The Republic of Dissent

The false security of consensus

Christopher Hitchens wasn't always right, but he was absolutely necessary.

It is hard to disagree with the assertion that consensus and God are, for lack of a more elegant word, suckers!

On ti Moment

 

It's rare, but I have nothing to say!

To compensate, here is one of my songs of the moment.

Colonial mentality

One of my favorite songs at the moment is Fela Kuti's Colonial mentality. I find it to be both profound and hip while disagreeing fully with its title and its message, which is a proof of the universality and greatness of Kuti's music (it is difficult but to enjoy it, I have to ignore his politics and his misogyny).

I stopped a long time ago to believe that there is such a thing as blackness and africanness/africanity.  I have realized that the quest for authenticity  is similar to Caligula's destructive and impossible one for the sun in  Camus's play in the sense that it always ends with a witch-hunt for there must be monsters to blame for shortcomings and traitors to chastise for their refusal to be 'true africans' or whatever else is considered to be pure or socially acceptable.

Colonial mentality is a great song with a political message that I despise because it is culturalist and defines identity in terms that are too absolute and too reactionary to be productive.  To put things bluntly,  since existence precedes essence, what matters is the choice for people aren't being in themselves. Whether a mentality is colonial or not is no longer an essential question for what matters is individuality and responsibility. That said, the song is awesome and Fela Kuti's message is worth listening too because although his conclusion is erroneous,  it is both legitimate and pertinent while being too self-absorbed and ideological to be complete.

 

Creepy Obamania

Well Glenn Greenwald has said all that needs to be said. Sometimes, it feels like Obama is Kim Jong Il and that some of his admirers believe religiously, Santorumly that he is the one and came to earth to save America.

Dansez doucement...

Well because it's my birthday and having the time of my life in the desert somewhere....

Zoukez, Zoukons!

The corruption of the American character

 

 

Interesting conversation as always between John McWhorter and  Glenn Loury. I just have one question or rather two. What is American character?  Does it exist?

I might be trying to suggest with these questions that there isn't such an American identity, that Americans are what they do and that America is an ideal, a noble idea that alas cannot remain good in itself because of Americans aren't always able to live up  to it.

Race men

I like John McWhorter and Glenn Loury and their conversation on race is fascinating especially for somebody like me who believes she got beyond race. That isn't to say that race doesn't matter, but rather that it does because people want it to matter in order to make the world simple and to put people within tiny and beautiful boxes.

To talk about Cornel West, I think he epitomizes of the fact that race forces people to be inauthentic and to hold on to bad faith in a pointless, vile and desperate attempt to make race matter more than anything else.

Slavoj Zižek and charity

 

To the contrary to BHL (Bernard-Henri Lévy), I take Slavoj Zižek seriously, but I rarely agree with him even though he too tends to oversimplify to make his arguments cute and flashy. That said this video is great (hat tip: Jonathan Glennie)

I am Glenn Loury

In this video, Glenn Loury explains perfecty and coherently what are my feelings towards Obama.

Liking Sue Sylvester

My favorite TV character is Sue Sylvester, the deliciously mean cheerleaders' trainer in Glee, which is my number one reason why I watch the show. I make the prediction that Jane Lynch, the actor who plays her, is going to go places. She has been so hilarious for too long not to make it big by at least having her own show. In this video, she succeeds in making homophobia and gay bashing funny, which is quite an achievement.

Iran in 1975

A great video on Iran in 1975 (via). It's frightening to see how religious or any kind of political revolutions can alter the face of a country.

Out of touch

I'm not a Brit, but I am still appalled by how out of touch Lord Pearson, of the United Kingdom Independence Party, is.(via) What is he doing on TV?  That's the kind of people, smart operatives keep in the background especially when there is an election going on.

Racialized!

This video depicts, I'm afraid, a reality that ought to be expected when identity politics become the supreme form of politics and when race becomes supra-essential. How different is South Africa from the United States? Or rather would the United States be South Africa if the majority was impoverished since it too is racialized society

Invading New York City

As a resident of New York, I find this video cool and very creative.

The growing importance of trivial news

Time is on my side

Ending a long, long day. I hate the Rolling Stones ! Well no, I just have a problem with Mick Jagger, but I guess it's the same thing. In any case, for some reason, a stones' song expresses my state of  mind except that I still feel anxious about the whole living thing. Ah, it's hard to focus on doing the right things instead of doing things right.

Pakistan, Drone attacks, and the Obama administration

For more on the use of drones in Pakistan and elsewhere by the Obama administration and its implications, read Professor Anderson's excellent article on the subject, Predators over Pakistan. Harold Koh gave a speech defending the Obama administration and its positions on international law. Kevin Heller offers a convincing rebuttal to Koh's arguments.

Internet, atrocity footage and the need to watch the sufferings of others

I agree wholeheartedly with Nicholas Sautin on this:

In short, the proliferation of atrocity footage on the Internet has complicated the ethical and aesthetic landscape of how and why we watch the suffering of others. If technology grants every war a dominant representational medium (consider the role of television during the Vietnam War), the digital aesthetic associated with Internet video perhaps most closely inhabits our contemporary anxiety about the wars fought in our name—our ability to see and not see, and our desire both to know and not know. The Internet passively collects the visual dregs of a world where anything and everything can be captured on film. (...) The problem with voyeurism and the Internet, though, is that the idea of “the right to look” may have become obsolete. Atrocity footage has been taken out of the hands of those who would previously have held such moral responsibility—governments, journalists, censors, teachers, etc. The images are simply there for anyone who wishes to look. We imagine their existence, haunted by glimpses of what we have actually seen, and often choose not to look further.
At their core, such images remain visible traces of what has happened, even if they seem incomprehensible. In their democratic lack of artifice and ornamentation, they suggest the closest approximation we have to reality; this makes them intolerable.

I have the feeling that atrocity footage of wars, violence or any other barbarity is the way of the future not just because modern society has accepted a legitimized a certain form of voyeurism, but also because we like in an age where as Agassi would have said 20 years ago, image is everything. Furthermore, "modern wars" (that's an oxymoron) are becoming so gadgetized and sterilized that people will want/need to experiment sensations, which brings them as close as possible to the experience of war because we live in the video-game era where anything real, brutal, and more importantly illicit is irresistible especially when it can be found on the internet and more also because we have become so desensitized to violence that only shocking images of the suffering of others can make us believe in its realness. It is the same feeling that explain for example why the media coverage of the earthquake of Haiti needed to be so gruesome and spectacular to provoke an outpouring of charitable feelings.

Zumaland is the heart of darkness

I'm not going make a comment, but since today is the 20th anniversary of Nelson Mandela's release, I will only say that I hope that there is a way to clone Mandela before he dies to avoid South Africa and Africa to remain Zumaland.

Sparks

I'm in a desperate need of a spark...

The pink season

Nothing to say so...

Conservatism

Sam Tanenhaeus's latest, The Death of Conservatism is on my must-read list for the end of the year even though I find the title of his book io be a pompous cliché designed to create buzz. Anyway, he is fun to listen to, which I hope means that he will be fun to read for those things don't always go together.

Une chanson douce et simple

Well, if there is one reason to love Aznavour when you are not your parents is that he understood that love songs don't have to complicated and that sometime all you need to do is to say it.

Ubuland

I found this video of Idi Amin Dada, the former dictator of Uganda talking his ability to dream the future not only funny, but enlightening. Not very much has changed for the perceptions remains and when one looks at things today in Uganda and elsewhere, it is difficult not to think of Alfred Jarry's famous play Ubu Roi  except that here it is not the French middle class, which is at the center of the theater of the absurd in this case. What is alarming is that there are some who believe that Dada was great partly because he was a thorn to the sides of the Brits and to the Israelis. In other words, the standard for political greatness in many African leaders is standing up to the former colonizers and to foreigners and being a menace to the world as leaders such as Dadis Camara and Omar Al Bachir show just to name two of them.

Zouk is the new Jazz

Some have trouble acknowledging it, but the best French music in our time is made in the West Indies. Now, what does that tell us is about French national identity (I have Eric Besson, the French immigration minister, om my mind) if the the Brel and Gainsbourg of today live in the DOM-TOMS? All you have to do is to listen to this song to get it. Zouk is in my opinion what Jazz was 50 years ago, that is at it. Since I just can't just write a cheerful post on a artificial day, I just hope that Zouk doesn't get Americanized in the bad sense of the word (yes, there is such a thing as good and even great Americanization).

Guys, love, and stuff

I don't know about you but watching two guys men talk about love just make me realize that romance, love, relationships are the new spirituality tools to make people avoid facing the scary reality existence is absurd and that sex can be satisfying, valuable in itself. I find the religionization, the merchandization of love, sex, relationship creepy. Something tells me that very soon there will love classes in colleges.

Guinea and its dangerous manly man

I would find this video outrageously funny if it wasn't about the fate of a poor, small, and martyred African nation, Guinea, in desperate need of leadership taken hostage by a dangerous and manly idiot who believes that God made him king. Even by the worst or the most generous of standards, Captain Dadis Camara is a clown who should have never been allowed to rule Guinea. He is convinced that to be Guinean, African, and finally a statesman means to be just as Harvey Mansfield would say manly that is to scream when he can neither reason nor convince and to crush the people who contest his authority. It's heartbreaking to say, but the fact that an African country can have such an idiot as its head of state shows that its future generations, because they were lied to by a previous group of political leaders, which was more or less polished and "western," will in the hope for change (here those two hypnotizing words again) be tempted to follow manly fools who will try to convince them that to be authentically African (whatever that means) is to defy reason and civilization.

It doesn't have to make sense

The conclusion that I have to come to about the big news of this morning is that it doesn't have to make sense since the right people feel great about it. Symbols are about us and the way they make us feel not about actions and reality.

Bling bling and humanitarianism

Outrageously funny ! (hat tip: Alice Fishburn)

Libenter homines id quod volunt credunt

I don't know what to say or do except shake my head and deplore the fact that some men are still apes. Is virginity still a sign of virtue in our times? If it is, why does it only apply to girls/women especially when they are victimes of rape? By the way, Mickey Kaus shouldn't talk about anything other than basic American politics.

Bad politics and great acting

I can't help thinking while watching this scene from Nixon, probably the last decent movie Oliver Stone made,  that we live in an era where where politicians are great at acting and bad at politics.

It's an incurable disease

I'm speechless after watching this tape. I'm not just asserting it, I'm really describing my state of my mind. I have the feeling that America is stopped in the middle of nowhere and that it is going to waste a lot of time not on becoming a good country, but an impossible "clean" country. If I wanted to be bluntly cute, I would wonder at aloud whether if wouldn't have been a good thing for the US if the South had been able to form its own country.

Taking it easy by just needing love

I don't love the Beatles (one shouldn't love the same singers as one's parents), but I love this song even though it is too corny to be true and that its message is too syrupy to be simply erroneous.

Fighting Canada

To end my long break with a bang, here is a video, which summarizes perfectly the pettiness of the politics of the health care debate in the US. (hat tip: Harry Place)

The earth didn't move

Thought-provoking, I guess change is more a state of mind than anything else.

The level of the political debate in America part II

Hat tip Harry's Place

The level of the political debate in America

No words are necessary, but wow, are we really so far away from Nazi Germany for people to have amnesia or to just be too ideological to care about reality and abusive metaphors? I guess Clive James was right to talk about cultural amnesia.

The manly man

I love Pepé Le Pew. To me, he is the epitome of the manly man who so sure of the superiority of  his manliness that he can't see that he isn't seducing the creature of his desire. In other words, when I watch Pepé Le Pew, I see Harvey Mansfield.

Les femmes sont abominables

I have given up on trying to understand why women have no problem being vicious to other women. I'm not going to comment this video and on the speakers but I will say is that they are the reasons why I have stopped watching flashy, fluffy, empty, and debasing political shows especially on cable. TV can be an addictive drug, but if you have to be addicted to something, it shouldn't be crack.

Meaningless nothingness

There was a time when nothingness could be philosophical and cool (when existentialism was revolutionary and Sartre could still read what he was writing), this conversation about third wave feminism (who knew that existed) just proves that today nothingness is not only meaningless, but annoying and maddening. Just listening to this conversation, made me want to take my pencil and stab myself just to make sure that ennui didn't kill me while I was listening to it (the feeling was so enjoyable that I thought I would spread the joy by posting the video). Is it just me or do American women have a unique way of reminding us that feminism is dead?

Edgy humor

I'm not a parent so it is easier for me to find this funny. What makes me uneasy is my suspicion that it isn't too far from reality (hat tip: 3quarksdaily)

Buddhism is just a religion

Because it is necessary to make fun of all religion... (hat tip: Pavani at SepiaMutiny)

Je suis malade

This song describes perfectly how I'm feeling this morning. I'm sick and the rain isn't helping.

Attitude américaine

Adoucir les moeurs

The winds of change

I didn't watch the Bill Maher's soft take down of Obama and his love of TV last week on his show because I stopped watching it more than a year ago. I thought that he had stopped to be funny because he wanted so much to believe in the audacity of hope. In an op-ed in the LA Times, Maher writes:

I'm still a fan, but there's a fine line between being transparent and being overexposed. Every time you turn on the TV, there's Obama. He's getting a puppy! He's eating a cheeseburger with Joe Biden! He's taking the wife to Broadway and Paris -- this is the best season of "The Bachelor" yet!
I get it: You love being on TV. I love my bong, but I take it out of my mouth every once in a while. The other day, I caught myself saying to a friend, "Don't tell me if he's fixed the economy yet, I'm Tivo-ing it."(...) It's getting to where you can't turn on your TV without seeing Obama. Who does he think he is, Dick Cheney? Come on, sir, you don't have to be on television every minute of every day. You're the president, not a rerun of "Law and Order." Save some charisma for a rainy day. (...)I'm glad that Obama is president, but the "Audacity of Hope" part is over. Right now, I'm hoping for a little more audacity.

I guess the fact that he can criticize Obama by daring to ask him to be more substantive rather than to act as if he were president in a Hollywoodian movie means that it may become easier for comedians even when they are first and foremost fans, to make fun of the president. Who knows may be change is coming...

It's always about rythm

Well, nil novi sub sole, my life is about work, work, work, work, espresso and fatigue. I listen to Keziah Johnes a lot not to fall asleep and let my brain die.

Old mummies

I'm not sure how to feel about the fact that it is becoming possible for old women (women in their sixties) to give birth (hat tip: Chicken Yogurt). I have trouble condemning it because old men who will more than likely not see their kids grow up do it all the time, but at the same time, I have always found that creepy and selfish. I am against old people having kids period especially if they are not going to raise them. What bugs me about the video is that the comic is perpetuating the assumption that old women are so gross, so useless, so repulsive that scientists shouldn't focus their energy on giving them what Nature/God didn't (wisely) want them to have. To make my point concise and clear, I'm against old people giving birth but since selfish old men have been having kids for years, it is only fair or at least less gross that old women be able to have kids. I just hope that they have them with younger men. I have to say that I love the idea of women of my mom's age going out with men who are my age. Why? Because they are the patience to baby them, to help them grow up, to teach them things, which their mothers didn't/didn't teach them and that frankly, I don't have.  Cougars (I hate that term) are the new humanitarians of the twenty-first century because they are performing a great service to society.

The era of shameless politcal opportunism

No comment necessary.

L'amour sot

I won't even pretend that I can watch this video without shaking my hand and resisting the urge to vomit. This reminds of  years ago when I live in a dorm where people believed fanatically that Titanic was the best ever made and no movie would ever be able to measure to it. How shallow!