World History Newswire Archive

The current imperial slaughter in the Middle East, justified by the "Global War on Terror", that has resulted in at least 600,000 deaths in Iraq, is nothing new — the U.S. Empire has a long and sordid history of genocidal mass murder.

The history of the US imperialism and Empire is the subject of a series of ten monthly seminars from Dr John Marciano, "Empire as a Way of Life". Attached is a recording of the first of these seminars and the text upon which it was based. The first 6 of these seminars have taken place and the intention is to have the whole series published on this site; the last 4 will take place between now and June.

This seminar, recorded on 19th September 2006 by the L.A. Sound Posse, runs for 40 minutes and includes the discussion following. It has been made available under a Creative Commons license. If this recording is broadcast please let the L.A. Sound Posse know. This recording was originally made available on the A-Infos Radio Project site.

The following text has been reproduced here with the kind permission of Dr John Marciano and he can be contacted at johnmarciano@mac.com. He introduced this series of seminars in the following way:

A fundamental purpose of our meetings is to understand the systemic nature of the U.S. Empire and the economic and military imperialism that is its lifeblood. The historian William Appleman Williams argues that empire became "a way of life" in the U.S., a "combination of patterns of thought and action that, as it becomes habitual and institutionalized, defines the thrust and character of a culture and society." This "way of life" has convinced many U.S. "Americans" they have a right or "manifest destiny" to impose their political and economic policies upon others.

Dr John Marciano is Professor Emeritus, State University of New York at Cortland, where he taught courses on social and historical foundations of education and class, gender and race.

"Alcatraz – Uncle Sam's Devil's Island : Experiences of a Conscientious Objector in America during the First World War" by Philip Grosser
The Kate Sharpley Library has just published a new edition of Philip Grosser's account of his time imprisoned on the notorious prison island of Alcatraz. Philip Grosser was sent to Alcatraz because he didn't want to murder anyone, even on government orders. He was a Boston anarchist and anti-militarist who refused to be drafted into the slaughter of World War One.

Bloody Sunday, 1920, Crowe Park Stadium, Dublin. That was the place where the British military opened fired on the large football supporting crowd with rifles and machine guns.

It was 1991 and Noam Chomsky had just finished a lecture in Berkeley on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and was taking questions from the audience. An Arab-American asked him to explain his position regarding the influence of America's Israel lobby.

Cheat sheet for those having trouble keeping up with current events (yes this is noticeably incomplete but I think it's a good start):

Raw Story's inimitable Larisa Alexandrovna has recently written an excellent article detailing the neoconservatives' six-year long project to use American power to attack and produce regime change in Iran. Appended to the piece is a timeline including key Bush administration statements about Iran, "news" stories and neocon writings abetting efforts to vilify Iran, and the antics of such characters as former Congressman Curt Weldon, Iran-Contra arms dealer Manucher Ghorbanifar, and spy-for-Israel Larry Franklin who have worked to facilitate that attack. I've used it as the basis for this more elaborate (although surely incomplete and imperfect) chronology.

The Spanish “Transition to democracy” was simply a way to fortify the capitalist economic model. With such Transition, the Spanish dominant class eliminated all sort of social resistance and opened the way for business; they made a Francoism without Franco and presented the Transition as a triumph of the people. It was a history written by the owners of money and their fascist sentries.
But Memory, Dignity and Struggle continue

Wuterich "shoot [defenseless innocent women and children]
first and ask questions [from the corporate zionist pro-kill
anyone for a stolen nickel propagandists like demon enemy
AIPAC Hannity, George Norry, or, censors his calls for neocon
war criminals traitor Art Bell] later"

The US recently successfully put a Resolution to UN General Assembly RIGHTLY condemning Holocaust Denial. However the Resolution ignored huge non-Jewish Holocausts e.g. the US-driven Iraqi Holocaust and thus was Holocaust Ignoring, something even WORSE than Holocaust Denial because it is Passive Holocaust Denial that admits of no refutation – who does one refute something that has not even been asserted?

Ilan Pappe is an Israeli historian and senior lecturer at Haifa University. He's also Academic Director of the Research Institute for Peace at Givat Haviva and Chair of the Emil Touma Institute for Palestinian Studies. Pappe is an expert on Israel and Zionism and the Palestinians' Right of Return to their homeland, is considered "an honourable academic with integrity and conscience," and is a member of the Advisory Board of the Council for Palestinian Restitution and Repatriation (CPRR), an organization declaring that "every Palestinian has a legitimate, individual right to return to his or her original home and to absolute restitution of his or her property."

There are 44 active monarchies in the world. Unlike some others, these kings, queens, sheikhs and sultans have kept their heads and their not-so-hard-earned cash intact.

Chomsky came to a private meeting with anarchists and activists in Dublin during 2006. He spoke about anarchism, the Spanish Civil War and Vietnam among other topics. This is the audio track of a 3 camera shoot.

The following essay represents, in my opinion, the accurate and detailed plan of the present Zionist regime (of Sharon and Eitan) for the Middle East which is based on the division of the whole area into small states, and the dissolution of all the existing Arab states. I will comment on the military aspect of this plan in a concluding note.

Attached is a "guerilla" recording from the London Sound Posse of a debate between Ken Livingstone, Mayor of London vs Daniel Pipes, the neocon held on 20 January 2007. The MP3's include contributions from Salma Yaqoob, Douglas Murray and the audience. Following it is an extract from a Guardian article, Muslims are now getting the same treatment Jews had a century ago, which is based on the presentation by Maleiha Malik at the conference.

Following is an article by Sander Hicks from AlterNet which has the following note from the AlterNet editor as an introduction.

The role of the alternative press is to offer perspectives that the commercial media won't touch. Having run a number of articles critical of the "9/11 Truth Movement" by Matt Taibbi, Joshua Holland, Matthew Rothschild and others, we asked Sander Hicks, a prominent voice within the movement, to share his perspective. For more of Sanders' views, see his book "The Big Wedding: 9/11, The Whistle-Blowers, and the Cover-Up."

The article on AlterNet, predictably, has a lot of comments…

Attached is an mp3 of an interview with Tod Fletcher, covering the protests at the G8 in Genoa in 2001, 9/11, the 'strategy of tension' (Gladio) and it's morphing into the 'war on terror', which was brodcast by Guns and Butter on 24th January 2007.

Business Letter To Pakistan Military 2006-12-12 | Source: Pakistan, Unknown (CYBER INTERNET SERVICES (PVT.) LTD.)

Raising the roof – 11th birthday & benefit party

It’s Kebele’s 11th anniversary, we now own the place outright, we’re revamping everything, and we’re even fixing the roof. So in true Kebele style, we are having a party – and you are all invited.

19 July 2006 is the 1st anniversary of the execution of two teenage gay men in Iran on trumped up charges. Demo's are planned around the world, incl London to mark this event and the on-going persecution of gay people in Iran.

jean charles de menezes family campaign in conjunction with the justice for the kalam family & justice for the dogra family campaigns