I missed much of George Carlin’s early career, so first came to his comedy by the time he was a dirty old man- a wise, wise-ass grandpa. At the end, Carlin appeared in all black, a belligerent mime. After forced trips to church in high school, I made him (a recovering Catholic too) my personal anti-catechist.
Whether his target was religion, class hierarchy, empire, over-consumption, language use and censorship, bankers, sexual custom, or the general failings of human nature, Carlin told polite society and euphemized conventional wisdom to fuck off. He was a master of wordplay, lewd sound effects, and a pacing physical comedy that drove it home.
And he was versatile: (He raised a generation as the out of place narrator for the pre-school hit show "Thomas the Tank Engine & Friends," which could only have been part of some community service stint for swearing in front of a class of Kindergarteners.)
Carlin’s bullshit detector was devastating, but he used simple means of inquiry to dissect authority and ideology. And drawing simple questions about “the way things worked” all the way out to their illogical end, he was able to lay bare the absurdity of so many bankrupt American mythologies.
Carlin on "the greatest bullshit story ever told":
On "the american dream:"
Here's what they're calling Carlin's last interview (in Psychology Today). Originally slated for a back page, they published it nearly in full on the web.
June 24, 2008
June 19, 2008
Ralph Nader Takes on the Big Market
Ralph Nader is the tireless advocate for fairness, but also an uncanny prophet. He was on Democracy Now today decrying Obama as "a corporate candidate from A to Z." However reviled by the Democratic Party, which wants to rope reluctant progressive left votes into their coalition without earning them, Nader continues his crusade (see interview in the WSJ) against a corporate establishment that wants to convince us of its inevitability.
This time, Nader's delving into the world of sports, turning a critical eye towards NBA corruption stemming from favoritism given to "big market" teams that can draw larger viewership, sell more tickets, and bring in more revenue for the league. And all politics aside, he's got a pretty mean set shot from 4 feet.
Nader was out front on the latest scandal surrounding unsavory officiating and alleged game fixing by the league. He wrote a letter to NBA commissioner Daniel Stern in 2002, after sitting in the stands at game 6 of that year's Western Conference conference finals. The prime-time darling LA Lakers came back to beat the Sacramento Kings, a scrappy small market team featuring a post-40 year old Vlade Divac at center (not stellar for ratings).
Now former NBA referee Tim Donaghy, who was discovered last summer to have gambled on games he officiated, is verifying Nader's allegations of foul-play, claiming that "company men" wanted to lengthen the series, and had referees do all in their power to give the Lakers a chance to come back. The league has dismissed his claims, arguing that Donaghy has little credibility given his own misdeeds.
But watch the tape below for pretty clear evidence of foul play. After scoring 27 from free throws in the final quarter, the Lakers prevailed, ended up winning the series, and moving onto the NBA Finals, where they added another ring to the illustrious, highly commercialized "Showtime" legacy.
This time, Nader's delving into the world of sports, turning a critical eye towards NBA corruption stemming from favoritism given to "big market" teams that can draw larger viewership, sell more tickets, and bring in more revenue for the league. And all politics aside, he's got a pretty mean set shot from 4 feet.
Nader was out front on the latest scandal surrounding unsavory officiating and alleged game fixing by the league. He wrote a letter to NBA commissioner Daniel Stern in 2002, after sitting in the stands at game 6 of that year's Western Conference conference finals. The prime-time darling LA Lakers came back to beat the Sacramento Kings, a scrappy small market team featuring a post-40 year old Vlade Divac at center (not stellar for ratings).
Now former NBA referee Tim Donaghy, who was discovered last summer to have gambled on games he officiated, is verifying Nader's allegations of foul-play, claiming that "company men" wanted to lengthen the series, and had referees do all in their power to give the Lakers a chance to come back. The league has dismissed his claims, arguing that Donaghy has little credibility given his own misdeeds.
But watch the tape below for pretty clear evidence of foul play. After scoring 27 from free throws in the final quarter, the Lakers prevailed, ended up winning the series, and moving onto the NBA Finals, where they added another ring to the illustrious, highly commercialized "Showtime" legacy.
June 07, 2008
Wayne State Part Time Faculty Victorious
The Union of Part-Time Faculty (affiliated with the AFT) at Wayne State won their first tentative contract agreement this spring after years of organizing and months of negotiations. School administrations have relied more heavily on adjuncts in cost-saving efforts, and part-timers now compose a majority of the teaching workforce in higher ed nationwide- a workforce largely without union representation, benefits, or job security.
Their victory follows in the tradition of strong teachers' contracts at University of Michigan schools in Ann Arbor, Dearborn and Flint among lecturers and graduate students. The part-time faculty, who often teach at several schools in any given semester, are gaining steam in the area, including Henry Ford Community College which formed a bargaining unit on May 7th.
Faculty members at Wayne vote this first week of June on the contract, and ballots come in for a count on the 9th.
See Joe Berry's book "Reclaiming the Ivory Tower" a one of a kind, concise history of the rise of adjuncts, and an organizing strategy guide.
Their victory follows in the tradition of strong teachers' contracts at University of Michigan schools in Ann Arbor, Dearborn and Flint among lecturers and graduate students. The part-time faculty, who often teach at several schools in any given semester, are gaining steam in the area, including Henry Ford Community College which formed a bargaining unit on May 7th.
Faculty members at Wayne vote this first week of June on the contract, and ballots come in for a count on the 9th.
See Joe Berry's book "Reclaiming the Ivory Tower" a one of a kind, concise history of the rise of adjuncts, and an organizing strategy guide.
June 02, 2008
UNC Students Stage 16 Day Sweat Free Sit-In
Found in June 2008 issue of Labor Notes
Finals week was fast approaching when 15 University of North Carolina students occupied the administration building in Chapel Hill on April 17. For years, Student Action with Workers (SAW) has been pushing their chancellor, James Moeser, to pledge not to buy university apparel from sweatshops.
Nine years earlier, UNC adopted a labor code of conduct for its apparel suppliers—after a four-day student sit-in. But this spring students spent 16 days occupying the same building in an effort to enforce that code. “We have been forced to take action because of the failure of the UNC to live up to its supposed commitment to workers’ rights,” said senior Salma Mirza.
SAW activists transformed the administration building into a communications center, launching an online petition, organizing a call-in campaign to Moeser’s office, and broadcasting video feeds from inside the sit-in as well as endorsements from student groups, faculty, unions, and elected officials.
Their blog connected the action to a history of student-worker solidarity at UNC, including two 1969 food service strikes, during which strikers established alternative “food stands” outside the dining halls. “We are talking about sweatshops, but also housekeepers, grad students, and adjuncts,” said Mirza.
Junior Anthony Maglione, discussed strategy with one of the housekeepers on the night shift, whose aunt took part in the 1969 dining hall strikes. “We want to build this with campus workers who get up at 2 am to clean our classrooms,” he said.
Duke Students Against Sweatshops came from Durham to fill shifts at the sit-in and organize a solidarity camp-out and breakfast. After winning support from their own administration, students like Andrew Zonderman made the 8-mile trip to Chapel Hill more frequently, to build state-wide support for the program. “The DSP won't be completely effective until a majority of the collegiate apparel market is signed on. It's going to be the UNC's and other universities with successful Division I athletics with large support bases that are going to tip the scales,” he said.
In the last dozen years anti-sweatshop organizers have built an impressive network across campuses. When Chancellor Moeser went to Washington, D.C. for a conference on global development, United Students Against Sweatshops activists from the area met him outside and brought the protest inside, too.
“We knew people working in the hotel, cleaning rooms, and asked them to leaflet each room about the sit-in,” said SAW protester Linda Gomaa.
DESIGNATED SUPPLIERS
The UNC sit-in is the latest round in a nationwide campaign led by USAS to pressure universities to adopt its Designated Suppliers Program. When schools sign the DSP, they agree to source their licensed apparel from factories where workers receive a living wage and have the right to organize. After a six-month grace period, participating schools would begin sourcing 25 percent of each licensee’s apparel from designated factories, and after three years, the proportion would rise to 75 percent.
The program compels licensees like Nike and Adidas to pay more for apparel so that factory owners can pay their workers a living wage—which would be set in negotiations led by the workers’ organizations.
Forty-five schools have signed on, and await support from other colleges before forming a list of designated suppliers and implementing the program.
The idea for the DSP grew from another project USAS helped conceive, the Worker Rights Consortium, a factory monitoring organization composed of student representatives, college administrators, and labor experts.
The WRC’s factory inspections keep schools and licensees up to speed about labor abuses in their supply chains, but the WRC lacks the ability to alter sourcing decisions as the DSP proposes to do.
WEAK ENFORCEMENT
“With the WRC monitoring, it’s more like saying to companies, ‘it would be nice if you complied,’” said Claudia Ebel, a University of Colorado student on the WRC’s governing board. Without an enforcement plan, factories like BJ&B in the Dominican Republic, where workers organized for higher wages, have lost business from licensees and subsequently shut down.
The other major sweatshop monitoring organization on campuses is the Fair Labor Association (FLA), directed by a mix of officials from major corporations, nonprofits, and universities. Student activists see the FLA as hopelessly compromised.
In late 2007, for example, the WRC received reports of racial discrimination and anti-union intimidation at a New Era hat factory in Mobile, Alabama, which produces Tar Heel apparel for UNC.
Against the wishes of UNC’s licensing committee and SAW students, Moeser upheld New Era’s decision to keep WRC monitors from entering the plant, and approved a factory audit by an FLA-accredited monitoring firm instead.
Students saw a glaring conflict of interest. New Era Vice President Tim Freer not only sits on the FLA board of directors, but SAW reports that he conducted captive audience meetings with workers during the plant’s eventually successful union organizing drive.
Moeser and other college presidents, who have the final say on university apparel and licensing decisions, still harbor doubts about the DSP’s anti-trust implications.
The WRC rescinded its request for a Business Review Letter, sensing that a Bush-heavy Department of Justice would return an unfavorable interpretation of the DSP. Supporters point to the 2006 legal opinion of former Assistant Attorney General and anti-trust expert at the Department of Justice Donald Baker. As long as the designated list of suppliers is formed on humanitarian grounds, argued Baker, “the probability of a Licensee or Factory mounting a successful legal challenge to the program remains low.”
If this past spring is any indication, the campaign to push beyond these weaker programs is reaching critical mass. In April, dozens of students at Penn State, University of Montana, and Appalachian State launched office occupations to confront administrators about the unfulfilled labor codes of their universities.
The UNC sit-in, for its part, made real gains before five students were led out in handcuffs on May 2. Last August, Moeser had rejected the possibility of signing on to the DSP. He reversed that decision on the 12th day of the sit-in, calling an emergency meeting of the licensing committee in hopes of appeasing students.
“It was getting close to commencement,” Mirza said, “and donors were coming through campus.”
Though the licensing committee voted 7-5 against endorsing the DSP, it did move unanimously to put the issue before UNC’s new chancellor next fall.
Students have spent years fighting for codes of conduct and factory monitoring groups and the road to implementing the DSP appears long, but is getting shorter, and the arrests at UNC are more a sign of progress than defeat. “This wasn’t just about the sit-in; we’ll come back to meetings next year with more support,” said Gomaa. “I’m optimistic about our position.”
Finals week was fast approaching when 15 University of North Carolina students occupied the administration building in Chapel Hill on April 17. For years, Student Action with Workers (SAW) has been pushing their chancellor, James Moeser, to pledge not to buy university apparel from sweatshops.
Nine years earlier, UNC adopted a labor code of conduct for its apparel suppliers—after a four-day student sit-in. But this spring students spent 16 days occupying the same building in an effort to enforce that code. “We have been forced to take action because of the failure of the UNC to live up to its supposed commitment to workers’ rights,” said senior Salma Mirza.
SAW activists transformed the administration building into a communications center, launching an online petition, organizing a call-in campaign to Moeser’s office, and broadcasting video feeds from inside the sit-in as well as endorsements from student groups, faculty, unions, and elected officials.
Their blog connected the action to a history of student-worker solidarity at UNC, including two 1969 food service strikes, during which strikers established alternative “food stands” outside the dining halls. “We are talking about sweatshops, but also housekeepers, grad students, and adjuncts,” said Mirza.
Junior Anthony Maglione, discussed strategy with one of the housekeepers on the night shift, whose aunt took part in the 1969 dining hall strikes. “We want to build this with campus workers who get up at 2 am to clean our classrooms,” he said.
Duke Students Against Sweatshops came from Durham to fill shifts at the sit-in and organize a solidarity camp-out and breakfast. After winning support from their own administration, students like Andrew Zonderman made the 8-mile trip to Chapel Hill more frequently, to build state-wide support for the program. “The DSP won't be completely effective until a majority of the collegiate apparel market is signed on. It's going to be the UNC's and other universities with successful Division I athletics with large support bases that are going to tip the scales,” he said.
In the last dozen years anti-sweatshop organizers have built an impressive network across campuses. When Chancellor Moeser went to Washington, D.C. for a conference on global development, United Students Against Sweatshops activists from the area met him outside and brought the protest inside, too.
“We knew people working in the hotel, cleaning rooms, and asked them to leaflet each room about the sit-in,” said SAW protester Linda Gomaa. DESIGNATED SUPPLIERS
The UNC sit-in is the latest round in a nationwide campaign led by USAS to pressure universities to adopt its Designated Suppliers Program. When schools sign the DSP, they agree to source their licensed apparel from factories where workers receive a living wage and have the right to organize. After a six-month grace period, participating schools would begin sourcing 25 percent of each licensee’s apparel from designated factories, and after three years, the proportion would rise to 75 percent.
The program compels licensees like Nike and Adidas to pay more for apparel so that factory owners can pay their workers a living wage—which would be set in negotiations led by the workers’ organizations.
Forty-five schools have signed on, and await support from other colleges before forming a list of designated suppliers and implementing the program.
The idea for the DSP grew from another project USAS helped conceive, the Worker Rights Consortium, a factory monitoring organization composed of student representatives, college administrators, and labor experts.
The WRC’s factory inspections keep schools and licensees up to speed about labor abuses in their supply chains, but the WRC lacks the ability to alter sourcing decisions as the DSP proposes to do.
WEAK ENFORCEMENT
“With the WRC monitoring, it’s more like saying to companies, ‘it would be nice if you complied,’” said Claudia Ebel, a University of Colorado student on the WRC’s governing board. Without an enforcement plan, factories like BJ&B in the Dominican Republic, where workers organized for higher wages, have lost business from licensees and subsequently shut down.
The other major sweatshop monitoring organization on campuses is the Fair Labor Association (FLA), directed by a mix of officials from major corporations, nonprofits, and universities. Student activists see the FLA as hopelessly compromised.
In late 2007, for example, the WRC received reports of racial discrimination and anti-union intimidation at a New Era hat factory in Mobile, Alabama, which produces Tar Heel apparel for UNC.
Against the wishes of UNC’s licensing committee and SAW students, Moeser upheld New Era’s decision to keep WRC monitors from entering the plant, and approved a factory audit by an FLA-accredited monitoring firm instead.
Students saw a glaring conflict of interest. New Era Vice President Tim Freer not only sits on the FLA board of directors, but SAW reports that he conducted captive audience meetings with workers during the plant’s eventually successful union organizing drive.
Moeser and other college presidents, who have the final say on university apparel and licensing decisions, still harbor doubts about the DSP’s anti-trust implications.
The WRC rescinded its request for a Business Review Letter, sensing that a Bush-heavy Department of Justice would return an unfavorable interpretation of the DSP. Supporters point to the 2006 legal opinion of former Assistant Attorney General and anti-trust expert at the Department of Justice Donald Baker. As long as the designated list of suppliers is formed on humanitarian grounds, argued Baker, “the probability of a Licensee or Factory mounting a successful legal challenge to the program remains low.”
If this past spring is any indication, the campaign to push beyond these weaker programs is reaching critical mass. In April, dozens of students at Penn State, University of Montana, and Appalachian State launched office occupations to confront administrators about the unfulfilled labor codes of their universities.
The UNC sit-in, for its part, made real gains before five students were led out in handcuffs on May 2. Last August, Moeser had rejected the possibility of signing on to the DSP. He reversed that decision on the 12th day of the sit-in, calling an emergency meeting of the licensing committee in hopes of appeasing students.
“It was getting close to commencement,” Mirza said, “and donors were coming through campus.”
Though the licensing committee voted 7-5 against endorsing the DSP, it did move unanimously to put the issue before UNC’s new chancellor next fall.
Students have spent years fighting for codes of conduct and factory monitoring groups and the road to implementing the DSP appears long, but is getting shorter, and the arrests at UNC are more a sign of progress than defeat. “This wasn’t just about the sit-in; we’ll come back to meetings next year with more support,” said Gomaa. “I’m optimistic about our position.”
May 30, 2008
Anti-Racist Blog Shuts Itself Down
A long overdue update.
Some may remember the late-March posts on this blog, recounting my interactions with an anonymous hate-slinger, whose emails appeared in my inbox over the course of the past year. The messages promised to report me to “the proper authorities” for an alleged love of terrorists (advocating divestment from military companies that aid Israeli colonialism in Palestine).
After some digging, I posted new findings on March 18: the emails came from the Farmington, MI law firm of Kaufman Payton and Chapa, and their author was also the founder of the (now-defunct) website called Anti-Racist Blog, which cross-lists its posts on the notorious Daniel Pipes project called Campus Watch.
Nearly minutes after the post went up, connecting these dots, I received an email from the anonymous messenger, bartering for my silence:
“I request that you remove all references to the law firm from your blog, and refrain from writing such things about the law firm elsewhere in the future. To be fair, if you agree to this request I will remove ALL blog postings related to you and your brother from Anti-Racist Blog, and I will refrain from writing about you both on Anti-Racist Blog in the future.”
And minutes later, another email:
“I will take down the Anti-Racist Blog completely now and forever. I will do all of this as soon as you agree to these terms, and begin by taking down your two most recent blog posts.”
“In essence, I will permanently retire from the area and arena of advocacy. I hope you seriously consider this offer, which I believe is more than fair, and mutually beneficial.”
I never agreed to these terms, failing to see the benefits of keeping quiet about the underlying issues- the vilification of anti-zionist academics as unpatriotic, racist and anti-semitic.
Though I refused to enter into any such pact, the founder of Anti-Racist Blog revealed his name to me after nearly a year of anonymous correspondence and harassment. And a few days later, the Wayne State law grad, and attorney at Kaufman, Payton, and Chapa, shut down his blog anyway. His final blog post on March 22 apologized for “initiating or responding with anger” to opponents, but framed the shutdown of his blog as a result of “threatening emails, phone calls…headaches and harassment” instead of what it was: an attempt to cover his ass.
The blog remains inactive to this day, but some of Schwartz’s blog posts remain archived at Pipes’ “media” outlet. It is refreshing to see this tool for intimidation and harassment voluntarily dismantle. Schwartz’s ARB, and his anonymous emails written on office time are unwelcome not because I happen to disagree with his politics, but precisely because his site offered very little political substance.
The ongoing colonial project in Palestine continues to force an ideology of ethnic and religious hierarchy on irrevocably interconnected (however segregated) communities of people. Because the Zionist project has created such violent and inequitable realities through its basic hostility to difference, its defenders have little more than accusations of anti-Semitism to fend off a growing anti-Zionist movement that sees no sustainable future in Israeli apartheid.
With the Anti-Racist Blog around or not, the forces in this country that want to normalize and defend this discourse remain worthy targets for our heartiest critical energies and commitment.
to be continued…
Some may remember the late-March posts on this blog, recounting my interactions with an anonymous hate-slinger, whose emails appeared in my inbox over the course of the past year. The messages promised to report me to “the proper authorities” for an alleged love of terrorists (advocating divestment from military companies that aid Israeli colonialism in Palestine).
After some digging, I posted new findings on March 18: the emails came from the Farmington, MI law firm of Kaufman Payton and Chapa, and their author was also the founder of the (now-defunct) website called Anti-Racist Blog, which cross-lists its posts on the notorious Daniel Pipes project called Campus Watch.
Nearly minutes after the post went up, connecting these dots, I received an email from the anonymous messenger, bartering for my silence:
“I request that you remove all references to the law firm from your blog, and refrain from writing such things about the law firm elsewhere in the future. To be fair, if you agree to this request I will remove ALL blog postings related to you and your brother from Anti-Racist Blog, and I will refrain from writing about you both on Anti-Racist Blog in the future.”
And minutes later, another email:
“I will take down the Anti-Racist Blog completely now and forever. I will do all of this as soon as you agree to these terms, and begin by taking down your two most recent blog posts.”
“In essence, I will permanently retire from the area and arena of advocacy. I hope you seriously consider this offer, which I believe is more than fair, and mutually beneficial.”
I never agreed to these terms, failing to see the benefits of keeping quiet about the underlying issues- the vilification of anti-zionist academics as unpatriotic, racist and anti-semitic.
Though I refused to enter into any such pact, the founder of Anti-Racist Blog revealed his name to me after nearly a year of anonymous correspondence and harassment. And a few days later, the Wayne State law grad, and attorney at Kaufman, Payton, and Chapa, shut down his blog anyway. His final blog post on March 22 apologized for “initiating or responding with anger” to opponents, but framed the shutdown of his blog as a result of “threatening emails, phone calls…headaches and harassment” instead of what it was: an attempt to cover his ass.
The blog remains inactive to this day, but some of Schwartz’s blog posts remain archived at Pipes’ “media” outlet. It is refreshing to see this tool for intimidation and harassment voluntarily dismantle. Schwartz’s ARB, and his anonymous emails written on office time are unwelcome not because I happen to disagree with his politics, but precisely because his site offered very little political substance.
The ongoing colonial project in Palestine continues to force an ideology of ethnic and religious hierarchy on irrevocably interconnected (however segregated) communities of people. Because the Zionist project has created such violent and inequitable realities through its basic hostility to difference, its defenders have little more than accusations of anti-Semitism to fend off a growing anti-Zionist movement that sees no sustainable future in Israeli apartheid.
With the Anti-Racist Blog around or not, the forces in this country that want to normalize and defend this discourse remain worthy targets for our heartiest critical energies and commitment.
to be continued…
May 18, 2008
The American Nakba
1860-1869 Native American land "cessions" in black
1870-1879 land cessions
1880-1889 land cessions
Reservations and other Native American communities as of 1987
1870-1879 land cessions
1880-1889 land cessions
Reservations and other Native American communities as of 1987
May 15, 2008
Expressions of Nakba
The US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation's art exhibit opened this week in DC, showcasing artists of various mediums interpreting the experience of Palestinian exile and displacement that has burned for sixty years.
Detroit artist Invincible's song "People Not Places" won best recorded audio entry; from the chorus:
"my Ima misses people not places
has she seen the towns with names in Arabic the Hebrew replaces?
The policies are evil and racist, deceitful and heinous
You’ll never be a peaceful state with legal displacement"
Listen to the song and the other finalists for recorded audio including Dearborn's Big A and ZHAO-SKI.
The Visual Arts exhibit includes photos by San Francisco's Umayyah Cable; this one entitled "Forbidden Jersualem".
Detroit artist Invincible's song "People Not Places" won best recorded audio entry; from the chorus:
"my Ima misses people not places
has she seen the towns with names in Arabic the Hebrew replaces?
The policies are evil and racist, deceitful and heinous
You’ll never be a peaceful state with legal displacement"
Listen to the song and the other finalists for recorded audio including Dearborn's Big A and ZHAO-SKI.
The Visual Arts exhibit includes photos by San Francisco's Umayyah Cable; this one entitled "Forbidden Jersualem".May 14, 2008
60 Years
I found the May 14th, 1948 declaration of Israel's first prime minister on the eve of national independence. I didn't expect David Ben Gurion’s words to fit the occasion of Palestine's catastrophe six decades on:
“After being forcibly exiled from their land, the people kept faith with it throughout their Dispersion and never ceased to pray and hope for their return to it and for the restoration in it of their political freedom.”
As he spoke these words, the forcible exile of Palestinian refugees, now numbering 4.5 million, commenced. Today, celebrants honor Ben Gurion’s longing for return as it pertains to Israel’s settlement of a biblical homeland, but actively deny the orphan of Palestinian exile, to which Israel gave birth on its day of national “liberation."
Rashid Khalidi argues that this liberation not only destroyed the national aspirations of another people, but that this crime presents a fundamental crisis of Israeli nationalism, despite all denials:
"The apparent triumph of Zionism stilled doubts and drowned out the protests of those who argued that what purported to be the solution to one problem had created an entirely different one."
Now, and for sixty years, Palestinians have shared Ben Gurion’s “hope for their return” to their homes, and the “restoration in it of their political freedom.” A dream deferred, but not dissolved.
Photo-op attempts at “peace,” divorce the narrative of Israeli liberation from the experience of Palestinian dispossession. Only when these two "separate" stories are acknowledged as one, can these two “sides” begin to repair a relatively short history of colonial conflict and undertake a new national project based on co-existence in a bi-national democratic state. This would entail a vast Palestinian civil rights movement for equality and fundamental reform in the Jewish state. Whether or not this strategy is undertaken by the splintered Palestinian resistance, Saree Makdisi notes that the Palestinians won't be leaving:
“After being forcibly exiled from their land, the people kept faith with it throughout their Dispersion and never ceased to pray and hope for their return to it and for the restoration in it of their political freedom.”
Rashid Khalidi argues that this liberation not only destroyed the national aspirations of another people, but that this crime presents a fundamental crisis of Israeli nationalism, despite all denials:
"The apparent triumph of Zionism stilled doubts and drowned out the protests of those who argued that what purported to be the solution to one problem had created an entirely different one."
Now, and for sixty years, Palestinians have shared Ben Gurion’s “hope for their return” to their homes, and the “restoration in it of their political freedom.” A dream deferred, but not dissolved.
Photo-op attempts at “peace,” divorce the narrative of Israeli liberation from the experience of Palestinian dispossession. Only when these two "separate" stories are acknowledged as one, can these two “sides” begin to repair a relatively short history of colonial conflict and undertake a new national project based on co-existence in a bi-national democratic state. This would entail a vast Palestinian civil rights movement for equality and fundamental reform in the Jewish state. Whether or not this strategy is undertaken by the splintered Palestinian resistance, Saree Makdisi notes that the Palestinians won't be leaving:
May 05, 2008
Another Sneaky Supplemental
On the heels of the ILWU’s May Day work stoppage to protest the war, which closed ports up and down the West coast, there are rumblings of another supplemental bill sneaking its way through the halls of Congress. Jeff Leys from Chicago-based Voices for Creative Nonviolence is on point as usual.
According to Leys:
Details of the supplemental are being closely guarded by the Democratic party leadership. However, the supplemental is based upon President Bush’s request for an additional $108 billion in supplemental funding for the Iraq – Afghanistan war for the current fiscal year (FY 2008, which ends on September 30, 2008). Of this amount, $102 billion will be for the military.
It looks like the Democratic leadership in the House and Senate are working together to give Bush what he wants, and keeping the date of the vote secret to suppress public opposition:
It is quite possible—indeed probable—that the House version will not be publicly available until the morning of the vote. It is also quite possible that the date the vote takes place on Iraq – Afghanistan war spending won’t be known until the night before the vote is scheduled to occur. This means that it will be next to impossible to mobilize significant opposition to the Iraq – Afghanistan war spending bill.
A rush vote is being designed to sidestep debate in committee, and is expected this week.
Read Leys' full analysis of war funding, build on labor's May Day anti-war action, and get on the horn to your representative through the U.S. Capitol Switchboard at 202-224-3121. Find direct contact information for your representative here.
According to Leys:
Details of the supplemental are being closely guarded by the Democratic party leadership. However, the supplemental is based upon President Bush’s request for an additional $108 billion in supplemental funding for the Iraq – Afghanistan war for the current fiscal year (FY 2008, which ends on September 30, 2008). Of this amount, $102 billion will be for the military.
It looks like the Democratic leadership in the House and Senate are working together to give Bush what he wants, and keeping the date of the vote secret to suppress public opposition:
It is quite possible—indeed probable—that the House version will not be publicly available until the morning of the vote. It is also quite possible that the date the vote takes place on Iraq – Afghanistan war spending won’t be known until the night before the vote is scheduled to occur. This means that it will be next to impossible to mobilize significant opposition to the Iraq – Afghanistan war spending bill.
A rush vote is being designed to sidestep debate in committee, and is expected this week.
Read Leys' full analysis of war funding, build on labor's May Day anti-war action, and get on the horn to your representative through the U.S. Capitol Switchboard at 202-224-3121. Find direct contact information for your representative here.
April 19, 2008
Mass Transit in the Motor City: Railroaded Again?
From Issue 27 of Critical Moment
Cranes fill the southwest Detroit sky while highway crews work a $230 million road renovation on I-75 at the Ambassador Bridge. A block away the Michigan Central train station sits hollowed out, a monument to the city’s rail heyday. Further east, a new casino, named Motor City, stares through the train terminal, blinking its neon reminders that Detroit remains auto country.
Over a century ago, Southeast Michigan operated the most miles of passenger rail in America, with a streetcar network and interurban links to Flint, Ann Arbor, Toledo, Pontiac and Port Huron. The Detroit Street Railways system even endured the early decades of auto’s rise until 1956, when it was dismantled and replaced by General Motors buses.
As the rails got paved over, Mike Paradise came to Rochester, Michigan, outside the city. He was twelve, he said, when his dad came to take an engineering job with General Motors. “The absence of a real link to the suburbs stuck out, especially for someone without a driver’s license.” Decades after his driver’s test, however, Paradise is still mystified by Detroit’s betrayal of rail. At Cranbrook Art Academy, where he has worked for 14 years as technology coordinator, Paradise invites young innovators to work on the mass transit problem. Without a car, its not an easy trip from Detroit to the suburban Bloomfield Hills school.
“There’s a big hole in the Woodward corridor,” says Paradise. “If Gramma wants to take the kids to Cranbrook’s science center, the SMART bus won’t stop here.” The Suburban Mobility Authority for Regional Transportation, or SMART, operates the buses between the city and the suburbs. The system is supported by suburban tax levies, but townships like Bloomfield Hills, Livonia, and Novi have opted-out of service. Only 26 of 61 Oakland county municipalities have chosen to participate in Detroit’s only major system of mass transit connecting the city to the suburbs. For a three-mile stretch along Woodward through Bloomfield Hills, the bus runs non-stop past Cranbrook Academy and the country club.
Paradise spent boyhood days biking to Rochester parks and searching for signs of a massive interurban rail network that now scatters its remains in fits and starts throughout Southeast Michigan. The last commuter train route to run on these lines closed in 1982 when the city ceased operations from Pontiac to downtown Detroit. “A few lines still exist from the old system, up Woodward, Michigan, and Jefferson. We could bring trains back there.”
The return of rail might not be so far-fetched. It was a fifteen-minute drive to Dearborn’s Ford Community Center for a public meeting in March of the Detroit Transit Options for Growth Study (DTOGS). The perimeter of the room was lined with tables, high school science fair-style, with photographs and charts laying out a vision for mass transit in the city. A three-minute dvd simulation projected a sunny Detroit onto the room’s remaining empty wall. Computer-generated foot traffickers strolled past new light rail passenger cars zooming into new stations growing from the middle of Woodward, along a route that would begin near Grand Circus Park and Fox Theater.
City and state transportation departments and a handful of regional transit organizations formed DTOGS eighteen months ago to analyze traffic patterns as a first step in the application process for federal money. Now they’ve moved on to preliminary engineering in the hopes of winning a federal New Starts grant to fund about half of the proposed $370 million construction cost. Though Michigan Avenue and Gratiot Avenue are also being considered for eventual light rail or bus rapid transit, Woodward would be the first route. If all goes well, construction on the line could break ground by 2010.
The initial line along Woodward, between Grand Circus Park and the city’s northern limit at 8 Mile, would only be the beginning. Look elsewhere, said Tim Roseboom of the Detroit Department of Transportation (DDOT): “Of 28 similar projects nationwide, only one did not continue to expand after its initial construction.” The DART light rail system has brought new life to Dallas, Texas, since its inception in 1996. A 2007 University of North Texas study credits the rail system with attracting $4.26 billion of new investment to the city since 1999. Northeast of downtown Dallas, the blue and red lines run to Mockingbird station, a modern day oil-boom town. Just east of Southern Methodist University, the terminal has become a destination unto itself, sporting new lofts, shops, an office park, and an independent film theater steps from the platform.
The people at DTOGS claim that a similar future awaits Detroit once light rail comes on line. The investment and ridership will provide an essential boost for local and state tax revenues to fund expansion to routes along the other major spokes from the city, and importantly, into the suburbs. Add to the mix the Southeast Michigan Council of Governments’ (SEMCOG) proposal for interurban rail transit, and Southeast Michigan has the beginning of a regional rail system.
Picture this: SEMCOG creates commuter routes along existing Amtrak lines from Ann Arbor to Detroit. This would link with the DTOGS light-rail stop at the Amtrak station at the New Center, proposed for renovation, which would take Detroiters to a proposed station at the Detroit International Airport before heading on to Ypsilanti and Ann Arbor.
Light rail would take a lot of strain off the high-traffic Detroit bus routes up and down Woodward. Yet there is reason to be skeptical of so much future tense, as state and regional governments predict a funding crisis for transportation allocations. The Michigan Department of Transit outlines a steady decline in road conditions after 2007, right as SEMCOG speaks of a 4% rise in the cost of asphalt and cement each year for a decade. Add to this a drop in the federal transit trust fund after 2008, and a drop in MDOT’s proposed allocations in their Five-Year Plan until 2011, and the rosy promises becomes complicated.
Without a doubt, new forms of public transit can attract investment. Longtime public transit advocate and state representative Marie Donigan agrees. “This will make money and create jobs. We just need to sell the idea of this investment in transportation, even when it seems like the wrong time to spend any money at all.” Mass transit doesn’t thrive on functionality alone, but also on cultural appeal. A light-rail project, however limited at first, could foster excitement enough to weather the stigma that plagues Detroit’s bus system. There are ways, according to Donigan, to access the suburban tax base for a regionally funded system. “One option is a local option sales tax that would funnel money into transit, but our constitution would have to change to allow it.”
But could a DTOGS project become a new version of the People Mover, without its once proposed spokes? The initial Woodward line is exciting, but its initial costs might not bring the expected return if it doesn’t create connections to the suburbs, where two-thirds of the city office space resides. “It would serve a purpose if it’s expanded and gets people downtown from, say Pontiac,” says Paradise. While any massive new project like this will undoubtedly bring development to the central corridor of the city, it could well create another self-referencing exclusive space dislocated from the neighborhoods. Paradise is skeptical too: “If it remains as proposed it sounds more like entertainment than efficiency.”
Megan Owens, of the citizen advocacy group Transportation Riders United, defends DTOGS as a solid start, citing Denver and St. Louis as success stories. “No transit system is built all at once. Most new rapid transit systems start with an initial line of 3 to 10 miles.” Given the funding constraints, Owens argues that Detroit needs something now in order to get more later on. “While the slow progress may be frustrating,” she says, “it’s a necessary process, not a band-aid.”
Both Owens and Paradise can agree that the auto industry destroyed a gem of a rail system. “They were pro-bus because they could get people to see it’s no fun to ride one,” said Paradise. “They didn’t put enough behind the bus system, and it re-affirmed that you need a car in this city.” But the Big Three automakers are now an essential ingredient for any new mass transit system. According to Owens, the auto companies aren’t opposed to mass transit reform, but not actively engaged either. “They’re a little busy trying to survive to actively work on transit, but they are supportive politically at least.”
People will ride mass transit, if it gets them somewhere. The American Public Transportation Association’s recent study shows that Americans took 10.3 billion trips on mass transit systems nationwide in 2007, the highest volume in 50 years. Since 1995, the use of public transit has risen 32% nationally. But if the public interest doesn’t motivate the auto companies, transit projects could well salvage their bottom line.
By transforming themselves into transit companies, the auto sector could find their way to sustainability, an idea that’s been in the hopper for a while. “I remember going to these GM open houses with my father, and seeing the concept cars,” Paradise reminisces. “And, inevitably there would be a mass transit display. Some engineers in there might dust off those old concepts.”
You can see the General Motors downtown headquarters from GM’s technical center in Warren, Michigan at Mound Road and 12 Mile. With this sight line, Paradise envisions the beginnings of a new era in the auto industry: investment in mass transit. “Why don’t they connect the two? Then Ford could construct something from the Airport, and Chrysler could go from Auburn Hills south. It could be friendly competition.”
To overcome the historic gridlock between the suburbs and the city that has created so many false starts in Detroit’s plans for mass transit, the state government needs to form a regional transit authority to raise funds from the entire metropolitan area for a system that serves the region fully and seamlessly. The Detroit Area Regional Transit Authority came closest, though it had limited tax-levying authority and allowed oppositional suburban governments to opt-out of any regional transit plan it proposed.
Bills are back in the Michigan Senate after the initial formation of DARTA was vetoed by Governor Engler in 2003 and then struck down in the courts after Governor Granholm attempted to revive it in 2005. “You can expect to see some DARTA-like proposal in the next year or two,” says Ms. Owens, and Donigan agrees. “We are working hard on a bi-partisan plan for a transit authority that can ask people for tax dollars and coordinate services. Nothing else is set up to handle this right now.”
An egalitarian mass transportation system is the vital step needed to connect the five million Detroiters in the city and in the suburbs, who form the tenth largest metropolitan space in the country. This re-connection of fundamentally intertwined space and people can best begin with a transit plan that envisions the city limits not as gates but gateways. Now, the forces that destroyed Detroit’s once-touted public network of mobility are the same forces needed to help resurrect it.
April 07, 2008
Labor Notes Conference, April 11-13th
Less than a week until the Labor Notes conference in Dearborn, Michigan! Register here.
Here are the keynote speakers who will be at "Rebuilding Labor's Power" 2008.
The conference brings labor organizers from around the world, including a track devoted to Chinese labor struggles this year. But also figuring prominently will be the efforts just down the street at Hamtramck's American Axle plant, where auto workers have been on strike for nearly two months fighting the company's proposed %50 wage cuts.
March 18, 2008
A New McCarthyism, Part II: Roget Attacks!
The messages kept coming, from the same email. Now he called himself "Michael Jones," and took to looking through the thesaurus for insults:
3/21/07
If you want to insult my intelligence, you might want to use correct grammar. Did you transfer from U of M Dearborn?
Although I think terrorist is such an apt term to describe you, in the future I will also refer to you using the following words: agitator, insurgent, insurrectionist, malcontent, mutineer, nihilist, rebel, revolter.
…………..
The messages increasingly failed to resemble ideas.
I decided to track the source of these emails by their IP address. The messages had all been coming from Wayne State University computers and from a Farmington Hills, MI law firm by the name of Kaufman, Payton, and Chapa.
....
Several months later I tried to post a comment on a Detroit-area site known as "Anti-Racist Blog", an ugly outgrowth of the Horowitz Campus Watch phenomenon that polices what professors and students say about Israel and Palestine. They repeatedly level charges of antisemitism and racism at critics of zionism.
When my comment did not appear on the “anti-racist” blog, I got in contact with the blog administrator, asking why. I received an anonymous response:
11/20/07
"Anti-Racist Blog reserves the right to reject or remove any comments that are racist, offensive, untrue, annoying, or disrespectful.”
... "Anti-Racist Blog stands by the argument that anti-Zionism is racism."
…………
This time when I tracked the anonymous blog administrator, I was taken back to a familiar place: the same law office in Farmington Hills where the earlier attack emails came from; Kaufman, Payton, and Chapa.
Which makes a July posting on the “anti-racist blog” especially strange. The blog posted my original letter to the Michigan Daily (the one which elicited attacks by the anonymous harasser last March).
At the bottom of the post, Anti-Racist Blog claims that someone wrote in to them complaining about an email exchange they had with me:
7/12/07
"However, Mr. Abowd's views are very troubling. One Anti-Racist reader wrote in to say that he corresponded with Mr. Abowd about his article. Besides being completely unapologetic, Mr. Abowd allegedly included the following statement in one of his e-mails: "Long Live Nasrallah!"
…………..
Out there on the fringes of Zionism, the (not so?) sparse ranks of anonymous hate-peddlers multiply their identities and befriend themselves.
Why are people from Kaufman, Payton, and Chapa sending attack emails from their law office? Will they stop launching smear campaigns on committed teachers, students and organizers? Or at least emerge from anonymity and claim their ideas and actions?
3/21/07
If you want to insult my intelligence, you might want to use correct grammar. Did you transfer from U of M Dearborn?
Although I think terrorist is such an apt term to describe you, in the future I will also refer to you using the following words: agitator, insurgent, insurrectionist, malcontent, mutineer, nihilist, rebel, revolter.
…………..
The messages increasingly failed to resemble ideas.
I decided to track the source of these emails by their IP address. The messages had all been coming from Wayne State University computers and from a Farmington Hills, MI law firm by the name of Kaufman, Payton, and Chapa.
....
Several months later I tried to post a comment on a Detroit-area site known as "Anti-Racist Blog", an ugly outgrowth of the Horowitz Campus Watch phenomenon that polices what professors and students say about Israel and Palestine. They repeatedly level charges of antisemitism and racism at critics of zionism.
When my comment did not appear on the “anti-racist” blog, I got in contact with the blog administrator, asking why. I received an anonymous response:
11/20/07
"Anti-Racist Blog reserves the right to reject or remove any comments that are racist, offensive, untrue, annoying, or disrespectful.”
... "Anti-Racist Blog stands by the argument that anti-Zionism is racism."
…………
This time when I tracked the anonymous blog administrator, I was taken back to a familiar place: the same law office in Farmington Hills where the earlier attack emails came from; Kaufman, Payton, and Chapa.
Which makes a July posting on the “anti-racist blog” especially strange. The blog posted my original letter to the Michigan Daily (the one which elicited attacks by the anonymous harasser last March).
At the bottom of the post, Anti-Racist Blog claims that someone wrote in to them complaining about an email exchange they had with me:
7/12/07
"However, Mr. Abowd's views are very troubling. One Anti-Racist reader wrote in to say that he corresponded with Mr. Abowd about his article. Besides being completely unapologetic, Mr. Abowd allegedly included the following statement in one of his e-mails: "Long Live Nasrallah!"
…………..
Out there on the fringes of Zionism, the (not so?) sparse ranks of anonymous hate-peddlers multiply their identities and befriend themselves.
Why are people from Kaufman, Payton, and Chapa sending attack emails from their law office? Will they stop launching smear campaigns on committed teachers, students and organizers? Or at least emerge from anonymity and claim their ideas and actions?
March 16, 2008
A New McCarthyism
It began nearly a year ago, when I wrote a letter to the Michigan Daily calling for my school, the University of Michigan, to divest from military companies that arm the Israeli military.
3/19/07 I receive an email from "noneofyourbusiness@yahoo.com," who quickly employed a familiar tactic: call any critic a terrorist:
Does it bother you that you advocate and support terrorism?... Thanks for identifying yourself as a lover of jihad, and a friend of terrorists.
Yours truly, Divestmentisracism
And on it went for a week or so, me and the anonymous. Selections from his/her emails ranged from the hateful and absurd, to a childish playground blather.
3/20/07
Your future employers will also love to read your hate speech. You can forget about ever running for political office outside of Dearborn.
Oh, when I called you a terrorist...I meant it. You support terrorists, and that is obvious.
Sincerely,
Michael Jones
My email exchange became a disturbing glimpse into the world of crazed Zionists. I began to enjoy hitting back, fascinated but saddened by the magnitude of hatred that returned with each message.
What to say in response?:
3/21/07
"Be aware that by justifying the occupation of Palestinian land, you shirk the precedents of international law set forth by the United Nations after WWII to stop reckless nations like NAZI Germany and Imperial Japan from conquering their neighbors. This framework was designed to protect innocent life and to end wars of conquest. By justifying US unilateral invasion of Iraq and Israel's subsidized war on and conquest of Palestinian land, your opinions fly in the face of these human rights laws and international precedents which, had they been created earlier, may have prevented the holocaust in Europe or the Rape of Nanking by Japanese forces.
Long Live Nasrallah!
Best, Paul
My mistake was the playful "Long Live Nasrallah," which became the new rallying cry accusation of my anonymous friend:
3/21/07
"You ended your e-mail by saying "Long Live Nasrallah!"
This shows your true terrorist-supporting colors. Thanks for admitting your true allegiance. I am forwarding your e-mail to the relevant law enforcement authorities, given that Hezbollah is a designated terrorist group. "
But in the response, which threatened me with state action, I saw the implications of our exchange more clearly. It was not merely about two private citizens squabbling over distant politics. This exchange was about discursive power, and the normalization of racist ideas and policies in media, academia, and government. Symbiotic relationships form to govern and police the ideological boundaries of the mainstream, and to criminalize the critics of colonial projects.
to be continued...
3/19/07 I receive an email from "noneofyourbusiness@yahoo.com," who quickly employed a familiar tactic: call any critic a terrorist:
Does it bother you that you advocate and support terrorism?... Thanks for identifying yourself as a lover of jihad, and a friend of terrorists.
Yours truly, Divestmentisracism
And on it went for a week or so, me and the anonymous. Selections from his/her emails ranged from the hateful and absurd, to a childish playground blather.
3/20/07
Your future employers will also love to read your hate speech. You can forget about ever running for political office outside of Dearborn.
Oh, when I called you a terrorist...I meant it. You support terrorists, and that is obvious.
Sincerely,
Michael Jones
My email exchange became a disturbing glimpse into the world of crazed Zionists. I began to enjoy hitting back, fascinated but saddened by the magnitude of hatred that returned with each message.
What to say in response?:
3/21/07
"Be aware that by justifying the occupation of Palestinian land, you shirk the precedents of international law set forth by the United Nations after WWII to stop reckless nations like NAZI Germany and Imperial Japan from conquering their neighbors. This framework was designed to protect innocent life and to end wars of conquest. By justifying US unilateral invasion of Iraq and Israel's subsidized war on and conquest of Palestinian land, your opinions fly in the face of these human rights laws and international precedents which, had they been created earlier, may have prevented the holocaust in Europe or the Rape of Nanking by Japanese forces.
Long Live Nasrallah!
Best, Paul
My mistake was the playful "Long Live Nasrallah," which became the new rallying cry accusation of my anonymous friend:
3/21/07
"You ended your e-mail by saying "Long Live Nasrallah!"
This shows your true terrorist-supporting colors. Thanks for admitting your true allegiance. I am forwarding your e-mail to the relevant law enforcement authorities, given that Hezbollah is a designated terrorist group. "
But in the response, which threatened me with state action, I saw the implications of our exchange more clearly. It was not merely about two private citizens squabbling over distant politics. This exchange was about discursive power, and the normalization of racist ideas and policies in media, academia, and government. Symbiotic relationships form to govern and police the ideological boundaries of the mainstream, and to criminalize the critics of colonial projects.
to be continued...
March 10, 2008
Islam...uh, Obama?
As the status of Obama’s religious and ethnic background come forth in all distorted forms, he continually fights off claims that he swore into office on the Koran, or that he attended a Muslim terrorist training school. But Naomi Klein points out that rebuffing these charges is not enough. And seeing it as slander perpetuates the depictions of Muslims here and abroad as a national security threat. Its not slander, she says, but racist propoganda.
Klein argues that Obama needs to take an extra step, not merely remind people that he is in fact "safely" Christian. He has a chance to lead the way in disabusing Americans of their negative associations with Islam. Until then, merely “setting the record straight” might help save Obama, but it doesn’t address the deeper problem of the consistent criminalization of entire religious and ethnic communities that often runs through these candidates' statements and policy proposals.
The transformation of American consciousness about the Islamic world, and a re-conception of what constitutes terrorism is key to any foreign policy shifts proposed by the Democratic candidates.
Yet, look at Obama’s stances on Israel as a case in point to the absurd forms of racism that continue to come out of the mouths of liberal politicians… and which are explained away consistently as the requisite lip-service for winning office. Take Obama’s AIPAC speech a year ago, his pro-Israel reversals at debates, or his letter to the US ambassador to the UN, defending Israel’s economic and military seige on Gaza. All these actions hollow out his hopeful calls for progressive changes in American foreign policy, let alone his more profound call for a new-born political culture.
His transparent pandering to the pro-Israel right is doubly tragic, as it un-does his early support for Palestinian rights organizations in Chicago. The Zionists he seeks to bring into his coalition are some of the very purveyors of the insistently racist attacks on him and his association with Islam.
Even these outright lies and "accusations" of his Islamic heritage have not dissuaded Obama of his desire to win favor with American Zionists, many of whom look upon him with suspicion or disdain. In trying to cozy up to AIPAC, a group that actively pushed for war in Iraq and has been beating the drums for an attack on Iran, Obama undermines his strongest claims to foresight and principle as the only remaining “anti-war” candidate.
I like Obama, but its sad to see him pulled down into the dirty system he claims to transcend. The more he panders, the less moral high ground he retains, and the weaker his claims to change appear. The anti-Islamic attacks on him are not only racist and wrong, but have the potential to drive an increasingly calculating candidate Obama to more hawkish stances on foreign policy. This a vain compensation for the popular depictions of his connection to a religion of "the terrorists"—a discourse that some of his policies tacitly uphold and perpetuate.
By the end of this, we could see a candidate like Kerry, so obsessed with appearing tough on terrorism that it became unclear to us and to himself, what exactly he stood for.
What will it take for a Democratic candidate to take a stand? Ironically, its the brand of transformative leadership to which Mr. Obama lays claim.
Klein argues that Obama needs to take an extra step, not merely remind people that he is in fact "safely" Christian. He has a chance to lead the way in disabusing Americans of their negative associations with Islam. Until then, merely “setting the record straight” might help save Obama, but it doesn’t address the deeper problem of the consistent criminalization of entire religious and ethnic communities that often runs through these candidates' statements and policy proposals.
The transformation of American consciousness about the Islamic world, and a re-conception of what constitutes terrorism is key to any foreign policy shifts proposed by the Democratic candidates.
Yet, look at Obama’s stances on Israel as a case in point to the absurd forms of racism that continue to come out of the mouths of liberal politicians… and which are explained away consistently as the requisite lip-service for winning office. Take Obama’s AIPAC speech a year ago, his pro-Israel reversals at debates, or his letter to the US ambassador to the UN, defending Israel’s economic and military seige on Gaza. All these actions hollow out his hopeful calls for progressive changes in American foreign policy, let alone his more profound call for a new-born political culture.
His transparent pandering to the pro-Israel right is doubly tragic, as it un-does his early support for Palestinian rights organizations in Chicago. The Zionists he seeks to bring into his coalition are some of the very purveyors of the insistently racist attacks on him and his association with Islam.
Even these outright lies and "accusations" of his Islamic heritage have not dissuaded Obama of his desire to win favor with American Zionists, many of whom look upon him with suspicion or disdain. In trying to cozy up to AIPAC, a group that actively pushed for war in Iraq and has been beating the drums for an attack on Iran, Obama undermines his strongest claims to foresight and principle as the only remaining “anti-war” candidate.
I like Obama, but its sad to see him pulled down into the dirty system he claims to transcend. The more he panders, the less moral high ground he retains, and the weaker his claims to change appear. The anti-Islamic attacks on him are not only racist and wrong, but have the potential to drive an increasingly calculating candidate Obama to more hawkish stances on foreign policy. This a vain compensation for the popular depictions of his connection to a religion of "the terrorists"—a discourse that some of his policies tacitly uphold and perpetuate.
By the end of this, we could see a candidate like Kerry, so obsessed with appearing tough on terrorism that it became unclear to us and to himself, what exactly he stood for.
What will it take for a Democratic candidate to take a stand? Ironically, its the brand of transformative leadership to which Mr. Obama lays claim.
Bringing Christ to Campus
Campus Evangelicals: their mission, motivation, and why it’s cool to be saved
from The Michigan Independent
Nate Ardle looks more like a normal guy working on his laptop in the Union than a spiritual leader. He enjoys the hit series “24,” the occasional computer game, and time with the family. And he’s really into Jesus. As Pastor for Campus Crusade for Christ (Cru), Ardle leads a ministry aimed at the common college student. “We feel like every person needs to have a relationship with Christ,” he says. At the University of Michigan, Cru works alongside evangelical churches like New Life to infuse the good news with mass appeal. Less reliant on fear-mongering, campus evangelism is guided by ‘Christian rock’ strategies of planting the faith into the mainstream. It seems to be working. New Life’s community has outgrown its worship space in the Modern Language Building and is finishing construction of a new chapel for its 900 congregants. Until then, Sunday services get fired up fashionably late at 10:01 and 12:01 and hundreds pack into MLB Auditorium 3 seeking the promised “relevant, guilt-free, rockin’ good time.” This ain’t your grandma’s church. It’s an interactive concert, God’s Woodstock, and for evangelicals, it’s cool to be “saved.”
But these groups don’t thrive on the campaign of cool alone. The church community attracts students seeking personal guidance or a way to put their faith into action. Members of both New Life and Cru sign up for service trips aimed at quelling AIDS in Africa, hunger in Haiti, and hurricane destruction in New Orleans. These voyages don’t escape the complex history of missionary work and usually retain some strain of self-righteous zeal. Even with positive by-products, missions are part of the proselytization work for believers who see sin and depravity in the ‘underdeveloped’ world.
Pastor Ardle’s Campus Crusade for Christ is equally committed to spreading the word locally. The community is 300 strong and members can be seen armed with the Bible and pocket-sized pamphlets that read, “Would you like to know God personally?” Unlike traveling preachers who bring their one-man show to campuses to decry the sins of secularism, groups like New Life and Cru are taking a more delicate approach. The campus is a place where evangelicals have come not to scold so much as to tap into campus life and construct believers from the grassroots level. Ardle is a prime example. Not too many years ago, the pastor and his wife got involved as students in the evangelical community at Ohio State University. Now, his ministry in Ann Arbor cultivates the next generation of church leadership.
Gaia Stenson grew up in Michigan in an agnostic household. She pinpoints the moment in high school, at age 17, when she became interested in God. At a time when many high school kids are embracing Atheism as a response to school uniforms or Sunday morning mass, Stenson sought small group Bible study and found a community that really cared for each other. “I didn’t feel cornered, or judged, or pressured in any way,” she says. Stenson’s thoughtfulness is surprising. She’s a far cry from wild-eyed evangelists who trumpet rehearsed Bible verses laced with scorn. After graduating from U-M last year, Stenson decided to work for New Life as a campus organizer. “There have been a lot of bad things done in Jesus’ name,” she says. “Church positions have been used for power or oppression. I am ashamed at times, and deeply saddened that things have occurred.” Even so, she remains compelled by Jesus’ message, despite those who distort it: “I am not ashamed of the core of what Christ is about. That, in its most pure form, is the most beautiful thing.”
But is there an objective message? Faith is interpretative and interpretation involves selectivity. Some Christians see Jesus as a resolute pacifist, the ultimate peacemaker. For others, like Ardle, “Jesus doesn’t really address the issue of war very directly.” Both views depend on the emphasis of certain passages and the avoidance of others, and strain the logic of those who view the Bible as divine in its entirety. The good book has been a vessel through which people have sanctified their pre-existing political agendas for centuries. Its evolution is continually at the whim of power, illustrated by the multitude of successive translations and editions, each with their own adaptation of the text. This distortion has left a distinctly human imprint on the supposed word of God.
Believers all infuse their power into the Bible, but some have more power than others. There is a hierarchical relationship between national organizations and individual congregants. Groups like the Greater Commission Ministries fund church planting projects and have created a network of satellite churches, like New Life Ann Arbor. President Bush has helped to empower these umbrella groups by issuing executive orders for the establishment of “Centers for Faith-Based and Community Initiatives,” within government, which allow religious groups access to federal funds. The National Association of Evangelicals has received not only monetary support for its agenda but an amplified voice within Bush’s born-again boardroom.
Ardle’s ministry is also one chapter within an enormous international organization that bears the same name. The predominant interpretations on modern evangelism are forged at the top, where decision making power resides. It’s a pervasive traditionalism among conservative elites that facilitates a certain dissemination of God’s view on gay marriage. It’s the perceived clash with Islamic fundamentalists that compels evangelical leaders to pull out verses from “Romans” to justify war against the wrongdoers. And then there are the millions who relate to this brand of evangelism; those who fill the pews (or stadium style seating) of mega-churches every Sunday to have their worldview sanctified.
Pastor Ardle maintains that evangelism is not political. Though not overtly partisan, his carefully crafted statements of the faith do contain something fundamentally political, and at times paradoxical. Acceptance and judgment exist in tension alongside each other. New Life’s website embraces this tension too, speaking of eternal love and eternal damnation: “God declares righteous all who put their faith in Christ alone for their salvation.” For those who don’t honor the Bible, a less upbeat promise. “At physical death the unbeliever enters immediately into eternal, conscious separation from the Lord and awaits…everlasting suffering, judgment and condemnation,” the site reads.
This tension is reflected in specific issues like the dominant evangelical view on homosexuality. Ardle adds a disclaimer to his comments, emphasizing that it is not the goal of his ministry to condemn gay people. But as he elaborates, the judgment comes forth, less shrouded in niceties. “It would be just as sinful for me to commit adultery against my wife, as for someone to be in a homosexual relationship,” he says. “Both would be repugnant in the eyes of God.” Given the battle raging over gay marriage on state ballots, Ardle’s ministry finds itself intimately entangled in struggles of earthly power.
Though Stenson and Ardle represent a diversity within evangelism, there are central ideas that unify their community. To give your life to Jesus involves making, as Stenson asserts, “an exclusive claim on truth.” Choosing not to embrace Jesus is not simply a matter of preference, but a matter of eternal life or eternal death. Even the more tolerant amongst evangelicals seem steadfast in their conviction that theirs is the only way to “salvation.” This is hard for Stenson. “In terms of scripture, and what I believe, there is one way, and I’m fully aware that that is offensive, and hard to deal with, but it becomes an issue of standing on truth,” she says. But presuming to know truth on such questions has often had bloody consequences.
The problem of fundamentalism is not exclusive to Christianity, but the American brand presents a stunning case study. Evangelists in America are not only a mobilized demographic force or a community emboldened by sympathetic elements in government. The new technology of evangelism operates with a subtlety that is particularly insidious. Recognizing that no one wants to be screamed at about eternal damnation, evangelical groups on campus react to difference first with an invitation. Ardle insists that sin is the great equalizing force, but with a catch: “Everybody will be judged for their sin. But the only way I escape judgment is because of Jesus Christ, because I have placed my life in his hands.” The invitation is for everybody, but the promise of salvation quickly turns into judgment if a homosexual refuses to “become” straight, or a Muslim refuses the “enlightenment” of Jesus. Campus evangelical groups are a comforting presence for some students, but they remain part of a well-oiled fundamentalist machine that operates internationally on the premises of self-righteousness, intolerance and exclusion.
from The Michigan Independent
Nate Ardle looks more like a normal guy working on his laptop in the Union than a spiritual leader. He enjoys the hit series “24,” the occasional computer game, and time with the family. And he’s really into Jesus. As Pastor for Campus Crusade for Christ (Cru), Ardle leads a ministry aimed at the common college student. “We feel like every person needs to have a relationship with Christ,” he says. At the University of Michigan, Cru works alongside evangelical churches like New Life to infuse the good news with mass appeal. Less reliant on fear-mongering, campus evangelism is guided by ‘Christian rock’ strategies of planting the faith into the mainstream. It seems to be working. New Life’s community has outgrown its worship space in the Modern Language Building and is finishing construction of a new chapel for its 900 congregants. Until then, Sunday services get fired up fashionably late at 10:01 and 12:01 and hundreds pack into MLB Auditorium 3 seeking the promised “relevant, guilt-free, rockin’ good time.” This ain’t your grandma’s church. It’s an interactive concert, God’s Woodstock, and for evangelicals, it’s cool to be “saved.”
But these groups don’t thrive on the campaign of cool alone. The church community attracts students seeking personal guidance or a way to put their faith into action. Members of both New Life and Cru sign up for service trips aimed at quelling AIDS in Africa, hunger in Haiti, and hurricane destruction in New Orleans. These voyages don’t escape the complex history of missionary work and usually retain some strain of self-righteous zeal. Even with positive by-products, missions are part of the proselytization work for believers who see sin and depravity in the ‘underdeveloped’ world.
Pastor Ardle’s Campus Crusade for Christ is equally committed to spreading the word locally. The community is 300 strong and members can be seen armed with the Bible and pocket-sized pamphlets that read, “Would you like to know God personally?” Unlike traveling preachers who bring their one-man show to campuses to decry the sins of secularism, groups like New Life and Cru are taking a more delicate approach. The campus is a place where evangelicals have come not to scold so much as to tap into campus life and construct believers from the grassroots level. Ardle is a prime example. Not too many years ago, the pastor and his wife got involved as students in the evangelical community at Ohio State University. Now, his ministry in Ann Arbor cultivates the next generation of church leadership.
Gaia Stenson grew up in Michigan in an agnostic household. She pinpoints the moment in high school, at age 17, when she became interested in God. At a time when many high school kids are embracing Atheism as a response to school uniforms or Sunday morning mass, Stenson sought small group Bible study and found a community that really cared for each other. “I didn’t feel cornered, or judged, or pressured in any way,” she says. Stenson’s thoughtfulness is surprising. She’s a far cry from wild-eyed evangelists who trumpet rehearsed Bible verses laced with scorn. After graduating from U-M last year, Stenson decided to work for New Life as a campus organizer. “There have been a lot of bad things done in Jesus’ name,” she says. “Church positions have been used for power or oppression. I am ashamed at times, and deeply saddened that things have occurred.” Even so, she remains compelled by Jesus’ message, despite those who distort it: “I am not ashamed of the core of what Christ is about. That, in its most pure form, is the most beautiful thing.”
But is there an objective message? Faith is interpretative and interpretation involves selectivity. Some Christians see Jesus as a resolute pacifist, the ultimate peacemaker. For others, like Ardle, “Jesus doesn’t really address the issue of war very directly.” Both views depend on the emphasis of certain passages and the avoidance of others, and strain the logic of those who view the Bible as divine in its entirety. The good book has been a vessel through which people have sanctified their pre-existing political agendas for centuries. Its evolution is continually at the whim of power, illustrated by the multitude of successive translations and editions, each with their own adaptation of the text. This distortion has left a distinctly human imprint on the supposed word of God.
Believers all infuse their power into the Bible, but some have more power than others. There is a hierarchical relationship between national organizations and individual congregants. Groups like the Greater Commission Ministries fund church planting projects and have created a network of satellite churches, like New Life Ann Arbor. President Bush has helped to empower these umbrella groups by issuing executive orders for the establishment of “Centers for Faith-Based and Community Initiatives,” within government, which allow religious groups access to federal funds. The National Association of Evangelicals has received not only monetary support for its agenda but an amplified voice within Bush’s born-again boardroom.
Ardle’s ministry is also one chapter within an enormous international organization that bears the same name. The predominant interpretations on modern evangelism are forged at the top, where decision making power resides. It’s a pervasive traditionalism among conservative elites that facilitates a certain dissemination of God’s view on gay marriage. It’s the perceived clash with Islamic fundamentalists that compels evangelical leaders to pull out verses from “Romans” to justify war against the wrongdoers. And then there are the millions who relate to this brand of evangelism; those who fill the pews (or stadium style seating) of mega-churches every Sunday to have their worldview sanctified.
Pastor Ardle maintains that evangelism is not political. Though not overtly partisan, his carefully crafted statements of the faith do contain something fundamentally political, and at times paradoxical. Acceptance and judgment exist in tension alongside each other. New Life’s website embraces this tension too, speaking of eternal love and eternal damnation: “God declares righteous all who put their faith in Christ alone for their salvation.” For those who don’t honor the Bible, a less upbeat promise. “At physical death the unbeliever enters immediately into eternal, conscious separation from the Lord and awaits…everlasting suffering, judgment and condemnation,” the site reads.
This tension is reflected in specific issues like the dominant evangelical view on homosexuality. Ardle adds a disclaimer to his comments, emphasizing that it is not the goal of his ministry to condemn gay people. But as he elaborates, the judgment comes forth, less shrouded in niceties. “It would be just as sinful for me to commit adultery against my wife, as for someone to be in a homosexual relationship,” he says. “Both would be repugnant in the eyes of God.” Given the battle raging over gay marriage on state ballots, Ardle’s ministry finds itself intimately entangled in struggles of earthly power.
Though Stenson and Ardle represent a diversity within evangelism, there are central ideas that unify their community. To give your life to Jesus involves making, as Stenson asserts, “an exclusive claim on truth.” Choosing not to embrace Jesus is not simply a matter of preference, but a matter of eternal life or eternal death. Even the more tolerant amongst evangelicals seem steadfast in their conviction that theirs is the only way to “salvation.” This is hard for Stenson. “In terms of scripture, and what I believe, there is one way, and I’m fully aware that that is offensive, and hard to deal with, but it becomes an issue of standing on truth,” she says. But presuming to know truth on such questions has often had bloody consequences.
The problem of fundamentalism is not exclusive to Christianity, but the American brand presents a stunning case study. Evangelists in America are not only a mobilized demographic force or a community emboldened by sympathetic elements in government. The new technology of evangelism operates with a subtlety that is particularly insidious. Recognizing that no one wants to be screamed at about eternal damnation, evangelical groups on campus react to difference first with an invitation. Ardle insists that sin is the great equalizing force, but with a catch: “Everybody will be judged for their sin. But the only way I escape judgment is because of Jesus Christ, because I have placed my life in his hands.” The invitation is for everybody, but the promise of salvation quickly turns into judgment if a homosexual refuses to “become” straight, or a Muslim refuses the “enlightenment” of Jesus. Campus evangelical groups are a comforting presence for some students, but they remain part of a well-oiled fundamentalist machine that operates internationally on the premises of self-righteousness, intolerance and exclusion.
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