[R-P] Valkyrie... y otras reflexiones personales

[Nestor Gorojovsky]

Gentileza de la lista Marxmail. Traduzco solamente la parte que nos 
puede ser de utilidad en la vida política argentina. El texto completo, 
en inglés, al pie.

[Selección y versión en castellano de Néstor Gorojovsky, para uso 
personal. Valkyrie es una película de Hollywood que retrata el intento 
de asesinato de Hitler en 1944.]

Algunos críticos de Valkyrie dispararon contra ella argumentando que 
trata de exculpar la repugnante conducta de Alemania. Es mentira. Se 
muestran muy claramente los horrores del nazismo. Cuando se estaba 
haciendo la película, en Alemania, algunos alemanes la objetaron 
afirmando que abría viejas heridas. Pero los más reflexivos, por cierto, 
coincidirán en que -no importa quién sea cada cual- cuanto más sepamos 
todos sobre estas cosas, mejor, y mayor nuestra capacidad de evitar 
estos Horrores sociopolíticos catastróficos y genocidas. Valkyrie está 
teniendo gran difusión en este país [EEUU, N. del T.], y es de esperar 
que la tenga también, entre muchos otros países, en Israel.

Un par de reflexiones personales:

La mayor parte de los estadounidenses jamás ha vivido bajo un sistema 
totalitario, y lógicamente solo pueden estar agradecidos ante este 
hecho. Lo más parecido a semejante cosa en estas orillas (la América del 
Norte más allá de México) era el viejo Mississippi, un estado policíaco 
con todos los ingredientes: ortodoxia oficial, poder policíaco, atento 
apoyo de milicias civiles... y una fina red de encaje de horror 
estupidizante y voluntad mayoritaria entre los blancos de "mirar para 
otro lado" frente a las atrocidades interminables. El Sur estaba lleno 
de otros sitios que eran tan malos como Mississippi, pero los estados no 
se encontraban tan completamente penetrados por todo esto, lo que solía 
deberse a que dichos estados tenían cierta cantidad de fábricas con sede 
central en el Norte y por lo tanto sufrían ciertas influencias 
(relativamente) "moderadoras".

Mississippi era un complejo racista y segregacionista que abarcaba a un 
estado entero.

En relación al Cambiante Mississippi y algunos otros ambientes del Sur 
me he mantenido tan al día como he podido. Con el tiempo, me encontré 
con antiguos adversarios, y nos hicimos amigos. Algunos ejemplos peuden 
verse entre mis escritos para la web. Por ejemplo:

http://hunterbear.org/forces_and_faces_along_the_trail.htm

Hay un fenómeno bastante frecuente entre los sureños blancos que, como 
esos alemanes de hoy en relación a Valkyrie, simplemente no quieren oir 
hablar de Los Problemas (los Malos Viejos Tiempos). Si eran adultos 
blancos por entonces, la cosa puede bien ser verdadera. Pero muchos 
sureños blancos más jóvenes [y, sospecho, también muchos alemanes 
jóvenes] comparten la actitud, a menudo comentándome que sus mayores no 
quieren ni siquiera hablar del tema. Les dije que "fue un tiempo 
tremendo, para los negros, claro, pero también, en cierto modo, para la 
mayor parte de los blancos. No sean demasiado duros con sus familiares. 
Miren hacia adelante, abran su propio camino".

[...]

Terminados los tiroteos de los 60, y cuando las cosas estaban ya 
básicamente tranquilas, hubo muchos que vinieron al Sur, y a Mississippi 
por supuesto. Muchos eran gente bastante interesante, pero había dos 
tipos de aprovechadores que siempre me han provocado el máximo desprecio.

El primero fueron los que no se podrían denominar mejor que "artistas de 
la tarjeta de racionamiento", que venían a aprovecharse de los nunca 
demasiado pletóricos programas de pobreza de la "Reconstrucción"

La segunda especie, por lo general, consistía de sectarios que pasaban 
por izquierdistas, y que habían permanecido tranquilitos, lejos del 
Movimiento, allá en el Norte; entraron a Mississippi a principios de los 
70. En un esfuerzo obvio de experimentar de un modo vicario el 
Movimiento que se habían perdido, sermoneaban (y algunos lo siguen 
haciendo) con un lenguaje chillón y santurrón. A veces gustaban 
"escrachar" funcionarios públicos que, se decía, alguna vez habían 
pertenecido al Consejo de Ciudadanos Blancos. El hecho es que cualquiera 
que hubiera disfrutado de cierto reconocimiento social en el viejo 
Mississippi había pertenecido alguna vez a los "Consejos Blancos"; 
muchos creíamos que esos "escraches" eran una pérdida de tiempo.

Al fin de cuentas, los Verdaderos Revolucionarios se concentran en la 
justicia social, ahora y siempre. Podemos aprender mucho de una 
reflexiva mirada al pasado... pero no nos dejemos atrapar por viejas 
telarañas.

En lo personal, he llegado a inclinarme por una reconciliación 
principista, siempre y cuando la justicia social se haya alcanzado, en 
lo básico, en el tema en cuestión. Desmond Tutu nos ha dado un excelente 
ejemplo de esta posibilidad.

Luchar duramente por la justicia: siempre duramente. Pero en último 
análisis, nunca debemos olvidar, por más que nuestros adversarios suelan 
hacerlo, que más allá de nuestras virtudes y nuestros pecados, en última 
instancia todos tenemos que vivir con el otro.

[Texto original en inglés, completo]

Asunto: [Marxism] Valkyri -- and some further-alongr personal reflections
Fecha: Sat, 3 Jan 2009 11:06:15 -0700
De: Hunter Gray <hunterbadbear en hunterbear.org>
Responder a: Activists and scholars in Marxist tradition 
<marxism en lists.econ.utah.edu>
Para: Néstor Gorojovsky <nmgoro en gmail.com>

NOTE BY HUNTER BEAR [JANUARY 3  2009]

The local  weather around here -- Eastern Idaho -- has been, as it seems 
to be nationally, wild and rough.  Yesterday afternoon saw us in the 
midst of rain and snow, along with unusually warm periods followed by a 
freezing temps, icy slush.  When three members of our family, Josie [our 
youngest daughter] and her Cameron and visiting grandson/son Thomas [he 
to leave that very evening after an excellent visit] prepared to see 
Valkyrie -- focused on the last and the best prepared plot to 
assassinate Hitler -- they urged me to join them.  When I sought to 
politely decline -- it was six years since I was actually in a movie 
theatre -- Josie, characteristically, pushed with intensity and her 
usual success.   So I went and I'm quite glad I did.

It's a good, solid film -- not really, given the focus, enjoyable -- but 
fascinating.  It won't satisfy those who see any Hollywood production as 
  something to be viewed with inherent suspicion nor those who relish 
especially "arty arty" films, often those with psychiatric subtleties. 
My film tastes, which as I've previously noted, focus these days on HBO 
and IFC for the most part, are pretty catholic, diverse.  I do make my 
measure of a flick on such matters as a reasonably worthwhile message 
[but not necessarily explicit], basic adherence to the primary 
historical/cultural currents, and good acting.

Valkyrie does well on all of those counts.  It's a straight-forward, 
hard-hitting account with -- as was certainly the historical fact -- 
lots of violence. My personal awareness of the courageous effort in 1944 
by some German officers and a few civilians of well-placed social status 
-- sickened from a number of perspectives by Hitler's irrationality and 
brutality --- has been mostly limited to my interest in Erwin Rommel and 
his career and his supportive position in this good Conspiracy.  So I 
learned more about the careful organization of the effort, the plans for 
an immediate post-Hitler coup, and something of the interesting 
personalities involved.

Tom Cruise does an excellent job as a key participant in The Plan and 
the key action person -- in his case depicting Colonel Claus von 
Stauffenberg who, "to the manor born," achieved the status of genuine 
war hero but whose troubled conscience remained.  Other acting is 
likewise well done.

In the end, as many of us are aware, the effort failed and Hitler 
extracted lethal revenge -- very pervasively.  Within a few months, the 
Allied forces had closed on him and he took the route of suicide.

A few critics of Valkyrie have shot at it on the grounds that it seeks 
to excuse Germany's hideous conduct.  That's twaddle.  The horrors of 
Nazism are clearly set forth.  When the film was being made in Germany, 
some Germans objected to it on the grounds that it opens old wounds. 
But most thoughtful folks would certainly agree that the more we all -- 
whoever we are -- know about these things, the better -- and the more 
improved our chances of avoiding those catastrophic socio-political -- 
and genocidal -- Horrors.  Valkyrie is being widely shown in this 
country and one will hope it is in, say, Israel -- among many others.

A couple of personal reflections:

Most Americans have never lived in a totalitarian system -- and can 
obviously be thankful they haven't.  The closest thing to this on these 
shores -- North America [north of Mexico] -- was old Mississippi, a 
police state complete with official orthodoxy, police power, eager 
vigilante support -- laced through and through with a numbing fear and a 
willingness on the part of most white people to "look away" from the 
endless atrocities. There were plenty of other parts of the South just 
as bad as Mississippi, but not pervasively so in the state-wide sense -- 
often because their states had a measure therein of outside-based 
Northern industry and thus some [relatively] "moderate" influences.

Mississippi was a state-wide racist/segregationist complex.

I've kept up with Changing Mississippi and some other Southern settings 
as best I can.  In time, I've met some of the old adversaries with whom 
I've become friends.  See a few examples of this in some of my website 
writings, e.g.
http://hunterbear.org/forces_and_faces_along_the_trail.htm

A fairly common phenomenon involves white Southerners who, like those 
contemporary Germans on Valkyrie, simply don't want to hear of The 
Troubles -- the Bad Old Days. This can be very true if they were adults 
during that grim epoch.  But many younger white Southerners do [and I 
suspect many young Germans as well] -- often commenting to me that their 
elders refuse to discuss any of it.  To them, I've said, "It was a 
terrible time, obviously for Blacks -- but also hard, in its own way, 
for most whites as well.  Don't be too tough on your folks. Look ahead 
-- cut your own trail."  Then I'll  suggest some solid reading sources, 
such as Jim Silver's classic, Mississippi: The Closed Society -- along 
with some of the more thoughtful and personally grounded works by 
Movement writers.

There were a lot of outsiders who came into the South -- and certainly 
Mississippi -- after the shooting war of the 60s was basically over and 
things were fairly safe.  While many of these were certainly more or 
less OK, there were two carpetbagger species for whom I've always had 
quiet contempt.


The first were those, best termed "pie-card artists," who came to 
rip-off the never very flush "Reconstruction" poverty programs.

The second species involved generally sectarian presumed leftists who 
had sat out the Movement safely in the North, coming into, say, 
Mississippi beginning in the early 70s.  In an obvious effort to 
vicariously experience the Movement they'd missed, they prattled [and 
some still do] in shrill and sanctimonious terms.  Sometimes they liked 
to "expose" a public official who allegedly once belonged to the white 
Citizens' Council.  Aside from the fact that most of the old Mississippi 
establishment once belonged to the "White Councils", many of  us felt 
and feel that that "exposure" is simply a pure waste of time.

In the end, Real Radicalism focuses on social justice -- now and 
forevermore.  We can learn much from looking thoughtfully back -- but 
let's not be trapped by old spiderwebs.

Personally, I've come to appreciate principled reconciliation -- if and 
when social justice has, in the matter at hand, actually been 
essentially achieved.  Desmond Tutu has set a fine example on that.

Fight hard for justice -- always hard.  But, in the last analysis, we 
can never -- much as our adversaries may -- forget that we, whatever our 
virtues and whatever our sins, ultimately have to live with one another.

Solidarity -

Hunter [Hunter Bear]



HUNTER GRAY [HUNTER BEAR/JOHN R SALTER JR] Mi'kmaq /St. Francis
Abenaki/St. Regis Mohawk
Protected by Na´shdo´i´ba´i´
and Ohkwari'

Check out our Hunterbear website Directory 
http://hunterbear.org/directory.htm
[The site is dedicated to our one-half Bobcat, Cloudy Gray:
http://hunterbear.org/cloudy_gray.htm

For a good feel for some of the civil liberties challenges faced by an 
effective
organizer, see this cluster of four related pages:
http://hunterbear.org/a_bizarre__1979_fbi_smear_effort.htm

And see Hunter's Movement Life Interview:
http://hunterbear.org/HUNTER%20BEAR%20INTERVIEW%20CRMV.htm