In like manner, the beginner who has learned a new language always translates it back into his mother tongue, but he assimilates the spirit of the new language and expresses himself freely in it only when he moves in it without recalling the old and when he forgets his native tongue.I am grateful to Charlie Davis for discovering this amazing eruction from the ambassador of our own Le Petit:
-The 18th Brumaire
Today, President Obama directed a thorough review to strengthen our national capacity to prevent mass atrocities. Crucially, the President will establish a new Atrocities Prevention Board with the authority and the policy tools to respond quickly to early warning signs and make recommendations before options narrow and the costs of both action and inaction rise precipitously. The President also expanded grounds to deny visas to serious human rights violators and war criminals and to isolate those who engage in or conspire to commit atrocities.WE MUST BE READY! The whole thing sounds like it was cut from an early-draft script for Transformers 36: The Rise of the Descended. Optimus Prime intones it before turning into a nuclear pine tree. The Dyslexicons attack in pursuit of The Ember of Conflict, which promises its owner unlimited roadside assistance for the life of the vehicle. A model bares her breasts. Michael Bay goes to the bank. My god, "Atrocities Prevention Board"--the abbreviation is even APB!
The United States is deeply committed to ensuring that no individual, now or in the future, sees a path to power in division and death. Moreover, in the enduring fight against mass atrocities, the United States will continue to enlist the contributions of all nations who know that in war, there must be rules; that, in the pursuit of power, there must be limits; that, even in a violent world, there must be rights; and that, when the embers of conflict threaten to ignite, we must be ready.
What is intersting here is how this langauge, although hurled impotently in the vague direction of the ever-springing Arab states, really just recapitulates anti-Soviet Cold War rhetoric. The United States and her allies will support free peoples wherever blah blah. I am a Jelly Donut. Mr. Stroganoff, meet me in the men's room at the mall! Insofar as I am able to tell, the American Empire locked itself into a particular mode of expression sometime around 1950 and has yet to escape it, try though it might to find a new language for its new-ish world: "The French, so long as they were engaged in revolution, could not get rid of the memory of Napoleon"!
14 comments:
Perhaps if they would have established the APB last year, it would have forbade Obama from attacking Libya.
So, now you need a permit for genocide?
You need a permit for genocide if the possible victims have access to cameras.
Mr. President, what we have here Is an atrocity gap!
What really pisses me off is that someone, somewhere feels smugly superior for that hackey 'embers ignite' line and I'll never get to tell them how clugey their shit is.
morality in the projection of american power to protect human rights is like white on rice
The President also expanded grounds to deny visas to serious human rights violators and war criminals and to isolate those who engage in or conspire to commit atrocities.
Because "committing war crimes" weren't sufficient grounds to deny a visa before (q.v. "Hosni Mubarrak").
The difference between committing war crimes and committing atrocities is like the difference between Cheerios and Honey Nut Cheerios.
Mmmm, breakfast!
Visas??? As if that's going to deter anyone! A war criminal can still get an American Express or Mastercard! Talk about a loophole.
Speaking of Sedan, General Ducrot's (purported) words seem applicable today: "Nous sommes dans un pot de chambre, et nous y serons emmerdés".
might be able to differentiate war crimes and atrocities in this one or any of the similar 600 [though usually not a kaibil performance]. longer more complete in spanish; no videos, movies..only words which don't fully capture the agony and anger felt by these communities.
Think Human Rights and Imperial Love [don;t think we had no involvment]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dos_Erres_massacre
i should have said 'agony and anger felt' by the few survivors - the others were raped and killed or if very small children bashed against walls and thrown in well or if elderly killed by hammer blows to head and also thrown in well by govt special forces [initially] pretending to be guerrillas [who had their own organizational/ideological problems - talking to mayan villagers about lenin does not cut it].
serious human rights violator?
It is estimated that during the 14 months of Ríos Montt's rule about 70,000 civilians have been killed or "disappeared". During the period 1981 to 1983 about 100,000 have been killed or "disappeared" and between 500,000 and 1.5 million displaced, fleeing to other regions within the country or seeking safety abroad.
"When I arrived in the government, we began a change in the state," Ríos Montt later says. "We realised that it shouldn't be the state of a single boss, the state of a regent, the state of a king, but a state that guarantees the rule of law, a state that serves."
Referring to the genocide that occurred during his rule, he says, "I can't deny anything, nor can I corroborate or prove anything. I'm at an impasse. ... If there is proof that shows that I am responsible, then I'm going to wind up a prisoner, because I do not want by any means to evade my responsibility."
but 'evade' he has, to point of running for the country's presidency not that many years ago.
Well..given that Rios-Montt is a fervent...or fervid..evangelical, maybe Jesus told him those commie peasants had to die?
Or mebbe what's his name will come here and tell us all that the main problem with the Guatemalen State is it is not as beholden to the Catholic Church as it once was.
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