Geography Archives: Iraq

  • Revisiting “Another Country”

    No wonder capitalist societies are coming apart at the seams.  Trust is supposed to be the bond that holds a society together, and trust is based on truth.  But so often have government leaders asserted their “right” to lie, to manage the news, and to contrive to deceive the public that large numbers of people […]

  • Does Pace University Support Free Speech?

      On Monday, March 13, students from the Campus Antiwar Network (CAN) and the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) — joined by other students, professors, original SDSers, and CAN members from CCNY — launched one of the largest demonstrations Pace University’s campus had seen, against Pace’s denial of our free speech rights.  The university, […]

  • I Live in a Ghetto

    Some social analysts argue that those who live in ghettoes may be unable to effectively organize for change because a self-destructive “ghetto mentality” obstructs such efforts. I live in a ghetto, with all its attendant social pathologies:  isolation from the outside world; customs, language, and behavior alien to the larger society; inability to act collectively […]

  • Veteran Torturer: “No Mercy, No Regrets”

    The debates about the U.S. use of torture in its ongoing military campaigns against the people of the Middle East often ring hollow.  Listening to many of the impassioned legal and moralistic arguments against the practice, one is reminded of General Paul Aussaresses‘s observation: “Only too often today condemning others means acquiring a certificate of […]

  • “A Long Struggle” against Iran

    Although the strategy is older than the mean sheriff and his less sadistic deputy in the Old West, we need to only go back a few years here.  If one recalls, prior to the US/UK invasion on Iraq in 2003, there were several initiatives to “promote democracy” in that country.  Usually it was the State […]

  • Concessions: First Time Defeat, Second Revival?

    [On February 4, 2006, the Socialist Project organized a labor forum in Windsor to get an update on the struggle at Delphi and to consider its implications for Canada.  Speakers at the forum included Dennis Delling, a Delphi worker and activist in mobilizing the resistance against the corporation; Jerry Tucker, former head of New Directions […]

  • Antiwar Activists Arrested at House Appropriations Committee Hearing

      Washington, D.C., March 9 — Two peace activists were arrested on March 8 for disrupting the House Appropriations Committee hearing on additional funding for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Mike Ferner and Ed Kinane of Voices for Creative Nonviolence, interrupted the hearing called to consider the $67 billion “supplemental” appropriation which was ultimately approved […]

  • Open Letter to Iran’s Nobel Laureate: Part 2

    Dear Ms. Ebadi: Rostam Pourzal, “Open Letter to Iran’s Nobel Laureate: Part 1 “ (27 February 2006) Poet Khosro Naaqed, a prominent promoter of your reformist coalition, demonstrated in a published commentary last summer why a majority in Iran is now disillusioned with your “democracy” project.  As you know, he speaks for almost all Iranian […]

  • Savior Self

    Hello, Gloria?  Oh. Well, is Gloria there?  Me?  Oh, I’m nobody important; I just have important business with Gloria.  When will Gloria be — No, I know you’re not her secretary — ohmygod ohmygod, you’re Gloria’s girlfriend!  You are SO lucky! Hello? Gloria!  I knew you were there the whole time!  How are you, my […]

  • Philippines: State of Emergency for the U.S. Empire

    On the morning of February 24, 2006, President Gloria Arroyo issued Proclamation 1017 (PP 1017), which declared a State of Emergency throughout the Philippines.  Using identical words as those of Ferdinand Marcos when he declared martial law in 1972,  Arroyo ordered the armed forces to suppress “any act of insurrection or rebellion.”  Arroyo claimed there […]

  • Witness against Torture

    Washington – Fifteen people were arrested on March 1 in front of the White House after winding their way for two hours through the streets of the nation’s capital, demanding the U.S. stop torturing detainees in military prisons. Members of Witness Against Torture began their protest at the steps of the U.S. Supreme Court, continuing […]

  • Cartoon-Krieg: Politics as War by Other Means

    Jyllands-Posten stood Clausewitz on his head.  Its now infamous cartoons of Mohammed are not so much speech as acts.  Acts of provocation and belligerence.  They are the latest round of politics as war by other means. Make no mistake.  Jyllands-Posten is not in the business of promoting the freedom of speech.  Nor are the European […]

  • Open Letter to Iran’s Nobel Laureate

    Dear Ms. Shirin Ebadi: The appeal you and Mohammad Sahimi addressed to “Western democracies” in the International Herald Tribune on January 19 disappointed this former admirer of yours.  Your invitation to the current and previous imperial powers to intervene for human rights in Iran fails precisely on grounds of the noble principles you invoked to […]

  • Iraqopoly!

      At last, you can now have your own Deluxe 2006 Edition of Iraqopoly! Click on the image for a larger view. “Iraqopoly: The Deluxe 2006 Stay the Course Edition” Rules: There Are No Rules — Only Ideology Get to Baghdad, and then Spin for an Exit Strategy. Bush Makes Axis of Evil Speech — […]

  • Empire against Itself

    “Third-rate men, of course, exist in all countries, but it is only here that they are in full control of the state, and with it of all the national standards.” — H. L. Mencken Hard on the heels of the Cheney hunt for Republican lawyers, we now have the Great DP-World Port Controversy. Democrats like […]

  • There Are Lives in the Balance

    Washington – 2/22/06.  Today is Day Eight of our 34-day fast for peace at the U.S. Capitol, the Washington component of the Winter of Our Discontent campaign organized by Voices for Creative Nonviolence (www.vcnv.org). The four of us in D.C., Maureen Foltz, Jeff Leys, Ed Kinane, and I are doing a liquids-only fast.  Maureen and […]

  • Call It Love or Call It Reason, But I Ain’t Marchin’ Anymore

    Click on the image to watch a preview of “Soldiers & Students” One of the largest youth antiwar organizations — the Campus Antiwar Network — is calling for a week of actions against military recruitment on March 13-19, 2006.  Pepperspray Productions of Seattle recently released a DVD titled “Soldiers & Students” that features counter-recruitment actions […]

  • Danish Cartoons: Racism Has No Place on the Left

    I’ve just about had it.  I cannot watch one more episode of the Daily Show which makes racist jokes about Arabs and Muslims.  I am sick and tired of people who see themselves as part of the left writing articles that put a liberal gloss over what is, in essence, a right-wing “clash of civilizations” […]

  • “How Can You Do That to a Community?”: Locked Out by Celanese in Illinois

    Nestled on the bank of the Illinois River, the small community of Meredosia, Illinois sits sixty-five miles west of the state capitol.  In 1955, National Starch and Chemical built a plant there and has been a key employer for this community of about a thousand people.  A producer of adhesives, National Starch was generally considered […]

  • “At Some Point We Have to Take Seriously the Idea of Putting a Very Large Wrench into the Gears of This War Machine”: An Interview with Mike Ferner

    On Wednesday, February 15, 2006, a group of war resisters began a 34 day liquids-only fast in Washington, DC.  The fast is sponsored by the Voices for Creative Nonviolence (VCNV) — a nonviolent action group made up of regular citizens who are fed up with the direction of the US government, especially as regards its […]