Makani Themba-Nixon : A Black Woman Looks at the Election

Posted on November 8, 2008 by Thorne Dreyer

Celebration at Grant Park, Chicago, after Obama victory. Photo by Kuni Takahashi / Chicago Tribune.

‘Last night for the first time in my life, I saw people gathered to say unequivocally that they finally feel at home in this country.’
By Makani Themba-Nixon / The Rag Blog / November 8, 2008

I’ve always wanted to love this country. To feel that unalterable sense of home that no matter what it does, it belongs to me. I know people from Chile, Palestine, Rwanda, for example, who have literally lost everything – their parents and siblings murdered, their homes burned to the ground. Still, they fight for their homeland with a sense of ownership, a sense of deep connection that separates the place from the people who run it.

As a Black woman, I have always envied this sense of home-land. Although I changed my name among other things to try to make real my sense of Africa as my imagined home, I, like many others in this country, have long felt homeless in this respect.

Last night [election night, Nov. 4, 2008], for the first time in my life, I saw people gathered to say unequivocally that they finally feel at home in this country. I walked the streets of this nation’s capital built by enslaved Africans, until nearly dawn. Spontaneous gatherings were sprouting everywhere. I stood in the crush of thousands at the White House as people sang, “Na Na Na Na, Na Na Na Na. Hey, hey, hey. Goodbye…” They chanted, “Whose House? Our House”! The crowd flowed down Pennsylvania Avenue all the way to 18th Street. And then I saw another first: the White House turned off every light – in the house and on the grounds. It was the physical manifestation of what they’ve done for the last eight years: sit in the dark and pretend we weren’t there.

In Adams Morgan, a lively queer group brought some extra flava by leading 18th Street in the chant, “Obama For Yo Mama!” U Street was straight out of control. The Ethiopian clubs were bumping , cars were parked blasting and there converged in the middle of the street a multinational dance off that repped much of East and West Africa, drunk frat boys and old school hip hop of all stripes. It felt like being in South Africa after Mandela was elected or in Venezuela after Chavez. It felt like anywhere but the US after an election.

My mother-in-law called crying, thanking God she got to live to see this day. Downtown DC was full of smiling, crying people so full of joy and, yes, hope, that they would spontaneously talk to you; bursting with analysis. He whipped that fool like he stole something. What! Obama, baby!

I’m not sure but I don’t think many offices got cleaned last night.

At the National Council of Negro Women, the National Coalition for Black Civic Participation had an old school party where people cried and danced and hugged each other and, yes, did the electric slide to freedom.

Four hundred people stood in line at 4 a.m. in Woodbridge, VA determined to vote in a state that does not require employers to allow employees paid time off for voting. I spoke to a waitress in Alexandria who had just found out she had a shift change and was heartbroken. She would miss her first chance to vote after becoming a citizen last year.

There was the family from Culpepper, VA including a 62 year old grandmother and three grandchildren in their twenties who were voting for the first time; the day laborers who moved from organizing around their local conditions to organizing around national elections in less than a year. These brothers, members of Tenant Workers United, spent Election Day knocking on doors in the rain because they had come to see the connection between their lives and the elections. There are so many stories. I am too full to do them justice. They are each their own miracle.

About the Election Results

Stories like these belied the neat red-blue dichotomy that so dominated network news. First, a closer look revealed that the turnout was much more nuanced and often more raced. The New York Times did a better job of capturing this (click on county leaders view) with a map of county by county results. It’s a much “bluer” world than Fox and most pundits are ready to embrace. Alabama Black belt counties gave Obama most of his 38%. It was the big counties with sizable white populations that put McCain over the top. Obama won Virginia thanks to the north, Richmond, Roanoke, the Hampton Roads counties and the county where Virginia Tech is located. The rest of the state – even in coal country where Bush policies have hit the hardest – were still solidly for McCain. Ohio, Missouri and North Carolina told a similar story: People of color plus young whites were the key.

If anyone doubts that racism is alive and well in American politics, the fact that more than 55 million people voted for McCain in spite of his negative, racist and politically vacuous campaign; his lack of charisma and terrible media performance; his scary choice of running mate and inconsistent positions on virtually every issue of importance; and in spite of his obvious ineptitude for the bread and butter issues facing the majority of electorate should be proof enough. Being white and male gave him the handicap (in golf terms) that got him 50 million plus votes ‘just because.”

Sure, there was vote flipping, vote stealing and our biased voting system that held Obama back from an even more impressive win. I mean what kind of system won’t mandate time off to vote or allow Ted Stevens (R-AK) to run for Senate as a convicted felon but not allow our ex-offenders to vote who have done their time.

Yet, all that notwithstanding, I was struck by the gap between the support for Obama and for the democratic candidate for Senate in a number of states. It speaks volumes about the “new” and “old” electorate. In states like Iowa, Missouri, Michigan and Virginia, the senate Democratic candidate got more votes than Obama where Obama won.

In South Dakota and West Virginia, the senate races were a rout with Democrats garnering nearly two thirds of the vote – and Obama lost the state. This gap was mostly ignored by the pundits as they tried to play up the “Gee whiz, this means white people are not racist” angle that dominated much of the commentary.

Then there was the other part of the equation. In a few states, like Mississippi, the senate candidate did not do as well as Obama. Yup, Mississippi. And you know the reason why: the Black vote. There was an unprecedented turn out of Black people – especially in the south – that forced McCain to spend money in states that have historically been a Republican stronghold. Latinos and other people of color turned out strong for Obama as well. And there was finally some funded infrastructure for voter protection. Long time warriors like the National Coalition on Black Civic Participation, Lawyers’ Committee, NAACP and Advancement Project were joined, for the first time, by the Obama campaign, which organized voter protection teams in every state where funny business was expected. It was another historic first: a Democratic candidate that did not participate in the long time “gentlemen’s agreement” between the parties to look the other way on voter suppression. An agreement the Clintons embraced during the primary season as they sought to narrow the playing field to their advantage. Here was a Democratic candidate actually complaining about turnout…

Maybe now, as we examine the turnout demographic in places like North Carolina, Indiana, New Mexico, Colorado and more, we can finally lay to rest this unsubstantiated worship of the soccer mom/NASCAR dad as the necessary foundation for progressive victory. No more “blueprints” that put money in every place but urban centers. No more colored people as after thoughts. No more Joe Six Pack or Joe the Plumber as the archetypal American story. Maybe we can face the fact that it was Jose and Shanequa and Mohammed who made the difference this season. A fact you won’t hear that from most pundits – even in The Nation.

Obama was the first major party nominee to implement a full blown street operation that valued our communities’ vote and in doing so, bucked a century old tradition of paying “leaders” to “deliver” us. It was the reliance on this system that helped derail the Clintons’ bid to recapture the White House. The Clintons thought they had a lock on the Black vote because they thought these “leaders” had a lock on “their” people. After all, that’s what they had been selling for decades. But in this season, they were straight busted. This is perhaps the most significant impact of the Obama campaign on Black political terrain: the way it shattered power relations between the “old heads” of the civil rights generation and a new, younger generation of Black leadership.

Obama’s election is, in fact, the latest milestone in what can only be understood as a significant generational change in Black national leadership. Between the White House, the NAACP and the Black Leadership Forum to name just a few key institutions, these new leaders are moving away from much of the politics (though not the important principles) of the civil rights leadership and embracing more technical approaches to addressing the challenges at hand. The promise is better run, more politically savvy institutions, and that can only be a good thing.

However, these institutions, even with their smart, savvy leadership, do not have the capacity to effectively engage the millions of new Black activists post election. There is simply not enough intentional, progressive institutional building in African American communities – especially at the local level to effectively hold this work. Hopefully, there is finally the space for substantive conversations about work and investments in this area – and organic community organizing and civic infrastructure in communities of color more broadly – which is long overdue.

Now what?

I’m not sure but clearly the eagerness of so many to translate their new found activism and burgeoning political literacy into local action opens up new opportunities. I literally heard hundreds of people say to me, ‘This is not about Obama. He is just an agent… Now, we have to take the responsibility to get involved where we are…’

And that’s what keeps me up at night. How do we keep from blowing this opportunity? What do we need to let go of and embrace in order to really see our way ahead?

I have friends who are deeply consternated by the elections. They are afraid of how hard it will be to move an agenda because of the passion that people feel about Obama’s candidacy. In fact, just by being Black, an Obama presidency has special implications for our work. On one hand, there is greater access and likelihood he will embrace some key issues. On the other hand, his “big tent” paradigm creates greater pressure to distance himself from many progressive issues including avoiding an attack against Iran. And then there’s that “post racial” thing.

Our work will be even harder, they say, because it will be difficult to hold him accountable. Sure, that’s true but how well did we hold Bush accountable? And is accountability the end game or is it power to govern, to move our agendas? And what is the strategic relationship between the two?

If it’s the latter, we might not need to start the public conversation with our Obama critique – although there are many legitimate and important critiques to make. Perhaps we start with how do we build the infrastructure to support progressive, local work that helps channel this new activism? What are the next fights/ initiatives we can craft to bring people closer to a concrete political framework that solves problems, broadens their imagination and deepens their analysis? What are the necessary reforms, frames, stories, institutional changes that help to facilitate this larger project? And what new stories can be told, new dreams that can be inspired? In short, what are the cool next things that, yes we can do?

I have long believed that no one ever takes anything that they don’t somehow believe they are entitled to. It is at the core of what made me uncomfortable with such concepts like “Take Back America.” How can I take back America when, as Langston Hughes wrote so eloquently, it never was America to me?

Which brings me back to where I began. Today, there are many more folk for whom America is closer to being “America” to them. I can either dismiss this as wide eyed ignorance or I can work with others to leverage this new confidence to advance change we can depend on. Perhaps it will require me to give up my perception of myself as a “captive in Babylon” and embrace this project of making this country truly home – in every sense of the word – for the people who built it and keep it going every day.

There is much more to say but this is already way longer than I planned. Besides, it would seem that our mailboxes are already clogged with notes like these. (It didn’t stop me, though.) Still, I’m hoping this is just another node of a conversation. If we don’t get all the answers, we can at least figure out what the heck are the questions.

It’s also true that sometimes you just need to stop thinking and just celebrate the good things in life. Hope you are taking time to do just that.

Makani Themba-Nixon.

Makani Themba-Nixon is Executive Director of The Praxis Project, a nonprofit organization helping communities use media and policy advocacy to advance health equity and justice.

Thanks to Paul Buhle / The Rag Blog

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Obama’s Rhetoric Toward Iran Leaves Something to Be Desired

Posted on November 8, 2008 by RagBlog

As far as I am concerned, what this article describes is horrible. Barack Obama shows a clear ignorance of the facts in this matter, and a typical American style of arrogance and belligerence. The most recent National Intelligence Estimate has been routinely suppressed and ignored by the Bush administration, but it bodes ill indeed if Barack Obama also intends to suppress and ignore this document. He should be criticised on this important issue and called to task for continuing to repeat the BushCo lies.

Richard Jehn / The Rag Blog

Excerpt from the NIE of December 2007.

Iran must be kept from developing nukes: Obama
November 8, 2008

CHICAGO — An international effort must be made to keep Iran from developing a nuclear weapon, U.S. President-elect Barack Obama said on Friday.

“Iran’s development of a nuclear weapon, I believe is unacceptable,” he said at a news conference in Chicago. “Iran’s support of terrorist organizations, I think is something that has to cease,” he said.

Obama said he would be reviewing a letter from Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, congratulating him on his election, and would “respond appropriately.” But he said the U.S. approach to Iran could not be done in a “knee-jerk” fashion. “I think we’ve got to think it through,” he said.

Source / Reuters India

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Not So Fast…

Posted on November 8, 2008 by Thorne Dreyer

Thanks to Harry Edwards / The Rag Blog

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The Crash of 2008 : More ‘Washington as Usual’ Under Obama?

Posted on November 8, 2008 by Thorne Dreyer


‘Where is your independence Sen. Obama, where are the names of Joseph Stiglitz or Paul Krugman who for months have been warning of the present economic meltdown?’
By Dr. S.R. Keister / The Rag Blog / November 8, 2008

John Reed and Emma Goldman where are you when we need you? Milton Friedman smiles in his grave. President elect Obama is considering “economists” for financial advisors and for the Treasury Department, Wall Street insiders, that were adherents to the doctrine of unfettered Capitalism and have brought us to the brink. Where is your independence Sen. Obama, where are the names of Joseph Stiglitz or Paul Krugman who for months have been warning of the present economic meltdown?

As one who believed in, and worked for, your election, am I now to believe that this will be Washington as usual, favoring your Wall Street contributors rather than those millions of small folks who gave out of hope and belief? Is it time for a Camille Desmoulins to leap upon a table and reenact the events of July14, 1887? If so, recall The Place de la Concorde of 1793!

One would have hoped that a new White House advisor would not be an adherent of AIPAC and a product of the 1990s. One would trust that one does not see the followers of Leo Strauss appointed to positions in the Defense and State Departments. One would hope for complete clarity as to why we have squandered nearly eight years in Iraq. Not only do we need a plan for withdrawal, but the American people deserve a full explanation of the geopolitical reasons for the neocon/oil company ploy that underlay the invasion.

Was the war predicated on territorial control or merely oil company profits? Why the continued American presence in Afghanistan? No rational person can believe that Bin Laden, a child of privilege and wealth, has been sitting in a cave for eight years, if indeed he is still alive. Karzi is of course impotent and realistically can never head a ‘democratic government.” The Afghans have resisted outside domination for centuries, Alexander the Great, the Mongols, the British in the 19th Century, and the Russians of late; hence, why is the United States there? Are we protecting oil pipelines or has it to do with sharing in the narcotics trade?

Is it time for a Nuremberg-like tribunal to look at the malfeasance of such folks as Phil Gramm, Alan Greenspan, Chris Cox and Henry Paulson? It is time for inspiring Congress to immediately revise the pre-election, multibillion bailout package for the Wall Street firms and big banks, to reward the taxpayer, and stop the funds from being funneled to the institutions that caused this financial mess, being used for executive rewards, stock-holder dividends, and acquisitions. We need independent government observers to oversee the distribution of these funds? The Europeans have government observers in place in their institutions.

It is time to consider a realistic single payer, universal health care program, as per HR 676, and Physicians For A National Health Program. It is time to rid our country of the insurance industry that sucks up the health care dollars as profit. Were these insurance companies campaign contributors? We in the United States should not rank 26th in the world on health care delivery. We should not have nearly 50 million citizens without adequate health care. We deserve the excellence of health care that is available in the Western European countries. Let us see members of PNHP within the upper levels of the Obama administration. This is not a time to punt and knuckle under to the insurance and pharmaceutical lobbies.

Finally, it is way past time for an INDEPENDENT investigation of the tragedies of 9/11. In no other time in the history of our nation has an episode of this magnitude been swept under the rug. At no other time would the naive citizens of this nation have stood by and ignored the lack of such an investigation.

At the same time it should be a priority to challenge the need for the United States to be an Empire with over 700 overseas military bases, many with 18-hole golf courses. Do we need a military budget equaling that of all the world’s other nations combined? Would not aggressive diplomacy reduce the need for such military spending and free funds for care of our citizens at home re: health carte, education, public health, infrastructure repair, and providing decent rail transport as within the E.U. or Japan?

One hopes that our country does not experience the events of St. Petersburg in 1919; however, inaction, procrastination, misrepresentation, and placement of the perpetrators of our impending financial meltdown in the government very well could produce such an event. We are close to falling into the abyss. Look at your IRA or your savings plan, and realize that the day of total collapse may be nearby.

It is time for a native Mirabeau to step forth.

[S. R. Keister, a retired physician, is a regular contributor to The Rag Blog.]

The Rag Blog

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Larry Ray : Early Christmas? Put Away the Flashing Lights

Posted on November 8, 2008 by Thorne Dreyer


A string of lights: Don’t expect pretty incentive packages under America’s real Christmas trees this year.
By Larry Ray / The Rag Blog / November 8, 2008

It has been like a long Christmas morning since the evening of the November 4th Democratic victory. Tens of millions of us basked in a new feeling of peace on earth and good will toward men. But by now we have already taken off almost all the political ornaments, tinsel and flashing lights from our early stand-in Christmas tree, and have packed them away for another four years.

Don’t expect pretty incentive packages under America’s real Christmas trees this year. This New Year’s day, millions of households will face post-holiday blues not felt in more than half a century. Frigid winter’s increasing chill will punctuate our deep economic crisis. We are slowly realizing that no immediate rescue is in sight. We are stuck with Bush and company till late January next year. The new Obama administration will require time to get effective plans underway. “Maybe some mortgage relief in a few months,” say the hopeful. Meanwhile we watch the daily terrifying cycle of vanishing credit, no one spending leading to layoffs and store closures, leading to a dimmer and dimmer future.

Imagine an early TV broadcast of June Evelyn Bronson Cleaver, of all people, having to tell Beaver and Wally that it will be one present Christmas. Ward still has his job, but he had to take a steep cut in pay and his company pension fund is dwindling daily. Already more than half of the Cleaver’s neighbors have packed up and left as the foreclosure signs went up. June’s spinster aunt, Martha, has had to divide her prescription drug medicines to every other day because there is just not enough money, even living alone. It is the last show of their season and we don’t get to see the ending.

For today’s real families there is no way to leave it to Beaver. Millions of Americans are slowly being reduced to the basics of just having enough to eat, and trying to stay warm. Crime rates are predicted to climb as many normally law abiding people resort to doing what they think it takes to feed their families. As dark times of scarcity face us it is imperative we not lose that newly rekindled sense of hope seen across our nation on the evening of November 4th.

“Yes We Can” requires that we all work together as a connected string of individual bright lights that refuse to burn out as a new Obama administration tackles the huge stack of problems that face us. All Americans regardless of political stripe must find that inner energy, powered by our pride and hope, to keep that essential string of lights burning to fight the darkness we face. Decades of unregulated financial dealings that led to today’s economic nightmare will take a long time to clean up and repair. Bad habits in Washington will have to be broken, and lots of sticky fingers and downward pointing thumbs on Capitol Hill should get broken as well.

The brightest light of all for America would come from a vigorous effort to bring criminal charges against the Bush administration and the neo-conservative, Constitution-trampling knot-heads who need to pay for the serious damage they have done to our great country. For them to ignore subpoenas, wait out the clock, smugly return to their super wealthy protected enclaves as though nothing culpable had happened is not right.

Actually charge and prosecute the powerful? Yes We Can.

[Retired journalist Larry Ray is a Texas native and former Austin news anchor. He also posts at The iHandbill.]

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Obama Presidency : What the Left Should Expect

Posted on November 8, 2008 by Thorne Dreyer


‘Obama won the presidency with the support of the American left. The antiwar movement was his first national constituency.’
By David P. Hamilton / The Rag Blog / November 8, 2008

What the left should expect from Obama’s first term.

We’re all talking about our expectations for the Obama presidency. Given what he has said he supported during his campaign, what exactly should be our principal expectations?

Obama won the presidency with the support of the American left. The antiwar movement was his first national constituency. A year ago, conventional wisdom was that Hillary Clinton was the most likely Democratic Party candidate. However, she was unacceptable to most to the antiwar movement. There followed a winnowing process in which the other Democratic primary candidates were considered for support by the antiwar movement. Obama eventually won that support, his first national constituency.

In the election, Obama won by a margin of roughly eight million votes, many times more than Nader and McKinney combined. Obviously, most of those who consider themselves members of the antiwar movement supported him. Hence, we have justifiable expectations and obviously, what we want has to do primarily with withdrawal from Iraq.

However, now we have a situation where the Iraqi government is on the verge of throwing US troops out of the country anyway by refusing to agree to a status of forces agreement with the US after the UN mandate authorizing US troops there runs out onDecember 31st. Hence, merely pulling US troops out of Iraq is too easy and insufficient and we should demand more.

1.) We want a definitive diminution of American militarism. This should be exemplified by: a.) a much greater reliance on diplomatic negotiations, international organizations and treaties to resolve conflicts between nations (starting with support for the current negotiations between the Karzai government of Afghanistan and the Taliban); b.) the worldwide reduction of US military forces stationed abroad; and c.) a significant reduction of the “defense” budget.

2.) Partial nationalization of the health care industry in order to provide health care as a right to all US citizens.

3.) A very high level of government investment in safe, renewable energy and conservation programs as an alternative to carbon based fuels. This would also be a very large jobs program.

4.) A more progressive system of taxation, i.e., higher taxes on capital gains and upper income brackets, removal of the cap on Social Security taxes, maintenance of estate taxes, a stock transaction tax, closure of offshore tax shelters, etc.

5.) Partial public ownership of “rescued” corporations. If the public bails them out from impending bankruptcy, we should collectively own a corresponding stake in them.

6.) Strong pro-choice/right to privacy appointments to federal courts.

7.) Revocation of the proto-fascist measures taken by the Bush administration, such as the Patriot Act and other domestic surveillance measures. This should include the closing of the prison facility at Guantanamo.

This list could be expanded, but the above demands have all been to some degree endorsed by Obama during his campaign. Basically, we want the expansion of the commons, that which belongs to all of us collectively.

The Rag Blog

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Mike Hanks Takes a Shot at the Missile Defense Question

Posted on November 8, 2008 by Thorne Dreyer

Mike Hanks’remarks below on missile defense systems in eastern Europe will surely prove controversial with many of The Rag Blog’s readers. Let the rumble begin. Please note the “comments” link at the end of the article.

‘It is important to understand that the missiles proposed for deployment in Poland do not pose a threat.’
By William Michael Hanks / The Rag Blog / November 7, 2008

I hope I’ll be forgiven for making presentments, assertions and forwarding opinions without the usual citing of precedent, quoting significant sources, and utilizing much in the way of irrefutable argument – it’s late.

With that optimism, I’m forwarding the following thoughts in the way of being self-evident. I am prepared to sustain the hazards of such a course and, if pressed, to offer proof of whatever I may opine, but for now …

We are approaching the first test of solidarity in the new administration. The challenges that President Obama will face upon assuming office will be, to state the obvious, almost overwhelming. One of the dynamics that will create unity (power) or disunity (weakness) is the expectations of his constituency. Let’s look at a current issue.

One of the crises already being seen is in regard to the deployment of missile defense systems in Poland. The leadership in Russia has stated, in response to defensive systems, that offensive missile systems will be deployed which directly threaten Europe. Much of the progressive community has opposed the Missile Defense System known as “Star Wars”. These thoughts are presented to open a dialog among those who may hold that position.

It is important to understand that the missiles proposed for deployment in Poland do not pose a threat. They don’t even carry explosives. They are completely ballistic in the sense that they are designed to simply collide with an incoming missile and break it up prior to reaching its target.

Why would this pose such a risk to any one? Why would the Russian administration be so exercised over that? Are they concerned that one of these lumps of steel might drop on a little old lady crossing the street? No, it is because the threat posed by gigatons of nuclear weapons owned by Russia is rendered less harmful and therefore the coercive power of the Russian war machine is greatly reduced.

Most of the discussion I have heard in the past two days seems to assume that placing missiles in Poland threatens Russia in some way. As if those missiles could be used to destroy Russian cities or military installations. And then the old cold war mentality sets in which might suggest we should not deploy those missiles because it would be provocative – and we’d get what we deserved when Russia deploys their missiles.

That is not the case. The systems are not equivalent. The defensive missiles proposed for Poland make the world a safer place. If this system is widely deployed the threat of nuclear holocaust could be reduced to near zero. Why would that worry Russian leadership? Because if you have a gun to the world’s head you don’t want it putting on a bullet proof helmet. Rendering nuclear weapons useless is a good start in eliminating them.

The Rag Blog

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Violence in Gaza Breaks the Ceasefire

Posted on November 8, 2008 by RagBlog

wednesday, mourners carry the body of a hamas fighter killed by israeli forces during ground incursions on the previous day

Israel Breaches Gaza Ceasefire: Invades, Kills 7, Seizes Many
By Michael / November 6, 2008

yesterday, while i worked alongside politicos; while americans voted and watched the votes get counted; while the media was consumed with barak obama, the israeli army used its time to commit horrific acts in the gaza strip. by the end of three days, israel will have killed SEVEN palestinians, seized many more and injured dozens.

after a 5 month ceasefire, began by hamas and held despite difficult circumstances, on tuesday the israeli army boldly violated the calm with a series of invasions and air strikes on the gaza strip. palestinian resistance fighters thus responded in kind and launched a series of projectile attacks. this is the first such air strike during the ceasefire.

so what happened on tuesday? israeli military forces, including tanks, invaded deir al-balah, in the central the gaza strip. initial reports indicate that israeli forces were attempting to destroy a tunnel they claim was to be used to abduct an israeli soldier.

while attempting to resist the israeli military advance, six members of hamas’ armed wing, the al-qassam brigades, were killed. the gaza government has named the dead as:

Mazin Sa’da, 32
Mamhoud Ba’lusha, 21
Omar Al-Alami, 20
Muhammad Awad, 26
Wajd Muharib, 19
Ammar Sailhiyya, 21

the bodies of several palestinians killed in israeli invasions are carried by mourners near khan younis refugee camp in central gaza

additionally, several other palestinians, including a woman, were injured. some of the injuries were sustained as israeli tanks fired on civilians homes in the deir al-balah area, while others were injured as the results of missiles launched from israeli war planes. these missiles struck in various areas in deir al-balah. during these operations, four israeli occupation soldiers were reportedly injured.

armored israeli bulldozers demolished two palestinian homes belonging to the al-hamaydi family, in central gaza’s al-quarara neighborhood. additionally, israeli forces in this area seized at least seven palestinians from the same family, including three women.

occupation soldiers “escort” three captured palestinian women to the kissufim army base. these women were among those seized from the al-Humeidi family.

some of those taken were named as: Sharihan al-Humeidi, a 22 year old female, her sister, Hanan Hassan, 26, their two brothers Radwan and Nu’man, and the wives of the brothers, Samar Abu Shabab, 19 and Hanin al-Lih, 19.

Source / From Occupied Palestine, with Love

Thanks to Diane Stirling-Stevens / The Rag Blog

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Let’s Bring Culture Not Only to the White House, But to All of American Government

Posted on November 7, 2008 by RagBlog

My only question is why would we not desire a Ministry of Culture? Such a government department or agency is commonplace in other nations; why would we not want one in the US?

Richard Jehn / The Rag Blog

Robert Frost recites a poem at John F. Kennedy’s inauguration

Rejuvenate Public Diplomacy! Bring Culture Back to the White House
By John Brown / November 7, 2008

The many reports that have appeared on the failures of American public diplomacy during the Bush years have stressed its limitations in the area of information and educational programs. What some call the third pillar of public diplomacy — cultural programs — has, however, been little mentioned.

This is not surprising. As I pointed out, not very originally, in a long essay, “Arts Diplomacy: The Neglected Aspect of Cultural Diplomacy,” and in a recent book review on the arts and democracy, Americans are uneasy not only with federal government support for the arts, but with the very notion of “culture” (high culture with a “capital K”) itself. Our Puritan roots — and they are still alive and well — underscore that overcoming the all-encompassing fear of predestined eternal damnation can be achieved (but not with certitude, which makes us work even harder) through “busy-ness” (business), not the “dangerously” hedonistic pursuit of pleasure (See, of course, Max Weber).

When we Americans do allow ourselves time for lassitude, we do so, as a rule, in a very planned, business-like manner (or totally “drop out” through drugs). Las Vegas, “sin city,” is the best example of this pleasureless, high-strung “fun-fun-fun,” which has little to do with the dolce far niente, a key — frivolous “art for art’s sake” types would say — to savoring life in an aesthetic (meaningful?) way.

We Americans are known worldwide for our power to “entertain” (and Hollywood-style entertainment, it could be argued, is essentially about biological “relaxation” — comparable to a satisfying bowel movement or “pigging-out” on junk food). Mindless blockbuster movies and vulgar pop “music” are among our most profitable exports.

Based on my experience in the Foreign Service (and, needless to say, personal biases), however, I have found that many foreigners, no matter what social class or education, don’t understand why our official diplomatic missions show so little interest in presenting “serious” American culture to them (and course “serious” depends on whom you’re talking with).

Non-Americans are aware that the U.S. does have splendid orchestras, theaters, museums. (I don’t want to suggest, mind you, that America is without culture; I simply want to say that “culture” does not play the central role in American life that it plays in other countries in continental Europe, Asia, and parts of the Middle East. An Italian government official said at a White House conference that her country’s Ministry of Culture was as important in Italy as is the Petroleum Ministry in Saudi Arabia. What she said about the Saudis/Italy could apply to the U.S. Let’s face it: we’d rather have oil than culture).

Foreigners are struck by how little the world’s most powerful nation does — in an “official” way — to display its art to interested persons. Interestingly but not surprisingly, when the USG does — all too rarely — fund cultural activities overseas, it likes to call them “workshops.” That, of course, spares the State Department of being accused of frivolity by Congresspersons claiming to represent the hard-working taxpayer; artists are working, so everything’s ok, no money is being wasted. Another favorite Foggy Bottom “cultural” program, by the way, is “arts management” — and yes, that’s very important business. Again, let’s get ’em artists working — i.e., producing as if in a corporation — right.

During the past eight years, many abroad have considered America hostage to a crude & rude “cowboy president.” Bush, despite his Yale and Harvard “education,” has been seen as uncivilized (a word all too often used by critics of America, which is far too busy reinventing itself to be “civilized”), not only because of his barbaric, scorched-earth “shock and awe” policies (for which Americans will pay a price for many years) but also, I would suggest, because of the little respect he showed toward the fine arts (in Russia, there was a rumor that Bush, in a St. Petersburg palace, stuck chewing gum underneath the table at which he was sitting).

The favorite form of relaxation for this preppy cheerleader reformed alcoholic is physical rather than aesthetic. He loves exercise (of course, nothing wrong with that), an activity also much favored by his football-crazy Secretary of State (it was reported that a preferred topic of their discussions is sports — as Americans were dying in Iraq?, some may ask).

Among the many not-so-subliminal “W” messages to the homeland (let us hope that word will disappear from the American language) was the following: “I, your mission-accomplished commander in chief — while engaging in my ‘free time’ in communications with the Almighty — work (and “work out”) too hard during the day to listen to music or read a book” (I personally wonder if he’s ever really read the Bible, one of the great literary masterpieces). Say a “prayer” and in bed by 10 pm. No nonsense.

Under Bush, the presidency was totally divorced from culture; how many persons in the world associate “Dubya” with an exhibit or concert (or an experimental artistic project on the Internet)? Very few, if any; indeed one of Bush’s “pleasures” was to show Saddam Hussein’s handgun to White House visitors. In all fairness to the Bushes, First Lady Laura the Librarian showed an interest in books; and a picture of Bush that will always be remembered is his holding a book — yes, Bush with a book!: The Pet Goat, in front of students at Emma E. Booker Elementary School in Sarasota, Florida, on September 11, 2001, as flames ravaged the World Trade Center in New York.

Given that Americans are reluctant to support their culture overseas — Hey, why should we? We’ve got Hollywood doing that! Get real! We’re in the middle of a hell of a recession! First things first! — it cannot be expected that public diplomacy will receive the funding to significantly increase its cultural programs overseas under the new administration (but then one never knows; miracles do happen).

Meanwhile, however, instead of waiting for miracles, Americans with an appreciation for the arts — and such Americans, many of them, do exist — should encourage the new president, Barack Obama, to make the White House a more culture-friendly place. As was the case during the Kennedy years, the residence of our Chief Executive should be a venue for cultural activities of all types, ranging from concerts to poetry readings, to which foreigners (including, needless to say, visiting heads of state and other official representatives, including in the field of culture) would be invited.

Non-Americans felt that the Kennedys were “one of them” because of the presidential interest in the arts. No reason why the articulate Barack and his elegant spouse cannot show the same interest in the enchanting sides of life while they serve in the White House (and they do not necessarily have to be culture-vultures to do so; after all Ian Fleming was one of JFK’s favorite authors).

Bringing culture to the White House would do much to demonstrate to the world that Americans can, indeed, value the arts — in our own way. True, we’ll never have a Ministry of Culture (nor should we), but if our new president (a published author who has a literary bent) takes the arts seriously (and I do not mean solemnly) and shares this appreciation publicly with his fellow citizens and other inhabitants of Mother Earth, it will help show our small planet that the cowboy presidency is indeed over and that after eight xenophobic years we Americans are again trying to connect with the rest humankind — a humankind defined, in many ways, by its greatest cultural achievements, of infinite variety throughout the world.

And, finally, how about starting off the new administration on the right cultural footing, by having a poet (say the Library of Congress’s Poet Laureate, Kay Ryan, who has written about the “idle maunderings poets feed upon”) read at the Obama inauguration, just as Robert Frost (ironically, something of a Puritan himself) did when John F. Kennedy assumed the presidency?

John Brown, a former Foreign Service officer, compiles the Public Diplomacy Press and Blog Review.

Source / Common Dreams

The Rag Blog

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Ayers Seems Relieved That the Election Is Over

Posted on November 7, 2008 by RagBlog


What a Long, Strange Trip It’s Been: Looking back on a surreal campaign season
By Bill Ayers / November 7, 2008

Whew! What was all that mess? I’m still in a daze, sorting it all out, decompressing.

Pass the Vitamin C.

On the campaign trail, McCain immediately got on message. I became a prop, a cartoon character created to be pummeled.

For the past few years, I have gone about my business, hanging out with my kids and, now, my grandchildren, taking care of our elders (they moved in as the kids moved out), going to work, teaching and writing. And every day, I participate in the never-ending effort to build a powerful and irresistible movement for peace and social justice.

In years past, I would now and then—often unpredictably—appear in the newspapers or on TV, sometimes with a reference to Fugitive Days, my 2001 memoir of the exhilarating and difficult years of resistance against the American war in Vietnam. It was a time when the world was in flames, revolution was in the air, and the serial assassinations of black leaders disrupted our utopian dreams.

These media episodes of fleeting notoriety always led to some extravagant and fantastic assertions about what I did, what I might have said and what I probably believe now.

It was always a bit surreal. Then came this political season.

During the primary, the blogosphere was full of chatter about my relationship with President-elect Barack Obama. We had served together on the board of the Woods Foundation and knew one another as neighbors in Chicago’s Hyde Park. In 1996, at a coffee gathering that my wife, Bernardine Dohrn, and I held for him, I made a donation to his campaign for the Illinois State Senate.

Obama’s political rivals and enemies thought they saw an opportunity to deepen a dishonest perception that he is somehow un-American, alien, linked to radical ideas, a closet terrorist who sympathizes with extremism—and they pounced.

Sen. Hillary Clinton’s (D-N.Y.) campaign provided the script, which included guilt by association, demonization of people Obama knew (or might have known), creepy questions about his background and dark hints about hidden secrets yet to be uncovered.

On March 13, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), apparently in an attempt to reassure the “base,” sat down for an interview with Sean Hannity of Fox News. McCain was not yet aware of the narrative Hannity had been spinning for months, and so Hannity filled him in: Ayers is an unrepentant “terrorist,” he explained, “On 9/11, of all days, he had an article where he bragged about bombing our Pentagon, bombing the Capitol and bombing New York City police headquarters. … He said, ‘I regret not doing more.’ “

McCain couldn’t believe it.


Neither could I.

On the campaign trail, McCain immediately got on message. I became a prop, a cartoon character created to be pummeled.

When Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin got hold of it, the attack went viral. At a now-famous Oct. 4 rally, she said Obama was “pallin’ around with terrorists.” (I pictured us sharing a milkshake with two straws.)

The crowd began chanting, “Kill him!” “Kill him!” It was downhill from there.

My voicemail filled up with hate messages. They were mostly from men, all venting and sweating and breathing heavily. A few threats: “Watch out!” and “You deserve to be shot.” And some e-mails, like this one I got from satan@hell.com: “I’m coming to get you and when I do, I’ll water-board you.”

The police lieutenant who came to copy down those threats deadpanned that he hoped the guy who was going to shoot me got there before the guy who was going to water-board me, since it would be most foul to be tortured and then shot. (We have been pals ever since he was first assigned to investigate threats made against me in 1987, after I was hired as an assistant professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago.)

The good news was that every time McCain or Palin mentioned my name, they lost a point or two in the polls. The cartoon invented to hurt Obama was now poking holes in the rapidly sinking McCain-Palin ship.

That ’60s show

On Aug. 28, Stephen Colbert, the faux right-wing commentator from Comedy Central who channels Bill O’Reilly on steroids, observed:

To this day, when our country holds a presidential election, we judge the candidates through the lens of the 1960s. … We all know Obama is cozy with William Ayers a ’60s radical who planted a bomb in the capital building and then later went on to even more heinous crimes by becoming a college professor. … Let us keep fighting the culture wars of our grandparents. The ’60s are a political gift that keeps on giving.

It was inevitable. McCain would bet the house on a dishonest and largely discredited vision of the ’60s, which was the defining decade for him. He built his political career on being a prisoner of war in Vietnam.

The ’60s—as myth and symbol—is much abused: the downfall of civilization in one account, a time of defeat and humiliation in a second, and a perfect moment of righteous opposition, peace and love in a third.

The idea that the 2008 election may be the last time in American political life that the ’60s plays any role whatsoever is a mixed blessing. On the one hand, let’s get over the nostalgia and move on. On the other, the lessons we might have learned from the black freedom movement and from the resistance against the Vietnam War have never been learned. To achieve this would require that we face history fully and honestly, something this nation has never done.

The war in Vietnam was an illegal invasion and occupation, much of it conducted as a war of terror against the civilian population. The U.S. military killed millions of Vietnamese in air raids—like the one conducted by McCain—and entire areas of the country were designated free-fire zones, where American pilots indiscriminately dropped surplus ordinance—an immoral enterprise by any measure.

What is really important

McCain and Palin — or as our late friend Studs Terkel put it, “Joe McCarthy in drag” — would like to bury the ’60s. The ’60s, after all, was a time of rejecting obedience and conformity in favor of initiative and courage. The ’60s pushed us to a deeper appreciation of the humanity of every human being. And that is the threat it poses to the right wing, hence the attacks and all the guilt by association.

McCain and Palin demanded to “know the full extent” of the Obama-Ayers “relationship” so that they can know if Obama, as Palin put it, “is telling the truth to the American people or not.”

This is just plain stupid.

Obama has continually been asked to defend something that ought to be at democracy’s heart: the importance of talking to as many people as possible in this complicated and wildly diverse society, of listening with the possibility of learning something new, and of speaking with the possibility of persuading or influencing others.

The McCain-Palin attacks not only involved guilt by association, they also assumed that one must apply a political litmus test to begin a conversation.

On Oct. 4, Palin described her supporters as those who “see America as the greatest force for good in this world” and as a “beacon of light and hope for others who seek freedom and democracy.” But Obama, she said, “Is not a man who sees America as you see it and how I see America.” In other words, there are “real” Americans — and then there are the rest of us.

In a robust and sophisticated democracy, political leaders—and all of us—ought to seek ways to talk with many people who hold dissenting, or even radical, ideas. Lacking that simple and yet essential capacity to question authority, we might still be burning witches and enslaving our fellow human beings today.

Maybe we could welcome our current situation—torn by another illegal war, as it was in the ’60s—as an opportunity to search for the new.


Perhaps we might think of ourselves not as passive consumers of politics but as fully mobilized political actors. Perhaps we might think of our various efforts now, as we did then, as more than a single campaign, but rather as our movement-in-the-making.

We might find hope in the growth of opposition to war and occupation worldwide. Or we might be inspired by the growing movements for reparations and prison abolition, or the rising immigrant rights movement and the stirrings of working people everywhere, or by gay and lesbian and transgender people courageously pressing for full recognition.

Yet hope—my hope, our hope—resides in a simple self-evident truth: the future is unknown, and it is also entirely unknowable.

History is always in the making. It’s up to us. It is up to me and to you. Nothing is predetermined. That makes our moment on this earth both hopeful and all the more urgent—we must find ways to become real actors, to become authentic subjects in our own history.

We may not be able to will a movement into being, but neither can we sit idly for a movement to spring full-grown, as from the head of Zeus.

We have to agitate for democracy and egalitarianism, press harder for human rights, learn to build a new society through our self-transformations and our limited everyday struggles.

At the turn of the last century, Eugene Debs, the great Socialist Party leader from Terre Haute, Ind., told a group of workers in Chicago, “If I could lead you into the Promised Land, I would not do it, because someone else would come along and lead you out.”

In this time of new beginnings and rising expectations, it is even more urgent that we figure out how to become the people we have been waiting to be.

© All Rights Reserved

[Bill Ayers is a Distinguished Professor of Education and Senior University Scholar at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He is the author of Fugitive Days (Beacon) and co-author, with Bernardine Dohrn, of Race Course: Against White Supremacy (Third World Press). ]

Source / In These Times

Thanks to Diane Stirling-Stevens / The Rag Blog

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US Says Iraq SOFA* Discussions Are Complete

Posted on November 7, 2008 by RagBlog

From whence does this arrogance arise? Why do citizens and, more especially, the government of the United States believe that they can dictate to anyone else around the world the conditions of discussion? Why has the humility so necessary for human existence vanished?

What is key to understand is that the United States invaded the sovereign nation of Iraq in March 2003 without provocation, without reason, without any justification whatsoever, in contravention of International Law, in contravention of the Nuremburg Principles, the Geneva Conventions, other international treaties, and moral belief. There is no basis or foundation on which to rest the arrogance of this government.

Richard Jehn / The Rag Blog


Iraqis seek more ‘withdrawal’ talks; U.S. says they’re over
By Leila Fadel, Nancy A. Youssef and Warren P. Strobel / November 6, 2008

BAGHDAD — The United States delivered Thursday what it said was the final text of the controversial accord on the stationing of U.S. forces in Iraq, but Iraq said more talks are needed before the government can accept it.

“We have gotten back to the Iraqi government with a final text. Through this step, we have concluded the process on the U.S. side,” said Susan Ziadeh, the U.S. Embassy spokeswoman in Baghdad. “Iraq will now need to take it forward through their own process.”

The accord, which calls for complete withdrawal of U.S. forces by the end of 2011, has been the subject of tense negotiations for the past seven months.

According to State Department officials, the United States yielded to several important Iraqi demands, including Baghdad’s proposal to inspect mail and cargo for U.S. forces in Iraq. One official said he did not know the details of how those inspections would be carried out, adding, “I don’t think it’s going to be overly intrusive.”

He and other officials spoke on condition of anonymity, because the details of the American response were not being made public.

Bush also accepted Iraq’s request for firmer language in its call for U.S. troops to withdraw by the end of 2011, two defense officials said, although they did not know the details of the wording.

While the U.S. government signaled that it will not engage in further negotiations over the pact, which has been repeatedly delayed, the government spokesman, Ali al Dabbagh, indicated that Iraq expects further discussions with the United States before the process is completed.

“These amendments need meetings with the American side to reach the bilateral understanding, and the environment is positive,” Dabbagh said in a statement on a government-funded television channel. “The Iraqi side needs time to give the main blocs to have their opinions, suggestions and notes on the amendments suggested by the American side.”

Many Iraqi officials are now calling the status-of-forces accord, or SOFA, “the withdrawal agreement,” possibly as a way of marketing it to a wary public.

The accord is controversial in Washington as well. The White House has pushed aggressively to reach the deal, but some Pentagon officials expressed concern that the concessions will set a precedent for current and future status-of-forces agreements with other countries. The United States is not believed to have agreed to another nation monitoring mail in status agreements with more than 80 other countries, for example.

Earlier this week, a senior Pentagon official who requested anonymity to speak candidly said he found it “hard to believe we could find aspects there that are acceptable” in the Iraqi proposal to search mail and cargo, adding: “What kind of precedents would we be setting?”

Administration officials said President Bush sees the agreement as key to shaping his legacy on Iraq. They said Bush wanted to leave the presidency with a solidified relationship between the United States and an indisputably sovereign Iraq.

To the White House, “SOFA is a sign of success,” a second U.S. defense official, who also requested anonymity to speak candidly, told McClatchy.

That said, the Bush administration refused to accept one major Iraqi proposal, which would have given Iraq expanded legal jurisdiction over U.S. soldiers alleged to commit wrongdoing while in the country. U.S. officials have called that a “non-starter.”

The agreement has to be completed by the end of this year in order to replace a U.N. mandate that provides the legal basis for the U.S. presence in Iraq.

Iraqi officials were tight-lipped Thursday about whether the changes were acceptable. The changes first must be presented to the cabinet. If the cabinet agrees, the draft will be presented to the Iraqi parliament. One of the main sticking points for Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki’s government has been the issue of jurisdiction over U.S. soldiers in Iraq.

Shiite Muslim officials who raised new demands when the accord was completed two weeks ago have been accused of succumbing to Iranian influence not to sign the agreement. At the time, Iraqi officials openly predicted that the government would be forced to extend the United Nations mandate. In recent days, officials have sounded more positive about the outcome.

“The next step is for the cabinet to meet to look at the responses,” Iraq’s foreign minister, Hoshyar Zebari, told McClatchy. “I hope it will be very soon.”

The latest draft calls for U.S. forces to withdraw from Iraqi cities by June 2009 and withdraw from Iraq by 2011. It also lifts immunity for private U.S. contractors such as Blackwater, whose security guards were accused of uncontrolled shooting while on patrol duty, resulting in the deaths of Iraqi civilians.

It also allows for a joint U.S. and Iraqi committee to decide whether a U.S. soldier who’s committed a crime outside a U.S. base was off-duty and where he should be tried. Iraqi officials wanted to make that decision on their own, but the Bush administration has apparently rejected the demand.

President-elect Barack Obama has long advocated a U.S. withdrawal by the summer of 2010, a date that Maliki originally demanded in the agreement.

U.S. officials are pushing to get the deal done before the end of the month. If it’s not done by the beginning of December, the government will have to begin the process to renew the U.N. mandate, one U.S. official in Iraq said. The parliament must approve the agreement when it’s back in session next week and before it adjourns just before the end of the month for the Hajj season, when millions of Muslims make the holy pilgrimage to Mecca in Saudi Arabia.

“Look, the government of Iraq has debated this agreement thoroughly. … They forwarded to us their suggested amendments. We got back to them,” State Department spokesman Robert Wood said Thursday. “Now the negotiating process has come to an end.”

(Fadel reported from Baghdad, Youssef and Strobel from Washington.)

Source / McClatchy Washington

The Rag Blog

* SOFA = Status of Forces Agreement

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Ron Ridenour on Obama : Conditional Hope from Across the Seas

Posted on November 7, 2008 by Thorne Dreyer

Lazane Tyler (center) celebrates Barack Obama’s victory in Grant Park, Chicago, on Nov. 4, 2008. Photo by Kuni Takahashi / Chicago Tribune.

‘I must confess that I feel a vague hope that he — this black man who was three years old when I fought alongside his people in Mississippi for the right to simply vote — might just remember the 106-year old black woman of whom he spoke in his victory speech.’

By Ron Ridenour / The Rag Blog / November 6, 2008

DENMARK — Danish television news broadcasted the historic news in the dark of early morning: the first African-American president of the United States of America—military emperor of nearly the entire planet—Barack Obama!

Feelings! What do they feel?

Suppressed joy. Repressed victory. Freedom Songs of struggle and jubilation. Justice won, justice denied. On-going pain of war, mass murder, torture, unnecessary starvation, unnecessary sickness and early death. Disappointment at not being able to cry with unrestrained gladness: at long last, after endless years of excruciatingly painful castrations, lynchings, eye-gougings, rapings,…my people in kinship have achieved a political and a personal victory of such gigantic proportions. The knowledge that the joyful feeling exists for many makes me feel good in it self. The knowledge of why I can’t cry out of pure joy is most disheartening, though. The permanent war age will continue.

“Yet I must confess that I feel a vague hope that he — this black man who was three years old when I fought alongside his people in Mississippi for the right to simply vote — might just remember the 106-year old black woman of whom he spoke in his victory speech, a woman who lives to see one of her own people win the biggest prize. Obama took her with him, and therewith took with him, and for the benefit of his white audience too, the history of slavery, brutal racism and the long hard struggles against it. No other Democratic party candidate could have embraced her and her history in such an intimate way. And certainly the warmongering, racist McCain plus crypto-christian-fascist Palin could not, even in their nightmares, imagine such a warm and enlightened communication.

We can hold Obama to that intimate understanding of the true history of oppressed peoples if we organize and grow in determination, and therewith in strength. Even though Obama will do the bidding of the capitalist-imperialist system, he might just be a significantly bit different and for the benefit of many people whom we abide, like this great great grandmother. And, if that is so, it means we have a greater chance to organize all the more and place on the agenda the absolute need to substitute the current economic foundation with one based upon cooperative production and decision-making, and with cooperative distribution of goods, services, and natural resources, and with an absolute end to all aggressive war-making.

Obama’s inevitable failure to even propose such an agenda let alone fight for it could well drive many people, including sectors of the working class, into an understanding that it is not the person — not the color of the skin, the gender nor the sexual preference — that is the determining factor but the very economic system itself.

Still, I wish to dwell a bit on the victory — the victory of our historical struggles against racism and for racial equality. Let us recall that the United States as a nation was built upon the genocidal racial wars against the aborigine peoples, and upon the slavery of black Africans. Mulato Obama as president of the US of Amerikkka has taken the KKK out of America, at least officially. And that is a victory, and one that can be more readily built upon, which could take the KKK out of America everywhere, if we unite all we can and demand real radical change.

[Ron Ridenour, a regular contributor to The Rag Blog, now lives in Denmark. A noted journalist, author and editor, and an expert on Latin American affairs, Ron cut his teeth with the sixties underground press. He will be sending us dispatches from Cuba in coming weeks.]

The Rag Blog

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