The show Homeland began its third season with record-breaking ratings. The show’s creators Alex Ganza and Howard Gordon, who previously collaborated on the wildly popular series 24, seem to have worked out a successful narrative for the War on Terror during the Obama era.
A shorter version of this piece first appeared on Al Jazeera (English) Cornel West, on HBO’s Real Time, reiterated his criticism that President Obama is a “war criminal” for killing innocent people through drone strikes. He went on to make a simple, but rarely heard observation, that if you “have an empire, you’re going to Read the full article…
This statement was collectively drafted (thanks Bill Mullen and Tithi Bhattacharya) and it bears the endorsement of leading scholar-activists, many of whom have made significant contributions to feminist scholarship: Ruth Fowler has used two Counterpunch columns to criticize Angelina Jolie for writing a New York Times essay to discuss her decision to have a double Read the full article…
(with Sarah Grey) As Muslims around the world protest their contemptuous treatment by the West, catalyzed by the provocative, racist American film Innocence of Muslims, the French media added fuel to the fire of by publishing offensive cartoons of the prophet Muhammad. Left-wing alt-weekly Charlie Hebdo ran cartoons that depicted a naked, turbaned Muhammad in Read the full article…
PROTESTS OVER the vile racist film Innocence of Muslims that began outside U.S. diplomatic institutions in Egypt and Libya have spread across the world, from Bangladesh and India to Iran, Iraq and Morocco. The mainstream media in the U.S., from Fox News to National Public Radio, have framed these protests through the simplistic lens of Read the full article…
This piece first appeared at Progressive.org The tragic death of six Sikhs in suburban Milwaukee sheds light on the ugly ways that bigotry works. Since 9/11, Sikhs have often been the target of hate crimes. Balbir Singh Sodhi, a gas station owner in Arizona, was the first such casualty. He was murdered just four days Read the full article…
When Mitt Romney stated that it was Israel’s “culture” that was responsible for the country’s superior economic development he was simply recycling an argument long used to explain black poverty in the US. African American’s were poor, it was argued, because of a “culture of poverty” and a “pathology” which leads them to have children Read the full article…
This article first appeared at the Nation website. The New York Times story on Obama’s “kill list,” showing the president poring over lists of biographies and selecting the names of people to be assassinated in drone strikes, sparked a controversy. The content of that controversy was not over this extraordinary revelation about Obama’s use of Read the full article…
(with Danny Lucia) NEW YORK City police officers were shown a movie called The Third Jihad which warns that ordinary Muslims are part of an age-old conspiracy to dominate the world. The police chief and his spokesperson participated in this “counter-terrorism training,” and then lied about their involvement. And Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who touts himself Read the full article…
First off, an apology to the kind folks who subscribe to this blog. I’ve been awol for the last few months because I have been using every ounce of my writing energy to finish my book titled Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire. I’m happy to say that I’m done! I am now back and Read the full article…
Ten years ago, when asked if 9/11signalled “the start of a major conflict between the people of America and Europe versus the people of Islam” as opposed to “a conflict with a small radical group” 28% of Americans said yes. Today, that number is 35% according to a recent Pew Research Center Poll. This increase Read the full article…
This article first appeared on SWonline. The Islamophobic Warriors Robert Spencer has been in the news lately because Anders Behring Breivik, the Norwegian right-wing terrorist who killed 77 people in his bombing and mass shooting last month, cites him several dozen times in a hate-filled manifesto published on the Internet. But Spencer first came to Read the full article…