09/10/2006 - 09/16/2006

The Ballad of Valery Ponomarev. It's Their Way Or It's Their Way.

This is just so important that it needs to be quoted in full.

Arthur Gilroy (nom de plume for a jazzer who blogs) writes about an incident at an airport that happened to another jazz musician. :

Let me tell you a story..

.it won't take very long..

.about how far the Bushist doctrine of fear and power has spread. How far, how deeply and how dangerously it has spread.

last week...

an American citizen for over 30 years...

because he argued with the gate people at an Air India flight to New York when they demanded that he gate check his trumpet rather than bring it onto the plane. A trumpet that:
A-Fits with no problem whatsoever in the overheads.
B-Had been properly tagged as carryon baggage before he got to the gate.

Now you must know that that musicians try very hard to get their instruments onto planes whenever they can do so. Baggage handlers are notorious for breaking things, and a broken instrument is painful in any number of ways. So is a lost or misrouted instrument.

It's not like you can just pick up another one before the gig and play at your usual level of competence. Even if you are lucky enough to FIND one, every instrument has its own quirks and personality, and most professional musicians own instruments that are not easily replaceable. Older instruments or ones that were custom built or modified to their specifications.

And since 9/11 and the whole Homeland Security/Terrorism scare-scam, if you DO carefully pack an instrument in a special ape-proof flight case and allow it to be checked as baggage, the minimum wagers that are doing "security" work in the baggage depeartment are often capable of opening the case, taking the instrument out to see if it's a bomb (Duh...

a trumpet or violin REALLY looks bomb-like on an X-ray machine.) repacking it backwards and upside down and then forgetting to close the latches. I have SEEN this happen.

So Valery...

63 years old, maybe 5' 5" tall, 140 lbs...

pitched a bitch at the gate when some pissed-off functionary at a loading gate decided to pull rank on him. They called security and four (as he so colorfully put it to me today when he told me the story) "giant asshole cops" took him someplace where there were no witnesses, tried to forcibly take his trumpet away and when he would not let go of it with his right hand, pulled his left arm behind his back and broke it.
And people sniff and moan when the word "fascism" is used to describe what is happening in America and in much of Western Europe as well.

Vaslery did not try to fight these people. As he related today (I wish I could reproduce his great Russan accent) "I grew up in Soviet Union under Stalin and Khruschev. I know enough not to try to hit a cop.

Let alone four of them. Big, stupid motherfuckers." (Here he stands on tiptoe and raises his remaining functioning hand as high in the air as he can.

) "They were THS BIG!!!

FOUR of them!!!

I am not THAT stupid."
And indeed he is not.
Here is a man who grew up in Russia when playing "jazz" was almost an act of open rebellion and got so good that Art Blakey hired him to join the Jazz Messengers in the late '60s.

And if you do not know how serious THAT was...

Blakey was possibly the only equal to Miles Davis in terms of hearing and hiring the best of the best in the post-bop era.
Freddie Hubbard, Wayne Shorter..

.that level.
The BEST of the best.

So here we have this INSATIABLY positive little Russian guy, authentically playing in an idiom that had its genesis in the riot-torn black ghettos of America during the Civil Rights era. Moving to New York, getting his citizenship, re-starting a life here..

.a true "American" success story, when there really was such a thing. Now seriously crippled.

..they had to operate because it was a complex break.

..and unable to even HOLD a trumpet, because George fucking Bush and his handlers have decided that they are the deciders and we are their subjects.

I just thought I would bring this general "fascism" discussion down to a more personal level. This can happen to ANY of us who do not totally surrender on any level whatsoever to the madness of these people.
Do as we say.

..no matter HOW stupid it may be.

..or we will beat you down physically.

We have seen discussions of what "fascism" is. What the word really means. High level theorizing about the state and corporations, etc.

Objections to the supposed trivializing of the word.
Well..

.I've got news for you.
THIS is "fascism.

"
It's their way or it's their way.
One way or another.
It's the cop way.

Do as they say...

no matter HOW stupid it may be...

or they will beat you down physically.
No recourse.
They will beat you down NOW.

And this is not just happening in America. It is now almost worldwide. It is spreading, this attitude.

Not diminishing..These people are always with us, waiting for a chance to run their game.

I have seen the same hard faces in Holland, in Scandinavia...

in the most civilized places on earth. The same faces bolstered by the same weapons.
Waiting.

Slick or crude.
In high positions or in low.
Waiting for their chance to rule.

To TOTALLY rule.
"It's my or or it's my way. Step AWAY from your rights with your hands in the air.

"
And we have given them their chance, now.
God help us all.
You doubt this idea?

OK. Try to imagine the above story happening in 1996. Nope.

End of argument. This was not "police brutality." This was not some poor denizen of the lower depths of society being set upon by the bottom feeders that always make their living scavenging down there.

This was an internationally recognized artist on tour.
It was a random act of fascist violence, and acts like this function in a fascist system as ongoing warnings to ALL. "Stay in line or else!

!! You could be next.

"
So when lefty theorizers start bitching and moaning about how theoretically imperfect politicians like Hillary Clinton are "no better than their opponents", I get pissed off.
The fish rots from the head, and the soulless functionaries at the top of the international political food chain right now..

.from CheneyBush on down..

.are in the process of tearing apart nearly 800 years of attempted civilized progress. Say from the signing of the Magna Carta.

They are doing a better job than did their teachers, the Hitler people.
MUCH better.
Because they are stealth stealers.

One little right at a time.
No Blitzkrieg necessary.
No Kristallnacht.

No burning of the Reichstag.
Just taking little bits of our souls.
A right here, a thought there.

Until there is nothing left but obedience.
"It is our way or it is our way."
"Whatchoo gonna DO about it, chump?

"
Well...

what ARE we going to do about it?
Inquiring minds want to know.
What are we going to do about it if the November Dream.

.."DEMOCRATS WIN!

!! DEMOCRATS WIN !

!!".

..turns into the same wisp of smoke as have all the OTHER Fitzmasses Past?

What CHOO gonna do about it?
Motherfucker.

Wow.

That's just one hell of a story. I hope the cat is able to recover and able to continue with his art. I'm guessing that cats like Ponomarev came to the US seeking freedom from the Stalinist-style repression only to find that the US (and apparently the rest of the west) is well on the way to becoming every bit as Stalinist as the old USSR.

Arthur's taunt at the end is very reminiscent of the sorts of taunts one might get in a Last Poets or Gylan Kain rap - "whatcha gonna do about it, mothafucka? whatcha gonna do about it..

.mothafucka?" Whatcha gonna do when they come after you?

Whatcha gonna do when the Knights in Shining Armor® turn out to be the same thugs in different suits and their white horses start spitting bullets from machine gun tails?

--US interrogator to Mohammed El Gharani, Saudi juvenile detained in Guantanamo.

Operation End Your Freedom.

"I was beaten and verbally abused in detention. After a few days, the guards asked me, 'Do you know that your name is all over the Internet?

'
After that, I was treated better by the guards before being released. The appeals sent by Amnesty members definitely had an effect on my case."

(Republican):

"I listen to my Democrat friends, and I wonder if they're more interested in protecting terrorists than in protecting the American people.

"

[...

]

"I said I wonder if they're more interested in protecting the terrorists," he replied, repeating more than clarifying. "They certainly don't want to take the terrorists on in the field."

Thus spoke Hastert:

"Some Democrats on Capitol Hill seem to be confused about who the enemy is.

"

Howzabout we take a gander at :

What's this dude's story? Let's find out:

A man accused of driving his car into a women’s health center and then setting the vehicle on fire thought the facility was an abortion clinic, Davenport police said today.
“He was using his car to torch the building,” detective Mike Bowers said.

David Robert McMenemy, 45, of Sterling Heights, Mich., is charged with second-degree arson. He is accused of driving his car into the about 4:30 a.

m. Monday.
McMenemy remains in the Scott County Jail.

The car has been impounded and officials are examining its contents, including whether any explosive-type materials are present.
The center does not perform abortions and does not provide abortion referrals, said Tom Fedje, the president of Edgerton. He said the center does advise pregnant women on the various options available to them.

Bowers said McMenemy has no ties to the Quad-City area and has been driving around the Midwest since August.
“He has admitted looking them (abortion clinics) up in phone books and online,” Bowers added. “I have no idea why Iowa.

”
is monitoring the incident, spokeswoman Kathi Di Nicola said. Planned Parenthood is the only agency to provide abortions in the Quad-Cities, performing the procedure at its women’s health clinic in Bettendorf.
Bowers said McMenemy apparently thought abortions were performed at the Edgerton center.

“He drove into the clinic and set his car on fire using an accelerant. He knew what he was doing. He planned it.

It wasn’t an accident,” the detective added.

Some to sum up just how fucked up our security priorities really are:
While the FBI directs it’s attention toward , the Republican party of the far right, people who are genuine dangers to the public are treated as common criminals at best, ignored at worst.
caught in Texas, an arrest all-but ignored by the media, and NOT trumpeted by the government, we can only call someone a “terrorist” if their attack, plot or fits the narrative of scary brown people or muslims aching to blow up suburbanites and eat the flesh of their dead children’s corpses.

Or who will steal their jobs ...

or burn up their SUVs. The “be afraid” story MUST be maintained and stoked.
Luckily, no one in Iowa was hurt physically by this latest domestic terrorist.

It’s only a matter of time before someone is, while our politicians and law enforcement professionals continue to look the other way, too busy cashing in on fearful jingoism, prejudice and zealotry.

Let's call these utter wastes of human dna who go around vandalizing and bombing family planning women's health facilities; who burn crosses in front of houses occupied by people who just happen to have a different skin color; who terrorize immigrants; who burn down churches, mosques and synagogues what they really are: terrorists (and they should be treated accordingly). For the most part, the powers that be - in particular those of Republican persuasion - give these goons a blind eye and a free pass as they go about their business of destroying property (which one would think should be all-mighty in the GOP scheme of things), lives, and livelihoods.

Neither the goons nor their enablers will be foregiven nor foregotten. Bet on it.

Saw this and thought I'd pass it along to my readers:

8 days to begin to change how the world sees us! It's 9-11, and what has been shoved into world news this week? U.

S. torture camps, justified by the Bush regime, and about to be accepted by Congress. Do we want to be seen by the world as torturers?

George Bush goes to the United Nations on Tuesday, September 19 to announce "we're doing this all over again" - this time in Iran. What is the world going to see that day? There is the possibility of something different beginning to show itself in this country.

..
On September 19, the World Can't Wait will publish a full page ad in USA Today, the nation's largest circulation daily, saying "Bring the Bush Crimes to a Halt!

" and joining with the protests of Bush at the United Nations, and with people acting around the country on "Bush Crimes Day". The ad will contain the Call to Drive Out the Bush Regime, announce on Thursday, October 5 to millions of people, and spread the spirit of "history will judge us sharply if we fail to act to stop this."
No one is going to send this message to the world for us.

WE must do it.
Be part of acting, wherever you are, by $104,000 needed by Friday September 15. $500,000 by Thursday, September 21.

Forward this email to 10 of your friends with a personal note on why you are contributing.
Hold a fund-raising house party. Show a DVD of the hearings.

Order here [janet@nion.us]
Do you have the resources to make or raise larger donations of money or stock? Contact World Can't Wait Development Director Samantha Elena Goldman.

[elena@worldcantwait.org]
1300+ gathered last Thursday to plan October 5 protests in 50 cities.
24 days until October 5!

Props to Betsy Angert of . Free me to pray for others;
For you are present in every person.

Help me take responsibility for my own life;
So that I can be free at last.
Grant me courage to serve others;
For in service there is true life.
Give me honesty and patience;
So that I can work with others workers.

Bring forth song and celebration;
So that the Spirit will be alive among us.
Let the Spirit flourish and grow;
So that we will never tire of the struggle.
Let us remember those who have died for justice;
For they have given us life.

Help us love even those who hate us;
So we can change the world.
Found in the comments to the diary .

Seemed an appropriate sentiment for today.

I've been doing a variation of the following since , which at the time marked the 30th anniversary of the US-assisted overthrow of the democratically elected Allende government in Chile, and the beginning of Pinochet's reign of terror against his own people. The idea was to offer a reminder to my readers that what 9-11 means or "should mean" has a great deal of variability among individuals across the globe.

This year I'm modifying my statement just a bit, as I like to keep it fresh as I wish to keep it real. There is no doubt in my mind that terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center twin towers and the Pentagon were a terrible tragedy. However, let's not forget that September 11 marks the anniversary for numerous other events: some tragic, some inspirational.

1. We shall also remember that 33 years ago, the democratically elected government of Chile and its President Allende were overthrown in a US-backed coup that resulted in Allende's death. Countless thousands of people were executed or "disappeared" during Pinochet's reign of terror that subsequently followed this tragic day in history.

Let's remember the victims of the coup and its aftermath.

2. On this day in 1959 the US Congress authorized food stamps for Americans living in poverty.

For those congressional leaders who voted to aid those in need, let's remember them.

3. On this day in 1851, in Christiana, Pennsylvania there was a stand-off between several ex-slave families (led by William Parker) and a posse of several armed white men led by a slave owner (Edward Gorsuch).

This was one with a somewhat happy ending, as Parker and the remaining ex-slaves prevailed, and Gorsuch paid for his attempt to re-enslave these families with his life. That day was a stark reminder of the struggle that lay ahead for those endeavoring to break the bonds of slavery in the U.S.

Let's remember Parker and those brave families who were willing to stand up for their human rights and dignity by any means necessary. The same day that was rife with tragedy at the beginning of our current century marked the sesquicentennial of what was truly a day of triumph for Parker and his crew.

4.

On this day in 1945 retiring Secretary of War Henry Stimson sent a letter to then-President Harry Truman urging that the Truman administration with the USSR as the Soviet government worked to develop nuclear energy and weapons capability. Said Stimson:
“I believe that the change in attitude toward the individual in Russia will come slowly and gradually and I am satisfied that we should not delay our approach to Russia in the matter of the atomic bomb until that process has been completed..

.. Furthermore, I believe that this long process of change in Russia is more likely to be expedited by the closer relationship in the matter of the atomic bomb which I suggest and the trust and confidence that I believe would be inspired by the method of approach which I have outlined.

”
Stimson reasoned the Russians would at once pursue obtaining such a bomb for themselves. It was not a secret, as Americans were for years led to believe, but an industrial technology being explored before the War, and which the Soviets would obtain in, say, four to twenty, years.
In a reference to the US "having this weapon rather ostentatiously on our hip," Stimson noted, "their suspicions and their distrust of our purposes and motives will increase.

It will inspire them to greater efforts in an all out effort to solve the problem."
"The chief lesson I have learned in a long life is that the only way you can make a man trustworthy is to trust him; and the surest way to make him untrustworthy is to distrust him and show your distrust."

Tragically, his advice was ignored by the Truman administration, and what followed was a protracted "Cold War" that served only to inflate our elites' Military-Industrial Complex and sense of paranoia at the expense of much more humanitarian endeavors.

Let us remember Stimson's words, as our current White House (p)resident threatens to pursue a belligerent reaction to Iran's efforts to become a nuclear power in its own right.

5. On this day 100 years ago in opposition to British imperial rule.

Although requiring decades, Gandhi's efforts at nonviolent resistance begun on 9-11-1906 would prove successful. Let us remember Gandhi and those he's inspired to follow a different, nonviolent path in the struggle for freedom and dignity.

6.

On this day three years ago, the world lost one of the truly great slapstick comedians, John Ritter, who died of a heart attack. Ritter is likely best known for his role as Jack Tripper in the late 1970s early 1980s sitcom Three's Company (based on the British sitcom Man About the House). Let's remember Ritter and others like him who've shared the gift of humor in these troubled times.

This day marks the anniversary of numerous events, some tragic, some uplifting. But bear in mind that ultimately today is merely another day on the calendar. We need not be straight-jacketed by the events of the past, nor need we forget them.

There are many lessons to be learned from the events mentioned above with regards to human freedom and dignity. Let's spend some time today pondering those lessons.

For me personally, September 11, 2001 will be remembered as a day when we saw the schizophrenic character of American society in sharp relief.

The acts of courage and helpfulness by countless individuals, their willingness to reach out to others was truly inspiring. On the other hand, the American tendency to engage in belligerent jingoism and to immediately blame and attack people, nations, and cultures for the bombings reared its ugly head that day and in the aftermath, which to me was truly sickening. Sadly, the latter won out in the aftermath leading to an America that is on the warpath, with little regard for the consequences - either at home or abroad.

Although our hope of the tide turning may be faint, that hope is the one candle we do possess in the darkness of the early 21st century.

Peace