Bulletin N° 807
Metropolis
Friz Lang
(1927)
Subject : Listening to the Opposition
and Unplugging “HAL”.
20 June 2018
Grenoble,
France
Dear
Colleagues and Friends of CEIMSA,
I
was recently invited to view the 50th-anniversary showing of Stanley
Kubrick’s famous science-fiction film, 2001: A
Space Odyssey [or also available at : https://www.cda.pl/video/17461305a]. For me it was a time-travel back into the
Anti-Vietnam War era of 1968, back to a time when “the Best and the Brightest”
in the United States government were said to have run amok and were no longer
intellectually reliable. In this film, the mission was compromised when “Hal
9000,” (the
Heuristically programmed ALgorithmic computer) which
orchestrated the operation was suspected of having made a miscalculation and
found itself threatened with extinction for being unreliable. The computer
served as a fictional character and main antagonist in Arthur C. Clarke's Space
Odyssey series before appearing in Kubrick’s A Space Odyssey film, as a sentient computer (or artificial general
intelligence) that controls the systems of the Discovery One spacecraft and
interacts with the ship's astronaut crew.
This
computer of unerring intelligence was thought to be infallible until it made an
apparent error and eventually had to be disconnected, but only after Hal had
caused the annihilation of the entire spaceship’s crew, except for one survivor
who lived to complete Kubrick’s odyssey toward self-discovery. This film
depicts how humanbeings risk becoming victims of their own inventions, which, in
fact, only serve to amplify their innate all-too-human characteristics, in this
case the insatiable quest for power over others. This mere extension of the
human character is enough, however, to wipe out the entire species,
and many other species as well. Kubrick’s account is an ahistorical
depiction of the human condition. It is rich in symbols and makes intuitive
leaps with the help of a stunning soundtrack which skillfully conceals the
overall lack of verisimilitude in his story. The non-verbal message in this
film is unmistakable: the hubris of
mankind will be its undoing! (Full stop.)
There
is no mention of social class conflicts, nor of economic exploitation and the
private profit motive.
At
the time of the Vietnam War, one critique of Kubrick’s new film was that it
ignored entirely capitalist relationships at home and abroad, and instead
seemed to celebrate advanced technology and superior intelligence, until the
collapse (and rebirth?) appeared in a final mystical episode of the film, which
he entitled “Beyond Infinity.” This artistic production was created in the real
social context of violent imperialist war and brave resistance, causing the
death and suffering of millions of people. Kubrick, at the time, seemed to be
indulging in intense “navel gazing,” suggesting no real solution to man’s
imperfections other than perhaps the drive to create better and brighter
leaders.
The common coin on American campuses at this time, however, was the belief that the various forms of violence in the capitalist system could be brought to an end only by the concerted actions of the well-informed victims of this violence themselves, by use of revolutionary force; that benevolent and enlightened leaders living privileged lives could not be entrusted with this important task, no matter how intelligent they appeared to be.
This is the difference between
bourgeois ‘Humanism” and Marxist humanism . . . .
The
25 items below reflect the injustices that have given rise to mass
movements in the United States and abroad and the growing solidarity of these
movements despite the various efforts to subvert them with divisive tactics and
distractions such as scapegoating.
Francis Feeley
Professor emeritus of
American Studies
University
Grenoble-Alpes
Director of Research
University of
Paris-Nanterre
Center for the Advanced
Study of American Institutions and Social Movements
The University of
California-San Diego
a.
The Real Results Of The Trump-Kim Summit
– Freeze For Freeze (And Some Amusement)
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/49642.htm
by Moon Of Alabama
The aftermath of the
Trump-Kim summit in Singapore confirms my early
take on the talks. What both sides committed to is the "freeze for
freeze" agreement North Korea had offered since at least 2015. The U.S.
stops its threatening maneuvers while North Korea stops missile and nuke
testing. Both sides further committed to future talks about a peace treaty in
exchange for some nuclear disarmament
Under pressure from hawks the Trump administration tries to spin
additional Korean concessions into the summit declaration. It claims
that North Korea committed to "verifiable and irreversible" steps. It
is a bad move as that is not the case. Only the written words count.
"[T]he DPRK commits to work towards the complete denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula" is the
binding wording.
In 1970 the U.S. committed itself to its own complete nuclear
disarmament in the Treaty
on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT):
Article VI - Each of the Parties to the Treaty undertakes
to pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of
the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament, and on a treaty
on general and complete disarmament under strict and
effective international control.
Both statements are aspirational.
"To work towards" and to "undertake to pursue negotiations"
are both intentionally vague and of equal determination.
===========
b.
North
Korea Issue is Not De-nuclearization But De-Colonization
by
Ajamu Baraka
The critics had already signaled their strategy for
derailing any meaningful move toward normalizing relations between the United
States and North Korea. Right-wing neoliberals from CNN, MSNBC and NPR are in
perfect alignment with the talking points issued by U.S. Sen. Chuck Schumer
(D-NY) and the Democrat Party that took the position that anything short of the
North Koreans surrendering their national interests and national dignity to the
United States was a win for North Korea.
For much of the foreign policy community, corporate media
pundits and leaders of the two imperialist parties, the issue is North Korean
de-nuclearization. But for the people in Korea and
throughout the global South, the real issue has always been the unfinished
business of ending the war and beginning the de-colonization of the Korean
peninsula.
The interrelated issues of respecting the dignity and
sovereignty of the North Korean nation and engaging in an authentic process of
de-colonization are precisely why the U.S.-North Korean initiative will fail
without a major intervention on the part of the people in the United States
demanding that their leaders commit to diplomacy and peace.
There should be no illusions about U.S. intentions. If U.S.
policymakers were really concerned with putting a brake on the North Korean
nuclear-weapons program, they would have pursued a different set of policies.
Such policies would have created the necessary security conditions to convince
the North Koreans that a nuclear deterrence to the United States was
unnecessary.
===========
c.
What's in Trump's
'Deal of the Century'?
The Answers are
in Plain Sight
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/49653.htm
The White House's peace plan is said to be days away. Meanwhile, Israel
is getting a US nod as it carries on seizing Palestinian land.
by Jonathan Cook
There are mounting signals that Donald Trump’s much-delayed
Middle East peace plan – billed as the “deal of the century” – is about to be
unveiled.
Even though Trump’s officials have given away nothing
publicly, the plan’s contours are already evident, according to analysts.
They note that Israel has already started implementing the
deal – entrenching “apartheid” rule over Palestinians – while Washington has
spent the past six months dragging its heels on publishing the document.
“Netanyahu has simply got on with deepening his hold on the
West Bank and East Jerusalem – and he knows the Americans aren’t going to stand
in his way,” said Michel Warschawski, an Israeli
analyst and head of the Alternative Information Centre in Jerusalem.
“He will be given free rein to do what he likes, whether they
publish the plan or, in the end, it never sees the light of day,” he told
Middle East Eye.
Eran Etzion, a former Israeli foreign
ministry official, agreed: “Israel has a much freer hand than it did in the
past. It feels confident enough to continue its existing policies, knowing
Trump won’t stand in the way.”
===========
d.
From: "IAK Blog" <contact@ifamericansknew.org>
Sent: Thursday, 14 June, 2018
Subject: Shoot-to-cripple policy, Mueller targeting Trump's Israel
ties, surveillance, and more...
|
===========
e.
Bernie Sanders’ Criticism Of Israel Is
Radical.
And He’s Taking It Mainstream
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/49624.htm
by Aiden Pink
===========
f.
Why is the Palestinian Authority attacking Palestinian
protests?
by Yara
Hawari
16 Jun 2018
The
Palestinian Authority is struggling with its loss of legitimacy as it clamps
down on anti-Gaza-sanctions protests.
===========
g.
Acts and Omissions:
The NYT’s Flawed Coverage of the
Gaza Protest
===========
h.
Paris, le 14 juin 2018
Quatre bateaux
de la Flottille de la Liberté
https://jfp.freedomflotilla.org/
venus d'Europe du Nord vont tenter à
nouveau de briser le blocus de Gaza, par mer et voies fluviales.
Après quelques contretemps, deux bateaux de la Flottille de la Liberté
2018, la /Falestine/ et la /airead/,
accosteront
dimanche 17 juin à 14h00
à Paris
En bord de Seine, jardins Tino Rossi
Sous le quai Saint Bernard, à hauteur de l'Institut du Monde Arabe
La presse est chaleureusement invitée et
pourra rencontrer l’équipage
ainsi que des élu.e.s, personnalités, associations et
citoyen.nes.
===========
i.
Le Bureau national de l’AFPS, 17 juin
2018
Des bateaux pour Gaza interdits à Paris
Voir vidéo sur Orient XXI :
https://orientxxi.info/magazine/des-bateaux-pour-gaza-interdits-a-paris,2514
----------------
La Flottille de la Liberté empêchée d’accoster à Paris : une honte pour
la France et pour Paris
Communiqué de l’AFPS, 17 juin 2018
A retrouver avec photos sur :
http://www.france-palestine.org/La-Flottille-de-la-Liberte-empechee-d-accoster-a-Paris-une-honte-pour-la-France
Cette image restera pour longtemps une honte pour la France et une honte
pour Paris. Non, ce n’est pas la marine israélienne qui cette fois
s’attaque à la Flottille de la Liberté pour Gaza, c’est la police
fluviale de la Préfecture de police qui l’empêche par la force
d’accoster à Paris, alors qu’elle avait navigué sans encombre aux
Pays-Bas et en Belgique.
Ce sont deux petits bateaux suédois de la Flottille 2018 qui traversent
cette année l’Europe avant de rejoindre en Méditerranée deux bateaux
plus importants également partis de Suède. En juillet, ils feront route
ensemble vers Gaza pour dénoncer le blocus inhumain de la Bande de Gaza
et apporter leur soutien aux pêcheurs de Gaza victimes des exactions
quotidiennes de la marine israélienne.
300 personnes étaient venues sur les bords de Seine à deux pas de
l’Institut du Monde Arabe pour les accueillir, les soutenir et les
saluer. Le président de l’IMA, Jack Lang, a pu accéder aux quais pour
tenter de les saluer, accompagné de l’ambassadeur de Palestine en
France, Salman Al-Herfi, de Leila Shahid
et de Esther Benbassa,
sénatrice de Paris. Et alors même qu’ils avaient à leur bord Raphaëlle
Primet et Jérôme Gleizes, deux élus.e.s
du Conseil de Paris, et Claude
Léostic présidente de la Plateforme des ONG françaises
pour la
Palestine, les bateaux, cernés et poussés par les vedettes de la police
fluviale, n’ont pas pu s’arrêter ni même ralentir.
C’est une grande colère qui s’est exprimée ensuite par les interventions
de Bertrand Heilbronn, président de l’AFPS, Sarah Katz pour l’UJFP, Eric
Coquerel député PG (groupe France Insoumise),
Jean-Guy Greilsamer pour
BDS France, Esther Benbassa sénatrice EELV de Paris,
Christiane Hessel,
Camille Laîné secrétaire générale du MJCF.
Nous savons que l’ambassade d’Israël est intervenue partout pour
empêcher que l’accueil de ces bateaux puisse se dérouler librement :
c’est déjà en soi un scandale. A La Rochelle, cela n’a pas empêché une
mise à quai du bateau dans de bonnes conditions.
A Paris, nous sommes obligés de constater que les autorités françaises
se sont objectivement rangées du côté des agresseurs. Après le tapis
rouge déroulé le 5 juin par le président de la République sous les pieds
de Benyamin Netanyahou, criminel de guerre, ce sont des attitudes que la
grande majorité de l’opinion française, révulsée par l’ampleur des
crimes commis par l’armée israélienne contre la population de Gaza, ne
peut plus supporter.
Jusqu’à quand et jusqu’où les autorités françaises comptent-elles
assumer une telle honte ?
===========
j.
From: "World BEYOND War" <info@worldbeyondwar.org>.fr>
Sent: Thursday, 14 June, 2018
Subject: Getting corporations to oppose war
|
===========
k.
White Helmets: A tool for
‘regime change’ in Syria
that’s too important to stop funding?
https://www.rt.com/news/429930-white-helmets-tool-funding/
===========
l.
Truth, Lies and Propaganda
US
to Send USD 6.6 mil to While Helmets
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/49636.htm
by KUNA
President Donald Trump authorized
the release of approximately USD 6.6 million on Thursday for the continuation
of the "vital, life-saving operations of the Syrian Civil Defense,
"commonly known as the White Helmets, and the UN's International,
Impartial and Independent Mechanism (IIIM). "The United States Government
strongly supports the White Helmets who have saved more than 100,000 lives
since the conflict began, including victims of Assad's chemical weapons
attacks," said a statement from State Department Spokesperson Heather Nauert. "These heroic first responders have one of the
most dangerous jobs in the world and continue to be deliberately targeted by
the Syrian regime and Russian airstrikes.?" She
added, "The IIIM's work is vital to assisting the investigation and
prosecution of persons responsible for the most serious crimes under
international law committed in Syria since March 2011. "
Nauert affirmed: "Their mandate, collecting and
analyzing evidence of violations of international humanitarian law and human
rights abuses? will help ensure those responsible for
these crimes are ultimately held accountable." (end)
ak.msa
===========
m.
Black Agenda Report
Chaos
in the Imperial Big House
https://blackagendareport.com/chaos-imperial-big-house
by Glen Ford
===========
n.
Trauma at the Texas-Mexico Border: Families Separated,
Children Detained & Residents Fighting Back
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/49645.htm
Video and Transcript
We look at growing outrage over the Trump administration’s
policy of separating immigrant families who cross the U.S.-Mexico border, many
fleeing dangerous conditions and seeking asylum. At least 600 immigrant
children were removed from their parents last month, after Attorney General
Jeff Sessions announced the new rule.
===========
o.
Rev. William
Barber: U.S. Policies on Healthcare, Poverty Are Immoral & a Threat to
Democracy
https://www.democracynow.org/2018/6/15/rev_william_barber_us_policies_on
===========
p.
Blistering U.N.
Report: Trump Administration’s Policies Designed to Worsen Poverty &
Inequality
https://www.democracynow.org/2018/6/15/blistering_un_report_trump_administrations_policies
===========
q.
How the Corporate Media Enslave Us to a
World of Illusions
https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/06/15/how-the-corporate-media-enslave-us-to-a-world-of-illusions/
+
Propaganda, la fabrique du consentement
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FPbxJV4QKso
===========
r.
Yellow Journalism and the New Cold War
https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/06/15/yellow-journalism-and-the-new-cold-war/
===========
s.
How the Last Superpower Was Unchained
American
Wars and Self-Decline
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/49646.htm
by Tom Engelhardt
Think of it as the all-American version of the
human comedy: a great power that eternally knows what the world needs and
offers copious advice with a tone deafness that would
be humorous, if it weren’t so grim. If you look, you can find examples of this
just about anywhere. Here, for instance, is a passage in the New York
Times from a piece on the topsy-turvy Trumpian
negotiations that preceded the Singapore summit. “The Americans and South
Koreans,” wrote reporter
Motoko Rich, “want to persuade the North that
continuing to funnel most of the country’s resources into its military and nuclear
programs shortchanges its citizens’ economic well-being. But the North does not
see the two as mutually exclusive.”
Think about that for a moment. The U.S. has, of
course, embarked on a trillion-dollar-plus
upgrade of its already massive nuclear
arsenal (and that’s before the cost overruns even begin). Its Congress and
president have for years proven eager to sink at least a trillion
dollars annually into the budget of the national security state (a
figure that’s still
rising and outpaces
by far that of any other power on the planet), while its own infrastructure sags and
crumbles. And yet it finds the impoverished North Koreans puzzling when they,
too, follow such an extreme path.
Clueless is not a word Americans ordinarily apply
to themselves as a country, a people, or a government. Yet
how applicable it is.
And when it comes to cluelessness, there’s
another, far stranger path the United States has been following since at least
the George W. Bush moment that couldn’t be more consequential and yet somehow
remains the least noticed of all. On this subject, Americans don’t have a clue.
In fact, if you could put the United States on a psychiatrist’s couch, this
might be the place to start.
===========
t.
A Mysterious Silence Has Surrounded Julian Assange
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-06-12/mysterious-silence-has-surrounded-julian-assange
by Tyler Durden
Julian
Assange remains cut off from the world in Ecuador’s
London embassy, shut off from friends, relatives and thousands of supporters,
leaving him unable to do his crucial work...
===========
u.
Unpersons
The Anti-Empire Report #157
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/49665.htm
by William Blum
===========
v.
Scapegoating Iran
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/49662.htm
by Chris Hedges
Seventeen years of war in the Middle East and what do we have
to show for it? Iraq after our 2003 invasion and occupation is no longer a
unified country. Its once modern infrastructure is largely destroyed, and the
nation has fractured into warring enclaves. We have lost the war in
Afghanistan. The Taliban is resurgent and has a presence in over 70 percent of
the country. Libya is a failed state. Yemen after three years of relentless
airstrikes and a blockade is enduring one of the world’s worst humanitarian
disasters. The 500 “moderate” rebels we funded and armed in Syria at a cost of
$500 million are in retreat after instigating a lawless reign of terror. The
military adventurism has cost a
staggering $5.6 trillion as our infrastructure crumbles,
austerity guts basic services and half the population of the United States lives
at or near poverty levels. The endless wars in the Middle East are
the biggest strategic blunder in American history and herald the death of the
empire.
===========
w.
Et Tu, Bernie?
https://www.truthdig.com/articles/et-tu-bernie-3/
by Chris Hedges
===========
x.
Democratic Lawmakers Join Family
Separation Protests at Detention Centers from Texas to New Jersey
https://www.democracynow.org/2018/6/18/democratic_lawmakers_join_family_separation_protests
Protests have erupted nationwide against the
Trump administration’s new policy of separating children from their parents at
the U.S.-Mexico border. Most of the parents apprehended by Customs and Border
Patrol are now charged with criminal entry—and, in many cases, criminal re-entry—then
taken to jails or prisons to serve their time before they are sent to immigrant
detention centers. In the meantime, their children are being sent to shelters
and foster care programs around the country. The Associated Press reports that
between April 19 and May 31, nearly 2,000 children were separated from their
parents. Hundreds of protesters also met at a family processing center in
McAllen, Texas, where nearly half of all children have been removed from their
parents. And in New Jersey, a group of Democratic lawmakers visited a private
immigrant detention facility in the town of Elizabeth to speak with
asylum-seeking parents held there after they were separated from their
children. Meanwhile, on Sunday, in Houston, people marched in the rain outside
a former warehouse and homeless shelter where the government plans to detain hundreds of separated children, including many who are a
so-called tender age—children who are younger than 12 years old.
===========
y.
America’s ‘War on Terror’ Has Cost
Taxpayers $5.6 Trillion
https://www.thenation.com/article/americas-war-on-terror-has-cost-taxpayers-5-6-trillion/
And
it’s earned us absolutely nothing.