#vichy journalism

[nicklloydnow]

“I, the intellectual

I acted perfectly consciously, in the middle of my life, according to the idea I had formed of the duties of an intellectual.

The intellectual, the writer, the artist is not a citizen like any other. He has duties and rights which are superior to those of others.

This is why I took a bold decision; but in moments of turmoil the average individual is in the same situation as the artist. In those moments the State does not provide any definite direction or any aim which is sufficiently elevated. This is how it was in 1940. Marshal Pétain offered us unity, but that was all: it was a shadow void of content. So some brave men went to Paris, others to London.

Those who chose London have been more fortunate; but for the time being the last word has not been said.

I went to Paris and, together with a few other people, we decided to take it on ourselves to go beyond strictly national interests, to brave general opinion, to be in a minority regarded with hesitation, doubt, distrust, and, finally, to be cursed when our luck turned at El Alamein and Stalingrad.

It is the duty of the intellectual, or at least of some of them, to go beyond the event, to take risks, to try out the roads of History. If they choose the wrong moment, it is too bad. They have performed a necessary mission, that of being outside the crowd - whether before, behind, or beside, is of no consequence: what matters is to be outside. Tomorrow is not made of what one side has seen today. Tomorrow is made both of what the majority have seen and what the minority have seen.

A nation is not a single voice, it is a concert. There must always be a minority; and we were that minority. We lost, we have been stigmatised as traitors: that is right. You would have been the traitors if your cause had been defeated.

And France would have been no less France; Europe, Europe.

I am one of those intellectuals whose duty is to be in the minority.

Minority! We are several minorities. There is no majority. That of 1940 soon dissolved, and yours, too, will dissolve.

The resistance

So many minorities: The old democracy

The communists

I am proud of having been one of those intellectuals. Later people will lean over us in order to hear a sound different to the common sound. And this weak sound will grow louder.

I did not want to be an intellectual who prudently measures his words. I could have written in secret (I had thought of doing so), written in the free zone, abroad.

No, one must assume one's responsibilities, join impure groups, acknowledge that political law which obliges us to accept contemptible or odious allies. We must dirty our feet, at least, but not our hands. And this is what I did. My feet are dirty, but my hands are clean.

I did not indulge in any activity in these groups. But I joined them so that you could judge me today, so that you could pronounce a common, vulgar sentence. Judge me, then, since you are the judges or the jurors.

I put myself at your mercy. But I am sure of escaping from you in the long run. I am sure of finding a place of my own, in time, in the distant future.

But, when the time comes, you must judge me in full. That is why I am here.

You will not escape me, I will not escape you.

Be true to the pride of the Resistance as I am true to the pride of the Collaborators. Do not cheat me any more than I am cheating you. Sentence me to death.

No half measures, now. Thought had become easy and it has now become difficult again. Do not allow the former facility to return.

Yes, I am a traitor. Yes, I worked with the enemy. I offered the enemy French intelligence. It is no fault of mine if this enemy was not intelligent.

Yes, I am no ordinary patriot, no limited nationalist: I am an internationalist.

I am not only a Frenchman, I am a European.

You are Europeans too, whether you know it or not. But we played and I lost.

I demand the death penalty.”

[dostoyevsky-official]

not only did the NYT propagate anti-trans stories feeding today's EO ban and refuse to acknowledge elon's nazi salute, they went vichy-media mode by banning paul krugman from the op-eds:

Last month I retired from my position as an opinion writer at the New York Times—a job I had done for 25 years. Despite the encomiums issued by the Times, it was not a happy departure. [...] I believe that the story of why I left says something important about the current state of legacy journalism.

[...] During my first 24 years at the Times, from 2000 to 2024, I faced very few editorial constraints on how and what I wrote. For most of that period my draft would go straight to a copy editor, who would sometimes suggest that I make some changes — for example, softening an assertion that arguably went beyond provable facts, or redrafting a passage the editor didn’t quite understand, and which readers probably wouldn’t either. But the editing was very light; over the years several copy editors jokingly complained that I wasn’t giving them anything to do, because I came in at length, with clean writing and with back-up for all factual assertions.

This light-touch editing prevailed even when I took positions that made Times leadership very nervous. My early and repeated criticisms of Bush’s push to invade Iraq led to several tense meetings with management. In those meetings, I was urged to tone it down. Yet the columns themselves were published as I wrote them. And in the end, I believe the Times — which eventually apologized for its role in promoting the war — was glad that I had taken an anti-invasion stand. I believe that it was my finest hour.

So I was dismayed to find out this past year, when the current Times editors and I began to discuss our differences, that current management and top editors appear to have been completely unaware of this important bit of the paper’s history and my role in it.

[...] In 2024, the editing of my regular columns went from light touch to extremely intrusive. I went from one level of editing to three, with an immediate editor and his superior both weighing in on the column, and sometimes doing substantial rewrites before it went to copy. These rewrites almost invariably involved toning down, introducing unnecessary qualifiers, and, as I saw it, false equivalence. I would rewrite the rewrites to restore the essence of my original argument. But as I told Charles Kaiser, I began to feel that I was putting more effort—especially emotional energy—into fixing editorial damage than I was into writing the original articles. And the end result of the back and forth often felt flat and colorless.

One more thing: I faced attempts from others to dictate what I could (and could not) write about, usually in the form, “You’ve already written about that,” as if it never takes more than one column to effectively cover a subject. If that had been the rule during my earlier tenure, I never would have been able to press the case for Obamacare, or against Social Security privatization, and—most alarmingly—against the Iraq invasion. Moreover, all Times opinion writers were banned from engaging in any kind of media criticism. Hardly the kind of rule that would allow an opinion writer to state, “we are being lied into war.”

I felt that my byline was being used to create a storyline that was no longer mine. So I left.

That’s my story. What are the broader implications?

[...] What I felt during my final year at the Times was a push toward blandness, toward avoiding saying anything too directly in a way that might get some people (particularly on the right) riled up. I guess my question is, if those are the ground rules, why even bother having an opinion section?

[...] On a somewhat different issue, it became clear to me that the management I was dealing with didn’t understand the difference between having an opinion and having an informed, factually sourced opinion. When the newsletter was canceled, I tried to point out that I was almost the only regular opinion writer doing policy. Their response was to point to other writers who often expressed views about policy, economic and otherwise. I tried in vain to explain that there’s a difference between having opinions about economics and knowing how to read C.B.O. analyses and recent research papers. It all fell on deaf ears.

[girlactionfigure]

Righteous Among the Nations 

 Ireland

Mary Elmes

Mary Elisabeth Elmes was born in Cork, Ireland, in 1909. When the Spanish Civil War broke out she decided to go to Spain, where she was involved in humanitarian aid as part of a Quaker organization, the American Friends Service Committee.

In 1939 she joined the Republican refugees who fled to France, and became responsible for all Quaker activity in Perpignan.

The Fall of France in 1940 resulted in great challenges for the relief workers. With her staff significantly reduced - the British workers on her team were now enemy aliens and had to leave the country - Elmes had to face the growing plight of Jewish refugees who were interned in detention camps in the Pyrenees region.

Elmes joined forces with the Jewish OSE organization and especially with Dr. Joseph Weill and Andrée Salomon, who were active in the rescue of Jews.

Until mid-August 1942 children could be legally released from the camps, but on August 11 deportations of Jews from the camp of Rivesaltes began, first to Drancy near Paris, and from there to Auschwitz.

From that time until the camp closed on 25 November 1942, the authorities no longer released children from the camp. Elmes was fully aware of the meaning of the deportations.

Lois Gunden (an American Mennonite who was recognized as Righteous Among the Nations in 2012 for rescuing children in the same region) wrote in her journal: "Mary informed me about the return of Polish and German Jews to Poland where death and starvation awaits them".

Braving the danger, Elmes and her Jewish colleagues smuggled children out of the camp and brought them to safe places.

Two of the children rescued by Mary Elisabeth Elmes were Ronald Freund (today Friend) and his brother Michael.

Their parents, Drs. Hans and Eva Freund fled from Germany to Italy when Hitler came to power in 1933. They lived in Milan, where their son Michael was born in 1936.

When the anti-Jewish laws were enacted in Italy, the family fled to France and settled in Paris. When Germany invaded France, they fled once again, this time to the South of France.

In 1942 they tried to flee to Switzerland but failed; and on 4 September 1942 they were interned in the camp of Rivesaltes. According to a letter Mary Elmes wrote to the American Friends Service Committee in Marseille, she convinced Dr. Freund to take the two children out of the camp.

"He has signed the necessary discharge, confiding the children to our care". Michael and Ronald were taken to a children's home in Vernet les Bains and then to the St. Louis Hospital in Perpignan.

Hans Freund was deported to Majdanek on 4 March 1943, where he perished. The mother survived the war and was reunited with her sons after liberation.

In February 1943 Mary Elmes was arrested by the authorities because of her resistance to the German occupiers and the Vichy government.

She was first held in Toulouse, and later taken to Fresnes prison on the outskirts of Paris. She was nevertheless released six months after her arrest. She continued her humanitarian work until the end of the war and the liberation of France. She lived in France until she passed away in 2003.

May their memories be a blessing.

Documenting Anti-Semitism

[swedesinstockholm]

12 août

ça fait deux fois que des filles bruyantes qui parlent français passent devant moi avec leur pédalo et ça me donne envie de faire du pédalo avec quelqu'un et d'être légère moi aussi. y a pas de pédalo à une place. je crois que j'ai moins de mal à être légère quand je suis avec quelqu'un que quand je suis seule. quand je suis seule je pèse plus lourd. mais j'ai la flemme de faire des efforts pour être sociale. f. m'a dit qu'elle irait à la mer en octobre quand jo/johanna aurait des vacances, tout le monde a deux prénoms dans son entourage selon son genre du jour, j'ai dit c'est qui jo? un nouveau membre de votre polycule? (oui). je sais pas comment elle fait. l'autre jour avec n. on parlait de mon genre, je sais plus pourquoi. je lui disais que je me sentais pas particulièrement féminine et que j'aimais pas les formes de mon corps, que j'aimerais avoir un corps plus neutre. elle m'a demandé si j'aimerais utiliser les pronoms non-binaires et j'ai dit ohlala non i don't mind being a girl! c'est juste une histoire de corps. mais c'est jamais juste une histoire de corps. j'ai jamais aimé mes seins par exemple. quand ils ont commencé à pousser j'en voulais pas et je refusais catégoriquement de porter un soutien-gorge. je sais pas si c'était par refus d'avoir des seins ou par refus de grandir mais c'était un refus. maman me disait lara tu dois en mettre sinon t'auras la poitrine qui tombe, mais je préférais mettre des tshirts serrés en me disant que ça ferait le job de soutien, et maintenant j'ai la poitrine qui tombe et je l'aime pas. même si samedi soir j'ai fait un photo shoot nue devant ma webcam et je me suis excitée toute seule.

quand j'avais parlé de mon soupçon d'abus sexuel à maman elle m'avait dit que j'avais toujours eu une relation de dégoût avec mon corps. que j'avais toujours refusé de mettre des tampons par exemple. je sais pas à quel point tout ça est lié. à supposer qu'il se soit vraiment passé quelque chose. ça me fait penser à une scène de la série split où une des filles pleure pendant le sexe et puis elle raconte à son amante qu'elle est devenue lesbienne après avoir été violée par un homme. je me demande combien d'histoires de préférence sexuelle et d'identification de genre sont liées à des histoires d'abus sexuel.

hier matin je suis retournée au vide-grenier au maybachufer parce que c'est pas loin et parce que je rêve de trouver une robe en vichy rose pâle. j'en avais une quand j'étais petite. en fait mon identité de genre n'est ni féminine ni masculine, je veux juste mettre les mêmes habits et avoir le même corps que quand j'étais petite. un corps non marqué fémininement. un corps libre. libre de me promener nue. libre de bouger. non encombré par toute la gêne et le dégoût qui s'y sont nichés à l'adolescence. quand j'étais petite je pouvais danser où je voulais et le grand figement n'existait pas. je parlais à qui je voulais je chantais partout le monde était à moi. je m'en rappelle pas, mais j'imagine. c'est ce que maman me raconte. c'est ce que je vois sur les photos. n. m'a dit qu'elle se rappelait que quand elle était petite il lui tardait de grandir parce qu'elle se sentait pas libre, justement, en tant qu'enfant. et peut être que je me sentais pas du tout libre en réalité moi non plus, j'en sais rien. mais je sais que j'avais pas particulièrement envie de grandir. vers la fin de l'enfance en tout cas. enfin non, même ça c'est faussé parce que pour écrire mon texte sur l'été 2004 y a quelques mois j'ai relu le journal de mes treize ans et je disais que j'avais envie d'avoir seize ans et de rencontrer un joli garçon dans le tram et de lui donner mon numéro. donc j'en sais rien. tout ce que je sais c'est que hier au marché j'avais envie d'acheter une robe rouge laura ashley que j'aurais pu porter à six ans et un minishort en coton jaune avec des étoiles mauves clairement des années 90 et aussi des grands tshirts et des grandes chemises d'homme.

dans un documentaire d'alejandro jodorowsky dans lequel il faisait vivre à des gens une seconde naissance, il disait que les gens avec des traumas restaient parfois bloqués à l'âge mental qu'ils avaient à l'époque où le trauma s'est produit. ça m'avait paru évident. je suis une enfant de sept ans. dans ma relation avec maman, dans ma relation avec la maison, dans ma relation avec mon corps, dans mon refus de vivre ma propre vie, jusqu'à mon style vestimentaire putain.

finalement j'ai acheté qu'une chemise en vichy bleu ciel à trois euros que j'ai regretté d'avoir acheté cinq minutes plus tard en me rendant compte qu'elle était 40% polyester. après j'ai fait du pain, une lessive, je me suis rasé les jambes après plus d'un mois de jambes poilues et j'ai affronté le ménage de la salle de bain. ça va, j'en suis pas morte. maman m'a appelée pour me raconter sa journée et me parler de la météo mais jamais elle me demande ce que je fais moi ou comment je me sens. elle m'appelle juste pour me raconter ses virées au centre de recyclage et à la piscine et pour me dire le temps qu'il a fait le temps qu'il fait là et le temps qu'il fera demain. je vois ces vacances à la mer comme une bouée de sauvetage à la fin de mon été, le rêve à atteindre au bout de l'enfer, mais ma détresse berlinoise m'a un peu fait oublier que maman était toujours maman. je suis même pas en détresse en plus. je suis en apprentissage. aujourd'hui j'ai fait des progrès: j'ai pensé à prendre un snack dans mon sac, j'ai pas trop marché (j'ai pas bougé du parc), j'ai fait des longues pauses pour écrire tranquille, et j'ai trouvé des wc pour faire pipi! prochaine étape: penser à prendre une serviette pour m'allonger dans l'herbe.

[sethshead]

Interesting. Nowhere is it mentioned how the world betrayed Bloch in his time of need. He returned to the French army as an officer during the Second World War, but after the collaborationist Vichy regime capitulated to Germany, the US rejected his application for asylum.

Unlike most Jews the Vichy regime allowed him to retain his teaching posts, but its antisemitism forced Bloch to resign as editor of prestigious journals. In the end, it was Vichy’s Milice that arrested him and handed him over to the Gestapo for interrogation, torture, and execution.

Let France never celebrate Marc Bloch as a hero without being reminded of the hand France played in his persecution and murder.

[nodynasty4us]

Speaking of word choices, the ones I would use to describe the New York Times would be "enablers" and "collaborators," worthy of any Vichy state. I'm certain that if Trump wins, [executive editor Joe] Kahn and his fellow editors will be lined up on the street as Trump in his motorcade whizzes past, streams of tears falling down their proud faces as they wave their little MAGA flags. If Trump is feeling benign, he might let the Times continue to operate as Le Petit Journal filled with his propaganda of "Work, Family and Fatherland;" but more than likely given Trump's obsession with revenge, another of his deficiencies I guess, he'll most likely shut the "Great Gray Lady" down and send its employees to Trump Re-Education Relocation Camp/Gulag. Mr. Kahn, if we're sent to the same Camp/Gulag, I'll be sure to stop by and say "Hi." Perhaps you can regale me about how fair and balanced you were with your coverage of the election.

D.E. in Lancaster, PA, in Electoral-vote.com

[if-you-fan-a-fire]

"The ideological climate of the defeat of 1940 and the establishment of the French State are related in many aspects to the climate that developed in reaction to Sedan and during the years that followed the defeat of the Paris Commune. For writers close to the National Revolution, the Commune was viewed in the same way as the Popular Front. A propaganda journal published by the new regime stated:

It is a constant law of history that defeats result in revolutions. The French had not forgotten the bloody disturbances of the commune of 1871… . France was going to add even more misfortune to those that already overwhelmed it. It was to be feared that, following the bent to which odious propaganda had accustomed them, minds would turn toward a bloody, fratricidal fight. . . . The Marshal’s government successfully confronted and dealt with this danger. Without any-movement, without one cry of dissension, the political revolution was brought about.

Henri Massis, the officer responsible for press relations to General Huntziger at the time, stated plainly that the first news of the armistice had evoked the memory of 1871 and the fear of a new Commune. Thus, the primary task of the armistice army was to maintain order. The defeat would appear to many intellectuals as the final blow to 'French decadence.’ The themes of national decline, collective fault, and biological and political sins echoed one another in an obsessive litany during the period following June 1940, just as during the 1870s. Maurras even suggested anthologizing Renan’s La Reforme intellectuelle et morale, which he felt might render “a great service to the French people of 1940, since those of 1870 failed to take proper note of it.” The precepts and maxims of the Marshal—the “guide in possession of incomparable and almost superhuman wisdom and intellectual control” — functioned like calls to self-flagellation, and many would lend their skills to an attempt at exegesis. Georges Bernanos offered a gripping expression of the political bases and effects of the encounter between the message of the defeat, spoken by the prophet, and the “expectation” of those who saw the National Revolution as a national opportunity:

All that is called the Right, which ranges from the self-styled monarchists of the Action francaise to the self-styled national socialist radicals and includes big industry, big business, the high clergy, the Academies, and the officers’ staff spontaneously united and cohered around the disaster of my country like a swarm of bees around their queen. I am not saying that they deliberately wished the disaster. They were waiting for it. This monstrous anticipation passes judgment on them.

- Francine Muel-Dreyfus, Vichy and the Eternal Feminine: A Contribution to a Political Sociology of Gender. Translated by Kathleen A. Johnson. Durham: Duke University Press, 2001. p. 15-16.

[alain-keler]

Mercredi 21 juin 2023.

Fête de la musique, place Saint-Georges. Petit oubli. Un orchestre et une femme qui danse devant mon café préféré, ou tout au moins celui ou je donne mes rendez-vous.

 Cette photo aurait dû paraître jeudi dernier, le journal d’un photographe étant quotidien, et pas un hebdo comme le journal du dimanche. 

  Pourquoi je mentionne le JDD ? Parce que le nouveau propriétaire du groupe Vivendi, Vincent Bolloré a nommé à la tête de la rédaction Geoffroy Lejeune, ancien rédacteur en chef du très droitier (voire extrême droite) magazine Valeurs Actuelles. 

  Comme l’écrit dans son éditorial daté d’aujourd’hui le journal le Monde « Un journal est un écosystème fragile qui tire sa crédibilité non pas d’une objectivité qui lui sera toujours contestée, mais de sa capacité à chercher une cohérence éditoriale à l’abri des influences extérieures. Lorsque le projet consiste à figer les rapports de force au sein d’une rédaction pour jouer un camp politique contre un autre, l’information menace à tout moment de basculer dans les polémiques stériles, les vérités alternatives et une propagande qui sont aux antipodes de l’information. Pour le JDD le risque d’un tel basculement est bien réel »…

   Valeurs actuelles sous la rédaction en chef de Geoffroy Lejeune a soutenu pendant la campagne présidentielle Eric Zemmour, l’homme qui a osé dire que sous Pétain les juifs français de la zone dite libre (Vichy) ne furent pas déportés dans les camps de la mort.*

  Je reprends encore l’éditorial du Monde : Les « « unes » de valeurs Actuelles ciblant la mafia Soros, en référence au milliardaire philanthrope juif Georges Soros, et le récit de sept pages « « Obono l’Africaine » dans lequel l’élue de la France insoumise est dépeinte en esclave avec un collier en fer au cou**. 

 Un homme, fut-il milliardaire comme Vincent Bolloré ne doit pas pouvoir influencer l’opinion publique avec les journaux, magazines, radios et chaines de télévision qu’il possède, ou est sur le point de posséder. Nous avons un très bon exemple de ce qu’et la presse dans un pays comme le Russie, où les journalistes opposants ont dû s’exiler pour faire leur métier.

  Vous avez bien compris que ce qui n’est pas le cas du Journal d’un photographe, indépendant et fier de l’être.

Tout ceci valait bien une parution avec une semaine de retard !

* Deux grands- mères, un grand père, une sœur de ma mère âgée de treize ans, une sœur et un frère de mon père, tous juifs français ne revinrent jamais des camps de l’indicible…

** Le directeur de la rédaction et un journaliste furent condamnés pour « injure à caractère raciste ».

[claudehenrion]

Un géant oublié : Georges Bernanos

   Les lecteurs de ce Blog croisent souvent ce nom dans ces lignes, et ils savent mon admiration pour l'homme (écrivain et fan de moto) et pour son œuvre. Avec l'explosion des progrès techniques (tous ne sont pas heureux, mais beaucoup ne sont pas ''que mauvais''), son livre ''La France contre les robots'' (1947) est une mine de réflexions et d'analyses ��et de craintes, plus d'actualité que jamais. Bien que je le revisite assez fréquemment, j'avais oublié son anniversaire, le 20 février. Même avec un mois et demi de retard, il mérite que l’on se souvienne de lui...

Pour Georges Bernanos (1888--1948), la France est le dépositaire historique des valeurs humanistes issues du christianisme, dont elle est une garante (est-ce pour cela que je l'aime tellement ?). Parfois royaliste, cet anticonformiste de droite (ceci expliquant aussi cela !), aimait pourtant l'esprit de révolte de 1789, ce ''grand élan [...] inspiré par une foi quasi-religieuse dans l'homme'' et il était, dit Jacques Julliard, ''un rempart de la démocratie, même à son corps défendant''. Paradoxalement, il considérait que ''le nationalisme déshonore l'idée de patrie'', comme tout excès peut, en fin de compte, nuire à la cause qu'il prétend défendre..

Dans ''Les Grands Cimetières sous la lune'', ce catholique fervent a pris position contre Franco et contre l'attitude conciliante de l’Église d'Espagne à son égard (ce qui prouve que je peux admirer un homme sans adopter toutes ses idées !). Son besoin de liberté l'a amené, lorsqu'on lui a proposé la Légion d'honneur, à trois occasions, à la refuser, définitivement. Et lorsque l'Académie française a voulu l'accueillir, il a fait cette réponse merveilleuse : ''Quand je n'aurai plus qu'une paire de fesses pour penser, j'irai l'asseoir à l'Académie''.... ce qui est bien loin des danses du ventre déshonorantes que certains de nos contemporains (d'ailleurs peu ''temporains'') sont prêts à faire, sans rougir, pour une rosette rouge, sur canapé.

Une constante, chez Georges Bernanos, est l'exploration du combat spirituel entre le Bien et le Mal, qu'il va approfondir à travers le prêtre catholique du Journal d'un curé de campagne (1936), tendu vers le salut de l'âme de ses paroissiens perdus..  Et s'il n'hésitait pas à faire parfois appel au divin et au surnaturel, il ne diabolisait jamais ses ''ennemis'' : comme le faisait Mauriac, il voulait comprendre ce qui se passe dans une âme, même hostile, derrière les apparences et les situations.

Bernanos disait qu'il ''était né avec la Grande Guerre’’. Celle de 1939-1945 va le marquer aussi, mais comme auteur (Des romans aussi peuvent mourir à la guerre). Révolté par les accords de Munich, il fustigera Vichy (ce ''promoteur d'une France potagère''), et s'exilera alors au Brésil. Eloigné des combats et du ''quotidien'', il se projette dans le futur, et anticipe une ''ère des techniciens'' --qu'il juge inévitable et qui lui fait très peur. Et un peu comme il avait exprimé une grande aversion envers l'Allemagne de Hitler, il va éprouver une grande méfiance envers les Etats-Unis de Roosevelt et leur puissance matérielle si immense que sa finalité –telle qu'il la prévoit-- ne peut être qu'hégémonique. Le futur lui donnera pleinement raison : aujourd'hui encore, nous portons témoignage de l'ampleur de sa  vision. Hélas !

Gaulliste sans être ''suiviste'', il va établir, depuis Rio de Janeiro, des liens avec le Comité Central de la France Libre, qui va relayer ses idées et ses écrits dans la presse internationale. Et c’est aux membres de ce Comité qu’il  enverra, en mars 1944, un manuscrit, l'Hymne à la liberté, qu'ils lui conseilleront d’intituler ''La France contre les robots'' qui a payé son retour en Europe, en juin 1945 (et plus, ensuite !) 

A son retour en France, Bernanos est écœuré par l'épuration et par l'opportunisme qui, dit-il, détruisent le pays. Chroniqueur à La Bataille et à Combat, il lance un avertissement solennel aux français : avec l'avènement de l'ère atomique et la crise générale de la civilisation, la France est en danger de perdre sa place (prévision qui s'est vérifiée), en même temps que son rôle primordial vis-à-vis de l'humanisme chrétien (ce que les croyants voient et que le monde nie). La Liberté pour quoi faire ? et La France contre les robots sont deux cris d'alerte, lancés pour mettre la France en garde contre les dangers de son inconséquence devant des progrès techniques effrénés qu'elle ne pourra bientôt plus maîtriser.

''La France contre les robots'' (1947) est en fait un avertissement solennel : ''le machinisme –comme on disait alors-- limitera la liberté des hommes et perturbera leur mode de pensée''. Pour Bernanos,  l'idolâtrie de la technique des anglo-saxons va détruire notre civilisation : la libre entreprise n'est pas synonyme de bonheur pour l'humanité, car ''il y aura toujours plus à gagner à satisfaire les vices de l'homme que ses besoins''. Et 75 ans plus tard, envahi par les drogues assassines, notre Etat moribond trouve de l'argent pour finir de détruire les âmes des enfants... déjà mises en lambeaux par les stupides idées woke et greta thunbergistes.

''La France contre les robots'' est une critique de la civilisation des machines et d'autres formes d'asservissement  à venir, une alerte à la France, et au monde à travers elle, sur une menace d' aliénation de l'esprit par la technique et l'argent : convaincu que le monde moderne est une ''conspiration contre toute espèce de vie intérieure'' (NDLR : ce qui fait de lui le premier ''complotiste''. J'étais fier d'en être un, ce voisinage m'enchante !) , il dénonce ''la dépossession progressive des États au profit des forces de l’Industrie et de la Banque, en un avènement triomphal de l’argent, qui renversera l’ordre des valeurs humaines et mettra en péril tout l’essentiel de notre civilisation''. Nous y sommes, hélas ! Lui l'avait prévu, dès 1947... et nous devons reconnaître qu'il avait ''tout juste''. C’était un prophète !

Cet immense visionnaire a écrit notre ''roman d'un français de 2023'' et a ''vu'', avec un demi-siècle d'avance, tout ce qui nous désole, nous menace et nous assassine, aujourd'hui. Par exemple, lorsque Bernanos prédit, dans ''18 leçons sur la société industrielle'', que la multiplication des machines développera l'esprit de cupidité, peut-on lui donner tort, ''le monde étant devenu ce que nous voyons''? La France contre les robots annonce une tyrannie du Nombre, jusque là inenvisageable :  ''Le Nombre, écrit-il, est une infection lente qui crée une société à son image, une société d'êtres non pas égaux, mais pareils, seulement reconnaissables à leurs empreintes digitales''. Trois-quarts de siècle plus tard, le Nombre, omniprésent, indispensable, mortifère, s'appelle ''Big Data'', et nous asservit de plus en plus.

Dès la fin de la Guerre, Bernanos a tracé les grandes lignes de ce que, en prophète, il devinait comme devant être le monde de demain, devenu le nôtre, et il avait vu juste sur à peu près tout, Soixante-quinze ans plus tard, nous savons qu'il avait compris avant tout le monde que ''à partir du moment où on raconte que le salut de l'homme peut être ici-bas, toute vie contemplative se limite à une fuite ou à un refus". Certains ont appelé cette vision : ''l'écologie spirituelle'' : ''Un prophète n'est vraiment prophète qu'après sa mort. Jusque-là ce n'est qu'un homme pas toujours très fréquentable. Mais l'avenir ne se subit pas : on le fait''.

Et en écrivant, en 1947 : ''Devant les moyens dont dispose le système, un esprit ne peut rester libre qu'au prix d'un effort continuel. Qui de nous peut être sûr de résister à tous les slogans et à la tentation d'opposer un slogan à un autre ?'', il a diagnostiqué le mal mortel de nos sociétés, où le dialogue est devenu une denrée rare, et où l'insulte et le qualificatif dit déshonorant se croient des arguments.

Georges Bernanos avait, seul à l'avoir fait, deviné à quoi ressemblerait le monde dont nous subissons la folie, si différent de tout ce qui l'a précédé. Il en a dressé un portrait d'une cruauté que personne n'oserait faire sienne, aujourd'hui... sauf un fou ou un blogueur (limité par définition à une diffusion ''confidentielle''). Est-ce pour ça (outre la moto !) que je l'aime tellement ?

H-Cl.

[plaques-memoire]

Plaque en hommage à : Valery Larbaud

Type : Lieu de résidence

Adresse : 71 rue du Cardinal Lemoine, 75005 Paris, France

Date de pose : 2002

Texte : Valery LARBAUD (1881-1957), poète, romancier, essayiste, traducteur, vécut ici de 1919 à 1937

Quelques précisions : Valery Larbaud (1881-1957) est un homme de lettres français. Ayant beaucoup voyagé dès sa jeunesse, polyglotte, il écrit dès son enfance et son adolescence. Son œuvre la plus célèbre est Fermina Márquez, un roman publié en 1911 et qui, en 1950, est classé par le journal Le Figaro parmi les douze meilleurs romans de la première moitié du XXème siècle. Il accueille chez lui, au début du XXème siècle, James Joyce, auteur d'Ulysse, qu'une plaque commémorative apposée à la façade du même immeuble honore également. Il est décoré de la Légion d'honneur (Chevalier en 1925, Officier en 1933, Commandeur en 1950). Foudroyé par une attaque cérébrale, il passe les vingt-deux dernières années de sa vie en fauteuil roulant avant de mourir, sans descendance, à Vichy en 1957.

[disruptiveempathy]

If the ICC [Indian Claims Court] accomplished anything of positive utility, it was, according to Vine Deloria, Jr., to ‘update the legal parity’ of Indian land rights by ‘clear[ing] out the underbrush’ that had obscured an accurate view of ownership of the United States. Thereby, it can be said to have set the stage for the resolution of title questions, but not in any defensible legal, moral, or ethical sense to have ‘settled’ them. As things stand, such monetary awards as were made by the ICC—or the court of claims, for that matter—serve only as payment against ‘back rent’ accrued through usage of Native property to which the United States has never held title. This has led many observers to conclude, along with American Indian Movement leader Russell Means, that the United States’ portion of Native North America continues to be ‘illegally occupied in exactly the same way France and Poland were illegally occupied by Germany during the Second World War.’ In Means’ view, post hoc US awards of cash compensation for the expropriation of Native territory ‘no more puts things right than if the nazis had issued a check to the Vichy government in exchange for France after the fall of Paris.’ Anyone suggesting otherwise ‘is either ignorant of the facts, delusional or playing an elaborate game of charades to try and hide the truth.’

—Ward Churchill, from "Charades, Anyone? The Indian Claims Commission in Context," in the American Indian Culture and Research Journal

[mariacallous]

This week, former contributors to the sports blog Deadspin noticed something alarming: Their work had vanished from the site’s archives. There was no obvious pattern to why posts on topics such as ESPN’s attempt to create a “Black Grantland” and George R.R. Martin’s work ethic had disappeared, but it struck many alumni as likely intentional. Deadspin had recently been purchased by a new owner, Lineup Publishing, with ties to the online betting industry. Was this an attempt to sanitize a once-beloved blog’s history?

Lineup tells WIRED the story disappearances were in fact a simple error. “We’re really sorry to anyone that was worried we were going to delete their work,” Tim Booker, one of the company’s cofounders wrote via email. “Not our intention at all. Ever.” Many deleted posts have now been restored, and he says the temporary deletions were a “hiccup” as Lineup migrated Deadspin’s archives onto a new platform. But they are still fixing issues with the archive. Late on Tuesday former contributor Josh Gross noted that one he wrote in 2015 now had a different, incorrect, byline; by Wednesday morning, Lineup had fixed it, and says it is trying to fix remaining mistakes in the next few days.

Over a series of emails with WIRED, Booker went on to lay out what appears to be the first public statement of his plans for Deadspin. They include steering into gambling content—but absolutely no AI-generated blog posts.

Lineup’s takeover of Deadspin has put some former contributors and readers on edge, because even by the chaotic standards of digital media the blog has had a tumultuous history. Founded in 2005, Deadspin spent over two decades building a loyal readership with an irreverent, wide-ranging editorial purview. Staff rebelled and quit en masse in protest after private equity firm Great Hill Partners bought Deadspin’s parent company in 2019 and tried to restrict their editorial freedom. Many went on to found a new media cooperative called Defector.

Deadspin hired replacement bloggers, but the site’s reputation never recovered. Some critics gave it the nickname “Vichy Deadspin.” The blog faced new controversy when it was sued for defamation by the family of a child it erroneously accused of wearing blackface. (The case is still ongoing.)

When Great Hill sold Deadspin in March 2024, it wasn’t immediately clear why Lineup Publishing, a brand-new entity, had bought the blog. Writers Michael Gresko and Ernie Smith dug around for more information and discovered that one of the new owners appeared to be a man named Max Noremo, with ties to online gambling. (Noremo is, indeed, Booker’s cofounder.) 404 Media’s Jason Koebler unearthed interviews in which Noremo discussed how to make money with SEO and affiliate marketing by obtaining domain names, and suggested that the new Deadspin would function as a gambling referral site.

In his emails to WIRED, Noremo’s cofounder Booker confirmed that their version of Deadspin will include “betting content.” But he is insistent that it won’t be just another SEO clickfarm. “We've seen that some people are worried we’re gonna turn it into a spam blog, but it’s just not the case,” he says. “We don’t want to ruin it.”

Deadspin’s new ownership comes at a time when sports media is increasingly entwined with sports betting. Most major outlets, including ESPN, NBC, CBS, The Ringer, The Athletic, and Bleacher Report, have partnered with betting companies. What once might have been eyebrow-raising is increasingly accepted as standard practice, although some outliers, like Defector, still raise alarms about how ethically muddled mixing gambling and journalism—which can often move betting lines—can be.

Booker says that he and Noremo genuinely want to get into the media business. The pair “met recently through friends,” he says, and decided to look for a website to acquire and revamp. Booker says they plan to add more lifestyle and pop culture stories.

Booker, who is based in Malta, is British, with a minimal public online presence; prior to buying Deadspin, he was the chief technology officer for a digital marketing company focused on online betting called CashMagnet. Noremo is Swedish, but based in Spain, and has a huge digital footprint. Prior to jumping into sports media, he appeared on a popular sailing YouTube channel, where his captain described him as “the Swedish salty sea dog.” He has also moonlighted as a music producer.

David Woodley, chief revenue officer at the basketball media company Ballislife, says Noremo and Booker’s plan looks potentially straightforward. “What these guys are obviously trying to do is to leverage Deadspin, which has a good following, good SEO, good pageviews, and to monetize it using betting affiliates,” he says. Since the rise of legal sports gambling, an online ecosystem where marketers drive traffic to online sportsbooks through search engine optimization, affiliate links, and other strategies has taken off in tandem. Woodley, who has consulted with sports betting startups, sees this as a reasonable strategy, and one not necessarily mutually exclusive with publishing what longtime Deadspin fans consider to be good blog posts. “At the very least, it seems like they’re going to be putting new content out, and it’s not just going to be an SEO race-to-the-bottom type of thing.”

Not everyone is so convinced that good intentions drove Lineup’s Deadspin acquisition. Noremo also recently attempted to purchase another once-beloved media outlet, the 155-year-old local newspaper Santa-Barbara News Press, through a Malta-registered company called Weyaweya Ltd. In a feisty editorial for the Santa-Barbara News Press prior to its sale, rival bidder William Belfiore accused Noremo of intending to turn the outlet into a “zombie website” to be “impregnated with parasitic paid pablum.”

Belfiore ultimately outbid Noremo, as part of a rival bidding group composed of young Santa Barbara natives, so the world never got to see the Swedish salty sea dog’s version of the Santa-Barbara News Press. As writer Michael Greshko initially pointed out, though, there is evidence of what his editorial strategy might be on newly acquired websites. Noremo has also worked for a company called Red Earth Ltd., which owns a number of SEO content mills, including some like Gambling Times that, as Greshko notes, appears to publish “AI-generated slop.” (Gambling Times did not respond to WIRED’s request for comment.)

Deadspin’s Noremo-inflected editorial future has already started to unfold. The site has started publishing new blog posts, and recently made its first editorial hire, a sportswriter named Nick Pedone who also runs the company’s social media. Deadspin is also paying a company called Field Level Media, a third-party “sports content provider” with clients ranging from Reuters to the Epoch Times, which offers a mix of syndicated AP-style wire reporting and custom articles. Field Level Media first started publishing syndicated work on Deadspin during the Great Hill era, and has now shifted to supplying custom content written exclusively for the blog, according to its CEO, Derek Harper.

So far, these recent posts are fairly dry and straightforward summaries of professional sporting events, like a Phillies shutout against the Mets and Caitlin Clark’s first WNBA game. But Booker is adamant that the new Deadspin’s blogs will be written by people and not text generators. “AI has no place on Deadspin,” he says.

For his part, Field Level Media’s Harper is stridently against AI in journalism, and confirms that the stories his company supplies to Deadspin have human writers. “We will never produce AI content,” he says. “That’s the antithesis of what we are.”

It’s a low bar to clear, but the no-AI dictum may separate Lineup Publishing from other companies snapping up media properties with the intention to capitalize off their reputations. The new management of Sports Illustrated, a title that was once the pinnacle of sports media, was recently pilloried after it ran AI-generated articles supplied by a third-party company called AdVon Commerce.

Even if the new Deadspin never comes close to the quality of work produced by the staff of its original incarnation, it may end up distinguishing itself for a remarkably grim reason: In 2024, relaunching an old blog without resorting to AI slime is a rare, arguably even classy, move. Of course, all that hinges on whether Lineup keeps its newly made pledges.

[regalfille]

Queen Letizia of Spain nailed the Gen-Z look in black trench at the journalism seminar

Spanish Queen Letizia charmed the fashion world in black trench and chunky loafers

Queen Letizia wore Lottusse Berlin Trench Coat, Hugo Boss Fabrisia Sweater, Pomandère Micro Vichy Patterned Trousers, Gold & Roses Shewel Triple Hoops, Coreterno Ring, Nina Ricci Marché Bag and Martinelli Blunt Loafers at the Journalism seminar. More details on Regalfille. 

[nicklloydnow]

“If any of us thought we could do our fellow creatures good by committing or, more probably, condoning an evil act, would we do so? Would we even recognize the moment when it happened, or accept that it was evil? Most of us are wonderfully good at persuading ourselves that our actions are pure. Does treason actually exist or, as Talleyrand quipped, is it just a matter of dates? Worse, is it a process of human sacrifice, in which exposed individuals are singled out to pay for the sins of thousands—who escape punishment? Switch allegiance at the right moment, or die opportunely, and you may be spared centuries of shame. Live too long, or cling to the wrong raft and your name will be a byword and a hissing. I suspect that Talleyrand, living in a wittier and less dogmatic age, might have reflected that Marshal Philippe Pétain was just unfortunate in his timing.

From this perspective, Pétain’s mistake was to carry on living after the fall of his Vichy State during the last grisly months of the Third Reich. If he had managed to die (he was after all 88) then he would have escaped much humiliation. If he had been shot out of hand by French resisters, a lot of scores would have been neatly settled. (Winston Churchill thought this would have been a much better way of dealing with the actual Nazi leadership than the dubious Nuremberg trials with their Soviet prosecutor). But, as Julian Jackson recounts in his book about Pétain’s surrender, trial, condemnation, and lifelong imprisonment, the old soldier more or less sought out his fate. The Germans had carried him off to the Reich. But Pétain found his way back to France, so compelling De Gaulle and his provisional government to put him on trial for treason. To do so, it had to reopen the whole bitter period, in which many apart from Pétain had behaved weakly, or dishonorably, or just mistakenly. As the title of this book reminds us, France was on trial alongside Pétain.

(…)

The shepherd, the argument runs, is supposed to stay and tend his sheep when the danger is at its worst, not to flee abroad—even if he eventually returns triumphant. Did Pétain perhaps stand between the French people and the full wrath of their conquerors? He may have thought so, at least to begin with. And when he spoke of “collaboration” with Hitler, the word did not seem to mean what it later came to mean.

But, as it happened, Pétain did not stand between the French people and their Nazi occupiers. He became their all-too-willing servant. We now know beyond doubt that Marshal Pétain’s Vichy state enthusiastically offered collaboration to the Nazis, so much so that the Germans actually rebuffed it. It had even suggested its own persecution of the Jews, rather than reluctantly given in to German pressure. In 1972 an American historian, Robert Paxton, obtained German documents on the Occupation which left no doubt about this. Pétain’s supposed “National Revolution” closely collaborated with the fiends and demons of the Third Reich and vigorously urged on one of its ugliest policies. Anybody who has any serious interest in Pétain now knows all this.

But they did not know it when it mattered most, when Pétain and France were on trial in 1945, or for some time afterwards. In fact, Pétain died in custody in 1951 before the facts were wholly known. Jackson’s book on the French state’s 1945 prosecution of Pétain contains a lengthy passage on Paxton’s discoveries. But it rightly leaves them until long after this extraordinary process was over and the Marshal slept with his fathers. So Jackson is able to treat seriously several French citizens, lay jurors, journalists, politicians—and Pétain’s brilliant, dangerous and inconvenient lawyer, Jacques Isorni. All these were determined to give the old man some semblance of fairness, at a time when violent hysteria would have been quite possible instead. Remember, it was not long since the repellent and chaotic epuration (purge) of actual and alleged collaborators after the German defeat in which wild, violent street “justice” was imposed on some of those believed to have been too helpful or friendly to the occupying power, especially the public shaving of women’s heads, not a brave action whatever else it was. France’s Communists, in particular, were keen to condemn the conservative Catholic Pétain as a national traitor comparable to the reviled Marshal Bazaine of the Franco-Prussian war. They published propaganda showing him dangling at the end of a hangman’s rope and urged the imposition of the death penalty.

(…)

It was not just Denmark where this sort of thing happened. British sneering at the weakness and cowardice of continentals under the jackboot is also badly shown up by the curious, embarrassing and largely-forgotten German occupation of the British Channel Islands in 1940. “But what would you have done?” the islanders ask their mainland critics, to this day. The islands’ local authorities were cut off from the British constitution and government when Churchill brusquely abandoned them as indefensible after Dunkirk. Suddenly these largely conservative gentlemen, some nearly as elderly as Pétain, found themselves implementing the decrees of the Third Reich rather than those of His Majesty the King. They felt they had little choice but to work with the German occupiers. Where can a resistance movement hide on a tiny island?

But compromise leads to compromise and to worse compromise. Some of their leading officials ended up cooperating in terrible acts, such as the deportation of local Jews to Auschwitz. Those who survived this distressing period are understandably angry about criticism from safe mainlanders who never saw a German soldier on their streets. When the author Madeleine Bunting wrote a severe account of the islands’ subjugation, The Model Occupation, she met much resentment from those who had experienced it. But I wish this story was better known so that boastful and ignorant British people would stop mocking the supposedly cowardly French for their collaboration in the Vichy period. The fate of the islanders suggests that it would have been the same for the British, if Hitler had ever got ashore.

(…)

Despite the French Communists’ righteous wrath at Pétain, they had their own highly embarrassing secrets from the era. This is hugely significant because of the undoubted (and gravely mistaken) attraction of the Pétain regime for French conservatives and Catholics. His national motto of Travail, Famille, Patrie, replacing the Republican Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite, made it plain that this was not just a necessary co-operation with a new master, but an attempt to overturn many of the principles of the French Revolution. To this day, some figures on the political right in France seek to defend Pétain, the most recent being the failed presidential candidate Eric Zemmour, who most unwisely and inaccurately sought to defend Vichy’s policy, for supposedly saving French Jews by sacrificing recently arrived Jewish refugees to the Nazis. Why would anyone bother to do this? Could it be because of an actual lingering sympathy with Pétain’s social policies?

The Communist attempts at collaboration with the Germans were (like Vichy’s active anti-Jewish behavior) not widely known at the time of Pétain’s trial. Julian Jackson discussed the Communist approach to the German occupation authorities in another work on France’s occupation period France: The Dark Years 1940-44. For many years after the war the episode was little more than a bitter Trotskyist rumour, but it has now taken solid form in serious research. To even begin to comprehend it you must recall that in May 1940, as France’s democratic government collapsed and Nazi power swept into Paris, the Nazis and the Communists were allies against the democracies, thanks to the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact of August 1939, which would endure until June 1941 and was far more than a brief flirtation. The previous September, there had been a joint Wehrmacht and Red Army victory parade over Poland in the city of Brest-Litovsk (pictures still exist of German and Soviet officers happily communing as they take the salute). Not long afterward the two worst secret police forces in the world, Hitler’s Gestapo and Stalin’s NKVD, exchanged prisoners, as each wanted to get their hands on persons the other had arrested. Much of the fuel and material used in the German Blitzkrieg against the European democracies in May 1940 had come from or through the USSR.

The French Communist Party was therefore considered a pro-enemy body by the French state. It was banned and its daily newspaper L’Humanite shut down. The French Communists brushed aside rumors of their behavior for long after the war, and their considerable power and popularity in Gaullist France allowed them to get away with doing so. But scholarship has now caught up with them. Beyond doubt, French Communists went voluntarily to the Nazis and sought permission for the re-issue of their newspaper. Apparently the Comintern, then the central headquarters of all Communist Parties, was taken by surprise by the French defeat in 1940. It did not know how to respond. The leaders of French Communism had been dispersed by the proscription of their Party, and were in hiding or abroad. But some heavyweight commissars, Jacques Duclos, Jean Catelas, and Maurice Treand, wondered if the fall of the French state might be a chance to recover their organization’s lost influence. This was in the Leninist tradition of ruthlessness and of scorn for patriotism and other such bourgeois notions.

The negotiations involved the subtle French-speaking Otto Abetz, Germany’s future ambassador to Vichy France. Treand and Catelas promised, Jackson writes, that if allowed to reappear, the Communist daily would “pursue a policy of European pacification” and “denounce the activities of the agents of British imperialism.” Underground editions of the paper (secretly printed since September 1939) published three articles in the summer of 1940 praising fraternization between French workers and the Germans. Perhaps these were aimed at persuading the Germans to allow open publication. Who can now say?

As so often in history with things that nearly happened, it is like watching a ghost begin to appear, and then disappear again. There was surprising sympathy for collaboration on both sides in France. Some conservatives loathed England, hoped for a British surrender, and thought Hitler was better than socialism. Some Communists suspected that Hitler might be kinder to them than democracy had been. Only as the occupation hardened, and as the French Communist leader in exile, Maurice Thorez, reasserted control, did the Communists end the talks. They did so very shortly before the Germans also went off the idea, though it was a close-run thing. One Communist, Robert Foissin, was made an internal scapegoat by the Party—which belatedly realized how embarrassing the talks would one day become. But Duclos was too important for such treatment. He would live to be the Communist candidate for the Presidency of France in 1969. No wonder that in 1945 the Communists—now covered in glory because of their post-1941 Resistance role—wanted to draw eyes away from their own behavior in 1940, and concentrate instead on the wickedness of the Catholic, conservative Pétain.

(…)

In truth, France was on trial in 1945 more than Pétain. And France emerges from the trial with perhaps a little more credit than we give it. This at least was not a howling enraged tribunal, as the Communists might have desired, but a genuine attempt to apply due process and so to restore some sort of legitimate stability. De Gaulle’s view of the old man was that he was a living corpse who had died to all intents and purposes in 1924. Probably those in French politics who (perhaps too willingly) let him take responsibility for making peace with Germany had a similar view. He was a cypher, not a person. Those who seriously imagined that he was the head of a conservative national revolution were deluded at the time, and those in modern French politics who suggest the same are equally deceived, though it now seems fairly certain that the Marshal was, more often than not, conscious of what was going on around him and aware of what was done in his name. His reprieve from execution was not only a recognition that he was too old to face a firing squad. It was a humane compromise between the De Gaulle and Pétain factions which still haunt French public life in surprising ways. After all, the Socialist President Francois Mitterrand served and was honored by the Vichy regime, yet lived to prosper. The far more brutal fate of Pétain’s colleague Pierre Laval, shot after a brief and undignified hearing and a botched suicide, probably satisfied the general desire to erase the shame and discomfort of the collaboration years which Mauriac had identified. How pleased any reader of this book must be that he and his country did not undergo such misery. Do not be defeated in war. Defeat corrupts the defeated, and it is far harder than we think to stand above the grim process. Pray that it never happens to you.”

“One of the greatest challenges human beings face is how to tease apart a bad act from a good character — or, conversely, a toxic personality from the good and worthy things he created. How do we separate the long-time childhood friend from his insane Facebook polemics? The good neighbour from his bad politics?

“People are thoughtless all the time,” writes Alexandra Hudson in her new book, The Soul of Civility, while arguing that the best way to depolarise our society is to recognise that good people can have bad ideas. This idea is classically Christian, but also fundamentally American: even after the Civil War, a central tenet of Reconstruction was that those who fought for the Confederacy should be given grace for having chosen the wrong side. But that’s a principle it’s easier to hold to in the wake of victory than in the fog of war — or, as this past week’s events have reminded us, War Discourse.

The response from certain corners of the progressive Left to the stories coming out of Israel has been extraordinary. The silhouette of a paragliding Hamas militant has been adopted by groups ranging from Black Lives Matter to the Democratic Socialists of America — a graphic successor to that Che Guevara block print that used to hang on every dorm room wall. A crowd on the steps of the Sydney Opera House in Australia chanted “gas the Jews”. A cheer went up in Times Square at the news that 700 Israelis had been killed. And among the academic and media classes, a series of statements ran the gamut from half-hearted condemnations of the terrorist attacks to triumphant and bloodthirsty snarling.

“What did y’all think decolonization meant? vibes? papers? essays? losers,” wrote Najma Sharif, a writer for Soho House magazine and Teen Vogue. “Today should be a day of celebration for supporters of democracy and human rights worldwide,” tweeted Rivkah Brown of Novara Media. The language varied, but the sentiment was the same: this is good, actually, and seeing it should fill you with the same cathartic glee as any underdog story. Don’t you see? This isn’t terrorism; it is justice.

(…)

The war in Israel, and the one in Ukraine: it’s not hard to see how our distance from these events, combined with the immediacy of so much coverage and conversation about them, lends itself to the most grotesque kind of rubbernecking. It’s war as spectator sport; people haggle over the reports of Hamas beheading babies with the same energy as a group of armchair referees debating an off-side call.

Some people, anyway. The term “luxury beliefs” was coined to describe how privileged progressives like to traffic in this sort of unhinged extremist rhetoric. Partly, it’s a hazard of their utter insulation from ever having to experience the practical impact of the policies they advocate. Violence and chaos have a way of breaking through the barriers that separate the ivory tower-dwellers from the masses they condescend; one imagines the occupants of Versailles looked out their windows at the guillotine being constructed in the public square and, not understanding what lay in store, pronouncing the structure adorable.

But it’s also what happens when you succumb to the Manichean worldview that every conflict, every issue, boils down to a simple question of who is the more oppressed party. Whichever guy has more privilege, more power: this is your villain. In trying to topple him from his unearned position of influence, his victim can do no wrong. Hamas, composed as it is of Muslim people of colour, is merely punching (and raping, and kidnapping) up.

While the attacks on Israel have given rise to a particularly stomach-turning iteration of this rhetoric, we have seen it before. In 2020, as the US protests against police violence spiralled out of control, members of the laptop class could reliably be found posting that Martin Luther King Jr quote about riots being “the voice of the unheard” — always from the safety of their homes, in nice neighbourhoods, in coastal cities, where things were conspicuously not on fire. The people looting, rioting, and wreaking havoc were members of an oppressed class, and hence above reproach.

But the most absurd example of how true-life horrors become grist for the mill of perverse progressive fantasy popped up downstream of the “decolonisation” discourse. Every now and then, someone announces on the internet that they would begrudgingly allow themselves to be murdered if Native Americans decided to violently re-exert ownership over their ancestral lands. The authenticity of such sentiments is obviously belied by the fact that these same people could, if they wanted to, voluntarily renounce their power instead of waiting for some noble savage to take it by force. If you truly believed yourself to be a colonist, illegitimately squatting on someone else’s property, why would you waste time tweeting about it? Wouldn’t you just leave?

(…)

If civility demands that we hold people to account for the hatred they spew, it also rejects the notion that a person of an “oppressed” identity category should get a free pass to spew hatred. The bar for human decency, surely, does not shift depending on the colour of your skin or the arrangement of your genitals — and to insist on this, on one standard for all people, creates a clear path forward, which may be the best thing about civility as an ethos. It works on the assumption that, as bleak as things are now, there will be an “after” in which we forgive, even if we don’t forget.

(…)

As I left Hudson’s event on Tuesday night, I found the street closed off. Instead of cars, the pavement was occupied by hundreds of people holding signs and banners and flags: the remnants of what had been a massive rally in support of Israel. I would later learn that some people present were captured on camera wishing for the annihilation of Palestine; no one side, as it turns out, has a monopoly on hatred.

As I weaved through the crowd, Leonard Cohen’s “You Want it Darker” was playing through my headphones, a fitting meditation on war, death, and the cruelty we inflict on each other in the name of a just cause.

They’re lining up the prisoners

And the guards are taking aim

I struggle with some demons

They were middle-class and tame

I didn’t know I had permission

To murder and to maim

The chorus to this song is a Hebrew word, a line from the Torah. It’s what Abraham says, in response to God’s request that he sacrifice his son; it is also what we might say to each other, eventually, when civility or decency or whatever deity you believe in asks us to confront and forgive each other’s failings in this moment, the better to thrive in the moments we have left.

Hineni, hineni. I’m ready, I’m ready.”

[madamebaguette]

Neuerscheinung : Sur les traces de Thierry Hermès

Das neue Buch von Pierre Sommet ist jetzt in Frankreich im Buchhandel erschienen. Sur les traces de Thierry Hermès zeichnet das Leben des Krefelder Sattlers und Firmengründers Thierry Hermès nach. Untenstehend der offizielle französische Ankündigungstext mit Informationen zum Erwerb.

ISBN papier : 9782351205433 - 104 pages - 18 €

ISBN numérique : 9782351205440 - 8,99 €

Originaire de Vichy et diplômé de l’université de Clermont-Ferrand, Pierre Sommet vit à Krefeld en Allemagne. Dans cette monographie illustrée, à partir de sources originelles et sur une toile de fond historique dans les deux pays, accompagné dans ses recherches approfondies par le généalogiste Jean-Louis Calbat, l’auteur retrace l’aventure d’un jeune sellier ambitieux, né à Krefeld en 1801. Quand, à l’âge de 20 ans, avec peut-être quelques bribes de français dans ses bagages, Thierry Hermès part à la conquête de Paris, il ne sait pas qu’il sera en 1837 le fondateur d’une dynastie, de la prestigieuse entreprise familiale et géant du luxe, Hermès.

Commander cet ouvrage :

Ce livre est disponible à la vente, pour vous le procurer :

- Sur le site Internet des Editions Complicités

- En librairie sur commande ou en vente par correspondance directement chez l'éditeur

In Deutschland können Sie das Buch z.B. bei Parinfo oder auf Amazon bestellen.

Informations pour les journalistes / Presseanfragen:

Communiqué de presse

Rezensionen:

Eine Rezension des Buches in deutscher Sprache finden Sie im Paris und Frankreich Blog von Dr. Wolf Jöckel:  https://paris-blog.org/2023/06/11/auf-den-spuren-von-diederich-hermes-aus-krefeld-der-als-thierry-hermes-grunder-einer-dynastie-der-franzosischen-luxusindustrie-wurde-eine-buchempfehlung/#comments

Ein weiterer Artikel im Zusammenhang mit dem Buch ist im sehr schönen Blog Mein Frankreich der Reisejournalistin und Buchautorin Hilke Maunder erschienen: https://meinfrankreich.com/hermes_krefeld_luxusmarke_frankreich/

La trajectoire d'Hermès jusqu'aux sommets du luxe retracée dans un livre - Article dans le journal La Montagne : https://www.lamontagne.fr/vichy-03200/actualites/la-trajectoire-de-hermes-jusqu-aux-sommets-du-luxe-retracee-dans-un-livre_14425019/

Pont-Audemer. Le fondateur du groupe de luxe Hermès s'est formé dans la commune - Article dans L'Éveil de Pont-Audemer : https://actu.fr/normandie/pont-audemer_27467/pont-audemer-le-fondateur-du-groupe-de-luxe-hermes-sest-forme-dans-la-commune_61078807.html

Rezension in der Zeitschrift Ecoute (2/2024)

Artikel in Neuilly - Journal indépendant (6/2024)

Elisabeth Cadot : Puisqu’il faut partir Sur le thème de l’émigration, j‘attire votre attention sur ce roman original et bien écrit, basé sur une histoire authentique mais librement interprétée. Vous trouverez un descriptif détaillé sur le site des Éditions Complicités ainsi que des extraits de cette saga familiale dans le blog notices d’Allemagne de l‘autrice, qui présenta d’ailleurs son roman à l‘´Institut Français de Bonn en juin 2023. https://www.editions-complicites.fr/pages-auteurs/%C3%A9lisabeth-cadot/

[lesombresdeschoses]

YVONNE O'DONNELL - Seconde partie

Joseph Valmont, professeur de droit à l'université de Boston. Né le 20 juin 1899 à Paris. Les archives de l'état civil avaient été détruites lors des bombardements. Il s'était vieilli de trois ans. Passeport et visas de sortie pour les USA par l'Espagne et le Portugal. Mon cœur se noua, ma gorge se serra. Il avait l'intention de rejoindre l'Angleterre. Vichy avait envoyé un télégramme lui interdisant de passer la frontière française. Il effectuait des mission de plus en plus dangereuses pour la France libre.

— Il serait fou et criminel de ne pas exploiter le potentiel immense des cellules de résistance prêtes aux sacrifices les plus grands. Éparses et anarchiques à ce jour, mais pouvant constituer, avec le temps, une armée cohérente.

Il se dévoilait progressivement. Cette nuit j'étais pourtant loin d'imaginer qu'il reviendrait indemne. Une forte angoisse allait peu à peu m'empoisonner le sang. Je sentis mon cœur exploser en entendant la porte se refermer. Puis le silence. Je restai debout un moment, au milieu du salon. Mon esprit se réveilla soudainement, je sortis aussitôt. Je n'avais plus à me justifier auprès d'Étienne. Je n'irais plus à l'école. Le 3 mars 1941, j'embrassai la cause résistante pleinement et irrévocablement. Finies les actions ponctuelles. « Pense à ton avenir, tu dois aller à l'école, la guerre ne durera pas indéfiniment ! » me disait-il. Mais justement j'y pensais à mon avenir, dans une nation libre et non un état totalitaire imposant une pensée unique ! Je songeai à mes camarades de classe, complètement abrutis par la propagande. Certains même, pensaient que Pétain était un héros.

L'école c'est pour conditionner des marionnettes !

Je continuais de travailler pour notre canard clandestin, malgré nos moyens insignifiants. C'était la première arme de « l'homme du refus ». Les fondations de la révolution de la pensée, de la révolution par la pensée. Après les mots, l'acte. J'en étais intimement convaincu. Ces structures résistantes, quasi inexistantes au début, finissaient par tisser leur toile dans l'ombre. Mouvements et réseaux se développèrent aussi grâce à la « sédition des mots ». La création d'un lien avec l'Angleterre et la France libre était nécessaire. L'isolation des insoumis devait cesser. L'organisation des groupes dissidents fut pénible et tumultueuse. Étienne Leroy en devenait l'un des acteurs majeurs. Mais le chemin vers la liberté allait être laborieux, ponctué de tragédies dont je me rendrais malheureusement témoin, jusqu'à la fin de la guerre. La nuit était notre alliée, nous pouvions plus facilement distribuer des tracts appelant à la révolte. Bourrant les boîtes aux lettres, recouvrant les façades de bâtiments, ainsi que les vitres des boutiques. Plus tard je réussis à infiltrer une gazette départementale et encodai certains articles, afin d'informer les quelques cellules rebelles, de nos actions décisives. Je journal me permettait aussi de recruter. Je pris part à quelques attentats destinés à déstabiliser l'ennemi en mettant à mal l'infrastructure logistique de la SNCF et des routes dans la région, jusqu'à Paris. Notre petite équipe était très efficace. Constituée de Sonia Rubinstein, une journaliste juive. Hanz Stoltz, un jeune allemand, qui fut tellement choqué par la débâcle et la cruauté de ses supérieurs qu'il rejoignit notre camp sans hésiter. Alfonce Dumouriez, un vieux poilu à qui on ne cherchait pas de noise, étant resté une force de la nature malgré son âge. Guy Fertet, un lycéen de seize ans, mais pas de mon école. Collette Lassange, une postière dont le mari avait ses entrées au marché noir. Moi, j'étais serveuse au café du Centre où se réunissaient souvent les gradés de la Gestapo. Plus le temps passait, plus j'aimais le risque. Je haïssais ces ordures de la Wehrmacht. Je voulais leur faire payer chaque jour, leur présence en France. Étienne me manquait. J'espérai ardemment son retour, indemne. Un soir, je rentrai épuisée par une journée au journal et au café, après une réunion clandestine avec ma faction. Étienne attendait dans le salon :

— Tu rentres tard.

— Ne me faites pas la leçon. Vous avez disparu pendant plusieurs mois, j'ai dû me débrouiller seule.

— Marcel, le gardien vit sur le palier. Je te l'ai dit pourtant. Si tu as besoin de quoi que ce soit, il est là. Il le sait.

— Très gentil, le vieux. Surtout après un verre de pinard. J'en fais ce que je veux. Mais vous n'avez toujours pas de leçon à me donner. Contente que vous soyez en vie.

J'allai dans ma chambre, sans dîner.

J'étais heureuse que mon sauveur soit enfin rentré, cependant nous nous parlions peu. Ce fut en mars, que notre relation pris un autre tournant. Deux collabo s'étaient imposés chez lui. Ils cherchaient un fugitif juif. Je les accueillait en allemand. L'un d'eux me toisait avec cet air sournois que l'on reconnaît si bien chez les traîtres. J'aurais préféré négocier avec les boches : l'envahisseur n'est pas un vendu. Il leur fallait un bouc émissaire, un nom de plus à épingler sur leur tableau de chasse. Étienne tentait de les raisonner, pendant ce temps, personne ne se rendit compte que j'avais subtilisé l'arme du supérieur.

— Voulez vous du café messieurs ? demandai-je, tentant de rester aimable.

— Pierre va avec elle, ordonne le gradé à son adjoint.

Le jeune homme me suivit, le regard lubrique, pensant obtenir mes faveurs. Je ne lui en laissai pas le temps. Je pris un couteau dans le tiroir, puis lui plantai dans la carotide. Le retirant aussitôt je plaquai ma main contre sa bouche pour qu'aucun son ne sorte. Ma victime glissa lentement. Le flux de sang, saccadé par le rythme cardiaque, était impressionnant. La vie quitta rapidement le pauvre bougre. Je sortis de la pièce, les bras, les vêtements, maculés de sang. L'homme qui importunait Étienne, choqué par mon apparition, porta aussitôt la main à l'étui à sa ceinture, vide. Je me ruai sur lui plongeant ma lame en plein dans sa trachée, l'empêchant ainsi de crier. Je tournais d'un geste ferme mon arme de fortune, pour m'assurer qu'il meurt vite. Étienne Leroy, grand héro de la résistance française était planté là, consterné par la scène.

— Faut nettoyer maintenant. Je me dirigeai vers le téléphone pris le combiné et composai un numéro : allo, Colette ! Que dirais tu de venir dîner avec ton mari, à la maison ?

Je raccrochai. Le visage de mon hôte s'assombrit.

— Je sens que le boucher du coin va être ravi de sa livraison de viande fraîche, lançai-je impassible.

— En attendant, nous devons faire le ménage, ajouta le résistant, le regard sombre.

Après cet épisode nous dûmes quitter la ville. Étienne avait un petit appartement à Montmartre. Ce matin, je me réveillai dans le brasier du soleil levant. Un ciel de saphir pur envoûtait Paris, encore engourdie par le sommeil des habitants. Nous étions en guerre, et pourtant, les oiseaux chantaient comme pour nous rendre l'illusion d'un espoir perdu. La victoire s'obtiendrait par la « persévérance et la patience ». Ce moment de sérénité n'allait pas durer. Dans ma tête, déjà mille plans de sabotages foisonnaient, tous plus risqués les uns que les autres. Mon sauveur se préparait à rejoindre Londres. Je m'approchai de lui, silencieuse. Posant une main sur son épaule, je guettais une invitation à le rejoindre dans son combat :

— Je parle anglais et allemand, je pourrai t'être utile.

— Je ne veux pas que tu prennes part à tout ceci, mais tu as déjà fait ton choix. Il se tourne vers moi. Tu sais ce qu'ils font aux femmes résistantes ? la colère empourprait son visage.

— Je sais. Je l'ai écris dans mes tracts, je refuse de vivre si l'on me dicte ce que je dois penser, ce que je dois faire, qui je dois aimer.

Je lui caressai le visage. Il me repoussa doucement et continua de ranger ses affaires. Cette nuit, je le rejoignis dans son lit. Il ne résista pas longtemps.

C'était la dernière fois que je le voyais en vie.