Bulletin N°576
Subject: ON GODS AND
GOD-PRODUCING FORCES.
1
August 2013
Grenoble,
France
Dear
Colleagues and Friends of CEIMSA,
There
are people who have learned to game the system; there are heroes; then, there are the rest of
us. Those of the first type have finely honed their desire to win and their methods
are relentlessly mathematical, employed without pity. The second type who walk among us today are numerous and yet they are
seldom seen or understood by the rest of us.
We
have been captured by the Tragi-comédie of
bourgeois revolutions from the past to the point of forgetting our relationship
to the environment and to one another; we are too occupied defending our
private property rights and trying to acquire more. Such was the ‘freedom’ and
‘equality’ promised by the defenders of the past bourgeois revolutions which have
shaped our environment these many generations. [For a critique of the
Great English and French revolutions and their bourgeois limitations, see CEIMSA Bulletins # 241,
#507, and #515.]
Joseph
Campbell is one
scholar who has tried to open our eyes to new understandings. In the Prologue of his book, The
Hero with a Thousand Faces,
Campbell writes of experiences and metaexperiences, the
recognition of hidden patterns behind experiences.
Where the moralist (is) filled
with indignation and the tragic poet with pity and terror, mythology breaks the
whole of life into a vast, horrendous Divine Comedy. Its Olympian laugh is not
escapist in the least, but hard, with the hardness of life itself –which, we
may take it, as the hardness of God, the Creator. Mythology, in this respect,
makes the tragic attitude seem somewhat hysterical, and the merely moral
judgment shortsighted. Yet the hardness is balanced by an assurance that all
that we see is but the reflex of a power that endures,
untouched by the pain. (p. 37)
Freeing our mind to see these hidden patterns, and learning to
understand the symbols which reveal them, is the purpose of his book. Describing major obstacles which impede this mental liberation,
Campbell turned to Gilbert Murray’s Preface to Aristotle’s Poetics.
Pity is the feeling which arrests
the mind in the presence of whatever is grave and constant in human sufferings
and unites it with the human sufferer. Terror is the feeling which arrests the
mind in the presence of whatsoever is grave and constant in human sufferings
and unites it with the secret cause. (p.19)
Marxists
might call such “arrested minds” false consciousness. Campbell gives us as a
counter-example to the frozen mind the creativity of Daedalus, the
artist-scientist of Crete --architect of King Minor’s labyrinth, which
contained the monstrous Minotaur (fruit of his Queen’s indiscretion) and
ultimately designer of Princess Ariadne’s liberation
from the shame and horror of her half-brother. Thus, literacy in the symbolic
world of mythology frees one from the mental freeze (l’idée
fixe of the obsédé) which only condemns us to be captured by malevolent gods!
Joseph
Campbell’s lengthy essay is nothing less than a voyage through the domain of
meta-communications --communications about communications, which seeks to expose
the behavior of our species in universal terms, revealing the underlying patters of the mental
activities of humankind. The interaction between the stuff we are made of and
the environment we inherit seems to produce recognizable patterns of thought
reflected in artifacts, which include literature from the earliest times and from
every part of the world.
Obviously,
the deep structure of religious mythologies also occupies a central part of this
study, giving rise to the question: What are the forces which produce these
mythologies and account for their similarities across the planet and throughout
the ages?
The
kindness, the cruelty, the bravery, and the cowardliness of our species are all
captured in these myths. From womb to tomb, the heroes are described in terms
that symbolically reflect the life of Everyman. One comes away from this book
with the inescapable feeling that each of us is acting out a role, and that any
meaningful change in our lives must come from the production of a new theater,
with a new plots, and new character types, henceforth unknown . . . .
The
8 items below offer readers an opportunity to judge the nature of their
Item A., sent to us by University of Pennsylvania Professor Edward S. Herman, is a remarkable 2-minute video speech given in 2006 by former CIA Director James Woolsey, announcing the CIA’s intention “to use Islamists to subvert régimes in Egypt, Libya, and Syria”.
Item B., sent to us by Mark Crispin Miller, founder of Notes
from the Underground, is an exposé of a successful corporate war-room manual on how they screw the left : Targeting 'Radicals, Idealists, Realists,
and Opportunists’.
Item C. from Reader Supporrted News, is an article by Chris Hedges on the ritual sacrafice of Truth in the US media.
Item D., from The Real News Network, is a video
interview with Jay Costa,
program director of MapLight's web and data projects,
and previously serving on San Francisco's Sunshine Ordinance Task Force,
chairing the group's Education, Outreach and Training Committee, and also on
Berkeley's Fair Campaign Practices Commission and Open Government Commission.
Here he speaks of the US Military industry’s role in the Information War now underway in the United States.
Item
E., sent to us by George
Kenney, founder of Electric Politics,
is an audio interview with University of Oklahoma Professor Joshua
Landis
on US intervention in Syria.
Item
F., from Historians Against the War activist, Dr. Jim O’Brien, is an invitation to sign the petition
against US military intervention in Syria.
Item
G. , from Truth Out,
is an article by Noam Chomsky, on Latin American support of Edward Snowden.
And
finally, we offer readers a look at recent developments in the
Palestinian/Zionist struggle:
New Mideast Talks Hang on Old Question: Will
U.S. Drop Support for Israeli Annexation of West Bank?
Sincerely,
Francis
Feeley
Professor
of American Studies
University
of Grenoble-3
Director
of Research
University
of Paris-Nanterre
Center
for the Advanced Study of American Institutions and Social Movements
The
University of California-San Diego
http://dimension.ucsd.edu/CEIMSA-IN-EXILE/
_______________
A.
From Edward Herman :
Date: 30 July 2013
Subject: Former Head of CIA announces in 2006 intention to use Islamists to subvert régimes in Egypt, Libya, and Syria.
For
those who have a shred of doubt about the role our government has played in
destabilizing Libya, Egypt and Syria.
ed
James
Woolsey, former head of CIA -- and eminent member of JINSA, the Jewish
Institute of National Security Affairs in Washington -- announces in
2006 intention to use Islamists to subvert régimes in Egypt, Libya, and
Syria. See :
“Iraq and the War on Terrorism”
( سنصنــع لهــم إسلامــاً يناسبنــا )
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=izY5vLpRf10
_______________
B.
From Mark
Crispin Miller :
Date: 30 July 2013
Subject: The Corporate war-room manual on how they screw the left.
From Steve Horn:
Hi All:
Below is part
two of an investigative series I'm working on that explains how information
warfare vs. activists works, using the example of Stratfor (Strategic Forecasting, Inc.), formerly known as Mongoven,
Biscoe & Duchin/Pagan International. The 4-step
formula Stratfor utilizes is fascinating and actually
a brilliant sociological framework and has stood the test of time, as seen via
the Wikileaks "Global Intelligence
Files."
Please do check
it out and pass it along to your networks! Cross-posts are welcome, but please
URL link it back to the original on Mint Press News. .
Thanks,
Steve
How To Wage War vs. Grassroots
Activists:
Stratfor’s Strategies
by Steve Horn
‘Radicals, Idealists, Realists,
Opportunists’
While its client work was
noteworthy, the formula Duchin created to divide and
conquer activist movements — a regurgitation of what he learned while working
under the mentorship of Rafael Pagan — has stood the test of time. It is still
employed to this day by Stratfor.
Duchin replaced Pagan’s “fanatic activist leaders” with “radicals”
and created a three-step formula to divide and conquer activists by breaking
them up into four subtypes, as described in a 1991 speech delivered to the National Cattleman’s Association titled,
“Take an Activist Apart and What Do You Have? And How Do You Deal with Him/Her?”
The subtypes: “radicals, idealists,
realists and opportunists.”
Radical activists “want to change
the system; have underlying socio/political motives’ and see multinational
corporations as ‘inherently evil,’” explained Duchin.
“These organizations do not trust the … federal, state and local governments to
protect them and to safeguard the environment. They believe, rather, that
individuals and local groups should have direct power over industry … I would
categorize their principal aims … as social justice and political empowerment.”
The “idealist” is easier to deal
with, according to Duchin’s analysis.
“Idealists…want a perfect
world…Because of their intrinsic altruism, however, … [they] have a vulnerable point,” he told the audience. “If they can be
shown that their position is in opposition to an industry … and cannot be
ethically justified, they [will] change their position.”
The two easiest subtypes to join the
corporate side of the fight are the “realists” and the “opportunists.” By
definition, an “opportunist” takes the opportunity to side with the powerful
for career gain, Duchin explained, and has skin in
the game for “visibility, power [and] followers.”
The realist, by contrast, is more
complex but the most important piece of the puzzle, says Duchin.
“[Realists are able to] live with
trade-offs; willing to work within the system; not interested in radical
change; pragmatic. The realists should always receive the highest priority in
any strategy dealing with a public policy issue.”
Duchin outlined a corresponding three-step strategy to “deal with”
these four activist subtypes. First, isolate the radicals. Second, “cultivate”
the idealists and “educate” them into becoming realists. And finally, co-opt
the realists into agreeing with industry.
“If your industry can successfully bring about these relationships, the credibility of the radicals will be lost and opportunists can be counted on to share in the final policy solution,” Duchin outlined in closing his speech.
_______________
C.
From Reader Supported News :
Date: 3 August 2013
Subject: The Death of Truth.
http://readersupportednews.org/
The dragnet has swept up any person or organization that fits the profile of those with the technical skills and inclination to burrow into the archives of power and disseminate it to the public.
The Death of Truth
http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/18717-the-death-of-truth
by Chris Hedges
D.
From The Real News Network :
Date:
2 August 2013
Subject: Military Power : Strategies and Tactics in the Information War.
Vote
to protect citizens privacy is struck down not based on party lines but
campaign contributions from the defense industry
Lawmakers Who Upheld NSA Phone Spying Share Close Financial
Ties to Defense Industry
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=10511
_____________
From George Kenney :
Date: 2 August 2013
Subject: Podcast interview
re Syria w/ Dr. Joshua Landis.
http://www.electricpolitics.com
Dear
Francis,
To
continue with the subject of Syria I looked all over the world for someone I
thought was going to be reasonable. I was surprised, very surprised, at how
difficult it was to find potential guests. Without going into all the gory
details it took me literally weeks to identify Dr. Joshua Landis. And Joshua,
fortunately, was agreeable. Then, by coincidence, one of my friends who is an old Middle East hand suggested him, thus confirming my
judgment. Although Joshua is out at the University of Oklahoma -- upon which I
cast no aspersions -- he really deserves an endowed chair at one of our top
universities. Publish or perish, I guess. I think this is a great interview and
I urge you to listen, but there's a catch: its sound quality is problematic.
Joshua was on vacation up in New England and we had tons of static (US phone
infrastructure falling apart); plus which -- and this is entirely my fault for
not intervening -- he's one of those people who wave the phone around when they
talk, which makes level adjustments very tricky. I fixed most of the static at
the cost of introducing noticeable distortion. For levels, you should listen in
a quiet room to hear everything. All in all, nevertheless, the interview is
definitely listenable. Substantively, it's an A+ and easily in the top 5% of
interviews I've done.
As
always, if you like the podcast please forward the link!
Best,
g.
http://www.electricpolitics.com/podcast/2013/08/syria_in_context.html
_______________
F.
From Jim O’Brien :
Date: 1 August 2013
Subject: [haw-info] Petition against U.S. military intervention in Syria.
http://www.historiansagainstwar.org/
The following
petition is being circulated by, among other groups, United for Peace and
Justice, an antiwar coalition of which HAW is a member.
NO U.S. MILITARY INTERVENTION IN SYRIA
TO:
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA AND MEMBERS OF CONGRESS We urge you to
reject any military intervention in Syria, including arming the rebels or
creating a no-fly zone, and instead to focus on increasing humanitarian
assistance through the United Nations and building active multi-lateral
diplomacy without preconditions with all involved parties for an immediate
ceasefire, a full arms embargo, and negotiations to end Syria’s civil war......
This is how our petition starts to President Obama on
stopping intervention in Syria, Can you sign it?
And Why is
this important?
You can’t put out a raging fire by
pouring gasoline on one side of it. There is no military solution to the crisis
in Syria, and more arms to any side mean more civilians will be killed.
Any U.S. military intervention holds the threat of unplanned escalation, and
ultimately a quagmire. It is much easier to send planes, bombs and missiles
than it is to get out – especially if a plane is shot down or a pilot captured.
There is no exit strategy for Syria and even a “no-fly zone” could easily
become a costly quagmire.
The situation in Syria today is full-scale civil war, which denies the people
of Syria their right to choose their own government and leaders. Other
governments arming and financing the two sides does not restore that right, it
only makes things worse. The U.S.-Russian initiative known as Geneva II talks
should be pushed forward, involving all the relevant outside actors, especially
those providing weapons and military or economic support to any side. The U.S.
should stop trying to prevent Iran’s participation in the talks – any serious
diplomacy requires everyone to be at the table. On the Syrian side,
negotiations must include not only the Syrian government and the armed rebels,
but organizations representing Syrian civil society including unarmed
opposition forces, Syria's minority communities, women, and youth.
Follow this link to sign the petition.
Sponsored by:
Friends Committee on National Legislation (FCNL)
Institute for Policy Studies (IPS)
Just Foreign Policy (IFP)
Peace Action (P-A)
Peace and Justice Resource Center (PJRC)
United for Peace and Justice (UFPJ)
U.S. Labor Against the War (USLAW)
Women's Actions for New Directions (WAND)
_______________
G.
From Truth Out :
Date: 2 August 2013
Subject: Latin America supports Edward
Snowden.
Governments always plead security as
an excuse - in the Snowden case, security from terrorist attack. This pretext
comes from an administration carrying out a grand international terrorist
campaign with drones and special operations forces that is generating potential
terrorists at every step.
Is Edward J.
Snowden Aboard This Plane?
http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/17923-is-edward-j-snowden-aboard-this-plane
by
Noam Chomsky
_______________
H.
From Historians Against War :
Date: 3 August 2013
Subject: Bradley Manning , a 21st-Century Hero.
To members and friends of Historians Against the War,
Below are some sources of updates and other information on the Bradley Manning case, now in its sentencing phase. They are followed by our occasional set of links to recent on-line articles of interest.