Dean Reed (1938-1986) The Red Elvis

Dean Reed was born in America, but spent most of his life in East Germany. He was an actor, singer, and songwriter, who rocked East Europe during the days of the Soviet Union.

He was born in Denver, and moved to California as a young man signing with Capitol Records. He was groomed to be a teen idol. He appeared on television on the show Bachelor Father in 1958. His music was modestly successful.

He recorded a song called "Our Summer Romance," while on a tour of South America. That song soared up in South America. There he would become more well known than Elvis. He settled in Argentina.

In Argentina he became involved leftist politics. He opposed nuclear weapons, and performed free shows in barrios, and prisons. He was deported in 1966.

He performed in movies in Rome, and often toured East Europe, acting, directing and writing movies. He settled in East Germany.

Reed supported the politics of his new country. He never joined the ruling party, or proclaimed himself socialist. On the TV show "60 Minutes," he declared support for the Berlin Wall, and the Soviet incursion into Afghanistan. He received hate mail, and shocked family and friends.

He never renounced his US citizenship. He payed taxes to the US government.

In 1986 he was found dead in East Germany. His friend in Germany say suicide, his family says murder.

Tom Hanks is making a movie about his life called "Comrade Rockstar."

I was introduced to him when he was visiting in Minnesota, to support an antiwar group in the Vietnam period.

There might be more insight on Dean Reed from Redwine and the beatroot.
See: Wikipedia/Dean Reed.
RENEGADE EYE

Iraq: Moral Militia

Kudos to Penguins in bondage.... for alerting me to this article in Timesonline from the UK.

Iraqis facing persecution from religious zealots, are not allowed political asylum in the USA, since Iraq is now a "democratic" country.




Young lovers court danger from puritan moral militia

From Daniel McGrory in Baghdad
The Times April 27, 2006

DATING is a dangerous game in Baghdad. Ali Ilhiam knows that holding hands with his teenage girlfriend could cost him a beating — or worse — from militant extremists.
“Boys can’t be seen walking and laughing with their girlfriends any more in the new Baghdad,” the 21-year-old university student said, glancing over his shoulder to make sure that he was not being watched. Friends of his have been dragged from their cars, imprisoned and threatened with death by self-appointed moral guardians for daring to link arms with their girlfriends in public.



An artificial lake on the banks of the Tigris, built by Saddam Hussein to cool one of his palaces, is among the few sanctuaries where Mr Ilhiam can still meet Murwa Majid, 19. Both are studying at nearby Baghdad University and skip lectures to spend a few minutes together.

They, like many of their friends, dread the approach of the summer holidays, when they will be separated, so they are planning to fail their exams so they can spend two months at college studying for resits.

“This is the only life we get,” Mr Iliam said. Gone are the days when he could go to a nightclub or a party with his girlfriend. “Baghdadis don’t go out any more after dusk. We are all prisoners now.”

Most cinemas and discos have closed, and the few restaurants popular with the younger crowd close at 8pm. Gunmen hang around former favourite haunts and check identity cards to make sure that couples are married.

Mr Iliam, a physical education student, wonders how much longer the Jadariyah Tigris park will remain a haven.

Three weeks ago a gang of militiamen driving on the main road that runs past the park spotted one of his friends while he was embracing his fiancée near the lake.

The gunmen chased the couple as they drove away and forced their vehicle off the road. The driver, a 29-year-old engineer, who would give his name only as Ahmed, was dragged from behind the wheel and pistol-whipped. His terrified partner, Wasan, 23, who is studying at the College of Science, was locked in the car and made to watch. The gunmen took the couple to a makeshift detention centre and warned them that if they were seen “misbehaving” again they would be shot. They have never returned to the lake.

In recent days two young women had battery acid thrown at their legs by Mehdi army members, who are loyal to the militant young cleric Moqtada al-Sadr. The victims were told that they were being punished for dressing inappropriately.

In Basra late last year a couple were ambushed while walking in the zoo. The man was shot dead and his young partner was partially blinded by the gunmen, who stripped and photographed her, saying that they would send the pictures to her family. She ran home and killed herself.

Mr Ilhiam recalled that holding hands with a girl was permissible under the regime of Saddam Hussein, but he expressed concern about the growing puritanism that is being enforced by both Shia and Sunni militias.

“This country has expired,” Murwa Majid said, nervously twisting a gold necklace that spelt out her name. “No matter what our new Prime Minister says, my generation is pessimistic. Life will not improve any time soon. This is not living.”

Ali Athra, 24, who was also in the park with her boyfriend, ran her hands through her long, black hair and said that if her usual taxi driver did not show up in the morning to take her to university she would quickly change her clothes and order another car.

“I run upstairs, tear off the jeans and top and put on the abaya (headscarf) and a long coat to my ankles,” she said.

“Girls don’t walk the streets alone any more. We used to shop, go dancing, have parties, until a few months after the downfall of Saddam, and bit by bit, every day, we feel more repressed.”
RENEGADE EYE

Nepal: King's Days Are Numbered

The last three months in Nepal have presented the deepest political crisis in the last decade in Nepal. In last two weeks, a general strike has paralyzed the country, and signal the monarchy is on the verge of being destroyed. China provides luke warm support to the monarchy, otherwise it's isolated. It is on its last days.

The mass movement is led by a coalition of the Nepalese congress, a seven party coalition called the Seven Parties Alliance, and Maoist insurgents who control about 60% of the countryside. All segments of society including judges, lawyers, trade unions, peasants etc have come out against the monarchy. The general strike is open ended, will go on until the monarchy is gone. No going back to the status quo.

The Maoists have been involved in the last several years in skirmishes against the army, known to be barbaric. They recently called for a cease fire to expose the inflexibility of the monarchy. This tactic increased the Maoist's support. The Maoist's support the program of the Seven Party Alliance's call for non violent change, and new parliament to form a new government.

The question is how will the pro-bourgeois elements of the movement maneuver? The Maoists must go beyond calling for the king to step down. Their base is rural, while the movement against the king is urban. Maoists in the trade unions, generally neglect worker's issues, and organize them to support country side struggles. What is needed is an urban/rural alliance to overthrow the feudal system. The Maoists are content to build a parliamentary government, than in the late, late future establish socialism.

The general strike movement is far reaching, and moves faster than its leadership. The rulers of India, Pakistan and US, call on the king to step down. The Maoists will be integrated into a parliamentary system. They seem satisfied with that.

Nepal alone can't establish socialism. It would have allies with workers and peasants in India, Pakistan and Tibet.
RENEGADE EYE

Dinner Party Game2

My most far reaching post was my dinner game post. I was linked to by several bloggers, I never knew of before.

The Rules:

1) You can invite any four people, living or dead, from any period in history.

2) If you played before, use different guests,

I'll start.

V.I. Lenin

Diego Rivera

Astor Piazzolla (tango composer)

Salma Hayek

Last year I invited to the party: Leon Trotsky, Keira Knightly, Carl Sagan and Pablo Picasso.

RENEGADE EYE

Daniel Pipes On Iraqi Civil War

This is from the April 11, 2006 WorldSocialist Web Site, the most widely read Socialist site on the internet.

Daniel Pipes, the director of the neo-conservative Middle East Forum and a vociferous supporter of the invasion of Iraq, is not an inconsequential figure in the American political establishment. His writings consistently articulate and refine the views of the extreme right in the United States, a layer that exerts considerable influence over the policies of the Bush administration. It is therefore noteworthy when such an individual begins publicly arguing that a sectarian civil war in Iraq would be to the strategic advantage of US imperialism. One can conclude that similar views are prevalent in Washington’s corridors of power.

Pipes first presented what he views as the advantages of an Iraqi civil war in an article published by the New York Sun on February 28—six days after the destruction of the Shiite Muslim Al-Askariya mosque by suspected Sunni Muslim extremists and amid the reports that Shiite militias were carrying out revenge killings of Sunnis. He expanded on the theme during a visit to Australia in March, in interviews given to Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) television and radio current affairs programs.

The core of Pipes’ argument is that a fratricidal conflict between Sunni and Shiite Iraqis, whatever the death toll and however tragic for the Iraqi people, would have definite benefits for American strategic, economic and military interests in the Middle East.

Pipes’ calculations are completely ruthless. The US and its allies invaded Iraq on false pretexts, including that of establishing “democracy”. Yet Pipes rejects completely that the United States has any obligations toward the population. “Iraq’s plight is neither a coalition responsibility nor a particular danger to the West,” he wrote in the New York Sun.

Instead, the catastrophe unfolding in Iraq could have positive consequences, according to Pipes. In the short term, he asserts that a civil war would “reduce coalition casualties” as Iraqis “fight each other”. Pipes also argues that there would be fewer terrorist attacks on US and allied targets outside Iraq as networks like Al Qaeda—which is based on Sunni extremism—would focus their attention on a sectarian war against Shiites. He wrote: “When Sunni terrorists target Shiites and vice-versa, non-Muslims are less likely to be hurt.”

More importantly for Pipes, however, civil war in Iraq would end what he views as the dangerous talk of establishing democracy in Iraq or anywhere else in the Middle East. As far as Pipes is concerned, the masses of the region should not and cannot have democratic rights because they will not necessarily vote for the preferred candidates of Washington. To the extent that elections in Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine, Lebanon and elsewhere have given the population the chance to express their sentiments, large numbers of people have given their support to Islamic fundamentalist movements opposed to the American presence in the region—organisations that Pipes refers to as the “extreme enemies” of US interests.

Before the war, Pipes was indistinguishable from other neo-conservative ideologues who were justifying a US invasion of Iraq on the grounds it would inspire a democratic “revolution” in the Middle East. In an article published by the New York Post on February 11, 2003, Pipes argued that an American victory and the “successful rehabilitation” of the country “will bring liberals out of the woodwork and generally move the region toward democracy”.

Within a matter of months, as resistance to the US occupation developed, he had abandoned such talk. Pipes’ argued last month that Iraq is in “no position... to develop advanced institutions of democracy and capitalism”. By implication, the type of regime advocated by Pipes in Iraq is a pro-US dictatorship no less brutal than that of Saddam Hussein—after many hundreds of thousands more Iraqis have lost their lives in a sectarian bloodbath.

Elsewhere in the region, Pipes asserts that it will take “decades” before the people of the Middle East are ready to elect their own governments. A fervent defender of the Zionist state in Israel, Pipes is particularly outraged by the victory of Hamas in the Palestinian elections. While he rhetorically declares that democracy is a long-term goal, Pipes articulates the view of the US ruling class that no regime can be allowed that is not compliant with American interests.

From this standpoint, Pipes argues that a civil war in Iraq could be advantageous by providing a pretext for US military action against Iran and Syria. Open warfare between Iraqi Sunnis and Shiites, he wrote in the New York Sun, would most likely “invite Syrian and Iranian participation... hastening the possibility of an American confrontation with those states, with which tensions are already high”.

The American neo-conservatives make no secret of their ambitions for “regime-change” in Iran and Syria, which are currently regarded as obstacles to untrammeled US domination over the Middle East. An incredulous ABC radio journalist asked: “America can’t afford to take them on in open warfare, can it?” And Pipes bluntly replied: “America’s good at open warfare. It’s just not good at occupying countries.”

While Pipes repeats ad nauseum that a civil war in Iraq would be a tragedy, the obvious conclusion is that he believes the US has no interest in preventing one. The fact that such a figure can callously speak of the advantages of a sectarian bloodbath points to the possibility that agencies of the US government that share his views may have been involved in encouraging communal conflict. Numerous highly suspicious provocations, murders and bombings have occurred at particularly opportune times for the US occupation and the Bush administration.

More generally, American policy since the occupation of Iraq began has been to foment tensions between the country’s various religious and ethnic groups in order to weaken resistance to the US presence. A classic “divide and rule” strategy has been pursued.

Kurdish nationalist and Shiite fundamentalist organisations were promoted into positions of privilege and authority at the expense of the largely Sunni Arab elite that dominated under the Hussein regime. Almost as soon as the war was over, shadowy Sunni organisations began carrying out murderous and indiscriminate attacks on Shiite civilians. Thousands of Shiites have been killed. The Shiite fundamentalist parties have used the carnage to justify their collaboration with the US forces.

A considerable proportion of the US-recruited Iraqi military were members of Kurdish or Shiite militias. The Sunni population is deeply fearful of these sectarian formations, which fight alongside American troops against the largely Sunni-based resistance. The Shiite fundamentalist parties have used their control over security forces to unleash death squads against Sunni communities, to wipe out opponents and terrorise the population. Hundreds of Sunnis have been murdered after being detained by police.

Alongside the killings, there are now reports of ethnic cleansing. Thousands of people from different ethnic and religious backgrounds are being forced either by direct threats or the general escalation of violence to leave their homes in mixed neighbourhoods to find protection elsewhere.

The response of Pipes to this catastrophe in Iraq underscores the predatory and criminal nature of US foreign policy. The American ruling elite as a whole does not have one iota of concern for the lives, well-being or democratic rights of the masses in the Middle East or anywhere else. It is desperately seeking to establish US dominance over key strategic territory and crucial energy resources and markets for the benefit of American corporations and financial conglomerates.

Significantly, Pipes’ neo-fascist speculation on the benefits of barbarism in Iraq has produced hardly a word of comment, let alone criticism, in the American and Australian press or political establishment.
RENEGADE EYE

Kurdish unrest stirs again in Turkey

On Turkish television Turkey's Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul, announced Turkey has received pledges of support in its struggle against the Kurdish "Marxist" group PKK (Turkey's Kurdish Workers Party) from Damascus and Tehran.

The PKK revolt centered in the Turkish city of Diyarbakir started in 1984. Since that time 37,000 people have perished in the fighting. The most recent fighting is unique, is that Turkey has received the support of neighboring countries. They plan to also negotiate with the Baghdad.

Syria and Iran also face the possibility of revolt of their Kurdish populations. They also harbor dreams of a united Kurdistan. The Kurdish population in Northern Iraq, actually have some degree of autonomy. They have been aiding the Kurdish in Turkey, financially, and by giving refuge to PKK fighters.

If Kurdistan became independant; it would carve up borders in Iran, Iraq, Syria, Turkey, and the Caucasus State. It would be greater than any of the "color revolutions" in Ukraine and Georgia. Energy agreements would have to be renegotiated. It could inspire other national groups to revolt.

Ankara has been making serious military alliances, particularly since Kurdish in Northern Iraq, negotiated an oil deal with Norway, independant of Baghdad.

Islamic units fighting against Kurdish independance, can provide a diversion from their fighting the West, Russia or Israel. Allies may convince the Kurdish, that independance is reachable.

Recently US intelligence and Turkey, have been working against the PKK in Turkey. It is geared to eliminating the PKK's influence in Northern Iraq.
RENEGADE EYE

Hitchens On The Third Anniversary of the Iraq War And Occupation

Reason Magazine and Slate, had opinions by Christopher Hitchens, on the third anniversary of the Iraq occupation.

ReasonOnline at 03/17/06, asked several conservative and libertarian writers, if they changed their mind about the Iraqi occupation. They were all asked the same three questions. This is Hitchens response:

1. Did you support the invasion of Iraq?


Yes: I was an advocate before the fact, not a supporter.

2. Have you changed your position?


Not in the least: I wish only that Saddam had not been able to rely upon Russian and French protection and the influence of oil-for-food racketeers and other political scum.

3. What should the U.S. do in Iraq now?


The United States and its allies should continue to stand for federal democracy, while making Iraq a killing-field for jihadists and fascists and a training ground for an army that will need to intervene again in other failed state/rogue state contexts.

As for the second point, I have some memory of a third party, that had something to do with the oil for food program. Iraqi people are facing more hardship, now that the oil for food program is being discontinued.

My reaction to the third point, is to tell Hitchens, the joke is on you. I believe some neocons and Bush, authentically entered this situation with a sense of idealism. Days after the invasion of Iraq, the idealism ended. The neocons were heard from less. The world view of Cheney and Rumsfeld prevailed. The US's best friends are Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Israel. All US imperialism wants to do is contain Islamism. Islamism is similar to imperialism, as both based on profit and reaction.

The March 20th Slate, has Hitch again telling us about Iraq.

Up until now, I have resisted all urges to assume the mantle of generalship and to describe how I personally would have waged a campaign to liberate Iraq.

Not quite true. I can live with that statement.

This commitment doesn't override truth, and I know that a lot of people feel that they were cheated or even lied into the war. It seems amazing to me that so many people have adopted the "Saddam Hussein? No problem!" view before the documents captured from his regime have even been translated, let alone analyzed. I am sure that when this task has been completed, history will make fools of those who believed that he was no threat, had no terror connections, was "in his box," and so forth. A couple of recent disclosures lend some point to my view. The first are the findings published in the most recent issue of Foreign Affairs, and the second is the steady work of Stephen Hayes, over at the Weekly Standard, aimed at getting some of the captured documents declassified.

Things changed from Saddam had WMD, to he had intentions, to we have documents that say something.

Well, if everyone else is allowed to rewind the tape and replay it, so can I. We could have been living in a different world, and so could the people of Iraq, and I shall go on keeping score about this until the last phony pacifist has been strangled with the entrails of the last suicide-murderer.

What the hell is that supposed to mean?? Maybe he means,“Mankind will not be free until the last king is stranged with the entrails of the last priest"- Diderot.

Hitchens announced he is part of the ACLU lawsuit against wiretaps. He announced it at Huffington's blog. Why not announce it in The Wall Street Journal or Reason? Shouldn't the Huff and Puff people be strangled?

This post represents an obvious direction change. The process of blogging, not only changes readers of blog, it changes writers. My initial support of the Iraq invasion, wasn't based on support of the invasion, as much as not being able to identify with the stupid arguments brought by the Democratic Party.

I like Maryam Namazie's blog. Her party with branches in Iraq and Iran, are unequivocally against both Islamism and occupation. I love Edie's blog Annotated Life. Read her articles about the history of neoconservativism and Islamism.
RENEGADE EYE

Wishing Tina's Baby All The Best

Tina from the blog fuzzy and blue --political musings by a proud Democrat baby girl, is having a major eye surgery on Wednesday. If you read her blog, you'll find she is a person of substance. I always tell her, the Democratic Party, doesn't deserve having her. Go to her blog, and write her a note.RENEGADE EYE

Target Cuba and Venezuela: US Military Exercises in the Caribbean

According to a press release by US Southern Command, on March 27, 2006; a US Navy Carrier Strike Group, will deploy from the US east coast to the Caribbean Sea from early April to late May 2006. It will consist of four ships, with 60 fighter planes, and 6,500 troops.

The stated reasons are; "enhancing military-to-military relationships with regional partner nations, improving operational readiness, and fostering good will." By "fostering good will" what is meant is sending a strong message to Venezuela and Cuba. The commander of the US Southcom General Bantz Craddock, has on many occasions attacked Venezuela. Two weeks ago to the US Senate, he called Venezuela, "a destabilizing force".

The US is bogged down in Iraq, and has no immediate plans to invade Venezuela, it certainly is on the table for future plans.

SEE: In Defense of Marxism
RENEGADE EYE

I WAS TAGGED AGAIN

The Blogworld as I know it changed this evening... I've been tagged! It was inevitable... you blog... you become friends with fellow bloggers.... and ZONK!!! they get you when you're not looking.
El Patro's Tijuana Tortilla did it to me... So now I'm obligated to tag four others....
But first I have to answer the following questions... then I'll name the four I'm tagging. They will have to answer the same questions... and tag four other bloggers. This should be done on their own site... but link me to it when you do...
So... here goes... the questions; I chose to rewrite the questions El Patro sent, due to I was tagged just recently.

1) What are your guilty pleasures??
Professional wrestling and romantic comedy movies.

2) What song is your theme song?
"Ring of Fire"

3) You receive $20.00 change in a retail store. The correct change is
$1.00. What do you do?
I already gave back the 20.

4) You know your friend's husband has another lover. Tell wifey?
No, I'll end up with two enemies.

5) Who do you admire, that would surprise others?
I think Clint Eastwood is one of the greatest artists in history.

OK, so time to tag 4 other people. Well, here goes, and everyone check these blogs out, they’re all great..

Blurred Clarity

CLAY CANE

Folk Rock Girl (FRoG BLoG)

jaebrysonblog

SUPPORT PAKISTANI BLOGGERS

As you all know that the Pakistani govt. banned all blogs hosted on
blogspot through its internet gateway. An action group was formed by the
Pakistani bloggers to voice their concerns to the media regarding this
issue (http://groups.google.com/group/AGABBIP). As of 27th Feb, all web
logs having an address with .http://name.blogspot.com went offline in
Pakistan.An alternative to the current blogspot ban is to access you blogs
by http://www.pkblogs.com/

Dr. Awab Alvi (a blogger from Karachi) started a campaign "Dont Block the
Blog" which offers website banners to protest the ban.
(http://help-pakistan.com/main/dont-block-the-blog/)

Additionally, many bloggers have also gathered at various fronts to
protest the ban by sending group petitions to the government and raising
the issue with the media.

Sign the petition.
Reprinted from the Pakistani blog My Red Diary.
RENEGADE EYE

Maryam Namazie: Freedom of Expression: No ifs and buts

The above was Maryam Namazie's speech at a free speech march in Trafalgar Square in London on March 25, 2006.

* In Iran, Tehran bus workers demanding their rights have been arrested, including their wives and children, and some tortured.
* In Afghanistan, teachers defending the right of girls to an education are threatened with death.
* In Iraq, women's rights activists are threatened for demanding equality and freedom.
* In Iran, journalists who published a satirical article comparing the advent of Khomeini to AIDS are languishing in prison...
* In Yemen, Mohammad Al Asadi, an editor, is facing execution for recounting how Mohammad approved of the killing of a woman who had insulted him.

The list is endless...

Too many more nameless, faceless human beings across the globe are maimed, threatened, killed, bound and gagged for speaking out and expressing themselves.

And it's not just 'over there', but right here...

* A website in Sweden publishing the Mohammad caricatures is shut down.
* Editors are fired in France.
* The Behzti play is shut down after Sikhs are offended by it.
* A Scottish cancer charity is intimidated into not accepting money raised by Jerry Springer the Opera.
* Writers living and writing here, including myself, are threatened to death on threads of umma.net.
* People are arrested and summoned to court for carrying placards or flyers with the Mohammad caricatures on them [in fact Reza Moradi was told he will be summoned to court for 'offending' someone because he carried a placard with the Mohammad caricatures at the March 25 free speech rally - more on this later].

Clearly, free speech and expression are not luxuries or western values. They are essential for people everywhere.

And what more and more people are standing up and saying after government upon government and organisation upon organisation demanded apologies for the Mohammad caricatures and gave them on all our behalves is that they are not up for sale.

We know better.

Any limits on free speech & expression are really attempts by those in power or vying for power to limit our rights and the rights of the population at large.

Don't be duped into thinking otherwise.

And that is why the defence of free speech and expression are so intrinsically linked to the defence of other rights. You cannot defend one without the others. You cannot defend one without also defending the right to asylum, the right to strike and organisation, labour rights, women's and children's rights, the right to live in a secular society, the right to equality and freedom, universal rights, the right to religion and atheism and belief as a private matter, the right to live lives worthy of 21st century humanity and of course vice versa. You cannot defend humanity without defending its right to speak and express itself...

For this, nothing can be deemed sacred except the human being.

Defining certain expressions and speech as sacred is merely a tool for the suppression of society; saying speech and expression offends is in fact an attempt to restrict it.

And of course what is held most sacred and deemed to offend the most especially in this New World Order is criticism and ridiculing of religion and its representatives of earth.

Why do it if it offends? Because it must be done.

Because ridiculing is a form of criticism, is a form of resistance, is a serious form of opposing reaction!

Whilst we may all be sometimes offended by some things, it is religion and the religious that are offended all of the time. They alone seem to have a monopoly on being offended, saying their beliefs are a no go area, and silencing all those who offend.

And don't think this reactionary rightwing political Islamic movement is only offended by a criticism of Islam or Mohammad. [I am focusing on this because it is a movement in power.] It is offended if you hold hands on the streets, have sex outside of marriage; it is offended if you are unveiled or improperly veiled; it is offended if you listen to certain music or if you teach evolution and science or if you dare to teach girls; it is offended if you are gay; if you are a woman; – many of which are by the way punishable by death or at the very least flogging and imprisonment in many countries under the rule of Islam....

It is interesting how the political Islamic movement kills, it maims, it humiliates - with Islam as its banner - and we are not even allowed to ridicule and criticise it.

Religion considers a woman as worth half a man, gays as perversions, sex outside of marriage as sinful, and so on and so forth but it is a few caricatures that are offensive!

Offensive or not, sacred or not - religion and superstition – Islam, Christianity, Hinduism, Judaism, Scientology and so on - must be open to all forms of criticism and ridicule.

It must be first and foremost because religion is not something from eras past but because it is as a political movement wreaking havoc across the world. Not a second passes without some atrocity being committed by it. It hangs people from cranes and lamp posts, it stones people to death – in the 21 century – with the law even specifying the size of the stone to be used, it amputates and decapitates.

It must be criticised and ridiculed because that is how throughout history reaction was pushed back.

That is how throughout history society has managed to advance and progress.

Why this should be seen as an attack on Muslims or Christians or Sikhs or Scientologists per se is beyond me. Is an attack on the belief and practice of Female Genital Mutilation an attack on girls who have been mutilated? Is the criticism of Israeli state terrorism an attack on Jews? Is an attack on the BNP that promotes Christian culture or the Christian Council of Britain it has recently established, or the ridiculing of Jesus racism against Christians? No of course not. And the same applies to the Muslim Council of Britain, Hamas, the Islamic Regime in Iran and the Mohammad caricatures.

Islamophobia - and now by the way the Church has asked that Christianity-phobia also be included in UN rights terminology – none are racism because criticisms of a religion, idea, a belief and even the practices that result from beliefs – even a phobia and hatred against beliefs have nothing to do with racism against real live human beings.

Saying it is so is merely part of the effort to make it such in order to silence criticism of religion and the political movement that holds it up as its banner.

The world is today threatened and taken hostage by two poles of terrorism. The state terrorism led by the United States on the one hand and the political Islamic movement on the other share a lot more than they let on. After all they were former friends and many of them still are. Both use religion to attack the gains made by humanity in centuries past. Both defend religion and use it.

Freedom of speech and expression are one of the few means at the disposal of many to resist this terrorism and its attack on universal values and norms.

We must defend it unconditionally. There can be no ifs and buts.

See: Maryam Namazie. Maryam Namazie is a producer of TV International English, a member of the Central Council of the Organisation for Women's Liberation and Director of the Worker-communist Party of Iran's International Relations Committee. She is also co-editor of WPI Briefing.
RENEGADE EYE

France: Protest Job Bill

After a weekend of protest, where 1.5 million people took to the streets. The labor unions have called a general strike to protest what they call, a new dangerous law.
The law would allow employers to fire people under age 26 without cause within two years of being hired.

Read Jerome a Paris's Blog in The European Tribune. It refutes the neoliberal arguments, found in the international press. The press portrays the government and big business as forward thinking, while portraying the victims as protectionist and selfish.

Thank you Histologian. Please visit this well written Greek leftist blog.
RENEGADE EYE

Afghanistan:Christian convert faces death penalty in Afghanistan

UNDER TALIBAN

The leader of Afghanistan's puritanical Taliban militia has issued an edict imposing the death penalty on any Afghan Muslim who converts to Christianity or Judaism, an official radio report said Monday.

The decree from Taliban Supreme Leader Mulla Mohammad Omar also said anyone caught selling "anti-Islamic literature" would be sentenced to five years jail, according to state-run Radio Shariat.
AFP, Jan.8, 2001

Abdul Rahman, 41, was arrested last month after his family accused him of becoming a Christian, Judge Ansarullah Mawlavezada told Associated Press. The accused was charged with rejecting Islam.

He admitted to converting to Christianity 16 years ago, while working as a medical aide in a Christian relief group helping Afghan refugees in the Pakistani city of Peshawar.

The prosecutor is willing to drop the charges, if Rahman converts back to Islam.

Shariah law states that any Muslim who rejects Islam should be sentenced to death, according to Ahmad Fahim Hakim, deputy chairman of the state-sponsored Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission. Repeated attempts to impose a jail sentence were barred.

For information see: Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan RENEGADE EYE

Maryam Namazie: Not Another Iraq

On the anniversary of the war on Iraq, we watch on our TV screens with complete disbelief and horror at the abyss that was once a country albeit a dictatorship. Though we always said this would happen, it is still so hard to believe that things can actually always get so much worse than we had allowed ourselves to imagine.

U.S. Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld says that terrorists in Iraq are attempting to stoke sectarian tension and spark civil war. What else did he really expect when all they have done is divide and compartmentalise the country into ethnic and religious blocks via their own form of state terrorism?

The current situation is a direct result of the USA's war and policies on Iraq. Of course Islamic terrorists are taking advantage of the situation to gain access to power – though some have already been mainstreamed into the Iraqi government, thanks to the USA. They too have turned Iraq into their killing fields.

As every day goes by, it becomes painfully clear for all that neither the Islamist herds, nor the ethnocentric gangs and thugs let loose on society, nor the US-led 'liberators' can bring about a humane and 21st century solution to this swamp that was once called Iraq. They are in fact themselves the problem.

And in all this tragedy and chaos, UK Foreign Secretary Jack Straw says he wants to help the Iranian people have a freer and more prosperous future – that the Iranian people deserve better! Isn't that what they said about the people of Iraq and Afghanistan! And we have seen the prosperity they have brought for them!

To Jack Straw and Donald Rumsfeld: Please, if anyone is going to and can bring freedom, equality and prosperity, it is not you but the revolutionary movement fighting for the overthrow of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Your alternative is no alternative at all but more of the same.

Stand back and let us show you how it's done.

See: Maryam Namazie. Maryam Namazie is a producer of TV International English, a member of the Central Council of the Organisation for Women's Liberation and Director of the Worker-communist Party of Iran's International Relations Committee. She is also co-editor of WPI Briefing.

Spike Lee On George Clooney's Oscar Statement

Director SPIKE LEE has criticised GEORGE CLOONEY for highlighting GONE WITH THE WIND actress HATTIE McDANIEL's 1940 Oscar triumph as an example of Hollywood's "forward-thinking".
While accepting his Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor earlier this month (05MAR06), Clooney fired back at critics who claim Hollywood is out of touch by citing McDaniel's win.
Lee says, "To use that as an example of how progressive Hollywood is is ridiculous. Hattie McDaniel played MAMMY in Gone With the Wind.
"That film was basically saying that the wrong side won the Civil War and that black people should still be enslaved.
"C'mon! I like George a lot. I'm not hating on him. But I don't think he really thought it out.
"How many years was it between Hattie McDaniel and HALLE BERRY (winning an acting Oscar)? Sixty-some-odd? C'mon!"
RENEGADE EYE

Sistani On Gays

The moderating force in Iraqi Islam, the major leader of the Shiite majority, on what should be the fate of gays and lesbians:

"The people involved should be killed in the worst, most severe way of killing."

See: The Advocate.
RENEGADE EYE

Free Up H5N1 Avian Flu Data

At this point 200 million birds have died or have been killed due to H5N1 Avian Flu, and 97 human beings died.

A leading scientist in the field of genetic sequencing, wants data on the disease, at tax payer financed Center for Disease Control (CDC) and The National Institutes of Health, to place virus sequencing data on an open open database. Steven Sulzberg believes if the US made such a move, other governments would follow.

The leading scientists have lived with in a "publish or perish" enviroment. That is ok for an abstract scientific study. Several thousand people die yearly from normal flu. This could be a pandemic catastrophe.

Even the World Health Organization keeps its data closed. A lone Italian researcher has cast a harsh spotlight on the WHO's system, suggesting that it places academic pride over public health - and snubbing it by posting prized bird-flu data in plain view.
RENEGADE EYE

MANIFESTO: Together facing the new totalitarianism

MANIFESTO:

After having overcome fascism, Nazism, and Stalinism, the world now faces a new totalitarian global threat: Islamism.

We, writers, journalists, intellectuals, call for resistance to religious totalitarianism and for the promotion of freedom, equal opportunity and secular values for all.

The recent events, which occurred after the publication of drawings of Muhammed in European newspapers, have revealed the necessity of the struggle for these universal values. This struggle will not be won by arms, but in the ideological field. It is not a clash of civilisations nor an antagonism of West and East that we are witnessing, but a global struggle that confronts democrats and theocrats.

Like all totalitarianisms, Islamism is nurtured by fears and frustrations. The hate preachers bet on these feelings in order to form battalions destined to impose a liberticidal and unegalitarian world. But we clearly and firmly state: nothing, not even despair, justifies the choice of obscurantism, totalitarianism and hatred. Islamism is a reactionary ideology which kills equality, freedom and secularism wherever it is present. Its success can only lead to a world of domination: man's domination of woman, the Islamists' domination of all the others. To counter this, we must assure universal rights to oppressed or discriminated people.

We reject "cultural relativism," which consists in accepting that men and women of Muslim culture should be deprived of the right to equality, freedom and secular values in the name of respect for cultures and traditions. We refuse to renounce our critical spirit out of fear of being accused of "Islamophobia," an unfortunate concept which confuses criticism of Islam as a religion with stigmatisation of its believers.

We plead for the universality of freedom of expression, so that a critical spirit may be exercised on all continents, against all abuses and all dogmas.

We appeal to democrats and free spirits of all countries that our century should be one of Enlightenment, not of obscurantism.

12 signatures

Ayaan Hirsi Ali
Chahla Chafiq
Caroline Fourest
Bernard-Henri Lévy
Irshad Manji
Mehdi Mozaffari
Maryam Namazie
Taslima Nasreen
Salman Rushdie
Antoine Sfeir
Philippe Val
Ibn Warraq
Presentations:
Ayaan Hirsi Ali
Ayaan Hirsi Ali, from somilian origin, is member of Dutch parliement, member of the liberal party VVD. Writter of the film Submission which caused the assasination of Theo Van Gogh by an islamist in november 2004, she lives under police protection.
Chahla Chafiq
Chahla Chafiq, writer from iranian origin, exiled in France is a novelist and an essayist. She’s the author of "Le nouvel homme islamiste , la prison politique en Iran " (2002). She also wrote novels such as "Chemins et brouillard" (2005).
Caroline Fourest
Essayist, editor in chief of Prochoix (a review who defend liberties against dogmatic and integrist ideologies), author of several reference books on « laicité » and fanatism : Tirs Croisés : la laïcité à l’épreuve des intégrismes juif, chrétien et musulman (with Fiammetta Venner), Frère Tariq : discours, stratégie et méthode de Tariq Ramadan, et la Tentation obscurantiste (Grasset, 2005). She receieved the National prize of laicité in 2005.
Bernard-Henri Lévy
French philosoph, born in Algeria, engaged against all the XXth century « ism » (Fascism, antisemitism, totalitarism, terrorism), he is the author of La Barbarie à visage humain, L’Idéologie française, La Pureté dangereuse, and more recently American Vertigo.
Irshad Manji
Irshad Manji is a Fellow at Yale University and the internationally best-selling author of "The Trouble with Islam Today: A Muslim’s Call for Reform in Her Faith" (en francais: "Musulmane Mais Libre"). She speaks out for free expression based on the Koran itself. Née en Ouganda, elle a fui ce pays avec sa famille musulmane d’origine indienne à l’âge de quatre ans et vit maintenant au Canada, où ses émissions et ses livres connaissent un énorme succès.
Mehdi Mozaffari
Mehdi Mozaffari, professor from iranian origin and exiled in Denmark, is the author of several articles and books on islam and islamism such as : Authority in Islam: From Muhammad to Khomeini, Fatwa: Violence and Discourtesy and Glaobalization and Civilizations.
Maryam Namazie
Writer, TV International English producer; Director of the Worker-communist Party of Iran’s International Relations; and 2005 winner of the National Secular Society’s Secularist of the Year award.
Taslima Nasreen
Taslima Nasreen is born in Bangladesh. Doctor, her positions defending women and minorities brought her in trouble with a comittee of integrist called « Destroy Taslima » and to be persecuted as « apostate »
Salman Rushdie
Salman Rushdie is the author of nine novels, including Midnight’s Children, The Satanic Verses and, most recently, Shalimar the Clown. He has received many literary awards, including the Booker Prize, the Whitbread Prize for Best Novel, Germany’s Author of the Year Award, the European Union’s Aristeion Prize, the Budapest Grand Prize for Literature, the Premio Mantova, and the Austrian State Prize for European Literature. He is a Commandeur of the Ordre des Arts et Lettres, an Honorary Professor in the Humanities at M.I.T., and the president of PEN American Center. His books have been translated into over 40 languages.
Philippe Val
Director of publication of Charlie Hebdo (Leftwing french newspaper who have republished the cartoons on the prophet Muhammad by solidarity with the danish citizens targeted by islamists).
Ibn Warraq
Ibn Warraq , author notably of Why I am Not a Muslim ; Leaving Islam : Apostates Speak Out ; and The Origins of the Koran , is at present Research Fellow at a New York Institute conducting philological and historical research into the Origins of Islam and its Holy Book.
Antoine Sfeir
Born in Lebanon, christian, Antoine Sfeir choosed french nationality to live in an universalist and « laïc » (real secular) country. He is the director of Les cahiers de l’Orient and has published several reference books on islamism such as Les réseaux d’Allah (2001) et Liberté, égalité, Islam : la République face au communautarisme (2005).

For more information see: Maryam Namazie. Feel free to reproduce this statement. Renegade Eye

Ali Farka Touré: 1939-2006

His name may be known for a grammy winning album with Ry Cooder called Talking Timbuktu. He could have recorded in any location he desired; New York, Paris, London etc. He recorded his guitar work, that gave him the title of the "Johnny Lee Hooker of Africa", in Mali. The recording equiptment was sometimes primitive, compared to what could be found in Los Angeles or New York.

When he played guitar, he got sounds out of it like you never heard before. You were transported to his village.

There is a theory, that American blues, was influenced by Muslim slaves in West Africa. An example is the "Muslim Call To Prayer" compared to "Levee Camp Holler". That theory is strengthened by his music.

Touré used his money to better his people in the town of Niafunké, where he was mayor. He also helped young African musicians succeed.

Kudos to Musings of a (Fairly) Young Contrarian.RENEGADE EYE