There are so many ironies to be discussed in this blog post, I am not sure I can count them all.

The email from Comedy Central was titled Selfies at Funerals.  Well, first of all, it was not a funeral.  It was a memorial celebration of Nelson Mandela’s life.  That’s why I gave this blog the title that I did.

The actual segment of  The Daily Show seems to be titled “Tuesdays with Mourning”.  I am not sure this is a better description of what the affair was all about.  Be that as it may, below is the video of the actual segment of the show.

The well written remarks by Jon Stewart were aimed at the silly media and political response that I predicted in my previous blog post Obama shakes hands with Cuba’s Raul Castro.

The final few seconds of video shows Jon Stewart having the same type of overblown, silly reaction to the “selfie”.

I suppose this segment was aired before the publication of the USA Today article Photographer: Mrs. Obama not upset over selfie.

The photographer who took the viral picture of President Obama’s “selfie” with two other world leaders says Michelle Obama’s expression has been distorted.

The AFP picture — shot Tuesday at Nelson Mandela’s memorial service — shows Obama posing with British Prime Minister David Cameron and Danish Prime Minister Helle Thorning Schmidt, and Mrs. Obama off to the side with a disapproving look.

But, as AFP’s Roberto Schmidt pointed out in a blog, “photos can lie.”

Writes Schmidt: “In reality, just a few seconds earlier the first lady was herself joking with those around her, Cameron and Schmidt included. Her stern look was captured by chance.”

Schmidt also discloses that Thorning Schmidt, the Danish prime minister, produced the smartphone in which the selfie is now presumably stored.

I can’t imagine any more twists to this story, but I won’t be entirely surprised if this story has more legs than a millipede.

The Real News Network is starting a new series in Reality Asserts Itself starting with the interview From Zionist to Anti-Zionist Activist – Phyllis Bennis on Reality Asserts Itself pt1.

On RAI with Paul Jay, Phyllis Bennis traces her development from active Zionist youth to whom Jewish identity meant support for Israel, to a leading American anti-Zionist writer and analyst

Bennis initially has a hard time recalling what changed her mind about the issue, but eventually gets to the heart of the transition.

For me the transition started to happen in earnest when I started working with and becoming friends with some Palestinians. When you realize that these are real people with many similarities in background to me and some with educations superior to mine, you start thinking differently from the stereotypes that you grew up with.

When I started to think about the indignities that my friends suffered because they were Palestinians, it became impossible to accept that this was right.

Even after many discussions with one of my friends, I still clung to my view about the history of the formation of Israel and he clung to his. It wasn’t until many years after we agreed to stop discussing the issue, that I started to come to the realization that he had been right about more things than I had realized at the time.

Before I go any farther, I will recall my words from a previous post Scholarship and Politics: The Case of Noam Chomsky.

As I said to Sharon after reading the chapter on propaganda in the book Death of the Liberal Class by Chris Hedges, you really don’t know who to trust anymore.  I am not even sure I trust myself.

I read the book Peace Be Upon You, The Story of Muslim, Christian, and Jewish Coexistence by Zachary Karabell. Then as sort of an antidote I reread the book Exodus by Leon Uris.

Only after reading Exodus again did I recognize the racism in the attitudes of the Jews in Israel toward the Palestinians with whom they had grown up. As Phyllis Bennis said in her interview with Paul Jay, we had grown up thinking what a wonderful book and movie Exodus was. Now I can see how one-sided it was. Now I can see how one-sided are the positions of many of today’s Israeli leaders.

December 12, 2013

The second part in the series is covered in my subsequent post Fmr. Israeli Intel. Chief Says Palestinian-Israeli Conflict Greater Risk than Nuclear Iran – Phyllis Bennis on Reality Asserts Itself pt2.

December 13, 2013

The final two parts of the series are:

Syria’s Six Wars and Humanitarian Catastrophe – Phyllis Bennis on Reality Asserts Itself (3/4)

and

One State or Two, Solution Must be Based on Palestinian Rights – Phyllis Bennis on RAI (4/4)

USA Today has the story and video Obama shakes hands with Cuba’s Raul Castro.

Can you see the news stories spun around the “the brief moment captured in this photograph”? Imagine the Faux News headline “Obama bows to Castro”.

Of course, I don’t know what a guy over 6 feet tall is supposed to do when confronting a guy just over 5 feet tall when he wants to look him in the eye. You can bet that some people will see this as bowing.

I just thought I would take this opportunity to mention this before the media put there spin on it, but I am sure I am too late.

The New York Times has the article Scholarship and Politics: The Case of Noam Chomsky by Stanley Fish.

I was enchanted, even ravished, by these lectures, not because I agreed with the positions they staked out, but because of the spectacle they presented of an intelligence exercising itself on a set of significant philosophical questions. It was thought of the highest order performed by a thinker, now 85 years old, who by and large eschewed rhetorical flourishes (he has called his own speaking style “boring” and says he likes it that way) and just did it, where ‘it” was the patient exploration of deep issues that had been explored before him by a succession of predecessors, fully acknowledged, in a conversation that is forever being continued and forever being replenished.

After finishing the article, I thought of it as a beautifully written tribute to the pursuit of academic thought. Even as I read it, I was taken aback by the statement in the article:

“…since language is thought rather than an addition to or clothing of thought, the limits of language are the limits of what we can fruitfully think about.”

So my question is, “Do non-human animals think?”  If so, how do they think, since they have no language to express their thoughts?  Do human babies think before they have language?  How do they acquire language without thinking?

When you see videos of an octopus figuring out how to unscrew the lid of a bottle, do you suppose the octopus is thinking (without language)?

Have you ever watched a squirrel try to get seed out of a bird feeder.  They have some mighty creative ways of approaching the problem after many failed attempts.  What are they thinking as they try different approaches?

I see that some of the other comments on the article mirror some of my questions.

Now I think the article reminds me of how easy it is to be lulled into a state of hypnosis by beautifully crafted words.  Perhaps this is what has troubled me about Naom Chomsky over the years.  Sometimes, i just don’t want to believe what he is saying politically.  Lately, I have been thinking my distrust was unwarranted.  What he has been saying has proven to be right more often than I imagined possible.  Or is it that I am just being hypnotized?

As I said to Sharon after reading the chapter on propaganda in the book Death of the Liberal Class by Chris Hedges, you really don’t know who to trust anymore.  I am not even sure I trust myself.

The Jerusalem Post has the story Netanyahu will not attend Mandela memorial.

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu announced on Sunday that he will not travel to South Africa for the memorial of freedom fighter Nelson Mandela on Tuesday.

A source at the Prime Minister’s office said the trip is too expensive and that there were “logistical concerns” preventing the prime minister from attending.

Putting aside whether or not you believe that Netanyahu has valid concerns about attending the funeral, can you imagine how uncomfortable it would be for an Israeli leader’s policies to be compared to what Mandela fought for?  Was Netanyahu going to stand up and praise Mandela for fighting to free a suppressed majority from the shackles of apartheid?  Was he going to be a proponent of Nelson Mandela’s reconciliation of the former ruling minority with the newly ruling majority?

If Netanyahu compares where Mandela stood in the eyes of some world leaders in the 1980s to how history is being rewritten now, what does he think about what his history will look like in 30 years?

If Netanyahu and his allies were successful in batting down President Carter’s stance that Israel is an apartheid nation, do they think they can succeed at this forever?

See my previous post Al Sharpton stops Meet The Press panel from revising the torrid American apartheid stance to see if you can get away with espousing your own version of history.

If you are a strong believer in the current Israeli stance, tell me what you think history will say 30 years from now.

The Daily Kos has the article Al Sharpton stops Meet The Press panel from revising the torrid American apartheid stance

One of the excerpts that the article highlights is:

“I think it is a betrayal of history to act as though as Nelson Mandela evolved the world embraced it. There was a real battle in this country,” Al Sharpton said. “So when Randall Robinson and Maxine Waters and Reverend Jackson led that fight … there was major contention. They were attacked for supporting communists. Let’s remember the ANC that he refers to, they were pursuing freedom. Many of the communist nations embraced them. This country did not. So it is not like they were born Marxist. They were born people seeking to be free. Some of the Marxist nations, either genuinely or in a self-interest way, tried to embrace that. This country did not, and fought that, and denounced them, and denigrated them. And I think that for us now to sugarcoat that is a betrayal of history. We chose sides. We chose the wrong side

I avoided being told the wrong stuff and then having someone correct it by not watching Meet The Press anymore. Not watching the Sunday morning talk shows is one of the ways I keep my blood pressure under control.

The Alternet is reprinting the story Killing Them Softly: Pope Francis Condemns Income Inequality, Sanctions Gender Inequality. On this blog, I never promised to be balanced, but I also didn’t promise to refuse to look at different sides of a story.  In the author’s words:

The release on Tuesday of Evangelii Gaudium, the pope’s manifesto for the renewal of the church, has set off a pandemic of swooning among liberals, particularly because of the pope’s welcome critique of so-called “free market” ideology and the gaping income inequality it creates. Overlooked is the internal inconsistency of the document, in which exclusion of the poor from full participation in society is rightly portrayed as an evil, while exclusion of women from full participation in the church is defended as necessary.

I looked up some of what the Pope had to say in his exhortation.

103. The Church acknowledges the indispensable contribution which women make to society through the sensitivity, intuition and other distinctive skill sets which they, more than men, tend to possess. I think, for example, of the special concern which women show to others, which finds a particular, even if not exclusive, expression in motherhood. I readily acknowledge that many women share pastoral responsibilities with priests, helping to guide people, families and groups and offering new contributions to theological reflection. But we need to create still broader opportunities for a more incisive female presence in the Church. Because “the feminine genius is needed in all expressions in the life of society, the presence of women must also be guaranteed in the workplace”[72] and in the various other settings where important decisions are made, both in the Church and in social structures.

104. Demands that the legitimate rights of women be respected, based on the firm conviction that men and women are equal in dignity, present the Church with profound and challenging questions which cannot be lightly evaded. The reservation of the priesthood to males, as a sign of Christ the Spouse who gives himself in the Eucharist, is not a question open to discussion, but it can prove especially divisive if sacramental power is too closely identified with power in general. It must be remembered that when we speak of sacramental power “we are in the realm of function, not that of dignity or holiness”.[73] The ministerial priesthood is one means employed by Jesus for the service of his people, yet our great dignity derives from baptism, which is accessible to all. The configuration of the priest to Christ the head – namely, as the principal source of grace – does not imply an exaltation which would set him above others. In the Church, functions “do not favour the superiority of some vis-à-vis the others”.[74] Indeed, a woman, Mary, is more important than the bishops. Even when the function of ministerial priesthood is considered “hierarchical”, it must be remembered that “it is totally ordered to the holiness of Christ’s members”.[75] Its key and axis is not power understood as domination, but the power to administer the sacrament of the Eucharist; this is the origin of its authority, which is always a service to God’s people. This presents a great challenge for pastors and theologians, who are in a position to recognize more fully what this entails with regard to the possible role of women in decision-making in different areas of the Church’s life.

If you read the Alternet article, you can see that despite the words of the Pope as quoted above, there is still room to complain.  I must admit that I felt TL;DR about the article – Too Long; Didn’t Read (it all).  However, if you are interested in this sort of thing, you might want to read more of the article.

The Real News Network has the second part of a series in the video Credibility of the Ruling Elite is Being Shredded – Chris Hedges on Reality Asserts Itself pt2.

On RAI with Paul Jay, Chris Hedges says that while people are disgusted with the centers of power, unless there is a constructive alternative, any eruption will be nihilistic and could be fascist

At 2:37 of the video, there is a picture with a caption Alexander Berkman in 1919 on the eve of his deportation from the US

Having started to read the book Death of the Liberal Class by Chris Hedges, I am wondering how it came to pass that my maternal grandfather was not deported from this country before he had a chance to even start his family here. “Chapter III – Dismantling the Liberal Class” is quite startling. The extent to which government and 1% supported propaganda and intimidation has played a role in shaping us since prior to WW I is really eye opening.

I covered the first part of The Real News Network series in the previous post The Pathology of the Rich – Chris Hedges on Reality Asserts Itself pt1.

I received an email from MoveOn.org that I partially quote below.

Dear MoveOn member,

Breaking news: Republican House Majority Leader Eric Cantor is working on a hawkish bill that would torpedo President Obama’s interim agreement with Iran by setting unrealistic goals for the final deal.

Just how bad is the bill? “It would blow things apart. If you want a war, that is the thing to do.” That’s how a Democratic senator summarized a recent, similar proposal.

And this isn’t a fringe bill either—it’s gaining ground among Democratic members of the House—and if we do nothing it will become bipartisan.

Congress is debating this bill in the next few days. This a crisis for diplomacy. If even just the House of Representatives passes this bill, it tells the Iranian people that America isn’t serious about diplomacy—and even if President Obama vetoes it, the damage is done.

That’s why I created an urgent petition on MoveOn.org, telling the House of Representatives to back President Obama’s diplomatic approach to Iran.

Click on this link to sign the petition.

In reading the book Death of the Liberal Class by Chris Hedges, I have learned of the massive propaganda campaigns that have been used since the run-up to WW I to change people’s minds to be in favor of a war and to suppress all dissent.  You wouldn’t believe what is in the book, although it is backed up with citations.  If 10% of what is in the book is true, this latest attempt at warmongering must be stopped.

The current situation is nothing like Chamberlain and Munich prior to WW II.  We are not claiming this will bring everlasting peace, we are just claiming we ought to give peace a chance.  We have orders of magnitude more military power than we did prior to the start of WW II.  If the agreement with Iran fails, there will be plenty of time to use that power.  With all due skepticism in place, there is no reason to scuttle a peaceful effort that might achieve all the goals that the ordinary U.S. citizens would want.