cross posted from The Dream Antilles

Juan Carlos Onetti (1909-1994)

A continuation of an idea.  Remember my essay that mentioned the Uruguayan writer Juan Carlos Onetti?  I thought not.  It’s OK. It was about what happened to various writers when their countries decided that what they wrote was unacceptable.  The piece was an inquiry about whether that kind of police state might be growing in the US.    

Here’s an excerpt:

[Onetti] went on to become one of Latin America’s most distinguished writers, earning Uruguay’s National Prize in literature in 1962. In 1974, he and some of his colleagues were imprisoned by the military dictatorship. Their crime: as members of the jury, they had chosen Nelson Marra’s short story El guardaespaldas (i.e. “The bodyguard”) as the winner of Marcha’s annual literary contest. Due to a series of misunderstandings (and the need to fill some space in the following day’s edition), El guardaespaldas was published in Marcha, although it had been widely agreed among them that they shouldn’t and wouldn’t do so, knowing this would be the perfect excuse for the military to intervene Marcha, considering the subject of the story (the interior monologue of a top-rank military officer who recounts his murders and atrocious behavior, much as it was happening with the functioning regime).

Onetti left his native country (and his much-loved city of Montevideo) after being imprisoned for 6 months in Colonia Etchepare, a mental institution. A long list of world-famous writers-including Gabriel García Márquez, Mario Vargas Llosa and Mario Benedetti-signed open letters addressed to the military government of Uruguay, which was unaware of the talented (and completely harmless) writer it had imprisoned and humiliated.

As soon as he was released, Onetti fled to Spain with his wife, violin player Dorotea Mühr.

Join me in Spain.

Meher Baba (1894-1969).

Meher Baba lived and traveled in company with a circle of close disciples whom he termed his “mandali” (Sanskrit for ‘circle’), both men and women from whom he demanded absolute obedience. He and his mandali voluntarily assumed a life of extreme simplicity. From 1925 to the end of his life, Meher Baba remained silent, communicating by means of an alphabet board or by gesture. Meher Baba spent long periods in seclusion, often fasting, but he would intersperse these periods with wide-ranging travels, public gatherings, and works of charity, including working with lepers, the poor, and the mad. He gave many discourses, which have been collected by his followers.

Why did Meher Baba maintain silence?  He wrote:

Man’s inability to live God’s words makes the Avatar’s teaching a mockery. Instead of practicing the compassion he taught, man has waged wars in his name. Instead of living the humility, purity, and truth of his words, man has given way to hatred, greed, and violence. Because man has been deaf to the principles and precepts laid down by God in the past, in this present Avataric form, I observe silence.

Hmmm.

Which brings me to the book and movie The Diving Bell and the Butterfly:

On December 8, 1995, Elle magazine editor-in-chief Bauby suffered a stroke and lapsed into a coma. He awoke 20 days later, mentally aware of his surroundings but physically paralyzed with the exception of some movement in his head and left eye. The entire book [The Diving Bell And The Butterfly] was written by Bauby blinking his left eyelid, in July and August of 1996. A transcriber repeatedly recited a French language frequency-ordered alphabet (E S A R I N T U L etc.), until Bauby blinked to choose the next letter. The book took about 200,000 blinks to write and each word took approximately two minutes. The book also chronicles everyday events and what they are like for a person with locked-in syndrome. These events include playing at the beach with his family, getting a bath, and meeting visitors. The French edition of the book was published in March, 1997. It received excellent reviews and sold 150,000 copies in the first week and went on to become a number one bestseller across Europe. Ten days after the book was published, Bauby died of pneumonia

Enough is enough.  McCain surrogate Joe Lieberman appeared on Tuesday at Pastor John Hagee’s Citizens United For Israel (CUFI) conference and made a disgraceful, pandering speech.  You’ll recall that Hagee’s endorsement of McSame provoked outrage until McCain rejected it.  But, even without all of that, Lieberman’s appearance was a utter disgrace worthy of condemnation.

The Connecticut Post reports:

With a pump of his fist and a wave, Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman Tuesday evening greeted the thousands of members of Christians United for Israel who came to the nation’s capital to lobby on behalf of the Jewish state.

“I am your brother Joseph,” Lieberman told the crowd gathered in the cavernous D.C. conference center. They stood up from their dining tables and cheered, waving American and Israeli flags as they warmly embraced him.

Lieberman said that he proudly stands by them as a man of faith, believing in them and believing in the Rev. John Hagee, the controversial Texas televangelist who founded the group. As he did a year ago, Lieberman once again compared Hagee to Moses, but this time in reference to the imbroglio that erupted over remarks the pastor made that had offended Jews and Catholics.

“Even Moses fell short of God’s expectations. He made a mistake and hit the rock rather than speaking to it as God commanded. His sister, the prophetess Miriam, sinned too when she spoke badly about Moses. But this didn’t make Moses and Miriam bad people or failed leaders. Their shortcomings were only part of the larger fabric of their remarkable lives of faith and service. And that’s the way the Bible and those who read it view them,” Lieberman said.

cross posted from The Dream Antilles

WaPO reports that Maryland police infiltrated and spied upon peace and death penalty abolition groups in 2005.  The information the cops gathered was apparently sent to other law enforcement agencies.  No crimes were alleged to have been committed by the activists.

That crushing sound you hear is the crumbling of the First Amendment:

Undercover Maryland State Police officers conducted surveillance on war protesters and death penalty opponents, including some in Takoma Park, for more than a year while Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. was governor, documents released yesterday show.

Detailed intelligence reports logged by at least two agents in the police department’s Homeland Security and Intelligence Division reveal close monitoring of the movements as the Iraq war and capital punishment were heatedly debated in 2005 and 2006.

Organizational meetings, public forums, prison vigils, rallies outside the State House in Annapolis and e-mail group lists were infiltrated by police posing as peace activists and death penalty opponents, the records show. The surveillance continued even though the logs contained no reports of illegal activity and consistently indicated that the activists were not planning violent protests.

Then-state police superintendent Tim Hutchins acknowledged in an interview yesterday that the surveillance took place on his watch, adding that it was done legally. He said Ehrlich (R) was not aware of it. “You do what you think is best to protect the general populace of the state,” said Hutchins, now a federal defense contractor.

Did you read that?  The then state police superintendent says that the surveillance “was done legally.”  I feel so very assured and comforted by this conclusion about the law.  And protected.  Protected from what you might ask?  And from whom?  “To protect the general populace of the state” is a police goal that apparently does not include protecting the privacy and right of association of death penalty abolitionists and peace activists.  

You gotta love Republican economics.  It flip flops like a fish on a dock.  Is it supply side or is it deficit hawk?  Is it for profligate spending and no taxation?  Will it claim somehow to balance the budget by decreasing taxes?  What kind of crazy voodoo economics is it this time?

An early example of fish thrashing on wood.  When he was trying to be the Republican presidential nominee in 1980, George H.W. Bush (George Pere) derided Reagan’s supply-side policies as “voodoo economics”. Later he promoted those policies to become the Republican nominee 1988.  Famously pronouncing, “Read my lips, no new taxes”, he ended up eating his words. He imposed tax increases.  He was for tax increases before he was against them and then he was for them again.  Mostly, he was for rich folks’ benefit and winning the election.  That seems a fairly easy idea to fulfill.  Not.

And now you have John McSame who is dancing to the same Republican economics pipers. Today’s New York Times reports that McSame’s economics policy is not very pleasing at all to the rich folks:

As Senator John McCain began a week of economic-themed campaigning here on Monday, it was apparent that some of the underlying tension between the two schools that guide his economic thinking – supply-siders who want to cut taxes and deficit hawks who want to balance the federal budget – remained unresolved.

Mr. McCain is pledging once again to balance the budget by the end of his first term as president in 2013, his advisers said Monday, reverting to an earlier pledge that the Arizona senator had abandoned in April when he proposed a series of costly tax cuts for corporations and high earners, and said it might take two terms to balance the budget.

“American workers and families pay their bills and balance their budgets, and I will demand the same of the government,” Mr. McCain said at a town hall-style meeting here.

But it is unclear how Mr. McCain plans to balance the budget, given that fiscal analysts who have examined his economic plans say his calls to extend the Bush tax cuts while cutting corporate and other taxes would likely increase the deficit significantly.

This tension between steep tax cuts and deficit reduction has been a recurring theme in the evolution of Mr. McCain.

cross-posted from The Dream Antilles

Lost in the July 3 rush to start July 4th partying is the Commander Athlete in Chief’s announcement that he will support the athletes by attending the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics.  This direct, single digit salute to people who care about human rights in China and who are concerned about the continuing genocide in Darfur, was delivered to avoid outcry.  Put another way, it reeks of cowardice.

The New York Times reports:

The White House said Thursday that President Bush would attend the opening ceremonies of the Beijing Olympics next month, a decision fraught with international political symbolism that quickly drew criticism from advocates for human rights.

The advocates have been pressing world leaders to boycott the Olympics or at least skip the opening ceremonies to protest China’s violent crackdown after riots in Tibet and its support for the government of Sudan, whose Darfur region remains enmeshed in violence.

The leaders of Britain and Germany have said they will skip the opening ceremonies. For some time, the White House has said that Mr. Bush will attend the Games, but has refused to provide further details.

That changed late on Thursday afternoon. With most of official Washington already gone for the Fourth of July holiday, the White House press secretary, Dana Perino, issued a simple statement outlining Mr. Bush’s August travel schedule, including the notation that he would go to the opening ceremonies.

The president’s press secretary mouthpiece, who gives frequent evidence of being both utterly tone deaf and unable to distinguish facts from opinions, explained in an interview:

“This is a decision by the president that he really wanted to go in support of our athletes,” Ms. Perino said in an interview. Asked if Mr. Bush was making a political statement, she said, “He does not look at it that way, but we recognize that others may.”

BBC is now reporting:

The Colombian authorities say they have rescued Ingrid Betancourt and three Americans held by rebels in Colombia.

Ms Betancourt, a French-Colombian politician, has been held for more than six years by the rebel Farc group and is said to be in very poor health.

She is the group’s highest-profile hostage and the French government has made securing her release a priority.

The Farc group has been fighting to overthrow the Colombian government for more than 40 years.

The Colombian military said some 15 hostages had been rescued in total on Wednesday, among them 11 Colombian soldiers.

Please join me in Colombia.