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Today's
Stories
July 4, 2007
St. Clair / Frank
Obama's Nuclear
Ambitions
July 3, 2007
Bill Quigley
Injustice in Jena:
Black Nooses Hanging from the "White" Tree
Gary Leupp
Civil Strife in
Palestine: a Broader Context
Lynda
Brayer
Norman
Finkelstein and the Catholic Church
Richard Thieme
Mind Wars:
Brain Research, Nanotech and the Military
Helen
Redmond
They
Don't Come Back the Same: the Mind of the Returning Iraq War
Vet
David Swanson
Scooter and
the Commuter: When Presidents Pardon Their Own Crimes
Jacob
Hornberger
Martha
Stewart vs. Scooter Libby: Commutation as Cover-Up
Ayesha Ijaz Khan
Pakistan's New
Jihad
Franklin
Lamb
The
Edginess of Lebanon
Ray McGovern
Unimpeachably
Impeachable: Start with Cheney
Kevin
Zeese
The Air
Force vs. Rev. Lennox Yearwood
Dave Lindorff
Nancy Pelosi
and the Low Bar Democrats
Website of
the Day
A
Military Guide to the Iraq War
July 2, 2007
Andy Worthington
The Guantánamo
Whistleblowers
Nina Serrano
The
Assassination of a Poet: Memories of Roque Dalton
Jack
Hirschman
The Nation
and the Assassin: a Shameful Blunder
Paul Craig Roberts
Enter
Turkey
Bill
Williams
The Commissar
Two-Step at DePaul
Anthony Papa
A Taste of the
Gulag: What Paris Learned
Sonja
Karkar
Who
Will Save Palestine?
Louay Safi
Steve Emerson's
Fantastic Obsession
Anthony
Gregory
When
Killer Cops Walk
Monica Benderman
In
Consideration of War
Website of
the Day
Dylan's
Masters of War, at West Point, 1990
June 30 / July 1, 2007
John Ross
Free Frida
Kahlo!
Alan Farago
Fakery, Inflation
and the Housing Market
Peter
Quinn
The
Political Paranoia Over Immigration: Two Centuries and
Counting
Christopher Brauchli
Cheney Does
the Constitution
Robert Fisk
Abu Henry and the
Mysterious Silence
Uri Avnery
A Dark
Summit
Judith Siers-Poisson
The Politics and
PR of Cervical Cancer
Saul
Landau
Israel
is Bad for Jewish Ethics
Abbas Zaidi
The Ad Hominem
World of Pakistan Politics
Ron Jacobs
Ending the War,
Organizing for Change
Ralph Nader
Move Over Oprah:
a Summer Reading List
Donald
Worster
Which City is
Worse Off Today, New York or New Orleans?
Mike Whitney
The Fed's Role
in the Bear Stearns Meltdown
Jacob Hill
Fast Track to
Trade Failure
Kenneth Couesbouc
Why Global
Trade is Rarely Fair
Missy
Beattie
Kakistocracy
Mohammad Kamaali
Envoy for the
Quartet
Ramzy
Baroud
Finding Lessons
in Gaza's Bloodshed
Leonard Peltier
A Gathering at
Oglala
Phyllis
Pollack
Seven Hours of
Banging with the Stones
Poets' Basement
Reed, Orloski
and Buknatski
Website of
the Weekend
A
Podcast Interview with Cpt. Ward Boston on the USS Liberty
June 29, 2007
St. Clair / Frank
Toward a New
Environmental Movement
Brian Cloughley
Losing the
War in Afghanistan: One Civilian Massacre at a Time
Patrick
Cockburn
End
the Occupation: an Open Letter to Gordon Brown
Gilad Atzmon
The Peace
Envoy: Tony Blair on Work Release
Dave
Lindorff
Subpoenas,
Executive Privilege and Liberal Pipedreams
Jennifer Matsui /
Carl Kandutsch
Electric
Larryland
Kevin
Zeese
A
Different Kind of Peace Candidate
Daniel Klimek
Fasting for
Justice at DePaul
David
Michael Green
The Founding
Fathers Never Met Dick Cheney
John Chuckman
The London
Car Bomb
Website of
the Day
BAM!
June 28, 2007
Bill Quigley
How to Destroy an
African American City in 33 Steps
Vijay Prashad
Once More on
the New York Times
Margaret
Kimberley
The
Whitening of Marianne Pearl: When White Actors Play Black
Characters
Winslow T. Wheeler
House of Pork:
Changing Lightbulbs in the Democrats' Bordello
Philip
Rizk
The
Failing of Gaza
D. K. Wilson
The Black
Villains Club
Bill
Williams
Strange
Calculus at DePaul
Mahmoud El-Yousseph
The
Deportation of Yardlin Jimenez
Richard
Rhames
The
Liberation of Paris
Paul Krassner
Bong Hits for
Repression: the Giant Sucking Sound of the Supreme Court
Website of
the Day
Free
Lightnin' Hopkins
June 27, 2007
Marjorie Cohn
Targeting Dissent:
FBI Spying on the National Lawyers Guild
Dr. Susan Rosenthal, MD
Sick and
Sicker: Two Models of Health Care Rationing
Alan
Farago
Bush
and the Everglades: Rebranding Failure as Success
Carla Blank
"America, the
Beautiful": the Queen, Jamestown and the Eye of the
Beholder
Matthew
Abraham
The
Smearing of Robert Trivers, Dershowitz-Style
Sunsara Taylor
The Deadly
Consequences of Compromise: Abortion Rights Under Assault, Where's the
Women's Movement?
Russell D.
Hoffman
16
Dirty Secrets About Nuclear Power
Robert Weissman
Blackstone
and Capital's Grand Scam
Sen. Russ
Feingold
Secrecy and
the Federal Death Penalty
Paul Buchheit
The
Footprints of Democracies
Website of
the Day
Anarchy
for the USA: an Interview with Josh Wolf
June 26, 2007
Jonathan Cook
Divide and Rule,
Israeli-Style
Ralph Nader
Sicko and the
Politics of Health Care
Corporate
Crime Reporter
Which Side Are You
On, Michael Moore?
Ron Jacobs
Are the Neocons
Really Going?
Martha
Rosenberg
Mad Cow in
God's Country
John Chuckman
China's New
Weapons
Denny
Haldeman
Ethanolics
Anonymous
Anthony DiMaggio
Free Speech
Hypocrisy at the Supreme Court
Stephen Fleischman
The
Tightrope Economy
William S. Lind
Legitimacy,
Toujours Legitimacy
Website of the Day
The
CIA's Family Jewels
June 25, 2007
Paul Craig Roberts
Goodbye to the
City on the Hill
Jennifer Loewenstein
The Triumph of
US / Israeli Policy in Palestine
Bob
Anderson
The Grooming
of Bill Richardson: New Mexico's Nuclear Governor
Robert Pollin
The Realities
of Microlending
Patrick
Cockburn
Chemical Ali
Faces the Hangman: the Life and Crimes of al-Majid
Eva Liddell
Why They Want
to Fire Ward Churchill
Dan Bacher
Democrats and
the School of the Americas: 42 House Democrats Back Torture
Academy
Larry Atkins
The Case of the
Judge and the $54 Million Pair of Pants: an Embarrassment, Not an Argument
for Tort Reform
Mark Brenner
SEIU Ends
Nursing Home Partnership
James Rothenberg
Hillary
Does Iraq
Website of
the Day
"A Long
Train of Abuses"
June 23 / 24, 2007
Alexander Cockburn
Zyklon B on the
US Border
Jeff Taylor
The Foreign
Policy of Barack Obama
Oren
Ben-Dor
Israeli
Apartheid is the Core of the Crisis in Gaza
Gary Leupp
In Defense of
Academic Freedom: the Ward Churchill Case
Robert Fisk
The Bumbling
Envoy
David Rosen
The Hidden Cost
of War: Genital Injuries, Prosthetic Devices and the War on
Terror
Russell
Mokhiber
Ins and Outs
for 2008: Up with Spoilers!
Alison Weir
USA Today and the
USS Liberty
Robert
Fantina
The
Floundering Congress
D. K. Wilson
Of Gangstas and
Spearchuckers, Sex and Zulus
Nicole
Colson
Litigating
Gitmo
Stephen Soldz, Steven Reisner and Brad Olson
Torture,
Psychologists and Colonel James
Dave
Lindorff
Exodus of the
Puppets: Bush's Incredible Shrinking Coalition
Benjamin Dangl
Cerámica de
Cuyo: a Profile of Worker Control in Argentina
Michael
Dickinson
The
Catholicization of Tony
Poets' Basement
Davies, Engel,
Gerard and Orloski
Website of
the Weekend
Incarcerex: a
Drug War Video
June 22, 2007
Andy Worthington
A Tunisian in
Gitmo: the Story of Prisoner 660
Sherwood Ross
Corporate
America's Deadliest Secret: the Big Profits in Biowarfare
Research
Eliana
Monteforte
The Torture
Academy
Robert Weissman
Things Can Be
Different
Richard
Rhames
Farmer
Preservation
Christopher Brauchli
Bush and the
Uighurs: an Encounter in Albania
Ramzy
Baroud
Chronicle of a
Chaos Foretold
Ehud Krinis, David Shulman and Neve Gordon
Facing an
Imminent Threat of Expulsion: Palestinians in S. Hebron Hills Need Your
Help!
David
Michael Green
If Reid Were
Rove
Kathryn Webber
Boycotting
DePaul
Website of
the Day
Stop Me Before I
Vote Again!
June 21, 2007
Peter Linebaugh
The Day of the
Rope
Natsu Saito
The Regents and
Ward Churchill: Now is the Time to Speak Out
Ron Jacobs
The
Intimidation of a Vet
Saree Makdisi
The West
Chooses Fatah, But Palestinians Don't
John
Stauber
Blessed
Unrest: an Interview with Paul Hawken
Scott Liebertz
Fox News and
Venezuela: an Analysis of How the Network Deliberately Misinforms Its
Viewers
Tom
Clifford
The Ghost
Prisoners
Robert Jensen
The Last
Sunday?
Michael J.
Smith
Who
Among Us Will Step Up to Destroy the Democratic Party?
Jeb Sprague
Pain at the
Pump in Haiti
Website of the Day
Dion: Hey
Paris
June 20, 2007
Omar Barghouti
A
Secular-Democratic State Solution
Andy Worthington
Repatriated
to Torture
Margaret
Kimberley
Supreme
Injustices: the Bush Court
Robert Weissman
Sicko, Part
One: the Human Tragedy
Russell D.
Hoffman
Time
to Choose: Meltdowns or Solar Power?
Rannie Amiri
Mideast
Alight
Stephen
Lendman
The
New York Times vs. Hugo Chavez
Dave Lindorff
Democratic
Disconnect
David
Swanson
Booing
Hillary: Platitudes from the Drone Machine
Anne Dachel
Autism &
Vaccines: Why are They Afraid to Look?
Website of
the Day
Revolution By
the Book
June 19, 2007
Ralph Nader
Hillary's Stock and
Trade: the NAFTA Two-Step
Dr. Shepherd Bliss
Torture's Long
Reach
Bill and
Kathleen Christison
Demostrating
Against the Catholic Church in Santa Fe
Jeff Leys
Swarming
Congress: Building a Resistance to the 2008 Iraq War Supplemental Funding
Bill
Dave Zirin
The Unforgiven:
Barry Bonds and Jack Johnson
Chris Floyd
Hitchens Takes a
Roll in the Hay
Ben
Terrall
Iraq
Union Leaders Speak Out Against the Occupation
Anthony Papa
Veronica's Story:
a Dying Wish to Governor Spitzer
VIPS
Countering Terrorism:
How Not to Do It
Linda Flores
Criminalizing
the Classroom
Website of
the Day
Sign On to
the Iraq Moratorium
June 18, 2007
John Ross
The Annexation of
Mexico
Paul Craig Roberts
The Reign of
the Tyrants is at Hand
Martha
Rosenberg
Let Cheney
at Him: Richardson the Oryx Hunter
Norman Solomon
War at the
Remote
Don
Santina
Memo
to the Queen: Bobby Sands Died for Your Sins
Isabella Kenfield
Landless
Rural Workers Confront Lula
James
Brooks
America's
Guilty Silence
Eva Liddell
Planning to
Lose: Democratic Stratagems
Sam
Husseini
Clinton
Health Care Scam Revisited
Akiva Eldar
Ariel Sharon's
Dream
Website of
the Day
Frank Zappa:
the Cop Interview
June 16 / 17, 2007
Alexander Cockburn
The
Psychopathology of Shrinks
John Halle
Finkelstein and "The
Progressive"
Robert Fisk
Welcome to
"Palestine"
Andy Worthington
Return to
Torture?
Uri Avnery
The Gaza
Cage
Fred Gardner
Paris Hilton's
Punishment: a False Parable
Saul Landau
Our Gang of Thugs:
The 1970s as a Context for Terrorist Violence
P. Sainath
Heaven Can Wait:
Creditors and the Widows of Vidharbha
Missy Comley Beattie
Calling Evil Its
Name
Alan Gregory
When ADM Comes to
Town: Killer Tax Breaks for Wildlife Destruction
Walter Brasch
Bush and the
Philosophy of Swiss Cheese
Website of the Weekend
Obama Girl
June 15, 2007
Alan Farago
View from the
Construction Crane: Sex, Taxes and Real Estate Scams in
Miami
Andy Worthington
The Ordeal of
Ali al--Marri
Michael Simmons
Terrorizing
Artists in the USA
Franklin Lamb
Blowback Across
Lebanon: The Failed Sunni Army Solution
Gary Leupp
The Day After We
Attack Iran
John Ross
Ballot Burning Time
in Ol' Mexico
Website of the Day
The American
Rationalist
June 14, 2007
Michael Donnelly
Charred SUVs and
the End of Citizen Eco--Activism
Faisal Kutty
Scare Canada: The
No--Fly List's False Sense of Security
Harry Browne
Ireland's Green
Party Sells Out
Charles Jonkel
From the Arctic
to Yellowstone: Bears in a World of Indifference
Steven Higgs
Murder in a Small
Town: "Gay Panic" in Indiana?
Bruce Dixon
Black Power Through
Low Power Radio
Bruce K. Gagnon
What Do We Do Now?
A 10--Step Plan for Antiwar Activists
Website of the Day
Finkelgate
June 13,
2007
Glen Ford
Obama's Siren
Song
Marjorie Cohn
Repression in
Oaxaca
Bill Christison
A Grave
Injustice at DePaul University
Charles Jonkel
Bears in a
World of Indifference
Silvia Cattori
"I Was Not
Prepared for the Horrors I Saw": an Interview with Hedy
Epstein
Richard Gott
Racism and TV in
Venezuela
Firmin DeBrabander
How the
Neocons Misread Machiavelli
William S. Lind
The Perfect
(Sine) Wave: Bombing Railroad Stations in Iraq
Keith Rosenthal
Workers
Score a Victory at Harvard
Website of the Day
GOP and Monty Python
Explain: "Enhanced Interrogation Techniques"
June 12,
2007
Jeffrey St.
Clair
How to Sell a
War
Paul Craig Roberts
The Neocon
Threat to American Freedom
P. Sainath
India's Plutocrats
and the Press
Ralph Nader
The Biggest Scam
in the World
Omar Waraich
A Black Day
for Pakistan's Press
Dave Lindorff
Things Your
Media Momma Didn't Tell You
Harvey Wasserman
Confessions
of an Anti-Nuke Jerk
Malini Johar
Schueller
It Takes a
Bomb
Ramzy Baroud
War Foretold:
Mark Twain and the Sins of Empire
Website of the Day
Palestinian
Chronicle Needs Our Help!
June 11,
2007
Patrick
Cockburn
The War on
Journalists
Paul Craig Roberts
Losing the
Economy to Mythology
Uri Avnery
40 Bad Years:
the Rot of Occupation
Norman Solomon
The Silence of
the Bombs
Eva Liddell
Paris Hilton
Doesn't Do Dishes: How Barbie Stood Up to Allen Ginsberg
Rannie Amiri
Groundhog Day in
Pakistan
Rachel Voss
Poetry and
Politics in Nassau County
Christopher
Brauchli
A Wild West
Tale, Starring Rev. Dobson and Bill O'Reilly
D. K. Wilson
Untangling
Michael Vick from the Dogs
Website of the Day
Paris, Mixed
Up
June 9 / 10,
2007
Alexander
Cockburn
Dissidents
Against Dogma
George
Ciccariello-Maher
Behind Venezuela's
"Student Rebellion": Who's Pulling the Strings?
Saul Landau
An Interview with
Ricardo Alarcon, Vice President of Cuba
Robert Fisk
Believe It or Not
in the Middle East
Brian Cloughley
Troop
Support: Deceptions and Insipid Sentiments
Ron Jacobs
Condoleezza
Rice Names the System
Ward Boston
Searching for
the Truth About the USS Liberty
Conn Hallinan
Dark Plots in
Byzantine Beirut
Leonard Peltier
The Ongoing
War on Native American Religious Practices
Lawrence Davidson
Israel's New
Anti-Boycott Task Force
John Ross
Mass Nude-In
Complicates Church-State Scuffling in Mexico
Kate Allan
Some People
Think the Internet is a Bad Thing
Fred Gardner
Ignorance
Marches On
Stephen Fleischman
Little Boy,
Fat Man and Iran
Monica Benderman
Reading Tom
Paine in a Time of Crisis
Geoff Bailey
A Real Oil
Conspiracy: Gouged at the Pump
Missy Beattie
Faith and
War
Patrick Dyer
A Democrat Revs
Up Ohio's Death Machine
Tim Lengerich
Dispelling
the Cowboy Myth: an Interview with George Wuerthner
James Irani
and David
Rahni
Perspectives on
the Arrests of Iran-Americans in Tehran
Gary Leupp
The Unfair
Treatment of Paris Hilton
Michael Tillery
The Heart of a
Sportswriter: an Interview with David Aldridge
Michael Simmons
Beating Off
the Squares: the Hipness of Anton Rosenberg
Poets' Basement
Laymon, Davies
and Ford
Website of the Weekend
This is Sea
Shepherd!
June 8, 2007
Serge Halimi
What Sarkozy
Learned About Politics from the US
Patrick Cockburn
The Turkish
Incursion
Jeffrey St. Clair
Israel's
Attack on the USS Liberty, Revisited
Paul Craig Roberts
The Secret
War
William Blum
What If NBC
Cheered on a Military Coup Against Bush?
Joshua Frank
Swing-State
Strategy: Looking for a Spoiler
Lance Selfa
How the Six Day
War Changed the Middle East
Dave Lindorff
A "Criminal
Conspiracy" in the White House
Lawrence
Ferlinghetti
The
Summer of Love: Flashbacks of a Human Be-In
Website of the Day
Robert
Pollin: "Making the Federal Minimum Wage a Living Wage"
June 7,
2007
Marjorie Cohn
The Prison is the War
Crime
Soldz, Reisner and
Olson:
A Q & A on
Psychologists and Torture
Soldz, Reisner
and Olson,
et al:
An Open Letter to
Sharon Brehm, President of the American Psychological
Association
Paul Craig Roberts
Losing Iraq,
Nuking Iran
Bill Quigley
"How Long Must
We Support a Mistake?"
Silvia Cattori
Sailing to
Gaza
Carl G. Estabrook
What the
June Bug Is: Politics in the Dismal Season
Ellen Taylor
Free the
Tweakers!: The Good News About Meth
Corporate Crime
Reporter
BAE Systems,
Prince Bandar and the $2 Billion Account at the Riggs Bank
Brenda Norrell
Torture
Training at Ft. Huachuca: Two Priests Face Prison for Exposing Torture in
Arizona
D. K. Wilson
What Gary
Sheffield Really Said
Kevin Zeese
Iraq Occupation
Coming to a Head Over Oil
Website of the Day
How
the Press Expired
June 6,
2007
Alain Gresh
Countdown to War on
Iran
Gary Leupp
Poddy's Crazy
Prayer: Bomb Iran, For Israel and America!
Steven Sherman
The Perils of
Humanitarian Intervention
Bruce Dixon
Is Bill Gates
Trying to Hijack Africa's Food Supply?
Corporate Crime Reporter
The Professor and
the Nukes
Brian M. Downing
The Iraq War
and Presidential Politics
Ron Jacobs
Luv n' Hate: a
Different Take on the Summer of Love
George Bisharat
The Mirage of
the Two State Solution
Nicole Colson
Over to You,
Dante: Falwell's Ministry of Hate
Bruce K. Gagnon
From Italy to
Guam: A Global Peace Movement is Taking Shape
Website of the Day
How the Democrats Should
Treat Bush
June 5, 2007
Michael
Neumann
Canada in
Afghanistan
Jonathan Cook
The Shin Bet and
the Persecution of Azmi Bishara
David Vest
The Democrats'
War
Robert Fantina
America's Cuba
Policy
Hoffman, Parsneau and Chowdhury
CounterTerrorism
as International Healthcare
John V. Walsh
Shaming the
Official Antiwar Movement
Richard Cretan
Yellow Dog: The
Strange Love of Martin Amis and Tony Blair
Adam Engel
Days of Dread:
an American Tale
William S. Lind
The News from
Anbar: Has Al Qaeda Over-Reached?
Myles Hoenig
Free the Oaks!
Cut Down Those Yellow Ribbons!
Jim Minick
Lead-Foot
Nation
Website of the Day
Punk Rock Soap
Opera
June 4,
2007
Nizar Latif
An Interview with
Moqtada al-Sadr
Diana
Johnstone
Sarko and the
Ghosts of May, 1968
Gregory Wilpert
RCTV and
Freedom of Speech in Venezuela
Paul Watson
The Anchorage
Whale Killing Bureaucrats Summit
Susan Rosenthal,
MD
How Cindy
Sheehan Unmasked the Democrats
Richard Ward
The Right of
Return to New Orleans
Eva Liddell
Don't Support
the Troops
Zahi Khouri
Four Decades of
Occupation
Evelyn Pringle
The FDA,
GlaxoSmithKline and the Avandia Disaster
China Hand
About Those
North Korean Benjamin Franklins ...
Karyn Strickler
George W.
Bush: a "Ficeist" Leader
Website of the Day
The Guantanamo
Files
June 2 / 3,
2007
Alexander
Cockburn
The Last of the
Texas Outsiders
Marc Levy
Iraq Dead Ahead: a
Brief Military History and Civilian Guide to Arlington National
Cemetery
Martin Smith
Camilo Mejía's
War: From Foot Soldier for Empire to Rebel for Peace
Diana Johnstone
Great Power
Meddling in Kosovo
John Ross
The Oaxaca
Volcano Stews
Uri Avnery
On Generals and
Admirals
Sunsara Taylor
This is Not a
Story About Cindy Sheehan
Richard Neville
Were the
Hippies Right?
P. Sainath
The Farm
Crisis and 100,000 Indian Widows
Missy Comley
Beattie
Let's
Roar
Nisrine Abiad
and Victor Kattan
The Hariri
Tribunal: a Fait Accompli?
Rannie Amiri
Lebanon, Bush
and the Three Stooges
Margot Pepper
Deconstructing
"Return to Sender"
Eric Stewart
Censorship and
Cop Brutality in the New Bison Wars
Ralph Nader
The Halberstam
Camp
Dan Bacher
A Victory for
the Fish
Shaun Harkin
and Sandy Boyer
Irish War
Protesters on Trial
Richard Rhames
Selling Five
Acres in Crawford
Frederick Hudson
The Rediscovery
of Ella Fitzgerald
Poets' Basement
Lindorff, Landau
and Buknatski
Website of the Weekend
Gimme
Shelter
June 1,
2007
Dave Marsh
The FBI and the
Godfather (of Soul): James Brown's FBI Files
Saul Landau
Return to Cuba: 47
Years Later in Havana
David Phinney
How the
Baghdad Embassy Was Built: Forced Labor and Worker Abuse
Robert Jensen
The Bigot and
the Boycott
Stanley Heller
Arrest Robert
McNamara
Yifat Susskind
Indigenous
Women Fight Back
Robert Weissman
Corporate
Power Since 1980
Paul Buchheit
Africa and
Its Discontents
William S. Lind
The Folly of
Maximalist Objectives
Sherwood Ross
78,000 Iraqis
Have Been Killed by Coalition Airstrikes
Stephen Lendman
Terrorism
Defined
Website of the Day
Desert Autonomous
Zone
May 31,
2007
Robert Bryce
The Language
Barrier
Patrick Cockburn
Killing with
Impunity: Iraq's Militias Under the Surge
Gary Leupp
Appropriate
Disillusionment: the Despair of Cindy Sheehan and Andrew
Bacevich
Kathy Kelly
Being
Hope
Marjorie Cohn
The Unitary King
George
Chris Kutalik
and Tiffany
Ten Eyck
Fallout from
the Sale of Chrysler: Jobs, Health Care, Pensions, All in
Jeopardy
Corporate Crime Reporter
Zheng Xiaoyu Meet
Lester Crawford
Dave Lindorff
Our Monica: a
Hero of the Constitution
Website of the Day
Know Your
Rights!
May 30, 2007
James Ridgeway
The Bi-Partisan
Con on Synthetic Fuels
Franklin Lamb
Lebanon and the
Planned US Airbase at Kaleiaat
Terrence E. Paupp
Withdrawal
Symptoms
Uri Avnery
To the Shores
of Tripoli
Alan Maass
and Jeffrey St. Clair
The Green
Masquerade: Corporate America's Latest Counter-Attack
Rock and Rap
Confidential
Watching the
Detectives: the Political Censorship of Hip Hop
Ralph Nader
Taming the Giant
Corporation
Nirmal Ghosh
China, CITES and
the Fate of the Tiger
Jean Daniels
Dealing
Democrats: Folding to Mr. 28%
Tom Barry
Meet Robert
Zoellick: Bush's Pick to Head World Bank
Website of the Day
Petuuche Gilbert on
the Rights of Indigenous People
May 29,
2007
Stephen Soldz
Shrinks and the SERE
Technique at Guantanamo
Eliza Ernshire
Refugees Forever:
Inside Bedawi Camp
Ron Jacobs
The Exit of
Cindy Sheehan
Dave Lindorff
Whatever
Happened to Signing Statements?
Evelyn Pringle
What Qualifies
Bush to Lead Iraq War
Mike Whitney
Bush's New
Middle East
David Swanson
How We Got
Here: The Democrats and the Antiwar Movement
John Holt
Gating Montana,
Part Two: the Feedback Loop
Cynthia McKinney
Dreaming of a
True Memorial Day
Martha Rosenberg
Mad Cows,
Mad Pigs and the Horse Slaughter Lobby
Website of the Day
The Ruminant
May 28,
2007
Bill Quigley
Katrina Activists:
"Less Meeting, More Fighting"
Col. Dan Smith
The Paranoid and
the Dead
Cindy Sheehan
Why I Am
Leaving the Democratic Party
Dr. Susan Block
Dr. Laura's
Little Monster
Jeeni Criscenzo
What I
Learned About Being a Dickhead
Douglas Valentine
Memorial
Day: a Poem
Website of the Day
Peace
TV
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Declaration of Independence Day Edition
July 4,
2007
Aren't We All Like Marie Antoinette?
Is My Doctor a
Terrorist?
By CLAUDIA JOHNSON
Doctors involved in London terror plot!
Registrar at a Gold Coast Hospital arrested
at Brisbane airport!
The thought hit right when I heard the radio
news: Is my psychiatrist a terrorist?
Criminal profiling has found
that young professionals from good backgrounds, often engineers, (and now
doctors), living away from their home countries were typical terrorists.
Workmates usually describe them as model citizens.
On the first
visit to my psychiatrists' fusty consulting room, some Islamic pictures on
the wall suggested to me that his background was other than Christian. He
came from a country where Islam was the majority religion. But as our
relationship needed to be scrupulously professional I knew it was
inappropriate to engage him in chat. Curious as I am about most peoples'
lives, this was one person who must remain a mystery to me.
I moved
right along to the serious problems in the world: my feelings. My
depression, my sense of failure at not having won a Nobel or a Booker
prize. My husbands' Narcissistic Personality Disorder. My problems
wrestling with the constant upkeep of the McMansion. I was so
middle-aged, so disempowered. My suffering was immense and my
depression was assessed as serious and chronic--requiring a high dose of
anti-depressants.
I think he was an excellent psychiatrist, rarely
commenting as I burbled. When he did intrude, his remarks were so incisive
they were like bolts of lightning. When I saw him again after the summer
holidays, he had been visiting India when the tsunami had hit, and had
seen the terrible suffering. I extracted this information from him. In
view of the world-shattering nature of the tsunami, I feel so stupid
twittering on about my tiny problems, and told him so, but he brushed this
aside. We continued with the monthly appointments.
I always
wondered how we all must appear to him: us spoilt fortunate Westerners,
suffering the curse of Western culture--depression. Did he secretly
despise us, as we poured out our pathetic innermost secrets? Could he not,
possibly, even begin to hate us? That would be understandable.
In the country my psychiatrist came from,
most people live hand to mouth, they sleep under cardboard. Even under our
organic feather doonas after our Sleepy Time Tea in silk teabags drunk
from our fine china mugs many of us can't get to sleep, we have so many
worries, so much stress. This is one of the thoughts that troubles me when
I can't get to sleep: as we order newer, wider flat screen televisions,
aren't we like Marie Antoinette before the French Revolution? And most of
the luxuries with which we pamper ourselves--our fine china, embroidered
sheets, our soft fluffy pajamas-- aren't they made by underpaid workers
cruelly repressed in Third World countries? Yes they are, that's why they
are so cheap, and that's why we can afford to buy so much stuff.
In
the second year when I saw him again after the summer break I asked, "How
was your holiday, did you go to Queensland? " We had been getting personal
to the extent that we exchanged summaries of holiday plans.
"No," he said, "I went on a group pilgrimage
to Mecca."
What a barbecue-stopper! I was taken aback big-time.
Having met people who have been just about every single place in the world
including the top of Everest and the tip of Patagonia, a Mecca pilgrimage
was a first.To my fascination I realised I was still unsophisticated and a
racistthat I felt some sort fear of what is fashionably called "the
Other". But I did not want him to sense this, to feel hurt or insulted, or
not accepted.I did not want him to think I was one of those crass John
Laws-worshipping Aussies discombobulated by anything other than the
straight-forward love of ball sports even though I was much closer to
being that than I had realised. And I couldn't ask: "How was the food?" or
"Did you have a lovely hotel?"
But as I was curious, I said, "Can I
ask you what were the other pilgrims saying about what they feel about
Australia and the reactions here to Islam?" (The usual debates had been
going on.The usual ill-chosen mullahs had been making ill-chosen remarks
to which all sorts of unhelpful responses were made. The whole scenario
was a mess.)
"They were not talking about Australia" he
replied," All they thought about was God, and asking forgiveness from
Him."
Right. OK.
So on hearing that Islamic doctors
practising in the West were apparently involved in the latest terrorist
bombing attempts, I thought about Dr Ali. And wondered, just for a second,
could my psychiatrist be a terrorist?
As I had just proved to
myself with my jokey but kind of serious mental
queries about Dr Ali,
(in whose consulting rooms I have never seen so much as a single packet of
fertilizer) all Muslims are under suspicion, a
situation which must
make those younger wilder engineers more prone to
catching the Jihad
bug. And make all the others, even more enraged than
they already were
about Palestine.
Us bourgeois leftie whiteys are tearing our
hair and doing the sackcloth and ashes thing. We confess the obvious that
Westerners are greedy over-consumers, that much of our culture and media
is crass, that we have polluted the planet and plundered and colonised
many a country and that Israel is a big problem. So we have sinned, and
fallen short etc. As Palestine is attacked, and thousands of Iraqi and
Afghanis civilians burn, that creates thousands of reasons why groups of
religious extremists could egg each other on to visiting a symbolic
revenge by laying plans to eviscerate the innocent on the streets of
Britain. Does that explain the silence about the Jihadists on the part of
the general Muslim population themselves?
When born-again Bush and his administration
unleashes carnage in the name of freedom and democracy, millions of
Westerners protest, and have continued to do so ever since the mystery of
his so-called election. Is there an equivalent protest by the educated
Islamic community against the theories and actions of those who pack cars
with explosives and nails , in the hope of achievingwhat? And what on
earth do doctors, with their revered profession, have to do with this
madness?
There are many questions I would like to
discuss with my psychiatrist , but it's probably safer to stay on tried
and true ground: me, me, me ....
Claudia Johnson is the
pseudonym of a writer who wants to maintain good relations with her
psychiatrist. She is associated with http://www.homepagedaily.com/.
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