The current discussion is all about Trump’s assassination attempt, and any other subject would quickly be drowned in the noise. So I’d like to report here a post by John Rember that seemed to me much better than anything I could write on this matter. A post that, I think, Seneca himself would have appreciated.
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From John Rember’s blog “Aftermath”
Donald Trump was shot in the ear Saturday at a rally in Pennsylvania. Or he was hit with a flying shard of teleprompter. Or he used a concealed razor blade to slice open his ear in a false flag operation designed to portray him as a martyr in the fight to the death for America. All three possibilities are being promoted by after-the-fact commentators.
His would-be assassin, a 20-year-old named Thomas Matthew Crooks, is unable to throw light on the issue, having been shot dead by Secret Service agents. Early details on Crooks are a mix of left-wing and right-wing signifiers. Eyewitnesses claim they watched him climb on a roof adjacent the rally. They informed the police but were ignored.
Conspiracy theorists are gearing up for a busy summer.
Trump has since given credit to God for saving his life, which is perhaps the biggest conspiracy theory of all. God has not been known for deliberately keeping old folks alive since the days of the Old Testament, no matter how essential their followers think they are.
As people get older, the process of individuation slows, stops, and reverses itself. People as disparate as Donald Trump and Joe Biden start having more and more things in common, such as the belief that God thinks they’re indispensable.
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In 1907, Elbert Hubbard, a homespun advocate for basic American common sense, said, “The graveyards are full of people the world could not do without.” Translated into French, attributed to Charles de Gaulle, and then translated back into English, it gained economy and elegance, and became: “The graveyards are full of indispensable men.”
Elbert Hubbard no doubt borrowed his saying from Seneca or Aristotle, because since civilization began people in powerful positions have gotten old and decrepit, and have insisted on holding onto power. In most cases, the ends of their careers are marked by horrible mistakes. History is littered with the corpses of senile leaders and the people who trusted their judgment.
A pathetic vanity is simply one of many cognitive deficits that afflict old farts. No matter how educated, exercised, and competent we are, we start faltering when we reach our 70s. Our cognitive flexibility goes first, then any sense of proportion, then the ability to look over our own shoulders. Then we start finding our keys in the refrigerator and we actually send all those letters to the editor we’ve written—it’s a chronicle of inescapable loss and embarrassment, hard to contemplate before it happens, impossible to acknowledge by the time it does. A lack of power, in this instance, is a blessing for us and the people around us.
Elbert Hubbard also said, “The thing we fear we bring to pass.”
I’m not sure if this is common sense or not, but it seems to be true in the case of old age.
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Common sense explains Biden as an example of the non-resilience of old age, when a lack of sleep, physical exhaustion, antihistamines, and stress can shut down body and brain. That’s what happened to him, as far as I can tell, during his debate with Trump.
Common sense pegs Trump as a textbook case of frontotemporal dementia, which would be more apparent if one of its symptoms wasn’t—in rage-blinded America—the self-indulgence of a three-year-old throwing a tantrum in a supermarket checkout line.
Biden’s nobody’s-in-there performance has resulted in calls for him to make his first term as president his last. Most people who saw the debate are convinced that the rigors of another campaign would kill or incapacitate him. Many of us think that Biden has already sacrificed his health and happiness to his job. We wish he would declare victory—he has plenty of moments of triumph in his resume—and move to the house next door to Mar-A-Lago, enjoying the festivities while the neighborhood is still above water.
By the time you read this, Biden may have announced he’s leaving office at the end of his term. Probably not, but it would be good news for those of us who know what happens when powerful men stay too long at the fair.
“President for Life” sounds good to someone who wants to die in the saddle, as it were, especially if the odds are against that same someone living four more years. But save for Teddy Roosevelt replacing William McKinley, a president dying in office has been catastrophic for the country in the past and likely would be again.
I don’t expect Biden to go willingly. He’s lived a life as ensconced in zeitgeist as it’s possible to be, so much so that his political life, with its institutions, friendships, transactions, crises and battles, looks like reality to him.
But look at what he’s facing. Even if he had Indispensable Man as his sidekick, the zeitgeist is batshit crazy, murderous and suicidal, well past its safe-to-consume date. Our civilization’s psychotic break has already happened. We live in a landscape of cognitive fragments. The more you see them as the world you must conquer, the crazier you are.
The lives of Biden and Trump recall the Buddhist homily that first you must conquer fear, then you must conquer the power that comes from conquering fear, and then you must conquer old age.
Nobody conquers old age.
Yes...
And still those who follow French politics can see one don't need to be an old man to cling to power ;)
The crazy show going on, as Norman said WW1 begun with a gunshot but less known is the work of the kings and presidents of the time to block it.... no ruler wanted war still they got it and the end of the kingdom-states!
Rulers have very little real power, they sit atop a very complex system and have very few reals effective instruments to steer it. Looking at governments, we can see that changing the governing parties usually didn't change objectives or instruments to get them, Obama "Pivot to Asia" (military and economic) become Trump "economic war" to China (and military buildup in Pacific) and Biden confirmed anything his predecessors did.
Putin probably wasn't looking for Ukraine war, but had few options because internal pressures and a faint hope for a "fake war" as when did get Crimea, he had to walk in a situation that is opposite to the interest of his nation, but also of his own:
-he addressed the demographic problem as the first one during his first mandate, but have to spend lives of reproductive age males to make war
-had worked to make Russia the bridge between East and West getting benefits as independent mediator but now is dependent on Chinese economy and to North Korea weapons
-he had built a narrative of alternative role of Russia as alternative global policemen to the USA (and ONU) but now is clear that couldn't (Nagorno-Karabakh war) and is perceived as a villain for some or as partner in crime for others
Dictators, presidents or religious leaders have really less power than we figure, they cling to their position for petty personal benefits and usually fumble in doing what they have to, Biden did a poor Afghanistan retreat that was still something that all was looking at, but can't change the course of events!
If a ruler could change the history, Marcus Aurelius had all what could hope for, still even this mighty figure that had the power of the Roman Imperium as a tool couldn't change or even postpone his trajectory to oblivion....