Rinaldo Rasa on Wed, 9 Sep 1998 10:15:40 +0200 (MET DST)


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<nettime> there's a beat fascism?


Jack Shea wrote:
>Rinaldo Rasa wrote:
> 
> Timothy,
> in the 1930s the italian scientist Giuseppe Tucci
> was send in Tibet in order to
> prove the Aryan origin of the European people. This obsession
> was both of Mussolini and Hitler, they were (expecially the
> 2th one politician) absolutely sure of Tibetan origin of the
> western culture (including the svastika). Giuseppe Tucci was
> sent in eastwards by the Duce of Fascism Benito Mussolini.
> It's obvious that anyone connect a thought with such culture
> is suspect to be fascist (or nazi). during the 1960s the
> mistical attraction of the ancient Tibetan culture had greatly
> overemphasize the spiritual side of the matter, but i think
> it's more gory than we known. Ezra Pound (a saint patrone of
> beats?) was and died as fascist (despite he was a great poet)
> studying the Chinese Culture. I think we can really shocked
> from such a coincidence and we have to do softly admitted a
> soft "fascist wing" among the beat generation.
> 
> Timothy K. Gallaher says:
> (I snipped for brevity)
> >About the swastikas--I think most of you know that it's an
> >ancientHindu/Buddhist symbol and has nothing to do with Nazis in this
> >context.
> 
> Tibet, strange truth.  (4 sep 98)
> =====================
> The Chinese what make in Tibet?  The followers of the Dalai Lama are
> persecuted?  They lay to trap the identity of people?  The opponents to
> Chinese are emprisoned?  Absolutely nothing of all this.  A delegation of
> senators and Italian deputies had come back from Lhasa.  The Italian
> parliamentarians, veterans from the mission in high quota, they have
> declared to press agency that the action of the Chinese government in Tibet
> has produced and produces improvements.  The Chinese in Tibet have improved
> the conservation of the cultural assets and the services in the territory.
> The Chinese in Tibet construct roads and restore the temples. Temples often
> damaged during the period of the cultural revolution. The Italian
> parliamentarians have seen in Tibet there is wide
> freedom of cult.  The 20 deputies had left August 1998 in order to
> take vision direct of the situation and are returned enthusiastic of
> the travel.
> 
>
>
>Sorry Rinaldo, this just ain't true.  The Chinese have demolished 90% of
>the temples in Tibet -to "widen the roads"(!)- and have kept a very few
>"officially" open and preserved for the very purpose of showing foreign
>dignitaries what a wonderful job they are doing for the Tibetan people. 
>Meanwhile only one nation has ever officially supported the right of the
>Tibetans to self-determination, and that nation was the former
>Czechoslovakia in the early days of Vaclav Havel's presidency, when he
>was navigating the endless labyrinthine corridors of Hradcany Castle on
>a push scooter.  What a guy! I think this was his first official action
>as president.  Vaclav of course was/is a poet, a playwright, a political
>thinker of Jeffersonian integrity and intelligence and knew very well
>what the Chinese were up to in Tibet and despised it because he had seen
>it all happening in his own country.  The response of the Chinese?  They
>cancelled all their (desperately needed by the Czechs) orders for
>Czech/Russian tanks, all of which would have been manufactured in
>Slovakia, a fact which was the first step on the road to the split into
>what is now the Czech Republic and Slovakia.  The message?  It is
>expedient for national delegations wishing to do big business with new
>capitalist China to turn a blind eye to what is and has been going on
>since 1950 at the roof of the world, the last remnant of a
>mystic/spiritual culture so similar in many ways and fate to our own
>native American culture.
>
>The Dalai Lama incidentally is the only world leader who manages to
>persevere in a non-violent stand as the representative of his country
>(in exile) in accordance with Buddhist doctrines of compassion for all
>living creatures.  Even though he says, laughing "I try to be a
>vegetarian but it's too difficult".  This is not easy.  Compassion I
>mean.  Vegetarianism is impossible.  Look what happens to us when the
>merest whiff of the Estate Controversy drifts into our midst.  And as
>our world spirals madly down into deepest imaginable shitpools of
>Armageddon nightmare I can only wish there were more like him, and fewer
>misleaders telling lies so they can sell tanks and bomb small nations to
>divert attention from their sexual misdemeanours.  In Edinburgh where I
>live we are working hard on our genetics, cloning Dolly the Sheep in
>preparation for the post-apocalyptic days when we can at last clone
>Dalai The Llama and fulfill the vision of that great 20th century
>prophet Aldous Huxley of a brave new world.
>
>Hang on a minute, I hear a knock at the door.

Jack,

I am warning about the opinions of rapresentatives or politicians. The
strange truth is in some way that religion when became statism it has
dismissed his true and become part of political discussion. In that case
Tibet or oriental misticism is not an exception to the rule, we must
listen to all the opinions. For myself I am vegetarian and do not find
that too much heavy, I am surprised of the word of the Dalai Lama! Anyway
the voice of tibetans is sent to us i very strong way in every place, in
the panel of the leftist's meeting of the former italian communist party 4
tibetan, from the monastery of Katmandu, are invited to remove any doubt. 

I am puzzled for years cause of the attraction of the counter culture for
the mistical oriental religious background in his light form. This is a
very dangerous feeling because the root of fascism or nazi-fascism is in
the himalayan mountains. When I was teen I considered the metempsycosis
(or migration of the souls from a low being to another high being in an
endless wheel) a good idea. But considering the other side the religion is
not a good chance to help the people (or the individual one). For istance
the submisiveness of the women is an uniform rule in _every_ religion.
Jack pls tell only _one_ religion that give freedom to the women. In this
respect Buddhism is not different. Thinking of fundation of the Buddhism
Siddharta was a warrior. In short there's a clear violation of the
egalitarianism to the peace loving people and feminine feelings. It seems
to me that a young man are lesser sensible than the older to the hidden
violence. Re-thinking the gone period of life is sometime a stressful
experience, re-reading books or re-watching the movies of our youth it's
surprising to notice the violent antiegalitarianism in the beliefs of
these times. 

A small country w/out a government, is the ideal of a beat life to come in
contact to the nature? This is a Fascist Ideal, I am afraid. Too much
authors quoted in Jack Kerouac's work are representative of
antiegalitarianism thought (Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Spengler, Heidegger
etc.) I am very glad that in his last years Kerouac abandoned these line
of thought and cleared the failure of the oriental religious landing on
the life of ppl. 

If we could living in a parallel world we might be surprised if some beat
man applaude the death champ (this is the nightmare) but I am sure that
Ezra Pound in the real world(in his crystal clear way of life) applauded
the process of elimination of the ppl in conflict to the rule of fascism.
And Allen Ginsberg was visiting Pound, and Pound were kidding with the
beat, but Ginsberg have clear that? 

There's some suspicion there was/is a beat fascist wing that touch the
iconas of the beat generation. 

As for the svastikas I remember that the great american philosopher
Theodor Wiesengrund Adorno have told us that the Beethoven's music is
definitively over when played in a concentration camp. Same fate for
svastikas. 

saluti by Rinaldo from Italy. 

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