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Before the premiere of Sophocles’ Oedipus, most of the outdoor tables at the Getty Villa’s café were filled, and while dining I spied from afar a longtime friend of mine, fellow reviewer Myron Meisel, tray in hand, looking for a place to eat, and I waved him over to our table. Joining us, Myron and I were pleased to see we had both survived the you-know-what. As Myron had co-made the 1993 documentary It’s All True, about Orson Welles’ unfinished South America film made during the 1940s, I told Myron that Voodoo Macbeth – a feature about the legendary Welles-directed all-Black 1936 production of the Scottish play reset in Haiti – had been shot, which was news to the astute Myron. I had received a press release about Voodoo Macbeth, which is to be theatrically released October 21, just a couple of days earlier.

Many media commentators have mentioned that the COVID-19 crisis of 2020 is similar to other national crises that have led the United States into wars that are profitable for the “oligarchs” (even.wars against nebulous “terror” or manufactured viruses)

Three other examples include 1] Germany’s sinking of the Lusitania on 5/7/1915 (that led to the entry of the US into WWI), 2] the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on 12/7/1941 (that led to the US entry into WWII) and the self-inflicted, controlled demolitions of the three World Trade Center buildings on 9/11/2001 (that led to the G. W. Bush/Dick Cheney administration’s push to invade the Middle East in what many call Operation Iraqi Liberation (“OIL”).

For me, the most pertinent similarity between these events can be stated in the simple truism mentioned in the title above: “The first Casualty of War is Truth.”

“You unpatriotic ‘9/11 Truthers’ can have annual conspiracy conventions on 9/11, with a host of speakers. To use a Russian expression, the dogs may bark as the train roars along. You are the dogs, and we are the train. Keep whining. We will keep on declaring ourselves unconvinced. We still own the TV, we still own the military, and you can chatter on the internet all you want as you fade into ineffectual obscurity.” –Tongue-in-cheek satire from fellow 9/11 Truth-seeker Greg Ziegler PhD, a former US Military Intel officer and retired professor, whose commentary inspired this column.

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Last Friday marked the 14th anniversary of 9/11/01 and the beginning of America’s bankrupting endless war against any and all so-called foreign enemies that, in the opinion of the ruling elites, need to have their sovereign nations de-stabilized so that any number of economic and corporate predators can gain access to the resources of the regions.

“As soon as I left prison, I went to Nael’s grave. It is adorned with the colors of the Palestinian flag and verses from the Holy Quran. I told my little brother how much I loved and appreciated him, and that, one day, we would meet again in paradise.”

The above is part of a testimony given to me by a former Palestinian prisoner, Jalal Lutfi Saqr. It was published two years ago in the volume ‘These Chains Will Be Broken’. 

As a Palestinian, born and raised in a refugee camp in Gaza, I was always familiar with the political discourse of, and concerning, political prisoners. My neighborhood, like every neighborhood in Gaza, is populated with a large number of former prisoners, or families whose members have experienced imprisonment in the past or present.  

Orwell’s Peerless Proletarian Parable: Socialism with an Animal Face

Not even Brecht or Odets could make this one up: Mere days before A Noise Within debuts a theatrical version of George Orwell’s classic satirizing the betrayal of the Russian Revolution, as if right on cue, the last leader of the Soviet Union dies. Mikhail Gorbachev, of course, embodied the central theme of Animal Farm: Could socialism be democratic in nature or must it be bureaucratic and autocratic? I always regarded Lucy Pollak as a great publicist, but even she couldn’t pull off a publicity stunt like staging Gorbachev’s death right before the premiere of this proletarian parable about the USSR. Not to mention the timeliness of the ongoing conflict between Moscow and Kyiv…

ANW’s superb production presents Sir Peter Hall’s Animal Farm, with live music by Richard Peaslee and lyrics by Adrian Mitchell, is a perfect choice to open over Labor Day weekend. The musical premiered at the UK’s National Theatre in that most Orwellian of years – 1984, but of course – and adapts the 1945 novella by George Orwell.

Michael suggested the name Bob’s Rhubarb Lounge.

I couldn’t stop laughing, at least on the inside. I imagined commissioning someone to make a neon sign with those words, maybe ten feet high. I’d place it in front of my house, of course.

Why not? The point of the lounge would be to serve as a place where people can explore the meaning of life, just as I once explored the meaning of rhubarb. The imagination has no limits! At the same time, it has all sorts of limits, some of which are deeply painful.

All this emerged from an event at the house last week. My daughter, Alison — the Stained Glass Poet — who came to Chicago from Paris, is the one who organized it. “We should do a reading, Dad.”

As soon as I landed in Rome, I discovered that I was no longer able to access any Russian media whatsoever. Unfortunately, threats by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, that Europe should sever all links with “Russia’s propaganda machine” were taken seriously by the Italian government. 

As a journalist, having access to only one side of the Russia-Ukraine war story was a major predicament. How is one to develop a rounded view of such a complex issue when only a one-sided narrative of the war is allowed to be propagated? 

Of course, the problem is widespread, and has afflicted much of ‘democratic’ Europe. The continent that has often justified its political and military interventions in the affairs of other parts of the world in the name of spreading democracy is failing to adhere to the most basic principle of democracy: freedom of speech. 

#108 Gree-Gree Zoom August 29, 2022

DIABLO ARMAGEDDON, *ARIZONA BRAKEY*, GRASSROOTS CONGRESS

Our Green Grassroots Emergency Election Protection zoom opens with a tribute from WENDI LEDERMAN to Women’s Equality.

We also honor the great HOWARD ZINN, who would have been 100 years old this month.  Zinn completely upended the popular view of our nation’s story, and his PEOPLE’S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES remains a foundational document.  Thank you, Howard!!!

We then do a deep dive into the decrepit, dangerous, earthquake-surrounded Diablo Canyon Nukes at San Luis Obispo, CA.  Governor Gavin Newsom is pushing to keep them open indefinitely despite a broad-based agreement to shut them in 2024-5.  The ramifications for the future health, safety, economy and ecological survival of the human race are without parallel.

We hear from DONNA GILMORE, KEN COOK, DANETT ABBOTT, ACE HOFFMAN, MYLA RESON, JUSTIN LE BLANC, TATANKA BRICCA, LINDA SEELEY and many more.

Arizona’s great JOHN BRAKEY tells us of major victories there.

John Brakey – Audit USA

“I feel like I’m in heaven!” gushed a glowing Ava DuVernay. I overheard the director of 2014’s Civil Rights epic Selma at the August 17 press preview of ​the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures’ Regeneration: Black Cinema, 1898–1971 praising “the first large-scale exhibition… to examine the compellingly rich history of Black participation in American cinema, both inside and outside the Hollywood studio system,” as co-curators Rhea L. Combs and Doris Berger write in their 288-companion book with the same name as the groundbreaking show.

The helmer of 2016’s mass incarceration documentary 13th, and the 2019 Central Park Five film When They See Us, DuVernay issued her rave review of Regeneration ​​​in the Marilyn and Jeffrey Katzenberg Gallery, immersed in an 11,000-square-foot space that an Academy Museum press release states includes “rarely seen excerpts of films, documentaries, newsreels, and home movies, as well as historical photographs, costumes, props, and posters” chronicling and celebrating more than 70 years of often-ignored yet significant African-American contributions to cinema. The spectacular, sprawling show covers most of the Museum’s fourth floor.

Close your eyes and try to envision the two wolves.

Imagine yourself as a terrified child. I think that helps bring the myth to life . . . this myth, said to be Cherokee, of humanity’s two choices. The wolves are engaged in a vicious fight.

The wise grandfather explains to the child that the two wolves are inside all of us. One of the wolves is an arrogant narcissist — a jerk, an egocentric idiot. You know, evil. The other is the embodiment of joy and empathy, kindness and love.

The trembling child asks in alarm: “Which one wins?”

And Grandfather lays it on the line: “The one you feed.”