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October 31, 2007 Hiroshima Comes To Denver 1, Yesterday two hibakshas (survivors of the atomic blasts) from Hiroshima spoke at the University of Denver where I heard them. They were brought to the university thanks to Dr. Randall Kuhn, director of the Global Health Affairs Certificate Program of the university's Graduate School of International Studies. Susumu Yoneda and Yukio.Yoshioka are both from Hiroshima. (click on names to see image - photo credit: Isabella De Aragao) Yoshioka was sixteen years of age on August 6, 1945 at 8:12 am when the first nuclear bomb exploded 600 meters (approximately 1800') above the center of downtown Hiroshima. Yoneda was five. Both were within a mile of the blasts epicenter and somehow survived. Yoshioka was in a boat on one of the rivers that flow through Hiroshima. He was initially knocked out by the blast. Yoneda was in a hospital with his mother at the time. The blast leveled the hospital but he and his mother somehow survived in the rubble. A nurse was able to clear away enough debris to free them. A few minutes later the debris burst into flames consuming whomever had survived the blast. That they are both alive today to tell the tale is something close to a miracle. Both spoke about the horrors that followed - both immediate and long term - an unending nightmare of unspeakable proportions. It is difficult to sit and listen to all that suffering and it gives but a hint of the horror, the utter devastation and suffering that ensued. Like the other tragedies of World War II, Auschwitz and Buchenwald, the Nazi siege of Leningrad, the SS torture chambers, the fire bombing of Dresden, the Warsaw Uprising of April 1944, the dropping of two atomic bombs on Japan - one on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, the second on Nagasaki on August 9, 1945 - are hard to conceptualize. Therefore their significance is difficult to appreciate. Then why do so? - Because we live in an age of nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction.
- Oh yes, and because unbeknownst to some, Colorado in nothing short of a nuclear weapons playground. It still has active nuclear missile silos in the northeast corner of the state north and east of Greeley. For years there was the Rocky Flats Nuclear Weapons facility (just s. of Boulder) where triggers for nuclear weapons were produced until public opinion and an historic peace movement closed it down. There is the Cheyenne Mountain Arsenal outside of Colorado Springs, the `brain center' for nuclear war, Lockheed Martin down the road from Denver makes missiles that can carry nuclear warheads and then the state is the site of one of the most ill conceived uses of nuclear weapons in the nation's history: what are referred to `Project Ruilison and Project Rio Blanco' where underground nuclear blasts were conducted in the Colorado mountains to create cavities into which natural gas would seep, the goal being to commerically sell the radioactive natural gas for home and industrial use. Who knows what other nuclear wonders lurk within the state's bowels? (see the September 28-October 5 entries on this blog) Yoshioka and Yoneda stuck rather strictly to the grim human consequences of the Hiroshima bombing and, as is their approach, rarely made other political statements. Yoshioka did come out clearly and unequivocally against reversing Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution, the article which prohibits Japan from expanding its military beyond defensive purposes. In recent years the US has wanted to expand US-Japanese military cooperation in Asia in hopes of putting together - either formally or informally - some kind of anti-Chinese military front, an East Asian updated reworking of the Bagdad Pact (which failed). The recent nuclear agreement with India go in the same direction more or less. Nuclear Amnesia in the Post Cold War Period During the Cold War pleas of nuclear disarmament were essentially targeting the US-Soviet nuclear arms race. The collapse of the USSR and the completion of significant - if incomplete - US-Soviet disarmament, due largely to Gorbachev’s efforts were hopeful signs in those days (late 1980s, early 1990s). But the hopefulness was short- lived and now the nuclear danger is spreading again and like wildfire. The United States and Israel would like us to believe that the greatest current danger comes from Iran’s nuclear energy program despite the fact that Iran has only enriched uranium to the industrial standard of 3-4%, not the 90+% needed for weapons grade material. Nor is there, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency any evidence of an Iranian nuclear weapons program (although it might be possible the Iranians are secretly proceeding in this direction - as virtually every country that has developed nuclear weapons in the past has done). Whatever Iran is doing it is small potatoes, virtually nothing compared to the nuclearization of the countries surrounding it. Twenty years ago, according to Mordecai Vanunu Israel already had 200 + nuclear weapons. That figure has never been denied by the Israeli government. Since its Dimona nuclear weapons plant has never stopped production, 20 years later the size of the arsenal could be considerably larger. Pakistan and India both have gone nuclear and while China and Russia are `technically’ not Middle Eastern countries, they are not far away. Furthermore, the United States, with its bases and port facilities in the region and in nearby Europe and Diego Garcia (from where it has bombed Afghanistan and could easily bomb Iran), with its floating arsenal in the Mediterranean Sea and Persian Gulf, its Trident submarines lurking around who knows where in the world, is probably the Middle East’s largest nuclear weapons power. The fact that a prominent Israeli, an editor of Haaretz - has recently called for regional de-nuclearization of the Middle East (including the Israeli arsenal) is a hopeful but essentially isolated sign. Nor is the danger of a nuclear war limited to the Middle East. The possibilities are of other areas of conflict - regional wars, the US use of tactical nukes in its jihad against the Third World - are growing at almost an exponential rate. Bombs using depleted uranium - not true nuclear weapons but still producing large swatches of radioactive contamination - were extensively used in Iraq both in 1991 and during the air attacks accompanying the 2003 invasion. In these dangerous times the lessons of Hiroshima and Nagasaki appear to have been long forgotten. We should thank Yoshioka and Yoneda for reminding us, regardless how uncomfortable is the experience of listening to their tale of suffering. And I hope they are training another generation of Japanese - children of Hibakshas or Hibaksha II to continue to remind us - us being the world - of our responsibility to rid the world of these horrific human creations, before they destroy us all. 2.Email from a Japanese graduate student, former student of mine, concerning the above event. "Thank you for bringing your entire class with you to the speech
today. Coming from Japan, I believe the use of nuclear weapons should
be banned. I feel people who have never exposed to the effects of the
weapons or to the experiences of other people who have experienced the
effects of the bombs oftentimes think about uses of such weapon without
giving too much thoughts to it. I really expected that more people especially
Americans would come. I believe they should learn about real effects of
nuclear weapons in order to really learn about how ugly wars would be." ______________________________________________________________________ October 30, 2007 Feedback on interfaith dialogues (on yesterday's entry) 1. from Hawaii "I also liked the comments about interfaith dialogue. Such gatherings
have begun to give me nausea. I think it's all the ernestness and sincerety
that never seem to go anywhere except to end in a lot of mutual congratulations rjp: yes - this is the danger...that such dialogues will degenerate into this kind of hollow structured politeness (that or that they collapse entirely when things don't go the way one group wants). many have. perhaps if they were more action oriented - around a peace campaign or human rights theme they might be more vibrant. my own experience with them is that they tend to be rather paralyzing and that the paralysis sets in quite quickly. still, they seem to have genuine unrealized potential. 2. from Eugene Fitzpatrick of Denver Reading the CPJN of 10/29/07 my antenna perked up upon reading that there
seemed a dearth of Catholics at the Abrahamic Initiative event of the
day before at St. John's Cathedral. In 2006, at a blatantly Islamophobic
talk at the John Paul II Center on South Steele, the Chancellor of the
Archdiocese included in his unabashedly racist screed the fact ( and I
paraphrase) that they (the leaders of the Archdiocese) deliberately have
no truck with the Abrahamic Initiative as the lack of commonality between
them (the Muslims) and the Catholics makes dialogue valueless. Having
been impressed by the neocon behavior of Chaput and his satraps for some
time before this, the comment from Francis Meier (the Chancellor) was
a 'suspicions are confirmed' moment as one appreciates that not talking
with the adversary is one of the more egregious characteristics of the
glob of thuggery steering our poor beleaguered ship of state. I haven't
the shadow of a doubt that the Denver Catholic leadership has been orchestrating
animus towards the Muslim community for years and with some success for
their efforts. note: Gene's comment also appears in the guest book of this website. 3. from an Abrahamic Initiative Participant I share your disappointment with Nihad Awad’s failure to address Islamophobia in any very direct way, the apparent withdrawal of the Catholic and Jewish voices from the Abrahamic initiative, and how all lose when they do that, but that the process should continue. 4. from a member of Friends of Sabeel Hi -- I agree with Sunday's presentation. We drove like mad to get there
(and even then were a little late.) But I really didn't hear anything
worth the drive -- nothing new or helpful. October 29, 2007 Denver's Abrahamic Initiative: Creating Dialogue/Islamophobia and `Islamo-Fascism Week'. Yesterday I went to a luncheon at the Denver Country Club (yes, forgive me for slumming - I do it on occasion and find it great fun) and then to St. John's Cathedral to hear Nihad Awad, Executive Director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, speak. He was invited to Denver by the Abrahamic Initiative, an interfaith dialogue group based largely at St. Johns. Although essentially secular, I was interested to hear Awad and get a glimpse at how the `dialogue' promoted by the Abrahamic Initiative is going these days. I'd attended one of their meetings several years ago where a film was shown of Israeli and Palestinian teenagers getting to know each other that was followed by a panel that included a Christian (Larry Grimm, Presbyterian minister and a friend), Rima Barakat (an organizer for the Palestinian Community) and Jan Cooper-Nadav (a Jewish psychologist) spoke. The Israeli kids later went into the army, the Palestinian teenagers seemed to have joined the resistance, all very depressing but not surprising. Still the fact that they had touched each other's lives, each other's humanity suggests - or at least I would like to believe - that somewhere, sometime in the future, if they all haven't killed each other, that they'll be among the peace makers. And I hope they will (be among the peace makers that is). The event was attended by a hefty 300-400 people and although I couldn't tell precisely, it seemed that a goodly number of Christians, Moslems and Jews were in the audience and that in fact, something of an honest, if difficult dialogue took place that day. A climate of mutual respect, understanding seemed to be in the making or at least that is how I saw it. Of course then Israeli war against Lebanon intervened and some of that good will went the way of all flesh. As I hadn't been back since, I was wonderging about it all, hoping that the `dialogue' continued and had not broken down. That was several years ago. My friend, Imam Ibrahim Kazerooni. is the executive director of the Abrahamic Initiative and it was he that extended the invitation that I attend. We frequently speak (and co-author op eds) together. Actually I am quite supportive of such dialogues (as long as they are not contrived or controlled) although I always wonder where people like myself fit in, those of us who do not fall under the label `children of god'. But trying hard to be flexible, and both interested in the subject matter and curious as to what kind of `dialoguing' is actually going on and who is doing it, I accepted Ibrahim's invitation. The `dialogue' - at least that portion that I witnessed, was, in most ways, more interesting than Nihad Awad's remarks which were rather flat (more on that below). If my impression is accurate, today the Abrahamic Initiative is mostly a `Moslem-Christian' dialogue, or more specifically, a Moslem- Protestant dialogue. As such it seemed quite alive and honest. There were a number of people from both faiths there; they seemed genuinely interested in open discussion with each other. They were people of some prominence within both communities, clearly community leaders and seemed earnest and committed to participating and building bridges. I couldn't help being moved by this, and for a fleeting movement wished I were more religious so that I could find an excuse to partipate along with them, if only to listen to their concerns and dialogue. It gave a bit of hope. But Where Are the Catholics and Jews? There was one Catholic at the luncheon and I apologize for forgetting her name - I am very forgetful of such things these days - but she represented herself as being the local leader of the Sisters of Loretto, the order to which a number of my close friends belong. There didn't appear to be any others, virtually no one that I could tell from what might be called main-stream Catholic circles. Very few Jews, hardly any. But there was a man named Goldberg. As a general rule, it's safe to say that a Goldberg is rarely a hindu or sufi so I presume he is probably Jewish and ask his apology if instead he turns out to be some kind of wahhabist. He asked what I thought was a very decent question - about how people of different faiths might cooperate on dealing with global issues that threaten humanity - war, the environment, poverty -etc and I thought the answer that he got from Nihad Awad was disappointing. Don't know if Goldberg is attached to some larger entity. There was another friend, who will remain nameless for the moment, and, yours truly, and it is very questionable what I represent outside of myself (although painful as it might be to some, there's no denying that I'm Jewish). But the mainstream and more obvious leaders of the Jewish Community as well as those ideologically tethered to them were absent. Although a few had gotten involved at the outset a few years ago, there was not a rabbi in the room. Gail Kahn, organizer for the American Jewish Committee, had worked with the Abrahamic Initiative for a while but has, I am told, given a resignation in writing. I have my own understanding as to why mainstream Denver Jews are essentially shunning the Abrahamic Initiative (that I won't go into here, at least not yet), but I think that they are making a mistake to stay away. I don't need to lecture them on why they should be a part of it. The essence of it is of course, that they tend to hear things that make them feel uncomfortable, especially about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, that and the fact that there are limits to how and where they can steer the initiative. They would be better off participating, for most of these people have long been in dialogue with Jews and frankly, want to remain so. There reaches a point - and we are there - where one can no longer manage or control the dialogue and subject matter. In any case, the rabbis and the AJC and ADL will do what they will. I hope other, independent Jewish voices, religious and secular, consider joining in. Nihad Awad and the Council on American Islamic Relations The invitation extended to Nihad Awad to speak to the Abrahamic Initiative `caused some concerns' because some of the Initiative's members didn't know how he was and what he would say. In the end, the invitation was extended. I attended not so much because of the controversy but because of the subject matter: islamophobia. The country had just come off of a week of activities organized by the David Horowitz Freedom Center `Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week', or as I like to call it, Horowitz's Jihad. Horowitz (what can one say anymore about him that has not already been said - an intellectual hatchet man of the extreme right) claims it was a great success with a stable of famous speakers of impeccable credentials fanning out throughout the country. Ann Coulter, James Woolsey (former CIA director, one of the key instigators of the Iraq War), Frank Gaffney (neo-con extraordinaire for decades), Rick Santorum (right wing Republican from Pennsylvania) were all spewing their bigotry throughout the nation. Theirs was, as a college student commented `thinly veiled attempts to demonize and brand a whole community', actually a whole religion. But if the United States intends to bomb Iran, including perhaps with nuclear weapons, it is nothing short of `tradition' to vilify the enemy beforehand, to make the hitler comparison as a prelude to going to war. Indeed, Horowitz, aware of the fact that the nazi-hitler label is not playing so well in Middle America these days, even takes it a step further. In an interview with NPR (why did they give him the time of day? and such respect?) claims that today's `islamo-fascists' are `a greater threat than the Nazis, communism or the Civil War' - the jerk. There were hundreds of events planned, mostly on college campuses with a special emphasis - Horowitz' little touch no doubt - of targeting Women's Studies programs for their lack of interest in Horowitz's jihad. Despite Horowitz's claims to the contrary, `Islamo-Fascism' Week (October 22-27) appears to have transpired without making much of a dent here in Colorado. I'm trying to gather information about events that might have taken place on the Front Range, to date I am not aware of any. If any readers are aware of such events I'd appreciate being contacted. (robertjprince@comcast.net) I was quite interested in what Nihad Awad had to say about all this. In the end, it really wasn't much. He hardly talked about Islamophobia other than to make a passing reference to `Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week' and to, very meekly I might add, call on the Bush Administration not to bomb Iran. He seemed almost embarrassed to talk about either subject in much detail and went on to give a kind of `first generation immmigrant monologue' about how great and diverse is America which made someone sitting next to me inquire as to what country he was talking about. Awad missed an opportunity to analyze the sources of the current anti-Islamic sentiment in the country which is one of the more virulent forms of racism in the USA today. Nor did he reveal much about either its different manifestations (yes there were a few comments about the portrayal of Moslems in Hollywood, but fleeting comments, hardly developed). Finally he told us nothing about what can be done to counter this explosion of bile and bigotry. Sorry. Wish I could be more positive. For all that, although I won't be much of a part of it, I hope that the Abrahamic Initiative can `keep it together' and continue with the work it is doing to facilitate interfaith dialogue. It remains one of the more honest and vibrant interfaith processes in the region and I believe that good things can and will come of it. And if they find a theological space for those of us of a more secular persuasion, who knows, it could be even more interesting still. ____________________________________________________________________________ October 23, 2007 Blood Isn't Always Thicker Than Water: A (Preliminary) Tribute to Scott Keating This seems to be the season of death for me. First good friend Jack Galvin died in July, then my 98 year old dear Aunt Mal at the end of August, and now, on Sunday evening at 11:35 at the Lutheran Hospital intensive care unit, one Scott Keating, friend and companero of 35 or more years. In their final hospital stay, all three struggled with life, seemed to have experienced a bit of a recovery toward the end, only to suffer an irreversable relapse again, and leave us. A cruel process, to give a hint of hope, just before the end. Jack and Scott were particulary close and I couldn't help thinking that Scott just `went ahead' to join Jack to organize that great union in the sky, lobbying so the rest of us might head their way later on. Yesterday some one asked me how I felt. Actually it's quite simple: it's like being psychologically amputated. I am not sure of his age because I never asked him but believe Scott was a mere 56 or 57 years old. He had been ill on and off for some time with his condition slowly but persistently deteriorating in recent years. His father, Paul H. Keating, a former POW in a Nazi concentration camp, was an artist of some repute, a member of a group of post-war (WWII) artists referred to as the `Denver 5' who had a national reputation a new generation of modern artists. Paul H., who on occasion would come to my classes and tell students of his POW experiences (and his opposition to war) always carried a trade mark milk carton from which he drank to sooth his ulcer. He would also casually - as if 50 students weren't watching in amazement - smoke (of course it was a `no smoking' room) and flick the ashes from his cigarette nonchalantly into his pants cuffs. He died maybe 15 years ago. Paul H and Scott's mom, Pooh (we call her), divorced a long time ago. Pooh remarried a kind and decent man, a solid and lasting second marriage and not a bitter one as some of them can be. Some years ago Scott developed a `weight problem', the source of which no one was ever certain, but it appeared to be some kind of glandular condition rather than binge eating or poor diet and his weight shot up to who knows, maybe 450, maybe 500 pounds, maybe more. He struggled with that weight - really did what he could to bring it down, bring it under control, but in the end was unable to. While no doctor, I believe the stresses on his system were simply too much - even for Scott who was strong as an ox, but not quite strong enough to bear all that weight. He'd have these attacks, the cause of which the doctors at Kaiser were never quite able to pinpoint. As described, it reminded me of malaria - chills followed by fever (or the opposite) and he'd be out of commission with that for a week, ten days until the attack passed. He was hospitalized for this on several occasions and as a result, to hear he was back hospitalized didn't overly concern me. But every day his condition worsened. He'd has some kind of gall bladder infections which could have been surgically drained other than the fact that he was also on the blood-thinner, cumiden making surgery very iffy. The doctors hoped to wait until the cumiden levels in his system dropped before operating. But during the wait the infection spread and poisoned his blood which in turn led to a kidney malfunction and a more general system shut down. There were a few times he gave us hope, has his blood pressure stabilized and his white blood cell count seemed to diminish. But these only proved to be cruel teases and as the weekend drew nearly so did the end of Scott's life. I last saw him late on Saturday night for about a half hour along with a few other close friends. We were all choked up to see Scott laid out - his body attached to a gazillion computerized machines with little graph lines and colored balls dancing up and down on color monitors - all of which seemed completely useless to me. Scott was sedated, I supposed - but am not sure - with heavy doses of morphine. He looked calm and not in pain, although he had suffered heaps in the weeks prior. He did not seem conscious although I am not sure and later, Carol Kreck, one of the friends there with me, related that Scott responded to a question as to whether he was cold and wanted more blankets. So perhaps he heard the words that I whispered in his ear as he lay dying - that friends like Scott come once in a lifetime, are irreplacable, that corny as it seems, and this from one of the most unspiritual - no anti-spiritual - person i Know, myself, that he will live on, live on in the minds and hearts of his friends and that he has long been a part of whomever it is that I am. I spoke to him about two kinds of family - the families we are born into and do not choose - our mothers and fathers, siblings etc...and then the other kind, the family we choose - the network of friends, in our case, cemented forever in a movement for peace, justice and civil rights that we were apart of in the 1960s and early 1970s. Finally I whispered to him that I had always considered him almost family, something close to a `brother-in-law' anyway since at our wedding he'd gone off and `made out' - as we used to call it - with one of my sisters. I was so proud of them both! (I won't tell which one - they were, at the time, both great beauties) and that either sister would have been far luckier to have connected with Scott than the schleps they wound up marrying (although today, at long last, I have an `almost brother-in-law' as I call him, who is, in every sense of the word, `a good man'). I'd like to believe Scott heard me although I'm not sure. Seven years prior I had had a similar conversation with my father in a Florida hospital where he lay, his body paralyzed, his face frozen from a stroke that soon would end his life, his eyes fixed on the ceiling. Never knew if my words got through then either. Strange feeling, probably for both of us. Social movements - the ones I have known - produce such a great variety of people. Some of them, quite frankly, are not particularly kind and humane - they are downright nasty, petty and cold - and it is a common trap to think they will be otherwise. But then there were the others: people who were supposed to be socialized to be greedy but are generous; the ones who are trained to be narrow and bigoted - but are neither and have no racist bones to speak of in their body; the ones who probably could have, had they wanted to, been extraordinarily wealthy or powerful but said `fuck it' to all that. To this day I wonder at their humanity, their talent as organizers, their courage. Social movement do produce such human gems. Scott was one such `gem'. He was also quite frankly, - and I do not use this word lightly - brilliant, with more smarts in his (not so) little pinky than most people have in their heads (as we used to say in Brooklyn). Scott understood people like virtually no one else i know. He was a master psychologist and could penetate virtually everyone's bullshit (including mine), their seemy side as well as anyone I've ever met. With a few questions he could see into a person's soul. And yet he was kind. He didn't use his powers of perception to control or hurt people like a number of people I know who think themselves real slick pyschologically (but aren't). He accepted people with their short comings and in many ways cared for them all the more because of them. He was genuinely gentle. He reminded me of when we met. I had forgotten and thought it was when he lived in one political commune on 12 and Race in Capital Hill and I lived in another at 24 and Downing near Five Points. But no, we had met in the mountains in the fall of 1970 at an AFSC peace conference. Galvin was there too. The conference featured a Pakistani scholar activist whose name doesn't ring too many bells today (but whose writings I use in my teaching) Eqbal Ahmad. Shortly thereafter we found ourselves working together in Denver's anti-war movement and with that movement, finding ourselves heading more and more in a left direction just at about the time the nation as a whole started going the other way! Keating was one of a group of young teenage Catholics, some of whom were rebelling against Catholic school, others coming out of what was one of the more politicized (and integrated) high schools in Denver, East High School. Decades later, these `recovering Catholics', most of them long atheists, others who had found some alternatives to traditional Catholicism would meet and thoroughly enjoy playing `Catholic Trivial Pursuit'. The commune movement we were both a part of didn't last very long. Some communes lasted only a year or two. If I remember correctly, the one I was in lasted a bit more than a year. Scott's, it seems, lasted somewhat longer. Many of the people coming out of those communes would spend much of the rest of their lives working for civil rights, peace, the labor movement, spawning a whole generation of left organizers and very talented political people. Keating was one of them. Although he had the good sense to never join a cadre organization, he was deeply committed to the values of the 1960s. For a while he worked as an organizer for the National Lawyer's Guild in the early 1970s. He was a founder of one of the more interesting - and actually one of the few - local institutions that this new generation of leftists spawned - the Radical Information Project. Based mostly on 17th Ave near Clarkson right across the street from what for years was the Folklore Center, it was a central meeting point for many left initiatives in the city for two decades, and as such was also probably one of the most bugged and infiltrated institutions in the city. When the Denver Police, directed by national intelligence agencies, raided the Crusade For Justice in what was one of the most carefully orchestrated acts of state repression (detailed in Ernesto Vigil's fine book The Crusade For Justice), Keating understood the political significance of what had happened immediately and helped spearhead the National Lawyers' Guild defense of tha beseiged organization. He was sharp, intelligent, very, very smart and caring in that work, a fact of which was never forgotten by people who used to be a part of the Crusade. As previously mentioned, Scott had to deal with significant number of assholes, leftwing `jesuits' and just some downright nasty people. Welcome to the movement! The pay was shit - not even that good - and his reward was to get kicked in balls once a week by the movement people around him, arrogant types who talked tough but in the end weren't worth a dime, who ranted about being `the vanguard of the proletariat' and stuff like that although most of them later became mainstream Dems. They were often little more than `Marxist-Leninist' millionaires, the left wing of the trust fund baby movement. Their stay in the left was temporary and after having done their patriotic duty to help fragment movement of the 1970s and early 1980s beyond repair, they moved on to the bottom of the barrel and wound up stock brokers, shyster lawyers, bankers or worse, state legislators. Eventually Scott did what any sensible human being would do under the circumstances - told them where to get off ...and took a job working in auto parts store. I had to deal with some of the same nonsense, and still do, you know the folks to like to impress people that they are `the most radical' when in the end they were mostly phonies (or agents). But what Scott endured was far worse. It never broke his spirit...but it hurt. As he had excelled at the National Lawyers Guild, so he did in auto parts (and actually at essentially everything he ever touched). It was a place out on West 44 Ave just past Sheridan. He did so well that he was offered a management position in Houston, but there was a catch - he'd have to move to that pit of oil and gas interests. Too many Bushes in the bushes in Houston. It took him about a nano-second to turn it down. He then drove a cab for more than a decade. It seemed that half the Denver left did in those days and not surprisingly - together they formed a coop and although it didn't last either, proved to be one of the more interesting experiments in worker self management until it too collapsed. A number of short stories resulted (he wrote fiction and poetry).There was then a spell as an investigator for the Jefferson County D.A. I think he really liked that work, but his boss was a politically ambitious and pompous asshole, a Tom Delay type climbing the social ladder to nowhere - most politically ambitious people are little more than that - - who couldn't tolerate the fact that Scott was not sufficiently impressed. Scott's problem was that Scott celebrated `Don't-Take-Shit-from-Bosses-Day' all year round. In the end I'm not sure if his boss fired Scott or visa versa. Then he went out on his own. His last venture which lasted also more than a decade was a private investigation firm - Another Source Investigations. In a pretty cut-throat business, he managed to survive and there were a couple of times there that I thought he might really pull it all together and get out of the financial hole he so creatively and systematically had worked himself into. But then his body started rebelling. Scott would have made an outstanding lawyer and an even better judge. He knew the law intimately, was exceedingly fair and of course I have no doubt he would have defended poor people, minorities and essentially anyone with the ill fortune of getting screwed by the system. I know that he would done so because he was Scott and he understood and had a healthy contempt for greed and naked political power...and this was, along with our love for fine movies, one fo the great bonds we shared. But his life in those years was dedicated to `the movement' and he never went to law school. I don't think that he even ever went to college, not for even a semester. Just couldn't afford it, and although I might be mistaken about this, he also simply didn't seem to care - as if college would interfer with his education. Nor was there any financial support. His father Paul H. had begun his rather impressive downward spiral. Paul H would die as many of us fear we will. His body was found frozen on the street one winter morning. No financial support there. He left Scott a mixed inheritance - a fascinating personality with an appreciation for art and culture and a slew of unpaid bills. Through much of the late 1970s and 1980s we didn't see much of each other although we never really lost contact. His personal life was, well...let's call it `colorful'. We reconnected - but how I can't remember - sometime in 1990. I had just returned from five bruising and humbling (at least a little) years in Finland (but as they say that's another story). He lived in the same neighborhood. We picked up again, older, somewhat more cynical (and thus much funnier and not so pompous). Until the end - the end being two days ago - my favorite moments, precious - nothing less - was just to visit with him. We'd talk for hours, about politics, about some of the pathelogical people he'd run into in his private eye cases, about culture - he was extraordinarily well read and knew art well. He saw where America was going long ago. Together we saw the current darkness descend and pretty much decided years ago, that while we probably couldn't stop the shift to the right, still, we'd give the bastards a run for their money as long as we were still around and we'd laugh a little along the way. My friend, how i miss you and you're not dead yet two days. And the man could cook too. Some of our most intricate discussions were about recipees. _____________________________________________________________ October 20, 2007 Dealing with the Dinosaur - Facing Down Comcast - Mona-The-Hammer-Shaw A few months back, in a moment of psychic confusion, I decided to upgrade my phone service to take advantage of some of the wonders of the modern age. I called my local provider, Comcast, to make the necessary changes. My phone, internet, cable system is not all that complicated, rather simple in the greater scheme of things and I expected the shift to go off smoothly, and hoped it would as Nancy, my wife, a spiritual luddite at heart in the best sense of the term, was not exactly enthralled by my need to remain electronically relevant. The process was anything but gentle. It took 3 sub contractors and finally a Comcast technician and three weeks to get the system working again half as well as it had before. During that time there was a 10 day period when we had no phone service at all and during that time two family emergencies (of course) took place that we only heard of belatedly. The last guy, the Comcast technican, had to come back twice on the same day, until the system finally got off the ground. I called the company, demanded we not have to pay a month's service and got that. It's worked ok since but the whole thing - combined with the rightwing newscoverage comparable to Fox News - has left a pretty bad taste. Probably because of all that, it was with some pleasure that I read the following piece in the Washington Post, sent to me by my old Peace Corps Tunisia friend Phil Jones. So it appears - as is the case with so many things - there is a broader context to my situation. First there is the article itself which might be entitled `Hammer in Hand: Stepping Beyond Pacifism'...then there is the website Comcast Must Die - the potential impact of which has hardly been probed. Add to this the fact that compared to internet in Japan, France, Korea and a whole other slew of countries, that offered here in the US of A by Comcast and like-minded vultures is quite mediocre and actually not all that `high speed'. Immanuel Wallerstein had some interesting reflections on the subject in a recent commentary Commentary No. 219, Oct. 15, 2007 entitled "Japan, the United States, and the World-Economy" in which he points out how US internet service is more expensive and slower. " The United States at 4.8 was fourteen times slower than Japan and at $3.33 twelve times more expensive. It is piquant to note that France, so frequently scorned in the United States for its economic backwardness, while not up to Japan's level, was over three times faster than the United States (17.6) and half as expensive ($1.64). " Wallerstein explains the dilemma: "The explanation of this enormous discrepancy is the relation to the capitalist market of enterprises in Japan and in the United States. For Japan to be what the Times calls a "broadband paradise," Japanese enterprises have had to make heavy investments and give deep discounts to customers. They do this on the theory that disregarding short-term profits and pouring billions into long-term projects will pay off eventually. This was the philosophy that allowed Japan to create one of the two fastest railway lines in the world - the Shinkansen. Its only competitor in this field is France's TGV. The United States, as everyone knows, has a miserable train system known as Amtrak, which hardly anyone uses and is always losing money." "The two crucial differences between Japan and the United States is that U.S. corporate executives are under great pressure to justify any capital expenditures that might eat into this year's returns, and that the U.S. government is unwilling to give financial incentives to companies to help finance long-term investment." "The reasons for both are obvious. U.S. corporations today are dominated by a speculative ethos, in which top personnel turnover is constant and buyouts ever on the horizon. This year's bottom line is all that matters to a CEO who may not be in a position to profit from next year's bottom line (not to speak of next decade's bottom line). And the U.S. government is spending all its money on military investment and tax breaks for the very wealthy. There is nothing left over for long-term capitalist investment. The Japanese are instead investing in a "once-in-a-century transformation," according to Kazuhiko Ogawa, general manager of the network strategy section at Nippon Telegraph & Telephone." It is highly unlikely that Mona-The-Hammer-Shaw has read Wallerstein. But she seems to have learned how to get Comcast's attention..Read just below from Thursday's (Oct. 18) Washington Post: Taking a Whack Against Comcast For instance: The Dillinger Gang, robbing banks (and destroying mortgages) when banks were foreclosing on the poor. Stephanie St. Clair, matron of the numbers racket during the Harlem Renaissance, striking a (dubious) blow for both gender and racial equality. Junior Johnson bootlegging liquor during Prohibition (the benefits of which were self-evident). Fear not, fellow Americans! In these dark days of war, pestilence and Paris Hilton, a new hero has arisen. She is none other than 75-year-old Mona "The Hammer" Shaw, who took the aforementioned implement to her local Comcast office in Manassas to settle a score, and boy, did she! This was after the company had scheduled installation of its much ballyhooed
"Triple Play" service, which combines phone, cable and Internet
services, in Shaw's brick home in nearby Bristow. But Shaw said they failed
to show up on the appointed day, Monday, Aug. 13. They came two days later
but left with the job half done. On Friday morning, they cut off all service. Let's pick it up, mid-action, according to Shaw: (Remember, it's mid-August.) Mona and Don sit. Tick, tick, tick, goes the clock. Sit, sit, sit, go Mona and Don. For. Two. Hours. Thanks for coming! So, after stewing over it all weekend, on the following Monday, she went downstairs, got Don's claw hammer and said: "C'mon, honey, we're going to Comcast." Did you try to stop her, Mr. Shaw? Hammer time: Shaw storms in the company's office. "They cuffed me right then," she says. Her take on Comcast: "What a bunch of sub-moronic imbeciles." Being a responsible newspaper, we must note that this is a misdemeanor, a crime, a completely inappropriate way of handling a business dispute. Noted. And when this guy comes, pants halfway down his behind, he'll tell you he brought the wrong part? And there is nothing, nothing you can do. "I scared the tar out of some people, at least," she says. "It had never occurred to me to take a hammer to a phone company before, but I was just so upset. . . . After I hit the keyboard, I turned to this blonde who had been there the previous Friday, the one who told me to wait for the manager, and I said, ' Now do I have your attention?' " It wasn't all fun. By the time it was over, she recalls, there were an ambulance, two police cruisers and a sergeant's car in the parking lot. Shaw received a three-month suspended sentence for disorderly conduct, a $345 fine in restitution and a year-long restraining order barring her from the Comcast office. "Truly a unique and inappropriate situation," says Beth Bacha, a vice president for Comcast. She says company policy forbids disclosure of clients' records, but did say their files note that the service record wasn't exactly what Shaw has indicated. Besides, "nothing justifies this sort of dangerous behavior." Bacha noted that Comcast has more than 25 million customers, the overwhelming majority of which are very satisfied with their service. Manassas police spokesman Sgt. Tim Neumann says there have been other police calls to that Comcast office, but he doesn't know what prompted them. Bob Garfield, who runs ComcastMustDie.com, wrote last week he was happy the site had become an outlet for "so much deep-seated rage," but hoped customers would "keep the hammer assaults down to a bare minimum." From what we can tell, Mona Shaw is not, actually, a raving lunatic armed with construction tools. She is a nice lady who lives in a nice house. She and Don are both retired from the Air Force (she was a registered nurse). They have been married 45 years. She is secretary of the local AARP, secretary of a square-dancing club and takes in strays for the local animal shelter (they have seven dogs at the moment). She has a heart condition. She lifts weights at a local gym. The couple attend a Unitarian Universalist church. Police gave her the hammer back, though she swears she's content to ride off into the sunset of True Crime Stories in America, never again to go Com-smash-tic on her local cable provider. She does, however, finally, have phone service. ________________________________________________________________________________ October 19, 2007 Iran In The Crosshairs A Panel Discussion Alan Gilbert -University of Denver GSIS David Goldfischer - University of Denver GSIS Ibrahim Kazerooni - Imam, Denver Muslim Community Paul Viotti - University of Denver, GSIS Ben Cherrington Hall - Cyber Cafe Wednesday October 31, 2007 5:00 pm Sponsor: El Grupo for more information contact Alan Gilbert algilber@du.edu or Rob Prince rprince@du.edu _________________________________________________________________________ October 18, 2007 Marcel Khalife comes to Denver/Dinner with Kathy Kelly/Talking In Evergreen about Iran With Ibrahim 1. Marcel Khalife gave a concert tonight in Denver at the Oriental Theater not far from our home. Although we were both tired from an intense week of work and extra curricular activities (see below), we went. Khalife might not be a household name in Colorado but is throughout the Arab world, where he is, as was mentioned in Ida Audeh's introduction, seen like Bob Dylan or Pete Seeger (but with a better voice than either). Son of a Lebanese Maronite fisherman and flutist, he was drawn both to music and left politics early in life. Professionally trained and recognized as a master technician, composer and performer, his music blends classical Arabic themes with jazz, Spanish flamenco music and other western themes in a unique fashion. The result is a stunningly beautiful blend, cosmopolitan in one sense, but in another, one that never strays far from its Arabic roots. One doesn't need to know the words (although it does help needless to say) to feel the power, sophistication and utter mastery of his art. I kept thinking Nancy might like to leave, not because of the music but because she has to get up at 6 am in the morning. She insisted on staying until the end. It was mostly a cultural program, and although the music itself putting the poetry of Mahmoud Darwish (great Palestinian poet) to song suggests a tradition in which culture, politics and jazz fused into one. Khalife spoke about being hassled at US immigration because of his skin color and language, and then dedicated a song to the customs officer who tried to intimidate him and his ensemble. I heard a similar story from a Spanish friend who came to teach not long ago. Toward the end Khalife commented upon how he respected the American people but opposed the policies of the Bush Administration - to cheers from the audience - but it was all of a two liner and a prelude to his final number. I thought to myself - yes, that is the way to package a political message: give a fine cultural program - don't beat people over the head with long speeches (as I tend to do), give a spiffy little punch line and move on. More, Khalife brought out a community that has been rather quiet, subdued of late - in part because of 9-11 and the repressive atmosphere toward Muslims and Arabs, in part, I suspect anyway, because of the sorry state of the Palestinian movement rife with splits and facing another imminent international charade, posing as a peace conference. Hard not to be cynical about all that. For Khalife they came out, because they love his music which is extraodinary as is the man himself. He represents more than music, but hope, healing, Christian-Moslem solidarity, `a serious and sincere work for those tormented by this [the 1975-1990 Civil War in Lebanon] war as he himself explained. His music was `a sort of balm for these wounds'. Put simply, they love him and that love and his presence here just might help regenerate some local activism. It is not just in the USA that he adds a political line or two. He and his music have been barred from singing in Tunisia since 2005. In August of that year at a concert in Carthage (where 40 years ago I spent many a fine evening - there and in neighboring Sidi Bou Said), he dedicated a song to the `Arabs imprisoned in Israel and in Arab countries. Tunisia, a US ally in the war on terrorism, has been run by a president, a thug and dictator for nearly 20 years now, Zine el Abidine Ben Ali. In a country where criticizing the head thug is a no-no, the press is muzzled and political activists are thrown in jail, mistreated and tortured, they took Khalife's comment personally. In a like manner, he has through the years expressed his support and profound sympathy for the plight and struggle of the Palestinians, many of whom he knew from the camps in Lebanon near his childhood home. Although some Christians in Lebanon for a variety of reasons too complicated to discuss here (but I will in the future), moved sharply to the right during the 1960s and 1970s, some went the other way - toward the left - to marxist movements including Lebanon's Communist Party. A similar phenomenon took place among the Palestinians with Palestinian Christians, those that were radicalized in any case, embracing either the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine or the Palestinian Communist Party (the wing of the Jordanian CP that broke off after Israel occuped the West Bank and Gaza in 1967). Palestinian Christians envisioned their future in a democratic and secular movement that would ensure their rights as a cultural minority in countries that are predominantly Muslim. Khalife was a part of this historic trend that sees in a secular nationalism a future for, in the case of Lebanon, all of its constituent groups. Still not a bad idea but it's lost a good deal of appeal in recent years. Still. The evening was special in other ways. It was not simply that one of the great musicans and humanists of the Arab world was in little Denver, and in our neighborhood to boot, but that his presence brought out the Arab Community of Colorado in larger numbers than I have seen for some time, including and especially a very large contingent of young Palestinians and Lebanese. At first I was a little disappointed that more people from the broader peace movement did not show up, but it turned out that many came, especially people connected in one way or another with the Rocky Mountain Peace and Justice Center in Boulder. One curious pair was Sergio Atallah and Amy Stein. Stein, a new organizer for the Anti Defamation League in Boulder invited Atallah, Palestinian activist (and a personal friend of long standing) to an ADL meeting in Boulder. In return Sergio invited Amy to the Khalife concert. Nice evening. 2. An Evening with Kathy Kelly, Voices in the Wilderness (Wednes) Kathy Kelly, radical Catholic peace activist and pacifist is in Denver. She spoke tonight at Regis University. I missed it because of the Marcel Khalife concert. Tomorrow evening she'll talk at the First Unitarian Church on Hamden and Colorado Blvd. She has had a long connection with Denver peace activists, most especially those who went on a number of delegations to Iraq in the mid and late 1990s and witnessed the debilitating impact of economic sanctions on the Iraqi people in those years. Sanctions like those placed on Iraq from 1991 to 2003 are nothing less than a slow form of genocide. Perhaps as many as 1,000,000 Iraqis died of starvation, malnutrituion, waste conducted diseases like typhoid - a slow, systematic incredibly cruel choking of a nation, reminescent of the Nazi seige of Leningrad (which had the same goal). Her courage, her humanity add an active quality to her pacifism which it is impossible not to respect. Most of our discussion centered around the degree to which Iraq has been decimated as a country and on the great unspoken human tragedy - the Iraqi refugee problem, rarely raised in the US media. 4.5 million Iraqis that have fled Iraq to neighboring countries (Syria, Jordan, Iran) plus another 1.5 million internal refugees. But fear not because the USA has come to the rescue! 79 Iraqis have been permitted to enter our country. Kelly has spent a good deal of time in Jordan recently, living in the Iraqi refugee communities where the government there refuses them work visas, health and educational facilities. More and more Iraqis in Jordan are simply shunned. So once again (other time being 1948 when 750,000 Palestinians were expelled from their homes as Israel was created) a regional war has created a refugee crisis of mammouth proportions, one that will have long standing if not permanent repercussions. This one is a result of a US invasion and occupation that had nothing to do with democracy and national restruction and everything to do with the privatization of oil and the establishment of permanent military bases. John Bolton, the former US Ambassador to the UN, and permanent diplomatic embarrassment, just blows it all off: the US has no responsibility for the refugee crisis the war created. This is the same Bolton who would have us nuke Iran. 3. An evening in Evergreen with Ibrahim Kazerooni and Rob Prince (Tues) We were invited by the local peace group and the meeting was at the United Methodist Church just outside of Evergreen. As usual I had a little trouble finding it despite good directions because we were talking too much, but we did get there all the same. We had a division of labor - Ibrahim made the comparisons between the build up before the war with Iraq and the present situation, how the media is playing more or less the same role. I spoke the evolution of the permanent military presence in the region from the Carter Doctrine after the Iranian Revolution of 1979, the creation of the floating army - the Rapid Deployment Force, followed by the establishment of permanent ilitary bases first in Saudi Arabia, then in Qatar, Kuwait, Iraq and in the former central Asian Soviet Republics. We both believe that the Bush Administration intends to attack - bomb - Iran sometime before the elections next November - unless we can somehow mobilize to stop this madness - and that although some of the scenarios appear to have been `adjusted', they are not more dangerous than they were previously precisely because they seem more palatable. And we spoke about how the Dems are no better than the Republicans on this question. What was more interesting than our talks (which were ok) were the questions that came from the audience after the talk. Although there were 1 or 2 people in the audience that appeared to have steam coming out of their ears in response to our comments, most of the audience was quite receptive. Someone asked about the current campaign to vilifiy Islam. A second, a woman who identified herself as an active Democrat expressed herself rather sharply against AIPAC's role in the Democratic Party, thus raising the Israeli-Palestinian issue. A third asked about how we can counter all the media stereotyping of Iran. I found the barb against AIPAC particularly interesting as it did not come from Ibrahim or myself but from the floor. I have no easy answer to how to counter this other than to fight within the Democratic Party for a more balanced, humane platform plank on the issue and challenging the party leadership's slavish obedience to AIPAC policies (on Israel and Iran). This is not the first time such comments have been raised from the floor suggesting that at least in some quarters of the Democratic Party here in Colorado there are people who understand the Israeli-Palestinian issue and are doing what they can hold the party leadership accountable. They've got a long fight on their hands to be sure, but still it seems that there are some changes of public opinion on the ground on this issue. Much discussion centered around the dilemma being discussed nationally in the peace movement. More than 70% of the American people are against the war, yet the peace movement remains, if not marginal, still not particularly big. How can we tap into more of that 70%? How can we broaden our movement and engage more of the mainstream? Some ideas were thrown around - running peace candidates either inside or outside the Democratic Party, trying to involve people on the local level more, etc especially the year ahead when the national focus will be on Colorado because of the upcoming Democratic Party national convention. It's not a question of `re-creating 68' so much as activating for 08. I did have the sense though that this is an audience that will, over the months to come, come up with its own creative solutions. __________________________________________________________________________ October 16, 2007 US Middle East Policy: It's More Than AIPAC: Mane-Estrada and Prince published in Spain Dr. Aurelia Mane-Estrada is a professor of Political Economy at the University of Barcelona. She is also the associate dean of the School of Arts and Sciences. Together we taught a special course - Energy, Development and Democracy - at the University of Denver's Graduate School of Political Economy last spring. It explored the structure of the international oil (and gas) industry and challenges of development for oil producing countries with an emphasis on Algeria. As friends do, we also spent alot of time discussing and arguing about many things, including U.S. and European policy toward the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. One result of those arguments is the following article, US Middle East Policy: It's More Than AIPAC, which appeared in the fall issue of Revista de Estudios Internaccionales Mediterraneos. Click here for the link to the article _________________________________________________________________________ October 15, 2007 New Jewish Peace Group comes together: B'rit Tzedek v'Shalom Chapter formed. Below is an email I got about a new Jewish peace group that formed in Colorado. It has been in the process of taking shape for some time now. Last Wed (October 10) was its `inaugural meeting'. Appears to have gone very well from the email. Let us wish them the best. Alternative voices - especially peace voices - are badly needed in Denver's Jewish Community. For a number of years in the 1980s there was a vibrant chapter of New Jewish Agenda. Once it folded (along with the national organization) there has been precious little to replace it except for a few voices here and there pissing in the wind. To contact the group - btvshalom@denver.org From Colorado Brit Tzedek v'Shalom: The inaugaral meeting of the Colorado Brit Tzedek v'Shalom chapter was
a We are now on the path towards formalizing the Colorado Chapter. We are The commitment of Colorado Jews to Brit Tzedek's mission was demonstrated ***Mark Belkin, Colorado Chapter co-Chair, shared his goal to organize
the ***Diane Cantor, Executive Director of Brit Tzedek, spoke about how ***Jessica Gorelick, Manager of Chapter Development, described some of
the ***Roger Kahn, a National Board member and Colorado resident, explained Mark Belkin and Sara Jackson volunteered to be the Chapter co-Chairs,
but ***Rocky Mountain Rabbinic Council Meeting*** Our next meeting is scheduled for November 7th at 7pm, location TBA. If you are a subscriber, we invite you to become a Colorado chapter member If you are interested in joining the steering committee or have any We look forward to seeing you in November in the pursuit of peace and shalom, ___________________________________________________________________________ October 8, 2007 Some of the discussions triggered by the play `My Name Is Rachel Corrie' are worth sharing. I am referring to discussions that younger folk have had since seeing the play two nights ago. For starters, a number of us have been thinking and talking about it. We can't seem to get the play's content out of our minds. I thought of it all day yesterday. Two themes (beyond what was mentioned below) have appeared. 1. The play raised the question among young women around Rachel's age: What would they be willing to die for as Rach did? The people involved had different answers to that question, but The play - and Rachel's life and death - made them examine their own situation. The very fact that young people (mid 20s to early 30s) are thinking in such terms suggests the play struck a deep chord among some of them. I don't think about such things any more, or hardly and haven't for years. I'm more in the category of those who wake up in the morning and simply nod in gratitude that I'm still around. But I remember thinking like that - asking, for what would I be willing to sacrifice it all for, my job, my family life, my life. Never talked much about it - no, never talked about it all to anyone that I can remember - even to close friends, even to Nancy, but thought about it a good deal. Some of it has to do with the never ending effort to struggle against fear that most of us try to deal with in one way or another. But in Rachel's case it all went much deeper. 2. There were a number of people who felt the play was one-sided, only showed one side of the story. They are right for the most part. It is simply that there is nothing wrong with such an approach from where I am sitting, as what they got a dose of was the side of the story they don't hear normally in the media, academia, etc. - referred to by some as `the Palestinian narrative' to the conflict (through the eyes of an American peace activist). In having to confront the Palestinian narrative head on, they get a much richer sense of the overall picture in the end. What people deeply immersed in this issue need to be reminded is that there are an awful lot of people in this country that still don't have a clue about the conflict or the narrative - either Israeli or Palestinian (or American) and their natural reaction to a play like `My Name Is Rachel' is to be quite confused, to wonder if what is being presented is fair and accurate (which it is). Having either been spoon fed on pro-Israeli propaganda all their lives or as in many cases, completely in the dark about the whole issue, they are a bit dazzled and upset by it all and can't help wondering if in some way they have been taken. People are often very defensive about their own ignorance. Overall, I think this is a normal and positive reaction. The more honest elements, their curiosity awakened, their sense of justice stirred will take the next step, and learn more, in their own time and in their own way, but it is the start of a process. I am thinking that I want to go back and see the play as many times as possible - as much to study and listen to the audience, to gauge their reactions, impressions - as much as to be inspired, moved by the life and death of Rachel Corrie. I have no heroes. Haven't for decades. It's a good thing actually for heroes, being human always disappoint. But lately I'm considering three exceptions - Mario Savio, Norman Finkelstein...and of course Rach. There's another friend of mind I have such feeling for but I'd never tell him as it would go to his head. Well their not heroes but they are examples....they show it's not only George Bushes and John Bolton's this society can produce, but something quite the contrary - kid of mutant Americans that break the mold, the best kind. See the play `My Name Is Rachel Corrie' - for info call - 720-221-3821 http:www.countdowntozero.org/ ___________________________________________________________________________________ October 7, 2007 Rach... `My Name Is Rachel Corrie' Plays In Denver
For some time now I simply refer to her as `Rach’, undoubtedly because my younger daughter has a friend Rachel we all called `Rach’. She’s Abbie’s `Rach’. My `Rach’ is Rachel Corrie and since her death - run over by an Israeli bulldozer in Gaza just about the time the US invasion and occupation of Iraq began in March, 2003 - I think about her a lot, and continue to mourn for her as if she were my own. I see her face before me, wonder mostly about how she mustered up all that courage, how she processed what she saw with such honestly, such devastating accuracy and such speed. After all she was only in Gaza a couple of months before she died. Probably having two daughters - the older a few years older than Rach, the younger a few years younger, has something to do with it I am sure. And I think of Cindy and Craig Corrie too and wonder simply ...how can they stand the pain, the pain of losing their daughter, of hearing about it not through the Israeli embassy or the US State Dept - that simply would have been human decency - but on the radio one morning. And then having to struggle to retrieve the body. I don’t think I’d have the resources to stand up to all that. All this is not anything that most parents the world over have difficulty understanding. Shortly after Rachel Corrie `died’ - a very polite way of saying that she was murdered-by-bulldozer - a small group of us held a vigil in her honor in front of the courthouse in Boulder. About 30 people in all. It got the usual amount of media coverage for these events: not a word. It was all dignified and emotional, quiet, a tribute. Mostly we just stood in silence but Ida Audeh read the names of some Israelis who died and Leslie Lomas of Colorado Jews for a Just Peace read the names of Palestinians. I think that was Leslie's idea. Irving Greenbaum, then in his early 80s, now in his late 80s, was on the mall nearby giving out leaflets. The somber mood was pierced by two schmucks, one in military fatigues, the other an animal rights activist who seems to value the lives of cooking chickens more than Palestinians. The two of them honed in on Irving, wolves zeroing in on prey, becoming more and more aggressive until finally a mall policeman intervened, neutralizing them. In the weeks and months that followed Rach’s death she was subject to abuse in the media bordering on - no - exceeding the obscene. Savaged on talk radio, in newspapers an eruption of bile became her epitaph. She had broken a taboo the myth of Israel's fair treatment of the Palestinians; Palestinians were again the victims, Israelis the occupiers, the oppressors and the occupation itself revealed for what it is: a human rights travesty of the first order. Rach witnessed that, wrote about it and died protesting it. That was unforgiveable. The media would have preferred their usual approach to Palestinian suffering. Silence. But an American citizen had suffered a fate not unlike what Palestinian Gazans face every day. And the incident was simply too awful to deny. Alan Gilbert wrote a short stunning poem about it that captures the moment of Rach's death (see below this article). She had been crushed - run over by a bulldozer - not your ordinary run-of-the-mill type that Edward Abby fantasized about sabotaging here in the West, but a militarized one, more like a big tank, made especially to destroy homes and gardens - a true weapon of mass destruction if ever there was one, that the Israelis have used to destroy more than 11,000 Palestinians homes in the West Bank and Gaza since 1967. Made in the United States by Caterpillar for special use by the Israeli military, it crushed Rachel Corrie's lithe body and poetic mind, not once but twice - slowly forward, slowly back - in an obscure corner of Gaza where Rach, a member of the International Solidary Movement, tried to stop the demolition of a Palestinian home. It is actually illegal according to US law to sell weapons to be used for offensive purposes to foreign nations. Caterpillar has made out like bandits on this, raking in the dough. Death and profits. But to add a touch of irony, Caterpillar offers an annual `human rights award’ at commencement ceremonies at Knox College in Galesburg, Illinois just down the road from Caterpillar headquarters. 2. What's Up With the Denver Post? No need to write a review of the play, `My Name is Rachel Corrie', because Juliet Wittman’s in Westword is as good as it gets, dissecting the play both artistically and thematically. These are just some reflections. The play has opened here in Denver and has shown in a few cities including Atlanta and New York. Here in Denver it is produced by a small theater group, Countdown To Zero. They rented what seems to be an empty warehouse right next to the Mercury Café, a local landmark. Just before the play opened, it was featured in a two page spread in the Sunday, September 28, morning edition of The Denver Post written by John Moore that is highlighted on p. 1! There is a huge photo too of Julie Rada, the actress who plays Corrie as well as anyone could. My friend and companero, Evan Weissman, himself an actor and member of a theater group, is quoted. I went to see the play last night with my other daughter, Molly and two of her friends, Heather and Nicole, pleased to attend in the company of `young people'. As expected, some of the faces in the audience were familiar. Jim and Gabriella Walsh who have their own theater troop were there, as was Eric Bard from the peace movement and Vicki Armstrong - a kind of soul sister since we were both in the Peace Corps at the same time and on the same continent - she in W. Africa (Guinea I believe) myself in Tunisia. But most of the audience of 35-40 people I didn't know and that always pleases me, giving me the illusion that interest in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict might be broadening. I was as interested in the reactions of Molly and her friends - and those of the audience in general - as I was in seeing the play. What impressed them? What questions did it raise? Heather seemed to absorb the difference between supporting Israel and being Jewish, not an insignificant pychological breakthrough. In a discussion held after the performance in the theater someone commented - somewhat amazed - that he did not view anything he had seen that night as especially `radical', a telling remark as outside of the USA the ideas presented in the play are essentially mainstream. I can only speculate as to why the Denver Post gave the story such prominence and as to why, at least to date, the Anti -Defamation League's regional office has chosen not to launch a campaign to shut it down or disrupt it. Concerning the Post, is it an attempt to break through the silence, `the bubble’ my friends and I call it, the untold story, a hint of what life means for Palestinians living under occupation? One of the lines in the play that struck me as particularly relevant were the words of Rach’s mother, Cindy. Cindy writes her daughter that the Palestinians `have been invisible’ to her. In life, Rach forces her mom to explore that reality. In death, through her writings and now the play, Rach presses many more Americans to do likewise. `I didn’t know’...was the comment several people made afterwards. The bubble was punctured, at least a little. The Post article helped do that. Or was it a bit more cynical than that? Just another chapter in an on-going newspaper war? The Post is well aware that across the hall (they are lodged in the same building) the people who run The Rocky Mountain News, one of the more blatantly (and blindly) pro-Israeli papers in the country, would be provoked into responding and that the conflict would sell papers? Interestingly, the Rocky waited a week before responding, doing so in its Saturday issue in a scathing piece by Dave Kopel. Kopel, a fixture on Denver talk shows and in local papers, is the research director of the Independence Institute, a rightwing think tank based in Golden. The Independence Institute is always predictable, supporting unrestrained capitalism at home, support for US wars in the Middle East, knee-jerk support of Israel. I described him in an email to some friends yesterday as `bright, articulate and usually full of ....`, which is pretty much my take on him. Denver’s very own little home grown neo-con since Clifford May was shuffled off to Washington DC. A political hatchet man essentially, no more, no less. My problem with Kopel is that I can’t help confusing him with his father, Jerry Kopel, a long time consistent liberal Democrat in the Colorado legislature who used to introduce (unsuccessfully usually) pro-teacher, pro- teacher bills there. He was the only legislaturer I remember who would show his face at union (Colorado Federation of Teachers) socials, a decent man. But then the Kopel-the-elder was influenced by World War II, the civil rights movement, Kopel-the-younger by the Reagan Revolution. Besides the conservatives can pay more, we (the left, the peace movement) have nothing to offer - no think tanks, no money, no political influence and just a lot of flak from people like John Andrews, Vince Carroll, Bob Ewegen and Kopel. I suppose I expected Kopel to follow in his father's footsteps and become (at least) a labor lawyer. Alas. As for the content of Kopel’s piece slamming the play, it’s not worth commenting on. 3. What the ADL Didn't Do As for the ADL, predictably enough, there was Bruce Deboskey, its regional director, doing what I suppose he considers to be his duty, quoted in the Post article, claiming the play `distorts the facts’ (which it doesn’t, not in the least). Still, he expressed some sympathy with the Corrie family and the very way he spoke about Corrie’s death `a horrific accident’ is far more restrained and sympathetic (even if misguided) than I would have expected. But perhaps more importantly I was more impressed more with what the ADL didn't do than with De Boskey’s quote in the article. They didn’t try to derail or stop the production. I know because I asked Brenda Cook, part of the `Countdown To Zero’ team who insisted there had been no pressure of any kind. No calls to the production company, to the building owner, no orchestrated telephone campaign - all that behind the scenes stuff the ADL so excels at. Nor were there pickets outside the theater or plants in the audience making predictably snotty comments. At least not yet. Given the ADL’s recent track record concerning any events where the Palestinians are treated sympathetically and as victims of Israeli Occupation, I would have expected they’d pull something. And I was worried that a small theater production company would not be able to stand the heat and that the whole project would fold. So what’s this new ADL restraint about? I dunno. Speculation abounds. A. Because it would have been worse for the ADL to kill the project (bad
publicity) they decided it better to let the play proceed hoping it would
pass unnoticed or nearly? (If so, the Post story blew that line of thinking).
Some combination of all that...or something else? My own admittedly unprovable speculation goes something like this: the ADL (and like-minded folk) are watching the Denver production and public reaction to it very carefully, using it as a kind of test case to see what kind of public reaction the play provokes. How it all plays out here - most especially the public dialogue as well as attendance and general interest - might influence how the ADL and likeminded organizations, will deal with the production elsewhere. And the play will be produced elsewhere, the theme is simply too powerful, and relevant to today’s world, the Palestinian narrative too compelling (the suffer the longest military occupation in modern history), the US-Israeli connection too blatantly cynical and reactionary. Although those of us who live here would like to believe Denver the center of the West, the nation and the world, even with its over-priced airport and awfully designed (to my tastes) gaudy art museum, and now (finally!) outstanding baseball team, alas and alack, Denver is just a regional center, the American Irkutsk, a staging platform for those vultures in the oil and gas industry, a pleasant enough town to be sure but, run mostly by developers, their shyster lawyers and the usual thugs from the oil and gas industry (and their shyster lawers), isolated from the rest of the country by mountains to the west and 800 miles of high plains to the Mississippi. Doubt that a play produced in Denver will pierce the national insomnia on this issue very much. Still... In any case and for whatever the reason, it is a relief to see the ADL backing off a bit. Too early to know if they’re just retooling to come out swinging once again, or if some deeper more substantial change is taking place. While hoping for the latter, I expect it’s the former. Time will tell. See the play `My Name Is Rachel Corrie' - for info call - 720-221-3821
www.countdowntozero.org slowly slowly in Rafeh the bulldozer moves the orange shirt pushes the mound stops backs over brokenRachel Corrie
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October 6, 2007 (2) The Iceberg The drama surrounding pressure from the oil and gas industry in Colorado to drill for natural gas within a three mile radius of Project Rulison - a 1969 underground nuclear blast site - is, as the expression goes, just the tip of the iceberg. But what then, is `the iceberg’? The ice-berg is six years of unfettered drilling for oil and gas - a mad stampede - throughout the the western states - with virtually no restraints since the Bush-Cheney presidency came to office now seven painful years ago. Under the cover of the energy crisis, when necessary invoking national security, Bush and Cheney have pried open federal lands for oil and gas drilling to an extent unprecedented in American history in what a Wilderness Society researcher aptly refers to as a `drill everything’ frenzy. While state agencies here in Colorado and elsewhere in the West issue the drilling leases, for the most part, the drilling is being done on federal lands controlled by the Bureau of Land Management or the Department of Energy. During the Bush-Cheney years the BLM has supported a relentless push to turn over more public lands to oil and gas drillers, so much so that not much remains unspoiled. Bush gave the BLM and DOE the mandate to lease and drill everything. According to a BLM report , already in 2003, 85% of the oil and 88% of the gas on federal lands in Colorado, New Mexico, Montana, Utah and Wyoming were under lease for oil and gas development. Not much left to plunder. And if I can make a comparison with Bush's war in Iraq, in the same way that, should they win in 2008, Bush will leave Dems with a mess in Iraq that will be difficult or impossible to undo, he will leave behind a similar tsunamo of destruction on federal lands. Even if the Dems are sincere about reining in the oil and gas industry, they will have their work cut out for them, and not all of them - particularly in Colorado where a number of prominent Dems are themselves oil and gas industry lobbyists - are that sincere to begin with. As if to put on the final touches, to hammer the last nail in the coffin, the new Bureau of Land Management Director Jim Caswell, who thinks Colorado voter backlash against the oil and gas industry `overblown', let it be known that he sees no let up in the aggressive pace for Western oil and gas drilling. As if he had any interest in the matter he added (in an interview with the AP [10-6-2007]) `the key though, to me is how do we develop that resource in the most environmentally sensitive way'. Please. The Broader Regional Oil and Gas Picture The broader regional picture is chilling, best explained by environmental groups who have watched it all unfold, documented the process to the best of their ability and sent out the alarm. According to an in-depth report, the Wilderness Society estimates that the Bush Administration has plans to approve as many as 126,000 leases to drill for oil and gas in the West. It should come as no surprise that Cheney’s home state of Wyoming with its small population and powerful oil and gas industry is slated to approve more than 50,000 new leases, Montana comes in next with 26000+, then comes Colorado with almost 23,000 anticipated. As `To Wild To Drill’ comments, these are conservative estimates and `likely underestimates the magnitude of drilling activities that could occur on public lands in the . Here in Colorado, oil and gas interests have enjoyed the support and protection of (now ex) Governor, Bill Owens, a former oil and gas company lobbyist with close ties to the industry in Texas from where he hails and where, as governor, he spent many a weekend during his governorship huddling with his with oil and gas industry handlers. Having Owens in the governorship in Denver and Bush and (more especially Cheney) entrenched in Washington for eight years singing a duet of narrow religion (on slightly different keys as Owens is Catholic and Bush Protestant) and free markets, provided the oil and gas industry with the necessary political chemistry for an unprecedented romp against nature, common sense and any restrictions limiting what has been an orgy of profit (in the name of progress and national security of course) Owens Juggling His Affairs Owens, a baseball fanatic who was never above pawning himself off as a sportscaster on the side (he wasn't very good at it), tried somewhat unsuccessfully to juggle personal affairs with the affairs of state. The former were largely substantiated by Owen's admission of marital infidelity. I'm actually trying to check into these but it seems that Owens' staff was more adept in covering his personal footsteps (with a willing media?) far more effectively than an earlier Colorado Governor Roy Romer whose 16 year `intimate relationship with an aide the media pursued `like pitbulls' - as one friend put it. In any case Owens appears to have been a busy `on the personal front'. Although he received some heat for his personal affair (his wife left him for a while), the green light he gave to oil and gas interests to rape the state hardly produced a murmur in the press statewide. Another one of those Christian fundamentalist moral hypocrites a la Ted Haggard, his personal dalliance probably cost Owens a serious run for the 2008 Republican nomination for the presidency, this according to a number of conservative commetators and blogs. Since leaving office he has faded back into the lucrative corporate oblivion from when he first emerged. Concerning Owens’ concern with the affairs of state, Coloradoans
are just now learning the degree to which Owens continued lobbying for
oil and gas interests while in office. The welfare of the state’s
oil and gas industry was never far from his thoughts. During the eight
years Owens was governor of Colorado oil and gas interests exploded to
a $22 billion a year industry employing 70,000 people statewide. The oil
and gas lobby should build him a statue and maybe they already have for
all I know. Key to opening the oil and gas floodgates was the reshaping
of the state regulatory body, the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation
Commission (COGCC). Under Owen’s inspiring direction, 5
of the 7 commissioners charged with conserving the state's oil and gas
came from the oil and gas industry itself. What a surprise. Over the Owens
years, the COGCCs record was second to none in granting oil and gas leases
to drilling companies on a virtually `come one come all' basis. These
companies, in turn, have racked up a rather extraordinary record of drilling
violations that resulted in 1500 complaints of environmental degradation,
threats to public health and wild life maintenance over a five year period.
Given an indication of the COGCC's level of vigilance and defense of public
interest, of these complaints the commission found a whopping 23 complaints
worthy of fines. (next - Colorado's House Bill 1341 to reorganize the COGCC. An honest enough attempt at reform but how effective can it be) _____________________________________________________________________ October 5, 2007 Juliet Wittman Reviews `My Name Is Rachel Corrie' __________________________________________________________________ October 4, 2007 Link to interview with Rob Prince in Colorado Confidential: Part One Link to interview with Rob Prince in Colorado Confidential: Part Two __________________________________________________________________ October 2, 2007 (2) Noble Energy and Rulison...Gather Ye Gas Drilling Leases While Ye May... Gather ye rose-buds while ye may, Robert Herrick. To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time 1. Change a word or two and the poem has a certain relevance to the dilemma of independent oil and gas drillers in the Rockies in the last months of the Bush Cheney Presidency. The glory days - when gas drillers could obtain permits with little concern for environmental concerns or federal oversight - just might be coming to a close, making the scramble for the remaining crumbs among the main independent players that much more intense. So gather ye gas drilling leases while ye may... The party for the oil and gas companies might not be over, but it won’t be as much fun as it used to be after 2008. As a result there is a flood of activity to get as much as possible done between now and November 2008 when more than likely, the licensing environment will stiffen some, and the companies will lose their `democratic right’ to drill radioactively polluted natural gas. Add to this the fact that the change from a Republican to Democratic governor already has cramped their style. The new composition of the state’s oil and gas commission is not especially to the liking of independent gas drillers. But this is just a taste of things to come. Should the Republicans lose in November of 2008, it is more than likely that the Department of Energy’s staff and emphasis will shift a few notches away from granting drilling leases to every fly by night operator wanting one. In what would be a truly novel development, environmental considerations just might be taken more seriously and the department’s information and data on contamination around Project Rulison might become transparent.
Craven Greed or the Ordinary Variety? Perhaps this is what Dick Cheney warned his oil and gas supporters in Colorado last week: better get in there while the going is good before next November. Of course it remains to be seen if a Democrat will be elected president next year. The Dems has a developed a keen sense of how to give away presidential elections if the last two are any indication. And furthermore, it’s not at all clear to what degree the Dems will rein in independent oil and gas companies - both domestically and internationally, any less than the Republicans did. Still such logic does go a long way in explaining why it is that an oil and gas drilling company with such extensive international contracts would find it necessary to grovel for a lease on land within earshot of a nuclear blast site. It seems odd that a company as prosperous as Noble Energy - and with such powerful assets both in the US and globally - would apparently waste its time and energy nitpicking for a license to drill for natural gas within the 3 mile radius of Project Rulison. Rulison is the spot where in Sept 10, 1969, the Atomic Energy Commission in conjunction with the private sector exploded a 43 kiloton atomic bomb underground creating a natural gas cavity that has been, not surprisingly, radioactive ever since. Although it seems (because monitoring data is hard to come by) that the radiation caused by the explosion as been contained these 38 years, still the very presence of the nuclear bomb created cavity represents a significant environmental threat. Why play with fire for a few dollars of profit? It all seems - to put it politely - quite undignified. Is it just a case of craven greed or the ordinarily run-of-the-mill variety? Nor is Noble Energy alone. For the past few years a slew of oil and gas companies have been swarming around the site, pushing the Colorado state agency involved - the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission - to grant drilling licences within three miles of the blast site. The three mile radius had previously been considered a safety zone within which drilling was considered dangerous because of possible radioactivity leaks.
Independents Pushed by the Majors (Exxon, BP, etc) And until recently, recently being the election of Democratic governor Bill Ritter, the Commission was quite receptive to these licensing requests. This was, in part, no doubt because under the former governor, Republican Bill Owen, with his close - no incestuous - ties to Texas oil and gas money. Owen stacked the Commission with oil and gas men. Ritter has re-organized the commission, expanded its membership and although the oil and gas reps are still there, they do not run the show as they did previously, a fact which they find terribly annoying it appears. Before the Commission’s reorganization, the natural gas companies made out like bandits. The commission granted many licences to drill closer and close to the blast site. Currently there are 19 natural gas wells in various states of completion within the three mile radius of ground zero and 31 approved applications for a permit to drill. One well has been drilled a mere 851 feet from the blast site. The situation in the oil and gas industry perhaps helps explain the rush to Rulison. According to Chuck Davidson, chair and CEO of Houston-based (why is this not surprising?) Noble Energy, the majors already control many of the potential oil and gas sites. `Here in the United States’, he commented in a 2004 interview, `we’re challenged if we can even pull together a few thousand acres of land’. Very sad, indeed. This situation has pushed independent companies like Noble in two directions - first outward, to explore internationally. As described below, Noble Energy has been one of the more successful, if not one of the most successful independent companies to move into the international arena (which they began to do energetically after 1998). The majors’ stranglehold on leases also has pressured independents to fight for the remaining domestic scraps (mostly among themselves) more aggressively, even if they butt up against radioactive contaminated sites like Project Rulison. This seems to be what the flurry of activity in the vicinity of Project Rulison is all about. Noble Energy: A Company On A Roll A person who had the financial acumen - or the luck of the dice - to have invested $10,000 in Noble Energy stock - five years ago would be sitting pretty. She would have watched the value of each share climb from around $16 then to $71.20 cents today, a rise in value of close to 450%. Not bad. Other indicators also suggest just how well the company is doing and that overall, it continues what might be described as being on a roll. 1. For example, it continues to move up the Fortune 500 ladder. In 2006
it was rated overall the 761st strongest company in the world, up from
980 the previous year. Then in 2007 it moved up again to the 660th place.
In the `Forbes 2000' ratings it placed 994 in 2007. These are not at all
shabby numbers if you’re into this sort of thing The company’s fortunes began to change in the late 1990s when its focus shifted dramatically from domestic to international oil and gas exploration. By 2004 the percentage of Noble’s foreign assets had risen to 65% of the company’s reserves, up from 28% in 1998 and the percentage of output from its international properties had soared as well. Given these stats, why does a company like Noble need to drill near a nuclear contaminated cavity? _____________________________________________________________________________________ October 2, 2007 (1) Testimony of Rob Prince/Senior Lecturer of International Studies/University of Denver Graduate School of International Studies to the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission/Grand Junction Colorado Dear Commission Members: Thank you for providing me the opportunity to give testimony before your body concerning the request of Noble Energy to drill for natural gas within 3 miles of the Rulison nuclear weapon blast site. And thank you Kim Phillips for your willingness to read my testimony (or part of it) to the Commission. I teach International Studies at the University of Denver’s Graduate School of International Studies. One of my areas of interest is the political economy of the energy industry (worldwide). Recently, with a colleague from the University of Barcelona, Dr. Aurelia Mane Estrada, I taught a special seminar entitled `Energy Development and Democracy’ that was a combined graduate-undergraduate level course the main focus of which was the structure of the global energy industry - both oil and gas. I have taught a number of courses that looks at energy development specifically in North Africa (Algeria), which is a long time special interest. I should like to say that 38 years ago in early September of 1969, at a time when I was a graduate student at the University of Colorado in Boulder, that I joined a group of protestors in an effort to stop the detonation of a 43 kiloton nuclear weapon 8426 feet below the surface at Rulison, Colorado. Although it is incidental, it so happens that I met my wife to be at that site, she, who was upset of the effect that the blast would have on `her mountains’. My conc | ||||||
