Malachi Ritscher

(An obituary written by Malachi Ritscher, who burned himself to death November 3rd on a Chicago expressway during morning rush-hour traffic to protest the war in Iraq. A handmade sign reading THOU SHALT NOT KILL was found by his remains.)

Painting by Malachi Ritscher

Chicago resident Malachi Ritscher passed away last (day of week), a (tragic, baffling, mundane) death at the age of (subtract 1954 from current year). He was the modern day version of a ‘renaissance man’, except instead of attaining success in several fields, he consistently failed, and didn’t really worry too much about it. For example, his boxing record in Golden Gloves. The eldest son of Richard C. Ritscher, a music educator, he collected and played many exotic instruments, without mastering any. Most recently, he had been playing a vintage Conn C-Melody saxophone that once belonged to free-spirit Hal Russell. Malachi was best known for his live concert recordings, mostly of local jazz groups who couldn’t afford expensive studios. His license plates said AKG C 414, after his favorite microphones. Upwards of fifty recordings were eventually released commercially, with some acclaim for their natural sound. His archive of live recordings he had documented exceeded 2000 shows. Mostly he was just a big fan.

Also he was a film photographer, with a picture of a peregrine falcon chick published in a local Audubon magazine, and related video footage shown on local television news. He wrote poetry that was not published, painted watercolors in a quirky naive style, and participated passionately in the anti-war and free speech movement. He was arrested at a protest on March 20, 2003 and spent the night in jail, then became a member of the pending class-action suit against the City of Chicago. Arrested again two years later, he successfully sued the City of Chicago for false arrest on 1st Amendment/free speech grounds. One of his proudest achievements was an ultra-searing hot sauce recipe, which he registered under the name ‘Undead Sauce - re-animate yourself!’ It was a blend of tropical peppers, which he grew indoors in 5-gallon buckets, and a few secret ingredients that gave it a unique flavor (pomegranate, pistachio, and cinnamon).

Born Mark David Ritscher in Dickinsen, North Dakota on January 13, 1954, he lived most of his life in the mid-west, ranging from small-town Madison, South Dakota to Chicago, where he moved in 1981, changing his first name to Malachi. As a child, he was intensely afraid of many things, especially heights; he spent the rest of his life trying to face his fears, without ever coming to terms with his fear of people. He dropped out of high school and married at the age of 17, a union that lasted almost 10 years. He became an ordained minister with the Missionaries of the New Truth in 1972, and had performed several weddings. He provided for his family with a variety of trade positions, eventually reaching Journeyman High-Voltage Technician status with the electric utility in Lincoln, Nebraska. He became a Licensed Stationary Engineer in 1987. He was a member of several unions throughout his career, including IBEW, IUOE, and SEIU. He was proud to be a dues-paying proletariat intellectual.

After getting divorced, he relocated to Chicago to work with friends in an art-rock band, which inevitably led to forming a trio called ‘wantnot’, recording and releasing a CD in 1990, with Malachi on bass and vocals, Mike Mansfield on guitar, and Janna Brooks on drums. The cover design received an award from the American Center for Design, which didn’t increase sales. He also designed skateboard decks, flyers, and t-shirts, with similar commercial results.

He was a collector of several things: books, records, meteorites, butterfly knives, keris, glass eyes, fossil tully monsters, microphones, medium-base lightbulbs, and instruments, especially snare drums. He was a man of strong contrasts, and fierce loyalties. There was a joy of life, which balanced a suspicious misanthropy. Endless pondering of existential gray areas could be interrupted by a totally spontaneous act: jumping in his car to drive downtown and participate in the Sears Tower stair-climb (2003). When he read Goethe’s words “Nowhere but in his own Montserrat will a man find happiness and peace”, his first thought was to find out where it is, and then book a flight there. He had memorized Pi to the 1101 decimal place, and would recite it at will. He could shave with a straight razor. He loved cinnamon rolls. He loved the smell of turpentine. He also loved motorcycles, which he wisely avoided. In the words of Stephen Wright, he was a ‘peripheral visionary’. His sense of humor was droll - he theorized that surprise and not tragedy was the most important element of comedy. His favorite joke was to walk into a room, sniff the air, and observe “it smells like snot in here”. His favorite word was ‘ominous’. His favorite two words were ‘Tahitian hiatus’. He always carried his passport with him.

He owned and maintained several web-sites: www.savagesound.com, www.unwinnablewar.net, www.killthepresident.net, www.warwhores.us; in addition he was preparing www.publicparkingparty.org, to promote protection of residents’ rights in Chicago.

A lover of literature, even more than music, he had always dreamed of being a writer. The handwritten manuscript of his ‘fictional autobiography’, titled “Farewell Tour”, was under consideration by publishers. It had a general theme of shared universal aloneness, and was controversial for seeming to endorse suicide after the age of fifty. His favorite classic authors were Proust and Shakespeare.

The metaphor for his life was winning the lottery, but losing the ticket. In the end, the loneliness was overwhelming. He was deeply appreciative for everything that had been given to him, but acutely aware that the greater the present, the higher the price. He was a member of Mensa, and Alcoholics Anonymous since 1990. For him, sobriety was virtually getting a second chance at life. He practiced a personal and private spirituality, seeking to connect across the illusion that separates us from each other. Reportedly, his last words were “rosebud… oops”.

After the elections

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20061127/editors
Nation Magazine, November 27, 2006
It’s Over for Bush

The year 2006 will long be remembered as the Great Retribution–or perhaps the Deliverance Election. George W. Bush’s presidency is toast. Bush’s potential to further harm the Republic has been greatly reduced. Most Americans stopped believing anything he said a good while back. This was their opportunity to tell him to his face. And they did, with such force and breadth that maybe even he and his cronies heard them.

Much credit goes to the voters and the Democratic Party. Not many off-year elections move history in a fundamental way, but this one did. Americans have elected an opposition that can now check the Administration’s destructive policies and investigate its actions at home and abroad, while at the same time putting forth policies that begin to reverse the damage of the past six years. African-American and Latino voters were crucial to the Democratic victory, with a significantly higher percentage of Latinos than in the last midterms voting against the Bush agenda.

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NY Times, December 20, 2006
President Wants to Increase Size of Armed Forces
By THOM SHANKER and JIM RUTENBERG

WASHINGTON, Dec. 19 — President Bush said Tuesday that the United States should expand the size of its armed forces, acknowledging that the military had been strained by the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and would need to grow to cope with what he suggested would be a long battle against Islamic extremism.

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The president’s statements were applauded by leading members of Congress who specialize in military affairs. Loren Dealy, spokeswoman for Democrats on the House Armed Services Committee, said that Representative Ike Skelton of Missouri, who will become chairman of the panel in the new Congress, said after Mr. Bush spoke that “Mr. Skelton has long supported the idea of increasing the end strength in both the Army and the Marine Corps.”

Senator Jack Reed, a Rhode Island Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, said Tuesday night: “I am pleased President Bush has finally recognized the need to increase the overall size of our military. I have been calling for such an expansion for several years.” But Mr. Reed, who served in the 82nd Airborne Division, warned that the battle over troop numbers was not over.

“Now that the president is asking for an increase, he needs to follow through and put the money in the budget to pay for these soldiers,” Mr. Reed said. “It is imperative that this administration step up and honestly budget for the long-term commitment they have made in Iraq. If the president doesn’t put forward a plan to pay for this in his annual budget request then this announcement is meaningless.”

OUT NOW

General Paul Eaton is one of those retired officers who spoke out publicly against Rumsfeld. Here is what the Nation Magazine said:

The fact that so many retired generals are speaking out against the war and against Rumsfeld, and are doing so at such forums as New York’s prestigious Council on Foreign Relations, reflects the depth and intensity of the military’s dissent. Traditional discipline and career-protecting reticence prompt many disillusioned field-grade officers (majors and above) to keep silent. These are “the Carlisle elite,” who attend the US Army War College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, and from whose ranks are selected the generals and top leaders of tomorrow.

The military’s senior active-duty leadership will not openly revolt. “We’re not the French generals in Algeria,” says Army Maj. Gen. Paul Eaton, now retired. “But we damned well know that the Iraq War we’ve won militarily is being lost politically.” The well-read retired Marine Lieut. Gen. Gregory Newbold wrote in a Time magazine essay: “I retired from the military four months before the March 2003 invasion, in part because of my opposition to those who had used 9/11’s tragedy to hijack our security policy.” Newbold calls the Iraq War “unnecessary” and says the civilians who launched the war acted with “a casualness and swagger” that are “the special province” of those who have never smelled death on a battlefield.

With politics shifting to the center and decisive weight being given to the bipartisan approach put forward by a committee headed by Republican James Baker and Democrat Lee Hamilton, one might expect a new plan for Iraq that looks similar to the one proposed on the NY Times op-ed page today by Eaton:

First, on Iraq, the Democratic leadership needs to push the administration to move immediately on whatever recommendations come from the Iraq Study Group led by James Baker and Lee Hamilton. The decision to hold the commission’s report until after the election was political idiocy ­ every day we wait risks the lives of our soldiers and our Iraqi allies.

At the same time, we need a Manhattan Project-level effort to build the Iraqi security forces. A good blueprint can be found in an article in the July-August Military Review by Lt. Col. Douglas Ollivant, a former operations officer with the Army’s Fifth Cavalry Regiment in Iraq, and Lt. Eric D. Chewning. The plan is to create new multifaceted battalions ­ blending infantry, armor, engineers and other specialists ­ that would live and work beside Iraqi security forces and civilians. Some of our troops, working largely at the platoon level, have had great success along these lines; but as the authors note, such small units “lack the robust staff and sufficient mass to fully exploit local relationships.” It’s time to replicate that success on a larger scale.

Somehow I am not reassured by the proposal for a Manhattan Project-level effort to build the Iraqi security forces but maybe that’s because I am an unrepentant Trotskyite dinosaur.

Meanwhile, Chris Matthews had on Mary McCaskill, the new Democratic Senator from Missouri, on Hardball 2 nights ago. When he asked her if she would vote for John Bolton being the UN representative, she answered:

Yeah, probably. You know, I haven‘t had a chance it review all of Mr. Bolton‘s record. But, you know, I am a believer that the president has certain picks that he is entitled to. As long as I‘m convinced that they are serious about beginning work on diplomacy.

While Matthews is a horse’s ass who had no problem backing Bush when the war first started, I did enjoy his response to McCaskill:

What do you think of the neoconservatives, the people who come into the power and believe it is the job of the United States government, not to protect this country but their job, their mission, their messianic dream is to go around the world, looking for governments they do not like and trying to democratize them by force and killing and blood and treasure, go into those countries, overturn the leadership an try to turn them into us. Do you think that‘s the kind of person you want representing us to the world?“

After the McCaskill interview was over, he had on a panel of liberal commentators discussing various things, including Lisa Caputo who was Hillary Clinton’s press secretary. Matthews posed this question: “Are we going to get out of Iraq at some point in the next couple of years with a minimum of casualties or are we just going to stick around another six months or a year to make it look good? Taking more casualties accomplishing nothing we couldn‘t accomplish if we left tomorrow morning.”

Caputo answered as follows:

I don‘t think it‘s a question, Chris, of slow or quick, I think it‘s a question of being pragmatic and being methodical about it. Right now our allies are feeling very exposed due to a weakened White House. Bush to his credit has moved quickly by nominating Gates, the number two to Scowcroft, let‘s not forget this, under Bush One. They are bringing a pragmatic approach back in with a signal to the Hill that they are going to be more middle of the road. So I don‘t think it‘s fast versus slow. Chris. I think it‘s a methodical, logical, thoughtful approach to get out.

Of course, this is not what people bargained for when they voted Democrat. They are sick and tired of this war and it is absolutely imperative for the left in this country to light a fire under Congress and the White House to get out NOW.

The ISO and King Canute

Today’s Counterpunch has the latest installment in an ongoing series of attacks on UFPJ written by ISO’ers. It encapsulates once again the “left opposition” mentality that characterizes their intervention in the antiwar movement from the beginning. Instead of trying to figure out ways to construct an alternative leadership, it is mostly content to wag its finger at the UFPJ misleaders and more particularly the CPUSA contingent therein.

Joe Allen, the author of the article and a name new to me, writes:

“ONE FACTOR in this strategic orientation is the influence of the Communist Party (CP) USA, which plays an important part in shaping the direction of UFPJ. One of UFPJ’s co-chairs and most active leaders is Judith LeBlanc, who is publicly identified as a member of the Communist Party.

“For the past 70 years, with few exceptions, the CP has argued that it is essential for progressive movements hoping to win social change in the U.S. to support the Democratic Party against the Republicans.”

What’s this? The CP orienting to the Democratic Party? This shocks me as much as gambling at Rick’s place shocked Inspector Reynault in “Casablanca.” Of course, the CP orients to the Democrats and uses its influence to tie the antiwar movement to the DP like a tail to a kite. That’s what they do and no amount of ink in the left press will change that. The real answer to a bad strategy, however, is building an alternative. The ISO is smart enough to build the Green Party as an alternative to the DP but I guess they are not smart enough to work with others on building an effective antiwar movement. Trying to scandalize the CP into changing its ways is about as effective as King Canute commanding to the waves: “I command you to come no further! Waves, stop your rolling!. Surf, stop your pounding! Do not dare touch my feet!”

The article concludes with a socialist bromide, namely:

“The demand for the immediate withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq and Afghanistan is the only principled and practical position that the antiwar movement can take to end the misery brought to the region by the United States. Support for the Democratic Party is pulling antiwar organizations further from this principled position–and must be rejected.”

Back in 1970, when I was in the Boston branch of the SWP, Peter Camejo was our organizer and leading out antiwar work. We were beginning to challenge SDS, which had decided that the antiwar movement was no longer relevant. Students facing the draft and horrified by the carnage in Indochina obviously felt differently. After a couple of successful rallies had left them feeling isolated, they began to use violence against us and the antiwar movement. Camejo made the point that politics is not just about words. It is about force in the streets; physical facts. We had to defend ourselves against attacks and build the movement.

Whatever stupidity existed in the SWP at the time, it did benefit from the accumulated mass movement experience of people like Fred Halstead who was a trade union veteran and who had been an organizer in the “Bring us home” GI movement in 1945. Fred brought skills into the movement that could not be reducible to a set of formulas. It involved knowing how to relate to people who don’t belong to your organization and who don’t even share your basic politics. The CP, which still has a vast resource of trade union experience to draw on, is far more skilled at this than the Workers World/Party of Liberation and Socialism sects. The Marcyites pay lip service to the idea of a united front but end up creating narrow coalitions with their own “anti-imperialist” outlook.

I really have no serious political differences with the ISO other than their analysis of Cuba. I would only hope that they begin to grapple with the problem of developing leadership skills, which in the final analysis are going to be crucial for making a revolution in the USA.

The Ground Truth

“The Ground Truth” is a wrenchingly powerful documentary about the mental and physical disorders of GI’s returning from Iraq and their political awakening. Made up almost entirely of interviews with these soldiers and soldier-activists from previous generations, it follows a taut dramatic narrative that evokes Ron Kovic’s “Born on the Fourth of July.”

The first part describes how the soldiers were recruited with false promises of the sort seen on television commercials and made by recruiters, including one former Marine Staff Sergeant Jimmy J. Massey who looks and sounds like a bedrock Bush supporter. Not only was he a recruiter, he was a drill instructor as well. On December 8, 2004, the Washington Post reported:

A former U.S. Marine staff sergeant testified at a hearing Tuesday that his unit killed at least 30 unarmed civilians in Iraq during the war in 2003 and that Marines routinely shot and killed wounded Iraqis.

Jimmy J. Massey, a 12-year veteran, said he left Iraq in May 2003 after a diagnosis of post-traumatic stress. He said he and his men shot and killed four Iraqis staging a demonstration and a man with his hands up trying to surrender, as well as women and children at roadblocks. Massey said he had complained to his superiors about the “killing of innocent civilians,” but that nothing was done.

 

Jimmy J. Massey

“The Ground Truth,” which is directed by Patricia Foulkrod, and dedicated to “soldiers, veterans, military families, and civilians, who may never be counted as casualties of war,” explores how unnatural it is to become a professional killer, which is really what serving in the infantry or the Marines is all about. Despite promises made to new recruits, they all get shipped to Iraq where they all become targets of the insurgency no matter their assignment. Denver Jones, a specialist in the U.S. Army Reserve had his life shattered not by a bullet but by a bump in the road. As a passenger in the front seat of a Humvee being driven recklessly by a fellow soldier, Jones first hit the roof of the cab and then bounced off the seat. A seemingly routine accident left his spine and bladder permanently damaged.

Jones, like Massey, is a stereotypical “good old boy” from the South. He speaks in a deep drawl and wears bib overalls. One can easily imagine a Northern liberal seeing him as their worst nightmare. But his wounds have woken him up politically. In an October 27, 2004 interview with Alternet’s Lakshmi Chaudhry, Jones responded to the question of “What are your hopes and fears now that you look at the future?” as follows:

My hopes are that the world can communicate as people – not governments communicating for us. If we communicated as people, there wouldn’t be disputes and problems and war.

The governments of countries go and speak as though they represent the people of the country. But they don’t represent what the people are actually saying. I’ve spoken to Iraqi soldiers who at one point wanted to kill me. And once we talked, there was no reason for fighting. Their leader tells them one thing while our leader tells us another. And we go on that.

Just because someone is in a “Third World” country, they’re not different than I am. They’re human beings and one of God’s children. Because I have been blessed with the opportunity to achieve what I have, it doesn’t mean that as a human being that I’m more deserving or any better than they are.

 

Denver Jones

“The Ground Truth” follows Iraqi war veterans in their daily struggle to adjust to civilian life. They might be hampered by the loss of a limb, as is the case with Robert Acosta, a former US army specialist, or by unrelieved psychological trauma, as is the case with Navy veteran Charles Anderson. (Anderson was deployed with Marine Corps Second Tank Battalion and was part of the initial invasion.)

Acosta decided to join the army to get out of the barrios of Santa Ana, California and openly admits, “If it weren’t for the army, I’d probably be locked up right now.” On July 13, 2003, a grenade was thrown into his Humvee and it shattered his left leg and blew off his right hand. Today Acosta works with Orange County high school students, presenting alternatives to military recruitment.

 

Robert J. Acosta

Anderson eventually hooked up with Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW) and marched to New Orleans alongside Vietnam veterans demanding that funds be channeled into the hurricane-stricken area. The Nation Magazine reported:

At times the connections between Iraq and the Gulf Coast became all too real, or even surreal. The ruined homes, lack of water and sporadic electricity along the way reminded many vets of the war zones in Iraq and Afghanistan that some had left only months before.

“In Gulfport I heard a pop or a snap and looked back, and one of my guys took a knee,” said Navy corps and combat vet Charles Anderson, referring to the common military position of kneeling in preparation for action. “I went back to him, put my hand on him and told him: ‘It’s OK, we’re in Mississippi now.’ “

Among the marchers was Stan Goff, who is interviewed in the film and seen speaking at a rally. Much credit should be given to Stan for helping to organize the march to New Orleans and other antiwar activities that involve soldiers and their families. Like Jimmy J. Massey and Denver Jones, Goff is a dyed-in-the-wool Red Stater with a deep drawl and long experience in the military. After serving in Haiti in 1994, Goff went through the same kind of political transformation that the younger soldiers featured in “The Ground Truth” have gone through. In his case, it lead to a deeper commitment to understanding and changing the underlying economic institutions that make horrors like the occupation of Iraq possible.

 

Stan Goff

By demonstrating the capability of such soldiers to overcome their training as killers and evolve into peace activists, “The Ground Truth” serves as an inspiration for those working for social change in general. Although the physical and psychological wounds of the war in Iraq are extreme, there are wounds almost as great to working people on a daily basis in the USA from mining accidents to layoffs. If post-traumatic stress disorder led Army Ranger Chad Reiber to pistol whip a complete stranger in a bar and to fight off the cops who were trying to arrest him (he faced a five year sentence for felony assault), is it any surprise that American workers end up “going postal” in increasing numbers? Eventually, the injuries and insults of class society in general will lead working people to confront their oppressors and create a more rational system that puts human needs over private profits. When that day arrives, it will be the soldiers of “The Ground Truth” who will be remembered as the advance guard.

“The Ground Truth” websites:

http://www.aimpages.com/thegroundtruth/

http://www.thegroundtruth.net/

Stan Goff’s blog:

http://www.stangoff.com/

 

Dick Howard: Turncoat

Posted to www.marxmail.org on June 14, 2006

For those who keep track of the Cruise Missile left, the online magazine Democratiya might be familiar. It involves the same cast of characters that crop up in the Euston Manifesto, the Henry Jackson Society, Dissent Magazine, etc. Most of the contributors to Democratiya are run-of-the-mill ideologues like Marko Attila Hoare and Harry Hatchett of the infamous Harry's Place blog, but I was somewhat surprised to discover that Dick Howard has an article in the latest issue titled "Marxist Misunderstandings: Perry Anderson and French Politics" that finds the NLR editor insufficiently "anti-totalitarian", a complaint ubiquitous to these circles.

Dick Howard, as it turns out, was a Marxist in good standing once upon a time. He, like fellow turncoat Norm Geras, seems to have had some kind of affinity for Rosa Luxemburg based on the evidence of having edited a Monthly Review collection of her political writings in 1971. This, of course, was when he was a young radical and before he had become all comfy and neutered in academia. He is now a Distinguished (ahem) Professor in Philosophy at Stony Brook.

If poor Rosa Luxemburg knew that people like Geras and Dick Howard had earned their credentials in the left-academy through her good name, she'd probably spin so rapidly in her grave that a generator attached to her toe would be able to satisfy the electrical power needs of Baghdad for the next couple of years.

Although I have not had the pleasure to read the Anderson article on some specialist concerns about French history that Howard is so hot and bothered about, it appears that its true function is to allow Howard to use it as a convenient peg to hang a red-baiting attack on:

I had come to London fresh from the May 1968 'events' (as the French, in the good Marxist tradition, are want to call experiences that don't fit the given historical paradigm). Anderson had just returned from that workers' paradise, Enver Hoxha's Albania. He had been one of the first westerners to gain admission to Albania, the only ally of China's ill-named 'Cultural Revolution', about which New Left Review was wildly enthusiastic. The details of our encounter are not important (I don't remember them, nor, I imagine, does he). What counts is the symbolism: two paradigms, one trying to understand the new, in this case, a mutation of a democratic republic to what I would later come to call a republican democracy, the other seeking to restructure an old paradigm, the dream of a socialist society in which unity would replace division, the individual finding the meaning of life in a social calling.

You know the drill. Just make an amalgam between Noam Chomsky and Pol Pot or Perry Anderson and Enver Hoxha and you demonstrate your bona fides to polite liberal public opinion of the sort Dissent Magazine caters to. (Have you heard that Dissent and Commentary are planning to merge? The new journal will be called Dysentery.)

The hatred for the NLR is almost palpable in these circles, by the way. Just look at turncoat Fred Halliday's fulminations against Tariq Ali in Salmagundi and it is enough to make you want to shell out $52 for a subscription. I guess the reason that people like Dick Howard, Fred Halliday and Norm Geras are so bilious about the journal is that it reminds them of their youth. Too bad they can't turn back the clock and relive life as a member of the Labour Party or the Democratic Party rather than be tainted with all that socialism nonsense.

Howard, like Geras and Christopher Hitchens, seems to be just another 'leftist' who made a mad dash to the right after September 11th, 2001. In an article on his web page at Stony Brook titled "After September 11th: Chances for a Left Foreign Policy," he makes the case for forging a united front with the Bush administration framed in terms of Democratic Party centrism, with a truly disgusting abuse of Marxist jargon. It starts as follows:

A leftist (or “progressive&rdquo American intellectual is expected to criticize his government. That seems to be the reason that many Europeans were astonished, for example, to find the name of a Socialist intellectual like Michael Walzer co-existing peacefully with people of rather different convictions on petitions supporting the Bush administration response to September 11th. And when the progressive American speaks foreign tongues, it is expected that he will go on to deplore American isolationism–or unilateralism, or both, as sins of equal evil. He will be expected, in short, to be more European than the Europeans. Hence, let me say at the outset, in French, that “tout comprendre n’est pas tout pardonner.” And let me explain myself by adding, in German, a sort of Feuerbachian Umkehrung of Marx’s famous 11th Thesis: “Die Politiker haben die Welt nur verändern wollen, es kommt aber darauf an, sie zu verstehen.”

The 11^th Thesis is best known to us in the English translation: "The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point is to change it." If poor Karl Marx knew that he was being quoted in order to justify a "war on terror" that would lead to hundreds of thousands of dead civilians, torture, kidnapping, suspension of civil liberties and press censorship, he'd probably join Rosa Luxemburg in a spinning contest.

Cuba, Columbia and Vaclav Havel

Just received in an end of year update from my boss, Lee Bollinger, president of Columbia University:

PRESIDENT VÁCLAV HAVEL RESIDENCY

Hosting significant world leaders in programs that allow us to connect knowledge across academic, cultural, and national boundaries is now a regular part of our campus life. Next semester, we will have one of the truly transformational leaders of our time join us for a more extended exchange with Columbia students and faculty. This coming October, Václav Havel­the last president of Czechoslovakia and the first president of the Czech Republic­will take up an 8-week residency at Columbia. A poet, playwright, and champion of humanistic values, President Havel embodies the convergence of the arts and humanities with civic leadership, and we are honored to have him be part of our academic community. It is especially notable that one of President Havel’s plays will be on the syllabus in Literature and the Humanities, and he himself will deliver the class-wide lecture as part of the Core Curriculum. In addition to working closely with the College and the faculty in the Core, Gregory Mosher and the Columbia University Arts Initiative are collaborating with colleagues at the School of the Arts, SIPA, and across the University on this remarkable endeavor, and we expect many more details to come into focus as President Havel’s visit draws closer.

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http://havanajournal.com/politics/entry/the-discreet-terror-of-fidel-castro-vaclav-havel/

The discreet terror of Fidel Castro - Vaclav Havel

Three years ago the EU imposed sanctions on Castro’s government, but these were soon undermined by cowardly accommodation. There are more opportunities, however, for Europe to show political responsibility.

By Vaclav Havel and others

This spring marks the third anniversary of the wave of repression in which Fidel Castro’s regime arrested and handed down long sentences to 75 leading Cuban dissidents. Soon afterward, many friends and I formed the International Committee for Democracy in Cuba.

The bravery of those who found their social conscience, overcame fear and stood up to communist dictatorship remains fresh in my memory. It reminds me of the jingle of keys that rang out on Prague’s Wenceslas Square­and later around the rest of what was then Czechoslovakia­in the autumn of 1989.

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Lee Bollinger remarks at this year's commencement:

Oswaldo Payá Citation

I am supposed to have the duty of presenting Oswaldo Payá, to whom the Trustees have awarded an honorary doctor of laws. Unfortunately, his chair here is empty. Mr. Paya could not join us on this occasion because the Government of Cuba has not granted him an exit visa to be here. We were prepared to confer the degree, but Mr. Paya has written us to ask that Columbia's leadership allow him to receive the degree in person when he is free to travel. We all look forward to that day. For the present, this is what we would have read to you about him:

Engineer, journalist, activist, tireless campaigner for human rights and advocate for the people of Cuba, you represent the aspirations of millions around the world yearning for freedom and democracy. Based on the Cuban constitution itself, your Varela Project­a peaceful civic initiative to gather signatures across Cuba for the establishment of a free and democratic citizenry — is a model of civic activism. At great personal sacrifice and despite nearly constant surveillance and harassment, you have remained committed to nonviolent dissidence and political change. You embody a life of principle in practice and we are proud to celebrate your extraordinary dedication to peaceful, democratic values by conferring on you the degree of doctor of laws, honoris causa.

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July 29, 2002

The Censors Go Global

From Havel to Ashcroft, Baja to Reno

by Dave Marsh

The Czech Republic just passed a law giving anyone "promoting drugs" up to five years in prison. So much for the Velvet Revolution. Pathetically ineffectual President Vaclav Havel, a leader of the Velvet Revolution, is currently hospitalized. But when two dozen Czech artists turned themselves to the Prague cops on July 2, ratting themselves out by handing over "incriminating" CDs, Havel was on the street. He offered no support to the critics of this regime.

The Czech law says that anyone who encourages or, supports "the abuse of habit-forming substances other than alcohol through the press, film, radio, television, publicly accessible computer networks, or or in any other comparatively effective way" gets one to five in the slammer. Come to think of it, Havel, dying of lung cancer as the result of very public use of the addictive substance tobacco, probably should turn himself in. He could write his next book on the back of the 6,000 signature petitions handed to him on July 1 by Art Against Censorship, a group that staged a Prague concert against the new law.

full: http://www.counterpunch.org/marsh0729.html

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The Gazette (Montreal, Quebec)

January 31, 2003 Friday Final Edition

United behind the U.S.: Eight European leaders back Bush. UN Security Council will lose credibility if it allows Iraq to violate resolution

by: Jose Maria Aznar, Jose Manuel Durao Barroso, Silvio Berlusconi, Tony Blair, Peter Medgyessy, Leszek Miller and Anders Fogh Rasmussen

The real bond between the United States and Europe is the values we share: democracy, individual freedom, human rights and the rule of law. These values crossed the Atlantic with those who sailed from Europe to help create the United States. Today, they are under greater threat than ever.

The attacks of Sept. 11 showed just how far terrorists - the enemies of our common values - are prepared to go to destroy them. Those outrages were an attack on all of us. In standing firm in defence of these principles, the governments and people of the United States and Europe have amply demonstrated the strength of their convictions. Today more than ever, the trans-Atlantic bond is a guarantee of our freedom.

We in Europe have a relationship with the United States that has stood the test of time. Thanks in large part to American bravery, generosity and far-sightedness, Europe was set free from the two forms of tyranny that devastated our continent in the 20th century: nazism and communism. Thanks, too, to the continued co-operation between Europe and the United States, we have managed to guarantee peace and freedom on our continent. The trans-Atlantic relationship must not become a casualty of the current Iraqi regime's persistent attempts to threaten world security.

In today's world, more than ever before, it is vital that we preserve that unity and cohesion. We know that success in the day-to-day battle against terrorism and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction demands unwavering determination and firm international cohesion on the part of all countries for whom freedom is precious.

The Iraqi regime and its weapons of mass destruction represent a clear threat to world security. This danger has been explicitly recognized by the United Nations. All of us are bound by Security Council Resolution 1441, which was adopted unanimously. We Europeans have since reiterated our backing for Resolution 1441, our wish to pursue the UN route and our support for the Security Council, at the Prague NATO summit and the Copenhagen European Council.

In doing so, we sent a clear, firm and unequivocal message that we would rid the world of the danger posed by Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction. We must remain united in insisting that his regime is disarmed. The solidarity, cohesion and determination of the international community are our best hope of achieving this peacefully. Our strength lies in unity.

The combination of weapons of mass destruction and terrorism is a threat of incalculable consequences. It is one at which all of us should feel concerned. Resolution 1441 is Saddam Hussein's last chance to disarm using peaceful means. The opportunity to avoid greater confrontation rests with him. Sadly, this week the UN weapons inspectors have confirmed that his long-established pattern of deception, denial and non-compliance with UN Security Council resolutions is continuing.

Europe has no quarrel with the Iraqi people. Indeed, they are the first victims of Iraq's current brutal regime. Our goal is to safeguard world peace and security by ensuring that this regime gives up its weapons of mass destruction. Our governments have a common responsibility to face this threat. Failure to do so would be nothing less than negligent to our own citizens and to the wider world.

The United Nations charter charges the Security Council with the task of preserving international peace and security. To do so, the Security Council must maintain its credibility by ensuring full compliance with its resolutions. We cannot allow a dictator to systematically violate those resolutions. If they are not complied with, the Security Council will lose its credibility and world peace will suffer as a result.

We are confident that the Security Council will face up to its responsibilities.

Jose Maria Aznar, Jose Manuel Durao Barroso, Silvio Berlusconi, Tony Blair, Peter Medgyessy, Leszek Miller and Anders Fogh Rasmussen are, respectively, prime ministers of Spain, Portugal, Italy, Britain, Hungary, Poland and Denmark. Vaclav Havel is president of the Czech Republic.

This article first appeared in the Times of London and the Wall Street Journal.

 

 

Kurt Andersen weighs in on Vietnam and Iraq

Posted to www.marxmail.org on June 12, 2006

In 1986 Graydon Carter and Kurt Andersen founded a satirical magazine called Spy that took a no-holds-barred attitude toward the rich and the powerful. After the magazine went under, both made career shifts that landed them editorial positions at celebrity-worshipping magazines of exactly the kind that Spy excoriated. Carter runs Vanity Fair, whose latest issue has an exclusive on Greenwich, Connecticut's new rich: "Viewed from above, the sprawl that is the Cohen estate resembles Buckingham Palace, or Windsor Castle. Even people unfazed by luxury are startled by the excess. One billionaire, whose name I've promised not to reveal here, said his jaw dropped the first time he visited." Just the kind of journalism that the world has been waiting for.

Meanwhile, Andersen is a columnist at New York Magazine, a citadel of middle-class appetites. If you want to find out where to get a bargain on Gucci handbags, New York is just for you. I like to check in on the magazine's website in the largely vain hope that I might find an interesting film review, but also–largely out of a morbid interest in the art of selling out–to check up on what the ex-bad boy Kurt Andersen now has to say.

Kurt Andersen and Graydon Carter

In an article describing their drift, Howard Kurtz of the Washington Post had the following to say:

One sign of the times: While Spy frequently ridiculed zillionaire Donald Trump as a "thick-fingered vulgarian," Carter was among the glitterati at Trump's wedding to Marla Maples — and put the newlyweds on the cover of Vanity Fair's March issue.

In the latest issue of New York Magazine, Mr. Andersen weighs in on the differences between Vietnam and Iraq, a subject of some interest to me since the Irish BBC once interviewed me on the topic (the ingrates never sent me the $100 emolument they promised.) The article is titled "The Vietnam Obsession It’s the analogy that won’t quit–and won’t fly, either. But could Iraq end up like Vietnam? We should be so lucky."

It seems that Mr. Andersen has hopes that after 30 years Iraq could also become a source of cheap labor like Vietnam: "In fact, if during the next three decades Iraq itself follows a course something like that of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam–that is, if it becomes an authoritarian country run by our nominal enemies yet stable, peaceful, prosperous, and apparently happy–we should count ourselves extremely fortunate indeed." (So, of course, does Thomas Friedman.)

Although Andersen is far too much the urban sophisticate to put things in the same way as Sean Hannity, the message amounts to basically the same thing:

In Vietnam we were fighting on behalf of not-so-good-guys against not-so-bad-guys. In Iraq, we really are fighting on the side of the majority of the people (and their not-so-bad-guy leaders) against bad guys. Back then, we fought to prevent a regional domino effect of communist overthrow; in Iraq, we started fighting to provoke a regional domino effect of democratic overthrow. But the fact that this time we are fighting on morally high(er) ground–for bigger stakes against no remotely noble enemies–probably makes the hell-bent, largely avoidable Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld mismanagement of Iraq more egregious than the Johnson-McNamara-Nixon conduct of the war in Vietnam.

This heavily qualified exercise in obfuscation could be rendered more simply as the following: "Iraq, unlike Vietnam, is a just war. And it is really too bad that the Bush administration screwed things up so badly."

Besides questions of winnability, Andersen seems interested in the public mood. "But otherwise . . . how many of us care passionately about the war? How much does it color American life and culture? Compared with Vietnam, the fundamental apathy on all sides is remarkable."

Mr. Andersen attributes this to the fact that this is a lower-intensity war: "Twenty-four Iraqis died in Haditha, while at My Lai several hundred civilians were murdered." Of course, there was even less militancy throughout the 1980s when low-intensity warfare was occurring throughout Central America and Sub-Saharan Africa. As somebody who visited Nicaragua during this period, I was always reminded of how a mother felt after her son had been killed by the contras. From her perspective, the war was always highly intense.

Of course, some of the apathy might be as well attributed to the failure of the news media to do its job. Mr. Andersen informs us that the antiwar protests in New York City have not been so large lately. Maybe if his editor assigned somebody to write about them, they would be larger. I certainly do understand that this might take away from valuable space now being allotted to matters such as "Will Sudoku Kill the Crossword Puzzle?" or "Cheating at the Montauk Shark-Fishing Tournament?"

For Mr. Andersen, the basic difference between the 1960s and now has a lot to do with the American people, and students in particular, becoming more apathetic, a theme that Time Magazine revisited all through the 1980s and 90s. Our former Spy opines, "And in a way that the sixties were precisely not, this is also an Age of Whatever. Thus the Iraq war, even if it ends badly, will cause no great disillusionment about America’s heroic white-hat nobility–you can’t lose your virginity twice."

I imagine that Mr. Andersen is quite the expert on losing one's virginity, given his peregrinations throughout the rather mercenary world of commercial media. As it turns out, he was fired from New York Magazine in 1994 for being, according to Mr. Andersen's blog, "too annoying in its coverage of the then-owner's business and social and political associates." Knowing full well how expensive NY can be and what it means to be out of a job, I can certainly understand Mr. Andersen's decision to no longer annoy anybody else in positions of power.

 

The NY Observer weighs in on antiwar strategy

Posted to www.marxmail.org on June 8, 2006

The NY Observer is a salmon-colored weekly devoted mostly to reports on million dollar real estate transactions and gossip about powerful media and political personalities. It was launched by tycoon Arthur Carter in the 1980s after he got bored publishing the Nation Magazine. Politically, it can be described as falling within the dreary parameters of 'smart' but banal liberalism of the kind found in salon.com, the Village Voice, the American Prospect, etc. Without Carter's millions, it certainly would have gone under long ago. He seems driven by the same mixture of vanity and influence-peddling found in Murdoch's NY Post, but on a much smaller–if not infinitesimal–scale.

In the current issue, there's an article on the antiwar movement ("Where Have All the Marchers Gone? They Feel Very Futile&quot by one Sheelah Kolhatkar, who will write about anything assigned to her apparently:

As one of the few women on Wall Street selling oil and gambling stocks at a mid-sized shop in the late 1970's, Lee Hennessee, a belle from North Carolina, noticed that her best customers were hedge-fund pioneers-ruthless men like Julian Robertson and Michael Steinhardt, who moved fast and bought stock in bulk. Ms. Hennessee jumped ship and went on to start one of the first hedge-fund consulting companies, the Hennessee Group, and has been tracking the ballooning industry ever since…

(NY Observer, "Hedge-Fund Frolic: Where There's Cash", April 5, 2004)

Just the sort of thing that would prepare you for sorting out various strategies for ending the occupation of Iraq.

Kolhatkar begins her piece by calling on the Village Voice's authority on the futility of mass demonstrations:

On April 29, over 300,000 people gathered (depending on who you ask) at 22nd Street and Broadway to begin New York’s latest large-scale march in protest of the war in Iraq…

The next day, they can hardly have been surprised that the protest didn’t rate an A1 treatment from The New York Times.

But more galling was the reaction of New York’s oldest lefty newspaper, The Village Voice.

In an article headlined “How to Kill a War in 10 Not-So-Easy Steps,” the newspaper founded by Norman Mailer in 1955 wagged a patronizing finger at the organizers, then archly offered suggestions from lobbyists and consultants on how to actually end a war.

Not, it seems, by protesting.

It seems rather quaint to dub the Village Voice as "lefty" but I suppose from the perspective of Carter's high-Episcopalian, Park Avenue liberalism, the term might make sense. Then again, to the John Birch Society, Eisenhower was a Communist.

According to Kolhatkar, there's a "certain sluggish, defeatist feeling" in the antiwar movement, UFPJ in particular. Bill Dobbs, who served for three years as the media coordinator for United for Peace and Justice, confesses to her that "The peace movement’s floundering." He adds, "People really have to sharply focus on why Congress is allowing Bush to continue this war."

If it seems a stretch to view the Village Voice as "lefty", then Kolhatkar throws all journalistic caution to the wind by describing the ponderous, red-baiter Todd Gitlin as another "lefty":

“Movements tend to thrive when some critical mass of people have reason to believe that their activities are actually going to have an impact on policy,” the old-school lefty, 60’s protest leader and Columbia professor Todd Gitlin said. “And they don’t think there’s one chance in a billion that demonstrations will change the mind–if that’s the right word–George Bush, so there’s a sense of futility as well as uncertainty.”

This, of course, is not a new position for Gitlin who never forgave SDS'ers for not voting for Hubert Humphrey in 1968. If this is supposed to be "old school lefty", then poor Abby Hoffman must be spinning in his grave.

Kolhatkar has ideas about what antiwar activists should be doing and it is definitely not marching in the streets by the hundreds of thousands:

Last week, for example, demonstrators gathered at 14 Congressional offices around the state of New Hampshire, reading the names of soldiers who’ve perished in Iraq. The whole operation involved around 50 people, according to the Associated Press, and six of them were arrested for refusing to leave Representative Jeb Bradley’s office. But so far, nothing like that has unfolded in New York.

I hate to sound like a dogmatic Marxist, but this does not strike me as the kind of manifestation of social power that can change society. One might be better off writing letters to people like Jeb Bradley, pleading with them to be nice, and sealing it with a kiss.

Mostly, Kolhatkar's article is a barely clever push for the sort of dead-end reformism that moveon.org specializes in. Moveon.org's director Tom Matzzie is quoted as saying, “the theory our members share when they join with us is that they’re going to create change in an election.” Evidently, this is Kolhatkar's agenda as well:

They are mostly focused on the election in 2006, he [Matzzie] said, and nudging the House of Representatives into Democratic Party hands is the critical end goal. Which is offering a delicious hint of hope. “Six months from now, you could be heading into a Congress where some of the most powerful chairmen are staunch opponents of the war,” Mr. Matzzie said, citing the anti-war Pennsylvania Congressman John Murtha and the primary in Connecticut, where Ned Lamont is challenging the hawkish Joe Lieberman for his Senate seat. “That would be as big, or bigger, than we’d be able to win on any weekend protest right now.”

In a way, this makes perfect sense. Ned Lamont is a liberal Connecticut millionaire, just like Arthur Carter. If he is elected, then all that is necessary is to continue electing people to Congress just like him so that in 2 or 3 years the majority will vote for a timetable to get out of Iraq and redeploy the troops to just beyond the borders of Iraq, as John Murtha proposes.

I think Sheelah Kolhatkar should stick to writing about hedge funds. There's far less damage that can be done that way–as opposed to leading people down the blind alley of Democratic Party politics. But with the NY Observer's readership's obvious preference for looking for bargains in East Side townhouses or playing polo in the Hamptons, I doubt if much damage will be done in any case.

Bill Simpich and the antiwar movement

Posted to www.marxmail.org on May 18, 2006

There's an article on today's Counterpunch by Bill Simpich titled "Lessons from the 1970 Student Strike: Building a Movement that will be Stronger After the US is Out of Iraq". It rehashes the old "single issue versus multi-issue" debate of the 1960s and 70s that many of us, including an SWP veteran like me, lived through. That debate still goes on in one fashion or another as last year's controversy over ANSWER's Palestinian right of return litmus test indicates. I have no idea who Simpich is, but he seems fairly knowledgeable about the debate that took place in the 1960s even though he is mostly wrong if not mischievous.

Attorney and antiwar expert Bill Simpich

Simpich views the May 9, 1970 Washington demonstration called by "the radicals and pacifists of what would become the People's Coalition for Peace and Justice (PCPJ), who believed in multi-issue organizing and the need to leaven mass mobilizations with civil disobedience" as a kind of acid test for the antiwar movement.

The PCPJ was a rival to the coalition led by the SWP. Simpich neglects to mention that the CP was instrumental in the formation of the PCPJ since it saw "multi-issue" campaigns as complementary to its own orientation to DP liberals, while the SWP fought to keep the antiwar movement independent of peace candidates. The CP had natural allies in some of the campus radicals who had hadn't made a clean break with bourgeois politics. As an "outside agitator", I took part in a debate at Harvard involving Jamie Galbraith who wanted the Student Mobilization Committee to endorse some liberal running against the war.

Simpich does indirectly refer to the tensions between the SWP and the CP, but in his eyes it appears to have more to do with government "dirty tricks" rather than politics:

A key "dirty tricks" tactic of the FBI involved "exploiting the hostility" between other sectors of the left and the SWP. Like the CPUSA, the Trotskyist SWP (aka "Trots&quot was plagued with infiltrators during this period - a working estimate is that every third member was actually a government informant. James Kirkpatrick Davis, Spying on America: The FBI's Domestic Counteintelligence Program. (New York; Praeger, 1992), P. 137.

As far as Davis is concerned, this one-third figure is utterly laughable. About 2 years ago I challenged Chip Berlet, who made a similarly wild claim on Doug Henwood's list to back it up. He could not. Most SWP'ers came out of the student movement at this time. The idea that an 18 year old antiwar activist recruited out of our milieu at the University of Illinois or Wisconsin would go on the FBI payroll to snoop on the SWP is just ridiculous.

Simpich takes Dave Dellinger's side in a fight that took place that day over civil disobedience. It is literally impossible to make sense out of his version of the events that day since they involve only the word of people who were bitterly opposed to the SWP and to single-issue mass actions. He quotes Nancy Zaroulis and Gerald Sullivan, the authors of "Who Spoke Out", as follows: "So the marshals (who had been trained by Bradford Lyttle and the Socialist Workers Party's Fred Halstead) labeled CD as violent."

This is a really crude distortion of the SWP's views. The SWP did not regard CD's as violent per se but it fought all efforts to foist such actions on a peaceful mass action like cherries on a sundae. My experience with people like Dave Dellinger is that they had a tough time generating momentum for an independent civil disobedience but were always looking for ways to include as part of a more mainstream and massive protest, just the way that anarchists do today. The simple fact that these folks refuse to understand is that the average worker or student prefers not to get smacked in the head with a billy club.

From his rather obscure references to the May 9^th protests of 36 years ago, Simpich veers off into a condemnation of efforts by the Movement for a New Congress, the Moveon.org of its day, to push for electing peace candidates. What this has to do with opposition to Dellinger's views on May 9^th, I am not sure since Dellinger never met a peace candidate he didn't like. Simpich does complain that "The Princeton Plan failed in changing the complexion of Congress, while the few authentic antiwar firebrands such as Democrat Al Lowenstein and Republican Charles Goodell were targeted by the Nixon Administration for defeat." I had to rub my eyes at this. Whatever Al Lowenstein was, "firebrand" hardly describes it.

During his days in Congress, Rumsfeld struck up a close friendship with Allard Lowenstein–another example of Rumsfeld's eagerness to embrace, up to a point, someone bright from an opposing camp. Rumsfeld and Lowenstein met in the mid-1960s when Rumsfeld was a congressman and Lowenstein was a left-leaning activist and a backer of Robert Kennedy. "He almost lived with us," recalls Joyce. They debated politics until late into the night, with Lowenstein sometimes sleeping on their sofa. They grew so close Lowenstein was with the Rumsfelds when their son, Nick, was born in 1967. The following year, Rumsfeld stood beside Lowenstein when he won his House seat from Long Island. Both wrestlers, they frequented the House gym. When Lowenstein ran for re-election in 1970, Rumsfeld–now at the OEO–publicly refuted charges by Lowenstein's Republican opponent that Lowenstein was a dangerous radical. But then Rumsfeld endorsed that very opponent. He knew that his boss, President Nixon, expected him to. "That's when you cease to be an independent operator," Rumsfeld explained. Lowenstein lost and–unlike others who felt betrayed by Rumsfeld–never forgave him. (Lowenstein was murdered in 1980 by a disturbed former disciple.)

Full: http://www.geocities.com/rummyfan/chicagomag.html