The Scourge of Time

Age, as the dreaded, and sometimes perhaps admired, senator Cato put it, may well be considered dreadful, but it beats the (apparent) option. Although the same sentiment has not always been shared by those edged between the two precipices in experiencing dear old age, its gradual wear and tear and the sense of impending doom which may - psychologically at least - seem more tormenting than the actual thing (which, by definition, is not). But to transcend this Scylla and Charybdis dilemma, to stare into the inflexible yet seeming never immediate gates of time, is to hold the sentence of Cato in one's mouth, and psyche. 

Of the people I have most commented lately regarding to this endurance, apart from Henry Kissinger, is the not yet late 39th president of the United States, the first to achieve the feat of reaching 99 years of age - and thus to live in his hundredth year, if not a full century - and 

The Sins of the Son

 

"The sins of the father", as the saying goes, but in this case perhaps better put by the late, great Paul Newman in Sam Mendes' under-appreciated Road to Perdition; "Sons are put in this world... to cause problems for their fathers." Also well phrased, and moderated, by the great, living, acting James Cromwell: "You don't choose your parents... but you don't choose your children either." Both these truths seem eternal as well as alive in the person who is 

Be Absolute for Death

 

The debate over capital punishment has exchanged blows upon blows at the back of my mind for more years I can count clearly, . It is, at the fundamental, a question of How does one put 

I have myself not, yet, lived in a country where a neck was judicially broken, a heart or head perforated by a marksman's bullet by a court's decree, nor where an injection was delivered to abort life where it could have been, however miserably and for whatever purpose, sustained, even though I have walked streets and slept in beds where far more death and destruction have rung out between men and women. 

The Experts

The relation between the elites and the hoi polloi - this term so ostensibly fashionable, in who it designates as speaker, not in who it refers to - has defined the analysis of political power and its exercise (and non-exercise) throughout human, and not least, Western scholarship, if it's not throwing oneself through an open arc of an observation. 

More interesting, if one is interested in language or rather, how language is shaped (and not primarily shapes) the institutions of power and their constant regeneration (or eventual lack of the same) must then ask how these elites are perceived. In the current date, it seems more dangerous to cry out elites, 

Dangerous, I say? 

Who are then, these elites, and - to echo Tony Benn's question, which likewise seems dangerously unfashionable - how can we get rid of them - apart from the obvious answer (la lanterne; again the echo of blood and cruel and dysfunctional mob violence muffled by the supposed gentleness of the tongue)? 

A member of the dreaded "elite"? Now or in the cherished, or perhaps blemished, '89? 

His Majesty

 

Among the many stories of tyrants - or let's say autocrats, since it gives a more technical and less judgmental flair; this one, by any measures, do not fit the classic term tyrannos, no matter how many contemporary politicians supposedly do - is the story of the benevolent ruler, not holding back on spending and taxing his own powers (and properties) to benefit a supposed "whole" of society, in the line of Hobbes' Leviathan, narrowly interpreted as believing the . 

Notre Mons(e)i(gn)eur

 

The French. Has there been, within the ostensible "Western alliance", a partner so fraught with, well, difficulty? 

The Uneasy Friendship

 

For over eleven decades, the United States and its metastasis in the old empire (not that of Pitt, Pitt Jr. and porphyritic king George, but rather that accosted by accents and designs of such names) has had a relationship which only blossomed and reached a superb (or -fluous) peak with its downfall and denigration to the illustrious, and absurdly important polity which we long ago might have started calling the "republic of Taiwan". 

This week, the next jut in this series of humiliations bordering on tenderness came when the former president of the republic, Mr. Ma, visited the mainland - an act not so done since the republic, and his more illustrious (and audacious) forbearer Chiang actually ruled said mainland - and, more indignantly for the superpowers, the current president Tsai - now on the falling rope, as we say, or falling with a purportedly unassailable rope above them for so many decades - making a sweeping tour in the Americas, visiting her declining clientele of allies, but stopping for the inexorable (and inexorably condemned) meeting with the US Speaker, the with difficulty-elected McCarthy. He may not evoke the sentiment to "Red China" of his namesake (the drunk, that is) but surely there was more than manly courtesy in those eyes flashed (at a lesbian woman president, that is, for this beacon of ongoing patriarchal theocratic reinvigoration) reverence and respect. And, perhaps, gratitude, for small as it is, in this new landscape of China as the competitor - if not outright foe - in the East, the republic stands in the frontline, and would be the first (and perhaps only, in the strict sense) to face the Chinese onslaught. This use, if yet with consent, of Taiwan and its people as the aperture to Chinese expansionist aggression is a strategy as much as a commitment, and 

A Quisling, of sorts? Or expressing - asides the oft-praised "dove" mentality - the century-long desire of both Communists and "Nationalists" for a China united, under an unspoken authority, rather than permanently dislocated? Perhaps under an Emperor Xi? Would the competition between republic and people's republic ended be a legacy befitting Sun's name and thought? 

This twin visit confirms a presumption held long since: That while Guomindang has always been the party of unification (since the 1890s, actually) it is also the party of Beijing. I shall walk softly on such language, the cheap accusation of sell-out - now un-uniquely and frivolously as diarrhea employed against anyone not scaling the bandwagon to jut their crotches in direction of Moscow - is as useless as it is indiscriminate. But whereas many features of the style are similar , to the extent of Guomindang politicians certainly would glance across the strait to the Chinese model, or even consider themselves junior partners... dare I say Quisling, or Wang Jingwei... of a shape. This latter, however, is not the mainstream position, and appealing to it was what defeated the previously omnipotent "blue" in not one flunk, but two elections, setting "green" independence politics as the presumed new mainstream. This is not either the case, as polls may already predict, but certainly anyone of Sun's party will have to encompass the broader desire for effective independence and de facto sovereignty, and against any solution of suzerainty to the old rival. (Or, in plain stupid terms, show their allegiance to democracy and against populism, and so on, and so on.) Well, in recognition to old Chairman (also 主席) Chiang's hopes and plans (and those of his son, and his successor), why not? 

Let us consider a Chinese-dominated world order. I do not take this as anything else than a hypothetical consideration, because for all the seeming, and long-standing, inevitability of the current order's downfall and self-deceit in this, there are too many loose variables for even a "global" China to actually dominate Asia, let alone Africa or the Americas. Military power, once the beacon of the old empires, is the hurdling bloc which this neighbour of Japan, Korea (I mean the south), the Philippines, Vietnam, India, Pakistan and, yes, Russia, to be able to reach its arms wide. Population-wise, a barren fact in itself but the clock which set China - then a mere nuisance resisting Western or Japanese conquest, some of the time and with some aid, to the path of former greatness (again, with some aid). The fact of an East Asia dominated by China, with the fledgling set of American allies rolled back, can certainly be countenanced, but even that would involve an inevitable clash, if not directly of arms. Yet, with the current state of affairs, certainly it looks that way. 

A beautiful friendship, a subtle light shining, 

What of those who were against it? The fate of these allies (a resentful term, here signalling some degree of commitment, or often, a money relationship) "some of whom will be pardoned, and some punish'd", I would assume, but ultimately the Dragon will welcome into its (bur)lap everyone who asks for it, and ostracises the little warrior. For war is certain; the side effect of the suppression of Hong Kong (and, presumably, Macao) is that the Taiwanese will not surrender. Not in this generation. And the prospects of a new Paraguayan War (not to be easily countenanced by a willing aggressor) is absurd. Harder is the question whether these states, discounting the "states" in the Pacific which abandon at a pace as swift than the Qing dynasty unraveling the ally whose status they have (often very recently, after cash payments) issued, will ever find themselves between a surly "America" and a resurgent China, politically as much as geographically. 

The question, which assuredly remained unanswered in President Tsai's talks with Speaker McCarthy is; how much longer will this friendship last? Given the resurgence not only of China, "red" or otherwise (a Guomindang-label-on-lapelled Chinese president having been presented less graciously, and with fewer smiles, upon a very hypothetical journey to Los Angeles) there is every reason to expect the hands of the friend, if symbolically, grasping his weaker comrade even firmer. Abandoning a friend will only be tactical, if not tactful, upon the assault so severe whose stature one would be expected to defend. Given Taiwan's situation, and armaments, being the "poisoned shrimp" which Chiang's less authoritarian (and more appreciated) brethren prime minister Lee talked of, support upon an invasion is all but certain, with the unspoken variables of nuclear blackmail - China's weak arsenal being the three of clubs of its hand - and the prospects of a swift takeover or blockade. If this comes to pass, the Chinese leadership will most surely relish on the prospects of a "dove", or isolationist administration in Washington riding to governmental power on the Republican ticket, or quite soon, the Democratic one.   

A friendship long kindled, then in its prime. In the days when the republic outshone "Red China", so described, diplomatically and held a permanent seat at the UN headquarters in New York, steering the fate of Korea and many other nations, its economy basically equalling that of the uneasy neighbour as well. For how long, if ever, will it outstay its health? 

The Author

If we were to judge someone by their last word, few of us would be well remembered. 

Not in the least, this may be the case of authors, who may or may not decline in their waning days, should they live so long, or face the predictable but inexorably overwhelming pressure of expectation. 

The Buddies

 

No one was perplexed, in spite of their possible exorbitant resistance to both the Russian war and the notion that others could not share that sentiment, when soon-re-elected president Putin hosted recently re-elected president Xi, in a show of seeming dalliance expressing alliance. 

This is, beneath the skimming surface and known to any student of history or the intricacies of geopolitics, not the case. China and Russia have always been rivals - sometimes outright enemies - and only the stupid choices and stupider and empty blows to both parties by a weakening (well, relatively speaking, at least) Western world, self-consciously at that, has brokered this dalliance. For there was a day when the Chinese president, or General Secretary, could not have been welcomed in the Russian capital, or vice versa. 

Simon Tisdall, and the case for even bigger defaitism

It is, contrary to my better habits and presumably against my mental health, an unfailing impulse of mine to ascertain the news of The (formerly Manchester) Guardian as often as possible, a practice I can only put down to the tender but omnipresent force of habit as well as its generous policy of disposing news, and other matters, freely to the world. But as Mr. Big, the movie version, this gracious policy (supplemented by constant collect-like calls for the mercy of the benefitted readers for whatever coin they do have as consequence) hardly even smuggles in a motive of exercising an influence - well beyond Manchester too - which is well worth such partial charity. 

And in my habit of still clicking the opinion pages, if not always due to the art of creating a simple-minded or nasty headline, I found myself grovelling over the words of 

Like Marx but right(-wing)

 

Stephen K. Bannon. "Steve." The very name, like the slightly elongated "Stewie", evokes an attitude as well as a character, a tension that tends to make any discussion - as I know the phenomenon - unpalatable. When he maxed his ego, and what must then have felt like a position similar to the 16th century statesman, as well as flauntering his likely demise, by invoking Cromwell (16th, not 17th century, the one very aware of the loss of his condemned, and still breathing body) as a model for himself, close relatives were flabbergasted, as any enjoying the acclaimed, if "narrow", adaption of Shakespeare's early adaption of the fate of Titus Andronicus, face provided by the great Welshman, 

to the extent that his movement ought rather (putting aside my emphasis on "Kekist" and the power of the green beast) to be called Bannonites rather than Trumpists. With regard to the world outside the United States, an alluring landscapes to the other, leftist populists he so enamours, and certainly to the "woke" "progressive" "left", 

What is it then, beyond the unruly world of early-21th century economic thought, with left and right both lambasting the reprehensible and unending evils of an ostensibly centrist neoliberal consensus. 

The Warrior

One year after the undeclared declaration of Vladimir Putin, once and future (for a while) president of a Russia now seeming more and more 1914 or even 1916 than the sublime might not so long ago expressed by the bear waving its paws , president Joe Biden heralds one year of support for the former Soviet Union's second-most significant constituent state by his physical presence. 

If you had asked, in 1983, whether an American president, present in Kiev, conducting a proxy war with the Kremlin, and a Kremlin roaring the cause of traditional values against Western decadence to that, emotions would have ran amok in despair and dazed amazement, and surely many minds on the right would have been keen to sense more love for the Russian bear, and many Cold Warrior hearts - dare I say Goldwater, even? - suddenly a lot less war-like and a great deal more concerned with the sake of humanity. 

In line with this observation, we ought to ask whether the Cold War has not only re-emerged but gone positively warm, in a manner not seen since - or even in - the cold trenches of the Korean conflict, during its warmer and more blood-soaked years, and whether an armed intervention with apocalyptic weaponry make lie in the basket. This, I admit, seems the only immediately reasonable reason for staying the hand delivering the arsenal of the West into the hands of Ukrainians, in a spirit of liberty and brotherhood. If the Russian bear is to be culled, without him clawing the very world itself, it must be gradual and in the interests of the Russian leadership, rather than the cruel invasion of then seventy and two-thirds years past to which Putin himself made his relation, and the relation of the Ukrainian rebel ingrates, abundantly clear. The West would no longer use the constituent parts of the empire, steadfastly rolling forward to its just place at the temple of nations, regardless of mishaps, encountering any resistance to its course. 

The Commander of the Free World, and its foremost, or most heralded spokesperson. But what weakness lie under the steadfast stride, which doubts rest beneath the soothing shades, as with so many before him? 

But Biden has not been the unwavering friend of the free Ukrainian people, and (even) he knows it. Behind the hugs, the surely welcoming smiles, the physical presence of weaponry more advanced than anything in Putin's (still quite impressive) arsenal, and the many many days, and crushed and opened skulls, and drum-busting decibels ahead, the doubts and uncertainties cannot be quelled any more than the word invasion; whether it is Nazi-esque or not, aimed at annihilating Ukraine, or the Ukrainians, or not. The doubts over the designs and willingness of this West, if properly spelled in single tense, welcoming this Ukraine of the Ukrainians into its bosom, must be set against the certainty of the designs of the bear - as he is at the present moment - and  

What would be the next step, depending upon whether the war ends with a comprehensive Russian retreat - if not in a number of weeks or months - or a decisive conquest and occupation and partial annexation of Ukraine - not necessarily the strategic objective even during the lead-up to war in February 2022. 

The Brains of the Vatican

 

Among the strangest events of the past half millennium in the Vatican only might have been not to see a papacy ended by resignation - an event occurring numerous times as an undesired, but relatively painless alternative to other ways - but that the unusual and decidedly uncomfortable title of pope emeritus surviving his successor. Ratzinger, known for his eight-year reign as Benedictus, the sixteenth of that name (no cheating here, like with the many Karls, or equally latinised Caroli of Sweden) came within months of surviving his age-laden exit with a full decade, and perhaps - as has already been suggested - his successor's pontificate as well. The notion of three living popes, unthinkable but now really thinkable, already debatable, and perhaps soon to be glimpsed, with medical technology and the slackening of old mores only shuffling on in one direction. 

What about his critics, then? If Benedictus was rightly (or wrongly) condemned as bulwark of conservatism, where were all these liberals? Well, if one can be something like an Aquinas in our time, or a very bleak (positively white) carbon copy, is not the impetus towards 

First, it should be recounted that in its moment of great change - one seldom challenged from the clerical or otherwise left, if rarely mentioned in the positive - he stood firmly with the reformists; a broad camp whose joint venture was the knowledge that if the Church, after a near-century of hardened half-baked change, two world wars and a sovereignty the size of eight football fields won at the price of its soul, would have to change, or perceive to have done that, at least. So, with the sharpest eye at the foundations of the church (a word deliberately ). And so it was launched, and only the few decrying the election - I should say outright denying - of John and hence his successor, and the proposal that the proposed scion of steadfast dogma, Bishop Siri of Genoa (himself unaware of this) would have carried the ship on a straight course through these shoals, with Ratzinger as one of the bulwarks of change, if a moderate and largely optic one. In the large tests of the time, at least according to the liberals, this Warren Court-era of promise of change, at least, did not translate to proper substantial change in the relationship to the modern world. Meanwhile, stalwart conservatives enamoured with the pre-Vatican liturgy wailed at the aesthetical sacrifices at the altar of renewal, and eventually found a friend in their erstwhile advocate.