American Samizdat Guernica
Saturday, May 04, 2002
Kill Your TV is back from a monthlong limbo.
posted by Evan Daze at 8:06 PM
Chris, my lifelong chum and all around brilliant guy, has created a blog called New Earth. He hits the blogosphere running with posts about the new clean energy infrastructure.
posted by New World Disorder at 7:51 PM
Robert Wright discusses the meaning of "pro-Israel" and "anti-Israel" and points out problems with the usage of these terms. He forgets to mention however, that stating that someone is "anti-" or "pro-" a certain nation without specifying what this person exactly opposes or supports, always is simply stupid and dangerous, because it too easily leads to stigmatization and other kind of prejudices. Or maybe I should say that that is my opinion... Wright says that it still is the "standard" to use terms like "pro-Israel". And yes, unfortunately, many journalists (and others) are so stupid that articles like this one by Wright are still necessary to make obvious statements like the one with which Wright concludes his story:

Rules of usage evolve. Presumably the usage czars at leading newspapers have criteria for deciding when it's time to revise a rule. Here's my nomination for a criterion: When blatant propaganda follows logically from standard usage [of a term - IB], it's time to make the usage nonstandard.
posted by Igor Boog at 3:12 PM
Live Auction Catalogs
Jerry Garcia of the Grateful Dead


Jerry playing Tiger


A bunch of Jerry's stuff that you can own! Tiger is expected to fetch upwards of half a million. A lot of paintings and prints. You can even bid on one of Jerry's T-shirts for $2,000 to $4,000. I wonder if it's been washed? Maybe it would be worth more if it hasn't?

I think seeing Tiger go bothers me the most. Paul Allen — are you paying attention? This belongs in your EMP.

posted by Gordon Coale at 2:09 AM
Throughout music you can find this personification of sound as a despotic life form. [...S]ound generates its own life form and its own world picture. word!
posted by Mr. Planet at 1:05 AM
Friday, May 03, 2002
Mark Bowden (author of Blackhawk Down, a great book made into a dumb, jingoistic movie) has a long profile of Saddam Hussein in the latest Atlantic Monthly.
posted by Evan Daze at 9:14 PM
Some recent links from the sex, etc. beat:
-- Will Robinson Sheff on the tradition of folk songs about sex
-- Joe Bob Briggs obituary of Linda Lovelace; a sad, sympathetic, refreshingly non-ideological take
-- David Steinberg reviews Fast Girls: Teenage Tribes and the Myth of the Slut by Emily White
-- Heather Corinna wrote a moving piece about body image in her journal
-- Good 20/20 report on the controversy over intersex babies, i.e., whether to operate on infants to alter ambiguous genitalia or leave them as they were born
-- Violet Blue runs down the Adam Glasser obscenity case, in which Los Angeles prosecutors indicted a pornographic filmmaker for showing lesbian fisting on screen
posted by Evan Daze at 8:54 PM
Please Help Spread the Word
Take 2 minutes and use this handy form to tell the media to pay attention to Dick Armey's brazen endorsement of war crimes on national television. Please make sure that a call for ethnic cleansing does not pass as business as usual. It is and SHOULD be a BIG DEAL that the head of the lawmaking body of the United States Congress would call for the perpetration of an outright war crime, worthy of Suharto, Mobutu, Milosevic, and Ariel Sharon.

This is something the media must cover, as these opinions cannot be allowed to skate by as if they were inconsequential. Please fill out the form and let the national media know we are not going to let this story die.
posted by A.Q. Jensen at 11:52 AM
Activists Sneak into Church of Nativity
At about 6 p.m. today (ME time), a group of 24 international activists slipped past Israeli Defense Force roadblocks to enter Bethlehem's Manger Square. Running across the square, 11 were then able to enter the besieged Church of the Nativity through service doors to deliver food to the 200 Palestinians who have been trapped in the church for almost a month. IDF troops caught and detained the other 13 activists.

"We took them completely by surprise," says Kristen Schurr, an activist from New York City, who adds that she did not notice any shots fired at the group. None of the activists were wearing protective gear, in solidarity with the many Palestinians who do not have such equipment and have endured beatings at the hands of IDF troops since the Israeli offensive in the West Bank began at the end of March. One journalist also entered the church with the activists, who include US, Swedish, UK, and Irish nationals.

I can't tell you how disgusted I was yesterday to hear about the House and Senate overwhelmingly passing pro-Israel statements . . . then I get home and read what Al Jensen posted about Dick's ethnic-cleansing . . . I really just don't know what to say . . . words fail.
posted by Dr. Menlo at 8:25 AM
Frans Masereel... The City (Die Stadt). "...First published in Germany in 1925, The City is a portrait of urban Europe between the wars, told in one hundred woodcuts of exceptional force and beauty. Frans Masereel portrays parks and factories, shipyards and brothels, crowds, lovers, and lonely individuals with remarkable subtlety and nuance while exploiting the stark contrast of the woodcut medium."
posted by Andrew Abb at 8:16 AM
an interesting exercise...
passed along to me by friend of many years,
J. Griffin, from his aerie in the Arizona desert.
Build Your Own Defense Budget
posted by j p at 5:17 AM
These are the last two pieces in...

The Politics of Verticality
by Eyal Weizman

episode 8: ROADS - OVER AND UNDER



A bewildering network of bypass roads weave over and under one another, attempting to separate the Israeli and Palestinian communities. And the future could be wilder – a 48-kilometre viaduct between Gaza and the West Bank.

The Israeli settlements in the West Bank are dormitory suburbs, reliant on roads connecting them with the urban centres of Israel proper. So-called ‘bypass’ roads were a feature of the Oslo accord. The Israeli government was allowed (with specially allocated American money) to construct a network of fast, wide security roads that bypass Arab towns and connect the settlements to Israel.

The bypass roads, some still in the process of paving, would become a massive system of twenty-nine highways spanning four hundred and fifty kilometres. They allow four hundred thousand Jews living in land occupied in 1967 to have freedom of movement. About three million Palestinians are left locked into isolated enclaves.
[more]

episode 9: CONTROL IN THE AIR



Now and in the final settlement proposals, Israel holds control of the airspace over the West Bank. It uses its domination of the airspace and electromagnetic spectrum to drop a net of surveillance and pinpoint executions over the territory.

Airspace is a discrete dimension absent from political maps. But it is a space of utmost importance – cluttered with civilian and military airways, allowing a vantage observational point on the terrain under it, denying that position to others.

Complete control over the West Bank’s airspace is currently exercised by the Israeli Defence Force (IDF). In Camp David, Israel agreed to the concept of a Palestinian state, but demanded sovereignty over the airspace above it in the context of a final resolution.
[more]

Sharon's vision of a Palestinian "State" leaves Israel with complete control of the water under the Palestinians, the air over the Palestinians, and enough of the surface to split the Palestinians into Bantustans under Israeli control. Does anyone think the Palestinians will stand for that? Does anyone think the Israelis will stop until all the Palestinians are gone?

----------

WWIII is coming, 'I'm sure,' high-level Sharon aide says

The terror attacks on Sept. 11 and extreme turmoil in the Middle East point to one thing - World War III, a spokesman for Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said Friday during a visit to Tucson.

"We've been fighting a war for the past 18 months, which is the harbinger of World War III. The world is going to fight, whether they like it or not. I'm sure,'' Ra'anan Gissin, a senior adviser to Sharon, said in an interview Friday.
[more]

thanks to This Modern World

And don't forget Al Jensen's link below to Dick Armey's call for the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians.

They're all fucking crazy.
posted by Gordon Coale at 2:13 AM
Thursday, May 02, 2002
Follow in the web-steps of Dirk Hine, and others . . . via Consumptive.

Remember: you can't step in the same web twice.

posted by Dr. Menlo at 10:56 PM
From the American History Photo Gallery: A group of poor men hold signs given to them by eugenics supporters on Wall Street. "I cannot read this sign. By what right have I children?"
posted by New World Disorder at 9:13 PM
Nike Loses Greenwashing Suit
The company had claimed that its public relations campaign in which it said it did not run sweatshops could not be challenged under false-advertising laws because it was protected as non-commercial speech by the First Amendment. The California Supreme Court didn't agree, and now a lawsuit against the company can move forward. Considering the evidence that the statements they made were false, this looks like a major blow to greenwashing campaigns across the board.
posted by brooke biggs at 4:15 PM

Dick Armey Supports Ethnic Cleansing of Palestinians
Yes, you read that correctly. The majority leader of this country's Congress last night openly called for the Ethnic Cleansing of Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza. This is a view that is considered extremist even in Israel, and yet an American member of congress can feel safe and secure espousing the racist ideology of Milosevic, Apartheid S. Africa, and Nazi Germany on National Television.

Is there another people in the world whose removal from their homes can be openly discussed in public? Is the US Congress so out of touch with reality that such extremist views can be considered acceptable? Let Dick Armey know how you feel about his racist views that put him in the company of the world's ethnic cleansers and murderers. Spread the word that the US Congress is occupied territory by the most extreme Israel-First racists whose idea of a peace plan is forcible expulsion.

posted by A.Q. Jensen at 10:45 AM
Sshhh....be vewwy qwiet. I'm hunting SUVs!!!!!


"Feel the adrenaline rush of stalking the really big game – like the Denali™, Yukon™, or Tahoe™. Get the thrill of witnessing the tagging of an Excursion™, Expedition™, or Escalade™ with a not-so-subtle message that will leave them scratching their heads. We are trying to use ridicule and social embarrassment to change the habits of the American consumer. Increasing publicity will turn the SUV from a status trinket to the badge of shame that it is. In the old days society had a pillory to shame people out of anti-social behavior."


What message, you might ask? This.
posted by el dee at 5:45 AM
Eric Drooker... Slingshots vs. Tank. From Works by Eric Drooker. Graphics, paintings, sequences, prints, and more by Eric Drooker. "...Drooker illustrated the city's infrastructural stress, housing decay, homelessness, garbage-hunger and bitter suffering of marginalized families, Blacks and youth, with such vivid detail that the authoritarian reality horror of our contemporary dog-eat-dog Malthusian technoeconomic class-war became immediately visible."
posted by Andrew Abb at 5:17 AM
Wednesday, May 01, 2002
The Carlyle Connection by Geoffrey Gray
Late this March, as part of the post-9-11 military buildup, Donald Rumsfeld gave United Defense, Carlyle's subsidiary, the full monty: over $470 million to continue development on the problem-riddled Crusaders, puzzling some military analysts.

"The Crusader has been the GAO's poster child for bad weapons development," says Eric Miller, an analyst who watches defense for the Project on Government Oversight. "Influence is tough to measure, but it's certainly had a friend somewhere."
posted by A.Q. Jensen at 11:00 AM
el dee not likely to think it important enough,
to post in both places, but we think so.
From el dee's Herd of Cows, this MoJo link
posted by j p at 11:00 AM
The Politics of Verticality
by Eyal Weizman

JERUSALEM



From the struggles over Haram al-Sharif (the Temple Mount) to the historic stone with which all Greater Jerusalem is now clad, Jerusalem is an intense case study of the politics of verticality.

Israel’s chief negotiator Gilead Sher has told how, during the failed Camp David summit on 17 July 2000 in the Dogwood hut balcony, in the presence of the whole Israeli delegation, Barak declared:

“We shall stand united in front of the whole world, if it becomes apparent that an agreement wasn’t reached over the issue of our sovereignty over the First and Second Temples. It is the Archemedic point of our universe, the anchor of the Zionist effort… we are at the moment of truth.”

The two delegations laid claim to the same plot of land. Neither side was willing to give up their claim of sovereignty. In attempts to reconcile the irreconcilable, intense spatial contortions took place at Camp David.
[more]

And Barak was a paragon of Israeli liberalism compared to Sharon and the thugs running the show now. Bush thinks he can negotiate with Sharon. We are not dealing with rational people here.


----------

Fear Can Turn Us All Into 'Good Germans.'
We Must Resist It

"I left Israel abruptly after only a few years there. I had met Ariel Sharon personally. He loved to visit the settlement where I lived because that is where his power base is located. His good-old-boy network of Jewish hit men and terrorists who boobie trap Arab cars and do hit- and-run shootouts is located there, and sadly they derive a large portion of their funding from Jewish groups located in the U.S. who receive tax-free status here."

"The beef among Arabs, whether it is Al Queda or Hamas, is that Israel has been labeled a democracy by the U.S., and they have been labeled terrorists. This is not about religion; it is rather about saying what you mean and meaning what you say."

"Sadly, though, the foreign policy of the U.S. is to recognize Israel's right not only to exist but to intimidate the Arabs around them for the sake of putting them on notice that if they ever decide to cut off the oil then Israel will ally itself with the U.S."

"This is a game, and it is sadly a game that has turned Jews into terrorists. Therefore, I decided not to be Jewish, because I refuse to take part in this blood for oil game. I believe in the right of all people to live in peace, and insofar as that is concerned I have taken this position."
[more]
posted by Gordon Coale at 2:37 AM
Tuesday, April 30, 2002
Our Country Victorious and Now a Happy Home - A Spanish-American War Drama in Six Parts (1899, Strohmeyer & Wyman). From Stereoscopic Visions of War and Empire. "...an interpretive archive of 3-D stereoscopic photographs of the Spanish-American and Philippine-American wars, the colonies acquired by the United States at the turn of the century, and other representations of imperialism and empires produced at the end of the nineteenth century and first decades of the twentieth."
posted by Andrew Abb at 8:36 PM
Come together, right now
A pressing moral imperative for the American Left
William Rivers Pitt
truthout.com via working for change

Stop any ten liberals on the street and ask them what they believe in, and 95% of the time there will be unanimity of opinion. Put some of these like-minded individuals together in a room, however, and the likely result will be rage-faced natural allies who have screamed themselves hoarse in disagreement. (...)

It comes down to this: Unless the American Left can lay aside its decades-old infighting and unite behind the commonly-held belief that the policies of George W. Bush are poison to the nation and the planet, he will win a second term and secure the ascendancy of a conservative ideology that has little to do with the well-being of the people. Democrats, Greens and all American liberals must come together in the fundamental understanding that virtually any candidate within the spectrum of the Left is preferable to Bush, even one so centrist as to be tickling the Right. ... (more)
posted by Mark Woods at 6:18 PM
Remember, the best way to see if a politician is lying is to check and see if their lips are moving.
posted by el dee at 5:36 AM
How dare they?

Do we give them enough time to attempt to clean up their murderous rampage? What if we allowed all criminals to do this? What if you committed an atrocity, wholly with the intention of causing mass fear and destruction, and then, upon being caught in the act, your accusers simply allowed you to clean up your mess, to "erase the evidence" so to speak?


Oh granted, I know the Palestinian People will not allow that, but still, you have to figure that since the bullies rule the playground, real evidence rarely is allowed the light of day. Any truths that do manage to make it out must therefore be so damnning that it becomes impossible to hide them. They are too big to be contained.
posted by el dee at 5:17 AM
The Politics of Verticality
Eyal Weizman

episode 6: EXCAVATING SACREDNESS



In a quest for biblical archaeology, Israel has attempted to resurrect the subterreanean fragments of ancient civilization to testify for its present-day rights above ground.

When the Zionists first arrived in Palestine late in the nineteenth century, the land they found was strangely unfamiliar, different from the one they longed for. Reaching the map co-ordinates of the site of their yearnings was not enough. The search had to continue: above, in a metaphysical sense, below the crust of earth in archaeological excavations.

That the ground was further inhabited by the Arabs and marked with the traces of their lives, complicated things even further. So the existing terrain was transformed in the Zionists’ minds into a protective wrap, under which the historical longed-for landscape was hidden.(...)

If the land to be ‘inherited’ was indeed located under the surface, then the whole subterranean volume was a national monument. From this source, the ancient civilisation could be politically resurrected to testify for the right of the present-day Israel.
[more]

I try to avoid the parallels, but people who start invoking mystical mythological pasts to justify their current excesses scare me. Germany did the same thing in the 30s.
posted by Gordon Coale at 1:54 AM
Monday, April 29, 2002



t'was nearly two weeks ago
we attended this event at Herbst Theatre;
a transcript of highlights from that evening
w/Mssrs. Vidal, Lapham, Bernstein, Higgs & Moore
is now available on-line and linked here



posted by j p at 8:30 PM
The World of Thomas Nast. "...Thomas Nast (1840-1902), perhaps the most important American political cartoonist of all time, is best known for his invention and development of popular symbols like the Republican Elephant, Democratic Donkey, a fat, jolly Santa Claus and a lean, goatee-wearing Uncle Sam."
posted by Andrew Abb at 9:36 AM

ok, so Bodily Functions was a top top album by Herbert, now his latest is out and available online for free.He's an interesting man, and big ups to Dan Soda for turning me on to him. Here's an old post from the AJ list... talk about accountability for one's art. tho the 37 seconds of silence seems prolely trite (dat a verb?)

E
posted by Mr. Planet at 12:34 AM
Sunday, April 28, 2002
Installment 5 of the excellent...

The Politics of Verticality
by Eyal Weizman

episode 5: FROM WATER TO SHIT



The aquifers deep below the West Bank are a battleground, just as much as the rivers of sewage split through its valleys by both Israeli and Palestinian settlements.
[more]

The Israelis claim they offered Arafat 95% of what he was asking for. Aside from the fact that all he was offered were isolated Bantustans, Israel kept control of the water underneath Palestine. Every other sovereign state has control of the water underneath it. What kind of soverign state doesn't control it's water? Not only have the settlements been stealing the Palestinians' land, all of Israel has been stealing the Palestinians' water.
posted by Gordon Coale at 7:35 PM
whilst reading the book review section over brekkie this AM...
came across the following mention of very interesting book, appears to be
an item on our ever-increasing "To Be Read & Soon" list.
This next link will provide a little additional info on Ms. Power,
and there you'll also find link to Atlantic Monthly article she penned.
We'll also include link to Carr Center for Human Rights Policy.
oh yahhhh, the U.S. Government has much experience in managing genocidal policies,
just ask any Indian, while there's still a few of them left...
and we'd like to repeat an earlier post, in order to facilitate the
progression of the meme:
thursday evening, watching c-span...
came across this broadcast of speaker William McDonough
at the National Press Club; happy day & lucky co-incidence,
the speech is available here, courtesy NPR. highly recommended listening,
& will leave you asking yourself many questions...
posted by j p at 10:33 AM

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