Sayed Hassan Nasrallah Presente! “And he was a teacher”. La Lutta Continua.
Sayed Hassan Nasrallah as a young militant in the early 1980s, I assume on the streets of Beirut. Thank you to @Fereshteh Sadeghi for posting on “X”.
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Judge Napolitano: Tell us a little bit about Nasrallah. Was he just the face of Hezbollah? Was he just a spokesman or was he a substantial figure like Gandhi or Nelson Mandela?
Alastair Crooke: He was the latter. He was a substantial figure.
That’s why you have people in Kashmir, Pakistan, and India on marches because he had that charisma; he was, albeit in a militant way, he was a Gandhi. He is someone who created this huge charisma. You see signs (all over the Global South) of people crying and mourning him across the world. He was something very much more than just a leader of Hezbollah. He was also a military leader and he was a teacher. And so, if you like, he brought moral teaching to the people. He was a symbol of a lack of corruption and a commitment to justice”
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- Nasrallah is gone. He leaves a legacy of militancy, political sophistication, a moral, ethical code to live by. He was a key force in the Axis of Resistance that both Washington and Tel Aviv hope to neutralize and eliminate. Nasrallah’s spirit lives on, his example lives on. Yesterday, during a Jewish Voice for Peace demonstration targeting the offices of U.S. Congresswoman Diana DeGette (D-CO) and U.S. Senator Michael Bennet, I was asked to read the Jewish prayer for the dead, kaddish, to remembering the lives of those killed in Gaza, in Lebanon. It was also a preemptive Kaddish for the deaths Washington and Tel Aviv are about to unleash. I spoke of death “watering the seeds of life”, of how the sacrifices of the many are a part and parcel of the birth pains of a new society, of the need to de-Zionize Judaism. It was also a kaddish for my mother and father, my Aunt Mal and Uncle Sam, and for Ismael Haniyeh and Sayed Hassan Nasrallah.
The murder/assassination of Sayed Hassan Nasrallah – like that of many before him, among the Patrice Lumumba, Yasir Arafat (medical assassination), was meant to “decapitate” the opposition. But the world is at a point because of the level of struggle where the elimination of a leader, even one as important as Nasrallah, changes little. Yes, certainly a tactical blow to Hezbollah and the Axis of Resistance but on another level a strategic set back that will lead both the U.S. and Israel into a deeper downward spiral.
The reports coming out suggest that the underground bunker in the Dahia neighborhood of Beirut was hit by 83 (or so) 2000 pound bunker buster U.S. made bombs, bombs meant to penetrate to underground tunnels. The first one hits, chipping away at the surface; the second one penetrates more deeply. And thus the leadership of Hezbollah.
And now the worms come out of the woodwork to celebrate Nasrallah’s “elimination”, among the wormiest of them all, Trump’s real estate mogul, son in law, Jared Kushner, who has called on Israel to “finish the job”. Kushner has also rejected demands for a Gaza ceasefire deal and declared that Israel will “never get another chance” to destroy Hezbollah. Kushner boasts that this assassination will open the doors for the resurrection of the much vaunted (with little justification) Abrahamic Accords, meant to normalize Israel’s relations with the conservative Arab world and essentially end Palestinian aspirations for an independent state, an initiative that was blown out of the water on October 7 by Hamas’s breakout from Gaza.
Concerning the Abrahamic Accords, whose resurrection is what Nasrallah’s targeting is all about: Ain’t a gonna happen Jared. My sense is, that while, yes, this assassination is a set back, it will probably galvanize the Axis of Resistance in all of its elements into even more determined resistance. Your “Abrahamic Accords” – basically the program of the most fascist-like elements of Israeli-settler society introduced to the world through you, is already in history’s garbage can, where you and your pathetic clown uncle will soon I hope join it (politically).
Concerning the Abrahamic Accords, whose resurrection is what Nasrallah’s targeting is all about: Ain’t a gonna happen Jared. My sense is, that while, yes, this assassination is a set back, it will probably galvanize the Axis of Resistance in all of its elements into even more determined resistance. Your “Abrahamic Accords” – basically the program of the most fascist-like elements of Israeli-settler society introduced to the world through you, is already in history’s garbage can, where you and your pathetic clown uncle will soon I hope join it (politically).
2. A memory stirs.
It’s 1981. I’m in Beirut speaking with Palestinian leaders there. One of them tells me of his great respect for a new generation of Islamic militants. He is referring to the nexus of young militant Lebanese Shi’ites that will soon form Hezbollah. Later after Israel’s 1982 Lebanon invasion, a similar conversation – how Islamic militants worked to effectively limit the Israeli attack on Beirut (during that 1982 Israeli attack that led to the slaughter of Palestinian innocents at Sabra and Chatilla Camp). Eventually, their solid defense combined with global pressure force Israel to withdraw from Beirut and in 2000 from much of Lebanon (save a small finger of occupation). I am again told how young Islamic militants were far better organized, far better effective in protecting Lebanese civilians than their other Lebanese comrades). I sense – it wasn’t rocket science – that a new form of Islamic resistance is being born.
That was 40+ years ago.
Since then Hezbollah has grown into a formidable political and military force. It is – literally – a part of the Lebanese government although it maintains its structural political and military independence, in classic “united front” form – “autonomy with cooperation”, a united front with a new mix.
A telling minor Hezbollah personal experience: I am at the time teaching at the University of Denver’s Korbel School of International Studies. A student comes to me; he is going to spend the summer in Beirut studying at the American University there. He suggests doing an independent study on Hezbollah. I don’t remember the year precisely but think it was around 2007 or 8. I tell him that I think it is a good idea as here in the USA there was (and still is) basically little knowledge of the organization which by then is defined as terrorist by the US State Department, and that some kind of serious academic probe and report would be a contribution to the common good. He returns in the following fall to tell me that once in Lebanon he is strictly forbidden to pursue any contact with Hezbollah and will be disciplined (I suppose expelled from Lebanon) should he pursue. this project. Somewhat (but not too much) startled by this application of academic censorship, I laugh and comment: “How dangerous could, frankly, a superficial study, interview by an undergraduate in International Studies be to U.S. interests in the Middle East?”
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Rocky Mountain Jewish Voice for Peace. September 29, 2024
Support Independent Candidate for the U.S. House in Colorado’s 7th District
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(I will be supporting Ron Tupa, running for Congress in Colorado’s 7th District. He is running against the current incumbent, Brittany Pettersen. I would encourage those of you who live in her district to do likewise.
Tupa is an experienced, principled independent candidate that would make a fine congressman.
It is time, actually, beyond time, for people to find viable alternatives to both the Democratic and Republic Party, people who run for office who are not controlled by the military industrial complex and the financial oligarchy whose suffocating control has reduced the U.S. political system to near naught, and stripped its democratic content to next to nothing.
Ron Tupa is running as an independent candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives against Brittany Pettersen in Colorado’s 7th District (basically Jefferson County). His main opponent in the race is Brittany Pettersen,
Personal Background:
Ron Tupa, a single dad and proud parent of two teenagers, one who just finished high school and the other who will soon graduate, served as a Colorado state legislator at the time affiliated with the Democratic Party. His political career started with leadership roles with the CU College Democrats and the state chapter of Young Democrats.
From there filled a fill a vacancy representing Boulder in the Colorado House of Representatives. After six years in the House he moved up to the State Senate and served there for another eight years before being term-limited out of office at the age of 42.During his 14-year legislative career Tupa sponsored over 200 pieces of legislation and passed nearly 100 into law – a respectable 50% passage rate, and this as a member of the minority party for eight of those 14 years.
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Support Independent Candidate for the U.S. House in Colorado’s
We’re 6 weeks out from the election & the presidential debate made one thing perfectly clear: don’t expect ANY progressive change when it comes to defense spending, healthcare reform, income inequality, or immigration policy. Once again, Green Party candidate Jill Stein is the only progressive presidential candidate in the running – and it’s not even close. Sure, Vice-President Harris & the Democrats are better than Trump & the Republicans on many issues, but is the political status-quo – this perpetual “lesser-of-two-evils” major party matchup – REALLY the best America can do?? I just can’t accept that!
At the Congressional level, I’m one of the few progressive candidates running for Congress here in Colorado! I’m running AGAINST the status-quo & have made political reform & getting corporate money out of politics a centerpiece of my campaign:
A sampling of differences on issues:
I’m for cutting the $1Trillion Dept. of Defense budget – my opponent supports DOD $
I’m for a Ceasefire in Gaza & suspending military aid without it – my opponent opposes
I’m for Medicare for All – my opponent opposes & takes Big pharma / insurance PAC $
I’m for progressive immigration reform – my opponent supported non-progressive policy
I will address tax & income inequality if elected – my opponent is silent on this issue
With just 7 days to go before the end of the final fundraising Quarter, this is the last big push before the November election. I’m making a final appeal to supporters so we have the resources I need to reach other progressive voters in CD7. While my opponent is accepting $1000 checks from corporate PACS and AIPAC, I rely on lower dollar grassroots support to fuel this campaign. So if you want to support a true progressive candidate for Congress from Colorado, please consider making a small dollar donation before 9/30!
$25 helps with travel in CD7; $50 buys digital ads; $100 goes a long way toward the cost of literature! I appreciate any support you can give in the next 7 days prior to Nov. 5th. Visit www.rontupaforcongress.com to contribute – thanks!
Ron Tupa
Independent candidate for US CONGRESS
Colorado Congressional District 7
p.s. Over the last 43 days of the campaign I will be introducing my candidacy to thousands of voters, just like at the Independent National Convention in Denver & the Broomfield Days parade this past week. So please pass the word along and forward this email to other progressives!
T. Malinen on the current Finnish geopolitical amnesia
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(Publisher’s Note – What follows below is a piece by Finnish economist T. Malinen, an Economics prof at the University of Helsinki (as I understand it). It is a polemic calling on Finland, which has just joined NATO, to sign a non-aggression pact with Russia and in so doing reducing the chance that Finland will be used as a springboard for a NATO to attack Russia. The piece first appeared in some form in Finland in Finnish. I used “Google Translate” – Finnish-to-English to translate it into English.
Although Malinen is essentially calling on the Finnish government to return to its former policy of neutrality between East and West (Russia and NATO/USA) – which seems, given Finnish post WW2 history of eminently reasonable, the likelihood of this happening in the near future is pretty close to nil. A genuine tragedy from where I am sitting having lived in Finland in the mid to late 1980s and experienced the fruits of that policy for the national well being and a reduction of tensions in Europe.
Admittedly, as my wife, Nancy, noted earlier today, all that today is “pie in the sky”. True enough, but, but – Finland’s dive into NATO, its new agreement to give the United States access to 15 military bases and the distinct possibility that should NATO attack Russia that at least a part of that attack would come through the Nordic countries, especially Finland – all this in such a short order – has created a new geo-political reality where Finland has morphed from a bridge between East and West to making Finland a frontline country – a kind of Ukraine of the North – that has dangerous implications (from where I am sitting) for its future.
Funny thing is that, quite frankly, on many issues, especially on economic and social policy, he and I are miles apart. From what I can gleam he is a quite conservative “free marketeer”, myself still a socialist. Yet, when he talks about geo-politics, about NATO, about Finnish relations with Russia, we are, essentially, on the same page: that Finland has made a terrible mistake in joining NATO and in putting itself on the frontline for confrontations with Russia.
He has shown both courage and a great deal of thought. I wish him well. RJP
T. Malinen – X – September 19, 2024
“I publish a Finnish speaking post here, in which I propose a non-aggression pact to be signed between Finland and Russia. It has been originally published in Puheenvuoro – blog @uusisuomi, but they have a very bad habit of censoring critical entries. (so he published on X)
“The main point of this piece is that citizens of Russia and Finland have had no quarrels between them for decades. The whole European escalation is being driven by political forces with likely sinister aims.
It’s time for Finns to face the facts.
Our joining the North Atlantic “Defense Alliance” (NATO) has not increased security in our country or in Europe, but the opposite. We were practically tricked and intimidated into joining the military alliance, which was already waging a proxy war through Ukraine against our eastern neighbor. We are approaching the moment of reckoning, but it is still not too late to change direction.
At the end of last year, I went to inspect the situation across the Atlantic. Unfortunately, the ever-growing turmoil in the United States was already very clearly visible then. The difference from the time I lived in the country was quite big and it was also visible in my former hometown of New York City. However, the United States is the country where the fate of Western societies, and our economic system, will be decided. Therefore, we should watch with concern the political chaos that the country has drifted into during President Biden’s reign.
As a very worrying historical anecdote from Finland’s point of view, it must be stated that the political chaos of the world powers at that time has often predicted a great war. This applies to both the beginning of World War I and World War II, which I have gone through in the update of my English blog published at the end of 2022 (31.12).I predicted in the same blog that Ukraine has probably (in the worst case) already lost the war. Now only our most stubborn propagandists dispute it.
Although I started strongly defending Ukraine after the war started in February 2022, by the end of the summer I had begun to doubt the motives of the West,and especially the United States, behind the war. In the fact that the war did not end in the spring of 2022, when Russia had achieved all its publicly announced goals and the so-called the mud season had started in Ukraine(the soil did not support tanks),there was simply no sense. Now we know that the former Prime Minister of Great Britain @BorisJohnson and US President Joe Biden (@POTUS )administration destroyed the armistice agreement agreed in March-April 2022 in Turkey. The West’s motives in the conflict in Ukraine have indeed been revealed to be very dark, while Russia’s motives are clear, although quite unpleasant from the point of view of Ukraine. Read more…
Wild Night Out With the Horseshoe Crabs – With Ben Dollinger
Saoirse Quinn and Ben Dollinger worked together to measure and tag a horseshoe crab. Margarette Doyle
(Note: This article from the East Hampton Star (East Hampton, NY) features my nephew, Ben Dollinger … who continues to amaze me)
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Wild Night Out With the Horseshoe Crabs
The biggest concern for horseshoe crabs is the shrinking intertidal zone related to shoreline hardening and sea level rise.
Jim Grimes
May 30, 2024
An all-night orgy at a beach in Amagansett last Thursday drew only a muted response from the East Hampton Town Marine Patrol, which issued a single ticket, to a man who didn’t have a valid permit to drive on the beach. The event drew over 1,000 participants, and was documented by two East Hampton Town Trustees, Jim Grimes and Ben Dollinger, and the volunteers Margarette Doyle, Dermot Quinn, and even their 11-year-old daughter, Saoirse.
Indeed, it’s mating season for the horseshoe crab.
During the last few new and full moons, they’ve coupled in great numbers along our bay beaches, as they’ve done for 400 million to 500 million years. For Mr. Grimes, the evening began photographing diamondback terrapins, asleep on the bottom of a harbor. Despite recent rains, which made the water murky, he managed to find three. “Well, at least they’re here,” he said. When high tide hit at 10:24 p.m., the winds were light, the water temperature was 63 degrees, and Mr. Grimes, wearing a full wetsuit, transitioned to the crabs.
Whippoorwills had sung the moon far enough off the horizon to light up a contrail. Directly overhead, where the sky was darker, the Big Dipper poured stars into the clear sky. The familiar frog of the East End, the spring peeper, was chirping as usual, joined by the deep unfamiliar buzz of the Fowler’s toad. A train passed, heading to Montauk. From Route 27, the sound of tires, moving east and west.
“At least this is a nice night,” said Mr. Grimes. “We did a count in April. It was cold and wet.”
“Sometimes there’s weird people out here, walking around in the dark,” said Mr. Dollinger, “but it’s just beautiful out here. We did one from midnight to 2 a.m. the other night. I was hurting the next day, but it’s something different.” There were no weird people last week, other than the five souls walking through thigh-high water with flashlights pointed down, searching for horseshoe crabs.
The group was monitoring the crabs for the Cornell Cooperative Extension using tags issued by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation.
“Five males, one female. Submerged,” said Mr. Grimes, walking ahead of the pack. Behind him, Ms. Doyle held a clipboard, writing down the numbers dictated by the two trustees. Mr. Dollinger came upon a larger group. “Fifteen males, three fe- males.” Two weeks prior, they had their most successful count ever, find- ing 1,165 crabs.
The group walked 800 meters from the point back to where they had parked their cars, heads down, staring into the water glowing green from their flashlights, calling out numbers, shooshing, surrounded by darkness, whippoorwills, amphibians, and of course the crabs. It was dreamy and impossibly different from the more common story told of the Hamptons, especially in the lead-up to Memorial Day weekend.
Ms. Doyle compiled the numbers and reported 1,063 crabs. “Tonight, it was really strong again,” said Mr. Grimes. “We had a little more than 600 the night before last.”
“This year’s counts have been way higher than previous years and not by a little but by a lot,” Mr. Grimes said by text yesterday. “The night you joined us we had over a thousand. Same time last year our highest number was around 700. . . .”
Horseshoe crab populations are under pressure in part because the medical industry collects crabs and harvests their copper-based blood for use in the Limulus Amebocyte Lysate test, which detects bacterial contamination in vaccines and on medical devices. The practice is unrestricted. “There is no reason for America to be still using their blood since there is a synthetic version that works just as well,” Ms. Doyle wrote in a text.
The arthropods are also collected by commercial fishermen and ground up into bait. The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation limits the total annual harvest to 150,000 crabs and closes the harvest during the spring new and full moon cycles. A bigger issue is poaching.
“I’ve been checking everywhere tonight,” said Brian Labelle, a member of the East Hampton Town Marine Patrol who showed up to ask the group what they were doing. “It has been a big problem. We think they’re selling it in restaurants in Queens and the Bronx. I had one guy admit that. These are not harvestable unless you have a very hard-to-get license.”
Eggs of the horseshoe crab are a key dietary need for many shorebirds, themselves suffering steep population declines since the 1970s. For example, the red knot is a shorebird that times its migration to the egg-laying schedule of the horseshoe crab. The two species are tied together. If horseshoe crabs dwindle, so will the knots.
After the count was complete, it was time to tag the crabs. This involved capturing one, taking it to a makeshift table, measuring its shell width with a caliper, drilling a hole through its carapace, and inserting a small nub attached to a half-dollar-sized, numbered, white disc.
“Can I catch one?” asked Saoirse.
Mr. Grimes showed her how to capture and handle the crabs. Most important, you never pick up a crab by its tail. “They don’t really have the ability to hook onto you,” he told her. “Those claws are more like feet than anything else.”
By 12:30 a.m., the 25 tags were attached to 25 crabs, under the harbor somewhere, searching for love.
Test Video – Series of Discussions With Hermon George
Dr. Hermon George
December 3, 2023 civil disobedience in downtown Denver organized by Front Range “Jewish Voice for Peace”. Call for a permanent ceasefire still as valid then as it was ten months ago …
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Note on the program.: I was on this program by phone; half way through it – it lasts an hour – my connection was cut off and I wasn’t able to reconnect to the station until a few minutes before the end …
Still comments made on Sweden and Finland joining NATO, and on why not to expect any fundamental change in U.S. policy to restrain Israel from its genocide against the Palestinians are worth listening too.
Meanwhile the U.S.-Israeli genocide of Gaza continues
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In the video below Kazerooni and Prince discuss the failure of the recent ceasefire talks on Gaza in the period just prior to Lebanon’s Hezbollah responded to the assassination of Fuad Shukr, one of their leaders, in Beirut on July 30, 2024
Remembering Ron Forthofer
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In honor of my friend, and of the direction I believe he would have taken … the questions I ask Kamala Harris are
How can you justify the sending of more U.S. arms – $18 billion worth – to Israel?
What are you doing – and what will you do if elected – to end Israel’s genocidal assault on Gaza?
How those questions are answered will – in large measure – determine how I cast my vote.
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(Note: Below are my notes from comments made yesterday at a memorial for Ron Forthofer, a dear friend, who died of a surprise heart attack a few months ago. It was held at the Fraser Meadows Retirement Community in Boulder. Some 300 people were present in the audience. Although I didn’t say everything exactly as written below – I did follow the outline here pretty much. RJP)
So we sing the spirit home of our dear friend, our companero Ron Forthofer.
Nancy and I met Ron Forthofer through the good graces of my father-in-law, Lowell Fey, a founder of Boulder Farmers’ Market and a long time environmentalist, an activist in Boulder’s sister city project with Nicaragua and a long time member of Boulder’s Unitarian Church.
We had planned to have lunch with Ron and Mary and a few other Boulder friends two days after Ron suddenly died of a heart attack.
I was looking forward to what always has been a rich, thoughtful exchange from a person I consider a serious radical intellectual, a disciplined careful scholar whether it concerned Palestine, Healthcare For All, pioneering independent left third party efforts.
All that has been mentioned by others – I only want to add, one point here – that Ron Forthofer was a bridge between the former narrowly based Palestine solidarity movement and the much more extensive one that has emerged with such force, vibrancy and humanity this past year.
OK – one more point – a personal experience that taught me much.
It was the fall of 2002..
A demonstration had been organized in Denver to oppose the upcoming U.S. led invasion of Iraq. Both Ron and I had been asked to speak. To our surprise the main Democratic Party candidate for the U.S. Senate at the time – Tom Strickland – was in attendance. Strickland’s political career in Colorado centered around the influence law firm, Brownstein, Hyatt, Farber and Schrenk, was behind in a close race Republican Wayne Allard (who won the election).
Strickland approached us and asked us both to endorse his candidacy. Although we had never met, Strickland knew both of us.
And boom like that, Ron and I were political brokers.
Ron did not skip a beat; he countered Strickland’s support plea with “Come out publicly against the war either in a public statement or a press release, I’d have to consider it – but no endorsement unless you make a clear statement against the war build up.”
Strickland gave a cynical chuckle, shook his head no as I recall, and walked away.
Why do I mention this – because it was a lesson in politicking with a mainstream party – actually several lessons – like what?
a. that the peace movement vote, third party votes, can and do make a difference in certain races – the idea that a person is throwing away their vote is nonsense.
b. that the fact that Ron had gotten 12% of the vote in his campaign for U.S. Congress on the Green Party ticket did not go unnoticed by mainstream Democrats.
Had we had our lunch together, I would have asked Ron what his bottom line might be in order to support one of the two leading contenders for the presidency? That he would support a buffoon like Donald Trump was out of the question… But what about Kamala Harris? What was his bottom line?
In one exchange we had before he died, suggested an overall direction: we both expressed our satisfaction with the “uncommitted movement” that emerged in Michigan.
What was his take on U.S. Presidential candidates Green Party candidate Jill Stein, on Cornell West?
Was this the time to “stand by Kamala” as so many of our friends are rushing – almost stampeding – to do … or to support Stein or West?
Is it time to get over the “lesser of two evils” choice and build a political movement that breaks with the two party system?
I do not know how Ron would have answered these questions.
In honor of my friend, and of the direction I believe he would have taken … the questions I ask Kamala Harris are
How can you justify the sending of more U.S. arms – $18 billion worth – to Israel?
What are you doing – and what will you do if elected – to end Israel’s genocidal assault on Gaza?
How those questions are answered will – in large measure – determine how I cast my vote.
Good bye dear friend Ron Forthofer – You have made a difference, you have kept the faith, you have passed the torch. I’ll miss you … but know that in the thorny period ahead – whether it is Trump or Harris that wins this election … I’ll be asking myself … “What would Ron do?” – and I’ll take my cues from you, as I have until now.
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Ibrahim in Iran and Iraq.
Middle East North Africa (MENA) choke points
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Recently co-collaborator and friend Ibrahim Kazerooni spent two months in Iran and Iraq (six weeks in Iran, two in Iraq). He was there to deal with family issues but also had an opportunity to get a sense of the mood in both countries at this critical moment when the danger of the Israeli genocide in Gaza igniting a regional conflict.
Ibrahim Kazerooni’s Two Month Trip to Iran and Iraq (April, May 2024)
Flinging prudence – and its neutrality – to the winds, Sweden joins NATO – Part Two.
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Even before Sweden formally applied for NATO membership, seven years ago Agneta Norberg noted that it’s obvious that Sweden is a NATO country without being in NATO … Sweden has become the chosen platform for war against Russia. These developments are extremely dangerous
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1. Remembering Jamie Roth
A long-time friend, Jamie Roth, died last year. I will miss his friendship, our many discussions about the evolution of the Nordic countries, his fine, incisive, analysis of the foibles of late-phase U.S. capitalism in decline which he could explain as well as anyone. Just appreciate the fact we had such rich exchanges over the years. And now he’s gone.
Jamie lived nearby and we would visit each other frequently, sit on each other’s porch and talk, and talk, and talk. A genuine serious, sober, systematic thinker and about as fine a Marxist intellectual as I’ll ever know. His rural Mennonite background and my urban Jewish one somehow merged into a rich connection which I’ll miss. We were both life-long Marxist academics who had somehow managed to survive a half century of teaching in academic, he at Regis University where for a while he chaired the Sociology Department, me at the University of Denver’s Korbel School of International Studies. Both of us had participated in a book club together that had existed for more than a quarter of a century.
Both of us had a strong Nordic Country connection and that is
Jamie Roth in Sweden opposing the Vietnam War. (Photo credit: thank you Alice Reich)
what we frequently exchanged ideas about. Jamie had lived and studies in Sweden during the late 1960s during the height of the Vietnam War where he was a college student. Along with family, I had lived in Finland in the mid to late 1980s just prior to and during the collapse of Eastern European and Soviet Communist, where Nancy and I worked at the, then, World Peace Council.
As such, Jamie and I had both experienced the joys of living in Nordic countries with their strong social contracts and, at least then, political neutrality. Even prior to both Finland and Sweden had formally joined NATO, we had the sense that the writing was on the war, that the long period of Nordic neutrality was coming to an end. Admittedly, from our perch here high in the Rockies a lot of the details of the shift escaped up, but where it concerned the general direction of both countries, their flirtation with and willing seduction into NATO we were generally on the right track.
Although the hints of a geopolitical transition were not hard to find for anyone seriously looking, nowhere were these hints more striking than in the literature of both countries. The Stieg Larsson’s Millennium Trilogy, opening with “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo”, sliced open the right-wing, militarist, anti-immigrant, pro-capitalist streams in Swedish society long lurking under the shine of its then social-democratic facade. Jamie introduced us (our book club) to Larssson’s work and that all was not well in Sweden’s social democratic nirvana. These reactionary tendencies – for that is precisely what they are – were about to explode, while its social democratic nirvana would soon soon collapse.
He also familiarized us to the work of Henning Mankel, to my mind, one of the greatest crime novelists anywhere who explored similar themes with a perceptiveness and depth second to none. I read – and discussed with Jamie – the whole of both Larsson and Mankel’s works – I couldn’t get enough of either author … and as a result was more prepared for the Swedish/Finnish leap into NATO’s clutches.
2. Sweden takes the NATO plunge
Years before Sweden made the leap into the maelstrom called NATO, one Agneta Norberg was sounding the alarm. She campaigned to retain Swedish neutrality at a time when, frankly, it has already been seriously compromised. For some time, Sweden has long been what can be called “a mass information provider” for the U.S. military
I don’t know if Norberg’s was the only Swedish voice “out there” doing everything she could to keep Swedish Cold War neutrality alive in the post Cold War age, but there weren’t many others, and virtually none that was so well informed. At 87 she is still active as ever.
Long before Sweden joined NATO Norberg noted that “Sweden has become the chosen platform for war against Russia. These developments are extremely dangerous.
Six years ago, in 2018. Norberg was interviewed in Finland by one Johan Backman. The interview came shortly after a major NATO military exercise called “Arctic Challenge”, now an annual exercise that continue through today (2024). Norbeg describes the Arctic Challenge from 2017:
I was in Rovaniemi (above the Arctic Circle) in the beginning of June (2017) giving a talk at the enormous war game “Arctic Challenge” military exercise, The center of this exercise was Rovaniemi, together with Lulea and Buda, those three staging places with huge airfields are being developed to become a common war-planning area.(1) … I think that this Arctic Challenge exercise was the third annual one in a row. It included 150 jet fighters exercising “inter-operability.” Inter-operability is a very important strategic term. That is what Finland and Sweden were doing together with seven other countries, specifically with the United States Air Force.
For me it’s obvious that they are planning a war on Russia. This becomes a clearer when we combine these (Rovaniemi, etc) the other NATO installations surrounding Russia.
This particular “Arctic Challenge” was held a full six years before Russia launched its Special Military Operation into Ukraine. Norberg was right when she said: “For me it’s obvious that they are planning a war on Russia.” So it is not so much that Russia is planning an invasion of the Nordic countries (and W. Europe in particular) but to the contrary, that for some time time now NATO has been planning a war against Russia.
She goes on to comment on how “well, it’s obvious that Sweden is a NATO country without being in NATO”. In the same interview, Norberg went on to talk about “S-Range”, the world’s largest satellite downloading station located just outside the small northern Swedish town of Kiruna in north central Sweden’s Arctic area.
War today – all wars – are launched with the help of satellites. Satellites are swirling around the globe taking photos of the entire world and these photos have been downloaded. S-Range is downloading the photos and sending them to the Pentagon.
Long before this U.S. satellite base was established at Kiruna, in 2004, the Swedish Parliament passed a law opening up the sale of land for whatever purpose in Sweden’s far north “in an area as big as Germany”. Germany was mentioned because prior to setting up this satellite base in northern Sweden, it existed in Germany but pressure from German society resulted in it closure there. The Swedish government, generally unknown to its population, welcomed the base to move to its territory. Admitting that “she was genuinely frightened over how … the situation developing in the north of Sweden and for the Nordic countries”, Norberg noted:
After that in 2006 military exercises began on an almost yearly basis – Nordic air maneuvers involving ten, twelve counties. Arctic Challenge” followed with pretty much the same countries involved – Germany, Britain, France, U.S., Belgium, Netherlands and occasionally also the Baltic states.
Norberg then turned her attention to the naval arms race already escalating in the Baltic Sea, no longer, “the Sea of Peace” where NATO war games have been taking place for more than a decade. Again, she is noting the NATO-led militarization of the area more than a decade prior to the Russians launching their offensive into Ukraine.
What has happened in the Baltic Sea that is frightening? Here’s an example – one of the ten, twenty I could cite – Baltic NATO naval maneuvers in 2013, 2014 involving countries that are
training for war under the title of “Baltic Operations.” Add to this – Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania now house U.S. in Ämari, Estonia (about 28 miles west and a little south of Tallinn, the capitol), in Šiauliai in Lithuania (about 133 miles northwest of Vilnius, the capitol) and at the port city of Liepaja in Latvia. There are NATO bases in all three countries.… And now here we are again with the lies, demonizing Russia, a huge neighbor with all kinds of perfidious evil. We are in an evil moment today that makes us believe that Russia is planning to
attack Sweden. I say, don’t count on me to be a part of such nonsense.
The NATO-Swedish relationship, that had started informally but energetically already in 2004, was formalized in 2014 when Sweden signed a “Host Nation Support Agreement” with NATO. It indicated that from then on NATO trained in Sweden. It also bound Sweden to NATO in other ways: if Sweden was to be attacked and could not sufficiently defend itself, then
this Host Nation Support Agreement kicks in and the United States, through NATO will “come to Sweden’s defense.” It also meant that Sweden had no say in a war about troops deployed in Sweden using nuclear weapons.
Sweden has been training for such a possible scenario. What this means is that Swedish soldiers, through their NATO connection, have been training for war against Russia in these exercises from Stockholm to Gothenburg as well as on Gotland (Swedish island off the east coast of the Swedish mainland in the Baltic Sea). U.S. military has come to Sweden and not only U.S. troops but also a good deal of equipment.
During the Aurora maneuvers, 1435 U.S. troops landed at Gothenburg. Sweden contributed about 20,000 troops. 575 other foreign soldiers participated from other NATO countries
including France, Estonia, Lithuania, Norway and Denmark. The maneuvers were work on NATO-Swedish military cooperation as defined by the Host Nation Support Agreement. The weaponry involved included surface-to-air Patriot missiles and the military experts versed in using them.
Already around the same time, 2014, the Swedish island of Gotland, in the western reaches of the Baltic Sea was being prepped for war. A U.S. helicopter company was been deployed., along with 80 military personnel. The equipment includes Chinook and Apache helicopters. Besides the helicopters U.S. marines, national guard personnel started to participate in war training on Gotland, in the middle of the Baltic Sea, and in a very strategic position for launching an attack on Russia.
That said, there are suggestions that NATO-Swedish cooperation had developed stealthly even earlier than 2014. A decade before sophisticated antennas of the kind used to track satellites and air craft had already been established on Gotland. During the Cold War, the Swedes had already permitted the United States to install antenna’s necessary for launching missiles, ie, to go to war.
Besides the Kiruna satellite listening station, and its growing relationship with NATO and all that that entailed, even prior to 2014 Sweden had an underwater “listening bas” at Leershield, s nine Swedish miles south of Goteberg in the south. Leershield has the capability to intercept all underwater Russian cable traffic which are sent either to Britain or the United States.
The same with Louvin in the middle of Stockholm. All the cables coming from Russia through Sweden are taken and sent to the U.S. and U.K., all the military information, political
information to enhance the Pentagon’s current control over Russia.
Sweden’s recent entry into NATO is simply the icing on the cake of a relationship that had been growing since the 1989, 1991 collapse of communism in Europe. The military-institutional relationship had long been in place. The Russian Special Military Operation in Ukraine, simply gave a final boost to the Swedish-NATO security marriage.
What a shame! From a prosperous neutral country to a likely target of Russian missiles should regional war break out. Totally unnecessary but, … here we are!
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1. Rovaniemi is in Finland above the Arctic Circle, essentially the center of Finnish Lapland. Lulea is on Sweden’s northeast coast, Buda in central Sweden west and a hair north of Stockholm.
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Flinging prudence – and its neutrality – to the winds, Sweden joins NATO – Part One.
International Press Review. August 11, 2024
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Middle East Choke Points
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Stockholm, Summer, 1987
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But look at how dramatically the situation has changed; using the hyped up fear of a Russian military threat as a pretext, these past few years the militarization of the Nordic countries has been nothing short of explosive. Together, Norway, Sweden, and Finland have opened 36 military bases for US forces and weapons. The agreements are bilateral, i.e., between the US and the individual country, and not a NATO agreement.
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1.
Applying at the same time as Finland, on May 18, 2022, three months after the beginning of Russia’s Special Military Operation in Ukraine, Sweden “enthusiastically” submitted its application for NATO membership. 22 months later, on March 7, 2023 Sweden became a full member of the alliance. In so doing, it gleefully abandonned what sovereignty that remained to it in international affairs, its already greatly weakened “neutrality” and was transformed into a frontline state in any NATO military conflict that might arise with Russia.
There you have it.
Both Sweden and Finland are now are part and parcel of the NATO alliance and all that comes with it: a higher percentage of their GNP for military expenses; less monies for these Nordic countries’ much vaunted, well known extensive social programs which are bound to erode in time; U.S. and NATO military bases along with the accompanying loss of sovereignty that such bases entail, and as a consequence a much more antagonistic and adversarial relationship with its Nordic neighbor Russia. In a country that used to take pride in its anti-war (Vietnam war crimes testimonies) and peace initiatives, today to even use the word “peace” results in labels like “Putin’s mouthpiece”, and the like.
From their actions and public statements, the impression comes through rather strikingly that both countries are preparing for war, that their leaderships have bought into the prevailing russophobia and that the myth of Russian expansionist ambitions towards Western Europe is thriving in both Sweden and Finland.
NATO access was accomplished in a carefully controlled media anti-Russian media blitz, rushed through the Swedish parliament without a referendum vote of the Swedish people, thus avoiding any genuine public discussion of what is a landmark shift in Sweden’s foreign policy and the opposition such a vote might have triggered. Polls taken prior to Russia’s February 2022 incursion into Ukraine suggest that support for NATO entry was lukewarm at best.
In the Finnish case, only around 30% of the population supported joining NATO prior to that date; the same was true for Sweden. According to data from the SOM national survey conducted by the University of Gothenburg, Swedish public support for NATO membership hovered between 20 and 30 percent between 1996 and 2019.
Put another way, up until February 2022, the population of both countries opposed going for NATO membership with a full 70% of their populations saying “No To NATO”. Support for NATO spiked considerably just after Russian troops entered Ukraine. Polls taken in May 2022 suddenly revealed that now 70% of Finns and 58% of Swedes had changed their minds and now supported NATO membership.
Shohei Imamura
Generally unknown to the public in the United States, but (I am told) loved in Japan, Shohei Imamura’s films are about as good as it gets. If Samuel Fuller’s films are about a disharmonious world just underneath the surface of Doris Day’s smiling face (she took showers 3 and 4 times a day – very unhealthy), the deeper themes in Imamura’s films gravitate around the possibility of reconstructred `shattered harmony’. There is a concept in Japan known as `wa’ – which roughly translates as `harmony’. People strive for harmony both with nature and among themselves. Imamura at his best (Black Rain, Ballad of Narayama, The Eel) looks at the lives of people in which harmony has been destroyed. It seems that he is often posing the question: once destroyed, can the harmony somehow be restored. It is not a new or even that unique notion – very common among traditional peoples – hunter-gatherers and farming peoples and explored and developed in the most profound manner by Joseph Campbell in his writings.
In `Black Rain’ (NOT the picture with Michael Douglass with the same title but Imamura’s) harmony is shattered rather decisively by what today is described as `a nuclear device’ . The film begins with the bombing of Hiroshima, the U.S.A.’s warning to the world: we did it to Japan twice and we’ll do it to YOU if need be.
There are some scenes of the devastation – which should be watched even if causes people to squirm as it does me – but in its relation to the story, more important is a family outside of Hiroshima on a boat on whom radio active rain – the black rain falls.
Although the opening is rather dramatic `Black Rain’ is, like life itself, mostly long and slow moving, more than 2 hours. Most of the film is about the aftermath of the bombing with the main theme fast emerging: how do people survive – those who are not vaporized – the impact of a nuclear explosion. The answer of course is not easily. Yet the whole film explores the effort to do just that. Everything from modern medicine, traditional medicine, psychology, love, the reconstruction of the family come into play.
Over the course of the movie a relationship develops between a badly mentally scarred war veteran – the memory of his buddies crushed by tanks – and a young woman, with nuclear sickness emerges. He’s a victim of conventional, she of nuclear war, the old and the new forms of devastation if you like in 1945. They find each other and share, ever so briefly, a moment of love and human connection – that which the war had tried to destroy.
`Ballad of Narayama’ is an exquisite story of traditional Japan just before the period of the country’s rapid industrialization. It takes place in a tiny mountain village with barely enough food for the villagers to eke out a living. Life there is not without its cultural patterns and rewards, but it is mostly harsh, just how harsh comes through at the outset as villagers gossip who it was who threw a baby to die out in the fields. Another mouth to feed. The story gravitates around the relationship between a mother and her eldest son. Plagued with food shortages there is a tradition in the village that when old people reach a certain age that their children, their oldest sons in particular, accompany their parents to the top of a mountain – Narayama – to die. It is all carefully arranged. No one tells a person when their time is up, each one decides on their own. There is a formal ceremony with the village elders, the person – in this case the mother – tries to tidy up earthly affairs, relations with family and friends – and then that final journey begins.
What gives the film such power is the moral struggle of the eldest son, who despite tradition, and what is obviously great love for his mother, resists what is his cultural responsibility of accompanying his mother to her death. In the end all these people have – that keeps them together is their culture, and while it sometimes has its harsher edges, it is that which guides them through the generations, even if it has its harsh – and from the modern view – cruel traditions. The traditions must be followed if `harmony’ – the `wa’ is to be respected. Modern Japan would find other forms of cruelty it turns out.
In some ways `The Eel’ one of Imamura’s last films is not as powerful as `Black Rain’ or `Ballad of Narayama’ – but the themes are the same in a modern setting. The film begins with a vivid and disturbing scene. A man comes home to find his wife in bed with another. In a fit of rage he kills them both, stabbing them repeatedly with a knife. The `Wa’ has been destroyed in the first few minute of the film. The culprit is sentenced to prison. Like in `Black Rain’ after that shocking opening – the viewer gets all the sex and violence in the film in the first few minutes – the moral issue emerges: in this case the tale revolves not around the victim but the perpetrator of violence. Can a person, after having committed such a heinous act, rebuild his life again, get in touch with his own humanity. Rebuilding shattered lives. Can it be done? How? … That’s Imamura. Well, he’s more than that, but that is the Imamura that touches something deep in the human condition…an awful world, harsh, uncaring, and often brutal… but not without a bit of hope. Not much, just enough to keep him from jumping off a cliff.
Cheers.
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This is a reprint of a part of a long blog entry from 2010 “Oldies But Goodies – Film Reviews: Zinnemann, Fuller, Imamura“
Pipa Mantere, our dearly departed Finnish friend. Photo from July, 2011 in Helsinki
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A song to Pipa: Language of the Heart (Sung by Gordon Bok/Anne-Mayo Muir/Ed Trickett)
You will always fly, even though your journey’s over
The stars will chart your sky and the moon will be your lover
Fortune plays a lonely game that forces some to part
But here and there are much the same, in the language of the heart
You will always sail, even though the winds would leave you
Your ship will never fail and the sea can never grieve you
Fortune plays a lonely game that forces some to part
But here and there are much the same, in the language of the heart
You will always sing, though the melody lies broken
Your voice will always ring, though the words are never spoken
Fortune plays a lonely game that forces some to part
But here and there are much the same, in the language of the heart
You will always be, even though time would disown you
For you have set us free, those among us who have known you
Fortune plays a lonely game that forces some to part
But here and there are much the same, in the language of the heart
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Lifelong friends; I remember my father telling me that in life there are so few and on that, he was right. To lose one as near and dear to our hearts as Pipa, well it saddens us deeply.
We received a message this morning from Pipa Mantere’s son, Nels Cook, that Pipa died a week ago in Helsinki. Nels related that her worn out heart simply stopped beating. Besides the fact that we have lost a dear, lifelong friend, her passing marks – at least for us – the end of a whole chapter in Finnish history that ended abruptly when Finland joined NATO.
Although we (Nancy, myself, our daughters) were all close, Nancy and Pipa were especially connected, as the younger generation would put it today “bffs” (best friends forever). The two really were kindred spirits, nothing less. My sense is that for some young folks “bffs” last for a few months, a bit more; ours was a lifetime connection.
We met and worked with Pipa and became fast friends in the late 1980s when both Nancy and I worked at the World Peace Council headquarters, based in Helsinki, Finland at the time (late 1980s). It was a strange place in those days, just how strange perhaps I’ll write about some day, but we formed lifelong bonds with many of the people we worked with there – Johannes Pakaslahti, Mark Waller, Marjut Helminen, Marilyn Barden, Pierre and Alison Hugenin, Max Moabi, Tobias Thomas, Rino Gelmi, Juan Luis Moreno, the Cubans and of course Pipa herself.
Our friendship with Pipa endured the Gorbachev “perestrokia and glasnost” years, the collapse of Communism in Eastern Europe (1989), the implosion of the Soviet Union that followed in 1991, the thirty year period of U.S. global unilateralism and finally the Finnish betrayal of its historic neutrality which exploded into the void as it joined NATO recently.
Although our contacts with Pipa were not as frequent these past few years as they were previously, we stayed in touch, talking by phone, email and What’s Ap throughout the 34 years since our family left Finland permanently. There were visits to Finland where we reconnected and her two Denver visits over the years. It never mattered how many months we lost touch, whenever we reconnected it was always an endearing experience.
Pipa’s life was hard, with much angst and personal pain and yet what a wonderful, warm, funny, instinctively humane positive person, a poetic spirit, not particularly pragmatic. Pipa is one of two friends I’ve had whose very essence is poetic, meaning that as they walk down the street, sit in a cafe they simply cannot but recite poetry that touches what they are experiencing, feelling; it is a part of their psyche, nothing less. I have none of that in me but am drawn to those for whom poetry is an integral part of their make up.
Pipa was like that – always a poetic reference in Finnish, Swedish or English – a walking poem. Her understanding of poetry, music, literature oozed from every cell in her body. She leaves a son Nels with whom I hope we can remain in touch.
Sometime in the next few weeks when we can come together, along with Molly and Abbie, we’ll take out photos of our dear friend, lift a glass or two to her memory, speak about how she touched our lives and … sing her spirit home.
View from the Left Bank: Rob Prince's Blog 