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Today's
Stories
March 22, 2005
William Blum
Anti-Empire
Report: Democracy--or is it the US Military--on the March
Greg Moses
A Palm Sunday Chat with Sis Levin
John Farley
Bush's Culture of Life: Let the
Insurance Companies Pull the Plug When the Sick Cost Too Much
Ron Jacobs
Halt
the Anniversary Rallies and Stop the Damn War
Rep. Cynthia
McKinney
An
Immoral and Illegal War: Destroying Iraq Isn't Enough for Them
Dave Lindorff
"Saving" Schiavo; Killing the News
James Petras
Fateful
Quadrangle: Cuba and Venezuela Face Off Against the US and Colombia
March 21, 2005
John Walsh
In
the Bars on the Road to Fayettevile: War Support Paper Thin
Werther
The
Legacy of George Kennan, Chief Architect of the Cold War
Mike Stark
Where is the "Culture of Life" in Maryland? Time is
Running Out for Vernon Evans
David Swanson
Feeding
Tubes for the Third World: Put the Hungry into Comas, Then Feed
Them!
James T. Phillips
Happy Meals: Behind the Grill at a Baltimore Diner
Mike Ferner
Serving,
Refusing, Impeaching
Robert Jensen
The World Waits for an Answer
Paul Craig
Roberts
A
Threat Greater Than Terrorism
Stew Albert
Vegetable Nation
Website of
the Day
American Press Blotter: Jacko, Terry and Steroids vs. the World
March 19, 2005
Alexander Cockburn
Three-Card
Monte and the One-Party State
Tom Reeves
Exposing the Coming Draft: a Draft by Any Other Name is Still
Wrong
Saul Landau
The Grandchildren of Roy Cohn: the Politics of the Repressed
Alan Maass
Making Bankruptcy a Life Sentence
Ron Jacobs
Submit or Else: the Nuclear Demon that Won't Go Awayy
David Green
The Holocaust Industry Comes to the University of Illinois
John Blair
Hey, Dick! I'm Still Free: a Blow for Freedom of Speech in Indiana
Steve Greenfield
The Decline of the Green Party: the Numbers are In
Ben Tripp
Nature isn't Real
Mike Roselle
A History of White People in the Conservation Movement
Joshua Frank
Hope in Red State America: Lessons from the Big Sky Country
Mark Weisbrot
The World Bank: a Bigger Problem Than Wolfowitz
Dave Lindorff
Congress on Steroids
Sarah Schaffer
Lula's Nukes: Bush Bullies Iran, Ignores Brazil's Nuclear Ambitions
Warren Hastings
Why the Queen Should Chop Off Tony Blair's Head for Treason
Poets' Basement
Lodge, Albert. Landau, Engel, Davies, Capaccio
March 18, 2005
Dave Zirin
The
Congressional Urine Testers: Baseball's Theater of the Absurd
Richard Thieme
The
Church Committee Candidate: I was a Victim of the KGB
John Walsh
Misdirecting the Anti-War Movement
David Swanson
Hunger
Striking for a Living Wage at Georgetown
Ben Terrall
In
the Spirit of Rachel Corrie: Confronting Caterpillar in San Leandro
David Boyle
Just Say "No" to Harvard
Dorreen Yellow Bird
Coping with Teen Suicide on the Standing Rock Reservation
Mokhiber /
Weissman
Global Bully Goes to Guatemala
Greg Moses
They
Don't Shoot Donkeys...Do They?
Website of
the Day
800
Protests: Find One Near You
March 17, 2005
Christopher
Brauchli
Rendered
Unto Caesar: the Etymology of Torture
Bill Quigley
The St. Patrick's Four and the Resistance to the War in Iraq
Brian Cloughley
Bush's
Herds: Willing to Kick Anyone in the Face
Gary Bass / Adam Hughes
Inside the Bush Budget: Rhetoric vs. Reality
Dave Lindorff
The Incredible Shrinking Coalition
Jude Wanniski
Wolfowitz at the World Bank: a Perfect Fit
Alexander Billet
Irish Republicanism at the Crossroads
John Ross
Wal-Mart
Invades Mexico
Website of the Day
Campus Resistance
March 16, 2005
Ralph Nader
Filling
the Congressional Cop-Out Gap: an Idea for Local Peace Activists
William Cook
Resurrecting the Neo-Con Failures
Kevin Zeese
Two
Years of Occupation: Both US and Iraq are Worse Off
Jackie Corr
Why is Dick Cheney Laughing? The New Tax Cut Patriotism
Alan Maass
Bush's Class War Budget
David R. Kolker
Jailed Without Charges in Haiti
Cindy Ellen
Hill
Speculative Policing in Northern Ireland
Paul Craig
Roberts
America's
Has-Been Economy
March 15, 2005
Gary Leupp
The
Plan is Still on Track
Dave Lindorff
Free John Walker Lindh!
Greg Moses
The Fix-It Guys and Their Electoral Filters
Hadas Their
/ Katrina Yeaw
Military
Recruiters Target Campus Activists
Alison Weir
Uprising
on the Anniversary of Rachel Corrie's Death
Matt Koehler
A
Line in the Ancient Forest: 50 Arrested in Blockade to Save the
Siskiyous
Evelyn Pringle
Labeling Kids Mentally Ill for Profit
Harry Browne
War
and Peace in Ireland
March 14, 2005
Ralph Nader
Restarting
the Anti-War Movement
David Miller
Ministry
of Defence in the Control Booth: Did the BBC Broadcast Fake News
Reports?
Stan Cox
Look
Deeper, Mr. Moyers
Mike Roselle
Why Women Should Take Over the Environmental Movement
David Swanson
Nursing Against the Odds: the Workers' View
Simona Sharoni
To End the War, Listen to Soldiers
Dave Lindorff
Corporate Surveillance
Dorreen Yellow Bird
Incidents at Standing Rock: Suicide on the Reservation
Tom Barry
John
Bolton's Baggage
Website of the Day
Spinwatch
March 12 /
13, 2005
David H. Price
The
CIA's Campus Spies
Noam Chomsky
The Toothpaste Election
Laura Carlsen
Women's Rights Eroding in Latin America
Stan Goff
On Revolutionary Optimism: the View from Cumberland Co, NC
Valentina Nicoli
The Game of Role-Playing and the Ambush of Giuliana Sgrena
Michael Leonardi
Head Shot: Lifting the Veil on the Sgrena / Calipari Incident
Saul Landau
/ Sarah Anderson
Blood Money and the Riggs Bank: Pinochet's Bank Finally Pays
Up
Joe Bageant
It Ain't Easy Being White
Manuel García,
Jr.
The Question of American Guilt
Greg Moses
Electoral Lessons from Cuyahoga and Harris Counties
James J. Brittain
Run, Fight or Die in Colombia
Ben Tripp
Communist Watch
Joshua Frank
A Red State Paradox: Montana on the Cusp
Fred Gardner
Pesticides Made Her Sick; Pot Got Her Well
Walter Brasch
Bush's Horse Killers
Ramzy Baroud
Reining in Syria on Behalf of Israel
Christopher
Brauchli
Going All the Way for Usurers
Michael Donnelly
The Humiliation of Les "Timber Toad" AuCoin
Ron Jacobs
ZAP Comics: Still Kicking US Culture in the Ass
Richard Oxman
The Eternal Reciprocity of Tears
Poets' Basement
Smith-Ferri, Davies, Ford, Louise and Albert
March 11, 2005
Jerry Fresia
Targeting
Giuliana
Ron Jacobs
Making Lebensraum in the Middle East for Tel Aviv's Fears &
Washington's Dollars
Dave Lindorff
America's Magical Kingdom
William James
Martin
Ben Gurion and the Origin of the "Pushing into the Sea"
Myth
Muqtedar Khan
Modi's Operandi: American Business and Genocide Linked Again
Kathryn Ledebur
Bolivia
on the Brink
Mike Whitney
Saddam's Capture: Just Another Bush Lie?
Dave Zirin
Neo-McCarthyism
Slugs Baseball
Website of the Day
William Rivers Pitt, Another Hack for the Occupation
March 10, 2005
Paul Craig
Roberts
So
Much for the New Bush Economy
John Marc Leas, Colleen McLaughlin
and Ashley Smith
Vermont Vs. the War
Larry Birns
The Pathological John Bolton
Michael Donnelly
The Re-Reinvention of an Oregon Timber Beast
Luis Gomez
In Bolivia, Reality Changes Once Again
Jackie Corr
Whatever Happened to the Social Security Trust Fund?
Uri Avnery
Bush's Guru: Natan Sharansky
Website of the Day
Red Alert in the Siskiyous!
March 9, 2005
Jeffrey St.
Clair
Dirty
Harry's Fear of Flying: Making Love, War and Profits at Boeing
Ward Churchill
Who's the Terrorist?
Robert Fisk
Another Species of Cedar: a Half Million Lebanese March for Syria
Bernice Powell Jackson
No Justice for America's Nuclear Guinea Pigs in the Marshall
Islands
Mickey Z.
The Revolutionary of Potential Art
Dave Zirin
NHL Says: "Bring On the Scabs!"
Michael Donnelly
Standing Up to Ecocide in Oregon
James Reiss
Stopping by Words in Favor of Privatizing Social Security
Vijay Prashad
Get
Modi: a State Terrorist Visits Florida
March 8, 2005
Paul Craig
Roberts
Bush's
Syrian Delusion
Robert Fisk
Lebanon's Nightmare
Kurt Nimmo
War is Peace: John Bolton to the UN
Suzan Mazur
Time for a Truth and Reconciliation Commission on Polygamy?
Evelyn Pringle
Neil Bush and Crest: Another Profiteering Scheme
Giuliana Sgrena
My
Truth: "The Americans Don't Want You to Return"
Elaine Cassel
The Appalling Case of Abu Ali
March 7, 2005
Dave Zirin
Bloodlust
in Annapolis: Gov. Ehrlich Wants to Kill Vernon Lee Evans
Brian Cloughley
More War Crimes
John Chuckman
The
Creature Walks Among Us
Mike Whitney
Jose Padilla and the 10 Commandments
Mark Weisbrot
Haiti's Torment: Why Are US Human Rights Groups Silent?
Fred Gardner
The Cannabinoid Messenger
Richard Neville
The Italian Job
Uri Avnery
The
Next Crusades
March 5 / 6,
2005
Alexander Cockburn
Arnold
vs. the Nurses
Gary Leupp
What's Happening in Lebanon: an Interview with Fadi Agha, Advisor
to President Lahoud
Ron Jacobs
Lies Military Recruiters Tell
Tom Reeves
Haiti: One Year After the Coup
Jenna Orkin
Memories of Kawaggi, Saudi Arabia
Tom Barry
Negroponte: Intel Czar or Policy Hack?
Joshua Frank
The Trials of Max Baucus
Moshe Adler
When Pfizer Came to New London: Corporate Giveways vs. Eminent
Domain
Jane Stillwater
My Jury Questionnaire: "Do You Agree that a Corporation
is a Person?"
Omar Barghouti / Jacqueline
Sfeir
Double Standards on S. Africa and Israel: an Open Letter to UNESCO
Christopher
Brauchli
Target: Al Jazeera
John Pilger
The Fall of Saigon: 30 Years Later
Raúl
Zibechi
Colombia: Militarism and Social Movements
David Krieger
Saving the Nuclear Nonproliferation Agreement
Three Takes
on Nepal
Surendra R. Devkota
Another Blow to the King of Nepal
Bhishma Karki
Nepal in Twilight
Joseph Pietri
Murder at the Palace
Ben Tripp
The Good Old Days
Poets' Basement
Hassen, Chief Running Late, Wuest, Albert and Collins
Website of
the Weekend
O'Shaughnessy's: All About Medical Pot
March 4, 2005
Frederick Hudson
Caught
in a Cage
March 3, 2005
Pat Williams
"Social Security Protects the Young as Much as the Old"
Brian Cloughley
Headlines, Beliefs and Deceptions
Dave Lindorff
Why Do the Democrats Pamper Greenspan?
Amira Hass
Oslo All Over Again
Greg Moses
In Oscar Texas: One Down, One to Go?
Lynne Landes
Exit Poll Madness
Nelson P. Valdés
Rapture Takes Leftists
John Ross
Mexico's
Fox Schemes to Jail Front-Running Leftist
March 2, 2005
Saul Landau
/ Farrah Hassen
The
"Noble Liars" Attack Syria
Mike Roselle
The State of Oregon vs. Mike Roselle: Criminalizing Environmental
Dissent
M. Junaid Alam
Columbia University and the New Anti-Semitism
Suzan Mazur
Inside the Polygamy Cults of Southern Utah
Jackson Thoreau
Texas Congressman Calls for "Nuking Syria"
Michael Donnelly
No Love for Teresa Heinz; John Edwards Gets a Pass
Jeffrey St.
Clair
Uncle
Bucky Makes a Killing
Website of the Day
The Ghosts of Karl Marx & Ed Abbey
March 1, 2005
Scott Richard
Lyons
Million
Dollar Bigotry
David Lindorff
Stealing Workers' Pensions
Patrick Cockburn
/ David Enders
Bloodbath in Iraq
Ron Jacobs
The Last Poets Recalled
Tanya Garcia
USA Next: the Industry Front Group to Privatize Social Security
Joseph Pietri
The Drug Trail Ends in Kathmandu: Golden Tar Heroin and the Black
Prince
Kona Lowell
Woody: Broken in Vietnam
Paul Craig
Roberts
The
Coming End of the American Superpower
Website of
the Day
Petition: No US Intervention in Iran
February 28,
2005
Gary Leupp
Year
4 in the Five Year Plan: a June Attack on Iran?
Bill Quigley
Haitian Police Open Fire on Nonviolent Marchers
Mickey Z.
The
Million Dollar Interview: Mary Johnson on Clinton Eastwood, Hunter
Thompson and the "Right to Die"
Paul de Rooij
Why
Ted Honderich is Wrong on All Counts About Israel
David Swanson
Basic Income Guarantee Versus the Corp Media
Mario Lamo
Jimenez
Maria
Full of Cultural Contradictions at the Oscars
Emma Perez
The Attacks on Ward Churchill: a Test Case in the Neocons Purge
of Academia
Diana Johnstone
Censorship
and the Empire
Website of the Day
Stop the War Campaign!
February 26
/ 27, 2005
Alexander Cockburn
An
American Jew Laments Decline in Jewish Influence
Noam Chomsky
Nuclear
Terror at Home
Rev. William E. Alberts
Rhetoric in the Air; Reality on the Ground
Fred Gardner
AARP Gets Pot-Baited
Gary Leupp
Bush and Camus on Freedom
Saul Landau
An Interview with Cuban VP Ricardo Alarcon (Part 3): the Miami
Mafia
Robin Philpot
Second Thoughts on the Hotel Rwanda
Yitkhak Laor
In Praise of the Facts
Ben Tripp
Out of Sight; Out of Mind
Justin Taylor
Zizek Seen Over the Handlebars
Jack Random
The Wounds from Wounded Knee
Rafael Renteria
Ward Churchill and White America
Jim B.
Reflections on the Eve of Fatherhood
Seth DeLong
Land Reform in Venezuela: More Like Lincoln Than Lenin
John Chuckman
A Season of Depressing Political Reruns
Alison Weir
Relativity, LA Times Style
Richard Oxman
Political Solitude: From Garcia Marquez to Maria Full of Grace
Dr. Susan Block
It Always Rains in California: All About Female Ejaculation
Poets' Basement
Landau, Lowell, Louise, Davies, Soderstrom, Norris & Albert
February 25,
2005
Roger Burbach
Murder
in the Amazon
Behzad Yaghmaian
Iranian Distrust of America: 50 Years in the Making
Kurt Nimmo
Conclave of the Brats
Joshua Frank
Diagnosing the Green Party
John Farley
How to Stop the War in Iraq: Punish Pro-War Politicians
Lawrence Reichard
The D'Aubuisson Memorial: Flowers of Evil
Pratyush Chandra
The Royal Coup in Nepal and Global Imperialist Designs
David Smith-Ferri
When
the Battlefield has No Borders
Website of
the Day
The 2005 Election in 3-D
February 24,
2005
Omar Waraich
The
Galloway Saga: Smearing an Anti-War Politician
Brian Cloughley
Bribing and Twisting Amerian Journalists: Valerie Plame &
30 Pieces of Silver
Tom Wright
Torture Nation: Abu Ghraib, a Year Later
Sharon Smith
The Anti-War Movement After Kerry: Learning All the Wrong Lessons
Dave Lindorff
Do These Roosting Chickens Have Flu?
Fred Feldman
Lynching Ward Churchill
James Reiss
On Hearing About a Plot to Assassinate President Bush
Diane Christian
Bad
Blood: Ritual & Sexual Torture in Iraq
Website of
the Day
The Gray Line
February 23,
2005
Werther
The
Poisoned Well: What the CIA's Nazi Files Can Tell Us About Iraq
W. John Green
A Salvador Option for Iraq? How Negroponte Changes the Ground
Rules
James Petras
A New Face to Bush Foreign Policy?
Conn Hallinan
Cornering the Dragon: the Return of the China Lobby
Joe Pietri
Cannabis: the Goose that Lays Golden Eggs (For Consumers and
Cops)
Louis Proyect
Hunter Thompson and the "New" Journalism
Alexander Cockburn
Hunter
S. Thompson and Gonzo
Website of
the Day
Did You Make the Blacklist? Why Not?
February 22,
2005
Naseer Aruri
The
Politics of the Hariri Assassination: Remapping the Middle East
Richard Manning
The
Economy of Hunger: Starvation is Part of the Economic Plan
William A.
Cook
Righteous
Racism Running Rampant
Paul Craig Roberts
The Agents of Instability
Ken Krayeske
Dr. Thompson is Out
Dave Zirin
How the Owners Destroyed the NHL
Kirkpatrick
Sale
Imperial
Entropy: the Collapse of the American Empire
February 21,
2005
Hunter S. Thompson
"He
Was A Crook"
John Ross
Mexico:
the Pentagon's Proxy Army in Iraq
Ward Churchill
What Did I Really Say? Why Did
I Say It?
Dr. Teresa
Whitehurst
Military Recruiting on Channel One: Geometry 101, Brought to
You by the US Navy
David Swanson
Fighting for a Living Wage, State by State
Dave Lindorff
All the News That's Fit to Fake
Stew Albert
Fear and Loathing: HST
Michael Neumann
Strategies
in Palestine: a Shrinking Pie in the Sky
February 19
/ 20, 2005
Alexander Cockburn
Back
to Salem: Paul Shanley and the Return of "Recovered Memory"
Kathleen Christison
Struggling
for Justice in Palestine
Ted Honderich
On Being Persona Non Grata
Gary Leupp
Self-Hating Gays: Welcome to the White House & Welcome to
Commit Suicide
Don Santina
Reparations for the Blues
Jennifer Roesch
John Negroponte: Dirty Warrior
Scott Richard
Lyons
Ward
Churchill and the Identity Police
Chris Clarke
Ward Churchill and Liberal Outrage
George Beres
Censorship in the Land of Wayne Morse: Gagging W. Churchill in
Oregon
Harry Browne
The Belfast Heist: the Plot Unravels
Manuel Garc'a,
Jr.
Who Killed Rafik Hariri?
Mark Scaramella
Lessons from the Hidden Afghan War
Michael Donnelly
Whatever Happened to John Edwards?
John Pilger
First, They Attack the Past
Norman Madarasz
Death Wish for Reform in Brazil?
Surendra Devkota
The Monarchy in Nepal
Deborah Rich
How Anti-GMO Ballot Measures May Miss the Mark
Fred Gardner
When Dr. Tod Met Merle Haggard
CounterPunch
News Service
About King Mswati: Political Developments in Swaziland
Richard Oxman
CounterPunching Arthur Miller
Poets' Basement
Albert, Giebel, Tripp, Engel and Orkin
February 18,
2005
Ben Moxham
In
East Timor, the Nightmare Continues
Dave Lindorff
The
Scum Also Rises: the Bloody Career of John Negroponte
Larry Birns
Negroponte: a Resume of Death Squads, Deceptions and Bribery
Gregory Elich
N, Korea's Phantom Nukes and the US's Subversion of Diplomacy
Samuel Logan / John Meyers
The Future of Colombia's Paramilitary Death Squads
Nicole Colson
Shock and Awe on Civil Liberties: From Lynne Stewart to Ward
Churchill
Suzan Mazur
Whose National Security Are We Talking About?
Mickey Z.
"One
Man Has Stopped Killing"
February 17,
2005
Joshua Frank
Hogtying
of the Deaniacs
Paul Craig
Roberts
Bush's
Willing Sychophants: the Conservative Media
Robert Fisk
Under
the Shadow of Death in Lebanon
Christopher
Brauchli
Where
Time Stands Still: Kinsey and Darwin in Cobb County, GA
Dr. Teresa
Whitehurst
Military
Recruitment TV: Why Send Them to College, When Your Kid Can be
Cannon Fodder?
Alison Weir
Russia, Israel and Media Omissions
Ahrar Ahmad
A Review of Shahid Alam's "Is There an Islamic Problem?"
Saul Landau
An
Interview with Cuban VP Ricardo Alarcon: "The US Tramples
the Laws It Wrote"
Website of the Day
Petition to Support Ward Churchill
February 16,
2005
Robert Fisk
Lebanon:
a Battlefield for the Wars of Others
Kevin Zeese
Creating a Real Ownership Society: Share the Wealth; Protect
Retirement
Gary Leupp
Meanwhile, in Nepal...
Ron Jacobs
Why the Iranian Opposition Should Not Trust the Bush Administration
Jessica Leight
Oil-Flush Chavez Begins to Strut His Stuff
Greg Moses
Houston, You've Got a Problem: Documenting Voting Irregularities
in Texas
Mark Engler
The Last Porto Alegre
Jack McCarthy
Where's the Outrage About Pat? Buchanan Does a Churchill
Bill Christison
US
Foreign Policy Dangerously Slanted Toward Israel
Website of the Day
The
World is Melting: a Photo Survey by Gary Braasch
February 15,
2005
CounterPunch
News Service
Dean
a "Safe" Moderate, Says NYT Citing CounterPunch
Robert Fisk
The
Killing of Mr. Lebanon
Uri Avnery
"Sharm-al-Sheikh,
We Have Come Back Again"
Stan Cox
Fighting Big Pharma in Little Digwal
Mickey Z.
Radio
Active North of the Border: an Interview with Chris Cook
Dave Zirin
Bashing Bush: Jose Canseco Comes Clean
Nadia Martinez
Ending
World Poverty? Opening at the World Bank, Apply Now
Lila Rajiva
"Little Eichmanns" and the 'Harijan': the Danger of
Magical Thinking in Politics
Paul Craig
Roberts
The
American Job Sell Out
February 14,
2005
Robert Jensen
Ward
Churchill: Right to Speak Out; Right About 9/11
Brian Cloughley
Kuwait's Freedom, Bush-style
Patrick Cockburn
Outcome
of the Iraqi Elections: Shortages, Corruption, Guerrilla War
Gary Leupp
Post-election Iraq: What Next?
Michael Donnelly
Sacred Nature: Just Another Commodity?
Dave Lindorff
When Bush Came to My Neighborhood
Elaine Cassel
The
Lynne Stewart Verdict
February 12
/ 13, 2005
Alexander Cockburn
Ward
Churchill's Genes
Saul Landau
Alarcon
Speaks: an Interview with the Vice President of Cuba
Paul Craig
Roberts
Nothing
to Fear But Bush Himself
Patrick Cockburn
Two Years After the Fall of Saddam, the Resistance Controls All
Major Roads into Baghdad
John Feffer
Bush
v. N. Korea: Round Two
Mickey Z.
Right to Remain Silent; Duty to Speak
Kurt Nimmo
Viva la Cucaracha!
Fred Gardner
Waiting for Raich
Dave Zirin
Fighting the New Republic(ans)
John Chuckman
Hiroshima, Mon Amour
Ben Tripp
A Leftist on the Bush Payroll
Carol Norris
"Buddy, Can You Spare a Dwarf?"
Robert Fisk
No Middle East Peace Without Justice
Frank / Chowkwanyun
Muzzled Activist in an Age of Terror: the Case of Sherman Austin
Mike Whitney
Condi's Euro Tour
Deborah Frisch
A Psychologist's Defense of Ward Churchill
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Reading Khomeini in Colorado
Christine TenBarge
What's So Special About Ward?
Ron Jacobs
Curtis Mayfield's Train to Jordan
Dr. Susan Block
Chemistry of Love: a Valentine's Greeting
Poets' Basement
Louise, Smith-Ferri, Ford and Albert
Website of the Weekend
Free Sherman
February 11,
20055
Manuel Garcia,
Jr
The
Eight Percent War
Kurt Nimmo
Ann
Coulter's Racism: Where's Geronimo When You Really Need
Him?
Dave Lindorff
Guckert
or Gannon? The Perfect Plant; He Fit Right In
Larry Birns
War is Peace; Slavery is Freedom: Democracy According to Elliott
Abrams
Bill Quigley
Twenty Questions: a Social Justice Quiz
Tom Barry
Bush's State of Delusion
Jennifer Van
Bergen
Lynne
Stewart's Conviction Hurts Us All
February 10,
2005
Dave Lindorff
What
Academic Freedom?
Christopher Brauchli
The Love of Slaughter: From Rwanda to Iraq
Patrick Cockburn
In Baghdad, It's Easy to Get Killed
Nicole Colson
Have the Democrats Surrendered on Abortion Rights?
Suzan Mazur
More
on the Assassination of Lumumba from Mr. Garsin of Kinshasha
Michael Donnelly
Salvaging an Opposition
Mike Stark
Driving Ossie Davis: "Give Them a Little Truth, a Little
Hope"
Greg Moses
Taking
Jesus Back from the Hijackers
Website of
the Day
The Missionary Positions
February 9,
2005
Jeffrey St.
Clair
Duck
and Cover Redux: Bunker Busters and City Levellers
Mickey Z.
What Ward Churchill Didn't Say
John Ross
Hecho
en Mexico: the Iraqi Election
Tom Barry
Ambassador of Lies: Elliott Abrams, the Neocon's Neocon
Conn Hallinan
The
Coup in Nepal: Nursing the Pinion
Patrick Cockburn
Sistani's Vision for Iraq: Cricket is Fine, But Chess is "Absolutely
Forbidden"
Steen Sohn
Danish PM Says It's OK for Israel to Violate UN Resolutions
Tim Wise
Reflections on Empire and Uppity Indians
Website of
the Day
Support Antiwar.com
February 8,
2005
Patrick Cockburn
Shia/Kurd
Coalition to Dominate New Iraqi Govt.: "It's an Electoral
Pact, Not a Party"
Brian Cloughley
Out
of the Mouths of Generals: "It's Fun to Shoot Some People"
Steve Breyman
Against the Selfishness of the "Ownership Society"
Harry Browne
"Don't
Get on that Plane!": Soldiers Seek Asylum in Ireland
Doug Giebel
"We Love Free Speech in America": the People, the President
and Ward Churchill
Nate Collins
The Censorship of Ward Churchill and Dancehall Reggae: It's the
Same Beast
Dave Lindorff
It's Time for a Labor-Oriented Newspaper
David Smith-Ferri
Sanctions and the Health Crisis in Iraq
February 7,
2005
Paul Craig
Roberts
Bush's
War on Jobs
Carolyn Baker
The New McCarthyism on Campus: Churchill and the Attack on Higher
Ed
Joshua Frank
Marc Cooper's Hit List: First Mumia; Now Ward Churchill
Mickey Z.
Warning: More Hate Speech from W. Churchill
Patrick Cockburn
The
Kidnapping Gangs of Iraq
Mike Whitney
Tom Friedman: Scribe for New Age Imperialism
Stacie Jonas
Pinochet: Fit to be Tried
Dave Zirin
A Miserable Super Sunday: Clinton, Bush and the FBI
Tariq Ali
Imperial
Delusions
February 5
/ 6, 2005
Alexander Cockburn
Ward
Churchill and the Mad Dogs
Kurt Nimmo
A Ward Churchill Kind of Day
Joshua Frank
Liberals Trash Ward Churchill
P. Sainath
Mumbai's Man-Made Tsunami
Patrick Cockburn
Sistani's Triumph; Allawi's Bust
Laura Carlsen
Bush, Rice and Latin America
Dave Lindorff
How the NYT Killed the Bush Bulge Story
Pamela Olson
West Bank Story
Behzad Yaghmaian
The Future of Sudanese Refugees in the West
Saul Landau / Farrah Hassen
A Threatened UN in King George's Court
Roger Burbach
World Social Forum: a Tale of Two Presidents
Robert Fisk
History by Laptop
David Swanson
James Forman and the Liberal-Labor Syndrome
Justin E.H. Smith
Gay Marriage: a Report from Canada
Cacie Hart
The "State" of the Union: More War and a Ban on Love
Ron Jacobs
Chairman Bob Avakian: a Revolutionary Life
Mickey Z.
Viewing America from the Outside
Ben Tripp
Republican Heroes: a New Breed of Good Guy
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9/11 the Sequel: the Toxic State of Lower Manhattan
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Elections Won't Prevent Civil War in Iraq
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A History Lesson from the NYT
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Feminists for Porn
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War is a Racket
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New Doubts About Allawi
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"The Only Decent Food We Get is at Funerals"
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"W" Stands for Withdrawal
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March 22, 2005
The Day Before Red Lake, She Listened
A
Palm Sunday Chat with Sis Levin
By
GREG MOSES
In Birmingham, Alabama at 10:30 a.m.,
news of the protest in Bethlehem has barely begun to appear.
But Sis Levin has read one email account, and she is feeling
good about what happened. Early that morning the children of
Bethlehem had attempted to do what Jesus did 2,000 years ago
and ride a donkey into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday. Of course, the
children this year never made it much farther than a towering
concrete wall erected to keep them forever out of Jerusalem.
But they launched a nonviolent protest against their occupation.
And their parents took the protest right up into the all-to-human
faces of the occupying troops themselves. So it is with the pride
of a teacher that Levin declares, "It was my children's
idea!"
Levin indeed is the "volunteer"
that organizers talk about when they recount the history of the
idea for the Palm Sunday action. But not many "volunteers"
that you hear about have already had their life story put to
film with Marlo Thomas in the leading role. Today Levin is at
home recovering from a scheduled surgery. Until she can get back
to Bethlehem, her Palestinian students are very much on her mind.
"We had a message
forwarded by John Stoner. It was a great success," says
Levin. Stoner is the Pennsylvania peacemaker who under the umbrella
of his fledgling org Every Church a Peace Church (ECAPC) helped
to mobilize American participation in the Palm Sunday action.
He has forwarded an eyewitness email from Kent R. Beduhn:
"We walked with the children,
behind the donkeys, in solidarity with the Palestinians, to pray
in Jerusalem," reads the email from Beduhn. "We walked
through the Wall opening on the one road to Jerusalem that still
exists. We numbered as many as 324, total. There were 92 kids
and six hardy donkeys we all followed. We were holding palm branches
and olive branches as we walked. In Bethlehem Square, we sang
several songs, such as 'We shall not be Moved,' and kids especially
liked 'Peace, Salaam, Shalom.' " As expected, the march
was halted at a checkpoint by six Israeli soldiers. One photo
of the action shows a front line of Palestinian woman looking
for eye contact from a row of armed soldiers only inches away.
In another photo, a bright yellow sign announces that ECAPC is
there. The sign is held up by Pastor Dick Davis of the Peace
Mennonite Church of Dallas.
"It sounded great,"
says Levin, "just what the world needed to see, a wonderful
statement." Then I ask Levin to tell the story one more
time. How did the idea come up? "It was about two years
ago at Shepherd's Field in Beit Sahour, and I was just beginning
to work on peacebuilding education from Kindergarten through
University," explains Levin. Shepherd's Field is one location
where Christian tradition says that angels brought news to shepherds
about the birth of Jesus. Today a chapel stands at the site.
"We were working with
four-year-olds on an old Quaker exercise about two donkeys tied
together and two piles of hay. At first the donkeys pull toward
different piles and of course neither one gets anything to eat.
Then they figure out if they go together they get one pile and
then another. It's a classic exercise, and while teachers and
students were talking about it I said, well you know Jesus rode
a donkey to Jerusalem. And there was a great sadness in the room
as the children said, We can't go to Jerusalem." From the
statement of sadness came a question of hope, "Why can't
we go to Jerusalem?" and the idea for the Palm Sunday action
was born.
When Levin returned to the
USA from Bethlehem, she had a speaking tour lined up in California
where she told the story everywhere she went. Sis and her husband
Jerry have been activists and lecturers in Middle Eastern affairs
since Jerry, a former CNN bureau chief, was held hostage by Hezbollah
in the mid-1980s. Sis became an activist in order to get Jerry
out of captivity, and Jerry came out converted to nonviolence.
It was a big story at the time.
At first, Levin treated the
Palm Sunday protest as a "what if" idea. What if the
children rode donkeys to Jerusalem, confronting Israeli checkpoints
along the way? She talked about it in imaginary terms, because
it seemed too dangerous. But at some point she was told that
even if the action had danger in it, if the children wanted to
make a nonviolent statement, she should let them. Which was a
profound suggestion to make to an activist from Birmingham. After
all, without the children of Birmingham going to jail in 1963,
the great campaign for downtown de-segregation might not have
been won. So Levin broached the idea with Stoner, and international
support for the children of Bethlehem was mobilized.
Levin is anxious to resume
her work on peace education at her other home in Bethlehem. She
describes the project as covering, "a great chunk of Bethlehem.
There is no other Kindergarten through University peace education
program anywhere else in the entire Middle East. We're doing
it in all the classes." Although Levin's surgery is still
very fresh and painful, the topic sparks her up.
"If you teach teachers
to teach in a progressive way, then it spreads through the classroom,
the school, and the community," explains Levin. "But
it has to be systemic, otherwise it doesn't hold up. Too many
people in education today still don't realize that it's not sustaining
if it's not systemic. It also has to be gradual, because in child
development they pick up different pieces at different times.
Anger management is a part of it, for example. Someone teaches
anger management and the students pick up that piece, but there
are so many other pieces to it."
"At first, I thought it
would be difficult for me to sell the idea of peace education,
partly because I'm a Westerner coming in," says Levin. "But
also the Palestinians of Bethlehem are already way up there when
it comes to education. Their scores are very high, quite commonly
English is a child's third language, and even during 'the closing'
at the time of the Intifada children were diligently home-schooled.
Today they are outscoring Israeli children in many areas."
"My goal in the long run
is to help revise the teaching for children on both sides,"
she says. "I have many Israeli friends and they tell me,
what would it matter if we gain the whole thing but lose our
children? They are concerned about what happens to their children
in the heavily militarized culture of Israel. And you have no
idea how many there are in Israel who feel this way. When I hear
my Israeli friends talk about their society, it makes me feel
like in America we are losing our souls, too. And they make me
sound like a girl scout when they talk. Brutal is the word they
use for the system they are in. But you don't read about their
stories."
By late afternoon, a report from Jerusalem by AP writer
Kristen Stevens begins to appear on the web. Stevens devotes
nine paragraphs to the Bethlehem action at the end of a 22 paragraph
story. Newsday's version of the AP story also includes a second
paragraph reference to the Bethlehem action. This will be the
highpoint of press coverage. On the other hand News 24 "South
Africa's leading news portal" snips the AP story at paragraph
thirteen, leaving no room for the Bethlehem action at their massive
website. Searches at major broadcast websites such as CNN, BBC,
or Al Jazeera, reveal no video coverage.
"I'm married to an old
news hound, and I know the bait was on the hook," says Levin.
The press had been well informed about the planned action, but
formula stories seemed to drive the Palm Sunday agenda: the Pope
in Rome, Christians already in Jerusalem. Also, there was lingering
news of a transfer of authority in Jericho and a cease fire called
by Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and other groups in the Palestinian
resistance. Editors seemed to flow with an impression that things
were getting better in Palestine right now. In addition, some
activists argued at Michigan IndyMedia that the left in the USA
might have done a better job pushing the issue of Palestine's
occupation Saturday during nationwide protests against the occupation
of Iraq.
Organizers of the Palm Sunday
action in Bethlehem had argued that everyday life in Palestine
continues to be dominated by checkpoints, settlements, and walls
going up. As photojournalists in Bethlehem documented the Palm
Sunday protest, they also snapped pictures of the Bethlehem wall
under relentless construction, but editors seemed not to place
much priority on the significance of these same-day images. Perhaps
the best single picture of the day therefore was Brennan
Linsley's shot of two Palestinian youth writing graffiti
on the wall, framed by a pair of soldiers.
A second email from Beduhn
describes the graffiti action. "When we reached the Wall,
many children began writing in Green markers slogans in Arabic,
like: 'The Wall is no good. The Wall must fall.' Two of the young
boys, approximately age 8 or 9, had crowns of thorns on their
heads. The soldiers told them to stop, but Sami Awad gently but
firmly asked the soldiers if they wanted to join us to work for
peace. He reminded them that the children were not hurting anything
but were only expressing their views. Eventually, after a period
of another 5 minutes of slogan-writing, the leadership and the
children's mothers were able to clear away the 10 children doing
the writing." Any other day of the year, who knows what
might have happened to those kids.
"Life in Palestine is
very different from what the public knows," continues Levin.
When she lectures in the USA, she finds that 85 percent of the
average audience don't have a clue about the situation, don't
know about the walls, and donít know that Palestine has
been reduced to nine percent of its former size. "There's
only nine percent left," she repeats.
Ten years ago, recalls Levin,
a home was imploded by Israeli forces two blocks from her Bethlehem
house. And it's true the home had been inhabited by a suicide
bomber. But sometimes there's more to the story. Levin recalls
the woman whose home was raided. During the raid, Israeli troops
killed her mother, her father, and her fiancÈ, then locked
her in the room with the bodies. "Of course when she got
out of that room she was quite out of her mind," says Levin.
"She went straight to Hamas and said strap it on me. When
these things happen they don't tell those stories either."
Levin sees the same problems
with media coverage of violence in the USA. When kids shoot kids
at Columbine, Paducah, or Conyers, we don't look behind those
events either. We don't ask how these things happen. "The
media, instead of being a big part of the solution is very much
a part of the problem." Once Levin showed "Bowling
for Columbine" to the youth of Bethlehem and they asked
her. "Did your country take bulldozers and flatten the houses
of the kids who did that?"
As this story is released,
news comes from Red Lake Reservation, Minnesota. A young man
shoots nine others and himself. The awful story will play well.
And who now will have answers to the obvious questions. In the
structural economy of global violence is there not a connection
between all the media who ignored the well-crafted message of
peace on Palm Sunday one day and converged on the desperate outburst
at Red Lake the next? When children call for your headlines peacefully,
why won't you listen? If Bethlehem doesn't keep trying, who will?
In Bethlehem, Levin throws open her home every month to teachers
who want to share ideas about peace in the classroom.
"Dr. Levin," she
recalls one young child saying to her in English, "we are
building peace." And her first thought was, oh no, now I'm
in trouble. Palestinian children aren't scheduled to learn English
until the fourth grade. This child was much too young. So Levin
says she "flew" over to the education officials who
winked, "yes, we have an eye on you." But what can
it mean? For Levin, the child's English outburst was proof that
making peace in the classroom is an exciting challenge for children,
and when they are excited about the challenges in front of them,
children learn more quickly. Indeed, they are capable of learning
a whole new language.
"Teenagers especially
are the key," argues Levin. "And they know it. On the
one hand they serve as models for younger children. On the other
hand they hold the dream all the way to university. And when
this happens for teenagers, the whole thing becomes a system."
In the process, says Levin, the people of Bethlehem are developing
a truly democratic culture. "The fundamentals they are now
learning will help them build a truly democratic state, and I
must add, a nonviolent one, not one that solves all its problems
through war. When Americans say to the Palestinians, you will
someday have a country like ours, they say we don't want a country
like yours."
Shortly after midnight
Sunday a story
from Israel says 3,500 new homes will be built by Israeli settlers
on the West Bank in an effort to solidify control of East Jerusalem.
The timing is treacherous. Had the story been released a day
earlier, would the Palm Sunday event have meant more to assignment
editors? Would Palestinian skepticism have seemed more worthwhile?
Then in the second hour of
Monday morning, Israel announces a pullout in the West Bank town
of Tulkarim. Time to get out your map. The town of Tulkarim hugs
the Northeastern border of the West Bank. It is practically in
Israel already. The story of Israel's pullout tops headlines
thereafter: "Israel to pull out of Tulkarim!" Two or
three paragraphs later you can read that thousands of new Israeli
homes will go up near the heart of East Jerusalem, in blatant
violation of the US-backed "Roadmap to Peace." When
it comes to headline management, Israel is on a roll. If Israel
keeps up this pattern of ceding border territories under big
headlines while bolstering central settlements in small print,
Palestine will soon look like a West Bank donut.
So where are the headlines
out of Bethlehem? Where are the media factories that will put
this nonviolent action on record, celebrate it, and make it into
a picture perfect image of a four-year-old's Palm Sunday dream?
In the early morning hours of Monday, a single story appears:
"Palestinians ride donkeys in nonviolent Palm Sunday demonstration."
One headline in 700 comes from Palestine News Network, sponsored
by the Holy Land Trust, lead organizer of the march. If the demonstration
was a glimpse into the possibility of a new kind of state, perhaps
this headline also promises a new kind of media. Very little
exists in the world today that the children of Palestine won't
have to remake in order to have their peace and freedom. How
many of us would say with Sis Levin that we can't wait to join
in?
Note: View AP
Photo (thanks to Umkahil
for the link)
Greg Moses is editor of the Texas Civil Rights
Review and author of Revolution
of Conscience: Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Philosophy of
Nonviolence. His chapter on civil rights under Clinton and
Bush appears in Dime's
Worth of Difference, edited by Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey
St. Clair. He can be reached at: gmosesx@prodigy.net
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