Category: Culture

This is an interesting account by Matt Welch of how dark rumors about the disorderly and violent tendencies of the low-income and mainly black evacuees from New Orleans have often preceded them to their places of (let’s hope) temporary refuge…
But Welch also writes that “none of the reports were true.”
I think that was referring to reports of violence committed in Baton Rouge, after evacuation. But he also pulls in several pieces of evidence showing that the reports of violence inside New Orleans prior to evacuation were in some cases untrue and in others greatly exaggerated.
Welch writes about the staggering lack of information suffered by everyone in New Orleans during the worst days last week, and how that contributed to the ease with which scary rumors got circulated. (He doesn’t mention the private security companies, like Blackwater, that were also making successful– and I should imagine, very lucrative– bids for contracts to “protect” media stars and others eager to get into the city to do their stand-uppers. I wonder how their sales pitch went, exactly?)
Welch adds:

it’s entirely possible that, like the chimeric Baton Rouge hordes, exaggerations about New Orleans’ criminality affected policy, mostly by delaying rescue operations and the provision of aid. Relief efforts ground to a halt last week after reports circulated of looters shooting at helicopters, yet none of the hundreds of articles I read on the subject contained a single first-hand confirmation from a pilot or eyewitness. The suspension-triggering attack–on a military Chinook attempting to evacuate refugees from the Superdome–was contested by Federal Aviation Administration spokeswoman Laura Brown, who told ABC News, “We’re controlling every single aircraft in that airspace and none of them reported being fired on.” What’s more, when asked about the attacks, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff replied: “I haven’t actually received a confirmed report of someone firing on a helicopter.”

I just note that even though I was born after the second World War, in England there were still lots of stories about the hostility that kids evacuated from London during the Blitz faced from the (mainly rural) communities that received them.

I drove up to DC this evening, and am now sitting in my room in my favorite DC hostelry, the Tabard Inn. The rooms here are all extremely funky. This one has walls painted the color of dried blood, a rococo iron bedstead, and numerous small lamps with black lampshades…
Coming up here I was noticing the gas prices. They varied from $2.45/gallon thru $2.89/gallon. (Okay, I got suckered into paying near the high end of that range. I was afraid I wouldn’t make it to the next gas station.) On the radio, people were talking a lot about the uncertain prospects re refining capacity in this country, with many refineries having been put out of action for an unknown length of time by the Gulf Coast storm.
Someone said one-fourth of US refining capacity is currently out of action. It strikes me that’s enormous.
I always have to grit my teeth coming back to DC. I think of it as “the Great Wen” as in (I think) Matthew Arnold’s poem “The deserted village.” A wen is a big scab or blister that grows upon the body of the land and sucks all its vitality out of it. Well, that’s not quite how I think of DC– I still have a lot of friends from the many years I lived here. But still, I need to grit my teeth just a little bit coming back here.
I guess George W has had to rush back here, too, to “look presidential” in dealing with the storm. (Not that he felt he needed to do so in order to deal with the terrible deterioration in Iraq over the past month… Oh no.)
A very good friend emailed me an article in which the writer, Doug Thompson, describes a situation in which,

White House aides scramble frantically behind the scenes to hide the dark mood of an increasingly angry leader who unleashes obscenity-filled outbursts at anyone who dares disagree with him…

Meanwhile, the situation in New Orleans sounds as if its a lot worse than it would have been if Louisiana still had a full National Guard contingent at home to help run things… Another cost of the war.
I’m here for a conference on Syria tomorrow. I’m not sure if it’ll be bloggable, or blogworthy. Next week I’ll be back for this big conference on “America’s Purpose” that I’m a little bit involved with. Definitely bloggable, I think. I’m not sure if they’ll let me in to the John Ashcroft session…

Addendum, Wed. evening: Things sound so horrible in the Gulf Coast region, and in Iraq. That’s why I made the border here black just now. I also took out the link to the Doug Thompson article. Commenters here raised some questions about it. However, I believe Doug Thompson is a well-connected journo who wouldn’t have published this piece without having solid sources for it. But right now seems like a bad time to snipe at GWB.

Keep the people of New Orleans, the rest of Louisiana, and Mississippi in your thoughts today as they face the unknown strength of Hurricane Katrina.
The usual practice in the US is that when there are natural disasters and emergencies, the relevant state’s National Guard units play a big role in keeping order, helping people, and minimizing damages. It’s notable therefore that just a month ago, more than 400 Louisiana National Guard members based in Iraq all simultaneously extended their terms of service with the Guard. (It’s not clear how much longer those soldiers, who’re serving with a Brigade Combat team, will be in Iraq.)
It’s not easy to find out how many Louisiana Guard members are serving in Iraq, total. But all the “stories” on the front page of the LNG’s website have the dateline “Camp Tigerland, Iraq”.
Note, though that the leadership of the LNG has not just acted as a patsy for all the Pentagon’s diktats about bringing home dead soldiers in a hushed, secret way. This piece on The Memory Hole reports that when six LNG members were killed in a single incident back in January,

The Pentagon told the Guard to keep out the media, but the families of all six soldiers wanted to share the sad homecoming with the world. Obeying the family’s wishes instead of the Pentagon’s, the Guard allowed the press… to film and photograph the arrival ceremony.

You can actually see some very moving photos of those ceremonies if you go to that link.
All the very best luck to the LNG and all the people of the state as they deal with the storm. And may all the loved ones deployed overseas get back home safe and very soon indeed!

Happy July 4th.
I’ve been thinking about what “national independence”, i.e. sovereign self-government, should mean for any national group. I can support it for the US citizenry only by also supporting it for Iraqis and Palestinians, and only by also working to see the US citizenry make meaningful amends to both the indigenous peoples of this land and the descendants of those enslaved people whose coerced, unpaid labor built so much of the “national” infrastructure here in the US East.
However, even with all the problems of its misinterpretation and mis-implementation, the Declaration of Independence of July 4, 1776 remains an inspiring text:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men [and women] are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. –That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

Exactly.
Rule by a foreign military organization is very different from any form of rule that derives its powers “from the consent of the governed.” Did the January 30 election in Iraq provide an indicator that the Jaafari government has “the consent of the governed” in Iraq? It could have done so– provided Jaafari were free to exercise the normal rights of a sovereign power in his own country. But heisn’t. He is evidently constrained from doing so by the US military’s exercise of its powers throughout Iraq, accountable only to Washington and not to the “elected” leadership of Iraq.
Thus far, the vote of January 30 has had its democratic content subverted.
… For a really great take on the meaning of July 4 in our present era, check out Matt’s great post on the “Today in Iraq” blog today. Read that one and weep at the march of human folly (and indeed, probable criminality) in today’s United States…
Meanwhile, back in the 1776 text, check out how many items in the “bill of particulars” articulated therein against the British Crown could be applied today to the US’s practices inside Iraq:

Continue reading “Independence Day”

So, our Charlottesville-based group ‘Holy Land Treasures’ held its second annual pre-Mother’s Day sale of Palestinian Heritage Embroidery here in town. We sold more than $7,500-worth of these really lovely stitched goods (all proceeds go to the producer organizations), and 60 bottles of fine Palestinian olive oil.
It was a lot of work, but also a lot of fun. The University of Virginia Palestinian debkeh dancers sent along a small troupe to dance for us. We had poetry readings, super Palestinian food, music– and sold a lot of stuff!
Doing this helps send a bit of income in to the embroidery artists and the olive farmers. (Just a tiny trickle compared with the great gobs of money the US government sends to Israel every year, of course.) In addition it helps to keep the Palestinians’ rich heritage alive, and it’s a fun way to share information about that heritage with US citizens.
I used to feel quite torn, sometimes, between doing things that you could describe as “social work”, and engaging in the campaign to bring about about deep structural change. Then I figured, why not do both? Let each engagement inform the other.
It’s Mother’s Day today, here in the US. The occasion was originally founded as an anti-war action– but the Hallmark Cards Co. has been trying to hide that fact ever since.
Maybe next year we should all focus much harder on reclaiming Mother’s Day for the anti-war movement?
In the meantime, my wish for every mother around the world for the year ahead is that she, her children, and each of those she loves be assured the basics of a decent life including the oppportunity to participate in a secure community of her or his own choosing.

Catching up with my reading here. I only just got down to this great post, “The Other Pope”, in which Juan Cole pulled together many facts about the late Pope’s political positions that were highly inconvenient to the US rightwingers who try to claim him as their own…
Including on Palestine, worker’s rights, the death penalty, the Iraq invasion, etc etc.
Great work.

Last night, we went to an amazing production– directed by my very good friend Betsy Rudelich Tucker– of “Far Away“, a play written in 2000 by the brilliant British playwright Caryl Churchill.
I don’t have time here to write much about it. If any of you gets a chance to see it– rush to the theater in question! To think that Churchill wrote it before 9/11 is truly amazing. The woman can see into the future!
The future she sees into, and portrays in around 70 mins of very sparse performance time, is one in which two human tendencies– the desire to paper over or ignore disturbing signs of violence and violation, and the desire to be extremely judgmental about others– rapidly degerate into what can only be described as a form of dementia.
In the last scene, the entirely believable and fairly sympathetic three characters in the play are earnestly talking to each other about whether “the cats have come down on the side of the Frendch”, or “the Chinese, the porcupines, and the gazelles have lined with the Germans and the children under five”… And even whether “the river is for us or against us this week”.
Before that scene there is a lengthy, completely silent scene that consists only of a slow parade of individuals, one by one, across the stage. When each reaches a box in the middle of it, s/he stands and holds his hands out and then is “executed” with a flash of light.
After the performance, Betsy talked about it a little. She said that Churchill’s own directions for this scene had been very sparse: that there should be a slow parade of “raggedly dressed individuals wearing fantastic hats” across the stage, where each one in turn should be executed. (The hats, and the making of them, were part of an earlier scene.)
Betsy said that Churchill gave no precise number for the number of those doing this, except to write that ten was too few, and it could be 20 or 100 or more… Betsy had 34 of them, but it went so slowly that it took up maybe 25 minutes of the entire performance.
The way Betsy and her costume designer staged this, though, felt like a blow to my solar plexus. I felt literally sick to my stomach. She had each of the condemned persons dressed in ragged canvas pants and dragging a shackle from one foot. The very “fantastic” hats were perched atop a plain black hood that covered the whole face. Then beneath that each prisoner wore a ragged but clearly rectilinear poncho whose shape was clearly revealed as, just before the execution, he held his hands out to the side… Standing on a box…
Not “far away” at all.

There’s been an interesting but fairly off-topic discussion going on on the previous JWN Comments board. Here’s the gist of it so we can continue this discussion over here:
At 11:40, Inkan wrote:
Dominic sounds strange when he brands the comments as “beyond the tolerable limit of racism” and then goes on to use “yank” as a slur.
At 12:05, Dominic wrote:
Is “yank” a slur? I refuse to write “American” to mean US people. I consider the implied claim that the US is bigger than two continents to be arrogant and insulting. If you have an alternative noun, I’m interested.
At 12:43, Inkan wrote:
I get a dehumanizing tone from the way “yank” is used in “Yankee go home” type rhetoric. ( It’s peculiar to use yank in that context. US southern right-wingers use “yankee” as a pejorative against Northerners and liberals. So “yankee go home” protesters are ironically using the same language that people in the US who have rightwing or even racist leans use. )
Well, I’ve been using “US” as an adjective in place of American, and I guess “US people” or “US residents” works as best as anything. All countries from Angola, Zambia, Malawi and Mozambique on south compose the region of south Africa. So I guess then you never call yourself “South African” in reference to just the Republic of South Africa?
At 13:32, Dominic wrote:
South Africa is the country. The term used for the region is “Southern Africa”.
A noun is what I’m after. US is fine as an adjective but “US people” is clumsy. I’ve tried using it. I go back to “yank” or “Yank” with a capital Y if I’m feeling polite.
“Yankee, Go Home!” is a venerable and well-loved slogan. In itself it is a plain request for US troops to go home from the 138 countries where they now sit. That’s two out of every three countries, roughly. Perhaps you are a supporter of US bases in other countries, Inkan? In that case I have no sympathy for you.
“Yankee, Go Home!” is not the same as “Death to the Great Satan!” or anything of that kind. All the yankee has to do is go home. What’s wrong with that?
At “now”, Helena decided to put in her two-penn’orth:
I corroborate Inkan where he comments about the particular usage of “Yank/Yankee” inside the US… “Texans” go home would be more accurate in many ways but seems a little highly specific. As a collective noun for the general mass of US citizens I like “US citizenry”. But actually, what I think most people who hang out on JWN really want is for the US troops to get the heck home.
And that’s what we call for in our peace actions here inside the US: “Bring the troops HOME”, etc. Maybe keeping the focus on that is better than getting tied up with “Yankees”?
So the rest of you, feel free to join in…

Bill and I made a quick foray into Gomorrah-on-the-Potomac this weekend. A dear friend of ours was having a Big 6-0 birthday party there. Her spouse organized the party as a surprise, and amazingly it worked. One hundred people in fancy duds were all packed into one of the city’s swankiest private clubs and when the birthday girl arrived we all leapt up saying “Surprise!”
I have this complex sort of love-hate relationship with Washington DC. Mainly, a lot of amazement at the toxic miasma of militarism and arrogance that marks nearly all of what passes for policy discourse there. There’s a critical mass of people who work in the administration, people who work on the Hill, people who work in the (so-called) “think tanks”, and very insidery “press” people… And they all talk to each other and create this massive echo chamber of likeminded people who seem sincerely to be of the belief that what they’re talking about is “the world”, when quite frequently it isn’t at all.
On the other hand, I did live there for 15 years. I got to know hundreds of nice people, and still count many of them as my friends.
One person I’ve known for oh, 20 years, let’s just say someone who used to be a very senior diplomat who spent the past year working in Baghdad’s Green Zone, called out to me at the party last night (with a big smile): “Helena Cobban! The provocateuse!”
“Why d’you say that?” I asked once I could get closer to him.
“Because you tell the truth,” he said.
So that was nice. We talked a bit longer, but the party was pretty crammed and the accoustics terrible.
I keep thinking I should try and spend a little more time in DC to catch up with some of the folks there a bit more, like him. Seven years after leaving the city, I’m maybe just about ready to go back in some way.
But heavens, no: definitely not to become any kind of “insider”.