[Marxism] Left Hook Latest Release Online

["M. Junaid Alam" <junaidalam@xxxxxxxxxx>]

www.lefthook.org

Left Hook

Last Release: Sunday, May 9, 2004

Drafting the Empire

| Jeff Morgan |

Not since January 2003, when US House of Representatives member Charles
Rangel introduced a bill calling to reinstate the military draft, has
the issue of conscription been more talked about than now. Rangel
ostensibly proposed the bill in large part to address the problems of
the economic draft, in which, due to disparities in income, social
position, and educational opportunities, members of the all-volunteer US
military are disproportionately working class, African-American, and
Latino.1 Unsurprisingly, few politicians supported Rangel's proposal and
the debate soon died down.

But on April 20 of this year Republican Senator Chuck Hagel once again
brought the issue of the draft back into mainstream political debate.
While Hagel also cited the socioeconomic imbalance of volunteer forces,
he emphasized the deteriorating course of the occupation in Iraq. He
stated that the growing crisis "is a steam engine coming right down the
track at us" unless the US government acts to do something about it.2 As
lawmakers like Hagel know, the endless "war on terrorism" promises
continued occupations, interventions, and, hence, resistance by those
occupied. This will undoubtedly require more troops - or at least a
constant number - and if problems of retention and recruitment manifest
themselves, the issue of a new draft will be more than speculation or
hollow warnings.

- (Read full) http://lefthook.org/Politics/Morgan040904.html

The Enemy is Within

| M. Junaid Alam |

Sharpened on racial and religious hatreds, the dagger of imperialism has
thrust itself into the heart of the Iraqi people with vicious force. Our
professional liberals, who have moved heaven and earth to not only
produce this dagger but supply it a sheath woven of fine phrases about
American moral supremacy, now recoil in horror at events in Iraq and
propose a thousand solutions to "secure" it and avoid "chaos." Their
minor and meek criticisms of the occupation separate them from the war
planners to the same degree that the handle of this dagger is separated
from its blade.

- (Read full) http://lefthook.org/Politics/Alam040904.html

the greatest sunset in history (a poem)

| Josh Saxe |

it's a normal tuesday evening for the people of L.A. - millions - mostly
working folk, sitting in their cars in the choked arteries of the
freeway system, necks stiff with exhaustion. the unemployed sit at home
feeling empty, harried single mothers prepare simple dinners for their
kids who play in the dirty streets. at first almost no one notices the
sun descending beyond tired residential low-rises - the sky catching
flame, sun jets swimming through salmon clouds in straw rivers that roar
down olympic, pico, and wilshire soaking crevices in ghetto sidewalks,
bathing stacks of unwashed dishes in rusty sinks, washing cigarette
stained carpets, filling thin spaces between glass cups and smudged
restaurant tables. streams of amber laced purple sailing from where sky
meets sea through sheets of smog, splashing on graffitied walls and ice
cream trucks, lighting tarred eyes of little girls on rusty swings,
softening syringe wrappers, 40oz bottles and used condoms in macarthur
park, spreading over the LA river like an exotic burning oil

- (Read full) http://lefthook.org/Culture/Saxe040904.html

Glossary of the Iraq Occupation

| Paulo de Rooij |

Any time there is war or an occupation of another country, propagandists
or their media surrogates require language that mollifies, exculpates
and hides the grim reality or sordid deeds. In an attempt to gain a
deeper understanding of what is really happening in Iraq, this glossary
elucidates the terminology commonly used in the media. Its aim is to
enable us to peer through the linguistic fog.

- (Read full) http://lefthook.org/Politics/Rooij040904.html

Just Go...

| Young Woman Blogging from Baghdad |

People are so angry. There’s no way to explain the reactions- even
pro-occupation Iraqis find themselves silenced by this latest horror. I
can’t explain how people feel- or even how I personally feel. Somehow,
pictures of dead Iraqis are easier to bear than this grotesque show of
American military technique. People would rather be dead than sexually
abused and degraded by the animals running Abu Ghraib prison.

- (Read full) http://lefthook.org/Ground/Blogreprint.html

Kerry Won't Stop the War: But Independent Action Can

| Mark Harris |

Kerry's stay-the-course stance on Iraq is becoming more ironic by the
day as support for the occupation plummets, both domestically and in
Iraq. A recent New York Times/CBS News poll found 46 percent of
Americans believe the United States should find a way to get out of
Iraq. In Iraq itself, a poll taken by western news services just prior
to the recent outbreak of violence in Fallujah found a majority of
Iraqis -- 57 percent -- want the U.S. military and its occupation allies
out of the country 'in the next few months." Where the violence of
recent weeks has since driven Iraqi opinion is not hard to surmise.

- (Read full) http://lefthook.org/History/Lesserevilismreprint.html


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