text:
The Damned: Luchino Visconti. Nationalism as Regression
Visconti's The Damned (La Caduta degli dei ) 1969:
Representing Nazism and Nationalism
Switzerland / Italy / West Germany
(The film was shot in English at the insistence of Warner Brothers)
(Return to Visconti webhub)
Visit other Visconti historical films: Senso and The Leopard
SA Orgy on the "Night of the Long Knives" from Visconti's The Damned
Introduction: Visconti, History & Nationalism
Through an analysis of The Damned (1969) with some comparative work of Visconti's The Leopard (1962) this article argues that the work of Visconti is overdue critical revision in terms of the sophistication of his oeuvre regarding the nature of history related to two critical turning-points in modern European history namely the Risorgimento and the accession to and consolidation of power of the Nazis. These two films represent the major triumphs of nationalism of the 19th century often seen as progressive Garibaldi for example was greeted by massed crowds when he visited London hailed as being very progressive by British radicals. The closure of this era of nationalism, which by the 1930s can be seen as highly regressive in all European countries, was represented by The Damned. It represents the corrupted coming to power of the Nazis and the heinous activities they undertook to maintain and consolidate their hold on Germany. The massacre of the Night of the Long Knives is a direct echo of the off screen execution of Garibaldian radicals as the Prince of Salina returns home from the ball at the end of The Leopard.
Post First World War nationalisms had led to the establishing of several reactionary governments across central and Eastern Europe as well as in Italy and later Spain. For Visconti Nazi Germany represents the nadir of this wider reactionary nationalism. Historically Nazism was to play out the end of this nationalist urge movement in the most melodramatic of ways. The Damned functions as a film about the few critical months between February 1933 - June 1934 which saw the installation and consolidation of a regime that would bring Europe crashing to its knees and end the period of liberal nationalism the Risorgimento symbolised as it mutated into reaction. For Visconti The Damned is nothing less than a representation of an attempt to turn back the tide of history.
The argument presented here seeks to show that Visconti's notion of anthropomorphic cinema, which combined a unique blend of Gramscian and Lukacsian Marxism, consistently and successfully uses some great European realist works of the 20th century to represent the trajectory of history through cinema in ways which have yet to be matched by any other director. This posting draws upon recent scholarship of the Nazi period to cross- reference Visconti's approach. As a result the article takes issue with Nowell-Smith's (2003) suggestion that Visconti shifts his interest in history towards culture. I argue that for Visconti they are intimately intertwined. The article also takes issue with the other main critical work in English on Visconti by Bacon (1998). Bacon's otherwise interesting and insightful work also fails to grapple fully with Visconti's understanding of history which as a result leads him to re-inscribe Visconti as a Liberal democrat. The argument here is that a careful reading of Visconti's work reveals a very profound and decidedly Marxian approach to history and representation.
The Damned
Helmut Berger cross dressing as a cabaret artiste in Visconti's The Damned
The Damned has often been regarded as the first of Visconti's films described as 'The German Trilogy' the others being Death in Venice (1973) and Ludwig (1973). Henry Bacon (1998) specifically categorises these films together under a chapter 'Visconti & Germany' an approach which is perhaps in need of revision. Previously Visconti's films had analysed Italian society during the Risorgimento and post-war periods. Bondanella has seen the 'trilogy' as a move to take a broader view of European politics and culture. Stylistically 'They emphasise lavish sets and costumes, sensuous lighting, painstakingly slow camerawork, and a penchant for imagery reflecting subjective states or symbolic value'[i] comments Bondanella. He also notes that much critical discourse has confused the examination of decadence in Visconti's later works with a recommendation for its continuation. Visconti himself has commented that he was interested 'in the analysis of a sick society', and there is a marked difference between the representation of rising modernity and its links with the bourgeoisie in The Leopard compared with the stasis of Europe. This stasis is examined through allegory encapsulated by a sick fin de siecle Venice and a moribund Bavarian monarchy. Both are studies of decadence which Visconti considers is an outward symbol of a society entering into its death throes. These represent issues raised by the construction of the Bismarckian strong state and aspects of the weakness of the old empire of Austro-Hungary and its former ally
The Damned takes as its subject matter the relationships between the heavy industrialists in the late Weimar Republic on the cusp of Nazi success. There was a clear need for the Nazi leadership to discipline, and revise its approach should it wish to reach the heights of power with the blessing of the powerful industrialists as well as win over the army. This manufacture of consensus – albeit temporary – precisely illustrates the workings of hegemony as understood by Gramsci. This case study seeks to analyse The Damned through the lens of Visconti's notion of 'anthropomorphic cinema'. Nowell-Smith defines this notion as a situation where 'the movement of social forces is reflected in the actions and passions of individuals expressed through the representation of character' (Nowell-Smith 2003, p 151). Furthermore anthropomorphic cinema within The Damned relates the historical processes in which Visconti develops Gramsci's notions of 'Hegemony' as a political process which can emerge as a regressive not just a progressive force.
Critics have commented that Visconti has been strongly influenced by William Shirer's 'Rise and Fall of the Third Reich' and also by Thomas Mann's Buddenbrooks. It is also noted that Visconti read other historical publications apart from Shirer. Shirer was an American journalist covering events in situ which he later turned into a book. It was certainly a widely influential book, however historiography of the Nazi period has moved on considerably since then [ii]. Visconti might well have been strongly influenced by Italian historiography of the time which in general has been viewed as 'ethico-political' by Martin Clark (1984) in a standard British text of Italian history. Clark notes that the 'mainstream Marxist' historians of Italy who were members of the Communist Party were strongly influenced by Gramsci. Gramscian ideas certainly helped formulate one of Visconti's main theoretical lenses in constructing his historical films. Nevertheless it is stressed below that Visconti was not trying to construct a conventional drama-documentary of an historical event, rather, I argue, he was trying to bring to the fore the notion of underlying historical processes at a deeper and more universal level through his cinematic practice.
The search and attempts to represent universals is currently deeply out of fashion as critics, theorists and practitioners tinker with post-modern ideologies such as 'the end of history'. Nevertheless 'Great Art' has usually been identified as a matter of seeking universals from specifics and the wheel of intellectual fashion may well return to this approach in due course.. Artistic licence is precisely bending situations, not being concerned with representing the specific moment naturalistically but transforming it into the universal. Many consider Shakespeare's Macbeth to have been influential upon Visconti in preparing for this film. Macbeth is a dramatic version of an historical event a real Macbeth in Scottish but worked over so that it has become a classic interpretation of power and desire leading ultimately to downfall. Shakespeare's tragedy is modelled upon Greek lines in that fate plays a part. Where Visconti has improved artistically upon Shakespeare is by removing fate and destiny and its role over the individual actor from the realm of individuals to a representation of historical processes by developing his concept of anthropomorphic cinema. Viscontian tragedy is thus an inversion of Greek classical tragedy through his understanding of historiography.
Visconti's Anthropomorphic Cinema and Gramscian Hegemonic Theory
The breaking down of Visconti's work into differing categories is a critical construction which vitiates against other interpretative structures. What is argued here is that The Damned can be seen not simply as a 'German' film but as a film about the role of nationalism within modern history. Thus it can be argued that by linking this film with The Leopard for the purposes of critical analysis at the level of historical theory Visconti can be seen to be using the processes at work within the Risorgimento as a representation of progressive liberal nationalism. The progressiveness is limited for as the character Tancredi famously points out, everything does change in order to re-establish stability and embed the reconstructed social elites. Often, as Clark (1984) notes, the leaders of disaffected groups are perfectly willing to become absorbed into new social formations but it is the troops who remain recalcitrant. In The Leopard the troops were the Garibaldian hard-liners who are executed off screen at the end of The Leopard. The Damned acts like a mirror of The Leopard in a misrecognition in which the recalcitrant leadership of the SA fails to become absorbed into the new consensus which Hitler needs to construct in order to develop his project.
It has been traditional to view the nationalisms of the 19th century as largely progressive whilst the 20th century nationalisms, at least within Europe, have been viewed as regressive by post Second World War historians. Both Senso and The Leopard provide a critical historical background to the process of the Risorgimento but the cinematic approach of the former is closer to that of The Damned. The Damned uses the methods of 'anthropomorphic cinema' to show how German nationalism was doomed to failure. Visconti is careful to choose key historical turning-points to develop his ideas of history. These are times when historical changes requires a reconfiguration of the ruling elites to contain more progressive elements and form a stable social structure capable of meeting the change as in the case of the Risorgimento films. The difficulties and price of reconfiguration amongst the elites in Nazi ruled Germany leads to disaster as in The Damned.
The compromises and self-seeking attitude of the aristocracy was examined in different ways in the two Risorgimento films. In The Damned Visconti shows the failure of liberal democracy and the industrial imperative of capitalism to forge a progressive agenda. Other major industrial countries France, Britain and the United States at the time had, through a variety of different paths, established liberal democracies albeit with problems. Germany by comparison did not: the founding moment of the Weimar Republic was a poisoned chalice which was handed over by a militaristic leadership facing defeat in 1918. These elites were trying to save themselves and regroup. Consequently the old Prussian elites were never comprehensively defeated. Throughout the time of the Weimar Republic they exerted a strong reactionary influence refusing - unlike the Prince of Salina in The Leopard - to engage constructively with the formation of a new hegemonic social formation which could provide a stable ruling elite. Bacon quotes Visconti as saying '...but Nazism seems to me to reveal more about a historical reversal of values.' (Visconti cited Bacon, 1998 p 145 my emphasis) but Bacon doesn't follow this insight up.
The inability to become involved in the construction of a new hegemonic order by the older elites in Germany is represented in a very persuasive way by Visconti. The opening scenes of the film follow Friedrich (Dirk Bogarde) being tempted by the SS into a murderous plot amongst scenes from a family celebratory gathering which ends in murder and mayhem. At the gathering, the head of the Essenbeck family and the overall controller of the steel company, Baron Joachim, clearly displays his dislike of the new order as does one of his vice chairman Herbert the husband of his niece. Joachim's second son Konstantin has clearly decided to back Hitler through his membership of the SA.
Visconti's The Damned is analysing Gramsci's notions of hegemony applying them to an emerging historical conjuncture. A new elite will, if necessary, be created by force and will create a cultural and social order to match. In Italy the previous ruling elites, whether in Piedmont or in
The failure of Joachim can also be discerned by comparing his attitude to the rising Bourgeoisie exemplified by Friedrich Bruckmann (Dirk Bogarde). In the opening scenes Friedrich is in a car with the SS officer Aschenbach bemoaning the impossibility of being able to marry Sophie the widow of Joachim's elder son because of Joachim's unenlightened attitude typical of the Prussian elites trying to freeze the processes of history. In The Leopard the Prince of Salina encourages and supports Tancredi's marriage with the rising commercial classes. By comparison Joachim is entirely opposed to a similar possibility. That Joachim is murdered by Friedrich could be seen as the outcome of not accepting social change in an ordered way. His refusal to let change happen disillusions and disarms the new commercial classes and also makes a potential power vacuum into which other social forces such as Nazism can emerge. Thus it can be seen that anthropomorphic cinema is working effectively through individual characters.
In Gramsci's classic analysis of hegemony, state power is used in the last instance to maintain the state and the processes of hegemony allows for a political restructuring of the social orders in a controllable way. However, the Weimar state was disintegrating especially between 1931 and 1933. The breakdown of hegemony necessitated a new power struggle, Aschenbach and Konstantin represent the contenders in the process of re-hegemonising German society. The Joachims, Friedrichs and Sophies have no sense of historical processes in the way exemplified by the Prince of Salina.
Let us take another comparison between the role and function of the marriages in The Leopard and The Damned. In the former marriage symbolises the new vehicle in which the new Italian order will be crystallised. The fabulous ball scene at the end of The Leopard lasts approximately 40 minutes. Visconti shows us a situation in which the officers of the new army will marry into the daughters of the old order who are depicted as interbred and running about like monkeys. Less historical criticism has focused upon the surface sumptuousness of Visconti's set at the expense of displaying a full understanding of Visconti's attempt to represent as the culmination of his film the full process of re-hegemonisation.
By comparison, in The Damned, the marriage between Sophie and Friedrich has come far to late. There is no possibility of an easy re-formation of the old orders with the new. Both the older elite represented by Sophie and the rising elite, Friedrich, have in Bridge parlance been 'endgamed', it is the Nazis who control the play. It is an empty marriage going nowhere, and held in isolation not at the centre of society. The embittered son Martin has crossed into the camp of the emergent monster which has erupted through a rent in the thin democratic fabric of Weimar society. This was because of the failure of the old elites to combine with the rising mercantile classes. The Weimar collapsed because of the failure to form a consensus amongst the ruling elites.
This astute analysis of historical processes is a fundamental strength of Visconti's anthropomorphic cinema. In reality the economic desires of the industrialists who have supported the Nazis are stymied by 1936 with the take over of the economy under the second four year plan headed by Goring. Their desire for the creation of a consumer based, highly profitable economy once the communists and unions are brought under control is diverted into the project of total war[i], and Germany's ultimate damnation is its trial by fire leading to 'Germany Year Zero'.
Historical background
Here Helmut Berger is asserting his newly discovered power within the Essenbeck family. From Visconti's The Damned
I have argued that the Essenbeck family around which the film is centred acts as a synecdoche for German society as a whole. The period covered by the film starts about three weeks after Hitler's invitation to become Chancellor by Hindenburg at the behest of von Papen at the end of January 1933. Von Papen had hubristically and wrongly 'guaranteed' that Hitler and the Nazis were controllable. This way of looking at the film tends to invert the emphasis that the family is torn apart by the pressures of Nazism which often how critics have seen the film. The Essenbeck quarrels represent key conflicting currents and strands amongst the Weimar German elites.
The first section of The Damned shows events leading up to, during, and after an important family dinner taking place on the night of the Reichstag fire. The fire itself was interpreted by Visconti as a pretext - twice underlined by the film's dialogue - for the Nazis to severely repress the Communists in particular in the remaining days coming up to the last 'free' election of the Weimar Republic' in March. This is probably the case although there is no discovered direct evidence linking the Nazis to the fire according to Richard Evans (2003). The subsequent implosion of the Essenbeck family parallels the collapse of institutions in Germany as the Nazis pursued their policy of 'Gleichshaltung' or 'co-ordination', which was a reasonably pleasant sounding term for the total repression of potential political opposition within Germany. It also meant the taking over of the political institutions at local and regional level once total control at the centre had been achieved.
Cinematically there is a useful comparison to be made between the way in which family dinners are handled in The Leopard and in The Damned which features two dismal dinners. In The Leopard the dinner at the Prince's residence in Donnafugata is a vehicle in which the possibilities for the processes of hegemony can take place. Tancredi first sees an adult Angelica (Claudia Cardinale ) and is smitten. Cinematically and socially the dinners in Visconti's historical films function as a vehicle for integration and progressive change in The Leopard or disintegration and regression as in The Damned.
The Damned takes the viewer to the end of the period of Nazi 'co-ordination' finally finished by the 1934 Nuremberg rally. Famously this rally saw the making and release of Leni Riefenstahl's Triumph of the Will. The rally was a follow up to the infamous 'Night of the Long Knives' which took place at the end of June 1934. This action was centred around the political beheading of the Sturmabteilung or SA headed by Rohm who were agitating for a 'Second Nazi Revolution'. After the full accession to power by Hitler in March 1933 and the take-over of the constitutional institutions by a carefully contrived fait accompli the SA were in the forefront of the fight against the Communists, Social Democrats and Trade Unionists who tried in the early days to offer some resistance to Hitler. They also played an integral role in the harassment of Jews, informally before April 1st 1933, and in an increasingly organised way afterwards, starting with a boycott of Jewish businesses on this date.
The Nuremberg rally which Riefenstahl filmed was not simply a propaganda stunt, it was a public declaration in the most powerful way possible backed by cinema to fully establish in the minds of the Nazi party itself that Hitler was the 'Fuhrer' and that the Germany was now united along its path to an historic future. The film which features the German Army as well as the SA and other Nazi organisations is the outcome of Hitler's ideological cull. The presence of the German Army and its leader von Blomberg at the 1934 Nuremberg rally was symbolically immensely important for Hitler. The Nazis were reliant upon the army to achieve his long-term aims of 'Lebensraum' or colonial expansion mainly directed towards the east. By 1936 Hitler against the desires and advice of most capitalists and his economics minister and governor of the central bank Schacht was determined to pursue economic policies of rearmament. Overy argues that these policies were being carried out with the express intention of preparing Germany for a total war in which it could survive for up to 15 years.
It can now be seen that that Visconti has been very precise in the historical moment that he has chosen to represent. Nowell-Smith (2003) is surely right to note that the film operates on three levels of history, drama and myth. Nevertheless Nowell-Smith's critical comments, like those of Bacon, do not exam the history closely enough. Instead they focus too closely upon the literary and the critical influences within the film at the expense of the historical process which is being represented. As a result they both tend to glide over an essential feature which Visconti certainly wished to represent. It is also important to note that the rise to power of Hitler and the Nazis was itself an operatic trajectory in real life and it was intensely melodramatic. It is worth bearing in mind that Hitler was obsessed with Wagnerian opera. After defeat at Stalingrad in 1942 Hitler then eschews Wagner. For Visconti opera in such films as Senso could be represented as progressive liberal Italian nationalism albeit undermined by the ruling elites. Wagner by comparison was infused with a regressive Germanic 19th century romantic mysticism. Wagner was also intensely anti-Semitic. The Damned is thus open to a thorough reading of Visconti's ideas on the role of opera in culture considering Verdi as progressive and Kultur through Wagner as regressive. However discussion of this is beyond the scope of this entry.
The Reichstag Fire
Visconti correctly picks the night of the Reichstag fire as an historical turning-point marking the beginning of the final collapse of Germany into its path of damnation - the outcomes of which are well documented by Rossellini's 'Germany Year Zero' (1947). The first dialogue of Aschenbach ( the SS officer) and Friedrich (Dirk Bogarde) gives rise to a hint of something about to happen, in the entrance hall Aschenbach even more strongly signals that on this night in particular it will be important for Friedrich to act. It is clear that Aschenbach is in possession of some a priori knowledge. This is an invitation to murder Joachim the head of the family and the steel company. The prizes for Bogarde are Sophie and effective control of the company. The time for personal morality is dead states Aschenbach. The question at this stage is will Bogarde accept this Faustian pact?
The Reichstag Fire is announced by Konstantin the coarse and vulgar SA member of the family who also announces that the 'culprit' a communist has already been captured. The culprit in reality was captured on the site of the Reichstag trying to set alight yet more curtains. Van den Lubbe was not however a communist. He was an unemployed fairly deranged anarchist with bad visual impairment who had several years ago been flung out of the Dutch communist party for promoting arson and other acts of sabotage. As yet there is no precise historical evidence to definitively link the fire to a piece of agent provocatuerism on the part of the Nazis. However, we are asked to believe that this character in his physical state was easily able to break into the Reichstag without discovery only a few days after being released from a police force which was already thoroughly infiltrated by active Nazis as well as being controlled by the Nazis at the top. In reality the Nazis immediately arrested hundreds of Communists in Berlin and this carried on in the following days and weeks leading up to the election. It effectively ensured that the Communists couldn't make an effective election campaign. By not banning the Communists outright Hitler ensured that their votes were unlikely to go to the Social Democrats. This fire effectively sealed the fate of Germany which Visconti was clearly well aware of.
Night of the Long Knives
The melodramatic themes of the film are carefully interwoven with a clever analysis of real events. The tour de force is the representation of the infamous 'Night of the Long Knives', when the SS (Black-shirts) massacred the leadership of Eric Rohm's SA (The Brownshirts). This was a crucial moment in the rise to power of the Nazis. The Brownshirts represented the mobster populist element upon which the Nazi party was based, this populist element represented the so-called 'socialist' element of the 'NSDP'. It was an element that was unsympathetic towards large capitalist organisations seeing them as exploitative of the 'little man' and the petit-bourgeoisie. If Hitler was to take the final step to power then he was going to have to purge his party of these elements and reconfigure the basic ethos of his party. The leader of the SA Eric Rohm had a strong personal power base and had been a colleague of Hitler's since the beginnings of the Nazi party and had been a member of the paramilitary Freikorps before that. The 'Night of the Long Knives' also saw the murder of other leading figures such as von Schleicher who had been the Conservative Chancellor before Hitler was manipulated into power by von Papen. It is important to note that the German army colluded in the 'Night of the Long Knives'. Reichenau made the agreement with Himmler to keep the army confined to barracks during the 1934 Rohm Purge. After the event Reichenau even issued a statement justifying the murder of General von Schleicher. It was effectively the last major act in the reformation of the ruling elites but a formation that was now on the road to an even worse fate than befell Germany in the First World War. That was also a war which the Prussian military elites had encouraged.
The final step to power for the Nazi party was based upon a compromise between, on one side, Hitler and his closest allies in the Nazi party underpinned by the rise of the SS as an elite corps answerable only to Hitler. This dishonourable political marriage to gain power was made with the most powerful of the German industrialists many of whom were members of, or sympathetic to, the Nationalist party, which was small but highly influential amongst the upper classes of Germany. A prominent leader of this party was Hugenberg who not only took over UfA after its near bankruptcy but also became the Minister of Finance when the Nazis first won a majority in the Reichstag. Whilst the plot of Visconti's film initially appears complex, the family of 'misfits, powers seekers, and perverts' as Bondanella describes the Essenbeck family which is loosely based upon the Krupps family can be read as a trope for the confused state of Weimar Germany in the early 1930s. Bondanella would probably not subscribe to a reading of this nature for he asserts that Visconti did not intend the film to be taken as a serious sociological or psychological reading of German culture in Weimar Germany.
Bondanella's position also runs counter to Nowell-Smith's final comments in his reading when he argues that 'Visconti's focus of interest has shifted from history as such, in the sense of a given set of events of which people are the agents, to culture in the sense of the objects which people have produced in history, to represent or to form part of the world they experience.' (Nowell-Smith 2003, p 156).
Has Visconti's prior concern with history changed?
More on the issue of culture below, but firstly let us take the assertion that Visconti's focus upon history as such has shifted. That the film is loosely based upon the Krupp family is important. It is well known that the head of Krupp wasn't keen on the Nazis coming to power and it is certainly true that that the Krupp family had to make compromises to fit in with the demands of the Nazi regime. However it is important to note that the whole of the capitalist class was forced to do this as well. Visconti's film is not a history of Nazi Germany it is a representation of the socio-political forces at work in the country in a very tight time-frame. If the Essenbecks are seen as representative not just of the Krupp family but as industrial capital within Germany in general then the perfidy, confusion betrayal and counter-betrayal makes more sense. It is important to note for example the example of Thyssen below and compare that with a brief outline of the Krupp family. In the film Martin can be seen as being close to the character of Alfred Krupp (see box below). The role of Herbert is more difficult to assess. Perhaps he should be seen as a portmanteau character who represents those in the ruling elites who recognise the fate which awaits Germany and leave. That Herbert reappears briefly because his family has been held hostage is also significant. Recent work on the Nazi Terror shows how the Gestapo went to great efforts to track down communists who left the country in the early 1930s, even those who were not especially important. These people were often used as sources of intelligence because their families were threatened with torture and the camps[i] . In reality the ruthlessness of the Nazis against former supporters is shown when the leading industrialist Thyssen and Schacht, the architect of early Nazi economic success both end up in concentration camps
One important concern is how to represent a period in which the KPD on Stalin's orders had declared the German Social Democrat Party (SPD) 'Social Fascists'. As much as anything this contributed to the rise to power of the Nazis when they achieved electoral success in 1933. At the time the film was made in Italy the communist party was still strongly allied to Moscow, it was only later in the 1970s that the cracks wrought by 'Eurocommunism' began to show. A critique of this nature would not have served Visconti well thus the working class as a class force in a Marxist sense disappear from view. Instead this is replaced by the bitter incestuous infighting in the grab for power by the elites.
By taking this artistic route Visconti was able to focus his critique upon the false hopes of redemption promoted by populism. Populism fails structurally to be a historical force able to liberate the socially excluded. The populists in the SA, like the working class nationalists in The Leopard meet their comeuppance. In The Leopard the bourgeoisie can still be seen a social force moving society forwards - in Marxist terms achieving their historical role. By comparison, at a time when modernity has become strongly installed in Europe and when the Weimar Republic represented one of the most advanced constitutions in the world the liberal bourgeoisie are forced out by a failure to connect socially or politically with the masses. Liberalism is subject to betrayal by unenlightened members of their own class who have tied their fortunes to Nazism as a mythological force doomed to failure. It is here that Visconti's mise-en-scene described so well by Bondanella acts to signify this historically doomed trail up a one way street. The colour red comes to symbolise a hyperbolic and horrifying vision of a family embodying a corrupt culture that wilfully pulls the world down around its Ears'. (Bondanella, 2001, p 206).
The Role of Culture
Within Visconti's notions of anthropomorphic cinema it is useful to discuss the role of culture and to consider culture in relation to civilisation. The stock question which always seems to be asked is 'How can such a "cultured" nation have descended to the depths of such depravity?' It enjoyed its cultural heritage this even down to enjoying to the greatest icons of European classical music such as the romantic lieder of Schubert and Beethoven symphonies after a busy day offloading Jewish deportees in the death camps of Auschwitz and Treblinka.
Kultur for Germany has been associated with the 'spirit of the nation' unlike France and to some extent Italy which focused on 'civilisation' seen through German eyes as superficial and manneristic 'feminised' in the view of some. Bacon describes The Damned as a description of the 'utter negation of German culture'. The greatest success of Aschenbach was the winning over of Gunther (the cello playing son of Konstantin) to the evil of Nazism. Gunther can be seen as a synecdoche for the institutional liberal cultural establishment within Germany which makes its accommodation to Nazism. The likes of von Karajan for example spring to mind. Richard Evans 2003 gives a useful review of the cultural turn in post-Weimar Germany discussing some of these concerns. Bacon turns to George Steiner to try and provide some insight into this seeming cultural paradox. Steiner in a footnote comes up with an explanation which argues 'If your brain, your nervous system, your imagination, your sensibility, your professional skills are completely and deeply invested in the great arts of the imagination and in abstract thought, speculation, instead of becoming more human, you may, unless you are terribly careful become less human...' (Steiner cited Bacon 1998 p 240). For Steiner the paradox which arises it that there may be a desire for barbarism and also an indifference to barbarism. This, for Steiner, explains the capability of those in charge of the camps being able to play the cultural classics very, very well.
The other aspect of culture / entertainment which is represented is the cabaret. It is seen by all the observers as a culture of decadence which leads into perversion. As cabaret was strongly implicated with Jewish Bohemianism and Bohemian culture was seen in Nazi eyes as the degradation of the country associated with being non-German it was obviously rejected. The interruption of Martin's performance and the subsequent walking out can be read as the filmic equivalent of marking the end of this culture. The grand walk out by the family could well be read as a marker of cultural pessimism of the kind espoused the likes of Spengler in his 'Decline of the West'.
Martin is obviously incensed at this development, for it has been his rather feeble raison d'etre as someone entirely decadent. The film sees Martin changing from a lover of Bohemian decadence as a guilty cultural transgression into being able to take his place as a 'richtige' man. His paedophilia itself is a repressed desire for power at the start of the film, he isn't a 'real man' he can only sing way about this in a self parodying way, dressed in a woman's nightclub outfit at the start. By the end of the film he has reversed the tables over his viperous mother exercising his sexual power over her. Having driven her into a state of semi-madness he officiates over the marriage and death of Sophie and Friedrich. The bait of power left by Sophie has shifted from little girls to the capability of exercising any act without any sense of culpability whatsoever for Martin always displayed the amoralism desired by Aschenbach. Aschenbach has found his 'willing executioner' who can act with pleasure. This is unlike the purely selfish motives with which 'the Macbeths' (Sophie and Friedrich ) conduct their heinous crimes. Martin will clearly revel in orchestrating millions of deaths. If Aschenbach is imagined as the 'banality of evil' as as Hannah Arendt has mistakenly described the organiser of the Holocaust [i] then the pure nastiness of Martin seems rather closer to that of the Nazi executioner Heydrich. Martin had something to keep hidden but is represented at the end of the film as the face of evil.
Visconti has chosen to represent this important historical period in a very clever dramatised way. The film is neither a historicisation of psychology nor is it, as Micciche argues, a psychologisation of history. That Martin, for example, is an example of the worm that turns is a comment upon how Nazism learned to appeal to the weak through an 'armoured strength' propping up masculinity in crisis provided by the unremitting structures of Nazi power [i] . This psychoanalytical approach begins to make sense of the tendency of directors such as Rossellini to over exaggerate the evils of Nazism by de-masculinising them. Roma Citta Aperta and Germany Year Zero feature Nazis as gay, lesbian and paedophilic. These outcasts could become a part of that discourse of power safe in its solidarity. There was no morality except that of service to a greater notion of the Nazi ideal provided by the almost godlike figure of the Fuhrer. Visconti has shown how ruthless the Nazi party was in pursuing its ends. It played upon class weakness, personal weakness and manufactured situations in which it could take advantage at both these levels of weakness.
Visconti of course used technical artifice such as the use of colour and mise en scene to make the film partly a melodrama. But at its heart it never seemed to veer from the position of anthropomorphic cinema. None of the characters were exact representations of real characters of the moment, they were portmanteau characters crystallising certain currents and tendencies in a way which managed to universalise from the specific precisely because the film was removed from the constraints of being documentary realism into an operatic / melodramatic register. Thus, it is possible to agree with Bacon that by interweaving these strands the film shows that the historical forces which led to the rise of Nazism can rise again, a fact witnessed by the Cambodian Khmer Rouge, and the 'ethnic cleansing' in Rwanda and during the break-up of Yugoslavia.
When it comes to a question of culture this film is especially interesting for Visconti is exploring the nature of the relationship of culture to politics. High art and culture when it is taken out of its context is no guarantor of civilisation. The Gods (Hitler) are kept in the twilight but are seen as directly responsible for the downfall of society, the Wagnerian dreams far from the trends of modernising society are trashed for they can only be regressive. Visconti doesn't offer the viewer any pleasant futures for we already know the future of Germany. Instead the film functions as a route towards an explanation provided by history for the possibilities of a dystopian future not only for Germany.
This analysis by taking two of Visconti's most developed historical films seeks to explore whether there is a clear structural link between Visconti's explorations of history through culture and culture through history. I have argued that there are strong grounds for rethinking Visconti's oeuvre as part of a more coherent framework than is currently recognised. By re-categorising his work away from the Risorgimento / German binary which has been critically established this analysis can be pursued further by revisiting his other 'German' films Death in Venice and Ludwig. Visconti is trying to explore through the cultural framework how European society managed to implode triggered by start of the First World War leading to a European Thirty Years war. At an international level this war functioned as the completion of a process in which empires as they were previously known largely disappeared in the following few years. They were now clearly redundant and a new dynamic force in the shape of the USA had replaced the old orders. Arguably the USA is the absent other which came to thrive out of the chaos and decadence of a Europe which had gone past its 'sell by date'. Visconti chose to examine this process using the works of Thomas Mann and the drama of Chekhov through a Lukacsian based filter. Here, the best realist work can be seen to be representative of the processes underlying socio-economic change in society through their characterisations in ways unrecognised even by the authors. But Visconti's theoretical concerns also lead to a blending of Gramscian Marxism with Luckasian Marxism in ways which will be fruitful to explore further for Lukacs of course made his own famous contribution to thinking about history in History and Class Consciousness however that is a task beyond the limits of this article.
Visconti's The Leopard and The Damned are probably the two best films ever made about history from a Marxist perspective. More work remains to be done in revising the rest of his later works from this perspective. This article parts company with Nowell-Smith by reading Visconti as being thoroughly imbricated with history. The article also parts company with Bacon by insisting that rather than being a liberal democrat in his later years Visconti's primary concern is to be exploring the processes of history at a very deep level. Visconti should be taken at face value when he argued that he was interested in analysing a sick society. That he chose to do so using some of the great works of European fiction within a realist mode should not detract from his project. The analysis here provides evidence that Visconti was working on a great project pursued steadily through his work. This project was driven by combining Gramscian and Lukacsian insights developing his own contribution to critical analysis and artistic representation which was the concept of anthropomorphic cinema.
Below are some links to separate positings about important historical people in Nazi Germany who Visconti has explicity or implicitly represented in The Damned:
Heydrich, Reinhard (1904 - 1942).
Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach, Alfred (1907-1967)
Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach, Gustav (1870-1950).
Lubbe, Marianus van den (1909-1934)
Reichenau, Walter von (1884-1942)
Thyssen Fritz (1873-1951)
Bacon, Henry. 1998. Visconti: Explorations of Beauty and Decay. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
Bondanella, Peter. 3rd edition. 2002. Italian Cinema: From Neorealism to the Present.
Cesarani, David. Eichman : His Life and Crimes. Heinemann 2004.
Clark, Martin. 1984. Modern Italy 1871-1982. London: Longman
Evans, Richard J. 2003. The Coming of the Third Reich. London: Penguin /
Fischer, Klaus P. 1995. Nazi Germany a New History. London: Constable
Johnson, Eric. 2002. The Nazi Terror: Gestapo, Jews and Ordinary Germans. London: John Murray
Mommsen, Hans. 2003. Alternatives to Hitler. London: I. B. Tauris
Nowell-Smith, Geoffrey. 2003 3rd edition. Luchino Visconti. London: British Film Institute
Overy, R. D. 1995. War and Economy in the Third Reich. Oxford: Oxford University Press
Taylor, Richard. 1998. Film Propaganda Soviet Russia and Nazi Germany. London: I. B. Tauris
Wheal, Donald James and Shaw Warren. 1997. The Penguin Dictionary of the Third Reich. London Penguin
Germany Year Zero (1947) Rossellini
The Damned (1969) Visconti
The Leopard (1962) Visconti
Triumph of the Will (1934) Riefenstahl
A Webliography
Please note these sites were not used in the writing of this article they are being provided for visitor information only.
THE DAMNED (LA CADUTA DEGLI DEI) BBC 4 Page
THE LIFE AND TIMES OF COUNT LUCHINO VISCONTI . A BBC 4 Arena program it is the best available documentary in English on Visconti. I believe it is available as an extra on one of the BFI Visconti films.
Visconti's Cinema of Twilight by Maximilian Le Cain on the Senses of Cinema site. This is a runmination on Visconti's ouvre in general but has a couple of intersting comments on the Damned. immediately below he comments on the cinematic technique of the constructio of a disorienting cinematic space to emphasise change in the social order. Thiws seems a pertinent reading.
The disorientating violence of the zooms in The Damned literally pulls the space out from around the characters, enveloping them in a panicky state of alienation from their surroundings which are changing too fast. This constant spatial disintegration reflects the insecurity of the often ruthless characters' scrabble for power in the crucible of a new and very dangerous society. (Maximilian Le Cain).
I am less convinced by another of Le Cain's comments below. The article above argues that the later films wern't just personal projects and that a deep level of politics THROUGH historical analysis was embedded in all his films. Whilst one might choose to make a reading of The Damned as a comment upon the developing political instabilities of Italy at the time it needs to be argued not asserted as it is in this article:
the committed communist Visconti was adamant that all his previous films were in some way political. The Damned, although set during Hitler's rise to power, represented a despairing comment on the events of 1968 after which the director gave up political filmmaking to concentrate on purely personal projects. (Maximilian Le Cain)
The sort of comments represented by this review in DVD Times are precisely the ones which this article argues against. Lured by surface and Nazis for Dummies kind of history it can sound convincing until the detail is worked through. It does represent those who feel that soemhow Nazism and the Holocaust have to be treated with a reverential attitude which is entirely linked to naturalism. This ironic given Hitler's propensity to melodrama.
The New York Times review By VINCENT CANBY Published: December 19, 1969. This is lovely review which is refreshing and open to the experience of the time. Gaining information about the reception of films in their contemporary settings usually enriches our understandings.
The Cast
Helmut Berger
Dirk Bogarde
Chqarlotte Rampling
Ingrid Thulin another link is available through the Bergmanorama website.
2 comments by 0 or more people
Mark Callan
Hi Mike
Clocked you on the Tara Brabazon THES blog! Glad to hear you're still active.
Anthropomorphic influence is clearly seen as manifested by the different details shown on the film. The author of the article has detailed the aspects of Visconti's struggle with this creation. I hope creations like this would be accepted more by the watching audience, it is not merely an entertainment alone but an experience as well of what the author wanted to convey.


text:
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By working diligently to serve the construction industry, CEC Steel has earned a reputation as a reliable, competitive and highly skilled structural and miscellaneous fabricator. We work closely with general contractors, developers and owners to plan, design and fabricate both the structural and miscellaneous steel for buildings of all shapes, sizes and uses. When CEC Steel receives the contract, you can be assured that your job is detailed and fabricated in accordance with strict industry and company standards.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Amid a slew of gloomy economic news, here's a bright spot: Claims for unemployment benefits fell more than expected last week, pointing to slight improvement in the job market.
About 339,000 people filed for their first week of unemployment benefits last week, down from 355,000 a week earlier, the Labor Department said Thursday.
The figure is slightly lower than expected. Economists had forecast jobless claims would fall to 351,000, according to Briefing.com.
The data can be choppy from week to week, but nevertheless, the initial claims report is considered one of the most important gauges of the job market's strength. During the height of the financial crisis in 2009, jobless claims rose as high as 670,000.
Now they're at half those levels, showing that fewer employers are laying off workers. That said, hiring hasn't necessarily been robust.
Meanwhile, about 3 million people filed for their second week or more of unemployment benefits two weeks ago, the most recent data available.


text:
This colums was originally written for the Unz Review: http://www.unz.com/tsaker/week-twelve-of-the-russian-intervention-in-syria-zag/
In last week's review of the Russian military intervention in Syria I wrote that Kerry had lost every single negotiation he ever had with the Russians and that he had a record of agreeing to A only to come back to the US and then declare non-A. This time again, the Americans did not change their modus operandi, except that it was Obama himself who declared, yet again, that Assad must go, resulting in some commentators speaking of a "White House Schizophrenia". Others, however, noted that this could be simply a case of face saving denials. Personally, I think that both of these explanations are correct.
There is no doubt that Obama is an exceptionally weak, and even clueless, President. The man has proven to have no vision, no understanding of international relations, his culture is minimal while his arrogance appears to be infinite – he is all about form over substance. This is the ideal mix to win a Presidential election in the USA, but once in the White House this is also a recipe for disaster. When such a non-entity is placed at the top of the Executive branch of government, the different part of government do not get a clear message of what the policy is and, as a result, they each begin doing their own thing without worrying too much about what the POTUS has to say. The recent article by Sy Hersh "Military to Military" is a good illustration of that phenomenon. Being weak and lacking vision (or even understanding) Obama's main concern is conceal his limitations and he therefore falls back on the oldest of political tricks: he tells his audience whatever it wants to hear. Exactly the sames goes for Kerry too. Both of these man will say one thing to the Russian rulers or during an interview with a Russian journalist, and the exact opposite to an American reporter. That kind of "schizophrenia" is perfectly normal, especially in the USA.
To use the expression coined by Chris Hedges, the USA is an "Empire of Illusion". The US society has an apparently infinite tolerance for the fake as long as the fake looks vaguely similar to the real thing. This is true on all levels, ranging from the food Americans eat, to the way they entertain themselves, to the politicians they elect and to the putative invincibility of the armed forces their taxes pay for. It is all one gigantic lie, but who cares as long as it is a fun, emotionally reassuring lie. In the Syrian context, this ability to ignore reality results in the support of terrorism in the name democracy, the conduct of an "anti-Daesh" campaign which results in Daesh dramatically increase it's territory, the accusation that Assad used chemical weapons and now the "Assad can stay but he must go" policy. This ability to completely decouple rhetoric and reality can sometimes have a positive side-effect. For example, even if this week saw a Zag! From the US Administration in terms of rhetoric, this does not necessarily mean that the USA will continue to attempt to overthrow Assad. The opposite is also true, however. The fact that the US has said that Assad can stay in no way implies that the US will stop trying to overthrow him.
The bottom line is this: yes, there was definitely a Zag! this week, but only time will tell how much of a zag we are dealing with.
In this context I highly recommend the recent article by Alexander Mercouris entitled "Russian diplomacy achieved a trio of Security Council Resolutions over the last month which give Russia a decisive advantage" in which he explains how Russia has achieved victory after victory at the UN Security Council. What is important here is that with each of these Russian-sponsored Resolution the number of available options for the USA are gradually being reduced. Another factor also reducing the US options are all the tactical successes of the Syrian military whose progress is slow, but steady. The intensive pace of Russian airstrikes is having an effect on Daesh and the Syrians are slowly advancing on all fronts. There has been no Daesh collapse yet, but if the Syrians continue to advance as they have done so far their offensive will eventually reach a critical point when the quantity of their small (tactical) victories will end up triggering a qualitative (operational) reaction and Daesh will begin to collapse. Of course, the Daesh fighters will have the option of finding safety in Turkey, Jordan, Iraq and elsewhere, but the psychological impact of a Daesh defeat in Syria will be huge.
So far there are no signs of a possible Turkish invasion of northern Syria, no signs that anybody is still thinking about imposing a no-fly zone, and besides the murder of Samir Kuntar in an Israeli airstrike (which I discussed here), it appears that the S-400s are achieving the desired deterrent effect.
In other words, while US leaders have their heads stuck deep up into their own delusions, the events on the ground are slowly but steadily reinforcing the Russian position and vindicating Russia's stance.
In the meantime, the Syrian Christians who follow the Gregorian Calendar are celebrating Christmas in the streets of Latakia in a clear sign that a multi-confessional Syria still exists and has a future.
The Saker


text:
If you know some Hebrew, try our Hebrew - English Bible. If you know French better than English, try our Hebrew-French Bible; and if you know Portuguese better than English, you will probably prefer the Hebrew-Portuguese Bible; and if you know Spanish better than English, you will probably prefer the Hebrew-Spanish Bible.
Regular Public Torah Readings (Parashiyot)
Torah -
Prophets - Joshua, Judges, 1 Samuel, 2 Samuel, 1 Kings, 2 Kings, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi
Writings - 1 Chronicles, 2Chronicles, Psalms, Job, Proverbs, Ruth, Song of Songs, Ecclesiastes, Lamentations, Esther, Daniel, Ezra, Nehemiah
Preface to the JPS 1917 Edition
Download this whole Bible in a zip from here to study offline
Download the free Wilbur search engine from Redtree to do searches offline
The JPS Bible for the Palm Pilot
The English text in this HTML edition of the Hebrew Bible is based on the electronic text (c) by Larry Nelson (P.O. Box 1681, Cathedral City, CA 92234 USA, email@example.com) as found on the Internet in differing copies. In addition to converting his text to HTML, we did correct a few typographical errors, based mostly on comparing the various text versions we found, and took out all of the paragraph marks (¶), which were not based on the Hebrew original. We have added signs for the paragraphs found in the original Hebrew: In the poetical books of Psalms, Job (aside from the beginning and end), and Proverbs, each verse normally starts on a new line; where there is a new line within a verse, we added {N}, and when there is a blank line, we added {P}. In the rest of the books, we added {S} for setumah (open space within a line) and {P} for petuHah (new paragraph on new line) according to our Hebrew Bible). We have not tried to reproduce the complex structure of the special songs such as in Exodus 15 and Deuteronomy 32, as we do not think that that would make sense in English.


text:
A partnership between Intel and Hitachi Global Storage Technologies has missed the ship date for its first enterprise flash storage products, but that stumble wasn't a harbinger of bad times for the technology, which continues to gain acceptance in data centers, an industry analyst said Monday.
The companies announced a deal in late 2008 to jointly develop SSDs (solid-state drives) for enterprise servers and workstations. Hitachi plans to use flash silicon developed by the partnership of Intel and Micron in drives with SAS, or Serial Attached SCSI, and Fibre Channel interfaces. Less than a year ago, Hitachi GST Director of Enterprise Marketing Dean Amini said the companies were on track to deliver products in the first half of 2010.
Initial products now are scheduled to come out in the second half of this year, said Ulrich Hansen, director of market development at Hitachi GST.
"We did have a slightly more aggressive target initially set, but we're still very enthusiastic about this partnership," Hansen said in an interview on Monday. Hitachi is a major OEM (original equipment manufacturer) to server and workstation manufacturers. These will be its first SSD offerings.
Hansen spoke on the eve of the Flash Memory Summit conference in Santa Clara, California, where executives and customers will gather to discuss the range of flash technologies from consumer electronics to data-center storage arrays.
Per gigabyte, flash storage is more expensive to make than HDDs (hard disk drives), but it typically uses less energy and allows for quicker retrieval of data because it has no moving parts. Enterprises that have adopted SSDs generally have used them for data that needs faster retrieval, while they left to HDDs larger amounts of content that isn't as urgently.
The enterprise flash business as a whole, which has faced some stumbling blocks over the years, is still growing fast, according to analyst Jim Handy of Objective Analysis.
"The market is really budding right now," Handy said. His company forecasts global SSD shipments to rise from 170,000 this year to 4.1 million in 2015 while revenue increases from US$425 million to $3.8 billion.
SSDs long suffered a reputation as not reliable or long-lived enough for enterprise use, but much of the problem had to do with the controllers that were used to manage the flash in earlier products, Handy said. Some used controllers that were designed for consumer Compact Flash cards, which get much less intensive reading and writing use than enterprise storage does, Handy said. With purpose-built controllers, SSDs don't represent a step down from the reliability and long life of HDDs (hard disk drives), he said.
SSDs are likely to remain more expensive than HDDs for the foreseeable future, but enterprises will pay the premium for their speed where it is needed, Handy believes.
Intel and Hitachi fell behind schedule because some development took longer than expected and they have added more features and carried out more testing of the products, Hitachi's Hansen said.
"We are essentially finished with the development work. We're validating the product [and] we're doing pre-qualificaiton work with some of our OEM customers," he said. The first of the products from those OEMs are likely to hit the market before the end of this year, according to Hansen.
As planned, the products will use 6G bit-per-second (bps) SAS and 4G bps Fibre Channel interfaces. The first SSDs from the partners will use SLC (single-level cell) flash, the form that has been used in most enterprise SSDs so far. SLC packs less data into the same amount of space and is more expensive per gigabyte, but it also has greater longevity for uses where data is intensively written to the drive, Hansen said. Ultimately, it is less expensive for these applications, he said. By the second half of next year, Hitachi and Intel expect to come out with versions that use MLC (multilevel cell), which is more dense, less expensive and adequate for applications where data is written less intensively, he said.
Consistent with Amini's forecast last year, the drives will have an MTBF (mean time between failures) of as much as 2 million hours, Hansen said.


text:
What is a brain injured child?
Brain injury may be microscopic, or it may be global. It
may be recognized in disturbances of learning, of visual
perception or even of speech. But these are minor
disabilities in a generally healthy child. The global brain
injury resulting from illness in mother during pregnancy,
injury during a long or difficult birth or injury after
birth such as a car accident will reveal itself as major
disability. It may affect mobility; as for example spastic
cerebral palsy or language impairment or as a generalized
developmental delay of physical growth and activity and
mental or emotional delay.
What can we do for the brain injured child?
A developmentalist can provide you, the parent, with the
tools/activities and education to give your child the needed
sensory stimulation at the appropriate developmental
Why is this important?
Movement is learning. It allows the brain to know where the
body is in relation to the world, it provides the
opportunity for increased experience of touch, vision and
hearing. A brain injury can create barriers that stifle this
process. Guidance in the form of patterning movements,
increased touch, visual, or hearing stimulation at the
level can help reorganize these processes in the brain.
What is a healthy, disorganized child?
Neurological development within the brain occurs as a
result of interaction with the child's environment.
Prone on the floor the baby begins the effort to crawl, army
style. When care givers talk to the baby about everything
all his waking hours he will begin to babble back and
progressively acquire language. A baby soon finds fingers
and toes
to play with but will then discover objects in the
environment to manipulate, to play with, to take apart, and
eventually reassemble. But for the child with some degree of
brain injury this interaction with the environment is
obstructed. The developmentalist provides techniques to
replace these deficiencies by various exercises such as
patterning to cultivate integrated arm, leg, head movement, visual
tracking of the eyes while maintaining a clear single visual
image whether at far or near and manual dexterity. Such
activities provide organized sensory input which stimulates
effective, integrated motor output. Minimal cerebral
dysfunction occurs in the child with very little if any
abnormality in the MRI. But this child may lack coordination
of walking, running or skipping. He may have difficulty
following a line of print from side to side or a column of
figures from above down or transcribing from the board to
his desk in school.
The developmentalist teaches the child by means of
sensory input – the child learns the sensation of crawling
and creeping, learns the sensation of tracking with the eyes
and learns the sensations that are perceived through the
skin moment by moment through the day. This stimulation
program known by the general term of patterning is taught to
the family to perform at home.
What can we do for the disorganized healthy
There is no visible pathology in the brain, but this child
finds it difficult to receive, process, retrieve and use
information. There is a glitch in the integration necessary
for organized thought processes.
What can we do for the disorganized healthy child?
A developmentalist can provide you, the parent, with the
tools/activities and education to guide your child to live
in a more organized way. Recognition of visual, touch, or
hearing processing problems will help to design approaches
to learning that integrate all the senses so that there is
success in learning.
Why is this important?
If the process of thought is in a jumble because the path is
not even or complete, then it is difficult to get through
the day. Think of the thought process as climbing a ladder.
If a few rungs are missing or incomplete then it is far more
difficult to climb. It is important to integrate all our
senses so that we can perform our best.


text:
Welcome to ProWrestlingCareers.com's 'Get Advice' Section, where we give you advice on your pro wrestling career, exploring different paths, tips on job searching, how to..Read More
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Before telling yourself "I'm going to be the next WWE World Heavyweight Champion", there are things that we need to take care of. Practice, diet,..Read More
This is always the first question that every aspiring wrestlers ask themselves. You're probably asking yourself the same question right at this moment. Before jumping..Read More
If you're considering being a pro wrestler in the future, then you should bookmark this page. We will be releasing a mini series of "Getting..Read More
Just like any career, you should always plan for future retirement. That being said, here are some tips on how to effectively plan for your..Read More
Difficult people do exist at any given type of work and professional wrestling is not an exception. Bottom line is, no workplace is without them...Read More
When it comes to pro wrestling there are multiple skills that are needed to be successful. Some of these skills are physical skills while others..Read More
How badly do you want to achieve your goals? How much are you willing to sacrifice in the short term to gain in the long..Read More


text:
Report on St. Helens (United States) — 21 June-27 June 2006
Smithsonian Institution / US Geological Survey
Weekly Volcanic Activity Report, 21 June-27 June 2006
Managing Editor: Sally Sennert.
Please cite this report as:
Global Volcanism Program, 2006. Report on St. Helens (United States) (Sennert, S, ed.). Weekly Volcanic Activity Report, 21 June-27 June 2006. Smithsonian Institution and US Geological Survey.
St. Helens
United States
46.2°N, 122.18°W; summit elev. 2549 m
All times are local (unless otherwise noted)
During 21-27 June, the lava dome at Mount St. Helens continued to grow and produce small rockfalls. A small steam plume from the lava dome and dust from minor rockfalls were visible from the US Forest Service's web camera at the Johnston Ridge Observatory on 25 and 26 June. On 26 June, a pilot reported that dust and ash reached a height of ~2.4 km (8,000 ft) a.s.l. and drifted W. The volcano remained at Volcano Advisory (Alert Level 2); aviation color code Orange.
Geological Summary. Prior to 1980, Mount St. Helens formed a conical, youthful volcano sometimes known as the Fujisan of America. During the 1980 eruption the upper 400 m of the summit was removed by slope failure, leaving a 2 x 3.5 km horseshoe-shaped crater now partially filled by a lava dome. Mount St. Helens was formed during nine eruptive periods beginning about 40-50,000 years ago and has been the most active volcano in the Cascade Range during the Holocene. Prior to 2,200 years ago, tephra, lava domes, and pyroclastic flows were erupted, forming the older edifice, but few lava flows extended beyond the base of the volcano. The modern edifice consists of basaltic as well as andesitic and dacitic products from summit and flank vents. Historical eruptions in the 19th century originated from the Goat Rocks area on the north flank, and were witnessed by early settlers.
Source: US Geological Survey Cascades Volcano Observatory (CVO)


text:
In 2016, the advocacy group Global Justice Now published a report showing that 69 of the world's largest 100 economic entities are now corporations, not governments. With annual revenues of $485.9 billion, Walmart topped all but nine countries.GDP is a value-added concept – revenue is not. So what is the right metric? Walmart may have had this much revenue but its pretax income was only $20.5 billion and its operating income was $22.8 billion. Profits understate value-added and since Walmart has over $100 billion in operating expenses (think all those workers surviving on $9 an hour), Walmart's gross profit is likely the right metric to compare to the GDP of nations and this figure in 2016 was $124.6 billion. So yea – it is a mega corporation but its value-added does not put it in the top 10 of governments.
Wednesday, July 12, 2017
Comparing Companies to Nations
6 comments:
- Peter T said...
David Davies wrote something useful on this. Yes corporations funnel lots of cash but in terms of economic worth or even capacity to mobilise and direct economic resources, they do not compare to any but the very smallest states. D squared's comparison was with Wales, which on these measures came out well ahead of Walmart.
- July 12, 2017 at 11:55 PM
- ProGrowthLiberal said...
Peter T - where can we find what David Davies wrote? What you say is especially true for a distributor which of course what Walmart is.
- July 13, 2017 at 4:35 AM
- Peter T said...
Sorry, meant Daniel Davies
post here:
- July 13, 2017 at 7:31 AM
- ProGrowthLiberal said...
Thanks. An interesting discussion.
- July 13, 2017 at 12:17 PM
- Glenn Cassidy said...
The article compares Walmart's revenue to the REVENUES of governments, not GDP.
- July 13, 2017 at 7:15 PM
- ProGrowthLiberal said...
Glenn let's take Canada as as example. Its GDP (value-added) is $1600 billion. Let's assume tax revenues are 30% of GDP. Its tax revenues would be $480 billion. A subset of its GDP or value-added.
Walmart's "revenue" are the same or higher but its value-added is only $124 billion.
My point here is that "revenues" mean two very different things in the two different contexts. Which only reinforces how silly this comparison really is.
- July 14, 2017 at 1:51 PM


text:
The first supermarket supposedly appeared on the American landscape in 1946. That is not very long ago. Until then, where was all the food? Dear folks, the food was in homes, gardens, local fields, and forests. It was near kitchens, near tables, near bedsides. It was in the pantry, the cellar, the backyard.
Folks, This Ain't Normal: A Farmer's Advice for Happier Hens, Healthier People, and a Better World


text:
….but don't take it for granted, either.
In the middle of a serious post-match interview in Monte Carlo, Roger Federer comments on the upcoming exhibition between him and Nadal, to be played on a court that's half-grass, half-clay.
We also enjoy playing tennis for fun for a change. It doesn't always need to be crazy serious out on the match courts… The result is not the most important thing, it's about having fun out there. And Mallorca, it's a place I've never been to. It's [Nadal's] home city… It's goin to be exciting and a good atmosphere.
At a time when everyone's filing lawsuits left and right, it's nice to be reminded of why we were even mired in this mess to begin with. The athletes enjoy playing against each other, and it gives them the opportunity to travel and see the world. There are many things to celebrate about the sport.
Let's all take a moment and remind ourselves that, eh?
If that's not enough, then consider yourself lucky that you can at least participate in tennis without harm, unlike in Iraq, where athletes (including three members of the Iraqi Davis Cup team) are being killed without reason; or in Sri Lanka, where Fed Cup team had to withdraw from their tie due to terrorist threats; or in Doha and Dubai, where Shahar Peer had to go it alone simply for being Israeli.
Throw out those lawsuits! We should be content that we can play without the risk of death.
(via todd and in charge; above picture of Akram Mustafa Abdulkarim via Yahoo! Sports)
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A resolution to award a contract to a developer to build low-income housing in Hoboken caused friction at the Hoboken Housing Authority meeting on Thursday night. The HHA is the federally funded agency that oversees Hoboken's low-income public housing on the west side of town.
The proposed development, which would is to be located at 333 Harrison St. and include 44 units, is the first phase of the Vision 20/20 project, a plan in the works to revitalize Hoboken's projects.
At Thursday night's monthly HHA meeting, some board members wanted to table the contract, at least until a sub-committee meeting could be held. But others said waiting could result in a loss of funding.
Specific funding has been provided for phase I construction, including RAD (Rental Assistance Demonstration) funding, as well as emergency Sandy funding. The RAD funding, if not used by the end of May, could be lost.
After a heated hour during which residents urged the board to vote in favor of the contract, all board members voted for the resolution except HHA Chairman Jake Stuiver, who was telecommunicating by phone from Pennsylvania, where he recently moved. (Board member Judy Burrell was absent). Stuiver is allowed to remain on the board until the appointing authority (City Council) selects a replacement. Stuiver is part of the board majority allied with Mayor Dawn Zimmer.
Developing situation
Dr. Robert Powell, a consultant for Nassau Capital Advisors, was hired by the HHA to choose the most qualified developer for those submitting their qualifications. Powell spoke to the housing board, advising them of the three front-running bidders out of nine who applied. Powell recommended RPM Development LLC of Montclair.
HHA Executive Director Carmelo Garcia said, "We have done our due diligence and invested countless hours just trying to get this right for the board and for our residents."
Still, some board members, like David Mello, who is also a Zimmer-allied councilperson, spoke of delaying the process until a subcommittee meeting could be held.
"The fact that it took a little longer," said Powell, "meant we drilled it down further. We will get a better deal with the firm we picked assuming we make a decision tonight. But if you don't feel comfortable with us working hard with this firm right away, then don't do it."
"Your reluctance is coming across as political." – Perry Belfiore
"Some people have been muttering in the crowd," said Mello. "I am very much not against the project or the location." Mello said he was instrumental in picking out the location.
A resident who wished to remain anonymous said, "I need for you to think, commissioners. Do what it is right. You all have to answer to the one up there [meaning God]."
Hoboken resident Perry Belfiore said, "Your reluctance is coming across as political. Maybe it's not. But it looks like no new units will be built in Hoboken until the next mayoral election. No units have been built in three years. Take the leap of faith, be the first commissioner to be a part of this success."
The resolution finally passed, with Stuiver's vote by phone being the only "no" vote.
"I am going to vote yes," said board member Greg Lincoln. "The most compelling argument is the funding."
"I am going to echo [Lincoln's] comment," said David Mello.
Holding over in Pa.
Though his term is up in May, Stuiver moved out of state last month for personal reasons. The HHA found that there was no residency requirement for the seat.
Hoboken resident and activist Patricia Waiters said Thursday during the public portion of the meeting that she has made her intent known to the City Council that she wants to apply for the soon-to-be vacant seat.
However, by phone, Stuiver told Waiters that procedurally, he will be kept on as a hold-over until the City Council votes for a new commissioner.
Waiters said, while walking away from the podium, "Let someone here do the job, not someone who has to drive three hours."
The City Council will have to vote for a replacement for Stuiver. The council is divided into a pro- and anti-Zimmer faction, so that vote may wind up deadlocked.
Amanda Palasciano may be reached at email@example.com.
Residents file lawsuit to stop Garcia from running for Assembly
Earlier this month, it was announced that Hoboken Housing Authority Executive Director Carmelo Garcia would run for state Assembly on a legislative ticket with incumbent State Sen. and Union City Mayor Brian Stack.
Garcia has said that he believes he can do the full-time paid job of executive director of the Hoboken Housing Authority at the same time as serving as a part-time as state legislator.
But Thursday morning, a group of Hoboken residents announced a legal challenge to Garcia's candidacy.
In a statement emailed to the press on Thursday, they said:
"We are concerned that Mr. Garcia, who will earn $172,500.00 in 2014 as HHA's Executive Director, cannot adequately fulfill his duties to the residents of the Housing Authority as full time Executive Director while also effectively representing the 33rd District's residents in Trenton as an Assemblyman, where he will earn an additional public salary of $49,000.00. We deserve competent, vigorous and focused representation, not public officials who double-dip, padding their public salaries, pensions and benefits.
"The law and public policy are clear: Executive Directors of federally funded programs, such as housing authorities, should not be permitted to run for partisan public office because of the inherent conflicts of interest that arise from running a federal program and serving as a partisan elected official. Mr. Garcia should not be permitted to exploit a perceived loophole in the law for his personal and financial gain. We respectfully ask this Court to enter an Order declaring Mr. Garcia ineligible to run for partisan elected office."
The statement to the court was signed by Hoboken residents Jerome Abernathy, James Castiglione, Avi Ohring, Sheilah Scully, and Vasudev Trivedi. They are not elected municipal officials or members of the housing board.
Garcia said recently that he can legally run for the office. He said that his job is not 100 percent federally funded, and thus, being an assemblyman at the same time would not violate the Hatch Act.
Stack's spokesman Mark Albiez declined to comment on Friday.


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Newspapers publish commentaries and blogs to attract readers who become regular followers of our blogs. The Editors of the San Ramon Express do not edit my blogs other than to correct typos or bad links. I'm able to write my own opinions and anyone who wants to respond can challenge them.
I might change my mind about something I wrote. I have modified my positions on some issues, but to claim, "I never wrote them. I didn't read them, and I didn't know what was in them," about my blogs, would be a cop out of the lowest form.
If I'm not writing my blogs, who is? Did one of my cats sneak into my office and type them up when I wasn't looking? If my name is on my blogs, but I didn't write them, I should at least know what someone is passing off under my byline.
Ron Paul published and sold several Newsletters under his byline and now claims he never read them. Fifteen years ago, Paul told the Dallas Morning News that he wrote the Newsletters, but the quotes were taken out of context. Now he says he didn't write the Newsletters and didn't know what was in them. He can't even get his story about the stories straight.
I'm a contract Instructional Designer and Technical Writer. For six years I wrote and updated Jump*Start Crystal Reports training materials for Hammerman and Associates, Inc. I was paid a fee for writing these books and Howard Hammerman used them in his training classes and sold them on his website to corporate trainers and individuals. Hammerman received a lot of favorable comments on these books and made a nice income from selling them.
When I wrote the materials I would email Howard Hammerman my drafts and he would go through them and email me fixes and suggestions. He also had one of his top trainers go through them and one of his Crystal Reports developers test all of my workshops. When all of the edits and updates were completed he published the books with his company's name and logo on them.
I would not have expected Howard Hammerman to accept anything I sent him without reading and approving it first. Yet Ron Paul is defending himself against charges of racism in his Newsletters with, "I never read them. I didn't know what was in them." This man allowed his name to be put on several Newsletters but didn't bother to find out what they said. Doesn't anyone else find this admission disturbing in a candidate for President of the United States?
I know Paul believes in individual freedom to do whatever you want, but if he's making money on a product produced by someone else, shouldn't he at least care what is being published in his name? This isn't an acceptable excuse for what he now claims to disown.
If he had taken appropriate responsibility for the work he contracted out at the time, he would not have to repudiate what he could have and should have edited out of the Newsletters before distributing them to subscribers. If I was a subscriber back then, I'd feel cheated now that Ron Paul is claiming he had nothing to do with newsletters I thought he had written, or at the very least, reviewed before being sent out.
If I wrote training materials for a business that nobody bothered to check for accuracy and/or content, and later some purchaser complained they were full of errors or offensive stereotypes, should anyone accept the publisher's excuse, "I didn't read them and didn't know what was in them." Doesn't that say more about Ron Paul than any political attacks, and why aren't Paul's supporters questioning this attitude?


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I had heard the accusations and innuendo. And just two minutes into the first preliminary fight of last week's Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) event I saw something that confirmed them. I was in a sports bar in the San Gabriel Valley, a predominately working-class suburban area just east of Los Angeles that has produced a disproportionate number of mixed martial-arts (MMA) fighters and is home to some of the sport's most committed fans. Malls in the area are filled with men wearing gothic-inspired MMA t-shirts and baseball hats, and the parking lots often become mock battlegrounds for teenage boys acting out the punches, kicks, and grappling moves of the fastest-growing and what many believe is the most macho sport in the United States.
Spokesmen for professional boxing, which has seen a large share of its fan base gravitate toward MMA, have been quick to accuse their rivals of promoting gay porn. Boxing promoter Bob Arum described MMA as "guys rolling around like homosexuals on the ground."
But when Chase Gormley threw Stefan Struve to the mat and mounted him between his legs, a young woman in the corner of the bar yelled "that is so hot!" A minute later, Struve turned the tables with his own throw and mount, then clasped Gormley's head, neck, and shoulder between his legs in what is called a "triangle choke hold." At this point the woman, who was sitting with two quiet and increasingly embarrassed men, moaned lustfully then turned to her companions and told them she was "getting ideas" for things to do with her boyfriend. A man wearing skull-and-bones MMA gear sitting near me slammed down his Bud Lime and shouted at her that she was "ruining the fight."
I found out later that the two men sitting with the aroused women were among a growing gay MMA fan base. They told me that they were just as turned on by the action as their female friend but contained themselves for fear of retribution from the "hyper-macho" crowd. "She says what we can't when we watch the fights in public," one said.
Recently, gay bloggers, homophobic critics of MMA, and even straight fans have declared that one of the great appeals of the sport is its homoeroticism. They note the large number of gay men and straight women who have become fans of MMA and attribute it to the appeal of the nearly-naked hard bodies of the fighters and the intimate, often pelvic techniques of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, the favored grappling discipline in the sport.
Jim Buzinski, the publisher of Outsports.com, a web site devoted to gay sports fans and athletes that has counted NFL Network and ESPN Radio among its advertisers, calls MMA "intrinsically homoerotic." He claims that "while it is impossible to quantify numbers, it's clear that MMA has a gay following." This month, one of the site's most viewed articles was a list of "A Straight Guy's Top MMA Hotties." Spike TV's "Ultimate Fighter" reality series, in which a group of fighters live together in a house and compete for a UFC contract, is especially popular with Outsports readers. Buzinski calls it "the most homoerotic show on TV." Moreover, the site's readers "routinely send us links to what they think are hot MMA fighters, so they clearly pay attention to more than just their skills. [UFC welterweight champion] Georges St. Pierre in tight trunks equals page views."
And then there's matbattle.com, a website devoted to "helping homosexual grapplers explore and express their fetish in a welcoming environment." The site features movies and photos of gay Judo and Jiu-Jitsu fighters performing what it calls martial-arts "sporno."
Perhaps acknowledging MMA's pan-sexual appeal, Dana White, the president of the UFC, recently became the first head of a major sports league to welcome gay athletes. "Any guy involved in grappling is the furthest thing from homophobic in the world," White said. "I honestly think it would have no impact whatsoever with not only our fighters or our fan base. The guys in the UFC, everybody is so cool, it's great sportsmanship, everybody has respect for each other. I honestly, it wouldn't be a big deal to me and most of the guys I know in this sport, it wouldn't be a big deal for them either."
Not surprisingly, gay-friendliness is far from universal within the sport. UFC heavyweight champion Brock Lesnar issued what ESPN described as "a curse-laden outburst" against homosexuals when a female fan informed him that her friend "Shawn" thought he was cute. "I don't like gays," he announced to reporters. "Write that down in your little notebook. I don't like gays."
Dana White himself was denounced by gay rights groups for slandering one of his critics as "a pussy and a fucking faggot." He responded quickly with a public apology and the statement opening the door to gay fighters. According to Buzinski, this was a wise business move. "White knows his audience and knows that overt homophobia won't sell. By appealing to as many segments of the market as possible, including gay men, White can grow the sport beyond its niche."
Spokesmen for professional boxing, which has seen a large share of its fan base gravitate toward MMA, have been quick to accuse their rivals of promoting gay porn. Boxing promoter Bob Arum described MMA as "guys rolling around like homosexuals on the ground." And legendary middleweight champion Bernard Hopkins called it "grown men with panties on, sweating, [with] nuts in their face. . . . It's a porno. It's an entertainment porno."
These are not the first observations of homoeroticism in violent sports. The historian Elliott Gorn found that journalistic accounts of bare-knuckle prize fighting in the 19th century commonly featured "loving descriptions of boxers' bodies" and celebrated the "manly beauty" of fighters. In 1978 the anthropologist Alan Dundes argued in a famous scholarly article (which garnered several death threats) that American football represented a form of homosexual ritual combat in which "the winners feminize the losers by getting into their end zone." Yet there has never been an openly gay male athlete in a major American sport.
Could it be, given Dana White's apparent openness and the growing number of gay men drawn to MMA, that what is commonly believed to be the manliest of sports will soon be the gayest? And if so, should we be surprised?
Thaddeus Russell has taught history, philosophy, and American Studies at Columbia University, Barnard College, Eugene Lang College, and the New School for Social Research. He is the author of Jimmy Hoffa and the Remaking of the American Working Class (Knopf, 2001) and the forthcoming A Renegade History of the United States (Free Press/Simon & Schuster, 2010).


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How Three Jewish Boys From Wilmette Became the 'Brothers Emanuel'
● Brothers Emanuel: A Memoir of an American Family
By Ezekiel Emanuel
Random House, 288 pages, $27
As near as I can tell, it was New York Times reporter Elisabeth Bumiller who brought the world's attention to the phenomenon of the three fabulous Emanuel brothers from Wilmette, Ill. Before Bumiller's 1997 article, people in medicine knew about Ezekiel, just as people in politics and Hollywood respectively knew about Rahm and Ariel.
But Bumiller's feature — "The Brothers Emanuel" — connected the dots, telling the improbable tale of how each of three high-energy siblings from one relatively unknown suburban Chicago family had clawed his way to the top of his respective heap.
Ezekiel, the oldest, is an oncologist, a bioethicist, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania, a former medical advisor in the Obama White House and, if that's not enough, a columnist for the Times. Ariel, the youngest, is a hard-charging Hollywood agent. He was also the prototype for Ari Gold, the hard-charging Hollywood agent played by Jeremy Piven on the TV show "Entourage."
And, of course, there's Rahm, the middle child and best known of the bunch. A former high-ranking White House aide to Presidents Clinton and Obama, he's currently mayor of Chicago and — well, who knows what's next.
Somehow Rahm barely manages to conceal his ambition to become the country's first Jewish president.
Sixteen years after Bumiller broke the news, Ezekiel has published his version of the brothers' story — "Brothers Emanuel: A Memoir of an American Family." Let's hope he sets aside some of the royalties for Bumiller — or at least her favorite charity.
Before I move on, I must make a confession. As a political columnist for the Reader newspaper, I am not now, nor have I ever been, a fan of the way Mayor Emanuel runs Chicago. Don't get me started about how he's closed schools, shuttered mental health clinics, fired city workers, farmed out contracts to his cronies and so forth.
That said — I love this book!
Okay, maybe not love. How about… really enjoyed. Or couldn't put down. Or talked about obsessively, as in calling friends day and night to say, "You wouldn't believe what these knuckleheaded Emanuel boys did next."
How can you not have fun with the Emanuel boys? Ezekiel makes it sound like one endless party. Ski trips, cross-country car vacations, summers in Israel. There was the time Rahm locked Ari in the closet. And the time they were on this bus in Israel and Rahm had his head "nestled in the bosom of a buxom woman." When they get together, all hell breaks loose — with F-bombs flying and everyone loudly arguing and cracking wise all at once.
"We spent the first ten years of our lives sleeping in the same room, eating at the same table, and strategizing over how to appease our mother's tempestuous moods," Emanuel writes. "The bond we formed growing up together is unbreakable."
Okay, let's be honest. I wanna be an Emanuel brother! I'd be Schmeckle, the dim-witted one. During the Seder, Ari would slug me. Ezekiel would tell me to just grow up. And Rahm would tell me to go f–k myself.You know, like he did to the president of the Chicago Teachers Union.
Sorry, I couldn't resist.
One of Emanuel's goals in writing the book — aside from capturing the family's history — is to explain how three successful children emerged from one middle-class family, or at least middle-class compared to, say, the Pritzkers.
One thing's for certain: Their religion had a little something to do with it. To the Emanuels, Judaism is not some abstract search for enlightenment or spirituality. It's not even certain that they — or at least their parents — believe in God. To the brothers, Ezekiel writes, Judaism is not a "faith"; it's a "practice" in which they're "impelled to do mitzvoth" as their parents "demonstrated in their public and personal activism."
Moreover, the brothers learned early on that the history of the Jews is one reminder after another that the world can be cruel and harsh and filled with evil anti-Semites who persecute you if only because they can. So you'd better come out fighting just to survive.
As such, they "understood the seriousness of history and the pride and joy represented by a Jewish state." The military presence they saw on those summer trips to Israel "made a big impression on us." They "were in awe of the soldiers. Whenever we were in a car and saw them hitchhiking we urged whoever was driving to offer them a ride and then seize the chance to examine their rifles and pepper them with questions."
By Emanuel's accounting, anti-Semitism was no abstraction. He asserts that, as young boys growing up on the north side of Chicago, he and his brothers learned to fight with their fists against the local riffraff — "hillbillies" from Appalachia — who called them "kikes" and "nigger lovers." Apparently, anti-Semitism even existed in suburban Wilmette, where they moved in the 1960s. Rahm's bar mitzvah was "the occasion for one of the more unsettling incidents of our time in Wilmette," when "a young man opened the door and screamed some anti-Semitic curses at the crowd."
Helping the brothers navigate their way were Benjamin and Marsha Emanuel. This is no "Mommy Dearest." He spares us some of the messier details that might give his parents "about two hemorrhages apiece," as Holden Caulfield once put it.
However, Benjamin does have a family reputation for being a tightwad. And Emanuel teases his father about his homeliness: "He looked like he ran into a brick wall nose first and had slightly buck teeth."
Benjamin was born in Israel. Originally, his last name was Auerbach. But in 1933, Benjamin's older brother, Emanuel, was shot in the leg by a stray bullet fired during a fight between police and protestors in Jerusalem. After he died, Ezekiel's grandparents changed "the family name" to Emanuel "to honor their son."
Benjamin went to medical school in Switzerland, came to America to find work and wound up living in Chicago and working as a pediatrician at Mount Sinai Hospital. That's where he met a young technician named Marsha Smulevitz, who was born and raised in Chicago. And, well, you can figure out the rest.
As for Marsha, she drove the boys hard. Having sacrificed her ambitions — she wanted her own career in politics — she stayed at home to raise the boys, pushing them to succeed. "As we grew older we became frustrated with our own failure to make her happy. Her disappointment, tearfully expressed, made us… feel both guilty and, since guilt works this way, angry about feeling guilty."
All in all, they come across as loving, protective and nurturing parents. (Curiously, Emanuel makes no mention of Shoshana, his 39-year-old adoptive sister, who figures prominently in Bumiller's article.)
If there's a star to this story, it's Marsha, who's portrayed as a dedicated civil rights and anti-war activist. She preached tolerance to the boys, taught them to stand up to bullies on behalf of the weak and took them to marches and protests, even when they were very young. According to Emanuel, Marsha took her three sons — then 9, 7 and 5 — to the infamous 1966 open-housing march in Chicago where an angry mob hurled stones at Martin Luther King Jr.
Of the three, Ezekiel was the best student. Ariel was street-smart and quick with his fists, always pounding away at some kid, making one boy unfortunate enough to have crossed him "cry for mercy."
Rahm was the quiet underachiever whose turnaround came in the summer of 1977, after a near-death experience. An untreated cut to his finger led to a "bacterial infection that "invaded the bone" and spread "into his bloodstream and the rest of his body."
"The extremely high fevers made Rahm suffer from hallucinations and episodes of babbling and angry outbursts. He would later tell me, 'I woke up one night screaming at Mom, unloading on her about how she loved you more and about how she treated me as the second son.'"
Eventually, the doctors amputated the finger: "Rahm told me much later that 'nearly dying was the single most important thing in my life.' He said it changed him from a quiet, relaxed kid into a young man filled with the need to succeed and make something of himself."
What to make of all this? Well, I have a hard time reconciling the young Rahm, who was taught to stand up for the weak, with Mayor Emanuel, who lobbies for tax breaks for the wealthy while closing mental health clinics that serve the poor.
Still, it's a fun read. And, ultimately, it gave me a good idea of why the Emanuel brothers went so far. From the time they were born, they were pushed to go get what was theirs. They learned to view life as a struggle for survival in which the strong dominate the weak. So it's best to be strong — if you're lucky enough to have a choice.
Ben Joravsky has been writing about Chicago politics for over 30 years. A staff writer for the Reader newspaper, he's written several books, including Hoop Dreams and The Greens. He's also writes for The Third City, a daily humor blog that "rarely lies to the American people."