 |
|
↧
Simone Weil: atheism as purification
↧
Attente de Dieu/Hésitations devant le baptême
| Attente de Dieu ~Lettre I. Hésitations devant le baptême <written by> Simone Weil | Lettre II. Hésitations devant le baptême (suite) |
| 19 janvier 1942. |
19 janvier 1942.
Mon cher Père, Je me décide à vous écrire... pour clore — tout au moins jusqu’à nouvel ordre — nos entretiens concernant mon cas. Je suis fatiguée de vous parler de moi, car c’est un sujet misérable ; mais j’y suis contrainte par l’intérêt que vous me portez par l’effet de votre charité.
Je me suis interrogée ces jours-ci sur la volonté de Dieu, en quoi elle consiste et de quelle manière on peut parvenir à s’y conformer complètement. Je vais vous dire ce que j’en pense.
Il faut distinguer trois domaines. D’abord ce qui ne dépend absolument pas de nous ; cela comprend tous les faits accomplis dans tout l’univers à cet instant-ci, puis tout ce qui est en voie d’accomplissement ou destiné à s’accomplir plus tard hors de notre portée. Dans ce domaine tout ce qui se produit en fait est la volonté de Dieu, sans aucune exception. Il faut donc dans ce domaine aimer absolument tout, dans l’ensemble et dans chaque détail, y compris le mal sous toutes ses formes ; notamment ses propres péchés passés pour autant qu’ils sont passés (car il faut les haïr pour autant que leur racine est encore présente), ses propres souffrances passées, présentes et à venir, et — ce qui est de loin le plus difficile — les souffrances des autres hommes pour autant qu’on n’est pas appelé à les soulager. Autrement dit il faut sentir la réalité et la présence de Dieu à travers toutes les choses extérieures sans exception, aussi clairement que, la main sent la consistance du papier à travers le porte-plume et la plume.
Le second domaine est celui qui est placé sous l’empire de la volonté. Il comprend les choses purement naturelles, proches, facilement représentables au moyen de l’intelligence et de l’imagination, parmi lesquelles nous pouvons choisir, disposer et combiner du dehors des moyens déterminés en vue de fins déterminées et finies. Dans ce domaine, il faut exécuter sans défaillance ni délai tout ce qui apparaît manifestement comme un devoir. Quand aucun devoir n’apparaît manifestement, il faut tantôt observer des règles plus ou moins arbitrairement choisies, mais fixes ; et tantôt suivre l’inclination, mais dans une mesure limitée. Car une des formes les plus dangereuses du péché, ou la plus dangereuse, peut-être, consiste à mettre de l’illimité dans un domaine essentiellement fini.
Le troisième domaine est celui des choses qui sans être situées sous l’empire de la volonté, sans être relatives aux devoirs naturels, ne sont pourtant pas entièrement indépendantes de nous. Dans ce domaine, nous subissons une contrainte de la part de Dieu, à condition que nous méritions de la subir et dans la mesure exacte où nous le méritons. Dieu récompense l’âme qui pense à lui avec attention et amour, et il la récompense en exerçant sur elle une contrainte rigoureusement, mathématiquement proportionnelle à cette attention et à cet amour. Il faut s’abandonner à cette poussée, courir jusqu’au point précis où elle mène, et ne pas faire un seul pas de plus, même dans le sens du bien. En même temps, il faut continuer à penser à Dieu avec toujours plus d’amour et d’attention, et obtenir par ce moyen d’être poussé toujours davantage, d’être l’objet d’une contrainte qui s’empare d’une partie perpétuellement croissante de l’âme. Quand la contrainte s’est emparée de toute l’âme, on est dans l’état de perfection. Mais à quelque degré que l’on soit, il ne faut rien accomplir de plus que ce à quoi on est irrésistiblement poussé, non pas même en vue du bien.
Je me suis interrogée aussi sur la nature des sacrements, et je vais vous dire aussi ce qu’il m’en semble.
Les sacrements ont une valeur spécifique qui constitue un mystère, en tant qu’ils impliquent une certaine espèce de contact avec Dieu, contact mystérieux, mais réel. En même temps ils ont une valeur purement humaine en tant que symboles et cérémonies. Sous ce second aspect ils ne diffèrent pas essentiellement des chants, gestes et mots d’ordre de certains partis politiques ; du moins ils n’en diffèrent pas essentiellement par eux-mêmes ; bien entendu, ils en diffèrent infiniment par la doctrine à laquelle ils se rapportent. Je crois que la plupart des fidèles ont contact avec les sacrements seulement en tant que symboles et cérémonies, y compris certains qui sont persuadés du contraire. Si stupide que soit la théorie de Durkheim confondant le religieux avec le social, elle enferme pourtant une vérité ; à savoir que le sentiment social ressemble à s’y méprendre au sentiment religieux. Il y ressemble comme un diamant faux à un diamant vrai, de manière à faire méprendre effectivement ceux qui ne possèdent pas le discernement surnaturel. Au reste la participation sociale et humaine aux sacrements en tant qu’ils sont des cérémonies et des symboles est une chose excellente et salutaire, à titre d’étape, pour tous ceux dont le chemin est tracé sur cette voie. Pourtant ce n’est pas là une participation aux sacrements comme tels. Je crois que seuls ceux qui sont au-dessus d’un certain niveau de spiritualité peuvent avoir part aux sacrements en tant que tels. Ceux qui sont au-dessous de ce niveau, quoi qu’ils fassent, aussi longtemps qu’ils ne l’ont pas atteint, n’appartiennent pas à proprement parler à l’Église.
En ce qui me concerne, je pense être au-dessous de ce niveau. C’est pour cela que je vous ai dit, l’autre jour, que je me regarde comme étant indigne des sacrements. Cette pensée ne vient pas, comme vous l’avez cru, d’un excès de scrupule. Elle est fondée d’une part sur la conscience de fautes bien définies dans l’ordre de l’action et des rapports avec les êtres humains, fautes graves et même honteuses, que certainement vous jugeriez telles, et de plus assez fréquentes ; d’autre part, et plus encore, sur un sentiment général d’insuffisance. Je ne m’exprime pas ainsi par humilité. Car si je possédais la vertu d’humilité, la plus belle des vertus peut-être, je ne serais pas dans cet état misérable d’insuffisance.
Pour en finir avec ce qui me regarde, je me dis ceci. L’espèce d’inhibition qui me retient hors de l’Église est due soit à l’état d’imperfection où je me trouve, soit à ce que ma vocation et la volonté de Dieu s’y opposent. Dans le premier cas, je ne peux pas remédier directement à cette inhibition, mais seulement indirectement en devenant moins imparfaite, si la grâce m’y aide. À cet effet il faut seulement d’une part s’efforcer d’éviter les fautes dans le domaine des choses naturelles, d’autre part mettre toujours davantage d’attention et d’amour dans la pensée de Dieu. Si la volonté de Dieu est que j’entre dans l’Église, il m’imposera cette volonté au moment précis où je mériterai qu’il me l’impose.
Dans le second cas, si sa volonté n’est pas que j’y entre, comment y entrerais-je ? je sais bien ce que vous m’avez souvent répété, à savoir que le baptême est la voie commune du salut — au moins dans les pays chrétiens — et qu’il n’y a absolument aucune raison pour que j’aie une voie exceptionnelle. Cela est évident. Mais pourtant, au cas où en fait il ne m’appartiendrait pas de passer par là, que pourrais-je y faire ? S’il était concevable qu’on se damne en obéissant à Dieu et qu’on se sauve en lui désobéissant, je choisirais quand même l’obéissance.
Il me semble que la volonté de Dieu n’est pas que j’entre dans l’Église présentement. Car, je vous l’ai déjà dit, et c’est encore vrai, l’inhibition qui me retient ne se fait pas moins fortement sentir dans les moments d’attention, d’amour et de prière que dans les autres moments. Et cependant j’ai éprouvé une très grande joie à vous entendre dire que mes pensées, telles que je vous les ai exposées, ne sont pas incompatibles avec l’appartenance à l’Église, et que par suite je ne lui suis pas étrangère en esprit.
Je ne puis m’empêcher de continuer à me demander si, dans ces temps où une si grande partie de l’humanité est submergée de matérialisme, Dieu ne veut pas qu’il y ait des hommes et des femmes qui se soient donnés à lui et au Christ et qui pourtant demeurent hors de l’Église.
En tout cas, lorsque je me représente concrètement et comme une chose qui pourrait être prochaine l’acte par lequel j’entrerais dans l’Église, aucune pensée ne me fait plus de peine que celle de me séparer de la masse immense et malheureuse des incroyants. J’ai le besoin essentiel, et je crois pouvoir dire la vocation, de passer parmi les hommes et les différents milieux humains en me confondant avec eux, en prenant la même couleur, dans toute la mesure du moins où la conscience ne s’y oppose pas, en disparaissant parmi eux, cela afin qu’ils se montrent tels qu’ils sont et sans se déguiser pour moi. C’est que je désire les connaître afin de les aimer tels qu’ils sont. Car si je ne les aime pas tels qu’ils sont, ce n’est pas eux que j’aime, et mon amour n’est pas vrai. Je ne parle pas de les aider, car cela, malheureusement, jusqu’à maintenant j’en suis tout à fait incapable. Je pense qu’en aucun cas je n’entrerais jamais dans un ordre religieux, pour ne pas me séparer par un habit du commun des hommes. Il y a des êtres humains pour qui cette séparation n’a pas de grave inconvénient, parce qu’ils sont déjà séparés du commun des hommes par la pureté naturelle de leur âme. Pour moi au contraire, je crois vous l’avoir dit, je porte en moi-même le germe de tous les crimes ou presque. Je m’en suis aperçue notamment au cours d’un voyage, dans des circonstances que je vous ai racontées. Les crimes me faisaient horreur, mais ne me surprenaient pas ; j’en sentais en moi-même la possibilité ; c’est même parce que j’en sentais en moi-même la possibilité qu’ils me faisaient horreur. Cette disposition naturelle est dangereuse et très douloureuse, mais comme toute espèce de disposition naturelle elle peut servir au bien si on sait en faire l’usage qui convient avec le secours de la grâce. Elle implique une vocation, qui est de rester en quelque sorte anonyme, apte à se mélanger à n’importe quel moment avec la pâte de l’humanité commune. Or. de nos jours, l’état des esprits est tel qu’il y a une barrière plus marquée, une séparation plus grande entre un catholique pratiquant et un incroyant qu’entre un religieux et un laïc.
Je sais que le Christ a dit : « Quiconque rougira de moi devant les hommes, je rougirai de lui devant mon Père. » Mais rougir du Christ, cela ne signifie peut-être pas pour tous et dans tous les cas ne pas adhérer à l’Église. Pour certains cela peut signifier seulement ne pas exécuter les préceptes du Christ, ne pas rayonner son esprit, ne pas honorer son nom quand l’occasion s’en présente, ne pas être prêt à mourir par fidélité pour lui.
Je vous dois la vérité, au risque de vous heurter, et bien qu’il me soit extrêmement pénible de vous heurter. J’aime Dieu, le Christ et la foi catholique autant qu’il appartient à un être aussi misérablement insuffisant de les aimer. J’aime les saints à travers leurs écrits et les récits concernant leur vie — à part quelques-uns qu’il m’est impossible d’aimer pleinement ni de regarder comme des saints. J’aime les six ou sept catholiques d’une spiritualité authentique que le hasard m’a fait rencontrer au cours de ma vie. J’aime la liturgie, les chants, l’architecture, les rites et les cérémonies catholiques. Mais je n’ai à aucun degré l’amour de l’Église à proprement parler, en dehors de son rapport à toutes ces choses que j’aime. Je suis capable de sympathiser avec ceux qui ont cet amour, mais moi je ne l’éprouve pas. Je sais bien que tous les saints l’ont éprouvé. Mais aussi étaient-ils presque tous nés et élevés dans l’Église. Quoi qu’il en soit, on ne se donne pas un amour par sa volonté propre. Tout ce que je peux dire, c’est que si cet amour constitue une condition du progrès spirituel, ce que j’ignore, ou s’il fait partie de ma vocation, je désire qu’il me soit un jour accordé.
Peut-être bien qu’une partie des pensées que je viens de vous exposer est illusoire et mauvaise. Mais en un sens peu m’importe ; je ne veux plus examiner ; car après toutes ces réflexions je suis arrivée à une conclusion, qui est la résolution pure et simple de ne plus penser du tout à la question de mon entrée éventuelle dans l’Église.
Il est très possible qu’après être restée tout à fait sans y penser pendant des semaines, des mois ou des années, un jour je sentirai soudain l’impulsion irrésistible de demander immédiatement le baptême, et je courrai le demander. Car le cheminement de la grâce dans les cœurs est secret et silencieux.
Peut-être aussi que ma vie prendra fin sans que j’aie jamais éprouvé cette impulsion. Mais une chose est absolument certaine. C’est que s’il arrive un jour que j’aime Dieu suffisamment pour mériter la grâce du baptême, je recevrai cette grâce ce même jour, infailliblement, sous la forme que Dieu voudra, soit au moyen du baptême proprement dit, soit de toute autre manière. Dès lors pourquoi aurais-je aucun souci ? Ce n’est pas mon affaire de penser à moi. Mon affaire est de penser à Dieu. C’est à Dieu à penser à moi.
Cette lettre est bien longue. Une fois de plus, je vous aurai pris beaucoup plus de temps qu’il ne convient. Je vous en demande pardon. Mon excuse est qu’elle constitue, au moins provisoirement, une conclusion.
Croyez bien à ma très vive reconnaissance.
Simone Weil
...et je suis Sid Harth
↧
↧
Attente de Dieu/Lettre II
Attente de Dieu/Lettre II
| Lettre I. Hésitations devant le baptême | Attente de Dieu ~Lettre II. Hésitations devant le baptême <written by> Simone Weil | Lettre III. À propos de son départ |
| 19 janvier 1942 |
Mon cher Père,
Ceci est un post-scriptum à la lettre dont je vous disais qu’elle était provisoirement une conclusion. J’espère pour vous que ce sera le seul. je crains bien de vous ennuyer. Mais s’il en est ainsi, prenez-vous en à vous-même. Ce n’est pas ma faute si je crois vous devoir compte de mes pensées.
Les obstacles d’ordre intellectuel qui jusqu’à ces derniers temps m’avaient arrêtée au seuil de l’Église peuvent être regardés à la rigueur comme éliminés, dès lors que vous ne refusez pas de m’accepter telle que je suis. Pourtant des obstacles restent.
Tout bien considéré, je crois qu’ils se ramènent à ceci. Ce qui me fait peur, c’est l’Église en tant que chose sociale. Non pas seulement à cause de ses souillures, mais du fait même qu’elle est entre autres caractères une chose sociale. Non pas que je sois d’un tempérament très individualiste. J’ai peur pour la raison contraire. J’ai en moi un fort penchant grégaire. je suis par disposition naturelle extrêmement influençable, influençable à l’excès, et surtout aux choses collectives. je sais que si j’avais devant moi en ce moment une vingtaine de jeunes Allemands chantant en chœur des chants nazis, une partie de mon âme deviendrait immédiatement nazie. C’est là une très grande faiblesse. Mais c’est ainsi que je suis. je crois qu’il ne sert à rien de combattre directement les faiblesses naturelles. Il faut se faire violence pour agir comme si on ne les avait pas dans les circonstances où un devoir l’exige impérieusement ; et dans le cours ordinaire de la vie il faut bien les connaître, en tenir compte avec prudence, et s’efforcer d’en faire bon usage, car elles sont toutes susceptibles d’un bon usage.
J’ai peur de ce patriotisme de l’Église qui existe dans les milieux catholiques. J’entends patriotisme au sens du sentiment qu’on accorde à une patrie terrestre. J’en ai peur parce que j’ai peur de le contracter par contagion. Non pas que l’Église me paraisse indigne d’inspirer un tel sentiment. Mais parce que je ne veux pour moi d’aucun sentiment de ce genre. Le mot vouloir est impropre. Je sais, je sens avec certitude que tout sentiment de ce genre, quel qu’en soit l’objet, est funeste pour moi.
Des saints ont approuvé les Croisades, l’Inquisition. je ne peux pas ne pas penser qu’ils ont eu tort. je ne peux pas récuser la lumière de la conscience. Si je pense que sur un point je vois plus clair qu’eux, moi qui suis tellement loin au-dessous d’eux, je dois admettre que sur ce point ils ont été aveuglés par quelque chose de très puissant. Ce quelque chose, c’est l’Église en tant que chose sociale. Si cette chose sociale leur a fait du mal, quel mal ne me ferait-elle pas à moi, qui suis particulièrement vulnérable aux influences sociales, et qui suis presque infiniment plus faible qu’eux ?
On n’a jamais rien dit ni écrit qui aille si loin que les paroles du diable au Christ dans saint Luc concernant les royaumes de ce monde : « Je te donnerai toute cette puissance et la gloire qui y est attachée, car elle m’a été abandonnée, à moi et à tout être à qui je veux en faire part. » Il en résulte que le social est irréductiblement le domaine du diable. La chair pousse à dire moi et le diable pousse à dire nous ; ou bien à dire, comme les dictateurs, je avec une signification collective. Et, conformément à sa mission propre, le diable fabrique une fausse imitation du divin, de l’ersatz de divin.
Par social je n’entends pas tout ce qui se rapporte à une cité, mais seulement les sentiments collectifs.
Je sais bien qu’il est inévitable que l’Église soit aussi une chose sociale ; sans quoi elle n’existerait pas. Mais pour autant qu’elle est une chose sociale elle appartient au Prince de ce monde. C’est parce qu’elle est un organe de conservation et de transmission de la vérité qu’il y a là un extrême danger pour ceux qui sont comme moi vulnérables à l’excès aux influences sociales Car ainsi ce qu’il y a de plus pur et ce qui souille le plus, étant semblables et confondus sous les mêmes mots, font un mélange presque indécomposable.
Il existe un milieu catholique prêt à accueillir chaleureusement quiconque y entre. Or je ne veux pas être adoptée dans un milieu, habiter dans un milieu où on dit « nous » et être une partie de ce « nous », me trouver chez moi dans un milieu humain quel qu’il soit. En disant que je ne veux pas je m’exprime mal, car je le voudrais bien ; tout cela est délicieux. Mais je sens que cela ne m’est pas permis. Je sens qu’il m’est nécessaire, qu’il m’est prescrit de me trouver seule , étrangère et en exil par rapport à n’importe quel milieu humain sans exception.
Cela semble en contradiction avec ce que je vous écrivais sur mon besoin de me fondre avec n’importe quel milieu humain où je passe, d’y disparaître ; mais en réalité c’est la même pensée ; y disparaître n’est pas en faire partie, et la capacité de me fondre dans tous implique que je ne fasse partie d’aucun.
Je ne sais pas si je parviens à vous faire comprendre ces choses presque inexprimables.
Ces considérations concernent ce monde, et semblent misérables si on met en regard le caractère surnaturel des sacrements. Mais justement je crains en moi le mélange impur du surnaturel et du mal.
La faim est un rapport à la nourriture certes beaucoup moins complet, mais aussi réel que l’acte du manger.
Il n’est peut-être pas inconcevable que chez un être ayant telles dispositions naturelles, tel tempérament, tel passé, telle vocation, et ainsi de suite, le désir et la privation des sacrements puissent constituer un contact plus pur que la participation.
Je ne sais pas du tout s’il en est ainsi pour moi ou non. Je sais bien que ce serait quelque chose d’exceptionnel, et il semble qu’il y ait toujours une folle présomption à admettre qu’on puisse être une exception. Mais le caractère exceptionnel peut très bien procéder non pas d’une supériorité, mais d’une infériorité par rapport aux autres. Je pense que ce serait mon cas.
Quoi qu’il en soit, comme je vous l’ai dit, je ne me crois actuellement capable en aucun cas d’un véritable contact avec les sacrements, mais seulement du pressentiment qu’un tel contact est possible. À plus forte raison ne puis-je pas vraiment savoir actuellement quelle espèce de rapport avec eux me convient.
Il y a des moments où je suis tentée de m’en remettre entièrement à vous et de vous demander de décider pour moi. Mais en fin de compte je ne peux pas. Je n’en ai pas le droit.
Je crois que dans les choses très importantes on ne franchit pas les obstacles. On les regarde fixement, aussi longtemps qu’il le faut, jusqu’à ce que, dans le cas où ils procèdent des puissances d’illusion, ils disparaissent. Ce que j’appelle obstacle est autre chose que l’espèce d’inertie qu’il faut surmonter à chaque pas qu’on fait dans la direction du bien. J’ai l’expérience de cette inertie. Les obstacles sont tout autre chose. Si on veut les franchir avant qu’ils aient disparu, on risque des phénomènes de compensation auxquels fait allusion, je crois, le passage de l’Évangile sur l’homme de chez qui un démon est parti et chez qui ensuite sept démons sont revenus.
La simple pensée que je pourrais jamais, au cas où je serais baptisée dans des dispositions autres que celles qui conviennent, avoir par la suite, même un seul instant, un seul mouvement intérieur de regret. cette pensée me fait horreur. Même si j’avais la certitude que le baptême est la condition absolue du salut, je ne voudrais pas, en vue de mon salut, courir ce risque. Je choisirais de m’abstenir tant que je n’aurais pas la conviction de ne pas courir ce risque. On a une telle conviction seulement quand on pense qu’on agit par obéissance. L’obéissance seule est invulnérable au temps.
Si j’avais mon salut éternel posé devant moi sur cette table, et si je n’avais qu’à tendre la main pour l’obtenir, je ne tendrais pas la main aussi longtemps que je ne penserais pas en avoir reçu l’ordre. Du moins j’ aime à le croire. Et si au lieu du mien c’était le salut éternel de tous les êtres humains passés, présents et à venir, je sais qu’il faudrait faire de même. Là j’y aurais de la peine. Mais si j’étais seule en cause il me semble presque que je n’y aurais pas de peine. Car je ne désire pas autre chose que l’obéissance elle-même dans sa totalité, c’est-à-dire jusqu’à la croix.
Pourtant je n’ai pas le droit de parler ainsi. En parlant ainsi je mens. Car si je désirais cela je l’obtiendrais ; et en fait il m’arrive continuellement de tarder des jours et des jours dans l’accomplissement d’obligations évidentes que je sens comme telles, faciles et simples à exécuter en elles-mêmes, et importantes par leurs conséquences possibles pour les autres.
Mais il serait trop long et sans intérêt de vous .entretenir de mes misères. Et ce ne serait sans doute pas utile. Sauf toutefois pour vous empêcher de faire erreur à mon sujet.
Croyez bien toujours à ma très vive reconnaissance. Vous savez, je pense, que ce n’est pas une formule.
Simone Weil
Ceci est un post-scriptum à la lettre dont je vous disais qu’elle était provisoirement une conclusion. J’espère pour vous que ce sera le seul. je crains bien de vous ennuyer. Mais s’il en est ainsi, prenez-vous en à vous-même. Ce n’est pas ma faute si je crois vous devoir compte de mes pensées.
Les obstacles d’ordre intellectuel qui jusqu’à ces derniers temps m’avaient arrêtée au seuil de l’Église peuvent être regardés à la rigueur comme éliminés, dès lors que vous ne refusez pas de m’accepter telle que je suis. Pourtant des obstacles restent.
Tout bien considéré, je crois qu’ils se ramènent à ceci. Ce qui me fait peur, c’est l’Église en tant que chose sociale. Non pas seulement à cause de ses souillures, mais du fait même qu’elle est entre autres caractères une chose sociale. Non pas que je sois d’un tempérament très individualiste. J’ai peur pour la raison contraire. J’ai en moi un fort penchant grégaire. je suis par disposition naturelle extrêmement influençable, influençable à l’excès, et surtout aux choses collectives. je sais que si j’avais devant moi en ce moment une vingtaine de jeunes Allemands chantant en chœur des chants nazis, une partie de mon âme deviendrait immédiatement nazie. C’est là une très grande faiblesse. Mais c’est ainsi que je suis. je crois qu’il ne sert à rien de combattre directement les faiblesses naturelles. Il faut se faire violence pour agir comme si on ne les avait pas dans les circonstances où un devoir l’exige impérieusement ; et dans le cours ordinaire de la vie il faut bien les connaître, en tenir compte avec prudence, et s’efforcer d’en faire bon usage, car elles sont toutes susceptibles d’un bon usage.
J’ai peur de ce patriotisme de l’Église qui existe dans les milieux catholiques. J’entends patriotisme au sens du sentiment qu’on accorde à une patrie terrestre. J’en ai peur parce que j’ai peur de le contracter par contagion. Non pas que l’Église me paraisse indigne d’inspirer un tel sentiment. Mais parce que je ne veux pour moi d’aucun sentiment de ce genre. Le mot vouloir est impropre. Je sais, je sens avec certitude que tout sentiment de ce genre, quel qu’en soit l’objet, est funeste pour moi.
Des saints ont approuvé les Croisades, l’Inquisition. je ne peux pas ne pas penser qu’ils ont eu tort. je ne peux pas récuser la lumière de la conscience. Si je pense que sur un point je vois plus clair qu’eux, moi qui suis tellement loin au-dessous d’eux, je dois admettre que sur ce point ils ont été aveuglés par quelque chose de très puissant. Ce quelque chose, c’est l’Église en tant que chose sociale. Si cette chose sociale leur a fait du mal, quel mal ne me ferait-elle pas à moi, qui suis particulièrement vulnérable aux influences sociales, et qui suis presque infiniment plus faible qu’eux ?
On n’a jamais rien dit ni écrit qui aille si loin que les paroles du diable au Christ dans saint Luc concernant les royaumes de ce monde : « Je te donnerai toute cette puissance et la gloire qui y est attachée, car elle m’a été abandonnée, à moi et à tout être à qui je veux en faire part. » Il en résulte que le social est irréductiblement le domaine du diable. La chair pousse à dire moi et le diable pousse à dire nous ; ou bien à dire, comme les dictateurs, je avec une signification collective. Et, conformément à sa mission propre, le diable fabrique une fausse imitation du divin, de l’ersatz de divin.
Par social je n’entends pas tout ce qui se rapporte à une cité, mais seulement les sentiments collectifs.
Je sais bien qu’il est inévitable que l’Église soit aussi une chose sociale ; sans quoi elle n’existerait pas. Mais pour autant qu’elle est une chose sociale elle appartient au Prince de ce monde. C’est parce qu’elle est un organe de conservation et de transmission de la vérité qu’il y a là un extrême danger pour ceux qui sont comme moi vulnérables à l’excès aux influences sociales Car ainsi ce qu’il y a de plus pur et ce qui souille le plus, étant semblables et confondus sous les mêmes mots, font un mélange presque indécomposable.
Il existe un milieu catholique prêt à accueillir chaleureusement quiconque y entre. Or je ne veux pas être adoptée dans un milieu, habiter dans un milieu où on dit « nous » et être une partie de ce « nous », me trouver chez moi dans un milieu humain quel qu’il soit. En disant que je ne veux pas je m’exprime mal, car je le voudrais bien ; tout cela est délicieux. Mais je sens que cela ne m’est pas permis. Je sens qu’il m’est nécessaire, qu’il m’est prescrit de me trouver seule , étrangère et en exil par rapport à n’importe quel milieu humain sans exception.
Cela semble en contradiction avec ce que je vous écrivais sur mon besoin de me fondre avec n’importe quel milieu humain où je passe, d’y disparaître ; mais en réalité c’est la même pensée ; y disparaître n’est pas en faire partie, et la capacité de me fondre dans tous implique que je ne fasse partie d’aucun.
Je ne sais pas si je parviens à vous faire comprendre ces choses presque inexprimables.
Ces considérations concernent ce monde, et semblent misérables si on met en regard le caractère surnaturel des sacrements. Mais justement je crains en moi le mélange impur du surnaturel et du mal.
La faim est un rapport à la nourriture certes beaucoup moins complet, mais aussi réel que l’acte du manger.
Il n’est peut-être pas inconcevable que chez un être ayant telles dispositions naturelles, tel tempérament, tel passé, telle vocation, et ainsi de suite, le désir et la privation des sacrements puissent constituer un contact plus pur que la participation.
Je ne sais pas du tout s’il en est ainsi pour moi ou non. Je sais bien que ce serait quelque chose d’exceptionnel, et il semble qu’il y ait toujours une folle présomption à admettre qu’on puisse être une exception. Mais le caractère exceptionnel peut très bien procéder non pas d’une supériorité, mais d’une infériorité par rapport aux autres. Je pense que ce serait mon cas.
Quoi qu’il en soit, comme je vous l’ai dit, je ne me crois actuellement capable en aucun cas d’un véritable contact avec les sacrements, mais seulement du pressentiment qu’un tel contact est possible. À plus forte raison ne puis-je pas vraiment savoir actuellement quelle espèce de rapport avec eux me convient.
Il y a des moments où je suis tentée de m’en remettre entièrement à vous et de vous demander de décider pour moi. Mais en fin de compte je ne peux pas. Je n’en ai pas le droit.
Je crois que dans les choses très importantes on ne franchit pas les obstacles. On les regarde fixement, aussi longtemps qu’il le faut, jusqu’à ce que, dans le cas où ils procèdent des puissances d’illusion, ils disparaissent. Ce que j’appelle obstacle est autre chose que l’espèce d’inertie qu’il faut surmonter à chaque pas qu’on fait dans la direction du bien. J’ai l’expérience de cette inertie. Les obstacles sont tout autre chose. Si on veut les franchir avant qu’ils aient disparu, on risque des phénomènes de compensation auxquels fait allusion, je crois, le passage de l’Évangile sur l’homme de chez qui un démon est parti et chez qui ensuite sept démons sont revenus.
La simple pensée que je pourrais jamais, au cas où je serais baptisée dans des dispositions autres que celles qui conviennent, avoir par la suite, même un seul instant, un seul mouvement intérieur de regret. cette pensée me fait horreur. Même si j’avais la certitude que le baptême est la condition absolue du salut, je ne voudrais pas, en vue de mon salut, courir ce risque. Je choisirais de m’abstenir tant que je n’aurais pas la conviction de ne pas courir ce risque. On a une telle conviction seulement quand on pense qu’on agit par obéissance. L’obéissance seule est invulnérable au temps.
Si j’avais mon salut éternel posé devant moi sur cette table, et si je n’avais qu’à tendre la main pour l’obtenir, je ne tendrais pas la main aussi longtemps que je ne penserais pas en avoir reçu l’ordre. Du moins j’ aime à le croire. Et si au lieu du mien c’était le salut éternel de tous les êtres humains passés, présents et à venir, je sais qu’il faudrait faire de même. Là j’y aurais de la peine. Mais si j’étais seule en cause il me semble presque que je n’y aurais pas de peine. Car je ne désire pas autre chose que l’obéissance elle-même dans sa totalité, c’est-à-dire jusqu’à la croix.
Pourtant je n’ai pas le droit de parler ainsi. En parlant ainsi je mens. Car si je désirais cela je l’obtiendrais ; et en fait il m’arrive continuellement de tarder des jours et des jours dans l’accomplissement d’obligations évidentes que je sens comme telles, faciles et simples à exécuter en elles-mêmes, et importantes par leurs conséquences possibles pour les autres.
Mais il serait trop long et sans intérêt de vous .entretenir de mes misères. Et ce ne serait sans doute pas utile. Sauf toutefois pour vous empêcher de faire erreur à mon sujet.
Croyez bien toujours à ma très vive reconnaissance. Vous savez, je pense, que ce n’est pas une formule.
Simone Weil
...et je suis Sid Harth
↧
Attente de Dieu/Lettre III
Attente de Dieu/Lettre III
| Lettre II. Hésitations devant le baptême (suite) | Attente de Dieu ~Lettre III. À propos de son départ[1] <written by> Simone Weil | Lettre IV. Autobiographie spirituelle |
| 16 avril 1942. |
Mon Père,
Sauf imprévu, nous nous verrons dans huit jours pour la dernière fois. Je dois partir à la fin du mois.
Si vous pouviez arranger les choses de manière que nous puissions parler à loisir de ce choix de textes, ce serait bien. Mais je suppose que ce ne sera pas possible.
Je n’ai aucune envie de partir. Je partirai avec angoisse. Les calculs de probabilité qui me déterminent sont si incertains qu’ils ne me soutiennent guère. La pensée qui me guide, et qui habite en moi depuis des années, de sorte que je n’ose pas l’abandonner, quoique les chances de réalisation soient faibles, est assez proche du projet pour lequel vous avez eu la grande générosité de m’aider il y a quelques mois, et qui n’a pas réussi.
Au fond la principale raison qui me pousse, c’est qu’étant donné la vitesse acquise et le concours des circonstances, il me semble que c’est la décision de rester qui serait de ma part un acte de volonté propre. Et mon plus grand désir est de perdre non seulement toute volonté, mais tout être propre.
Il me semble que quelque chose me dit de partir. Comme je suis tout à fait sûre que ce n’est pas la sensibilité, je m’y abandonne.
J’espère que cet abandon, même si je me trompe, me mènera finalement à bon port.
Ce que j’appelle bon port, vous le savez, c’est la croix. S’il ne peut m’être donné un jour de mériter avoir part à celle du Christ, au moins celle du bon larron. De tous les êtres autres que le Christ dont il est question dans l’Évangile, le bon larron est de loin celui que j’envie davantage. Avoir été aux côtés du Christ et dans le même état pendant la crucifixion me parait un privilège beaucoup plus enviable que d’être à sa droite dans sa gloire.
Quoique la date soit proche, ma décision n’est pas prise encore d’une manière tout à fait irrévocable. Ainsi, si par hasard vous aviez un conseil à me donner, ce serait le moment. Mais n’y réfléchissez pas particulièrement. Vous avez beaucoup de choses beaucoup plus importantes à quoi penser.
Une fois partie, il me parait peu probable que les circonstances me permettent un jour de vous revoir. Quant aux rencontres éventuelles dans une autre vie, vous savez que je ne me représente pas les choses ainsi. Mais peu importe. Il suffit à mon amitié pour vous que vous existiez.
Je ne pourrai pas m’empêcher de penser avec une vive angoisse à tous ceux que j’aurai laissés en France, et à vous particulièrement. Mais cela aussi est sans importance. je crois que vous êtes de ceux à qui, quoi qu’il arrive, il ne peut jamais arriver aucun mal.
La distance n’empêchera pas ma dette envers vous de s’accroître, avec le temps, de jour en jour. Car elle ne m’empêchera pas de penser à vous. Et il est impossible de penser à vous sans penser à Dieu.
Croyez à mon amitié filiale.
P.-S. — Vous savez qu’il s’agit pour moi de tout autre chose, dans ce départ, que de fuir les souffrances et les dangers. Mon angoisse vient précisément de la crainte de faire en partant, malgré moi et à mon insu, ce que je voudrais par-dessus tout ne pas faire — à savoir fuir. Jusqu’ici on, a vécu ici fort tranquille. Si cette tranquillité disparaissait précisément après mon départ, ce serait affreux pour moi. Si j’avais la certitude qu’il doive en être ainsi, je crois que je resterais. Si vous savez des choses qui permettent des prévisions, je compte sur vous pour me les communiquer.
Sauf imprévu, nous nous verrons dans huit jours pour la dernière fois. Je dois partir à la fin du mois.
Si vous pouviez arranger les choses de manière que nous puissions parler à loisir de ce choix de textes, ce serait bien. Mais je suppose que ce ne sera pas possible.
Je n’ai aucune envie de partir. Je partirai avec angoisse. Les calculs de probabilité qui me déterminent sont si incertains qu’ils ne me soutiennent guère. La pensée qui me guide, et qui habite en moi depuis des années, de sorte que je n’ose pas l’abandonner, quoique les chances de réalisation soient faibles, est assez proche du projet pour lequel vous avez eu la grande générosité de m’aider il y a quelques mois, et qui n’a pas réussi.
Au fond la principale raison qui me pousse, c’est qu’étant donné la vitesse acquise et le concours des circonstances, il me semble que c’est la décision de rester qui serait de ma part un acte de volonté propre. Et mon plus grand désir est de perdre non seulement toute volonté, mais tout être propre.
Il me semble que quelque chose me dit de partir. Comme je suis tout à fait sûre que ce n’est pas la sensibilité, je m’y abandonne.
J’espère que cet abandon, même si je me trompe, me mènera finalement à bon port.
Ce que j’appelle bon port, vous le savez, c’est la croix. S’il ne peut m’être donné un jour de mériter avoir part à celle du Christ, au moins celle du bon larron. De tous les êtres autres que le Christ dont il est question dans l’Évangile, le bon larron est de loin celui que j’envie davantage. Avoir été aux côtés du Christ et dans le même état pendant la crucifixion me parait un privilège beaucoup plus enviable que d’être à sa droite dans sa gloire.
Quoique la date soit proche, ma décision n’est pas prise encore d’une manière tout à fait irrévocable. Ainsi, si par hasard vous aviez un conseil à me donner, ce serait le moment. Mais n’y réfléchissez pas particulièrement. Vous avez beaucoup de choses beaucoup plus importantes à quoi penser.
Une fois partie, il me parait peu probable que les circonstances me permettent un jour de vous revoir. Quant aux rencontres éventuelles dans une autre vie, vous savez que je ne me représente pas les choses ainsi. Mais peu importe. Il suffit à mon amitié pour vous que vous existiez.
Je ne pourrai pas m’empêcher de penser avec une vive angoisse à tous ceux que j’aurai laissés en France, et à vous particulièrement. Mais cela aussi est sans importance. je crois que vous êtes de ceux à qui, quoi qu’il arrive, il ne peut jamais arriver aucun mal.
La distance n’empêchera pas ma dette envers vous de s’accroître, avec le temps, de jour en jour. Car elle ne m’empêchera pas de penser à vous. Et il est impossible de penser à vous sans penser à Dieu.
Croyez à mon amitié filiale.
- Simone Weil
P.-S. — Vous savez qu’il s’agit pour moi de tout autre chose, dans ce départ, que de fuir les souffrances et les dangers. Mon angoisse vient précisément de la crainte de faire en partant, malgré moi et à mon insu, ce que je voudrais par-dessus tout ne pas faire — à savoir fuir. Jusqu’ici on, a vécu ici fort tranquille. Si cette tranquillité disparaissait précisément après mon départ, ce serait affreux pour moi. Si j’avais la certitude qu’il doive en être ainsi, je crois que je resterais. Si vous savez des choses qui permettent des prévisions, je compte sur vous pour me les communiquer.
- ↑ La question qui la tourmentait était celle de son départ pour l’Amérique qui l’éloignait des dangers de l’occupation imminente de la zone libre. Pour elle, ce n’était pas une question de « danger », mais de « service ». À New York, elle « dépérira de chagrin » dans son impatience de passer à Londres. Plus profondément, elle aspire à cette mission périlleuse (voire de sabotage) qui la fera tomber dans le malheur et la mort. Elle y voit plus qu’un trait de son caractère : elle y sent une vocation. « Je suis hors de la vérité ; rien d’humain ne peut m’y transporter ; et j’ai la certitude intérieure que Dieu ne m’y transportera pas d’une autre manière que celle-là. Une certitude de la même espèce que celle qui est à la racine d’une vocation. « (Écrits de Londres, lettre à Maurice Schumann., Ce départ était pour elle une question de conscience où elle pressentait sa vie et sa mort engagées, mort que, par-dessus tout, elle ne voulait pas manquer.
- ...et je suis Sid Harth
↧
Simone Weil on BBC
Simone Weil
- Duration:
- 43 minutes
- First broadcast:
- Thursday 15 November 2012
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the French philosopher and social activist Simone Weil. Born in Paris in 1909 into a wealthy, agnostic Jewish family, Weil was a precocious child and attended the prestigious Ecole Normale Superieure in Paris, achieving the top marks in her... Show more
FURTHER READING
R. Bell (ed.), ‘Simone Weil’s Philosophy of Culture’ (CUP, 1993)
Francine du Plessix Gray, ‘Simone Weil’ (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2001)
L. Finch, ‘Simone Weil and the Intellect of Grace’ (Continuum, 2001)
Sian Miles (ed.), ‘Simone Weil: An Anthology’ (Grove Press, 2000)
S. Petrement, ‘Simone Weil: A Life’ (Pantheon Books, 1976)
S. Plant, ‘The SPCK Introduction to Simone Weil’ (SPCK Publishing, 2007)
Mario von der Ruhr, ‘Simone Weil: An Apprenticeship in Attention’ (Continuum, 2006)
Simone Weil, ‘Waiting for God’ (Harper Perennials, 2009)
Simone Weil, ‘Gravity and Grace’ (Routledge Classics, 2002)
Simone Weil, ‘The Need for Roots: Prelude to a Declaration of Duties Towards Mankind’ (Routledge Classics, 2001)
Simone Weil, ‘War and the Iliad’ (New York Review Book Classics, 2007)
Simone Weil, ‘Notebooks’ (Routledge Classics, 2003)
Palle Yourgrau, ‘Simone Weil’ (Reaktion Books, 2011)
Broadcasts
- BBC Radio 4Thu 15 Nov 201209:00BBC Radio 4FM only
- BBC Radio 4Thu 15 Nov 201221:30BBC Radio 4
In Our Time Downloads
Every episode of In Our Time - available to download to listen to when & where you want.
Free downloads
![Image for In Our Time Archive: Culture]()
In Our Time Archive: Culture
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the history of ideas as it applies to culture - from literature…![Image for In Our Time Archive: History]()
In Our Time Archive: History
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the people, conflicts and events that have shaped the world.![Image for In Our Time Archive: Philosophy]()
In Our Time Archive: Philosophy
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the history of philosophy - from ancient Greek thinkers to the…![Image for In Our Time Archive: Religion]()
In Our Time Archive: Religion
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the history of religious ideas - from the faith systems of…![Image for In Our Time Archive: Science]()
In Our Time Archive: Science
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the history of ideas and the evolution of the sciences - from…![Image for In Our Time With Melvyn Bragg]()
In Our Time With Melvyn Bragg
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the history of ideas - including topics drawn from philosophy,…
You might also like…
Around the BBC
BBC links
...and I am Sid Harth
↧
↧
Eye of The Storm: The Civil War Drawings of Robert Knox Sneden
Virginia Historical Society
Richmond, VA
804-342-9665
Eye of The Storm: The Civil War Drawings of Robert Knox Sneden
One of the greatest Civil War collections ever discovered begins its national tour November 1, 2000, at the New-York Historical Society in New York City. The traveling exhibition, "Eye of The Storm: The Civil War Drawings of Robert Knox Sneden," organized by the Virginia Historical Society of Richmond, Virginia, is based on the illustrated 5,000-page Civil War memoir of Private Sneden. Nearly 100 detailed watercolors,
maps, and drawings depicting Sneden's experience as a soldier in the Army of the Potomac, a Union map-maker, and prisoner of war in some of the worst Confederate prisons-including Andersonville will be on display through December 31, 2000. After closing in New York, the exhibit will travel to the Atlanta History Center in Atlanta, where it will be displayed from January 23 through March 20, 2001. The exhibitwill be at the Chicago Historical Society May 30 through September 30, 2001, then at the Huntington Library in San Marino, California, October 24, 2001, through January24, 2002. (left: Andersonville Prison, Showing Sneden's Shanty, 1864)The exhibition opening coincides with the release of an edited version of Sneden's diaries, Eye of the Storm: A Civil War Odyssey, which is edited by Dr. Charles F. Bryan, Jr., director of the Virginia Historical Society, and Dr. Nelson D. Lankford, assistant director for publications and education at the Virginia Historical Society. The book is published by The Free Press, a division of Simon and Schuster.
Robert Knox Sneden's artwork, the largest collection of Civil War soldier art ever produced, presents an intimate account of the Civil War in emotionally evocative detail. His work captures the brutality of the war and the horrors of imprisonment. Revealed is the portrait of a man so obsessed by his war experience that he devoted the rest of his life to documenting it. "This newly discovered Civil War collection is unrivaled in every respect, " remarks Bryan. "Never before have we been invited into the heart and soul of such an important historical event as Sneden does through his personal memoir." (left: Miller's House near Brandy Station, Virginia, site of Sneden's capture in 1863)About Robert Knox Sneden
Robert Knox Sneden (1832-1918) enlisted in the Army of the Potomac in 1861 and was recruited as a map-maker. In the dark of the night in 1863, with the cold barrel of a Confederate pistol at his temple, Sneden was captured by men under the command of the celebrated John Singleton Mosby, "The Gray Ghost." Pistol-whipped and wounded, Sneden was led to prison in Richmond, Virginia. Held in some of the worst and most infamous Confederate prisons of the war, including Andersonville, Sneden continued to document his experience. He hid his dramatic pencil sketches in his shoes or sewed them in his coat so that they would not be stolen by prison guards. His depictions of captivity are disturbing and uncomfortably detailed, showing scenes of starvation, fear, and loss of hope.
Sneden returned to Brooklyn in 1864 only to find that he had been declared missing or dead. Permanently disabled by his 13 months in prison, he used his time to turn his pencil sketches into watercolors. Although Sneden drew many of his drawings while he was at the battle, numerous drawings were done after the war was over.
Discovering the Collection
One afternoon in the fall of 1994, art dealer Robert M. Hicklin, Jr., and a client, came to the Virginia Historical Society with something to show James C. Kelly, assistant director for museums. Dr. Kelly escorted the men to the Paul Mellon Rare Book Room where they chatted for a few minutes. Then the visitors opened a suitcase and it took little time for Kelly to realize the contents were extraordinary. He excused himself and went across the hall to bring in the Historical Society's Director, Dr. Charles F. Bryan, Jr. He watched as one of the men began turning the leaves of the albums. He was stunned to see page after page of detailed watercolor sketches and intricate, hand-drawn maps. In all, the four albums contained a remarkable collection of more than 400 images, most of which portrayed Civil War battles and Confederate prison camps. Thanks to the generosity of Mr. and Mrs. Floyd D. Gottwald, Jr., of Richmond, the Sneden images were purchased and are now one of the premier treasures in the Historical Society's collections.
Kelly began searching for information about Sneden. He discovered that a few of the watercolors had been engraved for the monumental series, Battles and Leaders of the Civil War, published by the Century Company in the 1880s. Sneden had contributed three dozen images to the series, then he and his collection dropped from sight. The Virginia Historical Society thought it had found the missing Sneden collection. The real surprise came three years later, when Kelly's research led him to a Sneden descendant who owned another collection consisting of the 5,000 page diary/memoir and approximately 500 additional watercolors and maps. A second gift from Mr. and Mrs. Gottwald allowed the Historical Society to acquire this collection as well. A rotation of images from the Sneden collection is in the Historical Society's long-term exhibition "The Story of Virginia, an American Experience."
Read more about the Virginia Historical Society inResource Library Magazine
rev. 11/20/10
Please click on thumbnail images bordered by a red line to see enlargements.
For further biographical information please see America's Distinguished Artists, a national registry of historic artists.
This page was originally published in Resource Library Magazine. Please see Resource Library'sOverview section for more information. rev. 4/6/11
SearchResource Library for thousands of articles and essays on American art.
Copyright 2011 Traditional Fine Arts Organization, Inc., an Arizona nonprofit corporation. All rights reserved.
...and I am Sid Harth
↧
Eye of the Storm : The Civil War Memoir of Robert Knox Sneden
Eye of the Storm : The Civil War Memoir of Robert Knox Sneden - 00 edition
by Robert Knox Sneden and Charles F. Jr. Bryan
ISBN10: 0684863669Summary: In this historical treasure, now restored to posterity, text and drawings by a Union cartographer record the daily life of Civil war soldiers, the firsthand observation of officers, and the battles he witnessed from Yorkville to Bull Run. 85 full-color illustrations.
Edition/Copyright: 00
Cover: Paperback
Publisher: Touchstone Books
Published: 05/28/2002
International: No
View Author Bio
We know little about Private Robert Knox Sneden beyond the pages of his memoir. He returned home to New York after his release from Andersonville and died alone in an old soldiers' home in 1918 Charles F. Bryan, Jr., is director and CEO of the Virginia Historical Society (VHS) in Richmond, Virginia, and has written on the Civil War in Tennessee and the Peninsula campaign Nelson D. Lankford is assistant director for publications and scholarship at the VHS and edits its quarterly journal, the Virginia Magazine of History and Biography
View Sample Chapter
Preface In 1994, four tattered scrapbook albums, containing some five hundred vivid Civil War watercolor drawings and maps by Union soldier Robert Knox Sneden, were consigned to an art dealer who specializes in Southern works. When the dealer initially approached the Virginia Historical Society by phone, the institution's curators were naturally curious, but skeptical. When they finally examined firsthand what the dealer had described, however, they realized they were looking at a remarkable collection of artwork that had dropped from sight for many decades, languishing in a Connecticut bank vault since the Great Depression. A generous gift from Mr. and Mrs. Floyd D. Gottwald, Jr., of Richmond enabled the Historical Society to acquire the collection.The Historical Society realized that it had made a significant acquisition. Over the years, previously unknown drawings, paintings, and sketches have turned up here and there. But not major collections. Most were known and accounted for. Never before had so many original watercolors appeared from nowhere like these. The Historical Society staff launched an all-out effort to learn more about the Union soldier who had captured so much of Virginia's lost landscape, but who left faint tracks in the documentary record himself.Their investigation led to Sneden's service records at the National Archives and the inevitable genealogists, who helped fill in details about the man and his background. Further research led them to a ninety-five-year-old local and family historian, who in turn reported that the great-grandson of Robert Sneden's brother lived in upstate New York. He was the present owner, she alleged, of the Union soldier's illustrated wartime diary/memoir.Little of this diary/memoir had been known to historians before. The Century Collection of Civil War Art, a book published in 1974, however, gave a tantalizing hint. A brief passage noted that nearly three dozen engravings on the Peninsula Campaign were by a Robert K. Sneden, who kept an extensive wartime diary with illustrations. ''Little is known of Sneden's life beyond his wartime experiences,'' it further noted, and ''the fate of his diary is a mystery...It seems to have disappeared.''A call by the Historical Society to the artist's great-great-nephew confirmed that he did indeed own the diary/memoir. Actually, he said that it was in five volumes, but he had shut them away years ago in a mini-rental bin in Arizona. Through a complicated arrangement, the owner retrieved the documents and brought them to the Historical Society for examination, with the right to purchase. The five volumes turned out to contain nearly five thousand handwritten pages and hundreds more watercolors. Unfortunately, Volume 2, covering most of May and June 1862, had been missing for more than a century, according to the owner. Nevertheless, Mr. and Mrs. Gottwald were generous once again, and by the end of 1997, the Historical Society added the other significant body of Sneden's work to its collections.Although originally described as a ''diary,'' the five volumes are a memoir based on a diary. In the introduction to his first volume, Sneden states: ''In these volumes an authentic and generally correct account is given of the movements and Battles fought by 'The Army of the Potomac'...which has been compiled from a diary kept during the time by the author.'' Indeed, in his narrative Sneden notes that he mailed diary entries and pictures home during the war. He stated that he kept a shorthand diary in secret while incarcerated as a prisoner of war. Apparently using his original diaries and several published sources as the basis of his account, Sneden put pen to paper and wrote his wartime narrative probably over a period of many years beginning in the late 1870s. At the same time, presumably he compiled the separate scrapbook albums of drawings, many of which may have been his original wartime images. Li
View Review
Michael LarkinThe Boston GlobePuts the modern reader in the heart of the war. It is astonishing that such valuable experience could have remained hidden for so long.
View Table of Contents
Contents PrefacePrologue
CHAPTER ONE To the Front!
CHAPTER TWO Under Fire
CHAPTER THREE Confusion and Darkness: The Seven Days
CHAPTER FOUR Enough of Terrible Fighting
CHAPTER FIVE Captured
CHAPTER SIX "On to Richmond!"
CHAPTER SEVEN Prison Train to Andersonville
CHAPTER EIGHT This Hell on Earth
CHAPTER NINE Freedom
Epilogue
Note on Sources
Editorial Method
Acknowledgments
Index
© Copyright 2006 - 2013 Textbooks.com. All rights reserved.
...and I am Sid Harth
CHAPTER ONE To the Front!
CHAPTER TWO Under Fire
CHAPTER THREE Confusion and Darkness: The Seven Days
CHAPTER FOUR Enough of Terrible Fighting
CHAPTER FIVE Captured
CHAPTER SIX "On to Richmond!"
CHAPTER SEVEN Prison Train to Andersonville
CHAPTER EIGHT This Hell on Earth
CHAPTER NINE Freedom
Epilogue
Note on Sources
Editorial Method
Acknowledgments
Index
© Copyright 2006 - 2013 Textbooks.com. All rights reserved.
...and I am Sid Harth
↧
Plato Unmasked: The Dialogues Made New, by Keith Quincy
The View From The Foothills
A tiny principality in the Commonwealth of Letters
Plato Unmasked: The Dialogues Made New, by Keith Quincy
This fascinating book is a new translation of Plato’s dialogues, atranslation done with two objects in mind. The first was to convey the
spice of the original Greek text. Apparently the first English
translations of Plato were done in a polite and bowdlerizing era, whereas the Greek
text was rather less polite and occasionally outright lewd. The second
was to condense Plato’s more elaborate rhetorical flights so as to make
his philosophical arguments plain and easy to follow without losing
any essential nuances.
I predict that this book is going to start a fairly large number of
arguments. In the first place, I rather expect it will
disjoint the noses of quite a few academic purists. I’m sure that many
philosophy departments will ring with the question, “Have you seen the
new Reader’s Digest version of Plato?” accompanied by snickers and
giggles.
The larger number of arguments, though, will be among the groups of
people who actually read the book. Now, I have to preface the following
remarks by saying that I am not a philosophy major, nor do I speak
classical Greek, nor have I read all that much Plato in English
translation (and that little almost twenty-five years ago). In short,
I am no judge of whether Quincy’s condensation is as faithful and nuanced
as he claims. On the other hand, I think I can fairly say that it makes
for good reading. In the dialogs that I’ve read so far (Lysis,
Euthyphro, Crito, Apology, Phaedo, and
Gorgias) I found myself following Plato’s arguments without the
least bit of difficulty and finding lots of spots where I wanted to argue
with him. What’s not to like?
And that’s why I think the book will start lots of arguments. Because
Plato’s line of reasoning is so clearly presented, it becomes easier
to take exception with it. And as different readers are likely to
take exception to different parts, I’d expect discussion to flow fast
and furious. In the preface, Quincy notes that he’s taught from this
translation, and “only in my Plato class have I had to break up a
fistfight between students.” I expect a book club could have great fun
with it.
The dialogs are presented in order of composition; each begins with
a historical note (sometimes quite lengthy) about the situation in
Athens at the time the dialog supposedly takes place. These are also
likely to raise eyebrows, at least for those familiar with Plato and
Socrates and not with wider Greek history. We’re accustomed to thinking
of Plato and Socrates as two of the “good guys”; like almost all
human beings, their actual conduct was less than saintly.
Although Quincy claims that his condensed translation captures every
important nuance of the original Greek text, he is quick to point out that
this book is not intended to replace standard translations of Plato’s
work, but rather is intended to be an aid to understanding them. In
fact, he recommends reading each dialog at least three times: first in a
full translation, then in his condensed translation, and then in the full
translation once more. For philosophy students I suspect that this is
wise council; for the generally curious reader, though,
Plato Unmasked stands perfectly well on its own.
↧
The Outpost: Jake Tepper
Daily Kos Staff, Front PageRSS
Daily Kos editors
Sun Mar 10, 2013 at 08:00 AM PDT
Book review: Jake Tapper's 'The Outpost'
By Jake Tapper
Little, Brown and Company
November 2012
688 pages
$29.99 The subtitle Jake Tapper chose for his book is one that legitimately salutes the incredible bravery and perseverance of America's troops in Afghanistan. But it could just as easily be subtitled the first sentence on the inside flap of the book: They never should have been there. Or, better yet: They deserved SO much better.
Tapper's book is a heartbreaking, detailed day-to-day account of several units assigned sequentially to one of the stupidest, most life-wasting assignments in all of a very understaffed war in an indefensible valley in a little explored region in a vastly under-researched country. In fact, so little was known about the Kunar and Nuristan provinces in northeastern Afghanistan when U.S. troops were sent there that, according to Tapper, "The citations for the briefing written by one intelligence officer for 3-71 Cav included Wikipedia, from which he drew heavily."
Welcome to war on the cheap. So cheap, in fact, that troops who rotated in from Iraq—quagmire that it was— were appalled, as you can read below the fold:
Berkoff found the sparse conditions demoralizing. It wasn't just here at Naray; throughout their tour of U.S. bases in Afghanistan, from Khost to Jalalabad, he and others in 3-71 Cav had been stunned by the enforced austerity whereby soldiers could be simply jammed against one another in rows of green cots. The Iraq veterans among them couldn't believe how grim their Afghanistan quarters were compared to U.S. bases in Iraq—especially since Iraq was the more recent of the two wars, with the United States' having gone into that country more than a year after entering Afghanistan. But then again, the officers reminded themselves, Iraq had long been the favored war of their commander in chief, and Afghanistan the one that would be fought on the cheap.Yep, welcome to Combat Outpost Keating, situated at the foot of steep mountains, purportedly to stop trafficking by insurgents to and from Pakistan. Strategically misplaced from the beginning, nearly every soldier, from outpost commanders to lowly grunts, landed at the site, took a long look around, whistled and said, "Holy shit. We're gonna get slaughtered here." And on October 3, 2009, after several years of rotations, casualties, and one-by-one deaths, the compound was assailed by more than 400 insurgents—with the mere 53 U.S troops ultimately holding them off, but at a price of numerous dead and wounded. From beginning to end, The Outpost is one long, sad tale of wasted talent, effort and money, reinforced by the stubbornness and failure of vision of an out-of-touch command structure. Despite numerous obvious flaws in the location of the outpost, construction moved forward, ostensibly because the site was located on the only road in the region, and as such was deemed key to both halting insurgent traffic and resupplying the base. However, early on it became clear that the road was not anywhere near stable enough to allow heavy U.S. military equipment to pass safely. Before too long, supplies were being flown in by helicopter—eventually, only at night … and then, only nights with no moon, because insurgents could fire on them so easily from the surrounding hills. Supplying the troops becomes so dangerous the troops at the outpost at some points are down to one MRE a day, and after a particularly fierce firefight in which a couple of men and the lone medic are wounded, it's deemed too risky to send a medivac to get them out, both for reasons of enemy fire and generally shitty terrain that won't allow landings..
Still, the inertia of the establishment military to refuse to take a second look at the wisdom of locating a post in the valley reigns. Even when the decision is finally made to pull troops out, it's postponed due to flare-ups nearby, and with units stretched so thin throughout Afghanistan, every military action is undermanned. The deadly assault of October 2009 is only surprising in that it hadn't happened earlier—and if it weren't for the incredible fast-thinking cooperation of the troops at the outpost and belated air power help, it's likely no one would have survived.
Tapper does what all great narrators do: He brings to life the individual men in a way that allows readers to see each soldier in full, with their unique backgrounds, hopes, dreams and families. When they are wounded or killed, we as readers feel it, deeply. Let's take … oh, the story of, say … Lieutenant Ben Keating as one example. After all, the outpost is eventually named for him.
Ben Keating was destined for greatness, of this he was sure. After finishing ROTC at the University of New Hampshire, where he was president of the Young Republicans, he had joined the military because he expected someday to be a U.S. senator from Maine, charged with voting on whether or not to send American troops into harm's way, and he didn't think it would be right to ask those future troops to fight he had never done so himself.Tapper goes into great detail about Keating's parents back in Maine, his girlfriend, his God and country background, his enormous sense of responsibility towards the men he leads. And after just a little while in country, we see a change:
Keating had joined the military because he wanted to know what it was like to serve before he—as a future congressman, senator, president—sent others off to fight. What his time in Afghanistan was teaching him was that there needed to be better reasons, stronger threats to national security, before the United States deployed its sons and daughters. The abstract threat of terror was not enough, Keating thought.So bad are the decisions being made above him that Keating refuses to put his men in the obvious danger of carrying them out; when ordered to bring a heavy tank back to the larger base on the godforsaken, crumbling road, he decides to go himself. And he loses his life when the road collapses. Keating was in the first round of casualties, on the first tour of setting up the ill-fated outpost. So beloved was he that the camp ended up bearing his name, a painful touch of irony given that he thought the base shouldn't exist … and that the venture in wider Afghanistan was unwise. As the casualties mount through troop rotations, accidents, firefights and the final crucial October battle, Tapper shows how the damage spreads outward from the dead and wounded to families, to fiancees, to parents and to now-fatherless children.
The ravaged are many and varied; one of the wounded soldiers is shipped back home and discharged, only to spiral into PTSD and substance abuse, ultimately dying from a drug overdose. He's as abandoned in the U.S. veteran medical system as much as he was at the outpost, prompting one fellow soldier to say: "I kinda think he was the ninth victim of Keating. And I honestly don't think he'll be the last."
There were small positive signs of bonding with the locals here and there, but the residents in nearby towns knew from the get-go that the Americans would leave and the insurgents would remain, a fact that at times kept them at best neutral … and who could blame them?
Tapper surveys the landscape, both political and geographic, and concludes there had been a perfect firestorm of ignorance and bad decision-making, not just at the outpost, but for all of the conduct of the Afghanistan war. War on the cheap, the inability to acknowledge the bad player that Pakistan is and was in the region, disconnected leaders, fear of political repercussions, disinterest in the region's history and alliances and geography … all led to this terrible waste of effort and life.
The Outpost is a painful read, make no mistake about it. When the U.S. finally leaves the cursed place, it is bombed to smithereens so that bad guys can't use any of the leftovers. "The Army assessed the value of the loss of Combat Outpost Keating at $6.2 million," Tapper writes, "including LRASs, radios, machine guns, Humvees, and night-vision goggles."
The ruined lives and the ill will the outpost left behind, both in those who manned it and for the residents surrounding it are, of course, immeasurable.
As Tapper says in closing:
All that I can tell you with certitude is that the men and women of 3-71 Cav, the 1-91 Cav, 6-4 Cav, and especially 3-61 Cav deserved better. They are heroes, and they have my appreciation and eternal gratitude. I wish they had a command structure and a civilian leadership that were always worthy of their efforts.Amen.
...and I am Sid Harth
↧
↧
The Outpost: Jake Tepper
* [new] I have avoided Afghanistan lately(27+ / 0-)
For I simply have a finite supply of outrage, if I wrote about everything that angered me I'd be burnt out in seconds.
We're in a terrible, terrible tactical position with a withdrawal date so far away. We have, in fact, admitted we have lost and will retreat home. But just not now.
Jesus, talk about emboldening the enemy and discouraging your own people. Then it got a lot worse last year.
The President, obviously seeing the insanity of all this yet insisting he keep national security balls (what a joke) announced that the withdrawal would be sped up by cutting the amount of troops in half.
Oh my god. If I get another down-the-middle split-the-difference decision from this President I'm going to vomit for weeks. What the fuck does reducing by half do? Who gets to stay and go?
The only thing to accomplish now is to get the hell out of there, every American soul. Right now. Today.
Anything else is grossly insulting to my soul and psyche. We are so lost, so far from where we could be, and this President is oblivious, to put it kindly. Our status quo compromise centrist President is something I'm never experiencing again, I will not call myself a Democrat and go through this immense shame, I don't care the Republicans run Satan, I truly do not.* [new] burnt out in seconds?(0+ / 0-)
God forbid you burn out on your outrage.... Keyboards and monitors can be formidable adversaries
Read your comment again and see how it sounds. People are dying actually being there, and you come up with a comment that says "avoiding Afghanistan.... outrage".
Your comment has got to be the the most remarkably self-centered statement I have ever read.
Burnt out? I hope that no family of people who died there read what you said
Do a search for
Clinton Romesha
and understand what he and his unit went through. >>>Those<<< are ground for burnout.
Your "burnout"? "Tone deaf" is the best I can say[ Parent ]* [new] Seems as if they didn't learn(4+ / 0-)
a damned thing from Korea or Vietnam, where the tales of valor now dimmed by decades sound so similar - take the hill one day, retreat and give it back the next, hey, let's put this forward encampment right here in the very middle of the T-Rex prey game trail (shades of Jurassic Park stupidity from inevitably dumb-assed higher-ups)... Mines in the road? Who would do such a... BANG
War is hell. It's an even worse hell when it's fought for MIC profits and chessboard dominance of chicken-hawks playing games in perfectly safe havens on the other side of the world. They will never learn.
I'm still waiting for the day when the MIC starts a for-profit war and the poor don't show up to fight it. Don't guess I'll ever see it, though.[ Parent ]* [new] Battle on the cheap(18+ / 0-)
War on the expense account. Just as in almost every other war the gap between what "leaders" receive in the rear and what guys get a places like COP Keating is huge. Only in Afghanistan there were fewer excuses because of the nonlinear nature of the fight. The front could be 1 KM away or 100KM away. Doesnt matter, the guys doing the fighting always get shafted.
No one hates war more than soldiers.It is well that war is so terrible -- lest we should grow too fond of it. Robert E. Lee* [new] There is no "front" there. Any more than in Vietna(24+ / 0-)
m. There is only STUPID, from the idiot policies of the "anti-communism excuses everything" that put GIs in the same asymmetric situation with no possibility of "victory" except for the careerists and contractors, who were playing another game altogether, still are, the game called "wealth transfer," now with the ante upped by adding "creation of a world-spanning 'security' apparatus" to the mix.
We go invade some place and expect the "gooks" and "wogs" to love us and become "democratized," when our own "democracy" is a sham and the gulf between the ideal and the real is not only palpable, it's crushing.
Horror movies and books get to us because of the creatures with power over our lives who cannot be defeated or killed. Guess what it's like to be sent to play shoot-em-up with people who own the terrain, who may not be very nice but whose society in all its unstudied parts there is not a snowball's chance of building up, up, up until, in the words of a long-dead warhawk senator, it's just like Kansas City? And to have these brass hat fuckers and dickheads in think tanks taking advantage of the GI's patriotic impulses and brand loyalty by sending them on endless futile errands with a damn good chance of getting killed or getting sucked into atrocity-land...
And all we got is to cite books to each other that display the horror and feed our sense of futility. Time to call a halt to the whole fucking idiocy.
Two reading list suggestions to feed your sense of the futile: Krakauer's "Where Men Win Glory," the life and fraudulently misappropriated friendly-fire (what a sick term) death of NFL great Pat Tillman, and "First In: How the CIA Spearheaded the War On Terror in Afghanistan," by a CIA operative named Gary Schroen. That latter one has everything you need to see and know about how things are really, actually done in Afghanistan to know that "we" were totally fucked, the "guys" and the hate-to-say-it stupid gals who just wanted to get in some real combat experience.
Yah, we could do better. The betting, because of where all the money is, is that "we" won't. How many of you are really cool with the idea of starting another WAR OF CHOICE with IRAN? Because why, again?* [new] Well stated, jm214, and thanks for the book recs,(9+ / 0-)
especially the Schroen volume. Obviously, we've had a major CIA problem for decadess. Unfortunately, I don't see anything changing for the better under PBO on this score. Here's a snip from a Glenn Greenwald piece in the Guardian in JanuaryPrior to President Obama's first inauguration in 2009, a controversy erupted over reports that he intended to appoint John Brennan as CIA director. That controversy, in which I participated, centered around the fact that Brennan, as a Bush-era CIA official, had expressly endorsed Bush's programs of torture (other than waterboarding) and rendition and also was a vocal advocate of immunizing lawbreaking telecoms for their role in the illegal Bush NSA eavesdropping program. As a result, Brennan withdrew his name from consideration, issuing a bitter letter blaming "strong criticism in some quarters prompted by [his] previous service with the" CIA. This "victory" of forcing Brennan's withdrawal proved somewhat Pyrrhic, as Obama then appointed him as his top counter-terrorism adviser, where he exerted at least as much influence as he would have had as CIA Director, if not more. In that position, Brennan last year got caught outright lying when he claimed Obama's drone program caused no civilian deaths in Pakistan over the prior year. He also spouted complete though highly influential falsehoods to the world in the immediate aftermath of the Osama bin Laden killing, including claiming that bin Laden "engaged in a firefight" with Navy SEALS and had "used his wife as a human shield". Brennan has also been in charge of many of Obama's most controversial and radical policies, including "signature strikes" in Yemen - targeting people without even knowing who they are - and generally seizing the power to determine who will be marked for execution without any due process, oversight or transparency.
Regarding Afghanistan: we need to bring our troops home.
link* [new] The challenge now is to educate, re-educate actual(2+ / 0-)
ly, enough people to compel some kind of actual real healthy change --
No more bully bullshit! no more ripping lies! If we keep up this business, the whole country dies!
We've seen where Empire leads, like Rome, the various Reichs -- the sorry fuckers who have taken us down into this long dark valley are doing, personally, just Great! when it comes to money and influence and people calling them for advice. Is there any stupid reason, other than stupidity and bovine acquiescence at being slaughtered to lard the already groaning tables of the Few, after we trample out other peoples' vineyards?
Remember that the Bourbon aristocracy took their wealth to Austria before the guillotines got to work. And of course the Nazis, after pumping up all that nationalist shit about the Exceptionalism of the German Volk, took as much of the portable wealth of Europe, including art treasures and tons of gold from the teeth of those they suckered their tools into gassing and cremating, as they could stuff into aircraft and submarines and "neutral ships" and toddled off to Argentina and of course the US, where many of them became "valued assets" of the OSS/CIA...
Spread the word. Spread the word. Spread the word. Even the shock troops for the Tea Party are capable of getting really pissed off at being "had" by the few, if only they can be made to listen and see...* [new] I am reminded of a story Colin Powell(37+ / 0-)
relates in his book when as a young officer in Viet Nam, he visits a ARVN base and air srtip situated in a particularly bad spot. He asks why the base is there, "to protect the airfield", then he askes why the airfield is there, "to supply the base".
I guess some things haven't changed much in 40 years (has it been that long?)* [new] Yeah, he mentions the naming thing(22+ / 0-)
The other problem is that these outposts and the bases and overlooks end up bearing the names of soldiers who died defending them. When it comes time to make a decision to withdraw, it then starts feeling like you're betraying, for example, Keating, by not continuing to protect the square yards that bear his name. It's not rational, but it's understandable, and many in Afghanistan were questioning the wisdom of honoring the dead in quite this way—since it seemed quite possible it would needlessly lead to more dead.* [new] Déjà vu(29+ / 0-)
When the U.S. finally leaves the cursed place, it is bombed to smithereens so that bad guys can't use any of the leftovers.
Operation CharlieOn June 19, 1968, another operation began at Khe Sanh. This was Operation Charlie, the final evacuation and destruction of the Khe Sanh Combat Base. The Marines withdrew all salvageable material and destroyed everything else.
Help me to be the best Wavy Gravy I can muster* [new] Same shit, different day.(7+ / 0-)
Though Khe Sanh was surely a larger scale fuckup than Keating.
I was 3 in 1968, a "save me from the draft" baby basically.
Just got through flipping through a few hundred images on Google Images about Khe Sanh. Looking at those pics, reading about Outpost Keating here, it really comes home to you that nothing has changed, and nothing is ever going to change.
There's always going to be money to be made in bullshit wars, the politicians will be convinced to go into those wars by the businesses and the brass who'll benefit from the death and destruction.
It's been 40 years since Viet Nam. Korea was only 10-15 years before Viet Nam, and WWII only 10 years before Korea, so maybe we're making progress. Maybe.*The administration has done virtually nothing designed to reward its partisans. - Kos 8/31/10*[ Parent ]* [new] Reopened for Lom Son 719(3+ / 0-)
Khe Sanh was reopened for the ill fated invasion of Laos in Jan. of 1971. Flew in and out of the god forsaken hilltop outpost many times covering our slicks that were trying to get the best of the ARVN units into Laos as far as the symbolic crossroads town of Tchepone. It was a futile effort as the ARVN were not up to facing the ferocity of NVA divisions head on. We lost 90 helicopters over the next three months of this fiasco that would surely be recognized as "This Is The End" in the most dreadful sense of what Morrison sang about. And then we did it again ten years ago right now with Iraq. When will we ever learn?* [new] I hate to say this and I will be flamed(26+ / 0-)
but the American people are ultimately the ones responsible for the Afghanistan war. We should've just got Bin Laden and then left. We don't demand information from our leaders. Most Americans don't understand this conflict and won't take responsibility to. We let our emotions rule us. We have plenty of previous wars and conflicts in history to educate us on what to do, but we refuse to read.
We took all the wrong lessons from Vietnam and World War II. We still believe brutality and violence for the right reasons is moral, and that backing down and not having "balls" is something to be avoided, whereas logic and reason are seen as weaknesses. Ideology does not whitewash brutality. Until you fix that basic part of our thinking, nothing moves forward."Holding on to anger is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die," - Buddha.* [new] I'm not so sure you'd get flamed(30+ / 0-)
There's a general Tapper interviewed that hinted at the same thing. I took a quote from the book but it didn't end up making into the review, so I'll add it here (my emphasis added):In the course of my conversations and interviews for this project, I was told by one recently retired general with experience in Afghanistan that he hoped this book might have an impact on the nation in wars going forward. How so? I asked.
"The wars of the twenty-first century have been outsourced by the American people to our government in D.C. and to our military," he said. "With an all-volunteer force, the American people are no more connected to our armed forces than the Roman citizens were to the legionnaires. And now we even pay for wars with tax cuts. So, who war and whose Army is it?"
The general hoped that at least some members of the public would, through reading this book, come to a greater understanding of just what war entails, what the sacrifices mean. "I worry it is becoming too easy for the United States to use force," he added. "There are not enough domestic constraints."* [new] have you seen what happens here(3+ / 0-)
at DKos to whatever poor schmuck dares to suggest a draft or national service of some kind from time to time?
Here, watch what happens:I support an obligation of citizenship to be fulfilled at some point between one's 18th and 28th birthdays. Two years, universal and mandatory, with many options/avenues available to choose how to serve. Plant trees, wipe old folks' bottoms, military, peace corps, whatever. NO exceptions, and one has to do it somewhere other than at home, so everyone gets the experience of living somewhere else to understand better how/why they do it the way they do. Make cultural education part of it.
Suggestions as to how to do this better are welcome.* [new] Something like the draft is going to be required(1+ / 0-)
as the planet heats up. There will be mass efforts to Geo-engineer the planet. And I damned sure don't want to see any religious exemptions for proselyting the French!
The draft is a process of getting manpower to fight an existential battle to protect the nation. The US last faced such a threat in WW II. Israel believes it still faces such a threat, so it still has a draft.The US Supreme Court has by its actions and rhetoric has ceased to be legitimate. Whiskey Tango Foxtrot - over[ Parent ]* [new] The whole point of an all volunteer army, when it(1+ / 0-)
was first established from the lessons learned in Vietnam, was that a skeleton, volunteer army could never fight a war. Their purpose was as a first line of defense and a training corps for the recruits that would be drafted in the event of a national emergency.
In order to make war the US would have to re-institute the draft which it would only do if the war was completely essential to our security. And if the people of the country supported the war effort.
Bush got around that part by calling up the reserves and instituting a back door draft and using multiple deployments. And contractors.
It is kind of ironic, because I suspect that after 9/11 Bush could have called for and gotten a draft.We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty - Edward R. Murrow[ Parent ]* [new] it should have been treated(11+ / 0-)
as a police action, not a global war against a nebulous concept that can be anywhere, any time- a war that can be used to justify anything, anywhere, any time. but once the bush-cheney-rumsfeld-rice team got over their initial shock at their own devastating failures, they realized that they could manipulate the moment to seemingly justify all their larger, more sinister aspirations.The cold passion for truth hunts in no pack. -Robinson Jeffers[ Parent ]* [new] I am reading a book right now about the Mexican-(6+ / 0-)
American War ginned up by President Polk after his defeat of Henry Clay, pretty much started by the annexation of Texas and Polk's belief in the Manifest Destiny doctrine and the coveting of Arizona, New Mexico and California. The war starts with a great jingoistic effort but ends up in disillusionment and unhappiness among the "volunteers" who sign up to defeat the Mexicans.
This pattern of enthusiasm and then disgust at the horrors of war seems to be a familiar pattern among all of this nation's "wars of choice" that stretches back to the beginning of the Republic.And it feels like I'm livin'in the wasteland of the free ~ Iris DeMent, 1996[ Parent ]* [new] well I'm reading a book(5+ / 0-)
on the Spanish -American war that sounds exactly like Mr. Jersey's book, it's called "Gone for Soldiers," by Jeff Shaara.In our sleep, pain which cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart until, in our own despair, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God ~RFK[ Parent ]* [new] The book is by Penn State historian Amy S. (6+ / 0-)
Greenberg called A Wicked War that focuses not so much on the military details of the Mexican American War, but on the interplay between Henry Clay, James Polk, and Abraham Lincoln with regard to events happening in Mexico and US politics. It is really interesting and in some sense, is something like what is happening today.
The problem with the US electorate is that they really do not know their history all that well and act on the myth rather than the reality.And it feels like I'm livin'in the wasteland of the free ~ Iris DeMent, 1996[ Parent ]* [new] That's an excellent and highly readable book(1+ / 0-)
It's also a good example of the fact that historians write history to provide lessons we need to get to deal with current day problems.The US Supreme Court has by its actions and rhetoric has ceased to be legitimate. Whiskey Tango Foxtrot - over[ Parent ]* [new] The Cheney and Bush people(5+ / 0-)
created a national, even international, climate of fear and hysteria in the time immediately follow late 2001. And they and their minions, including many in the DC press corps, used it to full advantage to brainwash the population into thinking, knowing that the only way to deal with the situation was to throw lots of military hardware at it.
Had the government been in more thoughtful, compassionate hands, it's possible that the 2001 attacks could have been treated as what they were, a matter for international policing, not war.Life is extremely cheap to the right-wing until a decision about it is either in the hands of a pregnant women or a Democratic president. -- Lia Matera[ Parent ]* [new] what a crock(1+ / 0-)
"We don't demand information from our leaders."
Uh, actually, we do. They illegally refuse to provide it. The Obama admin, despite promises of openness, has fought systematically against FOIA requests.
Everything you attribute to "we" was actually Cheney and Bush. THEY avoided Vietnam, THEY exploited emotions, THEY refused to listen. (What good did all the protests do before the invasion of Iraq? None.)
"We still believe brutality and violence for the right reasons is moral, and that backing down and not having "balls" is something to be avoided, whereas logic and reason are seen as weaknesses."
Let's say a regime is committing genocide and/or ethnic cleansing, and despite repeated attempts at reason and diplomacy, they persist. Then what? Let them exterminate people. Read Wesley Clark's book about Kosovo and you quickly start to ask why they again tried diplomacy with Milosevic. Some people only understand force."The dirty secret is that Obama is a moderate conservative. If I were a liberal democrat, I probably would be upset." Bruce Bartlett[ Parent ]* [new] I wonder if(1+ / 0-)
some of the reluctance to provide information now on military operations still ongoing, even though begun under Cheney and Bush, is that they are ongoing?
Might it be that once the troops are out of Afghanistan that more information could be forthcoming? I don't know the answer, and only time will say.
We live in such a 24/7 world of unedited information stream that it's hard to tell immediately what's real and what's not, what's important and not. Unfortuntely, the best way of determining is just to let some time pass.Life is extremely cheap to the right-wing until a decision about it is either in the hands of a pregnant women or a Democratic president. -- Lia Matera[ Parent ]* [new] no one is mentioning some guy named Kerry(2+ / 0-)
iirc he was an ex soldier who at one point recommended a different response after 911 in Afghanistan...but he was a weak saggy pants liberal and he windsurfed, so he must have lied about his VN service.
Sure glad we had strong leaders when we needed them.
.
.too bitter? ya...* [new] My 2003 experiences were different than yours(1+ / 0-)
I do not recall the general American populace reacting in horror to Bush's trial balloons-cum-statements of intent to invade Iraq. I do recall POTUS Bush 43 having sky-high approval ratings during that period. So no "We don't demand information from our leaders." is anythng BUT a crock.* [new] Yeah BS(1+ / 0-)
Sorry that thinking put guns in the hands of right wing terrorists in Honduras and Nicaragua fighting "communists" i.e. their political opponents as they went house to house murdering people. It's led to the death of 1.5 million Indonesians accused of being communists whose names were given to the authorities by U.S. intelligence. They were killed for their political beliefs.
You can use violence and brutality all you want, just don't paper it over with pretty words. What you are doing is brutal, it's just you think it's most effective for your aims.
Logic and reason still needed to prevail. If they had, the American public wouldn't have been so easily swayed to go to Iraq. Remember, most Americans are ignoring that the wars are happening. They're avoiding making a choice. Putting it all on Cheney and Bush washes the hands of the American public and that's not right."Holding on to anger is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die," - Buddha.[ Parent ]* [new] The Poet Laureate of Empire(11+ / 0-)
has a few appropriate words for the legionaries of today's empire:
--Rudyard Kipling, "The Young British Soldier"
When you're wounded and left on Afghanistan's plains,
And the women come out to cut up what remains,
Jest roll to your rifle and blow out your brains
An' go to your Gawd like a soldier.Ever get the feeling you've been cheated?* [new] See the movie "Restopo" about another outpost(12+ / 0-)
named after its first casualty.
SO hard to watch, especially the heart-wrenching reaction of one of the guys when his buddy dies (I felt like a ghoulish voyeur) but it sounds like this book is the written version of that movie.
There are a lot of reasons I hate Jake Tapper, but if he's written a valuable book, he's written a valuable book. More power to him on that score.* [new] That Book is titled WAR by Sebastian Junger(7+ / 0-)
RESTREPO is the companion movie to Junger's book captured on film by the late Tim Hetherington.
Both are gripping accounts that accurately document the insanity of this war in Afghanistan. Author Sebastian Junger spent nearly a year deployed with the Second Platoon of Battle Company, part of the 173rd Airborne Brigade. Accompanying them on numerous patrols where they engaged the enemy in intense firefights. Begin with Junger's description of the place... “The Korangal Valley,” he explains, “is sort of the Afghanistan of Afghanistan: too remote to conquer, too poor to intimidate, too autonomous to buy off.” Comprehend the imbalance of the combat burden borne by so few… "During the time of its tour, Battle Company, a mere 150 out of 70,000 NATO troops, was experiencing a fifth of the combat taking place in the entire country." It ends with the recognition of the utter waste of blood and treasure this folly is… "After five years of fighting and dying, American commanders decided the valley wasn’t worth the fight."
AMEN"Life is tough. It's even tougher if you're stupid." --John Wayne[ Parent ]* [new] Thanks for posting this.(9+ / 0-)
I’m aware that almost all politicians within in the Beltway are out of touch with reality. My last illusion was that the military command structure made decisions based upon the reality on the ground.
I just learned that most military leaders do not make decisions based upon the reality on the ground.
Many leaders are afraid of “Crossing” the right-wing; they make very bad decisions based upon their political ambitions. The result of those ambitions for the deaths of many hundreds of thousands of people across the world as well as the maiming of hundreds of thousands of people in the name of a campaign contribution from some amoral animal with a few dollars.
BTW: I include Barack Hussein Obama as being out of touch with reality, he wants to trade permanent reductions in Social Security and Medicare for closing tax loopholes that will be expanded during the next Republican administration.
Meanwhile, those permanent reductions in benefits will continue, the Social Security and to some extent the Medicare trust funds will continue to increase in value awaiting the day when they can be privatized to benefit the big banks. Banks that are too big to fail. Will they fail before our society collapses because of global climate change? I don't know.
I think he is also very out of touch with the reality on the ground in Afghanistan.* [new] I think it's impossible that PBO is "out of touch(1+ / 0-)
with reality" or less well-informed than those of us who read DK and the rest of the progressive media. He knows what we know and more. So, then, what is his motive for such disappointing (in)actions? Networking for personal enrichment? Or, as Jeb Bush calls it, "financial security for my family."
Ugh. I hate to be so cynical.* [new] Great book. See the file "Restropo", as well, and(6+ / 0-)
you will get a better sense of what our soldiers have had to endure. The "tip of the spear" was poorly served by Washington and command. My SOL has done 3 tours. I can't believe the stuff he tells me.Many hands make light work, but light hearts make heavy work the lightest of all.* [new] Need I remind you(14+ / 0-)
that literally millions of us were out in the streets of this country and around the world trying to prevent this war and the one in Iraq from ever starting?
We simply need to do a better job educating our children that being in the military is not an experience they need to have.[ Parent ]* [new] and it wasn't on TV because(5+ / 0-)
the Cheny and Bush people had a lock on PR and communications, both in DC and nationally, at that time.Life is extremely cheap to the right-wing until a decision about it is either in the hands of a pregnant women or a Democratic president. -- Lia Matera[ Parent ]* [new] This is the same press corps that declared war (3+ / 0-)
on Al Gore and all but assured that Bush was close enough to winning in 2000 so the US Supreme Court could act. See Bob Somerby's book "How he got there", partly posted online.
See also Gene Lyons' Fools for Scandal: How the Media Invented Whitewater (1996) and The Hunting of the President (2000).
We do not have the news organizations that came out of WW II and still mostly existed during Vietnam. They were one pf the first casualties of the Reagan-era counter-revolution against the New Deal.The US Supreme Court has by its actions and rhetoric has ceased to be legitimate. Whiskey Tango Foxtrot - over[ Parent ]* [new] not entirely(0+ / 0-)
the "same" press corps, but a lot of holdovers to be sure.
And I am all too painfully aware of its failings over time. I was lucky enough to know, after they were retired from active reporting, some of the people who'd been there in the '50s and '60s and '70s.Life is extremely cheap to the right-wing until a decision about it is either in the hands of a pregnant women or a Democratic president. -- Lia Matera[ Parent ]* [new] Shame and self-consciousness(2+ / 0-)
Seriously, a lot of the sixties generation look back on their "youth" and feel a little ashamed, hence their quasi-conservatism later in life, or full-blown wingnuttery (Jon Voight). Their lurch to the right apparently came during the Carter/Reagan years.* [new] Michael Moore's post-2004 election letter(1+ / 0-)
http://www.michaelmoore.com/...If there was one group who really came through on Tuesday, it was the young people of America. Their turnout was historic and record-setting. And few in the media are willing to report this fact. Unlike 2000 when Gore and Bush almost evenly split the youth vote (Gore: 48%, Bush: 46%), this year Kerry won the youth vote in a LANDSLIDE, getting a full ten points more than Bush (Kerry: 54%, Bush: 44%).
Young people were the ONLY age group that voted for Kerry. In every other age group (30-39, 40-49, 50-59, etc.), the majority voted for Bush.The only age group in which the majority voted for Kerry was young adults (Kerry: 54%, Bush: 44%), proving once again that your parents are always wrong and you should never listen to them.
* [new] The assasinations of Martin Luther King and RFK(1+ / 0-)
Not to sound too dramatic, but it broke the baby boomer generation's hearts, and two Nixon landslides broke their will. Also, after the end of the Vietnam war and the draft, sixties radicals didn't have anything to protest.
Adulthood, and adapting and conforming to a more conservative late 1970s America naturally followed.* [new] When they got put in charge.(2+ / 0-)
You know the old saying, power corrupts.
Besides, the good ol' Boomers were more about "don't send me to Viet Nam" than about Peace and Love when it came down to it.
Not that I blame 'em for that.
But now that they are in charge, well...*The administration has done virtually nothing designed to reward its partisans. - Kos 8/31/10*[ Parent ]* [new] This isn't the anti-Vietnam crowd in power(3+ / 0-)
This is the conservatives who were corrupt before they went after government power and lied their way into office. Since then many of them have lied, stolen and manipulated their way to wealth because they had control of government power. The Great Recession is the fruits of their efforts, and they have built on it with Shock Doctrine tactics to prevent any regulation of the industries and banks who created the mess America is currently in.
The baby boomers were not all of one mind, I can assure you. Many like Mitt Romney were pro-war (but send the plebeians to fight), anti-union and anti-Civil Rights.
The fact that it has become harder and more expensive to work and also raise children at the same time there have been no real pay increases since 1980 have kept a lot of people out of politics. Politics is a leisure activity.
Then a lot of baby boomers bought the idea that increased Civil Rights to Blacks and women have meant that the income Whites had earned was being given away to minorities. A lot of the boomers when they got some reward felt it threatened and adopted the popular conservative ideas. Not all of us did, but a lot.
Then there has been the massive growth of the conservative think tank industry feeding propaganda into the public media even as the mass media itself has been dying off.
All of this and America has elected as Presidents one paranoid nasty crook with an even more crooked Veep, a senile manipulable actor, and then handed the Presidency to the idiot first son of a Texas Oil family.
You ask what happened to the baby boomers. You know them. They're the generation that is starting to retire now and has no savings, no pension, their kids have moved back in and brought the grandchildren, and meanwhile their home has lost its value even if it wasn't foreclosed by a thieving crooked bank. Some are caring for wounded veterans. Oh, and don't forget that Boehner, Cantor, Ryan and the insane tea baggers are fighting hard to take away their Medicare and social security.
Does that explain to you what happened to the baby boomers? They damned sure aren't the ones in power in Washington right now.The US Supreme Court has by its actions and rhetoric has ceased to be legitimate. Whiskey Tango Foxtrot - over[ Parent ]* [new] The parallels of Vietnam and Iraq/Afghan(10+ / 0-)
I'm old enough to remember the end of the debacle known as The Vietnam War. The US had spent 10 years hearing about the impending threat associated with the 'domino theory', and by the early 70's, we the people, were ready to turn the collective page on SW Asia.
It's deja vu all over again, as 10 years under the harrowing 'Sword of Damacles' associated with the global war on terrorism has brought us not one but two unwinnable, asinine wars, at the tune of $4 trillion.
Like Vietnam, people understand they were sold a bill of goods, and like a mark that's been swindled, we prefer to purge this from our national discourse.
I submit that we foresnically analyze the run up to these useless wars, name names, put them in text books, and own these national abominations. Not wholly unlike the concentration camps that stand in Germany, not necessarily to shame us, but to remember what happens when greedy, born of privilege, chickenhawks take control of a country of frightened, naive, uninformed citizenry.
This is our burden to carry.* [new] Put that book on the same shelf as (2+ / 0-)
A Wicked War, about a President who lied America into war with Mexico.
Then there was the Spanish American War, from which we still have Puerto Rico and Guantanamo. And the invasion of Grenada had no real reason except to eat up all the media coverage that otherwise would have tarnished the Reagan administration after the bombing of the Marine Barracks in Lebanon (where we had no excuse for having troops in the first place.)
The list is really quite lengthy. Iraq is just one of the larger disasters and wastes of life.The US Supreme Court has by its actions and rhetoric has ceased to be legitimate. Whiskey Tango Foxtrot - over[ Parent ]* [new] Clusterfucks are endemic to war, (1+ / 0-)
all wars, citing examples say little about the nature of any particular one.
Our misadventures in Afghanistan can be easily critiqued, but millions of young women and girls are going to school now, including many young women currently in college here in the states. Infant mortality has dropped to one quarter of what it was before 2002, and schools have been built in remote villages that had never had one. Will the Taliban be able to put their toothpaste back in the tube? Maybe. But here are a couple of Afghan women that may have something to say about it....."Fascism is attracting the dregs of humanity- people with a slovenly biography - sadists, mental freaks, traitors." - ILYA EHRENBURG* [new] The boomers who prosecuted Iraq (10+ / 0-)
and Afghanistan were only the same age as the peace and love generation. They were never part of it. They the ones who supported the war in Vietnam (many of them dodging the draft as much as those who protested - Bush, Cheney, Rove) who heckled and even threatened those of us who did protest.
These men were either the sons of the establishment that approved of Vietnam, or aspired to be. Many of us who protested have continued our activism over the years - just look at the folks on Daily Kos.* [new] This is just(4+ / 0-)
Vietnam all over again. Proving that the military-industrial establishment has long since been incapable of conducting just war and maintaining a genuine commitment to troops. "War on the cheap" is another way of saying "War for Profit". Because it's the mentality of corporatists who cut their workforce to the bone and cover for crummy materials with glitzy marketing; the mentality of those who enter wars for "strategic aims" that have nothing to do with the defense of the American people and everything to do with increasing the Almighty Bottom Line.
Merchants have never been especially good at waging war, because at the heart of a good warrior there has to be a profound commitment, a caring about the goal and the people that carries through when men like Keating put their lives on the line doing a dangerous task in a risky environment. Allowing profiteers to be the ultimate force that commands soldiers is an abomination. Ill-conceived plans dropped when their flaws become apparent, at great cost in lives and treasure, is the inevitable result of allowing men of petty hearts and minds to control grand enterprises such as nations.* [new] FUBAR for Esprit de Corps(7+ / 0-)
I keep reading about two things: how effective our soldiers are, and how many of them lead difficult and unhappy lives after leaving the service. I can't help thinking, maybe there's a causal relationship.
The big question we all face as we get ready to leave the home we grew up in, somewhere around 17 and 23, is "Who am I and where do I fit in?" The military has a great answer for you, as long as it lasts.
It's no secret, the primary motivation for professional soldiers is not patriotism, not defending the folks back home, not pride in being a good soldier. In the crunch it all comes down to being completely loyal to the other soldiers around you, to being instinctively there for this incredibly tight-knit crew, and knowing that the crew is there for you.
That bond to some extent replaces home, family & country, the soldier becomes primarily a member of that band. You will die for your brothers, you will kill for your brothers, and you know they'll do the same for you.
Training is designed to make that click in, and then every combat engagement reinforces it, over and over and over.
Sooner or later, the soldier leaves the army. Who is he then? Nobody. What replaces that deep and effortless feeling of belonging? Nothing comes close
As with cult survivers, many ex soldiers figure something out, and do just fine. But a great many don't. And I can't help thinking, this is a cold and fucked-up trick to play on human beings.
We'll keep doing it like that as long as we feel the need to create groups of young people to to kill and die on command, with no good reason other than esprit de corps.* [new] Their Commander-in-chief is now a painter I hear!(2+ / 0-)
I'm so thrilled that the MSM is now taken by the painting skill of that wonderful, goofy, X-Commander-in-chief George W. Bush. This terrific leader was what the american people (with the help of the Supremes) chose to lead this great nation. We are all blessed to have had him as our leader!* [new] not much different than ANY war(4+ / 0-)
The histories are full of tales of command incompetence and political idiocy trumping common sense.
And yet we continue to glorify war and the military, even here. We "support" the "troops", every one of whom has chosen to be where they are. But no one can deny that in the end, it is all a scam, a way to make a buck sucking off the taxpayers' teat.
Soldiers themselves make pennies on the job, and then get to fight to get a scrap of bennies if they survive and get back home; their most useful role is to put that human face on the enterprise, so we have to care. To not support the enterprise is to disrespect our "troops".
I'll prolly not read Tapper, because I have been reading this same story all my life; each war spawns an industry of writing about the horrors and deprivations, the "human side", the story that is permitted to be told. Brave writers hint at the mountain of bullshit we all live at the edge of, benefiting from the prosperity that rolls down from on high.
Sad truth: the business of, or at least a large part of America's busyness, is death. Millions of Americans support their families by being a part of this utterly sacrosanct death industry, each of them, of course, as blameless as the soldiers themselves, or all of us taxpayers.
Rather than examine this, we seek to blame a few at the top of the pyramid, as though they were in charge and responsible, and if we could just tweak things, it would all be better. But those few at the top stand on the base we all provide by quietly going about our jobs and not asking questions.
See, here's the deal about us old freaks who scold from the sidelines, those who FIFTY FUCKING YEARS AGO listened to the poetry of "Masters of War" and "With God on our Side"; we woke up and smelled the coffee and looked in the mirror. Here's the deal: none of this (Tapper's book) is new information. The bookshelf is actually bent near to breaking by the weight of all the books that have been written in the same vein. But hey, one more book ought to do the trick, eh?don't always believe what you think* [new] Check out(0+ / 0-)
the documentary "Why We Fight" by Eugene Jarecki. It's worth seeing. I learned some things from it. (Depressing things.)
http://www.youtube.com/...[ Parent ]* [new] Awesome.(3+ / 0-)
I wasn't a D-Kos'er back then. Good review. I also loved "The Things They Carried", btw. Great book. And I remember reading about Kauzlarich in the Pat Tillman book by Jon krakauer ("Where Men Win Glory", also worth reading, if only to get a glimpse into what a unique and remarkable person Tillman was; he was really his own man) and thinking Kauzlarich was a complete douche. The Good Soldiers certainly changed the impression for me. Peace, Susan.[ Parent ]* [new] The Things They Carried ...(3+ / 0-)
is the singlemost beautiful, harrowing book I've ever read about the experience of war.
For those unfamiliar, it's by Tim O'Brien.
More info: The Things They Carried* [new] The Untold Story???(0+ / 0-)
Didn't people have to tell him the story so he could write the book?
Or if the book is the story it should be the "Previously Untold Story".Our reason is quite satisfied ... if we can find a few arguments that will do to recite in case our credulity is criticized... Our faith is faith in someone else's faith, and in the greatest matters this is most the case. - William James* [new] No One Cares about Soldiers(0+ / 0-)
Lefties only care about the military inasmuch as they can find things to prove how corrupt and wretched the leaders are, and talk about the military-industrial complex.
Righties only care about the military inasmuch as they can send people off to fight but don't care about them when they return, if they do.* [new] Fantastic Book(4+ / 0-)
Read the book and was amazed at the valor of our troops. I fought in Nam and I am convinced I would not have made it a week in Afghanistan. After reading this book, I affirmed the fact that Cheney and Rumsfeld will go down is history is the the worst in American history. We may not care enought about our troops, but we should. Wounded Warriors is one of my causes.[ Parent ]* [new] yes, thanks for posting this(1+ / 0-)
I won't read the book, largely because it would engender in me the urge to do grievous bodily harm to those responsible for this horrific mess.
And even though they're long out of office, thank FSM, I don't think the Secret Service would look upon that kindly.Life is extremely cheap to the right-wing until a decision about it is either in the hands of a pregnant women or a Democratic president. -- Lia Matera[ Parent ]* [new] as with all war(1+ / 0-)
one long, sad tale of wasted talent, effort and money, reinforced by the stubbornness and failure of vision of an out-of-touch command structure.
Warning - some snark above‽ (-9.50; -7.03)‽ eState4Column5©2013* [new] Not sure trust Jake Tapper too much - help me out(3+ / 0-)
I am aware of the story of this base Keating. Not all of the story of course but I did previously hear about this poorly-situated outpost. I imagine Mr Tapper can narrate a straightforward account of what happened there over the time line.
But when it comes to putting the events into the larger political context and so forth, is this not the same Jake Tapper who was so consistently wrong during the past few election cycles? I know he's not as bad as Mark Helperin ... to be honest I have little faith in most all of today's pundits. Which means I sometimes confuse who is who.
Am I correct in remembering this Tapper guy as just one more Inner Beltway stooge? Or is he one of the 2-3% worth respecting?Don't panic* [new] let's just say that(1+ / 0-)
his name is not the first one that springs to mind when you say "one of the 2-3% worth respecting."
OTOH, better than Wordward.Life is extremely cheap to the right-wing until a decision about it is either in the hands of a pregnant women or a Democratic president. -- Lia Matera[ Parent ]* [new] Whatever you do, remember that JAKE comes first.(1+ / 0-)
If he can make himself shiny and celebrated by writing something good and reasonable and worthwhile, he'll make himself shiny that way.
But always remember that if he should need some additional sparkle tomorrow, he might choose to write something disgusting, childish, unresearched or TOTALLY UNTRUE.
The guy is a weathervane. I liken his motivations to those of the drunk only looking for his keys under the lamp post: because the light is better there.* [new] It's true that it's an emotional read(2+ / 0-)
What I finally told myself is that, for heaven's sake, if these people (soldiers and families) can deal with the heartbreak in their lives, certainly the very least I could do was read about it—and write about it.
I think it's true that this is in many ways a forgotten war, and I think we all need to be remembering it.* [new] The Nam all over again(1+ / 0-)
This is why we were never supposed to forget the lessons of Viet Nam. Even though Afghanistan(and Saudi Arabia) was the countries giving sanctuary and training facilities to the Wahabbi sect that makes up al Queda the invasion and attempted capture of bin Laden were so poorly executed as to presage the running of the entire 10 year fiasco. Perhaps if Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld/Rice et al had not been so dead set on invading Iraq we could have made some headway there but when the Afghans saw how all the American troops were being pulled out and sent to Iraq how could they ever support the American's again. We lost the hearts and minds of the Afghans before we even gave defeating al Queda a good effort.* [new] I'm confused(2+ / 0-)
I thought we all believed Jake Tapper was an idiot. Did I miss the memo? (Seriously, I had to look the book up to confirm that this was the same guy who is constantly being dissed her on Daily Kos.)"One of the secrets of life is that all that is really worth the doing is what we do for others." - Lewis Carroll, 1832-1898* [new] I just finished Matterhorn by Karl Marlantes(4+ / 0-)
Karl was a graduate of Yale and a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford, and also a Marine lieutenant in Vietnam. That sort of combination is rare enough to remind me of JFK and John Kerry. Among his awards are the Navy Cross, Bronze Star and two Purple Hearts. His story is born of fearsome personal experience.
The book was written as a novel, but it closely follows Karl's experiences in Vietnam, revolving around a base named Matterhorn in the jungle near the Laotian border. The book is grim and and filled with grewsome tales of small unit jungle combat and suffering, but it is well enough written to understand it as cathartic purge of what came home with Marlantes.
Matterhorn was a base not unlike Tapper's Combat Outpost Keating. It was situated at the extreme range of support from artillery and aircraft, it was built once, blown up and abandoned once, and then had to be retaken from the NVA at great cost.
Marlantes is frank and unsparing in his treatment of the racial divide and conflict within the Marines. This aspect of the book is one which sets it apart from many others which avoid this hot-button topic.
I recommend Matterhorn to those who can suffer through the book with the Marines and by so doing gain insight into what this part of the Vietnam War was all about.Eradicate magical thinking
↧
Jake Tapper's 'The Outpost'
Jake Tapper's 'The Outpost' Raises Vital Questions on U.S. Afghanistan Strategy
The Army uses the term “BLUF” – bottom line up front. The BLUF on Jake Tapper’s new book on Afghanistan, The Outpost, is that you need to read it.
If you are a civilian, you need to do so to see and understand something of what you ask America’s warriors to do in your name. If you are one of those warriors, especially if you presume to lead American soldiers, you need to do so for the sake of your fellow troops.Jake Tapper is an unusual mainstream journalist, one who movement conservatives respect. That’s not because he’s a conservative himself – he’s not – but because he seems to embody the kind of objectivity that the mainstream media has almost completely abandoned in favor of outright partisanship. And he’s a stickler for accuracy – I once clashed with him over some long-forgotten article in Big Journalism where he took offense over my questioning of his reporting. His stubborn dedication shows here; the lawyer in me appreciates the thorough documentation at the back of the book.
The subtitle of The Outpost is An Untold Story of American Valor, and it’s a crime that this is true. You don’t know the story. America doesn’t know the story. That is something of the point. This is the story of the tactics that derive from a strategy that, if more Americans understood it, might not be the strategy at all. We just had an election and the only discussion of Afghanistan focused on who would pull out fastest. That’s not strategy.
The focus of The Outpost is not the men who fight the engagements over the several years that the ill-fated Combat Outpost (“COP”) Keating existed in a remote corner of Afghanistan but COP Keating itself. This is significant. The book orients on terrain, just like classic warfare. When you talk about conventional fighting, you are necessarily talking terrain, or (less frequently) the enemy itself. But the war in Afghanistan is not traditional warfare.
Tapper’s story is really one of men at the unit level – the troopers in various Infantry Brigade Combat Teams’ (“IBCT”) reconnaissance (i.e., cavalry) squadrons – trying to come up with effective tactics in support of a non-traditional strategy, counter-insurgency (“COIN”). COIN doesn’t try to dominate particular key terrain or destroy the enemy (though these things play a supporting part). Rather, the decisive effort is oriented at the populace. COIN assumes that if you win over the populace – the people's “hearts and minds” – the insurgency is defeated.
COP Keating – named after a lieutenant killed in an painfully unnecessary vehicle accident – lay at the base of towering mountains near a road and a village that the IBCT command was determined to engage and convert to the government’s cause. Tactically, the location was a disaster waiting to happen – as various soldiers rotate into COP Keating over the years, Tapper records, to a man, they are baffled at the decision to locate the post there.
In a traditional war, it would be insane. But in COIN, it makes a kind of twisted sense. You have to be where the people are, and the people don’t choose to locate their villages based on the teachings of Fort Benning’s Infantry School.
This is a story of the consequences of America’s choice of strategies. Strategy, the Army War College teaches the senior officers selected for that coveted course, consists of a symmetry between the means available (resources) and the possible ways (courses of action) and the desired ends. The Outpost illustrates a strategy out of sync. The ends are vague – there is a lot of talk about supporting the central government and “development” but the end really seems to be just keeping the locals from fighting the allies. Moreover, the ways are very constrained; the awesome firepower of the American forces is limited by restrictive rules of engagement.
The means are limited as well – a single IBCT for several provinces. An IBCT is about 4000 soldiers. What struck me is the lack of troops for the mission – the job is just too big for the number of troops dedicated to it. As a result, it’s a stalemate.
We see, graphically, the effect on our troops. We, of course, have the power to completely pulverize any target in Afghanistan. We could, if we chose, clear the villages and place the populace in “protective custody” then proceed to wipe out everyone else, who would presumably be the enemy. But we won’t do that because we aren’t savages.
Yet by constraining ourselves, we ensure that the fighting is roughly even – that is, units of insurgents with small arms engaging often smaller units of Americans with small arms. The equation changes when air power and artillery are available – when either is actually in range and when it can be used without killing innocents – but the bottom line is that COIN forces Americans to do something no soldier ever wants to do: give the enemy a fighting chance. In Desert Storm, the last conventional war, we annihilated the Iraqi forces before they saw us by air, by artillery, and by tank guns that outranged them. We had the initiative. It was utterly lopsided – and therefore better for all involved.
COIN gives the enemy the ability to hold its own because, in a macro sense, we have to hold our heaviest fire and largely duke it out man to man. And they have the initiative because we only have the strength to hold the ground we stand on while they can range through the rest of the battlespace – therefore giving them the initiative since they can start (and end) combat when and where they choose.
The Outpost therefore chronicles a series of inconclusive firefights set against a backdrop of desperate attempts to convert the wary locals to our cause – locals who, as Tapper points out, have seen invaders come and go over the ages and see Americans as just another one that will eventually depart. The enemy initiates the fights and chooses when to end them. The Americans, contrary to everything they have even been taught, are left to react.
The valor of these cavalrymen is unquestioned, and their skill and courage in battle against a brave and cunning foe is ably depicted in Tapper’s lean, clear prose. Tapper has a rare sense for what’s important, probably as much as one can expect from a civilian. There are a couple minor technical errors military folks will pick out, but they are of no import. Tapper gets it.
He draws the real-life characters vividly; we get to know them as people, not just grades and military occupational specialties. I wish Tapper had talked a little about the unique cavalry culture – no mention of Stetsons, spurs or Garry Owen? Also worth mentioning is that, except for a cav squadron’s C Troop, which is infantry (as Tapper points out), cavalry troopers are not infantrymen yet they were fighting that way.
My authenticity test for military books is whether I recognize the characters from my own career, albeit with different names. I did, starting with the military intelligence specialist right at the beginning who thinks he knows more than his officers – and may, in fact, be right, at least in a non-COIN war. There’s always a bright E4 in every S2 shop who thinks he’s got it all figured out. Always.
Tapper’s interest is in the cavalry troopers, with only a few mentions of the full colonels and generals in the first half of the book. More come later as distant figures, seemingly disconnected to the reality on the ground. That’s a challenge for the reader, because from where the rubber meets the road things look very different from the driver’s seat.
I get that; in some form, I’ve held many of the officer leadership positions described in the book. A commander’s action that looks to a lieutenant as callous indifference may well be the result of a battalion commander having to make tough calls. Your platoon doesn’t get priority of fire during a mission? It’s probably not because the commander doesn’t care but because he does; he just thinks he can better support the mission and protect soldiers’ lives by making the tough choice to give priority to someone else. I wish I knew as an angry lieutenant what I know today as a former cavalry squadron commander.
The civilian reader is exposed to a completely new world which, for various reasons, the mainstream media has utterly failed to make familiar. For military readers, there are practical takeaways. You get an idea of enemy tactics, the challenges of COIN, and the nature of Afghans and the Afghan forces. Not (yet) having been to Afghanistan, I found myself taking copious mental notes.
The last part of the book chronicles a massive, coordinated enemy assault on COP Keating and the courageous actions of the 50-some soldiers who held out against all odds. You swell with pride at our warriors, then wonder how the men could have ever been put there.
But under the strategy we as citizens have validated, COP Keating was bound to happen. It’s not merely a result of commanders trying to do their already nearly-impossible job with far too few troops. Of course their decisions put soldiers at greater risk – COIN is all about risking (hopefully wisely) soldiers’ lives to achieve victory by deemphasizing kinetic effects (firepower) in favor of engaging the population. COIN is America’s strategy, and that strategy is validated by our elected representatives. For better or worse, it is America’s strategy – though Tapper raises the question of whether what was happening there at the end was still COIN at all and not just bureaucratic inertia. Regardless, if you want to know who is to “blame” for Afghanistan, find a mirror.
The Outpost is a worthy addition to any bookshelf next to the two gold standard texts of modern war – Mark Bowden’s Black Hawk Down and Sean Naylor’s Not a Good Day To Die. But it won’t be on mine. A number of my friends who I served with over the last two decades on deployment and in natural disasters will soon depart for Afghanistan. I’m passing on my copy of The Outpost to them in the hope it will help them win the fight and bring their people back.
Kurt Schlichter commanded a National Guard IBCT cavalry squadron in the United States from 2006 to 2008. The views expressed here are solely his own.
↧
Here I am: Alan Huffman
Book Review
‘Here I Am’ by Alan Huffman
Seeking out the man behind the lens, journalist Alan Huffman, author of “Sultana,” investigates not only the significant life of his subject, whom he admires greatly, but also the craft of the war photographer and the tensions and contradictions involved in “showcasing images of war that could get you killed if you stared at them too long.” Ultimately, that’s exactly what happened to Hetherington, after he found himself in an unnecessarily dangerous situation.
After traveling through Asia and then graduating from the photojournalism program at Cardiff University, Hetherington drifted through a grab bag of freelance jobs until, in 1999, “he began to find his focus” through his coverage of a Liberian soccer team touring the United Kingdom. Many of the players were soldiers in the first Liberian civil war, and they were seeking a photographer to document their travels back in Liberia. So began Hetherington’s prolific career as a war photographer who “abhorred the inhumanity of war yet was attracted to understanding its origins and ramifications.” Though Huffman provides little detailed information of Hetherington’s personal life, it becomes clear that his subject dedicated nearly all his time to his craft.
Huffman starts off in 2011 with a tense recounting of the firefight in Misrata, Libya, during which Hetherington was fatally injured in a mortar blast. The photographer died an hour later of blood loss. Then the author retreats to 2003, when Hetherington and documentary filmmaker James Brabazon, author of “My Friend the Mercenary,” were embedded with the rebel forces of the Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy, who were fighting against Charles Taylor’s brutal dictatorship.
HERE I AM: The Story of Tim Hetherington, War Photographer
It was here that Hetherington established two of the main themes guiding his work: “the complex, persistent, and often baffling relationship between young men and war” and a “search for beauty amid scenes otherwise characterized by sadness, terror, or despair.” Ultimately, though, both Hetherington and Brabazon were forced to flee to neighboring Sierra Leone when Taylor put a bounty on their heads.
Hetherington returned to Britain but quickly became restless with life at home — as Huffman notes, “Going back and forth between war zones and the comforts of home tended to make [war] photographers perennial outsiders” — so he returned to Liberia before moving on to Afghanistan in 2007, where he worked for the next year-plus with Sebastian Junger on the Oscar-nominated documentary “Restrepo.” In the Korengal Valley, he witnessed firsthand the heroics of Specialist Salvatore Giunta, who would become the first living soldier since the Vietnam War to receive the Congressional Medal of Honor. Much of the rest of the narrative concerns Hetherington’s work in Libya, from Benghazi to Misrata, and Huffman excels at heightening the drama, depicting the rapid-fire action and constant danger of working among soldiers and guerrillas engaged in battle. The author also makes good use of lengthy quotations from those who knew Hetherington, including Brabazon, Junger, and, later, fellow photographers Chris Hondros, Guy Martin, and Katie Orlinsky. The urgent immediacy of Hetherington’s exploits is never far from the surface — nor is his grappling with the tension between the desire to document the true experiences and the fear of exploitation of his subjects.
In the end, his commitment, which often blinded him to potential danger, contributed to his death in Misrata, an incident that, given its attendant risks, many of his contemporaries believe could have been avoided. And though his career was blessed with numerous awards and widespread acclaim, the lasting impression of this admirable photographer and humanitarian is one of hyperfocused dedication to his cause, the “power of images . . . to spark dialogue about what was happening in the world.”
Eric Liebetrau is the managing editor and nonfiction editor of Kirkus Reviews.
© 2013 The New York Times Company
...and I am Sid Harth
↧
Silicon Valley, Historically Speaking
Not Even Silicon Valley Escapes History
A revolution began here. And this is what is left over.
More
I was able to map this location thanks to Richard E. Schmieder, who drove 6,000 miles around Silicon Valley, collecting the addresses of more than a thousand corporate headquarters, branch offices, restaurants, and hotels. He published this exhaustive niche Yellow Pages as Rich's Guide to Santa Clara County's Silicon Valley in 1983.
I discovered a copy of this rare book in Berkeley's library system and realized that it was a fantastic dataset: If I stuck all of the locations onto a map, I could reconstruct the Valley as it was 30 years ago, right before the Japanese manufacturers and the forces of globalization pulled and pushed chip production to East Asia. And though the idea of Silicon Valley does not allow for history, the place, itself, cannot escape it. The Valley we know now, the Paypal-Google-Facebook one, got built right on top of the original boom towns.
In our Internet-happy present, it's easy to forget that up until the mid-1980s, Silicon Valley was an industrial landscape. Hundreds of manufacturers lined the streets of Sunnyvale, Palo Alto, Cupertino, Mountain View, and San Jose. This is the Silicon Valley when AMD, Apple, Applied Materials, Atari, Fairchild, Hewlett-Packard, Intel, National Semiconductor, Varian Associates, Xerox, and hundreds of other companies made their products right here in the Bay.
The Valley was as important a manufacturing center as Detroit or Pittsburgh were. This was the place making the foundational technology of the era, and it brought prosperity to the region. Between 1964 and 1984, Santa Clara County added 203,000 manufacturing jobs, according to a report by the Association of Bay Area Governments; 85 percent of them were in high-tech. Another economist found that Santa Clara County's manufacturing growth had driven the economic well-being of the entire Bay Area during that period. Without the growth of Valley manufacturing, the San Francisco and Oakland's economies would have severely suffered, not to mention the rest of the country's. This was the industrial heartland of America, even if it was nestled against the San Francisco Bay.
In other words, Rich's Guide, I realized, would let me map this first peak of Silicon Valley, the one that gave meaning to the term high-tech. With substantial help from my colleague on The Atlantic Wire, Philip Bump, we put this map together. If you worked in the Valley at the time, it should take you back to the days of Ampex, Varian Associates, and the Rusty Scupper. But there's plenty to see, even if you only know the area by reputation.
For example, you'll find Apple headquarters at 20525 Mariana Ave, just across De Anza Boulevard from the current HQ at 1 Infinite Loop. They were part of a little cluster of companies just off Interstate 280, south of the hottest action up closer to Highway 101. Most of the rest have not survived -- Braegen Corp., Iconix, International Memories, Tymshare, Four-Phase Systems. Yet these same people would have all visited the Peppermill Lounge for some 80s-"fern bar" refreshment.
After geocoding all these points -- i.e. finding all their latitudes and longitudes -- I could compute the average of all the locations on the map. In a meaningful sense, the spot was the very center of the corporate ecosystem that we call Silicon Valley in 1983.
My math says it's located in Sunnyvale, south of 101 between North Wolfe Road and the Lawrence Expressway at precisely 37.38260152 degrees north, 122.0094996784 degrees west.
As luck would have it, this spot was smack in the middle of the headquarters of chipmaker and long-time Intel rival, Advanced Micro Devices, or AMD, in a complex centered at 901 Thompson Place.
Google MapsI had to see for myself what had become of the center of the Valley, so I got in my car and headed across the Bay Bridge and down the peninsula. I'd use the single block surrounding the center of the old Valley to understand what had happened to this place not as a footnote in a history of the computing industry, but as a landscape. What I found was second-generation suburbia with a far more complex story than the standard Silicon Valley narrative about cherry orchards and the making of a glorious revolution.
* * *
As always, it was sunny in Sunnyvale. I got off at the exit for Moffett Field, the set of facilities that made this area a hotbed of early aerospace (and therefore computing) activity. After a few lights I made a left onto the Central Expressway and zoomed past endless town homes and old suburbs onto Arques Avenue. I parked the car at the Super Space Self-Storage, took out the memorial sign I'd printed, and walked across the street to take some wide-angle photographs of the building.There was nothing particularly interesting about it. Like most self-storage locations, the building is blocky and windowless. It's nestled in-between a massive Lowe's and Cheetah's, "a small neighborhood strip club," according to a Google Plus review. As I snapped away, a single pedestrian walked by, an Asian man in khakis and a tucked-in, short-sleeved collared shirt. Traffic came and went: a Camry, a Jeep, a Subaru, big white van. Just another part of the great California carscape, it would seem.
I explained myself to him, trying not to sound completely ridiculous. "And so, I calculated that, in 1983, this was the center of Silicon Valley, and I came down here to see it --"
"And you ended up at a Superfund site," he said.
I did?
"This was AMD," Taylor continued. "They manufactured chips here."
I went inside and met his staff, enjoying the air conditioning. They told me about the building's many amenities for the discerning self-storage customer: climate-control, special locks, security systems. "Who needs this type of service?" I asked.
"I'd say 75 percent of our clientele is transient engineers working for the tech companies," Taylor told me. They were almost all from India and east Asia.
I left my car in the parking lot and headed southeast. Past Cheetah's, there was a large office building being leased by two commercial real-estate brokers named Dixie Divine and Doug Ferrari.
The businesses around were an odd melange: a Bank of America, two auto-body shops, the 5-Star School for Music, a semiconductor company called Synerchip, a signal-processing designer called Teledyne Cougar, and Sri Ananda Bhavan, a bustling south Indian restaurant. At the corner of Deguine Drive, a newly built retail space sat empty, looking almost precisely like the sad, shuttered video stores you see all over America.
Deguine was wide. The landscaping was so regular, it mocked the idea of nature. Tree, door, tree. Here and there, a knoll created by a bulldozer, sodded with grass from Oregon.
Empty office buildings and parking lots abounded. A couple gardeners wandered among them, working solo, carrying chemicals on their backs, ensuring the for-lease billboards looked nice.
Right next door, Nine Star operates California University Silicon Valley, which caters to IT professionals with the pitch that you'll learn "from instructors with titles like CEO, CIO, CFO, COO, Sr Manager, Marketing SVP, Venture Fund Manager and other real industry positions." In a clear sign about who they're selling education to, their domain CUSV.org autoforwards to CUSV.in, as in India. The university certainly has Silicon Valley-level chutzpah. "Whether you are considering Harvard, Stanford, Santa Clara University, MIT, Georgia Tech, San Jose State, UCLA, or for that matter any other top grad school," they declare, "you will want to choose CUSV to ensure your competitive advantage and maximize the NPV of your expected career income stream."
To the right of BioCurious, there was a batterymaker for motorcycles called Shorai. To the left, a Mediterranean restaurant called the Agape Grill. If you were to have a gyro at Agape under the tall, tall palm trees or a Coca-Cola umbrella, you would look across the street at the America Chinese Evangelical Seminary, as well as the Sacred Logos Resource Center, which appears to be another Christian evangelical group catering to Chinese immigrants. These buildings were all beige with glass doors, one and a half floors. There are hundreds of thousands of structures that look just like these across the region and nation.
I found all the white people in a packed parking lot attached to a strange looking building that turned out to be a climbing gym and yoga studio called Planet Granite. I watched toned people go in and out for a few minutes, and then headed back towards my car, cutting through the loading area at the back of Lowe's.
Between the massive blank walls, I was the only human around.
When I got home, I found out that for 30 years, and all around the block I'd surveyed, an intense remediation effort was underway. For as long as I've been alive, there has been a plume of chemicals underground at that spot, extending 4,000 feet north, up past 101. Everyone hoped these chemicals wouldn't make it to the water supply before it could be pumped out and treated.
* * *
In contemporary descriptions of Silicon Valley as it was being built, every writer seems to note the absence of smoke stacks. A miracle! A clean industry! A better industrial capitalism!The aesthetic was intentional. These factories of the future were designed to look like buildings on a college campus, which is to say, Stanford. The Stanford Industrial Park (later, the Stanford Research Park) set the visual standard from its founding in 1951 onward. There were rules governing which parts of the industrial apparatus could be visible, so as not to detract from the idea that these were locations for scholars, not laborers.
"Companies had to follow strict building codes, which included 'complete concealment' of things like smokestacks, generators, transformers, ducts, storage tanks, and air conditioning equipment," environmental historian Aaron Sachs wrote in 1999.
Other municipalities wanted to encourage similar developments, and as Sachs concludes, "Stanford Industrial Park essentially replicated itself several times over--each time spurring the construction of new expressways and strip malls in neighboring areas." What began as Stanford dean and Silicon Valley godfather Fred Terman's dream to build "a community of technical scholars" in pleasant industrial parks became the architectural standard for the entire high-tech manufacturing world.
But the manicured look and feel had consequences. Storage tanks were placed underground, out of sight and out of mind. Until suddenly, in 1981, people in south San Jose living near Fairchild Semiconductor and IBM realized they were drinking water contaminated by the two firms' manufacturing plants.
That touched off a search to see if similar leaks were occurring at other sites. "Anyone who looked for leaks found them," Will Bruhns of the San Francisco Bay Regional Water Quality Board told the San Francisco Chronicle in 2004. The final count found that 75 of the 96 underground tanks in the south Bay had contaminated the ground and/or water around them.
Planet Granite is located on a site contaminated by Philips Semiconductor. So is Lowe's. The empty octagonal glass building is a TRW Microwave Superfund site. I'd been walking on a paved-over environmental disaster zone, colonized by whoever wanted to benefit from lower leasing prices and a lack of NIMBY opponents.
There are six Superfund sites within a couple miles where the Super Space Self-Storage now stands. Shockingly, Santa Clara County has more Superfund sites than any other county in the nation. By comparison, the entire state of Illinois only has 13.
The cleanup effort is massive. From the mid-1980s through 2008, 231 million gallons of groundwater were pumped up and treated. Beginning in 2005 (around the time the company sold the site to the people who built Super Space Self Storage), AMD began to deploy in-situ bioremediation, after realizing that the efficiency of the groundwater pumping system was declining. In essence, molasses (literally, molasses) is pumped into the subsurface to feed colonies of microbes, who can degrade TCE into harmless compounds.
The California Regional Water Quality Control Board judged the bioremediation a success; it has managed to reduce TCE concentrations by 90 percent, though the process is on-going, according to the lead project manager with the Water Board, Max Shahbacian.
"They are doing whatever they can," Shahbacian told me. "Some of that contamination you can't capture. Some is stuck to the clay soils. Some has gone off site. They are cleaning it up as best they can."
"A lot of the big companies, except the big oil companies, they are pretty good about cleaning up," he said. "They've been cleaning this site for many years and they're going to continue to doing that."
So, 30 years after the contamination was discovered in July 1983, it's probable that what remains of the plume of chemicals is unlikely to contaminate groundwater. A victory for our age.
* * *
And in the meantime, the people who live here are creating the lives they want on the carcass of this old industrial system, whether that's DIY biotech labs, south Indian restaurants, California University Silicon Valley, rock climbing gyms, or Chinese evangelical training facilities.What we see here is not simple suburbia. This is a landscape that industrialists, government regulators, and city planners sacrificed to create the computer industry that we know today. It has as much in common with a coal mine or the Port of Oakland as it does with Levittown or Google's campus. All of which should lead us to a simple conclusion: the Silicon Valley of today is a post-industrial landscape, like the lofts near downtowns across the country, like Lansing, Michigan, like Williamsburg, like Portland's Pearl District.
What we see now is a surreal imitation of the suburban industrial parks and commercial spaces of yesteryear. They're built atop the past's mistakes, erasing them from our maps and eyes.
And yet, as the humans eat dosas and climb fake mountains and learn acupuncture and buy lap dances, beneath the asphalt and concrete, the microbes eat toxic waste sweetened with molasses, cleaning up our mistakes.
A revolution began here. And this is what's left over.
Copyright © 2013 by The Atlantic Monthly Group. All Rights Reserved. CDN powered by Edgecast Networks. Insights powered by Parsely .
...and I am Sid Harth
↧
↧
Where They Stand
ANALYSIS AIR DATE: Sept. 25, 2012
Where They Stand: How Voters, Pollsters and Historians Judge Presidents
SUMMARY
The National Interest's Robert Merry argues presidencies rise and fall as voters judge presidents' performance. Merry decided to explore how voters' perceptions compared with those of historians. He joins Judy Woodruff to talk about his new book, "Where They Stand: The American Presidents in the Eyes of Voters and Historians."
10 Comments
It comes from journalist Bob Merry, editor of "The National Interest" magazine. "Where They Stand: The American Presidents in the Eyes of Voters and Historians" identifies the greats, near-greats, acknowledged failures, and those whose legacies have fluctuated.
I spoke with Bob Merry recently.
So, Bob Merry, very early in this book, you say you're not a personal fan of the ups and downs of rating presidents, but you decided to write a book about that. Why?
ROBERT MERRY, author of "Where They Stand: The American Presidents in the Eyes of Voters and Historians": Well, I like the game.
And I think we rate first basemen and shortstops and great singers. And we rate our presidents. It's inevitable, because we have got our history. And the presidency is at the fulcrum of American politics, which means that it's at the fulcrum of American history.
JUDY WOODRUFF: You also say early on that you found the judgment of historians, of history, largely coincides with the views of voters, the electorate at the time these men held office. Why do you think that is?
ROBERT MERRY: Well, I think it's because the voters are not foolish. And the historians understand that the voters know what they're doing when they make these judgments every four years.
But I think that's why President Obama's statement which he made a year into his presidency that he would rather be a really good one-term president than a mediocre two-term president doesn't really make sense.
Because if you're shooting for history, you need to go through the American voter in order to get that good judgment from history.
JUDY WOODRUFF: You also say I think toward the end of the book -- you point out you think the president really does want to be elected to a second term. There's no question about that.
ROBERT MERRY: I think we see that every day, don't we?
JUDY WOODRUFF: So, the book really is a walk through history. And we don't have time to go through all the categories, but tell us what the most successful presidents have had in common?
What do we see in them that we haven't seen in the other presidents?
ROBERT MERRY: The presidents that I call the leaders of destiny are the presidents who are consistently ranked highly by the historians, the historian polls, the rating the president game.
Number two, they are two-term presidents succeeded by their own party or partial terms, meaning the electorate liked them at the time.
And, number three, they all set the country upon a new course. They changed the political landscape. And those presidents that I identify are Washington, Jefferson, Jackson, Lincoln, T.R., and FDR.
And I think that Reagan, who is not there in terms of the historical poll, but he's there on the other two criteria, may get there as well eventually.
JUDY WOODRUFF: And at the other end of the spectrum, the presidents who didn't make it, I mean, without going through that whole list, what is it that causes presidents not to make it? What causes them to stumble?
ROBERT MERRY: You know, these presidents are all amazing politicians. You don't become president without being a great politician.
But this is a tough job. And this is going to crush people who don't know how to grab hold of the levers of power and move them in the right direction.
James Buchanan, we will take that as a great example. I consider him to be our worst president.
James Buchanan was elected four years before Lincoln. The country was in crisis. It was in deadlock. And it needed a leader who could break that deadlock. And he proved not only incapable of doing it, but he wasn't even very interested in trying to do it. And therein lay his failure. And he deserves to be down there as a result.
JUDY WOODRUFF: So, is it a matter of -- the eternal question, a matter of the times or the man, or both?
ROBERT MERRY: Well, that's a great question.
You can't be a great -- you can't be a leader of destiny, as I describe it, and change the political landscape simply because you got elected president and willed to do it.
The country has to need that or want that. And not every president is elected in that time.
So, as de Gaulle said, a leader, a great statesman can not really be effective unless he knows the quality of his time. And the quality of your time -- take Eisenhower as a great example. Eisenhower didn't try to dismantle the New Deal. Many of his Republicans in that party wanted him to. But he knew better.
He knew that he still lived in the New Deal era even without Roosevelt. And, therefore, he wasn't going to try to dismantle it or repeal it. And, so, he understood the tempo of his times.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Bob Merry, you and I were just talking about the polarized, politically polarized time that we're living in now.
Is there something about today's hyperpartisanship, do you think, that makes it harder to be a great leader, to be a great president, or has that always been the case in one way or another?
ROBERT MERRY: No, this is a very difficult time to be an effective president, because the country is in deadlock, not just in deadlock over normal issues, but over issues that get to the definition of our nation.
Now, when that happens, as it did in the 1850s, the country is -- becomes very difficult to move.
And it takes a president like a Lincoln or like a Roosevelt or like a Jackson or a Jefferson who can actually do that. And whether we will get that president through this election is really very much an open question, it seems to me.
JUDY WOODRUFF: So, if you're a voter, Bob Merry, and you're reading this book, listening to you right now, you're looking at these two candidates this year, the incumbent, Barack Obama, the challenger, Mitt Romney, what test do you apply to them as you think about who would make a good president to bring us through this difficult time?
ROBERT MERRY: Well, I say in this book that I believe that presidential elections are largely referendums on the incumbent or the incumbent party.
And, therefore, I think the voters are going to ask the question that Ronald Reagan put so succinctly and so brilliantly: Are you better off than you were four years ago?
Or maybe even better, Judy, is the country better off than it was four years ago?
And they will ask that question, as they always do in these referendum elections. And they will come up with their answer.
JUDY WOODRUFF: You know, on that point, Bob, you call for the candidates to campaign with an eye to governing, to think ahead to what it's going to be like if they're elected, if they're serving.
Are they doing that in this election, in this campaign?
ROBERT MERRY: No, I don't think they're doing that.
If you believe, as I do -- and others may not -- that these elections are referendums, then it means that the incumbent needs to run on his record. And the effort to dismantle and destroy the image and the standing of his opponent, that doesn't really make a lot of sense.
And it's harmful actually in terms of how he's going to bring the country together once he's reelected, if he isn't -- if he is reelected.
In the case of the challenger, he needs to -- if you take my thesis, what he says isn't going to make a huge amount of difference, because it's the record of the incumbent that is going to be the answer to the question of who wins.
But if he wins, he's going to have to govern. And that means he's going to have to have a mandate. And he can't have a mandate if he's just giving squishy, soft answers to questions that are facing the country.
That's why I think that the selection of Paul Ryan is probably healthy in regard of sharply delineating the issues.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Because the choice is clearer...
ROBERT MERRY: Correct.
JUDY WOODRUFF: ... is what you're saying.
Bob Merry. The book is "Where They Stand: The American Presidents in the Eyes of Voters and Historians."
Thank you very much for talking with us.
ROBERT MERRY: Thank you, Judy. Enjoyed it much.
![Avatar]()
Demeter_3•10 months ago
↧
Where They Stand
“Where They Stand: The American Presidents in the Eyes of Voters and Historians” by Robert W. Merry
Historians are not generally considered playful sorts. But they seem to enjoy one diversion — ranking the presidents. Ever since Arthur Schlesinger Sr. began this pastime in 1948 in a poll published in Life magazine, numerous such rankings have been issued. In “Where They Stand,” Robert W. Merry, a longtime Washington journalist and biographer of one of our less-prominent chief executives, James K. Polk, examines seven such surveys, beginning with Schlesinger’s, and what they tell us about how presidents succeed or fail.
Whether ranking the presidents contributes to historical knowledge may be doubted. However, as Merry points out, the polls display a remarkable consistency. Abraham Lincoln, George Washington and Franklin D. Roosevelt are always at the top, usually followed, in some order, by Woodrow Wilson, Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson and Theodore Roosevelt. James Buchanan, Calvin Coolidge and Warren G. Harding cluster at the bottom. More interesting, perhaps, is how some reputations have changed over time. As historians began to sympathize with the effort to make citizens of the former slaves during post-Civil War Reconstruction, the rankings of Andrew Johnson, who steadfastly opposed racial equality, fell dramatically, while Ulysses S. Grant, who for a time tried to protect blacks’ voting rights, began a steady upward climb.
Whether ranking the presidents contributes to historical knowledge may be doubted. However, as Merry points out, the polls display a remarkable consistency. Abraham Lincoln, George Washington and Franklin D. Roosevelt are always at the top, usually followed, in some order, by Woodrow Wilson, Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson and Theodore Roosevelt. James Buchanan, Calvin Coolidge and Warren G. Harding cluster at the bottom. More interesting, perhaps, is how some reputations have changed over time. As historians began to sympathize with the effort to make citizens of the former slaves during post-Civil War Reconstruction, the rankings of Andrew Johnson, who steadfastly opposed racial equality, fell dramatically, while Ulysses S. Grant, who for a time tried to protect blacks’ voting rights, began a steady upward climb.
Conservatives have complained, with merit, that presidential rankings reflect a liberal bias among historians. Our profession tends to admire activist, reform-minded presidents in the mold of FDR. Indeed, when in 2005 the Wall Street Journal conducted an ostensibly ideologically balanced survey, there were marked differences in how Democratic and Republican historians viewed recent figures such as Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush. The top rankings, however, did not change much. For that, one must turn to a recent list compiled by tea party-oriented libertarians, in which the main criterion for greatness was reducing government spending and the national debt. Harding came in first, Lincoln last.
Unfortunately, presidential surveys do not reflect the dramatic changes that have taken place in the history profession. Even as the ranks of historians have diversified, the overwhelming majority of those surveyed remain white men. Their judgments reflect, in the words of historian Joan Hoff, a “heroic, macho” image of leadership, which is why most of those in the great or near-great categories are wartime presidents. Were more female and minority historians included in these polls, Jackson’s standing would undoubtedly slide because of his policy on Indian removal, as would that of Polk, a slaveholder who began an unprovoked war with Mexico.
Much of “Where They Stand” consists of brief accounts of presidential administrations, with Merry offering his assessment of success and failure. The writing, as befits an accomplished journalist, is lively and lucid. Too often, however, the historical context slips from view. Part of the greatness of Lincoln and FDR lay in how they responded to popular social movements — the abolitionists of the Civil War era and the labor upsurge of the mid-1930s. But the focus here is on the presidents. Merry takes note of “workers flocking to unions under the Wagner Act,” as though it were FDR’s embrace of labor that led to union mobilization, rather than vice versa.
Moreover, the accounts sometimes leave out less-than-praiseworthy actions of presidents Merry admires. He thinks historians have slighted William McKinley, whose victory in the Spanish-American War of 1898 led to the acquisition of the Philippines and Puerto Rico and his reelection. He makes no mention of McKinley’s far longer and bloodier Philippine War, which lasted from 1899 to 1903 and suppressed the movement for Philippine independence at the cost of more than 100,000 Filipino and 4,200 American lives.
Merry sees presidential elections as essentially referendums — popular verdicts either on a sitting president after one term or on his record after two. The strengths or weaknesses of the opposition candidate do not matter much. Thus, he interprets Herbert Hoover’s victory in 1928 as evidence of the electorate’s positive assessment of Coolidge (much more favorable than that of historians) without mentioning Al Smith’s Catholicism, which led many voters to choose Hoover.
![]()
Unfortunately, presidential surveys do not reflect the dramatic changes that have taken place in the history profession. Even as the ranks of historians have diversified, the overwhelming majority of those surveyed remain white men. Their judgments reflect, in the words of historian Joan Hoff, a “heroic, macho” image of leadership, which is why most of those in the great or near-great categories are wartime presidents. Were more female and minority historians included in these polls, Jackson’s standing would undoubtedly slide because of his policy on Indian removal, as would that of Polk, a slaveholder who began an unprovoked war with Mexico.
Much of “Where They Stand” consists of brief accounts of presidential administrations, with Merry offering his assessment of success and failure. The writing, as befits an accomplished journalist, is lively and lucid. Too often, however, the historical context slips from view. Part of the greatness of Lincoln and FDR lay in how they responded to popular social movements — the abolitionists of the Civil War era and the labor upsurge of the mid-1930s. But the focus here is on the presidents. Merry takes note of “workers flocking to unions under the Wagner Act,” as though it were FDR’s embrace of labor that led to union mobilization, rather than vice versa.
Moreover, the accounts sometimes leave out less-than-praiseworthy actions of presidents Merry admires. He thinks historians have slighted William McKinley, whose victory in the Spanish-American War of 1898 led to the acquisition of the Philippines and Puerto Rico and his reelection. He makes no mention of McKinley’s far longer and bloodier Philippine War, which lasted from 1899 to 1903 and suppressed the movement for Philippine independence at the cost of more than 100,000 Filipino and 4,200 American lives.
Merry sees presidential elections as essentially referendums — popular verdicts either on a sitting president after one term or on his record after two. The strengths or weaknesses of the opposition candidate do not matter much. Thus, he interprets Herbert Hoover’s victory in 1928 as evidence of the electorate’s positive assessment of Coolidge (much more favorable than that of historians) without mentioning Al Smith’s Catholicism, which led many voters to choose Hoover.
1
Comments
7/15/2012 10:02 AM EST
The fact that the Tea Party completely inverts the list by putting one of the generally agreed upon worst and most corrupt presidencies at the top and the most inspiring individual to sit in the White House at the bottom should tell you all you need to know about the Tea Party. But I can't help but wonder if the reason why they Lincoln dead last is not because he grew government but because he freed the slaves.
↧
The Civil War in 50 Objects
The Civil War in 50 Objects
Lectures & Conversations
The Civil War in 50 Objects
The Bernard and Irene Schwartz Distinguished Speakers Series
The Civil War: 150 Years
The Civil War: 150 Years
Harold Holzer,
Eric Foner (moderator)
Mon, May 13th, 2013 | 6:30 pm
$30
(members $18)
EVENT DETAILS
From a soldier’s diary with the pencil still attached to John Brown’s pike, the Emancipation Proclamation, a Confederate Palmetto flag, and the leaves from Abraham Lincoln’s bier, Harold Holzer and Eric Foner provide a unique and intimate look at the Civil War through the New- York Historical Society’s renowned collection.SPEAKER BIOS
Harold Holzer has written or edited more than 40 books on Lincoln and the Civil War era, including The Civil War in 50 Objects, the companion volume to a new rotating display at the New-York Historical Society. Eric Foner (moderator) is a Professor of History at Columbia University and a winner of the Pulitzer Prize, Bancroft Prize, Lincoln Prize, and many others.LOCATION
The Robert H. Smith Auditorium at the New-York Historical Society, 170 Central Park West, New York, NY 10024PURCHASING TICKETS BY PHONE/IN PERSON
To purchase tickets to public programs by phone, please call the New-York Historical Society’s in-house call center at (212) 485-9268. Call center is open 9 am–5 pm daily. Advance tickets may also be purchased on site at the New-York Historical Society admissions desk. Advance purchase is required to guarantee seating. All sales are final and payments cannot be refunded. Programs and dates may be subject to change. Management reserves the right to refuse admission to latecomers. http://www.nyhistory.org/programs/civil-war-50-objects
..and I am Sid Harth
↧
Modi will sweep Gujarat, but is he PM material?
Narendra Modi is the biggest PR con of our time: P Sainath
by FP Politics19 mins ago There is no question that Narendra Modi towers over Gujarat. The state is not just a one-party state (BJP), it has effectively become a one-person state. But the big question for Narendra Modi, the presumptive BJP candidate for Prime Minister, is whether his Gujarat model of growth and good governance is for real and can be replicated on the national stage.
The issue, as it always is when it comes to Modi, is that he is a polarising figure. While , the CNN-IBN panel discussing Modi agreed on the data that showed Modi and the BJP sweeping Gujarat in the 2014 national election, Modi the man, and his model, was the subject of much disagreement.
The panel was analysing the data from a poll conducted by CNN-IBN and The Hindu. The panel members were Yogendra Yadav, senior fellow at the Center for Study of Developing Studies, Journalist Swapan Dasgupta, Professor Ramachandra Guha, author of India after Gandhi, P Sainath, the rural affairs editor for the Hindu, and columnist Aakar Patel.
![Modi will sweep Gujarat, but is he PM material?]()
The poll showed that 64 percent of respondents in Gujarat approved of Modi’s government in the state, though this was not the highest level of satisfaction among all states. 75 percent of respondents approved of the BJP government in Chattisgarh and 82 percent approved of the Madhya Pradesh government.
The poll also showed 49 percent of respondents wanted Modi to be the BJP’s PM candidate.
All the panelists said there was no one to match Modi in the state because he had successfully marginalised potential opponents within the BJP, and because the Congress was no match for him ideologically, politically or organisationally. The polls predict Modi sweeping the national election in 2014 – the Congress getting just 2 to 6 seats – and the consensus was that it would be a wipe out.
Patel called him a “big star” and Sainath and Guha agreed that he towers of his state in a way no other politician does today. In the light of Modi’s probable projection as a Prime Ministerial candidate though, the robustness of his approach was much disputed.
Dasgupta defended Modi and the Gujarat model, saying the reason why Narendra Modi has been elevated where he is today is not merely on account of what he has done in Gujarat, but on the strength of his personal charisma [as well].
“He was always going to sell the Gujarat model, which is a model of good governance, taking into account certain broad realities of Gujarat.
Sainath, however, called Modi’s reputation and the Gujarat model “the biggest public relations con job of our time”. According to Sainath, Modi espouses a pro-corporate outlook and therefore where the Gujarat model falters is in human development indicators, pointing out that the state has one of the slowest rates of poverty reduction in the country,
Yadav concurred, saying while no one can dispute there has been growth, the human development indicators have lagged behind, suggesting that the Gujarat model is not the silver bullet that will solve all of India’s ills.
Where the panelists did agree was that Modi is tapping into a general sense of disastifaction running through a section of Indian society over where the country is headed.
“Modi epitomises a generational impatience with the sluggish rate of growth”, Dasgupta said, adding that Modi also epitomises those people who believe that India has not reached its potential and that the current government has become a drag on India’s growth and that potential, rather than a means of unlocking it.
Guha felt the section of society that Modi most appeals to is the young, educated, social media savvy upper class who “don’t represent the diversity of India”.
Yadav argued that Modi stood at the intersection of what he called “three fundamental flaws of our democracy”, though he is not the only leader to exhibit these traits. Modi’s growth model has two sides; he functions in a sub-democratic way i.e. by wielding total control; and that he indulges in majoritarianism, which is using communities to carve out a permanent majority.
“[This is] fundamentally at odds with democratic India,” Yadav said.
Meanwhile Sainath pointed out that Modi’s ability to polarise opinion starts “at home. The BJP itself is divided over him, with LK Advani openly disagreeing with the decision to make Modi the head of the BJP’s election campaign committee and Shivraj Singh Chouhan putting up campaign posters that did not feature Modi at all.
The issue of sectarianism was raised by Guha, who said the Muslims in Gujarat had been ghettoised and were scared. “I think these are signs of what that brand of politics might do if exported elsewhere. This is the challenge that faces Modi.”
For Dasgupta, while what happened in Gujarat may be distasteful to some, Modi has become the hero of the neo-middle class because he offers an aspirational model “which has nothing particularly Gujarat about it. It is a pan-India aspiration.”
“A process of self-improvement, the process of self emppowerment, that is what we are talking about, Dasgupta said. “We have to discard this notion of the charitable state. We have to talk about self empowerment.”
Given the last word, Patel said there is no such thing as a Modi model. He claimed that only one Gujarati had made it to the Forbes list of Indian billionares since Modi became chief minister of the state and that if Modi were to make it to the center, billionaires would not suddenly start sprouting around the country. He also criticised Modi’s method of functioning.
“He has chased away leaders in his party. He has not left anybody. A very nasty, extremely self-cenetered man that people should be wary of. Once he takes up a space, he occupies it entirely.”
Show One New Comment
The issue, as it always is when it comes to Modi, is that he is a polarising figure. While , the CNN-IBN panel discussing Modi agreed on the data that showed Modi and the BJP sweeping Gujarat in the 2014 national election, Modi the man, and his model, was the subject of much disagreement.
The panel was analysing the data from a poll conducted by CNN-IBN and The Hindu. The panel members were Yogendra Yadav, senior fellow at the Center for Study of Developing Studies, Journalist Swapan Dasgupta, Professor Ramachandra Guha, author of India after Gandhi, P Sainath, the rural affairs editor for the Hindu, and columnist Aakar Patel.
Modi will sweep Gujarat, but is he PM material?
The poll also showed 49 percent of respondents wanted Modi to be the BJP’s PM candidate.
All the panelists said there was no one to match Modi in the state because he had successfully marginalised potential opponents within the BJP, and because the Congress was no match for him ideologically, politically or organisationally. The polls predict Modi sweeping the national election in 2014 – the Congress getting just 2 to 6 seats – and the consensus was that it would be a wipe out.
Patel called him a “big star” and Sainath and Guha agreed that he towers of his state in a way no other politician does today. In the light of Modi’s probable projection as a Prime Ministerial candidate though, the robustness of his approach was much disputed.
Dasgupta defended Modi and the Gujarat model, saying the reason why Narendra Modi has been elevated where he is today is not merely on account of what he has done in Gujarat, but on the strength of his personal charisma [as well].
“He was always going to sell the Gujarat model, which is a model of good governance, taking into account certain broad realities of Gujarat.
Sainath, however, called Modi’s reputation and the Gujarat model “the biggest public relations con job of our time”. According to Sainath, Modi espouses a pro-corporate outlook and therefore where the Gujarat model falters is in human development indicators, pointing out that the state has one of the slowest rates of poverty reduction in the country,
Yadav concurred, saying while no one can dispute there has been growth, the human development indicators have lagged behind, suggesting that the Gujarat model is not the silver bullet that will solve all of India’s ills.
Where the panelists did agree was that Modi is tapping into a general sense of disastifaction running through a section of Indian society over where the country is headed.
“Modi epitomises a generational impatience with the sluggish rate of growth”, Dasgupta said, adding that Modi also epitomises those people who believe that India has not reached its potential and that the current government has become a drag on India’s growth and that potential, rather than a means of unlocking it.
Guha felt the section of society that Modi most appeals to is the young, educated, social media savvy upper class who “don’t represent the diversity of India”.
Yadav argued that Modi stood at the intersection of what he called “three fundamental flaws of our democracy”, though he is not the only leader to exhibit these traits. Modi’s growth model has two sides; he functions in a sub-democratic way i.e. by wielding total control; and that he indulges in majoritarianism, which is using communities to carve out a permanent majority.
“[This is] fundamentally at odds with democratic India,” Yadav said.
Meanwhile Sainath pointed out that Modi’s ability to polarise opinion starts “at home. The BJP itself is divided over him, with LK Advani openly disagreeing with the decision to make Modi the head of the BJP’s election campaign committee and Shivraj Singh Chouhan putting up campaign posters that did not feature Modi at all.
The issue of sectarianism was raised by Guha, who said the Muslims in Gujarat had been ghettoised and were scared. “I think these are signs of what that brand of politics might do if exported elsewhere. This is the challenge that faces Modi.”
For Dasgupta, while what happened in Gujarat may be distasteful to some, Modi has become the hero of the neo-middle class because he offers an aspirational model “which has nothing particularly Gujarat about it. It is a pan-India aspiration.”
“A process of self-improvement, the process of self emppowerment, that is what we are talking about, Dasgupta said. “We have to discard this notion of the charitable state. We have to talk about self empowerment.”
Given the last word, Patel said there is no such thing as a Modi model. He claimed that only one Gujarati had made it to the Forbes list of Indian billionares since Modi became chief minister of the state and that if Modi were to make it to the center, billionaires would not suddenly start sprouting around the country. He also criticised Modi’s method of functioning.
“He has chased away leaders in his party. He has not left anybody. A very nasty, extremely self-cenetered man that people should be wary of. Once he takes up a space, he occupies it entirely.”
Show One New Comment
↧
↧
Role Reversal: How the US Became the USSR
Role Reversal: How the US Became the USSR
by Paul Craig Roberts
July 24, 2013
I spent the summer of 1961 behind the Iron Curtain. I was part of the US-USSR student exchange program. It was the second year of the program, which operated under auspices of the US Department of State. Our return to the West via train through East Germany was interrupted by the construction of the Berlin Wall. We were sent back to Poland. The East German rail tracks were occupied with Soviet troop and tank trains as the Red Army concentrated in East Germany to face down any Western interference.
Fortunately, in those days there were no neoconservatives. Washington had not grown the hubris it so well displays in the 21st century. The wall was built and war was avoided. The wall backfired on the Soviets. Both JFK and Ronald Reagan used it to good propaganda effect.
In those days, America stood for freedom, and the Soviet Union for oppression. Much of this impression was created by Western propaganda, but there was some semblance to the truth in the image. The communists had a Julian Assange, an Edward Snowden of their own. His name was Cardinal Jozef Mindszenty, the leader of the Hungarian Catholic Church.
Mindszenty opposed tyranny. For his efforts, he was imprisoned by the Nazis. Communists also regarded his as an undesirable, and he was tortured and given a life sentence in 1949.
Freed by the short-lived Hungarian Revolution in 1956, Mindszenty reached the American Embassy in Budapest and was granted political asylum by Washington. However, the communists would not give him the free passage that asylum presumes, and Mindszenty lived in the US Embassy for 15 years, 79% of his remaining life.
In the 21st century roles have reversed. Today it is Washington that is enamored of tyranny. On Washington’s orders, the UK will not permit Julian Assange free passage to Ecuador, where he has been granted asylum. Like Cardinal Mindszenty, Assange is stuck in the Ecuadoran Embassy in London.
Washington will not permit its European vassal states to allow overflights of airliners carrying Edward Snowden to any of the countries that have offered Snowden asylum.
Snowden is stuck in the Moscow airport.
In Washington, politicians of both parties demand that Snowden be captured and executed. Politicians demand that Russia be punished for not violating international law, seizing Snowden, and turning him over to Washington to be tortured and executed, despite the fact that Washington has no extradition treaty with Russia.
Snowden did United States citizens a great service. He told us that despite constitutional prohibition, Washington had implemented a universal spy system intercepting every communication of every American and much of the rest of the world.
Special facilities are built in which to store these communications.
In other words, Snowden did what Americans are supposed to do–disclose government crimes against the Constitution and against citizens. Without a free press, there is nothing but the government’s lies. In order to protect its lies from exposure, Washington intends to exterminate all truth tellers.
The Obama Regime is the most oppressive regime ever in its prosecution of protected whistleblowers. Whistleblowers are protected by law, but the Obama Regime insists that whistleblowers are not really whistleblowers. Instead, the Obama Regime defines whistleblowers as spies, traitors, and foreign agents. Congress, the media, and the faux judiciary echo the executive branch propaganda that whistleblowers are a threat to America. It is not the government that is violating and raping the US Constitution that is a threat. It is the whistleblowers who inform us of the rape who are the threat.
The Obama Regime has destroyed press freedom. A lackey federal appeals court has ruled that New York Times reporter James Risen must testify in the trial of a CIA officer charged with providing Risen with information about CIA plots against Iran. The ruling of this fascist court destroys confidentiality and is intended to end all leaks of the government’s crimes to media.
What Americans have learned in the 21st century is that the US government lies about everything and breaks every law. Without whistleblowers, Americans will remain in the dark as “their” government enserfs them, destroying every liberty, and impoverishes them with endless wars for Washington’s and Wall Street’s hegemony.
Snowden harmed no one except the liars and traitors in the US government. Contrast Washington’s animosity against Snowden with the pardon that Bush gave to Dick Cheney aide, Libby, who took the fall for his boss for blowing the cover, a felony, on a covert CIA operative, the spouse of a former government official who exposed the Bush/Cheney/neocon lies about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction.
Whatever serves the tiny clique that rules america is legal; whatever exposes the criminals is illegal.
That’s all there is to it.
This article was originally published at PaulCraigRoberts.organd has been used here with permission.© , ↑ Foreign Policy Journal
...and I am Sid Harth
↧
Putin to Obama, Nyet!
Putin says no to US request to extradite Snowden
NAANTALI, Finland — Russian President Vladimir Putin says that National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden is in the transit zone of a Moscow airport and will not be extradited to the United States. Putin said that Snowden hasn't crossed the Russian border and is free to go anywhere.
Speaking on a visit to Finland today, he added that Russian security agencies "didn't work and aren't working" with Snowden. He gave no more details.
Commenting on a U.S. request to extradite him, Putin said that Russia doesn't have an extradition agreement with the U.S. and thus wouldn't meet the U.S. request.
He voiced hope that Snowden will depart as quickly as possible and that his stopover at Moscow's airport wouldn't affect bilateral ties.
Russia's foreign minister bluntly rejected U.S. demands to extradite National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden, saying Tuesday that Snowden hasn't crossed the Russian border.
Sergey Lavrov insisted that Russia has nothing to do with Snowden or his travel plans. Lavrov wouldn't say where Snowden is, but he lashed out angrily at Washington for demanding his extradition and warning of negative consequences if Moscow fails to comply. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry has urged Moscow to "do the right thing" and turn over Snowden.
"We consider the attempts to accuse Russia of violating U.S. laws and even some sort of conspiracy, which on top of all that are accompanied by threats, as absolutely ungrounded and unacceptable," Lavrov said. "There are no legal grounds for such conduct by U.S. officials."
The defiant tone underlined the Kremlin's readiness to challenge Washington at a time when U.S.-Russian relations are strained over Syria and a Russian ban on adoptions by Americans.
U.S. and Ecuadorean officials said they believed Snowden was still in Russia. He fled there Sunday from Hong Kong, where he had been hiding out since his disclosure of the broad scope of two highly classified U.S. counterterror surveillance programs. The programs collect vast amounts of Americans' phone records and worldwide online data in the name of national security.
Kerry said Tuesday that although the United States does not have an extradition treaty with Russia, he called on Moscow to comply with common law practices between countries where fugitives are concerned.
"I would simply appeal for calm and reasonableness. We would hope that Russia would not side with someone who is 'a fugitive' from justice,' " Kerry said at a news conference in Saudi Arabia.
Lavrov claimed that the Russian government found out about Snowden's flight from Hong Kong only from news reports.
"We have no relation to Mr. Snowden, his relations with American justice or his travels around the world," Lavrov said. "He chooses his route himself, and we have learned about it from the media."
Snowden booked a seat on a Havana-bound flight from Moscow on Monday en route to Venezuela and then possible asylum in Ecuador, but he didn't board the plane. Russian news media have reported that he has remained in a transit zone of Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport, but journalists there haven't seen him.
A representative of WikiLeaks has been traveling with Snowden, and the organization is believed to be assisting him in arranging asylum. The organization's founder, Julian Assange, said Monday that Snowden was only passing through Russia and had applied for asylum in Ecuador, Iceland and possibly other countries.
A high-ranking Ecuadorean official told The Associated Press that Russia and Ecuador were discussing where Snowden could go, saying the process could take days. He also said Ecuador's ambassador to Moscow had not seen or spoken to Snowden. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the case publicly.
Ecuador's foreign minister, Ricardo Patino, hailed Snowden on Monday as "a man attempting to bring light and transparency to facts that affect everyone's fundamental liberties."
He described the decision on whether to grant Snowden asylum as a choice between "betraying the citizens of the world or betraying certain powerful elites in a specific country."
State Department spokesman Patrick Ventrell said the U.S. had made demands to "a series of governments," including Ecuador, that Snowden be barred from any international travel other than to be returned to the U.S. The U.S. has revoked Snowden's passport.
"We're following all the appropriate legal channels and working with various other countries to make sure that the rule of law is observed," President Barack Obama told reporters.
Some experts said it was likely that Russian spy agencies were questioning Snowden on what he knows about U.S. electronic espionage against Moscow.
"If Russian special services hadn't shown interest in Snowden, they would have been utterly unprofessional," Igor Korotchenko, a former colonel in Russia's top military command turned security analyst, said on state Rossiya 24 television.
The Kremlin has previously said Russia would be ready to consider Snowden's request for asylum.
The state ITAR-Tass news agency cited unidentified sources as saying that Snowden hasn't applied for a Russian entry visa and can't cross the border without it. It said that he has remained in the transit zone of the Sheremetyevo airport.
Legally, an arriving air passenger "crosses the border" after clearing immigration checks.
The Interfax news agency, which has close contacts with Russian security agencies, quoted an unidentified "well-informed source" in Moscow as saying Tuesday that Snowden could be detained for a check of his papers if he crosses the Russian border. The report could reflect that authorities are searching for a pretext to keep Snowden in Russia.
Snowden is a former CIA employee who later was hired as a contractor for the NSA. In that job, he gained access to documents that he gave to newspapers the Guardian and The Washington Post to expose what he contends are privacy violations by an authoritarian government.
Snowden also told the South China Morning Post newspaper in Hong Kong that "the NSA does all kinds of things like hack Chinese cellphone companies to steal all of your SMS data." He is believed to have more than 200 additional sensitive documents in laptops he is carrying.
Some observers said in addition to the sensitive data, Snowden's revelations have provided the Kremlin with propaganda arguments to counter the U.S. criticism of Russia's crackdown on opposition and civil activists under President Vladimir Putin.
"They would use Snowden to demonstrate that the U.S. government doesn't sympathize with the ideals of freedom of information, conceals key information from the public and stands ready to open criminal proceedings against those who oppose it," Konstantin Remchukov, the editor of independent daily Nezavisimaya Gazeta, said on Ekho Moskvy radio.
Putin has accused the U.S. State Department of instigating protests in Moscow against his re-election for a third term in March and has taken an anti-American posture that plays well with his core support base of industrial workers and state employees.
- Copyright © 2013 Chico Enterprise-Record
...and I am Sid Harth
↧
Harvard Finds Evidence of a Colonial Boycott Hiding in Plain Sight
Harvard Finds Evidence of a Colonial Boycott Hiding in Plain Sight
Librarians rediscovered 650 signatures boycotting British imports.
Image via the Houghton Library Blog
What happened after that meeting, though, wasn’t completely clear—How many Boston residents agreed to the boycott and who were they?—because researchers didn’t have the signatures. Then this past week, Harvard librarians discovered eight of the subscription papers hiding more or less where you might expect to find them … on the shelves of Harvard’s Houghton Library. Thanks to the rediscovery of a resource Harvard didn’t even know it had, historians can now pore over a list of 650 signatures to analyze just who was protesting British taxes in the tumultuous years leading up to the American Revolution.
“When Houghton opened in 1942 there was a big influx of collections of donations and things that were donated from other Harvard libraries, and so a lot of this stuff got sort of minimal cataloguing,” says John Overholt, curator of early modern books and manuscripts at Houghton. When those bare-bones records were digitized, some of the less well-documented ones couldn’t be automatically converted, which has required the librarians to make their way through a backlog over the years. That’s how Karen Nipps, Head of the Rare Book Cataloging Team, stumbled upon the signatures and recognized them as something special.
Until she did, historians could only guess, based on the British reaction, at how popular the protest to the Townshend Acts became. In The Marketplace of Revolution: How Consumer Politics Shaped American Independence, historian T.H. Breen wrote:
Although surviving records do not make it possible to know for certain how many people actually signed the rolls in Boston, British official feared for the worst. Their comments suggested that “Persons of all Ranks” did in fact take this occasion to voice contempt for recent British legislation.Thankfully, we know now that the British were right. We recognize many of the 650 signatures, and they do indeed represent people “of all Ranks.” One of them is an exciting, if unsurprising, presence on a list like this, that of Paul Revere (whose signature is pictured above.)
Others are more unexpected. Several signatories whose names we recognize ended up remaining loyal to the British Crown when the Revolution broke out, Overholt notes. “At some point things got too radical and they said ‘I’m out,’” he guesses.
There were also several female signatures in an era when women weren’t known for their political participation. “I was especially excited to see that,” Overholt says.
So what’s next for the documents? Well for one, standards for maintaining archives have changed since 1942, Overholt notes, so they’ll likely “spruce up” the place where they shelve the documents. Beyond that, “we’re very glad to make this important discovery available to scholarly study,” Overholt writes. In other words, have at it, historians.
Copyright © 2013 Metrocorp, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
...and I am Sid Harth
↧