"Professors at War:

Searching for Dissent at the MLA"

Scott Jaschik, Boston Globe

"Why are you headed to San Diego?" asked the man next to me on the plane. "I'm going to a meeting of English professors to hear what they have to say about the war with Iraq," I replied.

"English professors? On the war?" The man smirked. "I can't imagine what they would have to say."

Plenty, it turns out. This past week, about 8,000 professors and graduate students gathered here for the annual meeting of the Modern Language Association. Most came for job interviews, to catch up with old friends, and to attend some of the 763 panels of scholars. But among the panels on topics ranging from Hawthorne to Asian cinema to "The Aesthetics of Trash" were a surprising number of sessions dealing with the war in Iraq, terrorism, patriotism, and American foreign policy.

"Michael Straight, Who Wrote of Connection to Spy Ring, Dies at 87"

Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, NY Times, January 5, 2004

Michael Straight, the patrician former magazine publisher who described in a political memoir his lingering involvement with Soviet spies whom he had first met when they were all students at Cambridge University, died yesterday at home in Chicago. He was 87 and also had a home on Martha's Vineyard in Massachusetts.

‘Hegemony or Survival’: The Everything Explainer

Samantha Power, New York Times Book Review, 4 January 2004

Reviewing Hegemony or Survival:

America’s Quest for Global Dominance

Noam Chomsky

New York: Metropolitan Books/Henry Holt, 278 pp.

Since Sept. 11, 2001, Americans have been heard to exclaim -- with
varying degrees of shame, bewilderment and indignation -- “Why do they
hate us?” The response tends to fall between two extremes. Bush
administration officials say, in essence, they hate us for who we are.
As President Bush has put it, “They hate progress, and freedom, and
choice, and culture, and music, and laughter, and women, and Christians,
and Jews and all Muslims who reject their distorted doctrines.” At the
opposite end stands the M.I.T. professor Noam Chomsky. “Why do they hate
us?” Chomsky asks in “Hegemony or Survival: America’s Quest for Global
Dominance.” “Because of you and your associates, Mr. Bush, and what you
have done.

"Consultant in Iraq Contracts Employed President's Brother"
Stephen Fidler and Thomas Catan, London Financial Times, November 28, 2003, p. 6.

Neil Bush, a younger brother of US President George W. Bush, has had a
$60,000-a year employment contract with a top adviser to a Washington-based
consulting firm set up this year to help companies secure contracts in Iraq.

underground news network writes:

"Couple Has Unique Take on Trial"

Natalie Hopkinson, washingtonpost.com


VIRGINIA BEACH -- For weeks they've sat there -- he in plentiful locks tucked inside a black mesh Rasta hat, she in a black scarf covering her hair, ears and neck -- on the back row of the courthouse room where the D.C. sniper trial is being shown to reporters on closed-circuit television.

They watch the proceedings intently, scribbling notes and occasionally exchanging discreet whispers, but never mingling with the other journalists chronicling the fate of alleged sniper John Allen Muhammad. When asked, they curtly respond that they are from the Underground News Network, but offer little else.

" 'Grenada 17' Mount Effort For Release From Prison"

Dow Jones Newswire

St. George's, Grenada (AP)--From a crumbling 17th century prison overlooking the harbor in the Caribbean nation of Grenada, former army Pvt. Cosmos Richardson is fighting one more battle. Richardson and 16 others were convicted in connection with the killings of Marxist leader Maurice Bishop and 10 others in a 1983 coup that prompted a U.S. invasion.

But two decades later, Bishop's body is still missing and Richardson and the rest of the "Grenada 17" are mounting a new effort for their release as the island marks the 20th anniversary of the U.S. invasion on Oct. 25.

"Anarchists Plot to Storm the Palace"

Andy Gardner, Crime Reporter, Sunday Mirror [UK], Oct 19 2003

Thousands of protesters are planning to storm Buckingham
Palace in an attempt to humiliate President George W Bush
when he stays there during his State visit to Britain next
month.

Anarchist groups are secretly planning to swamp tight
security at the Palace by sending thousands of protesters
over the walls at the same time.

"Set the Media Free"

Ignacio Ramonet, Translated by Ed Emery

The media have been a recourse against abuses of power within the democratic structures of our societies. It is not unusual for the three traditional areas of power -- legislative, executive and judicial -- to make mistakes and operate less perfectly than they might. This is more likely to happen under authoritarian and dictatorial regimes, where the political realm is mainly responsible for violations of human rights and attacks on liberties. But there are serious abuses of power in democratic countries too, even when laws are the result of democratic votes, governments are elected through universal suffrage and justice is (at least in theory) independent of the executive.

"Americans Take to 'Fascist' Like an Ill-Fitting Trench Coat"

Geoffrey Nunberg

Nunberg (nunberg@csli.stanford.edu) is a linguist at Stanford University and the author of The Way We Talk Now. He is also a regular contributor to National Public Radio's "Fresh Air." Nunberg wrote this article for Perspective.

When I lived in Rome many years ago, one of the best late-night gelato bars was a place in the upscale Parioli district that was frequented by chic young people from the neighborhood, most of whom were partisans of the neo-fascist Italian Social Movement. "Passiamo per i fascisti,'' people would say when they came out of a movie -- "Let's stop by the fascists.''

nolympics writes

"Interview with Paul Krugman"

Buzzflash

This interview with New York Times columnist and economist Paul Krugman appeared in Buzzflash. We republish it here as it represents a fairly popular trend these days of activists for the ruling class: jumping ship and denouncing the chief executive and his cabal.

Paul Krugman to BuzzFlash.com: "Well, a couple of things. The first is that a good part of the media are essentially part of the machine. If you work for any Murdoch publication or network, or if you work for the Rev. Moon's empire, you're really not a journalist in the way that we used to think. You're basically just part of a propaganda machine. And that's a pretty large segment of the media.

As for the rest, certainly being critical at the level I've been critical –- basically saying that these guys are lying, even if it's staring you in the face –- is a very unpleasant experience. You get a lot of heat from people who should be on your side, because they accuse you of being shrill, which is everybody's favorite word for me. And you become a personal target."