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Analysis & Polemic

April 6, 2002 - 1:56pm -- jim
Analysis & Polemic
Culture

Louis Lingg writes

"The folks who assembled 'Against War and Terrorism' back in October have produced a second issue. Included is the reproduction of an essay originally published in 1981 by Lafif Lakhdar, 'Why the Reversion to Islamic Archaism?'. Lakhdar was a revolutionary, a socialist, and a colleague of and collaborator with the situationist Mustapha Khayati. He was living in Lebanon when he wrote this piece, in an effort to understand and explain events in Iran.

April 5, 2002 - 8:50am -- jim
Analysis & Polemic
News

John Chuckman writes:

"Of War, Islam and Israel"

John Chuckman, YellowTimes.org Columnist (Canada)

War between Islam and the nations of the West? There have been a good many careless words printed and broadcast in America touching on this simplistic idea. And an American president who lacks the most superficial knowledge of the world or its history offers no reassurance, as he lurches from one misstatement to another, that this idea is not being incorporated into national policy.

The concept of Islam as an intrinsically violent, anti-progressive opponent in the modern world is both ignorant and dangerous. The new prominence of this idea in America provides a good measure of the distorted information that exists in our political environment. It's almost as though the bloody, parochial views of Ariel Sharon on the nature of Palestinians had been exalted to a world view, worthy of every statesman's consideration.

April 4, 2002 - 12:44pm -- jim
Analysis & Polemic
News

World War III Report #26, March 24, 2002

Bill Weinberg with David Bloom, Special Correspondent

THIS WEEK: SPECIAL REPORT ON ISRAELI ESPIONAGE IN USA

THE AFGHANISTAN FRONT

1. Was "Operation Anaconda" a Victory?

2. US Troops Attacked in Khost

3. US Forces Still "Flushing Out"

4. Gen. Franks Warns of More to Come

5. Bush Warns of More to Come

6. Al-Qaeda Regrouping for Spring Offensive?

7. US Forces Raid "Al-Qaeda Compound" in Kandahar

8. Ethnic Hazaras Falsely Detained by US Forces

9. Brits Back in the Breach

10. MPs Warn of "Second Vietnam"

11. "Goodwill" US-Afghan Basketball Game Ends in Violence

12. Zahir Shah Again Postpones Trip Home

13. US Embassy Staff Leave Pakistan After Church Blast

14. Pakistan Being Drawn into War?

15. Accused Pearl Slayer to be Tried in Pakistan

16. CIA Chief: Al-Qaeda Still a Threat

THE MIDDLE EAST

1. Al-Aqsa Brigades Make US "Terrorist List"

2. B'Tselem: IDF "Trigger Happy"

3. TV Footage of IDF Atrocity Bucks Israeli Censors

4. New York Times Sees "Secret Iran-Arafat Connection"

5. Top Islamic Scholar: Suicide Bombers "Holy"

6. Saudi Newspaper Revives Blood Libel

7. Unveiled Girls Burned Alive in Saudi Arabia

THE PHILIPPINE FRONT

1. Filipinos Fear "Vietnamization"

2. US Troops Near Basilan Battle

3. Moro Rebels Deny Terrorist Link

4. Bloody Politics of Mindanao

5. Who is Abu Sayyaf?

6. Indonesia Next?

NUCLEAR PARANOIA

1. Brits Get in on Nuclear Sabre-Rattling

2. Is Pentagon Using Depleted Uranium in Afghanistan?

3. "Mystery Metal Nightmare in Afghanistan?"

ANTHRAX PARANOIA

1. CIA Link to Anthrax Attacks?

2. New York Times: Al-Qaeda Anthrax Link Seen

3. UK Observer: Al-Qaeda Anthrax Link Fabricated

4. Emergency Health Powers Act in State Legislatures

THE WAR AT HOME

1. US Farms Out Torture to Terror War Allies

2. No al-Qaeda Snared in Terror Sweep?

3. Military Tribunals to Allow "Unorthodox" Evidence

4. ...and Indefinite Detention

5. More Raids on Islamic Charities and Academics

6. Two Soldiers Dead in Fort Drum Munitions Accident

GLIMMERS OF HOPE

1. Barbara Lee Gets Standing Ovation in Berkeley

WATCHING THE SHADOWS

1. What Did Israel Know About 9-11?

2. Behind Israeli Snooping: Terror or Ecstasy?

3. ...and Disappearing Pushcarts?

Full report is at worldwar3

April 4, 2002 - 11:33am -- jim
Analysis & Polemic
The State

A few Montreal-area anarchists have just produced a 28-page pamphlet titled "An Anarchist Attack on Global Governance". The pamphlet includes sections on "The G8 and Global Governance", "The War on Terrorism" and "Partnership with Africa" (the table of contents is included below).

A PDF version of the pamphlet, with all graphics, is available on the Take the Capital! website at: take the capital

April 1, 2002 - 12:51pm -- jim
Analysis & Polemic
Drug War

"I Am Not a Toker":Once-Secret

‘Nixon Tapes’ Show Why the U.S. Outlawed Pot

Kevin Zeese, AlterNet.org, 04.01.02

Thirty years ago the United States came to a critical juncture in the drug war. A Nixon-appointed presidential commission had recommended that marijuana use not be a criminal offense under state or federal law. But Nixon himself, based on his zealous personal preferences, overruled the commission's research and doomed marijuana to its current illegal status.
This newly revealed information comes from declassified tapes of Oval Office conversations from 1971 and 1972, which show Nixon's aggressive anti-drug stance putting him directly at odds against many of his close advisors. Transcripts of the tape, and a report based on them, are available at
csdp

March 31, 2002 - 4:31pm -- jim
Analysis & Polemic
Technology

Trouble Ahead, Trouble Behind

John Perry Barlow Interviewed

By Rachel Konrad Staff Writer, CNET News.com

February 22, 2002, 12:00 PM PT

cnet news

The co-founder of the 12-year-old Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) tries not to be bleak. But he sincerely worries that Microsoft will usurp e-commerce and AOL Time Warner will seize media, and the two forces will extinguish dissenting voices in a "diabolical" plot to own the economy and the human mind.

But Barlow, perhaps best known as a lyricist for the Grateful Dead, isn't entirely forlorn. He's optimistic that courts will soon strike down the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), a 1998 agreement that banned online distribution of companies' intellectual property. And he's hopeful that Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates--the smartest man Barlow says he's ever met -- will hatch a plan to control the Internet that is so ridiculous that it
will spark a public boycott that ultimately will topple the software giant.

March 29, 2002 - 12:50pm -- jim
Analysis & Polemic
Rants

Future Feed Forward, February 8, 2011

New MS Word Feature Checks Files for Copyright Infringement

"...During a feature demonstration, the advisor proved adept at
identifying direct copying, noting almost instantly that "Call
me Ishmael" was taken from Moby Dick, a book once, but no longer, in the public domain. In a cheerful voice, Mickey suggested alternatives, including "My name is Ishmael" and "Call me Ichabod," and also offered to license the phrase for 8 cents in fewer than 50 copies of the document..."

March 26, 2002 - 7:55pm -- jim
Analysis & Polemic
The State

Michael Hardt "The Globalizers Block Globalization"

A German Interview with Stefan Krempl

What happens when a former disciple of the Italian terror movement Red Brigades and a fairly unknown American literature professor meet up and write a book together about globalization? In the case of Empire (Empire), Antonio Negri
(Negri) and Michael Hardt (Hardt) scored. Their opus stirred up quite a debate in left academic circles as well as in the so-called anti-globalization protest movements since its first publication in 2000. In fact, it became an early classic of neo-Marxist literature already.

Finally, a German translation
(German translation) has been released a few days ago. On his promotion tour, Hardt explained to the hip Berlin crowd in the equally hip Volksbuehne theatre as well as to guests of the British Council in the Deutsche Bank representation Unter den Linden the paradox of globalization and his utopian vision of a truly global citizenship. The soft-looking guy states that we
now have to reinvent democracy from the nation state to the global sphere and that we have to find new forms of representation. Of course, he also didn't spare with criticism on the Bush wars against the "axis of evil". In
his talk with Telepolis, Hardt clears up his position on al-Qaida,
anarchism, and on the new global organization of power.

March 25, 2002 - 1:05pm -- jim
Analysis & Polemic
The State

Anonymous Comrade writes "

Flirting with Fascism

John Chuckman, Sunday, March 24, 2002

"Perhaps America will one day go fascist democratically." William L. Shirer

Long before the unsavory American politician, Patrick Buchanan, was accused by the just-ever-so-slightly less unsavory American politician, William Bennett, of "flirting with fascism," the country had a rich history of doing that very thing.

There is a keen and almost pathetic sense one gets from the words of many liberal American commentators insisting Mr. Bush's war measures represent a heart-wrenching departure from the nation's traditions. I beg to differ.

March 24, 2002 - 9:54pm -- nomadlab
Analysis & Polemic
News

This essay was originally published here in early february, but without footnotes due to technical difficulties. Please find herein the full text.(h.)

Anonymous Comrade writes.... This essay takes a critical look at the role Non Governmental Organizations (NGOs) play in the growing movement against global capital. It is part of a collection published this week by Soft Skull press in NY. "The Battle of Seattle; The new Movement against Capitalist Globalisation" Eds Eddie Yuen, Daniel Burton_Rose and George Katsiafikas, published by Soft Skull Press (February, 2002)

"This Is What Bureaucracy Looks Like.
NGOs and Anti-Capitalism(1)

by James Davis

"I'm aware that it's a lot more glamorous to be on the barricade with a handkerchief around your nose than it is to be at the meetings with a briefcase and a bowler hat, but I think that we're getting more done this way"(2) -- Bono

This essay takes a critical look at the role Non Governmental Organizations (NGOs) play in the growing movement against global capital. The movement, which made its spectacular US debut in Seattle, has lent NGOs unprecedented political influence. Leading thinkers and institutions of capitalist planning are desperate for allies to appease their critics. As we will see the impulses of the NGOs and those of the movement are politically at odds. While much discussion has concentrated on tactical differences, a more profound problem lies beneath. Lacking in imagination and caught between the many-headed street movement and an impulse to negotiate directly with power on its behalf, the specter of NGOs, as a device for the containment of political dissent, arises(3).

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