I Think About You

Larry Campbell - Topic

I heard this song on Folk Alley on my drive to work this morning. I really enjoyed listening to the songs on the album. And found this interview with them by Dean Budnick about the album at Relix very interesting.

All This Time

On 25 April 1974, Celeste Caeiro, a forty-year-old waitress, was working at a self-service restaurant called Sir in the Franjinhas building on Braancamp Street in Lisbon. Since it was the restaurant’s one-year anniversary, the owner decided to hand out red carnations to the customers. When Celeste told him about the revolution, he decided to shut down Sir for the day, give employees the carnations, and encourage the employees to take the carnations home. Instead, Celeste headed to the city centre, where events were unfolding. On the way, some soldiers asked her for a cigarette, but instead, she put a few carnations into the barrels of their guns. This caught on, and the florists of Baixa decided to give away their in-season red carnations to be the emblem of the revolution. That is why the 1974 revolution was called the Carnation Revolution, a revolution of flowers against guns.

Vijay Prashad at Popular Resistance. Africa's National Liberation Struggles Brough Democracy to Europe

Judaism is a religion, while Zionism is a political ideology.

H. Scott Prosterman at Informed Comment. Zionism’s Expired Shelf-Life: Why Naomi Klein is right that it has become Pharaoh

1968

On Monday Earth Day, I was thinking about the student actions for Palestine at universities across the country. I am inspired by the students' bravery. I am sure they are aware of the dangers and that no matter what they will bare costs. I felt sad too.The thoughts about this year brought up memories of 1968.

I was only 13 in 1968. I am sure I conflate things that happend later with that year. But I am just as sure that 1968 rocked the foundations of my world. I was all shook up. Itwas a year that cuts time, where nothing would be as it was.

I was surprised clicking on an old link from my blog to a 50-year retrospective of 1968 in photos put together by Alan Taylor in The Atlantic. To my amasement The Atlantic let me see the article--for well over a year I have not be able to get around their paywall for any articles. If it opens for you it's a very good collection of photos.

I'm sure there are many 13-year olds taking in the events of this year sensing that this year is different. And they are wondering how to proceed.

I was thinking about Earth Day, in 1970. We had moved to Charlotte, NC and I made a really groovy teenager room. On my desk I had envelops with literature about Earth Day. I also had the book The Strawberry Statement. That book is why I had some sense of the 1968 campus protests from a student perspective, albeit a few years after. The title of the book comes from one of Columbia's Deans said in the press which students mocked as "the strawberry statement": "Whether students vote 'yes' or 'no' on a given issue means as much to me as if they were to tell me they like strawberries." The bitterness about diminishing the humanity of studnets ressonated.

One of the parts of the book I remember is the author of the book, James Kunen telling about picking up a hitchhicker. I remember it because he was driving a Dutch car called a Daffodil. In 1968 one of the moms in the car pool drove a Daf. My mom drove an Opel station wagon with a puny engine and another neighbor had an Isetta--it's a bit strange to think of small cars in the sixties. The hitchhicker was Black, Kunen read the guy as Black, but he also observed that hisskin was lighter than his own. It made racism visible in a way worth wrting about.

In 1967 Martin Luther King, Jr. gave a speech laying out the three evils of society: the sickness of racism, poverty--excessive materialism, and militarism. I probably didn't know about the speech, but do believe that I'd internalised, at least by 1970, connections between poverty, militarism and racism. A white kid in the suburbs understood that to be anti-war was also to be anti-racist and anti-colonial. It was important to know that I wasn't the only one.

My education in whiteness was also ramping up, perhaps most obviously as a factor of my age and schooling. I went to a school that was under a court-mandated desegregation plan. I was a new kid at schoo and didn't have lots of friends. There was an underground press that I didn't have much connection to, but I had some. The Earth Day materials are an axample. I would send self-adressed stamped envelops off and sometimes tape quarters to index cards, or send stamps to adresses found in the want ads of The Village Voice and Rolling Stone.

I am really happy when I see Zines on the Internet because they're familiar with the life line that made me feel connected. Young people are seeing the news. I am sure that they want to "connect, "to find the other ones" as Timothy Leary famously advised , just as I needed to.

Paul Krassner … in 1963 created a miracle of compressed intelligence nearly as admirable for potent simplicity, in my opinion, as Einstein’s e=mc2. With the Vietnam War going on, and with its critics discounted and scorned by the government and the mass media, Krassner put on sale a red, white and blue poster that said FUCK COMMUNISM. At the beginning of the 1960s, FUCK was believed to be so full of bad magic as to be unprintable. COMMUNISM was to millions the name of the most loathsome evil imaginable. To call an American a communist was like calling somebody a Jew in Nazi Germany. By having FUCK and COMMUNISM fight it out in a single sentence, Krassner wasn’t merely being funny as heck. He was demonstrating how preposterous it was for so many people to be responding to both words with such cockamamie Pavlovian fear and alarm.

Kurt Vonnegut quoted in a post by Jason Schafer in Dangerous Minds. Cagnitive Dissonance: Paul Krassner's 'Fuck Communism' Banner, 1963.

The last few weeks at work I've done little else at work other than load bags of mulch into people's vehicles. An awful lot of guys my age are dicks. Some of them have 'Fuck Biden" bumper stickers on their Yank tanks. I've known for a long time sayiing that I'm an old hippie doesn't mean what I think it means. A whole lot of people really hate hippies. And the Biden bumper sticker and Krassner's banner gets to a part of what people think they don't tlike about hippies.

"Fuck Biden' isn't funny today because the F-word simply doesn't have the same "bad magic." I do suspect that people sporting the sticker sense of specter of humor, Lenny Bruce or George Carlin's 'Seven Words'. But nobody finds 'Fuck Biden' funny, it's merely mean and crass. It's the cruelty that titilates.

I do sometimes visit The Realist Archive. I don't know what people today will make of it.

The United States unconditional support for Israel and its lack of attention to the welfare of peoples in the MENA region, as well as elsewhere in the developing world, in pursuit of peace, human security, and good governance, is detrimental to the universal compliance and voluntary adherence to the norms and rules of international law.    

Ali Abootalebi at Informed Comment. Is Washington’s Defense of Israel’s War destroying the Edifice of the Liberal International Order?

Israel had already announced it was ignoring the court, and states were not going to ensure compliance. Yet the ruling’s emphasis on international responsibility in front of Israel’s violations of international law triggered the formation of the Palestinian-led Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement, launched on July 9, 2005, the first anniversary of the verdict. In the face of state and corporate complicity, people took action. The BDS call remains a watershed moment.  BDS has put the spotlight on Israeli impunity and the need to end global complicity with not only Israel’s military occupation but the entire system of settler-colonial apartheid and ethnic cleansing. Solidarity today means building accountability for Israeli crimes and those complicit or complacent with them. 

Maren Mantovani in Africa Is A Country. Is the UN system still relevant?

We are failing every day to force a ceasefire and stop the genocide. But failure is not an option. We must refocus this moment.

Two neighbouring countries, Rwanda and Uganda are extensively involved in illegal exploitation of DRC’s mineral resources and the violence that has plagued the eastern region in the past three decades. In recent years, the Rwanda-backed rebel group M23 has intensified its activities, which resulted in the resurgence of widespread violence and massive displacement of people. For years, the United Nations has sounded the alarm over Rwanda’s continued assistance to the M23, putting forward solid evidence of the “direct involvement” of Rwandan Defense Forces in the conflict in eastern Congo-Kinshasa, as well as Rwanda’s provision of “weapons, ammunitions, and uniforms” to the M23 rebels. The United Nations has also implicated Uganda, which has allowed M23 “unhindered” access to its territory during its operations. Despite this evidence, Western countries, especially the United States, have continued to provide support to the two countries, including military aid.

Soleil-Chandni Mousseau in African Arguments. Colonialism Revamped in the Democratic Republic of Congo

Lord Leverhulme’s 1911 concession in the Congo is now held by an African-run New York-based private equity firm with strong links to global philanthropy.

We have to think about how we put the people in power, not individuals. That’s the question that we have to be battling with, because any individual is likely to be corrupted and changed by the system. It is now clear that we need to talk about the destruction of the capitalist system so that there can be a real reconstruction of a system that places the people—and the humanity and dignity of all people—at the center. We need a new system with a new relation to the world, to the earth, and all its people.

S’bu Zikode in interview with Richard Pithouse in the Boston Review. “Repression Is Always a Lesson”

An interview with S’bu Zikode, leader of South Africa’s shack dwellers’ movement, thirty years after apartheid’s end.

Amilcar Shabazz, a professor in the W.E.B. Du Bois Department of Afro-American Studies, University of Massachusetts, said Strickland followed a path very similar to civil rights pioneer Du Bois. “He underwent a similar kind of experience to committing himself to being an agent of social change in the world against the three big issues of the civil rights movement — imperialism or militarism, racism and the economic injustice of plantation capitalism,” Shabazz said. “He committed himself against those triple evils. He did that in his scholarship, in his teaching, in his activism and just how he walked in the world.”

Amilcar Shabazz quoted in an obituary by Michael Casey in The Frederick New-Post. William Strickland, a longtime civil rights activist, scholar and friend of Malcolm X, has died

William Strickland, a longtime civil right activist who worked closely with Malcolm X and Jesse Jackson, has died

Institute of the Black World 21st Century

Thomas Zimmer in Democracy Americana (DEC 14, 20230. We Are Falling Apart

The Right is successfully exploiting fears over rising antisemitism for its reactionary crusade while the Israel-Hamas war is tearing the democratic popular front to pieces

Thomas Zimmer is an astute observer of American politics. I don't subscribe to his Substack, I do follow him on Mastodon.

“Rudd said that the occupation of Columbia University in April 1968, an occupation that caused him to be expelled from the university, was an example of the kind of strategy that the left has to adopt. This strategy had its roots in the organizing techniques of the labor and civil rights movement.”

“Columbia was a success,” he said. “The deed attracted attention. And because of the alliance with the black students, which has never gotten enough media attention in the story of Columbia, we closed down the university. We accomplished our strategic aim, which was to politicize more people and to build the movement. Our goal was not to end the university’s involvement with military research. That was a symbolic goal. The real goal was to build the movement. I got into a lot of trouble for saying the issue is not the issue.”

“The Weather Underground decided to bomb buildings that symbolized centers of power, including the Pentagon, the U.S. Capitol, the California attorney general’s office and a New York City police station, but to call in warnings beforehand so the buildings could be evacuated. The group was responsible for 25 bombings and in 1970 organized the prison escape of Timothy Leary, the famous advocate of psychedelic drugs, for which the group was paid $25,000 by the Brotherhood of Eternal Love, a collection of drug dealers.”

706 comments “

“Joan Baez once remarked that nonviolence can only be practiced and not theorized. _ _ The only bigger failure (Baez goes on to say) than using nonviolent direct action to improve conditions is using violence.”

“Gandhi’s non-violence strategy only works under specific conditions (read “What Gandhi Says: About Nonviolence, Resistance and Courage” by Norman Finkelstein).” + “… Daniel Berrigan’s remarkable letter to the Weather Underground, which he wrote from underground.  Among other places it’s included in America is Hard to Find.”- a letter to the Weathermen, recognizing the same goals of ending a monstrous war but advocating non-violence at all costs

“How Non-Violence Protects The State"  https://theanarchistlibrary…                 + Snowden hasn’t told you 1/10th of how bad it really is.

“One part of the Columbia occupation that Rudd skips in his advocacy of total non-violence is that right-wing students violently attacked the occupiers of Columbia. These reactionaries would have ended the occupation on the second day if left-wing street fighters of the Lower East Side’s Motherf***ers tribe had not violently resisted them. (You can see this fighting going in front of the occupied building in Life Magazine’s photo story about the occupation.) Hence, Rudd trumpets the “victory” of Columbia as a lesson in the success of non-violence, but without defensive violence employed by the occupiers, this victory would have never happened. Maybe some differentiation should be made between violence used in self-defense vs. offensive violence? After all, a healthy organism defends itself, even violently if necessary. It seems to me that Rudd wants to have it both ways. He wants to claim the 1968 victory at Columbia for the strategy of non-violence, but this win occurred at least partly because of the use of defensive violence. His points are well taken, but he oversimplifies what happened at Columbia to support his case.”

“The days of taking it to the street are over. All actions need to be performed via cyberspace, where smart hackers can remain anonymous and untraceable.

Self-defence by Violence “I have been repeating over and over again that he who cannot protect himself or his nearest and dearest or their honour by non-violently facing death may and ought to do so by violently dealing with the oppressor. He who can do neither of the two is a burden.”        Mahatma Gandhi

Apr 23, 2018 How Black Students Helped Lead the 1968 Columbia U. Strike Against Militarism & Racism 50 Years Ago

“ Today, we spend the hour looking back at this pivotal moment. We are joined by Raymond Brown, former leader of the Student Afro-American Society; Nancy Biberman, a Barnard College student who joined the protests as a member of Students for Democratic Society; Mark Rudd, chair of the Columbia University chapter of SDS during the student strike; Juan González, Democracy Now! co-host who was a Columbia student and strike organizer; and Paul Cronin, editor of the new book “A Time to Stir: Columbia ’68.” We also feature excerpts from the 1968 documentary “Columbia Revolt” by Third World Newsreel.”

READ MORE  https://www.democracynow.org/2018/4/23/how_black_students_helped_lead_the

Excellent reporting!

“It Is an Honor to Be Suspended for Palestine”

Dispatches from the Solidarity Encampment at Columbia University

https://crimethinc.com/Columbia2024

In this in-depth report, participants offer a blow-by-blow account of the events at Columbia, appraising the tactics that the demonstrators have employed and the challenges that they face.

That is the most recent legacy of Bernard Lewis. The invasion, occupation, and destruction of Iraq.  But Lewis’ affiliation with powers of death and destruction went much deeper than that. Afghanistan and Iraq are in ruins today, millions of Arabs and Muslims have been murdered, scarred for life, subjected to the indignity of military occupation and refugee camps, in no small measure because of the systemic maligning of Muslims Lewis advanced in his books and articles, and with them informed generations of imperial officers.

Hamid Dabashi in Aljazeera. Alas, poor Bernard Lewis, a fellow of infinite jest

On Bernard Lewis and ‘his extraordinary capacity for getting everything wrong

Protests ranged from walkouts to marches to encampments in solidarity with the Columbia efforts, garnering anywhere from 50 to hundreds of protesters. At Yale University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, students started encampments in solidarity with the Columbia “Gaza Solidarity Encampment.”

Isha Banerjee, Apurva Chakravarthy, Joseph Zuloaga, and Manuela Silva in the Columbia Spectator. Pro-Palestinian organizations at universities across the world protest in support of Columbia ‘Gaza Solidarity Encampment

The protests are a show of solidarity for the 108 individuals arrested on campus on Thursday.

What Kramer is essentially calling for is population control by starvation.

Felix de Rosen quoted in an article by Katherine M. Savarese in The Harvard Crimson (Feb. 2010). Weatherhead Fellow Incites Controversy

I am finding Facebook really awful these days.

One troubling part of it is that I look at posts there primarily by people I know. Before "People You May Know" seemed to be people I plausibly know. Now the suggestions are not people I know or know about or can imagine any plausible connection.

More to the point, the persistant Israel propaganda really rubs me the wrong way. I'm old, there's a history to my distress. There's so much I don't notice, but my sense is that USA political propaganda shifted prior to the Gulf War. And then went into overdrive in the lead up to the Iraq War.

I'm no scholar and don't even follow the news well, but with Martin Kramer there ought not be any controversy.

Although Israel has always formally argued that the Green Line has no legal significance, the Green Line continued to have political, legal and administrative significance. Israel regarded the territories beyond the Green Line, unlike those within the Green Line, as occupied territories, and they were not incorporated into Israeli political and civilian administrative systems. The territories beyond the Green Line were administered by the Israeli military or later also by the Palestinian Authority.[11][12] Citizenship by residence, for example, was determined with reference to the Green Line, as well as a person's refugee status.

Wikipedia. The Green Line (Israel)