Last Release: Sunday, July 25, 2004

Sleeping with the Enemy? Let's Be Fair

| Joshua Frank |

Democrats and liberal defenders of John Kerry are throwing tantrums over Ralph Nader's new found affinity for conservatives who are aiding his ballot efforts in swing states. According to a Detroit News report, Greg McNeilly the Executive Director of the Michigan Republican Party said, "We are absolutely interested in having Ralph Nader on the ballot." Indeed these Republicans hope Nader will siphon votes away from Kerry, and tally the state's 17 electoral points on George Bush's score card come election day.

Right-wing organizations are also putting their efforts behind Nader out West. Citizens for a Sound Economy, an anti-tax, anti-government group run by Republican powerhouse Dick Armey, wants Nader on the Oregon ballot. A rigid Christian anti-gay group, known as Oregon Family Council, also believes voters should have a chance to pull the lever for Ralph in the fall. As you can imagine, Democrats aren't the least bit pleased with these recent developments. And they are the first to happily point out Nader's new bedfellows.

- (Read full)

Missing in Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11: the Anti-War Movement

| Joseph G. Ramsey |

...despite its quick jabs at spineless Democrats, Moore's film never gestures beyond the horizon of the Party of Kerry. Most frustrating of all for this activist-viewer in fact, is the way that the film totally hides from view the faces and voices of the massive, global anti-war movement that took to the streets during the lead-up to the US invasion of Iraq. Essentially, the picture that Moore presents us of 'public opinion' in US in the lead-up to war-for all his supposed media-savvy-is not much different from the "self-portrait" shown us by the US corporate media: there is no dissent; everyone naively trusts the President. Of the massive movement against the war that existed outside the US, Moore says not a word.

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An Interview with Tariq Ali: Leftist Prospects in Latin America

| Claudia Jardim and Jonah Gindin |

Without adequately addressing state power, what alternative to neoliberalism is the Global Social Justice movement offering?

No, they have no alternative! They think that it is an advantage not to have an alternative. But, in my view that’s a sign of political bankruptcy. If you have no alternative, what do you say to the people you mobilize? The MST[1] in Brazil has an alternative, they say ‘take the land and give it to the poor peasants, let them work it.’ But the Holloway[2] thesis of the Zapatistas, it’s—if you like—a virtual thesis, it’s a thesis for cyber space: let’s imagine. But we live in the real world, and in the real world this thesis isn’t going to work. Therefore, the model for me of the MST in Brazil is much much more interesting than the model of the Zapatistas in Chiapas. Much more interesting.

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The Petrodraft: The Freedom to Kill (II of III)

| Y. Kleftis |

The condensed discussion of a complex, half-century long process in the first part shows fundamental elements of capitalism's current social and economic order, and specifically the U.S. role as its principal protagonist. It does not exhaust all details, but situates important objective features of U.S. capitalism for the sake of our concern with conscription. Without a socioeconomic analysis in mind, all talk of "duty", "sacrifice", and "citizenship" falls off the sheer cliff of ahistorical abstraction, opening up the U.S. left to manipulation and delusion. Socioeconomic realities are basic materials out of which a critique and reorganization of U.S. political culture must take place.

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Last Release: Wednesday, July 21, 2004

Double Think: The Bedrock of Marine Corps Indoctrination

| Chris White |

I left college after a semester and a half, tried my hand at construction, waiting tables, pizza delivery, and security work, during which time I applied for several law enforcement positions, hoping to become a California Highway patrol officer, like my uncle. I soon enough reached the point of dissatisfaction with waiting to start my life, when my father submitted an off the cuff suggestion: "You could always join the Marines." The idea was that I could do that for four years and maybe gain the necessary credentials to become a police officer and to gain a foothold for myself that I had not attained up to that point. Without giving it second thought, I called the recruiting station and made an appointment to see about my options. They were very nice, but more than that, they were confident, young men, and not much older than myself (I was 20).

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Ten Ways to Become a Better Democrat

| M. Junaid Alam |

Fellow radicals: recent events have made it clear that the primary task facing good people everywhere is unconditional support for the Democratic Party, the only party capable not only of removing a very, very bad man from office, but also increasing the pay envelope of starving and desperate Nation, Salon, MoveOn, and Sierra Club coffee-coolata-warriors across America. I submit my humble contribution to this effort by offering a list of ten virtues to cultivate in your personal journey towards becoming a better Democrat.

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Cuts in Government Housing Subsidies

| Adam Ritscher |

According to the U.S. Census Bureau almost 40 million Americans live below the poverty line. And as hundreds of thousands of workers get laid off from closing plants, downsizing and outsourcing, that number is likely to climb.

But despite the massive levels of poverty that pervade this country, the powers that be have decided that now is the time to cut federal housing subsidies that millions of low income people depend upon to pay their rent each month.

This past April, the federal government, announced that it would be retroactively changing the way it funds housing vouchers. As a result of this major change, many local housing authorities are finding themselves dangerously short of funds. Nationally, the shortfall is estimated at $1.6 billion, according to the National Low Income Housing Coalition.

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The Petrodraft: Part One

| Y. Kleftis |

The current U.S. wars are most certainly the outcome of militaristic aspirations, but their overwhelming intensity also places, temporarily, a screen between us and the ultimate reasons for mass violent action. We can account for these reasons along an ascending chain of causation, the least important being the psychological motives of the current administration, including a presumed "father complex" by the President, his religiously based libidinal repression, or any other purely individual motivations. Though these causes have some import, they are most certainly overshadowed by political conditions, found in the continued governmental power of capitalist families such as the Bushes and the Gores, the heavy presence of extreme Zionist ideologues, whether fundamentalist Christian or Jewish, in U.S. policy circles, the connections between Saudi elite and U.S. politicians, and so on. Yet these significant political developments presuppose in turn certain economic realities that permit their existence, including oil dependence, the "military-industrial complex", and weakened labor organizations. These compounded layers of causation play a role in every depleted uranium bomb dropped, tortured prisoner raped, or medieval manuscript destroyed.

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Another take on Fahrenheit 9/11

| By Zia Ahmed |

"It's so great," said my dinner companion firmly, "that someone is finally speaking up for OUR side!"

I nodded in mock agreement.

"The liberals, you know," she clarified, sensing my confusion.

I nodded again, still hesitant.

The topic of our dinner conversation was the incendiary documentary Fahrenheit 9/11, and the someone speaking up for "our" side was Michael Moore: gadfly extraordinaire, self-styled crusader for the people, bane of the Republican party.

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Silencing the Voice of an Angel

| Richard Moreno |

Linda Ronstadt, the 58-year-old 10-time Grammy Award winner, while on stage dedicated the classic rock ballad "Desperado!" to an award winning documentary filmmaker during her sold out concert at the Aladdin Casino and Hotel in Las Vegas. Innocuous enough, so one would in normal times think. However, in response, an Aladdin crack security team swept Ms Ronstand off the premises and, moreover, barred her from her suite as if she were some common vagrant begging for alms at some Republican cocktail party.

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Last Release: Sunday, July 12, 2004

Can the Iraqis Fight for Sovereignty?

| M. Junaid Alam |

The much-touted official handover of Iraq by American occupation authorities to Iraqi officials handpicked by American occupation authorities has come to pass. A new phase in the liberation process, in which the task of securing and stabilizing Iraq must now be largely carried out by Iraqis themselves, has been declared. Now is the time to "let freedom reign" as President Bush enthusiastically scribbled down on a note to the new Iraqi Prime Minister. Of course, it has been stressed that the handover ceremony itself was to be mostly symbolic, a sign of things to come more than any concrete achievement in and of itself. It symbolized quite a bit, though nothing positive for the "coalition".

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God Must Be Watching

By Derek Seidman

How fortuitous! Just when you thought Fahrenheit 9/11 was dishing out anti-Bush conversions by the thousands (amidst the din of Yankee-fan boos directed at Dick Cheney), Bush's team has come to the rescue with a vengeance.

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Ralph's Revolt: A Discussion with Greg Bates

| Josh Frank |

Greg Bates co-founded Common Courage Press in 1990, and is the Publisher. He is also the author of the new book, Ralph's Revolt: The Case for Joining Nader's Rebellion. Bates recently spoke with Joshua Frank about his upcoming book, the elections, and the future of progressive politics in America. He currently resides in Monroe Maine.

- (Read interview)

An Open Letter to Michael Moore

Nikki Marterre

Dear Michael Moore,

I don't even know if you will get this email - Farenheit 9/11 was brilliant and I am sure you are caught up in all the hullabaloo. However, I recently read an article by you to the left called "Is the left nuts?". I understand where the frustration must come from. Many members of the left are very sectarian - they can't see beyond their own books on Hegel. However, there are many members of the left that are not that way at all. They are going out, talking to real Americans and taking up what regular people are concerned about. Should the left be concerned about real working class issues?

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Beware the Liberal War on Terror

| Dave Stratman |

Many people who oppose the war in Iraq are living under a dangerous illusion: that the war is the work of a cabal of fundamentalist Christians and Jewish neo-conservatives who have hijacked the government for their own purposes --  that the war, in other words, represents not the policies of the core American Establishment but the zany doings of some interlopers.

There have been plenty of indications that this view is mere wishful thinking. The war in Iraq had resounding support at its inception from both Democratic and Republican politicians and the media. Only now that the situation in Iraq has dramatically deteriorated have some politicians and editorial writers begun to backpedal. Even so John Kerry, the presumptive Democratic nominee, has continued to give the war vigorous support, calling for 40,000 more troops.

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A Visit to Shatila

| Bilal El-Amine |

On a recent visit to Lebanon where I’m from, a friend who works with Palestinian refugees arranged for a group of us to visit Shatila camp in Beirut. I had seen some of Lebanon’s camps from the outside—one boarding school I attended when I was young was close to the Ein Hilweh camp, the largest and most militant camp in Lebanon. Another, Borj el-Barajneh camp, greeted you just outside the airport on the main road, there was no avoiding it.

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Last Release: Friday, July 2, 2004

Iraq: The Limits of Empire

| Mark Yu |

The U.S. occupation of Iraq is running into serious obstacles on several fronts. Photos documenting the use of torture at Abu Ghraib prison have torn the mask of legitimacy from the face of the civilian-military occupying force. While the torture itself could be treated as a mere aberration by U.S. politicians and commentators--overlooking the violence of the entire colonial enterprise in Iraq and ignoring similar abuse in prisons at home--the political impact of the photographs could not be so easily disregarded. The prison scandal, scandalous only because the perpetrators were caught in the act, has permanently disarmed the public relations effort to "win the hearts and minds" of the Iraqi people.

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Take Me Out to the Antiwar Ballgame

| Derek Seidman |

Dick Cheney was able to score a hot ticket to see the biggest rivalry in baseball when he attended the Yankees-Red Sox game on Wednesday. The Vice-President even made his way into the locker room before the game to mumble at a few players. It was a proud moment for Yankee coach Joe Torre, who told the press, "It's great any time a dignitary like that visits. It slaps you with pride."

Come the seventh inning stretch, it was Cheney's turn to get slapped.

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February 15th Goes to the Movies: Farenheit 911 Review

| Keith Rosenthal |

With the anti-war movement facing a bit of a lull over the past year, Michael Moore's new movie, Fahrenheit 9-11, is just what the doctor ordered. A scathing attack on the record of the Bush administration over the past four years-and the war and occupation of Iraq in particular-Fahrenheit has the potential to revivify a layer of activists by proving conclusively that we were right to march against the war.

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Photos: Palestinians Punished for Existing

| Musa Alshaer |

Click here to view photos

Caption for first two photos:

This house belonged to Bassam Abu Akkar, an Islamic Jihad activist, from Bethlehem. Akkar was arrested on the 1st of June, and his house was blown up on June 25th. The explosion also completely demolished two adjacent apartments in the building. One cannot distinguish between the target apartment and the other two - all were demolished to the same degree. Three extended families are homeless.

Caption for second two photos:

In the path of the "isolation wall" (the term used by Palestinians when referring to the wall), one house demolished, and villagers praying on land that will be soon confiscated and destroyed.

Radio Interview on KPFK

Recently Left Hook co-editor M. Junaid Alam was able to talk about the connection between and importance of politics and personal identity with host Neel Garlapati and another guest, Jyoti, over at KPFK Radio, Southern California's Pacifica Subsidiary. To listen to the half-hour segment via .MP3 file, do one of the following:

1. Just click here and hopefully some program starts up for you and plays the file.

2.Right-click here, then download the file onto your computer ("Save Target As" in Internet Explorer), then play with either Winamp or Windows Media Player.

(Starts at the 2:30 mark, and there are a few gaps of silence due to streaming errors).

Reading List on Islam

Recently a member of the Left Hook discussion list got into an argument on campus over Islam and its role in current affairs. This inspired him to want to learn more about this timely subject, and he asked people on the list what books we might recommend on Islam. We thought others might benefit from the suggestions. Here are the results, touching on many different aspects:

• Clash of Fundamentalisms, by Tariq Ali
• Orientalism, by Edward Said
• Maxime Rodinson's biography of Muhammad
• Ibn Warraq's "Why I am not a Muslim" (rightwing view)
• Omid Safi on Progressive Muslims
• "Believing women in Islam, unreading patriarchal interpretations of the Qur'an" by Asma Barlas
• Qur'an Liberation and Pluralism by Farid Esack
• Progressive Muslims: On Justice, Gender, and Pluralism by Omid Safi
• The Place of Tolerance in Islam by Khaled Abou El Fadl [Includes an essay by Tariq Ali]
• The Adventures of Ibn Battuta" by Ross E Dunn
• Susan Buck-Morss' "Thinking Past Terror"
• Z. Sardar and Merryl Wyn Davis: No-Nonsense Guide to Islam

Last Release: Thursday, June 24, 2004

The 15th of February 2003: A Eulogy and Prelude

| Keith Rosenthal |

It's high time that the anti-war movement addresses the 500-pound gorilla standing in the middle of the room. That's right - I'm talking about the mass movement that collapsed roughly around the 20th of March 2003, in the wake of Bush's decision to go ahead with the invasion of Iraq.

We all remember the feeling of euphoria on February 15th of that year, when 10 million people worldwide marched against the war on Iraq. Millions took to the streets across America, chanting, blocking traffic, and speaking out. Although we all knew that Bush was determined to have his war, somewhere, in the recesses of our minds, we also held a flicker of hope that maybe-just maybe-we would force him to stand down.

Within two months' time, the million beams of hope had receded back into the dark alleys of the general feeling of powerlessness we know as "the American political system."

- (Read full)

A Solution to the Iraq Quagmire

| Richard Cranium |

As a decent freedom-loving American, I was really hoping Bush was going to come up with a winner when he made that speech a few weeks ago outlining his plan to wrap things up in Iraq. But as he mumbled and stumbled his way through, it became clear that this was the usual mumbo-jumbo, the same-old-shizzle just wrapped up in a five-point plan format to sound more concrete or something.

I was bummed out like you wouldn't believe. After all the crap that's gone on, this guy still doesn't have a clue? He couldn't even pronounce Abu Ghraib correctly ("Abu Ga-a-a-ra-a-aaaabeee")! It all got me thinking, you know, because if he doesn't have a plan, someone has to come up with one.

A little after all this, I was sitting around reading the New York Times. I came upon an interesting article, and all of a sudden a grand solution to the fiasco in Iraq came together in my head like a huge explosion played in rewind…

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Forging Alliances: How Democrats Helped Bush Rape Mother Nature

| Josh Frank

George W. Bush’s environmental record can be dummied down to one simple word: devastating.

Not only has President Bush gutted numerous environmental laws--including the Clean Air and Water Acts--he has also set a new precedence by disregarding the world’s top scientists and the Pentagon, as their concerns about the rate of Global Warming grow graver by the day.

As Mark Townsend and Paul Harris reported for the Observer in the UK in February of 2004, “[The Pentagon report] predicts that abrupt climate change could bring the planet to the edge of anarchy as countries develop a nuclear threat to defend and secure dwindling food, water and energy supplies. The threat to global stability vastly eclipses that of terrorism, say the few experts privy to its contents.”

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Mythmaker Mythmaker

| John Jarowski |

Mythmaker mythmaker, tell me a story
Of how management is divinity
That the 'little guys' don't know what's best for them
And can't manage their own affairs
I want to know why, in lieu…
So tell me all, all that is true

- (Read full)

Last Release: Sunday, June 13, 2004

Palestinian Misery in Perspective

| Paul de Rooij |

The media usually focuses on the latest casualty and quickly forgets those who died even a few days before. The American media in particular has a Dracula-like predilection for warm bodies, and no interest in cases where blood has already dried. Unfortunately this ahistoric focus on the last victim hides the scale of mass crimes and the responsibility of various perpetrators. Whether in Iraq, Palestine, Colombia, or Haiti, it is necessary to locate human rights abuses in a wider context to appreciate the scale of what is occurring on the ground.

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John Kerry, Cheerleader for Israeli Brutality

| Josh Frank |

Even if he turns out to be the second worst president in US history, John F. Kerry will still be better than our sitting president. At least many liberal and progressive Americans are stating as much in order to justify their support for the leading Democrat. However, such rationale does not dilute the fact that most people in the world will not be able to sense any tangible variation between either, Bush or Kerry.

Just ask the Palestinians who, as the Washington Post reported, suffered 19 (other estimates range between 25-30) deaths in the last nine days (prior to the May 19 attack by the Israeli military on a Palestinian demonstration in Rafah that killed at least 19 more people) due to hostile Israeli military aggression in Rafah, a Palestinian refugee camp located in the Gaza Strip.

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Guatemala: A Short Political History

| Rob Segovia-Welsh |

In December the ballot boxes of Guatemala showed victory to the center-right party of Berger. Although many promises were made by the several parties running in the national election few Guatemalan´s expect much from the new government.

Although it was Berger that claimed victory it was Rios Montt, the ex-military dictator, who gave the Guatemalan people much to talk about. Montt´s right wing party (FRG) won about 20% of the population´s vote in the primary election. This was not enough to carry him through but certainly enough to raise an eyebrow. Afterall, this is the man who came to power in 1982 by force and caused the death and diappearance of thousands, not to mention the destruction of whole villages.

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How Ray Charles Got Over

| Seth Sandronsky |

Ray Charles, the superb African American musician who died on June 10, got over in more ways than one.

He appealed to Americans of all ages and backgrounds. For five decades, they enjoyed Charles' music.

He expressed his people's efforts to transcend the racial lines of America, a struggle recognized around the world. Credit should partly go to Charles for this global recognition.

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April in the Empire

| Nikki Marterre |

April is the cruelest month
Forgotten skies haze over the atrocities
That keep coming without blinking
The large eye that watches
The large eye that blinds us
With night-vision and yellow flashes
And in that haunting
The roar
That imperceptible second
When all that is lost is forgotten

- (Read full)

El Che

| M. Junaid Alam |

Last Release: Saturday, June 06, 2004

Last Call for Donations and A Note

| The Editors |

Hello all Left Hook readers,

This is our last call for donations as the Summer Fund Drive will be concluding with the publication of this update. Anyone who hasn't contributed to the fund drive but would like to do so can go to our donations page. We would like to take this opportunity to thank all of our readers, contributors, and supporters who made a contribution. Your help is much appreciated and will translate into concrete improvements and enhancements to the Left Hook project.

Note: This latest release of Left Hook was delayed by a week due to the technical editor being dragged to Florida for the stereotypical "family vacation." Therefore, this edition has been expanded to twice the size of a normal update. Thank you for your patience.

A Fool's Fate: Ahmed Chalabi

| Michael Dempsey |

Even before the first Daisy Cutter fell from its B-52, The Iraqi National Congress, headed by the unfailingly disastrous Ahmed Chalabi, was readying itself for the assumption of power. The plan was for Chalabi to be airdropped from an American F-15, piloted by co-conspirators Christopher Hitchens and Kanan Makiyaya, into downtown Baghdad, where the three were then to pull down the statue of Saddam together, thus saving the Americans the trouble of having to pay the Iraqi’s to do it.

As is sometimes said here in Boston: not quite.

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Free Speech vs. Orange Jackets

| Derek Medley |

Accoutered in conspicuous orange jackets, Massachusetts state police officers were deliberating their intentions while filming and pointing at the three of us as we sat quietly among the audience at this year’s Suffolk University commencement ceremony, which we were attending in order to protest the “Honorable” Governor/bigot Mitt Romney who would be speaking in a moment.

After having been allowed in carrying Socialist Worker placards reading “Separate is not equal” and “gay marriage is a civil right,” the same orange-clad cops had forced us to remove them from the grounds of Boston’s Fleet Center Pavilion. This they did without offering any explanation whatever. As we sat in defiant silence while the national anthem was sung, an older man behind us urged us to stand. Receiving no response he proceeded to inform us that we were “ignorant, rude…and stupid.” I turned and asked, “Are we ignorant and rude?” This prompted a similarly aged woman to offer a most sophisticated argument - “shut up!”

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"Illegal Militias" and "Saddam Loyalists" are your friends

| Derek Seidman |

If we were to assume that Bush really means what he says, we'd have to come to the conclusion that he either pays absolutely no attention to events in Iraq, or that he's living on a separate planet from the rest of us. After all, being told that the problem is "Saddam's elite guards" and "foreign fighters and terrorists" is at odds with virtually every headline concerning the Iraqi resistance for the past several weeks, which almost unanimously deal with the indigenous Shiite (read: anti-Baathist) rebellion of followers of Moqtada al-Sadr. Beyond that, much of the investigative reporting shows the fierce Sunni resistance that exists in places like Fallujah to be primarily native and from the grassroots, having little to do with nostalgia for Saddam and much to do with anger at the occupation.

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Torture is Merely the Symptom

| M. Junaid Alam |

Our politicians and pundits have all viewed the latest batch of photographs and videos depicting US soldiers cruelly humiliating, beating, and torturing their Iraqi prisoners. Their purported - perhaps even genuine - outrage and revulsion has been duly noted and conveyed time and again to the whole world; domestically the same professed horror has been repeated endlessly in the press, mostly at the expense of thoughts from the victims themselves. Yet even as our elite line up to express their outrage at soldiers grinning next to leashed and chained detainees, their own criticism is leashed and chained to an extremely narrow ideological spectrum, one in which deeper questions about the torture scandal are safely locked away in the dark corners of that Abu-Ghraib-like entity known as "mainstream" debate.

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Reflections on Resistance

| Macdonald Stainsby |

I had a dream last night that involved an event I went to in November of 1999. The Communist Party of Canada had their annual dinner in honor of the Russian Revolution, "Great October" off the tongues of these folks. In my awakening life, there would be two things that I'd recount if asked about this evening. One of them was a moment of what was overall a pretty ordinary speech, a moment which recalled pride where there has been none for so long. In reference to the defeat of the USSR in the Cold War, people usually cringe, cower, shrink or simply shrug their shoulders when speaking of socialism and of an end to capitalism. But instead of adopting any such change in posture, this speaker simply listed the acts of imperialism since the defeat of the Soviet state. This speech was made before the turn of the Millennium and just a couple of weeks before the definitive arrive of so-called "anti-globalization" at the Battle of Seattle.

The list of imperialism's misdeeds since then and after 9-11 have only grown so much longer, starker and more ominous that his final comments still resonate: "The time has come for us to stop apologizing".

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Confronting The Anybody But Bush Offensive: Don't Back Down

| Josh Frank |

On May 3rd the Village Voice stooped to a new low and published an article by Harry G. Levine, titled, “Ralph Nader, Suicide Bomber.” The title itself, in its racist conjecture (Nader is an Arab-American), exemplifies the fear beating in hearts of many Americans regarding the upcoming election. The majority of these liberals are willing to sideline any progressive tendencies in order to solidify George W. Bush’s defeat in November. Some even go as far as attacking Ralph Nader’s character, as they believe he is the largest hurdle to a Kerry triumph.

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In America, Can I Get A Whiteness?

| Seth Sandronsky |

My family began to arrive in the U.S. from Eastern Europe and Russia just over a century ago. Then as now, the capitalist system was changing people’s lives. That change disrupted my ancestors’ daily rituals and rhythms. They were part of a wave of U.S. immigrants with distinct ethnic identities who did not initially see themselves as members of a white race.

Eventually, my family whitened, as did other immigrant groups. One was the Irish who had lost their land to British invaders. For a time, Irish immigrants were seen and treated as a separate race after arriving in the U.S. Noel Ignatiev details that change In How the Irish Became White.

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Crouched in the Open Room

| Mustafa Shabib |

waiting crouched in the open room
watching it dash between the rushing doom
in the raging fire of a velvet blue lagoon
slicing through the ash white foam
shadows dancing on the mud, alone.
it knew this stretch like none before, even if i dared to call it home
though we stood within it all, our hands wet from start to end
our presence here was transient, it never swayed from its friend
it mapped the path in its minds eye
looped like crystal strings around all bends

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Coming Soon: The Return of the Draft, a Bipartisan Production

| Jacob Levich |

Barring a sudden reversal in the direction of US foreign policy, a strong bipartisan push to reinstate the draft can be expected soon after the November elections. Whether or not Bush wins is irrelevant. The logic of empire requires more boots on the ground, and conscription looks like the only way to get them.

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Accessing history: The importance of Howard Zinn

| Dale McCartney |

On Thursday the 25th of March, the first of the 4-day annual meeting of the Organization of American Historians, Howard Zinn was honoured with an evening spot as a plenary speaker. He spoke on “The Uses of History,” clearly a topic that he is uniquely positioned to discuss. There is an irony in a professional association of historians inviting a speaker who has spent a significant portion of his career hectoring other professional historians for their failure to engage with politics in any meaningful manner. Regardless of the irony, the topic is a perfect choice for such a speaker. Not only has Zinn established himself as a legend because of his activism among historians, he is the author of the bible of radical American history – A People's History of the United States . A People's History has occasioned considerable comment ever since its publication in 1980, and with his appearance in Boston this weekend, a new collection of critiques has appeared.

- (Read full)

Last Release: Saturday, May 22, 2004

Urgent: Left Hook Summer Fund Drive Reminder

| The Editors |

Hello all Left Hook readers, As you know, in last week's update we put out a donations call for our May fund drive. Unfortunately, we have received very little so far - only 5 donations for about $100. We urgently need your help and support to not just improve and expand, but maintain the current pace and quality of Left Hook.

The reality is that for the past six months, LH has been run and maintained at a time when the editors were on a hiatus from university. As that period has passed and the obligations of school demand more of our limited resources, the time and energy constraints imposed as a result necessitated launching this drive.

There are many things we are hoping to do: increase the regularity of the updates, add more in-depth analysis, create an online map of where LH'ers are so they can coordinate, maintain an info-update list for radical events/protests in parts around the country, and project ourselves as a non-sectarian, confident voice for leftist youth more visibly.

However, to do this we really need your contributions. It is not necessary to make a large donation - even $5 or $10 can help if enough people contribute. It's really all a matter of how much Left Hook means to you.

To donate, click this link

Thanks for your support

The time to act is now: A look at today's anti-war movement

| Nikki Marterre |

The torture photos that have been released from Abu Ghraib surprise few on the left and others that have remained active against the occupation of Iraq. We are familiar with the brutality of the United States and its imperialist adventures. However, the photos have meant something very different for American politics in general and the potential to build the anti-war movement. The anti-war movement has been suffering from stagnation - if not decline- ever since the war began on March 20th, 2003 with the exception of a few important events.

Suddenly this May, hundreds of photos were released to the media (too big a story to cover up or ignore) showing torture of Iraqi prisoners in Abu Ghraib, a known prison under Saddam which had obviously changed little under its new leadership. The pictures were disgusting, showing physical, mental and sexual abuse of prisoners. Even Congress got a slide show. Suddenly the very last reasoning that American troops should be there - liberation - came crashing down. Now according to Gallup polls over 30 percent of Americans want all US troops withdrawn from Iraq. Eighteen percent more at least want some troops withdrawn.

- (Read full)

Kerry's "Image" Problem

| Michael Dempsey |

John Kerry's got a problem with the image thing. This even his fans confirm. Eric Alterman, while reflecting on a private meeting he and a few other liberal scribblers had attended with Senator Kerry, reported that although the Senator would make an able president he lacked savor faire so crucial in connecting with American voters. As a remedy to this, The New York Times reported with no small amount of elation that Kerry will be unleashing a barrage of million dollar television ads to acquaint the American people with him. The worrisome impression is that the voters don't know (or don't care to know) anything about John Kerry. By funneling snippets of his St. Alban's childhood into living rooms across America, people will begin to identify with the Senators program, whatever it happens to be on that particular day, or so the hope is.

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A Marxist Critique of 'Third World Postmodernism': Part Two

| Keith Rosenthal |

For Maoists, the goal for Third World peoples was the struggle for national liberation. The consolidation of the nation's own state-its own autonomous space-was seen as a way in which the capitalists of a given Third World country would be able to compete on the global market with the much more powerful advanced capitalist economies of the First World. By centralizing the nation's wealth and capital, and by using the state as a means with which to arbitrate trade deals between international capital and one's own market, it was hoped that one could improve the living standards of ones own country, as well as accumulate capital for the nation's capitalist elite.

The nation-state, then, would be the (rather Hegelian) cross-class expression of the collective will of the "civil society". As the epoch of post-war national liberation began to wane, and newly-independent countries became integrated into the world market, two dramatic things happened: the masses and middle-class intellectuals of those countries became increasingly disillusioned with the promises of 'modern state-hood'; and the capitalist classes within those countries began to use the state more and more to further their own economic interests (as well as the interests of international capital) against their own people. This process was repeated in India, Vietnam, Cuba, throughout Africa, and Latin America.

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If you give us no choice, We will give you no option: A Poem

| Alison Seidman |

Mr. President,

Allow me to introduce you to
My body
The sanctuary of foreign lands you righteously
Don't mind dropping bombs within
Legally, mind you -
Or so we are taught to learn
There is an unmeasured sex in my body
A growth of estrogen stretching my limbs
From the pop, smack
Of a broken condom on the wounds of my insides

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War on Terror: Digital Artwork

| M. Junaid Alam |

Last Release: Sunday, May 14, 2004

Left Hook Summer Fund Drive

May marks the sixth full month of the Left Hook project, as well as the beginning of our first Summer Fund Drive. In the past half-year, Left Hook has enjoyed considerable success in increasing and broadening its recognition, readership and participants...

But as an ambitious and regularly updated online journal Left Hook requires constant editing, reviewing, writing, upgrading, technical work, and outreach - and as a relatively new youth journal - this has all been done so far by no more than two (of the three) editors at any given time, due to the constraints and demands of school, work, and of course, activism. To help ease these burdens and to continue our efforts and expand our reach, we need your financial support.

- (Read full) | Donate

Class Struggle on Campus: Victory to the Columbia University graduate strikers!

| Derek Seidman |

On Thursday, May 6, over 300 striking graduate students and their supporters rallied at Columbia University, marching through campus with resounding chants and makeshift drums thumping away. The atmosphere was all the more festive with the show of solidarity by other unions, including a diverse contingent, forty strong, of TWU local 241, Columbia's Facilities Management. Chants and slogans such as "Union Now", "UAW on strike for recognition", and "The unions united will never be defeated" were complimented by creative pickets, such as "Philosophy Hall on strike-Derridians make the différence". Students marched through some of the same areas and building where, only about 35 years ago, the most historic student occupations of the Sixties had taken place.

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A Marxist Critique of 'Third World Postmodernism': Part One

| Keith Rosenthal |

...it is quite infantile to completely write-off the struggles of workers against global capitalism as, at best, irrelevant. Esteva and Prakash write, "Strikes and struggles like those of the French workers, however, are only brakes designed to slow down the pace of transformation or to reduce the damage of the 'Global Project'. They are not challenging the project itself, or its foundations, but, instead, the way in which it is being implemented or its unequal benefits and impacts." ¹⁵ Later, the two neo-postmodernists go on to say that workers' resistance actually buttress the capitalist state by putting demands upon it, thereby strengthening its "centrality" to the lives of workers. ¹⁶ As if indigenous peoples demanding "autonomous recognition" from the state does not ask something of it; as if demanding better sanitation, health, education, jobs (as the Zapatistas initially did) from the state could be anything more than brakes on the 'Global Project'; as if carving out "postmodern spaces" while explicitly refusing to do a thing about the real, military, economic, and political power of global capitalism will accomplish anything but complicity to its continuation.

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Supporting State Terror in Uruguay and Chile and the Movement to Stop It: A Look Back

| Peter Brogan |

Brazil recently marked the 40th anniversary of its 1964 coup which brought to power and ushered in a wave of unique military dictatorship in the Southern Cone of South America. In this article I will discuss the other two military dictatorships in this region, Chile and Uruguay in the 1970s, focusing on the role of U.S. support, especially in the way of economic and military assistance, which I will argue played an instrumental role in sustaining these two regimes in their terrorizing of their populations. Together with a vast network of client states, these two Bureaucratic Authoritarian (BA) regimes constituted in part what Edward Herman calls the "real terror network." I am particularly concerned here with how effective the movements that opposed the brutal and systematic violations of human rights committed by these two regimes were in pressuring the United States to put a stop to these policies.

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The Longer View: Conondrums of a Civilizing Mission

| M. Junaid Alam |

Today, the utter and total failure of the American colonizing project in Iraq is clear to all. The brutal and sadistic treatment of Iraqi prisoners by US soldiers, the Fallujah massacre, intensified and growing armed resistance among both Sunnis and Shias, and the utter failure to rebuild Iraqi infrastructure have given us ample proof of this. But the crimes and atrocities of the occupation are neither "unprecedented" or "shocking" as the liberal pundits would have us believe. In fact, even a year ago - long before the arrogant Donald Rumsfeld was reduced to parading through the infamous Abu Ghraib prison-complex in an Israeli-made armored car to try to save his career - it was clear that the US would only "instill" barbarism and chaos. That argument was laid out exactly a year ago in the form of The Longer View: Conondrums of A Civilizing Mission, and we reprint it below.

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Last Release: Sunday, May 9, 2004

Drafting the Empire

| Jeff Morgan |

Not since January 2003, when US House of Representatives member Charles Rangel introduced a bill calling to reinstate the military draft, has the issue of conscription been more talked about than now. Rangel ostensibly proposed the bill in large part to address the problems of the economic draft, in which, due to disparities in income, social position, and educational opportunities, members of the all-volunteer US military are disproportionately working class, African-American, and Latino.¹ Unsurprisingly, few politicians supported Rangel's proposal and the debate soon died down.

But on April 20 of this year Republican Senator Chuck Hagel once again brought the issue of the draft back into mainstream political debate. While Hagel also cited the socioeconomic imbalance of volunteer forces, he emphasized the deteriorating course of the occupation in Iraq. He stated that the growing crisis "is a steam engine coming right down the track at us" unless the US government acts to do something about it.² As lawmakers like Hagel know, the endless "war on terrorism" promises continued occupations, interventions, and, hence, resistance by those occupied. This will undoubtedly require more troops - or at least a constant number - and if problems of retention and recruitment manifest themselves, the issue of a new draft will be more than speculation or hollow warnings.

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The Enemy is Within

| M. Junaid Alam |

Sharpened on racial and religious hatreds, the dagger of imperialism has thrust itself into the heart of the Iraqi people with vicious force. Our professional liberals, who have moved heaven and earth to not only produce this dagger but supply it a sheath woven of fine phrases about American moral supremacy, now recoil in horror at events in Iraq and propose a thousand solutions to "secure" it and avoid "chaos." Their minor and meek criticisms of the occupation separate them from the war planners to the same degree that the handle of this dagger is separated from its blade.

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the greatest sunset in history (a poem)

| Josh Saxe |

it's a normal tuesday evening for the people of L.A. - millions - mostly working folk, sitting in their cars in the choked arteries of the freeway system, necks stiff with exhaustion. the unemployed sit at home feeling empty, harried single mothers prepare simple dinners for their kids who play in the dirty streets. at first almost no one notices the sun descending beyond tired residential low-rises - the sky catching flame, sun jets swimming through salmon clouds in straw rivers that roar down olympic, pico, and wilshire soaking crevices in ghetto sidewalks, bathing stacks of unwashed dishes in rusty sinks, washing cigarette stained carpets, filling thin spaces between glass cups and smudged restaurant tables. streams of amber laced purple sailing from where sky meets sea through sheets of smog, splashing on graffitied walls and ice cream trucks, lighting tarred eyes of little girls on rusty swings, softening syringe wrappers, 40oz bottles and used condoms in macarthur park, spreading over the LA river like an exotic burning oil

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Glossary of the Iraq Occupation

| Paulo de Rooij |

Any time there is war or an occupation of another country, propagandists or their media surrogates require language that mollifies, exculpates and hides the grim reality or sordid deeds. In an attempt to gain a deeper understanding of what is really happening in Iraq, this glossary elucidates the terminology commonly used in the media. Its aim is to enable us to peer through the linguistic fog.

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Just Go...

| Young Woman Blogging from Baghdad |

People are so angry. There’s no way to explain the reactions- even pro-occupation Iraqis find themselves silenced by this latest horror. I can’t explain how people feel- or even how I personally feel. Somehow, pictures of dead Iraqis are easier to bear than this grotesque show of American military technique. People would rather be dead than sexually abused and degraded by the animals running Abu Ghraib prison.

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Kerry Won't Stop the War: But Independent Action Can

| Mark Harris |

Kerry's stay-the-course stance on Iraq is becoming more ironic by the day as support for the occupation plummets, both domestically and in Iraq. A recent New York Times/CBS News poll found 46 percent of Americans believe the United States should find a way to get out of Iraq. In Iraq itself, a poll taken by western news services just prior to the recent outbreak of violence in Fallujah found a majority of Iraqis -- 57 percent -- want the U.S. military and its occupation allies out of the country 'in the next few months." Where the violence of recent weeks has since driven Iraqi opinion is not hard to surmise.

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Last Release: Wednesday, April 28, 2004

"No Democrat is going to beat Bushism":
An interview with Green Party activist Howie Hawkins

| Derek Seidman |

As the 2004 presidential election approaches, the pressure is mounting on advocates of independent politics to go ABB (Anybody But Bush), which in practice means supporting pro-war, pro-occupation, pro-corporation, pro-troop increase, pro-PATRIOT Act candidate John Kerry. Recently Left Hook's Derek Seidman caught up with Howie Hawkins, a longtime activist-leader of the Green Party and an outspoken voice for the need to fully break from the Democrats and the practice of lesser-evilism.

- (Read interview)

For My Friend in Iraq

| Pankaj Mehta |

One of my best friends is in Iraq. He is a medic in the Navy Reserve. On January 2nd, he was told that he would be deploying to a stretch of desert West of Baghdad. At his request, I will refrain from using his name. I do not know how long he will be in Iraq; I am not sure that even the Pentagon knows. I do not know for how long I will have to wake up everyday and scour the web to make sure that he is not one of the really unlucky ones, killed in a helicopter crash or caught in an ambush.

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The IMF and World Bank Celebrate Sixty Years of Infamy

| Benjamin Dangl |

Amid belly dancers, jugglers and heavily armed police, activists from around the world converged in Washington DC on April 24, 2004 to wish the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank a very unhappy 60th birthday. While international bureaucrats congratulated each other on one more year of "reducing poverty around the globe", a colorful array of activists in the streets protested against over half a decade of IMF and World Bank structural adjustment programs, undemocratic decision making and destructive free trade agreements.

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Lesser-Evilism and the Fight for Gay Marriage: The Politics of Self-Defeat

| Keith Rosenthal |

The movement for gay marriages that has emerged spontaneously all across the country is clearly beginning to reach a crossroads. On the one hand, a wide collection of city councils and mayors have been issuing marriage licenses to gay couples over the past several weeks despite Bush's bigoted threats to amend the federal constitution to ban same-sex marriages. These mayors and city councilors have stood up to do what's right with the help of grassroots pushes by gay rights activists, from New Paltz to Seattle to San Francisco.

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Last Release: Thursday, April 22, 2004

The Roots of Iraqi Rage

| Khury Petersen-Smith |

Early one January morning, on a road in Jordan, Tareq drove me and two other anti-war activists from the United States toward occupied Iraq. Tareq, an Iraqi, knew enough English for the two of us to have a conversation about his life, his work, and the horrors, indignities, and frustrations of life under the US occupation. At one point, he turned to me and said, "Iraqis will not take this much longer. Maybe four or five more months, and if no change, we will-"

He struggled to find the correct English words. Then, abandoning the search, he held out his hand, palm up.

"We are here," he said.

He raised his hand, slowly at first, then quickly, flipping his palm-side down.

"We will be here."

I didn't understand at first, but after Tareq repeated the gesture several times, it became clear.

"You will rise up."

"Yes." Tareq smiled. Iraqis will rise up. Intifada.

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Ground Down in the Fields: Coffee and State Authority in Colombia

| Josh Frank |

The global coffee industry has endured colossal changes over the past fifty years. Production of beans has shifted from country to country. Profiteering from the product has increased almost exponentially through huge sales at retail outlets such as Starbucks and Seattle's Best. But not all involved in the coffee market have benefited equally. Small coffee farmers have suffered tremendous loss. Environmental degradation has also increased as ancient forests have been cleared in hopes that the bare land can be transformed into fertile ground, worthy of growing cash crops. Countries have lost entire export industries as multinational corporations race to purchase the cheapest beans they can find. And no country has felt the pain of these transformations greater than Colombia.

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Conservatives: A Brake on Human Progress

| Morgan Southwood |

The strict definition of a conservative is one who holds to traditional methods or views, or a cautious or discreet person. If the good old days were actually good, I'd be more inclined to give traditional conservatives a bit more credit, but they were not, so I can't. Other hallmarks of conservative thinking include pseudo-Christian zealotry and proud neurotic selfishness - myguns, my tax dollars, my standard of living.

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Arab Eyes: A Poem

| M. Junaid Alam |

Glares of the oppressed
Shoot out from shadows writhing
under black war boots strapped on white skin
Arab-dirtied in desert sands.

Rising in the nascent sandstorm
of national struggle
can these angered Arab eyes
these twin towers of Resistance
stare down
buildings stretching into the sky
and empires digging into the (s)oil.

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The Resistance: A Poem

| Victor de Serna |

He is alone in the loneliness of the night of the Occupation
His children were killed like flies in the siege of Fallujah

He kneels like a priest on the sorrowful ruins of his family's home
The ash and rubble float like bitter smoke
And the remnants of his blasted walls lean up from the ground like jagged teeth

The night cannot touch him

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Last Release: Saturday, April 17, 2004

We Are the Barbarians: Consequences of Colonialism in Iraq

| M. Junaid Alam |

Jaw agape and fangs unsheathed, American colonialism has lashed out with severe brutality against the newly-unified Iraqi resistance, counting on its military might to crush the aspirations of Iraqis who seek to liberate their country from foreign control. Relying so heavily on the force of arms against a people it claims to liberate, the US has inverted Clausewitz's famous dictum that war is a continuation of politics by other means; our policy now is politics as a continuation of war by other means.

But it so happens that this is a double-edged sword - with both edges thrust firmly into the heart of the occupation.

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Bay Areas Grocery Workers Fight for the Future of American Healthcare

| Javier Armas |

"UF-C-Double U! Safeway, we're coming through!" chanted hundreds of UFCW members and officials at a meeting held on March 14 at the ILWU Local 10 Hall in San Francisco. This meeting was the first step taken by the Bay Area UFCW locals to prepare for the coming expiration of their contracts that could lead to a strike this fall. Watching the Southern California strike and the lockout unfold last October, nine locals formed the Bay Area Coalition--the organization that engineered the March event. This UFCW meeting was attended by 400 to 1200 (depending on the observer).

The Coalition represents nearly 50,000 workers at Safeway, Albertsons, Ralphs, Cala, Raley's, Andronicos, and several other independent Bay Area stores. Eight of these locals (101, 120, 1179, 373R, 428, 648, 839 and 870) share a master contract that expires September 11, 2004. The ILWU drill team entered the meeting in marching formation unleashing a fresh energy that resonated with the hundreds of clerks and grocery workers present.

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The Impact of Cars on Society

| Yves Engler |

A couple months back I came across a phenomenal statistic; there are 1.02 cars in the U.S. for every person of driving age. (1) The New York Times confirmed this in an article that said there are 230 million cars and trucks in the U.S. and only 193 million licensed drivers. (2)

Surely it's more cost effective to call a cab when a breakdown occurs rather than having a backup vehicle? Or have the robots learned to drive?

But in all seriousness, car prevalence has, to put it mildly, many drawbacks. It also contributes significantly to shaping a country and says something about a society.

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Eight Hours: A Poem

| Ian Werkheiser |

Hold, release
Hold, release
Things that seemed without effort
A vice tightening with each repetition
Hold, release
Hold, release
There are only twenty incubators, they said
Sanctions and bombing had reduced us to only this, they said
Hold, release
Hold, release
You held your nephew in your arms, struggling to breathe on his own
Trying so hard.
They told you one would be available. A promise.
Hold, release

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Last Release: Tuesday, April 13, 2004

Interview with Jeffrey St. Clair

| M. Junaid Alam |

Recently, co-editor of Left Hook M. Junaid Alam had a chance to interview Jeffrey St. Clair, co-editor of Counterpunch, about his devastating critique of corporate-government ruination of the environment presented in his recent book, Been Brown So Long It Looked Like Green to Me: The Politics of Nature.

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Looking Ahead: Some Thoughts on the Youth Movement in the USA

| Derek Seidman |

There is an increasing urgency-though not yet an extreme urgency - for young people in the United States involved in various social struggles to take our broader struggle for social and economic justice a big step forward...

The emergence of a visible, united, and unapologetic rebellion, the symbolism of ordinary people rising from the ashes of decades of war and sanctions to throw their bodies into the gears of the mightiest of empires, has shaken the balance of forces. The Iraqis are on the front line of the struggle against the US global juggernaut, and we in the heart of the empire itself are positioned strategically inside the apparatus of the machine. Hardly ever before has a greater and more imminent imperative been placed on a people to take care of their responsibilities at home.

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Happy Anniversary at the Oakland Docks

| Ali Tonak |

Yesterday was a different kind of anniversary; the painful memory was lot more real and personal. A year ago on April 7th, a 600 person picket line formed early in the morning at the Oakland Docks to take direct action against shipments to Iraq. The picket was brutally attacked by the police using less lethal weaponry such as rubber bullets, wooden dowels, concussion grenades and beanbag rounds. 50 people were injured and some sustained huge welts that made national news. 600 people met again yesterday to go back to the docks to remake the point they made a year ago but with the specter of police brutality and repression rising tall behind them.

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Reflections on Anti-Semitic Firebombings in Montreal: Really Combating Racism

| Macdonald Stainsby |

Prime Minister Paul Martin, Quebec Premier Jean Charest and others have stepped out of their usual role of slashing social spending, giving insurance salesman smiles and cutting ribbons on new stretches of pavement to instead deliver an impassioned denunciation of recent anti-Semitic firebombings in Montreal. And it's a good thing to see. I can't help but wonder, however, is it a sign of their own racism that they didn't do this when hate crimes swept every corner of the state north of the 49th parallel? Is it only political opportunism in response to a powerful Zionist lobby, rather than any real condemnation of anti-Semitism or concern for Jewish people living in Montreal?

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Review of Jeffrey St. Clair's Been Brown So Long It Looked Like Green to Me

| M. Junaid Alam |

The profit system's devastating impact on the environment often goes unexamined or is only vaguely grasped by many radicals and activists on the left. St. Clair's book presents an undeniably devastating indictment of corporate ransoming and plundering of the environment, methodically exposing how corporations are destroying our surroundings and the sustainability of all life with the collusion and complacency of the government and established environmental groups.

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Last Release: Wednesday, April 7, 2004

Regime Change, Resistance-Style: Iraq's Intifada Begins

| M. Junaid Alam |

Barely a year after America closed its eyes to reason, its greatest nightmare has arrived.

The neoconservative elites who launched America into war with lofty rhetoric about overthrowing Arab tyranny are now witnessing mass resistance against the most brutal tyranny in the region today - their own. The combination of a renewed insurgency in the Sunni center and an explosive popular rebellion in the Shiite center and south presents a damning indictment of America's colonial occupation of Iraq. As children in rags run in the streets to hurl stones at American tanks and as those tanks fire furiously into homes and buildings to crush a growing two-pronged rebellion, one thing above all seems clear: Iraqis demand real liberation, not Bush's farce. And they are willing to challenge the most powerful army in the world to win it.

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UT Shuttle Workers Stand Up to ATC/Vancom

| Christopher Hamilton |

A combination of sixty University of Texas shuttle workers and students rallied on the campus last week to demand better pay, better benefits, and safer working conditions for the 225 drivers and mechanics in the University shuttle system, approximately half of whom are members of Amalgated Transit Union (ATU) Local 1549.

The workers have been stalemated for more than two years in a contract negotiation with Capital Metropolitan Transit Authority's subcontractor, ATC/Vancom, who is responsible for the management of labor in the University's transportation system. The workers' wages have been frozen without a single increase in three years. During that time, their health care benefits have been drastically cut in a two-part reduction. Moreover, the buses have caught on fire six times under ATC's watch, a phenomenon never before seen in the thirty year history of the University shuttle before ATC/Vancom's arrival on the scene. The drivers continue to insist that the seven thousand service hour per year cut in maintenance instituted by ATC/Vancom is not acceptable and has culminated into a dangerous deficiency with the buses' brakes. The workers are completely fed-up and it appears that a strike is impending.

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Sony: A Short Story on Palestine

| Macdonald Stainsby |

"Fauzia! Fauzia!" The scream ripped through the air, though the sound of bullets was still too thick for one to even think. Her body lay slumped in a heap on the ground, a bullet having just pierced through her kidneys and her left cheek. Her hijjab covered her vision so she could no longer see, and she was losing consciousness fast.

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Life and Debt (Film Review)

Mark Yu

The 2001 film, Life and Debt, demonstrates the continuing significance of imperialism as a concept for understanding the world today. Though the word "imperialism" typically evokes images of occupying armies, cities demolished by not-so-smart bombs, military checkpoints, and other displays of imperial force, it is far more descriptive as a concept that brings together the economic, political, and military spheres in a totalizing analysis. Imperialism is a global system that determines not only how wars are fought but also how people eat, work, and travel based on their class, gender, and nationality.

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Last Release: Friday, April 2, 2004

Hegemony and Exceptionalism: How US Foreign Policy Created the Most Powerful Country in the World

| David Gonzales |

America's role in the stability of globalisation reached a new level when in 1990 President George H. W. Bush declared the "new world order." His political rhetoric symbolized a) a notion of progress in United States history; b) a proclamation of American success in the battle against worldwide communism; and c) the global parameters by which America would now dictate its expansion. But the language also invoked something much older; an implication that America was embarking on a journey, bringing with it the terms of peace and prosperity that have been idolized in the United States since its conception.

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Report from occupied Iraq: "We don't want the Army USA"

| Khuri Petersen-Smith |

From Amman, we had a 13-hour drive to Baghdad, since no commercial airlines are flying into Iraq. On the road, our driver Tareq told us of the frustration and anger that he and other Iraqis feel toward the U.S. occupation of their country. Like many other Iraqis I would meet, Tareq initially felt hopeful that the U.S. invasion and overthrow of Saddam Hussein's regime would bring an end to years of war and suffering.

Since the invasion--in which one of Tareq's brothers was killed--he has become bitter and angry as the U.S. failed to reconstruct the infrastructure, bring work, provide stable access to electricity or clean water, or create any security for Iraqis. Tareq told me that he and other Iraqis "just want to live."

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Chasing Out Israeli Arrogance: Victory At Simon Fraser University

| Macdonald Stainsby |

On March 15, 2004 Vancouver dealt a minor but important blow against racism and colonialism on Simon Fraser University campus. Mr. Ya'acov Brosh, an Israeli Consul General, was slated to give a speech to a small group of Zionists and supporters at an event held by student groups Hillel and the Israel Advocacy Committee beginning at 1:30pm.

For those of us in the audience who had never been through the daily humiliation that people in Palestine endure, we were treated to a checkpoint at the entrance door, having to open up our coats, where each person had their bags checked through by police who were there to protect the diplomat of the settler-state. Once inside, the final checkpoint was where the front row was reserved, to quote, "for Jews only".

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Digital Artwork: Chaining Palestine

| M. Junaid Alam |

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