hushpoint

Israeli Terrorists Bomb Peace Now Activist & Professor

2008-09-26T13:44:00.001-07:00

Professor Zeev Sternhell on Friday said the bomb attack against him late Wednesday was a sign that settler violence was spilling over the Green Line into Israel proper.

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Rape, Pillage & Palin

2008-09-22T05:26:00.001-07:00

As it turns out, this policy (like Track) isn't one of Palin's babies. And Wasilla, Alaska isn't the only town that charges women for these forensic examinations. Palin did, however, support the policy. Maybe Alaskans can put some of that $1200 per year oil "stimulus" money to use here.

Israel PM Ehud Olmert Indicted, Shaul Mofaz Under Investigation for War Crimes

2008-09-10T18:29:00.001-07:00

Obama will not turn off this faucet

The Israeli Attorney General has been urged to launch a criminal investigation into whether Shaul Mofaz, a leading prime ministerial candidate, ordered "war crimes" to be committed when he was the military's chief of staff.

The corruption charges against Olmert are one thing--not terribly surprising, either. They highlight the instability and volatility of the Israeli political establishment. They've had so much turnover over the last 8 years, since the second Intifada started. Ehud Barak was forced out, Sharon the War Criminal took over, but his extreme right coalition failed and they had to realign. Then the "moderate" coalition took over, running on a hard right platform w/ regards to the Occupation. All-the-while Binyamin Netanyahu has been lying in the cut, waiting for the moment to re-emerge. Look out.

The War Crimes investigation are, to me, much more interesting (if not more significant). I figure it can play out in one of two ways: 1) the investigation will go nowhere and Mofaz will be shifted to a new post; or 2) Mofaz will take the fall to preserve, and even strengthen, the systems that are in place. If you watch The Wire, think Ervin Burrell.

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Obama, Israel and the Continuing Occupations

2008-09-07T16:17:00.000-07:00

Robert Fisk, a hero for real, wrote a lucid piece recently about Obama and the illegal occupation of Palestinian land by Israel. The piece also touches on The future of Iraq, which is bleak, to be sure.

The link to above is to Obama's recent speech to AIPAC (who I've talked about before--some of their members are on trial for passing US Security/War plans to Israel). They are the policy organ for Israel in the US, and every president, Republican and Democrat alike, takes direction from them.

The speech is about 36 minutes long, which is definitely too much for my stomach to handle, but if you have a little time, check out some of it.

I can't help but to wonder what the hell he means when he says: "we must mean what we say when we speak the words 'Never again.'"

The evidence abounds. It is happening. Again.

Conventional: Watch and Discuss

2008-08-29T07:40:00.000-07:00

I watched Obama's acceptance speech the other night...in a bar (200 5th, in Brooklyn). The man has surely intrigued the people of the nation, if he hasn't captured our imaginations outright. I mean, I never thought that a sports bar would shut off the game (NCAA Football's opening day) for a political speech. But it happened! And although the substance of the speech itself was fairly standard, and doesn't approach Jesse Jackson's 1984 DNC address, I think that Obama did connect with people in some significant ways. Jackson set the bar for convention speeches, and it's troubling in the extreme how Obama has turned away from the Reverend(s).

It would be easy to dismiss his speech as boilerplate. It definitely stuck close to the formula. However, I think he did something extremely important--he identified w/ us, the People, in a real and true way. He has recognized that we, the people of this nation, are not "warriors"--we don't relate to being at war in the traditional sense. By that I mean, "war" for most of us is Vietnam. It's that dirty word, that morally repugnant aspect of our nation that we don't want to identify with.

And though we don't identify with war in the way that our parents and grandparents do, we do love our elders and understand that they have been through that hell. And that is strength! Check out what he says about this below:

The fundamentals we use to measure economic strength are whether we are living up to that fundamental promise that has made this country great - a promise that is the only reason I am standing here tonight.

Because in the faces of those young veterans who come back from Iraq and Afghanistan, I see my grandfather, who signed up after Pearl Harbor, marched in Patton's Army, and was rewarded by a grateful nation with the chance to go to college on the GI Bill.

In the face of that young student who sleeps just three hours before working the night shift, I think about my mom, who raised my sister and me on her own while she worked and earned her degree; who once turned to food stamps but was still able to send us to the best schools in the country with the help of student loans and scholarships.

When I listen to another worker tell me that his factory has shut down, I remember all those men and women on the South Side of Chicago who I stood by and fought for two decades ago after the local steel plant closed.

And when I hear a woman talk about the difficulties of starting her own business, I think about my grandmother, who worked her way up from the secretarial pool to middle-management, despite years of being passed over for promotions because she was a woman. She's the one who taught me about hard work. She's the one who put off buying a new car or a new dress for herself so that I could have a better life. She poured everything she had into me. And although she can no longer travel, I know that she's watching tonight, and that tonight is her night as well.

I don't know what kind of lives John McCain thinks that celebrities lead, but this has been mine. These are my heroes. Theirs are the stories that shaped me. And it is on their behalf that I intend to win this election and keep our promise alive as President of the United States.

Unfortunately, It's Not Paradise

2008-08-21T10:21:00.000-07:00

Mahmoud Darwish has passed on. And what, now?

Breaking Bread

2008-03-11T11:37:00.000-07:00

I Googled myself again (soooo goooood!) and came across this review in the Institute for Jerusalem Studies. It must've been written in the Winter/Spring of 2004-'05. Alain Epp Weaver reviews a number of books published over the last few years by international solidarity activists in Palestine. His review is incredibly important, as it's the only one that i've come across that treats our work as literature. Most of the commentary on the subject (genre?) is either dismissive or sycophantic. Weaver treats us as serious writers and activists, and raises some great questions along the way.

I also appreciate the way that he uses my work to frame his discussion for a couple reasons: 1) i feel like my work has sound political analysis; 2) i believe in the goals of this specific peace and justice work, and the connections between the work and the writing. Ultimately, it's about real people doing real things. It's not a "historical/religious conflict" as it is so often portrayed to be. The true religion is the actual, living communion of peoples.

I'm really glad that he picked up on that and raised the "is this some sort of secular eucharist?" question. Yes! For me it is. I try to convey that through my writings, and i'm glad that it came through, personally. On a bigger scale, i'm elated that he's centering his discussion in this context. It feels awesome, actually. I know it's a small thing, and that very few ever even read that publication (i had never heard of it), but whatever. I feel like, if that idea is out there, then my writing wasn't in vain, which is how i've been feeling for the last 6 years.

On a related note, i'd be remiss to leave out the story of how Peace Under Fire came to publish my work in the first place...the truth is that I don't know. I do know and respect a couple of the editors, but they never requested any work from me. Neither did they notify me that they my articles were being used. I only found out when I was in Bluestockings one day and came across the book on the shelf. Of course I was interested, so I flipped through it and, lo-and-behold, there's "My Mother's Son"! I was, and am, grateful that they used it, but slightly distressed that nary a word was ever said to me. I contacted Verso multiple times, by phone and email, and never got a reply. To this day, I don't know what to make of it all.

Searching Jenin is the other book that published my work, and for that I am eternally grateful. (Ilan Pappe reviewed it inCounterPunch). Ramzy Baroud has done a great service to human history with this book. I can't say enough about the book. It's a grenade.

AIPAC on Trial!

2008-03-06T06:20:00.001-08:00

Israeli kids writing messages on bombs during summer camp.

Click the picture for the NY Times article about the trial of AIPAC lobbyists on trial for passing US war plans (for Iran) to Israel. Elliot Abrams can be called as a witness, which should be enlightening. He has a long history of espionage, specifically Iran/Contras.

For related news, check out this story from Counterpunch in 1999 about the Anti-Defamation League's spying on u.s. citizens who supported the ANC in South Africa.

Don't Ask, Don't Tell

2008-03-06T06:02:00.001-08:00

The Times Square Military Recruiting Station was bombed early this morning. Nobody was injured. Traffic was only temporarily interrupted.

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No Spring Rolls!? What'll Sharon Eat Now?

2008-02-29T06:14:00.001-08:00

Oh, yeah...Palestinan babies

Click on the picture to read this story from a couple weeks ago. One interesting thing about the article is that it says Israel was "seeking to plug a gap in the labour market during the first Palestinian uprising [so it] allowed in foreigners to work. But now it is trying to limit those numbers to create more jobs for Israelis." There is no mention, let alone questioning of the explicitly racist nature of this state. It is, truly, insane!

Beyond that, Israel's illegal occupation of Palestine is destroying its *own* economy. Its unemployment and poverty rates are as high as they've ever been (perplexing that a state founded on the strength of socialist ideals has unemployment at all), precisely because all of its resources--and plenty of ours--are funneled into the occupation. The only question I have is: Does the u.s. instruct, or learn from, Israel?

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Sympathize With Gaza!

2008-02-28T04:36:00.000-08:00

Read David Zirin's column about Muhammad Aboutreika's bold act in the African Nation's Cup. In my view Zirin rightly compares this act with Muhammad Ali's Vietnam protest. Although Aboutreika is not risking jail time, he is siding with The People, against both his government (Egypt was the first Arab nation to sign a peace treaty with Israel) and all other Arab regimes who cynically mouth support for Palestinians while profiting off of the continued subjugation of Palestinians.

DRY VICTORY?

Although neither Obama or Clinton will ever work to repeal NAFTA, the fact that the final nail in Hillary's coffin could be vague statements of support for the trade agreement, years ago, is a minor victory for us! Our true coalition of anarchists, labor, queers, commies etc has pushed the issue to the tipping point!

Guantanamo Panties!

2008-02-23T07:51:00.001-08:00

Click the pic to take an hilarious quiz on the War of Errors AND win these hot bikinis!

The day politics stopped working

2008-02-15T07:42:00.001-08:00

Well, I think the title is a little misleading. (To read the article that I'm responding to, click the "Day Politics Stopped" link after this post.) I mean, the machine didn't stop; it may have taken a smoke-break, but that was only to adapt and refine it's abilities to crush our collective will. We can't forget that The War, as it is now defined, hadn't yet begun. (Of course, this definition supposes that economic sanctions that only affect common people is not "war".) Our movements in the streets that day, all over the world (I was in NYC) would not affect that particular day. Nor would they stop or even slow this war. And although the author of this article rightfully criticizes us for not sustaining our movement (in the street), we have had some successes over the past years.

A number of local, state and national politicians have been voted out by, well, us based on their support for this slaughter. I won't run through them all here, but I will mention Joe Lieberman, who's own party has rejected him in the Connecticut state primaries. He ended up retaining his seat, but only because of Republican support. One can't help but to think that his days are numbered.

The Democrat presidential primaries, too, have come to be characterized by both Obama & Clinton's stance on Iraq. Clinton is slipping into irrelevance, as she just can't make up her mind about this war. We know she's made some money from it, though. Obama has learned from Kerry's moronic waffling, and is using organizing tactics similar to the ones "we" use for our own mobilizations. He's hitting the phones, the streets, the schools and the web and energizing the true base of the party.

Make no mistake, he and Clinton are fairly harmonious when it comes to policies, which is why Iraq is crucial in this primary (and will be even bigger against McCain if Obama wins the nomination).So, here in the u.s., our efforts have had some impact, though the war rages on. I fear however, that, like in Vietnam, the only thing that will end it is virulent resistance by the Iraqis.

Day Politics Stopped | digg story

Review: "June Jordan's Life and Letters" by Valerie Kinloch (Chapters 1-3)

2008-02-13T05:30:00.000-08:00

In reading Valerie Kinloch's sort of biography of June Jordan, June Jordan: Her Life and Letters, I get stuck in two thickets. The first is Kinloch's failure of political imagination. She approaches Jordan's life and work from the un-real world of The Academy, as opposed to the lived-in and living world of actual people. Over and over again Kinloch refers to the "alleged violence" in Jordan's early life, calling into question Jordan's own documented experiences. Kinloch has a peevishly liberal, and literal, understanding of violence, evidently. And even so, I'm bewildered as to how a young black woman who sleeps with a knife under her pillow, just in case her father comes for her in the middle of the night, warrents the appellation "alleged" violence. Even the most conservative defintion can't ignore that. It's a weapon! In the hands of a teen aged girl!

Kinloch provides scant evidence to refute any of Jordan's autobiographical work on the matter, which leaves me to question Kincloch's motive and position. This spurious scholarship belies a hopelessly elementary understanding of her "subject," the life and writings of Ms. Jordan.

Maybe my biggest problem is that Kinloch treats June as a subject. A cadaver to be studied. Her wooden prose (to borrow a term from Edward Said) certainly attests to this point. Her writing is dead. There is no passion for June--her life or her letters. Just dull recitations of information that is readily available from June's own work. Kinloch doesn't really come to any meaningful insights or reveal anything of value, which leaves me feeling terribly deflated. June's life was about the connections that words create between truly different peoples. Prose and poetry are not simply words on pages. June always stressed that all words--written, said, thought--must be connected to purposeful action. Kinloch has missed this ethic. She may get it conceptually, but in practice her writing is dead weight.

Review: Apex Hides The Hurt

2007-12-16T13:21:00.001-08:00

Before (during, after) making his name as a novelist, George Orwell/Eric Blair was a book critic. The interesting thing, though, is that the books weren't what he was really concerned with. Orwell spared much discussion of the artistry of the authors, or lack thereof, his ink. Instead he used the books as vehicles to expound on his own political world view.

He was not well liked.

Few critics are, i suppose.

Maybe that's because all a critic really ought to say is, "Read it" or "Don't". To be sure, i'll get to that. But first, a comparison, with a political point of view.

If you read David Markson's The Last Novel (which will be the last of his that i read, incidentally) you are treated (subjected?) to a litany of criticism of the critcizers. You gotta love circular logic, the favorite type of logic for those stuck in the Victim Mentality. Misunderstood, tortured artists. Zionists. I have little use for this type of self-absorption, and i despise the fact that nations can use the victimhood of ancestors to justify neocolonial bloodlust.

i don't want to make more of Markson's book than need be. Neither do i want take away from the true subject of this review: Colson Whitehead's Apex Hides The Hurt, though the comparisons between the two books are worth some thought. They're both about how a people name their own destiny, to borrow from June Jordan. Will you march forward in the manner of your former oppressors, with tanks, guns and the assorted paraphernalia of war, or will you struggle, and succeed, to create a new kind freedom?

"You call something by a name, you fix it in place. A thing, or a person, it didn't matter--the name you gave it allowed you to draw a bead, take aim, shoot. But there was a flip side of calling something by the name you gave it--and that was wanting to be called by the name you gave yourself. What is the name that will give me the dignity and respect that is my right? The key that will unlock the world.

"Before colored, slave. Before slave, free. And always somewhere, ni**er.

"What was next? In the great procession. Because things never remain still for long. What will we call ourselves next, he wondered. If he knew what was next, he'd know who he would be."

As far as Apex goes, you should, most definately, Read it.

Mtv Arabia

2007-11-18T16:56:00.000-08:00

Signs of the Apocalypse

gentrifying the arab street, Mtv Arabia will grab ahold of 190 million viewers
http://www.arabianbusiness.com/504180-the-revolution-will-be-televised

Beirut Seizure: For Haas Mroue

2007-11-18T14:13:00.001-08:00

"A night. A man. A city"
--Haas Mroue

axiom #1: you can never
step into the same river
twice

axiom #2: There is no
such thing
as civil war

beirut
4.13.75 to present
brief periods of relative

calm call it
intermittent peace.
a lull in activity

when a mother hums a lullaby
to her son. her future
scholar. soldier perhaps

or poet.
with pedestrian desires
he'll traipse paris side streets

south american vinyards
crush grapes
sip wine & taste

home. beirut
under fire, like grace.
the place that pits brother

versus cousin versus
stranger. ally &
enemy one & the same.

now i have
truly
become
my father

son
holy
ghosts

no refuge.
refugee
camp. school.

the local hospital
buried under
mounds of its own rubble

where will the people go?
who will search for
& rescue

the night
from phosphorous, firefights
& small arms dealers?

who will sit w/ you
after your heart
attacks?

"Yom Kippur 1984" By Adrienne Rich

2006-10-02T12:32:00.000-07:00

I drew solitude over me, on the long shore.
--Robinson Jeffers, "Prelude"

For whatever does not afflict his soul throughout
this day, shall be cut off from his people.
--Leviticus 23:29

What is a Jew in solitude?
What would it mean not to feel lonely or afraid
far from your own or those you have called your own?
What is a woman in solitude: a queer woman or man?
In the empty street, on the empty beach, in the desert
what in this world as it is can solitude mean?

The glassy, concrete octagon suspended from the cliffs
with its electric gate, its perfected privacy
is not what I mean
the pick-up with a gun parked at a turn-out in Utah or the Golan Heights
is not what I mean
the poet's tower facing the western ocean, acres of forest planted to the east,
the woman reading in the cabin, her attack dog suddenly risen
is not what I mean

Three thousand miles from what I once called home
I open a book searching for some lines I remember
about flowers, something to bind me to this coast as lilacs in the dooryard once
bound me back there--yes, lupines on a burnt mountainside,
something that bloomed and faded and was written down
in the poet's book, forever:
Opening the poet's book
I find the hatred in the poet's heart: . . . the hateful-eyed
and human-bodied are all about me: you that love multitude may have them

Robinson Jeffers, multitude
is the blur flung by distinct forms against these landward valleys
and the farms that run down to the sea; the lupines
are multitude, and the torched poppies, the grey Pacific unrolling its scrolls of
surf,
and the separate persons, stooped
over sewing machines in denim dust, ben under the shattering skies of harvest
who sleep by shifts in never-empty beds have their various dreams
Hands that pick, pack, steam, stitch, strip, stuff, shell, scrape, scour, belong to a
brain like no other
Must I argue the love of multitude in the blur or defend
a solitude of barbed-wire and searchlights, the survivalist's final solution, have I
a choice?

To wander far from your own or those you have called your own
to hear strangers calling you from far away
and walk in that direction, long and far, not calculating risk
to go to meet the Stranger without fear or weapon, protection nowhere on your mind
(the Jew on the icy, rutted road on Christmas Eve prays for another Jew
the woman in the ungainly twisting shadows of the street: Make those be a woman's footsteps; as if she could believe in a woman's god)

Find someone like yourself. Find others.
Agree you will never desert each other.
Understand that any rift among you
means power to those who want to do you in.
Close to the center, safety; toward the edges, danger.
But I have a nightmare to tell: I am trying to say
that to be with my people is my dearest wish
but that I also love strangers
that I crave separateness
I hear myself stuttering these words
to my worst frineds and my best enemies
who watch for my mistakes in grammar
my mistakes in love.
This is the day of atonement; but do my people forgive me?
If a cloud knew loneliness and fear, I would be that cloud.

To love the Stranger, to love solitude--I am writing merely about privilege
about drifting from the center, drawn to edges,
a privilege we can't afford in the world that is,
who are hated as being of our kind: faggot kicked into the icy river, woman dragged
from her stalled car
into the mist-stuck mountains, used and hacked to death
young scholar shot at the university gates on a summer evening walk, his prizes and
studies nothing, nothing availing his Blackness
Jew deluded that she's escaped the tribe, the laws of her exclusion, the men too
holy to touch her hand; Jew who has turned her back
on midrash and mitzvah (yet wears the chai on a thong between her breasts) hiking alone
found with a swastika carved in her back at te foot of the cliffs (did she die as
queer or as Jew?)

Solitude, O taboo, endangered species
on the mist-stuck mountain, I want a gun to defend you
In the desert, on the deserted street, I want what I can't have:
your elder sister, Justice, her great peasant's hand outspread
her eye, half-hooded, sharp and true
And I ask myself, have I thrown courage away?
have I traded off something I don't name?
To what extreme will I go to meet the extremist?
What will I do to defend my want or anyone's want to search for her spirit-vision
far from the protection of those she has called her own?
Will I find O solitude
your plumes, your breasts, your hair
against my face, as in childhood, your voice like the mockingbird's
singing Yes, you are loved, why else this song?
in the old places, anywhere?

What is a Jew in solitude?
What is a woman in solitude, a queer woman or man?
When the winter flood-tides wrench the tower from the rock, crumble the prophet's
headland, and the farms slide into the sea
when leviathan is endangered and Jonah becomes revenger
when center and edges are crushed together, the extremities crushed together on
which the world was founded
when our souls crash together, Arab and Jew, howling our loneliness within the tribes
when the refugee child and the exile's child re-open the blasted and forbidden city
when we who refuse to be women and men as women and men are chartered, tell our
stories of solitude spent in multitude
in that world as it may be, newborn and haunted, what will solitude mean?

1984-1985

"I Begin By Invoking Walt Whitman" by Pablo Neruda

2006-09-14T10:22:00.000-07:00

I Begin By Invoking Walt Whitman
--by Pablo Neruda

Because I love my country
I claim you, essential brother,
old Walt Whitman with your gray hands,

so that, with your special help
line by line, we will tear out by the roots
this bloodthirsty President Nixon.

There can be no happy man on earth,
no one can work well on this planet
while that nose continues to breathe in Washington.

Asking the old bard to confer with me
I assume the duties of a poet
armed with a terrorist's sonnet

because I must carry out with no regrets
this sentence, never before witnessed,
of shooting a criminal under siege,

who in spite of his trips to the moon
has killed so many here on earth
that the paper flies up and the pen is unsheathed

to set down the name of this villain
who practices genocide from the White House.

The Stroke

2006-01-16T07:37:00.000-08:00

I pour myself a tumbler of The Glenlivet Scottish whiskey. The favorite drink of the genocidal generals in Rwanda.

That calamity not so far off as I'd like to push it.

I have never killed a person.
I have never stopped a person from killing.
I have never stopped a person from being killed.

The title "General" is of absolute fascination to me. General, as in "ordinary, everyday, status quo." Military semantics bespeak the unmistakable motive of warmakers. Those who lead others into slaughter are our neighbors. They are the nothing-special-don't-look-twice-it could-be-you type of people. The "General," the face of war.

Though military "mavoevers" are carried out every minute across the planet, the "Generals" are not ordinary, these days especially. So many of the wars they wage are directed against peoples without the coincidence of a standing army. What has become more general, actually, is a resistence to military occupation and "exercises" (don't you just love the language) by those people who really are our neighbors. The new generals.

I wonder what Ariel Sharon drinks. What he eats. What caused his brain to burst that blood vessel? Was it, could it be, that the consciousness of Sabra, Chatilla, of the Nazi-emulating Phalange continually grew to the point of rupture?

I wonder what he drinks?

I wonder if it's taken his brain this long to erupt with the realization that no top-shelf scotch, no fine suit, no shining shoes can push the calamity far enough away.

General.

Everyday.

I have never killed a person.
I have never stopped a person from killing.
Never stopped a person from being killed.

I wonder why, if hundreds of millions of people can make these same baseline claims of human decency, still so many others are slaughtered on the daily?

Why bombs drop on the families on the way to market. Why the Private pushes the button and a bullet breaks through the stained-glass window in the Church of the Nativity on its way to the heart of a young Palestinian man?

One man among billions.

Did he ever kill? Prevent killings?

Did he drink?

Was he general?

And his killer?

I was near him. I helped ferry food to his friends. Everyday I walk the streets and wonder who has walked them before. Who has died there before?

Harry owns Ja-Don's barbershop on Franklin Ave. He gave me a fade two weeks ago. His son was shot and killed this time last year. At 2.oo in the afternoon, in the middle of the street outside of Ja-Don's.

Harry drinks. He cuts hair. He gave his son life. He couldn't prevent his son's killing.

He's general.

The What and Why

2005-08-03T14:37:00.000-07:00

The events of our lives, how we interpret and respond to them, depend so deeply on the people we surround ourselves with. Whether these people are teenagers in Bushwick, Brooklyn, or mothers of incarcerated young men in Palestine; whether we stand directly next to someone, or are estranged from them; whether they live a-half-a-world-away or share our same bed at night, the people we know, know of, and even those whose existence remains a mystery to us, shape our world, and therefore contribute to the people we become. Daily. It is paramount that we recognize these people, these peoples, and strive to build and/or deepen connections to them. Without our efforts, the life, the strength of others remains abstract, something that is supposed, rather than felt, activated or actualized. This "blog" represents (one of) my own, small, effort on this front. My life depends on it, after all.

trevor baumgartner
from brooklyn, ny