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Today's Stories October 18, 2010 Mike Whitney October 15 - 17, 2010 Alexander Cockburn Slavoj Žižek Paul Craig Roberts Adrienne Pine / Peter Lee Jonathan Cook Bitta Mostofi Franklin Lamb Rannie Amiri Robert Alvarez Joe Paff David Rosen David Correia Sam Hitchmough Ramzy Baroud Dave Lindorff Graham Usher Gary Leupp David Macaray Ron Jacobs Peter Cervantes-Gautschi Lawrence Swaim Linn Washington David Ker Thomson Norman Solomon Michael Dawson John Stanton Jayne Lyn Stahl Paul Buchheit Ziad Abbas Anthony Papa Hardy Jones Missy Beattie Charles R. Larson Peter Stone Brown David Yearsley Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend October 14, 2010 Mike Whitney Jonathan Cook Dean Baker Marjorie Cohn Stewart J. Lawrence Carl Finamore Dave Lindorff Raúl Zibechi Willie L. Pelote Website of the Day October 13, 2010 Vijay Prashad Uri Avnery Dean Baker Winslow T. Wheeler Patrick Bond Michael Winship Myles B. Hoenig Tom Turnipseed Website of the Day October 12, 2010 Ralph Nader Franklin C. Spinney Mike Whitney Robert Alvarez Deepak Tripathi Chris Genovali / Camilla Fox Harvey Wasserman Robert Jensen Mark Weisbrot Charles R. Larson Website of the Day
October 11, 2010 Michael Hudson Bill Quigley Linn Washington Paul Krassner Jonathan Cook Cal Winslow Sherry Wolf Peter Stone Brown David Michael Green Jayne Lyn Stahl Website of the Day October 8 - 10, 2010 Alexander Cockburn Paul Craig Roberts Alain Gresh Patrick Cockburn Rannie Amiri Conn Hallinan Ramzy Baroud Saul Landau Sam Smith Yvonne Ridley Ellen Brown Santwana Dasgupta David Macaray Labor Secretaries: Frances and Elaine Gerald E. Scorse Tony Newman David Ker Thomson Christopher Brauchli Jon Mitchell Kevin Zeese Steven Best Missy Beattie Binoy Kampmark Charles R. Larson Kim Nicolini Dave Marsh David Yearsley Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend October 7, 2010 Franklin Lamb Dean Baker John Ross Ron Jacobs Harvey Wasserman Stanley Heller Gamal Nkrumah John Blair Charles R. Larson Website of the Day October 6, 2010 Bill Quigley / Jonathan Cook Jeffrey Sommers Jayne Lyn Stahl Tanya Golash-Boza Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez Guy Bouthillier Alvaro Huerta Don Monkerud Website of the Day October 5, 2010 Stewart J. Lawrence Ghania Mouffok Rape City? The Women of Hassi Messaoud Neve Gordon Ralph Nader Mark Schuller David Macaray Julie Hilden Richard Anderson-Connolly Ahmad Barqawi John Halle Website of the Day
October 4, 2010 Pam Martens Stephen Soldz Jonathan Cook Mark Weisbrot Conn Hallinan Fred Gardner Cpt. Paul Watson Sarah Knopp Website of the Day October 1 - 3, 2010 Alexander Cockburn Ray McGovern George Ciccariello-Maher Michael Hudson Franklin C. Spinney Wajahat Ali Saul Landau Ramzy Baroud Rannie Amiri Bruce McEwen Dave Lindorff William Blum David Swanson Sherry Wolf Lawrence Davidson Tanya Golash-Boza John Severino Missy Beattie Belén Fernandez Binoy Kampmark Mohamed Abdel-Baky Elvis Mendéz / David Ker Thomson Charles R. Larson David Yearsley Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend September 30, 2010 Franklin C. Spinney David Macaray Susan Galleymore Michael D. Yates Russell Mokhiber Eric Walberg Mark Weisbrot Charles R. Larson Website of the Day September 29, 2010 Dean Baker Michael Hudson Martha Rosenberg Brian Ehrenpreis Michael Winship George Lakey Patrick Bond Sheldon Richman Website of the Day September 28, 2010 Ismael Hossein-Zadeh & Karla Hansen Jonathan Cook Julie Hilden Russell Mokhiber David Macaray Stewart J. Lawrence Voice for Immigrants Wins Historic Seat Brian McKenna Laura Flanders Linh Dinh Bouthaina Shaaban Website of the Day September 27, 2010 Pam Martens Ron Jacobs Patrick Irelan Greg Moses Dave Lindorff Jayne Lyn Stahl Ahmadinejad Steals the Show, But Citigroup is the Real Culprit Uri Avnery George Wuerthner Wolf Restoration: a Challenge to the Old Guard James McEnteer David Michael Green The Dismantling of Civil Society Website of the Day September 24 - 26, 2010 Alexander Cockburn Paul Craig Roberts Ishmael Reed Patrick Cockburn Ralph Nader Anthony DiMaggio Julien Brygo Rune Engelbreth Larsen Gary Leupp Norman Solomon Shir Hever Ramzy Baroud M. Shahid Alam David Rosen / Rannie Amiri Russell Mokhiber David Macaray Missy Beattie Rich Wiles David Model Harvey Wasserman Jeff Deasy Laura Flanders Jesse Strauss Tom Stephens Binoy Kampmark Going Mad in Delhi Stephen Martin Charles R. Larson David Yearsley Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend September 23, 2010 Doug Peacock Dana Frank Mark Weisbrot John LaForge Martha Rosenberg Animal Experimentation Funny? Yes, Says This Researcher Jay Arena Alvaro Huerta James Rothenberg Managed Misconceptions Website of the Day September 22, 2010 Conn Hallinan Joanne Mariner Jonathan Cook Ron Jacobs Jonathan M. Feldman Shamus Cooke Michael Winship Anthony Papa Website of the Day September 21, 2010 John Ross Dean Baker Steve Breyman Robert Bryce Yvonne Ridley Jesse Strauss Bouthaina Shaaban Binoy Kampmark Website of the Day September 20, 2010 Michael Hudson Gareth Porter Dave Lindorff / Pam Martens Ralph Nader Stephen Crawford / Marjorie Cohn Lawrence Davidson Steve Early Jayne Lyn Stahl Website of the Day September 17 - 19, 2010 Alexander Cockburn James B. Rule Elizabeth Warren's Challenge: the Banks and Their Protectors Saul Landau / Ishmael Reed Mike Whitney Diana Johnstone Rannie Amiri David Rosen Ramzy Baroud Richard Phelps Sheldon Richman Alan J. Singer Margaret Kimberley David Tresilian Missy Beattie Mark Weisbrot Marco Antonio Martínez García Stewart J. Lawrence Linh Dinh Jim Goodman Abdel-Moneim Said An Aesthetic Desert: Egypt's Stolen Van Gogh John Grant Robert Jereski Billy Wharton Shahid Mahmood Charles R. Larson David Yearsley Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend September 16, 2010 Laura Carlsen Alexander Cockburn Clancy Sigal Gareth Porter Patrick Cockburn Philippe Marlière Lawrence Davidson The Great Muslim Scare: Here Come the True Believers John Severino Website of the Day September 15, 2010 Mike Whitney Alan Nasser Nelson P. Valdés David Correia Ron Jacobs Saif Shahin Shamus Cooke Michael Winship Mohamed Abdel-Baky Betsy Ross Charles R. Larson Website of the Day September 14, 2010 Kathy Kelly Israel Shamir / Esam Al-Amin Dean Baker Stewart J. Lawrence Benjamin Dangl David Macaray Sheldon Richman P. Sainath Harvey Wasserman Website of the Day September 13, 2010 Michael Hudson Obama's Thatcherite Gift to the Banks Mike Whitney Mark Weisbrot Michael Barker Ralph Nader Michael Dalton Marjorie Cohn Richard Trumka Dave Lindorff David Michael Green Website of the Day |
October 18, 2010 The Consequences of IgnoranceTexas Takes a Dangerous Step BackwardsBy JAMES ZOGBY When the Texas State Board of Education (TSBE) passed a resolution late last month decrying the "pro-Islamic/anti-Christian bias [that] has tainted... Texas Social Studies textbooks", indicating that they would "look to reject [such] prejudicial textbooks" in the future, they were basing their criticism on a biased anti-Arab review. In doing so, they took a dangerous step backwards that threatens to widen the knowledge gap that has put the US at risk in the Arab and Muslim worlds. America has enormous interests in that region. In the past 30 years, we've spent more money, sold more weapons, sent more troops, fought more wars, lost more lives, had more economic and political interests at stake, and expended more diplomatic capital in the broader Middle East than anywhere else on the globe. And yet recent polling shows that two-thirds of all Americans can't point to Iraq on a map, just as many don't know the year that Israel declared its independence, the same number don't realise that Iran and Pakistan aren't Arab countries, while about one- half share prejudicial and stereotypical views of Arabs as angry, backward, violent fanatics. There are, of course, consequences to this lack of knowledge, all of which came into sharp focus in the lead up to the Iraq war. It was against the backdrop of ignorance that our political leadership and their echo chamber in the media were able to sell the public on the war's ease, the belief that we would be welcomed as liberators, and the notion that once the dictator was overthrown, democracy would flourish (remember neo-con Bill Kristol dismissing Iraq's Sunni/Shia tensions as "pop culture" for which he said "there's almost no evidence of that at all"). Because we knew so little of Iraq's history and culture, our young soldiers marched into Baghdad seeing themselves as "liberators". They had no idea that in the eyes of many Iraqis they were merely the new Mongols who had conquered and now occupied their land. How did we get into the situation in which we knew so little about a world where we had so much at stake? As I note in my new book, Arab Voices: What they are saying to us and why it matters, it all begins with education -- or the lack of it. For decades the Middle East Studies Association, the US's premier organisation of academics specialising in regional studies, warned that our textbooks either outright ignored the Middle East or, when they dealt with it, conveyed "an oversimplified, naïve, and even distorted image" of the region and its peoples. And after 9/11, when US teachers found themselves lacking the information and materials to address new interest in the Arab world and Islam, a study commissioned by the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations found that most teachers "knew little or nothing about" the region and lacked the basic materials to provide their students with answers to the questions they were asking. In the last decade, some changes have been made, but we are still suffering from a knowledge deficit. The following statistics on language study tell part of the story. Less than one per cent of America's high schools offer Arabic language instruction. And of the 2,400 four-year colleges in the US, only 370 offer Arabic, with a total of only 2,400 American students in advanced language programmes that can lead to a proficiency in this critical language. Recognising this as a problem has led some to call for improvements and expansion of programmes in Arabic, Arab history and Islam. But this has not been without challenges. An organisation headed by Lynne Cheney, wife of then vice-president Dick Cheney, pushed back, arguing that adding courses in these areas merely "reinforced the mindset that it was... America's failure to understand Islam that were [sic] to blame" for 9/11. And a group of conservative professional anti-Arab activists pressed for congressional legislation to monitor and serve as a check on "pro-Arab" curricula. They even launched an organised effort, called "Campus Watch", encouraging students to report teachers who are "pro-Arab" or "pro-Muslim". This same cast of characters was responsible for the movement to shut down the Khalil Gibran Academy, New York's first-ever dual language Arabic-English school. Education, or the lack of it, isn't the only culprit. Our political culture also contributes to misunderstanding, with the anti-Muslim venom spewed by political leaders against the Park 51 project serving as a case in point. Our popular culture is at fault as well, with Hollywood grinding out movies and television programmes that have negatively stereotyped Arabs and Muslims for almost a half-century. The bottom line is that if the TSBE's warning to textbook companies to provide less information about Islam and the Arab world was intended as a warning shot across the bow, it ought to be viewed as a wake- up call to schools, educators and all Americans. (The reason why resolutions passed by the TSBE are important is because, as the nation's second largest buyer of secondary school textbooks, they have historically had the ability to influence what publishers of textbooks will and will not publish.) But if the TSBE has power, so do the rest of us. If the debacle of the war in Iraq taught us anything it is that we can't afford ignorance -- not knowing has bitter consequences. If America is to productively engage the broader Middle East, we must understand its history and culture and its peoples. Our knowledge must grow, and what is taught in our schools matters to our future. James Zogby is president of the Arab American Institute.
CounterPunch Print Edition Exclusive! Escape From Afghanistan Kabul: Patrick Cockburn reports on the only realistic U.S. option – a deal with the Taliban and Pakistan. Delaware: JoAnn Wypijewski reports from the Christine O’Donnell campaign. Moscow: Follow the money -- Boris Kagarlitsky on what the battle between President Medvedev and Mayor Luzhkov is really all about The CIA: Steve Hendricks tracks down a renderer. Subscribe now! If you find our site useful please: Click here to make a donation. CounterPunch books and t-shirts make great presents. Order CounterPunch By Email For Only $35 a Year !
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