There are four different things to cover, so I’ll keep them all short. Okay, three of them are short.
Ask Them Anything – Zoom with the Michigan Group in the Thermometer on Tuesday at 7 pm!
Please consider joining us for the one-hour zoom on Tuesday – you can ask them anything. We have hit the magic $15,000 amount that allows them to start talking with their contacts in the various underserved groups, and I am looking forward to hearing their plan for reaching out to the groups and hiring for the fellowships. And I want to hear more about which groups they will be engaging with! Please send email to my nym at balloon-juice.com so I can send you the zoom link.
⭐️ TUESDAY 4/19 @ 7 pm Eastern
Join the Fight Social Media Initiative Training!
We are holding one training this week for all the folks who couldn’t attend last week. Even some of the folks who attended last week want to join us for another one, so even if you are a pro at social media, please come and meet the others who are involved – it’s inspiring – and learn more about our focus and the plan of attack. Please reply to my Friday email to let me know if you plan to attend.
⭐️ THURSDAY 4/21 @ 8 pm Eastern
A special Medium Cool Next Sunday!
Join Medium Cool on Sunday, April 24 at 7:00 EST for a Q&A with John Lingan, author of the forthcoming biography: Creedence Clearwater Revival, A Song for Everyone (Hachette, August 9, 2022). John will be there in comments to field questions and chat about the book and the band.
⭐️ SUNDAY 4/24 @ 7 pm Eastern
The Resumption of History
We have a 5-part series of posts for you this week, called The Resumption of History. It’s a real treat, but I’ll let Carlo Graziani tell you about it himself. When I tell you that this is his “short introduction”, you’ll see why this is a 5-part series.
The Russian assault on Ukraine has triggered the same surprise, rage, and sadness for me as for all thoughtful people. But in addition, these events have brought me unexpected moments of startling clarity, during which I felt that certain issues that I had struggled with for years, of the “how the hell did we get here” variety, suddenly appeared to take up a new aspect, and line up to lock together in a new and remarkably coherent picture. With that clarity I felt an urgent need to write, and to communicate. Much of the material that I’ve been putting in Balloon Juice comments, and in occasional Front Page posts, are informed by that picture. I can’t begin to express how grateful I am to the Balloon Juice community for reading those posts and responding to them—usually kindly, occasionally quite critically, never, ever stupidly, which, let’s face it, is amazing for the Internet. Above all, the opportunity to write a few Front Page posts is a privilege I feel very deeply.
I may already be about to abuse that privilege. I wasn’t kidding about “urgent need to write”: I wrote a very long document summarizing the essentials (!) of this new picture, which in brief, is about an period of drift and loss of purpose by the West between the end of the Cold War and our own age, and which, if I read the signs correctly, is now coming to an end. The title of the essay is The Resumption of History. And because this essay is ridiculously long, and because WaterGirl seems to like it anyway, it is scheduled to appear in 5 sections, one per evening, starting tomorrow (Monday), and ending on Friday.
As a quick preview, here’s what to expect:
- Part 1: The Davos Consensus, And Its DiscontentsThe the post-Cold War West’s extravagant promises, and the parallel rise of the anti-democratic challengers who questioned the basis of those promises
- Part 2: The Age of AnxietyThe West’s failure to deliver on its promises, and the mechanism by which its challengers began to ascend to power
- Part 3: Of Justice and PowerA digression (but a crucial one) on foundations of governance
- Part 4: The Sources of American Soft PowerSurprising positive takeaways from the January 6 clown show
- Part 5: AwakeningsSome optimism for our time
A few more words (I know, I find it hard to stop). This is not an academic article. I do write academic papers, but scientific ones, not works of history, or political science, or philosophy. This essay would be—rightly—rejected out-of-hand even as a first draft article in any of those fields. The tone is wrong, of course. I cite no sources, provide no bibliography, make up my own analytic frameworks. I fail to distinguish my own original contributions from what I’ve taken from someone else. In truth, I no longer even recall how much of this I stole, or adapted, and how much is the product of my own reflections. I’ve been stewing on some of this material for several years, assimilating materials from readings, conversations and musings, and I wasn’t exactly keeping notes. Also, a good friend of mine who is a professional historian kindly read a draft, and told me that he felt the argument was “oversimplified” (this is kindness among us, believe me). By the standards of professional history he is absolutely correct. I don’t even want to imagine what charges political scientists or political philosophers might level at this thing.
That is all besides the point. I wrote this thing in large part as a memo to myself, because I wanted to take a snapshot of the picture that had so suddenly blazed out in my imagination. And I did it in my own voice. And since many of you have been so kind as to let me know that you enjoy that voice, I also wrote it for you.
One final word: WaterGirl is one of the world’s natural editors. If you should be so lucky as to be recruited to write for BJ, anything she touches of your stuff will get better, so you would be well-advised to let her edit away. When I sent her the original towering pile of text, all the structure it had was a few section headings. She read through the whole thing patiently and saw the possibilities, but preempted any suggestion of One Big Post with a gentle but firm “ha ha no”, and went on to think through and suggest the current, much better form. If you enjoy The Resumption of History, she deserves a great deal of the credit.
⭐️ MONDAY-FRIDAY @ 8:30 pm Eastern
Totally open thread.
Gin & Tonic
Will we have Carlo making excuses for genocide again? That was a real high point.
Bard the Grim
I truly look forward to this. (Will Brad DeLong be annoyed you’re scooping his “Slouching Toward Utopia”?) ;)
WaterGirl
@Gin & Tonic: I did not see it as making excuses for genocide, but he didn’t recognize it as genocide that first day. So yeah, he sure did call it wrong re: Bucha that night, and said so the next day.
Or is it spelled Bocha? I have seen it both ways.
edit: What I was intending to say, but wasn’t clear about, was that he didn’t recognize it as planned, deliberate, systematic, intentional.
japa21
Looking forward to Carlo’s posts. I think Carlo realizes the mistake that G&T is referring to above. At least I hope so.
Whatever he presents will, at the minimum, create a lot of discussion and he is looking at things that I have also been pondering.
WaterGirl
@japa21: Carlo said so clearly in Adam’s thead the next night, I presume choosing to say it there because that is where the most people would like see it.
Ruckus ??
@japa21:
Read your comment and now I don’t have to write one…..
Or
You stole my words!
Whichever one works for you. You said what I wanted so I’m leaving this here. Thanks!
Gin & Tonic
@WaterGirl: Some bells can’t be un-rung.
PsiFighter37
2 days until we move. A bit bittersweet; we have lived at our current place for more than 7.5 years, and ever since I have lived in Manhattan, which has been since I graduated 14 years ago, I have always been 2 blocks away from Madison Square Park. This is a great neighborhood to raise a kid, but for the space we need and the commute to our daughter’s daycare/school in Hell’s Kitchen, it was not workable. We also got (IMO) a great deal on the condo we bought. My hope is that this is the last move I ever have to make in NYC, and that the next move will be to somewhere else entirely once our daughter is done with high school / college, which is way down the road (15-20 years). My wife talks about possibly moving back, but I am realistic – we will be much older, possibly a bit different in what we desire, and the idea of living right on a major thoroughfare and possibly hearing sirens at any time of day seems like it will be even less appealing then than it is now.
WaterGirl
@Gin & Tonic: I added an edit to my comment above.
What I was intending to say, but wasn’t clear about, was that he didn’t recognize it as planned, deliberate, systematic, intentional.
Carlo Graziani
@Gin & Tonic: I’m making Easter dinner, so I’m pressed for time, but I’m actually grateful that you brought it up, because I do regret that post, but there’s no good way to do a decent rediscussion barring another front-page post. Maybe I should have done that.
What I do not regret about that post is the corrective to all the views often expressed here along the lines of “The only good Ivan is a Dead Ivan” and variants thereof. Also, I think there was value in pointing out some realities of war that often escape those who understand war from TV, or movies, or military history books of the monument-erecting, trumpet-blowing variety, or from video games.
But writing such things in a hot take piece about Bucha was unforgivable. Waiting one more day would have shown how far off the judgments expressed in that piece were from the coldly deliberate, calculated actions carried out against Ukrainian civilians. So if I had a time machine, I’d stop that piece. As it is, it reminds me to be wary of hot takes.
If it’s any consolation, The Resumption of History is pretty much as far from a hot take as you can get.
Now I really have to get back to cooking.
WaterGirl
@PsiFighter37: Nodding as I read. End of an era.
trollhattan
Evidently, if you wish to join the EU there are forms.
Boss: “Hi, I was wondering, if you can find some spare time, can you fill out this questionnaire? It’s from the EU.”
Underling: “But boss, there’s a war going on!”
Boss: “I understand, but rules are rules and we want this.”
“You’re the boss, boss.”
Same everywhere, always.
dexwood
@PsiFighter37: Man, I hear you about moving. People change along with circumstances. We were 13 years in our first place, 35 years and counting here in our second place. I’ll be carried out in a box for my next move.
Enjoy the quilt in your new place.
Ishiyama
“I cite no sources, provide no bibliography, make up my own analytic frameworks. I fail to distinguish my own original contributions from what I’ve taken from someone else.”
Nobody asked Thufir Hawat for his sources, either.
WaterGirl
@Ishiyama:
I don’t know who that is.
Yutsano
@WaterGirl: A character from Dune. It’s not the smartest metaphor IMHO since he’s essentially a living computer.
MisterDancer
I don’t know if you need my advice, so forgive if this is intruding:
One of my internal “lines” for becoming a Front Pager, was to prioritize self-corrections. I’ve already gotten a couple of “hot takes” wrong, and I’ve posted corrections on one, because I thought the topic deserved that 2nd approach, and that self call-in, if you will.
And that I don’t do it only because someone called me out. I do it because I agreed with at least something in that call-out, something that spoke to my goals here — to present ethically and morally sound arguments for Social Justice, and related movements. (well, one goal, anyway. The key one, if you will.)
I suspect — suspect — you have similar goals. If so, it might be of use to see where your upcoming series can (assuming, based on this comment, it does not) address this correction? I don’t think you need to do what I call a “guilt post”; one of mine didn’t even address the criticisms directly! Rather: I focused on boosting some voices I had found in trying to drive my internal education/corrections, trying to ensure I did right by the topic in my follow-up, and the people at the heart of the issue.
Again — I risk hubris in saying all this. So I ask forgiveness, because the 21st century still doesn’t provide all the best tools for saying a thing in the best way, for someone you don’t know that well.
debbie
@PsiFighter37:
I left NYC after 18 years, so I feel what you’re going through, but I bet you’ll soon come to see how really great your new neighborhood is.
trollhattan
Toys against tyranny, how about a Javelin anti-tank missile stuffy for the wee one?
greenergood
I’m sorry – I’ll read through this post and its comments tomorrow (Monday) but I am just so angry about this – Kevin MncCarthy needs to die in something worse that a fire: sorry don’t know how to link: https://www.newsweek.com/no-ukraine-war-if-biden-had-supplied-weapons-sooner-mccarthy-suggests-1698546?utm_term=Autofeed&utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Twitter#Echobox=1650230400
debbie
@WaterGirl:
Which made it more maddening in the face of the leaked document spelling out exactly what Putin’s intentions were.
Salty Sam
Well, I missed the “excuses for genocide” piece, but from the context of the commentary here today, it appears to me that Carlo recognizes that he missed the mark, and is attempting, among other things, to atone for that misstep. You cannot ask any more from a human being.
That said, I am looking forward to hearing more from Carlo- his writing here has been insightful and is clearly communicated- his posts are a pleasure to read. Most of all, from his teaser above, I think he is on to something that resonates in me. I can’t wait.
stinger
I look forward to these posts.
Renie
Anxiously looking forward to reading all the posts Carlo!
Omnes Omnibus
@debbie: You, of course, have never made a mistake?
debbie
@Omnes Omnibus:
Not to that degree. Have you ever been that insensitive?
Omnes Omnibus
@debbie: Probably.
lowtechcyclist
Exactly once in my life, a small periodical solicited an article from me. I think I write fairly well, but the editing so greatly improved my work that I’ve often wished since then that I could have an editor at my beck and call.
I will never be one of those people who thinks their prose is so perfect that it can’t benefit from the hand of a good editor. So in the unlikely event that my work is ever in your hands, WaterGirl, edit away!
Starfish
@PsiFighter37: I hope you have all the luck on the move!
WaterGirl
@debbie: What leaked document are you referring to? If it had been leaked before the post went up, I hadn’t seen it.
dexwood
@Gin & Tonic: @debbie:
Give it up. The guy made a mistake, didn’t think it through, fucked up. Take your pick. He’s apologized, tried to make amends. This place already has too many grudge-holders. Now, have at it while I help my wife care for her 94 year old parents. Back much later.
WaterGirl
@lowtechcyclist: Carlo is giving me too much credit! :-)
WaterGirl
Can anyone tell me what impact, if any, that joining the EU, or even being designated formally as a candidate, would make on the war in Ukraine? Or are all the benefits longer term?
Zelma
I’m looking forward to what you have to say, Carlo. I have lots of thoughts about the meaning of the current world crisis swirling around in my mind. I often think about writing them down and sharing them. But I am inhibited by the fact that I am/was a professional historian so I feel the weight of citing my sources and refrain. I envy you your freedom.<g>
Geminid
Open thread? I think I will post again the Ulysses Grant quotation that retired photo editor Susan Vermazen keeps at the top of her Twitter feed:
debbie
@WaterGirl:
It’s been a while, but I think you can get most of it in this thread:
https://twitter.com/daniellefong/status/1498050302955687936?s=21&t=7P0LbgD1VXYCxWtNiuBO1Q
Geminid
@PsiFighter37: That’s a big move even if it’s only a few miles. I hope your new home is a happy one for you and yours!
eclare
@PsiFighter37: Wishing you the most important thing for a move: Good weather.
And congrats again on the quilt!
Ruckus ??
@dexwood:
35 yrs – damn.
I’ve moved cross country – twice. I’ve moved from SoCal to NorCal – twice. The longest I’ve lived in any one place is my parents second house after I was born. 13 yrs. I spent 2 yrs on board ship in the navy and visited 10 countries, crossed the Atlantic 6 times. Have traveled about 12,000km by motorcycle in 3 countries on different continents/islands. I must be your opposite as far as staying in one place. And I have no idea which is better.
Ruckus ??
@Salty Sam:
This. 1000% this.
Ruckus ??
@WaterGirl:
I think it shows that Ukraine intends to be an actual country, part of the actual world. It’s telling the rest of the world Ukraine doesn’t want to be some separate nothing state appendage to some other country that sucks the life out of them.
Trying to go things alone worked when we didn’t all live so close and so interconnected. But that brought on wars because shitheads thought they could monetarily rape a country and still be big and bad ass. (ie: Russia and many more before them.) But that isn’t being a part of the modern world. Them being a part of the EU is a big step in world adulthood. It recognizes them for what they are, it puts them in a more solid position for trade and it shows that they can be the country version of an actual adult, responsible, respectable, reliable.
Salt Creek
I don’t if this has been commented on but it is a disturbing trend is starting to take root. I get enough of the crap from my republican acquaintances, but when it starts to appear in “mainstream media” I get really annoyed.
It’s the “Joe Biden is senile” meme, SNL’s Colin Jost’s Weekend Update took a cheap shot at Joe Biden for supposedly trying to shake the hand of someone who wasn’t there, this had been reported by the NY Daily News, a notorious NYC scandal rag.
Ordinarily I would have just shook it off as a pathetic attempt at humor and moved on. But it brought back memories of Kate McKinnon in 2016, when she did a Hilary Clinton impression that could have been written by the Trump campaign. Gratuitous smears that bore no resemblance to Mrs Clinton.
Trump on the other hand hosted a show, normalizing the creep.
Play up the negatives of the Democrats, play down the negatives of the Republicans. They are up to their old tricks again.
zhena gogolia
@Salt Creek: yep Colbert too
Carlo Graziani
@MisterDancer: Coming back to this dead-ish thread late, on a full belly.
I certainly see no grounds for apologies. I screwed up, and a discussion of how such screw-ups might be addressed is in-bounds.
I prefer not to entangle that discussion with the upcoming one, which is important to me, and which I’d like to protect. But as I said, perhaps it would be appropriate to stand up on the front page and say publically that I screwed up, and why I think what I said was wrong.
Carlo Graziani
@Zelma: I hope you participate actively in the discussion, then!