So I’m out on my driveway washing my car last weekend, when my neighbor walks by. He is an old Chinese guy in his late 90s. I see him often, making his way to the corner and back, a distance of about 40 yards. The round trip takes him about 20 minutes. You do the math.

Anyway, I have to bite my lip not to say hello, or I will be mired in a conversation like a gulf seagull trapped in BP oil. But I can’t help myself, my southern hospitality is all mixed in with the manners my mother beat into me, and the two conspire to make the chance of me keeping my mouth shut an impossibility. So I say, “Hi, how’s your day?” I’m thinking this might lead to a “Fine, thank you” or a “Doing good, and you?” I hope for an answer that’s short and polite so that I can get back to scrubbing the bumper, but as expected, I’m not so lucky.

I call the old Chinese guy “China Man.” Well, at least in my head. I have asked him his name many times, but he always responds with a fake, easy-for-an-American-to-understand name like “Joe” or “Lee” or “Juan.” I know he’s lying, because he never uses the same name twice, plus everyone in his extended family has at one time or another told me their name was “Lee.” I know it’s not their last name, and I doubt that everyone in the house is named Lee. (If so, could you imagine the irony?)

After my brief interrogative, China Man picks up his pace and heads in my direction. He looks intent–like I have just asked the meaning of life and he has a possible solution–or perhaps he just didn’t understand and wants to come over to clarify. But I think neither is true. After he gets a little closer, I say again, “Hi, how is your day?”, emphasizing each word a little more carefully. He slows to a stop, plants his walking stick on the wet pavement, and after a pause that was either about 10 seconds or a minute, he said, “I Love America. But things are becoming clear.” “Oh?” I say. “Yes!” he replies about an hour later. “I believe…this war is not what you think.”

This is a REALLY loaded topic, so I stand still and say nothing. I know from several past “how do you do’s” that he is an ex-military man, Chinese military that is. To be specific, he didn’t play for our team during the Cold War.

So, you might think his war reference is about Iraq or Afghanistan, but don’t be so sure. He could be talking about the Vietnam war, for him Vietnam only wrapped-up last week. Or maybe he means one of the “WW” wars. This is a more likely choice, but he was around for both WW’s and now has trouble keeping them straight. “Did the Germans invade Poland, or was that before Franz Ferdinand was assassinated?” It’s hard to keep that kind of thing straight, you know. But this time China Man is on his game and says, “The thing that is most clear…is that however good intentioned you Americans are, you are wrong. And those in the world you think to be your friends most probably are not.”

Well, the next 45 minutes were a blur of international politics, some current, some relevant, some not. In the end, I think China Man had it right. Things ARE becoming clear. And more Americans agree that we just might be doing it wrong. And, I have learned the hard way several times now, that those we think to be our friends may actually not be our friends at all.

Slow-moving Joe or Lee or Juan got it right…way to go, China Man!

The man on the motorcycle is dead.  He was twenty-two, a motorcycle enthusiast, murdered and from Puerto Rico.  His wish was to be embalmed and posed this way and his wish, like the wish of another murdered twenty-four year old in this country (posed standing upright in his mother’s living room for three days), was upheld.  The secret to all of this, said a funeral director, is in the “special embalming”.

However bizarre this may seem, the practice of posing dead people in various tableaux is not new.  It was popular in the Victorian Era when family members couldn’t afford cameras and wanted their dearly departed to be immortalized, although it was also practiced by the wealthy.  It is suggested that upon Prince Albert’s death, Queen Victoria went into such an intense period of mourning that grief, now in vogue,  became literally showcased in the bereaved mainstream.  As a practice,  it can be seen as an extension of memento mori (“remember you will die”), a practice of inserting images of the dead in paintings and sculpture on tombs as well as on cathedrals.  Christianity embraced this sentiment as it is especially moralizing and wishes to teach the woeful idea that life is short, tempus fugit, and you better not sin.

Although creepy through modern eyes, it must not be forgotten that death was a frequent visitor in homes at this period.  Infant and childhood mortality were common and children saw death as a part of life.  Today, death and children are kept as remote from one another as possible as lost ones release their spirits in hospitals and nursing homes.

All of the people in the photographs, save a few, are dead.  The deceased were held upright using special stands with clamps, their eyes propped open or pupils painted unconvincingly on the photographs. The girl at the top of the article is a fourteen year old in her wedding dress.  Her name was Margaret Rose.  The bottom image of a man and child, ostensibly father and  son, are both deceased.

I. History of Nowruz

Imagine it’s the fifth century before the Common Era, on a plain bejeweled with a magnificent palace complex and flowing gardens, with the coffee brown Zagros mountains in the distance, and a sky the color of lapis lazuli. Colorful tents and scents all around, wafting in the breeze. Trumpets; drums and bustle. Nobles astride steeds with their retinues, and representatives from thirty nations line up to present the King of Kings, the Shahenshah, with gifts from their lands, be it neighboring Babylonia, or far-flung Ionia, Egypt, Libya, India and anywhere in between. In ancient times, as to the Iranian mind today, Iran truly was the center of the universe.

We are at Persepolis, the Hellenization of what the ancient Persians called Parsa. Today it is known in Persian as Takht-e Jamshid, the ‘Throne of Jamshid,’ after the mythical King of Persia in Ferdowsi’s national epic, the Shahnameh, which kept alive the earlier Yima (cf. Vedic Yama) of the Zoroastrian holy book, the Avesta (itself absorbing the earlier Indo-Iranian myth). This is how the Persian name took root over time in the root of the Iranian imagination and folklore as the past was half-forgotten and mythologized. In reality, the initial completion of Persepolis was finished under Darius the Great.

Please take a few minutes at your leisure to view part of this video, from the documentary, “Persepolis Recreated,” which also digitally recreates, as the name suggests, what Persepolis would have looked at at the time:

It is Nowruz, and the Shahenshah is hosting the greatest empire in the world at his ceremonial capital in the foundation of the first great Persian Empire, the Achaemenid Empire, in the modern province of Fars (approximately 45 miles northeast of the city Shiraz). We know that the actual administrative center of  the Achaemenids at that time was Susa (also home to the Tomb of Daniel and the setting of the Book of Esther). Persepolis was officially a summer residence, but moreover, it appears to have been built for purely propagandistic and ritual purposes, but also housed a great treasury and library.

Nowruz (transliteration varies greatly), Persian for ‘New Day,’ is New Year’s Day on the Iranian calendar, beginning on the first day of the month Farvardin. It is celebrated by peoples and nations with a heritage of Iranian ancestry or links to Persian culture: Iran, Afghanistan, Central Asia, the Caucasus, Kurdish regions (an Iranian people), India, even in the Muslim Balkan countries.  Over the years in recent history Nowruz has been banned by the Soviets in Azerbaijan, the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, and there was even a campaign by the most radical Islamists after the 1979 Islamic Revolution to erase it from the calendar.

Nowruz, since at least the time of Persepolis, has been celebrated on the vernal equinox, March 21^st in the Gregorian calendar [1]. This vernal celebration, of course, is not unique. In the West we are all familiar with the successor to the pagan commemoration of Ostara; Easter. However; this not limited to Indo-European cultures, and it appears as if Nowruz is not entirely of Aryan origin at all.

The roots of Nowruz in the pre-Islamic religion of Persia, Zoroastrianism, is generally assumed and recognized by Iranians. In Zoroastrianism to this day it is observed as the highest of holidays, commemorating the creation of fire, the spirit of Highest Truth (Asha Vahishta), and is symbolic of looking towards Frashokereti, when the Savior will come back to destroy Evil and the world will be Renovated to a perfect state. (If this eschatology sounds familiar, it isn’t coincidence. But, that’s a whole other subject!)

Mary Boyce, the late authority on Zoroastrianism, said that it was likely that the Prophet Zarathushtra (known in the West as Zoroaster, c. 11^th century BCE, Eastern Iran) was “re-dedicating what was probably an ancient celebration of spring .” [2] Zoroastrianism made it the highest of all seasonal festivals (Gahambars), the seventh and final of the year. R.C. Zaehner, an earlier philologist and specialist of Zoroastrianism, like Boyce, wrote,

The feast of Noruz survives as the greatest by far of all the national holidays in Iran even now because it is genuinely national, a survival from a long-forgotten pagan past, as little influenced by Zoroastrianism as it is by Islam. [3]

In 539 BCE, Cyrus the Great conquered Babylon. He was invited by the priests on his march south to Babylon, conquered it, and proceeded to return plundered idols and relics to their home city’s sanctuaries, in addition to decreeing that Jews return to Jerusalem and rebuild the Second Temple. As such, Cyrus is the only Gentile in the Bible referred to as ‘God’s annointed’ (messiah). This is also when the first charter of human rights and religious freedom was written, in the Cyrus Cylinder. [4]

On the Babylonian New Year festival of 538,  he had his son, Cambyses II, ceremoniously installed as king of Mesopotamia. On the vernal equinox, the Babylonian king would have the idol of Marduk removed from the temple next to the great Ziggurat and paraded through the streets.  This ceremony was enacted for the first time in many years by the new prince, under the directive of Cyrus. Rule was again restored after a period of strife.

In the Babylonian belief, this annual rite would ensure that order prevailed over chaos; that the seasons for the coming year would remain in sequence, and that they would be fruitful. In similar fashion, Cambyses was installed as the son of Re in Egypt. Michael Axworthy writes,

This was an empire that always preferred to flow around and absorb powerful rivals, rather than to confront, batter into defeat, and force submission. The guiding principles of Cyrus persisted under Darius and at least some later Achaemenid rulers. [5]

As such, several authors [6] suggest that Nowruz was borrowed from the annual Semitic Babylonian politico-religious ritual symbolizing the sovereign’s victory over anarchy, of life over death. This is also found in the Avestan concept of kingship; the victory of asha (Divine Order; cognate with Sanskrit rta, precedent of dharma) over the Druj, The Lie, associated with Angra Mainyu, the Zoroastrian Devil. The famous motif of the Lion overwhelming the Bull at Persepolis captures the essence of both, sans any overt religious iconography or message.

Whatever the source, or combination of sources of Nowruz, by the time of Darius, the first stage of Persepolis was completed and host to one of the grandest celebrations of power in history. In reliefs added later by Xerxes on stairways leading to the central Apadana Palace and the Throne Hall (completed under Xerxes’ son, Artaxerxes), can be seen delegates from nearly every nation with their gifts of tribute, to be followed by wine, music and dance. Persepolis was known as the richest city under the sun, and indeed its treasury was overfull, even though it appeared to serve little other purposes than these. This ended only when it was razed and looted by Alexander the Great in 330 BCE (considered by some as revenge for the razing of the Acropolis in 480 CE under Xerxes). [7]

In the later Parthian (246 BCE – 224 CE) and Sassanid (224-651 CE) Empires, more rituals would be added, though little is known under the Parthians. In the Sassanid, twelve temporary pillars (some say seven) were erected nearly a month before Nowruz day, with different kinds of seeds placed on top of each, sprouting greens by the time of the celebration. The Sassanid Empire, the second great empire, comprised many religions, and although Nowruz was officially a celebration of a Zoroastrian state, it was secular enough to be celebrated by all – including Jews and Christians. At all times it is assumed it was celebrated by all social strata, as well (though history tends to not record the common classes).

Then, 636 CE, fifteen years after the Hijra of the Prophet Muhammad, an Arab Muslim army routed the superior Persian army at Qadisiyyah, near Kufa, Iraq. Such is the humiliation of this event that Saddam Hussein purposefully named his invasion of Iran after it. By 651, the Muslim conquest of Persia was complete. The Persians fiercely resisted culturally (not to mention a few insurgencies), and Islamization took centuries longer, until the 10^th-11^th centuries. It is during this time that many Zoroastrians fleeing persecution emigrated to India, where they are known to this day as Parsis (Persians).

However; unlike across today’s modern Arab world, Arabization never took. In fact, the new Caliphate was increasingly giving way to the superior bureaucracy of the Persians, as it was to the Persian arts. Iran did as it always did, it absorbed its conquerors, adapted, and in turn conquered them culturally.

Around the dawn of the 11^th century the poet Ferdowsi completed a grand translation in an early form of Modern Persian (Farsi). It was a collection of surviving Middle Persian (Pahlavi) texts entitled the Shahnameh (Book of Kings). Ferdowsi is credited for preserving Persian cultural heritage and its language. Not only is knowledge of the character of Iran incomplete without knowing whom Ferdowsi is, I dare say it is impossible.

In the Shahnameh, Jamshid (pictured above) ruled for 700 years as the archetypal ruler in a mythical golden age after defeating the divs (demons). He was endowed with farr (the Zoroastrian khvarena), a Divine Glory. The investiture of farr was like a radiant sun (a nimbus), himself seated a golden throne. This idea, known to the Achaemenids, can also be seen in many solar crowns and tiaras to this day (cf. Sol Invictus). It was this coronation for which Nowruz was first celebrated, according to Ferdowsi’s national tome. In the pagan version of Jamshid (Yima), he his immortal and never dies, but disappears underground. Thus, mankind is made mortal until his return (cf. Persephone).

In the Shahnameh, many myths are shown to have survived, including interpretations of Yima, which do not adhere to what was the orthodox doctrine of what was the Zoroastrian Church, nor to surviving scripture and beliefs of remaining Zoroastrians today. In a similar fashion, forthcoming centuries of Islam would prove unable to alter what transcends formal religion altogether. Nowruz has never successfully been transformed such as Christmas was by Christians. Nowruz, above all, is Iranian. Not only that, as a celebration of joy, like Zoroastrianism, it is a much needed respite from the dour pall a strict state-imposed version of Shi’ism can bring. Outside Iran, and to all people, it is an annual reaffirmation of life, fit for all humanity to appreciate.

II. Nowruz Today

Prior to Nowruz it is custom to buy new clothes, plant green sprouts in an earthenware dish (such as wheat, barley or lentils) and clean the house (khane tekani, which symbolically, was preparing the house for ancestors, traditionally done on Chaharshanbeh Souri; more on this day below). On the streets a minstrel-like character fills the air with boisterous singing announcing that the New Year is coming, “it’s only once a year!” He wears red clothing and conical cap and blackface. [8] He roams the street, alleyways, markets and parks, sometimes with a crew. Watch a just such pair of busking performers in this video.

He is known has Haji Firouz, or Mr. Victorious (successful, et cetera). The origins of this character are obscure, and unrecorded until after the Muslim conquest. Several theories abound though. One is from the Shahnameh, which traces itself back to a Mesopotamian ceremony surrounding the god Tammuz, whom died and was reborn every year, according to Iranist Mehrdad Bahar.

Another is that he represents a Zoroastrian priest who tended the holy fire. The cap does actually suggest the dress of the priests of ancient times with their hood-like caps, adopted from Scythians (picture above). The reasoning here is that the red represents fire, and black-face, ash. However; I am not aware of any colors being worn by the priesthood other than white. This part appears to be fancy.

Among the Parsis in India, colorful new clothes, often red, including caps for boys are worn on New Year’s day there (photo), so there may still be credence and clues to be found in this Iranian custom of Haji Firouz wearing red. In Iran too, underneath chadors, a wave of vibrant (and defiant) color of sleek dresses may catch one’s eye with a slight gust, and indeed, all other lands still paint the town, so to speak (in a good way), with festive clothing. Watch videos of Norouz celebrated around the world.

The Haji Firouz origin story I find most interesting though, is of a Persian soldier named Pirouz Nahavandi, whom was captured by the armies of Caliph Umar at the battle of Qadissiyah. He was brought back to Medina as a slave, where he pretended to convert to Islam. Having gained the trust of Umar, he assassinated him in 644 during morning prayers at the Medina mosque (built upon the site of Prophet Muhammad’s house), as retribution for the Muslim conquest of Persia.

The historicity of this account varies, and as so often happens, elements of truth have surely been embellished over time. It is generally agreed that Umar was assassinated by a Persian plot, though. Such is the curious contradictions of Iran, that a Shi’a country which mourns Umar’s assassination, could also celebrate Pirouz as a national hero. A presidential decree signed by Ahmadinejad in 2007 to destroy the Firuzan tomb near Kashan, where he is popularly believed to be buried, was met with protests. There are layers of symbolism in the legend of Pirouz Nahavandi. And it can be readily seen why opponents to the Islamic Republic sometimes disparagingly refer to the victory of the Islamists as “the second Arab invasion.”

Whatever the origin of the Haji Firouz tradition, it, like Nowruz itself, is emblematic of the nature of Iran itself. The relationship of an enduring Persian nationalism and heritage, with that of the Islamic faith. This is not to suggest that Shi’ism and all other religions cannot in fact be Iranian; but that with the state in the hands of hardliner Islamists, Iran’s pre-Islamic history can present a problematic reality to the foundations of their own legitimacy.

Of the events associated with Nowruz most opposed to by the hardline Islamists is Chaharshanbeh Souri (Red Wednesday). It is begun on the eve of the last Wednesday of the year, and thus celebrated on Tuesday. It consists of trick-or-treating, banging spoons together loudly, fireworks, and bonfire jumping. Among the concerns of the regime has been its roots in “superstition.” But, moreover, is the propensity towards mischief. Since the Islamic Revolution, as one of the few events where mixing of the sexes is relaxed, it has become rowdier and rowdier. The concerns are not unfounded, and there have been numerous tragic accidents, especially since the late 1990s.

This event, generally five or six days before Norouz, occurred this year on the 16^th. It is rooted in the sixth Zoroastrian festival of the year, Hamaspathmaedaya, the Feast of All Souls. According to Zoroastrian belief, on the days from this day until the New Year, guardian angels and the souls of the dead visit the earthly realm. As such, nowadays, divination is still practiced on this night (there is also a Shi’i form, known as estekhareh). Bonfires are lit, often just alone, the idea being not to not let the sun set and to be vigilant against evil. Two views of this year’s Chaharshanbeh Souri can be seen in videos here.

Jumping of seven fires while chanting to them “zardi-ye man az to, sorkhi-ye to az man” (my sallowness is yours, your fiery red color is mine), are attested to only after the Islamic conquest (now often just one or several). The Zoroastrian’s veneration of fire would likely have considered this act of fire-jumping blasphemous. But, in the recurrent Zoroastrian number of seven, this act (according only to my deductive power of intuition) likely preserved symbolically the journey of the year over the seven great festivals of the year (Gahambars) to the Zoroastrians.

Not counting these preceding days, the festival of Nowruz lasts thirteen days. During this time the country of Iran shuts down. Family travel home, marriages are performed, coworkers and acquaintances exchange sweetmeats, gifts are given, and hidden wine bottles appear from the back of cupboards. Amou Nowruz (Uncle Nowruz), who kicks the winter out, is a Santa Claus type figure who also gives gifts to children. The days are filled spending time with family, outings, and eating traditional meals and treats, such as Sabzi Polo Mahi (an herbed fired fish dish with pilaf), on Nowruz Day or the night before. Koukou Sabzi (herbs and baked eggs) and Reshteh Polo (rice and noodles) are other typical dishes. A sweet mixture of nuts, berries and raisins known as aajil is consumed throughout the remainder of Nowruz.

By far the most iconic aspect of Nowruz is the sofra-ye haft sin, the haft sin spread. Haft means seven [9], and sin, the Perso-Arabic letter corresponding to s. The Haft Sin is set on a table, over a dining cloth (sofra). It can be elegant and luxuriant, or fairly simple. But, more social conscious households will arrange more aesthetically pleasing ceremonial spreads, as this is the time to entertain visitors, as well as family.

The exact moment of New Year has a bit of a countdown like in the West. Before it, the family is assembled around the Haft Sin (as with the Christmas Tree) and poems or scripture are recited. The second the New Year strikes is called Saal Tahvil. Elders’ hands may be kissed out of respect, and kisses and hugs all around! This is when presents are exchanged. After this the house may be purified with the burning of esfand, sprinkling rose water, and walking around the house with a mirror and candle as a blessing. Candles are left to drip away and burn out on their own.

In addition to the essential seven items beginning with s, are several other common additions. No Haft Sin need be identical, and will differ to taste and by regional custom. In fact, there isn’t even any consistent essential seven s items. While containing elements of much older symbols, the custom of arranging them this way is only attested to as being a little over a hundred years old.

The following are among the most popular items, their Persian, its meaning, and what they represent. Every spread will contain most of these, varying by combinations thereof:

• sabzeh – greens – sprouts of wheat, barley, mung beans, or lentils in an earthenware dish. This is the one essential item.

• samanu – a sweet pudding made of germinated wheat – affluence and ingenuity.

• senjed – dry fruit of the oleaster tree -- love.

• sepand – esfand – seeds of the Syrian Rue – protects from evil eye.

• sir – garlic cloves – medicine, protection.

• sib – apple – health, beauty.

• somagh – sumac – the color of sunrise; triumph of good over evil.

• serkeh – vinegar –age, patience.

• sonbol – hyacinth flowers – spring.

• sekkeh – coins – prosperity, wealth.

Other items commonly found, which don’t start with ‘s’ in Persian:

• goldfish – life, the animal world; Pisces.

• mirror -- reflection.

• candles – illumination.

• decorated eggs -- fertility.

• book – wisdom.

These are but the most common. Several other items can be found, starting with ‘s’ or not. While the practice of spreading the table is relatively new, the symbols that comprise it are ancient. To go into each one could easily take a page. An apple is seen in the Persepolis reliefs. Esfand seeds are burnt like incense to ward off the evil eye. The very heptad itself, can be seen as Zoroastrian (related to the Amesha Spentas, like Archangels).

The book is often a Qur’an, but depending on one’s respective religion, it can also be a Torah, Bible, Avesta, or Kitáb-i-Aqdas (though given persecution of Bahá’í’s, this would not likely be left in view for just anyone to see). More secular families will have the Shahnameh, or the Divan-e Hafez. While Rumi is among the greatest poets revered in Iran, it is Hafez, a 14th century Sufi poet of Shiraz, whom Iranians turn to for guidance and inspiration more than any other.

Or, there may be two of each. The table is also kept stocked with fruits, such as apples, pomegranates, and quinces; and pastries and nut flavored nougats or mixes. A fruit not for eating that can be found is a bitter orange floating in a bowl of water, symbolizing the world.

Though the table spread is not itself Zoroastrian, there are several unique layouts for them, as well. (One such assertion claims that it may have started in Zoroastrianism, as seven metal trays.) In this layout they will put the candle in front of the mirror, to spread its radiance. Look in the most holy Shi’i shrines and you will see a splendid reflection of light refracted to infinity. A Shi’i philosophy, known as Eshraghi, can be traced itself to Zoroastrian thought. The thing that distinguishes the Zoroastrian spread, though, is that it is not a Haft Sin, but a Haft Shin. All items beginning with the letter sh.

Yazd, smack dab in the heart of Iran, is the largest center of Zoroastrianism surviving in Iran. It has one of the most famous Fire Temples in the world (picture above), or the most photographed, at least. It is a custom of Iranians, regardless of religion, to visit it on Nowruz. A particularly apropos time, would be on the sixth day of Nowruz, what is known as Nowruz-e Bozorg (Great Nowruz) in general, and Khordad Sal to Zoroastrians -- the date Zarathushtra’s birthday is honored. Author Paul Kriwaczek, tells of a conversation he had with a Zoroastrian when visiting the Yazd area,

Before Islam, Noruz was celebrated with a haft shin not sin table. We put on seven things beginning with ‘sh.’ We put sharab (wine) for celebration, shir (milk) for nourishment, sharbat (sherbet) for enjoyment, shamshir (a aword) for security, shemshad (a box) for wealth, sham (a candle) for illumination, and shahdaneh (hemp seeds) for enlightenment. So that these things would be ours for the coming year. [10]

The Parsis of India do not celebrate the Haft Sin, though they still do Nowruz. Among Zoroastrians it is still customary to settle outstanding arguments, put on new clothes, exchange presents, and visit the Fire Temple. Going to the Fire Temple, unlike other religions, is not a central feature of the faith, and reserved by the laity for such special occasions. Another noticeable addition to a Zoroastrian spread, as on the Fire Temple walls, will be a framed portrait of Zarathushtra.

At the end of the Nowruz period, on the last day, Sizdah Bedar, ‘Getting Rid of the Thirteenth’ is observed, though ‘observe’ is not the right word! Not only does it sometimes overlap with April Fool’s Day, it is also filled with pranks and fun. It is the day for everyone to go outside, play, and picnic at the local park, or go for a hike. For school children who didn’t complete their homework packets over the break though, it is a day of torment!

In the old days, the goldfish from the Haft Sin would be released into a creek, but nowadays most keep the goldfish. The sabzeh from the haft sin table is still taken outside though, and scattered, having collected all the bad that could befall the family in the coming year. The ancient roots in Zoroastrianism to this day also signified the victory over the demon of drought for the coming year.

And with that, life in Iran once again resumes the next day, until the next Nowruz, the biggest, and notably un-Islamic, holiday of Iran.

III. Politics of Nowruz

Tomb of Hafez in Shiraz, on Nowruz Day Eve

After reading this far, you will have readily seen the political significance of green, sabz, its not only being the color of Islam, but of rebirth, growth and new hope. The Islamic government has never been able to crush this holiday’s spirit, and attempts to co-opt it are meager and farcical, at best. Each year it is customary for the Supreme Leader to name the next year. One year was the “year of Imam Ali,” and last year, it was “Saal-e Eslah-e Olgouyeh Masraf” (the year of reforming consumption patterns).

It is also a time for all figures, to give Nowruz messages. This is typically the president, but this year, the year of 1389, included messages from all the Green Movement leaders, including Zahra Rahnavard, Mir Hossein Mousavi’s wife (Iranian women keep their surnames). In a speech to the Iran Participation Front (Reformist organization), Mousavi ended with this,

In regards to the future, I feel that the movement that has begun is irreversible. We will never again return to the conditions that were a year ago. We have to value these change in ideas. I am very hopeful for the future, we must encourage hope and patience; patience meaning faith. This movement wants nothing for itself, it wants freedom and prosperity and progress and better days for all people and it will surely achieve these aims. The move after the election, and the election itself raised people’s awareness about their rights. We must invite people to fortitude and perseverance. We must name and know the coming year as the year of fortitude and perseverance. A year of perseverance for the green movement to reach its aims.

Mousavi declared the year as one of “patience and perseverance.” Supreme Leader Khamene’i, for his part, declared this the year of “redoubled diligence and redoubled work,” after congratulating the country for crushing “the foreign plot” on 22 Bahman, that conspired against the Revolution after an “unprecedented” and “outstanding” election.

As to anything Ahmadinejad had to say, this sums that up:

President Obama issued his second Nowruz address not only to the government, but more to the people of Iran, this year. An excerpt from his address,

Last June, the world watched with admiration, as Iranians sought to exercise their universal right to be heard. But tragically, the aspirations of the Iranian people were also met with a clenched fist, as people marching silently were beaten with batons; political prisoners were rounded up and abused; absurd and false accusations were leveled against the United States and the West; and people everywhere were horrified by the video of a young woman killed in the street.

The United States does not meddle in Iran’s internal affairs. Our commitment – our responsibility – is to stand up for those rights that should be universal to all human beings. That includes the right to speak freely, to assemble without fear; the right to the equal administration of justice, and to express your views without facing retribution against you or your families.

I want the Iranian people to know what my country stands for. The United States believes in the dignity of every human being, and an international order that bends the arc of history in the direction of justice – a future where Iranians can exercise their rights, to participate fully in the global economy, and enrich the world through educational and cultural exchanges beyond Iran’s borders. That is the future that we seek. That is what America is for.

As John Limbert, the former Iranian hostage now with the State Department said during his lecture I had the pleasure of attending, Obama is here offering himself up not as an enemy, but as a rival to the regime. To its people, John Limbert joked about him being a houvi, the prettier and younger wife. All in all there is no way to measure if this is the case, but taking Mousavi out of the equation, it’s hard not to be more attractive than Khamene’i!

On a positive note, in February the United Nations General Assembly voted to recognize March 21st as International Day of Nowruz. In the United States House and Senate both also passed Nowruz Resolutions. In the Senate, it was unanimous and a who’s-who of co-sponsors. In the house, there were two votes against it. Trita Parsi of the National Iranian American Council (NIAC) had written an open letter to the two naysayers prior to the vote, even gifting them flowers and the book Funny in Farsi, by Firoozeh Dumas (in fine Nowruz spirit). I’ll let you in on who these racist fucking bastards are: Jeff Miller, representing Joe Scarborough’s old district, and arch-Birther (who’s mother may or may not be a crocodile), Bill Posey. But, as Nowruz teaches, good overcame evil.

In this house,

May obedience overcome disobedience!

May peace overcome discord!

May generosity overcome avarice for wealth!

May reverence overcome pride!

May the true-spoken word overcome the false-spoken word distorting truth!

- Zoroastrian blessing [11]

Endnotes

1. The date has crept over the years in India according to two of the traditional Parsi calendars, with insufficient intercalation, and falls in late August!

2. Mary Boyce, Zoroastrians: Their Religious Beliefs and Practices 34.

3. R.C. Zaehner, The Dawn and Twilight of Zoroastrianism 138. Zaehner was also a British intelligence officer during the Iranian coup d’état of 1953.

4. Joseph Campbell, The Masks of God: Occidental Mythology 215-216.

5. Michael Axworthy, A History of Iran: Empire of the Mind 21.

6. John R. Hinnells, Persian Mythology 98-108, is inconclusive on the depth of influence, but suggests some level of syncretism was likely, at the very least.

7. The Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago has a Persepolis complex map and archive photographs from their groundbreaking archaeological expedition in the 1930s here. Another site, Persepolis3d.com reconstructs a virtual Persepolis in full color and detail. A brief complex overview from Iran Chamber Society, here.

8. Before the Pahlavi dynasty, folk theater also featured a jester-like character in black or white face whom defied convention. I wonder if the two could be connected.

9. For any fellow etymology enthusiasts, think of Greek hepta, Latin septem. It is from the Avestan hapta, which was closely related to Sanskrit, sapta. All Indo-European languages, of course.

10. Paul Kriwaczek, In Search of Zarathustra: The First Prophet and the Ideas that Changed the World 216.

11. From a Fezana Nowruz prayer book [PDF]. Adapted from this prayer.

Happy Nowruz!

I thought God might be pleased with the Texas education board putting him into their textbooks (he likes to try to stay ahead of Paris Hilton in popularity) but he instead asked me to publish this blog for Him:

Okay, I may be Old Testament School but though I’m flattered that some Texans would rather have me in their schools than gravity, I’m not comfortable going back into the classroom. I can’t fit my legs under those desks anymore and…my teen years were a bit awkward, I’d rather not be reminded of them.

This situation’s made clear that there are a few misunderstandings about me so I think now may be a good time to clear up some of them:

a. I am not American

Okay, maybe I was the first and most primal American Idol but I’m not American. That doesn’t mean I have a Nigerian birth certificate either. It’s like that old joke about Lincoln being born in a log cabin that he helped his father build, how could I have been born in a country on a planet that I created? So if I wasn’t born in America and I haven’t married an American woman (you should see my eHarmony profile, “Seeking a married virgin to get pregnant but not looking to leave her husband.”) , I don’t even have a green card.

How could I be American? I mean, I’m supposed to be everyone’s God, you know? How would Americans feel if I told them I was Canadian and liked them best? I do like back bacon but the bottom line is that I can’t hold a passport from any nation because my head shot would be way too big to fit on one.

b.  I am not an advocate of capitalism.

Believe me, after I lost a bundle in the tulip crash, the stock market crash, the dot com crash, the housing crash, I’m capitalismed out. I really don’t know where folks got the idea that I favor any economic system. When you’re eternal, you don’t even have a concept of possession.  What someone owns right now will eventually be someone else’s after enough time passes. Everything that’s physical today will eventually be transformed into something else. Except Twinkies…those damn things last forever.

Are folks really asking themselves, WDWJII (What Derivatives Would Jesus Invest In)? Like lots of people losing their homes and buried in credit card debt, my son was totally down on the money changers. He didn’t have a single credit card, really.

He and I pretty much see eye-to-eye on this, economic systems shouldn’t be worshiped. They should just be tools for making the lives of the most people the best they can be. If they’re not working great to do that, they should just be changed until and so they do.

The way some down there are about capitalism is like insisting on wearing the same  bikini that fit 20 years and 30 pounds ago.   It really doesn’t fit America like it used to, it’s come apart at the seams and needs to be mended. And adding a bit of Spandex wouldn’t hurt.

c. I don’t want to be President of the U.S.

No offense to Pres. Obama or any presidents before him but for me, that would really be a bit of a job demotion from omnipotent lord of all creation, you know? And can you imagine the way I’d be attacked if I ran? “He doesn’t stop the devil, can we trust him to stop Bin Laden?” or “He’s almost as old as John McCain, his VP is just one Atheist’s argument away from becoming president”.

Actually, I have an appreciation for the separation between church and state…really miss that, anyone know whatever happened to it?

d. The Devil is not responsible for the things and/or people you don’t like.

Many people blame The Devil or demons possessing people for things that happen or are said that they don’t like. They would be correct more often blaming bad things on high fructose corn syrup.

The truth is that Satan’s been going through a bit of depression lately, it’s a bit of the Empty Nest syndrome. Enough little evils have grown up in enough people in the world, Satan just doesn’t feel needed anymore. I don’t want to say he’s become very needy but every time I see him he asks, “Do these horns make my face look fat?”

So, just try to think of me like your parents. Humanity has grown up, moved out and is living in its own apartment. It can stay up late and party without regard for the consequences, it can be conscientious and dedicated to doing well at its work, it can care about its neighbors and help them or steal their Sunday newspapers.

Humanity can always call me to talk, I know my advice isn’t always wanted and I’m okay with that. Other times, I know how appreciated it is.

I won’t interfere in Humanity’s life and I only ask one thing of it, please no more ties on my birthday, I’ve got a whole closet of them and honestly, I never wear them.

Peace!

Texas has just officially doomed generations of their children to ignorance and being oddities in their grasp of history and reality…because neither of those items supported the political views of conservatives and Republicans.

I normally keep my quotes to a minimum but there is so much outrageousness here, I couldn’t pare it down:

From the NY Times:

Texas Conservatives Win Curriculum Change

By James C. Mckinley Jr.
March 12, 2010

After three days of turbulent meetings, the Texas Board of Education on Friday approved a social studies curriculum that will put a conservative stamp on history and economics textbooks, stressing the superiority of American capitalism, questioning the Founding Fathers’ commitment to a purely secular government and presenting Republican political philosophies in a more positive light.

Efforts by Hispanic board members to include more Latino figures as role models for the state’s large Hispanic population were consistently defeated, prompting one member, Mary Helen Berlanga, to storm out of a meeting late Thursday night, saying, “They can just pretend this is a white America and Hispanics don’t exist.”

“They are going overboard, they are not experts, they are not historians,” she said. “They are rewriting history, not only of Texas but of the United States and the world.”

There are seven members of the conservative bloc on the board, but they are often joined by one of the other three Republicans on crucial votes. There were no historians, sociologists or economists consulted at the meetings, though some members of the conservative bloc held themselves out as experts on certain topics.

“I reject the notion by the left of a constitutional separation of church and state,” said David Bradley, a conservative from Beaumont who works in real estate. “I have $1,000 for the charity of your choice if you can find it in the Constitution.”

They also included a plank to ensure that students learn about “the conservative resurgence of the 1980s and 1990s, including Phyllis Schlafly, the Contract With America, the Heritage Foundation, the Moral Majority and the National Rifle Association.”

Dr. McLeroy, a dentist by training, pushed through a change to the teaching of the civil rights movement to ensure that students study the violent philosophy of the Black Panthers in addition to the nonviolent approach of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. He also made sure that textbooks would mention the votes in Congress on civil rights legislation, which Republicans supported.

“Republicans need a little credit for that,” he said. “I think it’s going to surprise some students.”

Mr. Bradley won approval for an amendment saying students should study “the unintended consequences” of the Great Society legislation, affirmative action and Title IX legislation. He also won approval for an amendment stressing that Germans and Italians as well as Japanese were interned in the United States during World War II, to counter the idea that the internment of Japanese was motivated by racism.

Other changes seem aimed at tamping down criticism of the right. Conservatives passed one amendment, for instance, requiring that the history of McCarthyism include “how the later release of the Venona papers confirmed suspicions of communist infiltration in U.S. government.” The Venona papers were transcripts of some 3,000 communications between the Soviet Union and its agents in the United States.

In economics, the revisions add Milton Friedman and Friedrich von Hayek, two champions of free-market economic theory, among the usual list of economists to be studied, like Adam Smith, Karl Marx and John Maynard Keynes. They also replaced the word “capitalism” throughout their texts with the “free-enterprise system.”

“Let’s face it, capitalism does have a negative connotation,” said one conservative member, Terri Leo. “You know, ‘capitalist pig!’ ”

In the field of sociology, another conservative member, Barbara Cargill, won passage of an amendment requiring the teaching of “the importance of personal responsibility for life choices” in a section on teenage suicide, dating violence, sexuality, drug use and eating disorders.

“The topic of sociology tends to blame society for everything,” Ms. Cargill said.

Even the course on world history did not escape the board’s scalpel.

Cynthia Dunbar, a lawyer from Richmond who is a strict constitutionalist and thinks the nation was founded on Christian beliefs, managed to cut Thomas Jefferson from a list of figures whose writings inspired revolutions in the late 18th century and 19th century, replacing him with St. Thomas Aquinas, John Calvin and William Blackstone. (Jefferson is not well liked among conservatives on the board because he coined the term “separation between church and state.”)

“The Enlightenment was not the only philosophy on which these revolutions were based,” Ms. Dunbar said.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/13/education/13texas.html?scp=1&sq=texas%20education&st=cse

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!

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.)

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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.

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.

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…