Watch here the new extended AVATAR trailer, from the soul inspiring AVATAR movie by James Cameron:

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Here are two passages from Alfred Lambremont Webre article on AVATAR, James Cameron new movie (by permission):

“AVATAR, the 3-D fusion camera system film by Canadian Oscar winning director and writer James Cameron now nominated for 4 Golden Globe awards, is a virtual experience of extraterrestrial disclosure and the harsh exopolitical reality of Earth’s military-industrial complex and permanent war economy ongoing secret colonization and exploitation of our solar system and beyond.”

Na'vi princess and Obama family

“AVATAR is not only a future morality play about the destruction of a spiritually-advanced animist race of extraterrestrials for mining rights, corporate greed and the survival of a denuded Earth in a distant future. It is all of these, and more. AVATAR offers you the viewer a close-to-virtual experience of a case study of what may be occurring right now in our own solar system as the black budget war-mentality of Earth’s expands it dualistic, exploitative and militaristic policies into outer space behind a screen of official secrecy and constitutional rogue.”

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Alfred Webre, J. D., M. Ed., speaks, in an interview to Lee Patrick Hanks, about Exopolitics, the political science of outer space, ET races, NASA photos of Mars showing evidence of life and the 1953 CIA rule of no public discourse on extraterrestrial issues.

Whitman would have loved to hear this, as Astronomy was his favorite science!

See part 1 of 5 of the interview and then go on the other parts:

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Dear readers,

check these previews of interviews with Nassim Haramein, a great physicist of today, with brilliant ideas about the universe, oneness, wholeness, black hole theory, energy, gravity, and much more:

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ANNEX: Origins of Attempted Secession

ORIGINS OF ATTEMPTED SECESSION

Walt Whitman

“Not the whole matter, but some side facts worth conning to-day and any day.

I CONSIDER the war of attempted secession, 1860–65, not as a struggle of two distinct and separate peoples, but a conflict (often happening, and very fierce) between the passions and paradoxes of one and the same identity—perhaps the only terms on which that identity could really become fused, homogeneous and lasting. The origin and conditions out of which it arose, are full of lessons, full of warnings yet to the Republic—and always will be. The underlying and principal of those origins are yet singularly ignored. The Northern States were really just as responsible for that war, (in its precedents, foundations, instigations,) as the South. Let me try to give my view. From the age of 21 to 40, (1840–’60,) I was interested in the political movements of the land, not so much as a participant, but as an observer, and a regular voter at the elections. I think I was conversant with the springs of action, and their workings, not only in New York city and Brooklyn, but understood them in the whole country, as I had made leisurely tours through all the middle States, and partially through the western and southern, and down to New Orleans, in which city I resided for some time. (I was there at the close of the Mexican war—saw and talk’d with General Taylor, and the other generals and officers, who were fêted and detain’d several days on their return victorious from that expedition.)

Of course many and very contradictory things, specialties, developments, constitutional views, &c., went to make up the origin of the war—but the most significant general fact can be best indicated and stated as follows: For twenty-five years previous to the outbreak, the controling “Democratic” nominating conventions of our Republic—starting from their primaries in wards or districts, and so expanding to counties, powerful cities, States, and to the great Presidential nominating conventions—were getting to represent and be composed of more and more putrid and dangerous materials. Let me give a schedule, or list, of one of these representative conventions for a long time before, and inclusive of, that which nominated Buchanan. (Remember they had come to be the fountains and tissues of the American body politic, forming, as it were, the whole blood, legislation, office-holding, &-c.) One of these conventions, from 1840 to ’60, exhibited a spectacle such as could never be seen except in our own age and in these States. The members who composed it were, seven-eighths of them, the meanest kind of bawling and blowing office-holders, office-seekers, pimps, malignants, conspirators, murderers, fancy-men, custom-house clerks, contractors, kept-editors, spaniels well-train’d to carry and fetch, jobbers, infidels, disunionists, terrorists, mail-riflers, slave-catchers, pushers of slavery, creatures of the President, creatures of would-be Presidents, spies, bribers, compromisers, lobbyers, sponges, ruin’d sports, expell’d gamblers, policy-backers, monte-dealers, duellists, carriers of conceal’d weapons, deaf men, pimpled men, scarr’d inside with vile disease, gaudy outside with gold chains made from the people’s money and harlots’ money twisted together; crawling, serpentine men, the lousy combings and born freedom-sellers of the earth. And whence came they? From back-yards and bar-rooms; from out of the customhouses, marshals’ offices, post-offices, and gambling-hells; from the President’s house, the jail, the station-house; from unnamed by-places, where devilish disunion was hatch’d at midnight; from political hearses, and from the shrouds inside, and from the shrouds inside of the coffins; from the tumors and abscesses of the land; from the skeletons and skulls in the vaults of the federal almshouses; and from the running sores of the great cities. Such, I say, form’d, or absolutely control’d the forming of, the entire personnel, the atmosphere, nutriment and chyle, of our municipal, State, and National politics—substantially permeating, handling, deciding, and wielding everything—legislation, nominations, elections, “public sentiment,” &c.—while the great masses of the people, farmers, mechanics, and traders, were helpless in their gripe. These conditions were mostly prevalent in the north and west, and especially in New York and Philadelphia cities; and the southern leaders, (bad enough, but of a far higher order,) struck hands and affiliated with, and used them. Is it strange that a thunder-storm follow’d such morbid and stifling cloud-strata?

I say then, that what, as just outlined, heralded, and made the ground ready for secession revolt, ought to be held up, through all the future, as the most instructive lesson in American political history—the most significant warning and beacon-light to coming generations. I say that the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth terms of the American Presidency have shown that the villainy and shallowness of rulers (back’d by the machinery of great parties) are just as eligible to these States as to any foreign despotism, kingdom, or empire—there is not a bit of difference. History is to record those three Presidentiads, and especially the administrations of Fillmore and Buchanan, as so far our topmost warning and shame. Never were publicly display’d more deform’d, mediocre, snivelling, unreliable, false-hearted men. Never were these States so insulted, and attempted to be betray’d. All the main purposes for which the government was establish’d were openly denied. The perfect equality of slavery with freedom was flauntingly preach’d in the north—nay, the superiority of slavery. The slave trade was proposed to be renew’d. Everywhere frowns and misunderstandings—everywhere exasperations and humiliations. (The slavery contest is settled—and the war is long over—yet do not those putrid conditions, too many of them, still exist? still result in diseases, fevers, wounds—not of war and army hospitals—but the wounds and diseases of peace?)

Out of those generic influences, mainly in New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, &c., arose the attempt at disunion. To philosophical examination, the malignant fever of that war shows its embryonic sources, and the original nourishment of its life and growth, in the north. I say secession, below the surface, originated and was brought to maturity in the free States. I allude to the score of years preceding 1860. My deliberated opinion is now, that if at the opening of the contest the abstract duality-question of slavery and quiet could have been submitted to a direct popular vote, as against their opposite, they would have triumphantly carried the day in a majority of the northern States—in the large cities, leading off with New York and Philadelphia, by tremendous majorities. The events of ’61 amazed everybody north and south, and burst all prophecies and calculations like bubbles. But even then, and during the whole war, the stern fact remains that (not only did the north put it down, but) the secession cause had numerically just as many sympathizers in the free as in the rebel States.

As to slavery, abstractly and practically, (its idea, and the determination to establish and expand it, especially in the new territories, the future America,) it is too common, I repeat, to identify it exclusively with the south. In fact down to the opening of the war, the whole country had about an equal hand in it. The north had at least been just as guilty, if not more guilty; and the east and west had. The former Presidents and Congresses had been guilty—the governors and legislatures of every northern State had been guilty, and the mayors of New York and other northern cities had all been guilty—their hands were all stain’d. And as the conflict took decided shape, it is hard to tell which class, the leading southern or northern disunionists, was more stunn’d and disappointed at the non-action of the free-state secession element, so largely existing and counted on by those leaders, both sections.

So much for that point, and for the north. As to the inception and direct instigation of the war, in the south itself, I shall not attempt interiors or complications. Behind all, the idea that it was from a resolute and arrogant determination on the part of the extreme slave-holders, the Calhounites, to carry the states rights’ portion of the constitutional compact to its farthest verge, and nationalize slavery, or else disrupt the Union, and found a new empire, with slavery for its corner-stone, was and is undoubtedly the true theory. (If successful, this attempt might—I am not sure, but it might—have destroy’d not only our American republic, in anything like first-class proportions, in itself and its prestige, but for ages at least, the cause of Liberty and Equality everywhere—and would have been the greatest triumph of reaction, and the severest blow to political and every other freedom, possible to conceive. Its worst result would have inured to the southern States themselves.) That our national democratic experiment, principle, and machinery, could triumphantly sustain such a shock, and that the Constitution could weather it, like a ship a storm, and come out of it as sound and whole as before, is by far the most signal proof yet of the stability of that experiment, Democracy, and of those principles, and that Constitution.

Of the war itself, we know in the ostent what has been done. The numbers of the dead and wounded can be told or approximated, the debt posted and put on record, the material events narrated, &c. Meantime, elections go on, laws are pass’d, political parties struggle, issue their platforms, &c., just the same as before. But immensest results, not only in politics, but in literature, poems, and sociology, are doubtless waiting yet unform’d in the future. How long they will wait I cannot tell. The pageant of history’s retrospect shows us, ages since, all Europe marching on the crusades, those arm’d uprisings of the people, stirr’d by a mere idea, to grandest attempt—and, when once baffled in it, returning, at intervals, twice, thrice, and again. An unsurpass’d series of revolutionary events, influences. Yet it took over two hundred years for the seeds of the crusades to germinate, before beginning even to sprout. Two hundred years they lay, sleeping, not dead, but dormant in the ground. Then, out of them, unerringly, arts, travel, navigation, politics, literature, freedom, the spirit of adventure, inquiry, all arose, grew, and steadily sped on to what we see at present. Far back there, that huge agitation-struggle of the crusades stands, as undoubtedly the embryo, the start, of the high preeminence of experiment, civilization and enterprise which the European nations have since sustain’d, and of which these States are the heirs.

Another illustration—(history is full of them, although the war itself, the victory of the Union, and the relations of our equal States, present features of which there are no precedents in the past.) The conquest of England eight centuries ago, by the Franco Normans—the obliteration of the old, (in many respects so needing obliteration)—the Domesday Book, and the repartition of the land—the old impedimenta removed, even by blood and ruthless violence, and a new, progressive genesis establish’d, new seeds sown—time has proved plain enough that, bitter as they were, all these were the most salutary series of revolutions that could possibly have happen’d. Out of them, and by them mainly, have come, out of Albic, Roman and Saxon England—and without them could not have come—not only the England of the 500 years down to the present, and of the present—but these States. Nor, except for that terrible dislocation and overturn, would these States, as they are, exist to-day.

It is certain to me that the United States, by virtue of that war and its results, and through that and them only, are now ready to enter, and must certainly enter, upon their genuine career in history, as no more torn and divided in their spinal requisites, but a great homogeneous Nation—free states all—a moral and political unity in variety, such as Nature shows in her grandest physical works, and as much greater than any mere work of Nature, as the moral and political, the work of man, his mind, his soul, are, in their loftiest sense, greater than the merely physical. Out of that war not only has the nationalty of the States escaped from being strangled, but more than any of the rest, and, in my opinion, more than the north itself, the vital heart and breath of the south have escaped as from the pressure of a general nightmare, and are henceforth to enter on a life, development, and active freedom, whose realities are certain in the future, notwithstanding all the southern vexations of the hour—a development which could not possibly have been achiev’d on any less terms, or by any other means than that grim lesson, or something equivalent to it. And I predict that the south is yet to outstrip the north.” (WHITMAN, 1996, pp.1018-1024)

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5 CONCLUSION (Part 22 – end of chapter)

By analyzing all the books and poems we have translated and the samples provided above, for some of which we have supplied a second translation for comparison, we believe that we have met our own expectations of the re-creation of Whitman’s poetry into our language. Even though it is very difficult to criticize our own work, for we may fall prey to self-praise, by comparing our re-created poetic texts to other existing translations, it becomes clear that our approach to this task is at least different from the usual literal or almost literal translations, especially in regard to rhythm, as we have emphasized at the beginning of this chapter. We have been able to maintain the flow of the poems and we feel that their reading aloud shall show this, because we are constantly testing how they sound. What we mean by this is that we have always tried to find the best possible combination of sounds in each verse or parts of verse. Our purpose in this, it is not to make the verses sound beautiful, but to set the best phonic combination to transmit the sense of the verse in English. There are cases in which the effect might be exactly the opposite, that is, to describe scenes where evil thoughts and diseases are present. Besides, we have performed a careful work on vocabulary, so that the passages or words in the original that convey a sense of strangeness could be transmitted in Portuguese that way. However, there is more than just strangeness: Whitman liked to use words borrowed from other languages, such as French, Spanish and native American languages (ex.: savant, Libertad, Paumanok), he liked to write words with “k” (Kanadian, kosmos), and he sometimes changed the spelling of words (he wrote “carlacue” in section 20 of “Song of Myself,” but the correct spelling is “curlicue” or “curlicue”). Together with his extensive vocabulary in Leaves of Grass, more than 13,000 words, the task of researching and checking every single word is tremendous. In this case, the Norton Critical Edition (WHITMAN, 2002) has been of great help with its incredible number of notes to poems and vocabulary. We have done the same thorough action regarding grammatical structures and punctuation, as well as Whitman’s way of using certain collocations, particularly with adjectives, which he tends to use where they do not fit in correct English (he likes to use adjectives after the nouns, which is not considered syntactically acceptable in the English language). As in Portuguese the adjectives can go before or after the nouns, we have always tried to arrange them in the best way possible, that is, to maintain the original atmosphere of the poems. Another aspect that we have re-created with utmost care is the use of the –ing forms, whether they are verbs or nouns, since they are an essential part of Whitman’s verse.

Apart from all that we have written before, we do know that a translator’s job is never finished, for every time we return to the poems we will look for any kinds of mistakes, and we will certainly find them, and we will verify every verse again trying to make it better, as we have done with our previous re-creations. However, we also know that there is a time when our eyes are not able to find mistakes any more, due to excessive proximity to the texts. Thus, we leave this task now, as well as the judgment on our work, to the critics and readers. Paraphrasing Whitman, we are pleased with what we have done with the poems.

***

5 CONCLUSION (Part 21)

From “The Sleepers” we bring the passage that is mentioned in section 2.5.2, which depicts a swimmer’s death by sea water. As we have explained in that section, Whitman was a swimmer himself, and this scene portrays the death of a swimmer that is similar to the death of Carpus in the myth when competing with his friend Calamus, who died shortly after this event (2.5.1). As Whitman saw himself in everyone, it could be argued that the swimmer described in the scene is also a manifestation or projection of his own self, since the swimmer in the passage below is big, like him, and middle-aged. Although Whitman was thirty-seven years old at that time (“The Sleepers” was part of the 1855 edition, in which the poet sings in part 1 of “Song of Myself”: “I, now thirty-seven years old in perfect health begin”), he was prematurely aged enough to look forty-five. As for the poem, it describes Whitman’s vision in his dream, in which he can see the dreams of the other dreamers. However, he also wanders during the day in the light. He is conscious of light and dark, life and death, and is content with both. He always accepts everything and everybody and excludes nothing.

.

WHITMAN:

3
I see a beautiful gigantic swimmer swimming naked through the eddies of           the sea,
His brown hair lies close and even to his head, he strikes out with            courageous arms, he urges himself with his legs,
I see his white body, I see his undaunted eyes,
I hate the swift-running eddies that would dash him head-foremost on the           rocks.
.

What are you doing you ruffianly red-trickled waves?
Will you kill the courageous giant? will you kill him in the prime of his   middle age?
.

Steady and long he struggles,
He is baffled, bang’d, bruis’d, he holds out while his strength holds out,
The slapping eddies are spotted with his blood, they bear him away, they            roll him, swing him, turn him,

His beautiful body is borne in the circling eddies, it is continually bruis’d on       rocks,
Swiftly and out of sight is borne the brave corpse.

.

OUR RE-CREATION:

3

Vejo um belo gigantesco nadador nadando nu pelos torvelinhos do mar,

Seu cabelo castanho jaz rente e liso em sua cabeça, ele golpeia com braços corajosos, ele se impele com suas pernas,

Vejo seu corpo alvo, vejo seus olhos destemidos,

Odeio os torvelinhos rápido-correntes que o arrojariam totalmente de cabeça nas pedras.

.

O que estais fazendo ondas desordeiras gotejadas de vermelho?

Matareis o gigante corajoso? o matareis no auge de sua meia-idade?

.

Firme e longamente ele luta,

Ele está confuso, detonado, contundido, ele resiste enquanto sua força resiste,

Os estapeantes torvelinhos estão manchados com seu sangue, eles o ganham, eles o rolam, o balançam, o giram,

Seu belo corpo é carregado nos circundantes torvelinhos, é continuamente contundido nas rochas,

Rápido e longe da vista é carregado o valente cadáver.

.

LOPES:

Vejo um nadador gigante e bonito nadando nu pelos redemoinhos do mar,

Seu cabelo castanho colado rente à testa….bate na água com braçadas corajosas….acelera com suas próprias pernas.

.

Vejo seu corpo branco….seus olhos destemidos;

Odeio os rápidos redemoinhos que ameaçam arremessar sua cabeça contra as rochas.

.

O que estão fazendo, ondas cafetinas e sanguinolentas?

Vão matar o corajoso gigante? Vão matá-lo no auge da meia-idade?

.

Por muito tempo ele luta e insiste;

Elas o socam o estapeiam o espancam….ele agüenta enquanto suas forças agüentam,

Os rápidos redemoinhos se tingem com seu sangue….elas o levam embora….o viram e reviram e o balançam:

Seu corpo bonito emerge nos redemoinhos….continuamente ferido pelas rochas,

Rapidamente e em outro lugar nasce seu bravo cadáver.

(WHITMAN, 2005, p.165; pontuação de acordo com a edição de 1855)

***

5 CONCLUSION (Part 20)

From “Passage to India,” published in 1871, we bring two excerpts to illustrate what the true son of God, the poet, is singing: God’s purpose. This means that in this poem he is not singing the materials of his America or the earth, he is going beyond geography and culture since he has seen that the earth is to be all linked together, towards what is universal and eternal: the soul, and its divinity and connection with the Creator. He includes the great achievements of his time; however, he is sailing much farther than that, he is asking his soul to sail “the seas of God.”  As we have stated at the comment on “Salut au Monde!,” we have the feeling that this poem is a continuation of that one, but at another degree of awareness, passing from material, from what is seen and physical, to the immaterial, to the unseen and spiritual. I would not dare to say metaphysical because the poet himself wrote in a note that there is nothing philosophical about “Passage to India,” because it is focused on “evolution” (WHITMAN, 2002, p.345).

.

WHITMAN:

From section 2:

[…]

Passage to India!
Lo, soul, seest thou not God’s purpose from the first?
The earth to be spann’d, connected by network,
The races, neighbors, to marry and be given in marriage,
The oceans to be cross’d, the distant brought near,
The lands to be welded together.

[…]

From section 8:

[…]

Swiftly I shrivel at the thought of God,
At Nature and its wonders, Time and Space and Death,
But that I, turning, call to thee O soul, thou actual Me,
And lo, thou gently masterest the orbs,
Thou matest Time, smilest content at Death,
And fillest, swellest full the vastnesses of Space.
[…]

.

OUR RE-CREATION:

From section 2:

[...]

Passagem para a Índia!

Olha, alma, não vês o propósito de Deus desde o início?

A terra para ser transposta, conectada por rede,

As raças, os vizinhos, para casar e ser concedidos em matrimônio,

Os oceanos para ser cruzados, o distante aproximado,

As terras para ser soldadas.

[...]

From section 8:

[…]

Rapidamente me encolho ao pensar em Deus,

Na Natureza e suas maravilhas, Tempo e Espaço e Morte,

Mas que eu, virando, chamo a ti Oh alma, tu Eu real,

E vê, tu gentilmente dominas os orbes,

Tu emparelhas com o Tempo, sorris contente pra Morte,

E preenches, expandes bastante as vastidões do Espaço.

[...]

***

5 CONCLUSION (Part 19)

“Memories of President Lincoln” was composed in the weeks after Lincoln’s assassination on April 14, 1865, and was published together with Drum-Taps that same year. Everything that Whitman presents in the poem “When Lilacs…” actually took place: the “great star”, Venus, excessively low in the sky, the lilacs blooming at every dooryard, the bird singing, the processions throughout the United States, the coffin being taken to many cities, the cloud over the President after his second inauguration, as he appeared on the Capitol portico (seen or heard and recorded by Whitman), the atmosphere of fear. Everything was uncommonly strange during that month. In The Solitary Singer (1955, chapter VIII), Allen portrays this period in the life of Washington, Whitman and the Nation in great detail as well as Whitman does in the poem. As for our work in this section, we do not intend to present any passages from “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d;” we only want to stress the extreme difficulty to re-create its title, which in Portuguese became too long: “Da Última Vez Que Lilases Floriram no Pátio.” However, it is one that mirrors the original, which is also made up of two sound/sense units. In English they are divided or separated by “in,” and in Portuguese by “Que,” which also begins the second part. We tried many variables, but it was very hard to find one that carried all the meaning and at the same time sounded well. As it is a sad and sweet elegy, it must be read in a smooth and calm tone. In this way, we may feel the sounds echoing in each other through the line. In this way, the title can sound very well in Portuguese, because it carries in itself the tearing apart, the grieving and the tiredness of the nation portrayed in the poem. On the other hand, we shall present two stanzas from “Oh Captain! My Captain!,” which is a very rare piece in Whitman’s poetry, mostly written in iambs (verses with short/unstressed syllables followed by long/stressed syllables), and dedicated to the same person addressed in “When Lilacs…” Naturally, we did the best to maintain the beating pulse and rhymes of the original, and, in comparison to it, we may say that the result is fairly good:

.

WHITMAN:

O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done,
The ship has weather’d every rack, the prize we sought is won,
The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,
While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring;

But O heart! heart! heart!

O the bleeding drops of red,

Where on the deck my Captain lies,

Fallen cold and dead.

[…]

My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still,
My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will,
The ship is anchor’d safe and sound, its voyage closed and done,
From fearful trip the victor ship comes in with object won;
Exult O shores, and ring O bells!

But I with mournful tread,

Walk the deck my Captain lies,

Fallen cold and dead.

.

OUR RE-CREATION:

Oh Capitão! Meu Capitão!

Oh Capitão! meu Capitão! findou nossa horrível jornada,

O navio superou toda tormenta, alcançamos a meta almejada,

O porto está próximo, os sinos eu ouço, a gente toda exultando,

Enquanto olhos miram a estável quilha, o casco duro e ousado;

Mas Oh coração! coração! coração!

Oh os pingos de vermelho sangrados,

Onde jaz no convés meu Capitão,

Prostrado morto e gelado.

[...]

Meu Capitão não responde, seus lábios, pálidos, calados,

Meu pai não sente meu braço, não tem pulso ou vontade,

O navio ancorado são e salvo, encerrada e finda a jornada,

Da horrível jornada o navio vencedor adentra com o fim conquistado;

Exultai Oh praias e dobrai Oh sinos!

Mas eu com passo pesado,

Percorro o convés onde jaz meu Capitão,

Prostrado morto e gelado.

.

MEIRA:

Ó Capitão! Meu Capitão!

Ò Capitão! Meu Capitão! Finda é a temível jornada,

Vencida cada tormenta, a busca foi laureada.

O porto é ali, os sinos ouvi, exulta o povo inteiro,

Com o olhar na quilha estanque do vaso ousado e austero.

Mas ó coração, coração!

O sangue mancha o navio,

No convés, meu Capitão

Vai caído, morto e frio.

[...]

Ah, meu Capitão não fala, foi do lábio o sopro expulso,

Meu calor meu pai não sente, já não tem vontade ou pulso.

Da nau ancorada e ilesa, a jornada é concluída.

E lá vem ela em triunfo da viagem antes temida.

Povo, exulta! Sino, dobra!

Mas meu passo é tão sombrio…

No convés meu Capitão

Vai caído, morto e frio.

.

(WHITMAN, 2005, pp.334-5; texto da edição de Folhas de Relva da Martin Claret)

***