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The Burning Archive

essays, notes and poetry against cultural decay

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Tag: politics

Posted on February 17, 2021

13 ways of looking at a bureaucrat

In early 2017 I wrote a series of posts – or let us call them essays – on Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Bureaucrat. I wrote it still aiming…

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Posted on February 16, 2021February 17, 2021

Sound and fury told by the American cultural “elite”

There are few funny stories to emerge from American politics over the last two months, especially during the constitutional embarrassment of the latest faux and cursed impeachment. There is, however,…

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Posted on February 14, 2021February 17, 2021

The impeachment curse

The final forced impeachment of Donald Trump has ended in the result that should never happen in a show trial. The sacrificial victim of the authorities’ spite was acquitted. Jonathan…

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Posted on January 7, 2021February 17, 2021

America’s fate: civil war, fragmentation or collapse?

Today after the distressing events and death in the Capitol building of Washington DC that interrupted the process of confirming electoral college votes, I am reposting this piece from five…

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Posted on December 21, 2020

Cultural fragmentation and the collapse of authority in Western democracies

My repost today comes from 22 April 2018, and seems relevant to the difficulties we are experiencing in our distressed republics today. I also posted something of a follow-up post…

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Posted on December 18, 2020

Viral Meltdown – Year in Review

As part of my The Kaeleidoscope of 2020: Year in Review post I have updated with my reflections on the pandemic and lockdowns in this section, Viral Meltdown Viral Meltdown…

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Posted on December 17, 2020December 28, 2020

On human frailty in governing

Today I am reposting this piece from July 2019, following the 2019 Australian election. It is newly relevant today as the American republic wrestles with how to save its crumbling…

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Posted on December 13, 2020December 16, 2020

A solution to political decay: the ordinary virtues of governing well

I am reposting this reflection on the response to political decay in the midst of the constitutional crisis under way in America, which reveals dramatically the rot in America’s institutions…

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Posted on December 4, 2020

America’s Hispanic Past and its Hispanic Future Proves it is not Exceptional

“even well-educated, amiable, open-minded people in the United States do not realize that their country has a Hispanic past as well as a Hispanic future.” Felipe Fernandez-Armesto Our America: A…

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Posted on November 27, 2020

Our barren, deformed political society

And if and when Trump is no longer President, all the ills of political system can no longer be blamed on Trump. For four years now – in America but…

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Posted on November 22, 2020December 17, 2020

The Time of Troubles to come in America

“There always is this fallacious belief: ‘It would not be thesame here; here such things are impossible.’ Alas, all the evilof the twentieth century is possible everywhere on earth.” Aleksander…

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Posted on November 7, 2020December 13, 2020

Six asides on the USA 2020 election

This long post contains my reflections on the election in America. There are six reflections: One. The folly of forecasts: my confession Two. The Presidency is determined not by broadcast…

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Recent musings

  • Ezra Pound, the unavowable fury of thy true heritage in fragments February 24, 2021
  • The persistence of the Mahabharata February 21, 2021
  • Sponges, metamorphoses and psyche February 18, 2021
  • 13 ways of looking at a bureaucrat February 17, 2021
  • Sound and fury told by the American cultural “elite” February 16, 2021

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Adam Phillips America Australian politics autobiography Bakhtin Blanchot blogging bureaucracy change China civil war coronavirus cultural decay culture culture wars death decay democracy Donald Trump dream election Empire Essays Ezra Pound featured Fernandez-Armesto Foucault Franz Kafka Fukuyama governing Harold Bloom history history of emotions Hopkins identity politics impeachment Ivan the Terrible Kierkegaard literature lockdown machiavelli madness Melbourne memory music Nietzsche philosophy poetry political decay politics power progressive politics Prose public service quotes reading Russia Russian history samizdat society Solzhenitsyn Symborska terror travel trust in government Vaclav Havel violence W.G. Sebald Wallace Stevens WB Yeats Weber William Dalrymple writing year in review Zbigniew Herbert

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