[-empyre-] a week to go on the trump effect

[Lawrence Upton]

QUOTE The American Dream is back. President Donald Trump says so. Once
again every American, regardless of background, race, gender or education,
can, through sheer hard work, make it to the very top and become rich.
Did the idea of the America Dream, in which nothing is impossible as long
as you work hard, evolve with the 'founding fathers' of the nation? Is it
intrinsic to the country's identity?
Professor Sarah Churchwell argues that the American Dream is much younger
than we realise, and it was born as a response to the 'Roaring Twenties'
and the devastating stock market crash of 1929, and Depression that
followed.
She uses history, literature and music to explore the original meaning of
The American Dream - which was an appeal for much more modest dreams of a
better life for all, not riches for some.

Producer; Shabnam Grewal
Editor: Penny Murphy.

28 March 2017 and 2 April 2017 BBC Radio 3


MP3 podcast 33.5 Mb

fron http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08k2fmj

On 3 April 2017 at 15:50, Lawrence Upton <uptonlawrence at gmail.com> wrote:

> I agree with you, Alan... I think. Though....
> I was talking about this on Saturday with a good friend. I think that we
> have both got a little used to the situation and now were panicking a
> little that if Trump is removed (not necessarily a euphemism) then we'd
> have, not a new election, but President Pence -- who appears not to be
> stuck in a tantrum at a mental age of maybe 7 even if he does, as my friend
> reports she heard, see women as a risky temptation even across a lunch
> table so that he has vowed only ever to have lunch with his wife from now
> on. (Somehow she and I managed to part from our lunch meeting without
> commiting carnal sins)
> War is a real possibility. Yes. You may have heard that one of our ex
> Prime Ministers, M Howard, assuring us that our present PM would be able to
> defend Gibralter just as Margaret Thatcher defended the Falklands from
> "another Spanish-speaking country". The government hasn't even discussed
> its secession from EU and they're talking about shooting at foreigners.
> I do see the present USA situation hides what T might be up to. That's
> contained in my reference to D Adams, I think; certainly it is from the
> p.o.v. of Trump voters. I don't quite know what to do about it!
> There was a well-structured radio programme on BBC over the weekend on the
> phrase "The American dream". I'll get a reference to that and post it.
>
> L
>
>
>
> On 3 April 2017 at 15:25, Alan Sondheim <sondheim at panix.com> wrote:
>
>> ----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------
>> On Mon, 3 Apr 2017, Lawrence Upton wrote:
>>
>>
>> "T. isn't the problem, so much as the neoliberal/corporate/diplomatic
>> structure that creates this kind of brutal power base in the first place."
>> A line in one of Douglas Adams novels comes to mind to the effect that the
>> politician we see is there to distract us from seeing where the power is
>>
>> L
>>
>>
>>
>> Agreed! But the problem is the clumsiness of Trump. I've long felt that
>> it would be better to have a right-winger like Spence in power, because you
>> can fight someone with a defined position; with Trump, it's one micro-
>> disaster after another - the news here is full of this stuff - and first,
>> it hides whatever he might be up to; and second, one of those disasters
>> could end up being the stuff that real war is made of.
>>
>> - Alan
>> _______________________________________________
>> empyre forum
>> empyre at lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au
>> http://empyre.library.cornell.edu
>>
>
>
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