XMAS EVE–LAST BLOG OF THE YEAR

“WAR IS OVER”

THE POLITICS OF CHRISTMAS

HAPPY NEWS YEAR

‘Twas the wee hours of the morning before the night before Christmas, and all through my house, nothing was stirring except my fingers hitting these keys, just a few blocks away from where a man named Clement Moore, who lived on a farm in what is now the Chelsea section of Manhattan, wrote his famous poem, The Night Before Christmas. Yup, it happened here.

On Tuesday, Yoko Ono placed her annual ad in the newspaper with John’s line, “war is over if you want it ” and boy, do I ever, want IT, because detailing all the crimes and lies of war every day takes a toll. It really does. I feel like the grim reaper some time, Mr. Earnest, wagging my not so little finger at the government, at the press, at the horror and them not feeling much better when little changes. All of Rumsfeld’s trips to Iraq will not put Humpty Dumpty together again. The fighting grinds on in Fallujah. And as far as I can tell, the US war is lost. This writer in India agrees:

http://tinyurl.com/58lal

HARD YEAR

2004 has been a hard year for all of us, a year of disappointing politricks, faux elections, pervasive deception, degraded media and endless war. You know the situation. Closer to my life, Globalvision, our dream that became a company is struggling on, undercapitalized and almost an aberration in a media environment that worships the Donald and his apprentices but not those who want to make media that matters and inform a public that is dumbed down daily.

This has been a year in which I blogged and slogged — posting every morning and working almost every day on our film WMD which is battling for visibility and impact. It is an up-hill fight, this media war, and what makes it feel less impossible and lonely is the fact that so many of you seem to appreciate the work and let me know that you do. In that way I know I am not alone and you aren’t either. In fact we represent a much larger constituency than we even think. Let’s build that movement for a media that serves democracy in the year ahead

This weekend my daughter Sarah descends. I hope to slow to a crawl and abandon obsessive interest in news and all that. Let’s see if I can do it. After all, it’s Christmas and a perfect time to challenge the narrative of the Christmas story. I will let James Carrol of the Boston Globe do that for us with his take on . . .

“THE POLITICS OF CHRISTMAS”

“The single most important fact about the birth of Jesus, as recounted in the Gospels, is one that receives almost no emphasis in the American festival of Christmas. The child who was born in Bethlehem represented a drastic political challenge to the imperial power of Rome. The nativity story is told to make the point that Rome is the enemy of God, and in Jesus, Rome’s day is over.

“The Gospel of Matthew builds its nativity narrative around Herod’s determination to kill the baby, whom he recognizes as a threat to his own political sway. The Romans were an occupation force in Palestine, and Herod was their puppet-king. To the people of Israel, the Roman occupation, which preceded the birth of Jesus by at least 50 years, was a defilement, and Jewish resistance was steady. (The historian Josephus says that after an uprising in Jerusalem around the time of the birth of Jesus, the Romans crucified 2,000 Jewish rebels.)

“Herod was right to feel insecure on his throne. In order to preempt any challenge from the rumored newborn “king of the Jews,” Herod murdered “all the male children who were 2 years old or younger.” Joseph, warned in a dream, slipped out of Herod’s reach with Mary and Jesus. Thus, right from his birth, the child was marked as a political fugitive.

“The Gospel of Luke puts an even more political cast on the story. The narrative begins with the decree of Caesar Augustus calling for a world census — a creation of tax rolls that will tighten the empire’s grip on its subject peoples. It was Caesar Augustus who turned the Roman republic into a dictatorship, a power-grab he reinforced by proclaiming himself divine.

“His census decree is what requires the journey of Joseph and the pregnant Mary to Bethlehem, but it also defines the context of their child’s nativity as one of political resistance. When the angel announces to shepherds that a “savior has been born,” as scholars like Richard Horsley point out, those hearing the story would immediately understand that the blasphemous claim by Caesar Augustus to be “savior of the world” was being repudiated.

“When Jesus was murdered by Rome as a political criminal — crucifixion was the way such rebels were executed — the story’s beginning was fulfilled in its end. But for contingent historical reasons (the savage Roman war against the Jews in the late first century, the gradual domination of the Jesus movement by Gentiles, the conversion of Constantine in the early fourth century) the Christian memory deemphasized the anti-Roman character of the Jesus story. Eventually, Roman imperialism would be sanctified by the church, with Jews replacing Romans as the main antagonists of Jesus, as if he were not Jewish himself. (Thus, Herod is remembered more for being part-Jewish than for being a Roman puppet.)

“In modern times, religion and politics began to be understood as occupying separate spheres, and the nativity story became spiritualized and sentimentalized, losing its political edge altogether. “Peace” replaced resistance as the main motif. The baby Jesus was universalized, removed from his decidedly Jewish context, and the narrative’s explicit critiques of imperial dominance and of wealth were blunted.

“This is how it came to be that Christmas in America has turned the nativity of Jesus on its head. No surprise there, for if the story were told today with Roman imperialism at its center, questions might arise about America’s new self-understanding as an imperial power. A story of Jesus born into a land oppressed by a hated military occupation might prompt an examination of the American occupation of Iraq.

“A story of Jesus come decidedly to the poor might cast a pall over the festival of consumption. A story of the Jewishness of Jesus might undercut the Christian theology of Replacement. . .”

http://tinyurl.com/725yz

AMEN

I will spare you a review of the year’s news. All my dissections are archived, should you want to revisit any of the outrages we have been exposed to and that I have blogged on about.

For now, here’s what’s in the inbox about THE BOX

Brokaw stepped down a month or so ago. And then Moyers left us a few weeks ago. According to the Washington Times, we may soon be saying night-night to Nightline. They are already talking about the post-Koppel era as the Washington Times reports:

“Nightline” earned praise this year for its intelligent reporting on the war in Iraq and the presidential campaign. It made waves in April when anchor Ted Koppel devoted one show to reading the names of soldiers killed in Iraq, a moving installment that some affiliates refused to air because they said it was politically charged.

The show averages about 4 million viewers per night, trailing Jay Leno’s NBC program and Mr. Letterman’s CBS show.

“Nightline” could survive without Mr. Koppel, whose contract ends late next year, Mr. Bettag said.

“The last thing we would want is to leave the air just because Ted does,” he said, adding that possible successors won’t be identified until Mr. Koppel’s plans are known.”

WILL DEMOCRACY BREAK OUT?

In Iraq, we will start hearing more about elections. Borzou Daragahi, of the San Francisco Chronicle reports on an election that will, if it happens, give voters many more choices that Americans have:

“Despite rampant ongoing violence, including car bombs targeting civilians in Shiite regions of Iraq, the execution of three Iraqi election officials on a Baghdad street Sunday and the deadly attack on U.S. troops at lunch in Mosul on Tuesday, a kaleidoscope of political groups has slowly been created. They have emerged from the shadows to launch campaigns for the Jan. 30 parliamentary elections, the country’s first free vote since the overthrow of the Iraqi monarchy in 1958.

“In Washington, President Bush said the attack on the mess tent at a U.S. military base in Mosul that killed 22 people and wounded dozens would not deter the election. “I’m confident democracy will prevail in Iraq,” he said Tuesday.

“Iraqi voters will choose from 109 ballot choices, including 27 individuals, 73 political parties and nine coalitions. Those “lists” with the most votes will win proportional numbers of seats in a 275-member parliament, which will draft a new constitution and plan another election later next year. A special lottery was held Tuesday to determine the contenders’ order on the ballot, with the little-known Independent Iraqi Alliance landing the first spot.

“The ballot will offer parties representing interests from the political left to the right, from religious to secular and from ethnic and tribal to pan- Iraqi. Choices range from a 12-candidate party representing the Yazidi minority — whose religion is a combination of Zoroastrian, Jewish, Nestorian Christian and Islamic elements — to the 240-candidate coalition representing Iraq’s strong Shiite majority.

“There are at least two parties representing Christians, two representing Turkomans and about a dozen representing Iraq’s 4 million Kurds . . . .”

AND YES, THE COMMUNISTS ARE RUNNING TOO

Mymen Sngh writes a letter to Al Jazeera seeking more coverage for party in red. He writes, “Among all your excellent coverage, you have given very little exposure to the Iraqi communist party.

“Though they are a shadow of their former selves and have condoned many of the crimes of the puppet Governing council and brutal Allawi regime, it would be remiss of you to underestimate their name recognition value in a country where all the political parties today except the banned Baath have been formed abroad.

“Many Iraqis still remember the Communist party fondly for standing up to Saddam Hussein and for the terrible losses it suffered. It has a very strong base among the professional classes, and not only in certain areas of Baghdad, among farmers unions but also in Shiite areas such as Basra. After all, the communist party was born from the struggles of poor people in Sadr City.

“Many people afraid of a harsh and repressive religious government taking control would turn to the communist party as a secular and acceptable alternative if you gave them some prominence. The campaign is still young, and though many Muslims might hesitate to support a party they consider Godless and pro-Russian, times have changed and it is far better to give them a chance than all the opportunists seeking to destroy Iraq today.”

Dig it, that would be wild if the hammer and the sickle ends up flying over one of Saddam’s old palaces. That is if an Islamic flag of the Shia majority doesn’t get there first. Wild.

AN ARAB VIEW

And while this bright future awakes, the Arab writer Ghali Hassan remembers an electoral statement here by John Kerry. Remember him? “Americans have borne 90 percent of the casualties in Iraq.”

“. . . there is a deep racism underlying the occupiers’ attitudes to Arabs, Muslims and [other coloured people] generally”, wrote the Egyptian novelist, Ahdaf Soueif. She noted that “the acts in the photos being flashed across the [TV] networks would not have taken place but for the profound racism that infects the American and British establishments”.

“The Iraqi people are fighting to liberate their country from foreign occupation and terrorism. Their cause is noble and legitimate within international law. They are not ‘insurgents’. They are Iraqi men and women resisting the occupation and destruction of their country and society by foreign powers. . .”

http://207.44.245.159/article7541.htm

BACK IN THE HOMELAND, KERRY AWAKENS

Truthout’s William Rivers Pitt reports:

“2004 Democratic Presidential candidate John Kerry will file today, in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Ohio, papers in support of the Green Party/Libertarian Party recount effort. Specifically, Kerry will be filing a request for expedited discovery regarding Triad Systems voting machines, as well as a motion for a preservation order to protect any and all discovery and preserve any evidence on this matter.

“Triad Systems has come under scrutiny recently after Sherole Eaton, deputy director of elections for Hocking County, swore out an affidavit in which she described her witnessing the tampering of electronic voting equipment by a Triad representative. Rep. John Conyers, the ranking minority member of the House Judiciary Committee, has requested an investigation into this matter by the FBI and the Hocking County prosecutor . . . .”

Meanwhile in the White House, observers wondered what and who President Bush was talking to and about at 16:47 in this video clip.

http://tinyurl.com/5k8wx

ON OUR MEDIA

Lois Melina of the Baltimore Sun writes about media failures.

“As the country prepares for at least two years with the Republicans in control of both the White House and Congress, it is vitally important that the news media look at how they have failed the American people and contributed to a polarized nation.”

www.freepress.net/news/5979

YOUR LETTERS: ON THE MESS HALL BOMBING

The military savvy Joseph F. Dunphy writes:

“Let me express some deep skepticism over the revised news reports that the mess hall bombing was solely the work of a solo suicide-bomber attack. The pictures of the mess hall “roof/covering” that ran for two days clearly showed metal being bent inwards, toward the ground, indicating the “entrance wound” characteristics of something that struck the roof from the outside first.

“It could be mortars, RPGs, anti-tank guided missiles, or something like that. If it were mortars, the Army’s Field Manual for combat engineering spells out the thickness of sandbags and the proper dimensions of “stringers, beams, and supports,” that would make the roof much less vulnerable to indirect fire. Since I gather that there may not be many forests around the desert, the wood/steel would have to be trucked in.

“Which makes me think that all available steel/armor substitutes are being scavenged to take care of vehicles that are not armored. Thus, it may be that the vulnerability of the mess hall is an unintended consequence of the “shortage” of up-armored vehicles. The ball bearing part of the story has the convenient virtue of taking the eye of the press off the main story, which is the lack of proper armor, after two years of soldier’s complaints about it, not to mention parents, and hospitals full of grieviously wounded. The evidence is being ignored, hardly in the tradition of the scientific method. The press should not take its eye off the main story — why don’t the troops have the right equipment?

“Also, a simple fix would be having active patrols on duty, prior to such scheduled events as chow, surveying the area at or near the perimeter of what would be mortar range. You couldn’t catch everything, but the drones would surely make patrol work a lot easier. Easier to do if you have enough troops, harder if you’re shorthanded.

“The ‘ball bearing’ part of the news account also gives me pause, because this is exactly the kind of charge leveled (sometimes falsely) by British Forces occupying Northern Ireland. (By the way, little reporting has been done in the media on the exact replication of British torture techniques in Northern Ireland and those used by the US worldwide now, surfacing most visibly in Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib, and much less visibly in the body snatching operations to Egypt and Syria, curiously termed renditions). While there were nail bombs used by Irish militants on the Irish Republican side, there were also bats with nails used as clubs, in lopsided amounts of Orange terror attacks, so that there was plenty of blame to go around.

“While it is not played up loudly in the US press, England is undergoing a controversial downsizing of its army. Hence, there is a curious element of publicity-seeking by English-Army hawks to play up the role of the “Black Watch,” who are trying to keep from unduly feeling the incision of the budget knife. Thus, the undercurrent is that the English hawks are playing to the grandstands in England, trying to lobby, via the media, for more funds for troops and equipment to fight “the savage natives,” wherever they might be.

“The English administration, by way of its judiciary, is trying once again to bury the ‘Bloody Sunday’ massacre of Catholic civilians, a case that has been infamous since 1972. The current PR push on the ‘need’ to strengthen the Black Watch troops also serves the desire of the English administration to deflect criticism sure to come if the courts once again find the English troops unaccountable for alleged war crimes. One of the big hidden agendas here is that of the arms industry. They sell equipment based on claims that it is ‘battle-tested.’ If US equipment doesn’t get the job done, other countries will buy from Russia, China, France, England, Israel, South Africa, or the trendy manufacturer of the day.

“What we are seeing in news reports is failures of some US equipment, and failures to carry out our own time-tested doctrine and tactics. A lot of what should be done is spelled out in field manuals — now conveniently on Compact Disc format. Which brings us back again to the big story — why is the leadership improvising, and departing from the playbook? Before they enter the military, they have to have at least a GED, which means they can read. So any departures from the written word has to come from above. And the bread crumbs lead us back to the top of the cave.”

ON DOCU-DEMOCRACY

Colin Sheppard writes, “I enjoyed your piece on Documentaries.” (He read it on Z-NET)

“Just 2 quick comments, that I think are worth noting and you may wish to elaborate on in future:

1) Ironically, I believe many of these documentary movies are actually quite profitable? From what I can gather, namely the website (www.imdb.org), many of these documentaries have done well in business/capitialist manner of speaking.(Some have — some haven’t. It is often hard to recoup one’s investment.”

2) I think in the past year another documentary movie worthy of mention is, and arguably as significant as “Fahrenheit 911″ is Morgan Spurlock’s “Superize Me!” (http://www.supersizeme.com)

“I have enjoyed your work and interviews previously, and I hope you may be able to mention and elaborate on these 2 points in future! Merry Christmas!!!”

Steve Withers writes from Foxton New Zealand:

“I read the other day that over US $130 billion has been spent on the Stars Wars missile defense system. Add that to the roughly US$200 billion spent on the illegal invasion of Iraq that President Bush lied to justify.

“With just those two, you’re well on the way to half a trillion dollars down the plughole.

“What a waste. That money could have done so many good and worthwhile things in a world very much in need of good and worthwhile things. ”

DON’T MALIGN CHIMPS

Ananda writes:

“I have noticed that a certain sector of society commonly refers to our president as a chimp, and I for one am tired of this egregious disrespect. Chimpanzees are highly intelligent, social, loving animals who value their families and communities and protect their neighbors’ babies. They share resources, help each other accomplish important tasks, and have more logical reasoning ability than a four-year-old human. Obviously, George W. Bush has nothing in common with these advanced primates, and they don’t deserve to be continually compared with their far-distant cousin. ”

HEARTACHE

Barbara Sockey from Potomac Falls VA has some to share:

“I was sure I would not see another “Viet Nam” in my lifetime. When I read of the Mosul attack, my heart ached with sorrow. This is so wrong. None of this makes sense — unless one looks at it strictly through a privileged personal economic prism, and not just “any” prism — the splendiferous, phantasmagoric prism of the top one-tenth of 1% of income earners. Just looking at the tax cut gives you a clear idea. . . . to say nothing of the millions and billions in Iraq-related contracts. This is blood for money.

Barbara includes a chart on how tax cuts benefit the rich:
http://www.cbpp.org/

“I know I’m all over the board, but I am so angry and discouraged. Thank you for all your good work. Happy Chrismukkahkwanz. . . . ”

WHO DO WE SUPPORT?

Adam Cornford and I had an exchange which we will explore in more detail in the future about the political choices in Iraq, none of which seem very good. He writes:

“Michael Moore’s ‘analysis’ in ‘Fahrenheit 911′ that the invasion of Iraq was motivated by Bush family interests rather than by a larger imperial agenda (which CH admits, albeit in a somewhat evasive way) is crude nonsense and seriously undermines his case in the film;

“–much of the Iraqi left (including the Communist Party, though CH did not mention them in particular) has long called for and critically supported the US-led overthrow of Saddam Hussein, and the CPI in particular is participating aggressively in the elections;

“–the insurgency appears now to be led by an alliance of Ba’athists and Wahabist/Al Quaeda militants, who have in common that they are vicious fascists trying to prevent even the semblance of a democratic civil society forming in Iraq by a campaign of murder and terror, much of it directed at fellow-Iraqis as well as at the occupation forces. . .

So that leaves us with no-one to support — except those incredibly brave Iraqis who oppose both the occupation and the fascist insurgency. The question is, how can we help them?”

Adam concluded on an up-note:

“This just to thank you for the dialogue and for your blog, which I read daily, and the endless hard work of it. I hope to see ‘WMD’ soon. I’d love to see you debate Hitchens and hear his response to it! (Incidentally, Krasny was very weak in his interviews both with the vile war criminal Richard Perle and with Hitchens, who admittedly expressed sardonic if understated distaste for Perle . . . With warmest best wishes for the new year.”

Robert Polhemus sends cheer:

“The return of Light drifting back slowly from the Southern Hemisphere Danny. I trust that the enormous courage it takes with your efforts to Spotlight the truth resonates in a universe beyond the pale garb of People who rely on their Ignorance to get them through another day.

CRASH AND BURN

Bradley Laing writes:

“Gwynne Dyer, a columnist who has been a favorite of mine since the 1980s, on his web site reprinted a column from October. In it, she suggested that both the Iraqi occupation and the U.S. economy were going to crash and burn, and it would be better if George Bush were in office to take the blame, so that the right wing couldn’t blame an elected John Kerry for the messes.

“Look, it is just a column

“But it’s the idea that both the economy and Iraq will go terribly bad in the same four years, mostly because “there is an inexhaustible supply of angry young men” to fight the occupation and because of the trade and budget deficits.

“Somebody, maybe not Dyer, suggested that if the dollar declines enough, cheap goods from China will soar in price, something consumers will not like.

“The vision of an Economic crisis in the next four years, when I’d like a 1990s boom economy back now, please — with Bush presiding over it — sounds nightmarish. Would you do some dissecting on this for me, huh, please?”

Jamie MacKay writes from Whistler BC:

“Best wishes for the season here, I hope you get some rest out of it, you work too hard. But thanks from all of us who partake in your blog — its the efforts of you and others that keeps the ’spin’ as spin, and puts a little news back into the news.”

BOOKS FOR YOU

We all will, when we are back, in 2005 after a short break. Please no letters until then. Remember you can still get a free gift copy of my e-book EMBEDDED by signing up with that incredible resource, Coldype.net.

Another book worth reading is by Tony Papa, an artist and stand up guy who was falsely incarcerated for many years and finally released on a Christmas like this. I had hoped to write more about him and will. For now, check out “15 to Life” on Amazon.com:
www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1932595066/mediaisaplura-20

Or visit his site: www.15tolife.com.

Also check out Rory O’Connor’s tribute to our late friend Jack Newfield:
www.roryoconnor.org/blog/index.php?p=96

To add to the role of the departed, Rabbi Arthur Waskow paid tribute to two giants intelletuals who also died at year’s end: Dick Barnet and Seymour Melman, two men who offered ideas for making peace in our world of conflict.

THE FREEDOM WE SEEK WILL TAKE A LONG MARCH

Join me in resolving to come back on the New Year and do it all again, to keep up our struggle for media reform and a revitalized democracy wherever we live.

My love to all for a happy, safe. prosperous and just News Year. My friend Tom Engelhardt carries a piece by Roberta Solnit in his Tom Dispatch about keeping hope alive. She concludes:

“And besides which, if you give up, you’ll hate yourself in the morning. If you act, you may or may not have the impact you intend, but you know what the consequences of passivity are. Insurrection is the honorable way to go, and you can be a small victory just by being in public, in touch, and outspoken — one person who hasn’t been conquered. Don’t do the Administration the favor of conquering yourself. ”

–Danny Schechter, News Dissector, 2004. That’s all for now folks.

Posted by Danny on Fri, Dec 24, 2004 at 12:19 AM EST