The highly publicized MAS (Movement Towards Socialism) campaign in South America proceeds at its snail’s pace — with newly-elected Bolivian hope Morales claiming that we’ll have to live with capitalism for at least another fifty years– in spite of our *mythical* MAS (Modern American Solidarity), not because we provide any substantial support. I woke up today thinking of this all in light of the late Iris Chang, of all people.

More bipolar than Iris are we. Hers is a death all should dwell on. From my angle here.

Immediately after Iris Chang committed suicide (virtually around the corner from me), I submitted an obituary of sorts to…everyone. For what should be obvious reasons for anyone who knows anything about her/her work. I followed it up, shortly thereafter, with another piece as previously unknown details about her life and death emerged. The one site that had been posting my stuff regularly for quite some time was out of commission at the time of her death, and I was lucky to get a relatively minor blogger to put up my Chang-related work. In retrospect, it seems as if sites I had been submitting articles to routinely refused to post *anything* by me at the time…because of “differences” about left-leaning (and personal) issues. That, without posting anything by anyone about Iris, in total disrespect for her departure from this world. Screw the “Too Rad” rather than do the Right Thing by Iris…for the benefit for one and all.

The experience was one of many instances in which the so-called Left proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that Solidarity (which could lead to any sufficient/meaningful change) was a self-serving chimera…soft-underbellied, or silly. To ignore the fire-breathing, wondrous she-monster which was Iris Chang –who possessed one of the essential entities needed to battle man’s inhumanity/ignorance– was to definitively put the final nail in the coffin of (let’s call it) “Collective Correctitude.” For me. Not in terms of *small corners*, of course. But in the Big Picture…with its requisite broad concerns, and sense of urgency. Wherein lies the only long-range hope for reformers and revolutionaries alike.

Again, I say this because The Cold Chang Shoulder –a tongue-twister if ever there was one, ey?– *is part of an unacknowledged pattern* among those claiming to want change. Still in place, apparently. Sorry, no Chang, no Change.

I had saved my two articles on Iris in a Drafts Folder on a Yahoo account ’cause I knew the minor blogger (San Diego Moon’s Kap Fulton) was about to go out of business. You’d think that’d be enough of an effort. But no, Lesson #2 had to rear its ugly head. To wit, overnight…without warning or justification or explanation, I was denied access to that Yahoo account. And to judge from the thousands of complaints from *used* Yahoo users I’ve read since, I have no reason to expect any clarity/justice/access in the future.

Go figure. Rather, forget my relatively minor concerns/efforts here…and get at least some kind of decent hit of Iris’ demise by vigorously blending what’s at http://blogs.mercurynews.com/aei/2004/11/iris_chang_foun.html with Heidi Benson’s (much more important article):
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2005/04/17/CMGCNBQ RRP1.DTL