Tag Archives: Frontline

Wilfred Owen: Spring Offensive & PTSD

Posted on by
Reply

You won’t find a more haunting depiction of battle induced PTSD than the last two stanzas of Wilfred Owen’s Spring Offensive. You’ll be curious no doubt to double back on the setup: troops being marched to the frontline, the idyllic lull before battle, the unceremonious charge, and the moment a stealthy sprint turns to mayhem. The next stanza speculates about the fate of those who fall in battle: to bullets, to explosive shells, and to shrapnel. The last stanza is about the “too swift” survivors who “out-fiend” death to come through, and don’t want to, or can’t, talk about it.

Spring Offensive (April, 1917)

Halted against the shade of a last hill,
They fed, and, lying easy, were at ease
And, finding comfortable chests and knees,
Carelessly slept.
                          But many there stood still
To face the stark, blank sky beyond the ridge,
Knowing their feet had come to the end of the world.

Marvelling they stood, and watched the long grass swirled
By the May breeze, murmurous with wasp and midge,
For though the summer oozed into their veins
Like the injected drug for their bones’ pains,
Sharp on their souls hung the imminent line of grass,
Fearfully flashed the sky’s mysterious glass.

Hour after hour they ponder the warm field—
And the far valley behind, where the buttercup
Had blessed with gold their slow boots coming up,
Where even the little brambles would not yield,
But clutched and clung to them like sorrowing hands;
They breathe like trees unstirred.

Till like a cold gust thrilled the little word
At which each body and its soul begird
And tighten them for battle. No alarms
Of bugles, no high flags, no clamorous haste—
Only a lift and flare of eyes that faced
The sun, like a friend with whom their love is done.
O larger shone that smile against the sun,—
Mightier than his whose bounty these have spurned.

So, soon they topped the hill, and raced together
Over an open stretch of herb and heather
Exposed. And instantly the whole sky burned
With fury against them; earth set sudden cups
In thousands for their blood; and the green slope
Chasmed and steepened sheer to infinite space.

Of them who running on that last high place
Leapt to swift unseen bullets, or went up
On the hot blast and fury of hell’s upsurge,
Or plunged and fell away past this world’s verge,
Some say God caught them even before they fell.

But what say such as from existence’ brink
Ventured but drave too swift to sink.
The few who rushed in the body to enter hell,
And there out-fiending all its fiends and flames
With superhuman inhumanities,
Long-famous glories, immemorial shames—
And crawling slowly back, have by degrees
Regained cool peaceful air in wonder—
Why speak they not of comrades that went under?

The History of Violent Protest in Colorado Springs, in a Nutshell.

Posted on by
1

JesusGET THIS. I heard a reverend-person yesterday lecturing newish activists about their need for nonviolence training, which she was volunteering to lead. She was also offering rubber wristbands for her graduates to wear at demonstrations, so that police could differentiate between protesters. She told us she’d ask officers to scrutinize those not wearing bands as being the potential troublemakers. This, she assured everyone, would make it more difficult for outside groups to waylay the action. I kid you not. And she’s a church leader praised locally as something of an activist! HA! That’s a RAT!

I recognized the Springs “outsider” buggaboo so I thought I’d relate where it came from in a little piece I’ll call The History of Violent Protest in Colorado Springs. Ready? It won’t take long.

So what violence have I seen in my fairly full-time participation over a dozen years, multiple wars and as many elections? ZERO. That’s right. I’ve seen a lot of brutal handling by police, but by the hands of protesters? Nothing.

Yep. The History of Violent Protest in Colorado Springs. The End.

For as much as local church leaders harp on nonviolence training, which includes, by the way, nonviolence bounderies that forbid even confrontational speech, you’d think they’d seen a need for it. They haven’t. For EVERY preacher and or disciple regurgitating nonviolence edicts, I’ve never seen ONE counterpart advocate for, nor commit, violence. It’s almost a laugh, if the practice wasn’t so damaging to public demonstrations. Colorado Springs street protests have been defanged to nothing, police needn’t bother to show up and they don’t. As a result, neither do protesters.

And it isn’t just that nonviolence dogma declaws the public beast. Religifying activism alienates intellectuals and atheists who woud prefer not to suffer the foolish god-justified claptrap. Monotheism is the engine which has always perpetuated privilege, enslavement, colonization and capitalism. Wtf.

Not satisfied to deputize citizens with the equivalent of TSA pre-boarding approval, clergy want to deprive their charges of the element of surprise. The Springs antiwar community keeps direct contact with law enforcement. I’m guessing protestations, if any, are now simply phoned in.

I JUST WANT TO PUNCH these nonviolence religion freaks for mutilating the impetus of budding activists. A newcomer’s anger is what drew them to protest in the first place. Of course as ministers that is their function. Social injustice is job security to church employees. They are about as likely to remedy inequity as the Pope. Sermons aim to temper their sheep’s natural anger at injustice. But enough about those assholes.

No matter the issue, antiwar, the environment, racism, homelessness, in Colorado Springs I’ve seen absolutely no public demonstration escalate to violence. Why then the ready queue of spiritual nuts so eager to innoculate every next wave of concerned citizen before they can even take to the street? It goes back to something that happened at an antiwar demonstration in 2003, although the lesson being drawn is not based on what really happened. That’s the bugaboo.

Palmer Park, 2003
In 2003 George W. Bush was about to initiate an illegal war against Iraq and public demonstrations were coordinated across the globe. In Colorado Springs nearly 2,000 people assembled in Palmer Park along Academy Boulevard. The Springs rally looked to eclipse the antiwar events planned in Denver, so some people came from Denver, or so it’s believed. In reality, the Springs antiwar community had an average age of 75 and hadn’t seen new faces for decades. The sight of younger participants led many to believe they were from elsewhere. Plus some of the younger protesters wore black, so word spread they were Anarchists. Scary.

For the usual reasons, the CSPD decided to close Academy Boulevard. When rally-goers realized their protest wasn’t being seen because motorists were no longer driving by, some decided to lead the crowds southward toward an intersection where traffic was still passing. Being that Academy Boulevard was cleared of cars, the most obvious route was on the street. There was no sidewalk and the park was congested with the parked cars of the attendees. No matter. The police formed a line and ordered the marchers back.

The police began to spray tear gas as the protesters retreated. Clouds of gas enveloped the crowds as they dispersed and struggled to get in their cars. The cars were gased with families and small children inside them, unable to drive away.

Across the globe that day, only two cities used tear gas against their antiwar protests: Athens and Colorado Springs. That’s how old timers like to tell the story. They’ll add that the police crackdown was prompted by unruly outsiders being violent with police. By which they mean, refusing to get off the street. Being assertive of one’s rights somehow became translated to mean impermissively violent.

Had these Emily Posts ever seen the footage of Selma?! These nonviolence sticklers are MLK idolators, yet just like Selma’s whites, they blame the victim.


Palmer Park, 2003

Protests in Colorado Springs immediately diminished in popularity and never again drew large numbers. Apparently when organizers called their members the apprehension was always “will it be safe?”

And so from that day, nuns and other clergy met regularly with Colorado Springs police to talk to them about protest plans, lest CSPD be surprised and overreact. That hasn’t stopped police from dragging us across streets or assaulting us in parking lots or on sidewalks. Oh to have merited it even once!

NOTE: I have omitted a couple of insider details about the 2003 rally because I wanted to relate the experience of the average participant. Yes, the event was advertized statewide and drew opponents of Bush’s war from along the Front Range. And yes, there was a strategy among frontline protesters to try to block an intersection. Most attendees didn’t know either of these facts. The local peace community was so insular that all new faces were looked upon as interlopers. But my point remains, there was no violence. Our freedom to assemble, wherever two thousand people need to go, is not abriged by congress nor by traffic laws. Rebuffing law enforcement’s attempt to disrespect civil liberties by standing, walking, sitting, or shouting, is not violence.

St Patricks Day, 2007

Nonviolently submitting to state violence is supposed to move onlookers to empathy. In 2007, was the Colorado Springs public moved by the police brutalization of nonviolent 70-yr-old Elizabeth Fineron, who later died of complications of her injuries? No, they cheered the police.

Sacrificing yourself may work in democracies with an empowered populace, but against fascism, as against the Mongols or Manifest Destiny, it’s abrogation of responsibility and suicide.

Nonviolence
Incorporating the dogma of “nonviolence” into what would otherwise be straightforward protest becomes problematic when nonviolence folks want to differentiate themselves. Those who are “othered” are then presumed to be planning violence. That’s a very serious charge. Inciting a riot is a crime. Plotting to overthrow a democracy is sedition.

Non-nonviolence does not equal intending-violence. For example, I do not advocate violence, I advocate solidarity.

I do not oppose people asking for NV training, or undertaking it, though I would prefer that nonviolence wasn’t marketed to newcomers who wouldn’t have thought to have needed it.

Why should “nonviolence” even have to come up, for example, at a discussion about a SIT-IN? Agreeing to sit is already a gesture which has capitulated the option to resist. A crowd can’t charge from the seated position. You can’t even defend yourself. The nonviolence is inherent.

Religious NV training is really about nonviolent communication, a whole other can of rotten worms. There is no evidence that Gandhi, MLK or the Flint factory sit-ins practiced that aberration.

If the challenge is to show public opposition to the sit-lie ordinance because it further oppresses the homeless, public energies need not be exhausted by habitually passive religious leaders and their idea of what direct action needs to be.

Yes, the anticipation of the supremacy of nonviolence over state violence is a religious expectation. Against fascism you’re asking for a miracle.

If preachers were activists they would lead their flocks into the street. Circulating among activists, those church leaders are opportunistic missionaries, looking for recruits among the disenchanted.

To be earnestly inclusive of faiths and non-faiths, leave you diety at home. Show respect for the “others” who don’t need the voodoo rationalizations you require to muster moral courage.

How to testify at a grand jury: David House “invokes” on Bradley Manning, Julian Assange, & taking illegal notes

Posted on by
Reply

Bradley Manning supporter David House was called last year before the grand jury preparing charges against Julian Assange, in the event Assange is successfully remanded to Sweden. Despite being told a transcript was forbidden, House took notes which have now found themselves (A)nonymously online, reproduced here with David House’s refrain in bold. Here’s Grand Jury, a comedy:  

1. Record of proceedings
2. As recorded by David House
3. Grand Jury, Alexandria VA
4. 15 June 2011, 4:10pm to 5pm
5.  
6. Inside the Grand Jury:
7. DOJ Counterespionage Section: Attorney Patrick Murphy *
8. DOJ Counterespionage Section: Attorney Deborah Curtis *
9. Eastern District of Virginia: AUSA Bob Wiechering
10. Eastern District of Virginia: AUSA Tracy McCormick
11. Eastern District of Virginia: AUSA Karen Dunn
12. Unspecified number of Grand Jurors
13. Court Steganographer
14. David House
15.  
16. Directly outside the Grand Jury:
17. Mike Condon, FBI Agent from Washington, D.C. field office
18. James Farmer, Chief of Anti-Terrorism and National Security Unit at the U.S. Attorney’s Office in D. Mass
19. Peter Krupp, David House’s attorney
20.  
21.  
22. Record begins: 4:10pm
23. [David House is sworn in and informed of his rights]
24. Patrick Murphy: Would you please state your full name for the record?
25. David House: My name is David House.
26. PM: Did you meet Bradley Manning in January 2010?
27. DH: On the advice of counsel, I invoke my right to remain silent under the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution. I am concerned that this grand jury is seeking information designed to infringe or chill my associational privacy, and that of others, guaranteed by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, and that it is using information obtained without a search warrant in violation of the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution. I define the preceding statement as “invoke”, and when I say “I invoke” in the future I am referring to this statement.
28. Deborah Curtis: Exhibit 1-A?
29. PM: Mr. House, please direct your attention to the screen behind you, exhibit 1-A.
30. DC: I can’t make it bigger.
31. PM: Try… here, remove that bar on the side.
32. DC: That didn’t work.
33. DH: Do you guys need help?
34. DC: We just need to make it bigger. Can everyone see this okay?
35. PM: Ok… we’re going to continue.
36.  
37. [A still image from the Frontline PBS special is displayed on the screen. Four figures are standing in front of the BUILDS logo, one figure has her back turned.]
38.  
39. PM: Mr. House, can you identify the man on the right?
40. DH: I invoke.
41. PM: Can you identify the man standing second from right?
42. DH: I invoke.
43. PM: Ok, can you identify the person with bright-colored hair, standing here?
44. DH: I invoke.
45. PM: Are we to believe that identifying that individual would somehow incriminate you?
46. DH: On the advice of counsel, I invoke my right to remain silent under the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution. I am concerned that this grand jury is seeking information designed to infringe or chill my associational privacy, and that of others, guaranteed by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, and that it is using information obtained without a search warrant in violation of the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution.
47. PM: Ok, can you identify the man on the left?
48. PM: I would like to observe for the record that Mr. House is taking notes.
49. DH: As to the previous question, I invoke.
50. PM: Why are you taking notes?
51. DH: Invoke.
52. Bob Wiechering: I’d like to recommend, at this point, that we take a break and talk to your counsel.
53.  
54. [AUSAs and House leave the grand jury]
55. [Peter Krupp, House’s attorney, asserts House’s right to invoke]
56. [AUSAs and House return to the grand jury]
57.  
58. PM: What is your birthdate?
59. DH: March 14, 1987
60. PM: Where do you live?
61. DH: Can you restate the question?
62. PM: What is your address?
63. DH: I invoke.
64. PM: What is your current occupation?
65. DH: I invoke.
66. PM: Were you a senior in computer science at Boston University in January 2010?
67. DH: I invoke.
68. PM: Isn’t it true that you told PBS Frontline that you were a senior at Boston University in January 2010?
69. DH: I invoke.
70. PM: Do you know what a hackerspace is?
71. DH: I invoke.
72. PM: Do you know what BUILDS is, the acronym?
73. DH: I invoke.
74. Bob Wiechering: Mr. House, I notice you are taking notes. Attempting to create your own transcript is a violation of rule 6(e) of this grand jury. We have brought this to the attention of your counsel, and although he feels differently on the matter, we assert that you must stop taking notes at this time.
75. DH: Let me consult with my attorney.
76. [House leaves the grand jury room and returns one minute later]
77. DH: My lawyer asks that you refer all questions about notes to him.
78. BW: Let’s continue.
79. PM: Mr. House, are you involved with the Bradley Manning Support Network?
80. DH: I invoke.
81. PM: Did you respond in the affirmative when asked by the FBI if you had heard of known WikiLeaks associate Jacob Appelbaum?
82. PM: I would like to state for the record that Mr. House is not answering the question and is instead taking notes.
83. DH: I invoke.
84. PM: Do you intend to answer any of my questions, aside from your date of birth and your name?
85. DH: I invoke.
86. PM: Is that because of the phalanx of attorneys present here today?
87. Court Stenographer: I’m sorry, the what of attorneys?
88. PM: Phalanx… the phalanx of attorneys.
89. DH: As to the phalanx of attorneys, I invoke.
90. PM: At this time, I will let Deborah Curtis ask a few questions.
91. DC: Mr. House, have you ever been to the Oxford Spa restaurant in Cambridge, MA?
92. DH: Allow me to consult with my attorney.
93. [House leaves the grand jury and returns one minute later.]
94. DH: As to the previous question, I invoke.
95. DC: You admitted to federal agents in Boston that you had met Bradley Manning in January 2010, is that correct?
96. DH: I invoke.
97. DC: Isn’t it true that you spent the night of January 27 2010 with Daniel Clark and Bradley Manning?
98. DH: Can you repeat the question?
99. DC: Isn’t it true that you spent the night of January 27 2010 with Daniel Clark and Bradley Manning?
100. DH: One more time.
101. DC: Isn’t it true that you spent the night of January 27 2010 with Daniel Clark and Bradley Manning?
102. PM: He’s writing it down.
103. DC: Are you getting this, are you writing it all down?
104. DH: Was the last question a question to be answered?
105. DC: Yes.
106. DH: I invoke.
107. DC: And the question before?
108. DH: I also invoke.
109. DC: Where did Danny Clark have breakfast on the morning of January 28, 2010?
110. DH: Allow me to consult with my attorney.
111. [House leaves the grand jury and returns one minute later.]
112. DH: As to the previous question, I invoke.
113. DC: Do you intend to answer any questions about Daniel Clark?
114. DH: Invoke.
115. DC: Do you intend to answer any questions about Bradley Manning?
116. DH: [Writing] Could you please repeat the question?
117. DC: Do you intend to answer any questions about Jacob Appelbaum?
118. DH: I invoke.
119. DC: At this time, we’d like to stop the proceedings. You are free to leave.

Tom Hayden says there’s nothing to a US conspiracy against Julian Assange, and he’s got the nothing to confirm it

Posted on by
Reply

What an ugly hit piece against Julian Assange, by Tom Hayden in The Nation. Formerly of the American Left, Hayden used to need no introduction, now he mistakenly cross-posts assignments for the State Department (see A view from Sweden). Hayden dismisses notions of a US-led conspiracy to render the Wikileaks mastermind from the UK to Sweden and thence into the US torture system, along the logic that such accusations only anger the Swedes and make the outcome self-fulfilling. Hayden’s argument is to shoehorn Assange to Sweden now, to take his licks, before you make Dad really angry.
 
Based on everyone he’s talked to, Hayden says there’s no conspiracy. Seriously, that’s his logic. And he admonishes us against speculating wildly about unknowns. Whenever a writer prefaces their investigation with “some facts will never be known” I can picture them already leaning on the shovel. Even if Hayden intended to dig, it’s like he’s come upon a suspect’s backyard full of holes. Glancing into each one he concludes, yep, no evidence here.

You wonder what Hayden would make of a document completely redacted.

That’s right, what the Swedish prosecutors won’t tell us, what the USG won’t say, the extraordinarily swift synchronicity of legal actions against Assange kept under a veil? Not even question marks. More important to Hayden are questions he can load, like this one:

Why is the United States pursuing Assange as the conspiratorial mastermind of WikiLeaks, when his reputation, credibility and organization have been so damaged?

I think Assange’s reluctance to be sucked into the black hole that Sweden has become, is reinforced by the fact that the Nation Magazine has to get its “view from Sweden” from an American.

My best clue about Hayden’s focus is when he pretends to restore perspective by reflecting that aspersions cast against Assange (each with an assist by Hayden, if you’re keeping score), be weighed against the good which Wikileaks has done. Thereupon Hayden lists revelations we owe to Wikileaks. But they’re body counts from the Iraq and Afghan documents and nothing from the diplomatic cables, about the Middle East, North Africa, etc. I guess that underlies why Hayden can’t find probable cause for US forces to ally against Assange. It’s the “nothing new here” talking point.

Based on everyone I’ve talked to, Hayden’s an idiot. I’d rather give him less credit.

At the Frontline Club forum on Saturday, Assange said what’s needed now are troves of files from the CIA and FBI, and he added temptingly, the New York Times, the pace car of American media. Assange related that he’d just learned from Daniel Ellsberg that the NYT had 1,000 pages of the Pentagon Papers one month before Ellsberg leaked them. We know the corporate press prints “all the news that’s fit” but wouldn’t it be great to get confirmation?

Don’t worry about Hayden’s nothing, he already has all the confirmation he wants.

Healthcare reformist TR Reid visits COS to say universal coverage not possible

Posted on by
4

The Healing of America: a Global quest for better, cheaper, and fairer health care.COLORADO SPRINGS– [UPDATED]
My question to TR Reid, who speaks tonight at CC’s Palmer Hall, is how can voices for health care rights get past the corporate media editors?
As Washington Post Denver bureau chief and NPR reporter, Reid’s answer will reveal his earnestness, because most clearly his editors have kept the upper hand. The Independent, which is sponsoring tonight’s event, has invited two respondents to offer rebuttals, but both represent the health care status quo, there is no one advocating for socialized medicine, automatically framing Reid’s centrism as the people’s best hope.

I remember a TR Reid interview on NPR, which left me with the distinct impression of a hobbled argument. Look at the subtitle of his Frontline documentary: Sick Around the World: Can the U.S. learn anything from the rest of the world about how to run a health care system? They don’t say “what can the US learn” but can it. That’s the same false question the corporate media use to approach Global Warming. Though the answer is a multiplicity of affirmatives, the headline posed as a question leaves the viewer with the impression the conclusion is his to decide. The moon: is it there?

A follow-up Sick Around America was famously, in alternative media circles at least, altered to endorse insurance mandates. Reid broke away from the final product when PBS refused to mention his conclusion that health insurance should not be for profit. Reid chalked it up to a disagreement, not specifically a motive.

The book Mr. Reid will be signing is titled The Healing of America: a global quest for better, cheaper, and fairer health care. His own disjointed title reflects why he returned empty-handed. Can you imagine if it had read simply: a global quest for health care?

Better, cheaper and fairer are redundant qualifiers and load the theme with false perspective. “Better” assumes American care can be ranked on a scale, this book is obviously only for those getting care. “Cheaper” assumes health care must have a price — Universal health care is free. “Fairer” again assumes that our current equilibrium is in some measurable aspect fair, besides which, the concept is a fallacy. There’s unfair and fair. Moving from one toward the other, fairness is unfair until it is fair. Besides which, every schoolchild knows “fairer” is expressed as “more fair.” If Reid had been honest, he would have phrased it “less unfair.”

TR Reid applauds the health care available in other developed countries, but notes the other systems are not without their flaws. Is this some sort of psychological inducement to feed the American ego, that US reform can aim higher than the health care as a right provided elsewhere? I think it’s a loophole with which to scuttle his proposal.

It seems TR Reid is ignoring the chief obstacle to health care. It’s not reason, it’s not taxes. The chief obstacle is capitalist greed, it’s class warfare, and the social systems of our like nations are under attack as well. The shortcomings which TR Reid sees in Europe are the result of legislative meddling with systems enacted by the people.

Americans aren’t going to get health care by waiting on their legislators, or the benevolence of the corporations. The audience tonight may be impressed by TR Reid’s findings, but he’s offering nothing but placebo. Talking about health care, visualizing it, salivating at its proximity, is as much taste as TR Reid, the Washington Post and its corporate health industry advertisers will have us get.

UPDATE: TR Reid spoke to a standing room only crowd and received a standing ovation. As per usual for journalists, he provided his own disclaimer for venturing from objectivity when he posited that providing health care for all could be a moral obligation. But on the matter of The Politics of Health Care Reform, the topic of his speech, he had nothing to say.

Really, he threw the question back at the audience. Why won’t the USA provide universal coverage to its people. I’ve thought about it a lot, he told us, and I don’t have the answer.

When it came why some countries pay for Viagra, while others do not, TR Reid was humorously inquisitive. His rundown of the various medical systems throughout the world was decidedly comprehensive. But on the question of the hour, Reid was the customary incurious newspaperman which might explain his success in major media.

Not once, even at someone’s prompting, did Reid mention the for-profit worm in America’s medical system’s rotten apple. We’re told that Reid walked away from the second Frontline documentary for its whitewash of his criticism of the for-profit incentive which prevents payment systems from serving the public good. He’s excised the subject from his own presentation too. Instead, Reid focused on the millions of uninsured Americans, without a mention of the bigger population of victims, those insured who are denied care nonetheless.

Reid was pessimistic about the chances for near-term reform, based on anecdotal evidence of comments he’s received on the Frontline website. A year ago his documentary got mostly supportive comments. This year they are predominantly critical. Thus, Reid concludes, Americans do not want health care reform.

His audience tonight applauded every punchline about health care as a human right, yet Reid held that we did not want it badly enough. I hate it when the best of our spokesmen blame the audience.

Tulane kicks Kimberly-Clark off campus!

Posted on by
3

From the Greenpeace Students’ Network: “Hi ya’ll! My name is Laney White, and I am spring 2009 graduate of Tulane University in New Orleans. I am writing to tell you the great news: Tulane just kicked Kimberly-Clark off campus!!!”

After working with the campus’s Facilities Services throughout the spring semester, my environmental group, Tulane Environmental Action League (TEAL), and I convinced the University to drop Kimberly-Clark, which uses wood clearcut from ancient forests to produce disposable products, in favor of a more sustainable company. Over the course of this summer, Tulane will be making the switch!

Despite obstacles like an apathetic student body, TEAL discovered that the concerted efforts of a small group of individuals could alter how a university chooses to do business. Over a series of meetings with Facilities Services, my student group presented viable alternatives to Kimberly-Clark and provided clear, well-researched arguments for making the switch. Persistence in communication with Facilities was crucial, as was coordinating with potential allies on campus. Tulane’s Office of Environmental Affairs, which is currently working to obtain LEED certification for some buildings on campus, was instrumental in helping make the final push for the switch because the new products will earn the buildings additional LEED points.

As a school located in New Orleans, the Tulane community has a greater stake in climate change and environmental stewardship than the average university. Placed on the frontlines of global warming, the impacts of the clearcutting practices supported by corporations like Kimberly-Clark have the potential to disproportionately affect the Crescent City. Kicking Kimberly-Clark off of Tulane’s campus is a small change that, when joined with the efforts of likeminded students across the country, has the potential to alter the market, change Kimberly-Clark’s practices, and have a huge impact!

I plan to continue my work as an environmental leader and look forward to working with many of you as we work to save the planet from climate catastrophe in the coming years. It is our actions, together, that will determine history and the fate of our planet.

For a green and peaceful future,
Laney White
Tulane University
Class of 2009

Uncle Tom’s Hotel Rwanda

Posted on by
1

Is the Don Cheedle?Let’s clear something up for the sake of poetic justice. Uncle Tom was a maltreated slave who bore his burden with dignity. He was no collaborator, no stool pigeon, no upper class of black slave that kept the lower savages in order. That “Uncle Tom” is what the term has come to mean: a white man’s black man, owing perhaps to the original character’s civilized humanity which a white reader might not have expected to be a capacity of an African slave. The neo-Uncle Tom is a Tutsi.

I heard the film Hotel Rwanda was just incredible, I’m sure it was. I watched the Frontline documentary to commemorate the anniversary of the genocide in Rwanda and so thought I knew the sad story already. Well I was right and I was wrong, but not about the film.

The mounting trouble in the Democratic Republic of Congo is causing leaders to forewarn of genocide such as Rwanda experienced in 1994. We’re told the same Hutus are marauding today. In addressing the issues of the Congo, do we have an understanding of what happened in 1994, beside the film dramatization?

The question to ask is whether what happened in Rwanda was genocide. That’s not to minimize the killings, but to scrutinize the motives. Was the fighting between Hutus and Tutsis racially motivated tribal warfare, or was it class warfare? Were the events of 1994 components of a peasant rebellion, distinguished by the opposing forces being from different ethnicities?

The distinction is critical. Behind the Hotel Rwanda imagery is the theme that African tribes need to be protected from each other. This happens in the form of UN intervention usually. The storytellers also know that if the narrative is bloody enough, a Western audience is just as ready to throw up its hands. Thus our impulse to join the Peace Corps or Medecins Sans Frontieres is quietly scrubbed in favor of calling in the cavalry. And then, only in the event of genocide.

Someone keeps wanting Westerners to believe that African tribes will continue to kill each other regardless what we do. Is it true? No, the Africans fight because of what we do.

The Tutsi victims of Hotel Rwanda were not just hotel keepers and clerks. The Tutsis were the administrative enforcers of post-colonial central Africa. The Hutus were the oppressed, and rose up against the Tutsis after generations of oppression and killings.

If Africa were let to develop autonomous states from its indigenous populations, its people could put their natural resources to use improving their lives. Instead, our post-colonial tentacles continue to stir up instability. Our business interests make sure that the native Africans never get their footing. We fund strong men to enforce violent rule over the inhabitants. It’s a controlled instability that facilitates the minimal societal infrastructure our traders require. But instability is difficult a balancing act. When the mayhem gets out of hand, peace-keepers are brought in at the people’s expense, to restore the disordered order.

What comes after the donkey eats the carrot?

Posted on by
2

donkeyNo doubt about it, the American ruling class has decided to rewire the circuits once again. But what comes after? What comes after the big CHANGE?

Certainly a Black man and his relatively young Black wife in the White House are going to look pretty world wide. What better way to promote The Empire than this? Especially when one considers that the other possibility was having Sarah Palin in there with her Clod… I meant Todd. The entire world is going to breathe a big sigh of relief…. at least initially. However…

We have to ask ourselves how long will this relief actually last? We might ask ourselves, just how long did Colin Powell’s and Ricardo Sanchez’s presence provide relief for American image in Iraq? A couple of years maybe? But then those alarming breakdowns in US image began to occur, Black and Brown faces not withstanding. For example, who is moaning about losing the pretty little Black face of Condaleeza Rice from the international scene? Not too many.

Yes, the Republican Elephant already had a whole lot of dark skin covering for the US imperialists’ image worldwide. Now it is the Donkey’s time. They’ll have White donkeys out there, too (like Joe Biden for one) but the Black ones are the ones that certainly will stand out. Everybody will be asking themselves, just what will the Black donkey bray out next? There’ll be a lot of curiosity at first, but then folk will notice that this donkey is about the same as the White donkeys.

Obama is most likely to begin with a blast of rhetoric and action about ‘winning’ the ‘Global War on Terrorism’ and by that, he will mean that he will be advancing the frontlines against the Chinese and Russians’ national interests. He will send more US troops into Afghanistan, and, Joseph Biden, Zionist leader and African ‘specialist’ on ‘Darfur’ will be mobilizing those US troops under AFRICOM command to save people (just like the Iraqis and Afghans were supposedly saved from themselves previously) in the exotic lands of Fureigners (foreign Fur-people of the Dar-land). Joe is a great humanitarian and no doubt about it, that Barack Hussein is, too. They will be ‘saving’ people almost everywhere, just like the Republicans did before them. And like the Republicans they will claim that this is what makes America so great!

On the home front it will be like a Hollywood cop movie, where Black cop and White cop move together in gunfire and action! Evil racist creeps (US Right Wingers) will snarl and growl in response, and it’ll all look good and bang-bang at first, but then it will begin to be noticed by some that the movie has no plot. The real plot will be that the no plot script beyond superficial ‘action’ will be the plot… the DP plot as usual. Cover for the big while pretending to be for the little. Hey! That’s the same script of the Republicans, too! The economy will continue its slide down hill and the only question will be at what velocity it goes?

Liberal wimps and the sensitive people will be held up to be esteemed once more again in our American Eden. Thugs, cons, and conmen will seemingly be on vacation at first. Then, all of a sudden, some astute Americans will begin to notice that the Donkeys and Elephants are still cooperating in that so heralded ‘bipartisan’ American manner still. They will notice that the US military is even growing bigger and more all encompassing than it was before. They will notice that there is still a war with out end still going on. And they will notice that Blacks are still more held in jails than in public government offices or universities or business boardrooms. And they will notice that despite all the announced change, it is merely that the American ruling class has only rewired the circuits of their control over the rest of us once again. Most won’t notice much at all. Some will begin to holler out for the Elephant to return once again to the White House on the hill.