Friday, November 30, 2012

Homenaje al historiador británico Eric Hobsbawm


Para permanecer en un partido comunista hasta finales de la década de 1980, había que conservar, en algún sitio, el residuo de la convicción de que había merecido la pena, o de que al menos habría merecido la pena si los tiranos que gobernaron en nombre del comunismo no lo hubieran hecho tan mal. No muchos intelectuales británicos se mantuvieron fieles tanto tiempo. Eric Hobsbawm, el eminente autor de Historia del siglo XX, entre otros libros célebres, lo hizo: no siempre como miembro activo, y durante mucho tiempo como un miembro escéptico, pero sí como un camarada. En Historia del siglo XX, escribe sobre la “inhumanidad sin precedentes” de la Rusia de Stalin, y dice que “el proyecto comunista ha demostrado su fracaso y ahora sé que estaba condenado al fracaso”. Pero eso hace que su tenacidad resulte más desconcertante.
Al margen de las opiniones que uno tenga del comunismo, la autobiografía de Hobsbawm es un fascinante relato personal sobre una idea que atrajo a mucha gente por las mejores razones y aportó una excusa para algunos de los crímenes más horribles de la historia de la humanidad. Hobsbawm era, como dice en el prólogo del libro, “un observador partícipe”, un historiador además de un activista político. Es un hombre decente que sirvió a una causa sangrienta.

Wednesday, November 28, 2012

Central Park Five -New Film On How Police Abuse, Media Frenzy Led to Jailing of Innocent Teens


An explosive new documentary looks at a case once referred to as "the crime of the century”: the Central Park Five. Many people have heard about the case — but far too few know that innocent men were imprisoned as a result. The film tells the story of how five black and Latino teenagers were arrested in 1989 for beating and raping a white woman in New York City’s Central Park. Media coverage at the time portrayed the teens as guilty, and used racially coded terms like "wolf pack" to refer to the group of boys accused in the attack. Donald Trump took out full-page ads in four city newspapers calling for the reinstatement of the death penalty so they could be executed. However, the convictions of the five were vacated in 2002 when the real rapist came forward and confessed to the crime, after the five defendants had already served sentences of almost seven to 13 years. New York City is refusing to settle a decade-long civil lawsuit brought by the men. And now, lawyers for the city are seeking access to footage gathered for the new film.  

Kevin Phillips on the Roots of American Revolution and Future of U.S. Politics

In 1969 Kevin Phillips wrote the groundbreaking book, "The Emerging Republican Majority."  Newsweek described the book as the “political bible of the Nixon administration.”  After a series of best-selling books on the Bush family, Wall Street and the American theocracy, Phillips is looking back at the roots of the American Revolution in his new book, "1775: A Good Year for Revolution.”  “What happened that set the United States in motion in the mid 1770s is still relevant in some ways because what it showed was that you sometimes have to have a lot of very disagreeable politics to make progress.  That you don’t get anywhere by having all kinds of nice slogans and by trying to barter every difference with a cliche and pretend thats all’s well and the United States is in wonderful shape,” Phillips says.  “The United States is not in wonderful shape and it needs to get back some of that spunk that it had when people were willing to talk very bluntly about harsh and tough measures.” 

The Development of Wittgenstein‘s Philosophy of Psychology





Wittgenstein and Naturalism- Anthony Kenny

Which Wittgenstein? Which Naturalism?

Video

Anthony Kenny -Wittgenstein

This revised edition of Sir Anthony Kenny’s classic work on Wittgenstein contains a new introduction which covers developments in Wittgenstein scholarship since the book was first published. 
 * Widely praised for providing a lucid and historically informed account of Wittgenstein’s core philosophical concerns. 
* Demonstrates the continuity between Wittgenstein’s early and later writings. 
* Provides a persuasive argument for the unity of Wittgenstein’s thought. * Kenny also assesses Wittgenstein’s influence in the latter part of the twentieth century.

Wednesday, November 14, 2012

Slavoj Zizek -Why Obama is more than Bush with a human face

How did Barack Obama win re-election? The philosopher Jean-Claude Milner recently proposed the notion of the "stabilising class": not the old ruling class, but all who are committed to the stability and continuity of the existing social, economic and political order – the class of those who, even when they call for a change, do so to ensure that nothing really will change. The key to electoral success in today's developed states is winning over this class. Far from being perceived as a radical transformer, Obama won them over, and that's why he was re-elected. The majority who voted for him were put off by the radical changes advocated by the Republican market and religious fundamentalists.




But long term, is this enough? In his Notes Towards a Definition of Culture, the great British conservative TS Eliot remarked that there are moments when the only choice is between heresy and non-belief, when the only way to keep a religion alive is to perform a sectarian split from its corpse. Something like this is needed to break out of the debilitating crisis of western societies – here Obama clearly did not deliver. Many disappointed by his presidency held against him precisely the fact that the core of his much-publicised "hope" proved to be that the system can survive with modest changes.



So should we write Obama off? Is he nothing more than Bush with a human face? There are signs which point beyond this pessimistic vision. Although his healthcare reforms were mired in so many compromises they amounted to almost nothing, the debate triggered was of huge importance. A great art of politics is to insist on a particular demand that, while thoroughly realist, feasible and legitimate, disturbs the core of the hegemonic ideology. The healthcare reforms were a step in this direction – how else to explain the panic and fury they triggered in the Republican camp? They touched a nerve at the core of America's ideological edifice: freedom of choice.



Leonard Cohen -Dance me to the end of love

•Bob Dylan was a great admirer of Cohen's and the two once ran into each other in a Paris cafe and traded lyrics. Dylan showed Cohen a new song, "I and I," and told Cohen he'd written it in 15 minutes. Cohen showed Dylan "Hallelujah," and when Dylan asked how long it took, Cohen said "two years," cutting the actual number in half.


•Jimi Hendrix played "Suzanne" in a club and later hit on Joni Mitchell when she was walking with Cohen. "He didn't distort his guitar," Cohen told Simmons about Hendrix's version of his signature song. "It was just a lovely thing."

•Mitchell and Cohen had a short, intense romance that began with Mitchell asking for a list of books (he suggested Lorca, Camus and the I Ching) and included references to Cohen in several Mitchell songs, including "A Case of You," "Chelsea Morning" and "That Song About the Midway." Cohen compared his time with Mitchell to "living with Beethoven" and said he didn't like it "because who would? She's prodigiously gifted. Great painter too."

•Most of Cohen's lovers speak fondly of him while noting his chronic inability to commit. Marianne Ihlen and Suzanne Elrod, immortalized in his songs, are affectionate in their memories. Mitchell said years later that she was only a groupie for two people, Picasso and Cohen.

•Rebecca DeMornay got a marriage proposal in "Waiting for the Miracle" ("Ah, baby, let's get married, we've been alone too long") and a production credit on "Anthem," one of Cohen's greatest songs, partly for telling him to stop working on it, it was finished. They never got married.

•When DeMornay was working on "The Hand That Rocks the Cradle" in the Puget Sound area, Cohen accompanied her and wrote songs in her trailer while she was on the set. "Tacoma Trailer," an instrumental, is about that time.

•Throughout his life, whenever he's asked what attracted him to poetry, Cohen always says it was to meet women. It worked. When he played the Troubador in the 1970s, the doorman, Paul Body, said "The only guy I've ever seen who drew better-looking women than Leonard Cohen was probably Charles Bukowski. These women were all dressed up in Seventies style and hanging on Leonard's every word, during the show and afterwards."

•Unlike Bob Dylan or Joe Strummer, to name two, Cohen never invented a cool new name and a colorful past. He's an upper-class Jewish kid from Montreal who was devoted to his mother and didn't forget where he came from.

•Over the years Cohen, again unlike Dylan, has offered intrepretations of his songs. Of the beautiful line from "Anthem," "There is a crack in everything. That's how the light gets in," he had this to say:

•"The light is the capacity to reconcile your experience, your sorrow, with every day that dawns. It is that understanding, which is beyond significance or meaning, that allows you to live a life and embrace the disasters and sorrows and joys that are our common lot. But it's only with the recognition that there is a crack in everything. I think all other visions are doomed to irretrievable gloom."

Saturday, November 10, 2012

Kick It Over Manifesto

Two ideologies that keep US going


There are therapists throughout the US, and they’re very important, because they pick up the refuse of the economic-political system.
We have mental health clinics all over the nation, in every city and county. And they all produce pamphlets about how to deal with the problems of addiction, battered wives, childhood disorders.  Someone has to pick these people up, and therapy does it. But therapy operates with an ideology – an individualistic, must-learn-to-cope ideology. The individual has to learn how to cope, and the therapist helps that person stay in control. This ideology is based on the idea of individual growth and potential.
Most schools of therapy share the idea that there’s an inner world that can be made to expand and grow, and that people are living short of their possibilities, and that they need help to… what she we call it? Fulfill their potential. Therapy has become a kind of individualistic, self-improvement philosophy, a romantic ideology that suggests each person can become fuller, better, wiser, richer, more effective.
I believe we now have two ideologies that run this country. One is economics, and the other is therapy. These are the basic, bottom-line beliefs that we return to in our private moments – these are what keeps us going.

Wittgenstein y la religion

Esta tesis expone los puntos de vista de William James, Kierkergaard, Tolstoi y Wittgenstein en relacion a las creencias religiosas y como debe entenderse el cristianismo fuera de la iglesia institucional, como un desarrollo espiritual personal.

Friday, November 9, 2012

Obama victory unworthy of the long civil rights battle


Obama a hollow prize for African-Americans

Columbia University professor of Political Science and Director of Columbia University’s Center on African-American Politics and Society is calling the Obama presidency, a “hollow win for African-Americans.”
In his new book The Price of the Ticket, Frederick  Harris suggests that the president’s reluctance to push black issues over gay rights and immigrations rights has undermined the efforts of civil rights pioneers whose work made his presidency possible.
They are his most unified and ardent supporters, but now some blacks are questioning whether it was worth making a “race-neutral” president the first African-American in the Oval Office since they’ve received far less attention than other key constituencies such as gays.
In a new book expected to stir up debate about President Obama’s blackness, a Columbia University scholar calls Obama a “hollow prize” for African-Americans and his victory unworthy of the long civil rights battle for racial equality.
“One day the question will be asked–years if not decades from now–whether the sacrifices of previous generations were worth the rise of a ‘race-neutral’ black president, whose ascendancy was made possible by their efforts,” writes Fredrick Harris in “The Price of the Ticket,” his new book.

Victory for the Non-Resistance

The More Effective Evil has trounced those Republicans with evil intentions. Folks who never made a single demand of the corporate, war mongering Democrat think they are some kind of victors. “The non-resisters have won a non-victory against an unimpressive enemy,” while Obama plots new atrocities
Black folks may or may not have a prayer, but they certainly don’t have any earthly influence on the direction of the nation or on a president for whom they gave near-unanimous support, while asking nothing in return.


http://blackagendareport.com/content/victory-–-non-resistance

Calle 13 -Sin Mapa

Documentary.  Latin America.  Peru (Amantani Island), Bolivia, Venezuela, Mexico, etc.

Tavis Smiley, Cornel West on the 2012 Election


Why Calling Obama "Progressive" Ignores His Record.

As the most expensive presidential election in U.S. history comes to an end, broadcaster Tavis Smiley and professor, activist Dr. Cornel West to discuss President Obama’s re-election and their hopes for a national political agenda in and outside of the White House during Obama’s second term. At a time when one in six Americans is poor, the price tag for combined spending by federal candidates — along with their parties and outside groups like super PACs — totaled more than $6 billion. Together, West and Smiley have written the new book, "The Rich and the Rest of Us: A Poverty Manifesto." Both Tavis and Smiley single out prominent progressives whom they accuse of overlooking Obama’s actual record. "We believe that if [Obama] is not pushed, he’s going to be a transactional president and not a transformational president," Smiley says. "And we believe that the time is now for action and no longer accommodation. ... To me, the most progressive means that you’re taking some serious risk. And I just don’t see the example of that." West says that some prominent supporters of Obama "want to turn their back to poor and working people. And it’s a sad thing to see them as apologists for the Obama administration in that way."

‘The Other Son’ -about the Palestinian-Israeli Divide

“The Other Son,” a new film by Lorraine Lévy, shares its premise with“The Prince and the Pauper” and Shakespeare’s “Comedy of Errors,” though its mood is more melodramatic than humorous. The idea of infants switched at birth, each growing up as somebody else, is an old and potent one in literature. The possibility of such a mix-up happening in real life evokes both fascination and horror and raises stark, primal questions of identity. Is who you are determined by the genetic fingerprints of your biological inheritance or by the influence of your environment?

Thursday, November 1, 2012

Susurrando a gritos

Vivir y morir son la misma cosa. 
Pero vivir es pertenecer a otro desde fuera, 
y morir es pertenecer a otro desde dentro. 
Las dos cosas se asemejan, 
pero la vida es el lado de afuera de la muerte. 

Por eso la vida es la vida y la muerte la muerte, 
pues el lado de afuera es siempre más verdadero 
que el lado de adentro, 
tanto es así que el lado de afuera es el que se ve.

Fernando Pessoa


Hora absurda
Tu silencio es una nave con todas las velas llenas...
Blandas, las brisas juegan en las flámulas, tu sonrisa...
Y tu sonrisa en tu silencio es la escalera y las andas
con que me finjo más alto y junto a cualquier paraíso...

Mi corazón es un ánfora que cae y que se quiebra...
Tu silencio lo recoge y quebrado lo arrincona...
Mi idea de ti es un cadáver que el mar trae a la playa..., y mientras tanto
tú eres la tela irreal en la que mi arte yerra el color...

Abre todas las puertas y que el viento barra la idea
que tenemos de que un humo perfuma de ocio los salones...
Mi alma es una caverna colmada por la marea alta,
y mi idea de soñarte una caravana de histriones...

Llueve oro mate, mas no en lo exterior... Es dentro de mí... Soy la Hora,
y la Hora es de asombros y toda ella escombros de ella misma...
En mi atención hay una viuda pobre que nunca llora...
En mi cielo interior nunca hubo una sola estrella..

Hoy el cielo es pesado como la idea de no llegar nunca a un puerto...
La lluvia menuda está vacía... La Hora sabe a haber sido...
¡Y no haber algo como lechos para las naves!...
Absorta en alienarse de sí, tu mirada es una plaga sin sentido...

Todas mis horas están hechas de jaspe negro,
mis ansias todas talladas en un mármol que no existe,
no es alegría ni dolor este dolor con el que me alegro,
y mi bondad inversa no es ni buena ni mala...

Los haces de los lictores se abrieron al borde de los caminos...
Los pendones de las victorias medievales no llegaron ni a las cruzadas...
Pusieron infolios útiles entre las piedras de las barricadas...
Y la hierba creció en las vías férreas con lozanía dañina...

¡Ah, qué vieja es esta hora!... ¡Y todas las naves partieron!
En la playa sólo un cabo muerto y unos restos de vela hablan
de lo Lejano, de las horas del Sur, de donde nuestros sueños sacan
aquella angustia de más soñar que hasta callan para sí...

El palacio está en ruinas... Duele ver en el parque el abandono
de la fuente sin surtidor... Nadie levanta la mirada del camino
y siente saudades de sí ante aquel lugar-otoño...
Este paisaje es un manuscrito con la frase más bella suprimida...

La loca partió todos los candelabros glabros,
ensució de humano el lago con cartas rasgadas, muchas...
Y mi alma es aquella luz que nunca más tendrán los candelabros...
¿Y qué quieren del lago aciago mis ansias, brisas fortuitas?...

¿Por qué me aflijo y me enfermo?... Se acuestan desnudas al claro de luna
todas las ninfas... Vino el sol y habían ya partido...
Tu silencio que me arrulla es la idea de naufragar,
y la idea de que tu voz suene a lira de un Apolo fingido...

Ya no hay colas de pavos todo ojos en los jardines de otrora...
Las propias sombras están más tristes... Aún
hay rastros de ropas de ayas (parece) en el suelo, y aún llora
un como eco de pasos por la alameda que velahí concluida...

Todos los ocasos se fundieron en mi alma...
Las hierbas de todos los prados fueron frescas bajo mis pies fríos...
Secó en tu mirada la idea de creerte calma,
y el ver yo eso en ti es como un puerto sin navíos...

Se irguieron al tiempo todos los remos... Por el oro de los trigales
pasó una saudade de no ser mar... Frente
a mi trono de alienación hay gestos con piedras raras...
Mi alma es una lámpara que se apagó y aún está caliente...

¡Ah, y tu silencio es un perfil de cúspide al sol!
Todas las princesas sintieron el seno oprimido...
De la última ventana del castillo sólo un girasol
se ve, y el soñar que hay otros pone brumas en nuestro sentido...

¡Ser, y no ser ya más!... ¡Oh leones nacidos en la jaula!...
Repicar de campanas hacia más allá, en el Otro Valle... ¿Cerca?...
Arde el colegio y un niño quedó encerrado en el aula...
¿Por qué no ha de ser el Norte el Sur?... ¿Qué es lo que está descubierto?...

Y yo deliro... De repente hago pausa en lo que pienso... Te miro
y tu silencio es una ceguera mía... Te miro y sueño...
Hay cosas rojas y cobrizas en el modo de meditarte,
y tu idea sabe a recuerdo del sabor de un espanto...

¿Para qué no sentir por ti desprecio? ¿Por qué no perderlo?...
Ah, deja que te ignore... Tu silencio es un abanico—
un abanico cerrado, un abanico que abierto sería tan bello, tan bello,
pero más bello es no abrirlo, para que la Hora no peque...

Se helaron todas las manos cruzadas sobre todos los pechos..
Se ajaron más flores de las que había en el jardín...
Mi manera de amarte es una catedral de silencios escogidos,
y mis sueños una escalera sin principio pero con fin...

Alguien va a entrar por la puerta... Se siente sonreír el aire...
Tejedoras viudas gozan las mortajas de vírgenes que tejen...
Ah, tu tedio es una estatua de una mujer que ha de venir,
el perfume que los crisantemos tendrían, si lo tuviesen...

Es preciso destruir el propósito de todos los puentes,
vestir de alienación los paisajes de todas las tierras,
enderezar por fuerza la curva de los horizontes,
y gemir por tener que vivir, como un ruido brusco de sierras...

¡Hay tan poca gente que ame los paisajes que no existen!...
Saber que continuará habiendo el mismo mundo mañana—¡cómo nos entristece!...
Que mi oír tu silencio no sean nubes que contristen
tu sonrisa, ángel exiliado, y tu tedio, aureola negra...

Suave, como tener madre y hermanas, la tarde rica desciende...
No llueve ya, y el vasto cielo es una gran sonrisa imperfecta...
Mi conciencia de tener conciencia de ti es una prez,
y mi saberte sonriendo es una flor mustia en mi pecho...

¡Ah, si fuésemos dos figuras en una lejana vidriera!...
¡Ah, si fuésemos los dos colores de una bandera de gloria!...
Estatua acéfala retirada a un lado, polvorienta pila bautismal,
pendón de vencidos que tuviese escrito en el centro este lema ¡Victoria!

¿Qué es lo que me tortura?... Si hasta tu faz tranquila
sólo me llena de tedios y de opios de ocios temibles...
No sé... Yo soy un loco que extraña su propia alma...

Yo fui amado en efigie en un país más allá de los sueños...

No tengo filosofía, tengo sentidos...

Mi mirar es nítido como un girasol,

tengo la costumbre de andar por los caminos
mirando a derecha y a izquierda,
y de vez en cuando para atrás...
Y lo que veo a cada momento
es aquello que nunca antes había visto,
Y me doy cuenta muy bien...
Sé tener el pasmo esencial
que tiene un niño si, al nacer,
repara de veras en su nacimiento...
Me siento nacido a cada momento
para la eterna novedad del mundo...
Creo en el mundo como en una margarita,
porque lo veo. Pero no pienso en él
porque pensar es no comprender...
El mundo no se hizo para que lo pensaramos
(Pensar es estar enfermo de los ojos)
sino para mirarnos en él y estar de acuerdo...
No tengo filosofía: tengo sentidos...
Si hablo de la Naturaleza no es porque sepa lo que ella es,
sino porque la amo, y la amo por eso,
porque quien ama nunca sabe lo que ama
ni sabe porque ama, ni lo que es amar...
Amar es la eterna inocencia,
Y la única inocencia es... no pensar."


Fernando Pessoa
"El guardador de rebaños" (Fragmento)

10 Questions for Sherman Alexie


In the first story of your book Blasphemy, the narrator says, "Whenever an Indian says he's traditional, you know that Indian is full of s---." Really?
Yes. When you're colonized, you end up exploiting your own spirituality. You're subject to so many negative stereotypes, you embrace the positive ones. Non-Indians love us in that way. They think we're all priests and healers. After generations of being reviled and dehumanized, to be thought of as magical is pretty seductive.
Read more: 
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2127194,00.html#ixzz2B2AXPykO

Online Education


College Is Dead. Long Live College!

Bob Dylan - Masters of War