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 BOGOTA, COLOMBIA—Like many Colombian teens, Juan Ardila, 15, is experiencing typical growing pains, characterized by mood swings, raging hormones, and a fervent allegiance to a squadron of leftist anti-government rebels, his 48-year-old father Rafael reported Monday. "I have told him that no good can come out of running with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia," the elder Ardila said. "But he'll snap out of it. When I was his age, I was kidnapping state officials and car-bombing nightclubs in the name of Communism myself." Ardila said he expects Juan to grow bored of drug trafficking and extortion when and if he reaches adulthood.

Source:   http://www.theonion.com/nib/index.php?issue=4114&nib=3

 

 

POX AMERICANA

Exposing the American Empire

edited by John Bellamy Foster and Robert W. McChesney

“Expertly co-edited by John Bellamy Foster and Robert W. McChesney, Pox Americana: Exposing the American Empire collects analyses and essays from leading left-wing authors … A highly sobering account.”
— Paul T. Vogel, THE MIDWEST BOOK REVIEW

This volume brings together the work of leading Marxist analysts of imperialism to examine the burning question of our time—the nature and prospects of the U.S. imperial project currently being given shape by war and occupation in the Middle East.

Immanuel Wallerstein, Peter Gowan, and others discuss the dynamics at work behind the “War on Terrorism.” Their analyses locate recent developments within a longer historical arc, and set out the central questions for research and debate: Is U.S. unilateralism and militarism a sign of the increasing strength of the world's only remaining superpower? Or a desperate response to the erosion of the strategy it developed for ensuring its leadership over the advanced capitalist world during the Cold War? Essays by Barbara Epstein, Amiya Kumar Bagchi and others also examine the prospects for the resistance to imperialism in the United States and globally.

Pox Americana brings together a range of insights and perspectives that were initially presented at a conference in Burlington, Vermont, to honor Harry Magdoff on the occasion of his ninetieth birthday. It is a fitting tribute to Magdoff's pioneering analyses of U.S. imperialism and a testimony to the resilience and fruitfulness of the radical tradition.

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Table of Contents

Preface by John Bellamy Foster and Robert W. McChesney

PART ONE: U.S. Imperialism Has a Long History

1. Kipling, the "White Man's Burden," and U.S. Imperialism by Harry Magdoff, John Bellamy Foster and Robert W. McChesney

2. Imperial Ambition by Noam Chomsky, interviewed by David Barsamian

3. The Grid of History: Cowboys and Indians by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz

4. U.S. Weakness and the Struggle for Hegemony by Immanuel Wallerstein

PART TWO: The Geopolitics and Political Economy of U.S. Imperialism

5. The New Geopolitics by Michael Klare

6. U.S. Hegemony Today by Peter Gowan

7. The Global Minotaur by Joseph Halevi and Yanis Varoufakis

8. The Two Wings of the Eagle by William K. Tabb

PART THREE: Resistance

9. Confronting the Empire by Samir Amin

10. The Parameters of Resistance by Amiya Kumar Bagchi

11. Can U.S. Workers Embrace Anti-Imperialism? by William Fletcher, Jr.

12. Prospects for Anti-Imperialism: Coming to Terms with Our Own Bourgeoisie by Sam Gindin

13. Notes on the Antiwar Movement by Barbara Epstein

14. Construction of an Enemy by Eleanor Stein

15. Homeland Imperialism: Fear and Resistance by Bernardine Dohrn

16. The New Age of Imperialism by John Bellamy Foster

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About the Editors
JOHN BELLAMY FOSTER is professor of sociology at the University of Oregon in Eugene, author of Marx's Ecology and Ecology Against Capitalism, and co-editor of Monthly Review.

ROBERT W. McCHESNEY is professor of communication at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, author of Rich Media, Poor Democracy, Our Media, Not Theirs, and The Problem of the Media.

 

The Wild Palms of Etowah

By JOE BAGEANT

One mark of our soulless New American Century is the lack of respect for saintly madmen. By that I mean holy seers of the Blakean-Coleridge stripe that could be found on America's streets as recently as the hippy era. The kind of crazy adept and enlightened iconoclasts honored by Allen Ginsberg and the beats, holy foolishness in the tradition of Saint Simeon with the dead dog tied to his waist and throwing nuts at the congregation, or Tibetan lama myonpas and India's avadhutas. Perhaps such holy madmen are still out there among the homeless and the crack whores. Maybe there are legions of Zen alcoholics and the like, and maybe we have lost the ability to see them in this season of imperial hubris, consumer fatigue and existential numbness. But I don't think so. I know crazy wisdom and saintly madness in men's eyes when I see it, and I am not seeing it very often in America these days. It has been outlawed by the Republicans and soundly condemned as Devil's work by the Christian Right.

Of course if the dear reader is one who believes science defines all reality and that men possess no spiritual aspect, then it might be best to turn off the computer right now and go out for a beer or click on another story, because I am of the opposite disposition. So much so in fact that I am convinced things like grace really exist and that mankind is so murderously full of shit because it cannot apply itself to higher laws, laws which must be called spiritual for lack of a better term.

Having cleared the air between you and me, (assuming you're still reading) let me tell you about a rare saintly madman I laid eyes and heart upon recently. He is presently eating very expensive pies and watching television with his dogs in his own personal hell out in Etowah, Tennessee, the former "Rubberized Hair Capitol of the World."

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Turkey's New Penal Code is No Joke

Shut Your Mouth or Go to Prison!

By MICHAEL DICKINSON

Instanbul.

"April Fool!"

Got any tricks up your sleeve for the first of the month to gull or dupe a comrade? Time for a laugh, to invent some fantastic story and convince others that it's true.

'The Spaghetti Harvest' for instance a spoof by the serious BBC programme Panorama which had people believing that pasta grew on trees; the 1999 Wall of Sound hoax that 'revealed' Britney Spears was ten years older than she claimed; the National Public Radio's 1992 announcement that Nixon was to run again for President ("hadn't done anything wrong, and wouldn't do it again").

Don't get caught yourself!

Here's one to play on your writer friends -

Tell them that a new law has come out and that:

You will be heavily fined or can go to prison for two years if you say anything nasty about anyone in the government or draw 'disrespectful' cartoons of them

You can be fined and go to prison for up to ten years for contradicting the government's version of history, speaking against national service in the army, or generally being considered contrary to national fundamental interest

Covering issues such as euthanasia or cases of rape or suicide can also land you in jail.

Material deemed 'obscene' will also invoke a prison sentence

The sentence will be increased by a third if it is published in the press

That should be enough for them to be wetting their knickers!

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Under the Gun in British Columbia

Killing Grizzlies for Fun

By CHRIS GENOVALI

Vancouver, British Columbia

Having emerged from their winter hibernation, the province's grizzly bears should find spring to be a time of renewal.

Instead, these icons of B.C. wilderness will be subject once again to being shot for "sport."

Since the Liberal government overturned the grizzly hunting moratorium in 2001, approximately 1,000 grizzlies have been killed, with close to 75 per cent having been shot to death by trophy hunters. The direct result of the Liberal government's pandering to the trophy hunting lobby is that more than 700 grizzly bears have been killed for trophies since the hunt resumed in the fall of 2001.

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Army Whitewashes Deaths of Iraq Prisoners

Pentagon Greenlights Murder

By NICOLE COLSON

Chicago, Illinois

Getting away [sic] with murder. There's no other way to describe the Pentagon's announcement that it is refusing to prosecute any of the 17 U.S. soldiers who contributed to the deaths of three prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan in 2003 and 2004. The decision is against the recommendations of the Army's own investigators.

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