For Africa, WW2 didn't begin in 1939. It began in 1935, as Italian forces under fascist Benito Mussolini invaded the only fully independent African nation--Ethiopia. Over much of the coming decade, the entire continent would be thrown into the tumult of the war between mostly European powers. With nearly every region colonized by the warring Europeans, Africans found themselves conscripts in battles that (with the exception of Ethiopia) weren't really their own. Over 1.3 million continental Africans would end up participating in the conflict. Yet, other than the exploits of German generals like Rommel in North Africa, the continent doesn't make it into many histories of the war.
Recently however, as part of the 70th anniversary of the BBC covered these forgotten members of the "Greatest Generation." Better late I suppose than never...
The Africans who fought in WWII
By Martin Plaut
BBC Africa analyst
The 70th anniversary of World War II is being commemorated around the world, but the contribution of one group of soldiers is almost universally ignored. How many now recall the role of more than one million African troops?
Yet they fought in the deserts of North Africa, the jungles of Burma and over the skies of Germany. A shrinking band of veterans, many now living in poverty, bitterly resent being written out of history.
For Africa, World War II began not in 1939, but in 1935.
Read full article here.
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
The Forgotten "Greatest Generation"
Monday, November 30, 2009
That "Bitch of a War"
As President Obama prepares to announce what will most likely be an increase in troops in Afghanistan Tuesday night in the midst of a troubling economy, high unemployment and other domestic issues, I could not help but be reminded of the regretful lament of a previous leader, whose blind loyalty to a war ruined his more lofty ideals...
"I knew from the start that I was bound to be crucifed either way I moved. If I left the woman I really loved-the Great Society-in order to get involved in that bitch of a war on the other side of the world, then I would lose everything at home. All my programs…. But if I left that war and let the Communists take over South Vietnam, then I would be seen as a coward and my nation would be seen as an appeaser and we would both find it impossible to accomplish anything for anybody anywhere on the entire globe."--LBJ on Vietnam
Tragic. Michael Moore has more to say...
An Open Letter to President Obama From Michael Moore
Dear President Obama,
Do you really want to be the new "war president"? If you go to West Point tomorrow night (Tuesday, 8pm) and announce that you are increasing, rather than withdrawing, the troops in Afghanistan, you are the new war president. Pure and simple. And with that you will do the worst possible thing you could do -- destroy the hopes and dreams so many millions have placed in you. With just one speech tomorrow night you will turn a multitude of young people who were the backbone of your campaign into disillusioned cynics. You will teach them what they've always heard is true -- that all politicians are alike. I simply can't believe you're about to do what they say you are going to do. Please say it isn't so.
Full letter here.
Saturday, November 28, 2009
Disgruntled in Obamaland
All is not well in Obamaland. Nevermind the tea-baggers, FOX News and the continuing sad comedy that is the GOP, there is dissatisfaction growing in the base. Just over a year ago, it seemed that Obama and the forces he had marshalled were on top of the world. There was energy. There was hope. There was relief that the last 8 years had finally come to and end. But today, for many who worked hardest towards that goal, there's a growing apathy. As the base watches a watered-down health care bill wind its way slowly through Congress; as they watch many of the architects of the current financial crisis give away billions to bankers; as they watch a rise in unemployment; as they watch a President seemingly intent on continuing an unpopular war in Afghanistan, there is a feeling of discontent. There is still hope. Those who voted for this president are still happy with the ballot they cast. Many of these same people however, just aren't inspired. Of course, it's only been a year in--and most are waiting to see what comes next.
For many, Robert Scheer's question hits home: "Who Are You and What Have You Done With the Community Organizer We Elected President?"
Read more after the jump.
Who Are You and What Have You Done With the Community Organizer We Elected President?
Posted on Nov 18, 2009
By Robert Scheer
What’s up with Barack Obama? The candidate for change once promised to take on the powerful banking interests but is now doing their bidding. Finally, a leading Democrat, in this case Senate Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd, has a good idea for monitoring the Wall Street fat cats who all but destroyed the American economy, and the Obama administration condemns it.
Dodd wants to take supervisory power from the Federal Reserve, which is controlled by the banks it pretends to monitor, and put it in the hands of a new independent agency. That makes sense given the Fed’s abject failure to properly monitor the financial sector over the past decade as that industry got drunk on greed. As Dodd’s spokeswoman Kirstin Brost put it: “The Federal Reserve flat out failed at supervising the largest, most complex firms.” But White House economic adviser Austan Goolsbee frets that taking power from the Fed would cause financial industry “nervousness.” Isn’t that the whole point of government regulation—to make the bandits look over their shoulders before they launch their next destructive scam?
Not so in the view of Deputy Treasury Secretary Neal Wolin, who blithely insists that the Fed “is the best agency equipped for the task of supervising the largest, most complex firms,” despite the mountain of evidence to the contrary. There is some irony in the fact that the largest of those complex firms got to be “too big to fail” because of the radical deregulatory legislation that Wolin drafted during his previous incarnation as the Treasury Department’s general counsel in the Clinton administration. Wolin is now deputy to Timothy Geithner, who as head of the New York Fed in the five years preceding the banking meltdown looked the other way as the disaster began to unfold.
Why is Barack Obama allowing these retreads from the Clinton era who went on to great riches on Wall Street to set economic policy for his administration?
Read more here.
Thursday, November 26, 2009
Hunger in the Land of Plenty
Something to think about this Thanksgiving- Over 49 million Americans, one in seven, struggled to find enough to eat last year, according to a report released by the US Department of Agriculture last week. It seems mind-boggling, that in a country where obesity is a crisis, and so much food is wasted daily, the US faces a problem of hunger. How is it possible? Is it because fifty per cent of all food ready for harvest in the United States never gets eaten? Is it the rise of food prices, which only show a capacity to grow? Is it because we spend so much money on weapons and wars, we can't spend what is needed to ensure our citizens don't go to bed hungry at night? Whatever the case, if this dismal trend continues, it may not be too long before the US sees itself wracked by the same food riots much of the poorer world saw in 2008.
Raj Patel, author of Stuffed and Starved: Markets, Power and the Hidden Battle for the World’s Food System, discusses the matter on Democracy Now!:
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
Regreening Africa
No matter what happens at Copenhagen or beyond, the world is locked in to decades of temperature rise and the associated climate impacts: deeper droughts, fiercer floods, more pests. How populations in the global South adapt to these changes will help decide whether millions of people live or die.
The tragic irony about global climate change, is that it will affect the poorest nations of the global south the hardest. This, despite the fact that these nations have contributed very little to the crisis. No wonder earlier this month African delegates threatened to upset climate talks in Barcelona if the US and rich countries don't live up to their committments and accept responsibility for global climate change. Activist Naomi Klein has even gone as far to declare that rich nations owe a debt to the poor nations of the world for the global climate crisis. In the midst of these developments, Mark Hertsgaard examines how many who live on the continent are sowing the seeds--literally--towards countering the damaging environmental effects of this looming man-made disaster.
Regreening Africa
By Mark Hertsgaard
November 19, 2009
The sun is setting on another scorching hot day in the western African nation of Burkina Faso. But here on the farm of Yacouba Sawadogo, the air is noticeably cooler. A hatchet slung over his shoulder, the gray-bearded farmer strides through his woods and fields with the easy grace of a much younger man. "Climate change is a subject I feel I have something to say about," he says in his tribal language, Moré, which he delivers in a deep, unhurried rumble. Though he cannot read or write, Sawadogo is a pioneer of a tree-based approach to farming that has transformed the western Sahel in recent years, while providing one of the most hopeful examples on earth of how even very poor people can adapt to the ravages of climate change.
Read full article here.
Monday, November 23, 2009
Blackwater - Karachi Bureau
What could be worse than covert US directed drone missile attacks that kill civilians in aggressive acts against a sovereign nation? How about if those attacks are not just being carried out by the US military, but private mercenary contractors--the same ones whose operatives massacred Iraqis and is run by a right-wing Christian fundamentalist. According to independent journalist Jeremy Scahill:
At a covert forward operating base run by the US Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) in the Pakistani port city of Karachi, members of an elite division of Blackwater are at the center of a secret program in which they plan targeted assassinations of suspected Taliban and Al Qaeda operatives, "snatch and grabs" of high-value targets and other sensitive action inside and outside Pakistan, an investigation by The Nation has found. The Blackwater operatives also assist in gathering intelligence and help run a secret US military drone bombing campaign that runs parallel to the well-documented CIA predator strikes, according to a well-placed source within the US military intelligence apparatus.
If this is accurate (Scahill admits to having only one anonymous source), it's rather chilling.
Read the full story here.
Rachel Maddow interviewing Jeremy Scahill on Nov 12, 2009 about some of Blackwater's more unsavory acts.
Sunday, November 22, 2009
Thursday, November 19, 2009
"Trolling for Assassins"
How crazy does crazy have to get before it all gets dangerous?
Rachel Maddow talks to former Evangelist Frank Schaeffer about the growing anti-Obama extremism and the violent tendencies of Christian fundamentalists.
Earlier interviews with Frank Schaeffer:
Sept. 2009
Aug. 2009
Jun. 2009
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
American Zombie
Monsters of disaster are special kinds of divine warning. They are harbingers of things we do not want to face, of catastrophes, and we fear they will bring such events upon us by coming to us.--Jane Anna Gordon and Lewis R. Gordon
Nothing I love more than any attempt to weave speculative fiction into politics. In this case, Henry Giroux ponders on the relationship between our love affair for vampires, zombies and the often dismal state of our political atmosphere. At present, Americans are fascinated by a particular kind of monstrosity, by vampires and zombies condemned to live an eternity by feeding off the souls of the living. The preoccupation with such parasitic relations speaks uncannily to the threat most Americans perceive from the shameless blood lust of contemporary captains of industry, which Matt Taibbi, a writer for Rolling Stone, has aptly described as "a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money." [3] Media culture, as the enormous popularity of the Twilight franchise and HBO's True Blood reveal, is nonetheless enchanted by this seductive force of such omnipotent beings. More frightening, however, than the danger posed by these creatures is the coming revolution enacted by the hordes of the unthinking, caught in the spell of voodoo economics and compelled to acts of obscene violence and mayhem. They are the living dead, whose contagion threatens the very life force of the nation.
Ooooh! Doesn't it make your hair stand on end? Read the rest of Giroux's article at Truthout here.
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed aka Voldemort
Listen to much of the fearmongering from the GOP and the usual right-wing suspects, and you might think the Attorney General of the US had decided to hold the trial of Voldemort, Dr. Doom or Magneto in NYC. Any moment hordes of Deatheaters, giant robots or the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants might descend on the city and do untold damage. The likes of Rudy Guiliani went onto FOX and bemoaned the decision, claiming President Obama had conceded to terrorists. A GOP Congressman even warned NYC's mayor might have his children kidnapped! Look closer however, and you realize it's none of those otherworldly supervillains. Rather it's the accused 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammad--the same guy in that unflattering photo above who was waterboarded a stunning 183 times, in one month! So the question is, are the GOP and right-wing just shamelessly using this event to sow political discord, or are they really in the end just frightened children jumping at their own shadows?
John Stewart has some ideas. See below...The Daily Show With Jon Stewart Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c Law & Order: KSM Daily Show
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Morpheus Returns...
Young Billy wished me away to the cornfield sometime back in June...
...what'd I miss?
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
The Imperial Presidency
...let's not forget reality. Barack Obama did not win an election to be president of Goodwill Industries, or the YMCA, or the Ford Foundation. He may be remarkable in many ways, but he is also president of the United States which means that he is head honcho for the globe's single great garrison state which now, to a significant extent, lives off war and the preparations for future war.
So writes Tom Engelhardt over at TomDispatch.com. You would think this would go without saying, that the election of Barack Obama while an achievement does not dismantle the American Empire. But at times, it seems that as long as the guy crossing the Rubicon is a charming, charasmatic and good-natured person, many lose sight of this perspective.
Certainly those who hold the reins of power now aren't some neoconservative cabal with dreams of a Pax Americana. Yet neither are they willing to confront America's imperial ambitions. In fact, most Americans seem to believe in the notion of an "exceptional America"--that is fated, or destined, to run the world. Either that, or the rest of the world is supposed to work the way we want them to.
Sure you can elect who you want in your foreign country, but if we don't like him or her, we will levy sanctions, frame them as global pariahs and support (openly or covertly) their opposition.
Sure you're free to trade your own resources, but make sure we get it at a price that's beneficial to us--not your own people. And if you don't, democratically elected or not, you may get on our bad side.
It's wrong to kill innocent men and women to achieve your objectives--unless its one of our drones or airstrikes, which is just collateral damage.
And yeah, we have a right to spend more on military might than the rest of the world combined, with bases ringing the globe, but that's because the other people with far less weaponry is the real "threat."
That's the America Barack Obama inherited. Like the "one ring" the imperial presidency is filled with power and potential; but it's yet to be seen whether anyone can wield it for good rather than for ill.
Tom Engelhardt's full article here.
Monday, June 15, 2009
A New Iranian Revolution ?
Protests. Riots. Unrest. Iran 2009 is today looking a lot like Iran 1979. But this time the former revolutionaries are holding the reins of power, and new voices are calling for reform. The election between Mahmud Ahmadinejad and his main rival Mir-Hosein Mousavi have unleashed tensions that have simmered beneath the surface of the seemingly orderly society run by the country's religious orthodoxy. How far it will go is anyone's guess.
For more, read below...
Last week a contentious election was held in Iran, pitting incumbent President Mahmud Ahmadinejad against his main rival and pro-reformist Mir-Hosein Mousavi. An Ahmadinejad win seemed certain, until later polls began showing Mousavi running neck-and-neck--a definitely bad sign for any incumbent. When results came in, Ahmadinejad was declared the winner in what was reported to be a landslide.
But Mousavi and his supporters--mostly young and urban--have decried the elections as a sham. Unrest throughout the country has flared up to levels unprecedented since the turbulent 1970s which brought down the Western-backed Shah. Anger and frustration has boiled over into mass protests, riots and clashes with the police. Scenes of cars on fire and young Iranians smashing building windows in fury while fighting with authorities have now traveled the globe. And, in a defiance of a ban on protests, hundreds of thousands showed up in the streets of Tehran today to voice their anger and give their support to Mousavi.
Today in a surprise move that appears to be a reaction to the unrest, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the state's most powerful figure, though previously sanctioning the election results, has called for an official probe to root out any possible fraud. In 10 days the findings of this probe are to be delivered.
In the West there doesn't seem to be much need for a probe to determine what's going on. The dominant news cycle has been focused on the rioting and protests. And given Ahmadinejad's global "pariah" status, not surprisingly there is a definite tilt towards the election being "stolen." France, Britain and the U.S. have voiced their own doubts over what they see as "irregularities" in the elections--and have refused to recognize them. This is the height of irony, as these same Western critics regularly legitimize the ruling powers in countries like Egypt where elections are rigged by the suppression of any reasonable opposition, and in others like Saudi Arabia and Kuwait where monarchies do not even hold elections.
Political commentators in the West of varied stripes, from astute analysts like Juan Cole to often misinformed bloviators like Thomas Friedman, seem to also conclude the elections were stolen. However there is a dissenting view, from commentators like Abbas Barzegar and some Mid-East think tanks, who have all spent the past weeks in pre-election Iran talking and surveying everyday Iranians. They posit the West perhaps underestimated Ahmadinejad's support among the poorer masses, and focused too intensely on the very vocal (but minority) urban, young internet demographic--thus taking away a skewed perspective of the actual atmosphere and mood in the country. In truth, the Western media may be reading the nature of the elections themselves through rose-colored glasses.
During the campaign, as many supporters of reform flocked to his green banner, Mousavi became (in the eyes of a Western press corps looking for an easy story) the Obama of Iran--a breath of fresh air who would bring change. How far this analogy can be taken remains to be seen. Mousavi after all is still a conservative. And those in the press who have acted as if his win would signal an Iran ready to hold hands with Israel, kow-tow to US demands and allow in Wal-Marts in a few months, misread completely where most Iranians stand on issues. While most find Ahmadinejad too restrictive, too wedded to power, too brash and even embarrassing with his seeming obsession with engaging in historical fallacies like Holocaust denial, they also are wary of a U.S. with troops next door, what often seem as bullying Western powers and a saber-rattling nuclear armed Israel whose own recent elections have made it a right-wing state. Mousavi's win would certainly open up avenues closed to (or by) a controversial figure like Ahmadinejad; but it wouldn't erase the memories of Western dealings towards Iran---from the overthrow of Mossadeq, to the backing of the repressive Shah to the military support of Saddam Hussein's aggressive war which claimed hundreds of thousands of Iranian lives. Not surprising that some Iranian policy advocates like Trita Parsi have stated that it is essential that whatever the West believes, staying out of the Iranian elections and letting the Iranians sort it out themselves is the wisest course--as any direct intervention would be seen as unwanted meddling.“The framing that Ahmadinejad is presenting is one in which essentially the whole [opposition] is a Western media conspiracy. If the administration is saying things or doing things before Moussavi and the opposition figures out what the plan is, then that’s a real problem, because then it seems like it’s between Ahmadinejad and the west and not Ahmadinejad and the opposition. So the administration is doing exactly the right thing. They’re not rushing in and they’re not playing favorites. They might prefer the democratic process to be respected, but that’s different than [supporting a] specific faction.”
As for right-wing American neoconservatives urging the Obama administration to immediately support Mousavi and the opposition, Parsi chided their tactics.“They’re saying ‘Support Moussavi.’ Well, did you talk to Moussavi to learn if this is helpful? A lot of people seem to have the propensity of knowing what the Iranian people want or what specific people want but [don't] contact them. And in past it’s been detrimental" [If such American politicians have] “not learned from that, it’s sad.”
read full article with Parsi quotes here.
So where are we now? Mousavi has appealed for calm, even while disputing the election results, urging that the legal process determine the truth of things. Meanwhile Ahmadinejad remains steadfast, describing the dissenters as disgruntled troublemakers with American and Western backing, holding mass rallies of his own supporters. Tonight the situation has grown even more tense, as a protester became the first casualty of the unrest--killed in a hail of gunfire during an attack on a pro-government militia.
What the actual truth is regarding these elections is hard to discern from afar. There were no independent UN observers, just as there aren't any in this country. And between the secretive Iranian government who regularly censors information, and the Western propaganda machine which regularly sends out disinformation to destabilize the regime, it's often impossible to tell which way is up, left or right. But what is not in dispute is that whatever the actual election outcome, there is a strong wave of dissent in Iran that is making its presence felt. Given the country's strategic importance and its previous revolutionary history, what happens next is anyone's guess. But the whole world is watching.
Friday, June 12, 2009
Free Trade Massacre
The notion that so-called "free trade" neo-liberal policies have led to increased poverty throughout the developing world is one that has ample evidence to back it up. It isn't so far-fetched to say that by marginalizing the world's poor through these economic policies has increased the global mortality rate. Recent occurrences in Peru however underline that the effects of free trade need not be so indirect:
During the last week, deep in the Peruvian Amazon, confrontations between nonviolent indigenous protesters and police have left up to 100 people dead. The vast majority of the casualties are civilians, who have been conducting peaceful demonstrations in defense of the Amazon rain forest. For almost two months, as many as 30,000 indigenous people have been blocking road and river traffic, demanding the repeal of presidential decrees issued last year to facilitate implementation of the US-Peru FTA.
Read rest of article below:
US-Peru FTA Sparks Indigenous Massacre
Thursday 11 June 2009
Tom Loudon, t r u t h o u t | Report
During the last week, deep in the Peruvian Amazon, confrontations between nonviolent indigenous protesters and police have left up to 100 people dead. The vast majority of the casualties are civilians, who have been conducting peaceful demonstrations in defense of the Amazon rain forest.
For almost two months, as many as 30,000 indigenous people have been blocking road and river traffic, demanding the repeal of presidential decrees issued last year to facilitate implementation of the US-Peru FTA. According to the indigenous leaders, several of these decrees directly threaten indigenous territories and rights. After having attempted several times to negotiate with the government the repeal of the most egregious of the decrees, and faced with a permanent influx of extraction equipment into the region, the people decided it was imperative to "put their bodies in front of the machines" in order to prevent this equipment from entering their territory.
On Friday, June 5, the government decided the protests needed to end and launched an aggressive assault against the people protesting on the road outside of Bagua. The dislocation was conducted from helicopters and the ground, with police and army using automatic weapons and heavy equipment against people armed with only rocks and spears. As videos, photos and testimonies from the region slowly emerge, it is clear that this was designed to inflict as many civilian casualties as possible, and deter those in other regions from continuing protests. Pictures circulating on the Internet depict snipers in uniform firing at protesters from the streets, tanks and from on top of buildings. On Saturday, in Lima, Peru's capital, a large spontaneous demonstration in support of the Amazonian indigenous was broken up by police.
Read full article here.
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Angry, Right & White America
It was just eleven days ago that an anti-abortion militant with white supremacist ties gunned down reproductive rights doctor George Tiller in a Kansas church. Just this past April, three Pittsburgh police officers were killed by a teen who believed the government was going to take his guns away, and had frequented white nationalists sites like Stormfront. In the heat of the presidential campaign last June, a gunman walked into a Unitarian Church and opened fire, killing two parisoners during a children's play; the shooter would claim the church's liberal values drove him to violence. And since the election of the first African-American president, gun-sales have risen alongside the daily dosage of rhetoric from conservative right-wing media. So today, after a right-wing white supremacist walked into the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington DC and opened fire, killing an African-American security guard, why is anyone even remotely surprised?
More after the fold...
It feels like de ja vu, after just covering these themes in the Tiller death. But I find it necessary to again point out that it was just this past April that the Obama administration's Department of Homeland Security released a memo warning of homegrown right-wing radical groups and their propensity for violence. Conservatives--both pundits and politicians--had a meltdown, claiming the government was outlawing opposing opinions and claiming they were being lumped in with racist hate groups. The American Legion soon jumped in, taking issue with the report's warnings of violent right-wing extremists recruiting disaffected one-time members of the armed forced. It was all utter nonsense of course, as the brief on domestic terrorism made no links to conservatism--the conservatives made that link themselves. And the concern of ex-military joining white supremacist groups is based on very recent facts, and in no way tarnishes all veterans. What should have been seen as a tempest in a teapot gained steam however as the media played in, allowing conservatives and right-wing ideologues--backed up by conservative leaning veterans groups--to cast themselves as victims of a liberal witch hunt. In days Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano was making an apology for the "language" in the report.
But in the conservative and right-wing cries of foul over this memo, perhaps the lady doth protest too much.
While conservative pundits applaud and sensationalize FBI stings on terrorist fantasies of would-be "jihadists" (often suspiciously funded and aided by government informants), real-life acts of mayhem and murder by domestic right-wing terrorists go on right under our noses. Worse still, many of the most rabid conspiracy theories spouted by the likes of Glenn Beck, Michael Savage and Glenn Beck, serve as "intellectual" fodder for these gunmen. Yet no one in conservative television and radio noise machine is willing to take any responsibility or at the least tone down their rhetoric. In fact, they tend to lash out verbally at any insinuation places even a bit of blame on them. In the wake of George Tiller's death FOX host Bill O'Reilly, who had repeatedly called the doctor a "baby killer," claimed he himself in fact was a victim of the far-left.
Eric Boehlert at Media Matters is having none of it however:If Fox News is going to continue to traffic in hateful, vigilante-style rhetoric, then folks at Fox News, as well as their apologists in the GOP Noise Machine, are going to have to come up with better talking points to spin away the consequences of the right-wing madness they're so eager to incite....The Fox News crew is going to need better talking points because I fear the violence - the bouts of right-wing domestic terrorism - is likely to continue. As long as Fox News and the Noise Machine refuse to back off the incendiary language that they're actively mainstreaming, the political violence, visible just months into Obama's historic first term, may have only begun.
The reality is however that FOX News, while certainly wallowing in the cesspit of xenophobia, racism and intolerance to whip up the more fanatical of its base, did not invent any of this. They've certainly tapped into this angry sentiment and see it as a ratings bonanza, backing up faux-populist hate-rallies like the April "Tea Parties." Looks like Janane Garafalo was RIGHT.
But this type of racism and violence is unfortunately as American as apple pie and baseball, and follows a predictable pattern. When the economy falters and whites, usually disaffected angry males, feel under assault they find easy scapegoats they believe is behind their oppression. Fed along by media demagogues, a militarist gun-obsessed society, heroic vigilantism and an over-inflated patriarchal racial imaginings of their self-worth, they last out---often violently.
Back in 2006 during the emerging twilight of the Bush regime, retired veteran of the U.S. Army Special Forces Stan Goff wrote of this as a hypernormal state of Americana, which he asserts is normally racist, right-leaning and patriarchal if only on an institutional level:These explicitly white supremacist groups, contrasted with the implicitly white supremacist Republican Party, for example, openly embrace a vision of fascism, and openly admire fascist leaders....We need to first see for how long white supremacy has been considered ab-normal in the United States; then we can see how ab-normal it is right now....What is seldom examined in public discourse outside the universities and a handful of anti-racist political formations, is the question of what it means to be “white.” Thinkers from Toni Morrison to Noel Ignatiev to bell hooks to Theodore Allen to Mab Segrest to David Roediger have studied whiteness extensively, in its economic, cultural and political dimensions, and conclude unanimously that there is no “objective” measure for what it means; but that it is a social construction linked absolutely to social power. The insistence on existence of a white race, by racists and non-racists alike, is symptomatic of a form of mystification that conceals the concrete relations of power behind a set of widely accepted abstractions. White supremacy as a beliefhas evolved out of the practice of people in power, who defined themselves as white as a way of differentiating themselves from those over whom they wielded that power. Some very well-known American presidents who made openly white supremacist pronouncements were Woodrow Wilson, Theodore Roosevelt, and Richard Nixon. Of course, until the dismantling of Jim Crow in the South, white supremacy was a norm, and before the Civil War, slavery was a norm. White supremacy was so normal in 1964 that after the defeat of Goldwater, the Republican Party adopted thinly veiled racist appeals to attract white voters who felt betrayed by the reluctant Democratic Party support for civil rights legislation. Openly racist public officials like Jesse Helms, Strom Thurmond and Trent Lott, even after their affiliations with white supremacist organizations were publicized, continued to be elected. The Republican appeals to white supremacy were cloaked as opposition to welfare, as “states rights,” and as concern about “crime.” As late as 1999 the Republican-controlled House of Representatives blocked a vote to condemn the Council of Conservative Citizens, a white supremacist organization with whom then-Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott had close ties. How normed does something have to be before we can say it is normal?
And this brings us to a problem with the media, and in part even this blog. The coverage of these specific acts of violence, or even the focus on the hate spewed by FOX News acolytes and others, perhaps obscures a larger more unsettling truth that speaks to the pervasive nature of racism and whiteness in this country. We usually paint these individuals as lone bizarre gunmen driven by senseless hate---bad apples in our otherwise rational and tolerant "post-racial" society. The larger problem however is that there are throngs of these disaffected Americans--mostly white males--prone to believe conspiracy theories that blame Jews, immigrants, blacks and others for their plight. They don't fall out of the sky or come from some strange and mysterious place. They are borne and raised right here, in a society that seems to easily create such individuals and provide them the proper atmosphere for their hatred, xenophobia and violent tendencies to flourish. Tackling that "hard truth" may provide us some greater insight, that is if we dare.
Monday, June 8, 2009
Conservatives, the Radical Right and White Extremism
Last week an anti-choice militant named Scott Roeder walked into a Kansas church and gunned down reproductive doctor George Tiller. Roeder is part of a growing extremist segment of the American populace, often fed by right-wing media ideologues like Bill O'Reilly and Glenn Beck who while not outright calling for violence create an atmosphere of hate and paranoia. So it should come as little surprise that Scott Roeder in fact once belonged a white nationalist organization that preached the inferiority of other races, anti-Semitism and other Aryan-based fantasies.
When the Obama administration's Department of Homeland Security released a memo in April warning of homegrown right-wing radical groups, conservatives cried foul--insisting they were being unfairly lumped together with racist hate groups. This was nonsense of course, as the brief on domestic terrorism made no mention of conservatism in their warnings of right-wing extremists. But perhaps, there is more to this connection than many of us are willing to admit.
A brief article by Mother Jones traces the ideological connections that took Scott Roeder from white supremacy to religious fundamentalist militant and terrorist.
Friday, June 5, 2009
Rush & Newt Are Winning?
Rush and Newt are winning? When I first read that title by E.J. Dionne in the Washington Post, I was puzzled. Rush Limbaugh and Newt Gingrich winning? If anything their over-the-top antics have mostly backfired. In their attempts to paint President Barack Obama as a socialist, un-American and the dangerous "black other," they have mostly managed to alienate themselves and their party. Obama's approval rating remains high and most seem pleased, or at least comfortable, with his overall performance. So I wasn't certain what Dionne could have meant. If anything, Rush and Newt appear to be losing. But after reading his article, I was left wondering if perhaps Dionne didn't have a good point.
Read more below...
Since the beginning of his presidency, we have been held hostage to acts of reckless stupidity from the GOP and its surrogates. From FOX News to Glenn Beck to Rush Limbaugh, the right-wing noise machine has been consistent with its outlandish reactionary attacks. In the face of this the GOP has been either silent or subservient, turning themselves into willing accomplices.
E.J. Dionne writes:The power of the Limbaugh-Gingrich axis means that Obama is regularly cast as somewhere on the far left end of a truncated political spectrum. He's the guy who nominates a "racist" to the Supreme Court (though Gingrich retreated from the word yesterday), wants to weaken America's defenses against terrorism and is proposing a massive government takeover of the private economy. Steve Forbes, writing for his magazine, recently went so far as to compare Obama's economic policies to those of Juan Peron's Argentina.
The charges and accusations have been so absurd, so beyond the pale, that conservative politics and criticism has seemingly degenerated into a freak show. The problem is that where there are freaks, you can be certain our national media will follow.
Always one for sensationalism rather than substance, each and every charge hurled by the reactionary right-wing makes it into the corporate media cycle. That these criticisms are usually ludicrous and often wholly baseless doesn't seem to matter. Rush Limbaugh could claim Obama had three heads--rest assured mainstream media would trumpet his claim and have on talking heads to debate the number of heads the President has, and how this affects beltway politics.
Entertaining these claims not only reduces serious journalism to the level of the National Enquirer, as Dionne points out it stifles and obscures real substantive discussion regarding the Obama administration's policy decisions. Namely he points out that while the media is fixated on the freak show, and in turn forces Americans to gawk at the bizarre GOP circus, they ignore criticisms such as those leveled by progressives at a recent gathering: While the right wing's rants get wall-to-wall airtime, you almost never hear from the sort of progressive members of Congress who were on an America's Future panel on Tuesday. Reps. Jared Polis of Colorado, Donna Edwards of Maryland and Raul Grijalva of Arizona....why are their voices muffled when they raise legitimate concerns, while Limbaugh's rants get amplified? Isn't Afghanistan a more important issue to debate than a single comment by Judge Sonia Sotomayor about the relative wisdom of Latinas?
There is also more at work here. By narrowing the discussion over President Obama's policies to fanatical critics like Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh, media outlets are giving Americans a false choice--either side with the moderate, liberal-leaning but centrist White House administration, or join the shouting chorus at the freak show. The voices of those in the progressive camp, who offer both praise and criticism of policies that range from the escalation of the Afghan war to health care, are left mute. Ironically this benefits no one more than the Obama administration, who can make their moderate centrism look progressive--especially when even the slightest move to the left is met with screams of socialism. No wonder many Democratic strategists welcome the GOP freakouts. Perhaps it's about time all of us--from the corporate media machine to the Democratic establishment to everyday progressives--stopped giving so much airtime, blog time and print space to the circus performers of the right-wing, and realize there are more legitimate voices that have yet to be heard.
E.J. Dionne's full article here.
Thursday, June 4, 2009
Judge Sonia Sotomayor & The New Racism
Last week President Barack Obama nominated Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court of the United States. What has transpired in the wake of this have been ceaseless attacks by right-wing politicians like Tom Tancredo and Newt Gingrich, along with the likes of Michael Savage, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Ann Coulter and more. What are these conservative luminaries charging the Latina with?
Racism.
Say what?!?
I applaud the appointment of Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the United States Supreme Court. It is a historic moment for the under represented and Judge Sotomayor seems amply qualified for the position. I'm not exactly ecstatic however. At first glance Judge Sotomayor doesn't appear to shift the court in any new direction. She seems an apt replacement for Justice David Souter, although where she stands on key issues is still unknown. Judge Sotomayor isn't close to a liberal/left answer to the likes of Thomas, Scalia or Alito. At best, her past rulings have indicated she's a liberal-leaning centrist. This all makes the right-wing rabid attack on her just that much more bizarre. Issues of immigration have seeped into the criticism directed her way, even though she's of Puerto Rican descent--and hence a legal U.S. citizen. And, in yet another indication that we've officially entered the Twilight Zone, some of the most offensive and rabidly intolerant right-wing commentators and politicians have dared to call the first female Latina Supreme Court nominee racist--all for stating something that should be plain common sense. If this were say, Marjorie Cohen, a dream pick were we playing Fantasy SCOTUS, I'd certainly see why the GOP would cringe. But the attacks so far from the Republican right have been so flimsy and personal, it only serves to make their issues with race, ethnicity and gender even more glaringly transparent.
Journalist William Rivers Pitt has defined this bizarre behavior as "Sotomayor Derangement Syndrome." But English and Cultural Studies professor Henry Giroux sees it as part of something more interwoven into the American fabric--what he calls the new racism, in which those who practice intolerance attempt to wrap themselves in victimhood while crying out against "reverse" discrimination. Giroux writes:While many liberals suggest that with the election of Barack Obama to the presidency the United States has become a post-racial society, many conservatives have now taken the opposition position, prompted by the nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court, that racism is alive and well in the republic.
Indeed what we are seeing with Sotomayor, as we have seen since the name Barack Obama was entered into the public discourse alongside the word "President," is American racism reinventing itself, adapting to current challenges and employing new tactics. By defining Sotomayor, or Obama, as the dangerous, irrational, unqualified "other," it is "whiteness" that is allowed to act as if it is under seige, even as it seeks to remain normalized. These new tricks by an old foe may be crude and untested, but rest assured they will continue. Because thus far, American history has shown that sooner or later they will strike the right chord.
The rest of Professor Giroux's article can be read here.
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
Monday, June 1, 2009
Remembering Dr. Ivan van Sertima: 1935-2009
On May 31st, it was announced that the historian, linguist and anthropologist Dr. Ivan van Sertima passed away in his homeland of Guyana. For anyone remotely acquainted with African history, especially that deliriously exciting movement of historical Afrocentricity in the late 1980s and early 90s, Dr. van Sertima was a giant.
I remember when I first heard Dr. van Sertima speak. It was thrilling to hear someone with a familiar West Indian accent speaking forcefully and powerfully on African history. Dr. van Sertima made no apologies nor did he indulge in nuanced watered-down African history. His position was clear--Africa had a rich history spanning from antiquity to the early precolonial period, that had been purposefully distorted, misrepresented and white-washed by modern Eurocentric historians. He attributed his profound interest in African history to his life under colonial rule, during which time he learned more about the history of the British Empire than his own homeland. Like many others he found himself wondering where exactly people like him--people who looked like him--fit onto the historical map. Not satisfied with an Africa described and depicted as a "Dark Continent," and breaking with mentors who attempted to steer him elsewhere, Dr. van Sertima took it upon himself to traverse an academic path that would help uncover Africa's often ignored past. An adherent of the theories of the Senegalese historian, scientist and anthropologist Cheikh Anta Diop, the Guyanese scholar earned his doctorate and began teaching at Rutgers University in 1972.
As editor of the Journal of African Civilization, in the 1980s thru early 1990s he helped provide a voice for numerous black scholars--both inside and outside academia--who attempted to correct what they saw as a concerted attempt to devalue and erase pre-colonial African history. From dynastic Egypt to medieval Islamic Spain to modern black scientists, Dr. van Sertima and his colleagues followed the trail of black history wherever it led, and did not shy away from oft-times heated debates with mainstream academic counterparts. They were however not working with the funding, and in some cases the training, the academic world provided. In their writings you sometimes see the attempt of an artist trying to recreate a fine portrait from broken fragments--bits of linguistics here, some archaeology there, history, art, whatever helped make the final picture work. Some of these works were genius, such as the deconstruction of racial categories that had permeated academia for well over a century. Others were admittedly far-fetched, entertaining the fringes of historicity. But much of it, even when falling short of the mark or deserving criticism, opened up avenues of discussion that had previously been closed--expanding the boundaries of black historical study.
Dr. van Sertima's most famous work would be the 1977 book They Came Before Columbus, in which he put forth the hypothesis that African seafarers reached the Americas before Columbus: during the ancient period congruous with the Olmec period (1400BCE to 400BCE) and other meetings during the late medieval era of the Aztec Empire. Dr. van Sertima marshalled an array of evidence: from agricultural sea crossings and favorable Atlantic ocean currents, to Mesoamerican writings and religious symbology. Most famously, he looked to the famed several ton Olmec heads which--with their oft-times thick lips and high cheekbones--many previous European archaeologists had asserted must have been of African origin. They Came Before Columbus became a bestseller, and was met with acclaim in the popular press, especially those looking to unseat Eurocentric hegemony. On July 7, 1987 Dr. van Sertima even appeared before a United States Congressional committee to give testimony that challenged the conventional wisdom that Christopher Columbus "discovered" America.
In academic circles however, They Came Before Columbus was ignored or ridiculed. Some anthropologists and historians openly called it "rubbish." Mesoamerican researchers charged it ignored and omitted facts. I ndigenous activists asserted that theories of African seafarers arriving to "enlighten" native peoples robbed them of their own history. And, most stinging to someone like Dr. van Sertima, his critics claimed he sought to replace Eurocentric hegemony with an African-centered model. Some outright called him a racist. Dr. van Sertima refuted these charges, firing off numerous rebuttals, often meeting the "racist" charge by pointing out that he considered himself a person of multi-racial heritage--a product of African and indigenous peoples who shared similar fates in the Atlantic world. He denied he was asserting Mesoamerican culture fell out of what he called some "Egypto-Nubian heaven" and dissuaded other Afrocentric scholars from drawing such conclusions from his work. But he was resolute in his theories, and would not submit to what he saw as more of the Eurocentric drubbing he had endured throughout his life and academic career.
I first read They Came Before Columbus in the early 1990s, and was enthralled by its premise. A person searching like so many others for when and where people who resembled me entered the historical stage, I was a convert. And any theory that knocked Christopher Columbus--that symbol of slavery, genocide and the terror of modernity--from his lofty perch was like therapy for a lifetime of mental educational abuse. But the one thing Dr. van Sertima always promoted was honesty in scholarship--and I often admired that he chided those who took on the mantle "Afrocentric" only to put forth exaggerated or absurd theories of psychic ability or so-called faces on Mars. In Dr. van Sertima's mind, such things hurt the cause of African history which already had so much to go up against. And even in the books he edited, he warned contributors to be rigorous in their scholarship and called them out when he found them wanting. As he was often fond of saying, African history is rich enough; there's no need to make things up.
So it was with this type of advice in mind that by the late 1990s I began to question some of the key premises put forth in They Came Before Columbus. Ironically it would be some of the very ideas put forth by Dr. van Sertima, especially his ceaseless deconstruction of scientific racializations like the "Hamitic hypothesis" (which turns numerous East and Northeastern Africans into "dark whites"), that led me to question the evidence he had marshaled for African seafarers visiting the Pre-Columbian Americas. Olmec heads no longer looked "African" to my eyes, as much as they merely resembled the variety of phenotypes that define even modern Central Americans. And the cultural basis for pyramids, not to mention their architectural designs, no long seemed to have definitive similarities. If Africans had reached the Americas before Columbus, I was no longer comfortable with saying that Dr. van Sertima's theories provided the evidence. And on a few online message boards and with friends and colleagues, I said so openly.
But I was always respectful. After all, far more improbable assertions had been made previously by those still respected in varied genres. The progenitors of disciplines like Egyptology and Anthropology were often eccentric, bizarre in their theories and at times outright racist. Yet they laid the foundations for their respective fields, and we are expected today to acknowledge their accomplishments despite their other failings. Dr. van Sertima may have jumped wrong on They Came Before Columbus, but it didn't invalidate numerous other contributions he gave to African history. Nor has Christopher Columbus's lofty perch gone unchallenged by others.
Why in the face of competing evidence did he remain steadfast in his theories, I can't say. Maybe he was too arrogant to back down, and unable to take his own advice. Perhaps he was reacting to the often condescending and thinly veiled race-baiting approach his (usually) white critics took. Or maybe he just honestly believed that he was correct. In a speech he once gave, Dr. van Sertima spoke of his "skills" with his hands as a youth in Guyana, during which time he gained local recognition for his ability and willingness to take on any challenger. Even as a scholar, it seems that fighting spirit didn't leave him.
So it was a bit surprising when Dr. van Sertima, who usually forcefully replied to his critics, remained oddly silent when a 1997 Journal of Current Anthropology article criticized (in rich detail) They Came Before Columbus. By then the Journal of African Civilization was in decline or out of print. Afrocentric scholarship had been beaten and hounded from much of academia, labeled a threat so great one Classicist claimed "barbarians were at the gate." And when I heard mention of Dr. Van Sertima again a few years later, I was told shocking news---that he was suffering from Alzheimer's. That a mind so astute would end up with such a fate seemed surreal. Dr. van Sertima seemed to disappear from public view, until this past weekend when a friend rung me about his death in Guyana.
In the end, whatever one thinks of the theories he put forth and supported, Dr. Ivan van Sertima served as a beacon in a field where black and African peoples had been relegated to invisibility or mere spectators. As one historian put it, his greatest crime wasn't that whether he was correct or not--it was that he dared to put forth the "plausibility" of African accomplishment and African genius that rivaled and directly challenged some of the most cherished precepts of Eurocentricity. In this regard Dr. van Sertima allowed African histories to escape the meager parameters they had been assigned, taking us on treks from early Europe to medieval Asia. He allowed us to think of ourselves as valuable participants in both the past and modern world, and helped us believe we could shape the future. His courage helped give us self-worth, and perhaps in the end that was his most valuable contribution.
by Dr. Ivan van Sertima:
Malegapuru William Makgoba, ed., African Renaissance, Mafube and Tafelberg, Sandton and Cape Town, 1999
Runoko Rashidi and Ivan van Sertima, ed., African Presence in Early Asia, New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction, 1995 (1985)
Ivan van Sertima, ed., African Presence in early Europe, New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction, 1985
____ Black Women in Antiquity, New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction, 1988
____ Blacks in Science: Ancient and Modern, New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction, 1983
____ Early America Revisited, New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction, 1998
____ Egypt: Child of Africa New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction, 1994
____ Egypt Revisited, New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction, 1989
____ The Golden Age of the Moor, New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction, 1992
____ Great African Thinkers, Cheikh Anta Diop, New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction, 1986
____ Great Black Leaders: Ancient and Modern, New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction, 1988
____ They Came Before Columbus, New York: Random House, 1976
____ Early America revisited, New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction, 1988
____Cheikh Anta Diop, New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction, 1988
____Van Sertima before Congress: the Columbus myth United States. Congress. House. Committee on Post Office and Civil Service. Subcommittee on Census and Population.; Christopher Columbus Quincentenary Jubilee Commission. Highland Park, NJ : Audio Division, Journal of African Civilizations, 1988.
Friday, May 29, 2009
Torturing Democracy
Excerpt #1 from the award-winning 2008 documentary Torturing Democracy
In all the recent debate over torture, many of our Beltway pundits and politicians have twisted themselves into verbal contortions to avoid using the word at all. During his speech to the conservative American Enterprise Institute last week -- immediately on the heels of President Obama's address at the National Archives -- former Vice President Dick Cheney used the euphemism "enhanced interrogation" a full dozen times. Smothering the reality of torture in euphemism of course has a political value, enabling its defenders to diminish the horror and possible illegality. It also gives partisans the opening they need to divert our attention by turning the future of the prison at Guantanamo Bay into a "wedge issue," as noted on the front page of Sunday's New York Times.
Bill Moyers and Michael Winsip - Everyone Should See 'Torturing Democracy.
Read full article here.
Read another on the problems the documentary has faced in getting aired here.
See more excerpts from the documentary below...
More on full documentary here.
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
Blood & Oil In the Niger Delta
Nigerian actress Lola Toluwase during the shooting of the movie "Covenant of the Ancestors", in the creeks of Sagbama near Yenagoa in the volatile Niger Delta region of Nigeria, August 2006. The film is about the restiveness caused by the politics of oil in the Niger Delta and how young people have been caught up in conflict through the formation of militant groups., Courtesy Reuters.
On May 13, the Nigerian military launched an assault on villages in that nation’s oil-rich Niger Delta. Hundreds of civilians are feared killed in the attack. According to Amnesty International, a celebration in the delta village of Oporoza was attacked. An eyewitness told the organization: “I heard the sound of aircraft; I saw two military helicopters, shooting at the houses, at the palace, shooting at us. We had to run for safety into the forest. In the bush, I heard adults crying, so many mothers could not find their children; everybody ran for their life.”
The above quote is from an article by Amy Goodman of Democracy Now!. Since May 21, Goodman's radio show has been following events in the Niger Delta, where the Nigerian army--to protect foreign energy interests--has moved violently against militant insurgencies demanding a greater share of the lucrative oil wealth. Hundreds have been killed, and thousands displaced in the recent military operation. Militants have responded by blowing up an important oil pipeline and threatening to do the same to others. In the midst of all this, Shell Oil is on the verge of having its day in court to answer for its alleged role in the 1995 execution of activist Ken Saro-Wiwa. But the happenings in the Niger Delta aren't new, as its impoverished inhabitants living in destitution and poverty have been trying to tell the world of their troubles for decades. The land they have long lived on has been called an ecological catastrophe that approaches a monstrosity, as the ground, water and skies are polluted for oil production. The life expectancy in the Delta has dropped to the 40s and even the rain is toxic. What is occurring now may be finally catching the world's attention, but it has been long in the making.
More on this expanding conflict after the fold...
Massive Casualties Feared in Nigerian Military Attack on Niger Delta Villages
The Nigerian military has been accused of killing hundreds, maybe thousands, of civilians in the oil-rich Niger Delta. The military offensive began eight days ago but has received little international attention. We go to Nigeria to speak with Denzil Amagbe Kentebe of the Ijaw National Congress. We’re also joined by Sandy Cioffi, director of the new documentary Sweet Crude about the Niger Delta. The village of Oporoza, where much of the film was shot, has just been burned down.
Read full article here.
Shell on Trial: Landmark Trial Set to Begin Over Shell’s Role in 1995 Execution of Nigerian Human Rights Activist Ken Saro-Wiwa
A landmark trial against oil giant Royal Dutch Shell’s alleged involvement in human rights violations in the Niger Delta begins this Wednesday in a federal court in New York. Fourteen years after the widely condemned execution of the acclaimed Nigerian writer and environmental activist Ken Saro-Wiwa, the court will hear allegations that Shell was complicit in his torture and execution.
Read full article here.
Sweet Crude
Sweet Crude is the story of Nigeria’s Niger Delta – a story that’s never been captured in a feature-length film. Beginning with the filmmaker’s initial trip to document the building of a library in a remote village, Sweet Crude is a journey of multilayered revelation and ever-deepening questions. It’s about survival, corruption, greed and armed resistance. It’s about one place in one moment, with themes that echo many places throughout history. Sweet Crude shows the humanity behind the statistics, events and highly sensationalized media portrayal of the region. Set against a stunning backdrop of Niger Delta footage, the film gives voice to the region’s complex mix
Learn more about the documentary here. Take action on what is currently happening here.
Pollution in the Niger Delta
CORP WATCH- NIGERIA: Niger Delta bears brunt after 50 years of oil spills
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
The Story of Stuff
Narrated by Anne Leonard, The Story of Stuff examines how our consumerist addiction is directly tied to the environmental degradation of our planet. After all, how is all this STUFF produced and where does all this STUFF go when we're done with it? Even when we try to be environmental, some of the STUFF needed to do so just creates more STUFF.
More about The Story of Stuff here.
Monday, May 25, 2009
Waltzing Matilda
And the old men march slowly, all bones stiff and sore,
They're tired old heroes from a forgotten war
And the young people ask "What are they marching for?"
And I ask meself the same question.
The passage above is from Eric Bogle's 1971 Waltizing Matilda, in which a maimed Australian veteran recounts the horrors of a battle in WWI that left him both physically and mentally wounded for life. As he ponders on the seeming futility of it all at the twilight of his life, he both mourns his own loss and expresses disdain for the glorification of warfare. As we in the U.S. come upon another Memorial Day, Bogle's lament from almost four decades past echoes with resonance.
More after the fold...
Memorial Day has become one of those sacrosanct holidays, where it is considered in good form to mourn and celebrate the dead of wars past. From televsion to public ceremonies, there will be depictions of heroic soldiers who served and those who fell in the line of duty. And virtues like "freedom" and "honor" will fill the air. But beneath the pride and the sadness, what will be missing from this Memorial Day--as is so often the case--is any serious examination on why such a holiday exists in the first place.
Since its inception the United States has fought a series of wars across the globe. Some were in greater conflicts not of our making, which we often look to with the fondest memories. Others however we either inserted ourselves into, or initiated, for reasons that are no more clear today than they were at the time. More than a few, we simply push into our collective amnesia, trying to forget seeming humiliations.
Yet under the theme of Memorial Day, all these wars, battles and invasions are celebrated as "just" and "moral." Even the dead of the Civil War are honored on both sides, as if it didn't really matter which side won in the end. Odd that on a day to remember the dead of war, we don't sit down and honestly ask ourselves if they died for something noble, or if many may have died for lies, plunder, jingoism or worse. Are all causes really just? And what of the other dead, those on the receiving end of our military machine who lay strewn across continents--from Panama to Vietnam--in the hundreds and millions? Where do they fit into our collective memoralizing?
Do we learn anything from our past? As I sit here typing this now, the U.S. is occupying Iraq, ramping up a war in Afghanistan, sending predator drones to attack villages in Pakistan, has a chain of military bases ringing the globe and is feeding our Pentagon-military-industrial-complex billions to mass produce new hideous weaponry to find new ways to cause carnage. Does any of our memories and honoring of the dead of wars past help us to make better decisions regarding the wars of the present and those that may come? Or do we take Memorial Day so seriously because we have decided to exist in a perpetual state of warfare that will continue to offer us up more and more dead?
As media critic Norman Solomon notes:In the truncated media universe of Memorial Day, the act of remembering bypasses any history that indicates an American war was not inevitable and unavoidable. The populace is made to understand that God and nature must be death dealers. We are encouraged to extol those who bravely gave their lives and took the lives of others -- but not confront those, high in the U.S. government's executive and legislative branches, who cravenly gave their fervent blessings to gratuitous carnage.
For the rest of Solomon's article, The Silent Media Curse of Memorial Day, go here.
And view the documentary War Made Easy.
Sunday, May 24, 2009
Tough Love for Obama
From TheNation.com
Representative Donna Edwards provides a look into the Congressional Progressive Caucus and urges progressives to speak up and challenge the Obama presidency to deliver innovative and powerful legislation.
For moreNation videos check out their YouTube channel.
Thursday, May 21, 2009
Talking Points for Weak & Spineless Dems
So yesterday all but 6 Senate Democrats joined with their Republican cohorts to deny President Obama funding to shut down the Guantánamo Bay detention center (Gitmo), which has been a scene of torture and called a violation of international law. That a Democratic majority in the Senate still can't realize they're in charge and vote to assure progressive measures by a Democratic President, just highlights the weak and spineless behavior we've become accustomed to under Sen. Harry Reid. But the argument put forth by those voting against funding was so asinine and preposterous, it can only be called pathetically stupid.
More after the fold...
The argument was first floated by Republican strategists during the Bush era, who asked where would the Gitmo "detainees" go if the base at Guantanamo Bay was closed? This was picked up most recently by Peter King (R-NY) who claimed something sinister would happen if suspected terrorists were brought close to Ground Zero. The Republican noise machine--led it seems by Dick Cheney who emerged from Mordor to do a recent medial blitz--continued to chime in, warning of the dire results of "releasing" Gitmo "detainees" in the U.S. And for this, Senate Democrats ran and caved, still fearful of being called weak on national security and unable to muster up talking points that a seven-year-old could draft.
Here are a few. Thank the next seve-year-old you see...
(1) Having a fair trial that does not disobey international law does not equal "releasing" Gitmo "detainees." It's not like the handcuffs are going to come off and they'll just be left to run into the American wilderness. No one is talking about setting up a "detainee" in a condo and giving him a government stipend to do research. They'd be in prison, not put under house arrest with an ankle band. And then, hopefully, they'd be able to get a trial to determine if they even belong there in the first place. As it stands, keeping them in limbo is not an answer.
(2) As John Stewart pointed out on the Daily Show, these guys aren't Warlocks. Are we really to believe that U.S. police, military and other security forces can't handle shackled and bound prisoners? They do this every day. Do these detainees have mutant powers or something? What is behind this ridiculous fear that these figures are so toxic, they can't set foot in the U.S. and be brought to trial? Who is going to bust them out, COBRA?
(3) A familiar GOP talking point picked up by some weak Democrats is that they fear the "detainees" will "radicalize" U.S. prisons. I think it's pretty safe to assume that any prisoners from Gitmo wouldn't be roaming about in general population. The U.S. has held everyone from Timothy McVeigh to the blind cleric Sheikh Omar Abdul-Rahman, most often away from the rest of the inmates. Unless they have psychic powers of mind control, this is a red herring.
(4) Have the entire Senate watch MSNBC's Lock Up sometime. Be sure to include the scenes of inmates who talk about eating someone's brain and others who brag they can't wait to "get their knife wet." And these are all 100% American grown criminals. It ain't exactly Disneyland in there. If anything, the "detainees" should be kept out of general population for their *own* safety.
(5) Lastly, look up the term Prison Industrial Complex. Tell these GOP "lock em' all up" supporters suddenly turned "timid" about the effectiveness of maximum security facilities that when it comes to jailing people, the U.S. has the world beat--hands down. Prisons, along with weapons, may be about the last great export we have for the world. If we can't house them here, no one can.
An update-
As expected, spineless Dems caving in to right-wing talking points has only emboldened the GOP noise machine--who are launching a stinging offensive using every tool at their disposal. Senate Democrats meanwhile are in disarray--as tends to happen *every time* they do something weak and gutless. Good. They deserve the heat.
Secondly, President Obama has thankfully come out today and stated forcefully that he intends to shut down Gitmo and won't be deterred. Good for him. Good for him. Two things however, President Obama: (1) When you refuse to let your Justice Dept move forward on investigating torture and other acts that took place at Gitmo, you allow stupid right-wing talking points and Darth Cheney to run amok saying anything--because they know they won't be prosecuted; (2) When you block the release of photos and other evidence related to the abuses done under a previous administration, you deflate your own ethical high ground and then your own party will retreat at any given opportunity. Learn from these mistakes.
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
Unexceptional Americans
...torture has been routinely practiced from the early days of the conquest of the national territory, and continued to be used as the imperial ventures of the "infant empire" - as George Washington called the new republic - extended to the Philippines, Haiti, and elsewhere.... torture was the least of the many crimes of aggression, terror, subversion, and economic strangulation that have darkened U.S. history, much as in the case of other great powers
The quote above is from Noam Chomsky, who in a recent article discusses the amnesia that affects so much of U.S. history. Even as I joined in condemnation of the Bush regime in the past few years, I often found myself disturbed by notions that the misdeeds carried out under that administration were aberrations--horrific in great part because of their seeming uniqueness. For many, it was as if the past few centuries of ethnic cleansing of indigenous peoples of North America, the brutal occupation of the Philippines, the violent overthrow of governments (from the Hawaiian monarchy to Mossadeq of Iran), the mayhem of bloodshed throughout Central and South America, a war in Southeast Asia that killed millions and more had been minor blips in our history. Yet for many of the people on the receiving end it has been the defining tragedy and tumultuous markers of their lives, societies and nations. The American view of itself as a nation that is always moral, always right and always just, is a theme of denial that runs deep in our psyche. Its what leads us to label ourselves the "indispensable nation" which the rest of the world cannot do without as they wait in hopes for us to be their eternal leader. And we feel wholly justified in ringing the globe with 737 military bases, yet balk at being called an Empire.
In the article below, Noam Chomsky deconstructs these myths of "American Exceptionalism" and asks us to take a better look at our history with more critical eyes.
Unexceptional Americans
May 19, 2009
The torture memos released by the White House elicited shock, indignation, and surprise. The shock and indignation are understandable. The surprise, less so.
For one thing, even without inquiry, it was reasonable to suppose that Guantanamo was a torture chamber. Why else send prisoners where they would be beyond the reach of the law -- a place, incidentally, that Washington is using in violation of a treaty forced on Cuba at the point of a gun? Security reasons were, of course, alleged, but they remain hard to take seriously. The same expectations held for the Bush administration's "black sites," or secret prisons, and for extraordinary rendition, and they were fulfilled.
More importantly, torture has been routinely practiced from the early days of the conquest of the national territory, and continued to be used as the imperial ventures of the "infant empire" -- as George Washington called the new republic -- extended to the Philippines, Haiti, and elsewhere. Keep in mind as well that torture was the least of the many crimes of aggression, terror, subversion, and economic strangulation that have darkened U.S. history, much as in the case of other great powers.
Accordingly, what's surprising is to see the reactions to the release of those Justice Department memos, even by some of the most eloquent and forthright critics of Bush malfeasance: Paul Krugman, for example, writing that we used to be "a nation of moral ideals" and never before Bush "have our leaders so utterly betrayed everything our nation stands for." To say the least, that common view reflects a rather slanted version of American history.
full article here.
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Malcolm X 2009- What If... ?
I always look at our contemporary world and wonder what if...that fateful day in Feb. of 1965 had never happened? What if...Malcolm was still alive today? How would the 1960s icon have existed in our times? I tend to call it, WWMD--What Would Malcolm Do? Here's a random sample...
And we will know him then for what he was and is—a prince—our own black shining prince!—who didn’t hesitate to die, because he loved us so. --the late Ossie Davis, Eulogy for Malcolm X, 1965.
Today is the birthday of El Hajj Malik El Shabazz, known to most of the world as Malcolm X, who had he lived would have been 84. The fiery activist achieved something akin to sainthood upon his tragic death on Feb. 21st 1965, and saw a revival of his presence especially within the Hip Hop cultural and political “Golden Age” of the late 1980s to early 1990s, culminating in the Spike Lee biopic bearing his name. There are still streets which memorialize him, along with grassroots organizations that seek to carry on his legacy and his movement. But gone today are the Malcolm X buttons, clothing and assorted paraphernalia that defined half a decade of black cultural expression, and influenced members of my generation. Last time I saw someone wearing an X cap, it was on an undocumented Mexican immigrant worker who had gotten it from a free clothing store—which seemed, oddly enough, fitting.
Still, on his birth and death Malcolm X and his politics tend to come alive again. And each year around this time I ponder on his life and relive some of his speeches. Whenever I do so, I always look at our contemporary world and wonder what if...that fateful day in Feb. of 1965 had never happened? What if...Malcolm was still alive today? How would the 1960s icon have existed in our times? I tend to call it, WWMD--What Would Malcolm Do? Here's a random sample rehashed from two years past, with some new additions...
· What would Malcolm make of Hip Hop? Would he find art and expression and politics in it, or condemn it as detrimental and debilitating to black America?
· What would Malcolm make of the “new black conservatism” found in the likes of Bill Cosby? Would a former street hustler still believe the lowest among us could yet be redeemed?
· How would Malcolm’s preaching of “self-determination” co-exist in the black era of “prosperity preachers” and ideologies of “pull-yourself-up-by-your-own-bootstraps?” Would he blame the poverty of the poor on their own shortcomings, or the system behind it?
· What would Malcolm make of the moral majority and religious right in America? What would he make of gay marriage or gay rights?
· Would Malcolm ever step on the set of FOX News?
· How would 82 year-old Muslim Malcolm have reacted when cameras and microphones were thrust in his face to demand an explanation on where he stood on Islamic radicalism?
· What would Malcolm have said of the Iraq War, Abu Gharib and the continued occupation?
· After September 11th would Malcolm have been caught up in the large sweeps, surveillance and imprisonment that affected thousands of Muslims in the U.S.? Would an 82 year-old man have been placed in an orange jump suit in Guantanomo?
· Would Malcolm have attended the Million Man March? Would he have spoken? How would he get along with his former protégé, Minister Louis Farrakhan? The Nation of Islam?
· Would Malcolm have cheered on all those (mostly) white kids at the Battle of Seattle and spoken out forcefully about neoliberalism, unfair trade and the global political economy?
· How would Malcolm have felt to watch the implosion of Somalia, the genocide of Rwanda or the devastation of the Democratic Republic of Congo?
· Would Malcolm speak out about Darfur and before that the conflict in South Sudan?
· How vocal would Malcolm be about the AIDS epidemic?
· What would Malcolm have made about the present state of Africa and its marginalization in global affairs? Would he be out fighting for debt cancellation and condemning the IMF and World Bank? Or would Malcolm just have taken up Bono’s invitation to attend Live 8 and put on a ONE band?
· When supermodel Iman asked Malcolm to smear some paint on his face and pose in an ad declaring, I AM AFRICAN to fight AIDS, what would have been his reply?
· Would Malcolm think The Boondocks or Dave Chappelle was “revolutionary?”
· Would Malcolm sill have a U.S. postage stamp in his honor?
· Would Malcolm still have lived in the U.S., or would he have by now been forced to flee to Cuba?
· Would he have marketed his own brand of baseball caps, buttons and t-shirts bearing his likeness, and sued anyone for unlawfully using the patented trademark of his Bill Gates funded corporation Malcolm Inc.?
· Would Malcolm have voted and support Barack Obama? Or would Obama as a presidential candidate have been forced to denounce him?
· Would Malcolm criticize Obama when he disagreed with his policies? And if so, would Obama's black supporters denounce him angrily as a "hater?"
· Would Malcolm be in the streets protesting the escalating U.S. wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan?
· What would Malcolm think of the likes of Hugo Chavez, Evo Morales and the rise of leftist leaders in Central and South America?
· What would Malcolm make of the gentrification of his beloved Harlem?
· Would Malcolm get to be interviewed often on Amy Goodman's Democracy Now! ?
· Would we be treated to weekly or monthly articles in progressive dailies penned by Malcolm, speaking on his thoughts of the day?
· Would Malcolm ever get to appear on Oprah?
Just some thoughts that run through my head is all. Can’t say I know many of the answers. But they are interesting to ponder while I listen to The Ballot or the Bullet and try to reflect on if Malcolm's ideologies were meant only for his era, or whether they would have fit--and evolved--in our own. At any rate, once again, Happy birthday Malcolm.Take all the action that's going on this earth right now that he's [the white world] involved in--tell me where he's winning. Nowhere.
Why some rice farmers--some rice farmers...ran him out of Korea. Yes, they ran him out of Korea. Rice eaters with nothing but gym shoes, and a rifle, and a bowl of rice took him and his tanks and his napalm, and all that other action he's supposed to have and ran him across the Yalu. Why? 'Cause the day that he can win on the ground has passed. Up in French Indo-China those little peasants, rice growers took on the might of the French army and ran all the Frenchmen -- you remember Dien Bien Phu. No.
The same thing happened in Algeria, in Africa--they didn't have anything but a rifle. The French had all these highly mechanized instruments of warfare, but they put some guerilla action on, and a--and a--and a white man can't fight a guerilla warfare. Guerilla action takes heart, takes nerve, and he doesn't have that. He's brave when he's got tanks. He's brave when he's got planes. He's brave when he's got bombs. He's brave when he's got a whole lot of company along with him, but you take that little man from Africa and Asia, turn him loose in the woods with a blade, with a blade--that's all he needs, all he needs is a blade--and when the sun comes down--goes down...and it's dark, it's even-steven!
---El Hajj Malik El Shabazz, Malcolm X, on the end of western imperialism and empire in his 1964 speech The Ballot or the Bullet.
Sunday, May 17, 2009
Powerful Quote of the Day
Citizens in a state of permanent war are bombarded with the insidious militarized language of power, fear and strength that mask an increasingly brittle reality. The corporations behind the doctrine of permanent war-who have corrupted Leon Trotsky's doctrine of permanent revolution-must keep us afraid. Fear stops us from objecting to government spending on a bloated military. Fear means we will not ask unpleasant questions of those in power. Fear means that we will be willing to give up our rights and liberties for security. Fear keeps us penned in like domesticated animals.
Wow. You think that's something, you should read the rest of Chris Hedges article The Disease of Permanent War.
A related video link below...
Friday, May 15, 2009
Loose Change ?
No, that title has nothing to do with debunked conspiracy theories that should have been retired five years ago. Rather it's my description for this bizarre week that has pitted groups like the ACLU against the Obama administration. Change we can believe in has become nuanced, and much more loosely defined. A glance at the blogosphere also indicates those united in support last Nov. 4th are now finding themselves in dispute, as many are forced to react to moves by the new president that don't exactly gibe with the campaign trail. The more extreme of his detractors accuse him of betraying his promises. His more extreme defenders put words like "pragmatic" on lofty pedestals. And many struggle to figure out where they stand on events that certainly require addressing.
More after the fold...
Monday The Obama administration threatened to cut off intelligence-sharing if British courts reveal the details of how the Bush administration tortured British-Ethiopian resident Binyam Mohamed.
Tuesday Gen. Stanley McChyrstal was promoted to top military official in Afghanistan, even after his known involvement in some of the worst abuses of the Bush era, including the Pat-Tillman cover-up.
Wednesday In a reversal, President Obama indicated he would seek to conceal photos showing widespread detainee torture and abuse--all in the face of recent court rulings in favor of their disclosure.
Friday Backtracking on previous criticism of military tribunals, President Obama released a statement indicating he would keep the system intact with slight modifications in order to try Guantanamo detainees.
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
Hiding Our Abuse
Today President Obama declared he would seek to block the court-ordered release of photos showing U.S. troops abusing prisoners. As the AP reports, it is an abrupt reversal of his earlier position. What was Obama's reasoning for going seemingly "Bushian" about the release of these photos? President Obama states his decision to keep the world in the dark about the photos was done out of concern they would "further inflame anti-American opinion," endangering U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Seriously? That's the best you got? With all due respect Mr. President, you've got things a bit backwards. And here, let me tell you why...
More after the fold...
First off, anti-American sentiment in the world is quite inflamed already. Despite the fact that our corporate news media can spend hours on end talking about dumb comments by young beauty queens or give 24-hour coverage to the troubled celebrity du jour, media outside our country keep the rest of the globe very informed. Television stations like Al-Jazeera, while mocked and demonized in the U.S., actually offer very informative and hard-hitting journalism that detail in full the damages our imperial adventures have wrought in places like Iraq and Afghanistan. No new photos are going to do any more damage than what they are allowed to see streaming through their television sets or in their newspapers, which turn out to be much more truthful about the brutality of war than our own.
Second, forget photos--real life victims of torture and abuse have returned home to tell their stories in ways that pictures can't begin to capture. These are people's family members, and they have recounted in full--through interviews and articles--what they have been through. Again, I know our news media barely pays attention to such things, but their stories are well known in the neighborhoods, cities and countries they come from.
Third, contrary to Orientalist stereotypes the Muslim world is not made up of emotional hot-headed fanatics. Regular people live there--the type who will *naturally* become incensed at photos of torture and abuse. Will some use it to rally hatred and stir up violence? Sure. Just like we do, or have we forgotten the destruction wreaked on Fallujah by U.S. troops after some American contractors were killed and their bodies strung up by vengeful Iraqis? Fact is, with hundreds of thousands of Iraqis killed and thousands of Afghans still dying in their fractured and occupied countries, anger should have long led to the majority of the population rising up in rebellion against every American in sight. Yet peoples in these regions have not done so en masse. So there's no reason to assert that allowing them to see some terrible photos will cause them to act out on their anger any more than they have for the past eight years.
Fourth, most people in the Middle East were paying close attention to Nov. 2008. They are aware there is a new figure in the White House. And they are rational enough to discern actions taken under a previous administration from the current one. Showing the photos would probably go a long way in allowing many in the region to further acknowledge differences between these two administrations, and not blame the current one for the acts of the past. Showing these photos would allow the new administration to demonstrate that they acknowledge wrongs done by their predecessors and the hurt they have inflicted. Most victims first and foremost want those who wronged them to admit their guilt and be open about it. This won't solve everything, but it's a good first step. Hiding it away is not.
Fifth, however bad these photos are, trust that our imaginations are much, much worse. Not releasing the photos only causes endless speculation about what they could possibly contain. Eventually, somehow, these photos will come out--they always do. In the meantime however, you're allowing us to entertain our darkest sadistic nightmares. And you may find in the end that rumors are a greater threat than the truth.
Sixth, you really want to not incite hatred against American troops Mr. President? Well here's something for starters--stop sending unmanned aerial drones to bomb villages to kill one "suspected militant" and accept civilian casualties in such operations as collateral damage. Stop the massive bombing of population centers and then spinning off propaganda to blame it on "extremists." Stop this ill-informed idea that you can spread democracy at the edge of a knife and a missile as you ramp up a surge in Afghanistan and now intend to expand this bizarre crusade into Pakistan. Thought about shaving off some of that ridiculously over-sized and over-priced U.S. embassy casting an imperial shadow in the center in Iraq? How about listening to polls by the Iraqi and Afghan people who want an end to occupation now? How about stopping this boogey-man hunt for "terrorists" that to many in the region just wreak of subversive attempts to gain oil and gas fields?
There are 1001 things Mr. President you can do to lessen the harm faced by U.S. troops--key among them getting them the heck out of where they aren't wanted. But going along with a cover up of past U.S. misdeeds isn't one of them. Because it seems the only ones who are being shielded from seeing the truth here aren't peoples in foreign lands, but those right here who are kept blissfully ignorant about what is carried out in their names across the world. Perhaps this is just a political tactic of some nuance that escapes me--and the photos will eventually come out through some panel commission or act of the courts. But it would go a long way in improving our image in the world if you took a stand to shed more light and decided to drop alot less bombs. Change the rest of the world we can believe in? Try again.
Monday, May 11, 2009
Talk Like An Empire
...it's assumed that American civilian and military leaders can issue pronunciamentos about what other countries must do; publicly demand various actions of ruling groups; opt for specific leaders, and then, when they disappoint, attempt to replace them; and use what was once called "foreign aid," now taxpayer dollars largely funneled through the Pentagon, to bribe those who are hard to convince.
The above quote is by Tom Engelhardt, who in a recent article at Tomdispatch.com dares to challenge the notion (in the minds of many Americans) that the United States has the right to make demands on other nations. As long as it serves our national interest, other nations should sell their oil cheaply, elect figures we find palatable and take steps to curb dangerous elements in their population. It's as if the entire world's business is to make sure we're comfortable. Yet while this type of thinking is so normalized that many politicians and pundits take it as common sense, the question remains, in the waning era of American power, is it really useful to continue talking like an empire?
More of Tom Englehardt's article after the fold...
Washington's Imperial Attitude: We Talk About Countries Like We Own Them
By Tom Engelhardt, Tomdispatch.com.
May 9, 2009.
It's the norm for U.S. civilian and military leaders to talk about what other countries "must do" -- but it's a radical and dangerous mindset.
A front-page New York Times headline last week put the matter politely indeed: "In Pakistan, U.S. Courts Leader of Opposition." And nobody thought it was strange at all.
In fact, it's the sort of thing you can read just about any time when it comes to American policy in Pakistan or, for that matter, Afghanistan. It's just the norm on a planet on which it's assumed that American civilian and military leaders can issue pronunciamentos about what other countries must do; publicly demand various actions of ruling groups; opt for specific leaders, and then, when they disappoint, attempt to replace them; and use what was once called "foreign aid," now taxpayer dollars largely funneled through the Pentagon, to bribe those who are hard to convince.
Last week as well, in a prime-time news conference, President Obama said of Pakistan: "We want to respect their sovereignty, but we also recognize that we have huge strategic interests, huge national security interests in making sure that Pakistan is stable and that you don't end up having a nuclear-armed militant state."
To the extent that this statement was commented on, it was praised here for its restraint and good sense. Yet, thought about a moment, what the president actually said went something like this: When it comes to U.S. respect for Pakistan's sovereignty, this country has more important fish to fry. A look at the historical record indicates that Washington has, in fact, been frying those "fish" for at least the last four decades without particular regard for Pakistani sensibilities.
In a week in which the presidents of both Pakistan and Afghanistan have, like two satraps, dutifully trekked to the U.S. capital to be called on the carpet by Obama and his national security team, Washington officials have been issuing one shrill statement after another about what U.S. media reports regularly term the "dire situation" in Pakistan.
Of course, to put this in perspective, we now live in a thoroughly ramped-up atmosphere in which "American national security" -- defined to include just about anything unsettling that occurs anywhere on Earth -- is the eternal preoccupation of a vast national security bureaucracy. Its bread and butter increasingly seems to be worst-case scenarios (perfect for our 24/7 media to pounce on) in which something truly catastrophic is always about to happen to us, and every "situation" is a "crisis." In the hothouse atmosphere of Washington, the result can be a feeding frenzy in which doomsday scenarios pour out. Though we don't recognize it as such, this is a kind of everyday extremism.
Full article here.
Friday, May 8, 2009
The Lies of War
An injured Afghan child at the hospital in Farah province.
This past Monday and Tuesday U.S. air strikes struck at "suspected militants" in the western province of Afghanistan. When the smoke cleared, perhaps over 130 Afghan civilians lay dead. What followed next were a series of denials by the Pentagon and a bizarre cover-up that ended in an eventual admission by U.S. officials by week's end. As the Obama administration moves along with plans for a "surge" in the region, this nexus of so-called "collateral damage" and military propaganda may be an ominous vision of what's to come for the people of Afghanistan and the American public.
On Monday and Tuesday, in the Western province of Farah in Afghanistan, following a U.S. air strike, some 130 or more people--civilian men, women and children--lay dead. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made an apology for the bombing, but the U.S. maintained only 15 civilians were killed in the aerial bombardment. After the governor of the region however began speaking of "tractor trailers full of pieces of human bodies," the U.S. changed it's position--somewhat. The official Pentagon line became that the high death toll was carried out by the Taliban, staged in a way to frame the U.S. Late Wednesday it was being claimed that Marine special operations forces believed the Afghan civilians were "killed by grenades hurled by Taliban militants, who then loaded some of the bodies into a vehicle and drove them around the village, claiming the dead were victims of an American air strike." U.S. officials even managed to find evidence that a senior Taliban commander was said to order the grenade attack.
This bizarre claim, which would have been the first for the Taliban, went over like a lead brick in Afghanistan and much of the Middle East. Local villagers, and some decent foreign reporters, began to ask how Taliban guns and grenades could flatten houses and kill so many. And the International Red Cross reported on the devastation the bombings caused.
By Thursday, the Pentagon' version of events began to show cracks. And an official admitted to the New York Times that initial claims of a Taliban massacre was “thinly sourced.” In the meantime, thousands of Afghans have marched in the capital to protest the U.S. air strikes, the continuing occupation and the propped up government in Kabul. Afghan security forces of the emerging democratic state shot at the protesters, And the anger, along with continued denials by the U.S. government, is only growing. Meanwhile, the Obama administration continues undaunted with its plans to place 21,000 more troops on the ground and is seeking support to ramp up its war effort.
This scenario where Americans burn down villages to save them, and then blame civilian casualties on vicious enemy propaganda, is not a new tactic. Replace Afghanistan for Vietnam and Taliban for Vietcong, and it's 1968 all over again. Then, like now, even in the face of such horrors, the Pentagon war machine and the administration that authorizes it, continue along with their notions of expanding the fight which can only be won with more blood, treasure, "regrettable collateral damage" and firm moral resolve.
And we know how well that ended...
More on the lies of war below:
After U.S. Strikes, Afghans Describe 'Tractor Trailers Full of Pieces of Human Bodies'
By Jeremy Scahill, Rebel Reports. May 7, 2009.
Rage spreads in Afghanistan after a U.S. bombing kills some 130 people; Meanwhile the Pentagon spins a cover-up and Obama readies more troops.
Full story here.
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
Hooray for Evolution!
Anthropologist Alice Roberts studies forensic model of early European who would have lived some 35,000 years ago
A picture, or sculpture, is worth a thousand words. I can imagine that this face created by British forensic scientist Richard Neave of a man or woman who lived in the ancient forests of Romania more than 35,000 years ago, is giving those holding onto ideas of white racial superiority a fit. The face was pieced together using fossilised fragments of a skull and jawbone found in a cave seven years ago, and was made for the BBC2 series The Incredible Human Journey. As the long growing consensus among most who study hominid evolution is that modern humans arose in Africa some 60,000 years ago and spread out across the globe, this early European was given facial charateristics to more accurately depict this migration.
Read full article here.
More after the fold...
And be sure to support the National Center for Science Education (NCSE) in their attempt to preserve the teaching of evolution in public schools.
In a related story,
Meet the ancestors: DNA study pinpoints Namibia as home to the world's most ancient race
May 2009
Scientists have long known that humans originated in Africa, but now a groundbreaking DNA study has revealed our 'Garden of Eden' is likely to be on the South African-Namibian border.
For it is the San people (pictured above), hunter-gatherers in this area for thousands of years, who researchers now believe are the oldest human population on Earth.
They are descended from the earliest human ancestors from which all other groups of Africans stem and, in turn, to the people who left the continent to populate other corners of the planet.
Full article here.
Tuesday, May 5, 2009
Remembering the Church Committee
On December 22, 1974, The New York Times published a lengthy article by investigative journalist Seymour Hersh detailing CIA operations both at home and abroad. Dubbed the "family jewels", these operations included assassination attempts against foreign leaders, the subversion of foreign governments and domestic spying on anti-war activists and other U.S. citizens. Coming on the heels of Watergate, these revelations shocked an American public who demanded a further accounting. Between 1975-1976 a U.S. Senate committee chaired by Senator Frank Church (D-ID) conducted investigations into the CIA and FBI's activities. The Church Committee, as it became known, brought to light everything from plots to poison Congolese leader Patrice Lumumba, the surveillance of John Lennon , JFK's plans to employ the mafia to assassinate Fidel Castro, the further exposure of COINTELPRO and more. Recognizing the potential for unscrupulous politicians and a power drunk executive branch to abuse intelligence gathering in the search for nebulous enemies, The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) and Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) were recommended by the Church Committee and eventually put in place.
In our current times, with revelations of torture tactics, domestic spying, black sites and extraordinary rendition, and continuing debates in Congress and the White House over whether we need to "look forward" rather than hold people accountable for illegal activities, perhaps some "looking back" to the Church Committee is warranted.
More after the fold:
The CIA's Family Jewels -George Washington University's National Security Archives.
The Church Committe and FISA -Bill Moyer's Journal, October 26, 2007.
Flashback: A Look Back at the Church Committee’s Investigation into CIA, FBI Misuse of Power -Democracy Now, April 24, 2009.
Monday, May 4, 2009
The Other 100 Days
Much ado and fanfare has been made of Obama's first 100 days, with news specials and much analysis. But there's been hardly a blip about the 100 days of the so-called "opposition party." The last 100 days of the GOP have been at times more entertaining and spectacular than anything that has come out of the Obama White House. The lunacy at CPAC. Rush Limbaugh as the leader of the Republican Party. The bizarre figurehead who thinks he's the self-declared "Hip Hop" leader of the party. Bobby Jindal's dismal rebuttal speech. Sarah Palin, who won't ever go away. GOP Governors who won't take federal money to help their constituents. Never-ending obstructionism. Texas governor Rick Perry threatening secession. Teabag Protests. Arlen Specter. And that's for starters! These past 100 days for the Republicans have been an interesting reality show. Get your popcorn and tune in for what the next 100 might bring.
William Rivers Pitt at Truthout examines this chaotic dance in full after the fold...
The Other 100 Days
Sunday 03 May 2009
by: William Rivers Pitt, t r u t h o u t Columnist
I will not speak with disrespect of the Republican Party. I always speak with respect of the past.- Woodrow Wilson
President Obama marked the 100th day of his term with a prime time press conference on Wednesday night, during which he highlighted a few key accomplishments while reminding the American people that he has quite a lot of crazy crap to deal with. A swine flu outbreak tickling the pandemic edge, an economy still hemorrhaging jobs and money, a ballooning deficit, bad banks, a new eruption of violence in Iraq, an ongoing war in Afghanistan, a looming war and a shaky government in Pakistan, and a bunch of very strange people waving tea bags and yelling about Lord only knows what, because they sure didn't. I got this, Obama seemed to be saying, but damn.
The "100 Days" benchmark is a relic from the first trimester of Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal reform push, and is for the most part a meaningless milestone used primarily by news media types to fill air time and column inches. Still, the Obama administration can lay claim to a series of important victories, with more still to come if he keeps the wind at his back. The poll numbers are universally positive, and the American people seem willing so far to be patient and give the process time to play out.
For the Republican Party, however, the last 100 days have been something out of a Roger Corman flick: blood on the walls, body parts everywhere, lots of screaming and no plot to speak of. The last 30 months have brought a litany of disasters for the GOP - electoral wipeouts in '06 and '08, a poisoned party "brand," mass voter defections to the Democrats, the total repudiation of their whole ideological slate, and an ex-president about as popular as the mumps - culminating with a run of incidents since the inauguration so unutterably bad as to beggar likeness.
Rest of article here.
Friday, May 1, 2009
May Day
Today is May Day. In most of the world, it's a universal holiday, where people in different countries recognize and celebrate the importance of workers and their rights. It's one of the glimmers of transnational solidarity in a world where labor is usually pitted against itself. However if you didn't know about May Day don't be surprised. The United States doesn't celebrate it, choosing instead to focus on our own "labor day" in September--which helps to effectively cut us off from the global labor movement. This nationalistic view may explain much of our xenophobic fears of poor people from other lands (who are themselves being exploited by the same corporations that tend to exploit us) taking "our jobs." It's ironic however that we don't celebrate May Day here, when in fact its origins lie in our history--where workers fought and died for basic principles we all take for granted today, like the eight-hour workday. In an era of labor exploitation and billion dollar bank bailouts, even as we stand in the midst of the global meltdown of rapacious unchecked capitalism, perhaps revisiting this buried part of our national psyche might give some perspective:
More after the fold...
The following is taken from Eric Chase's article The Brief Origins of May Day which can be read in its entirety here.
In the late nineteenth century, the working class was in constant struggle to gain the 8-hour work day. Working conditions were severe and it was quite common to work 10 to 16 hour days in unsafe conditions. Death and injury were commonplace at many work places and inspired such books as Upton Sinclair's The Jungle and Jack London's The Iron Heel. As early as the 1860's, working people agitated to shorten the workday without a cut in pay, but it wasn't until the late 1880's that organized labor was able to garner enough strength to declare the 8-hour workday. This proclamation was without consent of employers, yet demanded by many of the working class.
At this time, socialism was a new and attractive idea to working people, many of whom were drawn to its ideology of working class control over the production and distribution of all goods and services. Workers had seen first-hand that Capitalism benefited only their bosses, trading workers' lives for profit. Thousands of men, women and children were dying needlessly every year in the workplace, with life expectancy as low as their early twenties in some industries, and little hope but death of rising out of their destitution. Socialism offered another option.
A variety of socialist organizations sprung up throughout the later half of the 19th century, ranging from political parties to choir groups. In fact, many socialists were elected into governmental office by their constituency. But again, many of these socialists were ham-strung by the political process which was so evidently controlled by big business and the bi-partisan political machine. Tens of thousands of socialists broke ranks from their parties, rebuffed the entire political process, which was seen as nothing more than protection for the wealthy, and created anarchist groups throughout the country. Literally thousands of working people embraced the ideals of anarchism, which sought to put an end to all hierarchical structures (including government), emphasized worker controlled industry, and valued direct action over the bureaucratic political process. It is inaccurate to say that labor unions were "taken over" by anarchists and socialists, but rather anarchists and socialist made up the labor unions.
At its national convention in Chicago, held in 1884, the Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions (which later became the American Federation of Labor), proclaimed that "eight hours shall constitute a legal day's labor from and after May 1, 1886." The following year, the FOTLU, backed by many Knights of Labor locals, reiterated their proclamation stating that it would be supported by strikes and demonstrations. At first, most radicals and anarchists regarded this demand as too reformist, failing to strike "at the root of the evil." A year before the Haymarket Massacre, Samuel Fielden pointed out in the anarchist newspaper, The Alarm, that "whether a man works eight hours a day or ten hours a day, he is still a slave."
Despite the misgivings of many of the anarchists, an estimated quarter million workers in the Chicago area became directly involved in the crusade to implement the eight hour work day, including the Trades and Labor Assembly, the Socialistic Labor Party and local Knights of Labor. As more and more of the workforce mobilized against the employers, these radicals conceded to fight for the 8-hour day, realizing that "the tide of opinion and determination of most wage-workers was set in this direction." With the involvement of the anarchists, there seemed to be an infusion of greater issues than the 8-hour day. There grew a sense of a greater social revolution beyond the more immediate gains of shortened hours, but a drastic change in the economic structure of capitalism.
In a proclamation printed just before May 1, 1886, one publisher appealed to working people with this plea:
Workingmen to Arms!
War to the Palace, Peace to the Cottage, and Death to LUXURIOUS IDLENESS.
The wage system is the only cause of the World's misery. It is supported by the rich classes, and to destroy it, they must be either made to work or DIE.
One pound of DYNAMITE is better than a bushel of BALLOTS!
MAKE YOUR DEMAND FOR EIGHT HOURS with weapons in your hands to meet the capitalistic bloodhounds, police, and militia in proper manner.
Not surprisingly the entire city was prepared for mass bloodshed, reminiscent of the railroad strike a decade earlier when police and soldiers gunned down hundreds of striking workers. On May 1, 1886, more than 300,000 workers in 13,000 businesses across the United States walked off their jobs in the first May Day celebration in history. In Chicago, the epicenter for the 8-hour day agitators, 40,000 went out on strike with the anarchists in the forefront of the public's eye. With their fiery speeches and revolutionary ideology of direct action, anarchists and anarchism became respected and embraced by the working people and despised by the capitalists.
The names of many - Albert Parsons, Johann Most, August Spies and Louis Lingg - became household words in Chicago and throughout the country. Parades, bands and tens of thousands of demonstrators in the streets exemplified the workers' strength and unity, yet didn't become violent as the newspapers and authorities predicted.
More and more workers continued to walk off their jobs until the numbers swelled to nearly 100,000, yet peace prevailed. It was not until two days later, May 3, 1886, that violence broke out at the McCormick Reaper Works between police and strikers.
For six months, armed Pinkerton agents and the police harassed and beat locked-out steelworkers as they picketed. Most of these workers belonged to the "anarchist-dominated" Metal Workers' Union. During a speech near the McCormick plant, some two hundred demonstrators joined the steelworkers on the picket line. Beatings with police clubs escalated into rock throwing by the strikers which the police responded to with gunfire. At least two strikers were killed and an unknown number were wounded.
Full of rage, a public meeting was called by some of the anarchists for the following day in Haymarket Square to discuss the police brutality. Due to bad weather and short notice, only about 3000 of the tens of thousands of people showed up from the day before. This affair included families with children and the mayor of Chicago himself. Later, the mayor would testify that the crowd remained calm and orderly and that speaker August Spies made "no suggestion... for immediate use of force or violence toward any person..."
As the speech wound down, two detectives rushed to the main body of police, reporting that a speaker was using inflammatory language, inciting the police to march on the speakers' wagon. As the police began to disperse the already thinning crowd, a bomb was thrown into the police ranks. No one knows who threw the bomb, but speculations varied from blaming any one of the anarchists, to an agent provocateur working for the police.
Enraged, the police fired into the crowd. The exact number of civilians killed or wounded was never determined, but an estimated seven or eight civilians died, and up to forty were wounded. One officer died immediately and another seven died in the following weeks. Later evidence indicated that only one of the police deaths could be attributed to the bomb and that all the other police fatalities had or could have had been due to their own indiscriminate gun fire. Aside from the bomb thrower, who was never identified, it was the police, not the anarchists, who perpetrated the violence.
Eight anarchists - Albert Parsons, August Spies, Samuel Fielden, Oscar Neebe, Michael Schwab, George Engel, Adolph Fischer and Louis Lingg - were arrested and convicted of murder, though only three were even present at Haymarket and those three were in full view of all when the bombing occurred. The jury in their trial was comprised of business leaders in a gross mockery of justice similar to the Sacco-Vanzetti case thirty years later, or the trials of AIM and Black Panther members in the seventies. The entire world watched as these eight organizers were convicted, not for their actions, of which all of were innocent, but for their political and social beliefs. On November 11, 1887, after many failed appeals, Parsons, Spies, Engel and Fisher were hung to death. Louis Lingg, in his final protest of the state's claim of authority and punishment, took his own life the night before with an explosive device in his mouth.
The remaining organizers, Fielden, Neebe and Schwab, were pardoned six years later by Governor Altgeld, who publicly lambasted the judge on a travesty of justice. Immediately after the Haymarket Massacre, big business and government conducted what some say was the very first "Red Scare" in this country. Spun by mainstream media, anarchism became synonymous with bomb throwing and socialism became un-American. The common image of an anarchist became a bearded, eastern European immigrant with a bomb in one hand and a dagger in the other.
Today we see tens of thousands of activists embracing the ideals of the Haymarket Martyrs and those who established May Day as an International Workers' Day. Ironically, May Day is an official holiday in 66 countries and unofficially celebrated in many more, but rarely is it recognized in this country where it began.
Thursday, April 30, 2009
Fearmongering About "Talibanistan"
In the past few weeks, the scary spectre of turbaned Taliban fighters overthrowing the Pakistani government has taken on an air of authenticity in media and political circles. The New York Times has printed articles about Taliban forces moving on the capital. The Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Navy Admiral Mike Mullen, fretted openly to reporters that Pakistani leaders were fearful of the advance of the Taliban. And as if trying to scare the beejeezus out of everyone, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton warned that Islamabad was "abdicating" to the Taliban, and that "nuclear-armed Pakistan was in danger of falling into terrorist hands." By last Friday, HBO Real Time with Bill Maher's guest former CIA case officer Bob Baer was declaring the Taliban control of Pakistan a foregone conclusion, stating that "we've lost it" (I wasn't even aware "we owned it") and agreeing with Maher that perhaps the country was better off with American ally and military autocrat Pervez Musharraf.
So is this for real? Is Pakistan--a country where laywers riot for democracy--really in danger of falling to Turbaned hordes intent on beating women in the streets, renaming itself Talibanistan and forking over nukes to al-Qaeda?
Pepe Escobar at Asia Times Online says not so fast, and calls much of this a myth of epic proportions that may also be serving Western interests of control in the region.
For a different perspective on this whole topic, read his article after the fold:
The myth of Talibanistan
By Pepe Escobar
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/KE01Df01.html
Apocalypse Now. Run for cover. The turbans are coming. This is the state of Pakistan today, according to the current hysteria disseminated by the Barack Obama administration and United States corporate media - from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to The New York Times. Even British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has said on the record that Pakistani Talibanistan is a threat to the security of Britain.
But unlike St Petersburg in 1917 or Tehran in late 1978, Islamabad won't fall tomorrow to a turban revolution.
Pakistan is not an ungovernable Somalia. The numbers tell the story. At least 55% of Pakistan's 170 million-strong population are Punjabis. There's no evidence they are about to embrace Talibanistan; they are essentially Shi'ites, Sufis or a mix of both. Around 50 million are Sindhis - faithful followers of the late Benazir Bhutto and her husband, now President Asif Ali Zardari's centrist and overwhelmingly secular Pakistan People's Party. Talibanistan fanatics in these two provinces - amounting to 85% of Pakistan's population, with a heavy concentration of the urban middle class - are an infinitesimal minority.
The Pakistan-based Taliban - subdivided in roughly three major groups, amounting to less than 10,000 fighters with no air force, no Predator drones, no tanks and no heavily weaponized vehicles - are concentrated in the Pashtun tribal areas, in some districts of North-West Frontier Province (NWFP), and some very localized, small parts of Punjab.
To believe this rag-tag band could rout the well-equipped, very professional 550,000-strong Pakistani army, the sixth-largest military in the world, which has already met the Indian colossus in battle, is a ludicrous proposition.
Moreover, there's no evidence the Taliban, in Afghanistan or in Pakistan, have any capability to hit a target outside of "Af-Pak"(Afghanistan and Pakistan). That's mythical al-Qaeda's privileged territory. As for the nuclear hysteria of the Taliban being able to crack the Pakistani army codes for the country's nuclear arsenal (most of the Taliban, by the way, are semi-literate), even Obama, at his 100-day news conference, stressed the nuclear arsenal was safe.
Of course, there's a smatter of junior Pashtun army officers who sympathize with the Taliban - as well as significant sections of the powerful Inter-Services Intelligence agency. But the military institution itself is backed by none other than the American army - with which it has been closely intertwined since the 1970s. Zardari would be a fool to unleash a mass killing of Pakistani Pashtuns; on the contrary, Pashtuns can be very useful for Islamabad's own designs.
Zardari's government this week had to send in troops and the air force to deal with the Buner problem, in the Malakand district of NWFP, which shares a border with Kunar province in Afghanistan and thus is relatively close to US and North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) troops. They are fighting less than 500 members of the Tehrik-e Taliban-e Pakistan (TTP). But for the Pakistani army, the possibility of the area joining Talibanistan is a great asset - because this skyrockets Pakistani control of Pashtun southern Afghanistan, ever in accordance to the eternal "strategic depth" doctrine prevailing in Islamabad.
Bring me the head of Baitullah Mehsud
So if Islamabad is not burning tomorrow, why the hysteria? There are several reasons. To start with, what Washington - now under Obama's "Af-Pak" strategy - simply cannot stomach is real democracy and a true civilian government in Islamabad; these would be much more than a threat to "US interests" than the Taliban, whom the Bill Clinton administration was happily wining and dining in the late 1990s.
What Washington may certainly relish is yet another military coup - and sources tell Asia Times Online that former dictator General Pervez Musharraf (Busharraf as he was derisively referred to) is active behind the hysteria scene.
It's crucial to remember that every military coup in Pakistan has been conducted by the army chief of staff. So the man of the hour - and the next few hours, days and months - is discreet General Ashfaq Kiani, Benazir's former army secretary. He is very cozy with US military chief Admiral Mike Mullen, and definitely not a Taliban-hugger.
Moreover, there are canyons of the Pakistani military/security bureaucracy who would love nothing better than to extract even more US dollars from Washington to fight the Pashtun neo-Taliban that they are simultaneously arming to fight the Americans and NATO. It works. Washington is now under a counter-insurgency craze, with the Pentagon eager to teach such tactics to every Pakistani officer in sight.
What is never mentioned by US corporate media is the tremendous social problems Pakistan has to deal with because of the mess in the tribal areas. Islamabad believes that between the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) and NWFP, at least 1 million people are now displaced (not to mention badly in need of food aid). FATA's population is around 3.5 million - overwhelmingly poor Pashtun peasants. And obviously war in FATA translates into insecurity and paranoia in the fabled capital of NWFP, Peshawar.
The myth of Talibanistan anyway is just a diversion, a cog in the slow-moving regional big wheel - which in itself is part of the new great game in Eurasia.
During a first stage - let's call it the branding of evil - Washington think-tanks and corporate media hammered non-stop on the "threat of al-Qaeda" to Pakistan and the US. FATA was branded as terrorist central - the most dangerous place in the world where "the terrorists" and an army of suicide bombers were trained and unleashed into Afghanistan to kill the "liberators" of US/NATO.
In the second stage, the new Obama administration accelerated the Predator "hell from above" drone war over Pashtun peasants. Now comes the stage where the soon over 100,000-strong US/NATO troops are depicted as the true liberators of the poor in Af-Pak (and not the "evil" Taliban) - an essential ploy in the new narrative to legitimize Obama's Af-Pak surge.
For all pieces to fall into place, a new uber-bogeyman is needed. And he is TTP leader Baitullah Mehsud, who, curiously, had never been hit by even a fake US drone until, in early March, he made official his allegiance to historic Taliban leader Mullah Omar, "The Shadow" himself, who is said to live undisturbed somewhere around Quetta, in Pakistani Balochistan.
Now there's a US$5 million price on Baitullah's head. The Predators have duly hit the Mehsud family's South Waziristan bases. But - curioser and curioser - not once but twice, the ISI forwarded a detailed dossier of Baitullah's location directly to its cousin, the Central Intelligence Agency. But there was no drone hit.
And maybe there won't be - especially now that a bewildered Zardari government is starting to consider that the previous uber-bogeyman, a certain Osama bin Laden, is no more than a ghost. Drones can incinerate any single Pashtun wedding in sight. But international bogeymen of mystery - Osama, Baitullah, Mullah Omar - star players in the new OCO (overseas contingency operations), formerly GWOT ("global war on terror"), of course deserve star treatment.
Pepe Escobar is the author of Globalistan: How the Globalized World is Dissolving into Liquid War (Nimble Books, 2007) and Red Zone Blues: a snapshot of Baghdad during the surge. His new book, just out, is Obama does Globalistan (Nimble Books, 2009).
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Specter's Party Moves
Senator Arlen Specter's decision yesterday to defect from the GOP to the Democratis is causing ripples across the American political spectrum. While Republican leaders tried to brush it off as a tempest in a teapot, they were mostly unsuccessful as Specter's party switch dominated the political news and will likely continue to do so for days to come. But in the end, what's the significance?
For Specter, it may mean survival. His relectuance to support the past Bush adminsitration carte blanche or provide obstinate opposition of Obama's initiatives (Specter voted for the recent stimulus) has made him a target of the more extreme right-wing of the party. And recent polls have shown him being trounced in a head-to-head match up against challenger Pat Toomey, former president of the ultra-conservative Club for Growth. Facing possible defeat, it had been rumored Specter might run as an independent. He seemed however to have decided that a larger camp was the place to be. And as a Democratic challenger easily defeating Toomey has long been expected, Specter decided to become that challenger--keeping both his more moderate GOP constituents disillusioned with their party, and gaining Democratic support.
For the GOP, it is another in a long series of recent train wrecks. Specter, considered by most to be one of the few remaining Republican "moderates," was a voice to temper the more reactionary elements in the party. With his defection, the GOP edges closer to a balkanization of right-wing fringe ideology that is drifting further away from anything resembling mainstream popular American thought. For a party considered by most to be in disarray, this is a crushing embarrassment. More than likely however, there is apt to be more outrage from the GOP and their supporters, than any attempt to engage in a teachable moment.
For the Democrats, it is an inch closer to the magical "60-seat majority" in the Senate, once the inevitably of the Al Franken's torturously slow win in Minnesota is confirmed.
For President Obama it is another notch on the belt and a new shiny pin to place on the 100 Days hat.
And for the rest of us, it's a wonderful bit of schadenfreude.
But Specter's switch comes with it's own set of issues. Arlen Specter, while a moderate voice of sorts in the GOP, is not joinging the progressive wing of the Democratic party. His votes in the Senate during his long career show at most a mixed-bag. He's supported Stem Cell Research and Healthcare reform, but also helped authorize the Iraq War and blocked investigations into defense contracts. More recently, he's withdrawn his support on the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) and has stated that this party switch does not mean he's revisiting that choice. This may cost him vital union support in Pennsylvania, and set up the possibility for a strong Democratic party challenger. Where Democratic officials, both local and in Washington DC, will weigh in is anybody's guess--but it's certain to cause some party fractures.
For more opinions on the Senator's big switch, see below:
What Kind of Democrat Will Specter Be?- NY Times
Specter's Switch- Chris Hayes, The Nation
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Debunking the Post-Racial Myth
If it was one thing that made my teeth grate during the 2008 Presidential campaign, it was the notion that Barack Obama was signaling a "post-racial" era in America. Political pundits--conservative or moderate or even liberal--deemed our times the "post-Civil Rights" era. The popular idea was that if white America can vote for a black man as president, this would somehow negate the last few hundred years of American racism. Of course, it was utter rubbish.
Conservative commentator George Will early in the Democratic primaries crooned that Barack Obama's win would "bring down the curtain on the long running and intensely boring melodrama 'Forever Selma,' staring Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton." Chris Matthews of MSNBC marveled that with candidate Obama there was, "No history of Jim Crow, no history of anger, no history of slavery....All the bad stuff in our history ain't there with this guy." Somehow all these pundits seemed to find a post-racial America despite the race-baiting of the Clinton campaign, the bizarre P.U.M.A. movement and Geraldine Ferraro's attempts to racialize feminism, white America's freak out meltdown over Jeremiah Wright and the full blown ugliness that was the McCain-Palin hate-fest.
Hoping for their post-racial dreamland, they failed to notice that to become the first black president, Barack Obama had to twist, shape and perform near acrobatic feats to keep white America (who in the end did not give him the majority of their votes) placated and at ease. Somehow the very pundits that could gloat about a post-racial society from one side of their mouths, could still worry endlessly about Obama's ability to connect with regular white voters. That his chances even among the more "enlightened white voters" were greatly influened by the fact that he was "black enough" to still be African-American in their eyes but was also not "too black" as someone of multi-racial heritage, is one of those taboo topics we're still not supposed to politely discuss in public conversation. As I once heard a black DJ joke to a colleague over the radio, it was unlikely white America would elect someone of a different demeanor than Obama or even a different complexion. This was followed by nervous laughter and the topic shifted--quickly.
Speed up to month four of 2009 and the election of a black president has seen everything from a rampant rise in white supremaicst hate-groups to incitations of violent government overthrow, secession and fake-populist, corporate-sponsored anti-tax protests with names that make them easy to mock.
Don't let me even start on the lack of post-racial awareness in American foreign policy, which seems to repeatedly find itself as odds with the darker, poorer masses of the world.
And of course, those are just the more overt issues. Rarely discussed are the varied forms of domestic institutional racism that do not disappear under an Obama presidency--from an unfair prison system to racial wealth inequality gaps. These are race-based systems that will negatively impact the lives of millions of people of color far beyond any hate-group or FOX News. And it should put the lie to any claim of some post-racial society that will magically appear because black and white kids can now identify with a bi-racial African-American in the White House. As Henry Giroux writes in a recent article, "the idea that we have moved into a post-racial period in American history is not merely premature - it is an act of willful denial and ignorance."
Giroux's article below:
Youth and the Myth of Post-Racial Society Under Barack Obama
Monday 27 April 2009
Henry A. Giroux t r u t h o u t Perspective
With the election of Barack Obama, it has been argued that not only will the social state be renewed in the spirit and legacy of the New Deal, but that the punishing racial state and its vast complex of disciplinary institutions will, if not come to an end, at least be significantly reformed. From this perspective, Obama's presidency not only represents a post-racial victory, but also signals a new space of post-racial harmony. In assessing the Obama victory, Time Magazine columnist Joe Klein wrote, "It is a place where the primacy of racial identity - and this includes the old Jesse Jackson version of black racial identity - has been replaced by the celebration of pluralism, of cross-racial synergy."
Obama won the 2008 election because he was able to mobilize 95 percent of African-Americans, two-thirds of all Latinos and a large proportion of young people under the age of 30. At the same time, what is generally forgotten in the exuberance of this assessment is that the majority of white Americans voted for the John McCain-Sarah Palin ticket. While "post-racial" may mean less overt racism, the idea that we have moved into a post-racial period in American history is not merely premature - it is an act of willful denial and ignorance.
read full article here.
Thursday, April 23, 2009
Supervillains
In the fictional world of the DC Comics Justice League, the much beloved superheroes are aghast to find out they have doppelgangers from an alternate Earth. These self-styled Justice Lords see everything in terms of black and white (good vs evil) and reveal the darker side of absolute power and moral authority. Nothing asserts the righteousness of these heroes than a coming together of the nexus of all evil--usually in the form of supervillains that have found common cause. The recent Somali pirate issue has given a sensationalist media, and some fear-mongering politicians, a chance to recreate this comic book theme of supervillains and a superbly moral superhero. This time the ne’er-do-wells are poverty created sea-brigands who are allegedly teaming up with radical Islamists, who themselves are often inflated into one group. This danger to civilization as we know it poses an ultimate threat, that must be handled heavily and decisively--a job for the Justice Lords, played by the US and its allies, who don't waste their time with silly things like "nuance." But as John Feffer at TomDispatch points out in his article Monsters Versus Aliens, this superhero analysis is grounded in deep misunderstandings and flawed moralist logic that can lead to dangerous real-life consequences.
Feffer's article after the fold:
Monsters vs. Aliens
Tuesday 21 April 2009
by: John Feffer
In the comic books, bad guys often team up to fight the forces of good. The Masters of Evil battle the Avengers superhero team. The Joker and Scarecrow ally against Batman. Lex Luthor and Brainiac take on Superman.
And the Somali pirates, who have dominated recent headlines with their hijacking and hostage-taking, join hands with al-Qaeda to form a dynamic evil duo against the United States and our allies. We're the friendly monsters - a big, hulking superpower with a heart of gold - and they're the aliens from Planet Amok.
In the comic-book imagination of some of our leading pundits, the two headline threats against U.S. power are indeed on the verge of teaming up. The intelligence world is abuzz with news that radical Islamists in Somalia are financing the pirates and taking a cut of their booty. Given this "bigger picture," Fred Iklé urges us simply to "kill the pirates." Robert Kaplan waxes more hypothetical. "The big danger in our day is that piracy can potentially serve as a platform for terrorists," he writes. "Using pirate techniques, vessels can be hijacked and blown up in the middle of a crowded strait, or a cruise ship seized and the passengers of certain nationalities thrown overboard."
Chaotic conditions in Somalia and other countries, anti-state fervor, the mediating influence of Islam, the lure of big bucks: these factors are allegedly pushing the two groups of evildoers into each other's arms. "Both crimes involve bands of brigands that divorce themselves from their nation-states and form extraterritorial enclaves; both aim at civilians; both involve acts of homicide and destruction, as the United Nations Convention on the High Seas stipulates, 'for private ends,'" writes Douglas Burgess in a New York Times op-ed urging a prosecutorial coupling of terrorism and piracy.
We've been here before. Since 2001, in an effort to provide a distinguished pedigree for the Global War on Terror and prove the superiority of war over diplomacy, conservative pundits and historians have regularly tried to compare al-Qaeda to the Barbary pirates of the 1800s. They were wrong then. And with the current conflating of terrorism and piracy, it's déjà vu all over again.
Read full article here.
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
Earth Day: Van Jones
Say the words "green economy" and name Van Jones is bound to be the next one. The founder of the group Green For All, Van Jones was TIME Magazine's 2008 Environmental Hero, and is the author of The Green Collar Economy: How One Solution Can Solve Our Two Biggest Problems, which has been endorsed by everyone from Nancy Pelosi to Al Gore. Known for his advocacy of solutions for the economically disenfranchised and the environment, he has emerged as one of the innovators of the modern environmental movement. And in world where "green" has become not only fashionable, but as a means to slow man-made climate change and jump start an ailing global economy, Van Jones has become a point man--taking on the role of special advisor to the Obama White House Council on Environmental Quality.
See more about Van Jones and the possibility of a green economy both above and after the fold.
White House Adviser Pushes 'Green-Collar' Jobs
April 22, 2009
Van Jones is the White House special adviser on green jobs, enterprise and innovation. In his role, Jones advises the president on how to advance climate and environmentally friendly initiatives by building a sustainable work force, "with a specific interest in improvements and opportunities for vulnerable communities," according to the White House Web site.
More here.
Working Together for a Green New Deal
October 29, 2008
Society faces some huge challenges. The individuals, entrepreneurs and community leaders who will step up to make the repairs and changes are going to need help. They require and deserve a world-class partner in our government. The time has come for a public-private community partnership to fix this country and put it back to work. In the framework of a Green New Deal, the government would become a powerful partner to the problem solvers of the world--and not the problem makers.
More here.
Monday, April 20, 2009
Tortured Memos
Last week, the Obama administration released another set of so-called "torture memos" from the previous Bush White House. Like something out of a spy thriller, the memos detailed the use of sleep deprivation, and even live insects among what were deemed "approved techniques." While the memos themselves were startling, so was an accompanying statement by the Chief Executive. While noting the importance of these revelations, President Obama ruled out prosecutions against anyone who might have been involved in torture, stating that now is a "time for reflection, not retribution." Since then, the heat has been intense from both sides. Congressional Republicans and former Bush administration officials, are howling that the release of the memos will now jeapordize US national security. In fact, there was a significant amount of push back from the intelligence establishment that threatened to make certain the memos never saw the light of day. On the other side of the equation are anti-torture advocates (from constitutional/legal scholars to human rights groups) who balk at the idea that torturers (especially those that ordered them) may now walk free.
Above is a response to the memo release, and the seeming "Presidential pardon" that was meted out by Keith Olbermann.
More on the controversey after the fold...
Torture Memos Gave CIA Legal O.K. to Bring Detainees to Brink of Death
Friday 17 April 2009
Jason Leopold, t r u t h o u t | Report
CIA interrogators were given legal authorization to slam an alleged "high-value" detainee's head against a wall, place insects inside a "confinement box" to induce fear and force him to remain awake for 11 consecutive days, according to a closely guarded August 1, 2002, legal memo released publicly by the Justice Department for the first time on Thursday.
Full article here.
The Torture Memos, Obama and the Banality of Evil
Richard Kim on 04/17/2009 TheNation
Even as President Obama acted in the name of transparency and accountabilty in releasing the Bush administration's OLC's torture memos, he made assurances that the CIA agents who used the "enhanced interrogation techniques" meticulously detailed within would not be subject to criminal prosecution. Glenn Greenwald at Salon, Jeremy Scahill on his blog, David Bromwich at Huffington Post and Ta-Nehisi Coates at the Atlantic all have good takes on why Obama's decision is wrong. I concur. However politically expedient, Obama's nearly carte blanche absolution of torture was morally wrong, and his justification of it, from a professor of constitutional law, is intellectually dishonest.
Full article here.
Saturday, April 18, 2009
The Handshake
Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez, right, shakes hands and speaks with President Barack Obama at the 5th Summit of the Americas in Port-of-Spain, Trinidad and Tobago, Friday, April 17, 2009.
It's a baby-step in diplomatic relations. But compared to the last guy in the White House eagerly backing--if not helping engineer--a coup attempt against the democratically elected leader of Venezuela, this is a decided improvement. I bet this time, Chavez wasn't smelling sulfur and brimstone.
HOPE I can believe in.
More after the fold...
As reported in the AP:
Obama, Chavez shake hands at Americas Summit
Fri Apr 17
PORT-OF-SPAIN, Trinidad – Presidents Barack Obama and Hugo Chavez, Venezuela's socialist leader, met Friday and shook hands on the sidelines of a summit of their hemisphere's democracies.
Obama walked across a hotel meeting room to meet Chavez for the first time, said a senior U.S. administration official who witnessed it and spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the details of the event. The official said Obama initiated the encounter.
Chavez has been a fierce critic of the United States during President George W. Bush's tenure.
"It was very, very short," the official said of Friday's meeting. "The president shook his hand, smiled and then went back to his position in the line."
The encounter comes as Obama softens U.S. policy against Cuba, a Chavez ally.
Asked later about the meeting, Obama elicited laughter from reporters with a brief response: "I said, 'Como estas?'"
That's the familiar form of Spanish for "How are you?"
Chavez was more forthcoming with reporters.
"We shook each other's hands like gentlemen, and it was predictable this would happen," Chavez said.
"We don't have any complexes that would prevent us from extending our hands to each other. I'm grateful for his gesture."
Photos released by the Venezuelan government show the two smiling and Obama touching Chavez on the shoulder. Other photos show them with clenched hands in the room next to the main summit ballroom while the heads of state and government were waiting in line to enter the opening ceremony.
The Venezuelan presidency also said Obama initiated the handshake and quoted Chavez as telling Obama he hopes for better relations between their nations.
Chavez told reporters he had a simple message in English for Obama: "I want to be your friend."
Obama's comments were limited to saying that he wanted to introduce himself to Chavez, the U.S. official said. The Obama official would not comment on what Chavez told the U.S. president.
But when a reporter asked if the Venezuelan account of what happened was accurate, the Obama official said: "I wouldn't dispute that."
As recently as last week, Chavez expressed a desire to "reset" relations with Washington.
Friday, April 17, 2009
Cuba's America Problem
Fidel Castro meets with Malcolm X, 1959
...for those who are impatient with Cuba...please don’t forget that it took another, earlier revolution, despite its proclamation that “all men are created equal,” nearly a century and a wrenching civil war to end slavery, another century to eliminate segregation and other forms of overt racism, and about a century and a half to grant the vote to half its population. Throughout those changes, no other country had the right to “demand” that the US “make concessions,” or “behave” in a certain way, nor would the American people or government have permitted it. Each country moves at its own pace, and within its own history.
Some of the most profound words I've read on the Cuba issue in quite a while. Even more profound that they were written by Manuel Gomez, an émigré from the island since 1961. The small Caribbean nation has had a long sordid affair with the US, much if marked by an uneven, paternalist relationship. Cuba for the US has in the past been a place to showcase American hemispheric might, a playground for gangsters and sex-trade tourists, or a revolutionary pariah stubbornly determined to thwart attempts to beat it into submission. What the US has never viewed or accepted Cuba as, is an equal.
More after the fold...
Even today, as talk of more diplomatic relations with Cuba commences, too often US motives are framed around "opening up the communist state" to American-styled "democtatic ideals," usually a nice way of saying "rampant, unregulated free-market capitalism"--which isn't exactly looking too good these days. The goal seems to be, "talk to Cuba--so we can overthrow it." Hardly a way to engender trust and understanding. Certainly Cuba is no saint, and political repression of political prisoners is still a problem. Yet the paranoia of the Cuban state is not merely a figment of their imagination.
The US had backed the dictatorial regime of Ruben Fulgencio Batista, who was propped up by a shady alliance of US gangsters themselves tied to political interests. 1950s Cuba was a place for wealthy Americans seeking sex and adventurism, and it became famous for its gambling and nightclubs. The masses in Cuba (especially blacks and others of color) remained disenfranchised, as they watched wealthy--and self-proclaimed "white"--Cubans rubbing elbows with America's criminal and political elite. As Enrique Fernandez wrote in the Oakland Tribune, "Even as revelers rumbaed in the nightclubs, an escalating syndrome of rebellion and repression bloodied the streets, triggered by an illegitimate government's corrupt relationship with ruthless gangsters...."
The revolution that put figures like Fidel Castro and Che Guevera on the map rose in part as a reaction to this corruption and repression, and are credited with running the gangster culture out of Cuba. Activist and artist Harry Belafonte, who performed at many of the Mafia-run clubs in Havana before the revolution has stated plainly, "I knew Cuba before Fidel Castro. I did not see democracy in Cuba. If anything, I saw blatant racism and oppression."
But, much as an earlier US during the Spanish-American War, eager to prove itself a dominant imperial force in the hemisphere, could not accept the large army of blacks and ex-slaves that were a significant part of the Cuban War for Independence, opting instead for a "white-washed" Cuba of Castillian bloodlines, so too did a more modern US refuse to accept the revolutionaries that drove out their former Batista allies in 1959.
Yet even with a socialist outlook, a young Castro believed (perhaps naively) that he could retain friendly relations with an America in the grips of the Cold War. On April 15 1959 he embarked on an unofficial twelve day tour of the United States. During his stay, Castro spent much of his time at cheap motels in Harlem--meeting with Malcolm X, the Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser and the Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru. Eventually he made it to the White House, where he met with then Vice President Richard Nixon, but was refused a meeting with President Dwight D. Eisenhower.
Despite such overtures, the US, wary of anything that had a hint of socialism, began destabilizing the young regime. As relations deteriorated, Castro eventually sought alliances with the Soviet Union, agreeing in 1960 to import Russian fuel. When the US ordered American refineries in Cuba to not process the oil, Castro expropriated them as Cuban possessions--which many of the island's citizens felt had unjustly been allowed to remain in American hands by the corrupt Batista regime. For this the United States broke off diplomatic relations and Cuba followed suit.
From there, things went downhill--from an infamous failed American backed invasion of Cuban exiles in the Bay of Pigs to the Missile Crisis which brought the world nearly to the brink of nuclear war. Castro, growing paranoid of US assassination plots, attempts to invade the island, domestic infrastructre sabotage and more (all of which were not so far from the truth, i.e. Operation Mongoose), began numerous "purges" to seek out the enemies of the revolution he was certain operated from within the country. Newspapers were shut down. Freedoms were curtailed. The state began spying on its citizens, ever on the lookout for American saboteurs. If reports are to be believed, thousands were imprisoned. The Cuban government went on a permanent war footing, fearing their revolution would be snuffed out by the Yankees to the North. For this Castro and his government were painted as an even greater pariah by Washington, though ironically enough his misdeeds paled significantly in comparison to those of US allies in Chile and El Salvador--where thousands were placed not in jail but mass graves.
Outside the US government, and the influential politics of Cuban exiles (many former wealthy "white" property owners) in places like Florida, Castro's Cuba however has a more mixed reception. Throughout the Caribbean, Castro is known as the man who dared stand up to the "bullying" US to the North, thwarting its CIA attempts to kill him, planned invasions to overthrow him, and defying US presidents simply by outliving them.
In numerous nearby islands, Cuba was responsible for training and supplying doctors. Cuba build hospitals, sent out teachers, provided medicines and other pertinent development aid to the region. In Grenada Cuba built an airport (which the US would later claim was a Soviet base--a farcial charge that was a prelude to an illegal invasion). And on the international stage, when US ally apartheid white-run South Africa invaded neighboring Angola, it was Cuba who sent troops to stop their advance. At the battle of Cuito Cuanavale, Cuban and Angolan forces effected a decisive defeat of the SADF, initiating what many have called the continent's "Battle of Stalingrade"--a turning point in apartheid South Africa's external imperial ambitions. And in the US itself, Castro's Cuba has long found allies among the black community, for both cultural and political support. Because even if the revolution did not create a mythic "racial paradise," it certainly created a space for blacks in Cuba beyond anything previously seen. It's not surprising that Hip Hop and Cuba are almost synonymous in some cirlces.
With the fall of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, the life-line of the Cuban revolutionary government--then just over 30 years old--was abruptly ended. Life in the blockaded small country became even more dire, and many in the US eagerly anticpated what they expected to be the fall of Castro's regime. New waves of refugees, much like those of times past, set out seeking relief from the crushing poverty enacted in a great part by the stifling blockade. But, ever the survivor, Castro and Cuba struggled on undaunted. Adapting socialist policies to take advantage of the global market, Cuba managed to stay afloat and emerge if not as strong, at least much more independent. With the help of nearby allies like Venezuela's Hugo Chavez, the government entered the 21st century and celebrated the 50th anniversary of the revolution this year. Fidel Castro meanwhile, with failing health, finally stepped down, allowing his brother Raul to assume power. And, despite expectations of a counter-revolution in the streets with the departure of the charasmatic figure, Cuba has remained relatively stable. The hard fact many in the US have failed to take into account is why there are certainly those in Cuba who reject the revolution, many others have long claimed it as their own. The same Cuba after all that scored low points on the human rights of personal freedom, manages to out-compete the United States when it comes to the human rights of personal well-being and access to such things as universal healthcare.
One has to then wonder, if Castro and Cuba did not have to live in the shadow of a hostile superpower, how might things have developed? Without the paranoia that CIA forces and internal spies were ever at the ready to invade or destroy them, how less repressive might a Cuban socialist government have been? If not for blockades, attempts at economic sabotage, waves of bombings committed by anti-Castro terrorists (who still enjoy immunity in the US), how would the revolution of this small Caribbean nation have been further carried out? One of the vexing problems for emergent states during the Cold War and since, has been an inability to organically form--through trial and error much like the United States--their own paths without constant intervention. In the ritualistic condemnations of Castro's Cuba that comes from the soapbox chorus in the US, America has yet to ask itself what role did it's own aggressive actions play not merely in "allowing Castro to remain in power" (as it is so often framed) but in shaping and creating the direction of the island nation so long labeled a threat.
This week, as heads of state of the two nations meet at the OAS Summit, the question remains--is America ready to accept Cuba as a sovereign independent nation capable of forging its own destiny without US restraints, domination and control, or do old habits die hard?
