“I have until recently attributed Biden’s astounding coarseness as he stands with Scholz to the gracelessness that has marked the whole of his, Biden’s, political career.”
Thank you for this line. I have been troubled recently that Biden’s well reported health issues have inspired a raft of articles propagandizing his “decency” and even his “empathy.” My trouble with this is that I see Biden’s career as monstrous and destructive to an extreme degree. Nothing about his career suggests any positive qualities.
As I have often written in other comments elsewhere, Biden was a corporatist neoliberal tool representing the corporate tax haven state of Delaware for over 50 years. He was a cheerleader for the racist War on Drugs and responsible for racist one hundred to one disparity in sentencing between crack cocaine and powder cocaine—even as his own son and daughter were becoming addicted to crack but never spent a night in jail. His 1994 Crime Bill put the Drug War on steroids and gave us mass incarceration. How many lives, families, and communities did Biden’s “tough on crime” pose wreck?
Then, of course, he was the lead Democrat cheering on the Bush/Cheney war on Iraq. He followed that up by being Obama’s loyal VP as they expanded the War of Terror to Libya, Syria, Somalia, and Yemen, while also bailing out Wall Street banksters and allowing counterfeit foreclosures on millions of working class families. Such decency, such empathy.
But without a doubt the single act that should forever mark his legacy was his unstinting support for the historic crime of the century being Israel’s ongoing genocide of the Palestinians. This live-streamed crime against humanity should have been stopped with a single phone call to Netanyahu. Instead Biden continually upped the ante against the Palestinians just as he did with Ukraine against the Russians—a war he was key in helping provoke. What a blood stained record for one man. A Vietnam draft dodger who became one of the world’s worst war criminals in history.
Let us not remember Genocide Joe as anything other than the privileged monster that he became.
"No, as I found often during my decades as a correspondent, one must resort to psychology and culture fully to understand politics and history, the latter being in some measure expressions of the former."
It is very precisely defined. And beautifully said.
The article is good reminder to think again about the burden of the past!
The subservient attitude or more likely concise is the product of the last 1000 years. After the emergence of a feudal society the associated class system 90% of the people were better slaves (Leibeigene). You were owned by your lord! In the eastern part the „ownership“ went as far as that your lord had the right of the first night with the newly wed wife of the slaves.
Take such a system and let it run for 1000 years and you get a subservient mindset which is past on from generation to generation. You learn to look up to your rulers. In schools the position of the teacher was raised by about 20 cm so that he would sit above the pupils.
Those inherited behavior is hard to break and it explains why we are today so easily fall back into a behavior of a feudal society.
The German federal republic carried on with that attitude and only in east Germany they tried to break down this attitude with their own shortcomings as well as their inherited individual traits.
Reading through your excellent essay, I smiled, recalling Churchill's derogatory-if-more-or-less-accurate description of the Germans: "The Hun is always either at your throat or at your feet". This was tossed off during a 1943 speech to the US Congress, pointing to the sudden crumpling of the Wehrmacht in North Africa.
What a thoughtful and thought provoking essay. I lived in Germany for three years 1987-90, in the north - Herförd (near Bielefeld), some of the best years of my life and I witnessed the Berlin Wall coming down, with all the joy and sense of hope for the future all pervasive amongst the Germans. What a damn shame it has come to this.
Truman gets a little short shrift. These Washington warmongers literally decided to make the USSR an 'enemy' and started the Cold War. Pundits claim they did it for pecuniary reasons, as the new MIC needed the business. This was a colossal mistake, as great as American 'soft power' that literally polluted the cultures of Germany and Japan, and that was a necessity once the Cold War was set in motion.
“I have until recently attributed Biden’s astounding coarseness as he stands with Scholz to the gracelessness that has marked the whole of his, Biden’s, political career.”
Thank you for this line. I have been troubled recently that Biden’s well reported health issues have inspired a raft of articles propagandizing his “decency” and even his “empathy.” My trouble with this is that I see Biden’s career as monstrous and destructive to an extreme degree. Nothing about his career suggests any positive qualities.
As I have often written in other comments elsewhere, Biden was a corporatist neoliberal tool representing the corporate tax haven state of Delaware for over 50 years. He was a cheerleader for the racist War on Drugs and responsible for racist one hundred to one disparity in sentencing between crack cocaine and powder cocaine—even as his own son and daughter were becoming addicted to crack but never spent a night in jail. His 1994 Crime Bill put the Drug War on steroids and gave us mass incarceration. How many lives, families, and communities did Biden’s “tough on crime” pose wreck?
Then, of course, he was the lead Democrat cheering on the Bush/Cheney war on Iraq. He followed that up by being Obama’s loyal VP as they expanded the War of Terror to Libya, Syria, Somalia, and Yemen, while also bailing out Wall Street banksters and allowing counterfeit foreclosures on millions of working class families. Such decency, such empathy.
But without a doubt the single act that should forever mark his legacy was his unstinting support for the historic crime of the century being Israel’s ongoing genocide of the Palestinians. This live-streamed crime against humanity should have been stopped with a single phone call to Netanyahu. Instead Biden continually upped the ante against the Palestinians just as he did with Ukraine against the Russians—a war he was key in helping provoke. What a blood stained record for one man. A Vietnam draft dodger who became one of the world’s worst war criminals in history.
Let us not remember Genocide Joe as anything other than the privileged monster that he became.
What thought-provoking essays, Patrick... I would love if you did a similar 'root and branch' regarding Italy???
"No, as I found often during my decades as a correspondent, one must resort to psychology and culture fully to understand politics and history, the latter being in some measure expressions of the former."
It is very precisely defined. And beautifully said.
Bravo.
The article is good reminder to think again about the burden of the past!
The subservient attitude or more likely concise is the product of the last 1000 years. After the emergence of a feudal society the associated class system 90% of the people were better slaves (Leibeigene). You were owned by your lord! In the eastern part the „ownership“ went as far as that your lord had the right of the first night with the newly wed wife of the slaves.
Take such a system and let it run for 1000 years and you get a subservient mindset which is past on from generation to generation. You learn to look up to your rulers. In schools the position of the teacher was raised by about 20 cm so that he would sit above the pupils.
Those inherited behavior is hard to break and it explains why we are today so easily fall back into a behavior of a feudal society.
The German federal republic carried on with that attitude and only in east Germany they tried to break down this attitude with their own shortcomings as well as their inherited individual traits.
And don't forget Jet Jackson; the flying commando. Full on anti communist propaganda
Reading through your excellent essay, I smiled, recalling Churchill's derogatory-if-more-or-less-accurate description of the Germans: "The Hun is always either at your throat or at your feet". This was tossed off during a 1943 speech to the US Congress, pointing to the sudden crumpling of the Wehrmacht in North Africa.
What a thoughtful and thought provoking essay. I lived in Germany for three years 1987-90, in the north - Herförd (near Bielefeld), some of the best years of my life and I witnessed the Berlin Wall coming down, with all the joy and sense of hope for the future all pervasive amongst the Germans. What a damn shame it has come to this.
Truman gets a little short shrift. These Washington warmongers literally decided to make the USSR an 'enemy' and started the Cold War. Pundits claim they did it for pecuniary reasons, as the new MIC needed the business. This was a colossal mistake, as great as American 'soft power' that literally polluted the cultures of Germany and Japan, and that was a necessity once the Cold War was set in motion.