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Today's
Stories
February 9,
2006
Mike Marqusee
The
Human Majority was Right About Iraq
February 8,
2006
Ron Jacobs
The
Once and Future Sly Stone: Soundtrack to a Riot
Stan Cox
Making
and Unmaking History with General Myers
Sen. Russ Feingold
Why
Bush's Wiretapping Program is Illegal and Unconstitutional
Robert Jensen
Horowitz's
Academic Hit List: Take a Class from One of the CounterPunch
16
Rep. Cynthia McKinney
Bush Should Have Wiretapped FEMA and Chertoff
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Alberto Gonzales Channels Mark Twain
Don Monkerud
Covenant Marriage on the Rocks
David Swanson
Inequality and War
C.L. Cook
Nuking Ontario
Christopher
Fons
Chill Out Jihadis: They're Just Cartoons!
Jeffrey Ballinger
The Other Side of Nike and Social Responsibility
Website of
the Day
Encyclopedia of Terrorism in the Americas
February 7,
2006
Edward Lucie-Smith
An
Urgent Plea to Save a Small Estonian Museum from Neo-Nazis
Robert Fisk
The Fury: Now Lebanon is Burning
Paul Craig Roberts
Colin Powell's Career as a "Yes Man"
Neve Gordon
Why Hamas Won
Joshua Frank
The Hillary and George Show: Partners in War
Peter Montague
The Problem with Mercury: a History of Regulatory Capitulation
Jackie Corr
The
Last Best Choice: Public Power and Montana
Jeffrey St.
Clair
Rumsfeld's
Enforcer: the Secret World of Stephen Cambone
Website of the Day
Negroes with Guns
February 6,
2006
Christopher
Brauchli
Spilling
Blood: Two Sentences
Robert Fisk
Don't
Be Fooled: This Isn't About Islam vs. Secularism
John Chuckman
What Did Stephen Harper Actually Win?
Jenna Orkin
Judge Slams EPA for Lying About 9/11's Toxic Air
Paul Craig
Roberts
Who
Will Save America: My Epiphany
February 4
/ 5, 2006
Alexander Cockburn
"Lights
Out in Tehran": McCain Starts Bombing Run
Mike Ferner
Pentagon
Database Leaves No Kid Alone
James Petras
Evo Morales's Cabinet: a Bizarre Beginning in Bolivia
Alan Maass
Scare of the Union: Dems Collaborate with Bush on Surveillance
Fred Gardner
Annals of Law Enforcement: a Look Inside the San Francisco DA's
Office
Ralph Nader
Bush's
Energy Escapades
Bill Glahn
RIAA Watch: Speaking in Tongues
Saul Landau
Freedom 2006: Buying Sex on the Net or Those Older Freedoms?
Laura Carlsen
Bad Blood on the Border: Killing Guillermo Martinez
James Brooks
Our Little Shop of Diplomatic Horrors
Mike Roselle
Hippies and Revolutionaries in Carcacas
John Holt
Black Gold, Black Death: Canada's Oil Sands Frenzy
Sarah Ferguson
Cops Suing Cops ... for Spying on Cops
William S.
Lind
Beware the Ides of March
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
The Price of Globalization: Free Trade or Free Speech?
Seth Sandronsky
The Color of Job Cuts in the Auto Industry
Derrick O'Keefe
Rumsfeld's Hitler Analogy
Michael Donnelly
Hop on the Bus
Ron Jacobs
Religion and Political Power
Elisa Salasin
RSVP to Bush
St. Clair / Vest
Playlists: What We're Listening to This Week
Stew Albert
God's Curse: Selected Poems
Poets' Basement
Guthrie, LaMorticella and Engel
Website of
the Weekend
Killer
Tells All!
February 3,
2006
Toufic Haddad
A
Parliament of Prisoners
Heather Gray
Working with Coretta Scott King
Tim Wise
Racism,
Neo-Confederacy and the Raising of Historical Illiterates
Conn Hallinan
Nuclear Proliferation: the Gathering Storm
Eva Golinger
Rumsfeld and Negroponte Amp Up Hositility Toward Venezuela
Daniel Ellsberg
The World Can't Wait: Invitation to a Demonstration
Dave Zirin
Detroit: Super Bowl City on the Brink
Robert Bryce
The
Problem with Cutting US Oil Imports from the Middle East
Website of
the Day
The Chavez Code
February 2,
2006
Winslow T.
Wheeler
Pentagon
Pork: How to Eliminate It
Stan Cox
Outsourcing
the Golden Years
Rachard Itani
Danes
(Finally) Apologize to Muslims (For the Wrong Reasons)
Mike Whitney
Afghanistan Five Years Later: Buildings Down, Heroin Up
Amira Hass
In
the Footsteps of Arafat: an Interview with Hamas' Ismail Haniya
Norman Solomon
When Praise is Desecration: Smothering King's Legacy with Kind
Words
Michael Simmons
Stew Lives!
Christopher
Reed
Japan's
Dirty Secret: One Million Korean Slaves
Website of the Day
State of Nature
February 1,
2006
Sharon Smith
The
Bluff and Bluster Dems: Alito and the Faux Filibuster
Jason Leopold
Enron and the Bush Administration
Cindy Sheehan
Getting
Busted at the State of the Union: What Really Happened
Joseph Grosso
Oprah
and Elie Wiesel: a Match Made in "Neutrality"
Earl Ofari Hutchinson
Coretta Scott King was More Than Just Dr. King's Wife
Steven Higgs
Life After Roe. v. Wade
Robert Robideau
"God Given Rights": Palestine and Native America
R. Siddharth
Tales of Power: When Gandhi Rejected a Faustian Bargain with
Henry Ford
Jim Retherford
Remembering Stew Albert: the Quiet Genius
Rep. Cynthia
McKinney
The Legacy of Coretta Scott King
Paul Craig
Roberts
The
True State of the Union
Website of
the Day
Candide's Notebooks
January 31,
2006
Jeffrey St.
Clair
Revolutionary
for the Hell of It: the Good Life of Stew Albert
Clancy Chassay
US
Prods Lebanon Towards Civil War
Dave Lindorff
The Democrats' Alito Debacle
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Alito: Harry-Kerry in the Senate
Oren Ben-Dor
Hamas' Victory: a New Hope?
Winslow Wheeler
Pentagon
Pork: What is It? Who Cooks It Up?
John Ryan
Canada: a Chilling Echo of Bush's Republicans
Mike Marqusee
Privatizing
Health Care: the Poor Pay the Price
Ron Jacobs
For Stew
Andrew Cockburn
Why Bush Probably Won't Attack Iran
Website of
the Day
Celebrating Stew Albert
January 30,
2006
Paul Craig
Roberts
Bush,
Fox News and the Coming War on Iran
Winslow Wheeler
Inside
the Pork Shop: the Defense Budget and Congressional Earmarks
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Development Interrupted
Marcus Dam
"The Real Threat is from Imperial Fundamentalism":
an Interview with Tariq Ali
John Bomar
Message to Democrats: the Case Against Pre-War Lying is a Slam
Dunk, Stupid
Ben Beachy
Swindling the Sick: the IMF Debt Relief Sham
Gideon Levy
The Good News About Hamas' Victory
Michael Carmichael
Alito and Opus Dei
Missy Comley
Beattie
Of Losses and Lies
Norman Solomon
The Question Journalists Refuse to Ask Bush
Brian Concannon,
Jr.
Finally Some Good News From Haiti
Michael Ratner
Tomorrow is Today; the Time for
Resistance is Now
Website of
the Day
"I'm So Bored with Capitol Hill"
January 28
/ 29, 2006
Alexander Cockburn
Nicholas
Kristof's Brothel Problem
Ralph Nader
The Impeachable Mr. Bush
Col. Dan Smith
Spying and Lying by the Pentagon
Paul Craig Roberts
Blind Ignorance: Polls Show Many Americans Simply Dumber Than
Bush
Tammara Rosenleaf
Homefront War Diary: On Monday, My Husband Didn't Call
Ron Jacobs
Google This!
Harry Browne
Irish "Peace" Process at Recriminations Stage
Fred Gardner
Grover Norquist, Drug Policy Reformer?
Christopher
Reed
North Korean Forgeries
Bernard Chazelle
France's Colonial Blowback
Daniel Wolff
Radioactive Money, 2005: How Entergy Gets Its Way at Indian Point
Tom Kerr
Small Fry: If You're Not in Power, You'd Better Not Lie
Asad Abu Khalil
The Demise of Fatah
Chris Murphy
The Medicare Disaster
Dr. Susan Block
America Wants a Divorce
Kathy Deacon
Hippocratic Oaf
St. Clair /
Walker / Palmer / Shields
Playlists: What We're Listening to This Week
Poets' Basement
Laymon, Engel, Holt, Davies and Buknatski
Website of
the Weekend
Your Child Can Be a NSA Spook!
January 27, 2006
Suren Pillay
Making
the World Safe for Nuclear Violence, Again
Lawrence R.
Velvel
The
NYT and Alito: Journalistic Schizophrenia
J.L. Chestnut,
Jr
The
Cold Hard Truth: Marching Backwards on Civil Rights
Uri Avnery
To
Talk with Hamas
Gary Leupp
Hamas's Victory: "the Power of Democracy"
Samar Assad
A New Political Landscape in Palestine
Jeffrey St.
Clair
King
of the Hill: Sen. Ted Steven's Empire of Corruption
Website of the Day
Bush Jobs Program: You Too Can Be an FBI Snitch
January 26,
2006
Robert Robideau
An
AIM Activist's View of Jack Abramoff: Another Racist Out to Defraud
Native Tribes
Paul Craig
Roberts
Bolton
Orders Syria to Do the Impossible
Gilad Atzmon
Hamas'
Victory
Jason Leopold
A Vaster Conspiracy?: Fitzgerald Probes Niger Forgeries
Joshua Frank
Iran, Nukes and Oil
Dave Lindorff
Bush Calls Hamas Kettle Black
Susan Lee
An Open Letter to the State Dept. on the Cuban Five
Missy Comley Beattie
A Plea to the Marines: Stop Sending Recruiting Letters to Our
House!
Michael Carmichael
Extraordinary Alito
Michael Neumann
The
Core of Zionism
Website of
the Day
Who Will Stop the Slaughter of Yellowstone's Bison?
January 25,
2006
Saul Landau
Domestic
Spying, Now and Then: When Hoover Bugged Phone Calls with My
Father
James Petras
Is Chile's Bachelet Washington's Best New Ally?
Lawrence R.
Velvel
Alito
and Roberts' Self-Gag Rule is a Phony
Vijay Prashad
From Chennai with Love
Kevin Zeese
Gen. William Odom Supports the Empire, But Opposes the War
Alison Weir
When a Mother Gets Killed Does She Make a Sound? Anatomy of a
Cover-Up
Bruce K. Gagnon
Bush War Economy: Exporting Jobs and Security
Joan Roelofs
Military
Contractor Philanthropy
Website of
the Day
Bob Marley Does Dylan
January 24,
2006
Paul Craig
Roberts
The
Patriot Police: the Unfathomed Dangers of Patriot Act Reauthorization
Kathy Kelly
Liberation
and Deliverance
Jorge Mariscal
Bush's War Viewed from the South
Winslow T.
Wheeler
Smoke
and Mirrors in the Defense Budget
John Walsh
Why We Picket John Kerry: Join Us Friday in Boston
Youmans / Muaddi
The Growing Israel Divestment Movement
Roger Burbach
Bolivia's Evo Morales: Original Mandate for Social Revolution
Fr. Gerard
Jean-Juste
Letter from a Haitian Prison
Noam Chomsky
The Terrorist in the Mirror
Website of
the Day
Big Brother Watch
January 23, 2006
Uri Avnery
Pity
the Orphan: Israel, Hamas and the Palestinian Elections
Susan Pynchon
Diebold in Florida: "I Saw It Hacked"
William Loren
Katz
Harry Belafonte Reaffirms a Proud Tradition
Christopher Brauchli
Bush's IRS: Squeezing the Poor
Chris Floyd
The Goon Show
Joshua Frank
Tre Arrow and ELF: Environmentalism on Death Row
Norman Solomon
The Other Shoe Drops: Classified Leaks and Journalists
Jackie Corr
Working for the Railroad: Racicot and the Burlington Northern
Paul Craig
Roberts
Inside
Cheney's War Workshop
Website of the Day
Arms Against War
January 21/22,
2006
Tim Shorrock
Why
the Buses Didn't Come: Bush-Linked Florida Company and the Katrina
Evacuation Fiasco
Ralph Nader
Congressional
Ethics After Abramoff
Peter Feng
Casualties of War: Neoliberalism, Katrina and the Asian Tsunami
Brian Cloughley
CIA Bombs Pakistan, Hits America
Michael Donnelly
Tapes and Snitches: Feds Hand Down Eco-Sabotage Indictments
Tom Kerr
Crackdown in San Quentin: Why are They Rounding Up Tookie Williams'
Friends?
Tim Matson
Best Not Drive While Black on I-91
(But Walk Tall With the Bloody Chainsaw You Just Topped Your
Neighbor With)
Dave Lindorff
Rumsfeld: Venezuela "Overspending" on Military
Daniel Wolff
Hour of Reckoning: the Gospel Roots of Wilson Pickett
Fred Gardner
"Metabolic Syndrome" is to "Clinical Depression"
as Acomplia is Prozac
Jason Leopold
How Cheney Used the NSA to Spy on Americans Prior to 9/11
Matthew Koehler
Betting on Biscuit: Does Post-Fire Logging Make Ecological (or
Economic) Sense?
John Bomar
The Emperor's Clothes: from Bonaparte to Bush
Ron Jacobs
When Miners March: Struggle and Lose, Struggle and Win!
Becky Akers
Debunking Democracy
Joanne Mariner
Security, Terrorism and Human Rights
St. Clair / Walker / Pollack
CounterPunch Playlists: What We're Listening to This Week
Poets' Basement
Albert, Holt, Engel and Davies
Website of the Day
Osama's Book Club: Featured Selection
January 20, 2006
Brian J. Foley
What
Kind of War Doesn't Allow for a Truce?
Richard Gott
Revolution in the Andes
Joshua Frank
Israel and US Threats Against Iran
Pierre Tristam
Imperial Mongers: From Gladstone to "King George"
Bernstein /
Allegretto
Hourly Wages Have Fallen in 18 of the Last 20 Months
Elizabeth Schulte
Abortion
Before Roe
Website of
the Day
This Dog Bites
January 19,
2006
Paul Craig
Roberts
Political
Machines: Was the 2004 Election Stolen?
Bill Simpich
Those Damn Democrats: To End War, Don't Ask for What You Don't
Want
Kevin Alexander
Gray
Reclaiming King Day (From the NAACP)
Sam Husseini
Rot at the Top: If the Democrats Really Want to Stop Bush, They
Need New Leadership
Sam Smith
The Real Chocolate City
Monica Benderman
Dare to Make a Stand
Winslow T.
Wheeler
Just
How Big is the Defense Budget?
Website of the Day
Leave My Child Alone
January 18,
2006
Paul Craig
Roberts
Gore's
Speech: a Challenge That Cannot be Ignored
Norman Solomon
The Crime of Giving the Orders: Executing Clarence Ray Allen
Jonathan M.
Feldman
The System Doesn't Work Anymore
Michael Carmichael
"Extraordinary Circumstances": the Case Against Alito
Paul D'Amato
The Crimes of Jimmy Carter
Cynthia McKinney
King's Mission Endures
Norman Finkelstein
Why
an Economic Boycott of Israel is Justified
Website of the Day
The Planetary Movement
January 17,
2006
M. Shahid Alam
"Real
Men Go to Tehran": Has al-Qaeda's Gambit Paid Off?
John Ross
Latin
America's Indians on the Move--in Different Directions
Tariq Ali
God, Blood, Oil and Iraq
Michael Donnelly
Killing Anna Mae Aquash, Smearing John Trudell
Amira Hass
No Child Left Unharassed: the Obstacle Course to School in Palestine
Doug Giebel
Alito's CAP: Either He Lied on His Resumé or There's a
Cover-Up
Bill Quigley
MLK Day in a Haitian Prison
Ron Jacobs
Meet the Son of Jim Crow: MLK Day Below the Mason/Dixon Line
Mike Stark
Governor on a Killling Spree
Werther
The Liberties of the Subject
January 16, 2006
John Walsh
Tears
of a Neocon: The Good News from Daniel Pipes
Earl Ofari
Hutchinson
Black
Students Under Fire: Racial Profiling in Public Schools
Roger Burbach
Bachelet's
Victory: Leftward Drift in Chile?
Norman Solomon
Ted Koppel, NPR and Henry Kissinger: a Natural Fit?
Robert Jensen
Dreams and Nightmares: How Would King Judge America?
Sam Husseini
Martin Luther King and the Deeper Malady
Paul Craig
Roberts
Bush
Crosses the Rubicon
Website of the Day
MLK: Beyond Vietnam
January 14
/ 15, 2006
Alexander Cockburn
What
the FBI Repairman Wore When He Tried to Bug Edward Said
JoAnn Wypijewski
What
is an Antiwar Movement?
James Petras
The State of the Empire, 2006
Ron Jacobs
Fifteen Years of War: Who's Better Off?
Brian Cloughley
Fly Boys and Lie Boys: Smart-Bombing Iraqi Families While They
Sleep
Marianne McDonald
The Madness of Ajax: a Play for Our Time
Bruce Tyler Wick
Bush on Torture Echoes Charles I on Arbitrary Imprisonment
Fred Gardner
A Last, Desperate Plea to Stay in Canada
Flavia Alaya
Victory at Passaic County Jail
Gary Leupp
A Neocon Plan to Plant WMDs?
Dr. Susan Block
Peeping Tom in the Bush: Nonconsenual Voyeurism and the NSA
Nicole Colson
The House Jack Built: The Abramoff Giude to Buying Friends and
Influencing Politics
Jeffrey Kolakowski
Senator as Illusionist: the Hypocrisies of John McCain
Missy Comley
Beattie
The Stepford Hearings of Samuel Alito: The Senator, the Weepy
Wife and a Secret Annoiting
Charles Thomson
Is Serota Dead in the Water?: the Ofili Scandal at the Tate
St. Clair /
Walker / Vest
Playlsts: What We're Listening to This Week
Poets' Basement
Albert, Engel, Ford and Davies
Website of
the Weekend
Historians Against the War
January 13,
2006
Ralph Nader
The
Two Questions the Senate Should Have Asked Alito
Leonard Weinglass
The
Singular Story of the Cuban Five
Amira Hass
Prisoners in Their Own Land: 800,000 Palestinians Sealed Off
by IDF in West Bank
Chris Kutalik
/ Jennifer Biddle
Airline Workers Fight Back
Lawrence R. Velvel
Alito and the Democrats
Dave Lindorff
Eight Who Dared: a (Short) Congressional Honor Roll
Mike Whitney
Countdown to War with Iran?
David Price
How
the FBI Spied on Edward Said
January 12,
2006
Jennifer Van
Bergen
The
Unitary Executive: Why the Bush Doctrine Violates the Constitution
Jeremy Brecher / Brendan Smith
Command Responsibility: Torture and Legal Accountability
Lawrence R.
Velvel
Alito
Refuses to Answer Fundamental Questions
Ralph Nader / Robert Weissman
Corporations, Originalism and the Bill of Rights: an Open Letter
to Justice Scalia
Jackie Corr
Killing the Big Sky's Golden Goose: Marc Racicot and the Deregulation
of Montana Power
Jared Bernstein
The Wage Doldrums
Russell D.
Hoffman
New Horizons in Space, New Lows in Government
Aubrey Streit
I Was Born in a Small Town: the Fate of Rural America
Clancy Sigal
Hugh
Thompson and My Lai: He Broke Ranks; He Did the Right Thing
Website of the Day
Nukes in Space
January 11,
2006
Kevin Zeese
NSA
Spied on Baltimore Peace Group (And They've Got the Documents
That Prove It)
Ray McGovern
The
Big Wiretap
Allan Maass
/ Joe Allen
Schwarzenegger's
Hit List: Smearing Mandela, Killing Tookie
Earl Ofari
Hutchinson
Snatching at King's Legacy: Mythmaking, Profiteering & Outright
Distortions
Annie Murphy
Evo Morales' Sweater
Allan Lichtman
Abramoff's
Kind of Big Government
Ramzy Baroud
Politics of Chaos: Gaza's Turmoil in Context
Joshua Frank
MoveOn Surrenders to Hillary
Kathleen and
Bill Christison
"Eating
Palestine for Breakfast": the Real Sharon
Website of
the Day
Memoirs of Rummy's Geisha
January 10,
2006
Uri Avnery
The
Post-Sharon Landscape: Three Fingers, No Fist
Saul Landau
Different
Americas
Noam Chomsky
Beyond the Ballot: Iraq, Iran and China
Brian J. Foley
Playing with Fire: Congress and Executive Power
Lenni Brenner
The War Within the Antiwar Movement
Ronan Sheehan
Sheehan to Sheehan: Cindy Sheehan's Irish Interview
Paul Craig
Roberts
Bush's
Con Jobs
January 9,
2006
Behzad Yaghmaian
Who
is to Blame for the Deaths of the Sudanese Refugees?
George Bisharat
US
Aid to Israel is Out of Hand
Dave Lindorff
How the US Press Squelches Bush Impeachment Drive
Norman Solomon
Smoke a Marlboro, Then an Iraqi: How Media War Images Distort
Not Inform
Christopher Brauchli
The Generosity of Credit Card Companies
Aharon Shabtai
A Poet's Letter on the Occupation
Andrew Cockburn
How
Many Iraqis Have Died Since the US Invasion in 2003?
January 7 /
8, 2006
Lawrence Velvel
The
NYT's Unconscionable Decision to Sit on the NSA Story for a Year
James Petras
AIPAC on Trial: Them or US
J.L. Chestnut
Racism and Injustice in Alabama's Courts
Mike Ely
The Dead Miners in Sago
Andrew Wilson
The Dying of Ariel Sharon
Lila Rajiva
Two Moms Go to Capitol Hill
William Cook
The Rape of Palestine
Ramor Ryan
The Sub Motorcycle Diaries: On the Road with the Zapatistas
Thomas Kleine-Brockhoff
An Interview with Michael Scheuer on the CIA's Rendition Program
Peter Montague
Inherit the Wind: the Global Spread of GMO Crops
Ron Jacobs
Would Ethan Allen Pay to Protest?
Neve Gordon
Images of Real Eco-Terrorism in Twaneh
Fred Gardner
Business as Usual in San Diego
Josh Mahon
Idaho Timber Industry Leader Advocates Violence Against Green's
Mom
Dr. Susan Block
Abramoff Family Values: the Lobbyist Who Screwed Us All
Jeffrey St. Clair
Playlist: What I'm Listening to This Week
Poets' Basement
Albert and Engel
Website of the Weekend
Bush Crimes Commission
January 6,
2006
José
Pertierra
Posada
Carriles May Soon Hit the Streets
Joe Allen
Gary Freeman's Struggle: a Black Radical from the 1960s Fights
Extradition to the US
Winslow T. Wheeler
Huge Defense Budget, Lousy Equipment
John Bomar
A Former NSA Officer on Snoopgate: the Squawkers Should be Congratulated
Jason Leopold
Snoop and Shred
Norman Solomon
Axis of Fanatics: Netanyahu and Ahmadinejad
Robert Pollin
Remembering
Harry Magdoff: the Man Who Explained the Empire
January 5,
2006
Scott Boehm
Big
Profits, Buried Lives: Bulldozing the Dead in New Orleans
Zoltan Grossman
New
Challenges for the Antiwar Movement
Heather Gray
Whistling
Dixie Yet Again
Haninah Levine
Simple
is Dangerous: the Pentagon's Plan for a Manhattan Project on
IEDs
Pierre Tristam
The Sham of Homeland Security: a West Virginia Parable
Remi Kanazi
Stroke of Luck?: Political Hemorrhage in Israel
Gilad Atzmon
Sharon
Meets His Maker
Kathleen and
Bill Christison
What Hillary Clinton Doesn't Know About Palestine
January 4,
2006
Ron Jacobs
Pity
the Miner: A-Diggin' My Bones
Lila Rajiva
Terror
Hits Bangalore
Huibin Amee
Chew
Why
the War is Sexist
Pat Williams
How the West Turned: Biting the Hands That Steal
Linda Milazzo
The House That George and Jack Built: Ownership Society Meets
the Entrepreneurial Style
Nick Dearden
The Fantasy of "Even-Handedness": Blair's Cynical Policy
on Palestine
James Petras
Evo
Morales: All Growl, No Claws?
Website of
the Day
Rat Out a Lobbyist for Jesus
January 3,
2006
James Ridgeway
Pakistan,
Saudi Arabia and 9/11: How Much Did the Bush Administration Know?
Laith al-Saud
Iraqi
Intellectuals and the Occupation: an Interview with Dr. Saad
Jawad
Dick J. Reavis
Border
Walls: the View from Mexico
Joshua Frank
Hillary Clinton, AIPAC and Iran
Rochelle Gause
Inside Rafah: Collective Punishment as Normalcy
Missy Comley
Beattie
How My Mother Went from a Republican to a Screaming Progressive
Paul de Rooij
A Glossary of Dispossession
January 2,
2006
Paul Craig
Roberts
A
Gestapo Administration
Clancy Sigal
A Trip to the Far Side of Madness
Cindy Sheehan
A Tour of Europe: Friends Don't Let Friends Commit War Crimes
Alexander Cockburn
A
NYT Editorial Contemplates Iraq
|
February
9, 2006
All
This from the Danes, the Least Funny People on Earth
The Cartoons That Shook the World
By RICHARD NEVILLE
The moving finger draws, and
having draws moves on,
nor all your piety nor wit, shall lure it back to cancel half
a line.
You have to feel sorry for the Danes,
the least funny people on earth. Melancholia is their forte,
angst their heritage. Over the years these former Vikings have
tried to lighten their psychic load with an output of fairytales,
sickly pastries and slick pornography, but to no avail. On the
world's stages, Hamlet and Ophelia keep playing out their tragic
destiny in a castle near Copenhagen, reinforcing the national
stereotype: gloomy, introverted, grief ridden.
To be or not to be, is not
the question. It's to speak or not to speak. To publish or prohibit.
To think aloud or wrap your conscience in a flag or faith. The
printing of the controversial cartoons in the Jyllands-Posten
(Jutland Post), was not--thankfully - motivated by a desire to
introduce the world to Danish humor. The aim was less of audacious.
It was seeking a response to the spread of self censorship in
the wake of religious intolerance. A Danish academic had been
brutally bashed for reading extracts from the Qur'an to non Muslim
students. A Dutch filmmaker, Theo van Gogh, had been murdered
for his critique Islam's attitude to women. The Jutland Post
asked the board of the Danish Editorial Cartoonist Union--probably
a cabal of grim depressives on the brink of suicide--to invite
its members to "draw Mohammed as they see him". Twelve
artists responded. The result was published last September, today
Danish embassies are in flames, people are dying, the cartoonists
are on the run.
Who started the fire? Free speech is under assault from fundamentalists
of all persuasions. A high profile Christian minister much loved
by the White House has again called for the assassination of
Hugo Chavez, the democratically elected President of Venezuela,
on the grounds that his views are a threat to Americans. "Chavez
calls Bush a war criminal", gasps Pat Robertson on Fox News.
The interviewers agree: "the
world would be better off without him".
Such views are vile, but I
will campaign for the right to hear them expressed. If their
calls for assassination had been directed at George Bush, Tony
Blair or John Howard, these bigots would be hauled behind bars
as roughly as Cindy Sheehan was hauled from her seat at the State
of the Union address, due of the words on her t-shirt: 2245 Dead.
How many more?
Despite its claim to be fighting
for freedom, the US military is no believer in freedom of speech.
In Iraq, Al Jazeera offices are bombed, numerous independent
journalists are shot or "detained". A cartoon in the
pro war Washington Post commenting on the horrific injuries facing
the "battle hardened" troops elicited a letter of outrage
from six Joint Chiefs of Staff. The real outrage, of course,
is that such men are still bombing the dwellings of Iraqis, Afghanis,
even Pakistanis. The Rolling Stones lyrics are censored at Superbowl.
Australian artist, Azlan McLennan, burnt holes in his country's
flag and hung it from a Melbourne art gallery billboard, captioned
"Proudly unAustralian". The police swooped. All this
madness in the same few days.
Standing up for free speech is not always easy. How quickly the
mighty Google succumbed to commercial imperatives by censoring
its search engine to appease Beijing. Last November, historian
David Irving was arrested in Austria for two speeches he made
in 1989, during which he allegedly claimed there had been no
gas chambers at Auschwitz. It is a crime in Austria to minimise
the atrocities of the Third Reich and the historian faces up
to 10 years imprisonment if found guilty, notes the BBC. Despite
the good intentions of the lawmakers, this is a ridiculous affront
to the right of citizens to believe what they like. Once Irving
is locked up, who's next?
Okay, so why are the rampaging
Muslims so angry? The caricatures of Mohammed are mild--this
is the most outrageous. One cartoon is even funny, a first for
the Danish Editorial Cartoonist Union, with its depiction of
the Prophet standing on a cloud, greeting ascended suicide bombers
with the warning, "Stop, stop, we're fresh out of virgins!"
It reminds me of an Easter Monday cartoon I once printed in a
student paper, which caused a storm. It depicted an anthropologist
emerging from the burial cave of Jesus with skeletal remains,
shouting "call off the holiday, I've found his bones".
How tame it seems now, how wild it seemed then.
Having been prosecuted on two continents for publishing satirical
cartoons, I am well aware of the power of the pen to inflame.
The embassy-burning Muslims are wrong to riot on several counts.
1) All religion is superstition,
so by definition its core claims are open to doubt and a bit
of a laugh.
2) If God/Allah really exists,
then he/she personifies the best of humankind and can thus take
a joke. A heaven without humor is hell.
3) Besides, there's a rich
lore of jocularity and anti authoritarian wisdom in the epigrams
of Muslim mystics, the Sufis. ("You will not attain Truth
until a thousand honest people have testified you're a heretic"--the
Junaid of Baghad). Young Muslims are making waves on the comedy
circuit
4) If a mere caricature, and
Danish at that, can send the faithful into a spasm, then the
cartoon is only the catalyst, not the cordite. Could the psychic
explosion be a way of distracting doubt; perhaps your faith is
not as solid as it should be, or you sense it may not be the
sole measure of human worth. You try to crush these qualms by
running amok.
5) To be shocked by the views
of others can be beneficial to mental health.
6) Medieval Muslim artists,
renaissance Christians, modern scholars and commercial hacks
have often created paintings, illuminated manuscripts, book covers
and contemporary drawings depicting Mohammed in full face. Numerous
examples are presented
here.
Perhaps the cartoon riots are
more an expression of rage against the West, than a defence of
the dignity of Mohammed. And who can blame this rage? Over 100,000
Iraqis have been killed and at least thrice that number maimed.
Citizens are worse off now than under the tyranny of Saddam--less
oil, less electricity, less clean water, less security--and they're
still under the thumbs of Marines, mercenaries and misfits. Just
as fish cannot see the water in which they swim, the Bush administration
is oblivious to the river of blood soaking its armpits. In the
TV footage of rioting Muslims in Syria, one placard stood out:
The West has entered a Dark Age. That much is true. Both sides
are blinded by belief, so let's use free speech to open each
other's eyes, or our tongues will turn to lead.
Richard Neville can be reached through his website
The Future This Week.
This piece first appeared
in the Sydney Morning Herald, Feb 8/2006.
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