Russia/Ukraine War – Opinion

 

The subject of war is a contentious issue. I can't name any other topic (mainly when the battle's happening now). As we are a tribal species, it is human nature to pick a side; our tribe or country must be the righteous one. Most arguments against the tribal view are attacked and ostracised from the tribe. We see this again; the current Russia/Ukraine war is one such example.

Our society is designed to only absorb a limited amount of information. As working folk, our time is extremely limited due to economic factors. When you operate a nine-hour job or two jobs, you'll only receive news from primary stream sources. As I've been writing about for years, the MSM is a tool for government propaganda. They create the "official" narrative, and those who oppose that official narrative are deemed "fake news."

Since the Biden administration came into office, censorship, specifically from democratic and establishment powers, has sought to quash any dissenting view other than their own. The notion of free speech is not canceling another because you disagree with them. Free speech is all speech except, of course, hate speech, which has no place in human discourse.

So when one presents a rational argument regarding the Ukraine crisis that goes contrary to the establishment narrative, one is immediately placed in the sin bin, silenced, sometimes forever. This isn't democracy but totalitarianism.

The Russia/Ukraine war is more nuanced and complicated than what's presented in the corporate press. It's not like Russia decided to invade Ukraine out of a vacuum. There is a historical context to consider, and putting the shoe on the other foot, so to speak. What has really led to this war? There are many factors to consider.

The US-backed coup in Ukraine in 2014. A pro-Moscow and left-leaning president was elected and was overthrown by far-right Ukrainian factions. Some eastern states like Donbas, Ukrainian Neo-Nazis have been fighting the Russian-speaking people in that region. Many atrocities have been committed, including sadistic assassinations on civilians.

In 2014, you can hear US officials discussing over the telephone the best Ukrainian government officials to put into office. This is the definition of a puppet government. The US has been interfering in Ukraine for over eight years. Then vice president Biden's son was given a $50.000 a month place on a Ukrainian gas company board. This is suspicious but reveals how far US tentacles have reached into Ukraine.

I really don't care what you think about President Putin (all current world leaders are terribly corrupt), but all Russians did not want Ukraine to become a member of NATO. There are already 5 US/NATO bases surrounding the Russian border. For Ukraine to become a member of NATO presents a clear threat to all Russians. Ukraine was the gateway for Hitler and Napoleon, causing 10's millions of Russian deaths.

Putting the shoe on the other foot notion: would you want Russian bases in Cuba, Canada, and Mexico? The US has been playing a dangerous game in Ukraine. For years Russia called a red line. A red line means you cannot cross it, or there will be dire consequences. That line was turning Ukraine into a NATO state. The Russians asked the US and the EU not to do this, pursuing it anyway. If any country should be blamed for this war, it is the US. and its allies.

I read this morning that the Ukrainian president, as a welcome gift to Joe Biden's presidency, closed three major Russian media stations in the country. This should give a glimmer into the machinations of the US in Ukraine and why Russia decided to invade.

For many years, as an anti-war activist, war is never the answer to any conflict. There's always a diplomatic solution. Did Russia have any other options aside from war? I believe more than likely they did. If you poke the docile bear enough, you're going to piss her off, and she'll retaliate.

As an added note: NATO should have been dismantled in the 90s when the Soviet Union crumbled. Instead, NATO is now used to defend international corporate interests. It is a tool for corporations.

The biggest irony is so-called liberals are currently claiming that an occupied country has the right to fight any occupying force. The US has been occupying Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syria for decades. Israel has been occupying Palestine for over 50 years. But I guess that's somehow different...it isn't.

During any war or conflict, it's much better to avoid emotional responses and attempt at logic and rationality.

When innocents are being killed, it's an almost impossible thing to do. 

Beauty & the Pre-Raphaelites

“Beauty of whatever kind, in its supreme development, invariably excites the sensitive soul to tears.” Edgar Allan Poe

The battle concerning the nature of art and Beauty indeed continues to rage in universities, galleries, and salons designed for those who claim an artistic sensibility. What is Beauty? Can it be defined? The great American poet Emily Dickinson once wrote, “Beauty is not caused. It is.” When first exploring these questions, I discovered as many opinions as there are lovers in the world, and all think themselves an authority not to be gained said. As a result, we may never know precisely what Beauty is. Nevertheless, like a neurotic fixation, this question has haunted me over many sleepless nights.

In my quest to define Beauty, I came upon a curious movement that seemed to ring a semblance of truth. It was a specific sensibility, a philosophy of life and art, a literary and artistic wave, culminating in the 1890s – Aestheticism. For the Aesthete, the quest for unadulterated Beauty is recommended as the most refined occupation humankind can find themselves during this short “visit” and “indefinite reprieve” from death that we have come to call life. The art of life or the life of art, the Aesthete, equates with a form of pure ecstasy that can flourish only when removed from the roughness of our stereotyped world of “actuality.” One of the most extravagant exponents of Aestheticism was the Irish writer Oscar Wilde. He said that “the seeker of beauty should never accept any theory or system that would involve the sacrifice of any mode of passionate experience” How true.

Closely associated with the Aesthetes was another curious artistic movement known as the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. Such forgotten luminaries as Holman Hunt, John Everett Millais, and Dante Gabriel Rossetti founded the PRB in 1848. However, my personal favorite painter of the later period of this movement is John William Waterhouse. A net close group of art students, painters, and poets revolted against the canons of the English Royal Academy. They dedicated themselves to recovering the purity of medieval art, which Raphael and the Renaissance had destroyed. Inspiring even today, they turned their backs on the realities of the 19th-century Industrial society and, anticipating Symbolism, merged classic form with the dream world of myth, spirituality, and the human imagination.

Any conservative or stalwart of the classical persuasion will tell you that the “death” of art occurred after German Expressionism. This is quite possible considering the work of the Abstract Expressionists.

Be that as it may, the Pre-Raphaelite artist were amazingly proficient in depicting vividly, naturalistic detail, which the Australian art critic described as “…spectacular, beautiful in patches and coldly, provokingly weird in others, sometimes both at once.”

For me, their work provokes uncannily moods of dreamy melancholy. There is a painful yearning of sentimentality in the work combined with a cold realism that is sometimes quite frightening.

Edward Burne Jones, the dreaming Aesthete who cared for Beauty, almost single-handedly brought the English aesthetic movement into existence. His work was the exact opposite of Realism. In a conversation with Oscar Wilde, he rhetorically asked, “Realism? Direct transcript from nature? What does that have to do with art?” Indeed the growing abstraction in his work began to upset some significant benefactors at the time. But he didn’t care – Burne-Jones’ quest for Beauty continued into the realms of the imagination, attempting to remove the vulgar roughness from the stereotypical world of actuality.

As fashion changes, so too an artistic sensibility. However, over the last twenty years or so, the work of the Pre-Raphaelites are becoming more popular. The art critic Robert Hughes speculates, “Modernism is losing its mandate in our fin de siecle.” I would venture to say that painting this century is losing its mandate because of its never-ending preoccupation with form, lacking in that certain quality the Romantics attempted to explore and strive towards – the Divine.

To describe what Edward Burne-Jones was striving for in his work, he wrote the following diary entry:

“I mean by a picture a beautiful romantic dream of something that never was, never will be – in a light better than any light that ever shone – in a land no-one can define, or remember, only desire – and the forms divinely beautiful.”

If this is not true Beauty, it is at least, in the quest alone, beautiful.

A Lighthouse and the Little Cottage.

 

It is a treat to have a two-week break in the middle of the school year. Since teaching high school, this time of the season, the winter months, can be breathtaking, so I manage to travel somewhere in this beautiful state in search of new sights, unusual surroundings, intent on moving outside the familiar. I’ve discovered this activity does wonders for one’s general sanity, well being and somehow creates balance to a life that tends to tip too far in a particular direction. At least for a few days, moving out of the neighborhood is not the key to happiness, but can provide a rest from the banalities, routines, and vagaries of one’s day-to-day existence.

Arrived in Apollo Bay after sunset amid a rainstorm.

The Great Ocean Road is truly a sight to behold, only the beginning of a week of views to excite the senses and move the soul.

Our cottage is a lovely bed and breakfast. A two-story, re-furbished house…polished wooden floors, wooden staircase leading to a loft-like bedroom overlooking the rolling green hills reminiscent of Sussex in England. The countryside is vast, with cows grazing down towards the east and sheep appearing like tiny white dots to the south against shades of brown and black while shadows travel leisurely across the landscape. Yet, as I stand at the window, the outstanding quality about this environment is its silence. After the rain had stopped, however, the faint sound of the ocean’s surf gently echoed in the distance.

Entering the cottage for the first time, strangely, on the wall next to the fire-stove, hangs a large print of one of my favorite J.W. Waterhouse paintings: a little girl dressed in white leans over amongst ancient ruins to smell red and white roses in black vases. I call this “strange” because this was the first Waterhouse painting I ever purchased, giving it to my grandmother as she spent her last months in a small room in my mother’s house. She loved this painting, and it seemed to make her happy as it brightened the room. At first startled because I had not seen the image for years, later it became a kind of comfort, creating a warm feeling in the house.

We left the cottage around eleven the following day, driving for only 30 minutes or so to arrive at the light station.

As luck would have it, the morning was clear and crisp with the sound of the surf and the smell of salt in the air.

The Cape Otway Light Station had been built in 1848 by orders from the prime minister because several shipwrecks had occurred in the area.

On the grounds inland from the white tower stood the old Head Light Keepers Residence, constructed in 1857; not far away was the Assistant Light Keepers Residence, which was turned into a café for visitors like us. The assistant Residence also was used as a schoolhouse for the children, and one can actually feel the history as you move from room to room, almost hearing the joyous laughter of the students as they learned their lessons and played precariously next to the cliffs.

As an amateur artist, I had brought my sketchbook along, sitting in the café and gazing at the magnificent lighthouse, a beacon of hope for lost sailors. Sipping my coffee and drawing with care, a local man walked up behind me, not saying a word. His presence did not bother me as I continued to draw the lighthouse. Once finished, he said, “Most people take a few pictures and leave, grumbling about the admission. It’s good to see someone take the time to “look” at this wonderful place. It’s not a bad picture either, mate.”

I think it was the 19th-century art critic and writer, John Ruskin, who advised that to truly experience meaning and the beauty of the sights you come upon when traveling, one should sit still and write about them, draw the landscapes, the buildings, the objects of interest, and the experience will be that much more meaningful and memorable. Sketching the lighthouse did indeed create, personally, something akin to “being in the moment”…my appreciation for the place grew the longer I lingered and studied its details, nuances, and history.

Later that night, at home in the cottage, I stirred the fire, adding more wood, causing the flames to come back to life. Showered, clean, fed, warm and tired, I jumped into bed between washed crisp sheets to then fall into a deep sleep with nothing but the scent of the sea and sweet silence.

Teaching History: Expressionism vs. Fascist Art.

 

Some years ago, teaching my year10 history class, we examined the rise of the Nazi Party pre-WWII and the personality and political machinations of Adolf Hitler.

The female students in the class find, generally, the subject of war boring. But, on the other hand, the male students are more engaged than usual. They are particularly interested in the personality of the 20th century’s most notorious dictator. Hitler has become a household word for a variety of reasons. Ironically, however, you ask a 15-year-old boy to tell you who Hitler was and why he is so infamous, their eyes roll back into their little heads, and the response is usually vague at best.

It wasn’t until I did my ‘chalk & talk’ lesson on Adolf Hitler for the class that week that the sound of penny’s dropping throughout the classroom told me that these young adults didn’t have a clue as to who and what this famous man was responsible for during the first quarter of the 20th century. To my astonishment, while I paraded around the classroom, gesticulating and screeching my chalk against the blackboard (yes, our school at the time, in certain rooms, still use this antiquated teaching tool), every eye and ear paid attention, hanging on my every word.

Why do these young minds have such a fascination with a man responsible for millions of innocent deaths? How does such an evil individual continue to reach out from history and grab the full attention of our cyber-drenched youth of today? In all fairness, your guess is as good as mine…but the fascination remains.

Because history in our State curriculum focuses, for the most part, on names, events, dates, and movements of the period under study, there is not much time to capture the feelings and emotions of the people involved. That is to say, history is the story of our past, and it is not just about names, dates, and events; history is about motivations, emotions, circumstances, and atmosphere.

I devised a small research project to involve my female students, attempting to make it a little more interesting for them. They had to investigate the life of Eva Braun, Hitler’s beautiful and intriguing mistress. Once in a while, a teacher will hit a subject on the nose where the students will dive into the subject matter with full enthusiasm – this was one such case.

During their research, they came upon something that I was not even aware of, and that is the home movies that Eva Braun shot while at Hitler’s home in the Black Forest, Berchtesgaden. Eva met Hitler while working as an assistant in a photography shop. She hit meters and meters of film depicting Hitler’s numerous guests, his inner circle, Speers, Himmler, etc., but until a few years ago, we could not determine what was being said at those gatherings. The new software has been developed to analyze the lips of subjects on silent film and, through an exciting process, can determine with 100% accuracy what is being said. A group of Oxford Historians used this process on the Braun home movies with exciting results.

(To view the documentary on the new software and Braun’s home movies, go to Google and type “Hitler Speaks” you can view the entire doco online.)

In terms of history as a subject, approaching the human side, so to speak, has opened whole new vistas for the young student in the academic study of our past.

I devised a PowerPoint lesson on Expressionism vs. Fascist Art. In this presentation, I revealed the Expressionist art movement as an expression of the “inner world” and “emotion” of the artist of the time. In this case, the drastic turn in Art after WW1 from Neo-Classicism & Impressionism to Surrealism & Expressionism and why this might have occurred.

This prelude will lead to the “Politics of Art” and Hitler’s realization that by including propaganda in culture and the Arts, one can change the consciousness of an entire nation.

During this time, Hitler went on a rampage, closing down galleries all over Germany and Austria, damning the expressionist art movement as “decadent” and part of a Jewish plot to influence the minds of the pure German race. In addition, Hitler imprisoned many artists and destroyed thousands of valuable pieces of artwork from this period, replacing it with his notions of what Art really is…

The presentation showed many examples of Nazi Art, Hitler’s somewhat distorted Neo-classic style, depicting the German people and the Nazi party as Natural, Heroic, and Superior to all other nations. By doing this, as this lesson is an extension of “What is Fascism?” show my students fascism in action, as it were, excluding all ideas, beliefs, self-expression other than the One, in this case, Hitler’s and the Nazi Party.

This is not to say, of course, that I strayed from the Department of Education and Training’s suggested curriculum; however, I attempted to include other dimensions, different approaches to our past, to maybe provide for the student a fresh perspective of what the subject of history is really all about.

Rant: Relentless US War Propaganda

(Written right before the invasion).

 

The United States government along with their media cronies have been pushing for war with Russia via Ukraine for many months. This sword rattling has escalated over the last few weeks, predicting Russia's imminent invasion of Ukraine. Media from around the world predicted this invasion on February 16^th – as we all know, this never happened. 

Once upon a time, the lies of the government and media weren't exactly in plain sight. The propaganda for war would begin slowly, ending with full-blown lies. The US and their allies are stating blatant lies up front, believing that the people will believe them. When it comes to war, we really should have learned by now, governments always deceive their people all the time.

It should be evident to the warmongers in the US that all their violent forays from Vietnam to Afghanistan have been abject failures. In both these cases, the mighty US military was defeated by indigenous guerilla fighters. So now they desire to war against a nuclear-equipped superpower? Again, the idiocy and profit-motivated intentions are apparent.

The only people who have benefited from the war in the last century have been the rich and powerful. The people are bombarded with ideals like freedom, patriotism, and democracy, only to return from war as broken human beings. Once these soldiers return, they are ignored and left to fend for themselves for the most part. Over 50% of these vets commit suicide. So no, people never benefit from a war.

Ask the typical American, Australian, or Frenchman, if they are concerned about Ukraine's freedom or independence? Most basic folk could not even point out Ukraine on a map. We're more concerned with our own problems with our loss of privileges and economic austerity placed on our respective populations. Many have no sense of history, so when asked about Ukraine and Russian relations. These wars, specifically current Ukraine and Russian "conflict," has been created by oligarchic and corporate interests. The only people to benefit from this war would be the weapon manufacturers and their stockholders. (This would include many politicians)

As a citizen of Australia and the planet, the recent propaganda relentlessly pushed by the US and their allies about Ukraine and Russia is absurd and laughable. These warmongers have not improved their propaganda techniques...and they've been doing it for years.

An old rule is you know when someone is lying when their stories keep changing. So the US and their brown-nosing media partners change their story about Ukraine/Russia by the week.

What I found most revealing is the Ukraine president telling President Biden to stop escalating the war with Russia. In an already unstable country and a barrage of economic unknowns (investors are leaving the country and tourism is zero), the US is pushing war non-stop with Russia. It's absurd.

......the only people that will experience undue suffering and death from this potential disaster will be the Ukrainian people and the soldiers fighting this all too obvious corporate war.

Trevanian -Shibumi: A Novel- Review

 

When this novel was first published in 1979, the leading critics had difficulty classifying the work. It wasn't exactly an espionage thriller or an epic, but it seemed to touch upon many genres and themes.

Shibumi is a fictional biography more than anything else, for its central character, Nicholai Hel, is the tale's main concern. A minor character in the story sums up the protagonist superbly at the end of the book by calling him half saintly ascetic, half Vandal marauder - a medieval anti-hero. Nicholai Hel is your vintage 'man-against-the establishment' with a mind like a steel trap and the tastes and lifestyle of an 18th century aristocrat.

Hel's pedigree is a throw back to the German/Russian elite, where generations of breeding and culture have contributed to his unusual character. Nicholai is a man without a country, a natural mystic, philosopher, linguist, master of Go, a complex Japanese board game of high strategy, and most importantly, a self trained assassin for hire who is expert in the arts of naked/kill. More than this, he is a seeker of spiritual perfection, his ultimate goal being that hard to define state or condition known as Shibumi.

Trevanian (Rodney Whitaker) is a first rate writer. His technical skill in the craft well exceeds many leading 'thriller' writers of today.

When one reads about the art of naked/kill, the mystical states of Nicholai Hel, or even the machinations of the CIA and their unscrupulous methods for creating and combating terror, one gets the distinct impression that the author knows exactly what he's talking about and must have access to some kind of inside information. His writing is almost too believable.

Throughout the reading, I had to continue to remind myself that this novel was written in 1979, well before the general public had any concern about terrorism. Other than the main character, this tale is about corruption in governments, who will go to any lengths to secure oil rights in the Middle East. The book is also about technology, which has aided civilization in many ways, yet has eroded our basic values.

In many respects, Nicholai Hel is a modern Luddite, despising machines in all their forms, and the waste they create. Nicholai Hel is an 'every man' character, a representation of the virtuous individual, alone and pitted against the dangerous technological and consumerist values of the herd. In the end, however, does Nicholai Hel win this battle over the modern, vulgar, techno-centred majority and finally attain 'Shibumi'?

This work should be considered a classic, for it has a timelessness about it, and can be read many times, for it will continue to offer intellectual stimulation as well as pure entertainment for many years to come.

Musings on Sleeplessness, Climate & Evolution.

 

It is late, and sleep is impossible as the heat and humidity hang and permeate everything…there seems to be no escape, so I sit in front of the computer and write.

Weather affects one’s mood and our general view of the world.

When a civilization begins, depending on one’s specific geographical location does indeed truly determine the development of a particular culture because heat and cold play a big part in how we deal with and view the world.

The Aboriginals of Australia, for example, lived in dry desert conditions. To merely survive was at the top of the priority list, thus their knowledge of the terrain, how to attain food, and their views of existence. Their time was taken up with the search for food and shade from the heat. Because of the heat and barrenness of the landscape, there was no need to change…just survival and the “Dream Time.”

Civilization truly reached its peak in the ancient world around the fertile land surrounding the Mediterranean Sea and along the Nile River. However, it can get sweltering during the summer months around Cairo. In the spring and autumn, the Nile flows over, ensuring crops survive and thrive.

I guess what I’m getting at is that I miss the four distinctive seasons living in Melbourne, Australia. Please don’t get me wrong, I’ve loved Melbourne’s erratic weather – four seasons in one day is not just the words to a popular song but actually valid.

It was the Explorer and adventurer Sir Francis Richard Burton who, in an article he had written, attempted to persuade his readers that climate determines the development of a particular race. At the time of the writing, Darwin had crept into “scientific” circles; thus the hierarchy of man – White Anglo-Saxon at the top, (women because of their smaller brains) somewhere around third and down it goes from there, depicting other cultures as “savages,” “Non-Human,” (see Darwin’s book, The Descent of Man) thus justifying the genocide of the Australian Aboriginals, the American Indian and other inferior races like Jews, using Darwin’s theory as fact and justification for mass murder.

Appalling.

Sir Richard was indeed onto something but did not have the opportunity to delve deeper into his hypothesis, flesh out his ideas. (Too busy translating (The Perfumed Garden).

In the Northern Hemisphere, there is a plethora of natural resources. Thus, the particular “races” development, adapting to the climate (four seasons) and therefore having the time to pursue better technology, better infrastructure, etc.

When humans have worries about where their next meal is coming from, there is no time for innovation, art, and the development of civilization.

I am astonished that so many “educated” people consider Darwin’s entire theory scientific fact. In a word, it is not, and remains a theory because he and other scientists have yet to discover the so-called “missing link”: that is to say, the link between, Neanderthal man (Ape) and Cro-Magnon.

Personally, hot, humid weather does nothing for my creative sensibilities because it’s too damn uncomfortable.

As far as other cultures and races are concerned, the “survival of the fittest” theory does not add up because the human is a highly adaptable beings and will use resources that are available in their specific geographical area for survival as mentioned, the climate of the site is a significant factor.

Darwin was an intellectual but a 19th-century misogynist, which, by the way, was, is, and has been a standard view (albeit false) of women for thousands of years.

On that note, I’ll return to bed, contemplating where my next meal is coming from….

Democratic/Establishment – Violations of Free Speech

 

Censorship in the media and social media took hold and ramped up after the 2020 presidential election. Immediately after the election, all social media outlets banned President Trump. A popular social media site (Parlor) was targeted by democrats like the faux progressive AOC to bring the website down due to "hate speech" and disinformation. Despite the platform's popularity, the powers took the site down due to democratic pressure. Over the last 2 years, there's been a blatant campaign to silence certain voices on social media. More to the point, government pressure to silence any voice that contradicts the party line. This is a direct violation of the US Constitution.

Governments should not have the power to influence media to cater to their party politics. But the evidence is clear that the MSM and the democratic party collude on this subject. This is not like the good old days when one could read an editorial exposing anti-war sentiments and another arguing against welfare benefits. Now they have the power to silence any opposing point of view. Canceling them totally is currently the intent. The democrats and their pundits desire only one point of view, and no other is allowed in the public discourse. This is the primary tool of fascism.

A pertinent example was the US presidential democratic race in 2020. The candidate Tulsi Gabbard was campaigning on an anti-regime change ticket along with her type of universal health care. In the first Democratic debates, she slaughtered many candidates on their past records and stances on war. The democratic MO to combat criticism on policy is to name-call and change the subject as soon as possible. After the first debate, Tulsi was smeared by being called an Assadist (president of Syria) and a Russian asset. Although Gabbard had the votes to attend the second and third debates, the Neo-Liberal media banned her or ensured she could never come back to the arguments. Her anti-war stance and awareness of other candidates' shady records caused her to be canceled. Later, the warmonger Hillary Clinton publicly called Gabbard a Russian asset without evidence. The meatheads of the democratic party and their pundits are using the same tactics today at anyone contradicting their party line.

I view Australian MSM (when my tolerance level permits), US mainstream, and mostly specific internet sites that explore all aspects of subjects under discussion. Recently I've been exposed to an apparent cancel campaign to rub out such luminaries as Joe Rogan and Russel Brand. Both podcasts are top-rated. Rogan has over an 11 million audience, and Brand is nearing 5 million subs on YouTube. Russel Brand has been called a "right-winger," and Rogan a "racist" and a significant source of disinformation. These are ad hominem arguments (the lowest form of view) and blatant lies. Their censorship campaigns are not based on substantial ideas or truth but simply accusations and lies. I listen to both gentlemen, and I can assure you that Rogan is not a racist, and Brand is decidedly left-wing. (Although Brand will claim to be neutral) his show consistently exposes political and corporate corruption.

It has come to my attention that these cancel and censor campaigns against these two men are politically backed by prominent pundits in the democratic party. It appears to be evident at face value as the tactics are the same as the democratic party: name-calling, smearing with lies without touching the actual arguments. This is the Clinton MO, therefore, the democratic party MO. And on cursory observation, this strategy is childish (though effective) at best.

The problem is that the establishment parties have nothing to offer – both democratic and republican. They're essentially the same, paid by the same corporate interests. When you have nothing to offer the people, distract with scandals and target to silence those voices contrary to party policy.

I know the word fascism has been thrown around a lot lately, usually incorrectly, though what the establishment attempts to achieve is the primary tool of totalitarianism. Silence all dissenting voices apart from the ruling party.

A democracy, the political ideal that politicians talk about non-stop, is a state where all speech is free and the press can criticize the government.

Over the last 2 years, at least, we are losing both.

Theodore Dalrymple – Life at the Bottom - Review

Dr. Dalrymple proposes a compelling though controversial thesis in this fascinating and highly conservative collection of essays. Over the last twenty-five years a new type of underclass has emerged in western societies, an underclass that uses the welfare system in all its forms, subsidised housing, free by-weekly pay checks, child support and free medical benefits. From a liberal political standpoint, this support for the nation's "have nots" is a compassionate gesture to take care of its own poor. 

One would logically assume that providing the poor with life's essentials would bring the crime rate down and provide incentive for these people to further their standing in society. In fact, as Dalrymple proposes, it has had an opposite effect: crime in his native England has skyrocketed; drug use is at an all time high and domestic violence is a wide spread common occurrence. Why? Liberal values not economics has created individuals that deny any responsibility for their own lives, it is always the rich, the government or societies institutions that is to blame, thus crime continues to rise while England's Welfare State has grown into an unwieldy Goliath.

Dalrymple has worked in numerous countries and has been an attending physician and psychiatric consultant in London's prisons for many years. Thus his thesis is not born from some abstract social theory about human behaviour. He has treated thousands of victims of domestic violence, consulted thousands of prisoners who have been incarcerated for petty crime to murder. The common thread that runs through all these cases is a pathological denial of responsibility for their own circumstances or conditions.

As Dalrymple explains:

"Like so many modern ills, the coarseness of spirit and behaviour grows out of ideas brewed up in the academy and among intellectuals - ideas that have seeped outward and are now having their practical effect on society. The relativism that has ruled the academy for many years has now come to rule the mind of the population." (P.85)

In other words, this post modern notion that there is no high and low art, no good and bad, no subtlety and crudeness, only relative perspectives; taking this further, our behaviour too is not individually determined, but society and its oppressive inequalities that make me who I am, and a biological predisposition which causes me to steal from the old lady next door, beat my wife beyond recognition and consume drugs and alcohol like there is no tomorrow. The trickling down of these academic theories, biological determinism, Marxism and the post modern theory that there are no levels of hierarchical values, only difference, has created an underclass of victims who believe they should get something for nothing and commit crime because society has created them as victims as self-determinism does not exist.

Dalrymple provides numerous real life examples from his practice working in a hospital in London. His writing style is straight forward, at times literary but never sentimental. The arguments in these essays are persuasive and push the reader to examine the underlying modern ideologies that have created and sustain a well provided for underclass of criminal "victims".

Roland Topor – The Tenant – Review

 

The French writer Roland Topor first published his novel, The Tenant, in 1964. In 1976, the Polish director, Roman Polanski, adapted the book to film with limited success in Europe. This recent edition from Valancourt Books, 2020, includes an engaging Introduction by R.B. Russell.

Topor is known primarily as an artist and illustrator. He published several books with his drawings, sketches, and wood cuttings. An artist with many talents, a novelist, playwright, screenwriter, actor, film producer, set designer – he also wrote and produced a puppet show Telchat that ran for two years on French television. However, he is most famous for his surrealist flair in all his work across the spectrum.

One cannot necessarily include The Tenant as a surrealist novel. Russell calls the text, "The Tenant is a quietly subversive realist novel" (p7). It can be labeled an absurdist work for many reasons. First, the reader cannot precisely depend on the narrator, whether he is the victim of evil intent by those around him or a tale of a once sane man falling into paranoia and utter madness. It really isn't a big stretch either way because both views are absurd and cannot be trusted.

Trelkovsky is a 30 something Parisian, employed, single, and seeking another flat to rent in the city. The man is a Parisian of bourgeoisie sensibilities. Meaning a man who fits into polite society, conforming to all the rules demanded of that society. When he finds his new dwellings, he's treated like an outsider, someone who doesn't follow the rules, disturbing the status quo. Trelkovsky is targeted by his neighbors in the apartment complex for making too much noise. There are constant raps and pounding on the ceiling and walls for him to quiet down. Strangely, it is only on the first night that he has a housewarming party. The weeks and months afterward, he's quiet as a mouse. So the psychological sense of persecution begins to pervade his consciousness, promoting a developing sense of severe paranoia.

When he rents the flat, he is told that the previous tenant committed suicide by jumping out the window through a glass terrace below. Making a few more inquiries, Trelkovsky discovers the tenant hasn't died at all and is lying in hospital. He visits the woman, bandaged like a mummy and near death. He meets Stella, a friend of the bedridden woman, and develops a relationship with her.

The longer he remains at the apartment, the more his neighbors abuse him. Finally, he tells his colleagues at work, and they make fun of him for not standing up for himself. He soon separates from his friends and workmates, becoming a loner, living alone.

Some critics have called The Tenant, and other Topor projects an analysis of the conformist and nonconformist in society. Though Trelkovsky is a well-behaved bourgeois, following all the rules and living a quiet life, suddenly, he's kicked outside acceptable community and forced to survive... thus leading to madness.

The text's ending felt to be tied up, though absurd, like a birthday ribbon.

That said, an exciting and original tale of French society and madness.

Hal Bennett – Lord of Dark Places – Review

 

This was a complex novel to read. The reasons vary, though, on the surface, the book is plagued with sexual imagery and gratuitous sexual exploits. However, in the narrative, the criminal actions can be unspeakable in any civilized society. To understand Bennett's commentary through the main protagonist is to delve into American culture, including religion, war, racism, politics, and what it meant to be black American during the '50s and '60s. The novel is also exceptionally well written, penned by a master of prose.

Having some knowledge of contemporary American literature, it was unfortunate not to have even heard of Hal Bennett, let alone read any of his work. Nevertheless, Lord of Dark Places is a good start.

Bennett was born in 1930 in the state of Virginia. He wrote under many pseudonyms, including Harriet Janeway and John D. Revere. One critic described "the Lord of Dark Places as a satirical and all but scatological attack on the phallic myth. Indeed the Freudian allusions are numerous and graphic in this novel; at times too much to bear.

We follow the life and mind of Joe Market. Born in the deep south, he witnesses his mother's death and the despicable actions of his father. Joe's father Titus is a conman turned preacher, creating a new religion exclusively for black men. Under the guise of this religion is a traveling sex show, Titus pimping young Joe out to the Hallelujah crowds, both male and female. The young Joe is led to believe he is a type of new god, his massive member and pristine naked body, a symbol of the new savior of the black American.

Religion and sex combine to make the perfect con. Joe finally escapes this life through a chain of circumstances, ending up North, selling his body to make a living. This is all he knows until almost being arrested for solicitation by an Italian cop. The cop gives Joe an alternative of either jailing or going back to school. Joe reluctantly chooses the latter.

Joe volunteers to go to Vietnam. It's here he inadvertently kills a man, and wittiness a black pilot castrated and killed from a bomb. He eventually is wounded and returns home. Joe's commentary on war, country and African Americans' place in this milieu is spot on and relevant today.

For Joe Market, sex drives everything: identity, manhood, love, murder, death, pleasure, pain, violence, and ultimately spiritual redemption.

This view combines and peaks at the novel's profound climax and ending.

The novel is original. It's a carnival of satire, myth, detective thriller, and profound social commentary.

A difficult though thought-provoking experience.

Lee Child – The Affair (Jack Reacher) - Review

Many have called Jack Reacher the modern fictional hero of our times. Although “The Affair” is the sixth novel read in some months, this protagonist continues his appeal and there is no desire to stop reading the many instalments that the author, Lee Child, has produced over the years. What makes Jack Reacher so popular and loved by so many people?

Reacher is an ex Army MP that has decided to hit the road carrying no more than a toothbrush and the cloths on his back. Reacher is a Jack Kerouac without the literary bent, falling into adventures, and using his detective skills to protect the weak, and seeking justice at every turn. The man is tough, a born fighter and in the stories, usually kicks the hell out of someone, usually a gang all at once, which, by the way, always deserve it.

He loves the Blues, beautiful women and can't stand bullies. Jack also has a clock in his head, where he knows the time no matter, day or night. Like any well trained solider, he has the observational and deductive powers rivalling even the 19th century sleuth, Sherlock Holmes. The man also has a excellent sense of geography, that is, he has the ability to measure an area, for example, a crime scene, down to the centimetre, in all four directions of the map...all in his head. He is ferociously intelligent, yet has simple values – as far as Reacher is concerned, there are no shades of grey, only black and white. He will never waver from these values, thus the man's integrity is impeccable. Lastly, and it should go without saying, women love him, 

“The Affair” is Reacher's last assignment for the army, acting as an MP. He is sent down south to an out of the way military base used to train highly specialised rangers. A small town next to a rail-road track... which caters to the base, (two bars and one diner) however, a woman has been brutally murdered. Major Reacher's job is to babysit another MP who has been sent down to investigate the murder as well. Then he meets the local Chief of Police, Elizabeth Deveraux, and she is an absolute stunner! This is how Reacher describes the woman:

Deveraux was a seriously good looking woman. Truly beautiful. Out of the car she was relatively tall, and her hair was startling. There must have been five pounds of it in her ponytail alone. She had all the right parts in all the right proportions. She looked great in uniform. But then, I liked women in uniform, possibly because I had known very few of the other kind...

I'm sure you get the idea.

All the Reacher novels, (the six I've read anyway) are tightly plotted and gain momentum through to the very end. As is the case with this genre, (thriller) there is the obligatory double twist at the tales end.

I love these novel's for there pure entertainment value and skilful rendering.

So far, “The Affair” has to be one of the better instalments.