Musical Interlude Nos. 4 & 5
Springtime for Palestine & Springtime for Julian Assange
Liner Notes
I have read recent comments by Antony Blinken in conversation with Mitt Romney. Apparently, the two of them agree: social media is to blame for Israel's bad PR in conducting its campaign of extermination against Palestinians. Both Mr. Blinken and Mr. Romney are a couple of schmoes, if you ask me.
I am not surprised by the scapegoating.
The wheels are falling off the post-WWII political-economic world order. Those who for decades have been at the steering wheel are feeling insecure and believe that they need to crack down before everything collapses. They feel the need to crack down on how people talk, how they communicate and, mostly, how they think. Because, as in Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four, if you can control the language and the vocabulary, then you can control the narrative.
War is Peace. Freedom is Slavery. Ignorance is Strength. 2+2 = 5.
So, Mr. Blinken, this first song in the musical interlude is for you - Springtime for Palestine.
Well, not really. You're going to have to find someone else to serenade you!
Rather, this song is for the Palestinian people and, in particular, for the residents of Gaza who have borne the brunt of Israels' recent pogroms.
I first thought that I would call this song From the River to the Sea, Palestine Must be Free. Just this last April, the House of Representatives, in a "bipartisan" resolution approved by a vote of 377 to 44, decreed that this phrase is "anti-Semitic." The phrase has literally disappeared from the interlocked western news media. Such is what happens when all of the news outlets - print, electronic, cinematic and digital - are controlled by a small and extremely wealthy clique.
The words "From the River to the Sea, Palestine Must be Free" are not anti-Semitic, they are not anti-Israel, and they are not derogatory. It is an aspirational statement no different than Martin Luther King’s oratory. He also went to the mountain and saw a vision of what could be and insight into what has been. They killed him for that insight, of course.
I know that there are other, far better, far more polished songs out there concerning Gaza and the Palestinians. Some of them are also titled, From the River to the Sea, Palestine Must be Free. For no other reason than that, I will keep the alternative name for my song, Springtime for Palestine. Eventually, the schmoes in Congress will probably seek to ban that phrase, as well. In that vein, the "Antisemitism Awareness Act" (approved by this same House of Representatives by a vote of 320 to 91) would require the U.S. Department of Education to adopt a definition of "antisemitism" that includes drawing comparisons between Israeli policy and Nazi Germany, among other supposedly false assertions.
Were it not so disgusting, this would be amusing to watch. Craven politicians of both parties (Mr. Biden and Mr. Trump included) stumble over themselves as they compete for campaign dollars from the Israel lobby and its affiliated super-wealthy donors. Equally disgusting are the elite university presidents and trustees who genuflect to this same collective Moloch that demands the sacrifice of the younger generation for the preservation of the political-economic status quo.
Meanwhile, as I galumph across the disingenuous sentiments of the Congress's bipartisan resolutions, I have no qualms about criticizing Israel or drawing stark comparisons with its totalitarian antecedents. Israel's policies - including 'collective punishment,' mass ‘preventative’ detention, ethnic cleansing and forced emigration - do, indeed, mirror those of Nazi Germany and also the earlier pogroms of Central and Eastern Europe. Paradoxically, Mr. Netanyahu's forebears (and my own) bore the brunt of these atrocities. Nevertheless, the current Israeli government seems to have learned nothing from these historical persecutions except how to persecute others.
Israel claims to be "the Jewish State," by which it has assumed the right to speak for all Jews everywhere.
But I wasn't asked.
I do not consent.
I reject the chutzpah for trying to patent the right to speak for my conscience. To my observation, there isn't very much of a Jewish ethos at all in the self-proclaimed Jewish State except for the most superficial observance of meaningless customs, cultural hang-overs from the shtetl, and shibboleths from the western imperial playbook.
Israel was established in 1948 as a coda to the Second World War. It was created from the "outside" by the "great powers" of Europe and the United States, rather like the arbitrary manner that they carved up eastern Europe into various artificial nation states at the end of World War I.1 The "great powers" of Europe and the United States repeatedly have done the exact same thing to the peoples of Africa and South America and Asia: they divide the population along religious or ethnic lines; they create statelets and class structures that must have Western military and economic support to survive; and they never consult the local inhabitants about their wish to be just left alone.
When the Western condominium of Europe and the U.S. created a "Jewish homeland" in Palestine, they absolved themselves of their own sins of omission and commission. In the process, they compounded, rather than rectified, the tragedy of the Holocaust: Palestine was already inhabited.
But this type of colonial mindset was nothing new. In similar fashion, North and South America were already occupied by original Americans before their lands, too, were sliced and diced, surveyed, sold, depopulated and colonized by Europeans.
Modern Israel was, indeed, a Euro-American colony. Since its inception, however, it has sought to slip its patrons' leash. Unfortunately, Israel endeavored less to be "free" of the colonial yoke than to become a colonizer itself. This, after all, is what the United States did when it broke away from the British Empire in 1776. Indeed, the State of Israel treats its 'native peoples' (the Palestinians) the same way that the United States wiped out most of the American Indians and forced the survivors onto reservations. It's the same way Australia sought to exterminate its aboriginal peoples. It's the same way Belgium tried to colonize and depopulate the Congo. It's the same way the English colonized Ireland. It's the same way the French colonized North Africa. It’s the way the Germans crushed the Herero in its Southwest African colony now known as Namibia. It's the same way the U.S. and all of Europe have tried to divvy up and exploit China from the 18th Century to the current day.
We know what happens next: politicians like Joe Biden and Donald Trump will cry crocodile tears. Old Joe will mumble something incomprehensible about Iceland and the Mauritians, and wring his hands. Old Don will bloviate about something equally incomprehensible about making America and Israel great again. The EU will moan and groan and then look away, as it has always done.
The feckless leaders of Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and the various emirs will twiddle their royal thumbs and stay in their foxholes. Egypt's Mr. Sisi (who is, apparently, 'elected' for life) will turn somersaults to retain his grip on power without antagonizing the American hegemon. Lots of folks will talk while the killing continues.
Meanwhile, the world's presidents and prime ministers will propose one or more duplicitous 'solutions,' such as the creation of a multi-national 'peace-keeping' force; the extension to Gaza of the "Palestinian Authority" as frontman for an expanded Israeli occupation; the further reduction and enclosure of Palestinian lands; the creation of new and more congested concentration camps; and the implementation of a series of "ceasefires" that the West and Israel will not abide by. There will also ensue a) an unrelenting propaganda campaign to re-rewrite history and, b) a shadow war of retribution and assassination such has already been going on for years between Israel and Iran.
Still, we can thank the Palestinians, at the cost of their own lives, for galvanizing and redirecting our attention away from a lot of trivial pursuits. For too long, we have all had a brass ring in our noses by dint of which we were led down the cul de sacs of energy-dissipating micro-causes and meaningless crusades. Now, at least, some of the students on our college campuses have finally awoken to the fact that they, and we, have been intentionally pwned and politically castrated.
They who are protesting about Gaza and American complicity are now engaged in one of the more important issues of our time. The State has coordinated all its might to bludgeon their resistance, just like it did to their grand-parents during the anti-Vietnam War movement, just like it did to those at the vanguard of the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s.
It would be funny were it not criminal.
In Seattle, where I live, you can't get a police officer to respond quickly (if at all) to any crime short of serial ax murders, first degree pronoun abuse or failure to provide narcotics on demand. In the year 2020, a cadre of self-proclaimed "anarchists" (the true motivating force behind which has never really been ascertained) occupied several Seattle blocks for three weeks and the Mayor indulged them by temporarily closing the nearest police station. Climate activists have blocked freeways. They have glued themselves to museum art. Such stunts were met with the most tender police ministrations.
Not so the pro-Gaza, anti-Israel demonstrations on America's university campuses. They were suppressed with a heavy hand, the truncheon and an iron heel. Rather like the way Israel treats the Palestinians all the time.
Censorship is nothing new in the United States. It's as American as apple pie. From the perspective of the ruling class, the First Amendment is just a historical curiosity, anyway. The State has never taken freedom of speech that seriously when it comes to core political-economic interests.
Decades ago, comedian Lenny Bruce was criminally prosecuted for 'obscenity.' Later, comedian George Carlin was persecuted for his "Seven Dirty Words" skit. Irish novelist James Joyce's novel Ulysses was banned because it was deemed 'pornographic.' In 1918, Socialist presidential candidate Eugene Debbs was sentenced to 10 years in prison for sedition for having uttered these word in public in opposition to the U.S. entering into World War I:
The master class has always declared the wars. The subject class has always fought the battles. The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject class has had nothing to gain and all to lose—especially their lives.
War-mongers always wrap themselves in the flag. They wave the bloody shirt of imaginary acts of heroism past. They claim the support of God while acting godlessly. Just this weekend, Ukraine's Vladimir Zelensky stated that "God... wears a chevron with a Ukrainian flag on his shoulder!"
Wow. That is one twisted metaphor.
Ukraine, however, is not alone in claiming the brand sponsorship of the Almighty. Zionists maintain that Greater Israel is God's plan. The United States claimed its "Manifest Destiny" to expand westward from the ocean to the sea and absorb the entire North American continent. I suppose that soon I will hear that God shops at Amazon Prime, wears Nikes and eats Wheaties for breakfast.
But I digress. These are supposed to be liner notes to some songs.
Springtime for Palestine is keyed in A minor. I composed it on my Gibson SJ200 acoustic with AR Rare strings. I typically use Martins and I am not yet used to the AR strings. They have a very clean sound, but they also feel like I am fingering suspension bridge cables.
There are imperfections in the recording. I thought about doing various things to "heal" the blemishes, but then thought better of it. "Folk music" is better au naturel than churned out as a canned studio production. I did add just a touch of reverb in Audacity, however, to round out the tone.
The song calls out for lyrics, but I haven't written any. You can write or sing some, if you like, in Arabic, Hebrew, French, Italian or Greek - or all of these languages, alternating one language per verse, one verse after another. Or send a digital recording to add as a parallel track.
I hear the singing, but I don't yet hear the words. Much like the world's reaction to what is happening in Palestine.
* * *
Springtime for Julian Assange is track two of this intermezzo. It's a double entendre, of course. I mean the best of the season and also the message that Mr. Assange should be 'sprung,' that is' released from prison.
The U.K. has imprisoned Julian Assange for years at the behest of the United States which seeks to extradite him. The whole extradition process could just be an Anglo-American farce, of course. The proceeding just drags on while Mr. Assange - who in my opinion didn't do anything criminal in the first place, except to publish the truth - languishes in one of the U.K.'s maximum security prisons wasting away with the passage of time. So much for the ‘rule of law.’
That is probably the point. They intend not so much to "punish" Mr. Assange, but to toy with him. Like a medieval prisoner gibbeted so as to rot slowly in public, his torment is intended as a warning to ordinary folks to shut up, tow the line and do as we're told. Otherwise, you, too, could be imprisoned. Or gibbeted. Or suicided.
This song is keyed in A♭ minor. It's a quicker tempo precisely to inspire an individual who probably is in need of a lot of inspiration right now. As all political prisoners must feel.
Again, I played the Gibson SJ200 with the AR Rare strings that sound good, but that are hell on my fingers. Feel free to suggest a percussion track or other accompaniment.
Springtime for Julian Assange is a little rough around the edges. I'll let Taylor Swift smooth them out.
* * * * *
In fact, neither the First nor the Second World Wars "ended." The single "Second Hundred Years War" is a class conflict that began, more or less, with Joan of Arc and continues to the present day. All of these wars - including the (not so cold) "Cold War" and the present war by NATO versus Russia and China - are not discrete. They are all connected. True, the war-makers took an occasional, and only local, breather; but usually only to re-arm. The wars themselves have continued unabated. And so they will until, perhaps one day, or perhaps never, humans become socialized and civilized.