Anonymous Comrade submits:

"The Perfumed Prince and Other Political Tales"

John Chuckman, September 5, 2003

The Perfumed Prince declared himself a Democrat. Many Americans may not recognize the nickname bestowed upon Wesley Clarke by British colleagues as he strutted around Serbia with his set of platinum-plated general's stars carefully repositioned each day to a freshly-starched and ironed camouflage cap, wafting a thick vapor trail of cologne. His lack of judgment demonstrated in Serbia -- including an order to clear out Russian forces that British general, Sir Michael Jackson, had to ignore for fear of starting World War III -- should be enough to utterly disqualify him as a candidate for President. But this is America, land of opportunity.

"The Great Divide: The Enlightenment and its Critics"

Stephen Eric Bronner

[From New Politics, vol. 5, no. 3 (new series), whole no. 19, Summer 1995.] Stephen Eric Bronner is a professor of political science at Rutgers University and a member of the New Politics editorial board.

Max Weber already envisioned the spirit of Enlightenment "irretrievably fading" and a world in which there would remain only "specialists without spirit, sensualists without heart."1 But he was bitter about this development, which places him in marked contrast to much of contemporary opinion. The Enlightenment, of course, always had its critics. Beginning with the Restoration of 1815 and the new philosophical reaction to the French Revolution, however, they were almost exclusively political -- if not necessarily cultural -- adherents of the right: intelligent conservatives committed to organic notions of development like Edmund Burke, elitists seeking a return to the sword and the robe like Joseph de Maistre, racists intent on viewing world history as a battle between aryans and Jews like Houston Stewart Chamberlain, and apocalyptics prophesying doom like Oswald Spengler.

Mad? Bad? Dangerous to know? A Clown or a strange type of danger? This interview is very Much Silvio B. unplugged and you can be the judge..

The new imperial vision of Silvio Berlusconi

The Spectator began by asking Berlusconi whether he has mended fences with Chancellor Schröder, after he likened the German Social Democrat MEP, Martin Schulz, to a Nazi camp commandant?


It was I who was offended, my government and my country. I replied with a joke. I wanted to be humorous. The whole of the parliament laughed. My reply was taken and exploited against me. But you know what? It was a reply that was virtually impossible for me to resist because I once broadcast 120 episodes of Hogan’s Heroes in which there was this Sergeant Schulz. You remember? I didn’t even think about it. Schulz was shouting at me — no? And it just came to me off the cuff. I always try to be ironical in my speeches. Anyway, I had a phone conversation with Schröder in which I said my intention had not been to offend and that I was sorry that my joke had upset some people.


What provoked him?


In that sitting of the parliament, the speeches had been prepared beforehand under the direction of the MEPs of the Italian Left. So out came this image of Italy as follows: first, that in Italy there is a man who controls 85 per cent of the Italian press — the opposite is the case: I am the most liberal publisher in history; two, that this person also controls all Italian television — when I have one friend in Italian television who has a 7 per cent share; three, that I trample the Italian judges beneath my feet — and so if Italy were to apply today to join the EU, the application would be turned down. This was the theme of all the different speeches by the Left that day.

"On Corporate Journalism"

Noam Chomsky

Telephone interview by Bernie Dwyer for Cuba Debate with Professor Noam Chomsky of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 28th August 2003. The agreed theme of the interview was ‘Corporate Journalism’ but,
like all good interviews, the topic spread to take in many other themes --
always with the rigorous political analysis that we are used to from
Professor Chomsky.

[Bernie Dwyer]  A couple of new popular books have recently been published such as Weapons of Mass Deception and Stupid White Men. Do you see them as a viable alternative to the corporate media?

[Noam Chomsky]  No, they are not trying to be an alternative to the corporate media. They are just books among the many books written about the way the corporate media function and there is by now, in the United States, more than any other Western country that I know, a rather significant popular movement concerned with the corporate media, which is virtually all the media within the United States, and the way they function as a kind of propaganda system.

jim submits "Prompted by a discussion on lbo-talk about Tom Delay, the 'Christian Zionist,' and American public opinion polls appearing to demonstrate support for the 'cretinous' Alabama Ten Commandments judge recently all over the American news, C. G. Estabrook offers some statistics and categorical clarity."

"American Apocalyptics"

C. G. Estabrook

It's surprisingly difficult to get good statistics about Americans'
theological views, in part because, as the Census Bureau explains at its
site,

"The Bureau of the Census collected information in the Census of Religious
Bodies from 1906-1936. This information was obtained from religious
organizations. Public Law 94-521 prohibits us from asking a question on
religious affiliation on a mandatory basis; therefore, the Bureau of the
Census is not the source for information on religion."

The Statistical Abstract of the United States has some information, but
not much beyond denominational membership. The standard reference work is
David Barrett's massive two-volume World Christian Encyclopedia (Oxford
UP, 2001); an excellent web-site, Adherents, draws together
information from a variety of studies.

Anonymous Comrade submits :

"Jihad Unspun"

Noam Chomsky, August 16, 2003

September 2002 was marked by three events of considerable importance,
closely related. The United States, the most powerful state in history,
announced a new national security strategy asserting that it will maintain
global hegemony permanently. Any challenge will be blocked by force, the
dimension in which the US reigns supreme. At the same time, the war drums
began to beat to mobilise the population for an invasion of Iraq . And the
campaign opened for the mid-term congressional elections, which would
determine whether the administration would be able to carry forward its
radical international and domestic agenda.

"Unless The White House Abandons Its Fantasies, Civil War Will Consume The Iraqi Nation"

Robert Fisk, 08/30/03

In Iraq, they go for the jugular: two weeks ago, the UN's
top man, yesterday one of the most influential Shia Muslim clerics.
As they used to say in the Lebanese war, if enough people want you dead,
you'll die.

So who wanted Ayatollah Mohamed Bakr al-Hakim dead? Or, more to the
point, who would not care if he died?

"Dreams and Delusions"

Edward Said, Al Ahram, August 30, 2003

During the last days of July, Representative Tom Delay (Republican) of Texas, the House majority leader described routinely as one of the three or four most powerful men in Washington, delivered himself of his opinions regarding the roadmap and the future of peace in the Middle East. What he had to say was meant as an announcement for a trip he subsequently took to Israel and several Arab countries where, it is reported, he articulated the same message. In no uncertain terms Delay declared himself opposed to the Bush administration's support for the roadmap, especially the provision in it for a Palestinian state. "It would be a terrorist state," he said emphatically, using the word "terrorist" -- as has become habitual in official American discourse -- without regard for circumstance, definition or concrete characteristics. He went on to add that he came by his ideas concerning Israel by virtue of what he described as his convictions as a "Christian Zionist", a phrase synonymous not only with support for everything Israel does, but also for the Jewish state's theological right to go on doing what it does regardless whether or not a few million "terrorist" Palestinians get hurt in the process.

Anonymous Kumquat submits:

"Chomsky and Foucault on Human Nature"

A Discussion Moderated by Fons Elders

Excerpts from a 1971 discussion between Noam Chomsky and Michel Foucault,
from "Human Nature: Justice Versus Power," in Reflexive Water: The Basic Concerns of Mankind edited by Fons Elders (Souvenir Press, 1974).

ELDERS: Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the third debate of the International Philosophers' Project. Tonight's debaters are Mr. Michel Foucault, of the College de France, and Mr. Noam Chomsky, of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Both philosophers have points in common and points of difference. Perhaps the best way to compare both philosophers would be to see them as through a mountain working at opposite sides of the same mountain with different tools, without even knowing if they are working in each other's direction.

Anonymous Comrade submits:

"Notes on Summits and Counter-Summits:

The Illusion of a Center"

Capitalism is a social relationship and not a citadel for the powerful. It is starting from this banality that one can confront the question of summits and counter-summits. Representing capitalist and state domination as a kind of general headquarters (it’s a question of the G8, the WTO or some other such organization) is useful to those who would like to oppose that managing center with another center: the political structures of the so-called movement, or better, their spokespeople. In short, it is useful to who propose merely a change in management personnel. Besides being reformist in essence and purpose, this logic becomes collaborationist and authoritarian in method, as it leads to centralization of the opposition.