THE USA : NEITHER RHYME NOR REASON

The accelerated conversion of the Trump presidency into a succession of infringements is almost hallucinating. In the "better" times nobody was panicked if US presidents met their more dangerous counterparts. Nixon could meet Mao and the Americans were confident that nothing infamous would be the result. In this case the president had done his homework (in secret) and had consulted everybody under the sun, Andre Malraux included. Here we have lazy delusional Trump who trusts his charm (of which there is none) and his karma ( in short supply lately) to make his "tremendous" deals... As a result America has no allies to count on, no soft power left and plenty of trade wars piling up.

This President has some Freudian hang ups regarding the leaders he likes to hang out with. They are folder for an FBI most wanted list. His latest Kim Yong-un pal is rumored to have getting rid of some of the closest advisers in his entourage, Saudi style. One is entitled to wonder how this Trump / Kim "bromance" will muddle trough this serie noire Kashoggi type scenario  or not. Since the preferred vernacular of the gang around Trump is "trolling", one can expect that the usual GOP performers will come up with yet an other alternative post truth scenario.

The Special Counsel Robert Mueller descended from his Olympus to set some records straight, be it in ambiguous format. The "no collusion, no obstruction " balloon of the Attorney General arsenal of lies met an inglorious end. He left it to Congress to send Trump to the gallows and chose to disappear (for now) . The calls for impeachment multiply. Given that the GOP is glued to the President, the Senate will not go along with the beheading of their leader of choice. The Democrats who control the House can very well decide terms for sanction but the noise and the Godzilla like posture of Trump might leave the Americans gasping for air. The Democrats risk alienating a large part of the population that is already close to a nervous breakdown. Nevertheless it should also be argued that ethical considerations should prevail over political expediency.

It has been said here that the lack of a political intelligent informed discourse has created a black hole in the American psyche. The Republicans are the cunning accomplices in a Faustian pact which allows a conservative /reactionary oil spill to pollute,for an unforeseeable time, the minds, the priorities and the soul. The 2020 presidential elections are crucial. This is why the republican majority in the Senate keeps busy, out of view, invading the judiciary benches, corrupting the ballot rules and duping the census. Alas, poor America this is not a Sonnet, it is a blasphemy.

ELECTIONS LEGISLATIVES EN BELGIQUE

En 1912 Jules Destree adressa une lettre au roi Albert I dans laquelle il proclama qu'il n'y avait pas de Belges et qu'en l'occurence ne restaient que des Flamands et des Wallons. Differents evenements intervenus depuis lui ont donne raison. La Belgique refait encore exceptionnellement surface lors d'evenements sportifs, mais en regle generale elle est gommee dans le quotidien. Depuis 1958 il n'y a plus eu d'evenement mobilisateur.

La derniere reforme constitutionelle a finit par affaiblir advantage encore la coherence politique de l'etat. Le vote federal a ete scinde, ce qui a eu comme effet immediate de renforcer le poids des forces centrifuges au detriment de la solidarite.

Le resultat des dernieres elections legislatives  du 26 Mai 2019  est venu corroborer cette derive. Le moment est venu d'en tirer les conclusions desormais inevitables. Il ne sert a rien de vouloir nier l'evidence. Au contraire il est necessaire d'intervenir avant que la situation ne se deteriore, faute d'internention. 

La classe politique d'hier a vecu. Les arrangements passes, caduques en amont,  ont perdu leur ephemere valeur ajoutee. Au demeurant les "anciens" sont responsables de l'impasse actuelle. Ils ont laisse intact tout ce qui fonctionnait mal sous le couvert d'une reforme de l'etat, hybride. Des lors il est urgent d'intervenir avant que le patient ne finesse aux "urgences".

Le confederalisme est devenu ineluctable. S'il permet enfin de troquer l'inefficace pour le bon fonctionnement, il peut devenir une valeur ajoutee. Le commerce, la culture, la justice, le staut de Bruxelles capitale (enfin debarassee de ses communes moyenageuses), la representation (corrigee par voie de "rotation" de type helvetique), la foncton royale etc. doivent etre reconsideres au sein d'un "conclave" representatif du pays "reel". Pareille reunion doit etre transparante et se derouler dans un "direct" avec l'opinion.  Cela ne pourra se faire qu'a condition que l'on veuille bien envisager un nouveau depart plutot que de chercher des pieces de rechange pour un modele qui ne trouve plus d'acquereurs.

Il est encore important de ne pas dramatiser car "les accidents qui durent (Francoise Sagan) finissent par lasser". Les elections ont indique clairement qu'il etait temps de tourner la page de l'eternel retour. Il vaut mieux de s'approprier le movement avant qu'il ne soit hors de portee.

MICHEL HOUELLEBECQ

Serotonine, dernier roman de Houellebecq est etrangement frustrant. Certes, comme d'habitude le recit est maitrise, la nevrose en amont est creative,  la misogynie  plus incontournable que jamais. Mais l'incommensurable tristesse des situations ne laisse aucune place a un "petit matin" reparateur. Dans ses romans precedents l'auteur n'excluait pas la possibilite malgre tout de considerer la fin, sous qu'elle que forme que ce soit, comme un aboutissement . Il restait une logique dans l'egarement. Ici, la reference a un " passe meilleur" degenere en constat irreversible de son "non retour".

La tristesse personnelle a son contrepoids dans la faillite d'un modele de gestion economique (agricole en l'occurence) qui, au bout du rouleau, finit par troquer le deversement de cisternes de lait contre les tirs de balles. Le Camenbert, feu Wagram, devient Waterloo.  Quand les baleines perdent la boussole elles optent pour un suicide collectif, qui etonne autant qu'il effraye.

Dans ses livres anterieurs Houellebecq prenait une sorte de plaisir pervers a decrire le sexe comme un fast food pour voyeur dans une toile de Lucian Freud. Cela frisait l'insupportable mais c'etait en meme temps sournoisement drole. Ne finit-on pas par rire nerveusement dans les enterrements ? Dans Serotonine rien ne prete a rire. Cette histoire aurait pu se derouler dans un décor genre "Paris triste" de Marcel Carne ou dans un film ringard, dont les inevitables freres Dardenne ont le lugubre secret. Evidemment, on peut extrapoler. Bruxelles (Union Europeenne)  est  visee. C'est une culture "terroir"en fin de parcours qui recoit ici une derniere accolade. C'est la sexualite de proximite qui est marginalisee par l'algorythme.

A vrai dire, on sait tout cela. On pressent d'ailleurs que l'ecrivain commence a etre en mal de sujet, voir meme de langage, tant est totale l'eclipse dont il semble ne plus avoir le controle. Dans son livre precedent, "Soumission", il restait une energie paradoxale. Toute forme de collaboration reclame en effet un engagement ( sincere ou opportuniste). Ici l'enchainement n'arrive qu'a un blocage total, au demeurant pressenti et accueilli  avec une sorte de fatalisme stoique. Il n'est donc pas etonnant que ce roman s'acheve sur les paneaux refermes du dyptique Marcel Proust / Thomas Mann. Ces deux geants de la reflexion occidentale s'etaient rendus a l'evidence qu'entre la memoire et le vecu, la premiere est , comme chez Pacal, le choix le plus sur.

D'aucuns voudront voir dans ce requiem litteraire un constat du malaise francais. Aujourd'hui il est devenu impossible de donner au Zeitgeist regnant un repondant territorial. Les gilets jaunes, c'est chez nous. Le blues Europeen est reel, attise par le grand demolisseur aux Etats Unis, qui est occupe a creer Outre Atlantique une depression collective sans precedent. Comme beaucoup d'intellectuels, Houellebecq fait un diagnostic, qui sous couvert de narratif ressemble a un arret de mort.

Est-ce que tout est dit pour autant  ? That is the question...De toute facon, entre litterature, elections europeennes  et le reste, seul Game of Thrones emporte la palme. Constat disabuse ?

TRUMP...WHO ELSE (EVEN ON WEEK-END) ?

The George W. Bush administration waged wars outside, being it out of "a strategic lie". The Trump mafia prefers (for now) to euthanize America first. And no doubt, in case his base might be in need of more, Trump will not hesitate to wage some military action around the globe.

In Washington D.C., the hallways of the State Department are empty by now but the little brains in the Freedom Caucus or the Heritage Foundation work in overdrive, looking for ways to make their sordid coup d'état permanent. The lies of this president suffice already to be piled up at the southern border, giving him his coveted wall, but the threshold of the absurd is not yet finalized.  I bet that the Republican Nosferatus are soon going to forbid the abortion of spermatozoa in men's testicles (?). The NRA will receive a "most favored nation" status. Rudy Giuliani, the Martin Bormann of this White House, actively considered to travel to Kiev to see if there is some "there" there which might embarrass Joe Biden. The ominous shadow of Mike Pompeo, Secretary of State (!) - on his way to Sochi / Canossa - looms over most third countries, with the exception of the usual "clients" like MBS, Orban, Putin,  al Sisi & Co.

For the visitor to the US, the Trump experience starts in the airport, where the shouting, the chaos and the incompetence rule free. The same procedures elsewhere are seldom agreeable, but here they reach a new zenith, in line with the xenophobia which is poisoning the groundwater.

This country is now ruled by a minority of more or less 40%. Everything is already planned and ready to make sure that a small handful of states--Pennsylvania, Michigan, Ohio, Florida, New Hampshire- stay subservient, albeit with the narrowest margin. The Republicans have chosen to be the president's Quislings, but let there be no doubt, there is fear in the ranks of the GOP. If Trump were to lose in 2020, the majority of Americans will "sue" this treasonous kleptocracy. To avoid this reckoning Trump will resort to the Third Reich toolbox in order to skip an ordeal which would leave him earmarked for the rest of his numbered days.

A president who takes over from this dark period, which feels endless already, will inherit a Sisyphean task, having to restore, heal, re-establish, re-invent, re-calibrate and re-construct internally. The Democratic candidates are individually formidable but none has the "gutter/street" strength of Trump. deTocqueville said that "there is not, I think, a single country in the civilized world where less attention is paid to philosophy than in the United States."  Hence Trump is all too happy to leave the "social/ diplomatic engineering talk" to the Democrats, knowing that the paucity of intellect agrees with the minds of the MAGA crowd.  For now, a Biden/Harris ticket looks like the better mix of experience and intellect against the Republican's moral Anschluss. Nevertheless, rationality is the weaker half in the battle against a ruthless post-truth strategy.

One hopes there will be solace and redemption in the future. Until then, in this replay of Laocoon and sons, the serpents who inhabit this White House might be too many for too few to kill them off.

AMOR TOWLES : A GENTLEMAN IN MOSCOW

In this permanent cultural Kristallnacht which took over America in 2016, Amor Towles' A Gentleman in Moscow feels like a window reopened, showing a vista reawakened. The writer may have been inspired by Chekhov or Nabokov. If these current dark years might, rightly so, call for the more titanic style of Philip Roth, Towles chose for the mind/chamber music of Montaigne. Besides, he puts a movie in the heart of things, none other than Casablanca.

The novel has become a best-seller in the United States. This tells a lot about the mood, the expectations and the needs of a country which looks otherwise lost in some form of collective Angst. The success of this difficult novel, which spans an arc of history, confined in one single room, is noteworthy. Allusion is not a daily enchantment after all. Here, history is always a collateral, more intuitively perceived than just undergone. The various persons who inhabit this claustrophobic space become the masters of their confinement. The "rulers" end up being the hapless imitators of the codes and manners they pretend to dislodge from history's guidebooks.

There is little space for talk about culture in these troubling American years. This is strange because there is creativity as seldom before. It is just that many prefer to bypass the noise and engage the receiver by way of seduction, which is a far more sophisticated conduit. Towles has been able to suggest here answers to many questions which might otherwise appear too esoteric to handle. He chose the past as medium, maybe because there are often secret drawers in antique furniture. His irony, detachment and often cynical therapy will obviously convince many that, after all, the worse  has only a measured lifespan. The duration thereof is a mystery, but the end is a certainty. So there is hope.