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December 24, 2001
Cockburn/St. Clair
Enron
and the Green Seal
December 21, 2001
John Chuckman
The
First Victim in the
War on Terror
December 20, 2001
Lawrence
McGuire
Killing
Other People's Children
Miriam Rozen
Foundation
Without Representation?
Kenneth
Roth
A
Letter to Rumsfeld on
Military Tribunals
William Blum
Casualties:
Theirs and Ours
December 19, 2001
Marjorie
Cohn
Don't
Pre-Judge John Walker
Sam Bahour
Palestine
and You
December 18, 2001
Shahid
Alam
Clash
of Civilizations?
Carl Estabrook
Who
Opposes This War?
December 17, 2001
Edward
Said
Mahfouz
and the Cruelty
of Memory
December 16, 2001
Amira Howeidy
Dangerous By
Definition?
Bahour
and Dahan
Zinni's
Doomed Mission
December 15, 2001
John Isaacs
Bush's 12
Lumps of Coal
for Christmas
Dana Cook
The
Execution of bin Laden
Yusuf Agha
Tale of the
Tape:
Osama Gump?
December 14, 2001
Don Atapattu
A Conversation with
Norman
Finkelstein
December 13, 2001
Trojanow and Hoskote:
Nonsense
Mantras of Our Times
Dr. A.
Tajudeen
Afghanistan
and Zaire
Michael Williams
Prohibit
Prohibition
December 12, 2001
Jack McCarthy
Hitchens,
Walker
and Osama's Tape
Laura W. Murphy
Ashcroft's
Jihad
Shahid
Alam
Race
and Visibility
December 11, 2001
Joshua Orton
University
of Wisconsin
Won't Aid FBI Interviews
Philip
Farruggio
Cleansing
the Nation's Soul
Robert Fisk
Why I Was
Beaten
A Photographic Journal of Life
in an Afghan Refugee Camp
By Judith Mann
Resources:
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About 9/11
CounterPunch:
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Five
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Shook The World:
Seattle and Beyond
By Alexander
Cockburn
and Jeffrey St. Clair
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8-Page Special Issue
War Diary
CIA's Assassination Plan a History of
Torture in US Prisons
bin Laden and Bush
Business Connections
Aisha Ikramuddin on the Hidden Hype
of US Food Bombs
Peter Linebaugh on
Pakistan
Christopher Hitchens' Love for Mrs. Thatcher
Jiang Zemin Tells Bush:
Nuke 'Em
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How the CIA's Backing of the Mujahideen Created the World's Most
Robust Heroin Market and Helped to Finance the Rise of the Taliban
and Osama bin Laden
Whiteout:
CIA, Drugs & the
Press
by Alexander
Cockburn
and Jeffrey St. Clair
The Memphis Blues Again:
Six Decades of Memphis Music Photographs
Photos by Ernest Withers
Text by Daniel Wolff
The New Intifada:
Resisting Israel's Apartheid
Edited by Roane Carey
A Pocket Guide to
Environmental Bad Guys
by James Ridgeway
and Jeffrey St. Clair
The
Phoenix Program
by Douglas Valentine
Al Gore:
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December 24,
2001
War as Diversionary
Tactic:
Should Patriotism Keep Us From Fighting Poverty?
By Michael Chisari
The riots in Argentina are serious. They are
food riots. They required no agitation, no manufactured political
awakening of the people, and no defining moment. Just hunger.
When millions of people starve as food rots on the shelves of
supermarkets and warehouses, direct action is no longer a tactic,
but the answer to a question of mere survival.
The food riots rest squarely on the shoulders
of international lending agencies, namely the International Monetary
Fund, which has contributed directly to Argentina's situation
of poverty and unemployment. At a time when financial aid is
most necessary, the IMF has chosen to withhold necessary funds
due to the fiscal irresponsibility of the government of Argentina.
Therefore, the actions of the elite of Argentina affect the
people of Argentina to the point of spontaneous rebellion.
However, I'm not as concerned with the
situation in Argentina as much as I am concerned with the actions
of those in the United States. I reside in the US, and I am
a political activist within it's borders. I am appalled at the
way the people of the US have acted in regards to growing poverty
around the world.
Plans had been made shortly after the
FTAA protests in Quebec City to follow up with mass protests
in Washington D.C. against the IMF/World Bank, and their policies.
The exact policies of which are behind the massive protests
and unrest in Argentina.
After the attacks on the World Trade
Center on September 11th, however, many organizations in the
US backed out of the protests, fearing that any kind of criticism
of US foreign policy would be deemed "unamerican" and
would garner bad press. The goal of saving face was placed higher
than the goal of an equal and just global society.
The protests still occurred, with much
smaller participation. Anarchists, communists, student radicals,
activists and concerned human beings who felt that one tragedy
does not negate the suffering of millions at the hands of a powerful
institution went forward with their criticism of capitalist globalization.
The food riots in Argentina show that
the situation is, and always has been, a serious one. Although
it is implausible to think that one massive protest, no matter
how successful, could have eliminated the IMF, eliminated debt,
or even changed the policy of the IMF, the fact of the matter
is that such protests are not symbolic. They are an incredible
part of a growing worldwide resistance to financial imperialism
and the woes that it creates. Poverty and hunger did not cease
to exist once the US found itself a new invisible enemy to wage
war against.
To ignore growing inequality for the
sake of "national unity" is a foreboding message to
the people of the world about how many in the world's most prosperous
country feel about their situation. To those who continued to
speak out against the criminal economic activities of the International
Monetary Fund and the World Bank, my heart goes out to you for
your bravery and indignation, and your deep understanding about
what solidarity truly is.
To those who backed out to insure your
organization's continued funding, or because you felt that the
time to protest injustice was over, I feel that an explanation
is long overdue.
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