Look now, pay later

"Our history will be what we make it. And if there are any historians about fifty or a hundred years from now, and there should be preserved the kinescopes for one week of all three networks, they will there find recorded in black and white, or color, evidence of decadence, escapism and insulation from the realities of the world in which we live. I invite your attention to the television schedules of all networks between the hours of 8 and 11 p.m., Eastern Time. Here you will find only fleeting and spasmodic reference to the fact that this nation is in mortal danger. There are, it is true, occasional informative programs presented in that intellectual ghetto on Sunday afternoons. But during the daily peak viewing periods, television in the main insulates us from the realities of the world in which we live. If this state of affairs continues, we may alter an advertising slogan to read: LOOK NOW, PAY LATER.

For surely we shall pay for using this most powerful instrument of communication to insulate the citizenry from the hard and demanding realities which must be faced if we are to survive. I mean the word survive literally. If there were to be a competition in indifference, or perhaps in insulation from reality, then Nero and his fiddle, Chamberlain and his umbrella, could not find a place on an early afternoon sustaining show. If Hollywood were to run out of Indians, the program schedules would be mangled beyond all recognition. Then some courageous soul with a small budget might be able to do a documentary telling what, in fact, we have done--and are still doing--to the Indians in this country. But that would be unpleasant. And we must at all costs shield the sensitive citizens from anything that is unpleasant.
I am entirely persuaded that the American public is more reasonable, restrained and more mature than most of our industry's program planners believe. Their fear of controversy is not warranted by the evidence. I have reason to know, as do many of you, that when the evidence on a controversial subject is fairly and calmly presented, the public recognizes it for what it is--an effort to illuminate rather than to agitate.

[...]

This instrument can teach, it can illuminate; yes, and it can even inspire. But it can do so only to the extent that humans are determined to use it to those ends. Otherwise it is merely wires and lights in a box. There is a great and perhaps decisive battle to be fought against ignorance, intolerance and indifference. This weapon of television could be useful.
Stonewall Jackson, who knew something about the use of weapons, is reported to have said, "When war comes, you must draw the sword and throw away the scabbard." The trouble with television is that it is rusting in the scabbard during a battle for survival. Good night, and good luck."

Good night, and Good luck. Movie about the life of Edward Murrow. Directed by George Clooney.

(text of the entire speech)

Per sobre de les llibertats individuals

"Per mantenir l’ordre social, desde fa dues dècades es potencien en el sistema educatiu els valors jeràrquics del confucianisme, com explica el sinòleg de la Universitat de Ginebra Nicolas Zufferey: “La prioritat de la família sobre l’individu, la importància de l’ordre social per sobre de les llibertats individuals, el respecte pels ancians i les jerarquies troben els seus fonaments teòrics en el confucianisme... A la Xina popular, la rehabilitació d’aquest corrent de pensament coincideix amb l’emergència de discursos autoritaris.”

Cristian Segura, Lluny de la revolució. A l'AVUI d'avui.

Free soup again

"Through the early 1900s, the United States played a role in the world economy suprisingly similar to China's in recent years. Until the start of the Wolrd War I, the United States had long been a "net debtor" country. It had relied on foreign loans and investments to build the factories and lay the railroads that ultimately made it an industrial titan. By the end of the World War I, it had become a "net creditor", as its undamaged industrial base supplied European combatants and the former costumers of ruined european companies.

Until the 1920s, its farms and industries made America the workshop of the world. It ran trade surplusses with most other economies, which meant that a disproportionate share of the world's jobs were in America (it was doing work that other people consumed), and a disproportiante share of what it made went for other people's use. Foreigners paid the difference by transferring gold reserves or taking on loans and investments from Americans. So far, this is like China's story. And so far, so good.

This very role as global exporter made the United States unusually vulnerable when global demand collapsed in the 1930s. Haing had more than its 'fair' share of the world's jovs to begin with, America had more of them to lose. This doesn't mean that Americans suffered more deeply than Europeans. We got Franklin Roosvelt; they got Hitler, Stalin, Franco and Mussolini."

James Fallows, China's Way Forward, on The Athlantic Monthly.

Lenin was right

"Competition with China was structurally and qualitatively unequal. The chinese fixed the value of their currency against the US dollar, keeping it undervalued so as to give their exports greater competitiveness They provided little or no welfare for their workers, so their costs were artificially low. There were no independent unions in China, so the safety standards he had seen in Chinese factories would have been illegal in America. The state banking system provided cheap credit to state companies that could default without consequences. The central government gave generous value added tax rebates to exporters that were not available to US companies. Restrictions on emissions in China were lax, so companies had to play relatively little to keep the environment clean. Chinese companies routinely stole foreign intellectual property, but it was difficult to prosecute them because their courts were either corrupt or under government control.

[...]

The problem was that Boeing, like most multionationals, had worked out that it could save a lot of money by sending some if its manufacturing functions to China and other low-cost countries. It needed to do this to maximise the returns to its shareholders. But in doing so, it threatened to put out of business many of its small, long-term suppliers such as those of the Rockford dinner. The process was self-reinforcing. The more Boeing outsourced, the quicker the machine tool companies that supplied it went bust, providing opportunities for Chinese competitors to buy the technology they needed, better to supply companies like Boeing. Boeing makes money, but ultimately at the expense of the industries and jobs that sustain Middle America. In the opinion of Eric Anderberg, capitalism had lapsed into cannibalism. "Lenin said that America would tear itself apart from the inside through greed", he said. "And you know what? He was right."

James Kynge, China shakes the world. The rise of a hungry nation.

A whole life of nightmares

-Have you been getting nightmares lately?
-Nightmares? No, man.
-It's like I can't fucking sleep, man. Like last night, man. I kept hearing cries and shit like, man. I keep seeing these fucking bodies, man. These fucking women laid out, fucking dead. Their kids. It's not so much the guys, man. It's more like the women. And then I see pictures of, like my fucking mother laying next to them. I just wish I could fucking change a lot of shit, man.
-What are you talking about?
-I feel like a lot of those fucking people I killed personally. You know what I mean? And I'm fucking gonna live with this guilt for the rest of my life, man. And nobody fucking understands it either, man. I feel like I'm personally responsible for all those motherfuckers that died underneath me. Every Marine that died under, underneath me, I feel like I'm personally responsible. Like I could have fucking changed it, you know what I mean? Fucking hate the motherfuckers, the officers that send us in."

Battle for Haditha, by Nick Broomfield.
(Haditha Killings: Wikipedia and BBC. )

La solución para la Humanidad

"Nadie en 1619 pudo decir: 'Éste es el segundo año de la Guerra de los Treinta Años, quedan pues veintiocho'. No, el hecho o el conjunto de hechos que representa la Guerra de los Treinta Años sólo es el hecho o el conjunto de hechos al que conviene ese nombre, mirándolo o mirándolo como pasados...

¿Y por qué fue un importante 'hecho histórico'? Porque la Guerra de los Treinta Años y la Paz de Westfalia representan el definitivo hundimiento del viejo orden europeo, porque representan unas fechas que marcan el inicio de la Europa moderna, porque por lo menos representan el triunfo definitivo de la dimensión política de la Reforma Protestante, porque representan el inicio del fin del imperio romano-germánico, porque marcan la fecha en que el mundo hispano queda descolgado de la evolución europea protestante, porque marcan el inicio de un tipo de organización política y de equilibrio entre organizaciones políticas (los estados nacionales) que en el siglo XX ha generado increibles catástrofes en la historia de la especie, porque fue el inicio del triunfo del tipo de organización política que afortunadamente ha quedado por fin superada por un tipo de organización política supraestatal y supranacional...

Para quienes vivieron la Guerra de los Treinta Años empezó contando como enfrentamientos religiosos generalizados y después como una situación de la que a toda costa había que salir, desde 1648 pudo contar como la Guerra de los Treinta Años, siguió contando como... y quizá a mediados del siglo XXI pueda contar como el principio de algo que quedó por fin felizmente superado... Los hechos históricos no cobrarán su sentido completo y definitivo mientras en el futuro no se cierre toda la historia."

M. Jiménez Redondo, introducción a Conocimiento e Interés, editado por la Universitat de València,

+-+-+-+

"Sólo cuando la filosofía, repasando el curso dialéctico de la historia, descubre el reguero de violencia que desfigura y distorsiona un diálogo intentado una y otra vez, y que una y otra vez se vio expulsado de los carriles de una comunicación exenta de coerciones, sólo entonces podrá la filosofía impulsar ese proceso... El proceso de avance de la especie humana hacia la emancipación...
La unidad de conocimiento e interés se acredita en una dialéctica que partiendo de las huellas históricas del diálogo reprimido reconstruye lo reprimido".

Jürgen Habermas, Conocimiento e Interés.

Jesucristo García

Concreté la fecha de mi muerte con Satán.

Le engañé y ahora no hay quien me pare ya los pies.

Razonar es siempre tan dicifil para mí.

Que más da si al final me sale todo siempre bien del revés.

Nací un buen día, mi madre no era virgen

no vino el rey, tampoco me importó.

Hago milagros, convierto el agua en vino,

me resucito si me hago un canutito.

Soy Evaristo, el rey de la baraja

vivo entre rejas, antes era chapista

los mercaderes ocuparon mi templo y me aplicaron ley antiterrorista.

¿Cuánto más necesito para ser dios?

¿Cuánto más necesito convencer?

Y perdí la cuenta de las veces que te amé.

Desquicié tu vida por ponerla junto a mí

Vomité mi alma en cada verso que te dí

Olvidé me quedan tantas cosas que decir

Por conocer a cuantos se margina

un día me vi metido en la heroína

y aún hubo más, menuda pesadilla,

crucificado a base de pastillas.

¿Cuánto más necesito para ser dios?

Extremoduro, Jesucristo García.

Lúcida perquè menjava poc

"Sortia d'un d'aquests viatges au bout de la nuit, ha dit recentment a Baltasar Porcel en una entrevista publicada a Serra d'Or, "durant els quals escriure sembla una ocupació espantosament frívola: la fugida de París, a peu, amb alguns espectacles al·lucinants: incendi d'Orleans, bombardeig del pont de Beaugency, amb carros plens de morts... Dos anys a Limoges, morint al dia, com deia aquell; dos anys a Bordeus, vivint-hi..." No escriu pràcticament res, replegada en ella mateixa i massa ferida per les necessitats de la vida quotidiana. "El món d'abans de la guerra em semblava un món irreal", diu en un altre lloc de l'entrevista citada, "i no m'havia refet encara. I el temps que vaig tardar! Tot cremava per dintre, però imperceptiblement ja s'anava tornant una mica anacrònic. I això és el que potser feia més mal. No hauria pogut escriure una novel·la baldament m'haguessin apallissat. Estava massa deslligada de tot, o potser massa terriblement lligada a tot, encara que això pugui semblar una paradoxa. Només tolerava els més grans: Cervantes, Shakespeare, Dostoievski... Estic segura que mai no he estat tan lúcida com aleshores; potser perquè menjava poc."

J.M. Batllori, pròleg sobre la vida de Mercè Rodoreda per a la segona edició de La meva Cristina i altres contes.

The period police

"To keep my life from ruin, I launched a self-rescue mission. Firstly I bought a fragment of deer horn musk at considerable expense -its strong aroma was supposed to trigger a miscarriage. I sniffed it greedily like a dog and kept it under my pillow at night. But nothing happened. The following night, I went to the dark riverside to jump down from the steep embankment, hoping to jerk the baby out of my body. Despite my milirary style vigor, nothing happened. Later, I returned to dive into the river and soak myself into the smelly cold water -icy water could induce an abortion, it was believed. I just caught a cold."
[...]

Doctor Zhang put her mask back on, ready to datai -"beat the fetus"- the painfully graphic Chinese term for abortion. "Da, da, da, beat, beat, beat", my ears began to ring. I gripped the edge of the operation table, terrified I was to be butchered alive. No anesthesia. I heard the machine being switched on, then something cold and metal went deep inside me and stabbed my tender womb.
[...]

It was growing very well. I kept hearing the cheerful remarks the nurse had made when she took the aborted fetus away. Chinese women attached little emotion to abortion, a common form of birth control. My sister had one and my mother three or four. I thought I would be overjoyed to be rid of it, like a tumor. But I was gripped by a hollow feeling.
[...]

"Aiya, Little Zhang, why are you looking so pale?" Boss Lan greeted me when I made my way to the workshop. "Study late last night?"
"No, woman's problem. I'll have to go to the hygiene room shortly," I replied with perfect assurance [...]
"Zhang Lijia, from Work Unit Number Twenty-three," I showed my work pass to the woman behind the desk, cracking watermelon seeds. There was already a pile of husks on the concrete floor.
"Haolai", the woman, short and round, her width almost equal to her height, took my pass and turned around to look for my file. Every month, when each woman in the factory had her period, she needed to report to family planning staff, nicknamed the "period police", stationed at this hygiene room.
"Oh, you're rather late this month," she remarked, studying my card, dense with the dates of my monthly visits [...]
She tailed me closely to the toilet, still chewing. Before squatting down to wash my private parts with hot water from pipes fitted with foot-controlled valves, I showed her my bloodstained sanitary towel. Most women might be embarrased by the task, but she had been performing it uneasiness. In fact, she often remarked on what she saw. "Oh, you`ve got very heavy flow Ask your mum to boil you some eggs." Or "Aiya, what bushy hair you've got down there!" Privacy was a luxury in no Chinese expected. Presently, she crancked her neck for a better look and said: "You've got some blood clots. No wonder you are late. Try black-boned chicken soup with ginseng". She fancied herself as an amateur gynecologist."

Zhang Lijia, Socialism is great! (and my review)

The chinese antiChrist

"L'homme distingue les quatre points cardinaux afin de se repérer par rapport à ce qu'il davant ou derrière lui; il se conforme à la distinction du passé et du présent, du commencement et de la fin pour donner un ordre à ce qu'il voit et à ce qu'il entend...
Mais, du point de vue du principe d'organisation spontanée (li) et des energies invisibles, il n'est pas vrai qu'il y ait un avant et un après. Dans l'absence de toute orientation temporelle ou spatiale du chaos dans lequel le principe d'organisation dirige les énergies, le commencement et aussi la fin, le créé est aussi l'origine du créé, ce qui est au repos est aussi ce qui circule, ce qui se sépare est aussi ce qui s'unit. Il n'est rien qui ne commence, rien qui ne soit achevé."

Jacques Gernet, La Raison des choses. Essai sur la philosophie de WANG FUZHI.

Spanish English Translation by myself:

(The human being distinguish between the four cardinal directions to make clear what is in front or behind him. The human being has enough distinguishing between the past and the present, the beginning and the end, to give an order to those things that he observes and understands...
But from the point of view of the spontaneous organization principle (li) and the invisible energies, is not true that there is a before and an after. In the absence of any temporary or spatial orientation in the chaos where the organization principle leads the energies, the beginning is the end, what is done is also the origin of what is done. what is resting is also moving, what separates is also unified. There is nothing that begins and nothing that is achieved.")

(El hombre distingue los cuatro puntos cardinales para determinar qué hay delante o detrás suyo; el hombre se conforma con distinguir entre el pasado y el presente, entre el comienzo y el fin para dar un orden a aquello que observa y aquello que entiende...
Pero desde el punto de vista del principio de organización espontáneo (li) y de las energías invisibles, no es cierto que haya un antes y un después. En la ausencia de toda orientación temporal o espacial del caos en el que el principio de organización dirige las energías, el comienzo también es el fin, lo creado es también el origen de lo creado, lo que está en reposo también está circulando, lo que se separa es también lo que está unido. No hay nada que empiece y nada que sea completado.")