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The Truth About Rising Seas
By John James
We know that were all the ice on Greenland to melt, sea levels would rise over 7 meters. The question is how long may this take? The IPCC estimate of hundreds of years is being contradicted by studies of past glaciations. Andrew Glickson and Bradley Opdyke showed that at the end of earlier ice ages the glaciers collapsed suddenly. Suddenly does not mean over a century or two, but within a decade. We all saw the speed at which this can happen in 2002 when 2,600 square kilometres on the Larsen B ice shelf in the Antarctic disintegrated and disappeared in less than five weeks
Iraqi Cabinet Stalls On US Security Agreement
By James Cogan
Progress toward the signing of a bilateral US-Iraqi security agreement sanctioning a continued American military presence in Iraq has stalled again. On Tuesday, the Iraqi cabinet of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki officially rejected the pact which had been formulated through months of tortured negotiations between American and Iraqi officials
A Bombing In Assam
By Gary Corseri
A poem
The End Of Prosperity
By Stephen Lendman
Dealing with today's crisis requires big international rescue according to economist Nouriel Roubini. Called Dr. Doom for his gloomy views that today command worldwide respect. And whatever's done, America faces "year(s) of economic stagnation." After a deep protracted downturn. If as true as he forecasts, it signals the end of prosperity. A new age of austerity and world economies in extreme disrepair and needing an alternative model in lieu of a clearly failed one. Hugely corrupted as well
A Case Study Of Power And Media:
The Washington Post
By Max Kantar
Last week's unilateral attack on Syria and the subsequent coverage of the events by the mainstream US media give us an impeccable illustration of the prevailing ideologies that dictate how news is received, composed, and understood by respectable journalists and reporters
A Homeless March On Washington
By David Kendall
Nobody needs to leave job or home or family to participate in a "Homeless March on Washington". Communities must simply coordinate their interests, their efforts and their people to get the job done. This in mind, let's begin working together now to bring our leaders in Washington, DC, back to their senses, regardless of who gets elected on November 4. As Americans, we owe nothing less to ourselves, our families and communities, and to our country as a whole
Why I Am Supporting The Candidacy Of
Cynthia McKinney
By Lucinda Marshall
I have no doubt that many who read this have their fingers poised above their keyboards ready to ask how dare I risk the chance of a McCain presidency by suggesting a vote for anyone other than Obama. I urge them to read more closely
The Winter Of Our Discontent:
Provincialism And Terrorism
By Mustafa Khan
There is the winter of our discontent that has set in. The stock market is in doldrums, protests and violence in the streets, lynching and encounters in the financial capital of the country, war of words between states of the union, involvement of ex-servicemen and a serving lieutenant colonel in terrorism, the slide of the reputed Bhonsla military school of Nasik and Nagpur into the nadir of terrorism, and the bomb blasts in Assam, etc.
Multi Headed Hydra Monstrosity Of The Sangh Parivar
By Mustafa Khan
The kind of atmosphere built up over the last six months was such that it could have led to upheaval in the society on unprecedented scale. Amar Singh feared that Muslims might rebel against their repression and oppression on account of the innumerable arrests of many innocent members of the community. It is for such an eventuality that the RSS is training its cadres in arms and ammunition. They would take over the reign
30 October, 2008
Three Immediate Crises - Market Failure
And Green New Deal
By Bill Henderson
We face three crises each of which needs mitigation immediately- the economic crisis, the end of cheap energy and climate change threatening runaway global warming
World Tires Of Rule By Dollar
By Paul Craig Roberts
What explains the paradox of the dollar’s sharp rise in value against other currencies (except the Japanese yen) despite disproportionate US exposure to the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression? Read on, here is the answer
The 2008 US Recession,Military Keynesianism
And The Wars In The Middle East
By Peter Custers
Nouriel Roubini, the Wall Street economist who has gathered world fame by predicting the current world financial crisis, has already warned that the US economy may end up as a 'war economy', just as happened during the 20th century world wars. Clearly, it is time economists catch up, and engage in debate on the military underpinnings of economic policymaking in the US and beyond
Marxism And The Economic Crises
By Rohini Hensman
It is possible to get out of this recession without allowing it to become a depression if enough people press for decisive action along these lines. Eventually, another crisis will come along, of course: that is the nature of capitalism. But we can deal with that problem when we get to it!
Twelve Reasons To Reject Obama
And Support Nader/McKinney
By James Petras
The intellectuals who, in the name of ‘realism’, support a politician who publicly and openly embraces new wars, billionaire bailouts and for profit, private sector-run health programs are repudiating their own claims as ‘responsible critics’. They are what C. Wright Mills called ‘crackpot realists’, abdicating their responsibility as critical intellectuals. In purporting to support the ‘lesser evil’ they are promoting the ‘greater evil’: The continuation of four more years of deepening recession, colonial wars and popular alienation
Obama The Stalker
By Joel S. Hirschhorn
No presidential candidate has ever used massive amounts of money to so effectively stalk voters. You cannot escape the Obama sales pitch wherever you are, whatever you watch, whatever you read. His campaign will go down in American history as the most successful advertising and marketing effort to sell a product
Israel Bars Visit To Father’s Grave
By Jonathan Cook
Salwa Salam Qupty clutches a fading sepia photograph of a young Palestinian man wearing a traditional white headscarf. It is the sole memento that survives of her father, killed by a Jewish militia during the 1948 war that established Israel.“He was killed 60 years ago as he was travelling to work,” she said, struggling to hold back the tears. “My mother was four months pregnant with me at the time. This photograph is the closest I’ve ever got to him.” Six decades on from his death, she has never been allowed to visit his grave in Galilee and lay a wreath for the father she never met
Execution Of 47 In Kafr Qassem Commemorated
By Jonathan Cook
In a conflict that has produced more than its share of suffering and tragedy, the name of Kafr Qassem lives on in infamy more than half a century after Israeli police gunned down 47 Palestinian civilians, including women and children, in the village
Neoliberalism And Hindutva
By Shankar Gopalakrishnan
Fascism, free markets and the restructuring of Indian capitalism
Repression Escalates: Reporter Pedro Matías
Kidnapped And Tortured In Oaxaca
By Scott Campbell
Pedro Matías, a well-known reporter who writes for Noticias, a local daily paper, as well as the national weekly Proceso, was kidnapped, beaten, tortured and robbed on Saturday night in Oaxaca
29 October, 2008
Just The Tip Won't Do: Expose The Whole Iceberg
By Kavita Krishnan
No longer can the Sangh Parivar and BJP ever disown its role in terrorism. A former firebrand ABVP leader and so-called 'sadhvi', Pragya Singh Thakur, has been arrested for her role in the Malegaon blasts of September 2006 as well as in the more recent Modasa blasts. Even more ominously, two ex-Army officers are implicated in the blasts, and it has come to light that an institution called the 'Bhonsala Military Academy' in Nagpur has been imparting arms training to the Bajrang Dal
Defending The Idea Of India
The two day national convention - Countering Fascist Forces: Defending the Idea of India, 25-26 October 2008- was attended by over 750 activists' and intellectuals from 18 states. Here is the political resolution passed at the convention
The Triumph Of Ignorance
By George Monbiot
How was it allowed to happen? How did politics in the US come to be dominated by people who make a virtue out of ignorance? Was it charity that has permitted mankind’s closest living relative to spend two terms as president? How did Sarah Palin, Dan Quayle and other such gibbering numbskulls get to where they are? How could Republican rallies in 2008 be drowned out by screaming ignoramuses insisting that Barack Obama is a Muslim and a terrorist?
Running On Empty
By John Murphy
Even at this late date I could flood the local radio stations with advertisements for only about six thousand dollars. I could place an ad in the "Community Courier" for two thousand dollars and get into one hundred and ten thousand households. I could get out powerful progressive message and raise the consciousness of tens of thousands of people but this effort is of such little value that only a very few see it worth a contribution over two hundred dollars
Cleaning Up After Bush
By Niranjan Ramakrishnan
The day before 9-11, how many would have accepted a suggestion that seven years later, they would have been illegally spied upon, phones tapped and emails sniffed? That they would be entangled in two foreign wars? That New Orleans would disappear in a baffling act of incompetence and neglect? Or that their government would authorize torture? Or that fabled names in the financial industry would loot and cheat them, under the very eyes and noses of their own government? That insult would be added to injury by their being made to pay for a bailout of the very perpetrators of these same crimes?
A Few Outrageous Lies
By Timothy V. Gatto
I am totally amazed at the way the right continues to attack the left with misinformation that exposes them for what they are, barefaced liars. They aren’t worth the time it takes to counter them, but I have saved up a collection of lies so it may be worth the effort. The really sad part of all of this is that if people don’t call them out on their lies, they will continue to lie
Targeting Dissent: The San Francisco Eight
By Stephen Lendman
Support the San Francisco Eight. Demand their exoneration and release. Their struggle is ours
28 October, 2008
Messy Elections: Can We Trust
The Results?
By Kevin Zeese
The U.S. can be the greatest democracy on earth, but rright now it is far from it
The Cost Of Slumber
By Dahr Jamail
We must each ask ourselves, during this week before the election, what, precisely, we will be willing to do to bring about the change necessary to end all the illegalities being carried out in our name. For this question shall, of course, persist long after November 4
War Or Peace?: The World After
The 2008 U.S. Presidential Election
By Richard C. Cook
With the presidential election only a week away, the financial crisis has been dominating the news, but behind it is an even larger question of war vs. peace
Confronting Presidential "Meltdowns"
By Robert S. Becker
If our democracy is to be made whole, we must find ways to return quality to government and government to the sovereignty to the people – and that, paradoxically, begins by returning greatness to the White House. Great nations cannot long suffer a train of mediocre leaders who cannot transcend their own parties or mindsets when problems are larger than both
American Priorities
By Mickey Z.
Mickey Z. observes some American priorities
Peak Oil And The Systemic Collapse Of
Modern Civilization
By Peter Goodchild
Systemic collapse has ten principal parts, each with a somewhat causal relationship to the next. Fuel, metals, and electricity are a tightly-knit group, since no industrial civilization can have one without the others. As those three disappear, food and fresh water become scarce. Matters of infrastructure then follow: transportation and communication. Social structure fails: government, finance, and education. After these ten, there is psychic breakdown: madness and chaos
Sticking It To The Man,’ 21st Century Style…..
By Jason Miller
An interview with Captain Paul Watson, animal defender extraordinaire, founder of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, and courageous practitioner of extensional self defense on behalf of marine animals
Girl Thrown To Dogs Was Pregnant
By Rauf Klasra
There is more to the bone-chilling account of the 17-year-old Taslim Solangi of Khairpur who was thrown to dogs — she was 8-month pregnant and was forced to give birth to her baby prematurely. The baby was immediately thrown into the nearby Ubhal Wah canal after her killer father-in-law passed a judgement that the child was illegitimate and did not deserve to be allowed to live
US Military Forces Attack
Syrian Village, Killing Eight
By Patrick O’Connor
A ground assault conducted Sunday by the US military on a Syrian village saw eight people shot dead, four of them reportedly children, and others wounded. The raid has all the earmarks of a calculated provocation by the outgoing administration of US President George Bush aimed at derailing moves by the European powers to normalise relations with the Syrian government
27 October, 2008
Stolen Elections And Media Blackouts
By Carolyn Baker
Carolyn Baker interviews Mark Crispin Miller. Mark Crispin Miller's 2005 book Fooled Again, impeccably documents the stealing of the 2004 election, and Loser Take All, a 2008 collection of essays on stolen elections incorporates the research of other investigators of election fraud such as Robert Kennedy, Jr; Bob Fitrakis, and Steve Rosenfeld
Warnings Of Deep Recession
As US Layoffs Spread
By Patrick O’Connor
Dozens of mass layoffs have been announced by American employers, both private and public, in recent days. The impact of the downturn has begun to spread well beyond the imploding financial sector and such depressed industries as automobiles, to the economy as a whole
The Bailout
By Ghali Hassan
The U.S. and its Western allies are sinking in deep recession. The bailout is a bogus solution and doomed to fail. However, there is an alternative based on the promotion of human community. Investment in productive activities to create jobs, build housing, schools, healthcare services and vital public infrastructure will lead to lasting economic recovery in a regulated financial system characterised by openness, transparency and accountability, free of greed and corruption. If elected President of the United States, Barack Obama should position himself to the left of President Hugo Chávez
Public Enemy Number One
By Stephen Lendman
With so many good choices, it's hard just picking one. But given the gravity of today's financial crisis, one name stands out above others - Alan Greenspan
Nicolas Sarkozy And Sovereign Wealth Funds
By Kavaljit Singh
Not long ago, the EU gave a call for “Global Europe” with much fanfare and avowed commitment to open economy. Why double standards?
26 October, 2008
Rep. Sherman Feels Heat For Reporting On
Threat Of Martial Law
By David Swanson
Congressman Brad Sherman said on the floor of the House that a few Congress members had been told there would be martial law in America if they did not pass Paulson's Plunder. Sherman has not retracted that statement. He has not suggested that the Congress members who had told him that didn't really tell him that, or weren't honest, or didn't take it seriously, or that it didn't influence their votes. But he has put out a statement to the media, clearly at the instruction of the leaders of his party, attempting to backpedal
Voter Surveys And Racial Bias
By Thomas Riggins
If this election, as have the last two, is stolen from the American people, you can be sure the media and the powers that be will be explaining that the illusion of an Obama victory was due to faulty polls and the "Bradley effect."
The Obaminations Of Barack
By Niranjan Ramakrishnan
No presidential contender I have seen, other than Bill Clinton, has run a better campaign than Barack Obama. If nothing else, one must hand it to him for the magnificent improbability of the effort – a guy whose last name sounds like 'Osama' and whose middle name is the same as Saddam's – running for president in America, where the average Joe (including the plumber, likely) doesn't know Madrasi from Madrassa – now poised, and in the view of many, on the verge of victory!
Iraq In The Times Of Cholera… And Occupation
By Sabah Ali
With all the tragedies that the occupation brought to Iraq, the last thing it needs now is an epidemic, the cholera which is spreading in big numbers
Can Georgia Do Right?
By David Morse
Is the legal system of the state of Georgia up to the task – when the task is to rectify the flawed trial of a black man accused of killing a white police officer? The world is waiting to see if justice can prevail. Fortunately, on Friday, October 24, the U.S. Court of Appeals for Georgia’s 11th Circuit issued a stay of execution that narrowly prevented accused cop killer Troy Davis from being put to death by lethal injection the following Monday
Tracking Your Every Move: ‘Enhancing’
Driver’s Licenses At The Cost Of Privacy
By Christopher Parsons
The potential for ubiquitous surveillance that emerges with Enhanced Drivers Licenses (EDLs) could only be imagined by the Stasi in Communist East Germany, but is a genuinely looming specter for contemporary North American democracies. Provincial and state governments in North America are proposing to 'enhance' driver’s licenses in coming years by including a Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) chips in them
Venezuela: Between Assassination Plots
And Abstention
By Federico Fuentes
Talk of assassination plots and rising concerns about a high abstention rate have marked the beginning of the November 23 regional elections race
Peace, Non-Violence And Secularism
In Dalit Perspective
By Ratnesh Katulkar
Ignorance and negligence of Dalit ideology by the mainstream secularists and the upper-class Muslims are harming Muslims to fall prey before Hindu fascist and it is dangerous in building the real foundation of secularism in India
24 October, 2008
Chomsky, Zinn, And Obama
By Mickey Z.
Another Election Day approaches and veterans like Noam Chomsky and Howard Zinn endorse Obama for President. But Mickey Z. argues, " a vote for either John McCain or Barack Obama is—at best—an act of criminal negligence."
The Opium Of The Masses
By Max Kantar
This November, Americans face a choice. But the choice not between John McCain or Barak Obama; it is between submitting to the will of the corporate-military establishment or taking a moral stand in boycotting their rigged institutions of fake democracy
Taking Politics Seriously:Looking Beyond
The Election And Beyond Elections
By Robert Jensen & Pat Youngblood
We have nothing against voting. We plan to vote in the upcoming election. Some of our best friends are voters. But we also believe that we shouldn't make the mistake of thinking that the most important political moment in our lives comes in the voting booth. Instead, people should take politics seriously, which means asking considerably more of ourselves than the typical fixation with electoral politics
Is America Fascist?
By Sherwood Ross
Americans need to keep in mind that worse than anything President Bush has inflicted upon his own citizenry is what his wars of aggression have inflicted on innocent humanity abroad. A million dead Iraqis can't give a damn by what terminology you describe the United States. If the American people allow their government to make criminal wars to deprive innocent foreigners of their lives and liberties they do not deserve to enjoy either at home
Wrecked Iraq
By Michael Schwartz
What the good news from Iraq really means
World Food Day: Global Crises’ Double Standards
By Ramzy Baroud
Whether the American, European or any other government infused bailout packages rectify the financial crisis or not, chances are that 16 October 2009 will bring similarly devastating news about the plight of the world's poor and which is likely to remain that: mere "news" that requires little action, if any at all
Pardon Me, Congress?
By David Swanson
Jerry Seib, executive Washington editor of The Wall Street Journal said on the Diane Rehm Show on NPR last week that he expects Bush, Cheney, and their subordinates to be prosecuted for torture. This expectation is spreading
Seyed Mousavi: Guilty Of Being Muslim
In Police State America
By Stephen Lendman
In a climate of fear, Muslims risk harassment, prosecution and incarceration. Especially prominent ones like Mousavi. His defense will appeal and seek exoneration at the appellate court level. For now, he's incarcerated and subjected to dehumanizing treatment. For being Muslim in America at the wrong time. Only his inner strength sustains him. And the love and admiration of his family, friends and supporters. In today's disturbing climate, we're all Seyed Mousavis
Isn't This Hitler’s Tactic?
By Subhash Gatade
Terror and counter-terror have virtually laid a trap for Muslims, whereas some of the evidence points to the involvement of the Muslim-bashing Bajrang Dal and other RSS siblings. When it comes to this kind of evidence the law turns lame, writes Subhash Gatade
The Struggle Of Dalitbahujan For Their Identity
And In Quest Of Their Spiritual And Political Destiny
By Dr. Kancha Ilaiah
Speech delivered on the occasion of presentation of 'LISA Book Award – 2008 for 'Why I am Not a Hindu'
23 October, 2008
Pakistan Facing Bankruptcy As
World Financial Crisis Deepens
By Vilani Peiris
Wracked by political instability and hard hit by the global economic crisis, Pakistan is teetering on the brink of default. The country’s foreign reserves have dwindled to around $4.5 billion, equivalent to about six weeks of imports, foreign investors have fled the country in droves and the rupee has fallen sharply. The international credit rating agency, Standard & Poor’s, has downgraded Pakistan to a position superior only to the Seychelles, which has already defaulted
Will You Publish This Story?
By Nida Mariam
Lubna, a young woman from Baghdad, mother of four, stranded in Cairo, narrates her ordeals to Nida Mariam
The Challenger Disaster,Financial Collapse
And Viable Solutions
By Gary Corseri
An interview with Richard C.Cook
Why Accept The Endorsement Of A Liar?
Because He Has No Choice
By Maher Osseiran
Obama is not his own man, he is a persona, the creation of Zbigniew Brzezinski who sold him to the “old guard”, an amalgam of senior Republicans and Democrats - the ruling elite – the self appointed saviors of our nation from the clutches of the neo-conic evil. These guys are out in droves in support of Obama and they are all on message; Obama is what we need to rehabilitate our world image; a Hail Mary of sorts to recapture what George W. Bush squandered. Obama has no choice, he has to win and he has to accept the endorsement of whoever can get him there
It's Our Turn Now: Resistance
As If It Really Mattered
By Mike Ferner
It is not pleasant to conclude that, contrary to what you’ve learned all your life, the place you call home has become just another empire intent on enforcing its will on humanity. Our discomfort is trivial compared to the suffering of those living where our missiles land, but still there are days when the latest news from the colonies leaves you screaming with anguish and rage against the terror rained upon the innocent without end
Imagine: Media As A Sanctuary For Dissent
By Eileen Fleming
If the media were a sanctuary for dissent the candidates would have been grilled on America's record regarding the NPT; and why the silence about Israel's still un-inspected underground WMD facility and refusal to sign onto the NPT in light of the fact that we the people of America who pay taxes provide Israel with $7 million per day
Mammon, The God Of Excess
By Gaither Stewart
The last of Gaither Stewart's Definitions series
Heartland Of Darkness
By Adam Engel
A Review Of Jeffrey St. Clair's "Born Under A Bad Sky"
Revivalism Of Religious Rights Is A Challenge
To Democratic Secular Constitution
By Vidya Bhushan Rawat
The dirt in the name of secularism need to be cleaned first. Those who take shelter in the name of secularism need to believe in its perception and practice otherwise India is heading for a Afghanistan kind of a situation where we all will be speaking for our respective communities and not for those whose rights are violated and dignity challenged. It is a grave challenge and we must think it over
Whither India: Qualitative Change In Polity
By Ram Puniyani
Whether India will nurture the values of freedom movement and strive for human rights of all depends on us, as in no time in the past the very concept of democracy has been stifled as much as we are witnessing today
The Failing Idea Of India
By Shah Faisal
As old as the land itself, is perhaps that something called the "idea" of India. We may debate it, but it can not be refuted that this idea is as organic and alive now as the history had once sculptured it. But at the same time, it is no longer as inviting and impressive as it used to be once. The problem is not that the change is drastic but the problem is that the change is adverse. It seems as if heroes and villains of this land have swapped their places. Buddha personified this idea once but now bandits and barbarians have adjusted it to their own frame
22 October, 2008
The Theft Component
By Jeff Berg
The Republicans have gone to extraordinary lengths to steal the last two elections. It is truly breathtaking just how badly compromised America's election process has become. What has been perhaps even more astounding has been the American and Canadian media's lack of willingness to engage this story. Is this election beyond the reach of theft? One would like to think so. It is after all in the interest of the entire world that America begin to recover its democracy, and the integrity of the vote is as good a place as any to start. But.....
The Law Of Terror
By Harsh Dobhal
In the aftermath of the recent blasts in Delhi and other places there has been a concerted demand for a law that will help the state combat terror. Harsh Dobhal questions the logic of this anti-terror doctrine, the validity of its central tenets and the efficacy of its use
The Real Travesty
By Harsh Mander
Calling for a judicial enquiry into the Batla House encounter is a not a travesty. Denying the need for one is…
Stark Truths Of Hinduism
By Udit Raj
The Hindu Right fears not conversions but equitable society
The Children Of Gaza: Weaned On Fear And Trauma
By Samah A. Habeeb
Severe terror and traumas are de facto storms for children in the occupied territories, especially those who exist in the Gaza Strip. The ongoing Israeli military operations and violent retaliation induce psychological maladies and wretched conditions. The recent ceasefire in Gaza allows a temporary rest but not the cure for their fears and nightmares
This Time Is Different
By Stephen Lendman
America's economy is eroding. Government and Wall Street are orchestrating it. Maybe even willfully, and here's the legacy they're leaving. The nation "passing from democracy to oligarchy (and steering it is) a bipartisan financial kleptocracy" chuckling all the way to their offshore tax havens
The 21st Century American Revolution
By Timothy V. Gatto
If there is one thing I hate, it’s being patronized by educators that believe they have the final word because they work with “political theory” everyday. This time it’s Noam Chomsky that is doing it. Mr. Chomsky explains that we will be better ultimately (meaning the common man) under a Democratic administration. He suggests we vote for the lesser of two evils by insinuating that to vote for a lesser evil is still a vote against evil
More Reasons Not To Vote For Obama
By David Truskoff
I was shocked by the Obama statement that he would welcome Warren Buffet, the wizard of Wall Street, to be his Secretary of the Treasury. Now Obama has gone even further in welcoming Colin Powell into his administration if he is elected. It tells us who is pulling his strings. Powell didn't give Obama his endorsement without getting a promise of something in return
Feeling Robbed?
By Kevin Zeese
Wall Street Since the Bailout Shows No Signs of Changing and Washington is Not Forcing a Change. Not Even a Thank You or an Apology to the Taxpayers
‘No-Threat Feel’ In Handling Incidents Of Conflict
By M Shamsur Rabb Khan
How dangerous a speech Bal Thackeray, or his nephew Raj Thackeray, or Parveen Togadia makes, media as well as government takes it as ‘not-so-threatening’ to the unity and integrity of the nation, while the arrest of terror suspects (or even innocent) creates enough upheaval, as if the whole country will be defeated by a few mindless men
20 October, 2008
US Elections:It's Already Stolen
By Greg Palast
Don’t worry about Mickey Mouse or ACORN stealing the election. According to an investigative report out today in Rolling Stone magazine, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Greg Palast, after a year-long investigation, reveal a systematic program of "GOP vote tampering" on a massive scale
Fool Me Once...
By Timothy V. Gatto
According to Greg Palast and RFK Jr., writing in Rolling Stone yesterday the vote is already being tampered with by the Rovian computer geeks. The Democrats must win by a large margin in order to override the GOP vote tampering effort. This is so totally wrong and deceitful, that I have a hard time actually writing these words
Powell's Endorsement: Redemption,
Race, Or Revenge?
By Mary Shaw
On October 19th, retired U.S. Army general and former Secretary of State Colin Powell endorsed Barack Obama for president. I saw it as another step toward Powell's personal and political redemption
Planet Eaters: Chain Reaction,Black Holes,
Climate Change And Existentialist Philosophy
By Andrew Glikson & Emily Spence
The Sixth mass extinction is a novelty: For the first time in its history, the biosphere is in crisis through biological forcing by an advanced form of life, namely the activity of a technological carbon-emitting species
Hard Times
By Stephen Lendman
Hard and troubled. Racked by fear and uncertainty. For many trauma. Experts predict, speculate and conjecture, but no one knows for sure what's ahead. Key questions are whether we're in a protracted and severe recession. Or at the onset of another Great Depression. So much is unresolved. The problems have built for years and are immense. Maybe nothing at this stage will work and the best hope is for light at the end of a very long, dark tunnel
The Rising Body Count On Main Street
By Nick Turse
The Human Fallout from the Financial Crisis
The Cruel Boredom Of Pornography
By Robert Jensen
Pornography is relentlessly intense, pushing our sexual boundaries both physically and psychically. And, pornography also is incredibly repetitive and boring
Swedish Peace Activists Repeatedly
Break Into Weapon Factories
By Bill Quigley
Using hammers and bolt cutters, peace activists repeatedly broke into weapon plants and damaged weapons in Sweden. Activists from the Swedish group OFOG/Avrusta admitted damaging twenty high explosive grenade launchers as well as internal parts to a Howitzer 77. Five people were arrested. Two remain in jail
A Wednesday- Making Fools Of Us All
By Ashley Tellis
A Wednesday is the latest in a lengthening list of films that prove that the Hindi film industry is complicit with the Indian state in demonising the Muslim and producing amnesiac versions of Indian nationalism and 'terrorism,' says Ashley Tellis
I, The Convert
By Anand Mahadevan
My conversion was not a change of religion; it was a change of heart
Case Of Shahbaz Ahmed Arrested In connection
With Serial Bomb Blasts In Jaipur
By PUCL-PUHR
A PUCL-PUHR fact finding report on accused in Serial Bomb Blasts In Jaipur
17 October, 2008
Fear The Coming Nature Crunch
By George Monbiot
This is nothing. Well, nothing by comparison to what's coming. The financial crisis for which we must now pay so heavily prefigures the real collapse, when humanity bumps against its ecological limits
Additional Thoughts On The Bailout
By Paul Craig Roberts
The bailout package is a result of panic and threats, not of analysis and understanding. Neither Congress nor the public knows the full story. If the problem is the mortgages, why does the bailout leave the mortgages unaddressed and focus instead on pouring vast amount of public money into private financial institutions?
How To Manage An Imperial Decline
By Aziz Huq
Do empires end with a bang, a whimper, or the sibilant hiss of financial deflation? We may be about to find out. Right now, in the midst of the financial whirlwind, it's been hard in the United States to see much past the moment. Yet the ongoing economic meltdown has raised a range of non-financial issues of great importance for our future
Toxic Asset, Tainted Milk
By Nazery Khalid
The financial bust-up in the US emanating from the sub-prime and housing market crises and the tainted milk scandal in China seem like two events a country mile apart. However, upon closer inspection, they underscore the interrelatedness between the two economies which are a lot more binding than it appears. While the two sorry episodes exposed the follies of two of the most powerful nations on earth, they also provide a fascinating study on globalization and the inextricable links and growing dependence between the two economic juggernauts on one other
The Forgotten U.S. War On
The Iraqi People
By Ghali Hassan
On October 3, 2008, the Washington Post reported that the Pentagon is paying $300 million to U.S. contractors to produce pro-U.S. propaganda for Iraqi audiences “in an effort to ‘engage and inspire’ the local population to support U.S. objectives and the puppet government”. The aim of this psychological warfare is to normalise the murderous Occupation and cover-up the slaughter of innocent Iraqi civilians
China’s Land Reform Will Deepen
The Gulf Between Rich And Poor
By John Chan
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) launched a far-reaching new round of market reform at its Central Committee plenum on October 9-12. The meeting established the framework for peasants to freely trade their collective and state-owned land titles—a step toward large-scale industrial agriculture that will inevitably drive millions of small farmers off the land
Definitions: The Bourgeoisie
By Gaither Stewart
The third article in Gaither Stewart's "Definitions" series
Israel’s ‘City Of Coexistence’ Shows Its True Colours
By Jonathan Cook
Israel has been suffering its worst bout of inter-communal violence since the start of the second intifada, with a week of what has been widely presented as “rioting” by Jewish and Arab residents of the northern port city of Acre
Europe And The Middle East:
Will EU Be A More Just Mediator?
By Ramzy Baroud
Europe has showed greater willingness in recent months to play a larger part in the Middle East's most protracted conflict, that of Israel and Palestine. But willingness doesn't necessarily indicate readiness
Jamia Residents Foil “Encounter” Attempt
By Mumtaz Alam Falahi
The residents of Jamia Nagar today foiled a kidnapping/encounter attempt by some policemen in plainclothes in Shaheen Bagh area under the Jamia Nagar Police Station in Delhi
Chengara's Dalit-Adivasis Call
To Restore Their Fundamental Rights
By Vidya Bhushan Rawat
Chengara's land struggle is historical. It shows that people can not really depend on government dole out for land. Political parties in connivance with the defunct industrial houses are keeping people landless. New landlessness is on the rise. Courts are being used as an excuse to evict people. The marginalized have understood this and are ready to fight till end. If the government of Kerala think it is wrong, let it come out in open and say that they oppose people's movement for land right
16 October, 2008
Global Recession Takes Hold
By Patrick O’Connor
The financial crisis has brought to a head the underlying contradictions which have been wracking the capitalist system over an entire period. Notwithstanding the desperate hopes of policy makers in Europe, Asia, and other regions, a severe and protracted recession in the US will inevitably trigger a major downturn in the world economy
Financial Hurricane Batters World Capitalism:
System Failure And The Need for Revolution
By Raymond Lotta
This is a highly fraught situation. Things can change very quickly. The system is revealing much about its basic nature. Bigger jolts may come and outrage may suddenly grow and give rise to resistance from all kinds of quarters. We have to grasp the potential of the situation. We have to be out there bringing forward understanding and bringing forward a vision of a liberatory world. We have to rise to new political and ideological challenges in the belly of the beast
The Financial Economy And The Real Economy
By Justin Podur
Writers on financial or economic matters rarely see the need to explain the basics of the field or justify them at the best of times, let alone in the middle of unfolding crises. What are these “financial instruments” — futures, options, and swaps? What are they for, and how did they increase the dangers of what occurred? What is the relationship between finance and the ‘real economy’? What exactly is wrong with that relationship? Events move so quickly that stories discussing them rarely stop to explain the basics
Protecting Our Families And Future
In A Time Of Crisis
By Carolyn Baker
Carolyn Baker reviews Sharon Astyk's Depletion And Abundance
The Illusion Of Democracy
By Timothy V. Gatto
It seems like the citizens of this country should be enjoying the proceeds of the largest economy on Earth. Instead, 1% of the families in the United States own 54% of its wealth. This is up from 38% last year. Basing an economy on debt and then subsidizing the very people that profit from that debt is outrageous. One of the main reasons that we are in the predicament that we find ourselves in is that politicians in Washington rely on advice from those that have an inherent interest in the status quo
Reviewing James Petras' "Zionism, Militarism,
And The Decline Of US Power"
By Stephen Lendman
Every Petras book is important. So is this one at a time the most powerful Washington Lobby is assured that a new administration will continue and expand the current "Global Wars on Terrorism." Petras explains the dangers. The current disastrous foreign adventurism. America's economic decline as a result, and the calamitous global fallout overall. High-level officials won't read this book, but they should. To realize the dangers of their destructive policies. How they threaten the republic's survival and are heading the nation for insolvency and ruin
A Moratorium On Conversions: Who Decides?
By Joseph D’souza
So who decides on a moratorium on conversions? The RSS? The media? Those who come to the table and dialogue on this issue? Or the oppressed Dalit and low caste person in India? Dare we take away this final and most basic of human rights from the most dehumanized group of people in human civilization?
14 October, 2008
Does The Bailout Pass The Smell Test?
By Paul Craig Roberts
The authorities have blamed subprime mortgages for the crisis. Why then does their solution fail to address the problem of the mortgages? Instead, the solution directs public money into an increasingly concentrated private financial sector, the management of which is not only vastly overpaid, but also has escaped accountability for the financial chicanery that, allegedly, threatens systemic financial meltdown unless bailed out by the taxpayers
The October Surprise: Global Panic
By Stephen Lendman
Ordinary people are hit hardest. Millions will suffer grievously for years as a result of this totally avoidable crisis. Fraudsters who caused it are rewarded. Innocent homeowners, households, and workers are punished. Mercilessly
My Depression -- Or Ours?
By Tom Engelhardt
The Great Depression brought Hitler as well as Roosevelt to power. And if people are disturbed by the anger, the threats, the rage exhibited recently at McCain/Palin rallies, then hold your hats as things turn truly grim. So I sit here and worry. And I know I'm not alone
Forewarned Is Forearmed
By Timothy V. Gatto
"Forewarned is forearmed" Knowledge of imminent danger can prepare us to overcome it. But what is it that we should be prepared for? That my friend is the million dollar question, we are hurtling towards economic meltdown, our streets aren’t safe, the food we eat is altered, the planet is choking on carbon and the icecaps are melting. All of this is a lot to take in. Some people are doing their utmost while some are just biding time until everything falls to pieces
There Is No Quick Fix
By David Truskoff
I am amazed at how the pundits and so-called experts continue to offer opinions on how to fix the economic worldwide meltdown. No one seems to want to go back and see what started it or explain how it started. Trickle down economics does not work and never did, but no one is willing to admit that and so we keep hearing band-aid ideas of how to fix the problem
The Age Of Turbulence "Introduction"
By Thomas Riggins
The melt down of the world financial system is a good back drop for these reflections on the introduction to Alan Greenspan's 2007 memoir. His book THE AGE OF TURBULENCE is subtitled, “Adventures In A New World.” The “New World” that Greenspan now finds himself in is, however, not the world of his dreams but the old world found in the pages of DAS KAPITAL
When The Federal Government Fails The People
By Joel S. Hirschhorn
Things have turned so ugly that electing a new president and many new members of Congress will at best provide band-aids when what is needed is nothing less than what Thomas Jefferson wisely said our nation would need periodically: a political revolution
Why America's Democratic And
Economic Policies Are Failing
By G. Asgar Mitha
America, thanks to Bush, is no longer the democracy that he has lectured the rest of the world about. And Americans and west can thank him for an economy he has started to destroy, leaving behind mountains of debts for several generations to come. Can a nation addicted to gambling pay off those debts?
Study Censures Media For Its Reporting Of
Jamia Nagar Encounter
By S.K. Pande
Speakers at a meet organised by the Delhi Union of Journalists to release its interim report on media's coverage of Jamia Nagar encounter were unanimous in their opinion that the credibility of the media has touched an all-time low and the challenge before the media is how to regain this
Some Questions For The Delhi Police
And Embedded 'Journalists'
By Jamia Teachers' Solidarity Group
The last few days have seen the Delhi Police "returning fire" at the critics of the Jamia Nagar encounter. Pressured by the mounting skepticism about police claims, the Delhi Police have now responded with a new round of theories and stories, which nevertheless remain as riddled with holes, as their earlier version(s). Jamia Teachers' Solidarity Group responds to the latest Police claims
Talibanization Or Balkanization?
What Awaits Pakistan First?
By Safdar Jafri
The fact that in the next few years the map of West Asia is quite likely to change and that Pakistan will be at the forefront in this upcoming change makes the entire game of politics very interesting for the analysts. There will be growing choas, bloodshed, breakaway regions, militancy and above all, most certainly greater US presence in the region in the days to come
10 October, 2008
How To Save The U.S. Economy
By Richard C. Cook
The cause of the financial failure is that the producing and consumer economy is “maxed out” and is unable to repay existing loans much less new ones. This is because purchasing power in the U.S. has collapsed
Time To Create The Economy We Want
By Kevin Zeese
The rage over the bailout of Wall Street is still boiling. In fact, the boil is just beginning. Last week the bailed out massive insurance giant AIG had a party for their executives – the bill $440,000 – this, after an $84 billion tax payer bailout. After the party the Federal Reserve gave them $38 billion more!
Iceland Faces National Bankruptcy
By Jordan Shilton
Iceland’s entire banking system is in danger of collapse. On Wednesday Kaupthing Bank, Iceland’s largest bank, became the third financial institution to be taken over by the government, joining Landsbanki and Glitnir, Iceland’s second and third largest banks
The Trojan Horses Of Our Demise:
Reconnecting To The Moral Sense
By Gary Corseri
The Trojan horses of our demise: ignorance, arrogance, violence and greed. If we seek analogies for our financial collapse, Trojan horses are more instructive than horsemen of the apocalypse. Trojan horses internalize dangers—from the assassins crouching within their wooden hulls; to the gullible celebrants taking them into their fortress-city. In our blame-game culture, where and how we affix blame now is crucial to any possible restitution, let alone redemption. The glass is neither half-full nor half-empty; it is a looking-glass through which we may know ourselves
“Where Will The Money Come From?”
By Devinder Sharma
If only such ‘speed and sagacity’ was shown to tide over the terrible agrarian crisis sweeping throughout the country for over a decade now, thousands of farmers would have been saved from committing suicide. If only the RBI had stepped in to make more cash (or liquidity) available, the nation could have easily provided an assured employment to each and every Indian not only for 100 days but for all the 365 days in a year. The National Rural Employment Guarantee Programme (NREGA) can be easily extended to bring every unemployed Indian under its gambit
The Methane Time Bomb
And The Triple Meltdown
By Andrew Glikson
Recent reports of enhanced methane (CH4) leaks off the eastern Siberian coast (about 100 times the background level of about 1780 parts per billion CH4) and off Svalbard (Norway) have been overshadowed in the media by the collapse of the global credit bubble. At the root of both is a common thread, deregulation, including open-ended permits to pollute the atmosphere and the oceans, little-regulated financial systems and economic globalization, representing failure by governments to protect the life and welfare of their hapless populations
Why would The Public Ever Believe Me?
By Andrew Kishner
The danger, friends, is the region's public health enemy number 1, the Nevada Test Site. Allow me to remind you: the Nevada Test Site is still prepped for resumption of nuclear testing and there are those in the Defense Department who want (yes, want) to do more - to resume - testing. Then there are the horribly contaminated soils at the Test Site, the subcritical tests that have been the culprit for nations going-nuclear, the people downwind who have been horribly poisoned but never fully compensated, the public health effects that were never properly studied, and the winds
Israeli Best Seller Breaks National Taboo
By Jonathan Cook
No one is more surprised than Shlomo Sand that his latest academic work has spent 19 weeks on Israel’s bestseller list – and that success has come to the history professor despite his book challenging Israel’s biggest taboo.Dr Sand argues that the idea of a Jewish nation – whose need for a safe haven was originally used to justify the founding of the state of Israel – is a myth invented little more than a century ago
Another Israeli West Bank Land Grab Scheme
By Stephen Lendman
Israeli policy of land grab continues. All the while monitored by The Israeli Human Rights organization, B'Tselem. It just documented more evidence in its report titled "Access Denied: Israeli measures to deny Palestinians access to land around (West Bank) settlements." Its findings are discussed below. It details how authorities block Palestinians' access to areas adjacent to settlements through closure policies and de facto seizure. Land theft and displacement for greater settlement expansions
The Last Bastion Of Acceptable Prejudice...
By Bahija Réghaï
The elections on both sides of the Canada-US border have revealed that prejudices against Arabs and Muslims are the last bastion of acceptable prejudice in North America
Lies From The Corporate Political Parties
By Timothy V. Gatto
The real conundrum we have here is that none of the candidates we have running for the Presidency are worth a damn. If the people would demand that barriers enacted to stop third parties that have been put up by the corporate Republican and Democratic parties, we could see more candidates with ballot access
O.B.Cs Of J&K – Fighting For Their
Fundamental Rights Since Independence
By Ashok Kumar Basotra
Perhaps India is the only democratic country in the World where one has to fight for his/her Fundamental Rights enshrined under the Constitution. And the mockery is that one has to wait for ages even if the Apex Court directs for providing said Fundamental Rights within stipulated period of time. Same is the plight of O.B.Cs in J&K State
Dialogue: With Whom? Will The Real
Leaders Please Stand Up?
By Cynthia Stephen
Sr. Nirmala went to meet Naveen Patnaik and ended up giving his government a certificate. The venerable archbishops of the Catholic Church have already had a “dialogue” with the leadership of the BJP and issued a joint statement that “all efforts should be made to restore peace and a sense of security with the cooperation of the governments concerned and the leadership of the Hindu and Christian communities. Justice must be done to the victims of violence expeditiously.” But even as these statements are made, we see reports that violence in Kandhamal continue and has spread to other districts. So what is the value of the assurances given by the “Hindu” leaders to the Christians? Can we trust these “leaders” to deliver on their assurances?
Do You Need Something To Read ?
By Adam Engel
A review of Mickey Z.'s "CPR FOR DUMMIES" and an interview with the Author
08 October, 2008
Troops Deployed On U.S. Streets
By Naomi Wolf
The First Brigade of the Third Infantry Division, three to four thousand soldiers, has been deployed in the United States as of October 1. Their stated mission is the form of crowd control they practiced in Iraq, subduing "unruly individuals," and the management of a national emergency
“Invasion Of The Sea-Smurfs”
By Amy Goodman
3rd Infantry Division’s 1st Brigade Combat Team will be called the chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear or high-yield explosive Consequence Management Response Force. Its acronym, CCMRF, is pronounced “sea-smurf.” These “sea-smurfs,” Gina Cavallaro of Army Times newspaper reports, have “spent 35 of the last 60 months in Iraq patrolling in full battle rattle,” in a combat zone, and now will spend their 20-month “dwell time”—time troops are required to spend to “reset and regenerate after a deployment”—armed and ready to hit the U.S. streets
California Father Kills Family And Himself
By Kate Randall
Some time between Saturday night and Monday morning, Karthik Rajaram shot and killed his wife, Subasri, 39; his mother in law, Indra Ramasesham, 69; and his three sons—Krishna, 19, a business economics major at UCLA; Ganesha, 12; and Arjuna, 7. Rajaram was found dead in his younger sons’ bedroom, the gun still in his hand
By Paul Craig Roberts
By Jim Kunstler
The Paulson Rescue Plan
By Dan Lieberman
By Antoaneta Bezlova
By Chalmers Johnson
By Stephen Lendman
By David Swanson
By Timothy V. Gatto
By M.J. Akbar
By Mushirul Hasan
By Rand Clifford
By Dr Sandeep Pandey
By Stephen Lendman
It’s Time For A Crucifixion
By Jason Miller
And Policy Choices
By Ingo Schmidt
By David Sirota
By Greg Guma
By Soraya Sepahpour-Ulrich
By Thomas Riggins
Is Still In My Head
By Mubasshir Mushtaq
By Kamal Mohammad
By Jonathan Franklin
By Paul Craig Roberts
By Bill Van Auken
By Dennis Kucinich
A Wall Street Bailout
By Partha Banerjee
At The Expense Of All Life
By Juan Santos
Political Economy In Times Of Panic
By Pablo Ouziel
By Ramzy Baroud
By Jonathan Cook
By Jorge Majfud
The Hindutva Connection?
By Subhash Gatade
By Suroor Mander
By David Swanson
By John James
By Adam W. Parsons
Coup Averted For Three Days!
By Michael Moore
State Welfare For The Rich
By George Monbiot
Vulnerability Of Russia’s Economy
By Vladimir Volkov
By Ira Chernus
By Q. Isa Daudpota
By Shabnam Hashmi
Here is a large collection of articles since the time countercurrents.org came online in 27th March 2002
Sikh Genocide in India
(Op/Ed)
Thursday 10th of January 2008
Dr. Amarjit Singh, Khalistan Affairs Center
The September 8, 2004, Khalistan Calling, ridiculing the 2001 India Census, had pointed out that, “In Indian occupied Punjab, out of a total population of twenty four million three hundred and fifty eight thousand nine hundred and ninety nine (Total 24, 358, 999: Rural-16, 096, 488; Urban-8, 262, 571), the Sikh community, the Census ‘Babus’ say, now numbers ONLY 14, 592, 387 ( Rural-11, 567, 437; Urban-3, 024, 950). Non-Sikh urbanites in the Punjab - who numbered less than half of the Sikh urbanites a few years ago - have overtaken the Sikh urban population with a total of 5, 237, 521. Even the Non-Sikh rural population numbers for Punjab show a similar pattern. The non-Sikh rural population has zoomed to nearly five million (4, 529, 051 to be exact) from next to nothing three decades ago thanks to the Indian government sponsored ‘Bihari invasion’ which has given an opportunity for the Census Bureau ‘Babus’ to cook the non-Sikh figures for Punjab.
http://www.panthic.org/news/129/ARTICLE/3796/2008-01-10.html
A renewed hate campaign
Anti-Muslim chauvinism gets a new impetus in Punjab, thanks to the activities of some fringe fundamentalist organisations.
PRAVEEN SWAMI
in Amritsar
AFTER the end of the Partition riots, no one at the Hall Bazaar Jama Masjid in Amritsar had ever felt the need for guard outside its gates. Until, that is, the morning of March 21. At 11-30 a.m. that day, half a dozen activists of an obscure communal organisation, the All-India Hindu Suraksha Samiti (HSS), burnt a copy of the Koran outside the building, and then pushed their way inside, throwing raw pork as they did so. HSS activists left behind signed pamphlets proclaiming that the attack was intended to avenge the slaughter of cows by the Taliban in Afghanistan, as part of sacrificial rituals after the demolition of the Bamiyan Buddhas. The attack on the 150-year-old masjid was the most visible among half a dozen communal incidents in Punjab this summer, all but one of them directed at the State's tiny Muslim community.
V. SUDERSHAN
In Amritsar, a scene on the road outside the Golden Temple - a file picture.
Punjab Police guards were soon posted outside the masjid, but a similar attack took place in Patiala. This time HSS activists set on fire a copy of the Koran at the crowded Arya Samaj Chowk. Again, HSS pamphlets were distributed to the crowd that gathered to witness the March 22 protest. On March 27, residents around Bhagat Singh Chowk in Jalandhar discovered more HSS pamphlets, wrapped in red cloth and left outside a local mosque. These called on Hindus to unite and avenge the sacrifice of cows by the Taliban. The Jalandhar incident constituted the fourth attack against Muslim institutions since January 14, when Hindu Shiv Sena cadre demolished a section of a mosque in Dhariwal near Gurdaspur. On that occasion a Siva idol had been installed amidst the ruins of the mosque.
Other communal organisations have been joining in. Amritsar almost saw Hindu-Sikh violence on April 1, for the first time in years. Cadre from Amritsar fundamentalist leader Surinder Kumar Billa's All-India Shiv Sena and the local Bajrang Dal set up a marquee for an all-night religious celebration on the road outside the Channi temple. Sikh leaders objected to the location of the marquee, pointing out that it blocked access to the Golden Temple. Billa, who controls one of the two groups responsible for running the Channi temple, refused to relocate the marquee. Almost a hundred Punjab Police personnel had to be posted there to prevent rioting, and negotiations to resolve the stand-off continued through the day. Billa finally agreed to relocate the marquee inside the temple, but not before scoring points among his constituency.
On the face of it, Punjab is an improbable location for anti-Muslim violence. Hatred of Muslims is entrenched among Punjab's Sikhs and Hindus, and this is propagated through popular literature and religious texts, but the ethnic cleansing carried out during the Partition riots left few Muslims behind to hate. Amritsar has an estimated Muslim population of just 70,000, while Jalandhar has 50,000 - the bulk of them migrants from Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, West Bengal and Haryana. Bar the odd clash in Malerkotla, the only Punjab town with a significant Muslim community, the State has seen almost no anti-Muslim violence after 1948. Conflict between Hindus and Sikhs has been more common, particularly during the 1980s, but even the Khalistan insurgency failed to provoke any generalised confrontation.
Harish Sharma spends his time at his father's small, hand-operated printing press, tucked away in Amritsar's Chaurasti Attari area. Having secured bail just two weeks after the Hall Bazaar Masjid attack, the 27-year-old district head of the HSS is only too happy to hand over a lurid red visiting card, and to discuss what led him to commit the outrage. "When the Taliban leader Mullah Omar said they would sacrifice a hundred cows, we knew we had to retaliate." But why attack the Hall Bazaar Masjid? "Aren't they Muslims? The Muslims support the Taliban." What about the cows slaughtered for meat all over the world? "Whoever kills cows is our enemy. We will take action against them all."
While Hindu communalism in the old city area of Amritsar is rooted in the antagonism that preceded the Khalistan insurgency, Sharma's politicisation seems to have followed a different path. He joined the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) as a teenager, when the Khalistan conflict was all but over. Two years ago, Sharma says, he felt frustrated that the RSS "was not actually willing to take action to protect the rights of Hindus. They were cowards. I joined them because they brought down the Babri Masjid, but then their leaders pretended to have nothing to do with it." Around the same time he saw HSS posters calling on Hindus to take direct action to protect their faith. Sharma contacted its Patiala-based president, Sanjeev Bharadwaj, and then set up a cell in Amritsar. "Hindus are surrounded by enemies," he says, "and we were ready to do anything, even take up guns, to protect our religion."
MAULVI HAMID HUSSAIN QASMI has lived most of his life in the Hall Bazaar Masjid. "The real problem," he says laconically, "is that no one wants us. Those who wanted Pakistan have gone there. We chose to stay here, but people do not trust us." Qasmi believes that the series of anti-Muslim attacks that have taken place in Punjab this year form part of a larger process. Hindu and Sikh communal bodies, he argues, have been using resentment against Pakistan-sponsored terrorism to defame Muslims. "When the Indian Airlines jet was hijacked to Kandahar," he recalls, "hundreds of young men stood outside this masjid, shouting slogans against Pakistan. I would have liked to tell them, though I could not, that they would have been better off walking to the border, which is not very far from here."
Anti-Muslim chauvinism is driven by factors other than India-Pakistan conflict as well. In Amritsar, anti-Muslim and anti-economic migrant sentiment go hand in hand. Local jewellery artisans, for example, have faced competition from migrant craftsmen from West Bengal. Successful Muslim entrepreneurs in Amritsar who are active in the fruit, carpet, and shawl trades, are often subject to their competitors' jealousies. Then the growing rate at which land is purchased by Gujjar migrant herdsmen from Jammu and Kashmir, many of whom now live in Punjab through the year, has again seen economic rivalries take communal form. "Businessmen who trade across the border," notes Qasmi, "are the most vulnerable. They are sometimes given fake hundred rupee notes. If they get caught, the police here ask for bribes. Over a hundred are in jail now. I should not say this, but a Hindu never spends so much time in jail when he is caught with a fake note."
Border policemen are not the only ones in search of a quick buck. The demolition of the Dhariwal Masjid in January is widely believed to have been the outcome of a land feud. Local residents say that the Shiv Sena's local vice-president, Pawan Tandon, wished to take over the land on which the masjid stood, land adjoining his own. In mid-2000 the Sena had coerced village Muslims into not carrying out urgently needed repairs on the mosque, presumably hoping that it would fall of its own. And Hindus are not the only players in the cash-from-communalism game. On April 22, Sadiq Shah, the head of a Muslim shrine in Takhanvadh village near Moga, reported that a copy of the Koran had been set on fire. Punjab Police investigators later discovered that Shah had burned the book himself in order to discredit a competing group seeking control of the shrine.
It has been little noticed that the rise of Sikh chauvinism in Punjab was mirrored by a mushrooming of Hindu fundamentalist organisations. In 1983, a retired Punjab Police officer, Pandit Kishore Chand, proclaimed that the Hindu faith was in threat, and set up the Hindu Shiv Sena in Amritsar. Part of that organisation, led by Surinder Dogra, joined the better-known Maharashtra Shiv Sena last year, while another faction, led by Billa, formed the All-India Hindu Shiv Sena. Billa has had past affiliation with the Amritsar Congress(I), unlike other fundamentalist leaders based in the city who in general trace their political roots to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). Meanwhile, in Patiala, another Hindu fundamentalist leader, Pawan Sharma, set up the HSS. Leaders of these organisations had past RSS linkages, but rejected the established leadership of the Hindu Right.
Feeding on fears fed by the growing power of Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale, bodies like the Hindu Shiv Sena and the HSS acquired financial support and media visibility wholly disproportionate to their actual extent of influence. Outside their base among the bazaar traders of Amritsar, Ludhiana, Jalandhar and Patiala, these fundamentalist bodies had little mass support, and even less political legitimacy. Nonetheless, the new groups had at least two things going for them. First, the state apparatus, desperate for any allies against the Khalistan insurgency, often provided opportunistic support for these groups. Then, the local Congress(I) sought to use these groups to break the RSS' constituency among urban Hindus.
But, almost two decades on, the political uses of Hindu fundamentalism have changed. Most political analysts agree that there has been a sharp erosion in the level of urban Hindu support for the BJP. Hindus have been incensed by the Shiromani Akali Dal's (SAD) flirtation with the Sikh Right. The State government's soft treatment of Wassan Singh Zaffarwal, who was arrested on April 11, has been the most recent of a series of incidents that has created bitterness. Zaffarwal's Khalistan Commando Force (KCF) faction was responsible for a series of communal killings, notably the massacre of six persons in Dasuya in January 1984. The BJP is blamed for its coalition partner's politics, and the alliance government's record of governance has not helped matters. The attacks on the masjid are clearly designed to bring about Hindu consolidation.
Sharma denies any connection between him and the RSS, or any political motive. "They only talk," he says, "they don't do anything. We have nothing to do with them, or the BJP, or the Congress(I)." But apart from his own RSS and Bajrang Dal background, Sharma's ideological position is indistinguishable from that of the RSS. RSS activists in Punjab are energetically pushing their Sikh front, the Rashtriya Sikh Sangat, intended to bring about a Hindu-Sikh communal alliance directed against Muslims. Sharma, in similar vein, insists that "Sikhs are our brothers". "Some of them were misled by Pakistan, but our ties are deep. Our real enemies are Muslims who support Pakistan. They have no right to live in this country." He is acid about Billa's effort to create friction outside the Golden Temple, saying that "it undermines the larger struggle to protect Hindus."
Allied or otherwise, it is impossible to miss the convergence of Hindus between the HSS and the RSS. The SAD-BJP is acutely aware of the growing movement of Hindu voters to the Congress(I), and the consequences this would have for the formation's prospects in the Assembly elections which must be held before February 2002. Of Punjab's 117 Assembly constituencies 30 are in urban areas. Hindu votes are crucial to the outcome here. Another 35 are semi-urban, and Hindu voters again have a decisive say in who wins. On the record, politicians from Chief Minister Prakash Singh Badal downwards have condemned the anti-Muslim violence. But the alarming regularity with which these incidents are taking place, and the ease with which Sharma and other HSS cadre have obtained bail, would seem to suggest that the SAD-BJP formation is not particularly unhappy with such events.
If there is reason for hope, it lies in the fact that many ordinary Hindus seem to see the new hate campaign for what it is. For the past 50 years, Tilak Raj Mahajan has made a living selling caps, belts and trinkets outside the Hall Bazaar Masjid. When Sharma and his cadre attacked the masjid, the 70-year-old Mahajan blocked their way, and held on to one of the HSS activists as long as he could. "They're just criminals," he says. "If I'd been a few years younger, I'd have given them what they deserved then and there." On the streets of Amritsar, there seems to be little sympathy either for the HSS or for their Sikh chauvinist counterparts. If this good sense holds until after the Assembly elections, the SAD-BJP could find that the seeds of hate it is sowing may never ripen.
http://www.hinduonnet.com/fline/fl1811/18110400.htm
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