Noam Chomsky and voices from North, South and Central America. There are four interviews with Chomsky in which he infects the reader with a sense of optimism. He quotes Gramsci: we should live by pessimism of the intellect and optimism of the will. This has to be the right stance in which to live in these times.
Chomsky refers to optimism of the will in local communal activity in South America, as well as in national political behaviour. He pays tribute to it and conveys hope.
Unfortunately, the voices representing optimistic activity are deadeningly sociological and anthropological. No passion, no direct description of activity, just dead intellectuality. Perhaps these voices do not belong to the people doing the actual work. Chomsky has very little comment to make on these contributions, the bulk of the book.
Hope is dashed by those who are meant to exemplify it, creating a dysfunctional book.
Rating: Fair
Showing posts with label Books. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Books. Show all posts
Saturday, June 5, 2010
Thursday, April 8, 2010
WENDELL BERRY AND ME
I have just read some more essays by Wendell Berry (The Gift of Good Land). This extraordinary ordinary man, an academic who farms in Kentucky, grapples with the problems facing family farming and what we like to call subsistence farming elsewhere in the world. These problems are primarily caused by agribusiness and its governmental allies. Berry is concerned with agricultural and horticultural health. Ecology is long-term economics: farming and gardening based only upon economics can be short-sighted and destructive. A previous generation had fine individuals like Sir Albert Howard and Friend Sykes, leaders of a movement involving healthy farming, composting and soil associations. We have Wendell Berry.
I marvel at the fact that I enjoy reading Wendell Berry so much, a practical intelligent man who works in a way that I do not. Although I have had a persistent relation to working with the soil that is greater than the majority of people in my society it has also been a strange relation. I have done the work with enjoyment but also as if under duress. It is good work to think about other things when doing, whereas my inclination to plan and think about the soil work itself is weak. Men like Howard and Berry are philosophical toward working with the soil, whereas I shirk and try to be philosophical about other things.
Why have I been so involved with working with the soil? I remember helping my father with potatoes on his allotment. You planted them a certain way and then you dug them up and enjoyed eating them. He also grew berry bushes as well as other vegetables. Even in his day, although he belonged to an association of allotment growers, he was unusual in his application. Before him his father was an agricultural labourer before he married and had a large family and worked in a factory (although he then spent his evenings gardening), and before him my great-grandfather was an agricultural labourer.
At the age of about eleven I became employed on a local small-holding on Saturdays and during school holidays. It took only five minutes to walk from my Council house to what I experienced as countryside where this small-holding was situated. Here I worked very hard picking fruit, cleaning out the hen barn and pig styes, building the manure heap, watering the seedlings and tending to the vegetable plants (celery on frozen mornings), working in the glass-houses, sterilising soil with wood-fired steam, plucking chickens. Then close by there seemed to me to be an enormous field in which long rows of planted brassica had to be hoed in teams. This was all naturally organic. There was the camaraderie of work-mates but there was also the ability to think about other things, about the latest TV adaptation of a literary classic, and to foster my interest in literature.
Then there was New Zealand and choosing to leave university and work in Wellington parks and reserves department, tending to flowers and flower-beds in various parts of the city. Why I did this I cannot remember.
Then there was marriage and finishing university, Jacqueline and I wanting to have a garden, to compost and to grow our own vegetables, joining the local soil association and overseas research associations, subscribing to Rodale journals, visiting organic and bio-dynamic farms, meeting with other individuals, and reading, reading, reading. We kept bees and hens, which involved the whole paraphernalia of honey extraction in the kitchen, and an interest in and knowledge of the various hens. There were the truckloads of commercial compost delivered steaming on the front path, the trailer-loads of various manures - chicken, cow, horse and goat, the bales of hay or straw for mulching and the continual collection of firewood for the open fire-place in the living room. All this on a suburban section of one sixth of an acre. Jacqueline had even less previous experience but 100% motivation.
Now that we have fed our family and they have grown up physically healthy I take some pride in what Jacqueline and I have spent our time doing. We have been doing work that Wendell Berry advocates with such cogency. It is work that is becoming trendy, although often on a small and impractical scale, almost like a life-style accessory rather than a really necessary alternative life-style. It requires a certain philosophical input, lots of hard work and bears a certain spiritual fruit, regardless of the worker's personal qualities.
This way of living has felt like a compulsory training for me. It does not require the profit motive. It is no guarantee of a good or happy life, but it is perhaps legitimate to say that it has been a decent way of life.
I marvel at the fact that I enjoy reading Wendell Berry so much, a practical intelligent man who works in a way that I do not. Although I have had a persistent relation to working with the soil that is greater than the majority of people in my society it has also been a strange relation. I have done the work with enjoyment but also as if under duress. It is good work to think about other things when doing, whereas my inclination to plan and think about the soil work itself is weak. Men like Howard and Berry are philosophical toward working with the soil, whereas I shirk and try to be philosophical about other things.
Why have I been so involved with working with the soil? I remember helping my father with potatoes on his allotment. You planted them a certain way and then you dug them up and enjoyed eating them. He also grew berry bushes as well as other vegetables. Even in his day, although he belonged to an association of allotment growers, he was unusual in his application. Before him his father was an agricultural labourer before he married and had a large family and worked in a factory (although he then spent his evenings gardening), and before him my great-grandfather was an agricultural labourer.
At the age of about eleven I became employed on a local small-holding on Saturdays and during school holidays. It took only five minutes to walk from my Council house to what I experienced as countryside where this small-holding was situated. Here I worked very hard picking fruit, cleaning out the hen barn and pig styes, building the manure heap, watering the seedlings and tending to the vegetable plants (celery on frozen mornings), working in the glass-houses, sterilising soil with wood-fired steam, plucking chickens. Then close by there seemed to me to be an enormous field in which long rows of planted brassica had to be hoed in teams. This was all naturally organic. There was the camaraderie of work-mates but there was also the ability to think about other things, about the latest TV adaptation of a literary classic, and to foster my interest in literature.
Then there was New Zealand and choosing to leave university and work in Wellington parks and reserves department, tending to flowers and flower-beds in various parts of the city. Why I did this I cannot remember.
Then there was marriage and finishing university, Jacqueline and I wanting to have a garden, to compost and to grow our own vegetables, joining the local soil association and overseas research associations, subscribing to Rodale journals, visiting organic and bio-dynamic farms, meeting with other individuals, and reading, reading, reading. We kept bees and hens, which involved the whole paraphernalia of honey extraction in the kitchen, and an interest in and knowledge of the various hens. There were the truckloads of commercial compost delivered steaming on the front path, the trailer-loads of various manures - chicken, cow, horse and goat, the bales of hay or straw for mulching and the continual collection of firewood for the open fire-place in the living room. All this on a suburban section of one sixth of an acre. Jacqueline had even less previous experience but 100% motivation.
Now that we have fed our family and they have grown up physically healthy I take some pride in what Jacqueline and I have spent our time doing. We have been doing work that Wendell Berry advocates with such cogency. It is work that is becoming trendy, although often on a small and impractical scale, almost like a life-style accessory rather than a really necessary alternative life-style. It requires a certain philosophical input, lots of hard work and bears a certain spiritual fruit, regardless of the worker's personal qualities.
This way of living has felt like a compulsory training for me. It does not require the profit motive. It is no guarantee of a good or happy life, but it is perhaps legitimate to say that it has been a decent way of life.
Wednesday, April 7, 2010
ERASMUS. PRAISE OF FOLLY
I am going to be really childish and say that if there be any person in history I would have wished to have been in a previous life the primary candidate would have to be Erasmus. He possesses those qualities I wish I had, or more correctly which I believe are important in life. He is an independent thinker. He is a humanitarian Christian who is free of Christian institutions. He is a Christian humanist who places absolute emphasis upon the Gospels. He is respected on the European intellectual scene and has like-minded friends such as Thomas More and John Colet. He is civilised in the sense that he is moderate and middle-of-the-road, upsetting the Catholic hierarchy on the one hand and the crude Lutheran protestantism on the other. He is sharp and witty, honest and clear-sighted. The message of Christ is essentially a call for a charitable outlook and behaviour. We must act according to the spirit of the Gospels. To act according to the letter of the Law Erasmus terms Judaism.
I want to be childish again and say that if I had to choose one book to keep with me that book would be Praise of Folly. It is relevant for all times and places and circumstances where there is society. Folly makes the world go round. Sometimes it is wicked, sometimes it is charitable. A thoughtful person sees the folly that most others are subject to, but recognises also that it is very easy and disagreeable to be a wise fool. There is magnificent and justified satirical treatment of obvious targets such as rulers, politicians, lawyers, theologians and churchmen, including monks. Yet folly enables the world to go round, whereas intellectualism can be devastating.
The thinking of Erasmus is flexible and unconditioned, the language sophisticated yet clear and uncluttered. His expression is remarkably timeless, unlike other writers of his period (early 16th century). Here in a short and unique satirical work of literature is the essence of how life works.
I want to be childish again and say that if I had to choose one book to keep with me that book would be Praise of Folly. It is relevant for all times and places and circumstances where there is society. Folly makes the world go round. Sometimes it is wicked, sometimes it is charitable. A thoughtful person sees the folly that most others are subject to, but recognises also that it is very easy and disagreeable to be a wise fool. There is magnificent and justified satirical treatment of obvious targets such as rulers, politicians, lawyers, theologians and churchmen, including monks. Yet folly enables the world to go round, whereas intellectualism can be devastating.
The thinking of Erasmus is flexible and unconditioned, the language sophisticated yet clear and uncluttered. His expression is remarkably timeless, unlike other writers of his period (early 16th century). Here in a short and unique satirical work of literature is the essence of how life works.
Friday, April 2, 2010
BECKETT, SAMUEL. MURPHY. WATT.
I am trying to give Beckett another go and read all his novels. As a young man I could read Patrick White even though I thought he put the reader in a coffin, leaving the lid open. But I could not read Beckett because he put you in a coffin and nailed the lid down. Now that decades have passed perhaps I am old enough to appreciate him.
Well I have read Murphy and most of Watt and I am beginning to founder. It does not appear to be a matter of the reader's age at all. Indeed for me there is something of the precocious adolescent in Beckett. (I find the same in Joyce).
There are some laugh out loud remarks in these novels and in Murphy some valuable comment upon establishment psychiatry and its practices, but what I can only describe as computer language takes over and swamps Watt.
Here is a sample taken at random: "With regard to the so important matter of Mr. Knott's physical appearance, Watt had unfortunately little or nothing to say. For one day Mr. Knott would be tall, fat, pale and dark, and the next thin, small, flushed and fair, and the next sturdy, middlesized, yellow and ginger, and the next small, fat, pale and fair, and the next middlesized, flushed, thin and ginger, and the next tall, yellow, dark and sturdy, and the next fat, middlesized, ginger and pale, and the next tall, thin, dark and flushed, and the next small, fair, sturdy and yellow, and the next tall, ginger, pale and fat, and the next thin, flushed, small and dark, and the next fair, sturdy, middlesized and yellow, and the next dark, small, fat and pale, and the next fair, middlesized, flushed and thin, and the next sturdy, ginger, tall and yellow, and the next pale, fat, middlesized and fair, and the next flushed, tall, thin and ginger, and the next yellow, small, dark and sturdy, and the next fat, flushed, ginger and tall, and the next dark, thin, yellow and small, and the next fair, pale, sturdy and middlesized, and the next dark, flushed, small and fat, etc." This is about a quarter of the sample. The infinite computations presumably involved in one person's perception of another is interesting, ho-hum.
If anyone thinks they suffer from depression, just read Beckett, and if you can read passages like this without skipping them, you are in a bad way. Just one of them may seem amusing, or clever, but this sample is one of very many, and they become overwhelmingly tiresome. If they make any point it is lost in the technique. In fact I would claim that this technique is the basic feature of Beckett's writing.
I hope to have the strength to keep reading Beckett in order to appreciate the fact that he received the Nobel prize for literature. Obviously I realise that he could be said to be giving expression to the nature of our civilization, a civilization which is in deep shit without a shovel, but strangely even a melancholic depressive like me cannot take it. Am I meant to thank Beckett for his awful honesty and to put him on the shelf like a picture on the wall? Books that I will never want to open. And is not an unopened and unread book like a festering evil?
Well I have read Murphy and most of Watt and I am beginning to founder. It does not appear to be a matter of the reader's age at all. Indeed for me there is something of the precocious adolescent in Beckett. (I find the same in Joyce).
There are some laugh out loud remarks in these novels and in Murphy some valuable comment upon establishment psychiatry and its practices, but what I can only describe as computer language takes over and swamps Watt.
Here is a sample taken at random: "With regard to the so important matter of Mr. Knott's physical appearance, Watt had unfortunately little or nothing to say. For one day Mr. Knott would be tall, fat, pale and dark, and the next thin, small, flushed and fair, and the next sturdy, middlesized, yellow and ginger, and the next small, fat, pale and fair, and the next middlesized, flushed, thin and ginger, and the next tall, yellow, dark and sturdy, and the next fat, middlesized, ginger and pale, and the next tall, thin, dark and flushed, and the next small, fair, sturdy and yellow, and the next tall, ginger, pale and fat, and the next thin, flushed, small and dark, and the next fair, sturdy, middlesized and yellow, and the next dark, small, fat and pale, and the next fair, middlesized, flushed and thin, and the next sturdy, ginger, tall and yellow, and the next pale, fat, middlesized and fair, and the next flushed, tall, thin and ginger, and the next yellow, small, dark and sturdy, and the next fat, flushed, ginger and tall, and the next dark, thin, yellow and small, and the next fair, pale, sturdy and middlesized, and the next dark, flushed, small and fat, etc." This is about a quarter of the sample. The infinite computations presumably involved in one person's perception of another is interesting, ho-hum.
If anyone thinks they suffer from depression, just read Beckett, and if you can read passages like this without skipping them, you are in a bad way. Just one of them may seem amusing, or clever, but this sample is one of very many, and they become overwhelmingly tiresome. If they make any point it is lost in the technique. In fact I would claim that this technique is the basic feature of Beckett's writing.
I hope to have the strength to keep reading Beckett in order to appreciate the fact that he received the Nobel prize for literature. Obviously I realise that he could be said to be giving expression to the nature of our civilization, a civilization which is in deep shit without a shovel, but strangely even a melancholic depressive like me cannot take it. Am I meant to thank Beckett for his awful honesty and to put him on the shelf like a picture on the wall? Books that I will never want to open. And is not an unopened and unread book like a festering evil?
Thursday, April 1, 2010
DONNE, JOHN. NO MAN IS AN ISLAND : A SELECTION FROM THE PROSE
Unlike Seneca, John Donne appears to be subject to no controversy about his honesty and integrity. This could be due to the fact that he patently is a hypocrite. Or it could be because very few would be interested in his prose nowadays. It is shite. He is very lucky indeed that without his knowledge and consent someone published the verse of his earlier years for which he is now justifiably known.
When he was down on his luck, having misjudged the reaction of his rich father-in-law to his secret marriage, he wrote abject prose for about fifteen years to those who could help him. When he was given a job in the Anglican Church he becomes somewhat unctuous. Reading his letters it becomes obvious when this job occurs because they suddenly become full of holy sentiments and references to God and Our Saviour.
The tortuous turn of phrase which is an asset in his poetry is diabolical in his prose. He uses many tortured phrases to say very little. He invents arguments which have no cogency. He is a boring clever-dick.
As he rises in the Anglican Church and becomes known for his public sermons the reader gets a sense of the showmanship and grandstanding implicit in the performance, while the substance of the sermons can be trite and common-place. There is absolutely no originality of thought. Given that he is now a leading figure in a Christian church, the references to Christ are few and far between and when they occur there is a complete lack of grappling with the meaning of this spiritual individuality. It is all God and the Old Testament, fearfulness and death. His sermons, which are fearfully dated to death now, have no timeless value whatsoever.
Donne is the archetype for all mountebank preachers. From young man to elder church-man who staged his own funeral, from first to last, he is a complete tosser and toady.
When he was down on his luck, having misjudged the reaction of his rich father-in-law to his secret marriage, he wrote abject prose for about fifteen years to those who could help him. When he was given a job in the Anglican Church he becomes somewhat unctuous. Reading his letters it becomes obvious when this job occurs because they suddenly become full of holy sentiments and references to God and Our Saviour.
The tortuous turn of phrase which is an asset in his poetry is diabolical in his prose. He uses many tortured phrases to say very little. He invents arguments which have no cogency. He is a boring clever-dick.
As he rises in the Anglican Church and becomes known for his public sermons the reader gets a sense of the showmanship and grandstanding implicit in the performance, while the substance of the sermons can be trite and common-place. There is absolutely no originality of thought. Given that he is now a leading figure in a Christian church, the references to Christ are few and far between and when they occur there is a complete lack of grappling with the meaning of this spiritual individuality. It is all God and the Old Testament, fearfulness and death. His sermons, which are fearfully dated to death now, have no timeless value whatsoever.
Donne is the archetype for all mountebank preachers. From young man to elder church-man who staged his own funeral, from first to last, he is a complete tosser and toady.
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
SENECA. LETTERS FROM A STOIC
Seneca has a bit of a mixed press. Some of it brands him a hypocrite. Here we have a millionaire talking of the value of simplicity and poverty. How did he amass his wealth? Individuals I respect, such as Coleridge and Milton, do not think much of him. Others equally eminent throughout history look back to him with respect.
I can only think that if a hypocrite writes as much as Seneca he ought to be found out in his writings. All the hypocrites of our contemporary political life can be found out in their writings in a moment or two, quite apart from the fact that they would be incapable of even beginning to write with the cogent thoughtfulness of Seneca. Can you get hypocrites of a deeply philosophical nature? Would they exist more in the religious or esoteric arena?
In one letter Seneca arrives home to his country estate unannounced and the servants have not made preparations for him. He stoically maintains his equilibrium until they can attend to him. He does not criticise them. This is an uncomfortable example. Quite clearly if he maintains a spare diet and lives simply it is within a setting of material comfort.
On the other hand, when Seneca effectively ruled Rome for five years during Nero's childhood, it has been described as one of the finest periods in Rome's history. Perhaps he made his money because of his position in a way considered appropriate. Then he retires to lead a philosophical life.
Do I have to know whether or not Seneca was a hypocrite, whether or not I like him, in order to appreciate the thoughts he expresses? These thoughts fail to be self-serving or inhumane. I am left with the impression that the individuality which incarnated as Seneca around the time of the birth of Jesus is one of the most significant in the history of humanity. And this is despite the fact that for Seneca the emerging Christians were just one of a number of foreign religious cults. They meant nothing to him.
His significance is reinforced when I read his plays, which are so powerful and unique they seem to point to a future theatrical art form which in part finds its expression in Shakespeare and other Elizabethans. It seems inconceivable that Shakespeare did not know Seneca's work, there is just too much corresponding resonance. Then in the modern era Eliot's Murder in the Cathedral, in part, seems to pick up on Seneca's techniques although full development still awaits some knowledgeable and able esoteric dramatist.
I can only think that if a hypocrite writes as much as Seneca he ought to be found out in his writings. All the hypocrites of our contemporary political life can be found out in their writings in a moment or two, quite apart from the fact that they would be incapable of even beginning to write with the cogent thoughtfulness of Seneca. Can you get hypocrites of a deeply philosophical nature? Would they exist more in the religious or esoteric arena?
In one letter Seneca arrives home to his country estate unannounced and the servants have not made preparations for him. He stoically maintains his equilibrium until they can attend to him. He does not criticise them. This is an uncomfortable example. Quite clearly if he maintains a spare diet and lives simply it is within a setting of material comfort.
On the other hand, when Seneca effectively ruled Rome for five years during Nero's childhood, it has been described as one of the finest periods in Rome's history. Perhaps he made his money because of his position in a way considered appropriate. Then he retires to lead a philosophical life.
Do I have to know whether or not Seneca was a hypocrite, whether or not I like him, in order to appreciate the thoughts he expresses? These thoughts fail to be self-serving or inhumane. I am left with the impression that the individuality which incarnated as Seneca around the time of the birth of Jesus is one of the most significant in the history of humanity. And this is despite the fact that for Seneca the emerging Christians were just one of a number of foreign religious cults. They meant nothing to him.
His significance is reinforced when I read his plays, which are so powerful and unique they seem to point to a future theatrical art form which in part finds its expression in Shakespeare and other Elizabethans. It seems inconceivable that Shakespeare did not know Seneca's work, there is just too much corresponding resonance. Then in the modern era Eliot's Murder in the Cathedral, in part, seems to pick up on Seneca's techniques although full development still awaits some knowledgeable and able esoteric dramatist.
Thursday, February 18, 2010
ORWELL IN TRIBUNE
'As I Please' and other writings 1943-7. I know that Orwell is the independent journalist that all contemporary independent journalists look up to. Even people who have no right to quote him do so. Here he is performing the luxury of writing an uncensored column. The range of his subject matter and the depth of his insight are impressive. What is an insight? In Orwell's case it seems to be extreme common sense and logic. With these he makes many an uncanny prediction.
What is actually most remarkable about Orwell's journalism for me is the complete lack of egoism. This absence produces the impression that he has rather a lacklustre style. He writes his perceptive comments in a matter-of-fact and unemphatic manner. His style does not button-hole you, hold you by the collar, or grab you by the throat. You are fully responsible for your attention.
Orwell comes across as a thoroughly decent and civilised man, and also perhaps as a somewhat reserved Englishman concerned with particulars. He is an undoctrinaire socialist. Statements he makes during these years on topics such as world peace and international affairs turn out to be completely valid and relevant today. They turn out to be true.
Rating: Very good
What is actually most remarkable about Orwell's journalism for me is the complete lack of egoism. This absence produces the impression that he has rather a lacklustre style. He writes his perceptive comments in a matter-of-fact and unemphatic manner. His style does not button-hole you, hold you by the collar, or grab you by the throat. You are fully responsible for your attention.
Orwell comes across as a thoroughly decent and civilised man, and also perhaps as a somewhat reserved Englishman concerned with particulars. He is an undoctrinaire socialist. Statements he makes during these years on topics such as world peace and international affairs turn out to be completely valid and relevant today. They turn out to be true.
Rating: Very good
Saturday, February 6, 2010
LAOR, YITZHAK. THE MYTHS OF ZIONISM
There is a sense of spontaneity about the writing of this work, of creative insight and courage which gives it its form, and I respond to the challenge to the best of my ability.
I approached this work hoping that it would give me better understanding about why Israel is the way it is, and why it behaves the way it does. I remain uncertain, but the exercise has been very worthwhile.
Some of the myths, which appear to be held by all Israelis and not just liberal Zionists, are as follows. The vulnerable child soldier who, no matter what atrocities he/she may commit, requires the protective excuses of the population. The besieged few surrounded by the inveterately hostile many. The victimising victim, from father to son, from Israel to its perceived enemies. The weak merciless father figure or authority figure for whose actions God will take responsibility. (Has Zionism replaced God with the United States for this role?) The learnt cruelty from past history and generations. The 'native' Jewish pioneer, pre-World War II, who has replaced the real native Palestinian. The European Israeli, the modern Jew, who requires the Arab Jew (and the Arab) to put off "backward' culture.
Such myths are in many instances interesting and helpful, but the question remains: why? Why, for example, does Israeli society continue to exemplify the story of Abraham who is prepared to bind and sacrifice his son unless a more caring God intervenes? Why is there so much emotional blackmail in the Israeli (Jewish) family and in Israel's approach to other nations of the world? Why do the sons and daughters conform to the blackmail and carry it on in their own later lives? (This must make the few young men and women who refuse to serve in the military among the bravest individuals in Israel). Why, for example, does the poor East European forebear (and holocaust victim) have to fill the modern Israeli with shame? Why not just have an interest in one's forebears without judgement?
Having carelessly misread the title of this work I began reading as if about the myth of liberal Zionism, but in a way the book is also very much about this topic. The author is to be commended for trying to crack a formidable nut, the liberal Zionist who passes himself off as a member of the Israeli peace camp. He illustrates the hypocrisy of three such high profile persons in David Grossman, Amos Oz and A.B. Yehoshua. These persons exhibit not only a lack of liberalism, if by this we mean civilised tolerance and compassion, but also subscribe to all the myths of the modern Israeli. The fear and hatred of Arabs - and the threat of their return - is self-induced and pathological.
These liberal Zionists, pretending peace, are the most difficult enemies of truth. They appeal to the same sort of pretenders in the West. The author indicates for me that the Left of the 1960s and 1970s who supported the Palestinian cause have been replaced by the Greens, who are pro-Israel. Even though in New Zealand we have a Green foreign spokesman who happens to be very good on the Middle East, I believe there is general truth in what the author says. For the Greens are essentially not an alternative radical party, but an alternative establishment party. Its followers tend to be comfortable people, more or less content with privatisation, tasteful and even precious in their brand of self-preservation.
The author indicates that The Holocaust remembrance is a recent development which allows Israel to take a seat among the world's elite nations, while allowing the Western world to put all the emphasis upon the victims of this one event and forget about the conditions and crimes within their own societies which allowed this and many other events, then and now, to happen. The Holocaust, besides being the only allowable holocaust to be remembered internationally and officially, is also the only allowable definition of evil. This allows the West and Israel to carry out contemporary evil unchecked.
Once again, how does it come about that the countries of the West fall over themselves to act in the same way toward Israel and holocaust remembrance? I can only think that it is a bit like all the copy-cat behaviour to implement unrestrained capitalism in the 1980s. The behaviour of mediocre minds all over the world, or minds with a low cunning rather than a decent intelligence. Or, worse still, are these negative changes, like supposedly positive ones, simply blowing in the wind? Does this then degenerate into believing that whatever will be, will be?
Having divested themselves more or less honourably of colonialist status the West now allows colonialist Israel to tap into this historical mind-set and find affinity there. The West and its establishment intellectuals are now able to turn their hate from the 20th century Jews toward the 21st century Muslims. Apparently for mediocre minds there always has to be a segment of humanity on the outer which can be treated as non-human.
A thought-provoking book.
Rating: Very good
I approached this work hoping that it would give me better understanding about why Israel is the way it is, and why it behaves the way it does. I remain uncertain, but the exercise has been very worthwhile.
Some of the myths, which appear to be held by all Israelis and not just liberal Zionists, are as follows. The vulnerable child soldier who, no matter what atrocities he/she may commit, requires the protective excuses of the population. The besieged few surrounded by the inveterately hostile many. The victimising victim, from father to son, from Israel to its perceived enemies. The weak merciless father figure or authority figure for whose actions God will take responsibility. (Has Zionism replaced God with the United States for this role?) The learnt cruelty from past history and generations. The 'native' Jewish pioneer, pre-World War II, who has replaced the real native Palestinian. The European Israeli, the modern Jew, who requires the Arab Jew (and the Arab) to put off "backward' culture.
Such myths are in many instances interesting and helpful, but the question remains: why? Why, for example, does Israeli society continue to exemplify the story of Abraham who is prepared to bind and sacrifice his son unless a more caring God intervenes? Why is there so much emotional blackmail in the Israeli (Jewish) family and in Israel's approach to other nations of the world? Why do the sons and daughters conform to the blackmail and carry it on in their own later lives? (This must make the few young men and women who refuse to serve in the military among the bravest individuals in Israel). Why, for example, does the poor East European forebear (and holocaust victim) have to fill the modern Israeli with shame? Why not just have an interest in one's forebears without judgement?
Having carelessly misread the title of this work I began reading as if about the myth of liberal Zionism, but in a way the book is also very much about this topic. The author is to be commended for trying to crack a formidable nut, the liberal Zionist who passes himself off as a member of the Israeli peace camp. He illustrates the hypocrisy of three such high profile persons in David Grossman, Amos Oz and A.B. Yehoshua. These persons exhibit not only a lack of liberalism, if by this we mean civilised tolerance and compassion, but also subscribe to all the myths of the modern Israeli. The fear and hatred of Arabs - and the threat of their return - is self-induced and pathological.
These liberal Zionists, pretending peace, are the most difficult enemies of truth. They appeal to the same sort of pretenders in the West. The author indicates for me that the Left of the 1960s and 1970s who supported the Palestinian cause have been replaced by the Greens, who are pro-Israel. Even though in New Zealand we have a Green foreign spokesman who happens to be very good on the Middle East, I believe there is general truth in what the author says. For the Greens are essentially not an alternative radical party, but an alternative establishment party. Its followers tend to be comfortable people, more or less content with privatisation, tasteful and even precious in their brand of self-preservation.
The author indicates that The Holocaust remembrance is a recent development which allows Israel to take a seat among the world's elite nations, while allowing the Western world to put all the emphasis upon the victims of this one event and forget about the conditions and crimes within their own societies which allowed this and many other events, then and now, to happen. The Holocaust, besides being the only allowable holocaust to be remembered internationally and officially, is also the only allowable definition of evil. This allows the West and Israel to carry out contemporary evil unchecked.
Once again, how does it come about that the countries of the West fall over themselves to act in the same way toward Israel and holocaust remembrance? I can only think that it is a bit like all the copy-cat behaviour to implement unrestrained capitalism in the 1980s. The behaviour of mediocre minds all over the world, or minds with a low cunning rather than a decent intelligence. Or, worse still, are these negative changes, like supposedly positive ones, simply blowing in the wind? Does this then degenerate into believing that whatever will be, will be?
Having divested themselves more or less honourably of colonialist status the West now allows colonialist Israel to tap into this historical mind-set and find affinity there. The West and its establishment intellectuals are now able to turn their hate from the 20th century Jews toward the 21st century Muslims. Apparently for mediocre minds there always has to be a segment of humanity on the outer which can be treated as non-human.
A thought-provoking book.
Rating: Very good
Tuesday, January 5, 2010
EDWARDS, DAVID & CROMWELL, DAVID. NEWSPEAK IN THE 21ST CENTURY
The authors are co-editors of Media Lens (http://www.medialens.org/) a website devoted to challenging how British newspapers and broadcasters report the news. We discover as a result of detailed evidence provided, that there are no sources of news which are reliably independent of power and establishment, of the government, owners and advertisors, not even the so-called liberal newspapers such as the Guardian or Independent. All we have in print are independent commentators who can be named on one hand: Chomsky, Pilger, Fisk, perhaps Seamus Milne. Chomsky and Pilger in particular are subject to the resentment of hacks who yap at them from the end of their corporate leashes. No sense of admiration for a better workman in the world of media.
The point is made that for those of us who wish to think for ourselves, rather than to sit back and receive the supposed knowledge of establishment journalists, we have only the internet. It is also the internet which allows freedom of speech and dialogue, whereas the newspaper editor deletes contributions.
There is no such thing as neutral reporting, there is either indifference or compassion. We are either honest or bent. Many of us of course cannot decide which. If we are a human being another's pain must be felt as our own, otherwise what real value is there in what we have to say? We would only be contributing to the power of Newspeak. "Don't you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought?" - George Orwell.
One hack is quoted equating thoughtful and honest language and presentation as boring, indicating that we have in journalism persons who have no wish to read. This attitude leads to an atrophy of thought and language. "In the end we shall make thoughtcrime literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it" - George Orwell.
There are chapters on the BBC and on the British media's complicity in refusing to speak the truth on topics such as climate change, the Blair government's duplicity and criminality in invading Iraq, the Iraqi death count, Israel and Palestine, Iran, and Venezuela.
Rating: Very good.
The point is made that for those of us who wish to think for ourselves, rather than to sit back and receive the supposed knowledge of establishment journalists, we have only the internet. It is also the internet which allows freedom of speech and dialogue, whereas the newspaper editor deletes contributions.
There is no such thing as neutral reporting, there is either indifference or compassion. We are either honest or bent. Many of us of course cannot decide which. If we are a human being another's pain must be felt as our own, otherwise what real value is there in what we have to say? We would only be contributing to the power of Newspeak. "Don't you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought?" - George Orwell.
One hack is quoted equating thoughtful and honest language and presentation as boring, indicating that we have in journalism persons who have no wish to read. This attitude leads to an atrophy of thought and language. "In the end we shall make thoughtcrime literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it" - George Orwell.
There are chapters on the BBC and on the British media's complicity in refusing to speak the truth on topics such as climate change, the Blair government's duplicity and criminality in invading Iraq, the Iraqi death count, Israel and Palestine, Iran, and Venezuela.
Rating: Very good.
Saturday, December 12, 2009
PRINS, NOMI. IT TAKES A PILLAGE
The author has been a managing director at Goldman Sachs and gives an insider view of the bailouts, bonuses and backroom deals from Washington to Wall Street. One chapter is headed 'Government Sachs' to underline the network of interaction between the U.S. top financiers and government agencies and elected officials. Criminal financiers were rescued by the public purse because of this interaction and Obama has a more integral relation to this network than Bush. He is now presiding over the largest transfer of public money to private pockets in U.S. history. There is no sense of responsibility to the public and no inclination to reform the financial system.
U.S. capitalism finds its ultimate achievement in the vicious competitiveness of its financial institutions which create clever and complex methods of making something out of nothing. Who gets the biggest bonuses is part of the competition. The most successful institution is Goldman Sachs whose personnel infiltrate and direct government. The author does not ascribe any planned conspiracy to this running of the country, but believes it to be a matter of backroom deals between extreme opportunists.
Nor does the author make any reference to the ethnic backgrounds of the top dogs. Although I have never read the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, although I simply accept the document is a fake, although I presume it is about controlling the world by controlling its finance, I now realise after reading this book that regardless of ethnicity the document may well speak truth. We now live in a world controlled by the financiers, making so-called democracy and political parties irrelevant. The author quotes Mayer Amschel Rothschild, founder of the House of Rothschild: "Let me issue and control a nation's money, and I care not who writes the laws".
There is much useful information in this work: the similarity of cause for the Great Depression and this 'recession'; the value of the New Deal; the unacceptability of merging commercial and investment banks; the lack of responsible oversight from the Federal Reserve and from Congress. An example of some good and clear information: "The Second Great Bank Depression has spawned so many lies, it's hard to keep track of which is the biggest. Possibly the most irksome class of lies, usually spouted by Wall Street hacks and conservative pundits, is that we're all victims to a bunch of poor people who bought McMansions, or at least homes they had no business living in. If that was really what this crisis was all about, we could have solved it much more cheaply in a couple of days in late 2008, by simply providing borrowers with additional capital to reduce their loan principals. It would have cost about 3 per cent of what the entire bailout wound up costing, with comparatively similar risk.... There were approximately $1.4 trillion worth of subprime loans outstanding in the United States by the end of 2007. By May 2009, there were foreclosure filings against approximately 5.1 million properties. If it was only the subprime market's fault, $1.4 trillion would have covered the entire problem, right? Yet the Federal Reserve, the Treasury and the FDIC forked out more than $13 trillion to fix the 'housing correction', as Hank Paulson steadfastly referred to the Second Great Bank Depression as late as November 20, 2008, while he was treasury secretary. With that money, the government could have bought up every residential morgage in the country - there were about $11.9 trillion worth at the end of December 2008 - and still have had a trillion left over to buy homes for every single American who couldn't afford them, and pay their health care to boot. But there was much more to it than that: Wall Street was engaged in a very dangerous practice called leverage. Leverage is when you borrow a lot of money in order to place a big bet.... Leverage included, we're looking at a possible $140 trillion problem. That's right - $140 trillion!......but leverage would not have had a platform without the help of a wondrous financial feat called securitization......" etc.
The overall impression left with me is that after a century or so of mass education and non-participatory democracy all that we have produced in the name of progress is the most sophisticated and powerful criminal gang in the history of mankind.
Rating: Very good
U.S. capitalism finds its ultimate achievement in the vicious competitiveness of its financial institutions which create clever and complex methods of making something out of nothing. Who gets the biggest bonuses is part of the competition. The most successful institution is Goldman Sachs whose personnel infiltrate and direct government. The author does not ascribe any planned conspiracy to this running of the country, but believes it to be a matter of backroom deals between extreme opportunists.
Nor does the author make any reference to the ethnic backgrounds of the top dogs. Although I have never read the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, although I simply accept the document is a fake, although I presume it is about controlling the world by controlling its finance, I now realise after reading this book that regardless of ethnicity the document may well speak truth. We now live in a world controlled by the financiers, making so-called democracy and political parties irrelevant. The author quotes Mayer Amschel Rothschild, founder of the House of Rothschild: "Let me issue and control a nation's money, and I care not who writes the laws".
There is much useful information in this work: the similarity of cause for the Great Depression and this 'recession'; the value of the New Deal; the unacceptability of merging commercial and investment banks; the lack of responsible oversight from the Federal Reserve and from Congress. An example of some good and clear information: "The Second Great Bank Depression has spawned so many lies, it's hard to keep track of which is the biggest. Possibly the most irksome class of lies, usually spouted by Wall Street hacks and conservative pundits, is that we're all victims to a bunch of poor people who bought McMansions, or at least homes they had no business living in. If that was really what this crisis was all about, we could have solved it much more cheaply in a couple of days in late 2008, by simply providing borrowers with additional capital to reduce their loan principals. It would have cost about 3 per cent of what the entire bailout wound up costing, with comparatively similar risk.... There were approximately $1.4 trillion worth of subprime loans outstanding in the United States by the end of 2007. By May 2009, there were foreclosure filings against approximately 5.1 million properties. If it was only the subprime market's fault, $1.4 trillion would have covered the entire problem, right? Yet the Federal Reserve, the Treasury and the FDIC forked out more than $13 trillion to fix the 'housing correction', as Hank Paulson steadfastly referred to the Second Great Bank Depression as late as November 20, 2008, while he was treasury secretary. With that money, the government could have bought up every residential morgage in the country - there were about $11.9 trillion worth at the end of December 2008 - and still have had a trillion left over to buy homes for every single American who couldn't afford them, and pay their health care to boot. But there was much more to it than that: Wall Street was engaged in a very dangerous practice called leverage. Leverage is when you borrow a lot of money in order to place a big bet.... Leverage included, we're looking at a possible $140 trillion problem. That's right - $140 trillion!......but leverage would not have had a platform without the help of a wondrous financial feat called securitization......" etc.
The overall impression left with me is that after a century or so of mass education and non-participatory democracy all that we have produced in the name of progress is the most sophisticated and powerful criminal gang in the history of mankind.
Rating: Very good
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
ROTH, PHILIP. EXIT GHOST
I do not think that I have read Philip Roth since his first two novels. This 2007 novel has a theme with which I can self-indulgently identify: how does the older person live? The 71 year old protagonist since the age of 60 has eschewed the hectic life of New York and been living in isolation in a rural cabin, reading and writing and listening to music, without television or newspapers. He relinquishes political emotion and "the abiding wish to find out". He quite easily came "to feel completely at home knowing nothing of what was going on". When he temporarily returns to New York for health reasons he meets up with people for whom the outcome of the next election is almost a matter of life or death. He is sympathetic but uninvolved.
A second theme involves the writer who writes the creative work in isolation, free from the demands and negativity of the parasitic world of literary criticism. This too breaks in upon him again in New York in the form of an aggressive young academic who wants to launch his career by writing a literary biography of a neglected author based upon discovered scandal. Our protagonist knew and admired this author and refuses to cooperate or be involved.
Although it sounds suspect and uncomfortable, if not unintentionally funny, there is also a good depiction of being old and afflicted, he with the after-effects of prostate cancer surgery and an elderly female friend with a brain tumour.
Then there are a couple of tiresome aspects. There is the protagonist's obsession with a young woman, a somewhat pathetic self-indulgence given his sexual status, which does not assist the credibility of his other decisions on how to live his life unless we are meant to admire the resilience of human lust. The second aspect is that American style of writing, having escaped the immobile pomposity of Fenimore Cooper, Hawthorne and Melville, the tumultuous onward-rushing narrative, not without its own pomposity, something I first discovered in Thomas Wolfe and Kerouac, not to mention Whitman, a style which continues to this day. There can be high moments, but also a gathering sense of chaos and weariness.
Like this review not a great work of art.
Rating: Good/Fair
A second theme involves the writer who writes the creative work in isolation, free from the demands and negativity of the parasitic world of literary criticism. This too breaks in upon him again in New York in the form of an aggressive young academic who wants to launch his career by writing a literary biography of a neglected author based upon discovered scandal. Our protagonist knew and admired this author and refuses to cooperate or be involved.
Although it sounds suspect and uncomfortable, if not unintentionally funny, there is also a good depiction of being old and afflicted, he with the after-effects of prostate cancer surgery and an elderly female friend with a brain tumour.
Then there are a couple of tiresome aspects. There is the protagonist's obsession with a young woman, a somewhat pathetic self-indulgence given his sexual status, which does not assist the credibility of his other decisions on how to live his life unless we are meant to admire the resilience of human lust. The second aspect is that American style of writing, having escaped the immobile pomposity of Fenimore Cooper, Hawthorne and Melville, the tumultuous onward-rushing narrative, not without its own pomposity, something I first discovered in Thomas Wolfe and Kerouac, not to mention Whitman, a style which continues to this day. There can be high moments, but also a gathering sense of chaos and weariness.
Like this review not a great work of art.
Rating: Good/Fair
Friday, November 27, 2009
CHOMSKY, NOAM. WHAT WE SAY GOES
These are conversations with David Barsamian in 2006 and 2007 about United States power and world affairs. If I had only one person to read on these matters it would have to be Chomsky, he is that rare individual - an academic with the ability, insight and courage to call a spade a spade. He cuts through the crap to the essential truths. He is an international treasure. His interviewer is excellent in not wasting time with idiotic questions. The primary truth in these interviews would be as follows: "the United States is a leading outlaw state, totally unconstrained by international law, and it openly says so. What we say goes."
Rating: Excellent
Rating: Excellent
Sunday, November 22, 2009
JAMAIL, DAHR. THE WILL TO RESIST
About soldiers who refuse to fight in Iraq and Afghanistan. A story of courage and conscience from out of the pit of evil. An excellent foreword by Chris Hedges. "We do not have the power or the knowledge, nor do we have the right under international law, to occupy Iraq and Afghanistan. It is not for us to debate the terms of the occupation. We divert ourselves in our dotage and decline with images and slogans that perpetuate fantasies about our own invulnerability, our own might, our own goodness. We are preoccupied by national trivia that pass for news, even as the wolf pants at our door. These illusions blind us. We cannot see ourselves as others see us. We do not know who we are or what we have become. "We have fed the heart on fantasies," wrote William Butler Yeats, "the heart's grown brutal from the fare.""
Rating: Very good.
Rating: Very good.
Sunday, November 15, 2009
REINHART, TANYA. THE ROAD MAP TO NOWHERE
The author, an Israeli academic and activist, deceased in 2007, gives an inside view of Israel's political deception and duplicity in its efforts to bamboozle the international community and to oppress and imprison the Palestinian population. Resistance to the apartheid Wall by not only Palestinian villagers, but also Israeli and international activists is a ray of hope, but the picture also contains Israeli military violence and Palestinian Authority collaboration, both of which completely undermine democratic protest. Rating: Excellent.
KHADRA, YASMINA. THE SIRENS OF BAGHDAD
The author is an Algerian male living in France and he does not write pot-boilers. He writes with distinction about a number of issues thrown up by American occupation of Iraq. Rural life during and after; irrational military behaviour; civilian suffering; the need for revenge; the chaos of urban life; the different forms of coping and resistance; betrayal and retribution; the killing of fellow Iraqis; hatred of the West. In a world full of inconsequential fiction, here is a novel that manages to get inside every facet of imperial occupation of a Muslim country. Rating: Excellent.
Saturday, November 14, 2009
MARQUSEE, MIKE. IF I AM NOT FOR MYSELF
If I am not for myself Zionism will speak for me. This is a political autobiography of an anti-Zionist Jew who subjects the ideology of Zionism to rational scrutiny. He takes an internationalist, humanitarian stance which will not accept discrimination, injustice and ethnic supremacy no matter where it shows itself. And it shows itself in Zionism. He analyses the writings of a journalist grandfather, a Jew on the American Left. He illustrates but fails to explain how this earnest left-winger was completely blind when it came to the establishment and behaviour of Israel. His father, also a Jewish leftist, involved in civil rights, was the first person to call him a self-hating Jew. The shortcomings of political activity for the realm of consciousness are evident. The author then goes on to become active in the British Labour Party. Does not his own political activity now lead him to have an over-tolerant view of the current Jewish diasporic attitude toward Zionism and Israel? An attitude of being Israel's willing helpers? Rating: Very good.
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