Bulletin N° 822
Subject
:
ARMISTICE DAY, 1918-2018
On this occqsion, we would like to share with readers the 1971 film production of the anti-war novel written in 1938, by American novelist and later blacklisted screenwriter,
Dalton Trumbo.
This film adaptation was written for the screen and directed by Trumbo himself.
Johnny Got His Gun
(v.o.)
https://gloria.tv/video/n6Puzqoo3Cro1U8Vxq2EiR6et
11 November 2018
Grenoble,
France
Dear
Colleagues and Friends of CEIMSA,
“The Great War,”
later known as “The First World War” (1914-1918) was the result of imperialist
competition for markets and resources. It represented four years of ritual
slaughter at the altar of Capitalism, presided over by a class of
international bankers and industrialists. Before it was over, more than 40
million people were killed or mutilated.
In France, over 10% of the total population fell into this category. The ruling class
made off like bandits in this period of “new investment opportunities” while
ordinary people were exploited severely for their ignorance.
The anti-war
movement produced heroic gestures and notable personal sacrifices, as the
so-called “forces of order” guarded over the orchestration of this heinous
fratricide at the cost of civil liberties. Higher profits were to be made by
the international class of owners of capital on all sides, as the local exploitation of
labor simply took on a quantitative shift
while continuing to generate Surplus Value for the investors.
In all nations,
workers were praised for their contributions to civilization. The price they
paid was never successfully recognized as being connected to the private profits gained
by the international class of owners; nor was the contribution they made to
future investments in more wars, at still higher profits for the capitalist investors.
The
20 + items below speak to our present condition under the current regime
of disinformation and surveillance in support of War Capitalism,
which many of us recognize as the same war as Labor Exploitation, only at a
different level.
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.
Chris Hedges and Sheldon Wolin:
Can Capitalism and Democracy Coexist?
(Full Version)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LGc8DMHMyi8
Journalist
Chris Hedges interviews political philosopher Sheldon Wolin,
who says democracy requires continuous opposition and vigilance by the
citizenry.
+
CIA's ‘Surveillance State’ Is Operating
Against Us All
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/50579.htm
by
Sharyl Attkisson
Maybe
you once thought the CIA wasn’t supposed to spy on Americans here in the United
States.
That
concept is so yesteryear.
Over
time, the CIA upper echelon has secretly developed all kinds of policy
statements and legal rationales to justify routine, widespread surveillance on
U.S. soil of citizens who aren’t suspected of terrorism or being a spy.
The
latest outrage is found in newly declassified documents from 2014. They reveal
the CIA not only intercepted emails of U.S. citizens but they were emails of
the most sensitive kind — written to Congress and involving whistleblowers
reporting alleged wrongdoing within the Intelligence Community.
The
disclosures, kept secret until now, are two letters of “congressional
notification” from the Intelligence Community inspector general at the time,
Charles McCullough. He stated that during “routine counterintelligence
monitoring of government computer systems,” the CIA collected emails between
congressional staff and the CIA’s head of whistleblowing
and source protection.
+
Oceania Is at War with Fascism
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/50584.htm
by C.J. Hopkins
If you’re a critic of global capitalism
(sometimes referred to as “globalism”), I’ve got some good news and some bad
news for you. The good news is, you’re not a “peddler of Russian propaganda”
anymore. The bad news is, you’re an anti-Semite.
You’re probably also a domestic
terrorist, or an “emboldener” of domestic terrorism, or at least some sort of
terrorism-apologist. And not good old-fashioned Islamic terrorism like we used
to get during the War on Terror, because that ended in the Summer of 2016,
right around the time Trump won the nomination. No, the brand of terrorism you
are probably emboldening by criticizing global capitalism is anti-Semitic,
fascist terrorism … the most terroristic form of terrorism there is!
Up until recently, you might have just
been going about your normal business, criticizing global capitalism,
completely unaware of your anti-Semitic, white supremacist terrorist
activities, but from now on there will be no denying them. Your hate thoughts
are right there for everyone to read. Go back and check your Facebook posts and your Twitter feed. You’ll see what I
mean. All those times when you impulsively lashed out against the global
capitalist ruling classes, or globalism, or Obama, or Clinton, or the Wall
Street banks, or, God help you, George Soros … well, you might as
well have been tweeting blinking neon GIFs of dancing Swastikas or posting
Adolf Hitler’s speeches with little throbbing hearts and smiley-face emoticons.
==========
b.
From:
"Mark Crispin Miller" <markcrispinmiller@gmail.com>
To: newsfromunderground@googlegroups.com
Sent: Wednesday, 7 November, 2018 6:24:31 PM
Subject: [MCM] WOOPS! Here's the CORRECT link to my video on election
theft....
For those
who've joined this list since last "Election" Day, I am
re-sending out the link to
my short video about the "one-two punch"
whereby They steal elections in the USA today:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NxXKr2hKCz0
MCM
==========
c.
Black Agenda Report: News, commentary and
analysis from the black left.
08 Nov 2018
Midterm
Elections: Corporate Democrats
Versus
the Monster They Empowered
https://blackagendareport.com/midterm-elections-corporate-democrats-versus-monster-they-empowered
by Glen Ford
Midterm
Elections: Corporate Democrats Versus the Monster They
Empowered
Only
transformational programs, like single payer health care, can erode the
coherence of the White Supremacist Bloc, and at the same time galvanize the
numeric majority of the nation.
“The midterms were a test of whether Donald Trump could continue to
hold majorities of white Americans in thrall to his non-stop, red-meat racist
political theater.”
Tuesday’s
midterm elections put Democrats back in control of the U.S. House while
strengthening the Republican hold on the Senate. The big picture is that, two
years after Donald Trump replaced the GOP’s old arsenal of racial code words
and dog whistles with blaring white supremacist bullhorns, majorities of U.S.
whites are firmly committed to an openly white nationalist political program
under the leadership of a billionaire huckster who speaks their vile language.
Although the GOP remains a minority party -- Democrats outpolled them in House
races by 7 to 9 percent – white supremacists remain the largest bloc in the
U.S. political spectrum. The 2018 midterms were a test, not of insurgent
left-leaning Democrats -- a disorganized and confused faction that was kept
largely in check by the party’s corporate leadership -- but of whether Donald
Trump could continue to hold majorities of white Americans in thrall to his
non-stop, red-meat racist political theater.
“White supremacists remain the largest bloc in the U.S. political
spectrum.”
He
could, and did, confirming the potency of the overt white supremacist strategy,
which has succeeded in proving both the intransigence and coherence of racist
white majorities, even as most of the ruling class and its media mounted an
unprecedented offensive to restore the previous corporate political consensus:
austerity and war cloaked in a façade of “diversity.” Trump made “me feel like
an American again,” said a white West Virginia hardware store worker quoted by
the New York Times. The man felt restored in the belief
that he still lives in a white man’s country.
==========
d.
Empire Files
7 November 2018
Abby Martin: The Democratic Party’s ‘Abysmal Failure’
Presenting a Platform
with Abby Martin
Being
anti-Trump is not good enough for defeating Trump. The Democratic Party needs a
clearer and more progressive platform if it hopes to halt the country’s
rightward movement, says Empire Files’ Abby Martin on the TRNN midterm election
panel
==========
e.
November
6, 2018
Don’t
be Flattered, Fooled and Flummoxed in Todays’s
Election
https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/11/06/dont-be-flattered-fooled-and-flummoxed-in-todayss-election/
by
Ralph
Nader
Let’s
face it. Most politicians use the mass media to obfuscate. Voters who don’t do
their homework, who don’t study records of the politicians, and who can’t
separate the words from the deeds will easily fall into traps laid by wily
politicians.
In
2002, Connecticut Governor John Rowland was running for re-election against his
Democratic opponent, William Curry. Again and again, the outspent Curry
informed the media and the voters about the corruption inside and around the governor’s
office. At the time, the governor’s close associates and ex-associates were
under investigation by the U.S. attorney. But to the public, Rowland was all
smiles, flooding the television stations with self-serving, manipulative images
and slogans. He won handily in November. Within weeks, the U.S. attorney’s
investigation intensified as they probed the charges Curry had raised about
Rowland. Rowland’s approval rating dropped to record lows, and impeachment
initiatives and demands for his resignation grew. He was prosecuted, convicted
and imprisoned. Unfortunately, enough voters were flattered, fooled, and
flummoxed to cost Bill Curry the race.
==========
f.
Trudeau Won’t Stop $12bn of Arms Sales to
Saudi After Khashoggi’s Death Because Money Always
Wins Over Murder
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/50570.htm
by Robert Fisk
The
Canadian prime minister may have condemned the actions of the Saudi regime, but
his position over light-armoured vehicle sales to the
kingdom tells us everything we need to know.
Almost 5,000 miles from the city in which his
corpse was secretly buried – in one piece or in bits – by his Saudi killers, Jamal
Khashoggi’s murder now rattles the scruples and the
purse-strings of yet another country. For Canada, land of the free and liberal
conscience – especially under Justin Trudeau – is suddenly confronted by the
fruits of the bright young prime minister’s Conservative predecessors and a
simple question of conscience for cash: should Trudeau tear up a 2014 military
deal with Saudi Arabia worth $12bn?
When Ottawa decided to sell its spanking new
light armoured vehicles (LAVs) to the Saudi kingdom, the
Saudis already had a well-earned reputation for chopping off heads and
supporting raving and well-armed Islamists. But Mohammed bin Salman had not yet ascended the crown princedom of this
pious state. The Saudis had not yet invaded Yemen, chopped off the heads of its
Shia leaders, imprisoned its own princes, kidnapped
the Lebanese prime minister and dismembered Khashoggi.
So the Conservative Canadian government of
Stephen Harper had no scruples about flogging off its LAVs – as these little armoured monsters are called – to Riyadh, specifically for
the “transport and protection” of government officials.
==========
g.
Black Agenda Report: News, commentary and
analysis from the black left.
20 Sep 2017
Donald
Trump and the Fraudulent Democratic Party
https://blackagendareport.com/donald-trump-and-fraudulent-democratic-party
by Solomon Comissiong
“The system has to be deconstructed to be reconstructed into something
that is actually equitable and democratic.”
The
United States’ political system is more duplicitous than it is flawed. What
appears to be a flawed system, to the critically thinking mind, is really
working as it is intended. It is only seen as an open and democratic system to
those who failed to break away from countless years of systematic
indoctrination. A great many Americans are oblivious to the fact that Democrats
and Republicans are both corporate driven entities that are also thoroughly
entrenched within the military industrial complex. Mass failure to recognize this
makes much of the US populace culpable in the threat “their” country poses to
world peace.
+
Chris
Hedges: The Absurdity of American Empire
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J_dkEgNGpzY
What
happens when you force communities, families and entire ecosystems to kneel
before the dictates of the marketplace? You get what Chris Hedges, co-author
with Joe Sacco of Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt, calls "sacrifice
zones." From Appalachia to North Dakota to Camden, New Jersey, these
zones, ravaged by the excesses of capitalism, prefigure our collective future.
==========
h.
Glen
Ford on Chris Hedges On Contact: The Con of Diversity
https://blackagendareport.com/glen-ford-chris-hedges-contact-con-diversity
with Chris Hedges
Diversity
is little more than black faces in high places, not the goal of radical
transformation that puts power in the hands of ordinary people.
==========
i.
The
Troika of Tyranny:
The
Imperialist Project in Latin America and Its Epigones
by
Roger
Harris
Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela are
today threatened by US imperialism. The first salvo of the modern Age of
Imperialism started back in 1898 when the US seized Cuba along with Puerto Rico
and the Philippines in the Spanish-American War.
The Age of Imperialism, as Lenin
observed, is characterized by the competition of the various imperial powers
for dominance. That inter-imperialist rivalry led to World War I. Lenin called
those putative socialists who supported their own national imperialist projects
“social imperialists.” Social imperialism is a tendency that is socialist in
name and imperialist in deed. Imperialism and its social imperialist minions
are still with us today.
US Emerges
as the World’s Hegemon
The United States emerged after
World War II as the leading imperialist power. With the implosion of the
Socialist Bloc around 1991, US hegemony became even more consolidated. Today
the US is the undisputed world’s hegemon.
+
Fascism Has Arrived in Brazil – Jair Bolsonaro’s Presidency Will Be Worse Than You Think
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/50578.htm
by Benjamin Fogel
The
ex-army captain will do as he says. He will attempt to criminalise
the Workers’ Party and will declare indigenous social movements as terrorist organisations. His victory marks a setback for civilisation
The world’s fourth largest democracy and the biggest economy
in Latin America has elevated a man who promises to imprison or banish his
political enemies and who has openly declared he will enact a historic
cleansing of the left after taking office. Jair Bolsonaro is not a normal presidential
candidate. He is openly hostile to democracy and will probably be the most
extremist elected leader in the world. Bolsonaro
is not the straight talking man of the people his supporters claim he is;
instead he is the embodiment of the most hardline
faction of the military dictatorship that ruled Brazil for 21 years. He claims
fidelity to those like his hero Colonel Ustra who
embraced torture, murder and rape, as necessary tools in the fight against
communism.
==========
j.
TruthDig
24 January 2010
Democracy in America Is a Useful Fiction
https://www.truthdig.com/articles/democracy-in-america-is-a-useful-fiction/
by Chris Hedges
Corporate
forces, long before the Supreme Court’s decision in Citizens
United v. Federal Election Commission, carried out a coup d’état in
slow motion. The coup is over. We lost. The ruling is one more judicial effort
to streamline mechanisms for corporate control. It exposes the myth of a
functioning democracy and the triumph of corporate power. But it does not
significantly alter the political landscape. The corporate state is firmly
cemented in place.
The
fiction of democracy remains useful, not only for corporations, but for our
bankrupt liberal class. If the fiction is seriously challenged, liberals will
be forced to consider actual resistance, which will be neither pleasant nor
easy. As long as a democratic facade exists, liberals can engage in an empty
moral posturing that requires little sacrifice or commitment. They can be the
self-appointed scolds of the Democratic Party, acting as if they are part of
the debate and feel vindicated by their cries of protest.
Much
of the outrage expressed about the court’s ruling is the outrage of those who
prefer this choreographed charade. As long as the charade is played, they do
not have to consider how to combat what the political philosopher Sheldon Wolin calls our system of “inverted
totalitarianism.”
==========
k.
|
|
|
+
Iconic Palestinian protester shot in Gaza – reports
https://www.rt.com/news/443156-iconic-gaza-palestinian-shot/
+
How
lobbies buy elections, false online identities and campus deception,
stories from Gaza
https://iak.salsalabs.org/blogdigest11082018?wvpId=9623ec16-0340-11e6-ab9d-12c35146c141
==========
l.
The
Psychology of Fascism
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/50497.htm
by Robert J. Burrowes
The
continuing rise of fascism around the world is drawing increasing attention
particularly as it takes firmer grip within national societies long seen to
have rejected it.
Some
recent studies have reminded us of the characteristics of fascist movements and
individuals, particularly as they manifest among politically active fascists.
For example, in his recent book How
Fascism Works: The Politics of Us And Them Professor
Jason Stanley has identified ten characteristics shared by fascists which have
been simply presented in the article ‘Prof
Sees Fascism Creeping In U.S.’
These
characteristics, readily evident in the USA, Europe, Israel, Saudi Arabia,
Myanmar and elsewhere today, include belief in a mythic (false) past,
propaganda to divert attention and blame from the true source of corruption,
anti-intellectualism and a belief in the ‘common man’ while deriding ‘women and racial and sexual minorities who seek
basic equality as in fact seeking political and cultural domination’, promotion
of elite dogma at the expense of any competing ideas (such as those in relation
to freedom and equality), portrayal of the elite and its agents as victims,
reliance on delusion rather than fact to justify their pursuit of power, the
use of law and order ‘not to punish actual criminals, but to criminalize “out
groups” like racial, ethnic, religious and sexual minorities’ which is why we
are now ‘seeing criminality being written into immigration status’, and
identification of “out groups” as lazy while attacking welfare systems and
labor organizers, and promoting the idea that elites and their agents are hard
working while exploited groups are lazy and a drain on the state.
In
an earlier article ‘Fascism Anyone?’, published in the Spring 2003 issue of Free Inquiry Magazine, Professor
Laurence W. Britt identified fourteen shared threads that link fascists. These include
powerful and continuing expressions of nationalism, disdain for the importance
of human rights, identification of enemies/scapegoats (such as communists,
socialists, liberals, ethnic and racial minorities, traditional national
enemies, members of other religions, secularists, homosexuals and ‘terrorists’)
as a unifying cause, obsession with national security and avid identification
with the military, sexism, a controlled/compliant mass media that promotes the
elite agenda, a manufactured perception that opposing the power elite is
tantamount to an attack on religion, corporate power protected by the political
elite while the power of labor is suppressed or eliminated, disdain for
intellectuals and the arts, expanded police power and prison populations in
response to an obsession with the crime and punishment of ordinary citizens
(while elite crimes are protected by a compliant judiciary), rampant cronyism
and corruption, and fraudulent elections defended by a judiciary beholden to
the power elite.
+
Vital
Ignored Truths in Milgram’s Obedience to Authority
Studies
by
Bruce
E. Levine
Psychologist Stanley Milgram (1933–1984) was deeply affected by Nazi atrocities,
so when his early 1960s research on Americans revealed an unexpectedly high
rate of obedience to authority commanding subjects to commit cruel actions,
this very much troubled him. Milgram’s studies
revealed other truths—not as widely known—that are crucial to fighting
authoritarianism.
One ignored finding is that many of Milgram’s subjects did express dissent but ultimately obeyed. Milgram very much wanted us to recognize that in authoritarian settings,
dissent alone without disobedience is of no value in stopping abuse, as dissent
is routinely ignored by authoritarians.
In the original Milgram
study at Yale University, subjects were recruited for an experiment ostensibly
investigating learning. The naïve subjects were the “teachers” and a
confederate was the “learner,” and there was also an experimenter authority who
ordered subject teachers to shock the learner for incorrect responses. In the
most well-known variation of the experiment, 26 of 40 teacher subjects (65%)
continued to shock the confederate learner to the highest level of 450 volts
(which was labeled as “Danger: severe shock”) even as the confederate learner pounded
the walls to protest and no longer answered after 315 volts. While
65% of subjects neverdisobeyed
authority, even the other 35% (who ultimately disobeyed) did shock subjects at
lower levels.
Vital but often ignored is that
audio recordings of Milgram’s study reveal that many
subjects did offer dissent but ultimately obeyed. Many subjects tried several
different forms of verbal protest saying “I can’t do this anymore” or “I’m not
going to do this anymore.” The experimenter authority responded to subjects’
objections with a series of orders/prods to ensure they continued (Prod 1:
“Please continue”; Prod 2: “The experiment requires you to continue”; Prod 3:
“It is absolutely essential that you continue”; and Prod 4: “You have no other
choice, you must go on”). With
these prods/orders, most subjects who had protested complied.
For critics of Milgram,
these protests were attempts at disobedience, but for Milgram—and
myself—these protests were dissent, not disobedience.
And what’s crucial is that dissent without disobedience had no value for the
victim.
==========
m.
Noam Chomsky on Finkelstein’s Gaza Book
http://normanfinkelstein.com/2018/10/03/noam-chomsky-on-finkelsteins-gaza-book/
To
plumb the depths of human savagery is a formidable task, and not a pleasant
one. The task is undertaken with rigorous argument and scrupulous scholarship
in Norman Finkelstein’s monumental “inquest into Gaza’s martyrdom.” And with undisguised passion. As he writes, “this book rises
to a crescendo of anger and indignation.” It is hard to see how anyone with a
shred of humanity could react differently to the bitter record unraveled here.
There
have been evocative, often shattering, accounts of the tragedy of Gaza. Some of
the most infuriating are live testimony from the scene during the periodic
escalations of the crimes: among them the reports by the remarkable Norwegian
surgeon Mads Gilbert from the trauma wards of al-Shifa hospital and the painful daily reports by the
courageous Palestinian journalist Mohammed Omer. There have also been studies
by prestigious commissions of inquiry and by the major international
human-rights groups, all mined in Finkelstein’s inquest. Understanding has also
been enriched by work of fine journalists and scholars. But in its
comprehensive sweep, deep probing and acute critical analysis, Finkelstein’s
study stands alone.
Concluding
his inquest, Finkelstein cites warnings by UNCTAD and other international
monitors that Gaza could become literally uninhabitable by 2020 “due to ongoing
de-development, eight years of economic blockade and three operations” from
2009 to 2014. The grim figures on the availability of potable water, energy and
housing, on unemployment and dependence on humanitarian aid even for food,
depict all too clearly the nature of the catastrophe as 2020 approaches.
+
Chomsky to i24NEWS: ‘Judeo-Nazi tendencies in Israel a
product of occupation’
==========
n.
From:
"IAK Blog" <contact@ifamericansknew.org>
Sent: Thursday, 1 November, 2018
Subject: Al Jazeera film on Israel lobby,
children targeted, Palestinian universities...
|
==========
o.
Intercepted
7 November 2018
Chris Hedges on
Elections, “Christian Fascists,” and the Rot Within
the American System
(audio, 1h20)
with Jeremy Scahill
==========
p.
Why
a Neoliberal Society Can’t Survive
(Photo by Nathaniel St. Clair)
https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/10/30/why-a-neoliberal-society-cant-survive/
by
T.J.
Coles
Humans
are complicated creatures. We are both
cooperative and sectarian. We tend to be cooperative within in-groups (e.g., a
trade union) whilst competing against out-groups (e.g., a business
confederation). But complex societies such as ours also force us to cooperate
with out-groups – in neighbourhoods, at work, and so
on. In social systems, natural selection favours
cooperation. In addition, we are biased toward ethical behaviours, so cooperation and sharing are valued
in human societies.
But
what happens when we are forced into an economic system that makes us compete at
every level? The logical outcome is societal decline or collapse.
NEOLIBERAL
DOGMA IN THE 20TH CENTURY
In
“The Individual in Society,” Ludwig
von Mises, teacher of Friedrich Hayek (the granddaddy
of modern neoliberalism), wrote that in a contractual
society, the employer is at the mercy of the mob. But in a self-interested
market economy, “[t]he coordination of the autonomous actions of all
individuals is accomplished by the operation of the market.” So, in this
fantasy-world, employers can fire workers and replace them with cheaper ones
without incurring the social costs associated with contractual societies.
Particularly
after the 1970s, this kind of thinking began to permeate the culture of “free
market” planners in Ivy League economics courses.
Robert
Simons of the Harvard Business School notes that economics is by far the
dominant academic discipline in the United States today, and that many
graduates take that acquired ideology of self-interest into the workplace of
asset management, hedge funds, insurance, liquidity, and so on. Simons criticises what he calls “the unquestioning and universal
acceptance by economists of self-interest—of shareholders, managers, and
employees—as the conceptual foundation for business design and management.”
Simons notes that workers are self-interested “tribes,” as are managers, in
that they try to gain more benefits. “To remedy this potentially catastrophic
situation” of worker rights, “market economists attempt to channel errant
behaviors by using stimulus-response theory” in the form of anti-union
legislation, cuts to social services, and the threat of outsourcing jobs.
Market economists “have elevated self-interest to a normative ideal.”
==========
q.
Roaming
Charges: Chuck and Nancy’s House of Cards
https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/11/09/roaming-charges-nancys-house-of-cards/
by
Jeffrey
St. Clair
+
It seems like everybody got something out of the midterms, except one lonely
man. Nancy Pelosi won. Mitch McConnell won. Trump got a split decision.
But Chuck Schumer got creamed. Has the senator from Citibank resigned yet?
+
After Trump’s election and the announcement that Chuck Schumer would lead the
Democratic Resistance©, I predicted that Schumer’s infamous “Plan B” (pandering
to upper-middle class suburban voters and disaffected Republicans with college
degrees at the expense of blue collar voters) would result in the Democrats
losing 5 senate seats. I confess I was wrong. They only lost four,
unless, like me, you consider the retention of Robert Menendez and Joe Manchin as a result even worse
than a loss.
+ One
big takeaway from the midterms: It’s possible,
perhaps even likely, that the next Democratic presidential candidate could win
the popular vote by 10% and still
lose in the electoral college. (Democrats have a
12.5-pt lead in the popular vote in all contested senate races and have lost 4
seats.)
+ Senate
popular vote:
Democrats:
40,558,262 (55.4%)
Republicans:
31,490,026 votes (43.0%)
+ According
to the normally reliable Cook Political Report,
there were 46 GOP-held congressional seats in the House that were either
favored for a Democratic win or considered a toss-up and another 49 GOP-held
seats that leaned red but were still competitive. Of those 95 competitive
seats, the Democrats only won 30. Can that result really be considered a
success? In baseball, .315 would be a good batting average. But in
politics shouldn’t you be hitting closer to .500 in a two-party system?
==========
r.
Pologne 1968. Entretien avec Karol Modzelewski
https://www.contretemps.eu/pologne-1968-karol-modzelewski/
Przemyslaw Wielgosz est rédacteur en chef de l’édition
polonaise du Monde Diplomatique,
et l’auteur de Opium globalizacji
(« L’opium de la mondialisation »), éd. Wydawnictwo
Akademickie Dialog,
Warszawa 2004.
Przemyslaw Wielgosz : Vous êtes
considéré comme un des « pères spirituels » du mars 1968 polonais. La diffusion
de la Lettre ouverte au Parti1, que vous
aviez rédigée avec Jacek Kuron, a ouvert le cycle des
événements qui ont culminé dans la révolte étudiante. Quels étaient les buts du
mouvement étudiant polonais en mars 1968 ? Et quels furent les liens de ce
mouvement avec les propositions de la Lettre ouverte ?
Karol Modzelewski : Les buts que nous nous fixions avec Jacek Kuron
en écrivant la Lettre ouverte au Parti différaient de ceux des participants au
mouvement étudiant en 1968. Il est vrai que nous avions été accusés d’avoir
provoqué ces événements. Le Parquet nous accusait d’en avoir été les deux
principaux instigateurs et nous avions été arrêtés dès le premier jour de la
mobilisation. Nous étions tous les deux comme des leaders spirituels pour un
groupe de jeunes relativement réduit qui a commencé à agir à l’Université de
Varsovie. Mais ils furent presque tous arrêtés au cours des premiers jours du
mouvement, nombre d’entre eux le premier jour. Dans cette situation les
événements ont suivi leur propre voie. Leurs véritables auteurs, ce fut le
collectif, l’ensemble des étudiants.
Le mouvement de
mars a mobilisé de larges secteurs de l’intelligentsia universitaire, des
intellectuels, les gens de la culture et aussi toute la génération de la
jeunesse étudiante. Il était dirigé par des leaders apparus au cours des
événements, par les comités successifs de délégués des départements des
diverses écoles supérieures. Ces comités étaient emprisonnés l’un après
l’autre, mais à leur place immédiatement de nouveaux comités étaient créés. Il
me semble donc que ce que je pouvais avoir alors à l’esprit peut différer de ce
qu’avaient alors à l’esprit tous ceux qui se sont révoltés.
Ils l’ont fait
contre des choses très concrètes. Je le percevais d’ailleurs de la même manière
et j’étais d’accord avec eux. Nous devons garder à l’esprit qu’il s’agissait
d’une lutte en défense des acquis très concrets obtenus après octobre 19562.
Lors du recul
qui a suivi octobre, dès le début des années 1960, beaucoup de ces acquis ont
été repris, mais il a été possible d’en sauvegarder quelques- uns, des îlots de
liberté. Cela concernait en particulier la liberté d’expression et de parole,
dans la recherche scientifique et la didactique universitaire, qui ont été
garantis dans la loi sur l’enseignement supérieur de 1958. C’était sans doute
l’unique loi dans tout le bloc communiste qui garantissait l’autogestion dans
l’enseignement supérieur, c’est-à-dire l’élection des recteurs par les
professeurs, l’élection des doyens par le conseil du département,
l’interdiction d’exclure les étudiants pour des raisons politiques sans une
décision de la commission disciplinaire. Et cette dernière était un tribunal
composé de travailleurs universitaires, agissant publiquement, avec des
défenseurs choisis parmi les universitaires. Les autorités politiques ont voulu
par deux fois exclure de l’enseignement Adam Michnik3 et ses
collègues, et les deux fois la mobilisation de l’opinion universitaire est
parvenue à l’empêcher.
==========
s.
Has The U.S. Gone Insane?
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/50583.htm
by Jeffrey Bowers
What does United States of
America stand for nowadays if political division is at an all time high? Is it
still the land of the free if America has the highest rate of incarceration in
the world? Are we still the home of the brave if we refuse to stand up to
injustice, because it would compromise our pocketbook? This disconnection from
reality is the definition of psychosis. Pulitzer-prize winning journalist,
best-selling author, and activist Chris Hedges, has made it his life’s work to
highlight this inequity and combat the complacency of the consumerist culture.
In a 2010 essay published on Adbusters, Hedges caught
the eye of filmmaker Amanda Zackem, when he succinctly spelled out the problems
with totalitarian capitalism and corporate power. Those ideas deeply resonated
with Zackem and caused her to reach out to Hedges
about bringing his essay into the cinematic realm in
order to expose them to a larger audience. This week’s Staff Pick Premiere,
“American Psychosis,” is the result of that process and their attempt to make
people think more deeply about the world we’re living in.
“We live in an unbalanced, exploitation-based system and
that’s not morally right or just. The issues of totalitarian capitalism and
totalitarian corporate power need to be discussed more openly and honestly in
our national dialogue,” says Zackem. “To be clear,
totalitarian capitalism is not sustainable and should not be intertwined with
our government. Most people don’t realize how their consumer choices negatively
impact the world – environmentally, socially, culturally, politically, globally.” Without going deep into the trenches, the short
documentary illuminates many of these issues. However, with its hard-lined
perspective, “American Psychosis” serves as a vital entry point to critically
observing, thinking, and acting on the imbalances one sees in society. “I
learned long ago that you can’t change anybody unless they want to change
themselves. With this in mind, my intention when making this film was to
encourage people to begin to think critically about the world we live in as
opposed to just going through our daily motions. Most of us aren’t even aware
of the oppressive, inequitable systems we are a part of, or if we are, we
choose not to look, or not to talk about it, because it is uncomfortable. I
want people to question the world we live in, the systems we’ve set up. I want
people to self-reflect and take personal responsibility for our current
situation. Why do we allow it to continue? What are we afraid of? How can we
co-create and help each other live and thrive as individuals and as a
community?”
==========
t.
Turkey’s
President Says Recording of Khashoggi’s Killing Was
Given to U.S.
by Mark Landler and David D. Kirkpatrick
President
Recep Tayyip Erdogan, shown on Saturday in Ankara, said Turkey had
shared recordings linked to the murder of the journalist Jamal Khashoggi with Saudi Arabia, the United States and other countries.CreditCreditBurhan Ozbilici/Associated
Press