Month: January 2020

Beyond the dream: MLK’s revolutionary analysis is still needed

On By Paul GeorgeIn Commentary and Analysis, MemoirLeave a comment

A few nights ago my partner and I attended the premiere playing of a newly discovered audio recording of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s controversial (as it turned out) “Beyond Vietnam” speech, given on April 4, 1967 at the Riverside Church in New York. The recording was one of six long lost tapes recently discovered in the archives of WRVR, a public radio station that was owned and operated by the Riverside Church from 1961 to 1976.

The public premiere of this recording was sponsored by Stanford University’s Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute and held at Stanford’s impressive Memorial Church, an attempt to recreate the environment in which the speech was originally delivered.

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I’ve been saying “U.S. Out of Iraq” for nearly 30 years. Is it finally happening? Probably not. So let’s keep demanding it.

On By Paul GeorgeIn Commentary and Analysis, MemoirLeave a comment
One of the many protest marches against the Iraq war that I organized over the years. That’s me on the right. Photo by PH Yang, used with permission.

I became the director of Peninsula Peace and Justice Center on August 1, 1990. The next day, Iraq invaded Kuwait. By the end of that first week, President George H. W. Bush had deployed 25,000 troops to Saudi Arabia and I had organized my first anti-war demonstration as director. 

Iraq and I go way back.

Continue reading “I’ve been saying “U.S. Out of Iraq” for nearly 30 years. Is it finally happening? Probably not. So let’s keep demanding it.” →

Video: Haiti – Ten Years After the Earthquake

On By Paul GeorgeIn Commentary and Analysis, VideoLeave a comment

It was a pleasure to be able to sit down with my old friend Pierre Labossiere last night. What has happened politically in Haiti since the catastrophic earthquake is a tragedy. After the great optimism of the Aristide years — an optimism rooted in real advances in alleviating poverty and inequality — the elites have seized absolute control once again. And the repression of dissent hearkens back to the dark time of the dictatorship. And it hardly merits a word in the media. That’s why I put time and energy into alternative media.

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Drone strike won’t lead to war. It is war.

On By Paul GeorgeIn Commentary and AnalysisLeave a comment

Yesterday’s drone strike in Iraq by the US against a top Iranian military commander won’t lead to war. It is war. More precisely, it is an escalation of the US war on Iran that started within months of Trump’s inauguration. 

In his prepared remarks today, Trump said, “We took action last night to stop a war.  We did not take action to start a war.” That’s a lie. Last night’s action was a ramping-up of an ongoing war.

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History repeats itself. Is it tragedy or farce this time around?

On By Paul GeorgeIn Graphic CommentaryLeave a comment

“Hegel remarks somewhere that all great world-historic facts and personages appear, so to speak, twice. He forgot to add: the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce.” ~ Karl Marx, The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon (Essay, 1852)

If Marx was right, then Trump’s repeat of Clinton’s infamous wag the dog tactic in the face of impeachment would be at the tragedy stage. And that’s what it certainly is. It will inevitably lead to yet more tragedy. But we’re dealing with Trump here, so there’s always an element of farce at play.

I’m working on a longer, more serious piece about this disturbing escalation of violence. Please check back in a while. Or subscribe to this blog so you’ll get the post in your email.

Another roadside distraction. And another. And another.

On By Paul GeorgeIn Commentary and AnalysisLeave a comment

This is a photo of Lucy the Elephant, America’s oldest roadside attraction. Think of her as a symbol of the year ahead in politics — endless exhortations to “look over there” at one meaningless distraction after another.

Trump’s constant efforts to divert attention away from whatever issue is currently generating negative headlines for him are certainly well known and well understood by now. Ezra Klein of Vox has referred to the distractions as “the core of Donald Trump’s political strategy.” The political cartoonist Tom Tomorrow was moved to pen a strip titled “Are Trump’s Distractions a Distraction From His Distractions?” just a couple of months after Trump was inaugurated.

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