Towards a global perspective . . .

Defamation, a documentary film written and directed by Israeli filmmaker Yoav Shamir, is a film that every American should see.     As far as I know, it hasn’t been shown in theaters here, but I’m sure you can rent it from various online sources.   Those like myself, who have Netflix can see it online for free on their Netflix account.   Yesterday, I couldn’t find a place to watch it on Youtube, but got a screen showing a copyright conflict. I wasn’t surprised because Gilad Atzmon’s website said it wasn’t available on Youtube in the US. Today I found that you can watch on Youtube by starting from the trailer on the web page for the film, linked below.

The film begins with the director saying that, as an Israeli, he has never experienced antisemitism, so he is going to explore the subject in this film. Read the rest of this entry »

I saw a performance by Gilad Atzmon a few days ago, and he really has something interesting to say.   A disaffected, anti-Zionist, ex-Israeli, he speaks not only for Palestinian rights, but for a reasonable assumption that no one is ‘chosen’ and all people should have equal rights.  As an ex-Israeli citizen, he critiques Israeli policy and Zionist culture in a way that is quite shocking by standards in the  US,  not that he doesn’t get some serious heat for his stance.

Gilad is a popular Saxophone player and Jazz Artist in the UK, and his music is most enjoyable.   You can sample his work on Amazon and iTunes.     He’s also written a couple of novels that I can’t say much about because I haven’t read them.  However, he has a great website, which I highly recommend.  It is linked in on the sidebar.

Our priceless friend and ally, Israel, has just assaulted a flotilla of supplies with 800 civilian activists aboard and several tons of building materials, food, toys and various necessities.   There was live coverage online from the lead ship, broadcast through a Turkish news station.    Live TV coverage of a war crime, this is today’s media.  This is our world.   Even so, as time will show, Israel managed to come up with a conflicting story and a video of their own to prove it, only a few hours later.  They are ingenious and persistent.

There were around 600 people on the lead ship where the most serious confrontation took place, all unarmed civilians.   Al Jazeera and the Turkish station have video of a stairway crowded with people with people in life jackets.  You can hear a loudspeaker in the background directing people to go to their rooms and wait.   The reporter from Al Jazeera says that at least two are dead and there are an unknown number of injured.  Speedboats race alongside and around the ship.  Helicopters hover overhead.  He says that he is going to join them, and the scene ends, but the Turkish coverage continues. Floodlights are flashing over the deck as uniformed soldiers board the ship from the air and the sea.     Read the rest of this entry »

One of the 5 individuals recently executed in Iran was Farzad Kamanghar, a Kurdish school teacher and poet from Northern Iran.   I don’t know what specific deed he was accused of.   His lawyer says he had a perfunctory trial, with no evidence and no time for presenting a defense.   The others were involved in various bombings in Iran, but it appears likely the crimes Mamostay Kamanghar were more crimes of thought and communication.  It’s a sad world when encouraging young people to learn their ethnic heritage and to fight for the right to assert it is a crime.  Perhaps, Kak Kamanghar did more than that.  We can never know, and in light of following, I’m not sure it matters.

Below is a translation of a letter written from prison to a friend by Farzad Kamanghar, generously posted on Facebook by the recipient.  Whatever he may or may not have done, the heart breaking context he describes with such eloquence is the legacy of the Kurds, not only in Iran, but in Iraq, Turkey and Syria; not only in the present, but through more than a hundred years of  oppression, rejection and cultural annihilation.

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I saw the film “Men Who Stare at Goats” yesterday evening.    I really enjoyed he film, which harks back to a time that was hopeful and happy for some of us.    It was fun and well acted, with big stars making fun of the kind of aggressive parody of masculinity that the military models and idealizes in it’s training practices, and also of the new age practices that were popularized during the 70s, and which have since been commercialized and regimented in various social sciences.    It was silly.  And, it  is based on a true story, which shows that the world is bigger than it seems sometimes.

The film is based on true events during the 70s when the military had experimental units investigating the paranormal and new age trainings that proclaimed to enhance ordinary humans capacity to perform and to empower individuals in unique ways.   They really did want to produce ‘super soldiers’.   Read the rest of this entry »

I found this interesting article on a website called PRNewswire that looked like it was on the up and up – though the website was a little fishy.  The title was: US Government asked to Regulate AIPAC as a Foreign Agent of the Israeli Government.   It begins as follows:

“The US Department of Justice has been formally asked to begin regulating the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) as the foreign agent of the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs.  A 392 page legal filing presented by a four person IRmep delegation in a two hour meeting with top officials of the Internal Security Section . . .”

Too good to be true, I thought, and after all, who or what is IRmep?   A quick search on Google turned up a site that said IRmep is one guy who needs a maid.  Hey, don’t they all?   As the previous complaint said, the IRmep website is a blog, put up by a young man named Grant Smith.  Read the rest of this entry »

Tariq Ali,  a well known Pakistani writer and political activist, has lived in London for many years.  He has written numerous works of fiction and nonfiction.  He’s written books with Fidel Castro and Edward Said.   Tariq Ali has been involved in the anti-war movement since the 60s when he was a student in England.  He is not only an activist, but an extremely wise and well informed critic of the US wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan, with insight into the political and social context inside Pakistan as well as of the international context.  On the subject at hand, he published “The Duel: Pakistan on the Flightpath of American Power” a year ago, and “The Clash of Fundamentalisms” just after the beginning of the Iraq War.   He is also working on a series of novels, the fourth of which has just come out.    Sadly, when I searched the Monroe County Library system online for his books, not a single one showed up.   But, you can find  his books on Amazon.

As you can imagine, I was very interested when my friend Mara called to say that Tariq Ali would be speaking at a college a couple of hours from Rochester.   When she said that he had agreed to an interview, I was elated.    Mara was very excited about meeting Tariq, not only because she has long admired his work, but because he was born in Lahore like her, and in fact, went to school with her mother.  Mara had emailed him the day before the event about giving her an interview, and he had agreed to do one with us after the talk, which was very generous of him. %C

I have been listening to talk about ‘Teabaggers’.   They are down on “Socialism”.  I think what we need to do is to take any Teabagger who makes less than $100,000 per year and allow them to opt out of taxes.  In return, they will give up their access to the local Firefighters, the Police, the Public Schools and the ability to receive treatment in hospitals, just because you show up.

If we don’t cap the income for this program, then we will have created the ultimate loop hole for the wealthy to avoid paying taxes while they continue to benefit.   But, we can still include them.  Since this is about ‘Socialism’,  we can let the wealthy opt out if they are also willing to give up all associations with corporations that benefit from government subsidies and protections.  Read the rest of this entry »

Gathering in Front of the Institute

In late May, I traveled to Suleimaniya, a city in Kurdish Northern Iraq, to teach English to a broad spectrum of children and adults at Prestige Institute for Education, a small private school.   I had learned of the opportunity, a little over a month before my journey, through a friend who is on the email network of Christian Peacekeeper teams throughout the Middle East.  The email exchanges were brief.  I sent a resume that mentioned my 20 years as a computer programmer, but focused on the 2 years I spent as a teacher in a small rural town while I was finishing my degree, and my various avocations, writing, teaching yoga, my trip to Iran and other anti-war activities.   I had a brief phone interview with Sirwan, the male half of the husband and wife team who run the school, and was accepted a few days later. Read the rest of this entry »

After attending Eric Massa’s Town Hall Meeting on Health Care in Olean, I wrote a blog entry that was more a visceral reaction to the stressful circumstance than anything else. A week later, a friend who knew I attended, asked if I could fill her in on what Congressman Massa had said on the issues. Since he did share a lot of information and assert some pretty solid positions, I wrote her an email stating what I could remember of his remarks on these issues. As I was writing the email, it occurred to me that my blog entry was limited in that it really didn’t talk about Massa’s stand on the issues, but rather about my experience with being present at the meeting, which had a nightmarish quality due to the fact that a handful of libertarian protesters spoke at length, occasionally asking questions, but mostly just expounding their positions on a broad spectrum of issues. Since I agree with his stance on many of the issues, I thought this was really a failure that merits redress.

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