Global

As we approach the 72nd anniversary of the assassination of Mohandas K. Gandhi on 30 January 1948, it is worth reflecting on one simple fact that he did not realize. His efforts to teach humanity that conflict, including violent conflict, could be resolved without violence were based on one fundamentally flawed assumption: that at least some humans were interested in, and committed to, seeking out and using nonviolent strategies for dealing with conflict in each and every context.

Unfortunately, as his own experience taught him and he showed clear signs of realizing towards the end of his life, the fundamental truth is that humans love violence and it is this love of violence that will ensure the extinction of Homo sapiens in the near term absent a profound response that shows no sign of emerging yet. See ‘Human Extinction Now Imminent and Inevitable? A Report on the State of Planet Earth’.

Fifty-two years after young people changed history with the New Hampshire primary election, a new generation is ready to do it again -- this time by mobilizing behind Bernie Sanders.

During early 1968, thousands of young people volunteered in New Hampshire to help the insurgent presidential campaign of Democratic Sen. Eugene McCarthy -- who went on to stun the party establishment by winning 42 percent of the state’s primary vote against President Lyndon Johnson’s 49 percent. Three weeks later, Johnson announced that he would not run for re-election.

What propelled McCarthy and his young supporters into the snows of New Hampshire was their opposition to the war in Vietnam. Five decades later, in effect, what’s propelling Bernie Sanders and his young supporters is the grim reality of class war in America.

To commemorate and celebrate the auspicious 50th anniversary of the Odyssey Theatre Ensemble’s founding, this venerable mainstay of L.A.’s live stage scene is presenting the “Circa ’69” season, with revivals “of significant and adventurous plays that premiered around the time of the Odyssey’s 1969 inception,” according to a press release. A Sam Shepard double-header is being mounted as part of this ambitious program.

First up is a sort of hors d’oeuvre, the 15 minute or so Killer’s Head, before the main dish, The Unseen Hand, is served. Alas, Killer’s isn’t killer drama and to be honest is quite an unappetizing appetizer. I was bored by the monologue in this one-man show. It wasn’t the actor’s fault - Steve Howey fully inhabited the part of Mazon and did a good job, considering the material he has to work with. (Howey is the first of eight actors scheduled to play Mazon, including Shepard veteran Dermot Mulroney who tackles the role Feb. 7-9 and Feb. 14-16). I just found the lines written for the character to be uninteresting and this reminded me that what may have seemed innovative in 1969 isn’t necessarily so half a century later.

On the same day the Motion Picture Academy announced its annual Oscar nominations - and came under attack again for its lack of ethnic and gender diversity - the 30th Annual LA STAGE Alliance Ovation Awards ceremony took place at the historic Ace Theatre in Downtown Los Angeles on January 13. Despite the fact that the movie industry and the theatre scene here both draw largely from the same L.A.- centered talent pool, the Ovation Awards were as multi-culturally and sex diverse and representative of the population as the Academy was #OscarsSoWhite and (perhaps to coin a hashtag) #OscarsSoMale.

According to LA STAGE Alliance’s online outlet https://thisstage.la/: “The Ovation Awards are the only peer-judged theatre awards in Los Angeles, created to recognize excellence in theatrical performance, production and design in the Greater Los Angeles area.” This year Ovation voters - 272 theatre professionals - recognized 156 talents from 64 (out of 278) productions presented in L.A. County from August 27, 2018 - August 25, 2019.

“Joseph McCarthy is the only major politician in the country who can be labeled “liar” without fear of libel.”– Joseph Alsop

“The State Department is infested with communists. I have here in my hand a list of 205 names that were made known to the Secretary of State (Dean Acheson)as being members of the Communist Party and who nevertheless are still working and shaping policy in the State Department.”  – Senator Joseph Raymond McCarthy, February 9, 1950, Wheeling, West Virginia

“If somebody would only smuggle me aboard the Democratic campaign special with a baseball bat in my hand, I’d teach patriotism to ‘Little Adlai’.” – Joseph McCarthy, mocking 1952 Democratic presidential candidate Adlai Stevenson)

"I call Marco Rubio, 'Little Marco’. That frightened little puppy couldn't be elected dog-catcher in Florida." – Donald Trump

From Noam Chomsky, Bill Fletcher, Barbara Ehrenreich, Kathy Kelly, Ron Daniels, Leslie Cagan, Norman Solomon, Cynthia Peters, and Michael Albert]

As the 2020 presidential election approaches the Green Party faces the challenge of settling on a platform, choosing a candidate for president, and deciding its campaign strategy. In that context, Howie Hawkins, a contender for Green Party presidential candidate, recently published a clear and cogent essay titled “The Green Party Is Not the Democrats’ Problem.” It represents a precedent Green Party stance which may guide Green campaign policy. We agree with much, but find some ideas very troubling.

[From Noam Chomsky, Bill Fletcher, Barbara Ehrenreich, Kathy Kelly, Ron Daniels, Leslie Cagan, Norman Solomon, Cynthia Peters, and Michael Albert]

As the 2020 presidential election approaches the Green Party faces the challenge of settling on a platform, choosing a candidate for president, and deciding its campaign strategy. In that context, Howie Hawkins, a contender for Green Party presidential candidate, recently published a clear and cogent essay titled “The Green Party Is Not the Democrats’ Problem.” It represents a precedent Green Party stance which may guide Green campaign policy. We agree with much, but find some ideas very troubling.

“Depopulation should be the highest priority of foreign policy towards the third world…” – Henry Kissinger

Friends, this year the WEF is celebrating its 50th Anniversary. Forty-nine (49) of the insanely pompous – and every year more – WEF events took place in Davos, Switzerland. Just one, in 2002, after 9/11, was moved to New York City, paradoxically for ‘security reasons’ they said – the logic of such a move was as ludicrous as the WEF itself.

The Saga of Santa Susana

On November 24, 1957, an experimental nuclear reactor at the Santa Susana Field Lab site just north of Los Angeles produced the electricity to briefly light up the nearby city of Moorpark – an historic first. 

With national TV coverage by the famed Edward R. Morrow and CBS on its popular “See It Now” series, and with officials from the fledgling US Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) in attendance, the event was touted as proof of the promise of commercial nuclear power in the United States. 

Just 8 months later, on July 13, 1959, that same reactor became the site of America’s first nuclear meltdown - by some estimates even worse than the subsequent meltdown at Three Mile Island. Six weeks later, the Atomic Energy Commission issued a press release citing a “minor fuel element failure.”  Other than that, news coverage of the Santa Susana event was virtually non-existent for years.   The ‘Friendly Atom’ psyops campaign was swinging into action.

Nothing like trying to rewrite history.

Remember way back when, when America was one nation under God and everyone got along so nicely? That was the sentiment of an FBI tweet on Martin Luther King Day, which — oh, the horror! — blew up in the agency’s face and brought a real fragment of the Old Days back into public consciousness. And maybe, in the process, the agency woke up King’s actual dream—you know, the one it hated and did its best to smother.

This was the FBI’s official tweet on MLK Day:

Today, the FBI honors the life and work of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. A quote from Dr. King is etched in stone at the FBI Academy’s reflection garden in Quantico as a reminder to all students and FBI employees: "The time is always right to do what is right."