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April 19, 2002
Jeffrey St. Clair
From Sen. "Lunkhead" to
Bush Energy Czar: A Year in the Life of Spencer Abraham
April 18, 2002
Tom Turnipseed
Latin
America's Dilemma:
The Propaganda of Otto Reich
Sam Bahour
Bush is Playing Russian
Roulette with Palestinians
M. Shahid
Alam
A
Colonizing Project
Built on Lies
Alexander Cockburn
Austin Cultural Limits:
Willie Nelson, Film and BBQ
April 17, 2002
Norman
Finkelstein
Behind
the Carnage in Palestine
Kristen Schurr
With the Wounded
and the Homeless in Nablus
Norman
Madarasz
Undoing
Chavez:
The View from South America
Brian Wood
Combing The Ruins of Jenin
George
Monbiot
Chemical
Coup: The CIA's Attempt to Undermine the UN's Weapon Inspector
for Iraq
Robert Fisk
Fear and Learning in America
April 16, 2002
Todd May
US
Should End Aid to Israel
Gabriel Ash
The Oilman, the General
and the Coup that Failed
Ron Jacobs
Wake
Up Some Mornin',
Find Your Own Self Dead:
The Chavez Coup
Brian Wood
Inside Jenin: Rubble and Decomposing
Bodies
Jack McCarthy
Citizen
Coup: The Times,
The Post and the Coup Plotters
Dave Marsh
Hymns: How I Got Through
Last Week
April 15, 2002
Susi Abeles
A
Field Trip to Jenin
Breyten Breytenbach
A Letter to Ariel Sharon:
"You Won't Break Them"
Gregory
Wilpert
CounterCoup
in Venezuela
Kristen Schurr
Amid the Rubble of Nablus
Jordy
Cummings
An
Open Letter to Abe Foxman
Christopher Reilly
The Media, the CIA
and the Chavez Coup
James
T. Phillips
"Homicide"
Bombers
April 14, 2002
William Blum
The CIA and Venezuela
David
Vest
A
Good Old-Fashion "Incursion"
Ralph Nader
General Motors:
Stuck in Reverse
M. Junaid
Alam
From
the Ashes: Palestinian Struggle for Freedom
Sam Bahour
Palestinians and Americans
April 13, 2002
Beth Daoud
Life
in the Ruins of Nablus
Patrick Cockburn
Bulldozing History:
The End Nears for Stalin's
Most Monstrous Hotel
Gregory
Wilpert
The
Coup in Venezuela:
an Eye-Witness Account
Rep. Cynthia McKinney
Thoughts on Our War
Against Terrorism
Anne Winkler-Morey
Why
I Didn't Organize
a Passover Seder This Year
Resources:
100s of Links
About 9/11
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Five
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Cockburn
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Robust Heroin Market and Helped to Finance the Rise of the Taliban
and Osama bin Laden
Whiteout:
CIA, Drugs & the
Press
by Alexander
Cockburn
and Jeffrey St. Clair
The New Crusade:
America's War on Terrorism
By Rahul Mahajan
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
by James Ridgeway
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The
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by Douglas Valentine
Al Gore:
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April 18, 2002
Letter from the Frontier
By Chris Floyd
Gaius Aelius Messala
legatus, XVII Legion
to his brother, Quintus.
Germania Magnia. 19 October [8 A.D].
Brother! Warmest greetings from the River
Elbe. Tonight you recline on soft couches with your friends,
feasting and drinking--and talking rot--while we poor soldiers
shiver in our tents, eating hard bread and sharpening our blades
for tomorrow's battle. Even now your arm is encircling some tender
waist--is it still Livilla, or has Agrippina mounted the throne
once again? Such lusty campaigners!--while my only company is
cold bronze, a flickering lamp, and the ugly mug of Brutus, the
slave Father sent with his last dispatch. He smiles as he writes
this for me--quite right, Brutus! We must take our misfortunes
in good part, eh?
But in truth, Brother, I would not change
places with you tonight. Our fight tomorrow is a noble one, an
act of justice that will bring fresh glory to Rome. We strike
at the barbarians who devastated Noviomagus this summer, a murderous
raid across the Rhine, on our own territory, leaving thousands
dead--an affront to Roman power that cannot go unanswered. We
have pursued these beasts deep into their own lair, and now they
are cornered. Tomorrow they will pay the price for their evil.
So much for them. Now, Quintus, Father
sends disturbing news--your continuing acquaintance with those
so-called 'republicans' who snipe and peep and whisper their
calumnies against the great Augustus. I know the type well; indeed,
in my own youth I was given to much the same tomfoolery, duped
by tales of 'ancient liberties lost' and fearsome rants against
'tyranny'. But you are now reaching an age when you must put
aside this kind of sentimentality, and recognise that the measures
taken by our Imperator have in fact saved the Republic
from its own worst excesses.
Where is this 'tyranny'? You are in Rome--look
around, what do you see? The old forms and formalities are still
observed--indeed, more strictly than ever. The Senate still meets,
debates, makes policy. The assemblies still hold their elections,
the praetors still exercise their constitutional powers. Political
factions still jostle for primacy, poets and playwrights still
revel in decadence, courts are still filled with wrangling advocates
chewing over every jot and tittle--tyranny should present a more
placid face, don't you think? The bumptious course of our public
life should be smoothed and flattened by the iron hand of the
autocrat. But as you see, it is not so.
Yes, Quintus, I know the whispers. I
know that Augustus has taken on many of the burdens of state
that once were dispersed among several hands. But note well:
at each stage, these powers have been granted by the Senate,
ratified by law, in the best Roman tradition. And note too, dear
brother: this accumulation of powers is temporary. They
were given to Augustus in a time of crisis, when through his
wisdom and his auctoritas, his moral authority, he delivered
the commonwealth from chaos and preserved our way of life from
those who would destroy it. Once we are past these dangerous
shoals, the concentration of powers will end, never fear.
So yes, to preserve those 'ancient liberties,'
we must relinquish them, in part, for a time. Perhaps this paradox
is hard to fathom there in the comfort of Rome; but for us on
the frontier, its truth stands out in stark relief. We are here
to carry on that work of preservation, to save our way of life
and pass it down to our posterity. I want my son to grow strong
and wise, secure in the bounty of our family lands. I want him
to fish in the peaceful waters on our estate, as I did, listening
to the learned slaves reciting Virgil, Seneca, Horace and Livy.
He should never know want or fear or hunger: those ravening wolves
which spring from the chaos that Augustus has mastered--and which
these barbarians, in their envy and ignorance, would unleash
upon us again.
How many generations have shed their
blood to bring us to this pinnacle of civilisation! How much
toil and treasure have been expended to maintain it! Yet your
whispering friends speak of 'aggression,' of 'violent conquest'
and 'oppression' of other peoples They would have us still in
mud huts, trembling by the Tiber. Yes, we project our dominance--because
we must. First and foremost, to preserve our patrimony,
as is right and just--but also to bring enlightenment to the
dark places of the earth. Why else has Fortune favoured us, above
all nations in the history of the world, except to carry out
this divine mission? I am proud to play my small part in such
noble endeavours; and I hope that you too, dear Quintus, will
come to know this pride as well.
The night grows thin; dawn is near. I
must finish this tomorrow--if Jupiter and Minerva, deities of
our house, see fit to bring me through.
20 October. Evening.
The battle was short, our losses light.
The barbarians have been destroyed. The best of our men went
about it quickly--the only mercy in this kind of thing--but some
fell short, alas. I had to execute three of my soldiers--dispatched
them with my own hand--for the bestial way they handled the women
and children, making slow sport of the business.
By afternoon, the killing was done, and
the village put to the torch. We marched up to the surrounding
hills and made camp on the western slope, the far side, away
from the smoking valley.
I am weary now and will write no more.
Commend me to our father, and attend well what I have told you.
Put away childish things and gird yourself: we have much hard
work ahead.
Chris Floyd is
is an American freelance journalist based in Europe. His political
column, 'Global Eye,' appears weekly in The Moscow Times and
the St. Petersburg Times. Different versions of this article
originally ran in The Moscow Times and The Ecologist (UK). He
can be reached at: cfloyd72@hotmail.com
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