from Arthur Email Bulletin Message No. 0038…

Join Arthur Magazine and The Journal of Aesthetics and Protest for The Echo Park Social(ist) Aid & Pleasure Club every Thursday at
Little Joy public house at 1477 Sunset Blvd. LA , CA 90026
21+
9:30pm to last call
FREE
Don’t think it’s not possible that we will play the forthcoming NEIL YOUNG anti-war/anti-Bush album “LIVING WITH WAR” in its entirety at 10:30pm tonight (April 27).

http://livingwithwar.blogspot.com/

Let’s impeach the president for lying
And leading our country into war
Abusing all the power that we gave him
And shipping all our money out the door
He’s the man who hired all the criminals
The White House shadows who hide behind closed doors
And bend the facts to fit with their new stories
Of why we have to send our men to war

Let’s impeach the president for spying
On citizens inside their own homes
Breaking every law in the country
By tapping our computers and telephones
What if Al Qaeda blew up the levees
Would New Orleans have been safer that way
Sheltered by our government’s protection
Or was someone just not home that day?

Let’s impeach the president
For hijacking our religion and using it to get elected
Dividing our country into colors
And still leaving black people neglected
Thank god he’s racking down on steroids
Since he sold his old baseball team
There’s lot of people looking at big trouble
But of course the president is clean
Thank God

from the AFSC…

Trainings and Workshops
In our training workshops, we aim to build the capacity of young people and those who work with young people to address military enlistment issues within their own communities. More >

American Cinematheque

Sunday, May 14 – 6:30 PM

REPRISE
1997
195 min.
Dir. HervÈ Le Roux.

One of the monuments of contemporary documentary cinema ó and not only in France, REPRISE offers a provocative re-evaluation of the tumultuous and by now mythical events in May of 1968 and their aftermath. On June 10, 1968, students from the Parisian film school, IDHEC recorded the end of the strike at the Wonder Factory in Saint-Ouen. A young woman worker refused to go back to work. After director HervÈ le Roux saw a photograph of her in Cahiers du CinÈma he began a long search for this “heroine,” a search that charts the changes in French radical politics over the past 30 years.

“When we set up contacts with everyone in summer 1995, explaining our intentions, most people including the unionists asked, ëWe would like to contribute but who would ever be interested in these old stories?í I didnít want to make an antiquated or a nostalgic film. 20-year-olds consider it a historical film. It describes a vanished world: large industrial companies in left-wing suburbs, a kind of company culture, a sense of belonging which has disappeared and been replaced with insecurity, the fear of the loss of jobs. And yet, despite predictions by officials about the workersí situation, it remains basically unchanged, the way others predict the death of cinema.” ñ HervÈ Le Roux

Or download it as PDFs here…

COURTESY D. HOLLANDER

The Last Days of Tarquinz

“The critically-acclaimed Ziggurat Theatre Ensemble invites you to the legendary city of Tarquinz. This metropolis may be famous for its ornate palaces and domes, reflected in the shimmering waters of its lagoon. But the people of Tarquinz are all harboring a secret; a mystery which is theirs alone and which will only be shared with a select group of visitors. Eccentrics, lovers, liars and clowns conspire to make your visit to Tarquinz unforgettable and astonishing.”

New York Times -April 23, 2006

Young Officers Join the Debate Over Rumsfeld

By THOM SHANKER and ERIC SCHMITT

WASHINGTON, April 22 ó The revolt by retired generals who publicly criticized Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld has opened an extraordinary debate among younger officers, in military academies, in the armed services’ staff colleges and even in command posts and mess halls in Iraq.

Junior and midlevel officers are discussing whether the war plans for Iraq reflected unvarnished military advice, whether the retired generals should have spoken out, whether active-duty generals will feel free to state their views in private sessions with the civilian leaders and, most divisive of all, whether Mr. Rumsfeld should resign.

In recent weeks, military correspondents of The Times discussed these issues with dozens of younger officers and cadets in classrooms and with combat units in the field, as well as in informal conversations at the Pentagon and in e-mail exchanges and telephone calls.

To protect their careers, the officers were granted anonymity so they could speak frankly about the debates they have had and have heard. The stances that emerged are anything but uniform, although all seem colored by deep concern over the quality of civil-military relations, and the way ahead in Iraq.

The discussions often flare with anger, particularly among many midlevel officers who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan and face the prospect of additional tours of duty.

“This is about the moral bankruptcy of general officers who lived through the Vietnam era yet refused to advise our civilian leadership properly,” said one Army major in the Special Forces who has served two combat tours. “I can only hope that my generation does better someday.”

An Army major who is an intelligence specialist said: “The history I will take away from this is that the current crop of generals failed to stand up and say, ‘We cannot do this mission.’ They confused the cultural can-do attitude with their responsibilities as leaders to delay the start of the war until we had an adequate force. I think the backlash against the general officers will be seen in the resignation of officers” who might otherwise have stayed in uniform.

One Army colonel enrolled in a Defense Department university said an informal poll among his classmates indicated that about 25 percent believed that Mr. Rumsfeld should resign, and 75 percent believed that he should remain. But of the second group, two-thirds thought he should acknowledge errors that were made and “show that he is not the intolerant and inflexible person some paint him to be,” the colonel said.

Many officers who blame Mr. Rumsfeld are not faulting President Bush ó in contrast to the situation in the 1960’s, when both President Lyndon B. Johnson and Defense Secretary Robert S. McNamara drew criticism over Vietnam from the officer corps. (Mr. McNamara, like Mr. Rumsfeld, was also resented from the outset for his attempts to reshape the military itself.)

But some are furiously criticizing both, along with the military leadership, like the Army major in the Special Forces. “I believe that a large number of officers hate Rumsfeld as much as I do, and would like to see him go,” he said.

“The Army, however, went gently into that good night of Iraq without saying a word,” he added, summarizing conversations with other officers. “For that reason, most of us know that we have to share the burden of responsibility for this tragedy. And at the end of the day, it wasn’t Rumsfeld who sent us to war, it was the president. Officers know better than anyone else that the buck stops at the top. I think we are too deep into this for Rumsfeld’s resignation to mean much.

“But this is all academic. Most officers would acknowledge that we cannot leave Iraq, regardless of their thoughts on the invasion. We destroyed the internal security of that state, so now we have to restore it. Otherwise, we will just return later, when it is even more terrible.”

The debates are fueled by the desire to mete out blame for the situation in Iraq, a drawn-out war that has taken many military lives and has no clear end in sight. A midgrade officer who has served two tours in Iraq said a number of his cohorts were angered last month when Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said that “tactical errors, a thousand of them, I am sure,” had been made in Iraq.

“We have not lost a single tactical engagement on the ground in Iraq,” the officer said, noting that the definition of tactical missions is specific movements against an enemy target. “The mistakes have all been at the strategic and political levels.”

Many officers said a crisis of leadership extended to serious questions about top generals’ commitment to sustain a seasoned officer corps that was being deployed on repeated tours to the long-term counterinsurgency operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, while the rest of the government did not appear to be on the same wartime footing.

“We are forced to develop innovative ways to convince, coerce and cajole officers to stay in to support a war effort of national-level importance that is being done without a defensewide, governmentwide or nationwide commitment of resources,” said one Army officer with experience in Iraq.

Another Army major who served in Iraq said a fresh round of debates about the future of the American military had also broken out. Simply put, the question is whether the focus should be, as Mr. Rumsfeld believes, on a lean high-tech force with an eye toward possible opponents like China, or on troop-heavy counterinsurgency missions more suited to hunting terrorists, with spies and boots on the ground.

In general, the Army and Marines support maintaining beefy ground forces, while the Navy and Air Force ó the beneficiaries of much of the high-tech arsenal ó favor the leaner approach. And some worry that those arguments have become too fierce.

“I think what has the potential for scarring relations is the two visions of warfare ó one that envisions near-perfect situational awareness and technology dominance, and the other that sees future war as grubby, dirty and chaotic,” the major said. “These visions require vastly different forces. The tension comes when we only have the money to build one of these forces, Who gets the cash?”

Some senior officers said part of their own discussions were about fears for the immediate future, centering on the fact that Mr. Rumsfeld has surrounded himself with senior officers who share his views and are personally invested in his policies.

“If civilian officials feel as if they could be faced with a revolt of sorts, they will select officers who are like-minded,” said another Army officer who has served in Iraq. “They will, as a result, get the military advice they want based on whom they appoint.”

Kori Schake, a fellow at the Hoover Institution who teaches Army cadets at West Point, said some of the debates revolved around the issues raised in “Dereliction of Duty,” a book that analyzes why the Joint Chiefs of Staff seemed unable or unwilling to challenge civilian decisions during the war in Vietnam. Published in 1997, the book was written by Col. H. R. McMaster, who recently returned from a year in Iraq as commander of the Third Armored Cavalry Regiment.

“It’s a fundamentally healthy debate,” Ms. Schake said. “Junior officers look around at the senior leadership and say, ‘Are these people I admire, that I want to be like?’ ”

These younger officers “are debating the standard of leadership,” she said. “Is it good enough to do only what civilian masters tell you to do? Or do you have a responsibility to shape that policy, and what actions should you undertake if you believe they are making mistakes?”

The conflicts some officers express reflect the culture of commander and subordinate that sometimes baffles the civilian world. No class craves strong leadership more than the military.

“I feel conflicted by this debate, and I think a lot of my colleagues are also conflicted,” said an Army colonel completing a year at one of the military’s advanced schools. He expressed discomfort at the recent public criticism of Mr. Rumsfeld and the Iraq war planning by retired generals, including Lt. Gen. Gregory S. Newbold, the former operations officer for the Joint Chiefs, who wrote, in Time magazine, “My sincere view is that the commitment of our forces to this fight was done with a casualness and swagger that are the special province of those who have never had to execute these missions ó or bury the results.”

But the colonel said his classmates were also aware of how the Rumsfeld Pentagon quashed dissenting views that many argued were proved correct, and prescient, like those of Gen. Eric K. Shinseki, the former Army chief of staff. He was shunted aside after telling Congress, before the invasion, that it would take several hundred thousand troops to secure and stabilize Iraq.

Others contend that the military’s own failings are equally at fault. A field-grade officer now serving in Iraq said he thought it was incorrect for the retired generals to call for Mr. Rumsfeld’s resignation. His position, he said, is that “if there is a judgment to be cast, it rests as much upon the shoulders of our senior military leaders.”

That officer, like several others interviewed, emphasized that while these issues often occupied officers’ minds, the debate had not hobbled the military’s ability to function in Iraq. “No impact here that I can see regarding this subject,” he said.

from April 21, 2006 Los Angeles Times

Neil Young’s harsh words
The rocker assails Bush in a new collection. “I was waiting for some young singer to write these,” he says.

By Chris Lee
Special to The Times

To anyone who’s followed Neil Young’s socially crusading, four-decade musical career, it was hardly a surprise to learn earlier this week that he’s just recorded a 10-song collection that takes President Bush to task and sharply criticizes the war in Iraq.

The real surprise for Young loyalists is that it took him so long. As the veteran rocker explains it, he was finally moved to record the album, “Living With War,” in a two-week burst of creativity after his patience with Generation Next ran out.

“I was waiting for someone to come along, some young singer 18 to 22 years old, to write these songs and stand up,” Young said. “I waited a long time. Then, I decided that maybe the generation that has to do this is still the ’60s generation. We’re still here.”

The album’s explosive centerpiece is “Let’s Impeach the President.” Over an urgent, guitar-driven backdrop, Young sings:

“Let’s impeach the president for abusing all the power we gave him and shipping all our money out the door.

Let’s impeach the president for bending the facts to fit their new story of why we have to send our men to war.”

In Young’s view, the number is more than simply a political diatribe; it’s an affirmation of free speech.

“You’re always going to rub somebody the wrong way when you sing ‘let’s impeach the president,’ ” Young said. “But that’s what this country’s all about ‚Äî being able to express your views.” Warner Bros. Records executives heard the 10-song set for the first time this week. Though news of the aggressive anti-Bush tone had already led to a flurry of comments on blogs. (Young’s manager, Elliot Roberts, also played the CD for The Times.)

But “Impeach,” with its mocking use of Bush sound bites, represents only one side of Young’s emotional reaction to the war in the CD.

The collection is by turns empathetic toward soldiers’ families and scornful of runaway consumer culture. With a nod to ’60s protest music, Young shares his optimism and outrage ‚Äî at social ills including religious zealotry and patriotism run amok.

There is more anger, most notably the reference to Bush’s famous 2003 “one victory” remarks against the backdrop of a “Mission Accomplished” banner atop an aircraft carrier deck, which the singer ridicules in the song, “Shock and Awe.”

“Living With War” concludes with a deeply emotional version of “America the Beautiful,” with Young backed by a 100-member choir. Young, a Canadian-born longtime resident of the U.S. whose career started in the ’60s, joins other high-profile artists who’ve recently recorded politically minded pop songs. Pearl Jam’s “World Wide Suicide” addresses “a world of pain” in which “war has taken over.” The song recently topped rock radio.

The Dixie Chicks’ new single, “Not Ready to Make Nice,” takes up where group member Natalie Maines’ 2003 anti-Bush comment (about the group being ashamed that the president was from Texas) left off. And next month, Paul Simon, another ’60s crusader, will release his album “Surprise,” which includes the song “Wartime Prayers,” a disheartened meditation about psychic war wounds.

Last month at the South by Southwest Music Conference in Texas, conference organizer Roland Swenson recalled Young’s “Ohio,” written after the Kent State shootings. Addressing Young, who was the conference’s keynote speaker, he said, “Mr. Young, we need another song.”

And so he set out to do just that.

Rather than merely a protest, Young wanted “Living With War” to amplify the public sentiments he’s encountered.

“It’s the people I’ve been talking to: people in restaurants, people in cars,” he said. “Whenever the talk gets around to what’s going on in the world, people are saying what’s on this record.”

On his website he said he tried to draw upon the ’60s folk protest tradition of writers such as Bob Dylan and Phil Ochs, only framing some of the songs in a harder “metal folk” style.

The album’s “Flags of Freedom” is the most direct homage to that tradition, echoing the anthem-ish undercurrents of Dylan’s “Chimes of Freedom.”

In Young’s song, he conjures the image of a girl listening to a Dylan song as she watches her brother march off to war.

“Have you seen the flags of freedom?

What color are they now?”

“Do you think that you believe in yours more than they believe in theirs?”

“I found Phil Ochs and Bob Dylan’s protest songs of the ’60s to be tremendously inspired,” Young said. “These people were writing from their souls about something that was happening in the country at that time. Civil rights, the injustices in society ‚Äî they were huge. It’s good to have a voice.”

Or 100.

Young said he enlisted that many back-up singers because he liked the metaphorical weight of having “100 voices from 100 lands.” One vocalist, Alicia Morgan, wrote about the atmosphere in the Los Angeles recording studio on her blog.

“The session was like being at a 12-hour peace rally,” she writes. “Every time new lyrics would come up on the screen, there were cheers, tears and applause. It was a spiritual experience.”

When Young and Roberts played the CD for the Warner Bros. staff, the closing “America the Beautiful” moved some of the group to tears, according to one executive present.

“Living With War” marks another turn in the restless rocker’s long and varied career, arriving on the heels of recent dramatic events in his life. Young’s 87-year-old father died last June, just as the singer was recovering from a brain aneurysm discovered in March 2005, which required emergency neuroradiology.

Asked about the difficulty of maintaining his idealism, Young remained sanguine — and committed as ever to the democracy of ideas.

“I’m eternally optimistic,” he said. “Change doesn’t have to happen tomorrow. Maybe the day after tomorrow. The endgame is, when people hear it, it’s up to them to think whatever they want. And I can say whatever I want. We seem to be losing track of that.”