Anonymous Comrade submits:

"Obit For A Former Contrarian"

Dennis Perrin, City Pages

A friend and protégé tries to make sense of what's happened to Christopher Hitchens

Bright spring afternoon. Hitch and I spend it in his fave D.C. pub just down the street from his spacious apartment. At the long polished bar, he sips a martini, I swig Tanqueray on ice offset by pints of ale. The pub's TV is flashing golf highlights while the jukebox blasts classic rock. We're chatting about nothing in particular when the juke begins playing "Moonshadow" by Cat Stevens. Hitch stops talking. His face tightens. Eyes

narrow. I know this look -- I saw it on Crossfire when he nearly slugged a Muslim supporter of the Ayatollah's "fatwa" against Salman Rushdie. I saw it during a Gulf War panel discussion at Georgetown when he responded to some pro-war hack with a precision barrage of invective, followed by the slamming down of the mike, causing a brief reverb in the speakers.

And here it was again.

Anonymous Kumquat submits:

"The Anarchist Ethic in the Age of the Anti-Globalization Movement"

Killing King Abacus

The question always before anarchists is how to act in the present moment of struggle against capitalism and the state. As new forms of social struggles are becoming more clearly understood, this question becomes even more important. In order to answer these questions we have to clarify the relationship between anarchists and the wider social movement of the exploited and the nature of that movement itself.

Anonymous Comrade submits:

"Racism, Exploitation and Neglect:

Bush and Africa"

Martha Honey, Counterpunch

It was a powerfully symbolic gift, coming as it did from one of the world's
poorer countries to the world's richest. In June 2002, a Maasai village in
Kenya presented its most precious resource, fifteen head of cattle, to the
United States as an expression of solidarity for the tragedy of September
11. "To the people of America, we give these cows to help you," read
banners at the ceremonial handover of the cattle from Maasai elders to the
U.S. ambassador. The gift was all the more poignant since the U.S.
government still has not compensated the families of the Kenyan victims of
terrorism who died in al-Qaeda's 1998 bombing of the U.S. embassy in
Nairobi.

[This article continues from here.]

V: Analysis by Anecdote: Anti-war, Stopwar.ca and the City of Vancouver.

Solidarity is one of the catchwords of the left, always has been for
everyone, even a right social democrat. When people say 'solidarity' they
mean a multitude of things, but formerly it was said that (in the words of
Che Guevara) "Solidarity means sharing the same risks", yet now solidarity
now is used to mis-identify "I agree with you." But if it doesn't mean more
than that, it means nothing at all and is a superfluous word. I can only
give an example from my own recent activist life by way of telling
anecdotes. There are anti-war coalitions in every part of the industrialized
world now. They are, much like TUB's in imperialist countries, historically
relevant; nature abhors a vacuum and so do historical processes. It is worth
both the time and the energy to support the existing coalitions, to not
fight against them -- especially right now, during a reactionary triumphalism
emanating from Downing Street and Pennsylvania Avenue. However, we need to
have a look at what kind of politics these coalitions are bringing about,
and how they are functioning in terms of raising our own understanding of
what is happening.