ACTIVISTS & HEROES

P. GREANVILLE—Editor’s Note: While the antiwar movement in the US is as shamefully dead (or in hiding) as the zombies that inhabit so much of our tv screens, CodePink and Medea Benjamin are the inspiring exception. Indeed, standing barely five feet, Medea Benjamin (nee Susan Benjamin), the onetime Green Party candidate, SDS member, and graduate of Tufts and Columbia, at age 66 projects the image of a frail schoolgirl instead of the indomitable political activist she is known to be. Watching her in action, it’s hard to conceive of a more improbable champion of peace and truth in social and international affairs, or a more relentless shatterer of the patina of “dignified business as usual” so valued by the system managers in the conduct of their criminal affairs than Medea.

This repugnant move by the British government confirms that London is simply an abject political vassal of Washington, and that the UK, as a result of both Tory intransigence and Blairite treachery, has no longer any effective sovereignty worthy of the name. Obviously we inhabit a world in which only plutocratic interests matter, as interpreted by the lying sociopaths in America. This is a moment that will tell us how many so-called “professional journalists”  have enough smarts (forget decency!) to see their own heads are now on the chopping block. Make a careful note of those who stand up and those who remain silent, or worse, cheer on the state execution of a truthteller.—Editors

LEO HE ZHAO—“Mao killed 80 million of his own people” is often repeated, used as “proof” of the evils of communism. Regarding this claim, here is a very brief historical account towards potential objective reassessment.  By 20th Century, monarchic rot, foreign domination, and many wars had reduced a millennia-old center of world economy and culture to a land of poverty, misery, and death. In 1921 Sun Yat-sen famously remarked that the fate of the Chinese people will likely be the same as that of the native Americans. In 1950, when the Communist Party took the helm after the liberation of China from its many slavers, average life span was 35 years; 20% of population was addicted to opium; and literacy rates was something like 14%.

JEAN SHAOUL—Perhaps her most significant statement is when she explains, towards the end of the film, “In this country, once an enemy of the state, you are always an enemy. They will always find some other reason to go you after you.” By the time the film was made, Manning was again in jail, for refusing to testify to the Grand Jury against Assange. She adds, “And it is never going to stop till we stop them.” These are the positive aspects of XY Chelsea. It also has its artistic flaws—being disjointed, superficial and sometimes tedious to watch, with long, distracting shots of the landscape and Manning’s facial expressions that take up much of the film.