How
the Press &
the CIA Killed Gary Webb's Career
Today's
Stories
January 1 /
2, 2005
Gary Leupp
Meaning
and Meaninglessness in the Tsunami
December 31,
2004
Farrah Hassen
The
Palestinian Right of Return: a View from Syria
Dave Lindorff
US Air's Bold New Idea: Work for Your Boss for Free!
George Capaccio
Tsunami Hits Iraq
Mike Whitney
Iraq v. Tsunami: Media Duplicity
Peter Phillips
The Tsunami and the Corporate Media: Waves of Hypocrisy
Christopher
Deliso
War
and the Tsunami: Putting It in Perspective
December 30,
2004
Lila Rajiva
Unnatural
Disaster? Earthquakes, Tsunamis and Nuclear Testing
Robert Fisk
The
Ghosts of Vietnam
Roger Burbach
Argentina
v. the IMF
Stan Cox
9/11 and 12/26: How to React
Walter Brasch
Bush and Tsunamis: Heartless in Crawford
Christopher Brauchli
Empire of the Misers
Alexandra Spieldoch
NAFTA Through a Gender Lens: "Free Trade" Pacts and
Women
Paul Kincaid Jameison
Grief, Relief and the Stingy West
Dan Bacher
The Water Kings of California
Paul Craig
Roberts
Unbecoming
Conduct
December 29,
2004
Dave Lindorff
Us,
Stingy?: It's All Relative
M. Shahid Alam
America
and Islam: Seeking Parallels
Ronald D. Hoffman
Tsunamis
and Nuclear Power Plants
Sam Bahour
/ Todd May
Elections
Without Democracy
Fred Gardner
Ricky Does 60 Minutes
Ali Khan
Who's Feeding the Bin Laden Legend?
John Hansen
Family Farms Are Being Fed to Corporate Sharks
Sam Lewin
How the Justice Department Continues to Screw the Sioux
Richard Oxman
As Time Goes By With Andy Goldsworthy
Mickey Z.
A Wave of Questions: Putting a Disaster in Context
Website of the Day
Banking While Muslim
December 28,
2004
Brian Cloughley
The
Chief Weirdo at the Pentagon: Rumsfeld Must Go
Joshua Frank
Privacy Piracy? What Howard Dean May Bring to the DNC
Jessica Leight
The
Chilean Miracle: Less Than Meets the Eye
Dave Lindorff
A
Shameful Response to Disaster
John Walsh
Disappearing the Anti-War Movement at the NYTs
Dave Zirin
The Death of Reggie White: an Off the Field Obituary
Dr. Teresa Whitehurst
Be Careful Not to Get Too Much Education: It's Happened to a
Lot of Good Christians
Ron Jacobs
Iran
2004: The Resistance and the Western Anti-War Movement
December 27,
2004
M. Junaid Alam
"Civilization
v. Barbarism": an Interview with Noam Chomsky
Michael Donnelly
Greens and Greenbacks: How Nonprofit Careerism Derailed the "Revolution"
Greg Moses
Texas Election Scandal: Forty Faxes and a Whisper
Toni Solo
Colombia's Appalling Vista: Justice With Eyes Wide Open
Brian Kwoba
Blaming the Victims of the 2004 Elections
Genna Goodman-Campbell
Honduras Validates Its Banana Republic Status, Again
Mike Whitney
Disappearing Act: Fallujah and the Media
Ari Shavit
"Zionism Has Exhausted Itself": an Interview with Amos
Elon
Richard Oxman
Reflections on a Handful of Activists
Saul Landau
James
Cason's Cuban Delusions
December 25
/ 26, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
Yup,
It's Moral Outrage Time
Diane Christian
The Christmas Christ
Dr. Susan Block
Faith-Based Sex
Gary Leupp
Rumsfeld, His Critics and the Draft
Ron Jacobs
Music in Wartime
Elaine Cassel
Articles I Didn't Write
Jim Minick
Beyond Organic
Poets Basement
Louise, Landau, Orloski, Albert
and Collins
December 24,
2004
Diane Christian
Winning:
Rummy and John Milton
Chad Nagle
Ukraine's
Real Underdog
Saul Landau
My Friend Richard Barnet
Greg Moses
Ramsey Muniz Speaks
Joe DeRaymond
The Endless War in Colombia: a View From Within
Borzou Daragahi
Iraq's Christians: Tolerated by Saddam; Targets Under Occupation
Mike Whitney
Rummy's Quagmire of Lies
Francis A. Boyle
O Little Town of Bethlehem: Another Christmas Under Occupation
William Loren
Katz
Florida 1837: Christmas Eve Resistance to the First US Occupation
December 23,
2004
Chad Nagle
Report
from Kiev: Yushchenko's Not Quite Ready for Sainthood
David Smith-Ferri
The
Real UN Disgrace in Iraq
Bill Quigley
Death
Watch for Human Rights in Haiti
Mickey Z.
Crumbs
from Our Table
Christopher Brauchli
Merck's Merry X-mas
Greg Moses
When
No Law Means No Law
Alan Singer
An
Encounter with Sen. Schumer: a Very Dangerous Democrat
David Price
Social
Security Pump and Dump
Website of the Day
Gabbo Gets Laid
December 22,
2004
James Petras
An
Open Letter to Saramago: Nobel Laureate Suffers from a Bizarre
Historical Amnesia
Omar Barghouti
The Case for Boycotting Israel
Patrick Cockburn / Jeremy Redmond
They Were Waiting on Chicken Tenders When the Rounds Hit
Harry Browne
Northern Ireland: No Postcards from the Edge
Richard Oxman
On the Seventh Column
Kathleen Christison
Imagining
Palestine
Website of the Day
FBI Torture Memos
December 21,
2004
Greg Moses
The
New Zeus on the Block: Unplugging Al-Manar TV
Dave Lindorff
Losing
It in America: Bunker of the Skittish
Chad Nagle
The View from Donetsk
Dragon Pierces
Truth*
Concrete
Colossus vs. the River Dragon: Dislocation and Three Gorges Dam
Patrick Cockburn
"Things Always Get Worse"
Seth DeLong
Aiding Oppression in Haiti
Ahmad Faruqui
Pakistan and the 9/11 Commission's Report
Paul Craig
Roberts
America
Locked Up: a System of Injustice
December 20,
2004
Gary Leupp
Japan
in Iraq
Robert Fisk
An
Army Without Compassion
Uri Avnery
The Mountain and the Mouse
Francisco Letelier
My Case Against Pinochet
Patrick Cockburn
The Polls of Fear
Bill Conroy
Charles Bowden on the Legacy of Gary Webb: "He Drew Blood"
Yoshie Furuhashi
Chokeholds of a Giant: Attacking Wal-Mart's Supply Chain
David Swanson
Media Blackout of Bush's War on Labor
Chad Nagle
Did Yushchenko Poison Himself?
December 18
/ 19, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
Why
They Hated Gary Webb
Saul Landau
Gen.
Pinochet Should Also Face Charges in DC
Patrick Cockburn
Losing
Mosul: Once They Called It a Model for the Occupation
Douglas Valentine
Wolves
and Revolution in Venezuela: a Caracas Romance
Ray McGovern
Laughing Dragon, Dancing Bear: the New China / Russia Alliance
Fred Gardner
DEA Upholds Grower's Marijuana Monopoly
Jean-Guy Allard
Locked Up Naked in a Hole Within a Hole: Have the Cuban 5 Been
Tortured in US Prisons?
Ron Jacobs
Drifters Escape, Again: Encounters with Berkeley's Police
Raymond G.
Helmick, S.J.
The Law and Peace in the Middle East
Sean Sellers
Values Voters, Desperate Housewives and Sweatshop Tacos
Lee Sustar
Christmas
on the Picket Line at CNH: "They Want to Break Our Unions"
Richard Thieme
Webb's Wife: "Gary Was Never the Same After They Attacked
Him"
Sam Bahour
WANTED:
Middle East Negotiator
Joshua Frank
The
Spin Doctor: an Interview with Mickey Z.
Dave Lindorff
A Man Who Confers with God Should Have Good Hearing
Stan Cox
What Kids Cost: Dallas v. Delhi
Chris Frasier
Farming By Numbers: More Poets, Fewer MBAs
Poets' Basement
Katz, Melek, Harley, Albert and Ford
December
17, 2004
Cockburn /
St. Clair
CounterAttack:
How the Press and the CIA Killed Gary Webb's Career
Dave Lindorff
Racism:
Philly Style
Dan Bacher
Bush Abandons Salmon Restoration
Marisa Jacott
NAFTA and the Environment: Trade Still Runs Roughshod
Francis Thicke
How Now, Industrial Cow?
Rupert Cornwell
The Inuit Strike Back
Website of the Day
Franz Boas Unrolls Over in His Grave
December
16, 2004
Michael
Neumann
How We Became Barbarians
Merlin
Chowkwanyun
An Interview with Ralph Nader
Gabriel
Espinoza Gonzales
The Dubious Career of John Bolton
Christopher
Brauchli
Louis Freeh's New Gig: Usurer
Patrick
Cockburn
Allawi's Pre-Election Ploy: Putting "Chemical Ali"
on Trial
Mike
Whitney
Gearing Up for a Draft?
Walter
Brasch
Hillbilly Humvees and Rumsfeld's New Physics
Bill
Conroy
How Gary Webb Saved My Ass from the FBI
Website
of the Day
Saturday Memorial for Gary Webb
December
15, 2004
Robert
Fisk
Who Killed Baha Mousa?
Jennifer
Van Bergen
The Monster Under the Bed
Heather
Gray
Will the Real Christians Please Stand?: a Personal Testimony
Dave
Lindorff
The DNC, Albright and the Iraq Elections
Luis
Hernandez Navarro
To Die a Little: Migration and Coffee
in Mexico and Central America
Joshua
Frank
The Ohio Recount: an Exercise in "Dumbocracy"
Greg
Moses
Eighty-Sixing Civil Rights in Ohio?
George
Caffentzis
The Petroleum Commons
December
14, 2004
Dave
Lindorff
DNC Meddling in the Ukraine Elections
Larry
Birns / Seth DeLong
Haiti is Unraveling and No One is Saying
Anything
Richard
Thieme
My Last Talk with Gary Webb: "I Knew It Was the Truth and
That's What Kept Me Going"
Patrick
Cockburn
A Year After Saddam's Capture, Iraq
is Getting Worse
Chris
Floyd
Client State: Moral Values and Voluntary Servitude in Bush's
America
Akiva
Eldar
A One-time Hanukkah Miracle
Burbach
/ Cantor
The Legacy of Pinochet: Kissinger
and the Teflon Tyrant
December
13, 2004
Cockburn
/ St. Clair
Gary Webb: a Great Reporter, Trashed
by the CIA's Claque
David
Phinney
"Contract Meal Disaster" for Iraqi Prisoners: Rancid
Food Sparked Abu Ghraib Riots
Paul
Craig Roberts
A Dose of Non-Delusional Reality
for Douglas Feith
M.
Junaid Alam
The War is the War Crime
Robert
Jensen
The US Has Lost the Iraq War...and That's a Good Thing
Richard
Oxman
Kafkaesque Lessons for the Left
Greg
Moses
Send No Messengers of Defeat
Douglas
Lummis
The Pentagon's Neurosis: Fallujah
Gulag
December
11 / 12, 2004
Alexander
Cockburn
Running an Empire on the Cheap
Ron
Jacobs
The Drugs of War: Getting High in the Green Zone?
Saul
Landau
Listening and Talking to God About
Invading Other Countries
Gary
Leupp
Bush's Capital
Sharon
Smith
The Horrible Toll on US Troops
Dave
Lindorff
Deja Vu All Over Again: 5,000 Desertions and Counting
Uri
Avnery
The Boss Has Gone Crazy
Jude
Wanniski
The Neo-Con Smear on Kofi Annan: What Food-for-Oil Scandal?
Heather
Gray
How the South Became Republican: an Interview with John Egerton
Patrick
Cockburn / Ken Sengupta
Fallujah: the Homecoming and the Homeless
John
Pilger
Return to Kosovo: Calling the Humanitarian Bombers to Account
Joshua
Frank
All the Rage: Mr. Solomon, Say You're Sorry
Ben
Tripp
O Canada!: the Truth About the Election of 2004
John
Stanton
God Speaks!
Laura
Nathan
Porn Stars are People, Too: a Talk with Christi Lake
Poets'
Basement
Capaccio, Davies, Louise, Ford and Albert
Website
of the Day
Fallujah Photos: Killed in Their Beds
December
10, 2004
Ralph
Nader
President Bush, Stop Destroying the
Mosques of Iraq
Greg
Moses
Whitewashing Voter Fraud
Nicole
Colson
Rebellion in the Ranks: Grunts Are Resisting Stop-Loss Orders
Frederick
B. Hudson
"They Still Got Those Dogs": A New Book Probes Old
Civil Rights Lessons
Patrick
Cockburn
Iraq's Insurgents Oppose the Occupation, Not the Elections
Kathy
Kelly
From Haiti to Iraq: Burying Water
December
9, 2004
Greg
Moses
Ask Not Who Bankrolled Fallujah
Joshua
Frank
Cobb and the Ohio Recount: Vote Fraud as Fundraiser!
Ralph
Nader
An Open Letter to Bush: It's Time to
Disclose the Real Casualty Figures
Lee
Sustar
Bhopal: the Making of a Disaster
Tom
Barry
Restrictionist Resurgence
Mickey
Z.
Sander Hicks and the 9/11 Truth Movement
Christopher
Brauchli
Bush in the Bubble
Mark
Donham
Why are House Democrats Trying to
Deny Cynthia McKinney Seniority?
Gary
Corseri
On the Anniversary of John Lennon's Death, 2012
Paul
de Rooij
The Voices of Sharon's Little Helpers
December
8, 2004
Ralph
Nader
Will the Real Michael Moore Ever Re-Emerge?
Ann
Harrison
The Ohio Recount: Reluctant Officials
and Few Rules
Paul
Craig Roberts
War Crime
Dave
Lindorff
They've Got a Secret: Inside the $40 Billion Black Budget for
Spying
Patrick
Cockburn / Andrew Buncombe
CIA Warning on Iraq: Fallujah Did Not Break the Back of the Insurgency
Col.
Dan Smith
Rules of Engagement in Iraq
Emily
Alves / Michael Johnson
Paradise Lost: Corruption and Clientelism in Costa Rica
Richard
Oxman
The Dylan Bob Wouldn't Mention: Up With Dylan Thomas
Ron
Jacobs
In Fallujah, Freedom Isn't Free
December
7, 2004
Patrick
Cockburn
Running Battles in Baghdad
Behrooz
Ghamari
Lost Muslim Voices of Dissent
Dave
Lindorff
American Fantasies: Psst! Hey Buddy,
Did You Hear How Well the War's Going?
Joshua
Frank
Dean at the DNC?
Richard
Oxman
Down with Dylan: the Insufferable Interview
Ray
McGovern
All Mosquitoes, No Swamp
John
Chuckman
The Invasion of Hallifax: The Imperial Wizard Visits Canada
James
Petras
Latin America: the Empire Changes Gears
Website
of the Day
ToxMap: Who's Poisoning You
December
6, 2004
Paul
Craig Roberts
Paranoia and Pre-emption: Is the
Bush Administration Certifiable?
December
4 / 6, 2004
Alexander
Cockburn
Politicize the CIA? You've Got to
be Kidding
Joe
Bageant
Dining with the Rhinos
Alan
Maass
Reporting from the Ground in Iraq: an Interview with Patrick
Cockburn
Brian
Cloughley
Democracy, Bush-style, in the Gulf
Laura
Carlsen
Latin America Shifts Left
Lenni
Brenner
Jefferson, Madison, Bush and Religion
Anna
Ioakimedes
Brazil's Haitian Mission: Doing God's Work or Washington's?
Uri
Avnery
Widow of Opportunity?
Fred
Gardner
Supreme Court Hears Medical Pot Case
Dave
Zirin
Steroids to Heaven
Jackie
Corr
Mining Camp Blues: the Red State Variation
Don
Fitz
Will Greens Abandon IRV?
Lucy
Herschel
"Art can be a Weapon of the Oppressed": an Interview
with Artist Anthony Papa
Richard
Oxman
No Angels in America: Bashing the Gay Play
Ron
Jacobs
Holiday Greeting Card
Poets'
Basement
Collins, Albert, LaMorticella
December
3, 2004
Dave
Lindorff
Lie Then Escalate
Ben
Tripp
Fun With Boycotts: How to Shop in a
Time of Crisis
Joe
Allen
Murder in El Salvador: the Assassination of Teamster Organizer
Gilberto Soto
Matthew
B. Riley
Human Rights Court Fails Lori Berenson
Meir
Shalev
In the End, It is the Violin that Wins
Bob
Wing
The White Elephant in the Room: Race and Election 2004
Christopher
Brauchli
When McCain Bit His Tongue
Sasan
Fayazmanesh
The EU, the US, Israel and Iran
December
2, 2004
Tito
Tricot
No Justice in Chile: I'm a Torture
Survivor in a Country Where Torturers Still Run Free
Behzad
Yaghmaian
The Murder of Theo Van Gogh and Muslim Migration
Dr.
Susan Block
Lana and Me: Meetings with Remarkable Apes
Frank
/ Chowkwanyun
Liberalism and Its Bounds
Lee
Sustar
Standoff in Ukraine: the Bad v. the Corrupt
Patrick
Cockburn
Another Grim Record in Iraq
Mark
Engler
Seattle at Five
Michael
Donnelly
Something Stinks in South Bend: the Firing of Tyrone Willingham
Nate
Collins
The Bay Area Mall on an Ohlone Burial Grounds
Saul
Landau
The Assassination of Danilo Anderson
December
1, 2004
Phillip
Cryan
Associated with Whom? Rightist Bias
in Wire Coverage of Colombia
Dave
Zirin
What's the Matter with "Leon"?:
Budweiser's Racist Commercial
Ghali
Hassan
Iraq's Health Care Under the Occupation:
200 Children Die Every Day
Donna
J. Volatile
Beware Western Nations Threatening "Democracy"
Patrick
Cockburn
How Saddam Tried to Arm the Insurgency
Nick
Meo
Chemical War Over Afghanistan
Mike
Ferner
The Battle of Toledo
Mokhiber
/ Weissman
Shame and Determination on Global AIDS Day: 40 Million and Rising
Kathy
Kelly
Looking the Other Way: the Real Crimes
of the UN in Iraq
November
30, 2004
Jennifer
Van Bergen
The Veil of Secrecy
Toni
Nelson Herrera
Meeting Kurtz: When Art is a Crime
Paul
Craig Roberts
The Bush Delusions: Successful at Incompetence
Patrick
Cockburn
The Insurgency Strikes Back: There Are No Safe Havens in Iraq
Chuck
Munson
WTO Protests Five Years Later: Seattle Weekly Trashes Anti-Globalization
Movement
Adam
Williams
Citizenship Sold: Back to Business in Indiana
Gregory
Elich
A Dangerous Turn in the US Plans for
North Korea
Website
of the Day
Read Lynne Cheney's Lesbian Novel Online!
November
29, 2004
Dave
Lindorff
Blowback in Ukraine: The Hand of
the CIA?
Omar
Barghouti
"The Pianist" of Palestine:
Roadblock Concerto at Gunpoint
Mike
Whitney
The US Media and Fallujah: How to
Market a Siege
Uri
Avnery
The Abu Mazen Style: "Give Me
Some Credit!"
Matt
Vidal
Globalization and Economic Inequality: a Look at the Numbers
Patrick
Cockburn
An Interview with Iraq's Foreign
Minister
Alan
Farago
Sex Change and Salvation: God, Girly Men and Endocrine Disrupters
Justin
Huggler
Bhopal 20 Years Later
Antony
Loewenstein
How Australia Reported Arafat's Death and Legacy
Gary
Leupp
Ukraine: Poll Results Aren't the Real
Issue
Website
of the Day
Mosul: Images from a Kill Zone
November
27 / 28, 2004
Peter
Linebaugh
Torture & Neo-Liberalism with
Sycorax in Iraq
Alexander
Cockburn
What Happened to O'Reilly's Loofa?
Fred
Gardner
Ashcroft v. Raich: Medical Marijuana and the Supreme Court
Kathy
Kelly
What We Can Control
Diane
Christian
The Other Cheek: "Empire Doesn't Analyze, It Acts"
Gary
Leupp
One More Neocon Target: South (Yes, South) Korea
Lenni
Brenner
Equality and Rights of Return: Jefferson Instructs the New York
Times
Ron
Jacobs
Death Squads and Iraq's Elections: the Mysterious Murders of
the AMS Clerics
Joshua
Frank
An Interview with Kevin Zeese on Nader, Kerry and the ABB Crowd
Toni
Solo
The Murder of Danilo Anderson
Saul
Landau
Fallujah, the 21st Century Guernica
JoAnn
Wypijewski
Matthew Shepard Case 6 Years Later: Why Hate Crimes Laws are
No Cure for Homophobia
Justin
Taylor
Empire's Lawless Opportunities
Amos
Harel
The Case of Captain R.
Walter
A. Davis
Tabloid Justice
Stephen
Hendricks
God's Kind of Men
Poets'
Basement
Albert, LaMorticella and Ford
November
26, 2004
Peter
Feng
Gavin Newsom: Man or Machine?
Greg
Moses
It's the White Vote, Stupid
Liaquat
Ali Khan
The Devil's Work: Bush's Minority Appointments
Michael
Mandel / Gail Davidson
Why Bush Should Be Banned from Canada: a Memo to the Ministry
of Immigration
Dave
Lindorff
Nation of Sheep, Turkey of an Election: Urkrainians Show the
Way
Gary
Corseri
When Black Friday Comes...
Paul
Craig Roberts
Whatever Happened to Conservatives?
Website
of the Day
Iraq Pipeline Watch
November
25, 2004
Willliam
Loren Katz
Giving Thanks to Whom?: "Thanks
to God We Sent 600 Heathen Souls to Hell Today"
Mitchel
Cohen
Why I Hate Thanksgiving
Mike
Ferner
An Uncommon Mom
November
24, 2004
Gila
Svirsky
License to Kill: the Example of Violence
is Set by the State
Winslow
T. Wheeler
The
Other Mess in Congress
Christopher
Brauchli
The Company He Keeps: the Syndicate of Tom Delay
Dave
Lindorff
Double Standards on Exit Polls: Hypocrisy Sans Irony
Ron
Jacobs
The Occupation of Iraq is the Root of t he Problem
Ken
Sengupta
Witnesses: War Crimes in Fallujah
Diana
Barahona
The Final Holocaust or Why I Voted for Ralph Nader
John
L. Hess
Safire the Shameless
Jason
Leopold
Did Harvard Hire (Another) War Criminal?
Jeffrey
St. Clair
The Mark of McCain: the Senator Most Likely to Start a Nuclear
War
Map
of the Day
Now and Then: 2004 v. 1860
November
23, 2004
Forrest
Hylton
Bush and Uribe at the Beach
November
22, 2004
Dave
Zirin
Fight Night in the NBA: Selective Outrage
in Detroit
Paul
Craig Roberts
On to Iran: We Won't Get Fooled Again?
Michael
Mandel / Gail Davidson
Why Bush Should be Banned from Canada
Kathie
Helmkamp
Our Son: a Marine Who Won't Kill
Ken
Sengupta
The Triangle of Death: "This is Now the Most Dangerous Place
in Iraq"
Mike
Whitney
Greenspan's Hammer
Roger
Burbach
Why They Hate Bush in Chile
Website
of the Day
Fed Up with Government Lies and Corporate Spin?
November
20 / 21, 2004
Alexander
Cockburn
The Poisoned Chalice
Todd
May
Religion, the Election and the Politics of Fear
Abbas
Ahmed Ibrahim
The Horrors of Fallujah: a First-Hand Account
Kevin
Zeese
Mishandling Nader
Landau
/ Hassen
After Arafat
Tom
Barry
The Vulcans Consolidate Power: The Rise of Stephen Hadley
Fred
Gardner
Pot Shots: Ask Dr. Todd
Justin
E.H. Smith
Triumph of the Will: the Sequel
Carl
Estabrook
Where We Are Now
Gary
Leupp
Imperial History-Making vs. Reality-Based Thought: a Dialogue
Dave
Lindorff
Apocalypse Soon
Jenna
Michelle Liut
Plans Colombia and Patriota: Wanton Wastes of Money, Manpower
and Lives
Mickey
Z.
The Granma Moses of Radical Writing: an Interview with William
Blum
Greg
Moses
The Same Old Struggle Against Imperial America
Sharon
Smith
Abortion Rights and the Election: What Now?
Ron
Jacobs
Sandwiches and Car Bombs
Ben
Tripp
Raising d'Etre: Finding Money in Hollywood These Days
Richard
Oxman
Basketbrawl Two Pointer: Iraq Rules!
Gilad
Atzmon
Politics and Jazz
Poets'
Basement
LaMorticella, Albert, Ford, & Anon.
Website
of the Day
Voice of the Forest
Hot Stories
Alexander Cockburn
Behold,
the Head of a Neo-Con!
Subcomandante
Marcos
The
Death Train of the WTO
Norman Finkelstein
Hitchens
as Model Apostate
Steve Niva
Israel's
Assassination Policy: the Trigger for Suicide Bombings?
Dardagan,
Slobodo and Williams
CounterPunch Exclusive:
20,000 Wounded Iraqi Civilians
Steve
J.B.
Prison Bitch
Sheldon
Rampton and John Stauber
True Lies: the Use of Propaganda
in the Iraq War
Wendell
Berry
Small Destructions Add Up
CounterPunch
Wire
WMD: Who Said What When
Cindy
Corrie
A Mother's Day Talk: the Daughter
I Can't Hear From
Gore Vidal
The
Erosion of the American Dream
Francis Boyle
Impeach
Bush: A Draft Resolution
Click
Here for More Stories.
|
Weekend Edition
January 1 / 2, 2005
Phase One Against Empire
A
Period for Pedagogy
By
STAN GOFF
Disequilibrium has created the conditions
for a powerful idea-shift if we can seize the moment.
The United States government pounced on the collapse of the twin
towers to launch a campaign for the complete redesign of Planet
Earth's geo-political architecture. While the monetary and military
basis for US power has remained intact--for the time being--the
predictability of international relations, even and especially
from the imperial point of view, has diminished profoundly.
In the US, we have a difficult and important responsibility to
the rest of the world--to attack the basis of imperial political
power from within.
Now we are faced with a period that needs the left more than
ever, at a time when we are, in many respects, weaker than ever.
I want to suggest that re-orientation to correct this
deficiency will require new standpoints of observation,
and the incorporation of these new standpoints into our organizational
development and our political strategies. We can begin this
by launching a massive public (and self) education effort and
making that counter-propaganda the centerpiece of our organizing
for the next one to two years.
Everything we seem to know about activism in the US is residue
from the Civil Rights struggle and the subsequent anti-war and
women's liberation upsurges. And, in the words of Anthony Asadullah
Samad writing for Black Commentator:
[T]he advocacy no longer seems to work. Whether it's protest,
negotiation, boycott or voter revolt (the latter two of which
we rarely, if ever, use), watching black advocacy is like watching
re-runs of Sanford and Son; you know what's about to come next--and
what the line is going to be when Redd Foxx grabs his chest "Okay,
this is the part where they march in." "Now, they're
about to holler and scream, and give long speeches, watch 'em."
"Here is the part where they put the community mothers up
to cry, sigh, ain't it sad?" "Now this is the part
where they march out singing 'We Shall Overcome,' then they'll
go home and be quiet until the next time we get caught violating
them or their interests. But the response will be the same."
I would add to Samad's observation that in the post-Cold
War period, especially during the Clinton bubble, much of the
energy of activists was captured by the non-profit sector, where
"progressive" foundation money was the carrot and plain
demoralization was the stick. With the single-issue project-orientation
of 501(c)(3)s, and the gravitational pull of foundation grants,
research and policy became the battlefields. Within a decade,
most of the American left had developed selective amnesia and
had forgotten that politics is about power.
This funded issue-organizing, while not universally destructive,
consolidated a tendency to push individual pieces of legislation,
usually at the state level, and thereby a near absolute dependence
on building relationships with Democratic Party elected officials.
In the face of the terrifying reaction of the Republican Party,
those who were engaged in advocacy for labor, women, oppressed
nationalities, queer folk, and environmentalists--having had
that advocacy delimited to policy debates and piecemeal (mostly
defensive) legislative struggles--were driven into the most humiliating
states of dependency on Democrats. This dependency created the
conditions for the bizarre 2004 election spectacle in which the
majority of a mass movement against the war in Iraq, including
many leftists, was stampeded into actively campaigning for
a pro-war candidate, and tying itself in rhetorical knots to
justify this "strategy." In the greatest irony of
all, the reactionary party still won the elections.
In the aftermath of that election, the Democratic Party is now
talking about abandoning its reproductive rights position to
get back the electoral margin it needs to survive politically.
This whole dilemma stems directly from the confusion of policy
advocacy with politics as the struggle for power.
I am one of those who believe that the principle global "contradiction"--as
we are fond of saying out here in leftland--is US imperialism.
Moreover, I believe the US war in Southwest Asia has given the
left yet another historic opportunity to build mass movements
that can challenge the power of the US ruling class.
As a retired career member of the US armed forces, I may place
an undue emphasis on this aspect of the current US crisis, but
even if I did not have that built-in bias, it would still be
hard to dismiss both the centrality of the military as a state
institution in the post-9/11 period, or the stunning political
implications of the military crisis in Iraq.
In our own organizing with veterans and military families against
the war, we have encountered the same issues that everyone on
the left encountered, including the problems of Democrat-dependency
and recycled tactics. The difference for us--and I am included
in this--is that the movement has put a very high premium on
our voices--the voices of military-veteran communities--because
of their de-legitimating force. I continue to think we serve
a very important role in the anti-war movement, and that we can
in some instances serve in a particularly powerful role in strengthening
the anti-imperial pole of that movement. I will come back to
exactly how we can start that process in the near term further
down.
But as a leftist, and not merely an anti-war veteran, and as
one who decries the political stasis of Democrat-dependency,
I am also interested in how to break out of policy-focus inertia
and get back to the struggle, first, for the hegemony
of socialist (yes, that's the word I used) ideas, and then
the direct struggle for political power, beginning with a campaign
to bring down the Democratic Party from the left.
The de-legitimation of this administration, while absolutely
essential, can not become an end in itself. We have to be prepared
to take advantage of that sense of dislocation to foreground
new connections, new ways of understanding the world. These
connections must aim to create a higher level of understanding
of capitalism as a system that breeds war, and they must
do so in ways that are intellectually and emotionally compelling
to people.
I am thoroughly unconvinced by the economistic approach of talking
about how much money is being spent on the war instead of social
services, etc. Not only does this argument consistently get
trumped by Orange Alerts and  other forms of mass anxiety-production,
it is a purely demagogic and dishonest point. "Money
for people and not for war," sounds great, but it ultimately
reinforces commonly held notions that obscure the fundamental
monetary realities of late imperialism--which the left is duty-bound
to explain not exploit for polemical advantage.
Money is neither a static nor a material value, but one that
is ultimately symbolic of power, and its claiming-capacity fluctuates
based on the realities and perceptions of power, as well as in
response to speculative insults.
US monetary supremacy in the world, upon which our imperial
privileges rest, is directly dependent on our ability and
willingness to wage war. Without that ability and willingness,
the same dollars we are talking about will not likely be adequate
for any of those alternative purposes under capitalist governance,
because they would quickly become worthless. What do we tell
the people then?
People do not understand this now, but that doesn't imply that
our response is to gloss over this rather critical point to sweeten
and simplify our mass appeal. If this is a key step in understanding
the system we are challenging, then our responsibility is to
find ways to communicate this reality not evade it, or worse,
reinforce it.
The felt issues that can connect this war to the system
in the minds of others also happen to be the very issues that
can serve to discredit the Democratic Party and thereby afford
the left an opportunity to exercise real political power
in the short term--the only power we potentially have for the
time being--and that is to drag down and destroy one of the major
bourgeois political edifices, the Democratic Party. This, I
think, is a worthwhile and urgent goal.
The argument that we must build an alternative before
we tear down the Democrat fortress is singularly unconvincing.
A far more persuasive hypothesis, from where I stand, is to
raze this decadent institution so it no longer has any defensive
political value whatsoever, and oblige people to build more militant
and agile organizations--organizations that are not utterly dependent
on foundations, finance capital, and elections for their
survival.
Subjects that are mostly anathema for the Democratic Party, and
that can connect us to new masses of people in a concerted
radical public education effort might be (in alphabetical order):
* Anti-racism
* Anti-sexism.
* Domestic violence.
* Environment and energy crisis.
* Gay marriage.
* Guns.
* Immigrant protection.
* Labor--all labor.
* National self-determination.
* Palestinian self-determination.
* Prison.
* Reproductive rights.
Anti-Racism
By anti-racism, I mean specifically the kind of public education
aimed at exposing both white privilege and internalized oppression.
When I began my own career as a political activist after the
Army, I was very skeptical about the necessity and efficacy of
anti-racist education. It struck me as too introspective and
personalized. But my own experience since then, with activists
who have and haven't been exposed to structured education about
white privilege and internalized oppression, has convinced me
that it is a valuable, if not invaluable, step in the consciousness-building
process for new activists. Consciousness of the subjective experience
of unacknowledged racism is a powerful antidote to the kind of
creeping chauvinism we have witnessed in the anti-war movement
that argues against ending the occupation of Iraq until "we"
have put the place right.
Anti-Sexism
The seeming intractability of leftist economism with regard to
gender issues, leads me to think we should place a high priority
on the same kind of socialist pedagogy with regard to male privilege
and women's internalized oppression. In the context of the anti-war
movement, we have never had a better opportunity to explore and
explain the connections between social constructions of masculinity
and militarism.
Domestic Violence
Domestically in the US, the left has consistently--as it should--decried
the statistics related to lack of workplace safety, as well as
racial violence. But the left has failed to give equal attention
to violence directed against women-as-women. This issue has
not become the purview of liberal women's groups because it is
a "petit bourgeois" concern. The left has ceded
this issue by its utter failure to give it the priority it deserves
as one of our society's most immediate, systematic, and violent
forms of oppression. Over 4 million American women a year are
physically attacked (over half a million are raped) by men, very
frequently their own domestic partners, and escape from this
abusive situation is the single most significant cause of women
with children being homeless. Approximately 1,400 women in the
US are killed each year now by domestic partners. Any public
education event about this issue will be well attended. When
it is attended, if we know what we are doing, it is not a big
stretch to explain that connection of masculinity-as-aggression
and war.
As a primer on women's structural oppression, I strongly recommend
four books to the left: "The Black Feminist Reader,"
edited by Joy James and T. Denean Sharpley-Whiting, "Patriarchy
and Accumulation on a World Scale," by Maria Mies, "Money,
Sex, and Power--Toward a Feminist Historical Materialism,"
by Nancy C. M. Hartsock, and "Profit and Pleasure--Sexual
Identities in Late Capitalism," by Rosemary Hennessy.
Environment and Energy Crisis
The Democrats have thrown in their lot with the snake-oil salesmen
of entrepreneurial environmentalism. There is a growing acknowledgment
on the left and among honest environmentalists that the capitalist
world system is rapidly approaching a fossil energy cliff. A
comrade once said that ecology is the bastard child of bourgeois
science, and that it was the responsibility of the left to adopt
this child. It is our responsibility to explain that ecocide
is the inevitable result of capitalist accumulation.
It is with the left's political economy of the environment that
we can play a crucial role in combining the voices of macro-ecology
with the community-based struggles for environmental justice
and against environmental racism. Alf Hornborg has written an
invaluable book that connects environmental justice, the capitalist
world system, and energy depletion, called "The Power of
the Machine--Global Inequalities of Economy, Technology, and
Environment."
Gay Marriage
Rather than falsely generalizing about marriage as a "bourgeois
institution," we need to come to terms with the actual complexity
of this evolving institution. I strongly recommend Nancy Cott's
superlative US history of marriage, "Public Vows,"
as a basic text. The homophobia of the orthodox left ran many
queer folk out of the movement in the 60s and 70s, and marginalized
many radical queers. Let's don't make the same mistake again.
The resistance to gay marriage is not merely right-wing squeamishness
about anything except the male-female missionary position. The
attempt to re-impose a static and retrograde definition of marriage
is an attempt to roll back basic gains that women have
made, from the ability to exist legally independent of a spouse
to the abolition of coverture, and the attack on gay marriage
is based on the Right's desire to strictly police the social
definitions of male and female--using state power.
Guns
No position has contributed more to the nutty gun-culture of
the right and the more general alienation of working class people
in the United States than the bone-headed opposition to firearms
by liberals. The left should not only drop this opposition,
we should be encouraging the sensible and responsible armament
of oppressed people in case they are ever required to defend
themselves. What we have now is a fanatical white right-wing
that is already arming itself--alone--and a politically polarizing
gun lobby on the right wing that can be neutralized by the left
supporting a right to firearms and armed self-defense--without
turning guns into some kind of Freudian icon.
Immigrant Protection
The global destabilization of this period has created massive
immigration from the peripheries to the over-developed cores,
especially the United States. The systematic attacks on Hispano-Latina
immigrants through ballot initiatives, English-only legislation,
and denial of drivers' licenses, etc., is well known. We are
also all aware of the racial profiling and Pantopticon measures
being deployed against Southwest Asian immigrants, particularly
Arab and Muslim immigrants. The Democratic Party has done virtually
nothing to stop this immigrant-baiting, and in many cases has
encouraged it. And the connection of this execrable xenophobia
to the war is glaringly obvious.
Labor--All Labor
Our definition of labor has often implicitly been "organized"
labor. The development of US capitalism has rendered the NLRB
model obsolete and irrelevant for the vast majority of workers,
leaving 85% of wage labor in the United States unprotected by
a union, and many union members captive of the union bureaucracies'
slavish devotion to the Democratic Party. It is past time for
the left to include unwaged labor in both its analysis and activism
around the issue of work. This, again, includes women who have
been ignored by the left, subsumed and dismissed within the "working
family." Moreover, the inhering chauvinism of "preserving
American jobs" pits worker against worker in the face of
internationally mobile capital, completely ignoring the reality
of the world system as a single labor pool--and conceals the
international organic composition of labor that is now rendering
literally billions of the world's urbanized masses superfluous
to the valorization process. The kind of internationalist approach
being advocated by groups like Global Women's Strike seems to
have a great deal of potential for connecting left politics beyond
(but not abandoning) that shrinking population in trade unions
and to the actually existing world working class--and to show
how imperial war is ultimately an attack on that class.
National Self-Determination
African Americans, indigenous First Nations, and Chicanos, now
more than ever, can see and feel the peculiar forms of national
oppression inside the United States, oppression directly reflected
in the relation of the US dominant class toward nations around
the world, especially now in Southwest Asia, the Philippines,
Haiti, and elsewhere. A primary research and education goal
of the left must be to draw parallels between underdevelopment
here and abroad, the crucial service role of the embedded comprador
for imperialism, the use of population control measures like
police-military occupation and incarceration, heavy debt levels,
and historical trajectories. Formations like the Black Radical
Congress are essential, and the rest of us need to unite with
them. If there is a military occupation in Iraq, there is also
a militarized-police occupation of many communities of color
right here in the United States.
Palestinian Self-Determination
The struggle for Palestinian self-determination is now in the
center of the world stage because of the obscene strategic alliance
between the Bush and Sharon governments. The Palestinian struggle
resonates throughout the Arab and Muslim world, now under US
attack. The body of evidence in support of the Palestinian struggle
and against the Apartheid state of Israel is so stark and so
overwhelming that there is quite simply no credible defense of
the Israeli state. With the United States now trapped in a war
it can not seem to escape yet can not win in Iraq, and the region
having become a point of intense and ever more open international
capitalist rivalry, public education of Americans--whose impressions
of the so-called Israeli-Palestinian "conflict" reflect
a transparent, racist, and indefensible body of official and
media disinformation--should take a very high priority in the
movement. This may be the sharpest tool in our armamentarium
to go after the Democratic Party, whose Zionism is legendary.
Prisons
While white progressives were trying to figure out how to connect
the war abroad with the war at home and decrying the lack of
whole-hearted participation in anti-war mass mobilizations by
African Americans, Hispano-Latinas, and First Nations, the Bush
administration presented us with a far more immediate and effective
connection between Baghdad and the internal colonies of the US--prisons.
There is hardly an oppressed nationality family in America that
hasn't been directly affected by the incarceration apparatus
of the US White State. Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo draw a far
more effective line between external and internal colonization
than the reified math of how much is spent on war as opposed
to social programs.
Reproductive Rights
The reactionaries have an agenda and it includes more than re-securing
the basis of accumulation through war. It is also to secure
the basis of social reproduction through the reassertion of male
power. The struggle of Democrats against the assault on women's
reproductive freedom has always been built on a weak foundation.
Liberals, in their basic commitment to capitalism are constitutionally
incapable of explaining women's oppression as based on a sexual
division of labor that is essential to capital accumulation.
Now that the Democratic Party is abandoning the defense of women's
reproductive freedom (already narrowly defined by Democrats and
white liberal feminists as the right of women who could afford
it to legal abortion) there is an opportunity for the left to
step into the breech and begin connecting the imperial agenda
with the sexual agenda of the right.
***
These are merely suggestions for the subjects and sectors that
the left might engage for their timeliness and strategic significance.
No struggle in the United States right now is more important
for the left than undermining the basic premises of ruling class
ideology and replacing them with new interpretive tools for the
masses to gain greater clarity about the struggle in front of
them. The right figured this out many years ago. Call it superstructure
if you like, but when we lost the ideological struggle, the political
defeats were not far behind. This might be a way to regain some
of the initiative.
Radical community education--which begins with the delegitimation
of existing power structures--is a first step in a strategic
process. The dichotomy between talking-and-doing is patently
false. Even in the Army, where combat drills are about as performance-oriented
as you get, the rule was shoot, move, and COMMUNICATE.
Phase I, II, and III then we'll see
This suggested strategic outline is what I have been calling
3-D.
Phase I is to DELEGITIMATE the politicians who are making action-decisions
now. Pedagogy is essential to this in order to inoculate the
public against the kinds of fallacies and tactics that are generally
used to mislead the masses.
As a full-fledged, nationwide public education drive begins to
show results in shifting and polarizing public opinion, an overlapping
Phase II should begin--based on the level of popular support
available--of systematic and widespread civil DISOBEDIENCE that
includes the old tactics of the Civil Rights era, but also non-violent
hit-and-run tactics that reduce the probability of arrest and
are not perceived as inimical to the public interest--like banner
drops. Billboard "corrections," and other creative
actions.
Phase III--again based on the level of popular support and level
of polarization--is DISRUPTION. These are the kinds of actions
that close things down businesses, governments, transportation.
The best recent example I can give of disruptions is the complete
closure of La Paz, the capital of Bolivia, by an indigenous popular
movement. This is a last resort, and must be considered carefully
within the context that it is planned. If actions like this
do not enjoy the firm support of at least 25% of the population,
they should be very seriously reviewed before execution. But
by using criteria, like level of likely support, we have built-in
goals for each phase of such a struggle.
Each phase of such a strategy leaves wide tactical flexibility
for different groups in different locations to accomplish the
central tasks. If public education is the priority, for the
purpose of undermining the ideological support for ruling class
politics, there are hundreds of different techniques and tactics
for reaching hundreds of different potential audiences. But
we have to stay with the single strategic focus long enough to
assess the value of various tactics and techniques, and to give
the process time to produce a real result.
That's why I would vote for a two-year period of intense delegitimation
education--communiversity--that targets key groups who have not
been mobilized in the anti-war, anti-empire work. There has
to be time to plan and conduct pedagogical activity--from kitchen
table teach-ins to counter-recruitment to mass rallies--and time
to build new relationships, as well as time to demonstrate reciprocity
by participating in the on-going struggles of oppressed nationalities,
women, environmentalists, etc. We have to get out of our comfort
zones.
The right-wing in this country prepared their current assault
on political power all the way back when Barry Goldwater was
getting his ass kicked by Lyndon Baines Johnson. And that preparation
was ideological. So much for mechanical base-superstructure
schemas!
Returning now to my earlier promise to talk about veterans and
military family (and more and more, actual GI's) position in
the larger scheme of the anti-war, anti-empire work, I want to
invite everyone in the United States to the military town of
Fayetteville, North Carolina, March 19th, 2005. This is the
anniversary of the illegal 2003 ground offensive to militarily
occupy the sovereign nation of Iraq.
Last year, we had almost 2,000 people at beautiful Rowan Park,
with families and music and great speakers. We would have had
plenty more, but people were concerned about doing this in Fayetteville,
concerned about how it would be received by the huge adjacent
Fort Bragg military community.
It was a misplaced concern. Not only did many military people
(in civilian clothes) attend, we even heard expressions of support
from local cops--if you can believe that, themselves almost all
veterans. There was a tiny counter-demonstration that was not
the least bit menacing--though revving motorcycle engines once
or twice to try and drown out speakers.
This year, we want a LOT more. Because nothing serves
to delegitimate the administration more than resistance from
the very people and their families who are being tasked to do
the wet work for this criminal adventure. And putting the spotlight
on the war at the nation's largest military installation, the
home of the 82nd Airborne Division and the US Special Forces
Command, is a media magnet nonpareil. This year there
will be participation from across the country by members of Military
Families Speak Out, Veterans for Peace, and Iraq Veterans Against
the War. Faith communities are already getting on board, as
are peace-and-justice groups from around the country.
This is not just an event for "leftists." The litmus
test for showing up is opposition to the war in Iraq, and no
one there cares if that is a political conviction, a religious
conviction, or a personal conviction.
It is before and after such an event that we have to use our
growing networks to do the kind of communiveristy education I
spoke about above. Fayetteville is a kick-start for the anti-war,
anti-empire movement in the wake of the election stand-down,
and I emphasize the word--start! Cheney's boys are already talking
about the Iraq War going on for decades, plural. If they
are prepared for that long a haul, we had damn sure better be,
too.
Stan Goff is the author of "Hideous
Dream: A Soldier's Memoir of the US Invasion of Haiti"
(Soft Skull Press, 2000) and "Full
Spectrum Disorder" (Soft Skull Press, 2003). He
is a member of the BRING
THEM HOME NOW! coordinating committee. His periodic essays
on the military can be found at http://www.freedomroad.org/home.html.
Email for BRING THEM HOME NOW! is bthn@mfso.org.
Goff can be reached at: sherrynstan@igc.org
Weekend Edition
Features for November
27 / 28, 2004
Peter
Linebaugh
Torture & Neo-Liberalism with
Sycorax in Iraq
Alexander
Cockburn
What Happened to O'Reilly's Loofa?
Fred
Gardner
Ashcroft v. Raich: Medical Marijuana and the Supreme Court
Kathy
Kelly
What We Can Control
Diane
Christian
The Other Cheek: "Empire Doesn't Analyze, It Acts"
Gary
Leupp
One More Neocon Target: South (Yes, South) Korea
Lenni
Brenner
Equality and Rights of Return: Jefferson Instructs the New York
Times
Ron
Jacobs
Death Squads and Iraq's Elections: the Mysterious Murders of
the AMS Clerics
Joshua
Frank
An Interview with Kevin Zeese on Nader, Kerry and the ABB Crowd
Toni
Solo
The Murder of Danilo Anderson
Saul
Landau
Fallujah, the 21st Century Guernica
JoAnn
Wypijewski
Matthew Shepard Case 6 Years Later: Why Hate Crimes Laws are
No Cure for Homophobia
Justin
Taylor
Empire's Lawless Opportunities
Amos
Harel
The Case of Captain R.
Walter
A. Davis
Tabloid Justice
Stephen
Hendricks
God's Kind of Men
Poets'
Basement
Albert, LaMorticella and Ford
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