Un commentaire est associé à cet article. Vous pouvez le consulter et réagir à votre tour.
1760L’Amérique est toujours et sans relâche le seul sujet de réflexion et d’analyse qui vaille aujourd’hui. L’Amérique est perçue (importance de ce mot comme phénomène psychologique) comme dominant le monde; dans cet ordre d’idée, l’Amérique est le monde dans notre imaginaire et notre inconscient, — et, pour certains, dans leur conscience même, c’est-à-dire après avoir examiné cette proposition avec la raison. Voilà la perception qui domine d’une façon qu’on croirait parfois absolue, c’est-à-dire dans la psychologie collective, même chez ceux qui font profession de critiquer et d’attaquer l’américanisme.
(Nous-mêmes à dedefensa.org, avec notre position critique de l’Amérique et si souvent inclinés à mettre en évidence les énormes faiblesses de l’Amérique, sommes en partie victime de ce phénomène. C’est dire que nous considérons que la crise actuelle est aussi exprimée dans une pathologie de la psychologie collective, à laquelle nous-mêmes sommes liés. Cette façon de voir suit l’enseignement méthodologique de Nietzsche, qui est de loin son principal apport à notre sens, qui est de recommander de faire la critique de la société moderne en psychologue et en médecin de l’âme.)
Il importe, sans relâche, d’expliquer et de tenter de comprendre ce phénomène américaniste qui est naturellement unique et sans précédent historique. Notre hypothèse est d’ailleurs qu’il est si absolument unique et sans précédent dans l’Histoire, qu’il s’agit en réalité d’un phénomène a-historique. D’où cette hypothèse, souvent retrouvée dans nos écrits, que la situation de rupture présente est caractérisée par une bataille titanesque entre l’Histoire et la force qui veut détruire l’Histoire; nous caractérisons cela également comme la bataille entre les forces structurants (auxquelles l’Histoire donne le “matériel” pour se constituer) et les forces déstructurantes (dont le premier objectif est l’Histoire parce qu’elle est mémoire et durée, — y compris mémoire et durée d’avant l’Amérique).
En conséquence de cette situation où cette unicité de l’Amérique est imposée ou acceptée comme un fait auquel aucun de nous ne peut prétendre échapper complètement, il existe une grille qui est soi-disant d’“information” et qui rend compte en vérité du mythe, qui tend à accorder par réflexe la place de “n°1” en Amérique, — n°1 per se, par conséquent n°1 en toutes choses. Cette comptabilité est imposée par l’aspect le plus pervers du caractère “opérationnel” de l’américanisme, qui est la perception du monde en termes de concurrence, d’affrontements, de comparaison agressive voire mortifère, etc. L’Amérique de l’américanisme présente ce cas phénoménologique extraordinaire de se percevoir à la fois comme différente du reste du monde, hors du monde si l’on veut, et en même temps de ne justifier sa propre existence que comme n°1 en toute chose, c’est-à-dire par comparaison concurrentielle systématique avec le reste du monde. Comment être à la fois hors du monde et en compétition victorieuse avec le reste du monde? (Comment s’étonner de ce que le médecin psychiatre qui identifia la névrose, le docteur Beard, l’ait surnommée “le mal américain”?)
L’information, par le biais de la communication joue bien entendu un rôle fondamental dans cette situation. C’est même la principale vertu américaniste, — et l’on peut conclure à mesure que l’on poursuit une fréquentation lucide de ce phénomène de l’américanisme: c’est la seule “vertu” de l’américanisme.
Cette question de la définition des USA comme l’“empire de l’information” est complètement essentielle. Nous avons déjà attiré l’attention sur ce point. Cette idée se retrouve aujourd’hui, de façon aiguë parce que l’on est en présence d’une dualité d’attitudes/de situations : d’une part, les Américains essuient des revers considérables. L’aventure irakienne, notamment, montre les piteuses limites d’une puissance décrite comme universelle et qui fait beaucoup moins bien dans ce pays que ferait, par exemple, une force coalisée d’Européens sous commandement non-US. L’incapacité réelle du Pentagone à déployer de façon habituelle plus de 150.000 hommes en Irak, les faiblesses d’équipements, les aberrations tactiques et stratégiques, le recours à la violence aveugle, tout cela montre la complète inadaptation de la puissance américaine et sa faiblesse profonde.
D’autre part, pourtant, le comportement de la direction américaine reste complètement triomphant, comminatoire, etc. Ce contraste entre ces deux situations s’explique par l’appréciation que la puissance US est dans la communication, la capacité, comme il est dit dans un texte ci-dessous, de l’Amérique “de faire croire aux autres qu’elle est un Empire”. Ce que nommons “virtualisme” est cette capacité poussée techniquement à son extrême, au point où elle en devient une véritable idéologie de fonctionnement de l’Amérique en créant un univers fictif, et de façon si accompli que les Américains américanistes y croient eux-mêmes sans la moindre restriction.
(Au contraire de l’empire soviétique en décadence, au plus l’empire américaniste tombe dans la décadence, au plus son personnel, du président au dernier des fonctionnaires, y croit dur comme fer. Dans l’URSS de la fin, la brejnévienne par exemple, on ne psalmodiait plus le catéchisme marxiste qu’avec un clin d’œil et un sourire en coin, en sirotant un cognac ou un bourbon importé au marché noir. Plus personne ne croyait à la doctrine, ce qui explique que l’URSS a pu se défaire mollement et sans heurts, comme un fromage trop fait. Les USA, eux, dans tous les cas au niveau de leur personnel, restent complètement et intellectuellement comptables de la doctrine représentée aujourd’hui par le virtualisme. Tout cela se brisera dans les heurts et le fracas, disons comme un fromage trop sec pour le plaisir de la symétrie de l’image.)
Ci-dessous, nous présentons deux textes qui alimentent cette thèse de l’“empire de la communication”:
• Le premier, publié le 20 février sur le site “xymphora.com”, introduit le second en l’assortissant d’un commentaire propre, très intéressant, de quelques sur le sujet considéré ici.
• Le second, publié le 17 février sur le site “CounterPunch”, nous donne une partie d’une interview du vice-président cubain Ricardo Alarcon, interview réalisée par Saul Landau (Landau est présenté de la sorte : « Saul Landau teaches at Cal Poly Pomona University, where he is the director of Digital Media Programs and International Outreach, and is a fellow of the Institute for Policy Studies. His new book is ‘The Business of America’. » L’interview qu’il a réalisé est en trois parties et nous reproduisons la partie qui nous intéresse. On trouvera le reste de l’interview à partir du lien que nous avons indiqué ci-dessus.)
xymphora, February 20, 2005, — From an interview by Saul Landau of Ricardo Alarcon Quesada, the Vice President of Cuba (my emphasis in bold):
«Although the US remains the biggest military power, it has trouble controlling a rather small country like Iraq, which it almost destroyed by bombing and an economic embargo before the war. The reality is that US is only the most powerful entity in one area: information and communication.
» It was the only dominant force at end of the Second World War, the only nuclear power. Nagasaki and Hiroshima, by the way, are the only cases in which nuclear power has been used destructively. They were not employed by a terrorist state, but by the US democracy — allegedly to defeat Japan. At that time and later, during the Marshall Plan, the US was at the top. Since then it has been declining. That does not mean it is a country in disarray, but it is going downward.
» To answer this downhill slide, in my opinion, came the neo-cons who believe that by using the United States' comparatively limited economic and large military resources, but especially by exploiting their advantage in terms of communication technology and near monopoly of information media, they can reverse the trend. That is impossible. The US cannot turn the world back to 1945 and reappear as the only power in the world. The US needs to learn to live in a diverse world with different players, different ideologies and interests and not to pretend to be the owner of the planet. »
The American empire is the first empire not to be built on military strength — the United States loses all the wars it fights — or on economic strength — its staggering economy is entirely dependent on the continued goodwill of its lenders — but on advertising its identity as an empire in the media. Since it is only an empire because people believe it to be an empire, its fall from power will be as sudden as the world realizing what a pile of bullshit the American empire really is.
[Notre recommandation est que ce texte doit être lu avec la mention classique à l'esprit, — “Disclaimer: In accordance with 17 U.S.C. 107, this material is distributed without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this information for non-profit research and educational purposes only.”.]
An Interview with Cuban VP Ricardo Alarcon, By Saul Landau, CounterPunch, February 17, 2005
Landau: How do you compare Bush's discourse with that of past presidents? And how do you compare them with his deeds?
Alarcon: Words are not his strongest quality. I think that there are discrepancies in his second inaugural address. He talked about carrying the fire of freedom throughout the world. Without sounding rude, I'd say this is, at the very least, an over-statement. He isn't going to carry anything much further. He's already having difficulty in maintaining this fire in Iraq. If he wants to do that around the world he will not succeed. Indeed, he's not succeeding in Iraq.
Cuba is one of the places mentioned, not by him but by [Secretary of State Condoleezza] Rice the day before. I advise them not to try. It will cost a lot of lives if the Americans would attack us, more than those dying in Iraq, because this is not a divided country or society that has been suffering under a dictatorial regime. The opposite is true. You will find here a free society, finally emancipated from half a century of oppression and corruption imposed by the US. We attainted our independence in 1959 from US domination. That is a fact of history. From an ethnic or cultural point of view we are a unified country, an island on which a common culture and common identity has evolved. We are prepared to make life impossible for an invader.
But more important, what is the meaning of this policy? It is not just irrational, a product— of arrogance or impulse, not just the product of a person that doesn't read many books. That explains only his strange selection of words.
Consider Bush's simplistic view of the world; or better, take the more analytical and conscious way the CIA views it. A CIA document published a couple months ago and another in December 2000, forecasts based on research and analysis, consider scenarios of war, peace, turmoil and catastrophes. But there is a common denominator expressed in one sentence: ''US influence will continue to decline.'' By the way the CIA does not call for a change of policy, but simply states as a fact that US influence is less today than 20 or 40 years ago.
The US is not going to rise above the rest of the world. It is the sole superpower in cold war terms. But the US cannot exercise complete power over the rest of the world. Russia continues to have nuclear weapons. Economically, for example, China has emerged as a power. Recently the Chinese president toured Latin America and discussed granting Argentina a credit line of $20 billion. 40 years ago, at time of the Alliance for Progress, Kennedy offered the entire continent $20 billion — over ten year period. Cuba criticized this modest offer at the time because it was too little.
Remember, at that time this little island had established relations with that big country China. The other countries in the Latin America followed the US line and refused to recognize the existence of China. Now, 40 years later, that once non-recognized country's head of state travels throughout the region and offers much more than the US could when it was at its peak. And the US must accept that China plays that role in the world. The Vice President of China was doing a similar same thing in Africa.
Although the US remains the biggest military power, it has trouble controlling a rather small country like Iraq, which it almost destroyed by bombing and an economic embargo before the war. The reality is that US is only the most powerful entity in one area: information and communication.
It was the only dominant force at end of the Second World War, the only nuclear power. Nagasaki and Hiroshima, by the way, are the only cases in which nuclear power has been used destructively. They were not employed by a terrorist state, but by the US democracy — allegedly to defeat Japan. At that time and later, during the Marshall Plan, the US was at the top. Since then it has been declining. That does not mean it is a country in disarray, but it is going downward.
To answer this downhill slide, in my opinion, came the neo-cons who believe that by using the United States' comparatively limited economic and large military resources, but especially by exploiting their advantage in terms of communication technology and near monopoly of information media, they can reverse the trend. That is impossible. The US cannot turn the world back to 1945 and reappear as the only power in the world. The US needs to learn to live in a diverse world with different players, different ideologies and interests and not to pretend to be the owner of the planet.
Those times are gone forever. That is the way history moves. But the new conservative trend departs form traditional conservatism and tries to reverse the world's movement by being interventionist, by sending troops here and there. It is an irrational approach. It's obvious that they will not succeed but their missionary and mythological approach could lead to mistakes even more grave than Iraq.
Landau: In 1945, the US wrote the Nuremburg laws prohibiting aggressive war and also drafted the UN and OAS charters that prohibit intervention. How do you explain US behavior, initiating those laws and then violating them?
Alarcon: The US wrote all those important documents that became the foundation of the international order when it was the most important power in the world. Now that the world has been undergoing change those documents have become obstacles to US interests. At the same time, US officials try to manipulate these documents, like the Human Rights Covenants. If you listen to US officials, they are fulfilling a mission of spreading human rights throughout the world. The ideals of freedom and democracy are in the UN charter, but together with the principle of nonintervention, prohibition of war.
The only thing the UN Charter recognizes as a legitimate reason for war is self defense, a nation subjected to external aggression. Even in those circumstances you have to ask the UN to intervene. Nobody else can intervene. It's a peaceful ideal. The Charter lacks some important points. It doesn't mention colonialism, nor recognize the right of colonial people to self-determination and independence. But the UN was transformed because after WW II, no one could stop the emancipation of those countries. People became independent and then UN members. It was one of the factors that helped transform the world. How to explain how the US changed its mind after essentially drafting these documents?
Those exercising power were not happy with what happened. The reality problem is a serious one. Psychiatrists help those who have trouble dealing with reality. If you do not acknowledge reality you may be suffering from a serious disturbance. I sometimes feel that some American politicians need professional help to remember that they conceived the UN and its structure. Some American politicians now refer to the UN as something to ignore or despise. Do they forget that it was a US creation? To weaken or break this organization, which is what Bush did, was a terrible thing. The UN does not exist any more because of what happened in Iraq. This is a very serious problem. It is not true that it will reconstruct itself on new bases.
I don't want to sound rude, but that is exactly what Hitler did. He was angry with the League of Nations, with reality, after WWI. During the period between the two world wars, Germany became the European superpower, economically, technologically, militarily.
When Hitler set the goal of conquering Europe in the mid 1930s, his dream matched the reality of Europe more than who Bush seeks to conquer the entire world with the current level of US power. Hitler's irrational dream was more rational than the discourse you hear now from American leaders. Hitler made a very big mistake, trying to conquer the USSR. Stalin committed many crimes. He was a dictator, but the Soviet people stopped Hitler. It was the same mistake that Napoleon made, to try to conquer the East. If he had remained the master of western and central Europe maybe he would have continued to hold power. But he overextended himself.
But fascism was rejected by most people. And resistance to Nazism arose in many places. Our Yugoslav brothers and sisters offered heroic resistance in that period. The Nazis never conquered that country. Later on it was made to explode, not by the Nazis but by western democracies.
Landau: You use history as a guide.
Alarcon: History is important. Those who believe they can turn history back should remember the origin of previous wars. The Germans didn't accept Versailles and that was the origin of Fascism.
[Notre recommandation est que ce texte doit être lu avec la mention classique à l'esprit, — “Disclaimer: In accordance with 17 U.S.C. 107, this material is distributed without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this information for non-profit research and educational purposes only.”.]
Pour compléter d’une façon plus pratique, plus concrète, plus “terre-à-terre” et ainsi montrer que le phénomène théorique que nous décrivons a des effets évidents, multiples et universels, nous complétons les textes ci-dessus par l’aspect dit de “l’Amérique n°1”. La perception que nous avons du phénomène américaniste implique que l’Amérique est nécessairement “n°1” en toutes choses, comme nous l’avons déjà signalé. C’est une constante de l’“empire de l’information” de diffuser ce fait comme allant de soi et, en même temps, comme étant un fait objectif. Il est donc intéressant de constater que la masse énorme de puissance qu’est l’Amérique n’engendre en rien une position systématique de n°1 par rapport aux normes admises dans les divers domaines considérés. En fait, cette masse est complètement déséquilibrée, caractérisée par des supériorités monstrueuses dans certains domaines, assez peu nombreux et souvent les plus contestables sinon les plus destructeurs, et des positions médiocres dans d’autres domaines, très nombreux et jugés comme qualitativement importants.
(La “supériorité monstrueuse” de l’Amérique est dans son volume d’argent impliqué par son économie, dont pourtant fort peu lui est en propre le produit de son travail; dans ses dépenses militaires qui, lorsqu’elles sont comptabilisées justement, — autour de $750 milliards/an, bien plus que le budget officiel du Pentagone de $420 milliards — doivent sans doute dépasser toutes les autres dépenses militaires du reste du monde additionnées; dans sa population carcérale, — « The United States has about 2.1 million people behind bars — a larger proportion of the population than any other nation », selon le New York Times du 11 mars 2005; dans sa capacité polluante de l’atmosphère qui est comptabilisée pour les pays développés, selon les normes de Kyoto de 1990, à 1.348,2 millions de tonnes de carbone/an, suivi par la Russie (647), le Japon (306,7), l’Allemagne (276,6), l’Ukraine (190,9), le Royaume-Uni (159), la Pologne (130), le Canada (125,7), l’Italie (117,9) et la France (106,6).)
Ci-dessous, nous publions un texte américain, du journal The Austin Chronicle, du 5 mars, qui développe le thème: “l’Amérique est-elle n°1?”. Comme l’expose l’article en introduction à une longue série de constat montrant que l’Amérique n’est décidément pas n°1, le développement du thème de l’Amérique première en tout est omniprésent dans la presse et dans les esprits. Ce thème est évidemment un mythe. Il est bien entendu intéressant que ces questions soient soulevées en Amérique même, que cette vision critique soit américaine d’abord. Nous ne dirons jamais assez combien les premières victimes de l’américanisme, relayé par l’“empire de l’information”, sont les Américains eux-mêmes.
By Michael Ventura, the Austin Chronicle via Information Clearing House, 5 March, 2005
No concept lies more firmly embedded in our national character than the notion that the USA is “No. 1,” “the greatest.” Our broadcast media are, in essence, continuous advertisements for the brand name “America Is No. 1.” Any office seeker saying otherwise would be committing political suicide. In fact, anyone saying otherwise will be labeled “un-American. We're an “empire,” ain't we? Sure we are. An empire without a manufacturing base. An empire that must borrow $2 billion a day from its competitors in order to function. Yet the delusion is ineradicable. We're No. 1. Well...this is the country you really live in:
• The United States is 49th in the world in literacy (the New York Times, Dec. 12, 2004).
• The United States ranked 28th out of 40 countries in mathematical literacy (NYT, Dec. 12, 2004).
•Twenty percent of Americans think the sun orbits the earth. Seventeen percent believe the earth revolves around the sun once a day (The Week, Jan. 7, 2005).
• « The International Adult Literacy Survey...found that Americans with less than nine years of education 'score worse than virtually all of the other countries » (Jeremy Rifkin's superbly documented book The European Dream: How Europe's Vision of the Future Is Quietly Eclipsing the American Dream, p.78).
• Our workers are so ignorant and lack so many basic skills that American businesses spend $30 billion a year on remedial training (NYT, Dec. 12, 2004). No wonder they relocate elsewhere!
• « The European Union leads the U.S. in...the number of science and engineering graduates; public research and development (R&D) expenditures; and new capital raised (The European Dream, p.70).
• Europe surpassed the United States in the mid-1990s as the largest producer of scientific literature » (The European Dream, p.70).
• Nevertheless, Congress cut funds to the National Science Foundation. The agency will issue 1,000 fewer research grants this year (NYT, Dec. 21, 2004).
• Foreign applications to U.S. grad schools declined 28 percent last year. Foreign student enrollment on all levels fell for the first time in three decades, but increased greatly in Europe and China. Last year Chinese grad-school graduates in the U.S. dropped 56 percent, Indians 51 percent, South Koreans 28 percent (NYT, Dec. 21, 2004). We're not the place to be anymore.
• The World Health Organization « ranked the countries of the world in terms of overall health performance, and the U.S. [was]... 37th. » In the fairness of health care, we're 54th. « The irony is that the United States spends more per capita for health care than any other nation in the world » (The European Dream, pp.79-80). Pay more, get lots, lots less.
• « The U.S. and South Africa are the only two developed countries in the world that do not provide health care for all their citizens » (The European Dream, p. 80). Excuse me, but since when is South Africa a “developed” country? Anyway, that's the company we're keeping.
• Lack of health insurance coverage causes 18,000 unnecessary American deaths a year. (That's six times the number of people killed on 9/11.) (NYT, Jan. 12, 2005.)
• « U.S. childhood poverty now ranks 22nd, or second to last, among the developed nations. Only Mexico scores lower » (The European Dream, p.81). Been to Mexico lately? Does it look “developed” to you? Yet it's the only “developed” country to score lower in childhood poverty.
• Twelve million American families — more than 10 percent of all U.S. households — « continue to struggle, and not always successfully, to feed themselves. » Families that « had members who actually went hungry at some point last year » numbered 3.9 million (NYT, Nov. 22, 2004).
• The United States is 41st in the world in infant mortality. Cuba scores higher (NYT, Jan. 12, 2005).
• Women are 70 percent more likely to die in childbirth in America than in Europe (NYT, Jan. 12, 2005).
• The leading cause of death of pregnant women in this country is murder (CNN, Dec. 14, 2004).
• « Of the 20 most developed countries in the world, the U.S. was dead last in the growth rate of total compensation to its workforce in the 1980s.... In the 1990s, the U.S. average compensation growth rate grew only slightly, at an annual rate of about 0.1 percent » (The European Dream, p.39). Yet Americans work longer hours per year than any other industrialized country, and get less vacation time.
• « Sixty-one of the 140 biggest companies on the Global Fortune 500 rankings are European, while only 50 are U.S. companies » (The European Dream, p.66). « In a recent survey of the world's 50 best companies, conducted by Global Finance, all but one were European » (The European Dream, p.69).
• « Fourteen of the 20 largest commercial banks in the world today are European.... In the chemical industry, the European company BASF is the world's leader, and three of the top six players are European. In engineering and construction, three of the top five companies are European.... The two others are Japanese. Not a single American engineering and construction company is included among the world's top nine competitors. In food and consumer products, Nestlé and Unilever, two European giants, rank first and second, respectively, in the world. In the food and drugstore retail trade, two European companies...are first and second, and European companies make up five of the top ten. Only four U.S. companies are on the list » (The European Dream, p.68).
• The United States has lost 1.3 million jobs to China in the last decade (CNN, Jan. 12, 2005).
• U.S. employers eliminated 1 million jobs in 2004 (The Week, Jan. 14, 2005).
• Three million six hundred thousand Americans ran out of unemployment insurance last year; 1.8 million — one in five — unemployed workers are jobless for more than six months (NYT, Jan. 9, 2005).
• Japan, China, Taiwan, and South Korea hold 40 percent of our government debt. (That's why we talk nice to them.) « By helping keep mortgage rates from rising, China has come to play an enormous and little-noticed role in sustaining the American housing boom » (NYT, Dec. 4, 2004). Read that twice. We owe our housing boom to China, because they want us to keep buying all that stuff they manufacture.
• Sometime in the next 10 years Brazil will probably pass the U.S. as the world's largest agricultural producer. Brazil is now the world's largest exporter of chickens, orange juice, sugar, coffee, and tobacco. Last year, Brazil passed the U.S. as the world's largest beef producer. (Hear that, you poor deluded cowboys?) As a result, while we bear record trade deficits, Brazil boasts a $30 billion trade surplus (NYT, Dec. 12, 2004).
• As of last June, the U.S. imported more food than it exported (NYT, Dec. 12, 2004).
• Bush: 62,027,582 votes. Kerry: 59,026,003 votes. Number of eligible voters who didn't show up: 79,279,000 (NYT, Dec. 26, 2004). That's more than a third. Way more. If more than a third of Iraqis don't show for their election, no country in the world will think that election legitimate.
• One-third of all U.S. children are born out of wedlock. One-half of all U.S. children will live in a one-parent house (CNN, Dec. 10, 2004).
• « Americans are now spending more money on gambling than on movies, videos, DVDs, music, and books combined » (The European Dream, p.28).
• « Nearly one out of four Americans [believe] that using violence to get what they want is acceptable » (The European Dream, p.32).
• Forty-three percent of Americans think torture is sometimes justified, according to a PEW Poll (Associated Press, Aug. 19, 2004).
• « Nearly 900,000 children were abused or neglected in 2002, the last year for which such data are available » (USA Today, Dec. 21, 2004).
• « The International Association of Chiefs of Police said that cuts by the [Bush] administration in federal aid to local police agencies have left the nation more vulnerable than ever » (USA Today, Nov. 17, 2004).
No. 1? In most important categories we're not even in the Top 10 anymore. Not even close. The USA is “No. 1” in nothing but weaponry, consumer spending, debt, and delusion.
[Notre recommandation est que ce texte doit être lu avec la mention classique à l'esprit, — “Disclaimer: In accordance with 17 U.S.C. 107, this material is distributed without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this information for non-profit research and educational purposes only.”.]
Forum — Charger les commentaires
-
