Bulletin N° 775
Subject : In Praise of Folly under the Fearful Eye of
FASCIST MADNESS.
30 November 2017
Grenoble, France
Dear Colleagues and
Friends of CEIMSA,
You’ve
probably heard the old adage about political life in capitalist society:
“Scratch a liberal, and under the façade of a progressive humanist you’ll probably
find a corporate Fascist.” But when you scratch a neo-conservative, what you
are likely to find is an authoritarian
paranoiac. Gilles Deluze and Felix Guattari in their classic study, Anti-Oedipus:
Capitalism and Schizophrenia (1972)
and A Thousand
Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia (1980), describe the
historic structure of civilized society as being divided into three functional
groups: the civilized, the barbarians, and the nomads.
These interacting groups represent distinct behaviors, which influence one
another and reinforce their differences in a dialectical manner.
While
the civilized accept the unequal
class divisions of society and have submitted to a network of reciprocal obligations,
which serves to protect them from extinction and at the same time provides immediate
advantages at the cost of personal freedom and social equality, the barbarians enter the settled society only
from time to time to plunder it and take away for themselves selected items of
value; they show no interest, at first, in fully integrating into the ethos of
the civilized network. The nomads, on
the other hand, represent a third life style; they live on the margins of
civilized society, interacting regularly with the civilized population who despise
them for their “freedoms” and their lack of ambition. They are of little
interest to the barbarians, who see them as impoverished, worthless and devoid
of any opportunity to profit from plunder. Over time, waves of barbarians
integrate into civilization and groups of nomads move into the center for
permanent residence, living next door to the civilized and the former barbarians.
According
to Deleuze and Guattari,
the political economy of capitalism produces human relationships which often
result in the wide-spread creation of schizophrenics, whose character structure
is reduced to the level of desires -
mostly pre-fabricated desires – since this totally alienated man has been
deprived of a core ego with which to
verify a reality or formulate a coherent principle. Instead, he floats like a
balloon across any field, until he receives the next injunction sufficiently
forceful to change his direction, as he continues to float unencumbered,
without boundaries which could differentiate the Real, the Imaginary, and the
Symbolic. Each group has participated in the creation of this “Post-Modern
Man.”
***
Illustrations
of conventional non-thought
(which is no more than the disconnect between the
Signifier and the Signified) abound among the civilized . . .
·
“It’s admirable how many people in China speak
Chinese fluently.”
-anonymous
·
“You load 16 tons and what d’ya
get; another day older and deeper in debt.
Saint Peter don’t you call me, ‘cause I can’t go. I owe my soul to the company stor’.”
-from the 1947 song by Merle Travis, Sixteen Tons.
He kept his eye on the prize!
and
within the constraints of Crisis
Capitalism . . .
where “losers” have to die to make the “winners” rich,
with the help of their “executioners” :
T H E L O S E R S
T H E W I N
N E R S
&
T H E E
X E C U T I O N E R S
Militarism entangles barbarians and nomads
alike in the profitable enterprise . . .
Wilfred Burchett’s book, The
Whores of War: Mercenaries Today (1977), remains a stunning analysis of the banality of the
forces behind militarism, “It’s just another investment opportunity.”
See, also, Shadow World, the
film based on Andrew
Feinstein’s book, The
Shadow World: Inside the Global Arms Trade,
2011)
·
“Shadow
World” reveals the shocking realities of the global arms trade, the only
business that counts its profits in billions and its losses in human lives.
·
“Shadow
World” explores how governments, their militaries and intelligence agencies,
defense contractors, arms dealers and agents are inextricably intertwined with
the international
trade in weapons, and how that trade fosters corruption, determines economic
and foreign policies, undermines democracies and creates human suffering.
·
"Politicians
are very much like prostitutes, only more expensive"
of Fascist Madness with all
sorts of attempts to silence our thoughts for a better life !
The 19 items below
will remind CEIMSA readers the of the ubiquitous
capitalist environment which engulfs most of us with pervasive feelings of
dread and disgust. The character traits of our “leaders” were produced by this
environment, and their “followers” have chosen to submit to this creation.
What forces can penetrate this hermetically sealed system of complicity in
self-delusion?
Sincerely,
Francis Feeley
Professor emeritus of American Studies
University Grenoble-Alpes
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.
Psywar - The Real Battlefield is in
the Mind
(video, 1h39min.)
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/48292.htm
This film explores the evolution of propaganda and
public relations in the United States, with an emphasis on the elitist theory
of democracy
and the relationship between war, propaganda and class.
b.
He Was No Hippie: Remembering Manson,
Prison, Scientology, and Mind Control
by Paul Krassner
As I was diving into my research, I received a
letter from Charlie himself.
c.
Where the New York Times
article on an American Nazi went wrong
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/11/27/16701780/nyt-nazis-trump
Why is it a surprise that Nazis love muffins?
by Ewra Klein
The New York Times is taking some deserved
criticism for publishing a
gentle profile of an Ohio Nazi. The point of the piece, quite literally, is
that Nazis are people too. The article goes to great lengths to show that the
subject, Tony Hovater, is just like you and me. He
owns cats, shops at the supermarket, cooks dinner, plays music, enjoys Seinfeld. He was
married this fall, and the Times notes that he and his
then-fiancée registered at Target and asked for “a muffin pan, a four-drawer
dresser and a pineapple slicer.”
The problem with the Times story isn’t that it’s about
a modern-day Nazi. It’s that it doesn’t offer any insight into modern-day Nazis.
Readers are, presumably, supposed to respond with
shock upon learning that Nazis also bake muffins, own pets, watch sitcoms. But
this is an old point, and it can be made with starker examples. Adolf Hitler
was a vegetarian, a painter, a lover of musicals, a talented mimic. It is
childish, this late in human history, to be surprised that evil people are also
people.
d.
The Myth Of
The "Clean War"
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/48288.htm
by Paul Rogers
Trump's
worldview promises low-cost military success. The blasting apart of civilian
lives in Iraq says otherwise.
Many
previous columns in this series
focus on the transition in the western way of war since 9/11 from tens of
thousands of “boots on the ground” to "remote warfare". This has
mainly involved a much more intensive use of air-power, including armed-drones;
the utilisation of long-range artillery and
ground-launched ballistic-missiles; and the much wider use of special forces and privatised
military corporations. The change has been consistently analysed
by a few non-government organisations, most notably
the Remote Control project and Drone Wars UK, whose specific concern is
armed drones. The states pursuing this kind of offensive war see three
advantages, two military and one political:
Ø Their own forces take minimal
casualties, meaning fewer bodybags and funeral
corteges
Ø They believe that the tactic works
in practice
Ø There is very little media coverage
of this type
of war, and in the case of some countries, most notably Britain, there has been
a long-term political convention that the role of special Forces should not be
subject to public debate or even scrutiny.
The
U.S. Air Force is on track to triple the number of bombs dropped in Afghanistan
this year compared with last year.
e.
Growing Up Black in American Apartheid
Glen
Ford on Reality Asserts Itself, Part 1
f.
How Colonial Violence Came Home:
The Ugly Truth of the First World War
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/48279.htm
The
Great War is often depicted as an unexpected catastrophe. But for millions who
had been living under imperialist rule, terror and degradation were nothing
new.
by Pankaj Mishra
Today
on the Western Front,” the German sociologist Max Weber wrote in September
1917, there “stands a dross of African and Asiatic
savages and all the world’s rabble of thieves and lumpens.”
Weber was referring to the millions of Indian, African, Arab, Chinese and
Vietnamese soldiers and labourers, who were then
fighting with British and French forces in Europe, as well as in several
ancillary theatres of the first world war.
Faced with manpower shortages, British imperialists had recruited up to 1.4 million
Indian soldiers. France enlisted nearly 500,000 troops from its colonies in
Africa and Indochina. Nearly 400,000 African Americans were also inducted into
US forces. The first world war’s truly unknown
soldiers are these non-white combatants.
g.
Rebecca Solnit:
Ending Sexual Harassment Means Changing Masculinity
& Undermining Misogynist Culture
https://www.democracynow.org/2017/11/22/rebecca_solnit_ending_sexual_harassment_means
h.
#MeToo
Founder Tarana Burke, Alicia Garza
of
Black Lives Matter
on Wave
of Sexual Harassment Reports
i.
The world turned upside down: is the
concept of women's autonomy actually changing for the better?
j.
Fascism
Came To America Wrapped In A Rainbow Flag And Wearing
A Pussyhat
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/48280.htm
by Caitlin Johnstone
There’s a popular quote of unknown
origin that usually goes something like “When fascism comes to America, it
will be wrapped in a flag and carrying a cross.” It’s a good quote, whoever
said it. It warns that if manipulative oppressors are going to seize control of
a nation’s government, they will obviously need to do so by appealing to the
spirit of the times, the current values system of the masses. They’re not going
to make their entrance screaming “Freedom is slavery!” while a band plays the
Darth Vader theme. This is obvious to anyone who possesses any insight into how
people think and behave.
k.
Abuses of Power: Heather McGhee on Matt Lauer, Trump,
Sexual Assault, Patriarchy and the Tax Code
https://www.democracynow.org/2017/11/29/abuses_of_power_heather_mcghee_on
l.
Bridging
the Gap Between Movements and Elections:
How
the Working Families Party Organized in 2017
by Sarah Jaffe
m.
Fight the Disease, Not the Symptoms
https://www.truthdig.com/articles/fight-disease-not-symptoms
by Chris Hedges
The
disease of globalized corporate capitalism has the same effects across the
planet. It weakens or destroys democratic institutions, making them subservient
to corporate and oligarchic power. It forces domestic governments to give up
control over their economies, which operate under policies dictated by global
corporations, banks, the World Trade
Organization and the International
Monetary Fund. It casts aside hundreds of millions of workers now
classified as “redundant” or “surplus” labor. It disempowers
underpaid and unprotected workers, many toiling in global sweatshops, keeping
them cowed, anxious and compliant. It financializes
the economy, creating predatory global institutions that extract money from
individuals, institutions and states through punishing forms of debt peonage.
It shuts down genuine debate on corporate-owned media platforms, especially in
regard to vast income disparities and social inequality. And the destruction
empowers proto-fascist movements and governments.
n.
Trump’s Secret War?
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/48292.htm
by John Haltiwanger
U.S.
Military’s Presence In Middle East Has Grown 33 Percent
In Past Four Months
President
Donald Trump has increased the number of U.S. troops and civilians working for
the Department of Defense in the Middle East to 54,180 from 40,517 in the
past four months, representing a 33-percent rise. This number doesn't even
account for the big rise in troops stationed in Afghanistan since Trump
announced his new strategy for the fight against the Taliban in late August.
These figures, first pointed out on Twitter by Dr. Micah Zenko,
a foreign policy expert, come from the Pentagon's
quarterly reports on personnel. In other words, these numbers are no
secret, which raises concerns about the apparent lack of discourse over the
expansion of the U.S. military in a region in which it already has a long,
complicated history.
o.
Forget Russia - Here's How Much Israel
Is Spending to Influence American Politics
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/48277.htm
" ... somehow and in some way, that's
different than the allegations of Russian "influence" during the 2016
cycle."
by Political Junkie
While
the American media and Washington are expending substantial energy on the
alleged Russian interference in the United States
political theatre during the 2016 election
cycle, another nation and its American promoters that invest substantially in
Washington
generally fly under the radar when it comes
to political influence-peddling.
p.
Where is Zionism Taking Us?
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/48291.htm
by Lawrence Davidson
The Inevitable Apartheid Nation
November
26, 2017 "Information Clearing House" - We know
where Zionism has taken Israel. The Balfour Declaration of 1917 led the way. In
that imperial and colonial document, the British promised the World Zionist
Organization a “Jewish National Home” in Palestine. They did so, as
Edward Said put it, in “flat disregard of both the presence and wishes of
the native majority residents in that territory.”
q.
America’s Enemies, Who’s On the List?
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/48275.htm
Prospects and Perspectives
by Prof. James Petras
For
almost 2 decades, the US pursued a list of ‘enemy countries’ to confront, attack, weaken and overthrow.
This
imperial quest to overthrow ‘enemy countries’ operated at various levels of
intensity, depending on two considerations: the level of priority and the
degree of vulnerability for a ‘regime change’ operation. The criteria for
determining an ‘enemy country’ and its place on the list of priority targets in
the US quest for greater global dominance, as well as its vulnerability to a
‘successfully’ regime change will be the focus of this essay.
We
will conclude by discussing the realistic perspectives of future imperial
options.
r.
Exposing the Shocking and Continuing
Alliance
Between Zionism and Anti-Semitism
https://www.alternet.org/grayzone-project/zionism-anti-semitism-alliance-israel-joseph-massad
by Max Blumenthal
An in-depth discussion with
renowned Palestinian scholar Prof. Joseph Massad.
s.
Roger Waters on Palestine
(video)