I awakened early today…as I do most days in these perilous times…and lay in bed considering the state of affairs here.
My own state and that of my country.
Eventually a familiar phrase popped into my mind. “The quality of mercy is not strained.” (From Portia’s speech in Shakespeare’s The Merchant Of Venice.)
And I suddenly realized why I am so taken with Beto O’Rourke’s candidacy and approach.
Of all of the candidates, he most clearly illustrates the unstrained quality of mercy. Almost all of the others are hectoring, accusing, pleading, arguing and in general playing by the mainstream political book of the day. (I except Tulsi Gabbard and Pete Buttigieg from that rubric, but so far I don’t believe that either has even the slightest chance of winning.)
O’Rourke is not playing that game.
Read Portia’s speech. It has to do with rule. Merciful rule…something that has been sorely lacking in this country (and by extension in this world) for most of human memory.
Portia, in William Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice, Act 4, Scene 1:
The quality of mercy is not strained.
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath. It is twice blest:
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes.
‘Tis mightiest in the mightiest; it becomes
The thronèd monarch better than his crown.
His scepter shows the force of temporal power,
The attribute to awe and majesty
Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings;
But mercy is above this sceptered sway.
It is enthronèd in the hearts of kings;
It is an attribute to God Himself;
And earthly power doth then show likest God’s
When mercy seasons justice.
Whoever eventually wins the Democratic nomination in 2020 is more than likely going to be going up against the totally merciless Donald Trump…the Ming the Merciless of our time. Trump rules by “dread and fear” alone. Fear is his scepter, his only weapon. He has no other.
The coming presidential election is going to be about this and this alone.
Will we as a people continue to rule…and be ruled…by fear or will the higher power of unstrained mercy win the day?
‘Tis a valid question.
Shakespeare knew.
In Beto O’Rourke’s interactions wth people…and especially in his statements about immigration…his natural tendency towards unstrained mercy shines!!!
He is the anti-Trump, and that…not all of the “issues” as covered in the various partisan media, not the covetous dreams of politicians and controllers of both parties…is going to be the deciding factor in this upcoming election, especially if large segments of the generally non-voting electorate are sufficiently motivated to vote.
Trump or Anti-Trump?
Rule by fear or rule by mercy?
A campaign of fear or a campaign of joy?
We shall see.
Won’t we.
I know in which direction my support and eventual vote are going to go.
Yours?
Let us pray.
Later…
AG
P.S. While I am at it:
Blessed are the poor in spirit,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are those who mourn,
for they will be comforted.
Blessed are the meek,
for they will inherit the earth.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,
for they will be filled.
Blessed are the merciful,
for they will be shown mercy.
Blessed are the pure in heart,
for they will see God.
Blessed are the peacemakers,
for they will be called sons of God.
Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you, and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of Me.
Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven; for in the same way they persecuted the prophets before you.
Now…I personally am about as far away from a bible-thumping, U.S.-style white fundamentalist Christian as you can get, but then…they’re the ones most supportive of President Ming The Merciless, who himself is about as far away from the message of The Sermon On The Mount as one can get without dissolving into pure, fully macerated evil and slithering right down into the sewers.
So…
Think about it.
Please!!!
Warren, and it’s not even close. She’s doing (and been doing) everything Beto has and more. She’s taken actual stands, (end the electoral college and end the filibuster) and has actually accomplished something legislatively, (CFPB).
Indeed she has.
And in a just world, she’d be a frontrunner.
But she’s not.
Nor…I fear…will she be.
She will need to kick some ass in the debates…and do so in a way that will make her “likeable” (a tough combo)…to have any chance at all.
Maybe she can do that, and maybe she can’t.
We shall see.
AG
P.S. The general theme of this post is “The Quality of Mercy Is Not Strained.”
Unfortunately…for Elizabeth Warren and probably for the rest of us as well…she almost always seems to be “straining,” at least in public appearances.
If there is one characteristic shared by the U.S. presidents after Nixon, it is this.
None of them appeared to be “straining.”
A couple were simply too dumb to strain…especially Bush II and Reagan. They just flapped their lips and then went home while others took care of the real business,
The rest?
Good actors at the very least. All except maybe Jimmy Carter, whose heart was so in the right place…as plentifully evidenced by his post-presidential career…that he didn’t feel the need to strain. And maybe Bush I as well, who was so comfortable in his position as an executive charter member of the rapidly rising Deep State that he believed he didn’t need to strain because the spooks would take care of him.
Trump too, come to think of it. Being an evil fuck is so natural to him that it’s no strain at all.
All of the most probable Dem candidates so far? With the exception of O’Rourke?
Straining mightily, each and every one!!!
Except…as I mentioned above…Gabbard and Buttigieg, who really don’t seem to have much to lose and probably understand that fact.
So it goes.
Is there a democratically-run country in the world today where the leaders are not…increasingly, at the very least…being chosen on looks? How telegenic they are? How movie-star casual? Or movie-villainous, in Trump’s case?
Not France or Canada, for sure!!!
So it goes.
AG
What the hell is going on with these content-free serial attacks on Warren Arthur is executing here?
By throwing in so relentlessly and propagandistically for a single candidate in a race with more than a dozen candidates and likely candidates, Arthur is transparently setting up his plan to campaign against the winner of the Democratic Party Presidential primary in the general election.
Every candidate is an underdog in a primary with so many candidates. If O’Rourke does not win the nomination, Arthur will declare the winner as a DNC-picked stooge unworthy of our votes. It’s a fucked-up game he’s playing.
You have no “quality of mercy,” centristfield. Or at the very best…about as much “mercy” as a kneejerk reflex when one is hit on the knee by a doctor’s little rubber hammer.
If O’Rourke does not win?
And no one else shows up as the winner who is not a captive of the neocentrist DemRat/RatPub, corporate-owned hierarchy?
Yes.
I will go looking elsewhere.
Deal wid it.
Ideally?
In my own opinion?
Now is the time for you and your allies to be swept under the table of old news.
Will this happen?
Let us pray that it does.
Why?
Because all it’s going to take is one more win for the Scylla/Charybdis twins to totally tank this system.
And then?
Then it will come time for you short-sighted sons of bitches will reap the whirlwind of your mistakes.
As will we all.
Hustle on, centristfield.
Your pronouncements label your shortcomings.
Later…
AG
Arthur, your chief ideological critique of the Democratic Party is that it is too centrist.
Beto O’Rourke’s ideology is far more centrist than Elizabeth Warren’s. The policy prescriptions he has articulated do not take on the “…corporate-owned hierarchy…” as aggressively as the policies expressed by most of the viable candidates who are running against him.
You personally hold a radically regressive ideology. Your ideology is far to the right of the most conservative candidate running for the nomination. Your ideology doesn’t match O’Rourke’s at all.
All this is why we’re calling out your record and warning the community so they understand the filthy business you’re up to here.
You write:
No.
My “chief ideological critique of the Democratic Party ” is that it is owned and operated by corporate powers…the same corporate powers that own the Republican Party, really…that do not operate in any way that even remotely resembles the “mercy” of which Shakespeare was writing. They…and the people who front for them…are essentially alien beings.
Not human.
Profit machines.
Bottom line computers, and the hell with human beings except as functionaries in the pursuit of profit.
They show no mercy. Why? It does not add up on the balance sheet.
And you…wth your incessant accusations about my so-called “filthy business” here…are either a witting or unwitting tool of that system.
You speak of “issues.”
Pol Sci-speak.
“Right on the issues.”
“Wrong on the issues.”
“Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah” since Hector was a pup.
But the “issues” never seem to be resolved.
There’s always a new “issue” to be right or wrong about.
Meanwhile, the wars continue.
As they always have.
The poverty, the slavery, the sheer, anti-human waste of it all!!!
You want to speak of “filthy business?”
There it is, in a nutshell.
I got your “issues.”
Right there!!!
And…I personally feel free to support anyone who seems to me to be about ending…or at the very least, ameliorating…those issues.
The “center” of this country is…and has been since its very inception…basically about cheap labor and conquest. The chief differences between the two parties…leftiness and rightiness, Democrat, Republican and whatever other names the hustlers dream up…lie in how they want to go about pursuing those goals. No matter their different approaches, when push comes to shove there they are, solidly together in the center of things, waging military and economic war at the cost of human lives and dignity.
You proudly flaunt your own centrism with your handle here. And your tactics…your lying, your prevarications, your sidestepping…mirror those of the people that you support. DNC tactics, in a word or two or three. Public/private positioning for maximum power.
I despise those tactics and those aims, and I choose to support people who also despise them.
Deal wid it.
AG
LOL. “I didn’t write those things I wrote!”
My handle has nothing to do with centrism.
You believe States and portions of States should be freed to force juvenile victims of incest to carry the pregnancies of their rapists to term. I don’t think your vision of where the Democratic Party should go is a vision which anyone in this community supports.
It’s just another `white men to the rescue’ trope.
.
. . . you are!
These two bullshit diversionary claims are directly, mutually contradictory:
[some seemingly interminable bullshit blah, blah, blah, . . . followed by this direct contradiction of that claim above:]
This unwillingness/inability even to recognize the glaring self-contradictions/mutual incompatibilities routinely embedded in what you shit out here is what renders you the saddest of the sad jokes ever to be found here. (E.g., as others repeatedly point out, your *Humpty Dumpty-style lover’s embrace of the most (actually!) centrist declared Dem candidate while routinely, idiotically, dishonestly, and self-contradictorily throwing “centrist” around as a contentless ad hominem slur in obvious deployment of Humpty Dumpty’s credo:
The “0-Mega Troll” rating is obviously for the disgusting, gob-smacking dishonesty of projecting onto others who validly and substantively critique and refute what you do here — usually providing factual documentation demonstrating that substance and validity — the disgusting tactics that you actually and routinely engage in here, i.e.:
Hard to imagine a more succinctly accurate description of what you actually, routinely do here. You’re Humpty Dumpty and Brave, Brave Sir Robin all rolled up into one very disgusting package.