The Blog and the Bullet

As’ad, a professor at CSU Stanislaus and a visiting professor at UC Berkeley, blogs about the radical left and the situation in Lebanon and the dangers in blindly supporting Hizbullah:

I believe that the radical left, or the revolutionary left, should be careful in evaluating the situation. I see that the Lebanese Communist Party has for all purposes conflated its position with that of Hizbullah–at least during this crisis. The radical left should keep a distance from an organization (i.e. Hizbullah) with which it does not share an ideology–a religious fundamentalist one at that. Today, I kept thinking of the leader of the Iranian Communist Party who sang the praises of Khumayni only to be forced to appear on TV (after the revolution) and make Stalinist-style “confessions”. He later was executed as were other communists.

[Hat Tip: Farfahinne]

The Red Mantis hosts the 23rd Carnival of Socialism:

The Red Mantis is proud to host the twenty-third edition of the Carnival of Socialism. After a much needed revival led mostly by Jim Jepps of The Daily (Maybe) and John Angliss of the Labor Left Forum, the Carnival has had a strong showing from all of its hosts. For May Day, the Carnival self-hosted a special edition to commemorate the big day. With all of this exciting activity, I humbly present the next edition of the Carnival of Socialism. Here’s hoping it measures up.

Neela blogs:

I’ve recently watched a couple of documentaries about radical movements in the 1960s and 70s:Guerrilla: The Taking of Patty Hearst, The Weather Underground and a narrative film about the Naxalite movement in West Bengal called Calcutta My Love. 

Both of the first two films were fascinating but left me feeling irritated at the ludicrousness of it all - especially at the white privilege that protected many of these so-called revolutionaries, whereas members of the Black Panther Party faced a decidedly different fate.

Here are some views from the blogosphere on what is going on in Lebanon:

Razan blogs:

I just came back from the funeral wake of my neighbor’s son. He was 16 and he and his friend were shot this morning in my street. His family owns a bakery and a cafe in my neighborhood.

And has some links for us on other Lebanese bloggers.

Wassim At on his take of Hizbollah taking control of Western Beirut:

After so much talk, so much posturing and so much thuggery in the end it took only 24 hours for Beirut to be liberated. Let me come out clean from the start, those men who flushed out the Future movement and surrounded Jumblatt are clean men, strong men and, I feel, the most honourable men in the region.

Marxist from Lebanon blogged in the beginning:

Well, after General Secretary of Hezbollah Hassan Nasrallah spoke, heavy shooting began between AMAL/Hezbollah and Future Movement extensively. Shooting took place everywhere, in my street alone guns were shot. The neighboring street, 4 masked gunners came out and are still there. A lot of my friends reported that snipers stood up on their rooftops. Rockets were reported, and everywhere these parties are presents, a gigantic shoot-out.

Blacksmith Jade on Hizbollah:

Hizballah finds itself in a bind in Beirut - internationally, it is viewed as a non-legitimate force which has aggressed a democratically elected government; within the Arab/Islamic world it is seen as the Shiite aggressor against the Sunni Lebanese; and it is politically/militarily unable to hold large swaths of a hostile Beirut for longer than a few days, at which time it will have to hand control to the Army and its Commander, Michel Suleiman, thereby returning the country to an equilibrium already agreed upon politically the only difference being its having exposed its weapons by using them internally against fellow Lebanese.

Lebanese Socialist blogs at Sursock:

We crossed from east Beirut through to Hamra tonight. Army in control over all major road junctions. We were challenged once, but where left to pass as soon as they heard our Beiruti accents.

***

There are reports that this phase of crisis could be drawing to a close. The government said that they left to the army the question of whether to close Hizbollah’s communication system and withdraw its security officer from the airport. 

The army then announced that they would not move on Hizbollah.

Farfahinne blogs (excuse the bad translation) on Nasrallah’s speech:

1) What is most shocking in his [Nasrallah's] statements is his call for compromise and dialogue with all of the parties and with Condoleezza Rice. I felt his speech, despite the escalation phenomenon: the “spare hand that extends to the arms of the resistance,” an indirect call to return to the table of dialogue with these parties. This is what we have to take a decisive stand on: no dialogue with a puppet government …yes to the toppling Siniora.

…
2) In his speech he didn’t even mention the sensitive issue of the difficult economic situation and he also omitted the topic of the raising of the minimum wage, which was called for by the General Labor Union…And, hence, limited the conflict with the question of disarmament and bumped out the economic situation and economic policy of Altaher Sinoiora’s government.

أكثر ما يصدمني في تصريحه هو إتهامه بالعمالة لأطراف الحكومة “موظفي كونداليزا رايس” من جهة ودعوته للمساومة والحوار مع هذه الأطراف من جهة أخرى. فلمست بخطابه، على الرغم من ظاهره التصعيدي : “سنقطع اليد التي تمتد الى سلاح المقاومة”، دعوة غير مباشرة إلى العودة الى طاولة الحوار مع هذه الأطراف. وهذا ما علينا ان نأخذ منه موقفا حاسمًا: لا حوار مع حكومة عميلة…نعم لإسقاط حكومة السنيورة
…
في كلمته لم يذكر حتى الوضع الإقتصادي الصعب الذي يفتك بالفئات الأكثر حساسية وأغفل أيضا موضوع رفع الحد الأدنى للأجور الذي دعا الإتحاد العمالي العام ودعت “المعارضة” لإضراب من أجله يوم البارحة. وبالتالي فهو حصر الصراع مع السلطة في مسألة السلاح وأخرج الوضع الإقتصادي وسياسة التعهير
الإقتصادية التي تنتهجها حكومة السنيورة من الصراع

And also states:

the Opposition have used the General Labor Confederation’s call for a general strike for it’s own purposes. It instrumentalised the workers’ socio-economic demands to create political pressure on its rivals in the government.The leadership of the union is allowing itself to be coopted by the political designs of the Opposition. Indeed, as soon as they were on the ground, the “protesters”forgot all about demands of the workers.

On the other hand, the government has recklessly implemented plans for its own interest, mostly congruent with the US vision for the “new Middle East”. Its leaders have presided over the collapse of the Lebanese state structure, where its institutions have been virtually paralyzed and its self-serving, sectarian parliamentarians have made the parliament a moribund and irrelevant institution. In the sectarian system that it has reinforced, the government talks about electoral majorities and minorities as if it were a secular system without democratically adhering to the political and demographic realities of Lebanon.

The Angry Arab News Service/وكالة أنباء العربي الغاضب has updates on the conflict as well as Moussa Bashir who blogs at UrShalim and updates GlobalVoices on blogging from the Middle East.

Sokari posts:

The 15th May - a day for bloggers to unite and focus on human rights everywhere. For more information Bloggers Unite.

Via Devious Diva

A. R. Sakaeda blogs at the Chicago Tribune News Blogs

When people talk about the model minority, “model” is code for never making other people feel uncomfortable about racism. “Model” means not being like all those other troublesome people of color. It means keeping your mouth shut and your eyes lowered. It means smiling brightly and nodding along. Yes, sir! Whatever you say, sir! It means never complaining.

Members of the model minority often are used to shame other people of color. They can do it, why can’t you? If you would only have those same close-knit families. If you only valued education more. If you only worked harder. Racism is a thing of the past.

Holding up Asian Americans as a model divides communities of color, making it difficult for us to see our commonalities.

[Hat Tip: angry asian man]

A blogger at the Revolutionary Democratic Front (India) blogs about the rise, and current trend, of Hindu fascism in India, relating to the BJP and RSS parties:

The Hindu fascist ideology has been in existence for as long as seven and a half decades with the inauguration of the RSS in 1925 at Nagpur. But it did not play any significant role in state power. It has risen to power in the last 25 years and since then has become a strong political force. Initially its bases were upper caste people and Hindu merchant communities. In 1980s ruling classes decided to develop this fascist ideology. It has increased day by day and has made a place even amongst the dalits and backward castes. All the ruling classes have played a significant role in developing aiding and abetting the growth of fascist forces. The different fronts made with an intention of parliamentary alliances have legalized Hindu fascism. It has maintained a mask by making alliances with regional parties. BJP in its tenure associated with big commercial households and together with its organizations-CII, FICCI, and ASOCHEM-formed various committees with different ministries. It went so far as to make acquaintances with the PM office. We see that Hindu fascism is basically a result of a course of political events, which has been brought by the ruling class, which centers on imperialism and increasing political and economic crisis of national and foreign capitalists and ruling classes.

Resistance writes:

The reduction of racism to hate, however, both conceptually and politically limits our understanding of racism and the ways we can challenge it. Racism has been silently transformed in the popular consciousness into acts that are abnormal, unusual, and irrational - “crimes of passion.” Missing from all this are the ideologies and practices in a variety of sites in our society that reproduce racial inequality and domination.

Map Singer writes:

Karl Heinrich Marx was born on May 5, 1818 in Trier…in a two story house with an interior courtyard that still exists today (and is now situated at “Karl Marx street” of said city), which was typical of a petty bourgeoisie Prussian family.

Karl Heinrich Marx nace el 5 de mayo de 1818 en Trier…en una casa de dos pisos con un patio interior todavía existente (y que se sitúa hoy en la “calle Karl Marx” de la indicada ciudad), propia de una familia de la pequeña burguesía prusiana.

Carol P. Araullo, the chairperson of BAYAN, a large umbrella front of progressive and left-wing organizations in the Philippines, blogs on the food crisis and the culpability of President Gloria Arroyo of the Philippines:

But this time around, we can readily agree that the rice/food crisis is happening worldwide and its immediate causes and historical roots cannot be strictly confined to the specific policies and concrete situations obtaining in particular countries. Indeed, the international agribusiness cartels such as the small clique of corporations that control the world’s fertilizer and pesticide market, the largest seed companies (e.g. Monsanto), the largest grain traders (e.g. Cargill) and the world’s big food processors (e.g. Nestle), their local business partners in third world countries and the homegrown trading cartels (e.g. in rice) have made a killing in the midst of growing hunger, food riots and panic buying by governments and households.

Having said that, we reiterate that the Arroyo regime is not blameless, in fact it must own up to and be held accountable for the neoliberal policies and programs it has perpetuated and even accelerated in implementation that today aggravates the rice crisis.

The blogger at Lenin’s Tomb posts his thoughts on the latest assembly elections in London:

Anyone who thinks that Labour is about to turn left is kidding themselves. Far more likely is that the government will take a more aggressive stance toward the unions (as it did in 1969, with ‘In Place of Strife’) and make a demonstrative crackdown on immigration (as it did with the Commonwealth Immigrants Act in 1968). Labour doesn’t contain the resources for a regeneration of its battered left, any more than it did when John McDonnell failed to get enough PLP support to even run a campaign against Gordon Brown. The last vaguely leftish credible alternative to Brown was the late Robin Cook, whose standing after his dignified antiwar resignation speech would have made him the obvious candidate. And even he would have struggled. Just because the left-of-Labour vote was poor, just because the Tories have made a decisive recovery, don’t think that we can place our hopes in a New Labour conversion, or that we can avoid continuing to try to build a left-of-Labour alternative. We will be lying to ourselves in quite a dangerous way if we imagine that we can claw back some space by just abandoning the electoral terrain to New Labour. The fact that it is now a more difficult task in the short-term does not mean it can be wished away.

The 58th Carnival of Feminists is up at Be a Good Human:

Welcome to the 58th edition of the Carnival of Feminists! I’m seriously, seriously thrilled to have you here. If you missed the 57th edition, go check it out at Pandemian.

(And while I have your attention, please take a quick sec and vote for my new blog name over to the right. Thanks!)

So I’m going to break down these excellent submissions based on things my 13 year old sister has said to me. (Translations in parentheses.)

Barbara at WIMN’s Voics blogs:

The story of thousands of schoolchildren without a library and books should be front-page news. Since when did sending inner-city children to bigger schools become a positive educational step in a city concerned with high dropout rates? The story of established neighborhood schools – with acceptable school rankings – closing their doors for lack of enrollment should be a reason for investigative stories by the media. The community should be outraged, right?

Not in San Antonio. Who’s going to tell this story? Here, one Hearst chain newspaper, the San Antonio Express-News is blitzing its ads on the front page as it seeks even more profits. Corporations, according to Jimenez Reyes, are the real power behind the closing of the six schools in a balance-the-budget bottom-line mentality as the developers seek prime inner-city real estate.

Karnythia states:

I also see people talking about the need to give Amanda Marcotte a safe space from which to respond. Maybe it’s just me, but why exactly is it that WOC aren’t entitled to the same calls for safe space? If we’re supposed to be sisters then shouldn’t safety for us be a priority? AFAIK there is exactly one community devoted to safe space for WOC on the internet and I created it. My co-mod and I work very hard to keep the voyeurs, trolls, and bigots out and the community members guard the space jealously from anyone that might slip past us. And I wish we didn’t have to do that, but I look at this book and the responses to it and the original Seal Press fiasco and I think that we are operating in very hostile territory and the only choice WOC have is to pull back and operate our own spaces in our own ways because we can’t expect anyone to fight for us. And yes, I know many of the people reading this are truly allies and I’m not saying this to hurt you. But we’re going to need you to commence cleaning up your house before you can help us clean up the world.

The latest Carnival of Socialism is up at Socialist Unity:

We have split the carnival into two parts, with a selection from Louise, and a selection from Andy

Louise looks at the issues on left feminist blogs:

…

Andy Newman’s selection on China:

Brotherpaecemaker blogs about the acquittal of the homicidal cops from New York:

People in the black community need to rethink our relationship with the dominant community. The disparity between the two communities is getting wider and wider. Police murder us in the streets and suffer no repercussions while black pastors are demonized for preaching about racial disparity in our communities. Even when the most extreme forms of this discrimination is caught on tape it is dismissed as our fault because we didn’t prostrate ourselves in front of the cop fast enough or the police officer was having a bad day and had to release his frustrations on the black citizen or whatever. We are in danger every time we come out in public from the very people sworn to protect the public. The police and the courts are doing their best to protect the public from black people.

Francis L. Holland blogs about a recent article he read from the Associated Press:

Although whites would have us believe that AIDS could NOT have been started by whites and that the Tuskegee Experiment could never happen again,

BALTIMORE - Scientists using federal grants spread fertilizer made from human and industrial wastes on yards in poor, black neighborhoods to test whether it might protect children from lead poisoning in the soil. Families were assured the sludge was safe and were never told about any harmful ingredients.

…

It galls me. It galls me that the major news institutions can make federal cases out of Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s prophetic indignation at a nation whose policies undervalue and marginalize whole populaces, and reduce it to the rantings of a mad man, when in our own backyard our own government is conducting more experimentation on its citizens!

[Hat Tip: the field negro]

The 36th edition of the Disability Blog Carnival is up at Abnormaldiversity.

[Hat Tip: Alas, a blog]

Atlasien at APA for Progress, writes:

Rachel from Rachelstavern.com asks, “Why does “Working Class” mean white in our political discourse?” Once I thought about the question some more, I realized that she was right, and “white working class” is a symbolic redundancy. Class is kept neatly separate from race. In national media, when do we ever hear about the black or Latino working class? And the Asian-American working class is perhaps the most invisible of all.

Bambu, an emcee and activist from LA blogs about Nas’ new album “Nigger:”

…not mad ’cause eminem said nigga, ’cause he my nigga…

nah, homie. what nas just did right there is allow every little white boy who worships eminem (and nas for that matter) to get a “nigga” pass. believe that! i understand the use of the word within our communities, amongst people of color — and specifically african people in america, but i don’t see how it’s cool to just let the king of white boys get away with the use of such a word! i never thought i’d hear nas go that route. a white boy come say that shit around me, i’m checking him!

would nas let eminem get away with it if he hadn’t blown up and become one of the largest hip hop artists of our time? if eminem was marshal with a demo tape, and he called a black woman a bitch or a “nigga” (which he did) would nas still be cool with it? money makes a muthuhfuckuh switch so quick…

Bhupinder writes about Zinn’s new book and video on YouTube:

Unlike European powers, US imperialism has sought to create and maintain its hegemony via puppet regimes or via local elites (see the post below with an extract from David Harvey’s interview), leading to an impression that it is not a colonial power like, say, England or France that ruled their colonies directly and more visibly.

Phil blogs about Chicago Cubs fans buying racist themed t-shirts to “celebrate” their first Japanese player, Kosuke Fukudome:

As you can see above, on the front of the shirt is the traditional Cubs cartoon bear face but with slanted eyes and wearing oversized Harry Caray-sized glasses. It’s accompanied by the words “Horry Cow” in cartoonish “Japanese” script. (The late Caray was the Cubs’ longtime announcer, and among his catchphrases was, “Holy cow!”) Fukudome’s name and number are on the back.

Great. I don’t know what’s worse—the fact that somebody (who is apparently “an Oriental guy”) made this shirt, or that it’s so damn popular amongst Chicago fans. What a way to welcome the franchise’s first Japanese player. That’s racist!

Jim writes:

Listen, you Stalinists!

You have been systematically spreading lies about the ’Free Tibet’ movement, and offering uncritical support to the vicious, red-in-tooth-and-claw capitalist ruling class in Beijing. Of course, you are no strangers to the art of grovelling to, and lying for,  a thoroughly reactionary, anti-working class regime in the name of “socialism”: you adopted that posture towards the so-called “Soviet Union” for sixty years, until the workers of Russia and Eastern Europe (literally) tore down the edifice of Stalinist totalitarianism.

BrownFemiPower says:

I wrote what I wrote to say that there either is a feminist movement or there isn’t—and if feminists can’t even be called on to point to the work that other feminists are doing—if simply pointing to a whole sphere of pro-immigration bloggers (because, to be clear, I stated pro-immigration bloggers and men and women bloggers of color NOT brownfemipower) who have been blogging incessantly about this is too much work for feminism—well, then there’s no fucking feminist movement.

…

I never said that it’s important to recognize that I had the idea first. I don’t give a shit who came up with the idea first—even if it WAS me. I don’t give a shit who thought of what first. I don’t fucking want credit for anything outside of existing. (For those who care, what I really said: There’s a lot of women of color (and men of color!) who have talked about immigration. There’s a lot of women of color and men of color who have examined how sexualized violence has been the foremost result of the “strengthening” of borders. There’s been a lot of us who have insisted for a long time now that immigration is a feminist issue, goddamn it, get your head out of your ass.

I even wrote a whole speech about it (link not available–BUT for those who DID see the speech, do you happen to recall that long list of LINKED work at the beginning of the speech?).

…

This was NEVER ABOUT FUCKING BROWNFEMIPOWER except in the sense that I BELONG to immigrant communities and I BELONG to pro-immigration blogger community and I BELONG to the women of color community and I THOUGHT I belonged to a feminist community.

This was about women of color constantly being written out of feminism, being written out of our own communities BY feminism—then being beaten up by feminists with JUST DO IT, JUST DO IT, JUST FUCKING DO IT YOU LAZY SPICS.

…

I know I’m brownfemipower and I want to end violence against women. And I wanted to do that with all the women who keep insisting to me that we are all in this together and we have common problems that we have to work against and we’re all sisters, and there is such thing as a commonality of experience between us all—as I said in my original post—I thought feminism was important because it brought women together (I had thought at one time that feminism was about justice for women. I had thought it was about centering the needs of women, and creating action in the name of, by and for women. I had thought that feminism has its problems but it’s worth fighting for, worth sacrificing and sweating and crying and breaking down for.)

…

I realize now that “feminism” and I stand in direct opposition to each other—that the feminists who aren’t actively working against me and my community are, like Seymour Hersch, few and far between.

This has caused a radical shifting in my thinking. A shifting that I have no desire to work through online—but that I need to think through before I can act. I am not giving up. I am just thinking. And resting. And reading my beloved books and soaking my tired dogs.

Cuz giiirls, my dogs are TIRED.

As I said in my last post—I will find you, and you will find me.

The AngryBlackBitch castes out the demons from Rumsefeld’s sick mind as it has been annonced he will be coming out with a memoir in 2010:

ABB, whilst flinging drops of vodka cran at Rumsfeld: I cast you out, unclean foulness!

Rummy: Freedom’s untidy, and free people are free to make mistakes and commit crimes and do bad things.

…

ABB: The logic of Spock commands you! The power of logic and reason commands you! The logic of Spock commands you!

Rummy: [moans] There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. [spews pea soup across the room] That is to say, there are things that we know we don’t know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don’t know we don’t know. [spins head in circle a couple of times]