Ben Sen's Open Salon Blog

Ben Sen's Obituary

Thu, 2 May 2013 14:05:01 -0400

Ben Sen would be the first to find his obituary a joke.

After a battle for a number of years with life, trying always to embrace it in spite of himself, he finally contracted a disease that gave him no choice in the matter.

His death was announced by dear friends who refused to give their names.

His end came pretty much as his beginning, "a complete unknown, with no direction home, like a rolling rock" in the words of a song that once inspired him, even if he could no longer remember the words.

Ben Sen was present for two great historical events in the land of his birth, the destruction of the city of Detroit from racism and greed, and the Viet Nam War. Having survived growing up in the city of Detroit was a glowing accomplishment as was avoiding long term imprisonment for his anti-war activities. He still paid the price.

Somehow, he managed to graduate from an accredited college, but rumors they kicked him out to get rid of him persist. Having lost the diploma didn't help, but fortunately, he never had a job where it made a difference. His secret would have died with him but the dear friends who wrote this obituary wouldn't hear of such deception regarding their beloved pal.

Ben Sen once met Martin Luther King in the city of Chicago when he went there to free the city from segregation but failed. He then went to India to write a book about Mahatma Gandhi, the great soul, based on interviews with those still alive who knew him, but it was never published as were a vast number of the deceased writer's manuscripts. They've been burned to protect the innocent and provide his heirs and landlord with less of a mess.

Mr. Sen, who dabbled in many literary forms, recognized and unrecognized, always spelled and punctuated poorly; he was once called "the last literary diletante." He considered it a matter of pride since his hero Gabriel Garcia Marquez once said the same thing about himself. Hence the expression, "a good editor is worth their weight in gold, the bad eat dirt."

God knows what mental diagnosis he would have received if born fifty years or even ten years later. Often, he was sleepless and his nightmares kept his therapist, one of the best, in stitches, which was alright with the deceased because sometimes it meant he would give him a few free sessions, which were always the best.

Dr. Sen, whose title is make-believe was proceeded in the afterlife by his wife of 38 years, Margarete. At the end, it need be noted for the young at heart, they were indeed talking, and the beginning of the end for the husband was the sickness of Margarete who died a wrongful death in his arms. Ben Sen later remarked he found such endings repetitive and overrated.

In his later years, he became a blogger though not necessarily a good or nice one. He enjoyed the give and take that provided him with the opportunity to soak the salt out of the odd dried cod. He knew fully it was a hopeless/thankless task best left to the crazies, but he couldn't help himself and his dear friends agreed. As a celebration of his passing, all the electrons were set free.

Aside from his darling child, who promised to draw his portrait for posterity in a field of golden narcissus, his favorite flower, he is survived by his steadfast girlfriend, by his brother and his wife, a far better man, three sisters, their spouses, and more nieces, nephews and grand nieces and nephews than he was able to count and recall--though he loved them all. Dementia got him, as it got his dear mother, who survives him as well, but it isn't what killed him. That was something else.

His final words Bon Chance are French for good luck. He read it in a guide book a long time ago and thought it would make for a dignified last bon mot. This is exactly the sort of thing that makes it clear what an unmitigated snob he was.

In lieu of flowers please send money. US currency is swell.

Requiescat in pace

Movie Review: The Company You Keep

Thu, 11 Apr 2013 13:04:10 -0400

Have you ever seen a movie about the political infighting that went on during the protest movement in the 60's?

I never have. Or perhaps there was another and I have forgotten.

That's what this movie is about. Robert Redford has adapted a novel that tries to tell the story. It doesn't pretend to be historically accurate but is an amalgam--an attempt to use a story to get some of the history across to those who have no comprehension of what went on--a docu-drama with a message. Fourty years is a long time to stretch the collective memory, especially when it was so badly distorted at the time.

I was there. You can either call this a biased or highly informed review. I was among those who sacrificed in their efforts to dissent, but opposed the Weather Underground from the beginning. The novel by Neil Gordon and the movie is ostensively about the group that began at the University of Michigan. I was at a school a little further West on I94. We were not members of the well publicised crew down the road both by design and by scruple.

Redford, who also directs was the driving force behind this film. He plays a radical who dropped out just before it got ugly. He's spent his life on the run, changing identity, but smart, as the movie affirms--the protestors weren't the bottom of the barrel but the top, especially in the early years. He's an attorney hiding in plain site under an assumed name in Albany, N.Y.

When one of the old Underground members decides to turn herself in to face the music for the death of a bank guard, played appropriately by Susan Sarandon, the jig is up. He knows they're gonna come after him, and he has a daughter to protect. The fundamental values that make America America (hopefully) are demonstrated by the radicals at this time in their lives. They knew what was coming and they learned.

Sarandon is given the honors of calling the question, asking a young reporter from the new generation what he would have done if he had to watch the affront to the nation's dignity that went on during the Viet Nam period, played by Shia LeBeouf. It's news to him, fact to us.

That's the central conflict in the movie. Redford had to fight with the backers to get it made on a low budget, and didn't do a bad job attracting a fine cast. He even succeeded making it into mass distribution. I read some of the reviews from local papers around the country, including The Christian Science Monitor and they mostly panned it, making their intentions for the film into his--the oldest dead fish at the market. If the history doesn't interest you, you probably aren't going to like the movie.

One of the character is based on Bill Ayers. I'll reveal my prejudices. We came from the same milieu. He got his name back in the news because he knew Obama in Chicago, and almost brought him down. I never liked Ayers. He got a job at a university and spent his life hiding behind the academic curtain while sticking his foot in his mouth. He's the kind of guy who preaches revolution but figured out how he didn't have to pay the price so many of us did.

The greatest fault of the movie is that the numbers don't add up. I won't give it away but it makes one of the central conceits dubious, but more than that they make Redford and Julie Christie too old looking for their parts. It detracts from the suspense because it tests credibility. I'll bet it's Redford not listening to the people he hired to advise him.

But as usual, and as my readers know, I am going to desist from the entertainment professionals. I think this is a movie worth seeing. Until a better one comes along, this may be all we get that shows any sympathy whatsoever. I saw it at my local theatre, only a few blocks from where the Weatherman blew up the townhouse on West 11th Street.

The theatre was filled with grey hair, mostly from NYU, the local university. Such as it is, THE COMPANY YOU KEEP is the most accurate portrayal we have yet of an era of our nation's history that has mostly been blotted out. Whether we like it or not that history is still playing itself out. I'd call it a vindication of sorts, but it escapes advocation. That's a tough row to hoe.

Who knows, maybe the next generation will learn something from it. Some things don't change, and others need to be remembered and passed down. More than likely, it's all going to be repeated, and already has, but maybe next time it won't be such a shock. At least, the dissenters of the future will have a few references they didn't have before.

Obama's Israel Trip, At Last

Tue, 26 Mar 2013 17:03:36 -0400

The journal FOREIGN AFFAIRS published the piece that said Obama's greatest mistake was not visiting Israel during his first term. It posed the question without answering: If he had done in Israel what he did in the Arab nations would there have been an Israeli Spring?

Conjecture over why he didn't make that visit then as opposed to now may be one of the mysteries that won't be revealed until after Obama leaves office. Bush II never made it and he was supposedly gung-ho. Obama set terms early, the settlements had to stop--if nothing else. That's all it took to make him Netanyaho's avowed enemy. But he was not going to play the dog led around by the tail. If you don't think that's to his credit, you may want to stop reading now.

Nothing like Netanyaho's response was seen before in recent memory. He excoriated the President of the nation that supported his right or wrong in front of Congress to the disgrace of all who joined into the fracas. They cheered him for berating their own leader. It could well have been one of the most dispicable examples of political pandering at the expense of American national interests in the last 50ty years, and now it is hardly remembered for what it was.

Last week, Mr. Obama made up a little for lost time. He did his job, plastering plenty of wallpaper, working the old lies as he must in the case of Israel, forgetting Bibi's bullying, his manipulation, his support for his rival, and all the rest of it, demonstrating the leadership of the United States is at least in the hands of a grown-up at the present time.

He did not address the Knesset, but went directly to the Israeli people as he did with the Arabs. The speech that mattered was in front of the next generation rather than the last. A look at the photo by Doug Mills in the NYTIMEs on 3/22 says more than anything else. See the alert concerned attention in the audience, it was Obama's quid pro quo after a four year hiatus. He was not booed, either. The mood appeared more one of jubilation, and that is what was heard as well. If there is hope before the next war breaks out, that's more likely its source.

Obama said: Politically, given the strong bipartisan support for Israel in America, the easiest thing for me to do would be to put this issue aside and express unconditional support for whatever Israel decides to do. Ain't that the truth, in other words, he acknowledged there is an end to the game.

There is no doubt liberal support for Israel is for its survival, but not at the cost in human life and rights that has been extracted. The settlers are more and more seen as the fanatics they are. It's the right in this country and there that champions the thuggery whether the voice speaking is Jewish or not. The left's usual refusal to see political reality rather than ideology renders it impotent.

Obama went on with what may well have been the most overt support for the Palestinians publically that we have seen from a President while in office:

Put yourselves in their shoes--look at the world through their eyes. It is not fair that a Palestinian child cannot grow up in a state of their own, and lives with the presence of a foreign army that controls the movements of their parents, every single day. Neither occupation nor expulsion is the answer. Just as the Israelis built a homeland, Palestinians deserve to be a free people in their own land.

On the Sunday before Obama's visit, the NYTIMES Magazine ran a long article by Ben Ehreneich about the efforts of the residents of Nabi Saleh, a small village in Palestine to use peaceful means to combat the occupation. It's worth a read, especially if you're still a skeptic, heartbreaking, but more than anything shows the determination of an intensely oppressed people to fight back with whatever means is at their disposal, joined by activitists from all over the world, and most impressively, by Israelis. If it is the "promise land" here are its contemporary heros.

Does anyone still think the United States would be hated as much in the world if it weren't for the occupation and our support for Israel? It's a question that requires an answer from people of conscience. I've known many who have thought so for over 40ty years, many of them Jewish Americans and some Israelis who have moved here to escape the carnage and the shame.

Is it too much to say 9/11 would not have happened, or had the opportunity to happen if not for our alignment with Israel? Hasn't enough of recent world history been determined by Israeli right wing intransigence? Hasn't there been enough slaughter? I'm speaking especially to those who are still not convinced for one reason or other. For the politics to change opinions have to change based on the truth, rather than sentiment.

In his column, the only one to appear in the Sunday edition of the TIMES following Obama's trip, Thomas Friedman calls the occupation Israel's "crazy dream." He's the author of "From Beriut to Jerusalem" which still has its place as a primary text on the history of the region. I think of it as a form of mass psychosis myself in which the victim has become the perpetrator.

If the Israelis go through with the plan to settle the district called E1, effectively cutting the Palestinians in Jerusalem from the rest of Palestine, the two state solution is no longer viable according to many analysts. The news and commentary in this country went on to the next item in a day, but let's hope it didn't do so there. There is no other issue so crucial to world peace.

Given the changes in the surrounding Arab nations, it's only a matter of time before popularism in those countries overrules the deals that have so far protected Israel, mostly if not entirely based on American intervention. Friedman concludes as he has many times, reflecting the liberal stance toward Israel that our leaders won't adapt for political reasons.

The best way for Israel to deal with the choas around it is not to put its head in the sand but to collaborate with Palestinians to build a West Bank state that is modern, secular, and Westernizing; one where Muslims, Christians, and Jews can work together and that stands in daily refutation of the failing Hamas/Muslim Brotherhood models everywhere. If Israel and Palestinians do not try everything--now--to make this happen, this will be remembered as THE lost opportunity, and no island will escape the storm that will follow.

Obama got the closest. Netanyho's grip is loosening. His new government could restrict his scapegoating the Palestinians, and bring a focus back to domestic affairs. The grip of the fundamentalists is also weakening, and Obama's appeal could provide more hope to the secularists who have had enough of constant, unremittant, immoral war whose greatest hypocrasy is that it is being fought for religious purposes. Let's hope so, for their sake, and our own.

Guns, History and Civility

Fri, 15 Feb 2013 15:02:17 -0500

If you ask Google: What percentage of Americans own guns? The first answer you get is that Americans comprise 5 per cent of the world's population, yet own 50 per cent of the guns.

That says a lot about us as a nation. The history is available to a high school student--not necessarily a studious one. The nation was born as a result of a violent revolution. Our constitution was written in deferrence to that fact. Freedom was obtained at gun point, and that is how it was expected it would be assured.

Then we felt our "manifest destiny" was to conquer the indigenous people, much as Israel is doing today to Palestine. I know that's controversial, but I can't help myself. The "good book" was used for that purpose as it was later used to promote abolition. It's a tradition, so to speak with a longer history than that--much longer.

We then "tamed" the West with our Colt 45's, hung and shot the bad guys, and after a long arduous discourse established law and order by replacing the vigilantes with the courts and "keepers of the peace" who were then held accountable for their acts. We called it an advance in civilizing the country.

I agree with those conservatives who reject the notion our nation should be compared with Europe, and other nations that have far less gun violence, and far fewer guns. They are not like us. Most of them do not share the gross inequality and high expectations of Americans.

They have been united culturally for centuries, they are religiously, ethnically, and racially less divided, and have been bonded by generations of shared history and war. Their ancestors learned the hard way. That is changing, and we may contest they are better educated, but you get the point.

The Second Amendment, how it is interpreted, and who is interpreting it are naturally a result of American history, not its cause. Go0gle went on to say people in the South are the most likely to own guns, then the Midwest (surprisingly) the West, and finally the Northeast where the battle for civility has gone on the longest, and the stakes the highest given the concentration of the population in urban areas.

Apparently, some 50 per cent of Americans own guns, though the numbers are hard to ascertain. Guns owners are a cagey lot. In recent years those numbers have actually been decreasing. The numbers who use them for personal security, especially among women are the highest, but barely exceed those who use them for "target practice" vs. those who do so for hunting. They are a distinct minority.

That America is more afraid of itself than anything or anybody else is an inescapable conclusion when looking at the facts. The number of deaths by guns through homicide, accident, and self-inflicted is increasing, as is the proficiency of that weaponry and its availability. In my own life, a cousin blew his brains out on his mother's bed when she was at church. Pills wouldn't have worked. It was the mess that got her attention.

Guns are no longer the toys of the rich, or the good old boys. Middle class suburbanites are taking far less chances than they used too. One wonders what they are afraid of and who is scaring them so much. By and large, black folks only kill each other, but maybe Rush is telling them different.

It would also be a steriotype to say all gun owners and NRA members are against advancing gun control. Wayne LaPierre definitely does not represent all of them with his views, and certainly not those responsible for enforcing the law in this country, who are the most threatened especially by assault rifles.

Of course, it was disappointing when LaPierre made his speech calling for a return to the Old West and the citizens and media present didn't laugh him off the stage, but it's been a long time since Patty Garrick drilled Billy the Kid, and maybe they forgot the meaning of the word civility.

It begs the question: Why won't Congress bring it to a vote since the polls show the majority want gun control, as does the President who was just elected by a decent plurality?

Would the recalcitrant politicians rather face the prospect of an NRA inititative against them, or the anger of voters who have had enough? And I'll ask one other question: How long can the past dominate the choices of the future, and civil order be threatened in the light of prevailing conditions? It's about the next Newtown just as much as it is about the last.

Once again, it looks like it's time for moderates to assert themselves. It's how we got Obama into office, and probably the only way this impasse will be breached. The ideological fringes will keep screaming the same old cliches until civility is seen as the fundamental issue.

A Manifesto: Blogging Again

Tue, 29 Jan 2013 13:01:50 -0500

I started blogging on Salon during the primaries in '08. Before that I was a journalist who once had a card that said, "As long as it's in English," to introduce myself.

Salon had a system where they gave you a "star" if they recommended a comment. My wife was sick and dying at the time, so I began every day with a post to entertain her, and then she would guess if it would get a "star." This was a good exercise. She almost invariably guessed correctly, so I followed her advice. I got a lot of stars.

I think I began like a lot of bloggers. The freedom is a drug if writing is the dis-ease. It gives you all the rope you need to hang yourself, and I fear that I did. Then, I realized there were real people listening, and the task became more one of representing myself as I chose while exercising responsibility. There is a thin line between personal exploration and public debate, but that is where I like to work.

When OS started, Joan Walsh, then editor-in-chief, referred me to the "beta". This presented a new challenge. Now, I was really on my own--no editor--no middlemen--no ass to kiss, and a whole bunch of stuff all backed up that I wanted to say. Ah, those were the days. Like many, I spilled my guts, deleted what later was embarrassing, and devised a plan.

I'd write what "stuck," not necessarily what entertained, and not what has a shelf-life of nano-seconds. Blogging is a place to experiment, but it's also a place to leave a trace where none has been left before, unlike other media. It's all still there at your fingertips. I tried all sorts of forms--essays, book reviews, memoir, movie reviews, poetry, excerpts from my novel, even a "process" or two.

At first, I was reluctant to move full force into politics since many of my views are unconventional. I call myself a "radical moderate," and that pits me against the fringes, who, in case you have not noticed, rarely take prisoners. I've had to accept being called anti-Semitic because I'm against the right wing government of Israel, but that's worth all the abuse they throw at me.

But this is also where the most learning has taken place. It's mostly a free for all, let's face it, and the requirement is basically to hold ones own. I can't begin to tell you how much I've learned. There are bloggers who are interested in communication and those who haven't got a clue how to communicate if their life depended on it. I think I've seen cases where it has.

I call the worst the "dumpers." That's why they're here--cheap therapy. You can feel the anger seething from every line and comment. They'll make an enemy of you for no other reason than the attention it provides. Nothing will assuage them, the sad fact is they destroy their own credibility and in the end usually leave in a huff with a goodbye blast. I tell them don't forget NOT to write.

There are others so competitive they wouldn't acknowledge a post if it was an advertisement for themselves. They are the folks I tell when rating to at least make them feel like the misers they are. It feels childish, sort of like telling them not to cheat, but what else are you going to do? Why should writers be any more generous than say...clowns or alligator wrestlers?

I'm convinced the anonymity encourages more open discussion, even if it often results in acrimony. It's not like standing around the water cooler at work with people you have to live with. The opportunity is to really find out where peoples' assumptions (including my own) take them, and what are the bottom lines. It's an "interactive education" leaving open the question of where it will lead.

In commenting, I follow the "add on," rule. If I have nothing to "add on," I don't comment, try not to, or if I do, and am repulsed, I have fun. It's what makes blogging unique even if it scares off the faint of heart. You can't converse with a weasel but you can play with them, and at least it can be worth a few laughs.

I especially despise ideologues, as anyone who has read more than two or three of my posts or comments can attest, and they, dear friends, unless they are so berift of insight they don't understand the term, hate me. (If it's all you can get, I'll take it.) Politics is only a dirty business to the spoiled and the loosers.

Dogmatism has no defense in my playbook, especially when it is unexamined or based on pretensions that have nothing to do with the interests of the propagandist. If you ask: What value does this view have for you personally, and you receive no response, you get a star.

If there is a "art" of blogging, unique to the media, it is expanding ones point of view in response to the interchange that occurs. That's true for everybody who takes it seriously. In the old days, you wrote an opinion piece and didn't have much of an idea who agreed or disagreed. A blogger has no such illusions. If we get it wrong, somebody will tell us, but when we get it right we learn who agrees.

I am especially proud of my posts where I turn book reviews into commentary on current events. I feel it is an essay "form" of my own making, and the amazing thing is that they have received the most readers.

Also, the excerpts from my novel, and posts about my life as a writer keep registering about a hundred readers a month, which does nothing less, as we used to say, than "blow my mind." I'm not sure who you all are, but hope you're enjoying yourself. When the book comes out, I also hope you will buy a copy. (I won't, however, be publishing it myself having left instructions for my girlfriend and daughter to burn it.)

I'm sure I am not taking proper advantage of the media. I don't send my material to other outlets, it's both beyond me technically, and I'm not sure I get the point. What's the difference between those readers and the ones here?

If somebody paid me, perhaps that would change. I'm probably just as capable as the next guy of becoming a hack, but so far I've been lucky. It irritated the hell out of me when OS was taken over by the spammers, but just last week I was deemed a troll!

Ah, ain't it grand--blogging again!