BCTC Peace and Justice Coalition

Studio 360: Sontag, Hemon, War

noreply@blogger.com (Thivai Abhor) — Fri, 30 May 2008 16:54:00 +0000

Sontag, Hemon, War
Studio 360 (WNYC)
Host: Kurt Anderson

How artists help us to make sense of war. ... Kurt Andersen revisits his conversation with the late writer Susan Sontag. Recorded a month before the war in Iraq began and only a year before her death, Sontag looks at how we interpret images of war, and tells us how she staged theater in the war zone. Also, novelists who escaped war find meaning in poetry, and two film critics look at how American filmmakers have fought and refought the Viet Nam war on-screen.

To Listen to the Episode

Collection of Urgently Needed Items for Earthquake Victims in Sichuan, China (May 31)

noreply@blogger.com (Thivai Abhor) — Thu, 29 May 2008 18:52:00 +0000

From: CHINESE STUDENT &SCHOLAR ASSOCIATION on behalf of UK CSSA
Sent: Wed 5/28/2008 11:49 PM
To: CSSA@LSV.UKY.EDU
Subject: [FW]Report from KYCAA ( 肯塔基华人协会)
Dear Friends;

This Saturday morning, May 31, 10:30 AM to 12:30 PM, the Kentucky Chinese American Association (KYCAA) will hold a send-off event at the Lexington Chinese Christian Church (LCCC) for urgently needed items that are being collected, including household water purifiers, medical gloves, sleeping bags, comforters, tents, etc., for earthquake victims in Sichuan, China. This event is co-sponsored by LCCC, the Lexington Chinese School (LCS) and UK Chinese Students and Scholars Association (UK-CSSA). Please see attached flyer for more details.

Besides packing the supplies, we STRONGLY encourage anyone who cares to write their own loving words and blessings, or even simple drawings, and pack them into the packages, in order to show our support to the victims, to the rescuers, and to the volunteers. Our theme is to let those who suffered know that people in a small Midwestern American city care.

If weather ! is good, the event will be in the LCCC parking lot. If it rains (or snows), the Fellowship Hall will be the location.

We will be selling the T-shirt with the Association logo (and the old Association name) on spot for $5.00 apiece, with all proceeds going to the disaster relief fund.

Through the courtesy of Culmei Productions, a PSA video of calling for donations/help has been produced and posted on YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YhHbUn9f79M

Should you need any additional information, please contact myself or Jianhua Su . Thank you again for your support.

George

Z. George Zhang, PhD, MBA
Vice President, KYCAA - http://www.kycaa.org

ACLU "Blog of Rights": Because Freedom Can't Blog Itself!

noreply@blogger.com (Thivai Abhor) — Wed, 21 May 2008 21:25:00 +0000

A great idea:

ACLU: Blog of Rights

Film School: Jennifer Baichwal Director of Manufactured Landscapes

noreply@blogger.com (Thivai Abhor) — Wed, 21 May 2008 18:49:00 +0000

(A nod to Michael Marchman who gave me a copy of this film!)

MANUFACTURED LANDSCAPES
Film School (KUCI)
Hosts: Nathan Callahan and Mike Kaspar

An interview with Jennifer Baichwal director of Manufactured Landscapes. Edward Burtynsky is internationally acclaimed for his large-scale photographs of nature transformed by industry. Manufactured Landscapes – a stunning documentary by award winning director Baichwal – follows Burtynsky to China, as he captures the effects of the country’s massive industrial revolution. This remarkable film leads us to meditate on human endeavour and its impact on the planet.

To Listen to the Episode (MP3)

"The Slightly North of Center" series: Erik Reece on Lost Mountains and Just Societies

noreply@blogger.com (Thivai Abhor) — Wed, 21 May 2008 17:49:00 +0000

(Kudos to Josh for being the coolest bar owner in town and for being a supporter of Lexington community activism/arts!)

Sponsored by Al's Bar

Description:
Al's Bar presents "The Slightly North of Center" series - talks for and by the community. (This means you!)

This week: Erik Reece on Lost Mountains and Just Societies.

Cost of admission: Caring.

Where:
Al's Bar at the corner of Sixth & North Limestone
Lexington, KY
40508

When: 06:15 PM - 07:45 PM

More:

Erik Reece: Death of a Mountain

Film School: Brett Morgen Director of Chicago 10

noreply@blogger.com (Thivai Abhor) — Wed, 21 May 2008 16:13:00 +0000

CHICAGO 10
Film School (KUCI)
Hosts: Nathan Callahan and Mike Kaspar

An interview with Brett Morgen director of Chicago 10 — an animated docudrama about the 1968 Chicago Democratic National Convention anti-war protests. Mixing animation with archival footage, Chicago 10 explores the build-up to and unraveling of the Chicago Conspiracy Trial of 8 activists set up as scapegoats by the US government. The mash-up film is a parable of hope, courage and ultimate victory, the story of young Americans speaking out and taking a stand in the face of armed oppression. Starring the voices of Hank Azaria, Dylan Baker, Nick Nolte, Mark Ruffalo, Roy Scheider, Liev Schreiber, and Jeffrey Wright, Chicago 10 premiered on opening night of the 2007 Sundance Film Festival. Morgen is an Academy Award nominated producer and director. His credits also include the Robert Evans biopic The Kid Stays in the Picture (2002), which he wrote, produced, and directed (with Nanette Burstein).

To Listen to the Episode (MP3)

Podcast of the Bands that Played at the 3rd Annual Peace and Global Citizenship Festival

noreply@blogger.com (Thivai Abhor) — Wed, 21 May 2008 15:47:00 +0000

(This is a great series of bands and thanks to Ben Worth we can listen to them online! Below is his announcement...)

I am pleased to announce the first in a series of podcasts presenting music from the May 10, 2008 BCTC Peace Festival. The music was recorded on a beautiful Spring afternoon on the Cooper Campus of BCTC. You’ll be treated to a truly diverse group of musicians spanning many popular genres: folk, blues, bluegrass, rock and roll, and world music.

This music series is part of LexTunes, an ongoing podcast of local musicians. Episode three of LexTunes is the first to feature music from the Peace festival. The full festival will appear in subsequent episodes over the course of the summer.

You can listen to the music online or subscribe to the podcast in iTunes or as an RSS feed in your web browser. Here are the links:

Listen online

Subscribe in iTunes

Subscribe as RSS

Lastly, my thanks to all the musicians and organizers who helped make the Peace Festival such a success. A great time was had by all,

Ben Worth
Lextunes

Chalmers Johnson: Review of Sheldon Wolin's Democracy Incorporated

noreply@blogger.com (Thivai Abhor) — Mon, 19 May 2008 17:13:00 +0000

(Sheldon Wolin's Politics and Vision is one of the best political science/theory books I have ever read. I plan on reading it again and I am going to get his new book described below...--Michael)

Inverted Totalitarianism: A New Way of Understanding How the U.S. Is Controlled
By Chalmers Johnson
Truthdig

We now have a new, comprehensive diagnosis of our failings as a democratic polity by one of our most seasoned and respected political philosophers. For well over two generations, Sheldon Wolin taught the history of political philosophy from Plato to the present to Berkeley and Princeton graduate students (including me; I took his seminars at Berkeley in the late 1950s, thus influencing my approach to political science ever since). He is the author of the prize-winning classic Politics and Vision (1960; expanded edition, 2006) and Tocqueville Between Two Worlds (2001), among many other works.

His new book, Democracy Incorporated: Managed Democracy and the Specter of Inverted Totalitarianism, is a devastating critique of the contemporary government of the United States -- including what has happened to it in recent years and what must be done if it is not to disappear into history along with its classic totalitarian predecessors: Fascist Italy, Nazi Germany and Bolshevik Russia. The hour is very late and the possibility that the American people might pay attention to what is wrong and take the difficult steps to avoid a national Gtterdmmerung are remote, but Wolin's is the best analysis of why the presidential election of 2008 probably will not do anything to mitigate our fate. This book demonstrates why political science, properly practiced, is the master social science.

Wolin's work is fully accessible. Understanding his argument does not depend on possessing any specialized knowledge, but it would still be wise to read him in short bursts and think about what he is saying before moving on. His analysis of the contemporary American crisis relies on a historical perspective going back to the original constitutional agreement of 1789 and includes particular attention to the advanced levels of social democracy attained during the New Deal and the contemporary mythology that the U.S., beginning during World War II, wields unprecedented world power.

Given this historical backdrop, Wolin introduces three new concepts to help analyze what we have lost as a nation. His master idea is "inverted totalitarianism," which is reinforced by two subordinate notions that accompany and promote it -- "managed democracy" and "Superpower," the latter always capitalized and used without a direct article. Until the reader gets used to this particular literary tic, the term Superpower can be confusing. The author uses it as if it were an independent agent, comparable to Superman or Spiderman, and one that is inherently incompatible with constitutional government and democracy.

Wolin writes, "Our thesis is this: it is possible for a form of totalitarianism, different from the classical one, to evolve from a putatively 'strong democracy' instead of a 'failed' one." His understanding of democracy is classical but also populist, anti-elitist and only slightly represented in the Constitution of the United States. "Democracy," he writes, "is about the conditions that make it possible for ordinary people to better their lives by becoming political beings and by making power responsive to their hopes and needs." It depends on the existence of a demos -- "a politically engaged and empowered citizenry, one that voted, deliberated, and occupied all branches of public office." Wolin argues that to the extent the United States on occasion came close to genuine democracy, it was because its citizens struggled against and momentarily defeated the elitism that was written into the Constitution.

"No working man or ordinary farmer or shopkeeper," Wolin points out, "helped to write the Constitution." He argues, "The American political system was not born a democracy, but born with a bias against democracy. It was constructed by those who were either skeptical about democracy or hostile to it. Democratic advance proved to be slow, uphill, forever incomplete. The republic existed for three-quarters of a century before formal slavery was ended; another hundred years before black Americans were assured of their voting rights. Only in the twentieth century were women guaranteed the vote and trade unions the right to bargain collectively. In none of these instances has victory been complete: women still lack full equality, racism persists, and the destruction of the remnants of trade unions remains a goal of corporate strategies. Far from being innate, democracy in America has gone against the grain, against the very forms by which the political and economic power of the country has been and continues to be ordered." Wolin can easily control his enthusiasm for James Madison, the primary author of the Constitution, and he sees the New Deal as perhaps the only period of American history in which rule by a true demos prevailed.

To reduce a complex argument to its bare bones, since the Depression, the twin forces of managed democracy and Superpower have opened the way for something new under the sun: "inverted totalitarianism," a form every bit as totalistic as the classical version but one based on internalized co-optation, the appearance of freedom, political disengagement rather than mass mobilization, and relying more on "private media" than on public agencies to disseminate propaganda that reinforces the official version of events. It is inverted because it does not require the use of coercion, police power and a messianic ideology as in the Nazi, Fascist and Stalinist versions (although note that the United States has the highest percentage of its citizens in prison -- 751 per 100,000 people -- of any nation on Earth). According to Wolin, inverted totalitarianism has "emerged imperceptibly, unpremeditatedly, and in seeming unbroken continuity with the nation's political traditions."

The genius of our inverted totalitarian system "lies in wielding total power without appearing to, without establishing concentration camps, or enforcing ideological uniformity, or forcibly suppressing dissident elements so long as they remain ineffectual. A demotion in the status and stature of the 'sovereign people' to patient subjects is symptomatic of systemic change, from democracy as a method of 'popularizing' power to democracy as a brand name for a product marketable at home and marketable abroad. The new system, inverted totalitarianism, is one that professes the opposite of what, in fact, it is. The United States has become the showcase of how democracy can be managed without appearing to be suppressed."

Among the factors that have promoted inverted totalitarianism are the practice and psychology of advertising and the rule of "market forces" in many other contexts than markets, continuous technological advances that encourage elaborate fantasies (computer games, virtual avatars, space travel), the penetration of mass media communication and propaganda into every household in the country, and the total co-optation of the universities. Among the commonplace fables of our society are hero worship and tales of individual prowess, eternal youthfulness, beauty through surgery, action measured in nanoseconds, and a dream-laden culture of ever-expanding control and possibility, whose adepts are prone to fantasies because the vast majority have imagination but little scientific knowledge. Masters of this world are masters of images and their manipulation. Wolin reminds us that the image of Adolf Hitler flying to Nuremberg in 1934 that opens Leni Riefenstahl's classic film "Triumph of the Will" was repeated on May 1, 2003, with President George Bush's apparent landing of a Navy warplane on the flight deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln to proclaim "Mission Accomplished" in Iraq.

On inverted totalitarianism's "self-pacifying" university campuses compared with the usual intellectual turmoil surrounding independent centers of learning, Wolin writes, "Through a combination of governmental contracts, corporate and foundation funds, joint projects involving university and corporate researchers, and wealthy individual donors, universities (especially so-called research universities), intellectuals, scholars, and researchers have been seamlessly integrated into the system. No books burned, no refugee Einsteins. For the first time in the history of American higher education top professors are made wealthy by the system, commanding salaries and perks that a budding CEO might envy."

The main social sectors promoting and reinforcing this modern Shangri-La are corporate power, which is in charge of managed democracy, and the military-industrial complex, which is in charge of Superpower. The main objectives of managed democracy are to increase the profits of large corporations, dismantle the institutions of social democracy (Social Security, unions, welfare, public health services, public housing and so forth), and roll back the social and political ideals of the New Deal. Its primary tool is privatization. Managed democracy aims at the "selective abdication of governmental responsibility for the well-being of the citizenry" under cover of improving "efficiency" and cost-cutting.

We now have a new, comprehensive diagnosis of our failings as a democratic polity by one of our most seasoned and respected political philosophers. For well over two generations, Sheldon Wolin taught the history of political philosophy from Plato to the present to Berkeley and Princeton graduate students (including me; I took his seminars at Berkeley in the late 1950s, thus influencing my approach to political science ever since). He is the author of the prize-winning classic Politics and Vision (1960; expanded edition, 2006) and Tocqueville Between Two Worlds (2001), among many other works.

His new book, Democracy Incorporated: Managed Democracy and the Specter of Inverted Totalitarianism, is a devastating critique of the contemporary government of the United States -- including what has happened to it in recent years and what must be done if it is not to disappear into history along with its classic totalitarian predecessors: Fascist Italy, Nazi Germany and Bolshevik Russia. The hour is very late and the possibility that the American people might pay attention to what is wrong and take the difficult steps to avoid a national Gtterdmmerung are remote, but Wolin's is the best analysis of why the presidential election of 2008 probably will not do anything to mitigate our fate. This book demonstrates why political science, properly practiced, is the master social science.

Wolin's work is fully accessible. Understanding his argument does not depend on possessing any specialized knowledge, but it would still be wise to read him in short bursts and think about what he is saying before moving on. His analysis of the contemporary American crisis relies on a historical perspective going back to the original constitutional agreement of 1789 and includes particular attention to the advanced levels of social democracy attained during the New Deal and the contemporary mythology that the U.S., beginning during World War II, wields unprecedented world power.

Given this historical backdrop, Wolin introduces three new concepts to help analyze what we have lost as a nation. His master idea is "inverted totalitarianism," which is reinforced by two subordinate notions that accompany and promote it -- "managed democracy" and "Superpower," the latter always capitalized and used without a direct article. Until the reader gets used to this particular literary tic, the term Superpower can be confusing. The author uses it as if it were an independent agent, comparable to Superman or Spiderman, and one that is inherently incompatible with constitutional government and democracy.

Wolin writes, "Our thesis is this: it is possible for a form of totalitarianism, different from the classical one, to evolve from a putatively 'strong democracy' instead of a 'failed' one." His understanding of democracy is classical but also populist, anti-elitist and only slightly represented in the Constitution of the United States. "Democracy," he writes, "is about the conditions that make it possible for ordinary people to better their lives by becoming political beings and by making power responsive to their hopes and needs." It depends on the existence of a demos -- "a politically engaged and empowered citizenry, one that voted, deliberated, and occupied all branches of public office." Wolin argues that to the extent the United States on occasion came close to genuine democracy, it was because its citizens struggled against and momentarily defeated the elitism that was written into the Constitution.

"No working man or ordinary farmer or shopkeeper," Wolin points out, "helped to write the Constitution." He argues, "The American political system was not born a democracy, but born with a bias against democracy. It was constructed by those who were either skeptical about democracy or hostile to it. Democratic advance proved to be slow, uphill, forever incomplete. The republic existed for three-quarters of a century before formal slavery was ended; another hundred years before black Americans were assured of their voting rights. Only in the twentieth century were women guaranteed the vote and trade unions the right to bargain collectively. In none of these instances has victory been complete: women still lack full equality, racism persists, and the destruction of the remnants of trade unions remains a goal of corporate strategies. Far from being innate, democracy in America has gone against the grain, against the very forms by which the political and economic power of the country has been and continues to be ordered." Wolin can easily control his enthusiasm for James Madison, the primary author of the Constitution, and he sees the New Deal as perhaps the only period of American history in which rule by a true demos prevailed.

To reduce a complex argument to its bare bones, since the Depression, the twin forces of managed democracy and Superpower have opened the way for something new under the sun: "inverted totalitarianism," a form every bit as totalistic as the classical version but one based on internalized co-optation, the appearance of freedom, political disengagement rather than mass mobilization, and relying more on "private media" than on public agencies to disseminate propaganda that reinforces the official version of events. It is inverted because it does not require the use of coercion, police power and a messianic ideology as in the Nazi, Fascist and Stalinist versions (although note that the United States has the highest percentage of its citizens in prison -- 751 per 100,000 people -- of any nation on Earth). According to Wolin, inverted totalitarianism has "emerged imperceptibly, unpremeditatedly, and in seeming unbroken continuity with the nation's political traditions."

The genius of our inverted totalitarian system "lies in wielding total power without appearing to, without establishing concentration camps, or enforcing ideological uniformity, or forcibly suppressing dissident elements so long as they remain ineffectual. A demotion in the status and stature of the 'sovereign people' to patient subjects is symptomatic of systemic change, from democracy as a method of 'popularizing' power to democracy as a brand name for a product marketable at home and marketable abroad. The new system, inverted totalitarianism, is one that professes the opposite of what, in fact, it is. The United States has become the showcase of how democracy can be managed without appearing to be suppressed."

Among the factors that have promoted inverted totalitarianism are the practice and psychology of advertising and the rule of "market forces" in many other contexts than markets, continuous technological advances that encourage elaborate fantasies (computer games, virtual avatars, space travel), the penetration of mass media communication and propaganda into every household in the country, and the total co-optation of the universities. Among the commonplace fables of our society are hero worship and tales of individual prowess, eternal youthfulness, beauty through surgery, action measured in nanoseconds, and a dream-laden culture of ever-expanding control and possibility, whose adepts are prone to fantasies because the vast majority have imagination but little scientific knowledge. Masters of this world are masters of images and their manipulation. Wolin reminds us that the image of Adolf Hitler flying to Nuremberg in 1934 that opens Leni Riefenstahl's classic film "Triumph of the Will" was repeated on May 1, 2003, with President George Bush's apparent landing of a Navy warplane on the flight deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln to proclaim "Mission Accomplished" in Iraq.

On inverted totalitarianism's "self-pacifying" university campuses compared with the usual intellectual turmoil surrounding independent centers of learning, Wolin writes, "Through a combination of governmental contracts, corporate and foundation funds, joint projects involving university and corporate researchers, and wealthy individual donors, universities (especially so-called research universities), intellectuals, scholars, and researchers have been seamlessly integrated into the system. No books burned, no refugee Einsteins. For the first time in the history of American higher education top professors are made wealthy by the system, commanding salaries and perks that a budding CEO might envy."

The main social sectors promoting and reinforcing this modern Shangri-La are corporate power, which is in charge of managed democracy, and the military-industrial complex, which is in charge of Superpower. The main objectives of managed democracy are to increase the profits of large corporations, dismantle the institutions of social democracy (Social Security, unions, welfare, public health services, public housing and so forth), and roll back the social and political ideals of the New Deal. Its primary tool is privatization. Managed democracy aims at the "selective abdication of governmental responsibility for the well-being of the citizenry" under cover of improving "efficiency" and cost-cutting.

Managed democracy is a powerful solvent for any vestiges of democracy left in the American political system, but its powers are weak in comparison with those of Superpower. Superpower is the sponsor, defender and manager of American imperialism and militarism, aspects of American government that have always been dominated by elites, enveloped in executive-branch secrecy, and allegedly beyond the ken of ordinary citizens to understand or oversee. Superpower is preoccupied with weapons of mass destruction, clandestine manipulation of foreign policy (sometimes domestic policy, too), military operations, and the fantastic sums of money demanded from the public by the military-industrial complex. (The U.S. military spends more than all other militaries on Earth combined. The official U.S. defense budget for fiscal year 2008 is $623 billion; the next closest national military budget is China's at $65 billion, according to the Central Intelligence Agency.)

Foreign military operations literally force democracy to change its nature: "In order to cope with the imperial contingencies of foreign war and occupation," according to Wolin, "democracy will alter its character, not only by assuming new behaviors abroad (e.g., ruthlessness, indifference to suffering, disregard of local norms, the inequalities in ruling a subject population) but also by operating on revised, power-expansive assumptions at home. It will, more often than not, try to manipulate the public rather than engage its members in deliberation. It will demand greater powers and broader discretion in their use ('state secrets'), a tighter control over society's resources, more summary methods of justice, and less patience for legalities, opposition, and clamor for socioeconomic reforms."

Imperialism and democracy are, in Wolin's terms, literally incompatible, and the ever greater resources devoted to imperialism mean that democracy will inevitably wither and die. He writes, "Imperial politics represents the conquest of domestic politics and the latter's conversion into a crucial element of inverted totalitarianism. It makes no sense to ask how the democratic citizen could 'participate' substantively in imperial politics; hence it is not surprising that the subject of empire is taboo in electoral debates. No major politician or party has so much as publicly remarked on the existence of an American empire."

To Read the Entire Review

More:

To Read the First Chapter of Democracy Incorporated

To Read the First Chapter of Politics and Vision

John Cusack: Outsourced Warfare Represents a "Radical, Dangerous, Disgusting Ideology"

noreply@blogger.com (Thivai Abhor) — Mon, 19 May 2008 17:04:00 +0000

This film looks good and Cusack's interview is refreshing... The entire interview is highly recommended!)

John Cusack: Outsourced Warfare Represents a "Radical, Dangerous, Disgusting Ideology"
Interviewed by Joshua Holland
AlterNet

John Cusack's new film, War, Inc., is set in a fictionalized Iraq. It's a funny film. It might have been tough to watch if it weren't, given the level of destruction that five years of occupation have wrought on the real country.

Cusack, along with co-writers Mark Leyner and Jeremy Pikser, offer up a dystopian vision of the future of privatized warfare set in "Turaqistan," a presumably oil-rich country that, if it really existed, would surely be somewhere that most Americans couldn't find on a map.

The film's humor rests on very real and demonstrably disastrous trends in neoconservative foreign policy of recent years -- a lethal war of choice and profit, the dismantling of states and plundering of their resources, a profound cultural insensitivity, lack of accountability and reckless disregard for easily-predicted consequences -- which are then pushed to the absurd.

In Iraq, journalists are embedded with troops and tour Potemkin villages to demonstrate progress; in Turaqistan, they're given virtual-reality tours of combat without leaving the cozy confines of "Emerald City," War, Inc.'s version of Baghdad's Green Zone. In Iraq, contractors like Halliburton have squeezed billions out of the treasury for substandard work that has left the country's infrastructure decimated; Turaqistan is wholly-managed by the Halliburton-esque Tamerlane corporation, and the tanks that patrol the country's burned-out streets are covered with NASCAR-style logos for everything from Popeye's Chicken to Golden Palace online gambling.

Fans of the underground classic Grosse Pointe Blank will find much that is familiar. Cusack plays a conflicted killer -- this time a lethal assassin -- an extreme kind of corporate fixer -- whom Tamarlane dispatches to far-flung locales whenever someone of influence threatens the company's bottom line. The film has the same kind of sardonic and referential humor, and employs the same over-the-top ultra-violence pushed to comic extremes. Joan Cusack, in a role reminiscent of the one she played in Grosse Pointe Blank, again steals the show with her few minutes of screen time.

With sharp writing and strong performances by Marisa Tomei, Hilary Duff and Ben Kingsley, War, Inc. is provocative and satisfying. But it may have failed in one notable regard. Turaqistan, for all its insanity, is not all that much crazier than the reality of post-invasion Iraq; a week after the film arrived at AlterNet's office, and with mortars raining down in Baghdad's heavily-fortified Green Zone, a Los Angeles-based company announced that it's planning to build a Disney-like skateboard- and theme-park in Baghdad. Never mind that most Iraqi kids have never seen a skateboard -- a spokesperson for the company promised that a shipment of free boards would arrive in Iraq before the park's opening.

AlterNet caught up with John Cusack recently to discuss the inspirations for his film.

Joshua Holland: Tell me a little bit about your new project.

John Cusack: Well, we thought of it as an incendiary political cartoon that would hopefully put America's current imperial adventures in Iraq into a kind of a larger context. And maybe put a different lens on what privatization means; what this plan has been and what it's been like when people try to privatize the very core things it means to be a state. And what it means to spread an ideology like that across the globe.

There are 180,000 contractors in Iraq and about 160,000 troops, right? And if one just takes that trend to its logical conclusion, well that's where "War, Inc." is set. It takes place at a time in the near future when warfare us an entirely corporate affair.

Holland: As a political nerd, it struck me as a highly referential film. I felt like your character, to some extent, was loosely patterned maybe on John Perkins, who wrote Confessions of an Economic Hit Man.

Cusack: You know, that book came out when we were already making the film, I believe. And I know we were writing it when Naomi Klein's groundbreaking piece called "Baghdad Year Zero" came out in Harper's. She's a journalist I've always greatly admired and respected. And then as we were making the movie, she was writing the Shock Doctrine. I remember being aware of it while we were writing it. And I remember talking about it. But you know, this character was also based on [former U.S. Envoy to Iraq] Paul Bremer flying in while Baghdad was still burning and literally ruling by Fiat. Sitting down in Saddam's old palace and banging out 50 or 60 new laws that would allow 100 percent foreign ownership of previously state-owned industry by these outside corporations. And he was running around in those Brooks Brothers suits and the military boots when he did it.

To Read the Rest of the Interview and to Watch a Trailer for the Film

"Time to Go Home" by Michael Franti and Spearhead

Andres Cruz, editor at La Voz, on Lexington's Immigration Routes (5/15)

noreply@blogger.com (Thivai Abhor) — Tue, 13 May 2008 16:27:00 +0000

Come to Al's this Thursday to hear Andres Cruz, editor at La Voz,
speak on Lexington's Immigration Routes. Talk begins at 6:15. Future
talks below.

danny

Al's Bar Presents

Slightly North of Center
talks for and by the community
(This means You.)

Price of Admission: Caring

May 15: Andres Cruz on Lexington's Immigration Routes

May 22: Erik Reece on Lost Mountains and Just Societies

May 29: Patrick Smith and Shanna Sanders on Freddy vs. Jason
(Community and Place in Horror Movies)

June 5: Michael Marchman on Global Capitalism and Geographies of Resistance

*Unless otherwise noted, all talks begin at 6:15 on Thursday

**Al's Bar is located on the corner of Limestone and Sixth. For music
info, please visit Al's Bar on My Space

Slavoj Zizek on the Iraq War, the Bush Presidency, the War on Terror & More

noreply@blogger.com (Thivai Abhor) — Mon, 12 May 2008 17:24:00 +0000

(The first part of this interview with Slavoj Zizek “Everybody in the World Except US Citizens Should Be Allowed to Vote and Elect the American Government”)

Philosopher Slavoj Zizek on the Iraq War, the Bush Presidency, the War on Terror & More
Host: Amy Goodman
Democracy Now

Born in Slovenia, Slavoj Zizek has written more than fifty books and is well known for building on the work of the influential French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan. He speaks to sold-out audiences around the world and is the subject of an art installation called “Slavoj Zizek Does Not Exist” and is the star of two films. He was also politically active in Slovenia and campaigned for the Presidency in 1990, when it became the first Yugoslav republic to hold a free election. His latest book came out earlier this year. Its called “In Defense of Lost Causes.”

Listen/Watch/Read

Bluegrass Community and Technical College: Fair Trade, From a Coffee Grower’s Perspective (May 10)

noreply@blogger.com (Thivai Abhor) — Fri, 09 May 2008 18:01:00 +0000

Special Presentation
Fair Trade, From a Coffee Grower’s Perspective

Saturday, May 10, from 1:00-2:00 p.m.
Oswald Building Auditorium (OB 230),
Bluegrass Community and Technical College
470 Cooper Drive
Lexington, Kentucky

Al's Bar Presents: Slightly North of Center

noreply@blogger.com (Thivai Abhor) — Wed, 07 May 2008 16:44:00 +0000

(From Danny Mayer)

Al’s Bar Presents

Slightly North of Center talks for and by the community
(This means You.)

Price of Admission: Caring

Unless otherwise noted, all talks begin at 6:15 on Thursday

May 8: Jim Embry on Community Food

May 15: Andres Cruz on Lexington’s Immigration Routes

May 22: Erik Reece on Lost Mountains and Just Societies

May 29: Patrick Smith and Shanna Sanders on Media in the Plural

June 5: Michael Marchman on Global Capitalism and Geographies of Resistance

**Al’s Bar is located on the corner of Limestone and Sixth. For music info, please visit Al's Bar

Life During Wartime; America's Chemically Modified 21st Century Soldiers

noreply@blogger.com (Thivai Abhor) — Sat, 03 May 2008 17:08:00 +0000

I remember reading Lucius Shepard's novella "R & R" in 1986 (later expanded into the 1987 novel Life During Wartime) and thinking how it was so far-fetched and fantastical. It was a hallucinatory tale of drug-modulated, technologically enhanced warriors of a dominant culture hunting down guerrilla resistance fighters in the jungles of Guatemala. More fantasy than fact? I guess not...

America's Chemically Modified 21st Century Soldiers
By Clayton Dach
Adbusters; Reposted at AlterNet

Armed with potent drugs and new technology, a dangerous breed of soldiers are being trained to fight America's future wars.

...

The Mediated Soldier

In the new model army, brute force and viscera are out. Cutting edge gadgetry, omniscient surveillance and precision long-distance termination is in. What motivates it all is the type of war we fear we'll be fighting.

On this, the strategists have spoken: with Iraq and Afghanistan as the testing grounds, the conflicts of the future will be guerrilla wars, open-ended, with no battle lines, no rules of engagement and ambivalent or openly hostile civilian populations in which any man, woman or child can turn combatant.

In breeding a future soldier for these future wars, we will inevitably leave behind the mere rectification of human weakness and enter into the realm of the superhuman. Glimpses of this realm have already become commonplace in the form of ceramic-Kevlar body armor and night-vision goggles -- wizardry that transforms squishy pink men into bullet-proof creatures of the night.

Such magic will continue apace under the auspices of dozens of military development initiatives across the globe, creating a species known variously as the Future Force Warrior by the U.S., FIST by the British Army, Félin by the French. All are merely the human components of broader visionary projects for what has been called "the army after next," the most noteworthy of which being the U.S. Army's Future Combat Systems. With a budget clocking in at $160 billion or so, FCS is not just one of history's most costly weapons programs; it is an all-encompassing modernization program, one that will usher in a total re-imagining of the armed forces. What FCS and its kin have imagined for soldiers is a battlefield experience increasingly mediated by technology, insulated in a cocoon of "force multipliers" -- military parlance for anything that allows you to accomplish more with fewer personnel. In concrete terms, that translates into an array of tools designed to enhance lethality and survivability: next-generation sidearms; headsets that provide live command and control, detailed geographic data and the ability to fire around corners; smart suits equipped with ultralight nanotech armor, micro-climate conditioning, real-time health monitoring and even automated medical care like CPR and drug delivery. Also on the docket are robotic exoskeletons that allow the soldiers wearing them to carry hundreds of pounds -- even while running -- without breaking a sweat, as well as handheld imaging equipment that grants the ability to see targets through walls.

None of these are sci-fi pipe dreams. The DARPA-developed Radar Scope is already in limited deployment, detecting human breathing through a foot of concrete on two AA batteries. Utah-based robotics company Sarcos is expected to deliver its prototype exoskeletons to the Army this year, at roughly the same time that many of the other Future Force Warrior components begin field testing. Full-scale production of a number of the systems is scheduled for early in the next decade.

The Absent Soldier

It is tempting to say that military technology is steadily transforming war into a video game. Yet there's a strange irony in the works: as the games claw themselves even closer to the look and feel of real, down-and-dirty warfare, real warfare is fluttering away into strategic and technological abstraction, effectively taking a step back from its own reality.

For all the PlayStation sexiness of the ultra lethal, force-multiplied warrior, the true fate of the in-the-flesh soldier is to vanish into the abstraction.

The explicit purpose of Future Combat Systems is to progressively supplement, to the point of ultimately displacing, the human soldier with a whole array of automated, autonomous and remote technologies -- things like unmanned surveillance drones, long-range and non-line-of-sight precision-guided munitions, and unmanned air and ground combat vehicles. Though the latter group may never look anything like Schwarzenegger minus skin, make no mistake that what we are talking about here is weaponized robots.

An oft-quoted U.S. Joint Forces Command study from 2003 (rather candidly titled Unmanned Effects: Taking the Human Out of the Loop) predicted that autonomous, networked robots -- faster and more lethal than human combatants -- could become the norm by 2025. That may prove overly confident, but a congressional mandate has already called for one-third of all U.S. military land vehicles to be unmanned by 2015, increasing to two-thirds by 2025.

If the idea of autonomous, homicidal robots dashing into troubled Third-World slums sends a major chill down your spine, you're certainly not alone. Well aware of the nightmarish optics, defense contractors and military brass alike have been presenting a united front, noting that this is about moving soldiers out of harm's way, not about deleting humans from the "kill chain" entirely.

While there is little doubt that protecting soldiers is the central motivation, shifting troops into a distant pixel-pushing role also performs a secondary purpose: it neatly removes obstacles for those looking to wage war overseas while expending as little of their domestic political capital as possible. You can call it a by-product, or you can call it an ulterior motive, depending upon how dismal your outlook is.

Whatever the reasons, as we lose ourselves in the lovely fantasy of sidestepping the maimed veterans and crying widows, we could be walking right into an even nastier pile of shit. During the bombing campaign that accompanied the 2003 coalition invasion of Iraq, satellite-guided munitions caused scores of accidental civilian deaths. If these people had perished at the barrel of coalition rifles, their deaths would have been called massacres; as it stands, they are mere technical glitches and failures of intelligence.

The moral here is straightforward: once the human presence in the kill chain is diluted, so too is accountability. The future's soldier could be one surrounded by an inveigling haze of pharmaceuticals, decision-making robots, errant bombs and faulty surveillance data; the only thing to emerge from this haze will be an exhilarating sense of our own guiltlessness. Alas, the populations against which we use our fancy toys are unlikely to share in the feeling.

To Read the Entire Article

Next Weekend Events!

noreply@blogger.com (Laura Webb) — Fri, 02 May 2008 23:45:00 +0000

Yes, this weekend is the Derby, sure. But next weekend's got stuff going on, too — stuff that's (dare I say it?! ;) ) even more interesting!

#1:

3rd Annual PEACE FAIR! (May 10th, 12:00-8:00 p.m.)

(The picture is a thumbnail; click on it to open the full-sized poster in a new window.)

FREE ADMISSION!

Music: The Swells, JenRose & the Kentucky Bootleggers, Lexington Children's Drum Choir, Lost Dog, Water, Wes Houp & High Bridge and more. Ending ceremony for peace by Pangaea Drums.

Kentucky Food: Terrapin Hill Farm, Slow Food Bluegrass

Children for Peace: Banners on the theme of human rights

Activities: Alternative transportation, environment, food & gardens, global cultures, health & well-being, peace, social justice, spirituality, youth & Mother's Day

Sound like fun? You bet it'll be!

#2:

Berea's International Festival! (May 9th-11th)

A whole lotta stuff going on, people. Check out the events schedule here.

Have fun!

— L. W.

EcoKY: Green News from Eastern Kentucky

noreply@blogger.com (Thivai Abhor) — Fri, 02 May 2008 19:52:00 +0000

(Courtesy of Beth Connors-Manke)

Dear Kentuckians--

Recently I've started a blog called EcoEKY: Green News from Eastern Kentucky I'm writing to introduce you to the blog and to ask your help with it.

The purpose of the blog is to share and promote information about sustainable activities in eastern Kentucky. The focus of the site is not to be "anti" coal or "anti" anything else, but to be "pro" ecological responsibility and "pro" sustainability. I hope the site will grow in information and expand in function, and will eventually become "the" place eastern Kentuckians go to when they want to know what's green in our part of the state. Right now, it's functioning mostly as a clearinghouse for eastern Kentucky news articles on anything green. The bulk of the information so far has been about PRIDE clean-ups and recycling, but I'd love to add more information on renewable energy, organic gardening, local food, sustainable forestry, environmental education, etc.

So, that's why I'm writing you. First, to ask you to check it out. But also, to ask your help with it. There're a few ways you can do that:

1) by sending me any up-to-date news item, or blog post, or link you see relating to anything sustainable in eastern Kentucky. (So far I'm thinking of "eastern Kentucky" as the Appalachian area south of I-64 and east of I-75.)

2) you could write short articles or announcements about anything sustainable you know is going on in the area and I could post them for you--giving you credit, of course.

or 3) you could become an active participant in the blog. I would love a few people to take me up on this. I would add you as a blog member, and you would be able to post news articles, announcements, and blogs yourself. This would really help to add depth to the site and make it more of a community effort.

There's also one other way you could help: I'm looking for the "perfect" eastern Kentucky green image to go at the top of the page. If you come across such an image (very "green," very Kentucky, but not so detailed as to obscure the text) let me know.

The "links" page is also non-functional right now, but I hope to have that up and going soon. In the meantime, feel free to send me what you think are essential links to list.

I thank you for your time.

Best regards--

Sara

PS--feel free to forward this message on to anyone you think might be interested in checking out or helping with the project. Thanks.

Democracy at Risk: The Need for a New Federal Policy in Education

noreply@blogger.com (Thivai Abhor) — Thu, 01 May 2008 15:45:00 +0000

Democracy at Risk: The Need for a New Federal Policy in Education
The Forum for Education and Democracy

More students live in poverty and lack health care than was true 35 years ago. Nearly one-fourth of U.S. children live in families below the poverty line, more than
in any other industrialized nation.

On the most recent international assessments, the U.S. ranked 21st of 30 OECD countries in science and 25th of 30 in mathematics — a drop from a few years earlier. U.S. outcomes are also among the most unequal in the world and the most reliant on socioeconomic status.

U.S. high school graduation rates have been stagnant for a quarter century and have recently begun to decline, even though the economy increasingly requires higher levels of education. While many high-achieving nations now graduate virtually all of their students, we currently graduate only about 70 percent.

The U.S. has dropped from first in the world to 13th in higher education participation. Only half of those who make it to college are well-enough prepared
and supported to graduate with a degree.

In the end, about 30 percent of an age cohort in the U.S. gains a college degree,
as compared to nearly 50 percent in OECD countries.

Not coincidentally, our incarceration rates are higher than they have ever been, with one in 100 Americans currently behind bars. Most inmates are high school dropouts who are functionally illiterate. Growth in state spending on prisons far outstrips growth in education spending. Several states now spend more on corrections than they do on higher education.

Meanwhile, indicators of democratic engagement are declining. Studies reveal declines in voter knowledge and participation, trust in one another, the strength of community life and institutions, and connectedness to family and friends — trends that go hand-in-hand with the nation’s educational decline. Those least involved in
community and civic life are the least educated Americans.

Although many reforms have come and gone since 1983, we have lacked a purposeful,
strategic approach for developing and investing in the kind of education that addresses the needs of a democratic society. In contrast to countries that have spent the last 20 years building forward-looking educational systems that fund schools centrally and equally, build a top-flight teaching force, focus on 21st century learning needs, and develop the capacity for school improvement, the U.S. has focused on none of these critical elements of success for an extended period of time.

To Read the Entire Report

More:

Christian Science Monitor: Despite 25 years of reform, U.S. schools still fall short

Global Integrity Commons: USA Military Ran Media Manipulation Campaign

noreply@blogger.com (Thivai Abhor) — Thu, 01 May 2008 13:51:00 +0000

USA: Military Ran Media Manipulation Campaign
Global Integrity Commons

Global Integrity considers press freedom to be a key driver of accountability in any country. Most Western nations offer a largely unrestricted press environment -- intimidation of journalists is almost unheard of, with some notable exceptions. However, press freedom is a necessary condition, not the whole story.

The press has to use this freedom to full effect, as watchdogs of government and corporate power. An uncritical press that parrots government talking points isn't advancing the cause of accountable government. In this area, the Western media has rather less enthusiasm than they could.

The latest drama comes in two parts.

1) A hard hitting story by the New York Times, published Sunday, exposes a coordinated effort from within the Pentagon to manipulate US television networks' and newspapers' coverage of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, using retired military officers who frequently appear on news programs as "independent" analysts to counter growing criticism of then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.

NYTimes:

Kenneth Allard, a former NBC military analyst who has taught information warfare at the National Defense University, said the campaign amounted to a sophisticated information operation. “This was a coherent, active policy,” he said.

2) Despite the impressive legwork done by the Times, the US television networks have apparently taken a pass on this story. While coverage critical to the government may be welcome, coverage critical of the media itself is exiled to overseas and small town papers. The Times, to its credit, points out the numerous times the paper has published Pentagon-groomed material as supposedly independent op-eds. Will the cable news networks do the same?

Access to the Source and To Read More Reports

"False Media" by Roots (uncensored version)

May Day: Imagining a Better World

noreply@blogger.com (Thivai Abhor) — Thu, 01 May 2008 13:29:00 +0000

(Celebrating this revolutionary, sexual and fertile day of celebration. Resistance is fertile!)

May Day, The Labor Day (American perspective on why it is important)

"Working Class Hero" by John Lennon

"Eyes On the Prize" by Mavis Staples

"99 and a 1/2" by Mavis Staples

School of the Seasons: Celebrating May Day A history of May Day that traces it back to the pagan celebration of sexuality and fertility through the early Christian reactionary attempt to associate it with Mary/chastity.

Spring 2008 Issue of the BCTC Courier

noreply@blogger.com (Thivai Abhor) — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 21:04:00 +0000

(This issue features an article on Laura Webb's Congressional Award and the needs of Rebecca Glasscock's Recycling Program)

I would like to congratulate the students who produced the latest issue of the BCTC Courier. This issue is by far the best issue I have seen and I am impressed by the serious issues you are beginning to cover.

Congratulations to Tammy Ramsey and the student journalists!

Tony Judt: What Have We Learned, If Anything?

noreply@blogger.com (Thivai Abhor) — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 21:59:00 +0000

What Have We Learned, If Anything?
By Tony Judt
The New York Review of Books (Volume 55, Number 7 · May 1, 2008)

...

Ignorance of twentieth-century history does not just contribute to a regrettable enthusiasm for armed conflict. It also leads to a misidentification of the enemy. We have good reason to be taken up just now with terrorism and its challenge. But before setting out on a hundred-year war to eradicate terrorists from the face of the earth, let us consider the following. Terrorists are nothing new. Even if we exclude assassinations or attempted assassinations of presidents and monarchs and confine ourselves to men and women who kill random unarmed civilians in pursuit of a political objective, terrorists have been with us for well over a century.

There have been anarchist terrorists, Russian terrorists, Indian terrorists, Arab terrorists, Basque terrorists, Malay terrorists, Tamil terrorists, and dozens of others besides. There have been and still are Christian terrorists, Jewish terrorists, and Muslim terrorists. There were Yugoslav ("partisan") terrorists settling scores in World War II; Zionist terrorists blowing up Arab marketplaces in Palestine before 1948; American-financed Irish terrorists in Margaret Thatcher's London; US-armed mujahideen terrorists in 1980s Afghanistan; and so on.

No one who has lived in Spain, Italy, Germany, Turkey, Japan, the UK, or France, not to speak of more habitually violent lands, could have failed to notice the omnipresence of terrorists— using guns, bombs, chemicals, cars, trains, planes, and much else—over the course of the twentieth century and beyond. The only thing that has changed in recent years is the unleashing in September 2001 of homicidal terrorism within the United States. Even that was not wholly unprecedented: the means were new and the carnage unexampled, but terrorism on US soil was far from unknown over the course of the twentieth century.

But what of the argument that terrorism today is different, a "clash of cultures" infused with a noxious brew of religion and authoritarian politics: "Islamofascism"? This, too, is an interpretation resting in large part on a misreading of twentieth-century history. There is a triple confusion here. The first consists of lumping together the widely varying national fascisms of interwar Europe with the very different resentments, demands, and strategies of the (equally heterogeneous) Muslim movements and insurgencies of our own time—and attaching the moral credibility of the antifascist struggles of the past to our own more dubiously motivated military adventures.

A second confusion comes from conflating a handful of religiously motivated stateless assassins with the threat posed in the twentieth century by wealthy, modern states in the hands of totalitarian political parties committed to foreign aggression and mass extermination. Nazism was a threat to our very existence and the Soviet Union occupied half of Europe. But al-Qaeda? The comparison insults the intelligence—not to speak of the memory of those who fought the dictators. Even those who assert these similarities don't appear to believe them. After all, if Osama bin Laden were truly comparable to Hitler or Stalin, would we really have responded to September 11 by invading...Baghdad?

But the most serious mistake consists of taking the form for the content: defining all the various terrorists and terrorisms of our time, with their contrasting and sometimes conflicting objectives, by their actions alone. It would be rather as though one were to lump together the Italian Red Brigades, the German Baader-Meinhof gang, the Provisional IRA, the Basque ETA, Switzerland's Jura Separatists, and the National Front for the Liberation of Corsica; dismiss their differences as insignificant; label the resulting amalgam of ideological kneecappers, bomb throwers, and political murderers "European Extremism" (or "Christo-fascism," perhaps?)...and then declare uncompromising, open-ended armed warfare against it.

This abstracting of foes and threats from their context—this ease with which we have talked ourselves into believing that we are at war with "Islamofascists," "extremists" from a strange culture, who dwell in some distant "Islamistan," who hate us for who we are and seek to destroy "our way of life"—is a sure sign that we have forgotten the lesson of the twentieth century: the ease with which war and fear and dogma can bring us to demonize others, deny them a common humanity or the protection of our laws, and do unspeakable things to them.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

How else are we to explain our present indulgence for the practice of torture? For indulge it we assuredly do. The twentieth century began with the Hague Conventions on the laws of war. As of 2008 the twenty-first century has to its credit the Guantánamo Bay detention camp. Here and in other (secret) prisons the United States routinely tortures terrorists or suspected terrorists. There is ample twentieth-century precedent for this, of course, and not only in dictatorships. The British tortured terrorists in their East African colonies as late as the 1950s. The French tortured captured Algerian terrorists in the "dirty war" to keep Algeria French.[7]

At the height of the Algerian war Raymond Aron published two powerful essays urging France to quit Algeria and concede its independence: this, he insisted, was a pointless war that France could not win. Some years later Aron was asked why, when opposing French rule in Algeria, he did not also add his voice to those who were speaking out against the use of torture in Algeria. "But what would I have achieved by proclaiming my opposition to torture?" he replied. "I have never met anyone who is in favor of torture."[8]

Well, times have changed. In the US today there are many respectable, thinking people who favor torture— under the appropriate circumstances and when applied to those who merit it. Professor Alan Dershowitz of Harvard Law School writes that "the simple cost-benefit analysis for employing such non-lethal torture [to extract time-sensitive information from a prisoner] seems overwhelming." Professor Jean Bethke Elshtain of the University of Chicago's School of Divinity acknowledges that torture remains a horror and is "in general [sic]...forbidden." But when interrogating "prisoners in the context of a deadly and dangerous war against enemies who know no limits...there are moments when this rule may be overridden."[9]

These chilling assertions are echoed by New York's Senator Charles Schumer (a Democrat), who at a Senate hearing in 2004 claimed that "there are probably very few people in this room or in America who would say that torture should never ever be used." Certainly not Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, who informed the BBC's Radio Four in February 2008 that it would be absurd to say that you couldn't torture. In Scalia's words,

Once you acknowledge that, we're into a different game. How close does the threat have to be? How severe can the infliction of pain be? I don't think these are easy questions at all.... But I certainly know you can't come in smugly and with great self-satisfaction and say, "Oh, it's torture, and therefore it's no good."[10]
But it was precisely that claim, that "it's torture, and therefore it's no good," which until very recently distinguished democracies from dictatorships. We pride ourselves on having defeated the "evil empire" of the Soviets. Indeed so. But perhaps we should read again the memoirs of those who suffered at the hands of that empire— the memoirs of Eugen Loebl, Artur London, Jo Langer, Lena Constante, and countless others—and then compare the degrading abuses they suffered with the treatments approved and authorized by President Bush and the US Congress. Are they so very different?[11]

Torture certainly "works." As the history of twentieth-century police states suggests, under extreme torture most people will say anything (including, sometimes, the truth). But to what end? Thanks to information extracted from terrorists under torture, the French army won the 1957 Battle of Algiers. Just over four years later the war was over, Algeria was independent, and the "terrorists" had won. But France still carries the stain and the memory of the crimes committed in its name. Torture really is no good, especially for republics. And as Aron noted many decades ago, "torture—and lies—[are] the accompaniment of war.... What needed to be done was end the war."[12]

We are slipping down a slope. The sophistic distinctions we draw today in our war on terror—between the rule of law and "exceptional" circumstances, between citizens (who have rights and legal protections) and noncitizens to whom anything can be done, between normal people and "terrorists," between "us" and "them" —are not new. The twentieth century saw them all invoked. They are the selfsame distinctions that licensed the worst horrors of the recent past: internment camps, deportation, torture, and murder—those very crimes that prompt us to murmur "never again." So what exactly is it that we think we have learned from the past? Of what possible use is our self-righteous cult of memory and memorials if the United States can build its very own internment camp and torture people there?

Far from escaping the twentieth century, we need, I think, to go back and look a bit more carefully. We need to learn again—or perhaps for the first time—how war brutalizes and degrades winners and losers alike and what happens to us when, having heedlessly waged war for no good reason, we are encouraged to inflate and demonize our enemies in order to justify that war's indefinite continuance. And perhaps, in this protracted electoral season, we could put a question to our aspirant leaders: Daddy (or, as it might be, Mommy), what did you do to prevent the war?

To Read the Entire Essay

"Dead Souls" by Nine Inch Nails

Free Press: "The Pentagon is infiltrating the media with pro-war propaganda."

noreply@blogger.com (Thivai Abhor) — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 20:29:00 +0000

(From Free Press)

Dear Friend,

The Pentagon is infiltrating the media with pro-war propaganda.

The scheme reaches all the way to the Bush White House, where top officials recruited dozens of "military analysts" to spread favorable views of the war via every major news channel -- without revealing they were working from Pentagon scripts and often lobbying for major military contractors looking to cash in on the war.

This is a violation of every conceivable standard of journalism -- and possibly of federal law.

Take Action

Eat for Peace and Global Citizenship (May 3)

noreply@blogger.com (Thivai Abhor) — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 19:26:00 +0000

(I will be at this event--good time and good cause.)

Eat for Peace and Global Citizenship:

Looking for something to do on Kentucky Derby day? Look no more.

We are still taking reservations for a 3-course pasta dinner to benefit the 2008 Peace and Global Citizenship Fair. The dinner will be held on Kentucky Derby day and will cost $20 per person. It will include a homemade pasta dish (as in, the pasta will be homemade), a salad featuring greens picked on-site, and a dessert. Dinner guests will also get preferred seating for an 8:30 show by local acoustic blues musician Wes Houp. (Among other places, Lexington’s Red Barn Radio has featured Wes’s music.)

The dinner will be held at the People’s Property, a 12-acre patch of land located just outside Lexington in Keene, KY (5 miles past Man O War and Harrodsburg Road) on what was once a terminal of the Rhiney B Railroad. The property is surrounded by 2 farms and features two 11-hole disc golf courses that are available to diners.

Anyone interested in watching the Kentucky Derby may drop by 2 hours before post-time to “prepare” for and then to watch the race on a 40-inch flat-screen t.v.

If interested, please contact Danny Mayer at
Danny dot Mayer at kctcs dot edu
for reservations or more information.

danny

BCTC Spring Film and Speaker Series (April 21-25)

noreply@blogger.com (Thivai Abhor) — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 19:15:00 +0000

(Message from Rebecca Glasscock)

April 22, 6:30-7:45 pm in the OB Auditorium: Garrett Graddy, UK Geography Graduate Student. The source of our food – the seed – is the topic of this presentation. Open pollinated versus hybrid versus genetically modified seeds and their global distribution result in misery or bounty for those who plant the seed. On Earth Day, come and learn about the political ecology of seed.

Films: With food and agriculture (food protests and even riots, biofuels production, mal- and over-nutrition, to name a few) in the news, these films may be of interest:

• April 21 at 6:30 pm in the Oswald Auditorium: The Future of Food (88 minutes)
The Future of Food (88 minutes), 6:30 p.m. in the OB Auditorium. Description: “THE FUTURE OF FOOD offers an in-depth investigation into the disturbing truth behind the unlabeled patented genetically engineered foods that have quietly filled U.S. grocery store shelves for the past decade. From the prairies of Saskatchewan Canada to the fields of Oaxaca Mexico this film gives a voice to farmers whose lives and livelihoods have been negatively impacted by this new technology. The health implications government policies and push towards globalization are all part of the reason why many people are alarmed about the introduction of genetically altered crops into our food supply. Shot on location in the U.S. Canada and Mexico The Future of Food examines the complex web of market and political forces that are changing what we eat as huge multinational corporations seek to control the world's food system. The film also explores alternatives to large-scale industrial agriculture placing organic and sustainable agriculture as real solutions to the farm crisis today. The Future of Food reveals that there is a revolution going on in the farm fields and on the dinner tables of America a revolution that is transforming the very nature of the food we eat.”

• April 23 at 7:00 pm in the Oswald Auditorium: King Corn (90 minutes)
King Corn (90 minutes), 7:00 p.m. in the OB Auditorium, with discussion facilitated by Michael Benton. Description: “Engrossing and eye-opening KING CORN is a fun and crusading journey into the digestive tract of our fast food nation where one ultra-industrial pesticide-laden heavily-subsidized commodity dominates the food pyramid from top to bottom - corn. Fueled by curiosity and a dash of naivety college buddies Ian Cheney and Curt Ellis return to their ancestral home of Greene Iowa to figure out how a modest kernel conquered America. With the help of some real farmers oodles of fertilizer and government aid and some genetically modified seeds the friends manage to grow one acre of corn. Along the way they unlock the hilarious absurdities and scary but hidden truths about America's modern food system."A graceful and frequently humorous film that captures the idiosyncrasies of its characters and never hectors" (Salon) KING CORN shows how and why whenever you eat a hamburger or drink a soda you are really consuming corn.”

• April 24 at 6:30 pm in the Oswald Auditorium: Fast Food Nation (114 minutes)
Fast Food Nation (114 minutes), 6:30 p.m. in the OB Auditorium. Short review: “If you're still eating that fast-food burger after watching Super Size Me, you might not feel too hungry after watching Fast Food Nation, a fictionalized feature based on Eric Schlosser's bestselling nonfiction expose. Director Richard Linklater, who co-wrote the screenplay with Schlosser, guides a topnotch ensemble cast through a peek behind the veil of how that Big Mac is born. Much of the film focuses on the illegal immigrants who work in the loosely regulated meat-packing industry, and actors including the luminous Catalina Sandino Moreno (Maria Full of Grace), who plays a desperate but outraged laborer. Greg Kinnear also delivers a spot-on performance as a fast-food chain marketing manager, trying frantically to discover the source of stomach-turning contamination in the company's meat. Stories are woven in unexpected ways, and cameos by the likes of Kris Kristofferson, Patricia Arquette, and especially Bruce Willis keep the narrative fresh. The film has a point of view, but thanks to Linklater's deft touch, is never didactic. As Willis's character slyly says, ‘Most people don't like to be told what's best for them.’ Agreed, yet Fast Food Nation likely will help the viewer be more conscious of what's on the end of that fork.” --A.T. Hurley

Kiva: Global P2P Loans

noreply@blogger.com (Thivai Abhor) — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 18:05:00 +0000

(Courtesy of Melissa Purdue)

Kiva's mission is to connect people through lending for the sake of alleviating poverty.

Kiva is the world's first person-to-person micro-lending website, empowering individuals to lend directly to unique entrepreneurs in the developing world.

The people you see on Kiva's site are real individuals in need of funding - not marketing material. When you browse entrepreneurs' profiles on the site, choose someone to lend to, and then make a loan, you are helping a real person make great strides towards economic independence and improve life for themselves, their family, and their community. Throughout the course of the loan (usually 6-12 months), you can receive email journal updates and track repayments. Then, when you get your loan money back, you can relend to someone else in need.

Kiva partners with existing expert microfinance institutions. In doing so, we gain access to outstanding entrepreneurs from impoverished communities world-wide. Our partners are experts in choosing qualified entrepreneurs. That said, they are usually short on funds. Through Kiva, our partners upload their entrepreneur profiles directly to the site so you can lend to them. When you do, not only do you get a unique experience connecting to a specific entreprenuer on the other side of the planet, but our microfinance partners can do more of what they do, more efficiently.

Kiva provides a data-rich, transparent lending platform. We are constantly working to make the system more transparent to show how money flows throughout the entire cycle, and what effect it has on the people and institutions lending it, borrowing it, and managing it along the way. To do this, we are using the power of the internet to facilitate one-to-one connections that were previously prohibitively expensive. Child sponsorship has always been a high overhead business. Kiva creates a similar interpersonal connection at much lower costs due to the instant, inexpensive nature of internet delivery. The individuals featured on our website are real people who need a loan and are waiting for socially-minded individuals like you to lend them money.

Kiva: Loans That Change Lives