Monthly Archives: December 2023

Thought for Today: An Unlikely President Trump

17 Sunday Dec 2023

Posted by in Human Behavior

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Front Cover: End Times: Elites, Counter-Elites, and the Path of Political Disintegration by Peter Turchin
Photo Credit: Penguin Random House (2023)

To understand why Donald Trump became the forty-fifth president of the United States, we should also pay less attention to his personal qualities and maneuvers and more to the deep social forces that propelled him to the top. Trump was like a small boat caught on the crest of a mighty tidal wave. The two most important social forces that gave us the Trump presidency—and pushed America to the brink of state breakdown—are elite overproduction and popular immiseration….

[First, by 2016] a large proportion of Americans who felt left behind voted for an unlikely candidate—a billionaire. For many of them, this was not so much an endorsement of Trump as an expression of their discontent, shading into rage, against the ruling class.

Second, by 2016, the elite overproduction game had reached a bifurcation point where the rules of conduct in political campaigns had been tossed to the wind.

Excerpt from End Times: Elites, Counter-Elites, and the Path of Political Disintegration by Peter Turchin, Penguin Random House, New York, USA, 2023 (pp. 13-14).

Footnotes

Elite Overproduction occurs when the number of elites among the top One Percent far exceeds the number of available power positions.

Popular Immiseration occurs when workers face years of wage stagnation and decline while the rich get richer. In the USA, “deaths of despair” from suicide, alcoholism, and drug overdose spiked among the noncollege-educated during the period 2000 to 2016.

Peter Turchin is a project leader at the Complexity Science Hub Vienna, a research associate at the University of Oxford, and an emeritus professor at the University of Connecticut. Trained as a theoretical biologist, he is now working in the field of historical social science that he and his colleagues call cliodynamics. Currently, his main research effort is directed at coordinating CrisisDB, a massive historical database of societies sliding into crisis—and then emerging from it. His books include Ultrasociety (2016) and Ages of Discord (2016).

Guyana-Venezuela Border Dispute: Mounting Tensions December 2023

10 Sunday Dec 2023

Posted by in Guyana

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Map of Guyana highlighting “Disputed Territory” (in salmon-pink) claimed by Venezuela
Source: Caracas Chronicles

Autocratic leaders can sometimes act in reckless ways to hold on to power. This appears to be the case with Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro who is up for re-election in 2024. To rally supporters for his party, weakened by U.S. economic sanctions, he has reignited claims over the disputed Guayana Esequiba territory, an issue known to unite Venezuelans across political divides.

Last Sunday, December 3, 2023, President Maduro held a national consultative Referendum to determine the people’s position on Venezuela’s longstanding claim over Guyana’s Essequibo Region (see captioned Map of Guyana with highlighted disputed territory). In so doing, Maduro’s regime ignored the objections of Guyana’s leadership and the order issued by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on December 1, 2023, to “refrain from taking any action which would modify the situation that currently prevails in the territory in dispute, whereby the Co-operative Republic of Guyana administers and exercises control over that area.”

The day after the Referendum, the president of the National Electoral Council announced overwhelming support for annexing Guayana Esequiba. The following results represent the percent of YES votes of the alleged 10.5 million participants (approximately 50 percent of the electorate) to five questions raised for their consideration:

  1. Do you reject the Paris Arbitral Award of 1899? – 97.99%
  2. Do you support the 1966 Geneva Agreement as the only valid legal instrument for resolving the controversy? – 98.26%
  3. Do you agree with Venezuela’s position of not recognizing the International Court of Territorial Justice as arbitrator? – 96.31%
  4. Do you oppose Guyana’s attempt to assert control over the [Atlantic] Ocean pending delimitation? – 96.34%
  5. Do you agree with the creation of the State of Guayana Esequiba and incorporating said state into the map of Venezuela’s territory? – 96.33%
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The Writer’s Life: Looking at oneself through the hourglass

03 Sunday Dec 2023

Posted by in Religion & Spirituality, The Writer's Life, Women Issues

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Closest resemblance to my handsome seminarian

In the last three chapters, I’ve shared the stories of three women who played important roles in shaping the person I would become: Mother, Auntie Katie, and Auntie Baby. In Chapter Six of my work in progress, I tell the story about the handsome, young seminarian who entered my life and changed its course: Michael (fictitious name), my first love. At thirteen years old when we first met, I had already developed a close relationship with Jesus, but it was Michael who set me on the path to the religious life.

My deepening relationship with Jesus was a well-guarded secret. To speak of my love for Jesus was out of the question. As I’ve mentioned in an earlier chapter, we were not a family of huggers and kissers. What’s more, those three little words “I love you” were not uttered among us.

For right or wrong, good or evil, truth or deception, I was shaped by the society that sustained me. During those early days of youthful innocence, our country was undergoing political, economic, and social upheavals that would later remold my self-identity.

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