Today's
Stories
March 31
/ April 1, 2007
Cockburn /
St. Clair
That
Was an Antiwar Vote?
March 30, 2007
Alan Maass
Oil
and the Empire
Veteran Intelligence
Professionals for Sanity
A Memo on Iran: Brinksmanship in Uncharted Waters
Richard W. Behan
George Bush's Land Mine: If Iraqis Get Revenue Sharing, Exxon
Gets Their Oil
Gabriel Kolko
Israel's Last Chance
William S. Lind
Operation Anabasis
Stedjan / Weis
The Cluster Bomb Treaty: Again, It's the US vs. the World
Kevin Zeese
Is Bush Lame or Is Congress?
David Busch
Homeless in LA
Fidel Castro
Biofuels and Global Hunger
CounterPunch
News Service
Mistrial in Olympia 15 Case
Website of the Day
Free Shaquanda Cotton
March 29, 2007
Saul Landau
Comparing
Padillas
Patrick Cockburn
When Iraqi Cops Go on a Rampage
Dave Lindorff
War and the Futures Market: Oil Traders Fear an Attack on Iran
Arthur Neslen
Normalizing Injustice: Jaffa's Ugly Truth
Michael Dickinson
Incident at Westminster Abbey
Ingmar Lee
Plantskyyd: Planting Trees with Pig's Blood in British Columbia
Aseem Shrivastava
As India Goes Global, the Public Goes Private
Marlene Martin
Sacco and Vanzetti, Revisited
Mahmoud El-Yousseph
Wake Up, You Live in America!
Michael Foley
A Citizen's Peace Lobby
Website of the Day
Impeach Bush Club Parade
March 28,
2007
Nicole Colson
The
Ongoing Persecution of Sami Al-Arian
Harry Clark
Michigan Peaceworks on Palestine
Larry Everest
Another $100 Billion to Continue the War
Jonathan M.
Feldman
Citigroup,
Property and Theft
Dave Zirin
Yet Another Book on Muhammad Ali (and Why I Wrote It)
Jane Stillwater
How Runaway Inflation Has Slipped Under the Radar
Ayesha Ijaz Khan
Pakistan's Cry for Justice
Jim Wilfong
Who Owns Maine's Water?
Hawra Karama
An Open Letter to Kanan Makiya, an Iraqi Uncle Tom
Website of
the Day
Free Fire on Iraqi Civilians
March 27, 2007
Iain Boal /
Standard Schaefer
British
Petroleum and the New Greenmail
Patrick Cockburn
The Hostage Game
Monica Benderman
On Ending War: Is America Ready for the Troops When They Come
Home?
Corporate Crime
Reporter
Political
Players and Single Payer
Joshua Frank
Dems in Power: Broken Promises and Bald-Faced Lies
Harvey Wasserman
Will Al Gore Deliver Us to Solartopia?
Sen. Russell Feingold
FBI Abuses of the Patriot Act
Tillman Family
Crimes and Cover Ups are Not "Missteps"
Patrick Bond
Zimbabwe's Descent
David Judd
Arbitrary Discipline at Columbia
Website of the Day
Why Work?
March 26, 2007
Patrick Cockburn
Seven
Days on Iraq's Cruel Roads
Uri Avnery
Schoolbooks and Borders
Greg Moses
Hothouses for Hapless Masses on the Rio Grande
Bill Hatch
A Plague of Big Shots
John V. Walsh
The Democrats' War Funding Debacle
Diane Christian
God Does Not Love the Aggressor
Dan La Botz
The Immigration Movement at a Crossroads
Frederico Fuentes
Latin America Tells Bush to "Get Out!"
Sunsara Taylor
Democrats' Victory Means More Iraqi Deaths
Mickey Z.
Pat Tillman: Beyond the Hype
Website of the Day
DynCorp's Iraq Training Policy
March 24 / 25, 2007
Alexander Cockburn
Where
are the Laptop Bombardiers Now?
Jeffrey St.
Clair
Nuclear Saviors?: Kyoto, Gore and the Atomic Lobby
David Rosen
An American Obituary: Anna Nicole Smith and the Exploitation
of Nature
Ron Jacobs
The Political History of the Car Bomb
Robert Fantina
Vietnam and Iraq, the Rhetoric Remains the Same
Alan Maass
Why Ralph Nader Took a Stand
Atul Gawande
On Washing Hands: A Surgeon's Notes on How Infections Spread
in Hospitals
Marianne McDonald
Staging
Anti-Colonial Protest
China Hand
Zealots Scheme to Derail North Korea Accord
Kaz Dziamka
The Iroquois Way of Impeachment
Andrew Wimmer
The Nursemaid's Tale
Don Monkerud
World's Biggest Debtor Nation
Anthony Papa
Bong Hits 4 Jesus Case
Matthew Provonsha
Return of the Black Bloc
Missy Beattie
Calling Youth and Young Adults
Stephen Fleischman
Confrontation, At Last
Poets' Basement
Newberry, Laymon, Harley and Buknatski
Website of
the Weekend
An Interview with Ron Jacobs
Song of the Weekend
"Who Would Jesus Bomb?"
March 23,
2007
Saul Landau
Return
to Syria
Patrick Cockburn
Welcome to Iraq, Mr. Ban
Greg Moses
Protesting Immigrant Prisons in the Rio Grande Valley
Rep. Ron Paul
The War Funding Bill
Franklin Lamb
Will Hezbollah Hand Israel Its 6th Defeat?
Stephen Gowans
Mugabe Gets the Milosevic Treatment
Roger Burbach
Leftist Victory in Ecuador
Dave Lindorff
The Gutless Mini-Politics of the Congressional Democrats
William S. Lind
Candles in the Hurricane
Alan Mammoser
The New Rules of Food
Russell Hoffman
Al Gore's Nose is Glowing
Website of
the Day
Global Outsourcing and the US Working Class
March 22,
2007
Patrick Cockburn
Oil-Rich
Kirkuk at the Melting Point
Robin Blackburn
Toxic
Waste in the Sub-Prime Market
Michael Donnelly
Mr. Green Goes to Washington: Another Oscar Performance from
Al Gore
Uzma Aslam
Khan
Down Pakistan's No-Constitution Avenue
Lee Sustar
Bush's Braceros: The Ugly Truth About the Guest Worker Program
Robert D. Skeels
LA's Vicious War on the Homeless
Rev. William Alberts
The Forbidden C-Word
Anne McElroy
Dachel
The Search for the Elusive Autism Gene
Mickey Z.
This is Your Brain on Meat
Website of
the Day
Raimondo Does Hitchens
March 21, 2007
Tao Ruspoli
A
Conversation with Robbie Conal
James Petras
Meet
the Global Ruling Class
Fred Gardner
A U.S. Army Pipe Dream
Corporate Crime
Reporter
Cramer Comes Clean: Lies, Market Manipulation and Wall Street
Faisal Kutty
Too Guilty to Fly, Too Innocent to Charge?
Robert Fantina
U.S. Imperialism in Action
Isabella Kenfield and Roger
Burbach
Brazilian Opposition to Bush-Lula Ethanol Accords
Lucinda Marshall
Missing in Action: Why is the Peace Movement Ignoring the Impact
of War on Women?
Winslow Wheeler
Dem Budget Tricks: Reform Means What We Say It Means!
Website of
the Day
Student Day of Action Against the War
March 20,
2007
Patrick Cockburn
Iraq
is a Vast, Blood-Drenched Human Disaster
Winslow T.
Wheeler
The Blank Check War
Sharon Smith
Hillary's Cojones: Our Bleached-Blond Thatcher?
Uri Avnery
The New Palestinian Unity Government
Stan Cox
Down-to-a-Trickle Economics
Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz
Hating the Rich
Alan Farago
Why Al Gore Soft-Peddled the Environment in 2000
Richard W.
Behan
Impeachment and Patriotism
Juan Antonio Montecino Latin America Has Moved On
David Krieger
The Treaty of Tlatelolco
Peter Rost, MD
An Open Letter to Pfizer's CEO: $11 Million Salary, 36% Raise,
10,000 Fired Employees
Mickey Z.
A Cat-Eat-Cat World: Beyond the Pet Food Recall
Website of
the Day
Bringing the War Home
Webclip of
the Day
Sunsara Taylor Beats O'Reilly, Again
March 19,
2007
Paul Craig
Roberts
Crime
Blotter: 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue
Patrick Cockburn
Operation
Deepening Nightmare
Stauber / Rampton
Why Won't MoveOn Move Forward?
Werther
Plame Wars: Valerie Plame, the Washington Post and the Ghost
of Joe McCarthy
Noam Chomsky
In Memory of Tanya Reinhart
Jeff Leys
Tap Dancing on Graves: How Democrats Bought the War
Richard May
And Then There Were None: Europe's Afghan Backlash
Ron Jacobs
Lessons of the Antiwar Movement and the Washington Post's Lessons
of the Iraq War
Mike Whitney
Rove in the Dock
Website of
the Day
Ringtones That Roar
March 17
/ 18, 2007
Alexander Cockburn
Here
Comes Another "Crime Wave"
John Scagliotti
A Sissy's Manifesto
Jeffrey St. Clair
The Green Imposter: When Al Gore Was Veep
Paul Craig
Roberts
The Confession Backfired
Greg Moses
Jailing Immigrant Mothers in El Paso
Harry Clark
Thrice-Told Tales: Those Israel-Syria Peace Talks
Brian Cloughley
In the Name of Improving People's Lives: Mounting Civilian Deaths
in Afghanistan and Iraq
Mehran Ghassemi
An Interview with Sasan Fayazmanesh on the US, Israel and Iran
William Loren Katz
A Disturbing Expulsion: Racism and the Cherokee Nation
John Ross
Being a Zapatista Where You Live
Ralph Nader
Ban the Bomblets!
Walter Brasch
An Intolerant Minority: the Witch Hunt Against Gays in the Military
Samer Assad
The Palestinian Unity Government: Another for US Diplomacy
Dave Zirin
Bowie Kuhn: Death of a Baseball Reactionary
Ron Jacobs
The Darker Nation's: Remembering and Re-examining the Third World
Missy Beattie
No to War and Pace
Don Santina
First, They Came for the Democrats
Sami Adwan
What Hillary Should Know About Palestinian Schoolbooks
Dr. Susan Block
Gods of Spring: the Erotics of the Equinox
Poets' Basement
Reed, Landau, Engel, Buknatski
Website of
the Weekend
God Save Helen Mirren
March 16,
2007
R. T. Naylor
The
Political Economy of Diamonds
Paul Craig
Roberts
The Last Days of Constitutional Rule
Joshua Frank
Obama's Israel Problem
Diane Farsetta
How Reporters Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Nuclear Front
Groups
Tom Barry
Tancredo's Putsch: Anti-Immigrant Agenda Veers Hard Right
Stephen Lendman
Plays from a Political Fake Book: Congress's Phony Opposition
to War
Al Krebs
Compounding Infamy: Chiquita, Its Workers and Colombia's Death
Squads
Jackie Corr
Senator Schumer and the Corruption Culture
Ramzy Baroud
Palestinians Must Redefine Struggle
Reza Fiyouzat
The Chinese Way of Capitalism
Website of the Day
Introducing: the iRak
March 15,
2007
Alison Weir
Strip-Searching
Children at Israeli Checkpoints
Patrick Cockburn
Baghdad
Under Surge
Veteran Intelligence
Professionals for Sanity
Memo to Congressional Leaders on Iraq Funding: First Stop the
Bleeding
Franklin Spinney
Of Character and Contractors: the Unauthorized Rumsfeld
Standard Schaefer
Biofuels
and the Green Resistance
Conn Hallinan
The Right's Stuff in Africa: Neocons, Evangelicals and Sudan
Maureen Webb
Another Patriot Act Abuse
Sonja Karkar
Rachel Corrie and Palestine
Margaret Kimberly
The Profits of Self-Hatred: Malkin and D'Souza, Incorporated
Anthony Papa
The New Capones: It's Time to Rethink Drug Prohibition
Katherine Hancy
Wheeler Bush's
Latin American Tour: Good Will Lost
Video of the Day
The Easiest Targets
Website of
the Day
Memo to Kucinich: Watch Your Back!
March 14,
2007
Tao Ruspoli
A
Conversation with Peter Linebaugh on the Slave Trade, Magna Carta
and the State of the Left
Philip Agee
The
Decline of the US, the Rise of Latin America
Bruce Dixon
The Digital Redlining of African-Americans
John Walsh
How One Senator Could End the War
Sunsara Taylor
Red Light, Green Light: the Democrats and Iran
William Johnson
Still Reeling from Katrina: The Spirited Strike at Pascagoula
Shipyards
Richard Thieme
Entitlement and Empire
Jeffrey Klein
Right-Wing Academic Values
Nicola Nasser
This Time, Israeli is Missing an Historic Opportunity
Dave Lindorff
Political Hide-and-Seek with the Democrats
Website of
the Day
Oil Change
March 13,
2007
Catherine Wilkerson,
M.D.
Scenes
from a Cop Riot
Jonathan Cook
The Real Goal of Israel's Invastion of Lebanon
Robert Bryce
Beyond Redemption: the Legacy of George the Second
Corporate Crime
Reporter
Coal-Powered Democrats
Pierre Rimbert
Libération and the Evolution of French Neoliberalism
Dave Lindorff
What's Good for Halliburton is Good ... for Dubai
Elizabeth Schulte
The Repackaging of John Edwards
Norman Solomon
The Pragmatism of Prolonged War
Kevin Zeese
The Democrats' Fraudulent Iraq Exit Plan
Jeff Conant
Greeting Rumsfeld in Taos
Website of the Day
Tacoma and the Big Heat
March 12,
2007
Marjorie Cohn
Patriot
Act Unbound
Col. Dan Smith
Ghost Prisoners, Shadowy Jails and Secret Trials
Paul Craig Roberts
Neocons in Kafkaland
Ingmar Lee
The Sentencing of Betty Krawczyk: a 78-Year-Old Eco-Heroine
Fred Gardner
Cannabis for the Wounded: Another Walter Reed Scandal
Ron Jacobs
Showdown at Port Tacoma: Confronting the War Machine in the Northwest
Ralph Nader
Send the Bush Twins to Iraq!
John Ross
Political Prisoners in Calderon's Mexico
Stephen Fleischman
Bush's Latin American Slip
Eva Carazo Vargas
Why We Reject CAFTA
Website of
the Day
Mountain Justice Spring Break
March 9
/ 11, 2007
Sameer Dossani
Interview
with Noam Chomsky: War, Neoliberalism and Empire in the 21st
Century
Jeffrey St.
Clair
Crude Alliance: The Bi-Partisan Politics of Oil
Dave Marsh
Bono's Bullshit: Not One Red Cent
Patrick Cockburn
Shia Pilgrims Die Despite US Offensive
Jennifer Van Bergen
A Gonzo Argument: Alberto Gonzales's Defense of NSA Domestic
Spying
James P. Stevenson
Pardon Whom? Libby and the Cheney Unseen
Arthur J. Versluis
Crusade for Commercialism
Corporate Crime
Reporter
Not a Dime's Worth of Difference: Congress and Corporate Crime
Missy Beattie
Too Much Info, Newt!: Sex, God and Praying
Michael Simmons
Annie Get Your Gums: Why I Like Ann Coulter
Kevin Zeese
Making Democrats Pay the Price: Voting Against the War is No
Longer Enough
David Swanson
Shocking Video: The Dark Side of the Democrats
John A. Murphy
Are the Congressional Democrats Spineless?
Dave Lindorff
Bush Dodges a Constitutional Bullet in New Mexico: Abetted by
Democrats
Nikolas Kozloff
Lights! Camera! Chavez!
Christopher
Fons
Bush Goes to Latin America: Is It All About (N)PR?
Mike Roselle
A Thousand Miles of Bad River
Mike Mejia
Justice for Sibel Edmonds
Susie Day
Anna Nicole Smith Bombs Iran!
Michael Donnelly
LA Story: Rock Stars, Porn Stars and Peace
Tao Ruspoli
Just Say Know (Parts 4 and 5)
Poets' Basement
Reed, Laymon, Mezmer and Harley
Website of the Weekend
Japanese Dolphin Massacre
March 8,
2007
Elaine Cassel
The
Tragic Case of Jose Padilla
Yifat Susskind
Iraq's Other War: Violence Against Women Under US Occupation
Corporate Crime Reporter
Politics and the Prosecutors
Col. Dan Smith
The Sins of Walter Reed
William S. Lind
The Washington Dodgers
Mark Engler
Bush's Latin American Spring Break
Roger Burbach
With Negroponte as Tour Director, Bush's Trip Destined to Fail
Dana Cloud
Return of the Campus Witch Hunts: David Horowitz and the Thought
Police
Isabella Kenfield
Brazil's Ethanol Pland: Breeding Rural Poverty and Environmental
Degradation
Lucinda Marshall
We Stand with the Women of the World
Tao Ruspoli
Just Say Know: a Personal Look at Drugs and Drug Addiction (Part
3)
Website of
the Day
Filibuster for Peace
March 7, 2007
Christopher Ketcham
What Did Israel Know in Advance
of the 9/11 Attacks?
Christopher
Ketcham
The
Kuala Lumpur Deceit: a CIA Cover Up
Alexander Cockburn / Jeffrey
St. Clair
Ketcham's Story: Coming in From the Cold
Winslow T.
Wheeler
Mismeasuring the Defense Budget
Sean Donahue
Free Scooter Libby!
Dave Lindorff
The Fall Guy Has Fallen
Evelyn Pringle
Psychosis and Mania: ADHD Drug Warnings Come Too Late for Many
Tao Ruspoli
Just Say Know: a Personal Look at Drugs and Drug Addiction
Website of the Day
Debating Iraq: Gaffney Against the World!
March 6,
2007
Gary Leupp
Meet
Eliot Cohen: "As Extremist a Neocon and Warmonger as It
Gets"
Uri Avnery
Esterina Tartman: The Big Mouth of Israeli Fascism
Patrick Cockburn
The War on Terror is a Bust: Bush is Now Al Qaeda's Top Recruiter
Saul Landau
World
in Crisis, Candidates in Denial
Corporate Crime Reporter
John Edwards' Big Lie
Ron Jacobs
The Legacy of Lordstown: The Union Makes Us Strong!
Mike Roselle
Judi Bari: Ten Years Gone
P. Sainath
Neoliberalism and the Ideology of the Cancer Cell
Joshua Frank
Dump the Dems, Unite Against the War
Aniket Alam
Women's Day, Lenin and a Riot in Copenhagen
Dave Zirin
Resurrecting Don Barksdale: Basketball's Forgotten Pioneer
Website of
the Day
Physicians for a National Health Program
March 5,
2007
Greg Moses
Holding
Suzi Hazahza for Profit
Patrick Cockburn
Exodus of Iraq's Ancient Minorities
James Petras
Bush vs. Chavez
Frida Berrigan
US Nuclear Hypocrisy and Iran
Marjorie Cohn
Conscientious Objector Faces Court-Martial:
the Case of Augustín Aguayo
Douglas Kammen
and S.W. Hayati
The Rice Crisis in East Timor
Sen. Barack Obama
On Israel and AIPAC: "We Must Preserve Our Total Commitment
to Our Unique Defense Relationship with Israel"
Michael Young
Sy Hersh and Iran: the Dark Side of Spun a Lot?
Dave Lindorff
It's the People of Washington vs. Pelosi, et al
Sonja Karkar
Raiding Nablus: Israel's Hot Winter Offensive
Website of the Day
How Obama Learned to Love Israel
March 3
/ 4, 2007
Alexander Cockburn
The
Persecution of Sami Al-Arian
Corporate Crime
Reporter
"No Fingernails, No Good:" Al-Arian Prosecutor's Anti-Muslim
Bias
Jeffrey St. Clair
Glory Boy and the Snail Darter: Al Gore, the Origins of a Hypocrite
Patrick Cockburn
War Reporting in Iraq: Only Locals Need Apply
Ralph Nader
Hillary, Inc.: Sen. Clinton and Corporate America
M. Shahid Alam
American Mamlukes
Gilad Atzmon
From Esther to AIPAC
Fred Gardner
It's Official!: Cannabis Reduces Pain
George Ciccariello-Maher
The Fourth World War Started in Venezuela
Rock &
Rap Confidential
Do the James Brown!: "No One Could Speak More Authoritatively
for Blacks"
Gillian Russom
The Court Martial of Agustín Aguayo
Michael McPhearson
My Small Act of Civil Disobedience
Kevin Zeese
The Democrats and the Peace Movement: Who Owns Whom?
Sunsara Taylor
Four Years of an Unjust War
Wendy Thompson
Re-Organizing the UAW
Kenneth Rexroth
Gibbon's "Decline and Fall"
Missy Beattie
Regarding Cheney
Don Monkerud
Jesus Turned Away at US Border
Tina Louise
Stuffed with Terror, Starved of Dreams
Poets' Basement
Richards, Landau and Davies
Website of the Weekend
John Prine: Flag Decal
March 2,
2007
Roger Morris
Cheney's
Bagram Ghosts
Phil Gasper
Prisoners of Ideology
Mike Roselle
Buffalo Gore: The Blood-Stained Snow of Yellowstone
Robert Bryce
The Ethanol Scam
John V. Walsh
Who is He This Time?: Kerry's Strange Call to Filibuster the
War
Sherwood Ross
Bush and Walter Reed Hospital: Praise the Care, Slash the Budget
China Hand
Who Let North Korea Get the Bomb?
David Rosen
To Cut or Not to Cut?: the Politics of Circumcision in America
Chris Genovali
Connecting the Dots
Peter Harley
The Wall, Apartheid and Mandela
Website of the Day
Courage to Resist
March 1,
2007
Laura Carlsen
Return
to Sender: Migrants as Globalization's Junk Mail
Paul Craig
Roberts
The Tragedy of a Dozen Evil Men
Ray McGovern
How Far is Iran from the Bomb? Who the Hell Knows?
Christopher
Brauchli
Bush's Theater of the Absurd
Najum Mustaq
America's Musharraf Dilemma
Brent Bowden
The War on Terror and the Terror of War
Tina Richards
Demoralizing the Troops? The Mother of an Iraq War Vet Responds
Ethan Nadelman
Mexico and the Drug War
Mike Stark
"Tough on Crime" is the Problem, Not a Solution
Wadner Pierre
/ Jeb Sprague
Haiti's Poor Under a State of Siege by UN
Mike Whitney
Market Meltdown: the Dead Hand of Greenspan
Website of
the Day
Dylan Hears a Who
February
28, 2007
Peter Linebaugh
An
Amazing Disgrace
Tao Ruspoli
A Conversation with Francisco Letelier
China Hand
The Shanghai Crash: Take the Money and Run
Marjorie Cohn
Why the Boumediene Case on Gitmo Detainees and Habeas Corpus
Was Wrongly Decided
Sarah Olson
Is Lt. Watada an Isolated Case of Military Dissent?
Susan Van Haitsma
Mark Wilkerson: Standing for a Soldier's Right to Conscience
Nicole Colson
License to Torture
Harvey Wasserman
The Sham of Nuclear Power
William S. Lind
The Non-Thinking Enemy
Nicola Nasser
US Turnabout?: Engagement and Confrontation in the Middle East
Website of the Day
Andrew Cockburn on Rumsfeld
February
27, 2007
Tariq Ali
The
Khyber Impasse: the Case for Withdrawal from Afghanistan
Tom Barry
America's
Crusaders: Santorum and Lieberman
Uri Avnery
The Next War
Antonia Juhasz / Raed Jarrar
Oil Grab: the Secret Scheme to Split Iraq
Jeff Nygaard
Howard Hunt and the National Memory System
Hugh O'Shaughnessy
Grenada: an Invasion Revisited
Mitchell Kaidy
Israel's Cluster Bombs: Made in USA, Ground-Tested in Lebanon
Carl Finamore
Airline Bankruptcies, Mergers and Profits
Anne McElroy
Dachel
The Really Big Lie About Autism
Ramzy Baroud
Who is Really in Control?
Andrew Rouse
The Queen, Her Apothecary and the War on Iraq
Website of the Day
New York City Skyline
February
26, 2007
Franklin Lamb
US
Israel Lobby Targets Lebanon's Jihad al-Bina
Bill Quigley
The
Right to Return to New Orleans
Greg Moses
Suzi Hazahza in Haskell Hell
Col. Dan Smith
Calling All Carriers
Ralph Nader
The Bush Administration is a Threat to Our National Security
Paul Buchheit
The Income Gap
Jeff Leys
How Democrats Are Buying the Iraq War
Dave Zirin
Bojangling for Bigots: an Open Letter to Jason Whitlock
Mike Whitney
Doomsday Dick and the Plague of Frogs
Michael Dickinson
Free Kareem Amer!
Website of the Day
Beware the Chickenhawks!
February
24 / 25, 2007
Jeffrey St.
Clair
Frightening
Tales of Endangered Species
R. T. Naylor
Inside Islamic Charity
Gary Leupp
AIPAC Demands "Action" on Iran
Saul Landau
Modern Day Miracle: Rev. Haggard Cured! Thank You, Jesus!
Ron Jacobs
Missile Defense Redux
Jeffrey Blankfort
A Debate on the Israel Lobby
Chris Sands
Afghanistan in Winter: Where Death Comes Cheap
Gary Freeman
The N-Word and Black History Month
Larry Portis
Zionism and the United States: the Cultural Connection
P. Sainath
Two Million People in "Maximum Distress"
Lee Sustar
What Next for the Immigrants' Rights Movement?
Kevin Wehr
Liberal vs. Radical Enviros: the Thrill isn't Gone, It's Just
Moved
Ken Couesbouc
The African Card
Soffiyah Elijah
FBI Hunting Dead Panthers: Can John Bowman Ever Rest in Peace?
Kathlyn Stone
Iraqi Labor vs. Big Oil
Dave Lindorff
Breaking the Dam in Olympia
Jason Kunin
Criticizing Israel is Not an Act of Bigotry
Kevin Zeese
Can Hillary be Trusted?
Remi Kanazi
All Roads Lead to Checkpoints
Missy Beattie
Five Words That Change Lives
Poets' Basement
Davies, Holt and Rodriguez
Website of the Weekend
Caught on Tape: an Anti-War Movement Finding Its Feet?
February
23, 2007
Franklin Spinney
Top
Gun vs. the Axis of Evil: Is This What We Have Become?
Jonathan Cook
Watching
the Checkpoints
Patrick Cockburn
The True Extent of Britain's Failure in Basra
Kathy Kelly
Do Something Good
Chris Dols
Islamophobia at Urban Outfiters: the Case for Keffiyehs
Evelyn Pringle
The Neurontin Suicides: Risks Kept Hidden for Years
Stephen Pearcy
If Bush is a War Criminal, What About the Troops?
Dan Brook
Making Poverty History
Yifat Susskind
Iraqi Police Commit Rapes
Website of
the Day
A Citizens Arrest of Patty Murray
February
22, 2007
Robert Fantina
Repeating
History
Tariq Ali
Prodi's Soap Operatic Fall: Neoliberalism and War in Italy
Michael Shank
An Interview with Noam Chomsky on Iran, Iraq, the Democrats and
Climate Change
John Ross
Calderon's War on Drugs
Christopher Brauchli
Stockcars on Dope: How NASCAR and the Tour de France are Bring
the World Together
Cindy Litman
Paying for the Damage Done to Iraq
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Mr. Jefferson's Inheritors: Caution, Calculation and Cold Feet
Kevin Zeese
Finally, a Populist Antiwar Candidate for President
Aseem Shrivastava
The New Indian Way?: a Developer's Model of Development
Reza Fiyouzat
A Letter to the Israeli People: We are All Led by Mad Men
Illinois Students Against the
War
Why We Protested at Obama's Speech
Website of
the Day
An Interview with Mike Gravel
February
21, 2007
Maass / St.
Clair
The
Clintons: the Art of Politics Without Conscience
Sharon Smith
Inside
the Imperial Budget
Greg Moses
Showdown Over Texas Immigrant Prisons
Margaret Kimberly
America the Stupid
Ralph Nader
Making Cancer Cool: Tobacco and Hollywood
Nicola Nasser
Evasive Diplomacy: Bush Adm. Shuns Middle East Peace Talks
Mike Whitney
The Second Great Depression
Tao Ruspoli
Revolutionary But Gangsta: a Conversation with Stic.Man of Dead
Prez
Byeong Jeongpil
Beyond the "Protection Facility",
Another Prison
Corporate Crime
Reporter
Why Hillary, Obama and Edwards Oppose Single-Payer Health Care
Josh Mahan
The Lost Art of Shattuck: a Good, Old-Fashioned Drinking Story
Website of
the Day
Time to Free the Puerto Rican Nationalists
February
20, 2007
Sgt. Martin
Smith
Structured
Cruelty: Learning to be a Lean, Mean Killing Machine
Werther
How
to be a Washington Expert
Corporate Crime Reporter
Exposing SAIC
Carl G. Estabrook
Common Sense About the Recent Past
China Hand
Setting Sun: The Diverging US-Japan Relationship
Joshua Frank
Cleaning Up Exxon's Greenpoint Oil Spill
Megan Boler
The Daily Show and Political Activism
John Feffer
People Power vs. Military Power in East Asia
Daryll E. Ray
What's Inside the New Farm Bill
Alan Gregory
Midwest Wolves Fall Prey to Slob Hunters' PR Scam
Website of the Day
"Not a Target Rich Environment?"
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19, 2007
Paul Craig
Roberts
Economists
in Denial: Blind to the Consequences of Offshoring
Gary Leupp
"A Genocidal, Suicidal Nation:" Mitt Romney Joins Iran's
Hysterical Accusers
Ron Jacobs
The Mecca Agreements: the Future Remains Bleak
Michael F.
Brown
The Peace Process Industry
Robert Jensen
Liberal Icons and War: Bi-Partisan Empire-Building
Roger Burbach
Ecuador Stands Up to US
Monica Benderman
America, Where Are You Now?
Sonja Karkar
Apocalyptic Archaeology: Israel's Provocations Threaten Jerusalem
John Walsh
Some Good News from Beantown
Talli Nauman
Colorado Delta Blues: Challenging the Law of the River
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"The Best Place to be in Town"
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17 / 18, 2007
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Sold
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Tao Ruspoli
CounterViews: a Conversation with Patrick Cockburn, Part Two
Gary Leupp
Iran: A Chronology of Disinformation
Jeffrey St.
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Dark Mesas in an Ancient Light
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The Undertaker's Tally: the Tragedy of Donald Rumsfeld
Uri Avnery
Facing Mecca
James Brooks
Palestinians and the "Diplomatic Horizon"
Sen. Russell
Feingold
Congress Must Defund the Iraq War
Linn Washington, Jr.
"Death Row is a Web That Catches Only the Poor"
Michele Brand
Iran: the Proxy War?
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Kareem Abdul-Jabbar on Music and Basketball in the Harlem Renaissance
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Storming the Pentagon: Lessons from 1967
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Democrats Keep Ohio Refugee Free: "No Iraqis in Our Backyards!"
David Swanson
Memo to Don Young: What Lincoln Really Said
P. Sainath
In the Theater of the Jungle Belt
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GoreAid: Gore Plans Concert with Musicians He and Tipper Betrayed
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Marching on the Pentagon: Then and Now
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Hook, Line and Sinker: The Press and Stephen Hadley
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Vermont Legislature Says: "Bring Them Home Now!"
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The Most Dangerous Place on the Face of the Earth?: StratCom
and the Coming War on Iran
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Did Wal-Mart Murder Tweety Bird?
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The Co-Dependent Congress
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The Michelle Manhart Affair: the Air Force Listens!
Lenni Brenner
/ Gilad Atzmon
An Exchange
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Barack Obama vs. Huey P. Newton
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14, 2007
Tao Ruspoli
CounterViews:
A Conversation with Patrick Cockburn
Dick J. Reavis
War
Without a Name
Margaret Kimberly
Medical Apartheid in America
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The Perils of Charity: You Can be Prosecuted for Funding Terror
Even If the Designation of the Group as a Terrorist Organization
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Paul Craig
Roberts
Cracks in the Pentagon
John Ross
The Plot Against Mexican Corn
Michael F.
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The Democrats and Palestine: New Chairman, Old Rules
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The Press Bites, Again: a Word of Caution on Those Iranian Weapons
J.L. Chestunut,
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Texas-style Injustice in Black and White
Don Fitz
Hybrids, Biofuels and Other False Idols
Michael Donnelly
Give Love, Give Life
Dr. Susan Block
The Chemistry of Love
Website of
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Code Pink Drops By Hillary's Office
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13, 2007
Uri Avnery
Three
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Iran Bashing Goes Prime Time
Col. Douglas
MacGreagor
Empty Vessels: Gen. Patraeus and Other Hollow Men
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Coal Ambivalence: Mining Montana
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The Politics of Archaeology in Jerusalem
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Iran War Talking Points
Columbia Coalition
Against the War
Why We Are Striking
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Our Friends at Antiwar.com Need Your Help
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12, 2007
Patrick Cockburn
Scapegoating
Iran
Paul Craig
Roberts
How the World Can Stop Bush: Dump the Dollar!
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An Outrageously Sickening Immigration Policy
Nicole Colson
The Frame-Up That Fell Apart: Jury See Through Another Botched
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Acting in Bad Feith: Inappropriate
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Rampant Cyncism
David Swanson
Twisted: Sex and Torture in America
Website of the Day
The Texas Model: Executing Women in Iraq
|
Weekend
Edition
March 31 / April 1, 2007
A Racist and Insulting
Film
300
vs. Iran (and Herodotus)
By GARY LEUPP
I always take in the Hollywood period
dramas set in ancient Greece or Rome. My film-buff son is into
this too, so we went last week to see 300, the Warner
Brothers' blockbuster produced by Zack Snyder and based on the
graphic novel by Frank Miller about the epic battle of Thermopylae
between the Greeks and Persians. It had by that time grossed
over 100 million dollars and no doubt influenced a lot of minds.
The film tells a familiar historical
tale. (Rather, it ought to be familiar, but history instruction
in our public schools is not necessarily comprehensive.) In 480
BCE, Greece was threatened by an invasion by the Persian army,
the greatest war machine of its day. The empire of King Xerxes
extended from the Indus River to Egypt, and drew its troops from
the ends of the realm. The king personally led them in battle
against the Greeks.
Or rather, some of the Greeks.
Greece at the time was a collection of city-states, politically
disunited, divided as much as unified by dialect and culture.
Some city-states, including Argos and Thebes, actually aligned
themselves with Xerxes. Herodotus, the "Father of History"
and perhaps the world's first professional historian, paints
a picture of a "free" Greece united against an oppressive
"Asia." But that is a chauvinistic simplification.
The fact is, Persia and the Greek city-states were all slave-based
societies whose notions of "freedom" had little in
common with our modern conception.
According to Herodotus (our
sole source), 300 Spartan warriors alongside 700 Thespian volunteers
defended the pass of Thermopylae against the invaders, inflicting
heavy losses on Xerxes' forces. Led by Spartan King Leonidas,
they went down in defeat but gave rival Athens time to prepare
the fleet that decisively defeated the Persians at Salamis a
few months later.
The story has been dramatized
before, notably in the 1962 Hollywood production 300 Spartans
starring Richard Egan as Leonidas and David Farrar as Xerxes.
This new version is distinguished by what one critic calls the
"monochromatic, cartoonish quality of [its] computer-generated
special effects"---and by its timing. Warner Brothers
had been planning a remake of the 1962 film since the late 1990s,
based on a novel by Stephen Pressfield entitled Gates of Fire,
with Bruce Willis in the role of Leonidas. But that project fell
through, paving the way for 300---just in time to help
subliminally shape the movie-going public's perception of Persians
prior to the attack planned on today's evil empire by Vice President
Cheney and his neocon staffers.
Persia is Iran. (I want to say, "Persia, of course,
is Iran." But I can't assume that all or even most Americans
make the connection.) The word comes from "Fars," a
region of modern Iran, while "Iran" is related to the
word "Aryan" and connotes "land of the Aryans."
In 1935 the Persian shah opted to use the name "Iran"
but the two terms are basically interchangeable. "Persia"
just doesn't have the emotional baggage of "Iran."
During the Iranian Hostage Crisis of 1979-81, many dealers in
Iranian rugs decided to call them "rugs from Persia."
Persia on occasion has thus served as the good Iran, the
historical cultural Iran, as opposed to the modern evil enemy.
But 300 makes Persia evil too.
The Iranian government has
protested the film; last Wednesday President Ahmadinejad in his
Iranian New Year's address called it part of a "psychological
warfare" campaign against his country. Javadd Shamaqdare,
a cultural advisor to the Iranian government, also denounced
the film as "psychological warfare," accusing its producers
of "plundering Iran's historic past and insulting its civilization"
Editors of the Iranian newspaper Ayandeh-No declared that
the film "seeks to tell people that Iran, which is in the
Axis of Evil now, has long been the source of evil and modern
Iranians' ancestors are the dumb, murderous savages you see in
'300'." Iran's UN mission has stated that the film is "so
overtly racist, so overflowing with vicious stereotyping of Persians
as a dangerous, bestial force fatally threatening the civilised
'free' world", that it encourages "contemporary discourses
of hatred ... [and] a 'clash of civilisations'."
Some western film critics have
echoed Iranian objections. Dimitris Danikas notes that 300
depicts Persians as "bloodthirsty, underdeveloped zombies"
and feeds "racist instincts in Europe and America."
Slate's Dana Stevens calls it "a textbook example
of how race-baiting fantasy and nationalist myth can serve as
an incitement to total war."
On the other hand film critic
Dale McFeatters calls the Iranians "picky, picky,"
alleging (quite falsely), "Well, your leader did threaten
to wipe Israel off the map." And Stanford history professor
Victor Davis Hanson, reportedly admired by Cheney and his (professional
historian) wife, posts his opinion on the right-wing "RealClearPolitics"
website: "We rightly consider the ancient Greeks the founders
of our present western civilisation and, as millions of
movie-goers seem to sense, far more like us than the [Iranian]
enemy who ultimately failed to conquer them."
Even if Zack Snyder and Frank
Miller had no intention of making an anti-Iranian film, or promoting
any sort of "psychological warfare," they've made a
film in which Iranians are indeed generically depicted in the
worst possible light. A Warner Bros. spokesman says, "The
film 300 is a work of fiction inspired by the Frank Miller
graphic novel and loosely based on a historical event. The studio
developed this film purely as a fictional work with the sole
purpose of entertaining audiences; it is not meant to disparage
an ethnicity or culture or make any sort of political statement."
But it does disparage.
Herodotus depicted the Persian
ruler positively enough: "Among all this multitude of [Persian]
men," he wrote, "there was not one who, for beauty
and stature, deserved more than Xerxes himself to wield so vast
a power" (Persian Wars, Book VII, 187). But the Miller-Snyder
Xerxes is not even an Iranian-looking man but (like some other
Persians in the film) a distinctly African figure, who happens
to be effeminate and wholly vicious. Leonidas in contrast is
white and manly and wholly heroic in his fight for "freedom."
Color is kept to a minimum
in the film; the warriors appear in shades of black and white,
with the Greeks' red cloaks standing out provocatively around
the uniformly chiseled abs of the heroes. The Persians in contrast
are ugly or deformed.
"The Greeks will know
that free men stood against tyrants," says the cartoonish
Leonides (Gerard Butler) preparing for his suicidal defense against
the evil Persians. Greece is the "world's one hope for reason
and justice" versus the "dark will of the Persian kings."
"We rescue the world from mysticism and tyranny," he
declares. "No retreat, no surrender. That is Spartan law.
A new age has dawned, an age of freedom, and all will know that
Spartans gave their last breath to defend it."
The message is indeed clear.
Sparta = Greece = the Western World = freedom. Persia = slavery
and oppression. This was perhaps the gist of Herodotus' message;
he did write that while the Greeks knew that men were free, the
"Asiatics" knew only that one (the ruler) was
free. But that was a skewed notion in his time and can only dangerously
circulate in our own, while Iran is in the neocons' crosshairs.
Again, I think the Iranians might be over-concerned, since much
of the film-viewing crowd won't even associate the ancient Persians
with the modern Iranians, but the "clash of civilizations"
theme is definitely there.
I would propose that those
exposed to it imagine a different Xerxes that the nose-pierced
caricature in the film. Imagine a Xerxes who addresses the American
audience, including the Christian fundamentalist audience, as
follows:
"I am Xerxes, Emperor
of Persia, son of Darius, grandson of Cyrus. My grandfather Cyrus
liberated the Jews from their Babylonian exile and let them return
to Judea and rebuild their temple. My father Darius urged our
people to revere the 'God of Daniel.' I myself married Esther,
a Jew."
"I come from a long line
of believers in the One God preached by Zarathustra, our Persian
prophet whose teachings have influenced the Jews during their
exile among us. I refer specifically to their concepts of Satan,
Heaven and the future Messiah which weren't part of their pre-exile
belief system and are clearly borrowings from our Persian religion.
"I am now embarking on
the conquest of Greece, a backward region populated by primitive
polytheists who worship capricious amoral deities and practice
absurd religious rites. But my ancestors and I, having already
conquered many Ionian Greeks, respect Greek philosophers and
indeed have many of them in our employ. We have established a
multi-ethnic empire. In that empire, Greeks fill important roles
from the Mediterranean to India.
"These Spartans confronting
us at Thermopylae are cruel men who annually--for sport!-- make
war on the defenseless helots that live around them. They have
nothing to tell us Persians---or the world in general---about
'freedom.'!"
The writer of such a script
could claim Biblical authority. In Isaiah 44:28, the God of Israel
declares through his prophet that Cyrus "is my shepherd,
and he shall carry out all my purpose." Throughout Chapter
45 of Isaiah he speaks directly to Cyrus---"his anointed"---calling
him "righteous" and informing him that "the wealth
of Egypt and the merchandise of Ethiopia" will "come
over to you, and be yours." The Book of Ezra opens with
King Cyrus issuing an edict declaring, "The Lord, the God
of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth, and he
has charged me to build him a house at Jerusalem in Judah."
In Daniel 6:26 a King Darius issues a decree that "in all
my royal dominion people should tremble and fear before the God
of Daniel." Esther 2:15-18 describes Xerxes' marriage to
the Jewish maiden Esther. None of this is historically reliable;
Daniel and Esther are indeed novelettes rather than history.
The point is, these texts revered as Holy Writ by many if not
most Americans depict Persia positively.
The Greeks, on the other hand,
cause "many evils on the earth." They build a gymnasium
in Jerusalem, for example (1 Maccabees 1:8). The Jews don't approve
of that sort of Greek thing, so Judah rises up in rebellion against
Seleucid rule in the second century BCE. Their rebellion against
the "free," "rational" Greeks is depicted
as heroic.
The Greco-Roman world continued
to make war on Persia off and on up to the end of the Roman Empire.
But Alexander the Great, having defeated the Persian King Darius
a century and a half after the battle of Thermopylae and acquired
his vast empire, admired Persian ways and actively promoted the
cultural synthesis we call Hellenism. Roman troops brought the
worship of the Persian god Mithras back to Rome from their Persian
campaigns; the cult of this god born on December 25 was a formidable
rival of Christianity to the fourth century. The greatest of
the late Roman philosophers, the second century Neoplatonist
Plotinus, admired and sought to learn from the Persians. Manicheanism,
founded by the Persian prophet Mani, was another religious rival
to Christianity from its inception in the third century. The
knowledge of the Persian Magi (Zoroastrian priest-astrologers)
was respected in Rome and Magi of course appear in the New Testament
(Matthew 2:1-12).
In short: 300's depiction
of the battle of Thermopylae is not merely inaccurate, as any
film adaptation of a graphic novel has the perfect right to be.
It's what the Iranians say it is: racist and insulting. It pits
the glorious Greeks with whom the audience must sympathize against
a "mystical" and "tyrannical" culture posing
an imminent existential threat. It is, de facto, an anti-Persian/anti-Iranian
propaganda film, and should be rated appropriately: not just
R (for racist) but X---for extremely stupid and vicious and dangerously
ill-timed.
Gary Leupp is Professor of History at Tufts University,
and Adjunct Professor of Comparative Religion. He is the author
of Servants,
Shophands and Laborers in in the Cities of Tokugawa Japan;
Male
Colors: The Construction of Homosexuality in Tokugawa Japan;
and Interracial
Intimacy in Japan: Western Men and Japanese Women, 1543-1900.
He is also a contributor to CounterPunch's merciless chronicle
of the wars on Iraq, Afghanistan and Yugoslavia, Imperial
Crusades.
He can be reached at: gleupp@granite.tufts.edu
.
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