Creative Expression Tags Used in Events

We're going to turn to Mr. Zachary, as we always do each week, for his scene-setting poem. Zachary, what's the title of your poem?

The Ghost of JFK.

Oh, I'm a little scared now. Let's hear about The Ghost of JFK.

The ghost of JFK yielded its head today as I spoke with my teacher of memory. As I spoke with my teacher of memory, he told me of the fateful day when he was to see JFK on the aged steps of the Capitol. On the aged steps of the Capitol, I stood on an afternoon in May and watched all the children play as we marched past to the Capitol door. As we marched past to the Capitol door, I thought of the man that day when he bled to death in a limousine and all hope went away. It was not like the oceans had parted. The seas were still stable that day and no Constitutions were carted away. No ceilings fell in and no highways collapsed. The army didn;t stop playing taps. It was youth that was killed from the book depository on the square in Dallas by the grassy hill. It was youth that was killed in Dallas and we're waiting again for it still.

I love the arc of that poem, Zachary, really taking us all the way to the tragic end of JFK's life. What is your poem about?

My poem is really about trying to ask what made JFK such a symbolic figure in American history and what made him so important in the memory of his generation, even only having served a few years as president.

Before we turn to our discussion of dissent and national security, we have, of course, our scene-setting poem from Mr. Zachary Suri. What's the title of your poem, Zachary?

"Cross of Gold."

Wow, I didn't know we'd have William Jennings Bryan joining us today. Okay, Zachary, let's hear it.

"Aristotle wrote of the golden mean in a land of Grecian fields, and so too did the centuries proclaim moderation, my underlings, my dears. A scale is never balanced if the masses are uneven, and the tide can never come here if it never pulls from there. If the water is never gone, it will never reach the pier. And so too did the sages write of living in the middle, and so too did the poets sing of overzealous love. But what is there to do in life if virtue is a dove? Sometimes is there not a moment for a sudden movement, a second for a second path? A period for a period of change, and a time for a time of shift and sin? For is it not that the scale is never a truly balanced ship, that the oceans are only calm because they often overflow, that the sages were radical in their steady consultation, that the poets could never leave overzealous love for moderation? The cross of gold could martyr the farmer. Aristotle will smother his innocence, and moderation will suffocate the truth."

Wow, Zachary, that covers quite a lot there, and I love the movement from Aristotle to moderation and the truth. What is your poem about?

My poem is really about the importance of radicalism and dissent in policymaking, but also in life and society in general.

Echoing Zachary's poem, how do we understand this relationship between secrecy and dissent, and why is there such an almost ever-present tension in American national security?

Sure. Well, first, I wanted to comment a little bit on the poem, because one thing that strikes me, a question that we were working through as we navigated the complexities of whistleblowing was whether or not it is a radical act. I think one of the points that we wanted to underscore, and one of the discoveries that we made, is that in many respects, whistleblowing is an act of desperation, but it is not necessarily radical.

"Herbst ich erinnere mich," or "Fall I remember." Let's hear it.

"Fall, I remember. You sneak up on us from behind the orchard fence. You seem cold and distant until the signs at the gas station begin to freeze. Herbst, ich erinnere mich an dich, der alte Mann in dem Supermarkt mit kaltem Haar, zwischen geöffnet und geschlossen Hoffnung. Fall, I remember you like a blessing, a prayer for the lost souls in tandem with the damp leaves trodden underfoot. The air is burning now. The earth is burning. The fires are so hot they feel as if they could be frozen. Und dann von hinter der Regalen hat ein Mann deinen Arm berührt. And then from behind the shelves, a man has touched your arm. He is memory. Er ist die Erinnerung. And there are the eyes of your underlings, and the eyes of the mistreated ones, and the eyes of your fathers, and your mothers and your great, great forgotten ones. Es gibt die Schuld deines Land. There is the guilt of your country. Es gibt die Schuld deiner Hand. There is the guilt of your hand. Wie kommt das Ende der Geschichte mit dem Ende der Erinnerung? Wie kommt das Ende der Erinnerung mit dem Ende der Zeit? Wie kommt das Ende der Schuld mit Erbst, mit Zärtlichkeit?"

That was really powerful. Very powerful. I think you should translate that last section for us and tell us what your poem's about.

Well, so I'll answer the latter question first. So my poem is really about how we think about historical memory and guilt. And it's particularly about this moment we find ourselves in in the fall of 2020, right before the presidential election, sort of thinking about our history and how it's going to affect our future.

And the last six lines of the poem in German translate roughly as how does the end of history come with the end of memory? How does the end of memory come with the end of time? How does the end of guilt come with fall, with tenderness?

It evokes a little bit of T.S. Eliot, right? Not with a bang, but with a whimper.

Well, I was also thinking, Zachary, I don't know if you know, there's a fairly well known poem of Rilke. I don't know its title anymore, but it starts with es ist herbst, it's fall. Do you know that?

I think I may have come across it, but I was definitely going more T.S. Eliot.

But yeah, I prefer T.S. Eliot to Rilke myself, actually. But that, his herbst poem, is a good poem.

Before we turn to our discussion of participatory democracy and the Port Huron Statement, we have, of course, Mr. Zachary Suri's scene-setting poem. Zachary, what is the title of your poem this morning?

"Port Huron Revisited."

"We are people of this generation, housed now in, we are people of this generation, do not forget the oceans of incalculable transgressions and the memory of the maimed millions. We are people of this generation, housed now in absurdity and the phosphorescent orbs of radioactive civility. We are people of this generation, standing by obelisks we're not sure make any sense to us now in a sea of so many sanctimonious automobiles. Mark them as the godly idols of our time. We are people of this generation, housed now in, and the black-white haze of centuries of ambiguous certainty. We are people of this generation, sleep, float, remember. We are people of this generation, housed now in absurdity and the windswept deserts of parking lot dystopias. We are people of this generation, standing now on a bluff overlooking the harbor, observe the Lady of Liberty, wonder what oxidized horror she holds beneath the crown. Thus is the spirit of white giant at the reflecting pool, the names in white crawling along the black marble wall."

I love all the imagery there, Zachary, from the parking lots to the Statue of Liberty. What is your poem about?

My poem is really about the sort of dissatisfaction with American society and the current sort of American political discourse that drove so many young people to the radical political movements of the 1960s. And I think what's so startling today is how relevant many of their concerns and their criticisms of American society are to young people like myself today. And...that was really what my poem was about, was connecting those two generations and those two time periods.

That's right. Geoff and I got to know each other very well when we spent long days working through musty old papers in the Yale University archives. Glory days, Geoff, yes? (Oh, yeah.) Before we turn to our discussion of the history of the Republican Party, we have, of course, our scene setting poem from Mr. Zachary Suri. What is the title of your poem today, Zachary? (It's a long one. It's titled "For Joseph McCarthy and His Brethren in Moral Promiscuity.") Wow. McCarthy and Moral Promiscuity. I'm a little concerned about where we're going. Let's hear it.

Twice gone from persecution, I crossed the sea in countless boats and discovered your humanity in '76's sacred notes. Far from the banks of promised lands, one came in chains, the other on the sea. And then you fought a long fought fight to make this stolen land more free. Blood dripped, the river sipped, and oceans touched the shores of Camelot. And now beyond the aching bones of ignorance, you've sat for thoughtless years and wondered at the power of the murmurs and the fears. Far from the arms of incapacity, you've turned the migrants from the door and hope to see our future still in sky-high department stores. Too far from vulnerability, you formed the pillars of cathedrals and found your gaze on golden heights above people tortured by the needles. Removed from truth equality, you've reached for automobiles and watched paper dancing elephants above emaciated squirrels. Your streets are always flooding with what remains of Mother Nature, sweeping back her poverty from the steps of your legislatures. Where, in '76's sacred notes, I see the reflection of the boats and the memory of your humanity, the promises from across the sea. Where, in the memory of '63, I find a picture less of you and more of me, the single portrait of the iceberg Atlantic that has hit your long-gone sinking Titanic.

That closing note on the Titanic, Zachary, that really sneaks up upon you. What is your poem about?

My poem is really about the rise of the Republican Party in the late 19th century around shared humanity and success, and how that sort of deteriorated to the point where we find ourselves today very far from the founding ideals of the party.

“It is a kind of arrogance that we think ourselves so sacrosanct that we build for our posterity, a temple of democracy, and hand any old fool a key. It is a kind of arrogance that we think ourselves so chosen that we steal votes from cities, for a slew of empty prairies, to send their any old Tom, Harry, Dick, and Larrys. It is a kind of arrogance that we think ourselves so holy that they can stand among the rubble that they burned right to the ground; and with their fist hollowed oaken desk of storied Asia's pound, and cry out for the freedom of ten hours for their mouths to sound. It is a kind of arrogance that we think are stars so well foretold to turn away the crying of a child for the banknotes, pristinely rolled. To rest our eyes on empty promises, where they rest in rot and mold, and wake up in a stupor, still in the middle of our speech. And sing to the great portraits about the horror to impeach. But the old poets of the tattered haunts, they know it all too well, and can recall of every second to you in a cafe with a screech, as their voices swell. Old men cannot solve our problems with a single speech.”

Zachary, that's lovely. What is your poem about?

My poem is really about the irony that we consider ourselves such an important and original democracy. And we think ourselves so great that we don't actually need to maintain our democracy and perform the basic maintenance of democratic institutions. And even while we have these very archaic institutions, like the filibuster, embedded in our very houses of government.

Until Suddenly We Could See.

I can almost see the shore from here. Our raft is tattered and the remains of our luxury hang ironically halfway in the sea. Just like twelve years ago, we tried to make money flow radiant from the bathtub faucet and see through rock in the homes that had been built so we could glow in the dark. But from here, I can almost see tomorrow, and I long for it like the rest of my generation, as we stand up on the ragged pieces of driftwood and try to see our fate on the hiding horizon. Just like twelve years ago, we lay down on the cold ground and stared up at the ceiling, replaying our childhoods and our yesterdays in the imperfections of the stucco. And I can almost see it in my memory of that day, how chilling it was to see the dark waters envelop the globe, the sea unfolding like a blanket over the land. Just like twelve years ago, we could smell the prosperity at the end of our ordeal, and it made us jump so thick and yet invisible. And we covered our noses with our own hands before click. Someone with foresight found the light switch with their hands fumbling on the black wall, and we were blind, all still blind as the lights came back on, until suddenly, many months later, we could see.

Before we turn to our discussion with Charlie, we have, of course, Mr. Zachary Suri's scene-setting poem. What is your poem about today, Zachary?

Well, it's called A Good Fight.

A Good Fight. A Good Fight. Okay. I hope you're not referring to our altercations. No. Certainly not. All right. Let's hear it.

Ah, the start of a good fight. It's something we all seem to crave. That moment captured on the television screen as the two boxers stare each other down across the ring. The instant when first punch flies into nose and first blood breaks.

We love a good fight. In the kitchen cooking dinner, pumping our fists to eye of the tiger, stirring our boiling pots and staring down splotches of map like the lines themselves are inimical. Others get excited for the latest cure, the latest indecency, others the latest dream, but nothing makes our salutes to the flag and slurring pledges seem more meaningful than someone who wants to tear them down.

Someone who also stands up and salutes, but to a different flag. We love the start of a good fight. Sometimes we even love the climax when our tanks roll victorious through liberated cities, when our neighbors high five us on the street on the 4th of July, when our sons and daughters can find meaning in the not yet empty missions of their parents.

We love the start of a good fight, the beginning of a smack down, but we seem to forget how they always end, how we are always left aching that our son, our daughter is gone, how they are left aching that their son, their daughter is gone, how we get stuck with our own fists up in the air, swinging them round and round until our arms hurt and our joints ache and it all doesn't seem to matter anymore.

It's a wonderful reflection, Zachary, on I guess the empty glamour of conflict and war. Why did you write that poem for a discussion of US-China relations?

That's a good question. I think that the main reason I think that this sort of American belligerence is so relevant is that part of what motivates us as a society is having an enemy. And it's something that I think has been a key part of our history in the last 100 years or so. But I think it also means that we are very quick to find enemies and a lot slower to reach out to those on opposite ends of the global stage. And I think that's part of the issue we're facing with China. And that's not the whole story, but I think that's a very important part of it.

Charlie, is that part of the dynamic as we look back, you as a historian bring a real thoughtful perspective to the current issues. As we go back to 1949, right, to the beginnings of the Chinese Communist Party regime and its difficult relations with the United States from that period up to the present, does Zachary capture an important dynamic here or is that not accurate?

I thought it was a terrific poem for a couple of different reasons. And so let me answer your question a bit of a roundabout way. So first of all, I loved the image of the start of a good fight because where we really are in terms of US-China competition is things have changed so rapidly in the state and trajectory of our relationships with China across almost virtually every sector of endeavor that people feel a little bit of whiplash. And it does seem like all of a sudden we went from being good friends with China or not great friends, but important relations to having a very competitive relationship. And it seems to be true under both Republican and Democrats now on the baton. So one of the things that, you know, when Zachary is talking about the start of a good fight, we really are at the dawn of something new at this point.

You can trace back to 2016, you can trace it back maybe a little bit earlier than that, but we really are competing with them in the ring. So I think he really does capture the sense of where we are right now. The second thing I would say is I love the analogy. It's what most people around the world talk about, right? That it's China and the US slugging it out and they don't want to get trampled in the fight in between them, but it's not quite accurate. Because the fight is not just between the United States and China and caging it in that way makes certain sense, but it is really a larger competition of systems that is much larger than the United States and China alone.

And so one of the things that I found myself talking about a lot over the last couple of years was when we phrase this as US versus China, that's not quite the accurate way of approaching this because most of the actions that the United States is responding to are issues of concern for many, many nations, not only in Asia, but around the world. Whether we're talking about maritime aggression, whether we're talking about human rights suppression, whether we're talking about economic coercion. So I like framing this in a little bit bigger of a sense. It's not just a fight between two players.

The final part, which I think is really worthy of a discussion because there are elements of the truth, but then I would add this to this about whether or not it's US aggression as Zachary was just talking about. And I think that it is true, exactly true as Zachary laid out, that nothing concentrates the mind as much as having an enemy or having a competitor that will focus and drive actions. And the United States in fact is better oftentimes strategically when it can focus on a singular threat as opposed to a multiplicity of them.

But I would caution that looking at this primarily and first off through a belligerent Washington underrates that what we are seeing is a much delayed response from Washington to a cumulating series of actions taken by Beijing to in some ways force a more competitive response from the United States. Sorry, that was a long winded response to a really good poem, but he's really captured a lot of what's happening here.

And I really like how you use the poem as a springboard to understand not just the US side of this dynamic, but the Chinese side as well. And both sides, you could argue, have a tendency toward forward action and maybe even sometime aggression. I wanted to pick up on so many good points. I wanted to pick up in particular, Charlie, on this point about American interests and American action on behalf of others in the region. I think this has been a mainstay of US-China policy since the end of World War II, that the United States policy towards China is not just about China, but about the wider East Asian and one could even argue Indo-Pacific region with regard to our interests in Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and elsewhere. Is that the correct framing? Is that the way to think about it in regional terms rather than bilateral terms?

Zachary, thank you for your poem, which warned us about competition, and for your questions along these lines. And most of all, thank you, as always, to our listeners. Thank you for joining us for this episode of This Is Democracy.

Before we turn to our conversation with Josh and Jim, we have, of course, Mr. Zachary Suri's poem. What's the title of your poem, Zachary?

Transatlantic Elegy.

Out of the dust, can you see it now, over there? The giant sits alone, a figure in a wrought iron chair. Arisen from the hole he himself has piled up, the giant looks around, wants your wine inside his cup. It is a lonely habit, overlooking all your friends. It is indeed a lonely hour when they retreat into their dens. But you, giant over there, you behemoth in your gold-plated lair, you have not been forgotten, only tastefully ignored. They remember all your blessings, and they remember how you snored. It is a solitary sport, this gallivanting hopefulness, the smile, the embrace, the recognition of your soulfulness. You sit as if in the impression of a painting on the wall, and they stand beside your picture frame, relating, recall, we believed you were arisen in Kabul before the fall.

My poem is really about the ironic position the United States finds itself in as the former center of the transatlantic alliance that was in many ways the strongest alliance of the late 20th century, but now as someone who's seeking to reclaim that, but at the same time trying to make decisions like pulling out from Afghanistan without really consulting our allies in the ways that we have in the past, or at least aspired to.

It is hard to build utopias when you burn their children in the jungle. It is hard to build utopias when you burn their children in the jungle, and your carpet bombings make whole nations synonymous with tragedy. It is hard to build utopias when you burn their children in the jungle, and your carpet bombings make whole nations synonymous with tragedy, and you shoot your own children smack dab in the middle of their righteousness. It is hard to build utopias when they are already covered in your own rusty tanks and pierced by your own bullets, when they have already realized they don't need to be saved by you, when your own children are blowing up buildings just so you'd turn around and care a little.

It is hard to build utopia, let alone democracy, let alone peace.

"Ode to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. " You worship your own sanity. You hold yourself so righteous. You draw the borders with a pen. Here the free world. Here the fight is. You leave us to the enemy for lacking the good sense. To have chosen the path of righteousness before Khrushchev built his fence. And yet we hold you dear. You hold us, too, with warmth. We cannot help but wonder at your missiles and your core. I would not trade your wide embrace even for a thousand Swedens. But this could be you that stands right now upon the cold street bleeding. And please remember, I know you do at night, that just because it's not your mother, not your brother, doesn't mean it's not your fight. You worship your own sanity. It's true. It is quite clear today. You have not forgotten the fire-bombing night, the storming beaches day. You have not forgotten the feeling at the crosshairs of their nukes. You do not feel any joy when it's the other man who pukes. But please, they are bombing my apartment block. Please, they are storming my beaches in the snow. The banks of my great rivers ache at every blow. But please, they took my son, they took my daughter. And please, sir, if it's not a bother, I stand in front of tanks in the center of my cities while you sit and sway to your peacetime ditties. You worship your own sanity. The sky shall not fall. Pray, you have not forgotten how the bombs dropped, how you sank their greatest fleets. Sir, today these are my countrymen, today those are my streets.

We're excited to have you on, Bryan, and thanks for taking the time. We know how busy you are with both your military and your scholarly duties and your family duties right now. So we feel fortunate to have you on. Before we go to our conversation with Bryan, we, of course, have Mr. Zachary Suri's scene-setting poem. What is your poem titled today, Zachary? ("Ode to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.") An ode to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. We're moving into new territory here. I love it. Let's hear it.

I love it, Zachary, and I love the mix of very serious analysis and also some humor. What is your poem about?

My poem is really about trying to understand NATO's role in global affairs from the perspective of those countries like Ukraine that have been left out to their great detriment from the NATO alliance in recent years and trying to come to terms with the fact that while NATO promises in many ways peace and freedom, it also restricts and leaves out so many others.

Sure, sure. And there are those who think NATO has expanded too far. And then there are those, you're implying this, who think NATO has not expanded far enough. (Right.) So, Bryan, I think that's a perfect place to start. Why does NATO look the way it does? Why are countries like Poland a part of NATO? It's obviously a late entrant into NATO. Why are countries like that a part of NATO and not countries like Ukraine? How did NATO come into being?

Sure. So, first of all, I just want to say I love listening to this podcast, mostly for Zachary's poems. And so he's given me a lot to think about there. And something he said in there made me think about this being the first "TikTok war" that we have going on today. So NATO, of course, was founded in 1949 with its 12 original members signing the Washington Treaty. And, of course, this is when much of Europe is in the ashes and just really beginning to recover from the devastation of World War II. And it's, you know, it's sort of the original charter of transatlanticism. You know, the United States and Canada from North America are two of the original members. And then 10 at the time, just Western European countries. And I think one way to think about why is NATO, you know, why are the particular 30 members today up from the original 12? Like, you know, why has this come to pass? I think to some degree, international relations theory shed some light on this. And I think NATO, when it was founded, really fell more into the realist kind of, you know, IR theory camp. And it was, you know, it was always for something, specifically the principles of democracy, individual liberty and rule of law. But it was really against something just as much, and it was against the Soviet Union and what it stood for.

In China there is probably someone who thinks like me, Who wakes up in cold sweats and worries silently. The sky will fall and no one here will notice it at all. In China there is probably someone who thinks like me, Who stares themself in the face, pieces in the wrong place, And sees in the mirror's trace a blurry line of missing lace. In China there is probably someone who thinks like me, Who sees the ocean from the pier, who watches fishes swim below. Couldn't we be freer like the tuna in the undertow? In China there is probably someone who thinks like me, Who writes poetry and imagines winter scenes, Who hears and sees and sniffs adventure in the breeze. But his poetry is in his head, the winter scene he dreams in bed. And I can say what I can hear and seek adventure without fear. In China there is probably someone who thinks like me, And all I can say is probably someday there will be peace.

What's your poem about, Zachary?

My poem is really about the similarities, the societal similarities that can be lost when it comes to superpower rivalry, but also the cold realities that still define that world and the ways in which even though we may be more similar and have more in common than we think that these rivalries will continue.

Never Again the Same.

Never Again the Same. Let's hear it. Sometimes there are words when whispered they are meaningless, but they mean the world when you shout them in the shadow of a wall or on a football field under a hot sun which obscures the moon. Sometimes there are places when you see them on a map they seem hollow, a couple of old municipal buildings and a square in the town.

But you can see in the video recorded hazy from across the lawn how this was once for a few moments the center of the world. Sometimes there are moments when described to you they are meaningless, they seem so abstract, so absurd, unexplainable, a bullet flying unimagined. But you would have had to be there, had to have seen the way she held him as he was dying.

What would we give not to remember how it really was, to stay in that imagined moment when we all cried at the same time, to stay forever remembering the promise that was never fulfilled, the hope that was never realized, words and places and moments that never really were and would never again be the same.

My poem is about the huge mark that John F. Kennedy, his presidency, his assassination left on the American psyche, but also the ways in which he and his family have sort of become mythologized. And we remember them in hindsight perhaps differently than we experience them as a country.

The Third Reconstruction

The Third Reconstruction. The first time I ever saw a voting booth, I voted for a black man. My father let me check the box in the basement gymnasium of a high school in Madison. I stood on his feet, probably at four years old, as I maneuvered the pen over the seemingly interminable names. As they fed the ballot into the great machine, I watched the digits advance on the little screen and held my breath.

The first time I ever heard the President of the United States, it was his voice on the radio. It was his face on the television screen. And when I first understood what it meant to be an American on a corduroy couch on January 20, 2009, they were his words.

The first time I ever saw my father cry, I was watching the same man from a pulpit in Charleston. I was hearing the same voice cry out the words of that ancient song. He was asking for grace. He was demanding our epiphany. He was saying that, in the end, they will always lose. And the first time I ever cried for a reason, it was his eulogy from another pulpit in Atlanta, singing the praises of John Lewis, a man I saw once in a giant auditorium from afar, just as, in the same auditorium, I saw that same man speaking to the stars.

And though I never understood his words, though what he was trying to say was never really clear, it made all the difference in the world, even if, in the end, they do sometimes win.

You're going to make me cry again, Zachary. What is your poem about?

My poem is about how powerful it was for me, as a young person, born at the turn of the 21st century, to grow up with a black man as president, how important and how transformative that was. And I think that that's really the core of what we're talking about here in the Third Reconstruction. Absolutely, the promise and the peril of that. Indeed.

You know, I think it's really interesting the way you describe the sort of cyclical nature of American history and of this reconstruction at a societal level. But how do we understand it at the personal level? How can people who voted for Obama in 2008, 2012, and then turn around and vote for Trump in 2016, how do we understand that phenomenon, that those two conflicting ideas can perhaps exist in the same person?

L'Chaim.

That's the title of the poem.

Quite cold and quiet, they are marching past the gates, crowding into subway cars and walking past the windows of department stores. The scene is stagnant, though they move together in some jagged step, as if ice were tearing at their mustaches and frost turning their long beards gray. Gray beards, they have forgotten whence they came, that they too once smiled at the old men in their trench coats, counting their steps and forgetting to look at the sun. There is a certain banal audacity in this little charade of life, in the slow turn of revolving doors, their grim faces reminiscent of the revolver that stared me awake on one of those grim deportation nights, or the small whip of fire that consummates their perverse burning cross bacchanals. Look me in the eyes, I will give you a real smile, because I know someday there really will be ice in their beards, one of those cold, eternal, nothing freezes that bring even kings to their knees. May it be so. And together we'll go dancing on their frosty lawns, singing some ditty about roses or the beginning of love.

Thank you, Dan. It's a kind of reunion also. We haven't talked in a little while, so I'm glad we're doing this. Zachary, of course, you have a poem to start us out? Yes? Yes. What's the title of your poem? A Dispensation for the Dispensationalists. Wow. Wow. I'm wrapping my head around that tongue twister. Okay, let's hear it

We came here on boats, as if hope alone floats, in big cramped quarters, we must have smelled so foul, we landed picked up the trowel and built your automatics. your John Forders, your all sorters. So we might taste this freedom of yours for a bit, boarders, if you will, in the grand boarding House of Liberty, where anything can happen for the right fee.

Now I'm told, they say, they'd like to see us reach the Jordan, so we might hold the whole of holy land. They say they'd like to watch us build a temple so someday they can burn it all to sand. They say at last they'd like to send me homeward so I can die in some fantastical last stand. But bury me and place the stones on a grave in Kalamazoo, fold my things and lie them there way down in Chattanooga. And when I'm old and tired, please let me die in Honolulu, for I shall never leave this God forsaken land if only for the sake of ruining such a stupid plan.

You are in the last few weeks, Zachary really becoming quite the satirist, aren't you? Yes. So tell tell us about this poem. What is it about?

Well, this poem is about me as an American Jew who's often quite dissatisfied at this country, coming to terms with what it means to be a Jew in a country so dominated by Christianity or at least a particular version of Christianity. And at the very least, I think, if I'm perfectly honest, a lot of it comes from living out of spite or living in spite of perceived slights, et cetera. And I think that that's a part of the Judeo-Christian relationship, if you will, that maybe isn't explored enough. But also I think, connects to the ways in which these religious divisions influence our politics and the way that our, not just our worldview, but our ideology takes shape.

Sure, sure. Very well said. Dan, any reactions?

Oh, wow. Yeah, many reactions. First, on that last point about the Judeo-Christian tradition, it just reminds me of, I believe his name was Arthur Cohen. He was just a writer in the 1970s on religion in America. And he contested the idea that there was such a thing as the Judeo-Christian tradition because, for most of the last 2000 years, Christians have hated Jews. And that tradition was a construct of the, mostly the mid 20th century and Cold War politics and other things. So Zachary, I think your tension is not only felt by you, I guess, I'd say historically.

And then I, you know, on the poem itself, the first thing that came to mind was, as we'll get into dispensationalists, are people traditionally who were very heavenly minded. You could say they were focused in their theology on getting to heaven, and that that was really the purpose of being a Christian was to get to heaven. And so the first part of your poem is very earthy and descriptive and I don't think they'd maybe identify with that directly. And then you, you mentioned Kalamazoo and Chattanooga, I think. Is that Chattanooga? Yes. Yeah. And if you read the book, I do have a geographical sort of thrust to the story or an arc to the story that actually starts in the, what I call the Great Lakes Basin, but basically the Midwest, including parts of Canada, which is really where this theology in the 19th century picks up. And then the, one of the more fascinating subplots that was interesting for me to study was how dispensationalism travels southward. And really by today, it would be to the outsider, it would seem like it's a sort of native southern theology. But that's actually really far from the truth. So just thinking of sort of the way that this set of ideas has traveled over the last 150 years, Kalamazoo and Chattanooga are actually pretty good stand-ins for the breadth of the tradition.

That's really interesting. I didn't know if you, did you intend that, Zachary?

Not at all. It's very hard to find three city names in the United States that rhyme. I'm not sure I accomplished that still.

You made them rhyme. You made them rhyme. So, Dan, I think this is a great place to start because, knowing you as I do, I know that you're someone who's a deep believer, but you're also someone who, who's inclusive in the way you view how different religions and different faiths should work. And you're also someone who believes deeply in academic and scholastic study, that comes through in your book, of course. Can you tell us what Upper House is in that context, just to situate how you enact this in your own life?

 And of course, we have our scene-setting poem from Mr. Zachary Suri. Uh, Zachary, what's the title of your poem today? "From the UAW Picket Lines." Wow, we're gonna get an on-the-scenes account from you, Zachary? Or at least an imagining of one, yes. Okay, well let's hear it.

 So here we are, waiting on the picket line, for the world to change, for the times to rhyme. They sold us the lie that if we just worked hard the dough would fry and line our pockets with bread.

 Pretty soon we were left the only ones not caught up in the net or dead on a cot. They told us when we asked that they had nothing to say. Forget tomorrow. Clock out today.

 But we will not be told that our futures were sold in Washington or in Detroit where the rivers fold, and wash our cars out to sea.

 We will not be told to keep standing still, when the steels arrive from the mill, and we have the parts to rebuild the heart of what made this country go. We will not be told to accept our fate, to wait and say nothing forever. If anything yet we're far too late, but better too late than never.

We will start, of course, with our scene-setting poem from Mr. Zachary Suri. Zachary, what's the title of your poem today?

Well, it's one that's very appropriate for fall, “If the leaves could speak.”

Fair enough, fair enough. Well, let's hear your poem, Zachary.

“I wonder sometimes if the leaves could speak. What they would say of the glory they seek in learning to fly as they fall. If we should ask of them all, what right do you have to hope? If each one would be able to state and not for a minute hesitate. There is no reason or rhyme. I hope only because I remember a time when hope was illegal and wonder a crime. I hope sometimes for the world to freeze so I can ask of each hailstorm and autumn breeze what keeps you alive in the frost and the swift answer tossed. I keep going because I am going to keep the soil I plowed under my own two feet. The fruits of fields I've sown I shall reap. Wonderful is the coldness of this, the steely-eyed whisper that's almost a kiss that sees a truth that is most certainly true, but won't let them rest without paying her due. We are not eternal, but our hope can last and heal our wounds, a wonderful cast. Hold still so the dreams will be real.Hold still so the children can hear. Hold still so the gashes can heal.”

What's your poem about?

My poem is about the power of hope and curiosity even in circumstances that not only seem to leave no space for those, but seem to actively try to suppress and undermine hope and curiosity.

Before we turn to our conversation with Salim, we have, of course, our scene setting poem from Mr. Zachary Suri. Zachary, what's the title of your poem today? "To Israel, a Widow". "To Israel, a Widow". Wow. Let's hear it.

Isaac Singer once said you were an encounter with the supposedly dead, and I suppose he is right. You're a land of old men and infants held tight and sandy ancient ruined coasts. All of them were always supposed to be ghosts. Few wars can be fought with history, but you have fought them all, have saved a generation from fighting back the fall. Yet, though you have somehow survived on promises that you revived, it must be said you've built yourself a cage. No war should be fought with rage

The grandchildren of the widower, the children of the hollowed, held in their tunnels underground, are lost and must be found. Your neighbors remain, to say the least, uncharitable, Lips smacking for the feast, break through the garden fence. Can there be any recompense? No, I am convinced all moral questions will remain unanswered. You are alive, and soon you must have peace. If only so, it might be said, all had a chance to count their debt.

I love the doggerel in there Zachary. What is your poem about?

My poem? It's hard to explain. I'm not sure I perfectly understand what I was trying to get at either. But. I think it's sort of an attempt to understand the place of Israel today, but also in particular from the perspective of the 1970s, a period when Israel was still led in large part by a generation which was defined by the Holocaust, but it was also beginning to really develop its own sort of distinct Israeli identity that still shaped by that, the sort of last exile to Israel from Europe and other parts of the Middle East, and in some cases from within the territory of Israel.

And to understand that mindset, but also to apply that to today and how that history informs this moment of violence. between Israel and Hamas and maybe the lessons we can draw from these many decades of conflict.

I love the arc in your poem, Zachary, from Isaac Bashevik Singer, who sort of represents the early generation of European Ashkenazi Jews who settle Israel. And then, of course, the generational change that I sort of feel in your poem as it goes through to where we are today, which is a Middle East that looks very different, of course, from The world of Isaac Petrovic Singer in the 1950s and 60s, right? Yes, very much so.

Sure. And first I just want to say, thanks for sharing that poem, Zachary. It's very powerful. I'm going to want to go back and read it again, listen to it again and linger over it.

And Zachary, thank you for your poem that I think resonates with some of the themes and thank you for your questions and thank you most of all to our loyal listeners for joining us for this week of this is democracy.

Fantastic. So, I hope everyone will look up Professor Irwin's work, and particularly her new book, Catastrophic Diplomacy. Before we get into our discussion with Professor Irwin, of course, we have Mr. Zachary's scene-setting poem. What's the title of your poem today, Zachary? ("The Old Colossus.") "The Old Colossus." It better not be about me. All right, go ahead. Zachary.

The world can shake, does often stand not still moves mountains just because it can And wants that we should see its sneers and hear its taunts Like raindrops beating on a window sill The world has hungers we can never fill Is gaseous, spews its steam from fiery fonts Remakes anew our mossy forest haunts, and never ceases maiming Waits to kill. Still, when one shouts from ruined city blocks Still are there others shouting in the dust Still do the voices echo off the rocks And help we shall for listening we must Build up the streets and salvage sunken docks Still Lady Liberty does shine in rust

Wow, that that last line, Zachary, really hits a point that does Lady Liberty shine in rust. What do you mean by that line in particular?

I think the larger thesis of the poem is that an American commitment to, sort of, openness and liberty embodied by "The New Colossus," which is obviously Emma Lazarus' poem on the Statue of Liberty, that that spirit is part of what motivates our desire to help countries suffering from natural disasters, and the idea that even when this idea of liberty, or even when our country itself suffers from the effects of time, of weather, of change, of political stagnation, that we can find a way to help others who are in need and whom we are capable of helping.

So you see an altruistic spirit. (Yes, maybe.) "Maybe," haha. Julia, your book wonderfully complicates that. I read in your book just what Zachary's talking about, a certain benevolence, but many other things at work as well. Why does the United States get so involved in international disaster resistance, particularly in the early 20th century when you really start your story?

Yeah. And, well, let me just thank Zachary for that really poignant and beautiful poem to start us off. You know, it's one of the things I've been studying humanitarianism for about 20 years now, since I started graduate school, and it's, one of the things that interests me most about it, is it's the multiple motivations I think that go into any humanitarian relief operation. Certainly, for the US actors I'm talking about, many of them are motivated by altruism, by a desire to help suffering and reduce suffering. But at the same time that can can and does coexist with political calculations, strategic motivations, economic motivations. So, the desire to sort of assist other countries is for the interests of people who are suffering, but also in the United States' own national interests, and I think the sort of dual internationalist and nationalist, sort of, set of motivations is what makes humanitarian assistance so fascinating to study.

I'm really looking forward to this discussion. Before we get into our discussion of Marc's book and free trade, we have, of course, Mr. Zachary's scene setting poem. Zachary, what's the title of your poem today? A World at Sail. A World at Sail. Okay, well, let's sail into it.

Sometimes I am awakened in the middle of the night by the fear my imaginings won't turn out right. I toss and turn and think of nothing more than a coffee in the morning and the rain that starts to pour. Sometimes I am startled at the way the earth can turn, yet everything is standing still as ashes in an urn. I watch the time that passes by and wonder at its speed, knowing each who dies was but a planted seed.

Sometimes when the sun is setting, I wonder if a hope is nothing more than mud to scrub away with soap. I watch the darkness coming with its ominous smile, and the birds no longer humming are erased in single file. And yet each morning when it comes at last, I see a new world rising and it's rising fast. A world of peace that isn't stale, a world at sea, a world at sail. We are chasing Earth's still spinning tail, like birds who sing at every dawn. The hate has flown, the fear is gone, I spy your ports, you spot my shores, you sell my treasures in your stores. Each setting sun is now a kind of hoping that tomorrow will be in the harbours roping.

My poem is about the ways in which, even in the points in our lives, and in our politics when we are the most cynical. That trade, and sort of physical connection across the vast seas of the world, can offer a real opportunity for peace and real hope, even when things seem sort of impossible abysmal around us. Right.

Before we get into our discussion with Sam Freedman and our discussion of Hubert Humphrey, we have, of course, our scene-setting poem from Mr. Zachary Suri. Zachary, what's the title of your poem today?

At times it's easy to miss the old days, when good men walked and spoke of true ideals, when all that they would ask for was a raise, perhaps a pair of presidential seals. At times it's easy to miss that sweet age, when only honest men were put in charge, when lies provoked a strong and public rage, and every single heart was twice as large. At times it can be easy to miss that place, where all was silent and all were at peace, where no one shouted or spit in our face, and we all drove fast cars on long-term lease. So it was never. Such a place t'was not. Each problem we face is an ancient rot.

My poem is about the temptation to become nostalgic for the politicians and the politics of the past, about maybe the kind of truth or at least representation of what we'd like to see in our politics that we can often find in looking back, but also the danger of believing that politics was ever easy, simple, honest, or good.

Before we get into our discussion of Barbara Jordan with Mary Ellen Curtin, we have, of course, Mr. Zachary Suri's scene setting poem. What's the title of your poem today, Zachary?

"Trailblazer."

The one who breaks the ceiling, the one who's first to cross the line, they must make their own rhythm. They must beat to their own time. They find themselves quite often alone or in the dust. They find themselves quite often lest to wallow or to rust. And so they must know more than anyone else to take their own story right off of the shelf. The one who breaks the ceiling as glass shattered in their eyes, the one who makes the first move must break through all the lies. They find themselves quite often defeated or ignored. They find themselves quite often hated and abhorred. And so they must fight, more than anything still to make their way over the widening hill. And sometimes they fail, and sometimes they will, but always, they face it with a radical grin.

I love that closing line. Radical grin. Mary Ellen, I saw you reacting to the poem. What do you think?

Beautiful, beautiful. And I think you capture the complexities, the nuances, the contradictions of being the first. It's not all glory, for sure. Thank you so much.

My poem is about, as she just said, the contradictions and the nuances of having to be the first and not just the personal toll it takes on someone, but sort of almost impossible expectations that one has to (yes, yes) the level of resiliency and hope that one has to display.

Fantastic. So before we get into our discussion of the role of these important institutions and the role of broadcasting information during the Cold War and in the decades after the Cold War and its importance today, we have, of course, our scene-setting poem from Mr. Zachary Suri. Uh, Zachary, what's the title of your poem today? ("Radio Liberty.") I think that's an appropriate title, don't you? (Yes.) Let's hear it.

Where the road ends, the line of trucks stops, and the barbed wire blooms like bougainvillea. You can still pick up the signal. You can still hear the voices whispering into the cold night. You can, when the night is still, walking by the fence, hear them on the other side, listening. On the borderline, someone is speaking in rhythms of red, white, blue, and America, and they are saying something simple. Perhaps it is true. This is freedom.

What's your poem about, Zachary?

My poem is about the sort of power of radio and of listening to the voices of Americans and American reporters and journalists and all these American-supported programs across the many sort of political social boundaries that separate our world. In particular, it's a sort of imagining of what it might be like today if one were able to, in Russia or in somewhere in one of the sort of totalitarian countries of Eastern Europe, to listen to a sort of American radio program sort of, like, right on the border, and how it's a sort of, like, bastion or breath of one world in another.

Yes. Yes. Mark, what do you think?

Well, I am very impressed by the poem, and I think you've captured one of the most important symbols, and that is the crossing of the barbed wire that the radios were really created to do, to break down that Iron Curtain that Churchill so properly said had descended. And I will tell you an interesting story that kind of actualizes your poem, if I can. When the Cold War ended in 1989, when Hungary was among the first to really bring down the barbed wire, they gave all of us a piece of the barbed wire embedded in a kind of plastic that you could put on your bookshelf, memorializing the fact that the radios had helped bring down the barbed wire, the actual barbed wire itself. And I have that at home, and I will happily bring it and show it to you. (Wow.) And it's from Hungary, given to all of us as a personal gift.

So it's quite clear, and you've certainly described this in great detail in your book, the ways in which the radios, Radio Free Europe, Radio Liberty, and Voice of America, provided information to people in information-starved societies, places where they were restricted in their own media for what they could cover, how many people listened to it as a kind of samizdat, as a kind of secret way of getting around their own censors. Zachary refers to this in his poem. After the Cold War, when the radios continued to operate in different form in Russia, in Kazakhstan, and various places like that, and continued to be used in new places. As I understand it, there was a Radio Cambodia (Yeah) Radio Free Marti for Cuba, right?

Yes, and I think, coming back to Zachary's poem, it is freedom. It is the ability to express your views, and one of the things that I've emphasized in my work on the radios is that it values the individual freedom of every individual, the right to be, express your views, the right to explore, the right to have a say in your country's governance.

Before we get into the discussion of Bryan Jones's new book, we have, of course, our scene-setting poem from Mr. Zachary Suri. Zachary, what's the title of your poem today?

At Mr. Evers' Home.

The summer is here too at Mr. Evers' home, the cicadas bringing it in on their tapping feet, the soft sun shattering on the asphalt, and the blue sky almost making his blue house disappear. I wonder in that half beat of a moment when he turned his back on the magnolia, if he could see the same faint outlines in the driveway of dark shadows and a blood soil taking one last gasp of his shoes. And if he perhaps might have seen the gleam of the barrel as it glared him through the iron grating that winds its way like wisteria, or like the inner workings of a human heart blown half open in a June breeze. Or if I too had a chance to see that glint in the guns of prejudice flickering at me so young, if I too would still have stood in line at the county building with my back turned, or pose for that photograph with the Oxford pioneer, smiling with my back to the world. If I too would still have turned my back and held the door handle unflinchingly as mercury flew down from the Mississippi sun to swing me up on the wings of his shoes.

Moreover, I am cognizant of the interrelatedness of all communities and states. I cannot sit idly by in Atlanta and not be concerned about what happens in Birmingham. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly.

An adaptation of Allen Ginsberg's A Supermarket in California for a Nation on the Brink of War.

My gosh. So you've taken an Allen Ginsberg, who I know is one of your favorite poets, and you have adapted one of his poems for our discussion today. Is that correct?

What thoughts I find of you these days, Frank Church, for we huddled in the bedrooms listening to our radios with a headache, self-conscious, looking at the end of the world. In our nightmarish haze and shopping for semblances, we all crawled into the neon fruit supermarket with you, dreaming of the broken ghost. What nuclear bombs and what assassinations, whole battalions shopping at night, aisles full of shell-shocked soldiers, ghostly Donald Rumsfeld and the avocados, Reagan and the tomatoes, and you, Lyndon Johnson, what were you doing down by the hot dog buns? I saw you, Uncle Sam, disheveled, lonely old optimist, fumbling with the paper towel rolls and eyeing the peanut butter with a blank stare. I heard you asking questions of each, whom did I really kill today? What price for world peace? Are you James Madison? I wandered in and out of the brilliant star-spangled stacks of cans following you, and followed in my imagination by the ghost of Montesquieu and Lafayette.

We strolled down the open corridors together in our solitary remembrance, tasting empire, possessing every forbidden delicacy, and never passing the eye of the cashier's congressional oversight. Where are we going, you lost Democrat? The doors close in an hour. Which way do your reluctant guns point tonight? Maybe in some future time I will touch the founding document in my pocket and dream of our odyssey in the supermarket and feel absurd. Will we walk through a war among the distant highways and software engineers, the trees add shame to shame, lights out in the houses, awaiting air raid signals that still seem so inevitable? Will we stroll dreaming of the lost democracy we left in a pickle jar behind the old folks' home back to our silent cottage, maybe Lincoln's mausoleum? Ah, dear father, tip your hat, lonely old vagrant, you can lose the false individualism with me. For what America did we truly have when we handed Sharon the coin and we got out on a sinking bank and stood watching the boat disappear on the blackwaters of the Potomac?

Wow. Nice. I love the imagery there, Zachary. So why did you choose this Ginsberg poem and why did you adapt it in the way you did?

Well, this poem, Supermarket in California, which was written in 1955, in it Ginsberg chases Walt Whitman through a supermarket and he's really critiquing how materialism and commercialism has undermined democracy in his view. And I am critiquing the ways that imperialism and war has undermined democracy in the U.S. today. And I think though they seem very far apart, I think both moments are very similar in the sort of aching for a more perfect union.