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| Paris Opera House |
During my visits to Paris — and I've only been there three times, I'm no Jack Clark — at some point, while absorbing another tableaux of magnificence, I'll at one point think something along the lines of, "Of course it should have all been blown to flinders fighting off the Germans in 1940."
Instead the Wehrmacht rolled in, more or less unopposed.
Which the Americans held against them — or at least I did — for a very long time. What was Groundskeeper Willie's phrase? Oh yes. "Cheese-eating surrender monkeys."
That was unfair. Many other nations collapsed in front of the Nazi onslaught at the start of World War II. The fist of totalitarianism can be very strong. Look at the Russian attack hammering Ukraine. A sane nation would have never started the war, or stopped after it became clear that it had become a deadlock. Four years and counting. But Putin, like Trump, enters into bloodshed with barely a thought, and continues it for the same reason. Or rather, due to one, rigid thought: he doesn't want to lose, and one way to keep from being seen as the loser you are is to continue playing after the game is actually over.
Americans taught the French freedom. I get the sense that, with its king and its royal court and guillotines, people are tempted to place the French Revolution before the American one, with our more modest wigs and homespun fashion. The French Revolution seems older. But we declared independence from royalty on July 4, 1776, and the French didn't manage until Bastille Day — today — July 14, 1789, the storming of the Bastille prison during the French Revolution thirteen years later.
Now of course, it is Americans who need instruction in what it means to be free. To refuse the seduction of autocracy, of just lying back and letting strongmen roll over us and do their thing. Freedom is not won, or lost, in a moment. Its loss is a long, wearying, frustrating, heartbreaking process. We've been becoming more unfree for years now. Some of us seem to be getting used to it. Or just tired. Or given up hope.
The president and his family personally made more than $2 billion since the taking of office last year. Mostly from a crypto currency scam. Not a vast personal fortune, on the Elon Musk scale. But enough to want to hold onto. You can see why Trump is so hot to pervert elections so that a Congress that might ask, "Is this legal?" never takes office.
And the American people? Well, we aren't happy, except those of us who are, no matter what. Not pleased with this direction. But what are we doing about it? What can be done? Put our faith in the degraded elections, four months away, maybe? Wait for something good to happen? Hope, as the saying goes, is not a strategy. Meanwhile, unlike the French, our own nation's capital was defaced, not resisting the enemies of freedom, but celebrating them. A physical mess mirroring the moral, intellectual, legal, governmental decay we sink deeper and deeper into, day by day. When is our Bastille Day? Certainly not today, not tomorrow, not anytime soon.
Instead the Wehrmacht rolled in, more or less unopposed.
Which the Americans held against them — or at least I did — for a very long time. What was Groundskeeper Willie's phrase? Oh yes. "Cheese-eating surrender monkeys."
That was unfair. Many other nations collapsed in front of the Nazi onslaught at the start of World War II. The fist of totalitarianism can be very strong. Look at the Russian attack hammering Ukraine. A sane nation would have never started the war, or stopped after it became clear that it had become a deadlock. Four years and counting. But Putin, like Trump, enters into bloodshed with barely a thought, and continues it for the same reason. Or rather, due to one, rigid thought: he doesn't want to lose, and one way to keep from being seen as the loser you are is to continue playing after the game is actually over.
Americans taught the French freedom. I get the sense that, with its king and its royal court and guillotines, people are tempted to place the French Revolution before the American one, with our more modest wigs and homespun fashion. The French Revolution seems older. But we declared independence from royalty on July 4, 1776, and the French didn't manage until Bastille Day — today — July 14, 1789, the storming of the Bastille prison during the French Revolution thirteen years later.
Now of course, it is Americans who need instruction in what it means to be free. To refuse the seduction of autocracy, of just lying back and letting strongmen roll over us and do their thing. Freedom is not won, or lost, in a moment. Its loss is a long, wearying, frustrating, heartbreaking process. We've been becoming more unfree for years now. Some of us seem to be getting used to it. Or just tired. Or given up hope.
The president and his family personally made more than $2 billion since the taking of office last year. Mostly from a crypto currency scam. Not a vast personal fortune, on the Elon Musk scale. But enough to want to hold onto. You can see why Trump is so hot to pervert elections so that a Congress that might ask, "Is this legal?" never takes office.
And the American people? Well, we aren't happy, except those of us who are, no matter what. Not pleased with this direction. But what are we doing about it? What can be done? Put our faith in the degraded elections, four months away, maybe? Wait for something good to happen? Hope, as the saying goes, is not a strategy. Meanwhile, unlike the French, our own nation's capital was defaced, not resisting the enemies of freedom, but celebrating them. A physical mess mirroring the moral, intellectual, legal, governmental decay we sink deeper and deeper into, day by day. When is our Bastille Day? Certainly not today, not tomorrow, not anytime soon.
A scammer, that Trump, who only cares about lining his pockets.
ReplyDeleteIt may be a commentary on the dismal state of our culture that the first time I ever heard of Bastille Day was from the Rush song of the same name that kicked off their great double live album “All the World’s a Stage”, but in fairness, I was only about 12 at the time, and they simply hadn’t gotten around to teaching the French Revolution in history class yet. By 8th grade, it was taught with great thoroughness (replete with reading “A Tale of Two Cities), leaving me fascinated by the historical insights, and ever more appreciative of Neil Peart’s lyrical talent.
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