Mark Ganzer's Blog: PLEASE, IF YOU CAN, PASS SOMETHING ALONG TO ARUTHUR SILBER

Thursday, March 31, 2011

PLEASE, IF YOU CAN, PASS SOMETHING ALONG TO ARUTHUR SILBER

MARCH 24, 2011

Sick, Broke and Scared

I'll try to be brief, as this pathetic story is hardly unfamiliar to regular readers at this point.

I'm still recovering from the ailments that landed me in the hospital again recently. I continue to be exhausted, and I spend most of my time sleeping or lying in bed, unable to perform even simple tasks around the apartment. It may be that the exhaustion and weakness are inevitable aspects of a "normal" recovery process, but some symptoms are causing me to wonder about that. It would be helpful to have access to semi-decent, ongoing medical care; since I have no money and no insurance, that's not an option for me. So I'm left to wonder about what exactly may be going on.

By the end of next week, I'll have to pay the April rent, electric and telephone bills, plus a few additional outstanding bills. And I'll need to get two prescriptions refilled. One of them costs $200. Yes: $200 per month (30 pills, one a day). Thanks to some very kind individuals who have sent in donations recently (a multitude of thanks, as always), I have a little less than half of the rent. That's all I have.

Given my health problems over the last few years, and especially since I've had to call 911 twice now, I'm not particularly frightened of dying. I'm deeply unhappy (which can frequently be read as: murderously angry) that I'll certainly die ten to fifteen years earlier than I might if I had regular medical care, but I'm pretty much resigned to that. If I manage to make it to the beginning of May, I'll be 63. These days, that seems a little young for such concerns. These days, of course, more and more people find themselves in similar circumstances (and much worse), to say nothing of all those people who are maimed or murdered at much younger ages thanks to all the missiles and bombs our beneficent government drops around the world.

So dying itself doesn't bother me all that much. What does bother me is the thought that I might spend my last month or two homeless on the street, together with related concerns about what will happen to my cats. I guess this is the time I have to seriously think about finding new homes for them. I still don't know if I can bear to do that, which is a weakness on my part that I'm beginning to despise. My only solace is that I know I won't last for long on the street, so it should be over very quickly. Still, the specter of homelessness is the one that deeply unnerves me.

Well, that's the happy news here. Obviously, I could use some help. I still want/hope to complete some long-planned articles; if I get a little more strength back, I'll turn my attention to them. The few recent posts that have appeared here burst forth because of the outrage I was feeling about current events. The other articles awaiting completion are considerably more complicated and require that I hold a lot of information in my head. At the moment, I simply can't do it, try as I might.

I'm deeply grateful for any support you might be able to provide, especially in these increasingly uncertain times. Christ, this is depressing. All right, I'd better stop here.

Many, many thanks for your consideration.

MARCH 21, 2011

A Few Ugly Truths about the Death State and Its Supporters

Last November, in "On Veterans Day: Fuck that Shit," I excerpted a Laurence Vance article. In part, Vance wrote:

What is there to thank our soldiers for? They are not defending our freedoms. They are not keeping us safe from our enemies. They are not protecting us from terrorists. They are not guaranteeing our First Amendment rights. They are not defending U.S. borders. They are not guarding U.S. shores. They are not patrolling U.S. coasts. They are not enforcing no-fly zones over U.S. skies. They are not fighting "over there" so we don’t have to fight "over here." They are not avenging 9/11. They are not safeguarding the American way of life. Oh, and they are not ensuring that I have the liberty to write what I do about the military.

What, then, should we thank our soldiers for? Should we thank them for fighting an unconstitutional war, an unscriptural war, an immoral war, an offensive war, an unjust war, or a senseless war? Should we thank our veterans for helping to carry out an aggressive, reckless, belligerent, and interventionist foreign policy? Should we thank the military for sucking $1 trillion out of the federal budget?

But, some will say, these soldiers are just doing their jobs. They can’t help it if the U.S. military sends them to fight in an unjust war in Iraq or Afghanistan. They are just following orders. They didn’t enlist in the military to kill people.

What would any sane man think about a doctor who takes a job at a hospital knowing that the hospital instructs its doctors to euthanize old and sickly patients – and then says he was just doing his job, following orders, and didn’t take the job to kill people?

Why are soldiers treated so differently? Why do they get a pass on committing or supporting those who commit murder and mayhem?

If you consult my full essay, as well as the earlier "No, I DoNot Support 'The Troops,'" you will understand the argument that leads to this unavoidable conclusion:

There exists no legitimate, healthy reason for any person to join the United States military today. None.

As explained in the earlier articles, the U.S. military is not used now for any defensive purpose whatsoever. To the contrary, the U.S. military is used solely to advance the ruling class's obsessive, deeply disturbed dedication to global American hegemony.

In pursuit of that goal, the U.S. military will repeatedly andnecessarily murder a vast number of entirely innocent civilians. Such murders are not the regrettable byproduct of a "well-intentioned" policy, and they are not "collateral damage" which cannot be avoided. The murders -- including the murders which occur daily in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia and other countries, now including Libya -- are an integral, indispensable element in the plan for control and domination.

When a person joins the U.S. military, she or he voluntarily joins an organization which regularly and methodically murders defenseless, innocent civilians -- women, men, children and even babies. If that is what you sign up for, that is what you want to do.

None of this is secret, specialized knowledge, available only to "experts" or to those who study an arcane subject for decades. No, this information blares from numerous media sources many times a day. This information is as common as dirt. If you don't understand it, you don't want to understand it.

If you join the U.S. military, you want to be a murderer and/or you want to support murderers. If that describes you, I'll see you in hell someday soon.

Given these indisputable truths, this story is not in the least surprising:

Commanders in Afghanistan are bracing themselves for possible riots and public fury triggered by the publication of "trophy" photographs of US soldiers posing with the dead bodies of defenceless Afghan civilians they killed.

Senior officials at Nato's International Security Assistance Force in Kabul have compared the pictures published by the German news weekly Der Spiegel to the images of US soldiers abusing prisoners in Abu Ghraib in Iraq which sparked waves of anti-US protests around the world.

They fear that the pictures could be even more damaging as they show the aftermath of the deliberate murders of Afghan civilians by a rogue US Stryker tank unit that operated in the southern province of Kandahar last year.

...

The case has already created shock around the world, particularly with the revelations that the men cut "trophies" from the bodies of the people they killed.

An investigation by Der Spiegel has unearthed approximately 4,000 photos and videos taken by the men.

The magazine, which is planning to publish only three images, said that in addition to the crimes the men were on trial for there are "also entire collections of pictures of other victims that some of the defendants were keeping".

The US military has strived to keep the pictures out of the public domain fearing it could inflame feelings at a time when anti-Americanism in Afghanistan is already running high.

In a statement, the army said it apologised for the distress caused by photographs "depicting actions repugnant to us as human beings and contrary to the standards and values of the United States".

The army's "apology" is standard-issue propaganda for any bloody and barbarian regime. These actions are not "contrary to the standards and values of the United States": they perfectly embody "the standards and values of the United States."

Many supporters of the Death State will seek escape from my argument by claiming that this "kill team" was made up of obviously sick sadists, and that it cannot be credibly claimed that everyone who joins the military is a sick sadist of that kind.

But I didn't say that everyone who joins the military is a disgusting sadist. What I said, and what I repeat, is that everyone who joins the U.S. military today wants to be a murderer and/or wants to support murderers. So you're not a nauseating sadist. You're simply a murderer who murders women, men, children and babies "cleanly," or you want to support such murderers. What is it you're arguing exactly? That a murderer who kills "cleanly," without an additional element of gratuitous sadism, belongs to a superior moral category?

I'll still see you in hell, motherfucker.

I'll add a few more ugly truths, concerning those who supported Obama believing that he represented some kind of important change from the Bush policies they claimed to detest so profoundly. First, your support of Obama represented a confession of comprehensive ignorance about politics and political systems, and how those systems develop and operate. Once again, the truth about Obama and the policies he would follow was not a secret that required special knowledge to decode. Some of us were screaming the truth about Obama repeatedly throughout 2007 and 2008. Almost everyone ignored us. Here's an article I wrote about Obama's foreign policy (and Hillary Clinton's)from May 2007. Here's an article about Obama more generallyfrom May 2008, which included this:

Even if we assume that Obama genuinely wishes to alter our political system, the critical point is unchanged: one individual cannot do it.It is folly to believe otherwise. More bluntly: it is deeply, profoundly stupid. And the truth is very different from this idiotic fantasy: Obama is the perfect embodiment of the system as it now exists. He will challenge it on no issue of importance. To the contrary, he will advance the goals of the ruling class and ensure that the powerful are fully protected. He will lie to you about all of this, as he already has on numerous occasions -- but as I have noted, many Americans, including many liberals and progressives, are enthusiastically willing to believe anything.

And there's much, much more about the truth concerning Obama here, with many more links to follow.

Another ugly truth: anyone who still supports Obama and who denounced Bush wasn't sincere in the smallest degree about her or his criticisms of Bush. I've been over this ground before ("In the event, [the Democrats and progressives] didn't prove me wrong; to the contrary, they demonstrated the truth of what I had still hoped, however faintly, wasn't true. But what was demonstrated to be true was simply that virtually everything the Democrats and progressives claimed to be their fervent concern was merely instrumental: that is, they staked out the positions they did for their perceived political advantage, and for the assistance those positions would provide in regaining and consolidating power.").

One more ugly truth: anyone who votes for either the Democratic or Republican presidential nominee next year is ...

Yes, that's right: you're a pigfucker, too.

I'll definitely see you in hell, buddy.

MARCH 20, 2011

A Nation Led by Blood-Guzzling, Flesh-Eating Pigfuckers

Yes, this will be a very rude post in part. No, my title doesn't refer to Libya, whose leader is the current candidate for StalinHitlerPolPot Monster of the Week, but rather to the leading terrorist nation of the world, the piece of shit United States of Pigfucking America.

There isn't any "news" in these latest events. Another day, another set of war crimes. Where's the news in that? That's what the United States does now, as it has regularly and systematically for over a century. Wait, that's not right: as it has since before it even became the United States. But hell, you don't want to think about any of that too deeply or too long. If you did, how could you continue with your lamentations about the "death" of the once-noble United States and its "true" values? What are the "true" values of a nation founded and developed in very significant part on not one, but two, genocides that lasted for centuries?

But, oh, oh, oh, the horror of bombing Libya! How will "we" ever survive? "We" will survive very well indeed. I note that the Pigfucker-in-Chief announced these sancrosanct principles the other day:

Our focus has been clear: protecting innocent civilians within Libya, and holding the Qaddafi regime accountable.

The same Pigfucker-in-Chief claims the "right" and power to murder anyone in the world, whenever he wants, for whatever reason he wishes. He's made clear that "cuz I feel like it" is reason enough. Since he claims to hold absolute power in this manner, bombing Libya, or any other country or region of the world, is an implied detail. He also is completely comfortable with the daily and hourly torture of a very well-known prisoner. The Pigfucker thinks that's fine! It's the American Way! (He's right about that.)

Given the holy mission announced by the Pigfucker-in-Chief with regard to Libya, and in light of the Pigfucker's own repeatedly embraced policies, a question uncomfortably announces itself: Who will bomb the United States, and when does it begin? Thus are we instructed as to the critical importance of possessing the most frightening arsenal of weapons ever known in history. No one dares apply the Pigfucker's own standards to the Pigfucker himself.

Gee, you think outrage and condemnation are effective tactics with a Pigfucker like this? You think he loses sleep because a few people are upset? He desperately wanted to be Pigfucker-in-Chief, and tirelessly worked for many years toward that end. I once described anyone who so deeply desires to be Pigfucker-in-Chief as "terrifyingly deranged." Almost no one agreed with me when I first said it, and very few people agree with me now. That particular truth disturbs you too much. Poor, pathetic you.

I can barely tolerate reading most "dissenting" writers at times like this. The Pigfuckers launch their newest assault on decency and humanity, on the sacred value of a single human life, and on civilization itself, and the protesters are all so goddamned, fucking polite. The United States government is led by blood-guzzling, flesh-eating pigfuckers.Fuck polite.

I must mention one other aspect of much of the criticism being offered about the assault on Libya. Many writers point out in excruciating, mind-numbing detail that the assault won't "work," that it will fail to achieve its announced aims, that it will certainly lead to more death and suffering rather than less, and so on and so forth. All of which is true in one sense -- but all of which is, from the only perspective that genuinely matters, completely irrelevant.

I refer you to an essay I wrote in January 2009, "The Necessary Violence of the Murderous National Bully." Since I realize most of you have no intention of following the link, I'll repeat the concluding section of that article. I have no desire to reformulate the argument still another time; besides, I said it very well on the earlier occasion.

But I will first emphasize the fundamental significance of what I call The Higgs Principle (after Robert Higgs, who identified this phenomenon in especially cogent and powerful terms), namely:

There are no persistent "failed" public policies.

Here is the final section of my essay from two years ago:

[T]here is a much simpler reason for the actions of America and Israel, two reasons actually.

The first reason lies in the nature of a State centrally founded on conquest and violence in the way that is true of America and Israel. Setting aside moral questions and whether the murder of innocent people can ever be justified -- and I realize it is abhorrent to set aside such issues, but we must recognize that such matters rarely concern American politicians or those of any other nation, despite their frequent protestations to the contrary -- reliance on the conquest of victims who are inevitably furiously angry and resentful, and who will seek retribution whenever the opportunity presents itself, is necessarily uncertain and undependable. If your rule depends on the compliance and obedience of those over whom you hold sway in such circumstances, you will necessarily have to remind the subject-citizens of the price of disobedience from time to time. One result is that scapegoats will regularly have to be found: first they will be identified, then they will be demonized, and finally they will be punished, even eliminated as required. From this perspective, violence, even death on a horrifyingly large scale, and the power of the State are not differentphenomena: they are two aspects of the samephenomenon. Violence is the State. Power is not the means to another end: it is the end.

The second reason concerns what constitutes "national interests," those of the United States, Israel, or any other nation. Just as many people contend they cannot understand what propelled Israel's recent actions, disregarding the arguments offered above, so many people say that it is not in the "national interests" of America to offer unquestioning support to Israel in the way it does. This rather badly misses the point of what those "national interests" are, and who determines what they are. Those "national interests" have nothing at all to do with you, or me, or with "ordinary" Americans. The "national interests" of the United States as a political entity concern only the ruling class, as discussed in detail here, here and in many other essays linked therein.

And so I return once more to Robert Higgs' formulation. There is another aspect to "national interest" which is analyzed here, but it is critical to appreciate the following. Robert Higgs:

As a general rule for understanding public policies, I insist that there are no persistent "failed" policies. Policies that do not achieve their desired outcomes for the actual powers-that-be are quickly changed. If you want to know why the U.S. policies have been what they have been for the past sixty years, you need only comply with that invaluable rule of inquiry in politics: follow the money.

When you do so, I believe you will find U.S. policies in the Middle East to have been wildly successful, so successful that the gains they have produced for the movers and shakers in the petrochemical, financial, and weapons industries (which is approximately to say, for those who have the greatest influence in determining U.S. foreign policies) must surely be counted in the hundreds of billions of dollars.

So U.S. soldiers get killed, so Palestinians get insulted, robbed, and confined to a set of squalid concentration areas, so the "peace process" never gets far from square one, etc., etc. – none of this makes the policies failures; these things are all surface froth, costs not borne by the policy makers themselves but by the cannon-fodder masses, the bovine taxpayers at large, and foreigners who count for nothing.
The ruling class has not "lost," not in Gaza, not in Iraq, not in most of the other many wars of aggression throughout history. To claim that they have is to misapprehend what their interests are, and how those interests are fulfilled. The prospect or, very infrequently, the actuality of large scale public unrest and protest may cause the ruling class to make concessions now and then, concessions specifically designed to ensure future compliance. But except for extraordinarily rare moments of profound historical shift, the ruling class continues in its enjoyment of untold wealth and power, all of which is fed with the blood and suffering of the "ordinary" people.

It may be that the rot now consuming more and more of the United States economy will circumscribe the U.S. ruling class's determination to dominate the globe. At present, however, there is no sign whatsoever that our ruling class is considering even the smallest degree of humility. To the contrary, Obama's proclamations that "the American moment" should extend for "this newcentury" lead to precisely the opposite conclusion. I would not be at all surprised if this theme is included in Obama's inaugural address in some form.

For the United States, as for Israel, violence, subjugation and death were indispensable to their founding and development, as they are indispensable to their continuance. We may desperately wish that it were otherwise, but these horrors will not end in the near future. To whatever extent we can, that is the goal demanded by decency, humanity and a genuine reverence for lifetoward which we must continue to work.

Still, it seems we must remain unfailingly polite, particularly if we wish to be viewed as "serious" and "respectable."

I'm deeply sorry I referred to our leaders as Pigfuckers. I'm certain they have simply made an understandable error of judgment, just as I know to an absolute certainty that after a period of serious reflection, they will reverse course and proceed to make all necessary amends. After all, history provides many examples of just this kind of profound social and political transformation. Leaders who claim to possess immense, ungraspable power repeatedly give up that power in exchange for the quiet contemplation of life's simple pleasures. This is especially true of leaders who claim to possess absolute power. Whatever else might be said about them, I'm sure Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and all the rest have good hearts and mean well.

That's right, dear reader. Laugh through your tears. Ignore the agonized, unending screams of the countless victims. What does their pain signify?

For us, life goes on, at least for now. As you were.

MARCH 05, 2011

Kingdom of Evil

A human being can be destroyed in a seemingly infinite number of ways, as history repeatedly demonstrates. Our capacity for cruelty is limitless. It would appear to defy gratification. We are all too familiar with the horrifying varieties of physical violence inflicted on the human body, but there is another method of seeking to destroy those whom we have designated as enemies to our own survival. In one critical respect, this method is worse than injuries that might be visited on our fragile corporeal form, for while the body may survive intact, the person -- that is, his mind and soul -- will never be made whole again.

This method of destruction throws the victim into a nightmare world, one which mocks every effort to comprehend it. Cruelty is presented as compassion and solicitude for the victim's well-being; the words of justification seek to convince those who suffer that their unbearable pain should be accepted for their own good. The victim knows that every utterance of his tormentors is a lie, and the more he attempts to understand why they act so monstrously, the greater his suffering grows. The victim can never escape these lacerating questions:

How is it possible that human beings could treat another person in this manner?

How can I survive in a world in which such cruelties not only occur with soul-destroying regularity, but in which these cruelties are considered necessary and moral?

If the victim should conclude that he cannot survive in such a world -- and how can we be surprised that this should be his judgment? -- his soul will be lost. Even if his body continues to function, he will survive in a world rendered eternally bleak, with terror lurking in every moment. The possibility of joy is extinguished.

This is evil; those who seek to impose this fate on a human being are engaged in evil of an especially monstrous kind.

Read this New York Times story about the latest cruelties inflicted on Bradley Manning, and you will see the operation of these mechanisms. We must remember that Manning is, as the Times story states in its first sentence, the "accused."As of this date, Manning has been tried for nothing. As of this date, Manning has been convicted of nothing.

The story informs us that Manning "will be stripped of his clothing every night as a 'precautionary measure' to prevent him from injuring himself," and that he "will also be required to stand outside his cell naked during a morning inspection." A Marine spokesman says that "the underwear was taken away from him as a precaution to ensure that he did not injure himself."

But as the story goes on to tell us, Manning "has not been elevated to the more restrictive 'suicide watch' conditions." The same Marine spokesman also says that "the new rule on clothing ... would continue indefinitely," and that "he was not allowed to explain what prompted it 'because to discuss the details would be a violation of Manning’s privacy.'”

Thus, according to this spokesman, Manning is subjected to repeated humiliation and degradation -- for his own good.Moreover, the reason for the repeated humiliation and degradation cannot be provided because of the military's boundless concern for Manning's "privacy" -- that is, the military also refuses to explain the reason for its cruelty for Manning's own good.

Does the nightmare begin to assume more definite shape before you? If you feel assaulted in the depths of your being by this mere recitation of the facts -- and you should -- you are experiencing but the faintest shadow of what Manning experiences in captivity. Manning is, I remind you, only the"accused."

Manning's lawyer, David E. Coombs, tries to cut through this enveloping fog of evil:

“There can be no conceivable justification for requiring a soldier to surrender all his clothing, remain naked in his cell for seven hours, and then stand at attention the subsequent morning,” he wrote. “This treatment is even more degrading considering that Pfc. Manning is being monitored — both by direct observation and by video — at all times.”

Mr. Coombs contended that stripping his client was medically unjustified.

“If a person is at risk of self-harm, then you get them treatment, you get them to a mental health professional and address the issue — you don’t strip them,” he said, adding in a separate telephone interview, “There is no excuse, no justification to having a soldier stand at attention naked. There can be no mental health reason for that.”

Coombs characterized these latest punitive measures "as an unjustified 'humiliation' of his client." I would add two comments to that description.

First, forcing a prisoner to remain naked for extended periods of time is not only a barbaric means of humiliating and degrading him: it necessarily includes a very significant element of specifically sexual humiliation and degradation. Add to this unforgivable atrocity the well-known fact that Manning is gay. Especially in the hypermasculinized world of the military, such sexual humiliation and degradation represents an intentional, additional cruelty. I can only say that the U.S. government and the military of which it is so proud put Torquemada to shame.

Second, these cruelties and the purported "justifications" offered by the military, all in a notably high profile case, definitively put the lie to the propaganda spewed by the U.S. government in response to the torture, including sexual humiliation, revealed at Abu Ghraib: that such incidents were an "aberration" perpetrated by a few "bad apples." (I emphasize that similar torture and humiliation occurred in other locations as well; Abu Ghraib is probably the best-known instance.) They also definitively put the lie to Obama's patently false claim that he has "ended torture," a point I have made repeatedly.

Now we have the U.S. military, with the full support of the U.S. government, openly engaging in repeated acts of cruelty, atrocity, humiliation and degradation -- acts which the military proclaims will "continue indefinitely" -- and offering nauseatingly ludicrous justifications which would not convince a minimally healthy ten-year-old child. No honest observer can regard these actions of the U.S. government and its military as "aberrations": these actions are brazenly offered as U.S. government policy.

These actions also constitute torture. I first offered this description of torture in December 2005, and I stand by it today:

Torture is the deliberate infliction of unbearable agony on a human being -- a human being who is intentionally kept alive precisely so that he will suffer still more and for a longer period of time -- for no justifiable reason.

(Descriptions of the articles in my series, "On Torture," will be found here.)

I therefore repeat what I said above:

This is evil; those who seek to impose this fate on a human being are engaged in evil of an especially monstrous kind.

This is also the U.S. government and its military. Mark it well.

*****

Several additional issues require further commentary. In particular: we must beware falling into the trap of selective outrage. The horrifying case of Bradley Manning is an especially high profile one, but he is hardly the only victim of even this particular form of the U.S. government's monstrousness. And the cruelties visited upon Manning -- a man who, I emphasize again, has not yet been tried and convicted of even a single crime -- necessarily raise this question: What is the source of the rage which the U.S. government directs at this man? The answer will not be found in most of the commentary on this awful case.

I will turn to these subjects next time.

FEBRUARY 24, 2011

A Week in Hell

Following the guidelines I discussed in the last post, I decided early Tuesday morning that I was in the midst of "anemergency emergency." Among other symptoms, repeatedly collapsing on the floor after taking one or two steps tends to indicate that conclusion. So I did what I will not do under less extreme circumstances, and I called 911.

I returned home from the hospital a few hours ago. I wasn't worried about the cats having enough to eat; for over a year, I've always intentionally left out enough dry food for about a week, since I've accepted this kind of occurrence as unavoidable at some point(s). And if I'm gone for longer periods, I have a couple of neighbors I can call on to look after them. The cats are fine. I'm out of danger for now, but I'm far from fine.

My atrial fibrillation had gone nuts, and I was also suffering from internal bleeding resulting from (among other things) a stomach ulcer. All that was treated (transfusions of various kinds, etc.), and I have prescriptions to carry me for a while. My heart still has an irregular rhythm, but it's what is considered "controlled" and "acceptable" (by which is meant "not terribly dangerous" ... probably).

But more than the physical problems, as dire as those were for a while, I'm undone by how extraordinarily awful the hospital experience was. And I was at a good hospital (I guess that should be in quotes, too: a "good" hospital). When I've gotten over the worst of the effects of all this and regained a bit of perspective, I may write about some of what happened. Several aspects of it were related to general themes I'm planning to write about in ways that I think might prove interesting (I find them so, at any rate).

For now, I'm going to bed, accompanied by my beloved feline companions. I may be resting most of the time for the next week. So I wanted to post something to prevent readers (the friendly ones) from worrying that the worst might have happened. Not yet. And I especially wanted to post a brief note given the wonderful generosity some of you continue to extend to me. A multitude of thanks to you.

I deeply regret not being able to write intelligently (or at all) right now about the extraordinary events transpiring across the world. Hopefully, not all my observations will be out of date a week or two hence.

My profound gratitude again to those of you who are so kind. I will rest up and return as soon as I can. I'm very glad I had mentioned the Callas Puritani performances in the last entry. I know those performances of hers so well (and many other Callas performances, too) that I can play them fully in my head whenever I wish. Especially during the first awful day in the hospital, I played the Puritani scene many times. It brought me incommunicable solace, and is yet another of the many ways in which I can never repay the magnificent gift that Callas's artistry represents to me.

See you soon, I hope and trust.

FEBRUARY 19, 2011

For Moments Like This...

I indicated in my brief personal remarks at the conclusion of the last entry that I would be turning my attention to some long-planned articles. I must first note that I am deeply grateful to those readers who have been remarkably kind and sent in donations. Given the near total absence of new posts in recent months, your generosity is most extraordinary. Please do not think that I ever lose sight of that. It would be only good manners for me to send personal thank you notes; unfortunately, the degree of physical discomfort and even fairly intense pain that I so often feel these days makes that all but impossible. The pain is frequently made worse by sitting at the computer.

And I've been in a lot of pain for the last day and a half. I got up to go to the bathroom at about 3 AM yesterday morning, and then found that I wasn't able to get back to bed. I lay down on the bathroom floor, where I remained for about two hours. The cats came by at one point to see what had happened to me, bless their angelic souls. (They had to rouse themselves from bed, where we all had been sleeping.) I finally managed to get back to bed, where I spent all of yesterday but for a few minutes here and there. This particular pain is located deep in my gut, some kind of intestinal problem (at least, that's how it presents). I've had it before, and I have absolutely no idea what causes it. It goes away eventually, although the "eventually" seems to be taking quite a while this time. At least, the pain isn't as paralyzing now, although my lower gut still hurts more than a little. Well, I'd wanted to lose a little weight.

Why don't I call 911? you might wonder. Especially since, given my continuing heart problems, I could legitimately call 911 almost any time and view it as an emergency. I don't simply because...well, honestly, what's the point? They'll do something or other to alleviate the immediate problem, give me some shots or whatever, and provide prescriptions for medications -- prescriptions that I won't be able to pay to continue anyway. And in the course of all that, I may hear about the wonderful things they could do to find out all the ways my body is deteriorating and what they could do to fix a lot of it -- all things they could do, if I had money and/or insurance that was worth a damn. But since I don't have any money and am completely without insurance, not one of those things will be done. So again, what's the point? They'll make me feel better for a couple of days, and then my life will go back to what it was, or worse. (It always gets worse now.)

So I reserve calling 911 for what I suppose we might call (using today's typically corrupt language) an "emergencyemergency." That is, if I think I'm having a major heart event or something of similar magnitude, then I'll call 911. In other words, if I think there's a real chance I might die without immediate medical care, I'll call them. Otherwise, no. Of course, there's a chance I might misjudge the situation. As some damned philosopher once observed: "Oh, well." (I don't just go to a doctor because, surprise, I can't afford it.)

In any case, collapsing on the bathroom floor in awful pain isn't the worst thing in the world, and I didn't think it would kill me. It didn't. Huzzah!

So, about those long-planned articles...oh, I perhaps should say that this doesn't mean I won't comment on current events, to the extent I'm able to. In fact, more than a few events of recent weeks (and related commentary) connect with some themes I'll be exploring in more detail. Some of the articles I hope to complete concern various aspects of tribalism; in that connection (and for the couple of dozen of you who might care), I'll be relying quite heavily on the four articles in the tribalism series, especially on the issues discussed in Part II and Part III. Those two articles in particular contain what I myself think is some of the best detailed analysis I've offered here. I had originally planned many further installments of that series, but then my failing health increasingly intruded on my abilities to fulfill many of my plans. So I hope to finally take up some of the issues and ramifications I had planned to explore.

Much of what I've described above concerning my daily life is extremely unpleasant. So I look for those precious moments that allow me to feel, "Yes, it's all worth it ... if only to experience this." On very rare occasions, I feel something akin to that when I've managed to put an article together in a way that approaches what I had envisioned. But much more often, as is true for many people, I find such moments in art. Since opera has been hugely significant in my life, I'm likely to find those moments in especially cherished performances -- such as this one.

I cannot mention opera and cherished performances without also mentioning Maria Callas. So try this one, too. Those who criticize Callas for her technical failings commonly focus on the very end of Callas's performing career (say, from the early 1960s on), when the technical problems were often genuinely alarming (and very unpleasant listening). Some of these critics will also try to locate Callas's decline as stemming from a single factor, usually her extreme weight loss. But this performance is from November 1957, several years after she'd lost all that weight. And the performance (which, I note, is a rehearsal -- and bless the soul who had the foresight to record the event) is altogether extraordinary: the supreme control, the attention to phrasing and word coloring, the imperturbable poise of the singing, the emotional expressiveness. It's magnificent. And the coloratura, most notably the descending scales, in the cabaletta! Perfection. Even Callas's most vehement critics will acknowledge the miracle of her descending scales; often, you can tell it practically kills them to admit it, but they will. (As an interesting and rewarding exercise, you can compare the 1957 rehearsal to a studio recording from 1949. As astonishing as the earlier performance is, the 1957 one is still better in my view, for the attention to the smallest of details, as well as the general mastery that comes from intimate knowledge of the music over a period of time. If you want to know what Elvira is singing about, see here.)

Whenever I mention Callas, I usually also recall one particular of essay of mine, since it remains among my own two or three favorites of all my articles. So I'll mention it again. That's as close to a personal credo as you're likely to see from me.

All right. I need to go back to bed now, but hope to be back with a new article or two in several days.

Mark Ganzer's Blog