A musical blast from the past
November 23rd, 2010 § Leave a Comment
H/t to The Nation’s Greg Mitchell for finding this rare gem and posting it on Twitter.
This is from John Lennon’s documentary “Gimme Some Truth.” It features a young Tariq Ali, Robin Blackburn, Regis Debray, and the legendary Miles Davis … shooting hoops with Lennon. Classic.
Onward!
“Only the mood music has changed”: Tariq Ali on Obama’s presidency
October 7th, 2010 § 4 Comments
OK… here’s the PULSE exclusive I’ve been working on. Hope you enjoy.
Is president Barack Obama the change America has been waiting for or is he another corporate Democrat representing elite interests? According to Tariq Ali, very little has chanced between Obama and former president George W. Bush. In his latest book “The Obama Syndrome: Surrender at Home, War Abroad,” Ali argues that Obama is carrying on the reckless policies of the Bush regime. If Obama continues down this path, the Democratic Party not only face the prospect of the House & Senate in 2010 but also the presidency in 2012. This should be a cause for concern.
I caught up with Ali during his American book tour and here’s what he had to say about the Obama presidency.
Where did the idea for this book emanate from? Why did you want to write a book about “The Obama Syndrome” and what does that refer to?
The idea occurred because I speak a lot on the United States. People ask me questions after each talk and increasingly in the past two to three years, the talk has been about Obama. I thought a short book which essentially provided a balance sheet from the left on the mid-term would be a useful exercise. Given that he’s being attacked nonstop for being a socialist, a leftist, being a Muslim and all this nonsense that comes from the Tea Party-Fox Television alliance, I thought it was better to have a hard-headed realistic account about who the guy really is. So my book is a critique of him, but it’s also by implication a very sharp critique of people who claim that everything Obama is doing is so radical that they can’t take it anymore.
Reese Erlich: “Stop using the word ‘terrorist’”
September 24th, 2010 § 2 Comments
Defining what a terrorist is and isn’t is a major dilemma. What one may consider terrorism, another may consider resistance. So where does one draw the line? Reese Erlich tackles that topic in his latest book “Conversations with Terrorists: Middle East Leaders on Politics, Violence, and Empire.”
Erlich is a veteran journalist who has covered U.S. foreign policy for decades. He has freelanced for National Public Radio, Radio Deutsche Welle, the Australian Broadcasting Corp. Radio, the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. Radio, and writes for The San Francisco Chronicle and The Dallas Morning News.
Drawing on firsthand interviews and original research, Erlich argues that yesterday’s terrorist is often today’s national leader and that today’s freedom fighter may become tomorrow’s terrorist. By branding all of American’s opponents as “terrorists,” it makes it more difficult to look beyond the individual or the political group and understand what they are really all about. I caught up with Erlich recently and here’s what he had to say.
Feeling the Loyalty to the Jewish State of Israel
September 17th, 2010 § 3 Comments
By Max Blumenthal and Joseph Dana
The Israeli Knesset is debating a bill proposed by David Rotem of the extreme right Yisrael Beiteinu party that would require all Israeli citizens to swear loyalty to Israel as a “Jewish and democratic state.” This bill is targeted at increasing pressure on the twenty percent of Israelis who are Palestinian citizens while forcing the ultra Orthodox Jewish minority who reject the legitimacy of any state not based on Jewish biblical law to accept Zionism. If passed in its proposed form, citizens unwilling to take the loyalty oath would be at risk of losing citizenship.
Anna Baltzer: Palestinians “come second” at peace talks
September 9th, 2010 § 1 Comment
This interview first appeared at iBrattleboro.com
Anna Baltzer on "The Daily Show"
A visit to the occupied territories of Palestine can change one’s perspectives forever. Such was the case of Anna Baltzer. Baltzer is a Jewish-American granddaughter of Holocaust survivors. In 2002, she was awarded a Fulbright scholarship to teach English in Ankara, Turkey and soon after volunteered with the International Women’s Peace Service in the West Bank. There she was exposed to the Israeli occupation of Palestine. She documented human rights abuses for the IWPS, returned to Palestine/Israel over the years, and published her experiences in a book called “A Witness in Palestine: A Jewish American Woman in the Occupied Territories.”
Baltzer is a leading human rights activist on the Mideast and travels across the country to raise awareness about the Israeli-Palestine conflict. Her appearance on “The Daily Show” with Palestinian human rights activist Mustafa Barghouti was instrumental in raising awareness about life under the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. I caught up with Baltzer and we discussed several topics including her “The Daily Show” appearance; occupation myths; Israeli apartheid and the boycott, divestment, and sanctions campaign; and the Mideast peace talks in Washington, DC.
Dr Jack Shaheen: “More leadership needed on Park 51 conversation.”
August 30th, 2010 § 3 Comments
Crossposted at Huffington Post.
The national conversation on the Park 51 Islamic Community Center has taken a turn for the worst. Opponents claim it’s too close to the Ground Zero and is offensive to families who lost loved ones in the September 11, 2001 terror attacks. Others call it a breeding ground for Al Qaida terrorist networks and have protested at the proposed site. The controversy has brought out the worst in people. Fear, ignorance, prejudice, Islamophobia, xenophobia, and racism have reared their ugly heads and meaningful conversation is no where to be found. Where do people turn to put the Park 51 controversy into context?
Jack Shaheen is the author of the groundbreaking work “Reel Bad Arabs: How Hollywood Vilifies a People” and “Guilty: Hollywood’s Verdict on Arabs after 9/11,” the winner of the 2009 Forward Magazine social sciences book of the year. He is a professor emeritus of Mass Communication at Southern Illinois University and a winner of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee’s “Lifetime Achievement Award.”
Shaheen has been following the recent developments on Park 51 and I caught up with him to see what he had to say.
Gail Dines: How “Pornland” destroys intimacy and hijacks sexuality
June 29th, 2010 § 108 Comments
This is an interview that you may not be accustomed to viewing at PULSE, but pornography is an issue I don’t take lightly. As a father of two boys, I am concerned with how pornography conveys sex to today’s youth; how it exploits both women and men; and the fact that pornography is getting more and more graphic (and violent) than ever. Dr Gail Dines, of Wheelock College, puts pornography in some much-needed perspective and I hope this engages a lively, yet respectful, discussion. – Christian Avard
In today’s world, sex has become commodified and industrialized. We see it all the time in print publications, television commercials, cable television shows, major motion pictures, and adult entertainment. Pornography is a multi-billion dollar industry that misuses and abuses sex and represents it in disturbing ways. Pornographers sell and produce films based on teen sex, torture porn, humiliation, and/or racist caricatures. What’s more disturbing is that hard-core porn is becoming more mainstream in society.
Dr. Gail Dines is a professor of sociology and women’s studies at Wheelock College and an expert on pornography. Her new book, Pornland: How Porn Has Hijacked Our Sexuality, has just been released by Beacon Press and is considered a groundbreaking study of how today’s pornography shapes men and women’s ideas, attitudes, and perceptions of sex. Here is what Dines has to say about her new book and the effects of pornography.
Jeremy Scahill TKOs former NYC mayor Ed Koch on “Morning Joe”
June 3rd, 2010 § 6 Comments
First it was Glenn Greenwald, now it is independent journalist Jeremy Scahill. Today on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” former New York City mayor Ed Koch tried to defend Israel’s actions for attacking the Mavi Mamara flotilla. Koch uttered complete nonsense and Scahill picked him apart piece by piece a la Greenwald vs. Eliot Spitzer. Here’s the debate they had. Koch couldn’t defend himself, resorted to interrupting, and even used the ridiculous “Hamas Card” on Scahill. Scahill wasn’t buying it.
Later, Scahill had this to say about their off-the-air discussion (if you could call it that).
During the commercial break during my debate with Koch, the former mayor called me a “terrorist supporter.” I told him, “Say it on the air.” He didn’t.
To read Scahill’s account, click here.
Demonstration in Burlington, Vermont, USA
June 1st, 2010 § 1 Comment
Here is a video of yesterday’s action in Burlington, VT, my home state. The second speaker is Yonatan Shapiro, a former IDF pilot who was in the same squadron that conducted the atrocious raid on the Mavi Mamara.
The activists took their message beyond the streets. They walked into a department store and the Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream store. I’m sure you’re all familiar with Ben & Jerry’s. Given Ben & Jerry’s economic and social justice activism, I’m hoping this will wake them (and all Vermonters) up to the realities of the Israeli occupation of Palestine. Another rally will take place tomorrow. I’ll update this post when I get new information.
