others

Performed at the Vivian Beaumont Theater, Lincoln Center, New York

One of the biggest challenges for modern people trying to understand history is to conceive of the past beyond stereotypes. When we use Martin Luther King Jr. as an example of Civil Rights resistance, we must also consider the troops of housecleaners, preachers, construction workers, teachers and others earlier in the 20th century whose unyielding efforts made the movement work. In the 19th century, when we lionize Harriet Tubman and the brave people she brought to freedom, we must also cherish the imperfect people who did not escape. They are our Southern ancestors. And when we think of pre-Civil War America, we can’t simply conceive of black slavery and white masters – especially in New Orleans. We must consider the people of color who were both owners and, at various times and in various ways, enslaved.



That is the clear intention of the production, A Free Man of Color, by playwright John Guare and director George C. Wolfe Jr, which has just opened at New York’s Lincoln Center. It is a complex and intimate play, attempting to encompass the sweep of history from French colonial New Orleans to just after the Louisiana Purchase, including the influence of Spain, the United States and San Domingue (Haiti) on the sale

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As Christmas is celebrated in Incarceration Nation, it’s worth remembering certain things about the two figures who dominate this holiday.

As more than 3,000 American sit on death row, we revere the birth of a godly man who was arrested, “tried,” sentenced, and put to death by the state. The Passion is the story of an execution, and the Stations of the Cross trace the path of a Dead Man Walking.

Less well know is the fact that Saint Nicholas, the early Christian saint who inspired Santa Claus, was once a prisoner, like one in every 100 Americans today. Though he was beloved for his kindness and generosity, Nicholas acquired sainthood not only by giving alms, but in part by performing a miracle that more or less amounted to a prison break.

Saint Nick was a con, and scammed his way to a jail-break

Julian Assange, key initiator of Wikileaks, has been granted bail despite the British government’s appeal made in behalf of the Swedish government. A British district court judge had waited two days before approving bail in the amount of $ 316,000, on the condition that Assange wear an electronic tag, report to a police station daily, and comply with a 16-hour curfew allowing just eight hours of freedom from the “mansion arrest” in the house of a wealthy journalist/club owner.

At play here could well be documents Wikileaks released that show that US diplomats communicated with their State Department and White House bosses in Washington saying British troops in Afghanistan are not very good at the job. Brits are angry about this slur, especially given their long record of standing “shoulder to shoulder” with Bush’s in his terror wars.

Also, many Swedish politicians are angry after other Wikileaks documents exposing how, unknown to its parliament, Sweden’s military and secret services have long worked behind the scenes with NATO and have offered more assistance to the CIA than is legally permitted in supposedly neutral Sweden.

Assange wasn’t immediately released, as not all the bail money has been raised. It is difficult to get money to the defense, because the US government pressured conveyors of donations and website servers for Wikileaks’ homepage to end cooperation. Paypal, Visa, Mastercharge, Assange’s own Swiss bank, and other Establishment businesses have frozen Assange and wikileaks accounts and refused to process donations.

Oh, what to do about unemployment?

Try as it might to pump money into the economy and spur hiring, the Fed’s policy ain’t working. Don’t blame Keynes. For the stim to be effective, the cash needs to get to small businesses: the primary source of jobs in our country. Trouble is, the Fed’s counting on banks to circulate the extraordinarily low interest rate money it’s spouting.

The banks are hoarding the dough. In a recent New York Times article, Richard H. Clarida, a Columbia University economist, confirms that “bank lending, much of it to small and medium-size enterprises, has collapsed to an extent unprecedented in previous business cycles and continues to decline more than a year into recovery.”

As a small business owner myself, I can vouch for that.

Rather than take steps to ease the blockage, Fed Chair Ben S. Bernanke’s answer is to shove even more cash into our bloated system, as if making economic foie gras. (It kind of puts a new twist on the pejorative “pig”.) On October 19th, Times reporter Sewell Chan wrote that the Fed is adopting a “radical” move to lower long-term interest rates in a desperate attempt to foster employment. These moves echo Bush era policies that hyped the economy with a potent combo of low interest rates and easy credit. But there’s no easy credit -- in fact, far from it.

Ex-Lax for Bankers?

Berlin -- What do the USA, China, Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and North Korea have in common?

The answer may surprise you.

The European Parliament answered this question on October 2nd with passage of a resolution singling out that seemingly disparate list for criticism.

The embarrassing common thread among these six countries: an obsession with putting lots of people to death. The US, its key oil ally Saudi Arabia, its major trading partner China, its targeted enemies of Iran and North Korea, and its puppet ally Iraq all endorse the barbaric state-sanctioned practice of the death penalty, and lead the world in applying that terrible and irreversable sanction.