#Free/Slow University Warsaw

[blue-mint-winter]

I finally gathered myself to write up my thoughts about Persepolis Rising. Despite liking the book (not loving though), there’s a lot to criticize. Let’s start with the positives.

(Spoiler warning for those who didn’t read it.)

The writing style keeps up the good level of the previous books. The action is still riveting (when it happens). From new characters I really liked Saba, the resistance leader on Medina. I also liked Singh, the Laconian governor. He’s young, inexperienced, but he’s a true believer in their cause and system. It was interesting to learn about Laconian society and values from his perspective, as well as their conquest strategy and how they deal with failure. The end was especially surprising to me, but something expected too. The whole idea of Laconia was one of the highlights of the book. The other was the development of void cities and the trouble with managing the trade between colonies because of the passage limits. There’s a predictable conflict between the necessity for a flight control on Medina that would make sure all ships can safely pass through the rings in orderly way and the colonies’ needs and drive for independence. Btw, I really appreciated the story coming full circle with the crew’s return to Freehold, that was predictable to me, but still very satisfying in a way. If they didn’t come back there, their beginning mission would feel a little pointless to me.

The other topics addressed in the book are conquest and occupation. It’s hard not to compare Laconia to Nazi Germany with their blitzkrieg into the Sol system, however they’re less destructive. They don’t claim race superiority, rather they have a mentality similar to Borg’s assimilation. They aim to include every human into their Empire so they aren’t out for senseless violence. It’s a very “gentle” type of conquest which is only possible because of Laconian technological supremacy. Their selling point is that it’s pointless to resist them and others should just willingly join to gain all the benefits of the universal rule.

The occupation of Medina and the resistance operations on it were my favourite parts of the book, but no matter what, I kept thinking that I already read this somewhere. Reading it felt very similar to reading about occupied Warsaw during WW2.

Even though Laconia by the name is referencing Spartans (who did take over the ancient Greece), the book’s title suggests more similarity to Persians. Is Duarte a space Xerxes, aiming to conquer the free cities of Greece? His aspirations to become immortal ruler of Human Empire certainly seem to imply that. Medina, the narrow gateway like Thermopylae, was taken. Sol surrendered. Will there be a comeback and Salamina? Adding in the mystery of those who killed protomolecule creators becoming active again, I’m becoming doubly curious.

The last good thing I need to address is Clarissa. I actually liked her arc in this book. It was sad to see her waste away, ill because of the implants, but she went out with a dignity, fighting the good fight. Protecting Naomi, someone she once tried to kill. The symbolism of her redemption arc coming full circle isn’t lost on me.

Next, about the negatives.

Half of the book is just slow-paced exposition. Only the other half picks up. I don’t know what’s going on with Amos, it’s very unclear and just not particularly good. Kind of like filler. I’m very lukewarm on Drummer POV. She just feels the same as Pa, with a small difference that she has only one husband (who I liked in this book more than her). Drummer’s POV felt to me very monothematic, she’s a constantly worried and tired bureacrat, and I kept thinking that we could’ve gotten a more interesting account of the war and Sol defense from other people than her.

The last issue is the thirty year time skip. Is it bad? That depends on how you look at it. I think it makes sense because the authors wanted/needed to give time to Sol to recover after Inaros, colonies needed to develop, void cities had to be built, Laconia had to build up their devastating military power. However, when it comes to the individual characters and the Roci crew, the time skip was badly utilized.

Skipping ahead thirty years is pretty much making this book a sequel story to the six books. It’s an invitation to introduce a new generation in this new reality. The problem is - there is no new generation. Roci was always shown to us not just as a ship or a place of work - it was a home and the crew were family. But even after thirty years there are no children in this family. In my opinion, the time skip would be a perfect way to introduce Holden and Naomi’s child(ren) and whatever drama that would cause on the ship. Instead we get a mention that Alex got married, had a kid, and divorced someone we never heard about before (not even the woman he was romancing in the previous book). Wow, what a stunning and plot-important news! Not. Also, it’s hard to believe that in thirty years the crew stayed exactly the same with no personnel changes. No one joined, no one left (and no kids on the ship). As if time stopped inside Roci, while it sped outside. I’d rather they were caught in some spacetime anomaly like in Star Trek and came back thirty years later unchanged, but for them it was like a week, that would make more sense.

In spirit of sequelization, there was an attempt to pass the torch with Holden and Naomi planning to retire and sell the ship to Bobbie. Actually, this part went better than expected, because authors recognized that exchanging original heroes for other characters by giving away their things doesn’t work out. And being Roci captain did not work out for Bobbie too, not because of any of her fault. There were the outside circumstances, but the truth is that the only rightful captain of Roci can be Holden, no one else. The solution with Bobbie taking over an enemy ship and becoming a captain in that way, with her own new crew, suited her much better.

Persepolis Rising was a mixed bag for me, plot-wise, but in general it was still a  good book that I enjoyed reading. The worldbuilding was still top notch, just the characters got a little mishandled and stagnant in the time skip and I don’t agree with some of those decisions. 6/10

#the expanse #persepolis rising #my thoughts #spoilers

[mostlysignssomeportents]

#10yrsago  Pinkwater's EDUCATION OF ROBERT NIFKIN: zany and inspiring tale of taking charge of your own education

Continuing last week's spate of Daniel Pinkwater reviews (see the earlier posts on The Neddiad and The Yggyssey), I'm here today to tell you about The Education of Robert Nifkin, one of Pinkwater's true geek-inspirational masterpieces.

I missed Nifkin the first time around (it was initially published in 1998), but I'm pleased to have corrected that oversight, especially since the latest edition, from Houghton Mifflin's Graphia imprint, comes with a fabulous Shag-illustrated cover. Nifkin is one of Pinkwater's more adult books (in that it contains a fair bit of cursing and some mildly sexual material), and but it's squarely in the tradition of his YA geek-finds-himself books like Alan Mendelsohn, The Boy From Mars.

Here's the setup: it's the mid-fifties and Robert Nifkin has just moved from suburban California to Chicago with his Eastern European immigrant parents (his father is a notorious Polish gangster who was thrown out of Warsaw by his fellow Jews, as the Gentiles were too scared to talk to him). He is sent to Riverview High, a kind of prison camp for geeky kids, and there he rests for the first half of the book, enduring a season in Hell.

First, there are his teachers: Ms Kukla (homeroom), is a screamer who compulsively warns her students about sneaky commie recruiters who might also pass them pornography (she also calls Nifkin -- a fat, nebbishy kid in bad clothes that his father insists upon -- a "fairy" upon meeting him; Coach Spline is such a bastard that Nifkin opts for ROTC to get out of gym, where he encounters Sergeant Gunter, a crypto-communist who joined up after fighting fascists in Spain; Mr Moody is a history teacher who has perfected the Riverview pegagogic technique (write stuff on the board and grade students at the end of the semester by how legibly they've copied it into their notebooks); and Mrs MacAllister, an anti-Semite who uses English classes to warn them about the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.

Nifkin's home-life isn't much better. His parents left all their furnishings behind in Chicago and opted for fashion-magazine perfect decor, surmounted by a lamp his father made out of driftwood and fiberglass balls ("It's was like Halloween every night of the year...it would have unnerved Dracula"), and his father won't eat anything with seasoning, which drives Nifkin to eat at the nearby Mel's, where Melburgers are served ("A triple is three fatburger patties on a bun...a double triple is two of them... Only polar bears and Arctic wolves can digest them"). His folks heap him with abuse ("So, bum. How is by you deh education?") and accuse him of falling in with commies.

But Mel's is the turning point for Nifkin, because it's there that he meets the bohemians, especially Kenny Papescu, an alternative school kid who cuts classes in order to deliver his father's art forgeries. Papescu recruits Nifkin, and soon he's a semi-professional dropout who uses his forged university ID to sneak into lectures in between haunting the movie palaces and lugging around gigantic art forgeries.

It can't last. Nifkin is drummed out of Riverview and convinces his father to send him to The Wheaton School, a free-school frequented by beatniks, idiots, criminals, dropouts, freaks, and misfits. And here the book takes a gigantic step from the weird to the inspiring.

The first half of Robert Nifkin is your everyday Pinkwater: convulsively funny, zany, biting. There's plenty of biting, zany and funny in the second half, too, but what distinguishes it is the slow, delightful realization on Nifkin's part that learning -- especially eclectic, self-directed learning undertaken with your peers and with engaged teachers -- is incredibly fun.

This section sings. It vividly recalls my own alternative school history, which consisted of a fairly long period of horsing around and goofing off, followed by an equally long period of dedicated, intense, serious study inspired by all the exciting things I learned by horsing around.

It's because of this that Robert Nifkin rings so true for me. This really is a magnificent coming-of-age story, and what's more, it's practically a manual for how to have (and oversee) a lifelong love-affair with learning, with doing, and with synthesizing. It's a story that affirms something I firmly believe in: intellectual curiosity is the most important force in the universe.

Robert Nifkin never loses Pinkwater's trademark breezy, madcap tone, but in this regard, it is as serious and awe-inspiring as an earthquake. Here is a book to inspire a whole generation of extremely happy mutants.

The Education of Robert Nifkin

The Education of Robert Nifkin Study Guide

https://boingboing.net/2009/05/18/pinkwaters-education.html

[lamus-dworski]

because you are so knowledgeable on polish history and lore, i was wondering - do you know any details of what life was like for poles in the 1850s? (sorry if this seems random, i just can't find any information about that time period really)

This is in fact an extremely broad topic because the Polish people lived under 3 entirely different Partitions back then. There could’ve been also huge differences even within different regions of each of the Partitions

Naturally, life was also very different for various social classes (peasants, townspeople, intelligentsia, and so on). Let’s take the peasants - the most numerous social class back then - as a quick example. 

Let’s say, the peasants living under the Austrian rule had a different life, worries and opportunities in the areas around Kraków, in the eastern ‘Kresy’ or in the highlands inside that Partition. In comparison to the other two Partitions, life was relatively easy in the political terms over there, and just like in the rest of the Austrian empire most of the ethnic groups were rather left alone (for example, free to move around or free to use their languages and continue their cultural traditions). On the other hand the Austrian authorities didn’t focus on developing or funding new infrastructure in that region and therefore the people suffered poverty much greater than in the other Partitions. It was so bad that towards the end of that century the region of Galicja was said to be the poorest in the whole Europe.

Then, there was much more of oppression in the other two Partitions, like law restrictions and the cultural Germanization / Russification that affected all the social classes. For the said example of the peasants, it meant that there were phases when they couldn’t move freely around, their culture and language were restricted or even their family members taken away, or they couldn’t find a job speaking their own language only (depending on what particular region and timeline are we taking into account). However, the 1850s were relatively calm in those matters.

1850s were the times when the Austrian and Prussian parts had already abolished the serfdom (it’s after the period of People’s Spring); while in the Russian part there was still a form of the payments and peasants were still organizing protests (it was fully abolished there only in 1860s and replaced by a land tax). For all the Partitions that meant a phase of huge changes in the agriculture and laws, different for each of the regions. People welcomed those changes with curiosity and a relief after the decades of the serfdom. Thanks to the abolition the rural culture in all of the parts received more freedom. For example, that was the time when the folk clothing started changing and receiving a form we know nowadays (after a better access to different materials, and without restrictions - among other things the old laws of serfdom were limiting the ‘looks’ of the people).

The Prussian part altogether had the most opportunities job-wise (but many only after receiving the education in German - for the people who spoke the Polish language only there were just less-paid simple jobs). Lots of areas being urbanized much quicker in that Partition led to the peasants developing a slightly different culture, much more resembling the culture of the townspeople than in the other Partitions. There was also the best access to schools out of all the Partitions. Not many offered classes in Polish but there were still many small rural schools where the peasants could learn how to read and receive a very basic education (Polish was banned only in the later decades what eventually led to numerous school strikes in Prussia in the late 19th century). 

In the Russian part there were much more opportunities for a higher education (for example, Russians were investing a lot in building of high schools and universities in big cities like Warsaw), but all of the classes were in Russian. Russian had become an ‘official academic language’ already after the uprisings of 1830s, and many topics were banned. The basic level of education still suffered, and many people couldn’t read or write in those rural regions which weren’t allowed to organize primary schools on their own. Another problem was also that a vast majority of the state-funded primary schools offered teaching the cyrilic script only (everything else was ‘undeground’).

In the Austrian part the Poles were free to organize schools and universities by themselves and in Polish, but as I mentioned above there was almost no state funds for them. Everything in this matter was developing extremely slow, and there was never enough schools for everyone who wanted to receive any form of education (while a lot of people wanted to, because that Partition was the most open border-wise). It was a bit better in the cities and towns, but the rural areas had a high level of analphabetism - depending on a source, even higher than in the Russian part.

Because of those kinds of factors, the daily life of the Polish people back then differed a lot between the regions where they lived. All of those things were affecting their living conditions and the way they worked or celebrated.

As you could see with those few examples, it’s very hard to answer your question in short. I looked around the internet quickly but (unfortunately) there’s indeed not much in English that would describe the 1850s in details. If you could give me an information which one of the Partitions interests you the most, I could maybe narrow my search or give a more detailed answer.

Does someone know any good book or article about that time period in English?

#Anonymous #reply post #1850s #partitions #partitions of poland #so much to write #but at the same time we don't know that much about the daily life during that paricular period #much more was written in the later era of positivism #history #polish history

[instituteofgeorgianhistory]

Georgia as a Part of Integrated Europe – Analysis

Tedo Dundua

Emil Avdaliani

https://www.eurasiareview.com/11052020-georgia-as-a-part-of-europe-analysis/

 Below is a short overview of how the concept of Europe emerged over the past millennia and why Georgia has always been part of integrated Europe.

Climate determines eco­no­mics. Hot and less humid environment defined an early advantage of the South over the North – indeed, the Egyptian state and the crafts confront entirely the primitive clan-system which existed in fact everywhere. Then the whole pattern changed.

Times after, some technical improvements towards the North created very comfortable vegetation process, while the Egyptians still needed time to put a seed beyond the reach of the sun. In the 9th-8th cc. B.C. the Greeks are already at the vanguard by means of the technics and the structures. The countries being superb before, like Egypt and Babylon, or India, now face a new hegemonic power – Hellas, already overpopulated and needing grain and the raw materials to be imported. Then the perception of Europe has appeared. Europe is a special term for the part of the earth, which stipulates or will stipulate the same vanguard level of development. Even Scythia with its rough spring was thought to be reorganized in the Greek manner, than those countries which needed the additional finances for irrigation. So, the making of Europe started.

The Greek pattern was as follows: 1. occupying or even frequently being invited to the key points of other economic structures like Caria, Thrace, Bosphorus or Colchis; 2. establishing the autonomous Greek social structures granted heavily with the technics from the metropolis; 3. the natives being equipped with the best tools for agriculture; 4. Greek industrial structures maintained on this background; 5. exporting supplies to Hellas and receiving back some industrial goods. The Aegean and the Pontic (the Black Sea) areas were supposed to form unique economic space. Economic integration considered several stages to be realized: first it was Asia Minor, in fact mistakenly called so, to be Hellenized due to climatic similarity with Greece, then – West, North and East Black Sea countries.

Two major waves of the colonists passed from Hellas – first one in the 8th-6th cc. B.C., and the next – in the 4th c. B.C. led by Alexander the Great. Asia Minor was a complete victory of Hellenism, even being integrated politically under Mithridates Eupator, king of Pontus, as far back as in the 1st c. B.C. The Roman rule gave a new sense to the economic prosperity of the Greek World. And at last, the Byzantine metropolis was created with all those languages like Lydian, Cappadocian etc. vanished forever. But there were serious failures too. Colchis (Western Georgia) offered a dangerous humidity to the Greek way of life. The Greeks living there had no chance to keep their industrial spirit as agriculture was very slow in development. Soon the Greek community became a bilingual one, and after – totally assimilated within the Colchian society. As to Bosphorus (at the Northern Black Sea coast), a corn-supply from Asia Minor to Greece broke the traditional scheme and the region soon lost its Greek style.

The Romans did the same job for Gaul and Spain, putting the Latin population there and Romanizing these sites. They also cared much about their Greek colleagues in making Europe – starting from the 1st c. B.C. the Romans were running the whole administration within the Hellenistic World, while the Greeks used to build their integrated industry. Then the whole system collapsed.

Indeed, Italy never cared much for maximum of technical improvement and power revolution. The result was catastrophic – excessive growth of population in Italy, insufficient economic progress, high prices on the Italian industrial export, cheap supply from European provinces, indecisive military advantage of the metropolis over the provinces; the Roman imperial system vanished Italy being forced to receive large numbers of Goths as settlers. New Europe will pay special attention to the technical progress employing more and more hands in heavy industry. But what was supposed to be done with the starving Italy?

East Rome (Byzantium) possessed prominent food stocks from Asia Minor and Egypt. Emperor Justinian put Italy within the Byzantine hegemony. But Byzantium itself was also a very old economic pattern. And Europe struck with the Slavs and the Bulgars penetrating beyond the Danube, establishing their national states in Thrace, Moesia and Dalmatia. The Asian provinces were lost too. From this very point on Byzantium was steadily degrading still being a predominant for East Europe and the Black Sea countries. Besides, the Byzantines kept some of the Italian provinces thus irritating the rest of Europe and provoking the emergence of Catholicism and Holy Roman Empire.

Till the 11th c. Byzantium was the dominant power, the champion of Christendom against onslaught of Asia and Islam. But it was already very old European pattern of the Mediterranean trying to control North. Soon Empire found itself caught between two fires – the Crusaders and the Turks. Byzantium had to be calmed finally. The Crusaders (after 1204) and the Turks (after the battle of Manzikert, 1071) did this job properly overpopulating the country. Towards the end of the 13th c. Byzantium is nothing but a lot of principalities with different confessional visages (Orthodox, Catholic and Muslim). The Orthodox World starts disputing about a new leader, Serbian, Bulgarian and Georgian kings assuming formally the title of Caesar and Autocrat (and before the Georgian kings formally had been hailed as king and Kuropalates, king and Sebastos, even sometimes, king and Caesaros).

The Italians were more pragmatic. Seizing the whole islands and the key points over the Aegean and the Black Sea, they will control the complete economic output there until the 15th c. This was a disaster for building of Europe. Within the Holy Roman Empire Italy was granted only moderate supplies of food and the raw materials from the Northward. And now Venice and Genoa made a commercial onslaught upon what still can be called the Byzantine World destroying the local crafts. e.g. In 1261 the Byzantine Emperor Michael Palaeologos had to sign a treaty with Genoa promising the republic the concessions, own quarters in Constantinople and other ports, and free access to those of the Black Sea.

A comparative analysis of the Hellenic and the Italian periods is as follows: the Greeks took up their permanent residence within the East Aegean and the Pontic areas stimulating economics, while the Italians placed the soldiers and the merchants there to empty the local markets. That is why the Ottoman reintegration was welcomed by the overwhelming majority in Asia Minor. And Greece since has formed a separate economic structure. Thus the Italian overlordship came to an end together with the handsome transit trade.

The Italians did their best to save the maritime empires but they failed. Galata or Pera was lost immediately. And the Ottoman control over the Straits endangered the existence of the Black Sea colonies like Caffa (Theodosia), which passed over to the Ottomans in 1475. Quite soon the whole empire of Genoa had vanished. Venice triumphed at the battle of Lepanto (1571), but little good resulted. Hence the Italian supplies had been tied up neatly with the countries Northwards, while Italy itself being reduced to a modest land.

After these Southern European empires gone forever, new Europe emerged with its rationalism and a traditional division into the West and the East still vital, with a clear perspective of collaboration, even creating the universal whole European architectural style – a certain mixture of the Gothic (Western) and the Byzantine (Eastern) styles – that was Baroque, elaborated still in Italy in the 16th c. The West was lucky in evolution, more severe East had to arrange an economic tension losing the comforts and the services to catch the West. Both of them headed towards Asia for a supply. The colonial system was established. And if the imperial experiment happened to be used still within Europe, like the Austrians and the Russians did, no economic synthesis was planned. Great Britain and Russia never thought even of America and Siberia as of some agrarian sections while sending the colonists there. World War I created the state-socialist system in the Russian Empire and the USSR appeared. World War II widened the state-socialist system and the Warsaw Pact appeared. The brutal rationalism like state-socialism still did its job neatly. Towards the midst of the 19th c. East Europe with its serfdom seems to be a grotesque European province. Now the differences are hastily diminishing, and the making of Europe is nearing the end. Soon the entire North will face the South within the network of a collaboration affiliating some extremely Southern industrial countries like Australia and the Republic of South Africa, Chile and Argentina.

So, Europe is part of the earth which stipulates or will stipulate the same vanguard level of development. That has been well acknowledged since ancient times. An idea of European integration is as old as comprehension of geographical determinism for technological evolution.

Academic summary for Georgia being a permanent subject of the European integration is as follows: as far back as in the 6th c. B.C. Themistagoras from Miletus made Phasis in Colchis home for himself and his Greek colonists. Thus West Georgia was involved in the European matter. Greek commercial superiority was substituted by the Roman hegemony over the small coastal strip of Colchis, already called Lazica in the 1st c. A.D. And that hegemony was based upon well-manned castellum-system from Pitius up to Aphsaros. Lazi client-kings, dwelling in the hinterland, largely enjoyed Roman pax and prosperity, gaining a handsome profit by trading with the gallant Pontic cities, like Sinope, Amisus and Trapezus.

The whole Black Sea area might be looked upon as a multicultural region of which the general principles were still based on Hellenism, but that was facilitated mostly by the Roman money and defended by the Roman soldiers. Further towards the East, Iberian kings, sometimes even possessing Roman citizenship, welcomed Graeco-Roman transit from Central Asia and India. Spices, precious wood and stones were brought to Europe via “Transcaucasian” trade-route.

http://georgiatoday.ge/news/20876/Silk%2C-Spices-and-Oil–%27Transcaucasian%27-Trade-Route-and-Georgia

Byzantium was not a betrayal of all that was the best in Hellas and Rome. Great oriental bastion of Christendom, she seems to be a formulator of the Orthodox Christian Commonwealth. The Georgian kings being within were hailed as king and Kuropalates, king and Sebastos, king and Caesaros. Again dual citizenship was applied. For the Christian monarchs, there were the Byzantine titles to make them feel as the citizens of the Orthodox Empire, being at the same time ascribed to their own country. After the adoption of Christianity, Eastern Slavonia, with Kyiv as capital, joined the Byzantine Commonwealth. That clearly meant enlargement of the Eastern European unity towards the Eastern section of humid continental Europe, into the direction of the river Volga. Russians were the loyal subjects of the Commonwealth, looking calmly at the decline of Constantinople’s hegemony, and the Bulgar and Georgian kings seizing the titles of “Tsar” and “Autocrat”.

Becoming stronger, Russia vividly protested Ottoman reintegration of what was formerly known as Byzantium, and Muslim overlordship over the Orthodox World by taking the title of “Tsar” for Grand Prince Ivan in 1547. New center of East Europe was shaped, and then long-term war started for hegemony, Russia being victorious.

Seeing itself as East European super-power, thus Russia claimed Byzantine political heritage. For Russians Georgia had to be within the East European Union, and at the beginning of the 19th c. Kartalino-Kakhetian Kingdom (Eastern Georgia) became a part of the Russian Empire. The USSR was a substitute for the Russian Empire. And now Georgia is searching for her room within unified Europe (T. Dundua. The Making of Europe (Towards History of Globalization). The Caucasus and Globalization. Journal of Social, Political and Economic Studies. Volume 2. Issue 2. Sweden. 2008, pp. 38-45).

   Towards the Modern Period

 Georgia and EU established close bilateral relations since the 1990s. Significant progress was made in 2004-2011 paving the way for further cooperation. In June 2012 the EU opened a visa dialogue with Georgia. By early 2013 a visa liberalization action plan was laid out. In March 2016 the European Commission proposed to allow visa-free travel to the Schengen area for Georgian citizens.

https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/policies/eastern-partnership/georgia/  

Major developments took place in the economic sphere. In June 2014 the EU and Georgia signed an Association Agreement (AA). This, along with the Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Area (DCFTA) Agreement, builds a foundation for far-reaching Georgian political and economic integration with the EU.

https://eeas.europa.eu/headquarters/headquarters-homepage_en/49070/Georgia%20and%20the%20EU

Modern Georgia aspires to become an economic part of Europe, and enjoy its monetary system, unified currency – euro. Major steps have been made to this end since the break-up of the Soviet Union. The current EU-Georgia close relationship is based on the EU-Georgia Association Agreement. More importantly, the latter involves a Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Area (DCFTA), which came into force in mid-2016 and along with closer political ties aims to achieve deeper economic integration between Tbilisi and the EU.

http://georgiatoday.ge/news/20981/%27Attic-Standard-Zone%27%2C-Eurozone-and-Georgia%3A-Historical-Comparative-Analysis

Since the signing of the DCFTA EU-Georgia trade ties have seen a radical change. True that only a modest growth of exports to the EU has been seen so far. However, there was a considerable decline in Georgia’s trade with the former Soviet states due to the unfavorable economic situation of CIS trade partners. By 2020 Georgia trades more with the EU than it was before the DCFTA. Over the long term the positive effects of the DCFTA are likely to build up considerably (Deepening EU-Georgian Relations. What, why and how? Ed. M. Emerson, T. Kovziridze. London. 2018, p. 5).

On 27 June 2014 the European Union and Georgia signed the Association Agreement (AA), including the Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Area (DCFTA). The DCFTA has an ambitious objective of integration with the EU’s internal market, therefore is considered as the unique free trade agreement. As the main pillar of the AA, it contributes to modernization and diversification of economy in Georgia.

https://eeas.europa.eu/delegations/georgia/49070/node/49070_uz

Recently the EU has published an Eastern Partnership (EaP) policy which outlines the Union approach for 2020 and beyond towards the six former Soviet states bordering Russia. This comes amid fears that the EU has not been able to fully implement its previous Eastern Partnership policy as Georgia and Ukraine, the states which most successfully implemented the reforms, have not become EU members.

https://moderndiplomacy.eu/2020/03/01/despite-troubles-eastern-partnership-will-remain-operational-in-one-form-or-another/ The new policy document is therefore an important step, serving as a continuation of the EU’s resolve to further integrate the 6 former Soviet states into the Union’s institutions.

The new policy document is a result of consultations launched in 2019 by the European Commission. The previous document made an emphasis on engaging with civil society to ensure effective reforms. There also was a focus on increased public accountability, advanced human rights and local development.

The new policy document outlines changes in 3 out of 4 priority areas. The EU again will work on building stronger economy, connectivity and stronger society as a guarantee.

In the new policy, EU-Georgia cooperation will remain the main way to ensure the implementation of policy recommendations. According to the document, “the EU will continue to provide support in bilateral, regional and multi-country fora, including targeted sectoral assistance in line with the principles of inclusiveness and differentiation. In addition, the EaP will continue to be flexible and inclusive, allowing countries to tackle common and global challenges jointly in a wide range of areas, fostering regional integration”.

https://ec.europa.eu/neighbourhood-enlargement/sites/near/files/joint_communication_on_the_eap_policy_beyond_2020.pdf  

Overall, there are the following long-term Eastern Partnership policy objectives the EU plans to implement with Georgia beyond 2020: building resilient, sustainable and integrated economies, accountable institutions; increasing the rule of law and general security; making progress in building environmental and climate resilience; implementing a resilient digital transformation; building a fair and inclusive societies.

The new EaP strategy also underlines the importance of increasing bilateral trade which builds upon the previous progress. For example, in the 2010s, EU-EaP trade has nearly doubled, turning the partner countries into the EU’s 10th largest trading partner.

This has the geopolitical ramification of Russia gradually losing the economic battle as the EaP states diversify their economies. The EU is the first trading partner for four partner countries (Azerbaijan, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine), while for Armenia and Belarus the EU is the second biggest trading partner.

The diversification in exports of goods of EaP states helps to better integrate those states into the global value chains. Another sign of closer interaction between the EU and EaP states is the number of companies trading with the Union. In Georgia, the number increased by 46%, from Moldova by 48% and from Ukraine by 24%.

Building upon this achievement, the new document calls for deepening of “the economic integration with and among the partner countries, particularly that of the three associated countries through continued support for the full implementation of the current DCFTAs”.

Another geopolitical realm covered by the new document is transport. The EU will be focusing on upgrading key physical infrastructure in road, rail, port, inland waterway and airport facilities, and logistics centers, in order to further strengthen connectivity between the EU and the partner countries and among the partner countries themselves. This is in connection with the energy connectivity in the “South Caucasus”, as the Southern Gas Corridor was completed in 2020 with first gas from Azerbaijan likely reaching the EU.

https://moderndiplomacy.eu/2020/03/21/the-eu-introduces-new-vision-for-eastern-partnership-states/ Yet another important sphere of cooperation will be strengthening the EU’s cooperation with the partner countries to create a strong financial system for sustainable economic growth. Within the measures to minimize organized crime, the EU will continue its support for the EaP states to cooperate with EU justice and home affairs agencies to fight human trafficking and trafficking of illicit goods (notably drugs and firearms), etc. Among other policies, the EU’s support for the cyber resilience of the partner countries stands out. This is particularly important for Georgia as the country was recently subject to massive external cyber-attacks.

Thus there is a clear progress in EU-Georgia relations with likely advancement to follow in the coming years.

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Do You Eat An Excessive Amount Of Food Per Meal?

Do You Eat An Excessive Amount Of Food Per Meal?

Ingesting is a essential pillar of life for all humans. moreover, maximum people revel in it, specifically whilst it’s a few super tasting meals! sadly, we also don’t constantly have the satisfactory experience of when to stop, mainly, in our modern-day time when we’ve got get right of entry to to not most effective desirable-tasting foods however in substantial portions.

Even as we might also poke a laugh at humorous conditions along with Homer Simpson ingesting until he can’t physically flow, in truth the results of consuming an excessive amount of can range from a simple mild belly pain in the quick term to the many health dangers associated with continual weight problems consisting of cardiovascular sickness or diabetes. furthermore, often overeating isn’t as dramatic as ingesting until our pants are about to burst, however as an alternative truely ingesting greater than we need on the modern time, or ingesting until we’re complete instead of eating till we’ve gotten the nutrients we need.

We do not have the herbal constraints our ancestors did to prevent us from over eating. In evolutionary phrases, most people couldn’t over consume as large-scale agriculture and meals processing generally weren’t to be had till pretty lately in human history. currently, most human beings and truly people have get right of entry to to more food with convenience than ever earlier than.

So, what drives us to eat more than we need?

Notwithstanding the plethora of to be had sources, we are nonetheless fully able to ingesting what we want. One key insight is the emotional connection to meals many people have. research has shown that many humans have a tendency to consume extra or overeat whilst they are feeling unhappy, depressed, or struggling with an issue.

A study inside the journal of Adolescent fitness, researched the consuming behavior of youngsters who in the end developed ingesting problems like binge eating. The primary end result they located become “those effects suggest that it’s miles crucial to recall depressive signs and symptoms in overeating.” one of the number one signs that we may be ingesting an excessive amount of is to monitor the cause for eating. Are we consuming because we’re hungry, or due to an emotional trouble, we are dealing with?

Another consideration is symptoms of Hypoglycemia, or low blood sugar. a piece of writing from the scientific university of Warsaw stated that Hypoglycemic signs can lead people to consume extra if you want to satisfy urges to growth insulin, thus it’s miles continually critical to bear in mind to exercise moderation when ingesting chocolates as they lead us to consume a long way more than we really need.

Ultimately, there may be no better caution device than your very own frame. excessive constipation, blockage, bloating, vomiting or belly aches is your frame supplying you with feedback that it has had sufficient. extra regularly than not, in case you feel a regular want for laxatives or antacids it’s far maximum possibly your body telling you which you’ve taken in a ways greater meals than you need. additionally, your body’s energy stage and intellectual alertness are signs and symptoms of eating an excessive amount of. at the same time as all of us enjoy a finely cooked meal or scrumptious snacks, biologically speaking meals is actually fuel for our body to devour and become electricity. however, when we bog our machine down with extra gasoline or fuel of poor satisfactory A.okay.A junk meals, our power will lower, we feel slow and less alert and in place of increasing our strength, it’ll experience like we reduced it as we overloaded our digestion gadget.

In end, I suppose I talk for the general public once I say that we love meals! Our bodies love food as well as it’s far the power that allows it to transport and characteristic, but while we have too much our first-rate warning device is our frame and our mind telling us.

Our brains tell us via our feelings, we very often have far extra food than we want for emotional reasons along with melancholy or stress.

We ought to be privy to our modern kingdom to avoid those pitfalls. in addition, our our bodies inform us via our very own electricity levels and digestion machine while we’ve had an excessive amount of. The symptoms are there and our brains and our bodies are telling us, we simply need to concentrate!

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Do You Eat An Excessive Amount Of Food Per Meal? was originally published on LeFit Fitness

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Chanukah Stories

The following is a modified version of the Yizkor Sermon of Yom Kippur 5778 – reproduced here for its connection to Chanukah.

There is a story told of many generations of the Hasidic masters:

When the Baal Shem Tov had a difficult task before him, he would go to a certain place in the woods, light a fire and meditate in prayer – and what he had set out to perform was done. A generation later, when the Maggid of Mezeritch was faced with the same task he would go to the same place in the words and say, “we can no longer light the fire, but we can still speak the prayers – and what he wanted done became reality. Again, a generation later, Rabbi Moshe Leib of Sassov had to perform this task. He too went into the woods and said, “we can no longer light a fire, no more do we know the secret meditations belonging to the prayer, but we do know the place in the woods to which it all belongs and that must be sufficient.” And sufficient it was. But when another generation had passed and Rabbi Israel of Ruzhin was called upon to perform the task, he sat down on his golden chair in his castle and said, “we cannot light the fire, we cannot speak the prayers, we do not know the place, but we can tell the story of how it was done.”  And the storyteller adds, the story which he told had the same effect as the actions of the other three.  

I have told this before, but I need to tell it again. I find it sums up so much of what animates my own Judaism, my own life. There is something about the act of telling our stories that is powerfully animating.

There is some research that reflects the power of narrative as a tool for attaining resilience. Psychologist Dan McAdams of Northwestern University found that people who feel they live meaningful lives and contribute to society share a narrative pattern. They tell stories that focus on redemption. The act of telling stories of redemption is itself redemptive. These stories are transformative because they teach us how to move from trouble to rescue, from adversity to strength, and from bad to good. Redemptive stories turn suffering into a positive emotional state. In our Canadian lexicon of heroes the best-known versions of these stories are of Terry Fox and Rick Hanson ­– both of whom turned a life-changing diagnosis into meaningful action.   

The Torah teaches the lesson of meaningful narrative in the negative example of the prophet Jonah. Jonah ends up in the belly of the great fish because he refuses to believe in transformation and change. He is disgusted by the idea that Gd would forgive the people of Nineveh, because in his estimation their transformation is only a veneer. Jonah paraphrases the covenant of forgiveness in which Gd is described as patient, slow to anger, merciful and truthful. However, Jonah cannot utter the word truthful in the context of Gd’s judgement of Nineveh and swaps in the words, forgiving of evil in place of truthful.

As a Jewish community, we have been bequeathed millions of stories of redemption. They are the stories of immigrants from Nazi-occupied lands, Russia, the Soviet Union, Iraq, Morocco, and Egypt. They are the stories of people who fought Hitler and communism and who built the State of Israel and the institutions of our community.

The stories of our grandparents are redemptive. They are about bravery, perseverance, and faith. We are sometimes made jealous by their stories, because we know that we are not as tough as they were. We know that we live pampered and coddled lives compared to the adversity they overcame.  

When we begin our narratives with, “my bubbe used to, or my zeyde used to…”  we become bound to them through their stories. They connect us to something important. They help us understand our place of belonging in the broader world. They help us to make their story our own. They help us to be the continuation of their acts of redemption.

The declaration of this is how my grandparents did this is a transformative moment. It is when their action becomes mine. It is when the signature of a ritual, recipe, or act of charity becomes more than an instant. It becomes a signature of identity.

As we connect with a particular story from bubbe and zeyde, they connect us to the larger transformative narrative of the Jewish people. Passover, Chanukah, Shavuot, and the catalogue of Jewish holidays articulate our resonance with a transformative history.

A limitation of Jewish education in the classroom is that it does not completely connect the student to the transformative narrative of the Jewish people. When the stories are told only in the classroom they run the risk of just being academic exercises.

This is an unfortunate truth of Jewish supplementary schooling in North America. One of the prevailing themes of religious education in the baby boom era was that parents wanted to drop their children off to soak up Jewish content in their education. The most satisfied parents were those who felt that by sending their children to a Jewish school, they were free to do as they pleased at home, work, and in the community at large. This sentiment was summed up by a participant of a landmark study of the Chicago suburbs – the Lakeville Study – reported anonymously to shield the Chicago community from embarrassment. "I like [it]. It gives my boy a good Hebrew education. And they've left me alone – I've never been inside." Another acknowledged: "We joined for the kids. The kids like it. We are satisfied. We feel no need for religion.” (Wertheimer, Jack. “Jewish Education in the United States: Recent Trends and Issues.” The American Jewish Year Book, 1999,3-115).

The authors of the study said the following.

Parents who hold to a pattern of minimal ritualism appear to rely primarily, and in some cases, almost exclusively, on the religious school for the Jewish socialization of their children. This dependence on the Jewish school constitutes a radical departure from the traditional approach to the rearing of the Jewish child. In past eras, the effort of the school to transmit the culture to their children represented merely a continuation of efforts already initiated by the parents. In North America that changed and the function of socialization into Jewish life, knowledge and culture has been separated from its traditional moorings in the family.

Our job is to connect the future generations to an ongoing story to ensure that they know we are all connected to the great story of Jewish transformation.  

One more story that captures the idea.

Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz recounted that the first year after his zeyde died, he went to his bubbe to light Chanukah candles. He lit them and saw that his bubbe was sad. “Bubbe, I know why you are sad. You miss zeyde. I also miss zeyde.” “No,” said bubbe, “that’s not why I’m sad.” “Did I make a mistake in the lighting? Did I do anything wrong?” “No. What you did was fine.” “So, bubbe, why are you sad?” “Because,” said Rabbi Steinsaltz’s bubbie, “zeyde would dance after he lit the candles. You lit the candles but you didn’t dance.”

I think what has been lost is best told by a story. Yeshivot and day schools are indispensable. They are a cornerstone of Jewish life. They are part of the future of the Jewish diaspora. We would be entirely hopeless without them. However, we must remember they are a supplement to – not a substitute for – the transmission of our Messorah, tradition, Torah, Jewish identity, and our story.

It is hard to imagine schools being able to deliver that kind of memory and transcendence of the moment when zeyde dances. Connection of that magnitude is nearly irreproducible in the school context.

We must make our Jewish education vertical and integrated. Jewish education cannot be the alternative to the family. Jewish education must be an extension of Jewish family and community.  

We feel a little sheepish. Who dances after lighting Chanukah candles? Do we even feel worthy or authentic dancing at the Chanukah candles? I am not sure we have a choice. We need to recapture those stories, those moments. We have to ensure that we sing the kiddush and dance at Friday night services. We have to get our hands messy together making challah. We have to cry together at Yom Hashoah and Tisha B’av. We have to sing together when we make the charoset and dine at the seder table. We have to tell the story of how our grandparents built the schools and saved Israel in ‘48 and ‘67. We have to tell the story of how they survived Lodz and Warsaw, how they sang Selichot on the chain gangs, and how they resettled refugees and gave immigrants jobs. We have to know we are all vehicles of Jewish education. We are all links in the chain and, yes, we do need to dance after lighting the Chanukah candles.

I have written many eulogies for bubbes and the zeydes – enough to know that we have the stories and the moments to keep the narrative going.  

We cannot light the fire – that generation has faded. We cannot speak the prayers – that generation has gone silent. We do not know the place – that generation has passed through. However, we can tell the story of how it all was done. Each generation’s storytellers add to the story to the same effect as those who went before. In the telling, across the thread of time and place, we all dance around the light of the Menorah.

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By Andrew Levine / Counterpunch.

Photo by Matt Johnson | CC BY 2.0

The pre-Socratic philosopher Heraclitus taught that “all is flux” — that “nothing stays still,” and therefore that “no one can step in the same river twice.”

The political philosophers of Greco-Roman antiquity understood this to be a metaphysical claim without political implications.  That has remained the consensus view to this day.

To be sure, more than two thousand years after Heraclitus, philosophers working within the tradition of “classical German philosophy” did develop philosophical positions that evince a certain affinity with what Heraclitus seems to have had in mind, and that do resonate politically.  The connection, however, was indirect.

Hegel’s philosophy is, by far, the most important and influential example.  As an inveterate systematizer, and a political and legal philosopher of the first order, he joined notions associated with politics, conceived abstractly, with aspects of Heraclitean metaphysics, understood loosely.

But Hegel and his followers were interested mainly in elucidating history’s structure and direction, and in the “dialectical” structure of the real.  What they had to say about political notions and institutions was partly shaped by those abstruse philosophical concerns.  But it too was largely free standing.

Hegelian ideas influenced Karl Marx’s thinking, but, in many respects, Marxist theory broke away from its Hegelian roots.  This was especially true on matters of political concern.  One would be hard pressed to find anything of consequence that is inherently Heraclitean in the Marxist purchase on politics.

Like other political philosophers before and since, Marx and Marxists after him took the continuity and temporal persistence of key elements of the political sphere for granted.  From their purview as political actors, and as thinkers reflecting on politics, it is, and feels as if it is, possible to step in the same river not just twice, but many times.

Thus, even after Hegel and Marx, the Heraclitean doctrine falls within the metaphysician’s ambit, not the political philosopher’s.

It took Donald Trump, a buffoon incapable of holding a serious thought, to change that sense of things.

As a thinker, Trump is a non-entity who has not, and obviously cannot, change political theory.  But he has profoundly affected the lived experience of those who do think, casually or in more sustained ways, about the politics of the country he leads.

Thanks to the peculiarly undemocratic way we elect presidents, and thanks to Hillary Clinton’s ineptitude, a troubled male adolescent in an old man’s body now holds power enough to turn the world into a wasteland.  And because his mind does indeed resemble an ever-changing river, nothing now does stay still for we inhabitants of Trumpland.

This is why it feels to so many of us as if, in our political universe, all is indeed in flux; as if booming buzzing confusion is all there is.

***

The problem is not just that we have a president whose instincts are vile and who is in way over his head.  It is worse than that.  We are adrift and the old, familiar moorings are gone.  The situation is too intolerable to endure for long, even if we do somehow manage to live through it.  It has to end, and it will end because it must.

The process is painfully slow, but we just might now be living through a turning point, a watershed moment out of which new moorings will emerge.  Even in Trump’s America, events have a way of forcing change, despite the best efforts of the beneficiaries and guardians of the status quo.

However, we must never underestimate the power of wishful thinking, and we should always be mindful of Hegel’s dictum about the owl of Minerva taking flight only at the setting of the sun.  What he meant was that the “meaning” of historical events only becomes clear in retrospect, and only after the passage of time.

With those caveats in mind, I would venture that far-reaching changes really are underway, and that the pivotal moment came with the recent spate of devastation brought on by hurricanes in the Atlantic.

Ultimately, political power rests on force, but regimes rule by shaping public perceptions.  “Opinion,” wrote David Hume (1711-1776), “is the true foundation of the state.”  America in the Age of Trump is no exception.  How and when the Trumpian flux ends depends, in large part, on how people perceive events and therefore on how the power structure’s propaganda system spins the stories it tells.  Under the pressure of events, those stories can sometimes spin out of control.

Too bad for defenders of industrial capitalism in its current phase that forces of nature – hurricanes, for example  – can overwhelm even the best efforts of the most persuasive propagandists.

It is a familiar phenomenon: when there is an automobile accident, traffic slows down to look; people are inveterate voyeurs.  And so it was that when Hurricanes Harvey and Irma struck Texas and Florida, cable and broadcast networks had a ready made audience for their “breaking news” brand of 24/7 disaster porn.

The journalists on the job did creditable reporting, notwithstanding occasional self-congratulatory boasting.  Their boast was that they were performing a vital public service by helping to inform actual and potential storm victims.  In truth, they did hardly any of that, and neither were they supposed to in any case.  For as long as there have been radios, designated local, not national or international, media have been tasked with keeping affected publics informed.  They do their job well, and this time was no exception.

The background meteorology they provided was of high quality too – or rather it would have been had the cable networks and National Public Radio not effectively proscribed mention of global warming and climate disruption.  One could only marvel at how skillfully scientists and journalists skated around that colossal elephant in the room.  Print media did only slightly better.

And although the impact, of Irma on Cuba could hardly pass unnoticed, there was little or no discussion of how much better impoverished Cuba’s level of hurricane preparedness is compared to the United States’.  Neither did they call attention to Cuban efforts to help their Caribbean neighbors.  Cuba took an even harder hit than Florida.

This is hardly surprising in view of the still substantial political influence of counter-revolutionary Cubans in Florida and elsewhere, and the six decades long history of American efforts to crush that socialist island – in order to make it, again, a de facto colony of the United States.

They also made short shrift of enormous levels of destruction in places of which Americans know little and care less (except when planning vacations or evading taxes).  At first, even America’s Caribbean “possessions” were only mentioned in passing.

Hurricane fatigue is not the only reason why so much less attention now is being paid to Hurricane Maria.  Maria has done more damage than Irma, but the fact that, this time around, it is mainly brown skinned people who are mainly bearing the brunt matters  more.  The fact that some of them, as Puerto Ricans or Virgin Islanders, happen to be American citizens — in theory, if not quite in practice –changes little.  America First is a liberal fixation too.

It is tempting to say that all that hurricane coverage was good only for entertaining television viewers in places far removed from danger.  But, with the benefit of hindsight, it may turn out also to have been good for something far more momentous.

By bringing the consequences of industrial capitalism’s effects on the earth’s atmosphere into too clear a view to be ignored, all that coverage could cause many of America’s most recalcitrant climate change deniers finally to accept the scientific consensus on global warming – Trump and his minions notwithstanding.

Such things do happen, even when “the bad guys” are well resourced and well organized.  Hardly anyone nowadays seriously questions the scientific consensus on the deleterious health consequences of smoking, for example.

If this happens now with global warming, and the wall-to-wall coverage of Harvey and Irma plus now also of Maria and Jose, are part of the reason why, then, despite themselves, the cable news networks and other corporate media really would have something to brag about.

For now, though, perhaps the only genuinely salutary result of all that coverage – and of reporting on the devastating earthquakes in Mexico – has been to tone down media-driven war mongering.  However, to the world’s detriment, that benefit is short-lived; the war mongering is heating up again.

The Republican Party is beneath contempt, and Trump, the people around him, and the benighted folk who still support him make right thinking people despair for the human race.  But, when it comes to reviving dormant Cold War animosities and flirting with nuclear annihilation, Democrats, smarting from Hillary Clinton’s unexpected and unnecessary defeat, are worse.

Their media flacks are, if anything, even more of a disgrace.  Rachel Maddow is only the tip of the iceberg.

But efforts to revive the Cold War didn’t start with the evening lineup on MSNBC.  Ever since it became clear that Reagan lied to Gorbachev about America’s and, insofar as there is a difference, NATO’s intentions in expanding to the east, the West has been vilifying Russia whenever that nuclear power has tried, no matter how meekly, to defend itself against efforts to encircle it – not just in the Baltic and in the old Warsaw Pact “satellite” nations, but also in former Soviet Republics up to and including Ukraine.

The difference now is that, having largely recovered from the economic shock brought on by the sudden inclusion of its formerly post-capitalist economic system into the global capitalist order, Russia is now better able to fight back than it was when Boris Yeltsin was abjectly doing Bill Clinton’s bidding.  Another difference is that Western, mainly American, provocations now run right up to the borders of the Russian Federation itself.

The vilification of the Russian government therefore didn’t start once it dawned on Democrats that, even with Trump for an opponent, defeat was not categorically out of the question.   But it was not until the waning days of the 2016 campaign that Democrats, their media flacks in tow, turned on Russia and its president, Vladimir Putin, with a fury unseen in decades.

What ingrates!  Spurred on by Secretary of State Clinton and her band of neoconservative and liberal imperialist advisors, Barack Obama had gotten himself into a number of jams in Syria and elsewhere from which Russian diplomacy extricated him.  And yet, in Democratic circles, Putin became Public Enemy Number One.

The vilification campaign then took on a life of its own, as Democrats worked assiduously to make Trump’s comparatively reasonable attitude towards relations with Russia a campaign liability.

No doubt, the billionaire’s reasons for being reasonable have more to do with venality and greed than geopolitical strategy or common sense.  And the river he is currently stepping into seems to have wound its way back into Clintonesque territory in any case.  But, on this point, Democrats and Democratic media are still even worse.

Those fabricators and purveyors of self-serving wisdom blame Russia for doing what the United States has long been doing with virtual impunity all over the world.  Interfering in other countries’ elections is the least of it.   Before the Soviet Union imploded, there were more restraints; in recent decades, there has been little holding them back.  Keeping it that way is a goal of American foreign policy. The hypocrisy is mind-boggling.

And when that hypocrisy isn’t enough, corporate propagandists can bring up the reincorporation of Crimea into the Russian federation in accord with the wishes of the vast majority of the local population.  Or they badmouth Edward Snowden or Wikileaks, or RT, Russia Today.

The latter move is especially nonsensical.  Watch even the best of the MSNBC journalists and pundits – Chris Hayes, for example.  Then tune in RT to compare and contrast.  It will be ridiculously obvious to anyone whose head is screwed on right who the real propagandists are, and who are the real journalists.

If the world survives Trump, there is bound to come a time, when, as happened with the Pentagon Papers, everyone will know who the real scoundrels and real heroes were.  For the time being, though, corporate media are doing all they can to keep that day far off.

The real villain, in all this, is our deeply entrenched party system in which ideologically like-minded Democrats and Republicans exercise duopoly power.

For all practical purposes, ours would be a one party state – except that Democrats and Republicans have staked out different positions on social issues of little or no economic or geopolitical consequence.  This has made them appealing, or not, to different constituencies.  It has also led to an unprecedented degree of dysfunctional party polarization.

And it has made Republicans so odious that even Democrats can sometimes look good.

***

Preferences do not always reflect unconditioned beliefs and desires.  They, and the choices that follow from them, are often shaped as well by the situations in which people find themselves.

This explains why the Democratic Party can seem more palatable than it otherwise would to voters for whom the main or only reason to vote Democratic is that, all things considered and by most relevant measures, Republicans are worse.  It also explains why voters who are in denial about the shortcomings of the Democratic Party are sometimes able to work up enthusiasms for Democrats in the Clinton mold.

It is the sour grapes story in reverse; the situation Democratic voters confront is the opposite of the fox’s in the Aesop fable.  When the fox discovered that the grapes he coveted were beyond his reach, he came to believe that they were sour – not on the basis of evidence, but because beliefs and desires tend to adjust to objective conditions.  This made him lose interest in the grapes he could not obtain, and satisfied with ones he could.

When voters who would otherwise recoil from the awfulness of the lesser evil party come to believe, not unreasonably, that they have no more effective way to vote against Republicans than by voting for Democrats, they often, like the fox, become OK with Democratic candidates — finding them sweet, as it were, or not too unpalatable.

What they are doing is minimizing “cognitive dissonance,” the discomfort that comes from holding on simultaneously to opposing beliefs.

Cognitive dissonance reduction is a motivator of voter behavior everywhere, but especially in a duopoly party system like ours.

It will be this way for as long as that system governs our political life; and this won’t change until the respective centers of our semi-established parties fail to hold.

Those two parties have been moving rightward ever since the neoliberal turn took hold in the late seventies, but, throughout the process, their grip over the ambient political culture has remained secure.  Until now, that is; until the Trump phenomenon emerged seemingly from nowhere.

By breaking so many norms and expectations, and by overturning so many of the rocks under which his hardcore supporters had been residing, the Donald, inadvertently and unknowingly but inexorably, set in motion a chain of events that is replacing the status quo with a level of chaos, of experienced flux, that opens up all kinds of possibilities for far-reaching positive, or negative, change.

Trump spreads chaos because his only conviction is himself and because, beneath the orange coif, there is no there there.  He is currently the Republican standard bearer, but, in truth, he is neither a Republican nor a Democrat.  He is a nothing upon whom ungodly power has been thrust.

But for the more formidable competition on the Democratic side and the realization that the fix was in, that Clinton had the Democratic nomination sewn up, Trump could have gone after the nomination of either party.

But how could a vainglorious egotist resist the temptation to enter a race where the front-runners were Jeb Bush, the hapless brother of the worst (now the second-worst) president ever, and Little Marco Rubio, and where addle-brained libertarians like Ted Cruz and theocrats of the Ben Carson and, God save us, Mike Pence variety set the tone?

Trump therefore decided to give free rein to his Republican side, going on to win that wretched party’s nomination handily.

Between him and the GOP’s grandees, it was a marriage of convenience, made in hell.  The miscreants needed each other.  Trump had no interest in governance, and no idea how to govern.  He only wanted to look good and, of course, to enhance his and his family’s bottom line.  Meanwhile, Republican apparatchiks had lots of experience running the state, and their donors were salivating at the prospect of having a fellow plutocrat calling the shots.  Thus the marriage was duly consummated.

Now that unholy union is hovering on the brink of divorce – not only because Trump’s “high crimes and misdemeanors” and those of his family members and closest associates are catching up with him, and not even because the man is an embarrassment too great for even the terminally greedy to abide.  When the marriage craps out, it will be because it is becoming clear to the GOP leadership that Trump cannot be trusted, that he will betray everyone and everything whenever it suits his unpredictable and always transient purpose.

This is becoming more obvious all the time – to such an extent that it is dawning even on Trump’s most resolute rank-and-file supporters that their savior would lie down with Crooked Hillary herself, if he thought there was some percentage in it.

Trump has already made nice with Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer.  Could he be angling for a different marriage of convenience made in hell, this time with Clintonite Democrats who, unlike Hillary, have finally moved on?

When the realization that this is possible finally and fully registers in the minds of the profoundly benighted, the time when the Donald could shoot somebody on Fifth Avenue and not lose support, as he famously boasted he could, will be over.  The chaos will subside, the Donald will be toast, and it will stop feeling as if Heraclitus got the American political scene spot on right.

Throughout the 2016 campaign, Trump was on course for wrecking the GOP, but when the Electoral College handed him the presidency last November, that prospect seemed to fade away.  It now looks like it was only put on hold.

There is hope for Democrats too.  Thanks to initiatives from Trump opponents who had previously been acquiescent or politically inactive, and to indications that, with single-payer health insurance as an intra-party wedge issue, the Sanders-Warren wing of that neoliberal party may actually be getting off the Clinton treadmill, it is at least possible that it will fracture too.  It would be premature to celebrate such a development, and there is no guarantee, in any case, that that the consequences would be beneficial.  But it is not too soon to hope.

If Trump does irreparably harm the Republican Party, and if he has indeed set in motion forces that will wreck the Democratic Party “as we know it” as well, then, if the world is not destroyed in the process, the Trumpian moment may someday seem, in retrospect, to have been a blessing in disguise, a positive development of historical dimensions.

There are obviously better and cleaner ways to undo the duopoly system that has degraded our politics so profoundly.  For the time being though, like the fox’s sour grapes, they lie out of reach.

Bernie Sanders is not about to split the Democratic Party, much less to lead a political revolution, as his “Our Revolution” followers claim.  The tragedy is that he could if he wanted to, but he doesn’t and won’t.

On the other hand, Jill Stein would, but cannot – not with corporate media working assiduously to hold the line.

Compared to Sanders, Stein would be as good or better in every way – especially on matters of empire and war and peace.  But, as the Green Party’s candidate in the past two presidential contests, her efforts were bound to fail; and there is no reason to expect that it will be any different in the years ahead.

And so Trump is all there is.  If the Mueller investigation goes well, and if Republicans rise to the occasion – in other words, if events unfold just right — Trump’s effect on the duopoly will come to be seen as a gift that neither he nor anyone else intended to provide.

Any beneficial consequences that follow would be no less welcome on that account; it would not be the first time that the end has justified unseemly means.  Like the fox in the fable, persons seeking progressive change would just have to adapt.

It would be one more irony to add onto History’s long list if, for his own nefarious reasons, Trump ends up transforming the political scene in ways more beneficial than even the handful of genuinely progressive Democrats dare to imagine.

If, despite himself, Trump somehow pulls that off, he could almost be forgiven for the harm he has done, and for the all-consuming flux now enveloping our imperiled world.

ANDREW LEVINE is the author most recently of THE AMERICAN IDEOLOGY (Routledge) and POLITICAL KEY WORDS (Blackwell) as well as of many other books and articles in political philosophy. His most recent book is In Bad Faith: What’s Wrong With the Opium of the People. He was a Professor (philosophy) at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a Research Professor (philosophy) at the University of Maryland-College Park.  He is a contributor to Hopeless: Barack Obama and the Politics of Illusion (AK Press).

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[therightnewsnetwork]

Remembering Those Who Suffered and Those Who Saved on Holocaust Remembrance Day

Today is Holocaust Remembrance Day.

Never forget.

Remembering the time I spent in Poland in the gas chambers, on the rail tracks and with brave Christians that saved Jews from death. Here are some images and memories I dug up from an old blog post recounting that experience:

Boarded the plane immediately for a long flight to Poland. We were about to stare evil in the eye.

Having Tania and my four children near me made this pensive flight more bearable. My family slept, read and laughed over the next 12 hours. Tania finished “The Hiding Place” by Corrie ten Boom. I had finished it the week before and now was reading all I could to understand the mindset of the Germans, Poles and those rounded up during the seemingly never ending years of the Holocaust. I have never had more nightmares.

I didn’t want to step on that blood soaked land. The sun went down and rose again just as we were about to land. I had slept very little and I was getting sick. By the time we landed I was feverish and exhausted. My body was playing self-defense.

We dropped my family off at the hotel. The children slept for a few hours and then went to the zoo. The adults however would not see their pillows as we had much to do.

Our first stop was the only operating synagogue in Warsaw. It was as rainy, cold and as gray as I had imagined a former Soviet country. I met with the Chief Rabbi of Poland. We had an amazing conversation. And while I was still 18 hours away from the gates, Auschwitz loomed over all of us.

Later, I met with local university students to talk about history, the future and courage.

Always being rushed, never having enough time, I slowed us down again in the Warsaw Ghetto. I couldn’t get over the size of the wall. I tried to imagine the people, sights, sounds and emotions on both sides of that wall. I don’t think there is a better example of the theory of “out of sight, out of mind” — at least for those on the other side of this wall.

We reflected at a memorial to those lost, ironically, built out of the stone cut for the intended use by Hitler commemorating his Victory. The Lord has a way of making all those who work against Him and His people into Haman of the Old Testament.

Tired, emotionally spent and with my neuropathy finding it’s own again, we arrived at the airport where we had landed just eleven hours earlier. Tomorrow promised the best and worst of humanity.

The first thing you notice in Warsaw is how new everything is — and also how many ugly gray buildings from the communist years still remain. This is not a country that has seen much prosperity or happiness, at least politically speaking. After the Germans occupied and destroyed the country, their own people and almost all of the Jewish population, they were freed by Stalin’s thugs. They then turned around and did the same thing just with a different attitude and uniform. People still feel the strings a soviet puppet.

Yet the new generation is glorifying the old ways once again. The number of Soviet images you see around out number — by FAR — the number of clubs or public images of the Founders in Philadelphia (not including those paid for by the state.)

Freedom is so rare in the history of this planet — most humans have never tasted it. And those who enjoy the most freedom now are oblivious to not only its scarcity in human history but how fragile and fleeting it really is. Men are at their best when free and closest to the backside of real want. Today, the meaning of want has been carelessly reduced to ‘free wifi’ or the latest Apple gadget. The empty ‘things’ we want are now referred to as things we need.

I wanted to find people who have lived the difference. And I did.

I was expecting to meet two people today before the tour of the camp that understood the difference between want and need — and also understood duty, honor, compassion and faith. One was a little old lady who just wanted to tell her story. She wanted no credit, no pats on the back, no money, no glory, no nothing — except to be heard.

She was even hesitant to have her picture taken — which explains why many of our pictures of her came out like this:

She saved her first Jewish person when she was just 16. Jewish people were only allowed to eat under 300 calories a day, that’s equal to a little more than a bottle of soda. When a hungry Jewish child begged her for food, she told her to meet her the next day. She could have been killed for helping. But did it anyway — and fed many hungry, starving Jews, saving their lives. But that’s just the tip of the iceberg…

After that overwhelming experience, we slept hard for 6 hours. At the crack of dawn, we are up and fed and ready to hit the road. While this trip was filled with horrifying, unimaginable evil — there were also moments of light. Like this one taken on a bus in the morning:

Take a good look at that picture. Look closely at our faces. Remember that look — that was the morning. Tomorrow, you are going to see what just a HALF DAY touring Auschwitz did to those faces. We leave the two small children behind. We will meet them at the airport later. This day will be hard enough to process as an adult.

First stop in Krakow to the grave site of one of the most important rabbis in Jewish history. He was responsible for compiling Jewish law. His grave was meant to be destroyed by the Germans — just one of the many despicable habits they had — but as a German solider approached the grave, lightening hit the surrounding fence, jumped to the German’s bayonet and threw him back.

It scared the rest of the soldiers enough that they just left it alone, under a tree. But it didn’t scare them away from the other grave stones… They had plans for the others.

It’s hard to wrap your mind around the evil that goes into something like this. At first glance, this looks like an ordinary stone wall. But this is a wall made entirely of broken headstones:

Many of them have the hands of the Aaronic priesthood blessings. I later found out they not only built the wall, but the destroyed cemeteries and headstones were used for sidewalks! It was overwhelming to see this — the evil — they just did not view Jews as human beings. I just kept thinking — how do people become that evil?

I think I understand EVIL and GOOD more than I ever have before… and the day is just beginning…

Next, Tania and I visited a beautiful synagogue used during the war as a horse stable. Yes, a horse stable. It is in the town much of ‘Schindler’s List’ was filmed. This was a brave community — they built the synagogue in the 1800s right next to the street. Unusual from a people that feel as though they should almost hide from those that are not Jewish.

Also, my understanding of why Israel is so crucial to not just the Middle East — but to the entire world — the best way to prevent another holocaust from happening again is becoming clearer.

When we visited a small town, what appeared to be a grassy field actually turned out to be a stone wall. The remains of a moat from the 1400’s. There was a fire in the town — and the Jews were being blamed for starting it. The King, who loved the Jews, gave them this part of the town and built the moat, thinking it would keep them safe. The safety only lasted while the King was alive.

THAT’S why it’s so important that Israel is allowed and capable of defending themselves, not through charity or any other country or the U.N. — because it WILL NOT LAST.

Tomorrow… Auschwitz.

I knew that this day was going to be tough. But other than close, personal tragedies we’ve experienced in our own lives, our day at Auschwitz is hands down the most emotionally difficult thing I’ve ever experienced. If you have been here you know that you will never experience anything like it in your life. Never. I was prepared for something horrifying — but now I know there is nothing that could ever adequately prepare you for this place…

We had barely made it through half the day, saw the trains and a few other things — and already the emotion has hit us like a ton of bricks.

And you can see it on our faces:

No matter how many motion pictures you’ve seen or books you’ve read — you’ve NEVER seen evil like this before. My whole family was afraid to go to Auschwitz, and there’s solid justification for that fear. This history will hit even the most apathetic creature right to the core. But we held each other up — here’s a picture of our family moments before we went into Auschwitz:

There are many buildings to go through. The whole atmosphere is evil — strangely as it may seem, the grounds don’t feel evil. But it doesn’t feel good or positive in any way either. The other thing is it’s strangely void of any spirit. It’s like a dead spot on planet earth. I’ve never felt anything like it. But evil was on display at every turn. One building was full of shoes, suitcases, glasses, gold teeth and more. The items were stripped off their victims and redistributed to German citizens.

Each represents a person, a person who was face to face with perhaps the biggest evil the world has ever seen. I was already overwhelmed at this point, but there was another room I hadn’t visited yet. It would be the room that broke me up and pushed me over the edge.

This room was filled with prosthetics and braces — worn into the chambers and later taken off the dead bodies. This was all that was left over:

What remained were only the ones NOT good enough to send to Germans to pass on to their kids and relatives. This was just a fraction of the carnage. My question was — why didn’t anyone bother to ask where all the free shoes were coming from? The Germans didn’t know? Or was it they just didn’t want to know?

That’s when my daughter just couldn’t take it any longer. She turned around and left the gates. It was extremely painful to watch. But I couldn’t help but think — if only it were so easy to leave those gates 70 years ago. This is a horrible, horrible place.

But that was just the beginning. Up next we saw the place where they did operations on women — without anesthesia. The images were so disturbing — even though we had complete access, everyone just knew it was time to turn the cameras off. We shot nothing. All I can tell you is no one — and I mean no one — said a word for several minutes after.

When the Nazi’s weren’t busy torturing prisoners and performing hideous “surgeries” — they had another pastime: executions.

This wall was for the Polish who betrayed the Germans, and committed horrible crimes like feeding a hungry Jew. Not many Jews were executed here — the Nazi’s felt it was a waste of resources (bullets) to use them on Jews.

We all stood outside, afraid to go into the final area: the gas chambers. By this point, we thought we knew what we were going to see. But we still had no idea.

This is the gas chamber. In the roof is the square shaft of blue light. This is where the Zyklon B was dropped.

I have always assumed that it killed relatively quickly. But when I saw this wall:

I knew I was wrong.

To stand in this room where hundreds of thousands died was horrifying. The children were always on the top of the bodies. Heroes to the end. the adults all assumed the air would be clearer higher and they tried to give these children a chance to live by holding the up close to the ceiling. It didn’t work. The gas killed everyone — but not instantly. It took at twenty long horrific minutes. And the walls show it. Many of the children weren’t with their mom or dad, but with strangers. Oh, the special hell that awaited all those who were silent.

When I walked back behind one the execution and rape rooms — that soldiers used for their own gratification — there was yet another layer of evil to pile on. It was a swimming pool. Yes, just a few feet away from people (including children) being tortured and murdered — they were outside enjoying themselves with a nice refreshing soak in the pool.

Even after the gas chamber, we couldn’t leave yet. We walked out of Auschwitz 1 and loaded a bus, tried to eat something even though none of us were hungry, and rested before heading to Birkenau.

We came to a place known as Auschwitz 2 — many of you may know it as the camp from the film Schindler’s List. Mengele performed most of his experiments here, and almost two million people were murdered here.

We went to the gas chamber of the last camp. The crematorium was built by a private company and had been patented so, in case these acts of horror took off, only they could profit. There were two stories of crematoriums in the camp, and here is the logo of that company on one of the doors:

Aside from moments of tragedy and joy with family — this day was the most life changing of any in my life. The only thing in my life that has been harder hitting has been the death of a family member. I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy, but I would wish it for my best friend — you connect with yourself and history in a way I have never experienced.

The final picture — a warning put there by us after communism fell. Remember, the horrors we witnessed today were held behind the Iron Curtain until the USSR fell. To me the first part of this plaque says it all:

It is true. I, like my family and probably everyone else who has ever seen this — was left completely speechless. There’s nothing left to say.

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from http://www.therightnewsnetwork.com/remembering-those-who-suffered-and-those-who-saved-on-holocaust-remembrance-day/

[tkwc]

Solution Communism

A one day symposium organized by iLiana Fokianaki, Ingo Niermann and Joshua Simon    

21 January 2017, 11am-6pm

Location:

State of Concept, Athens

Tousa Botsari 19, 11742, Athens, Greece

---------

Solution Communism is a one-day symposium to be held at State of Concept Athens. This is the first gathering, meant to be followed by further exchanges towards a book, Solution 275 - ...: Communism (Sternberg Press), scheduled for late 2017.

The symposium and book are part of the constellation of activities titled The Kids Want Communism (TKWC), marking 99 years to the 1917 Bolshevik revolution.

We invite contributors to the symposium to provide new propositions for a concept that was supposed to be a solution, but in reality proved to be a problem: communism.

As the highest expression of social and political change ("the theory of the Communists may be summed up in the single sentence: Abolition of private property," wrote Marx and Engels in the Manifesto), communism also represents the circumstances in which the exploration of just and equal societies fail (for example real-existing socialism in certain periods). Still, in our current reality of anti-communisms fighting each other all over the world (fundamentalists, neo-cons, neo-liberals, nationalists) the question of communism as a solution and how to solve communism becomes ever more pressing. More than any other word, “communism” expresses the opposite of a reality that champions and celebrates exploitation and inequality. But wherever capitalism goes, it brings communism with it, as a possibility for its radical negation. Yet communism is not contented with merely describing the power relations and resulting class division of “us versus them”, but offers an additional axis – one where we become the future. This axis has one guiding principle, that being-together precedes being, any being; biological, political, psychological, familial, social and so on. Under the doctrine of the End of History, we have experienced the future as simply "more of now". As history is reawakening, sometimes in the most horrific ways, in the Middle East and Eastern Europe, in the US and Britain, in Russia and Turkey, in Greece and Germany - the future will again suggest radically different realities, and with them communism will re-emerge.

The Kids Want Communism is an ongoing clandestine and public series of events (February 2016 - August 2017) marking ninety-nine years to the Bolshevik Revolution. A joint project of numerous individuals and organizations hosting exhibitions, screenings, discussions, seminars and publications throughout 2016, The Kids Want Communism takes place in a variety of locations. Among them tranzit, Prague, The Visual Culture Research Center, Kyiv, Free/Slow University Warsaw, State of Concept, Athens, Skuc gallery, Ljubljana, and MoBY-Museums of Bat Yam.

The The Kids Want Communism, Installment Three will open this spring 2017 due to a delay caused by weather conditions. More details on MoBY’s reopening to be announced soon!

We’re excited to share a recap of the widespread happenings with The Kids Want Communism project that have taken place thus far:

The Museums of Bat Yam - MoBY, Israel:

The Kids Want Communism, Installment One

The Kids Want Communism, Installment Two

Ekaterina Degot: Shockworkers of the Mobile Image

“The Future Is Ours,” Reunion of The Young Communist League of Israel

The 10th Marx Forum in Israel: “Imperialism Then and Now”

As Radical As Reality Itself 

The Visual Culture Research Center, Kyiv, Ukraine:

The Postman always rings twice: Why does history repeat itself? Day 1

The Postman always rings twice: Why does history repeat itself? Day 2

tranzit, Prague, Czech Republic:

First congress of the Union of Soviet Artists/ painting symposium and exhibition

Also see here. 

Škuc gallery, Ljubljana, Slovenia:

Nikita Kadan: Above the pedestal the air condenses in a dark cloud

Also see here and here.

Free/Slow University Warsaw, Poland:

Summer camp hosted by the Free/Slow University of Warsaw

State of Concept, Athens, Greece:

Programme 11:00 Gathering and coffee 11:20 Introductions 11:30 Joshua Simon -- Communism: a solution to a problem that was supposed to be a solution 11:50 Angela Dimitrakaki -- Communism and the Enigma of Social Reproduction 12:20 Coffee break 12:50 Jonas Staal -- Assemblism 13:10 James Bridle -- The New Dark Age 13:40 Discussion 14:00 Lunch break 15:20 Ingo Niermann -- How could Marx forget about Sex and Love? 15:40 iLiana Fokianaki -- Neo-identitarianism as communism 16:00 Vincent van Gerven Oei -- Recycling communist Heritage 16:20 Coffee break 16:40 Irena Haiduk -- Aesthetoconomics 17:00 Kostis Stafylakis -- An antihumanist under the table part 2: The kids want communism and they will get it. 17:20 Round table discussion with participants 17:40 Discussion with audience and Conclusions

Λύση Κομμουνισμός

Ένα ολοήμερο συμπόσιο που οργανώνουν οι Ingo Niermann, Joshua Simon και Ηλιάνα Φωκιανάκη   21 Ιανουαρίου 2017, 11-6 μ.μ. Στην State of Concept, Τούσα Μπότσαρη 19, Κουκάκι, Αθήνα --------- Το Λύση Κομμουνισμός είναι μία πρώτη συνάντηση μιας σειράς από συμπόσια τα οποία θα αποτελέσουν ένα βιβλίο που θα εκδοθεί στην σειρά Solution με τίτλο Solution 275 -...:Communism  από τον εκδοτικό οίκο Sternberg Press στα τέλη του 2017. Το συμπόσιο και το βιβλίο είναι κομμάτι της σειράς Τα παιδιά θέλουν κομμουνισμό (The Kids Want Communism TKWC), που μαρκάρει τα 99 χρόνια από την Ρωσική Οκτωβριανή επανάσταση του 1917. Προσκαλούμε τους συμμετέχοντες σε ένα συμπόσιο για να παραθέσουν νέες προτάσεις για μια ιδέα που συστάθηκε ως λύση, αλλά στην πραγματικότητα αποδείχτηκε πρόβλημα: τον κομμουνισμό. Ως η ύστατη έκφραση κοινωνικής και πολιτικής αλλαγής ("Η θεωρία των Κομμουνιστών μπορεί να ειπωθεί περιληπτικά σε μια πρόταση: Κατάργηση ατομικής περιουσίας" έγραφαν οι Μαρξ και Ένγκελς στο Μανιφέστο), ο Κομμουνισμός επίσης εκπροσωπεί τις συνθήκες μέσω των οποίων απέτυχε η διευρεύνηση των δίκαιων και εξισωτικών κοινωνιών (για παράδειγμα ο σοσιαλισμός συγκεκριμένων περιόδων). Παρ' όλα αυτά στην σημερινή πραγματικότητα όπου αντι-κομμουνισμοί  μάχονται ο ένας τον άλλον σε όλο τον κόσμο (φονταμενταλιστές, νεο-φιλελεύθεροι, εθνικιστές) το ερώτημα του κομμουνισμού ως λύση αλλά και το πως θα μπορούσε κανείς να λύσει τον ίδιο τον κομμουνισμό, παραμένει επίκαιρο. Περισσότερο από κάθε άλλη έννοια, ο κομμουνισμός εκφράζει το αντίθετο μιας πραγματικότητας που προωθεί την εκμετάλλευση και την ανισότητα. Όπου όμως βρίσκεται ο καπιταλισμός, "φέρνει" μαζί του και τον κομμουνισμό ως πιθανότητα για την ριζική του άρνηση. Παρ' όλα αυτά ο κομμουνισμός δεν ικανοποιείται με την απλή περιγραφή των σχέσεων εξουσίας ή των ταξικών διαχωρισμών του "εμείς" εναντίον "αυτών", αλλά προσφέρει έναν ακόμα άξονα - αυτόν όπου εμείς είμαστε το μέλλον. Αυτός ο άξονας τρέχει παράλληλα με εμάς και η βασική του ��ρχή είναι πως το ζω-μαζί, προηγείται του ζω, και του κάθε ζώντα: βιολογικά, πολιτικά, ψυχολογικά, κοινωνικά κτλ. Κάτω από την ομπρέλα του δόγρματος του "Τέλους της Ιστορίας" έχουμε βιώσει το μέλλον ως "Περισσότερο Τώρα". Καθώς η ιστορία ξυπνάει, κάποιες φορές με τον πιο τρομακτικό τρόπο στη Μέση Ανατολή και την Ανατολική Ευρώπη, τις ΗΠΑ και την Βρετανία, την Ρωσία και την Τουρκία, την Ελλάδα και την Γερμανία - το Μέλλον θα προτείνει ξανά ανατρεπτικές και διαφορετικές πραγματικότητες και με αυτές ο κομμουνισμός θα επανέλθει στο προσκήνιο. Τα παιδιά θέλουν Κομμουνισμό είναι μια λαθραία αλλά δημόσια σειρά από ενέργειες που μαρκάρουν τα 99 χρόνια της Ρωσικής Οκτωβριανής Επανάστασης. Ένα κοινό πρότζεκτ ανθρώπων και οργανισμών που οργανώνουν εκθέσεις, προβολές, συζητήσεις, σεμινάρια και εκδόσεις καθ΄όλη την διάρκειας του 2016 και λαμβάνει χώρα σε διάφορα μέρη και ιδρύματα μεταξύ των οποίων  tranzit, Πράγα, The Visual Culture Research Center, Κίεβο, Free/Slow University Βαρσοβία, State of Concept, Αθήνα, Skuc gallery, Λιουμπλάνα, και MoBY-Museums of Bat Yam, Τελ Αβίβ. Πρόγραμμα 11:00 Καφές 11:20 Εισαγωγή 11:35 Joshua Simon -- Κομμουνισμός: Μια λύση σε ένα πρόβλημα που υποτίθεται οτι ήταν λύση. 12:00 Άντζελα Δημητρακάκη - Κομμουνισμός και το Αίνιγμα της Κοινωνικής Αναπαραγωγής 12:20 Διάλειμμα για καφέ 12:50 Jonas Staal -- Assemblism 13:10 James Bridle -- Η Νέα Σκοτεινή Εποχή 13:40 Discussion 14:00 Lunch break 15:20 Ingo Niermann -- Πως μπόρεσε ο Μαρξ να ξεχάσει το Σεξ και την Αγάπη; 15:40 iLiana Fokianaki -- Νέο-ταυτότητα ως Κομμουνισμός 16:00 Vincent van Gerven Oei -- Ανακυκλώνοντας Κομμουνιστικές Κληρονομιές 16:20 Διάλειμμα για καφέ 16:40 Irena Haiduk -- Aesthetoconomics 17:00 Kostis Stafylakis -- Ένας μισάνθρωπος κάτω από το τραπέζι Μέρος 2ο-- Τα παιδιά θέλουν κομμουνισμό και αυτό θα έχουν. 17:20 Συζήτηση με τους συμμετέχοντες 17:40 Συζήτηση με το κοινό -- Συμπεράσματα

Participants’ Biographies:

James Bridle is a British writer, artist, publisher and technologist currently based in Athens, Greece. His work covers the intersection of literature, culture and the network. Angela Dimitrakaki is a writer. Working across Marxism and feminism, her theory work, including books and articles, focuses on the impact of globalisation on Europe's art scenes and societies. Her novels, in her native Greek, have been shortlisted for a number of literary awards. She works at the University of Edinburgh. 

iLiana Fokianaki is a writer and curator based in Athens and Rotterdam. She is the founder and director of State of Concept Athens the first non profit gallery of Greece. She has lectured internationally and locally and her texts have appeared in Frieze, Art Papers, Monopol, Leap a.o. 

Irena Haiduk artist, founder of Yugoexport, an oral corporation whose primary goal is to demonstrate how to surround ourselves with things in the right way. Ingo Niermann is a writer of fiction and speculative non fiction and the editor of the Solution book series (Sternberg Press). His latest book is the novel "Solution 257: Complete Love". Joshua Simon is a writer and curator, and is the director and chief curator of MoBY-Museums of Bat Yam. He is the author of "Neomaterialism" (Sternberg Press, 2013), and editor of "Ruti Sela: For The Record" (Archive Books, 2015). Simon holds a PhD from Goldsmiths College. Kostis Stafylakis, Art theorist and visual artist, Dr in Political Science, Adjunct at University of Patras.

Jonas Staal is an artist and PhD researcher based in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. Staal’s work includes interventions in public space, exhibitions, theater plays, publications and lectures, focusing on the relationship between art, democracy and propaganda.

Vincent W.J. van Gerven Oei is a philologist and co-director of independent open access humanities publisher punctum books, where he also manages Dotawo, the imprint of the Union for Nubian Studies. 

#state of concept #skuc gallery #Free/Slow University Warsaw #The Visual Culture Research Center Kyiv #themuseusmofbatyam #iLiana Fokianaki #joshua simon #Kostis Stafylakis #Jonas Staal #Vincent W.J. van Gerven Oei #James Bridle #Angela Dimitrakaki #Ingo Niermann #communism #thekidswantcommunism #tkwc #solution communism

[patriotnewsblogger-blog]

Remembering Those Who Suffered and Those Who Saved on Holocaust Remembrance Day

New Post has been published on http://www.therightnewsnetwork.com/remembering-those-who-suffered-and-those-who-saved-on-holocaust-remembrance-day/

Remembering Those Who Suffered and Those Who Saved on Holocaust Remembrance Day

Today is Holocaust Remembrance Day.

Never forget.

Remembering the time I spent in Poland in the gas chambers, on the rail tracks and with brave Christians that saved Jews from death. Here are some images and memories I dug up from an old blog post recounting that experience:

Boarded the plane immediately for a long flight to Poland. We were about to stare evil in the eye.

Having Tania and my four children near me made this pensive flight more bearable. My family slept, read and laughed over the next 12 hours. Tania finished “The Hiding Place” by Corrie ten Boom. I had finished it the week before and now was reading all I could to understand the mindset of the Germans, Poles and those rounded up during the seemingly never ending years of the Holocaust. I have never had more nightmares.

I didn’t want to step on that blood soaked land. The sun went down and rose again just as we were about to land. I had slept very little and I was getting sick. By the time we landed I was feverish and exhausted. My body was playing self-defense.

We dropped my family off at the hotel. The children slept for a few hours and then went to the zoo. The adults however would not see their pillows as we had much to do.

Our first stop was the only operating synagogue in Warsaw. It was as rainy, cold and as gray as I had imagined a former Soviet country. I met with the Chief Rabbi of Poland. We had an amazing conversation. And while I was still 18 hours away from the gates, Auschwitz loomed over all of us.

Later, I met with local university students to talk about history, the future and courage.

Always being rushed, never having enough time, I slowed us down again in the Warsaw Ghetto. I couldn’t get over the size of the wall. I tried to imagine the people, sights, sounds and emotions on both sides of that wall. I don’t think there is a better example of the theory of “out of sight, out of mind” — at least for those on the other side of this wall.

We reflected at a memorial to those lost, ironically, built out of the stone cut for the intended use by Hitler commemorating his Victory. The Lord has a way of making all those who work against Him and His people into Haman of the Old Testament.

Tired, emotionally spent and with my neuropathy finding it’s own again, we arrived at the airport where we had landed just eleven hours earlier. Tomorrow promised the best and worst of humanity.

The first thing you notice in Warsaw is how new everything is — and also how many ugly gray buildings from the communist years still remain. This is not a country that has seen much prosperity or happiness, at least politically speaking. After the Germans occupied and destroyed the country, their own people and almost all of the Jewish population, they were freed by Stalin’s thugs. They then turned around and did the same thing just with a different attitude and uniform. People still feel the strings a soviet puppet.

Yet the new generation is glorifying the old ways once again. The number of Soviet images you see around out number — by FAR — the number of clubs or public images of the Founders in Philadelphia (not including those paid for by the state.)

Freedom is so rare in the history of this planet — most humans have never tasted it. And those who enjoy the most freedom now are oblivious to not only its scarcity in human history but how fragile and fleeting it really is. Men are at their best when free and closest to the backside of real want. Today, the meaning of want has been carelessly reduced to ‘free wifi’ or the latest Apple gadget. The empty ‘things’ we want are now referred to as things we need.

I wanted to find people who have lived the difference. And I did.

I was expecting to meet two people today before the tour of the camp that understood the difference between want and need — and also understood duty, honor, compassion and faith. One was a little old lady who just wanted to tell her story. She wanted no credit, no pats on the back, no money, no glory, no nothing — except to be heard.

She was even hesitant to have her picture taken — which explains why many of our pictures of her came out like this:

She saved her first Jewish person when she was just 16. Jewish people were only allowed to eat under 300 calories a day, that’s equal to a little more than a bottle of soda. When a hungry Jewish child begged her for food, she told her to meet her the next day. She could have been killed for helping. But did it anyway — and fed many hungry, starving Jews, saving their lives. But that’s just the tip of the iceberg…

After that overwhelming experience, we slept hard for 6 hours. At the crack of dawn, we are up and fed and ready to hit the road. While this trip was filled with horrifying, unimaginable evil — there were also moments of light. Like this one taken on a bus in the morning:

Take a good look at that picture. Look closely at our faces. Remember that look — that was the morning. Tomorrow, you are going to see what just a HALF DAY touring Auschwitz did to those faces. We leave the two small children behind. We will meet them at the airport later. This day will be hard enough to process as an adult.

First stop in Krakow to the grave site of one of the most important rabbis in Jewish history. He was responsible for compiling Jewish law. His grave was meant to be destroyed by the Germans — just one of the many despicable habits they had — but as a German solider approached the grave, lightening hit the surrounding fence, jumped to the German’s bayonet and threw him back.

It scared the rest of the soldiers enough that they just left it alone, under a tree. But it didn’t scare them away from the other grave stones… They had plans for the others.

It’s hard to wrap your mind around the evil that goes into something like this. At first glance, this looks like an ordinary stone wall. But this is a wall made entirely of broken headstones:

Many of them have the hands of the Aaronic priesthood blessings. I later found out they not only built the wall, but the destroyed cemeteries and headstones were used for sidewalks! It was overwhelming to see this — the evil — they just did not view Jews as human beings. I just kept thinking — how do people become that evil?

I think I understand EVIL and GOOD more than I ever have before… and the day is just beginning…

Next, Tania and I visited a beautiful synagogue used during the war as a horse stable. Yes, a horse stable. It is in the town much of ‘Schindler’s List’ was filmed. This was a brave community — they built the synagogue in the 1800s right next to the street. Unusual from a people that feel as though they should almost hide from those that are not Jewish.

Also, my understanding of why Israel is so crucial to not just the Middle East — but to the entire world — the best way to prevent another holocaust from happening again is becoming clearer.

When we visited a small town, what appeared to be a grassy field actually turned out to be a stone wall. The remains of a moat from the 1400’s. There was a fire in the town — and the Jews were being blamed for starting it. The King, who loved the Jews, gave them this part of the town and built the moat, thinking it would keep them safe. The safety only lasted while the King was alive.

THAT’S why it’s so important that Israel is allowed and capable of defending themselves, not through charity or any other country or the U.N. — because it WILL NOT LAST.

Tomorrow… Auschwitz.

I knew that this day was going to be tough. But other than close, personal tragedies we’ve experienced in our own lives, our day at Auschwitz is hands down the most emotionally difficult thing I’ve ever experienced. If you have been here you know that you will never experience anything like it in your life. Never. I was prepared for something horrifying — but now I know there is nothing that could ever adequately prepare you for this place…

We had barely made it through half the day, saw the trains and a few other things — and already the emotion has hit us like a ton of bricks.

And you can see it on our faces:

No matter how many motion pictures you’ve seen or books you’ve read — you’ve NEVER seen evil like this before. My whole family was afraid to go to Auschwitz, and there’s solid justification for that fear. This history will hit even the most apathetic creature right to the core. But we held each other up — here’s a picture of our family moments before we went into Auschwitz:

There are many buildings to go through. The whole atmosphere is evil — strangely as it may seem, the grounds don’t feel evil. But it doesn’t feel good or positive in any way either. The other thing is it’s strangely void of any spirit. It’s like a dead spot on planet earth. I’ve never felt anything like it. But evil was on display at every turn. One building was full of shoes, suitcases, glasses, gold teeth and more. The items were stripped off their victims and redistributed to German citizens.

Each represents a person, a person who was face to face with perhaps the biggest evil the world has ever seen. I was already overwhelmed at this point, but there was another room I hadn’t visited yet. It would be the room that broke me up and pushed me over the edge.

This room was filled with prosthetics and braces — worn into the chambers and later taken off the dead bodies. This was all that was left over:

What remained were only the ones NOT good enough to send to Germans to pass on to their kids and relatives. This was just a fraction of the carnage. My question was — why didn’t anyone bother to ask where all the free shoes were coming from? The Germans didn’t know? Or was it they just didn’t want to know?

That’s when my daughter just couldn’t take it any longer. She turned around and left the gates. It was extremely painful to watch. But I couldn’t help but think — if only it were so easy to leave those gates 70 years ago. This is a horrible, horrible place.

But that was just the beginning. Up next we saw the place where they did operations on women — without anesthesia. The images were so disturbing — even though we had complete access, everyone just knew it was time to turn the cameras off. We shot nothing. All I can tell you is no one — and I mean no one — said a word for several minutes after.

When the Nazi’s weren’t busy torturing prisoners and performing hideous “surgeries” — they had another pastime: executions.

This wall was for the Polish who betrayed the Germans, and committed horrible crimes like feeding a hungry Jew. Not many Jews were executed here — the Nazi’s felt it was a waste of resources (bullets) to use them on Jews.

We all stood outside, afraid to go into the final area: the gas chambers. By this point, we thought we knew what we were going to see. But we still had no idea.

This is the gas chamber. In the roof is the square shaft of blue light. This is where the Zyklon B was dropped.

I have always assumed that it killed relatively quickly. But when I saw this wall:

I knew I was wrong.

To stand in this room where hundreds of thousands died was horrifying. The children were always on the top of the bodies. Heroes to the end. the adults all assumed the air would be clearer higher and they tried to give these children a chance to live by holding the up close to the ceiling. It didn’t work. The gas killed everyone — but not instantly. It took at twenty long horrific minutes. And the walls show it. Many of the children weren’t with their mom or dad, but with strangers. Oh, the special hell that awaited all those who were silent.

When I walked back behind one the execution and rape rooms — that soldiers used for their own gratification — there was yet another layer of evil to pile on. It was a swimming pool. Yes, just a few feet away from people (including children) being tortured and murdered — they were outside enjoying themselves with a nice refreshing soak in the pool.

Even after the gas chamber, we couldn’t leave yet. We walked out of Auschwitz 1 and loaded a bus, tried to eat something even though none of us were hungry, and rested before heading to Birkenau.

We came to a place known as Auschwitz 2 — many of you may know it as the camp from the film Schindler’s List. Mengele performed most of his experiments here, and almost two million people were murdered here.

We went to the gas chamber of the last camp. The crematorium was built by a private company and had been patented so, in case these acts of horror took off, only they could profit. There were two stories of crematoriums in the camp, and here is the logo of that company on one of the doors:

Aside from moments of tragedy and joy with family — this day was the most life changing of any in my life. The only thing in my life that has been harder hitting has been the death of a family member. I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy, but I would wish it for my best friend — you connect with yourself and history in a way I have never experienced.

The final picture — a warning put there by us after communism fell. Remember, the horrors we witnessed today were held behind the Iron Curtain until the USSR fell. To me the first part of this plaque says it all:

It is true. I, like my family and probably everyone else who has ever seen this — was left completely speechless. There’s nothing left to say.

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http://www.therightnewsnetwork.com/remembering-those-who-suffered-and-those-who-saved-on-holocaust-remembrance-day/ %cats%

#conservative #republican #tea party

[mostlysignssomeportents]

#10yrsago Pinkwater's EDUCATION OF ROBERT NIFKIN: zany and inspiring tale of taking charge of your own education

Continuing last week's spate of Daniel Pinkwater reviews (see the earlier posts on The Neddiad and The Yggyssey), I'm here today to tell you about The Education of Robert Nifkin, one of Pinkwater's true geek-inspirational masterpieces.

I missed Nifkin the first time around (it was initially published in 1998), but I'm pleased to have corrected that oversight, especially since the latest edition, from Houghton Mifflin's Graphia imprint, comes with a fabulous Shag-illustrated cover. Nifkin is one of Pinkwater's more adult books (in that it contains a fair bit of cursing and some mildly sexual material), and but it's squarely in the tradition of his YA geek-finds-himself books like Alan Mendelsohn, The Boy From Mars.

Here's the setup: it's the mid-fifties and Robert Nifkin has just moved from suburban California to Chicago with his Eastern European immigrant parents (his father is a notorious Polish gangster who was thrown out of Warsaw by his fellow Jews, as the Gentiles were too scared to talk to him). He is sent to Riverview High, a kind of prison camp for geeky kids, and there he rests for the first half of the book, enduring a season in Hell.

First, there are his teachers: Ms Kukla (homeroom), is a screamer who compulsively warns her students about sneaky commie recruiters who might also pass them pornography (she also calls Nifkin -- a fat, nebbishy kid in bad clothes that his father insists upon -- a "fairy" upon meeting him; Coach Spline is such a bastard that Nifkin opts for ROTC to get out of gym, where he encounters Sergeant Gunter, a crypto-communist who joined up after fighting fascists in Spain; Mr Moody is a history teacher who has perfected the Riverview pegagogic technique (write stuff on the board and grade students at the end of the semester by how legibly they've copied it into their notebooks); and Mrs MacAllister, an anti-Semite who uses English classes to warn them about the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.

Nifkin's home-life isn't much better. His parents left all their furnishings behind in Chicago and opted for fashion-magazine perfect decor, surmounted by a lamp his father made out of driftwood and fiberglass balls ("It's was like Halloween every night of the year...it would have unnerved Dracula"), and his father won't eat anything with seasoning, which drives Nifkin to eat at the nearby Mel's, where Melburgers are served ("A triple is three fatburger patties on a bun...a double triple is two of them... Only polar bears and Arctic wolves can digest them"). His folks heap him with abuse ("So, bum. How is by you deh education?") and accuse him of falling in with commies.

But Mel's is the turning point for Nifkin, because it's there that he meets the bohemians, especially Kenny Papescu, an alternative school kid who cuts classes in order to deliver his father's art forgeries. Papescu recruits Nifkin, and soon he's a semi-professional dropout who uses his forged university ID to sneak into lectures in between haunting the movie palaces and lugging around gigantic art forgeries.

It can't last. Nifkin is drummed out of Riverview and convinces his father to send him to The Wheaton School, a free-school frequented by beatniks, idiots, criminals, dropouts, freaks, and misfits. And here the book takes a gigantic step from the weird to the inspiring.

The first half of Robert Nifkin is your everyday Pinkwater: convulsively funny, zany, biting. There's plenty of biting, zany and funny in the second half, too, but what distinguishes it is the slow, delightful realization on Nifkin's part that learning -- especially eclectic, self-directed learning undertaken with your peers and with engaged teachers -- is incredibly fun.

This section sings. It vividly recalls my own alternative school history, which consisted of a fairly long period of horsing around and goofing off, followed by an equally long period of dedicated, intense, serious study inspired by all the exciting things I learned by horsing around.

It's because of this that Robert Nifkin rings so true for me. This really is a magnificent coming-of-age story, and what's more, it's practically a manual for how to have (and oversee) a lifelong love-affair with learning, with doing, and with synthesizing. It's a story that affirms something I firmly believe in: intellectual curiosity is the most important force in the universe.

Robert Nifkin never loses Pinkwater's trademark breezy, madcap tone, but in this regard, it is as serious and awe-inspiring as an earthquake. Here is a book to inspire a whole generation of extremely happy mutants.

The Education of Robert Nifkin

The Education of Robert Nifkin Study Guide

https://boingboing.net/2009/05/18/pinkwaters-education.html

[tkwc]

The Kids Want Communism Closing and Final Weekend ❤️  ☭

After the closing and final weekend of The Kids Want Communism at MoBY and at Kunstraum Kreuzberg Bethanien (curated by Joshua Simon), we would like to say thank you to everyone who has been involved and supported this project!

TKWC would not have been the same without the participation and collaboration with: Bini Admczak; Toy Boy; Diego Castro; Maya Elran, Efraim Davidi; Tamar Gozansky; Max Epstein; FAMU Prague program curated by Tereza Stejskalová: Nabil Maleh, Piyasiri Gunaratna, Krishma (Krishna) Viswanath, and Nosratollah Karimi; Tal Gafny; Nadya Bakuradze; Michal Helfman; Jacob Blumenfeld; Michael Jones McKean; Jonathan Gold; Nir Harel; Raanan Harlap; Micah Hesse; Ivonne Dippmann and Agnes Friedrich, The Israel Communist Party Archive (MAKI); Nikita Kadan; Jakob Koesten; Mati Lahat; Hila Laviv and Dana Yoeli; Ohad Meromi; Ian Svenonius; Stano Filko; Olaf Nicolai; Tamar Nissim; Ingo Niermann; Angela Dimitrakaki; Jonas Staal; James Bridle; Vincent van Gerven Oei; Irena Haiduk; Kostis Stafylakis; "Notes on Division" (curated by iLiana Fokianaki): Konstantinos Kotsis, Yota Ioannidou, Antonis Pittas, Yorgos Sapountzis, and Vangelis Vlaho; Praxis School archive curated by Vladimir Vidmar; Yuri Primenko; Katya Oicherman; Natalia Kopelanskaya; The New Barbizon: Zoya Cherkassky, Olga Kundina, Anna Lukashevsky, Asya Lukin, and Natalia Zourabova; Nicole Wermers; Noa Yafe; Ekaterina Degot.

It has been amazing to see TKWC evolve and grow together with institutions around the world throughout 2016 and 2017: tranzit, Prague; The Visual Culture Research Center, Kyiv; Free/Slow University Warsaw; State of Concept, Athens; Skuc Gallery, Ljubljana; West Space, Melbourne; Marx200; CCA Tel Aviv; The Young Communist League of Israel (BANKI); The Left Bank; SDAJ; ZHdK and Corner College; Northwestern University; Erev Rav; Artis Contemporary; Kunstraum Kreuzberg/Bethanien, Berlin; Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung; Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung - Israel Office; MoBY Museums of Bat Yam.

The Kids Want Communism was organized by iLiana Kokianaki, Vladimir Vidmar, Oleksiy Radynski, Vit Havranek, Patrice Sharkey, Kuba Szreder, and Joshua Simon.

Thank you to everyone who helped make this project happen and kept us going!! Naama Henkin, Meir Tati, Noa Tsaushu, Avi Bohbot, Ofir Finkelstein, Alina Yakirevitch, Nechama Winston, Michal Raz, Nufar Kaplan, Shulamit Bialy, George Choresh, Jonathan Goldstein, Moyu Honda, Ariel Blitz, Rani Rosenheim, Shimon Malka, Moran Paz, Layne Goldman, Jordan Selan, Michelle Paterok, Matthew Turell, Ofri Omer, Yafir Ido, Sassi Mazor, Danielle Kaganov, Yael Meromi, Tamir Davidov, Tali Konas, Tsafrir Cohen, Raffi Gueta, Stephane Bauer, Theres Laux, Esther Tusch, and many others.

We're excited for The Kids Want Communism book which will be published next year!

The book "Communists Anonymous," edited by Joshua Simon and Ingo Niermann, will be published by the end of the year in the Solution Series by Sternberg Press in Berlin. 

We would like to celebrate The Kids Want Communism with a recap of all the events, conversations, exhibitions, and conferences that have taken place in the last two years below. 

☭

The Museums of Bat Yam — MoBY, Israel:

The Kids Want Communism, Installment One

Also see here

Ekaterina Degot: Shockworkers of the Mobile Image

Also see here

Kuba Szreder: The Political Economy of Art and Beyond

The Kids Want Communism, Installment Two 

Also see here, here and here

Artist Talk: Nir Harel

“The Future Is Ours,” Reunion of The Young Communist League of Israel 

Also see here for stories from the history of The Young Communist League of Israel—BANKI

The 10th Marx Forum in Israel: “Imperialism Then and Now”

As Radical As Reality Itself

See more photos here

The Kids Want Communism, Installment Three / Final Installment 

Also see here, here and here

Artist Talk with Tamar Nissim and Tal Gafny

Artist Talk with Max Epstein and book launch of RESTRooM

2017 Marx Conference: 100 Years after the October Revolution

Finissage and party for the exhibition series The Kids Want Communism and 100 years to the October revolution

The Visual Culture Research Center, Kyiv, Ukraine:

The Postman always rings twice: Why does history repeat itself? Day 1

The Postman always rings twice: Why does history repeat itself? Day 2

tranzit, Prague, Czech Republic:

First congress of the Union of Soviet Artists/ painting symposium and exhibition

Also see here and here for an interview with the initiators of the First congress of the Union of Soviet Artists in Prague (Artalk magazine, September 6th, 2016)

Škuc gallery, Ljubljana, Slovenia:

Nikita Kadan: Above the pedestal the air condenses in a dark cloud

Also see here and here

Free/Slow University Warsaw, Poland:

Summer camp hosted by the Free/Slow University of Warsaw

State of Concept, Athens, Greece:

Solution Communism, a one day symposium organized by iLiana Fokianaki, Ingo Niermann and Joshua Simon 

Also see here for video recordings of some of the talks, panel discussion and Q+A

See  “Assemblism” by artist Jonas Staal, in  e-flux journal issue #80. The text came out of a lecture presented at the conference Solution Communism

West Space, Melbourne, Australia:

The Kids Want Communism at West Space

ZHdK and Corner College, Zürich, Switzerland:

Guest lecture of the Postgraduate Programme in Curating CAS/ MAS ZHdK — Joshua Simon: Verschüttete Traditionen // The Great Soviet Encyclopedia: Communism and The Dividual

Northwestern University, Chicago, USA:

Visiting Artist Lecture, in collaboration with the Graham Foundation: Joshua Simon, The Great Soviet Encyclopedia: Communism and The Dividual

CCA Tel Aviv, Israel:

The second gathering for Solution Communism on April 6, 2017

Kunstraum Kreuzberg/Bethanien, Berlin, Germany:

The Kids Want Communism in Berlin, to mark 100 years of the Bolshevik Revolution (also see here and here)

Also see here for an interview published online by the Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung in Israel with Joshua Simon

Photos from the Vernissage (also see here)

A celebration of 100 years of Soviet Revolution: Lecture & music

☭

❤️   +  a playlist

#The Kids Want Communism #TKWC #Museums of Bat Yam #MoBY #tranzit Prague #The Visual Culture Research Center Kyiv #Free/Slow University Warsaw #State of Concept Athens #West Space #CCA Tel Aviv #Kunstraum Kreuzberg Bethanien #Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung #iLiana Kokianaki #Vladimir Vidmar #Oleksiy Radynski #vit havranek #Patrice Sharkey #Kuba szreder #Joshua Simon

[tkwc]

For more information see here!

moby.org.il

#thekidswantcommunism #part 3 #tkwc3 #museumsofbatyam #toy boy #max epstein #jonathan gold #tal gafni #mati lahat #ohad meromi #hila laviv #dana yoeli #tamar nissim #iLiana Fokianaki #notes on division #skuc gallery #the visual culture research center #free slow university warsaw #state of concept athens #westpace melbourne #grand reopening

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Pinkwater's EDUCATION OF ROBERT NIFKIN: zany and inspiring tale of taking charge of your own education #8yrsago

Continuing last week's spate of Daniel Pinkwater reviews (see the earlier posts on The Neddiad and The Yggyssey), I'm here today to tell you about The Education of Robert Nifkin, one of Pinkwater's true geek-inspirational masterpieces.

I missed Nifkin the first time around (it was initially published in 1998), but I'm pleased to have corrected that oversight, especially since the latest edition, from Houghton Mifflin's Graphia imprint, comes with a fabulous Shag-illustrated cover. Nifkin is one of Pinkwater's more adult books (in that it contains a fair bit of cursing and some mildly sexual material), and but it's squarely in the tradition of his YA geek-finds-himself books like Alan Mendelsohn, The Boy From Mars.

Here's the setup: it's the mid-fifties and Robert Nifkin has just moved from suburban California to Chicago with his Eastern European immigrant parents (his father is a notorious Polish gangster who was thrown out of Warsaw by his fellow Jews, as the Gentiles were too scared to talk to him). He is sent to Riverview High, a kind of prison camp for geeky kids, and there he rests for the first half of the book, enduring a season in Hell.

First, there are his teachers: Ms Kukla (homeroom), is a screamer who compulsively warns her students about sneaky commie recruiters who might also pass them pornography (she also calls Nifkin -- a fat, nebbishy kid in bad clothes that his father insists upon -- a "fairy" upon meeting him; Coach Spline is such a bastard that Nifkin opts for ROTC to get out of gym, where he encounters Sergeant Gunter, a crypto-communist who joined up after fighting fascists in Spain; Mr Moody is a history teacher who has perfected the Riverview pegagogic technique (write stuff on the board and grade students at the end of the semester by how legibly they've copied it into their notebooks); and Mrs MacAllister, an anti-Semite who uses English classes to warn them about the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.

Nifkin's home-life isn't much better. His parents left all their furnishings behind in Chicago and opted for fashion-magazine perfect decor, surmounted by a lamp his father made out of driftwood and fiberglass balls ("It's was like Halloween every night of the year...it would have unnerved Dracula"), and his father won't eat anything with seasoning, which drives Nifkin to eat at the nearby Mel's, where Melburgers are served ("A triple is three fatburger patties on a bun...a double triple is two of them... Only polar bears and Arctic wolves can digest them"). His folks heap him with abuse ("So, bum. How is by you deh education?") and accuse him of falling in with commies.

But Mel's is the turning point for Nifkin, because it's there that he meets the bohemians, especially Kenny Papescu, an alternative school kid who cuts classes in order to deliver his father's art forgeries. Papescu recruits Nifkin, and soon he's a semi-professional dropout who uses his forged university ID to sneak into lectures in between haunting the movie palaces and lugging around gigantic art forgeries.

It can't last. Nifkin is drummed out of Riverview and convinces his father to send him to The Wheaton School, a free-school frequented by beatniks, idiots, criminals, dropouts, freaks, and misfits. And here the book takes a gigantic step from the weird to the inspiring.

The first half of Robert Nifkin is your everyday Pinkwater: convulsively funny, zany, biting. There's plenty of biting, zany and funny in the second half, too, but what distinguishes it is the slow, delightful realization on Nifkin's part that learning -- especially eclectic, self-directed learning undertaken with your peers and with engaged teachers -- is incredibly fun.

This section sings. It vividly recalls my own alternative school history, which consisted of a fairly long period of horsing around and goofing off, followed by an equally long period of dedicated, intense, serious study inspired by all the exciting things I learned by horsing around.

It's because of this that Robert Nifkin rings so true for me. This really is a magnificent coming-of-age story, and what's more, it's practically a manual for how to have (and oversee) a lifelong love-affair with learning, with doing, and with synthesizing. It's a story that affirms something I firmly believe in: intellectual curiosity is the most important force in the universe.

Robert Nifkin never loses Pinkwater's trademark breezy, madcap tone, but in this regard, it is as serious and awe-inspiring as an earthquake. Here is a book to inspire a whole generation of extremely happy mutants.

The Education of Robert Nifkin

The Education of Robert Nifkin Study Guide

https://boingboing.net/2009/05/18/pinkwaters-education.html