Many have talked of either a Hezbollah victory, or at least an Israeli defeat, in 2006. But that started with Israel attacking Gaza. Hezbollah notably chose that time to capture Israeli soldiers, which it had been saying it would do for a long time. Israel then bombed Lebanon and Hezbollah responded with rockets. Now, Gaza is being bombed much more than in 2006 and Hezbollah does not move. Israel -- in crass, immoral terms -- won. It has asserted its total right to beat the crap out of the people of Gaza in front of everyone.
To really come to terms with Death....
His Bush speech:
God is good. God is great. God is good. My God is good. Bin Laden's God is bad. His is a bad God. Saddam's God was bad, except he didn't have one. He was a barbarian. We are not barbarians. We don't chop people's heads off. We believe in freedom. So does God. I am not a barbarian. I am the democratically elected leader of a freedom-loving democracy. We are a compassionate society. We give compassionate electrocution and compassionate lethal injection. We are a great nation. I am not a dictator. He is. I am not a barbarian. He is. And he is. They all are. I possess moral authority. You see this fist? This is my moral authority. And don't you forget it.
Mine:
I am ordering our military command to withdraw all troops from Iraq within six months. This will include military contractors and will be done in an orderly manner. I request international peacekeepers from other nations with no major interests in Iraq to help the Iraqi people whom we have so damaged. I pray the families of those Iraqis killed -- and the number of such people likely far exceeds the 30,000 I claimed recently -- will forgive me for what I have done, and will now embrace what I am doing. We will pay compensation as a small token of our regret to the Iraqis killed in this war we have started. [Bush weeps, but continues with the address.]
Digital "collage" of drawing of "real Jesus" as depicted by medical artist Richard Neave and published by Popular Mechanics in 2002 "atop" "traditional Western painting" of "Jesus at the Door". Based on a physical execution of mine of a few years ago, this digital execution done by my friend Elisa Salasin.
I've only begun exploring Harold Pinter's work. His Nobel speech is indeed great. The lines that haunt me are the end:
I believe that despite the enormous odds which exist, unflinching, unswerving, fierce intellectual determination, as citizens, to define the real truth of our lives and our societies is a crucial obligation which devolves upon us all. It is in fact mandatory.If such a determination is not embodied in our political vision we have no hope of restoring what is so nearly lost to us -- the dignity of man.
He has departed and pointed to a life of work.
Wolf Blitzer: "How did an Iraqi reporter manage to throw two shoes at president Bush during a news conference." Blitzer is going through a litany of "security incidents" with Bush. Media is downplaying or ignoring what the journalist said: "This is from the widows, the orphans and those who were killed in Iraq." Bush: "I don't know what his beef is." Muntadar al-Zeidi's brother: "Americans have been killing and disrespecting Iraqis for five years. It's time we paid them back." Don't think this does the trick. It's like Tony Soprano killing Patsy Parisi's twin brother and Parisi getting his "revenge" by pissing in Soprano's pool.
"I like to believe that people in the long run are going to do more to promote peace than our governments. Indeed, I think that people want peace so much that one of these days governments had better get out of the way and let them have it." -- Dwight Eisenhower
People are used to being against Bush, to protesting against Bush. It's been easy for some the last several years -- whatever Bush is for, we're against it.
That will no longer do.
We need to be for things and to change the world to achieve those things. It's much easier to just say everything is wrong. It's harder to say, this is what needs to happen -- or at least, this is how we can figure out what needs to happen.
Some are noting that Obama's policies are highly flawed. Others don't want to seem to be undermining a new president promising fundamental change. Both groups can work and can PROtest if that protest is FOR something. No need to be defined as being against Obama, nor to be passively waiting for him to do the right thing.
Part of the crux is defining the "us" in this equation. The "us" needs to be global. Progressives in the U.S. need to have more in common with an Afghan child or an African child than with Dick Cheney.
The anti-war movement was at its height on Feb. 15, 2003 when a global day of protest saw millions on the streets of London, Madrid, New York, Barcelona, Rome, Johannesburg, Tel Aviv, Tokyo, Hong Kong and hundreds of other cities. The establishment in the voice of the New York Times called the anti-war movement the "second super power."
That has seemingly died.
Or has it?
Certainly, it should not. We can now build an even greater movement, with millions on those streets as well as millions of others -- including more Muslim countries. Tools of the internet, media like Democracy Now, The Real News, and Al Jazeera can be utilized in such an effort and then the corporate media will be forced to acknowledge that global force.
Unlike Bush, Obama must listen to such a movement. The lines of communication and coordination must be built on a global scale from the grassroots. Indeed, whenever they have been, progressive forces in the U.S. have been at their strongest. The other high point of progressive action in the last ten years -- other than the Feb. 15 protests -- was the WTO protests in Seattle in 1999. Those too were global in nature. People and organizations -- including environmentalists and labor unions -- on the streets of Seattle in effect made common cause with the representatives of poorer countries against the governments of richer countries and their corporate allies.
It would be tragic if the global stage is dominated by governments of dubious legitimacy and hierarchical corporate elites as they meet and determine the world's future. Meetings that do take place of non-governmental organizations, which gain little attention in the public consciousness -- even the World Social Forums -- are no substitute for visible global PROtests.
And let us learn from Bush. It is wrong to simply be against whatever he says. Bush says that he wants democracy in the Arab world. I've always been for authentic democracy in the Arab world. But Bush claims he wants democracy in the Mideast as he occupies the Iraq, backs the Israeli occupation of Palestinian land and the despotic rule of the Saudi government. While many in the anti-war movement have been attacking Bush for being unilateral, have they not also been unilateral by not building the needed global structures, by not reaching out to the rest of the world which agrees with so many of their stated goals?
Failure to do this now will be a historic tragedy. It will either be a great failure or a tacit admission that people living in the West are not interested in reaching out to the rest of the world. That their economic and national privilege is too enticing.
Indeed, this may well help to reach into the "internal third world" -- so that poor people in the United States meaningfully participating in political action. That too is threatening to largely middle class movements.
An immediate test of this is at the United for Peace and Justice meeting this weekend: Will it plan to have a protest on the anniversary of the start of the invasion of Iraq, looking backward, being ANTI. Or will it have a PROtest on Feb 15 -- sooner, global, looking forward being for a new world?
There are oppressive forces to be sure, but there are substantial opportunities. If WE decide to take them -- together. The bigger that WE, the better.
Despite being passed over for Secretary of State, Richard Holbrooke is reportedly still being considered for a prominent position in the incoming Obama administration.
Shortly before the bombing of Yugoslavia began in late March 1999, Richard Holbrooke met with Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic. By his own account, Holbrooke delivered the final ultimatum to Milosevic -- that if Yugoslavia didn't agree to the Rambouillet text, NATO would begin bombing.
The Rambouillet text called for a defacto occupation of Yugoslavia. On major U.S. media, after the bombing of Yugoslavia began, Holbrooke claimed that what was called for in the Rambouillet text, despite Serbian protests, "isn't an occupation". Several weeks later, when confronted by a journalist familiar with the Rambouillet text, Holbrooke claimed: "I never said that". This was a lie, it was also a tacit admission that the Rambouillet text did call for an occupation (why else would Holbrooke deny saying it when he had?) So the U.S. demanded that Yugoslavia submit to occupation or be bombed -- and Holbrooke lied about this crucial fact when questioned about the cause of the war.
Here are the specifics:
The Rambouillet text of Feb. 23, 1999, a month before NATO began bombing, contained provisions that provided for NATO to basically occupy the entire Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY), not just Kosovo. Excerpts from Appendix (B) (I attempted to draw attention to this at the time when I became aware of it.):
7. NATO personnel shall be immune from any form of arrest, investigation, or detention by the authorities in the FRY.8. NATO personnel shall enjoy... free and unrestricted passage and unimpeded access throughout the FRY including associated airspace and territorial waters.
11. NATO is granted the use of airports, roads, rails and ports without payment...
15. [NATO shall have] the right to use all of the electromagnetic spectrum...
On April 6, 1999, about two weeks after the bombing began, Holbrooke appeared on the Charlie Rose show and was asked about what started the war. (Video is here, approximate times in the interview are provided):
[3:45] "The 81 pages of the Rambouillet agreement, which the Serbs rejected, contain all the elements of a really solid interim solution. ... Although Rambouillet itself was rejected, the principles embodied in the Rambouillet agreement make a hell of a lot of sense. ..."[13:00] "The [Yugoslavian government] decision was to trigger the bombing of their own country instead of accepting this very reasonable political offer." ...
[14:00] Asked how to explain the actions of the Serbs, Holbrooke claims the Serbs said: "The choice you've given us is to have our sacred soil violated by an invading force. I said this isn't an invasion, it isn't an occupation, it's an international peacekeeping force that will save the Serb minority in Kosovo. ..."
[15:00] "We walked the last mile for peace."
[17:00] "The bombing must continue and must intensify until the Yugoslav leadership realizes they have to change their positions."
On April 23, 1999, journalist Jeremy Scahill of Democracy Now questioned Richard Holbrooke as he was leaving the Overseas Press Club's 60th anniversary dinner:
Holbrooke: "One question."Jeremy Scahill: "You've said, since you gave the ultimatum to President Milosevic, that the Rambouillet accords do not call for the occupation of Yugoslavia. In --"
Holbrooke: "I never said that. That's the end of that. You got the wrong person and the wrong quote. That's your question."
Scahill: "Do the Rambouillet accords ... Are the the Rambouillet accords a call for the occupation of Yugoslavia -- how do you reconcile that with Appendix B?"
Holbrooke: "I was not at Rambouillet. You'll have to address it to the people --"
Scahill: "You delivered the ultimatum, you're familiar with with the text --"
Holbrooke: "I did not discuss that detail with him. That's your question."
Scahill: "You haven't answered the question though."
Holbrooke: "I have answered the question. Good night." (See the April 23, 1999 Democracy Now, especially beginning at 29:00.)
It's tempting for many to think that the current Bush administration and the 2003 invasion of Iraq are totally unique. They're not, the methods of the U.S. government lying its way into a war are long standing and many of the culprits are still very much part of the political structure.
If you're not jubilant
you are simply not among the humans.
Since racism has ended
diversity now means including Republicans.
He's not black, Arab, socialist, African American, nor an agent of (though possibly an opportunity for) change.
Last night, Andrew Young was one of the few people to note that he's not black. I believe he called him "Afro-European-Asian American", which is sort of close.
People are claiming this was a rejection of fear. But the Democrats were using fear of Bush, just as Bush has used fear of Al-Qaeda. But fears are real ofcourse, and both have been misused.
The anticipation that Obama will change things because of his ethnicity is strange given the experience with Thomas, Rice and Powell (at least the last two are incredibly attempting to rehabilitate themselves).
Perhaps most crucially, Obama's election is frequently portrayed as evidence of US exceptionalism. It's widely being implied that it is the end of racism -- all the while being regarded as "historic" at every turn...
Obama: "America, I have never been more hopeful than I am tonight that we will get there. I promise you, we as a people will get there."
I have reflected on that line a thousand times. I've always wanted to be part of that We. Not because I'm a U.S. citizen, but because I try to be someone who hungers and thirsts for righteousness. That "we" in King's speech could mean African Americans, it could mean decedents of slaves, it could mean people who are oppressed. It could mean people trying to act in a righteous manner: Toward a New Jerusalem. It quite certainly was not meant as a nationalistic flourish.
Last night in front of the White House, the chants were the predictable "yes we can", the mildly cleaver "two more months" -- and the ominous "U-S-A"..... As Rahm Emanuel is slated for chief of staff....
