Bulletin N° 386

Subject: MORE ON THE "WAR" IN GAZA --"IT'S LIKE SHOOTING FISH IN A FISH BOWL."

      

15 January 2009
Grenoble, France

Dear Colleagues and Friends of CEIMSA,
The stench of manufactured desires and the interventions against authentic pleasures is a Judeo-Christian cultural legacy, which is a menace to life in the rest of the world. We have reproduced this malady for more than 20 centuries. French and American philosophers and philologists, like Michel Foucault, Gilles Deleuze, Felix Guattari and Brian Massumi, have worked to bring us back to our senses. In his book, A User's Guide to Capitalism and Schizophrenia, Deviations from Deluze and Guattari, Communications Professor at l'Université de Montréal, Brian Massumi attempts to interpret and advance the concepts of Deleuze and Guattari, to explain the dynamics of suicidal behaviors within the molar opearations of capitalism.

     Molarization is another word for "fascism". Fascism is a manic attack by the body politic against itself, in the interests of its own salvation. More precisely, it is an attack by the "whole" of society, its image of unity or plane of transcendence, against its "parts," its bodies or plane of immanence. It is desire turned against itself. . . .
     A fascist state is a suicide state. Between the disciplinary mechanisms providing its point of departure and the death frenzy of its end there is less a difference in kind than a difference in degree. There is nothing extraordinary about fascism. It is normality to the extreme, an exacerbation of the constituent tension of identity, an acceleration of the vicious actual-virtual circuit peculiar to the process of social induction. Fascism is social Reason, and Reason is its own revenge.
     Although fascism-paranoia and anarchy-schizophrenia can be conceived as two poles at either end of a continuum of variation, they are not symmetrical. This asymmetry is underlined by the fact that anarchy-schizophrenia effectively encompasses fascism-paranoia. Theirs is not a formal distinction between two binary opposites, but a real distinction between two modes of dynamic interaction and directions of movement. . . .
     Fascism-paranoia, the molar-moral drive of Oedipal desire, works to fashion society into sameness of varying scales --a mise en abyme of homologous organic structures (normality as the embodiment of analogy; being as self-similarity). Fascism-paranoia is the condition known as being in the molar- moral "majority." The image of the cell fits best: its lethal, imperialist process resembles nothing more than a metastasizing cancer. Anarchy-schizophrenia is anoedipal desire that respects the partiality of bodies (their polymorphous
connective potential; their "perversity"; their difference). . . . Its constituents are not discrete if interlocking organs and cells . . . . They are superposable "dense points" (essentially imageless shreds of virtual space-time . . . ).  Anarchy-schizophrenia is "becoming-minor." Since its process is mutational, it can be likened top a virus (it hijacks and scrambles life codes, rather than replicating them wholesale).
     A society --any formation, for that matter-- is an endless tug-of-war between the cancerous limitative body without organs of fascism-paranoia and the viral nonlimitative body without organs of anarchy- schizophrenia, as cosmic principles. The two virtual poles together constitute Desire. 
     . . . "fascism- paranoia" is not a terminological substitute for "fascism" proper. [This] analysis focuses less on a formation's present state . . . than on the vectors of potential transformation it envelops.(Brian Massumi, A User's Guide to Capitalism and Schizophrenia, Deviations from Deluze and Guattari, pp.116-120)

In the 5 items below we offer a look at the last gasps of a failing empire, in all its splendor.

Item A., from Information Clearing House, is a 6-minute vedio of the New York City Jewish community celebrating the blood-let iin Gaza.
Item B., sent to us by Paris professor James Cohen, is a cultural expression against Israeli genocide in Gaza.
Item C., again from Information Clearing House, is a 2-minute photo exhibit of the historic Israeli "power" against men, women and children in Gaza.
Item D. is an article by former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury Dr. Paul Craig Roberts on "the humiliating defeat of United States of America" in the realm of world public opinion.
Item E. is a short article by Spencer Ackerman, first published in the The Washington Independent, on Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's view of Obama in Iran.

And finally, for the real news, we recommend to CEIMSA readers, Independent film-maker, Paul Jay's Internet project at:

and another reliable news source is Aljazeera at:

Sincerely,
Francis McCollum Feeley
Professor of American Studies
Director of Research
Université Stendhal Grenoble 3
http://www.ceimsa.org/


______________________________
A.
from Information Clearing House :
Date: 14 January 2009
Subject: Bomb a ghetto - Raise a cheer.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/

Interview with pro-Israel demonstrators in New York City on January 11, 2009. Click to view
"Wipe Them All Out"

Bomb A Ghetto - Raise A Cheer
(Must Watch 6 Minute Video)


_____________________________
B.
from James Cohen :
Date: 11 January 2009
Subject: a song for Gaza: "We will not go down".
http://www.michaelheart.com/

Francis,
When a spirited song about Gaza by a U.S. singer-songwriter starts making the rounds, could it be the sign that something is beginning to change? Fragile hope perhaps, but just watch and listen:


Thanks to François G. for passing this along. . .  .
Jim


_________________
C.
from Information Clearing House :
Date: 14 January 2009
Subject:
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/

WARNING -This video contains images of the death and destruction caused by Israel's attack on the people of Gaza. Viewer discretion is advised. Continiue


Killing Gaza
When a picture is worth a thousand words
( 2 Minute Video)


____________________
D.
from Paul Craig Roberts :
Date: 14 January 2009
Subject: The humiliation of America.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1855108680327374387

Israeli politicians have been bragging for decades about the control they exercise over the US government. In his final press conference, President Bush, deluded to the very end, said that the whole world respects America. In fact, when the world looks at America, what it sees is an Israeli colony. Continue


The Humiliation of America
by Paul Craig Roberts

“Early Friday morning the secretary of state was considering bringing the cease-fire resolution to a UNSC vote and we didn’t want her to vote for it.” Olmert said. “I said ‘get President Bush on the phone.’ They tried and told me he was in the middle of a lecture in Philadelphia. I said ‘I’m not interested, I need to speak to him now.’ He got down from the podium, went out and took the phone call.”

“Let me see if I understand this,” wrote a friend in response to news reports that Israeli Prime Minister Olmert ordered President Bush from the podium where he was giving a speech to receive Israel’s instructions about how the United States had to vote on the UN resolution. “On September 11th, President Bush is interrupted while reading a story to school children and told the World Trade Center had been hit--and he went on reading. Now, Olmert calls about a UN resolution when Bush is giving a speech and Bush leaves the stage to take the call. There exists no greater example of a master-servant relationship.”

Olmert gloated as he told Israelis how he had shamed US Secretary of State Condi Rice by preventing the American Secretary of State from supporting a resolution that she had helped to craft. Olmert proudly related how he had interrupted President Bush’s speech in order to give Bush his marching orders on the UN vote.

Israeli politicians have been bragging for decades about the control they exercise over the US government. In his final press conference, President Bush, deluded to the very end, said that the whole world respects America. In fact, when the world looks at America, what it sees is an Israeli colony.

Responding to mounting reports from the Red Cross and human rights organizations of Israel’s massive war crimes in Gaza, the United Nations Human Rights Council voted 33-1 on January 12 to condemn Israel for grave offenses against human rights.

On January 13, the London Times reported that Israelis have gathered on a hillside overlooking Gaza to enjoy the slaughter of Palestinians in what the Times calls “the ultimate spectator sport.”

It is American supplied F-16 fighter jets, helicopter gunships, missiles, and bombs that are destroying the civilian infrastructure of Gaza and murdering the Palestinians who have been packed into the tiny strip of land. What is happening to the Palestinians herded into the Gaza Ghetto is happening because of American money and weapons. It is just as much an attack by the United States as an attack by Israel. The US government is complicit in the war crimes.

Yet in his farewell press conference on January 12, Bush said that the world respects America for its compassion.

The compassion of bombing a UN school for girls?

The compassion of herding 100 Palestinians into one house and then shelling it?

The compassion of bombing hospitals and mosques?

The compassion of depriving 1.5 million Palestinians of food, medicine, and energy?

The compassion of violently overthrowing the democratically elected Hamas government?

The compassion of blowing up the infrastructure of one of the poorest and most deprived people on earth?

The compassion of abstaining from a Security Council vote condemning these actions?

And this is a repeat of what the Israelis and Americans did to Lebanon in 2006, what the Americans did to Iraqis for six years and are continuing to do to Afghans after seven years. And still hope to do to the Iranians and Syrians.


In 2002 I designated George W. Bush “the White House Moron.” If there ever was any doubt about this designation, Bush’s final press conference dispelled it.

Bush talked about connecting the dots, but Bush has failed to connect any dots for eight solid years. “Our” president was a puppet for a cabal led by Dick Cheney and a handful of Jewish neoconservatives, who took control of the Pentagon, the State Department, the National Security Council, the CIA, and “Homeland Security.” From these power positions, the neocon cabal used lies and deception to invade Afghanistan and Iraq, pointless wars that have cost Americans $3 trillion, while millions of Americans lose their jobs, their pensions, and their access to health care.

“These obviously very difficult economic times,” Bush said in his press conference, “started before my presidency.”

Bush has plenty of liberal company in failing to connect a $3 trillion dollar war with hard times. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities blames Bush’s tax cut, not the wars, for “the fiscal deterioration.”

Bush told the White House Press Corps, a useless collection of non-journalists, that the two mistakes of his invasion of Iraq were: (1) Putting up the “mission accomplished” banner on the aircraft carrier, which, he said, “sent the wrong message,” and (2) the absence of the alleged weapons of mass destruction that he used to justify the invasion.

Although Bush now admits that there were not any such weapons in Iraq, Bush said that the invasion was still the right thing to do.

The deaths of 1.25 million Iraqis, the displacement of 4 million Iraqis, and the destruction of a country’s infrastructure and economy are merely the collateral damage associated with “bringing freedom and democracy” to the Middle East.

Unless George W. Bush is the best actor in human history, he truly believes what he told the White House Press Corps.

What Bush did not explain is how America is respected when its people put a moron in charge for eight years.


___________________
E.
from The Washington Independent  :
Date: 14 January 2009
Subject: Clinton suggests Obama wants war with Iran.
http://washingtonindependent.com/25144/clinton-confirmation-hrc-on-irans-nuclear-program

Kerry asks about a “bottom line” from Obama: is it acceptable for Iran to have a weapon “or is it simply not desirable?” Clinton: “The President-elect has said repeatedly it is unacceptable.” Will pursue diplomacy “with all its multitudinous tools” but “no option is off the table,” a euphemism for military force.
Clinton Still Hawkish On Iran
Clinton Confirmation Hearing: HRC on Iran’s Nuclear Program
by Spencer Ackerman