Dialogic Cinephilia - September 20, 2018

We must suffer alone. But we can still reach out our arms to our similarly tortured, fractured, and above all else, anxious neighbors, as if to say, in the kindest way possible: 'I know ...' -- Alain de Botton's Book of Life: Developing Emotional Intelligence 

When he was US commander in Afghanistan, General David Petraeus declared what he called "a war of perception... conducted continuously using the news media". What really mattered was not the facts but the way the story played in the United States. The undeclared enemy was, as always, an informed and critical public at home. 

Nothing has changed. In the 1970s, I met Leni Riefenstahl, Hitler's film-maker, whose propaganda mesmerised the German public. 

She told me the "messages" of her films were dependent not on "orders from above", but on the "submissive void" of an uninformed public. 

"Did that include the liberal, educated bourgeoisie?" I asked.

"Everyone," she said. "Propaganda always wins, if you allow it." 

-- "Guest Media Alert by John Pilger: 'Hold the front page. The reporters are missing'" (September 20, 2018)

Darden, Jeneé interviews Jeanne Theoharis. "A More Beautiful and Terrible History Corrects the Fables Told of the Civil Rights Movement." Los Angeles Review of Books (September 16, 2018)

Edwards, David and David Cromwell. "Anatomy of a Propaganda Blitz." Propaganda Blitz: How the Corporate Media Distort Reality. Pluto Press, 2018: 1-19.

Mace, Ryan. "'A Matter of Life and Death': : Trump Admin Slashes Refugee Cap to Historic Low, Imperiling Thousands." Democracy Now (September 19, 2018) ["The Trump administration has once again slashed the number of refugees allowed to resettle in the United States. On Monday, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced the new cap on refugees would be a historic low of just 30,000 next year, down from the current level of 45,000. The actual number of refugees allowed in to the country is expected to be even lower than the 30,000 cap. Monday’s announcement represents the lowest ceiling any president has imposed on the U.S. refugee program since its creation in 1980. Under President Obama, the refugee cap reached 110,000. For more on the Trump administration’s refugee policy, we speak with Ryan Mace, refugee specialist for Amnesty International USA."]

Maguire, Mairead. "Demonization of Russia in a New Cold War Era." Counterpunch (September 17, 2018)

Olenick, Michael. "Debunking Another Misleading Gun Study." Naked Capitalism (September 12, 2018)

Smith, Yves. "Ending the Secrecy of the Student Debt Crisis." Naked Capitalism (September 16, 2018)


Midway upon the journey of our life
I found myself within a forest dark,
For the straightforward path had been lost.
--Dante Alighieri, Divine Comedy: Inferno, Song 1 (1320)

The Journey by Mary Oliver (in Dream Work: 1986)

One day you finally knew what you had to do, and began, though the voices around you kept shouting their bad advice -- though the whole house began to tremble and you felt the old tug at your ankles. "Mend my life!" each voice cried. But you didn't stop. You knew what you had to do, though the wind pried with its stiff fingers at the very foundations, though their melancholy was terrible. It was already late enough, and a wild night, and the road full of fallen branches and stones. But little by little, as you left their voice behind, the stars began to burn through the sheets of clouds, and there was a new voice which you slowly recognized as your own, that kept you company as you strode deeper and deeper into the world, determined to do the only thing you could do -- determined to save the only life that you could save.