TUESDAY, AUGUST 4, 2026
Tommy Tuberville's rage: For better or worse—we'll guess for worse—the prevailing rage of the current era was directed at Dr. Fauci last week.
It was directed at him in a Senate hearing. That said, in certain essential ways, the story of this tribal fury had been told long before. We return to Book One of the Iliad, in which the disastrous rage of Achilles emerges.
As we noted yesterday, this is the way that story begins, as rendered by Robert Fagles in his 1990 translation:
BOOK ONE
The Rage of Achilles
Rage—Goddess. sing the rage of Peleus' son Achilles,
murderous, doomed, that cost the Achaeans countless losses,
hurling down to the House of Death so many sturdy souls,
great fighters' souls, but made their bodies carrion,
feasts for the dogs and birds.
and the will of Zeus was moving toward its end.
Begin, Muse, when the two first broke and clashed,
Agamemnon lord of men and brilliant Achilles.What god drove them to fight with such a fury?
At this point, we're told about the first step toward the destructive rage which would eventually cost so many lives:
Agamemnon, lord of men, has stolen the daughter of a priest to Apollo to serve as his "slave." Now, the young woman's father has come to the Achaean camps to get his daughter back:
Yes. Chryses approached the Achaeans' fast ships
to win his daughter back, bringing a priceless ransom
and bearing high in hand, wound on a golden staff,
the wreaths of the god, the distant deadly Archer.
He begged the whole Achaean army but most of all
the two supreme commanders, Atreus' two sons,
"Agamemnon. Menelaus! All Argives geared for war!
May the gods who hold the halls of Olympus give you
Priam's city to plunder, then safe passage home.
Just set my daughter free, my dear one. Here,
accept these gifts, this ransom. Honor the god
who strikes from worlds away—the son of Zeus, Apollo!"
The priest was willing to let Troy be sacked if he could win his daughter back—his dear one.
The troops were inclined to respect the priest. But Agamemnon, lord of men, responded with one of his familiar rages:
And all ranks of Achaeans cried out their assent:
"Respect the priest, accept the shining ransom!"
But it brought no joy to the heart of Agamemnon.
The king dismissed the priest with a brutal order
ringing in his ears: "Never again, old man,
let me catch sight of you by the hollow ships!
Not loitering now, not slinking back tomorrow.
The staff and the wreaths of god will never save you then.
The girl--I won't give up the girl. Long before that,
old age will overtake her in my house, in Argas,
far from her fatherland. slaving back and forth
at the loom, forced to share my bed!
Now go,
don't tempt my wrath, and you may depart alive."
I won't give up the girl! Tragically, but familiarly, this is where European literature begins.
At any rate, Agamemnon has flown into one of his recurrent rages. As the famous poem continues, an old man walks away, terrified, though the story will hardly end there:
The old man was terrified. He obeyed the order,
turning, trailing away in silence down the shore
where the battle lines of breakers crash and drag. .
And moving off to a safe distance, over and over
the old priest prayed to the son of sleek-haired Leto,
lord Apollo...
Terrified, the priest walks away. But as the story continues, he continues to pray to Apollo, and a plague will soon descend on the Achaean camps.
We're looking here at a first act of rage. In this case, it's the rage of Agamemnon, commander of the Achaean forces. The death-dealing rage of Achilles hasn't been triggered yet.
That's how the Iliad starts. A similar scene was perhaps on display last week as Dr. Fauci, 85 years of age and a long-honored public servant, sat before a furious Senate committee.
Rage! Even as the hearing was taking place, Senator Tuberville (R-Alabama) was being interviewed by Newsmax. Justified or otherwise, he voiced the rage to which his Republican colleagues were giving voice inside the hearing room.
From 1999 through 2008, he'd been head coach at Auburn. Last Wednesday, rightly or wrongly, he turned from the chalkboard with this:
SENATOR TUBERVILLE (7/29/26): He should be locked up before he leaves this building today and put in prison, and then put on trial in front of the American people.
We lost twenty to thirty thousand people in Alabama alone, and I hope every one of them sues this Dr. Fauci—puts him in court.
If we can’t put him in prison, let’s put him in court every day for the rest of his life, where he where he has to be punished and listened to the death that he caused.
[...]
I promise you one thing, we will find out if there’s a possibility that we can bring him to Alabama, to put him in front of a court and a jury, to see if we can put this guy in prison. He killed millions of people, folks. I mean, this was a catastrophe.
Tuberville wanted Fauci sent to prison, then later put on trial. Along the way, he claimed that Dr. Fauci "killed millions of people."
In fairness, one claim was clearly true! The Covid pandemic was indeed a catastrophe. But sometimes, catastrophe can also emerge from acts of fury, not excluding acts of tribal rage.
Tuberville was speaking with Newsmax from the building where the hearing was taking place. The hearing was chaired by Senator Paul. Back in May, he had tweeted this:
SENATOR PAUL (5/7/26): He lied to Congress about NIH funding dangerous gain-of-function research in Wuhan and engaged in the worst cover-up in modern medical history. The American people want Fauci behind bars.
Do we the people really want Dr. Fauci behind bars? Surveys say the answer is no, but the fury has been general over the Republican caucus.
As we've suggested before:
It seems to us that we can possibly see ourselves more clearly, at this point, through the auspices of literature. The world is perhaps a bit too much with us, given the relentless madness of the present age.
The rage was general over the Republican senators who took part in last week's hearing. Many claims emerged from their fury, but did their furious statements make sense?
Tomorrow: Furious voices prevail
"For better or worse—we'll guess for worse—the prevailing rage of the current era was directed at Dr. Fauci last week."
ReplyDeleteWhy is this a guess? Is Somerby incapable of assessing whether there was anything worthwhile about the attack on Fauci last week? It has been called "an obvious perjury trap" designed to harm Fauci. Does Somerby have no compass to decide whether Fauci deserved such treatment? What is wrong with Somerby?
Sneaky little remarks like this are a signal that Somerby is supporting right wing talking points -- such as that Fauci is a bad guy. Or that such rage is justified. There is no "better" in this situation except for Republicans, who seek an advantage in the upcoming midterm election. Contemplating the "better" is a sign of ignorance and considering it a "guess" instead of an evidence-based conclusion is offensive to us all.
“Considering it a guess . . . is offensive to us all.”
DeleteI hate to break it to you, but not all of us are offended so easily.
I hate you, DG.
DeleteI’m sorry for you. It’s such a nice day, but you’re in your tiny room gripped by your hate.
DeleteSomerby gives himself wiggle room of this kind with nearly every post. I suspect that it is a stylistic, albeit annoying, habit.
DeleteIts a right wing blog from someone pretending to be "liberal".
DeleteUnder what circumstances would this week’s prevailing rage over Fauci be “for the better”, Bob? Asking for a friend of Fauci’s.
DeleteTestifying under oath before Congress is a way of sharing information with Congress and the public. The "perjury trap" theory is a feeble excuse for Fauci choosing not to share certain information.
DeleteThe right to decline self-incrimination is in the Constitution. Fauci has already shared info in previous testimony.
DeleteTestifying under oath before congress is in this case nothing more than a charade put on by a boot licking republican senate that is doing Donald Trump's bidding. This is pure republican playbook. They have done nothing, absolutely nothing, for the average tax paying American. Zero. So instead of twiddling their thumbs and waiting for Trump to tell them what they are going to allow him to do next, they haul Fauci in to lambaste him in order to rile up the base. The vast majority of Americans couldn't give a shit about this shitshow, and if they did, they would have a plethora of questions about Trump's miserable Covid pandemic response. This little passion play will blow over and unfortunately for the MAGA senate, the timing of it will have no bearing on the midterms.
Delete"I won't give up the girl! Tragically, but familiarly, this is where European literature begins."
ReplyDeleteSomerby always seems to assume that the Iliad is the only epic poem told around campfires, the only meaningful narrative to people living hundreds of years before Homer's epic was eventually written down and preserved. Other stories were told back them, without any doubt. Because there is no time period when that hasn't been the case. The accident of preservation is why a poem attributed to Homer (who may or may not have existed as a single person and not a composite of story-tellers) still exists.
The translations inevitably inflict a series of modern interpretations upon the original work. Our modern context informs the meaning now, because we did not live during those old times and have no idea how people then felt or reacted to Homer's words, recited with inflection by that series of story-tellers over time.
Now Somerby inflicts his own values and meanings onto the quotes he selects to present here. His focus on the way women were treated is consistent with the obsession of the manosphere with Greek and Roman warrior culture. That fulfills some need these weird guys have about seeming manly while being rejected by women in our modern culture, where women get to choose who they will spend their lives with, and what they will do, just as men are permitted to do.
Somerby's dislike of women leaks in his text, despite his attempts to seem even-handed and has been noted before he began quoting the Iliad. Men's rage is a problem because they allow themselves to express it through war and domination, by hurting others. Our civilization has attempted to curb such behavior but some men search through ancient so-called literature to find justification for being violent. Greek behavior does not justify current mistreatment of women.
“Somerby’s dislike of women leaks in his text”
DeleteI’ve read this post and for the life of me I don’t know what you could possibly be referring to. Can you point me to this “leak” you see in this morning’s post?
Kash Patel will find the leak.
DeleteSomerby relishing the details of the fate of women in stories is not just creepy it is a motif of the Right.
DeleteI'm looking at today's post and I don't see any "relishing."
DeleteDG, one of the leaks is quoted at the top of the comment. What other epic poem have you read (or been told about) that begins with a man refusing to give up a girl? Is this really a theme of literature? Somerby generalizes this to a theme but I don't know of a single other poem about men stealing women and refusing to let them go. But Somerby calls it a universal. Who does that? Someone who blames women in their own lives and sees that where it doesn't exist.
DeleteWhat is the plot of Beowulf, another ancient poem claimed to be foundational to Western lit: "A monster named Grendel terrorizes King Hrothgar’s great mead hall, Heorot, by killing and eating the sleeping warriors." No women there.
"The oldest surviving poem in the English language is Cædmon's Hymn, a nine-line Christian praise verse composed in Old English by an illiterate Northumbrian cowherd named Cædmon between 658 and 680 AD." It's plot is that Cædmon, an illiterate herdsman who worked at the monastery of Whitby Abbey in North Yorkshire reportedly experienced a miraculous dream inspiring him to sing about the creation of the world. No women there.
Even Virgil's Aeneid is different: "follows the Trojan hero Aeneas as he escapes the fall of Troy, travels the Mediterranean, and fights a bloody war in Italy to found the bloodline of Rome." The hero falls in love with Dido but leaves her, following his destiny, after which she grieves and commits suicide. No woman stealing or female-caused disasters there, except to Dido. If Aeneas had refused to leave Carthage Somerby might have a point, but he doesn't do that.
So where does this belief that women are the root of men's problems come from? Somerby's mind.
If Somerby remembers stories as having plots that are about women being stolen or causing problems (even if the Gods made them do it), then that is leakage of his own attitudes about women, not what is in these ancient works. He sounds like an old codger, confirmed bachelor, who grunts that women are the cause of all the world's troubles, except those guys hang out in the manosphere these days and complain about Nolan's casting of a black woman as Helen, which obviously ruined the entire film.
DG, no one says Somerby does the relishing every day. He has quoted the bits about women being raped and slaughtered frequently enough already to be more than just a casual mention.
DeleteNotice that Somerby has bolded this part: "Long before that, old age will overtake her in my house, in Argas, far from her fatherland. slaving back and forth
at the loom, forced to share my bed!" Forcing a woman to share your bed means raping her, in case you don't understand that part.
Somerby has a habit of bolding the parts of quotes that have a special meaning for him. Sometimes he explains why, and sometimes not. It looks like relishing to me. He has quoted this part before here. Also the part where the girl in question walks into the sea (killing herself) rather than be raped by any of them. Why does Somerby underline (by bolding) the parts where women are harmed?
If I had been forced to read this poem in my own school days, I would have been shocked and told my parents about it, so that they could complain to the school board and get the poem banned. It is shockingly threatening to the autonomy of girls and women in a way that glorifies male violence, a bad influence on male youth (obviously, given the way it is embraced by incels who hate women), and girls shouldn't be required to read such stuff, where they are powerless victims of male brutality.
Girls are already taught to fear male anger. The fact that men feel rage does not entitled them to take it out on women, which is how this poem comes across, along with Somerby's worship of its "wisdom."
2:02 -- "I won't give up the girl. Tragically . . ."
DeleteI just don't see how you read this as "relishing." He specifically labels it as "tragic."
Here is the whole thought: "I won't give up the girl! Tragically, but familiarly, this is where European literature begins."
DeleteI suppose he could mean that literature has been tragic since such an inauspicious beginning. You never know what Somerby means. But I think the emphasis Somerby places on the girl, as he says "I won't give up the girl. Tragically..." means that the familiar scenario of men fighting over women is the tragic and familiar part. And men who think women are at the heart of their problems (in this case leading to war and the fall of Troy) don't like women very much and are scapegoating women for what they themselves do wrong. That is Somerby's leakage of his own attitudes into a work of literature that might as easily have been blamed on the meddling of the Gods, making religion the source of all evil. Or it could be men's possessiveness that creates the problems (when did people become property), or men's rage or their inability to let go of old grievances, or some plausible other cause of the war. But Somerby here plainly blames women -- implying it is their sexual appeal and status value to men that causes them to refuse even an old priest with the power to cause them problems with an appeal to Apollo. Women have such a hold over men, Somerby implies (and incels state, resentfully). Women be bewitching men all the time, those who dislike women complain.
You can deny it on Somerby's behalf, but he could have made any of a number of different interpretations but he chose to say this. And his insistence that this is a familiar theme is not borne out by analysis. This isn't the "tale as old as time" of Disney movies. It is Somerby's complaint.
2:15 - You premise your entire argument on the fact that Somerby bolded the "forced to share my bed" part, but Somerby didn't do so.
Delete2:36 -- "Somerby here plainly blames women"
DeleteNot only is this not "plain," I don't think it's even remotely true. Somerby is not blaming Chryseis for anything.
Incels in the manosphere complain because women get to choose their mates but never choose them, so they support rate and assignment of women to men (forced marriage). That is what happens in the Iliad and the women do not win in the end, the men do. Somerby insists that Helen chose to go with Paris, starting all these troubles with her choice. He ignores that the Gods interfered, giving Helen to Paris.
DeleteThe treatment of women in The Iliad, as if they are property to be used and handed around from man to man, is what incels think should exist now. That it appears in ancient texts is evidence that society should organize itself that way now because it is human nature. Somerby has expressed this view before himself, calling men's misbehavior "bred in the bone" or inborn.
DG, these themes reappear in Somerby's writing about current events and his return to discuss The Iliad repeatedly. Just because you claim you don't recognize them doesn't mean they don't exist in Somerby's writing.
rate = rape
Delete"Chryses" is not the name of the daughter but the name of the priest.
DeleteYes, he did bold the sentence that talks about sharing his bed, slaving at the loom and remaining there until old age. He is bolding the sentences in the poem that show the plot as he has summarized it, so bolding the whole thing would no longer be an outline because it would include too much detail, not just a main point. This is now the third time he has quoted that particular passage. In a lengthy poem, that means the passage has meaning for him. In this case, he is illustrating that refusing to give back a girl taken as a slave is a "tragic" but "familiar" theme in Western literature. He sees it that way. I disagree.
3:02 - I didn't write "Chryses," I wrote "Chryseis."
Delete2:49 - "Somerby insists that Helen chose to go with Paris"
DeletePutting aside the fact that Somerby never "insists" on this disputable interpretation, isn't Somerby giving agency to Helen here? It's her choice to elope with Paris, according to what (you say) Somerby "insists." Isn't this the opposite of what today's incels want?
Yes, Somerby is giving Helen an agency she didn't possess because she was awarded to Paris as a bribe by a goddess. It is not her choice to elope. She has no choice. Incels want women to be awarded to men as a right. It isn't only incels -- Jordan Peterson has suggested that too. Somerby wrote an essay about Helen's regrets in her lamentation speech after the Fall of Troy, saying she regrets having left her husband and family (including children). She didn't make that choice to do that. Her speech of sorrow is about leaving them but does not show guilt or regret, as Somerby said she did.
DeleteIt is part of the negative stereotype of women that women are fickle and disloyal and would abandon their family to run off with a handsome young man. Incels in particular have views that women cannot be trusted, that they care about about men's appearance and not their character or personality, and that women will run off on a whim unless they are guarded and kept without the means to leave. Domestic abuse rests on such attitudes, where women are not allowed to leave the home on their own, cannot have a bank account, are monitored and watched because otherwise they would be tempted and run away.
Just as the whole conflict between Greeks and Troy hinges on Helen, the conflict between the priest and Agamemnon hinges of the daughter Chryseis. She didn't do anything to cause it, but she is the object that the men are fighting over. Men fighting over women is Somerby's tragically familiar formula, not women doing bad things that cause men to fight, given that women do not have agency. Their existence as desirable objects makes the men fight. Incels resent that women have agency. They would rather have a situation where women are awarded to each man and don't have to compete or allow women to choose men. Incels view themselves as unable to compete because women don't value their traits and seek only men who are hunks. When Somerby asserts that Helen left her husband and family for Paris, he repeats the incel stereotype that women are unable to resist hunky young men and disloyal to husband and would abandon their kids to run off. It is not only a dim view of women, but also not realistic compared to women's behavior.
DeleteSo, to summarize, you're telling us that Somerby says Helen fell in love with Paris because Aphrodite put a spell on her? And you're teasing out all kinds of negative implications about Somerby's misogyny from this fairly standard reading of Homer?
DeleteNo. I am not saying Somerby said any of that. I am saying that Somerby quoted Helen's speech after the fall of Troy and interpreted to mean that she regretted leaving her husband and family for Paris. I said she didn't leave voluntarily but was awarded to Paris as a bribe by Aphrodite, who cast a spell on Helen. I said that saying that Helen chose to run off with Paris of her own volition shows a negative attitude toward women, reflecting a stereotype that women are fickle. Helen did not choose to leave Menelaus. She went back to him in the end. Those stereotypes are misogynistic.
DeleteI also said that Somerby neglected to describe the role of the Gods in the behavior of the people in the Iliad. The Gods caused the mess, not Helen, who had no choice because she was under a spell. If anything, Paris should not have chosen a married woman as a reward for choosing Aphrodite, if he did that. I said that Somerby is making women the cause of the conflict and saying that it is a familiar if tragic dynamic. A woman doesn't cause something by her existence. If she doesn't have agency, she doesn't have responsibility.
If women are property, then there was no one who Paris could have chosen without stepping on someone's property rights. A woman is either the property of her husband or her father, not an independent person.
Delete"If she doesn't have agency, she doesn't have responsibility."
DeleteSo, you read Helen as being helpless; Somerby reads her as making a free choice; and his reading proves his misogyny. Do I get it?
Yes, except that this is a fictional story. There are no Greek Gods and Helen did not ever exist. So this is a story made up by men, told to men as entertainment. If women were making up a story, how do you think it might be different from this one?
DeleteI don't read Greek, so I do not know how a woman might have translated the original either or what Homer's intentions may have been. So there is a lot of room for subjectivity in the situation. That room is where the misogyny can influence how someone sees the story. Calling something foundational to Western literature and a familiar tragic storyline does not make it reassuring to women when the derogatory tropes arise.
By the way, in the basic story women ARE to blame for everything: Eris, Aphrodite, Athena, and Hera.
DeleteGodesses are not women.
DeleteIn the story, male gods and warriors are also responsible and to blame. Pinning everything on women by leaving out the men’s culpability is misogyny.
DeleteDG says “responsible for everything” which is majorly sexist.
DeleteSo, according to DG, the men have no agency.
DeleteI challenge anyone to read the above series of comments and argue with a straight face that they were made by serious people. Jeezus, maybe get a grip.
DeleteThe next good faith argument made by a Right-winger, will be the first.
DeleteA similar scene was perhaps on display last week - Sure Jan.
ReplyDelete"Tuberville wanted Fauci sent to prison, then later put on trial. Along the way, he claimed that Dr. Fauci "killed millions of people."
ReplyDeleteIn fairness, one claim was clearly true! The Covid pandemic was indeed a catastrophe. But sometimes, catastrophe can also emerge from acts of fury, not excluding acts of tribal rage."
Why does Somerby not plainly state the obvious -- that Fauci did not cause covid and did not cause unnecessary or preventable deaths through his actions fighting covid. That Trump DID cause such deaths by downplaying and mishandling the covid response.
Scapegoating Fauci in order to excuse Trump and to gain political advantage in an upcoming election is despicable. Why can Somerby not say that plainly? In fairness, it is not Tuberville's claim that is plainly true. Of course covid was a catastrophe. That is the most basic fact of 2020. But that doesn't make Tuberville correct about anything he accused Fauci of doing (or not doing), because Fauci didn't cause covid. Fauci deserves no blame. Fauci should not be the focus of Tuberville or any right wing person's rage.
Why can Somerby not say so? We on the left do not simply hold a different opinion, but we have evidence supporting our beliefs about Fauci and covid. Our views are consistent with reality. Tuberville's are not. The right wing is not correct in its efforts to scapegoat Fauci. Somerby is wrong to treat this like a big muddle of a mystery wrapped in an enigma, about which nothing definitive can be stated. That pose may allow Somerby to foist the right wing scapegoating onto the left and Fauci, but it is deceptive, dishonest, incorrect, unfair, and most of all wrong. And this promotes a right wing talking point by pretending that any rage by Republicans has a basis in anything other than political expediency. This has been investigated thoroughly and Tuberville has no excuse for attacking Fauci.
And what about the left wing rage that is engendered by these efforts to steal upcoming elections? Is telling lies OK? Is sliming a man who sacrified to save covid victims OK? No wonder Biden pardoned Fauci, given the way Republicans behave -- as was obvious even to a supposedly demented old man! But Somerby says Tuberville got something right! What a huge gob of horse manure -- may it stick in Somerby's craw.
Tuberville is trying to run for reelection in AL despite living and voting in FL. What a dishonest putz.
DeleteTuberville's got one brain cell in AL and one brain cell in FL, so he's got to run back and forth to rub them together.
DeleteRun, Tommy run!
Prison first, then trial second? Order seems reversed.
DeleteWe have Good Samaritan laws to protect doctors and first responders from being sued after a negative outcome, blamed for something they tried but failed to help with. Without such protections, no one would help in emergencies. I think that applies to people in Fauci's position too, when we had a national emergency.
DeleteNo one is safe from these fascist republican jagoffs.
Delete“sentence first—verdict afterwards"
DeleteWhere have I heard that before?
11:22. Republicans are indeed trying to argue that Dr. Fauci caused the Covid pandemic, by funding research that created the virus. No doubt, Dr. Fauci would like to be as far distant as possible from the idea that 600,000 dollars of NIAID money was ultimately spent on virus gene-altering research in the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Rand Paul would like to assert as fact that such research occurred in that lab. While this has been debated it is not a matter of fact at all. It is patently dishonest to state as fact that gain of function research was ongoing in that lab and caused the pandemic strain of virus., as Paul and other republicans have done. This is entirely separate from the question of whether the pandemic began with a leak of the virus from the lab or instead occurred in nature. It is not debatable, however, that a ban on gain of function research enacted under Obama was lifted during the first Trump term, in 2017, and that the monitoring unit tasked with detecting such events as occurred in the Wuhan district at the start of the pandemic was defunded under Trump.
DeleteAs far as gain of function is concerned, the question is not whether gain of function experiments were done at the WIV (which many experts say there is no evidence of, and others disagree), but whether the COVID SARS virus was produced by such work. Here, the argument is made that the wild type virus was too distant genetically from the pandemic version for that have to occurred. They were 96% alike genetically, with experts indicating that their identities would need to have matched by over 99% for such gain of function work to have resulted in transformation of wild type to pandemic version. So Rand Paul and his cronies argue for an event that is according to many experts extremely unlikely. Bear in mind that in coordination with Trump, republicans have presided over the most egregious assault on science in modern history. They are partisan hacks who have no interest in facts.
DeleteJudge Wine box will be 86'd by 47.
ReplyDelete"It seems to us that we can possibly see ourselves more clearly, at this point, through the auspices of literature. The world is perhaps a bit too much with us, given the relentless madness of the present age."
ReplyDeleteIf Somerby thinks this, he needs to connect his dots. What does a story about a priest's stolen daughter have to do with Rand Paul's lies about Fauci?
Covid was devasting while it was infecting people, then we developed a vaccine and the virus mutated to become less virulent and now it is a still-dangerous but less fatal version of flu. But the experience of the pandemic is leaving other consequences on us as a society. As a rebound, there seems to be a deeper focus on longevity. I believe it led to calling Biden too old, the sale of ridiculous supplements and promises of life-enhancing benefits via quack remedies of many kinds, this bizarre concern on the right with manhood and virility, the push for more babies to be born, a stronger desire to return to good-old-times like the 50s and tradwives, and the swing to conservatism that let Trump back into office (promising to fix everything all-at-once by attacking others). Our country has definitely gotten weirder and I think this is partly a reaction to covid, not just normal Republican assholery. Look at the memes! We are all changed by covid but not in any way that The Iliad can explain (illustrate).
When one gets their insights from storytelling, one tends to have a warped and inaccurate view of human nature.
Delete"but did their furious statements make sense?"
ReplyDeleteIf the answer to this is not obvious, there is something wrong with Somerby. Why does he even ask?
"But as the story continues, he continues to pray to Apollo, and a plague will soon descend on the Achaean camps."
DeleteOh, sure. Covid occurred because Fauci prayed to Apollo. That's the ticket!
The priest wants his daughter back. A plague seems like a very non-specific way to achieve that goal, given that his daughter can also catch the plague. Why not just release her?
What Gods does Somerby think were involved in calling down covid on our heads? What did any of us do to cause it? If it was to strike down Trump (as seems reasonable under the circumstances) why did Trump not die of it when he was so sick he had to be hospitalized after catching covid (and lying about it)?
Is Somerby seriously advocating that references to Gods and prayers of priests over stolen daughters, can explain any of what has happened to our world during covid. There is a slight similarly in that a plague is mentioned in the Iliad, and we had one too back in 2020, but what beyond that is the same? This is such loose thinking that it might be called disordered by some carefully selected psychiatrist analyzing Somerby's beliefs. This is how conspiracy theories are formed, not how real people reason, much less how anyone analyzes literature.
There's a plague in the Iliad and some guy caused it. Gosh, that means it is possible that Fauci may have prayed to his own Apollo and called down the whole covid experience on all of us, even though we are not camped out on a beach trying to regain some stolen wench assigned to Paris by gods in the first place. Everything is much clearer now!
That old priest just wanted to fondle his daughter.
DeleteNo leakage in that sentence...
DeleteWhat does this have to do with the Epstein Files being a Who's Who of the Republican Party?
ReplyDeleteThe angrier, the more irrationally vituperative they are, the more their voters like them -- and they know it, seemingly unlike Somerby, who would immediately jump on his higher-than-Odysseus' horse and righteously scold anyone who DARED suggest it's the hillbillies who vote for these crazy-talking fuckers who are responsible for it.
ReplyDeleteThe refusal of the Achaens to give the priest back his daughter makes it very clear that they are not really on the beach to return Helen. They don't care about the women or about who belongs to who. They clearly are fighting for different reasons than over women, as Somerby claims today. Women are the pretext.
ReplyDeleteThe Iliad is a favorite with the manosphere. They hate women. Perhaps it is the scapegoating of women to excuse their own failures that is at the root of incel hate too, the appeal of this old poem to modern day men. Somerby is focused on Fauci-hate, but he really should examine the hatred of women by the right wing, embodied in the war against women being conducted by Trump. That is the bigger parallel I see in the Iliad, not plague or covid.
The Manosphere and its fascination with The Iliad is discussed here, among other things:
Delete"Men Who Hate Women: From Incels to Pickup Artists: The Truth about Extreme Misogyny and How it Affects Us All" (2021) by Laura Bates
Also discusses the overlap between white supremacists, pedophiles and the manosphere.
If after the first half hour you don’t know who the woman is, you’re the woman.
DeleteIt may not be relevant to the situation.
DeleteWe are all angry that we had to go through the lockdown and covid. That doesn't mean anyone caused it, beyond the ongoing mutation that occurs naturally with viruses, including the cold and flu we are used to.
ReplyDeleteGiven that there is no one specific to hate for giving us covid, people have taken their anger and attached it to immigrants, Trump, Christopher Nolan, and a whole variety of objects close to us or at a distance. Right wingers blamed masks and Democrats for something they didn't clearly understand but which upended their lives.
Even if hating someone like Trump is justified by Trump's actions, the strength of the hate may have extra impetus because of our anxieties over covid, which we are still not over. Trump exploited those anxieties but Republicans seem to be on the path to waking up.
That doesn't explain 2016.
Delete“Republicans seem to be on the path to waking up.”
DeleteAre you insane? They about to crown his fucking lawyer to be AG, and let Trump steal $2 billion taxpayer dollars and grant him immunity for being a fucking tax cheat.
I’m not angry about the measures to slow the spread of covid. I’m angry about Republicans, MAGA, and Trump
Delete.
Laura Ingraham recently called out Fauci as a liar, supplying a video clip in which he was alleged to have said the death rate was 3%, apparently excessive to a more accurate value of 1%. He said that it was estimated at the time at 3%. She clipped out the following sentences in which he said, for specific reasons, that his estimate was 1%. This is what we are dealing with.
DeleteThis is how they are trying to turn the polls for the midterms- get the fever swamps all riled up about the pandemic that Donald J Chickenshit lied to the public about
DeleteLaura Ingraham, known to be a lesbian, once "dated" Lindsey Graham, known to be a gay man.
DeleteTrump likes to wax poetic about men he finds handsome and if they have a big penis he is super impressed, except for Hunter. Trump is known to have an undersized penis.
JD Vance wears eyeliner and nobody knows why.
The typical MAGA woman exudes a certain amount of masculinity.
They all engage in homophobic rhetoric.
Republicans are a bunch of weirdos.
1:33 Yup to all that.
DeleteI have a normal penis.
Delete1:56,
DeleteCongratulations on not being a Right-wing bigot.
"RAGE: Dr. Fauci "killed millions of people?"
ReplyDeleteSomeone who was supportive of Fauci and his work would not make this their headline. Quite a few people only read the headlines, skimming them. They are left with the impression that Fauci may have killed millions without having read the remainder of the essay under that headline. So headlines tend to be "take-away messages" not teasers. This kind of choice by Somerby contributes to my belief that he intends to promote right wing talking points, not blue or liberal views.
Other than 2-3 trolls, everyone agrees with your assessment.
DeleteAs a good troll I reject that assessment.
Delete“The world is perhaps a bit too much with us, given the relentless madness of the present age.”
ReplyDeleteSomerby opts to crawl into a fetal position and immerse himself in pointless excursions into ancient literature, vainly trying to connect the events of the Iliad with today’s fascistic takeover of the US by a despicable bunch of toxic humans known as the Republican Party, not even bothering with attempting to uncover any facts about the unfounded accusations against fauci.
And Somerby decries the apparently uncaused and unspecified madness “of the present age”.
"We lost twenty to thirty thousand people in Alabama alone, and I hope every one of them sues this Dr. Fauci"
ReplyDeleteDead people can't bring lawsuits, Coach.
An odd fact: the Iliad and odyssey, as old as they are, only became known to Western Europe during the 14th century. As AI puts it:
ReplyDelete“ The Iliad and the Odyssey became well-known in Western Europe during the 14th and 15th centuries, sparked by the rediscovery of original Greek manuscripts and accelerated by the first printed Latin and vernacular translations in the 16th century.“
So, a lot of European literature preceded this. It’s hard to see the Iliad as foundational in light of this.
ReplyDelete"Do we the people really want Dr. Fauci behind bars?"
It doesn't matter. He broke the law. At the very least he lied to Congress numerous times. And yes, there's also a small matter of his GOF activities that killed millions of people.
That's why he should be behind bars, not because of some opinion polls.
Idiot jaggoffs and weirdos showing their ass thinking they are scoring points. If the average reading age is 6th grade, what's the chance you're under it?
DeleteFauci should be behind bars because he makes a hell of an old fashion.
DeleteLet's put the child rapists (Republicans) behind bars, first.
DeleteIf you keep repeating it, maybe enough people will come to believe it to make it seem true.
DeleteMy answer to that is at 5:50 above. Your spokesman for the truth, Dr. Rand Paul, is an ophthalmologist who invented his own certification board rather than take a recertification test in his specialty as is standard practice every ten years. Gave himself a test he had concocted. Made up a legitimate sounding name for the medical board he invented. And then got to hang a plaque in his office suggesting to his patients that he was legitimately certified in ophthalmology. This is your beacon of truth. Nice.
ReplyDelete