Tuesday, December 27, 2005


Snow in town - Neige dans la vile - Schnee in der Stadt

Wishes for humanity

Wishing each of you and all of humanity:
PEACE– that no human may suffer from any form of violence or inflict any form of violence on any other human (thus: no war, no terror, no fundamentalism, no murder, no capital punishment, no rape, no molestation, no torture, no intimidation...);
FREEDOM– for all, liberty insured by each person's respect of and tolerance for each other person, made possible by and enabling PEACE;
JUSTICE– blind and fair and equal for all to protect the innocent from those who obstruct or violate PEACE and FREEDOM, to protect them from punishment for crimes they did not commit, to protect us all from any infringement on or curtailment of our rights, to protect us from any and all abuse of power, to provide us with principled impartial decisions in disputes between individuals, factions, peoples, nations;
RIGHTS– human rights, civil rights, inalienable rights – which we guarantee one another: the right to be different and free of all persecution (which is always the violation of someone else's right not to conform to our own exclusive notion of what others may say or do or read or show);
TOLERANCE– accepting not only what is similar, but also what is different, alien, foreign, not only accepting, but indeed welcoming diversity;
KNOWLEDGE– to know more, even if only a little bit more, every day, which means opening up to the new, opening up to
LIFE itself and
JOY– at having the privilege to live, to learn, to grow, to be alive, to have the chance to
LOVE– in all its depth and breadth, welcoming, sharing
JOY IN LIFE
with the utmost tolerance and respect.
LIGHT
Then for me, all this is what it means to be
HUMAN.
So my wish for mankind at this winter solstice, turn of the year, festival of light and hope of so many peoples, persuasions, religions, philosophies, cultures is to find the way to the fathomless depths beyond their particularities, to become ever more human, to fulfill what it means to bear the torch of humanity, to bring
LIGHT
unto the world.
TRUTH IS LUMINOUS
- December 24, 2005

Friday, December 23, 2005

Hopefulness for the New Year and Joyfulness

1. The so-called PATRIOT ACT was not given the indefinite extension the bushbaby playpenalers had petulantly shaken their rattles at Congress to demand !
THAT'S GOOD NEWS
2. Great Britain has joined the ranks of more civilized countries by passing legislation to enable gay and lesbian couples to "wed" in civil unions !
THAT'S ENLIGHTENMENT AND PROGRESS
3. More courts - even "conservative" judges and justices - in the US are saying NO to the bushbaby-cheneygang efforts to circumvent the constitution by denying due process for captives. Maybe soon they will no longer be able to imprison you without a trial - something some Americans believed was accomplished with the founding of the country: there was a war with England about just that, a constitution written, and a bill of rights immediately appended.
THAT'S A REASON TO HOPE!
4. The new "Chancellorette" of Germany, Angie M., whom everyone thought would probably snuggle up in W's behind, made life uncomfortable for him and his Ricey Concubine by reminding them that Germany will not abide any obstruction of justice or infringement of human rights in a supposed fight against terror.
THAT'S ALMOST A MIRACLE
5. The new pope, as stiff as a tobacco pole, appeared in an outfit as ridiculous as he himself is with his antiquated reactionary views on everything from homosexuality to the pill. A Santa Claus hat, a cape in a not-well-matching second shade of red, and all of that with a white suit ... a mixture of Lawrence Welk and Heino....
THAT'S REFRESHINGLY CLEAR

So there's hope for the Enlightenment, that people may continue to press for truth, justice, freedom and not tolerate intolerance, not stand for idiocy ---
and they even took away Arnold's name from the stadium they had "christened" after him in Austria to remind him Europe is OPPOSED TO CAPITAL PUNISHMENT. Not only did he allow the state of California to commit murder, he renounced his honorary citizenship with his hometown for their reaction and even sent them back their signet ring...
VALUES ARE RETURNING TO EUROPE

READ - THINK - SPEAK OUT - LEARN - LIVE - ASSERT JOY IN LIFE !

Tuesday, December 20, 2005

>> Wahrheit des Seins <<

»Aber wie selten rückt der Mensch vor in diese Wahrheit; wie leicht und schnell kommt er aus mit dem Seienden und bleibt so des Seins enteignet. Wie zwingend scheint die Entbehrlichkeit des Seins.« [M.Heidegger: Beiträge zur Philosophie (Vom Ereignis), IV. Der Sprung, 118. Der Sprung; S. 231]
How seldom man advances into this truth; how easily and quickly he settles for what is and thus remains expropriated from Being. How compelling the superfluousness of Being appears to be.

And many more people - especially in the bushbaby-playpen - should consider whether they even have any interest in truth at all anymore !

Thursday, December 8, 2005

Harold Pinter tells what Bush & Blair really are! ...Literature remains essential! Thank you, Mr. Pinter! Respect.

Harold Pinter – Nobel Lecture
Art, Truth & Politics

© THE NOBEL FOUNDATION 2005
General permission is granted for the publication in newspapers in any language after December 7, 2005, 5:30 p.m. (Swedish time). Publication in periodicals or books otherwise than in summary requires the consent of the Foundation. On all publications in full or in major parts the above underlined copyright notice must be applied.

In 1958 I wrote the following:
'There are no hard distinctions between what is real and what is unreal, nor between what is true and what is false. A thing is not necessarily either true or false; it can be both true and false.'
I believe that these assertions still make sense and do still apply to the exploration of reality through art. So as a writer I stand by them but as a citizen I cannot. As a citizen I must ask: What is true? What is false?
Truth in drama is forever elusive. You never quite find it but the search for it is compulsive. The search is clearly what drives the endeavour. The search is your task. More often than not you stumble upon the truth in the dark, colliding with it or just glimpsing an image or a shape which seems to correspond to the truth, often without realising that you have done so. But the real truth is that there never is any such thing as one truth to be found in dramatic art. There are many. These truths challenge each other, recoil from each other, reflect each other, ignore each other, tease each other, are blind to each other. Sometimes you feel you have the truth of a moment in your hand, then it slips through your fingers and is lost.
I have often been asked how my plays come about. I cannot say. Nor can I ever sum up my plays, except to say that this is what happened. That is what they said. That is what they did.
Most of the plays are engendered by a line, a word or an image. The given word is often shortly followed by the image. I shall give two examples of two lines which came right out of the blue into my head, followed by an image, followed by me.
The plays are The Homecoming and Old Times. The first line of The Homecoming is 'What have you done with the scissors?' The first line of Old Times is 'Dark.'
In each case I had no further information.
In the first case someone was obviously looking for a pair of scissors and was demanding their whereabouts of someone else he suspected had probably stolen them. But I somehow knew that the person addressed didn't give a damn about the scissors or about the questioner either, for that matter.
'Dark' I took to be a description of someone's hair, the hair of a woman, and was the answer to a question. In each case I found myself compelled to pursue the matter. This happened visually, a very slow fade, through shadow into light.
I always start a play by calling the characters A, B and C.
In the play that became The Homecoming I saw a man enter a stark room and ask his question of a younger man sitting on an ugly sofa reading a racing paper. I somehow suspected that A was a father and that B was his son, but I had no proof. This was however confirmed a short time later when B (later to become Lenny) says to A (later to become Max), 'Dad, do you mind if I change the subject? I want to ask you something. The dinner we had before, what was the name of it? What do you call it? Why don't you buy a dog? You're a dog cook. Honest. You think you're cooking for a lot of dogs.' So since B calls A 'Dad' it seemed to me reasonable to assume that they were father and son. A was also clearly the cook and his cooking did not seem to be held in high regard. Did this mean that there was no mother? I didn't know. But, as I told myself at the time, our beginnings never know our ends.
'Dark.' A large window. Evening sky. A man, A (later to become Deeley), and a woman, B (later to become Kate), sitting with drinks. 'Fat or thin?' the man asks. Who are they talking about? But I then see, standing at the window, a woman, C (later to become Anna), in another condition of light, her back to them, her hair dark.
It's a strange moment, the moment of creating characters who up to that moment have had no existence. What follows is fitful, uncertain, even hallucinatory, although sometimes it can be an unstoppable avalanche. The author's position is an odd one. In a sense he is not welcomed by the characters. The characters resist him, they are not easy to live with, they are impossible to define. You certainly can't dictate to them. To a certain extent you play a never-ending game with them, cat and mouse, blind man's buff, hide and seek. But finally you find that you have people of flesh and blood on your hands, people with will and an individual sensibility of their own, made out of component parts you are unable to change, manipulate or distort.
So language in art remains a highly ambiguous transaction, a quicksand, a trampoline, a frozen pool which might give way under you, the author, at any time.
But as I have said, the search for the truth can never stop. It cannot be adjourned, it cannot be postponed. It has to be faced, right there, on the spot.
Political theatre presents an entirely different set of problems. Sermonising has to be avoided at all cost. Objectivity is essential. The characters must be allowed to breathe their own air. The author cannot confine and constrict them to satisfy his own taste or disposition or prejudice. He must be prepared to approach them from a variety of angles, from a full and uninhibited range of perspectives, take them by surprise, perhaps, occasionally, but nevertheless give them the freedom to go which way they will. This does not always work. And political satire, of course, adheres to none of these precepts, in fact does precisely the opposite, which is its proper function.
In my play The Birthday Party I think I allow a whole range of options to operate in a dense forest of possibility before finally focussing on an act of subjugation.
Mountain Language pretends to no such range of operation. It remains brutal, short and ugly. But the soldiers in the play do get some fun out of it. One sometimes forgets that torturers become easily bored. They need a bit of a laugh to keep their spirits up. This has been confirmed of course by the events at Abu Ghraib in Baghdad. Mountain Language lasts only 20 minutes, but it could go on for hour after hour, on and on and on, the same pattern repeated over and over again, on and on, hour after hour.
Ashes to Ashes, on the other hand, seems to me to be taking place under water. A drowning woman, her hand reaching up through the waves, dropping down out of sight, reaching for others, but finding nobody there, either above or under the water, finding only shadows, reflections, floating; the woman a lost figure in a drowning landscape, a woman unable to escape the doom that seemed to belong only to others.
But as they died, she must die too.
Political language, as used by politicians, does not venture into any of this territory since the majority of politicians, on the evidence available to us, are interested not in truth but in power and in the maintenance of that power. To maintain that power it is essential that people remain in ignorance, that they live in ignorance of the truth, even the truth of their own lives. What surrounds us therefore is a vast tapestry of lies, upon which we feed.
As every single person here knows, the justification for the invasion of Iraq was that Saddam Hussein possessed a highly dangerous body of weapons of mass destruction, some of which could be fired in 45 minutes, bringing about appalling devastation. We were assured that was true. It was not true. We were told that Iraq had a relationship with Al Quaeda and shared responsibility for the atrocity in New York of September 11th 2001. We were assured that this was true. It was not true. We were told that Iraq threatened the security of the world. We were assured it was true. It was not true.
The truth is something entirely different. The truth is to do with how the United States understands its role in the world and how it chooses to embody it.
But before I come back to the present I would like to look at the recent past, by which I mean United States foreign policy since the end of the Second World War. I believe it is obligatory upon us to subject this period to at least some kind of even limited scrutiny, which is all that time will allow here.
Everyone knows what happened in the Soviet Union and throughout Eastern Europe during the post-war period: the systematic brutality, the widespread atrocities, the ruthless suppression of independent thought. All this has been fully documented and verified.
But my contention here is that the US crimes in the same period have only been superficially recorded, let alone documented, let alone acknowledged, let alone recognised as crimes at all. I believe this must be addressed and that the truth has considerable bearing on where the world stands now. Although constrained, to a certain extent, by the existence of the Soviet Union, the United States' actions throughout the world made it clear that it had concluded it had carte blanche to do what it liked.
Direct invasion of a sovereign state has never in fact been America's favoured method. In the main, it has preferred what it has described as 'low intensity conflict'. Low intensity conflict means that thousands of people die but slower than if you dropped a bomb on them in one fell swoop. It means that you infect the heart of the country, that you establish a malignant growth and watch the gangrene bloom. When the populace has been subdued – or beaten to death – the same thing – and your own friends, the military and the great corporations, sit comfortably in power, you go before the camera and say that democracy has prevailed. This was a commonplace in US foreign policy in the years to which I refer.
The tragedy of Nicaragua was a highly significant case. I choose to offer it here as a potent example of America's view of its role in the world, both then and now.
I was present at a meeting at the US embassy in London in the late 1980s.
The United States Congress was about to decide whether to give more money to the Contras in their campaign against the state of Nicaragua. I was a member of a delegation speaking on behalf of Nicaragua but the most important member of this delegation was a Father John Metcalf. The leader of the US body was Raymond Seitz (then number two to the ambassador, later ambassador himself). Father Metcalf said: 'Sir, I am in charge of a parish in the north of Nicaragua. My parishioners built a school, a health centre, a cultural centre. We have lived in peace. A few months ago a Contra force attacked the parish. They destroyed everything: the school, the health centre, the cultural centre. They raped nurses and teachers, slaughtered doctors, in the most brutal manner. They behaved like savages. Please demand that the US government withdraw its support from this shocking terrorist activity.'
Raymond Seitz had a very good reputation as a rational, responsible and highly sophisticated man. He was greatly respected in diplomatic circles. He listened, paused and then spoke with some gravity. 'Father,' he said, 'let me tell you something. In war, innocent people always suffer.' There was a frozen silence. We stared at him. He did not flinch.
Innocent people, indeed, always suffer.
Finally somebody said: 'But in this case “innocent people” were the victims of a gruesome atrocity subsidised by your government, one among many. If Congress allows the Contras more money further atrocities of this kind will take place. Is this not the case? Is your government not therefore guilty of supporting acts of murder and destruction upon the citizens of a sovereign state?'
Seitz was imperturbable. 'I don't agree that the facts as presented support your assertions,' he said.
As we were leaving the Embassy a US aide told me that he enjoyed my plays. I did not reply.
I should remind you that at the time President Reagan made the following statement: 'The Contras are the moral equivalent of our Founding Fathers.'
The United States supported the brutal Somoza dictatorship in Nicaragua for over 40 years. The Nicaraguan people, led by the Sandinistas, overthrew this regime in 1979, a breathtaking popular revolution.
The Sandinistas weren't perfect. They possessed their fair share of arrogance and their political philosophy contained a number of contradictory elements. But they were intelligent, rational and civilised. They set out to establish a stable, decent, pluralistic society. The death penalty was abolished. Hundreds of thousands of poverty-stricken peasants were brought back from the dead. Over 100,000 families were given title to land. Two thousand schools were built. A quite remarkable literacy campaign reduced illiteracy in the country to less than one seventh. Free education was established and a free health service. Infant mortality was reduced by a third. Polio was eradicated.
The United States denounced these achievements as Marxist/Leninist subversion. In the view of the US government, a dangerous example was being set. If Nicaragua was allowed to establish basic norms of social and economic justice, if it was allowed to raise the standards of health care and education and achieve social unity and national self respect, neighbouring countries would ask the same questions and do the same things. There was of course at the time fierce resistance to the status quo in El Salvador.
I spoke earlier about 'a tapestry of lies' which surrounds us. President Reagan commonly described Nicaragua as a 'totalitarian dungeon'. This was taken generally by the media, and certainly by the British government, as accurate and fair comment. But there was in fact no record of death squads under the Sandinista government. There was no record of torture. There was no record of systematic or official military brutality. No priests were ever murdered in Nicaragua. There were in fact three priests in the government, two Jesuits and a Maryknoll missionary. The totalitarian dungeons were actually next door, in El Salvador and Guatemala. The United States had brought down the democratically elected government of Guatemala in 1954 and it is estimated that over 200,000 people had been victims of successive military dictatorships.
Six of the most distinguished Jesuits in the world were viciously murdered at the Central American University in San Salvador in 1989 by a battalion of the Alcatl regiment trained at Fort Benning, Georgia, USA. That extremely brave man Archbishop Romero was assassinated while saying mass. It is estimated that 75,000 people died. Why were they killed? They were killed because they believed a better life was possible and should be achieved. That belief immediately qualified them as communists. They died because they dared to question the status quo, the endless plateau of poverty, disease, degradation and oppression, which had been their birthright.
The United States finally brought down the Sandinista government. It took some years and considerable resistance but relentless economic persecution and 30,000 dead finally undermined the spirit of the Nicaraguan people. They were exhausted and poverty stricken once again. The casinos moved back into the country. Free health and free education were over. Big business returned with a vengeance. 'Democracy' had prevailed.
But this 'policy' was by no means restricted to Central America. It was conducted throughout the world. It was never-ending. And it is as if it never happened.
The United States supported and in many cases engendered every right wing military dictatorship in the world after the end of the Second World War. I refer to Indonesia, Greece, Uruguay, Brazil, Paraguay, Haiti, Turkey, the Philippines, Guatemala, El Salvador, and, of course, Chile. The horror the United States inflicted upon Chile in 1973 can never be purged and can never be forgiven.
Hundreds of thousands of deaths took place throughout these countries. Did they take place? And are they in all cases attributable to US foreign policy? The answer is yes they did take place and they are attributable to American foreign policy. But you wouldn't know it.
It never happened. Nothing ever happened. Even while it was happening it wasn't happening. It didn't matter. It was of no interest. The crimes of the United States have been systematic, constant, vicious, remorseless, but very few people have actually talked about them. You have to hand it to America. It has exercised a quite clinical manipulation of power worldwide while masquerading as a force for universal good. It's a brilliant, even witty, highly successful act of hypnosis.
I put to you that the United States is without doubt the greatest show on the road. Brutal, indifferent, scornful and ruthless it may be but it is also very clever. As a salesman it is out on its own and its most saleable commodity is self love. It's a winner. Listen to all American presidents on television say the words, 'the American people', as in the sentence, 'I say to the American people it is time to pray and to defend the rights of the American people and I ask the American people to trust their president in the action he is about to take on behalf of the American people.'
It's a scintillating stratagem. Language is actually employed to keep thought at bay. The words 'the American people' provide a truly voluptuous cushion of reassurance. You don't need to think. Just lie back on the cushion. The cushion may be suffocating your intelligence and your critical faculties but it's very comfortable. This does not apply of course to the 40 million people living below the poverty line and the 2 million men and women imprisoned in the vast gulag of prisons, which extends across the US.
The United States no longer bothers about low intensity conflict. It no longer sees any point in being reticent or even devious. It puts its cards on the table without fear or favour. It quite simply doesn't give a damn about the United Nations, international law or critical dissent, which it regards as impotent and irrelevant. It also has its own bleating little lamb tagging behind it on a lead, the pathetic and supine Great Britain.
What has happened to our moral sensibility? Did we ever have any? What do these words mean? Do they refer to a term very rarely employed these days – conscience? A conscience to do not only with our own acts but to do with our shared responsibility in the acts of others? Is all this dead? Look at Guantanamo Bay. Hundreds of people detained without charge for over three years, with no legal representation or due process, technically detained forever. This totally illegitimate structure is maintained in defiance of the Geneva Convention. It is not only tolerated but hardly thought about by what's called the 'international community'. This criminal outrage is being committed by a country, which declares itself to be 'the leader of the free world'. Do we think about the inhabitants of Guantanamo Bay? What does the media say about them? They pop up occasionally – a small item on page six. They have been consigned to a no man's land from which indeed they may never return. At present many are on hunger strike, being force-fed, including British residents. No niceties in these force-feeding procedures. No sedative or anaesthetic. Just a tube stuck up your nose and into your throat. You vomit blood. This is torture. What has the British Foreign Secretary said about this? Nothing. What has the British Prime Minister said about this? Nothing. Why not? Because the United States has said: to criticise our conduct in Guantanamo Bay constitutes an unfriendly act. You're either with us or against us. So Blair shuts up.
The invasion of Iraq was a bandit act, an act of blatant state terrorism, demonstrating absolute contempt for the concept of international law. The invasion was an arbitrary military action inspired by a series of lies upon lies and gross manipulation of the media and therefore of the public; an act intended to consolidate American military and economic control of the Middle East masquerading – as a last resort – all other justifications having failed to justify themselves – as liberation. A formidable assertion of military force responsible for the death and mutilation of thousands and thousands of innocent people.
We have brought torture, cluster bombs, depleted uranium, innumerable acts of random murder, misery, degradation and death to the Iraqi people and call it 'bringing freedom and democracy to the Middle East'.
How many people do you have to kill before you qualify to be described as a mass murderer and a war criminal? One hundred thousand? More than enough, I would have thought. Therefore it is just that Bush and Blair be arraigned before the International Criminal Court of Justice. But Bush has been clever. He has not ratified the International Criminal Court of Justice. Therefore if any American soldier or for that matter politician finds himself in the dock Bush has warned that he will send in the marines. But Tony Blair has ratified the Court and is therefore available for prosecution. We can let the Court have his address if they're interested. It is Number 10, Downing Street, London.
Death in this context is irrelevant. Both Bush and Blair place death well away on the back burner. At least 100,000 Iraqis were killed by American bombs and missiles before the Iraq insurgency began. These people are of no moment. Their deaths don't exist. They are blank. They are not even recorded as being dead. 'We don't do body counts,' said the American general Tommy Franks.
Early in the invasion there was a photograph published on the front page of British newspapers of Tony Blair kissing the cheek of a little Iraqi boy. 'A grateful child,' said the caption. A few days later there was a story and photograph, on an inside page, of another four-year-old boy with no arms. His family had been blown up by a missile. He was the only survivor. 'When do I get my arms back?' he asked. The story was dropped. Well, Tony Blair wasn't holding him in his arms, nor the body of any other mutilated child, nor the body of any bloody corpse. Blood is dirty. It dirties your shirt and tie when you're making a sincere speech on television.
The 2,000 American dead are an embarrassment. They are transported to their graves in the dark. Funerals are unobtrusive, out of harm's way. The mutilated rot in their beds, some for the rest of their lives. So the dead and the mutilated both rot, in different kinds of graves.
Here is an extract from a poem by Pablo Neruda, 'I'm Explaining a Few Things':

And one morning all that was burning,
one morning the bonfiresleapt out of the earth
devouring human beings
and from then on fire,
gunpowder from then on,
and from then on blood.
Bandits with planes and Moors,
bandits with finger-rings and duchesses
,bandits with black friars spattering blessings
came through the sky to kill children
and the blood of children ran through the streets
without fuss, like children's blood.
Jackals that the jackals would
despise
stones that the dry thistle would bite on and spit out,
vipers that the vipers would abominate.
Face to face with you I have
seen the blood
of Spain tower like a tide
to drown you in one wave
of pride and knives.
Treacherous
generals:
see my dead house,
look at broken Spain:
from every house burning metal flows
instead of flowers
from every socket of Spain
Spain emerges
and from every dead child a rifle with eyes
and from every crime bullets are born
which will one day find
the bull's eye of your hearts.
And you will ask: why doesn't his
poetry
speak of dreams and leaves
and the great volcanoes of his native land.
Come and see the blood in
the streets.
Come and see
the blood in the streets.
Come and see the blood
in the streets!*

Let me make it quite clear that in quoting from Neruda's poem I am in no way comparing Republican Spain to Saddam Hussein's Iraq. I quote Neruda because nowhere in contemporary poetry have I read such a powerful visceral description of the bombing of civilians.
I have said earlier that the United States is now totally frank about putting its cards on the table. That is the case. Its official declared policy is now defined as 'full spectrum dominance'. That is not my term, it is theirs. 'Full spectrum dominance' means control of land, sea, air and space and all attendant resources.
The United States now occupies 702 military installations throughout the world in 132 countries, with the honourable exception of Sweden, of course. We don't quite know how they got there but they are there all right.
The United States possesses 8,000 active and operational nuclear warheads. Two thousand are on hair trigger alert, ready to be launched with 15 minutes warning. It is developing new systems of nuclear force, known as bunker busters. The British, ever cooperative, are intending to replace their own nuclear missile, Trident. Who, I wonder, are they aiming at? Osama bin Laden? You? Me? Joe Dokes? China? Paris? Who knows? What we do know is that this infantile insanity – the possession and threatened use of nuclear weapons – is at the heart of present American political philosophy. We must remind ourselves that the United States is on a permanent military footing and shows no sign of relaxing it.
Many thousands, if not millions, of people in the United States itself are demonstrably sickened, shamed and angered by their government's actions, but as things stand they are not a coherent political force – yet. But the anxiety, uncertainty and fear which we can see growing daily in the United States is unlikely to diminish.
I know that President Bush has many extremely competent speech writers but I would like to volunteer for the job myself. I propose the following short address which he can make on television to the nation. I see him grave, hair carefully combed, serious, winning, sincere, often beguiling, sometimes employing a wry smile, curiously attractive, a man's man.
'God is good. God is great. God is good. My God is good. Bin Laden's God is bad. His is a bad God. Saddam's God was bad, except he didn't have one. He was a barbarian. We are not barbarians. We don't chop people's heads off. We believe in freedom. So does God. I am not a barbarian. I am the democratically elected leader of a freedom-loving democracy. We are a compassionate society. We give compassionate electrocution and compassionate lethal injection. We are a great nation. I am not a dictator. He is. I am not a barbarian. He is. And he is. They all are. I possess moral authority. You see this fist? This is my moral authority. And don't you forget it.'
A writer's life is a highly vulnerable, almost naked activity. We don't have to weep about that. The writer makes his choice and is stuck with it. But it is true to say that you are open to all the winds, some of them icy indeed. You are out on your own, out on a limb. You find no shelter, no protection – unless you lie – in which case of course you have constructed your own protection and, it could be argued, become a politician.
I have referred to death quite a few times this evening. I shall now quote a poem of my own called 'Death'.

Where was the dead body found?
Who found the dead body?
Was the dead body dead when found?
How was the dead body found?
Who was the dead body?
Who was the
father or daughter or brother
Or uncle or sister or mother or son
Of the dead and abandoned body?
Was the body dead when abandoned?
Was the body abandoned?
By whom had it been abandoned?
Was the dead body naked or dressed for a
journey?
What made you declare the dead body dead?
Did you declare the dead body dead?
How well did you know the dead body?
How did you know the dead body was dead?
Did you wash the dead body?
Did you close both its eyes?
Did you bury the body?
Did you leave it abandoned?
Did you kiss the dead body?
When we look into a mirror we think the image that confronts us is accurate. But move a millimetre and the image changes. We are actually looking at a never-ending range of reflections. But sometimes a writer has to smash the mirror – for it is on the other side of that mirror that the truth stares at us.
I believe that despite the enormous odds which exist, unflinching, unswerving, fierce intellectual determination, as citizens, to define the real truth of our lives and our societies is a crucial obligation which devolves upon us all. It is in fact mandatory.
If such a determination is not embodied in our political vision we have no hope of restoring what is so nearly lost to us – the dignity of man.

* Extract from "I'm Explaining a Few Things" translated by Nathaniel Tarn, from Pablo Neruda: Selected Poems, published by Jonathan Cape, London 1970. Used by permission of The Random House Group Limited.

Wednesday, November 9, 2005

Chicks of Chicora Court

No, it's not about bird-influenza!
And it certainly isn't about a strange green plant sheltering baby chickens...
Yet it is also no courtroom drama...
No, no, no!
It is a new maxi-mini-series qua permanent drama/comedy that will make The Golden Girls seem tame and as boring as they really were.
so
Check out the chicks of Chicora Court, chomping into a station near you, or here,or soon, or all of the above.

Saturday, November 5, 2005

"Sites noirs" à la CIA

Edito du Monde

"Sites noirs" à la CIA

LE MONDE 04.11.05 13h17 • Mis à jour le 04.11.05 14h13

Depuis le 11 septembre 2001, George W. Bush considère que la lutte implacable qui doit être menée contre le terrorisme justifie que l'on s'exonère de quelques obligations morales du droit international. Quelques jours après les attaques du 11 Septembre, le président américain a donc accordé à la CIA des pouvoirs étendus pour transférer des suspects d'actes terroristes à l'étranger. C'est sur cette base que sont apparues les "prisons fantômes" de la CIA.
Selon des révélations du Washington Post, la CIA détiendrait les plus importants dirigeants d'Al-Qaida qui ont été capturés ­ une trentaine de personnes au total ­ dans des prisons secrètes à l'étranger, baptisées "sites noirs". Ces prisons fantômes pour djihadistes se trouveraient dans des pays d'Europe centrale, sur d'anciennes bases soviétiques. L'organisation humanitaire Human Rights Watch a cité la Pologne et la Roumanie, pays qui, comme la Hongrie, ont démenti couvrir et abriter de telles pratiques. Plus troublant : le gouvernement de la République tchèque a reconnu avoir été sollicité par Washington, affirmant avoir rejeté sa requête.
Les révélations du Washington Post n'ont pas provoqué de véritable démenti de la part des autorités américaines. Stephen Hadley, conseiller à la sécurité nationale, a estimé à propos de ces prisons que "le fait qu'elles soient secrètes, pour autant qu'elles existent, ne signifie pas que la torture pourrait y être tolérée". La polémique a incité les démocrates américains à relancer leur offensive contre la pratique des sévices ­ sinistrement illustrée sur la base de Guantanamo à l'égard des suspects d'actes terroristes ­ en faisant voter par la Chambre des représentants un amendement du républicain John McCain. Ce texte, adopté par le Sénat, prévoit que tout détenu sous garde américaine sera exempt de "traitements cruels, inhumains ou dégradants". La Maison Blanche s'oppose à cet amendement.
Les Etats-Unis, qui ont si longtemps défendu les droits de l'homme et les valeurs morales de la démocratie à travers le monde, en sont-ils venus à demander à des pays européens, membres de l'OTAN et acteurs de l'Union européenne, de faire "le sale boulot" sur des détenus djihadistes exportés ? On ne peut imaginer, et encore moins admettre, si elles sont avérées, de telles pratiques, non seulement illégales au regard du droit international, mais moralement condamnables.
L'ancien président Jimmy Carter a ainsi déploré que, depuis l'arrivée de M. Bush à la Maison Blanche, "il y -ait- eu un changement radical et profond des principes politiques et des valeurs morales" des Etats-Unis. La secrétaire d'Etat, Condoleezza Rice, prompte à défendre, à l'étranger, la démocratie et les droits de l'homme, peut-elle admettre que les Etats-Unis sollicitent des pays de l'Union européenne pour enfreindre le droit et la morale ? A l'égard du Vieux Continent, une telle attitude relèverait de l'arrogance, voire du mépris.

Article paru dans l'édition du 05.11.05

Thursday, November 3, 2005

THINK ABOUT IT !

"Das Denken ist das Dichten der Wahrheit des Seins in der geschichtlichen Zwiesprache der Denkenden." [Martin Heidegger: Holzwege, p. 372]
"Wenn aber das Sein in seinem Wesen das Wesen des Menschen braucht? Wenn das Wesen des Menschen im Denken der Wahrheit des Seins beruht?
Dann muß das Denken am Rätsel des Seins dichten. Es bringt die Frühe des Gedachten in die Nähe des zu Denkenden." [op.cit., p. 373]

Don't be afraid to think, to compose, to invent and form. Open yourself not only to all that exists, but to Being itself! Say YES to life, to every opening, to becoming....

Saturday, October 15, 2005

SHAME

A fantastic observation, quoted from William S. Burroughs' Naked Lunch, p.133 of the most recent paper edition:
Dying of shame is an accomplishment peculiar to Kwakiutl Indians and Americans -- others simply say "Zut alors" or "Son cosas de la vida" or "Allah fucked me, the All Powerful...."
This trait of Americans is one of the factors contributing to the perplexity the rest of the world has with regard to them, and vice versa.

Thursday, September 15, 2005

die Kehre als Rettung in der Gefahr

Da Merkel vielleicht die höchste Gefahr zur Zeit stellt, besteht größte Chancen, daß die Kehre im Gestell zur Lichtung mit Einblick in die Wahrheit des Seins einkehrt: und Deutschland kann weiter vorwärts anstatt rückwärts mit Merkel/Stoiber/Kirchhof/Westerwelle und co. !
There 's a chance...
Learn French! Speak English! Read German!

Friday, August 5, 2005

Will we ever meet the challenge?

In his seminar on Nietzsche's philosophy as early as 1939, Der Wille zur Macht als Erkenntnis, in the subsection entitled Verständigung und Berechnung, Martin Heidegger clearly raised the specter of unenlightened commitment to commerce, trade, consumerism at the neglect of human value and integrity. Here, this short quote (taken from Bd.1, S. 521 of Martin Heidegger: Nietzsche; Stutgart, Verlag Günter Neske, 1961).

Verständigung ist der höchste Kampf um die wesentlichen Ziele, die ein geschichtliches Menschentum über sich errichtet. Deshalb kann in der gegenwärtigen geschichtlichen Lage Verständigung nur heißen: der Mut zu der einzigen Frage: ob das Abendland sich noch zutraut, ein Ziel über sich und seiner Geschichte zu schaffen, oder ob es vorzieht, in die Wahrung und Steigerung von Handels- und Lebensinteressen abzusinken und sich mit der Berufung auf das Bisherige, als sei dies das Absolute, zu begnügen.

roughly translated: Clarification/agreement is that highest of struggles for the essential goals which an historical mankind erects over itself. Therefore, in the current historical situation, clarification/agreement can only mean: the courage to face the one and only question: whether the Occident [the Western World] might still be capable of creating a goal over and for itself and its history, or whether it prefers to sink into the mire of preserving and increasing the interests of trade and daily life [I might dare here to translate indeed: consumerism] and to be satisfied with appeals to what has already been, as if that were the Absolute.

Wednesday, August 3, 2005

ANTONIN ARTAUD already knew

"Il n'y a pas de cosmos et chacque homme est un monde à lui seul,
à lui donc à s'y initier en le faisant vivre, c'est-à-dire en le créant, du bras, de la main, du pied et du souffle de sa personnelle et inexpugnable volonté."
- From Antonin Artaud's letter to André Breton "vers le 1er mars 1947".

Thursday, July 7, 2005

STOP THE TERROR EVERYWHERE!

As the New Yorker I was, the Parisian I have long been deep inside, and the Berlin dweller and lover I am - big city guy - my heart beats with Londoners today:
Don't let go of your city way of life, don't let them intimidate you: our big cities are the wildest weirdest wackiest wantonest most wonderful part of our free civilization.

No to Terror - No to Fundamentalists!
Yes to Liberty - Yes to Justice!

And with an expression of debt to Charles Baudelaire and Philippe Sollers, this thought for meditation:
What they're always trying to keep hidden from us all is that the French Revolution, with all its assertion of human rights and liberty, was something voluptuous, instigated by people who sought voluptuousness, while the Counter-Revolution and the Terror accompanying it and plaguing us still today was fomented on us by the "virtuous" and in the name of "virtue".

Friday, June 24, 2005

Interrogators Cite Doctors' Aid at Guantánamo Prison Camp - New York Times

After reading this article, even the last idiot in the US should realize that the bushbaby playpen is obstructing justice and curtailing human rights in violation of the most sancrosanct principles of democracy. This is no way to assist efforts to spread democracy and justice to countries and peoples who til now suffer under the yoke of various repressive regimes: regimes that imprison citizens and others without charges or trial and which subject them to torture! It is no wonder that countless recruits for fanatic fundamentalist terrorism are putting smiles on the faces of Osama & Co.
The United States is supposed to be one nation with liberty and justice for all: Start at home, BushBaby, and you'll do more to protect America from terrorist attacks and help the rest of the world achieve a bit more peace and security.
CLOSE GUANTÁNAMO NOW! RELEASE DETAINEES OR RAISE CHARGES AGAINST THEM FOR CONSIDERATION IN A TRIAL BEFORE A COURT OF LAW!

Interrogators Cite Doctors' Aid at Guantánamo Prison Camp - New York Times

Saturday, June 18, 2005

Something Rotten in Ohio - by Gore Vidal

The Nation. posted June 9, 2005 (June 27, 2005 issue)
Something Rotten in Ohio
Gore Vidal
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Outside the oil and gas junta that controls two and a half branches of our government (the half soon to be whole is the judiciary), there was a good deal of envy at the late British election among those Americans who are serious about politics. Little money was spent by the three parties and none for TV advertising. Results were achieved swiftly and cheaply. Best of all, the three party leaders were quizzed sharply and intelligently by ordinary citizens known quaintly as subjects, thanks to the ubiquitous phantom crown so unlike our nuclear-taloned predatory eagle. Although news of foreign countries seldom appears in our tightly censored media (and good news, never), those of us who are addicted to C-SPAN and find it the one truly, if unconsciously, subversive media outlet in these United States are able to observe British politics in full cry.
I say "subversive" not only because C-SPAN is apt to take interesting books seriously but also because its live coverage of the Senate and the House of Representatives is the only look we are ever allowed at the mouthpieces of our masters up close and is, at times, most reflective of a government more and more remote from us, unaccountable and repressive. To watch the righteous old prophet Byrd of West Virginia, the sunny hypocrisy of Biden of Delaware--as I write these hallowed names, I summon up their faces, hear their voices, and I am covered with C-SPAN goose bumps.
At any rate, wondrous C-SPAN has another string to its bow. While some executive was nodding, C-SPAN started showing us Britain's House of Commons during Question Time. This is the only glimpse that most Americans will ever get of how democracy is supposed to work.

These party leaders are pitted against one another in often savage debate on subjects of war and peace, health and education. Then some 600 Members of Parliament are allowed to ask questions of their great chieftains. Years ago the incomparable Dwight Macdonald wrote that any letter to the London Times (the Brits are inveterate letter writers on substantive issues) is better written than any editorial in the New York Times.
In addition to Question Time, which allows Americans to see how political democracy works, as opposed to our two chambers of lobbyists for corporate America, C-SPAN also showed the three party leaders being interrogated by a cross section of, for the most part, youthful subjects of the phantom crown and presided over by an experienced political journalist. Blair was roughly accused of lying about the legal advice he had received apropos Britain's right to go to war in Iraq for the US oil and gas junta. This BBC live audience asked far more informed and informative questions than the entire US press corps was allowed to ask Bush et al. in our recent election. But Americans are not used to challenging authority in what has been called wartime by a President who has ordered invasions of two countries that have done us no harm and is now planning future wars despite dwindling manpower and lack of money. Blair, for just going along, had to deal with savage, informed questions of a sort that Bush would never answer even if he were competent to do so.
So we have seen what democracy across the water can do. All in all a jarring experience for anyone foolish enough to believe that America is democratic in anything except furiously imprisoning the innocent and joyously electing the guilty. What to do? As a first step, I invite the radicals at C-SPAN who take seriously our Constitution and Bill of Rights to address their attention to the corruption of the presidential election of 2004, particularly in the state of Ohio.
One of the most useful members of the House--currently the most useful--is John Conyers, a Michigan Democrat who, in his capacity as ranking minority member of the Judiciary Committee, led the committee's Democratic Congressmen and their staffers into the heart of the American heartland, the Western Reserve; specifically, into the not-so-red state of Ohio, once known as "the mother of Presidents."
He had come to answer the question that the minority of Americans who care about the Republic have been asking since November 2004: "What went wrong in Ohio?" He is too modest to note the difficulties he must have undergone even to assemble this team in the face of the triumphalist Republican Congressional majority, not to mention the unlikely heir to himself, George W. Bush, whose original selection by the Supreme Court brought forth many reports on what went wrong in Florida in 2000.
These led to an apology from Associate Justice John Paul Stevens for the behavior of the 5-to-4 majority of the Court in the matter of Bush v. Gore. Loser Bush then brought on undeclared wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, as well as the greatest deficits in our history and the revelations that the policies of an Administration that--much as Count Dracula fled cloves of garlic--flees all accountability were responsible for the murder and torture of captive men, between 70 percent and 90 percent of whom, by the Pentagon's estimate, had been swept up at random, earning us the hatred of a billion Muslims and the disgust of what is called the civilized world.
Asked to predict who would win in '04, I said that, again, Bush would lose, but I was confident that in the four years between 2000 and 2004 creative propaganda and the fixing of election officials might very well be so perfected as to insure an official victory for Mr. Bush. As Representative Conyers's report, Preserving Democracy: What Went Wrong in Ohio (www.house.gov/conyers), shows in great detail, the swing state of Ohio was carefully set up to deliver an apparent victory for Bush even though Kerry appears to have been the popular winner as well as the valedictorian-that-never-was of the Electoral College.
I urge would-be reformers of our politics as well as of such anachronisms as the Electoral College to read Conyers's valuable guide on how to steal an election once you have in place the supervisor of the state's electoral process: In this case, Ohio Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell, who orchestrated a famous victory for those who hate democracy (a permanent but passionate minority). The Conyers Report states categorically, "With regards to our factual finding, in brief, we find that there were massive and unprecedented voter irregularities and anomalies in Ohio. In many cases these irregularities were caused by intentional misconduct and illegal behavior, much of it involving Secretary of State Kenneth J. Blackwell, the co-chair of the Bush-Cheney campaign in Ohio." In other words, the Florida 2000 scenario redux, when the chair for Bush/Cheney was also the Secretary of State. Lesson? Always plan ahead for at least four more years.
It is well-known in the United States of Amnesia that not only did Ohio have a considerable number of first-time voters but that Blackwell and his gang, through "the misallocation of voting machines led to unprecedented long lines that disenfranchised scores, if not hundreds of thousands, of predominantly minority and Democratic voters."
For the past few years many of us have been warning about the electronic voting machines, first publicized on the Internet by investigator Bev Harris, for which she was much reviled by the officers of such companies as Diebold, Sequoia, ES&S, Triad; this last voting computer company "has essentially admitted that it engaged in a course of behavior during the recount in numerous counties to provide 'cheat sheets' to those counting the ballots. The cheat sheets informed election officials how many votes they should find for each candidate, and how many over and under votes they should calculate to match the machine count. In that way, they could avoid doing a full county-wide hand recount mandated by state law."
Yet despite all this manpower and money power, exit polls showed that Kerry would win Ohio. So, what happened?
I have told more than enough of this mystery story so thoroughly investigated by Conyers and his Congressional colleagues and their staffers. Not only were the crimes against democracy investigated but the report on What Went Wrong in Ohio comes up with quite a number of ways to set things right.
Needless to say, this report was ignored when the Electoral College produced its unexamined tally of the votes state by state. Needless to say, no joint committee of the two houses of Congress was convened to consider the various crimes committed and to find ways and means to avoid their repetition in 2008, should we be allowed to hold an election once we have unilaterally, yet again, engaged in a war--this time with Iran. Anyway, thanks to Conyers, the writing is now high up there on the wall for us all to see clearly: "Mene, mene, tekel, upharsin." Students of the Good Book will know what these words of God meant to Belshazzar and his cronies in old Babylon.
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Friday, June 17, 2005

Papagei / Parrot / Perroquet


That's the parrot! le petit perroquet- Das Tier!

Thursday, June 16, 2005

LEGISLATORS FINALLY REMEMBER DEMOCRACY: House Votes To Curb Patriot Act

I can only hope this is a beginning of the return of the United States to the principles of democracy, freedom, and justice it claims to uphold abroad (at gunpoint) while violating them at home and in Guantánmo!
The pertinent article from the Washington Post:

House Votes To Curb Patriot Act

Monday, May 23, 2005

You Get What You Want /or/ They Have No Idea What They Want

That headline summarizes what happened in NRW elections yesterday, as voters frustrated about losing work, money, and patience because of no growth and bad moods elected the til then opposition whose ideas can only produce more job loss, take more money out of the normal Joe's wallet, stymie growth even more as the consumers spend less, and exacerbate the bad mood to the point of chronic depression.
If the same occurs in the Fall, now that Schröder has announced plans to pull forward the Bundestag elections, the voters will get what they want: a murky Merkel CDU Chancellor in coalition with a dower Westerwelle FDP neo-liberal economic plan in coalition to abolish all the things for which the German economic system has been admired all around the world: cooperation between employer and employee (co-governance of enterprises), job protection (remember that when your next boss laughs in your face when he fires you and you inform him of your plans to have the labor court review that), inexpensive health insurance (well, it will become so then for the upper 10,000), etc.
All we need in addition is for the French to vote NO next week, and the mounted capitalists and bushbaby play-penalist unlilateralists can rampage through Europe doing whatever they want, cause we'll have pretty much castrated ourselves.
And the polls show, people don't even trust the CDU to solve the problems facing Germany, but they'll vote for them out of frustration. They probably only watch RTL-Sat1-Pro7-Vox (a third have never even heard of the Kapitalismusdebatte) and only shop at Lidl-Aldi-Plus-Kaufdichdoof, then wonder why there are no jobs anymore....
Go to the theater, read a book, learn a foreign language, quit the church, sell the car, kiss your lover, have good sex, smile at those you encounter, and learn to think!

Wednesday, May 4, 2005

Die Zeit : Freiheit nach Börsenmaß

A must-read by Literature Nobel Prize Winner Günter Grass
Don't let them ever tell you that you're evil if you think people are more important than profits!
Die Zeit - Politik : Freiheit nach Börsenmaß

Monday, April 18, 2005

Ein Naziladen im eigenen Kiez ?

Schlagen wir die Zeitung auf, werden wir in letzter Zeit immer öfter mit den Thema Neonazis konfrontiert. Der geplante Nazigroßaufmarsch am 8. Mai, die Wahlerfolge rechter Parteien und Verbote neonazistischer Kameradschaften sind allgegenwärtig. Nicht nur in den Medien, nein selbst vor der eigenen Haustür!
Auch im beschaulichen Stadtteil Weißensee von Berlin etabliert sich Stück für Stück die rechte Szene. Ein Beispiel dafür ist der seit 1. August 2003 existierende Laden "Nordic Thunder" in der Gustav-Adolf-Str. 155. Er ist einer von über zwölf Naziläden, die es mittlerweile in Berlin und Umgebung gibt. Damit hat diese Region weit aus mehr solcher Läden als das Bundesland Sachsen.
Diese Läden sind jedoch keine normalen Geschäfte, die irgend welche Kleidung und Musik vertreiben.
Gerade bei vorwiegend jungen Menschen schürt das Angebot von Naziläden den Hass auf Andersdenkende. Rechte Kleidung, Musik, Schmuck und vor allem die Entstehung gemeinsamer Kontakte zu anderen Neonazis sind es, welche den Zusammenhalt und das Selbstbewusstsein der lokalen Naziszene stärkt. Je stärker die Neonazis, desto größer die Gefahr für alle, die nicht in ihre zigarrenschachtelgroße Welt passen.

Wir sollten das nicht länger so hinnehmen.!

Mit diesem Flugblatt wollen wir deshalb über den Neonaziladen "Nordic Thunder" informieren.
Was ist "Nordic Thunder" und wer steckt dahinter?
Der Laden verkauft nach Polizeiangaben zwar rechte Marken, der Inhaber Mike Friedrich gehöre aber keinesfalls der Naziszene an. Das stimmt! Friedrich ist Mitglied der (nicht rechten) Rockergruppe "Born to be Wild", aber kein gefestigter Neonazi. Wohl aber der Hamburger Lars Georgi, der im Hintergrund dieses Ladens agiert, und sein weiteren Firmen ebenfalls durch Mittelsmänner betreiben lässt, wie eben auch in Weißensee. Georgi hat sich im Laufe der letzten Jahre ein regelrechtes Netzwerk aus verschiedenen Marken und Läden geschaffen. Er bedient sich hier der Unterstützung durch Rocker, Nazis und Hooligans.
Mit dem rechten V7-Versand, wird ihm auch das Label "Wotan Records" zugerechnet. Dieses Rechtsrocklabel vertreibt Neuauflagen indizierter CDs und hat bis jetzt über 50 CDs im Angebot. Zum Beispiel das Album von Ex-"Landser"-Sänger Michael Regener. Der bis vor kurzem in Weißensee ansässige Rechtsrocker Regener verbüßt seit diesem Frühling eine dreijährige Haftstrafe.
"Landser" wurde Ende 2003 wegen Gründung einer terroristischen Vereinigung verboten. Regener galt als Kopf jener Band, die mit Liedzeilen wie "Nigger, raus aus unserem Land" Kultstatus in ihrer erreichten. Außer mit Rechtsrock verdient Georgi sein Geld mit dem Verkauf rechter Textil-Marken, z.B. "Sport Frei" "H8 Wear" und "Pro Violence". Alle drei Marken richten sich an eine Mischszene aus Hooligans, Rockern und Nazis. Neben Georgis Marken sind weiterhin die rechten Klamotten-Labels "Wallhall" und "Thor Steinar" erhältlich. Weil das "Thor Steinar"-Logo Runen ehemaliger NS-Organisationen verwendete, musste es auf Gerichtsbeschluss im Nov. 2004 geändert werden. Ebenfalls im Angebot sind Messer, Teleskop-Schlagstöcke, Pfefferspray und germanischer Schmuck.
Der "Nordic Thunder" ist damit einer von vier Naziläden im Großbezirk Pankow. Die anderen Läden sind der "Harakiri" (Bornholmer Str. 93) im Prenzlauer Berg, sowie die Pankower Geschäfte "Firestarter" (Dietzgenstraße 57) und "Andycap" (Dietzgenstraße 94).

Nicht Wegschauen!

Ein Naziladen im eigenen Kiez... So weit, so schlecht. Nur was dagegen unternehmen? In erster Linie ist es wichtig, seine Mitmenschen darüber zu informieren, um was für ein Geschäft es sich hier handelt und was da verkauft wird. Dieses Flugblatt ist Teil der Öffentlichkeitsarbeit. Gerade junge Menschen sind Zielgruppe von Läden, wie dem "Nordic Thunder". Da die Naziszene sich auch im Äußeren verändert hat, sind rechte Inhalte auf den ersten Blick nicht mehr zu entlarven. Nicht alle Eltern würden sofort erkennen, dass es sich bei dem "modern" gehaltenen Shirt-Aufdruck "Thor Steinar" um eine Nazimarke handelt.
Bekanntlich hat der Nationalsozialismus historisch einmalige Verbrechen an Menschen in der ganzen Welt begangen. Wieder üben Alt- und Neonazis den "Schulterschluss aller volkstreuen Deutschen". Die NPD, eine straff geführte Kaderpartei von ca. 6000 Mitgliedern, bekennt sich immer offener zum Nationalsozialismus. Militante Neonazi-Kameradschaften und rechte Parteien wie die NPD haben den Kampf um die Straße und Köpfe längst begonnen. Ihr erklärtes Ziel ist die Überwindung des "liberalkapitalistischen Systems und der Vasallenrepublik BRD". Nach der Eroberung der politischen Macht wollen sie das "Deutsche Reich" wiederherstellen.
Faschismus ist nicht nur eine Meinung, er ist ein historisch einmaliges Verbrechen, Neofaschismus birgt die Gefahr der Wiederholung dieses Verbrechens in sich. Die Warnung Pastor Niemöllers hat darum nichts an Aktualität verloren:
Als die Nazis die Kommunisten holten,
habe ich geschwiegen;
ich war ja kein Kommunist.
Als sie die Sozialdemokraten einsperrten,
habe ich geschwiegen;
ich war ja kein Sozialdemokrat.
Als sie die Gewerkschafter holten,
habe ich nicht protestiert;
ich war ja kein Gewerkschafter.
Als sie die Juden holten,
habe ich nicht protestiert;
ich war ja kein Jude.
Als sie mich holten,
gab es keinen mehr,

der protestieren konnte.

Wir rufen alle Anständigen und Zuständigen auf, alles zu tun, damit sich dies nicht wiederholt! Nutzen Sie die 60. Wiederkehr des Tages der Befreiung vom Faschismus, um gegen die Neonazis zu protestieren, bevor es wieder zu spät sein wird zu protestieren.

Schließt die Naziläden in unseren Kiezen!

Setzen auch Sie ein Zeichen! Kommen Sie bitte am 21.Mai 2005 zur Demonstration gegen die Naziläden "Nordic Thunder" und "Harakiri".
antifaschistische Demonstration: 21. Mai 2005 / 16 Uhr / Antonplatz / Weißensee / Berlin

Tram M4, M13, 12 bis Haltestelle Antonplatz

Netzwerk gegen Rassismus, Antisemitismus...
Mail/ Internet-Adresse.
Weitere Informationen zu Naziläden, rechten Bands und Kleidermarken:
www.we-will-rock-you.tk



Es folgen nun Informationen zu den Nazi-Marken:
"Wallhall"
Inhaber: Ingo Grönwald aus Weimar; seit Jahren in die thüringische und bundesweite rechtsradikale Szene verwickelt; betreibt in Thüringen drei Naziläden und einen Versand; wurde 2000 nach einer Razzia gegen seinen Versand wegen Volksverhetzung angeklagt. Mehrere Produkte indizierter Nazibands wurden beschlagnahmt.
"Sport Frei"
Inhaber: Bremer Hooligan-Anführer und Nazikader Henrik Ostendorf; ehem. Mitglied der verbotenen Nazigruppen "Nationale Front" (NF) und "Freiheitliche Arbeiterpartei" (FAP); arbeitet für die Parteizeitung ("Deutsche Stimme") und den "Bundesordnerdienst" der NPD; mehrfach verurteilt wegen Körperverletzung. à Marke von Lars Georgi
"Pro Violence"
Anmelder: Christoph Herpich, ein Magdeburger Hooligan; Markenanmeldung wegen Verwendung von "gewaltverherrlichenden Slogans" vom Deutschen Patentamt untersagt. Trotzdem wird sie in den Geschäften Georgies und im "Sport frei"-Internetshop vertrieben.
à Marke von Lars Georgi
"H8"-Wear
Inhaber: Lars Georgi. Die Wortschöpfung "H8"-Wear steht auf der einen Seite für "Hate-Wear", (Hassklamotten) und auf der anderen ist es nur eine einfältige Umformung der Zahl "88", ein Kürzel in der Naziszene für die Parole "Heil Hitler".
"Thor Steinar"
Inhaber: Axel Kopelke aus Königs Wusterhausen; nahm in der Vergangenheit u.a. bei völkischen Sonnenwendfeiern, einem Liederabend mit dem Nazi-Barden Frank Rennicke und einer NPD-Reichsgründungsfeier im Jahr 2000 in Friedersdorf teil. Logo musste wegen Verfassungswidrigkeit Nov. 2004 geändert werden.

Friday, April 8, 2005

From The Village Voice > Apr.7 > Pope Springs Eternal - But Why? by Michael Musto

Be sure and read the entire article, link below. Here, the first paragraph:

I'm surely going straight to hell if I say anything critical of the late pope John Paul II, but according to him, I was heading there in a handbasket anyway, so what the fuck. The truth is I am a bit fed-up with the wall-to-wall lionization of this man, who admittedly brought inspiration and faith to millions, but who also propagated some ancient, reactionary viewpoints that—just my humble fag opinion here—fanned the flames of widespread oppression, all in the name of God's will. Not since Ronald Reagan's death last year—when the dead prez became painted as a forceful, flawless leader, with nary a reference to his callous, longtime refusal to acknowledge AIDS deaths—has there been such a wacky whitewash of someone's controversial canon. This time around, all the cable channel phonies—few of whom have been known to live lives of quiet piety, especially the gays—took on a nauseatingly hushed, reverent tone as they indulged themselves in nonstop slobbering over the icon they exclusively portrayed as noble, divine, and even well accessorized.

village voice > news > Pope Springs Eternal - But Why? by Michael Musto

Tuesday, March 22, 2005

To be or not to be - or, killing the living and imprisoning the dead

Apparently, if one merely brings two news stories together, Minnesota school kid on mass-murder rampage with gun and the Schiavo issue (her name means slave in Italian, which she has become to the shenanigans of the BushBaby neoconservative playpen), in the United States life is only important when it's not really there: Unborn babies and vegetative brain-state adults have life so sacrosanct that Congress and the so-called President ram through special laws to protect it even against the will of the patient; but if you are just leading an ordinary life, those same instances ensure that maniacs get guns to mow you down dead during a normal day in school! Or they'll send emissaries to torture people to death in military prisons abroad. Whose death and whose life is important to whom in the US?
Time to get religion out of the considerations and consistency in!

Thursday, March 17, 2005


During a bike trip in Brandenburg "Schlaubetal" last summer...

Tuesday, March 15, 2005

A comment on the assassination of Chechen leader Aslan Maskhadov. By Andre Glucksmann

Thanks from the new Czar - signandsight

The Doomsday Effect of American Religious Fundamentalism

Please refer to this article by PBS' Bill Moyers:

The New York Review of Books: Welcome to Doomsday

This article should be made required reading for all Americans. It merely scratches the surface of the dangers of religious fundamentalism mixed with politics and should serve as a warning for us all. Tolerance and intelligence must be promoted.

Thursday, February 24, 2005

DO NOT PRAY FOR THIS POPE!

My Way News

In addition to this, here two more press reference quickly scanned from the net:

Memoria e identità
Il libro, il quinto di Giovanni Paolo II, avrà edizioni in 14 lingue oltre all'italiano.In uno dei passaggi destinati a suscitare maggiore dibattito, il Papa definisce l'aborto come un nuovo Olocausto, denuncia per altro già ribadita in diverse occasioni. Il pontefice ricorda lo "sterminio legale degli essere concepiti e non ancora nati", uno "sterminio deciso addirittura da parlamenti eletti democraticamente". Nel libro, si legge inoltre delle "gravi forme di violazione della legge di Dio", tra cui mette le "forti pressioni del parlamento europeo" sulle "unioni omosessuali" riconosciute "come una forma alternativa di famiglia". "È lecito e anzi doveroso - scrive il papa - porsi la domanda se qui non operi ancora una nuova ideologia del male, forse la più subdola e celata, che tenta di sfruttare, contro l'uomo e contro la famiglia, perfino i diritti dell'uomo".

Pope: "Traditional Family" Trumps Human RightsIn a new book, "Memory and Identity"
Pope John Paul II accuses European lawmakers of acting out of an ideology of evil by advocating for marriage equality for gay men and lesbians.
"In one section about the role of lawmakers, the Pope takes another swipe at gay marriages when he refers to 'pressures' on the European Parliament to allow them.
'It is legitimate and necessary to ask oneself if this is not perhaps part of a new ideology of evil, perhaps more insidious and hidden, which attempts to pit human rights against the family and against man,' he writes."
The Pope fails to explain how human rights could constitute an "ideology of evil" or how efforts to secure marriage equality -- which have involved years of public discussion -- could be "hidden."

With this type of reactionary, anti-englightenment ideology, this pope proves what a reactionary anti-humanist is leading the organization of fundamentalists called the "Catholic Church".
I will not be praying for this pope: there is no reason whatsoever to hope he ever leaves the hospital it is reported he reentered today.
The world WILL NOT be worse off without him!

Thursday, February 17, 2005

The Good-Morrow by John Donne

I wonder by my troth, what thou and I
Did, till we lov'd? Were we not wean'd till then,
But suck'd on country pleasures, childishly?
Or snorted we in the seven sleepers' den?
'Twas so; but this, all pleasures fancies be.
If ever any beauty I did see,
Which I desir'd, and got, 'twas but a dream of thee.

And now good morrow to our waking souls,
Which watch not one another out of fear;
For love, all love of other sights controls,
And makes one little room, an everywhere.
Let sea-discoverers to new worlds have gone,
Let maps to other, worlds on worlds have shown,
Let us possess one world, each hath one, and is one.

My face in thine eye, thine in mine appears,
And true plain hearts do in the faces rest;
Where can we find two better hemispheres,
Without sharp north, without declining west?
Whatever dies, was not mix'd equally;
If our two loves be one, or, thou and I
Love so alike, that none do slacken, none can die.

Friday, February 4, 2005

The Tempest / Epilogue / Spoken by Prospero

ORIGINAL:
Now my charms are all o’erthrown,
And what strength I have’s my own,
Which is most faint. Now ‘tis true,
I must be here confin’d by you,
Or sent to Naples. Let me not,
Since I have my dukedom got,
And pardon’d the deceiver, dwell
In this bare island by your spell,
But release me from my bands
With the help of your good hands.
Gentle breath of yours my sails
Must fill or else my project fails,
Which was to please. Now I want
Spirits to enforce, art to enchant
And my ending is despair
Unless I be relieved by prayer
Which pierces so, that it assaults
Mercy itself, and frees all faults.
As you from crimes would pardon’d be,
Let your indulgence set me free.

- W. Shakespeare
And my new German translation:
Mein ganzer Charme ist am Ende;
nur die eigne, ist die Stärke, die ich verwende,
und sie schwindet. Wahrlich sag‘ ich,
haltet mich hier fest, oder schicket mich
nach Neapel. Doch lasset nicht zu,
daß ich, da mir die Grafschaft gehörte im Nu
und ich den Betrüger verzieh, hier verweil'
von euch verbannt auf diesem kahlen Eil',
sondern entlasset mich von diesen Bänden
mit Hilfe von euren gütigen Händen.
Nur wenn sanfter Atemzug von euch meine Segel erweitert,
kann ich sichern, daß mein Plan nicht scheitert,
der euch zu gefallen war. Nun fehlt mir ein Hauch
von Kraft zu handeln, die Kunst zu verzaubern auch.
Und Verdruß wird meiner Geschichte Schluß,
wenn meine Bitte ungehört bleiben muß,
wo sie so durchdringt, daß sie selbst die Gnade breit
bestürmt und jeden von jeder Schuld befreit.
So wie ihr eure Sünden verziehen wissen wollt,
ihr mit eurer Nachsicht mich befreien sollt.
- transl. R. Gardner

Thursday, January 27, 2005

Let us never forget - 60 Year Anniversary of the Liberation of Auschwitz

Sixty years ago today, the Nazi concentration camp of Auschwitz was liberated - by the Soviet Army.
Let us never forget !
Today, wherever racism, in however 'minor' a form, is tolerated, wherever liberties are curtailed for 'security', wherever difference of opinion is scorned or books, art censored, parallels to the initial stages of the Nazi plague are evident.
Let us never forget !
This, till now, unique crime against humanity must never be repeated.
Let us never forget !
Let us never forget that "freedom" was also part of Hitler's campaign slogan, that freedom is always incomplete without tolerance, respect for, and protection of, the rights of any and all minorities, that freedom is positive only in an inextricable linkage with democracy and justice - for all.
Let us never forget !
Six million Jews died in those Nazi death camps, part of the German Reich's "final solution," to eradicate Europe's Jewish population. Millions of others - Soviet prisoners of war, Jehovah's Witnesses, Gypsies, homosexuals, and political opponents (especially Communists and Socialists) - were also murdered during the Holocaust. Not only the gas chambers, but also neglect, starvation, abuse, and mishandling of prisoners wer used to kill approximately 1.5 million people in Auschwitz and near-by Birkenau (Auschwitz 2) alone.
Let us never forget !

Friday, January 21, 2005

To read or not to read....

In the Eighteenth Century, many texts were prohibited for fear that someone might read them; today, in the Twenty-First Century, everything can be published somewhere, because no one can or does read any more anyway!
Read if you dare --- and learn.
If you have a problem with sex, you have a problem with life, and surely don't dare read; if you read, you probably have good sex, are not embarrassed to speak or write about it, and certainly place life above death in your scale of values.

Sunday, January 9, 2005

---from an Eighteenth Century Venetian Poet:

Mi dedico ste mie composizion
Ai omeni, e alle donne morbinose,
a quelli veramente, che le cosse
le varda per el verso, che xe bon.
Sotto le metto alla so protezion,
come persone tutte spiritose,
perché da certe teste scrupolose,
i le difenda co la so rason.
Che i diga che qua drento no ghe xe
Né critiche, né offese alle persone,
che de Dio no se parla, né dei Re,
ma sol de cosse allegra, belle, e bone,
cosse deliciosissime, cioè
de bocche, tette, culi, cazzi, e mone.
- Zorzi (Giorgio) Baffo, 1694-1768

Monday, January 3, 2005

In memoriam

Susan Sontag, deceased December 27, 2004
- spread intelligent literary theory, even if borrowed from the French, spoke out against violations of human rights and in favor of civil rights everywhere, opposed nebularization, demanded clarity, demanded thinking
- one of the few American thinkers unafraid to oppose hypocritical politicians
- sought to contribute to a real understanding of the events of September 11, 2001
She will be sorely missed !