Bulletin #197
SUBJECT: ON "THE EMPIRE
STRIKES BACK" : FROM THE CENTER FOR THE ADVANCED
STUDY OF AMERICAN INSTITUTIONS AND SOCIAL MOVEMENTS,
Cosne d'Allier, France
Dear Colleagues and Friends of CEIMSA,
It was in the late 1960's that Lenny Bruce told his
listeners at the Comedy Store in
Today, many of us living amidst the debacle of superpowers
have witnessed the line between realism and surrealism all but vanish. Dewight D. Eisenhower,
Richard M. Nixon, Ronald Reagan, George W. Bush, Arnold Schwartzenegger --these names alone are enough to map
the trajectory of American democracy over the past decades. The new battle cry
of the militant ruling classes is : "War on the poor!" (both at home and abroad). The widely acknowledged shortcomings of Global
Capitalism have given rise to tactics such as preventative wars
and national security legislation which were conceived as a way to
stabilize an increasingly unsteady political economy.
Another tactic essential to this utopian project of
defending capitalism in the face of crises is the rewriting of history in
conformity with familiar Hollywood themes like cowboys & Indians, or like
heroic American war stories with ultimate victories against dark evils in Asia,
Africa and Latin America, or like an idealized corporate social order where
"father knows best", or like the multicultural adventures of the
technologically elite crew on the Space Ship Enterprise, etc., etc....
Fictions such as these must be indistinguishable from real history if social
class conflicts, caused by economic inequalities and political injustices, are
to be successfully ignored by nations of consumers, and even then we must allow
that the intellectual disarming of a people does not always guarantee their
absolute submission to a "new order".
Defenders of the private
profit motive (that shibboleth of capitalist status quo, now enshrined
by neo-liberal ideologues who give
eloquent testimony to the famous French axiom : plus ça change plus c'est la même chose) are doomed to fail, not because they will
be successfully challenged and defeated by socialists or some other organized
opposition, but because the environment in which we all live
--progressives, as well as conservatives and reactionaries-- is being destroyed
by the aggressive political economy which largely governs our everyday
behavior.
Authoritarian capitalism, with its focus on social control and consumerism, is
self-defeating. As an economic system it is ultimately incompatible with life
on this planet. To quote Oscar Wild, when commenting on the wallpaper in the
dismal hotel room in
Frederick Engels' mechanical
19th-century formula attempting to prove that the "cure is in the
disease" --that capitalism must inevitably collapse, and thereby give rise
to a more equitable socialist society-- is no longer tenable. A militant
ruling class is now in hot pursuit of a chimera, and the
"collateral damage" they continue to inflict on all of us is
paradoxically the path to their own destruction, as well. They simply do not
care.
Here at the end of summer, only a few days before classes
resume at the University of Grenoble, our Center for
the Advanced Study of American Institutions and Social Movements shares with
readers articles that we've received most recently giving analytical depth to
some important aspects of American civilization.
Item A. is an article by Steven
Weisman, published in NewPimp Times
and forwarded to us by Professor Richard Du Boff, that deals with the Bush administration's
concern for damage control over his entirely predictable Iraqi fiasco.
Item B. is an essay sent to us
by Professor Edward Herman
on imperialism in
Item C. is an article by
investigative reporter (and sometimes-humorist) Greg Palast
who explains Lance Armstrong's bike ride with President Bush over the grave of
Casey Sheehan in
Item D. is an
essay by historian
Harvey Wasserman, first published last March by Free Press Magazine
and recently sent to us by Grenoble University
graduate student, Mike Arresta, who was part of the
CEIMSA Collective last year that translated Jim Hightower's book, Thieves
in High Places, for our French publisher. Here Mike is struck by
references made by the highly respected conservative
And finally, item E. is a
report sent to us by Dahr Jamail
< http://dahrjamailiraq.com/ >
on the desperate need for doctors this month in the killing fields of northern
Sincerely,
Francis McCollum Feeley
Professor of American Studies/
Director of Research
Université Stendhal-Grenoble III
http://dimension.ucsd.edu/CEIMSA-IN-EXILE/
________________
A.
from Richard B. Du
Boff
Date:
Subject: Repairing
Francis,
Some State Department
officials involved in public diplomacy for many years say that Ms. Hughes's
arrival will simply reinforce practices already being carried out . . . . Edward P. Djerejian,
a former ambassador and White House spokesman . . . headed a task force that
concluded in 2003 that hostility toward the
Richard
==================================
NewPimp Times
Bush Confidante
Begins Task of Repairing
by STEVEN R. WEISMAN
The teams, to be set up in the
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice
said in an interview this week that the units would "work to deal with
misinformation and misinterpretation." During the war in
For instance, Ms. Rice said, the
administration discovered that allegations of Koran desecration at the
"What we found with rapid
response is it does have to be 24-hour and at least a lot of it has to be in
the field, not back in
In addition, State Department
officials say, Ms. Hughes, a former television reporter, plans to lead an
interagency "public diplomacy" operating group, including top public
affairs officials at the Pentagon, and to change the way Foreign Service officers
are evaluated for promotion, placing more emphasis on public relations skills.
Ms. Rice suggested further that the
administration would increase funds for educational exchanges and try to make
it easier to get visas for such programs. This year, the administration has
asked Congress for $430 million to bring students, academics, cultural figures
and others to the
In recent years, State Department
officials say, proportionately more of these programs have been focused on the
Middle East and South Asia, which now account for about 25 percent of the
financing.
Though President Bush and Ms. Rice
promised a revamped "public diplomacy" drive in January, it has taken
months for Ms. Hughes to begin her job, partly because she has wanted to get
her son ready for college. In the summer of 2002, Ms. Hughes resigned from the
White House to take her family back to
Ten days ago, Ms. Hughes laid out
her plans for public diplomacy at a meeting with Mr. Bush at the president's
ranch in
Other officials, asking not to be
identified because the plans are not final, provided some details,
including information about what they said were Ms. Hughes's plans to travel to
She has met with Muslim students,
clerics and academics in
Various independent reports on the
problem of public diplomacy have said that most of
Ms. Rice, in the interview on
Wednesday, said that in the future, more weight would be given to public
diplomacy in the policy-making process but that this did not mean that the
"What I don't want to imply is
that we're going to change policy because it's unpopular," Ms. Rice said.
"It's a hard problem. Public diplomacy isn't going to help us with the
fact that there's still some hard problems that we're
going to have to deal with."
Some State Department officials
involved in public diplomacy for many years say that Ms. Hughes's arrival will
simply reinforce practices already being carried out. Among the officials
consulted by Ms. Hughes is Edward P. Djerejian, a
former ambassador and White House spokesman, who headed a task force that
concluded in 2003 that hostility toward the
Mr. Djerejian
said that in talking with Ms. Hughes and Ms. Rice, it was clear that they
understood that roughly 80 percent of the explanation for the poor American
image stemmed from American policies, but that much could be done to improve
the communication of those policies to affect the other 20 percent.
He said he expected that Ms. Hughes
would more closely track what was said about the
Some State Department officials said
part of the problem in that episode was the difficulty of having the State
Department defending policies on detaining suspected terrorists when the
policies were made by the Pentagon.
Officials at Al Jazeera,
for example, said they invited a Pentagon spokesman to discuss the Koran
allegations but could not get anyone to go on the air. Pentagon public affairs
officials countered that they were unaware of the requests from Al Jazeera.
Mr. Djerejian
said his committee had recommended that a high-level official at the White
House be in charge of the administration's public diplomacy but dropped that
idea when Ms. Hughes was appointed at the State Department because of her
closeness to the White House.
"Conceptually and strategically
they are seized with the importance of this problem," said Mr. Djerejian, referring to Ms. Hughes and Ms. Rice. "They
have the ability to do something about it because they have the ear of the
president."
to
________________
B.
from: Edward Herman
Subject:
Date:
(c) Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1552921,00.html
Francis,
This powerful piece is not likely to
show up in the NYT.
Ed Herman
The
wealth of the west was built on
(
by Richard Drayton
Guardian (
These are timely questions in a
summer in which Blair and Bush, their hands still wet with Iraqi blood, sought
to rebrand themselves as the saviours
of
Beckford's experts estimated
was a useful benchmark, its basis was
mistaken. Not because it was excessive, but because the real debt is
incalculable. For without
Profits from slave trading and from
sugar, coffee, cotton and tobacco are only a small part of the story. What
mattered was how the pull and push from these industries transformed western Europe's economies. English banking, insurance,
shipbuilding, wool and cotton manufacture, copper and iron smelting, and the
cities of
Joseph Inikori's
masterful book, Africans and the Industrial Revolution in
nurtured
In The Great Divergence, Kenneth Pomeranz asked why
The guinea coin paid homage in its
name to the west African origins of one flood of gold.
By this standard, the British pound since 1880 should have been rechristened
the rand, for
There are many who like to blame
It is remarkable that none of those in
that Patrice Lumumba,
its elected leader, needed to "fall into a river of crocodiles".
African slavery and colonialism are
not ancient or foreign history; the world they made is around us in
economic terms that
This universe of risk, part of the
black experience, is the afterlife of slavery. The reverse of the medal is what
WEB DuBois called the
"wage
of whiteness", the world of safety, trustworthiness, welcome that those
with pale skins take for granted. The psychology of racism operates even among
those who believe in human equality, shaping unequal outcomes in education,
employment, criminal justice. By its light, such all-white clubs as the G8
continue to meet in comfort.
Early this year, Gordon Brown told
journalists in
___________
Dr Richard Drayton is a senior
lecturer in imperial and extra-European history since 1500 at
_______________
C.
from: Greg Palast
Date:
Subject: Armstrong Bikes With President Over Sheehan Grave
ARMSTRONG
BIKES WITH PRESIDENT OVER SHEEHAN GRAVE
by Greg Palast
Crawford, Texas - Celebrity bike
champ Lance Armstrong joined President George W. Bush this weekend at the
Crawford Ranch to celebrate the thirtieth day of the President's vigil against
Cindy Sheehan, the mother of a soldier killed in action in Iraq.
Armstrong, fresh from his victory in
the Tour De France, is seen here with Mr. Bush riding across the symbolic
gravesite of Casey Sheehan, deceased Army specialist, son of the bereaved Mrs.
Sheehan.
"We must stay the course,"
said a resolute Mr. Bush who vowed to "extend my vacation as long as
necessary to accomplish this mission" and force Sheehan to give up her
siege of the Western White House.
Armstrong set an upbeat tone when he
said, "You know, I overcame cancer to become a hot-shot biker. It takes hard work and a belief in yourself
that says, "Never give up, never say 'die.'"
A Presidential spokesman said that
given the Commander-in-Chief's limited work schedule and attention span, he
would not have time to see Mrs. Sheehan.
However, a place in the schedule had to be made for Mr. Armstrong
because the celebrity peddler, like the President, has several major corporate
sponsors with urgent needs.
Armstrong said he thought it
inappropriate to politicize the office of the president, noting that his own
appearance at the ranch was arranged by the Discovery Channel, "for craven
commercial purposes only."
Mr. Bush, backing over the symbolic
gravestone, said he understood the difficulty of military families with kin in
________
Greg Palast
is the author of the New York Times bestseller, The Best Democracy Money Can
Buy. Subscribe to his commentaries at www.GregPalast.com.
_______________
D.
from Mike Arresta
Subject: Bush and Rove equals Hitler
Date:
Mr Feeley,
Here's an interesting
article from the Free Press Magazine which unveils some obvious parallels
between Bush/Rove's tactics "to bring democracy
overseas" and Hitler/Goebbels' fascist methods
to shut down what's against their wishes.
Mike
Senator Byrd is
correct to equate Bush with Hitler
by Harvey Wasserman
The U.S. Senate's senior
Constitutional scholar has correctly equated Bush with Hitler, and the usual
attack dogs are howling. But they are wrong, and Americans must now face the
harsh realities of an increasingly fascist and totalitarian GOP.
Octogenarian Senator Robert Byrd of
Anti-Defamation League Director
Abraham Foxman has played the holocaust card for the
Republicans, saying "It is hideous, outrageous and offensive for Senator
Byrd to suggest that the Republican Party's tactics could in any way resemble
those of Adolph Hitler and the Nazi Party.
GOP Chair Ken Mehlman
has labeled Byrd's remarks "reprehensible and beyond the pale,"
remarks joined by Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum. Santorum is best known
for equating sexuality between consenting gays with bestiality between humans
and dogs.
But Byrd is one of the few in either
house of Congress to truly understand the Constitution and to advocate for the
Bill of Rights. He points out that like Hitler, Bush is pursuing a strategy
designed to win absolute rule by one party and one leader. Hitler's central
slogan "Ein Volk, Ein
Reich, Ein Fuhrer" -- one people, one
government, one dictator -- accurately describes the current GOP strategy of
Karl Rove, Bush's Joseph Goebbels.
Now the Republicans have renominated extreme right-wing judges to high courts from
which they were barred prior to the 2004 election. With enhanced majorities in
Congress, the GOP is moving to gut rules put in place to protect the rights of
minorities within the government. For the GOP, as for Hitler, such safeguards
are annoying barriers to absolute power.
These judges are consistent in their
eagerness to protect the power and privilege of private corporations at the
public expense, while simultaneously promoting the invasion of individual
rights by the government. Masquerading as "free market/small
government" advocates, GOP conservatives -- like Hitler's Nazis -- promote
an all-powerful central government run by and for the corporations that sponsor
them while crushing individual rights and liberties.
While Bush advocates for
"democracy" overseas, the GOP is crushing it at home. These judicial
nominees mean to further solidify Republican control of the court system, which
they have added to their grip on the Executive, both houses of Congress and the
media. The GOP is also gutting safeguards within the FBI and CIA, turning them
into a personal police force that could parallel Hitler's Gestapo.
Because the regime wraps itself in
the rhetoric of our democratic roots, it's emotionally difficult for Americans
to equate Bush with Hitler. He is not, after all, running death camps like the
ones Hitler used to exterminate millions of Jews, Gypsies, gays, unionists,
Jehovah Witnesses, the elderly and infirm, birth defected and handicapped. But
the distinction may be lost on the tens of thousands of Iraqis who have died in
the wholesale slaughter there, and whose land has been carpeted with
radioactive depleted uranium which will kill for centuries.
Bush is now operating a classic
concentration camp in
At
Bush now holds some 2.2 million
prisoners in the
Is this worthy of the Nazi label?
Fascism has long been clearly and
simply defined as corporate control of the state, with strong totalitarian,
militaristic, anti-feminist and anti-gay characteristics.
Both Mussolini's Fascists and
Hitler's Nazis used acts of terror and alleged terror to grab absolute power.
Ranting at Bolshevism as the GOP now does against Islam, the Nazis used the
burning of the Reichstag much as the GOP has capitalized on the terror attacks
of September 11.
George W. Bush does not spellbind
huge Goebbels-massed rallies as Hitler did. But he
does not tolerate groups that might ask embarrassing questions, and has packed
the nation's bloviator corps with servile panderers.
Rove uses the mass media to manipulate and deceive in ways suited to the
trappings of American culture as surely as Goebbels
shaped Hitler's speeches to the German volksgeist.
Bush has courted both people of
color and Jews. But his far right fundamentalist backers see all non-believers
as children of Satan who must ultimately perish in a "cleansing"
Armageddon that will allow only the chosen few into Heaven. Amidst the
psychotic twists of the Book of Revelations, these are people who love
The Bush/Rove view of science
parallels that of Stalin. The Soviets slaughtered researchers whose data failed
to confirm their theories. Today's GOP demands scientists fit their findings to
the Bush/Rove gospel. The Bush EPA, Fish & Wildlife Service and other
agencies routinely assault those who challenge corporate destruction of the
earth. Despite the long-standing consensus on global warming, Bush's
faith-based corporate-sponsored climatology insists CO2 emissions are no
problem, the scientific equivalent of claiming the Nazi Holocaust never
happened.
Like Hitler, Bush believes he talks
to and for God. He has said at least twice in public that he does not oppose
dictatorship as long as he can be the dictator. His family
has long, well-documented financial and political ties to the Nazi regime, as
well as to Osama bin Laden and a long list of
oil-rich Islamic fundamentalists.
Senator Byrd's invocation of the
Nazis to describe the Bush regime may be considered impolitic. But it's folly
to ignore the important parallels.
By all accounts American democracy
is hanging by a thin thread which Bush/Rove is laboring mightily to cut.
Sen. Robert Byrd is a conservative,
uniquely learned man. When he equates Bush with Hitler, he speaks with great sadness
and scholarship -- and must be heeded.
As those "W" bumper
stickers morph into swastikas in the killing fields of Guantanamo,
Iraq, and the American prison system, we must, at Sen. Byrd's urging, revive
recent history's most vital vow: "Never Again."
_____________
Many of Harvey Wasserman's relatives
perished in the Nazi holocaust. His HISTORY OF THE
_______________
E.
from Dahr Jamail
Date:
Subject:
This is an appeal written by Iraqi
Doctors concerning
what is happening in western
informative as well as an important appeal.
Operations
in many of these areas are ongoing
today, despite the
fact that this press release is a week
old.
DOCTORS FOR IRAQ
WARNS OF URGENT HUMANITARIAN CRISIS AS US/IRAQI
MILITARY ATTACKS
CONTINUE IN THE WEST OF
As US/ Iraqi military attacks
continue in Haditha, Rawa, Parwana and Heet in the West of
Iraq, Doctors for
Haditha, Rawa and
Parwana have been under attack for the past three
weeks with US/ Iraqi military activities intensifying over the past few days.
The main hospitals in the area are reporting shortages of medicine oxygen, sugerical kits, anti-biotics and
other basic medicines.
Civilians have fled to neighbouring towns and villages such as Ana and are in need
of basic foods, water and shelter. Shop keepers are unable to open their
premises because of the
Eyewitnesses and medical personal
have told Doctors For Iraq that snipers are operating
inside some of the seiged cities. Haditha
hospital estimates that at least eleven civilians were killed during the attack
and 15 injured. The
Local people say that US marines
invaded the town of
Doctors for
The military operations in the West
of Iraq have left the healthcare system paralyzed. Hospitals in the area are
unable to provide sufficient medical services for the population. The new
military attacks are further compounding the suffering of people in the area.
Doctors for
Doctors for Iraqi is calling for an
independent investigation into the serious breaches of the Geneva Convention,
the alleged killing of
civilians and obstructing medical personal
from carrying out there work.
We need urgent medical supplies to
be delivered to the hospitals in the area.
For more information or to find out
how you can send medical aid to the areas contact :
Dr.
Salam Ismael
Salam.obaidi@doctorsforiraq.org
Or Aisha Ismael
Press.officer@doctorsforiraq.org
_______________________
More writing, photos and commentary
at http://dahrjamailiraq.com
********************
Francis McCollum Feeley
Professor of American Studies
Université Stendhal-Grenoble
III
Director of Research at
CEIMSA-IN-EXILE
http://dimension.ucsd.edu/CEIMSA-IN-EXILE/