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Today's Stories May 5 / 6, 2007 Alexander Cockburn Trying to Catch Up with the Voters May 4, 2007 Patrick Cockburn How the Surge is Failing Col. Dan Smith From Watergate to Gonzogate Norman Solomon FOX on Wall Street Azmi Bishara Why is Israel After Me? Ron Jacobs Sitting in on Senator Kohl and the War Dave Lindorff Clinton and Byrd are Calling for Revocation of the Wrong AUMF Kevin Zeese The Democrats Cave to Bush Bob Fitrakis Why Four Died in Ohio: Kent State, Gov. Rhodes and the FBI Janet Kauffman "Stop the Mudness!" Bare Earth is Scorched Earth Website of the Day Let Us Gather in Missouri!   May 3, 2007 Jeff Halper The Livni-Rice Plan for the Middle East: a Just Peace or Apartheid? Christopher Brauchli Bush's Best and Brightest: From Dr. Keroack to Bernard Kerik Dave Zirin Talking Sports from Death Row: an Interview with Kevin Cooper Corporate Crime Reporter Big Pharma Gets Its Hooks into Seton Hall Law School Robert Fisk Olmert Comes Undone Mike Ferner Bush Veto, Right for the Wrong Reasons? Mike Whitney A Stock Market Post-Mortem Pham Binh The Democrats and War Funding Dave Lindorff Kucinich's Impeachment Train: Look Who Just Stepped Aboard Michael A. Johnson Tenet on 60 Minutes Website of the Day Olivia Wilde: the Interview   May 2, 2007 Saul Landau Would Jesus Wear a Rolex on His TV Show? Dr. Susan Block Hookergate II: Madame Julia's Big Black Book of Cheesy Republican Sex Acts Carla Blank Historical Amnesia: Worst U.S. Massacre? Margaret Kimberly The Candor of Mike Gravel: "These People Frighten Me" Kevin Zeese Durbin Gives Edwards More to Apologize For Carlos Villareal How "Law and Order" Covers for Bigotry in the Immigration Debate Michael Dickinson Trouble in Turkey: Criminalizing Political Art Tim Shorrock A Raw Deal Between Washington and Seoul: Corporate Interventionism as Trade Policy Alevtina Rea The Myth-Makers of Estonia William S. Lind General Incompetence: Col. Yingling and the Military Brass Website of the Day Good News: Rost's "ZubeGate Exposé Prompts Congressional Inquiry May 1, 2007 Andrew Cockburn How Rumsfeld Micromanaged Torture Fred Gardner Affirmative Abstinence: Adios, Randall Tobias, the Man Who Turned His Wife's Suicide into a Sales Pitch for Prozac Chase Madar Are Working Class Jobs Bad for Your Health? Ralph Nader Cheney and the BYU 25: Faith, Accountability and Protest in Utah John V. Walsh Edgy Dems Snarl at Their Antiwar Base Joshua Frank Obama, Incorporated Leslie Radford The Migrant Trap and the Migrant's Way Out Shaun Harkin An Interview with Nativo López on Immigration Bills and Protests Dave Lindorff Murtha Talks Impeachment Peter Rost, MD Inspector General Requests Meeting with Pfizer Whistleblower Peter Linebaugh May Day and Magna Carta Website of the Day Impeachment? Why Bother?   April 30, 2007 Frank Menetrez Dershowitz v. Finkelstein: Who's Right and Who's Wrong? Paul Craig Roberts Incompetence at the Top: Tenet and His Masters Ray McGovern Tenet's Self-Serving Apologia Manuel Garcia, Jr. Fire Collapses Oakland Freeway as Steel Supports Fail Diana Johnstone The Three Rs of "Sarko the American" Sherwood Ross A So-Called "Liberal" Answers His Death Threats Peter Rost, MD Did Pfizer Illegally Market Its New HIV/AIDS Drug? Robert Jensen Anti-Capitalism in Five Minutes Kevin Zeese While Congress Voted for War, the Peace Movement Protested Inside the Senate Jane Stillwater Dalai Lama and Costco Website of the Day Francis Boyle: Impeaching Bush   April 28 / 29, 2007 Alexander Cockburn Is Global Warming a Sin? Jeffrey St. Clair Versailles on the Potomac Fred Gardner Fuel for a Killer: What Drugs Had Cho Taken? David Orchard and Michael Mandel Afghanistan and Iraq are the Same War Alan Maass The War on Hip Hop: an Interview with Dave Marsh Joe Bageant Why Are Leftists So Damn Afraid of God? Robert Fantina The Rhetoric of Dick Cheney: Lying as Art Form Hanan Ashrawi Palestine and Peace: the Looming Challenges Ron Jacobs Return of the Guitar Army Nicole Colson The Surpeme Court Targets Abortion Rights Ben Terrall Tracking Torture Missy Beattie Quit Your Day Job, George Harvey Wasserman The Lesson of Chernobyl Cindy Beringer The Horrors of Hutto: Inside Texas' For-Profit Immigrant Prison Mike Roselle The Dog Philosophy: What Kant Can't Tell Us About Why We Love Wilderness RAWA Freeing Afghanistan James McEnteer Where the Movie Villains are American: Screening Films in Bolivia Poets' Basement For Stew Albert Website of the Weekend Rudy and Donald: the Drag Smooch April 27, 2007 Eva Liddell How Can Women Defend Themselves Against Stalkers? Phyllis Bennis and Robert Jensen Moving Beyond Anti-War Politics Mike Whitney Where's the Beef?: Padilla and the Zucchini Prosecution Michael F. Brown Biden and Pelosi: Failing to Hold Israel Accountable for War Crimes in Lebanon Jordan Flaherty Forgotten Mississippi Margaret Kimberly John McCain, Cold-Blooded Senator Christopher Brauchli The Dangers of Unstable People Jacob Mundy Stalemate in the Western Sahara? Website of the Day Yee Speaks April 26, 2007 Andrew Cockburn Wolfowitz's War Franklin Lamb Giuliani Plays the Islamic Terror Card Patrick Cockburn Al-Qa'ida Group Behind US Deaths in Iraq Roger Morris Dispatches From the Front Henry Siegman The Three Nos of Jerusalem Alevtina Rea A Sister City Debate in Rachel Corrie's Hometown Paris Are You a Hip Hop Apologist? Nikolas Kozloff White Racism and the Aymara in Bolivia Alan Farago Dow 13,000 Disconnect Matthew S. Miller The Limits to Lakoff Website of the Day PBS: Blaming Blacks Again April 25, 2007 Sharon Smith The Rights of Children in America David Price The Long Lost War Diana Johnstone Who Wants Sarko? New or Old France? Brendan Cooney Cho and Cheney: Killer Looks Sonja Karkar Israeli Democracy, For Jews Only? Brian Concannon Wolfowitz and Haiti Lee Gaillard Baptism Under Fire: Can the Osprey Fly? Leah Fishbein Women Under Siege Dave Lindorff The First Shoe Drops Neal Galloway US Agricultural Policy is Destructive at Home and Abroad Website of the Day Anti-War Student Movements: a Short History   April 24, 2007 Ishmael Reed How Imus' Media Collaborators Almost Rescued Their Chief Lila Rajiva Tragedy and Irony After Virginia Tech Paul Craig Roberts The War Goes Ever On Patrick Cockburn Sunnis Protest Baghdad's "Prison Wall" Ralph Nader The Corporate Debasement of Earth Day Mike Whitney Housing Bubble Boondoggle Website of the Day "Refugees"   April 23, 2007 Saul Landau The Courage to Withdraw Patrick Cockburn Time of the Death Squads: Iraq as Revenge Tragedy Robert Fantina Changing Sentiments Sam Husseini The Gonzales Distraction Corporate Crime Reporter Bought-and-Paid-For Journalism at the Philly Inquirer Elizabeth Lalasz Sick and Getting Sicker Harvey Wasserman Earth Day, Incorporated Dave Lindorff Huge Win for Impeachment in Vermont: Are You Listening Sen. Leahy? Gary Leupp Maoist Homophobia in Nepal? Stephen Lendman A Short History of the Christian Right Website of the Day No to OLF April 21 / 22, 2007 Alexander Cockburn Bring Back the Posse Fred Gardner Prozac Madness Kristoffer Larsson The Islamic Threat to Europe: By the Numbers Barbara Rose Johnston Nuclear War and Its Consequences Manuel Garcia, Jr. The Heart of Whiteness: Racism, Wealth and IQ John Scagliotti Unlocking Closets, Locking Free Speech Marjorie Cohn Gonzo Justice: Counting on Alberto Patrick Cockburn Sadr Raises the Stakes Diana Johnstone The Absent Middle East Ron Jacobs Explaining the Spectre Evelyn Pringle How Iraq Was Looted BANCO Travesties of Justice in a Black City in Michigan: the Persecution of Rev. Pinkney Paul Richards Thinking Big in the Northern Rockies Dan Bacher Zapatistas in the Colorado River Delta Ben Terrall Showdown at Chevron: SF Protest Against New Iraq Oil Law Sherwood Ross How the Taliban Defeated the Pakistani Army in Waziristan Remi Kanazi Bill Maher's "Towel-Headed Hos" Aseem Shrivastava Behind the Curtain of SEZs Poets' Basement Valentine, Reed, Harley and Engel Website of the Day Reading Sappho in New Orleans   April 20, 2007 Doug Peacock Beginning of the End for the Yellowstone Grizzly? Diane Farsetta Onward, Free Market Soldiers!: Privatizing Public Diplomacy Tom Clifford The Surge in Iraqi Civilian Deaths: the Bloodiest 12 Months of the War Amira Hass The Holocaust as Political Asset Nicole Colson Desperation in Gitmo's Camp 6 Sonja Karkar Double Jeopardy Entraps Palestinians Heather Gray The Supreme Court Looks a Lot Like the Taliban Dr. Bouthaina Shaaban Syrian Expeditions Agustin Velloso Spain and Iraq, Four Years On Matthew Koehler Distorting the News in a Timber Company Town Website of the Day Gonzo's Monica   April 19, 2007 Emad Mekay / Jim Lobe Scoring at the World Bank: Wolfowitz's Quid Pro Quo Patrick Cockburn A Day of Bombs and Blood in Baghdad Larry C. Johnson The Hobbesian Hell of Iraq: How Many Dead Equal a Failed Government? Norman Solomon Bowing Down to Our Own Violence Saul Williams Notes from a Hip Hop Head: an Open Letter to Oprah Winfrey Sunsara Taylor From Iraq to the Supreme Court: a New Dark Ages for Women Harvey Wasserman How Green is Tom Friedman? Christopher Brauchli Apologies, Incorporated Anthony Papa Nightmare Behind Bars: John Valverde's Fight for Freedom Dave Lindorff Betraying Thomas Jefferson Website of the Day The Best Antiwar Song of the Iraq War? April 18, 2007 Lila Rajiva More Gun Laws or Fewer Idiots? How the Va Tech Administration Failed Its Campus Landau / Hassen Tancredo as 17th Century Indian Chief? Charles Fisher / Randy Fisher Don Imus's Firing and the Hip-Hop Culture Diane Christian Facing Death Politically Kevin Prosen Meeting the Resistance in Iraq China Hand Gold Digging: The U.S. Treasury Department's Economic Campaign Against North Korea Peter Rost, MD The Strange Profits from a Re-Branded Cancer Drug Justin Akers Chacón What's Inside the STRIVE Bill Jerry Kroth Virginia Tech and Cho Seung Hui: Love and Unhappiness in an Alien Culture Sherwood Ross Massacre at Va Tech: a Brief Glimpse into Daily Life in Iraq Niranjan Ramakrishnan The Bonfire of the Hannities Alice Cherbonnier Why South Dakota's "Informed Consent" Law Doesn't Go Far Enough Website of the Year? "I Hope I Die Before I Get Old"   April 17, 2007 Jean Bricmont / Diana Johnstone The Elections in France: a Coming Political Tsunami Paul Craig Roberts Bloodbath in Blacksburg Frida Berrigan Militarizing the Border Alison Weir The Message of PBS's "Crossroads" Series: Some Muslims Aren't Bad John Walsh Why is the Peace Movement Silent About AIPAC? Jason Hribal Resistance is Futile: Emily the Cow and Tyke the Elephant Evelyn Pringle The Iraq Money Trail Ben Terrall Cuban Exiles Get Hero's Welcome; Haitian Refugees Get Shafted Stan Cox 1040s and Death Certificates Soren Ambrose Confidence Crisis at the IMF Website of the Day Go Ahead and Yell: "FIRE!"   April 16, 2007 John F. Sugg Hate and Hypocrisy in the Cox Empire Ismael Hossein-Zadeh Escalating Military Spending: Income Redistribution in Disguise Carl G. Estabrook The Politics of the Useful Threat: It Didn't Start with the Neo-Cons Paul Craig Roberts The Party of Brownshirts Uri Avnery Blood on Our Hands Ralph Nader Where Are the Cries of Outrage Over Military Rapes? Eamon McCann Shame of the Empire: Simon, Sir Bono and Tinkerbelle Lee Sustar Decoding the Democrats Mike Whitney Trouble in Squanderville: Bubble People and the Faith-Based Market Don Fitz Solar Capitalism? Stephen Lendman Ecuador Votes for Revolutionary Change Website of the Day Black Mesa Water Coalition   April 14 / 15, 2007 Alexander Cockburn Ho Industry Whores Jorge Mariscal Gen. Petraeus's Field Manual: a Traveler's Guide to Big Muddy Jeffrey St. Clair The Beautiful and the Dammed: How the West Got Flooded Dave Marsh The Imus Affair, Hip Hop and Politics Dr. Trudy Bond Shrinks, Lies and Torture: How Psychologists Became the Pentagon's Bitches Joe Bageant A Feral Dog Howls in Harvard Yard Fidel Castro The Terrorist Walks Alfredo Molano "More Than Complicated" Alan Farago When Miami Crashes Michael Neumann Anglophone Fantasies and French Realities Fred Gardner Barbara McNair's Unsung Heroism: Bringing Down the Owner of EST Ron Jacobs A Conversation with Three Iraq Veterans Against the War Gail Dines Racy Sex, Sexy Racism Linda Ford Imus and Lady Hoopsters: a Long History of Bias Against Women Athletes Missy Beattie What Would Imus Do?: Iraq, Ho, Ho, Ho Dan La Botz Farm Labor Organizer Murdered in Mexico Giuliana Sgrena The Lies of Mario Lozano Laura Carlsen A Moratorium on Free Trade Agreements Abu Spinoza Wolfowitz's Real Crimes Elizabeth Schulte Grinding It Out with Quentin Tarantino Poets' Basement Davies, Harley, Engel and Landau Website of the Weekend Vonnegut's Final Interview   April 13, 2007 Patrick Cockburn The Shattering of Mosul Stephen Soldz Aid and Comfort for Torturers: Psychology and Coercive Interrogations in Historical Perspective George Ciccarriello-Maher The Failed Chávez Coup: Five Years On Laith al-Saud Kirkuk, Oil and the Kurds Dave Zirin Memo to Imus John Ross Drawing a Line in the Heartland Ramzy Baroud America as Proxy Harvey Wasserman The Novelist Who Hated War: Peace Be With You, Mr. Vonnegut Lopez, Olivo and Garcia Columbia University's Two-Tiered Punishments Dols, Fukumori, Judd and Tillett-Saks Columbia: On the Wrong Side of Justice Website of the Day Democrats: an Iraq Scorecard   April 12, 2007 JoAnn Wypijewski We May be Rid of Imus, But We're Still Stuck with the Culture Paul Craig Roberts Big Profits from Big Brother Marjorie Cohn U.S. Attorneys and Voting Rights Evelyn Pringle Bush Family War Profiteering: Will Congress Finally Cut Them Off? Ron Jacobs God Bless You, Mr. Vonnegut Norman Solomon The Awful Truth About Hillary, Barack and John Joe DeRaymond The Release of Dennis Counterman: The Justice Game, the Alford Plea and Death Row Nicola Nasser Squeezing Palestinians into an Impossible Mission Nikolas Kozloff Chile, a Country Geographically Located in South America "By Accident" William S. Lind Horatio Hornblower's Worst Nightmare Siegfried L. Sassoon A Statement Against the Continuation of the War Website of the Day Where You Want This Killin' Done?   April 11, 2007 R. T. Naylor Quebec's Lessons for the US: How "Wars on Terror" Should be Fought Vijay Prashad The Generation of IEDs and iPods Patrick Cockburn The Myth of Tal Afar Winslow T. Wheeler When Will the War Money Really Run Out? Jack Balkwill Prison for a Peacemaker: A Vietnam Vet Interviews Kathy Kelly Alan Farago Florida's Fundamentally Weak Environmental Movement Russell D. Hoffman The Carbon Offset Tax is Just Another Nuke Bailout Peter Rost, MD The Fine Print on Drug Industry Kickbacks Mike Whitney Doomsday for the Greenback? Dave Lindorff Torture and Selective Outrage Susie Day Peter Pace Porks a Peck of Pinko Perverts Website of the Day Save the Internet!   April 10, 2007 James G. Abourezk How Syria Helped the US in the "War on Terror"-and How Bush Said "Thanks" Earl Ofari Hutchinson Why Imus Should be Fired-And Why He Won't Be Joshua Frank Democrats for War Lee Sustar How Concessions by UAW Lost Jobs Joseph Grosso Tiger Woods in Dubai: Luxury and Exploitation Nirmal Ghosh China and the Fate of the Tiger Robert Jensen Impeach the System Ramzy Baroud Not an Intellectual Squabble Paul Rockwell History Will Vindicate Lt. Ehren Watada Mario Joseph and Brian Concannon Solidaridad? Chávez in Haiti Fred Wilhelms Why the New Royalty Rates Hurt Artists Website of the Day Thaw!   April 9, 2007 Saul Landau Whining Imperialists Uri Avnery Shalom, Shin Bet Nicole Colson Sami Al-Arian's Nightmare: an Interview with Nahla Al-Arian Gideon Levy Israel Does Not Want Peace Corporate Crime Reporter Big Coal Invokes Reverse Nuremberg Defense Evelyn Pringle The Surge in Casualties Hill Kemp Mega Lessons from Iraq War, Year 5 Martha Rosenberg Monsanto's Desperate Plea: "Regulate Our Competitors!" Keith Rosenthal Behind Boston's Recent "Crime Wave" Jane Stillwater Green Zone Cabin Fever Website of the Day Support Norman Finkelstein April 7 / 8, 2007 Alexander Cockburn Dead Dogs Don't Bleed: How Giuliani Lost America Sara Roy A Jewish Plea Arno J. Mayer Back to Cleopatra's Nose: Bush-Bashing and Empire's Onward March Jeffrey St. Clair In the Realm of the Grizzly Kings Vicente Navarro Why Huntington and Beck Are Wrong Fidel Castro Where Have All the Bees Gone? And Other Reflections on the Internationalizaton of Genocide Fred Gardner Medical News from the Business Pages Ralph Nader The IRS Owes You Money David N. Rahni Test Tube Zealots: American Chemical Society Purges Iranian Chemists Arthur Neslen When an Anti-Semite is Not an Anti-Semite Pratyush Chandra Joseph Stiglitz's "Another World" Missy Beattie Enough Already! The Politics of Exasperation Marc Levy A Beginner's Guide to Combat Poets' Basement Reiss, Holt, Orloski and Louise Website of the Weekend Reactor Man   April 6, 2007 Franklin Lamb Why is Hezbollah on the Terrorism List? Gloria La Riva On the Case of the Cuban Five and Luis Posada Carriles Corporate Crime Reporter The Politics of Coal in West Virginia Ron Jacobs Good Friday, Beethoven and Patti Smith Felice Pace Simon Says: The Pro-Israel Bias of NPR Walter Brasch Treason in the White House? David Swanson Heroes, Sung and Unsung Sylvia Syracuse Roadside Rampage: Salvadoran Murders in Guatemala April 5, 2007 Patrick Cockburn A De Facto Hostage Exchange Tom Barry The Fred Thompson Factor Richard W. Behan Congressional Complicity Nicola Nasser Playing US Politics with Iraqi Blood for Oil Bernadine Dohrn The New and Old SDS: Convergence Not Division Laray Polk Lucky Dragon: Does the World Really Need a New H-Bomb? Helen Redmond Female Chauvinist Pigs?   April 4, 2007 Col. Dan Smith "Have You No Sense of Decency?": the Tillman Affair and the Moral Decay of the Army Joshua Frank Democratic Blood Money: Sen. Feinstein's War Profiteering Margaret Kimberly Of Confessions and Torture Sharon Smith Circuit City's Guinea Pigs: the Latest Trend in Corporate America Jeff Cohen and Norman Solomon The Martin Luther King You Don't See on TV Martin Luther King,Jr. Beyond Vietnam Bill Quigley Incident at Fort Huachuca, the Army's Torture Training Center Dave Zirin Picking Chicago's Pockets with the Olympics Evelyn Pringle Drug Companies Want Women of Childrearing Years Peter Rost, MD Pfizer's Puny Fine Website of the Day Crash of the Honey Bees   April 3, 2007 Patrick Cockburn US's Bungled Plan to Kidnap Iran's Top Spook Prompted hostage Taking Marjorie Cohn Coming Up Short on Habeas Corpus for Gitmo Detainees Brian M. Downing The Army's Road to Iraq Corporate Crime Reporter Coddling Pfizer: Praise the Criminal, Dis the Whistleblower Carol Norris A Psychologist on Sexual Assault: Yes, Virginia, There is a Sollution Ralph Nader Tailpipe Blues Dave Lindorff I Quit: A Movement of One (Or a Maybe a Million) Scott Bontz The Great Depletion Thomas Dolby Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye, Racism and the National Anthem Website of the Day Cockburn on BookTV April 2, 2007 Gary Leupp A Bogus Hostage Crisis Uri Avnery Condi in the Middle East: Olmert and the Pussycat James Petras Palestine: The Political Economy of a Disaster Norman Solomon McCain in Baghdad: Walking in McNamara's Footsteps Robert Fisk War of Humiliation Stanley Heller A Neocon Looks Two Conquests Ahead: The Ravings of James Woolsey Sherwood Ross How the Pentagon Cheats Iraq Vets Out of Medical Care and Disability Pay Monica Benderman On Keeping Men Alive: Report from Ft. Stewart Stephen Fleischman Winners and Losers in a Dog-Eat-Dog System Anne McElroy Dachel Never Mind the Mercury Website of the Day Midwestern Common Sense on the War March 31 / April 1, 2007 Cockburn / St. Clair That Was an Antiwar Vote? Fred Gardner How Corrupt is Malcolm Gladwell? Shilling for Enron and Breast Cancer Greg Moses The Pirates of Homeland Security Gary Leupp 300 vs. Iran (and Herodotus) Robert Fisk Shakespeare and War Roger Morris The Politics of the Witch Hunt Conn Hallinan The Price of Fire: Oil, Water and Resistance in Bolivia Kristin J. Anderson A Protocol for Death Jason Hribal California's Most Unhappy Cows John Ross Strange Fruit Down South Christopher Brauchli Bush and the Politics of Falsehoods: If You're Going to Lie, Lie Big David Underhill War Breeds Stranger Bedfellows Elizabeth Schulte The Pentagon's "Don't Ask" Disaster Ben Terrall Time for Lula to Stop Doing Bush's Dirty Work in Haiti Missy Beattie Guess Who Isn't Coming to Dinner: The Story of King Abdullah and the O-Word Sonja Karkar How Palestine Became Israel's Land Daniel Wolff Have You Heard the News? David Vest A Romanian Jazz Rebel Drops a Bomb on Paris Ron Jacobs Wynton Marsalis Checks In on the Land That Never Has Been Yet Poets' Basement Davies, Holt, Wigley and Landau Website of the Weekend Kansas City Rocks     Subscribe Online

Weekend Edition May 5 / 6, 2007 A Deeper Look American Massacres and the Media By CARLA BLANK The mass media coverage of how 33 students were fatally shot and at least 15 injured on the Virginia Tech campus in Blacksburg, Virginia, was punctuated by phrases such as, "the worst massacre in U.S. history." or as the New York Times put it, the "Worst U.S. Gun Rampage." CNN called it the "Deadliest Killing Spree in U.S. history." This was followed by San Francisco Fox affiliate KTVU Channel 2's claim that it was "the worst massacre ever in the United States." TV text and commentary did not qualify these claims, and at least one Virginia Tech student, an Asian American himself, echoed the phrase when interviewed on national television, pondering his presence at the "worst massacre in U.S. history." In reality, an accurate investigation of mass killings of this magnitude would quickly reveal that the Virginia Tech massacre, as horrendous as it was, was not the worst massacre to occur on U.S. soil. Before Blacksburg, there were many bloodier massacres. Here are just some massacres that took place on mainland U.S. soil in the 19th and 20th centuries, which involved guns and where more than 33 people were known to be killed: --In 1832, the junction of the Bad Axe and Mississippi Rivers, at Saukenuk (now Rock Island, Illinois), was site of the extermination of at least 300 Sac (Plains Indians also known as Sauk) men, women and children, and 20 whites. The government was so determined to remove the Saks from the small portion of their ancestral homelands that they were attempting to withhold from white settlers, that 1,300 federal troops under General Samuel Whiteside and the Illinois state militia--including Lieutenant Jefferson Davis, Captain Abraham Lincoln, and Colonel Zachary Taylor-carried out eight hours of mayhem against 500 Indians who were already in retreat. --In 1857, at Mountain Meadows, Utah, between 100 to 140 white settlers were massacred at their camp site, after falling for a false offer of truce to end five days of fighting. The victims were emigrating in covered wagons to California from Arkansas, and their temporary encampment was in Mormon territory, as the Mormons had migrated from Illinois to settle the Great Salt Lake Valley in 1846, and President Milliard Fillmore had appointed their leader, Brigham Young, as territorial governor in 1850. There have been many charges and counter charges of cover-ups over the years, but the essentials of an 1859 investigation, led by U.S. Army Brevot Major James H. Carleton, concluded that Mormons dressed as Paiute Indians were the perpetrators of this slaughter of men, women and children, where "every skull had been shot through with rifle or pistol bullets." The Paiute Indians denied any involvement, and a 1999 archeological excavation at the memorial site found skeletons confirming Major Carleton's report. --In 1860, Bret Harte, a well-known California writer, had just began his career, working as a local newspaper reporter in Arcata, California (a town then known as Union). Harte was expelled from Humboldt County because he recorded the Gunther Island Massacre of Wiyot Indians, committed on February 26, 1860, when a small group of white men murdered between 60 to 200 Wiyot men, women and children. The massacre was encouraged by a local newspaper. Extermination was once the official policy of the California government toward Native Americans, as Governor Peter H. Burnett stated in 1851: "That a war of extermination will continue to be waged between the two races until the Indian race becomes extinct, must be expected" --On April 12, 1864, at Fort Pillow, near Memphis, Tennessee, Confederate troops under General Nathan Forrest massacred 227 black and white Union troops with such ferocity that an eyewitness Confederate soldier said, "blood, human blood, stood about in pools and brains could have been gathered up in any quantityGeneral Forrest ordered them shot down like dogs and the carnage continued. Finally our men became sick of blood and the firing ceased." --On April 13, 1873, 350 miles northwest of New Orleans in Colfax, Grand Parish, Louisiana, 280 blacks were victims of a group of armed white men that included members of the White League and the Ku Klux Klan. Known as the Colfax Massacre, it was said to be sparked by contested local elections, although more generally its cause was white opposition to Reconstruction, which in 1875 resulted in United States v. Cruikshank, an important basis of future gun control legislation, because it allows that "the federal government had no power to protect citizens against private action (not committed by federal or state government authorities) that deprived them of their constitutional rights under the 14th Amendment." (quote from "The Racist Origins of US Gun Control" by Steve Ekwall) --In the 1880s, when anti-Chinese sentiment was rampant throughout the western United States after the 1882 enactment of the first Chinese Exclusion Act, two massacres of more than 30 Chinese immigrant workers occurred. In 1885, in riots against Chinese miners employed by the Union Pacific Railroad to work their coal mines at Rock Springs, Wyoming, more than 40 Chinese Americans were robbed, shot, and burned by a mob of white miners, who also burned the "Chinatown" village to the ground. The white miners, still angry that the Chinese miners had been brought in ten years earlier as strike breakers, disputed the right of the Chinese to work the mine's more profitable veins. Federal troops had to be brought in to protect the surviving Chinese workers, and no one ever was convicted of these crimes. In 1887, at Hells Canyon on the Snake River in Wallowa County, Oregon, a gang of at least 7 white horse thieves robbed, shot or otherwise murdered and mutilated at least 31 or 34 Chinese immigrants who six months previously had set up camp to mine gold there. Many bodies remained unfound until months later, when another group of Chinese immigrants arrived to mine gold in the area. Although 3 people were brought to trial for the crimes in Oregon, no one was convicted. The National Archives holds diplomatic correspondence between representatives of the Chinese and U.S. governments, showing the U.S. authorities agreed to make financial compensations for loss of life and property in these and other 1880s incidents, to be received by the victims' families. In 2005, the Hells Canyon area was renamed Chinese Massacre Cove to honor those dead. --In 1913, during another nationally publicized action known as the Ludlow Massacre, over 66 people were killed, including eleven children and two women who were burned alive. Sparked by a strike against the Rockefeller family-owned Colorado Fuel and Iron Corporation by the mostly foreign born Serb, Greek and Italian coal miners after one of their union organizers was murdered, it eventually involved the Colorado National Guard, imported strikebreakers, and sympathetic walk-outs by union miners throughout the state. The union never was recognized by the company, and a U.S. Congressional committee investigation failed to result in indictments of any militiaman or mine guard. --In 1921, a year when 64 lynchings were reported, the African American Greenwood business district of Tulsa, Oklahoma, was the site of shooting deaths of at least 40 people, most of whom are black, although the actual--but undocumented--death toll is said to be closer to 300. This site was then known as the "Negro's Wall Street," and was home to 15,000 people and 191 businesses. The rampage took the form of a riot, and was caused by economic tensions, particularly sparked by an article in the Tulsa Tribune regarding an alleged rape incident between a black shoe shiner and a white elevator operator-a rape that never occurred. Because of this riot, Tulsa became the first U.S. city to be bombed from the air, when police dropped dynamite from private planes to break it up. Whites took possession of most of the land, and the site has become part of Oklahoma State University's Tulsa campus. --In 1971, at Attica State Correctional Facility, a federal maximum-security prison in upstate New York, 1,300 inmates staged a revolt, said to be sparked by news that George Jackson, a member of the Black Panthers, had been killed by guards at California's San Quentin State Prison during an alleged escape. Four days of negotiations about inmates' rights ended when Governor Nelson Rockefeller called in 500 state troopers and police. Helicopters dropped pepper gas, and over 2,000 bullets were fired into the yard where hostages, inmates, and guards huddled together, killing 31 prisoners and 9 guards. Guards violently assaulted the surviving prisoners with clubs in the aftermath of what is said to be the bloodiest suppression of an inmate uprising in U.S. history The reporting of the Virginia Tech massacre reveals that an ignorance of American history is not only a problem effecting American students but extends to our most influential newsrooms, even those with archives extending back to the 1800s. The New York Times' referring to Virginia Tech as the "Worst U.S. gun rampage" encouraged other newspapers to follow their lead. This is how public myths are begun. Present on the Times' editorial staff is Brent Staples, a black writer who is an expert on the Tulsa massacre. There is no excuse for such historical amnesia on the part of those who have taken upon themselves the serious task of informing the public. Post script: At this May 5th expansion of the Op-Ed that originally appeared May 2 in the San Francisco Chronicle and on CounterPunch, I continue to find, and readers continue to send, other U.S. massacres of the Virginia Tech scale or greater, some obscured by time, some well known. I have not had time to fully research many of these events, but thought it might be helpful, however overwhelming, to acknowledge these investigations: In 1862 the U.S. government hung 38 innocent Dakota people in Mankata, Minnesota, under an order from President Abraham Lincoln that was and still is the largest mass execution in U.S. history. In the 1887 massacre at Thibodaux, Louisiana, the Louisiana militia and vigilante bands of "prominent citizens" killed between 30 to 2000 black sugar plantation workers and their families after about 9000 black and 1000 white workers staged a strike at sugar plantations in St. Mary, Terrebonne, and Lafourche parishes. The strike was organized by the Knights of Labor, a national labor union representing both white and black workers, to raise workers' wages from $1.00 to $1.25 per day. In the 1890 massacre at Wounded Knee, a Sioux reservation in present day South Dakota, more than 300 unarmed men, women, and children, mostly Lakota Sioux followers of the Ghost Dance, were killed by U.S. military troops while practicing religious services. The victims were dumped in a mass grave. Writer and historian Gerald Vizenor said in Rediscovering America: "The massacre of the Sioux at Wounded Knee in 1890 marked a moment of profound transformation in the narrative of America and its native population, who within a decade would see their numbers drop to historic lows. The story of America over the last hundred years in some ways starts here; the American story is in crucial ways the story of those who have been marginalized, attacked, destroyed, or held captive, and have survived to remember, bear witness, create, innovate, and contribute." In 1993 the FBI and the Christian Branch Davidian sect, a religious group that lived in a compound in Waco, Texas, engaged in a standoff. Following the shooting of 4 agents by Branch Davidians, the sect's compound caught fire. More than 80 members of the sect were killed, including children. Although later investigations indicate the Branch Davidians had placed highly flammable materials in the compound, suggesting a mass suicide may have been planned, in 1999 the FBI admitted to its possible use of pyrotechnic tear-gas canisters. "Remember Waco!" became an anthem of the radical right, inspiring more acts of mass violence, especially the bombing of the Federal Building in Oklahoma City on the 2nd anniversary of Waco in 1995, which ex-U.S. soldier Timothy McVeigh admitted was plotted to avenge the Branch Davidians' deaths. Carla Blank is the author of "Rediscovering America" (Three Rivers Press, 2003).

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