The Rosen Report

  Today In History--June 9th, 68 AD Emperor Nero of Rome commits suicide, begging his Secretary to slit his throat to evade his sentence of death by flogging decreed by the Roman Senate. In an act of pure cowardice and sadism, Nero ended his catastrophic reign of terror, having burned Rome and blamed it on the Jews and Christians, ruling over a dying empire of slavery, debauchery, mass persecution, and purges. Thus came to an end his promising musical career, and ambitions for the Theater.  One could easily throw out a bit of snark on the subject, and try to weave an argument of historical parallelism for today, but I won't go there.  Adolf Hitler, like Nero, took his own life rather than face trial for his crimes against humanity. Like Nero also, he tried to destroy as much of his own society in the process of self destruction, not content to go out alone, or leave things as they were. Their exit statement was, in effect, "if I cannot rule over it, I'll leave nothing sta...

A Retrospective On My Own Resistance To Getting Involved Three Years Ago-- I posted this in the Summer of 2019. At the time I was at war with myself as to whether or not to "unretire" from politics, having been burned badly by my former organization, and burned out after decades of front line and risky organizing activity.  We were in a conflict with both Bush administrations, were targets of the FBI and intelligence community, and at that stage of my life I was not so interested in jumping back in. The post above is an example of the turmoil I was going through at the time, because the reality of "Trumpism" was pulling me toward reactivation, and I was fighting it. Like many people, I wished for a quiet and stress-free life in my later years. Three months later I started my small Blog "The Rosen Report" in the aftermath of Trump's impeachable actions re: Ukraine and his efforts to destroy the Bidens and rig the elections. It was also after a Trump spe...

The Washington Post Just Won't Go There--- The ostensibly liberal minded Trump opponent, writer Jennifer Rubin, has an article in today's WaPo which covers a worthy subject, which is, "why there aren't more Republicans like Liz Cheney." Unfortunately she punts on the most important aspect. (Link below) Liz Cheney, as we know, is the daughter of Dick Cheney, and is herself a long-term fixture in the US Defense/Intelligence establishment. She is and has been considered a high value asset for US National Security, notwithstanding the destructive role played by her father during the Bush 43 Presidency.  This is, for example, the reason Cheney became the prime mover in a nationally significant open letter published in the Autumn of 2020 by all living former Secretaries of Defense of both parties, renouncing as unconstitutional any role for the US military in determining the outcome of the 2020 election.  This letter, and internal resistance at the time from both Genera...

  This new introduction, posted on Facebook one year later, puts a bit of perspective on the question of "how did we get here"? ["President Abraham Lincoln was a devoted reader of Shakespeare who immersed himself in the historical tragedies such as Macbeth. I have little doubt that Lincoln would have recognized and reflected upon the coherence between his leadership burden and that facing President Biden today.  And I believe he would consult with the "Bard" for insights on the sort of crisis of tragedy which our Democracy is facing in this year of 2022..   Shakespeare himself might have had a few things to say about our current situation as well. Were he alive and writing, he might remind us that he wrote himself into the play Julius Caesar as "The Soothsayer" in order to warn Caesar to not trust his "old friends" in the Senate and stay away from that place on "The Ides of March."   That was the "tragedy" of Caesar. He w...

  What To Do In Scary Times--  A poster on Professor HCR's letter this morning remarked how scary it is, in a comment about my post on Tucker Carlson endorsing an armed rebellion of gun owners because the Democratic administration was "illegitimate". I made the observation that this was consistent with how the Nazis beat down their opposition and the moderates over time in Germany with their campaign of strategic violence, propaganda and lies.  I identified the problem of emotional "numbness," the gradual accommodation to it all, because for most of us, our human emotions are not capable of withstanding a non-stop barrage of murderous malignant insanity. We begin to pick our spots to shut down, or tune out because we can't handle it. This is what will kill us, every bit as much as our adversary. That is how they beat us down. This was my brief reply, (with a couple of edits for clarity) which really was meant for everyone who reads Heather's letters. Wha...

Lest We Forget... There were two events which occurred this week with very little attention by the media or pundits on social media.  First was the commemoration of the mass demonstrations for democracy in Tienanmen Square, Beijing, June 3rd, 1989, which were crushed by the Chinese government, who before the eyes of the world deployed Red Army tanks and personnel against a largely peaceful student movement which had occupied the square for several days.  The image below is of the celebrated "Tank Man," a still unknown protester who laid his life on the line and successfully held up a tank column single-handedly, an image which electrified the growing movement for democracy in China, and throughout the Soviet occupied nations of eastern Europe. It is reported that thousands were run over by tanks, beaten, arrested and "disappeared" as the Army dispersed the protesters.. This act of resistance to the Chinese regime catalyzed similar protests which took hold in Hungary...

A Dialogue With A Friend On Leadership-- This back and forth came out of a post in which I commented on the heroism of "Tank Man," who stood before a column of the Chinese Red Army right before the Tianenmen Square massacre, on June 4th 1989. Also I wrote about Alexey Navalny, Russia's "Man In The Iron Mask", the political prisoner whom Putin has sentenced to die in jail. And I asked rhetorically if there are any such men or women in the US today who are ready to step forward and lead in these times. My friend's question was the following: ["Lance Rosen, what’s your sense of Rev. Barber?   I agree with you that we have a lack of leadership, but in what form is the question.  In my view, Lincoln was the great American bodhisattva (sp?), and we need that transforming presence at least as much now as was the case in 1860.   But it’s worth considering Thich Nhat Hahn’s notion that the next great bodhisattva might be the group rather than an individual.  I’l...