Suppose it were Friday clxii: Be it resolved

We are assured that novel methods 

will be adopted, and when we see 

the originality of malice, the in-

genuity of aggression, which our 

enemy displays, we may certainly 

prepare ourselves for every kind 

of novel stratagem and every kind 

of brutal and treacherous maneuver.

Winston Churchill, in his speech

to the House of Commons on June 4,

1940 - one American Presidential

term of time, before D-Day - made

plain the quality of an enemy then

in a death grapple with civiliza-

tion as his language had come to

know, indeed to parent it. Famous-

ly promising to fight them on the

beaches, in the fields, and in a

cadence of permutations memorized

by generations of grateful school

boys since, he concluded by fore-

telling a rescue of the Old World

by the New. Recently, the whole

story was filmed again, and very

well. A soldier read his speech.

The Senate of the United States

is now the quisling of an unrep-

resentative and self-seeking pow-

er, frantic to deliver a third

branch of the national government

to its clutches for a lifetime.

Recalling Franklin, they had damn

well better hang together . .

A lifetime, thieved from the na-

tion by an originality of malice

and an ingenuity of aggression,

exploiting every kind of brutal

and treacherous maneuver embed-

ded in its arcane, self-endowed

procedures, seemingly beyond the

resistance of the People it must

dominate, to abuse at will. 

At the same time, Americans con-

template the confusion and chaos

which their government seeks to 

sow in the Old World, to cast it

into a Hobbesian abyss Churchill

described so long in advance. They

don't expect a rescue of the New

World by the Old. But they see,

they are an island, of a 'roused

and coincidental yeomanry of re-

sistance against misrule in the

subverted halls of their defense.

It's not a movie. It's a language.

Fionn Whitehead

You gotta love these guys

   It's getting so that our Senate Ju-

   diciary Committee Republicans have

   begun resorting to hand signals to

   profess their courtesy to that oth-

   er gender, in which they don't par-

   ticipate. Bending, one doesn't want

   to say, over-backwards, they frame

   this chivalry in points of an ill-

   clad ultimatum, to a claimant of 

   assault by their Supreme Court nom-

   nee, to show up or shut up without

   any neutral investigation of the

   events she has documented in writ-

   ing. Aren't they pretty, in their

   ostentatious solicitude for facts,

   if only she would just play along?

   They have a timetable to uphold,

   freighted with their right to rule.

   What's the more desperate condition:

   self-entitled aggression under the

   influence, or drunkenness on power?

   You gotta love these guys. They take

   the choice entirely out of our hands.

   

   

   

Origins of Wednesday lxxx: Oasis of the tough guy

It's out there. If one squints

one can see it. The excuse for

this new American government's

loss of credibility in interna-

tional relationships, where it

had been constructively instru-

mental, until being dismantled.

Nowhere respected, nor so much

as trying to be, the new Amer-

ican government's zeal to dim-

inish the nation's position is

at its most fulfilled, to haz-

ard a reasonable guess, in the

matter of Palestine - although

to be fair, it would advise a-

gainst the use of the term. E-

rase the name. Call it, peace.

Having doubts?

No, this is not about whether boys

get away with protests with an um-

pire, more than they should. It is

about a finding reported this week-

end in The Times, on an importance

of whiteness, to self-esteem among

adherents of the new American gov-

ernment. It is 300% more defining,

to Americans who don't identify as

churchgoers, than to those who do.

Leave aside, that no one could ev-

er sanely have conceded protection

of his faith to American Republic-

ans. Look, rather, upon the bright

side of faith as a bulwark against

their worst, ever hold upon power.

i   Charlie Auterac

ii  Tom Brenner, photo
     The New York Times
     15 September 2018©