The Most Powerful Person in the World? (Wait for It.) It's You.
Retiring the 'great man' theory of history once and for all
Welcome to another episode of my flagship scroll, The Book of Sean M. P.
On Easter Sunday I went outside to smoke some 420 on 4/20. Not more than several tokes in did a family come for an egg hunt on the front lawn of the elementary school—Columbus—on whose front bench I sat. So I moved around the corner to a low stone border between a curved row of plants and another patch of grass and perched there in the sun. It was a beautiful day and even though I was irritated to have to relocate, I was better off for it in the end. That’s a lesson I try always to remind myself of: that change is good, no matter how bothersome it may seem initially. Indeed, it’s the fundamental law of existence.
I note that No Other Land, the Oscar-winning documentary whose name and message inspired one half of my new video series, The Armenian Quarter or No Other Land, recently streamed in the U.S., ending a de facto viewership ban. It’s a brilliant work of guerrilla cinema that shows the degree to which the Israeli state—backed by the U.S.—goes to maintain dominance in the West Bank, ceaselessly killing and injuring residents and destroying homes, schools, businesses, and other foundations of life and society. That level of violence has only been exceeded in Gaza, where the U.S. and Israel continue to defy the U.N. and international law in their war of attrition.
Meanwhile, for anyone who can spare a Lincoln, I’ve launched a “Buy Me a Coffee” as a modest but very meaningful way to appreciate the labor I donate to create all the “free” content on this site. And it’s all free—there are no paywalls here.
On the flip side of the coin, I’m patiently awaiting an angel investor to join my Pantheon, for which you’ll receive both my boundless gratitude and a one-of-a-kind personalized artifact from my archives.
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Now on with the show. <3
Grating Men
Last week Laura Loomer posted to X about the fake beef between Elon Musk and Donald Trump, calling the former “the richest man in the world” and the latter “the most powerful man in the world,” a description of the current POTUS I’ve seen frequently. But that opinion can’t be taken seriously, given that (A) Trump is a pawn of the fascist ideologues who know exactly how to pull his strings and (B) the United States’s own power as a sovereign nation-state is in huge decline, thanks in large part to Trump himself and the democratic backsliding he’s gruesomely emceed for a decade now.
Meanwhile, I’d already been pondering the “great man theory of history” after my buddy Nate Silver mentioned it at the beginning of the week.
And then I saw Bernie Sanders’s insane comment about Martin Luther King Jr., which illustrates the non-starter of the theory perfectly.
Did you know, dear reader, that a single man—“Dr. King”—”defeated racist government officials & ended segregation” all by himself? And that he did it “through disciplined non-violent resistance”?
I didn’t know that, but then again I was a member of the Revolutionary Student Coordinating Committee (RSCC) during my PhD studies in New York, a group intentionally modeled after the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), so what do I know?
And even though Martin’s famous saying that “a riot is the language of the unheard” is deeply reflected in my own analysis of the grave shortcomings of liberal democracy, I stand corrected by Bernie.
Because, after all, Father Knows Best (1955–1960).
I wonder, though, if Bernie is familiar with Ruby Bridges, who integrated a New Orleans elementary school in 1960 as a six-year-old in defiance of the white community.
Or the thousands of marchers from Selma to Montgomery, for whom the National Guard was activated by LBJ—the last time a president overrode the authority of a state in such a way before Trump did it vis-à-vis L.A.
These are the people I picture when I picture historical change and progress.
No great men involved.
Like Mussolini and Stalin
As for that manufactured spectacle between Musk and Trump and the edgelord’s public “meltdown” on X, the consensus term for his performance: Nothing could indict the corporate media’s quicksand coverage of politics more than all the “news” resources devoted to a patently false event orchestrated by arguably the two biggest liars on the global stage. (Talk about great men! Give this tag team a Guinness record! What unbelievable geniuses!)
I mean, the wife of Trump’s deputy chief of staff for policy, Stephen Miller, now works for Elon, so how much of a split between these two fragile white men could there have been?
Instead, the wannabe WWE face-off was yet another shrewd way to divert attention from the White House’s failures domestically and internationally by creating narrative interest and thereby gaining airtime.
Too, it was a shrewd move to distract from the increasingly dangerous game the Israelis and the Americans are playing in Gaza, where in addition to the mercenaries acting as humanitarians and the IDF killing starving aid-seekers, the Netanyahu administration is now arming gangs opposed to Hamas.
As everyone knows, that last desperate move is going to come back to haunt the Israelis, just as the U.S.’s arming of Afghan militants led directly to 9/11.
And by the way: if the Israeli government—that gang of great men—had listened to the “eyes of the army,” 10/7 might not have happened at all.
As for that fake beef between Musk and Trump and the edgelord’s public “meltdown” on X, the consensus term for his performance: Nothing could indict the corporate media’s quicksand coverage of politics more than all the “news” resources devoted to a patently false event orchestrated by arguably the two biggest liars on the global stage. (Talk about great men! Give this tag team a Guinness record! What unbelievable geniuses!)
Brain Break
I finally listened to the Miley album this past weekend and I’m very much digging it, especially the song “Easy Lover” and its video, filmed on the Paramount lot, where I worked a few times during my background-acting days and which I always enjoy passing (as I did twice on Saturday going to and fro my hairstylist Stacie Tabarez’s new salon in Larchmont).
There’s nothing more Hollywood than a studio lot—and there’s no one more Hollywood than Miley, who grew up in the business and managed not just to survive it but to thrive in it.
That context is why I love the album overall, a concept set for which she’s the reference: a showgirl (and femme fatale) for her own gaze and pleasure.
To me that’s as radical an act for a mainstream female artist as Rihanna’s wearing her own apparel line. Few women in the entertainment game get to have such total control over their creativity and image. To see a triumphant vision—and to know the confidence it requires—always inspires.
Odds and Ends, Especially Tight Ones
All the news that’s fit to print, just not in The New York Times, courtesy of Jasper Nathaniel ⬇️ 👊
Finally for this incident of The B.O.S.M.P. — — I draft a lot of posts for X I don’t end up posting. Here’s one from last December that remains of critical importance:
In other words, Palestinians aren’t opposed to the illegal Israeli entity because it’s ostensibly a Jewish state. They’re opposed to it because it’s an illegitimate occupying force that wants to eliminate them from their ancestral homeland.
Now, the Israelis may be opposed to the Palestinians because they’re (predominantly) Muslim, but that would make sense; unlike the fake charge of “anti-Semitism,” Islamophobia is very real.
After all, Islam is the correct interpretation of the Abrahamic tradition and as such makes both Jewish people and Christians highly insecure.
Prophets over profits, I always like to say.
Loving-kindness is cool too.
Ciao for now,
Sean M. P.
ICYMI⥥⥥
Rebirth and the Salesman, or Why I'm Samuel Beckett Again (Take 2)
A Neo daily show on life after Hollywood, Washington, and New York (aka the U.S. of Israel, the world’s leading criminal racket).