Harry Belafonte: Iraq & Afghanistan Wars Are "Immoral, Unconscionable and Unwinnable"
Bulletin N°462
Subject : ON COMPETITION, PROFICIENCY AND COOPERATION .
5 October 2010
Grenoble, France
Dear Colleagues and Friends of CEIMSA,
I was reflecting recently on my Calvinist education at a small private university in North Texas. It was a liberal arts education following in the liberal humanist tradition. As undergraduates we read the great European rationalists --Descartes, Spinoza, and Leibniz-- and were encouraged to develop our capacities for reason and for observation following their prescriptions. Each week we were expected to write one or two papers on a given subject, demonstrating our capacity to think rationally and use ideas in a logical manner. Such an education led naturally to participation in the massive anti-war movement of the late 1960s and to acts of solidarity with the various human liberation movements that accompanied it. We simply had not been trained to obey and we enjoyed thinking critically about our lives and about the future.
I remember one exercise some of us undertook in order to formulate our understanding of emotions. We were free to argue what we wanted, and we took from Descartes' "Passions" the idea of six "basic emotions," which could be combined like primary colors to produce other emotions and shades thereof. Like creating the color orange, by combining red and yellow; or green, by mixing yellow and blue, etc., we combined Descartes' "primary" emotions (admiration, love, hate, desire, joy, and sadness) in various ways as a laboratory experiment in the crucible of our sophomoric lives on campus, discovering many other emotions, from these combinations, such jealousy, ressentiment (in the German sense of the word), lust, fear, anger, etc.
This fascination with emotions subsided before the end of the semester, and it became fashionable to formulate syllogisms, projecting precise values onto phenomena which we observed around us and to schematize the logic of relationships, like Leibniz's famous "thought machine". I remember one syllogism that provoked some rather strong emotions on campus:
I was asked recently by graduate students attending my class on "Corporate America" why multimillionaires thought they needed more money. My answer was that they live in a bubble, in which competition is of prime importance. I invited them to understand this mentality by imagining themselves as a chess master playing the game with a beginner. You are asking them to do something that you yourselves would never do. You ask them to stop chasing after higher and higher profits (this is what they do best), and instead to "think globally and act locally" (as we progressives keep repeating), but for capitalists to stop their global search for profits would be "a waste of time" for them, and an end to their identity. That's asking a lot! How many of you, after all, while traveling 130 kilometers an hour toward a rendez-vous at l'Opera de Lyon would pull over and stop your car on the side of the road to help an old lady pick up the tomatoes she had dropped . . . ?
Well, for the capitalist class, we represent that old lady and the tomatoes she dropped are the good jobs we keep loosing. The urgent rendez-vous for capitalists is next quarter's dividends. Their priority here-and-now is to maximize the efficiency of securing what they want the most, i.e. the highest possible profits on their investments. They are in a race, a competition, in which our ordinary lives do not enter into the rules of the game. Our existence, in fact, does not even register on their radar screen, just as the old lady at the side of the road and her tomatoes do not appear on the GPS screen above the dashboard of your car rushing to Lyon.
In her book, How We Became Post-Human: Virtual Bodies in Cybernetics, Literature and Informatics (1999), N. Katherine Hayles criticizes the avant guard right-wing capitalist ideology which is relentlessly seeking to inscribe disembodied information onto us in their permanent war of signs and signals. She describes this grim perspective on the state of the world, where "70% of the population has never used a telephone":
Sincerely,
Francis McCollum Feeley
Professor of American Studies
Director of Research
Université Stendhal Grenoble 3
http://www.ceimsa.org/
____________
A.
from Khaled Labidi :
Date: 30 September 2010
Subject: Link to Michel Collon's analysis of French newspapers concerning Israeli's attack on the Gaza Flotilla.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IP3baDbTGHE
Mr Feeley,
Here is the link of the conference given by Michel Collon on the analysis of the French news papers concerning Israeli attack on Gaza flotilla.
Sincerely yours,
KL
____________
B.
from The Real News Network :
Date: 27 September 2010
Subject: New evidence on execution style murder Furkan Dogan, a 19-year-old US citizen supporting Palestinian families in Gaza.
http://therealnews.com/t2/
The author, Gareth Porter, is a historian and investigative journalist on US foreign and military policy analyst. He writes regularly for Inter Press Service on US policy towards Iraq and Iran. Author of four books, the latest of which is Perils of Dominance: Imbalance of Power and the Road to War in Vietnam.
UN Fact-Finding Mission Says Israelis "Executed" US Citizen Furkan Dogan
by Gareth Porter
Furkan Dogan, a 19-year-old US citizen of Turkish descent, was aboard the Mavi Marmara when he was killed by Israeli commandos.
The report of the fact-finding mission of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) on the Israeli attack on the Gaza flotilla released last week shows conclusively, for the first time, that US citizen Furkan Dogan and five Turkish citizens were murdered execution-style by Israeli commandos.
The report reveals that Dogan, the 19-year-old US citizen of Turkish descent, was filming with a small video camera on the top deck of the Mavi Marmara when he was shot twice in the head, once in the back and in the left leg and foot and that he was shot in the face at point blank range while lying on the ground.
The report says Dogan had apparently been "lying on the deck in a conscious or semi-conscious, state for some time" before being shot in his face.
The forensic evidence that establishes that fact is "tattooing around the wound in his face," indicating that the shot was "delivered at point blank range." The report describes the forensic evidence as showing that "the trajectory of the wound, from bottom to top, together with a vital abrasion to the left shoulder that could be consistent with the bullet exit point, is compatible with the shot being received while he was lying on the ground on his back."
Based on both "forensic and firearm evidence," the fact-finding panel concluded that Dogan's killing and that of five Turkish citizens by the Israeli troops on the Mavi Marmari May 31 "can be characterized as extra-legal, arbitrary and summary executions." (See Report [.pdf] Page 38, Section 170)
The report confirmed what the Obama administration already knew from the autopsy report on Dogan, but the administration has remained silent about the killing of Dogan, which could be an extremely difficult political problem for the administration in its relations with Israel.
The Turkish government gave the autopsy report on Dogan to the US Embassy in July and it was then passed on to the Department of Justice, according to a US government source who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the administration's policy of silence on the matter. The source said the purpose of obtaining the report was to determine whether an investigation of the killing by the Justice Department (DOJ) was appropriate.
Asked by this writer whether the DOJ had received the autopsy report on Dogan, DOJ spokesperson Laura Sweeney refused to comment.
The administration has not volunteered any comment on the fact-finding mission report and was not asked to do so by any news organization. In response to a query from Truthout, a State Department official, who could not speak on the record, read a statement that did not explicitly acknowledge the report's conclusion about the Israeli executions.
The statement said the fact-finding mission's report's "tone and conclusions are unbalanced." It went on to state, "We urge that this report not be used for actions that could disrupt direct negotiations between Israel and Palestine that are now underway or actions that would make it not possible for Israel and Turkey to move beyond the recent strains in their traditional strong relationship."
Although the report's revelations and conclusions about the killing of Dogan and the five other victims were widely reported in the Turkish media last week, not a single story on the report has appeared in US news media.
The administration has made it clear through its inaction and its explicit public posture that it has no intention of pressing the issue of the murder of a US citizen in cold blood by Israeli commandos.
On June 13, two weeks after the Mavi Marmara attack, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs issued a statement saying that Israel "should be allowed to undertake an investigation into events that involve its national security" and that Israel's military justice system "meets international standards and is capable of conducting a serious and credible investigation."
Another passenger whom forensic evidence shows was killed execution-style, according to the OHCHR report, is Ibrahim Bilgen, a 60-year-old Turkish citizen. Bilgen is believed by forensics experts to have been shot initially from the helicopter above the Mavi Marmara and then shot in the side of the head while lying seriously wounded.
The fact-finding mission was given forensic evidence that, after the initial shot in chest from above, Bilgen was shot in the head with a "soft baton round at such close proximity that an entire bean bag and its wadding penetrated the skull and lodged in the chest from above," the mission concluded.
"Soft baton rounds" are supposed to be fired for nonlethal purposes at a distance and aimed only at the stomach, but are lethal when fired at the head, especially from close range.
The forensic evidence cited by the fact-finding mission on the killing of Dogan and five other passengers came from both the autopsy reports and pathology reports done by forensic personnel in Turkey and from interviews with those who wrote the reports. Experts in forensic pathology and firearms assisted the mission in interpreting that forensic evidence.
The account, provided by the OHCHR of the events on board the Mavi Marmara on its way to help break the economic siege of Gaza May 31 of this year, refutes the version of events aggressively pushed by the Israeli military and supports the testimony of passengers on board.
The report suggests that, from the beginning, Israeli policy viewed the Gaza flotilla as an opportunity to use lethal force against pro-Hamas activists. It quotes testimony by Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak before the Israeli government's Turkel Committee that specific orders were given by the Israeli government "to continue intelligence tracking of the flotilla organizers with an emphasis on the possibility that amongst the passengers in the flotilla there were terror elements who would attempt to harm Israeli forces."
The idea that the passenger list would be seeded with terrorists determined to attack Israeli defense forces appears to have been a ploy to justify treating the operation as likely to require the use of military force against the passengers.
When details of the Israeli plan to forcibly take over the ships in the flotilla were published in the Israeli press on May 30, the passengers on board the Mavi Marmara realized that the Israelis might use deadly force against them. Some leaders of the IHH (the Foundation for Human Rights and Freedoms and Humanitarian Aid), which had purchased the ships for the mission, were advocating defending the boat against the Israeli boarding attempt, whereas other passengers advocated nonviolence only.
That led to efforts to create improvised weapons from railings and other equipment on the Mavi Marmara. However, the commission concluded that there was no evidence of any firearms having being taken aboard the ship, as charged by Israel.
The report notes that the Israeli military never communicated a request by radio to inspect the cargo on board any of the ships, apparently contradicting the official justification given by the Israeli government for the military attack on the Mavi Marmara and other ships of preventing any military contraband from reaching Gaza.
According to the OHCHR report, Israeli Chief of General Staff Gabi Ashkenazi testified to the Turkel Committee August 11 that the initial rules of engagement for the operation prohibited live fire except in life-threatening situations, but that that they were later modified to target protesters "deemed to be violent" in response to the resistance by passengers.
That decision apparently followed the passengers' successful repulsion of an Israeli effort to board the ship from Zodiac boats.
The report confirms that, from the beginning of the operation, passengers were fired on by helicopters flying above the Mavi Marmara to drop commandos on the deck.
Contrary to Israeli claims that one or more Israeli troops were wounded by firearms, the report says no medical evidence of a gunshot wound to an Israeli soldier was found.
The OHCHR report confirms accounts from passengers on the Mavi Marmara that defenders subdued roughly ten Israeli commandos, took their weapons from them and threw them in the sea, except for one weapon hidden as evidence. The Israeli soldiers were briefly sequestered below and some were treated for wounds before being released by the defenders.
The OHCHR fact-finding mission will certainly be the most objective, thorough and in-depth inquiry into the events on board the Mavi Marmara and other ships in the flotilla of the four that have been announced.
The fact-finding mission was chaired by Judge Karl T. Hudson-Phillips, Q.C., retired judge of the International Criminal Court and former attorney general of Trinidad and Tobago, and included Sir Desmond de Silva, Q.C. of the United Kingdom, former chief prosecutor of the United Nations-backed Special Court for Sierra Leone and Ms. Mary Shanthi Dairiam of Malaysia, founding member of the board of directors of the International Women's Rights Action Watch Asia Pacific.
The mission interviewed 112 eyewitnesses to the Israeli attack in London, Geneva, Istanbul and Amman, Jordan. The Israeli government refused to cooperate with the fact-finding mission by making personnel involved in both planning and carrying out the attack available to be interviewed.
The Turkish governments announced its own investigation of the Israeli attack on August 10. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon announced the formation of a "Panel of Inquiry" on August 2, but its mandate was much more narrowly defined. It was given the mission to "receive and review the reports of the national investigations with the view to recommending ways of avoiding similar incidents in the future."
____________
C.
from Noam Chomsky :
Date: 16 September 2010
Subject: Ten Strategies of Mass Manipulation.
http://www.zcommunications.org/blog/noamchomsky
Les dix stratégies de manipulation de masses
par Noam Chomsky
[Le linguiste nord-américain Noam Chomsky a élaboré une liste des « Dix Stratégies de Manipulation » à travers les média. Nous la reproduisons ici. Elle détaille l'éventail, depuis la stratégie de la distraction, en passant par la stratégie de la dégradation jusqu'à maintenir le public dans l'ignorance et la médiocrité.]
1/ La stratégie de la distraction
Élément primordial du contrôle social, la stratégie de la diversion consiste à détourner l’attention du public des problèmes importants et des mutations décidées par les élites politiques et économiques, grâce à un déluge continuel de distractions et d’informations insignifiantes. La stratégie de la diversion est également indispensable pour empêcher le public de s’intéresser aux connaissances essentielles, dans les domaines de la science, de l’économie, de la psychologie, de la neurobiologie, et de la cybernétique. « Garder l’attention du public distraite, loin des véritables problèmes sociaux, captivée par des sujets sans importance réelle. Garder le public occupé, occupé, occupé, sans aucun temps pour penser; de retour à la ferme avec les autres animaux. » Extrait de « Armes silencieuses pour guerres tranquilles »
2/ Créer des problèmes, puis offrir des solutions
Cette méthode est aussi appelée « problème-réaction-solution ». On crée d’abord un problème, une « situation » prévue pour susciter une certaine réaction du public, afin que celui-ci soit lui-même demandeur des mesures qu’on souhaite lui faire accepter. Par exemple: laisser se développer la violence urbaine, ou organiser des attentats sanglants, afin que le public soit demandeur de lois sécuritaires au détriment de la liberté. Ou encore : créer une crise économique pour faire accepter comme un mal nécessaire le recul des droits sociaux et le démantèlement des services publics.
3/ La stratégie de la dégradation
Pour faire accepter une mesure inacceptable, il suffit de l’appliquer progressivement, en « dégradé », sur une durée de 10 ans. C’est de cette façon que des conditions socio-économiques radicalement nouvelles (néolibéralisme) ont été imposées durant les années 1980 à 1990. Chômage massif, précarité, flexibilité, délocalisations, salaires n’assurant plus un revenu décent, autant de changements qui auraient provoqué une révolution s’ils avaient été appliqués brutalement.
4/ La stratégie du différé
Une autre façon de faire accepter une décision impopulaire est de la présenter comme « douloureuse mais nécessaire », en obtenant l’accord du public dans le présent pour une application dans le futur. Il est toujours plus facile d’accepter un sacrifice futur qu’un sacrifice immédiat. D’abord parce que l’effort n’est pas à fournir tout de suite. Ensuite parce que le public a toujours tendance à espérer naïvement que « tout ira mieux demain » et que le sacrifice demandé pourra être évité. Enfin, cela laisse du temps au public pour s’habituer à l’idée du changement et l’accepter avec résignation lorsque le moment sera venu.
5/ S’adresser au public comme à des enfants en bas-âge
La plupart des publicités destinées au grand-public utilisent un discours, des arguments, des personnages, et un ton particulièrement infantilisants, souvent proche du débilitant, comme si le spectateur était un enfant en bas-age ou un handicapé mental. Plus on cherchera à tromper le spectateur, plus on adoptera un ton infantilisant. Pourquoi ? « Si on s’adresse à une personne comme si elle était âgée de 12 ans, alors, en raison de la suggestibilité, elle aura, avec une certaine probabilité, une réponse ou une réaction aussi dénuée de sens critique que celles d’une personne de 12 ans ». Extrait de « Armes silencieuses pour guerres tranquilles »
6/ Faire appel à l’émotionnel plutôt qu’à la réflexion
Faire appel à l’émotionnel est une technique classique pour court-circuiter l’analyse rationnelle, et donc le sens critique des individus. De plus, l’utilisation du registre émotionnel permet d’ouvrir la porte d’accès à l’inconscient pour y implanter des idées, des désirs, des peurs, des pulsions, ou des comportements…
7/ Maintenir le public dans l’ignorance et la bêtise
Faire en sorte que le public soit incapable de comprendre les technologies et les méthodes utilisées pour son contrôle et son esclavage. « La qualité de l’éducation donnée aux classes inférieures doit être la plus pauvre, de telle sorte que le fossé de l’ignorance qui isole les classes inférieures des classes supérieures soit et demeure incompréhensible par les classes inférieures. Extrait de « Armes silencieuses pour guerres tranquilles »
8/ Encourager le public à se complaire dans la médiocrité
Encourager le public à trouver « cool » le fait d’être bête, vulgaire, et inculte…
9/ Remplacer la révolte par la culpabilité
Faire croire à l’individu qu’il est seul responsable de son malheur, à cause de l’insuffisance de son intelligence, de ses capacités, ou de ses efforts. Ainsi, au lieu de se révolter contre le système économique, l’individu s’auto-dévalue et culpabilise, ce qui engendre un état dépressif dont l’un des effets est l’inhibition de l’action. Et sans action, pas de révolution!…
10/ Connaître les individus mieux qu’ils ne se connaissent eux-mêmes
Au cours des 50 dernières années, les progrès fulgurants de la science ont creusé un fossé croissant entre les connaissances du public et celles détenues et utilisées par les élites dirigeantes. Grâce à la biologie, la neurobiologie, et la psychologie appliquée, le « système » est parvenu à une connaissance avancée de l’être humain, à la fois physiquement et psychologiquement. Le système en est arrivé à mieux connaître l’individu moyen que celui-ci ne se connaît lui-même. Cela signifie que dans la majorité des cas, le système détient un plus grand contrôle et un plus grand pouvoir sur les individus que les individus eux-mêmes.
______________
D.
from William Blum :
Date: 1 October 2010
Subject: Anti-Empire Report
http://www.killinghope.org/
________________________________________
From: Lora Mariat
Subject: Re: [SAES] Les cours de civilisation américaine sur les médias et les études comparées des actualités.
To: Francis FEELEY <francis.feeley@u-grenoble3.fr>
Monsieur,
Du côté français, je conseillerais aux étudiants d'écouter les émissions de Daniel Mermet dans "Là-bas si j'y suis", que je pense que vous connaissez... Leurs sujets sont très vastes, permettant à chacun d'en trouver un qui l'intéresse, et leurs explications sont destinées à un plus large public (elles sont de fait peut-être plus accessible que certains travaux de spécialistes). Bien que ce ne soit pas une approche comparative comme vous le présentez dans votre mail, une grande partie des émissions, quel que soit le thème abordé, fait référence à la façon dont les médias ont manipulé, dissimulé, exagéré ou détourné les faits (cf. procès Efl, génocide au Rwanda, guerre en Irak, "convictions" humanitaires ou écologiques, fracture coloniale ou encore ceux cités ci-dessous).
Parmi toutes ces émissions très biens faites et très instructives, je conseillerais (concernant le thème des médias et de la manipulation de l'opinion en particulier) ces 4 ci:
- "Les nouveaux chiens de gardes" (avec Serge Alimi, auteur du livre du même nom), traitant de ce dont vous nous avez parlé lors du premier cours, à savoir le contrôle financier des médias par des grands groupes industriels ou des réseaux de connivence entre les personnalités politiques et les principaux journalistes.
http://www.la-bas.org/article.php3?id_article=807
- "Les mots sont importants" (avec deux membres du collectif du même nom), traitant de la façon dont les formulations des journalistes, des instituts de sondage ou des hommes politiques sont toujours prédéterminées par un message et un parti-pris tacite qu'il leur est facile de transmettre par le biais inconscient des mots, de la signification et du langage.
http://www.la-bas.org/article.php3?id_article=1927
- "Oui Oui Oui Oui Oui Oui !!!!!", traitant de la façon dont les médias français ont orienté l'information vers le "oui" au référendum pour la Constitution Européenne (en deux parties).
http://www.la-bas.org/article.php3?id_article=687 (partie 1)
http://www.la-bas.org/article.php3?id_article=688 (partie 2)
- Et évidemment "Propaganda, d’Edward Bernays, ou comment manipuler l’opinion en démocratie", tout est dans le titre : un résumé de la vie et de l'oeuvre d'Edward Bernays, "père de la propagande politique institutionnelle et de l'industrie des relations publiques" (d'après wikipédia).
http://www.la-bas.org/article.php3?id_article=1300
On peut retrouver toutes les autres émissions en fichiers téléchargeables gratuitement sur le site http://www.la-bas.org/.
Voilà mon conseil pour les gens qui, comme moi, ne sont pas spécialistes et qui tentent de s'informer et d'argumenter pour mieux connaître et critiquer.
Cordialement,
Lora Mariat
___________
F.
from Fred Lonidier :
Date: 1 October 2010
Subject: Call for a virtual sit-in on October 7th, 2010, against UCOP and Regents.
[http://occupyca.wordpress.com/2010/08/05/strike-on-october-7th/]
In solidarity with the October 7th Day of Action for Public Education we call for a virtual sit-in of the websites of the Office of the President of the University of California and the UC Regents.
This virtual sit-in will take place for all of October 7th, from 12:00AM the night before to 11:59PM the night of.
We need hosting for this action. Please contact any of us if you can provide hosting for the html files for the action.
Recent actions taken on March 4th by students, faculty, staff and allies around the world were joined online by a virtual sit-in. The swift and violent response to the virtual sit-in from the UC administration and police against Ricardo Dominguez only reveal the effectiveness of the action and must be seen as part of a larger strategy of the criminalization of resistance including the arrest of hundreds of faculty, students and staff around the world who are struggling to redefine what the future of education will be. The UC continues to make efforts to expand the prison-military-education-industrial complex in the face of demands, occupations, strikes and blockades by those willing to put their bodies, physically and digitally, on the line for a better future for education.
By organizing this action, in the tradition of ECD as a distributed tactic as performed by the Electrohippies, the Federation of Random Action and the borderlands Hacklab, we are demonstrating that the hydra has a million heads and Yudof, the Regents and their police cannot stop Electronic Civil Disobedience by putting their boot on the neck of one man. A virtual sit-in is a mass action by thousands of people and we will not be stopped.
More virtual strikes can be expected until:
* The budget cuts across the UC system are turned back
* Those laid off in the past year are rehired
* Charges are dropped and investigations ended against all of those arrested for struggling for the future of their education
Join the actions in the streets, the campuses and the university buildings if you can. If you want to join the virtual sit-in, go here for a list of urls:
http://october7thvirtualsitin.wordpress.com
If you have any questions about this e-action contact:
(alphabetical)
Zach Blas, zachblas@gmail.com
Xandre Borghetti
Micha Cárdenas, azdelslade@gmail.com
Elizabeth Chaney, chaneyeh@gmail.com
John Falchi, pacerjp14@sbcglobal.net
Autumn Hays, autumnhays@ymail.com
Linzi Juliano
Rashne Limki
Bradley Litwin
Benjamin Lotan, benjaminlotan@gmail.com
Luis Martin-Cabrera
Elle Mehrmand, ellemehrmand@gmail.com
If you would like to help organize the action and be added to the list of organizers, email us.
micha cárdenas
Co-Author, Trans Desire / Affective Cyborgs, Atropos Press, http://is.gd/daO00
Lecturer, Visual Arts Department, University of California, San Diego
Lecturer, Critical Gender Studies Program, University of California, San Diego
Artist/Researcher, UCSD School of Medicine
Artist/Theorist, bang.lab, http://bang.calit2.net
blog: http://transreal.org
gpg: http://is.gd/ebWx9
_____________________
G.
from The Real News Network :
Date: 3 October 2010
Subject: European Workers Distance from US Through Action.
http://therealnews.com/t2/
Professor Richard D. Wolff, fresh off a summer lecturing in Greece and France, gives his analysis on the massive European mobilizations and strikes. He also compares the US movement to the European one, and find the European workers to be much more advanced in their struggle.