Mia Merrill, the author of the petition addressing Thérèse Dreaming,
writes that “given the current climate around sexual assault and
allegations that become more public each day, in showcasing this work
for the masses without providing any type of clarification, The Met is,
perhaps unintentionally, supporting voyeurism and the objectification of
children.” The implication is that the achievement of Thérèse Dreaming
has been purchased at the expense of its young female model; that
Balthus has, in effect, objectified and exploited her for his own
perverse purposes; and that the Met, by continuing to display the
painting, is complicit in those perversions. Balthus’s work has thus
been assimilated into our contemporary reckoning with patriarchal abuse
and privilege: the coercive sexual and ideological power men wield over
women in ways both implicit and explicit.
The U. S. government quickly provided disaster relief funds for
victims of Hurricanes Harvey and Irma in Texas and Florida,
respectively. But more than a week after Maria hit Puerto Rico no extra
emergency funds were heading for the island. President Trump reminded
Puerto Ricans of their debt obligations. News reports mentioned Puerto Rico’s chronic infrastructure deficiencies, but didn’t offer much explanation.
Indeed, Puerto Ricans were facing great difficulties prior to the hurricanes. Almost half of all Puerto Ricans live in poverty, including 60 percent of the island’s children. Almost 200 schools closed in the months before the hurricanes. The University of Puerto Rico was on the way to losing an estimated $300 million in funds. Public funding for healthcare was being reduced. Blame for these problems falls on the U. S. government.
Read on, as most Americans do not do, and get a slight understanding of the American slavery system...
I first “met” Noam Chomsky in 1969 by reading
these words of his about the My Lai massacre:
“And now there is Song My -- ‘Pinkville.’ More than two decades of
indoctrination and counterrevolutionary interventions have created the
possibility of a name like ‘Pinkville’ -- and the acts that may be done in a
place so named. Orville and Jonathan Schell have pointed out what any literate
person should realize, that this was no isolated atrocity but the logical
consequence of a virtual war of extermination directed against helpless peasants:
‘enemies,’ ‘reds,’ ‘dinks.’”
Discussing various of America’s criminal acts in the larger war in Vietnam,
Chomsky then added of the My Lai massacre itself:
“It is perhaps remarkable that none of this appears to occasion much concern.
It is only the acts of a company of half-crazed GIs that are regarded as a
scandal, a disgrace to America. It will, indeed, be a still greater national
scandal -- if we assume that to be possible -- if they alone are subjected to
criminal prosecution, but not those who have created and accepted the long-term
atrocity to which they contributed one detail -- merely a few hundred more
murdered Vietnamese.”
Chomsky wrote “After
Pinkville” -- areas like Song My were then colored pink on American
military maps -- in 1969. Almost half a century later, the question is: Have
things improved? After all, in Ken Burns’s new Vietnam extravaganza, his
18-hour documentary on that war, he seems to have captured the zeitgeist
of the moment by carefully changing the word “murder” in the script for the My
Lai episode to “killing.” “At lunch, Burns defended his change," wrote the
New Yorker’s Ian Parker,"on the ground that My Lai continues to
have ‘a toxic, radioactive effect’ on opinion. ‘Killing’ was the better word,
he said, ‘even though My Lai is murder.’” To be thoroughly upbeat,
perhaps by 2067 Americans will finally be able to take “murder”
straight on television when it comes to My Lai.
Almost 50 years ago, Daniel Ellsberg was both celebrated by many and
unsuccessfully prosecuted by the Nixon administration, in part under the
Espionage Act, for releasingThe Pentagon Papers, a massive secret trove of documents that revealed
to the American people something of what the United States was actually doing
in Vietnam. In our era, Chelsea Manning did something similar. She turned over
a twenty-first-century trove of secret documents on the Afghan and Iraq
wars -- on, that is, what she’s accurately termed
“death, destruction, and mayhem” -- to WikiLeaks and for that she was
celebrated by few and prosecuted and convicted by the U.S. military.
Pardoned by President Obama after seven years in military prison, she recently
had her visiting fellowship to Harvard’s Institute of Politics at the Kennedy
School of Government rescinded
after CIA Director Mike Pompeo cancelled a talk there, complaining
that Manning had “betrayed her country,” and former CIA Acting Director Michael
Morell, a senior fellow at the same school, resigned
in protest. Or to put it another way, Harvard caved to men who represented an
agency that had committed secret acts of horror betraying every imaginable
American value. (To give credit where it’s due, significant numbers of Harvard
faculty members protested
this craven act.) The same institute felt no
compunctions about offering a visiting fellowship to former Trump press
secretary Sean Spicer and, despite alumni
protest, not rescinding it. Perhaps there’s an essay, “After Punkville,” to
be written about all of this.
Under the circumstances, it’s our good fortune that, with civilians regularly
being “killed”
by U.S. firepower across the Greater Middle East, Noam Chomsky continues to
remind us what our world really looks like if we don’t censor either our
language or our thoughts. It makes today’s TomDispatch post, a recent
interview from his upcoming book with David Barsamian, Global Discontents: Conversations
on the Rising Threats to Democracy, particularly relevant to
our moment. Tom
The Trump Presidency Or How to Further Enrich “The Masters of
the Universe”
By Noam
Chomsky and David Barsamian
Patriot of Persia: Muhammad Mossadegh and a Very British Coup by Christopher de Bellaigue – review. This fascinating biography of a 1950s Persian nobleman and politician explains much of Iran's antipathy towards Britain Lindsey Hilsum, The Observer, Sunday 5 February 2012
Iran 1953: 'A Casual Coup with a Few Dollars':
Patriot of Persia:
To rehtink history is to learn and to compare: presently the Western politics, led by Israle and the US as well as their allies, not only revive colonial practices and strategies but increase pressure to bring Iran (now also Syria) to a downfall for easy takeover and exploitation of natural resources. In 1953 the reason was an almost bankrupt Britain who wanted desperately revenues from Iran which the lost after the nationalization of the oil industry by M. Mossadegh. Therefore a terroris was started and instigated and Mossadegh overthrown.
The pattern is almost the same today. For the naive public the WEstern powers speak of democracy, freedom or human rights. In reality the business is maintaining and strengthening the hegemonial frames for their political controll and exploitation.
And, one has to remember, it hasn't started in the fifties but in the beginning of the 20th century, when the country via its resources literally has been "bought" and was kept like under protectorate.
Not many in the West do know the basics in history. The propaganda has ensured a totally distorted view of Iran and the other nations of the Middle East. While the enemies, the islamic nations, are negatively carcatured, Israel's distorted view results in the opposite: the only democracy in the region, an lawful modern state.
Even the Britsh reviews praise the quality of Bellaigue's biography. (At the same time the foster hegemonial politics and wars...)
The example of Mossadegh makes the hatred of many of the moslem world against Great Britain, the US and Isral, if not the whole of Europe, fully understandable.
Acutally, it would be proper time, that these nations pay for their crimes.
One should keep in mind, what Pankaj Mishra writes in his review:
"The story of the Anglo-American destruction of Iran's hopes of establishing a liberal modern state has been told many times, but the cautionary message of 1953 is still far from being absorbed."
"War between Iran and the United States has never seemed more likely than in recent months, as American politicians and journalists dutifully endorse Binyamin Netanyahu's bluster. There is little sign in the mainstream press here or in the US that anyone is paying attention to de Bellaigue and other knowledgable writers on Iran. "
