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Julius Nyerere: There is only one way in which you can cause people to undertake their own development. That is by education and leadership. wordsmith.social/protestation/…


Umberto Eco: Fascism became an all-purpose term because one can eliminate from a fascist regime one or more features, and it will still be recognizable as fascist. Take away imperialism from fascism and you still have Franco and Salazar. Take away colonialism and you still have the Balkan fascism of the Ustashes. Add to the Italian fascism a radical anti-capitalism (which never much fascinated Mussolini) and you have Ezra Pound. Add a cult of Celtic mythology and the Grail mysticism (completely alien to official fascism) and you have one of the most respected fascist gurus, Julius Evola... But in spite of this fuzziness, I think it is possible to outline a list of features that are typical of what I would like to call Ur-Fascism, or Eternal Fascism. wordsmith.social/protestation/…


Umberto Eco: (Ur-Fascism) depends on the cult of action for action's sake. Action being beautiful in itself, it must be taken before, or without, any previous reflection. Thinking is a form of emasculation. Therefore culture is suspect insofar as it is identified with critical attitudes. Distrust of the intellectual world has always been a symptom of Ur-Fascism, from Goering's alleged statement ("When I hear talk of culture I reach for my gun") to the frequent use of such expressions as "degenerate intellectuals," "eggheads," "effete snobs," "universities are a nest of reds." The official Fascist intellectuals were mainly engaged in attacking modern culture and the liberal intelligentsia for having betrayed traditional values. wordsmith.social/protestation/…



Umberto Eco: At the root of the Ur-Fascist psychology there is the obsession with a plot, possibly an international one. The followers must feel besieged. The easiest way to solve the plot is the appeal to xenophobia. But the plot must also come from the inside: Jews are usually the best target because they have the advantage of being at the same time inside and outside. In the US, a prominent instance of the plot obsession is to be found in Pat Robertson's The New World Order, but, as we have recently seen, there are many others. wordsmith.social/protestation/…


Umberto Eco: The followers must feel humiliated by the ostentatious wealth and force of their enemies. When I was a boy I was taught to think of Englishmen as the five-meal people. They ate more frequently than the poor but sober Italians. Jews are rich and help each other through a secret web of mutual assistance. However, the followers must be convinced that they can overwhelm the enemies. Thus, by a continuous shifting of rhetorical focus, the enemies are at the same time too strong and too weak. wordsmith.social/protestation/…



Umberto Eco: Elitism is a typical aspect of any reactionary ideology, insofar as it is fundamentally aristocratic, and aristocratic and militaristic elitism cruelly implies contempt for the weak. Ur-Fascism can only advocate a popular elitism. Every citizen belongs to the best people of the world, the members of the party are the best among the citizens, every citizen can (or ought to) become a member of the party. But there cannot be patricians without plebeians. In fact, the Leader, knowing that his power was not delegated to him democratically but was conquered by force, also knows that his force is based upon the weakness of the masses; they are so weak as to need and deserve a ruler. Since the group is hierarchically organized (according to a military model), every subordinate leader despises his own underlings, and each of them despises his inferiors. This reinforces the sense of mass elitism. wordsmith.social/protestation/…


Umberto Eco: Ur-Fascism is based upon a selective populism, a qualitative populism, one might say. In a democracy, the citizens have individual rights, but the citizens in their entirety have a political impact only from a quantitative point of view—one follows the decisions of the majority. For Ur-Fascism, however, individuals as individuals have no rights, and the People is conceived as a quality, a monolithic entity expressing the Common Will. Since no large quantity of human beings can have a common will, the Leader pretends to be their interpreter. Having lost their power of delegation, citizens do not act; they are only called on to play the role of the People. Thus the People is only a theatrical fiction. To have a good instance of qualitative populism we no longer need the Piazza Venezia in Rome or the Nuremberg Stadium. There is in our future a TV or Internet populism, in which the emotional response of a selected group of citizens can be presented and accepted as the Voice of the People. wordsmith.social/protestation/…






Wilhelm Amberg


Wilhelm August Lebrecht Amberg (né le 25 février 1822 à Berlin, mort le 8 septembre 1899 ibid.) était un peintre allemand de scènes de genre.

Wilhelm Amberg étudie à l'Académie des arts de Berlin avec Wilhelm Herbig. De 1839 à 1842 il travaille dans l'atelier de Carl Joseph Begas, puis un an chez Léon Cogniet à Paris. Il voyange en Italie, visite Rome, Venise et Naples, et finalement s'installe en 1847 à Berlin.

Amberg se consacre presque exclusivement à la peinture de genre, avec des thèmes gais ou graves. Ses sujets sont toujours plaisants et correspondent au goût de l'époque. Ses travaux sont volontiers reproduits dans des périodiques comme Die Gartenlaube ou «Über Land und Meer». À l'exception d'une œuvre de jeunesse à sujet religieux pour l'église Sainte-Gertrude de Berlin et quelques peintures de paysages, Amberg se consacre uniquement à des thèmes narratifs. Ses tableaux se distinguent pas leur tonalité harmonieuse, la force de leurs sentiments et leur sens poétique.

On remarque, parmi les peintures à thème grave, notamment Trost in Tönen et Der Witwe Trost, et parmi celles à tonalité gaie Die Liebespost, Die rauchende Zofe, Naschkätzchen et Vorlesung aus Goethes «Werther», cette dernière est une des œuvres principales de la collection de la Nationalgalerie de Berlin de l'année 1870. Un tableau légèrement sentimental, intitulé Der Abschied, date de 1897 et a été exposé l'année suivante à la Große Berliner Kunstausstellung, la grande exposition d'art de Berlin.

Wilhelm Amberg a reçu de nombreuses distinctions. Il est à partir de 1886 membre du sénat de l'Académie des arts de Berlin.






Rachel Corrie: I think freedom for Palestine could be an incredible source of hope to people struggling all over the world. I think it could also be an incredible inspiration to Arab people in the Middle East, who are struggling under undemocratic regimes which the U.S. supports. wordsmith.social/protestation/…




Carl von Bergen


Carl von Bergen était un peintre allemand né en 1853 à Cuxhaven, sur la côte nord de l'Allemagne, et mort en 1933.

Peintre de paysages et de scènes de genre, souvent avec des enfants dans le rôle principal.

À partir de 1878, Bergen étudie à l'Académie de Munich, où il s'installe définitivement. À partir de 1889, Carl von Bergen expose régulièrement au Palais du verre de Munich. Carol von Bergen est surtout connu pour ses portraits d'enfants et ses joyeuses «idylles de Bach» avec des enfants paysans et des servantes.

Il vécut la majeure partie de sa vie, à partir de 1888, à Munich.






Ludwig Knaus - Faire des gâteaux (1873)


Des enfants jouent et font semblant de préparer des tartes «Sandkuchen», en réalité avec de la boue. 😁


Fidel Castro: Our country does not drop bombs on other people, nor does it send thousands of planes to bomb cities. Instead our country sends doctors to those most lost corners of the world. wordsmith.social/protestation/…