The Left
Hate’s enablers
Much is being said, and correctly so, about the right’s subtle and not-so-subtle enabling of armed wackos like James von Brunn. But may I repeat something I noted the other day? Cynthia McKinney, the 2008 presidential candidate of the Green Party, recently appeared on a racist radio program called The Information Underground, and she did not blink when her interviewer
Cynthia McKinney, fascist symp
Cynthia McKinney ran for President in 2008 on the Green Party ticket, supposedly as a more progressive alternative to Barack Obama. She received endorsements from such radical left heroes as Noam Chomsky, Mumia Abu-Jamal and the rap group dead prez. Her running mate was hip-hop activist Rosa Clemente, who, like McKinney, is supposedly a promoter of justice for people of
Jazz and Protest: A Reappraisal
My essay on jazz and protest is now online at Z Word.
JFREJ on Churchill, Part 2
[Cross-posted at Z Word.] An anonymous reader has suggested parodic verses along the lines of Caryl Churchill’s short play Seven Jewish Children: don’t tell them we sent a salami to our boy in the army no – don’t tell them that don’t tell them we gave their trust fund to bernie – no; don’t tell them that I love it,
JFREJ on Churchill
[Cross-posted at Z Word.] This Sunday, Jews for Racial and Economic Justice (JFREJ), the New York-based activist group, will dedicate part of its weekly WBAI radio program Beyond the Pale to a live reading of Caryl Churchill’s play Seven Jewish Children, to be followed by a discussion with the actors. Novelist Howard Jacobson has denounced the play as antisemitic. Churchill
Speaking nonsense to power
[Credit where it’s due: the above phrase is Bill Maher’s.] Because writeups of the band Propagandhi appear in this week’s Time Out and Philadelphia Weekly, right alongside my own work, I feel obliged to comment. I don’t know Propagandhi’s music. I do know their politics, however. The links to ZNet and to the likes of John Pilger tell you all
Atzmon PS
From another adulatory interview, this one by Martin Gibson in New Zealand’s Gisborne Herald (via Harry’s): There have been numerous attempts to silence Mr Atzmon, including inevitable charges that he is anti-Semitic, although he is Jewish himself. (Gibson fails to document one single such attempt to silence Atzmon.) Here is Atzmon, from the same interview: “One of the things that happened to
Airbrushing racism
[Cross-posted at Z Word and Harry’s Place.] Can you imagine a journalist for a liberal newspaper referring in neutral, even vaguely congratulatory terms to an artist’s “provocatively anti-gay rhetoric,” or “provocatively anti-black rhetoric,” or “provocatively anti-Arab rhetoric”? Well, have a look at John Lewis’s profile of Gilad Atzmon for the Guardian, in which we read about the saxophonist’s “provocatively anti-Jewish