Eduardo Galeano - Upside Down: A Primer for the Looking-Glass World

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Program of Study

For Helena, this book that I owed her

Upside Down has many accomplices. It is a pleasure to finger them.

Jos Guadalupe Posada, the great Mexican artist who died in 1913, is the only one who is innocent. The engravings that accompany this book, this chronicle, were published without the artists knowledge.

Others, in contrast, knew full well what they were doing and collaborated with an enthusiasm worthy of a better cause.

The author must begin by confessing that he would have been unable to commit the act of these pages without the assistance of Helena Villagra, Karl Hbener, Jorge Marchini, and his little electronic mouse.

By reading and commenting on the first criminal attempt, a number of others also took part in this mischief: Walter Achugar, Carlos lvarez Insa, Nilo Batista, Roberto Bergalli, David Cmpora, Antonio Doate, Gonzlo Fernndez, Mark Fried, Juan Gelman, Susana Iglesias, Carlos Machado, Mariana Mactas, Luis Nio, Raquel Villagra, and Daniel Weinberg.

A portion of the guiltsome more, some lessis borne by Rafael Balbi, Jos Barrientos, Mauricio Beltrn, Rosa del Olmo, Milton de Ritis, Claudio Durn, Juan Gasparini, Claudio Hughes, Pier Paolo Marchetti, Stella Maris Martnez, Dora Mirn Campos, Norberto Prez, Ruben Prieto, Pilar Royo, ngel Ruocco, Hilary Sandison, Pedro Scaron, Horacio Tubio, Pinio Ungerfeld, Alejandro Valle Baeza, Jorge Ventocilla, Guillermo Waksman, Gaby Weber, Winfried Wolf, and Jean Ziegler.

Also responsible to a large degree is Saint Rita, the patron of impossible deeds.

Montevideo, partway through 1998

This book now constitutes a threat to the English-speaking world. That would not have been possible without the fervent complicity of Mark Fried, Tom Engelhardt, Susan Bergholz, Bert Snyder, and the Metropolitan editorial team. One day, they will have to answer for their deeds.

Montevideo, partway through 2000

Ladies and Gentlemen, Come On In!

Come on in!

Step into the school of the upside-down world!

Rub the magic lantern!

Lights! Sound! The illusion of life!

Offered free to one and all!

Let it enlighten each of you and set a good example for future generations!

Come see the river that burns!

Lord Sun illuminating the night!

Dame Moon in the middle of the day!

Mamselle Star tossed from the sky!

The jester on the kings throne!

Lucifers breath clouding the universe!

The dead walking about with mirrors in their hands!

Witches! Acrobats!

Dragons and vampires!

The magic wand that turns a child into a coin!

The world lost in a throw of the dice!

Dont fall for cheap imitations!

God bless those who see it!

God forgive those who dont!

Rated R: Sensitive persons and minors not admitted.

Based on eighteenth-century criers pitch for magic lanterns

A Message to Parents

People respect nothing nowadays. Once we put virtue, honor, truth, and the law on a pedestal. Graft is a byword in American life today. It is law where no other law is obeyed. It is undermining the country. Virtue, honor, truth and the law have all vanished from our life.

Al Capone, speaking to Cornelius Vanderbilt Jr. The interview was published in Liberty magazine on October 17, 1931, a few days before Capone went to jail.

If Alice Were to Return

One hundred and thirty years ago, after visiting Wonderland, Alice stepped into a mirror and discovered the world of the looking glass. If Alice were born today, shed only have to peek out the window.

If you decide to train your dog, congratulations on your decision. You will soon discover that the roles of master and dog are perfectly clear.

R ALSTON P URINA I NTERNATIONAL

THE LOOKING-GLASS SCHOOL

E DUCATING BY E XAMPLE

The looking-glass school is the most democratic of educational institutions. There are no admissions exams, no registration fees, and courses are offered free to everyone everywhere on earth as well as in heaven. Its not for nothing that this school is the child of the first system in history to rule the world.

In the looking-glass school, lead learns to float and cork to sink. Snakes learn to fly and clouds drag themselves along the ground.

MODELS OF SUCCESS

The upside-down world rewards in reverse: it scorns honesty, punishes work, prizes lack of scruples, and feeds cannibalism. Its professors slander nature: injustice, they say, is a law of nature. Milton Friedman teaches us about the natural rate of unemployment. Studying Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray, we learn that blacks remain on the lowest rungs of the social ladder by natural law. From John D. Rockefellers lectures, we know his success was due to the fact that nature rewards the fittest and punishes the useless: more than a century later, the owners of the world continue to believe Charles Darwin wrote his books in their honor.

Survival of the fittest? The killer instinct is an essential ingredient for getting ahead, a human virtue when it helps large companies digest small and strong countries devour weak but proof of bestiality when some jobless guy goes around with a knife in his fist. Those stricken with antisocial pathology, the dangerous insanity afflicting all poor people, find inspiration in the models of good health exhibited by those who succeed. Lowlifes learn their skills by setting their sights on the summits. They study the examples of the winners and, for better or worse, do their best to live up to them. But the damned will always be damned, as Don Emilio Azcrraga, once lord and master of Mexican television, liked to say. The chances that a banker who loots a bank can enjoy the fruits of his labor in peace are directly proportional to the chances that a crook who robs a bank will land in jail or the cemetery.

When a criminal kills someone for an unpaid debt, the execution is called a settling of accounts. When the international technocracy settles accounts with an indebted country, the execution is called an adjustment plan. Financial capos kidnap countries and suck them dry even when they pay the ransom: in comparison, most thugs are about as dangerous as Dracula in broad daylight. The world economy is the most efficient expression of organized crime. The international bodies that control currency, trade, and credit practice international terrorism against poor countries, and against the poor of all countries, with a cold-blooded professionalism that would make the best of the bomb throwers blush.