PLEASE NOTE: THE TRUTH IS OUT THERE
Simon Schama / Robert Byrd / Susan Sontag / Nick Cave / Jose Saramago / Slavoj Zizek / WBY / Günter Grass / Arundhati Roy / Julian Barnes / John Kenneth Galbraith / Slavoj Zizek / Alain Badiou
"Quand même nous serions comme la feuille morte,
Quand, pour plaire à César, on nous renîrait tous;
Quand le proscrit devrait s'enfuir de porte en porte,
Aux hommes déchiré comme un haillon aux clous [...]"
--Victor Hugo
"We cannot tear out a single page of our life, but we can throw the whole book in the fire."
--George Sand
SIMON SCHAMA - "The first and greatest weapon a democracy has for its own defence is the assumption of common equity; of shared sacrifice. That was what got us through the Blitz. It is, however, otherwise in oligarchic America. Those who are most eager to put young American lives on the line happen to be precisely those who have been greediest for the spoils." The Dead and the Guilty (The Guardian Unlimited, 09/11/02)SUSAN SONTAG - "Such an anachronistic borrowing of eloquence is in the grand tradition of American anti-intellectualism: the suspicion of thought, of words. Hiding behind the humbug that the attack of last Sept. 11 was too horrible, too devastating, too painful, too tragic for words, that words could not possibly express our grief and indignation, our leaders have a perfect excuse to drape themselves in others' words, now voided of content. To say something might be controversial. It might actually drift into some kind of statement and therefore invite rebuttal. Not saying anything is best." Endless War & Empty Rhetoric (The New York Times, 09/10/02)
SEN. ROBERT BYRD - "This nation is about to embark upon the first test of a revolutionary doctrine applied in an extraordinary way at an unfortunate time. The doctrine of preemption -- the idea that the United States or any other nation can legitimately attack a nation that is not imminently threatening but may be threatening in the future -- is a radical new twist on the traditional idea of self defense. It appears to be in contravention of international law and the UN Charter. And it is being tested at a time of world-wide terrorism, making many countries around the globe wonder if they will soon be on our -- or some other nation's -- hit list. High level Administration figures recently refused to take nuclear weapons off of the table when discussing a possible attack against Iraq. What could be more destabilizing and unwise than this type of uncertainty, particularly in a world where globalism has tied the vital economic and security interests of many nations so closely together? There are huge cracks emerging in our time-honored alliances, and U.S. intentions are suddenly subject to damaging worldwide speculation. Anti-Americanism based on mistrust, misinformation, suspicion, and alarming rhetoric from U.S. leaders is fracturing the once solid alliance against global terrorism which existed after September 11." (The United States Senate, 02/12/03)
NICK CAVE - "That idiot-boy in the corner / Is speaking deviated truths / Come on, admit it, babe / It's a wonderful life / If you can find it / If you can find it / If you can find it [...]", "Wonderful Life", Nocturama (Mute Records, 2002)JOSE SARAMAGO - "'We are marching against the law of the jungle that the United States and its acolytes old and new want to impose on the world,' José Saramago, the Portuguese writer and Nobel laureate, told the crowd, estimated by news organizations at about half a million, gathered in Madrid's Puerta del Sol. Another demonstration was held in Barcelona, where the police said 300,000 people demonstrated, some of them forming a three-mile human chain." (The New York Times, 03/15/03)
José Saramago’s Nobel Acceptance Speech (December 10, 1999)
SLAVOJ ZIZEK - "And when politicians start to directly justify their decisions in ethical terms, one can be sure that ethics is mobilized to cover up such dark threatening horizons. It is the very inflation of abstract ethical rhetorics in George W. Bush's recent public statements (of the 'Does the world have the courage to act against the Evil or not?' type) which manifests the utter ETHICAL misery of the US position -- the function of ethical reference is here purely mystifying, it merely serves to mask the true political stakes, which are not difficult to discern.", The Iraq War: Where is the Direct Danger (Lacan Dot Com, 03/13/03)
WBY - "Blackbird of Doire an Chairn, your voice is sweet; I never heard on any height of the world music was sweeter than your voice, and you at the foot of your nest ..." - My Dear Lady Gregory: As Maud and I drifted over the forbidden, bleak scapes of New Yorkdom we heard an awful din ... The City's High Street (Fifth Ave, as they a-call it) was a-strewn with revellers, green hats askew, arms and minds akimbo ... We passed, passed by ... We drifted East ... We sailed towards Some-Thing, Some-Where Else ... We saw dolphins dancing in the milky, murky sea-loam ... Gloaming in terrestrial-aquaceous mirth ... Sailing ... Sailing ... News from No-Where ... Oracular nothingness while a blathering, demented Cowboy crooned deluded tunes, non-sense, off-key and homely on His Lonesome Range ... WBY (No-where, 03/17/03)GUNTER GRASS - "Disturbed and powerless, but also filled with anger, we are witnessing the moral decline of the world's only superpower, burdened by the knowledge that only one consequence of this organized madness is certain: Motivation for more terrorism is being provided, for more violence and counter-violence. Is this really the United States of America, the country we fondly remember for any number of reasons? The generous benefactor of the Marshall Plan? The forbearing instructor in the lessons of democracy? The candid self-critic? The country that once made use of the teachings of the European Enlightenment to throw off its colonial masters and to provide itself with an exemplary constitution? Is this the country that made freedom of speech an incontrovertible human right?" The US Betrays Its Core Values (The Los Angeles Times, 04/07/03)
See also, Grass / Bourdieu Pas de Deux ...
ARUNDHATI ROY - "Regardless of what the propaganda machine tells us, these tin-pot dictators are not the greatest threat to the world. The real and pressing danger, the greatest threat of all is the locomotive force that drives the political and economic engine of the US government, currently piloted by George Bush. Bush-bashing is fun, because he makes such an easy, sumptuous target. It's true that he is a dangerous, almost suicidal pilot, but the machine he handles is far more dangerous than the man himself. Despite the pall of gloom that hangs over us today, I'd like to file a cautious plea for hope: in times of war, one wants one's weakest enemy at the helm of his forces. And President George W Bush is certainly that. Any other even averagely intelligent US president would have probably done the very same things, but would have managed to smoke-up the glass and confuse the opposition. Perhaps even carry the UN with him. Bush's tactless imprudence and his brazen belief that he can run the world with his riot squad, has done the opposite. He has achieved what writers, activists and scholars have striven to achieve for decades. He has exposed the ducts. He has placed on full public view the working parts, the nuts and bolts of the apocalyptic apparatus of the American empire. Now that the blueprint (The Ordinary Person's Guide to Empire) has been put into mass circulation, it could be disabled quicker than the pundits predicted. Bring on the spanners." "The Ordinary Person’s Guide to Empire" (Z Magazine, 04/11/03)"So here we are, the people of the world, confronted with an Empire armed with a mandate from heaven (and, as added insurance, the most formidable arsenal of weapons of mass destruction in history). Here we are, confronted with an Empire that has conferred upon itself the right to go to war at will, and the right to deliver people from corrupting ideologies, from religious fundamentalists, dictators, sexism, and poverty by the age-old, tried-and-tested practice of extermination. Empire is on the move, and Democracy is its sly new war cry. Democracy, home-delivered to your doorstep by daisy cutters. Death is a small price for people to pay for the privilege of sampling this new product: Instant-Mix Imperial Democracy (bring to a boil, add oil, then bomb)." Instant-Mix Imperial Democracy (Buy One, Get One Free) (Z Magazine), first presented in New York City at Riverside Church (05/13/03)
Regarding Arundhati Roy's brush with the authorities in India, cliquez ici ...JULIAN BARNES - "The peacenik question before the war went like this: suppose Saddam destroys all his weapons tomorrow, do we still invade on humanitarian grounds? I can't imagine there would have been too many cries of, Yes please. But that, in retrospect, may be what we've done, or shall endeavour to claim we have done and therefore had been intending. Does it look like a humanitarian war to you? Are 'shock and awe' compatible with 'hearts and minds'? Early on, a US infantryman was seen grimly returning fire over a sand dune, then turning to camera and complaining: 'They don't seem to realise we're here to help them.' How odd that they didn't." This War Was Not Worth a Child's Finger (The Guardian Unlimited, 04/11/03)
JOHN KENNETH GALBRAITH - "Given its authority in the modern corporation it was natural that management would extend its role to politics and to government. Once there was the public reach of capitalism; now it is that of corporate management. In the US, corporate managers are in close alliance with the president, the vice-president and the secretary of defence. Major corporate figures are also in senior positions elsewhere in the federal government; one came from the bankrupt and thieving Enron to preside over the army." A Cloud over Civilisation (The Guardian, 07/15/04)
Bush Death Mask
SEE ALSO, Social Criticism Review (The Netherlands),
The Road to Abu Ghraib (Human Rights Watch, 06/04/04),
Bedtime for Bush-Cheney (Samizdat, 06/26/04)Sublime Scare Tactics (Soma, 07/04/04)
'PATRIOT ACTS' / THE PAMPHLETEERS, 2001-2004 - Gore VIDAL, Imperial America: Reflections on the United States of Amnesia (New York: Nation Books, 2004) - Paper, 208 pages, ISBN 1-560-25585-4 / Gore VIDAL, Dreaming War: Blood for Oil and the Bush-Cheney Junta (New York: Nation Books, 2003) - Paper, 176 pages, ISBN 1-560-25502-1 / Gore VIDAL, Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace (New York: Nation Books, 2002) - Paper, 160 pages, ISBN 1-560-25405-X / Noam CHOMSKY, 9/11 (New York: Seven Stories Press, 2001) - Paper, 128 pages, ISBN 1-583-22489-0 / Noam CHOMSKY, Hegemony or Survival: America's Quest for Global Dominance (New York: Metropolitan Books, 2003) - Paper, 224 pages, ISBN 0-805-07400-7 / Norman MAILER, Why We Are at War (New York: Random House, 2003) - Paper, 96 pages, ISBN 0-812-97111-6 / Arundhati ROY, War Talk (Cambridge, MA: South End Press, 2003) - Paper, 152 pages, ISBN 0-896-08724-7
American Empire Research Project (Noam Chomsky et alia)
IMAGE (Top, left) - The so-called president comes up for air before re-descending to the political equivalent of the Mariana Trench where he drifts aimlessly on currents dark and very grim.FAX ATTACK - FAX THE SO-CALLED PRESIDENT @ (01) 202.456.2461
Guy Debord / Situationism - Commentary on the Society of the Spectacle (Not Bored) ... / More Situationism (Anti-Journal) ...
Flash Forward - Countdown to the Year 3000 (Lumiere) ...
Flashback - Walter Benjamin's Passagenwerk (Other Voices) / See also, The Coming-Coming (Samizdat) ...
Zizek / Badiou - Alain Badiou, One Divides Into Two (Culture Machine 4, 2002), Highly Speculative Reasoning on the Concept of Democracy (The Symptom 2, 2002) / Slavoj Zizek, Welcome to the Desert of the Real (The Symptom 2, 2002) / "Welcome to the Desert of the Real is the text from which Slavoj Zizek read from on November 14, 2001 in his lecture, 'Passions of the Real: Violence In The XXth Century' at Jack Tilton Gallery in NYC." (The Wooster Press) ...Alain Gresh - There is Another, Better World (Le Monde Diplomatique, 05/13/98)
!!!! - Coalition for the International Criminal Court (ICC Now)
