Leonard Peltier Denied Parole

I am but a common man, I am not a speaker but I have spoken. I am not all that tall but I have stood up. I am not a philosopher or poet or a singer or any of those things that particularly inspire people but the one thing that I am is the evidence that this country lied when they said there was justice for all.

Leonard Peltier

A Wild Surprise for All My Beauties

Spring Song II

And now my spring beauties,
Things of the earth,
Beetles, shards and wings of moth
And snail houses left
From last summer’s wreck,
Now spring smoke
Of the burned dead leaves
And veils of the scent
Of some secret plant,

Come, my beauties, teach me,
Let me have your wild surprise,
Yes, and tell me on my knees
Of your new life.

A spring poem for Easter day by Jean Garrigue (1914-1972), anthologized in the Everyman’s Library Pocket Poets edition The Four Seasons, edited by J. D. McClatchy.

Tributes to Natasha

The lights will dim on Broadway tonight:

Sam Mendes helped break her out of perpetual typecasting as a posh English blonde when he surprised many by casting her as Sally Bowles in his Broadway revival of the musical Cabaret. The role won her a Tony award. “Natasha combined the best of Redgrave and Richardson: the enormous depth and emotional force of a great actor on the one hand, and the intelligence and objectivity of a great director on the other,” Mendes said. “She was one of a kind, a magnificent actress. She was also an amazing mother, a loyal friend, and the greatest and most generous host you could ever hope to meet.”

After shying away from roles made famous by her mother for many years, in 2003 she returned to the London stage to play the lead in Ibsen’s The Lady from the Sea, directed by Sir Trevor Nunn, at the Almeida theatre, where Michael Attenborough had just taken over as artistic director. Attenborough said: “Natasha was a beautiful human in every conceivable way; gracious of manner, witty and sharp of mind, sunny in disposition and stunning in appearance. She was completely her own woman, brave, determined and totally committed to her two major loves – her family and her work.”

Paul Schrader, who gave her the title role in his 1988 film Patty Hearst and two years later cast her again opposite Rupert Everett in The Comfort of Strangers, said: “Natasha Richardson was an extraordinary actress, not just for her beauty, lineage and talent, but for her intelligence and fearlessness. She was brave and smart. I was in awe of her from the time we first met and will miss her dearly.”

Nick Moore, the director on what proved to be her last film, Wild Child, called her “wonderfully generous and kind; a complete joy to be with.”

Praising her “classy and special” qualities, he added: “All the kids in the movie loved being around her. She pitched in and was great with them. She led by example.”

Lindsay Lohan, an unexpectedly successful pairing with Richardson in the 1998 film The Parent Trap, said: “She was a wonderful woman and actress, and treated me like I was her own. My heart goes out to her family.”

 

She had walked away from an apparently minor fall during a ski lesson with Micheal, 13, and Daniel, 12, on the learner slopes at the Canadian ski resort of Mont Tremblant.

However, within an hour she began to complain of a severe headache, and was transferred first to the local hospital, where she slipped into a coma, then to Sacre-Coeur in Montreal, and was finally flown on a life support machine to Lenox Hill hospital in New York, her husband by her side. Many tributes reflected a feeling that the best was yet to come.

The film director Michael Winner said: “She was a wonderful actress – the whole family is incredible – and she had not yet fulfilled her possibilities. It’s a twinkle and a sparkle that has left the world.”

Her father, the director Tony Richardson, died of Aids in 1991 and she was on the board of the US Foundation for Aids Research, where a spokeswoman said: “Our hearts go out to her family. This is a catastrophic loss for them … Natasha’s passion for the cause and timeless efforts gave hope and inspiration to the scientists and healthcare workers on the frontline of this deadly epidemic, as well as to the millions of people living with HIV/Aids around the world.”

Read the whole thing here

IggyCon

From James Laxer:

In this life, there are times when you have to make fundamental choices. You go one way or you go the other. The Liberal Party had such a choice to make: between the formation of a progressive coalition government with the NDP, or propping up the Harper government. The first choice would have allowed for the presentation of a budget to parliament that really would have offered hope to Canadians in a dark time.

[...]

In the face of this, Michael Ignatieff and the Liberals have made the second choice. They have decided to prop up the Harper government. If I had to speculate about the reason for this, I’d conclude that they are more comfortable with the Conservatives and the business community than they are with social democrats, trade unionists and wage and salary earners.

So be it. This is not a personal matter. Although the media is trying to make it seem that social democrats are miffed because they have been jilted by Ignatieff who is now dating the Prime Minister, it’s really about whose basic interests a party chooses to serve. The Liberals have made things very clear. That’s sad, not for Jack Layton and the NDP, but for Canadians who deserved better.

Read the whole thing here

And make sure you read Broadsides

41 & 42 Yuk It Up

Just wrong, on so many levels:

via Antonia Zerbisias “Oink oink” is right!

Geigel Book

Book Cover Design by Wilfredo Geigel

A full leather binding in blue Harmatan leather. The cover decoration consists of a blind tooled silhouette of a female figure representing Salammbo covered with a shawl that stretches across the front and back covers and is studded with gilded stars throughout. The inside of the covers are dressed with sunken doublures of deep blue Japanese paper. The end bands are sewn with three silk threads and the top edge is painted with blue water color paint. 8 X 6 inches.

From

Rick & Adolph

Rick Warren wants the members of his Church to give themselves to Jesus the same way the ”brown shirts” gave themselves to Hitler.  And Russians to Lenin.  And the Chinese to Mao.  I would have thought that Jesus was looking for something a little different.  I’m quite sure he used different tactics than any of these authoritarian dictators.  Far as I know, Jesus never asked anyone to give up their brain or punished people who disagreed with him.

We are supposed to “forgive” Barack Obama for inviting Rick Warren to do the inaugural invocation prayer in the spirit of the “new bipartisan politics” he is presumably trying to invent.  What I’ve learned is that there’s nothing more dangerous to democracy than ignoring real problems and real, material conflicts of interest between people – dangerous to the “have-nots” that is, those who are less powerful economically, politically and socially.  I’m not advocating some kind of war against Rick Warren and it’s possible it might be worthwhile sitting down to talk to this fellow, if only to point out to him the dangers of his rhetoric.

I’m not entirely sure, though.  I wonder how much can be gained from chatting with a guy who wants his congregation to spread out and convert the people of the world to Christianity so that the end of the world can come – remember, not everyone goes to heaven with their glorious leader.  It’s not irrelevant what Rick Warren says.  What he says is downright scary.  It could just be that his followers are even scarier.

Remember the movie “Contact” with Jodi Foster, the scientist who makes contact with beings from another galaxy?  The photo the “aliens” choose to transmit to earth is Adolf Hitler “preaching” in Berlin.  I just hope that neither Rick Warren nor anyone like him becomes as famous as Adolf.

Thanks Barack.  I guess this will get you on the right side for The Rapture.

See this and this.

UPDATE:  The Pastor Rick story is actually worse than I thought, if that’s possible.  Here’s Bruce Wilson at AlterNet:

During his Anaheim stadium speech Warren, sometimes called ‘pastor Rick’ talked about a number of visions and communications he had received from God. By calling on his church members to follow Jesus with the fanatical dedication with which the Nazis, or Hitler Youth, gave to Adolf Hitler, Rick Warren appeared to  be in effect asking his Saddleback members to be fanatically dedicated to Warren’s own leadership, given his role in divining God’s intent for the Saddleback church flock. During his speech, Rick Warren also explained that God had personally instructed him to seek, for the good of the world, more influence,  power and fame.

Warren moved on, from his celebration of Nazi dedication to purpose, and held up Lenin, and Chinese Red Guard efforts during the Cultural Revolution, as behavioral examples for his Saddleback flock, whom Warren called on to carry out a “revolution”.

Concluding his motivational speech, the Saddleback Church founder instructed his ranks in the stadium to hold up signs, from their official programs, with the preprinted message “whatever it takes”. Warren then introduced, as leader of the first nation on Earth in which the P.E.A.C.E. Plan would be implemented, Rwandan President Paul Kagame.

In 1998 under Kagame’s leadership Rwanda, along with the now officially “Purpose Driven” nation of Uganda, invaded the Democratic Republic of The Congo, touching off a conflict that has claimed more civilian lives than any since World War Two. On December 12, 2008, the United Nations  accused Rwanda of aiding Congolese warlord Laurent Nkunda, accused of massacres and human rights violations and whose recent offensive has created several hundred thousand Congolese refugees. [this actually makes me sick.]

In March 2008, Rick Warren’s Saddleback launched an official national “Purpose Driven Living” program in Uganda, a country which was  indicted in 2005 by the International Criminal Court for perpetrating “massive” human rights violations by invading and looting the natural riches of the Congo. Uganda is known for brutalizing its own population too. In the late 1990’s under president Yowerie Museveni, whose wife Janet Museveni has spoken at Saddleback Church conferences, the Ugandan military drove upwards of two million Acholi tribe members in Northern Uganda, through a terror campaign of massacres and bombing, into crowded concentration camps on the Congo-Uganda border where many languish to this day, in what one Former Undersecretary for the UN has described as an ongoing, slow genocide.

Mega-pastor Warren, who will give the opening prayer at the inauguration of president-elect Barack Obama on January 20, 2009, aspires to great moral and spiritual leadership. Rick Warren has called for a second Christian Reformation, and he has stated his intent of inspiring ‘one billion’ Christians, half of all Christians globally, to become personally and ‘radically’ committed to changing the world.

With his impressive managerial skills and through his global network of four hundred thousand Christian pastors who have been trained by Saddleback over the last two decades, Rick Warren might well be able to start such a movement.

“Stop dreaming and start doing,” the “Purpose Driven Life” author told his Anaheim Stadium crowd. Warren described a global Christian movement to bring the message of Jesus Christ to every man, woman and child on Earth. “It’s going to cover the planet,” he proclaimed, “and then the end is going to come.”

Calling for “total mobilization of this church” and “radical devotion” to the cause, Pastor Warren sketched out his vision, which he declared was from God, of a “revolution”, launched through Warren’s “Purpose Driven” network of hundreds of thousands as pastors globally, to create a Christian world regime.

Though Warren’s speech was in the idiom of Christianity, he did not seek to inspire his Saddleback audience with examples of great religious leaders who have changed history through persuasion or other nonviolent approaches. Rick Warren looked to 20th century exemplars of vision and dedication but not to Mohatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King, or any other religious leaders.

With more than a hint of admiration in his voice, pastor Warren described how in 1939 in a packed Munich Stadium before the leader of the Third Reich, young brown-shirted men and women spelled out in formation, with their bodies, words in German which read “Hitler, we are yours.”

“And they nearly took the world, ” pastor Rick told the stadium crowd. He moved on to quote another inspirational example from the 20th Century, Lenin, who said ‘give me 100 committed, totally committed men and I’ll change the world.’ Once again Warren observed, “They nearly did.”

Having cited dedication and zeal of young Nazis and the efficacy of Bolshevik Revolutionaries, Warren moved on to describe how the sayings of Chairman Mao, printed up in the “Little Red Book”, had helped propel the revolutionary fervor of the Chinese Red Guard who had carried out the violent, anarchic revolutionary spasm known as the Cultural Revolution.

With those examples fresh in his audiences mind, Rick Warren instructed the crowd of his thirty thousand to hold up pre-printed signs, within their programs, white letters against a red background, that said  ”Whatever it takes.”

Looking out at the crowd Warren enthused, “I’m looking at a stadium full of people who are saying, ‘whatever it takes, God’.

Initially, the “P” in Rick Warren’s P.E.A.C.E. plan stood for “planting churches”. In a later iteration the “P” was recast as standing for “promoting reconciliation”. But as Warren’s one-hour talk currently on his official P.E.A.C.E. Plan website makes quite clear, the plan is primarily about evangelizing the world and multiplying Christian leadership to help carry that out. Compared to the need to save souls, alleviating human suffering is secondary.

As described in a January 7th, 2008 Daily Beast article by journalist Max Blumenthal, the reputation of Rick and Kay Warren, for work on HIV/AIDS reduction, appears considerably overrated. As Blumenthal writes, “a survey of Warren’s involvement in Africa  reveals a web of alliances with draconian right-wing clergymen who have sidelined science-based approaches to combating in favor of abstinence-only education. Most disturbingly, Warren’s allies have rolled back key elements of the continent’s most successful initiative, the so-called ABC program in Uganda. Their activism, according to Stephen Lewis, the United Nations’ special envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa, is ‘resulting in great damage and undoubtedly will cause significant numbers of infections which never should have occurred.’ “  [emphasis mine]

As Blumenthal’s article goes on to explore, one of Rick Warren’s allies in Uganda, Martin Ssempa, has played a key role in reducing the availability of condoms in Uganda. Known for publicly burning a pack of condoms at Uganda’s Makerere University, Ssempa advises Ugandan First Lady Janet Museveni on HIV/AIDS policy and has successfully lobbied the US Congress to de-fund Population Resources International, a world distributor of condoms. As abstinence-only has ramped up and condom availability decreased in Uganda, the HIV/AIDS rate has begun to climb.

Martin Ssempa has delivered two speeches, and also led workshops, at Rick and Kay Warren’s HIV/AIDS conferences. As public health expert Dr. Helen Epstein described, in an excerpt from a recent book of hers published in the New York Review of Books, Martin Ssempa told her that ‘Satan worshipers under Lake Victoria’ make deals with the devil to stage car accidents and kidnappings in exchange for cash.  [emphasis mine]

Ssempa, a charismatic pastor, runs a church which performs regular exorcisms. Pastor Ssempa is also highly active in antigay activism in Uganda, where homosexuality is illegal, and has publicized names of accused homosexuals who have subsequently gone into hiding.  [emphasis mine]

Media coverage has tended to emphasize the component of the P.E.A.C.E. Plan in which Christians would work to alleviate diseases, such as HIV/AIDS, and address poverty and illiteracy. But the two top problems, according to Rick Warren, have nothing to do with human material or physical needs. The top problem, according to Warren, is “spiritual emptiness”.

As Warren explained to a Dallas gathering of 12,000 Baptists, charismatic and nondenominational evangelicals in May of 2005, “spiritual emptiness” is an acute disorder characterized by aimlessness, fear and lack of purpose, afflicting non-Christians, that arises in the absence of a personal relationship with Jesus; “Billions of people live without Jesus Christ. Billions of people don’t know God has a purpose for their life,” Warren told his Dallas audience. “Egocentric leadership”, the second greatest cause of world problems according to Rick Warren, is due to  a lack of ’servant leaders’ who model their behavior after Jesus.

Having defined the paramount world problems as, in essence, the fact that  evangelicalism has not fully converted everyone on Earth into Christians,  Rick Warren’s P.E.A.C.E. plan squarely addresses that dire need — for the Christian belief system to envelope the globe.

During his Anaheim speech, Warren revealed that he’d received a message from God to seek more influence, power and fame. God, Warren narrated, led him to Psalm 72, “Solomon’s prayer for more influence… in Psalm 72 [Solomon] says ‘God, I want you to make me more influential. God, I want you to give me more power. I want you to bless my life more. God, I want you to spread the fame of my name through other countries.’ “  [Well, Obama has certainly helped out with this.]

“It sounded pretty selfish,” mused Warren but, as he explained to the crowd, God had led him on a path towards solving the five biggest global problems.  

Beyond ’spiritual poverty’, egocentric leadership is the next most oppressive ‘global giant’, according to Rick Warren, and thus a higher priority than HIV/AIDS, poverty, and other material afflictions. “The world is full of little Saddams,” he observed, “they’re in every country, they’re in every church, they’re in every business, they’re in every homeowner’s association. They’re everywhere. You give a guy a little power and it goes to his head.

 

It’s been suggested that hanging out with Warren might encourage better dialogue between Christian fundamentalists and the rest of us – you know, just because we disagree we don’t have to be disagreeable.  As I originally feared, it might be a better idea to put Warren some place where he can’t do any harm. 

Message to Barack:  another thing Warren said in his sermon was this -

Moderate people get moderately nothing done.

Oops.

SuperFeminist

 

Cover-shop from Rumproast

See Historiann and the links she provides for comments on the Ms cover from Shakesville, Feminist Law Professors and others

Comix

xkcd

h/t The Galloping Beaver

Israel’s Irrational Response

It turns out that most Israelis agree with the “shock and awe” response of their government to Hamas’ intransigent use of rocket fire into their country.  But few think it will actually work:

Israel’s massive assault on the militant Hamas organization in the Gaza Strip shook the Middle East this weekend. Few people expected Israel to deal such a blow, with such carnage, against a group whose repeated rocket attacks posed no existential threat to the powerful country.

“What’s happening here is capital punishment,” said a stunned Sabri Saidam, a former Fatah minister of communications, and no friend of Hamas. This was “the fastest massacre in the shortest time span” he had ever heard of.

It should come as no surprise. Since before the founding of the state in 1948, Israel’s military doctrine has been about deterrence, about striking fear in the hearts of its enemies whenever possible. Israel’s weekend attacks were as much about instilling awe in future enemies as they were about shocking the country’s current nemesis.

Now, that power of deterrence is in doubt. A poll released Sunday night in Israel showed that 81 per cent of Israelis favoured the action being taken against Hamas, but only 39 per cent thought it was likely to be effective. Even Israelis appear to have lost faith.

Israel has succumbed to exactly the “strategy” that they condemn in Hamas:  neverending, ever escalating violence (thought it could well be argued that Hamas doesn’t have the possibility of escalation).  I am expected not to expect more from Israel.  Apparently, I am expected to expect the use of reason from people who are universally proclaimed not to have reason at their beck and call, that is, the members of Hamas.  What is apparent to me is that nobody has reason at their command.  At least, nobody who has any power to exert influence or take action, such as the United States or the governors of my own country.  Israel has embarked, once again, on a course of action that has no possibility of ending the violence, but only the surety of increasing it.

Well, what am I expected to think of that?  Or is thought and the use of reason simply to be discouraged?

Nevertheless, I continue to think.  What I understand of these views of the Israeli aggression toward Gaza is that many people find it understandable.  So do I.  On an individual level, if someone kept threatening my family by lobbing bombs into my backyard, I might well be inclined to strike back.  On the other hand, if I thought that would increase the danger to my family while harming people who had nothing to do with the backyard bombs and if I had lots of time to think about it, which Israel indeed has had, I’d think I’d better think it out again.