Coming
in September
From AK Press
Featuring Essays by:
Edward Said, Robert Fisk, Michael Neumann, Shahid Alam, Alexander
Cockburn, Uri Avnery, Bill and Kathy Christison and More
Recent
Stories
August
5, 2003
Edward
Said
Orientallism: 25 Years Later
Website
of the Day
National Prayer Day
August 4, 2003
Bruce
K. Gagnon
Another Peace Activist Detained by
Airport Cops: My Story
David
Lindorff
Fear-Mongering About Social Security
Mark
Zepezauer
George F. Will: Descent into Self-Parody
James
Plummer
Tracking You Through the Mail
Mickey
Z.
Marriage Insecurity from Sharon to Bush
Bruce
Jackson
News that Isn't News: How the NYT's
Pimps for the White House
August
2 / 3, 2003
Alexander
Cockburn
Meet the Real WMD Fabricator: Rolf
Ekeus
Tamara
R. Piety
Nike's Full Court Press Breaks Down
Francis
Boyle
My Alma Mater, the University of Chicago, is a Moral Cesspool
David
Vest
Sons of Paleface: Pictures from Death's Other Side
Neve Gordon
Nightlife in Jerusalem
Uri
Avnery
Their Master's Voice:
Bush, Blair and Intelligence Snafus
Robert
Fisk
Paternalistic Democracy for Iraq
Jerry
Kroth
Israel, Yellowcake and the Media
Noah Leavitt
What's Driving the Liberian Bloodbath: Is the US Obligated to
Intervene?
Saul
Landau
The Film Industry: Business and Ideology
Ron Jacobs
One Big Prison Yard: the Meaning of George Jackson
Thomas
Croft
In the Deep, Deep Rough: Reflections on Augusta
Amadi Ajamu
Def Sham: Russell Simmons New Black Leader?
Poets'
Basement
Vega, Witherup, Albert and Fleming
August
1, 2003
Joanne
Mariner
Stopping Prison Rape
Alex Coolman
Who Moved My Soap: Trivializing
Prison Rape
Steve
J.B.
Prison Bitch
Stan Goff
Injury and Decorum: The Missing Wounded in Iraq
Wayne
Madsen
Europe Unplugs from the Matrix
Robert
Fisk
Wolfowitz the Censor
Elaine
Cassel
Ashcroft Loses Big in Puerto Rico
Website
of the Day
Stop Prisoner Rape
July
31, 2003
Ray
McGovern
The Prostitution of Intelligence
Brian
Cloughley
Wolfowitz's Operative Statement
Sheldon
Hull
The RIAA's Jihad:
The Devil's Music (Industry)
Elaine
Cassel
The Next Time You Crack a Lawyer Joke, Think of These Attorneys
Sheldon
Rampton
and John Stauber
True Lies: Propaganda and Bush's
Wars
Hammond
Guthrie
Speculation Blues
Website
of the Day
Army of One?
July
30, 2003
David
Lindorff
Poindexter the Terror Bookie
Marjorie
Cohn
Why Iraq and Afghanistan? It's About
the Oil
Elaine
Cassel
How Ashcroft Coerces Guilty Pleas
in Terror Cases
Zvi
Bar'el
The Hidden Costs of the Iraq War
Lisa Walsh
Thomas
Killing Mustafa Hussein: Death of a Child, Birth of a Legend?
Sean
Carter
Pat Robertson's Prayer Jihad: God, Sodomy and the Supremes
ND Jayaprakash
India and Ariel Sharon
Steve
Perry
Bush's Top 40 Lies
Standard
Schaefer
Correction about Bloomberg and Outscourcing
Website
of the Day
Bring Them Home Now!
Congratulations
to CounterPuncher Gilad Atzmon! BBC Names EXILE Top Jazz CD
July
29, 2003
Jeffrey
St. Clair
"Journalist Spotted! Journalist
Dead!" Guatemala Bleeds; US Press Yawns
Thomas
J. Nagy
The Belligerent Dr. Pipes
Kurt Nimmo
Tom Delay Goes to Jerusalem
Chris
Floyd
Dead Reckoning: Bush Warriors Sign Off on War Crimes
Robert
Fisk
Another Botched Raid; Another Massacre
Jason Leopold
Did Chalabi Help Write Bush's State of the Union Address?
Conn Hallinan
Food Bully: Bush's Biotech Shock and Awe Campaign
Dan
Bacher
Sacramento's War on Free Speech
Ray
McGovern
Cheney Chicanery
Website
of the Day
Julie Hilden Caught on Tape
July 26 / 27, 2003
Alexander
Cockburn
NYT's Screws Up Again; Uday and
Qusay Deaths Bad for Bush; Gen. Hitchens at the Front
Gary
Leupp
Faith-Based Intelligence
Saul Landau
A Report from Syria
Stan
Goff
Bring 'Em On Home, Now!
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Book Cooking at Boeing
Andrew
Cockburn
The Sons Are Dead; Now the Blood Feud
Begins
Jason Leopold
CIA Points the Finger at the Pentagon's Office of Special Plans
Robert
Fisk
The Power of Death
Joanne
Mariner
Monsieur Moussaoui
Standard
Schaefer
Joblessness and the Invisible Hand
M. Shahid
Alam
The Global Economy Since 1800: a Short History
Harry
Browne
Northern Ireland: the Other Faltering Peace Process
Fidel Castro
Moncada, 50 Years Later
Lula
Democracy Requires Social Justice
Edward
S. Herman
Refuting Brad DeLong's Smear Job on Noam Chomsky
Ron Jacobs
Guided by a Great Feeling of Love: a Review of Gordon's The Company
You Keep
Julie
Hilden
A Photographer, an Offer and Cameron Diaz's Topless Photos
Adam Engel
Man Talk
Poets'
Basement
Keeney, Witherup, Short, Nimba, Guthrie and Albert
Hot Stories
Steve
J.B.
Prison Bitch
Sheldon
Rampton and John Stauber
True Lies: the Use of Propaganda
in the Iraq War
Wendell
Berry
Small Destructions Add Up
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.
|
August
7, 2003
Survivors
Say Koizuimi is Not Listening
Hiroshima
Excerpts
By
ADAM LEBOWITZ
Mayor of Hiroshima Akiba Tadatoshi's words at
the 6 August ceremony were, as the Japan Times reported, a cutting
philippic against current US foreign policy:
"The world without nuclear weapons
and beyond war that our hibakusha (survivors of the atomic attack)
have sought for so long appears to be slipping deeper beyond
a thick cover of dark clouds that they fear at any minute could
become mushroom clouds spilling black rain(NPT) is on the verge
of collapse. The chief cause is U.S. nuclear policy that, by
openly declaring the possibility of a pre-emptive nuclear strike
and calling for resumed research into mini-nukes and other so-called
usable nuclear weapons, appears to worship nuclear weapons as
God."
Undercurrents run deep here, however:
The rebuke was for Prime Minister Koizuimi Junichir, wearing
a pained visage in front-row attendance at the Hiroshima ceremony.
Although in part suffering from the mid-summer heat, his tv
persona suspiciously resembled the disgruntled smirk George Bush
wore at Clinton's inauguration. And well it might have been
as he was forced to listen further:
(Akiba:)"The problem is not only
nuclear weapons. The world moves as if there were no UN and
Japanese Constitutions, its rudder lost and moving from post-
to pre-war periods 'War is peace' say the Americans and British
as they moved to attack Iraq A war that kills women, children,
the elderly, those without crime, that destroys nature with its
radioactivity and does not disperse for millions of years"
This year's ceremony commemorated the
58th year since the city was destroyed in the world's first nuclear
attack; a middle-aged couple from Iraq, both doctors, lay flowers
at the foot of the monument. The gesture resonated well with
the citizens of the city well-aware of "rekka-uran"
(depleted uranium). It has not been a good year for neither
constitutions mentioned above: 15 May--anniversary of the 1932
assassination of PM Inukai by military cadets--saw the approval
in committee of the Yuji Hoan law effectively giving the US control
of the Japanese military; 4 July--heretofore Japan's official
Dependence Day--came passage of the bill dispatching troops to
Iraq.
Akiba: "The government of the country
with the unique distinction of suffering nuclear attack has a
special domestic and foreign obligation. To declare assistance
for all sufferers of radiation throughout the world, to work
sincerely towards a nuclear-free Asia, to offer a new fundamental
declaration of 'Neither to produce, nor to maintain, nor to allow
the use of' nuclear weapons."
Of those critical of his administration's
rush to support America's "war for peace", Koizumi
responded after the ceremony to a reporter's question, "It's
all a matter a matter of perspective. It's very important to
cooperate with the US to guarantee peace in Japan." He
is of course speaking of the specter of North Korea; the missile-shield
cooperation plan is on the table. Will it be followed by Japan's
own deployment of nuclear weapons? Chief of Staff Fukuda Takeo
intimated last spring this possibility (also a pet ploy of Tokyo's
own Le Pen, Mayor Ishihara Shintaro), and despite or perhaps
encouraged by the mild admonitions from within his party he affirmed
this stance once more albeit obliquely, actually saying that
nuclear weapons would not be necessary if all countries decided
not to maintain them. The Asahi Shinbun newspaper noted this
a sarcastic response to Akiba's peace declaration above.
It is necessary to remember that PM Koizumi
fresh out of university was secretary to Fukuda's father former
party chief Takeo, and that the above Yuji-Hoan law cementing
the US-Japan allied relationship was proposed--and rejected--over
20 years ago by Koizumi's father and Fukuda Takeo. This kind
of "all in the family" cronyism also serves as partial
explanation why Japan's "Self Defense" Forces are soon
on their way to Iraq. In essence, it was a personal promise
to GW Bush resulting from the chemistry that has developed between
the two; personal wealth erases many cultural barriers, evidently.
All in all, Koizumi's insistence upon
"No More Hiroshima's" in his ceremonial speech has
something of a hollow ring these days, working as he does from
a different semantic angle. Eminently flexible, the written
Japanese can represent words both in syllables without reference
to symbolic meanings; in his speech, Hiroshima comes to mean
the idea of nuclear attack erasing the particulars of time and
place (Lisa Yoneyama's "Hiroshima Traces" from U of
California Press gives the whole story). This stance is of course
morally defensible, but it in fact is based upon Jim Crow reasoning
when used by the current administration: Any smaller country
outside the US-sphere of influence is not allowed weapons, and
if they are on the road to acquisition are open to attack.
Last night on News 23, progressive journalist
Chikushi Tetsuya talked of heat, the heat of Hiroshima city in
August, the heat of flame around the stone tomb interring the
names of those who died in the initial blast and the hibakusha
who pass away in the past year--average age, 79 years old--include
this year six American POW's held in Hiroshima, the arson attack
by a disgruntled, unemployed university student who set flame
to thousands of folded-paper cranes symbolizing peace contained
in one of the monuments, and of course the heat of the bomb blast
itself. It is important to remember this heat, he assured us,
because too many decisions concerning the nuclear threat are
made in the safe, secure confines of air-conditioned caverns.
Until last year, it was the custom of
the Prime Minister to attend a special meeting of hibakusha survivors,
giving them the opportunity to voice their concerns to high politicos.
It is a kind of heat that the current prime minister evidently
cannot stand because he has excused himself for two-year's running.
"He is not listening to us," appealed hibakusha representative
Kaneko Kazushi to the Health and Welfare Minister standing in
the PM's stead.
Adam Lebowitz
teaches at Nihon University and has lived in Japan for 12 years.
He can be reached at: noriko-adam@tokai.or.jp
Weekend Edition Features for August 2/3, 2003
Alexander
Cockburn
Meet the Real WMD Fabricator: Rolf
Ekeus
Tamara
R. Piety
Nike's Full Court Press Breaks Down
Francis
Boyle
My Alma Mater, the University of Chicago, is a Moral Cesspool
David
Vest
Sons of Paleface: Pictures from Death's Other Side
Neve Gordon
Nightlife in Jerusalem
Uri
Avnery
Their Master's Voice:
Bush, Blair and Intelligence Snafus
Robert
Fisk
Paternalistic Democracy for Iraq
Jerry
Kroth
Israel, Yellowcake and the Media
Noah Leavitt
What's Driving the Liberian Bloodbath: Is the US Obligated to
Intervene?
Saul
Landau
The Film Industry: Business and Ideology
Ron Jacobs
One Big Prison Yard: the Meaning of George Jackson
Thomas
Croft
In the Deep, Deep Rough: Reflections on Augusta
Amadi Ajamu
Def Sham: Russell Simmons New Black Leader?
Poets'
Basement
Vega, Witherup, Albert and Fleming
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