Month: September 2001

One can understand the shock, the horror, the unbelief as the war most Americans didn’t know was going on or didn’t choose to acknowledge came home in such a brutal, deadly fashion in lower Manhattan and the Pentagon. This was obviously a coordinated attack, carried out with skill and stealth. Its success reflects a failure … Continue reading “The Price of Empire”

The World Trade Center – monument of the New York business community, towering over downtown Manhattan like twin silver phalli pointed at heaven – is but a pile of smoldering rubble. Crashing down along with this symbol of capitalism, modernity, and civilization is the overweening hubris of a government – and a people – who … Continue reading “TERROR”

Four students and I were helping Professor Gan clean his backyard. We were probably the first group to do so in the last 50 years. All day we threw old, rotten wood and ancient bricks into a dumpster and smoked cigarettes to regain strength whenever we could. Midway through the sweltering day one of the … Continue reading “Cheating as a Way of Life”

I wrote a column subtitled, “How do we know what’s going on in Macedonia?,” which concluded that I would have to go there myself to find out. But that is really far too general a question for just one short visit, so I’ll have to narrow it a bit, and get down to the essential … Continue reading “WAR BY PROXY”

More than ten years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, NATO forces, as always led by the Americans, are dancing more than the “Texas Two-Step” in their role of self definition and sought after justification, on the world stage. NATO’s image is that of a crippled man with his rear aflame; in great fear … Continue reading “Disband NATO”

Saturday is “National Day” in Macedonia, the tenth anniversary of its founding – just in time to mark the dissolution of that beleaguered nation. NATO’s latest conquest is putting up as much resistance as it can muster, but, at this late date, that doesn’t seem to be enough. In a bitter, almost heartbreaking speech to … Continue reading “STANDING UP FOR MACEDONIA”

Author’s note: This is a transcript of a talk I gave at the recent Rockford Institute conference on “The American Midwest.” It is relevant, here, as a lesson in how modern progressives (who have lost their ideological bearings to such an extent that they are now signing on the interventionist wars waged by neo-Wilsonian liberals) … Continue reading “WHEELER’S PROGRESS”

Beyond the day-to-day news out of Palestine or Macedonia, Sudan or Indonesia, a question keeps nagging at some of us. Why is it that politicians, and particularly American politicians, seem so compliant and lackadaisical about the ramifications of endorsing war as a means of doing business? Never mind whether sending somebody else’s children to be … Continue reading “War on X … When the Metaphor Becomes Too Real”

In an excellent recent article, leading Palestinian intellectual Edward Said cites the "astounding result" of a poll conducted among US citizens by the Arab-American Anti-Discrimination Committee, according to which less than three or four percent of the sample had any idea that there was an Israeli occupation. This seems to confirm a general rule: as … Continue reading “The Ideology of Occupation”

In today’s China, there is a Internet-bar on every street corner. If the bar isn’t full, then it must be lunchtime or the Chinese basketball team must be busy beating the Americans. (China won, I saw it happen….) Millions of Chinese pay 2 yuan an hour to chat over OICQ, listen to music, watch Hong … Continue reading “China’s Internet Generation”