Saturday, December 31, 2011
Psycho analysis
Malcolm has written two books about psychoanalysis, both published in the 1980s. In one, Psychoanalysis: The Impossible Profession, she describes psychoanalysis as a “system of thought … which has detonated throughout the intellectual, social, artistic, and ordinary life of our century as no cultural force has … since Christianity. The fallout from this bomb has yet to settle.”
Utopian Dreams
America is losing control. Why? A failure to understand human nature and the lessons of history -- and the mindless pursuit of Utopian dreams.
We wagered the wealth of a nation on a Great Society gamble that through endless redistribution from top to bottom, we could create a more just, equal and productive society.
After the Cold War, we embraced the idea that using our immense power, we could remake this world into a more egalitarian, cooperative and democratic place.
Long after reality caught up to us, we continue to chase the dreams.
We wagered the wealth of a nation on a Great Society gamble that through endless redistribution from top to bottom, we could create a more just, equal and productive society.
After the Cold War, we embraced the idea that using our immense power, we could remake this world into a more egalitarian, cooperative and democratic place.
Long after reality caught up to us, we continue to chase the dreams.
Buchanin year end message 2011
Our one-man, one-vote democratists who would remake the world in our image and whose ideology has guided foreign policy for the Bush-Obama decade failed to understand what our Founding Fathers taught:
A democracy, which they detested, empowers majorities to tyrannize minorities. "In questions of power," Jefferson admonished, "let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the constitution."
Democratize the Middle East along one-man, one-vote majority-rule principles, without guarantees of minority rights, and majority tribes and sects will use their democratically won power to crush those minorities.
Is that not what is happening there today to the Christians of the Middle East?
The old influence we had over events in Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Turkey, Yemen, Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan is slipping away. Even the Israelis tell Obama they will build on the West Bank when they wish, where they wish.
China, beneficiary of a decade of trade surpluses running into the trillions at our expense, now instructs us that the South China Sea, East China Sea, Yellow Sea and Taiwan Strait are territorial waters -- and the U.S. Navy shall behave accordingly.
Despite boasting a vast nuclear arsenal and the world's largest economy, America is perceived as weaker than she once was.
Though fighting for a decade, she is unable to impose her will on Iraq or Afghanistan. She cannot control her borders. She cannot balance her budgets. She cannot get her spending under control. She cannot stop the steady hemorrhaging of her jobs and factories overseas.
America is losing control. Why? A failure to understand human nature and the lessons of history -- and the mindless pursuit of Utopian dreams.
We wagered the wealth of a nation on a Great Society gamble that through endless redistribution from top to bottom, we could create a more just, equal and productive society.
After the Cold War, we embraced the idea that using our immense power, we could remake this world into a more egalitarian, cooperative and democratic place.
Long after reality caught up to us, we continue to chase the dreams.
Utopian Dreams
"Events are in the saddle and ride mankind."
In describing 2011, few cliches seem more appropriate. For in this past year, we Americans seemed to lose control of our destiny, as events seemed to be in the saddle.
While President Barack Obama maneuvered skillfully to retain a fighting chance to be re-elected, the economy showed no signs of returning to the robustness of the Reagan or Clinton years. And Obama is all out of options.
By January 2013, he will have added $6 trillion to a national debt that just earned America a downgrade on its AAA credit rating.
The nation hearkened to the tea party in 2010, giving the GOP 63 new seats in the House. But Republicans, too, have little to show for it, if their goal was reducing the deficit.
During 2011, the European Union was gripped by a crisis caused by a collapse in confidence that eurozone nations like Greece and Italy will be able to service their debts and a fear that they will default and bring down the European banks holding trillions of that debt.
Europe could plunge into a depression like the one in the 1930s, which would leap the Atlantic and cause a recession here that would spell the end of Obama's presidency.
Should the Greeks or Italians, chafing at the austerity imposed upon them and seeing no way out for years, choose to run the risk of bolting from the eurozone, the consequences could be catastrophic.
And, again, there is little Obama could do about it. Events in Europe could decide his destiny. The same is true in that most volatile region that engaged so much of America's attention in 2011.
With the withdrawal of all U.S. combat soldiers from Iraq, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has begun to attack his Sunni rivals, accusing his own vice president of instigating acts of terrorism.
A return to Sunni-Shiite sectarian war is a real possibility.
Should this occur, Obama would be savaged by Republicans for not negotiating to keep a U.S. force in Iraq. No Americans would be clamoring to send the troops back, but we would live with the consequences and they would poison our politics.
With the uprisings against the Arab autocrats, 2011 began as a year of hope. The Arab world, we were told, would be like Eastern Europe in 1989, with peoples marching to recapture God-given rights from despots who had misruled them for decades.
But the Arab Spring gave way to the Arab Winter. The Facebook-Twitter crowd enthralled the media, but when the lid of tyranny was lifted, older and deeper forces buried in the psyche of the nation rose to reveal their latent strength.
Undeniably, millions of Arabs wish to live in nations modeled on the West. But more, it appears, wish to live under regimes rooted in Islamic law.
We seem unable to appreciate that much of that world detests our culture, abhors our presence, loathes Israel and is as committed to Quranic absolutes as devout evangelical Christians are to biblical truths.
Our one-man, one-vote democratists who would remake the world in our image and whose ideology has guided foreign policy for the Bush-Obama decade failed to understand what our Founding Fathers taught:
A democracy, which they detested, empowers majorities to tyrannize minorities. "In questions of power," Jefferson admonished, "let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the constitution."
Democratize the Middle East along one-man, one-vote majority-rule principles, without guarantees of minority rights, and majority tribes and sects will use their democratically won power to crush those minorities.
Is that not what is happening there today to the Christians of the Middle East?
The old influence we had over events in Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Turkey, Yemen, Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan is slipping away. Even the Israelis tell Obama they will build on the West Bank when they wish, where they wish.
China, beneficiary of a decade of trade surpluses running into the trillions at our expense, now instructs us that the South China Sea, East China Sea, Yellow Sea and Taiwan Strait are territorial waters -- and the U.S. Navy shall behave accordingly.
Despite boasting a vast nuclear arsenal and the world's largest economy, America is perceived as weaker than she once was.
Though fighting for a decade, she is unable to impose her will on Iraq or Afghanistan. She cannot control her borders. She cannot balance her budgets. She cannot get her spending under control. She cannot stop the steady hemorrhaging of her jobs and factories overseas.
America is losing control. Why? A failure to understand human nature and the lessons of history -- and the mindless pursuit of Utopian dreams.
We wagered the wealth of a nation on a Great Society gamble that through endless redistribution from top to bottom, we could create a more just, equal and productive society.
After the Cold War, we embraced the idea that using our immense power, we could remake this world into a more egalitarian, cooperative and democratic place.
Long after reality caught up to us, we continue to chase the dreams.
Utopian Dreams
"Events are in the saddle and ride mankind."
In describing 2011, few cliches seem more appropriate. For in this past year, we Americans seemed to lose control of our destiny, as events seemed to be in the saddle.
While President Barack Obama maneuvered skillfully to retain a fighting chance to be re-elected, the economy showed no signs of returning to the robustness of the Reagan or Clinton years. And Obama is all out of options.
By January 2013, he will have added $6 trillion to a national debt that just earned America a downgrade on its AAA credit rating.
The nation hearkened to the tea party in 2010, giving the GOP 63 new seats in the House. But Republicans, too, have little to show for it, if their goal was reducing the deficit.
During 2011, the European Union was gripped by a crisis caused by a collapse in confidence that eurozone nations like Greece and Italy will be able to service their debts and a fear that they will default and bring down the European banks holding trillions of that debt.
Europe could plunge into a depression like the one in the 1930s, which would leap the Atlantic and cause a recession here that would spell the end of Obama's presidency.
Should the Greeks or Italians, chafing at the austerity imposed upon them and seeing no way out for years, choose to run the risk of bolting from the eurozone, the consequences could be catastrophic.
And, again, there is little Obama could do about it. Events in Europe could decide his destiny. The same is true in that most volatile region that engaged so much of America's attention in 2011.
With the withdrawal of all U.S. combat soldiers from Iraq, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has begun to attack his Sunni rivals, accusing his own vice president of instigating acts of terrorism.
A return to Sunni-Shiite sectarian war is a real possibility.
Should this occur, Obama would be savaged by Republicans for not negotiating to keep a U.S. force in Iraq. No Americans would be clamoring to send the troops back, but we would live with the consequences and they would poison our politics.
With the uprisings against the Arab autocrats, 2011 began as a year of hope. The Arab world, we were told, would be like Eastern Europe in 1989, with peoples marching to recapture God-given rights from despots who had misruled them for decades.
But the Arab Spring gave way to the Arab Winter. The Facebook-Twitter crowd enthralled the media, but when the lid of tyranny was lifted, older and deeper forces buried in the psyche of the nation rose to reveal their latent strength.
Undeniably, millions of Arabs wish to live in nations modeled on the West. But more, it appears, wish to live under regimes rooted in Islamic law.
We seem unable to appreciate that much of that world detests our culture, abhors our presence, loathes Israel and is as committed to Quranic absolutes as devout evangelical Christians are to biblical truths.
Our one-man, one-vote democratists who would remake the world in our image and whose ideology has guided foreign policy for the Bush-Obama decade failed to understand what our Founding Fathers taught:
A democracy, which they detested, empowers majorities to tyrannize minorities. "In questions of power," Jefferson admonished, "let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the constitution."
Democratize the Middle East along one-man, one-vote majority-rule principles, without guarantees of minority rights, and majority tribes and sects will use their democratically won power to crush those minorities.
Is that not what is happening there today to the Christians of the Middle East?
The old influence we had over events in Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Turkey, Yemen, Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan is slipping away. Even the Israelis tell Obama they will build on the West Bank when they wish, where they wish.
China, beneficiary of a decade of trade surpluses running into the trillions at our expense, now instructs us that the South China Sea, East China Sea, Yellow Sea and Taiwan Strait are territorial waters -- and the U.S. Navy shall behave accordingly.
Despite boasting a vast nuclear arsenal and the world's largest economy, America is perceived as weaker than she once was.
Though fighting for a decade, she is unable to impose her will on Iraq or Afghanistan. She cannot control her borders. She cannot balance her budgets. She cannot get her spending under control. She cannot stop the steady hemorrhaging of her jobs and factories overseas.
America is losing control. Why? A failure to understand human nature and the lessons of history -- and the mindless pursuit of Utopian dreams.
We wagered the wealth of a nation on a Great Society gamble that through endless redistribution from top to bottom, we could create a more just, equal and productive society.
After the Cold War, we embraced the idea that using our immense power, we could remake this world into a more egalitarian, cooperative and democratic place.
Long after reality caught up to us, we continue to chase the dreams.
Buchanin new year. 2012
"Events are in the saddle and ride mankind."
In describing 2011, few cliches seem more appropriate. For in this past year, we Americans seemed to lose control of our destiny, as events seemed to be in the saddle.
While President Barack Obama maneuvered skillfully to retain a fighting chance to be re-elected, the economy showed no signs of returning to the robustness of the Reagan or Clinton years. And Obama is all out of options.
By January 2013, he will have added $6 trillion to a national debt that just earned America a downgrade on its AAA credit rating.
The nation hearkened to the tea party in 2010, giving the GOP 63 new seats in the House. But Republicans, too, have little to show for it, if their goal was reducing the deficit.
During 2011, the European Union was gripped by a crisis caused by a collapse in confidence that eurozone nations like Greece and Italy will be able to service their debts and a fear that they will default and bring down the European banks holding trillions of that debt.
Europe could plunge into a depression like the one in the 1930s, which would leap the Atlantic and cause a recession here that would spell the end of Obama's presidency.
Should the Greeks or Italians, chafing at the austerity imposed upon them and seeing no way out for years, choose to run the risk of bolting from the eurozone, the consequences could be catastrophic.
And, again, there is little Obama could do about it. Events in Europe could decide his destiny. The same is true in that most volatile region that engaged so much of America's attention in 2011.
With the withdrawal of all U.S. combat soldiers from Iraq, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has begun to attack his Sunni rivals, accusing his own vice president of instigating acts of terrorism.
A return to Sunni-Shiite sectarian war is a real possibility.
Should this occur, Obama would be savaged by Republicans for not negotiating to keep a U.S. force in Iraq. No Americans would be clamoring to send the troops back, but we would live with the consequences and they would poison our politics.
With the uprisings against the Arab autocrats, 2011 began as a year of hope. The Arab world, we were told, would be like Eastern Europe in 1989, with peoples marching to recapture God-given rights from despots who had misruled them for decades.
But the Arab Spring gave way to the Arab Winter. The Facebook-Twitter crowd enthralled the media, but when the lid of tyranny was lifted, older and deeper forces buried in the psyche of the nation rose to reveal their latent strength.
Undeniably, millions of Arabs wish to live in nations modeled on the West. But more, it appears, wish to live under regimes rooted in Islamic law.
We seem unable to appreciate that much of that world detests our culture, abhors our presence, loathes Israel and is as committed to Quranic absolutes as devout evangelical Christians are to biblical truths.
Our one-man, one-vote democratists who would remake the world in our image and whose ideology has guided foreign policy for the Bush-Obama decade failed to understand what our Founding Fathers taught:
A democracy, which they detested, empowers majorities to tyrannize minorities. "In questions of power," Jefferson admonished, "let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the constitution."
Democratize the Middle East along one-man, one-vote majority-rule principles, without guarantees of minority rights, and majority tribes and sects will use their democratically won power to crush those minorities.
Is that not what is happening there today to the Christians of the Middle East?
The old influence we had over events in Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Turkey, Yemen, Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan is slipping away. Even the Israelis tell Obama they will build on the West Bank when they wish, where they wish.
China, beneficiary of a decade of trade surpluses running into the trillions at our expense, now instructs us that the South China Sea, East China Sea, Yellow Sea and Taiwan Strait are territorial waters -- and the U.S. Navy shall behave accordingly.
Despite boasting a vast nuclear arsenal and the world's largest economy, America is perceived as weaker than she once was.
Though fighting for a decade, she is unable to impose her will on Iraq or Afghanistan. She cannot control her borders. She cannot balance her budgets. She cannot get her spending under control. She cannot stop the steady hemorrhaging of her jobs and factories overseas.
America is losing control. Why? A failure to understand human nature and the lessons of history -- and the mindless pursuit of Utopian dreams.
We wagered the wealth of a nation on a Great Society gamble that through endless redistribution from top to bottom, we could create a more just, equal and productive society.
After the Cold War, we embraced the idea that using our immense power, we could remake this world into a more egalitarian, cooperative and democratic place.
Long after reality caught up to us, we continue to chase the dreams.
Phony Bullshit
What he describes, accurately I'm sure, seems to me unimportant, because everyone always knew it
My problem is that the "insights" seem to me familiar and there are no "theoretical constructs," except that simple and familiar ideas have been dressed up in complicated and pretentious rhetoric.
My problem is that the "insights" seem to me familiar and there are no "theoretical constructs," except that simple and familiar ideas have been dressed up in complicated and pretentious rhetoric.
Thursday, December 29, 2011
Pat Buchanin racism
Several months ago all major newspapers and television network
news programs in the U.S. carried the report of an incident which occurred
at a political rally where Buchanan was the principal speaker. The
newsgroup, soc.culture.jewish provided the following synopsis by Judy
Balint:
Subject: Buchanan aides beat up Jewish protestors
Date: 20 Mar 1995 13:06:34 -0500
Organization: America Online, Inc. (1-800-827-6364)
March 20, 1995
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Contact Judy Balint 718-884-8499.
JEWISH ANTI-BUCHANAN PROTESTORS BEATEN AND KICKED AT CAMPAIGN KICK-OFF
RALLY IN NEW HAMPSHIRE
Three members of the Coalition for Jewish Concerns-Amcha demonstrating
against Pat Buchanan's anti-Semitism and bigotry were beaten, kicked and
thrown down stairs by Buchanan security guards and campaign workers in
Manchester NH this morning.
The three, rabbinical student David Kalb, and college students Moshe Maoz
and Ronn Torossian were part of a CJC-Amcha group who jumped on the stage
as Buchanan was announcing his intention to run for President on the
Republican ticket in 1996. Carrying signs saying, "Pat = Duke Without the
Sheets" and "Buchanan is a racist" the three were shoved, pushed to the
ground and beaten while Buchanan looked on.
Even after it was established that the CJC-Amcha activists were unarmed,
Buchanan guards pushed and dragged the students down three flights of
stairs and outside to the parking lot of the building where they continued
to beat, punch and kick the three until Manchester police officers
intervened and threatened to arrest Buchanan's campaign director.
Kalb, Torrosian and Maoz sustained bruises, scratches, a black eye and
ripped clothing in the attack.
The group is pressing assault charges against the Buchanan campaign at the
Manchester police department. "We hope that the rest of the campaign will
not be conducted in this manner," said Judy Balint, national director of
the New York-based Jewish activist group. "There must be a place for
peaceful protest against anti-Semitism and bigotry without the fear of
being beaten by paid goons," she asserted. "It was clear our protestors
were unarmed and had no intention of causing Buchanan any physical
harm--the treatment they received was completely unwarranted."
"Today's protest was to expose Buchanan's record of continued support for
accused Nazi war criminals including Klaus Barbie; Buchanan's "doubts
about whether Jews were gassed at Treblinka," his lauding of Hitler,
calling him "an individual of great courage, a soldier's soldier in the
Great War" and "a leader steeped in the history of Europe." Buchanan
referred to Capitol Hill as "Israel's occupied territory," and has called
the American pro-Israel lobby, Israel's "amen corner in the US."
Buchanan's comments raise the specter of a Jewish conspiracy and his other
deplorable comments include a statement made in 1992 that "only Israel and
American Jews wanted war in the Persian Gulf" and suggested that the Jews
would send non-Jews to fight the war," noted Ronn Torossian and David
Kalb.
"Our position is that even if you agree with every one of Buchanan's
programs, if he is an anti-Semite and a defender of Nazis that would make
it immoral for any decent American to vote for him," said National
president of the Coalition for Jewish Concerns-Amcha, Rabbi Avi Weiss.
CJC-AMCHA activists followed Buchanan on the campaign trail in 1992 and
were verbally and physically assaulted in New Hampshire, Georgia, Rhode
Island and Massachussetts by Buchanan supporters. In Marietta, Georgia in
answer to Rabbi Weiss' accusation that he is a racist, Buchanan said,
"This is a rally for Americans, by American's in the good 'ole USA." The
following day the American Jewish Congress and the American Jewish
Committee declared the statement a clear indication of Buchanan's
anti-Semitism.
"As Pat Buchanan campaigns for the Republican nomination, we will campaign
against his bigotry and anti-Semitism everywhere he goes," the CJC-Amcha
group declared.
*************************
On Saturday, February 24, 1996, Professor Stephen Feinberg (University
of Minnesota) posted the following piece to the Holocaust Discussion
Group:
To: Multiple recipients of list HOLOCAUS
Subject: Pat Buchanan, the Jews & the Holocaust
From: Stephen Feinstein
PATRICK BUCHANAN: IN HIS OWN WORDS
* Buchanan told Elie Wiesel that President Reagan must not surrender to
"Jewish pressure" against visiting Bitburg, a German cemetery where SS men
were buried. In a White House meeting with Jewish leaders, Buchanan
reminded them that they were "Americans first," as fellow staffer Ed
Rollins later recounted to Reagan biographer Lou Cannon. Buchanan
repreatedly scrawled the phrase "Succumbing to the pressure of the Jews" on
his notepad during the meeting.
* In 1990 William Buckley, Buchanan's former mentor, wrote a 20,000 word
essay on Buchanan that concluded: "I find it impossible to defend Pat
Buchanan against the charge" of anti-Semitism.
* Buchanan has called Hitler a "man of great courage" and extraordinary
gifts."
* On ABC Nightline, March 11, 1992, Buchanan told anchorman, Chris
Wallace: "I'm one of the few people in this city, Chris, who's had the guts
to stand up to the agenda of the special interests, whether it's the civil
rights lobbyist or the AIPAC lobby or the gay rights lobby, and say that
their agenda is not in the interest of a good society and not in the
interest of my country."
* In a March 13, 1991 syndicated column Buchanan called Israel "a
strategic albatross draped around the neck of the United States."
* In an interview in Present Tense magazine, Buchanan stated that "if my
friends in the Jewish community feel Pat Buchanan, a traditionalist
Catholic, owes some kind of apology for the record of the Holy Father
during World War II, they can wait, because it's not going to be
forthcoming."
* In the Chicago Sun Times of March 1989, Buchanan criticized the West
for ostracizing Kurt Waldheim. Buchanan rationalized,"like others in
Hitler's army, Lt. Waldheim looked the other way." (Previously, as
Secretary General of the United Nations, Waldheim had been an object of
Buchanan's scorn).
* On The McLaughlin Report, August 26, 1990:
"There are only two groups that are beating the drums for war in the
Middle East, the Israeli Defense Ministry and its amen corner in the United
States."
* In Newsweek, December 23, 1991, Jonathan Alter writes that in 1983
Buchanan criticized the US government for expressing regret over its
postwar protection of Klaus Barbie.
* In 1985 Buchanan advocated restoring citizenship of Arthur Rudolph, an
ex-Nazi rocket scientist
* In 1987 Buchanan lobbied to stop deportation of Karl Linnas, accused of
Nazi atrocities in Estonia.
* In a March 17, 1990 column, Buchanan wrote that it was impossible for
850,000 Jews to be killed by diesel exhaust fed into the gas chamber at
Treblinka. "Diesel engines do not emit enough carbon monoxide to kill
anybody." According to Jacob Weisberg in his article "The Heresies of Pat
Buchanan," October 22, 1990, The New Republic, "Buchanan stands by his
bizarre claim about the diesel engines but refuses to discuss it on the
record. Suffice it to say that he embraces a bolder debunking claim than
he is yet willing to endorse in print...Where did he get the anecdote
("proving" his assertion about the diesel)? 'Somebody sent it to me.'
"Buchanan's source was almost certainly the July 1988 issue of a Newsletter
of the German American Information and Education Association--a known
Holocaust denial group which quotes extensively from a story of
schoolchildren who emerged unharmed after being exposed to diesel fumes
while trapped in a train tunnel.
* On March 2, 1992, at a campaign rally in Marietta, Georgia, where Rabbi
Avi Weiss called out, "Your anti-Semitism makes America last," Buchanan
shot back, "This rally is of Americans, for Americans and for the good 'ole
USA, my friends."
* In the New York Post, March 17, 1990,Buchanan referred to a"so called
Holocaust survivors syndrome" which he described as involving"group
fantasies of martyrdom and heroics."
*Buchanan was a featured columnist for The Spotlight, a patently
anti-Semitic and anti-Black publication that championed David Duke.
* Former Reagan press secretary Larry Speakes writes of Buchanan in his
memoirs, 'Speaking Out,' "..he (Buchanan) was so blindly reactionary."
* Buchanan repeatedly referred to Capitol Hill as "Israeli occupied
territory." (McLaughlin Report, June 1990)
* On February 4, 1987 in The Washington Post, Buchanan wrote: "Dr. Martin
Luther King is one of the most divisive men in contemporary history..." In
an earlier article in the Globe-Democrat, Buchanan wrote that King was
"sometimes demagogic and irresponsible in his public statements."
* In a January 16, 1986 column, Buchanan wrote:" But apartheid is not
the worst situation facing Africans today. Not remotely. If it were, they
wouldn't be pouring into South Africa from such "liberated" zones as
Mozambique."
* In 1990, before the Gulf War, Buchanan wrote that if the US went to
war, "the fighting would be done by kids with names like McAllister,
Murphy, Gonzales and Leroy Brown." The National Review (December 30, 1991)
commented that "There is no way to read that sentence without concluding
that Pat Buchanan was suggesting that American Jews manage to avoid
personal military exposure even while advancing military policies they
(uniquely?) engender."
news programs in the U.S. carried the report of an incident which occurred
at a political rally where Buchanan was the principal speaker. The
newsgroup, soc.culture.jewish provided the following synopsis by Judy
Balint:
Subject: Buchanan aides beat up Jewish protestors
Date: 20 Mar 1995 13:06:34 -0500
Organization: America Online, Inc. (1-800-827-6364)
March 20, 1995
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Contact Judy Balint 718-884-8499.
JEWISH ANTI-BUCHANAN PROTESTORS BEATEN AND KICKED AT CAMPAIGN KICK-OFF
RALLY IN NEW HAMPSHIRE
Three members of the Coalition for Jewish Concerns-Amcha demonstrating
against Pat Buchanan's anti-Semitism and bigotry were beaten, kicked and
thrown down stairs by Buchanan security guards and campaign workers in
Manchester NH this morning.
The three, rabbinical student David Kalb, and college students Moshe Maoz
and Ronn Torossian were part of a CJC-Amcha group who jumped on the stage
as Buchanan was announcing his intention to run for President on the
Republican ticket in 1996. Carrying signs saying, "Pat = Duke Without the
Sheets" and "Buchanan is a racist" the three were shoved, pushed to the
ground and beaten while Buchanan looked on.
Even after it was established that the CJC-Amcha activists were unarmed,
Buchanan guards pushed and dragged the students down three flights of
stairs and outside to the parking lot of the building where they continued
to beat, punch and kick the three until Manchester police officers
intervened and threatened to arrest Buchanan's campaign director.
Kalb, Torrosian and Maoz sustained bruises, scratches, a black eye and
ripped clothing in the attack.
The group is pressing assault charges against the Buchanan campaign at the
Manchester police department. "We hope that the rest of the campaign will
not be conducted in this manner," said Judy Balint, national director of
the New York-based Jewish activist group. "There must be a place for
peaceful protest against anti-Semitism and bigotry without the fear of
being beaten by paid goons," she asserted. "It was clear our protestors
were unarmed and had no intention of causing Buchanan any physical
harm--the treatment they received was completely unwarranted."
"Today's protest was to expose Buchanan's record of continued support for
accused Nazi war criminals including Klaus Barbie; Buchanan's "doubts
about whether Jews were gassed at Treblinka," his lauding of Hitler,
calling him "an individual of great courage, a soldier's soldier in the
Great War" and "a leader steeped in the history of Europe." Buchanan
referred to Capitol Hill as "Israel's occupied territory," and has called
the American pro-Israel lobby, Israel's "amen corner in the US."
Buchanan's comments raise the specter of a Jewish conspiracy and his other
deplorable comments include a statement made in 1992 that "only Israel and
American Jews wanted war in the Persian Gulf" and suggested that the Jews
would send non-Jews to fight the war," noted Ronn Torossian and David
Kalb.
"Our position is that even if you agree with every one of Buchanan's
programs, if he is an anti-Semite and a defender of Nazis that would make
it immoral for any decent American to vote for him," said National
president of the Coalition for Jewish Concerns-Amcha, Rabbi Avi Weiss.
CJC-AMCHA activists followed Buchanan on the campaign trail in 1992 and
were verbally and physically assaulted in New Hampshire, Georgia, Rhode
Island and Massachussetts by Buchanan supporters. In Marietta, Georgia in
answer to Rabbi Weiss' accusation that he is a racist, Buchanan said,
"This is a rally for Americans, by American's in the good 'ole USA." The
following day the American Jewish Congress and the American Jewish
Committee declared the statement a clear indication of Buchanan's
anti-Semitism.
"As Pat Buchanan campaigns for the Republican nomination, we will campaign
against his bigotry and anti-Semitism everywhere he goes," the CJC-Amcha
group declared.
*************************
On Saturday, February 24, 1996, Professor Stephen Feinberg (University
of Minnesota) posted the following piece to the Holocaust Discussion
Group:
To: Multiple recipients of list HOLOCAUS
Subject: Pat Buchanan, the Jews & the Holocaust
From: Stephen Feinstein
PATRICK BUCHANAN: IN HIS OWN WORDS
* Buchanan told Elie Wiesel that President Reagan must not surrender to
"Jewish pressure" against visiting Bitburg, a German cemetery where SS men
were buried. In a White House meeting with Jewish leaders, Buchanan
reminded them that they were "Americans first," as fellow staffer Ed
Rollins later recounted to Reagan biographer Lou Cannon. Buchanan
repreatedly scrawled the phrase "Succumbing to the pressure of the Jews" on
his notepad during the meeting.
* In 1990 William Buckley, Buchanan's former mentor, wrote a 20,000 word
essay on Buchanan that concluded: "I find it impossible to defend Pat
Buchanan against the charge" of anti-Semitism.
* Buchanan has called Hitler a "man of great courage" and extraordinary
gifts."
* On ABC Nightline, March 11, 1992, Buchanan told anchorman, Chris
Wallace: "I'm one of the few people in this city, Chris, who's had the guts
to stand up to the agenda of the special interests, whether it's the civil
rights lobbyist or the AIPAC lobby or the gay rights lobby, and say that
their agenda is not in the interest of a good society and not in the
interest of my country."
* In a March 13, 1991 syndicated column Buchanan called Israel "a
strategic albatross draped around the neck of the United States."
* In an interview in Present Tense magazine, Buchanan stated that "if my
friends in the Jewish community feel Pat Buchanan, a traditionalist
Catholic, owes some kind of apology for the record of the Holy Father
during World War II, they can wait, because it's not going to be
forthcoming."
* In the Chicago Sun Times of March 1989, Buchanan criticized the West
for ostracizing Kurt Waldheim. Buchanan rationalized,"like others in
Hitler's army, Lt. Waldheim looked the other way." (Previously, as
Secretary General of the United Nations, Waldheim had been an object of
Buchanan's scorn).
* On The McLaughlin Report, August 26, 1990:
"There are only two groups that are beating the drums for war in the
Middle East, the Israeli Defense Ministry and its amen corner in the United
States."
* In Newsweek, December 23, 1991, Jonathan Alter writes that in 1983
Buchanan criticized the US government for expressing regret over its
postwar protection of Klaus Barbie.
* In 1985 Buchanan advocated restoring citizenship of Arthur Rudolph, an
ex-Nazi rocket scientist
* In 1987 Buchanan lobbied to stop deportation of Karl Linnas, accused of
Nazi atrocities in Estonia.
* In a March 17, 1990 column, Buchanan wrote that it was impossible for
850,000 Jews to be killed by diesel exhaust fed into the gas chamber at
Treblinka. "Diesel engines do not emit enough carbon monoxide to kill
anybody." According to Jacob Weisberg in his article "The Heresies of Pat
Buchanan," October 22, 1990, The New Republic, "Buchanan stands by his
bizarre claim about the diesel engines but refuses to discuss it on the
record. Suffice it to say that he embraces a bolder debunking claim than
he is yet willing to endorse in print...Where did he get the anecdote
("proving" his assertion about the diesel)? 'Somebody sent it to me.'
"Buchanan's source was almost certainly the July 1988 issue of a Newsletter
of the German American Information and Education Association--a known
Holocaust denial group which quotes extensively from a story of
schoolchildren who emerged unharmed after being exposed to diesel fumes
while trapped in a train tunnel.
* On March 2, 1992, at a campaign rally in Marietta, Georgia, where Rabbi
Avi Weiss called out, "Your anti-Semitism makes America last," Buchanan
shot back, "This rally is of Americans, for Americans and for the good 'ole
USA, my friends."
* In the New York Post, March 17, 1990,Buchanan referred to a"so called
Holocaust survivors syndrome" which he described as involving"group
fantasies of martyrdom and heroics."
*Buchanan was a featured columnist for The Spotlight, a patently
anti-Semitic and anti-Black publication that championed David Duke.
* Former Reagan press secretary Larry Speakes writes of Buchanan in his
memoirs, 'Speaking Out,' "..he (Buchanan) was so blindly reactionary."
* Buchanan repeatedly referred to Capitol Hill as "Israeli occupied
territory." (McLaughlin Report, June 1990)
* On February 4, 1987 in The Washington Post, Buchanan wrote: "Dr. Martin
Luther King is one of the most divisive men in contemporary history..." In
an earlier article in the Globe-Democrat, Buchanan wrote that King was
"sometimes demagogic and irresponsible in his public statements."
* In a January 16, 1986 column, Buchanan wrote:" But apartheid is not
the worst situation facing Africans today. Not remotely. If it were, they
wouldn't be pouring into South Africa from such "liberated" zones as
Mozambique."
* In 1990, before the Gulf War, Buchanan wrote that if the US went to
war, "the fighting would be done by kids with names like McAllister,
Murphy, Gonzales and Leroy Brown." The National Review (December 30, 1991)
commented that "There is no way to read that sentence without concluding
that Pat Buchanan was suggesting that American Jews manage to avoid
personal military exposure even while advancing military policies they
(uniquely?) engender."
No more bullshit!
There’s a whole generation of people who haven’t seen [Titanic] in theaters at all.”
---- James Cameron
Yes. Another business culture failure. Great films should regularly be re released. Please don't argue!
I see what you mean, and I feel the same way
---- James Cameron
Yes. Another business culture failure. Great films should regularly be re released. Please don't argue!
I see what you mean, and I feel the same way
Tuesday, December 27, 2011
Buchanin and the War on Christmas
Half a century ago, American children were schooled in Aesop's fables. Among the more famous of these were "The Fox and the Grapes" and "The Tortoise and the Hare."
Particularly appropriate this Christmas season, and every Christmas lately, is Aesop's fable of "The Dog in the Manger."
The tale is about a dog who decides to take a nap in the manger. When the ox, who has worked all day, comes back to eat some straw, the dog barks loudly, threatens to bite him and drives him from his manger.
The lesson the fable teaches is that it is malicious and wicked to deny a fellow creature what you yourself do not want and cannot even enjoy.
What brings the fable to mind is this year's crop of Christmas-haters, whose numbers have grown since the days when it was only the village atheist or the ACLU pest who sought to kill Christmas.
The problem with these folks is not simply that they detest Christmas and what it represents, but that they must do their best, or worst, to ensure Christians do not enjoy the season and holy day they love.
As a Washington Times editorial relates, the number of anti-Christian bigots is growing, and their malevolence is out of the closet:
"In Leesburg, Va., a Santa-suit-clad skeleton was nailed to a cross. ... In Santa Monica, atheists were granted 18 of 21 plots in a public park allotted for holiday displays and ... erected signs mocking religion. In the Wisconsin statehouse, a sign informs visitors, 'Religion is but myth and superstition that hardens hearts and enslaves minds.' A video that has gone viral on YouTube shows denizens of Occupy D.C. spewing gratuitous hatred of a couple who dared to appropriate a small patch of McPherson Square to set up a living Nativity scene."
People who indulge in such conduct invariably claim to be champions of the First Amendment, exercising their right of free speech to maintain a separation of church and state.
They are partly right. The First Amendment does protect what they are doing. But what they are doing is engaging in hate speech and anti-Christian bigotry. For what is the purpose of what they are about, if not to wound, offend, insult and mock fellow Americans celebrating the happiest day of their calendar year?
Consider what this day means to a believing Christian.
It is a time and a day set aside to celebrate the nativity, the birth of Christ, whom Christians believe to be the Son of God and their Savior who gave his life on the cross to redeem mankind and open the gates of heaven.
Even if a man disbelieves this, why would he interfere with or deny his fellow countrymen, three in four of whom still profess to be Christians, their right to celebrate in public this joyous occasion?
This mockery and hatred of Christmas testifies not only to the character of those who engage in it, it says something as well about who is winning the culture war for the soul of America.
Not long ago, the Supreme Court (1892) and three U.S. presidents -- Woodrow Wilson, Harry Truman and Jimmy Carter -- all declared America to be a "Christian nation."
They did not mean that any particular denomination had been declared America's national religion -- indeed, that was ruled out in the Constitution -- but that we were predominantly a Christian people.
And so we were born.
Around 1790, America was 99 percent Protestant, 1 percent Catholic, with a few thousands Jews. The Irish immigration from 1845 to 1850 brought hundreds of thousands more Catholics to America. The Great Wave of immigration from 1890 to 1920 brought millions of Southern and Eastern Europeans, mostly Catholic and Jews. As late as 1990, 85 percent of all Americans described themselves as Christians.
And here one must pose a question.
How did America's Christians allow themselves to be dispossessed of a country their fathers had built for them?
How did America come to be a nation where not only have all Christian prayers, pageants, holidays and holy days been purged from all government schools and public institutions, but secularism has taken over those schools, while Christians are mocked at Christmas in ways that would be declared hate crimes were it done to other religious faiths or ethnic minorities?
Was it a manifestation of tolerance and maturity, or pusillanimity, that Christians allowed themselves to be robbed of their inheritance to a point where Barack Obama could assert without contradiction that we Americans "do not consider ourselves to be a Christian nation"?
What are these Christmas-bashers, though still a nominal minority, saying to Christians with their mockery and ridicule of the celebration of the birth of Christ?
"This isn't your country anymore. It is our country now."
The question for Christians is a simple one: Do they have what it takes to take America back?
Particularly appropriate this Christmas season, and every Christmas lately, is Aesop's fable of "The Dog in the Manger."
The tale is about a dog who decides to take a nap in the manger. When the ox, who has worked all day, comes back to eat some straw, the dog barks loudly, threatens to bite him and drives him from his manger.
The lesson the fable teaches is that it is malicious and wicked to deny a fellow creature what you yourself do not want and cannot even enjoy.
What brings the fable to mind is this year's crop of Christmas-haters, whose numbers have grown since the days when it was only the village atheist or the ACLU pest who sought to kill Christmas.
The problem with these folks is not simply that they detest Christmas and what it represents, but that they must do their best, or worst, to ensure Christians do not enjoy the season and holy day they love.
As a Washington Times editorial relates, the number of anti-Christian bigots is growing, and their malevolence is out of the closet:
"In Leesburg, Va., a Santa-suit-clad skeleton was nailed to a cross. ... In Santa Monica, atheists were granted 18 of 21 plots in a public park allotted for holiday displays and ... erected signs mocking religion. In the Wisconsin statehouse, a sign informs visitors, 'Religion is but myth and superstition that hardens hearts and enslaves minds.' A video that has gone viral on YouTube shows denizens of Occupy D.C. spewing gratuitous hatred of a couple who dared to appropriate a small patch of McPherson Square to set up a living Nativity scene."
People who indulge in such conduct invariably claim to be champions of the First Amendment, exercising their right of free speech to maintain a separation of church and state.
They are partly right. The First Amendment does protect what they are doing. But what they are doing is engaging in hate speech and anti-Christian bigotry. For what is the purpose of what they are about, if not to wound, offend, insult and mock fellow Americans celebrating the happiest day of their calendar year?
Consider what this day means to a believing Christian.
It is a time and a day set aside to celebrate the nativity, the birth of Christ, whom Christians believe to be the Son of God and their Savior who gave his life on the cross to redeem mankind and open the gates of heaven.
Even if a man disbelieves this, why would he interfere with or deny his fellow countrymen, three in four of whom still profess to be Christians, their right to celebrate in public this joyous occasion?
This mockery and hatred of Christmas testifies not only to the character of those who engage in it, it says something as well about who is winning the culture war for the soul of America.
Not long ago, the Supreme Court (1892) and three U.S. presidents -- Woodrow Wilson, Harry Truman and Jimmy Carter -- all declared America to be a "Christian nation."
They did not mean that any particular denomination had been declared America's national religion -- indeed, that was ruled out in the Constitution -- but that we were predominantly a Christian people.
And so we were born.
Around 1790, America was 99 percent Protestant, 1 percent Catholic, with a few thousands Jews. The Irish immigration from 1845 to 1850 brought hundreds of thousands more Catholics to America. The Great Wave of immigration from 1890 to 1920 brought millions of Southern and Eastern Europeans, mostly Catholic and Jews. As late as 1990, 85 percent of all Americans described themselves as Christians.
And here one must pose a question.
How did America's Christians allow themselves to be dispossessed of a country their fathers had built for them?
How did America come to be a nation where not only have all Christian prayers, pageants, holidays and holy days been purged from all government schools and public institutions, but secularism has taken over those schools, while Christians are mocked at Christmas in ways that would be declared hate crimes were it done to other religious faiths or ethnic minorities?
Was it a manifestation of tolerance and maturity, or pusillanimity, that Christians allowed themselves to be robbed of their inheritance to a point where Barack Obama could assert without contradiction that we Americans "do not consider ourselves to be a Christian nation"?
What are these Christmas-bashers, though still a nominal minority, saying to Christians with their mockery and ridicule of the celebration of the birth of Christ?
"This isn't your country anymore. It is our country now."
The question for Christians is a simple one: Do they have what it takes to take America back?
The twelve days of Christmas celebration
The Twelve Days of Christmas are the festive days beginning Christmas Day (25 December). This period is also known as Christmastide. The Twelfth Nightof Christmas is on the evening of 5 January, followed by the Feast of the Epiphany on January sixth,
Sunday, December 25, 2011
Conservatism
In his recent column, George Will said of Newt Gingrich: “There is his anti-conservative confidence that he has a comprehensive explanation of, and plan to perfect, everything.” Will went on to write that Gingrich “believes everything is related to everything else and only he understands how. Conservatism, in contrast, is both cause and effect of modesty about understanding society’s complexities, controlling its trajectory and improving upon its spontaneous order. Conservatism inoculates against the hubristic volatility that Gingrich exemplifies.”
Whether or not one believes Will’s description applies to Gingrich, there is something quite important in Will’s characterization of conservatism.
My colleague Yuval Levin, in his dissertation comparing Edmund Burke and Thomas Paine (“The Great Law of Change”), points out that Burke believed in the complexity of human nature and the limits of human reason. He warned of the dangers of relying simply on speculative theories and mistaking politics for metaphysics. And he insisted on the importance of learning from circumstances, from the concrete and particular in human life. Burke wrote that government is “a practical thing, made for the happiness of mankind” – not “to gratify the schemes of visionary politicians.” The danger facing statesmen, he warned, is when they view self-government “as if it were an abstract question concerning metaphysical liberty and necessity and not a matter of moral prudence and natural feeling.” This created in Burke an “essential moderation,” according to Levin, a modesty in our capacity to understand the patterns of human nature and the actions of human beings. There is no unified field theory that explains everything.
This doesn’t mean Burke didn’t believe enduring principles should guide our politics; it simply means Burke believed the practical application of those principles in human affairs is difficult and often imprecise, that we have to rely on the accumulated wisdom of those who came before us, that even the wisest among us has an imperfect and incomplete understanding of things, and that radicals can become “blind disciples of their own particular presumption.”
One sometimes gets the sense those of us who claim the title of conservative embrace what Aristotle, the great master of reason, called a “species of delusive geometrical accuracy” in moral arguments and politics, in predicting the effects of political actions on human behavior. We forget, more often than we should, that finding the right balance between order and freedom is a precarious undertaking. Which brings us back to Burke, who confessed to a friend, “Every political question I have ever known has had so much of the pro and con in it that nothing but the success could decide which proposition was to have been adopted.”
Whether or not one believes Will’s description applies to Gingrich, there is something quite important in Will’s characterization of conservatism.
My colleague Yuval Levin, in his dissertation comparing Edmund Burke and Thomas Paine (“The Great Law of Change”), points out that Burke believed in the complexity of human nature and the limits of human reason. He warned of the dangers of relying simply on speculative theories and mistaking politics for metaphysics. And he insisted on the importance of learning from circumstances, from the concrete and particular in human life. Burke wrote that government is “a practical thing, made for the happiness of mankind” – not “to gratify the schemes of visionary politicians.” The danger facing statesmen, he warned, is when they view self-government “as if it were an abstract question concerning metaphysical liberty and necessity and not a matter of moral prudence and natural feeling.” This created in Burke an “essential moderation,” according to Levin, a modesty in our capacity to understand the patterns of human nature and the actions of human beings. There is no unified field theory that explains everything.
This doesn’t mean Burke didn’t believe enduring principles should guide our politics; it simply means Burke believed the practical application of those principles in human affairs is difficult and often imprecise, that we have to rely on the accumulated wisdom of those who came before us, that even the wisest among us has an imperfect and incomplete understanding of things, and that radicals can become “blind disciples of their own particular presumption.”
One sometimes gets the sense those of us who claim the title of conservative embrace what Aristotle, the great master of reason, called a “species of delusive geometrical accuracy” in moral arguments and politics, in predicting the effects of political actions on human behavior. We forget, more often than we should, that finding the right balance between order and freedom is a precarious undertaking. Which brings us back to Burke, who confessed to a friend, “Every political question I have ever known has had so much of the pro and con in it that nothing but the success could decide which proposition was to have been adopted.”
Friday, December 23, 2011
New Yorker filler
Christmas is two days away, and our thoughts turn—well, our thoughts turn to the Jets and Giants, most likely, and to the confrontation Saturday between the happily married Eli Manning with the reputedly supermodel-distracted Mark Sanchez. The rest of our thoughts, though, turn restlessly toward the day after—toward Christmas and its unsettled meanings. What does the holiday exactly mean these days? What has it ever meant? Bill O’Reilly knows, or thinks he does; a sacred holiday hated by secularists and betrayed, sort of, by materialists. Others among the more proudly atheistic, new or old, take a grimmer view of it, hating its enforced coercive happiness.
One thing for sure: Christmas as we understand it—Santa, and the tree and the gifts and the department stores and even the Christmas carol as a distinct form; what might technically be called the whole megillah—is a modern invention, dating back to the long Victorian years, the eighteen-forties to seventies, and saturated with the whole of the era’s fragrant, intoxicating ambiguities. Just a year ago, I spent week after week—the whole holiday, actually—reading Victorian Christmas literature in a cubicle (no, call it a cubby hole, more Victorianly) in the blessed precincts of the New York Public Library, an institution in need of no change. I dipped deep into what the ones who thought up the modern Christmas—the secularized, materialist feast—thought they were about. (I was researching a series of lectures on the modern meanings of winter, which I gave in Canada, though they remain quite invisible, and inaudible, in America.)
There was Dickens to re-read, of course, the great Chaz Boz, so much among us in this two hundredth anniversary of his birth, and his “Christmas Carol,” which, it turns out, tells a more complicated story than we know. There was the meta-story to learn, of how Dickens took it up both as a commercial enterprise, self-publishing the story, and as a reformist tract. And the odd story to absorb of how it was the English reformers of John Stuart Mill’s school who, at first, looked at it dubiously—is just giving away turkeys really good political economy?—while the great reactionary Thomas Carlyle embraced it, because he loved the Total Makeover it proposed for the Victorian heart. For Carlyle as for Dickens, the concepts of reformist liberalism—the gradual, the incremental, the evolutionary—seemed inadequate to cure what was wrong with Scrooge. He needs an epiphany, not a Reform Bill.
(And Carlyle found an epiphany in it. Jane Welsh Carlyle, his formidable wife, wrote that upon finishing “A Christmas Carol ” her husband “was seized with a perfect convulsion of hospitality, and actually insisted on improvising two dinner parties with only a day between.”)
Then one learned how violently and quickly Carlyle rejected Dickens and his idea of Christmas after Carlyle realized that Dickens really meant it all: Dickens, Carlyle wrote in alarm, “thought that men ought to be buttered up and the world made soft and accommodating for them, and all sorts of fellows have turkey for their Christmas dinner. Commanding and controlling and punishing them he would give up without any misgivings in order to coax and soothe and delude them into doing right.” Shocked though he was, he was right: Dickens did think it made more moral and political sense to coax and soothe than to command and control. Men buttered up were men made better. It’s at the heart of his view of the world, and of Christmas.
A lot of fun, too, to see how the great rival among Victorian novelists, Anthony Trollope, was forced by commercial demand to write his own Christmas stories, and so used them to not-too-subtly mock Dickens—Mr. Popular Sentiment, as he calls him in “The Warden.” In one of Trollope’s Christmas stories a woman in a Paris hotel on Christmas Eve is suddenly seized with the Dickensian Christmas spirit and goes, all by herself in the middle of the night, to the hotel kitchen to make a soothing mustard plaster for her husband’s sore throat—only to enter the room of an unmarried gentleman and mistakenly, and scandalously, mustard plaster him. Don’t trust mushy altruistic impulses on Christmas Eve, is Trollope’s lesson; they lead to embarrassment more often than epiphany.
Of all the Christmas Victorian writers, though, the one I read with most pleasure, and who seemed to me most in need of revival, is the most unknown: Benjamin Farjeon, one of the really singular characters of nineteenth-century English literature. Farjeon’s first Christmas stories were written in the eighteen-sixties, far off in New Zealand, where he had emigrated after a London childhood. He sent them to Dickens, and upon Dickens’s encouragement—those were optimistic days—Farjeon took a ship and came right back to England, where he wrote endless numbers of those three-decker novels beloved of the time, with a particular feeling and fame for his Christmas stuff.
What makes Farjeon’s Christmas books so interesting—hallucinatory, in their way—is that Farjeon had been raised in London as an Orthodox Jew. Although he had, as they said then, left the formal practice of the old faith—ironically, or maybe not, his literary heyday was at the height of the premiership of that other utterly Jewish, non-Jewish Jew, Disraeli—Farjeon’s literary Christmas family, his Cratchit family, is called the Silvers, with two daughters named, of all odd Victorian things, Ruth and Rachel. Christmas heroines named Ruth and Rachel Silver! The “tell,” as one might say, is self-evident. But it is left to this apparently assimilated Jewish family to represent the Christmas spirit and Christmas values.
A recent student of those three-decker Victorian novels has compared them to today’s television dramas, since the length was fixed in advance—one hour now, three volumes then—and Farjeon is one of those writers who are the equivalent of show-runners today, admirable, and enviable for the energy of their narrative impulse, the industry of their manufacture, and the intensity of their caricatural gifts, more than for the Jamesian polish of their imagery. Ambiguous he is not, but hypnotically readable he is, and his Christmas stories, particularly the 1871 “Blade-o’-Grass,” are, like the best popular television drama, art in which one recognizes the melodramatic impulse even as one assents to the intensity of the vision achieved.
Blade-o’-Grass, the heroine of Farjeon’s book, is a friendless girl of the streets, nameless except for that nickname earned by her wandering, wind-blown nature. She grows up, has a love affair, and a baby, with a rascal named Tom Beadle—a love rather like Nancy and Bill Sykes, save that, though everyone seems to accept that Blade-o’-Grass is a prostitute, she isn’t. She is just a girl wandering the streets, who can’t do the worthy work of needlepoint or become a seamstress because she doesn’t know how to read or write. One of the many impressive things in the story—it must have been truly shocking in 1871—is that she makes no apologies for her out-of-wedlock relationship with Jonny, despite the urgings of the good people who patronize her to do so. “I love him and he loves me,” she explains to some do-gooders.
The other impressive thing is that Farjeon not only secularizes Christmas, as his master Dickens had already done, but radicalizes it. The moral voice of the book is a self-educated mason, named Robert Truefit. (Subtlety in nomenclature was not Farjeon’s strongest suit.) Truefit is, in effect, the early voice of what would become the British Labour Party: rejecting the violent rhetoric of his more unstable working men confreres, he insists that only a program of reform can alter the circumstances of poverty. He makes a rather prosy, but pointed speech, against the complacent, one-percent Parliaments of his day:
While they legislate, girls like Blade-o’-Grass are springing up around them, and living poisoned lives. And while they legislate, if there be truth in what preachers preach, souls are being dammed by force of circumstance. What should be the aim of those who govern? So to govern as to produce the maximum of human happiness and comfort, and the minimum of human misery. Not to the few—to the many, to all.
What is touching is that it remains entirely a Christmas story, insistently so, not by accident or improvisation but on purpose, full of lovely outdoor December effects. “Something seems to me wanting in Christmas,” the radical Truefit says at one point, “when there is no snow. When it snows, the atmosphere between heaven and earth is bridged by the purity of the happy time.”
It turns out—this is Victorian popular fiction—that Blade-o’-Grass is really the long-lost twin daughter of Ruth Silver, who was adopted, and the story ends with a family reunion and hope for all. But the Christmas lesson that the Silvers teach us, along with Charles Truefit, is that the holiday can reconcile the need for change with the love of comfort. “God help the poor” is what the preachers say, Charles Truefit remarks at one moment, but amends it: “Man help the poor,” he explains, is his religious motto. A hundred and forty years later, it’s still hard to see what more can be said.
So God bless the ghost of the Jewish, Christmas-loving Benjamin Farjeon (an inspiring father, too, apparently: most of his kids became writers, and his daughter Eleanor wrote the poem “Morning Has Broken,” which was set as a song in the nineteen seventies by the soon-to-be Muslim Cat Stevens). For that matter, God bless us, everyone, particularly those in red and white who will be arriving with gifts on Christmas Eve, and those gallant Rex-led footballers in green and white who will be departing the field in victory earlier that day.
One thing for sure: Christmas as we understand it—Santa, and the tree and the gifts and the department stores and even the Christmas carol as a distinct form; what might technically be called the whole megillah—is a modern invention, dating back to the long Victorian years, the eighteen-forties to seventies, and saturated with the whole of the era’s fragrant, intoxicating ambiguities. Just a year ago, I spent week after week—the whole holiday, actually—reading Victorian Christmas literature in a cubicle (no, call it a cubby hole, more Victorianly) in the blessed precincts of the New York Public Library, an institution in need of no change. I dipped deep into what the ones who thought up the modern Christmas—the secularized, materialist feast—thought they were about. (I was researching a series of lectures on the modern meanings of winter, which I gave in Canada, though they remain quite invisible, and inaudible, in America.)
There was Dickens to re-read, of course, the great Chaz Boz, so much among us in this two hundredth anniversary of his birth, and his “Christmas Carol,” which, it turns out, tells a more complicated story than we know. There was the meta-story to learn, of how Dickens took it up both as a commercial enterprise, self-publishing the story, and as a reformist tract. And the odd story to absorb of how it was the English reformers of John Stuart Mill’s school who, at first, looked at it dubiously—is just giving away turkeys really good political economy?—while the great reactionary Thomas Carlyle embraced it, because he loved the Total Makeover it proposed for the Victorian heart. For Carlyle as for Dickens, the concepts of reformist liberalism—the gradual, the incremental, the evolutionary—seemed inadequate to cure what was wrong with Scrooge. He needs an epiphany, not a Reform Bill.
(And Carlyle found an epiphany in it. Jane Welsh Carlyle, his formidable wife, wrote that upon finishing “A Christmas Carol ” her husband “was seized with a perfect convulsion of hospitality, and actually insisted on improvising two dinner parties with only a day between.”)
Then one learned how violently and quickly Carlyle rejected Dickens and his idea of Christmas after Carlyle realized that Dickens really meant it all: Dickens, Carlyle wrote in alarm, “thought that men ought to be buttered up and the world made soft and accommodating for them, and all sorts of fellows have turkey for their Christmas dinner. Commanding and controlling and punishing them he would give up without any misgivings in order to coax and soothe and delude them into doing right.” Shocked though he was, he was right: Dickens did think it made more moral and political sense to coax and soothe than to command and control. Men buttered up were men made better. It’s at the heart of his view of the world, and of Christmas.
A lot of fun, too, to see how the great rival among Victorian novelists, Anthony Trollope, was forced by commercial demand to write his own Christmas stories, and so used them to not-too-subtly mock Dickens—Mr. Popular Sentiment, as he calls him in “The Warden.” In one of Trollope’s Christmas stories a woman in a Paris hotel on Christmas Eve is suddenly seized with the Dickensian Christmas spirit and goes, all by herself in the middle of the night, to the hotel kitchen to make a soothing mustard plaster for her husband’s sore throat—only to enter the room of an unmarried gentleman and mistakenly, and scandalously, mustard plaster him. Don’t trust mushy altruistic impulses on Christmas Eve, is Trollope’s lesson; they lead to embarrassment more often than epiphany.
Of all the Christmas Victorian writers, though, the one I read with most pleasure, and who seemed to me most in need of revival, is the most unknown: Benjamin Farjeon, one of the really singular characters of nineteenth-century English literature. Farjeon’s first Christmas stories were written in the eighteen-sixties, far off in New Zealand, where he had emigrated after a London childhood. He sent them to Dickens, and upon Dickens’s encouragement—those were optimistic days—Farjeon took a ship and came right back to England, where he wrote endless numbers of those three-decker novels beloved of the time, with a particular feeling and fame for his Christmas stuff.
What makes Farjeon’s Christmas books so interesting—hallucinatory, in their way—is that Farjeon had been raised in London as an Orthodox Jew. Although he had, as they said then, left the formal practice of the old faith—ironically, or maybe not, his literary heyday was at the height of the premiership of that other utterly Jewish, non-Jewish Jew, Disraeli—Farjeon’s literary Christmas family, his Cratchit family, is called the Silvers, with two daughters named, of all odd Victorian things, Ruth and Rachel. Christmas heroines named Ruth and Rachel Silver! The “tell,” as one might say, is self-evident. But it is left to this apparently assimilated Jewish family to represent the Christmas spirit and Christmas values.
A recent student of those three-decker Victorian novels has compared them to today’s television dramas, since the length was fixed in advance—one hour now, three volumes then—and Farjeon is one of those writers who are the equivalent of show-runners today, admirable, and enviable for the energy of their narrative impulse, the industry of their manufacture, and the intensity of their caricatural gifts, more than for the Jamesian polish of their imagery. Ambiguous he is not, but hypnotically readable he is, and his Christmas stories, particularly the 1871 “Blade-o’-Grass,” are, like the best popular television drama, art in which one recognizes the melodramatic impulse even as one assents to the intensity of the vision achieved.
Blade-o’-Grass, the heroine of Farjeon’s book, is a friendless girl of the streets, nameless except for that nickname earned by her wandering, wind-blown nature. She grows up, has a love affair, and a baby, with a rascal named Tom Beadle—a love rather like Nancy and Bill Sykes, save that, though everyone seems to accept that Blade-o’-Grass is a prostitute, she isn’t. She is just a girl wandering the streets, who can’t do the worthy work of needlepoint or become a seamstress because she doesn’t know how to read or write. One of the many impressive things in the story—it must have been truly shocking in 1871—is that she makes no apologies for her out-of-wedlock relationship with Jonny, despite the urgings of the good people who patronize her to do so. “I love him and he loves me,” she explains to some do-gooders.
The other impressive thing is that Farjeon not only secularizes Christmas, as his master Dickens had already done, but radicalizes it. The moral voice of the book is a self-educated mason, named Robert Truefit. (Subtlety in nomenclature was not Farjeon’s strongest suit.) Truefit is, in effect, the early voice of what would become the British Labour Party: rejecting the violent rhetoric of his more unstable working men confreres, he insists that only a program of reform can alter the circumstances of poverty. He makes a rather prosy, but pointed speech, against the complacent, one-percent Parliaments of his day:
While they legislate, girls like Blade-o’-Grass are springing up around them, and living poisoned lives. And while they legislate, if there be truth in what preachers preach, souls are being dammed by force of circumstance. What should be the aim of those who govern? So to govern as to produce the maximum of human happiness and comfort, and the minimum of human misery. Not to the few—to the many, to all.
What is touching is that it remains entirely a Christmas story, insistently so, not by accident or improvisation but on purpose, full of lovely outdoor December effects. “Something seems to me wanting in Christmas,” the radical Truefit says at one point, “when there is no snow. When it snows, the atmosphere between heaven and earth is bridged by the purity of the happy time.”
It turns out—this is Victorian popular fiction—that Blade-o’-Grass is really the long-lost twin daughter of Ruth Silver, who was adopted, and the story ends with a family reunion and hope for all. But the Christmas lesson that the Silvers teach us, along with Charles Truefit, is that the holiday can reconcile the need for change with the love of comfort. “God help the poor” is what the preachers say, Charles Truefit remarks at one moment, but amends it: “Man help the poor,” he explains, is his religious motto. A hundred and forty years later, it’s still hard to see what more can be said.
So God bless the ghost of the Jewish, Christmas-loving Benjamin Farjeon (an inspiring father, too, apparently: most of his kids became writers, and his daughter Eleanor wrote the poem “Morning Has Broken,” which was set as a song in the nineteen seventies by the soon-to-be Muslim Cat Stevens). For that matter, God bless us, everyone, particularly those in red and white who will be arriving with gifts on Christmas Eve, and those gallant Rex-led footballers in green and white who will be departing the field in victory earlier that day.
Cotton Club
Langston Hughes on Whites in Harlem
White people began to come to Harlem in droves. For several years they packed the expensive Cotton Club on Lenox Avenue. But I was never there, because the Cotton Club was a Jim Crow club for gangsters and monied whites. They were not cordial to Negro patronage, unless you were a celebrity like Bojangles. So Harlem Negroes did not like the Cotton Club and never appreciated its Jim Crow policy in the very heart of their dark community. Nor did ordinary Negroes like the growing influx of whites toward Harlem after sundown, flooding the little cabarets and bars where formerly only colored people laughed and sang, and where now the strangers were given the best ringside tables to sit and stare at the Negro customers--like amusing animals in a zoo.
White people began to come to Harlem in droves. For several years they packed the expensive Cotton Club on Lenox Avenue. But I was never there, because the Cotton Club was a Jim Crow club for gangsters and monied whites. They were not cordial to Negro patronage, unless you were a celebrity like Bojangles. So Harlem Negroes did not like the Cotton Club and never appreciated its Jim Crow policy in the very heart of their dark community. Nor did ordinary Negroes like the growing influx of whites toward Harlem after sundown, flooding the little cabarets and bars where formerly only colored people laughed and sang, and where now the strangers were given the best ringside tables to sit and stare at the Negro customers--like amusing animals in a zoo.
Wednesday, December 21, 2011
Strawbery fields forever
Let me take you down
‘Cause I'm going to Strawberry Fields
Nothing is real
And nothing to get hung about
Strawberry Fields forever
Living is easy with eyes closed
Misunderstanding all you see
It's getting hard to be someone
But it all works out
It doesn't matter much to me
Let me take you down
‘Cause I'm going to Strawberry Fields
Nothing is real
And nothing to get hung about
Strawberry Fields forever
No one I think is in my tree
I mean it must be high or low
That is you can't, you know, tune in
But it's all right
That is I think it's not too bad
Let me take you down
‘Cause I'm going to Strawberry Fields
Nothing is real
And nothing to get hung about
Strawberry Fields forever
Always, no sometimes, think it's me
But you know I know when it's a dream
I think I know I mean a yes
But it's all wrong
That is I think I disagree
Let me take you down
‘Cause I'm going to Strawberry Fields
Nothing is real
And nothing to get hung about
Strawberry Fields forever
Strawberry Fields forever
Strawberry Fields forever
‘Cause I'm going to Strawberry Fields
Nothing is real
And nothing to get hung about
Strawberry Fields forever
Living is easy with eyes closed
Misunderstanding all you see
It's getting hard to be someone
But it all works out
It doesn't matter much to me
Let me take you down
‘Cause I'm going to Strawberry Fields
Nothing is real
And nothing to get hung about
Strawberry Fields forever
No one I think is in my tree
I mean it must be high or low
That is you can't, you know, tune in
But it's all right
That is I think it's not too bad
Let me take you down
‘Cause I'm going to Strawberry Fields
Nothing is real
And nothing to get hung about
Strawberry Fields forever
Always, no sometimes, think it's me
But you know I know when it's a dream
I think I know I mean a yes
But it's all wrong
That is I think I disagree
Let me take you down
‘Cause I'm going to Strawberry Fields
Nothing is real
And nothing to get hung about
Strawberry Fields forever
Strawberry Fields forever
Strawberry Fields forever
Tuesday, December 20, 2011
Chomsky on post modernism
NOAM CHOMSKY ON DERRIDA, FOUCAULT, LACAN AND POSTMODERNISM
In the mid-1990s, Noam Chomsky posted the following statement on an online bulletin board. Since it's rather hard to find, and because it's Chomsky's only extended statement on the subject of postmodernism--and because watching Noam call Lacan "a perfectly self-conscious charlatan" is just good clean fun--I'm reprinting the entire post here:
CHOMSKY: I've returned from travel-speaking, where I spend most of my life, and found a collection of messages extending the discussion about "theory" and "philosophy," a debate that I find rather curious. A few reactions --- though I concede, from the start, that I may simply not understand what is going on.
As far as I do think I understand it, the debate was initiated by the charge that I, Mike, and maybe others don't have "theories" and therefore fail to give any explanation of why things are proceeding as they do. We must turn to "theory" and "philosophy" and "theoretical constructs" and the like to remedy this deficiency in our efforts to understand and address what is happening in the world. I won't speak for Mike. My response so far has pretty much been to reiterate something I wrote 35 years ago, long before "postmodernism" had erupted in the literary intellectual culture: "if there is a body of theory, well tested and verified, that applies to the conduct of foreign affairs or the resolution of domestic or international conflict, its existence has been kept a well-guarded secret," despite much "pseudo-scientific posturing."
To my knowledge, the statement was accurate 35 years ago, and remains so; furthermore, it extends to the study of human affairs generally, and applies in spades to what has been produced since that time. What has changed in the interim, to my knowledge, is a huge explosion of self- and mutual-admiration among those who propound what they call "theory" and "philosophy," but little that I can detect beyond "pseudo-scientific posturing." That little is, as I wrote, sometimes quite interesting, but lacks consequences for the real world problems that occupy my time and energies (Rawls's important work is the case I mentioned, in response to specific inquiry).
The latter fact has been noticed. One fine philosopher and social theorist (also activist), Alan Graubard, wrote an interesting review years ago of Robert Nozick's "libertarian" response to Rawls, and of the reactions to it. He pointed out that reactions were very enthusiastic. Reviewer after reviewer extolled the power of the arguments, etc., but no one accepted any of the real-world conclusions (unless they had previously reached them). That's correct, as were his observations on what it means.
The proponents of "theory" and "philosophy" have a very easy task if they want to make their case. Simply make known to me what was and remains a "secret" to me: I'll be happy to look. I've asked many times before, and still await an answer, which should be easy to provide: simply give some examples of "a body of theory, well tested and verified, that applies to" the kinds of problems and issues that Mike, I, and many others (in fact, most of the world's population, I think, outside of narrow and remarkably self-contained intellectual circles) are or should be concerned with: the problems and issues we speak and write about, for example, and others like them. To put it differently, show that the principles of the "theory" or "philosophy" that we are told to study and apply lead by valid argument to conclusions that we and others had not already reached on other (and better) grounds; these "others" include people lacking formal education, who typically seem to have no problem reaching these conclusions through mutual interactions that avoid the "theoretical" obscurities entirely, or often on their own.
Again, those are simple requests. I've made them before, and remain in my state of ignorance. I also draw certain conclusions from the fact.
As for the "deconstruction" that is carried out (also mentioned in the debate), I can't comment, because most of it seems to me gibberish. But if this is just another sign of my incapacity to recognize profundities, the course to follow is clear: just restate the results to me in plain words that I can understand, and show why they are different from, or better than, what others had been doing long before and and have continued to do since without three-syllable words, incoherent sentences, inflated rhetoric that (to me, at least) is largely meaningless, etc. That will cure my deficiencies --- of course, if they are curable; maybe they aren't, a possibility to which I'll return.
These are very easy requests to fulfill, if there is any basis to the claims put forth with such fervor and indignation. But instead of trying to provide an answer to this simple requests, the response is cries of anger: to raise these questions shows "elitism," "anti-intellectualism," and other crimes --- though apparently it is not "elitist" to stay within the self- and mutual-admiration societies of intellectuals who talk only to one another and (to my knowledge) don't enter into the kind of world in which I'd prefer to live. As for that world, I can reel off my speaking and writing schedule to illustrate what I mean, though I presume that most people in this discussion know, or can easily find out; and somehow I never find the "theoreticians" there, nor do I go to their conferences and parties. In short, we seem to inhabit quite different worlds, and I find it hard to see why mine is "elitist," not theirs. The opposite seems to be transparently the case, though I won't amplify.
To add another facet, I am absolutely deluged with requests to speak and can't possibly accept a fraction of the invitations I'd like to, so I suggest other people. But oddly, I never suggest those who propound "theories" and "philosophy," nor do I come across them, or for that matter rarely even their names, in my own (fairly extensive) experience with popular and activist groups and organizations, general community, college, church, union, etc., audiences here and abroad, third world women, refugees, etc.; I can easily give examples. Why, I wonder.
The whole debate, then, is an odd one. On one side, angry charges and denunciations, on the other, the request for some evidence and argument to support them, to which the response is more angry charges --- but, strikingly, no evidence or argument. Again, one is led to ask why.
It's entirely possible that I'm simply missing something, or that I just lack the intellectual capacity to understand the profundities that have been unearthed in the past 20 years or so by Paris intellectuals and their followers. I'm perfectly open-minded about it, and have been for years, when similar charges have been made -- but without any answer to my questions. Again, they are simple and should be easy to answer, if there is an answer: if I'm missing something, then show me what it is, in terms I can understand. Of course, if it's all beyond my comprehension, which is possible, then I'm just a lost cause, and will be compelled to keep to things I do seem to be able to understand, and keep to association with the kinds of people who also seem to be interested in them and seem to understand them (which I'm perfectly happy to do, having no interest, now or ever, in the sectors of the intellectual culture that engage in these things, but apparently little else).
Since no one has succeeded in showing me what I'm missing, we're left with the second option: I'm just incapable of understanding. I'm certainly willing to grant that it may be true, though I'm afraid I'll have to remain suspicious, for what seem good reasons. There are lots of things I don't understand -- say, the latest debates over whether neutrinos have mass or the way that Fermat's last theorem was (apparently) proven recently. But from 50 years in this game, I have learned two things: (1) I can ask friends who work in these areas to explain it to me at a level that I can understand, and they can do so, without particular difficulty; (2) if I'm interested, I can proceed to learn more so that I will come to understand it. Now Derrida, Lacan, Lyotard, Kristeva, etc. --- even Foucault, whom I knew and liked, and who was somewhat different from the rest --- write things that I also don't understand, but (1) and (2) don't hold: no one who says they do understand can explain it to me and I haven't a clue as to how to proceed to overcome my failures. That leaves one of two possibilities: (a) some new advance in intellectual life has been made, perhaps some sudden genetic mutation, which has created a form of "theory" that is beyond quantum theory, topology, etc., in depth and profundity; or (b) ... I won't spell it out.
Again, I've lived for 50 years in these worlds, have done a fair amount of work of my own in fields called "philosophy" and "science," as well as intellectual history, and have a fair amount of personal acquaintance with the intellectual culture in the sciences, humanities, social sciences, and the arts. That has left me with my own conclusions about intellectual life, which I won't spell out. But for others, I would simply suggest that you ask those who tell you about the wonders of "theory" and "philosophy" to justify their claims --- to do what people in physics, math, biology, linguistics, and other fields are happy to do when someone asks them, seriously, what are the principles of their theories, on what evidence are they based, what do they explain that wasn't already obvious, etc. These are fair requests for anyone to make. If they can't be met, then I'd suggest recourse to Hume's advice in similar circumstances: to the flames.
Specific comment. Phetland asked who I'm referring to when I speak of "Paris school" and "postmodernist cults": the above is a sample.
He then asks, reasonably, why I am "dismissive" of it. Take, say, Derrida. Let me begin by saying that I dislike making the kind of comments that follow without providing evidence, but I doubt that participants want a close analysis of de Saussure, say, in this forum, and I know that I'm not going to undertake it. I wouldn't say this if I hadn't been explicitly asked for my opinion --- and if asked to back it up, I'm going to respond that I don't think it merits the time to do so.
So take Derrida, one of the grand old men. I thought I ought to at least be able to understand his Grammatology, so tried to read it. I could make out some of it, for example, the critical analysis of classical texts that I knew very well and had written about years before. I found the scholarship appalling, based on pathetic misreading; and the argument, such as it was, failed to come close to the kinds of standards I've been familiar with since virtually childhood. Well, maybe I missed something: could be, but suspicions remain, as noted. Again, sorry to make unsupported comments, but I was asked, and therefore am answering.
Some of the people in these cults (which is what they look like to me) I've met: Foucault (we even have a several-hour discussion, which is in print, and spent quite a few hours in very pleasant conversation, on real issues, and using language that was perfectly comprehensible --- he speaking French, me English); Lacan (who I met several times and considered an amusing and perfectly self-conscious charlatan, though his earlier work, pre-cult, was sensible and I've discussed it in print); Kristeva (who I met only briefly during the period when she was a fervent Maoist); and others. Many of them I haven't met, because I am very remote from from these circles, by choice, preferring quite different and far broader ones --- the kinds where I give talks, have interviews, take part in activities, write dozens of long letters every week, etc. I've dipped into what they write out of curiosity, but not very far, for reasons already mentioned: what I find is extremely pretentious, but on examination, a lot of it is simply illiterate, based on extraordinary misreading of texts that I know well (sometimes, that I have written), argument that is appalling in its casual lack of elementary self-criticism, lots of statements that are trivial (though dressed up in complicated verbiage) or false; and a good deal of plain gibberish. When I proceed as I do in other areas where I do not understand, I run into the problems mentioned in connection with (1) and (2) above. So that's who I'm referring to, and why I don't proceed very far. I can list a lot more names if it's not obvious.
For those interested in a literary depiction that reflects pretty much the same perceptions (but from the inside), I'd suggest David Lodge. Pretty much on target, as far as I can judge.
Phetland also found it "particularly puzzling" that I am so "curtly dismissive" of these intellectual circles while I spend a lot of time "exposing the posturing and obfuscation of the New York Times." So "why not give these guys the same treatment." Fair question. There are also simple answers. What appears in the work I do address (NYT, journals of opinion, much of scholarship, etc.) is simply written in intelligible prose and has a great impact on the world, establishing the doctrinal framework within which thought and expression are supposed to be contained, and largely are, in successful doctrinal systems such as ours. That has a huge impact on what happens to suffering people throughout the world, the ones who concern me, as distinct from those who live in the world that Lodge depicts (accurately, I think). So this work should be dealt with seriously, at least if one cares about ordinary people and their problems. The work to which Phetland refers has none of these characteristics, as far as I'm aware. It certainly has none of the impact, since it is addressed only to other intellectuals in the same circles. Furthermore, there is no effort that I am aware of to make it intelligible to the great mass of the population (say, to the people I'm constantly speaking to, meeting with, and writing letters to, and have in mind when I write, and who seem to understand what I say without any particular difficulty, though they generally seem to have the same cognitive disability I do when facing the postmodern cults). And I'm also aware of no effort to show how it applies to anything in the world in the sense I mentioned earlier: grounding conclusions that weren't already obvious. Since I don't happen to be much interested in the ways that intellectuals inflate their reputations, gain privilege and prestige, and disengage themselves from actual participation in popular struggle, I don't spend any time on it.
Phetland suggests starting with Foucault --- who, as I've written repeatedly, is somewhat apart from the others, for two reasons: I find at least some of what he writes intelligible, though generally not very interesting; second, he was not personally disengaged and did not restrict himself to interactions with others within the same highly privileged elite circles. Phetland then does exactly what I requested: he gives some illustrations of why he thinks Foucault's work is important. That's exactly the right way to proceed, and I think it helps understand why I take such a "dismissive" attitude towards all of this --- in fact, pay no attention to it.
What Phetland describes, accurately I'm sure, seems to me unimportant, because everyone always knew it --- apart from details of social and intellectual history, and about these, I'd suggest caution: some of these are areas I happen to have worked on fairly extensively myself, and I know that Foucault's scholarship is just not trustworthy here, so I don't trust it, without independent investigation, in areas that I don't know --- this comes up a bit in the discussion from 1972 that is in print. I think there is much better scholarship on the 17th and 18th century, and I keep to that, and my own research. But let's put aside the other historical work, and turn to the "theoretical constructs" and the explanations: that there has been "a great change from harsh mechanisms of repression to more subtle mechanisms by which people come to do" what the powerful want, even enthusiastically. That's true enough, in fact, utter truism. If that's a "theory," then all the criticisms of me are wrong: I have a "theory" too, since I've been saying exactly that for years, and also giving the reasons and historical background, but without describing it as a theory (because it merits no such term), and without obfuscatory rhetoric (because it's so simple-minded), and without claiming that it is new (because it's a truism). It's been fully recognized for a long time that as the power to control and coerce has declined, it's more necessary to resort to what practitioners in the PR industry early in this century -- who understood all of this well -- called "controlling the public mind." The reasons, as observed by Hume in the 18th century, are that "the implicit submission with which men resign their own sentiments and passions to those of their rulers" relies ultimately on control of opinion and attitudes. Why these truisms should suddenly become "a theory" or "philosophy," others will have to explain; Hume would have laughed.
Some of Foucault's particular examples (say, about 18th century techniques of punishment) look interesting, and worth investigating as to their accuracy. But the "theory" is merely an extremely complex and inflated restatement of what many others have put very simply, and without any pretense that anything deep is involved. There's nothing in what Phetland describes that I haven't been writing about myself for 35 years, also giving plenty of documentation to show that it was always obvious, and indeed hardly departs from truism. What's interesting about these trivialities is not the principle, which is transparent, but the demonstration of how it works itself out in specific detail to cases that are important to people: like intervention and aggression, exploitation and terror, "free market" scams, and so on. That I don't find in Foucault, though I find plenty of it by people who seem to be able to write sentences I can understand and who aren't placed in the intellectual firmament as "theoreticians."
To make myself clear, Phetland is doing exactly the right thing: presenting what he sees as "important insights and theoretical constructs" that he finds in Foucault. My problem is that the "insights" seem to me familiar and there are no "theoretical constructs," except in that simple and familiar ideas have been dressed up in complicated and pretentious rhetoric. Phetland asks whether I think this is "wrong, useless, or posturing." No. The historical parts look interesting sometimes, though they have to be treated with caution and independent verification is even more worth undertaking than it usually is. The parts that restate what has long been obvious and put in much simpler terms are not "useless," but indeed useful, which is why I and others have always made the very same points. As to "posturing," a lot of it is that, in my opinion, though I don't particularly blame Foucault for it: it's such a deeply rooted part of the corrupt intellectual culture of Paris that he fell into it pretty naturally, though to his credit, he distanced himself from it. As for the "corruption" of this culture particularly since World War II, that's another topic, which I've discussed elsewhere and won't go into here. Frankly, I don't see why people in this forum should be much interested, just as I am not. There are more important things to do, in my opinion, than to inquire into the traits of elite intellectuals engaged in various careerist and other pursuits in their narrow and (to me, at least) pretty unininteresting circles. That's a broad brush, and I stress again that it is unfair to make such comments without proving them: but I've been asked, and have answered the only specific point that I find raised. When asked about my general opinion, I can only give it, or if something more specific is posed, address that. I'm not going to undertake an essay on topics that don't interest me.
Unless someone can answer the simple questions that immediately arise in the mind of any reasonable person when claims about "theory" and "philosophy" are raised, I'll keep to work that seems to me sensible and enlightening, and to people who are interested in understanding and changing the world.
Johnb made the point that "plain language is not enough when the frame of reference is not available to the listener"; correct and important. But the right reaction is not to resort to obscure and needlessly complex verbiage and posturing about non-existent "theories." Rather, it is to ask the listener to question the frame of reference that he/she is accepting, and to suggest alternatives that might be considered, all in plain language. I've never found that a problem when I speak to people lacking much or sometimes any formal education, though it's true that it tends to become harder as you move up the educational ladder, so that indoctrination is much deeper, and the self-selection for obedience that is a good part of elite education has taken its toll. Johnb says that outside of circles like this forum, "to the rest of the country, he's incomprehensible" ("he" being me). That's absolutely counter to my rather ample experience, with all sorts of audiences. Rather, my experience is what I just described. The incomprehensibility roughly corresponds to the educational level. Take, say, talk radio. I'm on a fair amount, and it's usually pretty easy to guess from accents, etc., what kind of audience it is. I've repeatedly found that when the audience is mostly poor and less educated, I can skip lots of the background and "frame of reference" issues because it's already obvious and taken for granted by everyone, and can proceed to matters that occupy all of us. With more educated audiences, that's much harder; it's necessary to disentangle lots of ideological constructions.
It's certainly true that lots of people can't read the books I write. That's not because the ideas or language are complicated --- we have no problems in informal discussion on exactly the same points, and even in the same words. The reasons are different, maybe partly the fault of my writing style, partly the result of the need (which I feel, at least) to present pretty heavy documentation, which makes it tough reading. For these reasons, a number of people have taken pretty much the same material, often the very same words, and put them in pamphlet form and the like. No one seems to have much problem --- though again, reviewers in the Times Literary Supplement or professional academic journals don't have a clue as to what it's about, quite commonly; sometimes it's pretty comical.
A final point, something I've written about elsewhere (e.g., in a discussion in Z papers, and the last chapter of Year 501). There has been a striking change in the behavior of the intellectual class in recent years. The left intellectuals who 60 years ago would have been teaching in working class schools, writing books like "mathematics for the millions" (which made mathematics intelligible to millions of people), participating in and speaking for popular organizations, etc., are now largely disengaged from such activities, and although quick to tell us that they are far more radical than thou, are not to be found, it seems, when there is such an obvious and growing need and even explicit request for the work they could do out there in the world of people with live problems and concerns. That's not a small problem. This country, right now, is in a very strange and ominous state. People are frightened, angry, disillusioned, skeptical, confused. That's an organizer's dream, as I once heard Mike say. It's also fertile ground for demagogues and fanatics, who can (and in fact already do) rally substantial popular support with messages that are not unfamiliar from their predecessors in somewhat similar circumstances. We know where it has led in the past; it could again. There's a huge gap that once was at least partially filled by left intellectuals willing to engage with the general public and their problems. It has ominous implications, in my opinion.
End of Reply, and (to be frank) of my personal interest in the matter, unless the obvious questions are answered.
It's clear that Chomsky doesn't understand Derrida and probably doesn't want to, that what Chomsky dismisses as Derrida's "misreading" is actually the deliberate "misreading" of deconstructive interpretation, i.e. reading against the grain of standard interpretations. (In this case, Chomsky's opening profession that he may not understand what's going on should be understood as something other than Socratic irony.) Many of Chomsky's other criticisms are both highly arguable and eminently understandable. His caveat about independently confirming Foucault's historical research may be the most valuable passage in the entire statement. The David Lodge book Chomsky twice refers to is surely Small World, Lodge's comic 'academic conference picaresque' novel set in the critical theory milieu ca.1979. It's a funny, smart, well-made novel, a superior follow-up to Lodge's Changing Places, the book that taught the world how to play 'Humiliation.' I recommend both.
Posted by BRIAN OARD at 11:28 PM
In the mid-1990s, Noam Chomsky posted the following statement on an online bulletin board. Since it's rather hard to find, and because it's Chomsky's only extended statement on the subject of postmodernism--and because watching Noam call Lacan "a perfectly self-conscious charlatan" is just good clean fun--I'm reprinting the entire post here:
CHOMSKY: I've returned from travel-speaking, where I spend most of my life, and found a collection of messages extending the discussion about "theory" and "philosophy," a debate that I find rather curious. A few reactions --- though I concede, from the start, that I may simply not understand what is going on.
As far as I do think I understand it, the debate was initiated by the charge that I, Mike, and maybe others don't have "theories" and therefore fail to give any explanation of why things are proceeding as they do. We must turn to "theory" and "philosophy" and "theoretical constructs" and the like to remedy this deficiency in our efforts to understand and address what is happening in the world. I won't speak for Mike. My response so far has pretty much been to reiterate something I wrote 35 years ago, long before "postmodernism" had erupted in the literary intellectual culture: "if there is a body of theory, well tested and verified, that applies to the conduct of foreign affairs or the resolution of domestic or international conflict, its existence has been kept a well-guarded secret," despite much "pseudo-scientific posturing."
To my knowledge, the statement was accurate 35 years ago, and remains so; furthermore, it extends to the study of human affairs generally, and applies in spades to what has been produced since that time. What has changed in the interim, to my knowledge, is a huge explosion of self- and mutual-admiration among those who propound what they call "theory" and "philosophy," but little that I can detect beyond "pseudo-scientific posturing." That little is, as I wrote, sometimes quite interesting, but lacks consequences for the real world problems that occupy my time and energies (Rawls's important work is the case I mentioned, in response to specific inquiry).
The latter fact has been noticed. One fine philosopher and social theorist (also activist), Alan Graubard, wrote an interesting review years ago of Robert Nozick's "libertarian" response to Rawls, and of the reactions to it. He pointed out that reactions were very enthusiastic. Reviewer after reviewer extolled the power of the arguments, etc., but no one accepted any of the real-world conclusions (unless they had previously reached them). That's correct, as were his observations on what it means.
The proponents of "theory" and "philosophy" have a very easy task if they want to make their case. Simply make known to me what was and remains a "secret" to me: I'll be happy to look. I've asked many times before, and still await an answer, which should be easy to provide: simply give some examples of "a body of theory, well tested and verified, that applies to" the kinds of problems and issues that Mike, I, and many others (in fact, most of the world's population, I think, outside of narrow and remarkably self-contained intellectual circles) are or should be concerned with: the problems and issues we speak and write about, for example, and others like them. To put it differently, show that the principles of the "theory" or "philosophy" that we are told to study and apply lead by valid argument to conclusions that we and others had not already reached on other (and better) grounds; these "others" include people lacking formal education, who typically seem to have no problem reaching these conclusions through mutual interactions that avoid the "theoretical" obscurities entirely, or often on their own.
Again, those are simple requests. I've made them before, and remain in my state of ignorance. I also draw certain conclusions from the fact.
As for the "deconstruction" that is carried out (also mentioned in the debate), I can't comment, because most of it seems to me gibberish. But if this is just another sign of my incapacity to recognize profundities, the course to follow is clear: just restate the results to me in plain words that I can understand, and show why they are different from, or better than, what others had been doing long before and and have continued to do since without three-syllable words, incoherent sentences, inflated rhetoric that (to me, at least) is largely meaningless, etc. That will cure my deficiencies --- of course, if they are curable; maybe they aren't, a possibility to which I'll return.
These are very easy requests to fulfill, if there is any basis to the claims put forth with such fervor and indignation. But instead of trying to provide an answer to this simple requests, the response is cries of anger: to raise these questions shows "elitism," "anti-intellectualism," and other crimes --- though apparently it is not "elitist" to stay within the self- and mutual-admiration societies of intellectuals who talk only to one another and (to my knowledge) don't enter into the kind of world in which I'd prefer to live. As for that world, I can reel off my speaking and writing schedule to illustrate what I mean, though I presume that most people in this discussion know, or can easily find out; and somehow I never find the "theoreticians" there, nor do I go to their conferences and parties. In short, we seem to inhabit quite different worlds, and I find it hard to see why mine is "elitist," not theirs. The opposite seems to be transparently the case, though I won't amplify.
To add another facet, I am absolutely deluged with requests to speak and can't possibly accept a fraction of the invitations I'd like to, so I suggest other people. But oddly, I never suggest those who propound "theories" and "philosophy," nor do I come across them, or for that matter rarely even their names, in my own (fairly extensive) experience with popular and activist groups and organizations, general community, college, church, union, etc., audiences here and abroad, third world women, refugees, etc.; I can easily give examples. Why, I wonder.
The whole debate, then, is an odd one. On one side, angry charges and denunciations, on the other, the request for some evidence and argument to support them, to which the response is more angry charges --- but, strikingly, no evidence or argument. Again, one is led to ask why.
It's entirely possible that I'm simply missing something, or that I just lack the intellectual capacity to understand the profundities that have been unearthed in the past 20 years or so by Paris intellectuals and their followers. I'm perfectly open-minded about it, and have been for years, when similar charges have been made -- but without any answer to my questions. Again, they are simple and should be easy to answer, if there is an answer: if I'm missing something, then show me what it is, in terms I can understand. Of course, if it's all beyond my comprehension, which is possible, then I'm just a lost cause, and will be compelled to keep to things I do seem to be able to understand, and keep to association with the kinds of people who also seem to be interested in them and seem to understand them (which I'm perfectly happy to do, having no interest, now or ever, in the sectors of the intellectual culture that engage in these things, but apparently little else).
Since no one has succeeded in showing me what I'm missing, we're left with the second option: I'm just incapable of understanding. I'm certainly willing to grant that it may be true, though I'm afraid I'll have to remain suspicious, for what seem good reasons. There are lots of things I don't understand -- say, the latest debates over whether neutrinos have mass or the way that Fermat's last theorem was (apparently) proven recently. But from 50 years in this game, I have learned two things: (1) I can ask friends who work in these areas to explain it to me at a level that I can understand, and they can do so, without particular difficulty; (2) if I'm interested, I can proceed to learn more so that I will come to understand it. Now Derrida, Lacan, Lyotard, Kristeva, etc. --- even Foucault, whom I knew and liked, and who was somewhat different from the rest --- write things that I also don't understand, but (1) and (2) don't hold: no one who says they do understand can explain it to me and I haven't a clue as to how to proceed to overcome my failures. That leaves one of two possibilities: (a) some new advance in intellectual life has been made, perhaps some sudden genetic mutation, which has created a form of "theory" that is beyond quantum theory, topology, etc., in depth and profundity; or (b) ... I won't spell it out.
Again, I've lived for 50 years in these worlds, have done a fair amount of work of my own in fields called "philosophy" and "science," as well as intellectual history, and have a fair amount of personal acquaintance with the intellectual culture in the sciences, humanities, social sciences, and the arts. That has left me with my own conclusions about intellectual life, which I won't spell out. But for others, I would simply suggest that you ask those who tell you about the wonders of "theory" and "philosophy" to justify their claims --- to do what people in physics, math, biology, linguistics, and other fields are happy to do when someone asks them, seriously, what are the principles of their theories, on what evidence are they based, what do they explain that wasn't already obvious, etc. These are fair requests for anyone to make. If they can't be met, then I'd suggest recourse to Hume's advice in similar circumstances: to the flames.
Specific comment. Phetland asked who I'm referring to when I speak of "Paris school" and "postmodernist cults": the above is a sample.
He then asks, reasonably, why I am "dismissive" of it. Take, say, Derrida. Let me begin by saying that I dislike making the kind of comments that follow without providing evidence, but I doubt that participants want a close analysis of de Saussure, say, in this forum, and I know that I'm not going to undertake it. I wouldn't say this if I hadn't been explicitly asked for my opinion --- and if asked to back it up, I'm going to respond that I don't think it merits the time to do so.
So take Derrida, one of the grand old men. I thought I ought to at least be able to understand his Grammatology, so tried to read it. I could make out some of it, for example, the critical analysis of classical texts that I knew very well and had written about years before. I found the scholarship appalling, based on pathetic misreading; and the argument, such as it was, failed to come close to the kinds of standards I've been familiar with since virtually childhood. Well, maybe I missed something: could be, but suspicions remain, as noted. Again, sorry to make unsupported comments, but I was asked, and therefore am answering.
Some of the people in these cults (which is what they look like to me) I've met: Foucault (we even have a several-hour discussion, which is in print, and spent quite a few hours in very pleasant conversation, on real issues, and using language that was perfectly comprehensible --- he speaking French, me English); Lacan (who I met several times and considered an amusing and perfectly self-conscious charlatan, though his earlier work, pre-cult, was sensible and I've discussed it in print); Kristeva (who I met only briefly during the period when she was a fervent Maoist); and others. Many of them I haven't met, because I am very remote from from these circles, by choice, preferring quite different and far broader ones --- the kinds where I give talks, have interviews, take part in activities, write dozens of long letters every week, etc. I've dipped into what they write out of curiosity, but not very far, for reasons already mentioned: what I find is extremely pretentious, but on examination, a lot of it is simply illiterate, based on extraordinary misreading of texts that I know well (sometimes, that I have written), argument that is appalling in its casual lack of elementary self-criticism, lots of statements that are trivial (though dressed up in complicated verbiage) or false; and a good deal of plain gibberish. When I proceed as I do in other areas where I do not understand, I run into the problems mentioned in connection with (1) and (2) above. So that's who I'm referring to, and why I don't proceed very far. I can list a lot more names if it's not obvious.
For those interested in a literary depiction that reflects pretty much the same perceptions (but from the inside), I'd suggest David Lodge. Pretty much on target, as far as I can judge.
Phetland also found it "particularly puzzling" that I am so "curtly dismissive" of these intellectual circles while I spend a lot of time "exposing the posturing and obfuscation of the New York Times." So "why not give these guys the same treatment." Fair question. There are also simple answers. What appears in the work I do address (NYT, journals of opinion, much of scholarship, etc.) is simply written in intelligible prose and has a great impact on the world, establishing the doctrinal framework within which thought and expression are supposed to be contained, and largely are, in successful doctrinal systems such as ours. That has a huge impact on what happens to suffering people throughout the world, the ones who concern me, as distinct from those who live in the world that Lodge depicts (accurately, I think). So this work should be dealt with seriously, at least if one cares about ordinary people and their problems. The work to which Phetland refers has none of these characteristics, as far as I'm aware. It certainly has none of the impact, since it is addressed only to other intellectuals in the same circles. Furthermore, there is no effort that I am aware of to make it intelligible to the great mass of the population (say, to the people I'm constantly speaking to, meeting with, and writing letters to, and have in mind when I write, and who seem to understand what I say without any particular difficulty, though they generally seem to have the same cognitive disability I do when facing the postmodern cults). And I'm also aware of no effort to show how it applies to anything in the world in the sense I mentioned earlier: grounding conclusions that weren't already obvious. Since I don't happen to be much interested in the ways that intellectuals inflate their reputations, gain privilege and prestige, and disengage themselves from actual participation in popular struggle, I don't spend any time on it.
Phetland suggests starting with Foucault --- who, as I've written repeatedly, is somewhat apart from the others, for two reasons: I find at least some of what he writes intelligible, though generally not very interesting; second, he was not personally disengaged and did not restrict himself to interactions with others within the same highly privileged elite circles. Phetland then does exactly what I requested: he gives some illustrations of why he thinks Foucault's work is important. That's exactly the right way to proceed, and I think it helps understand why I take such a "dismissive" attitude towards all of this --- in fact, pay no attention to it.
What Phetland describes, accurately I'm sure, seems to me unimportant, because everyone always knew it --- apart from details of social and intellectual history, and about these, I'd suggest caution: some of these are areas I happen to have worked on fairly extensively myself, and I know that Foucault's scholarship is just not trustworthy here, so I don't trust it, without independent investigation, in areas that I don't know --- this comes up a bit in the discussion from 1972 that is in print. I think there is much better scholarship on the 17th and 18th century, and I keep to that, and my own research. But let's put aside the other historical work, and turn to the "theoretical constructs" and the explanations: that there has been "a great change from harsh mechanisms of repression to more subtle mechanisms by which people come to do" what the powerful want, even enthusiastically. That's true enough, in fact, utter truism. If that's a "theory," then all the criticisms of me are wrong: I have a "theory" too, since I've been saying exactly that for years, and also giving the reasons and historical background, but without describing it as a theory (because it merits no such term), and without obfuscatory rhetoric (because it's so simple-minded), and without claiming that it is new (because it's a truism). It's been fully recognized for a long time that as the power to control and coerce has declined, it's more necessary to resort to what practitioners in the PR industry early in this century -- who understood all of this well -- called "controlling the public mind." The reasons, as observed by Hume in the 18th century, are that "the implicit submission with which men resign their own sentiments and passions to those of their rulers" relies ultimately on control of opinion and attitudes. Why these truisms should suddenly become "a theory" or "philosophy," others will have to explain; Hume would have laughed.
Some of Foucault's particular examples (say, about 18th century techniques of punishment) look interesting, and worth investigating as to their accuracy. But the "theory" is merely an extremely complex and inflated restatement of what many others have put very simply, and without any pretense that anything deep is involved. There's nothing in what Phetland describes that I haven't been writing about myself for 35 years, also giving plenty of documentation to show that it was always obvious, and indeed hardly departs from truism. What's interesting about these trivialities is not the principle, which is transparent, but the demonstration of how it works itself out in specific detail to cases that are important to people: like intervention and aggression, exploitation and terror, "free market" scams, and so on. That I don't find in Foucault, though I find plenty of it by people who seem to be able to write sentences I can understand and who aren't placed in the intellectual firmament as "theoreticians."
To make myself clear, Phetland is doing exactly the right thing: presenting what he sees as "important insights and theoretical constructs" that he finds in Foucault. My problem is that the "insights" seem to me familiar and there are no "theoretical constructs," except in that simple and familiar ideas have been dressed up in complicated and pretentious rhetoric. Phetland asks whether I think this is "wrong, useless, or posturing." No. The historical parts look interesting sometimes, though they have to be treated with caution and independent verification is even more worth undertaking than it usually is. The parts that restate what has long been obvious and put in much simpler terms are not "useless," but indeed useful, which is why I and others have always made the very same points. As to "posturing," a lot of it is that, in my opinion, though I don't particularly blame Foucault for it: it's such a deeply rooted part of the corrupt intellectual culture of Paris that he fell into it pretty naturally, though to his credit, he distanced himself from it. As for the "corruption" of this culture particularly since World War II, that's another topic, which I've discussed elsewhere and won't go into here. Frankly, I don't see why people in this forum should be much interested, just as I am not. There are more important things to do, in my opinion, than to inquire into the traits of elite intellectuals engaged in various careerist and other pursuits in their narrow and (to me, at least) pretty unininteresting circles. That's a broad brush, and I stress again that it is unfair to make such comments without proving them: but I've been asked, and have answered the only specific point that I find raised. When asked about my general opinion, I can only give it, or if something more specific is posed, address that. I'm not going to undertake an essay on topics that don't interest me.
Unless someone can answer the simple questions that immediately arise in the mind of any reasonable person when claims about "theory" and "philosophy" are raised, I'll keep to work that seems to me sensible and enlightening, and to people who are interested in understanding and changing the world.
Johnb made the point that "plain language is not enough when the frame of reference is not available to the listener"; correct and important. But the right reaction is not to resort to obscure and needlessly complex verbiage and posturing about non-existent "theories." Rather, it is to ask the listener to question the frame of reference that he/she is accepting, and to suggest alternatives that might be considered, all in plain language. I've never found that a problem when I speak to people lacking much or sometimes any formal education, though it's true that it tends to become harder as you move up the educational ladder, so that indoctrination is much deeper, and the self-selection for obedience that is a good part of elite education has taken its toll. Johnb says that outside of circles like this forum, "to the rest of the country, he's incomprehensible" ("he" being me). That's absolutely counter to my rather ample experience, with all sorts of audiences. Rather, my experience is what I just described. The incomprehensibility roughly corresponds to the educational level. Take, say, talk radio. I'm on a fair amount, and it's usually pretty easy to guess from accents, etc., what kind of audience it is. I've repeatedly found that when the audience is mostly poor and less educated, I can skip lots of the background and "frame of reference" issues because it's already obvious and taken for granted by everyone, and can proceed to matters that occupy all of us. With more educated audiences, that's much harder; it's necessary to disentangle lots of ideological constructions.
It's certainly true that lots of people can't read the books I write. That's not because the ideas or language are complicated --- we have no problems in informal discussion on exactly the same points, and even in the same words. The reasons are different, maybe partly the fault of my writing style, partly the result of the need (which I feel, at least) to present pretty heavy documentation, which makes it tough reading. For these reasons, a number of people have taken pretty much the same material, often the very same words, and put them in pamphlet form and the like. No one seems to have much problem --- though again, reviewers in the Times Literary Supplement or professional academic journals don't have a clue as to what it's about, quite commonly; sometimes it's pretty comical.
A final point, something I've written about elsewhere (e.g., in a discussion in Z papers, and the last chapter of Year 501). There has been a striking change in the behavior of the intellectual class in recent years. The left intellectuals who 60 years ago would have been teaching in working class schools, writing books like "mathematics for the millions" (which made mathematics intelligible to millions of people), participating in and speaking for popular organizations, etc., are now largely disengaged from such activities, and although quick to tell us that they are far more radical than thou, are not to be found, it seems, when there is such an obvious and growing need and even explicit request for the work they could do out there in the world of people with live problems and concerns. That's not a small problem. This country, right now, is in a very strange and ominous state. People are frightened, angry, disillusioned, skeptical, confused. That's an organizer's dream, as I once heard Mike say. It's also fertile ground for demagogues and fanatics, who can (and in fact already do) rally substantial popular support with messages that are not unfamiliar from their predecessors in somewhat similar circumstances. We know where it has led in the past; it could again. There's a huge gap that once was at least partially filled by left intellectuals willing to engage with the general public and their problems. It has ominous implications, in my opinion.
End of Reply, and (to be frank) of my personal interest in the matter, unless the obvious questions are answered.
It's clear that Chomsky doesn't understand Derrida and probably doesn't want to, that what Chomsky dismisses as Derrida's "misreading" is actually the deliberate "misreading" of deconstructive interpretation, i.e. reading against the grain of standard interpretations. (In this case, Chomsky's opening profession that he may not understand what's going on should be understood as something other than Socratic irony.) Many of Chomsky's other criticisms are both highly arguable and eminently understandable. His caveat about independently confirming Foucault's historical research may be the most valuable passage in the entire statement. The David Lodge book Chomsky twice refers to is surely Small World, Lodge's comic 'academic conference picaresque' novel set in the critical theory milieu ca.1979. It's a funny, smart, well-made novel, a superior follow-up to Lodge's Changing Places, the book that taught the world how to play 'Humiliation.' I recommend both.
Posted by BRIAN OARD at 11:28 PM
Monday, December 19, 2011
Shockley
Major Findings of Dr. Shockley
Dr. William Shockley is a professor at Stanford University in Calif. Basically the following constitute his views after many years of painstaking study and research.
1) Historically, blacks have an I.Q. 15 points lower than that of the average White. The difference is due to heredity and not environment.
2) Positive traits found in high I.Q. people include honesty, resistance to cheating and physical capacity. It takes such good traits to develop and maintain a good society.
3) Parents who have high I.Q.s have high I.Q. children and the opposite is true for those with low I.Q.s.
4) We live in a Dark Age dogmatism which blocks objective studies of the I.Q. differences which exist.
5) Low I.Q. blacks and Mexicans are outbreeding Whites. This element is the major cause of poverty, crime and unemployment and a host of other human miseries that impose heavy burdens on society. Today we are breeding problem makers instead of problem solvers . People with the low I.Q. of '80 make up a majority of the prison population of America. (Average White I.Q. is 105).
6) Low I.Q. blacks are bearing twice as many children as Whites and Aid to Dependent Children is doubling every 10 years. Thus it will be 1,000 times higher than it was 20 years ago in a century, creating a burden society cannot bear.
7) Negroes' intellectual and social deficits are hereditary and racially genetic. Thus, they are not remediable by improving their environment. Negroes are genetically enslaved to a life of frustration and may be the root cause of urban decay. It is possible that welfare mothers have babies to increase their income.
8) Negroes have a spouse killing spouse mortality rate 13 times higher than Whites. A young black male in Harlem is more than 100 times more likely to be a homicide victim than a White male in Denmark.
Dr. William Shockley is a professor at Stanford University in Calif. Basically the following constitute his views after many years of painstaking study and research.
1) Historically, blacks have an I.Q. 15 points lower than that of the average White. The difference is due to heredity and not environment.
2) Positive traits found in high I.Q. people include honesty, resistance to cheating and physical capacity. It takes such good traits to develop and maintain a good society.
3) Parents who have high I.Q.s have high I.Q. children and the opposite is true for those with low I.Q.s.
4) We live in a Dark Age dogmatism which blocks objective studies of the I.Q. differences which exist.
5) Low I.Q. blacks and Mexicans are outbreeding Whites. This element is the major cause of poverty, crime and unemployment and a host of other human miseries that impose heavy burdens on society. Today we are breeding problem makers instead of problem solvers . People with the low I.Q. of '80 make up a majority of the prison population of America. (Average White I.Q. is 105).
6) Low I.Q. blacks are bearing twice as many children as Whites and Aid to Dependent Children is doubling every 10 years. Thus it will be 1,000 times higher than it was 20 years ago in a century, creating a burden society cannot bear.
7) Negroes' intellectual and social deficits are hereditary and racially genetic. Thus, they are not remediable by improving their environment. Negroes are genetically enslaved to a life of frustration and may be the root cause of urban decay. It is possible that welfare mothers have babies to increase their income.
8) Negroes have a spouse killing spouse mortality rate 13 times higher than Whites. A young black male in Harlem is more than 100 times more likely to be a homicide victim than a White male in Denmark.
Thursday, December 15, 2011
Libertarianism
I’ve never understood the allure of libertarianism. You may want a big state, you may want a smaller state. The idea of virtually no state is just silly. Does Ron Paul think the state grew because a bunch of liberal busybodies woke up one day in 1795 and said to one another, “Gee, we’d better impose some taxes and regulations here. These people are too free!” He probably does. The fact, of course, is that the state grew because dishonest and immoral and cheap and corner-cutting shysters in the private sector did things that ripped people off, made them sick, killed them, rendered them unequal citizens, and someone had to step in. And my esteemed colleague Andrew Sullivan should bear in mind that while it’s nice that Paul supports everyone’s right to privacy in the bedroom, if someone gets beaten to a pulp on the street simply for being who he is, don’t go knocking on Paul’s door, as he’ll be nowhere to be found, hate-crimes laws being a threat to the freedom of the hater and all.
Sunday, December 11, 2011
Religion
And to imply that since we don’t have an imaginary friend we cannot possibly be inspired, love, or have any meaning to our lives just shows how much religious kool-aid you’ve had. As far as serving goes, I’ll take the contributions of one scientist over a church full of people with their eye’s shut, mumbling to themselves any day. Like Greg said, Prayer. It’s the least you could do. Literally.
Friday, December 9, 2011
Joyce
riverrun, past Eve and Adam's, from swerve of shore to bend 1
of bay, brings us by a commodius vicus of recirculation back to 2
Howth Castle and Environs. 3
Sir Tristram, violer d'amores, fr'over the short sea, had passen- 4
core rearrived from North Armorica on this side the scraggy 5
isthmus of Europe Minor to wielderfight his penisolate war: nor 6
had topsawyer's rocks by the stream Oconee exaggerated themselse 7
to Laurens County's gorgios while they went doublin their mumper 8
all the time: nor avoice from afire bellowsed mishe mishe to 9
tauftauf thuartpeatrick: not yet, though venissoon after, had a 10
kidscad buttended a bland old isaac: not yet, though all's fair in 11
vanessy, were sosie sesthers wroth with twone nathandjoe. Rot a 12
peck of pa's malt had Jhem or Shen brewed by arclight and rory 13
end to the regginbrow was to be seen ringsome on the aquaface. 14
The fall (bababadalgharaghtakamminarronnkonnbronntonner- 15
ronntuonnthunntrovarrhounawnskawntoohoohoordenenthur- 16
nuk!) of a once wallstrait oldparr is retaled early in bed and later 17
on life down through all christian minstrelsy. The great fall of the 18
offwall entailed at such short notice the pftjschute of Finnegan, 19
erse solid man, that the humptyhillhead of humself prumptly sends 20
an unquiring one well to the west in quest of his tumptytumtoes: 21
and their upturnpikepointandplace is at the knock out in the park 22
where oranges have been laid to rust upon the green since dev- 23
linsfirst loved livvy. 24
of bay, brings us by a commodius vicus of recirculation back to 2
Howth Castle and Environs. 3
Sir Tristram, violer d'amores, fr'over the short sea, had passen- 4
core rearrived from North Armorica on this side the scraggy 5
isthmus of Europe Minor to wielderfight his penisolate war: nor 6
had topsawyer's rocks by the stream Oconee exaggerated themselse 7
to Laurens County's gorgios while they went doublin their mumper 8
all the time: nor avoice from afire bellowsed mishe mishe to 9
tauftauf thuartpeatrick: not yet, though venissoon after, had a 10
kidscad buttended a bland old isaac: not yet, though all's fair in 11
vanessy, were sosie sesthers wroth with twone nathandjoe. Rot a 12
peck of pa's malt had Jhem or Shen brewed by arclight and rory 13
end to the regginbrow was to be seen ringsome on the aquaface. 14
The fall (bababadalgharaghtakamminarronnkonnbronntonner- 15
ronntuonnthunntrovarrhounawnskawntoohoohoordenenthur- 16
nuk!) of a once wallstrait oldparr is retaled early in bed and later 17
on life down through all christian minstrelsy. The great fall of the 18
offwall entailed at such short notice the pftjschute of Finnegan, 19
erse solid man, that the humptyhillhead of humself prumptly sends 20
an unquiring one well to the west in quest of his tumptytumtoes: 21
and their upturnpikepointandplace is at the knock out in the park 22
where oranges have been laid to rust upon the green since dev- 23
linsfirst loved livvy. 24
Thursday, December 8, 2011
Art
Any great work of art revives and readapts time and space, and the measure of its success is the extent to which it makes you an inhabitant of that world-the extent to which it invites you in and lets you breathe its strange, special air. -Leonard Bernstein
Obama on automation
Over the last few decades, huge advances in technology have allowed businesses to do more with less, and made it easier for them to set up shop and hire workers anywhere in the world….Steel mills that needed 1,000 employees are now able to do the same work with 100, so that layoffs were too often permanent, not just a temporary part of the business cycle….If you were a bank teller or a phone operator or a travel agent, you saw many in your profession replaced by ATMs or the Internet.
Legalistic garbage
This is awful. The answer is of course there is no difference between lying and misleading. It is the same word for ALL intentions. For ANY AND ALL use.
Rep. James Sensenbrenner asked Holder: “Tell me what's the difference between lying and misleading Congress, in this context?”
Holder's response is a bit Clintonian. NO, IT WAS HORRIBLE. HIS RESPONSE WAS HORRIBLE.
“Well, if you want to have this legal conversation, it all has to do with your state of mind and whether or not you had the requisite intent to come up with something that would be considered perjury or a lie,"
That is, it was not intended as a factual statement.
Holder said. "The information that was provided by the February 4th letter was gleaned by the people who drafted the letter after they interacted with people who they thought were in the best position to have the information.”
OK. THAT IS A WTF MOMENT. FIRE THAT CLOWN!
Rep. James Sensenbrenner asked Holder: “Tell me what's the difference between lying and misleading Congress, in this context?”
Holder's response is a bit Clintonian. NO, IT WAS HORRIBLE. HIS RESPONSE WAS HORRIBLE.
“Well, if you want to have this legal conversation, it all has to do with your state of mind and whether or not you had the requisite intent to come up with something that would be considered perjury or a lie,"
That is, it was not intended as a factual statement.
Holder said. "The information that was provided by the February 4th letter was gleaned by the people who drafted the letter after they interacted with people who they thought were in the best position to have the information.”
OK. THAT IS A WTF MOMENT. FIRE THAT CLOWN!
Wednesday, December 7, 2011
Cheeseburgers
Cheeseburgers weren't possible before the 20th century:
Tomatoes are in season in the late summer. Lettuce is in season in in the fall. Mammals are slaughtered in early winter. The process of making such a burger would take nearly a year, and would inherently involve omitting some core cheeseburger ingredients. It would be wildly expensive-requiring a trio of cows-and demand many acres of land. There's just no sense in it.
A cheeseburger cannot exist outside of a highly developed, post-agrarian society.
Tomatoes are in season in the late summer. Lettuce is in season in in the fall. Mammals are slaughtered in early winter. The process of making such a burger would take nearly a year, and would inherently involve omitting some core cheeseburger ingredients. It would be wildly expensive-requiring a trio of cows-and demand many acres of land. There's just no sense in it.
A cheeseburger cannot exist outside of a highly developed, post-agrarian society.
Pearl Harbor
On Dec. 8, 1941, Franklin Roosevelt took the rostrum before a joint session of Congress to ask for a declaration of war on Japan.
A day earlier, at dawn, carrier-based Japanese aircraft had launched a sneak attack devastating the U.S. battle fleet at Pearl Harbor.
Said ex-President Herbert Hoover, Republican statesman of the day, "We have only one job to do now, and that is to defeat Japan."
But to friends, "the Chief" sent another message: "You and I know that this continuous putting pins in rattlesnakes finally got this country bit."
Today, 70 years after Pearl Harbor, a remarkable secret history, written from 1943 to 1963, has come to light. It is Hoover's explanation of what happened before, during and after the world war that may prove yet the death knell of the West.
Edited by historian George Nash, "Freedom Betrayed: Herbert Hoover's History of the Second World War and Its Aftermath" is a searing indictment of FDR and the men around him as politicians who lied prodigiously about their desire to keep America out of war, even as they took one deliberate step after another to take us into war.
Yet the book is no polemic. The 50-page run-up to the war in the Pacific uses memoirs and documents from all sides to prove Hoover's indictment. And perhaps the best way to show the power of this book is the way Hoover does it – chronologically, painstakingly, week by week.
Consider Japan's situation in the summer of 1941. Bogged down in a four-year war in China she could neither win nor end, having moved into French Indochina, Japan saw herself as near the end of her tether.
Inside the government was a powerful faction led by Prime Minister Prince Fumimaro Konoye that desperately did not want a war with the United States.
The "pro-Anglo-Saxon" camp included the navy, whose officers had fought alongside the U.S. and Royal navies in World War I, while the war party was centered on the army, Gen. Hideki Tojo and Foreign Minister Yosuke Matsuoka, a bitter anti-American.
On July 18, 1941, Konoye ousted Matsuoka, replacing him with the "pro-Anglo-Saxon" Adm. Teijiro Toyoda.
The U.S. response: On July 25, we froze all Japanese assets in the United States, ending all exports and imports, and denying Japan the oil upon which the nation and empire depended.
Stunned, Konoye still pursued his peace policy by winning secret support from the navy and army to meet FDR on the U.S. side of the Pacific to hear and respond to U.S. demands.
U.S. Ambassador Joseph Grew implored Washington not to ignore Konoye's offer, that the prince had convinced him an agreement could be reached on Japanese withdrawal from Indochina and South and Central China. Out of fear of Mao's armies and Stalin's Russia, Tokyo wanted to hold a buffer in North China.
On Aug. 28, Japan's ambassador in Washington presented FDR a personal letter from Konoye imploring him to meet.
Tokyo begged us to keep Konoye's offer secret, as the revelation of a Japanese prime minister's offering to cross the Pacific to talk to an American president could imperil his government.
On Sept. 3, the Konoye letter was leaked to the Herald-Tribune.
On Sept. 6, Konoye met again at a three-hour dinner with Grew to tell him Japan now agreed with the four principles the Americans were demanding as the basis for peace. No response.
On Sept. 29, Grew sent what Hoover describes as a "prayer" to the president not to let this chance for peace pass by.
On Sept. 30, Grew wrote Washington, "Konoye's warship is ready waiting to take him to Honolulu, Alaska or anyplace designated by the president."
No response. On Oct. 16, Konoye's cabinet fell.
In November, the U.S. intercepted two new offers from Tokyo: a Plan A for an end to the China war and occupation of Indochina and, if that were rejected, a Plan B, a modus vivendi where neither side would make any new move. When presented, these, too, were rejected out of hand.
At a Nov. 25 meeting of FDR's war council, Secretary of War Henry Stimson's notes speak of the prevailing consensus: "The question was how we should maneuver them (the Japanese) into ... firing the first shot without allowing too much danger to ourselves."
"We can wipe the Japanese off the map in three months," wrote Navy Secretary Frank Knox.
As Grew had predicted, Japan, a "hara-kiri nation," proved more likely to fling herself into national suicide for honor than to allow herself to be humiliated.
Out of the war that arose from the refusal to meet Prince Konoye came scores of thousands of U.S. dead, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, the fall of China to Mao Zedong, U.S. wars in Korea and Vietnam, and the rise of a new arrogant China that shows little respect for the great superpower of yesterday.
If you would know the history that made our world, spend a week with Mr. Hoover's book.
A day earlier, at dawn, carrier-based Japanese aircraft had launched a sneak attack devastating the U.S. battle fleet at Pearl Harbor.
Said ex-President Herbert Hoover, Republican statesman of the day, "We have only one job to do now, and that is to defeat Japan."
But to friends, "the Chief" sent another message: "You and I know that this continuous putting pins in rattlesnakes finally got this country bit."
Today, 70 years after Pearl Harbor, a remarkable secret history, written from 1943 to 1963, has come to light. It is Hoover's explanation of what happened before, during and after the world war that may prove yet the death knell of the West.
Edited by historian George Nash, "Freedom Betrayed: Herbert Hoover's History of the Second World War and Its Aftermath" is a searing indictment of FDR and the men around him as politicians who lied prodigiously about their desire to keep America out of war, even as they took one deliberate step after another to take us into war.
Yet the book is no polemic. The 50-page run-up to the war in the Pacific uses memoirs and documents from all sides to prove Hoover's indictment. And perhaps the best way to show the power of this book is the way Hoover does it – chronologically, painstakingly, week by week.
Consider Japan's situation in the summer of 1941. Bogged down in a four-year war in China she could neither win nor end, having moved into French Indochina, Japan saw herself as near the end of her tether.
Inside the government was a powerful faction led by Prime Minister Prince Fumimaro Konoye that desperately did not want a war with the United States.
The "pro-Anglo-Saxon" camp included the navy, whose officers had fought alongside the U.S. and Royal navies in World War I, while the war party was centered on the army, Gen. Hideki Tojo and Foreign Minister Yosuke Matsuoka, a bitter anti-American.
On July 18, 1941, Konoye ousted Matsuoka, replacing him with the "pro-Anglo-Saxon" Adm. Teijiro Toyoda.
The U.S. response: On July 25, we froze all Japanese assets in the United States, ending all exports and imports, and denying Japan the oil upon which the nation and empire depended.
Stunned, Konoye still pursued his peace policy by winning secret support from the navy and army to meet FDR on the U.S. side of the Pacific to hear and respond to U.S. demands.
U.S. Ambassador Joseph Grew implored Washington not to ignore Konoye's offer, that the prince had convinced him an agreement could be reached on Japanese withdrawal from Indochina and South and Central China. Out of fear of Mao's armies and Stalin's Russia, Tokyo wanted to hold a buffer in North China.
On Aug. 28, Japan's ambassador in Washington presented FDR a personal letter from Konoye imploring him to meet.
Tokyo begged us to keep Konoye's offer secret, as the revelation of a Japanese prime minister's offering to cross the Pacific to talk to an American president could imperil his government.
On Sept. 3, the Konoye letter was leaked to the Herald-Tribune.
On Sept. 6, Konoye met again at a three-hour dinner with Grew to tell him Japan now agreed with the four principles the Americans were demanding as the basis for peace. No response.
On Sept. 29, Grew sent what Hoover describes as a "prayer" to the president not to let this chance for peace pass by.
On Sept. 30, Grew wrote Washington, "Konoye's warship is ready waiting to take him to Honolulu, Alaska or anyplace designated by the president."
No response. On Oct. 16, Konoye's cabinet fell.
In November, the U.S. intercepted two new offers from Tokyo: a Plan A for an end to the China war and occupation of Indochina and, if that were rejected, a Plan B, a modus vivendi where neither side would make any new move. When presented, these, too, were rejected out of hand.
At a Nov. 25 meeting of FDR's war council, Secretary of War Henry Stimson's notes speak of the prevailing consensus: "The question was how we should maneuver them (the Japanese) into ... firing the first shot without allowing too much danger to ourselves."
"We can wipe the Japanese off the map in three months," wrote Navy Secretary Frank Knox.
As Grew had predicted, Japan, a "hara-kiri nation," proved more likely to fling herself into national suicide for honor than to allow herself to be humiliated.
Out of the war that arose from the refusal to meet Prince Konoye came scores of thousands of U.S. dead, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, the fall of China to Mao Zedong, U.S. wars in Korea and Vietnam, and the rise of a new arrogant China that shows little respect for the great superpower of yesterday.
If you would know the history that made our world, spend a week with Mr. Hoover's book.
Sunday, December 4, 2011
Jackson, Samuel L
Royale With Cheese (Dialogue) Lyrics
Send “Royale With Cheese (Dialogue)” Ringtone to Your Cell
[JULES]
Okay so, tell me again about the hash bars.
[VINCENT]
Okey what do you want to know?
[JULES]
Well, hash is legal over there, right?
[VINCENT]
Yeah,It's legal but it ain't hundred percent legal, I mean, you just can't walk into a restaurant,
roll a joint and start puffin' away. They want you to smoke in your home or certain designated places.
[JULES]
And those are the hash bars?
[VINCENT]
Yeah, It breaks down like this, ok, it's legal to buy it, it's legal to own it,
And if you're the proprietor of a hash bar, it's legal to sell it.
It's legal to carry it, but...but that dosen't matter, 'cause, get a load of this; all right,
If you get stopped by a cop in Amsterdam, it's illegal for them to search you.
I mean that's a right the cops in Amsterdam don't have.
[JULES]
Oh, man, I'm goin', that's all there is to it. I'm fuckin' goin'.
[VINCENT]
I know, baby, you'd dig it the most.. But you know what the funniest thing about Europe is?
[JULES]
What?
[VINCENT]
It's the little differences. A lotta the same shit we got here,
they got there, but there they're a little different.
[JULES]
Example ?
[VNCENT]
Alright, when you .... into a movie theatre in Amsterdam, you can buy beer.
And I don't mean in a paper cup either. They give you a glass of beer
And in Paris, you can buy beer at MacDonald's.
And you know what they call a Quarter Pounder with Cheese in Paris?
[JULES]
They don't call it a Quarter Pounder with Cheese?
[VINCENT]
No, they got the metric system there, they wouldn't know what the fuck a Quarter Pounder is.
[JULES]
What'd they call it?
[VINCENT]
They call it Royale with Cheese.
[JULES]
Royale with Cheese. What'd they call a Big Mac?
[VINCENT]
Big Mac's a Big Mac, but they call it Le Big Mac.
[JULES]
Le big Mac ! Ahhaha, what do they call a Whopper?
[VINCENT]
I dunno, I didn't go into a Burger King.
But you know what they put on french fries in Holland instead of ketchup?
[JULES]
What?
[VINCENT]
Mayonnaise.
[JULES]
Goddamn!
[VINCENT]
I seen 'em do it man, they fuckin' drown 'em in it.
[JULES]
Uuccch!
Send “Royale With Cheese (Dialogue)” Ringtone to Your Cell
Back to Pulp Fiction soundtrack lyrics page
Related for Movie:
Buy Movie Sheet Music
Buy Soundtrack CD
Buy Movie DVD Links:
Broadway Musicals
Guitar Tabs, Popular Lyrics, Country Lyrics
DMCA Policy
1
Royale With Cheese (Dialogue) Lyrics
Send “Royale With Cheese (Dialogue)” Ringtone to Your Cell
[JULES]
Okay so, tell me again about the hash bars.
[VINCENT]
Okey what do you want to know?
[JULES]
Well, hash is legal over there, right?
[VINCENT]
Yeah,It's legal but it ain't hundred percent legal, I mean, you just can't walk into a restaurant,
roll a joint and start puffin' away. They want you to smoke in your home or certain designated places.
[JULES]
And those are the hash bars?
[VINCENT]
Yeah, It breaks down like this, ok, it's legal to buy it, it's legal to own it,
And if you're the proprietor of a hash bar, it's legal to sell it.
It's legal to carry it, but...but that dosen't matter, 'cause, get a load of this; all right,
If you get stopped by a cop in Amsterdam, it's illegal for them to search you.
I mean that's a right the cops in Amsterdam don't have.
[JULES]
Oh, man, I'm goin', that's all there is to it. I'm fuckin' goin'.
[VINCENT]
I know, baby, you'd dig it the most.. But you know what the funniest thing about Europe is?
[JULES]
What?
[VINCENT]
It's the little differences. A lotta the same shit we got here,
they got there, but there they're a little different.
[JULES]
Example ?
[VNCENT]
Alright, when you .... into a movie theatre in Amsterdam, you can buy beer.
And I don't mean in a paper cup either. They give you a glass of beer
And in Paris, you can buy beer at MacDonald's.
And you know what they call a Quarter Pounder with Cheese in Paris?
[JULES]
They don't call it a Quarter Pounder with Cheese?
[VINCENT]
No, they got the metric system there, they wouldn't know what the fuck a Quarter Pounder is.
[JULES]
What'd they call it?
[VINCENT]
They call it Royale with Cheese.
[JULES]
Royale with Cheese. What'd they call a Big Mac?
[VINCENT]
Big Mac's a Big Mac, but they call it Le Big Mac.
[JULES]
Le big Mac ! Ahhaha, what do they call a Whopper?
[VINCENT]
I dunno, I didn't go into a Burger King.
But you know what they put on french fries in Holland instead of ketchup?
[JULES]
What?
[VINCENT]
Mayonnaise.
[JULES]
Goddamn!
[VINCENT]
I seen 'em do it man, they fuckin' drown 'em in it.
[JULES]
Uuccch!
Send “Royale With Cheese (Dialogue)” Ringtone to Your Cell
Back to Pulp Fiction soundtrack lyrics page
Related for Movie:
Buy Movie Sheet Music
Buy Soundtrack CD
Buy Movie DVD Links:
Broadway Musicals
Guitar Tabs, Popular Lyrics, Country Lyrics
DMCA Policy
1
Tuesday, November 29, 2011
Josef Mengele's Manifesto
Alexander Autographs explains that the notebook is a ‘political and personal manifesto, a stream-of-consciousness ramble offering an incredible view into the mind of an obviously unrepentant and quite insane murderer still on the run fifteen years after escaping his crimes in collapsing Nazi Germany’. Interspersed with his lengthy diatribes on eugenics, political theory and the superiority of the German race, the auction company adds, are routine references to his childhood, the local flora and fauna in the area, and other more mundane subjects.
The Mengele document was put up for sale at an auction on 20-21 January, but, apparently, failed to meet its reserves. Soon after, however, the company confirmed that it had secured a private sale to an anonomous buyer - an ‘East Coast Jewish philanthropist’ whose grandmother had once met Mengele. Many of these news reports - though not all - refer to Mengele’s notebook as a ‘diary’: Nazi doctor Josef Mengele’s diary up for sale (The Daily Telegraph); Grandson of Auschwitz survivor buys Mengele's diary (Haaretz); ‘Angel of Death’ Diary Shows No Regrets (Der Spiegel); Family of Auschwitz Survivor Buys Mengele Diary (US News).
However, it is clear that the Mengele notebook is not a diary at all but, as the auctioneers say, more of a manifesto. Here are some extracts as translated and made available by Alexander Autographs.
‘I arrived in this house exactly a year ago. However, this anniversary gave me no reason to celebrate. . . I was solely responsible for my decisions. I hope that people close to me show some patience, and I hope they don’t endanger things.’
‘Beauty is a primary force of selection.’
‘There’s no ‘good’ or ‘bad’ in nature. There’s only ‘appropriate’ or ‘inappropriate’ . . . The ‘inappropriate’ elements are kept from reproducing.’
‘What is ‘good’ is built out of many different fundamentals, which are all elements of the immortal soul. Maybe these values aren’t limited to our ‘human existence.’ Think about loyalty! It’s a result of breeding, as for example in dogs, man’s oldest companion. But you cannot breed qualities that weren’t there all along!!’
‘The youth movement honored the traditions of our ancestors while remembering our primary cultural values. We had to remember our inner strength, and this was of utmost importance after World War I and the shameful peace that followed. This burden was designed to keep our people in a constant condition of decay. We had to find the deepest sources of German strength to make our restoration possible. We could not expect other people to help us, and we couldn’t rely on religion. . . What has the Catholic Church done to amend or get rid of the absurd Treaty of Versailles? They had a chance to influence the synods of the Protestant Churches, which make up two thirds of the German people. The new strength had to come from the Germans themselves, and this is exactly where it came from. The youth movement laid the spiritual foundation for the national uprising that was to follow World War I. Later on, the youth movement became part of the great political organization, the Hitlerjugend. . . We had to liberate Germanic history from Roman and Catholic influences. . . We were ready for another attempt to change the empire’s shameful history. In the end, this heroic way of life prevailed, and ten years later all of Germany embraced it.’
‘British rule in India wasn’t that bad. . . The casts are gone, and everything turns into a gooey mass. This new society can be ruled easily through Bolshevik doctrine and ideology. . . Brahmans are built nicely; some of them even have blue eyes. . . And this is because Brahmans used the highest cast to preserve their noble blood. They are the descendants of Nordic peoples who once conquered and ruled India . . . They have managed to protect their racial traits through thousands of years . . . This cannot be achieved by mixing the highest with the lowest class. It can only be done by selecting the best. I don’t think I’ll have to explain how incredibly difficult this will be . . . Books and education can foster existing qualities, but they cannot produce them.’
‘We will need an army of chemists, physics, biologists, doctors, mathematicians, engineers and administrators to master this giant energy problem that is coming.’
‘However, there’s no school on this planet that will turn a moron or some other simpleton into a gifted human being. You can promote natural tendencies that are already genetically present, but nobody can create intelligence or higher abilities.’
‘If we don’t want the physically or mentally disabled left to their natural fate, and if we want them to be a burden on society, we should at least be ethical enough to make sure that their inferior genes aren’t passed on . . . The real problem is to define when human life is worth living and when it has to be eradicated. The age of technology has created new conditions. (Idiots can get jobs in factories, and they can now make a living raising a family by moving sheet metal strips around and punching buttons.) They want a higher birthrate and to promote families with many children. They actually make sure that an idiot with many kids gets a continuous pay raise. . . The feeble minded person (‘village idiot’) was separated from farmers because of his social status and low income. This separation is no longer the case in the age of technology. He is now on the same level with the farmer’s son who went into the city.’
‘We have to prevent the rise of the idiot masses. This goal isn’t new at all, and some countries started implementing political measures to reach this goal. They were stopped for political and ideological reasons; even though they showed promising results.’
‘The law to prevent genetically deficient offspring has to be reinstated. However, the law will lose its edge if marriages with only one genetically sufficient partner are legal.’
‘Abandon feminist ideology; biology doesn’t support equal rights . . . Women shouldn’t be working in higher positions. Women’s work has to depend on fulfilling a biological quota.’
‘Birth control can be done by sterilizing those with deficient genes. Those with good genes will be sterilized when the number of 5 children has been reached.’
The Mengele document was put up for sale at an auction on 20-21 January, but, apparently, failed to meet its reserves. Soon after, however, the company confirmed that it had secured a private sale to an anonomous buyer - an ‘East Coast Jewish philanthropist’ whose grandmother had once met Mengele. Many of these news reports - though not all - refer to Mengele’s notebook as a ‘diary’: Nazi doctor Josef Mengele’s diary up for sale (The Daily Telegraph); Grandson of Auschwitz survivor buys Mengele's diary (Haaretz); ‘Angel of Death’ Diary Shows No Regrets (Der Spiegel); Family of Auschwitz Survivor Buys Mengele Diary (US News).
However, it is clear that the Mengele notebook is not a diary at all but, as the auctioneers say, more of a manifesto. Here are some extracts as translated and made available by Alexander Autographs.
‘I arrived in this house exactly a year ago. However, this anniversary gave me no reason to celebrate. . . I was solely responsible for my decisions. I hope that people close to me show some patience, and I hope they don’t endanger things.’
‘Beauty is a primary force of selection.’
‘There’s no ‘good’ or ‘bad’ in nature. There’s only ‘appropriate’ or ‘inappropriate’ . . . The ‘inappropriate’ elements are kept from reproducing.’
‘What is ‘good’ is built out of many different fundamentals, which are all elements of the immortal soul. Maybe these values aren’t limited to our ‘human existence.’ Think about loyalty! It’s a result of breeding, as for example in dogs, man’s oldest companion. But you cannot breed qualities that weren’t there all along!!’
‘The youth movement honored the traditions of our ancestors while remembering our primary cultural values. We had to remember our inner strength, and this was of utmost importance after World War I and the shameful peace that followed. This burden was designed to keep our people in a constant condition of decay. We had to find the deepest sources of German strength to make our restoration possible. We could not expect other people to help us, and we couldn’t rely on religion. . . What has the Catholic Church done to amend or get rid of the absurd Treaty of Versailles? They had a chance to influence the synods of the Protestant Churches, which make up two thirds of the German people. The new strength had to come from the Germans themselves, and this is exactly where it came from. The youth movement laid the spiritual foundation for the national uprising that was to follow World War I. Later on, the youth movement became part of the great political organization, the Hitlerjugend. . . We had to liberate Germanic history from Roman and Catholic influences. . . We were ready for another attempt to change the empire’s shameful history. In the end, this heroic way of life prevailed, and ten years later all of Germany embraced it.’
‘British rule in India wasn’t that bad. . . The casts are gone, and everything turns into a gooey mass. This new society can be ruled easily through Bolshevik doctrine and ideology. . . Brahmans are built nicely; some of them even have blue eyes. . . And this is because Brahmans used the highest cast to preserve their noble blood. They are the descendants of Nordic peoples who once conquered and ruled India . . . They have managed to protect their racial traits through thousands of years . . . This cannot be achieved by mixing the highest with the lowest class. It can only be done by selecting the best. I don’t think I’ll have to explain how incredibly difficult this will be . . . Books and education can foster existing qualities, but they cannot produce them.’
‘We will need an army of chemists, physics, biologists, doctors, mathematicians, engineers and administrators to master this giant energy problem that is coming.’
‘However, there’s no school on this planet that will turn a moron or some other simpleton into a gifted human being. You can promote natural tendencies that are already genetically present, but nobody can create intelligence or higher abilities.’
‘If we don’t want the physically or mentally disabled left to their natural fate, and if we want them to be a burden on society, we should at least be ethical enough to make sure that their inferior genes aren’t passed on . . . The real problem is to define when human life is worth living and when it has to be eradicated. The age of technology has created new conditions. (Idiots can get jobs in factories, and they can now make a living raising a family by moving sheet metal strips around and punching buttons.) They want a higher birthrate and to promote families with many children. They actually make sure that an idiot with many kids gets a continuous pay raise. . . The feeble minded person (‘village idiot’) was separated from farmers because of his social status and low income. This separation is no longer the case in the age of technology. He is now on the same level with the farmer’s son who went into the city.’
‘We have to prevent the rise of the idiot masses. This goal isn’t new at all, and some countries started implementing political measures to reach this goal. They were stopped for political and ideological reasons; even though they showed promising results.’
‘The law to prevent genetically deficient offspring has to be reinstated. However, the law will lose its edge if marriages with only one genetically sufficient partner are legal.’
‘Abandon feminist ideology; biology doesn’t support equal rights . . . Women shouldn’t be working in higher positions. Women’s work has to depend on fulfilling a biological quota.’
‘Birth control can be done by sterilizing those with deficient genes. Those with good genes will be sterilized when the number of 5 children has been reached.’
Clinging to religion
"And it's not surprising then that they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations," Obama said.
The Silent Generation
For the album, see The Silent Generation (album).
Silent Generation is a label for the generation born from 1925–1945 notably during the Great Depression (1929–1939) and World War II (1939–1945).[1] While the label was originally applied to people in North America, it has also been applied to those in Western Europe and Australasia. It includes most of those who fought during the Korean War.
Contents [hide]
1 Etymology
2 Demographic justification
3 Silent or not?
4 Famous members
5 See also
6 References
7 External links
[edit]Etymology
The label "Silent Generation" was first coined in the November 5, 1951 cover story of Time to refer to the generation coming of age at the time, born during the Great Depression and World War II, including the bulk of those who fought during the Korean War. The article, (which defined the generation at the time as born from 1925 to 1945), found its characteristics as grave and fatalistic, conventional, possessing confused morals, expecting disappointment but desiring faith, and for women, desiring both a career and a family.[1] The article stated:
Youth today is waiting for the hand of fate to fall on its shoulders, meanwhile working fairly hard and saying almost nothing. The most startling fact about the younger generation is its silence. With some rare exceptions, youth is nowhere near the rostrum. By comparison with the Flaming Youth of their fathers & mothers, today's younger generation is a still, small flame. It does not issue manifestos, make speeches or carry posters. It has been called the "Silent Generation."
The phrase gained further currency after William Manchester's comment that the members of this generation were "withdrawn, cautious, unimaginative, indifferent, unadventurous and silent." The name was used by Strauss and Howe in their book Generationsas their designation for that generation in the United States of America born from 1925 to 1941.[2] The generation is also known as the Postwar Generation and the Seekers, when it is not neglected altogether and placed by marketers in the same category as the G.I. or "Greatest" Generation.
In England, they were named the "Air Raid Generation" as children growing up amidst the crossfire of World War II.
[edit]Demographic justification
It must be noted that the lowest birth years from 1929-1945 in the US were 1944 and 1945.[citation needed]. And as a result of World War II, the US birth rate in 1945 was almost as low as 1944's[citation needed]. However, for some reason, children born from 1942 to 1945 seem to have been excluded by many demographers[who?] from this Silent Generation. These children did not grow up during the Great Depression, and neither are they part of the Baby Boom Generation.
The Silent Generation was smaller than the WWI generation before them and the Baby Boom Generation afterwards due to the lower birthrate of the 1930s and '40s. As a result, members of the Silent Generation were uniquely poised to take advantage of economic opportunities, thanks to the reduced competition. Many of them went on to harness the scientific and technological advances of the Second World War, developing innovative inventions which laid the groundwork for even more technological progress in the late 20th century. The Silent Generation had a tendency to be better educated than the WWI generation because of not having their schooling interrupted by the Depression and the war.
Silent Generation members are generally the offspring of The Lost Generation (sometimes WWI generation) and the parents of boomers and Generation Xers. Many of them currently have grandchildren that are Generation Y and Generation Z. They are said to be born on the cusp of the Greatest Generation and the Baby Boom Generation, at times possessing characteristics of both while at other times, evading grouping into either camp. The earlier Silent Generations tended to identify more with the WWII generation and the later ones with the boomers.
[edit]Silent or not?
In Generations, William Strauss and Neil Howe define this generation as an Artist/Adaptive generation. An Artist (or Adaptive) generation is born during a Crisis, spends its rising adult years in a new High, spends midlife in an Awakening, and spends old age in an Unraveling. Artistic leaders have been advocates of fairness and the politics of inclusion, irrepressible in the wake of failure.
In a broad view, their labeling as an "Artistic" generations seems apt and the term "silent" might even be applied ironically. Most counterculture figures were Silent Generation, including rock singers and individuals such as Ken Kesey, George Carlin, Allen Ginsberg, and Abbie Hoffman. If the last birth year of the Silent Generation was 1942, it would contain bands such as the Beatles as well as rock stars such as Bob Dylan, Frank Zappa, and Jimi Hendrix. Elvis Presley was also of this generation, as were some of the most famous movie stars of all time such as Marlon Brando, Marilyn Monroe, Clint Eastwood and James Dean. This generation contributed greatly to African American music, like soul music and rhythm & blues, producing singers like Ray Charles, Little Richard,James Brown, Marvin Gaye, guitarist B.B. King, producer Quincy Jones, and Tina Turner. Keeping to the "Artist's" advocacy of fairness and the politics of inclusion, many leaders in the civil rights movement came from the Silent Generation, along with a wide assortment of artists and writers who fundamentally changed the arts in the United States. The Beat Poets, for example, were members of the Silent Generation, as were Martin Luther King, Jr and Gloria Steinem. In France, members of this generation became leading intellectuals and philosophers in the wake of the May 1968 protests, including Gilles Deleuze, Michel Foucault, Jacques Derrida and Alain Badiou, contributing to the phenomena known as "French theory" in US academia in the 1980s and 1990s.
The continued use of “Silent Generation” as a label has been justified by the lack of influential political leaders born into this generation. For example, using the Strauss and Howe definition, no US President has come from the Silent Generation; the few from the generation who ran for President include: Walter Mondale, Ron Paul, John McCain, Michael Dukakis, Ralph Nader, Jack Kempand Rev Jesse Jackson. Some other notable Silent Generation political figures include Newt Gingrich and Nancy Pelosi.
[edit]Famous members
Mick Jagger
Keith Richards
Charlie Watts
John Lennon
Paul McCartney
George Harrison
Ringo Starr
James Brown
Bob Dylan
Peter, Paul & Mary
George Carlin
Patrick J. Buchanan
Michael Savage
Ray Charles
Chuck Berry
Noam Chomsky
Richard Dawkins
James Dean
Michael Dukakis
Clint Eastwood
Marvin Gaye
Hugh Hefner
Jimi Hendrix
Jesse Jackson
Quincy Jones
Robert F. Kennedy
B.B. King
Freddie King
Martin Luther King, Jr.
Marilyn Monroe
Joe Paterno
Ron Paul
Elvis Presley
Little Richard
Gloria Steinem
Tina Turner
Frank Zappa
Harrison Ford
Newt Gingrich
Smothers Brothers
Brian Wilson
Neil Armstrong
Buzz Aldrin
Pete Conrad
Alan Bean
Edgar Mitchell
David Scott
James Irwin
John W. Young
Charles Duke
Eugene Cernan
Harrison Schmitt
Frank Borman
Jim Lovell
William Anders
Tom Stafford
Michael Collins
Dick Gordon
Jack Swigert
Fred Haise
Stuart Roosa
Al Worden
Ken Mattingly
Ronald Evans
John McCain
Grace Kelly
Audrey Hepburn
Chevy Chase
John Hunter
Bart Starr
Wilt Chamberlain
Bill Russell
Mike Ditka
Dick Cheney
Barbara Walters
Joy Behar
Joan Van Ark
Jacqueline Kennedy
John Keegan
Rick Rescorla
[edit]See also
List of generations
[edit]References
^ a b The Younger Generation, Time Magazine, 1951
^ The silent generation
[edit]External links
TIME Magazine, The Younger Generation, 1951
TIME Magazine, The Silent Generation Revisited, 1970
[hide]v · d · eCultural Generations of Western Society
Lost Generation • Greatest Generation • Silent Generation • Baby Boom Generation • Generation X • Generation Y • Generation Z
Silent Generation is a label for the generation born from 1925–1945 notably during the Great Depression (1929–1939) and World War II (1939–1945).[1] While the label was originally applied to people in North America, it has also been applied to those in Western Europe and Australasia. It includes most of those who fought during the Korean War.
Contents [hide]
1 Etymology
2 Demographic justification
3 Silent or not?
4 Famous members
5 See also
6 References
7 External links
[edit]Etymology
The label "Silent Generation" was first coined in the November 5, 1951 cover story of Time to refer to the generation coming of age at the time, born during the Great Depression and World War II, including the bulk of those who fought during the Korean War. The article, (which defined the generation at the time as born from 1925 to 1945), found its characteristics as grave and fatalistic, conventional, possessing confused morals, expecting disappointment but desiring faith, and for women, desiring both a career and a family.[1] The article stated:
Youth today is waiting for the hand of fate to fall on its shoulders, meanwhile working fairly hard and saying almost nothing. The most startling fact about the younger generation is its silence. With some rare exceptions, youth is nowhere near the rostrum. By comparison with the Flaming Youth of their fathers & mothers, today's younger generation is a still, small flame. It does not issue manifestos, make speeches or carry posters. It has been called the "Silent Generation."
The phrase gained further currency after William Manchester's comment that the members of this generation were "withdrawn, cautious, unimaginative, indifferent, unadventurous and silent." The name was used by Strauss and Howe in their book Generationsas their designation for that generation in the United States of America born from 1925 to 1941.[2] The generation is also known as the Postwar Generation and the Seekers, when it is not neglected altogether and placed by marketers in the same category as the G.I. or "Greatest" Generation.
In England, they were named the "Air Raid Generation" as children growing up amidst the crossfire of World War II.
[edit]Demographic justification
It must be noted that the lowest birth years from 1929-1945 in the US were 1944 and 1945.[citation needed]. And as a result of World War II, the US birth rate in 1945 was almost as low as 1944's[citation needed]. However, for some reason, children born from 1942 to 1945 seem to have been excluded by many demographers[who?] from this Silent Generation. These children did not grow up during the Great Depression, and neither are they part of the Baby Boom Generation.
The Silent Generation was smaller than the WWI generation before them and the Baby Boom Generation afterwards due to the lower birthrate of the 1930s and '40s. As a result, members of the Silent Generation were uniquely poised to take advantage of economic opportunities, thanks to the reduced competition. Many of them went on to harness the scientific and technological advances of the Second World War, developing innovative inventions which laid the groundwork for even more technological progress in the late 20th century. The Silent Generation had a tendency to be better educated than the WWI generation because of not having their schooling interrupted by the Depression and the war.
Silent Generation members are generally the offspring of The Lost Generation (sometimes WWI generation) and the parents of boomers and Generation Xers. Many of them currently have grandchildren that are Generation Y and Generation Z. They are said to be born on the cusp of the Greatest Generation and the Baby Boom Generation, at times possessing characteristics of both while at other times, evading grouping into either camp. The earlier Silent Generations tended to identify more with the WWII generation and the later ones with the boomers.
[edit]Silent or not?
In Generations, William Strauss and Neil Howe define this generation as an Artist/Adaptive generation. An Artist (or Adaptive) generation is born during a Crisis, spends its rising adult years in a new High, spends midlife in an Awakening, and spends old age in an Unraveling. Artistic leaders have been advocates of fairness and the politics of inclusion, irrepressible in the wake of failure.
In a broad view, their labeling as an "Artistic" generations seems apt and the term "silent" might even be applied ironically. Most counterculture figures were Silent Generation, including rock singers and individuals such as Ken Kesey, George Carlin, Allen Ginsberg, and Abbie Hoffman. If the last birth year of the Silent Generation was 1942, it would contain bands such as the Beatles as well as rock stars such as Bob Dylan, Frank Zappa, and Jimi Hendrix. Elvis Presley was also of this generation, as were some of the most famous movie stars of all time such as Marlon Brando, Marilyn Monroe, Clint Eastwood and James Dean. This generation contributed greatly to African American music, like soul music and rhythm & blues, producing singers like Ray Charles, Little Richard,James Brown, Marvin Gaye, guitarist B.B. King, producer Quincy Jones, and Tina Turner. Keeping to the "Artist's" advocacy of fairness and the politics of inclusion, many leaders in the civil rights movement came from the Silent Generation, along with a wide assortment of artists and writers who fundamentally changed the arts in the United States. The Beat Poets, for example, were members of the Silent Generation, as were Martin Luther King, Jr and Gloria Steinem. In France, members of this generation became leading intellectuals and philosophers in the wake of the May 1968 protests, including Gilles Deleuze, Michel Foucault, Jacques Derrida and Alain Badiou, contributing to the phenomena known as "French theory" in US academia in the 1980s and 1990s.
The continued use of “Silent Generation” as a label has been justified by the lack of influential political leaders born into this generation. For example, using the Strauss and Howe definition, no US President has come from the Silent Generation; the few from the generation who ran for President include: Walter Mondale, Ron Paul, John McCain, Michael Dukakis, Ralph Nader, Jack Kempand Rev Jesse Jackson. Some other notable Silent Generation political figures include Newt Gingrich and Nancy Pelosi.
[edit]Famous members
Mick Jagger
Keith Richards
Charlie Watts
John Lennon
Paul McCartney
George Harrison
Ringo Starr
James Brown
Bob Dylan
Peter, Paul & Mary
George Carlin
Patrick J. Buchanan
Michael Savage
Ray Charles
Chuck Berry
Noam Chomsky
Richard Dawkins
James Dean
Michael Dukakis
Clint Eastwood
Marvin Gaye
Hugh Hefner
Jimi Hendrix
Jesse Jackson
Quincy Jones
Robert F. Kennedy
B.B. King
Freddie King
Martin Luther King, Jr.
Marilyn Monroe
Joe Paterno
Ron Paul
Elvis Presley
Little Richard
Gloria Steinem
Tina Turner
Frank Zappa
Harrison Ford
Newt Gingrich
Smothers Brothers
Brian Wilson
Neil Armstrong
Buzz Aldrin
Pete Conrad
Alan Bean
Edgar Mitchell
David Scott
James Irwin
John W. Young
Charles Duke
Eugene Cernan
Harrison Schmitt
Frank Borman
Jim Lovell
William Anders
Tom Stafford
Michael Collins
Dick Gordon
Jack Swigert
Fred Haise
Stuart Roosa
Al Worden
Ken Mattingly
Ronald Evans
John McCain
Grace Kelly
Audrey Hepburn
Chevy Chase
John Hunter
Bart Starr
Wilt Chamberlain
Bill Russell
Mike Ditka
Dick Cheney
Barbara Walters
Joy Behar
Joan Van Ark
Jacqueline Kennedy
John Keegan
Rick Rescorla
[edit]See also
List of generations
[edit]References
^ a b The Younger Generation, Time Magazine, 1951
^ The silent generation
[edit]External links
TIME Magazine, The Younger Generation, 1951
TIME Magazine, The Silent Generation Revisited, 1970
[hide]v · d · eCultural Generations of Western Society
Lost Generation • Greatest Generation • Silent Generation • Baby Boom Generation • Generation X • Generation Y • Generation Z
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)