Cat Show 11/20/20

VG: In his scathing and brutally funny novel, Possessed, Dostoevsky has the following moment, where he parodies all the noble aspirations gone awry. One of the ”possessed” composes this musical piece that “bore the comic title of ‘The Franco-Prussian War.’ It began with the menacing strains of the ‘Marseillaise’: “Qu’un sang impur abreuve nos sillons.” … But suddenly mingling with the masterly variations on the national hymn, somewhere from some corner quite close, on one side come the vulgar strains of ‘Mein lieber Augustin.

The ‘Marseillaise’ goes on unconscious of them. The ‘Marseillaise’ is at the climax of its intoxication with its own grandeur; but Augustin gains strength; Augustin grows more and more insolent, and suddenly the melody of Augustin begins to blend with the melody of the “Marseillaise.” The latter …tries to fling him off, to brush him aside like a tiresome insignificant fly. But “Mein lieber Augustin” holds his ground firmly, he is cheerful and self-confident, he is gleeful and impudent, and the “Marseillaise” seems suddenly to become terribly stupid. … she is forced to sing in time with “Mein lieber Augustin.” Her melody passes in a sort of foolish way into Augustin; she yields and dies away. And only by snatches there is heard again: “Qu’un sang impur …” But at once it passes very offensively into the vulgar waltz. She submits altogether.”

HOBBS: I see where you are going with this. Sic transit gloria mundi, as ancients would say. I can see Pelosi and Obama, and today’s Augustin, Biden, all starting with “Marseillaise” and ending with “Mein Lieber Augustin.” German bourgeois knows how to triumph. Even a better example would be Merkel, who set out to turn the whole Europe into Mein Lieber Augustin, squashing any sign or rebellion or non-conformism. It is ironic that the vulgar bourgeois brutes like Trump still have some notes of Marseillaise in their singing, while the progressives from Berlin and Paris to Washington and San Francisco, are nothing but one giant happy chorus of Augustins.

ALICE: I don’t see where you are going with all this, unless it is one of your failed attempts to peddle some sort of a conspiracy theory. If you look around, the signs are highly positive. The “vulgar waltz” of Trump, Berlusconi, or Le Pen is over. We have a tender, gentle, multi-voiced thoroughly diverse Marseillaise all the way. I hear even the dogs are joining the chorus. And by dogs I don’t mean only these barking, pee-under-every-tree brutes, but even the urbane, city dwelling Republicans. You can’t stop the progress. The rule of beer-drinking, materialistic, nasty bastards who sit in their beer-halls or pubs, mumbling their “Lieber Augustin” is over.

HOBBS: That’s the point, Alice. Your hearing has never been that good, but now, after your illness, you are plain deaf. Do you really think that in these triumphant marches of the Young Mask-Wearers or Stay-at-Home-and-Don’t Talk –to-Strangers Conservatives, there is even a remnant of Marseillaise?

ALICE: Of course, if you want to protect your population, you act like progressive, forward looking government, and therefore, you are on the side of Revolution against all the nasty philistines who don’t want their governments to take care of them. But why are we talking about some obscure texts by a crazy Russian writer, when we have a true scandal of the US elections in front of us. This charade keeps on going. Trump looks ridiculous in his denials, while Giuliani sweats bullets lying in his defense. It is really embarrassing to see these two making mockery of our Democracy. And who benefits? Our enemies. I just heard NPR’s Steve Inskip, who interviewed one of their sponsors, sorry, informants, sorry, their in-house pundits, Sue Gordon, “formerly the second highest ranking official in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence,” who correctly pointed out, that it is Russians who milk Trump's efforts to overturn election results, undermining thus our stellar moral authority, while planting doubts in our unparalleled political system.

VG: Thank you, Alice. When the Public Radio interviews spooks and secret agents and informs the public about our moral authority, that’s “Mein Lieber Augustin” all the way. Except in today’s world this preaching about national moral authority and pointing finger at the secret enemies is done not by the guys named Joseph Goebbels, but by the gals named Sue Gordon.

ALICE: Say what you want, but there is such a thing like facts, and truth, and science. And the government that does not rely on these fundamental aspects of reality is bound to end up in trouble. And that’s what happened to us with this crook in the White House. Look at the Covid crisis. That’s the result of the long history of fact denials. And facts are facts, and they do not diminish in statue if you call them “Mein Lieber Augustin.”

HOBBS: But that’s the whole point. We see through the glass darkly. At least humans do. How can you have fact checkers when you don’t really know what facts or truths are? Historians are still arguing of the origins of first or second world wars. People get excited about some BS peddled by mass media, while behind the scenes a totally different reality unfolds. Thanks to the Freedom of Information Act, we usually learn the truth, but fifty years later. And unfortunately, today’s Marseillaise would sound like Mein Lieber Augustin to tomorrow’s historians. Do you think we know the truth about all these colored revolutions, from Ukraine and Georgia to Romania and Syria?

VG: Truth is a rare commodity indeed. It is like mining for gold. You have to dig and sieve, and dig and sieve. So let’s the audience get on with it, since we are out of time here.