The Center Cannot Hold
The opening lines of a Yeats poem The Second Coming (served up in Jeremy’s sister discussion group) somehow resonated in that recent State Of The Union delivery:
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer; . . .
One take on the annual address: the nation is turning and the gyre is widening. Say the quiet part out loud – the president, maybe the ruling political class, has become disconnected from the people's sense of a nation facing a certain paralysis and decline. The falcon can no longer hear the falconer. Or, worse, perhaps the presumptive falconer is no longer the electorate.
How else to explain Ukraine as the opening applause line? Mightn’t certain other up-close-and-personal matters – say inflation and crime – have merited top billing and some straight talk (though no disrespect intended to the importance of MM 10/13/23 Ukraine Who?).
Or, for heaven’s sake, how about our now-porous borders. How could any caring, independent-thinking citizen characterize what is (not) going on as anything other than an invasion? What an opportunity to shut down the growing cynicism the invasion serves to further certain parochial domestic interests. An honest question here – and if the mere asking is seen as somehow xenophobic, nativistic, and racist, so be it – but is a country little more than a country in name only without a defensible border?
Where or where was there any reference to high-powered analysis, or any analysis at all beyond magical thinking, when it comes to the entrenched (bi-party) catastrophic fiscal policy, enabled by the accommodating, self-serving monetary policy, which has driven this insanity known as the national debt. Speak to us as adults.
Don’t look now but the BRICS alliance has just added six more members and now represents 36% of global national income (more than the G7) and is looking to trade in a commodity-based currency. Is that not at least worthy of a mention given the U.S. post-WWII dominance was based upon the petro-dollar as the only game in town?
Hello, falcon, hello, can you hear us? Oh, don’t be so naive, some will say to all that – fish swim, birds fly, politicians lie, and governments spin data – while the country has devolved into at least four versions of itself MM 7/9/21 Four Americas. To that comes the most chilling prospect of all – that the falconer (electorate) is itself dissipating. Back to Yeats:
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
All of which brings some to invoke historical parallels in the way of ancient historian Titus Livius in his reference to the Roman national character as “We can bear neither our disease nor their remedy.”
Yes, some might say, but wasn’t the president Biden just so animated, forceful, and powerful in his delivery, to which Yates might add:
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Well, then, for the good news, at least we’ve learned of possible relief from credit-card junk fees and the right to an abortion . . . . as this rough beast of a country, its hour having come:
. . . . slouches . . . . to be born.
Discuss. Thank you all, feel better now, and you?