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GDPR Video: Voices of Peace

scenes from peace rallies in Washington, DC (2002) and Boston, MA (2005) 

Ich Bin Eine Bad German

Great commentary from the NY Times’ Frank Rich. Please read it in its entirety and give real thought to the matter: Are you a good German or a bad German? (We know what we are — we are among the few who never bought Bush’s “war” and have screamed about it — and have been punished for it in myriad ways — since the beginning.)

An excerpt from Rich’s “The ‘Good Germans’ Among Us”:

I have always maintained that the American public was the least culpable of the players during the run-up to Iraq. The war was sold by a brilliant and fear-fueled White House propaganda campaign designed to stampede a nation still shellshocked by 9/11. Both Congress and the press — the powerful institutions that should have provided the checks, balances and due diligence of the administration’s case — failed to do their job. Had they done so, more Americans might have raised more objections. This perfect storm of democratic failure began at the top.

As the war has dragged on, it is hard to give Americans en masse a pass. We are too slow to notice, let alone protest, the calamities that have followed the original sin.

Watch out for the “Good Germans” in our midst. They are not friends of justice, equality, peace or truth.

David Rovics on the RIAA and Downloading

Very interesting article and point of view…

The RIAA vs the World – MediaChannel.org

Another POV on Ahmadinejad

Iranian scholar Ali Quli Qarai says the US has it all wrong in its perception of Iran’s President Ahmadinejad. The advice that seems to come from his very fascinating commentary (eve if you find his words repugnant) is that we shouldn’t always trust the interpretations of his words and that we need to be aware of liniguistic and cultural differences when parsing the speech of newsmakers from different countries. And he adds that there is a difference between the statements “there are no gays in Iran” and “there are no gays in Iran like the ones you have in the Western world.” It makes most interesting food for thought. Do read the whole thing; the author does make some compelling points about the nuances of language, the importance of knowing what someone really is saying, and the importance of civility, even between enemies.

An excerpt:

First I want to make some remarks about that now world-famous statement of President Ahmadinejad at Columbia: “We do not have homosexuals in Iran of the kind you have in your country.” The American media conveniently ignored the second, and crucial, part of his sentence as something redundant.

Obviously he was not saying, We don’t have any homosexuals whatsoever in Iran—something nobody in the world would believe, not even in Iran. And by implication, he was not telling his audience, I am a plain liar! —something which his audience at Columbia and the American media construed him to be saying.

What he was saying is that homosexuality in the US and homosexuality in Iran are issues which are as far apart from one another as two cultural universes possibly can be. They are so dissimilar that any attempt to relate them and bring them under a common caption would be misleading. “Homosexuality is not an issue in Iran as it is in present-day American society.” This was, apparently what was saying in polite terms.

Homosexuality in the US is a omnipresent social and political issue which crops up in almost every discourse and debate pertaining to American society and politics. So much so that I think it was a major issue, if not the deciding factor, in the last two presidential elections which paved Bush’s way to the White House and saddled the Democrats with defeat, because a large so-called conservative section of the American public (the red states) felt wary of the pro-gay liberalism of the Democratic Party.

By contrast, homosexuality is a non-issue in Iran and is considered an uncommon perversion (except as an occasional topic of jokes about a certain town). Prom the viewpoint of penal law, too, it is does not receive much attention as the requirements for a sentence (four eye-witnesses, who have actually seen the details of the act) are so astringent as to make punishment almost impossible. (It would be interesting to know how many have been accused of it during the last two decades)

By contrast adultery and homosexuality are legalized forms of behaviour in most of Europe and America, and regarded not as criminal acts but as perfectly acceptable forms of sexual behaviour and as legitimate natural human rights which need to be taught even to all Asian and African societies as well.

There was also a subtle hint in his remark that he wanted to move on from this topic to more serious and relevant matters, a point which would be obvious to anyone conversant with Persian language and culture (like his another hint concerning the disgraceful conduct of Columbia president, when, while formally inviting Columbia academics to Iran, he added that “You can rest assured that we will treat you in Iran with hundred percent respect.”

Iranians, being linguistically a very sophisticated people, speak a lot in hints which are invisible to outsiders. Americans in comparison tend to be straightforward and often as primitive.

(In general the Persians, like other civilized societies, have developed the art of making and responding to harsh remarks in soft and friendly words. Americans, as Prof. Bollinger proved, have still much to learn from civilized nations concerning the civilities of civilized hostility.)

Mr Bollinger’s hostility towards President Ahmadinejad had obviously been fed by devious translations and interpretations of his earlier—also world-famous—remarks about Israel and the Holocaust. As if, as one commentator has remarked, the professor had been watching only CNN and Fox News.

Unfortunately for more than an year these remarks have given a ready-made excuse to his critics to demonize him and attack Iran’s foreign policies. Although he has made some attempts (unjustifiably belated, I think, and not quite adequate) to clarify himself, we who hear these remarks have also an intellectual duty to ourselves and others to see exactly what he exactly meant.

Lost In Translation: Ahmadinejad And The Media
- Information Clearing House

Commentary – Lindorff on Leaving Dems Behind

Dave Lindorff, journalist, activist, author of The Case for Impeachment, and one of the hosts of “A Nation Deceived,” which airs on GDPR, is calling for true progressives to leave the Democratic Party, which he says has strayed from the path of principle and integrity. He isn’t the first to do this: A sitting member of Congress reportedly is ditching her Democratic Party affiliation, activist Steve Fornier is doing the same thing, and this writer — sick of seeing Dems kowtow to the GOP and tired of the Dems’ refusal to stand for true equality under law for all Americans — dropped her party membership and became a registered Independent when DINOs started ruling the roost during the Clinton years. But Lindorff is calling this an “I Quit the Party” movement for progressives who feel they have been abandoned by the Democrats.

In every instance, with the exception of the latest Iraq War funding bill (and we know what’s going to happen with that), the Democrats have folded and given the president exactly what he wanted, causing apoplexy among the Democratic and independent voters who put them in charge of Congress last November. After all, Democrats ran for office last year saying they would stand up to the president, defend the Constitution, and end the war. Now each time Bush taunts them and they fold, public support for the Democratic Congress slumps further, to the point that today, they are even less popular that Bush-quite an accomplishment! …

The Democrats, under Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (surely two of the sorriest excuses for leaders that Congress has had in modern history), simply don’t get it. They don’t realize they’re being played for suckers and losers. And they don’t even realize that they are alienating their base.

Which brings us to what needs to be done.

The Democrats in Congress, and at the head of the party, need to receive a serious wake-up call. Since they’re clearly too dumb or too out of touch to realize what’s happening, we need to send them a message they can’t ignore-the political equivalent of a car bomb.

I’m talking about mass resignations from the Democratic Party, with every person who resigns and becomes an independent or who changes their registration to a third party sending a message to the DNC explaining why he or she is quitting.

It starts small with a few people here and a few people there, but as Arlo Guthrie once put it, pretty soon we’re talking about a movement, and you can join it right here!

A couple of months back, I set up an email address for people to register at, and listed it on my website. To date, over 600 people have mailed in saying they are quitting the Democratic Party until Democrats in Congress begin impeachment proceedings against Bush and Cheney, and until they cut of all funding for the Iraq War.

Now it’s time to really kick this campaign into high gear.

A few days ago, Cynthia McKinney, the gutsy and outspoken former congresswoman from Georgia who filed the first and so far only bill of impeachment against George W. Bush in the waning days of the last Congress, called me at home to say she wants to sign on. That’s a nice start to the campaign!

You read it first here: Former Rep. McKinney Quits the Democratic Party!

So how about you? Think about it: If you were to accept the official line, George Bush won the presidency in 2000 by capturing the state of Florida by 537 votes. And this movement has already got more than that number of people who are no longer going to be Democrats! If we could get 537 people in each state of the union to sign on and drop their party affiliation in protest, the Democratic leadership would have to start contemplating how many close states they are going to lose next year because of their abject failure to act on principle and with courage in Congress.

Better still, if we could get 100,000 or 500,000 people to drop their party affiliation nationwide, that would send a really powerful signal.

That’s true. When I chose between politics and integrity and informed the DNC, it did not care. When many thousands do, it will have no choice but to care.

Here’s what Lindorff wants likeminded people to do:

[C]lick here and be a quitter. (Remember to get a voter registration form and follow through by cancelling your Democratic Party affiliation!)

After you quit, then go to Dem.org, where Steve Fornier is trying to help organize people who have left the Democratic Party, but still want to be democrats. To learn more about Fornier’s idea, read his recent CounterPunch article.

Note: You can also help build the movement by sending this article and link to every progressive person and progressive website you can think of. It’s time to take quitting the party viral.

What’s funny is that many people who call themselves progressive called me all kinds of nasty things over the past seven years, among them traitor. The tide truly is turning.

Read the materials, ponder the subject, then do what your principles tell you to do.

Commentary – O’Reilly, Media Matters, & Common Ground

After watching the Left v. Right controversy over a radio broadcast, I’ve figured out something: FOX TV and radio host Bill O’Reilly and liberal watchdog group Media Matters have more in common than they realize.

Here’s how Media Matters summarized what went down:

During the September 19 edition of his nationally syndicated radio program, discussing his recent trip to have dinner with Rev. Al Sharpton at Sylvia’s, a famous restaurant in Harlem, Bill O’Reilly reported that he “had a great time, and all the people up there are tremendously respectful,” adding: “I couldn’t get over the fact that there was no difference between Sylvia’s restaurant and any other restaurant in New York City. I mean, it was exactly the same, even though it’s run by blacks, primarily black patronship.” Later, during a discussion with National Public Radio senior correspondent and Fox News contributor Juan Williams about the effect of rap on culture, O’Reilly asserted: “There wasn’t one person in Sylvia’s who was screaming, ‘M-Fer, I want more iced tea.’ You know, I mean, everybody was — it was like going into an Italian restaurant in an all-white suburb in the sense of people were sitting there, and they were ordering and having fun. And there wasn’t any kind of craziness at all.” O’Reilly also stated: “I think black Americans are starting to think more and more for themselves. They’re getting away from the Sharptons and the [Rev. Jesse] Jacksons and the people trying to lead them into a race-based culture. They’re just trying to figure it out. ‘Look, I can make it. If I work hard and get educated, I can make it.”

As expected, the press grabbed the story and the controversy has been all over the media since as many have commented angrily about O’Reilly’s supposed ignorance and the racism that may have informed his remarks, and O’Reilly’s ire over what he calls a Media Matters attack against him.

What’s really interesting here is that the conservative talker and the liberal watchdogs have something in common here — both are partly correct and partly mistaken.

Let’s start with Media Matters. I believe the organization performs a necessary service and has built a strong case against O’Reilly for past statements he has made against melanin-governed minority groups, women, liberals, GLBT people and on and on. At the same time, I did hear the entire hour in question, and it’s clear that O’Reilly’s point was to dispel stereotypes and that his intention was positive. Sad to say, many of O’Reilly’s audience do come from the segment of the population that does believe all brown people are lazy, shiftless less-than-humans who don’t have the capacity to behave appropriately in public settings and who see the teachings of the Revs. Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson as gospel. Media Matters often is on target in its criticisms, but this time, the group seems to have missed the context of the broadcast as a whole, and this does make it appear that the group chose to target O’Reilly simply because he is O’Reilly.

Then again, O’Reilly has to understand a few things: Feigning surprise at seeing well-behaved negroes behaving respectably at the landmark Sylvia’s, which is patronized by no less than former President Bill Clinton, is going to set people off. The comments he made sound practically identical to the horrible backhanded compliments many educated people who have any African ancestors must endure almost every day they are in public, even in 2007.

“Wow, you are so articulate!”

“How did you learn to write so well?”

“Oh, we are happy to have you bring a friend along; if they’re like you, they’re one of the ‘good ones.’”

I hear crap like that all the time and every time, the words make this human being sorry to be human. Even typing those demeaning, diminishing, disgusting words that have been said to me in some variation by well-meaning but clueless people all my life makes me want to punch the wall beside me. I have no use for coddling or excusing the mindless bigotry or casual racists who have no self-awareness. I will note the context, that they are well-meaning and probably decent on most issues, but I will not, not, NOT give them a pass.

My requisite responses, respectively:

“And this surprises you because… why?”

“I went to school and studied hard. Didn’t you? I can tutor you if you would like.”

“Yeah, I am more comfortable around being with good people, so my friend and I are going to pass up your invitation and go elsewhere to find some.”

Essentially, O’Reilly’s comments revealed less and more about him than some are saying. His recent outing with Al Sharpton at Sylvia’s was not his first or second visit to the establishment, so he was not surprised to see well-behaved customers, regardless of what he said on the air Sept. 19. Perhaps he was surprised the first time (which would say something awful about him), but certainly not eight days ago.

Still, some misguided people out there do believe those things, that those [slur of choice, pluralized] routinely order iced tea while calling someone an expletive. O’Reilly, knowing this out-of-touch set provides a significant part of his devoted audience, set out to state that stereotyping is a bad thing. He deserves some kudos for his intent, if not for what he actually said. The phrases he employed indicate that perhaps he is not as far along in his “racial” enlightenment as he thinks. His words probably reminded a lot of people about being spoken to condescendingly by people who judged them as being “the other,” patted them on the head (metaphorically) and reassured them that they are part of the few, the proud, the “good ones.” (I like to tell people who call me a “good one” that I am their worst nightmare. Which is true.)

See, this is America. People come in all types: industrious and restrained brown people, lazy and loud pink people, and every combination of traits you can imagine. We all have the right to say what we want and to respond in kind when we are angry or hurt or offended. Bill O’Reilly has the right to speak whatever nonsense he chooses for whatever reason. Those who speak against him have that same right. Free speech works.

But a little advice is in order for all sides here.

For O’Reilly: Watch what you say. Words can turn a well-meaning action into something destructive. Realize that just because you didn’t mean offense doesn’t mean people can’t be offended by what you say. Understand that this controversy, make no mistake, was over words you used and sentiments you communicated. Media Matters was wrong by not placing the words into proper context, but they didn’t put the image of “bad negroes” versus “good negroes” in people’s minds – that had to do with your word picture of some trifling negro cursing while ordering tea. And the watchdog has a lot of legitimate evidence against you, so your charge of being “smeared” is pure hoo-hah. Oh – and tell your listeners to get out more. As you know, the food and service at Sylvia’s rock, and Harlem, unlike many of the “all-white suburbs” you mention, welcomes everyone.

For Media Matters: Context matters too. Listen to the entire show (if you didn’t; I assume not based on your published words on this story) before you release a rant if you want your criticisms to be taken seriously. You have solid evidence of Bill O’Reilly’s bad behavior when his intentions were not so good. Focus on that: Your credibility will thank you and right-wing pundits’ claims of being “smeared” by you will make them, not your organization, look unsavory and untrustworthy.

For everyone: Free speech does not mean the freedom to not be offended – or attacked, if you are a public figure. In fact, you can count on it. You do not have the right to decide when someone else can or should find something you wrote or said to be offensive. If offended, you always have the right to respond in any legal manner and on any platform. And, O’Reilly and Media Matters, more similar than they realize, are exercising those rights, whether we like what they said or not. Free speech works.