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Today's Stories December 18, 2007 R. F. Blader The Politics of Teen Pregnancy December 17, 2007 Mike Whitney Staring Into the Abyss Tom Barry Planning the War on Immigrants Uri Avnery A Gaza Masada? Greg Moses Crossing the Line in Texas Allan Nairn Terrorism; Counter- Terrorism: Excuses for Murder Patrick Bond South Africa's Fight Between Hostile Brothers Stephen Lendman Police State America Charles Jonkel Grizzly Right of Way Laray Polk An Inside-Out Crisis in Gaza Stephen Fleischman Pawns in Their Game December 15 / 16, 2007 Peter Linebaugh A People's Penny for the Magna Carta Howard Zinn Bomb After Bomb Standard Schaefer The Greening of Big Tobacco Raymond J. Lawrence Let's Take Christ Out of Christmas Alan Farago Down on Desolation Row: the Vultures and the Growth Machine Saul Landau Lord Byron and the Bad Tourists Jenna Orkin Lying to "Reassure" the Public: Bush's EPA and the Post-9/11 Toxic Air Cover-Up Ahmad Samih Khalidi Why a Palestinian "State" is a Punitive Construct Robert Fantina Politics By Photo-Op Missy Comley Beattie Resistance Amid the Ruins Ramzy Baroud Of Mormons and Muslims James L. Secor A Vision for China's Future Elijah Wald Ike Turner's Music Won't be Forgotten Website of the Weekend The Alliance for the Wild Rockies Needs (and Deserves) Your Support   December 14, 2007 JoAnn Wypijewski The Dirty Cad: What Giuliani's Sex Life Tells Us About Him John Ross Iraqi Refugees Return: One Cruel Hoax Jacob Hornberger Terror Suspects Belong in Federal Court Andy Worthington Guantánamo and the Supreme Court: What Happened? Allan Nairn "Shoot Them on the Spot": Rewarding War Crimes Dave Zirin The Mitchell Report: Absolving the Owners Dave Lindorff The First Cut is the Deepest Misty MacDuffee Toxic Grizzlies Ben Terrall What Happened to Lovinsky Pierre-Antoine? Dr. Mustafa Barghouthi Prerequisites for Peace Website of the Day Sen. Kit Bond: "Waterboarding is Like Swimming"   December 13, 2007 Paul Craig Roberts Shrinking the Dollar from the Inside-Out Mike Whitney Dershowitz for the Defense--of Waterboarding Ron Jacobs Blank Check DemocratsL the Great War Funding Conspiracy Norman Solomon The USA's Human Rights Daze Peter Morici The Dragon and the Toothless Dog: China Doesn't Flinch Sandy Mayes Blocking the Strykers: 13 Days of War Resistance at Port Olympia Franklin Lamb The UN in Lebanon: Whose Mission Is It Fulfilling? Jacob Hornberger Don't Reform the CIA, Abolish It Nadim Rouhana An Interloper in My Own Land Dave Zirin On Pigskin and Petrol Website of the Day Rachel's Needs (and Deserves) Your Support! December 12, 2007 Allan Nairn US Intelligence is Tapping Indonesian Phones Alan Farago How Sprawl Eats Its Young Ray McGovern Torture, Lies and Videotape Winslow T. Wheeler The Phony Pentagon Budget Cuts Evan Jones The Raid on Great Western: Why an Australian Bank Might Spell Doom for the US Farm Belt James Petras An Open Letter to Sarkozy on the Exchange of Political Prisonsers Joel Hirschorn The Horserace Fiction: Clinton, Obama and the Democratic Machine Joshua Frank Why Ron Paul Deserves Our Attention Sherry Wolf Why the Left Should Reject Ron Paul Dan Bacher Survey of a Fish Graveyard Website of the Day Men Eating Bugs   December 11, 2007 Patrick Cockburn What's Really Happened During the Surge? Diana Johnstone The Next Kosovo War Paul Craig Roberts It's Waco All Over Again: Preventive Detention and the Constitution David Macaray Impasse in Hollywood Ralph Nader Gail Collins Versus the Underdogs Andy Worthington Guantánamo Britons to be Released: a Mixed Result Martha Rosenberg No Holiday for High Risk Sex Workers Steve Champion / Anthony Ross Words for Our Brother, Tookie Williams Kim Nicolini Tangled Up in Dylan Michael Dickinson Say Goodbye to Purgatory: Pope Rat Gets Indulgent Website of the Day A Charming (and Worthy) Pitch December 10, 2007 Uri Avnery How They Stole the Bomb From Us Debbie Nathan The Perils of Journalism and Child Porn JoAnn Wypijewski Is There a Left Here Left? If So, What Can It Do? Steve Kelly Cheap Chips, Counterfeit Wilderness Donna J. Volatile Welcome to the Revolution   December 8 / 9, 2007 Alexander Cockburn The Coup Against Bush and Cheney Brenda Norrell Seize the Land, Chain the Peace Activists Saul Landau The Ruins of Empire R. F. Blader A Rape in Every Drink? Ray McGovern Spinning Iran's Centrifuges Allan Nairn Imposed Hunger in Gaza, the Army in Indonesia Linn Washington, Jr Spotlight on Death Row Paul Craig Roberts When Will Bush Come Clean?   December 7, 2007 Sean Penn Piano Wire Puppeteers Arthur Versluis Mining Water in the Desert M. G. Piety Racism and the American Psyche: Some Thoughts on Race and Intelligence Pam Martens Banksters Gone Wild Alan Farago Will the Free Market Kill Suburbia? Sprawl and the Credit Crisis Allan Nairn It Takes (Out) a Village Col. Dan Smith Bush, Iran and the Politics of Doomsday Alice Slater The Iran Opening Robert Weissman The Story of Stuff Website of the Day Something About Mitt   December 5, 2007 Mike Whitney Why the CFR Hates Putin Sharon Smith The Anti-War Enablers: Tom Hayden and the Dead End Democrats James Petras Venezuela in the Aftermath Ron Jacobs The Iran Charade Dave Zirin Kicking a Dead Man: the Sliming of Sean Taylor John V. Whitbeck Two States or One? Time to Choose Peter Zinn Covered in New Orleans Niranjan Ramakrishnan Impeach Pelosi Instead Alan Farago The Credit Bomb Detonates in Florida Heather Gray US Meddling in Australian Politics Website of the Day A Donner Summit Night Before Xmas   December 4, 2007 Alexander Cockburn Jackboot State Stubs Its Toe in Ann Arbor Andy Worthington Guantánamo and the Supreme Court Paul Craig Roberts The Lies at the End of the American Dream Ray McGovern No-Nuke Iran Winslow T. Wheeler Admiral Mullen and the Defense Budget: When White Elephants are Too Small Allan Nairn The Regime Still Stands in Burma, Where "the People Just Want Food" Russell Mokhiber The USA v. Al Arian Nikolas Kozloff As Chávez Falters: Raising the Stakes for the South American Left John V. Walsh Peace Movement Paralyzed Ghada Ageel Will Peace Cost Me My Home? Stephen Soldz The Facts be Damned!: Psychologists' President Defends Psychologist Involvement in Interrogations Website of the Day Hands Off the People of Iran     December 3, 2007 Tariq Ali Venezuela After the Referendum Bill Quigley New Orleans: Bulldozers for the Poor, Tax Credits for Developers Eric Walberg The Bible and Middle East History Uri Avnery After Annapolis Marjorie Cohn Operation Iraqi Freedom Exposed Dave Lindorff Vengeance Isn't Sweet Stephen Fleischman Homeless in Paradise Martha Rosenberg Perp Walks for the Mink Clad on Chicago's Mag Mile Website of the Day So Just Lead!   December 1 / 2, 2007 Alexander Cockburn Emblems of the Bush Age: Adrift in a Sea of Booze Jeffrey St. Clair The Bear Minimum: the Grizzly and the Future of the Rocky Mountain West Mike Whitney "Iraq Doesn't Exist Anymore": an Interview with Nir Rosen Shemon Salam A Visit From the FBI Roger Burbach The Battle in Bolivia Benjamin Dangl New Politics in Old Bolivia Brian M. Downing The Quiet on the Middle Eastern Front: How Much Credit Goes to the Surge? Greg Moses Night of the Living Redneck: a Texas Horror Story Sonja Karkar The "Never-Never" Peace Conference Saul Landau Ethics and Evil in South Boston Margaret Kimberley Black America Left Behind John Ross What are the Prospects for a New Mexican Revolution? Reza Fiyouzat Exit on the Left: When Che's Children Visited Iran Judith Scherr Berkeley Turns Right for the Holidays Lance Olsen Of Forests and Finance: Logging for the Wealthy Christopher Brauchli Mr. Bush and the Despots Robert Fantina Iraq as U.S. Colony Dan Bacher Fish Triage on Prospect Island Michael Donnelly Remembering How to be Human: John Trudell and the Music of Urgency Website of the Weekend Appalachian Voices   November 30, 2007 Peter Stone Brown The Re-Packaging of Bob Dylan Wajahat Ali The Volatile Mistress: an Interview with Javed Jabbar, Pakistan's Former Minister of Information Allan Nairn Cold-Blooded Celebrity: Thomas L. Friedman and the Bali Bombers Alan Farago The Sorrows of Suburbia: Politics, Sprawl and the Housing Crash John Ross The Death of Latin America's First Revolution Corporate Crime Reporter America's Corporate Crime Capitals Lucia Alvarez Diego Gonzalez Argentina's Political Future James Rothenberg The Iraqi Miracle Website of the Day Bio-Bling?   November 29, 2007 R. F. Blader The Most Dangerous Kind of Bribe Ismael Hossein-Zadeh Distorting Fascism to Demonize Iran Stephen Soldz War on the Couch: Fear, Aggression and Empire Sheldon Richman Iraq 3.0 George Wuerthner Forest Fires, Lies and Chainsaws Felice Pace Did All Things Considered Self-Censor on Annapolis? Col. Dan Smith The Meaning of Annapolis Harvey Wasserman Terror Target Nukes Nikolas Kozloff Primetime Hate Debate: Lou Dobbs, Immigration and Campaign '08 Paul Krassner Huffington Post Bloggers Go On Strike! Dave Lindorff News Not Fit to Print: US Coup Planned for Venezuela? CP News Service The One State Declaration Website of the Day A Native View of Yellowstone Bison Slaughter November 28, 2007 James Petras CIA Destabilization Memo Surfaces on Venezuela Jeff Halper Annapolis: When the Roadmap is a One Way Street Pam Martens Crashing Citigroup Peter Morici Economy in Crisis: Avoiding a Recession Mohammed Khatib Separate and Unequal in Palestine Helen Redmond The Horror and the Hope: Health Care in America William S. Lind In the Fox's Lair: Quiet Before a New Iraq Storm? Ben Tripp We, the People: a Trope for All Seasons Liaquat Ali Khan Pakistan: First, Restore the Constitution and Reinstate the Judges Jeff Berg Holbrooke Says Bush Won't Attack Iran Website of the Day The Lies of Joe Klein   November 27, 2007 Joe DeRaymond On the Road to the Torture School Paul Craig Roberts Meet the Only Two Candidates Worse Than Bush and Cheney: Hillary and Rudy Marjorie Cohn Remembering Victor Rabinowitz Mike Whitney A Dollar the Size of a Postage Stamp Ron Jacobs The Myths of Military Progress Col. Dan Smith The Pentagon's "People System" Still Doesn't Work Ralph Nader Family Learning Karim Makdisi Annapolis and the Unholy Alliance: the View from Beirut Christopher Ketcham Memo to Hollywood Writers: Strike Until You Drop Ronan Bennett Martin Amis Does a Coulter Website of the Day Celebrating the Uncensored Media   November 26, 2007 Kathleen and Bill Christison Heading for Annapolis Paul Craig Roberts The End of All That David Macaray Enter Mediator Sameer Dossani Pakistan's Wounded Dictator Roger Burbach The Final Battle in Bolivia Mark Scaramella Guns and Greed in the Emerald Empire Brian McKinlay Howard's End Rick Kuhn The Fall of a Racist Union Buster Binoy Kampmark Ruddslide and Dull Alec Monica Benderman What Do You Know of War? Brenda Norrell Return to Alcatraz Website of the Day Ghostworld by DJ Spooky   November 24 / 25, 2007 Alexander Cockburn The Ordeal of Catherine Wilkerson, MD Robert Fisk Darkness Falls on the Middle East Saul Landau Norman Mailer will Not R.I.P. Jeffrey St. Clair Justice Stephen Breyer, Cancer Bonds and the Origins of Neoliberal Environmentalism Rannie Amiri Beirut's Black Friday Christopher Brauchli Iraq Embassy as Gilded Palace Daniel Gross The Gap and Black Friday Mike Whitney "A Generalized Meltdown of Financial Institutions" Marjorie Cohn Iran and the 2008 Elections David Rosen Senior Sex: the Real Sexual Life of Aging Americans David Michael Green If Conservatism is the Ideology of Freedom .... Kenneth Rexroth When Euripides Played the Hindu Kush: Greeks and Buddhists in Afghanistan Muhammad Iqbal Trans. Shahid Alam Ghazal Website of the Day Aerial Footage of Delta Fish Kill November 23, 2007 Gary Leupp Killing the Buddha in Pakistan's Swat Valley Laura Carlsen Coming to Terms with Diversity in Bolivia: an Interview with Alvaro Garcia, Bolivia's VP David Macaray Keeping Labor Unions Out Andy Worthington Former Guantánamo Detainee Seeks Asylum in Sweden Clifton Ross Trashing Chavez: Keith Olberman's Toxic Rant Seth Sandronsky Battling Sodexho Dan Bacher Death in the Delta: Thousands of Fish Stranded by Bureau of Reclamation William A. Cook The Myth of Middle East Peace Website of the Day Waiting for the Guards: Stress Techniques as Torture, a Short Film   November 22, 2007 Alan Farago Who Lost America's Everglades? Greg Moses A Thanksgiving Basting Dave Lindorff Impeachment is Back on the Table Mike Ely Native Blood: the Myth pf Thanksgiving Omar Azfar Gore for President of Pakistan?   November 21, 2007 Vijay Prashad Our Dictator, Their Democracy Martha Rosenberg Undercover at a Turkey Slaughtering Plant Manuel Garcia, Jr. Epiphany on the Glacier John Ross The Last Days of Mexican Corn Brian McKenna Cancer Terrorists Unmasked Stephen Soldz Isolation Torture Routine at Guatánamo Monica Benderman Needing Peace Ben Terrall Slavery in the Fields: The Real Price of Sugar Website of the Day Mercy for Animals   November 20, 2007 Oren Ben-Dor Why Israel Has No "Right to Exist" as a Jewish State Wajahat Ali An Interview with Norman Finkelstein Alan Farago The Dark Arts and the Bush Dynasty Marjorie Cohn Musharraf Plays Bush for a Fool Ralph Nader Green is Gold? Andy Worthington Guantánamo Whistleblower Launches a New Attack on Rigged Tribunals Sara Olson When Going AWOL is the Only Escape Dave Lindorff Likelihood of Iran Attack Gains Credence Paul Krassner The First Amendment, a Dialogue Website of the Day Joanne Mariner on Torture November 19, 2007 Winslow T. Wheeler Why Congress Won't Reform China Hand The U.S. Game Plan in Pakistan Allan Nairn Sitting Around Talking, in Indonesia Uri Avnery How to Get Out? David Macaray The Chalice that Poisoned the Labor Movements Dave Lindorff Democrats in Future Shock: They Could Lose It All in 2008! Bill Quigley Twenty Thousand Protest at Ft. Benning; Eleven Face Federal Criminal Trials Ron Jacobs Sitting on the Group W Bench: War, Thanksgiving and Arlo Guthrie Sunsara Taylor Legalized Rights for Fertilized Eggs? Binoy Kampmark Why Steve Irwin--You're Dead! Heather Gray Another Look at W.E.B. DuBois Website of the Day The Meat Market     November 17 / 18, 2007 P. Sainath Neoliberalism's Price Tag: 150,000 Farm Suicides in India David Rosen The Scarlet Hypocrites: Republicans, Christians and the Politics of Adultery Mike Whitney Pentagon Cover Up: 15,000 or More US Deaths in Iraq War? George Wuerthner Saving the Big Wild Brenda Norrell The Case of Jim Main, Jr: In Montana, Indians are Guilty Until Proven Innocent George Ciccariello-Maher Of Submarines and Loose Screws Karim Makdisi Lebanon is Hanging by a Thread Marie Trigona Wal-Mart in Argentina Valerio Volpi The Catholic Church, Incorporated Fred Gardner The Straight-Ahead Runner Robert Fantina The White House Press Office Mike Ferner Thank God for the Senate Republicans! Missy Comley Beattie The Radical Majority Kenneth Couesbouc Circles of Power Patrick O'Hayer A Portrait of Mailer and a Young Poet Poets' Basement Davies, Buknatski and Ford   November 16, 2007 Cockburn / St. Clair The Vices of Hillary Clinton: Secrecy, Intransigence and War Dave Zirin The Indictment of Barry Bonds: Busted by a Broken System Gary D. Barnett A Day in the Life of an Unwilling Federal Agent Alan Farago Sprawl, Mortgage Fraud and Political Corruption Dave Lindorff Two Brothers and Two Scandals Russell Mokhiber Pelosi and Me: "What Should be Done with Those Protesters?" Robert Ovetz Cargo Ships in Paradise: Shipping Lanes Threaten the Yosemite of the Sea Brenda Norrell "Today We Experienced America:" Arresting Indigenous People on the Border David Swanson Wolf Blitzer Loses Democratic Debate Peter Letheby Outside the Box on the Great Plains Website of the Day Why Activism Fails   November 15, 2007 Cockburn / St. Clair Hillary Clinton in Arkansas Adolfo Gilly The Spirit of Revolt Peter Bohmer 10 Days That Shook Olympia Andy Worthington The Trials of Omar Khadr: Gitmo's Child Soldier Gray / Derks Obama's Pitch to South Carolina's Black Churches Affronts Gay Groups Liaquat Ali Khan Liberating Pakistan Dave Lindorff Where's the Party? Christopher Brauchli Tipping Point: the Politics of Gossip Anthony Papa Racism as Law: Crack Cocaine Sentences Martha Rosenberg Merck's Big Write Off Ben Terrall Thank You, Ehren Watada Website of the Day On the Colorado: Drought, Climate Change and Water Supplies November 14, 2007 Cockburn / St. Clair The Making of Hillary Clinton James Petras Venezuela Between Ballots and Bullets Al Giordano Campaign 08: Don't Trust Anyone Over 50 Paul Craig Roberts The Lobby Andy Worthington Innocents and Foot Soldiers Stephen Lendman Torturing Palestinian Detainees Fatima Bhutto Aunt Benazir's False Promises: the Dismantling of Pakistani Democracy Martin Smith Norman Mailer and the "Good War" Jeff Leys Slip Sliding Away: House Votes on War Funding Website of the Day Why the Writers are Striking November 13, 2007 Alexander Cockburn Hillary's Big Problem and How Bill Can Fix It Jeffrey St. Clair Mailer and Us: the Writer as Fighter Robert Bryce The Pakistan Fuel Connection David Macaray The Teamsters and the Hollywood Strike Mike Whitney Bulletins from the Titanic Ralph Nader Pakistani Lawyers vs. American Lawyers Nikolas Kozloff Chavez Blasts the Spanish King Jordan Flaherty Education Versus Incarceration in Tallulah, Louisiana B. R. Gowani Dear Mrs. Bhutto Website of the Day Monty Python: "Fuck You, Very Much FCC"   November 12, 2007 Vicente Navarro Why Hillary's Health Care Plan Really Failed Ben Brown Letter from Ho Chi Minh City: a Tribute to My Vietnam Vet Father Omar K. A Pakistani Lawyer's Testimony: Life Under the Brutal Emergency Sadia Abbas The Roots of Pakistan's Political Crisis: Corrupt Elites and a Kleptocratic Military Farzana Versey Mailer's Miasma Richard W. Behan The Political Crimes of Complicity Paul Krassner Asshole of the Year: Congratulations Tim Russert! Cindy Sheehan Faith and War Peter Stone Brown The Return of Levon Helm Dave Lindorff Dennis, You are Not Alone Website of the Day Police Attack in Olympia   November 10 / 11, 2007 Alain Gresh Uncle Sam's New Backyard: How to Turn a Region into a Graveyard Mike Whitney For Whom the Closing Bell Tolls: the Last Dead Bull on Wall Street Ron Jacobs A View from the Pakistani Left: an Interview with Farooq Tariq Jeffrey St. Clair The First Dambuster: a Coyote Story Alan Farago Tangled Up in Blue: a Brief History of Florida Environmentalism Binoy Kampmark When Language Drowns: Torture in America Robert Fantina Legitimizing Torture Fred Gardner Psychological Torture in the Name of Family Values Ayesha Ijaz Khan The General in His Labyrinth Nicola Nasser NATO's Southward Drift Philip Rizk The Blame Game in Gaza Michael Dickinson Condom Nation: the Pope vs. Terry Higgins Joel S. Hirschhorn The Grand Delusion: a Conspiracy of Two Parties Paul Krassner Flunking Out of the Electoral College Wadner Pierre / Joe Emersberger The Ongoing War on Journalists in Haiti           Subscribe Online

December 18, 2007 This One's for Bela Encounters with Ghadar By VIJAY PRASHAD Last year, I wrote an essay for CounterPunch about the Indo-US agreement. It began with the bravery of my friends Bela Malik and Tommy Mathew, whose protest in Jangpura drew the might of the US secret service and the Delhi police. Bela, an editor and teacher, went into a coma shortly afterwards. She was then in Nepal, where she threw herself into the democracy movement (for those in Kathmandu, there will be a memorial for her at Martin Chautari on the 22nd at 11am). An incandescent light, Bela slipped away on December 16, 2007. She was my first editor and a dear friend. Many years ago, we chatted about the Ghadar movement while roaming around Delhi. This essay helps me remember her humor and intelligence, and above all, her commitment. A few years ago, I sat with Kartar Dhillon in her modest home in Berkeley, California. Kartar, who has lived a very full political life, told me about her brother, Budh. In 1924, twelve-year old Budh marched down to 5, Wood Street in San Francisco to a building known as the Ghadar Ashram. There he volunteered to join a jatha to go and liberate India, a country that he had not yet visited. It was the homeland of his parents, and he told his sister that unless this country was free, their lives in the U. S. would not be pleasant. People would treat them as coolies as long as India remained in British hands. Along with another teenager, Daswanda Singh Mann, Budh joined the Freedom for India Mission and set off across the Pacific Ocean. He did not get to India. En route, through the young Soviet Union, Budh got distracted. The route into India was closed, so he enrolled in the University of Toilers of the East and learnt a little bit about Marxism. Budh Dhillon returned to California and spent the rest of his life as an active militant for freedom and justice for all people. Of such souls was the Ghadar Party made. In 1913, veteran Indian nationalist Har Dayal used the two thousand dollars he had raised from Indian workers in California to buy a house in San Francisco. This house, the Yugantar Ashram initially, became the Ghadar Ashram, and it was from this base that Har Dayal began to publish a paper (initially twenty five thousand copies in Urdu). He named the newspaper Ghadar, Revolt, and its first issue (November 1, 1913) signaled its political views: "Wanted: Brave soldiers to stir up Ghadar in India. Pay: Death. Prize: Martyrdom. Pension: Liberty. Field of Battle: India." A British intelligence agent who had his eyes on Har Dayal reported that by early January 1914, Indian students at Berkeley hoarded arms (twenty revolvers and sixteen Winchester rifles). In 1922, the British Consulate in San Francisco reported, "California is gaining the reputation of a nursery for Revolution and Revolutionary agitators." When World War I broke out, Indians from along the western coast of North America went as if in an exodus toward India to fight British rule. Three Ghadar leaders, Ram Chandra, Bhagwan Singh and Maulvi Mohammed Barkatullah toured the west coast to urge men to join the jathas and cultivate a revolution. A Ghadar song testified to the courage and the idealism of the returnees, "The time for prayer is gone. It is time to take up the sword. Empty talk does not serve any purpose. It is time to engage in a fierce battle. Only the names of those who long for martyrdom will shine." The bulk of the Indian farmers and students who lived along the west coast of North America had deep-set grievances against the British. Their families in India still suffered the indignities and extravagances of British rule, and these exiles continued to feel the stigma of exclusion and racism. It was the British Isles that ruled the bulk of the colonized world, and in particular, a large share of the Indian subcontinent. Indian nationalists in the U. S. made common cause with the Irish republicans. Agnes Smedley, who worked for the Friends for the Freedom of India, wrote of her participation in New York's main Irish nationalist celebration in 1920, "We are in the St. Patrick's Day parade. All the Hindus in the city, practically, will wear native costume and turbans and march. We had the Indian republic flag and banners demanding independence." Both Ireland and India were held in thrall. The longest finger was pointed toward Britain. Of the eight thousand emigrants who returned to India, the British arrested four hundred immediately, while they interned two thousand five hundred more in their villages. Their uprising did not come. Some of their best comrades (291 of them) stood in the dock in the Lahore Conspiracy Case--the bulk of them went to the gallows, or were sent to the Andamans or to the Lahore jail. Idealistic, they came to inspire the Indian army against their British masters. One among their lot, Prithvi Singh Azad, recalled their ethos: "The leaders of the Party in the U. S. A. were badly lacking in political awareness. We, a handful of people, plunged headlong in the field of action and had no mass support. We knew not how to gain mass support and never worked for that. We had been impelled by the impulse to free the nation from foreign yoke. I had been under the sway of a powerful passion to liberate my enslaved nation." Marxism was not available to them in a serious way (neither in India nor in the U. S.). The Anarchists and Syndicalists inspired many of these emigrants (Har Dayal's close confidant was the Anarchist leader Emma Goldman, and many of the radicals worked alongside the International Workers of the World). They wanted to conduct spectacular acts, not organize the bulk of the population for a better world. This was Bhagat Singh's milieu: people like Prithvi Singh Azad, and Sohan Singh Josh. Josh came from Chetanpura, Punjab, the same town as Surat Singh Gill. Both Gill and Josh had tried to go to the U. S., but whereas Gill got a visa (and became Kartar Dhillon's husband), the U. S. embassy denied Josh. Josh grew up around Ghadarite radicals (and as a Communist leader he would write an early history of the movement). It was through Josh that a young Bhagat Singh learnt the history and theory of Communism and Marxism. Ghadar, via the Soviet Revolution, played a central role in the dissemination of socialist ideas among the Punjabi youth. Only marginally did the Ghadar workers turn their attention to the role of U. S. imperialism and of Canadian complicity with British imperialism. The U. S. and Canada allowed the Indian radicals some space to work, although the governments also allowed British intelligence to follow their activities (our reconstruction of their work is made possible by these intelligence reports). When World War I broke out, and many Indian radicals decided to make common cause with Germany, the U. S. and Canadian states went after them (M. N. Roy, for instance, fled to Mexico as a result of this pressure, where he helped found its Communist Party; he was the Mexican delegate to the Comintern meetings where he debated Lenin). The repression provided the opportunity for some among the radicals to write in praise of the U. S. that at the very least had an ethos of republicanism and anti-colonialism--something Britain lacked. For example, Taraknath Das, Har Dayal's associate, wrote an essay for the Calcutta-based Modern Review entitled "American Diplomacy at its Best," which extolled U. S. foreign policy. The members of the Ghadar and other like organizations were well aware of U. S. imperialism. One of Har Dayal's close comrades was John Barry, a leader of the American Anti-Imperialist League (San Francisco branch) and of the Socialist Radical Club. The League was formed in 1898 to oppose the U. S. annexation of Puerto Rico, Cuba and the Philippines. "We hold that the policy known as imperialism is hostile to liberty and tends toward militarism, an evil which it has been our glory to be free," the League declared in its 1899 platform. "We regret that it has become necessary in the land of Washington and Lincoln to reaffirm that all men, of whatever race or color, are entitled to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." Whereas the League took a strong position against imperialism, it promoted a grave illusion about the American Republic: that it had no prior history of expansionist activity. Forgotten in this was one of the causes of the 1776 War of Independence, for the settlers in the original Thirteen Colonies to expand westward. When they did, these settlers and their new state annihilated or pacified the Amerindian residents and annexed large parts of Mexico. Only when this proximate colonization was over did the U. S. state exercise its right to the Western Hemisphere (through the 1823 Monroe Doctrine) and outward into the Pacific (the Hawaiian islands and the Philippines). If Har Dayal and others observed what was ongoing in Central America, they would have seen the future tendency of planetary imperialism. The U. S. government from 1915 onward began to absorb some Caribbean islands (the Dominican Republic, Haiti and Cuba) and Central America (Nicaragua, Guatemala, and Panama) into its economic orbit by frequent military interventions and by the seizure of the economic sovereignty of these small countries. They were not ruled directly by the U. S. government, but their local satraps paid tribute to U. S. power (including to U. S. corporations, such as the United Fruit Company). No longer was imperialism identical with colonialism (for the extraction of resources and the creation of dependent markets); it had now morphed its tentacles into all areas of social life and economic accumulation. Foreign direct investment into Central and South America created a cumulative stock of investment, which in turn generated a return flow of earnings (as the U. S. Marxist Harry Magdoff argued in 1969). Nothing short of a broad, planetary united front against the structures of this form of imperialism would be adequate. In 1915, the African American radical, W. E. B. DuBois (a close friend of many Indian nationalists) wrote an insightful essay, "The African Roots of the War." In this essay, DuBois pointed out that the growth of monopoly capitalism alongside liberal democracy in Europe and North America led to the creation of a large quantum of surplus, some of which was turned over to the white working class (which became an aristocracy among labor). The uneven union of the white working class with their capitalist masters led, DuBois argued, into an intra-national fight over the world's spoils, mainly the "darker nations of the world--Asia and Africa, South and Central America, the West Indies and the Islands of the South Seas. The present world war," DuBois continued, "is, then, the result of jealousies engendered by the recent rise of armed national associations of labor and capital whose aim is the exploitation of the wealth of the world mainly outside the European circle of nations. These associations, grown jealous and suspicious at the division of spoils of trade-empire, are fighting to enlarge their respective shares; they look for expansion, not in Europe but in Asia, and particularly in Africa." This argument would appear two years later, with slightly different emphases, in Lenin's Imperialism. DuBois was greatly interested in developments in India, but his own writings were not to be read by either the Indian political thinkers or by the Indian radicals in the U. S. Only later, in the 1940s, would an Indian radical in the U. S. develop an understanding of the growth of U. S. imperialism. Kumar Goshal (born 1899) had come to the U. S. in 1920, and after a stint in Hollywood, became an ardent proponent of Indian independence (he was also close to leaders of the Communist Party in the U. S.). After 1947, Goshal became a main correspondent for the Courier (an African American paper in Pittsburg), where he wrote an important three part series in December 1953, "People in Colonies Versus the American Colossus." Here, Goshal laid out the contours of U. S. imperialism, "To enlarge their empire during and since World War II, U. S. industrialists and financiers have knifed partners when partners were unable to retaliate; brought up or influenced governments through grants and loans; arranged 99-year leases for military bases on foreign soil; signed trade treaties giving U. S. capital 'equal treatment' with weak domestic capital in economically backward countries; acquired air and naval bases in countries with weak or unpopular governments. No country is too small to escape the eye of U. S. corporations roaming the globe for more profits." Not only did the U. S. state put its considerable power and influence behind U. S. based corporations, but it also found willing allies in the "darker nations" to do its bidding in the name of "modernization" and "democracy." U. S. imperialism was always smarter and more flexible than that of its European forbearers, who quickly became "American" in their own relationship to the rest of the world. Goshal was not known in India, but his line of analysis is not different from those Communists who had few illusions about the Indian bourgeoisie and its tepid commitment to national sovereignty and to national development (Vivek Bald and I are collecting his main writings for an edited volume that should appear in a year or so). We now live under the dispensation of an "American" imperialism, although the U. S. government is simply the leader of an assault for the planetary turbo-elite (including sections of the dominant class in India). The U. S. is now a hollowed out entity (for this one has to take seriously the dramatic effect that "jobless growth" has had on the social lives of the U. S. poor, who now number around 37 million). The U. S. economy has major structural problems, exemplified by the almost U. S. $1 trillion deficit. The deficit is currently buoyed by the Chinese and Saudi purchase of U. S. Treasury bills. In time creditor firms and banks will turn from T-bills to purchase U. S. capital stocks. But the U. S. has one major comparative advantage: its military force. Military power will be the major export of the U. S. to help cover its deficit. Militarism (as DuBois, Lenin and Goshal indicated) is a fundamental aspect of imperialism. To end militarism, one has to work to abolish the nature of capitalist accumulation. Spectacular acts of violence or particular rage at the U. S. is equally misleading. The structures of imperialism make themselves manifest here and there, but not entirely. Broad social and political change is the order of the day, not the removal of this or that regime alone. Bhagat Singh's Naujawan Bharat Sabha wrote a far-sighted manifesto in 1928 that far exceeded the tactical struggle ongoing among these young people, inspired by Ghadar. "Without going into details," they wrote, "we can safely assert that to achieve our object, thousands of our most brilliant young men, like the Russian youth, will have to pass their precious lives in villages and make the people understand what the Indian revolution would really mean. They must be made to realize that the revolution that is to come will mean more than a change of masters. It will, above all, mean the birth of a new order of things, a new state." Three years later, from Lahore Central Jail, Bhagat Singh wrote his letter to political workers. He asked them to form a Communist Party and to begin their ceaseless work among the masses to create a popular will for socialism. In this brief essay, Bhagat Singh returned to the origins of Punjabi radicalism, the Ghadar. "One of the fundamental causes of the failure of the efforts of the Ghadar Party (1914-15)," he wrote, "was the ignorance, apathy and sometimes active opposition of the masses. And apart from that, [an organized party] is essential for gaining the active sympathy of and organizing the peasants and workers." By "ignorance" Bhagat Singh did not mean stupidity as much as lack of access to a broader analysis of oppression and exploitation. This is what an organized movement in constant struggle against power can produce; struggle is, in his own words, a school for the masses. As Bhagat Singh waited in jail, a second group of Ghadar Party radicals entered India. They came with a different purpose. Harbans Singh Basi, Bhagat Singh Bilga, Iqbal Singh Hundal, Chanan Singh, Gurmukh Singh, Prithvi Singh, Teja Singh Swatantar and others came from Moscow not to conduct individual acts of violence or to hope for an uprising in the army. They returned to build the Indian Communist Party. Vijay Prashad is the George and Martha Kellner Chair of South Asian History and Director of International Studies at Trinity College, Hartford, CT His new book is The Darker Nations: A People's History of the Third World, New York: The New Press, 2007. He can be reached at: vijay.prashad@trincoll.edu     Your Ad Here

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