On this day we remember the anniversary of the destruction of Guernica in 1937 by the Nazis, vividly commemorated by Picasso as a witness of history, and situated within the special context of the Spanish Resistance, and of the Humanist values of the Enlightenment and the Rights of Man which the atrocity violated, but also a universal testament, lament, and cry of defiance against the horror of war.
The horrors of the Nazi annihilation of the civilization of Europe is being recapitulated today in the destruction of Ukraine by Russia and of Palestine by Israel, with Mariupol and Gaza echoes and reflections of Guernica, as it will whenever we forget the lessons of our history and are doomed to repeat it.
When I founded the Abraham Lincoln Brigades of Ukraine and Palestine with my fellow American volunteers in liberation struggle, it was not only to recall the glorious International Brigades of the Spanish Civil War as our true forebears, but also in recognition that both Putin’s Russia and Netanyahu’s Israel have modeled their obscene and criminal wars of imperial conquest and dominion on Guernica and the idea of Total War as developed in the Spanish Civil War by the fascist regimes of Hitler and Franco; and that we must reply to them as Resistance and by any means necessary.
All Resistance is war to the knife.
Evil never sleeps, nor must our vigilance in guardianship of each other.
War is an evil born of many things, including fear and the dehumanization of others, and of the pathology of disconnectedness and failure of empathy. It is also an instrument of government and authority which exists because it is enormously profitable for those in power.
The family fortune of the Bush dynasty was made by the first President Bush’s grandfather, who personally handed Adolf Hitler the cash to finance the Beer Hall Putsch. Why? He was the exclusive New York banker for Thyssen-Krupp, the arms manufacturer of Germany, and there was profit to be made as a Nazi agent. The American invasion of Iraq as an instrumentalization of the 911 terror attack in imperial conquest and dominion and the centralization of power to a carceral state with the counterinsurgency model of policing becomes horrifically clear in its design when considered as a seizure of power by multigenerational Nazi ideologists of the Fourth Reich.
When President Dwight D. Eisenhower warned us to beware of the military-industrial complex in his 1961 farewell address, he diagnosed the cause of our enslavement by wealth and power, and a primary subversive threat to democracy.
To the horror of war, as to fascism, there can be but one reply; Never Again.
In the words of Cal Winslow writing in Jacobin; “Guernica represented the first instance of a new kind of war. The Blitz followed it, then Dresden and the firebombing of Tokyo. Then Hiroshima. The “saturation” bombing of Vietnam — a nation virtually defenseless from the air — left millions dead. Now we have watched Fallujah and Aleppo and Mosul, while today the United States bombs seven countries simultaneously: Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Somalia, and Libya.
And so Guernica remains, alas, timely, timeless, universal. A decade ago, T. J. Clark concluded his magisterial Picasso and Truth with this tribute to Picasso’s “astounding feat”:
Life, says the painting [Guernica], is an ordinary, carnal, entirely unnegotiable value. It is what humans and animals share. There is a time of life, which we inhabit unthinkingly, but also a time of death: the two may be incommensurable, but humans especially — from the evidence of Paleolithic burials it seems a human defining trait — structure their lives, imaginatively, in relation to death. They try to live with death — to keep death present, like the ancestors whose bones they exhume and re-enter.
But certain kinds of death break that human contract. And this is one of them, says Guernica. Life should not end the way it does here. Some kinds of death, to put it another way, have nothing to do with the human as Picasso conceives it — they possess no form as they take place, they come from nowhere, time never touches them, they do not even have the look of doom. They are a special obscenity, and that obscenity, it turns out, has been a central experience for seventy years.”
Trailer for the Film Picasso with Antonio Banderas
Picasso, a reading list
Picasso, Gertrude Stein
Pablo Picasso, Mary Ann Caws
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/81271.Pablo_Picasso
Picasso’s Mask, André Malraux
Picasso’s War, Russell Martin
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/282786.Picasso_s_War
The Genesis of a Painting: Picasso’s Guernica, Rudolf Arnheim
Picasso and Truth: From Cubism to Guernica (The A. W. Mellon Lectures in the Fine Arts), by T.J. Clark
The Spanish Civil War, a reading list
The Destruction of Guernica, Paul Preston
The Spanish Civil War, Hugh Thomas
The Spanish Civil War: Reaction, Revolution, and Revenge, Paul Preston
The Spanish Holocaust: Inquisition and Extermination in Twentieth-Century Spain, Paul Preston
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/12520353-the-spanish-holocaust
Guernica and Total War, Ian Patterson
No Pasarán!: Writings from the Spanish Civil War, Pete Ayrton
The International Brigades: Fascism, Freedom and the Spanish Civil War, Giles Tremlett
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/54860201-the-international-brigades?ref=nav_sb_ss_1_86
Homage to Catalonia, George Orwell
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/9646.Homage_to_Catalonia?ref=nav_sb_ss_2_34
For Whom the Bell Tolls, Ernest Hemingway
Hotel Florida: Truth, Love, and Death in the Spanish Civil War, Amanda Vaill
Hell and Good Company: The Spanish Civil War and the World it Made,
Richard Rhodes
https://www.jacobinmag.com/2017/04/guernica-anniversary-spanish-civil-war-franco
Spanish
26 de abril de 2024 Guernica: el horror de la guerra
En este día recordamos el aniversario de la destrucción de Guernica en 1937 por los nazis, vívidamente conmemorado por Picasso como testigo de la historia, y situado en el contexto especial de la Resistencia española, y de los valores humanistas de la Ilustración y los Derechos. del Hombre que la atrocidad violó, pero también un testamento universal, un lamento y un grito de desafío contra el horror de la guerra.
Los horrores de la aniquilación nazi de la civilización de Europa se recapitulan hoy en la destrucción de Ucrania por Rusia y de Palestina por Israel, con Mariupol y Gaza ecos y reflejos de Guernica, como sucederá siempre que olvidemos las lecciones de nuestra historia y están condenados a repetirlo.
Cuando fundé las Brigadas Abraham Lincoln de Ucrania y Palestina con mis compañeros voluntarios estadounidenses en la lucha por la liberación, no fue sólo para recordar a las gloriosas Brigadas Internacionales de la Guerra Civil Española como nuestros verdaderos antepasados, sino también para reconocer que tanto la Rusia de Putin como la de Netanyahu Israel ha modelado sus guerras obscenas y criminales de conquista y dominio imperial sobre Guernica y la idea de Guerra Total desarrollada en la Guerra Civil Española por los regímenes fascistas de Hitler y Franco; y que debemos responderles como Resistencia y por todos los medios necesarios.
Toda Resistencia es guerra al cuchillo.
El mal nunca duerme, ni tampoco debe hacerlo nuestra vigilancia para protegernos unos a otros.
La guerra es un mal que nace de muchas cosas, incluido el miedo y la deshumanización de los demás, y de la patología de la desconexión y la falta de empatía. También es un instrumento de gobierno y autoridad que existe porque es enormemente rentable para quienes están en el poder.
La fortuna familiar de la dinastía Bush fue hecha por el abuelo del primer presidente Bush, quien personalmente entregó a Adolf Hitler el dinero en efectivo para financiar el golpe de estado de la cervecería. ¿Por qué? Era el banquero exclusivo en Nueva York de Thyssen-Krupp, el fabricante de armas de Alemania, y como agente nazi se podían obtener beneficios. La invasión estadounidense de Irak como una instrumentalización del ataque terrorista del 11 de septiembre en la conquista y el dominio imperial y la centralización del poder en un estado carcelario con el modelo policial contrainsurgente se vuelve terriblemente clara en su diseño cuando se la considera una toma del poder por parte de los ideólogos nazis multigeneracionales. del Cuarto Reich.
Cuando el presidente Dwight D. Eisenhower nos advirtió que tuviéramos cuidado con el complejo militar-industrial en su discurso de despedida de 1961, diagnosticó la causa de nuestra esclavitud por la riqueza y el poder, y una principal amenaza subversiva a la democracia.
Al horror de la guerra, como al fascismo, sólo puede haber una respuesta; Nunca más.
Torch of Liberty 
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