Es hora de despertar

 

F.: Rafael Suárez

El piano de Soltes

Hermoso hasta el dolor: Simplemente perfecto.

Su mirada, cansada de ver pasar
las rejas, ya no retiene nada más.
Cree que el mundo está hecho
de miles de rejas y, más allá, la nada.

Con su caminar blando, pasos flexibles y fuertes,
gira en redondo en un círculo estrecho;
al igual que una danza de fuerzas en torno a un centro
en el que, alerta, reside una voluntad imponente.

Algunas veces, se alza el telón de sus párpados,
mudo. Una imagen viaja hacia dentro,
recorre la calma en tensión de sus miembros
y, cuando cae en su corazón, se funde y desvanece.

 

Rainer Maria Milke

La Pantera

Ni temo al poderoso

Ni temo al poderoso
ni al rico lisonjeo,
ni soy camaleón del que gobierna;
ni me tiene envidioso
la ambición y deseo
de ajena gloria ni de fama eterna.

 

Lope de Vega

Oh libertad preciosa

J'ai eu le courage de regarder en arrière...

J'ai eu le courage de regarder en arrière
Les cadavres de mes jours
Marquent ma route et je les pleure
Les uns pourrissent dans les églises italiennes
Ou bien dans de petits bois de citronniers
Qui fleurissent et fructifient
En même temps et en toute saison
D'autres jours ont pleuré avant de mourir dans des tavernes
Où d'ardents bouquets rouaient
Aux yeux d'une mulâtresse qui inventait la poésie
Et les roses de l'électricité s'ouvrent encore
Dans le jardin de ma mémoire

 

Guillaume Apollinaire

That is home. That is A longing to wander tears my heart when

A longing to wander tears my heart when I hear trees rustling in the wind at evening. If one listens to them silently for a long time, this longing reveals its kernel, its meaning. It is not so much a matter of escaping from one's suffering, though it may seem to be so. It is a longing for home, for a memory of the mother, for new metaphors for life. It leads home. Every path leads homeward, every step is birth, every step is death, every grave is mother.


So the tree rustles in the evening, when we stand uneasy before our own childish thoughts: Trees have long thoughts, long-breathing and restful, just as they have longer lives than ours. They are wiser than we are, as long as we do not listen to them. But when we have learned how to listen to trees, then the brevity and the quickness and the childlike hastiness of our thoughts achieve an incomparable joy. Whoever has learned how to listen to trees no longer wants to be a tree. He wants to be nothing except what he is. That is home. That is happiness.

 

Hermann Hesse

Bäume. Betrachtungen und Gedichte

 

Les saisons sont partout à la fois

A l'assaut des jardins
Les saisons sont partout à la fois
Passion de l'été pour l'hiver
Et la tendresse des deux autres
Les souvenirs comme des plumes
Les arbres ont brisé le ciel
Un beau chêne gâché de brume
La vie des oiseaux ou la vie des plumes
Et tout un panache frivole
Avec de souriantes craintes
Et la solitude bavarde

 

Paul Eluard

Comme une image

Stankulov

Le sens trop précis rature

Toute l’âme résumée
Quand lente nous l’expirons
Dans plusieurs ronds de fumée
Aboli en autres ronds

Atteste quelque cigare
Brûlant savamment pour peu
Que la cendre se sépare
De son clair baiser de feu

Ainsi le chœur des romances
A ta lèvre vole-t-il
Exclus-en si tu commences
Le réel parce que vil

Le sens trop précis rature
Ta vague littérature

 

Stephane Mallarmé

Toute l’âme résumée

Prager

Safarti

Fleischman

Visto en Flick.com

Muñoz

Una parte de aquella fuerza

Aún así, dime quién eres.

— Una parte de aquella fuerza

que siempre quiere el mal

y que siempre practica el bien.

Goethe

 Fausto

The Drone Papers

The Intercept has obtained a cache of secret documents detailing the inner workings of the U.S. military’s assassination program in Afghanistan, Yemen, and Somalia. The documents, provided by a whistleblower, offer an unprecedented glimpse into Obama’s drone wars.

 

Full Article: https://theintercept.com/drone-papers

The Violence, Crisis and Tragedy of Israeli Propaganda

by Yoav Litvin

 

In recent weeks the world is witnessing another round of violence in Israel/Palestine. Though we are accustomed to seeing the same tragic and violent scenario repeat itself, this time it is different. The current wave of resistance stems from a new generation of Palestinian activists who are not affiliated with a particular organization or faction. Protests include violent and nonviolent demonstrations as well as attacks on Israeli civilians in both the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT) and Israel.

The disorganized and sporadic nature of this resistance has caught Israel off guard: whereas the government is accustomed to respond by mobilizing its military and propaganda (aka “Hasbara”) outlets against predefined Palestinian targets such as Hamas, it currently lacks someone to hold directly accountable. As such, Israel has resorted to collective punishment of Palestinian society and inflammatory anti-Palestinian rhetoric. The latter has generated an environment whereby civilian/vigilante violence is currently surging in Israel.

Violence in various forms is necessary to maintain and expand the Israeli occupation in the OPT and for the domination of and discriminatory limitations placed on Palestinians who live as citizens within pre-’67 borders of Israel. For this purpose, the Israeli government enacts policies that have two goals: 1) segregation of Israelis and Palestinians and; 2) fragmentation of Palestinian society.

These are aimed at containing Palestinians within predefined territories on the one hand, while denying them the ability to assemble, organize and thus effectively mount protest on the other. Israel has promoted each of these aims individually but also conjointly; the construction of the separation wall effectively creates a barrier between Israeli and Palestinian societies, but also physically dissects Palestinian villages and separates farmers from their land (for example see here). To implement these policies the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) and other branches of Israel’s security forces use violent tactics including curfews, house demolitions, checkpoints, nightly raids, arrests (often without charge) and other routine and often random violence.

Because humans are hard-wired to feel empathy, violence and discrimination need to be morally and ethically justified. For this purpose, Israeli propaganda focuses on two main points: 1) historically linking contested land to Jewish heritage and; 2) dehumanizing Palestinians and their leaders. While the former attempts to provide an inherent Jewish “right” to the land, the latter serves to instill fear and distrust of Palestinians and thus absolve Israelis of any responsibility for their own crimes and those committed in their name.

Quite predictably, because the current wave of resistance does not present the Hasbara with a clear target, it is in crisis. Unaware or indifferent to their underlying racism, Israeli officials have been endorsing vigilante violence and inciting the masses against Palestinians and their leadership of past and present. Some notable examples include the immediate labeling of protesters as suspect of “violence and terrorism”, incendiary remarks by Israeli officials about the current Palestinian leadership, exclusion of Arab-Israeli representatives from official briefings, a call for civilian armament at all times in order to combat “terrorists” and an outrageous claim by Prime Minister Netanyahu claiming that the Mufti of Jerusalem was the impetus behind the Nazi “final solution” for European Jewry.

Segregation and chronic fear lead to an inability to empathize with others’ suffering. When a lack of empathy is combined with incitement of fear and encouragement toward vigilante-style aggression, it produces a dangerous cocktail that leads to unbridled violence. During the past few weeks in Israel these sorts of events have become commonplace including several extra judicial killings of suspects (see here for sample) and a mob-crazed lynching (of a man who happened to be innocent).

If we are to judge by the rhetoric coming from Israeli officials, their inflammatory propaganda will only get worse, and with it more of these vicious and tragic acts of violence. It is clear that in addition to the daily violence of occupation, this escalation in anti-Palestinian rhetoric/propaganda will have tragic consequences not only for Palestinians, but also on Israeli society.

Yoav Litvin is a Doctor of Psychology/ Behavioral Neuroscience.

 

S.:http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/10/22/the-violence-crisis-and-tragedy-of-israeli-propaganda/

The Mideast’s Humpty Dumpty Problem

Western powers – most recently the United States – have smashed up the Mideast so thoroughly that many of the options now under review in Official Washington go from bad to worse but almost certainly can never put the region back together again, writes ex-CIA official Graham E. Fuller.

By Graham E. Fuller

As mayhem and anarchy spread like a contagion across the Middle East, can the Middle East, like Humpty Dumpty, be put back together again? Some pundits say no. Yet, for a variety of admittedly highly debatable reasons, I still believe that yes, it can be salvaged. The status quo may not be viable, but what alternatives are there? Here are a few — conflicting ones.

–Bring back imperialism. After all, didn’t the old-fashioned imperialists manage to keep the lid on? But that time is long past. Who today has the money, resources, energy, or will to pick up this near hopeless task — except for an undying band in Washington that still believes in Pax Americana?

Furthermore, there is no way the peoples of the region will stand for another self-appointed western savior to come in and “rescue” them (and stay a while) — beyond immediate humanitarian aid or international peace-keeping. Mandates are over.

–Complete hands off by the West. The West could hardly have done more damage to the region over the years through its imperial mapmaking, political interventionism, wars, destruction of infrastructures and societies, and unleashing of refugee flows. Even were the West suddenly to become wise and constructive overnight, it can’t play big brother forever.

The peoples of the region desperately require the chance to gain their own political maturity — through learning to manage their own states, societies and futures. Constant outside political interventionism in the Middle East has only led to fatalism and the political infantilization of its peoples.

Some might say the region is historically and culturally incapable of overcoming conflict, “it’s in the genes, you know.” Yet it might be sobering to remember here that Europe has been the scene of at least one or two thousand years of constant warfare — political, religious, tribal and ethnic, involving kaleidoscopic border changes, right down until the end of World War II. (Plus the post-Soviet turmoil.) No model there.

We cling tenderly to the hope that at least Europe by now may have actually put an end to those bloody centuries of its history. The jury is still out.

–Redraw the borders. The last borders, after all, were designed by European imperialists to serve their own interests. But redraw them how? Even illogically delineated states have by now taken on a certain life of their own. Redrawing borders raises mind-boggling questions. On what basis will they be drawn? Ethnically, tribally? Culturally? Religiously? Who will be consulted and how?

One can imagine a plethora of ongoing never-ending referendums, each bitterly contested by those perceiving themselves to be the losers. And indeed every change does bring new winners and losers. And what governments will be empowered to supervise and approve the changes?

–Prioritize restoration of order. Conservative theory holds that nearly any form of order is preferable to most forms of disorder. Hence dictatorship, however bad, is preferable to anarchy. The West has happily bought into that formula, but only as long as the dictator was “ours”; we must overthrow of course the ones who are not.

So do we hold our nose and restore dictators who can at least maintain order while the longer-term process of “organic” political change can start to take place? Bring back Saddam’s ghost? Keep Assad? Empower the Saudis to keep the lid on in the Arabian Peninsula? Bless Sisi’s law-and-order in Egypt?

I am disturbed by that option. Yet, as retrogressive as it is, it might keep the lid on and, so the thinking goes, help eliminate at least the radical jihadi forces. But of course it has been just those dictators who have helped produce the political despair that has spawned angry Islamist movements everywhere.

–Prioritize military suppression of the jihadists? The jihadists may be the most immediate barrier to restoration of order and governance. Yet past military suppression and ongoing war has unleashed anarchy and produced the terrible political and social conditions we see today — that then lead to the emergence of Taliban, al-Qaeda, and ISIS among others.

–International peace-keeping? A dangerous and thankless task; specialists know that you can’t really “keep” peace until the battle lines have been identified and frozen. But who will do it? When major world powers get involved, local crises often turn into surrogate battlegrounds for other great power agendas.

In reality any such forces must be truly international. The presence, say, of US, UK, French, Russian, Chinese, Pakistani, Indian or UN forces must all be acceptable; none should be peremptorily ruled out. We don’t need locked-in spheres of foreign influence. For the West there are no vital stakes in preserving or denying a sphere of influence here or there.

.One might argue that regional states are better equipped to do peace-keeping than outsiders, possibly more acceptable — but even that principle is debatable. Are Turks, Iranians, Saudis or Egyptians more favorably viewed by Middle Eastern societies in turmoil than outsiders would be? Not necessarily, but it is their region, and perhaps they are more willing to act. Will they make serious mistakes? Yes, but hasn’t also the West done precisely the same, on a colossal scale?

There is no grand answer that covers all contingencies. To date my bias has been towards early removal of all western boots on the ground (especially the volatile American ones). That would remove one major source of anger and permits the region to learn to manage on its own. (And for Washington it is never the right time for U.S. forces to leave; and thus a relationship of codependency emerges.) In principle a hands-off policy should be the western default position. But each country poses different urgencies.

Above all certain human priorities cry out. War must end. Killing must stop. People must have shelter, food and medicine. Essential security must reign, even if only in refugee camps for now. Constitutions and democratic process rank only as distant secondary needs.

The initial democratic gains brought by the Arab Spring have largely collapsed. Has there been any learning curve among the peoples of the region? Perhaps, but good governance is a slow, and never-ending process. Only Turkey and Iran, in their own way, are truly launched on the process — maybe Tunisia, Pakistan, Malaysia, Indonesia.

Yet we cannot fall into despair simply because the process is a long one — as it was in the West. Some of these difficulties simply reflect the human condition — everywhere. But a prioritization of the urgent human needs of the region is required — to provide at least some crude compass in dealing with this mess.

For now, whether governments are Islamist (but not jihadi), military, democratic, pro-West or pro-Russian may not matter much while the restoration of order is taken as the urgent task at hand. This is not a very gratifying approach, but war — civil or externally visited — takes the greatest human toll and produces the deadliest of anarchy whose repercussions affect the entire world.

 

S.:https://consortiumnews.com/2015/10/22/the-mideasts-humpty-dumpty-problem/

Matar a un animal y dar con los huesos en la cárcel

El caballista Eugenio Sánchez María, de 41 años de edad, que trabaja como repartidor de una empresa de bebidas, es la primera persona en España que entra en prisión— para cumplir una condena de ocho meses— por un delito de maltrato animal con resultado de muerte, según fuentes de la Fiscalía General. El rechazo social a estas conductas ha aumentado y, paralelamente, las sentencias condenatorias por delitos de maltrato animal en España se han multiplicado. Pero el caso de Sánchez es distinto: él ha entrado en la cárcel para cumplir la pena.

El 30 de diciembre de 2012, el caballo Sorky das Pont, de seis años, saltó durante una carrera de trote y fue descalificado. Ya en las cuadras del hipódromo de Manacor, Sánchez golpeó repetidamente al animal porque estaba "enfadado" por la "mala carrera". Así se recoge en la sentencia del magistrado Eduardo Calderón, donde se explica que le atizó con un palo en la cabeza hasta la muerte. Quiso excusarse y dijo que el equino se desnucó al alzarse de las patas delanteras y golpearse con una viga del techo.

En el juicio, en abril de 2015, el reo estaba como ausente, relatan los testigos. Apenas habló. Fue un juicio rápido. Asumió los hechos y la condena. Ni su defensa ni él imaginaban que cumpliría la pena de cárcel. "Es un buen hombre, ha perdido 30 o 40 kilos de peso desde entonces. Quedó destrozado, hundido, temimos por él", explica un destacado propietario de caballos de Manacor que le conoce. "Era un chillón", dice, sin embargo, otro aficionado.

Sánchez, años atrás, había sido condenado a realizar trabajos en beneficio de la comunidad por conducir ebrio. "Esos antecedentes penales estaban caducados desde hacía tiempo", reseñan desde su defensa, que en el caso de la muerte del caballo apeló ante la Audiencia de Palma y ante la juez la orden de cumplimiento de condena y el rechazo a que fuera sustituida por trabajos de rehabilitación social.

Cambios en el Código Penal

El caballista ingresó hace dos semanas en la cárcel porque la juez de lo penal María Jesús Campos Barciela ordenó el cumplimiento de la condena. "Es una medida extraordinaria. Si un conductor atropella a un ciclista y le causa la muerte, pueden imponerle una pena de un año y no entra en prisión", sostiene una persona cercana a la defensa que pide el anonimato.

La juez es una magistrada experta, expresiva y reflexiva en sus escritos, con detalles casi filosóficos y morales, sensible en cuestiones que afectan a los derechos de las víctimas y al maltrato animal. Hasta ahora, fuera de los medios judiciales, había sido una juez sin perfil público. No es tímida, pero rechaza la notoriedad, dicen quienes la tratan.

"Este delito está penado con un año de cárcel —nos parece poco— y en el juicio, con sentencia por conformidad, con el fiscal solicitamos el cumplimiento de la pena de ocho meses. No nos ha sorprendido", observa Manuel José Molina, letrado que ejerció la acusación en nombre de la Asociación Balear de Abogados por los Derechos de los Animales. Son media docena de jóvenes profesionales, sin patrocinios, que actúan en casos de maltrato animal.

Los letrados ponen el foco en un problema en el que cada vez hay más conciencia social. Ya en su memoria de 2013, la fiscalía coordinadora de Medio Ambiente y Urbanismo apuntaba a un incremento de estas denuncias. "Se observa con carácter general un aumento en la sensibilización social ante esta lacra", señalaba ese informe. Desde 2008 hay también un aumento sostenido de las condenas judiciales por este tipo de delitos. En 2008, la fiscalía coordinadora tenía registradas 11. El año pasado se habían multiplicado casi por seis y llegaron a las 62 condenas.

El Gobierno introdujo en julio algunos cambios en el Código Penal que afectan a estos delitos. La principal modificación es el aumento de las penas, resalta Sabina Sánchez, abogada del partido animalista PACMA. Hasta esa reforma, la pena máxima a la que una persona se enfrentaba era un año de prisión, como ocurrió con el caballista. Ahora, si el resultado del maltrato es la muerte del animal, la pena máxima sería de 18 meses de cárcel. "Sigue sin llegarse a los dos años", lamenta esta abogada. Si el condenado no tiene antecedentes, los jueces, en la mayoría de los casos, no ordenan el ingreso en prisión si la condena no supera ese par de años. Se suele sustituir por trabajos comunitarios.

Antonio Vercher, el fiscal coordinador de Medio Ambiente y Urbanismo, aplaude el endurecimiento del Código Penal para estos delitos, que en muchos casos suponen "atrocidades". Aplaude también el aumento de las condenas por maltrato de los últimos años. En el caso de Baleares, Vercher entiende que la juez expone de forma "clara" y "rotunda" las razones por las que ordena el ingreso en prisión. "Esta sentencia marca la diferencia", añade la abogada de PACMA.

Además de la pena de cárcel, Eugenio Sánchez ha quedado inhabilitado durante tres años para el ejercicio de cualquier profesión, oficio o comercio relacionado con animales. Al destaparse el caso de la muerte del equino —un cruce entre un semental trotón de EE UU y una yegua de Suecia—, la Federación Balear de Trote suspendió a Sánchez de manera cautelar para toda actividad relacionada con los caballos. Según su presidente, Joan Llabata, investigaron el caso "hasta que la Guardia Civil tomó la causa". "No se le ha visto más por los hipódromos desde el fin de año de 2012, el día de los hechos", añade

 

F.:http://politica.elpais.com/politica/2015/10/22/actualidad/1445513258_039425.html

 

Un Calder

I walk alone and I walk

 

4

Divaga mi brújula:

Al infierno descendí

Para liberar mi alma,

Sea así:

Un vivo 4/4 marca el compás del violín

Y late: Y vuelvo a sangrar.

Mi resguardo, mi manto, mi derrota

Dice así:

 

Una vez, poseí el más puro lirio

Que nunca haya brotado.

Una primavera  me lo quemó

Fue, tembloroso y cruel

 

Su brote era mío,

Poseía su pálpito,

Un verano robo

Mi lirio, demasiado pronto

 

Rafael Suárez

Quiconque refuse le fait accompli entre en hostilité avec lui-même

C'est aussi que la recherche scrupuleuse de la vérité, l'absurde prétention à tout dire sont des instances auxquelles se soumettre reviendrait à s'enfermer dans les limites d'un dessein et manquer du même coup par souci de probité ce que les seules forces du hasard sans cesse remises en jeu à la faveur du langage et conditionnées par lui désignent au point le plus reculé comme le centre actif, la substance souterraine dont l'être se nourrit, quelle que soit la perte d'intensité qu'entraîne une représentation approximative qui, liée à la durée changeante d'une vie, doit varier ses reprises et s'en remettre pour chacune d'elles aux occasions de la chance, hors de toute sujétion à un ordre préétabli ou de conformité respectueuse à la réalité des faits derrière laquelle se dissimule comme la braise sous la cendre ce que les mots ont pour mission de ranimer.

(...)

De ce chaos désolé tout cependant l'engagerait à se détourner, si ce n'était ruiner le mouvement qui l'y a conduit, signer son échec avant même d'avoir échoué. Il lui faut donc aller son chemin jusqu'aux bornes extrêmes de l'endurance, dût-il se déchirer cruellement aux épines, traverser en suffoquant tous les feux de l'enfer pour ne déclarer forfait qu'à la veille d'en toucher le terme qui sera le moment de mourir comme chacun sans avoir établi sa preuve.

(...)

Quiconque refuse le fait accompli entre en hostilité avec lui-même et, livré sans rémission à tous les raffinements de la conscience et de son malheur, ne retrouvera jamais le repos, à moins de tabler par un lâche calcul sur les effets thérapeutiques du temps pour empêcher qu'elle le commande et le détruise, mais même si le besoin de souffler un peu devait un jour y conduire, comment vouloir d'un tel repos qui aurait le sens d'une trahison ?

Mieux vaut ne pas guérir si c'est pour rentrer sagement dans la vie et ses devoirs où, toute vision disparue, il n'y aurait d'autre lien entre eux que la distance infranchissable qui les sépare, d'autres recours contre les larmes qu'une volonté de désaffection, un sombre renoncement, la soumission aux réalités contraignantes dont l'esprit profondément atteint s'était détourné, opposant au monde étroit de la raison sa douleur infinie.

 

 

Louis-René des Forêts

Ostinato

Vida

Rafael Suárez

Caetano

Volver a empezar

Vuelve a empezar…
Si puedes
sin angustia
y sin prisa.
Y los pasos que des,
en ese camino duro
del futuro
dalos en libertad.
Mientras no alcances
no descanses.
De ningún fruto quieras sólo la mitad.
Y, nunca saciado,
ve cogiendo ilusiones sucesivas en el vergel.
Siempre soñando y viendo
el logro de la aventura.
¡Eres hombre, no te olvides!
Sólo es tuya la locura
en que, con lucidez, te reconozcas…

Miguel Torga

Bird

Maier

Absorvente

Dix

Photography is as wonderful to me..

Photography is as wonderful to me today as it would be if I had never before seen a photograph. Let's it so.

Cunningham

Cierta hermosa mañana

Rafael Suárez

Je laisserai le vent baigner ma tête nue.

Par les soirs bleus d'été, j'irai dans les sentiers,
Picoté par les blés, fouler l'herbe menue :
Rêveur, j'en sentirai la fraîcheur à mes pieds.
Je laisserai le vent baigner ma tête nue.

Je ne parlerai pas, je ne penserai rien :
Mais l'amour infini me montera dans l'âme,
Et j'irai loin, bien loin, comme un bohémien,
Par la Nature, - heureux comme avec une femme.

 

Arthur Rimbaud

Sensation

Markoglou

...opens certain doors

 All profound distraction opens certain doors. You have to allow yourself to be distracted when you are unable to concentrate.

Julio Cortazar
 Around the Day in Eighty Worlds

 

Whistler

Simplemente desgarrador: Poesía y acordes

Noam Chomsky on George Orwell, the Suppression of Ideas and the Myth of American Exceptionalism

In a Democracy Now! special, we spend the hour with Noam Chomsky, the world-renowned political dissident, linguist, author and institute professor emeritus at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he’s taught for more than half a century. Chomsky has written more than 100 books, including his latest, "Because We Say So," a collection of his monthly columns. On Saturday, Chomsky spoke before a sold-out audience of nearly 1,000 people at The New School’s John L. Tishman Auditorium in New York City. In a speech titled “On Power and Ideology,” he discussed the persistence of U.S. exceptionalism, Republican efforts to torpedo the Iran nuclear deal, and the normalization of U.S.-Cuba relations.In a Democracy Now! special, we spend the hour with Noam Chomsky, the world-renowned political dissident, linguist, author and institute professor emeritus at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he’s taught for more than half a century. Chomsky has written more than 100 books, including his latest, "Because We Say So," a collection of his monthly columns. On Saturday, Chomsky spoke before a sold-out audience of nearly 1,000 people at The New School’s John L. Tishman Auditorium in New York City. In a speech titled “On Power and Ideology,” he discussed the persistence of U.S. exceptionalism, Republican efforts to torpedo the Iran nuclear deal, and the normalization of U.S.-Cuba relations.

AMY GOODMAN: Today, in a Democracy Now! special, we spend the hour with Noam Chomsky, the world-renowned political dissident, linguist, author and institute professor emeritus at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he’s taught for more than half a century. Noam Chomsky has penned more than a hundred books; his newest, Because We Say So, a collection of his columns.

On Saturday, Chomsky spoke before a sold-out audience of nearly 1,000 people at The New School’s Auditorium here in New York City. Chomsky discussed the persistence of U.S. exceptionalism, Republican efforts to torpedo the Iran nuclear deal and the normalization of U.S.-Cuba relations. Professor Chomsky also explained why he believes the U.S. and its closest allies, namely Saudi Arabia and Israel, are undermining prospects for peace in the Middle East. His speech was titled "On Power and Ideology."

NOAM CHOMSKY: The role of concentrated power in shaping the ideological framework that dominates perception, interpretation, discussion, choice of action, all of that is too familiar to require much comment. Tonight I’d like to discuss a critically important example, but first a couple of words on one of the most perceptive analysts of this process, George Orwell.

In a speech Saturday at The New School in New York, Noam Chomsky explained why he believes the U.S. poses the greatest threat to world peace. "[The United States] is a rogue state, indifferent to international law and conventions, entitled to resort to violence at will. … Take, for example, the Clinton Doctrine—namely, the United States is free to resort to unilateral use of military power, even for such purposes as to ensure uninhibited access to key markets, energy supplies and strategic resources—let alone security or alleged humanitarian concerns. And adherence to this doctrine is very well confirmed and practiced, as need hardly be discussed among people willing to look at the facts of current history." Chomsky also explained why he believes the U.S. and its closest allies, namely Saudi Arabia and Israel, are undermining prospects for peace in the Middle East. "When we say the international community opposes Iran’s policies or the international community does some other thing, that means the United States and anybody else who happens to be going along with it."

AMY GOODMAN: We spend the hour with MIT professor, author, activist, political dissident, Noam Chomsky. Over the weekend, he spoke to a packed audience at The New School here in New York City.

NOAM CHOMSKY: The former Republican Party has now become a "radical insurgency" that’s abandoned parliamentary politics. I’m quoting two highly respected, very conservative political commentators, Thomas Mann and Norman Ornstein of the right-wing American Enterprise Institute. And in fact, they may succeed in increasing sanctions, and even secondary sanctions on other countries, and carry out other actions that could lead Iran to opt out of the deal with the United States—with the United States, that is. That, however, need not mean that the agreement is nullified. Contrary to the way it’s sometimes presented here, it’s not a U.S.-Iran agreement. It’s an agreement between Iran and what’s called P5+1, the five veto-holding members of the Security Council plus Germany. And the other participants might agree to proceed—Iran, as well. They would then join China and India, which have already been finding ways to evade the U.S. constraints on interactions with Iran. And in fact, if they do, they’ll join the large majority of the world’s population, the Non-Aligned Movement, which all along has vigorously supported Iran’s right to pursue its nuclear programs as a member of the NPT. But remember that they are not part of the international community. So when we say the international community opposes Iran’s policies or the international community does some other thing, that means the United States and anybody else who happens to be going along with it, so we can dismiss them. If others continue to honor the deal, which could happen, the United States will be isolated from the world, which is not an unfamiliar position.

That’s also the background for the other element of Obama’s—what’s called Obama’s legacy, his other main foreign policy achievement, the beginning of normalization of relations with Cuba. On Cuba, the United States has been almost totally isolated for decades. If you look, say, at the annual votes in the U.N. General Assembly on the U.S. embargo, they’re rarely reported, but the U.S. essentially votes alone. The last one Israel joined. But, of course, Israel violates the embargo; they just have to join, because have to join with the master. Occasionally, the Marshall Islands or Palau or someone else joins. And in the hemisphere, the United States has been totally isolated for years. The main hemispheric conferences have foundered because the United States will simply not join the rest of the hemisphere in the major issues that are discussed. Last one in Colombia, the two major issues were admitting Cuba into the hemisphere—U.S. and Canada refused, everyone else agreed—and the U.S. drug war, which is devastating Latin America, and they want to get out of it, but the U.S. and Canada don’t agree. Now that’s actually the background for Obama’s acceptance of steps towards normalization of relations with Cuba. Another hemispheric conference was coming up in Panama, and if the United States had not made that move, it probably would have been thrown out of the hemisphere, so therefore Obama made what’s called here a noble gesture, a courageous move to end Cuba’s isolation, although in reality it was U.S. isolation that was the motivating factor.

Noam Chomsky is a world-renowned political dissident, linguist, author and institute professor emeritus at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he’s taught for more than half a century. Chomsky has written more than 100 books, including his latest, "Because We Say So," a collection of his monthly columns. After his speech on Saturday at The New School, he took questions from the audience.

NOAM CHOMSKY: So, "How has the United States supported radical Islam?"

As I mentioned, just as Britain did before it. I won’t comment on the British rule, but if you want to learn about it, there’s quite a good book on it by a very good British diplomatic historian, Mark Curtis, who discusses in detail, going back to the documentary record, how England, Britain supported radical Islam during its period of dominance. The U.S. has done it always. The major center of radical Islam, extremist radical Islam, is Saudi Arabia, unquestionably. They are the source of the Wahhabization of the region, which Patrick Cockburn points out is one of the major developments of the modern era. Who’s the main supporter of Saudi Arabia? You are. You know, that’s where your tax dollars go. It’s been for a long time. Right now tens of billions of dollars of arms being sent under Obama, but it goes way back.

In fact, the strong U.S. relation with Israel developed out of this. The United States and Israel had close relations, but not unusual, through the 1950s and early '60s. That changed in 1967. What happened in 1967? Israel performed a huge service to the United States and its Saudi Arabian ally. Saudi Arabia has been and remains the center of extremist, radical, fundamentalist Islam, with offshoots in the jihadi movements and so on, including ISIS. At the time, the center of secular nationalism was Nasser's Egypt, and there was a conflict between the two of them. In fact, they were at war. They were at war in the Yemen at the time. Israel administered a very serious blow to secular nationalism. It devastated the Egyptian army and Syria, and it saved Saudi Arabia and offered a great boon to the United States. And, in fact, if you check back, it’s at that time that the unusual—in fact, unique—relationship between Israel and the United States developed.

And in fact it continues after that. I could give more examples if there was time. But that has been a consistent pattern. There are a few exceptions here and there. So sometimes the United States has supported secular Islamic states. The most extreme and interesting example is Saddam Hussein, who was greatly loved by the Reagan administration and by the Bush I administration. I could give you the details, but they were so supportive of Saddam Hussein that he was even given a gift that otherwise only Israel has been granted, no other country. He was permitted to attack a U.S. naval vessel, killing a couple of dozen American sailors, and to get away with it with just a tap on the wrist. Israel had done the same thing in 1967. Saddam Hussein did it in 1987. And the friendship for Saddam Hussein was so enormous that he was granted that right. And that was a secular state. In fact, George Bush number one even invited Iraqi nuclear engineers to the United States for advanced training in nuclear weapons production. That’s a pretty supportive relationship. So there are cases where the United States has supported secular Islam, but typically it’s radical Islam that has been the beneficiary of U.S. support, like Britain before it.

 

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Noble

Visto en Flickr.

Leibovitz

De la nuit éclatante au firmament fatal

La lune mince verse une lueur sacrée,
Comme une jupe d'un tissu d'argent léger,
Sur les masses de marbre où marche et croit songer
Quelque vierge de perle une gaze nacrée.

Pour les cygnes soyeux qui frôlent les roseaux
De carènes de plume à demi lumineuse,
Sa main cueille et dispense une rose neigeuse
Dont les pétales font des cercles sur les eaux.

Délicieux désert, solitude pâmée,
Quand le remous de l'eau par la lune lamée
Compte éternellement ses échos de cristal,

Quel coeur pourrait souffir l'inexorable charme
De la nuit éclatante au firmament fatal,
Sans tirer de soi-même un cri pur comme une arme?

 

Paul Valéry

Même Féerie  

Sin comentarios: Hermoso hasta el dolor

Me pregunto

Me pregunto si las estrellas se iluminan con el fin de que algún día, cada uno pueda encontrar la suya.


Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
El principito