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vendredi 31 mars 2006

A story of work

plafond de verre At the movies last night. I watched two documentaries dealing with the difficulties of finding a decent work. The two (one made by scholars, the second by Yamina Benguigui, known for her historical work on immigrant testimonies) revealed over all their blind spot: the transformation of capitalism from a capitalism of production to a capitalism of access (to paraphrase the concept of Jeremy Rifkin).
If you can count 20 millions of unemployed people in Europe and suppose that this number is increasing, the work category or social integration by work is an obsolete formula. Benguigui is attacking racism at work and discrimination on recrutement, that's a matter of fact and goes without saying for me, but she's also exposing some "progressive, innovating" employers, pioneers in the progress of affirmative action (not supported by the french law).
Finally these employers are working for the including force of capitalism, all this discriminated people are necessary to improve and renew markets of consumption. Racist employers are losers on the long run, they forget that the authentic french consumers are a disappearing category. Question of dialectics.

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mercredi 29 mars 2006

A story of violence

videogame The periodical Lignes had just published its number 19, a flash on the suburb riots last november in France.
What they could not know, the riots now left the suburbs to embrase the cities. Perhaps the youngsters learned finally that it makes no sense to damage their own territories where they have been relegated but to invest plainly the parts of the city that are somehow forbidden to them, territories including consumers, workers, students, managers but not unemployed good-for-nothing and colored people.
Still the best article in this number, an interview with Jacques Rancière, who another time clarifies that our institutional democracy based on parliament is far awawy from the only imaginable form of democracy.

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samedi 25 mars 2006

"Das isch truurig"

said blind José Louis Borgès to Max Frisch, when they met in New York 1971.
Borgès would have been enjoyed by the the actual tragic-comedy played by the french government and its electors from whom they deserve their power.
So the blind is guiding the lame.

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jeudi 16 mars 2006

Shooting dogs

genocide
-We have an health problem outside.
-What?
-We have an health problem outside. Could you speak to the refugees and tell them not to panic when they'll hear shooting.
-What?
-I said we have an health problem outside, we have to shoot the dogs, because they're devouring the dead people on the street.
-Did they open fire?
-What?
-Because you haven't a mandat if the don't shoot first, isn't it?
-I said we have an health problem outside.
-So, could you manage the other health problem outside after having finished?

A dialogue between an UN peacekeaping forces commander and a priest during the genocide of Tutsis in Rwanda, taking place in a christian school serving for a UN-base and in second place for a refugee camp of Tutsis.

That's what are shooting dogs, you have to kill them before they're killing you.

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vendredi 10 mars 2006

Rechtsstaat

constitutional Constitutional state, but also a german term you can deconstruct easily, playing on words you get rechts like right, or the right state but also a right-wing state, as sixty-eight-activists already denounced.
As my students are going on to strike, I had finally enough time to go fishing in our library. I like passing by all this book's back covers to find some inspiration or to let play the title's force of attraction, or to see simply what selection was made on certain authors.
Finally I left with five books : E.T.A Hoffmann, Kater Murr, Norbert Gstrein, Einer, Wolfgang Hilbig, Ich and Max Frisch, Der Mensch erscheint im Holozän, Tagebuch 1966-71.
I hadn't planned any order of reading, so I been to read Frisch's journal. And this one gave me the idea to this entry, in the form of an questioning two fictional caracters A and B are discussing on violence and power, in german there is no difference in terms: Gewalt anyway, sometimes Staatsgewalt in order to indicate legal violence.
By the way B gives a good definition of a Constitutional state. You have juste to correct some items to make it even more up to date.

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jeudi 2 mars 2006

Ezra Pound, chinese or troubadour

poitiers As there is some hype with chinese or chinese people in Poitiers, I wanted to know a bit more, Google gave me this:

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mercredi 1 mars 2006

Schwierige Arbeit

für theodor w. adorno

"im namen der anderen
geduldig
im namen der anderen die nichts davon wissen
geduldig
im namen der anderen die nichts davon wissen wollen
geduldig
festhalten den schmerz der negation

eingedenk der ertrunkenen in den vorortzügen um
fünf uhr früh
geduldig
ausfalten das schweißtuch der theorie

angesichts der amokläufer in den kaufhallen um fünf
uhr nachmittags
geduldig
jeden gedanken wenden der seine rückseite verbirgt

aug in aug mit den totbetern zu jeder stunde des tages
geduldig
vorzeigen die verbarrikadierte zukunft

tür an tür mit dem anschirmdienst zu jeder stunde
der nacht

geduldig
bloßstellen den rüstigen kollaps

ungeduldig
im namen der zufriedenen
verzweifeln

geduldig
im namen der verzweifelten
an der verzweifelung zweifeln

ungeduldig geduldig
im namen der unbelehrbaren
lehren."

in: blindenschrift, Hans Magnus Enzensberger.

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