Friday Recently the Washington Post reported that Trump just told his ten thousandth lie, a fact that barely raised eyebrows since we have become inured to his incessant falsehoods. Bertolt Brecht describes the normalization process in “When Evil-Doing Comes Like Falling Rain.” Imagine that you’re hearing the 10,000th lie for the first time–which is to […]
Tag Archives: Bertolt Brecht
The Danger of Normalizing Trump
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged "When Evil-Doing Comes Like Falling Rain", normalizing autocrats, Trump's lies Comments closed
A Poem for International Workers’ Day
Wednesday – May 1 Despite incessant GOP attacks on unions with their Orwellian-named “right to work laws,” increasing income inequality may push Democrats to aggressively push for more actual workers’ rights. I was struck that Joe Biden, in announcing his presidential bid, said he was “sick of this President badmouthing unions.” Later he tweeted, “Labor […]
Brecht’s Warning for Democracies
Monday In an important debut article for the Atlantic, former New Yorker writer George Packer mentions a Bertolt Brecht poem to illustrate the threat that the GOP currently poses to democracy. The article contends that Donald Trump is the logical culmination of the Republicans’ 50-year descent into an authoritarian, white identitarian party. According to Packer, the descent […]
On Mac the Knife & Presidential Pardons
Trump, like Mac the Knife, is an escape artist extraordinaire. Might a presidential pardon save him as a reprieve saves Mac?
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Beggar's Opera, Donald Trump, Paul Manafort, presidential pardons, Three Penny Opera Comments closed
Brecht on Speaking Truth to Power
Monday A Bertolt Brecht poem came to mind when Retired Navy Admiral William H. McRaven came to the defense of former CIA Director John Brennan, stripped of his security clearance by a Donald Trump angry at his criticisms. Vox has the story of what happened: The man who led the raid that killed Osama bin Laden in […]
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged "Burning of the Books", 1984, Donald Trump, George Orwell, John Brennan, Rudy Giuliani, William H. McRaven Comments closed
My “Last Lecture”
I share here my “last lecture” from my retirement ceremony. (But rest assured: I will not be retiring from this blog.)
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Aristotle, Chinua Achebe, Divine Comedy, Goethe, Heart of Darkness, Horace, Huckleberry Finn, integration, Jane Austen, Joseph Conrad, Mark Twain, Martha Nussbaum Wayne Booth, Matthew Arnold, Percy Shelley, Plato, Rachel Blau DuPlessis, Samuel Johnson, segregation, Sir Philip Sydney, Terry Eagleton, W. E. B. Du Bois, Wayne Booth Comments closed
Theories about Lit’s Impact
A transcript of a talk given at the University of Ljubljana on “how literature changes lives.”
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Aristotle, Chinua Achebe, Frederick Engel, Horace, Karl Marx, Martha Nussbaum, Matthew Arnold, Percy Shelley, Plato, Rachel Blau du Plessis, Samuel Johnson, Sir Philip Sidney, Wayne Booth Comments closed
Brecht Quatrains for Challenging Times
During World War II Bertolt Brecht wrote quatrains that speak powerfully to our own political times.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Adolph Hitler, Donald Trump, refugees, war, War Primer Comments closed
Brecht Explains Castile Shooting
To understand why cops continue to shoot innocent people of color and why juries acquit them, Brecht has the definitive explanation in his play “The Exception and the Rule.”
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Black Lives Matter, cop killings, Exception and the Rule, Philando Castile, Tamir Rice Comments closed
