Cartoons

T.V. and White Workers

On Tuesday, Joe Allen wrote an excellent column in Socialist Worker that examined how the white working class has been portrayed (or rather, stereotyped). In response, I sent SW this letter:

I wholeheartedly agree with Allen, especially on the issue of cop shows becoming the "substitute proletariat."

One show that Allen didn't mention but did a great job of covering working-class and lumpenproletarian life is The Wire.

The second season of the show, while slower dramatically, focused on the decimation of the white dockworkers' living standards thanks to better technology which shipping companies used to engage in mass layoffs. It showed how, faced with falling living standards and long-term unemployment, young blacks and whites would resort to crime to make ends meet. The second season also exposed union corruption, but the show did not take a decidely pro or anti-union stance.

Season four focused on the struggle of a white cop-turned-school teacher stuck in Baltimore's failing schools.

One could criticize the show for really doing an excellent job of humanizing the police, but the show slammed the war on drugs, the corruption of City Hall politicians, and the grinding poverty that fueled the drug-related gang wars. Compared to the two-dimensional reality of good hard working cops versus no-good criminals who might've made bad choices but confess by the end of the show portrayed by C.S.I. and Law and Order, the Wire is a gem. Perhaps that's one reason why The Wire was cancelled after five seasons while C.S.I. and Law Order are still going strong.

G.O.P. Losing Its Grip On the South

The Republicans have had another alarming loss in the South – this time for a House seat in northern Mississippi, a place where Bush got 62 percent of the vote in 2004. The Democrat won with 54 percent of the vote. This this is that this is the second House seat they've lost on historically conservative/Republican turf in the South, and the third seat after Speaker Hastert's in Illinois.

Dick Cheney, Mike Huckabee, John McCain, and President Bush all played a role in trying to get their man elected in Mississippi, and Cheney even made a personal visit in a pathetic attempt to rally the faithful. No wonder Newt Gingrich is screaming that the Republicans face "real disaster" this fall.

The Republican attempt to link the local Democrat with Barack Obama (and by extension, Reverend Wright, and by extension, Osama bin Laden) failed miserably. Voters were bombarded with ads that cast doubt on Obama's patriotism (Uncle Tom er I mean Barack Obama now wears a flag pin on his lapel) and played to Southern racism.

None of it worked. Which is why I still think Obama is going to beat McCain in the fall by a healthy margin, despite the racist backlash against him.

Israel: Celebrating 60 Years of Genocide, Apartheid, and Racism

We're not celebrating Israel's anniversary

The Guardian, Wednesday April 30 2008

In May, Jewish organisations will be celebrating the 60th anniversary of the founding of the state of Israel. This is understandable in the context of centuries of persecution culminating in the Holocaust. Nevertheless, we are Jews who will not be celebrating. Surely it is now time to acknowledge the narrative of the other, the price paid by another people for European anti-semitism and Hitler's genocidal policies. As Edward Said emphasised, what the Holocaust is to the Jews, the Naqba is to the Palestinians.

In April 1948, the same month as the infamous massacre at Deir Yassin and the mortar attack on Palestinian civilians in Haifa's market square, Plan Dalet was put into operation. This authorised the destruction of Palestinian villages and the expulsion of the indigenous population outside the borders of the state. We will not be celebrating.

In July 1948, 70,000 Palestinians were driven from their homes in Lydda and Ramleh in the heat of the summer with no food or water. Hundreds died. It was known as the Death March. We will not be celebrating.

In all, 750,000 Palestinians became refugees. Some 400 villages were wiped off the map. That did not end the ethnic cleansing. Thousands of Palestinians (Israeli citizens) were expelled from the Galilee in 1956. Many thousands more when Israel occupied the West Bank and Gaza. Under international law and sanctioned by UN resolution 194, refugees from war have a right to return or compensation. Israel has never accepted that right. We will not be celebrating.



We cannot celebrate the birthday of a state founded on terrorism, massacres and the dispossession of another people from their land. We cannot celebrate the birthday of a state that even now engages in ethnic cleansing, that violates international law, that is inflicting a monstrous collective punishment on the civilian population of Gaza and that continues to deny to Palestinians their human rights and national aspirations.

We will celebrate when Arab and Jew live as equals in a peaceful Middle East.

Seymour Alexander
Ruth Appleton
Steve Arloff
Rica Bird
Jo Bird
Cllr Jonathan Bloch
Ilse Boas
Prof. Haim Bresheeth
Tanya Bronstein
Sheila Colman
Ruth Clark
Sylvia Cohen
Judith Cravitz
Mike Cushman
Angela Dale
Ivor Dembina
Dr. Linda Edmondson
Nancy Elan
Liz Elkind
Pia Feig
Colin Fine
Deborah Fink
Sylvia Finzi
Brian Fisher MBE
Frank Fisher
Bella Freud
Catherine Fried
Uri Fruchtmann
Stephen Fry
David Garfinkel
Carolyn Gelenter
Claire Glasman
Tony Greenstein
Heinz Grunewald
Michael Halpern
Abe Hayeem
Rosamine Hayeem
Anna Hellman
Amy Hordes
Joan Horrocks
Deborah Hyams
Selma James
Riva Joffe
Yael Oren Kahn
Michael Kalmanovitz
Paul Kaufman
Prof. Adah Kay
Yehudit Keshet
Prof. Eleonore Kofman
Rene Krayer
Stevie Krayer
Berry Kreel
Leah Levane
Les Levidow
Peter Levin
Louis Levy
Ros Levy
Prof. Yosefa Loshitzky
Catherine Lyons
Deborah Maccoby
Daniel Machover
Prof. Emeritus Moshe Machover
Miriam Margolyes OBE
Mike Marqusee
Laura Miller
Simon Natas
Hilda Meers
Martine Miel
Laura Miller
Arthur Neslen
Diana Neslen
Orna Neumann
Harold Pinter
Roland Rance
Frances Rivkin
Sheila Robin
Dr. Brian Robinson
Neil Rogall
Prof. Steven Rose
Mike Rosen
Prof. Jonathan Rosenhead
Leon Rosselson
Michael Sackin
Sabby Sagall
Ian Saville
Alexei Sayle
Anna Schuman
Sidney Schuman
Monika Schwartz
Amanda Sebestyen
Sam Semoff
Linda Shampan
Sybil Shine
Prof. Frances Stewart
Inbar Tamari
Ruth Tenne
Martin Toch
Tirza Waisel
Stanley Walinets
Martin White
Ruth Williams
Naomi Wimborne-Idrissi
Devra Wiseman
Gerry Wolff
Sherry Yanowitz

One Year That Shook the World: 1968

Joel helps edit the International Socialist Review. An article based on this speech appeared in the new issue of the ISR.