“A Troubling Allegory: 1945”

Good evening, ladies and Gentlemen. Imagine, if you will, that Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg succeeded in assassinating Hitler in 1944 and immediately negotiated Germany’s conditional surrender to the Allied Forces. It’s now 1945. Wounded war hero von Stauffenberg has just been elected Chancellor of Germany. The first one-eyed and one-armed man ever to be elected to office in Germany, Chancellor von Stauffenberg leads a liberal Democratic parliamentary majority coalition and promises an investigation into Nazi war crimes and the restoration of the rule of law. Nevertheless, some Nazis are elected and form a minority party. But the promised investigation of Germany’s recent past has been put on hold: no Nuremberg trials, “no criminalization of politics,” no punishment for mere policy differences the Nazis and with present liberal government, no banning of the Nazi party or destruction of Nazi insignias. Furthermore, no arrests of Nazi politicians have been made, and no deNazification program of the German population is in the works. The German economy is in shambles. The following is a speech given by a former Nazi leader at a press conference in 1946 held at an undisclosed bunker location, in response to the earlier release of footage of the death camps and the even further lowering of Germany’s standing in the eyes of the world. You have just entered . . . the Twilightenment Zone.

Good morning, everyone. Let me get right to it. Some say we tried to exterminate the Jews, that we deliberately set out to murder them, even creating so-called “death camps” to do it. Nothing could be further from the truth. The fact is, we were attacked by Poland in 1939. And this attack happened only a few years after the Communists had burned the Riechstag. We responded in both cases by defending ourselves, eventually liberating the Poles. But Britain and France declared war on us. So then we had to invade France too and liberate it to protect ourselves. Luckily, we had built up our military in the previous six years, so the Rhineland, which France had stolen from us when forcing us to sign the illegal Treaty of Versailles, Austria and Czechoslovakia asked to be liberated and become part of a new, free Germany. So we made living room for them. And Italy supported us, of course, Japan too. We even reached an agreement with the Communist leader Stalin since all we wanted was peace in our time. Our soldiers honored their country with their service, many of them sacrificing their lives in the name of freedom. These brave men and women knew Germany had to be protected. The burning of the Reichstag had changed everything. So as our cities were being bombed by the Allied aggressors night after night, we knew we had to protect our civilian populations. And we were especially concerned for the safety of our minorities, the Jews first and foremost amongst them. Outside, foreign disruptors hoping to provoke war had already staged attacks on our Jews, just as the foreign Communists burned down the Reichstag, leading us to declare a state of emergency to preserve the Weimar Republic by destroying it. Am I the only one who remembers the burning of the Reichstag?

Since our Jewish populations already lived in ghettos--they preferred to live among themselves, as you know--we began building special new vacation settlements for them outfitted with the latest enhancements and hygienic facilities, located out in the countryside and out of harm’s way. We knew the Jews were in a rush get to Palestine. Zionism was all the rage, then, you know. So we used our own military transport cars, taking away valuable military assets from our war efforts, to move them to their brand new vacation settlements. After our porters took their luggage for them, they got enhanced showers, disinfectants, haircuts, and new clothes as soon as they arrived. They even got free dental work and universal health care at the local clinics where our leading medical doctors performed break through, cutting edge, life-saving experiments. The air was fresh, and they had full employment. We were fighting a war on two fronts at the same time, you may recall. Then the Communist leader of the U.S.S.R., Joseph Stalin, broke his pact with us, forcing us to invade Russia too—and still we saved as many Jews as we could. And let me tell you, the Jews really appreciated our help getting resettled. They got to work right away, helping us build their new settlements (which some call "death camps"), which were just going to be temporary, of course, and even helping us to run them. The Jews knew that war was hard work, but that work would make them free. Sure, some people (Jews included) died along the way. But they died of natural causes. It was wartime after all, and we couldn’t exactly use first class train coaches, which would have had limited seating availability. What we did for the Jews was entirely legal.

To my critics, let me say this. Yes, there were a few bad apples among the Nazi guards we left in the enhanced settlements to help the Jews keep order and to protect the Jews in case of attack by anti-Semitic Russians or, even worse, by those racist Americans with their Indian reservations, Japanese-American internment camps, and segregated South with signs saying “whites only” and “dogs and coloreds keep off the grass.” But these bad apples in the Nazis who were helping to keep everything in order inin our settlements have been prosecuted, convicted, and punished. And, yes, it’s true that my attaché Herr Oberleutnant Libby was convicted and yet never served time for his crime. But I personally saw to it that he was never pardoned. It’s time to move forward, while always remembering the Reichstag. Now is not the time for anger. As Chancellor Bush and Minister of Propaganda Condoleezza Rice have said repeatedly, Germany does not torture, much less exterminate. We saved the Jews. Any murders of Jewish populations occurred after our watch, committed by foreign agents. Now, the present administration has taken measures to release classified documents about our war efforts. The von Stauffenberg administration is keeping Germany less safe. Let me remind you that Stalin is still running the Soviet Union and still poses a grave danger to our homeland. Remember his gulags, his mass murders, the war crimes of his soldiers? Well, History will be our judge. Future generations of Germans will look back at the past few years, remember the burning of he Reichstag, and deeply appreciate that everything we did, we did for them. There was only one leader of Germany, and we know who he was. That’s something the present administration will just never understand. Thank you.

Fux News Reports: Headline: Extermination? Or Salvation?

Some say that former Nazi Minister Cheney was an exterminator, others a savior, a Moses, if you will, helping to lead the Chosen people to their homeland. You decide! We’ll provide full coverage and fair and balanced analysis, with Minority House WhipTom “the Hammer” Delay as our guest commentator.

Breaking News: Chancellor von Stauffenberg has decided not to release any more footage of the death camps, er, settlements, for fear of endangering the German troops. He is unable to close the enhanced settlements or transfer the remaining prisoners of war, whom he continues to hold indefinitely in prolonged but not permanent detention.

Bare(ass) Life in the Swirl

As you age, you reach point where you feel that your life is in the toilet. You reach this point regardless of how happy you are with your life (you may love and desire your wife, love your kids, if you have any, love your job abd colleagues, love where your live, and so on). But let's consider that toilet metaphor. The metaphor brings with it a narrative that breaks down into three crucial moments, before the flush, after the flush, and the brief but most crucial swirl that begins the flush. In the face of impending disasters (loss of job due to budget cuts, global warming, etc) I reassure myself by thinking about the swirl. Even if someone hits flush, there's always the swirl. You can surf it even if your life now stinks and is totally going down the toilet.

It's Not you, It Is you

The experience of reading or hearing about how other people respond to Blu-ray discs on flat screen TVs has led to say that expereience" is ovr-rated. What you think is your experience is actually eceryone's. You say to the BestBuy salesman, "It has a kind of 3-D effect," as if you were making an acute observation like you might on a painting. But the salesman replies, "Oh yeah, everyone says that," thinking he is affirming what you have said. Only you don't feel affirmed. You are recognized as not you, not even as one of many, but as everyone, and this recognition obliterates the specificity of what you thought was your experience and your articulation of it. Both are mass-prodcued as much as the Blu-ray and its marketing are.

Is (fill in the blank with the name of a dead person everyone knows is dead) dead?

OK, I heard in the audiocommentary or maybe it was an interview supplement on the new DVD edition of Wes Craven's Last House on the Left that the film was given this title because no went to see the film when it was shown with its original title.  Something about the word "last" seems to hook audiences.  Also appears to be the case as well as with the "death of" whatever, at the moment.  But consider Mark Twain's title "Is Shakespeare Dead?"  It's kind of funny, both comic and weird.  How can it be a question? What does it mean?  Is Twain serious?  Twain doesn't address the title in his book, which is about the authorship question.  And then we have the death of various isms, like Marxism in Derrida's Spectres of Marx (is Marxism dead?).  Derrida ends his postscript-mortem essay on Foucault "To Do Justice to Freud" (which turns out to be a line Foucault wrote) by twice using the metaphor for keeping the questions Foucault raised "alive."   My favorite example is in  Son of Frankenstein when Igor (Bela Lugosi) says joyously that he is "alive dead," but the people who tried and final to execute him by hanging  are "dead dead" (because he had the monster kill them in retaliation).  

The Strangeness of Cinephilia

I was watching Marathon Man again for the umpteenth time yesterday and it dawned on me after all these years that the music was composed by the same guy who did the soundtracks for Klute and All the President's Men.  And then I remembered that I had seen Marathon Man many times when it first came out because I was living in Buffalo then (I spent a semester in grad school there before returning to Berkeley); the movie theaters there were few in number and showed the same film for what seemed like incredibly extended periods of time.  Because I loved going to the cinema so much, I saw The Man Who Fell to Earth, The Tenant, Marathon Man, and Carrie repeatedly.  I realize now that I developed as a consequence my ability to do a close reading of a film as I watch it.  I remember surprising a friend who gone with me to Carrie by giving her my reading of the film as we got up from our seats after the film ended. I don't know if that was the first time I saw Carrie or not. Still, it was a repetition of the same that is no longer doable now that one repeats a viewing of a film on DVD or Blu-ray. 

Image Quality versus Image Delivery

DVDs and Blu-rays are most frequently evaluated in terms of image quality, that is, the resolution and density of the digital image. the higher the resolution, the better the image.  The importance of the delivery system is less often commented on, but deserves attention since screen sizes, projectors, and kinds of screens all make a huge difference.  To give one example, I have been watching DVDs on a 52" LCD with a Sony Blu-ray player that I had seen before on a 32" cathode ray TV set.  I generally feel like I am watching a new film.  I can see all kinds of things I missed the previous viewings.  One thing I appreciate about the reviews at www.dvdbeaver.com is that the reviewers list the specs of the equipment they use to watch the DVDs and Blu-rays they review.  I hope that info becomes standard practice for reviewers.

Did I really meet I.F. Stone?

When I was 18, I did my European vacation alone by thumb and eurorail pass.  When I was in Venice, I took a boat one night from one island area to another and this old guy introduced himself to me and said he was I.F. Stone.  We talked during the boat trip, but I didn't really believe him.  I didn't ask him for ID, but I thought to myself that he was some old guy trying to pick me up thinking he could do better by impersonating I.F. Stone.  But maybe I was just being paranoid and he really was I.F. Stone.  But maybe he really was I.F. Stone trying to pick me up!  I would have gone on my merry way alone in any case.  I got to wondering today because Harper's has a post about its I.F. Stone memorial award.