Bulletin N° 857
Subject
: “You
can fool some of the people all of the time and you can fool all of the people
some of the time, but you can’t fool all of the people all of the time.”
August 24, 2019
Grenoble,
France
Dear
Colleagues and Friends of CEIMSA,
Lawrence
Stone’s classic 428-page histoire des mentalités, The
Family, Sex and Marriage in England 1500-1800, opens with a disarming justification for
publication of the abridged edition of his larger and more technical book:
A book
which weighs 3 pounds 6 ounces, is 800 pages long and costs
£16 or $30 is clearly in need of abridgement if it is to reach a wide audience.
This edition is therefore approximately half the size of the original. The
principals upon which the cuts have been made are as
follows. All extraneous matter, intriguing diversions from the mainline of the
argument, has been severally pruned. Most sections treating the lower classes
have been particularly ruthlessly trimmed, since, as reviewers were quick to
point out, the evidence here was very weak. This edition is therefore even more
closely concerned than the original with the top levels of society, the upper
mercantile and professional classes, the squirarchy
and the aristocracy. Space has been saved by cutting out all but the most
striking and illuminating of the mass of examples that were used to buttress
each point.
In
making this abridgement, I have been much helped by suggestions from my wife.(p.17)
Professor Stone’s 1977 study suggests, in broad
outline, the evolution of the family in different social classes in England
from the mid-15th century through the 18th century: “the
open lineage family, 1450-1630;” “the restricted patriarchal nuclear family,
1550-1700;” and “the closed domesticated nuclear family, 1640-1800.” In his introduction to this historical
research - which is much influenced by modern anthropological and demographic
theory and method -
Stone explains the conceptual framework of this essay.
The
subject of this book can be stated fairly simply. It is an attempt to chart and
document, to analyze and explain, some massive shifts
in world views and value systems that occurred in England over a period of some
three hundred years, from 1500 to 1800. These vast and elusive cultural changes
expressed themselves in changes in the ways members of the family related to each other, in
terms of legal arrangements, structure, custom, power, affect and sex. The main
stress is on how individuals thought about, treated and used each other, and
how they regarded themselves in relation to God and to various levels of social
organization, from the nuclear family to the state. The microcosm of the family
is used to open a window on to this wider landscape of cultural change.
The
critical change is that from distance, deference and patriarchy to what I have
chosen to call affective individualism. I believe this to have been perhaps the
most important change in mentalité to have
occurred in the Early Modern period, indeed possibly in the last thousand years
of Western history.
Four key
features of the modern family – intensified affective bonding of the nuclear
core at the expense of neighbours and kin; a strong
sense of individual autonomy and the right to personal freedom in the pursuit
of happiness; a weakening of the association of sexual pleasure with sin and
guilt; and a growing desire for physical privacy – were all well established by
1750 in the key middle and upper sectors of English society.
. . .
Early
Modern English society was composed of a number of very distinct status groups
and classes: the court aristocracy, the county gentry, the parish gentry, the
mercantile and professional elite, the small property owners in town and
country, the respectable and struggling wage-earners, and the totally destitute
who lived on charity and their wits. These constituted more or less
self-contained cultural units, with their own communication networks, their own
systems of value and their own patterns of acceptable behaviour.
Internal cultural divisions between social groups ran much deeper than they do
today, when the differences are as much between generations as between classes.
As time went on and as writing and printing spread to become the main vehicle
for the diffusion of ideas, the degree to which different social strata used or
were affected by this new means of expression brought with it still more marked
divisions. The result was less the suppression of one family pattern and set of
family values by another than the provision of a widening number of quite
different patterns.(pp.21-23)
In the third chapter, Stone describes the structure
and values of the “open lineage family” before the appearance of patriarchy in
the English family, which, by his estimation, occurred sometime around 1550.
The most
striking characteristic of the late medieval and early sixteenth-century
family, at all social levels, was the degree to which it was open to external
influences, a porosity that is in contrast to the more sealed off and private
nuclear family type that was to develop in the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries. Not only its individual members, but the nuclear family itself was
strongly other-directed; The principal external
agencies varied from class to class: among the landed elite being mainly the
kin and the ‘good lord’; and among the peasantry, artisans and laborers being
mainly the neighbors. In both cases the nuclear family had only weak boundaries
to separate it from wider definitions of social space.
In the
late middle ages the nuclear family of the landed
elite was no more than a loose core at the centre of a dense network of lineage
and kin relationships. The degree to which the kin interacted with the nuclear
core depended on social rank. It was dominated among the great aristocracy,
very influential among the squirarchy, and still
important among the parish gentry. The reason for this is the preoccupation
with the preservation, increase and transmission through inheritance and
marriage of the property and status of the lineage, of the generations of
ancestors stretching back into the remote past. The larger the property and
status, the more ancient the family on its ancestral acres, the more intense
was the preoccupation with the lineage, and thus the greater the participation
of the kin in the formation and daily life of the conjugal family. A great many
of the functions now focused upon it, were then shared with kin. The family at
this period cannot, therefore, be looked at in isolation, since at ‘every turn
it was being affected by and interacting with kin relatives. Since the kin
formed a community, marriage meant not so much intimate association with an
individual as entry into a new world of the spouse’s relatives, uncles, nephews
and distant cousins . . . .
To
understand the moral premises upon which such a society is based, it is
necessary to rid ourselves of three modern Western culture-bound
preconceptions. The first is that there is a clear dichotomy between marriage
for interest, meaning money, status or power, and a
marriage for affect, meaning love, friendship or sexual
attraction; and that the first is morally reprehensible. In practice in the
sixteenth century, no such distinction existed; and if it did, affect was of
secondary importance
to interest, while romantic love and lust were strongly condemned
as ephemeral and irrational grounds for marriage. The second modern
preconception is that sexual intercourse unaccompanied by an emotional
relationship is immoral, and that marriage for interest is therefore a form of
prostitution; The third is that personal autonomy, the pursuit by the
individual of his or her own happiness, is paramount, a claim justified by the
theory that it in fact contributes to the well-being of the group. To an
Elizabethan audience the tragedy of Romeo and Juliet, like that of Othello, lay
not so much in their ill-starred romance as in the way they brought destruction
upon themselves by violating the norms of the society in which they lived,
which in the former case meant strict filial obedience and loyalty to the
traditional friendships and enemies of the lineage. An Elizabethan courtier
would be familiar enough with the bewitching passion of love to feel some
sympathy with the young couple, but he would see clearly enough where duty lay.
Marriage
among the property-owning classes in sixteenth-century England was, therefore,
a collective decision of family and kin, not an individual one. (pp.69-70)
In chapter 9, Stone describes parent-child
relations in the “the closed domesticated nuclear family in the period of 1640-1800, when
the new mode of family behavior embraced child-oriented, affectionate and
permissive attitudes.
There are four possible views
about the nature of the new-born child, the adoption of each of which
profoundly affects the way he is treated. The first, and most common, was the
traditional Christian view, strongly reinforced by Calvinist theology, that the
child is born with Original Sin, and that the only hope of holding it in check
is by the most ruthless repression of his will and his total subordination to
his parents, schoolmasters and others in authority over him. This religious
view merely reinforced the current secular position that it is the duty of
inferiors, like children, to give full obedience to superiors, like parents, and
that early socialization in the need for such obedience and deference is an
essential preparation for life in a strictly hierarchical society.
The
second view was the environmentalist one, that a child
is born with a propensity towards neither good nor evil, but is a tabula
rasa, malleable and open to being moulded by
experience. As early as 1628 the Anglican John Earle observed that ‘the child
is . . . the best copy of Adam before he tasted of Eve or the apple…. His soul
is yet a white paper unscribbled with the
observations of the world…. He knows no evil.’
The
third view was biological, that the character and potentialities of the child
are genetically determined at conception, that there is little that subsequent
environmental influence and educational efforts can do except to reinforce good
habits and restrain bad ones. This view was of course fundamental to
astrological theory, according to which both character and fate are largely
determined by the configuration of the planets at the moment of birth (or
possibly conception). But in practice seventeenth-century parents do not seem
to have acted on this assumption, despite their faith in astrology. They
continued to break the will of children in the hope of remoulding
character. It was a view which only began to affect childrearing during the
eighteenth century, and in 1744 Molly Lady Hervey wrote that children ‘acquire
arts but not qualities; the latter whether good or bad, grow like their
feature; time enlarges, but does not make them.’ Education, she believed, is
powerless to change nature, ‘yet one may certainly help it.’
The
fourth view was utopian, that the child is born good and is corrupted only by
his experience in society. This was an idea which had been propounded by some
Renaissance humanists, but it had disappeared under the onslaught of the
Calvinist doctrine of Original Sin. Early evidence of its re-emergence in England appears in
connection with the ‘noble savage’ in Mrs Aphra Behn’s play Oroonoko in 1688: ‘God makes all things good: man
meddles with them and they become evil.’ The suggestion was ignored, until it
was put forward with far greater publicity by Rousseau in the middle of the
eighteenth century. Even then, however, it seems to have had little practical
influence, although Emile was certainly widely read in England. In
eighteenth-century England the environmental theory tended to supersede the
Calvinist in middle- and upper-class circles , before
it was overwhelmed again in the nineteenth century.
In 1693
John Locke gave wide currency to the second – ‘piece of clean paper’ – point of
view in his extremely popular handbook on education. His book coincided with
the overthrow of Divine Right monarchy, the rejection of the doctrine of
Passive Obedience, the granting of limited religious toleration and the passage
of the Bill of Rights. The general relaxation of deferential and hierarchical
practice in society, as reflected in these political changes, combined with
Locke’s Some Thoughts upon Education to open the way for a new era in
parent-child relations, and a much more relaxed and affectionate approach to
the problems of child-rearing. The book was a success because the readership
was already half prepared to accept its ideas; Its time had come.(pp.254-256)
In the second half of this book, Stone goes on to
describe the mating criteria and the sexual attitudes and behavior of various
social classes. He concluded Chapter 10, “Upper-Class Attitudes and Behavior”
with an overview of changes in socially acceptable sexual behavior and the
causes of this fluctuation.
In the
terms of the sexual attitudes of the upper classes, who more or less
successfully imposed their values on their social inferiors, English society
thus passed through several phases; a phase of moderate toleration
lasting until towards the end of the sixteenth century; a phase of repression
that ran from about 1570 to 1670; and a phase of permissiveness, even licence, that ran for over a century form 1670 to 1810.
This was followed by a new wave of repression that began in 1770, was
spreading fast by 1810, and reached its apogee in the mid-Vicrtorian
period. After about 1870 this wave in turn receded, to be followed by a new
period of permissiveness that has perhaps reached its apogee in the 1970s.
These long-term see-saw oscillations do not seem to be connected to economic or
political factors, but rather to cultural – and particularly religious –
changes. Both sexual repression and sexual permissiveness eventually generate
extremist features, which in turn set in motion counterforces
which by a process of ‘social reversion’ slowly turn the pendulum back in the
other direction. The duration of each of these swings of religio-ethical
attitudes towards sexuality seems to have been about a hundred years. There is
no reason to believe that there is a cyclical law in operation, for the swings
can be accounted for by specific changes in religious enthusiasm, and by the
time it takes for excesses to generate their own opposites.(p.339)
This chapter is followed
by a detailed description of “gentlemanly sexual behaviour”
using the diaries of Samual Pepys (1633-1703) and
James Boswell (1740-1795). Then, Stone
embarks on the more problematic study of “plebeian sexual behaviour,”
for which there is almost total absence of documentary first-hand
accounts. He concludes his discussion
with a speculation on the causes of change in plebeian behavior.
It is clear that what needs explaining is a
three-stage shift in the sexual behaviour of the
English poor in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries; first to an increase
of pre-marital chastity in the early seventeenth century; then in the
eighteenth century to greater visual and verbal permissiveness, far more
pre-nuptial intercourse (usually followed by marriage), and a more or less
simultaneous increase in the proportion of couples who failed to marry after
pregnancy had occurred. Later still, in the very late eighteenth and the
nineteenth centuries, a new wave of sexual prudery spread downwards from the
lower-middle classes to the respectable poor, leaving unaffected only the very
lowest elements of the society, the lumpenproletariat.
The
shifting attitude towards sexuality in western Europe
in Early Modern times can be studied at three levels, that of the official
moral theologians, that of the religious radicals, and that of an increasingly
secular society. It seems likely, however, that the first was of critical
importance only during the early seventeenth-century Puritan drive and that
thereafter it was modified to conform to attitudes among the laity, and is thus
a secondary variable from 1660 until the renewed Evangelical drive after 1770.
As for the second , it had little or no temporary or
permanent influence whatsoever in its own time or afterwards.
There is
every reason to believe that the chief cause of the unusually high and rising
standard of sexual morality in early seventeenth-century England was the
external pressure of Puritan organization and Puritan preaching, which slowly
affected the attitudes of nearly all the propertied classes, whether Puritan,
Anglican or Arminian. It became part of the generally
accepted pattern of internalized and enforced social discipline, and thus
seeped downwards through the social hierarchy to the plebs.(p.395)
Stone concludes this
study on a somewhat pessimistic note, quoting Alexis de Tocqueville on the
gains and losses of mankind with the rise of 19th-century democracy:
‘I do not know, on the whole, whether society loses
by the change, but I am inclined to believe that man individually is a gainer
by it. I think that in proportion as manners and laws become more democratic,
the relation of father and son becomes more intimate and more affectionate. . .
. It would seem that the natural bond is
drawn closer in proportion as the social bond is loosened.’ Such a cautiously favourable final judgement about
the results of the rise of affective individualism seems best to fit the
confused and conflicting evidence about the evolution of the family. However
one assesses it in moral terms, for better or for worse, it is certainly one of
the most significant transformations that has ever taken place, not only in the
most intimate aspects of human life, but also in the nature of the social
organization. It is geographically, chronologically and socially a most
restricted and unusual phenomenon, and there is as little reason to have any
more confidence in its survival and spread in the future as there is in that of
democracy itself.(p.428)
In a separate work, Past and
Present Revisited (1987), Professor Stone discusses historiography
in general and specifically “the new history.” Referring to Fernand Braudel’s historic study of The
Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II,
as a classic example of the new history, he writes that “without question,
[this book is] one of the most influential single works of history to have appeared
since the Second World War.”
It is significant for two reasons. First, it
stresses very heavily geography, ecology, and demography as the constraining
factors which set strict limits on all human action. Second, it frees
itself entirely from any national perspective and ranges around the
Mediterranean basin, seeing the great clash of Ottoman Islam and Latin
Christianity that culminated in the battle of Lepanto in 1571 as a global
whole, without any attempt to take sides. Compared with the vast inexorable
tides of malaria, timber cutting, soil erosion, demographic growth and decline,
bullion transfers, or price revolution, the actions of emperors like Philip II
are made to seem of only marginal importance in the evolution of the societies that developed around the great inland sea.
This is deterministic, fatalistic history which is alien to both liberal
believers in free will and progress and Marxist beliefs in sociological
evolution based on changes in the modes of production. Neither group is happy
with this pragmatic pessimism based on the iron limitations of Malthusianism
and ecology. . . . This is not to argue that the Braudel model is either true or false, but merely to point
out the radical shift of historical perspective involved in such borrowings
from the social sciences.(pp.19-20)
From
these readings, we might ask if Professor Stone has not given us a picture of
the early cultivation of neo-liberal ideology, later to grow into
capitalist globalization and amoral imperialist justifications for expansion
and wholesale inequality, both at home and abroad. Is it not the morbid ideology and
erroneous science of Thomas Malthus (1766-1834) that can be seen today as
historic seed grain for the current harvest of neoliberalism, which explains
the bitter fruits of contemporary capitalism, as an applied ideology here and
around the world?
The
17 + items below
offer readers a diversity of views into the inner workings of political economy and specifically of class
domination. It is a landscape filled with necessary distractions and scapegoats, which
is required to keep the ball rolling up hill towards a greater concentration of wealth in the hands
of fewer and fewer people. Our inattentive participation (affective individualism) is essential for this
game of imbalance to be played. Without us there is no game!
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.
Collective Guilt
A
future of collective shame for decades to come,
and future indemnities to pay for the
crimes of the rich
(A series of four interviews on state violence at the Mexican border &
six essays on the politics of racism)
Meet Alvaro Enciso, the Artist Placing Crosses in Sonoran Desert to Memorialize Migrant Deaths
https://www.democracynow.org/2019/8/21/alvaro_enciso_unique_crosses_sonoran_desert
Activist Scott Warren,
Facing Federal Charges for Aiding Migrants, Says He Won’t Be Deterred
https://www.democracynow.org/2019/8/19/no_more_deaths_scott_warren
“Humanitarian Aid Is
Never a Crime”: No More Deaths Volunteers Drop Water
in Desert to Aid Migrants
https://www.democracynow.org/2019/8/19/humanitarian_aid_is_never_a_crime
“They Are
Irreplaceable, and They Mattered”: Group Identifies Human Remains Along the Border
https://www.democracynow.org/2019/8/19/robin_reineke_colibri_center_human_rights
Walmart
Shooter Manifesto
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/52053.h
Donald and Melania gleefully pose with the baby whose parents were
murdered in El Paso shooting
Supreme Nihilism: the
El Paso Shooter’s Manifesto
https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/08/19/supreme-nihilism-the-el-paso-shooters-manifesto/
by
John O'Kane
Mass Shootings and
Political Misuse of Them Have Unintended Consequences
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/52052.htm
by
Paul Craig Roberts
Blacks Don’t Blame
Immigrants for the Boss’s Crimes
https://blackagendareport.com/blacks-dont-blame-immigrants-bosss-crimes
by
Glen Ford
White Terror: Toni
Morrison on the Construct of Racism
https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/08/19/white-terror-toni-morrison-on-the-construct-of-racism/
by
Ipek S. Burnett
===========
b.
U.S. Sanctions are Meant to Cause Deliberate
Human Suffering
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/52159.htm
by Gary D. Barnett
+
CEOs Have the Whole System Gamed
https://www.truthdig.com/articles/robert-reich-ceos-have-the-whole-system-gamed/
by Robert Reich
+
Psychiatrist On ‘The
Essential Emptiness Of President Donald Trump’ | The Last Word | MSNBC -
YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0B4nS1-ScYw
===========
c.
John Pilger warns: “Do not forget Assange.
Or you will lose him”
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2019/08/09/pilg-a09.html
Thursday Vigil to Free Julian Assange & Chelsea Manning
Thursday, August 8, 2019
The New York Times Bldg, 8th
Ave. @ 40 Street, NYC
4:30 pm - 6:00 pm
+
New Fears for Julian Assange
https://consortiumnews.com/2019/08/07/new-fears-for-julian-assange/
+
Chelsea Manning Can
Remain in Jail for Another Year, Judge Rules
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/52062.htm
+
The Latest Victim in the Crucifixion of Julian Assange - Trut
https://www.truthdig.com/articles/the-latest-victim-in-the-persecution-of-julian-assange/
+
Despite briefing by Julian Assange’s
lawyer, Australian politicians still refuse to defend him
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2019/08/03/assa-a03.html
+
40 rebuttals to the media's smears of Julian Assange –
by someone who was actually there
https://thegrayzone.com/2019/08/20/cnn-media-smears-julian-assange-fidel-narvaez/
+
Julian Assange’s father
warns WikiLeaks’ publisher’s health
is “declining rapidly” in Belmarsh
Prison - World Socialist Web Site
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2019/08/20/ship-a20.html
+
Watch "Honest Government Ad | Julian Assange"
+
Media dead silent
as Wikileaks insider explodes the myths around Julian
Assange - Michael West
+
John
Pilger calls out the US and UK for their
"barbaric" and "lawless" treatment of publisher/journalist
Julian Assange
https://twitter.com/johnpilger/status/1160659082564571145
+
Australian
investigative journalist exposes Guardian/New York Times betrayal of Assange - World Socialist Web Site
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2019/08/10/assa-a10.html
+
Thursday Vigil to Free Julian Assange
& Chelsea Manning
Thursday, August 22, 2019
The New York Times Bldg, 8th Ave. @ 40 Street,
NYC
4:30 pm - 6:00 pm
Revelations
that The New York Times and The Guardian "set up" Assange in 2010, and played a "pivotal and consciously
dishonest role in smearing him ever since," were exposed by Mark Davis at
an event in Sydney, Australia on August 8, and reported by
Kit Klarenberg.
We
return to The New York Times on Thursday, August 22, to hold them
accountable for their betrayal and cowardice as they published, along with The Guardian, and WikiLeaks,
the Afgan War Logs. We demand they now defend
and protect Julian Assange, Chelsea Manning, and
Freedom of the Press. Please join us.
Note:
NYC Free Assange has come together to
demand freedom for award-winning publisher and journalist Julian Assange and courageous whistle-blower Chelsea Manning.
===========
d.
RT
NEWSLETTER - August 23, 2019
https://subscribe.rt.com/preview/L6WLSz
===========
e.
From: "Jim O'Brien via H-PAD" <h-pad@lists.historiansforpeace.org>
Sent: Thursday, August 8, 2019
Subject: [H-PAD] H-PAD Notes 8/8/19: Links to recent articles of
interest
Links to Recent Articles of Interest
By Juliette Kayyem,
Washington Post, posted August 5
"White-supremacist terror is
rooted in a pack, a community." The author is a former assistant secretary
in the Department of Homeland Security.
By Steve Ross, Slate, posted
August 4
The author teaches history at the
University of Southern California.
By Jasmine Aguilera, Time, posted
August 2
On mass deportations, mainly during
the Hoover administration. Based principally on the research of scholars Francisco Balderrama and Raymond Rodríguez,
authors of Decade of Betrayal.
"Remembering the Red Summer 100 Years Later"
By David Krugler,
History News Network, posted August 4
The author teaches US history at the
University of Wisconsin-Platteville. He proposes the term "antiblack collective violence" in place of "race
riots."
"In the Trump
Era, Americans Have Trouble Agreeing on the Past, Let Alone the Future"
By Andrew J. Bacevich,
Roanoke Times, posted August 2
The author is a professor emeritus
of history and international relations at Boston University.
By Adam Hochschild,
TomDispatch.com, posted August 1
On parallels with repression in the
US in the World War I era.
The author has written several widely read history books including To End All Wars about World War I in Britain.
"The Dangerous New
US Consensus on China and the Future of US-China Relations"
By Mel Gurtov
and Mark Selden, Asia-Pacific Journal, posted August 1.
Both of the authors have written
widely over many years on East Asia and US policies toward the region.
By John Feffer,
Foreign Policy in Focus, posted July 31
The author is director of Foreign
Policy in Focus at the Institute for Policy Studies.
"The Real Reason So Many Republicans Love Israel? Their Own White
Supremacy"
By Peter Beinart,
Forward, posted July 29
"They conflate love of Israel
with love of America because they see Israel as a model for what they want
America to be: an ethnic democracy."
Thanks to an anonymous reader for
suggesting one of the articles in the above list. Suggestions can be sent to jimobrien48@gmail.com.
===========
f.
From: Mark Crispin Miller
Sent: Saturday, August 10, 2019
Subject: [MCM] Five men sentenced to life for
Operation Condor killings learned their craft at School of the Americas
From some three weeks ago, some news
that didn't make the New York Times,
or any other US corporate outlet (that I know of).
MCM
Published on Wednesday,
July 17, 2019
Five Men Sentenced to Life for Operation Condor Killings Trained at
School of the Americas
by
Brett Wilkins
Revelation
comes after Italian court sentences 24 men to life behind bars for roles in
U.S.-backed state terror campaign.
Five of the 24 men sentenced last week by
an Italian court to life in prison for their roles in a brutal and bloody
U.S.-backed Cold War campaign against South American dissidents graduated from
a notorious US Army school once known for teaching torture, assassination, and
democracy suppression.
On July 8 judges in Rome’s Court of Appeals
sentenced the former Bolivian, Chilean, Peruvian and Uruguayan government and
military officials after they were found guilty of kidnapping and murdering 23
Italian nationals in the 1970s and 1980s during Operation
Condor, a coordinated effort by right-wing military dictatorships in
Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, Bolivia, Paraguay, Brazil—and, later, Peru and
Ecuador—against perceived leftist threats. The campaign, which was characterized
by kidnappings, torture, disappearances and murder, claimed an estimated 60,000 lives,
according to human rights groups. Victims included leftists and other
dissidents, clergy, intellectuals, academics, students, peasant and trade union
leaders, and indigenous peoples.
The United States government—including
military and intelligence agencies—supported Operation Condor with military
aid, planning, and technical support as well as surveillance and torture
training during the Johnson, Nixon, Ford,
Carter and Reagan administrations. Much of this support, which the U.S.
attempted to justify within the context of the global Cold War struggle against
communism, was based at U.S. military installations in Panama. It was there
that the US Army opened the School of the Americas in 1946, which would
graduate 11 Latin American heads of state over the following decades. None of
them became their country’s leader by democratic means, leading critics to dub
the SOA “School of Assassins” and “School of Coups” because it produced so many
of both.
+
An Open Invitation to Tyranny
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/52055.htm
by
Paul Craig Roberts
The
FBI has published a document that concludes
that “conspiracy theories” can motivate believers to commit crimes.
Considering
the growing acceptance of pre-emptive arrest, that is, arresting someone before
they can commit a crime that they are suspected of planning to commit,
challenging official explanations, such as those offered for the assassinations
of John F. Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, and Martin Luther King or the official
explanation for 9/11, can now result in monitoring by authorities with a view
to finding a reason for pre-emptive arrest. Presidents George W. Bush and Obama
created the police state precedents of suspension of habeas corpus and
assassination of citizens on suspicion alone without due process. If Americans can be preemptively
detained indefinitely and preemptively assassinated,
Americans can expect to be preemptively
imprisoned for crimes that they did not commit.
+
Inside
the Submissive Void: Propaganda, Censorship, Power and Control
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/52060.htm
===========
g.
From: Mark Crispin Miller
Sent: Wednesday, August 21, 2019
Subject: [MCM] Israel NEEDS
anti-semites, and vice-versa
Israel needs anti-semites—or
"anti-semites"—to get Jews everywhere, and
especially the USA, to
rally round its flag (a strategy that's failing); and (real) anti-semites need the Jewish State, to cast
their Jew-hatred as anti-Zionism (a strategy that's working all too
well).
In any case, it's notable indeed, as Mairav Zonszein tweets, that Israel lets in Gavin McInnes,
despite
that goon's virulent, outspoken anti-semitism.
(Check out his video, "10 things I hate about Jews," at
And it's also notable that Israel, despite its
endless bellowing against the "anti-semitism"
of BDS et al.,
supported the US-installed junta in Ukraine—a regime full of outright neo-Nazis—and
even armed its
SS-bedazzled forces fighting in the East:
http://markcrispinmiller.com/2018/08/israel-is-arming-ukraines-neo-nazi-fighters/
Such Nazi-friendliness should come as no surprise,
since Zionism's fiercest champions have always
been racial supremacists, just like the Nazis—with whom they actually saw eye
to eye, back in
the Thirties (as Lenni Brenner makes quite clear
in his two must-read books, Zionism in the Age of
the Dictators and 51
Documents: Zionist Collaboration with the Nazis.)
MCM
+
Jewish
Settlers Rule the Roost in Israel, but at What Price?
https://www.mintpressnews.com/jewish-settlers-rule-the-roost-in-israel-but-at-what-price/261415/
+
Israel
Chooses Short-Term Land Grabs Over Long-Term Legitimac
https://www.mintpressnews.com/with-trumps-help-israel-land-grabs-long-term-legitimacy/261398/
+
Kushner's
Threat to Palestine: An Interview with Norman Finkelstein
+
"Israel:
Breaking the Silence” -
DW Documentary
+
Iran
warns Israel against aiding US mission in Strait of Hormuz
===========
h.
China Rising
Neoliberalism Has Met Its Match in China
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/52075.htm
by Ellen Brown
Xi’s choice: Destroy
Trump, or save him and weaken America - The Washington Post
China Just Went Nuclear In The Trade War, And
There Is No Turning Back Now
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/52058.htm
The United States Will
Miss China’s Money – Foreign Policy
https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/08/19/the-united-states-will-miss-chinas-money/
From
trade war to currency war. Global economy braces
for difficult times ahead (Video)
Is the Federal Reserve
losing control of the gold price?
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/52067.htm
Defying U.S. Sanctions,
China and Others Take Oil From 12 Iranian Tankers -
The New York Times
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/08/03/world/middleeast/us-iran-sanctions-ships.html
Hong Kong protests a
‘Trojan horse’ – Galloway
Hong Kong’s Crisis as
Microcosm of the World’s Future
https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/07/31/hong-kongs-crisis-as-microcosm-of-the-worlds-future/
"China warns
against US rush to plant missiles in Asia"
Watch "Trump tries
to stave off concerns over economic downturn"
===========
i.
Hong
Kong protests turn violent
as China remains firm in extradition
law
+
Hong
Kong, Kashmir: a Tale of Two Occupations
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/52070.htm
+
The
World According to George Galloway
https://www.truthdig.com/articles/the-world-according-to-george-galloway/
===========
j.
How
Israeli spies are flooding Facebook and Twitter
by Asa Winstanley
+
From: "The National Security Archive" <nsarchiv@gwu.edu>
Sent: Friday, August 9, 2019
Subject: Kissinger Told Soviet Envoy during 1973 Arab-Israeli War:
"My Nightmare is a Victory for Either Side" – The Soviet Agreed
+ Feeding
the Israel Lobby: Congress Gives the Jewish State Whatever it Wants http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/52054.htm =========== |
k.
From “Spook Air” to the “Lolita Express”: The
Genesis and Evolution of the Jeffrey Epstein-Bill Clinton Relationship
https://www.mintpressnews.com/author/whitney-webb/
by Whitney Webb
Far
from being the work of a single political party, intelligence agency or
country, the power structure revealed by the network connected to Epstein is
nothing less than a criminal enterprise that is willing to use and abuse
children in the pursuit of ever more power, wealth and control.
+
Long
Before Epstein: Sex Traffickers & Spy Agencies
https://consortiumnews.com/2019/08/23/long-before-epstein-sex-traffickers-spy-agencies/
+
The
Pseudo Debate Over Jeffrey Epstein’s Suicide
https://consortiumnews.com/2019/08/20/the-pseudo-debate-over-jeffrey-epsteins-suicide/
+
Jeffrey
Epstein Accuser Names Powerful Men in Alleged Sex Ring
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/52069.htm
===========
l.
From: Mark
Crispin Miller
Sent: Saturday,
August 10, 2019
Subject: [MCM]
Greenpeace warns Korea of Japan's discharge of 1 billion liters of radioactive
water
Greenpeace warns Korea of Japan's radioactive water
discharge
|
Storage tanks for radioactive water are seen at Tokyo Electric
Power Co's (TEPCO) tsunami-crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in
Okuma town, Fukushima prefecture, Japan, in this picture taken on Feb. 18.
Reuters |
by Kim Jae-heun
An
international environment organization has said that Japan plans to discharge
radioactive waste into the Pacific Ocean in the near future and Korea will fall
particularly vulnerable.
Greenpeace Korea, the global NGO's branch in Seoul, reposted on Facebook, Wednesday, a column by its nuclear specialist
Shaun Burnie published in The Economist, saying Japan
is planning to discharge more than 1 billion liters of contaminated water
stored at the Fukushima nuclear plant since the massive earthquake and nuclear
disaster of 2011.
Burnie wrote in his article that the Japanese
government has decided recently to take the "cheapest and fastest"
way to dispose wastewater, which is to discharge it into the Pacific Ocean.
The scientist added neighboring countries will be exposed to radiation as a
result and Korea, in particular, will suffer the most from it.
He claimed that if 1 million tons of radioactive water is discharged into the
ocean, it will take 17 years and 770 million tons of water to dilute it, adding
it is impossible not to discharge it without contaminating the ocean, and
countries in the Pacific region will be exposed to radiation.
===========
m.
In-Depth Interview:
Author Kris Newby and Prof. Mark Crispin Miller Talk About Chronic Lyme Disease, and Its Likely Origins
+
Watch
"Is the Rise in Lyme Disease Due to Weaponized
Ticks?"
===========
n.
Climate Chaos
"On Contact: Climate Emergency with Roger Hallam,
Extinction Rebellion"
Documents Reveal Monsanto Surveilled
Journalists, Activists & Even Musician Neil Young | Democracy Now!
https://www.democracynow.org/2019/8/9/monsanto_fusion_center_surveillance_of_critics
How to Understand the IPCC’s New Climate Warning - The Atlantic
Stunning New Map
Finally Reveals How Ice Flows From Antarctica to The
Sea
Glaciologists unveil most precise map ever of Antarctic ice velocity |
Watts Up With That?
Decades-old pollutants
melting out of Himalayan glaciers
https://phys.org/news/2019-08-decades-old-pollutants-himalayan-glaciers.html
Brazil’s Massive Crime Against Humanity
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/52012.htm
There's Something You
Must Know About Trees And Their Role in Climate Change
https://www.sciencealert.com/how-much-more-carbon-can-our-forests-actually-soak-up
+
https://www.democracynow.org/shows/2019/8/23?autostart=127.0
Indigenous Communities Say Brazil’s President Is Encouraging Destruction of Forestshttps://www.democracynow.org/2019/8/23/headlines/indigenous_communities_say_brazils_president_is_encouraging_destruction_of_forests
+
https://www.democracynow.org/shows/2019/8/23?autostart=127.0
===========
o.
From the Avaaz team.
|
===========
p.
The Yellow Vest Movement in France
Yellow vests
come out in support of nation’s truckers - Portugal Resident
https://www.portugalresident.com/2019/08/08/yellow-vests-come-out-in-support-of-nations-truckers/
Macron on brink: French president crisis as support plummets – shock poll | World | News |
Express.co.uk
Macron on
brink: French president accused of ‘contempt’ amid rash of attacks on MP
offices | World | News | Express.co.uk
French farmers
damage more offices of Macron MPs over trade deals | Article [AMP] | Reuters
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-france-protests-idUSKCN1UY1UV
France chaos: Police
and protesters clash after man's death - Macron under pressure | World | News |
Express.co.uk
Macron minister sparks
outrage after comparing Yellow Vests’ actions to a ‘terror attack’ | World |
News | Express.co.uk
Macron news: Yellow
Vest riots to continue as President warned of voters' rage | World | News |
Express.co.uk
French Authorities to Crack Down on Protest as 13,000 Police Mobilize for G7 Summit https://www.democracynow.org/2019/8/23/headlines/french_authorities_to_crack_down_on_protest_as_13_000_police_mobilize_for_g7_summit
https://www.democracynow.org/shows/2019/8/23?autostart=127.0
===========
q.
Myth
of Justness
https://worldbeyondwar.org/category/myths/not-just/
+
The Deep State Hiding in Plain Sight
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EYS647HTgks
Moyers
& Company
(April 15, 2014)
World War 3: The West is ALREADY at war with Russia and China - warns John Pilger