Some say teachers should, like soldiers, should put their lives on the line. This A.E. Housman poem brings up the question of whether even soldiers should do so when there sacrifice will be meaningless.
Tag Archives: Bertolt Brecht
Wanted: Teachers, Not Martyrs
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged "Charge of the Light Brigade", "Here Dead We Lie", "I Have a Rendezvous with Death", "Soldier", "Strange Meeting", A. E. Housman, Alan Seeger, Alfred Lord Tennyson, COVID-19, Donald Trump, Galileo, Rupert Brooke, school reopening, teachers, Things They Carried, Tim O'Brien, Wilfred Owen Comments closed
The Real Face of Patriotism
When William McRaven asked, out of sympathy with John Brennan, that his own security clearance be withdrawn, he behaved like Brecht’s poet in “Burning of the Books.”
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged "Burning of the Books", 1984, Donald Trump, George Orwell, John Brennan, security clearances, William McRaven Comments closed
Brecht on the Rejection of Refugees
Thursday As some Americans harden their hearts against Central American immigrants, shrugging off the 2600+ children who have been separated from their parents, the six children who have died in (or immediately following) border patrol custody, and the cages in which people have been housed, we would do well to remember how in 1942 America […]
The Danger of Normalizing Trump
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 […]
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
