Journalism

It’s being called “the most ambitious commemoration of the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall outside of Germany”: “The Wall Project” in Los Angeles — and its political message will surprise many. Artists commissioned by the organizers have promised works that draw analogies between the Berlin Wall and the wall the Israelis have erected along the border with the West Bank, and the wall the US has erected along the Mexican border.

That’s not exactly the sort of thing Ronald Reagan had in mind when he stood in Berlin in 1989 and said “Tear down this wall!”
. . . continued at TheNation.com

Thursday’s “Day of Action” against draconian budget cuts at the University of California campuses brought thousands of people to rallies at all ten campuses.  At UC Berkeley, 5,000 students and workers, along with many faculty members, rallied at noon.  At the same hour at UCLA, 700 students and workers and a few faculty members gathered at Bruin Plaza.  And 500 rallied at UC Irvine, which Time magazine described as “normally placid.”

The normally placid UC Irvine is where I teach.

The best sign I saw at the UCI rally read “If I wanted to go to a private school, I would have been born into a rich family.”

. . . more at TheNation.com

The CIA-off-campus protests of the 1980s may need to be revived — this time addressed to President Obama.  The administration has asked Congress to establish a new “intelligence officer training program” at colleges and universities.  The proposal, buried in the 2010 intelligence authorization bill, would invite schools to apply for grants for courses that would “meet the needs of the intelligence community.”  Students taking the courses would have to receive security clearances. . . .

. . . continued at TheNation.com

Bentonville, Ark., may be unknown to most Americans, but it is the center of the world for some 750 corporations that manufacture consumer goods — because Bentonville is the legendary home office of Wal-Mart, and those corporations want to sell their products to the world’s largest retailer. It’s also the largest private employer in the nation, operator of 4,200 stores.  Bentonville is a key to understanding the success of Wal-Mart, historian Nelson Lichtenstein argues in his terrific book, The Retail Revolution: How Wal-Mart Created a Brave New World of Business.  . . .MORE in the LA Times Sunday Book Review HERE

Vacationing on Kauai, the westernmost of the Hawaiian islands, the only question most tourists ask is which beach to go to today – but visitors and locals alike were startled by Thursday’s news from Washington: a North Korean missile is now aimed at Hawaii, and Hawaii’s missile defenses are being fortified.

Does that mean it’s time to cancel the luau and get on the first plane home?

. . . continued at TheNation.com

This spring is the 40th anniversary of the Harvard strike, one of the iconic moments of 1960s student protest, but — strangely — the only notice thus far has been in the “Opinion/Taste” pages of the Wall Street Journal.

They’re still against it.

The strikers – I was one of them (as a grad student) — demanded an end to university complicity in the war (kicking ROTC off campus); an end to evictions of working-class people from property the university wanted to develop; and the creation of a black studies program.

“Strike to become more human,” said the famous poster with the red fist.

“Strike to abolish ROTC / strike because they are trying to squeeze the life out of you / Strike.”
. . . CONTINUED HERE

Somewhere men are laughing, and somewhere children shout; but there is no joy in Dodgertown: mighty Manny has struck out.

Manny Ramirez, the baseball superstar who led Los Angeles to a record-breaking winning streak at home this season, has been banned from baseball for 50 games.

. . . continued at TheNation.com

From the LA Times Book Review: Mark Rudd is the guy from the Weather Underground who is not Bill Ayers. Both were leaders of the group that worked for the violent overthrow of the United States government in the 1970s, but while Ayers remains unapologetic, Rudd is full of regrets.

Rudd is not Bill Ayers in other ways: Sarah Palin did not accuse Barack Obama of palling around with him, nor has he been featured on the New York Times op-ed page or interviewed on “Fresh Air With Terry Gross.” Instead, he has lived in obscurity, as a community college math teacher in New Mexico, since the government dropped charges against him in 1977.
. . . continued HERE

“We have presidential elections as a substitute for serious democratic politics” — that’s what Andrew Bacevich says. He’s been writing and teaching history and international relations at Boston University, after spending 23 years in the army and retiring as a colonel.

What would serious democratic politics look like? First of all, Bacevich says, we need a real debate about the idea of a global war on terror. Then we need a debate on what he calls our “empire of consumption.”

. . . continued at the Huffington Post

Wed. June 18: I’m preempted on KPFK today for the fund drive . . . . but there is more stuff to read, at TheNation.com: my new piece “Warriors for Zion–in California”:

Columbia and Barnard aren’t the only campuses where right-wing Zionists have fought bitter campaigns in the name of defending Israel and Jewish students. The unlikely site of the latest battle, as intense and angry as anything in Manhattan, is the University of California, Irvine (UCI). I should know–I teach there.

While the campaigns at Columbia and Barnard failed to persuade those schools to deny tenure or otherwise penalize faculty members the right-wing Zionists found objectionable, at UCI the professor who occupies the chair in Jewish history, Daniel Schroeter, has decided to leave after being condemned for failing to support the right-wing Jews’ campaign. Thus that campaign has had its first big success–but instead of getting rid of a Palestinian professor, they’ve gotten rid of a Jewish one.
. . . continued at TheNation.com