Grateful for this telling of the history of "J'Accuse!" It is among the many stories I shamefully never knew about.
I missed seeing a Prevail podcast last Friday, and worried a bit that you might have gone the way of Emile Zola. Glad to have seen you on the Five/8, though I have not watched it yet.
If you shut up truth and bury it under the ground, it will but grow, and gather to itself such explosive power that the day it bursts through it will blow up everything in its way. ✍🏻 Emile Zola
Speak your truth , even if your voice shakes. Vive La Verite! 🗽
AND Ashli Babbitt's "family" is suing the Federal Government for $30 million. I wonder where they were when they should have been teaching her right from wrong? Maybe someone should have told her "Do not break in to the Capital Building and try to stop Congress from certifying the Presidential Election."
Magnificent piece today Greg, J’ adore learning something new, this one was completely new to my corner of the continuum! Your Sunday posts are inspiring and thought provoking, this one is no exception! Thanks!
Greg I went to HS in the 70’s. I always thought I had a pretty good education on civics and history. January 6 was my dad’s birthday and had no other significant meaning to me until Jan6, 2021! I thank you for your Sunday writings on history and poetry. 🙏🙏
These names tickled a memory, but I cannot remember where or when I first heard of them. Thank you so much for the deep dive. As trite as it sounds, history does appear to repeat itself.
You bet it does. We humans are hubristic enough to think that we are somehow special and unknown history will somehow make us immune to our own foibles.
I became aware of the Dreyfus Affair when reading Benard-Henri Levy's "Left in Dark Times" which led me to find a book by Piers Paul Read about that sordid episode in French history. Now as then there was an unabashed conspiracy, taking place first behind the scenes then mostly right in front of all to see. 45 is an imbecilic stooge, being run by the likes of Bannon and Miller. In the days leading to 5th November's fateful election, most worrying to me are the unseen MAGA-nuts. They like Zola's murderer lurk behind the scenes, unseen and unheard, harboring hatred and a desire to get even. Get even for what, they do not care. There is no agenda other than to be recognized as a true believer, to be the one who answered the call of their "Fuehrer". As 45 calls them, true patriots. For them a bullet is the answer to all their wordly gripes. The supposedly mighty Mossad could not prevent Rabin's demise at the hands of Yigal Amir, an unknown until that fateful day. Is there a Yigal lurking somewhere in America? I truly hope we do not find out.
Powerful read Greg. Couldn’t wait to post it as I know that a few of my friends will get as much from it as I did. Wasn’t the movie “Papillon” based on Dreyfus’s imprisonment or am I thinking of a different movie?
I have seen the movie Papillon which is adapted from the book of the same name by Henri L. Charriere, who escaped Devil's Island with a companion, Sylvain. Charriere was in the group sent to Devil's Island at the same time as Dreyfus, and they became friends, with Charriere often his protector.
There was only one other person to escape, one Clement Duval, and it took him some 20 tries to do so. Both Charriere, Sylvain and Duval earlier all came to the US. Dreyfus returned to France after 10 years or so via legal efforts and money.
The movie stars Steve McQueen as Charriere and Dustin Hoffman as Dreyfus. The lush cinematography of the equatorial island belie the horror there: of the 80,000 or so who were sent there, only an estimated 5-10,000 survived. It not so easy to watch. The movie starts at the end of the Dreyfus trial, but it has been so long ago I forget how deeply it got into his situation. I looked up some of the names just to get them spelled correctly.
Thanks for the back ground on him Greg; I never grasped the scale of his crimes. This is a blast from the past.
“It is a crime to exploit patriotism in the service of hatred ….” That clause somehow struck me as the most poignant indictment I’ve heard recently of the GOP’s “leadership” in Congress. I won’t try to add my own two cents worth; the statement is powerful and self-evident.
Bless you, Greg! As I like to say (paraphrasing someone noteworthy whose name escapes me), "History doesn't repeat itself, but it does often rhyme."
Don't know if you've ever seen/read Andrea Bernstein's book, "American Oligarchs: The Kushners, Trumps and the Marriage of Money and Power." It was fascinating in its expose of the dark side of the current Kushner family. She penned the below 'New Yorker' article in 2022, adding more nuance to the story.
Je suis d’accord avec toi mon frère.
MAGA hell! America is already great. Not perfect, but we are consciously striving to improve.
Keep it up brother Greg. Billserle.com.
Grateful for this telling of the history of "J'Accuse!" It is among the many stories I shamefully never knew about.
I missed seeing a Prevail podcast last Friday, and worried a bit that you might have gone the way of Emile Zola. Glad to have seen you on the Five/8, though I have not watched it yet.
Thanks, Lynell. I was traveling for work-work this week, so didn't have time to put a podcast together. I'll be back next week, god willing...
I didn't know much about this either. Always fascinating to deep-dive.
I didn’t know either.
Thanks, CH! I had heard the term "J'Accuse" early on, but never knew the back story. If it wasn't for Greg, I'd probably still not know!
If you shut up truth and bury it under the ground, it will but grow, and gather to itself such explosive power that the day it bursts through it will blow up everything in its way. ✍🏻 Emile Zola
Speak your truth , even if your voice shakes. Vive La Verite! 🗽
I just tried to buy Zola at B&B but they didn’t have any. I heard Zola was the best voice of the reality of the French then.
Maybe it was banned 😉
Donald the Stinky....please forward to the Biden campaign!
Meanwhile, J6 ‘QAnon Shaman’ wants his horns back from the FBI. 😅 #Lock’emUp
AND Ashli Babbitt's "family" is suing the Federal Government for $30 million. I wonder where they were when they should have been teaching her right from wrong? Maybe someone should have told her "Do not break in to the Capital Building and try to stop Congress from certifying the Presidential Election."
GQP MAGA Fruitcakes are off the deep end 🤭
And they get to magnify their favorite position: casting themselves as the Victim (never the perpetrator).
Yeah, the poor patriots aka #DomesticTerrorists 🥷🏻
Hope they don’t try to spend it yet… ain’t going to happen.
I agree. It's all for right-wing talking points and sound bites.
I just loved reading that in the middle of the great prose!
Magnificent piece today Greg, J’ adore learning something new, this one was completely new to my corner of the continuum! Your Sunday posts are inspiring and thought provoking, this one is no exception! Thanks!
D’accord Patrick.
I always look forward to Greg’s pov & deep creative dives. Both enlightening and enlivening.
Greg I went to HS in the 70’s. I always thought I had a pretty good education on civics and history. January 6 was my dad’s birthday and had no other significant meaning to me until Jan6, 2021! I thank you for your Sunday writings on history and poetry. 🙏🙏
GULP
These names tickled a memory, but I cannot remember where or when I first heard of them. Thank you so much for the deep dive. As trite as it sounds, history does appear to repeat itself.
You bet it does. We humans are hubristic enough to think that we are somehow special and unknown history will somehow make us immune to our own foibles.
I became aware of the Dreyfus Affair when reading Benard-Henri Levy's "Left in Dark Times" which led me to find a book by Piers Paul Read about that sordid episode in French history. Now as then there was an unabashed conspiracy, taking place first behind the scenes then mostly right in front of all to see. 45 is an imbecilic stooge, being run by the likes of Bannon and Miller. In the days leading to 5th November's fateful election, most worrying to me are the unseen MAGA-nuts. They like Zola's murderer lurk behind the scenes, unseen and unheard, harboring hatred and a desire to get even. Get even for what, they do not care. There is no agenda other than to be recognized as a true believer, to be the one who answered the call of their "Fuehrer". As 45 calls them, true patriots. For them a bullet is the answer to all their wordly gripes. The supposedly mighty Mossad could not prevent Rabin's demise at the hands of Yigal Amir, an unknown until that fateful day. Is there a Yigal lurking somewhere in America? I truly hope we do not find out.
Great post!
Powerful read Greg. Couldn’t wait to post it as I know that a few of my friends will get as much from it as I did. Wasn’t the movie “Papillon” based on Dreyfus’s imprisonment or am I thinking of a different movie?
I have seen the movie Papillon which is adapted from the book of the same name by Henri L. Charriere, who escaped Devil's Island with a companion, Sylvain. Charriere was in the group sent to Devil's Island at the same time as Dreyfus, and they became friends, with Charriere often his protector.
There was only one other person to escape, one Clement Duval, and it took him some 20 tries to do so. Both Charriere, Sylvain and Duval earlier all came to the US. Dreyfus returned to France after 10 years or so via legal efforts and money.
The movie stars Steve McQueen as Charriere and Dustin Hoffman as Dreyfus. The lush cinematography of the equatorial island belie the horror there: of the 80,000 or so who were sent there, only an estimated 5-10,000 survived. It not so easy to watch. The movie starts at the end of the Dreyfus trial, but it has been so long ago I forget how deeply it got into his situation. I looked up some of the names just to get them spelled correctly.
Thanks for the back ground on him Greg; I never grasped the scale of his crimes. This is a blast from the past.
Another great post. Thank you
“It is a crime to exploit patriotism in the service of hatred ….” That clause somehow struck me as the most poignant indictment I’ve heard recently of the GOP’s “leadership” in Congress. I won’t try to add my own two cents worth; the statement is powerful and self-evident.
I agree, powerful words that can resonate
Zola's work, L' Assomoir is one of my favs. He writes from the perspective of the working poor of Paris. It's a great snapshot of the time.
J'Accuse is a timely story. Thank you for writing about it.
Suzanne Cully
So much history in so few but powerful words. So much I didn’t know before as well.
Americans are going to be surprised how much they don’t want to give up democracy.
And Republicans will too. Zola had crushing words and you speak about the context so powerfully. Wow to you!
Bless you, Greg! As I like to say (paraphrasing someone noteworthy whose name escapes me), "History doesn't repeat itself, but it does often rhyme."
Don't know if you've ever seen/read Andrea Bernstein's book, "American Oligarchs: The Kushners, Trumps and the Marriage of Money and Power." It was fascinating in its expose of the dark side of the current Kushner family. She penned the below 'New Yorker' article in 2022, adding more nuance to the story.
https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/who-is-jared-kushner
P.S. It was Tom Barrack who pushed Trump to pay attention to Jared.