http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=452375
More on the American use of collective punishment in Iraq, from Patrick Cockburn writing in the Independent: "US soldiers driving bulldozers, with jazz blaring from loudspeakers, have uprooted ancient groves of date palms as well as orange and lemon trees in central Iraq as part of a new policy of collective punishment of farmers who do not give information about guerrillas attacking US troops."
and "The children of one woman who owned some fruit trees lay down in front of a bulldozer but were dragged away, according to eyewitnesses who did not want to give their names. They said that one American soldier broke down and cried during the operation. When a reporter from the newspaper Iraq Today attempted to take a photograph of the bulldozers at work a soldier grabbed his camera and tried to smash it. The same paper quotes Lt Col Springman, a US commander in the region, as saying: 'We asked the farmers several times to stop the attacks, or to tell us who was responsible, but the farmers didn't tell us.'
Informing US troops about the identity of their attackers would be extremely dangerous in Iraqi villages, where most people are related and everyone knows each other. The farmers who lost their fruit trees all belong to the Khazraji tribe and are unlikely to give information about fellow tribesmen if they are, in fact, attacking US troops."
The jazz reminds me of an 'Apocalypse Now'-style soundtrack to American violence in Vietnam ("They made a sort of joke against us by playing jazz music while they were cutting down the trees," said one man, which of course describes American behavior which is very, very close to psychopathic), the woman in front of a bulldozer and the grabbed camera are of course references to the great country of Israel, but the American soldier crying is pure Americana. After only six months, the United States has become so corrupted by this occupation that it has descended to the moral level of the Vietnam War or the daily crimes committed by Israel. posted 2:08 AM
>From: "Charles Brown" <cbrown at michiganlegal.org>
>Reply-To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org
>To: <lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org>
>Subject: [lbo-talk] Black music makes history
>Date: Mon, 13 Oct 2003 15:57:30 -0400
>
>
>CB: My grasp of it is perfunctory too. See Finkelstein's _Jazz: A People's
>Music_ and _How Music Expresses Ideas_. Some classical European composers
>used "folk" themes. The "folk" , of course, were dancing and partying,
>going
>to church, and , probably work songs. American slaves had field hollers.
>
>Angela Davis has a lecture in which she discusses how music is more
>integral
>to everyday life and activities , such as labor, in traditional Africa than
>in traditional Europe.
>
>I'd say classical jazz, as you describe it below, was integral to partying
>and recreating away from work - urban folk/workers' music; speakeasy, juke
>joint music. The key issue is the level and quality of audience activity
>and
>participation.
>
>From: Carrol Cox
>
>Could "classical[a] music" be defined as dance music turned
>chamber/concert music? My grasp of music history is perfunctory, but I
>believe that the traditions out of which first baroque and then
>"classical [b]" (=pre-beethoven) music developed were all dance
>traditions. And that concert music evolved from chamber music.
>
>If so, then what Justin defines as a loss is more like the shift from
>Dowland to Handel????
>
>
>_Different_ but neither better nor worse.
>
>Carrol
>
>P.S. Problem with terminology above, since "classical" has a least three
>separate senses, not easily disentangled. The "Jazz Classics" would not
>be "classical" in either sence a or sense b above, but in the popular
>sense of "classical," the best, the original. Someone else can try to
>untangle this if they care.
>
>
>
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