Dissident Veteran for Peace

Rabbi Marvin Hier, Allen Falk, and Mikey Weinstein (he of the misnamed Military Religious Freedom Foundation) are all screeching about the photo above--Heads must roll! No, they're not howling because the Marine scout snipers pictured in 2010 in Afghanistan were part of the +10-year-long US occupation of that country. No, they're not incensed over the death toll of Afghan civilians since the US invaded in 2001 or the Marines who apparently desecrated Taliban corpses. No, the real outrage is that these Marines posed with an "SS" flag. Oy, the humanity! These Marines are not Jewish-compliant and the Corps must be whipped into shape.

When I first read about this episode, to their credit, the Corps was saying that "disciplinary action was not warranted" against the Marines in the photo. Today, however, the Jewish onslaught seems to be bearing fruit and the Marine Corps Times reports that Commandant Jim Amos is "sorry" and "has ordered an investigation". Abe Foxman and the ADL are "pleased".

Don't hold your breath waiting for Hier, Falk, Weinstein, Foxman and their minions to condemn the band KISS and its Jewish Israeli front man Gene Simmons for their use of the "SS" symbol (see below). Likewise, don't look for ejaculations of outrage over the symbol that appears on the blade near the hilt of US Navy swords (photo at bottom; click to enlarge). The symbol bears a disturbing resemblance to a well-known hate symbol appearing on the flag and military equipment of the violent racist and apartheid state, Israel.

Labels: Abraham Foxman, Afghanistan, Jews, military

Watch the video below to see how Ron Paul at a Republican Party presidential candidate debate last night takes the audience, in less than a minute, from jeers--when he prescribes Jesus' Golden Rule* for US foreign policy--to cheers--when he declares, "This country doesn't need another war, we need to quit the ones we're in. We need we need to save the money and bring our troops home."



* Matthew 7:12 - "In everything, therefore, treat people the same way you want them to treat you, for this is the Law and the Prophets."
Luke 6:31 - "Treat others the same way you want them to treat you."

Labels: politics, Ron Paul, United States, War

John F. Ross' novel Unintended Consequences (St. Louis, MO: Accurate Pr., 1996) is an 861-page monster. It is also a disturbing terrorist revenge fantasy that depicts its protagonists carrying out cold-blooded murders in gruesome detail with little or no remorse or hesitation. It's not a book or a vision I can say I admire or unreservedly recommend. And yet I learned some interesting things from it.

One of the opening vignettes in the novel is the 1932 Battle of Anacostia Flats, i.e. the US Army's assault during the Great Depression on an encampment of impoverished WW I veterans seeking early payment of the bonus promised them for their wartime service. The author returns to this repeatedly in his chronicling of US government assaults on American citizens.

The book left me with a better appreciation of how some conservative, gun-rights advocates view the episode and I also learned that Jim Crow was banned from the encampment though in 1932, Washington, DC was a Jim Crow stronghold. Ross erroneously attributes an article entitled "The Bonuseers [sic] Ban Jim Crow" to the New York Times. It turns out the article was by Roy Wilkins and was published in the NAACP's house magazine The Crisis in October, 1932.

Wilkins' article is quoted in The Bonus Army: An American Epic by Paul Dickson and Thomas B. Allen (Bloomsbury, 2006) on p. 118:

[At Camp Marks in Anacostia] I found black toes and white toes sticking out side by side from a ramshackle town of pup tents, packing crates and tar-paper shacks. Black men and white men, veterans of the segregated army that had fought in World War I, lined up equally, perspired in sick bays, side by side. For years, the U.S. Army had argued that General Jim Crow was its proper commander, but the Bonus marchers gave lie to the notion that Black and white soldiers--ex-soldiers in their case--couldn't live together.

I had either never known or else forgotten about this aspect of the Bonus Army's occupation. I also learned about the inspiring story of the Battle of Athens from Ross' book. In 1946, WW II vets and other locals successfully took up arms against a corrupt, local Democratic Party regime in Athens, TN, the county seat of McMinn County, TN.

Ross' righteous anger about the ambush at Ruby Ridge and the Waco Massacre is refreshing. I remember many of my Liberal and Lefty friends being non-plussed about these two atrocities at the time. Unintended Consequences reveals that infamous FBI sniper Lon Horiuchi was at the scene of both crimes. Other government atrocities featured in the book include the Ken Ballew raid and the MOVE massacre. No government officials were ever held criminally or civilly responsible for any of these crimes.

From Ross' book, I learned of an interesting 1982 report on "The Right to Keep and Bear Arms" from the US Senate's Subcommittee on the Constitution. Here are two paragraphs from the report's "History: Second amendment right to 'keep and bear arms' ":

That the National Guard is not the "Militia" referred to in the second amendment is even clearer today. Congress has organized the National Guard under its power to "raise and support armies" and not its power to "Provide for the organizing, arming and disciplining the Militia". This Congress chose to do in the interests of organizing reserve military units which were not limited in deployment by the strictures of our power over the constitutional militia, which can be called forth only "to execute the laws of the Union, suppress insurrections and repel invasions." The modern National Guard was specifically intended to avoid status as the constitutional militia, a distinction recognized by 10 U.S.C. Sec. 311(a).

The conclusion is thus inescapable that the history, concept, and wording of the second amendment to the Constitution of the United States, as well as its interpretation by every major commentator and court in the first half century after its ratification, indicates that what is protected is an individual right of a private citizen to own and carry firearms in a peaceful manner.

You can read more selections from the report here.

Ross makes the point in the book that early gun control laws were enacted to keep guns out of the hands of free Blacks. A surprising fact mentioned in the book is that Vermont has always permitted the open and concealed carrying of handguns without requiring a permit.

I'll close with two thoughts. One of the ironies of the books is that several of its characters train law enforcement officers in firearms usage and marksmanship as a means to get around gun control laws. The book has conflicted views on law enforcement personnel. Another irony is that the book's author and characters have a blind spot a mile wide. While they can see domestic government repression quite clearly, there is no clear acknowledgment that US government violence against foreigners is unjust and dwarfs domestic repression. Likewise, there is no evident appreciation in Unintended Consequences for the dialectical relationship between the killing of foreigners and the killing of Americans.

Labels: art and literature, civil liberties, guns, police repression, terrorism, violence

In "Some Lessons of Maus" I mentioned Art Spiegelman's typology which cast his characters as animals according to their ethnicity. Below are links to three articles which take up Spiegelman's decision to cast Poles as pigs.

• Danusha Goska. "Maus." Bieganski the Blog. September 6, 2010.
• Linda Kornasky. "Writer Spiegelman no stranger to controversy." San Angelo Standard Times. February 16, 2011.
• Danusha Goska. "You ARE a Pig." Bieganski the Blog. August 14, 2011.

Labels: art and literature, history, holocaust

Liberalism is and has always been about intervention. ... Liberals understand that power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Left to their own devices, people with weapons and money will always try to exploit and dominate people without weapons and money unless they are stopped from doing so. It is not because we are taught to do so. It's just innate human nature. ...

When the government steps in to stop a corporation from dumping noxious chemicals into a stream, that is intervention at the point of a gun, by a superior force against a lesser force attempting to exploit the weak and powerless. When the government steps in to enforce desegregation in schools, that is intervention at the point of a gun, by a superior force against a lesser force attempting to exploit the weak and powerless.

When Abraham Lincoln and the North decided not to allow the nation of the Confederacy--and make no mistake, it was a separate nation with separate laws and an entirely separate culture--to secede from the Union, in large part because the North had an interest in ending slavery in the South and in striking down a competing agrarian economic system, that too was intervention by a superior force against a lesser force attempting to exploit the weak and powerless. To this day, many Southerners feel that their land is being occupied by an illegitimate and invading power, and theirs a Lost Cause that will rise again.

This is what liberalism is. It is unavoidably, inescapably paternalistic in nature. It is so because it understands the inevitable tendency of human beings to be truly awful to one another unless social and legal rules are put in place--yes, by force--to prevent them from doing otherwise.

Source: David Atkins. "No, Stoller and Sullivan: there is no liberal conflict over Ron Paul." January 03, 2012.

Labels: freedom, politics, quotations, United States

So you want to be king? You want to control the greatest nation in the world--perhaps control the world as well? As we’ve seen, you must first own the people, own their minds. You must be able to command their prejudices like one can toot a boy's horn. And, if you are to be king, you must also destroy their warriors.

The people are always the enemy of the king, "the stupid mob," as Hitler called them. The people can rise up. They always do in the end. It is only a question of when.

But how can the people fight against the king without their warriors, without champions to fight for their causes? Destroy their warriors and the people can holler and foam but they can do no harm, for even they who are aware enough to shake off the king's propaganda like a dog shakes off fleas, even they are helpless against the king if there are none who can enter the fight for them.

The warriors for the people are trial lawyers--those villains who are not to be trusted, not even when they are shackled and held helpless in those strait jackets of hate. And we have learned to hate them because every day through the King's media we are told outrageous stories of how trial lawyers have aborted the fetus of justice, and we hear malicious jokes so that we have come to believe that the cause of every ill that befalls us lies at their feet.

Source: Gerry Spence. "Kill All the Lawyers" (PDF).

Labels: Justice, law, quotations

The Adjustment Bureau is a 2011 film written, directed, and produced by George Nolfi and starring Matt Damon and Emily Blunt. The god of The Adjustment Bureau, aka "The Chairman", is a very strange fellow and clearly not the god of the New Testament. The Chairman kills people without reservation, or rather, he has his angelic henchmen, known as "Associates", kill innocent people in order to fulfill "The Plan".

A monologue (at about 1:04:00) by one of his chief associates, Thompson, indicates that the Chairman and his minions brought humanity "to the height of the Roman Empire". As if that bloody empire, which killed and enslaved multitudes, including the execution of Jesus Christ, was a good thing. At that zenith, humanity was then granted free will and we ruined things. Among the litany of evils blamed on humanity are the so-called "Dark Ages" and then, after another 600 years of intervention to rescue us from our post-Imperial downfall, "World War I, the Depression, Fascism, and ... the Cuban Missile Crisis". Imperialism, WW II and its other, non-Holocaust atrocities, and the millions of people killed in the name of communism merit no mention. The god of The Adjustment Bureau is apparently quite tendentious. It's also revealed that he is neither omniscient nor omnipotent.

Labels: Hollywood, Religion

"All I wanted was a Snicker's bar." According to one of the seven police officers who helped killed him, those were the last words of Otto Zehm. Zehm was a 36-year-old mentally disabled janitor who died after lingering in a coma for two days after he was beaten with a baton, tasered multiple times, and hogtied on March 20, 2006, by Spokane police for a crime that was not committed. As of this writing, only one cop was charged in the death and although he was convicted by a jury, his sentencing was recently postponed, and the verdict may get tossed out.

Labels: crime, police repression, video, violence

You must realize that when police are ordered to violate your rights, they are not your friends. That brings us to number three: Do not hope police officers will resign instead of carrying out orders they do not like. They will not. The State Police did not resign thirty years ago. Instead, they used tear gas, billy clubs, and German Shepherds on civil rights marchers. Federal police in Waco, Texas last year did not resign. Instead, they used machine guns and tanks on a group of people they suspected had not paid a $200 tax, and they burned all eighty-six of them alive.

Source: John F. Ross. Unintended Consequences. (St. Louis, MO: Accurate Pr., 1996) p. 566.

Labels: art and literature, civil liberties, mass murder, police repression, quotations

Labels: politics, Ron Paul, United States, War

From Canada's National Post newspaper (click to enlarge):Thanks to Ken Dalton of Veterans For Peace, Chapter 21 for passing this along.

Labels: Empire, militarism, United States, War

On Consent of the Governed

Nothing appears more surprizing ... than the easiness with which the many are governed by the few; and the implicit submission, with which men resign their own sentiments and passions to those of their rulers. When we enquire by what means this wonder is effected, we shall find, that, as Force is always on the side of the governed, the governors have nothing to support them but opinion. It is therefore, on opinion only that government is founded; and this maxim extends to the most despotic and most military governments, as well as to the most free and most popular.

Power of a Tyrant

No man would have any reason to fear the fury of a tyrant, if he had no authority over any but from fear; since, as a single man, his bodily force can reach but a small way, and all the farther power he possesses must be founded either on our own opinion, or on the presumed opinion of others.

On Power & Property

... where the original constitution allows any share of power, though small, to an order of men, who possess a large share of the property, it is easy for them gradually to stretch their authority, and bring the balance of power to coincide with that of property.

Source: David Hume's "Of the First Principles of Government" (1742).

Labels: critical thinking, politics, quotations

This will be a short post. Today, I finished reading The Early Work of Philip K. Dick, Volume Two. I'd like to draw attention to two stories in the collection. "The Last of the Masters" is hailed as Dick's best anarchist story. There's also a thread in the story that ties science and technology to oppression. "Tony and the Beetles" is a brilliant exploration through the character of childrens of what it feels like to be colonized and how people from the colonizing class can easily misinterpret attitudes and circumstances.

Labels: art and literature, Philip K Dick

Philip K. Dick's work is probably the most consistently metaphysically-oriented in the American science fiction canon. In my last post, I mentioned Mercerism, the dominant religion in Dick's novel, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?. Mercer is a Christ-like figure in Mercerism and adherents achieve "fusion" with Mercer via an "empathy box", a device that produces the effect of an altered state of shared consciousness. The androids in Androids are lacking in empathy and hence they cannot partake of Mercerism. The nurturing of and sacredness of animal life is an important part of Mercerism, too.

Androids are, thus, double outsiders to Mercerism and they are hostile to it. Three android characters are exultant when the eponymic host of Buster Friendly and His Friendly Friends--whom they know is secretly an android himself--reveals on television that Mercer is a decrepit, washed-up, two-bit, alcoholic actor and "Mercerism is a swindle!". The visual manifestations one experiences when using an empathy box were filmed on "a cheap, Hollywood, commonplace sound stage". But things aren't that simple when it comes to religion, especially not in a Philip K. Dick story.

After the revelatory scene, J. R. Isidore, an adherent of Mercerism and a captive of three taunting androids, has a mystical experience that seems to begin even before he grips the handles of his empathy box. He is transported to the "tomb world". He calls out to Mercer, who comes to him. What follows is one of the most beautiful and beautifully written allegories of faith I've ever read.

"Is the sky painted?" Isidore asked. "Are there really brush strokes that show up under magnification?"

"Yes," Mercer said.

"I can't see them."

"You're too close," Mercer said. "You have to be a long way off, the way the androids are. They have better perspective."

"Is that why they claim you're a fraud?"

"I am a fraud," Mercer said. "They're sincere; their research is genuine. From their standpoint I am an elderly retired bit player named Al Jarry. All of it, their disclosure, is true. They interviewed me at my home, as they claim; I told them whatever they wanted to know, which was everything."

"Including about the whisky?"

Mercer smiled. "It was true. They did a good job and from their standpoint Buster Friendly's disclosure was convincing. They will have trouble understanding why nothing has changed. Because you're still here and I'm still here." Mercer indicated with a sweep of his hand the barren, rising hillside, the familiar place. "I lifted you from the tomb world just now and I will continue to lift you until you lose interest and want to quit. But you will have to stop searching for me because I will never stop searching for you."

"I didn't like that about the whisky," Isidore said. "That's lowering."

"That's because you're a highly moral person. I'm not. I don't judge, not even myself." Mercer held out a closed hand, palm up. "Before I forget it, I have something of yours here." He opened his fingers. On his hand rested the mutilated spider, but with its snipped-off legs restored.

"Thanks." Isidore accepted the spider. He started to say something further --

An alarm bell clanged.

The spider had been dismembered by the androids. The alarm bell is ringing because Deckard, a bounty hunter, has shown up and will soon dispatch the three androids. Shortly after their demise, Deckard--who hasn't seen Buster Friendly's expose--goes to the northern California wastelands. Deckard is portrayed elsewhere in the book as an unenthusiastic adherent of Mercerism but there, in the "uninhabited desolation" and without an empathy box, he has his own mystical encounter with Mercer. Just before he returns home, he speaks on the phone with his secretary: "They're saying now that Mercer is a fake." Deckard replies, "Mercer isn't a fake ... [u]nless reality is a fake."

Labels: art and literature, Philip K Dick, philosophy, Religion

In the 1982 film Blade Runner, the autonomous humanoid machines that the main character Deckard is tasked with hunting and killing are called "replicants". In the 1968 Philip K. Dick novel that inspired the film, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, they are called "androids". But that's a superficial difference compared to the divergent views of humans and technology in the two works.

Blade Runner has a curiously more positive take on replicants and a dimmer view of humans. In Androids, Deckard is introduced to us in bed asleep with his human wife, Iran, and the novel ends with their troubled relationship improved and Deckard going to asleep in the bedroom with Iran leaving the room to make a phone call on his behalf. In Blade Runner, Deckard has no wife or close human relationships and the film ends with Deckard running off with his love interest, a fugitive replicant named Rachael. In the book, Rachael and Deckard have sex but for Rachael's part it's an attempt to manipulate Deckard, not out of anything like love.

Later, when it's clear that Rachael did not succeed with Deckard, she goes to his home and kills his black Nubian goat. In the dystopian future of Androids, domestic and wild animals are exceedingly rare and expensive. Deckard pays a large down payment and signs a three-year loan contract in order to buy the goat.* Animal ownership is also a sacramental part of the dominant religion of Mercerism, being necessary for "true fusion with Mercer" ( p. 441).** Elsewhere in the book, Pris, an android, notes that animals are "sacred" and "protected by law". Another android, Roy, breaks in and adds "Insects ... are especially sacrosanct" (p. 549). Later, Pris and Roy methodically mutilate and torture a spider to the great distress of the human, J. R. Isidore, who found it. None of this is in the film.

Lack of empathy is a distinguishing feature of androids-replicants in the book and film but this comes across much more strongly in the book. In the film, the empathy deficit is at least partly the result of a human design feature--the replicants have an engineered four-year life span. In the book, the androids, including Rachael, are down-right sadistic but while they too have a four-year life span, it is not deliberate but the result of a technological shortcoming. In one of the final scenes of Blade Runner, the last fugitive replicant to die, Roy demonstrates empathy, saving Deckard's life, and then in his final moments Roy gives a beautiful soliloquy about what will be lost when he passes out of existence. No such scene exists in the book.

Notes
*There's an interesting scene in the book when Deckard first comes home with the goat. He asks Iran, "Does this cure your depression? ... It cures mine." (p. 556). Iran replies, "It certainly does cure my depression. Now we can admit to everybody that the sheep's false." Not something Deckard is enthused about: " 'No need to do that,' he said cautiously."

** All page number refer to the version of Androids found in Philip K. Dick: Four Novels of the 1960s (Library of America, 2007).

See also: "Mercerism and Faith"

Labels: art and literature, Philip K Dick, technology

[Character of Anne speaking]: "... let me tell you my cat joke. It's very short and simple. A hostess is giving a dinner party and she's got a lovely five-pound T-bone steak sitting on the sideboard in the kitchen waiting to be cooked while she chats with the guests in the living room--has a few drinks and whatnot. But then she excuses herself to go into the kitchen to cook the steak--and it's gone. And there's the family cat, in the corner, sedately washing it's face."

"The cat got the steak," Barney said.

"Did it? The guests are called in; they argue about it. The steak is gone, all five pounds of it; there sits the cat, looking well-fed and cheerful. 'Weigh the cat,' someone says. They've had a few drinks; it looks like a good idea. So they go into the bathroom and weigh the cat on the scales. It reads exactly five pounds. They all perceive this reading and a guest says, 'Okay, that's it. There's the steak.' They're satisfied that they know what happened, now; they've got empirical proof. Then a qualm comes to one of them and he says, puzzled, 'But where's the cat?' "

" I heard that joke before," Barney said. "And anyhow I don't see it's application."

Anne said, "That joke poses the finest distillation of the problem of ontology ever invented. If you ponder it long enough--"

Source: Philip K. Dick, "The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch" in Philip K. Dick: Four Novels of the 1960s (Library of America, 2007) pp. 418-419.

Labels: art and literature, Philip K Dick, philosophy

I just reread the two volumes of Maus, Art Spiegelman's graphic biography of his father, Vladek. In this post I will talk about some of the less obvious items of interest in the books, meaning things less central to the main theme.

It has long been admitted--by folks such as Benjamin Ginsberg and Dennis Prager and Joseph Telushkin--that Jews have historically been disproportionately involved in communism. For some Jews this is a source of pride. For others, it is cause for shame and denial. Likewise, the fact that Jews are, in general, wealthier than non-Jews. Both things can simultaneously be true but when someone so indicates that I've noticed that defenders of all things Jewish and the 'politically correct' will frequently pounce on this contrived contradiction.

It therefore caught my attention when Art Spiegelman reveals that his father's fiancée (who would become Art's mother), Anja Zylberberg, was the very embodiment of Jewish communist supporter and rich, capitalist Jew. On page 20* we are told: "The Zylberberg family was very well off - millionaires!" The setting is 1936 Poland. According to Patricia Clavin, author of The Great Depression in Europe, 1929-1939, Poland was one of the three European countries "worst affected" by the Great Depression. Most Poles were hit very hard by the crisis but not the Zylberbergs.

Later, in 1937, it turns out that "Anja was involved in conspirations [sic]!" ( p. 29). She was translating "communist messages" into German and "pass[ing] them on". Warned by a friend that the police are coming, instead of destroying the incriminating documents Anja foists them upon a seamstress, a tenant in the Zylberberg's apartment, who ends up taking the fall and spending upwards of three months in prison.

Another interesting thing are the expressions by Jewish characters of disbelief in the holocaust. Here's an example from page 90:

Art: When did you first hear about Auschwitz?
Vladek: Right away we heard ...
Vladek: Even from there - from that other world - people came back and told us. But we didn't believe.

Art doesn't seem to question the idea that people could come and go to "that other world" and Vladek doesn't explain.

On page 109, the following conversation takes place inside (!) a Jewish internment camp in 1943:

Persis: ... You've all heard the stories about Auschwitz. Horrible unbelievable stories.
Matka Zylberberg (Vladeks' mother-in-law): They can't be true!

The Goldhagen thesis suggests that the German people were "Hitler's willing executioners". But even Jews living in Poland, where most of the "death camps" were located, didn't believe the stories, according to Maus. This is consistent with what many Germans have said, too--they didn't know.

There's an exchange on page 171 where Art and his wife, Françoise, talk about how she should be represented. Spiegelman chose to portray Jews as mice, Germans as cats, Poles as pigs, Americans as dogs, Gypsies as moths (and you never see any in the camps), and Swedes are antlered deer. The conversations goes like this:

Art: ... what kind of animal should I make you?
Françoise: Huh? A mouse, of course!
Art: But you're French!
Françoise: Well ... how about the bunny rabbit?
Art: Nah, too sweet and gentle.
Françoise: Hmmph.
Art: I mean the French in general. Let's not forget the centuries of anti-Semitism.
Art: I mean how about the Dreyfus Affair? The Nazi collaborators! The -
Françoise: Okay! But if you're a mouse I ought to be a mouse too. I converted didn't I?
Art: I've got it! Panel one: My father is on his exercycle ...
Art: I tell him I just married a frog ...
Art: Panel two: He falls off his cycle in shock.
Art: So you and I go to a mouse rabbi. He says a few magic words and zap! ...
Art: By the end of the page the frog has turned into a beautiful mouse!
Françoise: Hmph
Françoise: I only converted to make Vladek happy.

There's a lot in this passage. As it turns out, Spiegelman does represent French people as frogs, including the Frenchman who saved his father's life (p. 253). This passage above also tells us that Spiegelman's choice of animals is indicative, in part at least, of what he perceives as a people's national character. It is meaningful, then, that Poles are pigs, etc.

And the "magic words" from the rabbi have real power in Maus, even an insincere conversion transforms Françoise into a mouse, as she is represented throughout the book. Contrast this with the children on page 291--the offspring of a German mother and a Jewish father are hybrid cat-mouse creatures.

Finally, it's interesting how Art's broad-brush charge of French anti-Semitism goes unchallenged by Françoise. Didn't even Jews collaborate with Nazis as even Maus attests? And the Dreyfus Affair split French society and resulted in a complete exoneration and reinstatement of Alfred Dreyfus in the French Army.

In closing, I'll turn to the impact on Vladek of his suffering at the hands of the Nazis. Was it a harsh lesson that instilled in him a sense of compassion and a hatred of injustice and violence against all innocent people? Well, not exactly. On page 290, we are treated to a recounting of Vladek's visit to Würzburg in the immediate aftermath of WW II.

Würzburg was subjected to Dresden-style aerial bombardment. Here's one brief description of the devastation: "About 82% of the living space, almost every public building and most of the cultural monuments and churches are destroyed. A total of about 5,000 people - about 3,000 of whom are women and 700 children and adolescents - perish in the inferno."

Here's the exchange on p. 290:

Vladek: We came to one place, Würzburg - what a mess!
Vladek or his traveling companion Shivek: Where can we find water?
German father: Hah! We haven't had any water in three days!
German mother, holding child: The Americans destroyed - sob - everything!
Vladek: Not one building was still standing.
Vladek: We came away happy.
Vladek: Let the Germans have a little what they did to the Jews.

* All page numbers refer to the 1991 Pantheon Books edition of Maus, in which both volumes are bound together.

See also: Poles as Pigs

Labels: art and literature, history, holocaust, repression, War

In light of the news about the major protest today outside the White House over the Keystone XL pipeline I decided to do a little research. I was surprised to learn that there are already at least two major new pipelines carrying Alberta tar sands oil into the US.

First, there is the Enbridge corporation's Alberta Clipper pipeline. This 36-inch pipeline (same diameter as the proposed Keystone XL) links Hardisty, Alberta with Superior, Wisconsin. The American terminus is on the shores of Lake Superior, the most pristine lake of the North American Great Lakes system, a system which has the second-largest volume of freshwater in the world. According to an analysis by the Polaris Institute (pp. 49-50), from 1999 to 2009 Enbridge reported 713 hydrocarbon spills totaling 5.6 million gallons. In 2010, an Enbridge pipeline spilled an estimated at 819,000 gallons of oil into a tributary of the Kalamazoo River, which flows into Lake Michigan. The Alberta Clipper pipeline received final approval from the Obama adminstration in August 2009 and "was ready for service on April 1, 2010". It has already netted Enbridge and its partners tens, if not hundreds, of millions of dollars for tar sands oil pumped across the border.

A second major pipeline bringing Alberta tar sands oil into the US is the TransCanada corporation's Keystone pipeline which also begins in Hardisty, Alberta but ends in Patoka, Illinois. This 30-inch diameter pipeline "began commercial operation in June 2010". A 36-inch extension of the Keystone pipeline from Steele City, Nebraska, to Cushing, Oklahoma "commenced commercial operation in February 2011". The Keystone XL pipeline is a proposed extension/expansion of the existing Keystone pipeline. It would follow a more direct route to Steele City using 36-inch diameter pipe and include an extension from Cushing to Nederland, Texas.

Given that there are already two operational major, cross-border Alberta tar sands oil pipelines, I wonder how realistic it is to expect Obama to do an about-face on Keystone XL especially when four major US labor unions, representing 2.6 million workers, are aggressively lobbying for the project to be approved. I wonder too about the dynamics that led to a showdown over Keystone XL while the Alberta Clipper and Keystone pipelines both went operational in the last nineteen months seemingly unnoticed.

Last revised: 08 November 2011

Labels: energy, environment, Obama, politics

... it may be that to eat and be eaten are the same thing in the end. My wisdom tells me that this is probably so. We are all made of the same stuff ... The same substance composes us--the tree overhead, the stone beneath us, the bird, the beast, the star--we are all one, all moving to the same end.

Source: Character of the Hamadryad in Mary Poppins by P. L. Travers (Harcourt, 1934) pp. 174-5.

Labels: art and literature, quotations, Science

Terrorism ... revolutionizes state repression, and, indeed, in some cases was instigated by the secret police for the express purpose of legitimizing a state of emergency. The mass left, indeed the working class as a whole, was repeatedly victimized for the "heroic" deeds of a few. And despite the traditional disclaimers of its theoreticians, terror substitutes the messianic role of the self-sacrificial individual--or the magical totemism of the attentat [i.e. an act of 'propaganda of the deed']--for the conscious movement of the masses.

Source: Mike Davis. In Praise of Barbarians: Essays Against Empire. (Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2007) p.273.

Labels: quotations, repression, terrorism

I just finished reading Washington Rules: America's Path to Permanent War by Col. Andrew J. Bacevich (US Army, ret.). The 2010 book is Bacevich's contribution to Metropolitan Books' American Empire Project.

The "Washington rules," according to Bacevich, consist of a "credo" and a "trinity" and together they form "the basis for an enduring consensus" that underpins bipartisan American militarism in Washington, DC (15). Bacevich writes: "In the simplest terms, the credo summons the United States--and the United States alone--to lead, save, liberate, and ultimately transform the world" (12). The "trinity" represents:

an abiding conviction that the minimum essentials of international peace and order require the United States to maintain a global military presence, to configure its forces for global power projection, and to counter existing or anticipated threats by relying on a policy of global interventionism. [emphasis in original] (14)

The Pentagon's annual budget: "lubricates American politics, filling campaign coffers and providing a source of largesse--jobs and contracts--for distribution to constituents" (228). The Washington rules, Bacevich argues:

deliver profit, power and privilege to a long list of beneficiaries: elected and appointed officials, corporate executives and corporate lobbyists, admirals and generals, functionaries staffing the national security apparatus, media personalities and policy intellectuals from universities and research organizations. (228)

To the monetary and political benefits of adherence to the Washington rules, Bacevich adds the "psychic" appeal:

For many, the payoff includes the added, if largely illusory, attraction of occupying a seat within or near what is imagined to be the very cockpit of contemporary history. Before power corrupts it attracts and then seduces. The claims implicit in the American credo and the opportunities inherent in the sacred trinity combine to make the imperial city on the Potomac one of the most captivating, corrupt, and corrupting places on the face of the earth. (228-9)

There are a lot of good reviews of Washington Rules: America's Path to Permanent War online and so I won't spend any more time on the book except to share two quotes from Senator J. William Fulbright that Bacevich includes. The first is from Fulbright's 1966 book, The Arrogance of Power:

[Power] tends to confuse itself with virtue and a great nation is peculiarly susceptible to the idea that its power is a sign of God's favor, conferring upon it a special responsibility for other nations--to make them richer and happier and wiser, to make them, that is, in its own shining image. ... Once imbued with the idea of mission, a great nation easily assumes that it has the means as well as the duty to do God's work. The Lord, after all, would surely not choose you as His agent and then deny you the sword with which to work His will. (111)

From the 1966 book also comes this quote:

'Maybe we are not really cut out for the job of spreading the gospel of democracy,' Fulbright suggested. 'Maybe it would profit us to concentrate on our own democracy instead of trying to inflict our own particular version of it' on others. 'If America has a service to perform in the world,' he continued, 'it is in large part the service of her own example. In our excessive involvement in the affairs of other countries we are not only living off our assets ... we are also denying the world the example of a free society enjoying freedom to the fullest.' (113)

Labels: Empire, militarism, politics, quotations

Labels: anti-war movement, Obama, politics, voting

War is organised murder and nothing else.

Source: Henry John Patch, formerly Private Patch in the Duke of Cornwall's Light Infantry, the last survivor of the Western Front, as quoted by David Randall in "The last of the noblest generation" in The Independent (UK), 26 July 2009.

Labels: quotations, War

Laws are like cobwebs, for if any trifling or powerless thing fall into them, they hold it fast, but if a thing of any size falls into them it breaks the mesh and escapes. --Anacharsis (ca. 600 BC).

Law and order are always and everywhere the law and order which protect the established hierarchy. --Herbert Marcuse (1898-1979).

Source: Epigraphs to ch. 12. of From Hell by Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell (Paddington, Queensland, Australia: Eddie Campbell Comics, 1999).

Labels: art and literature, Justice, law, quotations

The television is that insidious beast, that Medusa which freezes a billion people to stone every night, staring fixedly, that Siren which called and sang and promised so much and gave, after all, so little.

Source: Ray Bradbury as quoted in The Net Delusion: The Dark Side of Internet Freedom by Evgeny Morozov (New York: PublicAffairs, 2011) p. 281.

Labels: Hollywood, quotations, technology

I'm a sucker for stories about personal redemption and forgiveness. They provide a much-needed counterpoint to the culturally-dominant "myth of redemptive violence," in my opinion. That's one reason why I liked the 2006 German film, The Lives of Others. The film is set in East Berlin just before and after the fall of the Berlin Wall and it's about a Stasi officer and his subjects.

Labels: art and literature, history, video

Pedro Cabezas' The Appeared (Aparecidos) is a Spanish horror film shot in Argentina and features some beautiful shots of Patagonia. The title is a conscious reference to the "Desaparecidos"--the thousands of "disappeared" victims of the US-backed "Dirty War," a civil war waged by the Argentine military from 1975 until 1983. The film stands on its own as a horror flick but its intelligent and successful incorpation of the real-life horrors of Argentina's recent past enhances the film's appeal. The film is available with English subtitles on DVD from IFC Films.


Rupert Wyatt's The Escapist is a clever British prison break film inspired by American author Ambrose Beirce's Civil War-era short story, An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge. The film carries a timely message about the nature of freedom and captivity. For good reason, the film won or was nominated for several awards in the UK and Ireland.

Labels: art and literature, freedom, history, video

I've almost finished reading Diagnosis: Mercury by Jane M. Hightower, MD. Diagnosis: Mercury is medical and environmental writing the way it should be done--no sensationalism, just good, solid writing, research, and documentation. Hightower's book is non-fiction but it reads like a gripping mystery novel as she reveals the modern history of industrial mercury poisoning and misregulation. Along the way we gain insight into why, decades after the Minamata disaster (see video below), US food supplies still contain mostly untested but unsafe levels of mercury.

In 2000, Dr. Hightower discovered that some of her affluent patients were ill with symptoms consistent with mercury poisoning--the symptoms improved and her patient's blood mercury levels dropped when they stopped eating swordfish and tuna. This is the point of departure for her book. Leaving her home in San Francisco, Hightower takes us to Japan, Canada, and Iraq, among other places. Along the way we see how greed has corrupted or derailed science, medicine, regulatory agencies, and the judicial system and places people's well-being at-risk.

Note: As it turns out getting a high dose of mercury from a single serving of fish is probably much easier than you think. For example, a 7 oz. serving of halibut for a 150 lb. person would result in a mercury exposure of 105% of the Environmental Protection Agency's "reference dose" i.e., "the amount of mercury a person, including sensitive subpopulations, can be exposed to on a daily basis over a lifetime without appreciable risk of effects." Check out the Mercury Calculator here at gotmercury.org

See also:

• Jane Hightower, MD. "The Danger of Mercury Poisoning From Fish." San Francisco Medicine. March 2001.
• Mercury Rising: The Poisoning of Grassy Narrows (CBC)
• Mercury Still Killing in Grassy Narrows (FreeGrassy.org)

Labels: environment, Science, video

SAVAGES we call them, because their Manners differ from ours, which we think the Perfection of Civility; they think the same of theirs.

Perhaps, if we could examine the Manners of different Nations with Impartiality, we should find no People so rude, as to be without any Rules of Politeness; nor any so polite, as not to have some Remains of Rudeness.

The Indian Men, when young, are Hunters and Warriors; when old, Counsellors; for all their Government is by Counsel of the Sages; there is no Force, there are no Prisons, no Officers to compel Obedience, or inflict Punishment. Hence they generally study Oratory, the best Speaker having the most Influence. The Indian Women till the Ground, dress the Food, nurse and bring up the Children, and preserve and hand down to Posterity the Memory of public Transactions. These Employments of Men and Women are accounted natural and honourable. Having few artificial Wants, they have abundance of Leisure for Improvement by Conversation. Our laborious Manner of Life, compared with theirs, they esteem slavish and base; and the Learning, on which we value ourselves, they regard as frivolous and useless. An Instance of this occurred at the Treaty of Lancaster, in Pennsylvania, anno 1744, between the Government of Virginia and the Six Nations. After the principal Business was settled, the Commissioners from Virginia acquainted the Indians by a Speech, that there was at Williamsburg a College, with a Fund for Educating Indian youth; and that, if the Six Nations would send down half a dozen of their young Lads to that College, the Government would take care that they should be well provided for, and instructed in all the Learning of the White People. It is one of the Indian Rules of Politeness not to answer a public Proposition the same day that it is made; they think it would be treating it as a light matter, and that they show it Respect by taking time to consider it, as of a Matter important. They therefore deferr'd their Answer till the Day following; when their Speaker began, by expressing their deep Sense of the kindness of the Virginia Government, in making them that Offer; "for we know," says he, "that you highly esteem the kind of Learning taught in those Colleges, and that the Maintenance of our young Men, while with you, would be very expensive to you. We are convinc'd, therefore, that you mean to do us Good by your Proposal; and we thank you heartily. But you, who are wise, must know that different Nations have different Conceptions of things; and you will therefore not take it amiss, if our Ideas of this kind of Education happen not to be the same with yours. We have had some Experience of it; Several of our young People were formerly brought up at the Colleges of the Northern Provinces; they were instructed in all your Sciences; but, when they came back to us, they were bad Runners, ignorant of every means of living in the Woods, unable to bear either Cold or Hunger, knew neither how to build a Cabin, take a Deer, or kill an Enemy, spoke our Language imperfectly, were therefore neither fit for Hunters, Warriors, nor Counsellors; they were totally good for nothing. We are however not the less oblig'd by your kind Offer, tho' we decline accepting it; and, to show our grateful Sense of it, if the Gentlemen of Virginia will send us a Dozen of their Sons, we will take great Care of their Education, instruct them in all we know, and make Men of them."

Having frequent Occasions to hold public Councils, they have acquired great Order and Decency in conducting them. The old Men sit in the foremost Ranks, the Warriors in the next, and the Women and Children in the hindmost. The Business of the Women is to take exact Notice of what passes, imprint it in their Memories (for they have no Writing), and communicate it to their Children. They are the Records of the Council, and they preserve Traditions of the Stipulations in Treaties 100 Years back; which, when we compare with our Writings, we always find exact. He that would speak, rises. The rest observe a profound Silence. When he has finish'd and sits down, they leave him 5 or 6 Minutes to recollect, that, if he has omitted any thing he intended to say, or has any thing to add, he may rise again and deliver it. To interrupt another, even in common Conversation, is reckon'd highly indecent. How different this is from the conduct of a polite British House of Commons, where scarce a day passes without some Confusion, that makes the Speaker hoarse in calling to Order; and how different from the Mode of Conversation in many polite Companies of Europe, where, if you do not deliver your Sentence with great Rapidity, you are cut off in the middle of it by the Impatient Loquacity of those you converse with, and never suffer'd to finish it!

The Politeness of these Savages in Conversation is indeed carried to Excess, since it does not permit them to contradict or deny the Truth of what is asserted in their Presence. By this means they indeed avoid Disputes; but then it becomes difficult to know their Minds, or what Impression you make upon them. The Missionaries who have attempted to convert them to Christianity, all complain of this as one of the great Difficulties of their Mission. The Indians hear with Patience the Truths of the Gospel explain'd to them, and give their usual Tokens of Assent and Approbation; you would think they were convince'd. No such matter. It is mere Civility.

A Swedish Minister, having assembled the chiefs of the Susquehanah Indians, made a Sermon to them, acquainting them with the principal historical Facts on which our Religion is founded; such as the Fall of our first Parents by eating an Apple, the coming of Christ to repair the Mischief, his Miracles and Suffering, &c. When he had finished, an Indian Orator stood up to thank him. "What you have told us," says he, "is all very good. It is indeed bad to eat Apples. It is better to make them all into Cyder. We are much oblig'd by your kindness in coming so far, to tell us these Things which you have heard from your Mothers. In return, I will tell you some of those we have heard from ours. In the Beginning, our Fathers had only the Flesh of Animals to subsist on; and if their Hunting was unsuccessful, they were starving. Two of our young Hunters, having kill'd a Deer, made a Fire in the Woods to broil some Part of it. When they were about to satisfy their Hunger, they beheld a beautiful young Woman descend from the Clouds, and seat herself on that Hill, which you see yonder among the blue Mountains. They said to each other, it is a Spirit that has smelt our broiling Venison, and wishes to eat of it; let us offer some to her. They presented her with the Tongue; she was pleas'd with the Taste of it, and said, 'Your kindness shall be rewarded; come to this Place after thirteen Moons, and you shall find something that will be of great Benefit in nourishing you and your Children to the latest Generations.' They did so, and, to their Surprise, found Plants they had never seen before; but which, from that ancient time, have been constantly cultivated among us, to our great Advantage. Where her right Hand had touched the Ground, they found Maize; where her left hand had touch'd it, they found Kidney-Beans; and where her Backside had sat on it, they found Tobacco." The good Missionary, disgusted with this idle Tale, said, "What I delivered to you were sacred Truths; but what you tell me is mere Fable, Fiction, and Falshood." The Indian, offended, reply'd, "My brother, it seems your Friends have not done you Justice in your Education; they have not well instructed you in the Rules of common Civility. You saw that we, who understand and practise those Rules, believ'd all your stories; why do you refuse to believe ours?" When any of them come into our Towns, our People are apt to crowd round them, gaze upon them, and incommode them, where they desire to be private; this they esteem great Rudeness, and the Effect of the Want of Instruction in the Rules of Civility and good Manners. "We have," say they, "as much Curiosity as you, and when you come into our Towns, we wish for Opportunities of looking at you; but for this purpose we hide ourselves behind Bushes, where you are to pass, and never intrude ourselves into your Company."

Their Manner of entring one another's village has likewise its Rules. It is reckon'd uncivil in travelling Strangers to enter a Village abruptly, without giving Notice of their Approach. Therefore, as soon as they arrive within hearing, they stop and hollow, remaining there till invited to enter. Two old Men usually come out to them, and lead them in. There is in every Village a vacant Dwelling, called the Strangers' House. Here they are plac'd, while the old Men go round from Hut to Hut, acquainting the Inhabitants, that Strangers are arriv'd, who are probably hungry and weary; and every one sends them what he can spare of Victuals, and Skins to repose on. When the Strangers are refresh'd, Pipes and Tobacco are brought; and then, but not before, Conversation begins, with Enquiries who they are, whither bound, what News, &c.; and it usually ends with offers of Service, if the Strangers have occasion of Guides, or any Necessaries for continuing their Journey; and nothing is exacted for the Entertainment.

The same Hospitality, esteem'd among them as a principal Virtue, is practis'd by private Persons; of which Conrad Weiser, our Interpreter, gave me the following Instance. He had been naturaliz'd among the Six Nations, and spoke well the Mohock Language. In going thro' the Indian Country, to carry a Message from our Governor to the Council at Onondaga, he call'd at the Habitation of Canassatego, an old Acquaintance, who embrac'd him, spread Furs for him to sit on, plac'd before him some boil'd Beans and Venison, and mix'd some Rum and Water for his Drink. When he was well refresh'd, and had lit his Pipe, Canassatego began to converse with him; ask'd how he had far'd the many Years since they had seen each other; whence he then came; what occasion'd the Journey, &c. Conrad answered all his Questions; and when the Discourse began to flag, the Indian, to continue it, said, "Conrad, you have lived long among the white People, and know something of their Customs; I have been sometimes at Albany, and have observed, that once in Seven Days they shut up their Shops, and assemble all in the great House; tell me what it is for? What do they do there?" "They meet there," says Conrad, "to hear and learn good Things." "I do not doubt," says the Indian, "that they tell you so; they have told me the same; but I doubt the Truth of what they say, and I will tell you my Reasons. I went lately to Albany to sell my Skins and buy Blankets, Knives, Powder, Rum, &c. You know I us'd generally to deal with Hans Hanson; but I was a little inclin'd this time to try some other Merchant. However, I call'd first upon Hans, and asked him what he would give for Beaver. He said he could not give any more than four Shillings a Pound; 'but,' says he, 'I cannot talk on Business now; this is the Day when we meet together to learn Good Things, and I am going to the Meeting.' So I thought to myself, ' Since we cannot do any Business to-day, I may as well go to the meeting too,' and I went with him. There stood up a Man in Black, and began to talk to the People very angrily. I did not understand what he said; but, perceiving that he look'd much at me and at Hanson, I imagin'd he was angry at seeing me there; so I went out, sat down near the House, struck Fire, and lit my Pipe, waiting till the Meeting should break up. I thought too, that the Man had mention'd something of Beaver, and I suspected it might be the Subject of their Meeting. So, when they came out, I accosted my Merchant. 'Well, Hans,' says I, 'I hope you have agreed to give more than four Shillings a Pound.' 'No,' says he, 'I cannot give so much; I cannot give more than three shillings and sixpence.' I then spoke to several other Dealers, but they all sung the same song, Three and sixpence, Three and sixpence. This made it clear to me, that my Suspicion was right; and, that whatever they pretended of meeting to learn good Things, the real purpose was to consult how to cheat Indians in the Price of Beaver. Consider but a little, Conrad, and you must be of my Opinion. If they met so often to learn good Things, they would certainly have learnt some before this time. But they are still ignorant. You know our Practice. If a white Man, in travelling thro' our Country, enters one of our Cabins, we all treat him as I treat you; we dry him if he is wet, we warm him if he is cold, we give him Meat and Drink, that he may allay his Thirst and Hunger; and we spread soft Furs for him to rest and sleep on; we demand nothing in return. But, if I go into a white Man's House at Albany, and ask for Victuals and Drink, they say, 'Where is your Money ? ' and if I have none, they say, ' Get out, you Indian Dog.' You see they have not yet learned those little Good Things, that we need no Meetings to be instructed in, because our Mothers taught them to us when we were Children; and therefore it is impossible their Meetings should be, as they say, for any such purpose, or have any such Effect; they are only to contrive the Cheating of Indians in the Price of Beaver."

Source: "Concerning the Savages of North America" by Benjamin Franklin in The Writings of Benjamin Franklin, Vol. 10., pp. 97-104

Labels: anarchism, history, Indians, quotations

In concluding "We love death": Projecting the American Culture of Death onto Islam I wrote, "Whatever lip service they may pay to the older, nobler meanings, it is clear that for most Americans (and their victims) the deeper, lived reality is that the cross is a symbol of death and devout American Christians are largely 'guilty bystanders,' if not active participants, in the crimes of empire." In the video below Ricky Skaggs, Kentucky Thunder, and the Boston Pops perform a song that speaks to a slightly different vision--a "soldier of the cross" armed with the "sword of faith" bringing "love to those who hate".

Labels: Christianity, music, video

The setup: Henry Dashwood has just died. On his death-bed, he obtained the promise of his son, John Dashwood, to ensure Henry's wife and three daughters--John's step-mother and half-sisters--will be taken care of financially by John.

Mr. John Dashwood had not the strong feelings of the rest of the family; but he was affected by a recommendation of such a nature at such a time, and he promised to do every thing in his power to make them comfortable. His father was rendered easy by such an assurance, and Mr. John Dashwood had then leisure to consider how much there might prudently be in his power to do for them.

He was not an ill-disposed young man, unless to be rather cold hearted and rather selfish is to be ill-disposed: but he was, in general, well respected; for he conducted himself with propriety in the discharge of his ordinary duties. Had he married a more amiable woman, he might have been made still more respectable than he was:--he might even have been made amiable himself; for he was very young when he married, and very fond of his wife. But Mrs. John Dashwood was a strong caricature of himself;-- more narrow-minded and selfish.

When he gave his promise to his father, he meditated within himself to increase the fortunes of his sisters by the present of a thousand pounds a-piece. He then really thought himself equal to it. The prospect of four thousand a-year, in addition to his present income, besides the remaining half of his own mother's fortune, warmed his heart, and made him feel capable of generosity.-- "Yes, he would give them three thousand pounds: it would be liberal and handsome! It would be enough to make them completely easy. Three thousand pounds! he could spare so considerable a sum with little inconvenience."-- He thought of it all day long, and for many days successively, and he did not repent. ...

Mrs. John Dashwood did not at all approve of what her husband intended to do for his sisters. To take three thousand pounds from the fortune of their dear little boy would be impoverishing him to the most dreadful degree. She begged him to think again on the subject. How could he answer it to himself to rob his child, and his only child too, of so large a sum? And what possible claim could the Miss Dashwoods, who were related to him only by half blood, which she considered as no relationship at all, have on his generosity to so large an amount. It was very well known that no affection was ever supposed to exist between the children of any man by different marriages; and why was he to ruin himself, and their poor little Harry, by giving away all his money to his half sisters?

"It was my father's last request to me," replied her husband, "that I should assist his widow and daughters."

"He did not know what he was talking of, I dare say; ten to one but he was light-headed at the time. Had he been in his right senses, he could not have thought of such a thing as begging you to give away half your fortune from your own child."

"He did not stipulate for any particular sum, my dear Fanny; he only requested me, in general terms, to assist them, and make their situation more comfortable than it was in his power to do. Perhaps it would have been as well if he had left it wholly to myself. He could hardly suppose I should neglect them. But as he required the promise, I could not do less than give it; at least I thought so at the time. The promise, therefore, was given, and must be performed. Something must be done for them whenever they leave Norland and settle in a new home."

"Well, then, LET something be done for them; but THAT something need not be three thousand pounds. Consider," she added, "that when the money is once parted with, it never can return. Your sisters will marry, and it will be gone for ever. If, indeed, it could be restored to our poor little boy--"

"Why, to be sure," said her husband, very gravely, "that would make great difference. The time may come when Harry will regret that so large a sum was parted with. If he should have a numerous family, for instance, it would be a very convenient addition."

"To be sure it would."

"Perhaps, then, it would be better for all parties, if the sum were diminished one half.--Five hundred pounds would be a prodigious increase to their fortunes!"

"Oh! beyond anything great! What brother on earth would do half so much for his sisters, even if REALLY his sisters! And as it is--only half blood!--But you have such a generous spirit!"

"I would not wish to do any thing mean," he replied. "One had rather, on such occasions, do too much than too little. No one, at least, can think I have not done enough for them: even themselves, they can hardly expect more."

"There is no knowing what THEY may expect," said the lady, "but we are not to think of their expectations: the question is, what you can afford to do."

"Certainly--and I think I may afford to give them five hundred pounds a-piece. As it is, without any addition of mine, they will each have about three thousand pounds on their mother's death--a very comfortable fortune for any young woman."

"To be sure it is; and, indeed, it strikes me that they can want no addition at all. They will have ten thousand pounds divided amongst them. If they marry, they will be sure of doing well, and if they do not, they may all live very comfortably together on the interest of ten thousand pounds."

"That is very true, and, therefore, I do not know whether, upon the whole, it would not be more advisable to do something for their mother while she lives, rather than for them--something of the annuity kind I mean.--My sisters would feel the good effects of it as well as herself. A hundred a year would make them all perfectly comfortable."

His wife hesitated a little, however, in giving her consent to this plan.

"To be sure," said she, "it is better than parting with fifteen hundred pounds at once. But, then, if Mrs. Dashwood should live fifteen years we shall be completely taken in."

"Fifteen years! my dear Fanny; her life cannot be worth half that purchase."

"Certainly not; but if you observe, people always live for ever when there is an annuity to be paid them; and she is very stout and healthy, and hardly forty. An annuity is a very serious business; it comes over and over every year, and there is no getting rid of it. You are not aware of what you are doing. I have known a great deal of the trouble of annuities; for my mother was clogged with the payment of three to old superannuated servants by my father's will, and it is amazing how disagreeable she found it. Twice every year these annuities were to be paid; and then there was the trouble of getting it to them; and then one of them was said to have died, and afterwards it turned out to be no such thing. My mother was quite sick of it. Her income was not her own, she said, with such perpetual claims on it; and it was the more unkind in my father, because, otherwise, the money would have been entirely at my mother's disposal, without any restriction whatever. It has given me such an abhorrence of annuities, that I am sure I would not pin myself down to the payment of one for all the world."

"It is certainly an unpleasant thing," replied Mr. Dashwood, "to have those kind of yearly drains on one's income. One's fortune, as your mother justly says, is NOT one's own. To be tied down to the regular payment of such a sum, on every rent day, is by no means desirable: it takes away one's independence."

"Undoubtedly; and after all you have no thanks for it. They think themselves secure, you do no more than what is expected, and it raises no gratitude at all. If I were you, whatever I did should be done at my own discretion entirely. I would not bind myself to allow them any thing yearly. It may be very inconvenient some years to spare a hundred, or even fifty pounds from our own expenses."

"I believe you are right, my love; it will be better that there should by no annuity in the case; whatever I may give them occasionally will be of far greater assistance than a yearly allowance, because they would only enlarge their style of living if they felt sure of a larger income, and would not be sixpence the richer for it at the end of the year. It will certainly be much the best way. A present of fifty pounds, now and then, will prevent their ever being distressed for money, and will, I think, be amply discharging my promise to my father."

"To be sure it will. Indeed, to say the truth, I am convinced within myself that your father had no idea of your giving them any money at all. The assistance he thought of, I dare say, was only such as might be reasonably expected of you; for instance, such as looking out for a comfortable small house for them, helping them to move their things, and sending them presents of fish and game, and so forth, whenever they are in season. I'll lay my life that he meant nothing farther; indeed, it would be very strange and unreasonable if he did. Do but consider, my dear Mr. Dashwood, how excessively comfortable your mother-in-law and her daughters may live on the interest of seven thousand pounds, besides the thousand pounds belonging to each of the girls, which brings them in fifty pounds a year a-piece, and, of course, they will pay their mother for their board out of it. Altogether, they will have five hundred a-year amongst them, and what on earth can four women want for more than that?--They will live so cheap! Their housekeeping will be nothing at all. They will have no carriage, no horses, and hardly any servants; they will keep no company, and can have no expenses of any kind! Only conceive how comfortable they will be! Five hundred a year! I am sure I cannot imagine how they will spend half of it; and as to your giving them more, it is quite absurd to think of it. They will be much more able to give YOU something."

"Upon my word," said Mr. Dashwood, "I believe you are perfectly right. My father certainly could mean nothing more by his request to me than what you say. I clearly understand it now, and I will strictly fulfil my engagement by such acts of assistance and kindness to them as you have described. When my mother removes into another house my services shall be readily given to accommodate her as far as I can. Some little present of furniture too may be acceptable then."

"Certainly," returned Mrs. John Dashwood. "But, however, ONE thing must be considered. When your father and mother moved to Norland, though the furniture of Stanhill was sold, all the china, plate, and linen was saved, and is now left to your mother. Her house will therefore be almost completely fitted up as soon as she takes it."

"That is a material consideration undoubtedly. A valuable legacy indeed! And yet some of the plate would have been a very pleasant addition to our own stock here."

"Yes; and the set of breakfast china is twice as handsome as what belongs to this house. A great deal too handsome, in my opinion, for any place THEY can ever afford to live in. But, however, so it is. Your father thought only of THEM. And I must say this: that you owe no particular gratitude to him, nor attention to his wishes; for we very well know that if he could, he would have left almost everything in the world to THEM."

This argument was irresistible. It gave to his intentions whatever of decision was wanting before; and he finally resolved, that it would be absolutely unnecessary, if not highly indecorous, to do more for the widow and children of his father, than such kind of neighbourly acts as his own wife pointed out.

Source: Excerpted from chapters 1 and 2 of Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen (1811).

Labels: art and literature

Son, if you're going to marry a white woman, then marry a rich one, because those white-trash women are just Indians with bad haircuts.

Source: "One Good Man" in The Toughest Indian in the World by Sherman Alexie (Grove Press, 2001) p. 226.

Labels: art and literature, class, Indians, quotations, race, White folks

In "Quotable: Descendants of Tribes," I cited John Trudell: "So, these White people, they're the descendants of tribes, there was a time in their ancestry when they wore feathers, all right? And they wore beads and shells." Of course, White folks have never stopped wearing beads and, arguably, the archaeological record shows an explosion of bead use by the indigenous people of North America after they got access to cheap European glass trade beads.

In any case, I wanted to provide some examples of just what some early Europeans made and wore long before the Romans expanded their empire and drastically changed life in previously non-Roman areas. First, an etymological note: According to Lois Sherr Dubin, writing in The History of Beads: From 100,000 B.C. to the Present (New York: Abrams, 2009), "The word bead is derived from the Anglo-Saxon bidden ('to pray') and bede ('prayer')" (p. 79).

The first example is a shell necklace from an archaeological site near Dolní Věstonice in the present-day Czech Republic. According to Palmer et al. (Unearthing the Past: The Great Archaeological Discoveries that Have Changed History, 2009), the artifacts at this Gravettian site date from 27,000 to 24, 000 BC.


Next up is a Magdalenian necklace of dentalium shell and bear, lion, fox and deer teeth from Rocher de la Peine, Les Eyzies (Dordogne), France. It dates from about 10,050 BC.


Below is an ibex head necklace with a bison head clasp made around 11,000-10,000 BC from ibex bone (see Dubin p. 27). It was excavated from a Paleolithic site of the Magdalenian culture in the Labastide commune in the French Pyrenees.


The shale beads pictured below are part of a cache of over 700 beads found at Nab's Head, Pembrokeshire, Wales. The beads date from about 10,500 years ago.


The next two images are not of beads, shells, or feathers but they do give a sense of life in pre-Roman Europe. Pictured below is an interior portion of the Gundestrap Cauldron, found in a peat bog in Himmerland, Denmark in 1891. The cauldron is generally believed to have been created in the 2nd or 1st century BC. The central, antlered figure, holding a snake and a torc, is the Celtic god Cernunnos.


The final image is an artist's rendition of the ancient (ca. 200 BC) fort of Castell Henllys in present-day Pembrokeshire, Wales.



See also: "Prehistoric Stonehenge visitors came from the Mediterranean and the Alps" on Heritage-Key.com

Labels: history, identity, White folks

The image below is of a t-shirt design discussed by Paul Chaat Smith in his essay "Homeland Insecurity" in Everything You Know about Indians Is Wrong (Minneapolis, Univ of Minnesota Pr., 2009).


See also: "American Indians: Some Stereotypes & Realities"

Labels: identity, Indians, Paul Chaat Smith, race, White folks

Five hundred years ago we were Seneca and Cree and Hopi and Kiowa, as different from each other as Norwegians are from Italians, or Egyptians from Zulus. ...

America pre-Columbus was a riot of vastly different cultures, which occasionally fought each other, no doubt sometimes viciously and for stupid reasons. If some Indian societies were ecological utopias with that perfect, elusive blend of democracy and individual freedom, some also practiced slavery, both before and after contact. Yet the amazing variety of human civilization that existed five centuries ago has been replaced by one image above all: the Plains Indians of the mid-nineteenth century. Most Indians weren't anything like the Sioux or the Comanche, either the real ones or the Hollywood invention. The true story is simply too messy and complicated. And too threatening. The myth of noble savages, completely unable to cope with modern times, goes down much more easily. No matter that Indian societies consistently valued technology and when useful made it their own. The glory days of the Comanches, for example, were built on European imports of horses and guns. ...

I suggest that a powerful antidote to the manufactured past now being created for us is the secret history of Indians in the twentieth century. Geronimo really did have a Cadillac and used to drive it to church, where he'd sign autographs. Quanah Parker, the legendary leader of the Comanches, became a successful businessman after the war. He was part owner of a railroad, and endorsed farming and Jesus. At the same time he was leader in the Native American Church and advocated the use of peyote. One of the most instructive lives is that of Black Elk, one of our greatest heroes and most revered spiritual leaders. His astonishing life included a stint in Buffalo Bill's Wild West show and surviving the Wounded Knee massacre. An impresario-anthropologist named John Neihardt wrote of his fantastic visions in Black Elk Speaks. ...

I found it fascinating that despite hearing about Black Elk for many years, I had no idea he spent most of his life as a Catholic. I learned that many believe that Black Elk and white assistants sat down and invented practically a new religion, explicitly designed to blend teachings of Christianity and Lakota spiritualism. At the time he was working as a catechist for the Roman Catholic Church of Nebraska. Essentially he was a lay priest. I also learned he had a first name, and that it was Nick. ... Do any of these facts about Nick Black Elk invalidate his contribution to the Lakota people, or his spiritual teachings? I think that to say they do is to say the invented, impossibly wise sages are preferable to the people who actually lived. Nick Black Elk, an extra in Buffalo Bill's Wild West show, a paid employee of the Catholic Church, only becomes more interesting, not less, and his accomplishments even more remarkable. Those who would have it otherwise cherish the myth more than the genuine struggles of real human beings.

Source: Paul Chaat Smith in Everything You Know about Indians Is Wrong (Minneapolis, Univ of Minnesota Pr., 2009) pp. 19-22.

See also: "A Brief History of Native Stereotyping" on the Blue Corn Comics site.

Labels: Hollywood, identity, Indians, Paul Chaat Smith, quotations, Religion

"Organized crime!" What's that? Historical curiosity? Couldn't find it, I should think so.

But I did, said Jai. Sure I found it.

Government.

Source: Character of Jai Vedh in And Chaos Died by Joanna Russ (Boston: Gregg Pr., 1978) p. 133.

Labels: anarchism, art and literature, crime, quotations

The video below is of the Japanese virtual pop star, Hatsune Miku. In 2009, she first performed "live" before 5,000 fans in two performances at the Zepp Tokyo music hall and another 4,000 via streaming video. Tickets to her "live" performance this Saturday in the 7,100-seat Nokia Theatre in Los Angeles are already sold out.

Labels: music, technology, video

They were, in a way, trying to imitate us [in film representations of Indians] but in another way they were trying to remember who they were. Every human being is a descendant of a tribe. So, these White people, they're the descendants of tribes, there was a time in their ancestry when they wore feathers, all right? And they wore beads and shells. There was a time in their ancestry, all right, before this colonizing mentality came and did to them, to turn them into the White people they are, and then it came and did it to us. The very same thing that happened to us happened to them.

Source: John Trudell, Lakota activist/poet in Reel Injun (Rezolution Pictures & the National Film Board of Canada, 2009)

See also:

• Indians at home – Indians in Cornwall, Indians in Wales, Indians in Ireland
• Skins & Fighting for Uncle Scum
• Quotable: "We believe in America"
• The "lower class" as Indians (and vice versa)
• Beads & Shells

Labels: art and literature, Empire, Hollywood, identity, Indians, White folks