Bulletin #198
SUBJECT: ON MAINTENANCE OF THE
"NEW ORDER" : FROM THE CENTER FOR THE
ADVANCED STUDY OF AMERICAN INSTITUTIONS AND SOCIAL MOVEMENTS,
Dear Colleagues and
Friends of CEIMSA,
This summer, while
re-reading
History as a way of learning has one additional value beyond
establishing
the
nature of reality and posing the questions that arise from its complexities
and
contradictions. It can [also] offer examples of how other men faced up to the
difficulties
and opportunities of their eras. Even if the circumstances are noticeably
different,
it is illuminating, and productive of humility as well, to watch other men
make
their decisions, and to consider the consequences of their values and methods.
If the issues are similar, then
the experience is more directly valuable. But in either
case the
procedure can transform history as a way of learning into a way of breaking
the
chains of the past.
For by watching other men confront the disparity between existing
patterns of thought
and a
reality to which they are no longer relevant, the outsider may be encouraged to
muster
his own moral and intellectual courage and discipline and undertake a similar
re-examination
and re-evaluation of his own outlook.
Professor Williams then
proceeds to develop three essential themes of the Weltanschauung of
upper-class groups in England and the United States from the time of the
Elizabethan Era to the 20th century : the fragmentation of society,
imperialist expansion (or "Growth"), and the commitment to private property.
These three over-riding concerns, according to Williams, have governed the
thinking of the Anglo--Saxon ruling classes for more than five centuries.
Sooner or later the fact must be faced, wrote Williams in the 1950's : there can be no society without the formation of
authentically democratic communities. Escapism and false promises will only
serve to further the fragmentation of society and its eventual disintegration,
he warned.
Another era, another
place:
And in general, we desire and
command each of you, if you value our favor
and good
graces, to be sure --no matter where you go or come from, no matter
what you
hear or see-- to bring us back nothing but pleasant news.
The privileged did not
want their peace of mind disturbed by bad news. Their fragile delusions of
"a world apart" required that strict measures be taken to assure
protection from the truth. This was the job of their servants.
As many citizens of
The constant presence of
death and suffering on such a large scale reduced normal restraints as well,
and according to Boccaccio all semblance of social order began to dissolve : families fell apart, thugs roamed the streets,
homes were invaded, and the constabulary ceased to function.
The fact was that one citizen
avoided another, that almost no one cared for
his
neighbor, and that relatives rarely or hardly ever visited each other -they
stayed
far apart. This disaster had struck such fear into the hearts of men
and
women that brother abandoned brother, uncle abandoned nephew, sister
left
brother, and very often wife abandoned husband, and -even worse, almost
unbelievable-
fathers and mothers neglected to tend and care for their children,
as if
they were not their own.
The value of human life
was reduced to almost nothing, as dead bodies were piled on streets in front of
houses and churches, and eventually dumped unceremoniously into mass graves
"like so many destroyed goats."
This was the late middle
ages, when superstition was used as an instrument of control to achieve social
order. The ramparts of the social system lay in ruin due to the Plague, and
"God's incomprehensible punishment" became a common justification to
ignore humanity. Each individual tried to find a means to survive as
traditional bonds of family, friends and social class interests were greatly
weakened. The effects were similar to those of modern warfare. . . .
Today, at the start of
the third millennium, War has become the greatest plague to humankind.
Medieval superstition has been supplanted by a naive faith in individualism.
The once credulous peasant has been replaced by the modern consumer, who is
also effectively alienated from any practical knowledge of cause and effect,
and instead is made totally submissive to "the powers that be", while
their rulers take the necessary precautions to protect their political
advantage.
Returning to William Appleman Williams, his collection of essays include an
analysis of the "danger of social dysfunction" recognized by people
from all social classes, through the factionalism, the fragmentation, and the alienation
most of them experience. Historic attempts to address these problems have given
life to a variety of ideologies. Both radical Christianity
(represented by the Levellers during the English
Revolution, and not to be confused with Christian fundamentalism today) and secular
socialism (developed by Karl Marx) held that these social dangers could
only be resolved --and mankind restored to an authentic wholeness-- by the
creation of an egalitarian commonwealth "de-emphasizing private
property in favor of social property and through the
co-operative building of a community rather than the mere construction
of an organized collective system."
In contrast to this
revolutionary challenge to individual property rights, a variety of
ruling-class ideologies embraced private property as necessary
and desirable. The followers of these ideologies looked to different religious
and secular traditions: Jean Calvin developed the conception of a corporate
Christian commonwealth, "in which the trustee accepted and discharged
the responsibility for the general welfare," and of course privately
benefited there from. A second tradition involved the feudal ideal of noblesse
oblige, with its notion of an elite custodianship over society. This
ideology also elevated private property over public property. A third ruling
class ideology relied upon the secular argument that economic expansion
offered the only possible way to protect private ownership of property, which
had the virtue of "improving the general or collective welfare."
This latter current in
ruling-class thought prevails in America today: the ideal that by example or by
force, if necessary, possessive individualism, expansionism and democracy can
replace the revolutionary premise of abolishing private property, a proposition
which has periodically threatened privilege and power in American society for
generations.
According to Williams,
this fundamental contradiction between freedom and equality produced in
At the beginning of the
20th century, before the great cataclysms of Word Wars One and Two, Eugene Debs
challenged Americans "to mature", "to put away childish
things", and to confront "the only real frontier" available to
them --namely, the chance to create the first truly democratic socialism in the
world. However the "open gate of escape" from opportunities for
meaningful community and mutual responsibility protected private property
and promoted possessive individualism as primary forces which would
swell and eventually challenge the very existence of our species.
To follow the course of
man-made catastrophes in the 20th century is to witness the great power that a
very small group of men have had over the lives of literally billions of men,
women and children. Again and again we can see how war has been initiated by a
small group of men; then once begun, it proceeds to
drag untold millions of people relentlessly in its wake toward their
destruction. This vortex, once initiated, always lasts much longer than was
foreseen, and it is usually irreversible.
The historical importance
of William Appleman Williams' essays, most of which
were written in the 1950s and 60s, is that they constitute an authentic
effort to come to terms with ideologies as social constructs. By
examining ideologies as reflections of specific class interests, Williams is
able to delineate the history of these ideas and explain how they have been
frequently plagued by self-defeating contradictions. From the point of view of
radical democracy, these social constructs are always inadequate when they fail
to address the fundamental issue of private property rights.
Following the path of his
mentor, Gabriel Kolko (who was a student of Williams'
at
Among the several
articles recently received by CEIMSA this summer, we see the development a
growing challenge to President Bush's "New World Order":
Item A. is an article by Greg Palast describing the Weltanschauung of President
Bush after Hurricane Kristina killing field in
Item B. is a report on President
Bush's efforts to isolate himself at his vacation retreat in
Item C. is a discussion of the
collaboration of Republicans & Democrats by Ralph Nader,
who finds inspiration in the organizational tactics of the famous
Item D. is a report sent by TruthOut on media censorship as journalist number 66 is
killed by
Item E. is an article by Edward
Herman on President Bush's pursuit of democracy abroad.
Item F. is a report by Dahr Jamail on Toshikuni Doi's new documentary
film, Falluja 2004.
Item G. is an article sent to us
by Monty Kroopkin on Hurricane Katrina and the
political effect in New Orleans and the
area.
And finally, item H. is a short article sent
to us by Michael Albert in which he recounts an optimistic view of social
movements this fall on American campuses, plus an analysis by Michael Parenti of ruling-class evasiveness concerning criminal
negligence leading to mass deaths in
And finally,
Sincerely,
Francis McCollum Feeley
Professor of American
Studies/
Director of Research
Université Stendhal-Grenoble III
http://dimension.ucsd.edu/CEIMSA-IN-EXILE/
______________________
A.
from Greg Palast
Subject: Bush Strafes New
BUSH STRAFES
by Greg Palast
The National Public Radio news
anchor was so excited I thought she'd piss on herself: the President of the
United had flown his plane down to 1700 feet to get a better look at the flood
damage! And there was a photo of our
Commander-in-Chief taken looking out the window. He looked very serious and concerned.
That was yesterday. Today he played golf. No kidding.
I'm sure the people of
There is nothing new under the
sun. In 1927, a Republican President had
his photo taken as the
In 1927, the Democratic Party had
died and was awaiting burial. As
depression approached, the coma-Dems, like Franklin
Roosevelt, called for balancing the budget.
Then, as the waters rose, one
politician finally said, roughly, "Screw this! They're lying! The President's lying!
The rich fat cats that are drowning you will do it again and again and
again. They lead you into imperialist
wars for profit, they take away your schools and your hope and when you
complain, they blame Blacks and Jews and immigrants. Then they push your kids under. I say, Kick'm
in the ass and take your rightful share!"
Huey Long laid out a plan: a
progressive income tax, real money for education, public works to rebuild
At the time,
Huey Long was called a
"demagogue" and a "dictator." Of course. Because it was Huey Long who established the
concept that a government of the people must protect the people, school, house,
and feed them and give every man or woman a job who
needs one.
Government, he said, "We The People," not plutocrats nor Halliburtons,
must build bridges and levies to keep the waters from rising over our
heads. All we had to do was share the
nation's wealth we created as a nation.
But that meant facing down what he called the "concentrations of
monopoly power" to finance the needs of the public.
In other words, Huey Long founded
the modern Democratic Party. Franklin Roosevelt and the party establishment,
scared senseless of Long's ineluctable march to the
White House, adopted his program, called it the New Deal, and later The New
Frontier and the Great Society.
And now is the moment, as it was in
'27. As the bodies float in the streets of
Seventy-six years ago this week,
Huey Long was shot down, assassinated at the age of 43. But the legacy of his
combat remains, from Social Security to veterans' mortgage loans.
There is no such thing as a
"natural" disaster. Hurricanes
happen, but death comes from official neglect, from tax cuts for the rich that
cut the heart out of public protection.
The corpses in the street are victims of a class war in which only one
side has a general.
Where is our Huey Long?
I realize that the middle of rising
flood is a hell of a bad time to give Democrats swimming lessons; but it's act up now or we all go under.
**********
A pedagogical note: As I travel
around the
I suggest starting with this: read
"Huey Long" by the late historian Harry T. Williams. If you want to
ease into it, get the Randy Newman album based on it (Good Old Boys) with the
song, "
____________
Greg Palast
is the author of the New York Times bestseller, The Best Democracy Money Can
Buy. Subscribe to his commentaries or view his investigative reports for BBC
Television at www.GregPalast.com
_______________________
B.
from TruthOut
The Independent (
Across the Tracks at
by Andrew Gumbel
There could have been no starker symbol of the political divisions
vexing George Bush's
On one side of the tracks was the Crawford Peace House, base camp for
the activists who have poured in to support Cindy Sheehan, the bereaved mother
of one of America's Iraqi war dead who has become the political sensation - and
lightning-rod - of the summer with her simple but powerful gesture of parking
herself in front of the presidential ranch to demand an explanation for the
death of her son, Casey.
On the other side, along Crawford's main drag, were clusters of an
entirely different breed of protester - ardent Bush supporters outraged at what
they saw as Ms Sheehan's disloyalty and disrespect for the sacrifices of the
Tellingly, there was little or no contact between the two sides. Each
remained firmly encased in its own bubble, with Cindy Sheehan telling her
supporters how much she loved them "for drinking the smart Kool-Aid",
while some of the more eccentric Bush supporters accused her of "working for
the devil" and "blaspheming" against her president.
In the end, both sides had to feel disappointed by the turnout for the
final weekend of summer madness - no more than a few thousand people all told.
The counter-demonstration failed spectacularly in its aim of outnumbering the
anti-war activists by three or four to one, as chartered buses turned up
half-empty, and cars adorned with "You don't speak for me, Cindy"
bumper stickers created a traffic jam stretching only one block rather than the
miles the organisers had hoped for.
The grassroots passion remained predominantly with the activists at
Ms Sheehan has evolved into a remarkably self-assured public speaker,
proving that she knows how to stir her own crowd. She noted with distaste that
the president had been flying in and out of his ranch by helicopter to avoid
having to look the peace protesters in the eye. She likened the ranch to the
heavily guarded Green Zone in
The ardour she has inspired is undeniable.
Joan Baez intended to come for one day, but ended up sleeping next to the field
of crosses for three nights to ensure there could be no repeat of the incident
a fortnight ago when an angry pro-war trucker ploughed them up.
Jeff Key, an anti-war Iraq veteran, tried to make contact with his
fellow veterans on the other side of the debate a few days ago and said they
found a remarkable degree of common ground - not least an acknowledgement that
they loved their country enough to be willing to die for it. Of the duelling weekend demonstrations, though, he said:
"This is not a forum for discussion. We know what they think. What's at
stake is that
The Sheehan campaign won't end when the Crawford circus packs up and
leaves town. She intends to hound congressional leaders as well as the White
House on their position on
_______________________
C.
from Ralph Nader
Dear Friend,
The Democrats in Congress have the
power to block John Roberts from becoming the next Supreme Court justice.
Will they?
They will not.
The Democrats in Congress had the
power to block Christopher Cox from becoming the chair of the Securities and
Exchange Commission.
Did they?
They did not.
The Democrats in Congress had the
power at least to block Condoleezza Rice and Alberto Gonzales.
Did they?
They did not.
The Democrats in Congress have the
power to propose impeachment proceedings against George Bush for the
fabricated, illegal boomeranging war in
Will they?
They will not.
Almost every major progressive
leader in
They understand that the Democratic
Party is gone.
But you know what?
If Hillary Clinton is nominated in
2008 by the Democrats to run for president, they will support her.
They will support her even though
she is a corporate Democrat who opposes us on the war in
They will abandon their principles,
their constituents, and the lessons of history and support her.
As they supported John Kerry in 2004
even though he was a corporate Democrat in the Hillary mold who stood
four-square against us on the war, on the military budget, on national health
insurance, on a national living wage.
Heres the point:
We will not shake off this yoke by
playing follow the leader.
This is going to take new energy.
Young and old
alike.
But active.
Bottom up.
People who
recognize first and foremost that the two corporate parties do not speak for
the people.
They are history.
The new ones will connect person to
person with their fellow citizens and fire up the country. They are the future.
We dont
know the names of the new energizers yet.
We will find out soon.
We do know the names of those who
turned their backs on Nader/Camejo in 2004 and
supported the corporate Democrat.
And these are people who I predict
will likely swallow hardand unconditionally support
the corporate Democrat in 2008.
So, what to do?
One person I greatly admired growing
up was Saul Alinsky, the great community organizer
from
Unlike the Democratic Party, Alinsky knew organizing.
He knew that you need to organize
people around issues they can understand.
Issues that hit
home.
Issues that they
can win.
Even if it meant issues as mundane
as parking or potholes.
Alinsky wanted the people to organize
bottom up.
And win to gain
confidence for the larger struggles.
Recently, Ive been reading an amazing
558-page, largely ignored biography of Alinsky.
Let Them Call Me
Rebel: Saul Alinsky, His Life and Legacy by Sanford Horwitt.
And it has brought back good
memories.
It becomes a contest of power those
who have money and those who have people,Alinsky
said. We have nothing but people.
Once, at a dinner party, the poet
Carl Sandburg called labor leader John L. Lewis a "reptilian, treasonous
rat" because Lewis refused to support Franklin Roosevelt's campaign for
re-election.
Alinsky replied to Sandburg You say John L.
Lewis is ruthless maybe he is but he has fought all of his life against the
most ruthless and destructive forces known to our alleged civilization."
Over the past couple of months, we
have been traveling the country, speaking out against the most ruthless and
destructive forces known to our alleged civilization,as Alinsky put it.
And things are changing.
For example:
At my suggestion, the National
Council of Churches is sending an urgent message to all of their members to
ring their church bells one ring for each
And one long bell for the Iraqis who
lost their lives that day.
On Sunday, the bells could be rung
at the same time everywhere in the memory of the weeks' total casualties.
These bells of sorrow and reminder
will result in millions of Americans thinking and talking with one another
where it counts - in communities North, South, East and West.
Alinsky said We'll
see it when we believe it.
I believe it.
We'll see it together.
Sincerely yours,
Ralph Nader
_____________________
D.
from TruthOut
Reuters
US Forces Kill Reuters Journalist
A
The death brings to 66 the number of
journalists and their aides killed in
The soundman, Waleed
Khaled, 35, was struck by a bullet to the face and at
least four to the chest as he drove to investigate a report from police sources
of an incident involving police officers and gunmen in the Hay al-Adil district in western
Reuters colleagues who arrived shortly
after the attack said that the wounded cameraman, Haider
Kadhem, said, "I heard shooting, looked up and
saw an American sniper on the roof of the shopping center."
He was detained by
Two Iraqi colleagues who arrived on
the scene minutes after the shooting were detained, but soon released.
The
"After discovering an abandoned
car with explosives material, weapons and a cellphone,
units began searching the area for the terror suspects who were believed to
have fled on foot."
Mr. Khaled
had worked for Reuters for two years. He is survived by a wife and daughter.
David Schlesinger, Reuters global managing editor,
said: "This tragic incident must immediately be investigated thoroughly
and impartially."
______________
E.
From: Edward Herman
Subject: The Farce of the Bush
Pursuit of Democracy Abroad--While Undermining It at Home
Date:
Mon, 29 Aug 2005
The Farce of the Bush Pursuit of Democracy Abroad--
While Undermining
It At Home
by Edward S. Herman
The Bush rationale for the
invasion-occupation of
The liberation and democratization
objectives were brought to the fore only after it was definitively established,
and could not be hidden from public view, that the primary objectives had rested on lies, and were
war-marketing claims advanced by a group determined to attack and
whose intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy."
With the collapse of those claims something more was needed, in retrospect and
to justify a continuing occupation and restructuring of Iraqi society.
Liberation and democratization filled the bill nicely, noble objectives whose
alleged pursuit could cover over less
noble ends such as seizing assets, establishing bases, and working toward
longer term political control.
But if a group that had lied its way into an aggression-occupation subsequently
shifted objectives, with the Leader now claiming a new vision and aim to
democratize the world, minimal honesty and intelligence would seem to demand scepticism and a careful search for real motives and
objectives. To a remarkable degree the mainstream media and intellectuals
eschewed any such critical examination and took the new objectives at face
value. If this is so, than all the news fit to printis
not dictated by any quest for truth but by the demands of service to the state.
It took some remarkable evasions and
the swallowing of some
eminently challengeable official claims to perform this state propaganda
service. Truly independent media would
have carefully examined whether the democracy objective was consistent with the
broad aims and interests sought by the Bush administration; whether in the
light of those broader aims and interests alternative objectives might be
identified that were being pursued under
cover of democratization; whether the
new objective was consistent with observable Bush policy across the board or was only applied selectively; and whether
the Bush conception of democratization might be designed to yield a nominal
democracy lacking in substance, with an Arab facadeas
the British used to call their forms employed in Iraq in earlier years.
With very minor exceptions neither
the mainstream media nor liberal intellectuals and the cruise missile lefthave raised such questions. They adhere closely to a de
facto party line, based almost entirely on the Bush claim to be working for democracy as his prime objective,
along with the supposedly supportive evidence of the U.S organization of the January 30, 2005 national election in Iraq,
plus the work of the U.S. government and
its allies in places like Yugoslavia, Georgia and the Ukraine.
A first problem with taking Bushs proclamation of the democracy objective at face value
is the well-established fact that he works in close coordination with Karl
Rove and Frank Luntz, who have built
a tradition of recommending saying what
will resonate and sell irrespective of truth. A second is that every leader who
attacks another country claims a noble objective, so common sense and honesty tells
us we must discount such claims to virtually zero; and in Bushs
case this need is reinforced by the fact that the noble objective came forth as
a fall-back position.
A third problem is the evidence that
the Bush team aimed to further project power in the
A fourth problem is the consistency
of the democracy aim with the record and broader interests of the Bush
administration. Those interests are mainly business interests, and we can see
how a war in Iraq and perpetual war
against terrorism might serve those interests in enlarging areas of
economic domination, including oil resources, increasing arms business for the
military-industrial complex, and providing
lucrative contracts for Halliburton,
Bechtel et al. to
build bases abroad and rebuild in areas devastated by bombs. It also serves
those interests by creating a patriotic and distracted moral environment under
whose cover regressive economic policies can be carried out. Democracy
would appear to have no place in servicing these ends and interests, except for
providing a formula that will resonate with the public and obscure real aims.
Bush has claimed that his wars aim
at protecting the U.S. citizenry, but the exposed lies on Saddam's WMD show that the Iraq
invasion-occupation had nothing to do with U.S. security, and it is now the
view of knowledgeable observers (including the CIA) that invasion-occupation, along with the carte
blanche support of ethnic cleansing in Palestine, are major sources of whatever
security threat U.S. citizens face. As this blowback effect was probably
recognized by the Bush team, increased insecurity was very likely part
of the Bush plan and serves his program well in justifying further arms and
violence.
A fifth problem is the selectivity of application of the
Bush vision. The Bush team has found no problem with authoritarian rule in
Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgistan, Pakistan, and post-Aristide Haiti, and it
pushes aggressively for democratization only in countries whose governments it
opposes for reasons that have nothing to do with democracy. The administration is deeply concerned
about the supposed democratic deficiencies of
Venezuala, whose democratic credentials
greatly surpass those of the states
mentioned above, and arguably even of the
A sixth problem is that Bush's
notion of democracy
is almost surely Orwellian, eschewing anything like a genuine rule of the people. A major feature of nominal
democracies today, and perhaps even more so those in the
Those in occupied countries, like
the elected government of Iraq, are in an even more severely dependent
position, with the occupying army serving as the pacifying arm of the elected
leaders, and its political representatives still the de facto rulers of the state
establishing policy, controlling the media, paying the wages of government workers and contractors, building bases, and training security forces to fight the
insurgency. With reference to
A final problematic with Bushs democracy quest abroad is that democracy has been
eroding at home and the Bush administration has significantly accelerated that
erosion.
The Patriot Act and its successor
have seriously weakened constitutional protections of the rights of
individuals; the stuffing of the courts with amenable right-wing judges has
threatened the independence of the judiciary and constitutional rights; corrupt
election practices, the force of money, and the exploitation of fear threaten a one-party state, the
breakdown of the checks and balances
system, and unconstrained executive power. Is it plausible that the man
managing this process of
democracy erosion at home is devoting large resources to its
pursuit abroad? The issue is not addressed in the propaganda system.
The Bush team gets away with all
this because the propaganda system works so well at this juncture. The media
are increasingly commercial and concentrated, and now have a powerful
right-wing sector that makes no bones about serving as an instrument of Bush propaganda. That right-wing sector also
operates with an open patriotic ardor that puts competitive pressure on the
rest of the media to display their own belief in "my country, right or
wrong," and the rightwingers also attack the
laggards with a flak that helps keeps them close to the party line. The easy
route pursued in the mainstream is press release journalism, asking no critical
questions, and allowing lies to flourish, to be challenged if at all too late
to affect reality. (A classic New York Times editorial, published five
years after the paper had swallowed a lie on the Soviet Union's shooting down
of Korean airliner 007 that gave the Reagan administration a propaganda
windfall, was entitled The Lie That Was Not Shot Down [Jan. 18,
1988].)
Most of the liberal intelligentsia
stay within the national consensus, which quickly forms in support of whatever venture
abroad their leaders have undertaken. They want to be loved, to be publishable
in the New York Times, and to be influential in guiding the Democrats in
quest of power. They also have a visceral hostility to the left, partly no
doubt out of guilt for their own abandonment of principle in favor of pragmatism, partly because left analyses show them to be
on shaky ground in terms of both fact and morality. The result is that the
liberals make the drastic assumption that even the Bush teams motives are
benign: thus George Packer says that the Bush team has "an almost
theological conviction that American power is by nature good and what follows
in its wake will be freedom and democracy"(War and Ideas,New Yorker, July 5, 2005). Packer shows what a harsh liberal critic he is by challenging this
alleged theological conviction, but note the unargued
and apologetic assumption about the Bush teams democratic beliefs.
Packer goes on to say what he has
said elsewhere, that "For better or for worse, its
a fight in which
Packer undoubtedly means interest in
pursuing that theological conviction that we will bring freedom and democracy.
That is of course the premise of that masterpiece of aggression-occupation
apologetics in the New York Times by Michael Ignatieff
(Who Are Americans To Think That Freedom Is Theirs To Spread?, June 28,
2005), but that work deserves more attention that I can offer here (but will
give it in the October issue of Z Magazine).
______________
F.
from Dahr Jamail
Date:
Subject:
New on DVD: Falluja 2004
(A film by Japanese independent
journalist Toshikuni Doi)
Falluja April 2004 : A documentary by Japanese
independent journalist Toshikuni Doi
http://www.progressiveportal.org/store/
Fallujah has
become a symbol of the resistance movement against the
Toshikuni Doi is a
Japanese journalist who has been covering
ORDER ONLINE AT : http://www.progressiveportal.org/store/
"For a well documented,
powerful film of what really occurred in Fallujah
during the April, 2004 siege, this is a must see. The film
begins by investigating why the resistance
began in Fallujah shortly after the Anglo-American
invasion of
-Dahr Jamail
In addition, here is a petition
against a film being made about Fallujah in
and wide :
To Patricia McQueeney,
Mr Ford's agent :
Harrison Ford has announced that he
wishes to play the role of the general in charge of the assault and seige of Fallujah, in an upcoming
movie to be entitled No True Glory. This action resulted in the destruction of
a whole city and the loss of many thousand innocent lives, and caused over
300,000 people to become homeless, while the insurgent Iraqis mostly slipped
away, to attack again from elsewhere. We do not trust
this film. We ask the studios to examine
history before they rewrite it. We ask Mr Ford to
read up on the truth. "And the truth shall set us free."
http://petitiononline.com/b7qrlb5/petition.html
http://www.petitiononline.com/b7qrlb5/petition.html
______________________________________________________
More writing, photos and commentary
at http://dahrjamailiraq.com
_________________
G.
from Monty Kroopkin
Date: Thu,
Subject: Fw:
Bush Nixed Funding That Could Have Saved
Francis,
As the war's unpopularity
soars, there will be millions asking, Why is the
National Guard in
Monty
CounterPunch,
A
Reverence for Property Over People
Bush Nixed Funding
That Could Have Saved
By ALEXANDER
COCKBURN
and JEFFREY ST. CLAIR
Tuesday night, as water rose to 20 feet through
most of
The
reverence for property is now the underlying theme of many newscasts, with
defense of The Gap being almost the first order of duty for the forces of law
and order. But the citizens looking for clothes to wear and food to eat are
made of tougher fiber and are more desperate than the polite demonstrators who
guarded The Gap and kindred chains in
Also
on Tuesday night the newscasts were reporting that in a city whose desperate
state is akin the
As the
war's unpopularity soars, there will be millions asking, Why
is the National Guard in
As
thousands of trapped residents face the real prospect of perishing for lack of
a way out of the flooding city, Bush's first response was to open the spigots
of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve at the request of oil companies and to order
the EPA to eliminate Clean Air standards at power plants and oil referiners across the nation, supposedly to increase fuel
supplies--a goal long sought by his cronies at the big oil companies.
In his
skittish Rose Garden press conference, Bush told the imperiled people of the
It
didn't have to be this bad. The entire city of
As the
This
year the Bush administration slashed funding for the New Orleans Corps of
Engineers by $71.2 million, a stunning 44.2 percent reduction from its 2001
levels. A Corps report noted at the time that "major hurricane and flood
protection projects will not be awarded to local engineering firms. . . . Also,
a study to determine ways to protect the region from a Category 5 hurricane has
been shelved for now."
Work
on the
"It
appears that the money has been moved in the president's budget to handle
homeland security and the war in
These
are damning revelations that should fuel calls from both parties for Bush's
resignation or impeachment.
The
greatest concern for poor people in these days has come from President Hugo
Chavez of
No
politician in
Maybe
the terrible disaster along the Gulf coast will awaken people to the unjust
ways in which our society works. That's often the effect of natural disasters,
as with the Mexican earthquake, where the laggardly efforts of the police
prompted ordinary citizens to take matters into their own hands.
_____________
H.
from Michael Albert
Subject: Update & Two (Albert & Parenti) Commentaries from ZNet
http://www.zmag.org/weluser.htm
Embark Now
by Michael Albert
In the
What's coming to NYU,
Tumult, turmoil,
tension, and resistance? Rejection and revolt? That's what ought to
happen. It's what I hope will happen.
Flash back to May 1970: Richard
Nixon announced the invasion of
350,000 faculty members actively
participated in strikes. Buildings were shut down. Highways were blocked.
Campuses were closed. Nixon's Scranton Commission reported that roughly three
quarters of all students supported the strikes. Pollsters reported that within
campuses alone over a million people claimed to favor revolution and called
themselves revolutionaries. In early 1971 the New York Times reported that four
out of ten students, about three million people, thought a revolution was
needed in the
the youth rebellion behind it, together
threatened the very fabric of society and thereby helped end a war and turn the
country's mentality inside out and upside down. Racism was under seige. Sexism was in retreat. Suburban culture was
tottering. A gigantic war machine felt shackles. Even capitalism had cracks.
But the desire to attain a better world did not last sufficiently long or grow
sufficiently wide to replace Washington's White House and Wall Street's corporations
which, instead, went on producing greed and domination. Capitalism's
institutional persistence slowly eroded and even devoured my generation's
aspirations for solidarity and self management.
Flash forward thirty five years to
next week: Imagine students back on their campuses. Do they discuss what
courses to take? Ways to hook up with new guys or gals? Upcoming
athletic seasons? I'd be surprised if not, but I hope students' also
focus on war and peace. I hope they focus on
Fall is what they want out of life,
spiritually, emotionally, intellectually, and yes, materially, and how they are
going to get it
consistent with their working hard for
everyone else getting it too.
Imagine students asking why their
curriculums produce ignorance about international relations, ignorance about
market competition's violations of solidarity, sagacity, and sustainability.
Imagine students
deciding enough is enough. Maybe one particular student who wears a
funny hat and has a history of being aloof, or perhaps one who looks straight
as a commercial and was high school class most likely to have a million
friends, will write a song about masters of the universe - and unseating them.
Maybe another student will write about floods drowning people's hopes, and
about a rising tide of our own compassionate creation lifting people's
prospects. Maybe another student will write about resurgent racism and sullying
sexism, and then about combative communalism and feminism and their time
finally coming. And maybe students will hum the new tunes and sing the new
lyrics - and rally, march, sit in, occupy, all while waving a big, solid fist.
Imagine students not just sending
out emails to their friends and allies, but entering dorms and knocking on
every door, initiating long talks, communicating carefully-collected
information and debating patiently-constructed arguments that address not only
war and poverty, but also positive prospects we prefer.
Imagine students earmarking
fraternity and sorority members, athletes, and scholars, for conversation,
debate, incitement, and recruitment. Imagine students come to see their
campuses as places that should be churning out activists and dissent and come
to see themselves as having no higher calling than
making that campus-wide dissent happen.
Imagine students schooling
themselves outside the narrow bounds of their colleges, learning that there is
an alternative to cutthroat competition and teaching themselves to describe
that alternative and to inspire others with it, to refine it, and especially to
formulate and implement paths by which to attain it.
Imagine students, now sharing many
views and much spirit, angry and also hopeful, sober and also laughing, sitting
in dorms and dining areas forming campus organizations, or even campus chapters
of a larger encompassing national community of organizations - perhaps
something called students for a participatory society this time around - or
even students for a participatory world - and maybe even having each chapter
choose its own local name. Dave Dellinger SPS. Emma Goldman SPS. Malcolm
X SPS. And for
that matter, Rosa Luxembourg SPS, Emiliano Zapata
SPS, Che Guevara SPS. And so on.
Imagine, in short, students rising
up with information, relentless focus, and some abandon too, becoming angry,
militant, and aggressive, but keeping foremost mutual concern and outreaching
compassion.
Imagine all this pumping into the
already nationally growing
associations and union gatherings
and church cells and GI resistance, a youth branch willing to break the laws of
the land and to push thoughts and deeds even into revolutionary zones. Imagine
students singing, dancing, marching, and law breaking up a storm.
That is something the antiwar
movement, the anti corporate globalization movement, the movement for civil
rights and against racism and sexism, the movements for local rights against
environmental degradation, the movements for consumer rights against corporate
commercialism, and the labor movement too, all need. We need youth.
Imagine young people, with time,
energy, heart, and mind, discerning that they are being coerced by society most
often to become passive victims, sometimes to become passive agents,
occasionally to become active perpetrators but only as cruel and rich
beneficiaries of society's injustices. Imagine students seek more and other.
Imagine they hunker down for the long haul, much better equipped and much
better oriented than my generation ever was.
I think, I hope, students are about
to not only reject statist war and corporate greed,
but to carry that rejection into positive advocacy and anger that gives entire
campuses and not small sub communities sustained commitment. That will be a
ticket to a new world for everyone, a ticket much better than old style
graduation into the morally decrepit world all around us. This trip is long.
But why not embark now?
and
How the Free
Market Killed
by Michael Parenti
The free market played a crucial
role in the destruction of
They announced that everyone should
evacuate. Everyone was expected to devise their own way out of the disaster
area by private means, just as the free market dictates, just like people do
when disaster hits free-market
It is a beautiful thing this free
market in which every individual pursues his or her own personal interests and
thereby effects an optimal outcome for the entire
society. This is the way the invisible hand works its wonders.
There would be none of the
collectivistic regimented evacuation as occurred in
On Day One of the disaster caused by
Hurricane Katrina, it was already clear that hundreds, perhaps thousands, of
American lives had been lost in
It was not until Day Three that the
relatively affluent telecasters began to realize that tens of thousands of
people had failed to flee
because they had nowhere to go and no means
of getting there. With hardly any cash at hand or no motor vehicle to call
their own, they had to sit tight and hope for the best. In the end, the free
market did not work so well for them.
Many of these people were low-income
African Americans, along with fewer numbers of poor whites. It should be
remembered that most of them had jobs before Katrina's lethal visit. That's
what most poor people do in this country: they work, usually quite hard at
dismally paying jobs, sometimes more than one job at a time. They are poor not
because they're lazy but because they have a hard time surviving on poverty
wages while burdened by high prices, high rents, and regressive taxes.
The free market played a role in
other ways. Bush's agenda is to cut government services to the bone and make
people rely on the private sector for the things they might need. So he sliced
$71.2 million from the budget of the New Orleans Corps of Engineers, a 44
percent reduction. Plans to fortify
Bush took to the airways and said
that no one could have foreseen this disaster. Just another
lie tumbling from his lips. All sorts of people had been predicting
disaster for
In their campaign to starve out the
public sector, the Bushite reactionaries also allowed
developers to drain vast areas of wetlands.
Again, that old invisible hand of
the free market would take care of things. The developers, pursuing their own
private profit, would devise outcomes that would benefit us all.
But wetlands served as a natural
absorbent and barrier between
As for the rescue operation, the
free-marketeers like to say that relief to the more
unfortunate among us should be left to private charity. It was a favorite
preachment of President Ronald Reagan that "private charity can do the
job." And for the first few days that indeed seemed to be the policy with
the disaster caused by Hurricane Katrina.
The federal government was nowhere
in sight but the Red Cross went into action. Its
message: "Don't send food or blankets; send money." Meanwhile Pat
Robertson and the Christian Broadcasting Network---taking a moment off from
God's work of pushing John Roberts nomination to the
Supreme Court---called for donations and announced "Operation
Blessing" which consisted of a highly-publicized but totally inadequate
shipment of canned goods and bibles.
By Day Three even the myopic media
began to realize the immense failure of the rescue operation. People were dying
because relief had not arrived. The authorities seemed more concerned with the
looting than with rescuing people. It was property before people, just like the
free marketeers always want.
But questions arose that the free
market did not seem capable of answering: Who was in charge of the rescue
operation? Why so few helicopters and just a scattering of Coast Guard
rescuers? Why did it take helicopters five hours to get six people out of one
hospital? When would the rescue operation gather some steam? Where were the
feds? The state troopers? The
National Guard? Where were the buses and trucks? the
shelters and portable toilets? The medical supplies and
water?
Where was Homeland Security? What
has Homeland Security done with the $33.8 billions allocated to it in fiscal
2005? Even ABC-TV evening news (
In a moment of delicious (and
perhaps mischievous) irony, offers of foreign aid were tendered by
Besides, to have accepted foreign
aid would have been to admit the truth---that the Bushite reactionaries had neither the desire nor the
decency to provide for ordinary citizens, not even those in the most extreme
straits. Next thing you know, people would start thinking that George W. Bush
was really nothing more than a fulltime agent of Corporate America.
___________________
Michael Parenti's
recent books include Superpatriotism (City
Lights) and The Assassination of Julius Caesar (New Press), both
available in paperback. His forthcoming The Culture Struggle (Seven
Stories Press) will be published in the fall. For more information visit : www.michaelparenti.org
____________
I.
from Richard Du
Boff
Subject: Foreign perspectives:
"
World stunned as
US struggles with Katrina
by Andrew Gray
LONDON (Reuters) - The world has
watched amazed as the planet's only superpower struggles with the aftermath of
Hurricane Katrina, with some saying the chaos has exposed flaws and deep
divisions in American society.
World leaders and ordinary citizens
have expressed sympathy with the people of the southern
But many have also been shocked by
the images of disorder beamed around the world -- looters roaming the
debris-strewn streets and thousands of people gathered in
"Anarchy in the
The pictures of the catastrophe --
which has killed hundreds and possibly thousands -- have evoked memories of
crises in the world's poorest nations such as last year's tsunami in
But some view the response to those
disasters more favorably than the lawless aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
"I am absolutely disgusted.
After the tsunami our people, even the ones who lost everything, wanted to help
the others who were suffering," said Sajeewa Chinthaka, 36, as he watched a cricket match in
SINKING INTO ANARCHY
Many newspapers highlighted
criticism of local and state authorities and of President Bush. Some compared
the sputtering relief effort with the massive amounts of money and resources
poured into the war in
"A modern metropolis sinking in
water and into anarchy -- it is a really cruel spectacle for a champion of
security like Bush,"
A female employee at a multinational
firm in
Commentators noted the victims of
the hurricane were overwhelmingly African Americans, too poor to flee the
region as the hurricane loomed unlike some of their white neighbors.
"In one of the poorest states
in the country, where black people earn half as much as white people, this has
taken on a racial dimension," said a report in
Luxembourg Foreign Minister Jean Asselborn, in a veiled criticism of
"You see in this example that
even in the 21st century you need the state, a good functioning state, and I
hope that for all these people, these poor people, that the Americans will do
their best," he told reporters at a European Union meeting in
David Fordham, 33, a hospital
anesthetist speaking at a
===============================
Le
monde (2 Sept 2005)
La
presse américaine et européenne de plus en plus virulente
à l'égard de l'administration Bush
LEMONDE.FR | 02.09.05 | 17h08 * Mis à jour le 02.09.05 | 17h53
Le chaos règne toujours sur La Nouvelle-Orléans,
plusieurs jours après le passage du cyclone Katrina. A
tel point que Kathleen Blanco, gouverneur de la
Louisiane, a déploré, vendredi 2 septembre, que les renforts ne soient pas
assez rapides à arriver. La presse américaine, ainsi que la population,
s'interroge de plus en plus : pourquoi une telle lenteur des secours ? Comment
expliquer l'impréparation du gouvernement face à une catastrophe prévisible ?
"Comment
est-il possible que le gouvernement ait été aussi peu préparé pour une crise
aussi largement annoncée ?", se
demande le quotidien Washington Post. Alors que George Bush déclarait
hier, sur un ton fataliste, que personne ne pouvait prévoir que les digues,
censées protéger La Nouvelle-Orléans, ne tiendraient pas, le journal riposte :
"Les experts ont depuis longtemps mis en garde contre la topographie
unique de la ville et sur sa vulnérabilité." "La réponse molle"
des autorités "a rendu aigries et en colère des dizaines de milliers de
personnes attendant une aide, la plupart d'entre elles pauvres et noires, très
souvent vieilles et malades", ajoute le quotidien.
USA Today, l'unique journal national, souligne le fait que les
Noirs et les pauvres sont les plus touchés par la crise humanitaire qui s'est
développée dans le sud des Etats-Unis, notamment en Louisiane. Selon le
quotidien, la responsabilité du chaos revient aux autorités de cet Etat. "Les
gens qui ne pouvaient ou ne voulaient pas quitter La Nouvelle-Orléans sont
d'une manière écrasante des pauvres et des Noirs. Comme sont les pilleurs",
relève le journal, qui estime que les autorités auraient dû anticiper le risque
de troubles de l'ordre public."La plupart des pauvres n'ont pas de
voitures, ce qui les a empêchés de quitter la ville. Manquant d'argent,
beaucoup se sont aussi retrouvés sans endroit où aller. Sans éducation,
beaucoup n'ont pas saisi l'importance de la menace, et en mauvaise santé, ont
été trop faibles pour survivre", estime USA Today.
Même le Wall Street Journal, proche de l'administration républicaine
de George W. Bush, estime que les autorités sont en partie responsables du
chaos. "Les Américains attendent parfois trop de leur gouvernement -
comme leur assurer des prix de l'essence bas - mais ils sont en droit qu'il
leur fournisse au moins la sécurité, même et peut-être a fortiori lors des
crises."
Le New York Times pointe du doigt la mobilisation
de la garde nationale pour l'Irak. En effet, un tiers des membres de la garde
nationale de la Louisiane combat actuellement en Irak et, de fait, n'a pas pu
participer aux secours, précise le journal.
"UN
TIERS-MONDE DANS SES FRONTIÈRES"
La presse
européenne est unanime : le cyclone Katrina a rendu
apparent l'énorme décalage entre la superpuissance technologique des Etats-Unis
et son incapacité à faire régner la sécurité après les ravages de Katrina.
"L'Amérique regarde, décontenancée, un tiers-monde
dans ses propres frontières, fracassé et violent, écrit le quotidien allemand Die Welt.
Des pilleurs armés humilient des policiers en sous-effectifs. Dans le Superdome de La Nouvelle-Orléans (...), 20 000 personnes
végètent comme dans un camp pour réfugiés de guerre", ajoute le
quotidien conservateur. Cette catastrophe "se transforme pour le
président, quelques mois après le début de son deuxième mandat, en une
répétition du 11 septembre [2001], cette fois-ci en politique
intérieure", juge, pour sa part, le quotidien de centre gauche Süddeutsche Zeitung.
"Tiers-monde, USA" titre le quotidien autrichien Der Standard
(centre gauche). "Katrina, écrit-il, a
rendu visible de façon choquante l'énorme décalage entre l'appareil
technologique supérieur de la superpuissance et les conditions dignes du
tiers-monde de l'arrière-pays aux Etats-Unis". Le journal viennois
souligne que "sous le climat idéologique du gouvernement Bush, on
considère la population noire pauvre au mieux avec un mélange de désarroi, de
désintérêt".
Le grand journal
populaire Kronen-Zeitung commente "la
déraison américaine" : "l'écologie et les scientifiques
unanimes nous préviennent depuis des décennies. Nous n'avons pas entendu. Et
une nouvelle fois, l'Amérique est à la tête de ceux qui se bouchent les
oreilles". Die Presse (centre droit) dénonce "la chasse
aux sorcières" de l'administration Bush"contre les chercheurs
qui expliquent ces catastrophes par le réchauffement climatique et l'effet de
serre".
La presse
francophone belge dénonce l'incapacité du "pays le plus riche de la
planète" qui "laisse les plus démunis, pauvres, malades, âgés,
livrés à eux-mêmes face à un cataclysme prévisible et... prévu", écrit
Le Soir, tandis que La Libre Belgique s'interroge sur ce que
"le gouvernement américain a retenu du 11-Septembre pour mieux répondre
aux situations d'urgence".
"BUSH
PARAÎT ENGLOUTI DANS SA PROPRE INCOMPÉTENCE"
Pour le Daily Mail britannique, l'impuissance des Etats-Unis
est la même que celle qu'ils démontrent en Irak. "Voilà une
superpuissance qui peut renverser comme elle veut une dictature, mais qui est
si enlisée dans les conséquences de la guerre qu'elle se retrouve incapable de
répondre de manière adéquate aux difficultés de dizaines de milliers de ses
citoyens frappés par une catastrophe naturelle", écrit-il.
Même son de cloche
en Espagne. "Le gouvernement Bush paraît englouti dans sa propre
incompétence", écrit El Pais, qui souligne que cette
"tragédie a aussi une lecture sociale". Pour El Mundo (centre droit), cela "met en évidence les
points faibles d'un pays qui, occupé (...) par ses aventures impériales,
a négligé des sujets bien plus importants, comme le bien-être des ses
habitants". Les deux quotidiens notent que les militaires américains
ont été appelés à l'aide mais qu'ils se trouvent majoritairement déployés en
Irak, "essayant d'aider une population qui ne veut pas d'eux et très
loin du lieu où les contribuables ont besoin d'eux".
En Italie, La
Stampa souligne aussi que "l'ouragan emporte Bush accusé d'avoir
envoyé en Irak les soldats qui auraient pu éviter le désastre", et
Il Messaggero (conservateur) relève que
"l'argent pour la protection civile a été détourné vers l'Irak". La
Repubblica (centre gauche) compare le sort de La Nouvelle-Orléans à celui
de Pompéi, la cité engloutie par l'éruption du Vésuve lors du déclin de
l'Empire romain.
Avec AFP et Reuters
************************
Francis
McCollum Feeley
Professor of American Studies/
Director of Research at
CEIMSA-IN-EXILE
http://dimension.ucsd.edu/CEIMSA-IN-EXILE/