Echoes of a Past Life: Dies Irae

This is my 911 story, reposted from last year. I post it here as a ritual contribution to the tenth year anniversary of the tragedy; but I don't think I'll be reposting it every year. The murder of so many innocent people was horrific, but the fact that they were Americans does not make it a more horrific event than the drawn out murder of many thousands more around the world in the decade since. The innocents killed so senselessly in the decade of revenge after 2001 were priceless, multidimensional and unique human beings snuffed out as unjustly as the American officeworkers and firefighters were at the Twin Towers, and it doesn't help to know that many of those killed in the past few years were done so on the questionable claims of American leaders. Whether targets or the obscenely labelled "collateral" deaths: they're just as dead and gone, and their survivors suffer equally. It's time to move on, not from the memories of the treasured souls we lost, but from waving 911 about as though it qualifies American survivors for some kind of uniquely righteous grief. My heart goes out to those who lost relatives, lovers and friends on that day, but if people started seeing the faces of their lost loved ones in the faces of somebody else's lost loved ones taken by American militarism in distant lands, then maybe we'd be further along to preventing future senseless tragedies.



My friend Jim lived uptown, and I lived in Brooklyn. We'd meet up midway between us, often at the World Trade Center. Jim had an entirely questionable fetish for Marvin the Martian and underneath the WTC plaza, near the massive banks of escalators going down to the Path trains was a shop that sold cartoon trinkets like Marvin the Martian figurines. So stopping there was always a plus for him, before walking to Chinatown for lunch or hopping on a Path train to visit a mall in Jersey. I remember seeing a poster for the Windows on the World restaurant, thinking that it would be an awesome place to get a meal. Somehow we never made it there, until, well, it stopped being there; returned to an ethereal spot of empty sky.

On Tuesday, September 11, I walked a couple short blocks from my apartment in Brooklyn to the school where I was going to cast votes in an election primary. God what a beautiful day. Blue sky, warm but not hot. It wasn't a presidential year--that had been a disaster the previous fall--and I don't even remember who I was voting for. I got to the school when I noticed a small handful of people standing on the corner. I asked them what was going on. Prospect Heights wasn't called that for nothing; one of the highest spots in Brooklyn. They pointed and plain as day you could see the twin towers of the World Trade Center. Funny thing, there was smoke coming out of one of them. "It's on fire," someone said. If there was anything in their voice it was doubt and confusion. Such a thing was hard to fathom. How would the fire trucks spray water up so high? "Oh wow my wife works there. I hope she's ok," said a man nervously. Others muttered reassuringly. I went into the school. Turnout was light, of course. When I got out of the school the people were still on the corner. I looked up at the smoke. Strange, I thought.

As I crossed the street out of view of the Manhattan sky I heard loud gasps behind me. Two women had moved their hands to their faces. I walked on, a little more confused, but I didn't want to be late for work. I walked around the corner to the diner to pick up coffee and a roll. I could see smoke drifting in the sky, but couldn't see the towers. When I got to the diner I said to the lady who made me coffee every morning, "Hey look. The World Trade Center is on fire." "Really?" You couldn't really see it from inside. She kinda scrunched down so she could see the sky. "Oh my God, what happened?" She quickly turned on the radio.

I had two more blocks til I reached the subway. At Flatbush Avenue there was a crowd looking across to Manhattan. Hey wait, now there was smoke coming from both towers. That made no sense at all. "What happened?" I asked. "Two small planes crashed into the towers," someone told me. "Somebody must have gone crazy at Newark and got their directions wrong and sent planes into the buildings!" somebody speculated. There was a lot of smoke. You could see a thin line of fire, even at that distance. I didn't want to be late for work so I went down into the subway.

As the train rolled over the Manhattan bridge the motorman or conductor made an announcement. "The World Trade Center is on fire." There were loud cries in the car and people rushed to the windows on the left side of the train. It was a crazy sight. "What happened?" No one could figure it out. The train crossed the bridge and plunged back into the darkness underground.

At Times Square I got out. I came up that secret back stairway by the recruiting center. There was nobody on the street. It was weird. The huge jumbotrons had these strange pictures I didn't understand. It looked like smoke pouring off cascading dust and rubble like liquid. I couldn't make sense of what I was seeing. I looked downtown. I saw some smoke, high in the sky. But you could never see the towers from Times Square. I walked the two blocks to work.

I took the elevator up and somebody ran by me, crying. The floor was strangely empty, its energy electric and off-center. I found my boss and some coworkers huddled around a television in a conference room. "The first tower fell!" someone said. "People were jumping!" said another. "Did they say what happened? Somebody in Brooklyn said a flight controller had freaked out." I wanted to know. "Terrorists," somebody said. Somebody ran into the conference room. "There are more planes. Another one hit the Pentagon. They say some are heading this way. They don't know how many more there are. We have to get out of here."

We all paused; picturing the canyons of Times Square beckoning like a giant target to all comers. Even indoors I found myself wanting to look up to scour the sky for approaching danger. I wanted to duck. I went to find one of my coworkers; she was gone already or hadn't come in. My boss rushed by me saying "Oh my God the second tower fell. We have to get out of here. Come to our place." My boss lived near Union Square. It seemed like a very good suggestion. The streets were no longer empty; we met up with his partner on a corner and walked down to the apartment they shared. Although I know for days and days later I had trouble getting television and radio reception, they had cable, and we watched the unfolding story on the television unable to speak much. The towers were gone; it seemed like building after building was being consumed by a huge fire.

I realized I had to go home. The subways had been turned off. We imagined the two subway lines that passed under the towers turned to caverns of rubble. There was no choice but walking. All of Manhattan was emptying out. By the time I reached the Manhattan Bridge I was part of a long column of tired, silent people trudging home. The further south we all walked the more the air was acrid with burning. Some people had congealed smoke on their upper lips. Huge columns of smoke pulsed into the sky below us, but none of us stopped to stare at them. The people were silent but the air was filled with the screams of sirens and the whirl of flashing lights. So many sirens. At the foot of the bridge volunteers had amassed with paper cups from the Red Cross full of fresh, cool, water. When a woman handed me a cup I started to cry. I still have that cup. (The photo above is not my cup. My cup is in a paper bag with newspapers from the days that followed that I can't bear to consider looking at but can't bear to consider throwing away either. This cup photo is from somebody's flickr.) After downing that impossibly delicious liquid, I hung onto that cup across the bridge; and I didn't look back.

Somewhere in downtown Brooklyn the crowd thinned. The streets were oddly calm, no sirens, no rushing about. Somebody said that the subway under Flatbush Avenue was running again, and I went underground and rode the last way home. Once home I checked in with friends and family. Jim was okay, but two of his coworkers had been at a conference at Windows on the World and they were missing. David was okay, but he had watched the whole day from his roof in the East Village. He described roofs full of clots of people all screaming as the towers twisted and fell. I reassured my mom I was okay. Strangely (we had not actually talked in over a decade), I even got email from my father.

In the morning the air smelled of fire. You could see smoke from my tiny bathroom window. A pillar of smoke where you could previously see silver towers. Crazily I went into work. Which was a mess. My department head's brother who worked in the towers was missing. Coworkers were xeroxing flyers with his face on it and dividing up into squads to scour the hospitals. An IT's guys fiancee who worked across the street from the towers had somehow died at her desk. Nobody was working. There was a lot of crying. In the early afternoon all of us who had made the futile attempt to carry on with normality called it a day. We all realized the utter impossibility of faking it, and stayed home til the next Monday.

I remember that week through a daze of tears. What had happened? It made no sense. The papers were filled with unbelievable photos and accounts of what had happened; details burned into my memory that writers had to get off their chests that now we know are better left unspelled out. You'd look at the photos with the tiny falling people, or the ones with figures peering out from the wreckage high in the sky, trying to make out the expression on a tiny doomed face. And then of course you'd cry. I'd be trying to watch TV, the antenna positioned weirdly to get the one channel that worked. I'd start crying. Alone with my thoughts, I'd start crying. I walked over to Park Slope. At the firehouse there the sidewalk was filled with candles and flowers. The air there was so thick with spirits and grief it vibrated; it was like walking through waves. I cried, and turned back. At a local Presbyterian church there was a service, I went in just in time for its ending. I stood by the door, my lips and eyes quivering with coming tears, as a procession of black women dressed as though it were Sunday walked by me, shaking my hands with the softest palms and fingers I have ever felt, sharing a state of grace that brings me back to those tears even in memory. Few words needed to be shared. We all knew what it was about.

Out and about everywhere you went were walls of photos. Faces of the missing, the lost. People were not yet ready to believe all these faces had just vanished into smoke. I went to Union Square in Manhattan. It was filled with candles and flowers and signs and love. And unlike the belligerent voices threatening from the airwaves it was filled with calls for peace. I have never seen it so beautiful. It was such a healing place. I passed by there and paused often til one night they carted it all away. You couldn't go downtown. There was still a pillar of fire. And a terrible chemical-tainted stench. And now metal fences and bars.

I wondered where I would meet up with Jim. Ironically at some point I saw a post-911 photo of the basement of the World Trade Center. It was after the fires had been extinguished but before the ruins were demolished and the pit was cleared out. There was a photo of that underground lobby and the banks of escalators. They were still there. Dead still and empty; dust-covered. But not crushed. Not damaged; somehow the collapsing towers had missed them. They looked pretty much like Jim could have been standing there next to his favorite store window waiting for me to show up.

Months later, before he moved out of town, when meeting up with Jim in the Village, I'd find him stopping and staring into the sky with a puzzled look on his face. "I'm trying to remember," he'd say, "if I could see them from here. Now that they're gone, I can't seem to figure out where they were." And although he had seen the pillars of smoke on his trip home from work and in the days that followed, he had seen the burning towers only on TV. To him, one minute they were there in the background, and then in another, they weren't. Me, I remember details about the streets around the World Trade Center that I realize I'm not sure where they were; even today I can't really register the changed landscape downtown with the one in my memory.

In the days and weeks and months that followed gradually the posters were all taken down. After months of ritually retelling our survival stories, we eventually tired of them. The intimacy felt by strangers on the street eventually faded back into the anonymity favored by us city dwellers. While now "911" tumbles easily off the lips, for at least a year the people I knew just referred to it as The Day, or The Events. To name it seemed casually obscene. To turn what we had been through into a jingoism-tinged catchphrase was unthinkable.

There are those who curl their lips when recalling that day, snarling out vengeance. "Never forget. Never forgive." It's still stencilled on firetrucks and police cars and pickup trucks. Me I don't like those words. Oh I know the terrorists who committed this horrible crime could just have easily been aiming at me. I'm well aware of God's grace and there but for where I might be going. But I'm tired of the rage of 911; tired of that day of wrath, and as tired of the hatred it has spawned as of the hatred that spawned it. I'm tired of seeing American flags pasted and painted on any possible flat space as some kind of chest-thumping passive-aggressive dare. I'm tired of the crimes committed in the name of that Day.

The people who died that day weren't special. They were just regular people going on with their lives. Some were working, some were travelling. Some were just passing by. Some were selflessly doing some very dangerous jobs. But there aren't none of us better than any of the rest. And no amount of killing other regular people thousands of miles away is gonna bring them back or make meaning out of a senseless loss. That "two wrongs don't make a right" cliche? It's actually pretty wise.

It's not my religion, but the hymn "Day of Wrath" resonates:

Worthless are my prayers and sighing,
yet, good Lord, in grace complying,
rescue me from fires undying!
While the wicked are confounded,
doomed to flames of woe unbounded
call me with thy saints surrounded.
Low I kneel, with heart submission,
see, like ashes, my contrition;
help me in my last condition.
Ah ! that day of tears and mourning !
From the dust of earth returning
man for judgment must prepare him;
Spare, O God, in mercy spare him !

It's time for a season of mercy.

Hopefully Just the Beginning

That's a photo from Al Jazeera of one of the Egyptian protesters who last night attacked the Israeli embassy in Cairo. Protesters demolished a wall built by the Egyptian police to protect the embassy; some protesters gained access to the embassy itself and this one has ripped down the hated Zionist banner. Others threw confidential papers and files out the windows. The protesters waged a battle with Egyptian police, and today Israel announced it was pulling its staff out of Cairo. Good riddance. This comes a week after an insulting UN report on last year's Israeli pirate attack on the Gaza peace flotilla and Israel's repeated failure to apologize for assassinating eight unarmed Turkish civilians caused Turkey to expel the Israeli ambassador. Again, good riddance. Turkey and Egypt need to abrogate their treaties with Israel and stop enabling the repression of the Palestinians who they both claim to support.

Palestinian authorities have reaffirmed their intention to bring their case to the United Nations this month, hoping to get the UN general assembly to recognize a Palestinian State. The Obama administration, clinging to its obscene lie that it supports the rights of Palestinians, has continued to threaten to veto any Palestinian moves. Fortunately, the U.S. has no veto power in the general assembly. Obama and the U.S. government support only a Palestinian state that is a powerless, defenseless Apartheid-style bantustan on a tiny speck of historical Palestine. Since the last failure of farcical peace talks, the Zionist regime has gone full-steam ahead with its theft and seizures of Palestinian lands: so-called settlement activity — actually the illegal colonialization of Arab land and property — is at an all-time high and the U.S. is doing absolutely nothing but encouraging it.

It's clear that U.N. recognition of a Palestinian state on the rump territory Israel conquered in 1967 will not solve the fundamental problem of injustice in the region, but perhaps it will give the Palestinians some legal recourse to prevent further erosion of their rights and land. Since they seem to have few real international allies willing to actually use leverage against the State of Israel, they will have to keep doing what they're doing. The Angry Arab printed a photo of a sign at a democracy protest in neighboring Syria that reads: "We shall not forget you, O Palestine but we have been occupied with our blood."

And this is why the U.S. and Europe are so desperate to seize control of the wave of unrest that has been sweeping the Arab world: sooner or later the despots and corrupt leaders who speak out of both sides of their mouths will be gone, and nothing will stand between the obscenity that is the Zionist State of Israel and the people of the region who yearn for freedom and justice and peace.

Yesterday's protest at the Cairo den of spies was a good start.

Update: More great pictures of this historic event at the Occupied Palestine blog.

Something in the Air

To start off the weekend here's my favorite Labelle track: no, it's not the Hoochie Goochie Ya Ya Geee of "Lady Marmalade," it's their awesome early 1970s medley of Gil Scott-Heron's "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised" and the Pete Townsend/Thunderclap Newman chestnut "Something In The Air." Labelle don't mess with Scott-Heron's lyric (like Dana Bryant did wonderfully in the 1990s), but their exuberant women's perspective changes the mood of the piece quite a bit.

Revolution in the air? If only.

Everything You Need to Know About Tonight's Republican Debate

Tonight's Republican Presidential debate was held at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California. Ronald Reagan is a beloved icon for these Republican candidates. Although their politics are far to the right even of his actual record, they claim to cherish everything he stood for.

This is what he stood for:

"The most memorable Reagan AIDS moment for me was at the 1986 centenary rededication of the Statue of Liberty. The Reagans were there sitting next to French President Francois Mitterand and his wife, Danielle. Bob Hope was on stage entertaining the all-star audience. In the middle of a series of one-liners Hope quipped, "I just heard that the Statue of Liberty has AIDS but she doesn't know if she got it from the mouth of the Hudson or the Staten Island Fairy." As the television camera panned the audience, the Mitterands looked appalled. The Reagans were laughing. By the end of 1989 and the Reagan years, 115,786 women and men had been diagnosed with AIDS in the United States, and more than 70,000 of them had died." — Michael Bronski, The Truth About Reagan, 2003

Happy Alienation Day!

I was reading Facebook and browsing the internet this morning when I noticed something. Many people were saying great things about today's holiday, Labor Day (what I like to call "fake" Labor Day since everybody knows real labor day is May 1). People were telling stories about their factory-worker parents or grandparents, or talking about the labor battles of the past that gave us this day off along with the forty-hour work week and minimum wage. But you could tell that to most of these people "labor" and "laborers" was something quite outside their vision of themselves. Certainly most of the wonderful and decent people I know are office workers and not factory workers: and it's true most of us do not go home dirtier and sweatier than the subway has made us.

Through some diabolical masterstroke, today's corporate bosses have a huge percentage of this country's workers persuaded that they're not workers, but upwardly mobile career professionals. It's kind of like how sales clerks are today called "sales associates." Associates of what, exactly? While for some working in an office can be a trip up a corporate ladder to reward and responsibility, most people will find themselves eventually reminded that their humanity just doesn't qualify them for continued employment as some mysterious corporate id somewhere reorganizes or reprioritizes them out of a job. Sorry!

It's absolutely alienation in the service of an illusion: if you sit there long enough acting enthusiastic enough and never saying "no," maybe you'll get plucked out of your cubicle, pushed into a corner office, and sent on your road to fortune and retirement. You've made it, baby! Well, as long as you do what you're told and make more money for somebody else than you get to keep for yourself.

Your company might call you an "associate," or even a "manager," or any number of clever titles chosen to provide you with imitation dignity as a substitute for anything you can take to the bank. Oh by the way, we need you to work overtime, the finite hours of your life aren't as important as getting this project done, are they? Thanks! But the company knows who you are: you're just an expendable body.

The company I freelance for is currently eliminating one department — a unionized one, no less. It's being split up and outsourced, half to a non-union shop in the south, and half overseas. The union who is so badly representing these soon to be ex-workers seems to have been caught in a deadly partnership web with management. Appeasement strikes again. Sorry, it's the economy!

I understand that a person has to make the most of working for a living. Being pissed off all the time is no way to spend your days. I don't blame today's "employees" for being optimistic about their chances. Surely the chickens in a coop dare not dwell on the hens that occasionally disappear without driving themselves mad with anxiety. A couple winters ago I visited a wonderful small farm upstate. We stood in a low barn, smelling the rich smells of hay and manure. There was a wonderful, affectionate steer. The farmers introduced us to this magnificent bulky creature. Our hosts laughed warmly, standing around this creature as they discussed how he'd be slaughtered for steaks the next year. The steer mooed, happy in its stall, occasionally searching with its great warm tongue for a taste of people passing by. The steer had a better life than many, I'm sure, outside a factory farm, cared for by people and not machines. And I'm sure he was very delicious. Cause he was, in the end, a steer, raised for his many pounds of meat.

Here's a truly horrifying quote from Matthew Vadum, some kind of wingnut teabagger policy hack: "Why are left-wing activist groups so keen on registering the poor to vote? Because they know the poor can be counted on to vote themselves more benefits by electing redistributionist politicians. Welfare recipients are particularly open to demagoguery and bribery. Registering them to vote is like handing out burglary tools to criminals. It is profoundly antisocial and un-American to empower the nonproductive segments of the population to destroy the country -- which is precisely why Barack Obama zealously supports registering welfare recipients to vote. Encouraging those who burden society to participate in elections isn't about helping the poor. It's about helping the poor to help themselves to others' money. It's about raw so-called social justice. It's about moving America ever farther away from the small-government ideals of the Founding Fathers." Setting aside, for the moment, the unspoken racist dogwhistling in this comment, it's clear that the corporate bosses and their friends on the right wing are more than ever self-aware of their class destiny and privilege. If there is a problem with the class war in this country is that it is so one-sided: the vast majority of working people are standing on the sidelines thinking that this is all happening to somebody else. Caution: rude awakenings ahead.

But that old saying, "Workers of the World Unite, you have nothing to lose but your chains," you know that's talking about you, right? Take a day off. You earned it!

News from the Malabar Front: Job-Killing Ozone Regulations Halted! Job Creators Applaud! "Air You Can See" Restored!

"As president, I will restore the force of the Clean Air Act. I will fight for continued reductions in smog and soot, and continue my leadership in combating toxins that contribute to air pollution. Unlike President Bush, I will listen to my scientific advisers on air quality standards. And I will reverse the Bush administration's attempts to chip away at our nation's clean air standards and the integrity of our national parks. I will also protect roadless areas in our national lands."
— Presidential Candidate Barack Obama, 2008

"The Bush-era EPA's decision was immediately challenged in court.... The legal defensibility of the 2008 decision posed major challenges for the federal government given the strength of the scientific record at that time.... I decided that reconsideration was the appropriate path based on concerns that the 2008 standards were not legally defensible."
— President Obama's EPA administrator Lisa P. Jackson, July 13, 2011 on her office's strong recommendation to revamp current ozone/air pollution regulations

"What we need to do is pass the mother of all repeal bills, but it’s the repeal bill that will get a job killing regulations. And I would begin with the EPA, because there is no other agency like the EPA. It should really be renamed the job-killing organization of America."
— 2012 Republican Presidential Candidate Michele Bachmann, June 2011

"State and Local Officials Speak Out on President’s Commitment to Clean Air and a Strong Economy

Over the last two and half years the Obama Administration, under the leadership of EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson, has taken some of the strongest actions since the enactment of the Clean Air Act four decades ago to protect our environment and the health of our families from air pollution.

On Friday, President Obama asked Administrator Jackson to withdraw the draft Ozone National Ambient Air Quality Standards at this time, as work is already underway to update a 2006 review of the science that will result in the reconsideration of the ozone standard in 2013...."
— bizarrely titled blogpost by "Cecilia Muñoz, Deputy Assistant to the President and Director of Intergovernmental Affairs," apparently the most junior possible person to quote, on whitehouse.gov explaining President Obama's abandonment of new clean air rules

"I have continued to underscore the importance of reducing regulatory burdens and regulatory uncertainty, particularly as our economy continues to recover."
— President Obama, September 2, 2011

"[private-sector job growth] continues to be undermined by the triple threat of higher taxes, more failed ‘stimulus’ spending and excessive federal regulations."
— John Boehner, September 2, 2011

"I would like to say a few words in respect of the various other participants, besides ourselves, in the Munich Agreement. After everything that has been said about the German Chancellor today and in the past, I do feel that the House ought to recognise the difficulty for a man in that position to take back such emphatic declarations as he had already made amidst the enthusiastic cheers of his supporters, and to recognise that in consenting, even though it were only at the last moment, to discuss with the representatives of other Powers those things which he had declared he had already decided once for all, was a real and a substantial contribution on his part."
— British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, October 1938, offering sympathy for all the sacrifices Adolf Hitler had to make in the Bipartisan Munich Agreement. Chamberlain was shortly afterwards out of a job when German tanks rolled into Czechoslovakia and later, Poland.

About That Republican "No"

I've not been particularly inclined to defend Mr. Obama of late, but I am singularly horrified at the small thing that happened to him yesterday. President Obama has been promising for weeks to deliver a "bold" jobs plan in a speech after fake Labor Day. It will no doubt be insufficient, and will no doubt go over like a lead zeppelin in the Republican House. It will no doubt have many rousing platitudes about American workers and no doubt fail to combat the rampant union-busting so prevalent today or actually have much an effect on today's runaway unemployment. But never mind that. It turns out he wants to make a really big deal out of this speech and sent a note calling for a Joint Session of Congress before which he could deliver his address. The request for such a session is a ritual formality, always granted.

But this time Speaker of the House John Boehner said "no, ni**er know your place." Well he actually only said "no," but it's entirely obvious what he meant. Those of us listening for the dogwhistle can hear it very well, thank you, even when it is meant for certain other ears. Congressional historians reached by the NY Times say that such a thing has never happened before. The orange weeper Mr. Boehner made a lame excuse about (unspecified) votes scheduled for that very moment that could not, apparently, be postponed. Although nobody officially mentioned it, Wednesday is also apparently the time that the Republican 2012 Presidential clowncar will be holding one of its early debates at the "library" of their vile hero Reagan in California. Apparently the dishonest pontifications of a bunch of right-wing bigots is of more import than the federal jobs policy at a time of economic crisis.

Apparently the communications between Boehner and Obama were tense, and Boehner suggested the following day; initially Obama refused, and then, of course, he acquiesced to a Thursday appearance before Congress. Thursday is also the NFL kickoff, so fewer people will be wanting to watch national policy on teevee. The rightwing commentators went on the attack, accusing Obama of using his office to "campaign."

I find in this small episode an encapsulation of much of the tragedy of the Obama administration. In his eminently reasonable way Obama is busy talking about "bipartisan proposals," and the Republicans are saying "fuck you" and all but announcing their intention to disregard him entirely. And yet Obama brushes it off. And smiles, and scrambles to fashion some compromise that pulls some faint shadow of a hopeful political plan into a contrived and dangerously inadequate imitation plan that leaves the problem unsolved, him looking weak, and the right wing chortling all over themselves with unconstrained glee.

Maybe that's all that can be accomplished right now, who knows. But here's the thing. Appeasement doesn't work. Hitler invades Poland anyway; London gets bombed.

In the past three years it's been plain as day what the nature of much of the opposition to President Obama really is. The racist nature of the Republican party, both its conservative mainstream and extremist tea-bagger fringe, is clear to anybody who's not desperately trying to convince themselves otherwise. All that crap about the so-called Tea Party being mere economic conservatives, it's a lie. And the Republicans are treating our first African-American president as they have treated no president before, with palpable contempt and disregard.

President Obama was smart enough to know that he needed the energy of outraged progressives to get elected, along with all sorts of other constituencies. Who knows, he may even be smart enough to get himself reelected despite the shithole the economy is in, who knows. But it is painful to watch him transformed by Republican contempt into a Stepin-Fetchit caricature. Read the anti-Obama comments on any political website. There is some incisive criticism from the left here and there, and some programmatic disagreement from the right that is not based on lies and dishonesty. But most of it has turned into derisive objectification of his arrogance, cluelessness, spinelessness, or teleprompter habits. While I find myself disagreeing with his policies over and over again, it's painfully obvious that much of the criticism of Obama consists of sixteen-dollar-words covering up what is merely contempt for an uppity ni**er considered to be something only slightly more impressive than a trained monkey. In becoming a magnet for the disappointment of the American people, Obama is increasingly the catalyst for an explosion of white racist resentment. After the bumbling incoherence of President Bush, people are outraged about Obama's teleprompter? I don't buy it one bit.

And now, in advance, the Republican leader has said to Obama, "we don't really care what you have to say." They are not willing to offer even the ritual respect that is the glue that holds polite society together. As Chauncey DeVega on the brilliant "We Are Respectable Negroes" blog writes, Boehner just pulled a "boy you best get off the sidewalk and let a white man pass moment." And President Obama stepped down into the gutter and let Boehner pass. Will he call them out in his speech? It's nice to think about. I'll be very surprised if it happens.

We can do so much better. Pretending that what is happening is not actually happening will do us no good. America needs to have this confrontation: Obama's attempt to keep his hands clean seems to me aiming very very low. The Democratic and Republican parties need to be split asunder. Let the racists organize their party openly. Let the corporatists from both parties unite and try to take it all back. And let the vast majority of working people discover their own strength and power. Let the racism and the anti-gay bigotry and the thievery of the rich be openly condemned, and then let it be smashed.

Not papered over. Smashed.

Sometimes It's Not What You Expect

Above is the scene up in Margaretville, New York, on Sunday in the aftermath of Hurricane Irene. This was shot from the second floor of a commercial property owned by dear friends of mine. The building in the background is apparently now close to collapse...it housed a number of shops, a pub, and several floors of apartments. Margaretville is hundreds of miles away from me: I'm five long blocks from New York Harbor, and Margaretville is nestled safely up in the Catskill Mountains.

After the freak earthquake earlier in the week, we dutifully prepared to face nature's wrath this weekend. I stocked up on supplies, filled pots with water, shut windows and stayed indoors. Cut off from my boyfriend and others by the shutdown of the city's transit system, I waited out the storm. I listened to the mayor on the radio every once in a while sternly telling people to prepare for the worst.

In the middle of Saturday night I woke up and peered out the front door to a bizarrely apocalyptic sight: in the heavy rain water was flowing over the front sidewalk in a sheet as the trees shook and rustled in the furious wind. But shortly after I woke up in the morning the sun came out, the rain gone, the air calm. While the wind returned in the afternoon, there was no residual flood, and no trees had crashed onto our house. The feral cats out back didn't even seem to be wet.

The storm crashed into shore not far from here, and yet everything in the city had a pro forma feel to it. It took a day for the subway to be switched back on. I saw a neighbor airing out a wet basement. A friend photographed a tree that had split in two. But it was anticlimactic, a lot of wind and rain but it sure didn't feel like what we thought a hurricane would feel like. But in upstate New York, and neighboring Vermont, catastrophe.

Check out the Watershed Post website: amidst the heartbreaking photos is a live blog and a spreadsheet being used to locate survivors stranded by the wild uproar of the mountain rivers and streams. It's all broken roads and bridges and collapsed homes amidst brown water. I go up there once or twice a year to share the green tranquility of my friends' vacation homes: I recognize these familiar sights in disbelief. And the Metro North train line to my godfather's house in the Catskill foothills may be out for months, the trainbed washed completely away in many places.

The authorities had tried to protect something, whether the city or even merely their own reputations. We prepared for the worst, but the worst went elsewhere. We fool ourselves when we think someone other than Nature Herself is in control: by Her merest whim we survive. She moves on without looking back. Until next time.

Another Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy

Head over to Mondoweiss to find a free PDF download of a massive and thorough report by the Center for American Progress called "Fear Inc.: The Roots of the Islamophobia Network in the U.S." Running 130+ pages (which I'm still digesting), the report documents the network of right-wing pseudo experts orchestrating the wave of Islamophobia responsible for everything from bizarre legislation against Muslim Sharia law in the Midwest to bloodthirsty racist protests against the proposed downtown Manhattan Muslim community center.

In the aftermath of the right-wing terror incident in Norway which revealed many of the leading lights of Islamophobia to be influences and even correspondents to its perpetrator, the report paints a compelling picture of a vast international and well-funded web with a laser-focused agenda on demonizing Muslims. There's a great chart in the report showing the multi-million dollar funders at the root of this network, the misinformation think-tank experts who pull the paychecks, and the "Islamophobia Echo Chamber" who do the dirty work of "mislead[ing] the public [by] amplifying the fear and misinformation" that they are supplied. Republican presidential candidate Michele Bachmann is prominent among the "echo chamber" players. It's heavily footnoted, and absolutely chilling.

The report warns, "As the 10th anniversary of 9/11 approaches, the Islamophobia network will be working overtime. The anniversary could be manipulated to ratchet up the non- existent threat of Sharia and warn of apocalyptic dangers stemming from Muslims living in America."

While the report is chock-full of detailed information, I'm finding it a little weak on analysis: while it correctly labels much of the Islamophobia as "racist," it fails to delve too deeply into the "why." While painting an exhaustive picture of craven and cynical opportunism, it doesn't take too deep a look at how central the American relationship to Israel is to creating the petrie dish where this infection has bred. That said, this is an indispensible document that names plenty of names.

Hallelujah One Day

Above is a beautiful version of Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah" from Steven Page, (former?) lead singer of Barenaked Ladies, at today's state funeral for Jack Layton, the late leader of Canada's New Democratic Party, its viable socialist opposition party.

From Jack Layton's last letter to Canadians:

"There will be those who will try to persuade you to give up our cause. But that cause is much bigger than any one leader. Answer them by recommitting with energy and determination to our work. Remember our proud history of social justice, universal health care, public pensions and making sure no one is left behind. Let’s continue to move forward. ... My friends, love is better than anger. Hope is better than fear. Optimism is better than despair. So let us be loving, hopeful and optimistic. And we’ll change the world."

If only here down here below Canada we had the ability to vote for such brave, committed and truly progressive candidates who are also not just symbolic protest votes but real possibilities for real change.

In personal news, I'm safely hunkered down on my hill in Brooklyn awaiting the arrival of Hurricane Irene. It's been quiet and peaceful today with intermittent rain; the bus that runs along my street was halted along with the rest of the NYC transit system. It's supposed to get interesting after midnight. Hopefully not too interesting.

Can You Handle Candy's Sweet Scandal?

I'm excited to present the latest video from my super-talented drag queen friend Candy Samples. It's for her just-released new single (available on iTunes!) "Sweet Scandal," and the song was co-written by Candy with two of her frequent collaborators including my boyfriend. I've got cameos in this video as well as all her previous ones.

This daring new video is filled with more gun-pointing attitude than Miranda Richardson shows off in "The Crying Game," as Candy takes what she wants with no apologies. It was fun being a part of her video cast again, and I'm always amazed at the talent and creativity of Candy's whole production team. The special effects in this one (including a crucifixion scene!) are really fun and over the top. She is super wigged out!

It's become a yearly tradition for Candy to produce a new song and video for her appearance down at the Southern Decadence gay street party in New Orleans each Labor Day; we're willing to share her but we're glad this is her home town. The video was filmed on location in Astoria, Queens.

I can't wait for the next one!

Is That All There Is?

Two great American songwriters left this world this week: the great Nickolas Ashford, first of Motown songwriting fame and later of the duet Ashford & Simpson with his wife Valerie; and Jerry Leiber of the Leiber and Stoller songwriting team responsible for many classic early rock and pop hits. I have to say that while I've long thought Ashford & Simpson incapable of writing anything other than a masterpiece, most Leiber & Stoller songs are not really to my taste. With one important exception: the song made into a hit in 1969 by the great Miss Peggy Lee, "Is That All There Is."

Unlike much of their other work such as "Hound Dog," "Kansas City," or "Stand by Me," Leiber & Stoller's "Is That All There Is" is not a swing-your-hips, tap-along stormer of a tune. It's a deeply cynical, existentially world-weary expression of disillusionment and disappointment. Performed by Peggy Lee to utter perfection long after her own girlish romantic optimism had transformed itself to an almost stiff aloofness and detachment, the song is better served with a shot of whiskey than a champagne toast. I remember hearing it the first time as a young boy on the radio and being transfixed by its daring lyricism: I was amazed somebody was celebrating such a message of hopelessness. It still provokes a dark chuckle every time I listen to it. It was probably the first time I ever heard the interpretive genius of Peggy Lee as well. I read this week that the song had been first offered to Marlene Dietrich who turned it down. Lee's knowing delivery is an absolute triumph, transforming the work of pop ditty songwriters into that of high cabaret artistes.

It makes me surprised that Leiber & Stoller didn't go on to write musical theater. But after a song like this, well, maybe that's just all there needs to be.

Anti-American Art: Bab al-Azizya

I figured I better feature this rather iconic statue before it's gone. Earlier in my series of Anti-American art images I featured a Libyan stamp showing a similar illustration, but here's the real thing, the statue erected by the Libyan dictator Qaddafi at the site of the American assassination attempt/bombing raid back in 1986 that took the life of his adopted daughter. Showing a hand crushing an American jet, it's located in his expansive Bab al-Azizya compound in Tripoli, and was, as seen below, just overrun by the NATO-backed rebels of the Libyan Transitional National Council.


A particularly noxious NY Times video already makes the not completely off-base comparison between this statue and the ones of Saddam Hussein pulled down by American invaders, so it seems likely that these NATO revolutionaries will shortly pull this iconic symbol of defiance down so as not to offend their new overlords.

It seems likely that Qaddafi's quixotic faux egalitarian faux anti-imperialist regime is now a thing of the past, though the TNC is rife with his former allies. It's also far from clear in any case that the war is at all over or that Libya's future is resolved.

Although before the US/NATO intervention I was all in favor of a real Libyan people's revolution, I have my doubts that this now beholden-to-NATO hitchup of former bureaucrats will bring anything resembling actual democracy to the Libyan people. Beware of NATO bombers bearing gifts. It ought to give all freedom-loving people pause to think that the rebels are now in effect celebrating the high-tech rain of death from the skies that this statue challenges. No doubt the world's future hindsight will be 20-20.

(PS: That earthquake today! Unnerving and momentarily terrifying...but no damage done here in the home of The Cahokian. We now return to our regularly scheduled programming.)

Nafissatou Diallo: Raped Twice, First by DSK Now by the "Law"

The New York Times recounts today's meeting between prosecutors from the New York City DA's office and rape victim Nafissatou Diallo and her lawyer, Kenneth P. Thompson:

'Mr. Thompson said that he and Ms. Diallo entered a conference room where the three main prosecutors on the case, Artie McConnell, Joan Illuzzi-Orbon and Ann Prunty, sat.

According to Mr. Thompson, when he and Ms. Diallo sat down, Ms. Illuzzi-Orbon said something to the effect of: “Nafi, we’re going to dismiss the case. You have lied to us repeatedly We can’t win the case.”

Mr. Thompson said he asked Ms. Illuzzi-Orbon what she was talking about and that Ms. Diallo asked how she lied. As Ms. Diallo was trying to ask questions, Mr. Thompson said, the three prosecutors stood up and walked out of the room without answering.

“The meeting lasted no more than 30 seconds; it was probably 20 seconds,” Mr. Thompson said. “It was disrespectful, it was absolutely disrespectful. They didn’t have the common courtesy to answer one question that the victim posed.” '

And so the vile rapist Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the rich white international business executive, gets off, and the African maid who was bruised and assaulted, gets accused of being a liar and a criminal. The American Justice system does what it does best, serving the interest of the rich, white and powerful.

Ms. Diallo was found to have severe bruising on her genitalia. Semen from her mouth, clothes, and the wall of the hotel room in which she was assaulted matched Mr. Strauss-Kahn. Numerous other women have come forward to document Mr. Strauss-Kahn's lecherous, predatory and rapine behavior: he clearly believes his power and privilege gives him the right to do to women whatever he pleases, whenever he chooses. And yet Cyrus Vance Jr., an alleged liberal from a respected political family, has chosen to let Strauss-Kahn get off scot-free, because of Diallo's alleged history of lying during the difficult process of her immigration to the United States.

Cyrus Vance Jr. is now guilty of rape along with DSK: in choosing to let drop the prosecution of a case he has said to all women that if there are any mistakes in your past, any wealthy or powerful man has the right to rape you, to damage and bruise your genitalia, to cover you with his personal filth, with total and absolute impunity from the law.

For a demoralizing exercise in the disgusting racism and misogyny in American society, read the comments on the cited New York Times story. Readers compare Ms. Diallo to Tawana Brawley, notorious nearly thirty years ago for making improbable claims of rape in a completely different case under completely different circumstances, related perhaps in the eyes of white racists for the shared color of their skin. They call for Ms. Diallo's deportation, prosecution, virtually for her very lynching. The anger against Diallo is disturbing: her vilification is near complete while a man of utterly dubious reputation goes free, back to his mansions and his millions and his wife who has learned to look the other way at his hobby of molesting women.

Despite the facts and evidence of the case, which are related to Ms. Diallo's past actions not one iota, Cyrus Vance's office have punted.

This is not only an injustice but an outrage. Cyrus Vance must be forced to resign, and a special prosecutor should not only continue the prosecution against Strauss-Kahn but investigate the DA's office for corruption.

Once again, New York's City says "fuck you" to its weakest and most vulnerable.

Something Not Funny About Michele Bachmann

It's easy to laugh about Republican presidential candidate Michele Bachmann. Just this week she's been busy promising $2 a gallon gasoline, fretting over the rise of the Soviet Union and wishing the late Elvis Presley a happy birthday on the anniversary of his death. Perhaps it's too easy sometimes: I know I wonder if laughter is the right response, given how inappropriate it is to make fun of those suffering from mental illness, as Ms. Bachmann so clearly is.

But setting aside Ms. Bachmann's ignorance, demogoguery, dishonesty, and overactive imagination for the moment, she's not entirely a laughing matter. It seems unlikely to me that she will end up being the Republican presidential nominee, and perhaps she'll end up nothing more than a convenient foil for more moderate Republicans seeking leverage in the campaign to unseat Obama. But it turns out that it's not only her views that are problematic.

The Atlantic Magazine has published a disturbing exposé on one of Ms. Bachmann's top staffers, one Peter E. Waldron. Waldron helped Bachmann win the Ames Straw Poll in Iowa: he is also a Christian organizer who spent prison time in Uganda in 2006, accused of terrorism and jailed for possession of assault weapons.

Waldron is also a close friend and colleague of the Ugandan politician who has been — so far unsucessfully — trying to pass a law in Uganda making homosexuality a death-penalty offense. Far from distancing themselves from Mr. Waldon, the Atlantic reports that the Bachmann campaign is enthusiastically standing behind him: "Asked about Waldron's role and background, Alice Stewart, the press secretary for the Bachmann for President campaign, replied in an email: "Michele's faith is an important part of her life and Peter did a tremendous job with our faith outreach in Iowa. We are fortunate to have him on our team and look forward to having him expanding his efforts in several states."

It was bad enough that President Obama spent time cozying up to the Christian evangelical movement that has been running amok in Africa pushing a right-wing political agenda. At least when the proposed Ugandan law became public the Obama administration condemned it, and shamed people like Rick Warren into distancing themselves from their former protegees. But what does it mean that a Republican candidate is so closely and enthusiastically tied to a man and movement that stands in effect for a holocaust against African gay people?

We know that Bachmann has a family business, via her quack of a husband Marcus "Ladybird" Bachmann, that involves "counseling" gay people into going straight: actually an unscientific and abusive form of mental torture. And we know that despite her advocacy against social welfare spending that her family has accepted hundreds of thousands of dollars in government funds. But do we know that Bachmann's actual agenda for gay people in Uganda, the US or anywhere is other than criminalization and murder? In truth, no. And that's not funny at all.

Rick Perry, Man of Peace?

I'm quite horrified that Texas's secessionist-minded governor Rick Perry is now being presented as the powerhouse Republican who will end the clown-car chaos of the Republican presidential primaries and emerge as the candidate capable of unseating President Obama. He may call himself "Texas's Jobs Governor," but he's a rabid right-wing social conservative, a Taliban-style Christianist, and those Texas jobs are un-unionized, un-insured, minimum-waged burger flipping jobs. There's a great analysis of the politics of narcissistic white resentment behind fans of Perry and Bachmann over at Hullabaloo. Strongly recommended.

Perry seems to believe threatening to kill people is the way to build support for his campaign. First, he bizarrely threatened violence against "treasonous" (Republican appointee) Ben Bernanke for printing up money. Then, he suggested using predator drones along the American border to solve the immigration problem by tidily killing undocumented immigrants via remote control.

Sadly, Perry is not joking about any of this. As Texas governor he has presided over the executions of hundreds of condemned prisoners, included disabled individuals and people widely believed to have been convicted in error. Disgustingly, his support of the death penalty is seen by his supporters of evidence of his balls. And Perry is completely against government regulation of industry, which means you or your child's death from pollution-caused disease or poisoned food or faulty machinery? Not his problem.

(Photo of Rick Perry as a cadet in 1972 snagged from the excellent Rag Blog.)

Images of Bermuda

Here's a few random images from my vacation. Above, lush vegetation with a glimpse of the ocean on the path to Horseshoe Bay beach. I remember before I ever saw water that beautiful shade of turquoise I assumed it was always faked in a photo studio. Water that color still makes me giddy every time I see it.


Bermuda's towns are impossibly tidy. The occasional challenge to the nearly immaculate and unchallenged sense of order was a shirtless Rastafarian: here one guy dozes in a hollow tree, displaying a series of complicated shrine-like works of art. Click on the photo to see the one at left with black-and-white Barbie dolls. Elsewhere I saw an apparently homeless dreadlocked man dive into a shady spot on a lush green lawn outside the early 19th-century Historical Society building as though it were a featherbed; it was oddly sensual, an unselfconscious expression of necessity in a place where a lot of money seems to be spent on keeping things just so.






I found the palette of color used by Bermudians on their houses deeply affecting: I wish I had more time to study and photograph them. Not just pale pastel colors but rich blues, turqoises, pinks, yellows, lime greens: the colors of water, of nature, of the sky, of the sun. Here's a completely inadequate sampling.


We visited a beautiful and thought-provoking show in the corner of the Bermuda Society of Arts gallery, entitled "Black Apartheid" by the local artist Manuel Palacio. It was a head-on confrontation of racism and racial attitudes in Bermuda, and a scathing critique of Bermuda's government. In addition to the piece above entitled "I Hate White People" (read the names of the streets on its map-like display), there was a biting attack on Bermuda's (black) parliamentarians done up like an Al Pacino "Scarface" poster and Warhol-esque paintings of those parliamentarians in whiteface. When you're a tourist you don't usually get much insight into the three-dimensional realities of life behind the pretty colors; it was rewarding to get a peek into them via this artwork.

Photos by me except for the artwork at bottom from the Bermuda Society of the Arts. Click on the images to see them larger.

Anti-Americana: Vietnam Was a Victory

It's all a matter of perspective, isn't it? If you're on the side of peace and justice, the correct side won. There's a lesson in there. Here's a (North) Vietnamese poster dating from the time of that American war of aggression, showing a sandal clad foot tromping an American tank.

For more anti-American propaganda art images, see The Cahokian's archive here.

Welcome Back to Amerikkka

I'm back from vacation. My boyfriend's parents invited him on a cruise to celebrate his father's 70th birthday; I got invited along as the significant other. It was a lovely, relaxing time chugging off to the floating suburb of Bermuda: a tiny, beautiful, interesting country apparently even more expensive than my own New York City, without the social tolerance. It was nice to enjoy some beautiful weather, beautiful beaches, tasty food, and pleasant company.

But how strange to be at arm's length from the world for a week, and then at the mercy of somebody else's spoon-fed perspective: we got New York Times headlines, and a choice of CNN or Faux News satellite TV, and a quick daily peek at the internet pro-rated at 75 cents a minute. The economy seems as rocky as the waves on the trip out; rioting in the U.K. seems to have brought out an orgy of racist commentary; and political news is dominated by the Iowan rise of mentally-ill fantasist/liar Michele Bachmann (that's her above) and the entry into the Republican presidential race of creepy secessionist/Christianist Texas governor Rick Perry, both heavily invested in an attempt to deprive gay Americans of their rights. Perry wants very much to inflict his union-free, minimum-wage, death-penalty friendly vision onto the whole country; his version of multi-culturalism means welcoming all kinds of people...to praise Jesus and pray for rain.

I was struck by how clear the class perspective of the media is: in the case of both the UK riots and the local Verizon workers' strike, the media voice adhered closely to the narrative of bosses and property owners. I turned off the cabin's TV this morning as some idiot (white, upper-classed) talking head was blaming the British violence not on the austerity policies of the Tory government but on the "nihilism" of hip-hop culture. Nevermind that British hip-hop is among the most socially progressive and conscious musics in the world.

I guess I'm back in that world now. Time to unpack.

Gone Swimmin'

I'm off on a well-deserved vacation. I'm pretty sure I won't have much internet access for a week. Regular posting resumes when I get back!

Budget Cuts Force Obama Administration to Recycle Tired Old Li(n)es

A few years ago the headline "Rumsfield Hypes Al Qaeda to Ward Off More Defense Cuts" would have surprised no one. And yet there it is today: "Leon Panetta Hypes Al Qaeda to Ward Off More Defense Cuts." Note the difference: Leon Panetta, Obama's new Democratic Secretary of Defense. Yes, Panetta is complaining that the debt ceiling deal threatens the military budget, according to the Times: "Mr. Panetta warned that if a Congressional panel could not reach agreement on cuts to the nation’s deficit, “it could trigger a round of dangerous across-the-board defense cuts that would do real damage to our security, our troops and their families, and our ability to protect the nation.” At a follow-up news conference, an unnameable Pentagon official said "“I would expect them to focus on entitlements and taxes,” the official said. He added that although “they have the right to focus on whatever they want,” more than $400 billion in budget cuts to the Pentagon would “go from the hard and manageable to the not-so-manageable.” In other words, the Bush, er, OBAMA, administration is arguing that cuts should be made to social programs instead of defense spending.

And yes, this was just days after Panetta was declaring that Al Qaeda was "almost defeated." More news from the Malabar Front, no doubt! Mission accomplished!

Oh yeah and how is that war in Afghanistan going? Have you noticed how whenever anything bad happens there now it's "NATO" this or "NATO" that? The American media is in shameful collaboration with the U.S. government attempting to divert attention from the fact that America owns the war in Afghanistan just as the Soviet Union once did. Here's the good news: It's only civilian deaths! "Although the number of civilian deaths in Afghanistan has steadily risen in the past year, with a 15 percent increase in the first half of 2011 over the same period last year, NATO deaths had been declining — decreasing nearly 20 percent in the first six months of 2011 compared with 2010." Well, that was until the Taliban shot down a "NATO" (American) helicopter killing thirty "NATO" (American) soldiers. I am authorized to say that the action we are now reporting may well bring the war within measurable distance of its end!

When Panetta was confirmed to replace outgoing Secretary (and Bush appointee) Robert Gates, the first thing he did was rush off to Iraq and begin to rattle tired, worn sabres against Iran. He also has begun to twist the arms of the dysfunctional Iraqi government to get them to "request" that American forces stay behind after the scheduled departure to deal with the Iranian "threat." All of a sudden the administration is recycling the years-old Bush trademark claims that Iraqi IEDs originate in Iran and that Iranian leaders are now cooperating with Al Qaeda. It's just so pathetically transparent. Did the disgusting Panetta find a bunch of undated memos in his new desk and just decide they would make him sound like a tough guy?

Then there's this fascinating article in the NY Times today, "Moral Flip-Flop? Defining a War." It's about a top State Department legal adviser going through hoops to suggest the President has the right to do whatever he wants in fighting a war. The subject of the article is one of those Bush lawyers like John Yoo? Not even close: alleged liberal icon Harold Koh, the architect apparently of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama's policy of not consulting congress before attacking the sovereign nation of Libya.

So much for the victorious anti-war candidate.

Crimes Against Humanity

When reminded of today's grim anniversary, I thought I had something to add on the topic. I re-read my entry last year, and realize the same exact thing needs to be said again. We as Americans have this strange idealized image of ourselves: ever quick with a qualification or an excuse for the actions of our nation and its politicians that conflicts with our imaginary view of ourselves, I think we'd be happier if we'd go with our first gut impulse. Killing hundreds of thousands of people in an instant is just wrong. Start from there and work backwards. There's no rationalization for atomic weapons that holds up, if you're honest with yourself and any reasonable sense of morality. When you start to make an excuse, work forward again to the incineration of thousands of innocent children and find your way back. From last year:


One nation has actually used the ultimate weapons of mass destruction, nuclear weapons. That nation is the United States of America.

Sixty-five years ago today, the United States bombed the city of Hiroshima in southern Japan. Nearly a hundred thousand lives--mostly civilians--were instantly snuffed out as the city itself was flattened. Tens and tens of thousands of others had their lives cut short, condemned to dealing with painful burns and other injuries and to the slow but equally fatal poisonous effects of lethal radiation exposure.

The big lie of Hiroshima (and Nagasaki, bombed three days later) is that the United States had no choice: it traded the lives of two cities worth of Japanese civilians for the shortening of the war. But for the four years of the war the American government and its loyal cultural institutions had churned out massive amounts of dehumanizing racist anti-Japanese propaganda like the poster at left. Loyal American citizens of Japanese ancestry had been sent to internment camps. It is not surprising that the American military and scientific establishment would use the last days of a war obviously almost over to experiment on a civilian population it had already deemed subhuman. The United States made its deadly mathematical calculation because it believed that dropping the bomb on Japanese civilians would be like crushing so many cockroaches. Many -- though certainly not all -- scholars believe that the Japanese government was ready to surrender, especially anticipating the obviously imminent entry of the Soviet Union into the war. The Japanese imperialists had a record of military cruelty to civilians dating back to the attack on Shanghai in 1937; that's undeniable. But with the nuclear attacks on Japan, the United States became fully committed to that same club.

From the story of survivor Setsuko Thurlow:

"I turned around and saw the outside world. Although it was morning, it looked like twilight because of the dust and smoke in the air. People at a distance saw the mushroom cloud and heard a thunderous roar. But I did not see the cloud because I was in it. I did not hear the roar, just the deadly silence broken only by the groans of the injured. Streams of stunned people were slowly shuffling from the city centre toward nearby hills. They were naked or tattered, burned, blackened and swollen. Eyes were swollen shut and some had eyeballs hanging out of their sockets. They were bleeding, ghostly figures like a slow-motion image from an old silent movie. Many held their hands above the level of their hearts to lessen the throbbing pain of their burns. Strips of skin and flesh hung like ribbons from their bones. Often these ghostly figures would collapse in heaps never to rise again. With a few surviving classmates I joined the procession carefully stepping over the dead and dying.

At the foot of the hill was an army training ground about the size of two football fields. Literally every bit of it was covered with injured and dying who were desperately begging, often in fain whispers, “Water, water, please give me water”. But we had no containers to carry water. We went to a nearby stream to wash the blood and dirt from our bodies. Then we tore off parts of our clothes, soaked them with water and hurried back to hold them to the mouths of the dying who desperately sucked the moisture. We kept busy at this task of giving some comfort to the dying all day. There were no medical supplies of any kind and we did not see any doctor or nurse. When darkness fell, we sat on the hillside, numbed by the massive scale of death and suffering we had witnessed, watching the entire city burn. In the background were the low rhythmic whispers from the swollen lips of the ghostly figures, still begging for water."

More survivor testimony can be read at Voices of Hibakusha.

Remember this: when the U.S. campaigns against weapons of mass destruction, when it marches into Iraq, threatens Iran and North Korea, raises the spectre of rogue nukes, this is not because it believes WMD are wrong, it's because it wants exclusive use of these monstrosities for itself and its allies.

WW2 poster snagged from Maximum Advantage in Pictures blog.

New York City Gay Center Update

Below is the text of a open letter to the NY LGBT Center from the right-wing rabidly Zionist pornographer Michael Lucas, who has successfully bullied the Center into expelling any pro-Palestinian gay activists from scheduling meetings at the center. Despite the official ban, the group Queers Against Israeli Apartheid has continued to hold unapproved meetings in the lobby of the Center as political actions. Apparently these sit-ins have outraged Lucas. Here is his latest, and disturbingly bullying, missive, addressed to two Center staffers:

"Glennda and Mario-

This is an open letter to you and I am copying it to others. It came to my attention that you, yet again, allowed a group of anti-Semites to meet on your premises, in the lobby of your Center.

This time, the size of the group was larger and consisted of several anti-Israeli groups. As I said before, the Center has become a magnet for anti-Semitism. The difference between previous meetings and the meetings that took place on June 8th and July 5th is that these times the meetings were more visible, instead of meetings and anti-Israeli fundraising campaigns behind closed doors. Meetings have now moved into a public space in the Center's lobby for everyone to see.

Again, you have publicly lied by saying that you would put a moratorium on these meetings, since the keep happening on larger scales.

I, as others have, made up my mind long ago that you are vigorously anti-Semitic. Let me state that nobody cares if you have Jews on board, if there are self-loathing Jews taking part in anti-Semitic meetings that you host, or if there are self-hating Jews supporting you. If you think that you bought insurance by having a handful of Jews on your side, then you are mistaken. Don't think you are fooling anyone.

The American Jewish body overwhelmingly opposes your actions and is disgusted by them.

As you know, there is a new meeting scheduled in your lobby for August 10th. If this meeting goes on, then I do hope that you will be forced to resign, since the Center deserves better leadership."

Lucas's lying dismissal of anyone who even acknowledges the existence of Palestinians or pro-Palestine organizations as "anti-Semites" reveals his true bigotry and hatred. The Center leadership has indeed showed themselves to be ill-equipped to handle controversy and to be poor stewards of the open community meeting place the Center once was. But to think that these leaders are actually cowed as they have been so far by being addressed in such a vile, bullying way, makes it sadder still.

Down So Low

My my. Thank goodness our political leaders solved the economic crisis on Monday because otherwise Thursday's news might be, um, really bad.

Here's a lovely song from the great Tracy Nelson to take our minds off our problems. The lyrics aren't so relevant but the title sure is.

'More than machinery we need humanity"

I was reminded of this brilliant speech by one of my favorite left-wing sites. It's the climax of Charlie Chaplin's 1940 film "The Great Dictator," a must-see on anyone's list. This is a stirring, heartfelt speech made by Chaplain himself playing a Jewish barber who has found himself masquerading as Adenoid Hynkel, the film's bumbling parody of Adolf Hitler.

The times we live in are very different than the world of 1940: the Hitlers of the world today are at worst very little Hitlers indeed. But it's not necessary to exaggerate the state of the world or fling over-reaching hyperbole about to find in Chaplin's emotional call for a new and better world ideas that retain currency even when jack-booted thugs are for the moment mostly dormant.

Fighting hatred, intolerance and militarism is always a good idea: and in a world that does seem like it's spinning about on a precipice of horrible possibilities, I find a poignancy in the relevance of this short and stirring testament. Some people seem in an awful hurry to repeat some really horrible chapters of the past: perhaps by listening to this cry from the past we can remember to keep our gaze pointed at a better future.

New Stamps from Gaza Challenge the Blockade

Late last year I wrote about the decision of the Palestinian government in Gaza to issue postage stamps that challenged existing postal agreements between the Palestinian Authority and the State of Israel. The PA has been allowed to issue its own stamps since the 1990s, however Israel reserves the right to veto the design or subject of these stamps; Now for another year the Hamas-led wing of the PA in Gaza has refused to play by these rules.

Three new sets of stamps were just issued in Gaza: a series marking the anniversary of the Nakba, or catastrophe, the expulsion of Palestinians from Palestine at the time of the establishment of Israel; the "Freedom Fleet's Martyrs," the eight Turkish and Turkish-American activists killed last year aboard the Mavi Marmara when Israeli pirates attacked the Gaza-bound freedom flotilla; and, not shown, "Year of Youth 2011."



It's not clear that these stamps will serve anything more than a propaganda purpose given the Israeli blockade and its harsh Apartheid-style rules governing internal Palestinian Authority matters, but the designs sure are compelling.

(Photos courtesy of Magan Stamps. Click on the images to see them a little larger.)

Neville Chamberlain Announces Bipartisan Deal on Peace

Here's the video footage of the quote I posted the other day. Below, German Chancellor Adolf Hitler modestly notes his commitment to compromise.


Oh wait, is that the right photo? No matter, same difference. And this shameful appeasement of teabagger extremists will have the same result on preserving the economy of American working people as Neville Chamberlain's appeasement had on peace. Have you ever seen jowls McConnell smile like that before?

Fascinatingly, only half of the Democratic members of the House voted for this travesty today: the bill belongs to the President and his new Republican allies.