This is mostly just an announcement for my Berlin readers, but I’ll throw in a wee bit of history for the rest of you. I’ve been invited to give a speech at the opening of this art exhibition on April 26. So I’m going to do that. The exhibition is called Make Art Not War. It’s being presented by the IAFF. No, not the International Association of Firefighters, the Internationale Agentur für Freiheit, a Berlin art and cultural association founded by freedom-loving artists and art lovers. The details are
The sociopaths who run things are unimpressed by our cleverness, our word games, our cute memes, our tightly reasoned arguments and close readings of texts, unmoved by facts, logic, evidence or morality, as long as they have force on their side, as long as the cops and army will shoot when ordered to do so.
It's like trying to reason with a schoolyard bully. Truly, this never grows old:
"A WOLF, meeting with a lamb astray from the fold, resolved not to lay violent hands on him, but to find some plea, which should justify to the lamb himself, his right to eat him.
He then addressed him: Sirrah, last year you grossly insulted me.
Indeed, bleated the lamb in a mournful tone of voice: I was not then born.
Then said the wolf: You feed in my pasture.
No, good sir, replied the lamb: I have not yet tasted grass.
Again said the wolf: You drink of my well.
No, exclaimed the lamb: I never yet drank water, for as yet my mother's milk is both food and drink to me.
Upon which the wolf seized him and ate him up, saying: Well! I won't remain supper-less, even though you refute every one of my imputations.
Moral: The tyrant will always find a pretext for his tyranny, and it is useless for the innocent to try by reasoning to get justice, when the oppressor intends to be unjust."
George Santayana, in his 1905 book The Life of Reason, or The Phases of Human Progress, said, "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." Edmund Burke and Winston Churchill, among others, made similar observations, and most of us recognize the wisdom it conveys. Yet, history continues. Shakespeare, in Macbeth put it,
"Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time,
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing."
History is often an attempt to dis-remember the past, insuring that we will repeat our mistakes. Many of the policies of Germany, and of the EU, amount to repeats of the twentieth-century, thinly veiled.
"I used to teach English down the street from where that happened. And I used to live around the corner from the Musikbrauerei. " Such, by the way, is why, early on, I began to limit my travel agenda to The Ring Of Fire, the Pacific coasts.
Anytime and anywhere, when I was in Europe I felt like I was walking on bones.
Alaskan, American, none the less, of course most of my heritage, historical bodies burnt, broken or buried are there.
Walking around Brussels old town for example, I'd always need at least a 3 Trappist beer attitude adjustment before I could see/feel past the gloom and gore to the glory.
The Ring Of Fire though, Russia's Wild Wild East, Thailand, Japan, Cook Islands, Mismaloya, etc. still bones neath my feet but I don't notice them near so much. T'ain't my family's bones.
In 1984 when I went to East Berlin they made us exchange our money for East German Marks, then they forced us to exchange them back when we went back to the west. They told us that it was illegal to bring East German marks out of East Germany, so I put a 20 Mark bill in my shoe and brought it back.
One of my work-lives was as an Expressive Arts Therapist, and I was enthusiastic about the power of the arts to awaken social conscience and express civil courage. But since the pandemonium, the world I thought I inhabited has inverted, and I realise to my embarrassment/dismay that my protest art actually served those who now are exposed-and-proud New World puppetmasters. The timing of the latest wars smells so bad: just as my virus-terrified friends might have started to awaken, they now have new scapegoats to take the place of the wretched 'unvaxxed'. And with each new war, the dissenters are further split into factions, no doubt as intended.
Take heart with your frustration, remember what came next was an awakening. Vindicating for some and heartbreaking for others. We're lucky we already had our hearts broken. I read in the foreword of Propaganda that in the decades after The Great War people everywhere discovered how much they'd been manipulated. It was then that propaganda became a dirty word. Funny they don't teach you that at school. It is heartening to me that where you are they would have you speak at an art show. It feels like our artists are still well and truly stuck in their tribes, they must be leftists and these must be their values. Uncharitable (heh) to think that they must also believe somewhere that's where the grants come from.
There is hardly any part of the world that has not been part of war - wherever we walk there is a hidden war memorial under foot. Making Art Not War sounds like an attempt to reframe the world if only for a few days, greatly needed in these war consumed times Enjoy CJ and if you can share your message beyond Berlin. Thanks, Karla
"Rumor has it, during the GDR era, it housed a Stasi “listening station.”" — In contrast with today, when the "Stasi "listening station"" is a global/omnipresent entity.
"The story goes, after Walter Ulbricht’s speech, the Communists (i.e., the KDP) began singing the Internationale to drown out Goebbels, or, as the kids say these days, “to deny him a platform.”" — An interesting snapshot of "cancel culture", long before people thought such a thing ever existed.
As another great American once said, 'Ich bin ein Berliner' - could work as an opener? Whatever, I'm sure you'll knock 'em dead! (Just don't get arrested)
Talking of history, I've stumbled across The Holocaust Industry by Norman Finkelstein. I suspect it may be controversial.
I wondered, especially after the covid scamdemic, whether anything I thought I have ever known is actually true. It turns out even the memory of The Holocaust has undergone fundamental huge changes.
It also has echoes of today's covidians, who accuse anyone who dares question anything of being an anti-vaxxer, to shut down all and any criticism.
It's a fascinating read and the irony is made even more so in light of current tragic events in Gaza.
Made to forget CJ, or rather we're indoctrinated with an invented history instead. Nazi Germany was as much a creation of of the West as irt was German.
The sociopaths who run things are unimpressed by our cleverness, our word games, our cute memes, our tightly reasoned arguments and close readings of texts, unmoved by facts, logic, evidence or morality, as long as they have force on their side, as long as the cops and army will shoot when ordered to do so.
It's like trying to reason with a schoolyard bully. Truly, this never grows old:
"A WOLF, meeting with a lamb astray from the fold, resolved not to lay violent hands on him, but to find some plea, which should justify to the lamb himself, his right to eat him.
He then addressed him: Sirrah, last year you grossly insulted me.
Indeed, bleated the lamb in a mournful tone of voice: I was not then born.
Then said the wolf: You feed in my pasture.
No, good sir, replied the lamb: I have not yet tasted grass.
Again said the wolf: You drink of my well.
No, exclaimed the lamb: I never yet drank water, for as yet my mother's milk is both food and drink to me.
Upon which the wolf seized him and ate him up, saying: Well! I won't remain supper-less, even though you refute every one of my imputations.
Moral: The tyrant will always find a pretext for his tyranny, and it is useless for the innocent to try by reasoning to get justice, when the oppressor intends to be unjust."
George Santayana, in his 1905 book The Life of Reason, or The Phases of Human Progress, said, "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." Edmund Burke and Winston Churchill, among others, made similar observations, and most of us recognize the wisdom it conveys. Yet, history continues. Shakespeare, in Macbeth put it,
"Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time,
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing."
History is often an attempt to dis-remember the past, insuring that we will repeat our mistakes. Many of the policies of Germany, and of the EU, amount to repeats of the twentieth-century, thinly veiled.
"I used to teach English down the street from where that happened. And I used to live around the corner from the Musikbrauerei. " Such, by the way, is why, early on, I began to limit my travel agenda to The Ring Of Fire, the Pacific coasts.
Anytime and anywhere, when I was in Europe I felt like I was walking on bones.
Alaskan, American, none the less, of course most of my heritage, historical bodies burnt, broken or buried are there.
Walking around Brussels old town for example, I'd always need at least a 3 Trappist beer attitude adjustment before I could see/feel past the gloom and gore to the glory.
The Ring Of Fire though, Russia's Wild Wild East, Thailand, Japan, Cook Islands, Mismaloya, etc. still bones neath my feet but I don't notice them near so much. T'ain't my family's bones.
Hey. not sellin' anything, just sayin'.
My computer art against war: https://youtu.be/dP808Qc9lgM
In 1984 when I went to East Berlin they made us exchange our money for East German Marks, then they forced us to exchange them back when we went back to the west. They told us that it was illegal to bring East German marks out of East Germany, so I put a 20 Mark bill in my shoe and brought it back.
One of my work-lives was as an Expressive Arts Therapist, and I was enthusiastic about the power of the arts to awaken social conscience and express civil courage. But since the pandemonium, the world I thought I inhabited has inverted, and I realise to my embarrassment/dismay that my protest art actually served those who now are exposed-and-proud New World puppetmasters. The timing of the latest wars smells so bad: just as my virus-terrified friends might have started to awaken, they now have new scapegoats to take the place of the wretched 'unvaxxed'. And with each new war, the dissenters are further split into factions, no doubt as intended.
I would love to hear you talk about art, war and totalitarianism, but I can’t be in Berlin. Any chance that there will be a recording?
BTW: The Stolpersteine were forbidden in Munich by city major Dieter Reiter (SPD) and his crew. I think that’s shameful.
Take heart with your frustration, remember what came next was an awakening. Vindicating for some and heartbreaking for others. We're lucky we already had our hearts broken. I read in the foreword of Propaganda that in the decades after The Great War people everywhere discovered how much they'd been manipulated. It was then that propaganda became a dirty word. Funny they don't teach you that at school. It is heartening to me that where you are they would have you speak at an art show. It feels like our artists are still well and truly stuck in their tribes, they must be leftists and these must be their values. Uncharitable (heh) to think that they must also believe somewhere that's where the grants come from.
There is hardly any part of the world that has not been part of war - wherever we walk there is a hidden war memorial under foot. Making Art Not War sounds like an attempt to reframe the world if only for a few days, greatly needed in these war consumed times Enjoy CJ and if you can share your message beyond Berlin. Thanks, Karla
"Rumor has it, during the GDR era, it housed a Stasi “listening station.”" — In contrast with today, when the "Stasi "listening station"" is a global/omnipresent entity.
"The story goes, after Walter Ulbricht’s speech, the Communists (i.e., the KDP) began singing the Internationale to drown out Goebbels, or, as the kids say these days, “to deny him a platform.”" — An interesting snapshot of "cancel culture", long before people thought such a thing ever existed.
As another great American once said, 'Ich bin ein Berliner' - could work as an opener? Whatever, I'm sure you'll knock 'em dead! (Just don't get arrested)
Talking of history, I've stumbled across The Holocaust Industry by Norman Finkelstein. I suspect it may be controversial.
I wondered, especially after the covid scamdemic, whether anything I thought I have ever known is actually true. It turns out even the memory of The Holocaust has undergone fundamental huge changes.
It also has echoes of today's covidians, who accuse anyone who dares question anything of being an anti-vaxxer, to shut down all and any criticism.
It's a fascinating read and the irony is made even more so in light of current tragic events in Gaza.
We dont forget History,
We just dont remember what was left out of History...
Except for Wilhelm Reich's "Mass Psychology of Fascism", what other book,
or TV documentary, gives attention to the NAZI propaganda that exploited
people's Fear of Contagion to have them passively accept the stigmatization,
isolation, then murder of minorities...
How many noticed the 'covid' psy-op exploited the same Fear of Contagion to
'encourage' the masses to passively accept the stigmatization, isolation of 'anti
-vaxxers' - very few indeed, as drawing attention to the contents & emphases of
NAZI's successful propaganda is excluded from History...
The 'covid' psy-op's success shows 0ur Rulers remember what was left out of the
History we learn...
The Germans are Gesetz treu.
Ordnung muss sein.
They still haven't learned a thing.
It's about time the fire fighters honor you
Wish I could go to this.
"...how quickly most of us forget"
Made to forget CJ, or rather we're indoctrinated with an invented history instead. Nazi Germany was as much a creation of of the West as irt was German.