alabama

will you go as far as jérôme & say that there could be a landslide for kerry?

look at the vote prediction site each day but with my absence of talent for chiffres i'm a little lost - well, more lost than normal

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Oct 24, 2004 11:15:33 AM | 101

deanander

it's not only in your country that it is getting weird

in afghanistan - you have a mockery of an election that is being presented as if it is a model of democracy - hiding the fact that it iss an organisation of forces that created the taliban in the first place

if there is an election in iraq - what kind of elections will they be - already the things sd by this administration make it lool like it will mirror the worst of the fake elections of latin america organised from your state department

the english - with their bible thumping prime minister - who is as about as far from reality as you can get without being hospitalised against your will - pretending to be a churchill - who himself was not very compfortable with reality - & so drank morning & night & hid out in dark rooms when the dark times came

it is endless this circus - even berlusconi going one step further this week to tutn italy into a franchise & even in my own country some very strang thing happening in polynesia

jérôme - a post the other day - yes i included solidarnosc - & yes it was a flourish - not seriouslly compared to the other tyrannies - but i have always been concerned with their very active antisemitism which ios a histroical continuum in polish thinking

& speaking of anti semitism - i had a question for clonedposter - truth out like common dreams is a very good filter of information but truthseeker.uk seems to me to be a very dodgy site - who are they? - while there is some good articles they are shared with a quite vulgar form of antisemitism. is that my misreading? & while i am not a paragon of calm myself at this moment - they do seem a little hysteric

still(notquite/quiet)steel

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Oct 24, 2004 11:32:42 AM | 102

remembereringgiap, I don't understand numbers at all, but the received wisdom (as reviewed in the article cited above) insists on two things: no president wins with approval ratings below 50% (a persisting problem for Bush), and this president has no meaningful leads over Kerry in the swing states (a meaningful lead being a spread of 5%--large enough to beat the margin of error). Given the resources poured into the swing states--esp. Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania--any incumbent would have to worry if he hasn't put the expected distance between himself and his challenger. The Republicans may be worried, also, about the inhibiting presence of lawyers observing the voting sites--not a problem in 2000.

Posted by: alabama | Oct 24, 2004 11:55:15 AM | 103

Oh, and as for Jerome's "landslide for Kerry": last New Year's Eve, in a moment of ecstasy, I bet $500 that Dean would win in November by 70 electoral votes. I got it wrong about Dean....

Posted by: alabama | Oct 24, 2004 11:59:44 AM | 104

alabama

the numbers a little clearer

i'll read that - despite yr new yrs flourish - as a guarded prediction of a kerry victory

still steel

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Oct 24, 2004 12:13:08 PM | 105

i've been meditating over this question of 'action' for a litte moment in response to alabama

& i thought what is it fundamentally that seperates moral men from immoral ones

& i thought of two men who perhaps have been the moral beaconse of the last century & who shed light on our own

one of course is nelson mandela - the only statesman worthy pf that name - the others are less than nothing & sometimes a great deal less than nothing

the other is muhammad ali - this great, great man - who showed the world & especially the oppressed the meaning of love, of grace & of power carved with human hands

i saw ali once & he rest a human of the profoundest beauty

but what did these men do more than others - & what they did was - give - they gave everything & they never sought affirmation or reward - they both sought justice

who can ever forget his moral refusal to participate in an immoral war - when he sd "no vietcong ever called me nigger" & how he was demonised, pilloried by the politically powerful & their media

no these men gave - while those most immoral of men - the bush/cheney junta like the south african racist leaders - took & took & took until there was nothing else to take

& i know fundamentally that bush & his ilk have no conception, moral or philosophic of giving. the notion is completely foreign to them. they take & they take

on the other hand, resistance by its very nature is a giving, a sacrifice, a form of renouncement - an action that in its nature même is transendental - is understood only in its traces

yes, 'giving' is an action & taking is its negation

still steel

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Oct 24, 2004 3:24:14 PM | 106

Which brings us to "forgiving"--Mandela being the paragon of forgiveness. Webster calls it "giving up" or "giving over" one's claim to retribution, however valid this claim may be in a given scheme of equity. In a spirit of creative justice, forgiving propels the forgiver beyond the traffic of settling scores. But this can only be possible if we see the promise of a life unfolding beyond the settling of scores. And it requires that we not forget! For how can we forgive if we forget what we've given over? Forgetting just reinstalls us in the cycle of paybacks, sooner or later. I admire Mandela for his memories, remembereringgiap, as when he takes one or another visitor, in a spirit of good humor, on a tour of his jail cell.

Posted by: alabama | Oct 24, 2004 4:00:56 PM | 107

alabama

i get lost a little with your reasoning

while i can understand the moral necessity of '(for)giving)' i do not understand its concrete reality because who am i to forgive in the sense that you mean it, can a people 'forgive' as the vietnamese have seemed to do in some important ways, no they certainly do not forget & sometimes sometimes their refusal to forget is not for'giveness' - no it is more than that - it is something i have seen in many indegenous cultures - what the australian aborigines call 'a shame job' - they make themselves a mirror for the other to see how shameful they are & hopefully direct those people to other meaningful reflections

but this culture of yours, american culture has not only a limited capacity to forgive - if such a capacity exist at all - but it certainly has the capacity to forget & forget in a way that is shameful, dishonest & finally corrupt

& i mean this in every sense - literary culture for example - in your culture hides, marginalises that whichh it cannot abide - as in dresier, or a dos passos or it marginalises it by forms of sanitisation something peculiar to a puritan culture

the popular culture of america is based entirely on a culture of for(getting) to denude all that is mysterious, beautiful & alchemic as deanander has pointed out here & at 'le speakeasy' - this culture has within its nature to destroy with noise, with repittion, with agressive rhythme, with cataclysmic sideshows to hide the terrible truths that lie at the heart of your culture

if benjamins words that behind every artifact of culture lies an acto barbarism" - then america is its synthesised reality. this christian, puritan culture regards giving & for(giving) as an (un)(for)giveable weakness - a weakness that needs to be extinguished

& there is a hint in what you say & perhaps i am misreading - is an instance of premptive forgiveness in the case of the bush/cheney junta - no before a forgiveness can begin - they must be defeated, they must be brought before tribunals - for what they have done & they must admit to their crimes - as some of the perpertrators white & black have done in the truth & reconciliation commission - but do you really believ that is even within the realms of any sort of possibility

your legislative & judicial apparatus is so degraded it would have to judge itself first before judging this administration - but if such a justice was possible - perhaps then forgiveness could take place - but who are we - you & i - to demand forgiveness - from societies & communities that have been all but destroyed by this administration & by the policies of previous administrations

i think if your country had listened to the world just before the world with the historic demonstrations all over the world - then countries & culture could try to forgive - though it would have been difficult with this brutal & corrupt administration

your own culture is so divided - as in no other time except the civil war - i think it will find it difficult this act of fogiving even if kerry wins - if he does not - there are only two scenarios - that of a complete moral collapse of your culture or of a divided society which will 'act' to change the division, the inequalities & the injustices

i did not mention muhammed ali lightly - i think he was the first cultural figure that gave lie to your culture - that exposed it in all its venality & this resonated with people all over the world. like mandela he became a symbolic figure of the utmost importance. in one man the dignity of the oppressed had found a name. a name & a person who is adored & admired universally. not least for his capacity for truth

what i'm saying alabama is neither you or i is in a position of being able to do the (for)(giving) as elie wiesel correctly states - that he as a man has no right to give pardon for what happened to european jewry

so i will return to the first 'action' of a human being especially in western culture is to give & not to take, to divest & not to accumulate, & in opposition to libertarian nonsense about the 'individual' - for a person to find their central meaning amongst the people in all their multiplicity & difference

still steel

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Oct 24, 2004 5:41:25 PM | 108

Josh Marshall

Some 350 tons of high explosives (RDX and HDX), which were under IAEA seal while Saddam was in power, were looted during the early days of the US occupation. Like so much else, it was just left unguarded.

Posted by: b | Oct 24, 2004 6:07:00 PM | 109

I just noticed that Americans Coming Together which is fielding 25,000 volunteers to get out the vote on election day in the US has a need for volunteers to make calls from home - you can sign up at Party for America and they will email you a list of 30-50 Kerry voters in selected states (right now they have names in Oregon and Florida) to call and encourage to actually vote - they give you a script and all the info you need and you can do this from your own home on your own time schedule.

With voter suppression and fraud looking like the keys to BushCo strategies for election day, the more folks we can turn out the better - and this is a pretty painless to help out.

Posted by: Siun | Oct 24, 2004 8:13:38 PM | 110

Yes, remembereringgiap, I leaped a little too lightly forward in the survey of topics here. I only meant to suggest that "giving," "the gift," and "forgiving" are topics interinvolved--different, but indissociable, as our languages tell us (Fr. "le don," "le pardon"). I'll try to proceed a little more patiently in posts to come.

As for the acts of giving and forgiving--speech acts of the greatest power--these are given to us by the languages we speak. Whether we know how to enact them well (forcefully and pertinently) is quite another question; Mohammed Ali is a powerful example for us all.

Posted by: alabama | Oct 24, 2004 8:53:03 PM | 111

http://www.commondreams.org>CommonDreams today headlines Gumbel's article in the Independent/UK on the US electoral tragicomedy. Gumbel anticipates a legal, you should excuse my vulgarity, shitslinging war post-election. The only thing I can see to prevent this would be a Kerry landslide, and that (pace Jerome), I find unlikely (although, I must admit, to my surprise my hometown newspaper -- Republican to the bone, crassly pro-corporate, notoriously lacking in the copyediting department -- just endorsed Kerry!).

Anyway Gumbel is worth reading.

As to the culture of forgetting, R'giap and 'bama -- I think when we look at the US and Oz there are some good reasons why these are cultures of forgetting. People who came here had a lot to forget. For many of them -- refugees from poverty, transshipped criminals, religious dissidents, desperately ambitious souls frustrated by the rigidity and lack of opportunity back home, slaves -- their transfer to the "new world" was literally that, travelling to a new planet. The colonies had a "forward looking" aesthetic and ethos -- forward to the frontier, forward to the future -- which disdained everything "old" or "backward." While Americans might occasionally envy, in a sentimental way, the age and "lovely architecture" of old European cities, they were far more proud of their own "built yesterday" creations. A favourite meme of the "booster" culture used to be (and still is to some extent), "See that city there, boy? Just ten (twenty, thirty) years ago that was all just farms (swamp, prairie, desert) and look at it now!" In other words an inordinate pride in rapid transformation, and (pay attention here 'cos I think I'm onto something) the accompanying destruction of the old and of natural resources.

That same relish in destruction and failure to look backwards -- a reckless, looters', freebooters' stance in life -- is found in the feverish egotism of the neocons, and in the more extreme dogmatists of neolib capitalism. "Creative destruction" is their mantra... and this for me arouses echoes of similar attitudes from the Stalinist literature, the "manly" and "resolute" attitude of "can't make an omelette without breaking eggs" and "history will justify us," or in other words the old bromide that the (glorious) end justifies the (criminal) means.

Well anyway, I think there's more to the forgetfulness of American culture than just shame or guilt over the treatment of indigenes or slaves... there are other powerful memes encouraging amnesia... and to me the most ironic thing about all this is (reverting to previous comments) all this Futurism is so hopelessly C19, is itself quaint and historical.

Posted by: DeAnander | Oct 24, 2004 11:38:45 PM | 112

Thank you all for the vivid displays of eloquence.

Nota bene: discourse such as the above is what creates reality; neocon-ism merely tinkers with stealing and reaffixing labels.

Compare the term "reality based" to "very unique" - it either is or ain't...

Posted by: fiumana bella | Oct 25, 2004 1:37:55 AM | 113

@DeAnander - good post. Gumbel's art. was a sobering reminder of how Radical Right's determination to steal the election will accelerate the crumbling of US reputation internationally.

Another aspect of the culture of forgetting is that US born of rebellion of the sons against the fathers. I've been waiting for an American historian, prob. an intellectual historian, to write of the roots of Miltie Frieman's economics which form the basis for the misnamed "neo-liberal capitalism". Only sons obsessed w/overthrowing the influence of the fathers could call such a dysfunctional destructiv system "free" anything. Such a background also accounts for US worship of science & technology. To take the obvious example of genetically mutilated foods. The French have been farming for millenia & have a much deeper appreciation of the traditions of their ancestors. We have no ancestors & traditions to look back to, to carry on w/pride, so we compensate w/"knowing a better way".

Posted by: jj | Oct 25, 2004 2:02:07 AM | 114

I wonder, could we reframe in at least historical terms, this (important) notion of forgiving and/or as opposed to forgetting. It would seem to me that in the pop American culture that the slippery edge between forgiving and forgetting may lie in the banana of pop American religion where that banana of sin and forgiveness is understood as sin to be forgotten, particularly if that sin can be construed by some construct of success -- which is the the veiled version of "might makes right" -- and at the same time, is the tacit admission of the predetermined right of the assasin to carry out his work with immunity. As I type this, on the TV is preacher (and former herion addict) Casey Treat is saying "when I am weak, that's when I am strong because that's when the Lord Jesus comes in with the supernatural POWER (his favorite word) -- and so, I take this to to mean that the POWER lies in the self willed ability to ignore the tragedy of ones action, to forget, in the assumed light of forgiveness. And so the banana of individual indifference becomes the banana of the republic.

Posted by: anna missed | Oct 25, 2004 4:09:01 AM | 115

alabama & others

though the guts of what i want to say is in the post - with my current illness - i feel i am sometimes - having a race between fatigue & my ability to concentrate

to that end, i have taken a pause from work here for a few weeks to concentrate those energies because the workshops i direct sometimes suffer from this same conflict between concentration & fatigue

so in a sense - it is to demand pardon from alabama - not for the argument - which i feel to be basically 'correct' - but for the ellipsis & certain absences & losses of concentration in their telling

it is a paradox because this is a community of individuals - crossing so many topics - in this particular time for me - i hope it is also true for jérôme - the act of writing to you at once gives me strength & helps me towards a concentration i could call my own

still steel

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Oct 25, 2004 6:51:32 AM | 116

"the good news is that germaine greer has written a book demanding that australia needs to be reconstituted as an aboriginal republic"
Great! Where do I sign? (not to mention for the rest of the settler areas, NZ, American, S Africa) How I live to see the day where Repubs will have the choice between staying in America and be ritually sacrificed by pissed off natives, or shipped back to "socialist Europe".

Posted by: CluelessJoe | Oct 25, 2004 11:03:07 AM | 117

If I can expand on what DeAnander is pointing out in In other words an inordinate pride in rapid transformation, and (pay attention here 'cos I think I'm onto something) the accompanying destruction of the old and of natural resources.

Here are three relevant definitions to the issue of forgetting that I pulled from Derrick Jensen, the first two probably synthesized from Lewis Mumford:
Production -- the conversion of the living to the dead
Technology -- that which separates us from nature; that which leverages power
Rationalization -- the deliberate elimination of information unnecessary to achieving an immediate task

Russell Means pointed out that the problem is essentially the European idea of Rationalisation : rationality is a curse since it can cause humans to forget the natural order of things in ways other creatures do not. A wolf never forgets his or her place in the natural order. American Indians can. Europeans almost always do.

And there is the account of Sweet Medicine's prophesy to his Northern Cheyenne community that they would meet the white people, who would come w/ long hair on their faces. The white people would give them new things, like sugar, in return for things they want. They will try and teach the Cheyenne their way of living. The new way of life will take over and when this happens, you will become crazy and will forget all that I am teaching you now.

Posted by: b real | Oct 25, 2004 11:46:13 AM | 118

In my martial arts training, we practice for techniques that will cause disabling pain, but not disabling injuries. The reason is that we mean to convince people that not only did they lose, but that they have just wronged someone who respects them nonetheless. The idea is to take mercy on someone just when he is sure that he is in your power - at the moment when that person already realizes that he has asked for the injury coming to him.

It is not really human to be grateful to someone who will forget. But people do seem to discover gratitude when they can finally perceive that mercy is being offered to them not out of weakness, but strength. But first you have to get to the position to offer mercy.

What are our strengths?

Posted by: Citizen | Oct 25, 2004 3:03:26 PM | 119

Forgiving, or forgiveness, is possible only when the agressive or injuring party accepts it is forgiven, when it takes the pardon that is offered by the victim(s) to its heart. Once the pardon is acknowledged and admitted as a valid move, worthy of respect, guilt or fault of some kind is admitted and is at the same time washed away. Reparation can then take place, it becomes possible to move on. (Reparation need not involve money, concessions, apologies, etc.)

Forgetting is then no longer an issue. One can remember, or forget, or dance between the two.

A very simple thing, often forgotten.

On a dark desert highway, Cool wind in my hair ..Some dance to remember, some dance to forget...

(Eagles, Hotel California, just popped into my head...)

Posted by: Blackie | Oct 25, 2004 3:09:06 PM | 120

Blackie: even more, first you have to make sure that the injuring party actually feels it has injured, wronged someone, and that there is something to be forgiven, that there is something requiring reconciliation. Otherwise, the injured party forgiving the injury will only empower the bully to go further, and he will feign reconciliation, playing the others for fools. Basically, it's my opinion that it was partly the case in S Africa and it was basically a way of making sure the Blacks wouldn't harass the criminal Whites by asking for huge and well-deserved financial reparations; and it really pisses me off when it comes to a case like Rwanda, where people are expected to forgive when there has been a genocide and one group was nearly obliterated.
Frankly, all this is nice talk and feel-good-stuff, but do you think Hitler should simply have been forgiven for WWII, for the Holocaust, and that was it, case settled? Should there never be any measure of punishment as long as there is forgiving and reconciliation?
As far as I'm concerned, I'm rather a "never forget, never forgive" type, and my memory goes back a very very long time ago.

Posted by: Hans Schmidt | Oct 25, 2004 3:26:28 PM | 121

I agree with Blackie on how forgiveness works from the perspective of the offender. However, forgetting cannot really be an option for this forgiveness to do its work. If offenders forget what they have done, then the forgiveness loses meaning.

Remembering by the offenders works best when it becomes understanding that motivates them to relate to people differently. The resulting new ties and commitments can keep memories alive well enough. Imagine if the United States had committed in 1973 to repairing all the bombing damage in Vietnam, treating all Agent orange victimes, and helping to bury all the dead. The commitment publically would have been enough to ensure that the practical details could be worked out later.

Michio Takeyama, a veteran, meditated on this from a Japanese postwar perspective in Harp Of Burma

What should we be asking for people to do when we make real our chance to forgive them?

Posted by: Citizen | Oct 25, 2004 3:41:03 PM | 122

I should add...

that I take seriously r'giap's warning about who has a right to forgive. Not having been misused there as a soldier nor attacked as an Iraqi, I have no such right on the Iraq war. But if I accept responsibility, then I will also have to say and do my part to making a path toward reconciliation. Some of that, I expect, will involve creating a way of domestic remembering and forgiving.

Posted by: Citizen | Oct 25, 2004 3:53:52 PM | 123

Hans:

Yes, the injured party has to feel injured, treated in an unjust, unlawful, way. ~I skipped that part, took it for granted.

Injury is often feigned, or hyped up, as well. Victimhood can bring much attention, financial reward, justification..amongst others, for illegitimate ripostes.

Bullies often are in the position to demand pardon, and blithely do so, counting on washing their slate clean, at least publicly. SEE? they say. If the injured give in and comply, they are doing nothing but bowing down their heads and submitting once more. Claro. That is clear.

I agree that S Africans were victims of such a process, but perhaps not entirely... I am far off though, I wasn’t there, it is hard for me to judge.

No, I certainly don’t think Hitler should have been forgiven for WW2, the Holocaust, etc. My position here is both that of an indignant (late!) bystander and that of a third generation victim. It is mixed. Overall, I don’t personally judge that I have the right, at this late date, to demand reparation; and my pardon would be meaningless, I would not offer it even if I felt like it, which I don’t. I mention myself, because all this is about individual people and their emotions.

My post was not about feel-good stuff. It was, as RGiap would say, business. The business of pardon.

And pardon cannot be combined with revenge or punishment or even agressive demands for reparation.

It takes two to pardon, that is all. It is a simple point, and does not pre-judge when, where, or how, pardon can (or should) be offered or not, what reparation can be made, or not - that is up to the victims and their tormentors.

I'm all for it though, if it is at all possible, and would prefer to dissociate 'forgive' from 'forget.'

Posted by: Blackie | Oct 25, 2004 4:11:15 PM | 124

Citizen wrote: Remembering by the offenders works best when it becomes understanding that motivates them to relate to people differently.

I agree.

Better without the intermediary of religious belief, in my opinion, see for example:

... The Khmer Rouge's mountain stronghold, the town of Pailin in south west Cambodia, has four churches, all with pastors and growing congregations. At least 2,000 of those who followed Pol Pot, the guerrillas' former leader who died six years ago, now worship Jesus. (...) According to one pastor, 70% of the converts in Pailin are Khmer Rouge. For many, it offers a hope of salvation. "When I was a soldier I did bad things. I don't know how many we killed. We were following orders and thought it was the right thing to do," said Thao Tanh (52). "I read the Bible and I know it will free me from the weight of the sins I have committed." ...

http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?cg=BreakingNews-InternationalNews&ao=124280>Mail and Guardian

Posted by: Blackie | Oct 25, 2004 4:26:07 PM | 125

“But to the simple, religion itself becomes a substitute for religion. This fact has been half recognized since the early days of Christianity, but only the paradoxical Christians, the anti-official philosophers, from Pascal by way of Lessing and Kierkegaard to Barth, made it the cornerstone of their theology. With their new-found awareness they were not only radical but patient. But the others, who rejected this knowledge and persuaded themselves with a heavy conscience that Christianity was their own sure possession, had to affirm their eternal salvation as against the wordly damnation of all those who did not make the dull sacrifice of reason."

Adorno and Horkheimer in Dialect of Enlightenment

This was written in 1944, but it continues to apply. We will not be thanked for being reasonable, but recognized as dangerous challengers.

Posted by: Citizen | Oct 25, 2004 4:58:00 PM | 126