The Hannah Arendt Center for Politics and Humanities at Bard
College The Hannah Arendt Center for Politics and Humanities at
Bard College   Fall Conference 2012  'Does the President
Matter?'   SEPTEMBER 21-22, 2012   "It is not in the least
superstitious, it is even a counsel of realism, to look for the
unforeseeable and unpredictable, to be prepared for and to
expect "miracles" in the political realm."  —Hannah Arendt, What
is Freedom?   Politics needs speech and action that can uphold
the truth. It is a political crisis, therefore, when politics
and truth go their separate ways. When politicians can no longer
inspire, they lose their ability to lead and to summon their
citizens to higher and collective ideals.  Who doubts that this
is the case today?  When Rick Falkvinge, founder of the Swedish
Pirate Party, says, "old politicians have lost the ability to
lie to the world," he throws down the gauntlet to politics as
usual. The rise of the Arab Spring, Occupy Wall Street, the Tea
Party, and the Pirate Partie