On this Hiroshima Day, we turn to Thomas Merton:
To quote another American poet, Carl Sandburg, from a poem that predates the birth of the original child:
We are the greatest city,
the greatest nation,
nothing like us ever was.
Category Archives: bearings
Sacrifice Zones
Now comes Naomi Klein, with excerpts from an excellent recent essay that explores the relationships among climate change, fossil fuels and violence by way of revisiting certain ideas expressed in the past by Edward Said, regarding the limitations of environmentalism. The images are from the richly recycled oil cans exhibited within the online gallery of Cal Lane.
For those who – perversely enough – continue to beat the [oil] drum of America’s “greatness”, let us keep firmly in mind that such ephemeral greatness has been achieved largely through cultural genocide; desecration of the landscape; the destruction of worker lungs and bodies; and the global export of our most precious “service”: violence.
What would it mean if we were to choose instead to become, as Klein suggests, great ancestors?
Buried In Nature
On the eve of our own departure for a solitary walk through mountain forests, we invite consideration of a few passages from Frédérick Gros’ Philosophy of Walking:
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We shall continue our DP navigations in a few weeks when we return from the middle of nowhere.
How the Fish Rots
That is : from the head!
Amidst all the hysterical and self-serving post-Brexit commentary squeezed out like cheap vinyl caulk from the various tubes of the mainstream media, we discovered a sensible, accurate analysis from the Intercept’s Glenn Greenwald, excerpted below. Images are from the gallery of Eli Levin.
CLASS SYSTEM ALTARPIECE
PRAISE THE LORD, EAT SHIT AND DIE
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A Farewell to Ice
As wildfires rage in the vicinity of the City of Angels, and as the Governor of California fiddles with plans to “manage” sixty six million dead trees in the Sierra, now comes Peter Wadhams, whose book A Farewell to Ice will be available in September from Penquin. In a recent interview, he summarizes the major environmental impacts resulting from the disappearance of arctic ice.
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One certain result?
THIS FIRE BEGAN IN THE ARCTIC
Death and the Ocean
Turning to the the Annals of Human Ecocide, we take note of a massive coral bleaching event along the vast expanse of the Great Barrier Reef, as reported by the Guardian. Among those who have witnessed the facts at close quarters with eyes (and nostrils) wide open, diver Richard Vevers recounts his recent experience surveying one section of the reef:
SKELETON AND CORPSE
Marine biologist Justin Marshall, who has studied the reef in the vicinity of Lizard Island over the course of many years, meticulously documents the two stages of coral death: bleaching followed by seaweed proliferation.
STAGE ONE: SKELETAL BLEACHING
STAGE TWO: DEATH BY SEAWEED
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Now we turn to the inevitable deniers. Most conspiculously, consider the words of a man named Col McKenzie, who presently serves as the CEO for the Australian Association of Marine Park Operators. Mr. McKenzie simply dismisses the overwhelming empirical evidence while taking cheap pot shots at the messengers:
THE FACTS AS THEY ARE: “BLOODY DISGUSTING”
Perhaps Mr. McKenzie might consider partnering with Leo DiCaprio in developing a new sort of monomanical marine park, one that would feature the genesis of a man-made environment so spectacular that we would never miss the disappearance of the Great Barrier Reef.
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We close with the honorable Justin Marshall, who urges individual action in the face of government and corporate indifference, dereliction and turpitude:
BIRD’S EYE VIEW OF AN EMERGING GRAVEYARD
The Habitual Emergency
As refugees fleeing the chaos created by the Forever War continue to press against increasingly inflexible boundaries, the prolific Austrian multi-media artist/activist Oliver Ressler offers a filmed reflection, The Emergency Turned Upside-Down.
American Nuremberg
Now comes Rebecca Gordon with her new book American Nuremberg, in which she meticulously documents crimes committed during the “war on terror”, while naming the main perpetrators. In later chapters, Gordon also traces out a possible route for resistance to official impunity, by way of convening an independent People’s Tribunal.
Below, excerpts from a recent interview with Gordon on Truth Out, interwoven with images from the assortment of photos recently released by the Department of Defense; in their grim abstraction, these dark images tell us exactly what sort of humans we have become.
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Break the Silence
The Nuit Debout movement that is gradually spreading throughout Europe and the world continues to be ignored by the Anglophone corporate media. As Gabriel Rockhill writes:
An excellent interview with Rockhill here:
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A recent participant in the nightly meetings writes:
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Directly from the Nuit Debout website, we relay a call for action to break the numbing silence inside the state of exception.
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An finally, an extraordinary act of solidarity:
A new world is taking shape outside the rot and rut of conventional political life; BRAVO!
Resistance and Recuperation
On May 27th, an American president will finally set foot in Hiroshima, though Nagasaki is apparently not on the itinerary.
Mr. Obama, whose relative rhetorical fluency – relative to grunted Bush-blubber and the greeting card drivel of Bill Clinton – masks moral and philosophical emptiness, will not issue an apology for the incineration and radiation of large, concentrated civilian populations. In the words of his Orwellian-designated National Security Advisor for Strategic Communi-cations & Speechwriting, Ben Rhodes: “He will not revisit the decision to use the atomic bomb at the end of World War II. Instead, he will offer a forward-looking vision focused on our shared future.”
Such refusal to acknowledge past atrocity resonates with Obama’s earlier decision to decline the prosecution of war criminals within the Bush administration, even after the emergence of overwhelming documentary evidence. On April 16, 2009, he stated:
“This is a time for reflection, not retribution. I respect the strong views and emotions that these issues evoke. We have been through a dark and painful chapter in our history. But at a time of great challenges and disturbing disunity, nothing will be gained by spending our time and energy laying blame for the past. Our national greatness is embedded in America’s ability to right its course in concert with our core values, and to move forward with confidence. That is why we must resist the forces that divide us, and instead come together on behalf of our common future.”
Severing the past from the future resides at the very heart of American exceptionalism; since the future of the Shining City is eternally full of promise, who cares what happened in the past? With this in mind, we turn to political philosopher Fred Dallmayr, writing in his lucid forward for a wide-ranging collection of essays titled Philosophy After Hiroshima.
The images are borrowed from The Sensory War 1914-2014, an exhibition presented last year at the Manchester Art Gallery.
Whatever happens in Hiroshima on May 27th, we are sure that Mr. Obama will not enlist memory in the service of resistance and recuperation, just as we are sure that the Shining City of our ongoing delusion has nothing to do with “the divine abode”.
In the end, his mission will be one of vanity, self-aggrandizement and deceit, as the commander of the “kill chain” burnishes his preferred image as A Man of Peace during the fading days of a failed presidency.
Desperado Philosophy 