs. The whys and wherefores will be attended to in time and, hopefully, to follow Kierkegaard with understanding, but not now.

No, I didn’t welcome in the year 2023 with terribly much optimism, but that it would be so unsparing and, for some, so brutal, I did not foresee. In the Big Wide World trouble was afoot wherever one looked; Russia’s continued war against the Ukraine; China sabre-rattling in the Taiwan Strait; conflicts to various extremes on the African continent (incl. Sudan, Mali), in Yemen (still), in Myanmar (still); natural disasters aplenty (incl. catastrophic earthquake in Turkey/Syria, the warmest year in human history & all that implies in all regions of the world – floods, drought, fire, famine, etc.); political turmoil, in places expected and places not (right-wing populists elected in The Netherlands, Argentina). This all just a small sampling.

The inflation that dominated the world’s western economies began to subside by the end of the summer (here, in Germany, the double figure mark was touched mid-year) and is now nearing the desired 2% in some. Zooming in, the EU will probably end the year at about 3% and Germany at 3.7% and seemingly still trending “south” (though still not reflected in the weekly shop, I can tell you!), the US figures and trends are not dissimilar. Elsewhere, in Turkey and Argentina for instance, inflation remains entrenched at a mind-boggling rates (e.g. Turkey at 60 odd %, Argentina 185% p.a.!) – but that’s another story, upon which I am unqualified to speak.

As people everywhere were born, so many – but not as many – died; and, of those, one knows only the near (and sometimes dear) or those of renown. This latter group included: Glenda Jackson, Michael Parkinson, Barry Humphries (and with him Dame Edna), Henry Kissinger, Sandra Day O’Connor, Dianne Feinstein, Tina Turner, Jeff Beck, Michael Gambon, A.S. Byatt, Martin Amis, Cormac McCarthy, Jane Birkin, Ryan O’Neal, Bacharach, Bennett, Belafonte – all old or very old, and mentioned by me without judgement and only because with each I associate something special – an event, a book, a film, a song, a particular moment in my life; and then there were, as always, those well before their time (so to speak) … of whom I come up blank at the moment (…oh, there was Matthew Perry). That it should be in the finality of death that we meet up with that one certainty in life that awaits us all.

Oh, and the King was crowned. Long live the King, I say. God knows he’s waited long enough to show his stuff.

I end with the two things from the year gone that, in my mind, will continue to dominate this new year, and potentially pose the greatest risk to global security and the well-being of many. Firstly, the deadly 7th October attack by Hamas on Israel and the aftermath that sees an ongoing retaliatory, and even more deadly, incursion by the IDF into Gaza. The stability of the entire region, always fragile, has now been seriously undermined, with the way forward towards some sort of resolution unclear. Problematic, also, is that this regional conflict has found resonance globally – especially in the media, and on the streets and campuses of Western countries; in which protest has taken radical partisan forms (the gamut of the political spectrum from left to right, secular to religious, anti-Semitic, anti-Islam), intermingled, and often created strange (more than strange: bizarre!) bed-fellows.

And, secondly, the unlikely – or so I thought – reemergence of Trump and Trumpist America – and all that that implies. Heading into election year, Biden’s popularity is at its lowest ebb, and Republican contenders to usurp Trump’s crown appear doomed. What can be said? Be it the courts, be it (mainstream) media, be it economic stability, be it pure ‘reason’; nought seems to deter this man from his pursuit of that which he believes to be his to take, nor hinder his ability to convince his MAGA ‘fans’ likewise. America survived one Trump term, would they seriously risk another? The world looks on aghast – and waits.

Alone to be said: Another year has found its end and a new one just begun, and already on its inexorable way to just as certain an end. What fate awaits in the year 2024? What will it bring, what is to be left in its wake? … But I resist the temptation to predict! Instead, the best one can do is accept the living of it, the muddling through it, and with some modest good intentions – one day at a time.

An Open Letter To My Friends Who Signed “Philosophy for Palestine” | by The Hannah Arendt Center | Amor Mundi | Nov, 2023 | Medium

These are dark times as multiple crises are erupting around the world while talk of a global conflagration is heard in many circles. These are also times that try human relationships, friendships…
— Read on medium.com/amor-mundi/an-open-letter-to-my-friends-who-signed-philosophy-for-palestine-0440ebd665d8

In the above article on Medium, Seyla Benhabib counters, and convincingly in my opinion, an open letter with the title Philosophy for Palestine signed by a bevy of predominantly U.S. intellectuals and academics, including Judith Butler and Nancy Fraser. (To be truthful, a scan of the signatories suggests to me no other name of renown – but then what do, or who do, I know!)

Built to be breached

Remember Trump’s wall? Then you probably also remember the perverse rallying chant of his supporters: Build that wall! Build that …! (When it wasn’t Lock her up! As an election year again approaches that such populist rabble rousing were but an aberration has been exposed as a pipe dream). I remember some sort of paper mâché (well maybe it wasn’t paper mâché exactly) prototype for sure and the haphazard erecting of or replacing of barriers in a limited way during this Trump term (I avoid saying “presidency”!). Exactly what the Biden administration’s position is could be described as fluid. But I do also remember Biden’s election rhetoric (for his more progressive clientele): No wall with me, folks!

Well, really? This week, succumbing to the pressure of numbers – especially out of Venezuela – and in the face of agitation from (mostly Democratic) mayors of the metropolises (where many of the migrants head) – the Biden administration announced the renewed construction of a physical barrier – yes, a wall! – in the Rio Grande Valley (and the deportation of Venezuelans). And, yes, I know the ‘appropriation’ argument. That is, congress has appropriated the funding, so it’s got to be spent. Really?

The Israel-Gaza barrier seen from the Israeli side

And, today, I think again of walls – this time in Israel, a nation that is seemingly forever building or planning to build walls. To keep in or keep out is a matter of perspective. As I write, one such, between Gaza and Israel, has been violently breached by Hamas. We are at war, says Netanyahu. Ergo: walls, like rivers (Rio Grande) or seas (Mediterranean) are limited in their function as a barrier, walls like their natural counterparts are there to be breached, and walls rarely hinder wars rather cement divisions.

This, another simmering conflict – always there, always ready to ignite. But such an incursion? Why now? Why did the intelligence seemingly fail? What next? I fear swift retaliation from Israel is assured.