Headline March 06, 2018/ '' 'TRUTHS LIES TRAPEZE' ''

'' 'TRUTHS LIES TRAPEZE' ''

WHY CLOUDY UNTRUTHS ECLIPSE the sunshine of very standing - out facts

THE PAST WEEKS has seen the South Asia and the world once again confront the possibility of  unthinkable war between India and Pakistan breaking out.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi's gambit to ensure his re-election by hostility and military action against Pakistan has badly backfired.

From the outset of the exchanges, India's authorities lied about the nature and impact of their first strike, claiming they destroyed a fictitious ''terrorist camp'', and next day, after the loss of its own aircraft, falsely claimed to have shot down a Pakistani F-16.

In contrast, Pakistan did exactly what it said it would do; and said what it did, plainly and truthfully.

But even in the present absence of war, the ongoing violence along the Line of Control demonstrates that misery and hardship can be inflicted on local populations in the name of esoteric theories, policies and tactics.

Both India and Pakistan, lest they willfully forget their citizens destitution and the fact that a state has no interest or ability to do so does not mean that the task should be turned over to the market.

The plain truth is that the market cares nothing for those without the ability to pay and there are many more in that category then should ever be acceptable.

With that, I turn to this great master writer Brian Latour who now shines in ''Down to Earth : Politics in the Climatic Regime.''

The one thing you begin to notice in this book is that propagating a reflextive skepticism and sowing discord aren't that difficult, especially when there's a vested interest willing to pay for it.

''Merely creating the appearance of controversy'' is often all that needs to be done.

Latour's ''Down to Earth'' is a wilder, more playful book even if, like ''The Misinformation Age'' it covers big subjects like truth and the fate of the species.

The election of Donald Trump, Latour says was a clarifying event, not only Americans but for the world.

Here, finally, was a political figure whose brave repudiations of reality laid bare what Latour has been saying all along - that a complacent faith in the ability of facts to speak for themselves was what rendered them vulnerable to Trumpian renunciation in the first place.

Latour's talk about how facts derive their authority from trust might sound squishy and abstract, but he considers himself a realist.

He says the climate change renders the old dichotomy of the global versus the local completely futile. Trump and the ''obstructionist elites'' who enable him are nurturing an ''Out-of-This-World'' fantasy by unleashing an aggressive despoliation of the earth that ultimately rejects the world they claim to inhabit.

At the same time, Trump pacifies his base with panicky nationalism and border walls, delineating a ''rump territory'' that is ''no more plausible - no more livable'' than the globalized world they rail against.

''It is quiet useless to become outraged on the pretext that Trump voters ''don't believe in facts,''  Latour writes.

Rather than get tangled in shouting matches over fake news, Latour calls for entirely new way of understanding the world.

He says he wrote ''Down to Earth'' with a ''deliberate bluntness.''

He vests a surprising hope in Europe, whose colonial past- or ''crimes,'' as he puts it - he depicts as inextricable from the migrations it tries to keep out.

''Europe has invaded all peoples; all  peoples are coming to Europe in their turn,'' he writes. ''Give and take. There is no way out of this.''

Latour also describes, migration as the human embodiment of our ''new climate regime.'

Under the old way of thinking, exploited people and places were ignored, silenced and stripped of  agency; now migrants and the earth itself are both setting out ''to  what belongs to them.''

No doubt some readers will find this to be too much, too philosophical and too French.

But maybe it takes a brilliantly mind-bending book like Latour's that so much reality can't be denied.

With respectful dedication to the  Students, Professors and Teachers of the world.

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''' Bouquet and Bounce '''

Good Night and God Bless

SAM Daily Times - the Voice of the Voiceless