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July 23, 2002
Bill Christison
The
Disastrous Foreign Policies of the US:
Oppression Abroad Means Repression at Home
July 22, 2002
Rick Giombetti
Glaxo Raises White Flag
in Paxil Case
Wayne Madsen
Forbidden
Truth
The Press, Bush, Oil
and the Taliban
July 21. 2002
Francis A. Boyle
The Rogue Elephant
Jennifer Harbury
Why are
the FBI & CIA Targeting Me?
Joan Claybrook
Time
for a Special Prosceutor
for Thomas White
Gloria Bergen
The Struggle
of Workers
in Palestine
Dave Marsh
Mr. Big Stuff:
Alan Lomax, Great White Fraud
James T. Phillips
"I'll
Tell You No Lies"
The Human Rubble of War
July 20, 2002
Gavin Keeney
The Grave
New Urbanism
World Trade Center Burlesque
Jacob Levich
"I
Was Schooled in Hate"
Confessions of a
Summer Camp Terror Tot
Thomas Croft
Augusta,
GA
Growing Up in the Deep South
Alexander Cockburn
The
Market Hogwallow:
Popgun Populism Isn't Enough
July 19, 2002
Abe Bonowitz / SueZann
Bosler
A Discussion
with Jeb Bush on the Death Penalty
Jonathan Power
No Need
for War Against Iraq
Rick Giombetti
Qwest
Death Watch
Kurt Nimmo
Of Mice,
Bullets & Bombs
M. Shahid Alam
Through
Racist Eyes:
Is Eurocentrism Unique?
July 18, 2002
Mokhiber / Weissman
Business
As Usual
Jerre Skog
I Spy: Now
Let's be Fair,
the USA Ain't East Germany
Ralph Nader
The CEO
Crimewave:
Corporate Socialism
Mahbubul Karim (Sohel)
The Rising Tensions
Between Spain and Morocco
Alexander Cockburn
Drivel
and Squawk:
Can the Times' Jeff Gerth
Save the White House?
July 17, 2002
Philip Farruggio
The
New Role Model:
Remember Jesus, George?
Zara Gelsey
Who's
Reading Over
Your Shoulder?
Behzad Yaghmaian
9/11 and
Fotress Europe:
the Drama of the New
Moslem Diaspora
Mike Ferner
War, Incorporated
Gary Leupp
Bush, Burqas
and the Oppression of Afghan Women
July 16, 2002
Pierre Tristam
Faith--based
Capitalism in
the Ruins of the Market
Kurt Nimmo
How My
35mm Camera Almost Became a Tool of Treason
Robert Fisk
The Kashmir
Distraction
Salam al--Marayati
When
is Terrorism
Not Defined as Terrorism?
Kathleen Christison
The
Image Problem:
Anti--Palestinian Bias
from Wilson to Bush
July 15, 2002
Gavin Keeney
In One
of Safire's Ears,
Out the Other
CounterPunch Wire
Nader in
Cuba
Ralph Nader
The Secret
World of Banking
Dave Marsh
Vincible:
Michael Jackson, Racism and the Music Cartel
Rahul Mahajan
Justice
for Bhopal
Jeffrey St. Clair
Seduced
by a Legend
The Return of Jimmy T99 Nelson
July 14, 2002
Bill Christison
The
DOA (Poem)
David Vest
I'll Never
Get Out of This Band Alive
July 13, 2002
M. Junaid Alam
A Process
of Dehumanization
Gavin Keeney
Go Tell
Karl Rove!
Matt Vidal
Corporate
"Ethics" Red Herrings
Ed Whitfield
Lessons
from Independence Day
Resources:
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Whiteout:
CIA, Drugs & the
Press
by Alexander
Cockburn
and Jeffrey St. Clair
The Memphis Blues Again:
Six Decades of Memphis Music Photographs
Photos by Ernest Withers
Text by Daniel Wolff
The New Intifada:
Resisting Israel's Apartheid
Edited by Roane Carey
A Pocket Guide to
Environmental Bad Guys
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The
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Al Gore:
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July
24, 2002
Am I with You, George?
by Ansar Ahmed
Every time there is some news about the economy
not doing too well, or some kind of underhanded business dealings
exposed, or corporate corruption that will cost the average citizen
(while maintaining the status quo of the business elite), I start
to expect some kind of a concurrent announcement from political
authorities about how we need to attack some foreign country.
There is a strong correlation between the two. After all, one
of the best fixer-upper for a downwardly mobile economy is to
spend more on big-ticket items. At one time, that used to be
highway construction and restoration. This still happens; but
smaller strips take longer days, unless the area falls within
the residential periphery of someone influential. Far more attractive
now is to wage war. I do not have to explain that either of
these, more so the latter, keeps a whole lot of people employed
while pumping money into industries that require massive capital;
people who earn will obviously spend more than those who don't,
and businesses that have projects will thrive better than those
that don't. In effect, this forms the perfect economic cycle.
If anyone needs a clue as to where governmental spending priorities
lie, all they have to ask are questions about the size of the
labor involved and, more importantly, the cost of the items/materials
used. Inimitable is the turnaround time for the production line.
Sometimes the political announcement
will skip its place and come before the economic news. This
is courtesy of the close-knit relationship and tie between the
corporate quarters and the political elite, and more importantly,
of a new world environment where the powerful seek retribution
as the weak terrorize, an environment where there is conveniently
a permanent threat that requires a permanent response. We have
also come to a point where corporate greed has surpassed all
records (and the past record was pretty impressive as it was)
and runs directly and closely behind the political blasphemy;
and we have come to a point where there is little distinction
between the voices of the lay illiterate person and the powerful
legislators.
Some will say that America is finally
united in an opiated state, and we are enjoying it, while at
the same time being absolutely fearful of the unknown. Words
of anger and hate, songs of anger and hate, messages of anger
and hate keep us united in a way that peace and calm could not,
even though the logical mind would agree that a calm resolve
is far more effective than an angry resolve. There are sporadic
interventions upon this unity by momentary lapses of opiation
created by everyday life--crime, election campaigning, and the
like. The America that I have come to love is indeed the "kinder,
gentler" version, whether it ever came into practice or
not, and never the "kick butt" attitude of the high
school dropout teenager who loiters around in street corners
looking for scapegoats to explain his own unemployment. Greatness
is evident in a smile, even under extenuating circumstances,
more than in a raised brow. The smile not only covers the pain,
it helps ease it, and provides the owner of the smile with a
more sensible way of dealing with insensible matters.
There came upon us a moment when ignorance
stopped being blissful; it became downright heavenly. None were
exempt, nor spared, from this ubiquitous effect. Not the rich,
nor the poor; the powerful or the powerless, the old or the young,
the educated or the illiterate.
However, there is trouble in paradise,
and more so when, over time, people who were not asking questions
are doing so, and also when it became time to prepare for winning
elections. Close to September 11 (which by now has become the
only demarcation of human periods--forget BC, AD, Cambrian, Cretaceous
and the like--it is the pre 9/11 or post 9/11), the hysteria,
the heightened emotions, was massive. Even if for a moment,
all who possessed any sense or logic were caught up in the horrifying
events, and there was national, dare I say global, unity. That
soon gave way to newer and additional horrifying feelings for
those who would be stereotyped, and to anger for those who would
do the stereotyping. Anger belies logic, and fear sometimes
carries the face of the guilty. And so it was--the New World
Order began. Previously, long-term feelings of horror and anger
were kind of limited only to those who were affected directly
by militaristic events.
In the New World Order, conditions are
not static, nor were they ever expected to be. Some governments
have renamed Offense as Defense; Defense retains its dictionarial
meaning, and therefore, logically, any action taken is for the
sake of defense, a noble cause in itself. The only offensive
party is the enemy, and political murder, even where children
are victims, has become legitimate to the point where those of
us who claim some sense of sanity remain silent observers. Such
is the power of political propaganda--it makes us hate strangers
who we were unaware of even until recently; even eliminate them.
Even as politicians continue to vehemently pursue the justification
of their actions to improve the economy and maintain the economic
hegemony (more so for the sake of votes than for the economic
benefits), a rift became apparent--that which has started to
divide the politicians from the people, the Republicans from
the Democrats, the Europeans from the Americans, and the curious
from the opiated. Never have we seen stranger bedfellows, never
were we so apprehensive, never so pained. For, in the midst
of everything, each one of us, in the privacy of our own minds,
know that a plethora of wrongdoing is happening in a variety
of quarters unbounded by nation, religion or ethnicity. As many
of us struggle silently solving each wrong in our own ways in
our own minds and in private quarters, and as we defend our public
thoughts openly backed by no more than our own cultural identities
of every dimension, all we know is that "what is" will
not do. And we seek a pre 9/11 world, one which at that time
seemed so replete with unsolvable problems, but now far more
attractive than what we have.
Not all of the readers of this piece
will agree wholeheartedly with me, some will not understand fully;
but that is OK--I do not agree wholeheartedly with everything,
nor do I understand everything fully. All of us, however, have
an opinion. Let us agree to disagree, but not kill our children
for the sins adults commit. God bless America! And Curse the
rest of the godless world, except those who are "with us"
even if they themselves be godless? Nay! God bless the World
and its entire People, each single one of them! For we are all
His children.
Dr. Ansar Ahmed
is an Associate Professor of Sociology at Baldwin-Wallace College.
He can be reached at: aahmed@bw.edu
Today's Features
Bill Christison
The
Disastrous Foreign Policies of the US:
Oppression Abroad Means Repression at Home
Rick Giombetti
Glaxo Raises White Flag
in Paxil Case
Wayne Madsen
Forbidden
Truth
The Press, Bush, Oil and the Taliban
Francis A. Boyle
The Rogue Elephant
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