Holi (pronounced ho-lee), also known as Phagwa, is marked at the transition from the Hindu months Phalguna to Chaitra. The Hindu calendar being lunisolar, this date changes every year. In 2010 it fell on March 1st. Besides India, Nepal and Sri Lanka, it is observed by the South Asian diaspora in all its regional varieties throughout Europe, America, Canada, Australia, in New Zealand, South Africa, and of course, Suriname, Trinidad, Mauritius and Fiji which are notable countries where South Asians were brought for labor and now constitute a significant proportion of the population.

Background.

Vaishnava

In a timeless past of the Satya Yuga, a ruler from a race of giants, known as Daityas, held power and riches unrivaled, except by his own attire. Thus, he was known as Hiranyakashipu, or, ‘Golden-robed’. After performing austerities (tapas) and being granted a boon by Brahma which had made him nearly invincible, the ‘Demon King’ attacked the Heavens, lorded over earth, demanded people worship him, and squandered his wealth on destruction and his own greatness, even challenging Lord Indra.

This all was at odds with his own son, Prahlada, a pious devotee of Lord Vishnu; a Vaishnava, whom sought to correct his father in the right virtues of a Maharaja and to guide him in Bhakti realization of the Supreme Soul by renouncing avarice and absorbing his thoughts on Him. This only made his father furious,

[T]he daitya ruler daunted upon seeing how the attempts ran futile, devised with determination for a variety of ways to kill him. Crushing him with an elephant, attacking with the king’s poisonous snakes, with spells of doom, throwing him from heights, conjuring tricks, imprisoning him, administering venom and subjecting him to starvation, cold, wind, fire and water and with piling rocks upon him, was the demon unable to put his son, the sinless one, to death… (Srimad Bhagavata Purana, 7.5.42-4)

And yet, the boy through his devotion to the Lord was protected from his father’s persecution time and time again. At long last his father’s wrath brought him before the court, and challenged to see this God who could challenge his own deific powers. He would try to kill his son himself this time, but before the boy’s head could be severed by his father who scoffed that no one could save him, God made his omnipresence known to all assembled from a pillar. The universe cracked open, and a cacophony of sounds and kaleidoscopic dimensions could be seen; the omnipresence of God within everything.  Narasimha, the fourth avatara of Vishnu, a hybrid with man’s torso and lion’s head then appeared from this pillar and mauled the Demon King Hiranyakashipu to shreds. The king had used a boon from Brahma gained by devotion for evil; thus God had to manifest himself in earthly form to correct this terrorizing and subjection of earth and heavens alike.

Among the schemes Hiranyakashipu hatched against his son was when he asked his sister to have Prahlada to sit in her lap in a bonfire. Hiranyakashipu’s sister had received a special boon that gave her immunity to fire. However; she was burned to death and Prahlad saved. There are numerous accounts as to the reason for this, but suffice it to say, the sister of the king died and good triumphed.

Hiranyakashipu’s sister was named Holika, from which Holi is believed to derive. It is this event that Holi celebrates in Holika Dahan (the burning of Holika), in which bonfires are lit, primarily in North India, the day before Holi. Originally these included effigies of Holika, but in most parts this is now replaced by a simple pyre. Comparisons to their fellow Aryans’ (if only common traditional heritage; I have no intent of opening the Aryan Invasion Theory can of worms here) celebration of Cheharshanbe-Souri in Iran and indeed, bonfire spring festivals in Indo-European cultures throughout Europe, are readily seen. The triumph of light over darkness.

Shaivite

The main story as recounted and summarized above, can be considered by some to be a Vaishnava polemic, with Hiranyakashipu representing Lord Shiva. As such, given where you are, an alternate account is of Kama and Shiva.

As recounted in the Saura Purana, there was another daitya called Taraka whom had achieved a boon from Brahma after severe austerities. He asked for the boon of being invincible to the gods; and like Hiranyakashipu, effectively immortal. Of course, Brahma thought this too much so asked for an exception. The wily Taraka made the condition that only the child of Shiva could kill him. Shiva was doing penance and lost in himself after losing his first wife, Dakshayani (which is the subject of another famous myth which is the source of the practice of sati; Sati being another name for Dakshayani), therefore Taraka had reasoned that Shiva would be unable to produce a son.

Of course, Taraka does what demons granted boons of immense power by Brahma do, he terrorizes the universe of gods and men. He battles Vishnu for 30,000 years alone, but Vishnu has to retreat in confusion and hide. Beleaguered, the gods meet with Brahma, who tells them of Taraka’s weakness. They hatch a plan.

Parvati, who had realized she was the reincarnated Dakshayani from a young age, and had performed severe penances for Shiva’s hand in marriage, was put before Shiva. The only problem, is that Shiva was absorbed in yogic asceticism, having renounced the world after the loss of his first wife. So, Kama (yes, as in the Kama Sutra; and, counterpart to Greek Eros; Cupid) is enjoined to put lust into Shiva and wake him from his trance to produce the progeny that will defeat Taraka.

But, when Shiva awakens from his meditation after being immovable by either Parvati or Kama, he sees Parvati there, and then, sees Kama with his five flowered arrow drawn in its bow and aimed at him. Shiva’s third-eye shoots forth a fire accumulated in his tapas and incinerates Kama by its own power independent of Shiva’s will. Parvati is now distressed, and rebukes Shiva. It is now that she asks for her boon from him, having suffered as an example to all yoginis past and present. She asks that Kama be revived. Consenting, Shiva replies, “Let [Kama] be without a body in order to please you, lady with beautiful eyes. In that form he will be able to shake the world.”

Long story short, Shiva and Parvati beget Skanda (the Hindu ‘Ares’), who destroys Taraka. In South India, Holi is thus referred to as Kama Dahanam. But of course, the larger lesson was the victory of love, for now the disembodied Kama, with his wife Rati, could flit from one corner of the earth to another like the wind. In this context, Holi is like an Indian Valentine’s Day.

Radha Krishna

In this spirit, the Ras-Lila is celebrated (literally, ‘Passion Play’ and quite different from the Christian form, of course!); particularly in Mathura and Vrindavan, where Lord Krishna (the eighth avatara of Vishnu) was born and the place of the Ras-Lila, respectively. The Ras-Lila is the all-famous tale of the gopis’ (milk maidens) love and adoration of the perfect youth Krishna, who playfully teased them mercilessly in the 10th Book of the Srimad Bhagavata Purana (not to be confused with the Bhagavad Gita of the Mahabharata), and the tryst between him and Radha, whom is never actually named, in chapter 30, where she is only a mystery woman held in awed jealousy by the pining gopis who follow the couple’s footsteps into the forest. This story with elaborations is a staple of bhajans and Indian poetry, drama, and naturally, today’s transmitter of myth, Bollywood (here’s an example).

A word of warning. To suggest anything unchaste about Radha, or to reduce Krishna to a Casanova, to suggest anything sexual at all beyond romantic metaphor, is extremely offensive to devout Hindus; particularly Vaishnavas. It has an invective history with the Christian missionaries and continues to this day on Christianist supremacist websites. Having said this word of warning though, of Holi, the entry in A Dictionary of Hinduism says,

A spring festival dedicated to Krishna and the gopis. It took the place of an earlier kind of Saturnalia, ‘the survival of a primitive fertility ritual, combining erotic games, “comic operas” and folk dancing’. Some of the earlier elements remain, such as the singing of suggestive songs, the throwing of coloured water, and jumping over bonfires, the ashes of which are believed to possess magical powers.

Indeed, I tend to take this view, and see the other myths as later accretions or adaptations to an earlier Indo-European fertility festival, as do I see the Radha-Krishna relationship a sublimation of an earlier myth. During Holi, caste distinctions are suspended, and the sexes may mix freely; likely customs surviving from the ubiquitous “safety valve” many early cultures observed at least once a year -- just as modern ones do to this day.

Playing

In a 7th century play, Ratnavali, it was said,

Witness the beauty of the great cupid festival which excites curiosity as the townsfolk are dancing at the touch of brownish water thrown from squirt-guns.

They are seized by pretty women while all along the roads the air is filled with singing and drum-beating.

Everything is coloured yellowish red and rendered dusty by the heaps of scented powder blown all over.

This is the first recording of Dhulhendi, the day of Holi most recognizable today. Let me set the scene. You know nothing of Holi, you are a visitor in India. This delightful scenario is played in this scene from the 2006 film, “Outsourced”:

Instruments of Fun:

Abir and Gulal -  colored powders

Originally made from natural dyes, some with Ayurvedic properties, there has been concern over toxic ingredients in recent years, and a move towards organic products. The symbolism with spring, of course, is self-evident.

Pichkari -- soaker type of syringe

While many of these still retain their traditional design, many more kids can be seen with super soakers and custom pichkaris with Bollywood actors and actresses, cartoon characters and other themes, even in shapes like elephants or one designed as a bow and arrow (like the ancient Hindu heroes).

Bhang

Bhang, made from grinding cannabis leaves and flowers into a paste is mixed into chilled drinks and munchie snacks alike. The signature drink of Holi is thandai, a milk based drink flavored with pistachios, almonds, and, of course, marijuana! But, a bhang lassi can also be whipped up, as seen above. Oh, and if you happen upon a sadhu in Varanasi, see if they will pass the chillum. This is one of a few times where social use of marijuana is acceptable, though generally not by women (patriarchal societies’ ‘designated drivers’). Watch this Bollywood song with the information and vocabulary you have just gained!

Hola Mohalla

Although not widely celebrated in Pakistan, in India Holi is now a secular holiday celebrated by all: Hindu, Muslim, Buddhist, Jain, Christian, Jew, Parsi, Sikh, atheist, etc. The day after Holi, as well, is the closely related Sikh holiday of Hola Mohalla, most visible in the Sikh homeland of Indian Punjab. In warrior-saint Guru Gobind Singh’s martial tradition, Sikhs will mock fights, sing, play music, recite poetry and kirtans, and eat communally, as is per Sikh practice.

So, alas, to explain my title. It is common to say “Holi hai!” which means “it’s Holi!” as a greeting. Unfortunately, due to timing, I fell off on writing this, and thus added the Hindi ‘was’, tha, to reflect the belated nature of this article.

To end with, I only chose one Bollywood Holi song among a plethora of possibilities, as this one clearly lays out several elements outlined herein and brings it to life! (plus my crush on Rani Mukerji didn’t hurt the selection process)

Holi Mubarak! -- Happy Holi!

Long ago, there was a ferocious demon named Nian locked in a remote mountain. Every 12 months, Nian would leave the mountain and eat people until the locals discovered that the demon was afraid of loud noises and red colors. People hung red lanterns and set off fireworks, terrorizing Nian, who would flee back to the mountain. For Chinese people, this day became known as “celebrating the new year” or Guo Nian, meaning “survive the demon Nian.” It is the most important time in the Chinese year.

Chinese months are reckoned by the lunar calendar, with each month beginning on the darkest day. New Year festivities traditionally start on the first day of the month and continue until the fifteenth, when the moon is brightest. In China, people may take weeks of holiday from work to prepare for and celebrate the New Year.

2010 is the year of the Tiger. It began on February 14, 2010 and ends on February 2, 2011. The Chinese New Year is the second new moon after the winter solstice. It is based strictly on astronomical observations, and has nothing to do with the Pope, emperors, animals or myths. Due to its scientific and mathematical nature, we can easily and precisely calculate backward or forward for thousands of years.

Legend has it that Buddha  asked all the animals to meet him on Chinese New Year. Twelve came, and Buddha named a year after each one. He announced that the people born in each animal’s year would have some of that animal’s personality. I was born in the year of the Ox, my husband in the year of the Rooster—a very auspicious pairing! Specifically, I am an Earth Ox, while he is a Fire Rooster, so I guess that’s good. Whew. You can find your own Chinese zodiac sign here.

It is thought that people born under this third sign of the Chinese zodiac are physically powerful, gracious, independent and brave, and very bold.  They are friendly and loving but can also selfish and short tempered. Tigers seek attention and power; frequently they are envious in a relation. Tigers live dangerously which often leads to trouble. They are intolerant, take risks and are always searching for excitement. Tigers are also instilled with a good dose of courage.

Year of the Tiger means big changes ahead, but let’s face it—doesn’t every year? The tiger is a sign of bravery. This courageous and fiery fighter is admired by the ancient Chinese as the sign that keeps away the three main tragedies of a household. These are fire, thieves and ghosts. At least we won’t have to worry about those three this year! In Chinese astrology the tiger is one of the most dynamic and powerful signs. Its nature is unpredictable, courageous, and explosive. Therefore, the year of the Tiger is usually associated with big changes and social disorder; 2010 is likely to be a turbulent year—on both a global and a personal level. Just what we need!

The most common way to wish someone a Happy New Year is Gong Xi Fa Cai in Mandarin or Gong Hey Fat Choy in Cantonese.

Gong Xi - are good wishes or congratulations

Fa Cai – to become rich, acquire wealth

So together it means “best and prosperous wishes” for the coming year.

CELEBRATIONS

Each day of the New Year’s celebration requires a different observance. Today, the Second Day, is for married daughters to visit their birth parents. Traditionally, daughters who have been married may not have the opportunity to visit their birth families frequently.

On the second day, the Chinese pray to their ancestors as well as to all the gods. They are extra kind to dogs and feed them well as it is believed that the second day is the birthday of all dogs. (Note to self: Give Zorro an extra good treat today, because he is the best big dog ever!)

At Chinese New Year celebrations people wear red clothes, decorate with poems on red paper, and give children “lucky money” in red envelopes. Red symbolizes fire, which according to legend can drive away bad luck. The fireworks that shower the festivities are rooted in a similar ancient custom. Long ago, people in China lit bamboo stalks, believing that the crackling flames would frighten evil spirits.

In China, the New Year is a time of family reunion. Family members gather at each other’s homes for visits and shared meals, most significantly a feast on New Year’s Eve. In the United States, however, many early Chinese immigrants arrived without their families, and found a sense of community through neighborhood associations instead. Today, many Chinese-American neighborhood associations host banquets and other New Year events.

The lantern festival is held on the fifteenth day of the first lunar month. Some of the lanterns may be works of art, painted with birds, animals, flowers, zodiac signs, and scenes from legend and history. People hang glowing lanterns in temples, and carry lanterns to an evening parade under the light of the full moon.

In many areas the highlight of the lantern festival is the dragon dance. The dragon—which might stretch a hundred feet long—is typically made of silk, paper, and bamboo. Traditionally the dragon is held aloft by young men who dance as they guide the colorful beast through the streets. In the United States, where the New Year is celebrated with a shortened schedule, the dragon dance always takes place on a weekend. In addition, many Chinese-American communities have added American parade elements such as marching bands and floats.

RED ENVELOPES (lai see)

The ritual of exchanging red envelopes has its roots in traditional Chinese folklore and culture. The color red symbolizes good fortune and power and is used for celebrations to convey blessings and positive energy and to diffuse negative energy. Its rectangular shape resembles that of ancient shields and symbolizes protection. During the Chinese New Year celebration children (and adults too, at least in my household!) are gifted with money in red envelopes. To receive money in a red envelope is considered to be lucky for the person who gives it and for the person who receives it.

FOOD!

The New Year’s Eve dinner is very sumptuous and traditionally includes chicken and fish. The fish is not eaten completely (and the remainder is stored overnight), as the Chinese phrase “may there be surpluses every year.”

Oranges and Tangerines

Etiquette dictates that you must bring a bag of oranges and tangerines and enclose a lai see when visiting family or friends anytime during the two-week long Chinese New Year celebration. Tangerines with leaves intact assure that one’s relationship with the other remains secure. For newlyweds, this represents the branching of the couple into a family with many children. Oranges and tangerines are symbols for abundant happiness.

Candy Tray

The candy tray arranged in either a circle or octagon is called “The Tray of Togetherness” and has a dazzling array of candy to start the New Year sweetly. After taking several pieces of candy from the tray, adults places a red envelope (lai see) on the center compartment of the tray. Each item represents some kind of good fortune. ( I was once in China during the Lunar New Year, in  a “show village.” There was a seemingly ancient old woman there who insisted we visit her house. She was very proud of her TV set and her photo of Michael Jackson on the wall (?!). As honored guests we were served from one of these candy trays, and were obliged to partake. Well, that was almost the end of my trip– never got so sick in my life! Or maybe it was the cha su bao?)

DECORATIONS

Prior to New Year’s Day, Chinese families decorate their living rooms with vases of pretty blossoms, platters of oranges and tangerines and a candy tray with eight varieties of dried sweet fruit. On walls and doors are poetic couplets, happy wishes written on red paper. These messages sound better than the typical fortune cookie messages. For instance, “May you enjoy continuous good health” and “May the Star of Happiness, the Star of Wealth and the Star of Longevity shine on you” are especially positive couplets. Even though I can’t have Christmas decorations, I go all out for these! And the gaudier the better.

Plants and Flowers

Flowers are believed to be symbolic of wealth and high positions in one’s career. Lucky is the home with a plant that blooms on New Year’s Day, for that foretells a year of prosperity. Plum blossoms just starting to bloom are arranged with bamboo and pine sprigs. The plum blossom also signifies reliability and perseverance; the bamboo is known for its compatibility and its flexibility, and the evergreen pine evokes longevity and steadiness. Other highly prized flowers are the pussy willow, azalea, peony and water lily or narcissus.

The Chinese firmly believe that without flowers, there would be no formation of any fruits. Therefore, it is of the utmost importance to have flowers and floral decorations. They are the emblems of reawakening of nature, they are also intimately connected with  the wish for happiness during the ensuing year.

DANCES AND PARADES AND NOISE

The Dragon Dances begin on New Year’s Day, and continue throughout the festivities for the next fifteen days. All Chinese New Year parades end with the Dragon Dance. A cloth dragon is held on poles by a team of a dozen or more members who make the dragon “dance” by raising and lowering the poles.

Dragons are an important aspect of the culture and tradition. They were once Imperial symbols in ancient China and have come to signify wealth, wisdom, power and nobility.
The Dragon Dance Parade brings good luck and prosperity for the coming year and is an essential ingredient of any Chinese New Year Celebration.

The Chinese Lion Dance is often mixed up with the Chinese Dragon Dance.

The Dragon Dance is performed by a team of ten or more dancers, whereas the Lion Dance team consists of only two. The Lion Dancers perform to the sound of drums for the first three to five days of the New Year. They dance in front of stores and businesses to scare off the evil spirits and to bring good luck to everyone.

Firecrackers are an important part of the Chinese New Year celebrations. They are lit in front of houses and stores, so that the evil spirits are scared away from the loud noises.
At parades, lion dances and dragon dances, firecrackers are lit up so they drive away the wicked beings and the “bad luck”. Another legend is that the firecrackers will awake the dragon that will bring the spring rain for an auspicious beginning of the growing season. Whatever the origins, Firecrackers provide the happy ending to the parades and dances and are a must for the joyous atmosphere of the celebrations, but to be honest, this is my least favorite tradition–ouch!

Number One Double Happiness Lucky Prosperity to all PlanetPOV !

WHAT IS HATE SPEECH?

Hate speech is the kind of speech used to denigrate an individual or a group of people because of something about them, such as their race, ethnicity, gender, age, nationality, religion, sexual orientation, disability, ideology, social class, or physical appearance. Speech is considered written or oral communication and some forms of behaviors in a public setting (such as burning a cross).
Some people have trouble defining hate speech. Does it matter whether the speech occurs in a face-to-face encounter, in an online diatribe, in a novel, in a newscast, during a classroom presentation, or as part of a political candidate’s campaign? Can hate speech be defined as a list of words (fag, nigger, kike, retard, fatso, gimp), or does the context of those words count (rap music, Lenny Bruce, a scholarly paper)?  Which is more important in determining hate speech, the intent of the speaker (Rahm Emanuel saying the Democrats are “fucking retarded,”  or the reaction of the audience (Sarah Palin, because of her Down’s Syndrome child)?

The following might be considered hate speech:

In Maryland, at a town hall hosted by Democratic Sen. Ben Cardina, a man held a sign “Death to Obama” and “Death to Michelle and her two stupid kids.”  The man was detained and turned over to the U.S. Secret Service for questioning. It is illegal to threaten the life of a president.

A couple of weeks before last November’s election, a man in West Hollywood, Calif., had a display outside his home of a mannequin dressed to look like Sarah Palin hanging by a noose around her neck. A likeness of John McCain appeared to be emerging from a fake fire.

A liberal radio talk show host, Mike Malloy, said on the air: “I have good news to report: Glenn Beck appears closer to suicide. I’m hoping that he does it on camera. Suicide is rampant in his family, and given his alcoholism and his tendencies toward self-destruction, I am only hoping that when Glenn Beck does put a gun to his head and pulls the trigger that it will be on television, because somebody will capture it on YouTube and it will be the most popular video for months.”

Is this hate speech?

The Two Minutes Hate: August 12, 2009

I am certain this is:

Tempe pastor reiterates wish for President Obama s death Phoenix Arizona

Before a truck bomb took out the Alfred P. Murrah Building in Oklahoma City, these people might have been dismissed as cranks. Now, after the deaths of George Tiller and Stephen Johns (the Holocaust Museum guard), it feels as if we should take action.

THE FIRST AMENDMENT

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
— The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution

The federal government and state governments are broadly forbidden by the First Amendment from restricting speech. Unique among courts in the world, the Supreme Court has extended broad protection in the area of hate speech—abusive, insulting, intimidating, and harassing speech that at the least fosters hatred and discrimination and at its worst promotes violence and killing. The First Amendment is not, of course, absolute; private institutions, including universities and employers, are not subject to the First Amendment, which restricts only government activities.

There is obviously a direct a direct link between freedom of speech and a vibrant democracy. Justice Louis Brandeis wrote that “freedom to think as you will and to speak as you think are means indispensable to the discovery and spread of political truth.” I ask, is that correct? Is the national debate bolstered when, for example, hate speech is mainstreamed? Or are the real issues pushed to the backburner while we debate nonsense, like whether or not our President is an American citizen?

Americans vigorously dispute the application of the First Amendment. Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, in his famous Abrams v. United States (1919) dissenting opinion, had a shocking opening line: “Persecution for the expression of opinions seems to me perfectly logical.” What could Holmes have been thinking?

Perhaps Holmes was saying that all of us have within us a kind of censorship-impulse. Governments are especially prone to censor. As Holmes went on: “If you have no doubt of your premises or your power and want a certain result with all your heart you naturally express your wishes in law and sweep away all opposition.” Censorship is a kind of social instinct. As caring and responsible citizens of society, we are likely to want many results with all our hearts. We want safety, we want freedom from fear, we want order, civility, racial and religious tolerance, we want the best world for our children. We want these things with all our hearts, and when others express opinions that seem to threaten these hopes, we want to enact laws that forbid them to express it.  It is only logical to want to prevent opposition to what we know is good. But that’s the crux of freedom of speech: Who are “we” and how do we “know what is good,” really?

Most people believe in the right to free speech, but debate whether it should cover flag-burning, hard-core rap and heavy-metal lyrics, tobacco advertising, hate speech, kiddie porn, nude dancing, and religious symbols on government property. Many would agree to limiting some forms of free expression.

Many influential American thinkers have often argued that robust protection of freedom of speech, including speech advocating crime and revolution, actually works to make the country more stable, increasing rather than decreasing our ability to maintain law and order. Does that hold true even if a percentage of citizens want to see minority populations disenfranchised; even if they want to see their brand of Christianity become the national religion; even if they government programs labeled fascist? Freedom of speech allows a tiny but vocal group of people to use the megaphone of the media to spread lies, fear, and hate too.

Perhaps if a society as wide-open and pluralistic as America is not to explode from festering tensions and conflicts, there must be valves through which citizens with discontent may blow off steam.

Probably the most celebrated attempt at an explanation to the value of free speech is the “marketplace of ideas” metaphor, a notion most famously associated with Justice Holmes’ great dissent in Abrams, in which he argued that “the best test of truth is the power of the thought to get itself accepted in the competition of the market.” The marketplace of ideas metaphor does not assure that truth will emerge from the free trade in ideas, but merely says that free trade in ideas is the best test of truth. Is that true? And doesn’t Holmes make certain assumptions about Americans? For example, doesn’t he presume an educated populace, one taught critical thinking skills?

The connection of freedom of speech to self-governance and the appeal of the marketplace of ideas metaphor still, however, does not tell it all. Freedom of speech has value on a more personal and individual level. Freedom of speech is part of the human personality, a value intimately intertwined with human autonomy and dignity. In the words of Justice Thurgood Marshall in the 1974 “The First Amendment serves not only the needs of the polity but also those of the human spirit — a spirit that demands self-expression.”

Many Americans embrace freedom of speech for the same reasons they embrace other aspects of individualism. The U.S. Supreme Court has often understood the First Amendment in a way that defies the logical impulse to censor. In scores of decisions, the Supreme Court has interpreted the First Amendment in a manner that to most of the world seems positively radical. Those decisions are numerous and cover a vast and various terrain, but consider some highlights. Americans have the right to:

Desecrate the national flag as a symbol of protest.

Burn the cross as an expression of racial bigotry and hatred.

Espouse the violent overthrow of the government as long as it is mere abstract advocacy and not an immediate incitement to violence.

Traffic in sexually explicit erotica as long as it does not meet a rigorous definition of “hard core” obscenity.

Defame public officials and public figures with falsehoods provided they are not published with knowledge of their falsity or reckless disregard for the truth.

Disseminate information invading personal privacy if the revelation is deemed “newsworthy.”

Engage in countless other forms of expression that would be outlawed in many nations but are regarded as constitutionally protected here.

And infamously, now, corporations have the right to make political contributions to increase the influence of money on the political process.

“In much of the developed world, one uses racial epithets at one’s legal peril, one displays Nazi regalia and the other trappings of ethnic hatred at significant legal risk and one urges discrimination against religious minorities under threat of fine or imprisonment,” Frederick Schauer, a professor at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, wrote in a recent essay called “The Exceptional First Amendment. But in the United States,” Schauer continued, “all such speech remains constitutionally protected.”

Canada, Britain, France, Germany, the Netherlands, South Africa, Australia and India all have laws or have signed international conventions banning hate speech. Israel and France forbid the sale of Nazi items like swastikas and flags. It is a crime to deny the Holocaust in Canada, Germany and France. By contrast, U.S. courts would not stop the American Nazi Party from marching in Skokie, Illinois, in 1977, though the march was deeply distressing to the many Holocaust survivors there.

SUPREME COURT CASES RELATED TO HATE SPEECH

According to opinions in Supreme Court cases, there are four main characteristics that make hate speech a legal offense: Incitement to imminent lawless action, true threats, a clear and present danger, and fighting words. There are other areas of speech not protected by the first amendment too—obscenity, libel and slander, and conflict with other governmental interests (like gag orders during trials and certain speech during war).

Incitement to imminent lawless action

In Brandenburg v Ohio (1969), the justices upheld the right of the Ku Klux Klan to call publicly for the expulsion of African Americans and Jews from the United States, even though the speech in question intimated using violence. The justices held that unless the speech was intended to cause violence and had a high likelihood of producing such a result imminently it was protected by the First Amendment. The Brandenburg test has proven nearly impossible to meet.

True threats

The Supreme Court explained the definition of true threats in Virginia v. Black (2003) — in which it upheld most of a Virginia cross-burning statute — this way:

“True threats’ encompass those statements where the speaker means to communicate a serious expression of an intent to commit an act of unlawful violence to a particular individual or group of individuals. The speaker need not actually intend to carry out the threat. Rather, a prohibition on true threats protect(s) individuals from the fear of violence and from the disruption that fear engenders, in addition to protecting people from the possibility that the threatened violence will occur.”

In Planned Parenthood v. American Coalition of Life Activists (2002), the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals held that some vigorous anti-abortion speech — including a Web site that listed the names and addresses of abortion providers who should be tried for “crimes against humanity” — could qualify as a true threat. The 9th Circuit emphasized that “the names of abortion providers who have been murdered because of their activities are lined through in black, while names of those who have been wounded are highlighted in grey.”

Even in the speech-restrictive world of the military, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces ruled in United States v. Wilcox (2008) that a member of the military could not be punished for posting racially offensive and hateful remarks he made over the Internet about white supremacy.

A Clear and Present Danger

In 1919, the Supreme Court was first requested to strike down a law violating the Free Speech Clause. The case involved Charles Schenck, who had, during WWI published leaflets challenging the conscription system. The Supreme Court unanimously upheld Schenck’s conviction for violating the Espionage Act. Justice Holmes, writing for the Court, wrote that “the question in every case is whether the words used are used in such circumstances and are of such a nature as to create a clear and present danger that they will bring about the substantive evils that Congress has a right to prevent.”

The “clear and present danger” test of Schenck was extended in 1919, again by Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes. The case involved a speech made by Eugene V. Debs, a political activist. Debs had not spoken any words that posed a “clear and present danger” but a speech in which he denounced militarism was nonetheless found to be sufficient grounds for his conviction. Justice Holmes suggested that the speech had a “natural tendency” to stop the draft. Can you imagine this precedent holding up today? I can’t, given the amount of anti-government talk I hear in the media daily.

Freedom of speech was also influenced by anti-communism during the Cold War. In 1940, the Congress made it illegal to advocate “the propriety of overthrowing or destroying any government in the United States by force and violence.” Even though there was no immediate danger posed by the Communist Party’s ideas, the Court allowed the Congress to restrict the Communist Party’s speech.

These cases have never been explicitly overruled by the Court, but subsequent decisions have greatly narrowed its place within First Amendment laws. Now only speech explicitly inciting the forcible overthrow of the government remains punishable.

Fighting Words

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire, (1942) that intimidating speech directed at a specific individual in a face-to-face confrontation amounts to “fighting words,” and that the person engaging in such speech can be punished if “by their very utterance [the words] inflict injury or tend to incite an immediate breach of the peace.” Say a white student stops a black student on campus and utters a racial slur. In that one-on-one confrontation, which could easily come to blows, the offending student could be disciplined under the “fighting words” doctrine for racial harassment.

Over the past 50 years, however, the Court hasn’t found the “fighting words” doctrine applicable in any of the hate speech cases that have come before it, since the incidents involved didn’t meet the narrow criteria stated above.

Libel and Slander

You do not have a constitutional right to tell lies that damage or defame the reputation of a person or organization. This is a highly inconsistent ruling, as I can provide several examples where president Obama was the object of both lies and slander. Obama is a racist, a fascist, a socialist. Perhaps the President has decided it is not worth it to put these statements to the test. Of course, it is very difficult to prove that the defamer knew his or her facts were lies.

Nonverbal Symbols

Symbols of hate are constitutionally protected if they’re worn or displayed before a general audience in a public place, say, in a march or at a rally in a public park. But the First Amendment doesn’t protect the use of nonverbal symbols to encroach upon, or desecrate, private property, such as burning a cross on someone’s lawn or spray-painting a swastika on the wall of a synagogue or dorm.

In recent decades, American courts have held that public hate speech, such as the Nazi march in Skokie, must be protected under the First Amendment because there is no principled way to distinguish that speech from other forms of political expression. I would argue that this form of speech invades its targets’ rights to personal security, personality, citizenship, and equality. The crucial question then becomes whether this form of speech should be protected anyway because of its political character. The answer to this question turns on our conception of political speech. After looking at the leading theory in this area -- Justice Holmes’s vision of the marketplace of ideas -- I argue that political speech is best understood as discourse among individuals or groups who recognize one another as equals and free, as well as members of the community. By denying recognition to its targets, political hate speech violates the fundamental ground rules that should govern political debate. I believe that this form of speech should not receive constitutional protection. Interpreting the First Amendment in this way would not only allow American law to reconcile the competing demands of free speech and human dignity; it would also approach  political hate speech in the same way that many other liberal democratic nations and the international community does.

It once seemed easier to ignore the haters among us. They held furtive meetings in out-of-the-way places, wrote racist screeds in the guise of bad novels, and when they appeared in public, they wore hoods to hide their faces. Now, they apply for admission to the bar, stand for elected office, appear on radio and television talk shows, and increasingly take their message to the mainstream by using the Internet.

America, we like to feel, has room for everyone. It is a place of tolerance, equality, and justice. Hate is an affront to that vision, and the lengthening list of hate crimes should haunt our national conscience and make us search for a remedy. I am struggling with Freedom of Speech.

Next-- Part 3: The Psychology of Hate Groups and How They Recruit

(with apologies to Salvador Dali)

I am bothered by movies, such as “Saw” and “Hostel”, that, to me, serve no purpose other than to depict the extremes of human pain and cruelty. I confess to having never watched a film from either of those series, nor have I watched a Hannibal Lector movie, or a Chucky, Freddy Krueger or Jason movie (which, I imagine, at this point seem almost quaint in their depictions of cruelty), so it is not only what is depicted on the screen, which I haven’t even seen, that disturbs me. It is the very fact that such movies exist, and that they pull in audiences. To me, they are a depraved sub-genre of moviemaking that elevates torture to their prime, even sole, raison d’etre (indeed, they have been dubbed “torture porn” and “gorno” by critics), and that bothers me. Are people really entertained by all that blood and gore? And if that is not the right word, what IS the experience that they crave, as they settle their butts into aisle seats? As to the people who make such films, why on earth do they spend precious hours of their lives depicting demoralizing, black spectacles of the last things that any of us would wish to experience, or even wish upon our worst enemies? Oh, believe me, I know the obvious answer to my question (they DO make money after all, and frankly, how hard can they be to make? We all know what we don’t wish to experience; all one has to do is pick up a camera and film that!), but is even money worth the de-humanizing that I feel must go on in the process of creating such films?

 I am not arguing against the presence of violence in films. Indeed, some of my personal favorites, such as “The Godfather” and “Goodfellas”, contain numerous scenes that are not for the squeamish. If push came to shove, I could probably even be called upon to defend Wes Craven’s notorious, ultra-violent 70’s sleeper, “Last House on the Left” ( which took its plot from Bergman’s “The Virgin Spring” and borrowed heavily from Kubrick’s “A Clockwork Orange”). One might well ask, what’s the difference? Well, in the case of LHOTL, this was an amateurish film by a freshman director, depicting amateurish villains who epitomize the dumb, self absorbed, amoral, societal outcasts we can easily imagine committing the atrocious crimes we see onscreen (and read about in the papers). They are not the incarnations of sadism one finds in slick gorno movies, creatures right out of our nightmares who are intelligent and irredeemably evil, sparing no expense to devise the most ingenious and horrific methods by which to dispense with their victims, for no other purpose than the pleasure that they get from doing so. To arrive at an understanding of the villains of the gorno movies, to place them in any sort of context, we need to go back to a French nobleman from the Age of Enlightenment whose writing was so over the top that he provides the very name for the “ism” that is out and out cruelty toward another living being.

 Sade’s “libertines” (one should not refer to them as  “villains”, when to him they were heroes) were precisely the kind of monsters we see in todays horror movies. Smarter and more powerful than their victims, they operated without restraint, and with no other purpose than to inflict pain. In Sade’s stories, the only way to escape victimhood was to allow yourself to become corrupted by your torturers, to become just as merciless and sadistic as them. These were the only triumphs he would allow in his nightmarish fables, that some would “liberate” themselves from any moral or empathetic impulses, which he insisted came from society, the real “villain” he himself was at war with. One can read Sade’s stories and accept them as he intended, as all-out assaults on society and civilization, on anything that limited individuals from behaving exactly as they themselves chose to. But that would naturally lead one to ask, if people could do anything they wanted to, why would they do that? Looking deeper, I believe that one can find a more pathological motivation, one which is readily on display in today’s torture porn movies as well; a deep seated hatred of the human body.

 Oh, Sade loathed bodies!  He wanted them sliced, diced, beaten, pulled apart, you name it. The one thing he didn’t want was for them to keep their original, native form, to be allowed to go on about their ways in peace. To him, an intact body was a challenge, perhaps even an affront, to his aesthetic. He treated them with nothing but the utmost disdain. And yet, it is telling that for all the descriptions of cruelty he filled page after feverish page with, he was particularly vicious toward the parts of the body that give birth to and nurture other bodies. Although there is no question that his writings and ideas have spiced up the sex lives of numerous couples throughout the years (and hey, whatever gets you through the night…), in the works themselves sex was anything but a life affirming, life celebrating activity. Genitalia, breasts, pregnant women, and fetuses are mercilessly tortured and destroyed by Sade’s libertines. The family itself is attacked viciously. In his stories, fathers rape their daughters, and corrupted daughters do unspeakable things to their mothers. The very reality of biological life seems to infuriate him.

 What’s going on here? In the face of such depravity, one naturally searches for answers. Even if the knowledge goes nowhere toward ending man’s inhumanity to man, we strive to somehow make sense of things so dark and twisted they seem to defy explanation, for the sake of our own sanity if nothing else. My belief is that we see in Sade’s writing a psychological phenomenon that has its roots in the very nature of our sentience. It is the mind’s hatred of the body, because it can suffer, and take the mind along with it as it does so. 

 It is hard to imagine anything more painful than being eaten alive from the hind legs forward, and yet this is a fate that befalls thousands of our fellow creatures, in forests and savannas, every day. The vast majority of human beings will come to far more benign ends, but the important distinction is that we are well aware of what could happen to us, if we are not careful, or just plain unlucky. The fact is that, unlike animals, we can think about things happening to us that are every bit as frightening and unwelcome as the things that are shown in the torture movies. It is with our minds that we think about them, but it is our bodies that we imagine experiencing the suffering. We are the only species that has a distinct separation, a schism even, between mind and body. We can actually live lives, of a kind, outside our bodies. No other creature can. We can daydream, create stories, make songs, paint pictures, have sexual fantasies, relive memories vividly, conceptualize, invent, etc. We can easily imagine a life involving no body at all! Indeed, we have created science fiction stories where our minds are placed inside computers, thereby living eternal, pain-free lives. People who are stricken with cancer or other long term, debilitating and painful illnesses frequently describe themselves as “prisoners” in their bodies. What I am positing is that there is an element of human consciousness that chronically feels this way. Sade was expressing this, first and foremost, I believe, though he himself was perhaps unaware of it and presumedly would have denied it. It is ironic that he, due to his atrocious behavior as well as his writing (which outraged the Emperor Napolean), spent much of his life as a prisoner, in jails and mental asylums, creating through his mind an outward experience of the very thoughts that drove his writing. 

 The mind is frightened by the amount of pain, seemingly limitless, that the body it is merged with can experience. Although our central nervous system has evolved the sensation of pain to keep us from burning or bleeding or freezing to death, this impeccable biological system renders us horrendously vulnerable. So averse to its demise is our body that it keeps pain sensations active even as we lie helpless, and crushed, under the rubble of an earthquake, or trapped inside a burning room, on the off chance that we will somehow manage to get ourselves out of our predicament. Isn’t it plausible that our minds, aware of the stubbornness of the body, and its survival-at-any-cost imperative, would develop resentment against it? Why can’t we shut the pain mechanism down when we want to (apparently some yogis have developed this very ability, but it takes years of rigorous training)? When there is no hope of escape? Every king, dictator, Grand Inquisitor and mafioso throughout history has exploited this “flaw” in the body’s design. In fact, it is impossible to imagine the worst forms of government even existing without it, as such regimes are propped up by the fear they induce in the common folk. All of that suffering, down through the ages; no wonder the mind is pissed!

 And so, the mind acts this out, through the mediums that it has developed, the “art” that is Sade’s writing and today’s gorno movies. Each time the mind, represented by Sade’s libertines or Hannibal Lector, or any of the demonic, merciless,ingenious psychopaths who fill our screens as well as our nightmares, gleefully tortures to death somebody else’s body, it has its revenge, momentarily. That’s the experience viewers are after, I feel. Though I am disturbed by such movies, and by the large following they have, I ultimately see them as merely symptomatic, and don’t expect them to go away. They, or some similar manifestation, will be with us so long as we have the ability to contemplate, and fear, our fate.

While the subject of hate is complex, hate itself can be divided into two general categories: rational and irrational. Unjust acts inspire rational hate. Who but the most spiritual or the most philosophic of us could argue that hatred of someone who had maliciously harmed us or our loved ones is irrational? Hatred of a person based on race, religion, sexual orientation, ethnicity, or national origin constitutes irrational hate. When I talk about hate, I am talking about the irrational kind. Most definitions of hate focus on the ways in which hate-mongers see entire groups of people as the “Other.” For example, Tolerance.org argues that “All hate groups have beliefs or practices that attack or malign an entire class of people, typically for their immutable characteristics.”

According to the southern Poverty Law Center and the Anti-Defamation League ( SPLC and the ADL) a hate group is any organized body whose beliefs and actions are rooted in enmity towards an entire class of people based on ethnicity, perceived race, sexual orientation, religion or other inherent characteristic. I want to add to this anti-government and conspiracy theorists.

As I wrote in my introduction to Hate In America, I often try to comfort myself by looking at history when I think things have never been worse. I have found that hate in America is as traditional as apple pie—the same as in any country, but because we are a nation of immigrants we have very conflicted attitudes. In some ways it is might be considered fair to consider the United States of America as this country’s original hate group. And it started even before the War of Independence was won.

Racism against Native Americans

During the colonial and independent periods there were many conflicts with the indigenous Americans in order to take their resources. Through wars, massacres and forced displacement and the imposition of treaties, land was taken and numerous hardships imposed. After the creation of the United States, the idea of Indian removal gained momentum. The doctrine of “Manifest Destiny” included stereotyped perceptions of all Native Americans as “merciless Indian savages.” Racial rhetoric increased during the era of Manifest Destiny. In a policy formulated largely by President George Washington’s Secretary of War, Henry Knox, the U.S. government sought to encourage Native Americans to sell their vast tribal lands and become “civilized”, which meant (among other things) for Native Americans to abandon their cultures of hunting and become farmers, and for their society to reorganize and give up clans or tribes.

There are too many incidences and dates to cite, but I have tried to list the main examples of systematic racism.

1776—Thomas Jefferson inserted this sentence into the Declaration of Independence (referring to grievances against King George III): “He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian savages, whose known rule of warfare, is undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.”

1803 –Louisiana Purchase; Lewis and Clark expedition. One goal: gather information about the Native American tribes to be used against them.

1830– Indian Removal Act passed by Congress; legalized removal of all Indians east of Mississippi to lands west of the river. “Trail of Tears” in which Native Americans suffered from exposure, disease, and starvation while en route to their destinations, and many died, including 4,000 of the 15,000 relocated Cherokee.

1837 –Smallpox epidemic on the Plains. Many historians claim that blankets infested with the disease given to Native Americans.

1862– Minnesota Uprising of Sioux; 38 hanged at Mankato.

1870– First Ghost Dance Movement, Prayer to prevent immigration.

1876 –Battle of Little Big Horn (Custer).

1877– Chief Joseph and the Nez Perce War.

1890 –Wounded Knee on the Pine Ridge. Ghost Dance. Last major bloodshed involving Indians and the U.S. Government.

Racism Against African Americans

1641 – Slavery legalized in Massachusetts colony.

1790– 20 percent of the overall population in the thirteen colonies was of African descent. The legalized practice of enslaving blacks occurred in every colony. Slaves were used as a labor force in agricultural production, shipyards, docks, and as domestic servants. In both regions, only the wealthiest Americans owned slaves. Poor whites recognized that slavery devalued their own labor. The social rift along color lines soon became ingrained in every aspect of colonial American culture.

1857—The Supreme Court issues the Dred Scott decision, which decreed a slave was his master’s property and African Americans were not citizens.

1883 – A number of cases are addressed under this Supreme Court decision. Decided that the Civil Rights Act of 1875 (the last federal civil rights legislation until the Civil Rights Act of 1957) was unconstitutional. Allowed private sector segregation.

1896 –Plessy v. Ferguson. The Supreme Court decided that “separate but equal” facilities satisfy Fourteenth Amendment guarantees, thus giving legal sanction to Jim Crow segregation laws.

The 20^th century was nadir of American race relations and saw a hardening of institutionalized racism and legal discrimination against African Americans.    Poll  taxes, acts of terror by groups such as the KKK were not unusual. The first half of this century saw racism in the United States worse than at any period before or since. All expressions of white supremacy increased, including anti-black violence, lynching and race riots.

1908 –Race Riot in Springfield Illinois leads to the creation of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP)

1913 –Federal segregation. The Wilson administration began government-wide segregation of work places, rest rooms and lunch rooms.

1919–Whites riot against blacks in Washington, DC. The white mob – whose actions were triggered in large part by weeks of sensational newspaper accounts of alleged sex crimes by a “Negro fiend” – unleashed a wave of violence that swept over the city for four days. The Washington riot was one of more than 20 that took place that summer in different states.

Meanwhile, the Ku Klux Klan was being revived in Maryland and Virginia, as racial hatred burst forth with the resurgence of lynching of black men and women around the country – 28 public lynchings in the first six months of 1919 alone, including seven black WW II veterans killed while still wearing their Army uniforms.

1921–The deadliest racial confrontation begin in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The exact number of people killed in the riot, which destroyed a 30-square-block area was never determined. Some historians, citing survivors’ accounts, have put the figure as high as 300.

Racism against Asian-Americans

The first wave of Chinese came here at the beginning of the 19^th century to work as laborers on the transcontinental railroad. While industrial employers were eager to get this new and cheap labor, the ordinary white public was stirred to anger by the presence of this “yellow peril.” Political parties and unions rallied against the immigration of yet another “inferior race”. Newspapers condemned the policies of employers, and even church leaders denounced the entrance of these aliens into what was regarded as a land for whites only.

1882 — Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act, which prohibited immigration from China for the next ten years. This law was then extended in 1892. The Chinese Exclusion Act was the only US law ever to prevent immigration on the basis of race. These laws not only prevented new immigration but also brought additional suffering as they prevented the reunion of the families of thousands of Chinese men already living in the U.S. that had left China without their wives and children.

The Chinese were often subject to harder labor on the transcontinental railroad and often performed the more dangerous tasks such as using dynamite to make pathways through the mountains.  The San Francisco Vigilance Movement promoted mob violence against Chinese immigrants. My husband, who is Chinese and has family that has lived in San Francisco for generations, tells that the Chinese were blamed for the earthquake in 1906.

During World War II, the United States created internment camps for Japanese citizens in fear that they would be used as spies for the Japanese.

Racism against Latin Americans

1830s –The United States first came into conflict with Mexico as the westward spread of Anglo settlements and of slavery brought significant numbers  of new settlers into the region known as Tejas (modern-day Texas), then part of Mexico.

1848–After the Mexican-American War, the treaty promised that the landowners in this newly won area would enjoy protection of their property as if they were citizens of the United States. Many former citizens of Mexico lost their land in lawsuits or as a result of legislation passed after the treaty.

1851– California Land Act enacted, which had the effect of dispossessing Californio owners ruined by the cost of maintaining litigation over land titles for years.

1943–The Zoot Suit Riots were incidents of racial violence against Latinos in Los Angeles. Repeated confrontations over many months between small groups and individuals culminated into several days of non-stop rioting. Large mobs of servicemen would enter civilian quarters looking to attack Mexican American kids, some of whom were wearing zoot suits, a distinctive exaggerated fashion popular among that group.  The disturbances continued and were even assisted by the local police for several days before military commanders declared downtown Los Angeles and Mexican American neighborhoods off-limits to servicemen

1960’s –Mexican-American workers formed unions of their own and joined integrated unions. The most significant union struggle involving Mexican-Americans was the United Farm Workers’ long strike and boycott aimed at grape growers in the San Joaquin and Coachella Valleys.

Anti-Semitism

1800s and early 1900s– hundreds of thousands of Eastern European Jews were escaping the pogroms, and largely arrived at Ellis Island in New York, as my family did. It is thought that as soon as they left the boat, they were subject to racism from the port authorities. (The derogatory term ‘kike’ was adopted when referring to Jews because they often could not write English letters so they may have signed their immigration papers with circles – or kikel in Yiddish.)

1910– Southern Jewish communities were attacked by the KKK, which often used ‘The Jewish Banker’ in their propaganda.

1915– Texas-born, New York Jew Leo Frank was lynched by the newly re-formed Klan, after being falsely convicted of rape and sentenced to life imprisonment.

1924—National Origins Quota Act passed.  Growing anti-immigration feelings in the United States at this time resulted in the quota, which severely restricted immigration from Eastern Europe. It remained in effect until 1965.

In the years before and during World War II the United States Congress, the Roosevelt Administration, and public opinion expressed concern about the fate of Jews in Europe but consistently refused to permit large-scale immigration of Jewish refugees. The United States accepted only 21,000 refugees from Europe accepting far fewer Jews per capita than many of the neutral European countries and fewer in absolute terms than Switzerland.

U.S. opposition to immigration in general in the late 1930s was motivated by the grave economic pressures, the high unemployment rate, and social frustration and disillusionment. The U.S. refusal to support specifically Jewish immigration, however, stemmed from something else, namely anti-Semitism, which had increased in the late 1930s and continued to rise in the 1940s. It was an important ingredient in America’s negative response to Jewish refugees. About 100,000 German Jews did arrive in the 1930s, escaping Hitler’s persecution.

1939–The SS St. Louis sailed from Germany in May carrying 936 Jewish refugees. On 4 June it was also refused permission to unload on orders of President Roosevelt as the ship waited between Florida and Cuba.

Jewish lobbying for intervention in Europe drew opposition from the isolationists/nativists, amongst who was Father Charles Coughlin, a well known radio priest, who was a renowned anti-Semite, believing that Jews were leading America into the war. He preached in weekly, overtly anti-Semitic sermons and, from 1936, began publication of a newspaper, Social Justice, in which he printed anti-Semitic accusations such as The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, as did Henry Ford in his Dearborn, Michigan newspaper.

Anti-European immigrant racism

Several European immigrant groups have been subject to discrimination either on the basis of their immigrant status (“nativism”) or on the basis of their ethnicities.

In the 19th century, this was particularly anti-Irish racism, which was partly anti-Catholic, partly anti-Irish as an ethnicity or race (notably accused of drunkenness), an example being the Philadelphia Nativist Riots.

The 20th century saw racism against Italian Americans and Polish Americans partly from anti-Catholic sentiment, and partly from Nordicism, which considered Southern Europeans and Eastern Europeans inferior. Nordicism lead to the reduction in Southern European and Eastern European immigrants in the Immigration Act of 1924

Racism against Middle Easterners and Muslims

Racism against Middle Eastern Americans arose in the 1970’s following the Iranian Revolution and the taking of Americans during the Hostage Crisis. Following the 9/11 attacks, discrimination and violence has markedly increased against Arab Americans and many other religious and cultural groups.

Iraqis were demonized which led to hatred towards Arabs and Iranians living in the United States. There have been attacks against Arabs not only on the basis of their religion but also on the basis of their ethnicity and even their clothing.  In addition, non-Arabs who are mistaken for Arabs because of perceived “similarities in appearance” have been collateral victims of anti-Arabism.

Iranians as well as South Asians of different ethnic/religious backgrounds (Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs) have been stereotyped as “Arabs”. Ann Coulter called Iranians “ragheads” and Brent Scowcroft  called the Iranian people “rug merchants.”

Homophobic Discrimination

In covering a history of homophobic discrimination, it gives a clearer picture to list the laws that reduced discrimination, rather than to only list laws that were anti-gay. The reason for this is that until the 20^th century in America, gays were mainly in the closet. They had the ability to hide their sexuality for the most part. And they had to—the entire society saw them as deviants. Because of that ability (and necessity) to hide themselves, there was very little institutional homophobia; it was only after the gay community formed and gays dared to congregate that they became hate targets on a larger scale. When reading about these laws that were written for gays, it is good to remember that before they were enacted, they had no legal protections. One more point about the anti-gay groups: Almost all of them are Christian religious organizations, but I hesitate to label them all as hate groups, although some clearly are.

1958– the Supreme Court established a precedent that a homosexual publication was not intrinsically “obscene” and thus protected by the First Amendment.

1967, the Supreme Court upheld the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 which among other things banned homosexuals, as constitutional. This ban remained in effect until 1991.

1969—Stonewall riots in New York. On June 27, the police raided a gay bar, which was a common practice at the time. This type of raid, which was often conducted during city elections, had a new development as some of the patrons in the bar began actively resisting the police arrests. For the first time a large group of LGBT Americans who had previously had little or no involvement with the organized gay rights movement rioted for three days against police harassment and brutality. These new activists were not polite or respectable but rather angry activists that confronted the police, taking their cues from other civil rights movements of the 60’s. This was the beginning of the Gay Liberation movement.

1977– the Supreme Court refused to hear the case of a high school teacher fired for being gay. While this is not an official judgment on the merit of the case, it did uphold a lower court’s ruling that becoming a “known homosexual” automatically impaired his efficiency as a teacher which used various methods to support this claim: 1. Defined homosexuality based on the New Catholic Encyclopedia which deemed the act as implicitly immoral; 2. An “immoral” person could not be trusted to instruct students as his presence would be inherently disruptive.

1985– the Supreme Court let stand an appellate ruling ordering the university to provide official recognition of a student organization for homosexual students. The case set a national precedent by removing legal restrictions against gay rights groups on college campuses.

1986– the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that homosexual sex was not protected under the right to privacy.

1996–the Supreme Court ruled against an amendment to the Colorado state constitution that would have prevented any city, town or county in the state from taking any legislative, executive, or judicial action to protect homosexual citizens from discrimination.

1998– President Clinton’s Executive Order  prohibits discrimination based on sexual orientation for federal employees.

2000– the Supreme Court ruled that the Boy Scouts of America had a First Amendment right to exclude people from its organization on the basis of sexual orientation.

2003– the United States Supreme Court ruled in Lawrence v. Texas that laws against sodomy cannot be directed at homosexuals alone, and furthermore, that intimate consensual sexual conduct is protected by the Fourteenth Amendment.

Owing to the United States’ federal system and the variety of attitudes toward LGBT rights, the status of LGBT civil rights in the U.S. is at present a patchwork. At the federal level, there is no recognition of same-sex unions and no laws forbidding employment discrimination against LGBT persons. Some states have enacted such laws, however. States in the Deep South still support homosexuality being completely illegal, and overwhelmingly oppose marriage-like rights or same-sex marriage.

State courts also produced a patchwork of court opinions regarding the rights of LGBT citizens to marry, which has prompted calls for a Federal Marriage Amendment, along with state amendments to ensure that courts would not change the civil definition of marriage. As of 2007, the legal options available to same-sex couples depends on what state they reside in.

Hate crime laws (also known as bias crimes laws) protect against crimes motivated by feelings of enmity or animus against a protected class. On April 29, 2009, the House of Representatives passed H.R.1913, the Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2009, which would expand the definition of hate crimes in federal law to include gender, sexual orientation, gender-identity, and disability. The legislation would also remove the prerequisite that victims of hate crimes be engaging in a federally protected activity (Matthew Sheppard Act).

Currently, in the United States there is no federal law against housing discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity.

From Wikipedia: “As the movement for same-sex marriage has developed, many national and/or international organizations have opposed that movement. Those organizations include the American Family Association, the Christian Coalition, Family Research Council, Focus on the Family, the Moral Majority, NARTH, the national Republican Party, the Roman Catholic Church, the The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons), the Southern Baptist Convention, Alliance for Marriage, Alliance Defense Fund, Liberty Counsel, and the National Organization for Marriage.”  It’s worth a read to see how these groups have embedded themselves into the political discourse. One I’d like to add is the Westboro Baptist Church, infamous for their preaching that “God Hates Fags.”

Other Hate Groups

Militias, white supremacists, tax-protestors, Identity Christians, and Patriots often intertwine ideologically and it is hard to unravel these groups.

The Militia movement is a paramilitary movement with roots from the Survivalist movement, tax-protester movement and other movements in the United States. It inherited paramilitary traditions of earlier groups, especially the conspiratorial, far-right antigovernment “Posse Comitatus” which took its moniker  from the government Act of the same name. The formation of today’s militias was influenced by the historical precedent of existing paramilitary movements such as the Posse Comatitus. The County Rule (posse comitatus literally means the power of the county) movement and the militias share an ideological kinship, revolving around the idea that the county is the supreme level of government and the sheriff the highest elected official. Posse comitatus refers to the authority of county sheriffs to conscript able-bodied males to keep the peace or arrest felons. The power still exists in states that have not repealed it by statute.

1878–Posse Comitatus Act prohibits the use of U.S. troops for civil duties like domestic law enforcement short a declaration of martial law. The Act provides two exceptions: those expressly authorized by the Constitution; and those Congress expressly authorizes. For instance, Congress expressly authorized the Coast Guard to carry out drug law enforcement duties during peacetime.

1970s– Richard Butler, a neo-Nazi from California carrying out a self-described war against the “Zionist Occupational Government,” or ZOG, relocated to the Idaho panhandle to establish his Aryan Nations compound. He saw the Pacific Northwest, with its relatively low minority population, as the region where God’s kingdom could be established. Butler also believed that a racially pure nation needs an army.  .

1990s. The militia movement grew following controversial standoffs with the federal government. The militia movement claims that militia groups are sanctioned by law but uncontrolled by government; in fact, they are designed to oppose a tyrannical government. Adherents believe that behind the “tyranny” is a left-wing, globalist conspiracy known as the New World Order.

1991 –Publication of Pat Robertson’s book, “The New World Order.” Members of the Christian right who subscribe to the conspiratorial world view presented in Robertson’s book are part of the  far-right milieu home to a variety of movements, including Identity Christians, Constitutionalists, tax protesters, and white supremacists.

The militias have close ties to the older and more broadly based Patriot movement, from which they emerged, and which supplies their worldview. According to Chip Berlet, an analyst at Political Research Associates in Cambridge, Massachusetts, who has been tracking the far right for over two decades, this movement consists of loosely-linked organizations and individuals who perceive a global conspiracy in which key political and economic events are manipulated by a small group of elite insiders. On one flank of the Patriot movement are white supremacists and anti-Semites, who believe that the world is controlled by a cabal of Jewish bankers.

At the other end of this relatively narrow spectrum is the John Birch Society, which has repeatedly repudiated anti-Semitism, but has its own paranoia. For the Birchers, it is not the Rothschilds but such institutions as the Council on Foreign Relations, the Trilateral Commission, and the U.N. which secretly call the shots.  Berlet estimates that as many as five million Americans consider themselves Patriots.

1991—End of the cold war. While the Patriot movement has long existed on the margins of U.S. society, it has grown markedly in recent years.  Three factors have sparked that growth. One is the end of the Cold War. With the collapse of the Soviet empire, their search for enemies turned toward the federal government, long an object of simmering resentment. The other factors are economic and social. While the Patriot movement provides a pool of potential recruits for the militias, it in turn draws its members from a large and growing number of U.S. citizens who oppose the federal government.  This predominantly white, male, and middle- and working-class sector has been buffeted by global economic restructuring, with its attendant job losses, declining real wages and social dislocations. While under economic stress, this sector has also seen its traditional privileges and status challenged by 1960s-style social movements, such as feminism, minority rights, and environmentalism.

1992– Ruby Ridge, Idaho. Two events inflamed Patriot passions and precipitated the formation of new  militias. The first was the FBI’s confrontation with white supremacist Randy Weaver at Ruby Ridge, in which federal agents killed Weaver’s son and wife.

1993—Waco, Texas. The second was the federal government’s destruction of David Koresh and his followers at the Branch Davidian compound in Waco. Key promoters of the militia movement repeatedly invoke Ruby Ridge and Waco as spurs to the formation of militias to defend the citizenry against a hostile federal government.

1993 –Passage of the Brady Bill (imposing a waiting period and background checks for the purchase of a handgun).

1994 –Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act (banning the sale of certain types of assault rifles). To the Patriot movement, these laws are the federal government’s first step in disarming the citizenry, to be followed by the much dreaded United Nations invasion and the imposition of the New World Order.  But while raising apocalyptic fears among Patriots, gun control legislation also angered more mainstream gun owners. Some have become newly receptive to conspiracy theorists and militia recruiters, who justify taking such a radical step with the Second Amendment: “A well-regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” Right-wing organizers have long used the amendment to justify the creation of armed formations. The Ku Klux Klan began as a militia movement, and the militia idea has continued to circulate in white supremacist circles.

It has also spread within the Christian right.

Christian Patriot Movement

The Christian Patriot movement is a movement of political commentators and activists. Their interpretations of history and law aver that the federal government has turned against the ideas of liberty and individual rights behind the American revolution and America’s Christian heritage.

In the early 1990s, the Coalition on Revival, an influential national Christian right networking organization, circulated a 24-plank action plan. It advocated the formation of “a countywide `well-regulated militia’ according to the U.S. Constitution under the control of the county sheriff and Board of Supervisors.” (Sheriff Joe Arpaio ?)

(It is at this point that I find myself on unsteady ground. Do Christian dominionists belong in this category? Do right-wing churches? It’s a quivery line, but I want to present only those groups delineated as hate groups by the SPLA and The ADL, even though I personally feel that Christian radicalism, like radical Islam, contains threads that can be categorized as hate. But in general, I will leave religious hate for another discussion.)

———————————————

Obviously, I have left out scores of examples of institutional racism and discrimination in the United States, and I hope you will see this as a limitation of space, and not as insensitivity. I also left out many specific groups that I will address when discussing the rise of hate on the internet.

We like to think that we have made progress, that we are different from the unenlightened people of an earlier age, and most of us are. But hardly all of us. We can make allowances for Thomas Jefferson the slave owner and anti- American Indian Founding Father—after all, he was from a different time.  Most people have changed and evolved. We can see by looking at the history of hate in America how far we have come. And we can see by the rise of hate in the media and on the internet how far we still need to go. The roots of bigotry and hatred run deep in our national experience, but while I think we need to stay vigilant, I came away from this exercise more encouraged than despondent.

(Next—Part 2: Hate Speech and the First Amendment)

Taking Action Against The SCOTUS Decision!

A couple of weeks ago I posted in the Time Out..O/T post an alert from CREDO Action Alert and asked everyone to sign the petition.  The petition was on for a FCC hearing.
The hearing was on internet freedom.  According to CREDO and another outside source the response was overwhelming.  The petition for internet freedom out numbered what the corporations could produce!  Thank You. I hope we just saved “The Planet” and our POV will remain intact.

Today I received another alert concerning the recent SCOTUS decision that fell on us like standing under a tree with a flock of birds roosting in it. It was messy and  didn’t smell too good either.  I am asking every one to please read and sign the petition supporting legislative action to curtail this as soon as possible.  Our very Democracy may depend on it.

Do you remember what Mr. Fluffywuvers faced?  Then sign the petition!

Attention Planet People,

We deserve a country where our elected officials are not bought and paid for by Big Business. But last week’s Supreme Court decision in the case Citizens United vs. FEC overturned over a century of precedent and opened the floodgates for unlimited amounts of corporate money to flow into our political system. Shockingly, the court’s decision may even allow foreign corporations and large multinationals to manipulate our elections.

If we do nothing, this ruling has the potential to undermine the very foundation of our democracy.

Representative Alan Grayson has been one the most forceful voices in responding to this crisis. He has introduced a number of bills as part of a “Save Our Democracy” initiative to blunt some of the worst implications of the Supreme Court’s decision.

I signed a petition to President Obama and the Congressional leadership telling them they must enact Grayson’s strong laws to save our democracy from the pernicious influence of corporate money. Please join me by clicking below.

http://act.credoaction.com/campaign/grayson_democracy/?r_by=7507-2307056-iH.6BVx&rc=confemail1

Preface

I recently wrote an article about the upcoming trial of Scott Roeder. There have been numerous responses to the article, and many have been both thoughtful and passionate. I began to write this as a responses to some of those posts in the hopes of offering both explanation and food for thought. The post became so lengthy that I felt it deserved to become an article of its own.

I ask that everyone who reads it keep in mind that this is not directed at any one person, nor is it intended as a rebuttal of some sort to anything that has been posted. I respect everyone’s view and found myself agreeing very strongly with many things that were said. This article is intended to share my own very deep and personal feelings about not only the trial but also the idea of justice as it applies to both civil and criminal law.

I pray that none should look upon this as directed at himself or herself. Indeed, the only person who should feel any uneasiness about sharing these words is the author of them. However, we are adults, and I’m confident that I can offer these words without the danger of creating undue conflict. At least that is my hope.

Let me offer a very grim example to explain my view upon what Sedgwick County Judge Warren Wilbert has done. If any of you have seen those really creepy Saw movies you will know that the guy known as “Jigsaw” places people in life or death situations as a means of actually teaching them lessons about the value of their lives and/or the wrongs they have committed against others while living their lives. The films show people who find themselves forced to face their personal flaws in very gruesome and darkly ironical ways.

Now let’s take the idea of Jigsaw and pretend that he got caught while he was alive (in the film series he actually dies despite people continuing the “work” in his absence). If Jigsaw were brought before a judge and tried to use a “necessity defense” it would most certainly be denied – rightly so. Let’s examine how and why.

Jigsaw could claim that these people were doing things they shouldn’t be, and it was his honest belief that he needed to teach these people lessons, and thereby his actions are legally defensible as necessary since they are for the betterment of humanity. The law does not recognize such beliefs. The judge would have to tell Jigsaw and his legal defense team that his actions are not defensible as necessary because the laws of the United States do not take his beliefs into account; beliefs are irrelevant in the eyes of the court. The fact would be that Jigsaw kidnapped people, held them against their will, and placed them in horrible situations that forced them to commit acts that are nothing short of inhuman. That’s the view the law takes.

Forgive this rather twisted example, but I wanted to use an extreme to illustrate the idea at work here: belief plays no part in the way the law works. Sometimes this can have undesired effects; think predatory lending and repossessions. Sometimes those who were unaware that they were doing something wrong find themselves to be a victim too; think about tax laws, and I’m sure you can easily imagine an example. Sometimes people are truly innocent of the intent to commit a criminal act and do so unknowingly or unwillingly, and often in such situations the defendant’s mental competency and stability are examined very closely; the examples of this are endless. Still, at the end of the day justice is suppose to be blind, and the ramifications of that fact are legion.

We all know people who are victims of our flawed legal system. The people we know might even include ourselves. The system is far from perfect. There are people who truly need help in this world. I’m not just talking about those who are not-guilty by reason of insanity either. Think of the drunk driver who has a serious problem with alcohol. Think of the gang member who grew up knowing nothing but violence and destitution, and thereby learned that if they are to survive they must take what they need by force. The list of examples goes on and on. There are always two sides to every story.

Nevertheless, the law is clear on this matter. Scott Roeder took the life of a man who did nothing wrong. The procedures that Dr. Tiller performed are legal. One may not agree with them, and that is certainly their privilege, but the law does not view the actions of Dr. Tiller as illegal. Indeed, he was even taken into courts of law to see if he was in fact guilty of breaking laws, but Tiller was never found guilty of any wrong-doing. That is the viewpoint of the law.

Judge Wilbert has now allowed for the idea of belief to be introduced in this trial. The reality is that it should have no place in this matter. If Roeder had taken the life of someone who was guilty of committing crimes (a mafia hitman for example) then the idea of necessity could apply. However, in this situation the “crimes” of Dr. Tiller exist only within the mind of Scott Roeder. Judge Wilbert’s decision is a mistake for that reason. Let’s go back to the original example where we used the character from the Saw movie series. Do you think Judge Wilbert would have allowed for Jigsaw’s belief in his “work” to be a permissible point for an attorney to bring up? The public outrage would be unimaginable!

As for myself personally, I am a liberal first and foremost regardless of all else. I do not automatically condemn the joyrider, the tax evader, the deadbeat dad, the drug dealer, the shoplifter, or even Scott Roeder. Let me reiterate: there are always two sides to every story. That is the very reason we have courts and court-appointed attorneys.

Do not misunderstand my meaning. Those who are guilty of breaking laws must be held to account for their actions, but our legal system needs to be about more than justice for the victim. Rehabilitation needs to be more than just a word that we use because it sounds good. People who break the law (knowingly or otherwise) will continue to do so unless we help them become better people. Justice needs to be about more than satisfying public outrage over the actions of another.

In the Middle Ages people were publicly tortured and executed. I often wonder if films like Saw aren’t designed to feed some disgusting desire within people who secretly want to see such things to this very day. I’m sure that the countless beheadings (40,00 according to some estimates) during the French Revolution appeased that very blood-lust. It certainly seemed to please the mob who looked on with cold-hearted taunts and jeers.

When we think of the French Revolution we are often reminded of Marie Antionette’s words “let them eat cake” despite this being an entirely fictional quote. Let me tell you who I think about when I reflect upon those dark and blood days.

Madame du Barry was a mistress of Louis XV. She was found guilty of treason and condemned to die. The accounts of her moments before death haunt me whenever I hear mention of the French Revolution or debates about the death penalty.

As she was being taken to the guillotine, she continually collapsed in fear and cried out. “You are going to hurt me! Why?!” She screamed hysterically. She begged the crowd for mercy and pleaded for someone to save her. There were those who were so visibly moved that for the first time the executioner almost became hesitant. Madame du Barry’s last words were directed to that executioner: “One moment more, Mr. executioner, I beg you!” Her body now lays in the Madeleine cemetery. It is the final resting place of Louis XVI, Marie-Antoinette and many, many other victims of the French Revolution.

What was her crime? Being a courtesan who had close ties to the royal family.

As one who was not alive during those days of terror, my own ears didn’t hear the pleas of that poor, poor woman. Nevertheless, my mind still rings with the echo of those words, and my heart breaks at the thought of that moment before Madame du Barry was forever silenced.

In the years before the French Revolution many, many people were suffering. That cannot be denied. As a liberal I find that to be an outrage too. Yet, I cannot help but find the way their desperation drove them to commit heinous acts in the name of justice to be tragic in the extreme.

How many of us feel a certain satisfaction when people are publicly shamed or humiliated out of a sense of justice?

I am very angry with Judge Wilbert, but I can imagine he feels he’s doing the right thing in some way. Although, I do feel very strongly that he is not. I’m extremely angry with Scott Roeder, but I sincerely hope that if he is indeed in need of treatment for mental illness – as has been said by his brother – that he does get help. It is obvious that he desperately needs it. Indeed, I can say without any intention of humor or irony that many who protest outside of abortion clinics may also need help. This is one reason I hold people like Glenn Beck and Bill O’Reilly in such low regard. They have whipped people into such a frenzy of anger and paranoia that even Maximilien Robespierre himself would have been envious.

May the late George Tiller rest in peace, and may his family find comfort and a solemn peace of their own. May this trial bring closure for all parties involved. May justice be served, but may that justice be meted out in a way that promotes the betterment of society rather than its detriment.

By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat, sat and wept, as we thought of Zion.
There on the willows we hung up our lyres,
for our captors asked us there for songs, our tormentors, for amusement,
“Sing us one of the songs of Zion.”
How can we sing a song of the Lord on alien soil?
If I forget you, O Jerusalem, let my right hand wither;
let my tongue stick to my palate if I cease to think of you,
if I do not keep Jerusalem in memory even at my happiest hour.
. — Psalm 137

When I was growing up, Israel was a source of pride and an example of a new kind of nation. A small country with great heart. What has happened to that vision? How did we get here? How did Israel become the bully, the corporate state, the military state? This is what perpetual war does to people.

Israel was born one year before me, and I think of us as growing up together and growing apart. I cannot express how proud my family was of Israel. We saw it as a brand new country that even had a brand new language—modern Hebrew. Before the creation of Israel, there was no modern Hebrew. It was a place for the displaced, the refuse of the world, the nation comprised of people no other country wanted. For the first time since 72 AD, the Jews had a real home. And of course, this was right after the Holocaust, which was the culmination of centuries of exile, hatred and murder.

As a kid and even as a very young adult, all I knew of Israel was her glory. I read the book, Exodus, by Leon Uris and saw the movie starring Paul Newman—another Jewish hero of sorts. They both glorified the fight for independence from the British, the brave freedom fighters of the Irgun. (The word “terrorist” was still unheard of.) I heard about how the Israelis made the desert bloom, about the kibbutz collectives, where communities lived collectively and raised their children communally. And I also heard about the “bad” Arabs who for some reason could not abide this tiny country in their midst. After all, Israel was the only country in the entire region that had not even one drop of oil. I don’t remember hearing the term Palestinian—only about generic Arabs.

And then I heard about the miraculous Six Day War. Six days! That’s all it took for the brave Israelis to beat the entire Arab world-- The Arab world who attacked them, unprovoked.  And what they gained from that war was the biggest prize of all: Jerusalem, the Temple Wall, which is the holiest place in the world to Jews. The sacred remnant of biblical Judaism, which the Jordanians used as a sewer, literally pissed on in passing. This was followed by other victories: The Raid on Entebbe, the Achille Lauro, The Yom Kippur War and Golda Meir—the first woman to be Prime Minister. It all seemed so noble. And in all those days, Israel was secular. We barely heard, if at all, about the Orthodox throwbacks who lived in Israel, the fanatics who still dressed as if they were in 19^th century Poland. They were such an insignificant minority and Sabras scorned them too.  Israel, after all, was founded by secular Zionists, European Jews who were modern, highly educated. It was a gradual process by which the other Jews made their way to Israel. First, the Middle Eastern Jews from Arab countries, whom we back then considered naturally backward, having lived in oppressive countries, like Yemen, Iraq, Iran, Libya. And then, Operation Moses, where the Ethiopian Jews were airlifted en masse to Israel.  I thought that Israel had really come of age then, when they could accept such exotic people as Ethiopian Jews, or Falashas, as they were called then.

And then, something changed. As I became an adult, I heard more troubling stories. I heard that the non-European Jews were often discriminated against. The Israeli’s seemed more arrogant. Those I met in the US were kind of obnoxious, with a cynical bent and a world-weariness—and a toughness. All that I could still overlook, as we knew that it took a special person to live in Israel. American Jews still admired and respected them—indeed, we saw them as the keepers of the flame, while we lived the soft, assimilated life. In a sense, they were being the authentic Jews for us, by proxy. And American Jewry was happy to pay them for it. If I were a pre-reformation Catholic, I would say that the Israelis were our living indulgences. We even used the word “aliyah,” which means “to go up” or “to rise up”, for moving to Israel, as if moving to Israel was the goal of all Jews. And Israelis knew that for all our talk, the vast majority of the world’s Jews would never want to live there. They looked down on us.

As you can tell, I am not writing this as either an historian or as an objective observer. I have provided time lines for that below. I am writing as I remember the loss of the Israel I knew, and my memories are emotional and one-sided and irrational. As I recall, things started to go badly for my relationship to Israel when Prime Minister Yitzhach Rabin was assassinated.

Rabin was assassinated November 4, 1995 at the end of a rally in support of the Oslo peace Accords. The assassin was a right-wing religious Zionist who strenuously opposed Rabin’s peace initiative and particularly the signing of the Oslo Accords.

The assassination of Rabin was the culmination of Israeli right-wing dissent over the Oslo Peace Process. Rabin was vilified personally by ultra-orthodox conservatives and Likud leaders who perceived the Oslo peace process as an attempt to forfeit the occupied territories. Contrary to Likud’s accusations, Rabin was focused on the consolidation of Israeli settlements in the occupied territories. He planned to give the Palestinian Liberation Organization control of 90% of the West Bank’s Arab population, while retaining 70% of the land in the occupied territories. Hardly what I would call an appeaser!

Likud Leader (and future Prime Minister) Benjamin Netanyahu accused Rabin’s government of being “removed from Jewish tradition…and Jewish values.”  Netanyahu addressed protesters of the Oslo movement at rallies where posters portrayed Rabin in a Nazi SS uniform or being target by in the crosshairs of a sniper. Rabin accused Netanyahu of provoking violence, a charge which Netanyahu strongly rebuffed. What does this remind us of? The parallels to me are stunning—the Right wing is always the Right wing: Religious hypocrites who worship war and conquest. They wrap themselves in whichever flag is handy and proclaim their patriotism while vilifying those who want reason and peace.

The assassination of Rabin was a shock to the Israeli public, and to world Jewry. Now, “we have met the enemy and it is us.”

I believe Rabin’s murder all but doomed future prospects for Israelis and Palestinians to come together and achieve a peace agreement. The assassination also signaled that Israeli settlements in the Occupied Territories had become, as it remains today, an explosive point. The lasting influence of Rabin’s death meant that the specter of future assassination or civil war in Israel if many settlements were removed appears to have encouraged future Israeli prime ministers to back settlement expansion while declaring their eagerness for peace with the Palestinians.  Additionally, the assassination heightened tension between the Labor and Likud parties to an unprecedented level. The emotionally-charged climate is still simmering today. They are, again, parallels between the Republicans and the Democrats here in the US.

I have seen a hardening of Israel’s heart over the years. The exiled have become the exilers, the brutalized the brutalizers. I know of a few young Israeli soldiers who speak of the Palestinians as animals. They have dehumanized their enemy as the Nazis did the Jews. I see few rays of hope other than some sane sense that peace is always made between enemies, and that the state of Israel’s national security, if not its national psyche is at stake. Peace Now is one such ray, and I have been a member since Oslo. Here is their profile:

http://www.peacenow.org.il/site/en/peace.asp?pi=362&docid=1684&pos=1

This is a timeline of the wars fought by Israel since becoming a state:

1.) 1948 War of Independence (November 1947 -- July 1949) — started by a 6 month civil war between Jewish and Arab militias at the end of the British Mandate and that turned into a regular war after the declaration of independence of Israel and the intervention of several Arab armies. It established the green Line between Israel and the west Bank.

2.) The Sinai War (October 1956) -- a military attack on Egypt by Britain, France and Israel beginning on 29 October 1956 with the intention to occupy the Sinai peninsula and to take over the Suez Canal.

3.) The Six Day War (June 1967) -- fought between Israel and Egypt, Jordan and Syria. The nations of Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Algeria also contributed troops and arms to the Arab forces.

4.) War of Attrition (1968-1970) -- a limited war fought between Israel and Egypt, the USSR and the Palestinian Liberation Organization. It was initiated by the Egyptians as a way of recapturing the Sinai from the Israelis.

5.) Yom Kippur War (October 1973) -- fought from October 6 to October 26, 1973 by a coalition of Arab states led by Egypt and Syria against Israel as a way of recapturing part of the territories which they lost to the Israelis back in the Six-Day War.

6.) First Lebanon War (1982) -- began in 6 June 1982, when the IDF invaded Lebanon. The government of Israel ordered the invasion as a response to the assassination attempt against Israel’s ambassador to the UK.

7.) Second Lebanon War (summer 2006) -- began as military operation in response to the abduction of two Israeli reserve soldiers by the Hezbollah.

Violent confrontations that were not recognized as wars:

8.) The retribution operations (in the 1950s) -- originally held to get a high ‘blood cost’ in the Arab side for every terror action made by the Feydayeen who occasionally infiltrated into Israel to conduct attacks.

9.) Black September in Jordon (1970-71) took place when PLO attempted to take power in Jordan backed by Syria. Israel backed up King Hussien, and launched an airstrike on the Syrian forces.

10.) Operation Litani (March 1978)- The 1978 South Lebanon conflict (code-named Operation Litani by Israel) was an invasion of Lebanon up to the Litani River carried out by the Israel Defense Forces in 1978.

11.) Fighting in Southern Lebanon (1985 -- 2000) -- Israeli invasion of Lebanon with the initial goal of destroying the Palestine Liberation Organization.

12.) The First Intifada (Erupted in December 1987) -- was a mass Palestinian uprising against Israeli rule that began in the Jabalia refugee camp and quickly spread throughout Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

13.) The Gulf War (1991) -- during the war the major cities in Israel were attacked by missiles which were launched from Iraq. Israel abstained from military retaliation in response to the Iraqi attack.

14.) The al-Aqsa Intifada (Erupted in September 2000) -- the second massive Palestinian uprising against Israeli rule in the occupied territories.

15.) Operation Cast Lead (2008-2009) -- a military operation of the IDF held in the Gaza Strip. The strikes were a response to frequent Palestinian rocket and mortar fire on its southern civilian communities.

I can only conclude that 15 armed conflicts in 60 years of existence makes a people insane. That’s the only logical conclusion. By contrast, as an American of the same age, I have only experienced two and those—along with 9/11-- has had effects on our psyche too.

For a really great video interactive history of Israel, I highly recommend this short piece put together by the Council of Foreign Relations:

http://www.cfr.org/publication/13850/

A poem by Palestinian poet Mahmoud Dawish

Without exile, who am I?

Stranger on the bank, like the river . . . tied up to your
name by water. Nothing will bring me back from my free
distance to my palm tree: not peace, nor war. Nothing
will inscribe me in the Book of Testaments. Nothing,
nothing glints off the shore of ebb and flow, between
the Tigris and the Nile. Nothing
gets me off the chariots of Pharaoh. Nothing
carries me for a while, or makes me carry an idea: not
promises, nor nostalgia. What am I to do, then? What
am I to do without exile, without a long night
staring at the water?

Tied up
to your name
by water . . .
Nothing takes me away from the butterfly of my dreams
back into my present: not earth, nor fire. What
am I to do, then, without the roses of Samarkand? What
am I to do in a square that burnishes the chanters with
moon-shaped stones? Lighter we both have

become, like our homes in the distant winds. We have
both become friends with the clouds’
strange creatures; outside the reach of the gravity
of the Land of Identity. What are we to do, then . . . What
are we to do without exile, without a long night
staring at the water?

Tied up
to your name
by water . . .
Nothing’s left of me except for you; nothing’s left of you
except for me — a stranger caressing his lover’s thigh: O
my stranger! What are we to do with what’s left for us
of the stillness, of the siesta that separates legend from legend?
Nothing will carry us: not the road, nor home.
Was this road the same from the start,
or did our dreams find a mare among the horses
of the Mongols on the hill, and trade us off?
And what are we to do, then?
What
are we to do
without
exile?

But I guess Bob Marly says it beautifully too.

Ashura 1388 – December 27, 2009, begins over 1,300 years ago. During the three year reign of Yazid I (680-683 CE) of the Ummayad Caliphate, one man refused to swear allegiance to the caliph, he was Hossein, son of Ali, the father whom Shi’as believe the Prophet Mohammad designated to be his successor as spiritual leader and commander in chief of the faithful. (Ali was a son-in-law and cousin of the Prophet Mohammad, Hossein was his grandson.) However; Ali lost out in the immediate aftermath and when he was finally made the fourth (and considered last of the “Rightly Guided”, or Rashidun, caliphs even by Sunnis) by the Ummah, he was assassinated five years into his rule in a Kufa Mosque (present day south-central Iraq) and later buried in Najaf, the third holiest site in Shi’a Islam (behind Mecca and Medina). Ali, like Mohammad (again, this is the Shi’i view) had in turn designated his eldest son Hassan (and older brother of Hossein) to be his successor; but a powerful military leader and Syrian governor by name of Mu’awiya, who had been appointed by the second of the Rashidun caliphs, Umar, swept down, forced Hassan to acquiesce on his claim, and founded the Ummayad Caliphate. His son was Yazid.

After the accession, Hossein’s rebellion against Yazid began in earnest, Yazid was to be regarded as a tyrant and usurper by the Shi’at ‘Ali (Partisans of Ali, meaning of Shi’a). Ironically enough, Hossein opposed the dynastic rule even though the Shi’a schism was founded on the basis that rule ought to be limited to the Prophet’s bloodline (they would contend that through Allah’s messenger they had divine mandate, or nass, unlike Yazid). The climax of this power struggle was at the Battle of Karbala, which took place on the tenth day of the first Islamic month of Moharram (as opposed to the Persian calendar, which overlaps with Dey, this year – here’s a handy calendar converter I use often).

Days before the battle, Hossein and his men, were en route to Kufa from Mecca and intercepted by a group of around a thousand mounted soldiers from Yazid’s army, then compelled to agree to be escorted away from reaching Kufa. The next day, a contingent of four-thousand more of Yazid’s men arrived with an order to have Hossein swear fealty; he refused, and soldiers blocked access to the nearby river. After a few days Yazid decided it was time to finish the recalcitrant challenger off. On the tenth day of Moharram, roughly ten thousand (though numbers are often inflated greatly) of Yazid’s army was assembled around a camp of Hossein’s seventy-two men. Hossein had pleaded with his men to try and escape, to leave him, and tried to reason with the soldiers amassed against them, but Yazid’s army was unyielding, and soon archers were shooting volleys of arrows down upon them. Trapped, dying like the tethered animals with them, Hossein’s men refused to abandon their leader and charged at the army one by one, each being cut down one after the other. At long last, Hossein, after all other able men had gone to their death, with his dead infant son whose throat had been pierced with an arrow in his hands, fought valiantly until at long last he too, parched with thirst and beleaguered as he was, succumbed. His death blow was delivered by Shemr (also known to Shi’as as the “Curse of Allah”), who decapitated Hossein, put his head on a pike, and proceeded to pillage the camp and refused him proper Muslim burial, leaving his body in the desert for three to four days. One might compare it to the Battle of Thermopylae (and I will, briefly, since it’s a fabulous excuse to link this Iranian rapper’s response to the movie “300″). But a better comparison would be with the Passion of Jesus Christ. In any case, his shrine supposedly stands near the spot where he died, similar to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. All analogies must end here though, too many are only a disservice.

The day of the battle is commemorated on the day of Ashura with the preceding days of the beginning of Moharram recounting all the events leading up to it. The outline I’ve written above is by no means complete, I’ve abridged it to the bare bones, and often it is exaggerated for greatest emotional appeal (like Imam Hossein single-handedly slaying over a thousand men before Shemr cut him down, like some sort of Shi’a Siegfried). Mourners, dressed in black and hanging black flags outside their homes, will attend ta’ziehs, or passion plays, where events are dramatically recreated theatrically, rosehs where a Roseh-khoon, mollahs who specializing in performing monologues retelling a story every Iranian knows by heart, but still reducing men to tears (as Hooman Majd says in his book, The Ayatollah Begs to Differ, “[R]eal Shia men do cry”); and often following that, nohehs, or songs around those themes. This is one by two of the most famous noheh singers, Helali and Sibsorkhi. And most famously (not to mention infamously), during the matam, or mourning procession, where men ceremonially beat themselves with chains called zanjirs and chant “Ya Hossein!” and similar exhortations. Contrary to what some might assume, the shedding of blood we often see sensationalized from other parts of the Shi’a world, with knives and such (though usually shallow cuts anyway), are in fact ruled against in this by Grand Ayatollah Sistani (and some other guy), and actively discouraged in the Islamic Republic. Most of these processions are choreographed and form a sort of competition for different groups to see who can outperform one another. Often, young women will be hanging over the edges of the ramparts, cheering the young men on, whom beat themselves more furiously than the next to impress the ladies. Yes, sex finds its way into even this solemn rite. How could it not, with the frenzied fever it can produce? This year, as most, the ceremonies of Taft, in Yazd Province, were televised nationally. They seemed to be covering every little aspect of the story of Hossein, the rituals, the meaning; all the while completely “unaware” anything else was happening. I’m sure it was just a coincidence. Televised Ashura ceremonies from Taft is like the Midnight Mass (er, sorry, 10 p.m.) from the Vatican, or Barsana for Holi, it’s something they do best. Khamene’i also delivers his own roseh. Most years, green headbands and flags are also a signature feature. This year, even after one promise from police commander Azizollah Rajabzadeh, they reneged on it, descending on those with “suspicious” green, I suppose. One by one the regime’s symbols are being taken back from it by the people to whom they rightfully belong.

Former President, chairman of the Expediency Council, Assembly of Experts and long time de facto second most powerful man of the Islamic Republic, Hashemi Rafsanjani, is attributed as saying, “[I]f you want to understand Iran, you must become a Shi’a first.” I believe the second best thing anyone interested in Iran could do, is in understanding Shi’a basics. It is also helpful in decoding the layered meanings of some of the slogans. Even the chant to Obama of “are you with us, or against us?” can be traced back to something Imam Hossein said.

Shi’ism was made the state religion by Shah Esma’il I, founder of the Safavid Dynasty in the beginning of the 16th century CE. The decree and conversion of Sunni Iran to Twelver Shi’ism was draconian and completed fairly quickly. Many historians contend that it was also possibly a cynical move more than a personal conviction, given the protracted conflict with the Sunni Ottomans. The truth is, anyway, that it absorbed an already peculiarly Persian form of Sunni Islam, with elements of nationalist myth (best encapsulated by Ferdowsi’s Shahnameh), features of Zoroastrian doctrine and practice melded under the guise of Islam, and Sufi poetry from masters like Hafez and Sa’di. The continued observance of the new year, or Nowruz, is a prominent and enduring example of this tendency (even though the Islamic Republic initially wanted to ‘wipe’ it from the calendar), plus the old saying that “every Persian has written at least one line of poetry in their lifetime,” Shah Esma’il included. Shi’ism, in fact, tapped into the Iranian soul. It allowed greater freedom in interpretation, for one. The austere Sunni proscription against human images just was never gonna fly in the artsy “France of the Middle East”.

The contradictions of Iran can be highlighted among some more chauvinist attitudes held toward Arabs, like in the pejorative malakh-khor (‘locust eater’; interestingly enough, the name of the border crossing near where the three American hikers – sorry, “spies!” – were apprehended). And yet, they had to reconcile the fact that they were practicing the faith of their conquerors, with a holy book in the revealed language of Arabic, and whose culture they had always looked down upon for centuries and praying to a land considered but a backwards frontier to the Persian Empires. The bridging of this history is perhaps best exemplified in the dubious hagiographical belief that Hossein (whom, as Shi’ism developed greatly over the centuries, particularly after becoming a state religion, would be venerated as the Third Imam) married a Persian princess, daughter of the last Sassanid shah (the second and last great Persian Empire), Yazdegerd III, whom had been defeated by Caliph Umar’s forces (this is also slightly reminiscent of Alexander the Great marrying his officers to Persian noblewomen and adopting customs of the royal court after his conquest of the first great Persian Empire, the Achaemenids; and taken by Persians to this day as an acknowledgment of their superior culture). The Shi’i concepts of martyrdom, zolm (oppression, cruelty, tyranny), and ‘adl (justice), borne out of Imam Hossein’s martyrdom and the narrative built upon throughout years of persecution as a minority in the Muslim world (which, by the way, is the origin of taghiyeh, or dissimulation, often mentioned derisively among the Daniel Pipes crowd) instilled within it. It may have well struck a chord with a scarred Persian pride, grieved and shamed at being conquered by “inferior” Arabs, and seen as a way to give Islam their own unique touch. As such, though it is a significant population in Lebanon, Bahrain, and Iraq, Islamic scholars such as Reza Aslan suggest it is, in a very real way, “Persian Islam”. It is also a sect ideal for rebellion, fueled upon by the blood of martyrs (another interesting synthesis is the legend of the tulip growing from the ground where a martyr spilled his blood, dating to pre-Islamic times – next time you see a speech with pretty tulips everywhere – keep this in mind). As such, it provides special complications for a regime who used its themes, slogans and mourning cycles to overthrow a shah; i.e. “Yazid” – most notably in 1963 and 1978. Even more consternating is when they are officially tied to the state and Ashura is as much a governmental, as religious observance. After all, though the country had been Shi’a for a long time, it had held to the Shi’i belief in Quietism. (I seem to have misplaced my articles on this Najafi/Qomi; and Sadra/Majlesi debate which still shape seminary debates to this day. No matter, this can wait.) Clerics were not to rule, they were traditionally apportioned the role as the spiritual conscience for a nation, and would protest when a ruler trespassed their limits, when no other power bloc could dare out of risk of retribution. But, alas, the powers that be are always much easier to criticize, when you’re not the powers that be; especially not a shah and a cleric rolled into one. Ain’t that the darndest thing, Seyyid Yazid?

* * *

On the 25th, Enduring America noticed that on his website,

Rafsanjani puts forth Hossein’s opposition to the caliph as the most significant political movement in the last 1400 years, with its promotion of virtues and condemnation of injustice and evil. And, in an all-too-obvious parallel with the 21st century, he asserts that Hossein was accused of having revolted for power and collaborated with foreigners to which the Imam answered: “I’m not revolting to Govern; my revolt is to protect and correct the course of the disciples of my ancestor [the Prophet Mohammad].”

After a relatively quiet Thursday and Friday, on Saturday, or Tasu’a, the eve of Ashura, people came out at 11 a.m and continued in the streets until 9 p.m. At one such event  former reformist president Mohammad Khatami and supporter of Mir-Hossein Mousavi was speaking at Jamaran Hosseiniyeh around 6:00 p.m. Tehran time (a Hosseiniyeh is often a special mosque built especially for the occasion of Moharram; Jamaran is an area of northern Tehran, famous for being Khomeini’s home during his lifetime). Busloads of Basijis had been dropped off, loudspeakers are alleged (via Tweet) to have said “if you do not disperse, we have orders to shoot” and the Basij videotaped faces chanting “Death to Khamene’i”, “Ya Hossein, Mir-Hossein” and “This is the month of blood, Yazid will fall”. At the point of Khatami’s speech when he said, “Imam Hossein’s rebellion arose from his willingness to die for the sake of freedom. He fought against those who wanted to govern society in the name of religion and abolish freedom,” Basijis stormed in [ video ] and eventually cut his microphone which summarily ended the gathering only half way through. Those who didn’t disperse were beaten as indiscriminately as the windows the Basijis smashed, the crowd protected Khatami though, so he could escape. Also in attendance were Rafsanjani’s two daughters, Fatemeh and Faezeh and Ayatollah Khomeini’s grandson, Yasser, high profile Reformist figures in their own right.  Also on Tasu’a, in the city of Shiraz, Ayatollah Ali Mohammad Dastghaib’s house was laid siege to, as was Ayatollah Jalaleddin Taheri’s in Esfahan. I’ve gone on enough tangents as it is, I’ll just say that this guy is another name for you to try and file away.

And it wasn’t just people at gatherings, dissident clerics, or those on foot,

According to Jaras, police officers were seen striking the sides of cars with their batons, tearing off license plates, and in some cases dragging drivers out of cars and assaulting them.

After Ahmadinejad’s (ostensibly his, that is) firing of Mousavi Tuesday, in which he had to interrupt a meeting in Shiraz (southern Iran) to fly up and back down again, as head of the Academy of the Arts, and increased threats against opposition leaders, things are heating up and a breaking point with full, unhinged crackdown is feared. Among these threats was from the Supreme Leader’s representative to the Pasdaran (IRGC), Hojjat-ol-Eslam Mojtaba Z’ol-Nour, who said, according to The Washington Post:

“If we throw all three heads of the green sedition into prison, nothing will happen at all,” Zolnour said, warning the Basij forces not to act independently toward the two leaders, whose movement uses the color green. “But if we take any physical action against them, it is possible that the flames of these issues will spread.”

Z’ol-Nour, in hardline newspaper Resalat (via Juan Cole’s blog) also let this slip December 17th [emphasis mine]:

“Authorities should introduce traitors to the people as soon as possible.” He pointed to the supreme leader’s description of the recent sedition as ‘a deep sedition . . . ‘ ‘Hojat ol-eslam Mojtaba Zolnur said: One of the reasons for such a description is the scale of that sedition. He added: There were many seditions after the Islamic revolution, such as that of anti-revolutionary groups, Banisadr’s, Montazeri’s, imposed war, etc., but none of them spread the seeds of doubt and hesitation among various social layers as much as the recent one.”

Sort of spoils the “rich kiddies from North Tehran” argument, no? Also significant is reference to Montazeri and Banisadr. Banisadr was the first president of the Islamic Republic of Iran, whom following interim Prime Minister Bazargan were both French educated liberal-minded moderate leaders in the early years following the Revolution (probably ate arugula, too, with real moutarde de Dijon). During the Hostage Crisis, Khomeini and the IRP (the faction most associated with establishing the theocracy we see today) effectively purged them both. The way in which they did it, with the aid of Pasdaran and Hezbollahi thuggery, further adds to the emptiness and hypocrisy of their accusations against “hooligan” demonstrators today. To buttress Z’ol-Nour’s statement, The Christian Science Monitor reported  that the Esfahan governor had called for a state of emergency during the Montazeri mourning ceremonies earlier last week. There were descriptions of martial law in Najafabad (Montazeri’s hometown, which the CSM article totally fudged up on) on his haftom (his seven day death anniversary, also coinciding with Ashura, covered below). And there was a stir of speculation over these photos of a national gathering of provincial police chiefs preparing for Ashura. -As if this billboard of Khamene’i didn’t send its own chilling message (translation: We await Moharam, when it will be a time for trial, it will be our blades and your throats if even one hair on Ali’s (Khamenei) head is lost.).

According to Rah-e Sabz, another interesting story of note

Caretakers at the Mausoleum issued a bulletin saying that owing to limited space due to renovations, only a few heyats (organized groups of mourners) would be hosted there this year.

It should be noted that this past Ramadan was the first time since the death of Ayatollah Khomeini, the founder of Iran’s revolution, that his mausoleum did not host Ramadan ceremonies.

* * *

Day of Ashura – as you might have suspected, SMS and internet was down to a crawl (and had been for days), Rah-e Sabz site blocked sporadically but later back up, heavy security presence, city squares cordoned off, metro stations monitored, shots fired in the air – in short, the usual.  Cities included Tehran (including south central and southeast), Shiraz, Esfahan, Najafabad, Mashhad, Arak, Babol, Orumieh and Tabriz. In Tehran it was the most violent clashes since June. [note: following are all video links] Protesters chipped up concrete, set fire to Basiji motorbikes, police vehicles and even a police outpost. There was also this (they harmed a hair on your head!) and this (street sign says “Khamene’i Dd.END”, in Perso-Arabic and Roman scripts) of “desecration” to the velayat-e faghih, poor thing. Here’s some of those young kiddies causin’ the trouble we hear about from the IRI and its Western apologists so much. [end of video links] Besides police being outnumbered in some cases and surrendering, a few videos show them taking off their helmets and leaving the scene voluntarily, as well. Of course, state-run media, after first trying to ignore them, described anti-government demonstrations as groups of dozens of troublemakers, accused one of setting a Qur’an on fire, and even tried to bring the Rajavi cult (MeK) into it [yes, three different links]. To be honest, considering the NCRI did uncover the Natanz enrichment program and that they would have known today was a big day, I’m not ruling it out. All I know, is that if I hear the government or IRIB (same thing, actually, and why protesters gathered at its building and set a fire) bring up the Anjoman-e Padeshahi-ye Iran yet again, I’ll definitely be rolling my eyes. Nevertheless, whether true or not, their goal is to smear them all as traitors (IRI-speak is “sowing disunity”, something they know a lot about) by bringing up the most reviled group in Iran, apart from the clerical and Basiji hardliners themselves, that is.

Jaras reported that police also refused orders to open fire on occasion. But apparently this wasn’t always the case. Without a doubt the biggest headline will be that Ali Mousavi, Mir-Hossein Mousavi’s nephew, was shot and killed. His body has disappeared (and the state-media and its apologists – out in force saying the same thing this morning on Iranian sites – claim it was MeK), as have others slain (for a body not to be buried the following day, is in most cases considered against Islamic injunctions on burial rites). The death toll is at ten, according to opposition sites, with four in Tabriz and one in Shiraz. 300 (I saw 1,000 on one site, I need to see it somewhere else first) have been arrested. Rumors of at least one occasion where a car escorted by motorbike-mounted Basijis pulled up, pulled several protesters off the street, and disappeared. This has been standard operating procedure for “disappearances” for many years, it is not out of the question. It would also make it a believable rumor. Another one was of a riot van running over a man. I really do resent the fact that apologists have the luxury to question my perceptions down to almost epistemological levels sometimes, due to the regime they defend banning all foreign media, and if it’s not that, it’s vain attempts to appeal to my natural progressive sense of anti-imperialism or my sympathy for Palestinians (as if the two were not harmonious causes, and I’m supposed to be one of those rabid “push Israel into the sea” types too, I’m sure). It is sick and twisted logic, and if the IRI wanted to clear up “misunderstandings”, why not let  journalists in? If they don’t like speculation, they’re the ones inviting it, the rest of us do the best to guess. Do you really want me to believe, after denying reports, that some of the deaths were just car crashes and that one person, losing their balance I’m sure, just “fell” off a bridge? Then let us confirm it. We apologize for offending your pride by questioning your state-media, itself which has purged a few un-ideologically pure staff. An example of their dedication to a free and fair press is seen by their acknowledgment of arresting a Dubai-based Syrian reporter for attending the Ashura demonstrations and daring to (gasp!) observe and report. Also standard operating procedure (and forgive the pun this one takes), is the suspicious removal of those injured from general hospitals to Pasdaran-run hospitals.

The deaths are also seen in another light in this article, and as reported by The New York Times:

“Ashura is a very symbolic day in our culture, and it revives the notion that the innocents were killed by a villain,” said Fatemeh Haghighatjoo, a former member of the Iranian Parliament who is a visiting scholar at the University of Massachusetts, Boston. “Killing people on Ashura shows how far Khamenei is willing to go to suppress the protests.”

That same article goes on to say that they raided a Reformist clerical association in Qom (I’m left to guess that it’s probably the Association of Researchers and Teachers of Qom – I friggin’ get annoyed at unspecific Western articles which make me do their job). In at least one case in Iran considering the coordinated quarantining of clerics, the demonstrators got there first, in Mashhad, at Grand Ayatollah Sane’i’s house, and the Imam Reza shrine (I’m linking to the shrines’ Wikipedia pages this time, due to the religious nature of this article; that it is important to be familiar with the major ones; and that, well, they’re gorgeous).

Remarking on the day Juan Cole summarized thusly:

For the regime to create a member of the Mousavi family as a martyr on Ashura was most unwise. Shiite Islam even more than traditional Catholicism thrives on the blood of martyrs.

Junior or middle-ranking Ayatollahs favorable to the ideas of Montazeri show up in a number of these reports about protests in provincial cities, suggesting a generational split in the clerical corps and trouble for Khamenei ahead.

Iran’s political crisis is far from over, even though the opposition has little hope of coming to power as long as the security forces remain firmly behind Khamenei and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Ahmad Bakhshayesh, of Allameh Tabatatabi University in Tehran (known for its liberalism) adds to this thought, “I believe we are moving toward a more militarized and repressive confrontation. Things are going to get worse.” Gary Sick would concur.

Mehdi Karroubi, whose car windows were smashed (and who has had his security detail removed by the government), like Mousavi’s attack last week, said that the kind of offenses seen on this Ashura wouldn’t have even been committed by the shah, “[T]he sins that you have committed today cannot be forgiven by God. If you don’t have a belief in God, at least be a human.”

It would appear with the arrest of ten reformist figures, like Mir-Hossein Mousavi’s top advisor, Ali Reza Beheshti, and his brother-in-law, Shapour Kazemi, that Mousavi’s nephew was targeted (whether or not it was an apprehension gone wrong is left to be seen). Expect more chants like this, “I will kill, I will kill, he who has killed my brother!” Also arrested were Ebrahim Yazdi, Foreign Minister under Bazargan, and whom has carried on Bazargan’s banned party, the Freedom Movement of Iran. This guy’s been in trouble before, and is about as close to a progressive as you can get for a political figure in the Islamic Republic. Another name to remember. He’s a bit of a character, as well, if I remember correctly. Another arrest is someone, ironically, who speaks out for prisoner’s rights and against the death penalty, a position for which he just completed a one year sentence last year. Perhaps most significantly for the West was the arrest of Shirin Ebadi’s sister, Noushin. Shirin concluded this was likely for a recent phone call, after Dr. Noushin Ebadi, a professor of medicine, was warned repeatedly not to call her (and yet they’ve also threatened her for years to pressure Shirin to drop her campaign, go figure). Methinks the Nobel medal wasn’t merely misplaced and miraculously found again, after all.

In response to the escalating crackdown President Barack Obama issued this statement, echoing those from Germany, France, Britain and other EU countries from Hawai’i:

The United States joins with the international community in strongly condemning the violent and unjust suppression of innocent Iranian citizens, which has apparently resulted in detentions, injuries and even death.

For months the Iranian people have sought nothing more than to exercise their universal rights.  Each time they have done so they have been met with the iron fist of brutality, even on solemn occasions and holy days.  And each time that has happened the world has watched with deep admiration for the courage and the conviction of the Iranian people, who are a part of Iran’s great and enduring civilization.

What’s taking place within Iran is not about the United States or any other country — it’s about the Iranian people and their aspirations for justice and a better life for themselves.  And the decision of Iran’s leaders to govern through fear and tyranny will not succeed in making those aspirations go away.  As I said in Oslo, it’s telling when governments fear the aspirations of their own people more than the power of any other nation.

Along with all free nations the United States stands with those who seek their universal rights.  We call upon the Iranian government to abide by the international obligations that it has to respect the rights of its own people.  We call for the immediate release of all who have been unjustly detained within Iran.  We will continue to bear witness to the extraordinary events that are taking place there.  And I’m confident that history will be on the side of those who seek justice.

Now, I’m not saying there’s gonna be chants of “Ya Hossein, Barack Hossein”, but can you guys tell, like me, that he had some help from his Iran team on that? Notice all the subtleties, the choice of words. Notice how many times he used words like ‘justice’, which when translated, will have Shi’i connotations? I noticed the same with his Cairo speech regarding broader Islamic themes. No doubt, the GOP will still pretend he hasn’t issued any statements regarding the situation, or criticize him for being too late, or still being too soft. In a CNN interview with Trita Parsi of the National Iranian American Council, he remarks on Obama’s fine line with which he has to take – which isn’t appeasement, it is about not impeding the Green Movement and getting out of our own way. On the forcefulness of the Obama statement, I’m wondering what analysts are seeing, as well. I don’t want to follow this thought too much, as the US has had a habit of being dead wrong reading the internal situation of Iran time and time again; but I can’t help but wonder if they thought the situation was tipping enough one way or the other to merit it. No statement like that is just done on the fly. I’ll bet you they had a draft of that since at least Montazeri’s passing. Not nearly as long as Ahmadinejad’s mocking and – yawn – most recent – yawn – accusations of – yawn – foreign – yawn – meddling. The advantage of not having an embassy in Tehran is not having your afternoon tea disturbed every time Iran wants a distraction. This was said on state television by Ali Larijani, Speaker of the Majles, and did give me slight pause though, “[P]arliament wants the judiciary and intelligence bodies to arrest those who insult religion and impose the maximum punishment on them without reservation.” Whether this is serious or not, I’ll have to check out, Larijani isn’t a firebrand, but he does know to say what he’s told to say. Ever wonder what the practical internal motives are for hardline bluster, by the way? Oh, what, you still aren’t awake after the Zionist/American belabored biped of blame? (it’s the Iranian equivalent of ‘noun, verb, 9/11′ x 100) Don’t worry, this Ahmadi nugget will wake you up after that snoozefest of his earlier:

Sixty five years ago, seventy years ago Second World War commenced.  In this war more than sixty million people were killed.  Now you travel to Europe, see if there is any name of these dead at all.  Is there any indication of these dead?  Never!

* * *

As Ayatollah Khomeini used to say, appropriating an old Shi’a saying, “every day is Ashura, every land is Karbala.” Today the demonstrators say “Hossein, Hossein is our slogan; being a martyr is our pride” and call Khamene’i Yazid. It isn’t so much inversion, as it is the recognition of a grim reality for the Pasdaran and their allies. Ayatollah Vaez-Tabasi, member of  the Assembly of Experts, Expediency Council, and with the plum position as head of the Imam Reza Shrine Foundation, I might add – someone who is clearly on good terms with the Supreme Leader – said that “seditious” leaders are moharebs (or, ‘those who wage war against Allah’, that fun nebulous charge which happens to carry the death penalty). And yet where does he stand when women are anally raped in prison by guards for reasons amounting to political terrorism? Every stale chant Basijis and their Shemr supporters direct at demonstrators, calling them “hypocrites”, rings hollow. Maybe they should practice in front of a mirror for more resonance.

It is said that a tear shed for Hossein can wash away all sins. May Allah be merciful to these men; history won’t be.

Lately there has been alot of talk in the air of progressives that are not satisfied with the way things are going in this country.  At the beginning of this year, there was such a euphoria that we had a change agent in Washington, but I think alot of people thought he was their personal change agent.   Well, news flash, he belongs to the nation as a whole, not to a specific group.  President Obama is there to do what is good for the nation entire, not just for special interest groups.  Are we all happy with every decision he makes?  Of course not, but as a whole is the nation better off with him as the leader rather than McCain/Palin?  To most, I think the answer would be categorically “YES”.    When will we learn in this country that instant gratification may not be always be good for you in the long run?  Have we forgotten so soon just how bad the previous administration was and how they left this country in a shambles? 

As time passes, I believe people tend to forget the lessons of history and we have a recent history that the majority of Americans would not want to relive.  So, in the spirit of not forgetting just how dark the previous administration was, I am posting a speech given by Dr. Robin Meyers at the University of Oklahoma after the presidential election of 2004.  He voices so well what alot of us were thinking and feeling in those days that I think it bears reposting.  The speech has been sent around the internet so some may have seen it before, but it is still relevant today. 

Dr. Robin Meyers
Oklahoma University Peace Rally
November 14, 2004

As some of you know, I am minister of Mayflower Congregational Church in Oklahoma City, an Open and Affirming, Peace and Justice church in northwest Oklahoma City, and professor of Rhetoric at Oklahoma City University. But you would most likely have encountered me on the pages of the Oklahoma Gazette, where I have been a columnist for six years and hold the record for the most number of angry letters to the editor. Tonight, I join ranks of those who are angry, because I have watched as the faith I love has been taken over by fundamentalists who claim to speak for Jesus, but whose actions are anything but Christian.

We’ve heard a lot lately about so-called “moral values” as having swung the election to President Bush. Well, I’m a great believer in moral values, but we need to have a discussion, all over this country about exactly what constitutes a moral value — I mean what are we talking about? Because we don’t get to make them up as we go along,especially not if we are people of faith. We have an inherited tradition ofwhat is right and wrong, and moral is as moral does. Let me give you just afew of the reasons why I take issue with those in power who claim moralvalues are on their side:

When you start a war on false pretenses, and then act as if your deceptions are justified because you are doing God’s will, and that your critics are either unpatriotic or lacking in faith, there are some of us who have given our lives to teaching and preaching the faith who believe that this is not only not moral, but immoral.

When you live in a country that has established international rules for waging a just war, build the United Nations on your own soil to enforce them, and then arrogantly break the very rules you set down for the rest of the world, you are doing something immoral.

When you claim that Jesus is the Lord of your life, and yet fail to acknowledge that your policies ignore his essential teaching, or turn them on their head (you know, Sermon on the Mount stuff like that we must never return violence for violence and that those who live by the sword will die by the sword), you are doing something immoral.

When you act as if the lives of Iraqi civilians are not as important as the lives of American soldiers, and refuse to even count them, you are doing something immoral.

When you find a way to avoid combat in Vietnam, and then question the patriotism of someone who volunteered to fight, and came home a hero, you are doing something immoral.

When you ignore the fundamental teachings of the gospel, which says that the way the strong treat the weak is the ultimate ethical test, by giving tax breaks to the wealthiest among us so the strong will get stronger and the weak will get weaker, you are doing something immoral.

When you wink at the torture of prisoners, and deprive so-called “enemy combatants” of the rules of the Geneva convention, which your own country helped to establish and insists that other countries follow you are doing something immoral.

When you claim that the world can be divided up into the good guys and the evil doers, slice up your own nation into those who are with you, or with the terrorist — and then launch a war which enriches your own friends and seizes control of the oil to which we are addicted, instead of helping us to kick the habit, you are doing something immoral.

When you fail to veto a single spending bill, but ask us to pay for a war with no exit strategy and no end in sight, creating an enormous deficit that hangs like a great millstone around the necks of our children, you are doing something immoral.

When you cause most of the rest of the world to hate a country that was once the most loved country in the world, and act like it doesn’t matter what others think of us, only what God thinks of you, you have done something immoral.

When you use hatred of homosexuals as a wedge issue to turnout record numbers of evangelical voters, and use the Constitution as a tool of discrimination, you are doing something immoral.

When you favor the death penalty, and yet claim to be a follower of Jesus, who said an eye for an eye was the old way, not the way of the kingdom, you are doing something immoral.

When you dismantle countless environmental laws designed to protect the earth which is God’s gift to us all, so that the corporations that bought you and paid for your favors will make higher profits while our children breathe dirty air and live in a toxic world, you have done something immoral. The earth belongs to the Lord, not Halliburton.

When you claim that our God is bigger than their God, and that our killing is righteous, while theirs is evil, we have begun to resemble the enemy we claim to be fighting, and that is immoral. We have met the enemy, and the enemy is us.

When you tell people that you intend to run and govern as a “compassionate conservative,” using the word which is the essence of all religious faith-compassion, and then show no compassion for anyone who disagrees with you, and no patience with those who cry to you for help, you are doing something immoral.

When you talk about Jesus constantly, who was a healer of the sick, but do nothing to make sure that anyone who is sick can go to see a doctor, even if she doesn’t have a penny in her pocket, you are doing something immoral.

When you put judges on the bench who are racist, and will set women back a hundred years, and when you surround yourself with preachers who say gays ought to be killed, you are doing something immoral. I’m tired of people thinking that because I’m a Christian I must be a supporter of President Bush, or that because I favor civil rights and gay rights I must not be a person of faith. I’m tired of people saying that I can’t support the troops but oppose the war — I heard that when I was your age, when theVietnam war was raging. We knew that that war was wrong, and you know that this war is wrong–the only question is how many people are going to die before these make-believe Christians are removed from power? This country is bankrupt. The war is morally bankrupt. The claim of this administration to be Christian is bankrupt. And the only people who can turn things around are people like you–young people who are just beginning to wake up to what is happening to them. It’s your country to take back. Its your faith to take back. It’s your future to take back. Don’t be afraid to speak out. Don’t back down when your friends begin to tell you that the cause is righteous and that the flag should be wrapped around the cross, while the rest of us keep our mouths shut. Real Christians take chances for peace. So do real Jews, and real Muslims, and real Hindus, and real Buddhists–so do all the faith traditions of the world at their heart believe one thing: life is precious. Every human being is precious. Arrogance is the opposite of faith. Greed is the opposite of charity. And believing that one has never made a mistake is the mark of a deluded man, not a man of faith. And war — war is the greatest failure of the human race– and thus the greatest failure of faith. There’s an old rock and roll song, whose lyrics say it all: War, what is it good for? Absolutely nothing. And what is the dream of the prophets? That we should study war no more, that we should beat our swords into plowshares and our spears into pruning hooks. Who would Jesus bomb, indeed? How many wars does it take to know that too many people have died? What if they gave a war and nobody came? Maybe one day we will find out. Time to march again my friends. Time to commit acts of civil disobedience. Time to sing, and to pray, and refuse to participate in the madness. My generation finally stopped a tragic war. You can too!

Published with  written permission from Dr. Robin Meyers

I think we all need to take a step back and really reflect on this past year and what it has meant to us.  And then take a step forward, get out there and talk to people, remind people of just how badly our reputation in the world was damaged in the past 8 years.  It will not be fixed overnight and despite the right claiming we think President Obama can part the Atlantic Ocean, we know it is not true.  It is just another tool in their disingenous toolbox they use to create dissention in the national conversation.  Oh and if you do not have a narrow sectarian mind, pick up a copy of Dr. Robin Myers book titled, “Why the Christian Right is Wrong”.  I guarantee it will lift your spirits and galvanize you in to action, if only in your small part of the world.  Sometimes that is all that is needed.

The Syrian king, Antiochus Epiphanes, King of Syria and the Selucid Empire (175-163 B.C.E.), was both cruel and arrogant—typical of tyrants. The title he chose for himself, Epiphanes, is Greek for “god-manefest.” One of the unfortunate provinces under his rule was Judea. He became persuaded—probably by some Hellenized Jews—that the Jewish religion was the root cause of the widespread  opposition to the process of Hellenization. He undertook the first systematic effort to wipe out Judaism.

In  addition to a bunch of other heinous actions, he ordered his soldiers, and compelled the Jewish population of Jerusalem, to sacrifice pigs at the Temple—the most sacred site in Judaism. (To Jews, swine is considered ‘unclean.”) Antiochus’s oppression sparked a revolt, successfully led by the Maccabee family.  It is from this revolt, and a subsequent incident, that the holiday of Hannukah came about.

The Books of Maccabees are the most famous volumes in the “Apocrypha”—the legends that are part of Jewish teachings. These are historical writings about the revolt against the Syrian monarch by the Jews . But they do not mention the “miracle” upon which the celebration of Hannukah is based.

The Temple (Solomon’s Temple, the first Temple) in Jerusalem, as it was:

Solomon's Temple

The Celebration of Hannukah

Hannukah is not a religious holiday, but a secular one, in that there is no Jewish law requiring us to celebrate it–yet it is the most widely observed Jewish holiday in the United States. The reason for this is singularly un-Jewish:  It occurs in December, right around the time of Christmas. Due to the fact that the Jewish calendar is a lunar one, Hannukah can actually occur any time between late November and late December, depending.

Because Western Jews live in a predominantly Christian society, and because of Hannukah’s proximity to Christmas, many parents have converted it into a Jewish form of a major Christian holiday. Hannukah is, after all, one of our happiest holidays.

Back to the Jewish revolt against Syria in 167 B.C.E. and the Maccabees. As I said, the Syrians defiled the holiest place in Judaism, the Temple. After the revolt against Antiochus was successful, the revolutionaries regained control of Jerusalem. As recorded by the historian Josephus, the Jewish troops wept when they saw the Temple’s degradation, and resolved to restore it to ritual purity. According to Jewish tradition, they could find only one cruse of uncontaminated olive oil—only sufficient for one day’s use. This was a big problem, as it would take eight days to prepared ritually permitted oil. However, so the legend says, a miracle happened and the small amount of oil continued to burn the entire eight days. To commemorate this event, Hannukah is celebrated for eight days.

We use a menorah—a candelabrum that has eight level openings and a ninth, raised opening. While the original used oil, today most people use candles. Here’s a classic example, but there are literally thousands of designs:

Menorah

Jewish law requires that the candles be placed near a window, so that they can be seen from the street, because the rabbis of old declared we should “publicize the miracle.” You can use any kind of candle, even tea lights, but as far back as I can remember these little colored Hannukah candles – found in almost every supermarket, in almost every neighborhood around this time of year–were ubiquitous and have come to symbolize the holiday for me. I couldn’t find a photo of the candles, but this is the box:

Candles

A popular children’s game s spinning the dreidl, which is a kind of top:

Dreidl

On each side, a Hebrew letter is printed: Nun, Gimmel, Hay, Shin, which makes the acronym “Nes Gadol Haya Sham—A Great Miracle Happened There [in Israel].” ( In Israel, it says “Here.”) Bets are made on which letter will be face-up when the dreidl stops spinning; depending on the bet, the spinner either takes the pot, half the pot, puts money into the pot, or no one wins. Originally, the bets were made for nuts (as in walnuts!), but today we use chocolate candies wrapped to look like gold coins, called Hannukkah Gelt (gelt is Yiddish for money.)

Candy

OK, now back to Christmas. It’s not part of the old Hannukah tradition, but if we really want to keep it popular among our kids, gifts have to be part of it. And we up the ante considerably; we give the kids presents on each of the eight nights. LITTLE presents! (And maybe one really good one.)

Among American Jews, the latke, a fried potato pancake, is the traditional food eaten. Because the Hannukah story concerns oil, most of the holiday foods are fried. (This is the only part of the holiday my Chinese husband can get behind.) In Israel, they prefer a jelly donut. Another creeping (but highly discouraged) tradition is the so-called “Hannukah Bush.” This is only for those most assimilated families, or those of mixed religions. There is no two ways about it—it’s a Christmas tree pretending to be Jewish.

[LOL! I looked for a photo of a Hannukah Bush and this is representative of what the Google search engine came up with]:

A Small Dose of Spirituality

Most people who have read a little about Kabbalah probably know that this mystical tradition of Judaism talks a great deal about light—what it calls the Endless Light. The Kabbalah teaches that through our actions we draw and increase this divine light into the world or diminish its presence. ( I feel the need to stop and emphasize that these teachings are in no way connected to the Kabbalah Centre, where Madonna and other celebrities study “kabbalah.”)

According to Jewish law, when we light the Hannukah menorah we are prohibited from using its light–from reading by it, or doing some other task by it. Instead, we are supposed to simply look at the light. All year long we are looking at what we see in the light, but on Hanukkah we are to focus on seeing the light itself. We are to fill our eyes with the light of Hanukkah so that when Hanukkah is over, we will continue to see our lives in this special light. What is special about the light of Hanukkah?

When King Solomon wrote in his famous work, Ecclesiastes, “everything is vanity . nothing is new under the sun” he was talking about what it is like to see the world in the light of the sun, in the light of nature.

But the Zohar, the chief work of Kabbalah, teaches us everything is new when seen in the light beyond the sun.

The light of Hanukkah is the light beyond the sun, it’s the light beyond nature, it’s the light of miracles. In that special light, the world looks like a miracle.

Albert Einstein once said: “There are two ways of looking at the world—either you see nothing as a miracle or you see everything as a miracle.”

Hannukah reminds us to see everything as miraculous.

LIGHT-hearted Hannukah

Happy Hannukah–ENJOY!

Jon Stewart and Stephan Colbert on Hannukah

Lewis Black on Hannukah vs Christmas

Adam Sandler’s Hannukah Song

Hannukah began at sundown on Friday December 11, in the year Hebrew year 5770.

Cartoon by Jeff Parker – Courtesy of Politicalcartoons.com – http://www.cagle.com/news/Thanksgiving09/main.asp

I saw this cartoon and I had to share it with everyone.  It says so much of the worldview of our conservative brethran, and yet if it was the shoe on the other foot…

Everyone wants to know why more hasn’t been done in the last 10 months than actually has occurred.  There are a lot of reasons.

1)      The President is a CEO, and few CEOs can come in and change the direction of their company immediately.  There is just too much resistant bureaucracy there.

2)      The Obstructionist Party has done absolutely nothing to help him and everything to deter him from making progress.  Their actions are not ideological, but pathological in nature.

3)      Contrary to our mythology of the government and it’s powers, much of the economy lies outside of the real influence of the government, and corporations have the right to do things as they want, including hiring, firing, and offshoring.  Many of these companies can chose to take some risks and act responsibly, but aren’t doing so.

4)      A number of Pundits of Negativity have rallied the small legions of the unthinking and have brought them out to intimidate the elected officials who have the duty to try to vote clearly and honestly.

5)      THINGS JUST AREN’T THAT EASY TO GET DONE.

Everyone looks back and says, “Well, FDR got all this done in his first 100 days”.  Yes, but he didn’t get everything he wanted and not everything worked, not to mention that even 8 years later he was still battling the economy.  But a lot of things did get started, and provided jobs and a slow movement towards a positive place.

Much of FDR’s stimulus came in the form of public works.  And much of that in the form of Federal public works.  The CCC (Civilian Conservation Corps, the NRA (National Recovery Act), and many other programs pushed people into earning money and learning skills and discipline.

But these programs didn’t have to deal with as many local politicians trying to grandstand as we see today.  Don’t kid yourself though, many did, looking to make a buck and help their friends with influence back home, ahead of their less fortunate constituents.  And there were more things which had been in the thought works for years.  National Parks that needed new facilities, local dams and lakes, roads for the expanding nation.

What these programs didn’t have to deal with was our modern awareness of the influence of our actions upon the world around us.  Together with the laws and regulations which we have in place to prevent and control manmade foolhardiness.  Many development and environmental laws are there for the good of us all, but impede things getting done rapidly, for good reason.

We look at the stimulus programs and we see today things that needed to be done but were just held back before by need of funds, but they were “shovel ready”.  That meant today that all the background work was already in place, the environmental impact studies, the hearings, the pre-contract letting processes needed in a modern world.  Had we not had those, we wouldn’t have anything to start.  But there lies the rub, so many other good projects would take up to a year to get to the massive hiring stage simply because they were new, and the preparatory work hadn’t been done yet.

These things, and the GOP and Blue Dogs restrictions on the types of programs which would be allowed, tremendously cut into the scope of what a stimulus program could “instantaneously” provide.  To have strictly ruled out facilities for public enjoyment was ridiculous!  When you look around at the public parks, whether National, State, or county, many of them have their roots in the Depression programs.  And what money they cost then has been returned a thousand times over in the enjoyment of them by the American people and our visitors for over 70 years.  That is a good investment!  But oh, no, we can’t’ do that was the cry of the so-called fiscally responsible set.

To have handed over so much of the Stimulus to local governing bodies was  a mistake, pure and simple.  Too much posturing by the right wing in many places, and not all of them red states.  Future potential presidential candidates trying to make points with their “constituencies”.  All of this created an environment where real progress was and is being stifled.

But to have hope, look at what all is being done.  Whether you look on the government Recovery website http://www.recovery.org/, or elsewhere, there is much happening.  Examine the site, learn what your local projects are and how many jobs have been created.  We all need to just be aware that it isn’t as fast as it used to be.  And why.  And then go out and try to help others understand the reasons, too, and overcome the ignorance which others are trying to spread.

And when someone tells you that it cost $250,000 per job, ask them what else was gotten for that money, was there concrete, steel, wood, other manufactured goods procured, hence other jobs, and what long term benefits were purchased.  A faster, more clear running freeway, for example, increases the flow of commerce and results in less fuel consumption and pollution.  We must all think in terms of the overall effects, in order to counter the negativity.

With war raging in Europe and knowing it was only a matter of time before America became involved, Jacqueline Cochran, the most famous female pilot next to Amelia Earhart, met with Eleanor Roosevelt and General Henry ‘Hap’ Arnold, to discuss a program which would employ women pilots, to free the men in the United States for active duty overseas. She was refused.

Miss Cochran, along with twenty-five women pilots, then flew to England, volunteering to help with their ATA’s -Air Transport Auxiliary – being accepted, and having to sign eighteen-month contracts.

August 1943, two forces were unified – WAFS and WFTD – forming Women Airforce Service Pilots otherwise known as the WASPs under Cochran’s supervision.

At the time, the Army did not believe that women could fly, but were forced to offer training at an abandoned school in Houston, Texas. Over 25,000 women pilots volunteered for the flight training to learn to fly “the Army way”, and since the Army did not recognize the WASPs, the women were forced to pay their own way, buy their own makeshift uniforms, food and supplies.

Initially, the Army used civilian men to train the 1,830 women that had been accepted into the program, and the men believed that the women pilots weren’t qualified to fly, even though the women had more flying time than required for men in similar training.

The women were forced through grueling calisthenics and forced to endure ridicule and humiliation by their male supervisors. They learned to take orders and follow the regulations of the Army, without the Army perks.

Relief came when the WASP training center was moved to an actual army barracks at Avenger Field in Sweetwater, Texas. The facilities in Sweetwater were prepared for them; they even had official uniforms finally, and barracks on the airfield. The male instructors were real Army, and were complete opposites of the men from Houston.

The women worked together helping each other with different tasks and giving each other moral support. When one of them did washout after receiving the allotted seventy demerits, the women shared the grief of their failure.

They made each others beds, bouncing the coin on the tight fitting sheets, when one of them couldn’t quite get that part right. They polished each others shoes using old nylons; they helped with scrubbing floors and latrines. They worked together with the common goal of getting their wings, proving to the men that women could fly the Army way.

The Women Air Force Service Pilots were disbanded on December twentieth, 1944, to make room for the returning men who needed the hours of airtime to qualify for their military benefits. The women were not granted militarization, even though they were bound by the rules and regulations of the Army, with the exception they could resign, a right that very few took advantage of.

Out of thousands of applicants, only 1830 were accepted, 1074 graduated from the training classes and thirty-eight women died while serving their country, without the benefit of military honors. Collections were taken among the WASPs when one of their own died, since no life insurance policies were issued to them as was done with the men.

Congress would acknowledge the WASPs in 1977, admit they were indeed veterans, but official recognition would not occur till 1979. In 1984 each woman would be awarded the Victory Medal, and those who served more than a year would be awarded the American Theater Medal, all by mail.

In 1996, I had the honor of meeting several WASPs at an air show at Falcon Field in Mesa, Arizona. The women were much older, but they still had that special something – the grit and determination required by so many of that generation in serving our country.