Bulletin N° 640
Subject: ON THE BEGINNING OF A NEW YEAR AND THE FIRST
DAY IN THE REMAINDER OF A LIFE.
7 January 2015
Grenoble, France
Dear
Colleagues and Friends of CEIMSA,
At
the beginning of this New Year, we welcome a new book by US economic historian Douglas Dowd, “ ‘WE THE PEOPLE’ MUST BECOME ‘US THE POLITICAL’ NOW! ” which reads
like a quiet conversation with the 91-year-young militant from San Francisco, talking
about the uses of history to accomplish the urgently needed systemic change for the social rescue from
ruinous capitalism. [This book is available at : http://www.ceimsa.org/publications/Scholars/ScholarlyEssays2015.htm]
In addition, US economist Richard Wolff
has sent us three recent articles providing cogent analyzes of the economic deterioration we are
suffering in Europe and North America. The no-holds-barred capitalism we are witnessing
today has reverted to its tried-and-true tricks of militarism, racism,
patriotism --what Sigmund Freud once
called “the narcissism of minor differences”. We have seen the return to
medieval torture techniques by the CIA and NATO forces. And certainly it is
time to move beyond disbelief, and commit ourselves to end our tiresome quarreling and myopic revenge, and look to the
future for a solution to the sadistically class-dominated society in which we
all play a role.
The
8 items below suggest the complexity of ruling-class power and solutions that exist, which are not so complicated.
Item
A.,
from NYU Professor Bertell Ollman, are two essays on police brutality against African
Americans.
Item
B.,
from Democracy Now!, is an interview
with Matt Taibbi
on the Banksters
who rob us daily.
Item
C., from Jim O’Brien of Historians Against
War, is a series of recommended recent articles.
Item
E., from
Information Clearing House,
is an article by Emran Feroz
on the new revalations
of CIA torture
techniques using NATO-trained dogs.
Item
F.,
from Democracy Now!, is an interview
with Julian Assange
on the international politics at GOOGLE.
Item G., from U.S.
Representative Alan Grayson (Dem. Florida)
discussing, “What’s wrong with the Republican Party.”
Item
H., from
Democracy
Now!, is a discussion with the presence today of overt KKK sympathizers
among lawmakers in the United States Congress.
And
finally, we invite CEIMSA readers to watch the Real News Network 5-part
series on Norman Finkelstein discussing
his life and his commitment to justice in Palestine.
Norman Finkelstein on Israel
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=12917
Sincerely,
Francis
Feeley
Professor
of American Studies
University
of Grenoble-3
Director
of Research
University
of Paris-Nanterre
Center
for the Advanced Study of American Institutions and Social Movements
The
University of California-San Diego
http://dimension.ucsd.edu/CEIMSA-IN-EXILE/
__________________
A.
From Bertell Ollman :
Date: 1 January 2015
Subject: Stop Kidding
Yourself: The Police Were Created to Control Working
Class and Poor People.
Francis -
Here are two excellent pieces about the police that
have something new and important to say that belong on both of your lists.
Second one coming.
Bertell
Stop
Kidding Yourself: The Police Were Created to Control Working Class and Poor
People
Sam Mitrani
LAWCHA,
Labor and Working Class History Association
And here is the second one. I think these two pieces together
present what is most important for people to understand about the current
crisis over police brutality.
Bertell
A Note on
Race and the NYPD
(Part I)
http://tony-greco.com/2014/12/24/a-note-on-race-and-the-nypd/
by Tony Greco
An
illuminating story from Reuters reporter
Michelle Conlin, who reported on interviews with
15 retired and 10 active black NYC police officers. Of the 25, all but one
reported having had at least one off-duty experience of racial profiling
by fellow officers of the NYPD.
The officers said this included being pulled over for no reason, having their
heads slammed against their cars, getting guns brandished in their faces,
being thrown into prison vans and experiencing stop and frisks while
shopping. The majority of the officers said they had been pulled over
multiple times while driving. Five had had guns pulled on them.”
One retired officer who had been stopped while jogging in
Brooklyn’s Prospect Park, asked, naturally enough, “But what’s suspicious
about a jogger? In jogging clothes?”
So, is there anybody who would seriously claim that racism is not a
problem in the NYPD? Oh, yes, there’s Rudy Giuliani, and Pat Lynch
and…..well, obviously, that was a rhetorical question.
DeBlasio and the Police
(Part II)
http://tony-greco.com/2014/12/31/deblasio-and-the-police-ii/
by
Tony Greco
A
meeting
yesterday between Mayor Bill DeBlasio with the
leaders of five NYC police unions, though apparently fairly civil, yielded
no clear progress toward a resolution of the current antagonism between
City Hall and New York’s men in blue. That is hardly surprising,
because the two sides can never openly acknowledge, much less agree on,
the problem at the core of the dispute.
The problem is endemic racism among New York City cops. The problem is by
no means peculiar to New York—it’s probably less serious in New York than
in a lot of other places—but it is real nonetheless. It is a reality that
the police will never acknowledge. At least since the 1960s, when
police opposition successfully defeated a proposed police Civilian
Complaint Review Board, the police organizations have been committed to
the notion that police brutality and racism are for all practical purposes
non-existent, that they are politically motivated fantasies.
DeBlasio, too, can’t openly name the problem. His
success as mayor will depend in part on his ability to demonstrate that
his progressive policy agenda is compatible with the maintenance of law
and order. (A well-worn right-wing trope is that liberalism was
responsible for New York’s disorder and decline in the 70s, 80s and 90s.)
For that, he needs the cooperation, at least grudging cooperation, of the
agents of law and order. So, he can’t afford to be in a permanent state of
cold war with the police. Which means that he must tread
carefully in alluding to police racism. Even his relatively mild
and indirect allusion to the problem, his revealing that he had counseled his
biracial son to be very careful in encounters with police officers, evoked
a furious reaction from the police, a reaction that is in itself indicative of the gulf of incomprehension that
separates the police from minority communities.
So, DeBlasio has to walk a fine line. His own
convictions as well as political realities require that he acknowledge the
pain and outrage manifested in the recent wave of demonstrations against
police abuse. But political realities also require that he come to some
modus vivendi with the police, who refuse to
recognize any fault on their part. He’s got a tough job.
DeBlasio’s challenge is all the greater thanks to New
York’s tabloid newspapers, the Daily News and the New York
Post. The NY Times has supported the mayor editorially and has
provided reasonably balanced coverage of his police problems, but most
cops don’t read the Times. The News has been unabashedly partisan in the pro-police bias of its news coverage,
but the News has been restrained compared to the Post.
People who don’t live in New York, or New Yorkers who only look at
the Times, might find it hard to imagine just how bad a so-called
newspaper can be. Suffice it to say that the Post makes Fox
News look like a paragon of journalistic responsibility and
integrity. Day after day the Post’s “news” pages have poured
out anti-Deblasio vitriol, often in front page
headlines and two-page spreads. So, one tabloid provides the cops
with daily vindication for their rancor while the other actively incites
them. This is undoubtedly an important part of the explanation for
the brazenness of the police’s freely expressed, self-righteous contempt
for civilian authority.
__________________
B.
From Democracy Now ! :
Date: 1 January 2015
Subject: The Banksters who rob
us daily…
January
1st Democracy Now! broadcast on The Banksters, with . . .
The Rolling Stones
Editor, Matt Taibbi and "The $9 Billion
Witness"
Who
Exposed How JPMorgan Chase Helped Wreck the Economy
http://www.democracynow.org/2015/1/1/matt_taibbi_and_the_9_billion
__________________
C.
From Historians Against
the War :
Date: 6 January 2015
Subject: HAW
Notes 1/6/15: AHA links to recent articles of interest.
Note: At the recent AHA
convention the History News Network (HNN) videotaped presentations at the Jan.
3 roundtable entitled "What Is the Responsibility of Historians Regarding
the Israel/Palestine Conflict?" Links are as follows: Carolyn
Eisenberg; Leena Dallasheh;
Joel Beinin; Linda
Gordon; Barbara Weinstein. At the AHA's annual business meeting the
next day, attendees voted not to add two late-submitted resolutions critical of
Israeli practices bearing on academic freedom to the meeting's agenda. Links to
a number of documents and stories regarding the convention are being posted on
the HAW
website.
Links to Recent Articles
of Interest
"Barack Obama: Anatomy of a Failure"
By Andrew J. Bacevich, The Spectator (UK), posted January 3
The author, retired from
teaching history at Boston University, is a fellow at Columbia University's School
of Public and International Affairs.
"The Tragedy of the American Military"
By James Fallows, The
Atlantic, posted December 31
"Why
All of Latin America Is Cheering the Re-establishment of Relations with
Cuba"
By John Dickson, History
News Network, posted December 22
The author is a former
senior Foreign Service officer and a recent public history graduate from the
University of Massachusetts.
"Current
and Former Intelligence Officers Have Been Playing Americans for Chumps"
By John Prados, History News Network, posted December 22
The author is a senior
fellow of the National Security Archive at George Washington University and
head of its CIA Documentation Project.
"The
Astounding Record of United States Interventions in Latin America"
By John H. Coatsworth, History News Network, posted December 22
The author teaches
history and Latin American Affairs at Columbia University.
"How
to Read the Senate Report on CIA Torture"
By Alfred W. McCoy, History
News Network, posted December 21
The author teaches
history at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and has written two books on US
torture policy.
"What's
Behind the Conflict Between Russia and Ukraine?"
By William R. Polk, History
News Network, posted December 21
The author is a former State
Department official and former University of Chicago historian.
"The War to
Start All Wars: The 25th Anniversary of the Forgotten Invasion of Panama"
By Greg Grandin, TomDispatch.com, posted December 21
The author teaches
history at New York University.
"Could Torture Report Be First Step to Ending U.S. War
Crimes?"
By Nicolas J. S.
Davies, Huffington Post, posted December 17
The author wrote Blood on Our Hands: The American Invasion and
Destruction of Iraq.
"They Said 'No" to Torture: The Real Heroes of the
Bush Years"
By Jon Wiener, The
Nation blog, posted December 15
The author teaches
history at the University of California, Irvine
The above list was
edited by Steve Gosch and Jim O'Brien, with thanks to
Rosalyn Baxandall, Mim
Jackson, and an anonymous reader for suggesting articles that are included.
Suggestions can be sent to jimobrien48@gmail.com.
__________________
E.
From Information Clearing
House :
Date: 4 January 2015
Subject: Soon Coming:
“The Third World War in Europe!”
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/
After the release of the CIA torture
report by Senator Diane Feinstein (D-CA) the world is reeling in shock at the
level of brutality revealed in the documents. In fact, the whole report is
nothing more than a confession of sadistic procedures that could have been
lifted from the diaries of Torquemada, from “rectal feeding” to nude beatings
and humiliation — horrors that were well-known but not officially confirmed.
But the report remains incomplete. Indeed, some 9000 documents have been
withheld.
What new horrors could be discovered
with the publication of these records?
Perhaps the most gut-wrenching story
to emerge from Bagram has been buried in the German
media and remains unknown to much of the world.
Published by German author and former politician Juergen
Todenhoefer in his latest book, Thou Shalt Not Kill, the account stems from a visit to
Kabul. At a local hotel, a former Canadian soldier and private security
contractor named Jack told Todenhoefer why he could not longer stand working in Bagram.
"It's not my thing when Afghans
get raped by dogs,” Jack remarked.
Todenhoefer's son, who was present with him in Kabul and was transcribing
Jack's words, was so startled by the comment he nearly dropped his pad and
pen.
Afghan
prisoners were tied face down on small chairs, Jack said. Then fighting dogs
entered the torture chamber.
Were NATO Dogs Used to Rape Afghan Prisoners at Bagram
Air Base?
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article40623.htm
by Emran Feroz
__________________
F.
From Democracy Now ! :
Date: 2 January 2015
Subject: “When Google
Met WikiLeaks.”
In
a holiday special, we feature an exclusive Democracy Now! interview
with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.
In July, Amy Goodman spoke to Assange after he had
just entered his third year inside Ecuador’s embassy in London, where he has
political asylum. He faces investigations in both Sweden and the United States.
In the United States, a secret grand jury is investigating WikiLeaks
for its role in publishing a trove of leaked documents about the Iraq and
Afghanistan wars, as well as State Department cables. In Sweden, he is wanted
for questioning on allegations of sexual misconduct, though no charges have
been filed. During his interview, Assange talked
about his new book, which at that time had not yet been released, titled,
"When Google Met Wikileaks." The book was
later published in September.
Exclusive: Julian Assange on "When
Google Met WikiLeaks"
While He was Under House Arrest
http://www.democracynow.org/2015/1/2/exclusive_julian_assange_on_when_google
__________________
G.
From Rep. Alan Grayson :
Date: 6 January 2015
Subject: What's
Really Wrong with the GOP.
alangrayson@graysonforcongress.com
|
__________________
H.
From Democracy Now ! :
Date: 6 January 2015
Subject: As racism
raised its ungly head fanning the fires of class
warfare.
"David
Duke Without the Baggage": Will Top GOPer Steve Scalise Resign over Speech to Racist Group?
http://www.democracynow.org/2015/1/6/david_duke_without_the_baggage_will