The Newspeak of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

Robert F Kennedy, Jr. has recently declared his candidacy for the presidential nomination of the Democratic Party. This news astonished me, since in recent years, RFK, Jr. has seemed obsessed with only one single issue: vaccine skepticism. So I searched his newly-created website to see if I could learn a bit more about his other-than-vaccine “platform.” Here is some of (the little) information I found on his campaign website, www.kennedy24.com.

“Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. has clear positions on most of today’s divisive trigger issues like abortion, guns, and immigration, but he knows that both sides have legitimate concerns and legitimate moral positions. No one is deplorable. Furthermore, most of the disagreements obscure deeper shared values. Everyone wants their children to be safe. Few relish the thought of dead fetuses, nor do they want to force women to have unwanted babies. Everyone wants safe streets, yet few wish for millions of people to languish in prison. Robert F. Kennedy…will lead the way toward national reconciliation, respectful dialog, and willingness to change, to grow, and to forgive.”

What a load of mind-numbing woo! If indeed RFK Jr. has “clear positions” on triggering moral issues (by the way, where are these stated?) then he obviously does NOT believe in moral equivalencies and moral legitimacy on all sides. He obviously does NOT believe that opposing positions have equal validity with his own. He obviously does NOT believe, say, that wanting safe children makes pro-and anti-abortion arguments equally valid in his own mind (where, since he has “a clear position,” one side is surely “right,” while the other is “wrong.”) In short, this forked-tongue statement was clearly designed, not to promote understanding, but rather, like Orwellian Newspeak, “to diminish the range of thought” in its readers and trick them into mindless acquiescence.

I recognize, of course, that politicians often try to “unite” voters (on and FOR election day, at least) with disingenuous happy talk about how we’re all Americans together. But this jolly bonhomie strikes me as irresponsibly dishonest (at worst) or pathetically simple-minded (at best). And it should be given neither credence nor approbation, especially not at a polling place.

In short, I simply could not vote for someone who cannot (or will not) recognize and vigorously oppose people whose values and policies ARE, by any humane and rational criterion (i.e., intended to promote the general welfare, the common good, human well-being) deplorable. Let’s be frank: some individuals and groups most assuredly ARE deplorable—and potentially harmful to the commonweal. As such, they must be resisted and kept from power (by means that are not themselves deplorable) lest the general welfare be sacrificed for the aggrandizement/pleasure of the selfish and stupid.

I conclude, therefore, that RFK Jr. is either a messianic crackpot or an addlepated simpleton. Either way, he’s a disturbing presence on our political scene. Don’t be taken in by this Nothing Burger with a famous name. Don’t vote for his Newspeak “woo.” 😬

Macron Barks But Doesn’t Bite

French president Macron is being widely criticized these days—mostly for his heavy-handed (albeit unavoidable) raising of the French retirement age from a fiscally unsustainable 62 to a still barely manageable 64. But in addition to his domestic clumsiness, Monsieur le Président has recently proved himself remarkably inept in international affairs. At a moment when Europe in general and Ukraine in particular are in great need of American support in the face of Russian agression and Chinese opportunism, Macron has, inexplicably, chosen to resurrect the tired old Gaullist wheeze about American high-handedness: France is not an American vassal, France does not need to “follow” America, France wants European “strategic autonomy”, etc., etc. 

Naturally, the Russians and the Chinese love this—cheering on the sidelines as France once again plays its classic role as intellectually superior (Socratic, even) sniffer/yapper, whose virtuous duty it is (not being itself the pack leader) to annoy and pester the top dog, thus keeping him aware of his limits and his responsibilities to the other members of the pack—and especially to the pack’s self-appointed yapper. Upon hearing this pooch’s adamant barking, one concludes that he, personally, would happily take over as top dog—if only he could gin up the support of the other (lazy, he thinks) dogs. But alas, these latter tend to evaluate him for what he does best—sniffing out everyone’s defects and calling attention to them. An occasionally useful member of the pack, perhaps, but not quite compelling leadership material.

The Americans—who, I heartily admit, DO often need to have their hubris identified and restrained—are of course predictably annoyed by Macron’s sniping. Not, though, because they think Macron is likely to leave NATO, but mostly because his ill-timed remarks serve to encourage all the centripetal forces bubbling for release just beneath the surface of the existing world order—any one of which, if stimulated, might burst forth and bring mayhem to the already tenuous Pax Americana.

Well, never mind. Down with vassalage! Down with collective security! In short, down with the Americans! And up with—somebody nicer, smarter, somebody with better taste in food and music and art and politics, somebody less obnoxious…like, oh, wait…well…maybe…or…hmmm…not so sure about THAT one… uh…hmmmm…what’s that you say? Well, what a pickle!

P.S. I am an enthusiastic Francophile who loves France deeply. If I could have chosen my nationality, I would have unhesitatingly chosen to be French. But just as my love for America does not (usually) blind me to its many flaws, so, too, my love for France does not delude me about its weaknesses, one of the greatest of which is its “know-everything-ism” (in contrast to America’s “know-nothing-ism”). Many French people, both on the left and the right, have a galling (“degaulling”?) tendency to assume that they just automatically “know better” than the presumably low-IQ Anglo-Saxons. Sometimes, undoubtedly, they are right. And it IS occasionally salutary to obstruct and restrain American gung-ho foreign policy. But persistent sniping and grumbling about being treated like a vassal, blah, blah, blah—well, this is mostly bad faith posturing—theater for the voters (whose grievances can thus be blamed, at least partially, on the perfidious Americans rather than on the beleaguered French government) but backed up by absolutely no sincere effort to break away from the collective security of NATO and/or the American alliance. It’s mostly hi-falutin’ bark accompanied by no toothful bite. Prickliness aside, the French are not particularly oppressed by Uncle Sam, are they? That dog just won’t hunt. 

Michelangelo’s David: Is His Penis a Thing of Beauty?

Recent news item from what some wags (not me, of course) call the EVANGENITAL [sic] South:

Florida Principal Forced To Resign After Parents Decry Michelangelo’s David As Pornography

In my advanced AP French class, I used to teach a unit on beauty— in which we viewed and analyzed many art works generally considered beautiful. In this context, Michelangelo’s David was of course canonically “incontournable” and, accordingly, I devoted a full lesson to him.

One of my objectives for David Day was to get the class to see that the sculptor had deliberately distorted proportions in order to emphasize David’s intelligence (head too big) and his “handiness” with a slingshot (hands too big). So, quite innocently, I asked kids to look for elements of David’s anatomy that were “disproportionnés.” 

Unfortunately, what they noticed, giggling, was NOT the hands and head, but rather the classically “discrete” penis, which they didn’t know the French word for, but which they were happy to point at and pronounce “trop petit.” I was embarrassed—not because of the statue’s genitalia, but because I, an experienced teacher, had carelessly not foreseen this reaction. 

The kids were totally cool, though. After I rather awkwardly explained what I had actually intended, one of the them tried to comfort me by saying (in pretty good French) that it was OK, Monsieur, and that I shouldn’t be upset because, after all, they were “adolescents, et nous pensons comme ça.”

They were also super kids, who had both good brains and common sense. In Florida I might have been fired.

I’ll Bet “Shakespeare” Is a Drag Name

 Update, March, 2023: Tennessee has outlawed “drag shows” in public places and Florida has made it illegal for teachers to “say gay” or teach subjects that might “confuse” children about real, and therefore complicated human behavior. I suppose, then, it’s only a matter of time until both states, in their evangelical fervor, decide to ban Shakespeare—ALL of it— since all of Shakespeare’s female roles were performed by males (boys, at that) in, er, “drag.” 

Moreover, special opprobrium will undoubtedly be reserved for As You Like It—in which, as one scholar notes…”the crossdressing scheme is very complex, as we encounter a boy actor who plays a girl, who pretends to be a boy, who performs in the role of a woman. Moreover, there is a direct reference to the real sex of the actor playing Rosalind towards the end of the epilogue. Rosalind steps out of her role, the male actor has just finished playing a part of a woman and addresses the audience in his own voice announcing what he would do if he WERE a woman…” (Lucie Johnová, Charles University, Prague) 

These facts—should they ever become widely “known” in the dim reaches of bible land—could trigger an alarming resurgence of stocks and pillories in public squares (or Walmart parking lots). Crossdressers and playwrights beware (doesn’t matter how famous you are). 

I’ll bet “Shakespeare” is a drag name.

TrumPutinLand

Here’s another parallel between Putin and Trump. Both are opportunistic, greedy, self-aggrandizers who have nonetheless managed (they are skillful propagandists) to convince great numbers of people that, no, despite their appearance of privilege, they are actually—like the aggrieved folks they have been “sent to save”—VICTIMS of globalists and perverts and corrupt, satanist forces “out to get” ordinary good folk—i.e., southern evangelical white nationalists (in the US) and the long-oppressed, fascist-threatened masses of the non-western world (in Russia and India and Venezuela and China). In Trumputinland the bad guys are identified as the western “liberals” and “progressives” who oppose both a) Putin’s brave efforts to “take back Ukraine,” (on behalf of Mother Russia, to whom it clearly belongs) and b) Trump’s heroic struggle to “take back America,” (on behalf of Christian dominionists, to whom it was given by God). Trump and Putin, on the other hand, are portrayed as the good guys in this holy war against the evils of Enlightenment values and American/NATO hegemony. They may win. Never underestimate human brutishness.

DeSantis and the Metamorphosis of MAGA

Ron DeSantis is decidedly a mean, ruthless SOB, but I doubt that he could ever compete with Trump for the wackadoodle vote. He’s more of a Richard Nixon type, isn’t he? Dirty, devious, but neither demented nor, hard as he tries, certifiably covfefe. No, he just isn’t sufficiently (and unabashedly) bonkers to inspire cosplayers wearing horns and warpaint to assault the U.S. Capitol.

So, if DeSantis becomes the Republican candidate in 2024, the GOP’s character will necessarily change. Certainly, Mr. DeSanctimonious (as Trump calls him) will retain both the racists and the evangelicals (where else would they go?), but—oh, mercy! — they will be such a grim and grumpy lot when deprived of the delirium of Trumpist hoopla. Where has all the fun gone? The rallies? The torchlight parades? The glossolalia? What a bummer!

Because, let’s face it: Ron is little more than a conventional gangster from Central Casting—tricky, calculating, creepy. Nothing fantastical or fabulous or woo-woo messianic about him. Less a con-man than a thug, DeSantis really IS what he IS, and truthfully (c’mon man) that ain’t much of a show!

I suspect, therefore, that a whole passel of the most zealous MAGAS—should The Mad King Donald finally be dumped—will simply lose their will to live—or, what basically amounts to the same thing—their will to dress up like horned Vikings and throw lethal tantrums in the King’s honor. A few may even feel so crappy about being abandoned that they simply slide off into the nearest gutter and metamorphose into gigantic dung beetles. So it goes.

Will Democracy Be Lost?

In these days preceding the 2022 mid-term elections, many Democratic pundits are prophesying darkly that a Republican takeover of Congress (which seems likely) would signal that “democracy has been lost.” Frankly, though, I find that formula both simplistic and calculating—intended mostly to arouse an apathetic electorate to vote for Democrats.  Still, beneath the agit-prop cliché lies a deeper, more genuine anxiety—primarily about the nature of  our “democracy” itself. 

Because, truthfully, what people generally mean when they voice concerns that “democracy will be lost” is not really a fear that government expressing the “will of the people” (the American demos) will disappear. (Where would it go? What external power would suppress it?). 

No, what they worry about is that this demos—this “we the people”—has in recent years undergone such a fundamental shift in attitudes/values that it may (by “democratic” vote, but also by “democratic” apathy and “democratic” stupidity) acquiesce to unconventional forms of governance that are incompatible (and indeed irreconcilable) with our long-established legal structures and with the rights guaranteed by our current constitution. Thus, the fear is not that democracy may be lost, but rather that it may have already been irreversibly changed, whether by conscious choice or by mere absent-mindedness of the “people.”

In short, when someone says “save our democracy,” what he/she really means is “preserve our present constitutional conventions!”—i.e., democracy, of course—only not brute and unrestrained mob rule, but rather “limited democracy as we now know it.” 

Isn’t it interesting that, viewed from this perspective, the Democrats seem to be the real conservatives in this election?