Bulletin
N°
847
Paths of Glory
(1h28min)
by Stanley Kubrick
Subject
:
Post-Liberal
Society: The Contest between Authoritarian Fascist and Democratic Socialist Values
for Our Future.
28 May 2019
Grenoble,
France
Dear
Colleagues and Friends of CEIMSA,
The
writings of Ferdinand Céline offer unmistakable insights into the cynical
fascist culture of the 1930s that was preparing for “The End Game.” He writes
towards the end of his first book, Voyage
au bout de la nuit, about the apparent vested
interests in the misanthropic cultural order that Dr. Bardamu
observed in his morbid milieu:
One
evening when my waiting room was almost empty, a priest came in to see me. I
didn’t know the priest, I almost showed him the door.
I didn’t like priests, I had my reasons . . . . Obviously he had something to
ask of me. His voice seldom rose above a certain confidential monotone which,
or so at least I imagined, came from his calling. While he was cautiously preambeling, I tried to form a picture of all he did each
day to earn his calories, all his grimaces and promises, pretty much like my
own… And then, to amuse myself, I imagined him all naked at his alter… It’s a
good habit to get into: when somebody comes to see you, quick, reduce him to
nakedness, and you’ll see through him in a flash, regardless of who it is, you
will instantly discern the underlying reality, namely an enormous, hungry
maggot. It’s good sleight-of-the-imagination. His lousy prestige vanishes,
evaporates. Once you’ve got him naked, you’ll be dealing with nothing more than
a bragging, pretentious beggar, talking drivel of one kind or another. It’s a
test that nothing can withstand. In a moment you’ll know where you’re at. There
won’t be anything left but ideas, and there’s nothing frightening about ideas.
With ideas nothing is lost, everything can be straightened out. Whereas it’s sometimes hard to stand up to the prestige of a man
with his clothes on. Nasty mysteries cling to his clothes.
This Abbé had very
bad teeth, decayed, discolored, ringed with greenish
tartar – in short, a fine case of alveolar pyorrhea. I was going to tell him
about his pyorrhea, but he was too busy telling me things.
. . .
This kind of meticulous observation was a habit, you might say a hobby, of mine. When you stop to
examine the way in which
words are formed and uttered, our
sentences are hard put to survive the disaster of their slobbery origins. The
mechanical effort of conversation is nastier and more complicated than
defecation. The corolla of bloated flesh, the mouth, which screws itself up to
whistle, which sucks in breath, contorts itself, discharges all manner of
viscous sounds across a fetid barrier of decaying teeth – how revolting! Yet
that is what we are adjured to sublimate into an ideal. It’s not easy. Since we
are nothing but packages of tepid, half-rotten viscera, we shall always have
trouble with sentiment. Being in love is nothing, it’s
sticking together that’s difficult. Feces on the other hand make no attempt to
endure or to grow. On this score we are far more unfortunate than shit: our
frenzy to persist in our present state – that’s the unconscionable torture.
Unquestionably we worship nothing more than
our smell. All our misery comes from wanting at all costs to go on being Tom,
Dick or Harry, year in year out. This body of ours, this disguise put on by
common jumping molecules, is in constant revolt against the abominable farce of
having to endure. Our molecules, the dears, want to get lost in the universe as
fast as they can! It makes them miserable to be nothing but “us”, the jerks of
infinity. We’d burst if we had the courage, day after day we come very close to
it. The atomic torture we love so is locked up inside us with our pride.(pp.273-275)
.
. .
Hurry, hurry, don’t
be late for your death. Sickness, the poverty that disperses your hours and
years, the insomnia that paints whole days and weeks grey, the cancer that may
even now, meticulous and blood-spotted, be climbing up from your rectum.
You’ll never have time, you tell yourself!
Not to speak of war, which is also, what with the criminal
boredom of men, ready to rise up from the cellar that poor people shut
themselves up in. Do we kill enough poor people? Not sure… It’s a moot
point… Maybe all those who don’t understand should have their throats cut… And
perhaps others, new poor people should be born, and so forth and so on, until we
get a crowd who
understands the joke, the whole joke… Just as you mow a lawn until the grass is
really right, really soft.(pp.309-310)
.
. .
One of the last scenes towards the end of the book is a taxi ride home, after a visit to a carnival. Dr. Bardamu was planning an orgy with a young nurse, and Robinson and his mistress, when things went terribly awry. Robinson’s girlfriend turned on the two men, accusing them of being cowards. Turning to Bardamu, she shouts:
And him there! I suppose he doesn’t squirt
every time he catches me in a corner! The beast! The sex fiend! I dare him to
say it’s not true! You’re all looking for something new! … You’re jaded, that’s
all. You haven’t even got the courage of your vices! You’re scared of your
vices!
At this time Robinson took it on himself to
answer. By that time he, too, had lost his temper, and he shouted as loud as
she had. “Wrong!. . . I’ve got plenty of courage, as
much as you! . . . only, if you want the whole truth.
. . everything – absolutely everything! – disgusts me and turns my stomach! Not
just you!... Everything!...
And love most of all!... Yours as much as anyone
else’s! … The sentimental tripe you dish out… Want me to tell you what I think
of it? I think it’s like making love in a crapper! Do you get me now?... All the sentiment you trot out to make me stick with
you hits me like an insult, if you want to know… And to make it worse, you
don’t even realize it, you’re the one that’s rotten,
because you don’t understand! … You’ve missed the train! You’re too late! It won(‘t go down any
more, and that’s that! … What a stupid thing to get steamed up about!... Why do you have to make love, considering all the
things that are happening?... All the things we see
around us!...
Or are you blind? … More likely you just don’t give a damn! You wallow
in sentiment when you’re a worse brute than anybody… You want to eat rotten
meat? With love sauce?... Does that help it down? Not
with me!... If you don’t smell anything, it’s your
hard luck! Maybe your nose is stuffed up! If it doesn’t disgust you, it’s
because you’re stupid, the whole lot of you… You want to know what it is that
comes between you and me?... All right, I’ll tell you!
A whole life is what comes between you and me… Isn’t that enough for you?
“My house is clean!” she comes back at him.
“A person can be poor but clean, can’t they? When did you ever see that my
house wasn’t clean? Is that what you’re insinuating with your nasty remarks?... My rear end is clean, Monsieur!...
Maybe you can’t say as much for yourself!... Nor your
feet neither!”
“I never said that, Madelon!
I never said anything like that!... About your house
not being clean!... You see that you don’t understand
a thing!” That was all he could think of saying to calm her down.(pp.399-400)
.
. .
“Would
you listen to him! He insults me worse than garbage
and then he claims he hasn’t said anything! You’d have to kill him to make him
stop lying! Jail isn’t bad enough for a skunk like him! A lousy rotten pimp! …
It’s not enough! What he needs is the guillotine!”
Nothing could stop her. I couldn’t make anything
of what they were saying in the taxi. All I could hear was curses and insults
amid the roar of the motor and the sloshing of the wheels in the wind and rain
that came beating against our door in ferocious gusts.
The air between us was charged with threats; “It’s vile!...”
she said several times. She couldn’t say anything else. “It’s vile!” And then
she raised the stakes double or quits. “You coming?”
She said. “You coming, Léon?
One… you coming? Two...” She waited. “Three?... So you’re not coming?...”
“No,” he said, without moving an inch. He even added: “Do what you like!” That
was an answer of sorts.
She must have moved back a little on the
seat, as far as she could go. I guess she was holding the revolver in both
hands, because when the shot went off it seemed to go straight into his belly.
Then, almost at the same time, there were two more shots, one after the other…
and then the car was full of acrid smoke.
But we kept right on going. Robinson slumped
down on me, sideways, jerking and gasping: “Hep, hep!” and more of the same: “Hep,
hep!” The driver must have heard.
First he slowed down a little to see what
had happened. Then finally he stopped right under a gas lamp.
The moment he opened the door, Madelon gave him a violent push and jumped out. She
scrambled down the embankment and beat it across the fields in the darkness,
right through the mud. I tried to call her back, but she was already far away.(pp.400-401)
Soon,
we find Dr. Bardamu wandering alone beside the River Seine,
pondering the life of his friend, Robinson, who had just been murdered by his
young mistress in a rage against his unrequited love, and now Bardamu attempted to come to terms with this reappearing
figure, which represented his own alter ego and who had plagued him since they had served
in the War together and had crossed paths repeatedly in Africa, America and
southern France.
Maybe
things were a little better than twenty years ago, nobody could say that I
hadn’t made a wee beginning of progress, but there seemed no possibility of my
ever managing, like Robinson, to fill my head with one single idea, just one
superb one, a thought far stronger than death, and of my succeeding, just with
my idea, of exuding joy, carefreeness, and courage
wherever I went. A scrumptious hero!
I’d be a brimful of courage then. I’d be
dripping with courage, and life itself would be just one big idea of courage,
that would be the driving force behind everything, behind all men and things
from earth to heaven. And by the same token there would be so much love that
Death would be shut up inside it with tenderness, and Death would be so
cozy-comfortable in there, the bitch, that she’d finally start enjoying
herself, she’d get pleasure out of love alone with everyone else. How wonderful
that would be! What a production! I was laughing to myself all along on the
river bank, when I thought of all the things I’d have to do if I wanted to
inflate myself like that with infinite resolutions… An idealistic toad! Fever,
you know.(pp.405-406)
The
14 + items below speak to the shifting political culture in our times.
The cultural technicians of the past – including artists, teachers, journalists
– provide sometimes useful information to gain insights into where we are
actually heading. As Noam Chomsky points out in a brief segment below, citing Mark Twain: “History doesn’t repeat but sometimes rhymes.” What is inescapable
is the knowledge that we are in this system and that this system dwells within us, as
well: we cannot escape it, and we cannot change it without changing ourselves. This requires
considerable discussion about what kind of life we really desire and what are
the actual obstacles to this kind of change.
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.
Climate change: ‘We’ve created a civilization
hell bent on destroying itself – I’m terrified’, writes Earth scientist
by James Dyke
===========
b.
How U.S. weapons ended up bombing hospitals
in Yemen
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/51659.htm
by Jonathan Cook
===========
c.
Trump’s
Annihilation Threat to Iran and WWI Déjà Vu
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/51656.htm
by Finian Cunningham
To
crow about wiping out an entire nation is all but declaring war. It’s insane
and criminal. Why has Twitter not shut down Trump’s account? -
The erratic US president has gone from wishing for peace with
Iran to, a few days later, making a veiled threat of nuclear annihilation
against the Islamic Republic.
Donald Trump got on his twitter pulpit at the weekend, warning about the “official end of Iran”.
The configuration of military power in the Persian Gulf, the
heightening of tensions between the US and Iran, and the unhinged aggressive
rhetoric all make a tinderbox situation.
At times, the protagonists have each said they don’t want
war. But just like the slippery slope towards the First World War (1914-18),
the eruption of hostilities can take on a logic of its
own.
Paradoxically, assurances last week from President Trump and his top
diplomat Mike Pompeo that the US “is not
fundamentally seeking a war with Iran” are not in fact all that reassuring.
Neither, it must be said, are assurances from the Iranian
leadership that they also do not want war with the US. Iran’s Foreign Minister
Mohammed Javad Zarif said
there was “no appetite for war”. That may be so, but it’s no guarantee there
won’t be one, especially because the circumstances are so precarious.
In the run-up to the First World War, European leaders were
similarly adamant that war could be avoided. They thought their rationality and
modernity would spare them from catastrophe. Nevertheless, the Europeans
quickly plunged into a conflagration through a chain reaction beyond their
control.
What bodes particularly grave today is the erratic and
incendiary nature of Trump’s rhetoric. At the end of last week he was telling
media that “he hoped” there would not be war with Iran. Indeed, he even alluded
to the possibility of future diplomatic talks with Tehran. Then, over the
weekend, Trump flipped as always and tweeted that if Iran threatened the US “it will be the
official end of Iran”.
+
|
Remember
the Maine! Also the Arizona and the Maddox! |
|
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/51661.htm
by Future of Freedom Foundation
They were three
U.S. vessels that played instrumental rolls in enabling U.S. officials to
embroil the United States into foreign wars.
===========
d.
"Trump’s war whisperer John Bolton
with Wendy Mesley
+
Trump’s Soft Cop-Hard Cop Routine on Iran
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/51634.htm
by Finian
Cunningham
+
US Senate Committee Rejects Bill Requiring
Congress
to Approve Military Op Against Iran
+
"Funding
Terrorism for Peace: US Seeks to Reimburse Taliban
for Peace Talks Expenses"
===========
e.
The
Corporate Media and the “Resistance” to Peace
https://www.blackagendareport.com/corporate-media-and-resistance-peace
by Danny Haiphong
+
Professional
Assange Smearers Finally
Realize His Fate Is Tied To Theirs – C
by Caitlin Johnstone
+
‘Everyone
else must take my place’: Assange in letter from
British prison
https://www.rt.com/news/460215-assange-letter-from-prison/
+
Julian Assange
Indictment Is an Assault on Press Freedom
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/51660.htm
by Wired
The
Trump administration’s position that the Espionage Act should apply here would
have immediate and broadly-felt repercussions far beyond WikiLeaks.
Because however you personally care to classify Assange,
the acts at the heart of this latest indictment mirror those made by
journalists every day. They’re the reason US citizens know about PRISM, and the
Pentagon Papers, and any number of other revelations around abuses of power and
governmental impropriety.
“The
people leaking it are obviously violating their secrecy agreement and breaking
the law, but as long as the journalist doesn’t pay the leaker, or help them
hack passwords, this is what investigative journalists in the national security
community do on a day-to-day basis,” says Bradley Moss, an attorney at Mark Zaid PC who focuses on national security and intelligence
issues. “If they can bring this charge and convict Assange
on it, they can bring it against anyone.”
That’s
in part because the Espionage Act doesn’t carve out any exemptions for
journalists; that protection has come from the First Amendment, and from a recognition among previous administrations that
prosecuting publishers of leaks would set a dangerous precedent. In fact,
Thursday’s charges deal specifically with incidents that occurred in 2009 and
2010, during the Obama administration. The attorney general at the time, Eric Holder,
passed on these same charges for specifically that reason.
“It
was absolutely looked at, and the department ultimately made the decision that
it wasn’t appropriate to charge Assange for
publishing classified information,” says former Obama DOJ spokesperson Matthew
Miller. “Not because he’s a journalist—we didn’t believe he was—but that the
same legal theories you would apply to him could be used against a reporter for
any major media outlet. That was the driving force.”
John
Demers, who leads the Justice Department’s National Security Division,
attempted to draw a distinction between Assange and
traditional media outlets to reporters Thursday. “Some say that Assange is a journalist, and that he should be immune from
prosecution for these actions. The department takes serious the role of
journalists in our democracy,” Demers said. “It is not and has never been the
department’s policy to target them for reporting. But Julian Assange is no journalist.”
Unfortunately,
that distinction doesn’t matter in the eyes of the Espionage Act. A successful
prosecution of Assange would establish a precedent
that publishing sensitive national security materials is a crime, full stop.
From there, the Trump administration—and whoever follows—would be emboldened to
prosecute similar journalistic acts. Not only that; they’d
get to decide who counts as a journalist in the first place.
+
18
Ways Julian Assange Changed the World
https://www.truthdig.com/articles/18-ways-julian-assange-changed-the-world/
by Lee Camp
+
Tide
of Public Opinion is Turning in Assange’s Favor
https://consortiumnews.com/2019/05/27/tide-of-public-opinion-is-turning-in-assanges-favor/
by Joe Lauria
+
From: Bernadette Evangelist
[mailto:bevangelist86@gmail.com]
Sent: Monday, May 27, 2019 4:04 PM
Subject: Reminder: Julian Assange &
Chelsea Manning Thursday Vigil, May 30, 4:30 pm - 6:00 pm
Our weekly vigil to free Julian Assange and Chelsea Manning will be held again this
Thursday, May 30, 2019, 4:30 pm - 6:00 pm.
Vigil to Free Julian Assange
& Chelsea Manning
Thursday, May 30, 2019
4:30 pm - 6:00 pm
British and Swedish Consulates
885 Second Avenue (NW corner @ 47th Street)
New York, NY
It is especially urgent to show our
support after the egregious Espionage Act 17-count indictment issued by the US.
We must stop extradition to the US. We must Free Julian Assange! Public opinion is turning in his favor.
Let’s keep up the momentum. Please join us Thursday!
“,,,
I am unbroken, albeit literally surrounded by murderers, but, the days where I
could read and speak and organize to defend myself, my ideals, and my people
are over, until I am free!
“Everyone
else must take my place. …”
—Excerpt
from Julian Assange letter to Gordon Dimmack, May 13, 2019
Bernadette, Chuck, Zool, Eric, Patricia, and all the other Thursday vigil
participants
#FreeAssangeRally
===========
f.
"Guaidó Out of
Gas"
https://therealnews.com/series/guaido-out-of-gas
with Sharmini
Peries
+
The
Western Media is Key to Syria Deception
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/51664.htm
by
Jonathan Cook
===========
g.
The
End of China Inc?
Al Jazeera English
+
Here's
What Happens if China DUMPS Its $1 Trillion
in US Debt Amid Trade War
https://sputniknews.com/business/201905121074943114-china-us-tbills-fate/
===========
h.
Yellow
Vest violence boils over in Brussels as Europe
braces itself for rise of far-right
by Jack Newman
+
“Yellow
vest” protesters pay tribute at the Communards’ Wall in Paris
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2019/05/27/pari-m27.html
===========
i.
Muellergate, A Report
Review: Who Cooked Up
the 'Russiagate'
Conspiracy?
https://www.blackagendareport.com/muellergate-report-review-who-cooked-russiagate-conspiracy
by Ann Gerrison
===========
j.
Madonna's
Fake Revolution: Eurovision,
Cultural
Hegemony and Resistance
by Ramzy Baroud
+
Israeli
culture minister criticises Palestinian flags at
Eurovision | Eurovision
Agence France-Presse
===========
k.
In
Baltimore and Beyond, a Stolen N.S.A. Tool Wreaks Havoc
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/25/us/nsa-hacking-tool-baltimore.html
New
York Times
+
Former
NSA Whistle-blower William Binney:
Mass
Surveillance State destroys Democracy
with Hanne Nabitu
Herland
===========
l.
From: Jim O'Brien via H-PAD <h-pad@lists.historiansforpeace.org>
Sent:
Thu, 23 May 2019 18:06:03 +0200 (CEST)
Subject:
[H-PAD] H-PAD Notes 5/23/19: Links to recent articles of interest
Links to Recent
Articles of Interest :
"An
Oral History of Trump's Bigotry"
By
David A. Graham, Adrienne Green, Cullen Murphy, and Parker Richards," The
Atlantic, June issue A a very long article based on
documents and interviews, going back to housing discrimination cases in the
1970s.
"The
'Forever Wars' Enshrined" <http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/176567>
By
Andrew J. Bacevich, TomDispatch.com, posted May 23
*Eloquent reflections on a visit to this country's only memorial to its
post-9/11 wars, created by
bikers in the out-of-the-way small town of Marseilles, Illinois. The author,
who grew up in the next down over from Marseilles, is a professor emeritus of
history and international relations at Boston University.
"Russia's
Election Meddling Is Despicable, But Don't Forget Our Own"
<https://fpif.org/russias-election-meddling-is-despicable-but-dont-forget-our-own/>
By
Tom Engelhardt, Foreign Policy in Focus, posted May
22 *Contains an overview of U.S. election meddling and coup attempts since
1945
"Locked
in a Cold War Time Warp"
<https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/05/21/locked-in-a-cold-war-time-warp/>
By
Jeremy Kuzmarov, CounterPunch.org, posted May 21 On
the *New York Times's double standard in regard to
the past histories of Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden in regard to foreign policy.
The author teaches history at Tulsa Community College.
"Ten
Top Differences Between the Iraq War and Trump's
Proposed Iran War"
<https://www.juancole.com/2019/05/differences-between-proposed.html>
By
Juan Cole, Informed Comment blog, posted May 15 The
comparisons show that a war against Iran would be more difficult in multiple
ways. The author teaches Middle Eastern history at the University of Michigan.
"Redacting
Democracy: What You Don't See Can Hurt You"
<http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/176564>
By
Karen J. Greenberg, TomDispatch.com, posted May 14 *On
the expansion of government secrecy to the point where well over a hundred
million documents are unavailable to the public. The author directs the Center
on National Security at Fordham Law School.
U.S.
Press Reaches All-Time Low on Venezuela Coverage"
<https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/05/13/us-press-reaches-all-time-low-on-venezuela-coverage/>
By
Daniel Kovalik, CounterPunch.org, posted May 13 The author teaches International Human Rights at the
University of Pittsburgh School of Law.
"Eric
Hobsbawm, the Communist Who Explained History"
By
Corey Robin, The New Yorker, posted May 9 A review essay on *Eric Hobsbawm: A Life in History" by Richard
Evans.
Corey Robin teaches political science at Brooklyn College and the CUNY Graduate
Center.
"Russiagate Zealotry Continues to Endanger American National
Security"
By
Stephen F. Cohen, The Nation, posted May 8 Asks, "If Venezuela becomes a
Cuban Missile - like crisis, will Trump be free to resolve it peacefully?"
The author is a professor emeritus of history at Princeton University and New
York University.
"Notre
Dame Should Not Be Restored - Let It Stand as a Symbol of a Flawed Way of
Life"
By
Amanda Power, The Conversation, posted May 1 The
author teaches medieval history at St. Catherine's College, University of
Oxford.
"The
Poway Shooter Used an Age-Old Terrorist Tactic. The Media Fell for It"
By
Ibrahim l-Marashi,* *Washington Post, *posted April
29 *The author teaches history at California State
University San Marcos.
__________
*Thanks
to Rusti Eisenberg and Margaret Power for suggesting
articles included in the above list. Suggestions for these occasional lists can
be sent to jimobrien48@gmail.com
<jimobrien48@gmail.com>.*
===========
m.
We Must Confront the “Ultranationalist, Reactionary”
Movements Growing Across Globe
https://www.democracynow.org/2019/5/27/noam_chomsky_we_must_confront_the
with Noam Chomsky
===========
n.
EU
election ANALYSIS: Cut the hysteria, Le Pen is not on her way to French
presidency