Last night I attended an in-progress performance of "November," a small-scale opera with words by Myra Noveck and music by Danny Paller (both friends of mine). I even made a small contribution to the performance by playing an 8 measure overture on tenor sax.
For those of us who lived through the period leading up to and following the assassination, this opera stirred up painful memories. I was at the demonstration where Rabin was shot. I even saw his car drive away and remember thinking how happy and satisfied he must feel, after the triumphant support he had received. Of course, I hadn't the slightest idea that he was mortally wounded and being rushed to the hospital.
Fortunately, no one was assassinated in the US presidential campaign, but for me, Hilary Clinton's defeat appears to be a tragic moment in modern political history, the beginning of a downward spiral. People who share my views were hoping that Hilary would win convincingly and bring in at least a democratic majority in the Senate, progressive justices on the Supreme Court, and so on. No need to elaborate.
I have read that Trump plans to appoint a "scientist" who denies climate change as head of the Environmental Protection Commission. Isn't that a little like the South African president who denied that AIDS was a STD?
Myra Noveck presented the opera about Rabin as part of the historical debate: great men versus great forces. Would the Bolsheviks have won without Lenin? Would the Nazis have risen without Hitler? Would the British have given up without Churchill? Would the extreme right have won in the US without Trump? Would we have come to a peace agreement with the Palestinians with Rabin and without Yigal Amir?
Obviously these hypothetical questions remain hypothetical. We had Lenin, Hitler, Churchill, Trump, and Amir. What's done can't be undone.
Nonetheless, I believe in what I call Reality, for want of a better word. Untenable situations do not, in the long run, abide. Whether or not the head of the EPC believes in climate change, the glaciers will keep melting, the sea will keep rising, the summers will keep growing longer, diseases will keep spreading, the deserts will expand, and, probably, we won't be able to do a thing about it -- and we wouldn't even if Elizabeth Kolbert were the head of the EPC.
Maybe when all of Florida and half of Manhattan are under water, and half the islands in the Pacific have been wiped off the map, when droughts and famines have made today's refugee crisis look like a traffic jam in rush hour, people will start doing the right thing.
For those of us who lived through the period leading up to and following the assassination, this opera stirred up painful memories. I was at the demonstration where Rabin was shot. I even saw his car drive away and remember thinking how happy and satisfied he must feel, after the triumphant support he had received. Of course, I hadn't the slightest idea that he was mortally wounded and being rushed to the hospital.
Fortunately, no one was assassinated in the US presidential campaign, but for me, Hilary Clinton's defeat appears to be a tragic moment in modern political history, the beginning of a downward spiral. People who share my views were hoping that Hilary would win convincingly and bring in at least a democratic majority in the Senate, progressive justices on the Supreme Court, and so on. No need to elaborate.
I have read that Trump plans to appoint a "scientist" who denies climate change as head of the Environmental Protection Commission. Isn't that a little like the South African president who denied that AIDS was a STD?
Myra Noveck presented the opera about Rabin as part of the historical debate: great men versus great forces. Would the Bolsheviks have won without Lenin? Would the Nazis have risen without Hitler? Would the British have given up without Churchill? Would the extreme right have won in the US without Trump? Would we have come to a peace agreement with the Palestinians with Rabin and without Yigal Amir?
Obviously these hypothetical questions remain hypothetical. We had Lenin, Hitler, Churchill, Trump, and Amir. What's done can't be undone.
Nonetheless, I believe in what I call Reality, for want of a better word. Untenable situations do not, in the long run, abide. Whether or not the head of the EPC believes in climate change, the glaciers will keep melting, the sea will keep rising, the summers will keep growing longer, diseases will keep spreading, the deserts will expand, and, probably, we won't be able to do a thing about it -- and we wouldn't even if Elizabeth Kolbert were the head of the EPC.
Maybe when all of Florida and half of Manhattan are under water, and half the islands in the Pacific have been wiped off the map, when droughts and famines have made today's refugee crisis look like a traffic jam in rush hour, people will start doing the right thing.
No comments:
Post a Comment