Volume 7 Issue 15…Dedicated to the Dialogue on Race…April 16, 2004

Produced by Mimi Williams and "Lady J, The Dance of Fatherhood is an exciting new grassroots play that looks at fatherhood from a uniquely black perspective. At the height of US chattel slavery, blacks were bred like bovine to provide new slaves for Southern plantations. Satisfying the labor needs of this inhumane institution created disconnects between sowing seeds for survival of the specie and the care and personal responsibility that are basic elements of fatherhood.

Centered on a group of young black men, the play explores this contemporary dilemma. The performance features Rayquan, "The Dawg," played by Yohannes Sharriff, Shane (Rodney Wilburn), who is torn between running with the pack and taking care of his children, Paul (Aston Greene), who is still sexually involved with his estranged wife, and David (Eddie Oliver), who hears the music of fatherhood but cannot commit to the dance. The surprising climax shows why inner strength is required to endure this adagio of life.

The Dance of Fatherhood debuts April 21-22, 2004 at The Kyle Theater inside Avondale High School, which is located at 1192 Clarendon Drive in Avondale Estates, Georgia. For more information, please call 770-808-3159 or visit www.lady-j68.com.

Independence Day: The Movie

Statements about the survival of humanity always find an audience. And, when the metaphor stretches across time, it becomes an epic. Lessons taught, whether prospectively or retrospectively, reveal a level of endurance that is the primary characteristic of human existence. These dynamics are brought to a fine point by Roland Emmerich's 1996 action thriller Independence Day. A futuristic drama, survivors of a devastating alien attack must overcome bigotry, hatred, racism and discrimination to defeat an impervious enemy.

Locked in a desperate battle against incredible odds, courage and leadership under fire are matched only by President Gilmore's (Bill Pullman) abiding faith in the indomitable will of humans to survive. Science fiction movies often stretch the imagination, but Independence Day provides a context to compare and contrast an idealized president possessing desirable characteristics with the actual performance of the current officeholder. In the movie, disastrous consequences follow knee jerk decisions until President Gilmore turns to some very unlikely sources for much needed assistance.

Recommended for family viewing, parents can contrast the heroic role in the movie with a president they know from real life experience, George W. Bush. The role of personal responsibility in decision making is handled in several ways in different situations. For instance, how does a child react when the Secretary of Defense informs the president that he was not told the truth in order for him to claim "plausible deniability," if the public found out? Is this a matter of character or an issue of "national security?" Independence Day gives families needing a metaphor that speaks to their children's hip-hop psyche in terms of values without moralizing. Independence Day is a movie that certainly requires a second or third viewing.

The Dark Knight-Batman/White Ninja/Zorro is learning in a most painful way the value of honesty. He has been religiously encouraged to always tell the truth, regardless of any perceived consequences. When someone recently spoiled his fun and tainted his reputation as a good guy with a lie, the Dark One/Ninja/Zorro could only cry, "I am innocent! Cross my heart and hope to die!"

By John Burl Smith

The event of the season, Condoleezza Rice's public testimony, under oath before the 9-11 Commission, was like watching a debutante's coming out ball. Amiable and charming, Dr. Rice smiled and raised her right hand, swearing to tell the truth. Yet, as soon as questioning began, the "teflon tigress" assumed a defensive posture, quickly baring her claws and fangs.

Billed as impressively intelligent, quick-witted and strong on attention to details by Bush administration talking heads, "Condi is the one who knows the most about what the president knew about 9-11." Evaluating her performance, what were touted as Rice's strengths, quickly became glaring weaknesses as she struggled to answer relatively simple and direct questions.

With the marketing far exceeding the theatrics, what was most impressive about Dr. Rice's testimony, for this reporter, was her total lack of attention to details during the run up to 9-11. Coming out in a full court press, even though she had the ball, Rice tried to protect the administration all or none defense: "Nothing could have been done to prevent 9-11" Given all the information available, her insistence that because she did not connect the dots, no one could have, assumes everyone is less intelligent than Dr. Rice.

Suddenly, the scene from the movie Independence Day flashed to mind. Reverberating as if she was trapped in an echo chamber, Dr. Rice repeated the claim, "We did everything we could to protect the American people." It seemed Rice's mission before the 9-11 Commission was to provide George W. Bush with enough wiggle room to allow him to blame "structural or strategic" flaws for not doing his job. Her testimony trampled under foot the point of leadership, which is to take responsibility for things done and not done.

It is here that the "teflon tigress'" quick wit came in handy. Adroitly, Rice's circumlocutions killed the clock for commissioners posing pertinent questions. Bush's efforts to stonewall the 9-11 Commission caused a real stain on the presidency. Hiding behind "plausible deniability" will not wash away the mark of Macbeth from Bush's soiled hands. "Out! Out damn spot!"

Advisor to the president, Dr. Rice cannot be held responsible for the president's actions and the president cannot be held responsible when he is not told the whole story. Had Dr. Rice worked as hard connecting dots leading up to 9-11 as she did constructing this teflon shield of deniability, Bush would not have to claim that structural or strategic systems failures did not give times, places and dates planes would be used as bombs.

Frustrating for those harmed most by the 9-11 attacks, Rice's "teflon" coat does not deflect the questions. Given the available information, could a person of average intelligence have done more? The fact that Bush spent most of the day flying around, like a decapitated chicken, and Dick Cheney hid out in a US "spider hole" speak volumes about their preparedness to face any threat and the quality of their leadership. Had the Bush administration connected some dots and issued alerts as a precaution, US fighter jets could have been scrambled. That may have stopped the second plane from reaching the Twin Towers. Someone may even have been curious enough to ask Attorney General John Ashcroft why he stopped flying on commercial airlines.

Constitutionally Strict Scalia?

On Wednesday (4-7-04), Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia spoke at two Hattiesburg, Mississippi functions. At Presbyterian Christian High School and William Carey College, Scalia, one of the strict construction justices that ruled for Bush v Gore (2000), touted the protections afforded by the US Constitution.

Scalia is the only justice that bars television cameras when he speaks in public. Usually, members of his entourage provide advance notice and clears reporters from the room before Scalia speaks. No advanced warning was issued to journalists reporting on the Mississippi events. According to the Associated Press (AP), US Marshal Melanie Rube, who works in the Hattiesburg area, confronted two reporters and demanded their notes and erased a digital recording.

The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press claims the deputy's action violated the Privacy Protection Act and trampled "fundamental freedom of the press tenets." No Justice Department clearance was obtained before the journalists' records were destroyed. The Mississippi incident does more than raise First Amendment questions. As a public official, can Scalia legally bar the press from reporting on public forums? In democratic societies, citizens have the responsibility to stay informed. It is their fundamental right to know what public officials are saying. Censoring the press keeps the public ignorant and oppressed.

Erich Fromm (1900-1980)

US psychoanalyst and author Erich Fromm was born March 23, 1900 in Frankfurt, Germany. Descended from eminent rabbis on both sides of his family tree, Fromm, whose name means 'pious' in German, received an intensive religious education. After his final examination at the Wöler-Schule (1918), Fromm spent two semesters studying jurisprudence at the University of Frankfurt before switching to sociology. He received his Ph.D. in sociology from Heidelberg in 1922.

Fleeing Adolf Hitler's Nazi regime, Fromm emigrated to the United States in 1934. He taught at Columbia University (1935-1939), University of Michigan (1945-1947), Yale (1948-1949), Michigan State University (1957-1961), Bennington College and New York University. In 1943, Fromm helped form the New York Branch of the Washington School of Psychiatry and the William Alanson White Institute of Psychiatry, Psychoanalysis, and Psychology. In 1950, his second wife's illness prompted a move to Mexico, where became a professor at the National Autonomous University and established and directed until 1976 the Mexican Institute of Psychoanalysis in Mexico City.

Fromm maintained a clinical practice and published a series of books. He is perhaps best known for his break from the Freudian tradition of psychoanalysis, which focused largely on unconscious motivations. Believing humans are products of the cultures in which they are bred, Fromm sought to broaden psychoanalysis to include other disciplines.

Beginning with Escape from Freedom (1941), Man for Himself: An Inquiry into the Psychology of Ethics (1947), The Sane Society (1955) and The Art of Loving (1956) Fromm extolled the virtues of personal freedom in which humans take independent action and use reason to establish moral values rather than adhering to authoritarian ones. While he maintained that few people in modern society had respect for the autonomy of their fellow human beings, much less the objective knowledge of what other people truly wanted and needed, he believed care, responsibility, respect, and knowledge were essential elements of love. Fromm argued in favor of communitarian socialism, his notion of a sane society based on the works of Karl Marx. His unique socialism rejected Western capitalism and Soviet communism, which he saw as dehumanizing.

Active in the civil rights, nuclear disarmament, anti-Vietnam war and ecology movements, Fromm was the most popular and prolific analytic author in the world in the 1950's and 1960's. His 1961 paper, May Man Prevail? An Inquiry into the Facts and Fictions of Foreign Policy challenged McCarthyism. Fromm authored Remarks on the Policy of Détente (1974) for a hearing held by the U.S. Senate Committee for Foreign Relations. In 1976, Fromm retired to Switzerland, where he died on March 18, 1980. (Sources: www.duq.edu/facultyhome/burston/legacy.html, www.encyclopedia.com/htm and www.bartleby.com/ )

Disgruntled says: In prime time, George W. Bush held a rare press conference. Before taking only vetted questions from an acquiescent press corps, his opening remarks rehashed GOP talking points. Assuming no responsibility for 9-11 and insensitive to the loss experienced by families and friends of soldiers killed in operation Iraqi liberation (OIL), Bush told Americans he will not change his mind. Convinced might makes right, he dismissed the fact that no weapons of mass destruction have been found in Iraq. Epitomizing Fromm's evil person, Bush animatedly pledged to stay the course towards war, death and destruction.

Disgruntled feels: Dubious! On April 2, 2004, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) issued its monthly jobs report. The Bush administration pointed to an increase in jobs as evidence that Bush's tax cuts for the rich and deficits are working. Signs of disconnect between the economy and politically correct statistics include historically high home foreclosures and mountains of personal debt. Any economist worth his/her salt would be cautious and downright dubious about declaring a recovery based on so little hard evidence.

Disgruntled wants to know: Former White House counsel John Dean III, who testified before the Watergate Hearings, has accused the Bush regime of being far more corrupt than the Nixon administration. At least nine high-profile investigations, including the outing of CIA operative Valerie Plame, are underway. Given all the corruption and the deception used to lure the nation into war, more than Dean wonder, when will Congress begin impeachment proceedings?

Erich Fromm

As the generations pass they grow worse. A time will come when they have grown so wicked that they will worship power; might will be right to them and reverence for the good will cease to be. At last, when no man is angry any more at wrongdoing or feels shame in the presence of the miserable, Zeus will destroy them too. And yet even then something might be done, if only the common people would rise and put down rulers that oppress them. --- Greek myth on the Iron Age reprinted in the introduction to Erich Fromm's The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness (1973)

Concluding this analysis of Hitler's character a few words may be useful to indicate the purpose of incorporating this lengthy material, as well as that about (Otto) Himmler, in this study. Aside from the obvious theoretical aim of clarifying the concept of sadism and necrophilia by presenting clinical illustrations, I had still another aim: that of pointing to the main fallacy which prevents people from recognizing potential Hitlers before they have shown their true faces. This fallacy lies in the belief that a thoroughly destructive and evil man must be a devil -- and look his part; that he must be devoid of any positive quality; that he must bear the sign of Cain so visibly that everyone can recognize his destructiveness from afar. Such devils exist, but they are rare. As I indicated earlier, much more often the intensely destructive person will show a front of kindness; courtesy; love of family, of children, of animals' he will speak of his ideals and good intentions. But not only this. There is hardly a man who is utterly devoid of any kindness, of any good intentions. If he were, he would be on the verge of insanity, except congenital "moral idiots." Hence, as long as one believes that the evil man wears horns, one will not discover an evil man.

The naive assumption that an evil man is easily recognizable results in a great danger: one fails to recognize evil men before they have begun their work of destruction. I believe that the majority of people do not have the intensely destructive character of a Hitler. But even if one would estimate that such persons formed 10 percent of our population, there are enough of them to be very dangerous if they attain influence and power. To be sure, not every destroyer would become a Hitler, because he would lack Hitler's talents; he might only become an efficient member of the SS. But on the other hand, Hitler was no genius, and his talents were not unique. What was unique was the sociopolitical situation in which he could rise; there are hundreds of Hitlers among us who would come forth if their historical hour arrived.

To analyze a figure like Hitler with objectivity and without passion is not only dictated by scientific conscience but also because it is the condition of learning an important lesson for the present and the future. Any analysis that would distort Hitler's picture by depriving him of his humanity would only intensify the tendency to be blind to the potential Hitlers unless they wear horns.

Email: www.alternet.org "We are truly being denied the information we should have. 9-11 gave it greater impetus. 9-11 instilled in everyone that we have to be patriotic. You get out of that by demanding answers: What is terrorism? What is terror? Why did the President try to kill two investigations of 9-11? If you can't get to the root of the problem, how can you solve it? There aren't enough guns in the world to kill hatred. How can you want to be a war President? --Comments and questions posed by veteran reporter Helen Thomas

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