Power, like a desolating pestilence,
Percy Bysshe Shelley, Queen Mab (1813), Canto III.
Pollutes whate’er it touches; and obedience,
Bane of all genius, virtue, freedom, truth,
Makes slaves of men, and of the human frame
A mechanized automaton.
On April 3, 1968, Martin Luther King, Jr., delivered his “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop” speech.
Paul focuses on his most controversial commentary of the week, and then the conversation moves back to . . . Nixon.
The truth is a trap: you can not get it without it getting you; you cannot get the truth by capturing it, only by its capturing you.
The Journals of Søren Kierkegaard, 1854.
Image, above, is a caricature of Kierkegaard published in The Corsair, a satirical journal.
With the Acte de déchéance de l’Empereur (“Emperor’s Demise Act”) of April 2, 1814, France’s Sénat conservateur officially recognized the downfall of Napoléon I of France. The original resolution to remove the Emperor was moved on the legislative body’s floor, by Thomas Jefferson’s friend Destutt de Tracy (according to Tracy himself — official records do not name the member), and was drawn up by Charles Lambrechts. The final paragraph summarized the new reality concisely:
The Senate declares and decrees as follows: 1. Napoleon Buonaparte is cast down from the throne, and the right of succession in his family is abolished. 2. The French people and army are absolved from their oath of fidelity to him. 3. The present decree shall be transmitted to the departments and armies, and proclaimed immediately in all the quarters of the capital.
Nine days later, after attempting to put his son on the throne, Napoléon abdicated unconditionally. The Allies exiled him to Elba, which was to be the whole extent of this reign as “Emperor.”
This arrangement proved unstable, with Napoléon staging a comeback, eventually leading to more war, his defeat at Waterloo, and his exile to an island in the South Atlantic.
American author, art critic, and commentator Camille Paglia was born April 2, 1947.
Where and why leadership lacks:
I used to say to our audiences: “It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!”
Upton Sinclair, I, Candidate for Governor: And How I Got Licked (1935).
On April Fools’ Day, 1957, the BBC offered for viewers of the current affairs program “Panorama” the infamous spaghetti harvest report hoax.
By sheer coincidence (?), one definition of “noodle” is “fool.”
The “this” was a visit by the Internal Revenue Service to the home of journalist Matt Taibbi while he was testifying to Congress about his Twitter revelation research.
Normally, the Regime’s collection wing, the IRS, does not just ‘stop on by’ unannounced.
The timing, Rep. Jordan suggested, is suspicious.
And the condemnations are coming in from more than just the “right.” A journalism professor at DePauw University joined the tide of free speech advocates to note that the “this” indeed “runs contrary to every principle” of the American press freedom as instituted in the First Amendment.
The IRS has not so far clarified the visit, and Jordan is threatening to subpoena all documents related to the event.
Journalist Sharyl Attkisson — who “has long contended the Justice Department during the Obama administration illegally surveilled her while she was at CBS News,” explains Fox News — not unreasonably contends that the “IRS would have to know how their visit to Taibbi’s house would be construed, which suggests that’s exactly as they wanted it.”
The chilling effect is by design.
But why would The Regime be so blatant?
So clear in intent and corrupt in method?
Does The Regime feel impregnable?
Maybe the old lore of deviltry and contracts with the Principalities and Powers is true: evil feels compelled to signal what it is doing, at least nominally. Leaving it up to good people to see the signs.
Which we now cannot unsee.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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As social animals, we live in a narrow but apparently logical world with a well-defined identity and position. But man is the satellite of a double-star; there is also an inner-world that seems to have a completely different set of laws from the rational universe.
Colin Wilson, Bernard Shaw: A Reassessment (1969), p. 167.