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May 28, 2002
Norman Madarasz
France,
Brazil, the Politics
of the World Cup
May 27, 2002
Dave Marsh
Why I Voted for Nader:
Ticketmaster's Stranglehold
on Music and Politics
Robert Fisk
The Coming
Firestorm:
Bush's Crazed Remarks
May 26, 2002
Alexander Cockburn
Diary of a Northwest Trip:
Why Reds Live Longer
May 25, 2002
Chris Floyd
General
Principles:
Unmasking Colin Powell
Gavin Keeney
All Politics is Local? The Unbearable
Lightness of NGO's
Jeffrey St. Clair
A Hero
of Our Time:
Stephen Jay Gould
May 24, 2002
Edward Hammond
Documents Prove Pentagon Violated
Bioweapons Act
Mark Weisbrot
Bush
Administration Scandals:
Beginning of the End?
Feingold / Corzine
Halt Executions Nationwide
Bill Christison
Former
CIA Analyst:
Big Changes Needed in
US Intelligence Agencies
May 23, 2002
Dean Baker
Attack of the Clowns:
The Real Bush is Back
Susan Abulhawa
Israel
and South Africa:
Apartheid's Accidental Prophecy
Uri Avnery
Sharon the Great Reformer?
Behzad Yaghmaian
Travails
of a Middle Eastern Migrant: Accosted at the Border
May 22, 2002
Brian J. Foley
Dick Cheney's Obscenity
Gavin Keeney
Bete Noire
Enron & the Great Game
Fran Shor
Follow the Money
Bush, bin Laden & Carlyle
May 21, 2002
George Monbiot
Riddle
of the Spores:
The FBI and Anthrax
Yulie Khromchenko
Displaced Reality:
Impressions from Jenin
Bernard Weiner
Kenny
Boy to Bush:
"Welcome to the Club"
Ron Jacobs
Confusing the Face
of the Enemy
Gary Leupp
"War
on Terrorism" in Yemen
May 20, 2002
Rep. Ron Paul
Say No to Military Draft
Dave Marsh
Music Monopolies
Jordy Cummings
Israel, Jews and the Left
Francis Boyle
In Defense
of a Divestment
Campaign Against Israel
Christian Salmon
The Bulldozer War
Edward Said
Crisis for
American Jews
May 19, 2002
Philip Farruggio
Where's Twain's Protector Government
Now?
Norman Madarasz
Canada,
NAFTA and Kyoto
May 18, 2002
M.G. Piety
Economic Fiction:
From Here to Annuity?
Michael Colby
Bush Fiddled
While
New York Burned
Resources:
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About 9/11
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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
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The
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Al Gore:
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May
28, 2002
Abraham Lincoln Brigade Memorial
Fetes the Good Fight
Memorial Day Celebration Renews
Call for Social Justice
by Michael Leon
Madison, Wisconsin. Amid the national flag waving as the War on Terrorism
continues its bloody toll, on this idyllic Monday morning about
80 people gathered in James Madison park here to honor the efforts
and sacrifices for justice made by 45,000 freedom fighters who
during the Spanish civil war fought the fascist military insurrection
led by its dictator general, Francisco Franco.
Among the 45,000 were 2,800 men and women
from the United States, including some 90 disenfranchised African-Americans,
who formed what was later called the Abraham Lincoln Brigade.
The Wisconsin Friends of the Abraham
Lincoln Brigade sponsored this Memorial Day celebration honoring
Madison's local hero, Abraham Lincoln Brigade veteran Clarence
Kailin, and his comrades by "publicly addressing the continuous,
on-going struggle to establish and maintain full, whole, and
complete democracy--of the People, by the People, for the People--at
home and abroad."
At the Memorial Day event, speakers who
fought in such conflicts as the Korean, Vietnam and the Spanish
Civil war opined that American foreign has rarely been on the
side of democratic forces in world affairs--an assessment so
at variance with the pieties expressed at Memorial Day services
across the country that one cannot help but ruminate on the nature
of these people celebrating the Abraham Lincoln Brigade.
What type of person would travel across
the world to fight for democracy and liberty in the face of western
rejection back then? Why would someone identify with the victims
of the American military right now?
The answer to both questions is the very
same type of person--a liberty-loving democrat.
Crystallizing its abandonment of the
Spanish Republic during the civil war that lasted from 1936 to
1939 leading to the fascist victory, the United States officially
recognized the government of Francisco Franco right after World
War II. The enumeration of serial crimes of American-supported,
anti-democratic forces between then and now is long and dishonorable.
An unfortunate fact of history that is all the more ironic as
President Bush at a Memorial service in Colleville-Sur-Mer, France
today cast the War on Terrorism in the "same, stark moral
terms (ABC News)" used to describe the "war on fascism"
some 60 years ago.
"If Memorial Day is to have any
meaning and content whatsoever, it should not simply and solely
be burgers on the grill, or even worse some stars-and-stripes
patriotic praise for the empire...We should be honoring those
who fought for freedom, for democracy, and against fascism. Consider
the 'pre-mature' anti-fascists (those fighting for the Spanish
Republic) who gathered from all over the world to fight the beast
at that time. The continuities today all over the world are stark
once you cut through the fog and the globaloney," said Allen
Ruff, a member of Jews for Equal Justice.
Clarence Kailin, age 87, is a surviving
member of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade and still tirelessly works
for peace and justice. "Our fight for economic and social
justice, for peace and freedom is a struggle that is just as
important today as it was in 1937 and 1938," said Kailin
describing what the Memorial Day event represents. "This
will be more than memories of the past. Our immediate fight must
be against our own militarism and for the struggle for peace
and equality."
Asked why he wasn't out attending a conventional
parade or waving an American flag, Kailin answered, "We're
waving our own flag today. The destruction of the World Trade
towers was the best opportunity that could happen to Bush. So
he could use it as a scare tactic--'the world is full of terrorism
and we have to go after it. And we will lose a few civil liberties
along the way, but we have to do this and have a bigger military
budget.' Our whole foreign policy is based on solving things
by force and violence."
"We're very wealthy here. But at
least one half of the world is living on a dollar or two a day;
it's a terrible situation. In Iraq, we have undermined the whole
structure there. A half a million children there have died--all
absolutely unnecessary. We won't give up the fight. This is simply
a military government (in Washington) and we are going to pay
a hell of a price if we don't find a way to put a stop to it."
Following is the text from which Mr.
Kailin read as the opening speaker at the Friends of the Abraham
Lincoln Brigade event:
***
"One month ago, on April 28, I was
in New York with my daughter, Julie. We attended the annual affair
of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade held at New York University. This
was in celebration of the 66th anniversary of the Volunteers
for Liberty. There were 900 people there, and among others, we
heard the San Francisco Mime Troupe who sang many songs from
the Spanish Civil War. That was the emotional high point of the
day.
However, we were there for more than
memories. At this time of international crisis, we find an urgent
need to carry on the spirit of struggle in which we, along with
the Spanish people, were involved sixty some years ago when fascism
was threatening the world, when Spain was the only country to
stand up to Hitler, and when the democracies betrayed the Spanish
Republic, giving Hitler and Mussolini everything they wanted.
This was when the International Brigades were formed. Spain and
the Volunteers made that period one of the most unusual and unique
in history.
Today, with the United States having
become the dominant world power and seeking to extend its empire
to every part of the globe, the danger is much greater than at
any other time. Almost total control of information by the monopolized
news media has made our work that much more difficult.
I want to quote from the latest edition
of The Progressive magazine. This is in Matt Rothschild's column.
He quotes from Tariq Ali, an editor of the New Left Review. In
the prologue of his latest book, The Clash of Fundamentalisms,
he (Ali) criticizes our 'increasingly parochial culture that
celebrates the virtues of ignorance, promotes a cult of stupidity,
and extols the present as a process without an alternative.'
'The virtual outlawing of history by
the dominant culture has reduced the process of democracy to
farce. The result is a mishmash of cynicism, despair and escapism.
This is precisely an environment designed to nurture irrationalisms
of every sort. Over the last fifty years, religious revivalism
with a political edge has flourished in many different cultures.
Nor is the process finished. A major cause is the fact that all
other exit routes have been sealed off by the mother of all fundamentalism:
American imperialism.'
American capitalism is the common denominator,
the main reason why we want to encourage the many single-issue
organizations in this area to come together in common cause--but
without asking them to giving up their own important work. ...
This is the work of lifetime. But I always see the fact that
we outnumber them by a thousand to one. So one should never despair.
So, again, seeing you here tells me that in the long run the
people can win.
(clinched fist in the air) Salud, everyone!"
Among the many speakers following Mr.
Kailin was a representative of the Creative
People's Resistance and the Cities
for People organizing a protest and other action June
15, 16 to the US Conference of Mayors to be held in Madison,
Wisconsin from June 13 - 18.
Mike Leon
is a writer living in Madison, Wisconsin. His work has appeared
nationally in In These Times, The Progressive and CounterPunch.
He can be reached at maleon@terracom.net
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