In Lisbon

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This is the beginning fragment of a larger project about love and revolution today and for the coming century. I’m using Lisbon as a foil with respect to the growth of global fascism led by the United States. It seems to me that the world is at a tipping point. There is the growth of fascism, which increasingly faces popular opposition and uprisings around globe—e.g., Bolivia, Chile, Ecuador, France, India, etc. Lisbon perhaps offers a way out of the clash that I’m afraid will result in the triumph of fascism. In any case, I hope scholars of Portugal will lend a hand. I’ve only begun to study Portuguese history and the Portuguese language so I would greatly appreciate any suggestions for English language histories and analyses

In Lisbon In Lisbon one cannot be too drunk to walk home. The cobbled streets and sidewalks are a problem. When wet they become treacherous. The streets can be as steep as a 40 degree grade, and stairs to apartments equally steep and narrow. Often they are unlit at night. There is ample opportunity for drinking. The wine is good, cheap, and plentiful. Spirits from all over the world are affordable. But never get too drunk to walk home. Except in the new city, which looks like Los Angeles, where the cobblestones have been extracted like bad teeth or paved over. Instead of building walls half meter thick of rocks, boulders, and kiln dried tiles, there is slab concrete. The outskirts of Lisbon, leading to the airport, look like any global city, which is to say a model community, to pile irony upon vilification, of neoliberal global capital. The old city abides. In America (the United States of), in contrast to old Lisbon, one should never be too sober. The country is big, 330 million as of January 2020, and complex . . . so how to encapsulate? Maybe look to its current president elected 2016: Donald J (The Donald) Trump. A rodeo clown represents the American people. His role is to distract the potentially raging bull of the masses so their rider, the ruling class, does not get gored or trampled. No matter that he will not be president forever. Some other clown will succeed him. US presidents are, if not iconic, reflective of Americans and their collective culture. I suppose I should say ‘our’ collective culture, since I am one of the herd, but it is so unseemly to admit my membership now. I would prefer not. America has had the honor or ignominy, hard to say which, of being the spearhead of modern capital. Settled by adventurers and religious fanatics, the European, mainly English, invaders, proceeded to kill off the peoples of the land, capture slaves from Africa, and establish modern capitalism through primitive accumulations (aka theft and murder). A combination of historical accident, rapacious skullduggery, and cruelty, Americans wound up on top of the heap after WWII. From that vantage point, American rulers re-colonized the world while claiming to bring democracy and freedom. Such hypocrisy must be unsurpassed in world history. And so it is today, in the year 2020. In Lisbon, one can see it all clearly. It’s harder from the inside. Incessant propaganda, which most Americans don’t recognize, assures everyone with platitudes about how great is America, as if it were 1950 instead of 2020. A certain pity creeps into my heart, but then I think of Milton Mayer’s wonderful They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933-1945 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1955). Mayer interviewed people in postwar Germany who all averred that under the Nazi regime, they thought they were free, spreading Western values and that Germany had been defending itself against terrorism and barbarism. Of course no one knew about the camps. They were, after all, a civilized nation. In America, it is hard to pretend not to know about the camps, and of course The Wall, so beloved by The Donald. When one lives with a monster long enough, the monster seems like just another neighbor. So, Americans, though they perhaps do not deserve to be forgiven, are at least understandable, as long as we never forget. But we do. Gore Vidal called it the United States of Amnesia, and so it is. Humans adapt. We are a remarkably adaptable species, which is why we occupy the entire planet. We adapt to anything, certainly anything other humans have contrived. The species finds a way to survive, though perhaps not to our liking. Americans can adapt to their government savaging peoples across the globe, and tell themselves it protects them and liberates all those non-Americans whose children the American bombs eviscerate. In Lisbon one need not read or watch the news, which is, in any case, derivative, entertainment, or both. People know about the world from each other, or as Americans say, by word of mouth, and by party affiliation. Political parties attach themselves to people, as opposed to the other way around. The ruling coalition in 2020 is led by the PS (Partido Socialista) with which the communist party PCP (Partido Communista Potugues) collaborates. The latter has billboards with the hammer and sickle around the city. In America the hammer and sickle is no longer cause for arrest, as it was in the post WWII era, but it and the politics it used to stand for have been tamed and co-opted by the Democratic Party. Wearing a hammer and sickle button or pin is safe, but a half moon and star has replaced it as a risky emblem. This is in keeping with the ascendancy of identity politics in which religion, race, ethnicity, and even gender supplant class and political interest. In America there are no political parties, except for a few very minor ones that run candidates but don’t expect to win anything at the national level. Instead of parties, in America there are apparatuses to entertain, control, and serve. They entertain by mounting spectacles. They put on extravaganzas designed to fill the screen time of pretend news organizations. They control by ensuring that no useful information is ever presented to the public. They serve Wall Street, military contractors, Big Pharma, Big Agra, and so on—i.e., the ruling class. In America politics are only practiced at the local level in towns and public school districts. Anything beyond that depends on a bought media. Hence, when people in America talk politics, it is indistinguishable from their talk about television, movies, and music. In Lisbon graffiti is everywhere. Some is artistic; some is just tagging. No one gets upset about it or thinks it is a sign of danger from criminals. People smoke cigarettes and throw the butts on the ground, which are swept away daily, like the garbage. The water is pure, the food is tasty, safe, and nutritious, the air is clean, because such conditions contribute to life. They are a public good. In America it is hard to find tomatoes that taste like tomatoes. Obesity is prevalent, including among children, because processed fats, sugar, and salt have replaced food. Water is risky, as pure water is siphoned off and sold in plastic bottles to quench the thirst for profits of the likes of Coca Cola and Nestle. Tap water has a variety of organic toxins and heavy metals. In America it is wise not to drink the water. Americans no longer recognize public goods. In Lisbon people talk with each other . . . a lot. Lisboetas are loquacious. They talk about all kinds of things, not just shoes and ships and sealing wax, though I suppose some do talk about those things. They talk vociferously, calmly, excitedly, romantically, thoughtfully, and in all manner of ways, but they talk with each other. In America, people talk to their cell phones. Is it any wonder that Americans don’t recognize public goods? In America, there is no public. At best there are demographic strata—individuals lumped together for marketing and surveillance. In America opening lines of Howl by Allen Ginsberg (San Francisco, 1955-6): “I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving, hysterical naked, dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix, angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night, who poverty and tatters and hollow-eyes and high sat up smoking in the supernatural darkness of cold-water flats floating across the tops of cities contemplating jazz, . . .” In case you thought this was all new. In Lisbon Allen Ginsberg would have been free. 3

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