Rod Amis - Unbound

NEW ORLEANS - 17 July, 2003: This week we go back to a bit of my "three dot journalism" because there are so many issues and instances I need to share with you, my darlings. I've come back from my state of despair to look with "jaundiced eye" at what has been developing during my recent absence. I was not pleased. This is a long journal entry, so fasten your seatbelts.

I mean to point out items from disparate sources that have raised questions and alarums for Yours Unruly. The alarm I feel at what develops is palpable because it reinforces concerns raised in this Glass House since 9/11. The Mouthpiece Media (MM) are sounding more like G21 of late, I've noted, than ever before.

I can't suss out whether I should feel gratified - (In the triumphal chariot, a slave rode behind every Roman general, whispering into his ear, "All fame is fleeting.") - or simply remind myself that no prophet is appreciated in his own country. So I am back in Jeremiad mode for this week.

ITEM ONE: Long-term Loyal Readers may recall that I covered the election of Prime Minister Tony Blair while visiting my friend and G21 Alumnae FELICITY USSHER in London. I have watched Mr. Blair's "poodle dog" (a term now derisively used in the Brit press regarding his unflagging devotion to U.S. interests) machinations with amusement for years now. I've often commented on them disparagingly.

Mr. Blair visits the United States today and appears before Congress. The high honor, a medal, he was scheduled to receive when this visit was planned has been (transparently) delayed.

Blair is arriving at a time when the Mouthpiece Media is obsessed (in their Story Du Jour style) with what Arianna Huffington jocularly calls "Yellowcake-gate." Did the President of the United States (POTUS) knowingly lie to the world in his State of the Union address leading up to the war with Iraq?

Well, of course he did.

I've maintained that for months now. Glad the MM finally caught up. This man is on something, it seems clear from the Big Chair. Whether it be a power trip or a drug it remains for history to decide. What you and I have to decide, my love, is whether we have the will and resolve, to echo his "tough talk", to make sure that this bitch-slapping of the American body politic should stand.

I say (echo again): it should not stand.

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ITEM TWO: IF JOE O'NEILL, who inaugurated our IRISH EYES column, were still writing here, I'm certain he'd want to make you aware of this column in a recent Irish Echo.

It seems that John Ashcroft's Justice Department wants to make another stealth attempt to change U.S. law and endanger the immigration status of people from Northern Ireland in the United States for reasons of political asylum. I encourage you to read the Echo article if you are as concerned about human rights as we are here at The World's Magazine.

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ITEM THREE: NOBEL PEACE PRIZE WINNER, THE REVEREND DESMOND TUTU believes that people of conscience should take Israel's treatment of the Palestinians as seriously as we did the former South African apartheid government's treatment of Blacks in that country. I agree whole-heartedly.

I believe you saw this coming, my dear, as I agonized over my silence on this issue. Israeli policy toward the Palestinians is heinous in the extreme. The MM's slant on this story is cowardly in the extreme. I would be less than forthright, considering my dissidence in other areas, to keep silent any longer.

Let me refer you to a recent article over at CounterPunch, Alexander Cockburn's wonderful Web publication. It's written by William A. Cook and examines how we define "terrorism". Here's a brief excerpt, but I encourage you to read the entire article.

... the United States defines terrorism (18 USC 2331) as "violent acts or acts dangerous to human life that appear to be intended (i) to intimidate or coerce a civilian population; (ii) to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; (iii) to affect the conduct of a government by assassination or kidnapping."

While the dictionary definition is open-ended, allowing for the possibility of governments to be active in terrorist activities, the USC definition does not. The most recent Encarta encyclopedia article describing terrorism is quite specific on this point: "These violent acts are committed by nongovernmental groups or individuals - that is, by those who are neither part of or officially serving in the military forces " This description precedes the historical evolution of the word that marks its origin during the French Revolution (1789-1799), the regime de la terreur (Reign of Terror), a quite specific reference to a government!

In his most recent book, The Lessons of Terrorism (2003), Caleb Carr defines terrorism this way: "Terrorism is simply the contemporary name given to, and the modern permutation of, warfare deliberately waged against civilians with the purpose of destroying their will to support either leaders or policies that the agents of such violence find objectionable." Interestingly, Carr does not excuse armed forces or units of a nation from the definition. Indeed, Carr includes in his understanding of terrorist the likes of Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson, William Tecumseh Sherman, Richard Nixon, and Henry Kissinger to name a few. Each of these individuals supported deliberate and premeditated attacks against civilians. Carr's historical survey of terrorism, written in response to current world wide terrorist activity, is decidedly more inclusive than the government definition.

Why be concerned with the definition of a word? The answer is simple. By excluding governments and nation-states from the definition, the ruling powers can inflict corrosive and pejorative terms on those opposing them thereby justifying any actions they use to subdue their enemy.

The more telling examples of why definitions are important (re Orwell) - and especially as regards the Bush and Sharon policies - appear later in the text. Take a look for yourself.

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Rod Amis

I WAS RECENTLY CALLED UPON BY A FELLOW JOURNALIST TO EXPLAIN THE EVOLUTION of what should be a traditional Publisher's Note into this Glass House. My explanation was that I take the dictum that all politics is personal very seriously. As I've grown older, and as I've deepened my own analysis of what we call our lives here on Earth School, I've felt that more poignantly than ever.

That is why I took the details of my arrest here in New Orleans as a political issue as well as a personal one. Because my personal statuses include being Black, poor and dissident, I could not but see my arrest as part of a larger picture. I don't mean to get (late) Lenny Bruce on you, Love, but I think you see the corollary.

I promise I won't publish any trial transcripts here. I do.

RAHEEM and WOLF got at least part of that one correctly.

Getting back to the original point of this thread, I consciously decided that writing to the one person I cared most about would provide a means of explaining - in both a personal and political way - what I mean to say to every person who visits this site. It would put an end to the question that dogged me and this publication during its formative years: But what is the point of the GENERATOR 21? What is this all about?

I believe now that most readers, old and new, understand that it is about the people's history of the world. No disrespect to Howard Zinn, our goal is to get someone "on the ground" to critique the decisions and the consequences of those decisions made by the power elite upon our lives. We shall not only have the poor always, we shall always have the power elite, the people at the top of the pyramid who don't know how to use a supermarket scanner - because they never had to shop for themselves a day in their lives - and who have no empathy for the rest of us peasants. Period.

It doesn't matter what country you live in, anywhere in the world, this is a truism.

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Click here to read about our Publisher's false arrest. Organizations and individuals in New Orleans are organizing to help Rod fight his unjust arrest and charges. You can help, too. If you'd like to throw a house party, benefit concert, or other event, it would be mammothly appreciated. For information on how you can help our publisher meet his legal defense costs, send an e-mail with the SUBJECT LINE "FOR JUSTCE" by following this link. THE HONORABLE CONTRIBUTORS: (List Updated Each Publication Date) SCOTT SALIN, New Orleans, LA, USA-$200 MICHELLE and the Drag Queens of MAMA'S BLUES Revue, New Orleans, LA, USA And the many, many un-named guests who contributed to the proceeds.-$395 SEAN CUSHMAN, New Orleans, LA, USA-$25 "DAVE", New Orleans, LA, USA-Living Quarters STEVE VIVIAN New York, NY, USA-$60 PETE SHORTELL, New Orleans, LA, USA-Cocktails MARY MC GINN, New Orleans, LA, USA - $100 DR. IAN CRYSTAL New Orleans, LA, USA - $40 And (far too many) cocktails

I AM PLEASED TO ANNOUNCE that this year's winner of the Caine Prize in African Writing, an award considered the "African Booker", went to G21 Alumnus BINYAWAINA WAINAINA's Kwani publication, of Kenya, writer Yvonne Adhiambo.

From my perspective, because Binj started Kwani on the impetus of last year's Caine prize, we have kept it in "the family".

Congrats to Binj, Kwani and Yvonne. (But you know The World's Magazine will be back in competition next year, Brother. So come strong.)

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I'VE BEEN ACCUSED OF HAVING A HARD-ON AGAINST THE BUSH CRIME FAMILY (Thanks and a tip of the hat to leftist talk-radio broadcaster Mike Malloy). I guess I'm guilty as charged on that one. I didn't appreciate Bush I and have even less respect for Bush II. I don't believe in dynasties in a democracy, if we can even call this country that anymore.

When Dana Carvey caricatured the elocution of Bush I, helping to ensure his demise, I was overjoyed. But at least that man had some semblance of an intellect. The puppet we are dealing with now - again, what is he on? - defies rationality.

SFGate columnist Mark Morford had this to say in a recent column (follow the link to read the full text):

There are flagrant lies and cover-ups and misprisions not even related to the war, more about increasingly nauseating domestic issues, major budget crises and unabashed pro-corporate decisions and anti-gay anti-women anti-sex fun for the whole terrified white Christian family.

There is, for example, the recent hacking to death of the EPA's major greenhouse-gas/air-quality study. There was the (failed) attempt to kill the Bureau of Labor Statistics report that tracked factory closings in the U.S. There is the secret $135 mil in budget moneys set aside to cram invidious sexless Christian "abstinence only until marriage" programs down the throats of jaded American teens and desperate budget-reamed schools.

There was, as Slate so effortlessly delineates, the regular and rather sneering deep-sixing of serious economic data and fiscal forecasting -- much of it generated by Bush's own teams -- because it didn't match the GOP's makeshift rosy scenarios.

There is massive unemployment. There is the largest budget deficit in history, now a staggering $455 billion, over $50 billion more than the administration predicted just five months ago.

There are state and local governments broke to the point of having to cut back essential services like police and fire departments, hospitals, public schools, road maintenance and sewers. There is Lynne Cheney. 'Nuff said.

There appears to be no end. There appears to be a limitless supply of lies and half-truths and misinformations BushCo can invent on the spot, and is now a good time to recall how Clinton was savaged and vilified and attacked and impeached because he lied about having big dumb sex with a rather unappealing intern?

And yet here is BushCo, openly and shamelessly lying about leading this nation into a vile and petroleum-drunk war, massacring tens of thousands, killing hundreds of U.S. soldiers (and counting), gutting the budget, favoring the rich with useless tax cuts, hiding and prevaricating and dodging and treated the First, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth and Eighth Amendments to the Constitution the way a crusty abusive Catholic priest treats an altar boy.

[EDITOR'S NOTE: The links are deleted from the above original text. You can follow them by reading Mr. Morford's article. - RA]

I blame every single person who bought the notion that individual, personal actions don't matter. The publication you are reading now is based on the fact that individuals are isolated and marginalized if they do not act in concert to assert their common interests. Our commitment is that we can only succeed as a social and political force if we recognize that our identity politics should be superceded by our interest politics. There is a class war in which we and our adversaries are engaged. They want to protect a notion of nobless oblige that is meant to keep a jackboot on our necks. We want to scrap the oligarchy and strive for - that once noble experiment - true democracy.

I'm sure that you are wondering, dear, how an intellectual elitist like Yours Unruly can ascribe to the cause of democracy while criticizing those who claim to be its chief defenders. Your concern is justified.

In my own defense, I can only say that like other systems (including Socialism, to which I have the strongest affinity because it protects the voiceless minorities better and is more humanistic) the experiment remains incomplete.

You can only begin to imagine how I deal with my own affinity for Jefferson, of the United States, and Voltaire, of France. Franz Fanon brought issues to the table that I am still grappling with.

In that regard, my lodestones are Frederick Douglass and Malcolm X.

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ITEM FOUR: YOU WOULD EXPECT that someone as far to the left as I am, a self-avowed radical, choosing a "mainstream" candidate for President of the United States, would have a natural affinity for someone like Howard Dean.

If so, you'd be wrong.

Unlike Rico, my friend of 38 years and counting, I don't think Dean is even close to being electable. I've done and written about politics for years.

You read here that I was considering re-engagement.

Let me quote from the candidate who inspired that idea:

Americans have a right to ask: Are we safer today than we were in the days after September 11th? Are our nation's firefighters and police officers better prepared to wage the war on terror?

Words, no matter how tough, are not enough. A flight to an aircraft carrier, no matter how well staged, does not end a war. Strong words must be matched by strong actions.

It is time for a President who will face the truth and tell the truth. And that truth is that the Bush Administration has stalled the 9/11 investigations instead of speeding it - forcing us to ask how can we prevent the next attack if we don't really know the facts about the last one?

The truth is the Bush Administration went to war without a plan to win the peace in Iraq - it gave Presidential sanction to misleading information and is still trying to conceal what happened.

And despite all its promises, this Administration has denied first defenders the equipment and support to defend America from danger.

It is clear that a dangerous gap in credibility has developed between President Bush's tough rhetoric and timid policies which don't do nearly enough to protect Americans from danger. It's time we were told the truth about America's safety. It's time we had a President who will truly make this nation more secure.

The gap between America's national security needs and this Administration's deeds is widening day by day.

In Iraq, we face a gap in burden-sharing. This President went to war unilaterally and now our soldiers are there nearly alone with a target on their backs. It is time to recognize that basic truth and change course-to share the post-war burden internationally-for the sake of our country, for our standing in the world, and most of all for the young Americans in uniform who should not be dying one by one and day after day.

And with each passing day, Americans are learning that we also face an intelligence gap. Americans should be able to trust that what the President tells them is true - especially when it comes to the life and death decisions of war and peace. I know what it means when the American people lose faith in their government - what it means to our national spirit, what it means to our national security, what it means to our troops who are in harm's way ...

The candidate? JOHN KERRY

I'm sure you have gasped and decided that's a totally traditionalist choice for a radical. But just because you're a radical you are not precluded from being a realist.

Kerry may not get the Democratic Party's nomination, but I feel they are doomed with any other choice. If "electability" is what that Republican Lite party is about and if our country deserves something better than Dubya, I don't see another contender worth serious consideration. This is not the magazine's endorsement, just mine.

Kerry will, of course, be savaged during the primary campaigns and in the general election. His Heinz family marriage will certainly be used as a tool to say that he is an opportunist. (Who among us is not?)

When I actually support a candidate for POTUS, I usually support one who doesn't win. BUT I do know enough about politics, at this late stage of my life, to know who can win.

Doesn't Joseph Liebermann put you to sleep? (Forget our "Nutmeg State" affinity, my love. We both know he's the Republican in less than sheep's clothing. I blame Al Gore.)

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MY FRIEND DRAGANA, in Belgrade, has never liked it when I take the Olympian voice of the magazine publisher. I fully understand her sentiment.

At the same time, I am and have been for years, a magazine publisher. That is how we "met", even if it was in the disembodied form that online communication provides.

Here on Mount Olympus, you gaze down at world events, politics, society and talk about issues larger than yourself.

For example, I read with (again) concern the statement(s) published in the New York Times from our new commander in Iraq, General John P. Abizaid, regarding the nature of the United States occupation of that country. The General said, and I'm quoting from the "newspaper of record" for this country:

"I believe there's midlevel Baathist, Iraqi intelligence service people, Special Security Organization people, Special Republican Guard people that have organized at the regional level in cellular structure and are conducting what I would describe as a classical guerrilla-type campaign against us," General Abizaid said.

"It's low-intensity conflict, in our doctrinal terms, but it's war, however you describe it ... "

The article goes on to describe how the initial troops sent to conquer Iraq are suffering from battle fatigue and want to get out. Disciplinary actions against those who've appeared on American television criticizing Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld and the incidence of soldier suicide in that country are also referenced. I don't think you need additional comments from me on these issues.

I received a number of e-mails from some of you making the Vietnam comparison. I DON'T accept the analogy.

I would rather refer to older conflicts in the history of humanity, all of which were characterized by the imperialist impulse. But then I'm a curmudgeon in love with historical fact.

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"What the Hell is this?" you might exclaim. "The complete 'Glass House' produced in a single day in one (interrupted) sitting?"

And I respond something along the lines of " ... consistency is the hobgoblin ... ". (I apologize to those readers unfamiliar with the quote.) The last thing I have aspired to be is a completely predictable writer or journalist.

Warnings were provided in both the column title and lead paragraph.

"But what about your chronicle of your personal life?" you ask next.

I respond: "Again, the political is personal.

"I'm sick of navel-gazing for this while. I have other important things to say. I now accept that my misery is my own. I am, as I once lamented fictionally about some people from Michigan, married to my misery.

"I want a divorce, of course. But The Church is blocking me even more adamantly than they did Henry VIII. What can I say?"

"You are being glib again, Rod."

Indeed.

Things I Want This Week

1. Real Love.

2. Mo' money

3. Getting the editing job going.

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Thanks for coming back this week.

"Work like you don't need the money,
"Love like you've never been hurt,
"Dance like no one is watching..."
Rod

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ROD AMIS has published this magazine since 1990. It first appeared as a hardcopy 'Zine. In March, 1996, he launched it here on the Web. Rod was a Contributing Editor at Suite101.com, where he wrote the " 'Net Publishing" feature. His work has been featured in the San Francisco Bay Guardian Online, NRV8, and at WebLab's Reality Check site. Rod was also a contributing writer on technology for Faulkner Information Services. He wrote on Web issues for MethodFive.com's Hyper newsletter.

Rod was a columnist for the Andover News Network, where he wrote over two hundred articles on web design and development issues. He was also principal writer and Editor for IT Manager's Journal, where he reviewed technology issues weekly, producing 383 editorials. He became the Managing Editor for Electronic Mail/Newsletter Publications at Andover.net at the end of February, 2000, and left in September of the same year. He was a contributing writer for ACCESS magazine, which appeared both on- and offline for 10 million readers in 100 newspapers like the San Francisco Chronicle, New York Post, Boston Herald, Austin American-Statesman, Denver Post and Orlando Sentinel, among others. Rod was the US reporter for Silicon.com, a division of Network Multimedia Television in London, UK, reaching 3.5 million European readers, until May, 2001.

Last year he worked as Assistant to the General Manager of a Big Easy company that does restaurants and nightclubs. (Think: The Boy.) Oh yeah, Rod's had Day Jobs working construction. Mostly renovations of old New Orleans structures, houses and a bar. Sometimes he designs Web sites for other people so that he can get his creative juices flowing the way he can't at a staid publication like this one. And he's been the instructor in Editing for Internet Publications at the Novi Sad School of Journalism in Yugoslavia. Right now our Resident Philosopher has left the pantheon of New Orleans bartenders and still doesn't know when he'll have a "permanent residence" that he likes.. He's decided that maybe it's time to be an entrepreneur again. Working with "employees" and Bosses doesn't suit his temperament. In his spare time, he chases women in the manner that a fly pursues a spider.

Rod lives in New Orleans, Louisiana. This town is eroding his normal sense of driven purpose. He wants to live somewhere civilized when he grows up. Wish him Luck.

He continues to be committed to integrity, chastity and a dose of humility.

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