The depth and breadth of bipartisan commitment to the US empire among America’s political elite is best seen in the House vote on HR 282, the “Iran Freedom Support Act,” essentially a bill to “make U.S. sanctions against Iran under ILSA permanent unless there is a change of government in Iran”1: YEAS NAYS PRES […]
Geography Archives: Iraq
Iran’s Western Behavior Deserves Criticism
If imitation is the highest form of flattery, Iran must really adore the American model of state conduct. Contrary to popular perceptions, the decision-makers in Tehran agree with their nemesis, Akbar Ganji, who recently told the Voice of America that the West was “the cradle of civilization.” Two recent moves by Iran are especially noteworthy […]
“You Can’t Forgive the Man You Rob”: America’s Willful Ignorance of Muslims
Against a bloody backdrop of massacres and lynchings aimed at blacks in early 20th century America, W.E.B. DuBois observed that the suffering of the nation’s darker-skinned sons and daughters gave many whites a feeling of “fierce, vindictive joy.” He further wrote, “A true and worthy ideal frees and uplifts a people; a false ideal imprisons […]
The Dogs of War — Barking at the Moon?
The current debate in Congress over the war in Iraq has put the myth of victory and its opposite — surrender– back on the front pages. These are actually more than myths; they are genuine misrepresentations of what’s happening in Iraq — lies, in other words. It doesn’t really matter, though, because those who want […]
Will Democrats Regain Control of the U.S. House of Representatives on Election Day?
With several months to go until the election, you may already be tired of the seemingly endless speculation in the media about the Democrats’ chances to regain control of the U.S. House of Representatives. While there is some small discussion among working people about this possibility, for most, the November 7th elections are a long […]
On Neoliberalism: An Interview with David Harvey
A BRIEF HISTORY OF NEOLIBERALISM by David HarveyBUY THIS BOOK Neoliberalism has left an indelible, smoldering mark on our world for the last thirty years. Eminent Marxist geographer David Harvey, author of A Brief History of Neoliberalism (Oxford, 2005), spoke earlier this year to Sasha Lilley, of the radical radio program Against the Grain, about […]
Bugging Hillary
After years of tortured searching, I have finally found a use for Western literature. I merely select pieces from the dead-white-men canon and revise them, in a way that we can better understand contemporary politics! For instance, the perplexing realpolitik of a certain U.S. Senator, and possible Presidential candidate, suddenly becomes clear, as we reconfigure […]
What Really Happened in Tehran on June 12?Did Human Rights Watch Get It Wrong?
Even before Iran was rocked by the mass uprising of 1978-79, I understood that moralists of all stripes shroud certain tragedies with unique reverence as a means of discouraging dissent. Three decades later, Iran’s opposition movement — and occasionally Human Rights Watch — are grounded in orthodoxies of their own even as they struggles against […]
Iraq: Everybody Out!
My father’s travels ended in 1980. We came back to live the Iran-Iraq war. Zinnah, my sister, was a child of ten when she attended the Dijla (Tigress) Primary School. One day she returned to ask my mother, “Are we Sunni or Shooyouii (Arabic for Communist)?” a word she had most probably picked up […]
Iraq: Publicity Stunts and Public Policy
2,500 US known dead, give or take a corpse or two Untold tens of thousands of Iraqis. A new and more repressive crackdown in Iraq’s capital city titled, rather lamely, Operation Forward Together. No Iron Fist this time. No Desert Storm. Just Forward Together into the fog or perhaps the abyss. No one really seems […]
The Muslim Presence in the Racist Mind
In one of her last essays published in the United Kingdom, the late Susan Sontag compared the pictures of tortured Iraqi inmates at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq with the photographs “of black victims of lynching taken between the 1880s and 1930s, which show smalltown Americans, no doubt most of them church-going, respectable citizens, […]
Guantánamo: The Subject Was Linens
“Whoever battles monsters should take care not to become a monster too, for if you stare long enough into the Abyss, the Abyss stares also into you.” — Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche “Today the eyes of all people are truly upon us — and our governments, in every branch, at every level, national, state and local, […]
MEK Tricks US Progressives, Gains Legitimacy
On May 26, 2006, a representative of the violent Iranian fugitives based in Iraq, known as MEK, addressed a forum — an anti-war forum — sponsored by the liberal Fellowship of Unitarian Universalists in Berkeley, California, as he had done the year before. Introduced as Ali Mirardal, the speaker lamented human rights abuses in Iran […]
Three Arab Painters in New York
The emergence of Arab art in New York City has surprised many. Most importantly, the Made in Palestine exhibit, which opened at the Bridge Gallery in March of 2006, drew large crowds. The battle of bringing the show to New York, however, was no surprise. Fearing a strong backlash from the pro-Israel community, galleries and […]
Australian Troops Are Back in Timor
Australian troops are back in Timor. But this time, their imperialist agenda is a lot more obvious. In 1999, the people of East Timor voted for independence from Indonesia. The Indonesian military and its puppet militias retaliated by wrecking the place and killing over 1,000 people. Australian Prime Minister John Howard then sent in […]
“Popular Anger May Be Something to Behold”: An Interview with Greg Elich
STRANGE LIBERATORS: Militarism, Mayhem, and the Pursuit of Profit by Gregory Elich (with Michael Parenti’s Introduction and Mickey Z’s Afterword)BUY THIS BOOK I first met Greg Elich more than two years when we were both speakers at the One Dance People’s Summit. We’ve since become friends and I was proud to write the afterword for […]
Port Militarization Resistance, Olympia, May 2006
Click on a photo for a larger view. 23-25 May 2006 29 May 2006 On the eighth day of the Olympia Port Militarization Resistance, the U.S.S. Pomeroy has docked to take the Stryker Brigade to Iraq. The resistance escalates, the Port fence is shaken and nearly taken down before a riot squad enters the […]
Cadet Bush at West Point: Screw That Chin In, Beanhead!
Mister Bush, you deserve a good reaming for your performance at the United States Military Academy graduation on Saturday. Post around to my room for some character guidance. Come in, wackhead. Slam up against that wall! Suck up that capacious gut! Shoulders back! Pop up that puny chest! Fingers along the seams of your trousers! […]
Iranian Cold Warriors in Sheep’s Clothing
Erik C. Nisbet & James Shanahan, “MSRG Special Report: Restrictions on Civil Liberties, Views of Islam, & Muslim Americans,” Media & Society Research Group, Cornell University, December 2004 Actual mass murderers are higher on my watch list than those who just think or shout hateful beliefs. But you would be mistaken if you thought the […]
Two, Three, Many Olympias
There’s a great tradition amongst the world’s citizenry that is perhaps best expressed in the words spoken by the late Berkeley radical Mario Savio. During the Free Speech actions of 1964 that were aimed at the University of California’s repressive administrative dictates against student and staff political activity, Mario said: There’s a time when the […]
