Bulletin N° 685
Subject: Neo-liberal
ambitions: "corn holing" the prof.
27
February 2016
Grenoble, France
Dear
Colleagues and Friends of CEIMSA,
The
Alice-in-Wonderland nightmare produced by neo-liberal Rhinoceroses is
upon us. We have been living for some time in this
surrealistic swirls of Lewis Carroll and Eugène Ionesco, where nothing appears as it really is, and all mental
constructions are instrumentalist calculus, applied for an advance in no
particular direction. This breakdown of our collective ‘moral compass’, accompanied by an
insurgency of neo-liberal opportunism directed from above by authoritarian
dependent-power-pyramid engineers (see CEIMSA
Bulletin N° 388) speaks to a new and
ephemeral social order founded on repression, on self-censorship and, above
all, on Fear. Simple-minded obedience becomes a virtue under such conditions;
for the delighted lapdogs, the rewards are of infinite variety; guiding values
are an obstruction.
Such
breakdowns have a long history and the wonton violence of the past is
instructive: Napoleon Bonaparte, Louis-Napoleon, Marshal Pétain –these are moments in
French history when authoritarian rule dominated illegitimate dependent power hierarchies propped up by slogans.
In this
heady environment of ‘controlled opportunism’, clichés replace thought and historical facts are displaced by
convenient fictions. Régis Debray,
in his work Le Pouvoir
intellectuel en France (1979, Eng.
edition 1981) cites Nietzsche to illustrate the alienation of the intellectual
elite: “‘One day, we are assaulted by what others think of us and realize that
this is the strongest thing of all,’ said Nietzsche. But what can the
assailants do against an empty fort?”(p.241)
In
Grenoble’s history, for example, La journée des Tuiles is the
much celebrated name given to an historical event that occurred a full year
before the July 14, 1789 Bastille Day in Paris. In Grenoble, on 7 June 1788,
« insurgents » ambushed royal troops, destroying their heads with
roof tiles thrown from above as they marched through a narrow street on their
way to evict the local aristocracy from their town palaces in a move to
dissolve the local parliament which was resisting royal financial reforms. In
fact, the attack on royal troops in Grenoble was mobilized by conservatives to
defend the privileges of the rich against monarchist reforms. These so-called « insurgents » were recruited among “the ignorant,
the inert, the superstitious, the ‘troglodytes’, the scum of society” as Marx
is reputed to have described the supporters of Louis-Napoleon many decades later. (See Stanford University professor Gordon Wright’s book, France in Modern Times,
Fifth edition, 1995.) What is there really to celebrate?
Several years ago, in CEIMSA Bulletin N°455, entitled “ON REFORM FROM THE
BOTTOM-UP, AND REPRESSION/COOPTATION FROM THE TOP-DOWN,” we referred to the
classic history of Toussaint l’Ouverture, the
liberator of Haiti, by C.L.R. James. In his work, The Black Jacobins, James
describes the wanton violence and cruel decadence of the French aristocracy who
temporarily relocated to their Caribbean island plantations to invest in the
sugar production for a few years before they moved back to France, bringing
with them enormous sums of money to live comfortably the rest of their lives.
During their sojourn on their Caribbean plantations, we are told, the owners
re-invested little in the social infrastructure of the islands; all profits
were to be taken back to France with them when they retired. This sad condition
led quite naturally to the dismal abuse of slaves, who existed merely as the
means for high private profits. They were often worked to death and easily
replaced by new victims off the ships regularly arriving from Africa. Those
slaves who did not die early became an added expense in their old age. A new
sport was invented by the children of salve owners: “fire the nigger.” Old
slaves, James recounts, who had lived beyond their most productive years, were
taken by the children of white owners and bound on the ground by a rope in a
crouched position, their heads pointing in one direction like the barrel of a
canon. At the other end, the children placed gun powder up the victim’s rectum;
then lit it. This ‘sport’, of course, was met with disapproval by parents, but
nevertheless it was tolerated –the children were bored, and it was one less
mouth to feed! Such was the entertainment for French boys and girls who were living on those
miserable little plantation islands before the French Revolution.
Older
CEIMSA readers might remember the 1970 allegory of the ‘foibles’ of western
civilization, El Topo,
directed by and starring Alejandro Jodorowsky. Here
again we see the ‘neo-liberal’ urge for promotion (before the word) and in all
its blinding glory . . . .
El Topo
http://hdmovie14.ag/watch/JdAR4NvL-el-topo.html
And
finally, another more recent film recounts the life of Princeton University
professor John Nash, a mathematical genius who overcame the political and
psychological alienation of the Cold War era to achieve formal recognition as
an exceptionally productive member of his intellectual community, after his
mathematical theories were applied by neo-liberal economists many years later
and were used in ways that ‘he had never envisioned.’
A Beautiful Mind
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8LEvBs1rEw
The 8 items below further illustrate the
motor force of social change in the ‘wrong direction.’
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
a.
From: "Mark Crispin Miller" <markcrispinmiller@gmail.com>
Subject: “The crimes
of Henry Kissinger are even worse---far worse---than Bernie Sanders said.”
February 21, 2016
Bernie's Broadsides Against Kissinger Weren't Even Half of It
http://www.opednews.com/populum/printer_friendly.php?content=a&id=199854
by Medea Benjamin
Reprinted
from Foreign Policy In Focus
From 1969 through 1973, it was Kissinger, along with
President Nixon, who oversaw the slaughter in Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos --
killing perhaps one million during this period. There could be another category
of people who shouldn't solicit Kissinger's dangerous opinions: presidential
candidates.
Medea Benjamin is the cofounder of Global Exchange and CODEPINK: Women for Peace
==========
b.
From: "Mark Crispin
Miller" <markcrispinmiller@gmail.com>
Subject: Is Apple the new Phillip Morris? Malignant brain tumors are most
common cause of cancer deaths in US adolescents, young adults.
Malignant brain tumors most
common cause of cancer deaths in adolescents and young adults
Press Release, American Brain Tumor Association, Feb 24,
2016
Chicago, Ill., Feb. 24,
2016 - A new report published in the journal Neuro-Oncology
and funded by the American Brain Tumor Association (ABTA) finds that malignant
brain tumors are the most common cause of cancer-related deaths in adolescents
and young adults aged 15-39 and the most common cancer occurring among 15-19
year olds.
The 50-page report,
which utilized data from the Central Brain Tumor Registry of the United States
(CBTRUS) from 2008-2012, is the first in-depth statistical analysis of brain
and central nervous system (CNS) tumors in adolescents and young adults (AYA).
Statistics are provided on tumor type, tumor location and age group (15-19,
20-24, 25-29, 30-34 and 35-39) for both malignant and non-malignant brain and
CNS tumors.
"When analyzing
data in 5-year age increments, researchers discovered that the adolescent and
young adult population is not one group but rather several distinct groups that
are impacted by very different tumor types as they move into adulthood,"
said Elizabeth Wilson, president and CEO of the American Brain Tumor
Association.
"For these
individuals -- who are finishing school, pursuing
their careers and starting and raising young families -- a brain tumor
diagnosis is especially cruel and disruptive," added Wilson. "This
report enables us for the first time to zero-in on the types of tumors
occurring at key intervals over a 25-year time span to help guide critical
research investments and strategies for living with a brain tumor that reflect
the patient's unique needs."
Although brain and CNS
tumors are the most common type of cancer among people aged 15-19, the report
shows how other cancers become more common with age. By ages 34-39 years, brain
and CNS tumors are the third most common cancer after breast and thyroid
cancer.
"What's interesting
is the wide variability in the types of brain tumors diagnosed within this age
group which paints a much different picture than what we see in adults or in
pediatric patients," explained the study's senior author Jill Barnholtz-Sloan, Ph.D., associate professor, Case
Comprehensive Cancer Center, Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine
and Scientific Principal Investigator for CBTRUS.
"For example, the
most common tumor types observed in adults are meningiomas
and glioblastomas, but there is much more diversity
in the common tumor types observed in the adolescent and young adult
population. You also clearly see a transition from predominantly non-malignant
and low-grade tumors to predominantly high-grade tumors with increasing
age," Barnholtz-Sloan said.
There are nearly 700,000
people in the U.S. living with brain and CNS tumors and approximately 15
percent of these tumors occurred in the AYA population during the 2008-2012
time frame analyzed in this report. Approximately 10,617 brain and CNS tumors
are diagnosed among adolescents and young adults each year and are the cause of
approximately 434 deaths annually.
"The American Brain
Tumor Association's recognition of this understudied population, and their
commitment to data and information sharing should be applauded," added Barnholtz-Sloan. "There are clearly unique
characteristics of the 15-39 age group that we need to
more comprehensively understand and the information in the ABTA report starts
that important dialogue."
###
The full report is
available at http://www.abta.org/about-us/news/brain-tumor-statistics/.
To learn more or access
additional statistics, go to http://www.abta.org.
--
Brain Tumor Statistics
Brain tumors are the:
Brain Tumor Statistics:
Tumor-Specific
Statistics:
http://www.abta.org/about-us/news/brain-tumor-statistics/
--
Ostrom QT, Gittleman H, de Blank PM, Finlay JL, Gurney JG, McKean-Cowdin R, Stearns DS, Wolff JE, Liu M, Wolinsky
Y, Kruchko C, Barnholtz-Sloan
JS. American Brain Tumor Association Adolescent and Young Adult Primary Brain
and Central Nervous System Tumors Diagnosed in the United States in 2008-2012. Neuro Oncol. 2016 Jan;18 Suppl 1:i1-i50. doi: 10.1093/neuonc/nov297.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26705298
No Abstract.
Excerpts
Malignant brain and
CNS are the 11th most common cancer and the 3rd most common cause of cancer
death.
Approximately 10,600
brain and CNS tumors are diagnosed in AYA per year, and they are the cause of
approximately 450 deaths annually in this age group.
Overall, the largest
proportion of malignant tumors in those age 15-39 years occur in the frontal
lobe (28.8%), followed by other brain (15.4%). Together, 50.2% of all malignant
tumors occur in the frontal, temporal, parietal, and occipital lobes of the
brain.
Tumors of the frontal
lobe are the most common in persons age 20-39 years.
Overall, the largest
proportion of non-malignant tumors occurs in the pituitary gland and craniopharyngeal duct (46.1%).
The incidence of
tumors in the pituitary gland and craniopharyngeal
duct decrease with age whereas incidence of those found in the meninges increase with age.
Overall, the incidence
of primary brain and CNS tumors in females (12.24 per 100,000 population) is higher than those in males (8.64 per 100,000
population) in AYA.
Brain Cancers Both Common and Deadly
Among Teens, Young Adults: Report
Robert Preidt, Healthday
News, Feb 24, 2016
http://bit.ly/1TzNbIH
===========
Brain Tumor Rates Are
Rising in the US: The Role of Cell Phone & Cordless Phone Use
--
Joel M. Moskowitz, Ph.D., Director
Center for Family and Community Health
School of Public Health
University of California, Berkeley
Electromagnetic Radiation Safety
Website:
http://www.saferemr.com
Facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/SaferEMR
News Releases: http://pressroom.prlog.org/jmm716/
Twitter:
@berkeleyprc
===========
c.
De: Newsletter
Robin des Toits <webmaster@robindestoits.org>
Objet: VIDEO : Colloque à l'assemblée nationale "Pour la
reconnaissance de l'électrosensibilité" -
11/02/2016
26 février 2016
VIDEO : Colloque à l'assemblée nationale "Pour la
reconnaissance de l'électrosensibilité"
http://www.robindestoits.org/index.php?preaction=view_nl&nl=204190&id=27777733&idnl=204190
Michèle RIVASI et
Laurence ABEILLE ont organisé le jeudi 11 Février 2016 un Colloque "Pour
la reconnaissance de l'électro hypersensibilité" à l'Assemblée nationale à
Paris.
===========
d.
The Rape
of East Timor: "Sounds Like Fun"
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article44305.htm
by
John Pilger
===========
e.
From: Tony Black
<tal2@cogeco.ca>
Subject: France extends its 'state
of emergency'
The French "Patriot Act":
Why is France Extending Its State of Emergency? From Pseudo-Democracy to
Dictatorship Clamping Down on Freedom of Expression
by
Guillaume Kress
Global Research
President Francois Hollande, whose
legitimacy stems from nothing but a fraudulent multiparty electoral system, has
repeatedly abused his authority since taking office in 2012 by waging illegal
wars in foreign countries (i.e., Mali, Syria) without consulting his electors.
[1]
He recently failed to confer with them when his Socialist government responded
to last year's terrorist attacks in Paris by adopting Orwellian domestic
policies - policies that have allowed the Hollande
administration to spy on citizens, block websites containing "terrorist
related content", strip convicted "terrorists" of French
citizenship, and criminalize activism against Israeli occupation.[2]
These policies prevent the spread of information which may expose the government's
criminal activities. We should note, here, that the state of emergency greatly
facilitates political corruption. [3]
To put it briefly, the state of emergency law turns France into a totalitarian
police state which can act for a maximum period of 12 days without requiring
judicial oversight or search warrants. Given France'scompliance
with Zionist interests, it is not surprising that Human Rights Watch recently
exposed the French government's "abusive and discriminatory raids and
house arrests against Muslims under its sweeping new state of emergency
law." This discrimination is not coming to an end any time soon, for Hollande's administration just voted in favor of extending
its state of emergency for three months.
Since the government can use its extraordinary powers to force journalists (via
fear tactics like lawsuits and heavy fines) to comply with policies which
emphasize security over freedom (i.e., censorship, spying), the state of
emergency ironically prevents any independent investigation into the criminal
activities that triggered the emergency in the first place.
The United States faced a similar scenario after the 9-11 attacks, during which
the federal government not only failed to consult the American people on the
Patriot Act, but also never formally investigated what happened on 9-11.
Instead, a confluence of American-Israeli intelligence networks prevented the
discovery of the facts by tightly controlling "investigation and access to
evidence, media interpretation of the event, and related litigation." [4]
More than a decade later, something similar is taking place in France because,
as Thierry Meyssan points out, the state of emergency
is part of a global campaign to prevent conspiracies from surfacing on the
internet:
"In 2008. the US government had decided to fund
individuals, both at home and abroad, to disrupt the forum websites of
conspiracy theorists and to create groups to contradict them.
This not having sufficed, France is called upon to take authoritarian measures.
As in the past, the French elites, of which the Socialist Party forms the
pseudo-left wing, have placed themselves under the orders of the main military
power of the time, in this case, the US."
Sam Scheichner's recent blog post for The Wall Street
Journal confirms France's intention of cooperating with America to clamp down
on "terrorist content" on the internet:
"During his forthcoming visit [to the Silicon Valley in February 2016],
Mr. Cazeneuve says he will meet with U.S. firms to
'update our level of cooperation,' and also get together with U.S. Attorney
General Loretta Lynch and Department of Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson to discuss their recent push to curb terrorist
content on social media.
'The U.S. now also wants to work with operators to counteract terrorist content
on the Internet,' Mr. Cazeneuve said. 'Our audacity
has paid off, and now we're schooling others, and I'm very happy about
that.'"
Cazeneuve's optimism conveniently hides the fact that
the U.S has used the NSA to spy on France's last three presidents; that
terrorism itself is an American-Israeli enterprise; that "terrorist
content" can mean anything and therefore "to counteract terrorist
content" might in the future imply a clampdown both on public information
(i.e., conspiracy theories) and on encryption communications - a clampdown oninternet privacy as a whole, of which the state of
emergency can facilitate.
So France is doing everything in (and now outside of) its powers today to
prevent the spread of information which may expose its criminal activities
alongside America and its Zionist allies.
More people realize that the internet is the only place where they can freely
debate such issues because it is the only tool capable of horizontalizing
the distribution of subversive information and creating a platform for
community-building which cuts across class antagonisms during a banking crisis.
Since the people's access to public information on the internet is itself their
best tool for independent thinking, their best defense against misjudgment and
misinformation because they gain a more objective understanding of things
(insofar as they are less liable to the influences of the government), Hollande's administration is now pressed to respond to this
threat by extending the French state of emergency.
Notes:
Francois Hollande is continuing his Republican
predecessor's (Nicolas Sarkozy's) Zionist crusade
against Libyaall the while extending the conflict to
other regions like Syria. In this regard, the left and right wings of the
political spectrum are identical.
The Latin American Herald Tribune reported on January 26 that "last year
283 websites were blocked to remove their content, considered illegal, thanks
to the anti-terrorist legislation." At this pace, we should probably
expect a transition from extrajudicial censorship to automatic censorship by
2017.
It amazes me how quickly France went from being against the War on Terror to
one of its main exponents. France was opposed to the invasion of Iraq under the
Chiraq government. But after Sarkozy's
election in 2007, it engaged itself in the Zionist War on Terror
. Thierry Meyssan adds that France became a
terrorist state in 2011, when it invaded Libya.
Bollyn, Christopher. Solving 9-11:
The Deception that Changed the World. 2012. p. 25
The original source of this article is Global Research
Copyright © Guillaume Kress, Global Research, 2016
===========
f.
From: Jim O'Brien <jimobrien48@gmail.com>
Subject: [haw-info] Saudi Arabia conference; links to recent articles of
interest
Reminder of Next Weekend's Saudi Arabia Conference. This is a reminder, especially for people living in the
DC-Baltimore area, of the "2016 Summit on Saudi Arabia," organized
by Code
Pink and co-sponsored by many other antiwar organizations, including Historians
Against the War. It will take place at the
University of the District of Columbia law school, Saturday-Sunday March 5-6.
Information is
at http://www.codepink.org/2016saudisummit.
Links to Recent Articles of Interest
"Rubio's 7 Fallacies on the Israeli-Palestinian
Conflict"
By Juan Cole, Informed
Comment blog, posted February 26
The author teaches
history at the University of Michigan.
"A Plague of Black Swans in the Middle East"
By Gary Sick, LobeLog, posted February 24
"Black
swans" is a metaphor for unexpected developments. The author is Mideast
scholar and former staff member of the National Security Council.
"Trump
Got the Pershing Story Backwards"
By William Lambers, History News Network, posted February 23
"How a Pink
Flower Defeated the World's Sole Superpower: America's Opium War in
Afghanistan"
By Alfred McCoy, TomDispatch.com,
posted February 21
The author teaches
history at the University of Wisconsin.
By Paul Pillar, The
National Interest, posted February 21
The author, a 28-year
veteran of the CIA, is a visiting professor at Georgetown University in
security studies.
"Human Rights Watch Revelations Should Foster Rethinking
of U.S.-Saudi Alliance"
By Jeremy Kuzmarov, Huffington Post, posted February 19
The author teaches
history at the University of Tulsa.
By Andrew J. Bacevich, New York Daily News, posted February
15
The author is a
professor emeritus of history and international relations at Boston
University.
"Shoulda, Woulda, Coulda: The U.S. Military Bombs in the Twenty-First
Century"
By Tom Engelhardt, TomDispatch.com, posted February 7
By Ira Chernus, TomDispatch.com, posted February 2
Suggestions for these
occasional lists can be sent to jimobrien48@gmail.com. As usual, an anonymous reader
contributed suggestions for the above list.
_______________________________________________
haw-info mailing list
haw-info@stopthewars.org
http://stopthewars.org/mailman/listinfo/haw-info_stopthewars.org
===========
g.
Academia:
Hands off Revolutionary Philosophy!
http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/02/26/academia-hands-off-revolutionary-philosophy/
by Andre Vltchek
===========
h.
The Documentary the Koch
Brothers Don't Want You to See
http://salsa4.salsalabs.com/o/51329/p/salsa/web/common/public/content?content_item_KEY=14500
Investigative journalist Bruce Livesey's
documentary was pulled days before it was set to air and he was fired from
Global News. Watch the promo and see how you can help.
“The
Kochs control two million acres of tar sands in
Alberta, Canada, worth tens of billions of dollars. But climate scientists say
up to 240 billion tons of carbon would be released into the atmosphere if the
oil sands are developed. Meanwhile, the Kochs’
are waging relentless campaigns to deny climate change and using their wealth
to get conservatives elected to office to approve the Keystone XL pipeline and
further their corporate interests.”