WASHINGTON'S POLITICAL CULTURE OF FALSE SYLLOGISM

The United States looks like a deranged maternity ward of premature births.  Not a day goes by without some candidate for the 2016 presidential race popping up or quitting before having entered full-time.  The noise is such that one can only dream of being rescued from this onslaught.  The patricians on the Republican side are beleaguered by the hordes of Bible addicts from the Middle and the South while they are themselves too happy driving one another into the abyss.  The Democrats are waiting for their Messiah, in the person of Mrs. Clinton, but they seem not to realize that their Blanche Dubois and her "baggage" might well miss her streetcar.

In this environment full of "sound and fury", the White house looks eerily detached, trying "to make a virtue out of necessity.'' All this is easier pretended than achieved.  Netanjahu (and his "remarkable" ambassador to Washington, Ron Dermer, presently in full damage-control mode) is the new "Guess who's coming to dinner" surprise, thanks to the rather inelegant manoeuver of the Speaker of the House. The White House is livid. This episode might well end up embarrassing both the Israeli P.M. and the US President. Both will feel equally manipulated by the GOP.

The sophisms of the President are piling up and his vocabulary is still permanently purged of anything which might look like finger-pointing in the struggle against Islamic Jihad ism (taboo word in the White House).  On Iran,Ukraine, the sequester, the Bergdahl debacle, the Syria/Iraq and Co. bandwagon from hell,  his Delphic utterances are supposed to stand stand for policy, which doesn't say much.

In the end, the verbal "extravaganzas" of Senator McCain and Michael Gorbachev are refreshing when compared to the fabricated "grunts" of the American patient in the dentist chair, unable to speak out loud and clear on .

AUSCHWITZ - BIRKENAU

Remembrance can be frightening. The Holocaust traps us forever, rightly so.  This "extermination label" stains any aspiration to look ahead as if the past can be "disregarded".
We are all salauds, in the terminology of Sartre, Camus, Wiesel or Lanzmann. The past is part of our DNA and denying it is "something rotten", to quote Shakespeare.  Seeing these surviving older men and women having the strength to return to hell and face again the humiliations inflicted upon them makes one humble.  Universal history is forever broken, like a repeated Kristallnacht.  Tragically, certain windows remain beyond repair, after all those years.

The January 27, 2015 commemoration of the Holocaust is more indicative of where the global existential sorrow lies, than for the ones who choose to ignore it, since destruction is their cause. The trauma looms larger than the moment. Only civilization can grasp the lasting meaning thereof.

PRESIDENT OBAMA'S STATE OF THE UNION = STATE OF DENIAL.

The President's State of the Union Address yesterday was a spectacle wherein the flippant coalised with the mediocre.  Obama spoke as if the Democrats had won the elections and as if the Pax americana ruled the world.  The economic/social content of his address sounded almost socialist.  He claimed the steady economic victory was of his doing (?).  While the Middle East (inter alia) is on fire, he continues to play the harp of victory, Nero-like.  Yes, he mentioned ISIL,en passant, while hinting that Afghanistan and Iraq were "bucolic" success stories thanks to the American withdrawal.  About terrorism he was as low-key as he was absent in the Paris "'parade" (to quote Valerie Jarrett.).  He could have found a "cauda" proclaming:  Je suis Barak.   Nobody would dispute the assertation.

Probably he wants to control his legacy. I think that some intentions are good. I certainly sense that the inner-circle who navigates foreign waters cannot swim. The insularity of this White House is becoming unbearable.  All this will pass and everybody is looking for "change" again. Few will dare a repeat of the promised "change" of six years ago. Americans will demand an insurance policy rather than sign a blank check.

So we go into times of veto's and executive orders. "Conversation" receives lip service from both sides but the Republicans had better be monitored since some of them might carry a knife under their togas.

BEWARE THE IDES OF MARCH .

LA BOURSE A BRUXELLES

L'immeuble qui abritait la Bourse a Bruxelles a de l'allure. On y retouve meme la "patte" de Rodin...
La Bourse demenageant, ce lieu central, prestigieux, aurait pu devenir un Musee d'Orsay Bruxellois, revalorisant un quartier pour le moins problematique.
Les autorites ont decide d'y installer un Musee de la bierre.
On croit rever.
Apres la saga musees art moderne et 19eme siecle, un nouveau chapitre Baudelairien voit le jour .
On croit rever !

AN AMERICAN IN PARIS

The American Secretary of State has made it to Paris.  The Obama Administration is famous for "bad timing" but this visit was awkward and embarrassing to watch.  Why James Taylor, "the bald," had to come along as extra luggage remains a mystery.  The French must have been perplexed by this sad troubadour's 60s performance.  John Kerry usually displays savoir faire but his staged embraces looked ridiculous.

The White House realized that it missed the ball in Paris but has failed to repair image and damage.  Probably John Kerry was too occupied negotiating a deal with Tehran, putting himself under pressure and letting the Iranians set the tone and the speed. This reversal of fortune is becoming an Obama hallmark.  Likewise, the President seems unable to utter the words "radical Islam" as if he feared to acknowledge the elephant in the room. The Pope's unambiguous words might embolden the White House to call a spade a spade, maybe.

By the way, the recent pronouncements of the German Chancellor also sounded surreal. She suggested that the Muslims were a part of the German mosaic, like the Christians and Jews. I thought that the season of gifts was over. To state this without any requirement of reciprocity sounds gratuitous. In a perfect world this might indeed be a desirable outcome but given the realities such a statement is absurd.

The day Muslims as a whole accept a cross-examination of the Quran, their beliefs, and pluralism in their midst, the West might enter into a dialogue. Until then, the crash is likely to become a war.

AMERICA'S "NO SHOW" IN PARIS

President Obama did not participate in last Sunday's dignified march in Paris.  The White House inner-circle will not be sacked for its usual tone-deaf lack of flair, but one should expect the President to have enough intuition to know when and where to go. Of course, past gaffes (the golf game after the beheading / cozying Al Sharpton, etc.) indicate rather ominous "mood swings" or an insular mindset.

France has taught the world a lesson.  In such an inclusive event, the absentees look spineless. If the President did not feel compelled to go, he could have asked the Vice-President or former President Clinton to represent him.  France is the oldest ally of the United States and was the first to offer condolences in persona after 9/11.  Empathy should figure higher on the list of bilateral relations among first-tier allies.

N ' OUBLIONS PAS LES AUTRES...

Le policier Ahmet Merabet tue lors de l'attentat contre Charlie Hebdo figure comme un "point d'exclamation" dans cette affreuse necrologie. Lassana Bathily, l'homme qui venait du "Froid" a ete un sauveur providentiel.
Ils etaient Musulmans.
Si la verite et la pertinence accusent les Djihadistes et elements Musulmans radicaux du massacre de mercredi dernier a Paris, il convient aussi de ne pas se laisser entrainer dans l'amalgame facile. La vague Djihadiste est comme un voile. Elle finit par abriter le mal. Il ne faut pas permettre qu'elle efface le bien.

JE SUIS CHARLIE

La France est souvent insupportable.
Les Parisiens le sont toujours.
Et pourtant...si la France n'existait plus, elle manquerait au monde.
D'autres pays peuvent quitter la scene, sans que personne ne s' en appercevrait ( exemple : la Belgique).
Le drame Charlie Hebdo est un drame pour tous les pays qui se reclament d'une civilisation universelle.
Or la France en Europe represente ces valeurs.
Les assassins de Charlie Hebdo ont transforme une salle de redaction en abattoir.
Les fous de l'Eid ont sevi comme un peleton d'execution.
Samuel Huntington a predit le choc des civilisations. Il s'est trompe en utilisant le pluriel. Il y a une civilisation agressee mais dans le camps oppose il n'y a qu'un nihilisme arme
Derriere le Hijab il n'y a RIEN.

CHARLIE HEBDO IS OURS TO DEFEND !

The massacre in Paris is a genocide of journalists, and ideas.  Day after day, the true face of global evil becomes clearer and closer. This latest abomination cannot be allowed a free-pass. The civilized world must react, without the "usual" niceties.  Since the mass murder of 9/11, sophism and self-censorship have all too often blurred the difference which we are supposed to believe existing between Jihadists and the rest.  We are at war against wolves in wolves' clothing!
Let us keep freedom for ourselves and give up believing that it can grow in sterile lands and minds!

There will be blood.

MAN OF THE YEAR 2014: MY CHOICE.

Everybody (it seems) has his/her man/woman of the year.  Some choices are predictable, others are absurd.  It is normal that the Pope, President Putin and others were chosen.  I, personally, would have gone for Tim Cook, CEO of Apple.

Actually, the choice should be less about the individual than what he stands for.  He is the torch carrier for a new transformational era. Today we are mostly victims of an infantile trend. Tim Cook and his peers stand for a break with those habits and values and stand instead for the dawn of what might be a new "social contract."

We have already witnessed the potential pros and cons of this Hokusai-type cyber wave. Steve Jobs and Edward Snowden/Julian Assange are the opposite sides of the same coin.  The Internet, with its siblings, avatars or descendants, is changing the moral code but has not been able to codify its parameters as yet. It remains a work in progress, under surveillance, both for the better and, potentially, for the unknown.  Social networks have already crashed conduct and privacy. Google is at the same time a source of "streamlined" (by whom?) information and a pre-drone predator.  Communication, war and peace, sex, economy, among others, will all be structurally affected and drastically changed.

We are all adrift in this treacherous ocean and we do not know where the tides will lead us. Tim Cook and Co. are writing a new Nibelungen. There are many demons around and no Swan King is to be seen! The treasure might even be booby trapped, but this gigantic upheaval will, hopefully, end up being a new step toward, furthering enlightenment.