Bulletin #181
Subject : On
"Socialism or Barbarism?" : from the Center for the Advanced Study of
American Institutions and
Social Movements,
Dear Colleagues and Friends of CEIMSA,
Years ago, as a graduate student at the
University of Wisconsin-Madison, I was part of a team of students working under
Professor Harvey Goldberg, the biographer of Jean Jaurés.
We were preparing a study of the anarchosyndicalist
movement in France at the turn of the century, and our preliminary readings
quickly brought our attention to the anti-war movement at the start of the 20th
Century and which grew during the years before the First World War.
In a series of seminars at Madison we
discussed our readings on the historical context of the French labor movement
and discovered that what was most remarkable about this period in French
history was the courage and creativity of pacifists who broke through the
barriers of virulent French nationalism and religious bigotry in the era of
"Rerum Novarum"
(1891) in order to establish authentic socialist communities and to resist
militarism and war.
On the other hand, the European military
industries were booming by 1910, and to many people
war seemed inevitable. Still there was hope, and the French socialist Jean Jaurés served as a beacon of light to remind workers of
their "historic mission".
The anarchosyndicalists
were woven into tight communities, and working-class intellectuals had a great
influence on cultural formations in French society before and during the First
World War. [My own research of this phenomenon was published under the title, Rebels
with Causes (Peter Lang, 1990).] Nevertheless, war came --and it arrived
with the force of a tsunami, pulling in its wake an
unimaginable debris of death and destruction --more than 30 million
casualties in the period of four years-- and this was only the beginning: the
next war would produce nearly 100 million casualties. [Two very good histories
of this "century of war" are written by Gabriel
Kolko and Eric
Hobsbawm. Both historians have made original
efforts to find the words to describe and analyze this unprecedented level of
violence that boggles the imagination and challenges our very capacity to
understand human behavior.
Today, at the start of the 21st Century,
we are faced with still another challenge. Over the past 50 years, military
technology has developed to such a point that an increasing number of
intellectuals are actually expressing a sober alarm over the dangers which this
technology and its small base of political control present to the survival of
our species (and of many other species, as well). [Please see the CEIMSA
publication of Bill Moyers' recent address at
If the scientific analyses of militarism
before the First World War are any indication, these contemporary warnings bode
ill for the future. Historical evolution is never an automatic mechanism, but
the powerful forces which are available to mobilize war and destruction should
not be underestimated. Anyone who is knowledgeable of what happened in
We at CEIMSA have recently received
several articles which can be recognized as symptoms of a larger, global
problem that is looming over the world today. Samuel Huntington's jingoistic
book, Who Are We : The Challenges to
Below, item A.,
is an article sent to us by our research associate Professor Richard Du Boff on the ideology of Pope
Jean-Paul II during his 27-year tenure as Head of the Roman Catholic Church in
the counter-revolutionary period of Thatcher-Reagan, following the Vietnam War.
Item B. is
an article by British scholar, Terry Eagleton, on the
historical significance Pope
Jean-Paul II.
Item C. offers
readers more on the American politics of sado-masochism
at the Abu Ghraib Prison compound, located
outside of
Item D. is
a report by Jim Hightower (from
Item E. is
a discussion of the criminal conditions children are suffering in
Item F. is
an analysis of the far-flung consequences of defining the terrorist attack of
9/11 as a "War" to be fought, rather than as a "crime" to
be investigated. As a result, the highly profitable construction of a
gulag-style prison system on an international scale will remain part of our
international landscape for the indefinite future.
And finally, item G.,
is a contemporary update on the illegal colonial expansion of
Sincerely,
Francis McCollum Feeley
Professor of American Studies
Director of Research
Université Stendhal-Grenoble
3
http://dimension.ucsd.edu/CEIMSA-IN-EXILE/
__________________________________
A.
Date:
Mon, 4 Apr 2005
From: Richard B. Du Boff
Subject: Media objectivity embalmed
with Pope
[RBD] Media coverage of this great
lover of the virgin (black as she is, in
MEDIA OBJECTIVITY
EMBALMED WITH POPE
by SAM SMITH
- An eight page slobbering special
section in the NY Times, Cokie Roberts oozing from the
True, the Pope opposed a number of
imperial wars by the
But if the Pope had dealt with
blacks the way he dealt with women and gays he would be remembered as a racist.
And if he had been judged by the standards of American corporatism he would
have been considered a failure. During his term, the number of nuns declined byj 48%, the number of priests by 26%. Weekly church
attendance went from nearly 50% of members to 27% and polling found that
Catholics having a "great deal of confidence in those running organized
religion" declined from 47% to 18%, about the same as for those of other
religions.
The Pope repeatedly suppressed
progressive forces within the church and helped to defeat those outside of it -
including forward thinking politicians in this country. His stands on
contraception and abortion resulted in unnecessary death to many and even great
misery to others. Despite what you read in the media, he was not a good Pope
for our times.
[Next, a rare exception to the
hyperbole of most of the press]
Those views were echoed yesterday on
ABC's "This Week" by former New York Gov. Mario Cuomo. "There
are a lot of people who feel that rules with respect to women should have
changed a long time ago," the Democrat said. "And the church does
have the capacity to change. It always haswhen it
felt it necessary. But it takes a long time. There's a lot of impatience with
some Catholics." The Rev. Andrew Greeley, an outspoken critic of the
Catholic hierarchy, accused John Paul of "repression" of
dissent within the church, which he called
"one of the great blunders in Catholic history." "He tried to
stabilize [the church] by resorting to the old techniques of repression,"
Father Greeley told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. "But it didn't work,
and it destabilized the church even more, and it polarized it." Chester
Gillis, a
"If they have friends who are
gay and they think they're very good people, they judge that as more weighty
than the pope's voice," Mr. Gillis said on NBC's "Meet the Press."
One liberal Catholic group We Are Church, issued a statement on John Paul's
death declaring: "The direction in which he took the church internally was
very distressing for those who had hopes for real reform." Similar
criticism was heard from dissident Catholics in other countries. In
FOLLOW ME
- John Paul's greatest papal role
models were apparently a pope from the sixth century and nineteenth-century
Pope Pius IX, who was disparaged by many as
anti-Semitic but whom he beatified. It was during Pius' reign that the Church
had promulgated the doctrine of papal infallibility, which John Paul cherished.
His conservative authoritarianism has polarized both the Church and the world's
view of Catholicism. He is celebrated for his inclusionism;
he had to reach outside the Western world, where the Church's grip is seriously
eroded. He was the 'rock star' pope, a charismatic showman who did not so much
embrace as seduce. He will be remembered for peddling the Church's dogma by
personal appearance, by travelling alot. You can't blame a man for that; I wish my job
involved more international travel. But it is not an achievement in itself, any
more than there was any inherent heroism in being the first Polish Pope.
Catholic intellectualism fared poorly indeed under this pope. He is credited
with contributing to the downfall of Communism, which is quite a stretch in any
sense other than that he came from a former Communist country. His greatest legacy, and it is a dubious one at that, may have been to
hold the line against liberation theology. To put it simply, this was a papacy
in which faith was stood to oppose both justice and thoughtfulness.
Especially because over ninety
percent of the cardinals electing the next pope were appointed by him, he is
likely to be succeeded by another who largely fits the very same mold, ad
infinitum. The Catholic Church grows quickly bankrupt in the Western World.
http://world.std.com/~emg/followme.html
__________________________________
B.
A British Obituary
of Pope John Paul II : The Pope has blood on his hands
by Terry Eagleton
(
John
Paul II became Pope in 1978, just as the emancipatory
60s were declining into the long political night of Ronald Reagan and Margaret
Thatcher. As the economic downturn of the early 70s began to bite, the western
world made a decisive shift to the right, and the transformation of an obscure
Polish bishop from Karol Wojtyla to John Paul II was
part of this wider transition. The Catholic church had
lived through its own brand of flower power in the 60s, known as the Second
Vatican Council; and the time was now ripe to rein in leftist monks, clap-happy
nuns and Latin American Catholic Marxists. All of this had been set in train by
a pope - John XIII - whom the Catholic conservatives regarded as at best wacky
and at worst a Soviet agent.
What
was needed for this task was someone well-trained in the techniques of the cold
war. As a prelate from
Aware
of how little they had won from dialogue with the Polish regime, the bishops
were ill-inclined to bend a Rowan-Williams-like ear to both sides of the
theological conflict that was raging within the universal church. On a visit to
the
Once
ensconced in power, John Paul II set about rolling back the liberal
achievements of
John
Paul, however, acknowledged equality with nobody. From his early years as a
priest, he was notable for his exorbitant belief in his own spiritual and
intellectual powers. Graham Greene once dreamed of a newspaper headline reading
"John Paul canonises Jesus Christ". Bishops
were summoned to
The
result of centring all power in
The
greatest crime of his papacy, however, was neither his part in this cover up
nor his neanderthal attitude
to women. It was the grotesque irony by which the
________
Terry Eagleton is professor of cultural theory at
___________________________
C.
Go directly to our home page:
http://www.truthout.org
The Pentagon's
Secret Stash of Torture Photos
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/040105Z.shtml
__________________________
D.
Date:
From: Jim Hightower Grassroots
Action Network updates@updates.jimhightower.com
Subject: JIM HIGHTOWER'S
COMMON-SENSE COMMENTARIES --
BUSH'S BUREAUCRACY
STIFFS WOUNDED VETS
The scandals of George W's
http://updates.jimhightower.com/ctt.asp?u=1634042&l=85545
________________________________
E.
From: "t r u t h o u t" messenger@truthout.org
Subject: FOCUS - Iraqi Children
Fared Better Under Saddam - Report
Date: Thu,
FOCUS - Iraqi
Children Fared Better Under Saddam – Report
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/033105Z.shtml
________________________________
F.
Go directly to our home page:
http://www.truthout.org
Subject:
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/040105C.shtml
The Rush to War -
What Did Bush Know
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/040105B.shtml
____________________________
G.
Israeli
Attacks
by John Petrovato
Over
the past week American viewers have consumed endless images of Terry Schiavo as she lay on her bed in a vegetative state. Scenes
of protests outside the hospital and multitudes of political pundits on news
programs waded in to give analysis and opinions. People came out in droves to
decry the euthanasia of one woman who has been in a vegetative state for 15
years. As Americans were consumed by the media circus surrounding the case,
unimaginable tragedy for hundreds of thousands of otherwise healthy people
around the world went unnoticed by the media.
Meanwhile,
international organizations such as the United Nations have reported that some
30,000 people are now dying daily from lack of food and water. Further, thousands
more die every day from treatable illnesses. Beyond death caused by poverty,
state-sponsored terror against civilian populations by governments military or
by militia groups is occurring on almost every continent.
Of
personal interest was the upswing of attacks against non-combatant Palestinians
by both the Israeli military as well as Israeli civilians who are illegally
residing in the Palestinian West Bank. While the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
has been a regular segment on
As
reported on numerous Palestinian and international human rights web sites, as
well as by foreign journalists, there has been an upswing of attacks by armed
Israeli civilians against unarmed Palestinian civilians. For instance, on
Friday, March 25, armed groups of Israeli Talmudic settlers from the Yitzar settlement (outside of
Masked
Israeli settlers were also attacking villages in the
Three
young soldiers get out just to stand around and do
nothing, despite the fact that we repeatedly ask, as the settlers begin to kick
and beat us. Not until a grown man has thrown himself on top of our female
American friend and punched her many times in the face, neck and chest, does
one of the soldiers help to get him off of her. Afterwards the soldier decides
to help the man find his glasses. We draw back toward the village with the
shepherds, as the screaming settlers try to get past the soldiers. We phoned
the police as soon as the two youngsters got out of the pick-up, and were
positively surprised that they promised to come quickly. I had heard that the
police often don't really handle cases involving settlers out of fear. My
positive attitude toward the Israeli Police did not last long. It took several
calls before they finally showed up one and a half hour later. We tried to explain
to them what happened, but soon the settlers came driving down again and
started yelling in Hebrew at the police. Before we knew it, the police had
taken our passports, the settlers were going home, and we are on our way to the
police station . (Electronic Intifada,
April 1, 2005).
The
international human rights activists have now been informed that they are not
allowed to return to the area as the masked Israeli settlers charged that the
two activists had beaten them.
Also
in the Hebron area, the villagers of Yatta discovered
that Israeli settlers had placed poisonous feed and pellets on Palestinian
land. Investigated and confirmed by the Christian Peacemaker team, they
reported that many animals have died and others have been injured by the poison.
On a
different level, many towns and areas, such as Balata refugee camp, had been
invaded and harassed by the Israeli military. Daily military incursions into
Palestinian residential areas are common. The result is constant fear of
unwarranted arrests or violence.
With
such occurring on a daily basis it is astonishing to see that most Palestinians
have kept their commitment to non-violence as their choice of resistance. Even
over the past week or so, over a dozen protest marches and demonstrations have
occurred throughout the West Bank.
On
Wednesday, March 30, in commemoration of Palestinian Land Day
, there was over half a dozen demonstrations that occurred. Hannah Mermelstein, a Boston-based activist, wrote of a march that
she and other internationals attended in Salfit:
We
marched with Women for Life , a Salfit
women s group that formed in part to oppose the impending Wall in this region,
to a polluted valley called Wadi Qana.
Surrounded by settlements and outposts, this village was evacuated in the 1980s
and most of the land and water has been stolen or completely contaminated by
sewage from the settlements .
The
Israeli government is doing its own part to dispossess Palestinians from their
land for the benefit of Israeli civilians. Over the past week, it has been
discovered that the Israeli government is in the process of building another
3,500 housing units in the West Bank. Authorized by Ariel Sharon, these housing
units will be located between Maaleh Adumim and East Jerusalem. The project is designed to make
Palestinian claims to Jerusalem less viable. Though Israel had invaded and
annexed Jerusalem in 1967, the international community has refused to accept
its legality. While applauding Sharon s bold moves for removing 5,000 settlers
from the Gaza strip, American leaders have given little attention to the rapid
growth and development of settlements in the Palestinian West Bank. Indeed the
extension of the Gush Etzion settlement in the West
Bank has been designed to take in the settlers who are being evacuated from
Gaza.
Settlement
building and expansions are in contradiction to the internationally backed road
map . Further depressing is the fact that George W.
Bush has made repeated statements of recent saying that large Israeli settlement
blocs in the West bank need to be accepted as a reality for any future peace
deal. This policy statement is in direct opposition to international law and
the 4th Geneva Convention that states that an occupying power cannot transfer
its own population into the territory that it is occupying.
Along
with settlement expansions, Israel continues to build the controversial
Separation barrier throughout the West Bank on Palestinian land, effectively
annexing thousands of acres into the state of Israel. Thus even while it is
widely recognized as illegal under international law, it continues to be built
at an ever quickening pace. For the past few weeks, the wall is being built at
the northern entrance to Bethlehem. The wall has segregated a number of
Palestinian families from Bethlehem leaving them in no-man s land as they are
not Israeli citizens and now have no access to Palestinian areas. The wall has
also destroyed thousands of olive trees and other agricultural properties.
Thus, not
only does the Wall continue to be built on Palestinian land further
impoverishing the indigenous population for the benefit of a select ethnic
group, the continued unchecked violence by both Israeli settlers and their
military against unarmed and non-combatant Palestinian has continued daily. Of
course we must not forget about the hundreds of roadblocks and dozens of
military checkpoints in the West Bank that prevent people from attending
school, going to work, or visiting family.
Of
course the media is generally complicit to uncritical reporting. Most of their
information comes from the Israeli government itself and few reporters leave
Israeli proper or
Francis
McCollum Feeley
Professor
of American Studies/
Director
of Research at CEIMSA-IN-EXILE
http://dimension.ucsd.edu/CEIMSA-IN-EXILE/