Blue Mass Group

It’s new to all of us. Have fun experimenting with the various “blocks”.  I suspect that most of the things you need will be available if you click the “plus” sign in the upper left of the editing screen. Most of the time, all you’ll need is a “paragraph” block, and perhaps a “quote” block for block quotes — see below. I added a “drop cap” to this paragraph, which looks cool. I’m concerned that I haven’t found a “There’s More” tag, which obviously we use frequently here. If you go to the upper right, find the button with three vertical dots and at the very least you can add HTML tags like <!–more–> .

Here’s what a quote block looks like, same as ever, as far as I can tell. From a NY Review of Books survey of the the prescient René Girard:

Some of Girard’s most acute ideas come from his psychology of accusation. He championed legal systems that protect the rights of the accused because he believed that impassioned accusation, especially when it gains momentum by wrapping itself in the mantle of indignation, has a potential for mimetic diffusion that disregards any considered distinction between guilt and innocence. The word “Satan” in Hebrew means “adversary” or “accuser,” and Girard insisted in his later work that there is a distinctly satanic element at work in the zeal for accusation and prosecution.

Girard’s most valuable insight is that rivalry and violence arise from sameness rather than difference. Where conflicts erupt between neighbors or ethnic groups, or even among nations, more often than not it’s because of what they have in common rather than what distinguishes them. In Girard’s words: “The error is always to reason within categories of ‘difference’ when the root of all conflicts is rather ‘competition,’ mimetic rivalry between persons, countries, cultures.” Often we fight or go to war to prove our difference from an enemy who in fact resembles us in ways we are all too eager to deny.

“The Prophet of Envy”, Robert Pogue Harrison, New York Review of Books

So let’s take a deep breath, be creative — and patient. This could be fun.

In spite of some of his old pals seeming to push him that direction, and in spite of the support of Obama insiders, our former Gov is not running for President.

There was some considerable skepticism of a Patrick run on this very site, and from the left. In particular his connections with some of the seedier aspects of the corporate world — subprime lending, fossil fuels — have really not aged well. There’s some skepticism based on his working for Bain Capital; to be honest, neither his own description of his actual work for Bain, nor its criticisms, have been specific enough for me to form a judgment.

I will say this: With a few exceptions (casinos), he did not function as a particularly “corporate” governor. He consistently acted on behalf of the public good; he helped create a new, more progressive ideological consensus in Massachusetts that still holds in the Baker era. He advocated unapologetically for the poor and vulnerable, and took political risks on their behalf. He had great successes (jumpstarting the clean energy industry), and some failures (rollout of health care website), and some things where he was on the right side but didn’t prevail (transit funding, universal pre-K).

I don’t claim that he’s the perfect personal vessel for progressive politics; perfect people don’t exist. I don’t know that I would have supported him for President. But I hope that his moral voice and leadership stay in the public consciousness. He’s still vital. I hope he speaks up, and that we pay attention.

Every two years, the Harvard Kennedy School of Government holds an “orientation” for new members of Congress. Several of our new members of Congress, including MA-9’s new star Ayanna Pressley and MA-4’s Lori Trahan, protested outside. I skeptically read a few descriptions of the event as “corporate”, “centrist”, and so forth. Well, look at the list of speakers, and decide for yourself:

Hon. Elaine Chao, U.S. Secretary of Transportation, former Secretary of Labor and Director of the Peace Corps
Hon. Ash Carter, former U.S. Secretary of Defense, Director of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, and Belfer Professor of Technology and Global Affairs
Hon. Mitch Landrieu, former Mayor of New Orleans, IOP Visiting Fellow
Danielle Allen, James Bryant Conant University Professor at Harvard University, and Director of Harvard’s Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics.
Mary Barra, Chairman and CEO of General Motors
Arthur Brooks, President of the American Enterprise Institute, Professor of the Practice of Public Leadership at Harvard Kennedy School
Gary Cohn, former Director of the National Economic Council
Douglas Elmendorf, former Director of the Congressional Budget Office, Dean of Harvard Kennedy School
David Gergen, former Presidential adviser, Public Service Professor of Public Leadership, Director of the Center for Public Leadership at Harvard Kennedy School
Alex Gorsky, Chairman and CEO of Johnson & Johnson

I suppose if you squint hard, based on her areas of publication, you could call Danielle Allen a liberal; she’s an ethicist with an antiquarian bent, decidedly not a partisan. Other than that, there’s two Trump appointees; center-right professionals Gergen, Elmendorf, and Carter; the head of the right-to-hard-right American Enterprise Institute; and moderate Landrieu.

Can I ask what the CEO’s of Johnson and Johnson and GM are doing here? Beyond the obvious, of course: The expectation that it’s corporations that actually run this game. Ya gotta know the territory, incoming Congressfolk …

They couldn’t get Marshall Ganz to talk labor (say)? John McDonough to talk health care? Robert Stavins on climate? etc? These are just resources around Harvard, off the top of my head.

Was it really that bad? Yes it was. Better to be out in the cold with Pressley, Trahan, and Ocasio-Cortez.