THE COVE

The Cove


The Cove is a 2009 American documentary film that describes the annual killing of dolphins in a National Park at Taiji, Wakayama, in Japan from an anti–dolphin-hunting campaigner's point of view. The film highlights the fact that the number of dolphins killed in the Taiji dolphin hunting drive is several times greater than the number of whales killed in the Antarctic, and reports that 23,000 dolphins and porpoises are killed in Japan every year in the country's whaling industry. The migrating dolphins are herded into a hidden cove where they are netted and killed by means of spears and knives over the side of small fishing boats.

The film was directed by former National Geographic photographer Louie Psihoyos. Portions were filmed secretly during 2007 using underwater microphones and high-definition cameras disguised as rocks.
The documentary won the U.S. Audience Award at the 25th annual Sundance Film Festival in January 2009. It was selected out of the 879 submissions in the category. On March 7, 2010, The Cove won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature at the 82nd Academy Awards.

This piece is addressed to Louie Psihoyos, the Western media, particularly The Japan Times, to “activist” Ric O’Barry, the “Flipper” trainer-cum-activist who stars in The Cove and all of you Westerners with all your lofty feelings.

I live in Japan. I’ve lived here for 20 years. Japan is a country that harbors a war criminal: former prime minister Junichiro Koizumi. He has led Japan into the illegal war against Irak, alongside other Western vultures, notably the U.S.A. and the U.K.

The decision by President George W. Bush to go to war in Iraq was ILLEGAL because it didn't have U.N Security Council approval, according to Secretary General Kofi Annan in an interview with the BBC World Service on Wednesday 15 2004. On Wednesday after being asked three times whether the lack of council approval for the war meant it was illegal, he (Annan) said:
" From our point of view it was ILLEGAL."

Q: It was illegal ?
Annan: Yes, if you wish.
Q: It was illegal ?
Annan: Yes, I have indicated it is not In conformity with the U.N Charter, from our point of view and from the Charter point of view it Was ILLEGAL.

International Herald Tribune, Friday, September 17, 2004 (U.N chief calls Iraq war Illegal) The Associated Press, United Nations, New York."

Of course nobody here thinks of him (Koizumi) as a war criminal. Instead of being in The Hague, he is prancing around freely…..just like Bush, Blair, Berlusconi and all the other partners in crime, members of the coalition of the willing (to kill and plunder). The rape of Irak is barely in the mainstream media, Afghanistan even less. When it does make the news it’s usually to tell us about U.S. soldiers suffering from PTD or some other Western casualty .

I read a daily (anesthetic) called The Japan Times. The other day, Tuesday 24, I came across, again!, an article, almost half a page (by Jay Alabaster, AP), about Taiji where The Cove was shot. There has been so much in the English language press, especially The Japan Times, about The Cove, the “slaughter” of dolphins, the “dark” secret of this little town, Taiji…..hell, the slaughter of dolphins got more attention than the slaughter of more than one million Irakis (so far) by the U.S.-U.K.-led coalition of the willing (to kill for oil). Some Japanese fishermen kill some dolphins and eat the meat. So what? What is the big deal?

I am sick and tired of this intentionally misplaced Western concern! Doesn’t the director of The Cove, Louie Psihoyos, have anything better to do? Anything more important to film? And this piece of crap got an Oscar….well, on second thought, it does deserve it…just think about it…Hollywood deciding what’s important in the world….it’s just like another piece of crap, The Hurt Locker by Kathryn Bigelow, about a team of deminers in Irak. The whole of Irak, hell, most of the world is a hurt locker, and all K. Bigelow can do is make a film about a bunch of Yankees disposing of land mines in and around Baghdad that are there because of them in the first place!

How much longer will this deliberately misplaced Western concern go on? The majority of people in the world live in abject misery caused by the capitalist economic policies of the West and some dolphins, whales and a bunch of Yankee criminals turned into victims get more attention! Hello?! The West! Do you need more September 11ths, more trains blowing up in Madrid, more buses blowing up in London…to pay attention to the people that you slaughter and plunder around the world to preserve your comfort. Hello?! Louie Psihoyos! You, as an American, living in the country that has been the greatest purveyor of violence on Earth since its inception, shouldn’t you be concerned with at least the misery in your own country if you don’t give a damn about the misery in the world caused by your country??

Dolphins?? Who cares??

I don’t! Eastern Europe doesn’t! Africa doesn’t! The Arab world doesn’t! Asia doesn’t! So, who is left to (pretend to) care about some dolphins in some Taiji? So, who is left?

Again the same people, the white Anglo-Saxon god-fearing middle class Christian with his/her lofty feelings of self-satisfying compassion.
Why don’t you Louie Psihoyos with your secret, high-tech, waterproof, mini cameras film secretly the arrogance of war criminals such as Bush, Blair, Koizumi, Berlusconi, Aznar et al.? Or the daily oppression in the lives of the Chechens, Palestinians, Sudanese, Irakis, Kurds, the Indians in U.S. concentration camps, the 25 000 people dying daily of hunger, the child prostitutes, the child soldiers….and so on and on and on. Don’t tell me you didn’t have a choice. You actually chose dolphins over millions of people literally dying to be heard and seen…..you have the means, the time and obviously the dedication but all misplaced!

No one can imagine how much attention and space this whole dolphin and whale business got in the press here in The Japan Times. But what can we expect from the cowardly mainstream media? And, Louie, with that misplaced interest of yours in Japan, shouldn’t you be focusing on the “peace loving” Japan, the Japan that has renounced war and yet taken part in the supreme international crime, the attack on Irak, led by your country, America? What is this obsession with dolphins? It’s typical of the Western white man and woman. The most recent article, the one I mentioned here above, is about the annual dolphin hunt that’s about to start in early September. It says that the waters of the cove in Taiji will turn blood red. The whole of Irak and a large part of the world has turned blood red or no color at all due to the savage capitalist economic policies of the sensitive West. It also says that, and this is a good one, while for the people in and around Taiji dolphins can be playmates, they are primarily seen as big game animals, a perception many foreigners find difficult to stomach.

Again, who are these foreigners? I am a foreigner. Who are these sensitive souls with sensitive stomachs who care more about dolphins than people? I am not one of them, my brothers are not among them, my friends here in Tokyo from Palestine, Irak, Burundi, Yugoslavia, Russia, Lebanon, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia….are not among those foreigners with sensitive stomachs. The slaughter of dolphins in Taiji has been getting more attention than the Israelo-Western starving of Palestinians in Gaza or the 9 Turkish activists trying to enter Gaza to bring humanitarian aid to the Palestinians in Gaza who were killed by a demented Israeli commando.

I have eaten whale meat on several occasions. It is delicious. There is a very good restaurant in Shibuya-ward, Tokyo, that serves whale meat. Unfortunately, I haven’t had a chance to try dolphin meat yet.

Hey, Louie Psihoyos, are you gonna show your pathetic little documentary to the U.S. troops in Irak to cheer them up? How about showing it in Chechnya, Gaza, Sudan, Srebrenica, Angola, Sierra Leone, the Congo, Cambodia, Venezuela, Afghanistan, Guatemala, Salvador, Kurdistan, Albania, Yemen, Somalia, East Timor, Pakistan, Haiti…or to all the slums and all the sweatshops all over the world, products of sensitive Western capitalism? Are you gonna send a copy to Aung San Suu Kyi, Leonard Peltier, Mumia Abu Jamal, Abdullah Ocalan, Marwan Barghouti, Leila Zana….? See if they care. And please, Louie Psihoyos, if you do show The Cove in one of these places say, Irak, after the viewing in Baghdad or Fallujah you should do the Q and A thing. I am sure the people of Irak have lots of questions about the little town of Taiji and its dark secret.

You, Louie Psihoyos, and the foreigners (Westerners) who “care”, who are “shocked”, who can’t stomach the slaughter of poor little, cute, intelligent dolphins but who can stomach your governments’ slaughter of poor little, cute, intelligent Iraki children and plunder of the whole world…you are a bunch of pretenders, the typical middle class empty Westerner, pseudo activist, in search of some spiritual connection, climbing Mount Everest, traveling to Nepal and Tibet to get wasted, in love with the Dalai Lama, Aung San Suu Kyi, Gandhi, M.L. King but not with Malcolm X, the Black Panthers, sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, the Hamas, the Iraki Resistance, the IRA, Chavez, Morales, the Maoists in Nepal……Playing it safe, aren’t you? Hug a tree, hug a dolphin, join Amnesty, organize end poverty concerts, sing we are the world we are the children…..do your best to avoid confronting the real problems in our world caused by your governments’ criminal capitalist economic policies and your greed. You hypocrites!

To an Iraqi infant by Sinan Antoon

do you know
that your mother's nipples
are dry bones?
that her breasts
are bursting
with depleted uranium?

do you know
that the womb's window
overlooks
a confiscated land?

do you know
that your tomorrow
has no tomorrow?
that your blood
is the ink
of new maps?

do you know
that your mother is weaving
the slowness of her moments
into an elegy?
And she is already
mourning you?

don't be shy!
your funeral is over
the tears are dry
everyone's gone

come forward!
it's only a short way
don't be late
your grave is looking
at its watch!

don't be afraid!
We'll arrange your bones
which ever way you want
and leave your skull
like a flower
on top

come forward!
your many friends await
there are more every day
. . .
your ghosts
will play together

come on!

Brkic Sulejman 2/9/2010

PALESTINE

PEACE IN PALESTINE : THE SOLUTION

On May 27, 2010, outside the Jewish Heritage Celebration Day event at the White House, the following exchange took place between Helen Thomas and Rabbi David Nesenoff:

Nesenoff: Any comments on Israel? We're asking everybody today, any comments on Israel?
Thomas: Tell them to get the hell out of Palestine. (laughs)
Tell them to get the hell out of Palestine.
Tell them to get the hell out of Palestine.
Tell them to get the hell out of Palestine.
Tell them to get the hell out of Palestine.
Tell them to get the hell out of Palestine.
Nesenoff: Oooh. Any better comments on Israel?
Thomas: (still laughing) Remember, these people are occupied and it's their land. It's not German, it's not Poland ...
Remember, these people are occupied and it's their land.
Remember, these people are occupied and it's their land.
Remember, these people are occupied and it's their land.
Remember, these people are occupied and it's their land.
Remember, these people are occupied and it's their land.
Remember, these people are occupied and it's their land.
Nesenoff: So where should they go, what should they do?
Thomas: They go home.
Nesenoff: Where's the home?
Thomas: Poland. Germany.
Nesenoff: So you're saying the Jews go back to Poland and Germany?
Thomas: And America and everywhere else. Why push people out of there who have lived there for centuries? See?
Nesenoff: Well, yeah, are you familiar with the, the history of that region and what took place?
Thomas: Very much. I'm of Arab background.

"Let us not ignore the truth among ourselves ... politically we are the aggressors and they defend themselves... The country is theirs, because they inhabit it, whereas we want to come here and settle down, and in their view we want to take away from them their country."
-- David Ben Gurion, quoted on pp 91-2 of Chomsky's Fateful Triangle, which appears in Simha Flapan's "Zionism and the Palestinians pp 141-2 citing a 1938 speech.

“Jews came and took, by means of uprooting and expulsion, a land that was Arab…” Israeli Professor Ilan Pappe


Write down!
I am an Arab
You have stolen the orchards of
My ancestors
And the land which I cultivated
Along with my children
And you left nothing for us
Except for these rocks…
So will the State take them
As it has been said?!
Therefore!
Write down on the top of the first page:
I do not hate people
Nor do I encroach
But if I become hungry
The usurper’s flesh will be my food
Beware..
Beware..
Of my hunger
And my anger!

From the poem Identity Card by Mahmoud Darwish, Palestinian poet.

Enemy by Langston Hughes

It would be nice
In any case,
To someday meet you
Face to face
Walking down
The road to hell...
As I come up
Feeling swell.


Brkic SULEJMAN
28/6/2010

THE DAILY ANESTHETIC

THE DAILY ANESTHETIC

“Hi-ho, this is Kermit the Frog here, reporting for the Sesame Street News.”
Kermit

I’ve lived in Japan for 20 years. I often read the daily The Japan Times or The Daily Yomiuri which is cheaper and worse….I’ve often wondered why I read them and I think it’s partly because they are fairly entertaining and to find out how much and what they are deliberately not saying.

I believe that the mass media is an accomplice of the capitalist system in crimes against humanity.

Above the name of the paper The Japan Times it says: ALL THE NEWS WITH(OUT) FEAR OR FAVOR.
“I don’t get it”
Bert of Sesame Street

Today, it’s Monday, April 19, 2010. The Japan Times has 16 pages.
I’ll start from the back.

Pp. 16, 15, 14 Sports.
P.13 is the TV page.
P. 12, the “opinion” page, the opinion page where you never see opinions by, say Arundhati Roy, Robert Fisk, John Pilger, N. Chomsky…or some labour union member, social justice activist, a single mother, a representative of the unemployed or the homeless….anyway, I think you get the picture of what I mean.
P.11, business insights, some article about the US, Swiss and UBS.
P.10, news analysis/topics, almost the whole page about the Vatican’s pedophiles and a much smaller piece on scientists and the Antarctic.
P.9 today is called American perspectives. There is an article about the fundamentalist Westboro Baptist church (half the page). And the other half is about journalists embedded with the US military (I told you it was fairly entertaining).
P.8…too is American perspectives, almost the whole page is about Florida’s governor Charlie Crist. The rest of the page is about N.Y. cops tackling terror in the tunnels.


“It’s good to shut up sometimes.”
Marcel Marceau

P.7, classified/ads
P.6, World
Iceland volcano/A new young king in Uganda/Poland (Kaczynski’s funeral)/Another article at the bottom about an American firm cashing in on bunker space for those anticipating apocalypse and on the side of the page, 3 in brief pieces: LBJ daughter may have rare disorder/US woman claims Powerball jackpot/Washington owes N.Y. library fees.

Pp. 5,4, World
A piece about Queen Noor al-Hussein of Jordan on getting rid of nuclear weapons/Ahmedinejad being ridiculed for asking the USA to ditch warheads first/Saudi Arabia planning center to develop nuclear renewable energy/Somalis fleeing radical Islamists/Iraqi al-Qaida starts using house bombs/Tea Party movement and Ross Perot (pretty big article)/Former US Rep.Eric Massa and his denying paying aide/Karzai on “reforming Afghanistan’s electoral system” (ha,ha,ha) and on the side again some in brief: white supremacists rally in L.A./Man shot at US border crossing/Discovery heading home from ISS/Advocates light up at marijuana expo.

“It’s not fair. It’s just not fair!”
Bert of Sesame Street

P.3, Asia Pacific
An article about a massacre that took place on Nov.23 of 57 people, among them 30 journalists, in the Philippines/The red shirts in Thailand/Something about an epic Polynesian voyage relived by descendents/Earthquake survivors in Tibet and in brief about a suicide bombing in Pakistan,/The reopening of an Aussie immigration detention center/A rare leopard spotted in Malaysia.

P.2, National
Japan falls fast from Obama’s list of priorities/A launching of a new political party in Tokyo/A missing Nepalese student in Fukuoka, Japan/Retailers gear up for 3-D TV launch by Panasonic/World expo song halted by plagiarism row/Cameraman slain in Bangkok honored at funeral/Medical procedures pitched to foreign tourists.

The front page
European flight ban stays among chaos (Iceland volcano)/Poles mass to lay president to rest/An article about the relocation of a US base in Japan/A piece about British Liberal Democrats.

Throughout the paper there are 12 advertisements of which one is on the front page, bottom right corner. It’s for a lecture. It says: A new civilization begins. The emergence of the World Teacher and the role of UFOs.

“Journalists are unable, seemingly, to discriminate between a bicycle accident and the collapse of civilization.”
George Bernard Shaw

That’s it.

I picked today for no reason…it was random…there was no real need to think.
It’s pretty much the same everyday….shallow and hallow.

“The first law of journalism: to confirm existing prejudice, rather than contradict it.”
Alexander Cockburn

Is this information? Is this news? Do we feel informed? Does it make us think?
My picking The Japan Times was also random. They are more or less the same; empty, shallow and hallow. The Japanese dailies are even worse. It’s so empty that you actually start feeling as if there were something.
Most of the sources for and in the articles come from government officials, the police, people in some or other kind of power. Simply put, it hardly ever comes from a person who’s actually directly affected by the problem.
It is always some “expert” or “official” speaking for the person affected.
The “opinion” page (p.12) is all by men. There is (almost) never a woman.
“It’s not fair. It’s just not fair!”
Bert of Sesame Street

You will also notice the waste of space.

On Fridays this paper has 22 or 23 pages. The additional pages are all about art, films and more sports.

Anyway, it’s not only about what’s written in dailies of this kind. What really sticks out is what is deliberately omitted.
And that’s what makes of these dailies a muzzle owned by the rich and powerful for the voiceless, the ones who really need and have something important to say.

“Think of the press as a great keyboard on which the government can play.”
Joseph Goebbels

Brkic Sulejman
22/4/2010

THE PARIS COMMUNE, LIP, and Butterfly

THE PARIS COMMUNE, LIP, and
BUTTERFLY

“Here on the slopes of
Hills, facing the dusk and
The cannon of time
Close to the gardens
Of broken shadows,
We do what prisoners
Do,
And what the jobless
Do:
We cultivate hope.

Mahmoud Darwish
From the poem Under Siege

In 1871 the capitalists, the bourgeoisie or whatever you want to call that greedy vermin, all over Europe if not the world, shat their pants at the sight and the roar of the Paris Communards. The people took the power, freed themselves and took control of their lives. When I say people I mean all the oppressed and exploited so that a few leeches on top could live in luxury.
This piece is not about the history of the Paris Commune. It is about why one of the most beautiful people power movements in history of class struggle failed and lasted only a couple of months. If you really want to know more in details about the Paris Commune, do a little research yourself.

Communists, left wing socialists, anarchists and others have seen the Commune as a model for, or a prefiguration of a liberated society, with a political system based on participatory democracy from the grass roots up, the prototype for a revolutionary government of the future, the form at last discovered for the emancipation of the proletariat (Marx).

According to some literature on the mistakes of the Paris Commune, Karl Marx found it aggravating that the Communards lost precious moments organizing democratic elections rather than instantly FINISHING OFF Versailles once and for all. France’s national bank, located in Paris and storing billions of francs, was left untouched and unguarded by the Communards. TIMIDLY they ASKED to BORROW money from the bank. The Communards chose not to seize the bank’s assets because they were AFRAID that the world would condemn them if they did. Thus large amounts of money were moved from Paris to Versailles, money that financed the army that crushed the Commune. Marx wrote that the Commune might have saved itself had it dealt MORE HARSHLY with reactionaries.

Lenin criticized the Communards for having STOPPED HALF WAY…led astray by dreams of…JUSTICE; he thought their EXCESSIVE MAGNANIMITY had prevented them from DESTROYING the class enemy by RUTHLESS EXTERMINATION.

I didn’t know what “magnanimity” means (I’m a high school drop out) so I looked it up and found the adjective “magnanimous”. MAGNANIMOUS means generous and noble in forgiving; above revenge or resentment. [L magnanimus, “great-souled”].

Again, among a few other mistakes, the most important failure of the Paris Commune was its LACK OF RELENTLESS AND DECISIVE ACTION AGAINST THE BOURGEOISIE. The very MAGNANIMITY and HUMANITY of the Commune proved fatal. Only RELUCTANTLY did it use force, take hostages or keep the prisoners it captured. The Commune’s MODERATION left the way open for the vicious, vengeful retaliation the Versailles government inflicted on the workers of Paris.

“If they (the Communards) are defeated only their GOOD NATURE will be to blame” Marx
“The right moment was missed because of CONSCIENTIOUS SCRUPLES” Marx.

According to Lenin again, two mistakes destroyed the fruits of the splendid victory. The proletariat stopped half-way: instead of setting about expropriating the expropriators, it allowed itself to be led astray by DREAMS OF ESTABLISHING A HIGHER JUSTICE…such institutions as the banks, for example, were not taken over….
The second mistake was EXCESSIVE MAGNANIMITY on the part of the proletariat: instead of DESTROYING ITS ENEMIES it sought to exert MORAL INFLUENCE on them…in certain conditions the armed struggle assumes the form of armed conflict and civil war; there are times when the interests of the proletariat call for RUTHLESS EXTERMINATION of its enemies in open armed clashes.

In the end, the Paris commune was drowned in the blood of the Communards and of all those who had supported it in any way. The number of killed during “The Bloody Week” can never be established for certain, and estimates vary from about 10 000 to 50 000. According to Alfred Cobban, 30 000 were killed, perhaps as many as 50 000 later executed or imprisoned and 7000 were exiled to New Caledonia.

We on the Left have to stop being nice, not all of us. Peaceful methods are very important but peaceful methods alone will lead nowhere. It’s like M. L. King without the Black Panthers and Malcolm X. Unrealistic! Peaceful methods must be combined with more aggressive and violent methods.

“Early in life I had learned that if you want something, you had better make some noise.” Malcolm X

A combination of methods to get rid of, first, capitalist and imperialist institutions has the best chance to succeed. And I don’t even want to hear, especially from someone from a Western country, how violence doesn’t pay off. The West got filthy rich through systematic use of violence. Right now, in Irak, do you think the Yankee dogs are applying the Dalai Lama method to liberate the Irakis of their oil?

“If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning.” Frederick Douglass

LIP is a French clock company whose turmoil became emblematic of the conflicts between workers and management in France.
The LIP factory, based in Besancon in eastern France, was having financial problems in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and management decided to close it. However, after strikes and a highly publicized occupation of the factory in 1973, LIP became worker-managed. All the fired employees were rehired by March 1974, but the firm was liquidated again in the spring of 1976. This led to a new struggle, called “the social conflict of the 1970s” by the daily newspaper Liberation.
Confederation Francaise Democratique du Travail (CFDT) union leader Charles Piaget led the strike. The Unified Socialist Party (PSU), which included former Radical Pierre Mendes-France, was then in favor of autogestion (self-management), or worker-run businesses.

Charles Piaget testified in 1977, in the Quotidien de Paris, about the self-management experiment: “A few more than 500 workers are effectively in battle, gathering every day, and this, nineteen months after having been fired. It is living proof of democracy. It is impossible to have such a collective force without the sustained practice of democracy, without sharing responsibilities, and without participation of all sorts. It must be pointed out that at LIP, the workers are in charge of approximately thirty jobs, from the restaurants, which serve 300 meals a day for 4 francs, to a hairdresser for the unemployed, to various artisanal activities….”

But as is to be expected, the ruling capitalist class reacted. And when they react, they mean business.

In May 1974, Valery Giscard d’Estaing, representing free enterprise, had been elected President of France, with the support of Jacques Chirac. They OPPOSED this union victory at a time when downsizing was happening all over France. The previous Minister of Industrial Development, Jean Charbonnel, testified that Giscard had declared: “ LIP MUST BE PUNISHED. LET THEM BE UNEMPLOYED AND STAY THAT WAY. OTHERWISE THEY WILL INFECT ALL OF SOCIETY.” According to Charbonnel, the employers and Chirac’s government had deliberately assassinated LIP.

This was done by confronting the left-wing employer, Neuschwander, and the firm with unforeseen difficulties. Renault, a state enterprise, withdrew its commands, and the Ministry of Industry refused a promised fund. In contradiction to the Dole agreement of January 1974, the trade court requested that LIP honor a debt of 6 million francs owed by the former firm to providers.
Again, if you want to know more about how it all ended for LIP, do your own research.

As you can see, capitalism is not about a good life for everyone and capitalists are mean and greedy bastards. Just picture the likes of Dick Cheney. If it were up to me, I would reactivate the guillotine just for Giscard and Chirac. They are scum!
I personally have had it with that crap on the Left about being careful in our methods when trying to recruit new people, about being careful not to alienate people. What people? The middle class? Those defenders of capitalism, the buffer zone of capitalism who would betray anything and anyone to keep things the way they are or get into the upper class by climbing on the shoulders of the rest of us. Hell, I don’t even want them on our side, those sneaky bastards! They are the kind that go turn coats according to the stock markets. They are even worse than the capitalists, at least with the capitalists you know what you are dealing with. But the middle class, they are the kind that stabs you in the back when you least expect it. Alienate the middle class? They have already alienated themselves as human beings anyway. But, as J.F.K, one of my heroes, once said: “Those who make peaceful evolution impossible make violent revolution inevitable.”

How many times I have marched in protest against some injustice with various groups here in Tokyo, through huge, crowded avenues without ever seeing, I mean not once, one of those so-called undecided or (still) sitting on the fence types (probably brain dead) joining us in solidarity. Some of them, Japanese as well as foreigners, just stand there on the sidewalk like statues waiting for pigeons to shit on them, looking at us with a stupid grin on their face as if we were from Mars. Although, I have to admit that often our peace parades are confusing, with all the balloons and the colorful things flying around, they do tend to look like some festival which may cause onlookers to smile and laugh.

We on the left have to get through our heads that this might be it. The number of committed people on our side is not growing and we don’t have all the time in the world to continue screwing around so we’d better find ways to do with what we have. The eco clock is ticking, and fast. We who live in the belly of the capitalist beast, and therefore the most responsible for the misery around our world, have to start hitting the beast in the belly. Some of us can stick to organizing and “educating”, others should carry violent actions against capitalist targets. I am under the impression that every single group on the Left is busy with only organizing and “educating”. That’s all we do. We do so much of it and with so much care not to alienate people who don’t give a shit anyway that we have lost sight of the actual goal. Organizing and “educating” have become our goal! And when we go out to march, parade against..whatever..we stop at traffic lights! We allow the police to cut through our line and divide us into smaller and weaker groups because of a fucking traffic light! We actually wait for the light to turn green! It is pathetic! At least THAT day should be OUR day and the couple of avenues we take should be OUR avenues! Come on people! For crying out loud, our space of action is shrinking! When was the last time we had a taste of victory? Just a taste of victory for Christ’s sake! When we actually pushed back and said “not today pigs!” Today is our day!!

“When in 1956…the Front de Liberation Nationale, in a famous leaflet, stated that colonialism (capitalism and imperialism) only loosens its hold when the knife is at its throat, no Algerian really found these terms too violent. The leaflet only expressed what every Algerian felt at heart: colonialism is not a thinking machine, nor a body endowed with reasoning faculties. It is violence in its natural state, and it will only yield when confronted with greater violence.” Frantz Fanon

Remember, right now people around the third world, at this very moment in Irak, people are paying with their lives the real price of our comfort, our freedoms here in the West They are the ones doing the real resisting. They are resisting OUR capitalist beast so that it wouldn’t swallow all of us and the best we can do for them to help them is endless organizing, educating people that should know by now and stop at traffic lights when parading.

Julia Butterfly Hill, born in 1974, is an American activist and environmentalist. Hill is best known for living in a 180-foot-tall, 600-year-old California Redwood tree for 738 days between December 10, 1997 to December 18, 1999. Hill lived barefoot in the tree, affectionately known as “Luna”, to prevent loggers of the Pacific Lumber Company from cutting it down.
Hill spent a little more than two years in that tree! Now, that’s what I call tough and determined. That’s emotions in action.

A resolution was reached in 1999 when the Pacific Lumber Company agreed to preserve Luna and all the trees within a 3-acre buffer zone (I guess beyond that they could go on rampaging). In exchange, Hill agreed to vacate the tree. The tree was later attacked with a chainsaw by “someone”. The gash to the 200-foot-tall redwood was discovered in November 2001. It was treated with an herbal remedy and the tree was stabilized with steel cables. As of spring 2007, the tree is doing well.

“One day, they were cutting down trees all around me, and I started crying and hugging Luna. I was crying because I felt ashamed to be in white skin. I felt ashamed to be part of a race of people who perpetuated genocide thousands of years ago and have now made it our mission to perpetuate genocide on the rest of the planet and life in all its forms. It was eating me alive from the inside out. I was so angry and so hurt and ashamed, and I held onto Luna and was crying and apologizing over and over, saying: I’m so sorry.”
Julia Butterfly Hill

While Julia Butterfly Hill was up in the tree risking her life to protect and save it, the Pacific Lumber Company should have been attacked by activists and severely damaged as a punishment and a warning with a message left on its doorstep saying that its practices are unacceptable and that next time it would be burnt down to the ground.

“It is not light that we need, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder.
We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake.” Frederick Douglass

Now, I cannot finish this ranting without mentioning Irak and the 1 million killed Irakis, so far, for oil by the U.S-led whatever is left of that coalition of the willing, one of the most shameful coalitions in the history of mankind. I cannot ignore Irak because 1 million dead Irakis kind of sticks out. 1 million on top of 1.6 million (of which 600 000 Iraki children) dead due to the U.S-U.K-imposed-wrapped-in-the-U.N-flag economic sanctions. And all those Irakis died just so that we in the West and here in puppet Japan could get very cheap (if not free) oil. I got a mail about one of my articles the other day from an angry guy in the US, telling me to shut up. So, I’ll shut up and let this poem by the Haitian poet Paul Laraque speak:

REIGN OF THE PEOPLES

You say democracy
and we know it is Bolivia's tin
Chile's copper
Venezuela's oil
Cuba's sugar
raw materials and profits

You say democracy
and it's the annexation of Texas
the hold up of the Panama Canal
the occupation of Haiti
the colonization of Puerto-Rico
the bombing of Guatemala

You say democracy
and it's America to the Yankee
it's the rape of nations
it's Sandino's blood
and Peralte's crucifixion

You say democracy
and it's the plunder of our wealth
from Hiroshima to Indochina
you spread the slaughter everywhere
and everywhere ruin

You say democracy
and it's the Ku Klux Klan
o hidden people
inside your own cities
an ogre is devouring your children
Ubu from the empire of robots
you let your ravens fly
from Harlem to Jerusalem
from Wounded Knee to Haiti
from Santo Domingo to Soweto
the people will be waving
the torch of revolution

Night is a tunnel opening on the dawn
Viet-Nam stands like a tree in the storm
the frontier which marks the place of your defeat
history's lessons have no recourse
a footbridge stretches from Asia to Africa
the reign of the white race is ending on earth
and the reign of the peoples in the universe is beginning.
Paul Laraque
(Translation from French by Rosemary Manno)


And since I am for victory in Irak because it would be a step closer to total victory against imperialism around the world, here is what I hope will happen to “the greatest purveyor of violence on Earth”:

“For my part, I would not care if, tomorrow, I should hear of the death of every man who engaged in that bloody war in Mexico (IRAK), and that every man had met the fate he went there to perpetrate upon unoffending Mexicans (IRAKIS).” Frederick Douglass

Brkic Sulejman 3/7/08

I AM RIGHT!

The Rhythm Of Time by Bobby Sands

There's an inner thing in every man,
Do you know this thing my friend?
It has withstood the blows of a million years,
And will do so to the end.

It was born when time did not exist,
And it grew up out of life,
It cut down evil's strangling vines,
Like a slashing searing knife.

It lit fires when fires were not,
And burnt the mind of man,
Tempering leandened hearts to steel,
From the time that time began.

It wept by the waters of Babylon,
And when all men were a loss,
It screeched in writhing agony,
And it hung bleeding from the Cross.

It died in Rome by lion and sword,
And in defiant cruel array,
When the deathly word was 'Spartacus'
Along the Appian Way.

It marched with Wat the Tyler's poor,
And frightened lord and king,
And it was emblazoned in their deathly stare,
As e'er a living thing.

It smiled in holy innocence,
Before conquistadors of old,
So meek and tame and unaware,
Of the deathly power of gold.

It burst forth through pitiful Paris streets,
And stormed the old Bastille,
And marched upon the serpent's head,
And crushed it 'neath its heel.

It died in blood on Buffalo Plains,
And starved by moons of rain,
Its heart was buried at Wounded Knee,
But it will come to rise again.

It screamed aloud by Kerry lakes,
As it was knelt upon the ground,
And it died in great defiance,
As they coldly shot it down.

It is found in every light of hope,
It knows no bounds nor space
It has risen in red and black and white,
It is there in every race.

It lies in the hearts of heroes dead,
It screams in tyrants' eyes,
It has reached the peak of mountains high,
It comes searing 'cross the skies.

It lights the dark of this prison cell,
It thunders forth its might,
It is 'the undauntable thought', my friend,
The thought that says 'I'm right!'





Brkic Sulejman

HIDING BEHIND PACIFISM

HIDING BEHIND PACIFISM

Protest is when I say this does not please me.
Resistance is when I ensure what does not please me occurs no more.
Ulrike Meinhof



On a damp night in February 2003 as the U.S. prepared to invade Iraq, five Catholic Worker activists scrambled across runways and broke into a hangar at Shannon airport. Swinging hammers and a pickaxe, they did more than $ 2.5 million damage to a U.S. Navy transport plane.
The five were hit with the full weight of the law, and were quickly condemned by the media and much of the anti-war movement. But three-and-a-half years later a Dublin jury decided they were innocent of any crime.

The above passage was taken from the back cover of the book Hammered by the Irish: How the Pitstop Ploughshares disabled a U.S. war-plane with Ireland’s Blessing by Harry Browne with an introduction by Daniel Berrigan.

First of all: Bravo! To the these brave activists.
As for the much of the anti-war movement that condemned them: Shame on you!

Here in Japan, lots of us live practically surrounded by terroristic U.S. military bases, between 40 000 and 50 000 U.S. mercenaries are stationed here (mainly in Okinawa) to protect Japan from North Korea, which is total bull-shit but I won’t get into that now, it’s too ridiculous to be worth explaining.
What I am aiming at is the abundance of opportunity for the Japanese anti-war movement to put its words into practice. There are at least 4 U.S. military bases in the area where I live, a 5 minute train ride to the closest one.
In my 18 years in Japan, as you may know a major launch pad for Yankee wars of plunder and a country that pretends to be peace loving but follows and supports every single criminal war adventure in pursuit of plunder undertaken by its master Uncle Sam, in my 18 years here not once have I heard a call for action of the kind carried out by the brave Irishmen mentioned above.
Beside the circus-like peace parades organized around Tokyo in which I have taken part, in my memory the lowest point of the Japanese peace (brain dead, no balls) movement, I mean really pathetic, was when a guy, an activist, stood up at some gathering in Tokyo just before another one of their colorful anti-war prancing and suggested that the few people who were still raising a clenched fist during a march stop doing that. Can it get more pathetic? Supposedly it was too aggressive and it might alienate people. And I won’t even get into what hurts the most the Japanese Left: its sectarianism.

To get back to the Pitstop Ploughshares, in the opening passage taken from the book I mentioned it says that they (the five Catholic Worker activists) were quickly condemned by the media (the government lackeys) and much of the anti―war movement.
Condemned by much of the anti-war movement.
Why am I not surprised?
What else is to be expected from cowards? Yes! Cowards!
The Pitstop Ploughshares are pacifists, too, yet they have engaged in direct action.
How dare the spineless anti-war movement condemn them?!
But the fact is that there are very few pacifists like them.

At one of my gatherings, I brought up direct action for discussion (mentioning the Pitstop Ploughshares and Shannon airport), out of about 30 people only 2 agreed with the need for it. Although I tried to explain that direct action doesn’t necessarily mean violence, that the Pitstop Ploughshares’s actions were not violent, not violent, that they were right in every sense of the word, that they did save lives by destroying a U.S. military killing machine, that they had sent a strong message to the warmongers that people will no longer just stand by or prance in the street while innocents are being slaughtered for economic gains, that, if possible, we should all try to engage in such actions if we are at all serious about preventing our countries (Japan did take part in the U.S.-U.K.-led illegal war on Iraq and the peace-loving Japanese people a r e responsible for the death of over 1 million innocent Iraqis who were killed so that the Japanese and all those who took part in this war could get very, very, very cheap oil) from going into wars in order to preserve our comfortable, materialistic, parasitic, empty way of life.
The more I kept talking like this, the more cowardice became palpable. The usual excuses to avoid doing more were at hand, how we should keep organizing, how direct action would only alienate people, how we should preserve the moral high ground, how it’s counterproductive…bla, bla, bla…..Hell, nowadays coward pacifists are trying to avoid the topic of direct action altogether.
We have assumed the name of peacemakers, but we have been, by and large, unwilling to pay any significant price. And because we want peace with half a heart and half a life and will, the war, of course continues, because the waging of war, by its nature is total-but the waging of peace, by our cowardice is partial.Fr Daniel Berrigan

A comment on the side for all those of you who don’t know much about Japan, it is a country with a total lack of solidarity. In case you get involved in direct action here, do not expect any sympathy from the public or a sympathetic jury. Cowardice feeds on cowardice here.

I watched the German film The Baader-Meinhof Complex and I was praising their actions and the actions of other urban guerrilla groups such as The Red Brigades, The Tupamaros and so on…to a friend of mine and he said that those groups had done a great deal of damage to the Left that was trying to organize a mass movement .
I don’t think so.
Let’s turn that argument around and I say that it is the rest of the Left that damaged itself by refusing out of cowardice to lend support to those urban guerrilla groups and betrayed those groups by refusing to join them in their/our armed struggle against capitalism/imperialism.

Simply put: The threat today is not passivity, but pseudo-activity, the urge to “be active”, to “participate”, to mask the nothingness of what goes on. Slavoj Zizek

My message to you so-called pacifist activists is: Stop pretending!
Stop pretending you are doing something. Your ways, combining hesitance with cowardice, have never achieved anything! Name one example in History where pacifism has actually brought about meaningful social change, alleviated suffering of mankind, instilled fear into capitalist/imperialist dogs, restored justice…
It is the collective responsibility of the citizens in a modern
State to ensure by all means necessary that its government
adheres to the rule of law, not just domestically but internationally. Karl JaspersYour ways, your flowers in the barrel of the gun are an insult to all those who came before you and really fought, who put up a real fight, who resorted to all kinds of direct action, who died so that you and I would have the right today to prance in the streets daring to pretend that your/our clownish activism is gonna save Iraqi, Palestinian….lives. All you are doing is legitimizing dictatorial democracies!
And don’t even dare to talk about Martin Luther King Jr. without mentioning The Black Panther Party and Malcolm X or Gandhi without Chandrasekhar Azad and Bhagat Singh. We need a combination of tactics!

Much of the anti-war movement is about the first part of the quote by Ulrike Meinhof at the top of this piece. The Pitstop Ploughshares is about the second part of the same quote.

By condemning the five Catholic Worker activists, much of the anti-war movement took sides. It allied itself with the State, the lackeys in the media, it allied itself with the U.S. killing machine!
What much of the anti-war movement did and has been doing is, in the words of the title of a book by Romeo Dallaire, shaking hands with the Devil!

Sometimes doing nothing is the most violent thing to do.Slavoj Zizek from his book Violence

We need a combination of tactics!



Brkic Sulejman
24/07/2009

ARMED UPRISING

LET US TAKE UP ARMS!

"All means used to struggle
against tyrants are legitimate."French revolutionary Gracchus Babeuf 1792

It seems that Iran is about to be attacked by the U.S. With the active support of the only democratic apartheid regime in the world: Israel. And, as usual, the tacit support of the rest of the G7 vultures.

Another war of plunder. But that's nothing new.

The question is whether we on the left are going to do something new to stop the above mentioned criminals. Or the best we'll come up with is some new "protest" signs and a couple of new peace songs. No, I mean, really, what is wrong with us? That's the question! It is not "what's wrong with capitalism or imperialism and so on...?" We know what is wrong with capitalism. What is wrong with us? Us, the so-called anti-war "activists".

Do we really expect to stop the U.S war machine from bombing, killing hundreds of thousands more of innocent people, plundering again another country, do we really expect to stop the U.S war machine, our criminal governments in the G7, the IMF, N.A.T.O, the E.U, the W.B, you know, the usual partners in crime, do we really expect to stop them by holding peaceful "mass protests" only on a Saturday or a Sunday (not both days because there are shopping needs to be satisfied), by holding candle light vigils, giving lectures on why Iran is being targeted, writing letters to our congressmen or to whatever scumbag is "representing" us, "educating" people when actually everybody knows what is going on and those in the G7 who don't know, let's face it, it's because they don't want to know, because they don't care. And let's stop making up excuses for them, like blaming the mass media for their DELIBERATE ignorance. How come I know? How come most of us on the left (or not) know?

So, do we really expect to stop them with our risk-free bullshit? Don't we see that it doesn't work?! IT DOESN'T WORK! We gotta stop pretending we are doing something, for a start!

But, how committed are we? How far are we willing to go to stop another crime from being committed? More than 600 000 killed Iraqis (so that we in the G7 could get cheap OIL) is not enough for us to consider other options, other actions? How much are we willing to risk, to sacrifice for our beliefs? How deep are our beliefs? Sometimes it seems to me that our ("activists on the left") obsession with doing things "peacefully" is very hypocritical and has to do more with our COWARDICE than anything else!

Just think! Have we managed to stop the murder for plunder going on in Iraq? How hard have we really been trying to? Has it ever crossed our mind that some much more drastic measures have to be taken to force our criminal governments in the G7 to respect OUR will, the people's will, and not the will of a small capitalist elite?!

Doesn't it bother us to be surrounded by war criminals walking freely with all that blood on their (and ours) hands? Our presidents, prime ministers and all the other politicians who are involved in war crimes, Bush, Blair, Howard, Berlusconi, Aznar, Koizumi, Abe...etc, all these criminals should be hanging! Do we really expect any court to try them for war crimes? Do we really expect to get justice from THEIR courts? Some of these criminals have already retired and now they are enjoying peace and quiet in their new lives after having helped set Iraq on fire and drown it in blood of (so far) more than 600 000 innocent Iraqis for OIL! And this is not the first time! It has been going on and on and on forever. When will the victims of our greedy capitalistic lives get justice?! And now OUR heads of States in the G7 are about to do it again with Iran.

"THOSE WHO ACQUIESCE IN A CRIME ARE
EVERY BIT AS GUILTY AS THOSE WHO ENTHUSIASTICALLY
PARTICIPATE."Endo Shusaku

So, what are we on the left going to do about it? Organize another peace march to stop them? That's us, right? That's the best we can do, right?

How the hell do we hope to change something while operating within the very criminal system set up and controled by the very gangsters mentioned above? The courts, the police, the media, the banks, the money, the guns... everything is in their hands! Everything is in the hands of a few leeches! We know that, right?! And yet, we keep operating within/inside that criminal system instead of doing everything possible and more to smash it or at least damage it! Why? Cowardice!

"IT IS THE OBLIGATION OF EVERY PERSON WHO
CLAIMS TO OPPOSE OPPRESSION TO RESIST THE
OPPRESSOR BY EVERY MEANS AT HIS OR HER DISPOSAL.
NOT TO ENGAGE IN PHYSICAL RESISTANCE, ARMED
RESISTANCE TO OPPRESSION, IS TO SERVE THE
INTERESTS OF THE OPPRESSOS; NO MORE, NO LESS.
THERE ARE NO EXCEPTIONS TO THE RULE, NO
EASY OUT...Assata Shakur, 1984.

Someone once said that without breaking the rules the fight against injustice is a waste of time! Yes! Unjust laws must be broken, cordons of police must be broken, threats must be made and warnings given to all those in power, to the coward mass media people... they must understand that we the great majority of people don't want their wars! We must break out of their criminal system! They must be afraid of us! They must tremble at the sound of the roar of the people!

"POWER GROWS FROM THE BARREL OF A GUN."
Chairman Mao Tsetung

And if our threats and warnings are not heeded by those who are supposed to represent us, then punitive actions will be carried out against those bastards; the kind of punitive actions that might leave one in a life-threatening condition. Whatever their interests are, they must become the target of great damage.

"ALL MEANS, INCLUDING SUICIDE ATTACKS, ARE
VALID IF THEY SPEED UP THE ADVENT OF
DEMOCRACY!"Karl Heinzen

We on the left must set up an armed wing, an armed extension of the current pathetic "peace" movement. That armed wing will be carrying out violent, punitive actions against anyone in position to negatively influence and lead the people to the path of war. Any stinking politician, mass media vulture, intellectual who dares advocating, justifying any kind of war will be physically disabled.

"MASS MEDIA, OPPRESSIVE CULTURE, ADVERTISING
MANAGEMENT, AND MOST CONTEMPORARY MODES OF
THOUGHT ARE THE ENEMIES AND APPROPRIATE
TARGETS..."Herbert Marcuse

But, first, we have to start arming ourselves because the fight will be tough. Let us not forget that those sons of bitches in power have any kind of weapon we can imagine at their disposal to suppress us, the people, if we ever dare get out of line. We the people must remind those ungrateful bastards who the real masters are! They have weapons to wage plunder wars, we'll have weapons to wage a liberation war!

"THE PATH TO HUMANITY WILL PASS THROUGH
THE ZENITH OF BARBARITY."Karl Heinzen

In 2003, despite of millions of people marching throughout the world against the then-imminent war on Iraq, despite of the fact that the great majority of people in almost every single country (except Israel and the U.S) in the world were opposed to the war, war happened! If that is not spitting in the face of the people then what is?

Aren't you enraged by their (the politicians') arrogance, lies, condescension, corruption, crimes...and all in the name of greed?! Those sons of bitches are just supposed to respect and carry out our will, that's all! But you look around and it's the other way around! The vermin must be exterminated!

Those who advocate war for the sake of profit, those who advocate WAR must be taken out!

I am advocating intensive, intelligent, selective, well organized violence against the State in the G7 and against anyone involved in any kind of crime against humanity. Any political and economic elite, any oligarchy, any plutocracy must be physically eliminated once and for all! I am advocating being ONE with the oppressed!

"MEET VIOLENCE WITH VIOLENCE."
Rob Williams

I am advocating violent self-defence against capitalism and imperialism!

Elites must be exterminated!
Power must be taken by the people and spread among the people!
War must be stamped out!
Those who advocate war must be crushed!
The thought of war must be erased!
Capitalism must be obliterated!
Capitalists must be wiped out!
Capital must be annihilated!
Private ownership must be eradicated!
But all this can only be done by peoples of good will armed to the teeth, without mercy for the enemy, well organized and in coordination throughout the rapacious G7 for the benefit of the entire mankind.

"IF YOU HAVE TO BLOW UP HALF A CONTINENT
AND CAUSE A BLOODBATH TO DESTROY THE PARTY
OF BARBARISM, YOU SHOULD HAVE NO SCRUPLES
OF CONSCIENCE." Karl Heinzen

After all this is accomplished, all weapons must be destroyed.

Brkic Sulejman 28.03.2007