jim submits "Prompted by a discussion on lbo-talk about Tom Delay, the 'Christian Zionist,' and American public opinion polls appearing to demonstrate support for the 'cretinous' Alabama Ten Commandments judge recently all over the American news, C. G. Estabrook offers some statistics and categorical clarity."

"American Apocalyptics"

C. G. Estabrook

It's surprisingly difficult to get good statistics about Americans'
theological views, in part because, as the Census Bureau explains at its
site,

"The Bureau of the Census collected information in the Census of Religious
Bodies from 1906-1936. This information was obtained from religious
organizations. Public Law 94-521 prohibits us from asking a question on
religious affiliation on a mandatory basis; therefore, the Bureau of the
Census is not the source for information on religion."

The Statistical Abstract of the United States has some information, but
not much beyond denominational membership. The standard reference work is
David Barrett's massive two-volume World Christian Encyclopedia (Oxford
UP, 2001); an excellent web-site, Adherents, draws together
information from a variety of studies.

Anonymous Comrade submits :

"Jihad Unspun"

Noam Chomsky, August 16, 2003

September 2002 was marked by three events of considerable importance,
closely related. The United States, the most powerful state in history,
announced a new national security strategy asserting that it will maintain
global hegemony permanently. Any challenge will be blocked by force, the
dimension in which the US reigns supreme. At the same time, the war drums
began to beat to mobilise the population for an invasion of Iraq . And the
campaign opened for the mid-term congressional elections, which would
determine whether the administration would be able to carry forward its
radical international and domestic agenda.

"Dangerously High Levels of Radiation Measured Around Baghdad"

London Express, Monday Sep 01, 2003 15:05:42 ET

Soldiers and civilians in Iraq face a health timebomb
after dangerously high levels of radiation were
measured around Baghdad. Levels between 1,000 and 1,900 times higher than
normal were recorded at four sites around the Iraqi
capital where depleted uranium (DU) munitions have
been used across wide areas.

Experts estimate that Britain and the US used 1,100 to
2,200 tons of armour-piercing shells made of DU during
attacks on Iraqi forces.

jim submits:

"Economy Reaching ‘Tipping Point’:

Middle Class Consumers Will Be Scapegoats For Financial Collapse"

New Economics Foundation

Imminent First World Debt Crisis Worse Than ‘Third World’

A new annual report on the global economy published by London's New Economics Foundation today, Monday September 1st, predicts that a giant credit bubble, created by globalisation’s decades of ‘easy money’, has now reached a “tipping point” –- a point that has historically triggered financial crises.

"Unless The White House Abandons Its Fantasies, Civil War Will Consume The Iraqi Nation"

Robert Fisk, 08/30/03

In Iraq, they go for the jugular: two weeks ago, the UN's
top man, yesterday one of the most influential Shia Muslim clerics.
As they used to say in the Lebanese war, if enough people want you dead,
you'll die.

So who wanted Ayatollah Mohamed Bakr al-Hakim dead? Or, more to the
point, who would not care if he died?

"Dreams and Delusions"

Edward Said, Al Ahram, August 30, 2003

During the last days of July, Representative Tom Delay (Republican) of Texas, the House majority leader described routinely as one of the three or four most powerful men in Washington, delivered himself of his opinions regarding the roadmap and the future of peace in the Middle East. What he had to say was meant as an announcement for a trip he subsequently took to Israel and several Arab countries where, it is reported, he articulated the same message. In no uncertain terms Delay declared himself opposed to the Bush administration's support for the roadmap, especially the provision in it for a Palestinian state. "It would be a terrorist state," he said emphatically, using the word "terrorist" -- as has become habitual in official American discourse -- without regard for circumstance, definition or concrete characteristics. He went on to add that he came by his ideas concerning Israel by virtue of what he described as his convictions as a "Christian Zionist", a phrase synonymous not only with support for everything Israel does, but also for the Jewish state's theological right to go on doing what it does regardless whether or not a few million "terrorist" Palestinians get hurt in the process.

Josh Warren-White writes "Imperialism is Offsides: Bay Area communists and anarchists take it to the soccer field



By Josh Warren-White and Chris Crass



Over the course of the past three months, in the hopes of building movement alliances, having fun and getting exercise, revolutionary anarchists and communists in the SF Bay Area have been preparing for a soccer tournament between people in the two tendencies. This article hopes to provide a brief look into the goals for this project and how it is looking after the first highly anticipated game.


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Todd Brizendine submits:

"Apologies Now Being Accepted"

Mike McArdle

http://www.democraticunderground.com/articles/03/0 8/p/22_apologies.html

Well, it looks like the wimpy, irrelevant UN Security Council was right,
the cheese-eating surrender-monkey French were right, the British people
(as opposed to their government) were right, and those hate-America
peacenik anti-war demonstrators were right.

The Iraq war has degenerated into a complete disaster, an utterly
unwinnable quagmire that threatens to become a treasury-emptying ten
year guerilla war that will kill thousands, and - as an added bonus -
become a enormously successful recruiting device for the Islamic
fundamentalists who want to drive both America and Israel from the
Middle East. So take a bow, Susan Sarandon and Janeane Garofalo - you
called it. You were right on the money but unfortunately the powers that
be didn't listen to you.

"Lessons in How to Lie About Iraq"

Brian Eno, August 17, 2003 by the Observer/UK

When I first visited Russia, in 1986, I made friends with a
musician whose father had been Brezhnev's personal doctor.
One day we were talking about life during 'the period of
stagnation' -- the Brezhnev era. 'It must have been strange
being so completely immersed in propaganda,' I said.

'Ah, but there is the difference. We knew it was
propaganda,' replied Sacha.

August 19,2003


THE THINGS THAT KEEP US HERE


by Caoimhe Butterly in Baghdad


Anwar Adel Khardom points  to her heavily pregnant,shrapnel-sprayed stomach as she fluctuates between composure and frantic, inconsolable grief. 'What sort of life will this child be born into?' Her thirteen year old daughter Hadil, frail arms bruised and scarred with shrapnel, head bandaged with white gauze, remains wide-eyed and observant, fanning her mother with a woven fan as the heat of an oppressive, airless day reaches it's midday climax.The room is crowded with relatives and friends who drink the bitter coffee and cry and keen in memory of  Anwar's husband, Adel, her 18-year old son Haider, 17-year old daughter Ola, and 8-year old daughter Mervat-all shot dead by U.S.soldiers seven days before. 'How could they, why did they do it-they must of known we were a family-how could they kill my babies?', Anwar asks continually as she holds a picture of her beautiful, smiling children immortalised on the black banners hung on the outside walls of her family home,each of their names withshaheed (martyr) scripted next to it, proclaiming the family's tragedy to the hushed street outside.



The car that carried Anwar's family into a  line of fire that pumped more than twenty bullets through the windshield and chassis into the warm living flesh,vital organs and skulls of her husband and children remains outside.The seats and headrests were ripped apart by bullets and remain covered in faded,darkened bloodstains.Hadil's blood-stained handprints on the outside of the car are the same colour,left there as she groped her way out of the car that held dead Ola and Haider and dying Adel and Mervat, trying to follow her mother as Anwar ran towards the house they had just come from,screaming for help. No help came,at 9:30 p.m. on August 7 in Hyatt al Tunis,a residential neighborhood in Baghdad.U.S. soldiers continued to shoot so erratically at anyone attempting to help the wounded,that they proceeded to injure at least five other civilians and two of their own soldiers, as other troops stationed in a military base stationed at the end of the street joined in. Ground troops from the First Brigade,First Armoured Division proceeded to fire round after round into the darkened street ,shattering the quiet of a summer night and destroying the remnants of tolerance held by that,and many other communities,towards an occupational presence whose benign veneer grows thinner by the day. When the up to twenty minutes of constant shooting stopped,three civilians were dead and more wounded.Saef A.,a 21-year old university student, who drove in a car with two friends down the same road into the path of U.S. occupational forces(who were in the process of raiding and searching a local store,and ,having been subjected to the standard continual diet of mis-information and racism,suitably terrified enough to view all Iraqis as potential or actual enemies)was shot repeatedly and then-as his two friends,both wounded,leapt out of the car,witnesses report seeing a soldier approaching the car, point a gun with a grenade-launcher attached at the still-living Saef, and shoot, causing the car, and Saef's body to be engulfed in flames.