I was interviewed by James Feltzer

on December 28, 2011. The MP3 is now available. I'm not big on talking over the phone, and the interviewed was conducted via Skype, which is phone-like enough, so I drank two big cans of Forster just to loosen my tongue a bit. I hope I didn't ramble too much.






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Collateral Savages

As published on OpEd News, Dissident Voice, CounterPunch and Intrepid Report, 1/17/12:






It is a recurring theme: civilization committing barbaric acts to feed its refined gluttony. As we found out about American Marines urinating on dead Afghans, there was also a story about Brazilian loggers tying an eight-year-old girl to a tree and burning her to death. She belonged to the Awá, an Amazon tribe of around 300 members, with only 60 still clinging to their hunter-gatherer way of life. To maintain our so-called civilized standards of living, collateral damages are inevitable, and “savages” must be sacrificed.

If they get in the way of civilization’s quest for petroleum, lumber, tin, zinc, copper, whatever, they must be killed wholesale, or one by one, as was accomplished by Chris Kyle, currently touring bookstores to promote his American Sniper: The Autobiography of the Most Lethal Sniper in U.S. Military History. Kyle killed 255 “savages,” his term, and can stand before God with a clear conscience, he told Bill O’Reily, because he was saving American lives. FOX being FOX, the question of why Kyle was in Iraq in the first place was not probed.

With his tunnel vision specialty, teamwork ethics and preoccupation with numbers, Kyle is the quintessential tool in civilization’s machinery. Tasked with long-distance, targeted killing, he performed outstandingly, and is proud of his feats, all carefully quantified. His 160 Pentagon-confirmed kills wipe out the previous American record of 109, held by Delbert F. Waldron, not to mention the relatively puny 93 of Carlos Hathcock. Kyle’s longest shot was 2,100 yards. Though impressively long, yes, very long, it’s dwarfed by the 2,700 yards recorded by one Horse Craig Harrison, a Brit.

Empire is civilization’s greatest efflorescence and final aim. With empire comes the tallest, biggest and longest of everything. Citizens of empire, down to the lowest cog, bathe themselves daily with numbers as a kind of self-congratulation. Counting themselves hoarse to prove that they are in fact content, they measure their achievement and happiness with Dow and Nasdaq indexes, inches on flat-screen TVs, cars sold, runs and touchdowns scored by sport heroes, and savages killed by even more heroes. A large number denoting anything, even debt, cheers up denizens of an empire since it is proof of their gigantism. Empires compete to see who can piss the longest and furthest, over the most continents.

What a contrast this is to a primitive nomad, who sees properties as a burden, and thus does not care to count hardly anything. The most extreme example of this is another Amazon tribe, the Pirahã, whose language includes no cardinal numbers at all. They simply can’t count, and have no interest in doing so. American scholar Daniel Everett spent an hour each night for eight months trying to teach them numbers in Portuguese, with zero success, “It was just a fun time to eat popcorn and watch me write things on the board.”

Though living on a finite planet, the subjects of empire are indoctrinated into the religion of infinite growth, with anything short of that seen as a major disaster. With their gross appetites, they cannot conceive of a no-growth existence, though that was the economy of man for thousands of years. During the age of fossil fuels, now winding down, this infinite growth formula can appear sane and sustainable, but as oil and gas go scarce, its murderous and suicidal nature will become ever starker, like an innocent girl being burnt at the stake.

Most of the planet must slave and starve, so the anointed few can consume, yet even these lucky buyers must themselves slave, commute long hours and pop uppers or downers nonstop to afford that Ipod, Ipad and Xbox. Speaking of which, here’s a still relevant insight from Ben Franklin:

“Having few artificial wants, they have abundance of leisure for improvement by conversation. Our laborious manner of life, compared with theirs, they esteem slavish and base; and the learning, on which we value ourselves, they regard as frivolous and useless.”—from his Remarks Concerning the Savages of North America

With social networking, who needs face-to-face conversations? Slaves to bogus needs and virtual thrills, we have become estranged from the real, with our savage instincts, suppressed, flaring up as conceits or pathologies. Often they explode overseas, as the T-shirt says: TRAVEL TO EXOTIC LANDS, MEET INTERESTING PEOPLE THEN KILL THEM.

In an advanced civilization, a nomadic existence, with its hunting pack, can only be approximated in a war, but instead of hunting animals for subsistence, our boys are gunning down people who are merely trying to prevent us from exploiting and humiliating them. With such a dubious reason to kill or be killed, it’s not surprising that many of these soldiers come back home only to kill themselves.

As I write this, the US is encircling, harassing and sabotaging Iran, yet few Americans seem alarmed that for the sake of oil, again, and increasingly elusive economic growth, their leaders may kill millions and wreck this earth even further, but as their empire convulses and collapses, most Americans will find themselves reduced to the level of those they’ve been annihilating. They will discover that they, too, are just collateral savages.






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Loggers 'burned Amazon tribe girl alive'

The Telegraph, 1/10/12:



Loggers in Brazil captured an eight-year-old girl from one of the Amazon's last uncontacted tribes and burned her alive as part of a campaign to force the indigenous population from its land, reports claimed on Tuesday night.

The child was said to have wandered away from her village, where around 60 members of the Awá tribe, who live in complete isolation from the modern world, and fallen into the hands of the loggers.

Luis Carlos Guajajaras, a local leader from a separate tribe, told a Brazilian news website that they tied to her a tree and set her alight as a warning to other natives, who live in a protected reserve in the north-eastern state of Maranhão .

"She was from another tribe, they live deep in the jungle, and have no contact with the outside world. It would have been the first time she had ever seen white men. We heard that they laughed as they burned her to death," he said.

Reports of the killing, which was said to have happened in October or November last year, were seconded by the Indigenous Missionary Council (CIMI), a Catholic group which said it had seen footage of her charred remains.

[...]






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Phenomena Witnessed in Mourning Days (1) Bears Seen on Road in Winter Day

Pyongyang, January 7 (KCNA) -- At around 12:00 December 23, 2011, workers of the Taehung Youth Hero Mine saw three bears on a road when they were coming back from a mourning site after expressing deep condolences over the demise of leader Kim Jong Il.

The bears, believed to be a mother and cubs, were staying on the road, crying woefully.

Bears usually have a deep sleep in cave or under fallen tree in thick forest in winter days. So it was unusual that they came out to a road in the daytime. Moreover, the road was what the leader had taken for his field guidance tour.

The witnesses said it was as if the animals were wailing over his death. -0-




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I was interviewed by Trang Cao

in San Francisco on 10/16/2010:

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I was interviewed by several San Francisco State students

in SF in October of 2010:

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Indentured Internships

Dona Furiosa at Scholastic Snake Oil, 1/8/12:




A community college in which I taught some years ago required all of its students to spend a semester in an internship before graduating. The student's major didn't matter: If he or she wanted to get an Associate's degree from the school, he or she had to perform a semester of unpaid labor that, at least theoretically, related to his or her major.

My department's chair, who was one of the most powerful professors in that college, opposed them and was, in fact, spearheading a campaign to eliminate them. The college president and most of the administration were on the other side of that fence. They argued that internships were an "integral part of the college's unique mission," or some such thing. Guess which side won.

Interestingly, that college required internships from the day it opened its doors, more than three decades before I began teaching there. In those days, the college's student population was mostly white, working-class and male; by the time I was teaching in it, there were two female students for every male and the majority of the students were nonwhite and/or spoke a language other than English at home.

Why is the demographic change relevant? Well, at the time the college opened (in 1970, if I recall correctly), most of those working-class male students were studying trades of one kind or another. The founders of the college argued (correctly, I think) that internships served as short apprenticeships of a kind. In fact, they did lead--or turn in--to some of those students' first jobs.

By the time I started teaching in that college, it had mostly abandoned those vocational programs. A few technical programs remained, but the majority of students were studying liberal arts, as they hoped to transfer to four-year colleges.

Perhaps even more to the point, by my time in the college, most of the students were working to pay for their schooling, and a good number of them were supporting themselves, or families, with their jobs. Such students couldn't afford to take time away from their jobs to do unpaid work--especially when they still had to pay for the credits they'd earn from the internship. My department chair--who had what most people would see as a traditional, even elitist, notion of what higher education should be--argued that expecting students to give up their jobs for unpaid work was unfair as well as impractical.

But there was another good reason for ending the internships which none of the faculty or administrators ever mentioned, but which I learned from my students: Too often, the work they did in those internships bore little or no relationship to any work they would actually do in the careers or occupations for which they were preparing themselves--let alone to the theory they were learning in their classrooms. Many of the students were doing nothing more than stocking or filing, or performing menial labor. One of my students was doing such work for a chain that sold CDs, and it was said to relate to his major, which was audio science.

The worst part of this situation, however, may be that employers in many professions want new graduates/job applicants to have done internships. And, if the student isn't getting practical experience from the internship, what is the employer gaining? Free labor, of course. How many people would volunteer their time to an investment bank, chemical manufacturer, advertising agency or any other large, profitable business? Why should anyone be required to do such a thing?

[...]





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Iraq. Began with big lies. Ending with big lies. Never forget.

William Blum on 1/3/12:

"Most people don't understand what they have been part of here," said Command Sgt. Major Ron Kelley as he and other American troops prepared to leave Iraq in mid-December. "We have done a great thing as a nation. We freed a people and gave their country back to them."

"It is pretty exciting," said another young American soldier in Iraq. "We are going down in the history books, you might say." (Washington Post, December 18, 2011)

Ah yes, the history books, the multi-volume leather-bound set of "The Greatest Destructions of One Country by Another." The newest volume can relate, with numerous graphic photos, how the modern, educated, advanced nation of Iraq was reduced to a quasi failed state; how the Americans, beginning in 1991, bombed for 12 years, with one dubious excuse or another; then invaded, then occupied, overthrew the government, tortured without inhibition, killed wantonly, ... how the people of that unhappy land lost everything — their homes, their schools, their electricity, their clean water, their environment, their neighborhoods, their mosques, their archaeology, their jobs, their careers, their professionals, their state-run enterprises, their physical health, their mental health, their health care, their welfare state, their women's rights, their religious tolerance, their safety, their security, their children, their parents, their past, their present, their future, their lives ... More than half the population either dead, wounded, traumatized, in prison, internally displaced, or in foreign exile ... The air, soil, water, blood, and genes drenched with depleted uranium ... the most awful birth defects ... unexploded cluster bombs lying anywhere in wait for children to pick them up ... a river of blood running alongside the Euphrates and Tigris ... through a country that may never be put back together again.

[...]




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'Every US action in Afghanistan illegal'

Iran's Press TV, Jan 5, 2012:

Journalist Linh Dinh says imprisoning Afghan “people without trial, without charges is just part of the illegality of the U.S. being” in Afghanistan.

Dinh made the remarks in an interview with Press TV's U.S. Desk on Thursday when asked about a demand made by Afghan President Hamid Karzai that the U.S. detention center at Bagram Airbase be handed over to Afghan control within a month, along with all Afghan citizens held by the coalition troops across the nation.

He added, “The U.S. presence here is illegal. Every U.S. action in Afghanistan is illegal.”



AT/KK


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Horror and Puppetry

As published at OpEd News, Dissident Voice, CounterPunch and Intrepid Report, 1/6/12:





Meat, water, sock or political, it’s not easy being a puppet. Even before the first word tumbles from your mouth, people crack up, and your face alone can bring down the house. Take this passage from Hamid Karzai, from a 2004 address to a joint session of the American Congress:

Our national army is being trained by American forces, American troops, and wherever we have deployed them the Afghan people have welcomed them. We have initiated the fight against narcotics to save our children, to save your children and children across the world from the evil of addiction to drugs.

It’s amazing the Capitol was still standing after these one liners. Need I remind you that Karzai spent much of his adult life on the payroll of the CIA, the world’s biggest drug gang? And that his brother, since assassinated, was a notorious drug dealer? As for the Afghan people’s love for Karzai’s army, it now depends on four times the number of American troops to keep it from disintegrating or being overrun. The night’s biggest howler, however, came when Karzai related this tale about two American soldiers in Kandahar:

Somebody, a terrorist, threw a grenade at them. The grenade landed in their vehicle. They took the grenade. Instead of throwing it into the street where there were people around them, civilians, these heroic men stuck the grenade under their seat. The grenade exploded. Fortunately, they survived. But they were badly injured. To us, this was also an example of heroism and care for humanity, and we are proud of these two American soldiers. These stories tell a tale of partnership, tell a tale of joint struggle, tell a tale of care and courage and care for humanity.

I’m sorry for being skeptical, but in the long an(n)als of propaganda or warfare, I don’t think anyone has ever claimed that a soldier placed a live grenade under his butts (and jewels). It just doesn’t happen, OK? Even if his mother was standing in that crowded street, I doubt he would shove it right there.

As an American puppet, Karzai had to mouth such absurdities, but these jokes wouldn’t go over too well at home, especially as American atrocities avalanched. When even the New York Times had to report that Afghan children were being blown up just for fun by American chopper crews, Karzai had to protest. He couldn’t follow his supposed outrage to its conclusion, however, by demanding that America quit Afghanistan, because if there were no more American troops in Afghanistan, there would also be no more Karzai… in Afghanistan.

Even Karzai’s own vice-president accused him of being a puppet, so as an American stooge, he had to appear as an uber-Afghan. Thus, the lambskin hat, the bright robe, the tunic. No ordinary suit and tie, Allah forbid, as found on the Syrian President, enemy of the West, or just a discount, JC Penney jacket, as draped on the Iranian leader.

Now, a political puppet can certainly outgrow his role. No longer useful, he can be shoved aside or even killed. Conversely, if he feels that he no longer needs his patron, that he has used this support long enough to consolidate his own power, he can also ditch the patron to stand on his own two feet. This, Karzai hasn’t come close to achieve. Quite the reverse. As recent events have proven, Karzai has become even more superfluous.

Karzai’s only justification for being was that he was an alternative to the Taliban, so when the US started to negotiate with these same Taliban, he went berserk, especially as neither sides bothered to bring him into their discussions. Karzai’s indignation changed nothing, however, so now he’s endorsing this rapprochement between his Yankee masters and his political enemy.

To prove that he’s his own puppet, after all, and a nationalist and humanist, to boot, Karzai’s now demanding that the US returns Bagram Prison to Afghanistan. Citing its atrocious human rights abuses, Karzai considers this complex a violation of Afghan sovereignty. Of course he’s right, but then everything America does in Afghanistan is a violation of Afghan sovereignty, because America shouldn’t be there at all. America’s installation of Hamid Karzai is a violation of Afghan sovereignty.

Since the American invasion, thousands of Afghans have had to suffer indefinite detention without access to a lawyer, often after having been yanked from their home in the middle of the night. Many have been tortured, with some killed in custody. At present, there are over 1,700 prisoners in Bagram. With the National Defense Authorization Act, Americans can now look forward to the same sadistic, inhuman treatment, but who, and how many?

Since there will be no legal presentation or due process, with everything done in secret, you will never know, will you, unless it’s you yourself who are suddenly stripped naked, hung from the ceiling and beaten, forced to endure unbearable cold and to curl up naked on the floor in an empty cell day after day, without any evidence presented whatsoever, with no basis at all for your open-ended suffering but the whims of an empire gone mad.





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With anti-Muslim sentiments running so high,

I want to cite a wonderful passage by John Steinbeck, written in 1953 about Positano, Italy:



About ten years ago a Moslem came to Positano, liked it and settled. For a time he was self-supporting but gradually he ran out of assets and still he stayed. The town supported him and took care of him. Just as the mayor was their only Communist, this was their only Moslem. They felt that he belonged to them. Finally he died and his only request was that he might be buried with his feet toward Mecca. And this, so Positano thought, was done. Four years later some curious meddler made a discovery. The Moslem had been buried by dead reckoning and either the compass was off or the map was faulty. He had been buried 28 degrees off course. This was outrageous to a seafaring town. The whole population gathered, dug the Moslem up, put him on course and covered him up again.





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Urban goats for organic raw milk in a San Francisco backyard

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California shipping container tiny home and a cargo trailer bedroom

Fair Companies, 11/28/11:

Lulu is a single mom who'd gone back to school and didn't have the time or interest in working full-time to pay for rent. So when she had to move out of her more conventional home, she decided to move herself and her daughter into a shipping container.

"I think I'm a little claustrophobic so the storage container was a little daunting, but I got the container for free."

DIY container home

With no building experience, Lulu spent just one month cutting windows and a door and installing insulation and a basic kitchen (complete with propane-powered campstove and on-demand water heater).

Then she and her daughter moved into the 8 by 20 foot square foot home, fitting a bed, couch, bookshelf and kitchen cabinets into the 160 square foot box.

A flatbed trailer bedroom addition

When Lulu decided they needed a bit more space, she went from shipping to trucking waste and began to build their bedroom on a used flatbed trailer.

"It's really mostly built like a shed. It's a nice looking shed, but it's really an 8 by 16 shed with windows in it."

Salvaged furniture

Using only recycled building materials- including used floorboards, windows, cabinets, doors, bathtub, toilet and sinks- she built the entire thing for about $4,000 (trailer included).

When you don't have money you just get creative you know and I had to go to the junkyard many times and be like, 'okay, what am I going to do' and be like 'okay, I'll pick that' and ‘how can I convert that into a closet’ and ‘how can I make that a sink’ and ‘how am I going to make that fit’."

Living smaller, working less

Now Lulu and her daughter have 288 square feet, or a bit more if you include the square footage of her daughter’s lofted bed. She says her daughter sometimes loves her little fort and other times she complains, but Lulu doesn’t doubt her decision.

“I mean this was really a choice about, you know, how many hours do we have to our life and how do I want to spend those hours and really about do I want to go and work more than 10, 20, 30 hours a week so that I can pay rent to have a big house so that I can be a healthy normal mom. So this was my choice and she's definitely complained at times, but I also know that we have spent way more hours than I would have if I had to pay rent.”

Lulu didn’t want to add a mortgage to her student loans, but her choice of home was also a reflection of her love of imperfect beauty.

“I showed this to my brother in Argentina and he said, 'you've always like poverty with a lot of style. Always like elegant poor'… although now it's fashionable to be wabi-sabi right?"

Wabi-sabi home

Wabi-sabi (侘寂) is a Japanese aesthetic that values not only imperfection, but it’s also a worldview that appreciates that everything is temporary. Lulu likes living in a home that reflects the ephemeral nature of stuff.

“Material things, all of it is on borrow right, we're all just borrowing stuff... None of this is ours and we try to secure ourselves in these identities like my house, my wife, my car, my children, my career. You know the bigger the more, I'm sure that I am myself and it's like oh no, this house is really a prison and I'm tied to the bank.”

In this video, Lulu- while babysitting 3 other children, besides her own- gives us a tour of her container plus cargo trailer home and talks a bit about her wabi-sabi “elegant poor” style of life.

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Hijacking Somalia

As published at OpEd News, Dissident Voice, CounterPunch, Intrepid Report and Sri Lankan Guardian, 1/2/12:






Remember Mohamed Osman Mohamud? Of course not, no one does, and I haven’t thought about him myself until yesterday, when Iran’s Press TV solicited my (last) two cents about Somalia.

Somalia, but who’s thinking about Somalia? Yesterday, Americans were burdened with football and a hangover, and in Philadelphia, there was the Mummers Parade, a glorious display of blue collar creativity where plumbers and roofers cross-dressed, played saxophones or banjos, and strutted down Broad Street towards City Hall, the site of Occupy Philly until not that long ago.

Truth be told, the Mummers Parade has gone downhill for a while, ever since its finale was moved into the Convention Center. What was a street carnival became a perfunctory parade followed by an indoors, designed-for-television performance in front of a ticketed audience. Yesterday’s version was particularly listless, with the crowd thin, mirthless, and many floats recycled from years past. Everyone’s budget’s tight. In October, a Mummers Brigade was even busted for renting its clubhouse to a pimp. During the sting operation, undercover cops found nude women walking around, and sex acts performed in the open. Hey, when you’re broke and no longer making stuff, you have to make money with what’s intrinsic... to your person.

Back to Mohamed Osman Mohamud. Just over a year ago, he was lured and entrapped by the FBI, then accused of plotting to bomb a downtown Christmas celebration in Portland. His FBI handler had recorded their conversations, but during the supposedly incriminating one, where he actually stated his desire to bomb and kill fellow Americans, the recording device conveniently malfunctioned. Remember that during the Bin Laden raid, the helmet-mounted video camera also malfunctioned, which explains, supposedly, why there is not even a single image of that most wanted man during the exciting operation, although a much ballyhooed photo, an “instant classic” according to Rolling Stone and the Village Voice, was produced of Obama, Clinton and other big shots sitting in the White House Situation Room to watch the assassination in real time. I know it doesn’t add up. It never does. The next time an audio or visual recorder goes AWOL, perhaps the CIA or FBI can blame it on the Chinese, since it’s a given that everything is made in China these days, even if, like Apple or Dell, it carries an American label. Here’s a ready to use, cut and paste headline, “Commies Sabotage Evidence Incriminating Muslim Terrorist.”

The key photo or evidence is never available, but the staged, massaged, doctored or clumsily-spun proofs overflow, not that Americans are paying close attention to anything beside Tim Tebow’s statistics and throwing motion. Seeing our government going through so much trouble to frame a young Somali-American fool, I had to conclude that it was part of the buildup to invade Somalia, and so it is happening, with American drones zapping Somalis from above, and Kenyan, Ethiopian, Ugandan and Burundian troops killing Somalis on the ground.

With Libya out of the way and Iraq temporarily pacified, our military-banking complex is turning its attention to Somalia, but why? As usual, it is spun as a fight against terrorists, as if Somalis are eager to butt heads with a ruthless empire. Attacked, they will fight back, of course, as happened in 1992 during “Operation Restore Hope,” now immortalized and cheesified in the film, Black Hawk Down. But what about missionaries, don’t Somalis also kill missionaries just for the hell of it?

Let’s scrutinize one incident. Last February, it was reported that Somali “pirates” hijacked an American yacht and killed four American missionaries, but even US AFRICA ONLINE, “THE AUTHORITATIVE LINK,” admitted that there was a US Navy warship “shadowing” this yacht as it headed into Somali waters. This warship was close enough to hear gunshots coming from Quest, the Christian boat, so it promptly killed 14 of these “pirates.” So, yes, Somali Muslims are so crazy, they will shoot at Americans approaching on a warship, even with four Christians stuck to the prow as figureheads. I don’t know about you but, personally, I prefer mermaids.

Washington can brand anyone a terrorist now, as it regularly does with Muslims it wants to attack. Targeting Somalia, the US is again evoking al-Qaeda, terrorism and even a desire to help ordinary Somalis, but the reason, as always, is money, which these days usually means access to oil and natural gas. Did you think it was anything else?

Before the overthrow of Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991, he signed over nearly two thirds of Somalia to four US oil companies, Conoco, Amoco, Chevron and Phillips, so the world’s biggest and baddest pirate, America, has been trying to reclaim this bounty ever since. As in Libya, Washington is fighting a proxy war, with American grunts saved for Iran, it appears. The year has just begun, but already we have blood on our hands, and we will continue to do so until our empire disappears.




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'Somalia, beginning of another Libya'

Iran's Press TV, 1/2/12:

Interview with Linh Dinh, writer and journalist

The United States has used assassination drones to launch aerial attacks in Somalia where Washington claims it fights terrorism.

Strategically located in the Horn of Africa, Somalia has been without a functioning government since the overthrow of its military dictator in 1991.

Press TV talks with Linh Dinh, a writer and journalist in Philadelphia about the developing situation in Somalia. What follows is an approximate transcript of the interview.

Press TV: Why is this crackdown taking place right now? There have been other military interventions in Somalia since 1993, which have only aggravated the country's unstable internal equilibrium. What makes it different this time around?

Dinh: Looking at the US, you have to conclude that the US is behind this latest push because since 1991 with the overthrow of a US-friendly dictator, the US has been trying to install another government that would be favorable to it.

Just before this ouster Somalia promised two thirds of its territory to four US oil companies, so with that kind of loss the US is trying to get back and has been trying to sabotage and invade Somalia ever since. The kind of chaos in Somalia right now actually works in the US' favor because it gives it justification to come in so that is what it is doing now.

Press TV: What role do you see the al-Shabab fighters playing in all of this?

Dinh: From here (US) all you get is a kind of demonization of al-Shabab and Somalia in general. It's presented as a basket case. Any time the US goes to war or is trying to go to war with a Muslim enemy it accuses it of being affiliated with al-Qaeda. So, I do not know what to make of it. Al-Shabab is again accused of being affiliated with al-Qaeda... you know... so with so much demonization of Somalia and pirates, al-Qaeda...

I want to remind your readers of an incident last Christmas when a Somalia-American was accused of trying to blow up a Christmas tree in Portland, Oregon. This incident was so ridiculously presented with so little physical evidence that at the time I was wondering why the FBI bothered to entrap and make a big case out of this and I concluded that it was preparing the American public for an eventual invasion of Somalia.

And when I was saying this last year there was some ridicule, they were saying that's so far-fetched, but look at what's happening now.

Press TV: Our guest in Cairo talked about how the Somalians are not happy with even regional militaries getting involved - Let's look also at the US factor... We know that the US has stepped up their drone attacks in Somalia, why do you think that is the case?

Dinh: If you look at the two sides in the conflict here, one side is heavily backed by foreign powers including Kenya, Ethiopia and even Ugandan troops and the US is behind all of this. And one side is basically indigenous.

So you have to conclude that the Somali people are behind al-Shabab mostly because otherwise the other side with their massive power wouldn't need to lean on these other countries. I see a parallel with Libya - what happened recently - with the rebels being supported by so many other foreign countries.

I don't know if the US will succeed this time, but with Libya out of the way and Iraq temporarily pacified, it is turning its attention to Somalia.

Press TV:You talked about the oil factor, let's go back to that, you mentioned four major US oil companies and their interest in Somalia - So you think that this is part of this US intervention in Somalia or is it like Washington says that they're basically involved to stop terrorism?

Dinh: You should not take the US seriously when it talks about humanitarian missions. It's never about helping somebody; it's always about money. When you talk about money these days it usually means oil or natural gas, which Somalia has. So, it's all about that and because it's all about that the American press is not mentioning it at all.

SC/GHN




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Slouching Towards 2012

As published at OpEd News, CounterPunch, Dissident Voice, Common Dreams and Intrepid Report, 12/30/11:







For the last two days, Yahoo! has featured an article, “N. Korea alters photo of Kim Jong Il funeral.” Juxtaposing two images, it shows that half a dozen inconsequential figures have been photoshopped out. It is fitting that Yahoo!, a leader in frivolity, is burdening its attentive yahoos with a pointless, carping article masquerading as political expose. This bitch slapping piece of pseudo-journalism is juxtaposed with “Baby Startled by Mom’s Noise,” “Model Pregnant on Runway,” “NASCAR Star Sorry for Tweets” and “Disney’s Women’s ‘Real’ Looks.”

Future observers will be aghast to discover that, as our economy collapses and the country slides into Fascism, our mostly numb and passive population is left to ponder the true identities of cartoon characters and who Jim Carrey is sleeping with. When it comes to putting a population to sleep, North Korea could take a few lessons from the US, and in fact, many Communist states already have. Don’t ban anything, just suffocate people with nonsense, bombard each brain cell relentlessly with so much tedious “entertainment” that it can no longer think straight.

All governments lie, but empires lie even more voluminously because they have a grander fiction to maintain, as well as a larger and more complex audience to pacify, stroke and sucker. The list of facts and events, recent and historical, that have been airbrushed from American history would occupy thousands of Howard Zinns for thousands of years. In their places, the official, unending bullshit. Wonders of wonders, tallest buildings collapsing at free fall speed, one without being hit by anything, its demise announced before the fact even. Or a murder without corpse of a most wanted target, with the “heroic” hit team conveniently packed into a helicopter, then killed. Nothing is ever explained, because nothing needs to be explained to a well-opiated audience.

I have contended that a hidden agenda of the Occupy Movement’s tent cities, now mostly gone, is to remove oneself from a normal, domesticated environment, with its attendant, nonstop media brainwashing via television, computer and other electronic gadgets. Freed from these insidious and poisonous mediators, one could discover other human beings, one’s neighbors, and oneself, at last. It wasn’t just a sacrifice to endure the elements and poor sanitation to feel solidarity and community. It was also an attraction, an atavistic yearning to see, hear and feel directly, and to jettison all of the soft yet stubborn, plugged-in shackles. As a sign at Zuccotti Park said so well, “FOR THE FIRST TIME IN MY LIFE, I FEEL AT HOME.”

Many inhabitants of these encampments had no other homes, however, so when these tents were cleared out, they had to scramble. In Philadelphia, a group relocated to an out of the way, vacant lot in a distressed neighborhood, then issued this plea to be left alone, “We are not here protesting or to make a statement, we’re homeless. We are sick of being forced to exist alone, sick of being told that shelters, which are not tolerable living facilities for sober people, are an adequate alternative to being “allowed”, by the government, to work, live and share together to create for ourselves […] ”

Forced by necessity or motivated by activism and desire, these tent dwellers will only multiply in the years ahead. Becoming a tribe unto themselves, they will reclaim entire swaths of America. Squatting on land, they will also get a chance to occupy their own minds. There, they will discover that the tucked away answers are already many degrees wiser and saner than the drivel being pumped out daily by their masters of murderous greed and war.

So far, our overlords have not been overly alarmed by our budding awakening and rebellion. Time Magazine even gave the movement a pat on the head, with a chuckling reminder that it took the Civil Rights Movement a decade to achieve tangible results, but we don’t have ten years to chip and dally away. The bankers are more entrenched than ever, with the next POTUS, their loyal servant, no different than the last, and don’t bet on Ron Paul being allowed to occupy that ceremonial seat.

The Pentagon’s core budget, as submitted by Peace Laureate Obama, is the biggest ever, though hefty cuts have been applied to Overseas Contingency Operations. Whenever another war starts, however, and who knows how many more we’ll see in 2012, the cash spigot will spill as madly as the blood. Trust me.

It’s another year coming, but I doubt that most Americans feel any sense of renewal. In spite of reassuring or silly headlines, pervasive dread is in the air. The election year will give the Occupy Movement energy and focus, but unless it can sharpen its message and allow exceptional individuals already in its midst to emerge as spokesmen and leaders, it will continue to accomplish merely minor, symbolic victories, as their opponents continue to kill, loot and, yes, laugh in their faces.

The you are a leader, I am a leader mantra is patently nonsense, because it takes a highly intelligent, charismatic and forceful figure to galvanize and inspire. A leader must earn his status, and when he has, lesser voices will naturally defer, and if he turns out to be a fraud, he should be chucked aside. Faced with a monomaniacal, brutal and well organized enemy, we cannot just counter with a horizontal position, because they will gladly accommodate this inclination.






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A PhD In...

Scholastic Snake Oil, 12/24/11:




The horrendous debts students incur in going to law, medical or most graduate schools--and almost any non-prestigious private college or university--are, along with the dismal prospects for employment, reason enough to dissuade people from going to those schools. If you're one of those people who thinks "you can't put a price" on education or gains self-esteem through titles, I'll try to explain another reason why incurring such debts--let alone encouraging someone else to incur them--is immoral.

I was just reading about PhD programs in Nursing. Now, maybe I'm late in coming to this party, but I wasn't aware of them until just recently. I guess I shouldn't be surprised, given some of the other programs that have developed under the current social, legal and economic climate.

York College, my former employer (It feels good to say that!), has bachelors' degree programs in a number of areas that come under the appelation of "health professions." They include traditional programs like ones to train nurses, physicans' assistants, physical therapists and occupational therapists. While most students attend them in the hope of working in one of those areas upon graduation, the college (and others) exert--and the students feel, from various sources-- pressure to pursue higher degrees in those areas.

Part of the explanation of this is simple: Like any other college (which includes nearly all of them), York and its parent university (City University of New York), is part of what some of us are calling the Financial-Educational Complex. The FEC wants students to stay in school for as long as possible because, for most students, more time in school translates into more and bigger loans.

[...]





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Christmas Gifts for a Collapsing America

As published at OpEd News, Common Dreams, Dissident Voice, CounterPunch and Intrepid Report, 12/21/11:






Homelessness Starter Kit, $29.99. For the myriad who were hustled by a bank into an impossible mortgage, then foreclosed upon. For the long-retired yet taxed right out of their own homes. For recent college grads who are jobless, of course, and too dispirited to return to their parents. Or for those who were simply laid off for no good reason and are now roofless, here’s a perfect gift for this holiday: Two pieces of cardboard, one to lie on, and one to create a begging and/or protest sign. As a bonus, we’ll include a list of suggested messages, completely free: WE ARE THE 99%, PREGNANT AND HUNGRY, I HAD A STROKE, I AM A WAR VETERAN, OCCUPY EVERYTHING DEMAND NOTHING, etc. For a Magic Marker, please add $1.99.

Military Contractor Gear, $499.95. For that aspiring mercenary in your family, now he can get off his couch and terrorize terrorists, without leaving his parents’ home even. Armed with a knife, grenades, M9 pistol and the latest Kalashnikov, the world’s most reliable infantry rifle, not that toy gun, M-16 piece of crap, your hired soldier can foray into his backyard and blast nasty holes into his dog, cat and lawn furniture. Emboldened, he can venture into adjacent properties and kick down his neighbors’ doors in the middle of the night and splatter them if they resist, or even if they submit. There’s no need for your deranged warrior to be bummed out over the end of the Iraq War, since he can bring all of that exciting carnage home. Kill ‘em all, let God sort ‘em out later! Bored with nightly mayhem, your military contractor can even step on an improvised explosive device (at $79.95 extra, with only one needed, trust us) and feel the thrills of having his lower half, at least, shredded. Real life hired-guns don’t get Purple Heart, but we’ll ship you an authentic looking one, at $4.99 extra.

Big Sis Sex Doll, $65.99, with $9.99 for handcuffs and $29.99 for TSA uniform. Tired of Janet Napolitano rummaging in your pants? Now you can get into hers. This is no generic, almost life-size dummy with the usual, traditional orifices in more or less the right places, or even that rarified, glasses-wearing and Emily Dickinson-quoting vinyl girlfriend. No, Siree! This is the Secretary of Homeland Security in face and person, her unique body shape extraordinarily rendered by a world-renown, Chinese artisan, a classmate and rival, no less, to the sculptor of that hulking and fug ugly MLK statue on the Washington Mall. Spiffy in your TSA outfit, you can intone on your very first date, “This is merely procedural, ma’am,” as you legally insert your creepy claws inside Janet’s business pants and fondle her pubis, buttocks and more, with no foreplay whatsoever. Why waste time? Like any sane person, she will squirm, grimace or even curse in a realistic, battery operated shriek, AA cells not included, but should Janet resist your patriotic, post 9-11 molestation, you can harden your voice and growl, “I’ll send you to Guantanamo, bitch!” before you handcuff her and get really funky. Fun over, you can waterboard Janet’s face and gently wash her body with warm water and soap. Deflated, she is compact enough to store in a back pocket until the next airport patdown and/or enhanced interrogation technique session.

Home Slot Machine, $199.99. With offshoring, American factories are crumbling. Once the makers of high-quality merchandises, Americans now merely service or hustle each other, whether in investment banking, at street corner shell games or in casinos. Forty-one states now boast glittery gambling emporia, with these springing up even in an old church or a disused steel plant. It’s not farfetched to imagine a day when there are poker, blackjack, roulette and mahjong tables near each home. They’ll have to be within walking distance, of course, since Americans will be too broke to afford car or gasoline. Hell, it is probable that there will be a slot machine installed outside each dwelling, even of tarp or cardboard, where the mailbox used to be. The government won’t deliver your letters, since the postal service has long gone out of business, but it will stop by regularly to collect coins from your personal gambling contraption. Why not leap into the future, my friend, by having a slot machine right now in your living room? If you still have a living room, that is. Day or night, you can compulsively stuff your dwindling income into this cartoon-decorated steel box, then crank its handle without consequence. As in a real casino, your money will be magically transferred to unseen persons elsewhere. This mindless toy is tough enough to endure repeated kicks, bangs or even an atomic bomb, without showing any of your disappeared moolah. With each $200 spent, however, it will spit out a 25-cent coupon, to be spent at the supermarket of your choice.





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Ron Paul opposed to 'Pentagon, banking cartel'

Iran's Press TV, 12/19/11:

Rep. Ron Paul of Texas is now leading the pack in Iowa as Newt Gingrich's support fades. But some analysts believe he won't be allowed to win the presidential race.

“Because of his strong opposition to the Pentagon and the banking cartel, I cannot conceive of him being allowed to win the presidency, said Linh Dinh, poet and writer in Philadelphia.

“It is impossible for me to see him as next president… because of the control of the media and the voting machine,” said Linh Dinh.

“He is always opposed to U.S. imperialism abroad and the Federal Reserve which is the criminal banking cartel, those are two key issues resonating among many Americans.”



HA/HJ

'US makes money by waging wars'

Ray McGovern is also on this show. Iran Press TV, 12/4/11:

A political observer believes that one of the main objectives of the United States in waging wars around the world and especially in the Middle East region is to do business and make money.


During the latest attack by NATO helicopters and fighter jets, 24 Pakistani soldiers were killed on their military outpost.

Pakistani people are demanding a tough response by their government towards the attack.

So far, Pakistan has boycotted an international conference on Afghanistan in Germany and has demanded that the US leaves an airbase in the country to be closed.

Press TV has conducted an interview with Linh Dinh, a journalist in Philadelphia, to ask his opinions on the issue.Following is the transcription of the interview.

Press TV: If it is that easy, because of course the United States has said that it was a mistake, and if it is that easy to mistaken the Pakistani military outpost for militants, what is that say, first of all, about the American military intelligence? Also what does it mean for civilians then, who could be in the area?

Dinh: Well, there have been so many attacks and this is only the latest outrage. The premise of the US being in Afghanistan or intruding into Pakistan is preposterous to begin with. The US justification for attacking people in Pakistan is that these so-called terrorists are ignoring the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan, but the only people who do not belong there are the Americans. You know, the US does not respect any border. So it is farcical that it would accuse anyone. You know, the Pashtuns have been there for centuries. Of course, the US can cross over any border in the world.

If you go there, (you see) basically the same people basically on both sides. So the Pashtuns have every rights to be in Pakistan and Afghanistan. It is the Americans who should leave.

Press TV: Mr. Dinh, is there any difference between the government in Islamabad and the Pakistani people as far as the way that they look at the United States?

Now Mr. Pirzada (the other guest in the show) is saying that the people are very savvy and understand what is going on, but do you think that the government in Islamabad is really as anti-Washington policy as they are appearing these days?

Dinh: There have been protests from both Islamabad and the Pakistani people and apparently these protests have had little effects because the drone attacks have only intensified.

As you can see from the latest incident, this is the most serious incident, yet. So these half-hearted expressions of regrets and apologies are in a sense meaningless because you have to wonder whether Washington wants to intensify this crisis.

It seems that Washington is always looking for a new enemy, for a new war to fight. Right now, it is threatening three countries simultaneously: Iran, Iraq and Syria and occasionally it has attacked Somalia.

So, you know, one may make a remark that these countries happen to be Muslim. And you may be surprised why would Washington embarrass one of its key allies, but Washington has always embarrassed its allies whenever it feels like it.

So I am not sure whether this crisis would go away. I am afraid it might even get worse because war is how Washington does business and it is how it makes money.



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Endless Needless Deaths

As published on Common Dreams, OpEd News, CounterPunch and Dissident Voice, 12/5/11:







Bush started shooting into Pakistan in 2004, and Obama has continued this bloody practice, culminating recently in the massacre of 24 Pakistani soldiers, with 13 more wounded. The attack lasted for hours, yet afterward, the US claimed it was all an accident. Hillary Clinton expressed regrets, Obama offered condolences, but no American official apologized, since the US doesn’t do apologies. Accusing Pakistan of supporting terrorists who are killing Americans, McCain threatened to cut back aids. As for those Pakistani soldiers, they were regrettably killed in “the fog of war.”

Let’s try to clear up this fogged up situation by examining who’s killing whom, and why. The US has been butchering Pashtuns on both sides of the Afghan/Pakistani border, and the Pashtuns are fighting back because that’s their homeland. The Pashtuns have been living between the Hindu Kush and the Indus River since at least the 3rd Century, so one can reasonably say that they belong there, at least much more so than some guy from Intercourse, PA, or Walla Walla, Washington.

Go to most borders worldwide and, surprise, surprise, you’ll find more or less the same people living on both sides, often speaking the same language. This is also true in the US. In 2006, I drove 100 miles on route Farm to Market 170 in Texas, hugging the Rio Grande, and I didn’t see a single Anglo face in three hours. (Granted, there weren’t that many faces to be seen.) At Candelaria, population 75, I crossed a brief footbridge into Mexico, then returned. Everybody else was doing it. Here, Rio Bravo was barely a trickle, so people on either side saw each other as neighbors, with the border an irrelevant fiction. To a Pashtun, then, the Durand Line, named after a British Foreign Secretary, is even more absurd.

Of course, I’m not advocating the abolishment of international borders, since large and subtle differences between populations require that they organize their societies differently, with demarcations between them, but it is ironic that the United States is chafing at the Pashtuns for crossing an arbitrary line, when America is the world’s most persistent and violent violator of international borders. As in many other cases, the only one who doesn’t belong on the map is you, Uncle Sam! Uncle Sam doesn’t know how to spell or pronounce sovereignty, at least when not talking about Israel. Sovranty. Sofarenty. Sufferenty.

Any Pashtun killed by American bombs or drones is a Pashtun wrongly murdered, be him a “militant,” as the Pentagon consistently charge, or more likely just a farmer or even a child. Imagine drones hovering over your hometown and zapping people at will, with the murdered victims being branded “insurgents.” If a Pashtun fights back, it’s because he has too. Wouldn’t you? If he dies fighting, at least he dies with honor, fighting for a just cause. The same cannot be said for American soldiers in Afghanistan. Pat Tillman realized this, but one of his own wasted him before he could tell the world about his awakening.

As a client state of America, Pakistan is being asked to kill its own citizens, Pashtuns and others, as a contribution to the petroleum fueled, natural gaseous, opium hazy and totally fogged up War on Terror. Doing Washington’s bidding, Pakistan has lost nearly 4,000 soldiers, but these needless deaths aren’t enough to appease the Washington masters of war. For brownnosing, Pakistan gets no pat on the head, but is being demonized as an “ally from hell,” to quote from the Atlantic.

With the notable exceptions of Israel and England, American allies are often betrayed. Pakistan’s being blamed for America’s ongoing troubles in Afghanistan, and for harboring Bin Laden until that much ballyhooed yet substanceless assassination, but all of the acrimonies and needless deaths could have been avoided had America never planted its XXXL rump on that corner of the world.

Using Bin Laden as a pretext, America invaded Afghanistan in 2001, and a decade later, it is still there, though its bogeyman is long gone. America never runs out of enemies, however, for it can always generate them anew, with either its bombs and guns, or through its jingoistic media. Along with Iran and Syria, Pakistan, supposedly an ally, has become a target.

Washington will always find new wars to fight and more people to kill, since that is the only task it is good at anymore. It does not know how to do anything else. Peace is not in its vocabulary, since war is how Washington and Wall Street make their money.






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PHILADELPHIA: Statement from the Homeless Encampment at Richmond and Cumberland

The following statement, from people at the Homeless Encampment at Richmond and Cumberland, was sent to the mayor, Daily News, and elected representatives. They are facing eviction today.



We are not here protesting or to make a statement, We’re homeless. We are sick of being forced to exist alone, sick of being told that shelters, which are not tolerable living facilities for sober people, are an adequate alternative to being “allowed”, by the government, to work, live and share together to create for ourselves, with much less help and expense than the government can do anything, opportunities to provide for ourselves that which our troubled economy cannot.

Philadelphia has about 4,000 homeless people and 40,000 empty dwelling units, but, apparently, unless the wealthy can profit by our occupying these dwellings, they would rather see us alone, with our possessions if not stolen by regular criminals, ‘confiscated’ by police, since we have no place to store anything we can’t carry and are not allowed to congregate to watch one another’s belongings.

To have poverty forced upon us in the land of plenty, is no longer a viable solution, if in fact, it ever was.

I know how to grow food, build structures, build communities from the fragmented elements that current policy, make craftwork to supply cash for what it’s needed for, etc. My friends know how to do the things I don’t. Those who ‘have’ seem satisfied to make sure I don’t ‘have’ opportunity to gather to have a safe place to sleep, let alone organize to provide for our basic needs.

We need the use of at least one abandoned structure, if the law requires it to have water and electricity, the Obama administration provided $21 million dollars to help the homeless, this is a drop in the bucket.

We need an outdoor long term camping area, close enough to mass transit for us to meet medical, legal, pension and benefits and other needs, and large and separated enough to not disturb our neighbors and start to grow our own food and do art and craftwork, feed one another and see to one another’s daily needs.

In this sort of camp, people who get along can meet one another and we can help one another and be helped by those in the community who believe in, rather than merely preach, compassion, to get long term housing, use our varied skills to rehabilitate abandoned structures as we rehabilitate ourselves and work toward the caring, loving society that many believe we will make happen.

There are many caring people in Philadelphia, whose deeds as well as their words, demonstrate the belief that the present “crisis” is in fact and opportunity to create a land of “Liberty and Justice for All” rather than a land of “Just Us”.

November 30, 2011





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Another email to a youngish poet

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I fully realize that it's easy for me to criticize when I'm not writing poems myself, because when I write, it's mostly like wading through a self-generated disaster zone. Poetry is mostly false starts and abortions, but you wouldn't know it from the self-congratulatory chatter of the poetry crowd.

One more thought: the workshop format is obviously bullshit, since a poem cannot be audience tested or written by a commitee. The word itself, workshop, is ridiculous as applied to poetry. If this entire system isn't unraveling, I'm sure the next evolution in the poetry writing racket will be assembly line poetry:

Good at metaphor but clueless at syntax? Don't worry, we'll plug you into the right slot at the South Dakota/Oracle/Beige University MFA Poetry Assembly Line System. We'll "teach" you how to generate endless bizarre yet apt metaphors while never having to worry about periods, commas, clauses or any of that other grammatical bullshit. We already know you can't even compose a coherent email, but don't worry, you'll be a certified poet soon enough, with your own well-linked blog. Bank loans readily available for all qualified or unqualified sensitive and intellectually ravenous, sort of, suckers.




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Email to a youngish poet

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Your new poem is tight, smart, without any false notes, and the title is fantastic, but, but, but, you're basically writing in the Ashbery mode. This is no fault of your own, since Ashbery casts a huge shadow across contemporary American poetry. That wry, intelligent noodling, with just a touch of pathos, is showing up everywhere, and not many people can do them well even, as you have managed to pull off here. Still, you must move beyond this. To take real chances, you must lose yourself, freak out a little, become wild yet still in charge. I know that sounds oxymoronic, but that's what it takes to luck into a super rare, truly authentic poem. When I saw Anne Boyer in Philly recently, I said to her, "I'm preparing to write my first poem." And who knows, maybe I won't ever get there, so welcome to the gestation club, motherfucker! Technically, I'd say pay more attention to sentence lengths, try to vary them more. Also, be more conscious of mixing dictions and modes, as in be a more versatile ventriloquist, and speak from all of your orifices, even those you didn't know exist.

I haven't been wearing my poetry cap, but I hope the above still makes some sense.




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Sharing the Turkey

A published in OpEd News, Common Dreams, CounterPunch, Dissident Voice and Intrepid Report, with a shorter version in the Guardian, 11/24/11:






Thanksgiving is the occasion or requirement, not necessarily welcome, that one eats with many other people, while looking at their faces even. As a contemporary American, I take many meals alone while staring at a medium, which in my case is the computer and, before that, the newspaper. I eat in silence and darkness. It hasn’t always been this way.

My first Thanksgiving, I had just turned twelve and had been in the US all of six months. I was living in Tacoma with my father, kid brother and a woman who would morph into my stepmother. Even then, we hated each other. For $150 a month, we had a one bedroom apartment not far from my school, McKinley Elementary. My brother and I slept in sleeping bags on the living room floor, with our treasure a tiny black and white TV, a tutor in American culture and English.

Each afternoon, the magic box would usher in Bugs Bunny, then Shirley Temple or the Three Stooges, to be followed by Jimmy Snuka. No more dismal or heroic singing, as on Vietnamese television. No more body counts or political speeches. This is America, boys and girls, where everything is goofy and fun!

Though they hardly knew us, the people next door generously invited us to Thanksgiving dinner. It wasn’t a family but two young couples, with the men bearded. We ate on the floor. I had just learned, “May I,” so I tried out, “May I have the corn, please.” This linguistic feeler elicited a compliment from one of our sweet hosts, which flattered me. In Vietnam, I had studied French from kindergarten onward, but since I had no need to speak it, I never owned any French, not even a mouthful, yet here I was, already careening forward with a new, reckless tongue that I wagged about like some lashing weapon.

For whatever it’s worth, it’s true that Americans do say “thank you” and “sorry” quite readily, at least much more often than Vietnamese, and I’m only talking about ordinary people, of course, not any official. The American government should apologize constantly, but never does. Better yet, it should cease and desist from all the looting, carnage and destruction that require that it gets on its knees and begs forgiveness from man, gods and gaia.

So what am I suggesting? I’m saying that Americans are for most part kind and generous, unlike its murderous government. I’m claiming that our 99% are mostly fair and decent, unlike the 1% that rule and represent us. Working against humanity and country, this 1% bring shame and dishonor to our name.

In 1976, my father decided that we should join my aunt in Houston, so he drove us 2,400 miles in his Chevette, the cheapest on the market. In the middle of the Sonoran desert, this crappy car died, so strangers had to come to our aid. This was before the cell phone, so a passing motorist had to use a payphone to call for a tow truck, and, even more incredibly, a mechanic at this garage invited us into his home for the night, since we couldn’t afford a motel. My brother and I played with his two boys, and his wife made burgers for us all. My father did give them some money, maybe $20, as a token thank you, but their kindness and graciousness were truly marvelous, though at the time, as a kid, I didn’t fully appreciate it.

In 1983, during my second year in art school, I had another memorable Thanksgiving dinner, this time at the home of a professor, Boris Putterman. I had started out calling Boris “Mr. Putterman,” but he insisted on “Boris,” which is the informal, American way. Boris liked my progress as a young painter, and also my confidence, which later he would discover, to his dismay if not disgust, to be an unwarranted cockiness. Stoked by a combustion of social, intellectual, alcoholic, dope, speed and sexual awakenings, I even declared to Boris, “You should never say sorry!” His response, “Where did you get that?! You should always say you’re sorry.” Life would kick my ass good upon leaving school, however, so I got my comeuppance in ample dosage. Whether in an individual or nation, hubris is a distortion that demands correction, for sooner or later the proper perspective and proportion will reassert themselves.

It’s strange but from all the conversations of that night at Boris’, the only bit that’s stuck in my mind was uttered by his mother, “I don’t see how people can eat chicken wings. There’s no meat on them!” Instead of fading, this will only mean more and more in the years ahead, and not just to me but nearly all Americans, so be thankful for what’s left, but unless some are made to feel sorry very soon, the rest of us will be kicked in the ass.





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Banks, Pentagon and Academic Pusillanimousness

As published at OpEd News, Common Dreams, Dissident Voice, CounterPunch and Intrepid Report, 11/19/11:

“I’m not supposed to know anything about foreign policy.”—GOP Presidential candidate Herman Cain

Not everything, mind you, but anything, which would put him on par with the dumbest American living under the heaviest and mossiest rock. Hell, he's running neck to neck with that boulder. Though Cain knows nothing, he has enough political sense to bluster, “If you mess with Israel you're messing with the United States of America.”

That’s been the mantra in Washington, Wall Street and Madison Avenue. Iran knows this as well, and that’s why it is, in all likelihood, trying to develop the nuclear bomb, not to strike New York or Washington, but Tel Aviv. It only makes sense, since that’s the only deterrence it has against an American invasion.

Clueless Cain thinks the Iranians have warships off our shore, but it’s America who has Iran surrounded, with troops in Afghanistan and Iraq. The US Fifth Fleet also operates from Bahrain, a mere 120 miles from the Iranian coast. Washington has been itching for a fight with Iran ever since it had the (Muslim) balls to depose the CIA-installed Shah and kept 52 Americans hostage for 444 days. Iran is also the largest Islamic country to openly defy the United States. By the way, it also has a lot of oil and natural gas.

Threatened for three decades by the biggest empire on earth, what can Iran do but strive to aim a nuclear warhead at Israel? You mess with us, we’ll kill your daddy!

A few days ago, I was a guest on Iran’s Press TV to talk about the anti-Wall Street protest. On the same show was Joel Kovel, author of Overcoming Zionism: Creating a Single Democratic State in Israel/Palestine. A year after his book came out, Kovel was fired from Bard College. Seeing a causal effect, Kovel issued a statement charging that he was terminated because of “differences between [himself] and the Bard administration on the issue of Zionism.” At that time, I was teaching creative writing at Bard, so I tried to drag this controversy onto its listserv, but no one, absolutely no one, responded, to my astonishment. Hey, a college teaching job isn’t easy to come by, so why rock the boat? President Botstein will kick your ass. A few months earlier, the same listserv was orgasmic with cheering for Obama, but, then again, nearly all of the American left were. Ah, how idyllic and delightful it is to be a tenured liberal in the waning days of empire!

2011, at another supposedly radical bastion, Berkeley, cops wacked students with the chancellor’s approval. Protesting outrageous tuition hikes, these students correctly blamed banks for their university’s and state’s budget crises, but banks and universities have been in cahoots for a long time now. Schools jack up rates, knowing they can send students to banks for loans, but no matter what one’s major these days, the jobs are simply not there, but one’s debts are, for life!

Is it a surprise, then, that so many of the Occupy Wall Street protesters are recent college graduates? Spat out by the system, they know that they’ve been had. Like investment banks, American colleges are also purveyors of ponzi schemes. Beaten to the ground, flattened, these protesters are suspicious of all hierarchies, of all pyramids, and that’s why they’ve refused to elevate leaders or even to prioritize key issues, but these reluctances must be overcome, I think, for this movement to move forward.

Its success, so far, can be attributed to two crucial decisions, to have an open-ended occupation, not a one-day march, and to target Wall Street. This movement, then, is about the money manipulators' looting and corruption, so it’s important that the public be educated and constantly reminded about the abuses of the Federal Reserve, Goldman Sachs, Citibank and the rest of the banking cartel.

As Americans endure actual or symbolic homelessness across this land, their government is hankering for yet another war. To distract attention from problems at home, the US wants to attack Iran and/or Syria. This is madness, certainly, but not to the war profiteers. Having bought off all of our politicians, these money masters own the Pentagon and its obscene budget that eats up half of our tax money.

When Michael Avery of Suffolk University pointed out, in a leaked email, that it was irrational to support troops sent overseas by a war-prone country to kill, he was met with considerable abuse and hostility. Unsurprisingly, his school’s president quickly distanced himself from Avery’s lucid remarks by saying that he himself was sending a care package to the troops. So, yes, if you don’t die by the time this box arrives, have a bar of chocolate on me!

How can anyone in his right mind not be against corruption, since corruption is just stealing public money, but unfortunately, many of the 99% are still misled into supporting our military. They cannot see that the Pentagon, like the banks, is also a nexus of corruption, that its main task is not to defend our republic but to funnel money from the 99% to the 1%.

Do not lose sight that our main battle is against the corrupt banking cartel and equally corrupt Pentagon. Much of our financial, political, social and ecological ills can be traced to these monsters. Winter is coming. Time is running out.





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'The Pentagon is as corrupt as Banks'

Iran's Press TV, recorded live yesterday:

The Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement in the US should also place some focus on the Pentagon, as it is as corrupt as the banks that caused the country's financial crisis, an analyst says.

Press TV has interviewed with Linh Dinh, an author from Philadelphia, to further discuss the issue.

The video also offers the opinions of two additional guests, Sara Flounders as well as Joel Kovel.

What follows is a transcript of the interview.

Press TV: More Americans are losing their homes we know; a recent Gallup poll finds that only forty-four and a half percent of Americans adults received health insurance from an employer in the third quarter of 2011.

Another recent Gallup poll report shows that twenty percent, or over sixty million of them, were not able to bring food for themselves, or their families over the past year.

Now against this backdrop, what do you think will be the future of the protester movement against the economic, social, and the political inequalities?

Dinh: Just like you are saying, many Americans are directly threatened by this collapsing economy.

The situation is so precarious that they can be fired tomorrow; they are making less money. So the occupy movement is a kind of symbolic homelessness, so these people are living so poorly, and are camping out in the hearts of American cities, to vividly demonstrate to the rest of the world, that they are just a step away from being homeless.

And what's interesting is that the actual homeless people are moving into these camps. So there's a blurring of the real homeless people and those who are for now only symbolically homeless.

But what's interesting is that, if you think about it, every homeless person is already a protester, whether he has a sign in front of him or not.

Because in a country that wastes so much money on the Pentagon, on the military, there shouldn't be that much homelessness. In every American city, in every American town you can see the homeless people.

So these tent cities will only grow as the economy collapses further.

Press TV: The Republican presidential hopefuls had a foreign policy debate the other day, and in that debate, all of them expect for Ron Paul, focused on attacking Iran, and waging another war.

With twenty percent of Americans not having enough money to buy food, why do you think there is so much talk about another war, when of course one of the major demands that has been voiced in these protest movement has been an end to the wars that the US is currently engaged in.

Dinh: Sure the government wants to attack yet another country, to distract attention from problems at home.

And I see a big problem here, you know that this movement is called the ninety-nine percent, and it is that, but there is a kind of a disagreement between the conservative Americans and the liberal Americans.

The conservative Americans are also against corruption but they support the Pentagon, they support the US military foreign policy, whereas the liberals are against corruption but against the Pentagon. So there has to be a kind of consensus reached, in that Americans have to be persuaded, to understand that US imperialism is not just bad for Iran, or Iraq or Libya or so many other countries, it's also bad for the USA.

We are not just killing other people, we are killing ourselves.

So how can you not be against corruption? Corruption is just stealing money. I mean you, how can you be for corruption? But so many Americans are still misled into supporting our military.

Because they are persuaded somehow, that a country like Iran is a threat to the USA. Whereas it's exactly the opposite, the USA is threatening Iran. Iran is not a threat to USA at all.

So I think that hopefully in the future, people can be persuaded to realize that the Pentagon is as bad as the banks, a major source of corruption.

Press TV: Speaking about this major financial and political overhaul in the United States, well one of the demands voiced by the protesters is being against what they call the military-industrial-complex for instance and the military-banking relationship.

If you were to say what is at stake now for the US, is it corporation, is it more about Wall Street, is this military-banking relationship, or is it capitalism as a whole?

Dinh: Well, basically it's corruption; it is the criminal banks which are represented by the Federal Reserve which has a power to generate money out of nothing.

And then the Pentagon, which is this major source of corruption. But anyway, I agree with Joel too, with the ecological issue, in that capitalism is predicated on growth, and I think growth is over. And the United States has to come to terms with that.

In that this country cannot grow anymore, because there are ecological limits, and that is something that most of the public are not aware of.

And there is a huge challenge of how to manage, not growth, but contraction. And that is a very difficult issue and no one is addressing it at the moment.


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PSU protesters blindly ignore real victims

Tony Norman, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette



Unless they're prepping for that extra-credit question on a philosophy midterm, most college students don't do a whole lot of thinking about morality.

Maintaining a decent grade point average while navigating the more libidinous temptations of college life is about as deep as it gets. It has been books-versus-bacchanalia ever since the days of Socrates.

Students usually learn a university's definition of morality sometime near the end of first semester of their freshman year. That's when bills are sent to their parents warning that their young scholars won't be allowed to enroll the following semester unless the next installment of the shakedown known as college tuition is remitted before sundown.

At least colleges and universities are honest about being cash-hungry businesses. The extent that they are also idea factories and molders of morality ranks far down on their hierarchy of values.

Contrary to society's most sentimental myths about higher education, colleges aren't set up to instill students with a conscience. Those who arrive on campus without fully functioning empathy chips aren't likely to develop a taste for moral inquiry by sitting in a lecture hall or by playing beer pong.

That's why no one should be shocked by what happened at State College when news spread Wednesday night that longtime head football coach Joe Paterno had been fired. Up to 5,000 young people took to the streets around Penn State University for several hours to protest the sacking of their beloved "JoePa" and to vent their rage at the trustees who denied their hero the dignity of going out on his own terms.

After flipping over a TV news van, the students made it clear that larger questions of morality in what is easily the biggest scandal in the school's history were beside the point.

Petulant chants of "One more game" and "We want JoePa" united the crowd in a bond of youthful stupidity and shortsightedness that is only possible when mom and dad are paying the bills.

The only thing more naive than the misplaced chants of support for an 84-year-old football coach is the question indignant viewers asked while watching the riot footage on cable news: What exactly are they teaching those kids at Penn State?

Isn't it obvious? Penn State isn't teaching the kids anything they didn't already learn at home. It isn't the university's job to inculcate kids with values such as empathy for young rape victims. That's a moral blind spot that represents the absence of good parenting, not bad teaching at Penn State.

Those protesters arrived at the school fully formed and with the capacity for uncritical worship of a football coach whose two-syllable nickname invokes the same assumptions of omnipotence as Yahweh.

Although the thousands in the streets were an impressive turnout, they represented a minority of the school's student body. The majority of students stayed in their cubicles and dorm rooms, perhaps embarrassed by the lemming-like behavior of their classmates chanting the name of a man who enabled former assistant coach Jerry Sandusky by not reporting what he knew or suspected of sexual abuse allegations to police a decade ago.

The kids who marched through the night at State College confronting pepper spray-wielding police in riot gear didn't ask themselves the nature of what they were marching for. They didn't engage in dorm room rap sessions about the morality of their protest. No one wondered if any of the alleged victims of their beloved coach's former assistant was within earshot.

What would the eight victims of child sex abuse described in the grand jury's presentment think of the crowd if they saw it? Would they feel like scapegoats, or would they realize, sadly, that their pain is a non-issue to those who cried over JoePa's firing? Where do these eight victims fit in the morality of the crowd that turned out to protest?

If one tries to imagine other issues that could drive thousands of Penn State students to the street, you would probably come up empty. A decade of war abroad doesn't generate such passions, nor would a threat of tuition hikes.

In Happy Valley, it only takes the outcome of a football game, or the dethroning of the campus' resident god to get those kind of numbers. That's the only incontestable morality the university has cultivated over the four decades of Mr. Paterno's reign.

Lately, I've been thinking about Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Michael Vick. He served nearly two years in prison for running a dog-fighting ring and was only grudgingly allowed back in the NFL. Among the Penn State protesters, there was probably more sympathy for Mr. Vick's dogs than for the children victimized in this case.





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Penn State and Berkeley: A Tale of Two Protests

Dave Zirin


Last night, two proud universities saw student demonstrations that spiraled into violence. On the campus of Penn State University in State College Pennsylvania, several hundred students rioted in anger after the firing of legendary 84-year-old head football coach Joe Paterno. At the University of California at Berkeley, 1,000 students, part of the Occupy USA movement, attempted to maintain their protest encampment in the face of police orders to clear them out.

At Penn State, students overturned a media truck, hit an ESPN reporter in the head with a rock and made every effort at arson, attempting to set aflame the very heart of their campus. They raised their fists in defense of a man fired for allegedly covering up the actions of a revered assistant who doubled as a serial child rapist. The almost entirely male student mob was given the space by police to seethe and destroy without restraint.

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