March 24, 1981

Worth reading or re-reading:

Jean-Paul Sarte "On Genocide"

The word ‘genocide’ has not been in existence for very long: it was the jurist Lemkin who coined it between the two world wars. The thing itself is as old as humanity and there has never been a society whose structure has preserved it from committing this crime. All genocide is a product of history and it always carries the signs of the society from which it springs. The case which we have to judge concerns the largest contemporary capitalist power. It is as such that we must attempt to consider it; in other words, inasmuch as it expresses the economic structure, the political aims and the contradictions of that power.

In particular, we must try to understand whether there is an intention of genocide in the war that the American government is fighting against Vietnam. Article 2 of the Convention of 1948 defines genocide on the basis of intention. The Convention was tacitly referring to very recent history. Hitler had declared a deliberate plan to exterminate the Jews; he did not conceal the fact that he was using genocide as a political tactic. The Jew had to be put to death, wherever he came from, not because he had taken up arms or had joined a resistance movement, but just because he was a Jew. The American government, on the other hand, has made no such clear declarations. It even averred that it was going to the rescue of its allies, the South Vietnamese, who had been attacked by the Communists from the North. Is it possible for us, in objectively studying the facts, to unveil their hidden intention? And can we, after this examination, say that the armed forces of the USA are killing Vietnamese in Vietnam for the simple reason that they are Vietnamese?

Read the rest here.

Giap

From "Minima Moralia" by Theodor Adorno

Cesar Vallejo

Back in February this happened:

Dennis Hopper by George Green

His cowboy Hamlet death scenes are the best.
He flops, jerks, and blabs beseechingly,
then flops, imploringly, and dies. John Wayne,
even, is stunned by so much hamminess.
(He kills him twice: True Grit and Katie Elder).
Now Dennis sells investments on TV,
blabbing away to boomers who have bucks
enough to golf all day, enough to die
of boredom in the sun. Dennis is cool, though,
and still the hippest actor on the scene.
A poet and a painter, and, what’s more,
a recognized authority on Andy.

Phillip Larkin

This Be The Verse

They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.

But they were fucked up in their turn
By fools in old-style hats and coats,
Who half the time were soppy-stern
And half at one another's throats.

Man hands on misery to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
And don't have any kids yourself.