Bulletin N° 642
Subject: ON THE ELEPHANT IN
THE LIVING ROOM, TOO BIG TO SEE.
25 January 2015
Grenoble, France
Dear Colleagues and Friends of
CEIMSA,
‘Imperialist struggles, class
struggles; the same war!’
This anti-war slogan from the First World War period attempted to link in the
minds of ordinary people the struggles in their daily lives with the ideologies
of nationalism and militarism which mobilized populations to make the ultimate
sacrifice for imperialist gains. At the time it was the continent of Africa
that was the prize (Germany lost the war and forfeited its colonies in Africa).
Today, one hundred years later, the ideological challenge is to connect the
dots so that ordinary people can see clearly the relationship between
capitalist class interests and their own interests. People like General Patraeus,
Commander of U.S. Forces Afghanistan and later CIA Director; like President
Obama, who meets with a committee each Tuesday morning in the White House
to update the list of US enemies to be assassinated by Drones (the results of which are for every one person listed, 28
others, on the average, have been killed as unintended ‘collateral damage’ –an
appalling inefficiency, even by ordinary military standards) and who, also, is the
most ardent advocate of the Trans-Pacific
Partnership (TPP) which aims
at replacing on a global scale the power of elected governments with the
private corporate power of Transnational
Corporations in order to overcome obstacles in their quest for greater
private profits; and like Charles and
David Koch — the two brothers
who are the architects of the powerful corporate lobby, Citizens United, (another move to
increase corporate control of the political process within the United States)
and owners of Koch Industries, the
second largest privately owned company in the United States —such representatives
of ruling-class interests must be seen as strategists and tacticians who are
waging a war to capture markets and maximum profits by colonizing populations
at home and abroad.
The capitalist investors in military
and in civilian production are the same men and women, and the violence and
propaganda used against ordinary people –whether to defeat them in preparation
for labor exploitation or to confiscate their homeland and control their sources of
livelihood— involve both economic tactics and military/police operations. On
both fronts, at home and abroad, the capitalist class has the same purpose : namely, to defeat the
population spiritually, financially, militarily and in any other way, until an
‘unconditional surrender’ is achieved, at which time the investors can start
all over again seeking opportunities for more profits (even if it means arming
temporarily their opposition).
The lack of curiosity in our
political culture today is almost endemic. The apathy spreads like the plague
and a vague un-named fear seizes us and increases our will for self-censorship,
with the hope that we might somehow be saved from the hardships of
unemployment, poverty, and pandemic environmental destruction. The
‘class-for-itself’ recedes into a ‘class-in-itself’ and crystallizes into an
identity that accepts its own ‘inferiority’ and prepares itself for constant
abuse. Inequality is internalized and ‘naturalized’ so that for many the
‘inferiority’ appears to be axiomatic.
In this situation of class warfare
by rich investors, and their armed guards and ideologues, against the poor
population to achieve necessary financing and ultimately their submission in
order to gain greater profits from investments, many battles are fought in
many parts of the world. Without a class analysis, these episodes seem
sporadic, chaotic and without meaning. Moral outrage replaces understanding,
and, as we have seen throughout history, mass movements can be easily orchestrated from above to fight a designated enemy in this
Alice-in-Wonderland quest in search of new opportunities for greater profits.
Against such incredible odds, we can
hardly wonder why the victims of capitalism often turn to metaphysics to sedate
their wounds. Marx observed this in his systematic studies of 19th-century
industrial capitalism and the devastating social effects. However, vulgar ‘Marxists’
and bourgeois ‘radicals’ often quote Marx out of context and thereby contribute
to the capitalist oppression of the poor.
Religion: ‘the opium of the people’.
The foundation of irreligious criticism is: Man makes
religion, religion does not make man. Religion is, indeed, the
self-consciousness and self-esteem of man who has either not yet won through to
himself, or has already lost himself again. But man is no abstract being
squatting outside the world. Man is the world of man – state, society. This
state and this society produce religion, which is an inverted consciousness of
the world, because they are an inverted world. Religion is the general theory
of this world, its encyclopaedic compendium, its
logic in popular form, its spiritual point d’honneur,
its enthusiasm, its moral sanction, its solemn complement, and its universal basis
of consolation and justification. It is the fantastic realization of the human
essence since the human essence has not acquired any true reality. The struggle
against religion is, therefore, indirectly the struggle against that world
whose spiritual aroma is religion.
Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the
expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed
creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions.
It is the opium of the people.
The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the
people is the demand for their real happiness. To call on them to give up their
illusions about their condition is to call on them to give up a condition that
requires illusions. The criticism of religion is, therefore, in embryo, the
criticism of that vale of tears of which religion is the halo.
Criticism has plucked the imaginary
flowers on the chain not in order that man shall continue to bear that chain
without fantasy or consolation, but so that he shall throw off the chain and
pluck the living flower. The criticism of religion disillusions
man, so that he will think, act, and fashion his reality like a man who has
discarded his illusions and regained his senses, so that he will move around
himself as his own true Sun. Religion is only the illusory Sun which revolves
around man as long as he does not revolve around himself. (A Contribution to the Critique of
Hegel’s Philosophy of Right, 1843)
‘Analysis paralysis’ is what Martin
Luther King called the intellectual attitude that accommodated Racial
Segregation and later the Vietnam War. The inability to act on one’s own social
understandings --and thus a willingness to live day in and day out with injustices-- stemmed he
thought from ‘over thinking the problem’ and failing to acknowledge that racism
and militarism are not problems for everyone; indeed these states of mind constitute
opportunities for some people. Without class consciousness and a willingness to
engage in conflict, as Professor Bertell
Ollman has so effectively pointed out in his many studies on dialectical
materialism, one is reduced either to universal generalizations or to particular
idiosyncrasies, both of which serve to conceal the dynamics of social
class relationships from which we find it impossible to disentangle ourselves.
The 12 items below warn CEIMSA readers of the sterile geometry of social class structure
when it is devoid of class consciousness, where intellectuals pontificate without
disturbing the status quo, and the
theatrics of compassion are performed without understanding. The dots remain
unconnected and the system remains immune to fundamental change as long as
militarism, nationalism and consumerism continue to colonize the minds of la classe dominée at home, who are required to finance the
imperialist wars abroad, which pursue the same ruling class interests that are
secured on the home front through coercive labor exploitation. Many battles; the same war in 1915 and in 2015.
Item A., from The
Real News Network, is an interview with Chris Hedges discussing “the Paris 9/11” at Charlie Hebdo offices on the morning of
January 7.
Item
B.,
from Professor Edward S. Herman, is an series of critical English-language articles on the context and likely
consequences of the Charlie Hebdo massacre of January 7 in Paris.
Item C., from Moshé Machover, is a critique of Israel as a world-class profiteer
of anti-Semitism today.
Item D., from UCSD Professor Fred Lonidier,
is information on the January 29 group art exposition, “If A
Circle Meets Itself.”
Item E., from San Diego community
organizer Monty Kroopkin, is a
statement by Mar Moreno on the ARTISTS' BOYCOTT OF UCSD.
Item
F.,
from Là-bas si j’y suis is
an announcement by the inimitable Daniel
Mermet describing the contents of the NEW Là-bas ! to
appear the 21 January.
Item G., from The
Real News Network, is an interview with Shir Hever, an economic researcher in the Alternative Information Center, a
Palestinian-Israeli organization active in Jerusalem and Beit-Sahour.
Item H., from Moshé Machover, is a statement from Union Juive Française Pour La Paix analyzing the the fact that many French Jews are feeling entrapped by Israeli pan-nationalist rhetoric in this election season.
Item I., from If Americans Knew, is a report on the
fact that “Since October 1, 2014, at least 1,677 Palestinians (approximately 250 of
them children) have been injured by Israeli forces or settlers living on
confiscated Palestinian land. During this time period, 196 Israelis were injured by
Palestinians.”
Item J., from Democracy
Now!, is an interview with Jeremy Scahill on the US genius of creating new enemies
every day for the political economy of war.
Item
K., from Financial Times, is an article of how it feels to be
Muslim in France today, by Erik Bleich and Adam
Thomson.
Item L., from Z Net,
is a series of two lectures by Tariq Ali
on World War I, “the wrong war”.
And finally, we invite CEIMSA
readers to watch these two recordings of Martin Luther King in memory of his
birthday in this month in 1929. the September 24, 2003 Democracy Now! radio
broadcast of the historic :
Newly Discovered 1964 MLK Speech on Civil Rights,
Segregation & Apartheid South Africa
Exclusive:
Newly Discovered 1964 MLK Speech on
Civil Rights, Segregation & Apartheid South Africa
+
Martin Luther King Jr.’s sermon
at the Ebenezer Baptist Church on April 30, 1967 - “Why I
Am Opposed to The War in Vietnam” http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=4731 |
|
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
The Real News Network :
Date:
8 January 2015
Subject:
Charlie Hebdo
and ‘Islamophobia’.
I was based in Paris right after the
attacks, covering al-Qaeda in Europe and the Middle East. And I spent time in
the banlieues. These are the large, kind of
depressing housing projects that ring French cities Lyon, Marseille, Paris
itself and are home to the North African immigrants, about 5 million North
African immigrants in France. And the French treatment of the North African
immigrants has always been appalling and racist. They are not considered by the
French to be French. And then, of course, when they go back to Tunisia or
Algeria, Morocco, or perhaps they were born and spent a brief amount of time,
they're kind of alien outcasts there. That creates this kind of horrible loss
of identity that radical groups traditionally play upon.
Unemployment is very high. Sixty to
70 percent of the prison system in France holds Muslims, although they only
constitute, I think, about 6 percent of the population. When
they talk, for instance, about the Charlie Hebdo
attacks being attacks against everyone, that's completely disingenuous, because
France has some very strict laws. For instance, if you are a Holocaust
denier, you can spend a year in prison and pay a $60,000 fine; the Holocaust is
taught in French high schools; while the war of liberation in Algeria, which
took place in the late '50s and early '60s, in which an estimated 1.5 million
Algerians were killed, horrible atrocities, torture, is not taught at all. The Nakab, which is the headscarf with a kind of gauze or the burqa or--or the niqab (excuse
me) is the headscarf with just the slit through the eyes, where the burqa, which has a kind of gauze over the face or band. You
cannot wear the hijab or the headscarf into
hospitals, schools, or government offices.
So what we see is a kind of message
that is sent not only in France, but I think throughout much of Europe that as
a Muslim your identity, your tradition, your religion, your history don't matter.
And given the desperation of many impoverished Muslims, not only in these
slums, outside of these cities, but in refugee camps across the Middle East,
such as in Gaza, where young men are sleeping ten to a floor and the water that
comes out of their tap is undrinkable because it's toxic, they have to walk
blocks to get a bottle of water, they depend on UN handouts for food, there's
no work, they can't get married, they of course can't travel, they're hemmed in
in Israel's open-air prison, that ritual or rhythm of
the five prayers a day is the only thing that gives any kind of structure or
meaning to their life, that sense of being a Muslim is the only thing that
gives them self-worth and dignity. And when you have the privilege, those who
live in the kind of indolence and splendor of the industrialized north taunting
what is the kind of final readout for those who are in despair and struggling
in poverty and desperate, you can't use an expression like free speech. Or what
you're really doing is ripping or tempting to ridicule and destroy that last
sense of personal self-worth and identity that is holding these people
together.
So when we look at the attacks that
took place--and these guys kind of fit the profile--orphaned, aimless,
unemployed, petty drug use, petty theft--they undergo this kind of conversion,
which is familiar to anybody who joins these messianic movements, whether it's
the old Communist Party, the old fascist party, the Red Brigades, or anything
else, they are in essence kind of born again as holy warriors. And the rage
that we have engineered, we in the West have engineered--and we haven't even
spoke about the kind of atrocities that are committed throughout the Middle
East by the U.S. military--is sacrilized, and you
attack [incompr.] create this kind of Manichaean or
binary vision of the world, of the pure and the impure, the good and evil, as
all these kind of messianic groups do, and you end up committing the horrible
atrocity that was committed in Paris.
Paris Attacks: Rage of the Dispossessed
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=13001
__________________
B.
From
Edward S. Herman :
Date:
24 January 2015
Subject:
The Charlie Hebdo
Massacre, the Causes & Effects.
The
other day I contacted CEIMSA Friend and Scholar Edward S. Herman, professor emeritus of finance at the Wharton
School of Business of the University of Pennsylvania and currently teaching at
the Annenberg School for Communication at U.P. I asked him if he would
recommend some reliable English language reports on the January 7 massacre in
Paris. He got back to me within a couple of days with the five article below,
which offer a wide variety of views all of which are ‘fact-based’ as opposed to
‘faith-based’ analyses of what happed in Paris and why….
1
The current issue of Pambazuka News (Jan. 15, Issue 709) has
published many powerful critiques exposing the self-deception and hypocrisy of
the "Je suis Charlie"
campaign.
This issue delivers an important antidote to the "Je
suis Charlie"
contagion.
'Free Speech' hypocrisy in the aftermath of the
attack on Charlie Hebdo
http://www.pambazuka.net/en/issue/709
-- David Peterson
Chicago, USA
2
The Cartoons Outlawed in France
L’affaire Charlie Hebdo and Western Colonialism
by John Walsh
http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/01/14/laffaire-charlie-hebdo-and-western-colonialism/
European Lives Have Always Mattered
More Than Others
The White Power Rally in Paris
by Ajamu Baraka
http://dissidentvoice.org/2015/01/the-charlie-hebdo-white-power-rally-in-paris/
The
response to the inexcusable murder of Charlie
Hebdo’s staff has proved that many liberals are
guilty of double standards when it comes to giving offence.
As a
Muslim, I’m fed up with the hypocrisy of the free speech fundamentalists
http://www.newstatesman.com/mehdi-hasan/2015/01/muslim-i-m-fed-hypocrisy-free-speech-fundamentalists |
CNN.com invites Noam Chomsky for a commentary on the Charlie Hebdo Massacre.
Chomsky: Paris attacks show hypocrisy of West's outrage
http://edition.cnn.com/2015/01/19/opinion/charlie-hebdo-noam-chomsky/index.html
C.
From
Moshé Machover :
Date:
14 January 2015
Subject: L’antisémitisme en France ? Netanyahou ne l’a pas
inventé : il le propage.
L’antisémitisme en France ? Netanyahou ne l’a pas inventé
: il le propage
http://www.capjpo-europalestine.com/spip.php?article220
Pour répondre aux appels de Netanayou demandant aux Français qui sont juifs d’émigrer
en Israël, certains nient la montée de l’antisémitisme en France. Ils ont tort.
L’antisémitisme se développe bel et bien ici, comme dans le reste du monde. Et
le fait que le racisme anti-arabes et anti-musulmans
soit nettement plus développé, et soit le seul à être institutionnalisé, ne
change rien au fait que les sentiments anti-juifs se développent
dangereusement. Tout est fait pour qu’ils prospèrent, et ce ne sont pas les
marches « unanimistes » qui pourront combattre ce danger.
« Israël est la plus grande fabrique
du virus de l’antisémitisme dans le monde », avait coutume d’expliquer Uri Avnery, opposant
israélien.
En faisant croire que tous les juifs du monde
approuvent ce régime colonialiste, raciste et oppresseur, comme le font les
dirigeants israéliens et les officines israéliennes telles que le CRIF, en
France, cette gangrène ne peut que prospérer.
Ils le savent, et en rajoutent, car c’est
tout bénéfice.
Pas seulement parce qu’
Israël s’inquiète du nombre de ses résidents qui quittent un pays
incapable d’assurer la paix et la sécurité, et espère résoudre ses problèmes de
démographie en attirant des juifs effrayés par la montée de cet antisémitisme
Mais aussi parce que des juifs victimes
d’actes antisémites, cela permet de changer la trajectoire des projecteurs, et
d’occulter les atrocités infligées au peuple palestinien.
Ces irresponsables à la tête d’un Etat
d’apartheid, comme leurs soutiens inconditionnels, prennent délibérément les
juifs en otages, qu’il s’agisse de la population israélienne, ou des juifs qui
vivaient tranquillement en France.
Et tous ceux qui passent leur temps à
déclarer leur amour à Israël, à présenter ce pays comme moderne et civilisé,
alors qu’il bombarde des populations civiles et torture des enfants, à
appliquer un incroyable deux poids, deux mesures dans la répression du racisme,
contribuent à développer l’antisémitisme.
Leurs grandes déclarations des Hollande &
Co sur leur prétendue lutte contre l’antisémitisme, sont de la poudre aux yeux,
car ils ne peuvent pas ignorer que l’impunité dont ils garantissent les crimes
israéliens est directement responsable des préjugés et des passages à l’acte
antijuifs.
Quand ils donnent un permis de tuer à Israël
au moment où son armée massacre des femmes des hommes et des enfants,
Quand ils participent au blocus de Gaza,
Quand ils prétendent que les terroristes sont
les militants sous occupation du Hamas,
Quand ils ne cessent d’accorder des
privilèges, avec notre argent de contribuables, à l’occupant israélien, le
dispensant de toutes taxes à l’exportation de ses
produits en Europe,
Quand ils collaborent militairement avec ces
criminels sans scrupules, les aidant à assassiner
toujours plus de Palestiniens, depuis des décennies,
Quand ils acceptent que des Français partent
à l’étranger s’engager dans une armée d’occupation et massacrer et s’indignent
que d’autres partent combattre en Syrie ou ailleurs,
Quand ils s’assoient sur toutes les
conventions internationales qu’ils ont signées à Genève, à l’ONU, à La Haye, à
New York (contre la torture)... pour ne pas avoir à condamner les violations du
droit international par Israël
Quand ils nous passent matin, midi et soir,
des émissions, films, commémorations, et devoirs de mémoire, afin de ne pas
reproduire l’indifférence ou la complicité vis à vis de populations
persécutées, mais encouragent en même temps le massacre du peuple palestinien,
Quand ils passent leur temps à inviter sur
les plateaux de télévision des juifs racistes comme Eric Zémmour
et Alain Finkielkraut,
Quand ils laissent les dangereux fascistes de
la « Ligue de Défense Juive » (LDJ) agresser les défenseurs des
droits de l’Homme en toute impunité, et publier des obscénités racistes à
longueur de temps sur leur site et sur Facebook,
Comment s’étonner de la montée de
l’antisémitisme en France ?
Celui-ci ira malheureusement croissant tant
que de nombreuse personnes resteront perplexes ou
indignées par ce deux poids, deux mesures ?
Comment empêcher certains de penser en leur
for intérieur, puis tout fort, que les juifs sont différents (les dirigeants
israéliens sont les premiers à entretenir le mythe de différences génétiques et
d’un QI supérieur), qu’ils ont des « combines », qu’« ils
tiennent tout »... et autres tristes préjugés, qui se traduisent par une judéophilie tout aussi malsaine que la judéophobie ?
La seule manière de lutter efficacement
contre l’antisémitisme, c’est de mettre fin à l’occupation, à l’impunité des
criminels de guerre, et à la propagande qui fait croire que tous les juifs sont
unis comme un seul homme derrière le monstrueux étranglement du peuple
palestinien par Israël.
N’oublions pas qu’il y a en ce moment, en
Israël, des juifs qui sont derrière les barreaux, parce qu’ils refusent d’être
enrôlés dans une armée d’occupation, et des opposants juifs qui sont nos amis,
et participent aux côtés des Palestiniens à des manifestations contre le mur
d’annexion et la démolition des maisons palestiniennes, violemment réprimées
par l’armée israélienne.
CAPJPO-EuroPalestine
__________________
D.
From
Fred Lonidier :
Date:
16 January 2015
Subject:
If A Circle Meets Itself | Group Exhibition | Preview Thursday 29 January.
If a Circle Meets Itself
Preview Thursday 29 January 6.30 - 8.30
Exhibition 30 January - 7 March
Esther Ferrer: Euroretrato, Serie A,
2002-2004, 80 x 67 cm
Peles Empire, Esther Ferrer, Sunil
Gupta, Lubaina Himid
Fred Lonidier, Eline McGeorge, Ruth
Proctor, Joachim Schmid
For further information click here or contact
office@hollybushgardens.co.uk
-
1-2 Warner Yard
London EC1R 5EY
T. 020 7837 5991
www.hollybushgardens.co.uk
GALLERY OPEN:
Tue-Fri 11.00-18.00
Sat 11.00-17.00
__________________
E.
From
Monty Kroopkin :
Date:
16 January 2015
Subject:
ARTISTS' BOYCOTT OF UCSD BEGUN.
Francis, I am including a
full address for you for forwarding this info on the Artists Boycott (to
introduce you to Mar Moreno, the organizer of the boycott). I hope you two will
have some productive collaboration. The boycott is already international in
scope. It has, so far, mostly moved in the music circles that are most directly
touched by the C.H.E. Cafe. But, all artists ought to be able to relate to the
issue and support a public boycott and statement.
Mar, Francis and I know
each other from the days long ago of sharing the work of running the New Indicator Collective.
Solidarity,
Monty Reed Kroopkin
Please find attached press release of the Artists' Boycott of
UCSD.
In Solidarity – Mar Moreno
MEDIA ADVISORY from Artists' Boycott of UCSD
CONTACTS:
Mar Moreno (619) 381- 2372, punkmar77@ymail.com
FOR IMMEDIATE
RELEASE :
LA JOLLA – Dec. 15,
2014. Members of the performing arts community have called a boycott of all
artistic engagements on the U.C.S.D. campus. While the student cooperative and
non-profit organization, the Che Café Collective, is
waiting on a legal resolution to their lease and repair issues with the
University of California San Diego, local, national, and international artists
and performers continue to rally to show support to allow the Che Café to continue to operate in the same building and
space it has for the past 35 years.
To demonstrate just
how far and wide-reaching the support/impact the Che
Café is in the performing arts community, a letter is circulating asking for a
concerted effort to boycott all artistic endeavors in any way associated with
U.C.S.D. and demand that the U.C.S.D. administration:
1. Stop all attacks on
the Che Café and reverse its eviction efforts.
2. Refrain from enforcing a lockout of the Che Café
and refrain from using any form of violence, force, law enforcement, or other
drastic and coercive tactics against members of the Che
Café Collective and its supporters.
3. Work alongside representatives of the student body to recognize the Che Café for the historical landmark and unique creative
venue that it is.
4. Restore funding to the Che Café and allow students
and supporters to fulfill a dynamic and creative vision for the use of the
space.
These artists, labels,
bands, and musicians have committed to the boycott:
Bob ‘Barley’ Beyerle -Vinyl Communications Records/ Titwrench/ Neighborhood Watch, Rob Crow - Pinback, Collin Corrigan - Rockfish, Jello
Biafra - Alternative Tentacles Records/ Guantanamo School Of Medicine/ Dead
Kennedys/ LARD, Spinach Williams - The Last Barfighter,
Mar Moreno – Diatribe/ Outlaw Bastards, Justin Pearson – The Locust/ All
Leather/ Retox/ Head Wound City, John ‘Swami’ Reis –
Night Marchers/ Drive Like Jehu/ Rocket From The Crypt/ Pitchfork, Jason Soares – Physics, Mauro Coddelupi
– Raw Power (Italy), Mark Wilson – The Mob (UK), Brandon Cruz – Dr. Know/ The
Courtship Of Eddie’s Father/ The Bad News Bears, Zack De La Rocha – Rage
Against The Machine, Armistice (Los Angeles), Dan Faughdner
– Sledding With Tigers/ Grim Luck, Anachronism, Days Of Light And Gravity, Glow
And The Dark, Filthy Flamingos, Atticus And The Boo Radleys,
Ghetto Blaster, Death Eyes, Ben Ziff – Di Nigunim/
Thieves Lineage, Man Vs. Man, Trash Axis, Cryptic Languages, Age Of Collapse,
Jose Palafox – Struggle/ Swing Kids/ Bread &
Circuits/ Yaphet Kotto/ Baader Brains, Gregg Paiva – XHostageX/ YourEnemy, Eskera, Per Thunnel – Sex Dwarf/
Raped Teenagers (Sweden).
The letter is online
at https://m.facebook.com/profile.php?id=381173525380791
Members of the arts
community wishing to publicly state their support of the UCSD boycott are asked
to contact Mar Moreno.
While the Che Café is appealing an unfavorable unlawful detainer
judgment that was issued last month Che Café members and supporters are urging everyone to make
phone calls or send emails to faculty and alumni you may know as well as to
U.C.S.D. Chancellor Pradeep Khosla,
Vice Chancellor Juan Gonzales, and U.C.S.D. Legal Counsel Daniel Park’s office
and urge the above stated bullet points. Supporters are also urged to contact
Governor Jerry Brown, state legislators, UC system-wide President Janet
Napolitano and the UC Board of Regents.
Donations to the Save
the Che Café campaign, for legal defense and to
mitigate lost revenues can be made at: http://www.gofundme.com/b4hda8
UPDATE – ARTISTS JOINING
THE BOYCOTT SINCE 12/15/14:
Ian MacKaye, Dischord Records.
To follow the updates
and new artists joining the boycott see
http://checafe.ucsd.edu/?p=616
__________________
F.
From Là-bas si j’y suis :
Date
: 18 January,
2015
Subject: 21 janvier, voilà le nouveau Là-bas !
|
__________________
G.
From
The Real News Network :
Date:
18 January 2015
Subject:
Israeli hypocrisy in Europe.
President François Hollande of France asked Netanyahu not to attend because of
security considerations and the logistics involved. Netanyahu acquiesced to
this request at first, but when he heard that the Israeli minister of foreign
affairs, Avigdor Lieberman, of the extreme right, was
planning to attend in his stead and used that to garner votes within Israel, Netanyahu changed his mind and decided to go to
Paris nevertheless. And that infuriated François Hollande,
and he invited Mahmoud Abbas,
the Palestinian president, as a sort of counter to Netanyahu's presence.
Netanyahu then made a big effort to
try to be on the first line. He kind of pushed himself to the first line of
marchers in order to be on the cameras, trying to send a message back to his
voters at home in Israel, because the elections in Israel are approaching fast,
because a lot of Israelis are very concerned about the international pressure
growing against Israel and the loss of the Israeli stand, international
standing in the world. And Netanyahu was trying to show with his own sort of
elbow politics, pushing himself through the crowd in order to stand in front of
the cameras, that he is ready to represent Israel and to try to promote
Israeli, even if it means using a little bit of force.
Netanyahus' Elbowed Presence in Paris
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=13008
__________________
H.
From
Moshé Machover :
Date:
19 January 2015
Subject: UJFP = Union Juive Française Pour La Paix.
http://www.ujfp.org/spip.php?article3772
« Le piège tendu aux Juifs de France »
Nous avons ces derniers
jours vécu les mêmes bouleversements à répétition que tous nos
concitoyens. Comme Juifs nous avons été profondément atteints par l’horrible
attentat perpétré contre des Juifs parce qu
Juifs. Cela ne peut que faire résonner pour
nous les pires heures de l’histoire du judaïsme français. Tout ce que nous
croyons comme militants, citoyens, êtres humains, tout ce pour quoi nous
luttons, la valeur de la vie, de l’égalité entre les hommes, le ta’ayush (le vivre ensemble), s’est vu bafoué ici dans la
rédaction d’un journal, puis dans ce magasin cacher. Nous sommes convaincus que
la liberté d’expression est une valeur fondamentale de toute société
démocratique et qu’elle doit être défendue à tout prix contre la violence
obscurantiste.
Nous sommes aussi conscients de la montée
d’un antisémitisme redoutable en France. Mais nous voulons l’analyser et tenter
d’en comprendre les causes, parce qu’il est porteur comme tous les racismes
d’aveuglement, de haine et de sang.
Notre association dénonce depuis des années
le piège tendu aux Juifs de France, et il nous semble important de le décrire à
nouveau aujourd’hui au lendemain de cette attaque meurtrière.
Un piège tendu par plusieurs instances et à
plusieurs niveaux articulés et coordonnés dans le temps. A partir des
provocations de Sharon sur le parvis de la mosquée d’Al Aqsa
qui ont déclenché la deuxième Intifada en 2000, le gouvernement israélien de
l’époque a décidé que la France, où réside la première communauté juive
d’Europe, était un outil nécessaire et incontournable de sa politique. Son
exécutif sur place ? L’ambassade d’Israël, l’agence juive, et le CRIF,
conseil dit représentatif des institutions juives de France. Il s’agit
d’embrigader tous les Juifs de France dans un soutien inconditionnel à tous les
actes du gouvernement israélien, même les pires. Un CRIF qui va imposer une
vision uniforme, d’une communauté juive totalement homogène soudée autour d’un
sionisme sans faille et d’un soutien sans nuances aux actes du régime. Et ce
travail va d’ailleurs se poursuivre très vite jusque dans le réseau des
associations juives laïques, d’où l’UJFP sera assez vite éjectée. Hors du
sionisme point de salut ! Imaginer une collectivité de près de 600 000
âmes parlant d’une seule voix, est aussi fou et stupide que de prêter cette
unanimité à cinq ou six millions de musulmans, parmi lesquels il y a aussi de
toute évidence, des religieux, laïcs ou non, plus ou moins pratiquants, des
sionistes même, etc. Mais cela favorise une assimilation voulue, dans l’esprit
de chacun : juif = soutien d’Israël et de sa politique quelle qu’elle
soit. Et cette politique occupe, colonise, tue des arabes palestiniens tous les
jours.
Les gouvernements successifs d’Israël n’ont
quant à eux pas cessé depuis la même époque de s’adresser aux Juifs français en
leur demandant de quitter une France pleine de musulmans antisémites et de
faire leur « aliya » en Israël.
Enfin un aréopage d’intellectuels français,
tenants du choc des civilisations, des Fourest, des Taguieff, des Tarnero, des
Finkielkraut, mèneront à la fois le combat contre l’islam et celui pour le
sionisme. Les gouvernements français successifs n’ont cessé, eux aussi,
d’assimiler la légitime critique d’Israël et du sionisme à un racisme
antisémite. Et la plupart des médias français ont repris la rengaine. On
entendait même des journalistes après le massacre de Toulouse, parler d’Israël
à des citoyens français juifs devant l’école visée, en leur disant « votre
pays ». Souvenons-nous du fameux rapport Rufin qui demandait la
pénalisation de l’antisionisme décrit comme une nouvelle forme d’antisémitisme.
Dans ce piège, beaucoup de Juifs se sont
trouvés pris, qui avaient des liens affectifs, familiaux, d’identification avec
Israël, et avec son histoire telle qu’elle leur était présentée par la
mythologie sioniste, et sont petit à petit devenus des
« représentants » potentiels du soldat israélien ou du colon
israélien en France, renonçant progressivement à leur esprit critique, sous les
effets déjà néfastes de confrontations de plus en plus problématiques. Ils ont
aussi renoncé en même temps à leur capacité d’empathie pour l’autre, l’occupé,
le destitué de tous ses droits, le massacré comme à Gaza cet été, pour ne plus
voir que leur souci de préserver à tout prix ce « petit État fragile et
jeune entouré d’ennemis » seul capable de les protéger de l’antisémitisme.
Toute critique contre cet État est ainsi devenue un acte antisémite, tout rassemblement
de solidarité avec la Palestine, un regroupement de fanatiques les menaçant
personnellement et que les communautés locales poussées par le CRIF
réussissaient à faire interdire, renforçant ainsi l’animosité contre eux. Le
cercle vicieux ainsi amorcé n’a fait que se renforcer avec le temps, les
attaques sur les territoires occupées ne faisant qu’augmenter tensions et
replis.
La crise sociale s’est développée pendant ces
années dans les quartiers populaires où se côtoient souvent dans les mêmes HLM
ou les mêmes cités des Français (juifs, arabes et africains), dans des
conditions similaires de difficultés sociales. Dans ces ghettos de pauvreté, le
jeune français post colonial qui subit le délit de faciès, la discrimination à
l’emploi, le refus de l’entrée des boites de nuit, parce que basané,
s’identifie lui au dernier carré non décolonisé du monde arabe, et au
Palestinien opprimé. Il porte parfois le keffieh symbole de la résistance. Et
chaque fois qu’il veut exprimer sa solidarité, sa parole est interdite, assimilée
à de l’antisémitisme. Sa volonté de participer au débat politique se voit niée,
rejetée, rabaissée à une expression raciste. C’est lui le raciste, en plus de
subir comme noir ou arabe le racisme et l’exclusion sociale. Petit à petit se
développe chez lui un ressentiment contre cette communauté (qui soit dit en
passant se voit reconnue comme communauté, le terme de communautarisme étant
réservé aux autres) dont le gouvernement affirme qu’il la protège contre lui et
ses semblables.
Le porteur de kippa n’arbore-t-il pas aussi
souvent l’insigne des parachutistes israéliens ? Lui peut aller manifester
tranquillement pour soutenir l’armée israélienne et ses massacres à Gaza, voire
même y participer, la presse nationale, le gouvernement français, tiennent le même
discours que lui sur l’opération « bordure de protection. » Il est du
côté du manche. Il est blanc il est occidental, il a le droit du plus fort pour
lui. Les groupes violents comme la Ligue de Défense Juive peuvent insulter la
Palestine, les arabes, frapper, casser, rien, aucune
sanction, la police regarde et se tait, comme cet été rue de la Roquette, des
vidéos prises sur place faisant foi. Le jeune arabe, lui, n’a pas le droit de
manifester pour Gaza - interdictions ministérielles pendant la même période.
Comment ne pas penser à ce jeune homme qui a été arrêté (avec d’autres sur
délit de faciès pur) en marge d’une manifestation de cet été, en rentrant
tranquillement chez lui, parce qu’il portait un keffieh : frappé, passé en
comparution immédiate, la journaliste de Libération qui assistait à l’audience
où le garçon pleurait devant une juge partiale et inflexible, refusant
d’entendre quoi que ce soit, en a fait un article scandalisé. Il a pris trois
mois de prison ferme, et est encore aujourd’hui assigné à résidence dans sa
banlieue avec bracelet électronique.
Cette justice à deux vitesses, cette
stigmatisation des uns au bénéfice douteux des autres, ce discours officiel qui
fait du monde arabe l’axe du mal terroriste, arriéré barbare, et d’Israël un modèle
de démocratie, des jeunes arabes et africains des dangers potentiels pour la
société et des Juifs une catégorie intégrée dans un Occident tout récemment
devenu judéo-chrétien et à protéger, font le lit de la colère. L’impuissance à
dépasser une condition misérable a envoyé des centaines de jeunes de tous
horizons (même des Juifs paraît-il) dans les bras de Daesh
et de Al Qaïda. Et le piège
se referme. Les Juifs, corps devenu homogène, paieront pour toutes ces
injustices, les humiliations, tous ces musellements de parole, toute cette
arrogance affichée sous la protection de tous les gouvernements français :
ne touchez pas à nos Juifs, vous, les étrangers à vie, les barbares inintégrables à notre république. Si l’on ne peut atteindre
Israël on atteindra ses supporters juifs. L’abcès de fixation que constitue la
question palestinienne non résolue, prise elle aussi dans le remodelage d’un
nouveau monde profondément injuste, et que les puissants refusent de régler,
participe de l’émergence d’un terrorisme redoutable parce que désespéré et
suicidaire.
Un mécanisme redoutable d’assignations
identitaires s’est mis en place dans le cadre des nouvelles divisions du monde
depuis 1989 et « la chute du mur », et les Juifs d’Europe et de
France en particulier ont servi de pions dans le nouveau dispositif.
C’est avec une très grande tristesse que nous
disons aux nôtres, nous sommes français, nous pouvons vivre heureux chez nous
en France, comme le disait le dicton transformé par Elie Barnavi,
« heureux comme un juif en France », avec nos compatriotes de toutes
origines aujourd’hui, l’importation du conflit c’est par votre biais en vous
utilisant et vous manipulant qu’elle s’est faite, au service d’une cause bien
injuste. Le terrorisme montant de Daesh et de Al Qaïda contre lequel nous devrons tous nous battre parce
qu’il est meurtrier suicidaire et sans issue, passera par des luttes communes,
contre tous les racismes, toutes les exclusions, la restitution de la diversité
des opinions de tous, musulmans, arabes et juifs, dans l’échange et le
dialogue. La liberté d’expression n’est pas réservée à une seule vision du
monde.
Bureau national de l’UJFP le 15-01-2015
__________________
I.
From
If Americans Knew :
Date:
24 January 2015
Subject:
The Tel Aviv stabbings: What the media left out.
http://ifamericansknew.org/cur_sit/pal-violence.html
Dear Friends, We've produced a response to the slanted
media coverage on the recent Tel Aviv stabbings that contains statistics and
facts that we think you may wish to share with others. Click here to read the article on our
website, which also includes charts illustrating the disparity in deaths and
injuries between Israelis and Palestinians. The Tel Aviv stabbings: On Wednesday in Tel Aviv, a
23-year-old Palestinian man stabbed and injured as many as 12 Israelis who were riding a public bus during
morning rush hour. No deaths were reported, although three people were
hospitalized with serious injuries. U.S. mainstream media coverage of
this attack painted a picture of Israeli citizens living in fear of deranged
Palestinian terrorists. The media rarely mentioned that Israeli forces have
maintained a 48-year military occupation that profoundly impacts and virtually
imprisons 4 million Palestinian men, women, and children in the West Bank and
Gaza. The media also omitted significant information on Palestinians killed
and injured by Israel during the period reported on. Below are some examples: CNN’s coverage of the incident reported details of
the deaths of 10 Israelis who were killed by Palestinians last October and
November. Yet CNN neglected to mention that just three days ago Israeli
police killed a 47-year-old Palestinian man when the police stormed the funeral
procession of another Palestinian shot and killed by Israeli police. Since
October of 2014, at least 19 Palestinians have been killed by Israelis (5 of
them children). Only three of these deaths were mentioned in CNN’s article. The New York Times said that yesterday’s stabbings “broke a period of
relative calm that followed a spate of attacks against Israelis” in recent
months, perpetrated by “Palestinians armed with knives, cleavers and guns.”
The Times
seems to think a period is “calm” as long as no
Israelis are harmed. Since October 1, 2014, at least 1,677 Palestinians
(approximately 250 of them children) have been injured by Israeli forces
or settlers living on confiscated Palestinian land. During this time period, 196 Israelis were injured by Palestinians. (The Times also fails to divulge that its
reporters for the story, Isabel Kershner and Irit Pazner Garshowitz,
are both Israeli citizens and that Kershner’s
husband is a spin doctor for
the Israeli military establishment.) The Associated Press and NPR’s coverage
similarly provided largely Israeli-centric context. The AP described
yesterday’s attack in graphic detail, and both AP and NPR made sure to remind
readers of last November’s attack on a Jerusalem synagogue that left 5
Israelis dead. They did not, however, mention recent Israeli attacks on
Palestinians. Among the thousands of incidents since last October:
Additionally, in the last four months, at least 260
Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem were made homeless after
Israel demolished their homes. Half of them were children.
Approximately 110,000 homes in Gaza were
destroyed during Israel’s deadly assault last summer, and 14,000 Gazans are still living in UNRWA schools. Lack of
adequate shelter during winter storms and flooding has caused the deaths
of three Palestinian infants, one toddler, and one
adult. Regards, |
__________________
J.
From
Democracy Now !
:
Date:
12 January 2015
Subject:
Creating New Enemies Every Day.
The
gunmen who attacked Charlie Hebdo staff, Chérif and Said Kouachi, were
killed by French police on Friday following a three-day manhunt. Shortly before
his death, Chérif Kouachi
told a French television station he received financing from the late Islamic
cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, who was killed by a U.S.
drone in Yemen in 2011. Both brothers reportedly traveled to Yemen that same
year and had weapons training in the deserts of Marib,
an al-Qaeda stronghold. Meanwhile, a video released over the weekend shows Amedy Coulibaly — the gunman who
killed four hostages at a kosher supermarket in Paris — pledging allegiance to
the Islamic State.
Jeremy Scahill on Paris
Attacks, the al-Qaeda Link & the Secret U.S. War in Yemen
http://www.democracynow.org/2015/1/12/jeremy_scahill_on_paris_attacks_the
__________________
K.
From
Financial Times :
Date:
8 January 2015
Subject:
Al Qaeda terrorists come to Paris, France.
Following the terrorist attacks in
Paris, how does it feel to be a Muslim in France?
“In these interviews we have aimed to
stand aside and let some French Muslims speak for themselves. Especially since
the terrorist attacks on Paris, western media have been talking about ‘Islam’
and ‘Muslims’. But the speakers are almost all non-Muslims. In France, the
loudest voices belong to people who don’t seem to like Muslims much: the writer
Eric Zemmour, the politician Marine Le Pen or the
philosopher Alain Finkielkraut. French Muslims, says
the Algerian-French writer Akram Belkaïd,
are forever the subject, almost never the speakers. One of our interviewees
here recounts having recently spoken into a microphone for the first time in
his life.”
Our France: Muslims tell their stories
http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/2/02998426-a1be-11e4-bd03-00144feab7de.html
Interviews by Erik Bleich and Adam
Thomson
__________________
L.
From
Z Net ! :
Date:
22 January 2015
Subject:
Tariq Ali Lectures on World War I, the “wrong war”.
A
Tariq Ali lecture about the truth of World War One, the “bad war” the “wrong
war”. He discusses the rise of the working class and Socialism, and the militarisation of Germany in an attempt to compete with the
colonial empires.
World Wars & Historic Memory
https://zcomm.org/zvideo/968639/
by
Tariq Ali