Loki's Playground

End-of-Year Musings

2011-12-25T15:34:00.003+01:00

« What do you want ? »
« Who are you? »
« Do you have anything worth living for? »

The shadow in the mirror smiles as it asks its ritual questions. I smile also, being its faithful relfection. The order in the questions is wrong. You cannot say what you want unless you know who you are. And you cannot begin to pretend to know who you are if you don't have any idea why the hell you're living this strange life you were born to without asking for it in the first place.

Today is Christmas day for christians. For me, it's a focal point of beliefs and symbols. It's a day when the echoes of our multiple pasts reach out to embrace us, whether we realize it, or not. We have Christmas trees. We have gifts. We have fire in the hearth, we have the traditional « Bûche de Noël » - the Yule log. We celebrate the return of the light, of the sun rising from the heart of winter, the deep of night and darkness, without which it loses all meaning. Like life, which is meaningless without death, no matter how hard grief and loss are to bear for those who remain.

As always, the end of year period belongs to questions. It belongs to doubts and reflections and stubborn hopes, to indignation and the elusive promise of revolutions to come – pehraps even more so this time than ever before. So why not indulge this shadow in the mirror and its relentless questions and challenges ?

Why not, indeed ? But we'll do it my way.

« Do you have anything worth living for ? » the shadow asks from within its mirror. Well, the first answer to that should be obvious : I have this life, you dolt. And it's in me to make the most of it. To kindle it and make it burn high and bright, to fuel its flames with my heart and send it soaring high, until it touches the sky. And then there are all the other answers. All the people I love. All the places that resonate inside my heart. All the lives I touch, all the lives who touch mine. All the world. All the universe, boundless. « Big words, » the shadow snorts in the mirror. « Big, but rather empty. »

Really ?

I think not, dearest reflection. Reach out, touch all that surrounds you, if you dare. Let all that surrounds you touch you, if you dare. Break the shell. Shed the armor. Watch. Listen. Feel. The world, the people, they are so many onions stinging your eyes as you peel off the layers isolating you from it all. They make you cry. They make you angry. They make you smile. They make you proud. They make you sad. They enrage you. They disgust you. They enflame you. So many emotions. So many thoughts. So many things to say and feel and express. Too many to put into words : joy, revolt, grief, hope, despair, anger, fury, contempt, spite, happiness, pride, shame, hatred, love, sparks, fire, cold, ice, determination, stubbornness, fight, refusal, solidarity, indignation, revolution.... So you see, there are too many things, overflowing, spilling from this mind of mine, to put into words. The only way to express it all, is to encompass the whole chaotic mess with big words. Big, but not empty if you know how to read them.

So, next question, please. « Who are you ? »

Again, the answer seems obvious. I am who and what I am. I am a human being, full of flaws, torn between the dark and the light. Standing between dusk and dawn. Flickering gray, I am one funambulist among billions of others. I am a sum of contradictions. I also happen to be a woman, but don't be afraid, women are simple human beings like everyone else, regardless of religions' misogyny and bigotry. « Yeah, right, » the shadow in the mirror smirks. « That says nothing at all about who you are. Big words again, and avoidance of the real answer. » Is that so ? But who could give a definite answer to that question ? We are always building ourselves. We grow and change and become who we are and will be with each moment that passes, with each encounter we make, with each and every event we experience. Any definite answer would become false in the moment I'd write it. The present is a heartbeat, over and done, and then renewed, repeated again and again, different each time, everlasting and inexistent. « Sophistry, » the shadow in the mirror spits. « You gorge yourself with words and sentences that have no meaning. » Do I ? Or are you just miffed and frustrated because those words and sentences are just more questions which ask for answers nobody can give, ô dearest shadow in the mirror ? But then it's true I do love babbling, the more so when I write in English. And, yeah, that's also part of who I am, so there !

All right, last but not least, « What do you want ? »

In Babylon 5, the single best ever aired SF TV series, answering that question is damning yourself. Be careful what you wish for, it may come true, is the lesson B5 teaches in the most cruel and definite fashion...or is that the real message ? Lately I tend to see it as more of a warning : stop depending on others to make your wishes come true. Take your destiny in your own hands. Move your fucking ass, because if you wait for someone else to do it for you, you may not like the result – and then it's usually too late to take it back and do something else. But let's get back to what I want. The answer to that shouldn't be very hard to find. You only need to read the posts I've written on this blog along the years, but if that task sounds too daunting, I can probably summarize it for you here :

I want us to grow up.

I want us to stop bowing our heads before the dictates of the powers-that-be.

I want us to deserve the name of « human beings ».

I want justice to prevail for everyone. Social justice. Economic justice.

I want us to be free of religions, of bigotry and obscurantism, be it Jewish, Christian, Muslim, Hinduist, Buddhist, Animist or other.

I want us to think for ourselves, and stop swallowing the garbage flung down our throats by the mass media.

I want people to involve themselves in unions, in politics.

I want people to do more than whine and then slump down in the sofa to watch sports or some other TV junk like reality shows.

I want us to stop allowing ourselves to be blinded, to be driven like plough horses during the course of our lives.

I want us to stop nodding our heads when frauds come on TV, on the radio or in the newspaper to tell us that « There Is No Alternative » or that « we've lived above our means until now, and so it follows that now we must take care of our debt ».

I want us to think outside the box.

I want us to stand up for ourselves and turn the tables on the powers-that-be, on the Ron Pauls and Rick Perrys and Newt Gingrich, on the Koch brothers and the Albert Freres and Vincent Bollorés, on the Etienne Davignons and Jean-Luc Dehaenes, the Goldman Sachs and JP Morgans and UBS. I want us to turn this oligarchy upside down, to depose those ploutocrats and their faithful dogs : Nicolas Sarkozy, Barack Obama, Angela Merkel, Lucas Papademos, Mario Monti, Mario Draghi, the IMF, the ECB and all the other zealots in the media everywhere.

I want us to do the revolution.

I want us to be happy, to be balanced and to live in peace.

I want to see, feel, touch and hear the beauty of this world we live in.

I want...so many things I could fill a thousand lifetimes with them, but that's all right. Like the weeds and the moss in my garden, I'll endure. I'll grow even though it rains. I'll keep standing up. I'll keep on fighting, no matter whether I stand a chance to reach the lofty goals I set for myself.

Because that's who I am.

Because that's what I want.

Because that's what makes this life worth living.

And that's it for grand philosophy moments from me...well, that's it for this time, anyway. As to the future, I make no promises ! =)

Lessons from Greece

2011-11-06T14:49:00.002+01:00

This week was a week of revelations. A week of lessons. Terrible lessons.

Backed in a corner by the dictates of powers outside his country, a man called for a referendum. This man, George Papandreou, prime minister of Greece, made a decision that was his prerogative as the democratically elected leader of his country. It was a dangerous decision, to be sure, and one which came years too late. It's highly likely it was a very selfish decision, one made in order to manipulate and retain power. Still, in a breathtaking moment, he relinquished power to the people.

Convenient or not, dangerous or not, manipulation or not, selfish or not, deception or not, power to the people is what democracy is all about.

And as this declaration was made, as the unthinkable perspective of power shifting back to the people threatened to become reality, the world of capitalism shook upon its foundations. Almost, it fell.

Almost.

At once, all the powers that be gathered and united. At once, threats and blackmail and humiliation were thrown upon George Papandreou, the man who had dared betray the system – be it for his own selfish purposes and ambitions. And so, in a move as callous and brutal as it is anti-democratic – and sincere – the puppets of the true powers-that-be, Nicolas Sarkozy, Angela Merkel, Barack Obama, Hu Jintao, Hermann Van Rompuy, and all the rest, they all crushed democracy beneath their heels. They dictated what Papandreou should do and how he should do it, or otherwise his country would be dumped down the trash can, his population would be subjected to a misery even worse than the one forced down its throat now, and he would lose everything.

And he gave in. His tail between his legs, Papandreou returned to Greece, to face more humiliation, and to accept more punishment from his own colleagues and the media in general.

And all the while, the powers-that-be continued dictating their conditions, and what Greece should do, what its population should sacrifice.

All of it, so that the illusion of a thriving capitalism can continue to exist. All of it, so that the 1% of richest can keep on growing richer, can keep on devouring everything the 99% produce, and can keep on stealing legally all the richness we produce.

What this means, is that to keep their privileges, to keep this warped order of things, the powers-that-be are ready to do whatever it takes. They're ready to break even the taboos they had nurtured in order to keep us in line. They're ready to tear down the illusion of democracy. Why go so far ? Why resort to such extreme measures ?

Because democracy is a terrifying thing. Because giving back the power to the people could have unraveled the whole tapestry of capitalism. Because the Greeks had the opportunity of choosing default, which would have revealed the whole fraud around the so-called « public debt crisis ». There is no public debt crisis, there is only the result of shifting the richness we all produce toward a single fringe of population, legally or not emptying the states' treasuries and social security everywhere.

Defaulting would have torn down the illusion. Those who stole the richness would have been made to pay. Banks would have fallen. Hedge funds would have fallen. Some would have triggered the armageddon of Credit Default Swaps. Then further insurance companies and banks would have fallen, in particular in the US. Then the Chinese would have been in trouble.

It would have all been tumbling down.

The 1% would have fallen.

It could not happen. No matter what. No matter why.

And so, the powers-that-be blew the whistle and signalled the end of the game, and they slapped democracy aside.

The pundits all explain that it was to help Greece against itself, or they say that it was folly on Papandreou's part, and his move would have hurt the Greeks, and everybody else. Let them. It doesn't matter. Only one thing matters:

What's been hurting Greece for two years, what's going to keep on hurting it for a long, long time, is blind, insane austerity programs which kill the middle-class. Which kill the economy and drag people into misery and poverty. Which kill any hope the Greek people might have. Because those programs always attack the same layers of population. And all the while, the richest, the Orthodox Church – supremely rich – the great shipowners, the real estate developers, all those who reap the richness produced by the Greek population and send it abroad – more than two times Greece's annual GDP is sleeping in Swiss banks, exported by the 1% who, legally or not, do not pay taxes.

Ain't that nice ?

Shouldn't that wonderful system continue on destroying our lives, again and again, for no other purpose than maintaining the privileges of the powers-that-be ?

Nah.

When the US of A insists on choosing the Path of Shame

2011-11-01T10:47:00.003+01:00

Yesterday, UNESCO voted the entry of Palestine into its institution by a large majority of votes. This should have been a moment of joy and celebration : even though the state of Palestine doesn't yet enjoy a full recognition by the UNO, its entry into one of the most respected and valued international organisations is another chance for peace. Yet, not everyone sees the event in this light. The US of A, in yet another demonstration of their usual grandeur, not only voted against the motion, but also decided to immediately cut funding UNESCO.

This will have repercussions, it will hurt people who have done nothing wrong, and do not deserve to be cast off with a mere flip of the hand, but let's focus first on the absolute stupidity of such a move.

It's been way too many years since a peaceful settlement was sought between Israel and the dispossessed people who have been pushed back to Cisjordania and the West Bank of Gaza. In theory, everyone agrees that there needs to be two viable states side by side, each with guarantees of security – be it the économical, social or otherwise – and good living standards. Yet, even though everyone agrees, nobody can reach a final conclusion on this protracted, and often halted, process. In the meantime, both populations – Israelis and Palestinians – must trudge on with their lives. And as the years pass, the Palestinian population gets poorer and more desperate, the rightwing and hawkish Israeli government allows furter settlements in the Palestinian territory, chasing people from their land. The Israeli government builds the Wall of Shame, at least as shameful as the Berlin Wall in its time – and even worse sinc here it's a democratic state which is building it, rather than sitting at a negociations table to find a lasting solution to this heartrending dispute.

Of course, the poorer the Palestinian population gets, the more vulnerable and prone to the influence and manipulation of extremists and terrorists like the Hamas and the Islamic Jihad they become. The more Israeli settlements steal land from the Palestinians, the more incursions and retaliations take lives, the more desperate the Palestinian population gets. The less alternative they have. One day, all this will boil down to cornering the whole Palestinian population and leaving it with only one option : hatred, and all out violence. Yet, nobody seems to care...but that's only appearances. Nobody can believe that the Israeli government would be so blind. Nobody can believe that the US of A government could be so blind.

But the US of A government keeps entangling itself further and binding itself tighter to the Israeli government, no matter what it does and decides. And the Israeli government is not only rightwinged and hawksih, its majority is also so fragile that it depends on the continued goodwill of religious extremist parties and far-right parties. Once you know this, you understand why the game unfolds in such a crazy board : extremism is extremism's best friend. Blood calls out for blood. Extremists on both sides do not want peace. They want the anihilation of the other. They want to « purify » a poor, beleaguered piece of land they claim is their very own god-given right.

Beyond the fact that this demonstrates yet again how inherently evil religions are (I'm not talking about faith here) and how they've been pushing humanity down the path of war and tragedy, destruction and horror all along history, there is another lesson to consider : it's not in the interest of extremists on both the Palestinian and the Israeli side to find a peaceful solution. It's in their interest that the situation keep festering until nothing can save peace.

When you want to settle terrible, enduring disputes which have fostered hatred, incomprehension and wariness for generations, the only way is to go through proxies, to go through institutions that both sides recognize. The UNO, and UNESCO, are such organisations. To be a part of them brings the Palestinian into the international community. It gives more chance for opening dialogue – which can sometimes start in an oblique fashion. It gives more chance for peace. It weakens the hold of extremists. It shows the Palestinian population they can be embraced by the world, and that there is a chance other than extremism and terrorism to one day win peace.

To sum it up, Palestine's entry in the UNESCO should have been a moment for hope and celebration. For joy. And yet, the US of A, not content to have vetoed Palestine's entry into the UNO, decided to cut funding to the UNESCO at once, since they couldn't blackmail UNESCO into backing down and denying the Palestinians.

Why ?

The US of A will likely use the same excuse they pulled out of a much used hat when they vetoed Palestine's entry at the UNO : such a move wouldn't help brokering a peaceful settlement. This paltry excuse isn't only laughable, it's most of all absurd : the US of A has been failing again and again at really pushing toward a fair solution to the Israeli-Palestinian dispute for generations. Some might even say that this state of constant threat and warfare serves the military industry in the US of A right – or that this state of affairs puts Israel in a dependant position toward the US of A, thus giving them a stable foothold in the middle east... Still, beyond the conjectures, what matters is that the more time passes, the more it ties itself with the Israeli government and embraces its views, no matter how extreme and counterproductive.

The US of A's decision simply hurts further the chances to find peace. They're doing the exact opposite of what they should be doing, were their desire to broker an agreement real and honest.

More, the US of A's unfair and hurtful decision to cut funding to the UNESCO will jeopardize programs all around the world that the US of A should be encouraging : schools for girls in Afghanistan, help to education and teaching, help to bring writing and reading to the children of Africa, regardless of their gender. Development of culture and understanding between people. This is what UNESCO is about : sharing cultures and understanding, building bridges between people, helping people to grow and walk out of violence and war.

The US of A brought war to Afghanistan with the pretext of wanting to bring freedom and democracy there, to free girls from the living hell their existence was under Taliban rule. And now, they're cutting funding to the one organisation which is trying, really trying to help girls win free of the madness of those foaming-at-the-mouth fanatics.

Tell me, how does that add up ?

What purpose does it serve, other than abandoning people to their sorry fates, and giving a hand to terrorists and slavers – a more than fitting name for all those Islam fundamentalists worldwide methinks – to warmongers and fanatics everywhere ?

What consequence will this absurd decision of the US of A have, other than rekindling the possibilities for war and pain and grief, for destruction and death and hatred between peoples ?

So, the US of A is again choosing its path. That path has a name.

Shame.

PS : watch the declaration of the UNESCO CEO after Palestine's entry, and listen to her explaining the consequences of the US of A's decision to cut funding. Then, try telling me again we should try to understand the US of A's position.

The Clockwork Meachnism of a Coup

2011-07-03T13:04:00.004+02:00

Economy should be a simple domain, based on the down to earth reality of human lives as a collective of individuals. It's not. We produce wealth through our work, be it paid or not. This wealth is then divided in parts : one for our direct use, and one that goes back to the community, upon which we draw when we go to the doctor, to school, when we drive upon the roads the state built, etc. In this system, finance is banks which store the wealth we can spare, and which redistribute it in loans to those who want to create businesses, hence create activity and jobs which in turns help us get a living.

But then, that simple view doesn't take into account human greed. It doesn't take into account human genius when it comes to imagine systems that go around reality in order to further the interests of a very few individuals. So finance developped, grew and thrived around this unending greed for more money, more power, all for the same select few. Finance hired PHDs in mathematics, paid them lavishly so they'd put their brains to good use, which, in their view, they did. So, they invented financial products, and drew upon a limited well of real wealth to shape a virtual universe of limitless riches. They made bubbles. These bubbles burst, but it didn't matter, because then they came up with other bubbles, even more shiny and aluring.

In the years 2000, the Internet bubble burst with lots of noise and sound. The panic was short-lived. There were yet many other ways to magick wealth out of the very thin air of poverty. The educated and brilliant minds of the finance specialists immediately focused on the task ahead. Thus, the subprimes were born and bred, and bred, and bred again. Until that bubble burst too, because you really can't produce wealth out of debt and poverty : one day the debtor must pay you back, and if you built everything on a system in which the population's income and social rights keep shrinking and they can only resort to more loans, well, it ends up crumbling into dust at your feet. Of course, the great minds of finance had thought of that, which is why they invented the derivatives. They created bonds so complex that nobody could unravel and decipher – otherwise the fraud would have been apparent : they were litterally selling empty air at high prices. But then, Reagan and Thatcher, and Milton Friedman, had seen to it that all regulation was banned from interfering with the perfection of almighty finance. Worse, they also invented insurance against the default of a debtor. They invented the Credit Default Swaps, which rest upon a very simple and completely insane principle : « Please, do buy our extremely risky products : they give you a very high interest rate, and if the debtor can't pay, which is more and more likely, you can activate this nice CDS, and insurance companies will compensate you. It's a win-win proposition! »

So nobody saw the plunge coming, except a few economists shunned and ridiculed by so called gurus, and of course all the forces of the left, that uneducated and ignorant fools equate with the scarecrow of the old USSR. It took its time, this plunge, it unfolded within a year, from Summer 2007 to Autumn 2008. And then it hit us all, big time.

Everyone knows what ensued : the same gurus who had spat and howled against the states then begged them to intervene, to save the almighty system from disintegrating. And the states did. As they did so, and dumped trillions of Euros into the black hole finance had created for the benefit of the same select few – who, by the way, got even richer in the process, coveing potential losses by hoarding the money given by the states, our taxpayers money, to save a system rotten to its core. And of course, as they saved the financial system, the states purchased debt. A lot of debt, which it had never been in their intention to do. The result was that states' treasury got bad. State debt soared, all thanks to the financial system and private interests – not because of bad management.

That's when the little world of finance thought of a very efficient way to dump the blame from their shoulders on someone else's, while making big money in the same time. That's when the new powers-that-be, aka Rating Agencies, came into the spotlight. That's when the global attack against the states, and their « bad management » of their debt began : to be able ot make money of state debt, you need three things:

to make sure that everyone knows it's bad debt, so the interest rates soar,
to make sure that the country in difficulty can get help from outside of the financial system – that is the Federal Reserve for the US, or the European Central Bank,
and of course, to have your own trusty CDS at hand, in the case when countries you loaned money to would default.

In the US, the FED can create US dollars out of thin air, and has done so for decades, thus completely cheating the system. It's only Tea Party and Republican stupidity which threaten the US. In Europe, it's not the same. The Germans, followed by some others, have sought to impose their own misguided view of how the world should be. The European Central Bank exists only to serve Germany's crazy goals, not to help growth or job creation. It's there to control inflation, to sound the alarm on debt and generally demand austerity of all.

When the financial sharks started attacking Greece – a very tricky bag of bones in its own right – Portugal – which had no debt problems until it had to save the private banking sector and has already undergone austerity programs time and again – Ireland – former champion of The One Way of Almighty Economy – well, the tapestry unraveled pretty fast. To meet the private interests' demands – the banks and the financial system they had just bled themselves dry to save – the states were ordered to cut their spending and empoverish their populations, to destroy people's rights, to raise taxes, and to lay off civil servants – which really meant simply to send them further the endless line of the jobless people. It didn't matter that those countries' governments had been elected by people to do things that had nothing to do with those demands. In an incredible denial of the most basic democratic process, the financial markets started dictating what countries policy shoudl be, and to govern the empoverishment of whole populations, to whom they were not, and are in no way accountable.

It would have been easy to put a stop to that, to call that bluff. All it would have taken, all it would take even now, would be a single word :

NO.

But then, if those threatened countries ever were to say « no », what would happen ? The private interests which first gobbled up taxpayer money to save themselves and then gambled on state debt to make even more money would lose...well, they would, unless they activated their nice, shiny CDS. And then, chaos would rush to center stage. Because, then, the insurance companies would have to pay up – when nobody in his right mind ever imagine they'd ever have to pay (that's called no-risk insurance, except that in this case, well....). And, guess where those insurance companies are? Yes! You got it! The US of A, and the UK!

Lo or, perhaps, allelujiah!

Of course, this would mean the definitive end of the financial system. It would crumble, and nothing could save it this time. And the very few, those same select few who rule the world while the rest of us good, nice sheep play make believe in democracy, would see their wealth and power destroyed. And that, of course, won't do. It won't do at all.

Which is why we're seeing now, for the first time, the truth behind the deception we call our democracies. We elect governments to do things, but it doesn't matter. When their interests are threatened, the powers-that-be ring the end of the party. Those governments we elected snap to attention, and then they obey. They enact austerity plans which will solve nothing (you can't make growth out of poverty, you need people to have money and a minimuml of security so they can buy good and make your economy work – to take all the safety nets away simply accelerates the plunge into recession and toward default), not to save themselves, their countries or their populations. Oh, no. The only goal is to save the system, to allow it to hang on, even if by the thinnest of threads.

They obey, those we elected.

They obey to the commands given by outside interests, by private interests which despise us and suck the marrow from our bones so they can keep their extravagtant and outrageous privileges. They obey, our governments, and they tell us they have no choice. They tell us that the rating agencies are as infaillible as gods, the way economists used to tell us that markets are perfect and infaillible.

What is happening now, in Greece, in Portugal, in Spain and which will happen to us all sooner or later has a name. It's war. A war waged by the powers-that-be, the ploutocrats, to preserve their dominion at all costs. It's a war without rules of engagements, without limits, without morals or ethics. Without scruples or the smallest thought of humanity, of what will happen tomorrow and why.

It's a war. No rules. No honor. Ugly. Merciless. Bloody. And they're fighting it with all they have. If we don't fight back, well, it's simple, they'll chew us, they'll swallow us, they'll suck us dry, and then they'll shit us down the sewers and sigh with contentment while doing so.

I don't know where you stand, but I know where I do.

And my answer to the ploutocrats is a very simple one: go to hell, all of you. When your eyes turn to my country, well, let it default. Oh, yeah, let's default, by all means. Then I'll watch you all squirm and portest and panic and then fall.

With glee.

And now, for a core dump

2011-01-11T13:23:00.001+01:00

I’m late for my usual end-of-year message, musing about everything that felt important to me or might feel important to me in the future. Maybe I’m simply tired with repeating the same things, over and over again. Maybe I’m fed up with the stupidity I see all around, and the imbecility of what I read, day after day – the continued unfairness, injustice, all supported by the very people it hurts, people who lack the necessary education to decode, to analyze, to criticize all the garbage sent their way, and who invariably go for what’s simple, what doesn’t require effort or thought.

Sometimes, I wonder whether I’m not fed up with people, period. With humanity as a whole. But then, those are old thoughts, old haunts which cling to the dusty corner of my mind, born when I was a would-be revolutionary teen, who was going to change the world and make it a good place for everyone. And then, I stumble on a story or other, where I hear or read about wonderful people who do incredible things, without any hope of gain of any kind, like this Haitian who came back to a devastated country, poisoned by sickness and poverty nothing can seem to stop or change. And I read how this man uses the money he inherited and won to build a school so that kids abandoned in the streets can have a chance at education. I hear how he’s building a plant to recycle waste and help clear the garbage filling the streets of Haiti. I watch documentaries about those distant communities living in the remotest areas of earth, where people still know solidarity, generosity and being there for one another.

And then I see people, close to me, responding to calls that we make – that I make in some cases – to resist and defend themselves, to refuse to bow down and accept the dictates of the powers-that-be, those who can never have enough, and never have to answer for the mistakes they keep doing, no matter how grave.

And I remember that, yes, it’s worth it to keep on fighting, to keep on defending the ideals you believe in, no matter the odds, no matter the difficulty. I remember that, and I soldier on, even if there are moments when I think it’s really getting hard. I intend to continue soldiering on, and weirdly enough, it makes me happy. It makes me happy to contemplate struggle, conflict and strife. Because, painful and exhausting as those may be, they are the unmistakable, undeniable proof that I am alive, that we are alive. And that’s definitely a good thing – well, this may not be logical, but then who cares, right?

After that, well, I wonder what 2011 will bring. My beloved little country is on the verge of explosion, all thanks to a bunch of radical nationalists, selfish and bigotish, who like nothing more than to rewrite history and victimize themselves – a trait they share with right and far-right political parties such as the Tea Party, which we can thank, along with Fox News, Glenn Beck and other gardeners of hate, for the tragedy that struck Tucson. Europe is slowly, quietly on the verge of collapsing, under the relentless blows of financial capitalism, this blind bane which knows only one thing: I want it all, I want it now, and I want more, more, more, more! All these things, we have either engineered, or allowed to happen. We are the ones who let the monster be born, we are the ones who fed it. And even now, we are the ones who are allowing it, begging it to dictate the way we should live. Even now, we’re getting ready to accept austerity measures to placate “the financial markets”, these strange, dangerous and all-powerful entities…give me a fucking break!

This, all of this, the so-called retirement problem, everything: we can change it. We can live the way we want. We do not have to bow down to any “arithmetical argument”, there is no such thing. What there is, is what there always is: choices. Political choices. Society choices.

And there, lies our responsibility.

If we are educated enough to truly, fully understand all that’s being thrown our way.

If.

All right. Enough rambling for one day.

Bring 2011 and its cortege of challenges and battles. Bring them all on!

Are We so Dangerous? Why, Thank You, Revered Powers-that-Be!

2010-09-23T10:22:00.001+02:00

Some bits of reading make my day. They’re like an unexpected splash of sunshine, where you previously thought only dark charcoal clouds ruled. Mr. Timothy Egan’s piece on today’s NYT afforded me with such a moment a few minutes earlier. He was writing about the plight of the Roma in our backwater, uncivilised Old Europe, and lording it over us in general — it’s true that the US has so many worthy lessons to give us, the latest of them concerning their oh, so fair and gentle and humane treatment of the Mexican illegal immigrants, but let’s not be nasty. However, that wasn’t what drew my attention and made me laugh. No, it was this nice, informed and balanced little barbered jab:

“And how can you not laugh at the recent mass marches in France by people being asked to push their retirement age back to — gasp! — 62?”

I read that, and thought to myself, w-o-w. I guess I should be ashamed, and start writing letters of profound apology, all directed to Mr. Egan for my, and all those like me, outrageous refusal of the dictates of the Powers-that-Be. We should be ashamed for refusing to cut on our welfare so that the high and mighty can keep on hoarding profit, can keep on devouring resources and riches, and deny us of our hard-earned rights! Yes, we should!

Tsk, tsk, tsk. Nope,Mr. Egan, bad journalist, bad His Master’s Voice. No cigar.

Here is a man writing about the plight of the poor Roma – conveniently forgetting about the poor Mexicans, the poor Americans, and the poor all over the world in the process – and who takes advantage of his column to deliver this oh, my god, so painful blow to the protests in France. Yes, that’s what make me laugh.

I mean, what else can you do but laugh, when you see a man stupid enough to mock people who fight to keep their RIGHTS, the RIGHTS they fought for and gained.

What else can you do, but laugh when you see a man blind and prejudiced enough, brainwashed enough by the Powers-that-Be’s propaganda, so that he’ll actually think kthat people should be in favour of working longer, in worse conditions, and be happy to give up what is their right to ensure the continued existence of a system – hello, capitalism! – that has done nothing but hurt, destroy and tear apart every single being (and thing) it touched!

What else can you do, but laugh when you see ignorant courtesans like that do the Powers-that-Be’s bidding, attempt to ridicule us, hence giving us a voice and an existence in places which would otherwise shun us? The only thing such a piece by such a servant of the establishment means, is that even the worst attack will do.

Anything will do, if it tells readers we’re a bunch of retarded, privileged fools who refuse to bow down to the inevitable! Which means, that up there, the Powers-that-Be are frowning at what’s happening. Contrary to what Mr. Egan implies, it’s not inconsequential. It’s not worthless. It’s threatening. And that’s good.

That’s very good.

And it makes me smile, to know that people can yet rise in this world to defend their rights, to fight for what is theirs. People who refuse to bow down and who rise to fight what Powers-that-Be would impose upon them are no fools. They’re brave. They’re alive, contrary to all those like Mr. Egan, who’re nothing more than blind cattle quietly walking down toward the slaughterhouse at the rhythm demanded by their masters.

So, thank you, Mr. Egan, for making me laugh today.

Thank you, for showing everyone that we make the Powers-that-Be nervous, that we’re a threat.

Good night, and good luck.

The Trouble with Retirement? What Trouble?

2010-09-19T21:51:00.004+02:00

It’s the furious, impassioned debate of the moment, well, of the decade.

People live longer. They grow older. They don’t have as many children as they used to in times past—and yet the population keeps growing, how’s that for an amusing paradox? Still, it’s all horrible. We can’t go on the way we’ve been going: we can’t allow people to retire at 60 any longer (or 65 in many countries). It’s not a question of ideology, it’s a simple question of mathematics, of arithmetic: since the pension of the people who retired is paid for by the social contribution taken on the wages of working people, the growing number of old people and the dwindling number of people at work simply makes it impossible to keep the system alive as it is, financially speaking. It’s obvious to all, regardless of their political opinions. Obvious, I tell you! You cannot, you may not gainsay the Powers-that-Be! So say we all! (yeah, right)

Really, who do those, oh so wise Powers-that-Be think they’re kidding?

Bullshit!

We live longer. Hey, newsflash: it’s a good thing, it’s a happy thing. We should be rejoicing, not gloomily spreading around predictions of doom! When someone we know retires, we congratulate him/her, we don’t start commiserating and nodding in empathy with the unhappiness the lucky person is about to experience!

Let’s go back on our beautiful, so-called unarguable mathematics: the more time passes, the less people under 60, and the more people over that age, yeah. So, what? How does that portend the doom of our pensions? Say I apply this kind of “mathematical argument” to farmers in the beginning of the 20th century: imagine, we’re in the 1900s, and I go around foretelling general famine in the country by the year 1930, since the farmers’ numbers will dwindle so much that there won’t be enough people to farm the land and feed us all anymore. Yeah, it's ridiculous, I know. But the argument is exactly the same as the ones used to foretell the death of our pensions. And it’s as invalid for farmers and general famine as it’s for the ageing population and pensions.

Why?

Simple: farmers’ numbers dwindled, but techniques improved, productivity grew dramatically, and so we compensated for the reduced numbers. We didn’t starve, did we? It’s the same here: the funding for our pensions comes from the social contribution taken out of our wages. If you take a good look at the system, it doesn’t exactly depend on an ever-growing number of people who contribute. What it does depend upon is the total amount of money coming from the social contributions. There, you have it. Of course, to completely understand, you need to know some pieces of history nobody ever cared to put in the school programs—I reaaaaaally wonder why, by the way.

As we progressed in time, as productivity rose, and industry profits along with them, social contributions were raised (them and our net incomes along the way). This resulted from a very simple, a fair equation: more profit means more money to distribute, to share between workers, CEOs, and shareholders. As Gross Domestic Products (GDP) rose in our countries, so did the social contributions, and so did the funding for our pensions, our social security system, and so on. However, that movement stopped at some point.

It happened in the end of the 1970s. That’s when the neo-liberal reform started.

That’s when Powers-that-Be, frustrated that their profits were not skyrocketing quickly enough, decided to take on what was slowing them down: sharing a fair portion of the profit with the people who do the actual work. From that moment on, they started working at unravelling our welfare system, they bought media, they bought politicians. They brainwashed us, they manipulated us into believing that all the things we have to live through, all the hardships, all the economic and social crises—all that is inevitable. Mathematical. Inescapable. Unarguable.

Don’t trust me? Well, by all means, don’t. Simply go check the numbers on the growth of the GDP in our countries over the years, and of course the numbers on wages growth, and shareholder dividends’ growth. You won’t be disappointed.

GDP has kept rising over the years.

Wages have kept rising lower and lower over the years.

Shareholder dividends have skyrocketed over the years.

So, you see, there is no problem with our pensions. None. The only problem there is, is in making the Powers-that-Be give up their ever-growing greed and thirst for more and more profit, more and more money. We need only re-distribute the profits fairly. If we do, our welfare system, our pensions will never even blink, no matter how old we grow as populations.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is not at all impossible.

That, ladies and gentlemen, is a political decision.

And, remember, you’re the ones who vote.

You’re the ones who choose, and who put politicians in power.

So, that’s it from me for now.

I could go on, of course. I could also explain how people who’ve retired more and more remain active members of the community, and as such that their activities should be given an economical value, same as ours. I could then explain that, with this in mind, the so-called problem of the retired versus active people ratio simply ceases to exist at all…but enough with my ceaseless babblings!

Good night, and good luck (and read Bernard Friot if you can!)

When You Peer into the Abyss

2010-05-09T17:56:00.002+02:00

If you're crazy or brave enough to start looking down into the Abyss, you'll find it staring back at all of us with the face of an orthodox economist spewing out his so-called “wisdom”. He’s smiling, that orthodox economist. If you try listening to the strange sounds which come out of his mouth, spluttering past his smug smirk, you’ll realize that the man actually believes that economy is a science, and that the things it calls laws are Absolute Truths the universe bows down to and has been praying to everyday since the Big Bang.

He tells you that you must be virtuous, that orthodox economist, like all good priests and religious practitioners do. He explains that you must present Good Numbers to the Markets, or they’ll eventually punish you for your sins, and that’s only natural. Of course there are no subtitles, but you can hear the capital G, N and M that indicate he’s mentioning sanctified elements of the almighty religion that economy has become. It’s now so powerful that it’s been officially set above populations’ welfares, above kids, above women and men, old and young and middle-aged. We are servants of this economy, it’s our master, and if we fail the laws it imposes upon us without even a by-your-leave, then we will be punished in the end. We must be punished.

Of course, when we populations, through the swift and decisive actions of our governments, indebted ourselves to save the Holy Banks and the Almighty World Financial System, so quickly and so deeply that we ended up with extremely Bad Numbers for our collective budget deficits, nothing happened. No lightning crackled in the Heavens of Economy to smite us sinners down. One could have started wondering at the versatility of Economy at this point, but then religions in all of humanity’s history have always had a ready answer to the questions and doubts of heretics and sceptics:

The Divine Works in Mysterious Ways.

There, you have it. Bad Numbers were tolerated then, welcomed even, wished for and demanded. Now, well, things have changed. But then, perhaps it has something to do with those who mention the necessity to tame in the Holy Markets, to rein them in and impose rules on them, so that they again go back to what they should never have ceased to be: tool in the service of human beings, and not the other way around. Perhaps it has something to do with those states that would attack the Holy Sanctity of the Markets. Heretics! Of course they must be punished. Of course they must be struck down and brought to their knees. Of course. And that’s exactly what’s happening right now: round up the all-powerful rating agencies, and the nations will tremble, the world will shake and start blabbering excuses, apologies, and profess renewed virtue, offer sacrifices in the form of austerity plans that will accomplish nothing except for smothering real people and weakening all those who want to defend people’s rights against the blind dogma of Holy Economy that only exist to serve the interests of a lucky few.

And then what? People fill the streets of Athens in protest against decisions made by a government that will destroy what little they still had, all so that privileged castes can keep their riches? People have the gall to demonstrate in Greece, to refuse to pay for a crisis they didn’t cause(*)? Why, shame on them! The Markets won’t take kindly to these protests, to these people refusing to bow down and accept the inevitable return to virtue! They will react, and their retribution will come, swift and harsh.

Oh, yes. That’s what the orthodox economist who’s sitting down at the bottom of the abyss and stares back at you with a snigger says. He tells you that you must bow. He tells you that people’s freedom of expression must give precedence to the Holy Markets and the All Powerful Dictates of Economy and Finance. Seriously. Gently. Like a father shaking his head at misbehaving children.

So we should all be German. We should all be serious, virtuous. Now, can anyone tell me why? I mean, seriously, can anyone explain to me what we, as people, as women and men of flesh and blood, stand to gain by being like Germany? What? We’d have terrific Numbers to offer the Markets on their Holy Altars (another name for Stock Exchange)? Errm, yeah? So what? Remind me again, how is the welfare of the German people? How are their lives? Wages dropped, security of employment dropped? The number of working poor—you know, those people who have a job, who work day in day out, and don’t earn enough to make a living, to pay their rent, their food, their clothes, their bills—exploded? Chronic unemployment in less favoured regions never abated? People aren’t happy, except for the same social classes, or castes? Germany is now better known as the Country of the Euro Jobs?

And we should be like them? We should want to please the Holy Markets?

I don’t think so.

Economy is powerful because it’s backed by powerful people who’ve tried to rig all the circles of power. This should ring a bell. Aristocracy used to be powerful. In France, kings ruled, their power coming from what the Catholic Church labelled as the Will of God. It was the Order of Things, and it lasted for many centuries. Then came 1789.

Looks like that time is coming again.

Fast.

(*) causes are, among the most important ones: the privileged high social classes (high bourgeoisie and also, in the public sector, think high-ranking officials during the Yang Dynasty—that, or apparatchiks in the now defunct USSR) and all the laws designed to allow them not to pay taxes, the companies also privileged by specially designed laws to allow them not to pay taxes, black market economy, restaurants, cafes, shops everywhere never paying VAT, not to mention their taxes, landowners not paying taxes linked to the wealth they have and the value of the land they own (first among them the Orthodox Church, first landowner in Greece which doesn’t pay the first cent in taxes but, hush, it’s a secret)…oh, and let’s not forget Germany and its crass behaviour, its devastating handling of a crisis which would NEVER have taken place, had it simply chosen to say “shoo” when the first, feeble little sparks of the now European Blaze started. Now the monster is unleashed, and virtuous priest Angela Merkel may well find that she won’t be able to control it, and that in the end, it will devour oh so zealot and virtuous Germany along with it. Sometimes, I almost wish this would happen.

Invictus ?

2010-01-01T12:54:00.001+01:00

Undaunted, unvainquished? Why, maybe, but “invictus” is Latin, and Latin uses gender to qualify adjectives. Where “undaunted” is genderless, and applicable to male or female, “invictus” is marked as male. The female form would be “invicta”. But never mind.

So, invictus—or invicta—yes, but whom does this apply to?

The financial system, which plunged us down the abyss, saved through the use of massive blackmail by the use of taxpayer money, it has then spit upon? This financial system which refuses any kind of regulation even though the whole world got the bright display of its utter failure and its innate danger? This financial system which got saved by our money because it threatened governments of massive bankruptcies which would cause chaos on a global scale, leaving people, leaving us, without money, a money we gave to banks for safekeeping and they lost while playing at the casino?

Capitalism, this economic system which also demonstrated its inevitable failure where people’s wellbeing is concerned? This economic system which showed it can only function through endless sequences of crisis that harm these insignificant human variables in its “perfect” equations?

Barack Obama and his Health Care Plan, which cleared the House and Senate under fire, under the most incredible, outrageous campaign of blatant lies ever conceived (death panels where they decide to pull the plug on grandma, anyone? To think that there are people crazy and stupid enough to buy such bullshit just...urrrgh)? This plan which, even though opponents and bought-off Democrats helped gut as much as they could, will nevertheless revolutionize the way things are done, and help millions of people to get coverage?

The Republicans, who are busy rearing their ugly heads and blaming Obama for inept security designs and measures THEY planned and enacted? The worse there is that there would be people who’d agree with such blatant manipulations…

Nature, which still knows Winter, and can have snow on the eve of the new years in regions where it’s normal that Winter be cold? Nature, which will always survive, no matter what ecologists say, even if temperatures keep rising? Of course humankind would most likely disappear, but nature would adapt, and develop other solutions, life would prevail, there’s no doubt about that, it’s called “evolution”, the thing that foaming-at-the-mouth fanatics of all religions, Christianity included, refuse to acknowledge in spite of scientific proof.

Hope for freedom, in the hearts of millions of people in Iran? People who keep fighting and demonstrating in spite of the use of brutal force by authorities who are now mired in their own contradictions and failed plans to remain in power?

Us? Trade union people who keep our heads held high and refuse to bow down to the dictates of powers-that-be who’d have us renounce our rights in order to save a system that has failed, and all but enslaved us all?

The great Hadron Collider in Geneva, which is now reopened for business? This fantastic ring which some feared might cause a black hole that would engulf the earth within a heartbeat? This ring which may be the crucible inside which we’ll find the Boson of Higgs, the Particle of God?

Michael Moore, who will not renounce trying to explain to his fellow citizens just what kind of trap they’ve been ensnared into for generation? However exaggerated the tone of his moves, however outrageous his images and words can be, however mocked and ridiculed he can be by powers-that-be and “well-thinking, well-educated-and-bred” people of the good society, he will not stop. And every single person who listens, and then simply starts thinking, and asking questions, seeking answers, is a victory.

China, who will see the west destroyed before making the first concession to anything? China, who will kill a man with known mental illness simply to prove a point? China, who uses scores of millions of its own population, the migrant workers, as slaves, as cannon fodder for its blooming economy?

Black and white, light and dark. Good and evil. Contradictions. That’s who we are. That’s human. And that’s certainly undaunted. Unvanquished.

But “invictus”? Ah, no, sorry. Invictus is male, and applies to “Sol Invictus”, this celebration which Christianity parasitized, among countless others, and then claimed as its own. Male, because Sol is the sun, and the sun divinity was considered male by many civilizations. Although why that would be is beyond me, except if you take into account the design to put males in the role of dominant, radiant, strong, and the females in the opposite role. I happen to disagree. But then, I happen to be female; and born Aries, so sign of Fire and color Red. That does look like the sun, doesn’t it? And trust me, I’m female!

So, no “invictus”. But undaunted. Changing and unchanging. We are true to our nature, which is not exactly beautiful as a whole. We are who and what we are. We can only try to grow, to be better. And that hope, that attempt at greatness, well that also is undaunted.

And that, at least, is a good thing.

Happy new year 2010, and may it be wiser than the last !

Lightning isn't Zeus' Weapon Smiting down his Enemies on Earth, Really

2009-08-16T11:03:00.005+02:00

Days pass, and I grow more amazed with how the debate over health care is "growing" (or rather devolving) in the US.
Death Panels.
Tribunals which decide which old person gets care, which baby gets to live...
Obama's plan equated to placing the US under communist rule.
"Socialism" flung all around and spat out (with all the necessary dribbles of saliva and glazed over eyes) at every occasion by poor morons who don't even know what the word means.
Obama's plan equated with Nazi plans.

I don't know, I'm just floored.

Floored by the impossible naivete, the TOTAL IGNORANCE of a majority among the American people. Their gullibility for the most blatant, and outrageous lies uttered by mopstly maverick people they KNOW aren't trustworthy (Sarah Palin being number 1).

This stinks so much of unreasoned paranoia of people who cling to a romanced image of Founding Fathers who've been dust for CENTURIES now... People who think their governments is their enemy, and believe the greedy pharmaceutical and insurance industry are there to save them. People who believe their individual freedoms are better defended by private groups and assets they HAVE NO CONTROL over (and are at the mercy of) than by a government THEY ELECT.

I waver between outright stupidity, complete lack of maturity, and utter nuttiness.

People rave, foaming at the mouth, against government programs while benefiting from such programs (MEDICARE, anyone ?), without which they could just die out a nice, uncared for slow death (unless they believe private insurances would reach out to them and help them out of the natural goodness of their little hearts).

I can't help wondering at the incredibly immature prejudices displayed by a majority of American people. You'd think they're bunches of 4 years old who still believe thunder is a god's hammer falling upon the earth...

Watching all this as it enfolds from abroad, it frightens me to think that these USA would be the model of the world. With such obscurantism and ignorance ruling the day, the world wouldn't get far.

Veiled Reflections

2009-07-19T19:40:00.003+02:00

The veil/niqab controversy won't die in France. It may seem weird to countries like the US or the UK, where just about all the forms of religious extremism or communautarism are openly tolerated, and where communities live among themselves, in ghetto-like quarters where people from different cultures don't mix.Usually people from those two countries look down on what's happening in France or in latin countries with a sort of kind superiority, claiming they're more tolerant, and we're all backward, stuck-up people who won't see the error of their ways.

Still, at least here we wonder, we question. We do not automatically validate everything that gets thrown our way. We try (and often fail) to promote the mix of cultures, to ban ghetto-like suburbs or quarters (but here our nice and gentle and well-educated bourgeoisie doesn't help much). And this latest controversy concerning women (not many) who flaunt the use of the niqab (complete veil which doesn't even let you see the eyes of the person) as some twisted revendication of ethnic roots is one well worth having.

Yes, the use of the niqab in the public spaces (streets, public transports, cinemas, restaurants, cafes, etc.) must be forbidden. Yes, we should not even try to argue with all the false defenders of "freedom" (which, here, is nothing more than another word for "oppression plan deployment"), and simply fall back on the obligation for everyone to be garbed in a manner that will allow them to be identified if a police officer requests it. Still, for the sake of being clear about it, here's my view on why things such as the niqab should be forbidden in all western countries, and all countries which claim they grant women a true status of equality with men :

The niqab acts like a tool of isolation and exclusion of all "others", no matter who or what those "others" may be, no matter what their nature or gender. It's a very simple, direct and primal effect: it's visual and physical both. Anyone who passes by a person wearing the niqab (ou can't tell whether it's a man or a woman) cannot help but respond, on a reflexive level, the same way you'll stare when you notice something out of place close to you, whether you want to, or not.

Beyond the obvious denial of self wearing a niqab represents (denial of one's image to others, and thus denial of self), this garb is the perfect symbol of the denial of the feminine identity, and of the rejection of a woman as a "woman", female human being and equal (even if different) to the male human being, a.k.a. "man".

The "inner beauty" fantasy or the "beyond apparences" rationale cannot resist analysis: we're human beings. As such, we cannot help responding to all external sitmuli: we react to appearances. Our gender is part of our identity and our image. To deny that is to deny oneself or worse, it's to drape oneself in hypocrisy.

And beyond all this, the niqab is as fundamentally disturbing in a western society as a woman wearing shorts and a sleeveless blouse strolling in an Arab country would be: what isn't accepted there because it doesn't respect the country's customs has its equivalent here; and what doesn't shock there (having to adhere to the customs of the country in which you are) shouldn't shock here either (*).

When extremists from all the sides of the spectrum, the false defenders of a so-called freedom which is nothing more than a pretext to establish oppression, or those who seek after roots where they have no chance of finding them will understand this, we'll have taken a great step toward brighter days.

(*) cultural relativism has ery clear limits, which are drawn around oh-so insignificant things such as the universal declaration of human rights (which, incidentally, applies to women as well...)

Something else entirely:
A small, tiger-grey cat came to say hello in Koroni. A smile and a thought from our little one, a bit of light in the blue heavens. And memories, and feelings, and this crazy mixture of warmth, sadness and beautiful memories that nothing can shake. Our beloved little guardian still watches over us. And we remember him. We think about him. We love him.

When a Tiny Drop of Flu Eclipses the World's Misery...

2009-05-03T10:58:00.002+02:00

..You know there's something very wrong with the realm of Denmark. Not that this is new, but it's worth underlining in this case.

Day after day after day, the TV news, the newspaper headlines are all the same: the H1N1/Mexican/Swine Flu is threatening the world! SOS! The WHO is rising its danger level to 5 on a scale of 6! Wow, you'd think a tsunami is about to wipe out hundreds of thousands of people. You'd think the Spanish Flu is about to kill millions in the world like it did in the early 1900s--except of course, the Spanish Flu happened a century ago, not now.

As a matter of fact, our very modest H1N1/Mexican/Swine Flu can only boast about less than 20 deaths and some pitiful hundred sick people all over the world. And this is what has the news obsessing? This is what has the governments meeting and worrying?

Please, give me a break.

Our regular, familiar yearly flu outbreak kills tens of thousands of people every winter. It makes hundreds of people sick each winter. And we're going "global quarantine" over less than 20 deaths and some pitiful hundred sick people?

Errrm, would anyone be so kind as to reassure me and explain that we're all on Candid Camera? No? Ah, my bad.

While governments spend billions to buy anti-viral medication which may, or may not be efficient (or simply be outdated)--regardless of the costs, when they're so worried about costs for our health care systems--thus making the huge global pharmaceutical companies happy, while we're all being brainwashed by TV, newspaper, radio and all the communication means available, the world keeps sinking.

Workers keep being laid off. Rightwing governments use the global crisis to justify cutting on expenses, slicing into worker rights, and furthering their objectives to serve the wealthy and the mighty. The powers-that-be reinforce their brutal reign, the financial sharks regain their wealth, their incomes and bonuses which would allow a family to live a whole life on a single year of a Wall Street "Wizard"'s salary.

No regulation measure is decided. No list of tax evasion countries has been drawn--well, no credible one anyway, but if you want to take the insulting joke flung at the world population's face by the G20, well, you're welcome to that. In essence, the whole financial world which dumped us in this mess and is making us pay for their swindling and thieving ways is saying "go on, people, move, nothing to see here, it's business as usual. Have faith, trust us, we're taking good care of everything."

And so, all is set for a repetition of the crisis we're going through. Except of course, the next one will be way worse, as is the way of capitalism's inner workings.

But then, fortunately, we don't need to think about all those depressing things: we have an oh-my-god-wow-it's-like-a-Hollywood-thriller potential flu pandemic on our hands, and the media won't let us forget about it.

I feel so much safer.

Meanwhile, in the World…

2009-04-19T10:52:00.001+02:00

Very precise memos on US torture^H^H^H^H^H^H^H excuse me, fine interrogation techniques were released to the public by the Obama Administration. A stunning example of exquisite detail, they explain how, when, where how long (plus all the questions you could ever imagine--some which you would never think of) you should apply those fine torture^H^H^H^H^H^H^H interrogation methods on the prisoners.

As in the famous experiment on submission to authority and estrangement from responsibility and accountability demonstrated, these memos were designed to reassure the tormentors that what they were doing was sanctioned by a higher power. That they were on the side of good, that it was all right. Well, I’ve got news for you, ladies and gentlemen of the US torture battalion: torturers are evil. No matter where, when, how or why, torture is evil. And you who have willingly and knowingly tormented other human beings aren’t heroes. You’re not good citizens. You’re not faithful servants of your country. You defiled its name, you shamed it in an irremediable fashion.

And you must be brought to justice. You must face those you harmed so grievously, those you humiliated, those fellow human beings you reduced to a status far below that of animals.

The economical and financial crisis is going well, thank you very much. Lay-offs are growing exponentially. In Europe, big company CEOs are advancing their agendas to cut down on worker and social rights. Those nice CEOs and their financial tycoon masters cannot give enough thanks for the opportunities this crisis has offered them to reach goals which would otherwise have remained out of their reach. Strangled workers and unions are backed to the wall by powers-that-be who have no morals, no ethics, and for whom balance means being lords over hordes of slaves they can hire, lay off and treat however they want to, because they know what’s best [for them and the stakeholders].

The grand promises of change, of a revolution in the way things are “managed” in the global economy, the promises of regulation, control and sanction that will ensure that such a crisis never happens again…well, they’re here somewhere, I’m sure. There, in the vacuum of space, yeah. In the nothingness of the interstellar void, where all lies and false promises end up. It was to be expected: the powers do not want to be limited. They do not want to face those they’ve harmed, are harming and will continue harming for the sole benefit of less than 5% of the global population, while telling u s that this society we live in, this society they forged, is freedom’s realm—theirs, not ours.

Liars, all of them: Barack Obama, Nicolas Sarkozy, Angela Merkel, Gordon Brown, Hu Jin Tao, Manuel Barroso, Silvio Berlusconi—the list is long. They told us they would change it, and make it better. Make it safer. They said they’d give us back the world the finance tycoons snatched from us. They lied. The one power that would represent us, the State, the union of all States in the world, is a myth, and the men at the wheels are all sold to the powers of finance and international corporations.

In the shadows of the UN building, great enlightened minds of the West are conspiring with the forces of obscurantism to reinstate the crime of blasphemy. They are gathering forces to send us back to the dark ages of the world, when dissent was whipped back with the words of a god or other. Religion, the cancer of civilization and freedom, the form of authority that would dictate every aspect of a person’s life, claiming that some higher power(s) wrote down all those laws, is tiptoeing its way back into a position to dictate what our lives should be. I have nothing against people who choose freely to adopt some rules or others (as long as they don’t impose them on others, be they of their own family), but I draw the line when those people would have me follow their philosophy and laws.

When will religions learn to mind their own business and stay out of ours?

I’ll take care of my soul myself, thank you very much (if I have one, that remains to be scientifically proven).

I don’t believe in any god, goddess, or otherworldly entity. In fact, I believe in one thing: I don’t know what’s out there. Get it through your heads that blasphemy makes no sense when you try to apply it blindly. How can a person who’s not of faith X commit a blasphemy since s/he doesn’t believe in that faith? There can be no general blasphemy crime, because that would mean that the right to not believe, the right to doubt, would no longer exist. You would institute a dictatorship of belief, where you’d go back to burning, torturing, drowning (not necessarily in that order, of course) all those who dare affirm that they bow to nobody, be they mortal, or otherwise.

There, the cat’s out of the bag. Religion is submission to a higher order of things. What it cannot abide is rebellion, doubts, questions. Well, I’ve got news for you, mullahs, priests and all your ilk: bow down all you want. Those of us who refuse to will keep on refusing to amend the errors of our ways.

We won’t bow down. Ever.

Now, get over it, tend to your flocks, and leave us and this world the fuck alone!

And then, last but not least, I have set flowers on a small tombstone in the back of my garden. Time passes, but the feeling of loss lingers. Sometimes it’s so acute it hurts and brings tears to my eyes. I guess it’s the price you pay when you lose one that you loved and love still. In spite of the pain, I’m glad for it. And memories are full of smiles and happy moments.

So here, some thoughts to hover in the limbo of cyberspace. Memories. May they spark light where the sky is grey.

Good Journey

2009-01-29T22:42:00.003+01:00

Today your soul was lifted up and drawn by the rising sun.
A gentle, kind spirit. A little furry soul.
You’re gone.
During eighteen years we've shared a path, a house, a garden...
and the same spot on the sofa !
Oh, so precious tidbits of time and companionship.
Of joy.
I've loved you so.
I love you so.
However the Wheel has turned, it can only have turned in a good direction.
Sending you on your journey onward.
I grieve, even though I know it was time.
Even though I know you lived a good, long life.
Perhaps it is selfish of me.
No, it probably is.
You brought us all so much happiness.
Thank you.
My little one.
I love you, and so I could let you go.
It hurts, but it will get better.
I will remember you, so full of life and games.
So agile.
The terror of mice.
Climbing up trees.
Stealing chicken and turkey meaty bones you enjoyed eating under the table.
Lover of sardines and rabbit.
Talkative and so good at making yourself understood.
Your eyes sparkling with life.
Stealing up to the first floor of the house, which you knew you weren’t supposed to do.
Following us down the cellar because we weren’t quick enough to get your meal.
The long cat, stretching from floor to worktop in the kitchen.
Chasing after me in the garden for play.
Galloping and zooming past me before climbing up the pine trees and staring at me, your wide round eyes shining with mischief.
Waiting for me to scare your enemies away.
Always there.
Always close.
Your fur softer than a hatchling’s feathers.
A myriad memories hover in the air.
And them, I will not let go.
You’re here, woven to my heart.
Sleep well.
Rest before embarking on the new road waiting for you.
Good journey, my beloved Socrate.
My little one.
Good journey.
I love you.

Death reaps the beauty of the world
Bundles old crops to hasten new
Be still heart, hold peace.
Growing is better than decay.
I hear the blade which severs life from life.
Be still peace, hold heart.
Death is passing on,
The making way of life and time for life.
Hate dying and killing, not death.
Be still, heart, make no expostulation.
Hold peace, and grief, and be still.
(Poem by Stephen Donaldson - The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant)

On the Brink

2008-12-31T22:15:00.004+01:00

December 31st, 2008.

We stand on the brink of 2009.

We stand on the brink of a bloody, all-out war between the Palestinians and Israel, all because of madmen in frantic search of eternal power. The Hamas, murderers, cowards. Terrorists. Betrayers of hope. The Israeli government, intent in redefining the meaning of the word “strength”, and of reawakening the fear of its army throughout the Arab world, in a hopeless quest for popularity before the Israeli people go to the polls. Death, pain, loss and despair, all for the sake of people greedy for power, people lost in petty schemes to win popular support. All for the sake of a lame-duck US administration who’s all too happy to leave this poisoned gift to the successor to the worst president the US has ever had in all its (short) history.

We stand on the brink of the total annihilation of an economical system that has caused poverty, slavery, brainwashing of billions of people into nice, good and obedient little consumers/slaves. A system which believed itself to be eternal after the fall of the Berlin Wall, but which has shown that the only thing it’s capable of is to devour itself. To trigger despair, poverty, loss of ideals and values, to replace it with the one true god it recognizes: money. A system which, after using as slaves all the people of the underdeveloped countries, is now ready to gobble us all up. If we don’t change. If we pass out on this unique opportunity to seize matters in our own hands. If we pass out on this chance to regain control. We, the people. The States. We should seize control of companies, of banks, through public stakeholders. We should be the ones dictating the policies of the multinational corporations. We should be the ones deciding where the profits go: to the States so they can pay our pensions and our social security, our roads, our trains, our schools…not to the stakeholders.

We stand on the brink of a disaster greater than any we have ever known, for if our governments do not heed the warnings we have been given since September, if we do not change the system that dictates how our lives are led, and fast, we will see it wobble through for a year or two. And then it will crumble. And it will take us along with it in its fall.

We stand on the brink of chaos in countries we sent troops in, claiming we’d bring them our enlightened vision of the world. Afghanistan is now worse than it has ever been, all because we support a corrupt government which behaves worse than the Talibans ever did, thus causing the people to side with terrorists, and causing people to regret the cruel rule of those who were nothing more than madmen.

And then, we stand on the brink of hope.

We stand on the brink of change.

In all the dreary news of 2008, there was one which shed light all over the world. One which lifted billions of hearts, and got people to believe in a better tomorrow.

On January 20th, Barack Obama will step into the White House. On his shoulders will rest the hope of a world. The hope of billions of people who need the change he has defended throughout the US presidential campaign. We need hope. We need change. We need someone to steer the way, to lead in another direction. We need someone who will dare turn his back on the old liberalism, on the financial capitalism. We need someone who will dare put us, the people, the States, back in our proper place: center seat, with the controls in hands.

Because of the vote on November 4th, 2008, hope was kindled. And for this, I will forever be grateful.

We stand on the brink.

Mr. Obama, it’s up to you to see to it that we do not fall.

I wish you all the luck in the world.

I wish us all you’ll have the guts and the strength of will and vision to get us through.

Welcome, 2009, welcome, January 20th.

We await you with great hopes and expectations!

The Gall of the Failed Ones

2008-11-02T14:38:00.001+01:00

Everywhere it's the same. Everywhere you hear the same: financial capitalism has gone bankrupt. It has twisted our lives, it has betrayed us, it has stolen our wealth and turned it into void. If you pushed some people a bit, they would probably tell you that it eats children and is directly responsible for the eradication of dinosaurs.

Not that I disagree with some of the things that are being said out there, but who's saying that? Well, look around:

Darling W, Gordon Brown, Nicolas Sarkozy...

All these men are the heroes and defenders of the same financial capitalism that has now showed us all it's a failure, and is threatening to take us with it down the drain. They all supported it, they all supported deregulation, and they all fought with everything they had anyone who dared think differently, and anyone who tried to warn of the danger we're now all too much aware of.

And beyond the grand speeches where W, Sarko or Brown tell us that they're going to control the banks, and restore regulation, save us all from the cataclysm, what do their actions tell us? Well, they tell us the truth that's hidden behind their oh so flamboyant words.

Sarko hasn't moved an inch from his positions. Jobless people will still be ousted from the protection system, the rich will still be exonrerated from taxes while the middle class continues to be the one that pays its taxes. The CEOs will regulate their own golden parachutes, there will be no law forbidding them.

In Belgium, the powerful CEOs corporation, the FEB, has the gall to threaten all the workers and the government: if there's a law regulating golden parachutes, then there will have to be deep cuts in the notices the employees have a right to when they're fired.

The speakers for all the rightwing parties, whose policies have always supported financial capitalism, now spew out words that belong to the left. They remember the name of Keynes, they remember concepts like using the state's power to help maintain the economy. They turn their back on rightwing neoliberal politics, they embrace policies they abhor, policies they insulted and spat upon yesterday without the smallest qualm. Without ever admitting that they were mistaken, that they misled people all these years. They blissfully turn coat in their speeches, making it seem they always thought that way, making it look like they're just doing what they have to do, oblivious to lies, coherence and decency.

And what's worth is: behind the strong words, the actions prove that nothing has changed: in France, huge sums of money have been poured into the banks (which is mandatory because we all stand on the other end of that line and if banks sink, we sink along with them, faster and harder) without insuring ANY MEANS OF CONTROL over the banks' actions and strategies--other than imprecations and other empty speeches delivered by the fake commander in chief, aka Nicolas "Napoleon" Sarkozy.

While the stocks were soaring, spearing through the sky, all the authorities kept howling for the incomes not to be raised, because nothing could get in the way of economic growth. Salaries couldn't be raised, it'd be impairing the companies, and hindering the system. People could simply be indebted, and it'd all turn out well, they'd be able to buy hordes of things they had no means of paying for, and everyone would be happy. We know where that particular idea led us. Now that everything is going bad, and the incomes haven't been properly raised offr years, now that the workers' unions demand this more than earned raise, the same authorites who keep barking that everything must be done to help people regain their trust in the systme and being once again able to buy stuff, well the same authorities say "ooooh, noooo, no raises, please, no hindering the poor system".

Conclusion: the CEOs keep their golden parachutes, the rich keep their tax cuts and other fiscal tricks to evade tax, the banks get the states' money (our money) without being controlled by the states who lent them the money, the politicians shoo the workers' union away for being baaaaaad people who don't understand how hard it is. Laws and decrees are passed to insure that all the social net dispositions are as hard to obtain as possible, and that people can be written off as soon as possible. And of course, we employees...

Well, we employees are screwed, as usual.

The powers-that-be keep on wanting to push the system that's eating our lives away.

And in the meantime, whenever they can spit on the left, they do. They claim the left's policies are old, obsolete, and lead nowhere.

But where have the right's, the neoliberal policies led us?

Down into the abyss.

So please, give me a break, people. You neoliberals are failures. Making riches out of the poverty of people, allowing them to get more and more indebted to compensate for their lack of income and their lack of social rights as goes the great swindling used in the US of A, is plain and simple suicide.

We know this now.

We know rightwing neoliberal policies are garbage.

So stop trying to mask your worthlessness by spitting on others. Your time is now past. It's time for a change.

I can only hope people remember that, wherever they are, and whenever they cast a vote.

Sleep in Light, Saints of Athena

2008-08-15T18:47:00.000+02:00

Today is August 15th, 2008. If you care enough to remember about the schedules of the Elysion-Hen release, then you know that the last two OVAs have been aired on Skyperfect TV in Japan. The end of Saint Seiya has been reached. Now that it's all over, I find myself haunted by a question that refuses to let me be.

How do you say good bye?

I don’t know about you, but I’ve never been able to answer that question in a manner that satisfied me. It’s hard to say good bye. It hurts, even more so when you say good bye to people you love, and no matter that they may be fictional characters. Endings are things full of a bitter-sweet sensation, a feeling that engulfs you and overwhelms you in a heartbeat.

So it has been for me on numerous occasions, and so it was once again, when I watched the sixth and last episode of Saint Seiya, Elysion-hen. The last episode of The Hades Chapter. The last page of Saint Seiya. True, the story is over, has been over for over fifteen years, when the manga ended. Still, while the anime wasn’t complete, didn’t cover the whole manga story, there remained pieces of the Saint Seiya universe to explore. There remained stories to tell, characters to depict, characters to watch while they struggled through the harsh lives destiny, or rather the whims and inspiration of an author put them through.

In the middle of the usual, virulent criticism branding these OVAs to the worst hell, claiming them to be garbage, an utter waste of time and attention, I have to once again stand apart from those who probably consider themselves better able to judge, more connoisseurs than I. I know, my opinion isn't the fashionable one, it's a really unseemly view of those OVAs, but then I was never one for conformism. While I will readily acknowledge that the OVAs stick to the manga as close as it’s possible to do so, with very little in the way of creation, of inspiration to add threads where they were lacking—the manga is extremely frustrating in the way it deals with Hypnos and Thanatos, and in the way it completely forgets about the whole relationship between Hades and Shun once the Andromeda Saint wins free of the god of death’s soul—it doesn’t turn these OVAs into a complete and utter waste.

Those who claim it’s so prove their own words wrong, as they’re always the first to jump on the first dirty quality release to hit the web, usually through yucky videos on youtube. Again, they prove themselves wrong when they explain that they’ll forget about the OVAs and go back to the manga, which they’ll reread with pleasure. That’s bullshit. The manga holds all the flaws they hate in the OVAs. The OVAs are so faithful to it that everything these people loathe is there, comes from there in the first place.

And anyway, there are beautiful moments in these OVAs. Scenes that are precious, shining jewels, however short. Like the one depicting Ikki’s Houyoku Tenshou, or the one showing his despair at being unable to deploy all his strength, bereft of a Cloth as he is, next to the urn imprisoning the dying Athena.

Seiya’s death? Why, yes, it’s short. It’s brutal. It doesn’t linger, it doesn’t leave time for anguished and despaired farewells. It strikes when you don’t expect it. It strikes when you’re not watching. You focus on Hades sprawled against the tower of his tomb, and when you realize something’s terribly wrong and refocus on the Pegasus Saint, it’s too late. His heart pierced through by Hades’ sword, every heartbeat bleeds his life away, and it’s already almost completely gone. Seiya’s death isn’t Shion’s. It doesn’t linger. It can’t linger. It’s brutal, harsh and unfair, as death in combat is. It’s over and done before you can really feel it and dwell on it. And it’s irrevocable. And the depiction made of it is a good one, it’s realistic, and correct. That’s one thing nobody who knows the tiniest bit about writing can’t deny.

As to Hades himself, well there’s no question about it. The god of Death is magnificent. The eerie look in his eyes, the alienness, detachment and sadness lighting his gaze are haunting. You watch this strange, cruel and yet sorrowful god, this merciless figure, and you wonder: what made him so? What pushed him to the course of action he has chosen? What happened in the past, in the times when the gods and goddesses freely walked the Earth, shook mountains and sent oceans raging with each step? (*)

And then there’s the confrontation between Hades and Athena. At last, the two divinities face each other in battle. Yes, it lacks animation. Yes, it’s too short. But the art, the auras rising from the two are splendid. There may not be enough brutality and violence, the slipping of Athena’s helmet may be a bit stupid (as stupid as in the manga, mind you), but there is something undeniably noble and unearthly coming from the two divinities. That isn’t a failure. The art of Athena’s Cloth, the way it’s worn by Saori Kido are unmistakable winners in my eyes. There’s only one occasion when she has been drawn and made so regal: in the Tenkai-Hen movie.

Contrary to the claims of the OVAs being completely unable to show anything other than what’s been drawn in the manga, we also see nice shots of Earth, and a reminder of those who have a personal interest in the war’s issue. The Sanctuary and Marin, Shaina and Seika, Miho in Japan and Shunrei in China. Those are in the manga, but what’s not and is being offered is the short scene with Julian Solo/Poseidon and Sorento. Waiting at the edge of the cliffs of Cape Sounio, the God of the Oceans and the human being he shares a soul with watch, wait, guarded by his closest friend and servant. In the falling darkness, despair grips the heart of Sorento. Uncertainty…

As to the rest of the critics, they follow the usual complains of lack of animation and fluidity. As stated before, nobody in their right mind would have expected that to change. The lack of a true staffing for the later chapters of the Hades were known. The lack of budget as well. There was no reason for a miracle to happen in the last two episodes. But besides that, what those who have retained the magic of Saint Seiya in their hearts were given the beautiful art of Michi Himeno and Kyoko Chino, and the inspired music of Seiji Yokoyama. We were given a long awaited closure. We were given the occasion to say goodbye to characters, to a universe which has been with us for more than twenty years.

A universe and characters I have no intention of ever letting go.

And so, contrary to many people who now watch Saint Seiya with detachment, with a critical and analytic eye, and find in the series flaws that revolt them, contrary to people who have grown up and grown out of the magic, I am happy to report that I am still as firmly hooked today as I was on the first day when I switched channels and stumbled on the combat between Shun and Jabu in the Galaxian Wars. My heart has been captured by that series ever since that day, and it’s never going to change. It lives on, its characters live on.

It may be that Saint Seiya is some strange kind of a youth fountain, because I’m still the adolescent I was when I first discovered it. The child in my soul is still here, and it’s a good thing. What’s another good thing, is that this child inside me, this part of me is still as stubborn and mean-tempered as it was. So I’m finding that my answer to the question I asked at the beginning of this page is very simple:

You don’t.

You don’t say goodbye.

You keep on cherishing the characters and the universe.

In spite of all the true flaws, you say thank you to all those who made the Hades possible. You say thank you to Shigeyasu Yamauchi for making the Sanctuary chapter the jewel that it is. You say thank you to all the staff that remained after Masami Kurumada drank too much beer and decided to crack down on creativity and inspiration to add new things and complete the holes the mangaka had left in his storyline.

You say thank you to Shingo Araki, Michi Himeno and Kyoko Chino for sticking with Saint Seiya to the end, in spite of weariness, exhaustion, lack of staffing, of means, of time, and of acknowledgment. You say thank you to Seiji Yokoyama for hauntingly beautiful and inspiring music that are at one with the universe they were created for.

You watch the realm of Hades crumble into dust.

You watch the Saints of Athena, battered and hurt, grieving, stumble down the stairs leading away from Hades’ temple, lost in an ocean of desolation. And while you wonder whether they’re also going to die here, to forever lie in the dust, in a realm of darkness, forgotten and alone, you watch the goddess Athena come behind them, and you watch the light radiate from her to enfold them all.

In the sky, the sun shines again over the world.

Over the Sanctuary.

Over Cape Sounio.

And the gods aren’t gone.

The magic isn’t done. It’s not dried up.

It’s there.

It’s here.

With us, inside our hearts, if only we’ll acknowledge it and believe in it.

I do.

Saint Seiya, I love you.

As usual, you can find this review with beautiful images from the episodes on my web home, here.

(*) After thinking long and hard about that, and trying to find coherence, I did come up with an answer. Read Thieves of Light, and tell me what you think, if you manage to read it to its end.

Spin, Tragedy, Spin !

2008-08-10T12:03:00.003+02:00

As the whole world now knows, there’s a state of war between Georgia and the Russian Federation. The Bush Administration, unsurprisingly, is calling upon Russia to stop its unwarranted, savage aggression of a sovereign country. And of course, most of the western capitals are following suit. Of course.

The Big Bad Russian Bear is on a rampage. What are free, democratic and civilized countries to do, but rally to the defense of the poor, gentle David being trampled under evil Goliath’s mighty foot?

What else can we do, when evil Russian Commies^H^H^H^H^H^H ooops, erm, bad guys are threatening the free world? What, I ask you? Parallels with the cold war are drawn, with the invasion of Czechoslovakia…a general recasting of the cold war and its “Communist menace upon the free world”(*) is being re-enacted before our eyes, courtesy of the TV networks, kindly fed by governmental agencies.

One thing is true in all this: there’s a war going on there, and as in all wars, those who’re paying the price are the innocent, the civilians, played as pawns on the chessboards by people who have no soul, no heart, and no dignity. No honor.

As for the rest…if you read the newspapers, if you listen for dissonant voices, you’ll get quite another story. And if you strain your memory, and focus on remembering news that are now around 4 years old, you’ll start wondering.

So, let’s go back 4 years. In Georgia, the elections renew the presidential mandate of Mr. Saakashvili. However, his election was a very close thing, instead of the plebiscite he’d been hoping for. Who’s Mr. Saakashvili? Well, again, focus on the past, and you’ll remember this man came straight from the US, so closely intertwined with the US interests that there was no hiding he was a US creature. He was first elected because people believed his American connections would help rebuild their country, depleted by generations of USSR rule. But this didn’t happen. Saakashvili used his contacts and connections to get American and Israeli instructors for his military…oh, and weapons and equipment as well, of course.

In the meantime, as these things go, and went in the Balkans, regions of Georgia where a majority of Russian population lived started wanting out of Georgia, for many reasons: growing intolerance toward them, toward their language, etc. Obviously, there’s oil in there somewhere as well. If there wasn’t, you’d never have had the US send military instructors and waste time on such a “backwater” place as Georgia. So, Abkhazia and South Ossetia severed themselves from Georgia. South Ossetia declared independence. There was strife, there were battles. The UNO settled the matter, and Russian peace soldiers were sent to the South Ossetia region under UNO mandate.

Time passed. The promises of riches of Mr. Saakashvili didn’t happen. People started grumbling, discontent flared. To be re-elected in 2004, Mr. Saakashvili promised he’d retake Abkhazia and South Ossetia. He played on nationalism. And he won. Narrowly. We were now almost to the end of his presidential term. None of the promises of regaining lost territory had been kept. People’s discontent caused this “democratic leader” to start taking authoritarian measures, to turn democratic Georgia into an autocratic state. Still, it wasn’t enough to crack down on freedom there. Promises had to be kept, at least one of them. Abkhazia was too difficult to retake. South Ossetia, on the other hand….

And then came the Olympics, and the opening ceremony. And the world’s eyes turned toward China. And Mr. Saakashvili decided to play his card: he sent his army to retake South Ossetia. His hope was that the world’s attention being focused elsewhere, Vladimir Putin being in Beijing, by the time Russia would react, it would be too late: he’d have retaken enough of the South Ossetia region to force negotiations, truce, and to haggle his way into regaining South Ossetia as a whole.

But there were two mistakes in Mr. Saakashvili’s plan (never mind that it would imply the deaths of innocent civilians, after all, martyrs are good things for a cause):

he underestimated Russia’s capacity to react quickly, and the fact that even though Putin was in Beijing, his right arm was in Moscow.
Mr. Saakashvili’s army was stupid enough to kill Russian peace soldiers, there under a UNO mandate, thus forcing the hand of Russia. Even if Russia had wished to delay its reaction, the death of its soldiers forced it to react at once as it has done.

And so here we are. We’re watching a war unfold. We’re watching innocent being murdered, because a man, pawn of the US and “champion of democracy”, is a dictator like all the others, and will not relinquish power. Because his own people are nothing but chess pieces, because Mr. Saakashvili knew that once he started the mess, the bloodshed in South Ossetia, all his western allies would rally, the US first and foremost among them, to call off the Big Bad Russian Bear. There’s too much at stake:

appearances, first. After all, Mr. Saakashvili is the US champion and a very tainted flag of democracy (but it doesn’t matter, as long as the American citizens remain ignorant of the truth of what’s happening in South Ossetia).
oil, second. Because the Caspian sea is to Georgia’s East, while the Black sea is to Georgia’s West. And it’s a crucial path to get oil from the Caspian sea to the Mediterranean sea and the West, through the Black sea. A path that avoids Russia.

There, now you have the whole picture. People are dying, innocent people, for the power of a dictator hiding between a veneer of democracy that’s so ripped and stained everyone can see through it, and also for oil. And Mr. Saakashvili and his goons started it, Russia continued it. And people are dying. As always, the innocent pay the price for war. As always, none of the two sides are innocent. There’s no black and white. Everyone is at fault.

And now that a power-hungry autocrat named Saakashvili has foolishly rattled the Big Bad Russian Bear, and given a it the perfect pretext to come playing in Georgia, where will it stop? Where will Russia stop, now that it's been invited in to play, and that it's standing inches away from gaining not only South Ossetia but also Abkhazia? and what if Ukraine starts wanting to play as well, and starts rattling the Big Bad Bear some more by threatening to prevent the return of its warships to Sebastopol? Where does it stop, Mr. Saakashvili? Where? When? How many deaths for your ambition? It's oh, so very nice to shout that you're ready to negotiate a cease-fire, and that your troops are withdrawing out of Ossetia. It's too late. And you knew it would be. You knew, and yet you gambled. You played with your pawns, with people's lives. And you might as well have killed them all yourself. And all that happens from now on, all the pain, all the damage, all the sorrow, all that will be on your bill, Mr. Saakashvili. I hope you'll be ready when they come to collect.

But then, maybe this isn’t important. After all, the Olympics have started, and what matters is the number of gold medals we get, right? Not the dead. Not the maimed. Not the raped. Not the freedom of Chinese people. Not the respect of Chinese people who were put to work to build the Olympics facilities for wages so low you wouldn’t live a day off them, and then chased away because they’d stain the games if the tourists or the athletes, or the world laid eyes upon them. The Earth’s damned. We had them in the 19th century. China has them now, and it keeps them fettered, in close control. After all, they’re the key of its economic miracle. Slaves, serfs, are the key of capitalism’ success. But then, there’s nothing new here.

Good night, and good luck.

(*) when you compare the harm, grief, sorrow, deaths caused by the “Communist menace” and those caused by the overwhelming, crushing rise of unfettered capitalism and neo-liberalism, I find myself hard put to get a winner in terms of damage, pain and evil. One (the “Communist” thingy) was openly dictatorial, sent its people to gulags and tortured or killed them if they didn’t comply. The other (capitalism) has selected a few nations to be on top, happy, free and rich thanks to the sweat, blood, pain and death of billions of other people. These other people aren’t deported to gulags. They’re starved in their own countryside, until they’re forced to march to where factories are, than forced to accept labor conditions only slaves and serfs of the middle-ages knew. Those other people die before they reach retirement (and anyway there’s no pension for them, no doctors, no health care, nothing). Their kids are put to work as well, be it in factories or brothels. And we prosper. So, really, when comparing, I don’t know which is worse between the two evils that are Communist dictatorships and triumphant capitalism—wait, no I think I know what’s worse: a power that combines both.

That’s China.

The Brave March Toward Defeat

2008-06-29T10:31:00.000+02:00

The endless Democrat Primary seems to have found a way out of its dire predicament. Hillary Clinton conceded the victory to Barack Obama, and called her supporters to now cheer for the party’s nominee. You would think that this would herald a strong, meaningful campaign stressing out the many differences between Republicans and Democrats, underlining the differences in ideas, ideals, principles and values between the two parties. After all, even though on economical, foreign policy and many other grounds, the two parties are just about the same from my European point of view, there are true differences, essential differences when you start tackling societal issues: abortion, modernity, death penalty, the right to privacy, etc.

So, there I was, waiting for this strong campaign to start off, for the Democrats to start marching toward the final goal of a victory in November.

Instead, I found them and all the “progressive” pundits, editorialists and political analysts labeled as close to the Democrats jovially, bravely, happily marching down the road to certain defeat.

Obama-addicts like Maureen Dowd clang to their snubbing and hissing against Hillary Clinton, finding fault with just about anything she might or might not do (how ungraceful of her to be nice while conceding the victory to Obama, if only she had acted like a good, stereotype shrew…). Others continued praising their “leader maximo”, apparently so entranced as not to see where this is all heading, even though each day brings its newest Obama flip-flop.

Of course, politics is not a game for idealists. Ideals are there, but they are painstakingly hidden behind shields, armors and high walls, because what’s on the front lines is realism, a complete absence of decency and qualms when contemplating slander, lies or anything dirty that would help boost one’s chances for a final victory. Still, there’s looking the other way while your hero or his aides deftly plunge a dagger between two of your enemy’s ribs, piercing through the heart, and then there’s looking the other way and allowing your champion to skewer his own feet with his blade, repeatedly.

And I regret to say, that by now Barack Obama has so completely managed to skewer his own feet, that there’s almost no way he can heal in time for the final race in November.

Do you want a catalog of those jarring mistakes? Okay, let’s see:

Protesting the supreme court’s decision concerning the non-application of the death penalty to child rapists;
the U-turn concerning his refusal to accept public financing and the rules that go with it, the safeguards that guarantee you won’t be the puppet of all the lobbyists surrounding you (but then facts have already demonstrated that the self-proclaimed Obama the independent caters to his buyers, the same as everyone);
applauding the supreme court’s decision to make the weapons’ ban on DC unconstitutional (if you ask me, only people lost in a past of cowboys and barbarians cling to an amendment allowing them to have weapons, after all in a civilized society you don’t make your own justice, you let the institutions do that, but that’s another debate);
getting ready to make another U-turn in an essential vote in the Senate, to find favor with the breaches of people’s privacy and supporting the telephone eavesdropping done by the Bush Administration;
flipping once again on his Iraq stance.

There are others, but I won’t bore you with them. There’s plenty enough here to get the idea.

Looking at that catalog of flip-flops, what kind of feeling do you get, other than the one that you can’t trust anything that said by this candidate who boasted that he’d do politics otherwise and would embody “change”?

Well, you get the feeling that he caters so much to the conservative base, to the Republicans, that you might as well go for the real thing and vote for Mc Cain.

One lesson we have learnt in Europe, Mr. Obama: when having to choose between an ersatz and the real thing, voters will go for the real thing.

Another lesson we are learning, is that people turn away from politics and politicians because those who come before them to get their vote no longer dare be clear about what they stand for, about the differences they have with their rivals, about real differences in vision, and what they have to offer. Politicians, and the whole machinery behind them are so obsessed with politically correct, getting the other side's people to flip over, that they will say anything, betray their own ideals, flip over and over again, deny the heart of their political engagement, in a stupid, doomed to fail hunt for the other side's voters. And in doing so, they completely forget about their own side, they fling the people who made their own roots to the wind.

Because there is no longer a clear line dividing the opponents, because there is no longer a clear difference of vision, of propositions, people shrug and go the other way instead of going to the polls and casting their vote.

Because there is almost no courage left in politics and politicians, because they cater to anything and anyone regardless of ideals and principles, people turn away from them. Because the one supposed to be the flag of your party, the embodiment of your ideas and your views on the world ignores you and is obsessed with winning some of the other side over, no matter what he has to say or do to reach that ludicrous goal, you turn away from him. Because you watch your enemy try to cajole you into voting for him, running behind your own candidate on issues, you watch him do so and laugh--and of course you won't change your vote.

Welcome on the road toward defeat, Mr Obama. You're well on your way there, and from everything I've read, heard and seen, you fully deserve what's coming to you.

If this didn't mean another Republican in the White House in November, I'd be rolling on the floor laughing.

Saint Seiya - Elysion Hen: Falling Toward Apotheosis

2008-05-12T17:38:00.001+02:00

Today is May 12th, 2008. At the sluggish rate of two episodes every two months, the OVAs of Saint Seiya – The Hades, Elysion Hen are coming out in Japan. In fact, the first two episodes were released around the beginning of March, two months ago.

If you can count on your fingers, you already have guessed that this post is being written more or less at the time when episode 3 and 4 are released. Why the wait? Why not jump on episode 1 and 2 and post some overenthusiastic, fangirl-ish review the way I almost always do? Well, I don’t know, really. But I can venture educated guesses, if you’re curious: the first two OVAs adapt parts of the manga I’m not exactly keenly interested in. Oh, and the Toei didn’t find it in its greedy oversized banking account even if a tiny, tiny little bit of money to reinforce the staff, give a bit more budget so that there can be actual animation in these episodes. Dynamism, flow, action. Rhythm.

Ah well, so much for miracles. The old, white-bearded guy above mustn’t be listening. Either that, or he’s on strike again, unless of course he never existed outside of the collective imagination of the believers.

So, if this is such a disappointment and all, why this message? Well, because it’s not “such a disappointment and all”. Despite numerous awful reviews, raving, frothing at the mouth bashing, Saint Seiya is still there. When I got the news that the HQ Raws were out and that my partner had the translation ready for re-reading and adaptation, I sighed, and told myself, “all right, I’ve been doing this since the Meikai-hen’s first episode, I’ll see it through to its end.” Then I sat down and watched episodes 3 and 4.

And I loved them.

The animation is as poor as before. The direction lacks any kind of creativity, the anime is full of cheap effects, glaringly obvious tricks used to try and mask the fact that there is no animation at all. And the good news is: it doesn’t matter. It’s Saint Seiya. Shingo Araki and Michi Himeno are there. The fantastic music pieces of Seiji Yokohama are there, and the selection made by the staff is masterful. The fixed plans are gorgeous beyond words. A simple static scene of Seika sitting in the little store of Rodorio, all sepia-colored, is enough to set the atmosphere.

The colors of the Earth, the grey of stones and temples, the steel blue of the sea above Cape Sounio as Julian Solo touches souls with Poseidon once more, the look in Sorento’s eyes when he gives one last look back before following his friend and liege lord back to the mundane world… The slowly darkening day as the eclipse nears completion. The fields of flowers strewing Elysion’s plains, the fragile blades of grass crushed under the sprawled bodies of the fallen Bronze Saints. The glint in Thanatos’ eyes, and the little twist in his ever-present sneer. And an echo, from beyond the ends of the world.

A note of music, a call. The yearning cry of the Gold Cloths, trapped on the other side of the abyss setting Elysion apart from all the worlds. The touch of a soul, the willing surrender of self of Julian Solo, a few precious heartbeats which are enough to send a last, desperate gift to those who are lost at the far end of the Lethe river.

Don’t expect a magnificent animation when the gold Cloths come, you won’t get it. But what you’ll get, is a few precious moments, absent from the manga: just the time for the Bronze boys to unleash an attack, supported by the Gold Cloths they wear. And that, oh, that, is animated. And it’s a Shun fangirl’s dream come true!

The story follows the manga as closely as it has since the Meikai-hen’s first episode. There is no further surprise, but still, somehow the magic operates. The spell envelops those who watch, and who have held on to what they felt, all those years ago, when they discovered what remains to them the most fantastic series ever made. I do not claim any kind of objectivity. I do not claim any kind of knowledge or expertise allowing me to pass judgment, or deliver a verdict on what I saw. On the opposite. I am a fangirl, I’ve been for the past 20 years. And don’t worry, I manage.

For a moment, I wondered whether I shouldn’t rather be ranting and spitting on the episodes I saw. Then, the moment passed. I’ve never watched Saint Seiya for the quality of the animation, for the direction, or for the prowess of the writing. When those assets were there, as they were in the Hades – Sanctuary chapter, or in the Tenkai-hen movie, I embraced them as a bonus that added even more joy to the viewing experience, no more. No less.

This is Saint Seiya.

I love this title, without condition, without reservation. I enjoy every bit of it. My heart beats in synch with the music. I shiver. I feel moisture in my eyes. Echoes of the melodies haunt my mind. A bittersweet feeling rises within me, and sweeps everything else aside. A strange, eerie time machine that does the trick every time, and brings me back 20 years. Saint Seiya, I love you, indeed. In spite of flaws, of poor animation, of poor direction, of lack of creativity. In spite of everything.

I watch those episodes, and fling my rational self to the side. Fling the critics my brain comes up with aside. I don’t give a damn about all that. I keep on loving this series, against gales and harsh tides, against all the learned opinions that tell me I should avert my eyes. I really, really don’t give a damn. And you know what?

I find my continued enthusiasm, my stubborn love for this series to be a very reassuring thing.

Two episodes left, and then it will all be done. But one thing is for sure: ending or not, I will not say goodbye to all those fantastic characters or to that universe. They’re in my heart, in my soul. In my dreams. And they’re not leaving.

Ever.

You can find this review, with some very nice pics taken from episodes 3 and 4 in my web home's Saint Seiya section : here.

The Old General, the Bitchy Witch and the Dazzling Idol

2008-03-28T11:07:00.001+01:00

It seems that the time for "foreclosure", announcements of victory and calls for withdrawal has come again. In very serious and wise newspapers and elsewhere, much-listened to OP/ED pieces writers come out (yet again) to make an impassioned speech about how poor Mr Obama is attacked by bad and evil Mrs Rodham-Clinton, and how, did she have any shred of dignity and honor left, she'd just withdraw, retire in some nunnery or other and let all the Barack worshippers celebrate what often seems to amount to them as some kind of "second coming".

The most funny thing about all those pieces, is that they have nothing to support them in the way of ideas, of policies defended by either candidate. Those pieces are full of only one thing: "we love Barack, we hate Hillary the mean bitch". Those pieces simply echo the advertisement slogans of Mr Obama's campaign, which remain, to this day, just that: advertisement slogans, with little reality in them.

In the meantime, the old general strolls on, unharmed, unhampered, toward a goal he may very well reach. Of course, the fault doesn't lie solely with the Obama campaign. Theugliness is shared on both sides: Clinton and Obama really should know and do better. But in that regard, they're both in the same boat and at the same level. The only thing is that for some reason many avert their gaze when the ugliness comes from darling Barack's camp, in a fascinating display of selective vision and hypocrisy, while they pay excruciatingly close scrutiny to the smallest misstep of Hillary.

How about coming back to the basics?

How about getting back to what those people propose, and to what they're likely to do once in power to make a choice?

Have all these famous, respected and oh-so wise OP/ED pieces writers forgotten about the meaning behind the word "politics"?

Thanks to some kind god or goddess, there remains one OP/ED writer who hasn't forgotten, and it's Paul Krugman. Again, he has produced a wonderful little piece of common sense and wisdom in his OP/ED piece in today's edition of the New York Times: Loans and Leadership. Selected quotes:

(...) it’s important to take a hard look at what candidates say about policy. It’s true that past promises are no guarantee of future performance. But policy proposals offer a window into candidates’ political souls — a much better window, if you ask me, than a bunch of supposedly revealing anecdotes and out-of-context quotes.

Which brings me to the latest big debate: how should we respond to the mortgage crisis? In the last few days John McCain, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have all weighed in. And their proposals arguably say a lot about the kind of president each would be.

(...) Mr. McCain is selling the same old snake oil, claiming that deregulation and tax cuts cure all ills.

(...) Maybe the most notable contrast between Mr. McCain and Mrs. Clinton involves the problem of restructuring mortgages. Mr. McCain called for voluntary action on the part of lenders — that is, he proposed doing nothing. Mrs. Clinton wants a modern version of the Home Owners’ Loan Corporation, the New Deal institution that acquired the mortgages of people whose homes were worth less than their debts, then reduced payments to a level the homeowners could afford.

(...) I was pleased that Mr. Obama came out strongly for broader financial regulation, which might help avert future crises. But his proposals for aid to the victims of the current crisis, though significant, are less sweeping than Mrs. Clinton’s: he wants to nudge private lenders into restructuring mortgages rather than having the government simply step in and get the job done.

Mr. Obama also continues to make permanent tax cuts — middle-class tax cuts, to be sure — a centerpiece of his economic plan. It’s not clear how he would pay both for these tax cuts and for initiatives like health care reform, so his tax-cut promises raise questions about how determined he really is to pursue a strongly progressive agenda.

All in all, the candidates’ positions on the mortgage crisis tell the same tale as their positions on health care: a tale that is seriously at odds with the way they’re often portrayed.

Mr. McCain, we’re told, is a straight-talking maverick. But on domestic policy, he offers neither straight talk nor originality; instead, he panders shamelessly to right-wing ideologues.

Mrs. Clinton, we’re assured by sources right and left, tortures puppies and eats babies. But her policy proposals continue to be surprisingly bold and progressive.

Finally, Mr. Obama is widely portrayed, not least by himself, as a transformational figure who will usher in a new era. But his actual policy proposals, though liberal, tend to be cautious and relatively orthodox.

Do these policy comparisons really tell us what each candidate would be like as president? Not necessarily — but they’re the best guide we have.

Good night, and good luck.

The Exercise of Vital Powers

2008-03-09T10:59:00.001+01:00

Today is Elections day, both in France, and in Spain, and although the media have a lot to say about the French local elections, the place where all eyes should be focusing is Spain.

Why?

Because Spain has a fundamental choice to make today : either to continue toward modernism, the secularization of its extremely patriarchal society, toward social reforms aimed at improving life and welfare of everyone, or to slide back down the road of authoritarianism and Catholic dogma domination.

Contrary to the political spectrum we’re used to in France, Belgium, Germany or Holland, in Spain the right is set far, truly far to the right part of the spectrum. The specter of Franco haunts the rallies and meetings of the “People’s Party”—never has a political party so little deserved the name it’s taken for itself, but let’s not go there. Spain has never truly come to terms with the bloody dictatorship of general Franco, who was overwhelmingly supported and cheered on by the upper classes, and by the Catholic church.

The Catholic church itself has never come out of the closet with an expression of regret or apology, on the opposite. Even today, the Catholic church in Spain fights so it can continue to honor “victims of communist revolutionaries”, aka collaborators of a brutal, savage dictatorship who helped capture, detain, torture and slaughter men and women whose crime it was to dream of freedom, and of something other than the Right’s and the Church’s absolute dominion over their lives. Neither the church, nor the Right have ever done their duty of opening the historical records, and acknowledging the crimes that took place. They never condemned what happened under Franco. Worse, they hold ceremonies every year to honor the memory of a bloody tyrant on par with the worst we have known, Mussolini, Pinochet, etc.

And today, today the Catholic church and the Right see an opportunity to regain the power they lost when they tried to manipulate people and hide the truth behind the Madrid terrorist attacks. Today is mass day. The faithfuls will go to church. They will listen to their priest. And it just so happens that their priest has a message for them on this special day. A very important message that comes directly from the highest places in the Spanish Catholic hierarchy, from people who know better than us poor simple souls, and who only want what’s best for us.

And today, the Catholic church comes out of the woods, and clamps down its claws upon the people under its dominion. Today, it lifts its mask of benevolence and harmlessness.

Today, the Spanish Catholic church tells people for whom to vote.

Today, the Catholic church uses its power to try and regain what it never accepted to lose: dominion over every aspect of people’s lives, regardless of their faith, or lack thereof. In an almost sublime disregard for people’s freedom of choice and opinion, for people’s liberty to have faith in something, to be agnostics or atheists, the Catholic church rears its ugly head, and exercises its power.

Today, the Catholic church hands out for everyone to see the proof that, contrary to what optimistic people believe, it has never, ever accepted to withdraw to the sphere of people’s personal beliefs. Today, the Catholic church demonstrates that it isn’t satisfied with that, and that it wants what was taken from it during the French revolution in 1789: absolute power over temporal matters, over our lives. The power to dictate what we should do, think, believe and how we should lead our lives.

Today, the Catholic church proves that it’s anything but harmless, that it merely waits in the shadows, biding its time until the moment to regain what it lost comes.

It’s hoping that today is the day in Spain.

Today, the Catholic church proves that it keeps being a threat to all who would be free, and that it needs to be uprooted for good.

Today, the Spanish people have the unique occasion to send the Catholic church back into the closet, in the shadows where it belongs.

Good night, and good luck.

Those Who Make the Story

2008-03-05T18:40:00.000+01:00

Those who write or tell the story aren’t those who make it. Quite a few US commentators, OP/ED pieces writers (hello, Maureen darling!) must be busy chewing their hats or their gloves or their sleeves right now. Serves them right.

Tuesday showed those oh, so mighty “opinion makers” that people still have brains and wills of their own. Tuesday served to show that those who make the story are the people themselves. The men and women who went to the caucuses, who went to the polls and cast their ballot.

No matter how it may displease the influential journalists who went so far as to order Hillary Rodham Clinton to call it a day and go home, to withdraw before the primaries in Texas and Ohio, “plain and simple” citizens gave all those influential personalities a very much needed reality check. The Democratic race isn’t settled. The candidates are neck to neck. It can still turn out any other way, and there’s no predicting who will win it. But at least, this time, the opinion makers will learn their lessons, and will stop their dirty little games.

Perhaps, just perhaps, from now on those same opinion-makers will stop spewing out vacant slogans and empty words to focus on the contents of the candidates’ program. Perhaps they’ll analyze the reality of those programs, destroy the lies and falsehoods spread by the campaign teams, and in particular the Saint Obama team, which is very good at that nice little trick.

Again, as it happened in New Hampshire, “simple” people reclaimed ownership of a democratic process that belongs to them and them alone: to choose the candidate who will represent their party in November. Once more, people showed the powers of the media that what matters is those who make the story.

Thank you, Rhode Island. Thank you, Vermont.

Thank you, Texas.

Thank you, Ohio.

When All is Said and Done

2008-03-03T13:42:00.002+01:00

When the doors close tomorrow night, and everyone has had their say, we will know one thing. We will know whether pure communication without depth, without questioning from the media, truly can defeat facts, political knowledge and experience.

In France, this experiment ended with the communication monster winning the presidential election. Nicolas Sarkozy who, no matter all the bad things that can be said and argued against him, has a hell of a talent when it comes to selling himself and advertising himself, was elected president.

He was elected president because his was a message of change, of “rupture” with the past. He promised he’d do things in another way. He promised he’d unite all the good, capable and competent actors of the political life. He promised he’s put an end to partisanship, that he’d end the left-right wars. He promised people he was like them, he wanted the same things they did. He painted himself as the embodiment of people’s hopes, and also as the embodiment of people’s rejection of politicians and politics in general.

And he won. By a wide margin.

It was in May, 2007.

Today, less than a year after his entrance in the Elysee palace, his popularity numbers have plummeted. Already, people are fed up with him, with his antics, and with the “nothing gets done” reality that his promises have turned out to be.

The partisan wars are worse than ever. People’s lives are getting worse. Politics have done anything but change. And France is the laughingstock of Europe, when it’s not the pain in the ass of Europe.

Having watched both political campaigns until now, in France and in the US, one can’t help but be struck by the similarity between the two. In both, a candidate with a very clear talent for rhetoric, and gifted with incredible charisma. In both, a candidate with a rather empty, populist and pleasing message, who knows how to say what people want to hear.

The possibility that what happened in France will happen in the US is appalling. The result is known, and it’s not a bright or good one. Of course, here the difference is that what’s at stake is the Democratic nomination. The winner will have to face John Mc Cain. And with Mr Nader’s candidacy, all bets are in favour of Mr Mc Cain winning when opposed to Mr Obama.

Of course, the above reasoning may sound ludicrous to Obama supporters, but they should take a step back, and consider this: up until now, the media have been after Mrs Clinton’s hide, while fawning and gushing all over Mr Obama. Anyone who’d protest that would do well to get a good reality check, because the wake-up call will be most brutal. If Mr Obama becomes the Democratic candidate, this will change. Journalists will start doing their job again. They’ll investigate. They’ll ask questions. They’ll scrutinize Mr Obama’s record. And things will go downhill from there, helped along by gentle pushes from the Republicans.

There is a way to thwart all that the media and the Republicans have planned and forecast, and that is for Hillary Rodham Clinton to win in Ohio and Texas tomorrow.

Take a good, long look at France as it is today, and think twice before you cast your ballot, or join the Obama group. Think twice, or you might very well end up like France. And you really, really don’t want that to happen.

Also, check out today’s opinion piece by Paul Krugman in the New York Times.

And tomorrow, think. Do not swoon.

Just think.

Good night, and good luck.

Live and Let Die

2008-03-02T15:40:00.003+01:00

The euthanasia debate just might start again in France, after the brave and difficult decision of a 52 years old woman to allow her case, her suffering to be used as a symbol, and a channel for the debate.

Upon hearing for the umpteenth time the argument used by those who refuse to allow euthanasia to be set into a law, with clear boundaries and a frame of reference for doctors and patients to work with, I find myself fighting down disgust and exasperation with quite a bit of difficulty. Because all these people have are words.

Just words.

Empty sounds, that resound in a room, resound in the places where the TV is turned on and set on the debate channel. The syllables drift through the air, rebound on the walls, and then, what? And then nothing. People spew out sophistry, grand principles, bits and pieces of philosophy, never ever having the honesty to come out with the real reason why they oppose it: religion. Religious dogma and beliefs, which have nothing to do, no right to interfere with the everyday, temporal life of the citizens living in a democratic country. And while those holier-than-thou figures argue against the right for a person to decide of how, why, where and when they should end their own life, people keep suffering. People keep being in pain.

And words, pale words, are just laughable.

What does it matter to you, if someone decides to rule their own life, and the manner of their own death? What business of yours is it? None.

Nobody will ever make anyone shorten their life or hasten their death if they don’t want to. Euthanasia is about the absolute right to self-determination, it’s about the right to do what you want with your life, the affirmation that it belongs to you. If you believe your life belongs to some god and that in accordance with your beliefs system you should suffer, agonize for years, months, you name it, you’re welcome to it! Please, by all means, do lead your life and your death the way you please! Just don’t meddle into the lives and deaths of others!

It’s all too easy to guess at why the opponents to euthanasia will never relent: most of them oppose it because they belong to a monotheistic religion which states that life belongs to a deity without a name or face and that, as such, you cannot decide what you do with it, since it’s not really yours.

And, of course, the problem with religions, is that they are inherently intolerant of other systems of ethics. And that they believe they have “The One Truth.” They believe that they’re entitled to dictate what everyone, whether they adhere to their beliefs system or not, should do, think, and how they should live and die. Religions must save everyone, against themselves. They must redeem the sinners who do not see the “light”, who do not understand the obvious.

I’m sick and tired of religions.

I’m sick and tired of hypocrites who argue against the right for someone to decide what to do with his/her life or his/her death, quoting the progress of medicine, how painkillers would help, how having a better, more adapted environment would oh so certainly change the person’s decision to die. The truth is, while those hypocrites who are too cowardly to admit their opinion is nothing but a religious dictate, the people they pass judgment upon, and whom they forbid the right to die keep on suffering. The truth is, that no “better environment” will happen. The truth is that no “revolution of palliative care” will take place.

The truth is, also, that religions cannot abide people accepting death and welcoming it on their own.

Without the fear of death and the promise of a heaven when you die, provided you have been an obedient follower of religious dogma and laws, religions would lose most, if not all their appeal on people.

When I take a look at what’s being said in the US, how candidates for the presidency are forced to spew out the words “god” or “jesus” at every turn if they want to have a chance of being elected, in what claims to be a secular country, when I look at what Sarkozy spews out in his speeches, I cannot help thinking it’s high time for a revolution.

It’s really, really high time for a repetition of 1789.

Is that all you’ve got to say for yourselves?

2008-02-05T13:42:00.000+01:00

All right, everyone knows what day this is. This is "supertuesday", and there’s a lot of buzz and noise in the netherworld. But the problem is that most of it is just that: noise.

Not signal.

Dynasties of Kennedy spread the news of their support to Barack Obama, who gladly accepts, never mind that he’s supposedly representing “change” as opposed to Hillary who’s just the “surrogate of her husband” while welcoming the endorsement of what’s certainly the oldest and most powerful dynasty around in the Democratic party. But then, who cares about coherence and intellectual honesty these days?

And then there’s all the journalists, all the writers of opinion pieces. I swear, they’ve sent all those who like Hillary on leave for a few days, so they can come to Belgium and enjoy the Carnivale week, and put all those who love Barack so much on forced assignment. Of course, everyone is entitled to his/her opinion, and an opinion piece is just that. Opinion. You can say you like Barack better because he likes your favourite TV series, and you hate Hillary because really she should know Bollywood movies better. Still, I, for one, would love a bit, a tiny little bit of content in these articles.

I’d like people other than Paul Krugman (whom I’ll never cease to admire for the seriousness and depths of his articles) to come up with real stuff. With ideas. With the things that the candidates defend, and what they’ll do. I’m fed up with all those Clinton haters all bashing Hillary with “she’s a surrogate for her husband”, “it may be unfair but still it’s valid to consider that her husband would be back at the White House and we’d have a third Clinton term”. Get over it, people, get over your fake niceness, and be real. Be frank, say it: this woman’s candidacy disturbs you. It disturbs you deeply. You cannot imagine that she’d be the US president. You cannot imagine that she wouldn’t be under her husband’s thumb. In short, you cannot imagine a woman in power.

And of course, you all cover this up neatly by attacking Bill while feeling oh so sorry for Hillary, who doesn’t deserve it, for whom it’s so unfair, but.

You also cover it by drooling all over Barack Obama, who should be getting tired of all the spit drenching his costume and shoes by now. You pretend you believe in the incredibly naïve at best, and deliberately misleading dovish declarations that “with Barack, there’ll be an end to partisan wars.” Of course there won’t be. Everyone knows this. The first among those in the Obama campaign team who knows it is Barack himself. As his nice and funny experience with one of his main sources of money, Exelon, reveals.

And of course, you cover it by dumping dozens of articles on how hard it’s gonna be for poor Barack, being black and all, on how marvellous, how “truly American” it would be to have him reach the White House. Funny, almost nobody seems to realize that voting for a woman poses at least as much problems. But then, machismo, sexism aren’t things you talk about in good society. Why? Because it’s gone of course, silly! In our civilized societies, it no longer exists. Of course it’s no longer there! Nobody would use sexist arguments, nobody I say. You have to realize, to use a sexist argument, you’d have to say that Hillary is merely a surrogate for Bill, that no matter how you like her, you can’t vote for her, simply because we all know who’ll be wearing the pants, and who’ll be the real president…Ooops.

Hey, I think that’s what all those people are saying out there, making my argument for me. Why, thank you so very much.

I’d have so loved to have this campaign, and the articles I read, to be on contents. On ideas. On policies. On direction. On vision. On the future. Hillary may not have Barack’s charisma. But instead of the nice, pleasing “we’ll all love each other and be friends” or the always catchy (but phony) “I’ll do politics in a new way”, you have depth. You have plans for getting health care to all the citizens. You have strength, a backbone. A knowledge of the world, and of the harshness of it all.

And, if I may, in Hillary, you have a woman. And to have a woman lead the self-proclaimed strongest power in the world, and to have all the sheikhs and Arabian princes bow and show respect and deference to a woman…well, that is something I’d really like to see.

Enough With Naive Delusions

2008-01-28T22:09:00.000+01:00

Everywhere, it's the same: the Clintons are big bad devils from outer space and the Nth layer of hell, complete with forks, pointed tails, horns and breathing fire and toxic fumes. Gods, you'd think all the US journalists and all the analysts have never seen a political campaign.

I don't know, people, do you even remember your own history, the way your dear country does things? The US is *T*H*E* gameboard of the dirtiest politics around the rich democracies in our sorry world. Insults, smearing, slander, lies, deception, anything is game. And yet people cringe and howl "unfair" when they hear or see Hillary or her campaign staff (husband included) attack the designated victcim and martyr: Barack Obama. Please, people, give me a break with poor, innocent, guileless and oh so pure Barack! Stop victimizing the man, stop falling into pace with his own game! He's no wide-eyed kid discovering the world, he's one of the richest candidates around, and he's been preparing for this thing. He knew the rules beforehand, he knew how things would go, so please. Please, enough with the stupid, goofy expressions of dismay and outrage whenever he's being attacked.

If somebody dares say race plays a role, s/he's branded and condemned like the worst of criminals. And yet, it's true. It's as much about race as it's about gender. And neither Hillary nor Barack are free of prejudice and bigotry, from hatred as irrational as all things that come from religion.

One thing that can be used to attack Barack Obama, that should be used against him and instead is used as a standard of "change" and "betterment" is his completely ludicrous claims that he'll change the way politics are done and put an end to partisan wars.

That claim is a pure and simple lie. And Mr Obama cannot pretend innocence or naivete on this one. Nobody can. Not his advisers, not the journalists who go about as if such childish, stupid claims were a miracle straight from the heavens. And here, again, I find myself thanking the gods and goddesses, above and below, named and unnamed, real or imaginary, for the existence of Paul Krugman. I'm just an anonymous voice echoing in the smallest bit of the netherworld. He's a renowned, acknowledged economist. And here is what he has to say in his opinion piece in today's edition of the New York Times : Lessons of 1992 :

[...] Has everyone forgotten what happened after the 1992 election?

Let’s review the sad tale, starting with the politics.

Whatever hopes people might have had that Mr. Clinton would usher in a new era of national unity were quickly dashed. Within just a few months the country was wracked by the bitter partisanship Mr. Obama has decried.

This bitter partisanship wasn’t the result of anything the Clintons did. Instead, from Day 1 they faced an all-out assault from conservatives determined to use any means at hand to discredit a Democratic president.

[...]So what are the lessons for today’s Democrats?

First, those who don’t want to nominate Hillary Clinton because they don’t want to return to the nastiness of the 1990s — a sizable group, at least in the punditocracy — are deluding themselves. Any Democrat who makes it to the White House can expect the same treatment: an unending procession of wild charges and fake scandals, dutifully given credence by major media organizations that somehow can’t bring themselves to declare the accusations unequivocally false (at least not on Page 1).

The point is that while there are valid reasons one might support Mr. Obama over Mrs. Clinton, the desire to avoid unpleasantness isn’t one of them.

[...]My sense is that the fight for the Democratic nomination has gotten terribly off track. The blame is widely shared. Yes, Bill Clinton has been somewhat boorish (though I can’t make sense of the claims that he’s somehow breaking unwritten rules, which seem to have been newly created for the occasion). But many Obama supporters also seem far too ready to demonize their opponents.

What the Democrats should do is get back to talking about issues — a focus on issues has been the great contribution of John Edwards to this campaign — and about who is best prepared to push their agenda forward. Otherwise, even if a Democrat wins the general election, it will be 1992 all over again. And that would be a bad thing.

There, you have it. So please, pretty please with sugar on top, stop. Stop swallowing all the fishes Mr Obama sends your way. There will be no peace, no collaboration between enemy sides. Anyone who believes this might as well go back to school and relearn history, and also refocus on the central characteristics of human nature.

There will be partisan wars. Whether Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton win the White House, there will be a partisan war. A bloody one. A dirty one. An ugly one.

And no sappy claims to the contrary will change that outcome.

The Sorry Laws of US Campaigning

2008-01-22T22:04:00.000+01:00

"Thou shalt insult thy competitors"
"Thou shalt ridicule their previous achievements"
"Thou shalt make up false biographies and smear thy opponents"
"Thou shalt attack thy opponents' families and stoop as low as it takes"

I could go on like this for ages. The list is endless. We all know the tedious, mediocre drill of elections campaigns in the US. They go lower than anyone in the Europe would dare envision, although I have to admit that Sarko, Aznar and the gang have tried their best to emulate the American talent for low, vile, and base campaigning. Better to smear and slander, to use empty but nice sounding slogans than to talk about true things. About political programs, and actually require voters to think about issues. Yeah, thinking is bad, as one of Sarko's goons, Mrs Lagarde, so eloquently put during a memorable speech in the French Assembly: thinking is bad, thinking is dangerous.

Still, as prepared as you can be, there are things that keep surprising you. There seems to be no end to the baseness some candidates can lower themselves to.

This weekend, Barack Obama has crossed the red line, and stepped to the other side. forget about achievements, forget about who likes which part of the US population more, who knows more than whom. It no longer matters.

Mr Obama has been insane enough to call Ronald Reagan's presidency better the Bill Clinton's, and to claim that Ronald Reagan's presidency has made history and made America move, adding that by contrast Bill Clinton's hasn't.

Wow. I have to admit that that one floored me.

Of course, maybe Mr Obama was locked up in a comfortable office during those years. Maybe Mr Obama isn't much aware of the world outside the US borders. If that is the case, let me just say this for the record: in Europe, Ronald Reagan is considered to be the worst president the US ever had in recent history (although W is sure to replace him on that pedestal soon). He was the laughing stock of people, as were those who voted for him and put him in power. Of course, you really don't need to take my word for this little bit of historical consideration. You should, however, take Paul Krugman's, and read his opinion piece in yestderday's edition of the New York Times: Debunking the Reagan Myth.

Now, we have two solutions :

either Mr Obama is ignorant of all this, and he should address this blatant lack of knowledge and culture, and then come back and set things straight
or Mr Obama is simply lying through his teeth, and he's ready to use just about anything to attack Hillary Rodham

Either way, what Mr Obama did by belittling Bill Clinton's record as president, as Democratic president, while lauding Ronald Reagan's record as president, a Republican president, has a name, be it in politics, in business, in friendly rivalries of all kind and elsewhere: a fault. A bad, really, really bad fault, which in any European country would cost him all chances of victory he might have had once.

In politics and elsewhere, you DO NOT belittle your own party's record while supporting that of your adversaries. Doing so betrays a lack of nerve, a lack of loyalty, a lack of depth and argument that simply render the one who commits him non-credible.

I've been watching Mr Obama's campaign through the newspapers, and though I've been favoring Hillary Ordham from the start, I did try to leave myself room to change my mind and to keep weighing the one against the other. Well, from now on I know I no longer need to do so. Perhaps I should thank Barack Obama for relieving me of my dilemma.

I guess that if I were an American citizen, I'd be a New Hampshire woman. Somehow, I find that to be a rather pleasing image.

Not That Dead After All !

2008-01-11T22:50:00.000+01:00

The fact is sufficiently rare for it to deserve a post from me.

An opinion piece in a major US newspaper dares to dispel one of the Great Truths spewed out by many in the US: no matter how many love to badmouth us, bash us, call us withered and old, obsolete, Europe is alive and kicking.

Europe is well and good, and a much nicer place to live in than the US. Yes, that shocking truth has been revealed for American eyes to read, written by one of their own, a very much renowned economist.

Thank you very much, Mr Krugman, for daring to come out with a reality that runs counter all the fools who believe they're the alpha and omega of the universe in your country.

Check out the article in today's edition of the New York Times: The Comeback Continent, by Paul Krugman.

See, no only do we have fridges, electricity, but what's more we have TV, DVDs, mobiles, and even broadband internet access, but we live in a much more secure place. Because we pay our taxes, and give money so it can be redistributed to all. We're not Robin Hood and Europe isn't Sherwood, but at least here, there is something to catch you when you fall, and we don't spit our contempt on people who have accidents, who lose their jobs, who get sick or who're less lucky. It's no charity dictated by some god's moral, it's a choice made by citizens. A choice of a society in which the pursuit of happiness isn't racing to die working, and self-development and self-fulfillment can exist outside of the office.

A choice of a society where we don't go around claiming we'll never get sick or old, or we'll never lose our jobs unless we're losers. We don't claim we're all individually self-sufficient, and free to choose more or less health care if we want (which really means: whether we can afford it, it never has anything to do with "want").

We're a society that says: we'll get old, we'll get sick, and we can lose our jobs. And we must do something to insure we can live on, and live as well as possible. And to ensure this, we empower the state, and we pay our taxes. And we remember that the states are the only institutions where we have a say, that's called elections. We have a true power, that is called the right to vote.

We're a society that knows very well that companies and corporations are not philanthropic by nature, that they're there for profit only, and that they're anything but democracies. That we have no say, no true power in them. And that we cannot trust them, because it makes no sense to trust into institutions which do not exist to serve people, but to serve a goal named profit.

So we give power to the state, the one institution we can control. We pay taxes. And we live a better life.

Oh, and we do not delude ourselves into thinking we're above old age, sickness, or other accidents.

In short, we are adult enough to recognize we're only human.

Thank You, New Hampshire !

2008-01-09T11:06:00.000+01:00

The media and surveys dictatorship has been unmade.

In the last months, all the media, all the analysts and editorialists were talking about the inevitability of Hillary Rodham’s election as the Democrats’ candidate. Some regretted it, and kept bashing her at every opportunity. Those same people were oh, so keen to point out the problems that would unfailingly arise from inexperience and the mistakes or blunders of a certain Barack Obama.

Then came the Iowa Caucuses. And, in a now overused routine of coat-turning, all the media started bashing on Hillary Rodham in earnest, while drooling with ecstasy over Barack Obama. Within a single day, experience, knowledge, an invaluable team of advisers and strength became huge disadvantages and points that would unerringly drag Hillary into total and utter failure. Within that same day, Barack Obama, who has gathered more money than the Clintons for his campaign, became the champion of change with empty declarations like “I’ll end the partisan bickering” (everyone with a shred of brains knows that this is just utopia, and will never happen in a world populated with human beings) and “I embody change”.

In the course of a single day, a candidate was dumped into the junkyard, while the other became the new “inevitable nominee”. He had all the media could dream of: nice and sympathetic face, good actor performance, nice family, a little bit of color, and the urban legend that he’s a little guy who climbed up the ladder all by himself. The perfect American Dream. And of course, since he's relatively new to the scene, people hadn’t yet had time to grow bored with him. As usual, everyone forgot that they will always be disappointed with anyone who’s been in power, and who’s had to face failure, and the hardships of actually doing something in a world dominated by a market and an economy gone mad in a globalized environment the politicians now have almost no leverage on. Add tot his the slogans that he’d end partisan wars and unite the country, well, how could the media resist?

The bashing went on for Hillary, while Barack became something like the second coming. Surveys were produced, foretelling the demise of Hillary, and the continued rise of Barack. Editorialists started writing paper advising Hillary on the right manner to bow out of the race. When Hillary showed the slightest sign of what could be interpreted as a weakness, it was broadcast all over the internet and all over the TV channels.

And then, against all odds, the results of the vote in New Hampshire came.

And the media got a very, very much needed reality check.

And the citizens of New Hampshire gave me back a reason to hope in democracy. The citizens of New Hampshire denied the rule of the media and surveys, and exercised their right to choose whomever they please, whether it pleases the great and all powerful media or not.

So I want to say thank you, New Hampshire, for giving the world a reality check, and for reminding us that people are free.

That people’s votes and opinions will not be dictated by surveys and flip-flop media.

Frenzy and Misconceptions

2008-01-05T11:44:00.000+01:00

As expected, the Iowa caucuses results started a round of frenzy around the world. Many editorialists go on about how deeply significant these results are, and how they herald change in the US.

Some even press their right hand upon their chest at the heart's level, and tell you that what happened in these caucuses is the purest form and expression of democracy. If you look closely, you'll see their eyes glistening with unshed tears of pride and love. They're the journalists working for the Wall Street Journal, the great defenders of the neo-cons and the republicans, those who bark everywhere that the US is the greatest, the bestest democracy in the whole universe. I guess their sappy declarations of love for the caucuses, which are the most undemocratic process of election I've ever seen is coherent with their other declarations. At least I have to give the Wall Street Journal people this: they're not frightened of ridicule, and they do not step back from ludicrous claims:

Imagine a gymnasium full of people. Some are gathered in groups here and there. Others roam the space, undecisive. The groups shout at each other, yell catacalls, clap their hands and tap their feet on the ground to impress and unsettle the others, and try for shows of force to draw the undecisive their way. John Doe, who had said he'd vote for X, suddenly sees that a great many others are in group Y, and they call so loudly for more supporters that John Doe finds himself instintively going for the stronger group. In the meantime, Jane Smith wanted to vote for T, but T unfortunately doesn't gather enough supporters to be above a threshold percentage of votes. So Jane must choose someone else. No luck, she doesn't know. But the people supporting Y are so numerous, so loud. They seem so sure. So Jane goes to join the group defending Y. And when the ending time comes, a basket is handed from person to person, above heads in the crowd in a joyful chaos, and people "each" throw papers with the name of a candidate in the basket. There is no way of checking that this is done without any cheating. And of course, the caucus is nothing other than people putting pressure on other people to vote this instead of that. It bars some from attending, because it's held at a certain time, and that people who'd vote must endure at least 2hours of debate they have no need for, but must bow to, so they can be subjected to outside pressure and dictates on how they should vote.

The whole process certainly is the purest form of anti-democracy held in the self-proclaimed greatest democracy of the universe. A process the Wall Street Journal people know so well how to denounce when they explain the process of voting for or against a strike in gatherings of union workers. But then, it's true that this is the US, a country where voting isn't compulsory, and where elections day are invariably weekdays, when people are at work, and they either have to take a day off or do I don't know what to manage to place their vote. The greatest democracy of the world, indeed. But then, we wouldn't put the day for the election on Sunday, no, we wouldn't. We wouldn't dare annoy all the good Christians out there, would we?

Now, let's tackle the results of the Iowa caucuses on the Democrats' side. I'll spare you my thoughts on the Republicans' side, because you wouldn't like me to explain to you in detail how these results confirm my opinion that a good half of the USA no longer lives in a democracy but is putting a good old theocracy in place (the whole of the USA is in fact a plutocracy, but let's not go there either).

Barack Obama's victory certainly is a powerful symbol. It's gonna send hearts beating, it's gonna send waves of warmth and elation coursing the veins of all those who have soft spots and still delulde themselves into believing in the lie called the "American Dream". But at the end of the process, when the game is over, it'd be far better for Hillary Rodham to be the winner. Why?

Because, no matter what you can say, what the media can say, the American citizens as a whole will never elect Barack Obama over a good WASP Republican. No matter what people like to believe, the heritage of segregation and racism aren't dead in the US. The South and the Middlewest states, the infamous Bible Belt will not elect a black, Democrat candidate as president, even though his mother is a purebred WASP.

Because, whether or not the people who have sparks in their eyes when they hear Obama talking of "deep change in the way of doing politics" and of "suppressing the wars between red and blue states" like it, the whole speech is just empty words that have a nice ring to them. There will never be "peace" and "understanding" and "collaboration" between Republican and Democrat states. People will never abandon their little wars, their agendas. And more importantly, they will not renounce their own ideas to endorse some kind of empty, soft consensus. And if they did, in some utopia world or other, the result would be a status-quo that would in no way be the tiniest beginning of the change Barack Obama claims to be embodying.

Because, outside of his "I'll change everything" message, Barack Obama has no clear program, no clear vision of what he'll do and how. Outside of his nice face, of his appealing youth and the fact people don't know him and thus don't (yet) associate him with their general dislike of politics, there's no clear indication of what he wants. Worse, from the little he's said, he looks like the most conservative of the Democrat candidates...

Because Hillary Rodham has the experience.

Because Hillary Rodham has fought in the arena, because she has confronted the fiends one finds on one's path in Washington, when she tried to reform the oh so nice and fair health "care" system the US has.

Because Hillary Rodham has guts, because she's strong. Because she knows what she'up against, because that terrible machine has beaten her down once, and she rebuilt herself. Because she failed, and took strength from that painful experience. Because she is the only one, having encountered it, fought it, to be able to claim she can challenge the smearing and demolition machine of the Republicans. She's been there. She's withstood them. She's proven her metal.

Hillary Rodham has proven she has the will and the strength to endure and to prevail in the hell they call a presidential campaign. She has been tested. She has been through fire.

Because Hillary Rodham knows there is a world beyond hte US borders, and will have many friends in Europe. Because she knows the job.

Because she has a team such as no other candidate can have.

Because, once the Republicans will have chosen Rudy Juliani, John Mc Cain or Mitt Romney, she's the only one who can confront them.

And if she could have Edwards as a vice-president hopeful, I think I'd have to revise my judgment, and start believing again that a hope for change is possible in the US.

366 days...

2008-01-01T15:51:00.000+01:00

To start on a quest for happiness.

To strive for a better world in our everyday lives, no matter how little we are, or how insignificant the things we can do in regard with all the pain and loss all around us.

To remember our roots.

To regain our bearings.

To open our eyes.

To question the “truths” authorities, media, political, religious or otherwise dump on our heads.

To take a good, long look at our lives and answer this question truly: is this what we want?

To wave aside hopelessness and the general consensus around the inevitability of living in a world where finance and economy rule, in the service of a few plutocrats, who wave before our enraptured gazes flags of “freedom” and make of us good little consumers, obedient little variables in their equations.

To tear off the mask of “democracy” our governments and those who own them have so securely tied, so that we can’t see the nice reality that we live in plutocracies, all of us “citizens of the free world”.

To turn our backs on all priests, popes, televangelists, predicators, imams, rabbis, and all religious figures and hierarchs who would presume to tell us how we should live our lives, tempt us and threaten us with whatever lies beyond the moment of our death, and to know better than we what’s good and what’s bad.

To weave a mantle of emerald green for our bleeding world.

To get involved in elections, and fight for what we believe in.

To see the Olympics in Beijing for what they are: the games of shame, held in a country that’s destroying the world with its power plants, its chemical companies, which has turned the sacred land of Tibet into its nuclear junkyard, and which has no intention to stop any time soon, in a country where freedom of opinion has been scratched from all the schoolbooks, and where they kill prisoners of opinion after having demanded their families pay for the bullet that’ll take the lives of their loved ones.

To unravel the glamor of an authoritarian midget who loves himself far too much to even begin to care about the people who were deluded by his populist speeches and voted him in power.

To see the FARC free their hostages.

To watch Hugo Chavez thwart the neo-cons and thrive, to see him seize victory in defeat, and to see this strange, strange man hold up in his hand another way, another path for people to choose.

To see either a woman or a man of color become the temporary owner of the White House.

To see if Pakistan can somehow defeat the looming shadow of chaos.

To see at last the Islam fanatics driven out of all the lands they've invaded, and in no particular order: Irraq, Sudan and the Darfur region, Palestine, Lebanon, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Great Britain, and all the corners of shadow and dust that they haunt, cowards that they are.

To see if at last Palestine will be given its due, and will at last have a viable state, and if Israel will finally win free of the nightmarish path it has been following for so many years.

To discover the next seasons of Heroes, House M.D., Battlestar Galactica, Bones, Desperate Housewives, Life on Mars, Bones, Robin Hood.

To see the end of Saint Seiya adapted into anime.

To write a new piece of fiction (anyone who believed that When Blackbirds Sing would be the last occasion for me to waste bandwidth doesn't know me at all).

To remain as stubborn, selfish, insufferable and mean-tempered.

To refuse any kind of "new year resolutions".

366 days, and the afternoon of Winter in Greece, for the rain to fall gently on the scorched earth, for snow to glove the mountains with a soft cloak of pure white.

366 days, the afternoon of Winter and the glorious rise of Spring in Greece, for the forests to heal from the terrible fires of last Summer.

366 days, in which to look out for the sun, to try and bring more light to our world.

More peace.

Looking Back

2007-12-30T15:49:00.000+01:00

Recapturing the film of 2007, many things happened, in many places of the world. But then, it’s also true that events take place all over, all the time. We live in constant flux and movement, and this very constancy of change is one of the things that tell us we’re alive, and that our world is alive.

A planet without volcanoes, without earthquakes, is a dead piece of rock with nothing but perhaps fossils or stones for the collectors to examine at their leisure. A planet with volcanoes, with earthquakes, with moving plates is alive, even though those phenomena kill and inflict such terrible loss and pain on those it strikes. Chaos is a very much needed part of life, and without it, Order would simply entomb us in stillness. Entropy, beyond being the focus point of the famous second law of thermodynamics, is the one force that sparked life to everything we know: to the stars we see in the night sky, to this fantastic, ever-developing universe we’re such a tiny, tiny bit of, minuscule ants that we are, and who often delude ourselves into thinking we’re the center of everything--helped in this by the monotheistic religions, which in this aspect as in many others, do nothing other than flatter us and mirror back what we want to hear.

But enough with philosophy.

So 2007 was, like any other year, a year of change. However, looking back I can’t help wondering if the changes that took place aren’t mostly in a direction I’d rather avoid. Of course I’m biased, and I’m sure a great many people would disagree with me, but still.

Let’s start with the bad stuff.

In France, the population elected an openly populist, demagogic president. Since then, this man has done little else but turn the political existence of the country into some gigantic, badly written TV soap where he’s the lead actor. This change has allowed him to start on profound changes, most of which are aimed to enact a very, very strong rightwing policy, and also to unravel all the laws and all the social rights that the French workers had won after so many battles since the 19^th century. But people don’t see, it, refuse to see it, under the glamour of the huge reality show the current tenant of the Elysee puts out for them. What amazes me, and disgusts me, is that it works, and that so many people are all too willing to fall for it, that so many people are all too willing to start drooling and wagging their tails whenever they stumble upon an authoritarian figure who then simply has to bark something for them to believe it’s some kind of absolute, divine truth. Mr Sarkozy has done everything from staging his ex-wife as the savior of the famous Bulgarian nurses who were held in Libya, trampling from underfoot and denying all the efforts made by European diplomacy, stealing the stage in such a gross fashion that everyone in France should have screamed “fake”, to going into hiding and uncharacteristic silence during the social conflicts in Autumn and then arranging to have himself and his newfound “love” photographed by paparzzi in Eurodi$ney to draw attention from the fiasco of his welcoming Kadhafi like a hero. And people bought it.

In the US, the subprimes crisis has ruined many families. Many people have gone bankrupt, and are now homeless, all because the US system has gone beyond any kind of sustainable balance, and because this system has taught generations of American people that, yes, they should live beyond their financial means, and that they should live indebted up to above their necks, that it’s perfectly okay. The inexistent social security and health care system has once again demonstrated how retarded the US are in that regard, where millions of families, of kids, had better not fall ill, because nobody will give them proper treatment, their only choice being to go to hospitals to be treated by students in their first year of practical field exercise. The crumbling of the middle-class has left dozens of millions with no label of “poor” enabling them to have a minimum of access to any kind of health care, and leaving them at the tender mercy of private insurance companies, which propose contracts those families can no longer afford. But then, I guess that when you embrace a system that glorifies individualism, says you shouldn’t pay taxes, and you shouldn’t have to insure yourself or pay for stuff you think you’ll never need (and it is well known we never get sick, we never grow old, we can never get fired from a job, of course), well you have to take responsibility and accept the consequences of the choices you make for the society you live in. The American Dream is dead and buried, but I wonder if the US people even realize that.

In Iraq, the population has drowned deeper into chaos and terror, all consequences that had been detailed and exposed to the US, and to Mr W Bush, who still decided to go and “liberate” Iraq, a decision among the worst and most ill-advised of these last centuries. Never has the US had a worse president, a president who was reelected nevertheless, by a part of the population who’s either deaf, or blind, or perhaps simply too self-centered and uneducated to see what’s happening beyond the borders of what no longer is a land of hope and dreams. Every single step along Iraq’s nightmarish descent into hell has been forewarned, foretold by this “old Europe” the fools called neo-cons so loved to deride. And now, what? With elections looming near in the US, all the candidates want to get out of the quagmire. But that’s all too easy. Is the US so callous as to barge in, spark chaos and death and terror, and then when all that they had been warned comes true, horrible step by horrible step, they’d just gather their things, leave good guards around the oil reserves and then scamper away like thieves, justifying this rout with claims like “the Iraqi need to take responsibility for themselves, they’re free”? The Iraqi are simply free to wither and to die, their country is in chaos, and all that courtesy of the “liberators” the US claimed to be through the voice of a fool named Georges W Bush, a man with a mission from whatever god he believes in , a man mad enough to invoke crusades in what betrays an incredible lack of historical knowledge and understanding, and, if you stop and think about it, a man whose words and actions aren’t that far removed from what a fanatic would do or say.

In Iraq, bombs explode and shred bodies into bloody pieces of flesh and bones. Families and friends weep, despair, and fall into this ages-old cycle of hatred and revenge. Blood calls out for blood, death calls out for death, all sparked by the folly of a nation who elected a fool, a puppet of very particular corporate interests, and a puppet of madmen who wrongly thought that the world is their playground, where they can build and install whatever society THEY think is best “for everyone”. The neo-cons are, along with religious hierarchs of any kind, those I despise the most, because they claim they know better, because they claim they know the one and unique truth, because they feel entitled to “save us” in spite of ourselves, because, by their way of acting and their way of moving, they show that they believe themselves superior to us, common mortals, when in fact they’re no different, no better, and simply crave power and wealth, same as your next door neighbor.

In Belgium, the June 10^th election gave birth to a six months-long crisis, which showed how obsessed with themselves and their greed for power some politicians are, chief among them Mr Leterme and Mr Reynders, who’d sell every single citizen of Wallonia to the Flemish interests if it could give him the dubious “throne” of Prime Minister. It served as a revelation of the way Flemish media and extremists maneuver by the nose the “mainstream” parties, who are now little more than pawns in a dirty nationalist extremist game. It showed the Walloons that they should perhaps envision the day when there will no longer be a country named Belgium, although a great many among us do not want this to come to pass.

It also showed, as it has in France, that the weaker social classes, the worker class and all those who lack in wealth and security in their jobs and their lives, tend to be duped by the simplistic speeches of the right. They elect the right in power, even though they will the first to suffer from its actions. Deaf and blind to anything other than populist speeches, people bark with the dogs and refuse to see beyond the edge of their noses to envision the consequences of their actions. As unbelievable as that can be, still it happens, again and again. Jobless people vote for those who will shape and vote laws that will authorize the hunt for people like them, who will authorize the withdrawal of what little help they have that enables them to keep on living. They put in power people who will unravel all the laws, all the covenants that allow them to live, that their grandparents fought, bled and sometimes died to tear from the powers-that-be of the time. All because people no longer think, no longer take a step back, no longer question. Because it’s so tiring to do so, because it’ so much easier to watch whatever crap is on TV, as long as it doesn’t demand any kind of reflection, as long as it takes us elsewhere, and doesn’t remind us of the mediocrity of our lives…

In Pakistan, a woman with a shady past dared to come back, in spite of all the threats on her life and on that of her family. This woman came to a land now ruled by fanatics in the streets, and by a military dictatorship that parades as a would-be candidate for democracy in the official seats of power. Benazir Bhutto was certainly anything but a saint. It’s more or less sure she benefited from money, that corruption used to sit comfortably on her shoulder. That’s as may be, but she was brave, this woman. She returned to a country where she knew she’d be the target of both the current government, and of all the foaming at the mouth religious extremists Pakistan shelters. On the very day of her return, they almost managed to get her. Still, she didn’t give up. She continued organizing public gatherings, she went to open places, to speak to people, unveiled. A woman in her own right, free and undaunted, she showed those barbarians who proclaim themselves servants of a fictional deity what bravery truly is. In spite of the fear that must have twisted her gut every single moment of every day of her final stay in Pakistan, Benazir Bhutto never gave up. Fools in the US believed her to be their pawn, but they never understood the complexity of the East. Fools in the US have had the gall to try and take advantage o her death in their own selfish quest for power in their own little presidential race. In the end, it doesn’t matter. In the end, what matters is that this woman denied all the extremists, never yielded to fear, and never gave up on who and what she was: a woman, without a veil, a true woman, a strong personality, someone with ideas and strength, ready to do what it took to win the hearts of a population and to be elected in a fair democratic process. Nobody can take that from her.

And, last but not least, the brighter stuff.

As for me, 2007 allowed me to discover a land of wonders, on the other side of the equator, a land of beauty called Namibia. In spite of a true, and rather “interesting” brush with death over the Namib desert, images of this fantastic journey will stay with me. Nature undaunted, landscapes that take your breath away, gentle people, most of them living in a poverty we have difficulty imagining, I don’t think I’ll ever forget Namibia.

In New Jersey, people’s representatives took a courageous decision. They abolished the death penalty in a state of a country where many still hold backward beliefs like “an eye for an eye”, and where some will tell you, unashamed, that it’s better to kill criminals, because feeding them costs money. New Jersey brought hope to a country that’s so often been a cause for despair or sadness. It’s the proof that there’s always a potential for good, for things to get better.

A potential for hope.

The world, when you look at it, is a place of beauty and wonders. When there’s ugliness, you always find people at the source. We are, all of us, hope and despair, light and dark, stillness and movement, order and chaos. We can move. We can think. We can choose. We only need to decide to do so. We only need to take a step back, to take off our blindfolds, to look at ourselves, to look at our world, at our society, and ask this question: is this the way we want to live? Is this the way we want to be? The answer doesn’t have to be “yes”. The answer is what we decide, nothing more and nothing less. There is no foreordained course. No Fate written that we blindly follow. No bearded old man watching from above the clouds. No economical divine law dictating that our lives should be this or that.

We are what we choose to be.

We are strong, much stronger than often we know, or even suspect, but not alone. We are strong when we gather, around ideas, around ideals. All along our history, we have toppled tyrants, unmade monarchs of divine right, brought down castes which oppressed us. How many times have simple people risen against powerful oppressors? Too many to count. Time and again, we’ve done this.

We can do it again.

Looking Forward

2007-12-29T15:08:00.000+01:00

Bombs may blow bodies and lives to bits, bullets may kill and fools may precipitate the downfall of countries and the welfare of whole populations, but still, Time trickles by. It drips by, droplet by droplet, and brings us ever closer to this year's end. And with this obvious consideration, comes the usual question: is there anything worth looking for in the coming of the year 2008?

I'd say yes, and as proof, here's a partial list of what might be of interest in the coming months:

Anime-wise: the beginning of 2008 will see the broadcast of the last part of the Saint Seiya Hades chapter: Elysion-hen. Oh, yes, I know how many have scorned the preceding chapters, and how many are already cursing what they haven't yet seen. In some things, I suppose I am and remain a stubborn optimist, and also, that my love for this series remains intact after more than a score of years since the moment when I chanced upon an episode on French TV. It may also be that I have always loved Saint Seiya for what it is, not for anything else. And also, that I do not turn coat and say the opposite of what I have always said: that the Hades chapter is the best part of the story, along with the battle of the Twelve Houses in the Sanctuary. I havce always said that I wanted to see the last part of the manga animated, and I won't go back on that. I can regret the lack of creativity and the fact that the current director sticks to the manga more faithfully than an adolescent mooning over his first love, but I think honesty demands that many who spit on the anime adaptation acknowledge that, yes, they loved the Hades, and that, yes, the anime is faithful to what they loved, to what they read in the manga, all those years ago.

[oh, and while I'm babbling about Saint Seiya, allow me this little space for a bit of self-advertisement: I've just put online the latest fanfiction I wrote over the Summer months in Greece. If you've ever read some of my pieces, you know that it's been a long time since I went ahead and took ownership of the Saint Seiya universe and started playing with it, envisioning it far into the future in particular. This year, it was the turn of the past to be tampered with, and more exactly the moment of the rise of a new faith called Christianity in the slowly crackling world of a decaying Roman Empire - Beware that my lack of love for the institution of the Christian Church hasn't varied, and that the story does reflect that. When Blackbirds Sing is an 8 chapters fanfic you can find inside my web home, among other things. ]
Elections-wise: weeell, there we have quite a few things to look forward to.

In Pakistan, January will tell us whether it was possible or not to prevent chaos from totally engulfing the country after the cowardly assassination of Benazir Bhutto. It will also give us the answer that's most likely to who orchestrated the whole thing. My best guess is the Islam extremists (be they Qaeda or not, it's inconsequential), helped by a bit of negligence of the Pakistaniese government (lack of security provided for Mrs Bhutto comes to mind, but it's so not Mr Muscharraf's fault, so not his fault, you see... Ah, the wonders of the passive role in such a coup...)

In the US, the first months will at last put an end to the primaries in both Democratic and Republican parties. And November will at last see the end of the worst president the US has ever had. Mr. W will go, and good riddance, and leave his successor a situation and a country in shambles, so badly managed during eight years that the gift of the White House is not going to be "rulership over the world's greatest power" but "rulership over a gutted and chaotic country which now more than partly belongs to owners in China and other interesting countries in the world" (yes, in case you didn't know, the interesting thing about the US' debt, is that it doesn't belong to its citizens, but to foreign investors, a great many of them Chinese, I'm sure they'll be good with you all once you start being unable to pay the interests of that ever-growing debt...)

On a personal note, I'll be watching the first five months of the year with a particular interest, and it's likely to be a rather wearying and worrisome moment. Still, when one chooses a path, one shoulders all the consequences that go with it, be they good, or bad.
Politically-wise, it'll be fun to see what happens after Easter: will Belgium explode? Will Leterme seal his position of no-good, incapable would-be prime minister, or will he be saved by some angel or other come from Rome to reinstate a Catholic party in power here?
And what about France? Will people just drool , wag their tails in happiness at their omni-president, little N Sarkozy when he starts unraveling for good all their social laws and starts tackling the legal limit of the number of hours you can work per weeks? Or will they at last remember they have a backbone and will they fight? Will they remember that they have one weapon, and one weapon only, named "strike"?
TV Series-wise, I'll be waiting for more from shows like House, M.D., Battlestar Galactica, Ashes to Ashes, spin-off from the excellent Life on Mars, Heroes, a great many others. And, yes, I hope the screenwriters get their due, and I hope you guys all the best in your battle against the producers. The strike may endanger some shows I love, but hey, if only the producers would be fair, it wouldn't be happening, so go for it!

I could go on like this for quite a while, but it's best to leave a bit of surprise and sense of wonder at the things that may, or may not come to pass in 2008.

One last thing before I go, a small, probably useless piece of all too obvious wisdom:
When blackbirds sing, it means that rain is near. Whether it's just been blown away by the wind and the blackbird's song is joyful, or whether charcoal clouds are hugging the sky and the blackbird's song is a warning and the portent of dark things to come, it's for us to decide. And often, we decide according to our current mood. One day it will be good, and the next it will be bad. The one thing that matters, is never to forget that the two exist, and that there is no universe, no world in which only the one holds sway. There is always another possibility, always a potentiality for better things, and for brighter days.

Call It What You Will...

2007-12-27T16:24:00.000+01:00

But please, do not ever call it "Christmas".

The first, obvious reason for that, is that Christmas is a pure fabrication of Christianity, this master among thieves and liars. It's well known that they simply glued a new label on older, ancient celebrations and rituals. Be they Sol Invictus, or the celebration of the god of light Mithra. Be it a celebration of the victory over the darkness, when the days start to lengthen again and the night is vanquished, the celebration is ancient, and we do it no justice when bowing down and letting the oh-so-nice Church blindfold us and lure us into thinking it's got anything to do with the birthdate of a man who supposedly lived and died, and then lived again.

But then the Church is probably the most educated, the most learned and the most talented liar of all times. The thing that saddens me is that people still blindly follow like good sheep, and forget that any religion no matter where or when, only has a single agenda: gain dominion, absolute, on people, because they get their legitimacy from what they claim is a "divine will", and thus, they bow or recognize no right of freedom of thought to anyone. It doesn't matter that Christianity has bowed its head these last centuries. Had there not been a French Revolution, and had heads not rolled, no matter how savage and cruel that time period was, we'd be living in a very different world.

We wouldn't be free.

We'd be forced to "believe" in whatever we'd be told is the truth. There would be no discussion, no reflection nothing.

And, contrary to what it tries to make you believe, Christianity isn't done with dreams of converting and dominating the thoughts and all the aspects of our lives. It is no different from all the other "extremist" cults. It simply has been forced to bow its head and to wait. And so it does wait, patiently, showing us how tolerant, how good and benevolent it is. It waits, for the right time, for the moment when fools like Georges W Bush or Nicolas Sarkozy will start doing enough shows of allegeances, spewing out speeches about "values" and "the need for people who believe and hope", so that governments will have done its job, and put it back in the center stage. When the econolic and social situation will have deteriorated so far, when the oh-so perfect "free market" and "capitalism" lures will have reduced people to poverty, and the governments will have no power left to propose any solution to the populations, when riots and chaos will start, as they have started in some places of our own very much developed and rich countries, what will the populist, moronic and incapable governments like Bush's and Sarkozy's do? Why, they'll call on "the old sets of values", they'll call to "the need for people who hope and believe". They'll travel to Rome, and meet with the snake who patiently waits for its hour to come again.

And once it comes, it will be too late.

Christianity never chose to withdraw and yield back to humanity control over its life. It was forced to do so. It was battered and killed into yielding. Do you think it has forgotten? Are you that stupid?

It watches. It waits. It smiles.

Every time we foolish voters put the right in power, and hasten the fall into poverty and gloom for ourselves, we hasten its return. And when it comes, it will not be grateful. It will have a job to do, a dominion to regain. And if we let it, it will.

Just like Islam is doing in some part of the world. Did you hear? They killed Benazir Bhutto. I didn't like this woman, she had more than a few stains on her political record, but she had guts. She returned to Pakistan, and she challenged the extremists. It took them two trials, but they got her in the end. And the world's light dimmed yet again.
I look at those who rejoice of her death and shout that this is the proof that god exists, that he's showing them the one true way, I look at those who mourn yet another act of barbarism committed in the name of god and shake their head, saying that this isn't god's will and that god is light and love. I look at them all and I say: aren't you tired of always referring to the same cruel, jealous and sadistic anthropomorphic figure invented by people who needed an easy way to control whole populations? I look at them all, and I feel sick.

People so like political correctness, that the learned like to make differences, like nuances: they say we should never associate religion with extremism. Islam isn't fundamentalist Islam. Christians aren't fundamentalist madmen who spend their time foaming at the mouth claiming that whatever divine thingy out there made the universe in seven days some five thousand years ago. Christians aren't all terrorists who kill and torment women who have the "gall" to want to control their bodies and decide when and how they should or shouldn't have children. Christians aren't all self-righteous bastards who claim to have a say over the choices you'd make with your own life, to continue it, or to end it if you so choose.

Well, I'm sorry, but I've had it with political correctness. Religions, all of them, are always so awkward when they talk of atheists or agnostics. They're so embarrassed, that most of them simply ignore atheists and agnostics. They gather, sign great, wonderful treaties that talk about recognizing and respecting each other's faiths, and all that jazz. They never talk about acknowledging the weird people who have doubts, or the strange ones who do not believe. But then, it's not so strange that atheists and agnostics are always either ignored, or ridiculed. And when you tell them that, or when you tell them that separation of church and state means stay the hell out of all temporal matters, what is the answer? Ah, but the answer always invariably is "be tolerant", "be secular in a positive fashion". "Respect us". And I say to them: where is your respect for us? When will you stop spitting your religious beliefs in my face during political debates? When will you stop lording it over others with your self-proclaimed higher values?

Still, as mentioned, it stands to reason for religions and their lackeys to ignore or refuse to admit the existence of atheists and agnostics, since those are the people who do not recognize any kind of higher power and who do not bow their heads. Maybe they're all dangerous anarchists, people who do not think with blindfolds on their eyes, or fetters and chains around their limbs.

The truth is that all religions are extremists. That all religions claim they act on behalf of a divine entity or other, and that they alone know its will, its laws and its rules. And, as they take their power from this divine whatever, they are logically empowered to impose this on everyone and everything. Freedom doesn't make sense in a system where there is a divine something and an absolute truth that derives from its words, thoughts, you name it.

Faith is an individual matter. Religion is a structure of power, that uses "divine will", "divine truth" to gain absolute power over everything, and it's all perfectly reasonable. To pretend otherwise, for a religion to pretend at tolerance, and at "letting people think and decide for themselves" is nothing other than a sham, a lie, a mask this religion has been forced to wear by circumstances. But memories run long and deep, and nothing is ever won forever. So this politically incorrect post is here to disturb whoever will read it. To anger whoever will stumble upon it.

To make whoever will have the bad luck of reading it think.

To remind you, whether you like it or not, that religions and Churches are not nice, kind and tolerant. That they merely pretend. That they wait, patiently. And that if we forget, they do not.

In all the history of humankind, religion has always been, and will always be nothing but the tool of dictators, of powers-that-be, and the pretext for wars, for slaughters, for extermination and for torture, for intolerance. and if you read this and shudder, or grimace, or yell that I'm a heretic who should burn in hell, or shake your head and think that I'm a poor lost soul who doesn't understand the depth of god's love for the world, then you'll have proved me right.

I end this post with an excerpt from a fic I'll soon be posting online.

“You’ve lost this war.” I stiffened. Afraeil was staring right at me, all of a sudden. All trace of mockery was gone from his tone, and an unreadable mask had descended upon his face. “You lost it three centuries ago,” the smile frozen on his lips softened, “all of you, when the Romans were mad enough to make a martyr out of a man, and to allow his followers to weave a fantastic myth around his life. There’s nothing,” he went on in an eerily gentle voice, “nothing you can do to prevent this from happening. The shadow of Christianity will enshroud the world, bit by bit. It will do so, because it echoes people’s fears and hopes, and gives those all back to them a thousand fold. It will win their hearts and their souls, because it places them at the center of everything. Because it gives them the answers they want to hear. Because it makes promises everyone dreams of, and nobody can check. Still,” he drew in a breath and I shivered, refusing the urge to hug myself when I realized that the kind undertone in his voice was sorrow, “one day its veil will lift from people’s spirits. Humanity will again open its heart and its eyes. One day far, very far away from now. In the meantime, your people will have to bow and adapt.”

Big Bad Boomerang

2007-11-10T14:28:00.000+01:00

(the following dialogue is pure fiction, and of course, all resemblance to real people would be the domain of pure parody)

- Say, Didier, mon ami, I think we’ve got a problem.
- Mmm, yeah, Yves, mijn goed vriend, I think we’re stuck. This whole institutional reform business, with BHV on top of it… *sigh* if only you hadn’t based all your campaign on that. Now, look where we’re standing.
- A hair’s width away from the abyss, I know, I know. Look, I tried to avoid discussing all this, I tried delaying it, I did all I could, and now.
- Now we’re gonna crash into the wall and fail in a pathetic fashion. And then I’ll be stuck having the Socialists on board to make a governmental coalition. You know I don’t want that. You know we had a deal, mijn vriend!
- Well, yes… I don’t want the Socialists either, I mean, your Socialists, mine are not a problem after the beating they took at the polls.
- We’ve got to find a way out of this…hey! I’ve got an idea! Why not let the whole thing roll and your pals in the parliamentary commission vote all together against the French-speaking community?
- Huh?
- Oh, come on! You know we have safety mechanisms! We’ll use them, the vote will be frozen, but it’ll have happened. Then your Flemish nationalists are happy because they’ve humiliated the morons of my dear Wallonia, the king will have no choice other than to “relieve” you of the duty to get an agreement on institutional matters. He'll have to dump that mess to some workgroup or other where it’ll rot away. And in the meantime we get our beloved Blue Orange, I rule all alone and I can spit in the face of Elio and his pals! I’m so smart!
- Erm, but, what about Joëlle? She won’t like that, she has much to lose…
- Look, Yves, Joëlle is a goose, and she’s nothing, she doesn’t weigh anything on the political scene. I need her to maintain a semblance of “social image”, and she’ll shut her trap if she wants to be in power. And even if she doesn’t want to, her political friends DO want to. And she’ll do as I say.
- If you’re sure…
- Yes, I am.
- OK, let’s do it, then.

And of course, we all know what happened. The vote was carried out, one community against the other. The shock in the Walloon population was immense. And in the morning after, “strangely” enough, Yves looked good and happy, and Didier wasn’t all to angry, all things considered. The populations were surprised, because they expected a very strong reaction on the Walloon part. After all, the Walloons had just been badly slapped in the face, and the Institutional Nuclear Bomb had been used by the Flemish parties. And yet, Didier looked rather satisfied with himself.

The king confirmed Yves was still the prime-minister-to-be, and “relieved” him of the burden to negotiate all the institutional matters.

Everything was going according to the plan.

But the two associates had forgotten one thing: the Flemish media doesn’t cater to any political party, no matter how powerful, no matter it is the “invincible” CD&V/NVA cartel. The Flemish media cater only to Flemish nationalism in all its shades, from mild to rotten brown extremism. And those same Flemish media quickly grasped that the one and only objective of the nationalists would be defeated by this little game, and that they’d be the suckers, as well as the humiliated Walloon population. And that, of course, they had to thwart.

So the Flemish media published the information they had, and revealed the whole game behind the vote in the parliamentary commission, and the use of the Institutional Nuclear Bomb. They revealed that both populations, Flemish and Walloon, had been played for suckers by Didier and Yves.

And the day after, the whole Walloon media published the news as well.

And of course, Didier was forced to take a firm stand, to denounce “rumours which amount to nothing else but insults”, and to reaffirm that he’d never, ever be part of a government as long as the Flemish side didn’t give guarantees concerning the respect of the Walloons.

Meanwhile, Yves disappeared the gods know where, being the brave and courageous leader that he’s shown everyone that he is, multiple times. But his party, the CD&V/NVA cartel was also forced to take a firm stand and announce that they’d never give any guarantee, and that on the opposite, Didier and to give guarantee that he’d keep on catering to the Flemish side and yield on the institutional reforms.

And today, the Flemish press is gunning down poor darling Yves, and his party.

And maybe, just maybe, something is about to go right in this country.

Maybe everyone will realize in Wallonia just unworthy of any trust our dear Didier is. Maybe everyone will at last realize that man is only lusting after one thing: power for himself. Maybe people will at last understand that there's only one thing he pursues: his personal ambitions, and everything else be damned.

And maybe Yves and Didier will learn one thing:

When you throw a boomerang in the air, if it misses its target (say because you didn’t take into account all the parameters, such as how the Flemish media operates), it tends to come back to you, and smack you right in the face.

So please, my dear Yves, my dear Didier, stand firm like the good alpha males you roleplay. Stand firm, do not try to evade, and take that rushing boomerang head on. I'll be watching you.

With glee.

Deceit, Humiliation, Shame and Blue Oranges

2007-11-08T20:11:00.000+01:00

In French, there is a funny sounding expression, with a very ominous and grave meaning: “to cross the yellow line.” When you cross the yellow line, you go past a point of no return, you do something that is irremediable, and you had better be prepared to take responsibility for your decision.

In Belgium, three linguistic communities coexist—coexisted until yesterday. Their pacific coexistence was insured by unspoken rules such as “all the important decisions which might change even the tiniest little thing in the rights of any one community, or change the structure of the state will always been taken solely when there is a majority in favor in every single community.”

Yesterday, that essential principle was trampled from underfoot, and the Flemish community used what is known as the “Institutional Nuclear Bomb”. The Flemish community, which represents 60% of the Belgian population, voted a law that all French-speaking people and the French community opposes. The Flemish political parties did so in spite of ongoing negotiations, after delivering an ultimatum for getting a “suitable result” to these ongoing negotiations. Of course, it also happens that Mr Leterme, the person in charge of those negotiations to form a government, who is the candidate to the position of prime minister, is also the one who:

deliberately delayed talking about the problem which “triggered” the Flemish vote until the last minute, every time it landed on the table. This problem was thus not discussed, because of this oh so wonderful and worthy candidate prime minister, until two days prior to a moment when a parliamentary commission would be able to seize the matter and pass a vote on it.
is one of the figureheads of the main Flemish party, coupled with another, extremist and nationalist Flemish party. And he has been either unable or unwilling to hold his troops in check and prevent them from going ahead with a vote in parliamentary commission that is tantamount to a true, hones-to-god war declaration with the French community.
already proved his worth and more by stating in an interview in a French national newspaper that the Walloons were intellectually unable to learn Dutch, meaning mentally retarded.

I should add, that our sublime, outstanding candidate for prime minister also demonstrated his amazing qualities of leadership when he fled a meeting of the Flemish political parties (including his own, which weighs the most in these negotiations) and left them to decide for themselves what they’d do come the morning of the vote: consider that their demands had been met, or go ahead with the vote and detonating the institutional nuclear bomb. So brave of him! Running away, instead of staying, rising above his own community and showing that he can, really, be the prime minister of all the Belgian citizens, of all the communities.

Because of his inadequacy, of his ineptitude, the yellow line has been crossed. The Flemish parties have voted, along side with a fascist, far-right and nationalist extremist party. The Flemish side of Belgium has sold its collective soul to worse than the devil, all for three letters, BHV, and to satisfy a stupid, unwarranted thirst for vengeance due to their being stuck in the past, and a false imagery of “French-speakers domination” (it’s so easy to forget that their own upper class was the one which humiliated them, and their own upper class spoke French, while the people on the other side, as poor as they, and as humiliated as they, spoke the Walloon dialects, and were crushed under the boot of a French speaking elite, meaning that all the elites in Belgium spoke French at the time, while the people on every side spoke dialect, be it Flemish or Walloon, but they so like to forget about that).

Worse, there are insistent rumors that this whole scenario was co-written with Mr. “I want POWER NOW and without the socialists” Reyndens, in order to get rid of the BHV problem. If that were to be true, then Mr Reynders deserves to be sent back into the opposition for a very, very long time. Mr Reynders is unworthy of holding any position of power, at any level whatsoever. There are prices you just CANNOT accept to pay, no matter how much you lust after what is offered in exchange.

The decision of the king to keep Mr Leterme as the head of negotiations to form a government is alarming. More, it is shameful, and humiliating for the whole French speaking population. The very measured response of the Walloon political parties called upon to form the “Blue Orange” government is also more than distressing. They are fast losing all credibility and I’m not sure people here will love being represented by ass-kissers who’re so happy to continue licking the boots of those who just kicked them in the mud.

Mr Leterme has disqualified himself for the position of prime minister. He will never be the representative of Belgium, he has shown that more than clearly. He’s unworthy of it, irremediably so. He must go, if there is to be a federal government.

And quite frankly, if the Wallon parties accept to paly in the current game of the Flemish parties, the coalition they will form will maybe be an Orange, but it will not be Blue.

It will be a Brown Orange.

And Brown, in this context, is the color of the far-right, fascist parties.

So, Mr Reynders, Mrs Milquet, if I were you, I'd think well, I'd think long before yielding to any kind of temptation to get power in your hands. Some things come with a price I'm quite sure you can't afford to pay.

If you forget about this, you can be certain that the voters won't. The next elections are in 2009. And that's already knocking at our door.

See you then...

Don't You Hate Obituaries ?

2007-11-03T19:58:00.000+01:00

I do.

I hate them.

Not only because they’re a pain to write, but also because they mean you’re giving a final farewell to someone. And final farewells don’t sit well with me, agnostic though I am, the more so when they concern people this rotten world needs alive and present. Not gone.

Benedicte Vaes was a master at her art. Her sword was the pencil, then the keyboard. Her finely honed mind always led her arm unerringly, allowing her to knife through deceit, through lies and to shed a stark light on all the questions she analyzed. Without compromises, aiming only for the truth. Rejecting convenience, and all sides in a matter be damned.

Benedicte Vaes was one of the finest voices of journalism in Belgium. I have read many of her papers in Le Soir, and I can hear her voice echoing in my mind, from radio debates she used to participate in. She was an expert in social and economical matters. She denounced unfairness in laws, in decisions made by the government, the union leaders, or the corporate business associations. She exposed the high and mighty when they destroyed workers’ lives to make their already considerable fortunes grow bigger. She rang the bell when things were getting bad.

She was a voice everyone knew. Everyone respected.

She was a voice people heard. They might not like what she had to say, because she was one of the mightiest voices for the left, although I’m quite sure she wouldn’t like to be qualified that way. She stood for fairness, for justice, and for all that’s good in our human hearts. And when she drew out her sword and wrote, the high and mighty read. They grumbled, they complained, they crushed the paper in their hands before dumping it in the nearest bin. But they read it.

And the truth came glaring out at them all, shaped by the pencil and keyboard of Benedicte Vaes.

Now that fate has struck, as it so loves to do, I sit here at my keyboard wondering: whose voice will rise to replace hers? I sit here, and I hope someone will. Until someone does, the light will shine a bit less bright on this forsaken planet. Unless we do not let ourselves forget.

Unless we do not allow the voice of Benedicet Vaes to fade into silence.

Unless we remember that even though she is now out of our reach, she has left us gifts that will forever remain with us. Gifts that Time will not, cannot erode or take away.

Papers.

Web pages.

Benedicte Vaes’ weapons were the pencil and the keyboard. Her sword and bow which supported the cause of justice, of fairness, and upheld all that is good in all of us.

What her weapons shaped, wrote and crafted will always remain with us. It’s all still with us. We just need to google her name, and read.

So I will not say farewell, or “I’ll miss your voice”. But I will say, “I’ll remember” and “I’ll keep on reading and forcing my lazy mind to work out the truth behind all the spin of the days.”

Here’s to you, Mrs Vaes. I, for one, will not forget.

And Nothing Changes

2007-09-19T11:43:00.000+02:00

In the end, when all is done, when all the fighting, all the struggling through grief and loss, when all the discovering of all the destruction brought about by a sick mixture of fate, negligence and criminal intent, what you find is a feeling.

A feeling so heavy, so strong that it smothers almost everything else.

Nothing changes. Nothing really, truly changes.

The Greeks re-elect in power those who locked up the hundreds of millions of Euros given them by the European Union so they could invest in the prevention of fires. The Greeks re-elect in power those who promised they’d sell off the beaches and beautiful coastlines of the land of the gods to the highest bidder. The Greeks re-elected to power those who bought off their votes by offering “relief money” to anyone who’d come to a bank and would promise they’d have suffered damages in the fires, without even requiring proof. What happened then is known: thousands of people rushed to the banks, many of whom were people who never suffered in the fires. People who greedily took that fake blood money and accepted that their votes were so coarsely bought by people who don’t vie a damn about anything other than their own, continued ascension to power.

And so it goes on. And so nothing changes. There will be no change in the laws to prevent avid property developers to feed on the ashes and the scorched land to build high buildings of concrete that will scar the land of the gods forever, oozing their tainted streams of tourists who will be al too happy to stomp on the remains of what was once beautiful and wild. Nobody in the re-elected majority will vote a law forbidding any building of hotels and other complexes upon sites which have been torched and often deliberately burnt to the ground for at least 10 years.

And the oh, so righteous Orthodox Church so benevolently lends its hand to the bereaved. Its priests gather in a semi-circle to receive the poor people who have lost everything. They get the Holy Church’s mighty help, there’s just a very, very small thing to do to earn that help: kneel, bow, and kiss the many-ringed fingers of those self-proclaimed speakers for the divine. And the charitable Church will hold out its hand to the many burnt down villages, and it will give to the people, but there is only one tiny little catch: they will give only to those who are worthy, to those who have sworn allegiance, they will select those worthy to receive on their willingness to bow to the Church and to do its bidding.

And yet people bow to this, people continue to accept being reduced to beggars, humiliated by an institution as corrupted and as greedy for its own power than the politicians it put in power. Perhaps you will smile if I tell you that, even as I write this, the newly re-elected government is sworn in power, not before the parliament, not before the people, but before the Orthodox Church. So backward is Greece. So tightly bound are the politicians with the Orthodox Church, that they are merely the puppets of priests, who send them voters after the Sunday preach. I hear this, I hear the beautiful songs, and my insides clench with revulsion. I feel like throwing up.

Perhaps one day the Greek people will finally lift up their heads and win free of the heavy, heavy fetters set on them by a Church so obsolete its teachings and precepts are antediluvian. Chained up by a Church who feels a need so strong to control every aspect of its “faithfuls” lives that it will frown and set shame on any who would dare marry before a secular authority before marrying before its priests. Shame and scorn on those bold and crazy enough to marry outside of a Church that will not tolerate anyone marrying before any other institution than it, the secular authorities like a mayor’s included.

And, finally, I get to what prompted me to write this piece even though I’m in Greece and I usually keep well away from the Internet: the last volume of Harry Potter. And here as well, when all is done, nothing truly changed: muggles are still muggles, lower lifeforms, gentle educated pets the wizards smile upon, protect from the knowledge of their presence with a veil of secrecy instead of taking the long, hard road of trying to find a way to live together. Even though the book contains one or two sentences explaining that muggles and wizards are both human, still the difference remain. Still people, normal people are not to be trusted, still normal people are to be protected, and “muggles’ rights” laws have to be passed, as if people were a threatened species of whales or dolphins.

And also, when all is done, when Severus Snape’s role is revealed, still Harry’s children taunt each other with the shame of entering Slytherin. Still they dread this “awful” possibility. Still, the author clings to a hierarchy of “valor” and “goodness” between the four Houses of Hogwarts. It spills out of every page where the students are gathered. That carefully established hierarchy remains in the words of the author herself, in the numbers of students from each House who decide to remain and fight the final battle against Voldemort beside Harry.

Griffyndor remains the one and only place to be. Godric Griffyndor’s shadier acts during his life aren’t explored. They’re barely hinted at, and then quickly forgotten since the one because of whom those doubts are brought about ends up “betraying” Harry.

I do not like this hierarchy of valor. I do not like these “casts” or “social classes” of sorts that Rowlings established and, as far as I can tell, upheld to the very end. All the characters of the other Houses will ever have been are shadows in the background, even during the last battle against Voldemort. All the wit, all the intelligence, all the courage and all the strength are and remain in Griffyndor. I would ask why, and I would ask why the three heroes all belong to the same House. My only hope is that we are supposed to think the way I’m thinking, and that what she pictures is nothing more than this sad truth of humanity: we never learn or, if we do, it takes us such a long, terribly long time.

Still, I would be lying if told you I didn’t enjoy the book. Harry irked me to the very end, but still I found myself wiping off the beginnings of tears when I closed down the book for good, and bid a final farewell to the universe of Hogwarts. I regret the useless deaths during the final confrontation, which really serve no true purpose, and could easily have been avoided. They felt like an overkill of tragedy to me. But I am not the author, and the author is god, so I guess I have to bow my head, and say thank you, for all the good times that the Harry Potter books brought me over the years, in spite of my being more than annoyed by Harry, from the 4th book to almost the end.

After all, how could I dislike a story which had Severus Snape in it?

Perhaps one day we will learn. Perhaps one day we will be able to rise above what we are. What choice have we but to hope this will happen?

And anyway, as many wiser people have said before me: it’s the journey that counts.

The quest. Not the unreachable goal.

To Those Who Stand Between Fire and the Land of the Gods

2007-08-31T13:15:00.000+02:00

I want to bow deeply.

I want to say thank you.

I want to tell you that no words can be adequate to convey the gratitude of all those who love this beautiful country of our beginnings.

I want to tell you that no words can be adequate to convey our sorrow and grief for those among you who lost their lives fighting against Hell itself.

Tomorrow, I will be there, and I will cross the Peloponnese. I will see for myself the devastation, the desert of ashes where forests and nature held dominion.

I will see the wasteland caused by people’s criminal and murderous intents—created by people’s criminal negligence. I know Greece. And I know that while a good number of fires were deliberately lit, a good number of others might as well have been deliberately lit. Because Greece is plagued by a terrible bane: negligence.

An absence of ecological consciousness.

In Greece, people throw cigarettes out the windows of their cars even though they’re still alight, even though it’s more than 40°C outside and the wind is blowing.

In Greece, people clean up areas used to dry their small grapes by lighting fire to those areas, no matter that the temperatures are beyond 40°C and the wind is blowing.

In Greece, junkyards are everywhere, in the open, and authorities set fire to them during Summer so as to have more space to store the waste created by the hordes of tourists who flood this beautiful country. And it doesn’t matter if it’s above 40°C outside and if the wind is blowing.

And so, beyond the anger and the sorrow I feel, I hope that this catastrophe will at least be useful in sparking this ecological consciousness to life in the general Greek population. I hope things will be safer, cleaner, more rational.

But whether or not that happens, most of all, to all of you who stood and keep standing between Fire and the Land of the Gods, I wanted to say:

Thank you, from the bottom of my heart.

In the Realm of Injustice and Absurdity

2007-08-29T14:05:00.000+02:00

On August 30rd, a man is going to be murdered. He’s going to be murdered with the blessing of the Texas laws and pseudo-judicial system. Forget for just a moment the debate around the use and concept of the death penalty and of what it implies for those who advocate its use. What is this man’s, Kenneth Foster’s, crime?

Well, he witnessed a murder.

Yes, that’s all he did. He drove a car in which criminals were sitting, he drove a car from which one of those criminals got out, argued with someone and ended up killing that person. And as the murderer came back into the car, Kenneth Foster, the car’s driver, started the car and took off, terrified.

That is the extent of Kenneth Foster’s crime. Oh, he’s certainly guilty of association with law-breakers. He’s unwittingly helped a murderer flee the scene of the crime. And he deserved to be tried and convicted for that.

But Kenneth Foster never killed anyone.

Kenneth Foster never even envisioned that someone would be killed that fateful night.

And yet, Kenneth Foster has been found guilty of the murder, and stands in Death Row to be executed for a crime he didn’t commit. A crime everyone knows, the judicial system and the victim’s parents included, that he didn’t commit.

And yet I am yet to see a single paper concerning this horrifying prospect in any US newspaper. I am yet to hear that the news that a human being is going to be killed for a crime everyone knows he didn’t commit.

What does this silence say concerning the US media? What does this silence say concerning the moral high ground the US media, politicians and associations so loves to drape themselves into?

That they’re nothing more than a thin veil of smoke, a cracking layer of varnish that cannot hide the ugliness lying beneath.

What does this verdict say about the US judicial system? What does this planned execution say about a country that boasts it’s has the best judicial system in the world, the fairest democracy in the world?

It says that this is just hypocrisy, another puff of smoke that many in the US are content to stare at with vacant gazes.

Whether or not you support the death penalty, the fate that awaits Kenneth Foster isn’t justice. It’s not an execution.

It’s murder, plain and simple.

The Land of the Gods Ablaze

2007-08-26T10:27:00.000+02:00

Greece is burning.

Since Friday, fires have been roaring in the land of the gods. Flames leap high to reach the sky, and thick, heavy clouds of acrid smoke blot out the sun. Powerful winds blow, feeding even more the blazes’ frenzy. It’s August, and the Meltemi sweeps across Greece, as it always does at this time of year.

Satellite images show the Peloponnesus as an erupting volcano. The Taygetos mountains are burning. The beautiful Taygetos mountains I watch from my writing spot whenever I’m in Greece. The beautiful Taygetos mountains I’ll be watching a week from now. What will be left of the forests draping their flanks? Desolation? Charred stumps of trees? Grey and black everywhere the eye can see?

Yesterday I watched the Greek satellite TV, and couldn’t bring myself to switch channels. My heart wrenching, I watched people howling their despair and their rage at this unspeakable catastrophe. I watched people threatening the roaring fires and being forced to withdraw at the last minute, on the brink of throwing themselves into the flames to fight them hand on hand. I watched an old woman explaining she had spent the night alone in a village ravaged by the flames, unable to flee. She was standing in the middle of the ruins, in front of the devastation that’s all that’s left of her life. I listened as she explained she got no help, she got no one to help her evacuate. I read reports of people in remote villages phoning radio and TV stations and pleading to be sent help so they could be evacuated before the fires caught up with them.

I listened to the people explaining that a great many fires had been started during the night between Friday and Saturday, which can mean only one thing: arson. Arson, dozens of them, even as all the rescue teams, planes and helicopters, were already stretched far too thin. Arson. This is beyond a simple crime linked to building speculation. This is deliberate murder. These are deeds foul and vile, the murder of people, the murder of a land which is the Western civilization’s beginning.

Cowards, fucking greedy cowards have brought hell on Earth, have transformed the land of the gods into the realm of Hades. Oh how I hope they get caught. How I hope they get tried, publicly. How I hope they spend the rest of their wretched lives in prison, and working to undo the damage they’ve done.

Greece is my second home. It’s the one other place in which my heart beats and my dreams soar high. It’s a place of peace, of serenity. And now…well, now, Greece is ablaze.

Popes try to cower the fires into quiescence, threatening them with their god’s power. There’s so much despair, so much empty courage in their pitiful, absurd attempts that I do not know whether to laugh or cry.

Greece has appealed for the EU’s help, and already countries have answered and sent water planes, helicopters and men. I can only hope that their added strength will help Greece to prevail. I can only hope the Meltemi’s powerful gales will abate and allow the rescue teams a chance to fight the hellish fires. I can only hope, when all is done, that the land, the earth, will lend its strength so that new life can grow. New trees, new plants. I can only hope those who have lost everything will have a way of rebuilding homes for themselves. I can only hope those who lost loved ones will somehow find the strength to endure and to go on.

Athena, if you’re listening and if you have a minute to spare, the land that is yours could really, really use a little bit of divine intervention.

Power, or not Power ?

2007-08-19T14:01:00.000+02:00

What Price are you willing to pay ?

When you want to get to a concert, you have to pay, when you want to go somewhere far away, you have to pay. When you want to have power, you have to pay.

The one thing you usually focus on in these moments, is the price.

But what if you want something really badly? What if you want it no matter what?

This is the situation we’re watching unfold in Belgium. It’s been more than 60 days since the elections, and we’re still very far away from getting a government deal. The “government shaper” (or head of the negotiations process designated by the king according to rules which bind the king’s hands) we have is not working for Belgium, he’s working for Flanders (he is the former president of the Flanders region, and the ex president of a Christian and Nationalist alliance of political parties).

On the Flemish side, the two parties negotiating have very clear demands for more independence, their program looking more like a tearing down of the Belgian state than like a path for everyone working together toward a common goal. They can be seen as working hand in hand.

On the Walloon side, we have the two “sibling” parties of their Flemish counterparts. One, the MR, wants power. It wants it with such greed and avidity, that it’s pushing, rushing, delivering somber warnings to its would-be Walloon partner. The MR’s president, Mr Reynders, is so engrossed with the prospect of reaching power inside a coalition without the Socialists—a coalition which would give him free reign at last to unravel our welfare system and our way of life, a coalition in which there would be no counterpart sufficiently powerful to thwart his moves and alert the public opinion—that he’s standing on the verge of yielding to the outrageous demands of the Flemish parties.

And to obtain this, Mr Reynders must somehow force the other Walloon party to yield as well, to bow down to absurd demands which mean nothing more than the end of Belgium. To understand what’s going on, you need to know that the fundamental changes in the workings of the Belgian state demanded by the Flemish parties cannot be voted by a simple majority in the Assembly. These changes demand a change of the Belgian Constitution, and thus demand a special majority of 2/3rd of the Assembly.

This special majority can be achieved with the two Walloon parties vying for power, and with a union of all the Flemish parties (who wouldn’t hesitate to unite, as they all share nationalist and selfish elements). But to achieve such a majority, composed of more Flemish allies than Walloon, would mean to tear down all the unspoken rules that keep Belgium together. It would be what we call an “institutional bomb”, which might herald the true end of our country. It would never be accepted in Wallonia, on the French-speaking part of Belgium, and any party which would take part in such a scheme would suffer heavily for its betrayal of its voters in the next elections.

The second Walloon party knows this, and thus it’s balking, and refusing to yield—not to mention that it is far from sharing all of Mr Reynders’ dreams of destroying our social security system and welfare state.

And so, all the Flemish parties, as well as the Flemish media, are calling the second Walloon party an obstacle, a chicken, and are demanding that it yields and accepts to swallow the fish.

Of course, at this point, you’re wondering what’s going on through the MR party. You’re wondering whether Mr Reynders hasn’t taken leave of his senses, and you’re thinking that he too, would have to face the next elections, and the rebuff of the voters. But it’s not so easy. Mr Reynders is contemplating twisted ways out, like cajoling one of the smaller parties, the Walloon ecologist party, into voting with the majority on these aspects. Mr Reynders is so famished for power, a power he wouldn’t have to share with the Socialists, that he’s willing to stoop so low as it takes. He’s already doing so, hinting at the second Walloon party’s “squeamishness” at its “lack of courage and willingness to enter a government”.

He’s already doing so, playing dangerously close to what amounts to betraying all the French-speaking population. And I have no doubt he’s ready to step beyond the line and go all the way.

So here I stand, watching the news, analyzing and hoping that the second Walloon party will not be intimated, and will hang in there.

Here I stand, hoping that all the political parties in Wallonia, Socialists and ecologists alike, will not land their power and their representatives’ votes to help destroy Belgium.

Here I stand, hoping that Mr Reynders will fail, hoping that Mr Leterme will be forced to resign, and that the king will be free to name a true man of stature to shape a government. A government which cannot be limited to only the MR and the CDH, not if it is to be balanced with the Flemish side. No, this government must include the Socialist party, if Belgium is to survive. If our welfare state and its social security system are to survive. There is no other way.

And some prices are not worth paying, even if it’s to gain power.

Poudre aux Yeux

2007-08-15T11:33:00.000+02:00

The French saying simply means "spraying powder before people's eyes so they won't see what's happening in front of them.

And this is exactly what's happening in France, with the touching complicity of the French media. Sarkozy's government has laws infringing the rights to go on strike, to force minimal penalties in judgment, to drastically cut down the number of civil servants, teachers included, and to organize tax cuts that will benefit only the wealthiest classes of citizens. Do we hear about that?

Oh, just a small paper here or there, in the back pages of the newspapers. A thirty seconds interview in the TV news, but no more. No, what occupies the front pages and the headlines TV news is a stupid, phony controversy of Cecilia Sarkozy being "sick" and thus unable to attend the lunch with W and family in the US. And journalists wonder at this woman's actions, wonder if Sarkozy's worst enemy isn't his wife, and spin absurd tales of Cecilia being a rebel. In touching unison, right wing and left wing media paint the portrait of a free woman, wonder if she couldn't be the next candidate for the French presidency...all ludicrous and groundless.

All completely fabricated and futile. Useless--unless of course their aim is simply to focus people's minds on those moronic tales not even worth the worst of romance novels, while the true harm is done in the "unfortunately" less glamorous chambers of France's assembly rooms.

Where laws are voted.

Where essential freedoms and rights are scraped at, slowly but certainly.

While Sarkozy gently, softly, weakens the state, lessens the strength of the administrations and systems that organize and carry out the essential services to the citizens. While Sarkozy discreetly takes the citizens' tax money and hijacks it from its purpose so it can be put to good use: to allow the richest layers of the French society to get even richer at the expense of everyone else.

While Sarkozy carefully prepares the ground to have people accept his plans of forcing them to work more, longer, to take away their rights at decent retirement income past 65 years of age, prepares the way for turning the jobless into criminals in the group mind of the French population, thus opening the path for true exploitation of those unlucky enough to be the victims of corporation who aim at nothing but rising their profits, whatever the cost.

While Sarkozy gingerly paves the road to total market domination over our lives. Gentle, kind, tender and oh, so benevolent market which will regulate itself and make us all happy of course.Oh, yeah!

And while these delicate thefts and unraveling of France's essential rights is being carried out, the whole French media is swooning over the French first lady.

And I stand there watching them, and wondering: has France stooped so low as to imitate the way the US does politics? Have the left wing media taken leave of their senses? Has it come to such a point that they don't even dare talking about the true subjects of information, to debate the true actions taking place in the French Assembly, because all the people care about is empty people-isation of politics? Because all that people care about is who fucks whom and betrays whom? Because people don't care anymore what happens to their lives, or will care only when it's too late?

What is it that the news media and the lambda, average citizen find so fascinating in Nicolas Sarkozy's holidays in the US? What is it that interests them in the billionaire house he's using for the holidays? Who cares that he does his jogging everyday? This is bullshit. This is lies, fabrications for brainless people who are too lazy to actually think and reflect on what's happening around them.

This is an illusion, an illusion the media are all too happy to mirror and cast over everything else.

This is pure poudre aux yeux.

And still, I stand there and wonder.

I read Libération and Rue89, I listen to what the French opposition party leaders say, and I don't understand.

Why?

I Will, I Will Arm You !

2007-08-03T20:00:00.000+02:00

In essence, this is the message sent by the White House to quite a few countries in the Middle East, except for Big, Bad Iran and Evil, Evil Syria.

Of course, if I were a little kid bored of watching his toy soldiers get rolled down one by one, yawning at the sight of yet another terrorist attack killing scores of innocent, fortunately nameless and alien Iraqi people (at least since they're just aliens, people in my little country won't relate with their slaughter and won't feel any kind of empathy), maybe I'd come up with a plan to make things a little more colorful in that really uninteresting area.

This plan would really be neat if it involved arming arch-enemies, and if this "arming" implied giving the opportunity to enrich in an obscene fashion all the armament companies in my beloved "land of the free" (companies which are already obscenely fat and rich thanks to the deaths of innocents, money reaped on blood, pain and despair, on death, but hey, who cares, right?).

And of course, if the "selling" of arms were to be carried through subsidiaries to the countries my nice friends who're all CEOs of the weapons companies and helped me so much when I had to get money to become Almighty Emperor of the World, it'd be a really fun bonus. Why, you ask? Ah, silly! Subsidiaries mean that I'd pay for all the weapons, or a part of them, using the tax money of all the poor dupes who voted for me and were stupid enough to believe in me and my empty promises of diminishing taxes. Yeah, taxes for schools, for social services, for health and retirement, for the jobless, for the maintenance of roads, bridges (hello, Minnesota, by the way), all that is completely worthless. And people wouldn't pay for them, they're too stupid to realize it'd help them one day.

Nah, I'd just wave a stupid flag before their noses, they'll react like good dogs and start barking, and giving away their precious money. Id' say "Homeland Security", and those fools would come running with their tails wagging. I'd say that "the defense of our nation demands a sacrifice", and they'd pay a new tax with tears of joy and gratitude in their vacant eyes.

They'd pay so I can arm those unstable arch-enemies and then watch while tension rises, and eventually blows into a real, nice little regional war over there. Much funnier than all those random terrorist attacks and some of my soldiers killing off innocent people because they feel frustrated and cheated of doing in real bad guys.

Yeah, it'd be a really, really good plan. Get my stupid, brainless citizens to pay taxes so I can arm countries which harbor the same bitter hatred for each other. Yeah, arm Israel and Saudi Arabia, arm Egypt as well, and the Emirates... Yup!

Ah, I'd so look forward to all the funny slaughter this would lead to!

Lucky for the world, I'm not a kid bored with watching his toy soldiers get toppled on the gameboard.

A little less lucky for the world, Georges W Bush is.

Words and Hearts—Hey, Where are Our Minds?

2007-07-29T11:57:00.000+02:00

Words. Sounds. Syllables. Powerful things, they cajole us, they frighten us, they comfort us, they make us laugh, they make us smile, they make us cry.

They make us think.

Words are power, and the tone used to utter them adds to their might, to the imprint they leave inside our minds—or should that be our hearts?

Two words used by writers and journalists, and all those who write to indicate the same thing. Mind, heart…those two words both speak of the grey matter beneath our skulls. This mysterious bit of grey matter where the intellect resides. Where emotions and feelings reside.

Always, in all times, people in power have tried to separate what is in fact one. People in power, be it in churches or other temples, be it in palaces or parliaments, or White Houses, have tried, and tried again to tell us that our hearts and our minds weren’t in the same place.

And incidentally, those nice people in power have always warned us of the treachery of our minds. The heart is oh, so much more trustworthy. So much nobler. So much better.

The mind is a fishy thing, a thing that demands a minimum of focus, of work, of reflection. A minimum of effort, while emotions and feelings rise naturally in response to things happening around us, to things said around us.

Heart and mind are two faces of the same whole. Two complementary elements. Together they give us balance. They make us whole. Separate, they make us prey to either inhumanity, or to the honeyed words flung our way by authorities either secular or religious.

Authorities, politicians, priests like to appeal to our hearts. They do not want our minds to come into the equation, and it’s so easy for them to do so: we’re all lazy, and lazy means we don’t feel like making the effort to listen and to analyze what we’re being told. We prefer being lulled by the song of the words, by the musical tone of voices. We let ourselves drift in the music, and we simply go along with the flow.

And we are duped. Like small children who’d go anywhere so long as they’re being handed out candies.

And the irony in all this is, that there are still decent people in politics, decent people in religions, but we rarely heed them. We rarely support them…or we aren’t enough to do so. Because those people do not want to trick us, and as they want to convince us, as they want to truly have our support, they appeal to our minds. They tell us important things, facts, numbers and reports they want us to analyze with them. They give them to us, so we can focus on them, and draw our own conclusions, make our own decisions.

But not enough of us want to do that. Not enough of us want to think, and get headaches figuring out what is going on around u s, the mechanics of our world, and devise a way to make it better, or at least ponder and decide who’s most likely to try and herd the world along the best path open to us.

As it has come to France, it has been in the US for a long, long time: the thinking crime has been imprinted in a great many people’s minds. People are taught to be wary of their minds, to be wary of intellectuals, of politicians, leaders who use precise, complicated words. People are taught that those who appeal to their minds, who ask them to make an effort, to think and analyze, are in fact elite snobs who have nothing but contempt for them.

People are taught to feel and emote, and they are taught to shun thinking. People are taught obedience and submission. People are aught to bow down their heads and to go work, work and work, so that when they get back home they’re so tired they don’t want to do anything other than to drown in whatever brainless reality show that’s airing when they drop into their sofas.

And of course, this is all very logical. While you can control someone through a shrewd use of emotions and feelings, appealing to the mind is taking a risk. The risk of understanding. The risk of disagreement. The risk of opposition. The risk of rebellion. The risk of revolution.

And of course, all those who have an authoritarian streak do not want that. They do not want that at all. So they appeal to our hearts, they use simple words, they do not tell us the truth of what they want to do. Instead they tell us that they have children and dogs, they tell us they’re good people who go to church, they tell us their opponents are bad people who do no respect this or that. They do not refute the contents of what their opponents stand for, they have no need for that. They’re appealing to our feelings and emotions, not to our minds. They do not want us to understand, they do not want to convince us. They want us to react on instinct, on emotions and feelings their words trigger. They want us to separate from a part of ourselves. They want us to be unbalanced, and soft, easy to shape and manipulate.

And so often, we are all too happy to oblige. Because it’s so much easier. Because we’re tired, and because thinking requires embracing the bleakness of our situations and of our lives, because it requires gathering the strength to rise beyond initial despair to think further, to find a way to make things better.

Because it requires a strength that can only come from the combination of what makes us truly human: our hearts and our minds.

And we need this balance, we need our hearts. We need our minds. We need them, if we are to outgrow old reflexes, if we are to win free of the leashes we accepted for so long. If we are to go beyond the simplistic rejections some words provoke in us, like “liberal”, or “socialist” or “communist”. What do we know of the true meaning of those words? What do we know, beyond the mental images they call up, mental images created by the very people who do not want us to think, and who want us in their control?

We know nothing…unless we decide to use our brains, and think.

The Thinking Crime

2007-07-22T11:48:00.000+02:00

There, it’s said at least. Now the truth is out, and criminals had better beware!

We think too much. It’s unseemly, it’s unproductive, and we should be ashamed. So the extremist minister of economics Mrs Lagarde said before the French assembly when defending the project of France’s new Enlightened Great Leader.

Thinking is obsolete, thinking is useless, fruitless and futile. It’s time we stopped, and high time we focused instead on the one important thing: work, work, work more, work without thinking, without reflecting, without analyzing. Work more, so that the Great, Wonderful and All-Powerful Economic Machine can prosper, and dump the tiniest crumbs of its profits into the held out hand of the working masses—and, please, give up on thinking about where the huge majority of the generated profits go, we told you already: thinking is a CRIME.

“Work more to earn more.”

This has been a mantra of Nicolas Sarkozy’s campaign. And of course, the Exalted Leader, the Savior of France would accompany this mantra with warnings that thinking is outdated, really far too much elite, and so contemptuous of the hard-working masses. It’s only natural to for him to flatter the populations and rub them the right way by claiming that he’s like them, he’s not an intellectual, he doesn’t waste his time thinking.

And so his minions are using the same argument. How could they not?

How do you expect to sell a rotten package like “work more to earn more” while allowing people to think and reflect on what they’re being told is good for them? If people indulged into the thinking crime, they might unravel the honeyed lies spun around the new French president’s mantra. They might add two and tow, and come up with the truth. They might balance one law with another, weigh the consequences of what one would entail for the other.

People might understand that “letting them work more to earn more” by erasing the taxes on extra-hours while passing law that will allow employers to fire employees without reason, on the spot and with a ridiculously short notice, will have interesting consequences:

Negating the proferred lie, “of course, doing extra-hours will be solely on a voluntary basis”: of course, you will have to volunteer to work those extra-hours. If you don’t, well your employer will be free to fire you, and replace you with someone who will volunteer.
Once you’ve established that pattern, and in reality forced people to all become volunteers to work extra-hours, you can lower the normal time, fixed income for people who work full time without extra-hours, to focus on the brave, courageous workers who deserve to earn more because they work more, and in so doing, insure that the “volunteers” will be trapped, will drown deeper and deeper in the swamp you created.

It’s no wonder that Mrs Lagarde came to the Assembly spewing out her rant on the thinking crime. If people indulged into thinking , they might deduce the truth behind the slogans and mantra, the truth behind the “Saviors of France’s” claims to lead the country and its population toward better times.

And that truth is so easy to find, if you just care to think about it: where does Mrs Lagarde come from? What does Mr Sarkozy love so? What is the model they admire and are pushing, carefully working to eradicate the French and European cultures and ways of seeing the world?

The US.

The US, Mrs Lagarde just came back from.

The US, where most of the medias, politicians and other voices heard in the country have cultivated for years the submission of people to the Holy Market’s will, the submission of people to All-Knowing, All-Powerful and Loving God of Economy. Economy, the US’ true God, the Sacred Entity which will make everything all right. And it does, if you’re happy with your scores of millions of people living in poverty, ignorance, blind and deaf, their lives dedicated to working in bad condition, focused on paying their bills, and being able to afford to pay for their kids’ school, while a very, very thin percentage of the population reaps it all and feasts on the sweat and work of hundreds of millions.

The US, where it works, for one good reason: politicians (mostly republicans), mass-media (Fox News and other “fair and balanced” obscurantist TV channels, radios or newspapers of the same vein) have carefully, very carefully fed the One Truth that allows people to be lulled into obedience, into stupid beliefs that this is the way the world should be, and that the laws of Almighty Economy are as absolute as the sun rising in the East every morning: intellectuals are elite which spit on the people. Thinking is bad, thinking is for nerds, for geeks, for those people who look upon all of you with such contempt. For elite people who do not know anything of true lives.

Yes, thinking is a crime. A crime against the people. And thinking is bad. Thinking is nasty. Thinking is evil.

Once you’ve established that truth into people’s minds, it will feed itself. It will need a bit of care now and then, but just a bit. The US has more than demonstrated how well that works. In the US, thinkers have been turned into pariahs, lowly forms of life to be shunned, people it’s so comfortable to hate.

And of course, what better way to reach their goal for Mr Sarkozy, for the Enlightened Guide of France and his goons than to follow the US example?

What better way than to outlaw thinking?

Outlaw reflection, outlaw analysis, and promote jogging, promote the descent of politics into the pure swamp of love affairs, glamour, rich parties and celebrations where you take care to be photographed close to the “hard-working populace”. Promote idiocy, promote the hatred of intellectuals, promote blind obedience, promote brainless belief.

Chances are it will work, and people will choose the quick fix, the easy path. In a galaxy far, far away, Georges Lucas once warned us that doing so led to the Dark Side.

History told us time and again, that it leads to obscurantism, to dictatorship. To hate thinking, to condemn and outlaw those who think, those who analyze and those who reflect on what it being claimed, announced and said means a very simple thing: you don’t want anyone to find flaws in your plans. You don’t want anyone to contradict you, you don’t want anyone to think other than you do. You don’t want opposition. You don’t want debate.

You want brainless tools which follow your will blindly. You want slaves, you want beasts of burden. You want the foaming at the mouth, unconditional admiration and consent of the populace. But one thing you don’t want.

You don’t want democracy.

You want a religious dictatorship, where all will bow down to the One True God: Economy.

Delusions

2007-07-15T14:48:00.000+02:00

Some believe that Georges W Bush will succeed. Some believe that that instrument of bad luck and great blunderer is a success.

Some believe Nicolas Sarkozy will save France, and bring happiness to its people.

Some believe that they will find revenge and a renewal of pride and honor through honorless terrorism, the murdering of innocents, of women and children.

Some believe that keeping women under the status of slaves and breeding mares is the will of whatever god they worship.

Some believe that contradictory “laws” of economy will ensure humankind’s welfare and happiness. Some believe these so-called laws will be enough to bring a balance to a world that’s slowly, inexorably falling into chaos.

Some believe that things can go on as they are, that their reign is forever.

Some believe that reining in the desires to adapt to modernity inside the Catholic Church, and clamping down on much-needed reforms, giving signs of going backwards, of reverting to hard lines and obscurantism will bring back the crowds of faithfuls inside the churches for Sunday masses.

Some believe that all is well with the world, and that global warming is but a small problem, whose solution must not hamper the advance of economy, and the exploding production and consumption rates everywhere.

Some people in France believe that presenting the fact that the higher revenues have had an increase of 43% over the year 2006 while the poorer fractions of the population had only an increase of 4.3% in their revenues (barely above the increase in the costs of essential goods one must buy in order to survive) is not a big deal.
43% over a yearly revenue of, say, 500,000 €, meaning an increase of 215,000 € as opposed to 4.3% of a small revenue, say, 20,000 €, meaning an increase of 860€.
215,000€ to the rich layers of the population, versus 860€ to the poorer layers of the population. Since when is that insignificant? Since when isn’t that denounced, and clearly set on the table of Nicolas Sarkozy’s government? Ah, of course, since the moment when Mr Sarkozy’s been catering to the very rich layers of people in France, which means, since the beginning. But fools have voted him in power. Fools see the numbers on TV news, they see the percentages, but they do not take the time to convert that in terms of real money. They do not see, they do not realize.

And they believe.

And the populist, authoritarian Nicolas Sarkozy continues on his way, lying through his teeth, helped by the French TV media, who cater to his every will and whim, who broadcast the lies spun by his communication experts, who transform hard disputes and complains against Mr Sarkozy made by the Europeans who forced Mr Sarkozy to step back on his outrageous demands into a “lightning quick visit during which the president obtained almost everything France wanted”.

And his wife Cecilia goes to Libya to visit the Bulgarian nurses, in a transparent move to snatch at all the gains earned through months and years of diplomatic hard work done by the European Union. A visit heralded by the French media as “a humanitarian visit by the first lady of France”, conveniently forgetting the fact that it is nothing more than a brutal move to usurp the result of Europe’s hard work.

And people believe an image created by the media, a lie spun by communication specialists, while the world moves on, and the reality is the opposite of the honeyed tales sold to gullible crowds who want simplistic answers to hard problems.

And the Bush administration goes ever onward, denying the utter failure of everything it has undertaken.

And the mullahs, and the religious fanatics of Islam, the Talibans, go on stoning women, killing women, raping women, beating women who “do not wear the veil properly”, primitive apes that they are. Cowards. Gelded fools with no balls.

And people keep wanting simple answers, easy answers to hard questions.

And the Vatican keeps plunging down the road back to the dark times of obscurantism, of mass said in Latin, of exorcisms that leave their share of broken victims, of deaths. It’s so easy to think that praying to something will cure you of problems.

It’s so easy to shrug off responsibility to someone else. It’s so easy to claim that killing off the bad guys will turn the world into something better.

It’s so easy to follow Kira, and to cheer every time Yagami Light uses the Death Note.

It’s so convenient.

So mediocre.

So cowardly.

We all want a better world. But what is “a better world”?

Who is going to write the criteria that define “a better world”?

Who? Representing whom?

Georges W Bush?

Nicolas Sarkozy?

Joseph Ratzinger?

A nameless mullah in Tehran?

Theirs aren’t my world. And besides, nobody can build anything on sand. Nobody can build anything on lies…well, anything that lasts, anyway.

The Aliens Among Us

2007-07-08T11:01:00.000+02:00

Aliens. Apart from reminding everyone of the movies starring Sigourney Weaver, “Alien” is a word you can find everyday in an all too real context.

What is an alien? Had I never been to the US, I’d tell you an alien is an extra-terrestrial entity, sentient or not. And more often than not it’s a hideous monster out to devour/destroy/enslave/you-name-it humankind. All in all, what best defines an alien is a living being that’s not human (emphasis on “not”). That’s what I always thought, and it was logical enough.

But when you cross the ocean to get to the US, you discover that the alien is you. You, the foreigner, the stranger. You’re an alien in the term of vocabulary chosen by the US customs to designate someone who isn’t a US national. Shocking though that is in itself, in what it indicates as to how the US customs administration views the outside world, there is worse.

Many ordinary people in the US refer to foreigners as aliens.

And I wonder why. There are other words for people who do not share your nationality. Words which do not also carry the meaning of “beings so different, they’re anything but human”. Foreigner is one. Stranger is another, but I tend to go for foreigner, which does carry the intended meaning of “not being one of the country’s nationals”. Of course, I’m sure some people would argue with me that when the term started being used, science-fiction didn’t even exist, except in the minds of Jules Vernes, and wasn’t a mass market production. That may well be, but the times have changed. And it’s been a very long while since they changed.

When you hear “alien”, you do not think “stranger” or “foreigner”, you think “non human being”. And the “out to destroy humanity” usually isn’t far behind.

Calling people “aliens” is not only shocking, it’s insulting. It’s denying the fact that we’re the same, we’re people, even if some papers say that we do not belong to the same “nationality”. Terms like that serve to keep barriers, gaps and distance between people. Tell me, what do you feel when you hear “alien”? What do you feel when you hear “foreigner”?

On a subconscious level, we do not feel the same thing when we hear those words. One is definitely threatening. Remote, and irremediably different. Alien, in short.

Do people consider these things? Do people realize how important the choice of words can be? Do they understand all the subtext, all the feelings and emotions simple words inevitably trigger deep inside us, no matter whether we admit to this or not?

“Aliens” is one of the things I wish the US and its customs administration would change. It shows how remote and different from the rest of the world the American culture considers its own. Oh, it may be completely unconscious—although I kind of doubt that—but it’s there. It betrays this urge to close in upon oneself, to close to the world outside, and to focus only on oneself. It’s a very human thing to feel. A very human urge to have. But it’s one that must be overcome, especially when one intends to be the leader of “good causes” around the world.

Of course, there are many other things the US needs to change if it wants to embody the “forces of good”, but still “aliens” should change. It’s a small thing, so easy.

When you call me an “alien”, you push me away, you insult me, you deny me. When you call me a “foreigner”, you simply state the fact that I’m not a national of your country. “Alien” is a debasing term, one that denies your existence as a fellow human being. As long as the US administration refers to foreigners as “aliens”, it will strand itself apart from the world. As long as ordinary people within the US use the term and consider it normal, they will back up the growing feeling in the world that the US willingly and deliberately estranges itself from the rest of us, sets itself apart and above the rest of us.

If anyone with a bit of understanding as to how important words can be, as to how deep their meanings run inside our minds and hearts reads this naïve bit of rambling, consider getting over “aliens”.

We’re not “aliens”. We’re people, just like you.

Foreigners, certainly.

But not aliens.

Memories

2007-05-28T20:22:00.000+02:00

The word is a powerful one. It’s an invocation. Of happiness, of sadness, of nostalgia, of fury, of fear.

Of sorrow.

On Saturday, officials zoomed on the road to get to the American Military Cemetery next to my home. In May, the time of remembrance comes, again and again. For people who do not know, who forget, they’re just a convoy of vehicles guarded by police in motorbike that open the road for them. They’re just an anomaly to watch as they drive past, braking to get a better look at them, endangering the traffic in the other lanes as they do so. To me, who once stole inside the great cemetery as a little kid to spy on the ceremonies held there, it’s a time and place for serenity.

A time and a place of green and white.

Of centuries-old trees, beautiful and strong.

Of snow-white crosses, spreading as far as a child’s eye can see.

So numerous the little girl I was couldn’t count them.

I could just tell that there were many of them. A great many of them.

And beneath them, I learnt, people were buried. Young and old, people from the US, who came to fight the evil of Hitler’s war in the second world war. People who came from their faraway land to battle it out against a terrible enemy. People who suffered, feared, bled. And died. For those, there was no careful plan, no well-thought out strategy aimed more at keeping the USSR out of Eruope than at liberating it from the German invasion, no delicate timing. These people were told they’d be fighting against evil, to help people win free, and have a chance at peace and democracy. And they came. And they gave their lives. And my grandparents, and my parents, were free.

Today, the sad melody of trumpets again resounded in the cool air of morning, as the dead were saluted. It had rained. As it had rained on Saturday, and as it always rains on that day. As if the sky itself were shedding tears.

At least, all those people didn’t die in vain. Freedom and peace exist in Europe. But elsewhere…

Memories is also an invocation of deep anger.

When Georges W Bush dares to speak for all those who died, as if he had any right to do so. When he dares to try and recuperate the deaths of all those he sent to be butchered in Iraq for nothing, and to weave their deaths with that of all those who fought during World War II. No, it’s not the same. No, the Iraq war isn’t a just war, one that led to peace and freedom, to democracy. The Iraq war is nothing but a vast fraud, a hijacking of purpose by the great economical interests of the US. It has brought nothing but pain and death and blood to the Iraqi people. It has destroyed anything they had. It has made their situation worse, and condemned them to darkness for many, many years without a single flame of hope.

And it has killed many young people from the US who believed the lie that they would be greeted as saviors and bringers of freedom. Instead, they have been nothing but bringers of chaos and grief, and they have died for nothing.

An invocation of refusal.

In Spain, the right has won the local elections, placing it in good position to win the legislative elections which will be held next year. Have people learnt nothing? Are theys o fickle that the smallest contrary breeze will push them back into the arms of the worst rigid religious extremists? Of populists with a not even hidden nostalgia for Franco? For fascism and dictatorship?

I watch the news, and I keep telling myself that this is just a nightmare gone wild. That it can’t be happening all at once.

Perhaps people are blind. Perhaps they are fools. Perhaps they are cowards who turn the way the wind blows the strongest. Perhaps their hearts are as weak and fickle as their minds are dull. Or perhaps, their memories keep failing them.

I do not know.

All I know is that when the heart-wrenching song of trumpets resounds in the air from beyond the high trees, I see all the white crosses in my mind. In my little girl’s memories.

And I remember.

And my heart doesn’t waver, no matter what populists or sirens may say.

True Lies

2007-05-18T11:55:00.000+02:00

Behold, disbelieving world, the new French government is born! A new way of doing politics, of leading the country by uniting the best people from every political horizon!

Behold in awe and wonder, and thank the Blessed Great Leader Sarkozy for His Infinite Wisdom and Magnanimity!

Errr…no, really, who do they think they’re kidding?

Overture to the different horizons of French politics, overture and a hand held out to former foes in a oh so touching gathering of the best talents to “save the country” and “carry out the difficult reforms”? Yeah, sure. So, who do we have here?

Eric Besson, once Socialist (maybe still even has his membership in order), once co-writer of a long essay demonstrating how Nicolas Sarkozy represents a danger for France and Europe, turned new best friend of said Sarkozy after he realized his personal ambitions and views wouldn’t be all listened to and agreed to by Segolene Royal. Yes, Eric Besson, the man who knifed his candidate in the back in the middle of the campaign and started on demolition rampage, stomping on his own beliefs and spitting on the words honor and loyalty.

Why, yes, Eric Besson is certainly a great symbol of overture and gathering of talent. After all, betrayal and mediocrity are qualities which demand constant and hard work. In that regard, Eric Besson meets all the criteria set by the Blessed Leader to enter the new French government.

Bernard Kouchner, supposedly once Socialist (it’s unclear whether he truly ever had a correct membership in the Socialist party, even though he did profit immensely from said party’s help and assistance). The good old French doctor, co-founder of Doctor Without Broders, an icon in the French group mind, the image of generosity and willingness to act to right all of the world’s many wrongs, at last discards the last shreds of his mask of holiness.

Bernard Kouchner, the whining, egocentric, narcissistic and ambitious high society man who kept complaining that the Socialist party mistreated him and in short forced him to choose Sarkozy who suddenly became “the one person willing to listen and do something”. Never mind that during the campaign the same Kouchner denounced the danger that the Holy Father of the Nation represents, that Kouchner pointed out, correctly so, that Sarkozy is much more dangerous than Le Pen, because he uses all the far-right themes and populism, with the added bonus of a veneer of political correctness inherited from the old political party he has hijacked from its true reason for being.

Bernard Kouchner, the man the Socialist party so mistreated that he was a minister of François Mitterrand’s government for ten years! Bernard Kouchner, one of the high bourgeoisie, with all the wealth, estates and all that go with it. Boy, if only I could be mistreated like this, I’d beg to get more of the same! Bernard Kouchner, the man whose ideas have always lied to the right in social and economical matters, and who used the Socialist party until he saw it would no longer serve his own personal ambitions.

Bernard Kouchner, the man who loves the US at least as much as Sarkozy does, and who was in favor of the horrible fiasco also known as the Iraq War, which has plunged that poor country and its citizens down the abyss of a bloody civil war to which nobody can see any kind of end in sight—unless one counts prospering as a training ground for terrorists and maybe yet another new Islamic Republic that will stone women back into the age of barbarism.

Bernard Kouchner, the icon. Not of generosity and willingness to right the world’s wrongs, but the true icon of self-serving people who lead their lives with the sole obsession of furthering their own personal agendas. Well, at least it’s out in the open, and I, for one, believe it’s a good thing. And, again, Bernard Kouchner is indeed a very fitting choice for Sarkozy’s new government.

I will spare you the analysis of the rest of the great people part of the brand new government. There are other new Sarkozy-converts to name here, such as one who was among François Bayrou’s closest friends and who betrayed him four days ago for a position in the government.

So, what conclusion can we draw concerning this new government?

Overture? Sham and lie for the gullible.

Surprising? Not one bit.

This government is a gross assembling of Sarkozy’s all times faithfuls, of egocentric and ambitious personalities with a talent for betrayal and a total lack of honor or loyalty—qualities that Nicolas Sarkozy holds in high regard and has demonstrated all along his own political career. The much publicized “overture”, nothing more than a transparent maneuver to kill François Bayrou’s courageous attempt to build a new political movement at the center of the French political chessboard.

Make no mistake: this government’s self-proclaimed overture is nothing else than an attempt to annihilate anyone or anything that might stand in its way. In the short run, the aim is to impose Nicolas Sarkozy’s UMP as the sole party on the right side of the political landscape. In the long run, it’s the very clear threat of building a party that would be the sole political organization to exist in what would no longer be a democracy.

Overture? No. A locking down and strangling maneuver to smother nuance and have the absolute control over France.

This is not fiction.

It’s reality.

Bad Trip

2007-05-06T22:47:00.000+02:00

My head hurts, I feel sick, and I can both taste and feel bile rise up my throat. Yes, just like one does after a really bad hangover and rotten weed.

So Nicolas Sarkozy has been elected president. And the participation was a record. People voted en masse for this election. That is democracy. So much for the intelligence and the capacity of analysis of the average Joe and Jane.

I still feel as if this was a bad trip of sorts. As if somehow I was going to wake up and it had all been a nightmare. But...well, I know it's not.

Segolene Royal managed to gather more votes than any Socialist candidate before her, but she was defeated by the mobilisation of the right. The far-right eclectors massively voted for Sarkozy instead of abstaining as they usually do, as was to be expected. All the old, conservative people voted for Sarkozy, who managed to rally them with his simplistic arguments and solgans, and his grand speeches reminiscent of a dark past.

Some people on the left might be happy with this result. Mostly they will be those who believe in what is called "le grand soir", they believe in a revolution to come. A revolution, because in a possible scenario things will have become so bad, will have regressed so badly, that we'll have come back to the time, work and social conditions our forefathers knew in the 19th century. In that century where they were so enslaved, so mistreated that they had nothing more to lose, and found the strength to rise and revolt against those who oppressed them.

I do not wish for that. Revolutions are a messy business, full of noise, blood and chaos. I prefer smooth transitions, peaceful solutions. But it's true that with the likes of Nicolas Sarkozy, if he applies his campaign promises, he will bring us much quicker, and much closer to a point of no return, to the evening of that future revolution. Because there is only so much people can take. Because there is only so much people can lose.

And of course, Nicolas Sarkozy had a special place reserved in his grand victory speech for his pals in the US. If that doesn't tell you the kind of foreign policy he's gonna lead, fighting Tony Blair for the honor of being Georges W Bush's lapdog, I don't know what it means.

Ah well, looks like Sakorzy intends to keep his promises. You can't fault him for having been unclear on this. People elected him nonetheless.

Now they will have to assume their choice.

If I ever see or hear someone who voted for him whine that s/he's unhappy with things happening in France in the next five years, I will personnally skin that person alive. With a spoon.

Now it's time to say good bye for the day, and to prepare for the next hurdle: the legislative elections, both in France and in Belgium. Our darling moronic MR is ready to spring into Sarkozy's steps, cavorting around and yapping with overboard enthusiasm.

Now it's time to take a deep breath, and rise again.

Good night, and good luck.

And remember: "Never give up! Never surrender!"

Against All Odds

2007-05-04T18:13:00.000+02:00

All French-able readers : read yesterday’s Le Monde’s editorial by Jean-Marie Colombani.

I don’t like bookmakers. I don’t like surveys. Both lie, both present a picture that is anything but the truth of what they claim to represent. Many surveys work on population samples that aren’t correctly balanced. Most surveys never, ever take into account people who do not have, say, a standard telephone line and only a mobile phone number. There are other examples. And of course, it’s well-known that people do not behave when answering to a survey’s questions, as they will when their time to really vote comes. The number of far-right voters are often underestimated because when questioned for a survey, they will not come out and say they intend to vote for a far-right party (yes, this kind of thing is fortunately still considered more than shameful in good old Europe).

So, when I look at the nice survey numbers that came out today and claim that Nicolas Sarkozy has reinforced his leadership position in the last days of the French presidential race, I sit back and smile. And I wait. I will wait until late at night Sunday, and the true results are released. Some people already rejoice. Some people already claim victory is won for the UMP and all is lost for the PS.

Let them.

They are wrong. Nothing is ever finished until the end line has been crossed. Nothing is ever won in advance. Nothing is ever certain, the more so when it comes to polls.

Nicolas Sarkozy is a liar. It has been demonstrated time and again. He lies when he claims that he will regulate the Euro rate and make it lower against the US dollar. He lies when he claims he has any kind of power over that. Nicolas Sarkozy lies when he spews out his simplistic slogan “Work more so you can earn more, and the jobless numbers will fall”. He plans to suppress all taxes on extra-hours and to get rid of all limitations on the number of extra-hours an employer can ask of his employees. This, he claims, will help companies and help the unemployment rate to drop.

Bullshit.

Suppress all taxes on extra-hours, and get rid of all limitations, and you’ll get a very mathematical, very logical consequence: you will simply encourage employers to “request” that their employees work more and more extra-hours instead of hiring new employees. And one wonders, how will that help the unemployment rate…or perhaps one misunderstood, and the aim is to have that number of unemployed people rise?

Add to that the other announcement by Nicolas Sarkozy that he will reform the laws applying to social and job matters: that he will create a single sort of work contract, in which it will be possible to fire anyone without reason, with greatly reduced notice and redundancy payment. This, he has announced. Now, please combine this measure with the one announcing the extra-hours taxes suppression, and you will catch another of Mr Sarkozy’s lies: that everyone will be free to choose. Of course, you will be free to refuse to work extra-hours. With a quasi absence of trade union presence in the small and middle-sized private companies, you will say “no” to your boss, as will be your right, and he will fire you and replace you with someone who will comply, as will be his right.

And I will spare you the rest of the demonstration, and how admitting and finding it normal that people do not earn enough to live with a full-time job will eventually lead to the same shitty situation as in the US or the UK, where people are forced to work several jobs in order to pay their bills, if they’re not lucky enough to have a well-paid job.

Mr Sarkozy has done nothing but oppose people, turn them into enemies or adversaries. This is perfectly logical: he represents the right, and the oh so very moral values of the ultra-liberalism. Mr Sarkozy doesn’t give a damn about Europe, but he gives a great deal of consideration to the US, and to their current president: Georges W Bush. So much so that his staff negotiated during months in order to allow him to be invited to the White House, and to have a stool so he could stand at the same height as W in the famous picture all the media published. Of course, all these negociations took place while he was still Minister of Interior, thus on the State’s budget and the tax payers’ money. But hey, after all, it’s much more useful to use the people’s money for one’s own selfish agenda and ambitions than for the good of all citizens, right?

Mr Sarkozy loves the US so much that he has made a public apology for what he has the gall to call France’s "arrogance", thus humiliating France, and usurping a place and rights that were not his. Who is he, who does he think he is, to belittle France that way? To make judgements that go against his own government? What does it say about what he believes France should be for the US? Oh, not an equal, not a partner who can voice a clear disagreement. A faithful dog, rather, as the UK has been in the whole Iraqi fiasco. Well, that's showing his true stature, and it's not one worthy of becoming the next president of France, for sure!

And there are many other things that give one pause when considering the candidacy of Mr Sarkozy: his American vision for the economical and social solutions in the sense that all his measures are in favour of the upper social classes and will undeniably lead to a deepening of the inequalities between people. Others are his constant attacks on May 68, sign of a clear desire for an ideological revanche. What disturbs people is also the way he has to oppose “those who work” to “those who cheat” and all his suimplistic rhethoric of “black and white”. Mr Sarkozy doesn’t seem to know what grey is. In this, he’s much like his idol Georges W Bush. What appals people is his hyper-repressive vision of society, his challenges of justice decisions, which show a blatant disrespect for the independence of the Judicial power. His ties with the high and mighty in the media world are also in question: how can you be sure of the media’s independence, when you know that Mr Sarkozy is the godfather of the kid of the most powerful TV channel in France? When you know that Mr Sarkozy is a close friend of all the big bosses of the great names of newspapers publication?

Nicolas Sarkozy is dangerous. He is at heart someone who will divide, who will oppose and who will bring chaos, in small or great measures. He’s someone who wants to destroy, to unmake. He's someone who's so bent on projecting the image of one who loves France, that he'll make references to Christianity and happily trample down all the essential priinciples of secularism that are the foundation of France. A Christian's values are higher than an Atheist or an agnosticist, according to Mr Sarkozy.

Even worse, and reminiscent of the dark years that led from 1930 to 1940, Mr Sarkozy is someone who believes that your destiny is determined at birth, by the genes you inherited. He believes that you are born a pedophile, and he plans to have 2 years old kids tested to check if they’re not going to become delinquents. The Brave New World of Aldous Huxley isn’t so far away.

Segolene Royal wants to unite people, to bring them together, to spark discussion and debate. To put all the problems on the table and discuss them with everyone, to find solutions that everyone will adhere to.

Segolene Royal wants dialogue. She wants change and movement, pushed and supported by the support of everyone.

If only because of this, we must reveal the opinion surveys for what they are: lies. Every single vote does count. So go vote on Sunday.

Dare.

Dare bet on Segolene Royal, on her project of reinventing France and a true dialogue between everyone so that all can benefit and go forward.

Dare. Vote.

Laugh in the face of the big media.

And remember, on the precipice of defeat, one gathers one's strength, and one defeats the enemy, even against impossible odds. Everything is possible, to the end.

On The Precipice of Defeat(*)

2007-04-15T10:24:00.000+02:00

Here she stands: before her, the abyss. Behind her, the forever closed door of Past Time.

Here she stands, in the clear, without any other shield than the strength of her heart and mind. Vulnerable to betrayal and low blows below the belt…if she allows them to harm her.

They are many, those who would smash Segolene Royal into a million tiny and bloody pieces, for daring to be the Socialist party’s candidate, for being the one the members of the party chose in a fair and democratic primary election. For being a woman with a credible chance of winning. For refusing to be influenced and ruled by all the old clans that rot the Socialist party’s heart away.

I do not particularly like Segolene Royal. In fact, I really resent some of the things she has openly spoken out for, or against. Still, she is the Socialist party’s candidate, and any member of that party who has the tiniest bit of honor should have the decency to at least shut his trap if he doesn’t like her (note the use of the male pronoun, it’s no accident). But it seems that honor isn’t a worthy enough character trait for some of the old guard in the Socialist party, for those of that old guard who’ve always dreamed of an alliance with the center-right, because their opinions do not lean on the left side to begin with.

Michel Rocard was a well-known variable in that equation. His call for an alliance comes as no surprise, and also carries very little credibility with it. But another variable has at last decided to reveal its true nature: Bernard Kouchner.

Mr Kouchner, one of the best liked figures of France, and best liked among the French citizens, and also one of the top members of Segolene Royal’s campaign team. His aura of French Doctor, and co-founder of Doctors Without Borders has leant him a lot of credibility, and has given him the image of someone who cares. Someone who is unselfish, and has a heart big enough to enfold all the pain and suffering in the world. But that image is a sham, a lure. I have known this for quite a while, having heard the gentleman expose his opinions on social and economic matters a while back.

Oh, Mr. Kouchner is a French Doctor, all right, but he’s also a member of the upper class gentry, and his heart doesn’t lean left. His opinions on social and economic matters are more than strongly rooted in the right side of the political field. When you analyze his stated opinions, if you’re honest, you quickly come to the conclusion that you do not know why Mr Kouchner is a member of the Socialist party. He doesn’t belong there. He should at the very least belong to the UDF of Mr Bayrou. Once you know this, this morning’s call for an alliance with Mr Bayrou made by Mr Kouchner comes as no surprise either.

It’s perfectly logical. It’s perfectly natural and fits with his rightwing opinions. What’s more surprising is that he decided to step out of the woods and show his true colors…or maybe not.

Segolene Royal stands on the precipice of defeat. François Bayrou stands a chance of being in the second run after eliminating her. So now is the one chance, the one opportunity to realize a wonderful coup: to knife her in the back, to betray everything and everyone to push forward his own personal agenda. And this is exactly what Mr Kouchner is doing.

What’s loyalty when compared to the opportunity to knife the Socialist party in the back and perhaps damage it for a long time if Bayrou defeats Royal? What’s honor compared to the opportunity of furthering one’s little selfish agenda?

I can already guess the name of one of Bayrou’s ministers, if ever he becomes the president of France. Congratulations, Mr Kouchner, for betraying your own and knifing them in the back. You are all that I expected you to be.

Segolene Royal stands on the precipice of defeat. If that sentence has the ring of something you remember hearing, then you know what that means, and what must follow. And you’re familiar with what must be the best shounen manga title to be published in many years: Bleach.

When Kurosaki Ichigo stands on the precipice of defeat, when blows come from everywhere at once from much too powerful enemies, when betrayal threatens to annihilate everything he stands for, then comes the moment of truth. Of gathering to the center of oneself, to light up the flames in one’s heart. And to go all out. To fight to the end.

And to win.

And this must apply to Segolene Royal, and all those whose heart leans left. Make no mistake. Do not let yourselves be blinded by the aura of someone who is nothing more than a rightwing opportunist with an image of humanitarian. Stand firm, and let your hearts be still. Be steady. The endgame is upon us.

With this post, I leave every reader to weigh their own hearts, and I go off-line for two weeks, hoping that Segolene Royal will prevail. Because, even though I do not like her, she is the Socialist party’s candidate, and my heart beats in the left side of my chest.

Never give up! Never surrender! (**)

(*) On the Precipice of Defeat is of course one of the most famous tracks of the Bleach Original Soundtrack, and played at key moments such as the ones I’ve described above.

(**) From a movie that’s among my favorite: Galaxy Quest.

A Call To Arms

2007-04-11T17:47:00.000+02:00

Get your butts out of your comfy chairs, get in gear and vote for Royal!

Time is running out. In the universe of the French presidential election, we’re fast getting to the last jump-point before hitting the Rim. Very fast. Time is slipping away from the candidates, from the media, and from the voters themselves. And yet, according to surveys, more than 40% of the French citizens do not yet know for whom they’re going to cast their votes on April 22nd. Like many journalists, and many politics analysts, here I am: sitting before my monitor, and wondering why. I wonder how this can be, how can people simply not know who they'll choose in less than two weeks, how people can be so undecisive.

Never in recent history has an election had such importance.

France has come to a crossroads. Every sign and portent we can grasp, feel, see and hear tells us that this time, these two particular Sundays of April and May will determine the future of France, with more than potential repercussions for Europe. It’s not a figure of speech, or an over-dramatization. We’re all standing at the edge of what could herald the true destruction of our way of life, of our social security system, to fall headlong into an Americanized society. Or perhaps the French people will choose to shrug off the lies of neo-liberalism and decide to elect someone who will defend who and what they are, and the values that define France.

Americanization. Such is the clear, unveiled promise of Nicolas Sarkozy, who spends his time cavorting around and spewing out the same arguments concerning “work more, you’ll earn more” and evoking the American Dream, this most persistent of lures. Anyone who has been to the US, outside of luxury hotels or resorts, who has truly seen what the US is about, and who knows how things truly stand there, knows that there is no American Dream, just an American Erised Mirror, and I’m being overly nice and kind when I say that.

A very gifted and extremely ambitious autocrat who’s in love with anything remotely resembling to power or a symbol of power—why else would he have negotiated for months in order to be received at the White House by Georges W. Bush, pictures with full special effects included (the stool trick allowing Sarkozy to be of the same height as Bush on that picture being probably the most ridiculous thing ever done by a pretender to the French presidency)?—Nicolas Sarkozy is also in love with almost anything coming from there. The catering to the great global corporations, the worship of unfettered free market coupled to the aim of breaking down social security and promoting individualism, deluding people into believing that “if you want and you work, you will get what you deserve and become rich”, the reduction of very grave and difficult problems to questions of genes, the unsubtle hints to religion and religious values being superior to secular values, the gross flirting with far-right and nationalist themes...all that is reminiscing of the W and his neo-con goons’ era.

Make no mistake, if France goes to Nicolas Sarkozy, he will carry out his promises, and he will destroy everything that makes France France. Culture will become a mere merchandise, unemployed people will be expelled from any kind of social security net and forced to accept underpaid jobs with worse and worse working conditions. Nicolas Sarkozy will institute the right for companies to fire employees without warning or reason, and will destroy all the rights our parents and grandparents fought so hard to obtain for all of us. Illegal immigrants will be cut off from all help, and thus be an ever tastier and easier prey for all the black market activities that nibble at our jobs and work conditions everyday. Tests will be performed at birth to detect if you’re not born a pedophile, or a depressive with suicidal tendencies at first, and then the tests will be run to determine whether you’re not a born delinquent, or a born homosexual, perhaps one day the tests will tell whether you’re a born socialist, or unionist… France will pledge eternal allegiance to the US, and will start a ferocious competition with the UK to see who the most faithful dog of the US administration is. And of course, France will also become the perfect heaven for global corporations, for financial hyenas and for all those big CEOs who get rewards that number in the tens of millions of Euros, whether they did a good job or not.

But then, Nicolas Sarkozy isn’t the only candidate who can pretend to win this election. There is a total of 12 candidates, most of whom are either buffoons or people who simply represent ideas and have no chance whatsoever to win. Only three among them stand a true chance to win: Nicolas Sarkozy, François Bayrou and Segolene Royal.

François Bayrou represents little else beyond himself, and vague promises that he will create a new party, and win a majority in the legislative elections that will follow the presidential one. While being a rather sympathetic, easily likeable character, Mr Bayrou doesn’t have much to offer. He tries to position himself as the anti-system candidate, the one who’s neither on the right, nor on the left. For his plans, he picks this from that side, and that from the other. In the end, it’s hard to say what he will do or not do, and it’s even harder to try and understand how he will be able to do it. Truth be told, there isn’t much credibility to his candidacy, but he does come from a centrist party and he does represent a sort of comfortable quietness while having a pretend rebellious attitude that people seem to like.

Among those who use the presidential campaign solely as a formidable tool to let their ideas known, to try and rise their political weight and to convince people in the long run, it’s likely there’s someone with whom you’ll find yourself in agreement, and whose ideas will feel more appealing than those of the “big three”. But voting for such a candidate in the first round of the election while making the bet that the one of the three you’ll fall back on will be there in the second round is tantamount to political suicide. We all know what happened when this same configuration of events first appeared.

April 21st, 2002, anyone?

No, I didn’t think so. Nobody in his/her right mind wants to relive the shame of having a far-right fascist, racist and nostalgic of the good old days of colonization be in position to become the elected president of France, and of having to go vote for someone whose ideas are opposite to yours in order to avoid the worst. No matter what everyone tries to tell people, about how outrageous it is to request that citizens focus on the “useful vote” as soon as the first round (meaning to vote for one of the three who has a true chance of winning), no matter how some small candidates cry out that it is an infringement on the right of citizens to truly choose who would represent them better, or how it is some kind of political terrorism to remind people of the past, casting a “useful” vote will be essential, unless one wants again to be faced with a choice between Charybde and Scylla.

In truth, those who claim that the Socialist party’s request toward voters to cast a useful vote is political terrorism are committing an act of political terrorism themselves: they are those who need the Socialist candidate, Segolene Royal, to win this election so that they can be in a bargaining position and perhaps get a ministry or other. If it’s not Segolene Royal, then Nicolas Sarkozy stands the most chance of winning it. And from thereon, bye bye, France.

For anyone who doesn’t want to see in power a fascist-leaning autocrat in love with anything American and who believes that destiny is written at birth and unchangeable, and who has a place in their heart for the well-being of people in the society as a whole, there is but one credible option: Segolene Royal.

Segolene Royal is the candidate of the Socialist party.

She’s a woman, the first woman in France’s history who’s candidate with a good, credible chance of winning, and boy does that rankle in some places!

She has been battered by petty criticism, by male chauvinism. Everything she has done has been deemed bad or wrong, or ignorant, when the same things done by her adversaries never even made it to the headline news because either it was no mistake, or because it was in truth insignificant. Segolene Royal HAS the competence. She has the knowledge. She has the best team (DSK is there, never doubt that). She has the resilience, she has the will, and she is a fighter, or she would have crumbled and withdrawn long ago. And what’s more, she has shown she can learn. She has shown a willingness to put herself at risk, she has gone to Lebanon, she has undertaken difficult trips abroad during the campaign, taking risks where the other candidates either remained safely home, or were trying to get the endorsement of their liege lord Georges W Bush where Nicolas Sarkozy is concerned.

Segolene Royal, contrary to what her oh so nice opponents have spent their time claiming, does know what she’s talking about. She does know about people, she does know about promises, she does know about listening to what people have to say. She does know that cohesion is of the essence of France is to go on, and grow deeper roots to sustain its model and its way of life. Segolene Royal recognizes the importance of strong trade union representation, of trade union presence within the companies to manage the social relationships, prevent conflicts and help with adaptations. She understands you need to help smaller entrepreneurs, while taking the wealth from where it’s oh so gently drowsing. She knows that if the state helps out corporations, then a return is expected from them: any corporation that receives money from the state and that wishes to leave France afterwards, to seek out greener and much cheaper pastures will have to give back all the money it got. She has a clear idea of where France should stand in the order of things, in the UNO, in Europe. Yes, she does have a project for France.

Yes, Segolene Royal is a promise of change, and of better days.

Segolene Royal is a chance, and a hope. The only one in this implacable race.

And we cannot afford to snub her, no matter that she doesn't like manga or anime.

PS: places to check out (in French):

PPS: yes. Again. B5. Blame Straczinski for creating the most fantastic TV series ever aired.

Abandon All Hope, All Ye Who Are Born Here

2007-04-08T23:48:00.000+02:00

This is the news message of the French TV media’s favorite candidate for the French presidential election. Yes, you heard me: not “I’m gonna give you a better place to live in,” not “I’ll solve all your problems in no time,” not “I’m the best of them all.” No.

Abandon all hope.

You are born with a destiny. With a fate you can only bow down to.

Pre-destination. It’s another word for determinism, an obsolete concept according to which we are born with flaws and qualities, with deficiencies, and that’s it. It claims that nothing we can do, nothing our parents, the society we live in can do, will change them. It claims that we cannot make our own choices, we are prey to the material that shaped us at birth. It claims that those of us who become criminals aren't shaped, even in part, by the events of their lives, by the family they were raised into, by the society they live in. It claims that everything is said and done at birth.

Genes.

Ah, genes. They’re everywhere these days. Gene therapy, hope. Genetic heirloom, threat. Eugenics, nostalgia of fascism and Nazism. It seems that Nicolas Sarkozy is well on the way to falling headlong into that particular pit. A few days ago, in an interview for a philosophy magazine, Mr. Sarkozy argued—twice—that in his opinion, pedophiles are born pedophiles. People with suicidal tendencies are born with suicidal tendencies. Several times he was asked to confirm that opinion, he was asked whether he didn’t think that society, family, the whole environment of the individual couldn’t account for a great part into people turning out the way they do.

But Mr. Sarkozy confirmed, time and again: pedophiles are born pedophiles. People with suicidal tendencies are born so.

This whole interview reveals something dreadful, beyond its message of hopelessness and deresponsibilisation, beyond the unbearable message that claims that we are not free to be who and what we want to be: the nauseating stench of eugenics, of the most repellant aspects of the far-right ideology. If people are born this way, then there is nothing to be done for them. No amount of education, of help, of discipline, of punishment will change what they are. “They cannot help the way they’re born.”

From thereon, the tune is well known. Since nothing can cure those who are born that way, the only thing you can do, at first, is to keep them away. Reject them. Wall them out of society. There’s no need to look for a cause, to question ourselves, to question the way we live, the society we live in, the society we’ve built. We aren’t part of the problem, nobody else but those people are part of the problem. They, and they alone. So, first off, wall the away. Then, really, when the healthy portion of society has had time to ponder the equation, get rid of the problem. Eradicate the defects. Eradicate them from the gene pool.

“They’re born that way.” How easy it is, to wipe difficult, terrible questions and problem away. How easy it is, to shy away from responsibility, from staring at the ugliness that humanity can spawn full in the face. Of course, it’s a very American thing to do. The American school of psychiatry aims to reduce everything to biological problems, to chemical unbalances, thereby turning a blind eye on all the outside elements that cause and trigger depression, and a great many mental health problems. Of course, it’s easy to understand why, when you take a look at the way the US’ society works. It’s easy to see why it’d be helpful to have “science” tell us that our problems stem from our genes, from our biology, thus denying all the harm society, our environment, the blows we take in our lives, the more so when we have no perspective, no social security net to sustain us when the weather gets stormy,

Far more than negating the most basic principles of self-determination and the ability for people to make and lead their own lives, far more than simply bowing down to the US’ way of thinking as is his wont, Nicolas Sarkozy is once again pitting people against each other.

Black and white.

Good and bad.

And this time, he’s telling us that the bad as born bad, and will stay that way. That there is no solution to be found, no question to be asked. That we can do nothing, but protect ourselves. Oh, he’s not there yet. No, no. First, he must rise in power. Be elected. But watch out for him. Once he’s there, the natural sequel of his reasoning will unfailingly follow: if people are born hideous criminals and monsters such as pedophiles, if there is nothing to do about this, then what other way out than to wall them away? What other way out than to build camps? To eradicate the threat, from the gene pool first, and then from society altogether?

But…Mr. Sarkozy, what is the gene that says someone is born a pedophile? What is the gene that says someone is born a delinquent? What is the gene that says someone is born depressive with suicidal tendencies?

Ah, you do not know.

But… Ah, it doesn’t matter, you are convinced that people are born pedophiles or heterosexual or depressive with suicidal tendencies.

And, tell us again, Mr. Sarkozy, what is the solution to those terrible problems, if that is so? Ah, you do not say. Yet.

Today, I’ve read at least ten times the interview where Nicolas Sarkozy happily spews out an argument that places him close to the worst of far-right leaders. Ten times, I’ve been wondering how a man who is making a bid for the French presidency has the gall to utter such heinous nonsense, and how he can get away with it. Had it been any other candidate, it would be all over the TV media, but as it is…nothing.

Nothing at all.

Not even a blink on French TV news. Oh, Belgian TV did mention the scandal, but the French TV networks are unexplainably keeping silent. Of course, the fact that Nicolas Sarkozy’s arm is a far-reaching one, and that he has ties with most of the owners of private TV channels, not to mention connections within public TV channels. If one wants to hear about this, one must get on the internet, read the newspapers, read blogs, and fish out the information the general media doesn’t want the people to see.

And again, Nicolas Sarkozy has shown his true colors: that of a dangerous, out of control autocrat who will stop at nothing, who will embrace far-right theories and more. he has shown that he isn’t worthy to become France’s president. Worse, that he’s not worthy to be a candidate in this election.

I can only hope, that people will hear of this latest derailing, and beware.

Ignorant Fools Should Grow Balls. Really.

2007-04-06T17:29:00.000+02:00

Ah, I so love when I see basic anti-European editorialists spewing out the same crap, over and over again, like Mr Krauthammer in today’s edition of the Washington Post, for instance.

It’s always “impotent Europe this”, “impotent UNO that”, and “oh so powerful and benevolent and absolutely non-profit oriented US that saves the day”. An interesting analysis grid for the recent events, to be sure. I’m happy to report that the neo-cons and anti-multilateral institutions goons still cling to the same blindfolds and the same story-spinning and twisting to evangelize the world with their superior wisdom.

So it is that Europe and the UNO are now the ones humiliated by the whole farce between Iran and the UK. That’s weird. Last I checked, the UK was a fervently anti-European integration country, one adamantly opposed to any kind of political harmonisation. Last I checked, the UK was the most vocal and most powerful country to oppose any other voting rule within the UE than unanimity. And now it’s Europe’s lack of ability to unite politically which turned this whole thing into a humiliating route for itself? Uh, no, I really, really don’t think so.

Last I checked, in this hostage situation, it was the UK that was humiliated, along with the US that were forced to move and yield behind the scenes on prisoners and stuff they’re doing together in Iraq. Yeah, Iraq, remember, Mr. Krauthammer? You know, the country you’ve been happily destroying and dumping into long-lasting chaos and civil war? The country you went in to “free” (oil reserves and their exploitation by Haliburton included, batteries sold separately) where now you can even hear Shia people publicly regret the era of the tyrant Saddam Hussein?

Yes, Mr. Krauthammer, Iraq, the mess you caused, the US and the UK together, where Europe and the UNO wisely refused to get drowned along with you. So your allies get caught in a very predictable stage of the nice, unacknowledged cold war you’re busy entertaining with Iran, and it’s Europe’s fault for not getting them out? It’s Europe’s duty to get your allies out of the mess they decided to get in, and where Europe doesn’t want to go, refused to go from the start, and rightly so? It’s the UNO’s fault that your own folly is backfiring and exploding in your faces?

Give me a break, and get a life!

Those who humiliated themselves are the UK, which negotiated behind the scenes while trying to have everyone believe that they were the strong party and were ready to do anything to free their men, with the full option of warlike action hints. Even the UK press didn’t believe a word of that, and mocked the stupid attitude of Tony Blair’s government. Funny, I didn’t hear the English press mocking Europe or the UNO. But then, maybe, just maybe they’re not composed of brain-dead neo-cons and rabid anti-European fools.

Oh, and as to the US, which had to grumpily agree to assist the UK out of that whole nice mess, and had to step back on their own little warfare actions, allowing prisoners to be visited and the like, well, guess who’s looking like a fool? Ah, surprise, it’s your nice and oh-so wise government, Mr. Krauthammer, this paragon of intelligence and world vision that rules over the White House.

So, please continue spitting and foaming at the mouth. Please keep on spewing out ludicrous nonsense. I’m sure you’ll end up convincing yourself…one day. Still, if I mayt be so bold, one humble piece of advice: instead of projecting your own shame and humiliation on others, grow up and learn to shoulder them yourself. It will help you look a bit less like a total fool and ignorant.

As for me, I’ll continue being very, very happy that Europe stayed out of this mess, that we will keep out of this mess, and that it’ll keep being your responsibility, and yours alone. You wanted to dance, well now you’d better dance, and dance until the music dies out completely. I estimate at least a full generation, something like 20 years, before any semblance of order can come back to the ravaged country that you’ve turned Iraq into. So you’re stuck there for a while yet.

I hope you bought good dancing shoes, Mr. Krauthammer.

Good night, and good luck.

Religion’s True Face

2007-04-04T17:49:00.000+02:00

“Gays are abnormal people. Abortion is evil, and just a convenient way for women to avoid giving birth. Euthanasia is a mistake. Condoms are porous, and those who encourage their use could well be brought to trial for advocating murder.”

When you read those sentences, you tend to think something along the lines of “ah, well, another fanatic,” or maybe “oh, it’s just a televangelist preaching brain-damaged fools living deep in the US’ infamous Bible Belt.” Or you think, “hmm, that one’s worthy of the true fascist and far-right parties, and to think of it, the Nazis would certainly have approved.” But those sentences aren’t ravings of a maniac, of a nazi nostalgic or a far-right extremist. Those sentences are part of an interview that was published today in a mainstream magazine here in Belgium. The interviewee being none other than a regular bishop of the regular Catholic Church, Mgr Leonard. Of course, Mgr Leonard is famous for his extremely conservative views. He was a fervent supporter of Joseph Ratzinger, our beloved Panzer Pope, and a member of the very powerful Congregation for the Preservation of the Doctrine and Faith (previously known as the “Holy Inquisition”, but for some reason they decided to change their name…). But still, Mgr Leonard is a bishop, and his message is supported by his hierarchy.

When you read those sentences, you think “obscenely backward.” And the message expressed in that interview definitely is. Just as it is also the message and the motto of the Catholic Church these days. You might think that the words are outrageous because the man and the institution behind him intend to spark a debate, and to have a serene discussion between people of different opinions.

Nothing could be farther from the truth. There is no debate to be had, there are only dogma and rules to be imposed on everyone. It goes so far as to challenge the basic principles of law. A law voted by the parliament will not bind the Church and those who bow down to its dictates. When one hears this kind of speech, one cannot help but wonder: aren’t the Church’s people as well as the “faithfuls” citizens of a country, thus bound by that country’s law? Or are they somehow above that, hence above respecting what applies to everyone, including the freedoms our laws offer when managing our lives? Nobody ever said that devout Christian women would have to undergo abortion. Nobody ever said that devout Christians would be forced to accept euthanasia!

When you attend a conference at which Mgr Leonard is invited, sooner or later, someone in the audience will ask him THE question. Someone will ask him about abortion. Being a very, very good Jesuit, he will answer you, as will all the men of the Church answer you: he will tell you about the value of life, about the unborn child, about its unborn soul. He will tell you about the joy and beauty of life. He will tell you about the unborn child’s father, he will tell you about the maternal womb, and all in all he will make a moving, extremely well built five-minute speech, in which there is but one flaw.

During five minutes, the man of the Church will talk about many things revolving around abortion, but he will forget to deal with one little element in the process, one tiny, tiny item involved in the whole thing: a woman. Five minutes on abortion, and no mention of the word “woman” except in a single, offhand sentence. And there, the very core of the Church’s problem is revealed. How can you start disserting on a subject such as abortion without discussing what women think, what women feel, what women experience, how women view themselves, and how they view their own right to self-determination and to rule their own bodies?

Simple.

You can skip the insignificant “woman” element if you start explaining that this insignificant element uses abortion as a simple convenience means to avoid giving birth. When you’ve said that, you’ve said everything. You’ve revealed everything, and forever unveiled the ugly face of Catholic Church, and all monotheistic religions: that of a misogynist. You have insulted women all over the world, you have negated their psychological distress and pain, the shocking and painful surgical procedure they must go through when resorting to abortion. You have denied their very existence as individual, and shackled them into the simple image of a womb. A tool destined to give birth, period.

Islam, Judaism and Christianity have more in common than just worshipping a single deity. They all harbour a very long-lasting hatred for women. Yes, those religions hate women, and it doesn’t take a lot of intelligence to find this out: every holy book contains its share of chapters devoted to how women are inferior, how they should be disciplined by men, how they are impure in this or that circumstance, on how they are temptresses, and they’re always the ones guilty for pushing the innocent men to sin. Never mind that “poor, innocent men” are considered as impotent children who can’t control their own urges, who shouldn’t even have to, when you think about it, since it’s always women’s fault. It seems that men who stick to those religions are content with that portraying of them, which may also be comprehensible: it’s so much more convenient. Who cares that biology teaches us that male behaviour is by far the aggressive part where sexuality is concerned? It’s not as if religion had to bow down to the hard truths of science. Everyone knows that religion is above that. By the way, how old is the earth these days? 5,000 years? Made over the course of 6 days by a grumpy old man with a white beard?

Say what you will, all the chauvinistic and misogynistic passages exist in this or that Scripture. And never has any true Church authority come forward to deny them, and to ask women for forgiveness, for all the crimes and the suffering they have endured for millennia at the hands of men acting in the name of those Scriptures and beliefs.

Changes and evolution in the last centuries almost managed to lull free-thinkers and women into complacence, into a sense of false security, but make no mistake: the Church is still there. It hasn’t changed, its core values are still there. It simply has learnt to wear a more pleasant, a more inviting mask. A quick fix to uncertainty, to insecurity, to loss, grief, fear, unhappiness and death, it is again on the road to seduce all the people rocked and unbalanced by the way our society is evolving and abandoning them on the way. Now the Church hides behind “universal values”, and slowly, slowly crawls back to the frontlines. Little by little, syllable by syllable, it challenges secular law, it demands its place in the temporal order of things. Patient, stubborn, it works at carving its way back toward the level of power it enjoyed before.

It would impose its dogma and its dictates to those who do not share its faith or its beliefs. And why not, since it claims to hold values that are “universal” and thus apply to anyone, no matter what they think or believe in? Why not, since anyway they’re out to save your soul, no matter whether you’re interested or not?

I must have said this a million times: faith deserves my and everyone’s infinite respect. Faith is a personal matter, one that belongs to the person experiencing it and nobody else. Faith belongs to your private life, and it’s your most absolute right. Religions, however, have time and again demonstrated that they are incapable of sticking to the domain of their faithfuls and to the private life domain. Time and again it tries to crawl back out of its closet to impose its views on everyone. Time and again it tries to seize the power it lost and to dominate our lives.

Religions belong to the past. They belong to obscurity and a feudal relationship of servant to master. We aim to live in democracy, in freedom. In such a world, there is no place for obsolete elements that refuse to acknowledge the reality that surrounds them. There is no place for obsolete elements that would impose their laws on others, and stubbornly refuse to understand that we now live in a secular society.

If religions cannot adapt to our secular world, then they must go.

And good riddance.

Sleeping in Light

2007-03-24T16:29:00.000+01:00

It is now several weeks after the last two episodes of the Meikai-Hen Kosho were aired in Japan. Several weeks since I’ve watched those episodes, first raw, and then subtitled. That is quite a while, considering that for the first four episodes, I practically jumped on my keyboard and started writing a review on what I had just seen. This time—well, this time is a bit different.

If you read reviews out there, you may find a majority of furious fans raging about how these last two episodes were handled. You may also find people who enjoyed the episodes, and people who enjoyed them, with reservations. I belong to that last category.

Most of the people who simply enjoyed the episodes aren’t rabid Saint Seiya fans, who know all there is to know about their favorite universe, and have known that for fifteen years and more. Those are the ones who will never forgive the change of cast, the eviction of Yamauchi Shigeyasu, and the bone-headed attitude of Masami Kurumada. They are also those who will always measure everything they watch against the Juunikyuu Hen, and thus find mostly everything unworthy. In my opinion, that is just too bad for them, and I would advise them to stop watching any further episodes of The Hades Chapter when they materialize on SkyperfectTV in a year or two. They will never again find something they will enjoy, and they will only bring themselves more bitterness, frustration, and anger. Incidentally they’ll also be bringing those who have the gall to enjoy what’s been done so far and will hopefully be done next serious cases of headaches, and their constant complains and temper tantrums will severely try the rest of the fan universe’s patience. And the gods and the goddesses, named and unnamed, imaginary or real, know how little patience I have for this sort of thing. I am easily irritated, and it gets worse with old age.

But enough with me. Those who unconditionally enjoyed those last two episodes were casual fans of Saint Seiya. People who haven’t read the manga, didn’t know verbatim every line and image of what was supposed to happen, and also who don’t expect Saint Seiya episodes to be outstanding works of art.

And then, there are those who enjoyed them, with reservation, like your humble servant. What reservations? Well, easy enough: episode five features a “what’s been going on last” moment that lasts a full five minutes thirty-six seconds (roughly), OP excluded. This means that a good seven minutes out of the twenty-four minutes thirty seconds of the episode, OP and ED included, are gobbled up by a simple copy-paste of images and dialogues already known and aired. That is one hell of a lot: almost one third of the episode’s time completely wasted. Of course, this “what’s been going on before” moment is a common occurrence in TV episodes of long series. Take Bleach, for instance: these days, every episodes starts with around two minutes of summary. Two. Not five and a half, and those are TV episodes, not OVA episodes. One can only surmise what happened: lack of time, of means, of motivation, overall exhaustion…who can tell? But that’s not all. Episode five also features a truly horrible moment: the Gold Cloths’ call to each other. Whoever came up with the sound effect was under some bad weed’s influence. Either that, or s/he had way too much alcohol poisoning his or her bloodstream. To this day, I shudder whenever I hear that completely stupid, horrible and pathetic excuse for what should have been a beautiful, dramatic moment.

So that’s about it for the bad stuff. The musical selection was correct, but lacked the touch of class I had grown used to. Many repetitions in the chosen themes, but Saint Seiya music remains wonderful, whatever you do with it. Unlike many of the die-hard Saint Seiya fans, a category I thought I definitely belonged to, I really did enjoy the end of the confrontation between Kanon and Rhadamanthys. Yes, Kanon is powerless. Yes, Kanon is beaten and flung to the ground as easily as if he were an infant. Well, that is all rather natural: the Gemini Cloth just left him, and he is still confronted to the most powerful Judge of Hell. So, hey, what’s the problem with that? Hm, I think I know: the Greatest Caution isn’t as beautiful as it was in the Juunikyuu. Well, yeah, that’s true, but then again, it hasn’t been that way in the Zensho either. So why would it be now? Does it matter? It’s just an effect, just an attack. It really doesn’t matter so much how it’s portrayed. What goes on between the two opponents is much more important, if you ask me. The way those two interact is way more important. And I find it all rather well done. I was happy with how that ended. Kanon supporter that I am, I found myself satisfied, and gifted with a gorgeous image of Kanon leaving this life to go to whatever awaits beyond, serene and smiling. Beyond that, I was also happy with the small scenes from the Sanctuary, as well as the with the short flashback on the Poseidon chapter. So, yes, all in all I was satisfied with the episode, and happy with how the Kanon vs. Rhadamanthys matter was settled.

And then, there was episode six, and the sacrifice of the Gold Saints. Many people found it botched, found the moment didn’t manage to draw out the right emotions of heartrending loss. I disagree. There is no heartrending loss to be felt here. That took place before, in the Juunikyuu where Aries Mu, Leo Aioria, Taurus Aldebaran and Scorpio Milo are concerned. What takes place before the accursed Wall is nothing more than a repetition, a second ending and, what’s more, one which brings the possibility of hope, whereas the loss experienced in the Juunikyuu was full of impotent rage at watching such fantastic characters be slaughtered by an incredibly powerful opponent who was playing on his own turf, and not playing fair (remember, I go with the kekkai theory, and I will stick to it to the end). But still, even if we, as spectators, do not truly lose the Gold Saints there, the Bronze boys do. And the moment during which we see Seiya, Shiryu, Hyoga and Shun run in slow motion, past their elders who smile gently upon them, those they call friends and brothers, well that moment is well done, and does draw out the right emotions.

Of course, I admit to not have put as much stake in the Gold Saints sacrifice as many other people have likely done. In my opinion, the moment is anti-climatic. It is even, if you think about it, ridiculous scenario-wise. We know that the Gold Saints are powerful enough to trigger a mini Big Bang with the Athena Exclamation. And a mini Big Bang, no matter how mini, certainly DOES equate to the intensity of the sun’s rays. To pretend otherwise is, well, stupid. But plot holes are part of the original Saint Seiya manga story, and this one is no exception. I was mad at Masami Kurumada when I first read the manga, back in the early 1990s, I have gotten way madder at him recently, but I will not blame the anime adaptation for flaws that belong to the original. I may regret there was neither latitude, nor means to correct the flaws and shape a fantastic story (ask me to rewrite that Hades Chapter sometime, no crossover, I just may do it one day), but that’s all.

To tell you the whole truth, being definitely a true Andromeda Shun afficionada, well I didn’t focus so much on the Gold Saints’ individual farewells to the Bronze Boys they were particularly close to. Shun having always been kept away from such friendship and closeness, and thus being excluded from such farewells, I never did care so much about them. Still, it was a nice touch to have Pisces Aphrodite tell Shun he had to pull another miracle, the way the Andromeda Saint had when defeating him. It was also a nice touch to have Seiya go to Aldebaran while the two, long separated brothers could at last be reunited. And Shiryu’s tears after the deed is done are also rather moving. However, a special hilarious moment is dedicated to all the fans gifted with the ability to smile when stuff in their favorite work is badly botched: a longish race during which the Bronze Boys really, really look like awkward ducks trying to flap their wings to lift off from the ground. That, as the sound effect of the Gold Cloths calling out to each other, was outstandingly badly done.

And then there is the end of the episode, with the rather satisfying appearance of Minos, and most of all the non confrontation between Ikki and Pandora, who watches the Phoenix Saint from the shadows as he strides toward the now breached Wall. And, as she watches, memories rise and grip her soul. Tears well in her eyes, and start to run down her cheeks. As Ikki continues his walk, Pandora starts moving from behind the shadows. All along the Kosho episodes, she has been watching, pondering, wondering. And wavering. Little by little, she has gone from referring to Hades as “Hades-sama” to simply “Hades”. And the horror of events past is like a rising tide she cannot and may even not feel like fighting down. The last image we have of her and Ikki show her almost about to rush after him, or call out to him. It’s not the longest moment of the episode, but it’s definitely a very, very good one.

Eventually the episode ends with the Bronze Boys jumping into the hole in the Wall. They do not know what awaits. They do not know that Athena has been trapped. And we…we have to wait for long months before watching the conclusion to the Hades chapter. Fortunately in the meantime, we’ll still be getting our weekly shot of Saint Seiya thanks to Shiori Teshirogi and her Saint Seiya, the Lost Canvas, which to this day continues to be an excellent read.

I will not finish this series of reviews concerning the Meikai-Hen Kosho on an unhappy note. I am not unhappy, on the contrary. I am happy. These six OVAs provided me with four excellent episodes, moments of magic to be treasured. These six OVAs gave us two fantastic three-fold faceoffs: Shun, Ikki and Hades, and then Hades, Shaka and Athena. What is, in my humble opinion, one of the key moments of Saint Seiya kept all its promises. What’s more, as a bonus, we got to see a very, very good Shaka in episodes three and four. Now the Meikai-Hen Kosho is over, and we have bidden a final farewell to fantastic characters, to godlike figures, both gifted and cursed with humanity—with a heart and a soul. The Gold Saints are gone, a smile on their faces, gone to wait for the next turn of the wheel, sleeping in light. So, to hell with disappointment in the last two episodes, even though it may be warranted. Who cares? I am still happy they made them. And I want more. Let those who hate those episodes be coherent and stop even trying to watch further episodes. I want more. I will wait for more.

And so will a great many other people.

The EndGame is about to begin, and I will be there when it starts.

PS: as usual, you can find this review, illustrated with a selection of screencaps from episodes 5 & 6 here, in my web home.
PPS: yes, B5 titles. I know. :P

The Erised Lure

2007-03-09T18:02:00.000+01:00

Look me in the eye, and I’ll tell you what you want to hear…or I’ll try to, anyway.

This sentence is a good description for quite a few things happening in the world these days.

In the French presidential election race, Mr Sarkozy and Mr Bayrou seem to be intent on a race to know which one will beat the other on that ground.

Mr Bayrou flings chimaeras at people everywhere such as promising a new form of government, a new grand alliance between all the “good” and “efficient” forces of the country, with this superb swindling of his: “if you elect me, I will unite left and right, and I will govern the country with everyone”. Of course, he casually forgets to mention that French law and constitution do not allow for this to happen. And, of course, he forgets to mention that both he and his party have always sided with the right, and that they are completely dependant on the UMP’s good will to win local elections as well as legislative elections to get into the National Assembly. With an apparently guileless smile, a gentle voice and a look of serenity about him, Mr Bayrou goes from interview to interview, spreading hints and promises that he will satisfy all sides of the French society. Right and left will work together for the good of all. Listen, and believe. Amen.

Mr Sarkozy promises that people will earn more, that they’ll have more freedom and more security if only they are allowed to work more, while in the same time vowing that more work time will be done only on a voluntary basis. Mr Sarkozy casually forgets to tell people that, once such a change is enacted, the norm will shift from a full time work with decent wage of 35 hours a week to whatever a majority of people will “choose” (when the renting rice of your appartment is as high as half of your income and you have kids at school, you will always “choose” to do more work to have more money, simply because you're screwed if you don't--Mr Sarkozy calls that “freedom”, I beg to differ). Maybe 40, or 45 hours. From then on, those who keep working a legal 35 hours a week full time will see their income decrease in a significant fashion. Not to mention what’ll happen to all the workers who are forced to accept part-time jobs. With a spring in his steps, Mr Sarkozy hails the holy value of “work”, worse, of “hard work”, reducing the lives of people and the inherent worth of people to their work, and how harsh their work life is. Blithely, he proposes to have people vote for someone who denies the existence and worth of a personal life, of a family life, of expression and self-development outside of the workplace. With sweet songs and lullabies and promises of more money, more responsibility, more flexibility, more security, Mr Sarkozy is busy dangling promises of sparkling tomorrows, using the over-abused and obsolete trick of the “American Dream”, a fraud only fools still believe in. But telling people they’ll earn more money, telling people they’ll be responsible for their own lives, lie though it may be, has a strong appeal if you’re not trained to think and analyze further. Just as Mr Sarkozy’s use of the deep fear of immigration in the French society, his promise of setting up a ministry of National Immigration and Identity appeals to people, no matter how reminiscing it is of the darkest hours of France’s Vichy past. Vote for him, and you’ll be rich, you’ll work more, more, more, and you’ll be happy, you’ll never see your kids and your spouse, you’ll no longer have time for holidays and your private life, but hey, does it matter when you know that you’ll have the means to have a guardian for your kid and someone to clean up your home for you? Nah. Listen, and believe. Amen.

On the other side of the Atlantic, Georges W Bush is embarked on a journey to try and regain the hearts and mind of the South American people lest they succumb to the horrors of the left. After having had a good taste of the gentle hand of unfettered liberalism, people there started electing left-wing Socialist governments in power. So, you can imagine the danger for poor W: it’s as if the cold war could start all over again, as if the commies were coming back! I swear, what were all those South American thinking, not liking being reduced to utter poverty and even famine while big worldwide American corporations were getting fat gobbling up their resources? Were they not “free”, hence “happy”? Fortunately, W is now back in business there (well, after being spanked in Iraq, he had to get busy with doing something…), bringing with him grand speeches (hey, he can even spew out two sentences in Spanish to talk to all his compadres, his comrades, all these modest, honest people like himself—I doubt all those people have dozens of millions of US dollars in the bank, but), a little bit of money to shower on the misery of the continent, and a boat with full medical equipment so that poor people can get medical attention and surgery for free! Isn’t that a fantastic proof of the US’s care for those people (now if only the US could start with its own population and its own total lack of a social security system, it might be interesting, first take care of your own misery, and then take care of others)? A boat! Can you imagine the enormity of that? Listen, and believe. Amen.

And then, there is the champion of all, but that champion isn’t a person. It’s a game. “Second Life” as it’s called, and “Sucking Out Your True Life” as it should be called. Fundamentally different from classical MMORPGs like Everquest, Second Life doesn’t give you a fantasy universe to play in, it doesn’t give you a science-fiction universe to play in. No, Second Life gives you a fake real-life universe. A virtual everyday, where you can be what you didn’t manage to be, do what you would never dare do. Where you can flee, where you can hide, and forget that there is a solid, tangible world in which you should be, act and react. Like many people, I know that temptation, and at times I have found it extremely hard to resist. Why not go and have fun there, realize my potential there, if I am dissatisfied with what I have or managed to have here? The answer is simple: because what happens there doesn’t matter, will never, ever have an impact on your life here. Because by luring people in such a universe, you give them an outlet, a way to vent out frustration, to spend their energy that redirects it away from real life. Away from getting involved in their real lives, from gathering the strength to push for changes, and to make this world a better place, however small individual inputs can be. The ocean is made of a myriad of drops. Every single one matters. But people forget that where reality is concerned. Once redirected toward a virtual universe, suddenly they start believing everything’s possible again. There are no dangerous stakes, no consequences, and so this oh so nice game channels energy and gobbles it up. A very neat black hole, it ensures that people’s attention will remain focused on an imaginary place, where ghosts of bits and bytes meet up, play at interacting, play at living out their lives while the real world watches and laughs.

Harry Potter almost drowned into the Mirror of Erised's lure twice, but at the last moment, he managed to step back. Can real people do as much?

When Facts Go Beyond Slogan

2007-02-03T16:28:00.000+01:00

“Sarko Facho”. It’s a well-known label that was used against Nicolas Sarkozy, equating him with a fascist. This slogan was adamantly denied and fought by supporters of the authoritarian minister of interior, and as those things go, it wasn’t long before all those who used it were considered “extremists” or “intellectually dishonest” by a great majority of people.

Fascist isn’t a word to use lightly in Europe, and in France in particular. Fascist echoes memories of our darkest hours, of collaboration with the Nazis and the Hitler/Mussolini era. So using the adjective to qualify Nicolas Sarkozy kind of backfired at the time, no matter how authoritarian and how the minister of interior appeared to be flirting with the far-right on quite a few affairs.

But last week, an interesting piece of evidence appeared, which shed a rather unholy light on Nicolas Sarkozy’s true political alignment. Mr Sarkozy published a book (which he didn’t write, but that’s they way these things are done, be it by him or others) to gift the world with his vision of what France should be, how he saw things, and what he would do if elected president. There was nothing surprising in there, but.

But the book was published in Italy as well. And there, it was prefaced by a very special friend of Nicolas Sarkozy’s. An Italian friend, whose name didn’t appear in the preface of the French version of the book, safely prefaced by someone else. It’s likely Mr Sarkozy thought he’d get away with this little stunt, and that nobody would notice who he chooses to preface a book as important as the one describing his ideas and his vision for France, Europe and the world.

And that friend, that very special friend of Mr Sarkozy’s is none other than Gianfranco Fini, the infamous leader of the MSI – National Alliance party. This party is heir to the old Italian fascist tradition, one which proudly claimed to uphold the values and heritage of the dictator Mussolini, who was Adolf Hitler’s closest ally during World War II. The party used to be proud to have Alessandra Mussolini, Mussolini’s granddaughter among its members. It’s well known for its extremist positions against immigration, against homosexuality, and all the usual rhetoric of far-right parties.

Of course, brainwashed supporters of Nicolas Sarkozy will start yelling that this was a long time ago, that Gianfranco, poor Gianfranco, has changed, that he’s curbed his fascist views and has renounced his old demons. That is nothing more than a sham and a bad lure. Yes, Mr Fini’s party has softened its declarations, and has strived to appear more “respectable” and “normal”. But the facts, the declarations of its members give out the lie for what it is.

And what’s more, Mr Sarkozy can’t pretend this was all a mistake: his ities with darling Gianfranco are anything but new. Nobody can claim they don’t know what our nice Gianfranco is about.

The “Courrier International” depicts an “alliance of iron” between Italy’s far-right, fascist figures, Nicolas Sarkozy, and the English Tories. The newspaper calls this alliance “the new right”. It is a daunting, frightening prospect to envision such an alliance taking place and growing in Europe, slowly staining our freedoms and our social security systems, our ways of life—all the while luring people’s votes with promises of being the ones who’ll reward their labor, because they’ll lash out and punish all those who abuse the system (the weakest ones, those who have no power, no voice, no money, no status…hmm, why does this ring a very dark bell in my mind?)

And, amusingly enough (read: I am not amused—not amused at all), not a word of this appeared on the TV news. Not even a whisper. The only media which reported this oh so unimportant piece of news were the left-leaning newspapers, and that’s all.

Funny, when you think that all the TV news simply dashed to cover and give precious prime time to the hoax of a French humorist who managed to dupe Segolene Royal, Socialist candidate to the presidency. But then again, the fact that said humorist is a friend of Nicolas Sarkozy’s, and that the hoax would be used to discredit the Socialist candidate had nothing to do with the zeal and speed with which it was put in the headline news on TV.

Just as the fact that the TV network’s occulting the revelation of Mr Sarkozy’s ties and closeness of opinion and ideas with a man whose ideology stinks all the way to Pluto, Proxima Centauri and beyond has nothing to do with favoring the one candidate who has been known to claim that he owns the supposedly neutral media.

If there is one reason which should unite people and make them vote for anyone but Nicolas Sarkozy, regardless of their political views, it should be this one: Mr Sarkozy isn’t what he tries to sell to the voters. Mr Sarkozy’s friendship lies to the right. To the fascist far-right. And the danger he represents must be stopped.

Sources (in French):
Libération
Le Courrier International

No Surrender, No Retreat !

2007-01-21T22:32:00.000+01:00

It’s a strange sensation, when you feel a shiver run up your spine, and when you feel your heartbeats speed up. Strange, and full of childlike wonder when the cause of these symptoms is your watching two episodes of the Meikai hen Kosho, raw (meaning unsubbed).

It’s a bit like electricity coursing your bones, and rewinding almighty Time to younger days, when you could still call yourself a kid and be completely into an anime series like Saint Seiya without having those close to you blink too openly at your weird behavior and taste…although, to be honest, it doesn’t matter much how old you grow, nothing prevents your from still enjoying and loving what you did when you were 18. Nobody can make you change what thrills you, nobody but yourself, and the truth is there is no age limit to enjoy oneself, unless you make it so.

So, back to the topic. Today, I watched both episodes 22 and 23 of the Hades Chapter, also known as OAVs 3 and 4 of the Meikai-hen Kosho or as OAVs 7 and 8 of the Meikai-hen as a whole. And the very good news is that I keep being lifted up on the wings of that series. The very, very good news, is that all the things that define Saint Seiya are present in these two episodes: fantastic characters, gorgeous art, incredible seiyuus, and what remains, in my humble opinion, the best part of the whole Saint Seiya story, except for the Twelve Houses race in the Sanctuary chapter.

Now, for some detailed comments:

In episode 22, the major change is the lengthening of the Valentine/Seiya fight. Not exactly needed, the more so since there were other things to develop further than what Kurumada did, but it was well done. Some good cuts and transitions, and a tad more fluidity in the motions, good! But what really won the day there was the confrontation Shaka/Hades/Athena. For the first time in the anime’s history, I enjoyed the performance of Virgo Shaka’s seiyuu. It was thrilling and moving at once. The reason for that is very simple: for the first time we are offered a Virgo Shaka with feelings and emotions. A human being, a man of flesh and blood, who goes through anguish when the Athena he loves above everything climbs up the stairs to confront Hades, who experiences anger and sorrow when evoking the fate of Shun, whom he believes forever lost. A Virgo Shaka who shudders and must make a visible effort to keep a shout of protestation and outrage from escaping his lips when Athena kneels down before Hades and pleads for humanity. A Virgo Shaka I’m glad to perceive at last as a man of flesh and blood, with a heart that beats inside his chest, a heart that hammers inside his ribcage while he watches Athena stride toward her arch-enemy weaponless.

Yes, Gold Saint though he may be, man closest to the divine though he may be, Virgo Shaka is and remains a human being. And it’s this ability to keep feeling that justifies the Gold Saints' status as protectors of humankind. Only those who can feel as ordinary people feel, those who can have a moment’s weakness or fragility, those who have had to struggle and fight to gain the strength of the soul that allows them to rise even against impossible odds can be entrusted with the safeguard of humanity. Of course, it’s true that I’d have loved to see Shaka react, to have seen him ignore the command of Athena at some point, but it couldn’t be: this sin’t the way Masami Kurumada wrote the character, and to change that would have meant a major change in this key scene of the episode. Given the restrictions put on the Saint Seiya anime adaptations since Mr Kurumada lost the little bit of brains and wits he ever had after the Tenkai-hen affair, there was no way the scenarists could have changed that in a good way while respecting constraints such as “no major changes and a strict respect of the manga”.

This episode also contains a very nice performance by Saori’s seiyuu, and a very good picturing of Hades’ soul.

And of course, I cannot help but regret that there was no development of Shun’s release by Hades, no showing of Shun fighting Hades’ hold once Athena’s blood has reawaken his spirit. We know it is happening, all the other characters explain what’s going on, but we do not see it. It’s a lack already present in the manga, and I must admit that I had hoped it would be filled by the anime adaptation, but once again, knowing how things stand with Mr Kurumada and intelligence and creativity these days…well, I couldn’t expect any miracle of the kind.

Still, all in all, a very good episode. A superb Virgo Shaka and a rather interesting Saori/Athena, so I for one am happy ^^

Episode 23. Here, I must start with another regret: when Seiya enters the Guidecca, he discovers a still unconscious Shun, who wears the Andromeda Cloth although we left him still wearing Hades’ full garb, his Cloth put away somewhere in the Guidecca’s many chambers after Hades’ taking over him. This is incoherent, as incoherent as it was in the manga, but contrary to scenes developing Shun’s struggle against Hades, it could have been easily fixed: take five seconds out of the totally useless and futile scene with Miho and the kids wondering at the unannounced eclipse in Japan, and you could patch that plot hole. But it wasn’t done. Ah well.

Again, Virgo Shaka is breathtaking. Those two episodes really favor him and help in giving more flesh, more stature and strength to this character who had appeared much too arrogant and aloof in all that went on before. I know I've said this just above already, but I really used to have a very hard time liking the voice of his seiyuu and imagining it fit with the character’s, but once you turn him into a real human beings, into a person with guts and a heart, both the character and his voice become absolutely fantastic! The scene of Virgo Shaka’s cosmo unfolding fully for the first time in the whole Saint Seiya story is simply fantastic.

And of course this episode features the reawakening of the three Gold Saints imprisoned in the eternal ice fields of the Cocyte. Aries Mu, Leo Aioria and Scorpio Milo are magnificent (ah, Aries Mu’s smile when he steals a glance toward the now empty spot where Ikki had been imprisoned as well). Their arrival before the unbreachable wall behind which Hades has retreated, taking Athena with him, in time to rejoin Dohko and Shaka (yes, Seiya and Shun are there, in the background, but they do not exactly matter here ^^), and Mu’s returning the rosary to Shaka are much awaited moments, and ones that keep their promises.

There is a lot of dialogue in that episode, and quite a few repetitions among them, but then who cares? The anime isn’t responsible for the manga’s flaws, and since there was no freedom to make real changes during the adaptation process, it’s futile to attribute to the anime what belongs to the manga and to Mr Kurumada. Still, if you try to think about it, the TV series was more than flawed as well, and yet a great many people loved it, and love it still. So my opinion remains that anyone who watches those OVAs in search of more than what they found in the TV series as a whole, bad episodes included, will always be disappointed, but I also believe that they’re looking for something that’s not there, and that’s never going to be there.

The episode ends with the gathering of all the Gold Saints that were still alive, and switches to a very nice view of the Sanctuary’s immediate vicinity in sunlight, where we see Marin dragging a very timid Seika along. Then comes the very nice ED song, and the preview of episode 24...and a very frustrating month-long wait for more.

After the revelation of the harsh, merciless truth of the nature of the wall standing before the Gold Saints, and of the only thing that can breach it, after despair’s bone-gnarled hand worming its way to enclose and crush the hearts and souls of Shaka, Mu, Aioria, Milo, Seiya, Shun and Dohko, we switch over to the sunlight. The only thing that can crack the wall shaped by the gods. And hope...hope is kindled, breathed back to life, blown into a bonfire from the embers and the ashes that the dark, very well done atmosphere of the wall’s vicinity had almost managed to annihilate for good.

No, no despair, no matter what.

No surrender, no retreat!

Onward…to the next, and last episodes of this Meikai-hen Kosho, and the heartrending sacrifice that is about to take place.

PS: As usual with Saint Seiya reviews, you can find this one with rather nice screencaps on my web home here.

PPS: yes, I know, I am way too fond of Babylon 5 episode titles! :P

The Caius Julius Temptation

2007-01-14T12:41:00.000+01:00

Today is Nicolas Sarkozy’s big day. Today is DA day, when little Nicolas is crowned holy candidate of the UMP for the coming presidential election in France.

Nothing is too good to celebrate this auspicious day. No effort has been spared. 3,500,000 € have been lavished on Mr Sarkozy's enthronement show. Eight bullet trains have been chartered, and 520 coaches to bring in worshippers from all over France.

Mr Sarkozy is the one and only candidate for his party’s nomination. He is the sole, absolute ruler of an organization he’s been at the head of for years, an organization he very skillfully transformed into a tool for his own personal glory and to help his own devouring ambitions. The machine is now ready. Ready to hail its hero. With a luxury of means that more than borders on debauchery, the machine aims to send a message to France and the world.

What message, you ask?

That a man has managed to turn a collective group into a weapon that serves the interests of one individual. That Nicolas Sarkozy turned the UMP into something akin to what the communist party was in Romania in the times of Ceauscescu. He has turned a political party into an organization dedicated to his person.

A proof? A hint of this being true? Well, that’s easy: check the way things went in the Socialist party, and the bitter struggle between three would-be candidates for the nomination. With the UMP, nothing of the sort happened. Oh, there is dissent, among the “old guard” of the previous incarnation of the UMP, there are different voices, but strangely enough, none has stepped forward and declared they would battle Mr Sarkozy for the UMP nomination. Why do you think? Why, when you know that these personalities all have egos at least as big as Mr Sarkozy’s, and a huge experience of political battles and skirmishes?

Because all these people are no fools, and know they didn’t stand a chance. Because these people didn’t want to play the humiliating game of being Mr Sarkozy’s puppet opponent used to justify his own candidacy, his own triumph. Because the game was hacked from the start, and that everyone knew who the winner would be. The recipe is very simple, once you’re the head of a relatively new political party (the UMP was created on the ashes of the RPR) and you’re given free rein to organize it, structure it, and communicate as you wish with members and would-be members. As long as you have good professionals behind you who will be extremely careful that all messages you send to your members contain what is needed to cultivate the glory of the party’s leader, as long as you decide to put all efforts into the image of the “president”, this nice years-long brainwashing campaign will do the job: the members will vote for Mr Sarkozy, no matter who else is candidate for the UMP nomination.

Still, Mr Sarkozy would have loved to have at least one opponent, so he could show that his nomination was the “true” result of a democratic process where he had had to struggle and convince the party that he was the best candidate. Too bad for him, but none of his enemies within the UMP were stupid enough to oblige.

So instead, Mr Sarkozy compensates with a true Roman festival dedicated to his self-promotion. Mr Sarkozy organizes one hell of a big party where thousands of people are brought in to cheer him on and hail glory to him.

Americanization, mi amor…

Of course, the ideas, the projects, the policies, all that is secondary. All that shifts to the shadows, while Mr Sarkozy steps into the light, receives the expressions of fealty and admiration of the crowds.

For me, I don’t know how you can enjoy having crowds hail you on cue as happens in the worst TV shows. But then,, even though I certainly have a big ego, I must be lightyears away from Mr Sarkozy’s level.

Blinding people with the extravagance of his crowning show, Mr Sarkozy hopes to gain a legitimacy he was hoping to gain through a fake triumph over another candidate. He aims to focus people’s attention on images, on an empty show instead of on documents such as the very serious and frightening study of the Socialist party (in French here).

Mr Sarkozy is all empty self-display, and he uses the communication skills of his advisers so as not to have people dwell on who he is, what he wants, and what his true ideas and projects for France are.

Mr Sarkozy is a frightening figure, an authoritarian man with sharp intelligence and a formidable will and a headstrong attitude to match. Someone who cannot accept he could be wrong or could have to change his mind. A friend of the US neo-cons, an admirer of a culture that has nothing to do with Europe’s and France’s, he would use all his energy and power to transform France into what it is not. A firm believer in the superiority of religions over agnosticism or atheism, he would endanger the secularity of France.

Still, these are political ideas, and they have the right to be there, to exist and be debated, but they are not being debated. They’re being hidden behind a curtain of smoke, behind grand celebrations lavishing praise and applause on Mr Sarkozy himself.

What remains the most disturbing about him is the impossibly huge ego that transpires from everything he says or does. It’s how he has created and encouraged the transformation of a political party into a weapon solely dedicated to furthering his own glory and flattering his own ego.

He’s not the first to have this kind of personality. Many others before him went the way of self-admiration. Many others before him reshaped structures into tools that served only their own interests. In his manic quest to gather power around his person, Nicolas Sarkozy is going down the same path as the Bush Administration, where the White House frantically aims at pushing the executive’s power so far as to overwhelm the judicial and the legislative power. The process is the same.

And where it leads is not a place where we want to go.

Rome, 44 BC, when the Republic fell, and true tyranny started. Check your history books, it’s all explained there. Or, better, check out Rome, the HBO and BBC TV series, and you’ll see how Mr Nicolas Sarkozy and the US neo-cons are just recycled products of much brighter and stronger figures.

Our Last, Best Hope... for Saint Seiya !

2007-01-07T17:03:00.000+01:00

One can reasonably surmise that Masami Kurumada, the much acclaimed [insert snicker here] author of Saint Seiya didn’t know what he was doing when he entrusted the young mangaka Teshirogi Shiori with the making of a prequel to the series. The young woman was after all at the beginning of her career, having only a two volumes series to her name.

Miss Teshirogi’s prequel was to run parallel to another prequel, one done by the “master” himself. The two prequels would tell the tale of the previous holy war between Athena and Hades, the one which had taken place in 1743. That prospect alone was rather disappointing, as fans were largely more interested in seeing more of the Heaven Chapter after the fantastic Overture movie directed by Shigeyasu Yamauchi. But then, as Mr Kurumada had had a bit of a temper tantrum concerning the movie, loved by the fans but hated by him, a sequel was not to be. Instead, two prequels got underway.

Mr Kurumada's would be titled “Saint Seiya Next Dimension” and was published first. The result was an affront to the eye and to the mind. Art so ugly it hurt to look at it, dialogues about right for characters aged respectively 7 and 8 years old, and a scenario about as bad as what the worst 7 years old male fanfickers can do concerning Saint Seiya. So, quite logically, many among the fan community, myself included, were disgusted and more or less abandoned all hope concerning this new revival of Saint Seiya.

As it happens we were wrong.

By accident more than by design, Mr Kurumada gave a license to produce Saint Seiya material to a woman who not only loves the series, but what’s more shows a true understanding of what Saint Seiya is about, of what lies at its heart. And so, soon after the Next Dimension horror of Mr Kurumada came out, Miss Teshirogi’s Lost Canvas appeared, and charmed a great many Saint Seiya fans off their feet.

Miss Teshirogi enriches her characters touch by touch. With a single picture, she adds nuance and layers to her characters. Exit all the over-simplifications and the hasty, or inexistent backgrounds to explain a character’s personality. In little drops of jet black ink, Miss Teshirogi paints the characters, gives them a life, a soul, and draws the reader along with her vision of the story. Elegance, class, nobility, resourcefulness, razor-sharp depictions and good humor at unexpected times are the key elements that are sure to turn her vision of the 1743 war into a success.

Overall, the interactions between the characters feel natural, contrary to how forced they do when Mr Kurumada tries to use his lack of talent at dialogues. With Miss Teshirogi, there is no obvious rigidity in sentences and dialogues, no jarring sensation that send your teeth gritting in frustration. The flow of words is just right. The characters are true to themselves, instead of becoming mere parodies fit for a farce. The depth and coherence she brings, along with the charisma and class of the characters are a blessing.

Of course, this is Saint Seiya, and it will remain Saint Seiya. But miss Teshirogi has given it back its touch of class, she has re-infused it with subtlety and elegance, she has brought back coherence and depth. With a feathery brush of shoujo talent, she has revived a very much battered hope for the series. In spite of my initial lack of interest for a prequel of Saint Seiya, I now find myself eagerly waiting for each new chapter to be published. That, in itself, is undeniable evidence of miss Teshirogi’s talent and true understanding of the series. It’s both sad and apparently illogical to say, but she knows more concerning the heart and soul of Saint Seiya, than the one who created it in the first place. Mr Kurumada lost his way a long time ago, among too many packs of beer and wrestling matches.

Thankfully, be it fate or something else, Mr Kurumada’s path crossed miss Teshirogi’s. She is the right person at the right place, and in the right time. It’s a rare and precious enough chance to be noticed. And one wonders, if the gods haven’t decided to smile again.

A more detailed review, with a few pictures to show you I'm not kidding, is available in my Saint Seiya shrine: http://fuu-no-road.2ya.com/STSLC.html

Enjoy! ^^

In Love With Fiasco

2007-01-04T14:50:00.000+01:00

At first I wanted to post this immediately after I heard of Saddam Hussein’s execution. Then I kind of went “ah shit, it’s almost New Year’s Eve, gimme a break”.

But then, the media kept talking about it, I kept hearing people rejoicing, and always, always answering “you have to know that this man was a bloody dictator, responsible for immense suffering and hundreds of thousands of deaths” to the question “what do you think of the manner in which Saddam Hussein was executed?”

So I got pissed, and as usual, I yielded on the impulse to post my opinion on this matter, helped in this by today’s editorial of the New York Times.

My opinion on this execution is much the same as Robert Badinter’s: a bad mistake, and one which will have consequences.

Beyond the question of being for or against the death penalty (I am firmly against if you want to know and never read any of the things I write, the more firmly against that I was for it until the age of 18), the fact is that a man was executed even though he hadn’t been judged thoroughly and correctly. Saddam Hussein was executed despite the fact that many things and many crimes that took place during his tyrannical reign were neither analysed, nor exposed to the public, nor investigated, nor proved. Many things will forever remain enshrouded in doubt and shadows, and likely some of those crimes contain elements and information that the powers-that-be, USA first of all, do not wish to be revealed to the public. I guess it would be bad to find out who sold the weapons used to decimate the Kurdish population and to kill so many people in the Iran/Irak war.

So, in my opinion, this whole thing was parody of justice, an illegal and amoral execution, thanks to which the US rushed to yield custody of this fallen dictator to the Iraki authorities, to have him executed just before dawn so that the Shia rites of the Sacrifice celebration would be respected--never mind that the Sunni rituals start before that time and thus that their celebration would be defiled by this execution, after all who cares but those who would prevent an all out civil war in Irak? Oh, the US wants to prevent that? Really? Wow, they sure don’t look the part !

Overall, the all execution process looked like "panic attack ! Let’s kill him! Quick!”

There was no serenity, no thorough analysis of the crimes. No real, correct trial (remind me again: how many defense attorneys were murdered during the trial?)

It doesn’t matter that the guilty verdict was certain. There had to be a true, equitable and impartial verdict, once all the crimes had been judged. This should have been done before the International Penal Tribunal of La Haye, since we were talking about crimes against humanity, among other niceties.

Georges W Bush rejoices at the news of what constitutes, in his eyes, an important step toward a free and democratic Irak, forgetting all the fallacious pretexts used by his administration to have brought a deadly, bloody war there, and forgetting the chaos that his insane crusade has brought to that country. What are this Assyrian Christians of Irak doing, except fleeing their country, inside of which they’ve become preys? What’s becoming of women’s rights, except for a quick unravelling?

W is happy at a step that is, for me, a sign of the fragility of the regime currently in power in Irak. This frantic rush to execute a man makes no sense, there was no need to play that kind of game, to put a definite stop to all possible trials and to forever prevent all the other victims to ever see justice done, and to see the truth revealed. The only feeling I get is that the Iraki authorities are completely drowned and out of their depths, that they cannot master the chaos and violence that fester in their country, and that they wanted to please some, while using the event to strike fear in the minds of others. But this grotesque tragedy, complete with its futile attempts at humiliating a man about to die, who instead appeared calm and dignified will not help. It’s been a long time since the rebellion and the terrorists in Irak have stopped needing a figure like Saddam Hussein. If anything, all this execution will do is bringing yet another pretext to have communities rise against each other, and thus fuel hatred and war even more.

Last but not least: calling « an important step toward democracy » the botched, rushed execution after the end of a trial that looked more like a theatrical farce than a true action of justice leaves me speechless. It gives the measure of the self-proclaimed “greatest democracy in the world”, aka the USA.