1) MARX IN SOHO--REVIEW
Sacramento, California
7-30-05
It's weird to experience a topic like political
economy as anything but dry and boring. It's even
stranger to expect that an academic professor of
sociology could entertain a crowd with historic
lessons of the origins of economic contradictions and
deep-seated social troubles. Yet Marlboro College
sociologist and Brattleboro, Vermont veteran actor
Jerry Levy did just that in a one-man show of Howard
Zinn's Marx in Soho.
Jerry Levy is on academic sabbatical to
professionally act this year, touring with his
rendition of Zinn's surreal return of Karl Marx to
earth, 120 years after his death. Zinn does not spare
Marx of his warts and boils, but characterizes the
divine presentation of Marx as a sort of 'second
coming'. The world metaphorically shares Marx's
proverbial case of boils, and needs to go beyond
historical report of the ills of the world, to ?get up
off its ass?, to change the world.
What's promising about Levy's interpretation as Marx
in Soho is what he injects emotionally into the
character of Karl Marx. It's refreshing to see and
hear an actor make such an important historical
personage like Marx, reviled by the West yet lionized
by the South, seem so very human, despite his eerie
return. Jesus would have made it, but declined. Marx
has unfinished business, however.
There are lessons to be learned, and Professor Levy
insists upon telling them. He catechizes about
praxis, surplus value, and the brutality of
revolutionary dogmatism. What's novel about his
thespian endeavors is that he has presented this work
in the Dominican Republic with an accompanying Spanish
language powerpoint translation. One can only shudder
at the empowering conscientiousness engendered at such
a proletarian production.
See this play. Contact www.levyarts.com. Then get
up off your asses. After all, boils can be painful.
Review by Michael Monasky at
thegeneralwelfare@yahoo.com
Bay Area United Against
War presents a Benefit Presentation
of Howard Zinn's one man play,
MARX IN SOHO
Starring Jerry Levy as Karl Marx
Directed by Michael Fox Kennedy.
Thursday, August 4, 7:00 p.m.
Friday, August 5, 7:00 p.m.
Saturday, August 6, 2:00 p.m.
Jon Sims Center for the Performing Arts
1519 Mission Street near 11th Street
Advance tickets: $10
Door: $20.00
For advance tickets call: 415-824-8730
Pick up advance tickets at the door.
No one turned away for lack of funds.
Bay Area United Against War
www.bauaw.org
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2) Disclaimer: The following is a shameless plug.
Hey everyone,
I want you all to come see my set
design for "Slow Falling Bird", the
new show by the Crowded Fire Theater
Company.
In addition to my set design,
there are also some actors in the play,
and some dialogue, and other stuff
such as one sees in plays. You may
come for those things as well,
if you like. Right, yes, the play: is
about Woomera detention camp in
Australia. From our website: "Based
on real events in the Woomera Immigration
Detention Centre, /Slow Falling
Bird/ goes far beyond the documentary
impulse, creating a hallucinatory
world of song and magic that
is beautiful, heartbreaking, and
unforgettable."
You can get more info about the
show at crowdedfire.org. Also, there
is an article about the show in this
past Saturday's Chronicle Datebook,
if you happen to have that lying around.
I'd like to get a group together to
see the show Friday, August 12th.
Let me know if you would like to
join me then and I can include you in
my reservation. If you can't make
it then, go some other time (see
below) or else I will be sad.
Either way, be sure to mention my name
when you arrive, I get some sort
of brownie points for that.
Performances are Thursday, Friday
and Saturday through August 20th, at
the EXIT on Taylor, 277 Taylor Street,
San Francisco.
I encourage reservations, as the
first weekend sold out.
Also, please bring your friends, and
forward this invite to anyone you
like (but not people you don't like),
especially if you know they know
me but I don't have their e-mail.
Hope to see you there,
Joel
P.S.: I can get two tickets for free.
Ask for them if you wouldn't
come otherwise. You can also reach
me at 415 606 1805.
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3) Dear Friends,
The San Francisco Mime Troupe will be performing "DOING GOOD"
back at Civic Center, WED. AUG. 3, NOON for the first time in
MANY years! Take a long lunch break, bring a picnic and come
out into the sun!
If you'd like to table, you are welcome!
Best,
Juliette Delventhal
SF Mime Troupe
415/285-1717
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4) Antiwar movement debate over Palestine:
Unity on what basis?
August 5, 2005 | Page 11
LANCE SELFA is a columnist for Socialist Worker and editor
of The Struggle for Palestine, a collection of essays
published by Haymarket Books. Here, he looks at an important
debate in the antiwar movement.
AS GEORGE W. Bush left Washington for his annual month-long
vacation in Texas, public approval for his administration hit
the lowest level ever. The Gallup survey taken in late July
put his job approval rating at 44 percent--a new low.
A Quinnipiac University poll had Bush at 41 percent.
It's clear that the main issue sapping Bush's support is
the war in Iraq. Having once provided him with the aura of
"commander in chief," which he brandished to silence all
critics, the war is now proving to be a weight around his
neck. The same Gallup survey showed that only 36 percent
--most of that the Republican Party's "base"--supported
Bush's Iraq policy.
The reasons for the decline in Bush's support are simple.
First, he sold the war on a number of pretences that have
been proven to be lies. Second, he has proclaimed several
"turning points"--from the capture of Saddam Hussein in
December 2003 to the Iraqi elections held in January 2005
--which, he said, augured better days ahead. Instead, an
increase in Iraqi resistance activity has wiped out each
of these false dawns.
Independent journalist Patrick Cockburn described the real
situation in Iraq today: "For future historians, Iraq will
probably replace Vietnam as the stock example of the truth
of Wellington's dictum about small wars escalating into big
ones. Ironically, the U.S. and Britain pretended in 2003
that Saddam ruled a powerful state capable of menacing his
neighbors. Secretly, they believed this was untrue and
expected an easy victory. Now, in 2005, they find to their
horror that there are people in Iraq more truly dangerous
than Saddam, and they are mired in an unwinnable conflict."
These factors have produced a crisis of credibility for Bush,
which finds its echoes in many arenas: from declining military
recruitment to the investigation of White House aides for
blowing the cover of a CIA operative.
Things have gone so badly for Bush that his spin masters
are actually trying to re-brand his signature foreign policy
rhetoric. Out is the "the war on terrorism" and in is "the
war against extremism." Perhaps in the wake of the bombings
in London, Madrid and elsewhere, the "war on terrorism"
appears to be another war that Bush is losing.
THIS DENTING of Bush's armor has helped breathe new life
into opposition to the war. One historic marker of this was
the nearly unanimous approval of an AFL-CIO resolution
calling for Bush to remove U.S. troops from Iraq "rapidly."
This was the first time in the 50-year history of the labor
federation that it had ever passed a resolution opposing
a U.S. war during wartime.
Another indication of the growing opposition is the
willingness of some Democrats--and even some Republicans
--in Congress to put forward resolutions calling for
various plans for troop withdrawals.
But the most hopeful sign of spreading antiwar sentiment
are the planned national demonstrations against the war
called for the weekend of September 24-25 in Washington, D.C.,
San Francisco and other cities. The September 24 protests
represent a real opportunity to regain antiwar momentum
after more than a year in which the public presence of
the antiwar movement was sidelined into electioneering
for the pro-war Democrat John Kerry.
However, as activists prepare for this show of opposition,
a problem has arisen in the ranks of the antiwar movement.
The specter of two separate demonstrations in Washington
--rather than one, united show of force--hangs over the
weekend. Already, much energy has been spent on debates,
discussions and "unity" meetings attempting to head this off.
Unfortunately, this isn't a new problem. As far back as
the 1991 national demonstrations against Bush Sr.'s war
on Iraq, two national coalitions, unable to agree on
a common platform, held national antiwar demonstrations
in Washington on successive weekends in January.
Echoes of the 1991 split can be found today in the fact
that many of the same leaders and political issues have
resurfaced in the current division between the liberal
United for Peace and Justice (UFPJ) and the more radical
International ANSWER-led National Coalition.
It's tempting to write off the squabbling between the
two national coalitions as a case of sectarian turf
battles and personality conflicts. For many antiwar
activists, the chief goal is to forge unity between
the two marches and leave the disputes between them
to another time.
However, another element--the crystalization of
political differences on the crucial question of
Palestine--has been added into the debate. This
makes it imperative to confront this question--and
to make attempts at forging genuine unity on the basis
of incorporating demands about Palestine in
one united march.
PALESTINE IS not an abstract question peripheral to
the war in Iraq. In fact, as this newspaper has
demonstrated in numerous articles, U.S. support for
Israel's occupation of Palestine can't be separated
from the Iraq occupation. Not only do they flow from
the same plan of U.S.-Israeli domination of the
Middle East, but Israel has actually advised the U.S.
on every aspect of the occupation of Iraq, from
training Kurdish militias to the torturers in Abu
Ghraib.
What's more, leading Arab and Muslim activists have
demanded that the antiwar movement take up the issue
of Palestine, including endorsing the demand for the
United Nations-recognized right of Palestinians to
return to their homes in what is now Israel.
In a July 22 statement, titled "Where the Arab and
Muslim Community Will Stand on September 24," eight
Arab and Muslim organizations and a representative
of another wrote: "In its behavior, the leadership
of UFPJ is fanning the flames of separation and is
unnecessarily pitting trusting movement activists
against our community and people. Last year, hundreds
of organizations and thousands upon thousands of
activists took a clear stand against the marginalization
of the Arab and Muslim community, and in favor of
a principled political position. Yet here we are
again, facing the same attempts of separation by
the same leadership of UFPJ."
For its part, UFPJ argued, in a May 23 letter to
its supporters, that it limited march demands to
make it "possible for the largest and widest array
of people to come together in opposition to the war,
including military families, Iraq war veterans and
other veterans, and the labor movement."
But opinion polls show consistent support among
Americans for Palestinian rights, which makes it
very likely that military families, veterans and
rank-and-file members of the labor movement either
already support Palestinian rights in some form,
or could be convinced to do so if the antiwar
movement gave a lead on the question.
What UFPJ doesn't say is that the people it is more
worried about alienating are Zionists in their ranks
and Democratic Party politicians, whose support for
Israel is a given. UFPJ's leaders would rather
sideline thousands of Arabs and Muslims who have
been the targets of state repression than a handful
of Democrats and their liberal supporters. For
a movement that chides itself about the need to
attract more people of color into its ranks, this
is a curious position to hold.
A "unity" that leaves Arabs and Muslims on the
sidelines is no unity at all. It is reminiscent
of 1964 Democratic Party convention, when leading
liberals sold out the Mississippi Freedom Democratic
Party--in order to maintain party unity with the
Mississippi segregationists who ran the state party.
Or of the Northern politicians who told Black civil
rights activists that they had to "wait" until
there was more popular support for them. The letter
from the nine Arab and Muslim organizations makes
this connection, quoting Martin Luther King's Why
We Can't Wait in support of their position.
The only unity worth fighting for is one that
incorporates the legitimate demands of Arabs
and Muslims fully into the protest.
A July statement from the Campus Antiwar Network,
one of the organizations spearheading the growing
movement to get military recruiters out of universities
and high schools, gets this right: "As a new counter
-recruitment movement is exploding across the country,
it is vital for students, teachers, parents, and others
who wish to reclaim our schools from recruitment for
a war most Americans oppose to be able to march alongside
one another. This unity is threatened by the specter
of two separate protests in D.C. Therefore, in the
interests of building the strongest movement possible
to end occupation, we call on United for Peace and
Justice to drop its opposition to demands in support
of Palestine and civil liberties, so that all of
us--including broad segments of the populations
most affected by the war at home--can come together
as one united protest in Washington."
Socialist Worker stands in solidarity with Arab and
Muslim activists in calling on the antiwar movement
to take up the issue of Palestine and oppose Israel's
occupation.
http://al-awda.org
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~~~~~~Please Circulate Recklessly~~~~~~
5) This years KMEL Summer Jam will be sponsored
by the US Navy—We say NO!
Dear Friends,
We have been disturbed to learn that this years KMEL Summer
Jam will be sponsored by the US Navy. Because we are opposed
to the war against Iraq and the tactics that have been used
by US military recruiters, staff and interns of Global
Exchange, Youth Media Council, and Media Alliance have
been meeting to discuss this matter.
We are sending this letter to you because we would like
to add signatories before presenting this to the
representatives at KMEL and Clear Channel. If you and
your organization would like to add your names to this
letter, please contact CODE PINKs Jennifer Low at
jlow@ucsc.edu , or at (415) 575-5555 by Friday,
August 5, 2005. Your voice is important in showing
KMEL and Clear Channel the breadth of the
anti-war movement.
Additionally, we will be delivering this letter
with signatories to the KMEL and Clear Channel
Headquarters in San Francisco on Tuesday,
August 9, 2005 at noon. We will be contacting
media to make this event well-publicized.
If you would like to attend this event, and
if you are interested in helping us with
this campaign, please contact Jennifer Low
(see above).
Thank you very much for your time and
consideration. We hope to be able to count
on your support for this important issue!
Sincerely,
Global Exchange & CODE PINK
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6) August 2, 2005
Dear Friends of United for Peace and Justice,
We, United for Peace and Justice-Bay Area, invite you to
join us and members of the national UFPJ steering committee
who reside in the San Francisco Bay Area for a social
evening and informal discussion on Thursday, August 18.
We will network, socialize and eat as well as participate
in a more structured conversation. It will be from 6:00
to 9:00 p.m. at the First Congregational Church in Oakland
at 2501 Harrison St. at 27th St.
This evening will give us all an opportunity to meet and
share ideas with people who are directing those efforts
locally and nationally. We hope to increase the sense
of connection and coordination between the national and
local organizing of UFPJ and to inspire more
participation by member groups.
We hope you will join us. Great and concerted actions
are needed if we are going to change the destructive
course our nation is on. Even as we are inspired by
the on-going flourish of resistance voices from around
the world, the succinct and passionate calls of
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. continue to carry special
weight. We must not be "mesmerized by uncertainty"
as we challenge the "triple evils of racism, militarism
and extreme materialism" in what must necessarily be
a "revolution of values."
UFPJ is committed to creating a strong and undeniable
force from the millions of people who don't yet believe
that they are the key for our resistance movement
to make a difference.
We, members of United for Peace and Justice along with
the Bay Area members of the UFPJ national steering
committee look forward to meeting with you on
August 18,6 p.m at the First Congregational Church,
2501 Harrison St., Oakland, CA for a wonderful
evening of sharing, planning and getting to know
each other.
RSVP by August 15, 2005to Jim Haber at 415-282-6580,
jimhabersf@yahoo.com or Jackie Barshak at 415-308-9416,
jbarshak@hotmail.com.
Sincerely,
Jackie Cabasso, Western States Legal Foundation,
and UFPJ Steering Committee
Jim Haber, War Resisters League West
Eve Lindi, People's Nonviolent Response Coalition
Siri Margerin - Community Representative
Sandra Schwartz - American Friends Service Committee
Acting United for Peace and Justice-Bay
Area Steering Committee
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7) Fourteen Marines killed in bombing
Twenty-one Marines killed in three days;
U.S. journalist slain
BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- A roadside bomb blast killed 14 Marines
and a civilian interpreter Wednesday as they rode in a vehicle near
Haditha, Iraq, U.S. military officials said.
http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/meast/08/03/iraq.main/index.html
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