None of us are to be blamed for being passionate about what we believe. In fact the opposite is true. Democracy means nothing as a bland hash of conformity. Our society needs strong opinions to fight the current trends where art is determined by academics and practiced by people who don't want to offend anyone.
This may be one of the only periods in human history when artists are encouraged to be safe, bland practitioners of an art which can be defined, but not felt, the product of theory but not the result of wild surmise, powerful hunch, amazing insight, unruly flight and missing landing fields. Even when art was commissioned by entitled royalty it could be overwhelming, but obscene, epic, but filled with the minutiae of delicate human observation, promoting the reigning politics or religion while filled with secret transmissions of resistance and transgression.
So we need to fight professional establishments in all the arts, both those who promote and exploit the edges of human experience and canonize sex and violence and those who seek to make art into a coffee klatch of right-on signaling with a program to avoid the contradictions of humanity altogether. Human seeking is our reason to get up in the morning, undergo our 10 minutes of despair, and then get going. Let's build an art for vigorous, living minds, and seeking spirits. Anything else is deadly boring and worse... it destroys what it purports to create. Like any human activity which shoves its paradigmatic ideal past the point of reasonable achievement, it creates the opposite of what it intends. I think great art is the peak of the possible, almost beyond achievement or description, but tangible, complete, ethereal and mysterious, but with blistered feet inside boots worn rough with work.
You may want to display your dislike of current Hollywood fare or your admiration for drama that lives closer to grass roots and muddy boots. It doesn't matter. We work out here on the edges for a reason. We think current American cinema lacks energy, passion and an inquisitive eye. To work inside the industry you have to "choose to be changed" and those accommodations often mean films which either rely on exploitative sex and violence or its opposite... good timey, well intentioned, conformist pablum which lines up on the right side of all issues, daring nothing while avoiding every human contradiction. To us paradox is the beginning of learning. This is a tough idea in a currently polarized society where everyone knows what's wrong and how to fix it. Until it's up to them.null
This may be one of the only periods in human history when artists are encouraged to be safe, bland practitioners of an art which can be defined, but not felt, the product of theory but not the result of wild surmise, powerful hunch, amazing insight, unruly flight and missing landing fields. Even when art was commissioned by entitled royalty it could be overwhelming, but obscene, epic, but filled with the minutiae of delicate human observation, promoting the reigning politics or religion while filled with secret transmissions of resistance and transgression.
So we need to fight professional establishments in all the arts, both those who promote and exploit the edges of human experience and canonize sex and violence and those who seek to make art into a coffee klatch of right-on signaling with a program to avoid the contradictions of humanity altogether. Human seeking is our reason to get up in the morning, undergo our 10 minutes of despair, and then get going. Let's build an art for vigorous, living minds, and seeking spirits. Anything else is deadly boring and worse... it destroys what it purports to create. Like any human activity which shoves its paradigmatic ideal past the point of reasonable achievement, it creates the opposite of what it intends. I think great art is the peak of the possible, almost beyond achievement or description, but tangible, complete, ethereal and mysterious, but with blistered feet inside boots worn rough with work.
You may want to display your dislike of current Hollywood fare or your admiration for drama that lives closer to grass roots and muddy boots. It doesn't matter. We work out here on the edges for a reason. We think current American cinema lacks energy, passion and an inquisitive eye. To work inside the industry you have to "choose to be changed" and those accommodations often mean films which either rely on exploitative sex and violence or its opposite... good timey, well intentioned, conformist pablum which lines up on the right side of all issues, daring nothing while avoiding every human contradiction. To us paradox is the beginning of learning. This is a tough idea in a currently polarized society where everyone knows what's wrong and how to fix it. Until it's up to them.null
An Interview With Jacques Derrida
by Nikhil Padgaonkar
N.P.: Let me begin this interview by asking you what has been retained today from the word "philosophy" as the Greeks understood it nearly three thousand years ago - that is, as love of wisdom. Are either "love" or "wisdom" issues today?
J.D.: Well, when we teach philosophy in France, at the beginning of every academic year, we recall this etymology. We remember that philosophia in Greek means the love or friendship towards Sophia which is wisdom but also cleverness or skill or knowledge. So then we ask what is Philia - what is love or friendship or desire? In this way, we begin defining philosophy on the basis of this etymology. And there are a number of texts today concerned with love and friendship. I myself wrote a book on the politics of friendship. Deleuze was interested in friendship, and so was Foucault. I would agree that in fact we often lose this etymological definition of philosophy: every philosopher has his own definition of philosophy, and this is one of the typical features of discussions among philosophers about the essence of philosophy - when and where does it start? What is the origin of philosophy? And you cant of course rely simply on the word to define the concept of philosophy. The word by itself is not enough. And when one agrees that philosophy is a Greek noun and that philosophy as such was born in Greece, then there are so many interpretations of what happened then - when did it occur and why, and is every thinking a philosophy? As you know, Heidegger claimed that there was a Greek thinking before philosophy, that philosophy was putting an end to something, to some thought by Parmenides or Heraclitus. So philosophy was in a way, the beginning of an end to thinking...
N.P.: Over the years, you have repeatedly defended the view that deconstruction is not an inherently negative term, that it is not to be understood as criticism or destruction. And indeed in an interview you gave in 1982 and which was subsequently published in Le Monde, you even said that deconstruction is always accompanied by love. Could you comment on this "love". Is it the same love as in "philia"?
J.D.: This love means an affirmative desire towards the Other - to respect the Other, to pay attention to the Other, not to destroy the otherness of the Other - and this is the preliminary affirmation, even if afterwards because of this love, you ask questions. There is some negativity in deconstruction. I wouldn't deny this. You have to criticise, to ask questions, to challenge and sometimes to oppose. What I have said is that in the final instance, deconstruction is not negative although negativity is no doubt at work. Now, in order to criticise, to negate, to deny, you have first to say "yes". When you address the Other, even if it is to oppose the Other, you make a sort of promise - that is, to address the Other as Other, not to reduce the otherness of the Other, and to take into account the singularity of the Other. That's an irreducible affirmation, its the original ethics if you want. So from that point of view, there is an ethics of deconstruction. Not in the usual sense, but there is an affirmation. You know, I often use a quote from Rosensweig or even from Levinas which says that the "yes" is not a word like others, that even if you do not pronounce the word, there is a "yes" implicit in every language, even if you multiply the "no", there is a "yes". And this is even the case with Heidegger. You know Heidegger, for a long time, for years and years kept saying that thinking started with questioning, that questioning (fragen) is the dignity of thinking. And then one day, without contradicting this statement, he said "yes, but there is something even more originary than questioning, than this piety of thinking," and it is what he called zusage which means to acquiesce, to accept, to say "yes", to affirm. So this zusage is not only prior to questioning, but it is supposed by any questioning. To ask a question, you must first tell the Other that I am speaking to you. Even to oppose or challenge the Other, you must say "at least I speak to you", "I say yes to our being in common together". So this is what I meant by love, this reaffirmation of the affirmation.
N.P.: To many of your readers, one of the important consequences of reading your works is the realization that criticism from an "outside" position is no longer possible, that one is always working with inherited language, and because one inherits language, one inevitably works within a shared framework. Now, if one seeks to question or to displace without seeking recourse to an outside position, does one not run the risk of conservatism?
J.D.: Well you see, everything depends on this concept of inherited. When you inherit a language, it does not mean you are totally in it or you are passively programmed by it. To inherit means to be able to, of course, appropriate this language, to transform it, to select something. Heritage is not something you are given as a whole. It is something that calls for interpretations, selections, reactions, response and responsibility. When you take your responsibility as an heir, you are not simply subjected to the heritage, you are not called to simply conserve or keep this heritage as it is, intact. You have to make it live and survive, and that is a process - a selective and interpretive process. So no doubt, there is a temptation simply to repeat and to take up conservative positions. But it is not absolutely necessary, and I would even say that in order to make something new happen, you have to inherit, you have to be inside the language, inside the tradition. You would not be able to transform or displace anything without in some way being inside the tradition, without understanding the language.
N.P.: There is no difference without repetition...
J.D.: Of course, of course, some repetition, some kind of repetition. But the choice is not between repetition and innovation, but between two forms of repetition and two forms of invention. So I think there are inventive forms of respecting the tradition, and there are reactive or non-inventive forms. But I would not say that in order to invent something new, or to make something new happen, you have to betray the tradition or to forget the tradition. If I may say something about the way I try to work within the French tradition, I have the feeling that the more I understand from within a poet or a writer, the more I am able to, let us say reproduce what he is doing, the more I am able to write something else, or to counter-sign. That is, to sign another text which encounters the generic text. When I write on authors such as Genet, I dont write like them, I try to incorporate what they give me in order to perform something else which bears my own signature -which is not simply mine but which is another signature. And this happens not only in philosophy or literary theory; it happens all the time. To speak with someone else, you have to understand what the Other says, you have to be able to repeat it - thats what understanding means - and to be able to answer, to respond, and your response will be different, it will be something else, and the response includes the possibility of understanding what youre responding to. So I would put all this in terms of response - and responsibility -towards your heritage.
N.P.: You have argued that language is subject to a generalized "iterability" - that is, it can be grafted into new and unforeseen contexts...
J.D.: I have a vague idea of the Sanskrit etymology of "itera" which means again, the same, repetition, and something else, some alteration...
N.P.: ...so language reproduces itself in new contexts, in new frames, and it becomes impossible therefore to limit the range of possible meanings it thus produces. Significantly enough, iterability suggests that one cannot attempt to delineate the meaning of a text by referring to the intentions of its author. This much said, is there any possibility of holding an author responsible for the fate of his or her book? I am of course thinking of your discussion of Nietzsche, but more generally, can a writer be held to account for the way his or her writings are interpreted or could possibly be interpreted? Is there any way for an author to regulate, in advance, the range of possible interpretations?
J.D.: If you expect an answer in the form of a "yes or no", I would say no. But if you give me more time, I would be more hesitant. I would say that a philosopher or writer should try of course, to be responsible for what he writes as far as possible. For instance, one must be very careful politically, and try, not so much to control, but to foresee all possible consequences some people might draw from what you write. Thats an obligation - to try to analyse and foresee everything. But its absolutely impossible. You cant control everything because once a certain work, or a certain sentence, or a certain set of discourses are published, when the trace is traced, it goes beyond your reach, beyond your control, and in a different context, it can be exploited, displaced, used beyond what you meant. And this is the question I asked about Nietzsche since you mention him. Of course, there was an abusive interpretation of Nietzsche by the Nazis. No doubt, Nietzsche didnt want that, it is sure. But, nevertheless, how can we account for the fact that the only philosopher or thinker that was referred to as a predecessor by the Nazis was Nietzsche? So there must be in Nietzsches discourse, something which was in affinity with the Nazis, and you can say this and try to analyse this possibility without of course, concluding that Nietzsche himself was a Nazi, or that everything in Nietzsche was in affinity with the Nazis. But we have to account for the fact that there was a lineage, there was some genealogy. So, we are all exposed to this - I am sure that some people could draw reactive or reactionary or right-wing conservative positions from what I say. I struggle, I do my best to prevent this, but I know that I cant control it. People could take a sentence and use it...let us take the example of what I was telling you this afternoon: of course, I am in favour of, let us say, the development of idioms, the differences in language so as to resist the hegemony or the monopoly of language. But I immediately added to this statement that I was also opposed to nationalism. That is, to the nationalistic reappropriation of this desire for difference. Now, maybe someone can say, "well, youre in favour of divisions against a universal language, then we would use your discourse in favour of nationalism or reactionary linguistic violence" and so on and so forth. So, I cant control this. I can only do my best, just adding a sentence to my first sentence, and to go on speaking trying to neutralize the misunderstandings. But you cant control everything, and the fact that you cannot control everything doesn't mean simply that youre a finite being and a limited person. It has to do with the structure of language, the structure of the trace. As soon as you trace something, the trace becomes independent of its source - thats the structure of the trace. The trace becomes independent of its origin, and as soon as the trace is traced, it escapes. You cannot control the fate of the book totally. I cant control the future of this interview (laughter)...You record it, but then youll re-write it, re-frame it, build a new context, and perhaps, my sentence will sound different. So, I trust you but I know that it is impossible to control the publication of everything I say.
N.P.: But there is an implicit faith, an implicit relationship...
J.D.: Its a matter of faith, of good faith, but its faith, its faith...
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Why America Loves NASCAR
(Hint: Because it's not black.
From the Village Voice:
By saying NASCAR isn't black, I mean it isn't African American. And NASCAR is not at all black: Not in the cockpits of the stockcars; not on the pit crews; rarely, if at all, among the multitudes filling the 160,000-seat speedway stands. It's considered an all-American sport, inclusive and meritocratic, but to see it on TV or in person, it does have a certain flavor.
Not all of America loves NASCAR. It's mostly those who live in the "red" swath of middle America, an area that includes the South and the Southwest and that helped elect George Bush last November. These are the ones who punched Dubya's chad, the ones who did so purportedly as a vote for "values." So significant is this group that television networks are increasingly gearing their programming toward it.
Last fall, ESPN presented a biopic on the life of the late NASCAR driver Dale Earnhardt. The movie, 3, casts Earnhardt (Barry Pepper) as the idealized "American Everyman." He grows up in blue-collar poverty, with racing as his single-minded passion (father-inspired). Neither love (women, inexplicably, are drawn to him like country singers to whining lyrics) nor children (he fathers a passel, abandoning some with brooding regret but no apparent damage done to any of the parties involved) can keep him out of the cockpit and away from his destiny with all-American herodom. Throughout he remains blissfully unaware (and, remarkably, utterly untouched) by the historical moment.
This is, after all, the 1950s, '60s, and '70s South. Yet, though the movie is set largely in North Carolina during an era when Southern society was in violent turmoil, black characters are missing altogether from 3. In fact, African Americans, as a group, are referenced just once in the movie, in an anecdote about delivering moonshine to the "black" neighborhood (not the "colored," "negro," or, probably more accurately to the speech of poor whites of that period, "nigger" side of town). African Americans, both then as well as now, make up a significant component of the culture and landscape of the South. Even so, the scriptwriters wrote blacks out of the narrative. The NASCAR audience, they seem to be saying, would not mind the absence. (Ironically, the network's TV ad closed with the tag-line: "One man, one sport, one nation.")
Where this idealized "Dale Earnhardt" is Everyman, today's American Sportsman has become, in Sly Stone parlance, Everyday People. That is to say, he's black. Specifically, urban black: hiphop; flamboyantly flashy; naturally gifted but lazy. The American Sportsman/black athlete personifies the opposite of the values that the NASCAR fans seem to hold dear. As opposed to the NASCAR driver presented in 3, a white man who leathers his hands working with tools and relying on his daring to earn victories, the American Sportsman/black athlete squanders his God-given talent and is loud-talking and brash. He is a millionaire whiner who complains about how inadequate is his pay (Latrell Sprewell), or who brawls with paying fans (Ron Artest). He is lascivious, perhaps even a rapist (Kobe Bryant). And there's reason to think he's a cheat (Barry Bonds). The 2004 US Olympic basketball teamwhich, despite boastful predictions, won only Bronzerepresents the worst of the American Sportsman and, like that shamed team, has brought disgrace on the country before the entire world.
The treatment of race (or lack thereof) in 3 calls to mind the similarly troubling representation of black and white in another 2004 movie, Friday Night Lights, based on H.G. Bissinger's 1990 book of the same name. Bissinger, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, spent the fall of 1988 in Odessa, Texas, following the local football team. Early in the season, the star player was injured and a series of unexpected losses ensued. The book chronicles the maniacal obsession and egregious racism of 1980s Texas high school football, where poverty predominated, black kids were commonly referred to as "niggers," and the team's success and the town's identity were noxiously intertwined. I had looked forward to seeing the movie, in part because I'd played football in my Texas hometown, but mostly because I'd read the book a decade before and remembered that Bissinger's account had basically gotten it right.
The movie, on the other hand, gets the story wrongoffensively so. The film version does touch on the racism that Bissinger exposed in his book when, in one scene, a bubbly woman booster refers to the star player as a "dumb nigger." Likewise, it shows the overwhelming pressure and scrutiny that small-town Odessa places on its high school football team. But that's not what the movie is about. It's about "values:" it's about how this group of boys, through grit and determination, overcomes overwhelming adversity to go all the way to the state finals.
Unlike 3, Friday Night Lights does not ignore race. On the contrary, in a sleight of hand that would make Rush Limbaugh titter, the movie reverses the racism: The African American sportsman is the evil villain who, though physically superior, unscrupulously uses whatever means to dominate underdog Odessa. In the championship game, Odessa is pitted against Dallas's Carter H.S., and in the movie version the all-black and urban team is cast as flamboyant and boastful. (The players even wear garish red and blue uniforms that call to mind minstrel show clowns.) At a pre-game meeting, the Carter coaches, who are shown wearing ostentatious business suits (as opposed to the Odessa coach's simple windbreaker and cap), insist that a black referee be included in the crew, for fear of racism towards their team. During the game, it is that lone black ref who cheats, in favor of Carter.
In the movie, the Odessa team, a real multi-racial coalition that includes white, black and latino, are stand-in Barry Peppers as "Dale Earnhardt," in over-muscled pubescent bodies and football helmets. The players of color, meanwhile, are merely the whiteboys, but in black-face. Like the white characters, they are portrayed as team-first overachievers, personified by their tenacity and toughness. But unlike the whites, who have complex internal lives and must deal with pressures outside the locker room, the black and latino boys are merely background color, with no apparent families or concerns outside the team. (They are even ignorant of or unconcerned with the racism that surrounds them.) The exception is Boobie Miles, the film's one featured African American character. Flashy, talented, and individualistic, Miles is the star running back whose injury early in the season is a sort of betrayal that sets the team on the losing streak that it must subsequently overcome. Explicitly, Miles is more like the Dallas Carter minstrels than his blue-collar teammates; implicitly, Miles and the Carter players stand in for an Allen Iverson, a Ron Artest.
Boobie Miles aside, the Odessa team, black, brown, and white, is meant to represent the values that red state America pines nostalgically for. The players and coaches are colorblind, hard-working Everymen, imbued with integrity and a sense of what's rightas if this ideal ever really existed. The idealized Everyman certainly didn't exist in Bissinger's book, not among the community, not among the players, and not among the coaches. In the book, it is, treacherously, a coach, not a bimbo booster, who calls Boobie Miles a "big ole dumb nigger"a body without a brain. And it's the entire community, coaches included, that casts that boy aside like soiled underwear once, because of his injury, he is no longer able to serve them. While Miles was undoubtedly flamboyant in real life (the book also describes him this way), until the injury he was also a committed member of the teamtalented, yes, but tough and hard-workingnot merely a self-serving satellite, as on the screen, profiteering off its success to launch his own star. It was not his egomania, as the movie wants us to believe, that led to his post-injury excommunication and fall. It was the racist culture of 1980s West Texas that had prepared the boy only for athletic servitude and, after he could no longer do it, that then made him out to be the "dumb nigger" it had always imagined of him in the first place.
The fantasies represented in 3 and in the Hollywood version of Friday Night Lights are not new. Our "classic" sports movies have often held up a white, working-man ideal by constructing it in opposition to the counter-example of the naturally gifted, oftentimes flamboyant black athlete. (Think Apollo Creed or Clubber Lang in the first Rocky films; or consider the lily-white, all-American small town underdogs who battle back to defeat the more gifted and largely black basketball team in Hoosiers.) Sadly, this good-evil/black-white metaphor has too often stood in for the myopic way that the country has seen itself: embattled overachievers graced with moral virtue and a higher mission against a dark and savage horde.
The movie that we, as a people, are making to demonstrate who we, as a country, are in the post-9/11 world is regrettably just as shallow and fantastical as 3 and Friday Night Lights. Cast in the leading role is a man who, playing to this all-American narrative, has presented himself as the idealized Everyman, as a sort of politician "Dale Earnhardt:" tough; resolute; a uniter ("One man, one sport, one nation") whose multi-racial (if race-neutral) team is as hard-working and driven as him. For our president/hero, everything is facilelyand falselyblack and white, part of an "axis of evil" or of a "crusade" for righteousness and light, and no adversity will keep him from winning against those who "hate freedom."
Skeptical audience members, here as well as abroad, are disturbed by the movie we are being shown. Unfortunately, none of us can walk out of this theater.
(Hint: Because it's not black.
From the Village Voice:
By saying NASCAR isn't black, I mean it isn't African American. And NASCAR is not at all black: Not in the cockpits of the stockcars; not on the pit crews; rarely, if at all, among the multitudes filling the 160,000-seat speedway stands. It's considered an all-American sport, inclusive and meritocratic, but to see it on TV or in person, it does have a certain flavor.
Not all of America loves NASCAR. It's mostly those who live in the "red" swath of middle America, an area that includes the South and the Southwest and that helped elect George Bush last November. These are the ones who punched Dubya's chad, the ones who did so purportedly as a vote for "values." So significant is this group that television networks are increasingly gearing their programming toward it.
Last fall, ESPN presented a biopic on the life of the late NASCAR driver Dale Earnhardt. The movie, 3, casts Earnhardt (Barry Pepper) as the idealized "American Everyman." He grows up in blue-collar poverty, with racing as his single-minded passion (father-inspired). Neither love (women, inexplicably, are drawn to him like country singers to whining lyrics) nor children (he fathers a passel, abandoning some with brooding regret but no apparent damage done to any of the parties involved) can keep him out of the cockpit and away from his destiny with all-American herodom. Throughout he remains blissfully unaware (and, remarkably, utterly untouched) by the historical moment.
This is, after all, the 1950s, '60s, and '70s South. Yet, though the movie is set largely in North Carolina during an era when Southern society was in violent turmoil, black characters are missing altogether from 3. In fact, African Americans, as a group, are referenced just once in the movie, in an anecdote about delivering moonshine to the "black" neighborhood (not the "colored," "negro," or, probably more accurately to the speech of poor whites of that period, "nigger" side of town). African Americans, both then as well as now, make up a significant component of the culture and landscape of the South. Even so, the scriptwriters wrote blacks out of the narrative. The NASCAR audience, they seem to be saying, would not mind the absence. (Ironically, the network's TV ad closed with the tag-line: "One man, one sport, one nation.")
Where this idealized "Dale Earnhardt" is Everyman, today's American Sportsman has become, in Sly Stone parlance, Everyday People. That is to say, he's black. Specifically, urban black: hiphop; flamboyantly flashy; naturally gifted but lazy. The American Sportsman/black athlete personifies the opposite of the values that the NASCAR fans seem to hold dear. As opposed to the NASCAR driver presented in 3, a white man who leathers his hands working with tools and relying on his daring to earn victories, the American Sportsman/black athlete squanders his God-given talent and is loud-talking and brash. He is a millionaire whiner who complains about how inadequate is his pay (Latrell Sprewell), or who brawls with paying fans (Ron Artest). He is lascivious, perhaps even a rapist (Kobe Bryant). And there's reason to think he's a cheat (Barry Bonds). The 2004 US Olympic basketball teamwhich, despite boastful predictions, won only Bronzerepresents the worst of the American Sportsman and, like that shamed team, has brought disgrace on the country before the entire world.
The treatment of race (or lack thereof) in 3 calls to mind the similarly troubling representation of black and white in another 2004 movie, Friday Night Lights, based on H.G. Bissinger's 1990 book of the same name. Bissinger, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, spent the fall of 1988 in Odessa, Texas, following the local football team. Early in the season, the star player was injured and a series of unexpected losses ensued. The book chronicles the maniacal obsession and egregious racism of 1980s Texas high school football, where poverty predominated, black kids were commonly referred to as "niggers," and the team's success and the town's identity were noxiously intertwined. I had looked forward to seeing the movie, in part because I'd played football in my Texas hometown, but mostly because I'd read the book a decade before and remembered that Bissinger's account had basically gotten it right.
The movie, on the other hand, gets the story wrongoffensively so. The film version does touch on the racism that Bissinger exposed in his book when, in one scene, a bubbly woman booster refers to the star player as a "dumb nigger." Likewise, it shows the overwhelming pressure and scrutiny that small-town Odessa places on its high school football team. But that's not what the movie is about. It's about "values:" it's about how this group of boys, through grit and determination, overcomes overwhelming adversity to go all the way to the state finals.
Unlike 3, Friday Night Lights does not ignore race. On the contrary, in a sleight of hand that would make Rush Limbaugh titter, the movie reverses the racism: The African American sportsman is the evil villain who, though physically superior, unscrupulously uses whatever means to dominate underdog Odessa. In the championship game, Odessa is pitted against Dallas's Carter H.S., and in the movie version the all-black and urban team is cast as flamboyant and boastful. (The players even wear garish red and blue uniforms that call to mind minstrel show clowns.) At a pre-game meeting, the Carter coaches, who are shown wearing ostentatious business suits (as opposed to the Odessa coach's simple windbreaker and cap), insist that a black referee be included in the crew, for fear of racism towards their team. During the game, it is that lone black ref who cheats, in favor of Carter.
In the movie, the Odessa team, a real multi-racial coalition that includes white, black and latino, are stand-in Barry Peppers as "Dale Earnhardt," in over-muscled pubescent bodies and football helmets. The players of color, meanwhile, are merely the whiteboys, but in black-face. Like the white characters, they are portrayed as team-first overachievers, personified by their tenacity and toughness. But unlike the whites, who have complex internal lives and must deal with pressures outside the locker room, the black and latino boys are merely background color, with no apparent families or concerns outside the team. (They are even ignorant of or unconcerned with the racism that surrounds them.) The exception is Boobie Miles, the film's one featured African American character. Flashy, talented, and individualistic, Miles is the star running back whose injury early in the season is a sort of betrayal that sets the team on the losing streak that it must subsequently overcome. Explicitly, Miles is more like the Dallas Carter minstrels than his blue-collar teammates; implicitly, Miles and the Carter players stand in for an Allen Iverson, a Ron Artest.
Boobie Miles aside, the Odessa team, black, brown, and white, is meant to represent the values that red state America pines nostalgically for. The players and coaches are colorblind, hard-working Everymen, imbued with integrity and a sense of what's rightas if this ideal ever really existed. The idealized Everyman certainly didn't exist in Bissinger's book, not among the community, not among the players, and not among the coaches. In the book, it is, treacherously, a coach, not a bimbo booster, who calls Boobie Miles a "big ole dumb nigger"a body without a brain. And it's the entire community, coaches included, that casts that boy aside like soiled underwear once, because of his injury, he is no longer able to serve them. While Miles was undoubtedly flamboyant in real life (the book also describes him this way), until the injury he was also a committed member of the teamtalented, yes, but tough and hard-workingnot merely a self-serving satellite, as on the screen, profiteering off its success to launch his own star. It was not his egomania, as the movie wants us to believe, that led to his post-injury excommunication and fall. It was the racist culture of 1980s West Texas that had prepared the boy only for athletic servitude and, after he could no longer do it, that then made him out to be the "dumb nigger" it had always imagined of him in the first place.
The fantasies represented in 3 and in the Hollywood version of Friday Night Lights are not new. Our "classic" sports movies have often held up a white, working-man ideal by constructing it in opposition to the counter-example of the naturally gifted, oftentimes flamboyant black athlete. (Think Apollo Creed or Clubber Lang in the first Rocky films; or consider the lily-white, all-American small town underdogs who battle back to defeat the more gifted and largely black basketball team in Hoosiers.) Sadly, this good-evil/black-white metaphor has too often stood in for the myopic way that the country has seen itself: embattled overachievers graced with moral virtue and a higher mission against a dark and savage horde.
The movie that we, as a people, are making to demonstrate who we, as a country, are in the post-9/11 world is regrettably just as shallow and fantastical as 3 and Friday Night Lights. Cast in the leading role is a man who, playing to this all-American narrative, has presented himself as the idealized Everyman, as a sort of politician "Dale Earnhardt:" tough; resolute; a uniter ("One man, one sport, one nation") whose multi-racial (if race-neutral) team is as hard-working and driven as him. For our president/hero, everything is facilelyand falselyblack and white, part of an "axis of evil" or of a "crusade" for righteousness and light, and no adversity will keep him from winning against those who "hate freedom."
Skeptical audience members, here as well as abroad, are disturbed by the movie we are being shown. Unfortunately, none of us can walk out of this theater.
The politics of apathy.
How unprogressive can a whole generation be. Well just look more on this site.
Most of what I have been reading on this site not including the great articles have been meaningless.
Where are the thinkers of a new generation? Where are the artist the people who are affected by what has been going on with the world.
I can't understand with everything going on in this world that people still give a shit about Brad Pitt's life. Or any lame star's life. Starfuckers. Who gives a rats ass.
Do any of you artits and free thinkers know who Judith Miller is?
Hummm give up?
The Bill of Rights. Know about that?
The press's role in the leak of a CIA operative's identity has made clear that if ever there was a time for transparency by the journalism community, this is it. The case is clouded in secrecy and murk, including the part about the press's involvement. At least two of the reporters involved, protecting sources, have failed to give anything resembling a complete account of their information-gathering.
I am not suggesting in any way that they name confidential sources who are not already known, but if they or their employers are to claim credibility, a full disclosure of their roles is crucial. The public needs to be given details of, among other things, how they conducted their reporting, what their conversations with their sources consisted of, what questions the special federal prosecutor investigating the case posed to them, and what their responses were. They should also bring forward any testimony they gave to the prosecutor's grand jury. Once a person testifies, he or she can make the testimony public.
The leak happened in July 2003. The prosecutor, Patrick Fitzgerald, has been running his investigation for nearly two years and seems to be wrapping it up now. What began as a dirty political trick by the White House to silence criticism of the Iraq war has now swollen, because of the ensuing cover-up, into a threat to the Bush administration's legitimacy.
The journalist who first published CIA agent Valerie Plame Wilson's name more than two years ago, columnist Robert Novak, cited as his sources two senior administration officials" unnamed. Novak, a partisan conservative who has regularly been a conduit for Republican leaks, has refused to explain his role but says he will do so as soon as the prosecutor's case is concluded. As I wrote in an earlier column: "Two years is a long time for a reporter to hide the truth."
Another controversial journalist, New York Times reporter Judith Miller, was found guilty of civil contempt by the federal judge in the case for refusing to identify her sources or testify before the grand jury. Finally, last week, after 85 days in a federal jail, she worked out a deal with the prosecutor and testified about one of her sources I. Lewis Libby, chief of staff to Vice President Richard Cheney. She also turned over some of her notes, which she was allowed to edit in advance. She has refused as yet to discuss the details of her involvement, but says this will all come out in the soon-to-appear New York Times account of the story. Oddly, though weapons of mass destruction are one of her key fields of interest and she seems to have done substantial reporting on the criticism by Plame's husband, Joseph Wilson, of the Bush administration, she never published a story about it. So far, she has not explained why.
Since her release, Miller has gone on television to defend her actions, but has not cleared up any of the mysteries. In these appearances, she has said repeatedly that if sources' identities were not protected, many of them would not come forward and tell reporters what shenanigans the government and major corporations were really up to, and the public would suffer. "The public's right to know" is at stake, she says again and again. And she's right. That's why I believe, since she is a major part of the story, that she now has to take the uncommon step of telling us her whole story. She has to do it for the public she says she is responsible to, for her colleagues, and for the Times, whose reputation is also at stake here.
The American press has been under siege in recent years mostly from the right, which accuses journalists of being overwhelmingly liberal and determinedly hostile to the Bush administration. More and more court decisions have reversed journalists' traditional privileges such as protection, under the freedom-of-the-press language of the First Amendment, from having to testify or turn over notes, except in extraordinary cases.
Miller cited those privileges in her refusal to cooperate with the prosecutor. She says she did it to protect the confidentiality of her sources. Virtually everyone in the journalism world believes in the need for confidentiality to enable whistleblower sources to come forward anonymously and expose wrongdoing without fear of retaliation. But many have expressed doubts about Miller's reporting methods and her relationships with her sources.
One of the warts on this case and therefore on Novak's and Miller's silence is the fact that the sources this time, as is frequently the case with high-placed Washington leakers, were not civic-minded whistleblowers. They were major administration wheeler-dealers trying to smear Wilson, a former U.S. diplomat with service in Africa, who had challenged the Bush claim that the Saddam Hussein regime in Iraq had gone to Africa seeking to purchase uranium yellowcake, needed for nuclear weapons. This was a key part of the weapons-of-mass-destruction rationale that Bush employed to lead the country into war against Iraq in 2003. Nearly all the Bush arguments for war turned out to be false, hyped, or hollow. The claim about the yellowcake, for instance, was based on forged documents.
The purpose of the leak of Plame's name and occupation she was a covert agent working in the area of anti-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction was to paint her as an anti-Bush co-conspirator with her husband, so as to discredit his information on the Bush uranium claim.
Also working against Times reporter Miller is her past reporting on weapons of mass destruction, which generally hewed to the White House line that Iraq was actively engaged in producing and building up stockpiles of these arms and thus presented a "grave and gathering danger" to America's security. When that story fell apart the president's own weapons investigator reported after the invasion of Iraq that no such weapons could be found Miller refused to acknowledge any error on her part, saying in essence that she had merely reported what officials were talking about in high places and had told her. She said then that this was what her job as a reporter was supposed to be. Later she softened some of these responses but never gave a clear accounting of her work nor fully acknowledged that she, wittingly or unwittingly, had misled the public. Anti-war critics have accused her of assisting the administration's push toward war.
In the days since her release from jail, she has, in my opinion, not helped herself or her paper. She has given interviews only to TV personalities who will gush over her. At this writing, there have been two such appearances, with Lou Dobbs on CNN and with ABC's Barbara Walters on Good Morning America.
Both hosts melted on camera. Walters introduced her guest thusly: "I've known Judith as a friend and a journalist for years. I visited her in jail." Later, Walters, in an awe-filled voice, said: "You were in jail longer than any other journalist." Miller quickly corrected her, "Twice as long as any other journalist." (Watch the video.)
Miller keeps saying that she is not seeking to be a hero or a martyr. Unfortunately, her demeanor the little we have seen of it belies this claim. This perception on my part may be a generational thing, but I was taught that a reporter does not go forth patting himself on the back for doing his job.
Also, I have always thought that keeping a professional distance between you and your sources was an important part of the journalist's code. At times, Miller's distance seems miniscule. It was reported that, while in jail, she was visited twice by John Bolton, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. Bolton, a hawk on the Iraq war, also made weapons of mass destruction one of his special issues. This issue seems to link many of the people in this convoluted story. All the connections lead back to the Iraq war.
Miller also received a letter in jail from Libby, the Cheney source she was protecting until he gave her personal permission to give testimony about their conversations. Dated September 15, Libby's release frees her from her grant of confidentiality and urges her to go before the grand jury, saying that he "would be better off if you testified."
Two things about the letter struck me as strange.
One is the tone that of personal friend or buddy, not professional contact. The other off-key note is that much of the letter is devoted to laying out a kind of blueprint of the case Libby has made to the prosecutor namely that he "did not discuss Ms. Plame's name or identity" with any reporter. Could this have been a map to guide Miller's own testimony-to-come?
Novak has never disguised the fact that he is a "player" in the nation's capital. Is Judith Miller also a "player" in Washington's games, or is she a reporter? Miller needs to address these questions.
Even her supporters are asking for answers. On September 30, one of her most stalwart admirers, Lucy Dalglish, director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, was asked during an online chat hosted by The Washington Post: "So what are the three biggest mysteries/questions that YOU would like Judy Miller to explain?" At the top of her list, Dalglish put this question: "Was Scooter Libby your source for information about Valerie Plame, or were you HIS source?"
About the tone of the Libby letter to Miller, here is how it ends:
"You went into jail in the summer. It is fall now. You will have stories to cover Iraqi elections and suicide bombers, biological threats and the Iranian nuclear program. Out West, where you vacation, the aspens will already be turning. They turn in clusters, because their roots connect them. Come back to work and life. Until then, you will remain in my thoughts and prayers. With admiration, Scooter Libby."
We reporters are always insisting on full disclosure and transparency from the people and institutions we write about. Now, with the press under scrutiny and in some quarters under attack, it has become necessary for reporters to do their own disclosing.
--the VIllage Voice
How unprogressive can a whole generation be. Well just look more on this site.
Most of what I have been reading on this site not including the great articles have been meaningless.
Where are the thinkers of a new generation? Where are the artist the people who are affected by what has been going on with the world.
I can't understand with everything going on in this world that people still give a shit about Brad Pitt's life. Or any lame star's life. Starfuckers. Who gives a rats ass.
Do any of you artits and free thinkers know who Judith Miller is?
Hummm give up?
The Bill of Rights. Know about that?
The press's role in the leak of a CIA operative's identity has made clear that if ever there was a time for transparency by the journalism community, this is it. The case is clouded in secrecy and murk, including the part about the press's involvement. At least two of the reporters involved, protecting sources, have failed to give anything resembling a complete account of their information-gathering.
I am not suggesting in any way that they name confidential sources who are not already known, but if they or their employers are to claim credibility, a full disclosure of their roles is crucial. The public needs to be given details of, among other things, how they conducted their reporting, what their conversations with their sources consisted of, what questions the special federal prosecutor investigating the case posed to them, and what their responses were. They should also bring forward any testimony they gave to the prosecutor's grand jury. Once a person testifies, he or she can make the testimony public.
The leak happened in July 2003. The prosecutor, Patrick Fitzgerald, has been running his investigation for nearly two years and seems to be wrapping it up now. What began as a dirty political trick by the White House to silence criticism of the Iraq war has now swollen, because of the ensuing cover-up, into a threat to the Bush administration's legitimacy.
The journalist who first published CIA agent Valerie Plame Wilson's name more than two years ago, columnist Robert Novak, cited as his sources two senior administration officials" unnamed. Novak, a partisan conservative who has regularly been a conduit for Republican leaks, has refused to explain his role but says he will do so as soon as the prosecutor's case is concluded. As I wrote in an earlier column: "Two years is a long time for a reporter to hide the truth."
Another controversial journalist, New York Times reporter Judith Miller, was found guilty of civil contempt by the federal judge in the case for refusing to identify her sources or testify before the grand jury. Finally, last week, after 85 days in a federal jail, she worked out a deal with the prosecutor and testified about one of her sources I. Lewis Libby, chief of staff to Vice President Richard Cheney. She also turned over some of her notes, which she was allowed to edit in advance. She has refused as yet to discuss the details of her involvement, but says this will all come out in the soon-to-appear New York Times account of the story. Oddly, though weapons of mass destruction are one of her key fields of interest and she seems to have done substantial reporting on the criticism by Plame's husband, Joseph Wilson, of the Bush administration, she never published a story about it. So far, she has not explained why.
Since her release, Miller has gone on television to defend her actions, but has not cleared up any of the mysteries. In these appearances, she has said repeatedly that if sources' identities were not protected, many of them would not come forward and tell reporters what shenanigans the government and major corporations were really up to, and the public would suffer. "The public's right to know" is at stake, she says again and again. And she's right. That's why I believe, since she is a major part of the story, that she now has to take the uncommon step of telling us her whole story. She has to do it for the public she says she is responsible to, for her colleagues, and for the Times, whose reputation is also at stake here.
The American press has been under siege in recent years mostly from the right, which accuses journalists of being overwhelmingly liberal and determinedly hostile to the Bush administration. More and more court decisions have reversed journalists' traditional privileges such as protection, under the freedom-of-the-press language of the First Amendment, from having to testify or turn over notes, except in extraordinary cases.
Miller cited those privileges in her refusal to cooperate with the prosecutor. She says she did it to protect the confidentiality of her sources. Virtually everyone in the journalism world believes in the need for confidentiality to enable whistleblower sources to come forward anonymously and expose wrongdoing without fear of retaliation. But many have expressed doubts about Miller's reporting methods and her relationships with her sources.
One of the warts on this case and therefore on Novak's and Miller's silence is the fact that the sources this time, as is frequently the case with high-placed Washington leakers, were not civic-minded whistleblowers. They were major administration wheeler-dealers trying to smear Wilson, a former U.S. diplomat with service in Africa, who had challenged the Bush claim that the Saddam Hussein regime in Iraq had gone to Africa seeking to purchase uranium yellowcake, needed for nuclear weapons. This was a key part of the weapons-of-mass-destruction rationale that Bush employed to lead the country into war against Iraq in 2003. Nearly all the Bush arguments for war turned out to be false, hyped, or hollow. The claim about the yellowcake, for instance, was based on forged documents.
The purpose of the leak of Plame's name and occupation she was a covert agent working in the area of anti-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction was to paint her as an anti-Bush co-conspirator with her husband, so as to discredit his information on the Bush uranium claim.
Also working against Times reporter Miller is her past reporting on weapons of mass destruction, which generally hewed to the White House line that Iraq was actively engaged in producing and building up stockpiles of these arms and thus presented a "grave and gathering danger" to America's security. When that story fell apart the president's own weapons investigator reported after the invasion of Iraq that no such weapons could be found Miller refused to acknowledge any error on her part, saying in essence that she had merely reported what officials were talking about in high places and had told her. She said then that this was what her job as a reporter was supposed to be. Later she softened some of these responses but never gave a clear accounting of her work nor fully acknowledged that she, wittingly or unwittingly, had misled the public. Anti-war critics have accused her of assisting the administration's push toward war.
In the days since her release from jail, she has, in my opinion, not helped herself or her paper. She has given interviews only to TV personalities who will gush over her. At this writing, there have been two such appearances, with Lou Dobbs on CNN and with ABC's Barbara Walters on Good Morning America.
Both hosts melted on camera. Walters introduced her guest thusly: "I've known Judith as a friend and a journalist for years. I visited her in jail." Later, Walters, in an awe-filled voice, said: "You were in jail longer than any other journalist." Miller quickly corrected her, "Twice as long as any other journalist." (Watch the video.)
Miller keeps saying that she is not seeking to be a hero or a martyr. Unfortunately, her demeanor the little we have seen of it belies this claim. This perception on my part may be a generational thing, but I was taught that a reporter does not go forth patting himself on the back for doing his job.
Also, I have always thought that keeping a professional distance between you and your sources was an important part of the journalist's code. At times, Miller's distance seems miniscule. It was reported that, while in jail, she was visited twice by John Bolton, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. Bolton, a hawk on the Iraq war, also made weapons of mass destruction one of his special issues. This issue seems to link many of the people in this convoluted story. All the connections lead back to the Iraq war.
Miller also received a letter in jail from Libby, the Cheney source she was protecting until he gave her personal permission to give testimony about their conversations. Dated September 15, Libby's release frees her from her grant of confidentiality and urges her to go before the grand jury, saying that he "would be better off if you testified."
Two things about the letter struck me as strange.
One is the tone that of personal friend or buddy, not professional contact. The other off-key note is that much of the letter is devoted to laying out a kind of blueprint of the case Libby has made to the prosecutor namely that he "did not discuss Ms. Plame's name or identity" with any reporter. Could this have been a map to guide Miller's own testimony-to-come?
Novak has never disguised the fact that he is a "player" in the nation's capital. Is Judith Miller also a "player" in Washington's games, or is she a reporter? Miller needs to address these questions.
Even her supporters are asking for answers. On September 30, one of her most stalwart admirers, Lucy Dalglish, director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, was asked during an online chat hosted by The Washington Post: "So what are the three biggest mysteries/questions that YOU would like Judy Miller to explain?" At the top of her list, Dalglish put this question: "Was Scooter Libby your source for information about Valerie Plame, or were you HIS source?"
About the tone of the Libby letter to Miller, here is how it ends:
"You went into jail in the summer. It is fall now. You will have stories to cover Iraqi elections and suicide bombers, biological threats and the Iranian nuclear program. Out West, where you vacation, the aspens will already be turning. They turn in clusters, because their roots connect them. Come back to work and life. Until then, you will remain in my thoughts and prayers. With admiration, Scooter Libby."
We reporters are always insisting on full disclosure and transparency from the people and institutions we write about. Now, with the press under scrutiny and in some quarters under attack, it has become necessary for reporters to do their own disclosing.
--the VIllage Voice
This was written by "Riverbend"
24 year old girl who lives in Iraq.
To read more of her stuff log on to: http://riverbendblog.blogspot.com/
Monday, October 03, 2005
Constitution Conversations...
I went to sit in the garden to peruse two different versions of the draft constitution. It was 7 pm and the electricity had just gone out for the sixth time that day. There was no generator because people usually allow their generators to rest during the evenings- the sun is on its way to setting so while its still light outside, the heat is bearable.
In the yards of most Iraqi houses, there is often an old, rusting swing large enough for three adults (or five children). The swing is usually iron with white, peeling paint, and its seat is covered with dusty mats or cushions so that one doesnt rise from it with a grid-like pattern on ones backside from the crisscross of the thin iron bars.
Our summers and springs in Iraq revolve around those sofa-like swings or marjuha. As the summer comes to an end, Iraqis often have their evening tea outside in the garden, in the waning afternoon light, with plastic chairs gathered around the swing and a folding table in the center. At night, when the electricity goes out and the generator cant be turned on, we gather outside and sit on the swing, careful to keep bare legs and feet high enough to avoid insects lurking in the grass.
When adults want to have a confidential conversation far from curious ears- you can find them out on the swing. During family gatherings, when the cousins want to hang out and gossip away from the prying eyes of their parents, theyll be on the swing. Every family member has a photo on the swing- and every child has at some point fallen off of it.
So four weeks ago, I went out to the swing carrying two different versions of the draft constitution. Though the electricity had gone out, it was still too early to light the kerosene lamps indoors. After beating the dust out of the striped cushions and making myself comfortable, I began with the Arabic version of the constitution.
I had been reading for five minutes when a rustling sound in one of the trees caught my attention. It was coming from the tooki tree near the wall separating our garden from our neighbors driveway. The tree is on our side of the wall, but more than half of its branches extend over to Abu F.s side.
I dont know the name for tooki in English, but it can best be described as a berry-like fruit. Its either deep purple in color- bordering on black- or red or white. The fruit, when ripe, is both sweet and sour all at once. Our tooki tree is the red tooki type and while the fruit is lovely, it also stains everything it touches. Umm F. (Abu F.s wife) constantly complains of it staining their driveway. Every once in a while, she revolts against the tree and attacks it, armed with a large pair of rusting hedge clippers.
This thought occurred to me as I focused on the rustling leaves and sure enough- a moment later- I saw the hedge clippers rise ominously from behind the wall clutched in a pair of hands. Snap, snap, crunch and a medium sized branch fell towards their driveway.
Umm F.!!! I called out exasperated from my seat on the swing, Again??? I thought we agreed last week youd stop cutting the branches!!!
The clippers paused in mid-air, like some exotic, mechanical bird with its beak open. They lowered slowly and a head took their place. Since the wall is about 180 cm high, I could tell Umm F. was standing on the pile of bricks she stacked adjacent to the wall. We had a similar pile of bricks under the tree, and we used our respective brick piles when we needed to communicate with each other over the wall.
My driveway is a mess! She called back to me, You know we havent had proper water for a week how am I supposed to clean it? This cursed tooki tree She waved her clippers in the air to emphasize her frustration.
Well it wasnt cursed when you made tooki jam last month! I got up and walked to the wall to face her. In one hand, I had the Arabic version of the draft constitution (Version 2.0) and in the other I was clutching the New York Times English version and fanning myself with it furiously.
So Umm F., did you have a look at the constitution yet? I asked casually, trying to change the subject.
Well, Abu F. read me some of it from one of the newspapers last week or the week before Came the disinterested reply. She raised the clippers and furtively snapped away at a couple of branches.
And what do you think? I was curious. I had my own ideas about the constitution back then but I wanted to hear hers.
I dont care. Theyve written it and theyll ratify it- what does it matter what I think? Is it my fathers constitution (qabil distoor bayt abooyeh?)?
I frowned and tried to hand her the Arabic version. But you should read it. READ IT. Look- I even highlighted the good parts the yellow is about Islam and the pink is about federalism and here in green- thats the stuff I didnt really understand. She looked at it suspiciously and then took it from me.
I watched as she split the pile of 20 papers in two- she began sweeping the top edge of the wall with one pile, and using the other pile like a dustpan, she started to gather the wilted, drying tooki scattered on the wall. I dont have time or patience to read it. Were not getting water- the electricity has been terrible and Abu F. hasnt been able to get gasoline for three days And you want me to read a constitution?
But what will you vote? I asked, watching the papers as they became streaked with the crimson, blood-like tooki stains.
Youll actually vote? She scoffed. It will be a joke like the elections They want this constitution and the Americans want it- do you think it will make a difference if you vote against it? She had finished clearing the top edge of the wall of the wilting tooki and she dumped it all on our side. She put the now dusty, took- stained sheets of paper back together and smiled as she handed them back, In any case, let no one tell you it wasnt a useful constitution- look how clean the wall is now! Ill vote for it! And Umm F. and the hedge clippers disappeared.
It occurred to me then that not everyone was as fascinated with the constitution as I was, or as some of my acquaintances both abroad and inside of the country were. People are so preoccupied trying to stay alive and safe and just get to work and send their children off to school in the morning, that the constitution is a minor thing.
The trouble is that as the referendum gets nearer, interest seems to diminish. We see the billboards and the commercials on various channels all about the distoor and we hear the radio programs and the debates on channels like Arabiya and Jazeera, but there isnt real public involvement.
In August, there was more enthusiasm about the referendum. It was taken for granted that the Kurds, and Shia affiliated with SCIRI or Daawa, would vote in the referendum. It was surprising, however, when the Association of Muslim Scholars (influential Sunni group) started what could almost be called a campaign encouraging Sunnis (and Shia) to vote against the constitution. The reasons they gave were that federalism, at this time and under the circumstances, would contribute to the division of Iraq, and also that the constitution encouraged secular and ethnic friction.
For a few weeks, there was actual interest on the part of Sunnis, especially in rural areas, to take part in the referendum. There were arguments about whether the referendum should be boycotted like the elections or whether it was the duty of Iraqis in general to vote it down.
And then the military operations on Sunni areas like Tel Afar, Ramadi, Qaim and Samarra began once again. The feeling has been that Sunni areas are being intentionally targeted prior to the referendum to keep Sunnis from voting. When your city is under fire, and youve been displaced with your family to some Red Crescent tent in the middle of the desert, the last thing you worry about is a constitution.
Sunnis are being openly threatened by Badirs Brigade people and the National Guard. Two days ago, in Ras il Hawash in the area of Aadhamiya in Baghdad, National Guard raided homes as an act of revenge because prior to the raid, they were attacked in Aadhamiya. People from the area complain that every home they raided, windows were broken, doors kicked in, tables overturned, people abused and money and valuables looted.
In places like Tel Afar and Qaim, dozens of civilians have been killed or wounded and conveniently labeled insurgents so that people in the US and UK can sleep better at night. Residents of Tel Afar who left the town returned to their homes to find many of them only rubble and to find family and friends dead or wounded. I read one report that said all civilians were evacuated before the military operation. That isnt true. Many residents didnt have cars or transport to leave the city and were forced to stay behind. Some werent allowed out of it.
Now, as the US troops attack a little village on the Syrian border, we hear reports that the civilians are heading towards Syria. Not Arab fighters, nor insurgents- ordinary men, women and children who feel that the Iraqi government cannot shelter them or give them refuge from the onslaught of occupation forces.
What is more disturbing is the fact that most of the people who do want to vote, will vote for or against the constitution based not on personal convictions, but on the fatwas and urgings of both Sunni and Shia clerics. The Association of Muslim Scholars is encouraging people to vote against it, and SCIRI and Daawa are declaring a vote for the constitution every Muslims duty. Its hardly shocking that Sistani is now approving it and encouraging his followers to vote for it. (If I were an Iranian cleric living in south Iraq, Id vote for it too!)
It is utterly frustrating to talk to someone about the referendum- whether they are Sunni or Shia or Kurd- and know that even before theyve read the constitution properly, theyve decided what they are going to vote.
Womens rights arent a primary concern for anyone, anymore. People actually laugh when someone brings up the topic. Lets keep Iraq united first is often the response when I comment about the prospect of Iranian-style Sharia.
Rights and freedoms have become minor concerns compared to the possibility of civil war, the reality of ethnic displacement and cleansing, and the daily certainty of bloodshed and death.
- posted by river @ 2:58 AM
24 year old girl who lives in Iraq.
To read more of her stuff log on to: http://riverbendblog.blogspot.com/
Monday, October 03, 2005
Constitution Conversations...
I went to sit in the garden to peruse two different versions of the draft constitution. It was 7 pm and the electricity had just gone out for the sixth time that day. There was no generator because people usually allow their generators to rest during the evenings- the sun is on its way to setting so while its still light outside, the heat is bearable.
In the yards of most Iraqi houses, there is often an old, rusting swing large enough for three adults (or five children). The swing is usually iron with white, peeling paint, and its seat is covered with dusty mats or cushions so that one doesnt rise from it with a grid-like pattern on ones backside from the crisscross of the thin iron bars.
Our summers and springs in Iraq revolve around those sofa-like swings or marjuha. As the summer comes to an end, Iraqis often have their evening tea outside in the garden, in the waning afternoon light, with plastic chairs gathered around the swing and a folding table in the center. At night, when the electricity goes out and the generator cant be turned on, we gather outside and sit on the swing, careful to keep bare legs and feet high enough to avoid insects lurking in the grass.
When adults want to have a confidential conversation far from curious ears- you can find them out on the swing. During family gatherings, when the cousins want to hang out and gossip away from the prying eyes of their parents, theyll be on the swing. Every family member has a photo on the swing- and every child has at some point fallen off of it.
So four weeks ago, I went out to the swing carrying two different versions of the draft constitution. Though the electricity had gone out, it was still too early to light the kerosene lamps indoors. After beating the dust out of the striped cushions and making myself comfortable, I began with the Arabic version of the constitution.
I had been reading for five minutes when a rustling sound in one of the trees caught my attention. It was coming from the tooki tree near the wall separating our garden from our neighbors driveway. The tree is on our side of the wall, but more than half of its branches extend over to Abu F.s side.
I dont know the name for tooki in English, but it can best be described as a berry-like fruit. Its either deep purple in color- bordering on black- or red or white. The fruit, when ripe, is both sweet and sour all at once. Our tooki tree is the red tooki type and while the fruit is lovely, it also stains everything it touches. Umm F. (Abu F.s wife) constantly complains of it staining their driveway. Every once in a while, she revolts against the tree and attacks it, armed with a large pair of rusting hedge clippers.
This thought occurred to me as I focused on the rustling leaves and sure enough- a moment later- I saw the hedge clippers rise ominously from behind the wall clutched in a pair of hands. Snap, snap, crunch and a medium sized branch fell towards their driveway.
Umm F.!!! I called out exasperated from my seat on the swing, Again??? I thought we agreed last week youd stop cutting the branches!!!
The clippers paused in mid-air, like some exotic, mechanical bird with its beak open. They lowered slowly and a head took their place. Since the wall is about 180 cm high, I could tell Umm F. was standing on the pile of bricks she stacked adjacent to the wall. We had a similar pile of bricks under the tree, and we used our respective brick piles when we needed to communicate with each other over the wall.
My driveway is a mess! She called back to me, You know we havent had proper water for a week how am I supposed to clean it? This cursed tooki tree She waved her clippers in the air to emphasize her frustration.
Well it wasnt cursed when you made tooki jam last month! I got up and walked to the wall to face her. In one hand, I had the Arabic version of the draft constitution (Version 2.0) and in the other I was clutching the New York Times English version and fanning myself with it furiously.
So Umm F., did you have a look at the constitution yet? I asked casually, trying to change the subject.
Well, Abu F. read me some of it from one of the newspapers last week or the week before Came the disinterested reply. She raised the clippers and furtively snapped away at a couple of branches.
And what do you think? I was curious. I had my own ideas about the constitution back then but I wanted to hear hers.
I dont care. Theyve written it and theyll ratify it- what does it matter what I think? Is it my fathers constitution (qabil distoor bayt abooyeh?)?
I frowned and tried to hand her the Arabic version. But you should read it. READ IT. Look- I even highlighted the good parts the yellow is about Islam and the pink is about federalism and here in green- thats the stuff I didnt really understand. She looked at it suspiciously and then took it from me.
I watched as she split the pile of 20 papers in two- she began sweeping the top edge of the wall with one pile, and using the other pile like a dustpan, she started to gather the wilted, drying tooki scattered on the wall. I dont have time or patience to read it. Were not getting water- the electricity has been terrible and Abu F. hasnt been able to get gasoline for three days And you want me to read a constitution?
But what will you vote? I asked, watching the papers as they became streaked with the crimson, blood-like tooki stains.
Youll actually vote? She scoffed. It will be a joke like the elections They want this constitution and the Americans want it- do you think it will make a difference if you vote against it? She had finished clearing the top edge of the wall of the wilting tooki and she dumped it all on our side. She put the now dusty, took- stained sheets of paper back together and smiled as she handed them back, In any case, let no one tell you it wasnt a useful constitution- look how clean the wall is now! Ill vote for it! And Umm F. and the hedge clippers disappeared.
It occurred to me then that not everyone was as fascinated with the constitution as I was, or as some of my acquaintances both abroad and inside of the country were. People are so preoccupied trying to stay alive and safe and just get to work and send their children off to school in the morning, that the constitution is a minor thing.
The trouble is that as the referendum gets nearer, interest seems to diminish. We see the billboards and the commercials on various channels all about the distoor and we hear the radio programs and the debates on channels like Arabiya and Jazeera, but there isnt real public involvement.
In August, there was more enthusiasm about the referendum. It was taken for granted that the Kurds, and Shia affiliated with SCIRI or Daawa, would vote in the referendum. It was surprising, however, when the Association of Muslim Scholars (influential Sunni group) started what could almost be called a campaign encouraging Sunnis (and Shia) to vote against the constitution. The reasons they gave were that federalism, at this time and under the circumstances, would contribute to the division of Iraq, and also that the constitution encouraged secular and ethnic friction.
For a few weeks, there was actual interest on the part of Sunnis, especially in rural areas, to take part in the referendum. There were arguments about whether the referendum should be boycotted like the elections or whether it was the duty of Iraqis in general to vote it down.
And then the military operations on Sunni areas like Tel Afar, Ramadi, Qaim and Samarra began once again. The feeling has been that Sunni areas are being intentionally targeted prior to the referendum to keep Sunnis from voting. When your city is under fire, and youve been displaced with your family to some Red Crescent tent in the middle of the desert, the last thing you worry about is a constitution.
Sunnis are being openly threatened by Badirs Brigade people and the National Guard. Two days ago, in Ras il Hawash in the area of Aadhamiya in Baghdad, National Guard raided homes as an act of revenge because prior to the raid, they were attacked in Aadhamiya. People from the area complain that every home they raided, windows were broken, doors kicked in, tables overturned, people abused and money and valuables looted.
In places like Tel Afar and Qaim, dozens of civilians have been killed or wounded and conveniently labeled insurgents so that people in the US and UK can sleep better at night. Residents of Tel Afar who left the town returned to their homes to find many of them only rubble and to find family and friends dead or wounded. I read one report that said all civilians were evacuated before the military operation. That isnt true. Many residents didnt have cars or transport to leave the city and were forced to stay behind. Some werent allowed out of it.
Now, as the US troops attack a little village on the Syrian border, we hear reports that the civilians are heading towards Syria. Not Arab fighters, nor insurgents- ordinary men, women and children who feel that the Iraqi government cannot shelter them or give them refuge from the onslaught of occupation forces.
What is more disturbing is the fact that most of the people who do want to vote, will vote for or against the constitution based not on personal convictions, but on the fatwas and urgings of both Sunni and Shia clerics. The Association of Muslim Scholars is encouraging people to vote against it, and SCIRI and Daawa are declaring a vote for the constitution every Muslims duty. Its hardly shocking that Sistani is now approving it and encouraging his followers to vote for it. (If I were an Iranian cleric living in south Iraq, Id vote for it too!)
It is utterly frustrating to talk to someone about the referendum- whether they are Sunni or Shia or Kurd- and know that even before theyve read the constitution properly, theyve decided what they are going to vote.
Womens rights arent a primary concern for anyone, anymore. People actually laugh when someone brings up the topic. Lets keep Iraq united first is often the response when I comment about the prospect of Iranian-style Sharia.
Rights and freedoms have become minor concerns compared to the possibility of civil war, the reality of ethnic displacement and cleansing, and the daily certainty of bloodshed and death.
- posted by river @ 2:58 AM
Next week, American Idol victoress Fantasia Barrino heads to Miami on a tour with Kanye West and Common, and for once she wont be dragging her most troubling secret along. In her just-released memoir, Life is Not a Fairy Tale, the 21-year-old revealed that she is functionally illiterate. Halfway through Chapter 3 (with the help of ghostwriter Kim Greene), she writes:
Not a day goes by that Im not ashamed about my situation. If you hand me a newspaper, I just look at the pictures and try to figure out what happened . . . when people ask me to write a special message, I have trouble forming words right on the spot, so I write something short like Be Blessed . . . something I already know how to write.
Asked how Fantasia ever made it through eighth grade, Penny Wadsley, her old language-arts teacher at Laurin Welborn Middle School in High Point, North Carolina, says she must have read at least on a fifth grade levelthe minimal requirement. There were about 25 students in her class, Wadsley remembers. Though she doesnt recall Fantasias scores, she says, Students can get Ds and pass onif youre not a behavior problem, which she wasnt, you wont be held back because it shows youre trying to learn. She had some intelligenceshe was street smart. I have a lot of admiration for her.
Last week, Fantasia told the television show 20/20 that she signed contracts without having a clue what she was agreeing to, and memorized new songs by listening to CDs while pretending to understand the printed lyrics she was given. With her career on the fast track and enough money to hire a private reading tutor, she has nothing to lose by coming out nowand she gains a cause. Fantasia could become the new face for a literacy project like Reading is Fundamental, helping the estimated 25 million in her shoes feel better about asking for assistance.
Now shes not just a single mom from a poor background, but a woman talented and resourceful enough to make a new life for herself and her four-year-old after tumbling out of Americas inadequate public school system in the ninth grade.
Fantasia doesnt blame her teachers; in her self-deprecating memoir she heaps all the blame on herself for not taking class work seriously enough. This must make those at her old alma mater (a federally designated Title I school, which means it has a high concentration of poor students) breathe a sign of relief. Kids can cover, says school administrator Lynn Kirk, who says she has a picture of Fantasia on her desk. She had a strong, outgoing personality. That was her cover. Ive seen it a million times.
Experts say that of all those with minimal ability to read and write, only an estimated 13 percent are between the ages of 16 and 24, but Fantasia thinks the problem is greater among her peers than the stats would indicate. She writes:
The real story is how Hollywood and show business wouldnt want the world to know that illiteracy is a real thing that affects many young people, like me. Its one of those ugly things that no one wants to talk about. Thats why so many young kids dont have jobsthey cant read a job application. They are not lazy and ghetto, which is what everyone says about us.
Not a day goes by that Im not ashamed about my situation. If you hand me a newspaper, I just look at the pictures and try to figure out what happened . . . when people ask me to write a special message, I have trouble forming words right on the spot, so I write something short like Be Blessed . . . something I already know how to write.
Asked how Fantasia ever made it through eighth grade, Penny Wadsley, her old language-arts teacher at Laurin Welborn Middle School in High Point, North Carolina, says she must have read at least on a fifth grade levelthe minimal requirement. There were about 25 students in her class, Wadsley remembers. Though she doesnt recall Fantasias scores, she says, Students can get Ds and pass onif youre not a behavior problem, which she wasnt, you wont be held back because it shows youre trying to learn. She had some intelligenceshe was street smart. I have a lot of admiration for her.
Last week, Fantasia told the television show 20/20 that she signed contracts without having a clue what she was agreeing to, and memorized new songs by listening to CDs while pretending to understand the printed lyrics she was given. With her career on the fast track and enough money to hire a private reading tutor, she has nothing to lose by coming out nowand she gains a cause. Fantasia could become the new face for a literacy project like Reading is Fundamental, helping the estimated 25 million in her shoes feel better about asking for assistance.
Now shes not just a single mom from a poor background, but a woman talented and resourceful enough to make a new life for herself and her four-year-old after tumbling out of Americas inadequate public school system in the ninth grade.
Fantasia doesnt blame her teachers; in her self-deprecating memoir she heaps all the blame on herself for not taking class work seriously enough. This must make those at her old alma mater (a federally designated Title I school, which means it has a high concentration of poor students) breathe a sign of relief. Kids can cover, says school administrator Lynn Kirk, who says she has a picture of Fantasia on her desk. She had a strong, outgoing personality. That was her cover. Ive seen it a million times.
Experts say that of all those with minimal ability to read and write, only an estimated 13 percent are between the ages of 16 and 24, but Fantasia thinks the problem is greater among her peers than the stats would indicate. She writes:
The real story is how Hollywood and show business wouldnt want the world to know that illiteracy is a real thing that affects many young people, like me. Its one of those ugly things that no one wants to talk about. Thats why so many young kids dont have jobsthey cant read a job application. They are not lazy and ghetto, which is what everyone says about us.
The School system here in Los Angeles has become worse not better.
People turn the other way as more and more inner city schools are shut down. The rich get the education. The poor fight to pay the rent, feed the kids.
New Orleans showed a side of the US that many pass pay and don't look at. Or rather ignore. The idea being if I don't see it I don't have to deal with it.
What comes around goes around.
We breed the the hungry and the uneducated. Sooner or later the house of cards will fall in. And what we will end up seeing before us will be Horrifying.
We have a gigantic educational assembly line that coercively processes students and treats them with Ritalin or therapy if they can't sit still in the cage. The American [sic] high school as social scene clearly spawns internecine furies in sexually stunted young men who are emotionally divorced from their parents but too passive to run away, so that they turn their inchoate family hatreds on their peers. Like the brainy rich-kid criminals Leopold and Loeb (see the 1959 film Compulsion), the Columbine killers were looking for meaning and chose the immortality of infamy, the cold ninth circle of the damned.
(In response to the Gus Van Sant film Elephant)
People turn the other way as more and more inner city schools are shut down. The rich get the education. The poor fight to pay the rent, feed the kids.
New Orleans showed a side of the US that many pass pay and don't look at. Or rather ignore. The idea being if I don't see it I don't have to deal with it.
What comes around goes around.
We breed the the hungry and the uneducated. Sooner or later the house of cards will fall in. And what we will end up seeing before us will be Horrifying.
We have a gigantic educational assembly line that coercively processes students and treats them with Ritalin or therapy if they can't sit still in the cage. The American [sic] high school as social scene clearly spawns internecine furies in sexually stunted young men who are emotionally divorced from their parents but too passive to run away, so that they turn their inchoate family hatreds on their peers. Like the brainy rich-kid criminals Leopold and Loeb (see the 1959 film Compulsion), the Columbine killers were looking for meaning and chose the immortality of infamy, the cold ninth circle of the damned.
(In response to the Gus Van Sant film Elephant)
I pray for deep listening in the new century -- listening alone --
>listening together -- listening to others -- listening to oneself --
>listening to the earth -- listening to the universe -- listening to the
>abundance that is -- awakening to and feeling sound and silence as
>all there is -- helping to create an atmosphere of opening
>for all to be heard, with the understanding that listening is healing.
>Deep listening in all its variations is infinite. Deep listening is love.
- Pauline Oliveros
>listening together -- listening to others -- listening to oneself --
>listening to the earth -- listening to the universe -- listening to the
>abundance that is -- awakening to and feeling sound and silence as
>all there is -- helping to create an atmosphere of opening
>for all to be heard, with the understanding that listening is healing.
>Deep listening in all its variations is infinite. Deep listening is love.
- Pauline Oliveros
Gals with pho-hawks are hot. I know double standard. But then again a pho hawk is more of a girls hair cut than a guys.
The Pho- Hawk or Poser Hawk sucks! I'm so sick of seeing poser's trying to be cutting edge trying really hard to be "COOL" sporting a Poser. It's the hair cut that says i'm to pussy to get a real Mo Hawk. I'm still afraid what other people are going to think of me if i get a "REAL" hawk.
Leave it to american's to make something PC.
Now the white collar office Green Day dude can sport a punk rock style.
"OH BOY"
I say down with the Pho-Hawk. Piss off all you pussies who can't commit to a real HAWK.
So join up. Ban the Pho-Hawk across america. Steal back the real soul of Punk.
Leave it to american's to make something PC.
Now the white collar office Green Day dude can sport a punk rock style.
"OH BOY"
I say down with the Pho-Hawk. Piss off all you pussies who can't commit to a real HAWK.
So join up. Ban the Pho-Hawk across america. Steal back the real soul of Punk.
