16 May 2006
Grenoble, France
Dear Colleagues and Friends of CEIMSA,
The struggle for the future, writes communications professor Dr.
Anthony Wilden, must be at the level of strategy, and not
simply tactics. In his book, The
Rules are No Game, he argues that power is never absolute : like
other modes of communication, power is always constrained by codes of
rules. These constraints of system, structure, and strategy are the
rules that are no game.
In this discussion of "the strategy of communication" and "context
theory", Wilden quotes the Russian film maker Sergei Eisenstein whose
1942 book, The Film Sense, makes use of Friedrich Nietzsche's
critique that appears in his essay, The Case of Wagner (1888) :
- What is the characteristic of all literary decadence? It
is that life no longer
- resides in the whole. The word gets the upper hand and
jumps out of the
- sentence, the sentence stretches too far and obscures the
meaning of the
- page, the page acquires life at the expense of the whole
--the whole is no
- longer a whole; it is composite, summed up, artificial, an
unnatural product. (p.204)
Before the debacle of any
goal-seeking open system, Wilden observes, only the most mediocre and
narrowly ambitious arrivistes are attracted to leadership
roles. As the system in which they would lead has no future, their sole
desire
is to advance individually, which requires that they terminate their
solidarity with the system as a whole and with any of the constituent
parts which might serve as a liability to their upward mobility and
their entry into a higher system. What makes this endeavor a tragic
error --a logical fallacy on the level of trying to escape from one's
own shadow-- is that in maintaining and contributing to the expansion
of this system-in-its-last-days a collateral damage continues to be
inflicted on the environment in which the system is operating.
A system which destroys its environment destroys itself.
Wilden's sophisticated multi-disciplinary study of relationships
between goal-seeking open systems in their historic context leads to
the conclusion that non-communication is impossible, but false
information can be created; that awareness of self and of social
context is a capacity of our species, but like rats in a cage, we are
sometimes reduced to experimentation by others. Unlike rats, however,
our species is capable of perceiving context, of experiencing a gestalt
that signifies to them the configuration of the whole and the direction
in which the system of which they are a part is taking them.
It would appear that chimpanzees in laboratory experiments share,
albeit to a lesser degree, this human capacity of understanding social
context.
Item A.
is an article by Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman on the new totalitarianism sent to us by San Diego community
organizer Monty Kroopkin.
Item B.,
from economics professor Richard Du Boff, is an analysis of U.S. military spending in
fiscal year 2004-2005, provided by the prestigious Center for Defense Information.
Item C.
is a well-documented account, sent to us by Professor Edward S. Herman,
of another BIG
LIE, the fourth
international crime committed by the U.S. government in the past
seven years.
Item D.,
from Truthout, is a series of
free access Internet videos, including the massive Mothers' Day
demonstrations in the United States against the continuation of
killings in Iraq.
Item E.,
from criminal law Attorney Robert Rivkin, is news of a new anti-war
voice in the United States, West Point Graduates
Against The War, by James Ryan.
And finally, item F. is an exchange between Francis
Feeley
and U.S. Senate candidate, Michael
Parenti.
NOTE :
We wish to
thank Dr.
Ronald Creagh
and our colleagues in Montpellier for their continued good-humored
support of our scientific efforts here at CEIMSA-IN-EXILE.
Sincerely,
Francis McCollum Feeley
Professor of American Studies/
Director of Research
Université Stendhal - Grenoble 3
http://dimension.ucsd.edu/CEIMSA-IN-EXILE/
_________________
A.
From Monty Kroopkin :
13 May 2006
Subject: The "New Totalitarianism" now defines a desperate neo-con end
game
Francis,
This is my cover note to the free press article. I have sent it to
friends.
It is for publication, as a response to the article.
I think you will find this essay on the "New Totalitarianism" in the
Free
Press interesting:
http://freepress.org/departments/display/20/2006/1946
Monty
San Diego
In a context of the new exposure of the NSA dragnet databases on phone
and email records, it may also suggest the regime extending its
definition of "war on terror" to label all who disagree as "enemies".
Like the Nazis before them, they have not started by arresting the
leading Democrats, but it may just be a matter of time before they get
around to them (and the millions of rank-and-file members of the
Democratic Party will be told their opinions are illegal and punished
if they say anything in public). No. I am not a member of that party.
So I am not making any comment of support for it (I actually
think they are almost as bad as the Republicans). But if you read this
article, and reflect on the history of fascist regimes and also the
history of political repressions in this country (like the Palmer Raids
and the McCarthyism period), you will see my point.
Monty Reed Kroopkin
__________________
B.
from Richard Du Boff :
12 May 2006
Subject: U$A = number 1 and more than half
The Defense Monitor 35 (March/April
2006)
http://www.cdi.org/program/index.cfm?programid=75
http://www.cdi.org/pdfs/novdec04.pdf
See page 2 of the
internet PDF file.
Below is the summary :
Military
Spending: 2004-2005 Worldwide Expenditures
compiled by Wunslow T. Wheeler and
Brett Lincoln
Most of the data used in the military spending
graph shown here were obtained from the most recent edition of the
Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) Yearbook (2005)
and depicts an American defense budget that composes nearly half of
total worldwide defense expenditures for that year. However, data for
the worldwide expenditures and the figure used for U.S. military
spending were obtained from the 2005 U.S. Defense Budget calculated by
Office of Management and Budget, and these figures do not reflect an
additional $25 billion appropriated to the Defense Department in 2005
for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. With that amount included,
the total U.S. military spending would exceed the total defense
spending by the rest of the world combined.
DMMarApr0f:\docume~1\francis\applic~1\qualcomm\eudora\attach\DMMarApr06.pdf6.pdf
__
___________________
D.
from : t r u t h o u t
To: Francis Feeley
Subject: Pentagon Weigh Deploying Troops to US-Mexican Border
Date: Sat, 13 May 2006
FOCUS | Bush, Pentagon Weigh Deploying Troops to US-Mexican Border
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/051306X.shtml
Once again the Bush administration is turning to the military to
help solve a domestic problem. But instead of hurricane aid or
preparations to cope with avian flu, the Pentagon is being asked to
possibly provide thousands of National Guard troops to shore up the US
border with Mexico, as part of President Bush's effort to gather
support for an overhaul of the nation's immigration laws.
VIDEO | A Somber Mother's Day Weekend in DC
A Report by Geoffrey Millard and Scott Galindez
http://www.truthout.org/multimedia.htm
This Mother's Day will not be a time of joy for the almost 2,500
mothers who have lost their son or daughter in Iraq. Many of those
mothers will be in Washington, DC, participating in a weekend full of
activities ranging from a silent march to a 24-hour vigil. TruthOut's
Geoffrey Millard and Scott Galindez are in Washington and will be
sending in video reports throughout the weekend.
VIDEO | Dispatch From North Dakota
A Film by Chris Hume
http://www.truthout.org/multimedia.htm
Even though progressive talk radio is gaining popularity with the
American public, the Christian Right is working hard to silence it.
TruthOut correspondent Chris Hume visits progressive radio host Ed
Schultz in Fargo, North Dakota, to examine this underdiscussed topic.
______________
E.
from Robert Rivkin :
Subject: Fw: West Point Graduates Against The War
Date: Sun, 14 May 2006
Francis,
This is an amazing development -- when West Point graduates,
those trained to grumble about their Commander in Chief in
private, decide to go public with their loathing and
disgust.
Please pass it on.
Bob
- Hello,
- This is a free update from ZNet.
- There is a tendency, too widespread, for activists
to sometimes grasp defeat from the jaws of victory. It is a fatal
mistake. Don't do it.
- We need an urgency that doesn't bow but we also need
a sense of proportion that lets us see progress in a long struggle and
expand it. All over ZNet you will find pieces that not analyze what is,
but that also evidence what might be, what can be done, what people are
doing, and what gains are being made.
- Sometimes the evidence of those gains is
overwhelming and inspiring. Here is an article we received from the
author just a few minutes ago.
-
West
Point Graduates Against The War: Now Is The Time
-
by
James Ryan