Attica

Back online

Atticus — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 13:24:49 +0000

Back online, some four months on from a fatal hard drive failure, and twelve months on from my last off-site backup. Dumb, huh? nine months of writing lost …

But at least I’m online again, chastened and wiser.

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Cynthia McKinney and the Ramming of the Dignity

Atticus — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 18:38:39 +0000

DemocracyNow was one of a very few news sources to carry the following story for 30th December 2008:

Israel Rams Activist Boat Carrying Aid to Gaza

… the Free Gaza Movement said one of its boats, the Dignity, was rammed by Israeli gunboats in international waters. Activists with the Free Gaza Movement are attempting to sail to Gaza with over three tons of medical supplies requested by Palestinian doctors. Passengers include former Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney.

Cynthia McKinney: There is a need for the medical supplies that are on this boat. There is a need for international attention. And perhaps most importantly, there is need for the people in the United States to understand that every piece of rubble that is there in that strip of land is caused by US weapons and the insistence on administration after administration of transferring weapons of mass destruction to parts of the world, and those weapons are then used to hurt and kill people.

The story was also carried by CNN, to include the following interview with Ms McKinney:

What I found rather interesting about the CNN broadcast was that, although it was incontrovertibly clear that the Israeli gunboat (or, as the CNN anchorman euphemistically dubbed it, a ‘patrol boat’) had rammed the Dignity, the legend at the bottom of the screen nevertheless reads “Ship collided with an Israeli warship”, effectively stating that it was the Dignity that struck the Israeli vessel and not vice versa.

The event was also covered by The Guardian, which reports that “Activists trying to bring aid to Gaza today claimed their boat had been rammed by Israeli gunboats” while “Israeli foreign ministry spokesman, Yigal Palmor, told Reuters [that] two ships had made ‘physical contact’”. This may seem like nitpicking; though I’d argue that ‘told’ is a shade more assertive than ‘claimed’.

America’s 44th White President

Atticus — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 00:33:00 +0000

Barack Obama is, of course, not America’s first ‘black’ president but its first mixed-race president, brought up by a white mother in a white middle-class home. Those who subscribe to the former description must presumably also subscribe to the profoundly racist ‘one drop of blood‘ view of race.

OK, so I’m being mischievous; and I’m on the whole delighted that a fraction over half (52.92%) of US registered voters had the courage to elect Obama, despite some of what appear to be his regressive conservative views, for example, his opposition to gay marriage on the grounds that it conflicts with his “Christian faith”. And on that latter point, I’m also a little uncomfortable with the statement on his campaign web site Fight the Smears (http://my.barackobama.com/page/invite/christian) that:

Senator Obama has never been a Muslim, was not raised as a Muslim, and is a committed Christian

so reminiscent of the declarations made to the House Committee on Un-American Activities during the McCarthy witch-hunt years:

“I am not now a Communist. I never been a Communist and I am not in sympathy with the Communist movement.”

Why on earth could he not have had the courage to declare–citing the First Amendment to the US Constitution that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof“–that religious faith is a matter of private and personal conviction and practice? why did he have to insist so vehemently that he is a Christian, thus tacitly endorsing the mindless prejudice that an individual espousing any other religious faith is unfit for public office? Back in June, Andrea Elliott wrote in The New York Times:

While the senator has visited churches and synagogues, he has yet to appear at a single mosque. Muslim and Arab-American organizations have tried repeatedly to arrange meetings with Mr. Obama, but officials with those groups say their invitations — unlike those of their Jewish and Christian counterparts — have been ignored. Last week, two Muslim women wearing head scarves were barred by campaign volunteers from appearing behind Mr. Obama at a rally in Detroit. … Even some of Mr. Obama’s strongest Muslim supporters say they are uncomfortable with the forceful denials he has made in response to rumors that he is secretly a Muslim.

Well, OK, let’s not dwell too much on that … probably nothing much to worry about, huh? Nor his support, in July of this year, for Bush’s unconstitutional wiretap bill. Nor his declared readiness to bomb Iran. Nor his appointment of the notoriously anti-worker Jason Furman of the Brookings Institution to lead his economic team. Nor that his Senior Working Group on Foreign Policy includes such luminaries as Lee Hamilton, co-chair of the Iraq Study Group which recommended occupying Iraq until US-based oil companies has secured legal access to all of Iraq’s oil fields. And, as noted by Ramzi Kysia (‘The Team Obama Should Have Picked‘), “With Henry Kissinger and Bill Kristol endorsing Obama’s team – you know we’re in for trouble”

Nor, I suppose, need one feign too much surprise at his declaration on CNBC that “I am a pro-growth, free-market guy. I love the market” since we already knew from his fund-raising campaign–note that 21 billionaires gave the maximum amount to his campaign–that he loves the ruling top 1 per cent of the population that controls 20 per cent of the country’s income and almost 40 per cent of the country’s wealth (who will be looking the reap the rewards of supporting him) while little of his financial backing came from the 60 per cent of the population that controls only 25 percent of the income and a dismal 5 per cent of the wealth (tough luck, guys). Slightly embarrassing, though, to boast one’s love of the market in the present economic climate. (Parenthetically, I suppose I might mention that I’m less interested in the colour and class of he who is elected than in the colour and class of those whom he serves; and Wall Street is not obviously over-represented by the working-class poor and the descendants of the enslaved.)

My principal misgiving is that two quite separate facts are being promiscuously conflated to generate a mythical view of the world the consequences of which could prove disastrous:

the US has elected its first non-white President. I understand the feel-good excitement and pride of African Americans (and of black people throughout the world) that for the first time in the country’s history a non-white candidate has been elected to the presidency.
Obama will lead a mainstream party administration. The mainstream parties, whether Democrat or Republican, have an historically very dismal record–FDR’s ‘New Deal’ apart–of implementing policies that benefit the poor and marginalised in society; and current indications are that the incoming administration is unlikely to be any different.

To use the first of these facts as a basis for glossing over the second fact is an act of dangerous mythomania. As American political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal wrote of Obama recently:

What also distinguishes Obama from his predecessors [i.e., Black candidates such as Eldridge Cleaver, Dick Gregory, and Dr. Lenora Fulani] is he doesn’t come from civil rights, Black liberation, socialist or anti-war movements. (He often remarks at speeches, “I’m not against all wars, I’m just against dumb wars.”)

Indeed, although his detractors may try to paint him as a leftist liberal, this is hardly true. On issues both foreign and domestic he would’ve been more at home in the Republican Party of his senatorial forebear, Edward Brooke of Massachusetts. For though he is Black by dint of his African father, he has studiously avoided Black political groups in his long, harrowing climb to the rim of the White House.

He has studiously avoided the very real and long-standing grievances of Black America.

‘Real change that you can believe in’ would be an end to Empire and an end to wars for corporate greed, not just a change in the shade of the political managers.

Listen to Abu-Jamal’s full talk below:

So, much as I wish Obama well and trust that the expectations the world has of him will be fulfilled, I’ll be even more impressed when one day–undoubtedly not in my lifetime–[a] a working-class African American of slave descent–preferably a woman, and my money is on Cynthia McKinney–emerges as the nation’s first black president; [b] he or she is lauded not as a ‘black president’ but quite simply as the best man, or woman, for the job; and [c] being a Communist or a Muslim … or an atheist, for that matter … is no longer considered an “un-American” activity.

Cynthia McKinney for (America’s first black) President!

solipCISM, radio, and video streaming

Atticus — Sun, 02 Nov 2008 09:24:39 +0000

It’s been a busy day today, at the end of a busy week.Â Finding the time between other commitments, I first did the basic construction during the week of the new Faculty island, solipCISM, in Second Life, accessible at and documented at (respectively):

» http://slurl.com/secondlife/SolipCISM/3/253/24
» http://vorticism.wordpress.com/2008/10/25/solipcism/

and then yesterday had the leisure to set up streaming video into the island, enabling live lectures, and an internet radio (from http://chrishutchison.org:8000/listen.m3u) for streaming music and speech into the island … but, then, I also like the idea of running my own radio station. Then got Adam’s old G3 Powerbook up and running Ubuntu, with wireless. All in all, a productive day.

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Rhetoric of the Image

Atticus — Sat, 18 Oct 2008 21:39:11 +0000

A coincidence? an unfortunate oversight? The scan below is of pages 26-27 from today’s The Independent Magazine. Note the lips in each page–I’ve ringed in red to highlight. An otherwise fine publication is jeopardising its reputation, it seems to me.

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