Our America / Nuestra América JOSÉ MARTÍ

  José Martí, the Apostle of Cuba, to whom José Rizal was compared, was a brilliant communicator, a modern politician, a true lover of Cuba.  All Filipinos should study his life and thought.
  José Martí, el Apóstol de Cuba, a quien se comparaba José Rizal, fue un comunicador brillante, un político moderno, un auténtico amante de Cuba.  Todos los filipinos debemos estudiar su vida y pensamiento.

  Here are the first two paragraphs of his famous writing, "Nuestra América".  
  Acá van solo los dos primeros párrafos de su famoso escrito, "Nuestra América".

Nuestra América [Ensayo - Texto completo.] José Martí Cree el aldeano vanidoso que el mundo entero es su aldea, y con tal que él quede de alcalde, o le mortifique al rival que le quitó la novia, o le crezcan en la alcancía los ahorros, ya da por bueno el orden universal, sin saber de los gigantes que llevan siete leguas en las botas y le pueden poner la bota encima, ni de la pelea de los cometas en el cielo, que van por el aire dormido engullendo mundos. Lo que quede de aldea en América ha de despertar. Estos tiempos no son para acostarse con el pañuelo a la cabeza, sino con las armas de almohada, como los varones de Juan de Castellanos: las armas del juicio, que vencen a las otras. Trincheras de ideas valen más que trincheras de piedra. No hay proa que taje una nube de ideas. Una idea enérgica, flameada a tiempo ante el mundo, para, como la bandera mística del juicio final, a un escuadrón de acorazados. Los pueblos que no se conocen han de darse prisa para conocerse, como quienes van a pelear juntos. Los que se enseñan los puños, como hermanos celosos, que quieren los dos la misma tierra, o el de casa chica, que le tiene envidia al de casa mejor, han de encajar, de modo que sean una las dos manos. Los que, al amparo de una tradición criminal, cercenaron, con el sable tinto en la sangre de sus mismas venas, la tierra del hermano vencido, del hermano castigado más allá de sus culpas, si no quieren que les llame el pueblo ladrones, devuélvanle sus tierras al hermano. Las deudas del honor no las cobra el honrado en dinero, a tanto por la bofetada. Ya no podemos ser el pueblo de hojas, que vive en el aire, con la copa cargada de flor, restallando o zumbando, según la acaricie el capricho de la luz, o la tundan y talen las tempestades; ¡los árboles se han de poner en fila, para que no pase el gigante de las siete leguas! Es la hora del recuento, y de la marcha unida, y hemos de andar en cuadro apretado, como la plata en las raíces de los Andes.

Our America Published in El Partido Liberal (Mexico City), March 5, 1892 The prideful villager thinks his hometown contains the whole world, and as long as he can stay on as mayor or humiliate the rival who stole his sweetheart or watch his nest egg accumulating in his strongbox he believes the universe to be in good order, unaware of the giants in seven-league boots who can crush him underfoot or the battling comets in the heavens that hurl through the air devouring sleeping worlds. Whatever of these sleepy villages are left in America must awaken. These are not times for going to bed in a sleeping cap, but like Juan de Castellanos' men, for using weapons as pillows --- the weapons of the mind, which vanquish all others. Trenches of ideas are worth more than trenches of stone. A cloud of ideas is a thing no armored prow can smash. A vital idea set ablaze before the world at the right moment, like the mystic banner of the Last Judgment, stops a fleet of battleships. Nations that are still strangers to one another must hurry to become acquainted, like people about to do battle together. Those who shake their fists at each other like jealous siblings quarreling over a piece of land, or the owner of a small house envious of the man with a better one, must join hands and interlace them until their two hands are as one. Those protected by a criminal tradition who mutilate with swords,  smeared with the same blood that flows through their own veins, the land of a conquered brother, of the brother punished far beyond his faults --- you must return that land to your brother if you do not wish to be called thieves by the people. The honorable man does not collect debts of honor in money, at so much per slap. We can no longer be a nation of fluttering leaves, living our lives in the air, our treetop crowned with flowers, humming or creaking, caressed by the caprices of the light, or thrashed and felled by tempests. The trees must come together, form ranks to block the seven-league giant! It is the hour of reckoning, for marching in unison, and we must move in blocks as compact as the veins of silver deep in the roots of the Andes.

Chilean beauties of the 19th C. / Bellezas chilenas del s. XIX

Painting by John Singer Sargent of Eugenia Huici Arguedas de Errázuriz (15 September 1860 – 1951). Doña Eugenia was a Chilean patron of modernism and a style leader of Paris from 1880 into the 20th century, who paved the way for the modernist minimalist aesthetic that would be taken up in fashion by Coco Chanel. Her circle of friends and protégés included Pablo Picasso, Igor Stravinsky, Jean Cocteau, and the poet Blaise Cendrars. She was of Basque descent.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenia_Err%C3%A1zuriz


The young Eugenia Huici Arguedas de Errázuriz.  The Errázuriz family is still very prestigious politically, economically in Chile.


Amalia Errázuriz Subercaseaux.  Another John Singer Sargent portrait of an aristocratic chilena.

By painter Giovanni Boldini
 "Josefina Alvear de Errázuriz" . Josefina Alvear (1859-1935) married Chilean diplomat Matías Errázuriz (1859-1953) in 1897.


So you can imagine the masses of agricultural peons, of mining laborers that created the immense wealth of these families, and the armies of servants that ran their palatial homes.  






Always, in this dual dimension we live in, on the other side of great beauty, there is great ugliness.

There is no moral censure implicit in my words.  These ladies believed in making a contribution to their society, their husbands were often men with moral conscience (not revolutionaries, but they felt it was their duty to promote education, health, social welfare, good government).  This has been almost completely lost today. Up to the first half of the 20th century, the Chilean middle class had become robust and yielded politicians with social conscience, notably President Pedro Aguirre Cerda who did much for public education being a teacher himself, up until President Salvador Allende who was a doctor and became known to the populace because of his work to improve the health conditions of the poor, especially in Valparaiso, the product of that early Liberal political and economic thought, coupled with traditional Christian values, uninterrupted by foreign invasion.  Until 1973.

All that is about to be completely lost to Neoliberalism and the Deep State which even now is buying up even more Chilean territory and dismantling what remains of republicanism, thanks to the corruption of the elite.  You see, the problem with aristocrats is that they intermarry too much and then they need money so they let in the pragmatic new rich (executive class, i.e. multinational puppets), and then it's sell your nation up shit creek because we have all those secret bank accounts and real estate in Miami and France and Switzerland etc. etc.  What we worry?

Yes, but as soon as the Deep State gets all it wants (and it's never satisfied, it'll start on the next planet after Earth implodes)...these puppets will be guillotined.

So much for their fairy tales that have lasted 150 years.

Just a few thoughts on this sunny autumn day.  Cheers!