Gilad Atzmon, the UK-based saxophonist and antisemitic agitator, has once again succeeded in passing himself off as a progressive, appearing at a March 18 forum in Sweden at the invitation of that country's Social Democratic Party. Ulf Carmesund, a party official, took the Swedish Committee Against Anti-Semitism to task for its condemnation of Atzmon:
Gilad Atzmon is himself a Jew, and when the Swedish Committee Against Anti-Semitism starts calling Jews anti-Semites there is a risk that they undermine the term anti-Semite and do the fight against anti-Semitism a disservice.
How touching: Carmesund is so concerned about "the fight against anti-Semitism" that he blows smoke on behalf of someone who has openly made common cause with Holocaust deniers. Atzmon is also an apologist for Nazi Germany, having argued that Israel is far worse: "Carpet bombing and total erasure of populated areas... has [sic] never been a Nazi tactic or strategy."
Carmesund may want to note that Atzmon describes himself not as a Jew, but as an "ex-Jew" and a "Hebrew-speaking Palestinian." But Atzmon's identity is entirely his own business; it has no relevance whatsoever in the evaluation of his political opinions. Identity does not confer immunity — the very idea is ignorant. It's like saying that the disgraced Christian right activist Ted Haggard cannot be antigay, because he is gay. It also brings to mind the petty, legalistic and ultimately malicious evasion that Arabs can't be antisemitic "because Arabs are semites too."
In fact, a [fill in the blank] can be just as racist toward [fill in the blanks] as anyone else. The proof is all around us.
Saturday, March 31, 2007
CD reviews
A small handful of my CD reviews are now online at Jazz Times: Loren Stillman's Trio Alto Volume One (SteepleChase); a compilation from the Brooklyn Jazz Underground; Kayhan Kalhor & Erdal Erzincan's The Wind (ECM); and Russell Gunn Plays Miles (HighNote).
Friday, March 30, 2007
Our hopeless war debate
Accompanying George Packer's extraordinary piece in the print edition of last week's New Yorker is a photo of an Iraqi man lying dead on a heap of trash, his hands tied behind his back with black cord. From the camera angle it isn't clear whether the corpse still has a head. This chilling image encapsulates just about everything there is to know about the current war debacle.
John McCain is drawing much-deserved criticism, even ridicule, for his claim that there are areas of Iraq in which Americans can safely walk. Reporters on the ground have challenged this as untrue, but what makes McCain's assertion offensive is the idea that American safety should be taken as the true measure of Iraq's safety. Iraqis continue to be slaughtered every day in considerable numbers. As Packer's story makes clear, the country is all but unliveable; millions are desperate to leave but cannot. The U.S. has betrayed even those Iraqis who signed on as interpreters and military aides.
The administration and its right-wing media accomplices continue to flog the horse of "good news" from Iraq, attacking critics for emphasizing only the bad news. To anyone following events on the ground, this can only be regarded as a tasteless joke. Of course, there are pockets where Shia militants have temporarily fled the U.S. troop surge, but look at the massacre the Shia "police" just committed in Tal Afar in the north. (And look, of course, at the Sunni-perpetrated car bombing that preceded it.)
Much like Britain's Christmas '06 raid on the Basra police compound, this episode shows that we are simultaneously backing and fighting some of the very same Shia-dominated Iraqi forces. Hence the best argument for a troop withdrawal: The administration is trying to reverse its clear failure with an incoherent band-aid strategy that gets U.S. troops killed and fails to make Iraqis safer.
Bush and his allies insist that the current Democratic proposals in Congress will send a message of failure to the Qaedaists of the world. But the fact is that Bush has already sent that message. He lied us into an unnecessary war and then he proceeded to lose that war. This will be his legacy: shoring up the bin Ladenists' view of the U.S. as a paper tiger, one that couldn't even decisively defeat the Taliban, let alone pacify Iraq.
So much for the pro-war side. Unfortunately, one of the most aggressive and visible antiwar forces in this country is ANSWER, which circulated this statement in the runup to its March 17 rally:
We are returning to the Pentagon because the Iraq war has resulted in more than 655,000 Iraqi deaths (Lancet), on top of more than 1 million killed by sanctions between 1990-2003. This is genocide.
Endorsed by Howard Zinn, Alice Walker, Cindy Sheehan and others, this document misrepresents the Lancet study either through ineptitude or conscious deceit. Even if one accepts the study's findings — and one shouldn't, as they've been discredited by the antiwar resource Iraq Body Count — it would still bear mentioning what the study actually shows: that the vast majority of Iraqi deaths did not result from U.S. military action, but rather from Iraqi insurgent, militia and criminal violence. It is correct to note that the U.S. invasion killed many civilians, and that this created the conditions in which sectarian violence now flourishes. But this does not constitute "genocide" on the part of the U.S. — and how grotesque that the charge should come from ANSWER, an organization that endorsed the blood-encrusted insurgency [update: and shilled for the genocidal Baathist regime]. From a 2005 Troops Out Now statement:
It is time for the antiwar movement to acknowledge the absolute and unconditional right of the Iraqi people to resist the occupation of their country without passing judgment on their methods of resistance.
How perfectly disgraceful, this invoking of "the Iraqi people," now that so many of them are dead — literally discarded with the day's trash — thanks to the very "resistance" that ANSWER applauded.
John McCain is drawing much-deserved criticism, even ridicule, for his claim that there are areas of Iraq in which Americans can safely walk. Reporters on the ground have challenged this as untrue, but what makes McCain's assertion offensive is the idea that American safety should be taken as the true measure of Iraq's safety. Iraqis continue to be slaughtered every day in considerable numbers. As Packer's story makes clear, the country is all but unliveable; millions are desperate to leave but cannot. The U.S. has betrayed even those Iraqis who signed on as interpreters and military aides.
The administration and its right-wing media accomplices continue to flog the horse of "good news" from Iraq, attacking critics for emphasizing only the bad news. To anyone following events on the ground, this can only be regarded as a tasteless joke. Of course, there are pockets where Shia militants have temporarily fled the U.S. troop surge, but look at the massacre the Shia "police" just committed in Tal Afar in the north. (And look, of course, at the Sunni-perpetrated car bombing that preceded it.)
Much like Britain's Christmas '06 raid on the Basra police compound, this episode shows that we are simultaneously backing and fighting some of the very same Shia-dominated Iraqi forces. Hence the best argument for a troop withdrawal: The administration is trying to reverse its clear failure with an incoherent band-aid strategy that gets U.S. troops killed and fails to make Iraqis safer.
Bush and his allies insist that the current Democratic proposals in Congress will send a message of failure to the Qaedaists of the world. But the fact is that Bush has already sent that message. He lied us into an unnecessary war and then he proceeded to lose that war. This will be his legacy: shoring up the bin Ladenists' view of the U.S. as a paper tiger, one that couldn't even decisively defeat the Taliban, let alone pacify Iraq.
So much for the pro-war side. Unfortunately, one of the most aggressive and visible antiwar forces in this country is ANSWER, which circulated this statement in the runup to its March 17 rally:
We are returning to the Pentagon because the Iraq war has resulted in more than 655,000 Iraqi deaths (Lancet), on top of more than 1 million killed by sanctions between 1990-2003. This is genocide.
Endorsed by Howard Zinn, Alice Walker, Cindy Sheehan and others, this document misrepresents the Lancet study either through ineptitude or conscious deceit. Even if one accepts the study's findings — and one shouldn't, as they've been discredited by the antiwar resource Iraq Body Count — it would still bear mentioning what the study actually shows: that the vast majority of Iraqi deaths did not result from U.S. military action, but rather from Iraqi insurgent, militia and criminal violence. It is correct to note that the U.S. invasion killed many civilians, and that this created the conditions in which sectarian violence now flourishes. But this does not constitute "genocide" on the part of the U.S. — and how grotesque that the charge should come from ANSWER, an organization that endorsed the blood-encrusted insurgency [update: and shilled for the genocidal Baathist regime]. From a 2005 Troops Out Now statement:
It is time for the antiwar movement to acknowledge the absolute and unconditional right of the Iraqi people to resist the occupation of their country without passing judgment on their methods of resistance.
How perfectly disgraceful, this invoking of "the Iraqi people," now that so many of them are dead — literally discarded with the day's trash — thanks to the very "resistance" that ANSWER applauded.
Thursday, March 22, 2007
Happy Newroz
Tuesday, March 20, 2007
Gassing Muslims
From Kirk Semple's March 18 report on al-Qaeda suicide bombings in Ramadi and Amiriya — not the first incidents in which the bombs were spiked with chlorine gas:
Insurgents began combining explosives with chlorine gas and other chemicals in January in an effort to sow more fear and havoc among civilians, military officials say.
Some local officials blamed militants linked to the insurgent group Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia for the attacks Friday and said they were part of a campaign to intimidate moderate tribes that have declared their opposition to such fundamentalist insurgent groups.
[...]
As many as 100 civilians were exposed to the chlorine and were treated for ailments including skin and lung irritation as well as vomiting, the military said.
Now, as I've already urged on this blog, please recall the "martyrdom" statement of young Mohammed Siddique Khan, one of the 7/7 tube bombers in London:
Your [the West's] democratically elected governments continue to perpetuate atrocities against my people all over the world. Your support for them makes you directly responsible ... until we feel security, you will be our targets. Until you stop the bombing, gassing, imprisonment and torture of my people, we will not stop. [Emphasis added.]
There have indeed been atrocities, including torture, carried out against Iraqis and others, thanks to the misguided and immoral policies of the Bush administration. But anyone on the left inclined to pity poor Mr. Khan and validate his anti-Western rage ought to consider that he carried out his bombing in solidarity with al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia, which is currently gassing the Muslims of Iraq. From Semple's account it seems this is not part of the sectarian anti-Shiite war, but rather brutal coercion of the Sunni populace itself.
We all continue to ponder and debate the root causes of terrorism and support for al-Qaeda, a very necessary inquiry. But shouldn't it be noted that the very people spouting rhetoric against the gassing of Muslims are allies of an organization that gasses Muslims?
Insurgents began combining explosives with chlorine gas and other chemicals in January in an effort to sow more fear and havoc among civilians, military officials say.
Some local officials blamed militants linked to the insurgent group Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia for the attacks Friday and said they were part of a campaign to intimidate moderate tribes that have declared their opposition to such fundamentalist insurgent groups.
[...]
As many as 100 civilians were exposed to the chlorine and were treated for ailments including skin and lung irritation as well as vomiting, the military said.
Now, as I've already urged on this blog, please recall the "martyrdom" statement of young Mohammed Siddique Khan, one of the 7/7 tube bombers in London:
Your [the West's] democratically elected governments continue to perpetuate atrocities against my people all over the world. Your support for them makes you directly responsible ... until we feel security, you will be our targets. Until you stop the bombing, gassing, imprisonment and torture of my people, we will not stop. [Emphasis added.]
There have indeed been atrocities, including torture, carried out against Iraqis and others, thanks to the misguided and immoral policies of the Bush administration. But anyone on the left inclined to pity poor Mr. Khan and validate his anti-Western rage ought to consider that he carried out his bombing in solidarity with al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia, which is currently gassing the Muslims of Iraq. From Semple's account it seems this is not part of the sectarian anti-Shiite war, but rather brutal coercion of the Sunni populace itself.
We all continue to ponder and debate the root causes of terrorism and support for al-Qaeda, a very necessary inquiry. But shouldn't it be noted that the very people spouting rhetoric against the gassing of Muslims are allies of an organization that gasses Muslims?
Saturday, March 17, 2007
Remember Ward Connerly?
He made big headlines in the '90s with his efforts to ban affirmative action, garnering high praise from Newt Gingrich and other rightists. Connerly is still at it — he was behind the deceptively named Michigan Civil Rights Initiative, a ballot proposal that passed in November 2006 but is now facing legal challenges.
I'm late in noticing this, but it shouldn't go unmentioned here: the Ku Klux Klan publicly backed the Initiative, and Ward Connerly just as publicly welcomed their support.
You could say that Connerly is the African-American Gilad Atzmon: a callous dimwit who is so consumed with his pet cause that he'll openly ally himself with the racist ultra-right to get his message across.
I'm late in noticing this, but it shouldn't go unmentioned here: the Ku Klux Klan publicly backed the Initiative, and Ward Connerly just as publicly welcomed their support.
You could say that Connerly is the African-American Gilad Atzmon: a callous dimwit who is so consumed with his pet cause that he'll openly ally himself with the racist ultra-right to get his message across.
The shooting
Excellent piece of reporting by Serge Kovaleski and Sarah Kershaw in this morning's NYT, about David Garvin, the lunatic who went on a shooting rampage in the West Village last Wednesday night. I know the area around Houston and MacDougal very well, from my earliest days in New York in the late '80s. I still find myself down there sometimes, usually to go to the Zinc Bar. Lots of other jazz clubs are nearby. Certainly this was a freak incident that tells us nothing about the safety of the neighborhood.
It's still being said that the cops have no explanation, but the situation is clear enough from the Times story: Garvin was a paranoid nutcase and loser, ejected from the military in 1988, fired from the Wall St. Journal for threatening a colleague. He had recently staged a short comedy, but he dismissed the lead actress when he found out she was married. He cast an unmarried woman in her place and then proceeded to harass her via email with pronouncements of love.
Turns out he was a regular at the pizza place he shot up. Every time, he'd peruse the menu at great length and then order the same thing. [Cue Twilight Zone theme...]
Sounds like a dangerously borderline case, never quite sick enough to require help, but clearly sick enough to snap. What a disgusting shame that he took three people with him. Mayor Bloomberg is absolutely right to use this opportunity to speak about gun control.
It's still being said that the cops have no explanation, but the situation is clear enough from the Times story: Garvin was a paranoid nutcase and loser, ejected from the military in 1988, fired from the Wall St. Journal for threatening a colleague. He had recently staged a short comedy, but he dismissed the lead actress when he found out she was married. He cast an unmarried woman in her place and then proceeded to harass her via email with pronouncements of love.
Turns out he was a regular at the pizza place he shot up. Every time, he'd peruse the menu at great length and then order the same thing. [Cue Twilight Zone theme...]
Sounds like a dangerously borderline case, never quite sick enough to require help, but clearly sick enough to snap. What a disgusting shame that he took three people with him. Mayor Bloomberg is absolutely right to use this opportunity to speak about gun control.
Friday, March 16, 2007
Quote for the day
“We are not afraid of being named terrorists ... But I want to ask, is someone who detonates one kilogram a terrorist while someone who detonates tons in Arab and Islamic cities not a terrorist?”
— Shakir al-Abssi, leader of the Lebanese-based Fatah al Islam, an al-Qaeda offshoot
This is a standard trope not only of the Islamist far-right but also the "socialist" far-left: Bush and co. are "the real terrorists."
True, Bush, Cheney and the rest are odious figures. But to anyone following the news these days, Mr. Abssi's remark is beyond fatuous. It's even grimly hilarious. This murderous thug was a close associate of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia — the very forces who continue to detonate bomb after bomb after bomb in the Arab and Islamic cities of Iraq, targeting Muslim civilians.
It's like I argued in this post: The al-Qaedists pose as defenders of Muslims, but this is simply PR. Excellent PR, you might say — it landed this person on the front page of the NY Times. But no informed Western liberal (or disaffected Muslim, for that matter) should give this line credence. Abssi and his gang are among the worst oppressors of Muslims.
— Shakir al-Abssi, leader of the Lebanese-based Fatah al Islam, an al-Qaeda offshoot
This is a standard trope not only of the Islamist far-right but also the "socialist" far-left: Bush and co. are "the real terrorists."
True, Bush, Cheney and the rest are odious figures. But to anyone following the news these days, Mr. Abssi's remark is beyond fatuous. It's even grimly hilarious. This murderous thug was a close associate of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia — the very forces who continue to detonate bomb after bomb after bomb in the Arab and Islamic cities of Iraq, targeting Muslim civilians.
It's like I argued in this post: The al-Qaedists pose as defenders of Muslims, but this is simply PR. Excellent PR, you might say — it landed this person on the front page of the NY Times. But no informed Western liberal (or disaffected Muslim, for that matter) should give this line credence. Abssi and his gang are among the worst oppressors of Muslims.
Wednesday, March 14, 2007
On Pat Martino
I have a short feature on guitarist Pat Martino in the current edition of the Philadelphia Weekly.
Tuesday, March 13, 2007
Cheney at AIPAC
Dick Cheney has the unmitigated gall to accuse war opponents of "undermining" the troops, with the Walter Reed revelations still in the news. And after all Cheney and Bush have put these troops through. Even more ridiculous when you consider what Peter Pace has just said, not only about the gay men and women under his command, but also about Cheney's daughter, Mary, a lesbian in a committed relationship (with hypocrisies of her own).
Choose a side
Morgan Tsvangirai (pictured at left), leader of Zimbabwe's Movement for Democratic Change, has been savagely beaten by Robert Mugabe's thugs; thankfully he is up and walking and was able to appear in court. His crime? Opposing a regime that has reduced Zimbabweans to hunting mice for food, and that has managed to halve the country's average life expectancy since 1990.For the last week or so we've heard about the heated diplomatic face-off in Latin America between President Bush and Hugo Chavez, the firebrand president of Venezuela. If Chavez were a genuine campaigner for global justice, he'd be supporting Morgan Tsvangirai and his democratic comrades. But look at the second photo. He's not. This is the heroic alternative to the Bush agenda? No, it's the same old same old from the authoritarian wing of the left.
Interesting to note that just this week, New York City Councilman Charles Barron condemned an off-duty officer for killing a man who apparently opened fire with a 9-millimeter inside a Brooklyn nightclub. Barron, as I've noted before, is an enthusiastic supporter of the police-state regime of Robert Mugabe. Seems that police brutality is perfectly alright with Barron, as long as it's carried out by a decrepit former Marxist rebel.
Pace's remarks
General Peter Pace, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, is being called on to apologize for his public condemnation of homosexuality. Andrew Sullivan is raising a gratifying ruckus — here, here and here. My immediate reaction, aside from disgust at Pace's remarks, is that he shouldn't apologize. His view should be challenged and condemned on the merits. But the man said what he clearly believes. An apology would be meaningless. Worse, it would be dishonest, and we should not encourage any further dishonesty in our national leaders.
Monday, March 05, 2007
The Atzmon-Duke convergence
It's been a while since I've commented on the jazz saxophonist and rabid antisemite -- sorry, "critic of Israel" -- Gilad Atzmon. But I thought I'd link to this colorful spread on the website of the avowed neo-Nazi David Duke. Normally I'd hesitate to link to a racist site, but I feel we should all have a look at Atzmon's beaming visage, right where it belongs.
Be sure to read Duke's gushing preface. "Atzmon helps us understand the Holocaust mentality of Jewish extremists," he writes.
Atzmon's piece originally ran in Alexander Cockburn's Counterpunch, which some continue to mistake for a progressive publication.
If there has been any request on Atzmon's part to have his text and photo removed from Duke's website, I will make a note of it. But I doubt I'll need to.
[Hat tip: Harry's Place]
Be sure to read Duke's gushing preface. "Atzmon helps us understand the Holocaust mentality of Jewish extremists," he writes.
Atzmon's piece originally ran in Alexander Cockburn's Counterpunch, which some continue to mistake for a progressive publication.
If there has been any request on Atzmon's part to have his text and photo removed from Duke's website, I will make a note of it. But I doubt I'll need to.
[Hat tip: Harry's Place]
Six Picks: March 2007
My monthly list of recommended CDs, as published in All About Jazz-New York, March 2007:
Don Aliquo, Jazz Folk (Young Warrior Records)
Richie Barshay, Homework (AYVA Music)
Steve Kuhn, Live at Birdland (Blue Note)
Wolfgang Muthspiel & Brian Blade, Friendly Travelers (Material)
Dave Stryker & Steve Slagle, Latest Outlook (Zoho)
Gebhard Ullmann/Chris Dahlgren/Art Lande, Die Blaue Nixe (Challenge)
Don Aliquo, Jazz Folk (Young Warrior Records)
Richie Barshay, Homework (AYVA Music)
Steve Kuhn, Live at Birdland (Blue Note)
Wolfgang Muthspiel & Brian Blade, Friendly Travelers (Material)
Dave Stryker & Steve Slagle, Latest Outlook (Zoho)
Gebhard Ullmann/Chris Dahlgren/Art Lande, Die Blaue Nixe (Challenge)
Thursday, March 01, 2007
Crouch meets Iverson
I haven't read it all the way through, but this conversation between Stanley Crouch and pianist Ethan Iverson strikes me as utterly fascinating. Thanks, Ethan, for linking to my book review.
Talking points
Important words here from Marc Cooper on the rhetorical battle in Congress over the Iraq war. Seems the Democrats are set to squander an un-squanderable political advantage, by legitimating the GOP's "defunding the troops" claptrap and allowing the Bushies to own the terms of debate. Marc's argument: The Dems should frame this in terms of refusing to provide "future funding for the conflict" [his italics]. War without end is exactly what the voters don't want. By focusing on future funding, the Dems could harness the public mood very effectively.
As John Belushi once said, "But noooooooo...."
Instead, Nancy Pelosi, backing away from John Murtha's proposal, declared, "Let me be clear: Congress will fund our troops." Marc calls this "[a] bone-headed statement ... which cedes the verbal game to the White House. No one is talking about de-funding the troops -- except Tony Snow. It's about de-funding the war."
It's hard to believe the Dems have no access to insight like this.
As John Belushi once said, "But noooooooo...."
Instead, Nancy Pelosi, backing away from John Murtha's proposal, declared, "Let me be clear: Congress will fund our troops." Marc calls this "[a] bone-headed statement ... which cedes the verbal game to the White House. No one is talking about de-funding the troops -- except Tony Snow. It's about de-funding the war."
It's hard to believe the Dems have no access to insight like this.
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