My candle burns at both ends;
It will not last the night;
But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends—
It gives a lovely light!
—Edna St. Vincent Millay
Greetings from the far left coast. My spirit is boosted. Ran five miles yesterday. First time that far since October. Back to back weeks nudging over ten, which is to say, the same mileage for the week that I was accustomed to running on Saturday morning a year ago. I remain cautiously hopeful that I'll be doing this consistently and maybe even ramping up a little as we get out into spring and warmer weather.
In the first months of pandemic I ran four mornings each week and took long walks the other mornings and each afternoon. Into the second year the walks grew shorter and sometimes only once a day. My spirit darkened. I told myself I was putting the time into writing and study projects. That was somewhat true. What do I have to show for it? Does it matter? Yes, somehow it does.
Last week I received an email from an old friend on the other side of the continent in response to a letter I sent his way in care of an art gallery that carries his paintings, hoping that it would reach him. It was our first exchange in years.
I was just beginning to think of myself as a poet when we met in the mid 1970s. Jim was the first person I ever met who thought of himself in similar fashion. His paintings knocked me out from the beginning and still do (Sandpiper Gallery). It is good to be back in touch.
My letter mentioned poets who mean most to me these days. Jim noted that he too is fond of Keats and DIckinson. "Also that guy who wrote 'Your Mum and Dad, They fuck you up.'" That guy was Philip Larkin. A few nights ago this came to me:
Larkin got it wrong.
It wasn't my mum and dad.
I managed on my own.
The Russian campaign to erase Ukraine and Ukrainians proceeds with savagery one can hardly bear to contemplate.
Cathy Young was born in Moscow and came to the US with her family in 1980. A contributing editor at Reason and regular contributor at The Bulwark (bio note), she is a valued source of analysis and commentary about Russia and Ukraine. A column last week examines the world view of Aleksandr Dugin and Russia's ruling class.
The madness of Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine has once again turned the spotlight on the creepy, enigmatic guru who has been called “Putin’s brain” or, irresistibly, “Putin’s Rasputin”: maverick “political philosopher” Aleksandr Dugin. And indeed, in many ways this is Dugin’s moment: For more than a quarter century, he has been talking about an eternal civilizational war between Russia and the West and about Russia’s destiny to build a vast Eurasian empire, beginning with a reconquista of Ukraine. Both the war in Ukraine and the new Cold War against the West can be said to represent the triumph—or the debacle—of Dugin’s vision.
The 60-year-old Dugin may or may not be Putin’s whisperer; there is no evidence that the two men have actually met. But his influence on the Putin-era ruling class in Russia is unquestionably real and scary.
…
Dugin asserted [in his book Foundations of Geopolitics] that Russian nationalism has a "global scope," associated more with "space" than with blood ties: "Outside of empire, Russians lose their identity and disappear as a nation." In his vision, Russia’s destiny is to lead a Eurasian empire that stretches "from Dublin to Vladivostok." (The Bizarre Russian Prophet Rumored to Have Putin’s Ear, The Bulwark, April 27, 2022)
Young writes that in a recent article Dugin seems
a little dispirited. He worries that Russia’s leadership thinks it can declare victory after keeping Donetsk, Luhansk, and Kherson, or maybe after taking all of "Novorossiya" [Eastern Ukraine] while leaving the rest of Ukraine "in the power of Nazis and globalists." Dugin insists that, at this point, Russia can no longer settle for anything other than total control of all Ukraine, because "Christ needs it" and because to leave would mean the "death, torture, and genocide" of millions of Orthodox believers. Invoking his familiar eschatological themes, he asserts that "we have become not merely spectators but participants in the Apocalypse."
Young comes at issues from a libertarian/conservative perspective. Her account is complemented by Luke Savage's interview with Benjamin Teitelbaum, associate professor of ethnomusicology and international affairs at University of Colorado Boulder, published in the progressive journal Jacobin (Aleksandr Dugin Is the Reactionary Prophet of Russian Ultranationalism, March 22, 2022)
Savage writes that some regard Dugin as Putin's house philosopher and styles that philosophy as a blend of ultranationalism and anti-modernist ideas that has "quietly become an important part of the intellectual backdrop to Putinism, and an object of fascination among reactionaries throughout the West."
Teitelbaum corroborates Young on Dugin's book Foundations of Geopolitics:
It’s been taught to a generation of military leaders and military elite in Russia since the fall of the USSR, and there’s almost no wacky time cycle stuff or Traditionalism stuff in there. It’s just about Russia’s divine right to push itself and its sphere of influence, how it can do that, how it can reimagine the world, and why it should reject the political map as it has been drawn by the West since the 1990s.
Also interesting is Teitelbaum's account of Dugin's meeting with Steve Bannon in Rome in 2018. Vultures flocking together. It turns out though that they disagree on the source of modernity, the great foe. For Dugin it is the US, for Bannon China.
Dugin has no official role in the Russian state. He does however seem to exercise more than a wee bit of influence on Russian narratives about what is happening in Ukraine and elsewhere.
This stuff is out where the buses don't run. Bat guano crazy. When it sounds too screwy and bizarre to be real, perhaps we should remind ourselves that people in high office in this country believe, or profess to believe, that the 2020 election was stolen from Joe Biden's disgraced predecessor, a belief shared with the faith of the devout by a baffling portion of the populace.
Young wraps up her article with this observation about Dugin's recent writing: "Somehow, it sounds less like a passionate call to action than the words of a man who is watching his fantasies play out and go terribly wrong—and is desperately trying to stay relevant." She could as well be speaking about Biden's predecessor.
Elon Musk. Twitter.
By "free speech," I simply mean that which matches the law. I am against censorship that goes far beyond the law. If people want less free speech, they will ask government to pass laws to that effect. Therefore, going beyond the law is contrary to the will of the people.
This is not coherent. Unworthy even of a sophomore working through a six-pack during a dorm room bull session.
Strange bedfellows department. Not so long ago I would never have anticipated thinking of Billy Kristol as a comrade. Kristol is son of Irving, who is considered the godfather of neoconservativism, and with Fred Barnes founder of the now defunct Weekly Standard. He is also a Never Trumper from the earliest days, which is where we began to align somewhat, albeit often uneasily from my standpoint. However we may differ on principles and policies, we share commitment to liberal democracy because of the alternatives: Trump, Putin, Orban, Le Pen. With Kristol I cheer Macron's victory.
If we read about the French election results, exclaim, "Ouf!," and relapse into fatalism, then we will drift on to an unhappy November.
But we could also look across the ocean, feel some national pride, and resolve not to let the French—whose democratic revolution after all came after ours and had a less happy outcome than ours—outdo us in upholding freedom and democracy in the twenty-first century.
Meanwhile, I doff my baseball cap to our beret-wearing cousins across the ocean, and say, Vive la France!" (Vive la France! Macron beats Le Pen like a drum. Democracy wins, The Bulwark, April 24, 2022
The outcome was more rejection of Le Pen than endorsement of Macron. Even so, it is welcome. Vive la France!
Two articles touching on the culture wars, political correctness, etc., that may be of interest:
Two new blog posts.
- Another Episode in the Ongoing Saga of What Passes for GOP Leadership. April 21, 2022. Today brought a flurry of colorful reports on another episode in the ongoing saga of what passes for GOP leadership, otherwise known as profiles in expediency. The reports are based on a preview of This Will Not Pass: Trump, Biden, and the Battle for America's Future…read more>>
- Why I Will Vote for Vadim for City Council. April 28, 2022. When I came to Portland in 1998 and for well over a decade thereafter the city was celebrated for its vibrant, pedestrian friendly downtown, a lively arts scene…read more>>
Keep the faith.
Stand with Ukraine.
yr obdt svt
Pictured below: Sunday afternoon at Mt. Tabor, April 24, 2022.
