Marian's Blog

Hi tech?! Enough already

Cheese and crackers! Between one thing and another we've been offline... how long? Bummer. Darn cookies and computers... Anyway, we're back. It's Easter weekend already. Good Friday. Passover began yesterday and continues till Thurs the 20th. Rummie is still US defense secretary (for the moment); Euro Social Forum kicks off in Athens in May - including Women's Assembly. Sudan's DC embassy proclaims its displeasure over an annoying (to them) yet growing snowball of divestment. Chad just cut dip. relations with Khartoum while CNN's US domestic service says nothing about most of this instead reporting the disturbing news of a New York shopkeeper whose cat may be trapped forever inside a wall. I kid you not. Plus ca change plus c'est toujours news American style. The more things change the more it's still news American style! Peace.

Impostor: Richard Nixon, George Bush - What's the difference?

Now for a history moment. What's the difference between George Bush and Richard Nixon? In my book - Nixon was impeached. In November 1973 Nixon spoke to a large group of Associated Press editors in Florida, stating, "People have got to know whether or not their President is a crook...." He added he was "not a crook." The American public disagreed. In 2006 it would seem reasonable that US citizens have a civic responsibility to be interested in knowing not only whether their president is a 'crook' but also whether he is competent. US citizens need to know whether our legislative branch (Congress) and the judicial branch (Supreme Court) of government are even exercising their check and balance functions. We're supposed to know who actually is running the US government, and whether or not those actions truly represent the will of the American people. If the answer to any of those things is no, we're in it deep. In October 1973 the Nixon administration appointed special prosecutor Archibald Cox to investigate the break-in at Democratic Party national headquarters then located in Washington's Watergate complex. (The late Frank Wills was the security guard who discovered the break-in.) Within days Nixon had decided to fire Cox. This led to October 20, 1973's "Saturday Night Massacre." The firing was temporarily halted by US Attorney General Elliot Richardson and deputy AG William Ruckelshaus as both chose to resign rather than obey the order to fire Cox. These days who would have that much integrity? Let's not mention courage. Enter Robert Bork, Nixon's Solicitor General in 1973. Later as Supreme Court candidate he was "borked."  After the demission of Richardson and Ruckelshaus, Bork voluntarily carried out the order to fire Cox. That was then and this is now, as another conservative by the name of Bruce Bartlett has published a rousing book titled Impostor: How George W. Bush Bankrupted America and Betrayed the Reagan Legacy. I have absolutely no nostalgia for Mr. Reagan or his "legacy", but unfortunately before long more of us probably will agree with the first part of Bartlett's premise. - "Whether ours shall continue to be a government of laws and not of men is now for Congress and ultimately the American people." - Archibald Cox

Chris Owens for Congress - New York 11th district

(Another lost blog entry thanks to one small typing glitch.) 2006 election season is on y'all. There's a major Chris Owens for Congress fundraiser, Tuesday, 21 Feb at Magnetic Field - 97 Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn, between Henry and Hicks streets. Bring your checkbook and a friend. And if you can't make that event you can still send Chris a little somethin' somethin'. The FEC (Federal Elections Commission) ID is H6NY11109, and his campaign office is 328 Flatbush Ave #333, Brooklyn 11238. Details on Tuesday's fundraiser are on DailyGotham, which I found via Liza Sabater's terribly hiply fabulously informational CultureKitchen. Grazie Liza! More on all this later. Same channel.

A Black History Month 2006 Plan of Action

"If you would understand anything, observe its beginning and its development" - Aristotle. I have three priorities for BHM 2006 - BHM being Black (or African American) history month. One is preparing for next year's 2007 quadricentennial (400th) anniversary of the founding of Virginia - or more precisely, founding of the Jamestown colony by subjects of the King of England, and eventual founding of the English Virginia colony, predecessor of what became the US state (including what today is Kentucky). Priority #2 is May 10th - le 10 mai 2006 - France's new national day to publicly, officially remember France's involvement in African slavery. Internationally it's fairly obvious that when it comes to modern world history's long era of slavery many or most of our societies long ago chose amnesia rather than historical accuracy and responsibility. (Read Alan Rice - "British Selective Amnesia and the Political Imperative to Conserve Black Atlantic Memory" in Revisiting slave narratives , ed. Judith Misrahi-Barak.) Yet even as Americans go on dealing with the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, 10 May is central to France's other former territory, la Louisiane, and to the history and evolution of its people and descendants. As children in Baton Rouge, Louisiana we studied Longfellow's 1847 epic poem, Evangeline, about the Acadians' migration to Louisiana from what is now Canada. But no one ever mentioned a massive migration to New Orleans around 1803 to about 1812 from the French part of the island Saint Domingue in the Caribbean - the part of the island that now is Haiti. Somewhere someone must have written a story or poem about this. New Orleans' native Anne Rice's book, The Feast of All Saints, for example. Decades after reading Evangeline in Louisiana I want to know how Louisiane and Nouvelle France (New France) relate to each other. This leads me to my third priority, an affirmation of events 2 and 1 which are related to each other in the context of European expansion: the need for other European nations besides France to 'come out of the closet' about their own roles in the interconnected international slave trade. These nations will do well to follow France's example: Britain, Netherlands, Spain, Portugal, Denmark and Norway - the old amalgamated Denmark-Norway. The annual May 10th commemoration would not be happening were it not for member of French Parliament Christiane Taubira (Guyane francaise), as well as the French parliament which in 2001 passed her Taubira Law, and president Chirac and others who now have formally acknowledged France's slavery and slave trade role. We also thank France for its eventual role in the abolition of same, as well as for its contribution as the first country to declare slavery a crime against humanity. "... On one of these sale days, I saw a mother lead seven children to the auction-block. She knew that some of them would be taken from her; but they took all. The children were sold to a slave-trader, and their mother was bought by a man in her own town..." - continued below, Chapter 3, The Slaves' New Year's Day, Harriet Jacobs' 1860 autobiography, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl

A 'french style revolution' in the USA??

After reading my earlier blog entry which poses the question, "Does Schwarzenegger even know?" (re a campaign to close a California "youth correctional facility" [prison] known as "Chad"), reader Randy in the UK shared his thoughts, stating, "Schwarzenegger IS a bully who is succesful [sic], this is proof the world is wrong, and that we need a french style revolution, in america." Thanks, Randy, for the feedback. It's just that I'd love to know exactly what a "french style revolution" in the US would be like. The last time France had a revolution was the 18th century. That's been awhile. The world's changed quite a bit since then though from the evidence I'd wager most men's "approach" to 'social change' - fighting - has not.

France's New National Remembrance Day for Slavery - African/Black History in the Americas, Europe, Middle East, Asia

Two years ago, in November 2003, with the Alliance of People of African Descent in Europe, I participated in the European Social Forum held in France - in Saint Denis and next-door Paris. We had a lot of discussion of France's history of Black enslavement, especially in and with Haiti. This was on the eve of Haiti's 2004 bi-centennial (which was greatly under-observed internationally). Early 2004 witnessed the "mysterious" 'removal' of elected Haitian president Jean Bertrand Aristide. What role if any did France have in that?? The 2003 ESF experience in Paris could be the subject of at least one other blog entry. In any case, I would be very grateful if someone reading this might share this with Jacques Chirac and with anyone else thinking, or who needs to think, about public policy and public responsibility, and paucity of both, toward the historic global trafficking of African people. Today (actually yesterday) from Paris Associated Press reports: "France will introduce a national day of remembrance for slavery, an issue that still wounds "a large number of our fellow citizens," President Jacques Chirac said Wednesday." [4 Jan 2006.] Note to M. Chirac - this extends far beyond France. Not only is such a decision unbelievably overdue, these "wounds" of which Jacques Chirac speaks are found among and well beyond his "fellow" and sister French citizens. (This entry continues below!)

Frantz Fanon and France's Wretched of the Earth

I'm remembering the brother of a friend of mine from the Maghreb - northern Africa. Yes - Tunisia, Morocco, Libya, Algeria and several other countries beyond are in and are part of Africa. My friend's older brother was killed some years ago - murdered it seems - in a small town in France; a town I visited. To my knowledge up to now no one has ever been arrested, let alone tried for this young man's tragic and unnatural death. I don't even have any idea whether French local authorities investigated the circumstances of his death. Last year in 2004, in spite of our collective efforts and dialogue at the 2003 European Social Forum (ESF/FSE) right there in France, in St. Denis and in Paris, there was precious little global recognition of France's history and responsibilities in Haiti during the 2004 bicentennaire - bicentennial - of the entire world's first modern Black republic. In spite of all this I maintain my love of France, though certainly not uncritically. I have lived and worked, struggled, learned and shared in France. Now national authorities have activated a state of emergency - un etat d'urgence - for the first time since Algeria's war of independence against France as European colonial occupier. There's a huge gap of both time and politics from 1955 to now. Yet not nearly enough has changed it seems. Coincidentally, the Bandung Conference in Indonesia also took place in 1955. Two of my blog categories are "Bandung+50" and "Wretched of the Earth?" I was very much influenced in choosing these themes by a person, a Black Frenchman and an historical cousin - another person of African descent from the Americas - named Frantz Fanon. Fanon authored two seminal works of "anti-colonial revolutionary thought, Black Skin, White Masks (1952) and The Wretched of the Earth (1961), works which have made Fanon a prominent contributor to postcolonial studies." Fanon died of cancer in Washington, DC on 6 Dec. 1961. In 1964, after his death, his third book appeared in English as Toward the African Revolution. Black Skin, White Masks originally was titled, "An Essay for the Disalienation of Blacks." The above quote is from Prof. Deepika Bahri's informative Fanon website. Bahri, from India, is associate prof of English and director of Asian Studies at Emory University in the US. Her site also notes British director Isaac Julien's 1996 film on Fanon - Frantz Fanon: Black Skin, White Mask, available from California Newsreel. Read more of this post below...

FRANTZ FANON, MD (1925-1961):

Native of MARTINIQUE, Caribbean Americas

Nigergate: Blaming "Africa" & the 'Coalition of the Willing' - Berlusconi Meets Bush in DC

What's happening to the 'coalition of the willing'?? We hear Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi meets George Bush today - to discuss a possible pull-out of Italian troops from Iraq. - Or it seems more likely Berlusconi is showing up in DC in person to re-assure George (& the Italian and global 'MSM' -mainstream media) that in spite of CIAgate/NIGERgate an Italian pull-out will not happen. - "Berlusco" must've flown out of Rome just after me. Is his trip just kind of a nod to a hostile Italian public & angry anti-war movement? Meanwhile, Italian daily La Repubblica just ran a three-part series - in Italian, Oct 24, 25, 26, 2005- charging that the US and UK were aided by the Italian intelligence agency SISMI in obtaining or allegedly even falsifying documents that were used by George Bush and his "Vulcans" to 'prove' that the tiny West African country Niger was prepared to provide nuclear material to Saddam Hussein. La Repubblica even says an Italian sometime-spy Rocco Martino broke into the Embassy of Niger in Rome to steal official Government of Niger stationery for someone to forge letters describing the alleged nuclear loot allegedly headed for Iraq. Non e possibile... If all this is true Italians again allow themselves to do the dirty work for interests far North and West of Rome, using Italians' geo-cultural proximity to Africa to help set up a situation. Water-carrying for Washington?? Why wouldn't someone right there in Washington break and enter Niger's embassy in DC? Not that they should. A truly pitiful mess. In Italia what I call GOPGate is being called Nigergate. Check the story in English here. ...Or the original Repubblica series in italiano - linked above. So far, apart from certain US daily newspapers we haven't yet heard a peep of this from US television "news" media!

Bush, Inc: GOPgate - Haven't We Had Enough Already??

Mr. Bush - there's a lot more than 'background noise' going on over your head! Those two words are from yet another "brilliant" (...snicker...) George Bush performance to stonewall a journalist. This one occurred just yesterday in DC. I don't have the original question but Bush replied: "There's some background noise here, a lot of chatter, a lot of speculation and opining. But the American people expect me to do my job, and I'm going to." Maybe there really are still one or two Americans out there actually waiting for Mr. Bush to start. His job that is. Bush may be meeting certain expectations of his self-described "base" - the "haves and have mores" - but alot of us are sure he is not working on behalf of "the American people." If you happen to be an American - do you consider yourself better off today than you were five years ago? Yesterday I was reading a blog which alleges George and Jeb (Bush) are waiting for Wilma - the latest mega-storm bearing down on the southern US - to strike, presumably in Florida, in order to further distract the American public from the (constitutional?) crisis metastasizing in Washington. I was calling this Whitehousegate but it goes deeper so I'll call it GOP-gate. Much of the so-called 'Republican revolution' was engineered over the past three, even four decades, but it ramped up big time once Newt Gingrich jumped into the saddle with the 1994 Republican Contract with On America. The Grand Old Party doesn't seem to need to speak of that one anymore. Today's citizen anger inside the US is not only about Iraq nor just about the leak of classified information - i.e., the name of a US intelligence agent - and evidently by sources right there inside the White House, no less. This is not just about government-sponsored perversity at Gitmo or Abu Ghraib nor just Commander in Chief Bush's time-delayed response to a storm called Katrina. It's also not just war-making so elegantly combined with massive contracts gifted to political cronies, nor is it just the related hemorraging of the United States budget. It's not even just those fishy outcomes of two - count 'em 1, 2 - US elections. The problem is all these and more. Haven't Americans had enough of the dullard 'press conferences' combined with the lying, smirking, self-serving arrogance? And why has the outrage about this - overall - been far stronger in societies and countries other than our own??? Answer me that one. I'm checking a site, After Downing Street, where someone posted Bernard Weiner's fascinating piece, "Arguments for an Impeachment Resolution." Weiner has a site called The Crisis Papers. And I particularly like Jane Hamsher's quote at Huffington Post from one of her recent articles on investigator Patrick Fitzgerald where she remarks that Fitzgerald "... sees into the ugly, greedy, oozing heart of the NeoCon kleptocracy, its mafia-like structure and the all-too-cozy overlap between the war party and the profiteers..." Like I asked, haven't enough of us had quite enough of all this yet??

Hurricane WILMA Roaring toward Yucatan and South Florida

The US national hurricane center - based in Miami - is one of the best places I know to get latest info on hurricanes present and past. Only two days ago I warned weather scientists were tracking a new tropical depression in the Caribbean. I think it was #24 of the season. Now it's been named Wilma. Hurricane Wilma. Between then and today Wilma went from a depression to a tropical storm, and then overnight since yesterday from a Cat. 1 hurricane to the biggest, baddest Category 5 storm in tracking history. Haiti and Jamaica have already been hit. Central America seems about to be. This storm is currently on track to come aground somewhere along Mexico's Yucatan peninsula near Cozumel and over the coming weekend it may consume South Florida. That information and the course of this storm could change, which is why we need to pay attention and share information. If you have details to share about this storm and what's happening currently, please add them here as a comment. Between natural disasters and everything else going on all over this planet, around the world populations most likely to be affected need as many of their own people as possible - children, adults, women as well as men - to have the most appropriate and well-conducted disaster training and preparation that can be made available. I don't know all the parties out there responsible for things like this. But I do believe someone reading this does.