my review: biutiful

ah javier bardem… i love him. he’s one of the great actors of the world. his face is indelible, a monument, a colossal stamp on the human species. yet as an actor he’s hardly a towering icon – he’s emotionally nimble, vulnerable, transparent. in “the sea inside” i was constantly reminded of the physical force of his presence and awestruck at how he had succeeded in taming it, containing it. an incredible feat.

in biutiful, we are treated to many different sides of javier bardem/uxbal – he’s a small-time go-between involved in every aspect of barcelona’s criminal underbelly, he’s a devoted father, he’s still in love with his bipolar ex-wife, he can commune with the dead, he tries to be a good human being (however quaint that might sound these days). oh yeah, he’s also dying of cancer. in his characteristic style, alejandro gonzález iñárritu gives us multiple threads that r all woven into one dynamic tapestry. characters and storylines abound, some more developed than others, yet uxbal ties everything together.

day by day, he jumps thru hoops in order to survive. he is surrounded by people who r equally trapped by their own circumstances. it’s a mean and miserable side of life where deprivation can turn morality into a luxury. it is grating to watch after a while. one wishes for less – fewer, longer shots, less hectic editing, fewer side characters and sundry drama, more quiet, more time for uxbal to articulate his essence fully, uninterruptedly.

but there r some beautiful moments in the film – when damaged people manage to connect deeply, when a father comforts his son in the dark, when a grown man sees his 20 year-old embalmed father for the first time, when a man confronts his own death and shares that certainty with his young daughter. there is such truth at these moments, such raw emotion, such honest physicality. the movie is shot handheld for the most part. the colors r grim with sudden bursts of radiance. the film has an impeccable artistic look. and javier bardem is magnificent.

watch trailer here.

happy violence by mara ahmed

i found this apparently innocuous, happy-go-lucky article, celebrating navy seals and their killing of osama bin laden, disturbing in its glorification of violence and murder:

The Coolest Guys in the World; America’s quietest killers, working anonymously and without public recognition; can also make some noise—as they did when they killed Osama bin Laden last week with a point-blank shot to the left temple; a semi-legendary bunch; Swagger; agonizing combination of brain and brawn; hunter-killer teams; The men toasted fallen comrades, ogled action shots of each other “blowing things up, skydiving, attacking ships,” and took turns with slide shows of their major kills.

yes, it’s published in mainstream media but how else are we to gauge a nation’s popular culture? i don’t read newsweek, in fact i wouldn’t touch it with a barge pole, but sometimes i come across the magazine in waiting rooms. the entire issue on osama’s execution is frightening, including the accompanying photo – men stripped of their identities, their judgment, their humanity and turned into indistinguishable bodies that kill at someone else’s command – the entire idea behind the military of course.

not only was this particular piece alarming, in many ways, but also other articles, in the same issue.

salman rushdie: pakistan is a “terrorist country” — how does that work when pakistani civilians r being droned by us and not the other way around?

elie weisel: A Death Deserved: Normally, I would respond to such scenes with deep apprehension… This time is different. –- talk about moral relativism.

Bernard-Henri Levy: jihadi infiltration, pakistani bomb, most dangerous country in the world, etc – typical zionist conspiracy theory that barely tries to mask an islamophobic rant.

andrew sullivan: As a Christian I am asked to pray for the soul of Osama bin Laden, not to celebrate his death. And this prayer I have spoken, as I am bound to. But this is also true: the joy will not leave me either, and I am not ashamed in the slightest. –- ok, good for u.

fatima bhutto: osama’s death is irrelevant to pakistanis — she’s right but again, no outrage at extrajudicial murder.

no mention of the 1 million iraqi civilians dead, the civil war, the refugees, the depleted uranium, the comprehensive destruction of a country.

no mention of the obscene war in afghanistan, the second poorest country in the world, most threatened not by the taliban but by malnutrition.

no mention of ongoing drone attacks that kill pakistani civilians on a daily basis – 2,000 killed in the last two yrs alone, under obama’s stewardship.

it’s all tied together. it’s not just about perpetrating violence on “them.” that’s why SWAT teams r now being used to break into people’s homes and arrest them for missing student loan payments.

i don’t watch tv but i come face to face with it at the gym. frequently, all the major tv channels highlight their programming with a roundup of clips from their most successful shows. there’s no sound at the gym but the visual loop of people prancing around with guns, pushing in doors, committing violent crimes, and dissecting dead bodies is quite dizzying. the editing is choppy, the camera work nervous (for a handheld, reality-based feel), the pace relentless. the stories seem repetitive, banal, mind-numbing. there is no space for exploration, analysis, comparison or evaluation. the images r violent or sexual, fragmented, compressed together, looped interminably. it’s scary. and happy-go-lucky.

The Coolest Guys in the World

Sorrow and Joy – Elie Wiesel, Fatima Bhutto, Bernard-Henri Lévy, and Andrew Sullivan reflect on the end of Osama Bin Laden

SWAT Team Busts into Home over Student Loan Default

my review: white meadows – a film by mohammad rasoulof

just saw iranian film “white meadows”. directed by mohammad rasoulof and edited by jafar panahi, the introduction itself was sensational as both men have been arrested by the iranian govt. the film is described as an allegorical poem rooted in persian literature and contemporary politics. the cinematography is stunning. the film was shot on the salt islands of lake urmia. scenes are bare, mostly devoid of color or texture, and stark in their black and white contrast. men and women dressed in black, moving quietly across still, panoramic shots reminded me of shirin neshat’s video work.

we go on a journey with rahmat, a professional tear collector, who travels from salt island to salt island, listening to people’s heartaches and collecting their tears. the visualization of the expression of grief and ritualistic human endeavors aimed at resolving it, living with it, are poetic indeed. in one village, people take turns whispering their sorrowful secrets into small glass jars and shutting them tight. after they have their tears gathered by rahmat into a small glass vial, all the jars weighed down by guilt, pain and remorse are attached to the body of a man small enough to climb down the well. he happens to be a dwarf who was recently married. he is asked to leave the jars at the bottom of the well and climb back up before sunrise. the man is apprehensive about being able to move that fast but he accepts his fate. when he is unable to resurface on time, the rope is cut condemning him to death, to the lamentation of his young wife. rahmat encounters many such stories.

altho i appreciate the symbolic import of each fable and i am not one to complain about abstraction, i was disappointed by many of the stereotypical images used by rasoulof. the stoning of a young lover, the ceremonial sacrifice of an underage virgin, the torture of dissenters – these are not ground-breaking allegories but mainstream platitudes that the west is already v cozy with. they don’t tell us anything new about iran, but reinforce the propagandist summation of iran as cruel, mysterious, incomprehensible. the reaction i heard most often in the theater, throughout the film, was “jeez” – an expression of shock and self-righteous dismay. any fox news report on iran can produce that reaction, any time of the day.

of course i am all for freedom of speech, especially artistic expression. rasoulof’s film is visually complex and humane. yet i fear the reaction of many magnanimous americans who might be tempted to think that we have something to teach other cultures. and another question: when do we get to see an allegorical film about american oppression and ritualistic sacrifice? symbols could include images of scalping and branding people, waterboarding and dark pools of thick sticky oil. any takers?

Poetry – a film by Lee Chang-dong

saw a terrific korean film called “poetry.” it’s about women being much put-upon, it’s about how the finest, tenderest of human feelings cannot find expression in a world that doesn’t care, it’s about lives that become irreversibly intertwined, it’s about finding one’s voice.

this is a subtle film – it’s quiet and lyrical, yet full of violence – violence we don’t see but can read as subtext. what struck me most is how women r so socially imposed upon – it’s something we accept, irrespective of culture.

man with baby by larry clark, 1971

read a most excellent essay on photography by abigail solomon-godeau. it’s called “inside/out.” she starts with susan sontag’s critique of diane arbus’s photography as being voyeuristic and touristy because it does not produce sympathy or compassion for her subjects thru engagement – her view is always from the outside. martha rosler looks at this phenomenon in more political terms: “imperialism breeds an imperialistic sensibility in all phases of cultural life.” in other words, photography colonizes experiences associated with the other.

solomon-godeau tackles this binary of inside/outside by looking at photography produced by so-called insiders – larry clark and nan goldin. both claim to be immersed in the subcultures they photograph – goldin is emotionally invested in the cross-dressers and transvestites she photographs and clark identifies with his male adolescents subjects who embody his own teenage experience of growing up in tulsa. the private moments they r privy to, the closeness of the camera and the intense collaboration between photographer and subject r obvious in their work. however, does this insider position change the way their photographs r received or consumed by the viewer?

since all photography that deals with sexuality, will inevitably intersect with the viewer’s own sexuality, isn’t such work always located on the inside? by default? i would venture to say that this argument can be made for all photography, in fact for all art – viewers will always approach art from the point of view of their own experience. from cubism to minimalism, artists have relied on the viewer’s memory images to assimilate the various parts of an artwork and achieve some cognitive unity. the essay ends with the apt conclusion that “reality is always mediated thru representational systems” and therefore maybe the inside/outside rubric is problematic to start with.

met marc grossman, special envoy to “afpak” after holbrooke

april 14, 2011: heard marc grosssman (the new envoy to afpak, after holbrooke) speak in rochester yesterday and got a chance to talk to him.

his entire presentation had nothing to do with reality. he said that obama’s “surge” had worked, that afghanistan was doing much better now, that it was secure, that 85% of women will soon have access to healthcare. wtf. afghanistan is more insecure today than it was under the taliban. it is the 2nd poorest country in the world. more women try to commit suicide today than ever before. it’s a humanitarian catastrophe!

he kept talking about bringing peace to the region and resolving the “conflict” and being interested in afghans taking the lead, but never once did he mention the occupation!!! so that’s what i asked. the “conflict” is the occupation. until we leave there can never be a resolution – just like in vietnam. he talked about an economic surge and a diplomatic surge (after iraq, surge has become such a horrific word – he should work on his terminology) which would complement the military surge. yes, they wanted to draw down american troops and be out by 2014, altho some forces would stay behind to train etc. lol. as if we’re falling for that. they have no intentions of getting out – they r building elaborate “bases” protected by huge, steel-reinforced concrete walls in pakistani cities as we speak.

my husband asked him if he could provide one example, in human history, where terrorism was defeated thru military means. he asked why intelligence and police work and negotiation and integration, which have worked in other places at other times, couldn’t be used in afghanistan. but grossman insisted that he needed all three “surges” for the taliban r not just going to listen to us (he made a joke), they will have to be forced militarily. of course he didn’t mention the fact that the taliban control most of afghanistan – they r not a tiny fringe group that can be “forced” to do anything. another question: why r we even fighting the taliban? they have no links to intl terrorism.

someone asked about whether the u.s. can afford all of this financially. he replied that we only spend 1% of our budget on intl aid. he didn’t even mention the cost of the occupation. it’s not about economic aid, it’s about military spending – what percentage of the budget is that?

someone said who r we to set the world straight. he answered that our lives are at risk. we cannot repeat 1989 – when the u.s. abandoned afghanistan, after soviet military withdrawal. what he didn’t mention was that the present puppet govt is composed of the same drug traffickers and warlords who wreaked violence on afghanistan in 1989. the taliban were a response to that mayhem.

my husband asked him about kashmir. since the unrest in south asia is about pakistan and india, why isn’t he the envoy to afghanistan, pakistan and india? he said that had been holbrooke’s plan but india said no. that’s it? india said no? i guess that makes sense.

finally i asked him about drone attacks. i told him the number of civilian casualties last year and the year before – more than 900 people per year. he said that he was not allowed to comment on drone attacks. he said that if he could explain we would understand that the civilian casualties r not that serious. a continuation of the same policy of classifying every lie as secret information and refusing to comment or, god forbid, produce evidence.

personally, grossman seemed to lack depth. i don’t know if this was his “stupid talk” for the general public or if he actually believes all the lies that he was dishing out. he seemed shifty. he didn’t make any eye contact with me the whole time we were talking. it was impossible to get thru – his programming was just too thorough. his entire presentation was bland, generic, mendacious. it was an alternative reality presented to a media-managed audience (including a good number of educators). those r the kind of speeches they must have given to american audiences 45-50 years ago, to justify vietnam.

Marilyn Diptych by Andy Warhol, 1962

Marilyn Diptych by Andy Warhol, 1962, silkscreen painting.

andy warhol’s marilyn diptych is not just a comment on the commercial peddling of image, the impersonal processes involved in mass production or the banality of modern day media culture, i think that it also explores the nature of public grief. if we look at this artwork in the context of the “death and disaster” series (repetitive prints of graphic automobile crashes) or the “tuna fish disaster” (images of tuna fish cans along with images of two american women killed by food poisoning from canned fish, arranged in a grid) or “sixteen jackies,” it seems to me that he was trying to walk the line between private and public disaster, private and public grief. a fatal car accident is much more real to us, much less consumable. yet warhol approaches this disturbing material with the same rules of ruthless media bombardment we expect for celebrity images and sound bites. the celebrity drama that we take for granted and consume daily, is terrifyingly real to those actually involved in it. can’t help but apply this idea to our present wars and occupations – perhaps repetition, meaningless bullet points and information overload have distracted us enough to take emotion and compassion out of the equation? at the end of the day, it’s just consumable news.

surrealism and freud

rené magritte, je ne vois pas la [femme] cachée dans la forêt (i don’t see the [woman] hidden in the forest), 1929. surrealism was intimately linked to freud’s theory of psychoanalysis. surrealists were inspired by freud’s delineation of the unconscious as a realm quite apart from the conscious, yet integral in informing conscious thought and behavior. the unconscious became a way for surrealists to explore the underside of modernity (the erotic, the bizarre, the incongruent) and woman became the organizing metaphor of their creative philosophy. woman was a sign for desire, for what is hidden, for the “other”. for surrealists, woman embodied psychic force and therefore she represented “the most beautiful protest” against the rational, functional, repressive order of modern society. in magritte’s painting/photomontage, woman is at the center of male dreams. she is surrounded by photographs of the surrealist group with their eyes closed. she is also plainly a sign for latent fantasies as she replaces the word femme (or woman) – she personifies that which is not manifest.

the house of mirth

finished reading edith wharton’s “the house of mirth” in florida. as i had just read “the age of innocence,” i can’t help but compare the two books. i found “age” to be more polished in a sense – a perfectly proportioned work of art, meticulously observed, beautifully crafted. “the house of mirth” has more abandon to it and requires more emotional engagement. rather than having the luxury of observing a society constrained by arbitrary conventions, we are thrown headlong into the stuffy parlors of new york’s elite and we can’t help but live lily bart’s struggles as she tries to make her way around the serpentine maze of hypocritical upper class etiquette. lily’s gradual fall from grace is difficult to experience as it underlines the paltry set of choices available to women in societies where they are mostly meant to be ornamental. this frustration is further heightened by lily’s doomed relationship with lawrence seldon, the only man who makes her feel like a complete human being. the sense of suffocation that one feels throughout the book changes to much sadness as we reach the final denouement of lily’s tragic fate.

ITALY: Its a Lot Worse Than Sex Parties

The demonstration by an estimated million women across Italy Sunday points to a continuing denial of fair opportunities for women at work. The protest demonstrations, in 280 cities in Italy and 28 cities abroad, were called to demand action against Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi over the latest scandals. The turnout was some measure of the determination among women to take the political and public debate in Italy to the real problems of women. The protest followed weeks of intense debate over allegations that Berlusconi paid for sexual intercourse with a number of young women, including a 17- year-old undocumented girl from Morocco. In Italy the age of consent is 14, but prostitution below 18 is illegal. Full article.

i saw this excellent doc a while back called “videocracy” (a combination of video and democracy). it’s a terrific exploration of everything described in this article. berlusconi’s life and politics, his social stature and corporate media dominance have altered italian culture in a v sick way. no wonder millions of women have had enough. my review of the film here.

don’t minimize the egyptian revolution

pls don’t minimize the egyptian revolution. try to mobilize 20 million people to come out in the streets for 18 days and remove a cruel and powerful tyrant from office peacefully, then tell me about it.

i’m so tired of all the skepticism. of course, it’s not over yet – it’s just the beginning. egyptians are not prepared to go home and watch soap operas while suleiman assumes the role of mubarak II. i don’t think they would have come this far if that had been their MO.

this is a seminal moment in history. for egyptians and tunisians, for arabs, for the middle east, for client states, for people who are treated with contempt by their own rulers and elite, for people who have been told that they don’t count, for people who have come to believe that they are helpless and weak, for populations that have been labeled apathetic and not deserving of democracy, for all of us who yearn for justice and dignity and some voice in the unfolding of our own destiny. today is a great day for all of us. yes, the road ahead is always hard, but today we deserve to celebrate with and for the people of egypt. period.

“blue nude, souvenir of biskra” by henri matisse – 1907

the fauves or wild beasts were known for their garishly colored paintings. their artwork was rooted in primitivism, which was apparent in the crude application of paint and the incorporation of unpainted or unprimed areas and also in the idea of an exotic, geographically far removed paradise (similar to gauguin’s quest for pleasure and plenitude embodied by distance and otherness). their artistic impetuosity, anarchism and focus on joie de vivre marched in lockstep with literary movements including nietzsche’s individualism and andre gide’s naturalism. on top of the existing categories of paysage historique and paysage champetre, the fauves invented a third category of paysage decoratif. this type of landscape was less representative of a certain location, it was more abstracted – more barbare, more naif.

matisse was considered le fauve des fauves. his work was thought to be the closest to pure art. his originality added another dimension to fauvism. for example, his painting “bonheur de vivre” was not just a paysage decoratif, it also distorted scale and perspective. similarly, matisse’s “blue nude, souvenir of biskra” speaks the language of primitivism’s colonial pillaging and decontextualization, but at the same time it refuses to subscribe to the classic representation of the odalisque in western art. matisse’s nude is hardly a seductress. even though her body is obviously inspired by african statuettes, it is distorted and exaggerated, not eroticized. it is clear that matisse is more concerned with the tools of representation. his technique includes modeling, simplification of form, spatial ambiguity, and experimenting with contrapposto (an undulating s-curve pose).

taken to an extreme “decorative” can become a pejorative term, signifying superficiality and ornamentation associated with handicrafts. however, in the case of the fauves “decorative deformations” emphasized the surface of the painting and the inner meanings or “resonances” that distortions could elicit in order to reveal some basic truth. matisse was more concerned with surface and the smooth blending of diverse painterly elements, i.e. the arrangement of objects or figures, their proportions and passage. critics have characterized matisse’s “decorative” approach as being primarily about flattening, generalizing, and abstracting to achieve purity.

les demoiselles d’avignon by pablo picasso (1907)

read daniel-henry kahnweiler’s “the rise of cubism” in which he explains how cubism solved the conflict between representation and structure. representation is concerned with reproducing a three dimensional object on a two dimensional, flat surface and the correct use of color. structure stands for the comprehension of that object within the unity of the painting. he is quick to point out that representation of form, as envisaged by cubists, did not mean the use of light and shade (chiaroscuro) in order to give depth and dimension to objects and comprehension did not mean simply good composition.

picasso and braque, the two founders of cubism, abandoned fidelity to nature (as embodied by illusionist practices of painting) to create a new language of form. by using geometric schemes of form to build a painting forward, starting with a well-defined background, by using different sources of light and showing objects from different sides, and by using color as an end in itself, cubists were able to break the link between the painting and the outer world. this afforded them unprecedented artistic freedom. however, by introducing undistorted real objects into the painting, they were able to stimulate the spectator’s memory thus allowing her to fuse the various representations of an object into a coherent whole, in her mind. the goal of painting shifted from being analytical to synthetic. descriptive titles were used to further facilitate the spectator’s ability to assimilate and synthesize.

kahnweiler goes on to argue that cubism lessens the unconscious human effort needed to perceive three dimensional objects by merging flat optical images (seen in terms of horizontal and vertical lines as well as circles) with existing knowledge of the third dimension (cubes, spheres and cylinders). this is because cubists emulate the process of human vision – they use basic forms as the skeletal frame on which their paintings are constructed (much like retinal images) and provide details which trigger memory images and enable the human mind to mesh that information together into a lucid “seeing” of the painting.

on subject matter:

mechanization, the soullessness of mass production and the resultant social disconnectedness were all reflected in “modern” art. i posted seurat’s “grande jatte” a while back. that’s the seminal artwork in that respect. with cubism there was more focus on “painterly” dilemmas. cezanne changed painting forever when he began to concern himself with the inherent structure of the painting first and foremost. the goal of this “autonomous” approach was to produce revolutionary art which was completely apolitical.

in les demoiselles we r beginning to see picasso’s struggle with representation and unity. he was strongly influenced by african masks, by their ability to abstract. hence u see the “modelling” in the figures on the right. even the “passage” (way of linking foreground, middleground and background) is faceted. the perspective is totally off, of course, much like cezanne. similarly, the tools of the trade r in evidence – for example the cross-hatcheting. cubism developed a new complex language which broke the final bonds with “closed” form and faithful representation.

on picasso’s misogynism:

there r certainly some misogynist undertones to picasso’s work, especially his later work. it’s not just him. i was shocked to discover that gauguin’s tahitian mistresses were no more than 13-15 yrs old and that cezanne entertained rape fantasies. when i posted renoir’s painting “la loge” and compared it to may’s cassatt’s we had a v interesting discussion on how art as we know it might have been completely diff if women had been allowed to have more of a voice. i love what judy chicago says about this:

“I think that one of the questions I raised in Women and Art is that if we can’t use the historic language of art because so much of it is misogynous, what language are we supposed to use as women artists? If we can’t use the female body, for example, because there is such a thin line between representation and colonization, then what are we supposed to do?

To build a new language, that’s a big job. And you have to remember that feminist, oppositional art is only thirty years old. Certainly there were antecedents to it—one could mention a lot of earlier women. But still they worked more in the tradition of art. There wasn’t yet an openly female tradition for younger women to work in. So women are at the beginning of building a language, and not all women are conscious of it.”

and that reminds me of helene cixous’s “le rire de la meduse” – women must invent a new language, a language rooted in their own bodies: ecris-toi, il faut que ton corps se fasse entendre.

joan holden’s play “nickel and dimed”

jan 24, 2011: just attended a reading of joan holden’s play “nickel and dimed” at geva theater. the play is based on barbara ehrenreich’s book in which she says provocatively: “when someone works for less pay than she can live on – when, for example, she goes hungry so that you can eat more cheaply and conveniently – then she has made a great sacrifice for you, she has made you a gift of some part of her abilities, her health, and her life. the working poor, as they are approvingly termed, are in fact the major philanthropists of our society. they neglect their own children so that the children of others will be cared for; they live in substandard housing so that other homes will be shiny and perfect; they endure privation so that inflation will be low and stock prices high. to be a member of the working poor is to be an anonymous donor, a nameless benefactor, to everyone else.”

i found the play depressing – there is a hopelessness that comes from the constant, exhausting struggle for survival among america’s working poor. it’s difficult to witness. but i was more depressed by many in the audience who, in the post play discussion, expressed their disenchantment with unions. unions can be run competently or not, but the benefits of organizing workers in order to offer them some protection in a ruthless corporate work environment is a no-brainer. we need a strong movement for economic justice which can articulate all of this. the present situation is unacceptable, untenable.

“nickel and dimed” by barbara ehrenreich

my comments on hendrik hertzberg’s “what wikileaks tells us about iran”

this essay highlights many things for me: wikileaks cables r NOT the pentagon papers – they do not reveal anything new. hertzberg, much like fareed zakaria (an unflattering comparison by any standards), finds the leaks reassuring as they simply showcase the apparent honesty of american foreign policy and the eloquence of american diplomats.

the biggest revelation, according to both writers, is how iran has been proven to be a threat, not just to israel and by extension the u.s., but also to arab states in the region. this is what wikileaks has accomplished – a judith miller via the internet, with oh, so much more credibility.

i’m deeply disappointed by hertzberg’s use of corporate-media-speak. he insists on calling the iranian govt “mullahs” while failing to call the american govt “war criminals” – that would put things in perspective, no? the iranian govt might place religion on an altar but don’t we do the same with corporate profit? they imprison women for adultery because it’s against their religion and we torture people for resisting our military occupations because it’s against ours.

i’m also tired of ahmadinejad’s corny description as holocaust denier and potential eraser of israel. how come we don’t use similar labels for netanyahu or pretty much every israeli politician of import? here r some ideas: ethnic cleanser of palestine, bulldozer of homes, incarcerator of children, supporter of apartheid, blockador and decimator of civilians, etc. so preposterous to judge one politician (ahmadinejad) on rhetoric while refusing to judge another (netanyahu and others) on action.

it’s also incredible to me that someone of hertzberg’s intelligence would consider an imaginary iranian bomb to be a threat to israel because it would embolden its enemies and shatter its mystique of invincibility. can’t he see the obvious disadvantages of the lopsided distribution of power in the middle east, which is further distorted by israel’s unilateral possession of nuclear arms. how does that encourage balance or any investment in diplomacy? i’m not advocating nuclear bombs for everyone but a change in thinking – nuclear disarmament on every side, not just countries that fall outside our sphere of influence and consequently off of our most popular client state list.

most disheartening of all r hertzberg’s reasons for not going to war again, on muslim soil: in view of time investment and poor chances of bloodlessness (for americans, hertzberg is quick to elaborate). he doesn’t care to mention the illegality of the wars or the massive horror and mayhem visited on muslim civilians.

he ends with some wisdom about internal change being a better option in iran. but he reminds the u.s. and israel (he makes it a point to see them as interchangeable) to keep up their “steady vigilance, strategic patience, and stomach for twilight uncertainty” in order to defeat iran’s evil intentions. he is particularly excited by the “biting” sanctions against iran in this regard. an equally strong argument can be made for non-western or muslim countries (on whose soil we like to play our war games) to use their vigilance, patience and stomach for uncertainty vis a vis what the united states/israel have in store for them. if the present wars and occupations r any guide, it’s not anything good i’m afraid.

Iran and the Bomb by Hendrik Hertzberg
The New Yorker, DECEMBER 13, 2010

WikiLeaks Shows the Skills of U.S. Diplomats By FAREED ZAKARIA
Time, Thursday, Dec. 02, 2010