France To Play In U.S. Bathtub?

Bleary-eyed, I see this morning's business news is dominated by a sharp drop in East Asian stock indexes and an even steepeer one in India. The US markets, which are experiencing an ugly new year already, are closed today for the MLK holiday, so tomorrow could be real interesting.

I want to pull the coattails of FotM readers to another recent development which could be of greater importance in the long term, one that the stock market stuff is likely to drive out of the news entirely. This is the just-announced agreement between France and the United Arab Emirates to establish a French naval base in Abu Dhabi, with 500 personnel stationed there. In what has been pretty much exclusive American turf as far as imperialist military presence goes, this is a big deal.

Commentators have pointed to a variety of short-term factors in the move--new French Prime Minister Nicolas Sarkozy buddying up to Bush and the US, the Gulf States' nervousness about both Iran and US war talk against Iran, firming up French nuclear and arms sales in the region, and more.

But the big picture tells a different story. Bush will be gone soon, Sarkozy eventually, while French capital will now have a military toehold in the heart of the Middle East. Given that the invasion of Iraq was a US bid to keep a hegemonic hand on the region's oil, given that one major nightmare for the US ruling class is that oil-producing states will dump the sinking dollar in favor of the euro for petroleum sales, given that the Bush administration has created a world historic defeat for the US in Iraq, this would seem to be an objective intensification of the contention between US and European bourgeoisies for world domination, as well as an example of rulers in the Gulf States seeking to play on the contradictions between imperialist blocs.

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Black NJ Organizes Against the War--2008 edition!

Yesterday, the People's Peace and Justice Coalition held its 2008 conference in Newark, NJ. Fire on the Mountain has been covering the Coalition since before the inaugural conference was held last year with over 500 participants. Since then, the Coalition held an even larger indoor rally and the historic People's March for Peace, Equality, Jobs and Justice through downtown Newark on a scorching August day.

When the assembly was called to order by Larry Hamm of the People's Organization for Progress, we thought we might be looking at a real setback--there were fewer than one hundred people in the hall at Rutgers. As it turned out, folks kept coming and, unusually, the conference hit its peak in mid-afternoon with over 250 people present at one time, overwhelmingly from the African-American, Latina/o and other minority communities of Northern NJ.

Among them was a sizable contingent from the street organization The Almighty Latin King and Queen Nation, who have seen a good number of their Northern NJ members killed in Iraq and Afghanistan. They attended workshops with titles like "Challenging Military recruitment Among the Poor, Working Class, People of Color & Immigrants," "Stop the Violence: Ending the War in Our Streets," "Building the Peace Justice Movement Among Young People," and "The Influence of the Prison Industrial Complex & the War."

Still, while the event went very well, we need to reflect on why participation in the Coalition has not continued to grow. POP Chairman Larry Hamm and I had to cut out at the start of the morning workshops and make a run to the Ironbound section of Newark for a community and hospital workers rally against the closing of St. James Medical Center. The drive over gave us a chance to consider why the attendance was off back at Rutgers. Brother Hamm felt that the short participation might be his fault, given that he hadn't spent a lot of time making his usual personal phone calls to build attendance among the clergy and elected officials. I suggested a significant growth in cynicism since the Democratic majority in Congress had essentially ignored why their Republican rivals had been tossed out in '06 ("End this criminal war, dummies!").

In Ironbound, we came face to face with another reason: about 750 people, mostly neighborhood residents, protesting the closing of their hospital! This was an interesting contrast to the weak community response to the closing of other hospitals throughout Newark and Essex County recently. This powerful protest reminded us was that the survival struggles of poor and working folk are so urgent that they take priority over issues like stopping the war, even though most of them recognize the direct connection with the trillions of dollars being wasted on the war and worsening living conditions here.

Back at the conference, a conversation with Margaret Stevens of Iraq Veterans Against the War (a sponsoring organization of the Peace & Justice Coalition) helped me see something else that has changed since last year. Margaret described how one early and dedicated member of the new NJ Chapter of IVAW had gotten so wrapped up in the presidential campaign of Congressman Dennis Kucinich, that he is not very active in the veterans anti-war movement. The lure of "quick fixes" is in some ways a mirror image of the view that the war against Iraq a matter of individual leadership errors. So too many concentrate on electing a President who promises (sort of) to end the war, or on impeachement, at the expense of the drive to bring the troops home has disarmed the bring the troops home movement.

The crowd was buoyed throughout its day's work by exciting cultural performances including the Martin Luther King, Jr. Association of Columbia High School Gospel Choir, the NJ Industrial Union Council's Solidarity Singers, and the return of Nell Sanders' incredible drumming.

To see addition photographs from the January 2008 People's Peace Conference, go to the People's Organization for Progress photo page http://homepage.mac.com/union_county_labor/Peoples_Org_for_Prog/PhotoAlbum160.html.

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The Great Debaters; or The Sea-Turtle and the Shark

When I posted James McMurtry's brilliant and savage "We Can't Make It Here" on FotM a bit ago as something to consider in evaluating the effects of imperial privilege on the working class in the US, I said McMurtry was "arguing the negative (yeah, I just saw The Great Debaters--don't miss it)."

Sure enough, a couple friends asked, "What's The Great Debaters?" It is, for my money, the purest feel-good movie since 2002's The Quiet American. If a film based on the exploits of a Communist professor who trained a championship debating team at a small Black college in Texas in the '30s while secretly organizing for the Southern Tenant Farmers Union doesn't sound appealing to you, maybe you should give it a miss. Otherwise, catch it while it's still in the theaters!

To pique your interest further, here is a poem about a higher stakes debate by the real Professor Melvin B. Tolson (played in the film by Denzel Washington), actually a section of his book-length poem Harlem Gallery, published the year before his death in 1966.

The Sea-Turtle and the Shark
by Melvin B. Tolson

Strange but true is the story
of the sea-turtle and the shark-
the instinctive drive of the weak to survive
in the oceanic dark.
Driven
riven by hunger
from abyss to shoal,
sometimes the shark swallows
the sea-turtle whole.

The sly reptilian marine
withdraws,
into the shell
of his undersea craft,
his leathery head and the rapacious claws
that can rip
a rhinoceros’ hide
or strip
a crocodile to fare-thee-well;
now,
inside the shark,
the sea-turtle begins the churning seesaws
of his descent into pelagic hell;
then . . . then,
with ravenous jaws
that can cut sheet steel scrap,
the sea-turtle gnaws
. . . and gnaws . . . and gnaws . . .
his way in a way that appalls-
his way to freedom,
beyond the vomiting dark,
beyond the stomach walls
of the shark.

I was introduced to Harlem Gallery by my friend Chuck Colding in 1967, so when "The Sea Turtle and the Shark" played a small role in the emergence of the New Communist Movement in the U.S., I recognized it. FotM offers a cool historic prize to the first person to identify that role in the comments section here. Just click on the word "comments" directly below.

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Generalissimo Suharto is still dying

Those Fire on the Mountain readers who are (ahem!) senior amongst us will likely recall the agonizingly long last days of Generalissimo Francisco Franco of Spain. And of course, the media coverage of it which reported him either as "still alive" or "not dead." Famously, the media spectacle was parodied by the early Saturday Night Live/Weekend Update skits which which aired in the weeks after the Franco funeral, in which Chevy Chase would intone -- "Generalissimo Francisco Franco is still dead."

Much the same spectacle is being set up in Indonesia, where Suharto the 86-year old 5-star General and former President of 32 years is holed up inside a hospital in the capital, attended to by the finest of Indonesia's doctors. Suharto has been visited by functionaries and dignitaries both foreign and domestic -- most notably his notorious spawn whose dubious achievements included lavish weddings and other conspicuous consumption as the economy of Indonesia went into the tank in the 1990's.

This spectacle only gets weirder today, as Reuters reports that Suharto, corrupt as ever, seems to be cheating death by recovering from the failure of his heart, kidneys, lungs, and brain; conditions ranging from sepsis, low blood pressure, and pneumonia. Suharto does seem to be demonstrating the monstrous trait of fascists of being able to live well past warranty.

Or could in fact there be something more to this story? Buried in Reuters' description of the scene at the hospital is the description of what appears to be the first clash between the student movement and the riot squad across the street. At least one beating was recorded, and one arrest documented -- of course, who knows who is getting shaken down right now by police and/or the military. Might it be that the situation's getting a bit hot down at Petramina Hospital that Suharto will (as he did with his Presidency) escape to his family capital for his final days?

So on that note, let's pull for the comrades in Indonesia who are saying "No" to forgiving a man who never showed one iota of forgiveness for the estimated 1 million Communists killed by his regime, and who never even pardoned his predecessor President Sukarno. Let's hope for street celebrations in the dozens, scores, or even hundreds when Suharto dies. Let's hope that Suharto's inevitable end will, in the end, weigh lighter than a feather upon the Indonesian people.

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Did I hear somebody say my name?

Thank you, Mr. Higgins, for the warm introduction.

I'm happy to be a part of Fire on the Mountain. By way of explanation to the readers, I joined FotM mainly because I wanted to remain in this blogging thing, while not having the hassle of being All Out for the Fight's main (read: only) blogger. All Out is being put on ice, but I hope to port some of the lessons learned from the experience there to FotM.

You may notice that there's a few cosmetic changes afoot. Since Fire on the Mountain can be rather wordy, it's become necessary to have posts "fold" or "expand" so posts don't take up too much space. So here is an example:Voila! So you see, we can now devote ourselves to the at length discussions of politics and culture that you've come to expect, without the clutter we once had.

(Incidentally, big ups to Dummies Guide to Blogger Beta for the instructions on this useful hack.)

Also, you've probably have seen the little icons at the top of the page. Those are for social bookmarking services (growing increasingly common). Click one of 'em, and they'll let you bookmark and share links to Fire on the Mountain with your friends and comrades. Because we're nothing if not ambitious about the necessity of spreading the good word -- ain't that right?

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