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).
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.”
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.
My Poetry Corner November 2023 features the poem “The Orbis Spike, 1610” by Jennifer Rahim from her poetry collection Sanctuaries of Invention (UK, 2021). Born in the Caribbean Island of Trinidad in 1963, Jennifer Rahim was an award-winning poet, fiction writer, and literary critic. She held a BA (1987) and PhD (1993) in English Literature, and an MA in Theology (2016). After joining the University of the West Indies, St. Augustine in 1997 as a lecturer in the Department of Liberal Arts, she went on to teach a range of courses at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels, including creative writing, literary criticism, and feminist theory. She died unexpectedly in March 2023, leaving behind a substantial body of published work.
Most of the poems in Rahim’s collection were written during the Covid-19 lockdown and a state of emergency in Trinidad. Her poems address the nature of time, place, and mass death. In “Gone Viral,” she notes in the opening lines (p. 18):
Some words return to haunt us at the root.
The world reels from an underrated flu – gone viral,
as when a presidential gaffe becomes a kind of math.
Exponential: Many people will die who have never died before.
She recalls, too, in the opening verse of “Survival” (p. 19):
Any number of days is one too many
when home is no safe haven against the death
that roams neighborhood streets,
coughs on a public bus,
reaches for toothpaste on a grocery shelf,
jogs by in less friendly parks. . .
A great nation is like a great man: When he makes a mistake, he realizes it. Having realized it, he admits it. Having admitted it, he corrects it. He considers those who point out his faults as his most benevolent teachers. He thinks of his enemy as the shadow that he himself casts.
Excerpt from Chapter 61 of Tao Te Ching by Lao-tzu, as translated by Stephen Mitchell, HarperPerennial, New York, USA, 1988.
Lao-tzu, a legendary ancient Chinese philosopher, is believed to have lived during the sixth century BCE. He is considered to be the founder of Taoism.
Two peoples Israelis & Palestinians Jews & Arabs Oppressor & Oppressed Trapped in an unending cycle of armed struggle Seventy-five years of violent co-existence over a piece of Earth they both call Home.
An eye for an eye The violence of men unleashed on the largest open-air prison in the world Thousands of women and children slaughtered Entire generations of families buried beneath the rubble No peace for either side until the other is exterminated.
“Ceasefire Now!” “Not in Our Name!” demand members of the Jewish Voice for Peace during sit-in protest at New York City’s Grand Central Station “Never again for anyone!” one sign read.
“No genocide in our name!” “Ceasefire Now!” demand members of the IfNotNow Movement American Jews for equality & justice A thriving future for all Palestinians & Israelis.
In Gaza, buried deep beneath the rubble, a baby cries.
The Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders March Past at Parade Ground in Georgetown – British Guiana – 1954
Chapter Five of my work in progress presents the third portrait of a woman in my life. Auntie Baby, Mother’s baby sister, played an important role during my formative years. Nine years younger than Mother, she was just four years old when her parents and nine older siblings left British Guiana in 1946 for the United States. With the end of World War II in September 1945, my maternal grandparents must’ve seen better prospects for their future under America’s President Harry Truman. For reasons unknown to me, they failed to fulfill their promise to return for the three girls left behind.
Auntie Baby lived with us on and off from the late-1950s to mid-1960s. She brought lots of fun into our lives as kids. I must’ve been around eight to nine years old when I became aware of her dream to marry a white man and move to the Mother Country. Perhaps, the arrival of British soldiers in the colony incited her imagination.
On October 8, 1953, the Royal Welsh Fusiliers were the first battalion to arrive in the colony to suppress an alleged communist takeover. Two weeks later, they handed over to the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders. Auntie Baby was twelve-going-on-thirteen years old when they left in October 1954, taking twenty-five Guianese-born wives with them back home to Scotland. When she began dating at eighteen years old, the Worcestershire Regiment was on their one-year tour of duty. Her time had finally come to catch her dream husband. She soon learned how elusive dreams can be. Yet, she persisted.
Auntie Baby was the inspiration for the minor character, Joanna de Freitas, niece of protagonist Richard Cheong’s mother-in-law, in my debut novel Under the Tamarind Tree. Joanna first appears in Chapter Seven (p. 32) when she arrives with her Scottish soldier boyfriend at a family Christmas party (December 1953).
My Poetry Corner October 2023 features the poem “Treasure” from the poetry collection Even When We Sleep (USA, 2022) by Marilyn Kallet, a poet, writer, and educator. She served two terms as Knoxville Poet Laureate from June 2018 to July 2020. The following excerpts of poems are all sourced from this collection.
Born in Montgomery, Alabama, Marilyn grew up in New York as a child. She attended Tufts University in Boston, Massachusetts, where she earned a B.A. in English and French in 1968. She also attended Sorbonne Université in Paris, France, where she received a degree in Cours de Civilisation (1967). Later, she received her M.A. (1976) and her Ph.D. (1978) in Comparative Literature from Rutgers University in New Jersey.
Hurricane Idalia hits Florida with 125 mph winds – USA – August 30, 2023 Photo Credit: AP News (Photo/Daniel Kozin)
This is the sixth and final part of my series of reflections on the “c-o-s-m-o-s remedy” proposed in opposition to the “ideology of e-s-c-a-p-e” by Jem Bendell in Deep Adaptation: Navigating the Realities of Climate Chaos (UK/USA 2021).
In contrast to the habit of Exceptionalism in e-s-c-a-p-e ideology, which means assuming ‘I am annoyed in this world because much about it upsets me and so I believe I’m better and/or needed…,’ Bendell proposes that Solidarity involves acting from the part of you that knows ‘our common sadness and frustration arise from our mutual love for all life and motivate us towards fairness, justice and healing’ (p. 147).
Solidarity is defined as unity (as a group or class) that produces or is based on community of interests, objectives, and standards (Merriam-Webster Dictionary). As he so often does, Bendell calls us to look at the essence of what drives our shared sense of solidarity as a group or class.
For some unknown reason, I do not use the word ‘solidarity.’ Yet, I’m very familiar with the word since my childhood growing up in then British Guiana during the 1950s and 1960s. Whenever I hear the word, I immediately recall the song “Solidarity Forever” that played every day on our local radio stations. Though I don’t remember the verses, I can still sing the chorus:
Solidarity forever! Solidarity forever! Solidarity forever! For the Union makes us strong!
I later learned that it was the anthem of the workers’ unions, mainly the agricultural workers, who were fighting for better wages, workplace safety, and living conditions. Could it be that I associate the word with its negative images of danger to one’s safety?
In those early days of my youth, the managers and owners of the sugar plantations and factories across the colony were hostile towards striking workers. They were known to hire thugs to terrorize the workers on the picket line. To join picket lines in a show of solidarity came with the risk of losing one’s job, being beaten, teargassed, or even killed. Such risks did not change when we became an independent nation in May 1966.
Father Bernard Darke SJ (left) flees from armed thug (bottom right) – Guyana – July 14, 1979 Photo Credit: Wikipedia from Jesuits.org.uk
On Saturday morning, July 14, 1979, after celebrating Mass and having his breakfast, Father Bernard Darke SJ spent the morning marking examination papers at the Catholic high school where he taught the Scriptures and Mathematics. As Scouts Master, the British Jesuit priest also made plans with some of the scouts for their annual camp. At the request of the Editor of the Catholic Standard newspapers, he had his cameras with him to take photos of a political demonstration to be held outside the Magistrates’ Court.
During a period of civil rebellion against the dictatorship government, leading members of the opposition party Working People’s Alliance (WPA) had been arrested and charged with burning down the building housing the Ministry of National Development. As peaceful demonstrators marched along the street heading towards the court, Father Darke stood on the sidelines, in front of the school building, taking photographs.
The demonstrators were about 65 feet (20 meters) away from him when thugs, armed with wooden staves, cutlasses, and knives, charged into the picket line. The crowd scattered in all directions. Father Darke captured the confusion with his camera. Across the two-lane roadway, three men attacked the Assistant Editor of the Catholic Standard newspapers, who was covering the story. After receiving a blow to the head, the Assistant Editor fell to the ground, bleeding. In taking photos of the attack, Father Darke became the next target. He tried fleeing to safety, but the two cameras slung around his neck slowed him down. After beating him to the ground with wooden staves, one of the three assailants stabbed him in the back with an old bayonet. That evening, shortly after 6:00 p.m., he died in hospital from a ruptured lung.
Serving in the Guyana Mission since 1960, Father Bernard Darke SJ (1925-1979) was a quiet man who did not seek attention. He served in the Royal Navy during World War II and joined the Jesuit Order in 1946. His killing in broad daylight shook us all in the Catholic community.
Working for change in unjust social, economic, and political systems involves taking life-changing risks. Solidarity can come with a steep price. I don’t join picket lines or take part in mass public demonstrations. I lack such courage. I prefer to contribute in quiet ways: speaking out, making posters and banners, spreading awareness, listening to and engaging with others, and changing my behavior.
Solidarity in our fight to save Earth’s pollinators and other endangered species! Solidarity in our fight for clean air and clean water! Solidarity in our fight to end humanity’s dependence on fossil fuels! Solidarity makes us strong!
NASA Earth Observatory image by Lauren Dauphin, based on data from NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies.
Summer of 2023 was Earth’s hottest since global records began in 1880, according to scientists at NASA’s Goddard Institute of Space Studies (GISS) in New York.
The months of June, July, and August combined were 0.41 degrees Fahrenheit (0.23 degrees Celsius) warmer than any other summer in NASA’s record, and 2.1 degrees F (1.2 C) warmer than the average summer between 1951 and 1980. August alone was 2.2 F (1.2 C) warmer than the average. June through August is considered meteorological summer in the Northern Hemisphere.
This new record comes as exceptional heat swept across much of the world, exacerbating deadly wildfires in Canada and Hawaii, and searing heat waves in South America, Japan, Europe, and the U.S., while likely contributing to severe rainfall in Italy, Greece, and Central Europe.
Three Worlds One Vision 
