whitebeard

Don't curse the darkness, light a candle.

Krystian Zimerman

Great!


12:24 AM, April 27, 2009

Getprev Poland's Krystian Zimerman, widely regarded as one of the finest pianists in the world, created a furor Sunday night in his debut at Walt Disney Concert Hall when he announced this would be his last performance in America because of the nation's military policies overseas.

Before playing the final work on his recital, Karol Szymanowski's "Variations on a Polish Folk Theme," Zimerman sat silently at the piano for a moment, almost began to play, but then turned to the audience. In a quiet but angry voice that did not project well, he indicated that he could no longer play in a country whose military wants to control the whole world.

"Get your hands off of my country," he said.  He also made reference to the U.S. military detention camp in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

About 30 or 40 people in the audience walked out, some shouting obscenities.  "Yes," he answered, "some people when they hear the word military start marching."

Others remained but booed or yelled for him to shut up and play the piano.  But many more cheered.  Zimerman responded by saying that America has far finer things to export than the military, and he thanked those who support democracy.

For the first half of the recital, Zimerman had played a Bach Partita and Beethoven's last piano sonata, Opus 111, with firm determination.  After intermission he made a last minute substitution, exchanging late Brahms works for a 1953
sonata by Polish composer Grazyna Bacewicz.  The Szymanowski variations, which closed the program, was played with an astonishing ferocity that brought nothing but tumultuous cheers.  There was no encore.

The pianist was not available after the concert for further comment.

Zimerman has had problems in the United States in recent years.  He travels with his own Steinway piano, which he has altered himself.  But shortly after 9/11, the instrument was confiscated at JFK Airport when he landed in New York to give a recital at Carnegie Hall.  Thinking the glue smelled funny, the TSA decided to take no chances and destroyed the instrument.  Since then he has shipped his pianos in parts, which he reassembles by hand after he lands.  He also drives the truck himself when he carries his instrument from city to city over land, as he did after playing a recital in Berkeley on Friday.

Note:
In Italy we sing a song: buttiamo a mare le basi americane!  jettison american military bases.

posted by: Whitebeard at 19:53 | link | comments |
us, democracy, war, resisters

Israeli war crimes

posted by: Whitebeard at 10:15 | link | comments |
israel, gaza

Thank you, Debra

Urbano

I received this message from a World Can't Wait activist today:

"Read the Bush era torture memos in full as soon as you can. The premeditated, systematic sadism is beyond words and needs to be immediately and loudly exposed and denounced.
Nobody in society who is familiar with these memos can any longer claim any doubt about whether torture was/is sanctioned from the highest levels of government.
 
And, given that Obama is releasing these memos AT THE SAME TIME as he is officially announcing he won't prosecute those who carried all of this out means  that nobody familiar with the release of these memos can any longer claim honest confusion about whether or not Obama represents "change."
 
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/politics/20090416_memos.pdf
 
Finally, as you read the memos, consider the 2 quotes below:
 
1) George W. Bush, March 23, 2003 --  "I expect them to be treated humanely, just like we will treat any prisoners of theirs we capture humanely. If not, the people who mistreat the prisoners will be treated as war criminals."

2) Barack H. Obama, April 16, 2009 --  "In releasing these memos, it is our intention to assure those who carried out their duties relying in good faith upon legal advice from the Department of Justice that they will not be subject to prosecution."

I've been searching the web for response and coverage:

Independent. UK, Obama Pledges to Protest CIA Torture Operatives: Barack Obama yesterday confirmed he will shield from prosecution CIA operatives who inflicted waterboarding and other extreme interrogation techniques against terror suspects during the Bush years, even as the White House released memos containing shocking new details of what was permitted in their secret prisons.

Four of the memos that were written by the Justice Department officials in the wake of the 11 September attacks offering legal justification for the use of special techniques on prisoners were made public in their entirety without any passages blacked out, as some observers had expected...Separately, last night, the US Attorney General Eric Holder reaffirmed that those CIA employees involved in past torture must be protected from prosecution. Indeed, the US government, he said, would provide them with lawyers in the event others tried to bring cases against them and pay for any monetary penalties they might incur.

Agence France Press: Obama Shields CIA Interrogators: "It is one of the deepest disappointments of this administration that it appears unwilling to uphold the law where crimes have been committed by former officials," said the Center for Constitutional Rights, which has championed the legal rights of "war on terror" detainees.  "Whether or not CIA operatives who conducted water boarding are guaranteed immunity, it is the high level officials who conceived, justified and ordered the torture program who bear the most responsibility for breaking domestic and international law, and it is they who must be prosecuted," it said. http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5hZTpcxRFBXdANLn4p8jag4grEoSw

Glenn Greenwald on Salon.com: I vehemently disagree with anyone -- including Obama -- who believes that prosecutions are unwarranted.  These memos describe grotesque war crimes -- legalized by classic banality-of-evil criminals and ordered by pure criminals -- that must be prosecuted if the rule of law is to have any meaning.  But the decision of whether to prosecute is not Obama's to make; ultimately, it is Holder's and/or a Special Prosectuor's.  More importantly, Obama can only do so much by himself.  The Obama administration should, on its own, initiate criminal proceedings, but the citizenry also has responsibilities here.  These acts were carried out by our Government, and if we are really as repulsed by them as we claim, then the burden is on us to demand that something be done.  http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/radio/2009/04/16/aclu/

And David Swanson, with whom I'll be doing a panel on Prosecution of Bush Era War Criminals Saturday at the Left Forum, Pace University, and Sunday at the Veterans for Peace event in Woodstock, NY:  No Amnesty for Torturers.  "On April 16, President Obama said he would not prosecute CIA agents who engaged in torture, because President Bush's lawyers told them it was 'legal.' President Obama also said Attorney General Eric Holder would use taxpayer dollars to defend torturers against lawsuits by torture victims, and to pay all judgments if they lost.   These decisions are intolerable and unacceptable."

 

Support Matthis Chiroux, courageous IVAW vet who refused deployment to Iraq.

Army Separation hearing

Tuesday, April 21  9 am

1 Reserve Way, Overland

St. Louis, MO

More info at matthisresists.us

Write Matthis a support message which he can take to the hearing Tuesday.

Interview with Matthis

http://worldcantwait.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=5525:matthis-chiroux-interviewed-rise-up-people&catid=117:homepage&Itemid=289

Front and Back of new t-shirts

Donate $50 or more and receive a shirt

S-M-L-XL-XXL 100% cotton, Black

Help sustain the work of World Can't Wait, ask a pertinent question, and make a statement!

Debra Sweet, Director, The World Can't Wait - Drive Out the Bush Regime

 

posted by: Whitebeard at 07:27 | link | comments |
iraq, us, civil rights, war, torture, resisters