Friday, October 14, 2005

The Iraqi Bill of Rights

By Micah Holmquist

The draft Iraqi constitution has prompted much discussion in the United States, particularly with regard to what it says about the role of religion in government and women’s rights. However, the document has been edited many times and as a result some portions of the current document have received little attention.

One neglected section, the Iraqi Bill of Rights, reads as follows:

Amendment I

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances unless deemed necessary by the governments of the United States or Iraq.

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Comments (16) | Posted on 10/14.

Sunday, September 25, 2005

The Right to Armed Struggle (In memory of Filiberto Ojeda Rios)

By Mickey Z.

"No other woman in the Hemisphere has been in prison on such charges for so long a period [as Lolita Lebrón]; a fact which Communist critics of your human rights policy are fond of pointing out.”
-National Security Advisor, Zbigniew Brzezinski (in a secret memo to President Jimmy Carter in 1979)

When early American revolutionaries chanted, “Give me liberty or give me death” and complained of having but one life to give for their country, they became the heroes of our history textbooks. But, thanks to the power of the U.S. media and education industries, the Puerto Rican nationalists who dedicated their lives to independence are known as criminals, fanatics, and assassins.

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Comments (0) | Posted on 09/25.

Saturday, September 24, 2005

Anarchists and Others Demonstrate Opposition to US War in Iraq

South African poet, apartheid foe, university professor and freedom fighter Dennis Brutus speaks at a pre-march rally at Dupont Circle in DC on September 24, 2005.

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Comments (0) | Posted on 09/24.

Saturday, August 13, 2005

Helen Keller: Not Blind to War Crimes

By Mickey Z.

In a textbook example of whitewashing, if today’s America knows Helen Keller (1880-1968) at all, it’s the easy-to-digest image portrayed in the 1962 film, “The Miracle Worker.” Brave deaf and blind girl “overcomes” all obstacles to inspire everyone she meets. “The Helen Keller with whom most people are familiar is a stereotypical sexless paragon who was able to overcome deaf-blindness and work tirelessly to promote charities and organizations associated with other blind and deaf-blind individuals,” writes Sally Rosenthal in Ragged Edge.

But, in 1909, Helen Keller became a socialist. Soon after, she emerged as a vocal supporter of the working class and traveled the nation to voice her opposition to war. “How can our rulers claim they are fighting to make the world safe for democracy,” she asked, “while here in the U.S. Negroes may be massacred and their property burned?” Of course, as a woman with disabilities, she was patronized by the same mainstream media that previously championed her as a heroine. The editors of the Brooklyn Eagle wrote: “Her mistakes spring out of the manifest limitations of her development.”

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Comments (0) | Posted on 08/13.

Tuesday, August 09, 2005

Schlock and Gawk

By Adam Engel

Again I saw that goofy puss on enormous screens around Times Square and glossy magazines and color photo Gab-loids galore peddled alongside “Hustler” and “Chic” and other clean, honest, American porn at corner kiosks, and despite myself I laughed and gave Dubya some degree of credit for his courage. Imagine not merely owning a mug like that, but exposing it daily to worldwide scrutiny and certain ridicule! On the other hand, it is a beastly face, both goofy and menacing, the face of an angry mutt, a punim I’m sure had been pummeled much by the sons of other oilmen, spooks and politicos during its formative years. Might be the reason behind all that inarticulate rage.

We Americans must be a craven, sinister lot to “rally round” such a kisser and follow its hollow eyes to only god knows what circle of hell. Or maybe we’re just a nation of children. Somebody must lead the children, since they are obviously not responsible for themselves. Someone must save us from ourselves.

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Comments (0) | Posted on 08/09.

Vermin and Souvenirs: How to Justify a Nuclear Attack

By Mickey Z.

Because Japan chose to invade several colonial outposts of the West, the war in the Pacific laid bare the inherent racism of the colonial structure. In the United States and Britain, the Japanese were more hated than the Germans. The race card was played to the hilt through a variety of Allied propaganda methods. Spurred on by a growing Chinese lobby and vocal American trade protectionists wary of inexpensive Japanese goods, the campaign would eventually help cajole the American public into a pro-war, anti-Japan position. By 1938, as historian Michael C.C. Adams writes, polls showed more Americans favored military aid to China than to Britain or France. Even more so than the Third Reich, Japan was the U.S. villain of choice.

“Periodicals that regularly featured accounts of Japanese atrocities,” says author John Dower, “gave negligible coverage to the genocide of the Jews, and the Holocaust was not even mentioned in the “Why We Fight” [film] series Frank Capra directed for the U.S. Army.”

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Comments (3) | Posted on 08/09.

Saturday, August 06, 2005

Vlady Is Dead

By Ross Peterson

Vlady Vlady was the Russian-born muralist and painter best known for his sketched portraits of 20th-century anarchists and Bolsheviks both before and immediately after the Spanish Civil War. He died July 21, 2005 in his adoptive Mexico. Everyone who knows the man and his art calls him Vlady—Vladimir Kibalchich Rusakov, born in St. Petersburg (Petrograd) in 1920, immigrated to Mexico in 1941.

Vlady is survived in Mexico by his wife Isabel and nephew Carlos Diaz. His ever-exiled father, Victor Serge was a novelist and memoirist of anarchist revolt and Bolshevist revolution who met his death suddenly in 1947 after a heart attack.

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Comments (0) | Posted on 08/06.

Cinema of the Subversive: An Interview with Jordy Cummings

By Mickey Z.

Jordy Cummings says: “I’m writing a book that focuses on what I believe, with input from a lot of people, are the most important anti-war or anti-imperialist films.” Cummings is a Canadian-based writer who seamlessly blends pop culture with political theory in his articles, essays, and “Pure Polemics,” a popular blog he has just revived.

“There have been a few books released over the last couple of years dealing with progressive films—Paul Buhle’s books about the Blacklist, a few others, but none have focused specifically on anti-war films,” he explains. “My intent is to remind film buffs about their favorite movies’ politics and radicals about great films for organizing, with I hope some cross pollination.”

To follow is a brief Q&A I enjoyed with Jordy:

MZ: How did you develop an interest in anti-war films?

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Comments (5) | Posted on 08/06.

Dellinger on Hiroshima and Nagasaki

David Dellinger David Dellinger, the great American militant pacifist, was one of the most prominent opponents of the U.S. government’s involvement in World War II. Dellinger spent more than three years in prison in the 1940s because of his opposition to the war and the military draft (photo, right, shows mug shot of Dellinger after his arrest for failing to report for his World War II draft physical).

At the end of the war, Dellinger helped to launch a magazine called Direct Action. In the magazine’s first issue, which appeared in September 1945, Dellinger wrote an editorial that examined the significance of the atomic bombs that the U.S. government had dropped a month earlier on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

As reprinted in his autobiography, From Yale to Jail: The Life of a Moral Dissenter, the editorial, titled “Declaration of War,” read:

The atom bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki destroyed whatever claims the United States may have had to being either “democratic” or a “peace-loving” nation. Without any semblance of a democratic decision—without even advance notice of what was taking place—the American people waked up one morning to discover that the United States government had committed one of the worst atrocities in history.
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Comments (0) | Posted on 08/06.

Thursday, August 04, 2005

'Karl Rove Isn't the Only Monster Out There': An Interview with Josh Frank

By Mickey Z.

No sooner had George W. Bush won (sic) re-election did the jockeying for position begin for 2008. Will Hillary run? Which Republican will step up? Can the law be changed to allow Ah-nuld a shot? It’s never too early, so it seems, to lay the groundwork for the spectacle of a presidential campaign. (If only the rest of us were so forward thinking.) After eight years of Dubya, will progressives yet again hold their noses and vote Democrat?

“Backing the lesser-evil, like the majority of liberals and lefties did in 2004, keeps the whole political pendulum in the US swinging to the right,” says Josh Frank, author of “Left Out: How Liberals Helped Reelect George W. Bush.” “It derails social movements, helps elect the opposition, and undermines democracy. This backwards logic allows the Democrats and Republicans to control the discourse of American politics and silences any voices that may be calling for genuine change.”

For more on our alleged two-party system, do not miss Josh Frank’s book. To get an idea of what else he has on his mind, I asked him a mixed bag of questions:

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Comments (5) | Posted on 08/04.

Sunday, July 24, 2005

'Like Boys Playing with Flies': 55 Years After No Gun Ri

By Mickey Z.

“On summer nights when the breeze is blowing, I can still hear their cries, the little kids screaming,” said Edward Daily. This U.S. Army veteran of the Korean War was talking about the killing of hundreds of refugees, mostly women, children and old men at No Gun Ri on July 26-29, 1950.

Norm Dixon has written about No Gun Ri for Green Left Weekly. “According to Korean survivors’ and victims’ relatives,” he says, “following a surprise U.S. air raid that killed about 100 villagers who had been evacuated from their village by U.S. troops, 300 other villagers, overwhelmingly women, children and old men, had taken refuge in a narrow culvert beneath the bridge.”

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Comments (1) | Posted on 07/24.

Anti-War Movement: MIA

By Myles Hoenig and Brandy Baker

This weekend in Baltimore, Md., is the annual Artscape. It’s a wonderful venue for art of all kind as well as the usual politicking, especially during election time. Last year, many were out to get out the vote for John “I’ll send more troops if I’m elected” Kerry. Many were also at Artscape getting signatures to get Ralph Nader and Peter Camejo on Maryland’s ballot. Some in the peace movement in Baltimore will be petitioning this weekend to tens of thousands, if not more, demanding to “Bring the Troops Home by Christmas.”

Christmas????

Christmas is four months away and many more will be dead. We all know how effective this petition will be, so when December comes around, we can look forward to the “Bring them Home by Ground Hogs’ Day” petition or the bizarrely quaint, “Bring the Troops Home by April Fools’ Day” petition. Using Christmas also plays into Bush’s psychosis that this is a Crusade. Christmas has no meaning for the Iraqi people the US and its allies are bombing.

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Comments (1) | Posted on 07/24.

Friday, July 22, 2005

Operation Wake Up

By Frank Scott

Our murderous foreign policy led to the tragedy of 9/11, and its ramifications continue. The taking of innocent life in Iraq has caused the taking of innocent life in Spain and England. But still, the impenetrable blobs that lodge between the ears of our leaders send messages to their lips to repeat incantations about war on terror, mindless that they are responsible for terror’s origin, perpetuation and growth.

Many are suspicious at the timing of the London attacks, not yet realizing that our governments do not need to conspire at killing their own people in order to rationalize killing foreigners. Their policy has been killing foreigners for more than a generation now; that is why we were attacked on 9/11, and why Europe has been attacked since then.

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Comments (6) | Posted on 07/22.

Thursday, July 21, 2005

The Eclipse of Venus

By Dave Zirin

Venus Williams and Lindsay Davenport These are called the “dog days” of sports, that time of the summer before the start of NFL training camp when the days are long, the sun is hot, and Chris Berman’s jiggling neck fat becomes almost hypnotic. To fill the 24-hour sports news cycle, non-stories rule the airwaves: Will Pete Rose ever get in the Hall of Fame? Will Larry Brown’s bladder hold up for an 82-game NBA season? Is poker really a sport? But in the painfully sexist world of pro sports, where, as comedienne Bret Butler once said, “harass” is two words, not even dead airtime could force the sports media to abandon their sausage fest and notice the triumph of Venus Williams.

If the definition of sports is competition, athleticism, and cool strategy in moments of unbearable tension, then the Venus Williams/Lindsay Davenport Wimbledon finals was the event of the year.

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Comments (1) | Posted on 07/21.

Wednesday, July 20, 2005

Politics and the Playing Field: An Interview with Dave Zirin

By Mickey Z.

It’s fashionable on the Left to look down one’s nose at the world of sports. To do so, according to Dave Zirin, would be to miss a chance at both inspiration and solidarity. Zirin’s new book, “What’s My Name Fool? Sports and Resistance in the United States” creates a much-needed bridge between the political and the playing field. I interviewed my fellow sports fan/subversive via e-mail.

MZ: Were you a sports fan before you were a radical? How did you come to meld the two?

DZ: I have been a sports fan as long as I remember breathing. My father grew up in Brooklyn and raised me with stories about Jackie Robinson dancing off of first base and trading in bottle refunds for tickets to Ebbets Field. I became a “radical” by very non-radical means. Being in High School during both the first Gulf War and the 1992 Rodney King Verdict/LA Rebellion led me to believe that there was something very wrong with the structure of the United States. For a long period, I thought that being a sports fan was contradictory with fighting for a better world. I thought I had to treat sports the way a vegan would treat a McRib. I went several years in the 1990s with this monastic approach to Pro Athletics. Two events changed my thinking: one was the heroic and doomed response to Mahmoud Abdul Rauf and the book “Redemption Song: Muhammad Ali and the Spirit of the 60s” by Mike Marqusee.

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Comments (0) | Posted on 07/20.

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