Real democracy cannot be served by paying homage to freedom through garish displays of trinkets—flags and plastic yellow ribbons.

These symbols are shallow, superfluous, and disingenuous. Anyone can administer them. To do so requires neither courage nor effort—real patriotism requires an abundance of both.

Unlike real patriotism, the symbols of patriotism do not require thought or understanding—they are a conditioned response to the choreographed propaganda that oozes from our televisions and radios, the words that drip from the nation’s daily newspapers.

Real patriots do not encourage the champions of Manifest Destiny in their grim work of conquest and empire—they actively oppose them and resist.

Those who uphold the Constitution and the Bill of Rights when the government does not are the real patriots. They are America’s dissenters and protestors.

They do not require flags and ribbons to demonstrate their patriotism. Their every gesture, their very lives, is an expression of the patriotism that might have made America a different place than it is now—if only there were more of them.   more »

The decision by a New York theatre to cave in to pressure over a play called "My Name Is Rachel Corrie" shows how the scope for free debate has narrowed.

The "Jewish Lobby" is up to its McCarthyite tactics again.
Surely artists and radicals from both sides of the Atlanticwill not put up with this censorship.

THE SECOND DEAT OF RACHEL CORRIE: CENSORSHIP OF THE WORST KIND

I am urging the Royal Court Theatre to sue the New York Theatre Workshop for the cancellation of the production of "My Name Is Rachel Corrie".

Not because I donated money for this production, which the Royal Court have been fundraising for--a target of 50,000 pounds, underwritten by Alan Rickman.

This is censorship of the worst kind. More awful even than that.It is black-listing a dead girl and her diaries. A very brave and exceptional girl who all citizens, whatever their faith or nationality, should be proud and grateful for her existence.   more »

Washington is compiling a dossier of grievances against Tehran similar in scope and seriousness to the pre-war charge-sheet against Iraq. Other complaints include Iranian meddling in Iraq, support for Hamas in Palestine and Hizbullah in Lebanon, and human rights abuses.

Mr Bush regularly urges Iranians to seize the "freedom they seek and deserve". In Tehran's ministries, that sounds like a call for regime change. He has ignored past Iranian offers of talks and tightened US economic sanctions.

Official Washington's quickening drumbeat of hostility is beginning to recall political offensives against Libya's Muammar Gadafy, Panama's Manuel Noriega and Saddam Hussein, which all ended in violence.

Rightwing American media are urging action, deeming Iran "an intolerable threat" that is the "central crisis of the Bush presidency".

As was the case with Iraq, administration tub-thumping is influencing public opinion - notwithstanding subsequent debunking of many of its Iraq claims.

Polls suggest many Americans are now convinced Iran is the new public enemy No 1. Forty-seven percent told Zogby International they favoured military action to halt its nuclear activities.   more »

Bush's immovability was previously perceived as the determination of a man of simple but clear convictions. But as his policies have unfolded as disastrous, his image has been turned inside out.

Instead of being perceived as secure, he is seen as out of touch; instead of being acknowledged as a colossus striding events, he is viewed as driftwood carried away by the flood.

Within the sanctum of the White House, his aides often handle him with flattery. They tell him that he is among the greatest presidents, that his difficulties are testimony to his greatness, that his refusal to change is also a sign of his greatness.

The more he is flattered, the more he approves of the flatterer. Secretary of state Condoleezza Rice has risen along with her current of flattery.

She is expert at the handwritten little note extolling his historical radiance. Karen Hughes, now under-secretary of state for public diplomacy, was a pioneer of the flatterer's method. White House legal counsel Harriet Miers is also adept.   more »

In his distinguished cricket-playing days, the charismatic Khan was featured on the cover of international magazines, and he had a huge following in his own country because of his exploits on the field.

Pakistani Islamists, a constituency in the army and the powerful Jamaat-i-Islami Pakistan party saw Khan as a leader who could be cultivated as a figure to charm the masses for Islamic revolution in Pakistan.

Protests against the administration of President General Pervez Musharraf and against the US took off in Pakistan about a month ago in the guise of rallies denouncing caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed.

These protests have now reached the stronghold of al-Qaeda and the Taliban in Pakistan: the self-proclaimed "Islamic State of North Waziristan", a volatile tribal area on the border with Afghanistan.

The Taliban intend to extend from their base in North Waziristan to Afghanistan to fuel the resistance there against the US and its allies.

Similarly, the movement will spread to "mainland" Pakistan in an effort to topple the pro-American government in Islamabad. Pakistan is a key component of the United States' "war on terror".   more »

The left is said to be in the grip of what the rightwing American columnist George Will has called an "anti-semitic chic".

Instead of declaring its hatred of Jews openly, this new antisemitism is expressed indirectly through criticism of Israel or even opposition to Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state.

A particularly meretricious version suggests that opposition to American foreign policy, or even criticism of neoconservatives, is really a coded form of anti-semitism.

This accusation isn't confined to the rough and tumble of the post-9/11 transatlantic debate, either.

The normally measured Chief Rabbi, Jonathan Sacks, has cited "a leftwing anti-American cognitive elite with strong representation in the European media" as one of the main sources of anti-semitism. He doesn't spell it out, but we all know who he means.

The argument is not just that there are individuals who harbour anti-semitic views, but that something in the political culture or ideology of the left predisposes it to anti-semitism. This is said to be the real reason why it criticises Israel.   more »

George’s war has been a war born of lies, sustained by lies, and productive of more lies every day it continues.

His has been a war which in its origins and conduct was and remains a colossal and blood-drenched fraud. Were we even to be generous, and give George the benefit of the doubt by allowing that in his “gut” going to war was the right thing, the tragedy remains that many thousands have died for a war waged on little more than a hunch and a grudge.

This war was not thrust upon us - George Bush chose it for us. Rather than fighting the terrorists in the mountains of Afghanistan, George went looking for them in the sands of Iraq.

Rather than finding the chief culprit of September 11, George rode off in search of windmills named “evil” and “darkness”. Rather than chasing bin Laden to the ends of the earth, George decided instead to chase our nation’s fortune into the mouth of an omnivorous and never-ending war.

George’s war “against terror” has produced far more terrorists than it has eliminated, to say nothing of the terror it has, in fact, caused millions of everyday Iraqis young and old.   more »

The governor of South Dakota signed into law on Monday a ban on nearly all abortions in the state, setting up a court fight aimed at challenging the 1973 Supreme Court decision that legalised abortion in the United States.

The new law makes it a crime for doctors to perform an abortion unless the procedure is necessary to save a woman's life and makes no exception for cases of rape or incest. Doctors could get up to five years in prison for performing an illegal abortion.

Newspapers in South Dakota are full of worried speculation about how the state's radical stance on abortion will play to the world.

The concern is justified. Internet vendors are already selling bumper stickers showing a wire hanger and the words, "South Dakota: The Back Alley Abortion State."

There are consequences to banning abortion, and they go beyond the obvious one of taking away a woman's right to end an early pregnancy. The economic and social implications are great, and states should contemplate them.   more »

6 MARCH

"Crash": Hollywood's Last Taboo - Racism

The Phony War on Terror

Paul Krugman: Bush Inflames Class Conflict

Tit for Tat: Hamas Says Israel Must Recognize Palestine

Join the Dots: Ports Deal...Dubai...UAE...Straits of Hormuz...War on Iran

Bob Herbert: The Mad Hatter's Nuclear Party

Cheney's Daughter Heads Propaganda War on Iran

Blair Increasingly Looks Like a Man Haunted by Iraq