Commenter Profile

Total number of comments: 436 (since 2009-11-22 01:46:18)

Philip Munger

composer, educator, political, environmental and arts blogger from Wasilla, Alaska

Website: http://progressivealaska.blogspot.com/

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  • Day after pogroms, Likud MK calls for internment camp for African refugees
    • Philip Munger May 24, 2012 at 9:31 pm

      The Congrestional Black Caucus will not dare raise a peep even if Israel tries to reconstitute the Slave trade

      --- if only it weren't true

    • Philip Munger May 24, 2012 at 2:14 pm with 8 replies

      Not only is the racism in Israel growing worse every day, it is getting harder to hide it, as traditional media outlets lose power, are believed less, and people turn to alternative sources and social media for reliable information.

      I am hoping that some African American politician of stature calls the Israelis on these race riots, and on the proposals being floated to build concentration camps.

      My piece on this today:

      link to my.firedoglake.com

  • Israeli judge to issue verdict in Rachel Corrie case
    • Philip Munger May 22, 2012 at 4:51 pm with 1 replies

      They have never been offered an opportunity to appear on anything remotely resembling MSM. They have been on Democracy Now more than once. And I believe they have been interviewed at least once by Seattle TV or radio outlets that might be considered mainstream, but only for local features.

      Both Cindy and Craig are almost disarming in the ways they radiate lack of hatred toward the machine that killed, most likely murdered, their daughter. Quite the opposite, they appear to be (and are) the most reasonable people one ever might expect to encounter, the ideal next door neighbors. One might expect Julian Assange to interview them, or Alyona. Perhaps Thom Hartmann. But Maddow? Heh.

    • Philip Munger May 22, 2012 at 4:46 pm

      Here you are calling this coroner the next best thing to the Devil himself for doing nothing that is unusual in the U.S. or any other country ....

      .... you are only complaining because he is Israeli ....

      from Max Blumenthal's article in which he looked closely at the doctor you defend:

      Who is Dr. Hiss? The chief pathologist of Israel for a decade and a half, Hiss was implicated by a 2001 investigation by the Israeli Health Ministry of stealing body parts ranging from legs to testicles to ovaries from bodies without permission from family members then selling them to research institutes. Bodies plundered by Hiss included those of Palestinians and Israeli soldiers. He was finally removed from his post in 2004 when the body of a teenage boy killed in a traffic accident was discovered to have been thoroughly gnawed on by a rat in Hiss’s laboratory. In an interview with researcher Nancy Schepper-Hughes, Hiss admitted that he harvested organs if he was confident relatives would not discover that they were missing. He added that he often used glue to close eyelids to hide missing corneas.

      When Craig and Cindy Corrie learned that Hiss would perform an autopsy on their daughter, they stipulated that they would only allow the doctor to go forward if an official from the American consulate was present throughout the entire procedure. An Israeli military police report stated that an American official did indeed witness the autopsy. However, when the Corries asked American diplomatic officials including former US Ambassador to Israel Daniel Kurtzner if the report was true, they were informed that no American was present at all. The Israelis had lied to them, and apparently fixed their own report to deceive the American government.

      On March 14, during the first round of hearings in the Corries’ civil suit, Hiss admitted under oath that he had lied about the presence of an American official during the autopsy of Rachel Corrie. He also conceded to taking “samples” from Corrie’s body for “histological testing” without informing her family. Just which parts of Corrie’s body Hiss took remains unclear; despite Hiss’s claim that he “buried” the samples, her family has not confirmed the whereabouts of her missing body parts.

      “It’s so hard to know that Rachel’s body wasn’t respected,” Rachel’s sister, Sarah, told me. “Doctor Hiss and the Israeli government knew what our family’s wishes were. The fact that our wishes were disregarded and a judge hasn’t done anything is absolutely horrifying.” [emphases added]

      So, I take it, Fredblogs, you would have no problem with Dr. Hiss performing an autopsy on your wife, daughter or other close relative?

    • Philip Munger May 22, 2012 at 4:38 pm

      I've watched this trial from the beginning. I do not bet $$$, but if the trial judge finds in favor of the Corrie family, it would be out of character for Judge Oded Gershon.

  • U. of Haifa stops Nakba commemoration, as prof writes hate post calling for 'Many Nakbas'
    • Philip Munger May 19, 2012 at 2:19 pm

      David:

      link to youtube.com

      The recording is not very good. I was sitting in the front row, right below the chorus. The producers and I opted against making a commercial grade recording, as the singers' union wanted over 1,ooo pounds for rights. We chose to instead donate all money to ICAHD - The Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions, and GCMHP – Gaza Community Mental Health Programme. So I recorded it with a little MP-3 recorder under my feet.

    • Philip Munger May 18, 2012 at 8:53 pm

      The administrative assistant at UAA contacted UCLA about "Pezzati" immediately after I started getting the emails. There was no such prof. Then somebody alerted me to the punk rocker with that name. A friend, another So Cal alternative rocker, got hold of him and he was deeply intrigued. He assured her he was not the person or fictitious character annoying me.

    • Philip Munger May 18, 2012 at 6:06 pm with 9 replies

      I've been keeping my eye on Plaut now for over eight years. He organized a rather chilling email attack on me and other Alaska artists in early April 2004, in response to my plans to produce The Skies Are Weeping, about Rachel Corrie, at UAA in Anchorage. He may have been the person to have come up with the meme "The Other Rachels," as it first showed up in April 2004, and he was claiming credit for the idea by 2005, when posters of "the other Rachels" started appearing at events honoring Corrie, and at demonstrations outside the play My Name is Rachel Corrie.

      A large cache of his articles from the pre-Neve Gordon Plaut writing rampage can be gleaned here:

      link to think-israel.org

      Here's what he had to say about me in 2005, a year into our, uh, relationship:

      Sycophantic ravings about Corrie are increasingly passing for "art and culture" among the fundamentalist Left. A while back a moonbat at the University of Alaska in Anchorage (UAA), one Philip Munger, wrote a "cantata" about Corrie. Some UAA friends of ours from the frozen politically-incorrect underground there tell us that this "cantata" works better than prunes in curing constipation. Munger used two "poems" written as "memorials" to Corrie but not to any of the victims of the terrorists the ISM promotes, one by San Francisco "poet" Phil Goldvarg and another by Sri Lanka "poet" Thushara Wijeratna. We are not sure but we think that one of those may also have composed the famous work of poetry, "Here I sit broken-hearted, paid my dime..."

      The initial performance of the "cantata" was cancelled by UAA due to the outcry from the Alaskan Jewish community, also sometimes known as the Frozen Chosen.

      Then a little while back, a "play" was produced, "My Name is Rachel Corrie," at London's prestigious Royal Court Theatre. Directed by Alan Rickman, it misrepresents Corrie's life and "mission", including Corrie's foolish attempt to challenge an Israeli bulldozer to a game of chicken as part of her efforts to prevent Israel from destroying terrorist tunnels used to smuggle explosives, weapons and missiles to terrorists. Corrie died as a human shield for a tunnel used by mass murderers.

      The Guardian reports why Rickman decided to produce this "play":

      'The material revealed a woman who was both ordinary and extraordinary: writing poems about her cat, her friends, her grand mother, the wind; but also, from a strikingly young age, engaging passionately with the world, trying to find her place in it. The earliest material we have is political; aged 10, Rachel wrote a poem about how "children everywhere are suffering" and how she wished to "stop hunger by the year 2000".'

      Our guess is that Rickman also finds those declarations about seeking world peace by beauty pageant contestants to be truly moving and really inspirational.

      Here is how a real professor of composition viewed the above-mentioned "cantata":

      From: "Jeff Pezzati" Date: April 6, 2004
      Subject: for Philip Munger

      Hello Philip,

      My name is Jeff Pezzati, I am a professor of composition at the University of Southern California. My pieces have won ASCAP, BMI prizes and the Prix di Rome. I have been informed of your anti-Semitic cantata that is to be performed. This will not be tolerated by the American composer community. The suicide victim "Rachel Corrie," whom you are apparently trying to honor in this piece, killed herself for the cause of promoting Arab terrorism and murder against Jews. I have discussed this with such colleagues as John Corigliano, John Harbison, John Adams, etc. We have all agreed that your music is to be banned from performance in the continental United States. Consider yourself blacklisted. -Dr. Pezzati

      I have a hunch Plaut created the fictional character "Dr. Pezzati, as some of the word clusters in the rants I received from the fictional music professor in the first week of April 2004 closely match word clusters or strings in some of Plaut's writing from the same time period.

      IMHO Plaut is one serious head case.

  • Nobel Prize laureate J. M. Coetzee appears to boycott International Writers Festival in Jerusalem
  • Secrecy pact over Israel's nukes, reached by Nixon and Meir, serves policy of 'nuclear coercion' to avoid peace deal
    • Philip Munger May 7, 2012 at 4:37 pm

      The legacy of NUMEC in Pennsylvania isn't just one of treachery and theft of nuclear materials for weapons of mass destruction. The perps left the Apollo site and at least two others - B&W Parks Township and the B&W Parks Township SLDA - highly contaminated. Pennsylvania and U.S. taxpayers will be paying for the messy ways they delivered that material to the IDF for centuries to come.

      I've never seen any studies on possible mortality or birth defects from the ways they ran the operations, but Seymour Hersh, in The Sampson Option, "concluded that Shapiro did not divert any uranium; rather 'it ended up in the air and water of the city of Apollo as well as in the ducts, tubes, and floors of the NUMEC plant.'"

      Although Perry's much more recent research seems to peg Shapiro as a traitor who should have been hunted down as diligently as any al Qaeda operative, the environmental legacy of that operation is owned not just by the people who perpetrated it, but by the Israeli government and military.

  • Palestine solidarity activists to join Occupy's May Day of action
    • Philip Munger May 1, 2012 at 4:56 pm

      One of the most apathetic campuses I have been on in a long long time.

      --- giving final exams at UAA in Anchorage today. Probably would make UC Boulder seem like a hotbed of activism in comparison.

  • Jerusalem writers fest requires speakers to submit speeches for review in effort to avoid criticism of Israel
  • Video: Blumenthal, Rosenberg, Davis debate BDS on Al Jazeera English
  • Bradley Manning could become the Ellsberg of our age (if the media would just stop marginalizing him)
    • Philip Munger April 25, 2012 at 2:01 pm with 1 replies

      And Marcy Wheeler at emptywheel.

      link to emptywheel.net

      One of the most interesting, perhaps saddening things about Bradley Manning, is that the so-called lefty blogs that are backing Obama to the hilt are really uncomfortable with any discussion about Manning. The same goes with people at organizational meetings in the Democratic Party.

      I've been bringing Manning up at sites and meetings like that since early last year. When I wrote to Sen. Mark Begich about the absurdly repressive treatment Manning was getting at Quantico Brig early last year, Begich claimed to have looked into it and assured me that the military authorities had told him Manning was only being looked after the way he was because he was a high suicide risk. That was untrue, and I sought to meet with Mark. I even got former Sen. Mike Gravel (one of Mark's predecessors in the US Senate from Alaska) to make a short video appeal to Mark to look more fully into Manning's treatment. When I tried to get to meet Mark at his office or at fundraisers, I was kept - even by long-time friends - from being able to deliver the message.

      Here's the video appeal Sen. Gravel made - just over a year ago:

      link to my.firedoglake.com

  • Krugman jumps into debate over Beinart with both pinkies
    • Philip Munger April 25, 2012 at 3:21 am with 2 replies

      First of all, he poked the hornet's nest with a long, little stick, rather than a short, big one. No Freudian implications intended. He will get stung by the militant expansionist Zionists over this, and seems to know that.

      Secondly, Glenn Greenwald deserves a perch in mainstream journalism similar to the one Krugman occupies. Or Naomi Klein. Her ideas on how to fix economic end-games are more imaginative and worker-friendly than Paul's usually are. Krugman simply wants to both keep his perch, and perhaps use this column as some sort of opening gambit to expand upon the kinds of issues he covers, or to test the waters on going outside his fairly safe place in the swimming hole.

      As writers here, including Phil W. have often observed, maybe there's family history or family dynamics that might offer illumination on why he chose to weigh in so carefully, and at this point in time.

      Welcome to the club, Paul Krugman. There's no turning back, if you have the cojones I believe you possess.

  • Fighting Jews-- then and now
    • Philip Munger April 24, 2012 at 6:51 pm with 1 replies

      Oren states:

      Comparing the conditions of pre-war Germany with the situation in Iran today, Oren described both as “economies in crisis, following a war,” and likened the “supreme leaders” of each regime to one another. Mentioning Iran directly, Oren said, “It denies the murder of six million Jews by the Nazis while pledging to murder another six million—in Israel.”

      And then Bruce writes:

      Oren should know better. Iranian President Ahmadinejad has certainly danced around Holocaust denial, winked to the Germans that they have been maligned, and has eagerly sponsored several conferences which attracted an auditorium full of the world's most dedicated deniers.

      Nor is President Ahmadinejad "supreme leader. " The Ayatollah Khamenei is, as he has been since June 4th, 1989. Ahmadinejad is President of Iran, with no military power. And he's a lame duck who has become increasingly unpopular in his own country.

  • Who really wields the baton at the London Philharmonic Orchestra?
  • Auden wrote 'by far' the best book in 1945, but was denied the Pulitzer for alleged Communism and aloofness from WW II
    • Philip Munger April 19, 2012 at 12:21 pm with 1 replies

      Could Auden’s having been a pretty open homosexual have had anything to do with the decision?

      That immediately occurred to me too. Also, his propaganda during the Spanish Civil War and about Japanese atrocities in China (Journey to a War) got him seen as a "premature anti-Fascist."

  • New Migron bill could lead to massive Israeli land grab in the West Bank
    • Philip Munger April 17, 2012 at 2:49 pm with 3 replies

      Earlier this year in January, Danny Dayan, Yesha Council Chairman, proposed a prelude to the current "Migron bill" that would legalize the settlement by allowing settlers to purchase the land from the Palestinians owners.

      --- and what sort of devils are found in the details of that? Can the Palestinian refuse to sell? Does it have to be a fair offer? etc.....

  • 'Dear activist, first solve the real problems of the region' -- Netanyahu's sophomoric letter to visitors to Palestine
    • Philip Munger April 15, 2012 at 2:40 pm

      The second document is a clear indication that the Prime Minister’s Office – in this day of accelerated privatisation – has outsourced its communications branch to Latma.

      --- or to Sarah Palin's now all-but-unemployed minions. The document is almost sophomorish enough to have come out of SarahPAC.

  • Strip searches, and the security state
    • Philip Munger April 13, 2012 at 11:29 pm

      Thanks. Which’ll get us first? Global warming or right-wing, pro-war-pro-dominance political governance?

      --- they're both in a race with Fukushima radiation

  • 'When I put this on my website, some people will say, Those people are just terrorists.'
  • CLM: Jeffrey Goldberg snits where he eats
    • Philip Munger April 9, 2012 at 6:42 pm

      Some Iranians, I know, are convinced the Iran-Iraq war ultimately brought the Mullahs to power.

      Iran became an Islamic Republic in April 1979. Khomeini came to power in December 1979. Iraq invaded Iranian territory on September 22, 1980.

  • 'Israel's policy endangers world peace' -- Jakob Augstein and Gideon Levy have Gunter Grass's back
    • Philip Munger April 8, 2012 at 3:12 pm

      My firedoglake diary on this:

      link to my.firedoglake.com

      Thanks to Annie and to Klaus Bloemker for valuable information.

    • Philip Munger April 8, 2012 at 1:16 pm with 2 replies

      Interesting line from the Haaretz article on Grass' being banned:

      In his poem, which was published in several European newspapers last week, the 85-year-old author claims that Israel’s nuclear reactor – and not Iran’s – presents a threat to world peace. [emphasis added]

      In the translations I've read - four of them - the words "nuclear reactor" do not appear. Such terms as these do, in order of appearance:

      first strike
      a bomb is being built
      growing nuclear potential
      no testing is available
      concealment of these facts
      all-destroying warheads
      a single atomic bomb
      the nuclear power of Israel
      an unhindered and permanent control
      Of the Israeli nuclear potential
      And the Iranian nuclear sites

      (from Heather Horn's translation for The Atlantic)

      Were the Haaretz authors, Ophir Bar-Zohar and Barak Ravid, legally constrained from mentioning Israeli nuclear weapons in the article, thus forcing the inaccurate term, "nuclear reactor"?

    • Philip Munger April 8, 2012 at 12:53 pm

      I find most poetry to be (pretentious and/or self-indulgent) crap...

      --- how sad.

      So, most songs, choral works and Shakespeare plays are such "crap"? Or does setting such "crap" to music somehow liberate poems from their pretentiousness and self-indugance?

  • 'I've been duped' -- America's travel guide Rick Steves says our media black out the brutal occupation
  • Grass smears in 'Times', plus new translation of his 'I've had it with the West's hypocrisy' poem
    • Philip Munger April 7, 2012 at 4:47 pm

      I do like the Keefer/Mintz translation. Like Heather Horn's, written for The Atlantic, it resonates. I wonder how many languages the poem has been translated into over the past four days?

      As I wrote at firedoglake early this morning, in an essay on Grass' poem, "It is being quickly spread, along the lines of multi-lingual, global, 21st century Samidzat. And, like a piece of 1960s Samidzat that went viral, the authorities, knowing it is impossible to stop the word, seek to either belittle the author or claim he is something of an anti-Semitic ex-Nazi."

      link to my.firedoglake.com

  • Jazz reviewer pulls glowing review of my album so as to 'stand with Israel'
  • With 'last ink,' Gunter Grass breaks silence on Israeli nuclear program threatening world peace
    • Philip Munger April 5, 2012 at 2:19 pm

      Good to see three articles in one day here at Mondoweiss on the cultural battlefronts - this one, Rich Siegel's on the pulling of the review of his new jazz album, and Eleanor Kilroy's on the push to have Kadima Israeli National Theater excluded from the upcoming Globe Shakespeare Festival.

      Having been a part of this aspect of the struggles for Palestinian rights now for almost exactly eight years, it seems to me that conscientious artists, art troupes/ensembles and arts organizations are making important gains. Hopefully, more and more of these individuals and orgs fighting the Zionist cultural-political machinery or asserting for Palestinians will connect with each other often and effectively.

      Is anyone aware of a web site or blog that seeks to keep up with all the artistic activities and protests worldwide in this arena? Thinking of starting one if one doesn't already exist.

  • My spirit is American (a religious manifesto)
  • The Palestine National Orchestra: a view from the violin section
    • Philip Munger April 1, 2012 at 3:52 am

      So convenient to leave this out of the story

      The author here is relating first-hand experience mostly. Unless the author was part of the ensemble that performed in Haifa and Jerusalem, your characterization is unfair.

      I had the opportunity Saturday to lead our local school district's high school honor band in their 2012 concert. I related to the audience how important it is to support arts programs in our schools, always under threat from the far right, which runs local government. The hurdles our programs and these kids have to surmount are nothing compared to what I just read.

  • StandWithUs manufactures boycott of Jewish deli in Olympia
    • Philip Munger March 22, 2012 at 12:06 pm

      Phan Nguyen is certainly not "The most evil man in Olympia," in any reality-based world, but he might be considered one of the most tenacious of its former residents. And courteously honest, as is illustrated by how he conducted this interview.

      Back in 2003, when Joshua Hammer wrote his intensely dishonest hit piece on Rachel Corrie for MoJO, titled "The Death of Rachel Corrie," Phan responded to Hammer's dishonesty with the Counterpunch essay, "Specious Journalism in Defense of Killers."

      Along with some pretty brazen theft of material without attribution from RW blogs, Hammer asserted "Corrie herself has faded into obscurity, a subject of debate in internet chat rooms and practically nowhere else." We've seen in the 8-plus years since Hammer's exercise in rewriting recent events how untrue that dismissive statement was.

      That one of the centers of rational thinking about the damages of Zionism has become Olympia, Washington, Rachel's home town, is but one example of how wrong Hammer was about Corrie and her legacy.

      That Nguyen continues to be one of the most persuasive and honest writers about Zionism's foibles and worse, is a case study in tenacity and professionalism that should be held up for young journalists as an example of what it is they should strive toward.

      link to motherjones.com

      link to counterpunch.org

  • Northwest pinkwashing events cancelled, StandWithUs’s record of queer exploitation exposed
  • Israel to Europe: Palestinians can't have a state because they can't support themselves
    • Philip Munger March 18, 2012 at 5:23 pm

      In the words of Rachel Corrie, February, 2003:

      This is in the area where Sunday about 150 men were rounded up and contained outside the settlement with gunfire over their heads and around them, while tanks and bulldozers destroyed 25 greenhouses – the livelihoods for 300 people. The explosive was right in front of the greenhouses – right in the point of entry for tanks that might come back again. I was terrified to think that this man felt it was less of a risk to walk out in view of the tanks with his kids than to stay in his house. I was really scared that they were all going to be shot and I tried to stand between them and the tank. This happens every day.

    • Page: 4
  • 'No amount of reading and word of mouth could have prepared me for the reality' -- Remembering Rachel Corrie
    • Philip Munger March 18, 2012 at 1:38 pm

      Is English your first language? Or second? I wrote 48 days, not 48 hours.

    • Philip Munger March 17, 2012 at 7:11 pm with 8 replies

      gilagd,

      Rachel Corrie never once criticized the Palestinians for anything they had done or should have been held responsible for, immune from any blame. She took a one sided position and should have been aware of the dangers.

      Corrie was only in Gaza for 48 days before she was killed, most likely murdered (I've followed the civil suit closely. Until it began, I was convinced Corrie's death was an accident. What has come out, and what has been destroyed or withheld by the Israelis in that trial, have led me to believe it more likely she was intentionally killed). She had little time to do other than try to come to initial terms with what must have been a very challenging situation.

      It is time to release the Corrie family from the public suffering of their loss. The continual reminders only tear more at their hearts.

      Are you implying the Corrie family should give up their ongoing lawsuit against the IDF and government of Israel?

    • Philip Munger March 17, 2012 at 4:48 pm with 1 replies

      Thanks, Allison.

      I created a Youtube Thursday of the November 2005 London performance of The Skies Are Weeping, my memorial to Rachel Corrie. I posted a covering essay about it yesterday evening at firedoglake:

      link to my.firedoglake.com

      Feel free to re-post the Youtube here at MW.

  • Consequences of an attack on Iran are no joke
    • Philip Munger March 1, 2012 at 4:33 pm

      War on the level this might easily get to is an enormous crime against humanity. Environmental damage and pollution such as our use of agent orange and depleted uranium, or the Jiyah power station oil spill (larger than the Exxon Valdez) in the 2006 Lebanon invasion certainly are, but this - if the war starts - will be much worse than the above examples.

    • Philip Munger March 1, 2012 at 4:08 pm

      This may be the best article on this subject I've read yet that ties in the true costs of the Iraqi Wars. Thank you, Dr. Cohen.

  • Judge strikes down lawsuit against Olympia Co-op boycott of Israeli goods
    • Philip Munger February 28, 2012 at 12:42 am

      I’m pro-BDS only on goods made in the settlements, so perhaps I’m not as pro-BDS as some people on this site.

      That was my position for a long time. What got me to take a more activist position was a realization that the Israeli government and hundreds of thousands of Israeli citizens treat all of it as theirs, except perhaps Gaza. So, if they have erased the Green Line, my position on BDS should do the same.

  • Who’s who behind the Olympia Food Co-op lawsuit
  • Ambassadors of Apartheid: Batsheva Dance Company to tour San Francisco and New York
    • Philip Munger February 18, 2012 at 10:09 pm

      Thank you, Robert

      Trying to locate the Haitink DSCH 13th. I conducted the Alaska premiere of Glazunov's violin concerto two years ago, 106 years after it had been written.

      Glazunov was confronted by Czarist authorities after the 1905 revolution. Glazunov had expanded Jewish enrollment at the St. Peterburg Conservatory, which he then ran. Paraphrasing, the authorities asked Glaz, "How many Jews do you have enrolled here?" He replied, "I don't count."

      Can't wait until the Batsheva Ballet Company has so many Palestinians on its roster it doesn't bother to count.

      Not holding my breath, though.

    • Philip Munger February 18, 2012 at 5:28 pm with 2 replies

      The Batsheva Dance Company has an interesting history. Founded by Bethsabée de Rothschild and initially run by Jeannette Ordman, Rothchild's coming under the influence of the latter apparently got Rothschild to stop helping Martha Graham financially at a time when Graham was desperate for help:

      Rothschild also brought Graham to Israel and arranged for her to work as an artistic consultant and choreographer for Bat-Dor [dance company], but after she got to know Ordman, Rothschild apparently stopped supporting Graham. One of the film's [the documentary Jeanette] achievements is the revelation of the correspondence between Graham and Rothschild, in which the high priestess of modern dance asks for financial support - and is refused. "I desperately need your help. Otherwise it's the end for me," Graham wrote to her. But the baroness responded coldly that she was committed to Bat-Dor and could not be of assistance.

      Since 1990 the Batsheva company has been run by Ohad Naharin, who is one of the most highly regarded choreographers alive. His concept of the movement language called "Gaga" is a very expressive post-Graham kind of gesture technique.

      The company draws soloists from around the world. Many are not Jewish.

      It is too bad that such amazing talent has to serve the purposes of apartheid propaganda. Hopefully, the demonstrations against them in the USA and Canada will be well-planned, meaningful and helpful in terms of raising awareness of why no Israeli government-funded touring arts group can or should escape fair scrutiny.

  • Video: right-wing groups attack U.S. professors over Ilan Pappe speaking tour
    • Philip Munger February 17, 2012 at 12:39 pm

      Part of what Prof. Klein, Foroohar and Samiian's colleague Dr. Kelley related here yesterday, when he said:

      There’s a whole list of people who have had lost their jobs and been forced out. That’s just part of the territory. And I think it’s only going to get worse before it gets better.

      We need to keep a close eye on this State Department office.

  • 'A level of racist violence I have never seen': UCLA professor Robin D. G. Kelley on Palestine and the BDS movement
    • Philip Munger February 16, 2012 at 9:54 am

      And I think it’s only going to get worse before it gets better.

      What a great interview. From a highly regarded, iconoclastic scholar. But this one line stands out, as Prof. Kelley's experiences with truth speaking to power go back to the 70s, and he has seen human rights campaigns in the US go through their struggles from beginning to end.

  • Beinart to cast Obama as caped hero of two-state-solution in forthcoming book
    • Philip Munger February 7, 2012 at 11:54 am with 1 replies

      It might be too much to ask for Beinart and Blumenthal's books to come out within days of each other, so they can appear on some of the same venues, either together or back-to-back. We'll see. Beinart is an insider, Max is not.

      I watched all of Max's media appearances for Republican Gomorrah, and he did quite well given the hostility of some toward his premise that the GOP has been and is more driven by aspects of the Christian Right's zany ideas than the media was then willing to air openly. However, since then, Max's theme has quietly become a larger part of the narrative of what these people are about, and reporters, before interviewing or writing about some GOP luminaries, probably spend a few hours with Republican Gomorrah.

  • How Sarah Schulman managed to get 'Pinkwashing' into the New York Times
    • Philip Munger February 6, 2012 at 4:13 pm

      I think I used to be way too cynical about this sort transformation but it was pointless and unfair. I remember feeling that way about Medea Benjamin, back during 2008-2009, when Phil ‘introduced’ her to the MW community and explained her background and initial hesitation to tackle the the issue.

      In the above quote, I think Phil gets right to the point though. It’s silly to gate-keep Palestinian solidarity (who is acceptable and who isn’t).

      Wasn't there a Mondoweiss article last year about various peoples' transformative moment, where they finally got it? Many people have related to me that it was only when they finally got to meet some Palestinians that they realized how fully they had been fooled by the barrage of intentionally distorted stereotypes. It was certainly that way for me, when I went from pro- to anti-Zionist overnight, merely by having attended an exhibit of children's art from Sabra and Shatila camps in November 1982. There were many Palestinians there (and a few Jewish non- or anti-Zionists too), and they became my friends.

      As Rachel Corrie wrote home from Gaza, concluding her last email, "I wish you could meet these people. Maybe, hopefully, someday you will."

      Sarah Schulman, observing that BDS "must do its utmost to find a Palestinian face who will be as imprinted for American news organizations and their bookers as Hanan Ashrawi was in a previous generation. It must open an office in NY with a Palestinian at the helm. It must seek celebrity endorsement," is prescient. The new Ashrawi is already here, I suppose. Just not yet recognized.

  • Would you buy a used metaphor from this warmonger? (Niall Ferguson's 'creative destruction' echoes Rice's 'birth-pangs')
    • Philip Munger February 6, 2012 at 4:45 pm

      If any of those things are for rent, I don't think I could afford the rates. 77, 65 and 69 all appear to be in a flex mode, meaning they could quickly be deployed in support of Iran operations, or to make a NO! statement to Tel Aviv. I suppose 73 could redeploy from the Pacific to the Indian Ocean, and 74 could turn around. At any rate, there are only two off Iran right now.

    • Philip Munger February 6, 2012 at 4:26 pm

      FDR’s initial ‘big’ lie staged to move the American people to a war footing involved an incident with the US submarine Greer.

      The USS Greer was a WWI-era destroyer, which was fired upon on September 4, 1941, by U-652, after the Greer began aggressively hunting the Nazi submarine. The sub had been spotted by a British patrol bomber, which notified the Greer and proceeded to drop depth charges on the sub's location. As the Greer was at that time sounding for the sub, it is reasonable to assume the Germans had no way of knowing whether it was the plane or the destroyer that was attacking it.

      Otherwise, a very informative comment.

    • Philip Munger February 6, 2012 at 3:47 pm with 7 replies

      From the latest information I've found, we have two aircraft carriers adjacent to Iran - the Vinson in the Arabian Sea and the Lincoln in the Persian Gulf. The Stennis has made it all the way past Singapore, supposedly headed back to its base in Bremerton:

      CVN 68 - refit in Bremerton
      CVN 75 - refit/repair in Norfolk
      CVN 76 - refit in Bremerton
      CVN 71 - refueling complex overhaul at Newport News
      CVN 77 - end of deployment period at Norfolk until 24 January. Now "exercising" in Atlantic with new air wing
      CVN 65 Enterprise JTFEX and COMPTUEX exercises in Atlantic - as of 12 January
      CVN 69 - in Norfolk?
      CVN 70 - arrived Arabian Sea 09 January
      CVN 72 - operating in Persian Gulf from 22 January
      CVN 74 - North Arabian Sea at 05 January (it had passed out the Hormuz Straits on 29 December) 31 January - Singapore Strait
      CVN 73 - Yokosuka as of 28 December

    • Philip Munger February 6, 2012 at 12:52 pm

      I just read the Daily Beast version of Ferguson's article, and am glad to see MW addressing it so soon. The comments at that version are even more critical than what Phil W has to say here, and I recommend readers go to The Daily Beast and read them.

      One can hope that Phil W is right that the shortcomings of Ferguson's essay "will tag Ferguson for the rest of his born days," as they should. It is probably more likely that the article will instead lead to a new fellowship or two for Ferguson at some far rightwing-funded "think tanks."

      Of particular interest in the comments are the three responses by RepStones to "Ferguson's inference that Six Day war was legal and just by Israel...."

      Others address the author's reference to Israel as "the most easterly outpost of Western civilization." Apart from the simple fact that people in Moscow, Melbourne and Auckland might disagree, more and more, the government of Israel is being increasingly dominated by people whose world view has less to do with a "Western" legacy than do the cultural, educational and diplomatic policies of the governments of India, Singapore, South Korea or Japan.

  • Organizers say pro-Israel filmmaker with controversial past deceives, disrupts Penn BDS conference (UPDATED)
    • Philip Munger February 5, 2012 at 4:32 pm

      I've worked with Max and discussed with him how he approaches his subjects. He plays by the rules, and has a lot of integrity when it comes to representing who he is and his viewpoint to people he might interview.

  • Live tweeting from the Penn BDS conference
    • Philip Munger February 5, 2012 at 5:00 am

      Thanks.

      I want it to be persuasive. The in-your-face part of it I left out. ADL shouldn't be missing so many important points when it comes to this conference.

      Weiss may be one of the prophets Einstein valued so highly.

    • Philip Munger February 4, 2012 at 8:31 pm with 7 replies

      I just commented there:

      I've been following Philip Weiss' writings and activities since 2006, when we came into contact while he was researching an article about the play My Name is Rachel Corrie for The Nation. I watched and read as he was edged out at mainstream media outlets for refusing to be dishonest by backing away from sensitive issues. I've watched as he developed Mondoweiss into one of the more important web sites there are.

      Although I view some issues facing mankind as more important than the centrality of Israeli conduct to the downward spiral of hopes in the Middle East, I can't help but think of this statement by Albert Einstein in April 1938, when I read some or Weiss' own essays at the blog he started:

      "I should much rather see reasonable agreement with the Arabs on the basis of living together in peace than the creation of a Jewish State. Apart from practical considerations, my awareness of the essential nature of Judaism resists the idea of a Jewish State, with borders, an army, and a measure of temporal power, no matter how modest. I am afraid of the inner damage Judaism will sustain – especially from the development of a narrow nationalism within our own ranks, against which we have already had to fight strongly, even without a Jewish State. We are no longer the Jews of the Maccabee period. A return to a nation in the political sense of the word, would be equivalent to turning away from the spiritualization of our community which we owe to the genius of our prophets."

      Weiss' blog's mission statement is:

      "1. To publish important developments touching on Israel/Palestine, the American Jewish community and the shifting debate over US foreign policy in a timely fashion.
      2. To publish a diversity of voices to promote dialogue on these important issues.
      3. To foster the movement for greater fairness and justice for Palestinians in American foreign policy.
      4. To offer alternatives to pro-Zionist ideology as a basis for American Jewish identity."

      What could be wrong with that, ADL?

    • Philip Munger February 4, 2012 at 8:19 pm with 1 replies

      I try to watch at least part of Democracy Now every day. Usually on my laptop while I shave, shower and get ready for work. Sometimes I download the podcast and listen to it on my hour-long drive to work. It is the most consistently honest news program in US broadcast history. They are good on the subject of Palestinian rights, for sure.

      Another standout for DN is their consistently high-level coverage of union issues. Almost all broadcast media and the entire mainstream seem to report union issues more and more from an anti-union, or at least markedly pro-business standpoint.

  • The Iraq war coverup: What did AIPAC do and when did it do it?
    • Philip Munger February 2, 2012 at 2:38 pm with 4 replies

      AIPAC feels uncomfortable about this, and should. As in the example you cite above, "that AIPAC wanted a war but didn't want its fingerprints on the war," there are examples of that happening regarding the org's longstanding push for war on Iran.

      At around the time of the 2005 AIPAC conference, there were a lot of media reports and even information available at the AIPAC web site, about a huge exhibit on the lower floor of the conference, on war with Iran. Jim Lobe in 2006:

      The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the premier Israel lobby group whose annual convention last year featured a giant, multimedia exhibit on how Iran is "pursuing nuclear weapons and how it can be stopped," has also been pushing hard on Capitol Hill for legislation to promote regime change. Despite White House objections, the group has sought tough sanctions against foreign companies with investments in Iran.

      On into 2006, one could still look up many news articles, youtubes and op-eds about that exhibit, and how impressed people were with it. Try to find them now. Maybe they're just hard to find, but the "didn't want its fingerprints" on it thing seems to be pervasive.

  • 'Invented' Palestinian confronts Gingrich at GOP debate
    • Philip Munger January 28, 2012 at 3:55 pm

      Dems aren’t much better (if they are in any way better) in their respective level of dismissive-ness (P) and obsequious-ness (I).

      Indeed. I can't imagine, were there any Dems of prominence forcing Obama into debate, that such an exchange would be much different. Locally, the biggest long-term financial backer of Democratic Party causes in Alaska is David Gottstein, the AIPAC Alaska Chief. Last year, he pressured Anchorage's Bartlett Democratic Club with some rather strenuous half nelsons to keep pro-Palestinian speakers from the weekly noon forum, unless David's nominee or nominees could be provided last word. A lot of Democratic Party forums could probably relate similar experiences across the country.

      I'm glad Mr. Hassan was given an opportunity to show his courage and ask the question in such a meaningful way. Wolf Blitzer (aka Zev Barak in the Israeli press), former AIPAC employee, by not giving Ron Paul an opportunity to respond to Mr. Hassan, was doing his duty as gatekeeper.

      Good to see the JTA doing real fact checking on this. A bit off topic, but it was also good to see Gal Beckerman of the Jewish Daily Forward and Linda Sarsour of the Arab American Association of New York appearing together on Friday on Democracy Now, in a segment on Gingrich and Sheldon Adelson.

  • Obama begins push for Jewish support in 2012 by touting the 'unbreakable bond' between Israel and the US
    • Philip Munger January 22, 2012 at 12:39 am

      This is a typical promo, produced and sent out in contemporary media. I think the first one I saw like this was one a friend helped produce for Henry Jackson's 1970 US Senate campaign. It was on 18mm or 35mm film. It had many of the same lines, or at least their 1970 versions.

  • Publisher of the 'Atlanta Jewish Times' suggests Mossad should assassinate Obama
  • Why did Ehud Barak postpone joint US-Israeli military exercise?
  • Santorum's pulp hasbara
    • Philip Munger January 20, 2012 at 4:21 am

      Pulp trash book.

      My bodyguard brought it to work, probably in '79, hoping I'd read it. Got about 50 pages in - 1/4 of the way through it - and gave it back to him, along with my copy of Niven and Pournelle's Lucifer's Hammer, which is a far better post-apocolypse novel.

      Got him hooked on Niven and Pournelle, at least.

  • Today in Pittsburgh, Jesse Lieberfeld, 17, will deliver a hammer blow to American Jewish support for Israel
    • Philip Munger January 16, 2012 at 5:09 pm

      Thanks.

      Never been to Pittsburg, but your story about how that was done there is so representative of stadium, civic center and convention center shock doctrine, voter-funded facilities around the USA and other countries.

    • Philip Munger January 16, 2012 at 3:59 pm

      Great rundown of how the building and history of the Pittsburg Civic Arena went down, teta mother me.

      Many American cities could tell a similar story about how space for shrines to pampered athletes and their worshippers, featuring gated, guarded sky boxes for the top percent of the 1%, were carved out of the hearts of thriving multi-ethnic or Black communities.

      However, looking at CMU's guidelines for the MLK Writing Awards, and at some of the other winners in their various categories, it strikes me that young Jesse's essay was evaluated for the content of its character, and not by the color of the author's skin, or by his essay's attention to problems associated mostly with the struggles of African Americans:

      Thirteen years ago, Carnegie Mellon University English Professor Jim Daniels started a writing contest – the Martin Luther King, Jr. Writing Awards – to bring students together to talk about race. Each year, the contest encourages Pittsburgh-area high school students and CMU students to explore their personal experiences with race and discrimination through poetry and prose.

      “The awards prompt students to think about Martin Luther King, Jr. and race in the context of their everyday lives,” said Daniels, the Thomas Stockham Baker Professor of English who directed this year’s awards program. “It brings people of all races together and gets them to tell their stories. And, it’s hard to hide in a good poem, or a good essay.”

      For the 2012 awards, Daniels made a concerted effort to reach out to more local high schools, both public and private, and reinstated the college prose category for CMU students. He received well over 200 entries – a record number for the contest– from nine high schools.

      Kristin Kovacic, a teacher at Pittsburgh CAPA 6-12, has had her literary artist students participate in the awards since they began. “This contest is unique in that it doesn’t ask the usual questions about Martin Luther King, Jr. and his legacy,” she said. “Rather, the CMU contest asks our students to reflect on encounters with race and difference in their own lives, and this, we find, is much more challenging psychological work. And, the writing that emerges from this work is naturally concrete and emotionally fresh.” [emphases added]

  • Why aren't the best and the brightest in our MSM?
    • Philip Munger January 14, 2012 at 2:57 am

      Max has occasionally asked similar questions to what you are putting out there, Annie. In a diary at firedoglake I wrote last summer, I embedded three clips from Sternchen TV, in which Max is asked about the role of the media in covering Palestine, and other issues.

  • What power will Paul have over Romney? (JJ Goldberg and Krauthammer ask)
  • Lieberman plan to strip Palestinian citizenship mirrors liberal demographic fear mongering
    • Philip Munger January 9, 2012 at 3:34 pm with 3 replies

      Adam,

      Regarding your last paragraph, when I hosted the firedoglake Book Salon session with Jeremy on July 31st, he only responded to one question about non-Jews inside of Israel, as most commenters/questioners at the session were interested in other issues than the demographic trajectory on that side of the Green Line. Here is the question posed and his response:

      sn1789: There simply are not enough natural resources in Gaza and the West Bank, nor is there enough capital interested in investing in these places for a viable Palestine to exist alongside Israel. More importantly, the two state solution is inimicable to the very ethnocratic logic of Israel. In 50 years Palestinians will be a majority inside the Green Line. Blood and Soil nationalism is a disaster no matter who practices it. Israel as a Jewish state can only be an apartheid state. The failure Oslo proves the impossibility of a two state solution. As more Palestinians inside the Green line develop political confidence Jewish Israelis will have a choice. Either become fascists and openly support apartheid – ala A. Lieberman (the more likely choice), or stop practicing blood and soil nationalism and embrace a single, secular, democratic, multiethnic (and possibly socialist) state in all of historic Palestine.

      History will vindicate Gasan Ghanafani – and his assassin (Moshe Dayan) will go down in history as a racist alongside P.W. Botha

      Jeremy Ben Ami: Obviously sn, we don’t agree.

      The Palestinian and Israeli economies working in tandem together could become a real economic powerhouse – the two best-educated people in the region. The combination could be dynamic.

      Demographic realities inside the Green Line are not as you think – which raises a whole ‘nother can of worms but ultra-Orthodox birth rates are actually far higher than non-Jewish birthrates. 50 years is a very long time and much can happen. A successful peace and the economic progress that that should allow for all sectors of Israel and Palestine will go far toward addressing the challenges that will face our grandchildren in 2061!!

      It seemed to me at the time that his optimism about this was forced. He strikes me as somewhat more flexible than he is sometimes given credit for, though.

  • Emergency Committee for Israel goes after Ron Paul
  • F. W. de Klerk on why apartheid will fail in Israel/Palestine
    • Philip Munger January 5, 2012 at 7:37 pm

      3e's analogies hold up until they don't, which is often.

      eee's perhaps incapable of acknowledging that Native Americans, even through continuing struggles, have far more political rights than Israel or eee would ever give to the Palestinians he just compared to my friends and neighbors. As much sorrow as went into the peopling of Oklahoma, for instance, I can't imagine many Native American Oklahomans willingly changing places forever with Gazans.

      Even in the impoverished, often desolate tundra villages where my wife mentors young Native Alaskan teachers, nobody in their right mind would give up their modest, frigid home to live in a larger one in Hebron.

  • Trivializing the anti-Semitism charge
    • Philip Munger January 4, 2012 at 2:07 pm

      Thanks, Phil W. Never asked for nor wanted sympathy. The reality has been more exemplified by this subsequent episode:

      In March 2008, I was trying to live blog the Alaska GOP Convention in Anchorage. Each candidate who was presented on their opening morning was preceded by a clergyman, who was supposed to deliver a prayer. First up was US House GOP primary candidate, State Rep. Gabrielle LaDoux. The clergyman delivering her prayer was Rabbi Yosef Greenburg of Congregation Shomrei Ohr-Chabad and the Lubevitch Jewish Center of Alaska. He was the same rabbi who had asked for the public meeting in 2004 at which I was so vehemently denounced.

      When Rabbi Greenburg began his invocation/prayer, I stood and bowed my head, along with about a dozen others from among the 400 people there. Most remained seated, and kept on scarfing down their ham or bacon-and-eggs, as the rabbi prayed. I could see that Yossi noticed the lack of attention, but he went on.

      The next candidate to speak was introduced and prayed over by Rev. Jerry Prevo, the most politically powerful evangelical Christian in Alaska. All 400 attendees all but jumped to their feet to join him in prayer. Quite a difference.

      Soon afterward I noticed Rabbi Greenburg walking toward me. We shook hands, and he thanked me for standing for his message. We had our first talk in almost four years.

      He asked how I was doing. I told him I could never thank him enough for his role in helping create a succession of events that had allowed me to meet or communicate with so many amazing people: Noam Chomsky, John Pilger, Harold Pinter (who I had worshipped since high school), the Hon. Clare Short (who bought me not one, but two beers), the Baronness Jenny Tonge; or to work with such a marvelously courageous woman as Deborah Fink. He overcame his perplexity, and gave me a wan smile, saying, "So, it hasn't been so bad, then?"

      I replied, "In a lot of ways - n0. I've made far more friends than enemies over that music."

      It was also one of the most important learning experiences of my life.

      I think this is important work, to break down this wall

      -- it is. You certainly do your part.

    • Philip Munger January 4, 2012 at 12:32 pm with 8 replies

      Recently, I raised the question of whether or not readers here knew of past defamation suits filed in the USA over the charge of anti-Semitism, that had been pursued successfully. The case above is Canadian.

      Almost seven years ago, I considered a libel and slander suit after being called anti-Semitic on video tape at a public meeting (among the more kind words thrown at me), and then being denounced as an anti-Semite in a newspaper op-ed, and at a joint session of the Alaska Legislature. For having given this talk: On Writing the Skies are Weeping.

      Before the events at or after the talk, I had been getting three or more jobs per month in the greater Anchorage area, with jazz big bands, and other small popular music groups, such as German polka and waltz bands, etc. After the accusations, the job offers went from three-point-something per month to one job offer in seven years, a marked change.

      I passed on a lawsuit - attorneys offered to help pro bono - as I think of days when one wonders about what one's attorney might be thinking as days erased from the book of life, and at the beginning of the Iraq War, potential jurors in Alaska were highly infected by war fever. Also, although the denunciation had negative effects on aspects of my career, my main employer, the University of Alaska Anchorage stood by me then, and continues to support all my activities as a composer and local musician involved in political utterances.

      There are probably dozens of better cases out there than mine. Is there a progressive legal defense fund, possibly affiliated with Code Pink or Jewish Voice for Peace, ready to proceed with the ideal test case?

  • Happy New Year
  • 'New Yorker' editor tells American readers one thing-- and Israeli readers something else
    • Philip Munger December 15, 2011 at 10:12 pm

      So they hire Remnick, and given its nature one doubts that in doing so they intended to be charting any new political direction or concentration. While it certainly dealt with political issues in the past, clearly its main focus was more on literature and just general, wide-ranging journalism and etc.

      Remnick was hired to restore some credibility among longtime New Yorker readers, after Tina Brown's six-year reign. One of the first things Brown had done was to ease Elizabeth Drew out, who had been doing some of the best in-depth political reporting on DC there ever has been. Before Brown, there had also been more political items in talk of the town than during her stay, so when Remnick took over, some contrasts immediately apparent didn't necessarily reflect the longtime history of the magazine.

  • David Remnick erases Norman Finkelstein
    • Philip Munger December 14, 2011 at 4:07 pm with 1 replies

      Another important person who published information that seriously contradicted Joan Peters - much of it before her book came out - was Sami Hadawi. From Wikipedia:

      Hadawi's wife died of a heart attack shortly after their departure [from their Jerusalem home, when the Israelis came to west Jerusalem in 1948]. Hadawi had similar work with Jordanian land authorities as he did with the British. He retained that job until 1952 when he became a land specialist for the United Nations Conciliation Commission for Palestine in New York. His job was to determine the extent of property that Palestinian refugees left behind after the 1948 War. This led him to co-found the Palestinian Information Office in 1959 and then two Arab League offices in the United States. His final work years were as Director of the Institute for Palestine Studies (IPS) in Beirut throughout 1960-70 in which he published Palestine - Loss of a Heritage.

      He retired in 1970, moved to Toronto and began writing books on the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict including Palestinian Rights and Losses in 1948 (1988) and Bitter Harvest: a Modern History of Palestine (1989). Hadawi died on April 22, 2004 at the age of 100. He was buried in Toronto instead of his desired request to be buried in his hometown of Jerusalem.

      In late 1982, when I was converted from ardent Zionist to ardent supporter of Palestinian rights, one of my new Palestinian friends loaned me Hadawi's 1967 version of Bitter Harvest, his chronicle of Palestinian losses up to the 1967 War. He kept updating the book, its last publication being in 1989, IIRC.

  • Who's creating instability in Southern Lebanon, and why?
  • 'WaPo' says Block could be casualty of 'anti-Semites' accusation
  • Don't take this wrong-- 'WSJ' says Republicans are trying to raid Obama's Jewish donors
  • Welcome Annie Robbins as Writer at Large
  • Ann Lewis and Bill Kristol do 'playful banter' at AIPAC summit
  • Bill to investigate flotilla is a 'tool of intimidation'
    • Philip Munger November 21, 2011 at 1:03 pm

      Part of the reason some of my comments have waited very long times may be my time zone - Alaska time. Also, I teach evening courses and often rehearse until 10:00 pm local time. When I get home it is the middle of the night, NYC time.

    • Philip Munger November 20, 2011 at 11:14 pm with 2 replies

      This Alex Kane article is an excellent example of how positive the recent changes @MW seem to be. Solid journalism that certainly is prime material for an essay at, uh, Daily Kos, for instance.

      Having materially supported two of the flotilla efforts so far, and looking forward to doing that again, I do hope this bill gets nowhere.

      A suggestion: A lot of blogs that moderate comments seem to be able to put them up in real time, or close to it. Is MW shooting for something akin to that? Waiting quarter hours to hours for comments to appear stifles meaningful discussion, even when done for prudent reasons.

  • National Press Club suspends journalist over tough questions for Saudi prince
    • Philip Munger November 19, 2011 at 6:14 pm

      Maybe it’s always been like that

      --- there have been good years and bad years, good decades and shameful ones. He may have violated the club's bylaws, but they are obviously enforced quite selectively.

  • Dueling messages on Iran
    • Philip Munger November 12, 2011 at 4:55 pm

      DBG's comment left me feeling ill.

      Unfortunately, should a war with Iran start, it will probably kill many tens of thousands within a very few weeks, and would have a high chance of going nuclear once the first Iranian counter-attacks began. Only fools recommend war with Iran.

  • 'WaPo' columnist embraces Condi Rice's peace process fiction
  • 'Peace Now''s Jerusalem offices targeted in 'pricetag' threat
    • Philip Munger November 6, 2011 at 8:06 pm

      Had the target been the offices of some Zionist real estate company selling property on stolen land in East Jerusalem, and those making similar threats Palestinians, there would be arrests or a gunfight (with predictable results) soon, and anyone caught alive would be detained or imprisoned for years.

      Nobody will be investigated honestly. Nobody will be detained. Hopefully, nobody will be killed.

  • Threatening letter to Obama on chilling Turkey is signed by 7 Jewish House members, says Peace Now
    • Philip Munger November 6, 2011 at 4:17 pm

      Can we be sure though that the need to bottle up the Black Sea is really history?

      --- If it isn't history, it should be. When the process of the oceans dying speeds up in the 2020's, we'll hopefully realize the importance of more, not less cooperation in matters dealing with the health of the seas, and realize all the planet's military machines need to be reigned in beyond what most people now contemplate as feasible.

    • Philip Munger November 6, 2011 at 2:38 pm with 3 replies

      From the beginning of our post-WWII relationship with Turkey, it was all about complicating the USSR's strategic dilemma. Up to the fall of the USSR, their Black Sea Fleet's Mediterranean forces were generally allowed unfettered passage through the Bosporus-Marmara-Dardanelles bottleneck. Usually, when tensions started ratcheting up between the US and USSR, or when Soviet Med allies like Egypt needed visible support, the Soviet Navy would pre-deploy fairly large forces into the Med, lessening the likelihood of a Turkish shutdown of the Straits being meaningful.

      These days, the successors of the Soviet Black Sea Fleet - the Russian and Ukrainian Navies, and the Georgian Coast Guard, are largely dysfunctional and have virtually no strategic value. The Russians will have to evacuate their main Black Sea base at Sebastopol in 2017.

      From the beginning of our Turkish relationship, we based B-29, B-50, B-47 and other reconnaissance aircraft there, B-47 and (sometimes) B-52 squadrons with nuclear gravity bombs or missiles, and from April 1961 until they became obsolete, three squadrons of Jupiter IRBM's. We even - briefly - turned over most of the control of the Jupiters to the Turks, with USAF personnel retaining only the launch codes for the up-to-1-megaton loads on the missiles.

      Along with the collapse of the USSR, US ability and necessity to control Turkish affairs has lessened with the ascendancy of civilian politicians over military dominance.

      It may have only been a matter of time before the Israeli-controlled aspects of our political machinery forced us to choose between Tel Aviv and Ankara. I'm not optimistic. However, Turkey's economy is one of the least vulnerable in that part of the world, and they appear to be in a ripe position to take advantage of our foolish policies in the Eastern Mediterranean.

      People tend to underestimate how thoroughly Israeli policies in the Eastern Mediterranean have been driven at one level or another by a perceived necessity to diminish the economies of adjacent and surrounding states by one mean or another. What good that has supposed to have done for Israel's long-term prospects for success is beyond me.

      From the beginning of 2010 through now, Israeli officials have sought to cripple one aspect or another of the Turkish economic prospects in the local area and beyond. There have been exceptions, but mostly in the realm of joint agreements or relationships that directly benefit Israeli firms or individuals, along with the Turkish ones.

  • Strike Three? Bronner is violating the Times' ethics code -- again
  • Palestine in Oakland
    • Philip Munger October 26, 2011 at 12:45 pm

      We’re all Palestines now

      --- not until they start killing us.

      Oakland was bad. Max is right. But let's not make the police actions and the use of far too much force into more than what they are. I flew over both Watts and Newark when they were burning in 1965 and 1967.

  • 'NYT' features Amy Goodman and her antiwar record
    • Philip Munger October 25, 2011 at 2:21 am

      It is about time the NYT took a closer look at DN. Unsaid in this post is the excellent work covering union issues by her colleague, Juan Gonzales. When is the last time NPR did a decent story on union issues that honestly showed linkage between unions and blue collar family viability?

      Although the MSM networks (that includes NPR) occasionally cover Latin America, the team at DN details events there quite well. If it weren't for DN, for instance, the Honduran coup in 2009 might not have even been mentioned honestly. DN's audience among American Latinos is large, as they thirst for coverage of issues to concern to them both in the USA and to the south.

      Goodman has been arrested for being a news person - at the 2008 GOP convention. She won, hopmi. And she was detained by the Canadians in BC, in fear of her covering Canadian issues in a way hat might hurt the Vancouver Winter Olympics.

      I try to at least catch the DN headlines every day on my laptop, when I shave, shower, and dress for the day.

  • Americans who support Palestinian cause must be willing to lose friends
    • Philip Munger October 24, 2011 at 5:07 am with 4 replies

      I'm here.

      I made youtube Saturday of an interview at "Occupy Wasilla." I screwed up the end of it, erasing a few seconds of good comments by a participant. Maybe Phil W did the same.

      This young woman strikes me as remarkable. Thanks for interviewing her.

  • Rachel Abrams says Palestinian children are 'devils' spawn'-- while Israeli children play with Transformers and draw your heart strings
  • Bill Kristol: 'We need to hear' that Obama has gone to war on Iran
    • Philip Munger October 16, 2011 at 8:51 pm with 1 replies

      Is likely, however, that the addition of Palin to the ticket might have been a deliberate attempt to throw the race to Obama because only he could have gotten away with a Wall Street bailout without raising the ire of rank and file Democrats and the unions which are part and parcel of the Democratic Party and hence, with the rare exception that we witnessed in Wisconsin are AWOL from the political battle lines when a Democrat is in the White House.

      --- I've never seen any evidence that this was the case.

      The mistakes of the 2008 McCain campaign fell well within the range of badly run presidential campaigns, without it having to have been intentionally thrown to the Democrats. Though Palin's ineptness and narcism had been obvious to some of us who had closely observed her rise to local power, the details of the pre-Palin-VP-selection vetting have been pretty fully covered in Heilemann and Halperin's Game Change, and in Geoffrey Dunn's The Lies of Sarah Palin.

      McCain wanted to win in 2008, was not catching up to Obama, and the Palin selections was a "Hail Mary" pass to the religious right.

    • Philip Munger October 16, 2011 at 6:06 pm with 3 replies

      Has Kristol ever been right about anything?

  • Don't just stand there, let's get to it, strike a pose, there's nothing to it
    • Philip Munger October 15, 2011 at 12:37 pm with 5 replies

      One of her early films - the only one I have - is the screen adaptation of Benjamin Britten's War Requiem. It is a strange film with ethereal music. She played the nurse who attends to Sir Laurence Olivier. It was his last film role.

      I've ordered two of those scarves for Christmas presents - one each for my wife and daughter.

  • Lupe Fiasco, member of the human race, takes his stand on Palestine
  • Lupe Fiasco performs with a Palestinian flag and Occupy Wall Street shirt at the 2011 BET Hip Hop Awards
    • Philip Munger October 12, 2011 at 11:46 pm with 3 replies

      Although I'm known as a "classical" composer, I've had a longstanding interest in hip-hop, particularly female artists and their music-poetry. Hip-hop was a "social network" long before my space, facebook and twitter. Many texting and sexting terms have been stolen from rappers, and the interchange is now a two-way street.

      The video embedded above shows the great BET Awards performance from Lupe Fiasco and his band. Interesting to me is how his presentation and song have been [mis]represented in the media, not least by the BET TV web page. Very few articles in the hip-hop version of the MSM even mention, let alone cover the OWS and Palestinian rights angle.

      First of all, even better than the youtube above is Lupe's speech, highlighting Palestinian rights. I can't quite read the crowd's reactions. They appear to be mixed.

      Second, Skylar Grey, who sang the icy song part to the original hit, was subbed for at the awards by Erykah Badu, who was magnificent.

      Third, here are the lyrics to Words I Never Said:

      "Words I Never Said"
      (feat. Skylar Grey)

      [Skylar Grey]
      It’s so loud Inside my head
      With words that I should have said!
      As I drown in my regrets
      I can’t take back the words I never said
      I can’t take back the words I never said

      [Lupe Fiasco]
      I really think the war on terror is a bunch of bullshit
      Just a poor excuse for you to use up all your bullets
      How much money does it take to really make a full clip
      9/11 building 7 did they really pull it
      Uhh, And a bunch of other cover ups
      Your childs future was the first to go with budget cuts
      If you think that hurts then, wait here comes the uppercut
      The school was garbage in the first place, that's on the up and up
      Keep you at the bottom but tease you with the uppercrust
      You get it then they move it so you never keeping up enough
      If you turn on TV all you see’s a bunch of “what the fucks”
      Dude is dating so and so blabbering bout such and such
      And that ain't Jersey Shore, homie that's the news
      And these the same people that supposed to be telling us the truth
      Limbaugh is a racist, Glenn Beck is a racist
      Gaza strip was getting bombed, Obama didn’t say shit
      That's why I ain't vote for him, next one either
      I’ma part of the problem, my problem is I’m peaceful
      And I believe in the people.

      [Skylar Grey]
      It’s so loud inside my head
      With words that I should have said!
      As I drown in my regrets
      I can’t take back the words I never said
      I can’t take back the words I never said

      [Lupe Fiasco - Verse 2]
      Now you can say it ain't our fault if we never heard it
      But if we know better than we probably deserve it
      Jihad is not a holy war, wheres that in the worship?
      Murdering is not Islam!
      And you are not observant
      And you are not a muslim
      Israel don’t take my side cause look how far you’ve pushed them
      Walk with me into the ghetto, this where all the Kush went
      Complain about the liquor store but what you drinking liquor for?
      Complain about the gloom but when’d you pick a broom up?
      Just listening to Pac ain't gone make it stop
      A rebel in your thoughts, ain't gon make it halt
      If you don’t become an actor you’ll never be a factor
      Pills with million side effects
      Take em when the pains felt
      Wash them down with Diet soda!
      Killin off your brain cells
      Crooked banks around the World
      Would gladly give a loan today
      So if you ever miss a payment
      They can take your home away!

      [Skylar Grey]
      It’s so loud inside my head
      With words that I should have said!
      As I drown in my regrets
      I can’t take back the words I never said, never said
      I can’t take back the words I never said

      [Lupe Fiasco - Verse 3]
      I think that all the silence is worse than all the violence
      Fear is such a weak emotion that's why I despise it
      We scared of almost everything, afraid to even tell the truth
      So scared of what you think of me, I’m scared of even telling you
      Sometimes I’m like the only person I feel safe to tell it to
      I’m locked inside a cell in me, I know that there’s a jail in you
      Consider this your bailing out, so take a breath, inhale a few
      My screams is finally getting free, my thoughts is finally yelling through

      [Skylar Grey]
      It’s so loud Inside my head
      With words that I should have said!
      As I drown in my regrets
      I can’t take back the words I never said

      Fourth, sort of reiterating, getting back to media coverage of Lupe's presentation: Not just BET TV, but the hip-hop and other media in general seem to be slow or unwilling to cover the statement, or the thrust of the song presentation's imagery as newsworthy. Allhiphop.com's story, that highlighted the pro-Palestinian presentation, has been pulled. If you google for stories about the Palestinian aspects of the performance, there are no news stories at this time. Yet the band's continuing efforts to support OWS are being covered.

  • Fragile Egypt
    • Philip Munger October 12, 2011 at 1:51 pm with 1 replies

      Are you Christian? They asked me when I went inside. No. American, I said, afraid to say that I am Jewish. From the time I arrived in Egypt 10 days ago at the Israeli border, I have repeatedly been warned about the fear of Israeli agents meddling in Egyptian politics.

      --- If Phil W. is arrested in Egypt as an Israeli agent, will the Zioclaque @ DailyKos allow me to write a diary about it there?

      Seriously, this is a powerful essay. Although differing in stylistic approach and descriptive narrative from Max Blumenthal's set of summer 2011 interviews with young Jewish Turkish citizens, both authors show a reality so at odds with the American myth of what it is like to live in the eastern Mediterranean, as to be deserving to be part of a major collection of such accounts.

      Be safe, Mr. Weiss.

  • Rambunctious reporters question US State Dept's double standard on Syrian/Palestinian aspirations
  • Esc and Ctrl: The Guardian investigates Israeli internet hasbara
    • Philip Munger October 6, 2011 at 1:59 am

      s'OK, my friend. What you wrote is quite valid.

    • Philip Munger October 5, 2011 at 3:54 pm with 2 replies

      Some years ago the Deputy Foreign Minister of Israel Danny Ayalon took a video that was put out by the Yesha Council (umbrella organization of the settlers) and put it into English. That video was essentially an argument about how Israel had a rightful claim to the West Bank.

      --- It is more recent than that - this midsummer. IIRC - Mondoweiss covered it, as did Max Blumenthal and a number of other internet outlets. I wrote about it at MyFiredoglake on July 19th. Danny might have come close to the Dersh for a record number of lies per second.

      Anyone who wants to use the still screenshots I posted in the link above, of Ayalon next to his annexed Jordan, please feel free.

  • NYT reviewer: Small group of Bush advisers will take real reason for Iraq war to their (restless) graves
    • Philip Munger October 4, 2011 at 7:32 pm

      Lance,

      Thanks very much. Just caught your comment, between teaching a couple of classes.

    • Philip Munger October 4, 2011 at 1:46 pm with 4 replies

      I gave a speech in April 2004 in which I attributed an important aspect of the war's being pushed to the direct linkage between the 1996 Clean Break crew and the PNAC gang. It doesn't matter that some of these people will take their secrets to the grave. The truth has always been there.

      It is all based on lies. Might have worked better if the idea hadn't been totally fucking insane in the first place.

  • Anwar al-Awlaki's extrajudicial murder
  • Israeli settlers attack Israeli activists & journalists; 19 injured, 3 hospitalized
  • White House sells Quartet statement on negotiations as 'a major accomplishment in Israel's favor'
  • Border anxiety in the West Bank
  • Two strikes for Ethan Bronner; does he get a third?
    • Philip Munger September 26, 2011 at 2:14 am

      Max Blumenthal's investigative work is worth its weight in gold.
      Ethan Bronner's investigative work is worth its weight in bullshit.

      The NYT machine, in the 2nd generation internet age, is about to be eclipsed. The only thing holding it together at this point is lack of a cohesive, reliable, trustworthy on-line replacement. Sites like Huffington Post, The Daily Beast and so on have attempted new models, only to veer off into being something closer to the National Enquirer than the NYT. Eventually, a new model will actually work and gain enough credibility to make many newspapers, even in their slimmed down versions, untenable.

  • Ashrawi and Tibi say Obama made it sound like Palestinians are occupying Israel
  • Barney Frank says he's going to hit campuses to counter the 'left' on Israel
  • Bronner speech at Duke reveals deep bias and yet another ethical lapse
  • Arab Fall: Obama administration applauds Libyan seat at UN while it blocks Palestinian bid
  • Top media ethics expert: Times' Ethan Bronner is in 'very dicey ethical territory'
    • Philip Munger September 16, 2011 at 2:32 am

      This gets more disgusting, the deeper people dig, eh?

      Max may not be an archeologist, but his excavations find a lot of golden artifacts mixed in with the dirt. Good to see he has so many helpers here @ MW.

      Is there a way to calculate how much $$$ got directed to this scam by Ethan's article(s)?

  • Art museum’s censorship destroys its integrity
    • Philip Munger September 15, 2011 at 2:57 pm

      Great essay on this, Dr. Siegel.

      It might be worth noting that one of the articles written by Phil Weiss that helped him decide he had to go out on his own, was about suppression of the play, My Name is Rachel Corrie, for The Nation, back in 2006.

      I wrote about this issue yesterday evening for MyFiredoglake, in an essay that thanks Taxi for coming up with the apt term, "Crayons of mass destruction."

  • Settlers destroy Beit Ommar farmer’s crops
  • See the children's drawings that terrified the San Francisco Jewish Community Relations Council and the Jewish Federation of the East Bay
    • Philip Munger September 13, 2011 at 3:50 am

      One of the most disgusting things brought up on this is that the art was not or could not have been produced by kids. Implicit in the meme is "these were Palestinian kids, so......."

      1). My daughter was producing stuff this good when she was nine. Fortunately, she lived a comfortable life at that time, and the stuff she produced, when shown, merely got her awards and blue ribbons in shows, rather than rejection, for being whatever the Bay area hasbarists are bullshitting people with. Almost three times as many people live in Gaza as Alaska (!!!). And there are a helluva a lot of kids there.

      What a talent pool for art.

      I went to the shows, contests and state fair events where she entered her stuff. Other kids' stuff was often better than hers. What a crock of shit that kids couldn't have produced this.

      I've conducted a ten-year-old in Hummel's fucking Trumpet Concerto. He didn't miss a goddam note. Unlike the kids in Gaza, he's been able to study freely, and is now a young professional, with wide horizons before him.

      2). I've seen young Palestinian music groups, dance troupes, actors and actresses in presentations from Alaska to Seattle to Portland to London. One thing that has often struck me is that the kids and young people whose work I've witnessed and enjoyed are but a wounded effigy of what they might be without constant and intentional degradation and even destruction by the Israelis over there, and by their accomplices everywhere else.

      3). In 2004 or 2005, a wonderful collection of Palestinian folk art, costumes and clothes disappeared in transit from Australia to California, where it was supposed to be showed several places. As far as I know, even though it had been shipped very carefully by the museum folks handling its tour, it has never been found. Sorry - too busy to find the links.

  • Sullivan takes spears for Mearsheimer
    • Philip Munger September 12, 2011 at 12:07 am with 3 replies

      Somewhat along the same lines, Max Blumenthal just tweeted "I am drawing a blank on names of liberal columnists/pundits who stood up to tide of jingoism immediately after #911 & who opposed invasion."

      Good question. I stood up, but as an artist. Amy Goodman was there, but she's not considered a columnist/pundit.

  • The 'central issue' of American policy that Shamai Leibowitz thought we had a right to know
    • Philip Munger September 6, 2011 at 12:08 pm

      Part of the backdrop on this time frame of the transition between Bush II and Obama was the IDF ratcheting up provocations in Gaza, which lead to Operation Cast Lead in late December.

  • Avnery says UN vote could bring violence/crackdown to West Bank
    • Philip Munger September 5, 2011 at 8:42 pm

      I disagree with Avneri regarding the necessity of removing settlers and settlements, instead preferring that they be allowed to stay where they, but under Palestinian sovereignty, as Palestinian citizens (renouncing their Israeli), and obeying Palestinian law (presumably that would compel the settlements to be integrated rather than segregated).

      On a scale of one to 100, what are the chances of that occurring, Richard? Make that zero to 100, with zero being "none," 100 being "absolutely for sure."

  • Protesters interrupted Passacaglia w/ Beethoven (more on Israel Philharmonic protest in London)
    • Philip Munger September 3, 2011 at 3:08 pm

      Webern, not Weber. Major differences in their art, their times and their lives.

    • Philip Munger September 2, 2011 at 4:51 pm

      My favorite Heifetz performance is of Alexander Glazunov's Violin Concerto. I got to truly love it as I prepared to conduct the Alaska premiere of the concerto in 2010.

      In 1905, Glazunov, then head of the St. Petersburg Conservatory, was asked by the Czarist secret police, in the wake of the 1905 Revolution, how many Jews were enrolled at his school. Glazunov, highly irritated, replied, "We don't count."

      I wonder how many Palestinians are members of the Israel Philharmonic? Perhaps nobody needs to count.

    • Philip Munger September 2, 2011 at 2:52 pm

      I may make that into a t-shirt and send it to Ms. Fink.

    • Philip Munger September 2, 2011 at 12:42 pm with 2 replies

      What if a performance is just a performance?

      Good Question. One that might have been asked by Jascha Heifetz many times, as he realized his arm had been injured to the point it permanently degraded his ability to play:

      On his third tour to Israel in 1953, Heifetz included in his recitals the Violin Sonata by Richard Strauss. At the time, Strauss was considered by many to be a Nazi composer, and his works were unofficially banned in Israel along with those of Richard Wagner.

      Despite the fact that the Holocaust had occurred less than ten years earlier and a last-minute plea from the Israeli Minister of Education, the defiant Heifetz argued, "The music is above these factors ... I will not change my program. I have the right to decide on my repertoire." Throughout his tour the performance of the Strauss sonata was followed by dead silence.

      Heifetz was attacked after his recital in Jerusalem outside his hotel by a young man who struck Heifetz's violin case, Heifetz resorting to using his right hand to protect his priceless violins from the crowbar. As the attacker started to flee, Heifetz alerted his companions, who were armed, "Shoot that man, he tried to kill me." The attacker escaped and was never found. The attack has since been attributed to the Kingdom of Israel terrorist group. The incident made headlines in the press and Heifetz defiantly announced that he would not stop playing the Strauss. Threats continued to come, however, and he omitted the Strauss from his next recital without explanation. His last concert was cancelled after his swollen right hand began to hurt. He left Israel and did not return until 1970.

  • Protest disrupts London performance of Israel Philharmonic Orchestra
    • Philip Munger September 2, 2011 at 2:47 am

      The Rite of Autumn and its riot. Or at least, late summer.

      One of the compositions interrupted was Anton Webern's "Passacaglia." This video is of the Bruch Violin Concerto.

      Webern was shot shortly after the end of WWII by an American soldier who was trying to bust a smuggling ring in which Webern's son, a Wehrmacht veteran, was alleged to be a participant.

  • 'Brand Israel' has failed
    • Philip Munger August 30, 2011 at 8:14 pm

      BDS is working – but, more importantly, the date approaches for a unilateral declaration of statehood by Palestine – the world’s eyes are on that

      anyone who doesn't think there will be a major overload of bright shiny objects touted in the news during the UN Palestinian recognition debate, well, I've got an Ahava franchise in Dearborn you might be interested in.

  • 'J Street' comes to Syracuse
    • Philip Munger August 26, 2011 at 11:26 pm

      Great report, interesting comments. A couple of observations:

      1). The presence of young Jews, anti-Zionist or not, in on-campus antiwar groups varies vastly, not only from campus to campus, from private to public college, but from state to state. Here in Alaska, to my knowledge, there are no Jewish kids involved in any of these groups, certainly not at UAA, the biggest campus, with the most longstanding human rights clubs or groups. That has continued to surprise me, even though, in respect to I/P, Alaskan Jews are markedly doctrinaire. It also surprised me, because colleges I've attended or been involved with in the past, such as Oberlin and the University of Washington, or where my kids have gone (Western Washington and Humboldt State) have large percentages of Jewish kids in these kinds of orgs.

      annie's examples @ 4:58 are viably large, or at least well organized. But to state as 3e did, that "If most or many young American Jews are anti Zionists, where are the large organizations that reflect that?" neglects the sad fact that this young generation has not fought against wars and human rights abuses in the same ways we did in the 60s, for instance. I foresee more youth activism soon, as the economy dips beyond recession and into true depression this fall.

      2). Since hosting Jeremy Ben-Ami at firedoglake's book salon at the end of July, I've been trying to get an organization in Alaska sponsor an appearance here by J Street, where they have no presence. No success, so far.

      I can't describe the details, but well established public forums here consider J Street toxic, and not because they are too conservative, or too committed to a two-state solution, '67-based borders, or a demilitarized Palestinian state. The plain fact is that there is no discussion whatsoever at important public affairs speaking venues here on this issue that does not have the prior approval of AIPAC's Alaska head, David Gottstein.

      I'm trying to change that, not so much because I believe in most of what J Street stands for, but because getting Jeremy or somebody like Melanie Harris up here might shake things up far more than anyone who lives in the NE USA might be able to understand.

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