‘Axis of evil’ seeps into Hollywood
By Kaveh L Afrasiabi
No doubt about it, four years after his famous and also infamous “axis of evil” speech, US President George W Bush’s crusade mentality has finally found its cinematic counterpart - in 300, a major motion picture centered on the epic battle between the Persians and the Greeks in 480 BC.
It is part history, part fantasy, safely buffering itself against potential criticisms, eg of its historical distortions or shortcomings, by the cinematic license optimally exploited meanwhile to preach to the audience about the values of freedom against the evil forces of unfreedom.
Portraying the past world in a contemporary language with the help of voiceovers in case we missed the message, the dramatic feature plunges into the midst of a violent battle that fully resonates with the contemporary discourses on “clashing civilizations”.
More than pure entertainment, it is a movie that wants people to reflect on what they are seeing, by teaching a lesson or two about history, by eliciting sympathy for its exalted Spartan heroes and heroines standing up to the world’s first superpower, the Achaemenid Persians.
Saturated with not-so-subtle Persianphobia, the movie calls for the interrogation of the political agenda behind it, at a time when Iran is constantly threatened with military invasion and “all options are on the table” in Washington. In Los Angeles, the cognitive assault has been raging for some time.
In Into the Night, a leading actress is asked what is her biggest turnoff and answers: “Persians”. In Steven Spielberg’s movie The Peacemaker, actor George Clooney utters four-letter words when referring to Iran. In the more recent Syriana, Clooney, playing a rogue Central Intelligence Agency operative, blows up Iranians in downtown Tehran with a broad smile on his face.
There is a very large population of Iranians in Los Angeles county, many of them affluent professionals and successful businessmen. Many live in luxurious mansions in Beverly Hills, but you would not know that by watching Hollywood’s movies. In House of Sand and Crash, we only see struggling immigrants on the margins of society.
California may be America’s ultimate melting pot, but Hollywood’s tall walls of exclusion and discrimination have yet to crumble when it comes to the movie industry’s persistent misrepresentation of Iranians and their collective identity immersed in a long thread of history.
Speaking of history, it is simultaneously a rich yet exceedingly difficult source material for the art of movie-making, and Hollywood has at best a mixed record on “getting it right”, notwithstanding the controversies swirling about Oliver FULL AT ASIA TIMES
Posted by stan as News at 1:19 PM PDT
The Cost of Privilege - Taking On the System of White Supremacy and Racism, by Chip Smith, (with Michelle Foy, Badili Jones, Elly Leary, Joe Navarro, and Juliet Ucelli) was written by leftists, active as leftists, most for decades. The book responds to the recurrent experience of these organizers: the continual re-emergence — even in “progressive” sectors of white people — of a thoroughly liberal account of race and white supremacy. In fact, liberalism eschews the latter term because it speaks to systemic oppression instead of defining racism as individual pathology.
The Cost of Privilege is a fine activists’ primer for understanding racism in the US from a revolutionary, democratic, working-class perspective. Writing in a down-to-earth style, Smith weaves theoretical insight, political history, and organizing practice together, shows how capitalism, racism, and patriarchy interconnect, and offers excellent ideas for movement-building.
-Johanna Brenner, author of Women and the Politics of Class
Full disclosure is that Chip is a friend and political collaborator, as are the rest. But if anyone is interested in a book that picks up with history where anti-racism training leaves off, the data tables are alone worth the cost of the book.
Many, many white organizers, and white people who would like to become more active anti-racists, yet who are intimidated by the public debate and political struggles around “race,” can use this book as as starting point… as a kind of user’s guide for opposing white supremacy, rhetorically and practically. The book abounds with anecdotal insets, statistical tables, poetry, maps, and the superlative visual art of Malcolm Goff (not my relative, but my brother nonetheless).
A very fine contribution to revolutionary research and synthesis, The Cost of Privilege is also a very readable and accessible book.
Check it out; and pass it along.
Posted by stan as Pedagogy, News at 2:13 PM PST
Hat tip to Sara Rich (Suzanne’s mom).
As thousands of burned-out soldiers prepare to return to Iraq to fill President Bush’s unwelcome call for at least 20,000 more troops, I can’t help wondering what the women among those troops will have to face. And I don’t mean only the hardships of war, the killing of civilians, the bombs and mortars, the heat and sleeplessness and fear.
I mean from their own comrades — the men.
FULL ARTICLE
Posted by stan as News, Analysis at 12:35 PM PST
I have been corresponding, when they allow it, with Kevin “Rashid’ Johnson ever since, some time ago, our thinkpieces were carried side by side in Socialism and Democracy (Issue 38) His was “A Practical Approach to Strategic Organizing for Popular Struggle.” Mine was called “A Period for Pedagogy.” His was the better article of the two by a long shot.
Rashid is locked up in the notorious Red Onion supermax confinement facility, hosted by the state of Virginia.
Via my friend Inga Muscio, I just received the email being distributed by Rashid’s representative on the outside. Please spread this around on the internet and take the time to follow the action steps.
***
[NOTE: For the actual documents referenced below, email or call Becky 703-463-0558 catsambol@aol.com5125 ]
dear folks,
please read the attached reports before making these important phone
calls. also, please forward this email to anyone you know who will put
in a phone call.
thanks,
inga
———- Forwarded message ———-
From: XXXXXX
Date: Mar 1, 2007 10:15 PM
Subject: Alert: Kevin ‘Rashid’ Johnson in Danger
To: fedup@riseup.net
With a great sense of urgency we write to you for help. We believe
that FedUp!’s co-founder, Kevin ‘Rashid’ Johnson’s life is in danger.
In the past week, he has been maced, thrown into a wall, death threats
were made on his life and he has repeatedly been denied meals. We have
received information that he is no longer allowed to receive mail,
make phone calls or have visitors. This leaves him in total isolation.
Rashid has been filing grievances against abusive guards for years,
and also an outspoken member of the Black Liberation Movement. We
believe he is being targeted for his activities.
A new young correctional officer by the name of C. Dutton, is the
guard reported to have been responsible for much of the abuse and
death threats.
We ask that you please call the Warden of Red Onion State Prison and
Gene Johnson’s office, the head of the Virginia Department of
Corrections and demand:
-that continued harassment of Kevin Johnson be stopped
-that C/O Dutton not be allowed near Kevin ‘Rashid’ Johnson #185492
-that he be allowed to receive mail and his visiting privileges reinstated
-that he receive food
There is the famous saying from a guard to a political prisoner, “You
are still alive because too many people care about you.”
Please let the officials in Virginia know that you are watching how
they treat our friend and comrade.
Call Tracy Ray, Warden of Red Onion at 276-796-7510 (select wardens extension)
Call Gene Johnson, head of VADOC, at 804- 674-3119
Call Tim Kaine, Governor of VA at 804 – 786-2211
Attached is the latest report outlining incidents of a number of
prisoners with Rashid’s details in bold, and additional documentation
of abuse at this prison.
If you are in a writing mood:
Tracy S. Ray, Warden of R.O.S.P. P.O. Box 970 Pound, VA 24279
Tim Kaine, Governor of VA State Capital- 3rd Floor Richmond, VA 23219
To see the Human Rights Watch Report on Red Onion State:
http://www.hrw.org/reports/1999/redonion/
Thank You!
Human Rights Coalition-FedUp! Chapter
Please Contact Becky 703-463-0558 catsambol@aol.com5125 Penn Ave Pgh,
Pa 15224 412-802-8575 fedup@riseup.net
Posted by stan as News at 5:56 PM PST
From the Nyéléni 2007 website:
Nyéléni 2007
Women’s Declaration on Food Sovereignty
We, women from more than 40 countries, from different indigenous peoples of Africa, the Americas, Europe, Asia and Oceania and from different sectors and social movements, have gathered together in Sélingué (Mali) at Nyéléni 2007 to participate in the creation of a new right: the right to food sovereignty. We reaffirm our will to act to change the capitalist and patriarchal world which puts the interests of the market before the rights of people.
Women, who throughout history have been the creators of knowledge about food and agriculture, who still produce up to 80% of the food in the world’s poorest countries and are today the principal guardians of biodiversity and agricultural seeds, are particularly affected by neo-liberal and sexist policies.
We suffer the dramatic consequences of these policies: poverty, inadequate access to resources, patents on living organisms, rural exodus and forced migration, war and all forms of physical and sexual violence. Monocultures, including those dedicated to agrofuels, and the widespread use of chemicals and genetically-modified organisms have a harmful effect on the environment and on human health, particularly reproductive health.
The industrial model and the transnationals threaten the very existence of peasant agriculture, small-scale fishing and herding, as well as the small-scale preparation and sale of food in both urban and rural environments, all sectors where women play a major role.
We want to see food and agriculture taken out of the WTO and out of free trade agreements. What is more, we reject the capitalist and patriarchal institutions that see food, water, land and traditional knowledge, as well as women’s bodies, as mere commodities.
Seeing our struggle as part of the fight for equality between the sexes, we are no longer prepared to submit to the oppression of traditional or modern society, nor to the oppression of the market. We want to seize this opportunity to leave behind all sexist prejudice and build a new vision of the world based on respect, equality, justice, solidarity, peace and freedom.
We are mobilized. We are fighting for access to land, to territory, to water and to seeds. We are fighting for access to finance and to agricultural tools. We are fighting for good working conditions. We are fighting for access to training and to information. We are fighting for our independence and for the right to decide for ourselves, and for our full participation in decision-making.
Under the watchful eye of Nyéléni, an African woman who defied discriminatory rules, who shone through her creativity and agricultural prowess, we will find the energy to give effect to food sovereignty and, thereby, the hope of building a different world. We will find this energy in our solidarity. We will take this message to women all over the world.
Nyéléni, 27 February 2007
Posted by BrianR as News, Analysis at 8:44 AM PST
Over on the World Changing website there is a report from Anna Lappé who attended the first International Forum on Food Sovereignty in Mali. It got me thinking about what food sovereignty means to Americans. As with many things, I think we can learn from non-Americans on the best way to precede. Here are a few answers to the question.
I’ve been asking every delegate I meet, from Thai fisherman to Senegalese peasant organizers, what food sovereignty means to them. As one delegate, a mayor from Norway (and probably the only mayor here) said: “For me, food sovereignty means we must support food producers in every country. Food, after all, is power, and we need to decide who has that power: food producers or large corporations.” Said an African delegate from Sierra Leone: “Food sovereignty is the ability for our people to be able to feed ourselves. Here in Africa, hunger is not a problem of production, it’s a problem of access and distribution. We need basic things like storage and food processing facilities. We need access to networks for sale and distribution. If we had these things, we could have food sovereignty in five years.”
Posted by BrianR as News, Analysis at 8:39 AM PST
Unlike almost anywhere else in Baghdad, you could dine at the cafeteria in the Republican Palace in the heart of the Green Zone for six months and never eat hummus, flatbread, or a lamb kebab. The palace was the headquarters of the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), the American occupation administration in Iraq, and the food was always American, often with a Southern flavour. A buffet featured grits, cornbread and a bottomless barrel of pork: sausage for breakfast, hot dogs for lunch, pork chops for dinner. The cafeteria was all about meeting American needs for high-calorie, high-fat comfort food.
None of the succulent tomatoes or crisp cucumbers grown in Iraq made it into the salad bar. US government regulations dictated that everything, even the water in which hot dogs were boiled, be shipped in from approved suppliers in other nations. Milk and bread were trucked in from Kuwait, as were tinned peas and carrots. The breakfast cereal was flown in from the US.
FULL (Google Cache of story who’s original link broke.) Here’s another link in case the first one breaks too.
Then follow up with THIS ONE, then THIS ONE.
Please forward this widely, with links. Layla Anwar doesn’t make anyone comfortable, but she has things to say that aren’t being said by anyone else as an Iraqi woman. Hear her bitterness; and you will know why this war cannot be “won,” and why the occupation itself is the basis of “inter-Iraqi violence.”
Posted by stan as News, Analysis at 7:36 AM PST
Reposted from Fire on the Mountain
I just watched the new MoveCongress.org video of John Murtha explaining his legislative strategy to end the occupation of Iraq, which seems to contain some interesting hidden booby traps for the Bush administration. There is, unfortunately, another concealed agenda item in his plan—providing cover for Democrats who are under massive pressure to vote No on the upcoming $93 billion emergency appropriation Bush needs to continue the war.
FULL ARTICLE
Posted by stan as News at 6:52 PM PST
