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Recent
Stories
June
16, 2003
Uri
Avnery
The Children of Death
June
14 / 15, 2003
Edward
Said
A Roadmap to What and Where?
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Pryor Unrestraint: Killer Bill Pryor's
Mad Quest for the Federal Bench
David Lindorff
Rumsfeld v. Belgium
Jennifer
Loewenstein
Suicide's Most Willing Accomplice
Lee Sustar
US Tax System: Rigged for the Rich
Ben
Tripp
Of Dissidents and Dissonance
William
S. Lind
Lies, Damned Lies and Military Intelligence
Joanne
Mariner
Rebellious Judges
Gila Svirsky
A Macabre Alliance
Mickey
Z.
Where We Are
Chris Floyd
Metaphysics as a Guide to Murder
Noah
Leavitt
Peru as Our Crystal Ball?
Yves Engler
and Bianca Mugyenyi
The G8 and Africa
Dr.
Gerry Lower
Dear Rudy, Let's Get Those Damned Liberals
Ted Dace
A Review of Kovel's The Enemy of Nature
Adam
Engel
Midnight at the Apocalyptic Pancake
Poets'
Basement
Smith, Greeder, Albert, and O'Hayer
Website
of the Weekend
AEI: Starts Wars; Creates
Poverty
June
13, 2003
David
Vest
Bush
Roadmap to What?
Ron Jacobs
The Iranian Revolution, Reloaded?
John
Chuckman
The Man Who Wasn't There
Jason Leopold
Six Months Before War White House Silenced Critics of WMD Intelligence
Michael
Leon
Missing Weapons, Shrinking Bush and the Media
Negar Azimi
Ashcroft's Cruel Version of America
Saul
Landau
Shiite Happens
Hammond
Guthrie
Then and Now
Steve
Perry
Bush's Wars
Web Log 6/13
June
12, 2003
Gary
Leupp
The Intel-gate Row in Britain: a Chronology
Ahmad Faruqui
The Tragic Legacy of the Six Day
War
Wayne
Madsen
Unfit for Office: Time for Rumsfeld to Resign
Laura Carlsen
Hunger and Security
Tarif
Abboushi
Warm and Fuzzy in Aqaba
Ray
McGovern
Deceived into War: Reflections of
a Former CIA Analyst
Steve
Perry
Bush's Wars
Web Log 6/12
June
11, 2003
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Attack of the Hog Killers: Why the
Generals Hate the A-10
Elaine
Cassel
Meet Michael Chertoff: Ashcroft's
Top Gremlin
David Lindorff
The Republican Drive to Eliminate Overtime Pay
Tom
Gorman
Greens, the Antiwar Movement and 2004
Alfredo
Castro
Colombia: The Most Dangerous Place
on Earth for Trade Unionists
Nnimo
Bassey and Lawrence Bohlen
Bush Must Stop Telling Us What to
Eat!
Julie Hilden
Spike Lee v. Spike TV
CounterPunch
Wire
Blair Bros. Change Jobs!
Eric
Hobsbawm
The Empire Expands, Wider and Still
Wider
Steve
Perry
DHS: As Big
a Planning Snafu as Iraq?
June
10, 2003
Benjamin
Shepard
A Season in the Anti-War Movement
Chris
Floyd
Bush Family Lies About Iraq and Nazi
Germany
Wayne
Madsen
Weaponsgate
Jason Leopold
Powell's Denials Ring Hollow
Richard
Lichtman
Whining, Whimpering Leftists Confront the Logic of American World
Domination
Ray
Close
A CIA Analyst on Why the Lies About
WMD Matter
Hammond
Guthrie
Banking on Saddam?
Steve
Perry
Bush's Wars
Web Log 6/10
June
9, 2003
Alex
Coolman
Male Rape in US Prisons
Elaine
Cassel
Ashcroft is Coming!
Lee
Sustar
Is Iran Next?
Agustin
Velloso
Equatorial Guinea: Few Rich, Many
Poor
Gila
Svirsky
Some Lives Are Worth Less Than Others
Dr. Gerry
Lower
Human Worth in Bush's America
Michael
S. Ladah
A True Liberation
Ishmael Reed
Iraqi Slaughter, Mayhem and Plunder
Steve
Perry
How to Beat Bush, part 1
June
7 / 8, 2003
Alexander
Cockburn
The Terrible Truth
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Going Critical: Bush's War on Endangered Species
Joanne
Mariner
Ashcrofts Sides with Torturers
Steven
Sherman
A Different Theory of Everything
Ron Jacobs
Sports, Politics and the 60s
M.
Shahid Alam
Pauperizing the Periphery
Amelia
Peltz
If This is the Road, I'd Rather be Lost
Shelton
Hull
Another Powell, Another Capitulation
Binoy Kampmark
Nuclear Deterrence and North Korea
Ben
Tripp
A Fish Story
Sen. Robert
Byrd
Where is the Outrage?
Robin
Philpot
Congo Distortions
Julie Hilden
Murder and the Matrix
Laura
Flanders
An Interview with Isabel Allende
David Lindorff
The Last Byline
Adam
Engel
Talk Dirty Scary Monsters
Poets'
Basement
Kearney, Reiss, Guthrie, Albert and Hamod
June
6, 2003
Elaine
Cassel
Ashcroft the Insatiable
David
Krieger
The Big Lie
Ramzy
Baroud
Sharon and the Myth of the Peacemakers
Anthony
Gancarski
Sharansky: "Crucifixion is a Privilege"
Sam
Hamod
His Own Little Country
Sean Carter
Why Indict Martha Stewart and Not Ken Lay?
David
Lindorff
Cracks in the Consensus
Stew Albert
Ari's Great Set
Steve
Perry
Greens and
Moore in 04? No
June
5, 2003
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Pools of Fire: The Looming Nuclear
Nightmare in the Woods of North Carolina
Imraan
Siddiqi
Ann Coulter's Foul Mouth
Michael
Leon
Clinton, Reno & Waco: Remember What They've Done
Robert
Jensen
Texas Pledge Law Undermines Democracy
Ann Harrison
Rosenthal is Free, But the Fight isn't Over
Paul
Dean
How You Can Be Deliriously Happy in the Age of Bush
Gary Leupp
When Spooks Speak Out
Website
of the Day
Evidence in Black and White?
Hot Stories
CounterPunch
Wire
WMD: Who Said What When
Cindy
Corrie
A Mother's Day Talk: the Daughter
I Can't Hear From
Elaine
Cassel
Civil Liberties
Watch
Michel
Guerrin
Embedded Photographer Says: "I
Saw Marines Kill Civilians"
Uzma
Aslam Khan
The Unbearably Grim Aftermath of War:
What America Says Does Not Go
Paul de Rooij
Arrogant
Propaganda
Gore Vidal
The
Erosion of the American Dream
Francis Boyle
Impeach
Bush: A Draft Resolution
Click Here
for More Stories.
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June
16, 2003
The Super Rich Against
the Rest of Us
A
Review of Pilger's New Ruler's of the World
By JULIAN SAMUEL
"The
New Rulers Of The World,"
by John Pilger Verso (London)
John Pilger's "The
New Rulers of the World" shows us how the rich-and-getting-exponentially
richer are responsible for producing land dispossession, poverty,
blindness, and death. We learn about the effects of recent imperialism
such as the holocaust of communists and others in Indonesia
(1965-66); this particular slaughter was backed by many Western
leaders including Prime Minister Harold Macmillian and John
F. Kennedy who agreed to 'liquidate President Sukarno, depending
on the situation and available opportunities.' pp. 30. (Our
smiling Prime Minister, Jean Chrétien, in 1997, in front
of TV camera put his arms around Indonesia's killer of millions--Suharto).
Many politicians and corporations--Tony Blair is one of Pilger's
central targets--are presented as killers who are really no
different from Hitler. Blair approved "eleven arms deals
with Indonesia under cover of the Official Secrets Acts and
Cook's declaration of an 'ethical' dimension to foreign policy."
p. 23
This ethical dimension or understanding
between western greed-- embodied in corporations--and third world
dictators is developed in four fast chapters: "The Modern
Pupil"; "Paying the Price" "The Great Game."
The final chapter, "The Chosen Ones" shows Australia's
genocide against the Aborigines. Pilger's Australia is incurably
racist. The Aussie Olympic Co-ordination Authority used stellar
sellouts to stay the charge of racism in the eyes of the world;
the political elites continually use illegal land rights traps
that have reduced many Aborigines to suicide. Many become blind:
"up to 80 per cent of Aboriginal children have potentially
blinding trachoma because of untreated cataracts." pp.
169 Does one want to boycott Australia and Australian products
after reading Pilger's book? Their prime minister, John Howard,
has made the colour of one's skin a life and death issue.
As a Canadian, I am aware that we do
not have a single journalist who is as courageous or as well-informed
as Pilger. Canadian journalists exactly know how and why the
Jewish State is killing Palestinians and snatching their land
in the West Bank and Gaza but are either censored by editors
(especially at The Montreal Gazette) or self-censored. Pilger,
however, is unequivocal: "We need an awareness of lethal
double standardswhile more than 400 UN resolutions calling for
justice in Palestine are not worth the paper they are written
on." pp. 11-12.
Michael Ignatieff, a Canadian who works
in the human rights industry at Harvard, is "an enthusiastic
backer of the West's invasions and bombing (as a way to 'feed
the starving and enforce peace in the case of civil strive'),
prefers 'liberal intervention'." pp. 161 Ignatieff is given
full access to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.
Pilger's inexorably attacks academics.
I quote him at length on these high priests of silence: "Those
with unprecedented resources to understand this, including many
who teach and research in the great universities, suppress their
knowledge publicly; perhaps never before has there been such
a silence." (pp. 3) and, "By keeping silent, they
have allowed government to diminish a wealth of knowledge of
how the world works, declaring it 'irrelevant' and withholding
funding. This is not surprising when the humanities departments
the engine rooms of ideas and criticism are close
to moribund. When academics suppress the voice of their knowledge,
who can the public turn to? ... By never recognizing western
state terrorism, their complicity is assured. To state this
simple truth is deemed unscholarly; better say nothing (my emphasis).
" pp. 163
Despite the useful lessons on western
state terrorism and imperialism (Pilger uses 'imperialism' not
'globalization'), a few questions persist. Is it fair of him
to not point out how imperialism should be counter-attacked?
He knows its weaknesses deeply. Why is he silent on how to actually
do something to turn back the ravage of Africa, the Arab
world Asia et al? Would a tax revolt be a relevant or useless
strategy? It is clear that street protests accomplish nothing.
What would he answer?
In Iraq, America's current-day Nazis
as well as others are directly responsible for the current holocaust
of about 6000 children a month (pp. 9). Let's put that figure
in another context: A goateed cultural studies academic takes
20 minutes to read a paper on Inuit Hip Hop at a Queer Theory
conference in Melbourne; by the time he finishes his presentation
2.6 Iraqi kids will have been killed. It takes approximately
eight hours or 62.4 deaths to read "The New Rulers of the
World".
Julian Samuel
is a film-maker and writer, who has made a four-hour documentary
on Orientalism and has published a novel, Passage to Lahore (De
Lahore à Montréal). You may contact him at jjsamuel@vif.com
Yesterday's Features
David
Vest
Bush
Roadmap to What?
Ron Jacobs
The Iranian Revolution, Reloaded?
John
Chuckman
The Man Who Wasn't There
Jason Leopold
Six Months Before War White House Silenced Critics of WMD Intelligence
Michael
Leon
Missing Weapons, Shrinking Bush and the Media
Negar Azimi
Ashcroft's Cruel Version of America
Saul
Landau
Shiite Happens
Hammond
Guthrie
Then and Now
Steve
Perry
Bush's Wars
Web Log 6/13
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