Bulletin N°405

Subject: ON CHANGE FROZEN IN TIME.

27 April 2009
Grenoble, France

Dear Colleagues and Friends of CEIMSA,
According to the Scottish-German Protestant Philosopher, Emmanuel Kant (1724-1804), "pure reason" is an activity which occurs between our ears in a universe devoid of space and time. The real material world exists outside this universe and is subject to laws which do not apply to the world of "pure reason."

The materialist interpretation of history differs from this idealistic understanding of "two worlds." There is only one interrelated world, according to this philosophy of internal relations; that of matter and energy, which generate information and folds of information that are capable of creating additional information and also capable of destroying information. Defining information as "a difference that makes a difference," we discover around us that the act of destroying information can make a difference. A difference that makes no difference is defined as "noise." There is much of that, also, today. [For a materialist analysis of the first appearance of Ethics in Greek philosophy following the Peloponnesian War (431-404 B.C.), see the first chapter of  "Renegade" Kautsky's book, Ethics and the Materialist Conception of History, 1905.]

The creation of post-cold-war ethics.

The "bi-polar" world of ideological struggle fell with the Berlin Wall in November 1989, and with this collapse the Welfare State, that "great compromise," dissolved into thin air. The tensions between "The Soviet Model" and "The American Model" --between state ownership of the means of production and a planned economy under authoritarian control, and the "free market" economy fed by artificial scarcity and private greed-- simply ceased to exist, and all negotiations were "off the table." Quickly, it was seen how the Russian free enterprise system could pulverize Russian society, privatize public wealth, and maintain political control over a benighted people. This became the inspiration of capitalists everywhere, and the new paradigm of a post-modern political economy was born.

However, the hegemonic system of private ownership of capital precipitated greater inequalities, threatening the balance of both the social and natural environments. Eventually, this crisis has re-energized social class struggles outside traditional institutions, which had been built in the course of 20th-century capitalist development. It is the classic story of new wine in old skins ! [I owe a special thanks to Professor Bertell Ollman, for reminding me of his very stimulating discussion of ethics in "Is there a marxian ethic?", chapter 4 of his classic study, Alienation: Marx's Conception of Man in Capitalist Society (1971,1975).]

The unintended stress from these developments gave rise to a new wrinkle in the collective mind of humankind. From this fold, comes a new expression of Ethics, or information organized in such a way as to avoid annihilation and to promote human fulfillment. This is the unintended collective experience, today. The human being is a creature of needs and purposes. We continue to think about our survival and about a life worth living. Our past, and particularly our recent past, informs our strategies for the future. Our future projects do not appear out of thin air; they are grounded in material experiences, however impoverished they may be at the moment. And the tactics we adopt to fulfill our plans comes also from the material reality of experience. Our new way of thinking is a "necessary adaptation," when seen from the future perfect tense.

The wisdom to be gleaned from our collective experience is simply this: As we change our environment, our environment changes us. [For a discussion of the creation of reflexive thought as "power-relations and relations of knowledge," see Gilles Deleuze's books, The Fold: Leibniz and the Baroque (1992), and Foucault (1988).
 

The 5 items below include descriptions of events in the present perfect tense, events which inform us that we had better make use of the new fold that the environment has produced in our collective mind before the cost of inaction rises to insupportable levels of mass destruction.


Item A. is an exchange with William Blum, author of several books, including his classic study of U.S. foreign policy since the Second World War, Killing Hope (2003). Here he seeks to clarify a statement by Ralph Nader which he quoted in his April newsletter, Anti-Empire Report and that I commented on in the previous CEIMSA Bulletin #404.

Item B. is communication from UCSD Professor of Art, Fred Lonidier, on the activities of socially engaged U.S. intellectuals and artists along the Mexican boarder. (versions in Spanish and English)

Item C. is an article by cognitive scientist Dr. George Lakoff of The University of California-Berkeley, on the organic effects of right-wing media propaganda on the American brain.

Item D. is an article by Dahr Jamail on "the horrible truth" about the consequences of President Barack Obama's inactions in Iraq.

Item E. is an article, sent to us by Al Burke, in which Rick Rozoff warns of "the militarization of Europe", along with a copy of Al Burk's "Open Letter of the Swedish foreign policy institute".
 

And finally, we remind readers that the CEIMSA translation into French of Jim Hightower's highly relevant book, Thieves in High Places, Ces truands qui nous gouvernent (2004) in still available in bookstores.



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


_________________
A.
from William Blum :
Date: 12 April 2009
Subject: An exchange with the author William Blum to my disagreement with his use of the Ralph Nader quote [see CEIMSA Bulletin #404.]

Hi Francis,

<<The inescapable fact is that wars are fought when it is profitable and are not fought when it is not.>>

This can be misleading.  The US has fought wars and militarily intervened on many occasions when there was no direct profit to be made from their action.  They've done so to discourage third-worlders from flirting with socialism so as not to give other third-worlders bad ideas.  Cuba is a prime example.

 

<<In place of Chalmers Johnson's concept of  "blowback" and instead of Nader's vision of a "socialist conspiracy" to save capitalism from collapse and from rebellious elements of the population ... ">>

I think you may have misunderstood Nader, and myself.  I don't think he meant it in the way you took it. I certainly didn't.  Behind the current bailout are capitalists using state intervention in the economy, a method usually ascribed to socialists, but that doesn't make the US government socialists of course.  So there's no "socialist conspiracy".  No real socialists are to blame for what's taking place.

Cheers,

Bill Blum

Hi Francis,

<<The inescapable fact is that wars are fought when it is profitable and are not fought when it is not.>>

This can be misleading.  The US has fought wars and militarily intervened on many occasions when there was no direct profit to be made from their action.  They've done so to discourage third-worlders from flirting with socialism so as not to give other third-worlders bad ideas.  Cuba is a prime example.

True the price of "defending democracy" has been high, but I submit it is also profitable to the U.S. arms industries, etc., etc.... (I take Kolko's position on origins of the Cold War.)

<<In place of Chalmers Johnson's concept of  "blowback" and instead of Nader's vision of a "socialist conspiracy" to save capitalism from collapse and from rebellious elements of the population ... ">>

I think you may have misunderstood Nader, and myself.  I don't think he meant it in the way you took it. I certainly didn't.  Behind the current bailout are capitalists using state intervention in the economy, a method usually ascribed to socialists, but that doesn't make the US government socialists of course.  So there's no "socialist conspiracy".  No real socialists are to blame for what's taking place\

Here in France, many Socialist politicians are disreputable opportunists, with no position on Gaza, authoritarianism in the workplace, the military budget, unemployment, the flight of capital, educational reform., etc . . .  It's a top-down kind of "Socialism" (with a capital "S") that is governed by "self-interest" and equates democratic socialism with fascism. It's also racist. There really is very little socialist leadership today in France. The socialist movement needs to be reinvented. You and Nader (for whom I voted in the last election) are doing a fine job. I'll print your reply in my next CEIMSA Bulletin. Thanks for entering into this conversation, and keep up your good work.
best,
Francis



__________________
B.
from Fred Lonidier :
Date: 21 April 2009
Subject: Art and Politics Now...
http://artandpoliticsnow.com/

Francis,
Susan Platt is publishing a book, Art and Politics Now: Cultural Activism in a Time of Crisis

Table of Contents

Introduction

Overview of Book

A brief historiography of socially engaged art since 1930s

Part I Oppositions: Anti War/Anti Oppression

Introduction to Part I: Theoretical Models Edward Said, Frantz Fanon, Marius Babias, Leon Trotsky, Chantal Mouffe, Ernst Laclau, Nicholas Mirzoeff, Iris Rogoff

   1. Arts of Resistance: Grassroots Protest From Anti Globalization to Global War, Allan Sekula, Pepper Spray Productions, 9/11 Memorials, Collectives for Resistance

   2. Art World Shifts: Exhibitions After 9/11

   3. Artists Resist War and Terror I: Atrocities

             Antoni Tapies, Erdag Aksel Alfredo Jaar, Claudia Bernardi, Sue Coe, Selma Waldman, Fernando Botero, Daniel Heymann,              Trevor Paglen

   4. Artists Resist War and Terror II

           Women and War: Cecilia Alvarez, Deborah Lawrence, Martha Rosler, Coco Fusco The Game of Imperialism: Dominic McGill,            Nancy Worthington

   5. Racism and Civil Rights: Two Exhibitions; Six Artists:

           Tanis S'eilten, Flo Oy Wong, Roger Shimomura, Faith Ringgold, Clarissa Sligh, Kara Walker

Part II Border Crossings: Defying Divisions

Introduction Part II: From Border Binaries to Hybridity Edward Said, Third Text, Nicholas Papastergiadis

  6. Biennial Border Crossings: The Istanbul Biennial, Documenta XI  "Around the World in 80 Days"

   7. Crossing Cultural Borders: Palestine, Israel, Lebanon, Iraq and elsewhere

   8. Cultural Oscillations Asia/United States: Masami Teraoka, Maki Tamura; Cai Guo Qiang, Zhi Lin, Hung Liu; Wenda Gu, Xu Bing; Nilima Sheikh, Shazia Sikander; Shirin Neshat

   9. Borderlands: Gloria Anzaldua/Chicana Art, Judy Baca and SPARC, Border Art Workshop/Taller de Arte Fronterizo, Chantal Akerman, Guillermo Gomez Pena, Border Art in the Museum; Maquiladoras: Fred Lonidier, Ursula Biemann, Celia Munoz

  10. Ecologies: Maya Lin, Jaune Quick to See Smith, Helen and Newton Harrison, etc

 

Conclusion

 GMT"
MueblesFino.jpg

___________________
D.
from Dahr Jamail :
Date: 24 April 2009
Subject: MidEast Dispatches: "... The Horrible Truth"
http://www.truthout.org/042409A