ROD MANN: AWAKENING THE DIVINE WITHIN
by Elise McDonough
(excerpted from High Times October 2007)
Let's talk about the beginning of this project, before you even started
shooting. Why did you decide to make this type of movie?
It grew out of a class on altered states of consciousness I took at CIIS [California Institute of Integrated Studies] taught by Ralph Metzner. I was inspired by an interview he'd done with Peter Jennings involving a report on MDMA debunking the Ricaurte study. It was proven that MDMA was not actually tested in a study that showed brain damage as the result of Ecstasy use; instead, it was methamphetamine that produced these harmful results.
It was a very powerful piece, and it inspired us to start work on this movie that we had been talking about for a long time.
The film started out as a cataloging of the contemporary studies at UCLA, Harvard and around the world that are using entheogenic and psychedelic compounds as adjuncts to psychotherapy. We began unfolding the origins of shamanic use and added a chapter on shamanism, and then got into the use of psychedelics in indigenous cultures as rites of passage. Then we had to explain the importance of rites of passage, and then the focus of the film changed: It became more about this cycle of what went wrong in the 60s and 70s -- and
now this renaissance in psychedelic use, this resurgence.
What do you hope people will take away from this movie after they see it?
I hope there will be an experience of understanding the many ways that we all find to participate with some form of expression, whether it be poetry, hip -hop, trance dancing, surfing, race-car driving -- any of the various ways in which you can interact with the edge of tension and transcend the internal chatter. It's about honoring the many ways that we find flow, which is about being able to improvise and react in the moment, because through flow we find balance in our lives.
In many ways, this film tells the collective visions and stories of that which is ineffable to the one but tangible through the eyes of the many. So you have many different, beautifully passionate and inspiring individuals, all talking towards this same collective psyche, and about patterns in the evolution of consciousness through the origins of indigenous cultures practicing animism and shamanism, and how that influenced Western thought.
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Click here to listen to an audio podcast interview with Rod Mann on In a Perfect World
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
John Marks talks about his film "Shape of the Future"
Middle East Peace Documentary Airs Simultaneously to Israelis, Palestinians
August 8, 2005
(Re-Printed from Voice of America news.com)
"The convention is that when you make a documentary about the Middle East conflict, it's full of bloodshed and historical footage. We've made a documentary series that has neither blood nor historical footage," says writer-producer John Marks. “In other words, we're trying to talk about the future. We're trying to show people that peace is possible, that it can be achieved, and that people really don't have to live in a conflict for their entire life." Mr. Marks is founder and president of Search for Common Ground, a 23-year-old conflict resolution organization that creates media to solve problems that most people might think of as impossible: problems like the Israeli-Palestinian impasse. The group’s latest production, The Shape of the Future, is the first program ever broadcast simultaneously by Israeli, Palestinian, and Arab television.
"We were on the ground in Jerusalem, Israel and the West Bank, shooting this for a year,” Mr. Marks said. “And we spent a lot of time talking to people about the future. We asked them, for example, what kind of future did they want, what would a normal life be for them, that was an important question."
Interviewed in their homes, Israelis and Palestinians expressed similar yearnings. "A normal life in this country, here in Jerusalem, is the kind of life where you do not have to be afraid,” says Israeli Riki Amedi.
“A normal life, in my opinion," says Palestinian Neveen-Abu-Rumeil, "is when every woman, her husband and children, are able to live in a home where they do not need to lock the doors -- where you do not fear there are military raids outside."
The series, which aired in both Hebrew and Arabic versions, interviewed people on both sides of the divide about how to solve the four basic issues: Jerusalem, security, Palestinian refugees and Israeli settlements and borders.
“We used people's stories and their lives as a way of going through it,” Mr. Marks said. “And in each one of the programs, we would have a pair, several pairs of Palestinians and Israelis, people who were roughly the equivalent of each other."
"I prefer to see Jerusalem unified,” an Israeli journalist says in the film. “That means one city in terms of running the place and taking care of the population, while we are also talking about two capitals."
A Palestinian counterpart agrees: “I am convinced that Jerusalem could be the capital of two states and an open and joint city. That would solve the problem of Israeli settlements in East Jerusalem and also solve the problem of the city as a whole."
"We also tried to speak as much as possible to the center and to the right,” John Marks said. “We avoided what you would call the usual suspects for peace, who could be wonderful people, it wasn't a question of that, but we felt that we would have much more impact if we could get people who were more conservative to talk about what needed to happen."
And so, the Israelis who speak about compromising on settlements include a brigadier general, Dov Sedaka, and a former head of the settlers' council, Otniel Schneller:
"Under certain circumstances,” Mr. Schneller says at one point, “I would agree, for the sake of peace, to give up part of my land."
General Sedaka contends, “The dismantlement of settlements will not decrease the security of the state of Israel. I think that the state of Israel will be more secure if there is a Palestinian state."
Among the Palestinians who speak about the refugee issue is a former minister of prisoner affairs for the Palestinians, Hisham Abdel Razeq, who spent 20 years in Israeli prisons. He notes, "A political solution would deny both the Israeli grand dream and the Palestinian grand dream. It would require an agreement between the two sides to live in peace and to end the state of war and conflict."
“We cannot live on our swords forever. To kill and be killed,” the Israeli journalist says towards the end of the film. A Palestinian broadcaster puts it poetically: "Each side was brought up on dreams. Both parties should perhaps reach a truce with dreams.”
The Shape of the Future will have a second life after broadcast. John Marks says one Palestinian organization has already created an educational curriculum based on the film and trained 150 teachers. And an accompanying music video, by popular Israeli and Palestinian musicians David Broza and Wisam Murad, singing the same words in Hebrew and Arabic, is reaching many more people, appealing to the hopes of many Israelis and Palestinians for a peaceful settlement.
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Sundance Film Festival: The rebel and the Empress
Thirty years after being forced into exile with her husband, the Shah of Iran, Queen Farah explains to Geoffrey Macnab why she agreed to a documentary on her life
Empress Farah, the widow of the Shah of Iran, is set to be an unlikely star of the Sundance Film Festival.
Empress Farah, the widow of the Shah of Iran, is set to be an unlikely star of the Sundance Film Festival.
After repeated requests, she has agreed to speak to me about a new documentary, The Queen and I, in which she is the subject. The film – which has been chosen for the Sundance Festival – was directed by the Iranian-born film-maker Nahid Persson, a former communist who spent much of her early life trying to topple the Shah's regime. In theory, the two women – the deposed monarch and the revolutionary – should detest one another. In practice, when they came face to face, they discovered they have more in common than either anticipated.
Both are mothers. Both are exiles (Empress Farah in Paris, Persson in Sweden). Both have suffered bereavement. (Persson's teenage brother was executed in the early days of the Khomeni regime.) Both feel the same nostalgia for the homeland they left behind. Both are dismayed at the course of Iranian society, 30 years after the revolution, as an Islamic republic, under the current President, Ahmadinejad.
"She [Nahid Persson] was an Iranian and she was a woman. Although I knew that she held a different political opinion, I thought at some point we had to have a dialogue and that we should not keep our animosity and bitterness forever. That is why I accepted," the Empress says to explain her decision to take part in the documentary.
Since leaving Iran in 1979 with the Shah, who died in 1980, the Empress has had plentiful experience in the glare of Western media. To many, she is a symbol of a regime guilty of human rights abuses and the suppression of free speech. To her supporters, she is a link with an old order that they hope will one day be restored.
At times, Persson's documentary makes the deposed queen seem like a modern-day Marie Antoinette. With its archive footage of the Empress in her crown at her coronation ceremony shown next to old newsreel material of her forced into exile after the revolution as street protesters burned her image, it highlights the extreme contrasts in her life. One moment, she is living an existence of fairy tale-style opulence. The next, she's a pariah. Old friends melted away as she and her husband looked for sanctuary after the revolution.
The Empress knew that once she agreed to participate in Persson's film, she would have little control over how she was portrayed. "She [Persson] had the camera and had the editing power. It's like interviews you do. You say what you do but you are not in control of the ideas of the person who is making the film about you or interviewing you."
Even after shooting had begun, she had reservations. There are moments caught on camera when she seems on the verge of backing out: "You never know after all these years, and all the ups and downs of my life and all my interviews, I wasn't quite sure what would be the result of the film," the Empress explains. "At one point, as you saw in the film, I was tired and I was not sure I was doing the right thing. But then I decided I should continue. After all, I have been the queen of my country for 20 years. Even if I have been outside the country for 30 years, I still have feelings for my country."
She knew Persson was bitterly opposed to the Shah's regime but says that the film-maker was only a teenager at the time of the revolution. "She came from a very poor family. At that age, they believe communism can give them happiness and equality. That's why I still have a feeling for the young people in Iran."
The Empress is loyal to her husband's memory. She isn't about to apologise for the perceived excesses of the Shah's regime. In the documentary, just in case the portrait offered of her is too sentimental, Persson includes a harrowing interview with a man tortured under the Shah. "All these people who say 'Long Live Farah', if they hear the truth and if they have a conscience, they would stop saying that," he says.
The director also films a press conference in Berlin where the Empress is asked about the poverty that existed at the time of the Shah. She acknowledges that life "wasn't perfect" but that is as close as she comes to contrition. The get-out clause, for both film-maker and subject, is that the situation in Iran today in terms of human rights is worse than it was under the Shah.
There is also the sense that during the time of the Shah, the Empress and the film-maker lived – as Farah puts it – "in two different worlds". Behind the palace walls, Farah had little sense of the daily problems of working-class families like Persson's.
What makes The Queen and I moving and disorienting is the unlikely friendship that springs up between the two women. The film-maker is clearly wary about being seduced by the charm of the Empress. The Empress, for her part, knew that the documentary could easily turn into a hatchet job. However, both the director and her subject eventually rise above their suspicions of one another. When they come face to face, they can't help but like one another.
Persson discovered that the Empress knew about her previous work (including such documentaries as Prostitution Behind the Veil and Four Wives – One Man. "When I met her, I saw her as a normal person," the director says. "When I saw her first, I thought 'strange woman'. She is very beautiful now but I remembered her as very young, very charismatic, with all clothes and a crown and everything. Now I was standing in her apartment alone."
"I think it is a new idea and, above all, I think in the end, it has a positive message," the Empress replies when I ask if she is impressed with the documentary. "I think it is fair. [But] Nahid spoke and expressed her opinions [in the documentary] when she was alone. I was not given the chance to do the same thing the other way."
The Queen and I is bound to polarise opinion. Supporters of the Empress will be deeply suspicious that their figurehead agreed to appear in a documentary made by a former communist. Colleagues of Persson may well question why she has made such a sympathetic film about a woman who symbolised a regime they detested. The Empress seems philosophical about these conflicting responses. "I have to listen to my compatriots' opinions. I can't give an opinion on their behalf. I once heard someone asked what is the secret of success. He said, 'I don't know what the secret of success is but the secret of failure is trying to please everybody'. I guess some will like the documentary and some will dislike it. It's like anything else. The supporters who know me and who understand me will agree with what I have done. But as I say, you can't please everyone."
No, The Empress is unlikely to be going on the festival circuit to accompany screenings of The Queen and I at Sundance and elsewhere. "It is Nahid's film. I frankly don't think that I could go to attend these festivals ... but I wish Nahid success."
--Re-printed from an article on the Sundance Film Festival in UK publication The Independent, originally published Friday, 9 January 2009Thursday, September 17, 2009
Earthdance Short-Attention-Span Environmental Film Festival
Exerpts from an Article in SF 360:
By Robert Avila
Who says it’s not easy being green? If you ask the folks behind the Bay Area-based Earthdance Short-Attention-Span Environmental Film Festival, engaging films with positive and eye-opening ecological themes can not only be easy but high fun. And they’ve been proving it since 2004, with an annual spate of short films covering a gamut of environmental subjects and stylistic approaches while studiously avoiding the doomy.
“We’re living at a time when we need stories that connect people, bring them together and inspire hope,” explains festival director and founder Zakary Zide. “We wanted to reach out and be more inclusive.” Doing so meant highlighting the humor, adventure and sheer wonder of the natural environment and the place of human beings in it. Rather than targeting single issues like global warming or the coming water crisis, EarthDance aims to be a bridge between art, nature and science. In that sense, says Zide, “It’s not even political.”
Neither is it (entirely) frivolous. Zide has a background in ecology and art and he’s even dabbled in filmmaking, documenting his own environmental sculptures à la Andy Goldsworthy and Rivers and Tides. The impetus behind founding an environmentally themed film festival had as much to do with what he and his colleagues at the Oakland Museum weren’t seeing in media representations of the natural world. “Too much gloom and doom,” he says. “Where was the fun? The weird? The quirky? And we didn’t want to be preached to.”
Over the past five years, unlike some of the more soused members of the animal kingdom (Oh, bee hive!), EarthDance has remained clear-headed and on the move. It’s reached out to audiences internationally, traveling thus far to Mexico, Canada, Ireland, Denmark and Israel and becoming in Zide’s words “a mobile, global event,” screening in 35 cities and venues worldwide. But it continues to premiere every year here in the Bay Area at the Oakland Museum, where it’s found a receptive home from the beginning. “We got our start at the Oakland Museum, and the museum continues to be the lead sponsor,” says Zide. Meanwhile, “the quality of the films has increased tremendously, as well as the number of international entries.”
It may look deceptively pint-sized, but with dozens of film festivals annually in the Bay Area’s teeming cinema ecosystem, EarthDance’s ability to succeed on its own modest but popular terms is no small achievement. “EarthDance sets itself apart by not taking itself too seriously,” explains Zide. “And that’s why I think it appeals to a broad audience. We’re like the SF International Film Festival on Ritalin meets Spike & Mike with a green, jet-age twist.”
By Robert Avila
Who says it’s not easy being green? If you ask the folks behind the Bay Area-based Earthdance Short-Attention-Span Environmental Film Festival, engaging films with positive and eye-opening ecological themes can not only be easy but high fun. And they’ve been proving it since 2004, with an annual spate of short films covering a gamut of environmental subjects and stylistic approaches while studiously avoiding the doomy.
“We’re living at a time when we need stories that connect people, bring them together and inspire hope,” explains festival director and founder Zakary Zide. “We wanted to reach out and be more inclusive.” Doing so meant highlighting the humor, adventure and sheer wonder of the natural environment and the place of human beings in it. Rather than targeting single issues like global warming or the coming water crisis, EarthDance aims to be a bridge between art, nature and science. In that sense, says Zide, “It’s not even political.”
Neither is it (entirely) frivolous. Zide has a background in ecology and art and he’s even dabbled in filmmaking, documenting his own environmental sculptures à la Andy Goldsworthy and Rivers and Tides. The impetus behind founding an environmentally themed film festival had as much to do with what he and his colleagues at the Oakland Museum weren’t seeing in media representations of the natural world. “Too much gloom and doom,” he says. “Where was the fun? The weird? The quirky? And we didn’t want to be preached to.”
Over the past five years, unlike some of the more soused members of the animal kingdom (Oh, bee hive!), EarthDance has remained clear-headed and on the move. It’s reached out to audiences internationally, traveling thus far to Mexico, Canada, Ireland, Denmark and Israel and becoming in Zide’s words “a mobile, global event,” screening in 35 cities and venues worldwide. But it continues to premiere every year here in the Bay Area at the Oakland Museum, where it’s found a receptive home from the beginning. “We got our start at the Oakland Museum, and the museum continues to be the lead sponsor,” says Zide. Meanwhile, “the quality of the films has increased tremendously, as well as the number of international entries.”
It may look deceptively pint-sized, but with dozens of film festivals annually in the Bay Area’s teeming cinema ecosystem, EarthDance’s ability to succeed on its own modest but popular terms is no small achievement. “EarthDance sets itself apart by not taking itself too seriously,” explains Zide. “And that’s why I think it appeals to a broad audience. We’re like the SF International Film Festival on Ritalin meets Spike & Mike with a green, jet-age twist.”
Monday, August 17, 2009
Soldiers of Conscience filmmakers invite you to join the discussion!
SOLDIERS OF CONSCIENCE is a thoughtful and respectful documentary film about killing in war, about conscience, and about morality.
It is a film that is meant to provoke reflection and dialogue and action. And, because this is a film about a taboo topic – killing – the first step is to break the taboo and talk about it.
Click here to bring your thoughts and questions to this conversation >>
- Gary Weimberg and Catherine Ryan
Directors, SOLDIERS OF CONSCIENCE
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
Warchild Song Lyrics and Emmanuel Jal Bio
Warchild by Emmanuel Jal
i believe ive survived for a reason to tell my story to touch lives
i believe ive survived for a reason to tell my story to touch lives
all the people struggling down there
storms only come for a while
then after a while they'll be gone
blessed, blessed
my father was working for the government as a police man
few years later a hardy joined a rebel movement that was formed to fight for freedom
i didn't understand the politics behind all this 'cause i was only a child
after a while i saw the tension rising high between the christian and the muslim regime
we lost our possesion
my mothers, my mothers mothers suffered depression
and because of this...i was forced to be a war child
i'm a war child
i'm a war child
i believe i've survived for a reason to tell my story to touch lives (touch lives, touch lives, touch lives, touch lives, touch lives, touch lives, touch lives)
i lost my father in this battle
my brothers
all my life i've been hiding in the jungle
the pain i'm cutting is too much to handle
whose there please tell i....my candle
whose there anyone to hear my cry
Emmanuel Jal Bio
Emmanuel Jal is a soft-spoken young man with a lilt in his voice and a warmth in his manner; so friendly and so engaging it's difficult to imagine him toting a machine gun. Yet the reality is that, in the war-torn African country of Sudan, Emmanuel Jal learned to fire a machine gun before he could ride a bicycle.
It is not a difficult subject to broach for the young rapper, but it is a difficult story; one which reflects the horrors of subjugation of a people to a foreign ideology, and the blood spilled in the name of freedom. The guns in his life story were not expensive video props for cavalier (and perhaps dubious) rap stars and their boastfulness; they were real and they were a way of life as a means to survival. This story is real; set to music and told eloquently by Emmanuel Jal. This is his story, a coming-of-age amidst rebellion, famine and global apathy; a story of a child born into war who preaches the way of peace.
"The whole Sudan is my country... where I came from. When I was just a boy, the British left and religion was the main problem. It is called Sharia law; the law of Muslims. When the Arabs came into Sudan, they brought Sharia law and they did not let anyone practice other religions; the people in my village, in other villages... fought back."
During this time of intense conflict, famine raged across the nation as the war displaced thousands. People fled their homes to avoid being killed only to die of starvation. He had watched while strangers beat his mother, his grandmother was arrested and his aunt was raped by government forces. As one of the many young boys growing up in such abject turmoil, Emmanuel was embittered.
When he was about six years old, Emmanuel’s father, a commander with the rebel Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA), gave his son up to the rebels to set an example for others. The SPLA sent him, along with hundreds of other young Sudanese children, to a school in Ethopia. The children were forced to walk from their villages to Ethopia; many died on the way, eaten by wild animals, falling into rivers and getting lost. Once at the school, the children were trained in discipline and in the basic skills of killing.
"There was anger in my heart. I became a soldier very young; like many other children. I think it was '92. I wanted to help the fight; I thought I could go away and learn how to fly a plane, a jet plane to bomb them. At that time, all I thought about was killing. I trained; learned how to fire a gun. We practiced on killing animals. We would kill the animal and then have to bury it; so the Arabs wouldn't find the body but also sometimes because we had killed a farmer's (animal). I just wanted to kill as many Arabs and Muslims as possible. They were killing us..."
Scared and exhausted from the killing, Emmanuel and some of the other children - the “lost boys,” as they came to be known - deserted the rebel lines. On foot, they trekked across Sudan’s cracked, barren badlands, its crocodile-infested rivers and snake-laced mud patches to flee the war and be with their own tribe, the Nuer. Four hundred began the trek, only 16 survived to find relative safety in a refugee camp in Waat, Southern Sudan.
It was around this time in his life that Emmanuel met Emma McCune, a British Foreign Aid/UNICEF worker who rescued him from the bloody conflict and spirited him to nearby Kenya, intent on giving him a new life and new opportunities.
"I went with Emma; I still wanted to help the fight, somehow. When I was first rescued, I still wanted to kill. I thought I might learn something that could help the fight and then go back as a soldier. But I'm alive because of Emma, and she deserves to be known. She tried to help other people like she helped me. She took me to school; she helped me with my English. For a while there weren't even clothes for me to wear, so I wore her clothes and her shoes to school in Kenya.
"Kenya was a model of peace for Africa. They had better schools and a thriving economy; but at first, education-wise... it was difficult for me to settle down in Kenya. I was always fighting; thinking of myself as a soldier and I was expelled all the time! I had to learn to humble myself in order to help my people. So during my time in Kenya, eventually I changed. I began reading the Koran, the Bible; I was in the church choir; singing... and this helped me heal. When I turned to God, it washed away bitterness, the anger in my heart... I changed.
"I would have liked to help my friends change in a different way; as hard as it was to live in Kenya with so much for me to learn, there was always music in my life. Always there was music: music for harvesting; music for family; music for war. In Kenya I began writing songs in the church to fit myself into the community and have a new beginning. I wrote songs with that in mind: music for peace."
"In Kenya I got into rap. I didn't understand the history, but I enjoyed listening to rap because it was shocking. The problems, the issues; I like the hip-hop that talked about the neighborhood going through issues; and I identified in a different way. Music is a form a communication..soul and heart and art. This is what spoke to me as a young man and what I am speaking of now. Musicians are prophets and music is the only thing that can speak to your soul without your permission."
"What I am doing with this album, the content, the message..." Jal pauses. "My country is at war. My people are dying. I want to create awareness... for my people, for the world. This is life, this album; and the issues - it's ready, it's powerful! I hope to inspire people and have fun as well. This album is serious about people's lives and this is why I have to talk about this. It's actually helpful because I feel better now."
Emmanuel began performing around Africa and eventually made his way to England where, following a number of notable live performances, he earned a record deal. His music can be heard alongside Coldplay, Gorillaz, and Radiohead on the fundraising ‘Warchild - Help a Day in the Life’ album, as well as in three ER episodes, the National Geographic documentary “God Grew Tired of Us,” and more recently in the feature film “Blood Diamond” starring Leonardo DiCaprio. As well as on John Lennons ‘Instant Karma: The Amnesty International Campaign to Save Darfur’ amongst the likes of U2, REM and Lenny Kravitz.
Jal recently performed at an exclusive gig for Oxfam with Fat Boy Slim as part of Oxjam 07; he also took part in his charity, Gua Africa’s, Mixed Jam event with Blak Twang amongst others in London [all footage can be found on www.youtube.com/emmanueljal ]. Jal has also performed with Razorlight, Supergrass, and Faithless in Europe. Last October he toured the United States as part of the “National Geographic All Roads Film Festival,” performing in New York, Washington D.C., Los Angeles and New Orleans. Jal also performed with Moby and Five for Fighting in the 2007 live concert film, The Concert To End Slavery [ www.concerttoendslavery.com/trailer ]. He is a spokesman for “Make Poverty History, the Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers and the Control Arms campaign.
In addition to the release of his album “Warchild,” Emmanuel is the subject of a documentary on his life, also entitled “War Child.” The documentary had its premiere at the Berlin Film Festival in February 2008, receiving a rare standing ovation, and will appear at other prestigious film festivals this year. Emmanuel is also at work on his autobiography that St. Martin’s Press will release.
"Now I'm working on building a school, and we are trying to get people educated. This is what I've been able to achieve by leaving the anger behind and embracing music, and education. We're helping an orphanage in Nairobi; bringing aid to children in Africa. We are putting people in school and one person is in university..."
And while the future looks very promising for the young Jal, he remains steadfast in his soldier mentality. "Before I was focusing on making African sounds completely; but I stayed in England to improve my skills to get my message out. For me, home is where your love is. I still think like a soldier; I don't want to move to a place where something happens and I start missing people again. I'll get comfortable but I won't stick myself down. In my mind, I'm not yet settled. I just want to keep making my music, that's most important. But for right now... I'm cool!"
--re-printed from the website for Emmanuel Jal's record label Sonic 360
i believe ive survived for a reason to tell my story to touch lives
i believe ive survived for a reason to tell my story to touch lives
all the people struggling down there
storms only come for a while
then after a while they'll be gone
blessed, blessed
my father was working for the government as a police man
few years later a hardy joined a rebel movement that was formed to fight for freedom
i didn't understand the politics behind all this 'cause i was only a child
after a while i saw the tension rising high between the christian and the muslim regime
we lost our possesion
my mothers, my mothers mothers suffered depression
and because of this...i was forced to be a war child
i'm a war child
i'm a war child
i believe i've survived for a reason to tell my story to touch lives (touch lives, touch lives, touch lives, touch lives, touch lives, touch lives, touch lives)
i lost my father in this battle
my brothers
all my life i've been hiding in the jungle
the pain i'm cutting is too much to handle
whose there please tell i....my candle
whose there anyone to hear my cry
Emmanuel Jal Bio
Emmanuel Jal is a soft-spoken young man with a lilt in his voice and a warmth in his manner; so friendly and so engaging it's difficult to imagine him toting a machine gun. Yet the reality is that, in the war-torn African country of Sudan, Emmanuel Jal learned to fire a machine gun before he could ride a bicycle.
It is not a difficult subject to broach for the young rapper, but it is a difficult story; one which reflects the horrors of subjugation of a people to a foreign ideology, and the blood spilled in the name of freedom. The guns in his life story were not expensive video props for cavalier (and perhaps dubious) rap stars and their boastfulness; they were real and they were a way of life as a means to survival. This story is real; set to music and told eloquently by Emmanuel Jal. This is his story, a coming-of-age amidst rebellion, famine and global apathy; a story of a child born into war who preaches the way of peace.
"The whole Sudan is my country... where I came from. When I was just a boy, the British left and religion was the main problem. It is called Sharia law; the law of Muslims. When the Arabs came into Sudan, they brought Sharia law and they did not let anyone practice other religions; the people in my village, in other villages... fought back."
During this time of intense conflict, famine raged across the nation as the war displaced thousands. People fled their homes to avoid being killed only to die of starvation. He had watched while strangers beat his mother, his grandmother was arrested and his aunt was raped by government forces. As one of the many young boys growing up in such abject turmoil, Emmanuel was embittered.
When he was about six years old, Emmanuel’s father, a commander with the rebel Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA), gave his son up to the rebels to set an example for others. The SPLA sent him, along with hundreds of other young Sudanese children, to a school in Ethopia. The children were forced to walk from their villages to Ethopia; many died on the way, eaten by wild animals, falling into rivers and getting lost. Once at the school, the children were trained in discipline and in the basic skills of killing.
"There was anger in my heart. I became a soldier very young; like many other children. I think it was '92. I wanted to help the fight; I thought I could go away and learn how to fly a plane, a jet plane to bomb them. At that time, all I thought about was killing. I trained; learned how to fire a gun. We practiced on killing animals. We would kill the animal and then have to bury it; so the Arabs wouldn't find the body but also sometimes because we had killed a farmer's (animal). I just wanted to kill as many Arabs and Muslims as possible. They were killing us..."
Scared and exhausted from the killing, Emmanuel and some of the other children - the “lost boys,” as they came to be known - deserted the rebel lines. On foot, they trekked across Sudan’s cracked, barren badlands, its crocodile-infested rivers and snake-laced mud patches to flee the war and be with their own tribe, the Nuer. Four hundred began the trek, only 16 survived to find relative safety in a refugee camp in Waat, Southern Sudan.
It was around this time in his life that Emmanuel met Emma McCune, a British Foreign Aid/UNICEF worker who rescued him from the bloody conflict and spirited him to nearby Kenya, intent on giving him a new life and new opportunities.
"I went with Emma; I still wanted to help the fight, somehow. When I was first rescued, I still wanted to kill. I thought I might learn something that could help the fight and then go back as a soldier. But I'm alive because of Emma, and she deserves to be known. She tried to help other people like she helped me. She took me to school; she helped me with my English. For a while there weren't even clothes for me to wear, so I wore her clothes and her shoes to school in Kenya.
"Kenya was a model of peace for Africa. They had better schools and a thriving economy; but at first, education-wise... it was difficult for me to settle down in Kenya. I was always fighting; thinking of myself as a soldier and I was expelled all the time! I had to learn to humble myself in order to help my people. So during my time in Kenya, eventually I changed. I began reading the Koran, the Bible; I was in the church choir; singing... and this helped me heal. When I turned to God, it washed away bitterness, the anger in my heart... I changed.
"I would have liked to help my friends change in a different way; as hard as it was to live in Kenya with so much for me to learn, there was always music in my life. Always there was music: music for harvesting; music for family; music for war. In Kenya I began writing songs in the church to fit myself into the community and have a new beginning. I wrote songs with that in mind: music for peace."
"In Kenya I got into rap. I didn't understand the history, but I enjoyed listening to rap because it was shocking. The problems, the issues; I like the hip-hop that talked about the neighborhood going through issues; and I identified in a different way. Music is a form a communication..soul and heart and art. This is what spoke to me as a young man and what I am speaking of now. Musicians are prophets and music is the only thing that can speak to your soul without your permission."
"What I am doing with this album, the content, the message..." Jal pauses. "My country is at war. My people are dying. I want to create awareness... for my people, for the world. This is life, this album; and the issues - it's ready, it's powerful! I hope to inspire people and have fun as well. This album is serious about people's lives and this is why I have to talk about this. It's actually helpful because I feel better now."
Emmanuel began performing around Africa and eventually made his way to England where, following a number of notable live performances, he earned a record deal. His music can be heard alongside Coldplay, Gorillaz, and Radiohead on the fundraising ‘Warchild - Help a Day in the Life’ album, as well as in three ER episodes, the National Geographic documentary “God Grew Tired of Us,” and more recently in the feature film “Blood Diamond” starring Leonardo DiCaprio. As well as on John Lennons ‘Instant Karma: The Amnesty International Campaign to Save Darfur’ amongst the likes of U2, REM and Lenny Kravitz.
Jal recently performed at an exclusive gig for Oxfam with Fat Boy Slim as part of Oxjam 07; he also took part in his charity, Gua Africa’s, Mixed Jam event with Blak Twang amongst others in London [all footage can be found on www.youtube.com/emmanueljal ]. Jal has also performed with Razorlight, Supergrass, and Faithless in Europe. Last October he toured the United States as part of the “National Geographic All Roads Film Festival,” performing in New York, Washington D.C., Los Angeles and New Orleans. Jal also performed with Moby and Five for Fighting in the 2007 live concert film, The Concert To End Slavery [ www.concerttoendslavery.com/trailer ]. He is a spokesman for “Make Poverty History, the Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers and the Control Arms campaign.
In addition to the release of his album “Warchild,” Emmanuel is the subject of a documentary on his life, also entitled “War Child.” The documentary had its premiere at the Berlin Film Festival in February 2008, receiving a rare standing ovation, and will appear at other prestigious film festivals this year. Emmanuel is also at work on his autobiography that St. Martin’s Press will release.
"Now I'm working on building a school, and we are trying to get people educated. This is what I've been able to achieve by leaving the anger behind and embracing music, and education. We're helping an orphanage in Nairobi; bringing aid to children in Africa. We are putting people in school and one person is in university..."
And while the future looks very promising for the young Jal, he remains steadfast in his soldier mentality. "Before I was focusing on making African sounds completely; but I stayed in England to improve my skills to get my message out. For me, home is where your love is. I still think like a soldier; I don't want to move to a place where something happens and I start missing people again. I'll get comfortable but I won't stick myself down. In my mind, I'm not yet settled. I just want to keep making my music, that's most important. But for right now... I'm cool!"
--re-printed from the website for Emmanuel Jal's record label Sonic 360
Thursday, June 18, 2009
"Red Gold" by Co-Producer Lauren Oakes
My inbox is flooded every day with emails that go like this: “I saw Red Gold… It made me cry [men, women, children all write this]…What’s going on with Pebble right now and can I help?”
Of course the answer is Yes! Yes! Yes!
On November 14, 2008, Ben and I stood before 500 people at the National Geographic Headquarters in Washington, D.C. to show Red Gold [what an honor]. On the very same day, just a block away from the theater in the Bureau of Land Management building, President’s Bush’s staff put out a Record of Decision for the Bristol Bay Area Management Plan. It opened nearly 2 million acres of federal land surrounding the Pebble Site to mining exploration. 2 million acres. So while citizens continue to battle development of the Pebble mine on Alaskan State land, we now face the worst – Pebble amidst a mining district in the heart of the world’s largest remaining sockeye salmon fishery. When the Obama administration comes into office, our leaders of change will have 30 days to reverse this decision.
State Land. Federal Land. To me, the land classifications are borders drawn for management purposes. But in reality Bristol Bay and its pristine waters, the abundant wild salmon runs, the life this watershed sustains are global resources we cannot replace. We need more people standing up saying “No – not here, not this place. Wrong location. A risk not worth taking.”
Support for gaining permanent legislative protection for the Bristol Bay watershed continues to grow. The Trout Unlimited Alaska program is currently engaged in a number of projects to stop development of the Pebble Mine. We are placing emphasis on necessary science research so we can understand more of the critical water and habitat issues. We are also working with state and federal policymakers to support legislative protection, and we are leading a nationwide campaign to educate and engage salmon consumers on the values of wild salmon conservation and cuisine (www.whywild.org).
We continue to raise state, national, and international support for protecting this world-renowned watershed, a mosaic of unconfined rivers supporting nearly a 1/3 of our wild salmon supply.
Yes! You can help.
Write members of congress today and express you support for protecting the watershed from mining development. Ask the new administration to keep BLM lands in Bristol Bay closed to mining.
Donate. To do more good work to protect Bristol Bay, we need more financial support. www.savebristolbay.org
Host a Red Gold screening. Contact Emily Long: emily@feltsoulmedia.com.
When you’re at the grocery, or at your favorite restaurant… please request wild salmon. You’ll be supporting sustainable, well-managed fisheries and increasing the demand for what Bristol Bay is famous for. Avoid the farmed stuff unless you have a thing for artificially colored dinner.
And then lastly I’d like just like to thank the people who believed in this project, Ben and Travis for asking questions and listening, and then all those who understand there are still some places left on this planet we must protect.
Please go flood the email boxes of your congressman and tell them they have a chance to save one of our last great salmon runs.
-- Lauren Oaks, Co-Producer, Red Gold (Ironweed Films: June 2009: Volume 43)
Of course the answer is Yes! Yes! Yes!
On November 14, 2008, Ben and I stood before 500 people at the National Geographic Headquarters in Washington, D.C. to show Red Gold [what an honor]. On the very same day, just a block away from the theater in the Bureau of Land Management building, President’s Bush’s staff put out a Record of Decision for the Bristol Bay Area Management Plan. It opened nearly 2 million acres of federal land surrounding the Pebble Site to mining exploration. 2 million acres. So while citizens continue to battle development of the Pebble mine on Alaskan State land, we now face the worst – Pebble amidst a mining district in the heart of the world’s largest remaining sockeye salmon fishery. When the Obama administration comes into office, our leaders of change will have 30 days to reverse this decision.
State Land. Federal Land. To me, the land classifications are borders drawn for management purposes. But in reality Bristol Bay and its pristine waters, the abundant wild salmon runs, the life this watershed sustains are global resources we cannot replace. We need more people standing up saying “No – not here, not this place. Wrong location. A risk not worth taking.”
Support for gaining permanent legislative protection for the Bristol Bay watershed continues to grow. The Trout Unlimited Alaska program is currently engaged in a number of projects to stop development of the Pebble Mine. We are placing emphasis on necessary science research so we can understand more of the critical water and habitat issues. We are also working with state and federal policymakers to support legislative protection, and we are leading a nationwide campaign to educate and engage salmon consumers on the values of wild salmon conservation and cuisine (www.whywild.org).
We continue to raise state, national, and international support for protecting this world-renowned watershed, a mosaic of unconfined rivers supporting nearly a 1/3 of our wild salmon supply.
Yes! You can help.
Write members of congress today and express you support for protecting the watershed from mining development. Ask the new administration to keep BLM lands in Bristol Bay closed to mining.
Donate. To do more good work to protect Bristol Bay, we need more financial support. www.savebristolbay.org
Host a Red Gold screening. Contact Emily Long: emily@feltsoulmedia.com.
When you’re at the grocery, or at your favorite restaurant… please request wild salmon. You’ll be supporting sustainable, well-managed fisheries and increasing the demand for what Bristol Bay is famous for. Avoid the farmed stuff unless you have a thing for artificially colored dinner.
And then lastly I’d like just like to thank the people who believed in this project, Ben and Travis for asking questions and listening, and then all those who understand there are still some places left on this planet we must protect.
Please go flood the email boxes of your congressman and tell them they have a chance to save one of our last great salmon runs.
-- Lauren Oaks, Co-Producer, Red Gold (Ironweed Films: June 2009: Volume 43)
Monday, May 4, 2009
"Mission to Break up Pacific Island of Rubbish Twice the Size of Texas" by Frank Pope
A high-seas mission departs from San Francisco next month to map and explore a sinister and shifting 21st-century continent: one twice the size of Texas and created from six million tonnes of discarded plastic.
Scientists and conservationists on the expedition will begin attempts to retrieve and recycle a monument to throwaway living in the middle of the North Pacific.
The toxic soup of refuse was discovered in 1997 when Charles Moore, an oceanographer, decided to travel through the centre of the North Pacific gyre (a vortex or circular ocean current). Navigators usually avoid oceanic gyres because persistent high-pressure systems — also known as the doldrums — lack the winds and currents to benefit sailors.
Mr Moore found bottle caps, plastic bags and polystyrene floating with tiny plastic chips. Worn down by sunlight and waves, discarded plastic disintegrates into smaller pieces. Suspended under the surface, these tiny fragments are invisible to ships and satellites trying to map the plastic continent, but in subsequent trawls Mr Moore discovered that the chips outnumbered plankton by six to one...
Full Article at: http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/05/02-3
Thursday, April 23, 2009
Recently Heard on Our Community Site...
Did you know Ironweed has an interactive community website located at http://www.ironweedfilms.com/community ?
Members and non-members alike may log in to browse recent films, make commentary, read news and much more.
Check out one of our latest community comments below:
"Finally! A film club that does not require wading through thousands ofdopeyaction movies.....and one that also provides incredibly powerful informationon a host of important issues in films that are thoughtful and well made!Thanks so much for all you do.....Ironweed is an essential resource in bothour lives and our work!" --Maureen F. of Essex, MA.
Members and non-members alike may log in to browse recent films, make commentary, read news and much more.
Check out one of our latest community comments below:
"Finally! A film club that does not require wading through thousands ofdopeyaction movies.....and one that also provides incredibly powerful informationon a host of important issues in films that are thoughtful and well made!Thanks so much for all you do.....Ironweed is an essential resource in bothour lives and our work!" --Maureen F. of Essex, MA.
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
"Crips and Bloods" Film Screening
A free monthly screening series, Community Cinema features films from the Emmy Award-winning PBS series Independent Lens. In over 50 cities nationwide, screenings are followed by lively panel discussions that bring together citizens, organizations and public television stations to encourage dialogue and action around important and timely social issues. Last season, over 30,000 people attended 400 events nationwide.
Crips and Bloods Film Screening:
It's a civil war that's lasted 40 years. Passed down from son to son. Fought eye for an eye. Over 15,000 dead and counting, while the world stands by. Welcome to South Central Los Angeles. But what's at the root of this long-standing battle? Filmmaker Stacy Peralta hits the streets of LA to find out, and speaks with former and current members of the Bloods and the Crips, two of the most notorious and violent street gangs in America. Please note: This film contains scenes of graphic violence.
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Pacific Design Center - Silver Screen Theater
8687 Melrose Ave.
West Hollywood, CA 90069
Light Reception 7:00 PM
RSVP Required at LACommunityCinema@gmail.com
Panel Discussion to Feature:
Stacy Peralta - Filmmaker
Skipp Townsend - Community Organizer Featured in Film
Shaka - Former Member of Bloods Featured in Film
Dr. La Tanya Skiffer - Professor and Expert on Female Violence and Incarceration
Dr. John Quicker - (Moderator) Professor and Expert on LA Gangs
To find a local screening in your area, visit: http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/cripsandbloods/getinvolved.html
Filmmaker Chris Metzler Introduces "Greener-Schnitzels"
Ironweed filmmaker Chris Metzler (Plagues & Pleasures on the Salton Sea, Long Division) announces the launch of GREENER-SCHNITZELS - a new series of environmental webisodes that blends sketch comedy and documentary filmmaking to deliver funny truths about our warming planet. With energetic irreverence, the short videos provide some informative comic relief amidst the more serious Green programming you'll find this Earth Day. Come watch the first episode here: www.greenerschnitzels.com
Monday, April 6, 2009
Filmmaker Jeremy Kaller on "The Recyclergy"
Thanks to Ironweed Films for giving me this amazing opportunity to share my first documentary, The Recyclergy, with you. I hope you find it both enjoyable and inspiring.
The film was made under the assumption that you, the audience, had already heard several times in your life that “you should recycle.” For that reason, I tried my best to eliminate that direct message from the film. I’m hoping that I am correct, and you have been recycling for years, but have never met a professional recycler, nor heard about the porn found in recycling bins.
If you devote the 33 minutes to watch The Recyclergy, you will meet some real characters who have devoted their lives to diverting goods from landfills and hear their entertaining stories. I hope that their devotion is contagious.
I took on this challenge because I met these inspiring and hilarious individuals and recognized that they are leaders in the recycling movement. Berkeley was the first city to collect recycling at the curb. San Francisco was the first city in the nation to collect food scraps along with recycling and trash. Two local organizations, Building Resources and Urban Ore, both salvage tons of building materials that would otherwise get landfilled, making the materials available for the community to utilize. The list goes on.
Not until midway through conducting this series of interviews, did I learn about the history of scavengers, who were pre-World War II garbage collectors. I was shocked by my ignorance because I had worked in recycling for several years. Without giving too much away, recycling was a normal, behind the scenes, everyday occurrence before the United States’ post-WWII affluence. Recycling all but disappeared until the first Earth Day in 1970. Even in early 2006, when completing the film, I felt that recycling was still considered another component of tree-hugging. I’m relieved that again, recycling is getting the mainstream attention that it deserves.
The film’s website, www.recyclergy.com, contains links to most of the organizations in the film. If you live in the Bay Area, visit them! If you do not, please contact them for guidance in bringing more recycling into your community.
-- by Jeremy Kaller, Director, The Recyclergy (Ironweed Films: Volume 41: April 2009)
For more information, visit www.ironweedfilms.com/films
The film was made under the assumption that you, the audience, had already heard several times in your life that “you should recycle.” For that reason, I tried my best to eliminate that direct message from the film. I’m hoping that I am correct, and you have been recycling for years, but have never met a professional recycler, nor heard about the porn found in recycling bins.
If you devote the 33 minutes to watch The Recyclergy, you will meet some real characters who have devoted their lives to diverting goods from landfills and hear their entertaining stories. I hope that their devotion is contagious.
I took on this challenge because I met these inspiring and hilarious individuals and recognized that they are leaders in the recycling movement. Berkeley was the first city to collect recycling at the curb. San Francisco was the first city in the nation to collect food scraps along with recycling and trash. Two local organizations, Building Resources and Urban Ore, both salvage tons of building materials that would otherwise get landfilled, making the materials available for the community to utilize. The list goes on.
Not until midway through conducting this series of interviews, did I learn about the history of scavengers, who were pre-World War II garbage collectors. I was shocked by my ignorance because I had worked in recycling for several years. Without giving too much away, recycling was a normal, behind the scenes, everyday occurrence before the United States’ post-WWII affluence. Recycling all but disappeared until the first Earth Day in 1970. Even in early 2006, when completing the film, I felt that recycling was still considered another component of tree-hugging. I’m relieved that again, recycling is getting the mainstream attention that it deserves.
The film’s website, www.recyclergy.com, contains links to most of the organizations in the film. If you live in the Bay Area, visit them! If you do not, please contact them for guidance in bringing more recycling into your community.
-- by Jeremy Kaller, Director, The Recyclergy (Ironweed Films: Volume 41: April 2009)
For more information, visit www.ironweedfilms.com/films
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
Water Crisis Hits Iraq
This article has been re-posted from our friends at Huffington Post.
by Inter Press Service
BAGHDAD, Feb 12 (IPS) - There is less water now in the Tigris, and it is less clean. The river has fewer fish, and rising fuel and other costs mean they are more costly to catch. It's not, as Hamza Majit finds, a good time to be a fisher.
"It's getting worse everyday," Majit told IPS on board his fishing boat.
"You see the low water level," Majit said, touching the bottom of the river, just two metres down, with a wooden pole. "We need higher water to hold our nets up. And this is the deepest point in the Tigris in this area. With the water this low, it makes it difficult to catch any fish."
Plastic bottles, grocery bags and other garbage are now more commonly seen floating down the once clear river. "Fish are a treasure from God, but now so much is preventing us from reaping our treasure," said Majit.
Before the U.S. invasion of Iraq, Majit says, it was common to catch several dozen fish daily. Now, "we are lucky to catch ten." Now the government too is alarmed.
"The Tigris remains extremely polluted, and this situation continues to worsen," Minister for the Environment Narmin Othman told IPS. "So many Iraqis are suffering from this. We realise it is a crisis, and we are looking for more ways the government can actively begin to solve the problem."
The matter is being considered urgently, she said. "We have to do this, because if we don't, nobody else will, and the suffering will continue. The Tigris is one of Iraq's treasures, and we must safeguard our treasures."
The government has been before. "The situation is critical," Prof. Ratib Mufid, environment expert at Baghdad University, said back in 2007. "The river is gradually being destroyed, and there are no projects to prevent its destruction."
Since then it has only become worse. The new difficulties begin at the source, and multiply along the way.
"The problem of decreasing water flow starts in Turkey's Taurus mountains," Seif Barakah, media officer at the Ministry of Environment had warned, about the same time in 2007.
"Between there and Kurdistan, many dams have been built which reduce the water flow. The idea was to prevent floods which over the years affected northern communities, but the consequence can now be seen with nearly half the previous water flow."
The Tigris flows from the mountains of south-eastern Turkey through Iraq, where it ends up in the Persian Gulf.
Majit has been a fisher since he was 10, and like most fishers on the Tigris, inherited the family business of generations. Two of his children work with him.
Fishing is not just difficult now, but also unpleasant and hazardous. The smell of burning plastic, or at places of raw sewage, is overpowering. And, Majit says, he has been shot at by U.S. soldiers from the Green Zone, whose concrete walls line the banks along one stretch.
Iraqi environmentalists report that the river is contaminated with war waste, oil derivatives, industrial waste, and toxins. "Sometimes I find crude oil on my nets when I pull them up," Majit said. "The fish also sometimes taste like crude oil."
Big rubbish heaps have come up on the banks. Dumping garbage in the river was punishable during the days of former dictator Saddam Hussein. Today there is nothing to stop people.
The ripple effect of fish scarcity has inevitably hit the markets. The average cost of a fish has risen from two dollars to eight dollars (8,000 Iraqi Dinars).
"That is too expensive, so fewer people are buying," says Amar Hamsa, a 25- year-old fish seller. "Business is bad, it's not a good situation for us nowadays."
Roast fish was considered a treat once, says Ali Sabri, still in the business though with many empty fire pits around him of vendors who had to abandon business. "Few people in Baghdad can afford this now as they used to."
Read more from Inter Press Service
by Inter Press Service
BAGHDAD, Feb 12 (IPS) - There is less water now in the Tigris, and it is less clean. The river has fewer fish, and rising fuel and other costs mean they are more costly to catch. It's not, as Hamza Majit finds, a good time to be a fisher.
"It's getting worse everyday," Majit told IPS on board his fishing boat.
"You see the low water level," Majit said, touching the bottom of the river, just two metres down, with a wooden pole. "We need higher water to hold our nets up. And this is the deepest point in the Tigris in this area. With the water this low, it makes it difficult to catch any fish."
Plastic bottles, grocery bags and other garbage are now more commonly seen floating down the once clear river. "Fish are a treasure from God, but now so much is preventing us from reaping our treasure," said Majit.
Before the U.S. invasion of Iraq, Majit says, it was common to catch several dozen fish daily. Now, "we are lucky to catch ten." Now the government too is alarmed.
"The Tigris remains extremely polluted, and this situation continues to worsen," Minister for the Environment Narmin Othman told IPS. "So many Iraqis are suffering from this. We realise it is a crisis, and we are looking for more ways the government can actively begin to solve the problem."
The matter is being considered urgently, she said. "We have to do this, because if we don't, nobody else will, and the suffering will continue. The Tigris is one of Iraq's treasures, and we must safeguard our treasures."
The government has been before. "The situation is critical," Prof. Ratib Mufid, environment expert at Baghdad University, said back in 2007. "The river is gradually being destroyed, and there are no projects to prevent its destruction."
Since then it has only become worse. The new difficulties begin at the source, and multiply along the way.
"The problem of decreasing water flow starts in Turkey's Taurus mountains," Seif Barakah, media officer at the Ministry of Environment had warned, about the same time in 2007.
"Between there and Kurdistan, many dams have been built which reduce the water flow. The idea was to prevent floods which over the years affected northern communities, but the consequence can now be seen with nearly half the previous water flow."
The Tigris flows from the mountains of south-eastern Turkey through Iraq, where it ends up in the Persian Gulf.
Majit has been a fisher since he was 10, and like most fishers on the Tigris, inherited the family business of generations. Two of his children work with him.
Fishing is not just difficult now, but also unpleasant and hazardous. The smell of burning plastic, or at places of raw sewage, is overpowering. And, Majit says, he has been shot at by U.S. soldiers from the Green Zone, whose concrete walls line the banks along one stretch.
Iraqi environmentalists report that the river is contaminated with war waste, oil derivatives, industrial waste, and toxins. "Sometimes I find crude oil on my nets when I pull them up," Majit said. "The fish also sometimes taste like crude oil."
Big rubbish heaps have come up on the banks. Dumping garbage in the river was punishable during the days of former dictator Saddam Hussein. Today there is nothing to stop people.
The ripple effect of fish scarcity has inevitably hit the markets. The average cost of a fish has risen from two dollars to eight dollars (8,000 Iraqi Dinars).
"That is too expensive, so fewer people are buying," says Amar Hamsa, a 25- year-old fish seller. "Business is bad, it's not a good situation for us nowadays."
Roast fish was considered a treat once, says Ali Sabri, still in the business though with many empty fire pits around him of vendors who had to abandon business. "Few people in Baghdad can afford this now as they used to."
Read more from Inter Press Service
Is a 100% AIG Bonus Tax Legal?
This article has been re-posted from our friends at Mother Jones.
Ex Post Punitive by Kevin Drum
Would it be legal to pass a law that retroactively taxed away the bonuses of all those AIG traders who destroyed the planet? The main constitutional objections are that such a law might be construed as either ex post facto or a bill of attainder. So what about that?
Well, Conor Clarke talked to certified expert Laurence Tribe, and he says not to worry about bill of attainder issues: "It would not be terribly difficult to structure a tax, even one that approached a rate of 100%, levied on some or all of the bonuses already handed out (or to be handed out in the future) by AIG and other recipients of federal bailout funds so that the tax would survive bill of attainder clause challenge."
Great! So what about the problem with it being retroactive? The Supreme Court has upheld retroactive taxes against ex post facto arguments before, and over at Interfluidity Steve Waldman quotes Daniel Troy, author of Retroactive Legislation, on a similar objection to the Superfund legislation: "Because the ex post facto clauses do not apply to civil laws, Superfund therefore would have to be characterized as punitive in nature to be classified as an ex post facto law. The current Court, though, has suggested that unless a law is exclusively punitive, it will not come within the scope of the ex post facto clauses."
Italics mine. So it looks like the answer here is simple: even though the purpose of this tax would pretty clearly be punitive with extreme prejudice, we need to carefully pretend that it's not. And we need to make sure the legislative history shows that it's not (it should be "manifestly regulatory and fiscal" Tribe says). Then everything is kosher! We can tax their socks off!
So there you have it. Now we just have to figure out if most of these guys are actually U.S. citizens in the first place. I hear that New York state AG Andrew Cuomo is working on that.
http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2009/03/ex-post-punitive
Ex Post Punitive by Kevin Drum
Would it be legal to pass a law that retroactively taxed away the bonuses of all those AIG traders who destroyed the planet? The main constitutional objections are that such a law might be construed as either ex post facto or a bill of attainder. So what about that?
Well, Conor Clarke talked to certified expert Laurence Tribe, and he says not to worry about bill of attainder issues: "It would not be terribly difficult to structure a tax, even one that approached a rate of 100%, levied on some or all of the bonuses already handed out (or to be handed out in the future) by AIG and other recipients of federal bailout funds so that the tax would survive bill of attainder clause challenge."
Great! So what about the problem with it being retroactive? The Supreme Court has upheld retroactive taxes against ex post facto arguments before, and over at Interfluidity Steve Waldman quotes Daniel Troy, author of Retroactive Legislation, on a similar objection to the Superfund legislation: "Because the ex post facto clauses do not apply to civil laws, Superfund therefore would have to be characterized as punitive in nature to be classified as an ex post facto law. The current Court, though, has suggested that unless a law is exclusively punitive, it will not come within the scope of the ex post facto clauses."
Italics mine. So it looks like the answer here is simple: even though the purpose of this tax would pretty clearly be punitive with extreme prejudice, we need to carefully pretend that it's not. And we need to make sure the legislative history shows that it's not (it should be "manifestly regulatory and fiscal" Tribe says). Then everything is kosher! We can tax their socks off!
So there you have it. Now we just have to figure out if most of these guys are actually U.S. citizens in the first place. I hear that New York state AG Andrew Cuomo is working on that.
http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2009/03/ex-post-punitive
UN Experts to Probe Secret CIA Detention Centers
This article has been re-posted from our friends at Common Dreams.
by Agence France Presse
GENEVA - Two United Nations special rapporteurs said Tuesday they would investigate secret detention centres used by the CIA in counter-terrorism efforts.
Nowak and Martin Scheinin, Special Rapporteur on Human Rights and Counter-terrorism will study locations alleged to have hosted such secret detention centres, including US military bases.
Besides secret jails run by the CIA, the study would also probe alleged prisons run by other governments.
Scheinin said such prisons were "one of the most horrendous practices" that emerged after the September 11 attacks in the US, while Nowak hoped that this "will stop, and perhaps is in the process of being stopped."
The results of the probe should be ready in a year.
The two independent experts mandated by the UN Human Rights Council hailed US President Barack Obama's decision to close the Guantanamo prison and all CIA prisons operating abroad.
Nowak said he was also "very encouraged" by the fact that Warsaw is probing allegations of a secret CIA jail near Szymany in northeast Poland.
Besides alleged detention centres in Poland and Romania, the two experts will look into the role played by over 10 American military bases in the world, which have been alleged to have also sheltered secret jails.
"We are fully aware" of the problem, said Nowak, citing the military base of Tuzla in Bosnia, which was suspected of having served as a temporary holding centre for detainees before their transfer to Guantanamo.
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/03/10-8
by Agence France Presse
GENEVA - Two United Nations special rapporteurs said Tuesday they would investigate secret detention centres used by the CIA in counter-terrorism efforts.
Nowak and Martin Scheinin, Special Rapporteur on Human Rights and Counter-terrorism will study locations alleged to have hosted such secret detention centres, including US military bases.
Besides secret jails run by the CIA, the study would also probe alleged prisons run by other governments.
Scheinin said such prisons were "one of the most horrendous practices" that emerged after the September 11 attacks in the US, while Nowak hoped that this "will stop, and perhaps is in the process of being stopped."
The results of the probe should be ready in a year.
The two independent experts mandated by the UN Human Rights Council hailed US President Barack Obama's decision to close the Guantanamo prison and all CIA prisons operating abroad.
Nowak said he was also "very encouraged" by the fact that Warsaw is probing allegations of a secret CIA jail near Szymany in northeast Poland.
Besides alleged detention centres in Poland and Romania, the two experts will look into the role played by over 10 American military bases in the world, which have been alleged to have also sheltered secret jails.
"We are fully aware" of the problem, said Nowak, citing the military base of Tuzla in Bosnia, which was suspected of having served as a temporary holding centre for detainees before their transfer to Guantanamo.
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/03/10-8
Tax the Speculators
Ironweed has re-posted this article from our friends at Common Dreams.
by Ralph Nadar
Let's start with a fairness point. Why should you pay a 5 to 6 percent sales tax for buying the necessities of life, when tomorrow, some speculator on Wall Street can buy $100 million worth of Exxon derivatives and not pay one penny in sales tax? Let's further add a point of common sense. The basic premise of taxation should be to first tax what society likes the least or dislikes the most, before it taxes honest labor or human needs.
In that way, revenues can be raised at the same time as the taxes discourage those activities which are least valued, such as the most speculative stock market trades, pollution (a carbon tax), gambling, and the addictive industries that sicken or destroy health and amass large costs.
So, your member of Congress, who is grappling these days with gigantic deficits on the backs of your children at the same time as that deep recession and tax cuts reduce revenues and increase torrents of red ink, should be championing such transaction taxes.
Yet apart from a small number of legislators, most notably Congressman Peter Welch (Dem. VT) and Peter DeFazio (Dem. OR), the biggest revenue producer of all-a tax on stock derivative transactions-essentially bets on bets-and other mystifying gambles by casino capitalism-is at best corridor talk on Capitol Hill.
There are differing estimates of how much such Wall Street transaction taxes can raise each year. A transaction tax would, however, certainly raise enough to make the Wall Street crooks and gamblers pay for their own Washington bailout. Lets scan some figures economists put forth.
The most discussed and popular one is a simple sales tax on currency trades across borders. Called the Tobin Tax after its originator, the late James Tobin, a Nobel laureate economist at Yale University, 10 to 25 cents per hundred dollars of the huge amounts of dollars traded each day across bordered would produce from $100 to $300 billion per year.
There are scores of civic, labor, environmental, development, poverty and law groups all over the world pressing for such laws in their countries. (see tobintaxcall.free.fr).
According the University of Massachusetts economist, Robert Pollin, various kinds of securities-trading taxes are on the books in about forty countries, including Japan, the UK and Brazil.
Pollin writes in the current issue of the estimable Boston Review: "A small tax on all financial-market transactions, comparable to a sales tax, would raise the costs on short-term speculative trading while having negligible effect on people who trade infrequently. It would thus discourage speculation and channel funds toward productive investment." He adds that after the 1987 stock market crash, securities-trading taxes "or similar measures" were endorsed by then Senate Minority Leader Bob Dole and even the first President Bush. Professor Pollin estimates that a one-half of one percent tax would raise about $350 billion a year. That seems conservative. The Wall Street Journal once mentioned about $500 trillion in derivatives trades alone in 2008-the most speculative of transactions. A one tenth of one percent tax would raise $500 billion dollars a year, assuming that level of trading.
Economist Dean Baker says a "modest financial transactions tax would be enough to "finance a 10% across-the-board reduction in the income tax on labor.
The stock transaction tax goes back a long way. A version helped fund the Civil War and the imperial Spanish-American War. The famous British economist, John Maynard Keynes, extolled in 1936 a securities transaction tax as having the effect of "mitigating the predominance of speculation over enterprise." The U.S. had some kind of transaction tax from 1914 to 1966.
The corporate history scholar (read his excellent book, Unequal Protection) Thom Hartmann, turned three-hour-a-day talk-show-host on Air America (airamerica.com/thomvision), had discussed the long evolution of what he calls a "securities turnover excise tax" to "tamp down toxic speculation, while encouraging healthy investment."
So, why don't we have such a mega-revenue generator and lighten the income tax load on today and tomorrow's American worker? (It was one of the most popular ideas I campaigned on last year. People got it.) Because American workers need to learn about this proposed tax policy and ram it through Congress. Tell your Senators and Representatives-no ifs, ands or buts. Otherwise, Wall Street will keep rampaging over people's pensions and mutual fund savings, destabilize their jobs and hand them the bailout bill, as is occurring now.
A few minutes spent lobbying members of Congress by millions of Americans (call, write or e-mail, visit or picket) will produce one big Change for the better. Contact your member of Congress. The current financial mess makes this the right time for action.
Ralph Nader is a consumer advocate, lawyer, and author. His most recent book is The Seventeen Traditions.
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/02/04-13
by Ralph Nadar
Let's start with a fairness point. Why should you pay a 5 to 6 percent sales tax for buying the necessities of life, when tomorrow, some speculator on Wall Street can buy $100 million worth of Exxon derivatives and not pay one penny in sales tax? Let's further add a point of common sense. The basic premise of taxation should be to first tax what society likes the least or dislikes the most, before it taxes honest labor or human needs.
In that way, revenues can be raised at the same time as the taxes discourage those activities which are least valued, such as the most speculative stock market trades, pollution (a carbon tax), gambling, and the addictive industries that sicken or destroy health and amass large costs.
So, your member of Congress, who is grappling these days with gigantic deficits on the backs of your children at the same time as that deep recession and tax cuts reduce revenues and increase torrents of red ink, should be championing such transaction taxes.
Yet apart from a small number of legislators, most notably Congressman Peter Welch (Dem. VT) and Peter DeFazio (Dem. OR), the biggest revenue producer of all-a tax on stock derivative transactions-essentially bets on bets-and other mystifying gambles by casino capitalism-is at best corridor talk on Capitol Hill.
There are differing estimates of how much such Wall Street transaction taxes can raise each year. A transaction tax would, however, certainly raise enough to make the Wall Street crooks and gamblers pay for their own Washington bailout. Lets scan some figures economists put forth.
The most discussed and popular one is a simple sales tax on currency trades across borders. Called the Tobin Tax after its originator, the late James Tobin, a Nobel laureate economist at Yale University, 10 to 25 cents per hundred dollars of the huge amounts of dollars traded each day across bordered would produce from $100 to $300 billion per year.
There are scores of civic, labor, environmental, development, poverty and law groups all over the world pressing for such laws in their countries. (see tobintaxcall.free.fr).
According the University of Massachusetts economist, Robert Pollin, various kinds of securities-trading taxes are on the books in about forty countries, including Japan, the UK and Brazil.
Pollin writes in the current issue of the estimable Boston Review: "A small tax on all financial-market transactions, comparable to a sales tax, would raise the costs on short-term speculative trading while having negligible effect on people who trade infrequently. It would thus discourage speculation and channel funds toward productive investment." He adds that after the 1987 stock market crash, securities-trading taxes "or similar measures" were endorsed by then Senate Minority Leader Bob Dole and even the first President Bush. Professor Pollin estimates that a one-half of one percent tax would raise about $350 billion a year. That seems conservative. The Wall Street Journal once mentioned about $500 trillion in derivatives trades alone in 2008-the most speculative of transactions. A one tenth of one percent tax would raise $500 billion dollars a year, assuming that level of trading.
Economist Dean Baker says a "modest financial transactions tax would be enough to "finance a 10% across-the-board reduction in the income tax on labor.
The stock transaction tax goes back a long way. A version helped fund the Civil War and the imperial Spanish-American War. The famous British economist, John Maynard Keynes, extolled in 1936 a securities transaction tax as having the effect of "mitigating the predominance of speculation over enterprise." The U.S. had some kind of transaction tax from 1914 to 1966.
The corporate history scholar (read his excellent book, Unequal Protection) Thom Hartmann, turned three-hour-a-day talk-show-host on Air America (airamerica.com/thomvision), had discussed the long evolution of what he calls a "securities turnover excise tax" to "tamp down toxic speculation, while encouraging healthy investment."
So, why don't we have such a mega-revenue generator and lighten the income tax load on today and tomorrow's American worker? (It was one of the most popular ideas I campaigned on last year. People got it.) Because American workers need to learn about this proposed tax policy and ram it through Congress. Tell your Senators and Representatives-no ifs, ands or buts. Otherwise, Wall Street will keep rampaging over people's pensions and mutual fund savings, destabilize their jobs and hand them the bailout bill, as is occurring now.
A few minutes spent lobbying members of Congress by millions of Americans (call, write or e-mail, visit or picket) will produce one big Change for the better. Contact your member of Congress. The current financial mess makes this the right time for action.
Ralph Nader is a consumer advocate, lawyer, and author. His most recent book is The Seventeen Traditions.
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/02/04-13
Call for Mass Civil Disobedience Against Coal
Our friends at Common Dreams have reposted this article from Yes! Magazine:
by Bill McKibben & Wendell Berry
Dear Friends,
There are moments in a nation's-and a planet's-history when it may be necessary for some to break the law in order to bear witness to an evil, bring it to wider attention, and push for its correction. We think such a time has arrived, and we are writing to say that we hope some of you will join us in Washington D.C. on Monday March 2 in order to take part in a civil act of civil disobedience outside a coal-fired power plant near Capitol Hill.
We will be there to make several points:
Coal-fired power is driving climate change. Our foremost climatologist, NASA's James Hansen, has demonstrated that our only hope of getting our atmosphere back to a safe level-below 350 parts per million co2-lies in stopping the use of coal to generate electricity.
Even if climate change were not the urgent crisis that it is, we would still be burning our fossil fuels too fast, wasting too much energy and releasing too much poison into the air and water. We would still need to slow down, and to restore thrift to its old place as an economic virtue.
Coal is filthy at its source. Much of the coal used in this country comes from West Virginia and Kentucky, where companies engage in "mountaintop removal" to get at the stuff; they leave behind a leveled wasteland, and impoverished human communities. No technology better exemplifies the out-of-control relationship between humans and the rest of creation.
Coal smoke makes children sick. Asthma rates in urban areas near coal-fired power plants are high. Air pollution from burning coal is harmful to the health of grown-ups too, and to the health of everything that breathes, including forests.
The industry claim that there is something called "clean coal" is, put simply, a lie. But it's a lie told with tens of millions of dollars, which we do not have. We have our bodies, and we are willing to use them to make our point. We don't come to such a step lightly. We have written and testified and organized politically to make this point for many years, and while in recent months there has been real progress against new coal-fired power plants, the daily business of providing half our electricity from coal continues unabated. It's time to make clear that we can't safely run this planet on coal at all. So we feel the time has come to do more--we hear President Barack Obama's call for a movement for change that continues past election day, and we hear Nobel Laureate Al Gore's call for creative non-violence outside coal plants. As part of the international negotiations now underway on global warming, our nation will be asking China, India, and others to limit their use of coal in the future to help save the planet's atmosphere. This is a hard thing to ask, because it's their cheapest fuel. Part of our witness in March will be to say that we're willing to make some sacrifices ourselves, even if it's only a trip to the jail.
With any luck, this will be the largest such protest yet, large enough that it may provide a real spark. If you want to participate with us, you need to go through a short course of non-violence training. This will be, to the extent it depends on us, an entirely peaceful demonstration, carried out in a spirit of hope and not rancor. We will be there in our dress clothes, and ask the same of you. There will be young people, people from faith communities, people from the coal fields of Appalachia, and from the neighborhoods in Washington that get to breathe the smoke from the plant.
We will cross the legal boundary of the power plant, and we expect to be arrested. After that we have no certainty what will happen, but lawyers and such will be on hand. Our goal is not to shut the plant down for the day-it is but one of many, and anyway its operation for a day is not the point. The worldwide daily reliance on coal is the danger; this is one small step to raise awareness of that ruinous habit and hence help to break it.
Needless to say, we're not handling the logistics of this day. All the credit goes to a variety of groups, especially EnergyAction (which is bringing thousands of young people to Washington that weekend), Greenpeace, the Ruckus Society, and Rainforest Action Network. For more information: http://www.capitolclimateaction.org/
Thank you,
Wendell Berry, Bill McKibben
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/02/27-10
by Bill McKibben & Wendell Berry
Dear Friends,
There are moments in a nation's-and a planet's-history when it may be necessary for some to break the law in order to bear witness to an evil, bring it to wider attention, and push for its correction. We think such a time has arrived, and we are writing to say that we hope some of you will join us in Washington D.C. on Monday March 2 in order to take part in a civil act of civil disobedience outside a coal-fired power plant near Capitol Hill.
We will be there to make several points:
Coal-fired power is driving climate change. Our foremost climatologist, NASA's James Hansen, has demonstrated that our only hope of getting our atmosphere back to a safe level-below 350 parts per million co2-lies in stopping the use of coal to generate electricity.
Even if climate change were not the urgent crisis that it is, we would still be burning our fossil fuels too fast, wasting too much energy and releasing too much poison into the air and water. We would still need to slow down, and to restore thrift to its old place as an economic virtue.
Coal is filthy at its source. Much of the coal used in this country comes from West Virginia and Kentucky, where companies engage in "mountaintop removal" to get at the stuff; they leave behind a leveled wasteland, and impoverished human communities. No technology better exemplifies the out-of-control relationship between humans and the rest of creation.
Coal smoke makes children sick. Asthma rates in urban areas near coal-fired power plants are high. Air pollution from burning coal is harmful to the health of grown-ups too, and to the health of everything that breathes, including forests.
The industry claim that there is something called "clean coal" is, put simply, a lie. But it's a lie told with tens of millions of dollars, which we do not have. We have our bodies, and we are willing to use them to make our point. We don't come to such a step lightly. We have written and testified and organized politically to make this point for many years, and while in recent months there has been real progress against new coal-fired power plants, the daily business of providing half our electricity from coal continues unabated. It's time to make clear that we can't safely run this planet on coal at all. So we feel the time has come to do more--we hear President Barack Obama's call for a movement for change that continues past election day, and we hear Nobel Laureate Al Gore's call for creative non-violence outside coal plants. As part of the international negotiations now underway on global warming, our nation will be asking China, India, and others to limit their use of coal in the future to help save the planet's atmosphere. This is a hard thing to ask, because it's their cheapest fuel. Part of our witness in March will be to say that we're willing to make some sacrifices ourselves, even if it's only a trip to the jail.
With any luck, this will be the largest such protest yet, large enough that it may provide a real spark. If you want to participate with us, you need to go through a short course of non-violence training. This will be, to the extent it depends on us, an entirely peaceful demonstration, carried out in a spirit of hope and not rancor. We will be there in our dress clothes, and ask the same of you. There will be young people, people from faith communities, people from the coal fields of Appalachia, and from the neighborhoods in Washington that get to breathe the smoke from the plant.
We will cross the legal boundary of the power plant, and we expect to be arrested. After that we have no certainty what will happen, but lawyers and such will be on hand. Our goal is not to shut the plant down for the day-it is but one of many, and anyway its operation for a day is not the point. The worldwide daily reliance on coal is the danger; this is one small step to raise awareness of that ruinous habit and hence help to break it.
Needless to say, we're not handling the logistics of this day. All the credit goes to a variety of groups, especially EnergyAction (which is bringing thousands of young people to Washington that weekend), Greenpeace, the Ruckus Society, and Rainforest Action Network. For more information: http://www.capitolclimateaction.org/
Thank you,
Wendell Berry, Bill McKibben
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/02/27-10
Friday, February 13, 2009
Non-profit Organization Common Cause Expounds Upon Pay-to-Play
Pay-to-play is a term used to describe an all too common occurrence in our political system: when money is exchanged directly for political favors, such as generous campaign donations for a lucrative government contract, or Superbowl tickets in exchange for a legislative favor.
The phrase began dominating headlines in late 2008, when former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich was arrested on corruption charges that included trying to sell the Senate seat of then President-elect Barack Obama to the highest bidder.
Ironically, in the closing arguments of his impeachment trial on Jan. 29, Blagojevich stumbled on a kernel of truth about politics today, when he defended his actions by saying, "Those are conversations relating to the things all of us in politics do in order to run campaigns and try to win elections."
“You guys are in politics,” Blagojevich added to the senators. “You know what we have to do to go out and run elections.”
Blagojevich, who also tried to withhold funds for a local children's hospital as ransom for campaign contributions, deserves no defense. But he demonstrates how deep the pay-to-play problems go.
“The American people know too, and they want it stopped,” said Bob Edgar, president and CEO of Common Cause. “It’s time to end pay-to-play politics in America and give people the government they deserve.”
There is no question that our system is broken. Blagojevich is just one story and yet, through his actions, he has shined a spotlight on a much deeper rot in our politics that needs to be fixed.
Common Cause is proposing a major reform package that, if enacted, will strike at the heart of this corrupt system and culture. Our “Clean Government for Change” package would:
· Ban lobbyist contributions, bundling and fundraising for members of Congress and the President
· Adopt pay-to-play laws at the state level modeled after a successful Connecticut law that bans campaign contributions and fundraising by lobbyists and government contractors
· Create a new campaign finance system that enables candidates who swear off special interest money to run vigorous campaigns on a blend of small private contributions and public funds.
Please join Common Cause in its work. Visit www.commoncause.org to learn more.
Sunday, January 18, 2009
Past Film Update: Economist Gordon Tullock's Ideas on Political Corruption Explained
Ironweed's Volume No. 35 from October 2008 contains a short film entitled LONG DIVISION: The Next Big Threat to Democracy.
The film focuses on famed economist Gordon Tullock, a scholar who abstains from voting because he considers his vote to be statistically insignificant.
Now, a new article in 2009 from NorthJersey.com explains some of Tullock's economic priciples, including why the actions of crooked politicians like disgraced Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich are so harmful to the rest of us.
To read the full article, visit http://www.northjersey.com/news/nationalpolitics/36965694.html
--The Ironweed Team
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