Skip to main content

Samantha Power

I'm reading The Education of an Idealist and really enjoying it. I found 2 videos that give a sense of her, and talk about the book.

Book TV

Amanpour and Company

Wikipedia Entry


She supported men who were stoical, were never sure an intervention was successful or really helped, and who were humble. I couldn't help but think that when she was proud of herself, she did not have the support of meditation to see the interconnectedness that helps one to be, inter alia, humble.

My Serbian friend said about the breakup of Yugoslavia, "Knowing the reality on the ground versus the media-political propaganda machine threw wide open what else we’ve been lied about. Therefore I have no patience in listening to people lying to themselves. Flocking in false virtue and fogs of hysteria. Tribal stupidity of those who espouse atheism while evangelizing in pure zeal with fists and slogans. Gen xers should know better. We should have been taught some history."


Quotes from book:

"Stone Mountain, Georgia’s 1,600-foot-tall granite behemoth, into which the Confederate leaders Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee, and Stonewall Jackson had been carved. Only decades later did I learn that the monument had been commissioned by segregationists and was the scene of numerous Klan gatherings over the years. Georgia’s history of lynching and violent racism was routinely ignored or minimized in our school history lessons."

I'm wondering what people are thinking of with the heightened moment of racial awareness that we are going through. Any calls to erase the relief on Stone Mountain? I went on Reddit, and there was no ground swelling to get rid of it, though people did note it might not be what we need now.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Manet and Degas

  Brilliant video explaining the exhibit. Go to the Met and see the exhibit! It's really quite special.  In the last gallery the painting this sketch is based off of, of the execution of a Mexican president. The painting has been cut into sections, and the surviving Degas has reassembled them. NY Times review

AOC

Dark Brandon meet Dark Alex. I see her advising the republicans to stick to their guns and never compromise. They don’t want to do anything, only obstruct. So they don’t actually need to be unified. Chaos isn’t organized. This is fine. Read all about it from Heather Cox Richardson , a historian who covers current events. "As their policies threatened to lose voters by concentrating wealth upward and hollowing out the middle class, Republicans increasingly warned that minority voters wanted socialism and were destroying the nation to get it. Trump rode that narrative to power, and now tearing down the current government is the idea that drives the Republican base." While we're at it, here's another funny photo from the Onion: And then: I listened to the Times podcast about George Santos . He basically lied about, I don't know, 80% of his resume, and has a mysterious $700k in his "corporation" which has no clients. So he's a Russian or Chinese plant, o...

6 month old podcast

Al Franken has a podcast , and he has my favorite Heather Cox Richardson , and they have an interesting discussion. He talks about the knife edge. She really explains the Republican strategy. Flood the zone with shit. Alternate facts, and fake news opens up the idea that there is no reality. It's basically reality versus false reality.  The goal is to both get people to back away from politics, and to tell them how to specifically think. Developed in Russia, a system of overturning democracy. Running fake candidates, who switch parties, and running candidates with the same name. Blackmail is a technique. Create a fake reality that people come to believe. They're willing to vote for a narrative is not true, and they're willing to vote away their rights.  You can flip it and use the same tools.You can weaponize social media by ignoring the shit, and fight back against all these techniques. People defend democracy. They're talking about community and caring for people and ...