The U.S. war against the truth

Thanks to Douglas Smyth for forwarding this story by Naomi Klein in the Guardian: You asked for my evidence, Mr Ambassador. Here it is "In Iraq, the US does eliminate those who dare to count the dead."

Cortázar: El libro de Manuel

Cortázar, Julio. Libro de Manuel. Barcelona: Bruguera, 1981.

Cortázar escribió esta novela, la más abiertamente política de toda su obra, en Paris y Saignon (Provence), 1969/1972, incorporando noticias de los diarios franceses y sudamericanos en las experiencias de los personajes. Se trata de un grupo de jóvenes argentinos, apoyados por algunos sudamericanos (un panameño, un chileno, uno o dos brasileños) y un par de franceses, que forman la Joda, para luchar contra las dictaduras militares sudamericanas y la dictadura de la burguesía francesa de diversas maneras atrevidas y hasta absurdas (pegando gritos en los cines, por ejemplo). Su máxima empresa es mucho más seria: secuestrar al coordinador europeo de los servicios de inteligencia sudamericanos, para canjearlo por la libertad de presos políticos en Argentina, Brasil y otros lugares. Para realizar el secuestro, necesitan hacerse pasar por zoólogos para importar a París un pingüino turquesa de Malvinas y unos peludos reales, con el verdadero motivo de hacer llegar escondidos en los contéiners US$25 mil en billetes falsos (fabricados por un viejo amigo en Córdoba). Mientras preparan esta complicada hazaña, los padres del bebé Manuel, Patricio y Susana, recopilan recortes de los diarios – principalmente sobre horribles abusos cometidos por fascistas sudamericanos, mezclados con otros artículos que dan testimonio de las absurdas pretensiones de la clase media – en un libro para que Manuel, cuando sea grande, se entere de la época en que lucharon sus padres.

Otros personajes memorables son Marcos, el capo que planea la operación y tiene todos los contactos con cómplices franceses y de otros países; el que te dije, que parece ser el autor y que observa irónicamente su propia incapacidad de aportar mucho en esta aventura; Lonstein, “el rabinito”, que se mantiene al margen de la Joda pero a quien Marcos et al. confían sus planes y Susana su bebé (Manuel) mientras salen a enfrentar lo que podría ser su muerte; Ludmilla, una actriz polaca (le gusta leer a Ceslaw Milosz) que, como todos los demás personajes, habla una perfecta jerga argentina; Andrés Fava, argentino que no puede decidirse entre Ludmilla y su otra amante, la librera francesa Francine. Andrés tampoco logra decidirse, hasta el último momento, entre quedarse en casa con sus discos favoritos o incorporarse en la peligrosísima operación de la Joda.

El libro salió en 1973, año en que Susana lo compró y lo leyó, dejándomelo como recuerdo misterioso cuando, después de nuestro breve e impactante encuentro en La Habana, ella y yo tomamos vuelos para distintas partes en enero de 1974. Porque me lo había dado ella, tenía que leerlo, inmediatamente. Pero ¿qué puedo haber comprendido de tan extraño artefacto? Ni siquiera sabía descifrar las frases del rabinito y los demás. El pingüino, quizá. Perdí esa copia hace décadas, cuando perdí a Susana durante 3 años tristes. Recuperé a Susana, y más recientemente, en Montevideo, pude comprar otro ejemplar del Libro de Manuel. Ahora sí entiendo suficiente del hablar argentino, y de otras cosas.

Para leer fragmentos, vea Libro de Manuel.

Readings

Herein a log of some of my efforts to understand how writing works and how to make it work: Fiction Readings. I call this section "fiction," but in fact I have begun to doubt that there is any such thing as "nonfiction." There are works of the free play of fancy, where the author asks "What if," and there are others of thought, where the author tries to say, "This is." Any thought-out piece of writing is structured, and thereby "fiction" in the original sense of that word, and every writing combines what the author believes to be true and -- well, other things. Currently, I offer here only my notes on the works of fancy. See also a sisterly site, readliterature.com, for notes on more fiction & poetry. �

The struggle continues -- forever

Mark Engler just sent a link to his article Seattle at Five, about how little what he calls "the US globalization movement" has advanced since the protests in Seattle five years ago. He sounds a bit dispirited. I'm older, and have been through this before and long ago accepted -- emotionally as well as intellectually -- that ours is a very long struggle. It is possibly even a perpetual struggle, because every time we think we've won some space for greater justice and freedom (the 13 colonies in 1776, France in 1789 and Paris in 1871, the October Revolution, the Mexican and Cuban revolutions, etc.), the same old enemies reappear, sometimes within our very ranks. I think this is what Marx had in mind when he defined life as "struggle."

As a college student, I was deeply impressed by reading Eduard Bernstein, Evolutionary Socialism (originally published under the snappy title, Die Voraussetzungen des Sozialismus und die Aufgaben der Sozialdemokratie, 1899). I think I need to read it again. What I remember most clearly is his motto, "The end is nothing; the struggle is everything." There is no promised land, but that doesn't mean we give up trying to fulfill that promise. If you're curious and don't know the work, here's the reference: Evolutionary Socialism.

Against compassion

My National Writers Union colleague Dian Killian asked me to review this book that she co-authored: Connor, Jane Marantz, and Dian Killian. Connecting Across Differences: An Introduction to Compassionate, Nonviolent Communication. New York: Hungry Duck Press, 2004. It’s a sort of mutual self-help book, with exercises designed to help you get people you work with to be more open-minded toward one another, which sounds innocent enough.

Sorry, but I can’t do it. I thought I could, but as I read the first chapter with all its emphasis on promoting compassion, I realized that I disagree violently. “Compassion” is just what we don’t need to encourage at this point.

“Compassion” is passion on behalf of somebody else, vicarious passion. It was what Bill Clinton was expressing when he would say “I feel your pain.” The problem is that nobody can feel anybody else’s pain the way that other person feels it.

George W. Bush is a compassionate conservative; that’s why he ordered troops to invade Iraq, because of his compassion for people he imagined as longing to be ruled by the U.S. instead of Sadam. The people who try and sometimes succeed to murder abortion doctors are compassionate, saving the unborn whom they imagine as longing for good Christian lives. The 9 guys who hijacked the planes and rammed them into the Twin Towers were compassionate, delivering their correligionaries from the oppression of the Great Satan, and delivering the people in the towers from their lives of sin. There is entirely too much free-floating compassion going around.

Any kind of passion is powerful and therefore dangerous. Vicarious passion is the most dangerous of all, because it makes people intervene in other people’s lives in ways that can do much more harm than good. We can’t live very interesting lives without it, but to promote “compassion” as a value in itself is a very bad idea. What we need is more rationality, to hold the passion in check or to channel it to useful purposes. If you want a literary example of how destructive compassion can be, even in the context of a good cause, check out Bertolt Brecht, especially his short didactic play Die Maßnahme – “The Measures Taken.”

Recommended viewing

Here are some war photos from Fallujah that were too gory to be published. It's best to face the horrid facts, so we know what we're committing our troops to, and what sorts of things they are forced to do, or (what's much scarier) may even come to do willingly. Fallujah in Pictures.

For commentary on these photos, see Mark Morford's column in SFGate, Very, Very Dirty Pictures: You want explicit? You want raw and uncensored and free of media bias? Here you go.

Embarrassed Germans

Did you see today's paper? Charges of Mistreatment of German Draftees Are Investigated , by Richard Bernstein in the NYT. "Particularly embarrassing to the German Army, which was carefully designed to be a sort of model of a civilized and democratic armed force, are comparisons being made between the reported abuses in Germany and the Abu Ghraib scandal in Iraq." You know our "moral values" are in trouble when the *Germans* are embarrassed that their military abuses will be compared to those of the U.S. at Abu Ghraib.

Of course, Germany is not what it was 60 years ago. Unfortunately, neither is the United States. We seem to have reversed roles.

Also, this appeared on Reuters a day or so ago:

BERLIN (Reuters) - Lawyers acting for a U.S. advocacy group will today file war crimes charges in Germany against senior U.S. administration officials for their alleged role in torture at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.

"German law in this area is leading the world," Peter Weiss, Vice President of the New York-based Centre for
Constitutional Rights (CCR), a human rights group, was quoted as saying in Frankfurter Rundschau newspaper's Tuesday edition.

According to the group, German law allows war criminals to be investigated wherever they may be living.

Those to be named in the case to be filed at Germany's Federal Prosecutors Office include Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld, former Central Intelligence Agency chief George Tenet and eight other officials.

The group is due to present details of its case at several news conferences on Tuesday, according to invitations faxed to media organisations.

Rumsfeld's twisted history of El Salvador

Mark Engler has done fine work unraveling the extremely twisted history of repression, massacre and terrorism against democratic initiatives in El Salvador in the 1980s -- in Rumsfeld's (and Cheney's) version, the terrorists (Reagan-backed death squads) were the heroes! For some refreshing clarity, read Mark's latest essay in New York Newsday, El Salvador no model for the future of Iraq.

Manufacturing spontaneity

Were you too wondering how the youth protest movement in Ukraine suddenly got so organized? The U.S. State Department et al. have learned some tricks about mobilizing the masses. Check out the story by Ian Traynor in The Guardian, US campaign behind the turmoil in Kiev. If only the Pentagon and friends had been so clever about handling regime change in Iraq! There are lessons for us here in the U.S., too, for mobilizing for regime change.

But the Pentagon doesn't do things the State Dept. way; naked force seems to be the only thing they understand, and it's why they keep losing. According to a front page story in the NYT today, Shadow of Vietnam Falls Over Iraq River Raids by John F. Burns, even our Marines patrolling the Euphrates (think of the Mekong) "privately admit to fears that this war could be lost."

Boosting ratings

My cheap ploy of Nov. 25 ("The naked blogger," below) worked! To my great surprise, that day I got 620 hits, as against my daily average (so far in November) of 297. But it's not something I'm willing to repeat; it gets chilly in November. I really should be infusing this blog with content. Right now, my writing time and energy is otherwise occupied right up to Xmas (book & article deadlines). I am going to make a renewed effort to post at least one substantial essay (say, 700 words, like an op-ed) per week after New Year's when we'll be in Spain. Meanwhile, it'll just be little stuff like you see this week. If you find that too boring, I hope you'll come back and look after 3 King's Day (Jan. 6).