Radical media, politics and culture.

The State

March 28, 2003 - 10:59am -- hydrarchist
Analysis & Polemic
The State

Louis Lingg writes:
"I found the following timeline on the Practical History website.


Since the state of Iraq was created early this century, the working class in the area have suffered brutal exploitation and repression at the hands of the rival ruling class groups competing for power. As if dealing with these home grown gangsters wasn't enough, they have also faced the bullets and bombs of the global capitalist powers (especially Britain and America) seeking to control the oil wealth of this part of the world.


Meanwhile opposition political organisations such as the Iraqi Communist Party and the Kurdish Democratic Party have consistently made deals with both Iraqi regimes and the global powers at the expense of those who they claimed to be leading in resistance to the state. Despite all this, the working class has shown itself a force to be reckoned with, toppling governments and sabotaging war efforts. This brief chronology charts some of the key moments in a century of war and rebellion.

March 26, 2003 - 4:00pm -- jim
Analysis & Polemic
The State

Anonymous Comrade writes: "This is a leaflet from an unnamed group I know nothing about, distributed in Glasgow at the end of the first Gulf War. Contact addresses for it are given at the end, but I have no idea if they're still valid."


"Ten Days that Shook Iraq:

Inside information From an Uprising"


The Gulf war was not ended by the military victory of America and the Allies. It was ended by the mass desertion of thousands of Iraqi soldiers. So overwhelming was the refusal to fight for the Iraqi state on the part of its conscripted army that, contrary to all predictions, not one Allied soldier was killed by hostile fire in the final ground offensive to recapture Kuwait. Indeed the sheer scale of this mutiny is perhaps unprecedented in modern military history.


But these mutinous troops did not simply flee back to Iraq. On their return many of them turned their guns against the Iraqi state, sparking a simultaneous uprising in both Southern Iraq and in Kurdistan to the North. Only the central region of Iraq surrounding Baghdad remained firmly in the state's hands in the weeks following the end of the war.


From the very start the Western media has grossly misrepresented these uprisings. The uprising in the South, centred on Basra, was portrayed as a Shia Muslim revolt. Whereas the insurrection in the North was reported as an exclusively Kurdish Nationalist uprising which demanded little more than an autonomous Kurdish region within Iraq.


The truth is that the uprisings in both the North and South of Iraq were proletarian insurrections.

March 24, 2003 - 8:58pm -- Uncle Fluffy
News
The State

lazosubverto writes:

"Anglo-American Lies Exposed"

Robert Fisk in Baghdad -- 24 March 2003, The Independent

So far, the Anglo-American armies are handing their propaganda to the Iraqis on a plate. First, on Saturday, we were told -- courtesy of the BBC -- that Umm Qasr, the tiny Iraqi seaport on the Gulf, had "fallen". Why cities have to "fall" on the BBC is a mystery to me; the phrase comes from the Middle Ages when city walls literally collapsed under siege. Then we were told -- again on the BBC -- that Nassariyah had been captured. Then its "embedded" correspondent informed us -- and here my old journalistic suspicions were alerted -- that it had been "secured". "Embedded" reporters are those traveling with the American or British forces -- and who are now subject to a censorship that is willfully misleading the BBC's listeners, not just in Britain but all over the world.

March 20, 2003 - 8:52am -- jim
Analysis & Polemic
The State

jinx writes:


"The Ides of March"

Partha Chatterjee

There is a gnawing sense of inevitability in the way things are

moving. The flood is rising inch by inch; the only question is

when the dike will burst. Except, this is not a natural disaster

waiting to happen. These are events fully under the control of

world leaders playing for high stakes. Why is the world being

pushed to the precipice?

March 15, 2003 - 12:30pm -- jim
Analysis & Polemic
The State

"International Future Humanity"

Franco Berardi (Bifo)

Some days ago I witnessed a debate on the USA/conflict on the Italian TV

current affairs programme the Infidel by Gad Lerner. There was an interview

with Dani Cohn Bendit that impressed me. The position of Cohn, Bendit,

Fischer, Sofri, and Liberation has recently undergone a mutation, that makes

of it the most interesting nucleus of contemporary Europeanism, an evolution

of the culture of 1968 that connects the liberal and reformist legacies in

order to combine them in a form of cosmopolitan and humanist

neo-enlightenment.

March 15, 2003 - 11:54am -- jim
Analysis & Polemic
The State

"The Intellectual Property Meme"

David Reed



Every time you utter the words "intellectual property" you

buy into the idea that all information bit patterns are or

should be inherently "owned" by somebody.

March 10, 2003 - 4:43pm -- hydrarchist
News
The State

Uncle Fluffy writes

"If you have read the Department of Homeland Security's website describing how to stay safe in these dangerous times http://www.ready.gov you know that it is hard to believe that ready.gov is not a parody.


Numeous paraody sites, mocking ready.gov have been set up. My favorite has to be the website of the Department of Homeland Panic at http://www.gialames.com/bescared.html



The Department of Homeland Panic....

March 10, 2003 - 2:47am -- hydrarchist
News
The State

nolympics writes:

UN Launches Inquiry into American Spying

Martin Bright, Ed Vulliamy in New York and Peter Beaumont

Sunday March 9, 2003

The Observer


The United Nations has begun a top-level investigation into the bugging of its delegations by the United States, first revealed in The Observer last week.


Sources in the office of UN Secretary General Kofi Annan confirmed last night that the spying operation had already been discussed at the UN's counter-terrorism committee and will be further investigated.


The news comes as British police confirmed the arrest of a 28-year-old woman working at the top secret Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) on suspicion of contravening the Official Secrets Act. Read the rest at The Observer"

March 3, 2003 - 10:07am -- jim
Analysis & Polemic
The State

"There Is No Communism in 'Soviet' Russia"

Emma Goldman (1935)

Communism is now on everybody's lips. Some talk of it with
the exaggerated enthusiasm of a new convert, others fear and
condemn it as a social menace. But I venture to say that
neither its admirers--the great majority of them--nor those
who denounce it have a very clear idea of what Bolshevik
Communism really is.

February 23, 2003 - 8:22pm -- Uncle Fluffy
News
The State

hydrarchist writes "This story was originally published in Counterpunch.



Security Threat?

Bernadette Devlin McAliskey Barred Entry to the United States

By LAURA FLANDERS


Irish activist and former Member of Parliament, Bernadette Devlin McAliskey was detained by immigration officials in Chicago, February 21, and denied entry into the United States allegedly on "national security" grounds.


According to her daughter, Deidre, two INS officers threatened to arrest, jail, and even shoot the legendary civil rights campaigner when she arrived at Chicago's O'Hare airport. McAliskey (56) was then photographed, finger-printed and returned to Ireland against her will on the grounds that the State Department had declared that she "poses a serious threat to the security of the United States."


"Mommy was this close to being locked up," said Deidre, Saturday in New York. The two were traveling together from Ireland to the US to attend a christening,

Pages

Subscribe to The State