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Today's
Stories
September
30, 2003
Amy Goodman
/ Jeremy Scahill
Does
a Felon Rove the White House?
September
29, 2003
Robert
Fisk
The
Myths of Western Intelligence Agencies
Iain A. Boal
Turn It Up: Pardon Mzwakhe Mbuli!
Lee Sustar
Paul
Krugman: the Last Liberal?
Wayne Madsen
General Envy? Think Shinseki, Not Clark
Benjamin
Dangl
Bolivia's Gas War
Uri Avnery
The
Magnificent 27
Pledge
Drive of the Day
Antiwar.com
Recent
Stories
September
26 / 28, 2003
Alexander
Cockburn
Alan
Dershowitz, Plagiarist
David Price
Teaching Suspicions
Saul Landau
Before the Era of Insecurity
Ron Jacobs
The Chicago Conspiracy Trial and
the Patriot Act
Brian
Cloughley
The Strangeloves Win Again
Norman Solomon
Wesley and Me: a Real-Life Docudrama
Robert
Fisk
Bomb Shatters Media Illusions
M. Shahid Alam
A Muslim Sage Visits the USA
John Chuckman
American Psycho: Bush at the UN
Mark Schneider
International Direct Action
The Spanish Revolution to the Palestiniana Intifada
William
S. Lind
How $87 Billion Could Buy Some Real Security
Douglas Valentine
Gold Warriors: the Plundering of Asia
Chris
Floyd
Vanishing Act
Elaine Cassel
Play Cat and Moussaoui
Richard
Manning
A Conservatism that Once Conserved
George Naggiar
The Beautiful Mind of Edward Said
Omar Barghouti
Edward Said: a Corporeal Dream Not Yet Realized
Lenni Brenner
Palestine's Loss is America's Loss
Mickey
Z.
Edward Said: a Well-Reasoned Voice
Tanweer Akram
The Legacy of Edward Said
Adam Engel
War in the Smoking Room
Poets' Basement
Katz, Ford, Albert & Guthrie
Website
of the Weekend
Who the Hell is Stew Albert?
September
25, 2003
Edward
Said
Dignity,
Solidarity and the Penal Colony
Robert
Fisk
Fanning
the Flames of Hatred
Sarah
Ferguson
Wolfowitz at the New School
David
Krieger
The
Second Nuclear Age
Bill Glahn
RIAA Doublespeak
Al Krebs
ADM and the New York Times: Covering Up Corporate Crime
Michael
S. Ladah
The Obvious Solution: Give Iraq Back to the Arabs
Fran Shor
Arnold and Wesley
Mustafa
Barghouthi
Edward Said: a Monument to Justice and Human Rights
Alexander Cockburn
Edward Said: a Mighty and Passionate
Heart
Website
of the Day
Edward Said: a Lecture on the Tragedy of Palestine
September 24, 2003
Stan Goff
Generational
Casualties: the Toxic Legacy of the Iraq War
William
Blum
Grand Illusions About Wesley Clark
David
Vest
Politics
for Bookies
Jon Brown
Stealing Home: The Real Looting is About to Begin
Robert Fisk
Occupation and Censorship
Latino
Military Families
Bring Our Children Home Now!
Neve Gordon
Sharon's
Preemptive Zeal
Website
of the Day
Bands Against Bush
September
23, 2003
Bernardo
Issel
Dancing
with the Diva: Arianna and Streisand
Gary Leupp
To
Kill a Cat: the Unfortunate Incident at the Baghdad Zoo
Gregory
Wilpert
An
Interview with Hugo Chavez on the CIA in Venezuela
Steven
Higgs
Going to Jail for the Cause--Part 2: Charity Ryerson, Young and
Radical
Stan Cox
The Cheney Tapes: Can You Handle the Truth?
Robert
Fisk
Another Bloody Day in the Death of Iraq
William S. Lind
Learning from Uncle Abe: Sacking the Incompetent
Elaine
Cassel
First They Come for the Lawyers, Then the Ministers
Yigal
Bronner
The
Truth About the Wall
Website
of the Day
The
Baghdad Death Count
September
20 / 22, 2003
Uri Avnery
The
Silliest Show in Town
Alexander
Cockburn
Lighten
Up, America!
Peter Linebaugh
On the Bicentennial of the Execution of Robert Emmet
Anne Brodsky
Return
to Afghanistan
Saul Landau
Guillermo and Me
Phan Nguyen
Mother Jones Smears Rachel Corrie
Gila Svirsky
Sharon, With Eyes Wide Open
Gary Leupp
On Apache Terrorism
Kurt Nimmo
Colin
Powell: Exploiting the Dead of Halabja
Brian
Cloughley
Colin Powell's Shame
Carol Norris
The Moral Development of George W. Bush
Bill Glahn
The Real Story Behind RIAA Propaganda
Adam Engel
An Interview with Danny Scechter, the News Dissector
Dave Lindorff
Good Morning, Vietnam!
Mark Scaramella
Contracts and Politics in Iraq
John Ross
WTO
Collapses in Cancun: Autopsy of a Fiasco Foretold
Justin Podur
Uribe's Desperate Squeals
Toni Solo
The Colombia Three: an Interview with Caitriona Ruane
Steven Sherman
Workers and Globalization
David
Vest
Masked and Anonymous: Dylan's Elegy for a Lost America
Ron Jacobs
Politics of the Hip-Hop Pimps
Poets
Basement
Krieger, Guthrie and Albert
Website of the Weekend
Ted Honderich:
Terrorism for Humanity?
September
19, 2003
Ilan Pappe
The
Hole in the Road Map
Bill Glahn
RIAA is Full of Bunk, So is the New York Times
Dave Lindorff
General Hysteria: the Clark Bandwagon
Robert Fisk
New Guard is Saddam's Old
Jeff Halper
Preparing
for a Struggle Against Israeli Apartheid
Brian J. Foley
Power to the Purse
Clare
Brandabur
Hitchens
Smears Edward Said
Website of the Day
Live from Palestine
September
18, 2003
Mona Baker
and Lawrence Davidson
In
Defense of the Boycott of Israeli Academic Institutions
Wayne
Madsen
Wesley
Clark for President? Another Neo-Con Con Job
Alexander
Cockburn
and Jeffrey St. Clair
Wesley Clark and Waco
Muqtedar Khan
The Pakistan Squeeze
Dominique
de Villepin
The
Reconstruction of Iraq: This Approach is Leading Nowhere
Angus Wright
Brazilian Land Reform Offers Hope
Elaine
Cassel
Payback is Hell
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Leavitt
for EPA Head? He's Much Worse Than You Thought
Website
of the Day
ALA Responds to Ashcroft's Smear
September 17, 2003
Timothy J. Freeman
The
Terrible Truth About Iraq
St. Clair / Cockburn
A
Vain, Pompous Brown-noser:
Meet the Real Wesley Clark
Terry Lodge
An Open Letter to Michael Moore on Gen. Wesley Clark
Mitchel Cohen
Don't Be Fooled Again: Gen. Wesley Clark, War Criminal
Norman Madarasz
Targeting Arafat
Richard Forno
High Tech Heroin
Alexander Cockburn
Behold,
the Head of a Neo-Con!
Website of the Day
The Ultimate Palestine Resource Site!
September 16, 2003
Rosemary and Walt Brasch
An
Ill Wind: Hurricane Isabel and the Lack of Homeland Security
Robert Fisk
Powell
in Baghdad
Kurt Nimmo
Imperial Sociopaths
M. Shahid Alam
The Dialectics
of Terror
Ron Jacobs
Exile at Gunpoint
Christopher Brauchli
Bush's War on Wages
Al Krebs
Stop Calling Them "Farm Subsidies"; It's Corporate
Welfare
Patrick Cockburn
The
Iraq Wreck
Website of the Day
From Occupied Palestine
The Great Alejandro Escavedo Needs Your Help!
September 15, 2003
Stan Goff
It Was
the Oil; It Is Like Vietnam
Robert Fisk
A Hail of Bullets, a Trail of Dead
Writers Bloc
We
Are Winning: a Report from Cancun
James T. Phillips
Does George Bush Cry?
Elaine Cassel
The Troublesome Bill of Rights
Cynthia McKinney
A Message to the People of New York City
Matthew Behrens
Sunday Morning Coming Down: Reflections on Johnny Cash
Uri Avnery
Assassinating
Arafat
Hammond Guthrie
Celling Out the Alarm
Website of the Day
Arnold and the Egg
September 13 / 14, 2003
Michael Neumann
Anti-Americanism:
Too Much of a Good Thing?
Jeffrey St. Clair
Anatomy of a Swindle
Gary Leupp
The Matrix of Ignorance
Ron Jacobs
Reagan's America
Brian Cloughley
Up to a Point, Lord Rumsfeld
William S. Lind
Making Mesopotamia a Terrorist Magnet
Werther
A Modest Proposal for the Pentagon
Dave Lindorff
Friendly Fire Will Doom the Occupation
Toni Solo
Fiction and Reality in Colombia: The Trial of the Bogota Three
Elaine Cassel
Juries and the Death Penalty
Mickey Z.
A Parable for Cancun
Jeffrey Sommers
Issam Nashashibi: a Life Dedicated to the Palestinian Cause
David Vest
Driving in No Direction (with a Glimpse of Johnny Cash)
Michael Yates
The Minstrel Show
Jesse Walker
Adios, Johnny Cash
Adam Engel
Something Killer
Poets' Basement
Cash, Albert, Curtis, Linhart
Website of the Weekend
Local Harvest
September 12, 2003
Writers Block
Todos
Somos Lee: Protest and Death in Cancun
Laura Carlsen
A Knife to the Heart: WTO Kills Farmers
Dave Lindorff
The Meaning of Sept. 11
Elaine Cassel
Bush at Quantico
Linda S. Heard
British
Entrance Exams
John Chuckman
The First Two Years of Insanity
Doug Giebel
Ending America as We Know It
Mokhiber / Weissman
The Blank Check Military
Subcomandante Marcos
The
Death Train of the WTO
Website of the Day
A Woman in Baghdad
September 11, 2003
Robert Fisk
A Grandiose
Folly
Roger Burbach
State Terrorism and 9/11: 1973 and 2001
Jonathan Franklin
The Pinochet Files
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Postcards to the President
Norman Solomon
The Political Capital of 9/11
Saul Landau
The Chilean Coup: the Other, Almost Forgotten 9/11
Stew Albert
What Goes Around
Website of the Day
The Sights and Sounds of a Coup
September 10, 2003
John Ross
Cancun
Reality Show: Will It Turn Into a Tropical Seattle?
Zoltan Grossman
The General Who Would be President: Was Wesley Clark Also Unprepared
for the Postwar Bloodbath?
Tim Llewellyn
At the Gates of Hell
Christopher Brauchli
Turn the Paige: the Bush Education Deception
Lee Sustar
Bring the Troops Home, Now!
Elaine Cassel
McCain-Feingold in Trouble: Scalia Hogs the Debate
Norman Finkelstein
Hitchens
as Model Apostate
Hammond Guthrie
When All Was Said and Done
Website of the Day
Fact Checking Colin Powell
Hot Stories
Steve Niva
Israel's
Assassination Policy: the Trigger for Suicide Bombings?
Dardagan,
Slobodo and Williams
CounterPunch Exclusive:
20,000 Wounded Iraqi Civilians
Steve
J.B.
Prison Bitch
Sheldon
Rampton and John Stauber
True Lies: the Use of Propaganda
in the Iraq War
Wendell
Berry
Small Destructions Add Up
CounterPunch
Wire
WMD: Who Said What When
Cindy
Corrie
A Mother's Day Talk: the Daughter
I Can't Hear From
William Blum
Myth
and Denial in the War on Terrorism
Standard Schaefer
Experimental Casinos: DARPA and the War Economy
Uzma
Aslam Khan
The Unbearably Grim Aftermath of War:
What America Says Does Not Go
Paul de Rooij
Arrogant
Propaganda
Gore Vidal
The
Erosion of the American Dream
Francis Boyle
Impeach
Bush: A Draft Resolution
Click Here
for More Stories.
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September
30, 2003
Edward Said at Oberlin
Hysteria
in the Face of Truth
By NAEEM MOHAIEMEN
Through a simple campus lecture, Edward Said precipitated
a rupture at Ohio's Oberlin College. But like many things in
his life, the debate did not touch the substance of Said's theory
or politics. Instead, his enemies were obsessed by what he stood
for-- a Palestinian nationalism that scared them because it was
not easily stereotyped or dismissed. Through this vignette,
I also learnt about the limitations and myopia of liberal campus
politics.
In fall of 1989, I arrived at Oberlin
from Bangladesh. Through the vagaries of campus housing, I found
myself placed in one of the student eating coops-- Kosher Coop.
A small place with thirty-plus Jewish students of various observant
hues, they were happy to have a Muslim student join. Historically
open to both Jewish and Muslim dietary practices, the Coop had
three Muslim students that year. The campus Rabbi in particular
was very welcoming. Enjoying my liberal politics, Rabbi Brand
encouraged me to write a letter on the "Rushdie Affair."
The campus newspaper published it, several other Muslims wrote
in agreeing with the defense of free speech, and so on.
All this changed one day with the announcement
that Edward Said had been invited to give a Distinguished Lecture
that semester. Overnight, the campus transformed into balkanized,
opposing camps. Hillel, the campus Jewish organization, went
berserk. To my total shock, people who were trily liberal on
other issues were up in arms about Said being allowed to come
on campus. All this controversy over an eloquent academic who
composed classical music, wrote "Orientalism" and defended
Palestinian self-determination. Bemused, I wondered what the
campus would have done if someone truly controversial (say someone
defending hijackings) had been invited.
The debate ran straight through the heart
of Kosher coop. Most of it raged between Jewish students, pitting
liberals against conservatives. Should Said be allowed to come
on campus? Should we boycott him? Should we heckle him? Do we
ask questions, or not dignify him with such an approach? All
commitments to free speech were ejected (ironically, this group
had encouraged my defense of Rushdie). The three Muslim students
sat mutely through most of this, taken aback by the ferocity
of the emotions on display. During one pitched dinner debate,
one student looked point-blank at me and said, "What do
YOU think?" It was the first time I had heard that word
used in a way that made me conscious of my color or putative
religious affiliation. Even though Edward Said promoted a secular
view of Palestinian nationalism, here at Oberlin the entire debate
was recast into a strange fantasy of "age-old" Jewish-Muslim
tensions. I too was supposed to be tapped into this lineage by
virtue of being born Muslim.
Edward Said's fate was always to inspire
heated emotions. Though he argued the case for Palestine with
passion and intensity, his prose was calm, logical and factual.
In fact, the polemic-heavy rhetoric of Palestinian leaders infuriated
Said. In more than one essay he pointed out that Chairman Arafat
had brought the crowd to its feet, but had said nothing of substance.
Yet, in spite of this calm, measured approach-- he seemed to
inspire irrational fear in opponents. At Oberlin, charges of
"anti-semitism" filled the air as his lecture-date
approached. These moments illustrated that his opponents had
done no original research. After all, Said was one of the earliest
to argue that the Jewish holocaust was a unique event that must
be respected and understood. He vigorously attacked those who
would dismiss the facts of this tragedy in their pursuit of the
Palestinian cause. To call this man "anti-semitic"
was lazy rhetoric or deliberate lies.
Said's actual speech at Oberlin was uneventful.
He delivered the address in measured tones, aware of the hostilities
in the audience. Ignoring the hecklers, he answered the few
ambush questions with calm logic. The much anticipated event
was somewhat of a non-event. Contrary to the fears being circulated,
his visit did not result in any major antagonism between Jewish
students and the rest of the campus. Most of the students who
supported a Palestinian state were sensible enough to differentiate
between the Israeli government's occupation policy and individuals.
But the anti-Said camp was not so interested in subtle differentiations.
In the days before and after his visit, I kept hearing one falsehood
repeated-- that Said supported attacks on civilians. Although
this was in the days before Google, a cursory search through
library stacks would have yielded voluminous counter-evidence.
The ripple effects of this day were felt
for months afterwards. Hillel seemed to mutate from a campus
organization to a shrill political group. Kosher coop itself
was riven by conflict. The Said debate had brought out fault-lines
between the liberal Jewish students and the more right-wing element.
New debates started about seemingly unrelated topics. Should
there be a Hebrew-language dinner table at the coop when half
the Jewish students didn't speak the language? Should we go out
of our way to recruit Muslim students, to promote a more diverse
image? Underneath these debates was a larger truth struggling
to get out. The limitations of the coop's liberal politics had
been revealed by the Said episode. It was hard to go back to
pretending everything was fine. By the end of that semester,
two Muslim students had left the coop. Many of the liberal Jewish
students also stopped attending. I stuck it out for another
semester, but eventually drifted away as well.
Sadly, while arguments raged about Palestine,
Said's epochal work in "Orientalism" was sidetracked
at Oberlin. His role as Palestinian spokesperson was the only
thing critics cared about. The polymath who had composed piano
pieces, analyzed Joseph Conrad, and created an academic discipline
had disappeared. In his place stood a crude cartoon of a fanatical
Palestinian demagogue-- ready to "infect" the young,
impressionable minds of Oberlin freshmen. This stereotyping continued
for many years afterwards. Years later, I returned as an alumni
to Oberlin to find the campus enmeshed in controversy again over
Said. In 1996, the college decided to award him with an honorary
degree. But through behind-the-scenes manipulation, his critics
managed to get the invitation rescinded. Outraged, students mobilized
to protest the decision. When the college administration refused
to reconsider, students raised funds through donation and invited
Said on their own. The money raised was used to give him an "alternative"
award, to parallel the Honorary Degree the college had rescinded.
At commencement that year, the campus saw two ceremonies. The
official graduation ceremony was muted, but the student-organized
ceremony honoring Professor Said was a jubilant occasion-- not
least because of the accomplishment students felt at having managed
to bring him to campus despite the opposition.
I first learnt of Palestine in 1983--
a grainy documentary on Bangladesh television was talking about
the Sabra-Shatila refugee camp massacres. As dirge-like Arabic
music played, the screen flashed images of Palestinian youth
dancing at a night-festival. These were in the days before the
conflict catapulted to the forefront of third-world consciousness.
Palestine seemed like a distant land with a sad history, but
not directly relevant to my personal politics. Years later, I
found a worn copy of "Covering Islam" in my aunt's
library. As I started reading about the "Princess Episode",
I felt my reality shift to a new level. As the bookstores started
importing his work from India, Edward Said, along with Noam Chomsky,
became the focal point for intellectual activity in Dhaka circles.
By 1989, when I left for the USA, his books were routinely being
translated into Bengali, reaching a wide audience.
Growing up in Bangladesh, the trinity
of Said, Chomsky and Alexander Cockburn were crucial in showing
me a left, anti-imperialist politics that was neither stale Marxism
nor Islamic fundamentalism (the two choices in Bangladesh). But
to fully appreciate Said's achievement, I had to witness that
turbulent semester at Oberlin College. Said inspired hysterical
reaction and propaganda wars precisely because of his stature.
He spoke for the dispossessed, but could not be dismissed with
cliches about "fanatical Arabs". In fact, he dismantled
those very stereotypes and uprooted their sources of power in
"Orientalism" and related works. Edward Said will be
missed immensely, but his legacy will carry on in these debates.
Weekend
Edition Features for Sept. 26 / 28, 2003
Alexander
Cockburn
Alan
Dershowitz, Plagiarist
David Price
Teaching Suspicions
Saul Landau
Before the Era of Insecurity
Ron Jacobs
The Chicago Conspiracy Trial and
the Patriot Act
Brian
Cloughley
The Strangeloves Win Again
Norman Solomon
Wesley and Me: a Real-Life Docudrama
Robert
Fisk
Bomb Shatters Media Illusions
M. Shahid Alam
A Muslim Sage Visits the USA
John Chuckman
American Psycho: Bush at the UN
Mark Schneider
International Direct Action
The Spanish Revolution to the Palestiniana Intifada
William
S. Lind
How $87 Billion Could Buy Some Real Security
Douglas Valentine
Gold Warriors: the Plundering of Asia
Chris
Floyd
Vanishing Act
Elaine Cassel
Play Cat and Moussaoui
Richard
Manning
A Conservatism that Once Conserved
George Naggiar
The Beautiful Mind of Edward Said
Omar Barghouti
Edward Said: a Corporeal Dream Not Yet Realized
Lenni Brenner
Palestine's Loss is America's Loss
Mickey
Z.
Edward Said: a Well-Reasoned Voice
Tanweer Akram
The Legacy of Edward Said
Adam Engel
War in the Smoking Room
Poets' Basement
Katz, Ford, Albert & Guthrie
Website
of the Weekend
Who the Hell is Stew Albert?
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