Contemplations – Most recent

I'm incurably curious about many aspects of this journey of ours. Here are a few noteworthy items I've stumbled across that I want to remember so I can revisit them from time to time.

Appetizer:

"Although I am a typical loner in daily life, my consciousness of belonging to the invisible community of those who strive for truth, beauty, and justice has preserved me from feeling isolated."
– Albert Einstein, from a short speech he gave to the German League of Human Rights, Berlin, in 1932, which can be found in Einstein: A Life In Science by Michael White and John Gribbin, Dutton, 1994, pages 262 – 263: via Internet Archive⩘ .

Most recent contemplations

On superpower suicide and the recovery of justice

An American flag waves solemnly above a desolate plane wreckage in barren land. Photo by Alexandru Taradaciuc⩘  from Pexels

An excellent essay by Timothy Snyder.

Empires have risen and failed before, but to my knowledge no state has ever chosen to kill its own power, and succeeded with such rapidity.

Snyder explores this suicide in thirteen areas:

  1. Statehood
  2. National interest
  3. Succession
  4. Elites
  5. Education
  6. Science
  7. Energy
  8. Technology
  9. Diplomacy
  10. Alliances
  11. The international system
  12. The idea of victory
  13. Finances

Almost every day when I read the news about the current administration is doing, I think to myself and sometimes exclaim out loud, "This is fucking insane!" Every week, when I protest what is happening, I hold up a sign. The current one: "Restore Sanity!"

Snyder captures a crystal clear snapshot of this current insanity through the thirteen areas he discusses, as well as what it would take to restore or achieve sanity. Finally, he provides a clear and powerful conclusion.

The systems that made the United States a superpower cannot be rebuilt as they were, nor should they be: they involved structural injustices that made the present attempt at self-annihilation possible. From where we stand now there are two ways forward: one is the self-induced downfall of the American republic; the other is to reconsider American ideals and to restructure American politics so as to bring the people greater power over a more just future.

On superpower suicide and the recovery of justice⩘  by Timothy Snyder, Thinking About, May 9, 2026.

See also: 'My ambition is to change the country,' AOC says when asked about seeking higher office in 2028⩘  by Edward Helmore, The Guardian, May 9, 2026.

"My ambition is to change this country. Presidents come and go. Senate, House seats, elected officials come and go. But single-payer healthcare is forever," she added, in reference to the kind of national healthcare platform she has long supported over the private system entrenched in the US.

Ocasio-Cortez then ran through a litany of her other signature policy positions, saying: "A living wage is forever, workers' rights are forever, women's rights, all of that, and so anyways … to a finer point to your question is that when you aren't attached, when you haven't been like fantasizing about being this or that since the time you were seven years old, it is tremendously liberating."

Later in the exchange, Ocasio-Cortez said she wanted to "make decisions from a place of how are we going to change the country".…

She added: "I make decisions by waking up in the morning, looking out the window and observing the conditions of this country. And saying what move or what decision can I make today that is going to get us closer to that future, stronger, faster, better than yesterday."

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