Feature
Radio Free New Hampshire: Dancing in the Dark
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We have lived with stalemate for so long, we have forgotten how and why it happened. But to best appreciate Donald Trump’s actions in Iran, we should learn that history again.
InDepthNH.org (https://indepthnh.org/author/michael-davidow/)
We have lived with stalemate for so long, we have forgotten how and why it happened. But to best appreciate Donald Trump’s actions in Iran, we should learn that history again.
It was a heartwarming article in the New York Times, which takes pride in being our nation’s newspaper of record. A restaurant in Syria is going out of its way to serve kosher meals to Jewish visitors.
Confession: I don’t know how computers work. When mine goes south, I stab random buttons. I turn it on and off. I swear out loud. It usually works again after a while and then I move along. Ditto for my phone, ditto for my car, ditto for the other machinery on which I rely any given day.
As always, Trump’s failure is not a failure of ambition but a failure of vision and leadership. His mistake lies not in choosing to act, but in neglecting to build a new and viable system to replace what we have.
Marjorie Taylor Greene is quitting Congress. Georgia’s famous spewer of hate has become disillusioned. Trump let her down on the Epstein files; they have also parted company on Gaza and Iran.
Jeffrey Epstein, Rob Reiner, crypto deals, the Kennedy Center; Venezuela, the White House, vaccinations and wind farms. That is only the past few weeks. As 2025 limps to an end, it hardly seems possible that so much has transpired and the primary catalyst for so much sadness has been one man.
Priesthoods belong to settled cultures. They mark agricultural surplus, centralized administration and social hierarchy. Prophets ignore those things. They are individuals who claim a special relationship to the divine. Prophets and priests are natural opponents. Nothing rattles an established priesthood like a new vision of truth.
The years came and went and the big sea that Melville wrote about stayed where it had always been, off the New England coast, and as his hero Ishmael writes about the feeling of November in his soul, I soon linked this book to autumn and I would find myself reading it accordingly every few years.
“I am not a member of any organized political party,” Will Rogers quipped. “I am a Democrat.” The donkey ran true to form in this last election.