an inspirational story even for us cynical radicals

Gary told me he got all choked up while reading this story about two high school basketball teams who rallied around one player in a time of personal crisis, even sacrificing scoring opportunities.

Our sporting culture is a reflection of a lot of different social, material and ideological forces. The ability to transcend competitive pressure is truly a sign of moral, and therefore social, advancement. This reminds me of the oft-told stories of the Christmas Truce and other situations of informal armistice (meaning an armistice not imposed by high command; a fascinating and heartening possibility for humanity).

Both of these high school hoops teams are to be commended. Heck yeah, good job.

Niiiice

Really inspiring news about the Hadash Party in Israel:

The Arab-Jewish front's new campaign slogan is "Jews and Arabs Refuse to Be Enemies. Hadash -- the Opposite of Lieberman."

Well-done, comrades!

What I learned today

Carrie Menkel-Meadow tells Parents' Circle that the new, younger generations of Arabs and Israelis, as well as those who have suffered, could find a way to end the conflict.

Obama has appointed stumbling bumblef**ks to "reform" social security.

Michael Phelps is getting screwed by our tired insistence on prohibition.

Sarah Palin is a tax cheat.

White supremacists continue to recruit in the military.

Fears that Obama will turn his back on the people who elected him

Among the left journals in the intertubes, Alternet has, to their credit I think, really turned up the heat on Obama's economic "centrism." Centrism, you might be aware, is really free-market dogmatism in drag, and it's become a stealth rhetorical term for those who are opposed to spending money to help the poor and unemployed, while supporting bailouts on the rich. Centrism also means not holding the Bush administration accountable for crimes against the state and humanity. Obama has appeared, at least to his supporters on the left, to be extremely eager to please the very forces who have (a) treated him with contempt bordering on racism, and (b) caused, with their greed and excess (at least) the disaster befalling America's working class today.

But back to Alternet. In this morning's edition alone, there are four pieces that can reasonably be taken as attacks, direct criticisms, critical analyses, of Obama: There's Obama being duped about coal. There's Obama being accused of refusing to get his hands dirty while Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner drove the markets off the cliff with his stupid plan. And, a rather disturbing cover story wondering whether Obama will fight against attempts to loot Social Security to pay for bank bailouts. "Behind closed doors," writes William Greider, "powerful interests" are trying to convince the President to do just that. But if that's not enough in a single daily edition, Glenn Greenwald explains why liberals risk losing their power if they remain beholden to a leader (perhaps any leader, perhaps this particular one).

Of course, this is all a good thing, whether or not the President does what so many people on the left are justifiably suspicious he will do. Of course, it's equally important to form political strategies that make Presidential politics irrelevant, but pointing out how the savior is not really a savior is a vital part of that process, particularly now.

"But I am the eternal optimist..."

Howard Kurtz complained that Obama's long-winded press conference left no time for analysis from network news. Are you sure that's a bad thing, Howard? Oh, you are? Well of course you are.
As always, Patrick Martin brings it home:

He was silent on the enormous growth of social inequality—the chasm between the super-rich and the great mass of the working population, which is wider than it has ever been in America. This social gulf is both a symptom of the financial disaster and the principal obstacle to any effort to resolve it, since any serious program to address the economic emergency involves making inroads into the property interests of the billionaires.

If there is a more astute observation about the Stimpotent Plan (yes I just made that up), I'd like to hear it. Readers?

the real enemies

Reading Marsha B. Cohen's piece on what Obama should say to Iran, I thought: You know, of course some people in Iran want to destroy the U.S.A. (and the feeling is mutual among some American thugs). But there are also considerable people in the U.S.A. who want to destroy the U.S.A., and others content to watch it burn if they can get away with a few extra bucks. American CEOs have done more damage to our Republic than every anti-American Islamic fundamentalist in the world combined. I say Obama should talk with Ahmadinejad without preconditions, while locking up parachute-riding CEOs at a Gitmo-style compound in Saipan.

justice FAIL

CIA officers who participated in illegal interrogations will not be prosecuted by the Obama administration. That's the word of Leon Panetta, Obama's likely CIA director. Listen not only to the information from this Associated (dissociated) Press report, but also to some of the language AP uses and does not use.

The Obama administration will not prosecute CIA officers who participated in harsh interrogations that critics say crossed the line into torture, CIA Director-nominee Leon Panetta said Friday. ...It was the clearest statement yet on what Panetta and other Democratic officials had only strongly suggested: CIA officers who acted on legal orders from the Bush administration would not be held responsible for those policies. On Thursday, he told senators that the Obama administration had no intention of seeking prosecutions for that reason.

The illegality has been established. The interrogators were competent people capable of understanding the law, and are co-culpible alongside the walking excrement that occupied the White House from 2001 to 2009. These are not grunts like Lynndie England.

"It was my opinion we just can't operate if people feel even if they are following the legal opinions of the Justice Department" they could be in danger of prosecution...Panetta demurred on saying whether the Obama administration would take legal action against those who authorized or wrote the legal opinions that, for a time, set an extremely high legal bar for an action to constitute torture.
...Panetta told the committee that the Obama administration will continue to hand foreign detainees over to other countries for questioning, but only if it is confident the prisoners will not be tortured in the process...some former prisoners subjected to the process — known as "extraordinary rendition" — during the Bush administration's anti-terror war contend they were tortured. Proving that in court has proven difficult, as evidence they are trying to use has been protected by the president's state secret privilege.

Translation: The game has been stacked against justice (little j not DOJ) all along, and that's not going to change. Maybe Obama even means it when he says (in essence) "it won't happen again," but even if that were true, it means, on balance, a net negative for justice if nobody is held accountable. But it's more than just that. Democrats tend to be very pro-international law and pro-human rights legal regimes when they are academics, law professors, and "outsider" activists. When they end up in the White House, a lot of that ends up getting tossed out of the car somewhere between Ohio and Virginia. Obama should just be honest and say that his election has not changed, will not change, the fact that if you're powerful enough you can hurt and kill people. He should just tell people to suck it up.

One complicating factor in Panetta's evasion: If, as Brad Friedman points out, Eric Holder's answers to questions about waterboarding commit him to prosecuting Bush administration officials, then Holder and Panetta are somewhat at odds, although I am pretty sure how that will be resolved.

I miss my dad.

some sweet verse

Came across this great piece by Vi Ransel. I hope we hear more from this forthright poet.

Globalization
(or The Sting)
by Vi Ransel

The deal white Americans
made with their leaders
allowed them the luxury
of feeling racially superior.

But they didn't read the fine print.
The deal gave leaders the option
to get rid of American labor
by outsourcing production.

While they'd benefited from the methods
used to keep Black Americans down,
they never thought their leaders
would take it and turn it around.

They're learning too late
being white's not enough.
They've been conned out of America
and they set themselves up.

It was never about color.
It was just business. Capitalist business.
But white Americans won't admit it
'til it's too late to fix it.

"It's not personal, it's just business."
Michael Corleone (The Godfather, Part I)

clumsy attempt to invent a real pro-life movement

Media clumsiness reigns, although we'll see how long the Los Angeles Times keeps this photo up which basically contradicts (or at least severely problematizes) their headline. The headline reads "Anti-Abortion Marchers Hope Obama's Listening." For good measure, the teaser beneath the headline reads "Thousands in Washington commemorate Roe vs. Wade and speak up against the president's position on abortion rights." The event the Times is covering is the anti-abortion "march for life" that conveniently coincides with Obama's innauguration this year. There, in the midst of a couple of visible pro-life signs was a very firm NOW sign saying "Keep abortion legal." The sign-holder, apparently a "Lisa King of Washington, D.C.," is identified by name. There is no mention in the artcle of any pro-choice demonstrators. Nor is there any critical reflection in the article concerning demographics or numbers (eg, the consistent pro-choice majority in the U.S.). Instead, there is a tone that strongly suggests the Times, like the rest of the mainstream media, is more interested in generating controversies that imply overwhelming conservative opposition to an Obama presidency. In this case, they betrayed themselves with a photo...or perhaps a photographer (Carolyn Cole, also of the Los Angeles Times) and page editor betrayed the unreflective tone of the article by Ben Meyerson. My friend Jimbo would call this a journalistic "fail." I call it great fun.

An Urgent Plea from Parents' Circle

I thought this was worth posting. It's from the latest update on the Parents' Circle web site:

We, the Palestinian and Israeli Members of the PCFF, Bereaved Families Supporting Reconciliation and Peace Make This Urgent Appeal;

To those who can make a difference to the daily reality of the Palestinian and Israeli people

To those who know that the negotiation of a cease fire is not enough and that it would only mean a temporary hiatus until the next round of killing

To those who understand that freedom of movement and the right to an independent and viable state for the Palestinian nation is a basic requisite for solving the conflict

To those who understand that Israel's need for security is legitimate and that without it, no solution is possible

To those who care about both peoples

To those who only care about one side

We implore you to force all sides to sit around a table and find a way to stop the never ending cycle of violence so that finally we can live with a permanent sense of safety and dignity, which every nation deserves.

Thoughts on Gaza

For Israel and Palestine to live in peace, whether as one whole state or two, they need an entirely new kind of leadership. Both of them, and us too, to better accomodate solutions grounded in an authentic desire for peace, and the resources necessary to guarantee Palestinian self-sufficiency and Israeli security.

Most activists and academics seem obsessed with the blame question, their anger towards whichever other side blurring their anger over the existential question of the conflict. This doesn't make sense to me. When we witness our friends or family fighting, we try to stop the fight first. Of course, in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, one side or the other is going to seem alien to us. That's precisely why we should turn to organizations like Parents' Circle, groups of Israeli Arabs (haven't read the new Newsweek article on that, but I intend to soon), and, where possible, Palestinian critics of Hamas.

Those defending the Palestinian leadership (I'm talking Hamas in the Gaza context) need to acknowledge the reality that many ordinary Israeli citizens live in fear of terrorist attacks. They need to accept that reality even though there are some words in there uncomfortable to discourse-leftys. They also need to distance themselves from violence against innocents--or at least admit that they favor it so we can mock or ignore them. (I'm not talking about understanding the root of such violence. We need to do that, but we can do that without favoring it politically or tactically. It's precisely the break away from such violence that will distinguish the successful, creative Palestinian leadership I am wishing for.)

Those defending Israel's military campaign have already lost the ability to sincerely wish for a nonviolent solution to the conflict. Even if Israel is merely retaliating, to defend retaliation--particularly when it results in such a higher death count than what it retaliates against-- is to renounce one of the core principles, and arguably the core political implication, of New Testament ethics; it is to distance oneself from one of the few genuinely consistently successful political strategies of the 20th century. And it admits, without explicitly bothering to do so, that the dead three year-old boy, the sobbing mother, and homeless people who have done nothing more than live within the borders of misleaders, are all acceptable byproducts of Israel's decisions. That last one puts Israel's supporters precariously close to where the most cynical --or mentally unstable-- Palestinian leader may be found.

I want leaders in Palestine, Israel and America, not misleaders. I don't care whether the solutions forged are secular, spiritual, material, financial, capitalist or socialist. I want the adults to grow up so the children can grow up. You won't hear the mainstream media talking much about misleadership, at least in a thematic way. Corporate media is too bound up in the fate of its subject matter to be able to imagine or predict a Gandhi or Martin Luther King. As long as we let media sensationalists, weapons makers, and religious fanatics set the tone, mainstream public discussions will fail.

Alternative media is another story. As long as progressives are willing to listen to both sides, our fora may be the key to finding common ground. I'll be moderating a debate between Professors Jason Steck and Stephen Zunes on Saturday, January 24 on Shared Sacrifice Radio, on the subject of Gaza. My role in that debate will be one of neutral moderator, so nobody should worry about whether my personal feelings about the issue will bleed into any of the questions. But if anyone wants to suggest questions to ask our opposing scholars, feel free to send some my way.

Milgram Again! 45 Years Later

Having so often discussed the original Milgram experiment with friends, colleagues, students and teachers, I never thought the experiment would be repeated, but it has been.

From yesterday's New York Times, Adam Cohen provides the juicy details:

Jerry Burger of Santa Clara University replicated the experiment and has now published his findings in American Psychologist. He made one slight change in the protocol, in deference to ethical standards developed since 1963. He stopped when a participant believed he had administered a 150-volt shock. (He also screened out people familiar with the original experiment.)
Professor Burger’s results were nearly identical to Professor Milgram’s. Seventy percent of his participants administered the 150-volt shock and had to be stopped. That is less than in the original experiment, but not enough to be significant.
Much has changed since 1963. The civil rights and antiwar movements taught Americans to question authority. Institutions that were once accorded great deference — including the government and the military — are now eyed warily. Yet it appears that ordinary Americans are about as willing to blindly follow orders to inflict pain on an innocent stranger as they were four decades ago...The findings of these two experiments should be part of the basic training for soldiers, police officers, jailers and anyone else whose position gives them the power to inflict abuse on others.

I'd love to know a little more about the change in the research protocols and the new screening process, as well as what motivated the researchers this time around. I'll be checking out Professor Burger's article in American Psychologist...and don't anyone get any bright ideas.

My Christmas Present

My 20-month old son Noah just climbed on my lap, pointed to the monitor and said "A." Then he pointed to a soda can and said "Not A."

He repeated this a few times. That this was for my benefit was made clear by the expression on his face. When he was satisfied I understood, he lept off my lap and happily walked away.



May everyone feel love this Christmas.

ecclecicism on steroids

Listening to the oddest mixture of ska, ragtime, folk, progressive and even medieval music tonight...

Mark Nichols' interpretation of three songs from Brecht plays

"I Been Around," Ruskabank
"My Friends," Ruskabank

"Oh Lonesome Me," Mary Chapin Carpenter

"Kiss Him Goodnight," The Regulators

"Pretty in Pink," The Dresden Dolls
"Lonesome Organist Rapes Page-Turner," The Dresden Dolls

"Stella Splendens," Cantus Firmus

"We Saw Jerry's Daughter," Camper Van Beethoven
"Good Guys & Bad Guys," Camper Van Beethoven

"Stockton Gala Days," 10,000 Maniacs

"Through to Sunrise," Girlyman

"Bolovan," La Santa Krudelia

"Ragtime Annie," Charlie Poole and the North Carolina Ramblers

"Kamielis varda Rasta," Voiceks Voiska