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Film 'Germinal' Resounds With Insights For Today's Challenges |
Current rating: 0 |
by crucial arts visionary
(No verified email address) |
07 Nov 2005
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I saw this French film years ago, but have been re-watching such films of late, seeing that i have a very different take on them than when i was much younger. Watching this one (with English subtitles) brought some gems of thinking through things that i fear are not being thought through adequately in the current crisis in France and soon (?) to be elsewhere, surely. |
In the elites' alienation they believe the masses (i.e. strikers)
go to war.
In the masses' alienation, they
believe
the elites are always at war
when in fact, war has so dominated
the imagination
that such belief is a self-fulfilling prophesy!
Some notes and comments after watching the French film "Germinal" (before hearing about the current French situation!).
An elite
Elite guy hates ideals cuz he reflects his own pains, now turned to beliefs.
'Huge risks,' he says to the newly striking group that approaches him, 'we *in dust rial ists* run.' Like overhead, PR expenses, ...uh... and competition *requirements*; must always be competitive, can't be a damn "socialist" that's been demonized by his local group of staunch *in dust real ists*. FACTS, for gods' sakes! Where's your LOGIC for gods' sakes?????
The trapped man called elite cannot *bring himself* to fathom the "illogic" of the stupid masses.
And another echo from his's own life. (that's supposed to be plural in a "strange" way)
Focus on a Mom
'Be fair without striking!' a Mom counsels, her ideals wanting to burst from her situation even tho she now has something like 8 kids and feels overwhelmed.
Then a human being labeled 'scab' and 'traitor' appears. It is a young woman, an elder daughter of the Mom, who has found herself caring in all her heart ways, for a man (they call 'beast') whom is not following the striker logic. (it is a logic, though still foreign to them; albeit they are beginners with such logic)
What time do they have to empathize? The situation is already too far gone, right? Why should they REALIZE THE VALUE of being RADICALLY EXCELLENT with each other?
The small businessman
He fears "being ruined" by giving so much 'credit' to the people whom are beginning to suffer by the suddenly harder times. Times which have gotten harder than their already hard times. Thanks to choices they made. Choices which were not *really* choices when they were younger and naiver.
Stuck
Stuck in the corralls, we. How our beliefs and other acquired assumptions tool us systematically. "Us"=ALL; you, me, and the "bad guys".
All these roles we've been led to believe we *must* play. These roles we've gotten stuck in. And cannot for the life of us, see beyond them, beyond the meta corrall all around us.
Europeon IMCers shall call me 'naive', yet i insist that they are missing something crucial.
work?
What would happen to us without the hated roles we believe we MUST play? And the hated work? We are ANGRY, and programming says, go to the BAR and DRINK! Then we will play right into the same old traps, from our teeth falling out, to beating our spouses and kids (or worse), to getting in fights with each other and getting locked up.
See how hated roles tool us?
Backlash
Then "the rich" (what is this "rich" that they are, anyway?), they, as a seemingly monolithic entity resort to BACKLASH since it's all they know (a few amongst them will find such 'abhorrent', but have nothing more meaningful to suggest).
How easily tooled we are--ALL OF US-- since having been programmed into these ways since childhood.
Programmed? By whom? By *belief passed forcefully onto each generation by persons whom've internalized such values!
Belief, rigid belief, a reflection of the INTENSITIES of people's whom have been long colonized by war mind-set!
Origined? Apparently in fear of difference. Assumed, then armored, becoming enforted, then enfortressed, and *always* in the defense (to the people involved).
So it begins, and here we are now.
What to do?
"No solution" only if you can see only from the corrall.
Time we dared beyond the same old again of what we *believe* we "know" about others AND ourselves! All of us might finally realize the value.
And let's not forget how limited we've *all* been in our beliefs of what constitutes 'care' these daze.
Look, i eat veggietarryan off the land and find many ways to 'cut' corners and still live vividly with much to be euphoric about. The always war continues around me; how long will it take to mess with it with such ideas as RADICAL EXCELLENCE WITH EACH OTHER?
We will most assuredly hav to do SOME things "awfully" BEAUTIFULL to mess with thousands of years of deadening mind-set. Me, i don't look at the seemingly impossible mountain (except to keep my bearings on the bigger picture!), i look at the path i help inspire each day.
Think this thru. Give yourself some time to. Keep it in "the back" of your 'mind'. Then, begin a process of doing art (art is everything, remember) in capacities you're attracted to.
We need no formal organization to distract us from our excellent intentions and desires. Better to *create families*, extended families (bio and not) in the ways we've always wanted. If only we were "revolutionary" enough, eh? |
See also:
http://www.whywork.org
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This work is in the public domain |
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Paristinian Intifada |
by Ali ibn Sharmootah
ali (nospam) alqaeda.org (unverified) |
Current rating: 0
10 Nov 2005
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There are very few things as amusing these days as watching the French grapple with their backyard intifada. The suburbs of Paris are now more dangerous than Jenin, and the French are getting their comeuppance for decades of snootiness, anti-American and anti-Israel agitprop, and decades of cowardice.
Paris is now being targeted by violent rioting hordes. For years the French accused American racism of having produced the race riots of the 60s and 70s in the US, as well as the Los Angeles riots after the Rodney King business. And the French are sure that only Jewish cussedness and just plain Israeli evil lie behind the behavior of the Palestinian pogromchiki. The Gall of Dem Gauls!
Well, now that the French are experiencing their own intifada, we suggest that they resolve the problem using the very same plan that they have been trying for decades to impose upon Israel.
Yes, comrades, it is time to implement the Land for Peace Plan, Paris style. Here it is:
The French Solution: Land for Peace
So after leading the Solidarity-with-the-Baathists movement in Europe during the recent Gulf War, France now enjoys its own intifada by urban Moslem resistance fighters in suburban Paris! Of course, this is all on top of France's long history of supporting Islamist fascism and Palestinian terrorism.
A few years back during a trip to Israel, French prime minister Lionel Jospin urged Israel to make concessions for peace. More interesting yet, in documents relating to his visit, Jerusalem was called the ''capital of the Palestinian Authority.'' And what do the French consider to be the capital of Israel? Tel Aviv, of course. A few years later, French President Jacques Chirac used the occasion of his visit in 1996 to announce that ''Syria has a moral right to demand return of the Golan Heights.''
These French politicians may be on to something important. Never one to back down from a challenge, I have prepared a set of proposals for consideration by the French people, so that they not only can preserve peace in Parisian suburbia, but also can achieve a full, lasting, and just peace with their urban resistance opponents.
First, until this plan is implemented in full, we must insist that the French government acknowledge that there is no military or police solution to the problems of violence in its suburbs and only through recognizing the legitimacy of the demands of the murderers and rioters outside Paris can the problems be resolved.
Second, we all agree that territory must not be annexed by force. Therefore, we can also agree that Germany has a moral right to demand the return of Alsace-Lorraine, for the French aggression in 1945 and its consequent occupation must not be rewarded. ''A full withdrawal for full peace'' should operate here. Further, France must agree to the return and rehabilitation of all ethnic Germans expelled from Alsace-Lorraine after World Wars I and II, as well as all those they define as their descendents.
But this, of course, is just the first step toward a solution, as no aggression can be rewarded and France has much other stolen territory to return. It took Corsica from Genoa, Nice and Savoy from Piedmont; as the successor state, Italy must get back all these lands. By similar token, territories grabbed from the Habsburgs go back to Austria, including Franche-Comte, Artois, and historical Burgundy. The Roussillon area (along the Pyrenees) must be returned to Spain, its rightful owner. And Normandy, Anjou, Aquitaine, and Gascony must be returned to their rightful owners,
the British royal family.
Not even this is enough for the sake of peace. Brittany and Languedoc must be granted autonomy at once, recognizing the Breton and Occitan Liberation organizations as their legal rulers. This leaves the French government in control over the Ile de France (the area around Paris).
That, however, still does not solve the problem of the Holy City of Paris, sacred to artists, gourmets, and adulterers. The Corsicans obviously have a historical claim to the Tomb of the Emperor Napoleon, their famed son, as well as the Invalides complex and beyond. For the sake of peace, is it not too much to ask that Paris be the capital for two peoples? The French authorities must agree to prevent French Parisians from even entering the sacred tomb area, lest this upset the Corsicans.
The Saint Chapelle and the Church of Notre Dame, of course, will be internationalized, under joint Vatican-art historical auspices. Indeed, the French should consider it a compliment of the highest order that so many people see Paris as an international city.
The French have nothing to complain about. They will enjoy the benefits of peace and retain control of the Champs Elysees.
Actually, come to think of it, even the Champs Elysees may be too much. Recalling the French position that Jerusalem is not the capital of Israel, perhaps the true French capital is not Paris at all, but Vichy. |
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