Inuit diet polluted
LA Times, January 13, 2004 Ancestral Diet Gone Toxic The Arctic's Inuit are being contaminated by pollution borne north by winds and concentrated as it travels up the food chain. By Marla Cone, Times Staff Writer QAANAAQ, Greenland Pitching a makeshift tent on the sea ice, where the Arctic Ocean meets the North Atlantic, brothers Mamarut and Gedion Kristiansen are ready to savor their favorite meal. Nearby lies the carcass of a narwhal, a reclusive beast with an ivory tusk like a unicorn's. Mamarut slices off a piece of muktuk, the whale's raw pink blubber and mottled gray skin, as a snack. Peqqinnartoq, he says in Greenlandic. Healthy food. Mamarut's wife, Tukummeq Peary, a descendant of famed North Pole explorer Adm. Robert E. Peary, is boiling the main entree on a camp stove. The family dips hunting knives into the kettle, pulling out steaming ribs of freshly killed ringed seal and devouring the hearty meat with some hot black tea. Living closer to the North Pole than to any city, factory or farm, the Kristiansens appear unscathed by any industrial-age ills. They live much as their ancestors did, relying on foods harvested from the sea and skills honed by generations of Inuit. But as northbound winds carry toxic remnants of faraway lands to their hunting grounds in extraordinary amounts, their close connection to the environment and their ancestral diet of marine mammals have left the Arctic's indigenous people vulnerable to the pollutants of modern society. About 200 hazardous compounds, which migrate from industrialized regions and accumulate in ocean-dwelling animals, have been detected in the inhabitants of the far north. The bodies of Arctic people, particularly Greenland's Inuit, contain the highest human concentrations of industrial chemicals and pesticides found anywhere on Earth levels so extreme that the breast milk and tissues of some Greenlanders could be classified as hazardous waste. Nearly all Inuit tested in Greenland and more than half in Canada have levels of PCBs and mercury exceeding international health guidelines. Perched atop a contaminated food chain, the inhabitants of the Arctic have become the industrialized world's lab rats, the involuntary subjects of an accidental human experiment demonstrating what can happen when a heaping brew of chemicals builds up in human bodies. full: http://www.latimes.com/ -- The Marxism list: www.marxmail.org
USS Liberty inquiry--the cover-up continues
Tempers flare over US spy-ship inquiry By Guy Dinmore in Washington Financial Times: January 13 2004 Survivors of one of the most hotly disputed incidents in American military history - the Israeli attack on the USS Liberty spy-ship in 1967 - on Monday accused the US authorities, past and present, of a cover-up in backing Israeli claims that it was a tragic mistake. Emotions boiled over in the basement of the State Department as the Office of the Historian opened a public conference on the six-day Arab-Israeli war with heated debate over newly released intercepts from the archives of the secretive National Security Agency. Most of the basic facts are undisputed. On June 8 1967, Israeli aircraft and later torpedo boats struck the Liberty just off the Mediterranean coast, killing 34 crew and wounding 172. The ship, one of the world's most sophisticated listening vessels but only lightly armed, limped into port. From there the controversy begins. An immediate US Navy court of Inquiry backed the Israeli claim that it had been mistaken for an Egyptian warship. The US accepted $12m (?9.4m, £6.5m) in compensation. While some historians have accepted this, survivors and a varied group of academics and former military officials insist the attack was deliberate. You're trying to whitewash it, one survivor shouted from the audience as Marc Susser, the State Department's historian, acted as moderator and sought to keep order, refusing to allow speeches from the floor. Even debate on the panel of invited historians descended into acrimony with one contributor accused of being an Israeli agent. Two recent developments added fuel to the controversy. Last week Ward Boston, a naval captain who acted as senior legal counsel for the Navy's court of inquiry in 1967, signed an affidavit declaring that the late Admiral Isaac Kidd, president of the court, had told him that President Lyndon Johnson and Robert McNamara, defence secretary, had ordered a cover-up. And on Monday, David Hatch, the National Security Agency's own historian, elaborated on the recently declassified NSA material, the first time the eavesdropping agency had released real voice intercepts. Mr Hatch confessed that the information doesn't settle much. But his analysis of the conversations between an Israeli air controller and two helicopter pilots suggested strongly that the Israelis did not know at first they were attacking a US vessel, although there was mention of a US flag flying. He also regretted that the new NSA material did not clarify why the Liberty had not received orders sent to it to leave a war zone. Joseph Lentini, a survivor who has spent the past 36 years researching the tragedy, told reporters he remained convinced that the attack was deliberate. He admits it is hard to understand why the Israelis would want to sink a ship of its closest ally at a time of war. Conspiracy theories abound. Response Jim C: The why of the attack was documented thoroughly in James Bamford's book Body of Secrets: Anatomy of the Ultra-Secret National Sercurity Agency, Doubleday, NY, 2001. and it is not some kind of conspiracy theory. I should note that Bamford's first book on the NSA called The Puzzle Palace brought the wrath of NSA down on him. Later, when Bamford's scholarship could not be impeached, NSA started giving him direct access to NSA and even intercepts which he used in this book and now he even lectures to NSA personnel inside the NSA, in NSA facilities, on the history of the NSA. (If you can't threaten them, then co-opt them) What is also interesting is why NSA would release to Bamford the intercepts that he used to write and document what is below: From Bamford: Although no one on the ship knew it at the time, the Liberty had suddenly trespassed into a private horror. At that very moment, near the minaret at El Arish, Israeli forces were engaged in a criminal slaughter...(pp.200-201) As the Liberty sat within eyeshot of El Arish, eavesdropping on surrounding communications, Israeli soldiers turned the town into a slaughterhouse, systematically butchering their prisoners. In the shadow of the El Arish mosque, they lined up about sixty unarmed Egyptian prisoners, hands tied behind their backs, and then opened fire with machine guns until the pale desert turned red. 'I saw a line of prisoners, civilians and military', said Abdelsalam Moussa, one of those who dug the graves, 'and they opened fire at them all at once. When they were dead, they told us to bury them.'. Nearby, a group of Israelis gunned down thirty more prisoners and then ordered some Bedouins to cover them with sand. In still another incident at El Arish, the Israeli journalist Gabi Bron saw about 150 Egyptian POWs sitting on the ground, crowded together with their hands held at the back of their necks. 'The Egyptian prisoners of war were ordered to dig pits and then army police shot them to death', Broin said. ' I witnessed the executions with my own eyes on the
Do Iraqis have a right to resist?
Do Iraqis Have a Right to Resist? Outside the Spectacle By M. JUNAID ALAM Lefthook.org If you prick us do we not bleed? If you tickle us do we not laugh? If you poison us do we not die? And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge? Merchant of Venice, III:1 William Shakespeare Waging war is a peculiar American pastime: its appeal does not diminish as corpses multiply. Quite the contrary - each new round of this gruesome spectacle is greeted with the greatest fervor by the elites, the loudest applause from the intellectuals, and the proudest swagger of the patriots. No effort is spared in hammering into the public consciousness two absolute Truths about the contenders in this sordid spectacle: America is absolutely good, and the Enemy absolutely evil. America, preaches an appropriate (and appropriately paid) representative of Capital, is the savior of the world, the benevolent exporter of democracy, the deliverer of freedom; The Enemy, whatever small, poor, far-away and relatively defenseless nation it may be, is savage, senseless, a direct and immediate threat to American interests which must be destroyed. The rhetoric demanding the need for war--real, manly, action--puffs up the audience with false pride, whetting its appetite for blood, mayhem and destruction. Not against our side, of course: not against Uncle Sam, its thousands of armed, armored, killing machines and the larger machines those thousands will wield to kill and destroy. Seating for those who are (supposedly) cheering on the Enemy is arranged only at torture camps and graveyards elsewhere. The partisan home crowd directs its fury, fear, and hatred at the beaten and broken creature cowering below--today, Iraq. Dragged into the arena from a dungeon decorated with the skeletons of Indians, Filipinos and Vietnamese, our latest hapless victim wondered what stories the soothsayers would narrate to drown out its shrieks and cries. (clip) For the intensification of guerrilla warfare, with all its sensational drama and deadliness, is only the most obvious and eye-catching aspect of the war. The true depth and dimension of hostility to the U.S. occupation extends far beyond this or that rocket attack. It speaks to the hostility of the entire Arab world to America's overall imperial project and its history of dominating and humiliating Arabs, either directly or through its local pit-bull, Israel. To appreciate and emphasize the full context of the war and its brutal impact on American lives not only in Iraq but here - and then not only to American lives but to all lives - is a crucial and necessary step for the anti-war movement. The dangers of not doing so are patently obvious. Already many supposedly anti-war 'radicals' have jumped on the 'Anybody But Bush' bandwagon, throwing in their support for Democrats like Dean or Clark. To oppose the war yet support these candidates may seem contradictory, but a superficial opposition to war is entirely compatible with such decisions. For those who oppose the war as a matter of style may be impressed by anti-war rhetoric even if mouthed by one who has declared support for sending more troops (Dean), and those whose concerns are limited to troop casualties may feel more comfortable with a former general at the helm (Clark). Some on the Left offer generous advice on how to make the occupation more effective tactically, while others wonder aloud if leaving Iraq would be an 'abandonment' of an 'unfinished job', as if by his deed of murder a murderer is historically fitted to follow up by playing carpenter. This kind of approach is flawed to the core. We are still in the arena, still part of the spectacle, cheering on the brutalization of another country, only with different slogans, temporarily running to the concession stand until 'our side' is winning again, whispering advice to Uncle Sam on the way. What must be soundly condemned and opposed is the spectacle itself, the debasement and killing of the racial Other in which we ourselves are debased, and--yes - sometimes even killed. full: http://www.lefthook.org/ -- The Marxism list: www.marxmail.org
AG speaks..........
http://www.federalreserve.gov/boarddocs/speeches/2004/20040113/default.htm Remarks by Chairman Alan Greenspan Before the Bundesbank Lecture 2004, Berlin, Germany January 13, 2004
Re: USS Liberty inquiry--the cover-up continues
Thanks Jim. Especially interesting is that this is being published in the Financial Times. Joanna Craven, Jim wrote: Tempers flare over US spy-ship inquiry By Guy Dinmore in Washington Financial Times: January 13 2004 Survivors of one of the most hotly disputed incidents in American military history - the Israeli attack on the USS Liberty spy-ship in 1967 - on Monday accused the US authorities, past and present, of a cover-up in backing Israeli claims that it was a tragic mistake. Emotions boiled over in the basement of the State Department as the Office of the Historian opened a public conference on the six-day Arab-Israeli war with heated debate over newly released intercepts from the archives of the secretive National Security Agency. Most of the basic facts are undisputed. On June 8 1967, Israeli aircraft and later torpedo boats struck the Liberty just off the Mediterranean coast, killing 34 crew and wounding 172. The ship, one of the world's most sophisticated listening vessels but only lightly armed, limped into port. From there the controversy begins. An immediate US Navy court of Inquiry backed the Israeli claim that it had been mistaken for an Egyptian warship. The US accepted $12m (?9.4m, £6.5m) in compensation. While some historians have accepted this, survivors and a varied group of academics and former military officials insist the attack was deliberate. You're trying to whitewash it, one survivor shouted from the audience as Marc Susser, the State Department's historian, acted as moderator and sought to keep order, refusing to allow speeches from the floor. Even debate on the panel of invited historians descended into acrimony with one contributor accused of being an Israeli agent. Two recent developments added fuel to the controversy. Last week Ward Boston, a naval captain who acted as senior legal counsel for the Navy's court of inquiry in 1967, signed an affidavit declaring that the late Admiral Isaac Kidd, president of the court, had told him that President Lyndon Johnson and Robert McNamara, defence secretary, had ordered a cover-up. And on Monday, David Hatch, the National Security Agency's own historian, elaborated on the recently declassified NSA material, the first time the eavesdropping agency had released real voice intercepts. Mr Hatch confessed that the information doesn't settle much. But his analysis of the conversations between an Israeli air controller and two helicopter pilots suggested strongly that the Israelis did not know at first they were attacking a US vessel, although there was mention of a US flag flying. He also regretted that the new NSA material did not clarify why the Liberty had not received orders sent to it to leave a war zone. Joseph Lentini, a survivor who has spent the past 36 years researching the tragedy, told reporters he remained convinced that the attack was deliberate. He admits it is hard to understand why the Israelis would want to sink a ship of its closest ally at a time of war. Conspiracy theories abound. Response Jim C: The why of the attack was documented thoroughly in James Bamford's book Body of Secrets: Anatomy of the Ultra-Secret National Sercurity Agency, Doubleday, NY, 2001. and it is not some kind of conspiracy theory. I should note that Bamford's first book on the NSA called The Puzzle Palace brought the wrath of NSA down on him. Later, when Bamford's scholarship could not be impeached, NSA started giving him direct access to NSA and even intercepts which he used in this book and now he even lectures to NSA personnel inside the NSA, in NSA facilities, on the history of the NSA. (If you can't threaten them, then co-opt them) What is also interesting is why NSA would release to Bamford the intercepts that he used to write and document what is below: From Bamford: Although no one on the ship knew it at the time, the Liberty had suddenly trespassed into a private horror. At that very moment, near the minaret at El Arish, Israeli forces were engaged in a criminal slaughter...(pp.200-201) As the Liberty sat within eyeshot of El Arish, eavesdropping on surrounding communications, Israeli soldiers turned the town into a slaughterhouse, systematically butchering their prisoners. In the shadow of the El Arish mosque, they lined up about sixty unarmed Egyptian prisoners, hands tied behind their backs, and then opened fire with machine guns until the pale desert turned red. 'I saw a line of prisoners, civilians and military', said Abdelsalam Moussa, one of those who dug the graves, 'and they opened fire at them all at once. When they were dead, they told us to bury them.'. Nearby, a group of Israelis gunned down thirty more prisoners and then ordered some Bedouins to cover them with sand. In still another incident at El Arish, the Israeli journalist Gabi Bron saw about 150 Egyptian POWs sitting on the ground, crowded together with their hands held at the back of their necks. 'The Egyptian prisoners of war were ordered to dig pits and then
radio terrorist
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=storycid=816e=2u=/ap/20040112/a Feds Join Fast-Food Radio Piracy Probe TROY, Mich. - Police said they expected the Federal Communications Commission (news - web sites) to try to identify whoever broadcast on the same frequency as the wireless intercom at a Burger King. The person broke into the Troy restaurant's drive-in order system several times last week - most recently on Thursday, when he told customers they were too fat to eat a Whopper. Other patrons were subjected to obscenities and bizarre remarks, and the manager was ordered back inside while trying to look into the source of the mischief. It has stopped, store supervisor Jennifer Saccoia told the Detroit Free Press. I believe the FCC has taken over the case, police Sgt. William Avery said Sunday. I imagine they have a better way to investigate it. The FCC has radio direction-finding equipment for detecting illicit transmitters. Federal law also carries more severe penalties than state law, with stiff fines and prison time for those convicted of willful or malicious interference with radio communications.
quote
Sharpton, after Dean bragged about how many blacks and Latinos in Congress had endorsed him. You only need co-signers if your credit is bad.
harbinger?
Green Party Terrorists By Frederick Sweet, Intervention Magazine January 6, 2003 Writing about his no-fly nightmare in the Fairfield County Weekly, art dealer Doug Stuber, who had run Ralph Nader's Green Party presidential campaign in North Carolina in 2000, was pulled out of a boarding line and grounded. He was about to make an important trip to Prague to gather artists for Henry James Art in Raleigh, N.C., when he was told (with ticket in hand) that he was not allowed to fly out that day. Asking why not? he was told at Raleigh-Durham airport that because of the sniper attacks, no Greens were allowed to fly overseas on that day. The next morning he returned, and instead of paying $670 round trip, was forced into a $2,600 same day air fare. But it's what happened to Stuber during the next 24 hours that is even more disturbing. Stuber arrived at the airport at 6 a.m. and his first flight wasn't due out until nearly six hours later. He had plenty of time. At exactly 10:52 in the morning, just before boarding was to begin, he was approached by police officer Stanley (the same policeman who ushered him out of the airport the day before), who said that he wanted to talk to him. Stuber went with the police officer, but reminded him that no one had said he couldn't fly, and that his flight was about to leave. Officer Stanley took Stuber into a room and questioned him for an hour. Around noon, Stanley had introduced him to two Secret Service agents. The agents took full eye-open pictures of Stuber with a digital camera. Then they asked him details about his family, where he lived, who he ever knew, what the Greens are up to, and other questions. At one point during his interrogation, Stuber asked if they really believed the Greens were equal to al Qaeda. Then they showed him a Justice Department document that actually shows the Greens as likely terrorists - just as likely as al Qaeda members. Stuber was released just before 1 PM, so he still had time to catch the later flight. The agents walked Stuber to the Delta counter and asked that he be given tickets for the flight so that he could make his connections. The airline official promptly printed tickets, which relieved Stuber, who assumed that the Secret Service hadn't stopped him from flying. Wrong! By the time Stuber was about to board, officer Stanley once again ushered him out the door and told him: Just go to Greensboro, where they don't know you, and be totally quiet about politics, and you can make it to Europe that way. In Greensboro, after Stuber showed his passport he was told that he could not fly overseas or domestically. Undeterred, he next traveled an hour-and-a-half to Charlotte. In Charlotte, the same thing happened. Then Stuber drove three hours to his home after 43 hours of trying to catch a flight. Stuber said he could only conclude that the Greens, whose values include nonviolence, social justice, etc., are now labeled terrorists by the Ashcroft-led Justice Department. Questions about how one gets on a no-fly list creates questions about how to get off it. This is a classic Catch-22 situation. The Transportation Security Agency says it compiles the list from names provided by other agencies, but it has no procedure for correcting a problem. Aggrieved parties would have to go to the agency that first reported their names. But for security reasons, the TSA won't disclose which agency put someone on the no-fly list. Frederick Sweet is Professor of Reproductive Biology in Obstetrics and Gynecology at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis
Re: quote
Dan Scanlan wrote: Sharpton, after Dean bragged about how many blacks and Latinos in Congress had endorsed him. You only need co-signers if your credit is bad. As pen-l'ers know, I am no fan of Howard Dean. But there seems to be a little bit of demagogy going on here. Blacks and Latinos constitute no more than .05 of Vermont's population. Meanwhile Sharpton endorsed the racist Al D'Amato for Senator in 1986. -- The Marxism list: www.marxmail.org
of course, it's treason
Kevin Phillips: The Barreling Bushes January 11, 2004 Four generations of the dynasty have chased profits through cozy ties with Mideast leaders, spinning webs of conflicts of interest http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-op-phillips11jan11,1,6056103.story?coll=la-news-comment-opinions By Kevin Phillips, Kevin Phillips' new book, American Dynasty: Aristocracy, Fortune and the Politics of Deceit in the House of Bush, has just been published by Viking Penguin. WASHINGTON - Dynasties in American politics are dangerous. We saw it with the Kennedys, we may well see it with the Clintons and we're certainly seeing it with the Bushes. Between now and the November election, it's crucial that Americans come to understand how four generations of the current president's family have embroiled the United States in the Middle East through CIA connections, arms shipments, rogue banks, inherited war policies and personal financial links. As early as 1964, George H.W. Bush, running for the U.S. Senate from Texas, was labeled by incumbent Democrat Ralph Yarborough as a hireling of the sheik of Kuwait, for whom Bush's company drilled offshore oil wells. Over the four decades since then, the ever-reaching Bushes have emerged as the first U.S. political clan to thoroughly entangle themselves with Middle Eastern royal families and oil money. The family even has links to the Bin Ladens - though not to family black sheep Osama bin Laden - going back to the 1970s. How these unusual relationships helped bring about 9/11 and then distorted the U.S. response to Islamic terrorism requires thinking of the Bush family as a dynasty. The two Bush presidencies are inextricably linked by that dynasty. The first family member lured by the Middle East's petroleum wealth was George W. Bush's great-grandfather, George H. Walker, a buccaneer who was president of Wall Street-based W.A. Harriman Co. In the 1920s, Walker and his firm participated in rebuilding the Baku oil fields only a few hundred miles north of current-day Iraq. As senior director of Dresser Industries (now part of Halliburton), Walker's son-in-law Prescott Bush (George W. Bush's grandfather) became involved with the Middle East in the years after World War II. But it was George H.W. Bush, the current president's father, who forged the dynasty's strongest ties to the region. George H.W. Bush was the first CIA director to come from the oil industry. He went on to became the first vice president - and then the first president - to have either an oil or CIA background. This helps to explain his persistent bent toward the Middle East, covert operations and rogue banks like the Abu Dhabi-based Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI), which came to be known by the nickname Bank of Crooks and Criminals International. In each of the government offices he held, he encouraged CIA involvement in Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan and other Middle Eastern countries, and he pursued policies that helped make the Middle East into the world's primary destination for arms shipments. Taking the CIA helm in January 1976, Bush cemented strong relations with the intelligence services of both Saudi Arabia and the shah of Iran. He worked closely with Kamal Adham, the head of Saudi intelligence, brother-in-law of King Faisal and an early BCCI insider. After leaving the CIA in January 1977, Bush became chairman of the executive committee of First International Bancshares and its British subsidiary, where, according to journalists Peter Truell and Larry Gurwin in their 1992 book False Profits, Bush traveled on the bank's behalf and sometimes marketed to international banks in London, including several Middle Eastern institutions. Once in the White House, first as vice president to Ronald Reagan and later as president, George H.W. Bush was linked to at least two Middle East-centered scandals. It's never been entirely clear what Bush's connection was to the Iran-Contra affair, in which clandestine arms shipments to Iran, some BCCI-financed, helped illegally fund the operations of the anti- Sandinista Contra rebels in Nicaragua. But in 1992, special prosecutor Lawrence E. Walsh asserted that Bush, despite his protestations, had indeed been in the loop on multiple illegal acts. Much clearer was Bush's pivotal role, both as vice president and president, in Iraqgate, the hidden aid provided by the U.S. and its military to Saddam Hussein's Iraq in its high-stakes war with Iran during the 1980s. The U.S. is known to have provided both biological cultures that could have been used for weapons and nuclear know-how to the regime, as well as conventional weapons. As ABC-TV broadcaster Ted Koppel put it in a June 1992 Nightline program after the 1991 Persian Gulf War: It is becoming increasingly clear that George [H.W.] Bush, operating largely behind the scenes through the 1980s, initiated and supported much of the financing, intelligence and military help that built Saddam's Iraq into the
Re: quote
Dan Scanlan wrote: Sharpton, after Dean bragged about how many blacks and Latinos in Congress had endorsed him. You only need co-signers if your credit is bad. As pen-l'ers know, I am no fan of Howard Dean. But there seems to be a little bit of demagogy going on here. Blacks and Latinos constitute no more than .05 of Vermont's population. Meanwhile Sharpton endorsed the racist Al D'Amato for Senator in 1986. Dean isn't running for President of the US, where the percentage of Blacks and Latinos is much higher. I think it's a cool line, regardless of Sharpton's endorsement, but I wonder what he got for the endorsement. Dan
democracy in action
from MS Slate: [the New York TIMES] says that with Iraq's top Shiite cleric demanding direct elections, the administration has decided to tweak its transfer of sovereignty plan. The Times says the White House, which made the decision after a series urgent meetings, will try to make its closed caucuses proposal look more democratic without changing it in a fundamental way. As currently envisioned, the caucuses will be controlled by U.S.-appointed committees. We're looking at the same process we have, but trying to make it as open, inclusive and democratic as possible, said one unnamed official. isn't this the same kind of process that's used in Iran, that the US establishment objects to? Jim D.
Re: quote
I enjoy Sharpton's wit. Most of the Dems. are pretty stale. I am no fan of Dean's policies, but I do enjoy that he does not roll over for the Repugs. I wish that the Dems. would learn from him. Had Gore done more than one week of populism, he would have won fairly easily. On Tue, Jan 13, 2004 at 02:26:49PM -0500, Louis Proyect wrote: Dan Scanlan wrote: Sharpton, after Dean bragged about how many blacks and Latinos in Congress had endorsed him. You only need co-signers if your credit is bad. As pen-l'ers know, I am no fan of Howard Dean. But there seems to be a little bit of demagogy going on here. Blacks and Latinos constitute no more than .05 of Vermont's population. Meanwhile Sharpton endorsed the racist Al D'Amato for Senator in 1986. -- The Marxism list: www.marxmail.org -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail michael at ecst.csuchico.edu
Re: democracy in action
from MS Slate: [the New York TIMES] says that with Iraq's top Shiite cleric demanding direct elections, the administration has decided to tweak its transfer of sovereignty plan. The Times says the White House, which made the decision after a series urgent meetings, will try to make its closed caucuses proposal look more democratic without changing it in a fundamental way. As currently envisioned, the caucuses will be controlled by U.S.-appointed committees. We're looking at the same process we have, but trying to make it as open, inclusive and democratic as possible, said one unnamed official. isn't this the same kind of process that's used in Iran, that the US establishment objects to? Jim D. Sorta like Cheney's energy meetings?
Volker Braun, Das Eigentum/Property
Volker Braun, Das Eigentum/Property: http://germany.poetryinternational.org/cwolk/view/20388. Volker Braun: http://germany.poetryinternational.org/cwolk/view/20382 * What I never had, is being torn away from me. What I did not live, I will miss forever. With these line from his drama _Property_ (_Das Eigentum_, 1990), playwright Volker Braun renders his melancholic reaction to the disintegration of the German Democratic Republic. The GDR once prided itself as the tenth strongest world economy, but following the postcommunist turn, or _Wende_, most of its industries have been brought to a halt, and hundreds of thousands have found themselves jobless. The euphoria at the opening of the Berlin Wall dimmed within a few months, and a pall seemed to set in over the two Germanys, one which prompted many to reconsider the disintegration of state socialism. Whereas most Germans considered the communist project a failure, many others proceeded to mourn its passing, nonetheless. Paradoxically, what Braun's protagonist lost with the collapse of communism was the possible past he never really had. The mass perception of loss has elicited a memory crisis in contemporary culture. While retrospective literary texts and artworks proliferate, museum exhibitions salvage and curate the wreckage of the GDR as if there were literally no tomorrow. A new German word has surfaced to describe this trend: _Ostalgie_, derived from _Nostalgie_, or nostalgia. The first syllable drops the letter _n_ to become _ost_, the word for east. What remains signifies something like nostalgia for the eastern times of state socialism. Yet the nostalgic longing for some home that, perhaps, never really existed distinguishes itself from two other modes of memory that charge postcommunist culture: mourning and melancholia. . . . (Charity Scribner, Left Melancholy, _Loss: The Politics of Mourning_, University of California Press, 2003, p. 300) * Charity Scribner: http://web.mit.edu/fll/www/people/CharityScribner.html Charity Scribner, _Requiem for Communism_, 2003: http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?sid=60FAA42F-67F5-4A28-8EFD-71C1087D6CF6ttype=2tid=9916 _Loss: The Politics of Mourning_, eds. David L. Eng and David Kazanjian, 2002: http://www.ucpress.edu/books/pages/9581.html -- Yoshie * Bring Them Home Now! http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/ * Calendars of Events in Columbus: http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/calendar.html, http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php, http://www.cpanews.org/ * Student International Forum: http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/ * Committee for Justice in Palestine: http://www.osudivest.org/ * Al-Awda-Ohio: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio * Solidarity: http://www.solidarity-us.org/
