2008 : I thought of writing "Summer Fool" [American eauivalent of Russian (Winter) Fool] at filmplus.org/rus [in Russian], but looks that politics is the best subject to talk about Foolish America.
After all, how can I take politics seriously.
...
NTL, I take some serious look at Pomo-America and Post-America. Including Cyber-America -- biz.vtheatre.net
Freedom -- Date: before 12th century * 1 : the quality or state of being free: as a : the absence of necessity, coercion, or constraint in choice or action
Liberty -- Etymology: Middle English, from Middle French libertй, from Latin libertat-, libertas, from liber free -- more at LIBERAL * Date: 14th century * 1 : the quality or state of being free: a : the power to do as one pleases b : freedom from physical restraint c : freedom from arbitrary or despotic control d : the positive enjoyment of various social, political, or economic rights and privileges e : the power of choice
1.21.05. Yesterday, Bush's inaguration speech -- The American Revolution: departure from the century of wars and borders. Bush-Father talked about the New World Order, the universal (global) society, based on american model. "United States of the World"...
Notes
"Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that something else is more important than fear." ~~Ambrose Redmoon.
.... You can see the turbulent life of sun on Alaskan night skies. It is there most of the time, but my eyes need darkness to see the Northern Lights. It's a dance, as if God sends me a message and I don't know his language. This tender light moves, trembles, changes its forms... I am silent, I don't understand you, I don't understand myself. What? I stare at the signs from heaven for me, for all of us. I turned off the engine and lights; the angels above the dark trees do their silent broadcast. Do they know that I am not one of them and only to learn the language of resurrection? The words, I missing the words. They are silent, because they do not know which language to use with me -- Russian or English. They have nationality or even gender. It's hard to understand those who never was born and never died. I turn on the car and drive away. I know that they won't give up on me. They never give up, the angels. [ Anti-Me ]
О цензуре: американская и новая российская. Внутренняя цензура, после Фуко, очевино, что само-цензуры. Как я знаю, что она есть?
+ links to my Russian Diary and Anatoly XXI [us, wrting, engl.]
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Index * directories: Books * Theatre w/Anatoly * Virtual Theatre * Write * Web * links * appendix * list * FAQ *
Film-North * Classes * Filmmaking * Film Books * Mining Film * about * Film Study * Book of Spectator * ACTING * Script Analysis * DIRECTING * Aesthetics * My Nonfiction (webtexts): SELF * Theology of Technology * POV * PostAmeriKa * Father-Russia * Bookmark vTheatre! *
Mailing List & News -- subscribe yourself * "To understand isn't normal. There's nothing normal about it. That's why it's not easy. I mean to understand. If I don't understand how my VCR works or why I'm here alive, that's normal. I live in society and I'm forced to understand. Everything I know about life was forced on me -- walk, talk, read, write! Even my natural ability not to understand has to be transformed into learned quality not to understand legitimately -- the stupidity. You see, a cat is innocent in his relations to VCR, he doesn't understand it and doesn't care, cat isn't stupid. I am. I'm expected to understand things, because I'm human. I have this thing -- the conscience. This thing as extra part of my body, a third leg. I have it and I have to use it. Even if I have no need for this extra leg. Very often it's not comfortable at all, it always there, and you have to deal with this leg. It's nice to have something extra. Hey, why not? But then as usual this free thing turns into a sales gimmick. Suddenly they get on your case -- why don't you use your brains, why don't you get more things for your "big thing" -- and before you know, this extra leg becomes the most important part of you. You serve it, work for it, run and roll around it! And they wonder why people kill themselves! What would you prefer to be, a drunk or an idiot to forget about the presence of this "special leg"? [ from PostAmeriKa, Ode to Madness, Self-Slavery ]
Notes
Think, reader, whether I marveled, seeing
the object remain still in itself, and
only the image of it changing.
Dante... This page is for myself, to help me to work on other pages.
Who knows, maybe it's not for them, but for me to see it and understand. Maybe this is why I am here.
2002. Even Marx (not marxists) would give a better analysis of our times, than best mind of pomo thinkers without a system. Of course the extremes is connected with poverty. Read again "The Demons" -- the upper class is twisted by the guilt. Terrorism is the only war poor nations can affort.
And Islam -- "Christianity" for underdeveloped nations. Still better that Communism (less dangerous = less advanced ideology).
Yes, it's poor against rich (nations), stupid! The super-protestant culture (America) should know it. Should know that without this protestant spiritual revolution, when "work" became a built-in high value, they will never learn HOW to work! Not even the Japanese. Marxism itself is the result of the social evolution of Protestantism.
Do we really expect the rest of the world to jump into 21 century without going through all the stages (even not discovering, but simply learning)? Are we out of our minds? I guess, this is too (American Anti-intellectialism) is trace of Protestant ethics again the aristocractic cult of knowledge. America doesn't know itself = doesn't see the big picture.
"God bless America" -- this is why Americans are under fire! Don't you know what blessing means?
...It was the Day of Preparation, and to avoid the bodies' remaining on the cross during the Sabbath -- since that Sabbath was a day of special solemnity -- the Jews asked Pilate to have the legs broken and the bodies taken away. Consequently the soldiers came and broke the legs of the first man who had been crucified with him and then of the other. When they came to Jesus, they saw he was already dead, and so instead of breaking his legs, one of the soldiers pierced his side with a lance; and immediately there came out blood and water. This is the evidence of one who saw it -- true evidence, and he knows that what he says is true -- and he gives it so that you may believe as well. Because all this happened to fulfill the words of scripture: Not one bone of his will be broken;
and again, in another place scripture says: They will look to the one whom they have pierced (John 19:31-37).
Blessing is dengerous...
American Century, Last Act
Not the expirience in the Soviet Union, but my 24 years in America made me apolitical! *
Yes, yes, I will explain everything. And the American Age, too. I thought that all do know by now that we live in "The American Century".... I guess, I have to speak about the Post-Communism.
I was born fifty four years ago in Soviet Moscow and was told that my generation would live under communism one day... Oh, no, read "Father-Russia" -- what? It's not there? Hold on. Let me write a few pages in Father-Russia. I will be back. Just wait here. I'm fast, I travel with the speed of light, you know. When? Soon. Maybe tomorrow or who knows when?
...Are you still here?
Come on! I was joking. Go away. See you later.
"The two great German books helped me a lot in my youth; _The Sunset of the West_ and _Self and Own_. As a teenager I took to heart; Spengler and Sterner helped me to understand two other German thinkers -- Nietzsche and Marx. All of them talked about a radical departure from the past and I saw this grand break all around me. This social revolution manifested itself in visible, aggressive forms and I was searching for an understanding of the effect of this change on the inside -- my inner world. I believed that the colossal transformation of the world is not just a cause but an effect of my different sensitivity. The postmodernism theory did help to sort out my emotions I could find in the books. I still recognize the insights of understanding of experiences of the present in pomo, but postmodern has no guts to break away from the intellectual heritage. The thought proved to have more inertia than the physical universe. The name itself (post-modern) indicates that the mind is looking for continuity. After all, Marx happened to be more radical than Stirner; he rejected the Self. Strange, they all were not Americans." [ from PostAmeriKa, American ]
The Decline of the West (Oxford Paperbacks)
by Oswald Spengler
Since its first publication in two volumes between 1918-1923, The Decline of the West has ranked as one of the most widely read and most talked about books of our time. In all its various editions, it has sold nearly 100,000 copies. A twentieth-century Cassandra, Oswald Spengler thoroughly probed the origin and "fate" of our civilization, and the result can be (and has been) read as a prophesy of the Nazi regime. His challenging views have led to harsh criticism over the years, but the knowledge and eloquence that went into his sweeping study of Western culture have kept The Decline of the West alive. As the face of Germany and Europe as a whole continues to change each day, The Decline of the West cannot be ignored.
The abridgment, prepared by the German scholar Helmut Werner, with the blessing of the Spengler estate, consists of selections from the original (translated into English by Charles Francis Atkinson) linked by explanatory passages which have been put into English by Arthur Helps. H. Stuart Hughes has written a new introduction for this edition.
In this engrossing and highly controversial philosophy of history, Spengler describes how we have entered into a centuries-long "world-historical" phase comparable to late antiquity. Guided by the philosophies of Goethe and Nietzsche, he rejects linear progression, and instead presents a world view based on the cyclical rise and decline of civilizations. He argues that a culture blossoms from the soil of a definable landscape and dies when it has exhausted all of its possibilities.
Despite Spengler's reputation today as an extreme pessimist, The Decline of the West remains essential reading for anyone interested in the history of civilization.
"The mirror in the case of the actor is the audience." Piscator[3] I do not want to talk about them, the politicians, I want to talk about you, the public!
Think about it: Persona -- from the Latin for "mask." The psychological image of the character that is created, especially in relationship to other levels of reality. Personality instead of individuality. Personal or Indivual Rights? Personal Freedoms? NB: important!
10.22.04. Postmodern politics -- war of opinions (horizontal). Political discourse is gone. Yelling. Screaming. No thought and no place for any thought in such conditions...
E-democracy (a neologism and contraction of "electronic democracy") is the utilization of electronic communications technologies, such as the Internet, in enhancing democratic processes within a democratic republic or representative democracy. It is a political development still in its infancy, as well as the subject of much debate and activity within government, civic-oriented groups and societies around the world.
The term is both descriptive and prescriptive. Typically, the kinds of enhancements sought by proponents of e-democracy are framed in terms of making processes more accessible; making citizen participation in public policy decision-making more expansive and direct so as to enable broader influence in policy outcomes (i.e., more heads involved could yield smarter policies); increasing transparency and accountability; and so on. E-democracy includes within its scope electronic voting, but has a much wider span than this single aspect of the democratic process.
E-democracy is also sometimes referred to as cyberdemocracy, digital democracy or techno-democracy.
Eternal vigilance is the price liberty. --Thomas Paine
... Arthur Koestler well said, it was a contest between those who were right for the wrong reasons and those who were wrong for the right reasons.
"For responsible anticommunists, how-ever, communism was a threat to America, not a threat in America. Domestic communism was a problem only insofar as it complicated the task of building support for the containment of Soviet expansion overseas. The way to handle American communists was discussion and debate, not loyalty oaths, blacklists, and persecution." Anticommunism's Two Faces: The Irresponsible Won Out
[ Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. From Foreign Affairs, January/February 1996
Review of "Not Without Honor: The History of American Anticommunism." Richard Gid Powers. New York: The Free Press, 1995, 527 pp. $30.00 ]
Notes for Russian Reader: Не хочу политики на страницах "Дело Антохиных" (это вместо "Век Антохиных"), но мешать языки боюсь. Отпугнет английских читателей. Хотя не уверен. Да и кто читает?
В России им надо привыкать к тому, что политика -- дело личное. Как секс. Как это обьяснить?
