(The following article first appeared in the 11/18/92 issue of the now-defunct Lower East Side alternative newspaper Downtown)
Parade was founded in 1941 by a Chicago media mogul named Marshall Field III (whose grandfather had founded the Marshall Field department stores) and, within five years, two million copies were being distributed by 15 U.S. newspapers each Sunday. To make Parade more profitable, however, Field appointed a publisher named Arthur “Red” Motley to be its president in 1946 and Motley started to help newspapers secure local ads which tied-in to Parade’s national advertising. By 1956, seven million copies of Parade were being distributed by 52 U.S. newspapers. And its yearly advertising sales had increased from $1.8 million in 1946 to $14 million ten years later.
After Marshall Field III died in 1958, Parade was sold to New York media mogul John Hay Whitney. In October 1959 it became part of his Whitney Communications Corporation. By 1960, 65 U.S. newspapers were distributing over 9.5 million copies of Parade ever week and the magazine was selling around $25 million worth of advertising space annually. Its president was still Arthur “Red” Motley, who was also elected president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in 1960. In 1973, however, Motley and other members of the Whitney Communications corporate board decided to sell Parade to the Booth Newspapers media conglomerate.
Although its name was still not printed on the magazine’s masthead in the early 1990s, the Newhouse Dynasty has owned Parade since 1976, when Samuel Irving Newhouse I purchased Parade and eight daily newspapers in Michigan from Booth Newspapers for around $305 million. Parade’s weekly circulation in 1976 was 19 million.
By 1981, Parade’s weekly circulation exceeded 21 million, it was charging advertisers $170,000 per full page of advertising each week, and it was providing the Newhouse Dynasty’s media holding company, Advance Publications, with over $140 million a year in advertising sales. Of all U.S. magazines in 1981, Newhouse’s Parade magazine charged the most for a full-page ad. And of all Newhouse-owned magazines in 1981, Parade magazine was the biggest money-maker in terms of total advertising sales.
In the early 1990s, 344 U.S. newspapers distributed over 36 million copies of Parade to around 70 million readers each Sunday. And the magazine—whose editorial offices were then located at 750 Third Avenue in Midtown Manhattan—charged advertisers over $420,000 to publish a full-page color ad in an individual issue of Parade in the 1990s because of its enormous number of readers.
[Today, 470 U.S. newspapers distribute 33 million copies of Parade to around 73 million readers each Sunday].
(Downtown 11/18/92)
Thursday, April 30, 2009
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
`Parade' Magazine's Newhouse/`Vogue' Connection
(The following article first appeared in the 11/18/92 issue of the now-defunct Lower East Side alternative newspaper Downtown)
“A late 19th-century institution, the Sunday newspaper magazine, showed renewed signs of life in the eighties…Parade remains the largest Sunday supplement in America.
“Several of these Sunday magazines are advertising gold mines, drawing on both local and national advertisers…” (The Magazine In America: 1741-1990 by John Tebbel and Mary Zuckerman)
“Also in the Advance lineup is Parade, distributed as a Sunday supplement in 314 newspapers to a massive 64.8 million people. (The Last Days of The New Yorker by Gigi Mahon in 1988)
“At one point 64 Newhouse cousins, brothers, in-laws and other assorted relatives were on the payroll.” (Everybody’s Business in 1990)
“…The several million readers of the chain’s 26 newspapers doubtless would find instructive an exploration of the government’s accusation that the Newhouse family had dodged more than $1 billion in taxes.” (The Nation magazine on March 13, 1989)
Every Sunday, newspapers like the Washington Post and the Boston Globe distribute the magazine with the largest circulation in the United States: Parade magazine. But Parade is published by neither the Washington Post nor the Boston Globe. Parade is actually owned by the Newhouse media conglomerate—Advance Publications—that also markets magazines like Vogue, Glamour, Self, GQ, Vanity Fair, The New Yorker and Details, as well as daily newspapers in Newark, Jersey City, Trenton, Staten Island, Syracuse, Harrisburg, Cleveland, Michigan, Massachusetts, Oregon, Alabama, Mississippi and New Orleans. If the family which owns Parade magazine paraded representatives of its magazines and newspapers up Fifth Avenue, more than 30 publications would be represented in the Newhouse Dynasty’s line of march.
Asked by Downtown in a Fall 1992 telephone interview to characterize the Newhouse company’s relationship to Parade, its then-public relations spokesperson, Catherine Hemlepp, replied at that time: “Parade is owned by Advance Publications. Our chairman reports directly to S.I. Newhouse.”
The Parade spokesperson also noted in 1992 that, despite the U.S. economic downturn, Parade’s advertising income was still increasing in the 1990s.
(Downtown 11/18/92)
“A late 19th-century institution, the Sunday newspaper magazine, showed renewed signs of life in the eighties…Parade remains the largest Sunday supplement in America.
“Several of these Sunday magazines are advertising gold mines, drawing on both local and national advertisers…” (The Magazine In America: 1741-1990 by John Tebbel and Mary Zuckerman)
“Also in the Advance lineup is Parade, distributed as a Sunday supplement in 314 newspapers to a massive 64.8 million people. (The Last Days of The New Yorker by Gigi Mahon in 1988)
“At one point 64 Newhouse cousins, brothers, in-laws and other assorted relatives were on the payroll.” (Everybody’s Business in 1990)
“…The several million readers of the chain’s 26 newspapers doubtless would find instructive an exploration of the government’s accusation that the Newhouse family had dodged more than $1 billion in taxes.” (The Nation magazine on March 13, 1989)
Every Sunday, newspapers like the Washington Post and the Boston Globe distribute the magazine with the largest circulation in the United States: Parade magazine. But Parade is published by neither the Washington Post nor the Boston Globe. Parade is actually owned by the Newhouse media conglomerate—Advance Publications—that also markets magazines like Vogue, Glamour, Self, GQ, Vanity Fair, The New Yorker and Details, as well as daily newspapers in Newark, Jersey City, Trenton, Staten Island, Syracuse, Harrisburg, Cleveland, Michigan, Massachusetts, Oregon, Alabama, Mississippi and New Orleans. If the family which owns Parade magazine paraded representatives of its magazines and newspapers up Fifth Avenue, more than 30 publications would be represented in the Newhouse Dynasty’s line of march.
Asked by Downtown in a Fall 1992 telephone interview to characterize the Newhouse company’s relationship to Parade, its then-public relations spokesperson, Catherine Hemlepp, replied at that time: “Parade is owned by Advance Publications. Our chairman reports directly to S.I. Newhouse.”
The Parade spokesperson also noted in 1992 that, despite the U.S. economic downturn, Parade’s advertising income was still increasing in the 1990s.
(Downtown 11/18/92)
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
`Kunstler On Your Side'
(chorus)
He was known as a “People’s Lawyer”
Although he got on TV
And when William Kunstler argued
The judge said: “Not guilty!”
(verses)
If you like to sing some folk songs
And you’re bothered by the F.B.I.
Then my advice for all you folk fans
Is to have Kunstler on your side.
If you’re trapped in Alabama
Where a sheriff took you for a ride
Then my advice for all you folk fans
Is to have Kunstler on your side. (chorus)
If you’re fighting against the War Machine
And you’re jailed for exposing lies
Then my advice for all you folk fans
Is to have Kunstler on your side.
If you’ve led a protest march
Where the police beat you ‘till you cried
Then my advice for all you folk fans
Is to have Kunstler on your side. (chorus)
If you’re charged with “conspiracy”
And “illegally crossing state lines”
Then my advice for all you folk fans
Is to have Kunstler on your side.
If you’re revolting in a prison
Against guards that brutalized
Then my advice for all you folk fans
Is to have Kunstler on your side. (chorus)
The original version of the public domain Kunstler On Your Side biographical protest folk song about the now-deceased civil rights attorney was written in the 1980s.
In his 1999 biography of William Kunstler, William M. Kunstler: The Most Hated Lawyer In America, a law school professor named David Langum indicated which kind of private practice clients Kunstler would not represent in the 1980s and 1990s:
“Like all lawyers in private practice, Kunstler also took cases for no more exalted reason than to earn a fee. Political selectivity continued, although a more realistic statement of Kunstler’s later position was that given to a reporter in 1994:…He would not have taken on O.J. Simpson `because it’s a wife killing case.’ Nor would he have represented the hotel mogul Leona Helmsley, who, `although she has the same civil rights as anyone, is a rather detestable character with few redeeming qualities.’”
For more information about William Kunstler’s life, you might want to check out the new documentary film, William Kunstler: Disturbing The Universe, or the www.disturbingtheuniverse.com web site.
To listen to some other biographical protest folk songs, you can check out the “Columbia Songs for a Democratic Society” music site at the following link:
http://www.myspace.com/bobafeldman68music
Monday, April 27, 2009
Iran History Revisited: Part 30
(See parts 1-29 below)
On April 14, 2009, the World Jewish Congress’s website noted that “Israeli president Shimon Peres has warned that military action against Iran would still be needed if U.S. president Barack Obama’s new diplomatic initiative fails” and “warned that if talks do not soften Ahmadnejad’s approach, ` we will strike him.’…”
And an article by Sheera Frenkel that was posted on the London Times website on April 18, 2009 also stated:
“The Israeli military is preparing itself to launch a massive aerial assault on Iran's nuclear facilities within days of being given the go-ahead by its new government.
“Among the steps taken to ready Israeli forces for what would be a risky raid requiring pinpoint aerial strikes are the acquisition of three Airborne Warning and Control (AWAC) aircraft and regional missions to simulate the attack.
“Two nationwide civil defence drills will help to prepare the public for the retaliation that Israel could face.
“`Israel wants to know that if its forces were given the green light they could strike at Iran in a matter of days, even hours. They are making preparations on every level for this eventuality. The message to Iran is that the threat is not just words,’ one senior defence official told The Times…
“`We would not make the threat [against Iran] without the force to back it. There has been a recent move, a number of on-the-ground preparations, that indicate Israel's willingness to act,' said another official from Israel's intelligence community.
“He added that it was unlikely that Israel would carry out the attack without receiving at least tacit approval from America...”
Yet much of the hidden history of Iran since the CIA helped the Shah of Iran set up a police state in Iran prior to the 1979 Iranian Revolution still remains unknown to many U.S. voters in 2009.
By 1997, young people in Iran composed 25 percent of Iran’s population of 67 million; and the number of university students in Iran had grown from only 160,000 in 1977 to 1.25 million in 1997, as a result of the Iranian government’s increased investment in Iranian higher education.
During the 1990s, however, the Iranian government began to privatize Iran’s economy more by transferring control of state-run enterprises to Islamic clergy-controlled private foundations, thus turning these foundations into powerful business corporations, according to the 2006 Democracy In Iran book.
The size of Iran’s college-educated middle-class also began to increase in the 1990s; and this seemed to lead to increased political support for Iranian electoral candidates who favored more liberalization and more democratization of Iranian society.
The conservative clerical political leadership in Iran, however, responded to the 1990s electoral success of candidates favoring more democratization and liberalization by shutting down 19 pro-reformist newspapers in Iran in May 1999; and by disqualifying 3,600 candidates who favored more democratization, including 80 incumbent candidates, from participating in the 2004 Iranian parliamentary elections.
Although U.S. Secretary of State Clinton’s husband-—former Democratic President Bill Clinton--signed an executive order banning all U.S. trade and investment in Iran in May 1995, European governments have adopted less hostile economic policies in relation to Iran than has the U.S. government, in recent years.
In Iran, “European multinational companies” have “formed business partnerships in various sectors of the economy—including oil and gas, telecommunications, consumer electronics and automotive—especially after a bill in 2002,” passed by Iran’s parliament, “eased some of the restrictions on foreign investments,” according to the Democracy In Iran book.
After the former Mayor of Tehran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, was elected president of Iran in June 2005 with 62 percent of the Iranian popular vote, on a platform of pledging to redistribute more of the wealth of Iran to the most impoverished people in Iran, both the Republican Bush Administration and the Israeli government seemed more eager to launch a military attack on Iran.
But, as this revisiting of Iran’s history has shown, people in Iran have suffered, historically, as a result of U.S. intervention in Iran’s internal political affairs since World War II. And a U.S. government-supported Israeli military attack against Iran in 2009--regardless of which pretext is used by the Obama-Clinton Administration or the Netanyanu Israeli government--will likely create additional suffering for people in Iran.
So it’s not surprising that a February 2007 statement issued by the political committee of The Union of Iranian Socialists in North America declared that “The people of Iran vehemently oppose the intervention of any foreign power in their country” and “any kind of aggressive actions by the U.S. and its allies, either military or economic, should be condemned by progressive anti-war activists.” (end of article)
On April 14, 2009, the World Jewish Congress’s website noted that “Israeli president Shimon Peres has warned that military action against Iran would still be needed if U.S. president Barack Obama’s new diplomatic initiative fails” and “warned that if talks do not soften Ahmadnejad’s approach, ` we will strike him.’…”
And an article by Sheera Frenkel that was posted on the London Times website on April 18, 2009 also stated:
“The Israeli military is preparing itself to launch a massive aerial assault on Iran's nuclear facilities within days of being given the go-ahead by its new government.
“Among the steps taken to ready Israeli forces for what would be a risky raid requiring pinpoint aerial strikes are the acquisition of three Airborne Warning and Control (AWAC) aircraft and regional missions to simulate the attack.
“Two nationwide civil defence drills will help to prepare the public for the retaliation that Israel could face.
“`Israel wants to know that if its forces were given the green light they could strike at Iran in a matter of days, even hours. They are making preparations on every level for this eventuality. The message to Iran is that the threat is not just words,’ one senior defence official told The Times…
“`We would not make the threat [against Iran] without the force to back it. There has been a recent move, a number of on-the-ground preparations, that indicate Israel's willingness to act,' said another official from Israel's intelligence community.
“He added that it was unlikely that Israel would carry out the attack without receiving at least tacit approval from America...”
Yet much of the hidden history of Iran since the CIA helped the Shah of Iran set up a police state in Iran prior to the 1979 Iranian Revolution still remains unknown to many U.S. voters in 2009.
By 1997, young people in Iran composed 25 percent of Iran’s population of 67 million; and the number of university students in Iran had grown from only 160,000 in 1977 to 1.25 million in 1997, as a result of the Iranian government’s increased investment in Iranian higher education.
During the 1990s, however, the Iranian government began to privatize Iran’s economy more by transferring control of state-run enterprises to Islamic clergy-controlled private foundations, thus turning these foundations into powerful business corporations, according to the 2006 Democracy In Iran book.
The size of Iran’s college-educated middle-class also began to increase in the 1990s; and this seemed to lead to increased political support for Iranian electoral candidates who favored more liberalization and more democratization of Iranian society.
The conservative clerical political leadership in Iran, however, responded to the 1990s electoral success of candidates favoring more democratization and liberalization by shutting down 19 pro-reformist newspapers in Iran in May 1999; and by disqualifying 3,600 candidates who favored more democratization, including 80 incumbent candidates, from participating in the 2004 Iranian parliamentary elections.
Although U.S. Secretary of State Clinton’s husband-—former Democratic President Bill Clinton--signed an executive order banning all U.S. trade and investment in Iran in May 1995, European governments have adopted less hostile economic policies in relation to Iran than has the U.S. government, in recent years.
In Iran, “European multinational companies” have “formed business partnerships in various sectors of the economy—including oil and gas, telecommunications, consumer electronics and automotive—especially after a bill in 2002,” passed by Iran’s parliament, “eased some of the restrictions on foreign investments,” according to the Democracy In Iran book.
After the former Mayor of Tehran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, was elected president of Iran in June 2005 with 62 percent of the Iranian popular vote, on a platform of pledging to redistribute more of the wealth of Iran to the most impoverished people in Iran, both the Republican Bush Administration and the Israeli government seemed more eager to launch a military attack on Iran.
But, as this revisiting of Iran’s history has shown, people in Iran have suffered, historically, as a result of U.S. intervention in Iran’s internal political affairs since World War II. And a U.S. government-supported Israeli military attack against Iran in 2009--regardless of which pretext is used by the Obama-Clinton Administration or the Netanyanu Israeli government--will likely create additional suffering for people in Iran.
So it’s not surprising that a February 2007 statement issued by the political committee of The Union of Iranian Socialists in North America declared that “The people of Iran vehemently oppose the intervention of any foreign power in their country” and “any kind of aggressive actions by the U.S. and its allies, either military or economic, should be condemned by progressive anti-war activists.” (end of article)
Sunday, April 26, 2009
Iran History Revisited: Part 29
(See parts 1-28 below)
On April 14, 2009, the World Jewish Congress’s website noted that “Israeli president Shimon Peres has warned that military action against Iran would still be needed if U.S. president Barack Obama’s new diplomatic initiative fails” and “warned that if talks do not soften Ahmadnejad’s approach, ` we will strike him.’…”
And an article by Sheera Frenkel that was posted on the London Times website on April 18, 2009 also stated:
“The Israeli military is preparing itself to launch a massive aerial assault on Iran's nuclear facilities within days of being given the go-ahead by its new government.
“Among the steps taken to ready Israeli forces for what would be a risky raid requiring pinpoint aerial strikes are the acquisition of three Airborne Warning and Control (AWAC) aircraft and regional missions to simulate the attack.
“Two nationwide civil defence drills will help to prepare the public for the retaliation that Israel could face.
“`Israel wants to know that if its forces were given the green light they could strike at Iran in a matter of days, even hours. They are making preparations on every level for this eventuality. The message to Iran is that the threat is not just words,’ one senior defence official told The Times…
“`We would not make the threat [against Iran] without the force to back it. There has been a recent move, a number of on-the-ground preparations, that indicate Israel's willingness to act,' said another official from Israel's intelligence community.
“He added that it was unlikely that Israel would carry out the attack without receiving at least tacit approval from America...”
Yet much of the hidden history of Iran since the CIA helped the Shah of Iran set up a police state in Iran prior to the 1979 Iranian Revolution still remains unknown to many U.S. voters in 2009.
The economic destruction caused by the eight year Iraq-Iran War and the generally unfriendly policy of the U.S. government towards Iran during the years since the U.S. embassy was seized by Iranian students (except during the “Iran-Contragate Scandal” period of the Republican Reagan Administration when the U.S. government arranged for weapons to be shipped to the Islamic Republic of Iran) hurt the post-revolutionary Iranian economy, prior to the death of Ayatollah Khomeini on June 3, 1989. But Iran’s oil wealth has enabled the Islamic Republic to apparently satisfy the economic needs of some people within Iranian society--although many other people in Iran still seem to be having economic difficulties.
By 1989, 80 percent of the Iranian economy was controlled by the Iranian government and banks, insurance companies and all major industries in Iran were now nationalized. Although one-third of Iranian workers were provided jobs by Iran’s public sector in 1988, during that same year about 30 percent of all Iranian workers were still apparently unemployed.
In 1989, the average inflation rate in Iran’s economy also apparently exceeded 23 percent; and by 1993 the annual inflation rate in Iran had increased to 40 percent. As a result, when the Iranian government announced cuts in price controls and government subsidies of basic necessities during the 1990s, street protests broke out in Tehran and other Iranian cities. (end of part 28)
On April 14, 2009, the World Jewish Congress’s website noted that “Israeli president Shimon Peres has warned that military action against Iran would still be needed if U.S. president Barack Obama’s new diplomatic initiative fails” and “warned that if talks do not soften Ahmadnejad’s approach, ` we will strike him.’…”
And an article by Sheera Frenkel that was posted on the London Times website on April 18, 2009 also stated:
“The Israeli military is preparing itself to launch a massive aerial assault on Iran's nuclear facilities within days of being given the go-ahead by its new government.
“Among the steps taken to ready Israeli forces for what would be a risky raid requiring pinpoint aerial strikes are the acquisition of three Airborne Warning and Control (AWAC) aircraft and regional missions to simulate the attack.
“Two nationwide civil defence drills will help to prepare the public for the retaliation that Israel could face.
“`Israel wants to know that if its forces were given the green light they could strike at Iran in a matter of days, even hours. They are making preparations on every level for this eventuality. The message to Iran is that the threat is not just words,’ one senior defence official told The Times…
“`We would not make the threat [against Iran] without the force to back it. There has been a recent move, a number of on-the-ground preparations, that indicate Israel's willingness to act,' said another official from Israel's intelligence community.
“He added that it was unlikely that Israel would carry out the attack without receiving at least tacit approval from America...”
Yet much of the hidden history of Iran since the CIA helped the Shah of Iran set up a police state in Iran prior to the 1979 Iranian Revolution still remains unknown to many U.S. voters in 2009.
The economic destruction caused by the eight year Iraq-Iran War and the generally unfriendly policy of the U.S. government towards Iran during the years since the U.S. embassy was seized by Iranian students (except during the “Iran-Contragate Scandal” period of the Republican Reagan Administration when the U.S. government arranged for weapons to be shipped to the Islamic Republic of Iran) hurt the post-revolutionary Iranian economy, prior to the death of Ayatollah Khomeini on June 3, 1989. But Iran’s oil wealth has enabled the Islamic Republic to apparently satisfy the economic needs of some people within Iranian society--although many other people in Iran still seem to be having economic difficulties.
By 1989, 80 percent of the Iranian economy was controlled by the Iranian government and banks, insurance companies and all major industries in Iran were now nationalized. Although one-third of Iranian workers were provided jobs by Iran’s public sector in 1988, during that same year about 30 percent of all Iranian workers were still apparently unemployed.
In 1989, the average inflation rate in Iran’s economy also apparently exceeded 23 percent; and by 1993 the annual inflation rate in Iran had increased to 40 percent. As a result, when the Iranian government announced cuts in price controls and government subsidies of basic necessities during the 1990s, street protests broke out in Tehran and other Iranian cities. (end of part 28)
Saturday, April 25, 2009
Iran History Revisited: Part 28
(See parts 1-27 below)
On April 14, 2009, the World Jewish Congress’s website noted that “Israeli president Shimon Peres has warned that military action against Iran would still be needed if U.S. president Barack Obama’s new diplomatic initiative fails” and “warned that if talks do not soften Ahmadnejad’s approach, ` we will strike him.’…”
And an article by Sheera Frenkel that was posted on the London Times website on April 18, 2009 also stated:
“The Israeli military is preparing itself to launch a massive aerial assault on Iran's nuclear facilities within days of being given the go-ahead by its new government.
“Among the steps taken to ready Israeli forces for what would be a risky raid requiring pinpoint aerial strikes are the acquisition of three Airborne Warning and Control (AWAC) aircraft and regional missions to simulate the attack.
“Two nationwide civil defence drills will help to prepare the public for the retaliation that Israel could face.
“`Israel wants to know that if its forces were given the green light they could strike at Iran in a matter of days, even hours. They are making preparations on every level for this eventuality. The message to Iran is that the threat is not just words,’ one senior defence official told The Times…
“`We would not make the threat [against Iran] without the force to back it. There has been a recent move, a number of on-the-ground preparations, that indicate Israel's willingness to act,' said another official from Israel's intelligence community.
“He added that it was unlikely that Israel would carry out the attack without receiving at least tacit approval from America...”
Yet much of the hidden history of Iran since the CIA helped the Shah of Iran set up a police state in Iran prior to the 1979 Iranian Revolution still remains unknown to many U.S. voters in 2009.
In addition to providing the Iranian government with a pretext to repress secular anti-imperialist proponents of more democratization of Iranian society during the 1980s, the 1980 to 1988 Iraq-Iran War that Saddam Hussein’s Ba’ath regime in Iraq started in September 1980 also produced great suffering for the people of both Iran and Iraq. Almost one million Iranians were maimed or killed, for example, as a result of the Iraq-Iran War of the 1980s; and many Iranian cities were extensively damaged during this war.
But on July 18, 1988, the Iranian government agreed to accept UN Security Council Resolution 598 which called for a cease-fire with Iraq; and the 1980 and 1988 Iraq-Iran War finally ended. Six days later, however, the People’s Mojahadeen guerrilla group launched a military incursion into Iran.
Iranian government authorities apparently then used this military attack as a pretext to carry out another round of mass executions of both imprisoned secular anti-imperialist left Iranian activists and imprisoned People’s Mojahadeen activists. According to the Human Rights Watch web site:
“In 1988, the Iranian government summarily and extra-judicially executed thousands of political prisoners held in Iranian jails…The majority of those executed were serving prison sentences for their political activities…Those who had been sentenced, however, had not been sentenced to death….”
Dissident Iranian activists and Amnesty International estimated that between 2,800 and 4,481 Iranian political prisoners were then executed in 1988 by Islamic Republic authorities. Although most of the executed Iranian political prisoners in 1988 were members and supporters of the People’s Mojahadeen group, hundreds of imprisoned members and supporters of the Tudeh Party, the Peoples’ Fedayeen group and the Kurdish Democratic Party were also apparently executed by the Iranian government authorities in 1988. (end of part 28)
On April 14, 2009, the World Jewish Congress’s website noted that “Israeli president Shimon Peres has warned that military action against Iran would still be needed if U.S. president Barack Obama’s new diplomatic initiative fails” and “warned that if talks do not soften Ahmadnejad’s approach, ` we will strike him.’…”
And an article by Sheera Frenkel that was posted on the London Times website on April 18, 2009 also stated:
“The Israeli military is preparing itself to launch a massive aerial assault on Iran's nuclear facilities within days of being given the go-ahead by its new government.
“Among the steps taken to ready Israeli forces for what would be a risky raid requiring pinpoint aerial strikes are the acquisition of three Airborne Warning and Control (AWAC) aircraft and regional missions to simulate the attack.
“Two nationwide civil defence drills will help to prepare the public for the retaliation that Israel could face.
“`Israel wants to know that if its forces were given the green light they could strike at Iran in a matter of days, even hours. They are making preparations on every level for this eventuality. The message to Iran is that the threat is not just words,’ one senior defence official told The Times…
“`We would not make the threat [against Iran] without the force to back it. There has been a recent move, a number of on-the-ground preparations, that indicate Israel's willingness to act,' said another official from Israel's intelligence community.
“He added that it was unlikely that Israel would carry out the attack without receiving at least tacit approval from America...”
Yet much of the hidden history of Iran since the CIA helped the Shah of Iran set up a police state in Iran prior to the 1979 Iranian Revolution still remains unknown to many U.S. voters in 2009.
In addition to providing the Iranian government with a pretext to repress secular anti-imperialist proponents of more democratization of Iranian society during the 1980s, the 1980 to 1988 Iraq-Iran War that Saddam Hussein’s Ba’ath regime in Iraq started in September 1980 also produced great suffering for the people of both Iran and Iraq. Almost one million Iranians were maimed or killed, for example, as a result of the Iraq-Iran War of the 1980s; and many Iranian cities were extensively damaged during this war.
But on July 18, 1988, the Iranian government agreed to accept UN Security Council Resolution 598 which called for a cease-fire with Iraq; and the 1980 and 1988 Iraq-Iran War finally ended. Six days later, however, the People’s Mojahadeen guerrilla group launched a military incursion into Iran.
Iranian government authorities apparently then used this military attack as a pretext to carry out another round of mass executions of both imprisoned secular anti-imperialist left Iranian activists and imprisoned People’s Mojahadeen activists. According to the Human Rights Watch web site:
“In 1988, the Iranian government summarily and extra-judicially executed thousands of political prisoners held in Iranian jails…The majority of those executed were serving prison sentences for their political activities…Those who had been sentenced, however, had not been sentenced to death….”
Dissident Iranian activists and Amnesty International estimated that between 2,800 and 4,481 Iranian political prisoners were then executed in 1988 by Islamic Republic authorities. Although most of the executed Iranian political prisoners in 1988 were members and supporters of the People’s Mojahadeen group, hundreds of imprisoned members and supporters of the Tudeh Party, the Peoples’ Fedayeen group and the Kurdish Democratic Party were also apparently executed by the Iranian government authorities in 1988. (end of part 28)
Friday, April 24, 2009
Iran History Revisited: Part 27
(See parts 1-26 below)
On April 14, 2009, the World Jewish Congress’s website noted that “Israeli president Shimon Peres has warned that military action against Iran would still be needed if U.S. president Barack Obama’s new diplomatic initiative fails” and “warned that if talks do not soften Ahmadnejad’s approach, ` we will strike him.’…”
And an article by Sheera Frenkel that was posted on the London Times website on April 18, 2009 also stated:
“The Israeli military is preparing itself to launch a massive aerial assault on Iran's nuclear facilities within days of being given the go-ahead by its new government.
“Among the steps taken to ready Israeli forces for what would be a risky raid requiring pinpoint aerial strikes are the acquisition of three Airborne Warning and Control (AWAC) aircraft and regional missions to simulate the attack.
“Two nationwide civil defence drills will help to prepare the public for the retaliation that Israel could face.
“`Israel wants to know that if its forces were given the green light they could strike at Iran in a matter of days, even hours. They are making preparations on every level for this eventuality. The message to Iran is that the threat is not just words,’ one senior defence official told The Times…
“`We would not make the threat [against Iran] without the force to back it. There has been a recent move, a number of on-the-ground preparations, that indicate Israel's willingness to act,' said another official from Israel's intelligence community.
“He added that it was unlikely that Israel would carry out the attack without receiving at least tacit approval from America...”
Yet much of the hidden history of Iran since the CIA helped the Shah of Iran set up a police state in Iran prior to the 1979 Iranian Revolution still remains unknown to many U.S. voters in 2009.
In their 2006 book Democracy In Iran: History and the Quest for Liberty, University of San Diego Professor of History and Political Science Ali Gheissari and Vali Nasr described how the religious, anti-communist supporters of Khomeini’s Islamic Republic regime apparently also started to violate the democratic rights of leftist Iranian supporters of the 1979 Iranian Revolution, after the Democratic Carter Administration refused to extradite the deposed Shah of Iran and the U.S. Embassy in Tehran was seized:
“Fundamentalists began to constrict the Left’s room to maneuver, purging their members from positions of power, attacking their offices, gatherings, and demonstrations, and intimidating or arresting their members and supporters. For instance, they attacked university campuses, intimidated and arrested students and faculty, and in June 1980 set in motion a `cultural revolution’ to cleanse the universities of the Left. Fundamentalists permanently occupied Tehran University by making its grounds the site for the official Friday Prayers…”
In an article that appeared in the June 21, 2003 issue of the Asia Times, B Raman also asserted that in Iran “after seizing power with the help of the communist students, the clerics ruthlessly suppressed the communists, arresting and executing many of them;” and “those who escaped arrest and death at the hands of the clerics managed to flee to West Europe and started organizing their activities from there.” According to the 2006 Democracy In Iran book, the secular Iranian leftist activists “were portrayed by fundamentalists as American stooges, and resistance to religion’s prominence in society was depicted as a Western ploy to destabilize the revolution.” (end of part 27)
On April 14, 2009, the World Jewish Congress’s website noted that “Israeli president Shimon Peres has warned that military action against Iran would still be needed if U.S. president Barack Obama’s new diplomatic initiative fails” and “warned that if talks do not soften Ahmadnejad’s approach, ` we will strike him.’…”
And an article by Sheera Frenkel that was posted on the London Times website on April 18, 2009 also stated:
“The Israeli military is preparing itself to launch a massive aerial assault on Iran's nuclear facilities within days of being given the go-ahead by its new government.
“Among the steps taken to ready Israeli forces for what would be a risky raid requiring pinpoint aerial strikes are the acquisition of three Airborne Warning and Control (AWAC) aircraft and regional missions to simulate the attack.
“Two nationwide civil defence drills will help to prepare the public for the retaliation that Israel could face.
“`Israel wants to know that if its forces were given the green light they could strike at Iran in a matter of days, even hours. They are making preparations on every level for this eventuality. The message to Iran is that the threat is not just words,’ one senior defence official told The Times…
“`We would not make the threat [against Iran] without the force to back it. There has been a recent move, a number of on-the-ground preparations, that indicate Israel's willingness to act,' said another official from Israel's intelligence community.
“He added that it was unlikely that Israel would carry out the attack without receiving at least tacit approval from America...”
Yet much of the hidden history of Iran since the CIA helped the Shah of Iran set up a police state in Iran prior to the 1979 Iranian Revolution still remains unknown to many U.S. voters in 2009.
In their 2006 book Democracy In Iran: History and the Quest for Liberty, University of San Diego Professor of History and Political Science Ali Gheissari and Vali Nasr described how the religious, anti-communist supporters of Khomeini’s Islamic Republic regime apparently also started to violate the democratic rights of leftist Iranian supporters of the 1979 Iranian Revolution, after the Democratic Carter Administration refused to extradite the deposed Shah of Iran and the U.S. Embassy in Tehran was seized:
“Fundamentalists began to constrict the Left’s room to maneuver, purging their members from positions of power, attacking their offices, gatherings, and demonstrations, and intimidating or arresting their members and supporters. For instance, they attacked university campuses, intimidated and arrested students and faculty, and in June 1980 set in motion a `cultural revolution’ to cleanse the universities of the Left. Fundamentalists permanently occupied Tehran University by making its grounds the site for the official Friday Prayers…”
In an article that appeared in the June 21, 2003 issue of the Asia Times, B Raman also asserted that in Iran “after seizing power with the help of the communist students, the clerics ruthlessly suppressed the communists, arresting and executing many of them;” and “those who escaped arrest and death at the hands of the clerics managed to flee to West Europe and started organizing their activities from there.” According to the 2006 Democracy In Iran book, the secular Iranian leftist activists “were portrayed by fundamentalists as American stooges, and resistance to religion’s prominence in society was depicted as a Western ploy to destabilize the revolution.” (end of part 27)
Thursday, April 23, 2009
Iran History Revisited: Part 26
(See parts 1-25 below)
On April 14, 2009, the World Jewish Congress’s website noted that “Israeli president Shimon Peres has warned that military action against Iran would still be needed if U.S. president Barack Obama’s new diplomatic initiative fails” and “warned that if talks do not soften Ahmadnejad’s approach, ` we will strike him.’…”
And an article by Sheera Frenkel that was posted on the London Times website on April 18, 2009 also stated:
“The Israeli military is preparing itself to launch a massive aerial assault on Iran's nuclear facilities within days of being given the go-ahead by its new government.
“Among the steps taken to ready Israeli forces for what would be a risky raid requiring pinpoint aerial strikes are the acquisition of three Airborne Warning and Control (AWAC) aircraft and regional missions to simulate the attack.
“Two nationwide civil defence drills will help to prepare the public for the retaliation that Israel could face.
“`Israel wants to know that if its forces were given the green light they could strike at Iran in a matter of days, even hours. They are making preparations on every level for this eventuality. The message to Iran is that the threat is not just words,’ one senior defence official told The Times…
“`We would not make the threat [against Iran] without the force to back it. There has been a recent move, a number of on-the-ground preparations, that indicate Israel's willingness to act,' said another official from Israel's intelligence community.
“He added that it was unlikely that Israel would carry out the attack without receiving at least tacit approval from America...”
Yet much of the hidden history of Iran since the CIA helped the Shah of Iran set up a police state in Iran prior to the 1979 Iranian Revolution still remains unknown to many U.S. voters in 2009.
Unlike the People’s Mojahadeen group, the Tudeh Party and the People’s Fedayeen group continued to express support for Khomeini’s Islamic Republic regime after June 1981 and both the Tudeh Party and the People’s Fedayeen group continued to be allowed to operate openly by Iranian government authorities.
But after the Tudeh Party criticized the Islamic Republic’s conduct of its war with Iraq and the Khomeini regime’s intention--after the Iranian military forces recaptured the Iranian land that Iraq had occupied early in the Iraq-Iran War--to now invade Iraq, some top Tudeh Party leaders were arrested by Iranian government authorities in February 1983.
Subsequently, the Tudeh Party was outlawed on May 4, 1983 by the Iranian government; and 670 civilian members of the Tudeh Party and 100 Iranian military officers who supported the Tudeh Party were also arrested.
Then, in December 1983, the 100 Iranian military officers who were Tudeh Party supporters were put on trial. And on February 25, 1984, ten of these Tudeh Party supporters within the Iranian military's officer corps were executed by Islamic Republic authorities.
Thirty members of the People’s Fedayeen group were also arrested in the Fall of 1983. And, after the Iranian government declared that the People’s Fedayeen group was subversive and anti-Islamic in December 1983, the People’s Fedayeen group was also outlawed in February 1984. (end of part 26)
On April 14, 2009, the World Jewish Congress’s website noted that “Israeli president Shimon Peres has warned that military action against Iran would still be needed if U.S. president Barack Obama’s new diplomatic initiative fails” and “warned that if talks do not soften Ahmadnejad’s approach, ` we will strike him.’…”
And an article by Sheera Frenkel that was posted on the London Times website on April 18, 2009 also stated:
“The Israeli military is preparing itself to launch a massive aerial assault on Iran's nuclear facilities within days of being given the go-ahead by its new government.
“Among the steps taken to ready Israeli forces for what would be a risky raid requiring pinpoint aerial strikes are the acquisition of three Airborne Warning and Control (AWAC) aircraft and regional missions to simulate the attack.
“Two nationwide civil defence drills will help to prepare the public for the retaliation that Israel could face.
“`Israel wants to know that if its forces were given the green light they could strike at Iran in a matter of days, even hours. They are making preparations on every level for this eventuality. The message to Iran is that the threat is not just words,’ one senior defence official told The Times…
“`We would not make the threat [against Iran] without the force to back it. There has been a recent move, a number of on-the-ground preparations, that indicate Israel's willingness to act,' said another official from Israel's intelligence community.
“He added that it was unlikely that Israel would carry out the attack without receiving at least tacit approval from America...”
Yet much of the hidden history of Iran since the CIA helped the Shah of Iran set up a police state in Iran prior to the 1979 Iranian Revolution still remains unknown to many U.S. voters in 2009.
Unlike the People’s Mojahadeen group, the Tudeh Party and the People’s Fedayeen group continued to express support for Khomeini’s Islamic Republic regime after June 1981 and both the Tudeh Party and the People’s Fedayeen group continued to be allowed to operate openly by Iranian government authorities.
But after the Tudeh Party criticized the Islamic Republic’s conduct of its war with Iraq and the Khomeini regime’s intention--after the Iranian military forces recaptured the Iranian land that Iraq had occupied early in the Iraq-Iran War--to now invade Iraq, some top Tudeh Party leaders were arrested by Iranian government authorities in February 1983.
Subsequently, the Tudeh Party was outlawed on May 4, 1983 by the Iranian government; and 670 civilian members of the Tudeh Party and 100 Iranian military officers who supported the Tudeh Party were also arrested.
Then, in December 1983, the 100 Iranian military officers who were Tudeh Party supporters were put on trial. And on February 25, 1984, ten of these Tudeh Party supporters within the Iranian military's officer corps were executed by Islamic Republic authorities.
Thirty members of the People’s Fedayeen group were also arrested in the Fall of 1983. And, after the Iranian government declared that the People’s Fedayeen group was subversive and anti-Islamic in December 1983, the People’s Fedayeen group was also outlawed in February 1984. (end of part 26)
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
Iran History Revisited: Part 25
(See parts 1-24 below)
On April 14, 2009, the World Jewish Congress’s website noted that “Israeli president Shimon Peres has warned that military action against Iran would still be needed if U.S. president Barack Obama’s new diplomatic initiative fails” and “warned that if talks do not soften Ahmadnejad’s approach, ` we will strike him.’…”
And an article by Sheera Frenkel that was posted on the London Times website on April 18, 2009 also stated:
“The Israeli military is preparing itself to launch a massive aerial assault on Iran's nuclear facilities within days of being given the go-ahead by its new government.
“Among the steps taken to ready Israeli forces for what would be a risky raid requiring pinpoint aerial strikes are the acquisition of three Airborne Warning and Control (AWAC) aircraft and regional missions to simulate the attack.
“Two nationwide civil defence drills will help to prepare the public for the retaliation that Israel could face.
“`Israel wants to know that if its forces were given the green light they could strike at Iran in a matter of days, even hours. They are making preparations on every level for this eventuality. The message to Iran is that the threat is not just words,’ one senior defence official told The Times…
“`We would not make the threat [against Iran] without the force to back it. There has been a recent move, a number of on-the-ground preparations, that indicate Israel's willingness to act,' said another official from Israel's intelligence community.
“He added that it was unlikely that Israel would carry out the attack without receiving at least tacit approval from America...”
Yet much of the hidden history of Iran since the CIA helped the Shah of Iran set up a police state in Iran prior to the 1979 Iranian Revolution still remains unknown to many U.S. voters in 2009.
After opposing the Khomeini regime’s decision to release the U.S. Embassy hostages to the new Reagan Administration (following a failed attempt by the Democratic Carter Administration to “rescue” the U.S. Embassy hostages by sending some U.S. military commandos into Iran) and the Islamic Republic’s press censorship law in January 1981, the People’s Mojahadeen declared its opposition to the Khomeini regime in a June 20, 1981 street march. Twenty young Iranian women People’s Mojahadeen protesters were then arrested by Khomeini’s regime and quickly executed.
In response, the People’s Mojahadeen group bombed the headquarters of the pro-Khomeini Islamic Republican Party [IRP] headquarters on June 28, 1981 and eliminated almost the entire leadership of the Islamic Republican Party, whose members held the majority of seats in the Iranian parliament. By means of an armed uprising the People’s Mojahadeen guerrillas apparently hoped to then overthrow Khomeini’s Islamic Republic in the same way they had helped to previously overthrow the Shah’s regime during the late 1970s.
The Islamic Republic authorities responded to the People’s Mojahadeen armed revolt during Iran’s war with Iraq by quickly executing 100 more of its domestic Iranian political opponents in retaliation for the June 28, 1981 bombing of the Islamic Republican Party’s headquarters. But on August 30, 1981, the People’s Mojahadeen insurgents next bombed the headquarters of the Islamic Republic’s Prime Minister, killing 130 top leaders of the Islamic Republican Party, including Iran’s President and Premier.
In retaliation, 7,746 Iranians were then either executed by the Khomeini regime or killed in clashes with the security forces of the Kohmeini regime by 1984. Of these 7,746 Iranians, 6,221 were members of the People’s Mojahadeen, including 933 women members of the People’s Mojahadeen. (end of part 25)
On April 14, 2009, the World Jewish Congress’s website noted that “Israeli president Shimon Peres has warned that military action against Iran would still be needed if U.S. president Barack Obama’s new diplomatic initiative fails” and “warned that if talks do not soften Ahmadnejad’s approach, ` we will strike him.’…”
And an article by Sheera Frenkel that was posted on the London Times website on April 18, 2009 also stated:
“The Israeli military is preparing itself to launch a massive aerial assault on Iran's nuclear facilities within days of being given the go-ahead by its new government.
“Among the steps taken to ready Israeli forces for what would be a risky raid requiring pinpoint aerial strikes are the acquisition of three Airborne Warning and Control (AWAC) aircraft and regional missions to simulate the attack.
“Two nationwide civil defence drills will help to prepare the public for the retaliation that Israel could face.
“`Israel wants to know that if its forces were given the green light they could strike at Iran in a matter of days, even hours. They are making preparations on every level for this eventuality. The message to Iran is that the threat is not just words,’ one senior defence official told The Times…
“`We would not make the threat [against Iran] without the force to back it. There has been a recent move, a number of on-the-ground preparations, that indicate Israel's willingness to act,' said another official from Israel's intelligence community.
“He added that it was unlikely that Israel would carry out the attack without receiving at least tacit approval from America...”
Yet much of the hidden history of Iran since the CIA helped the Shah of Iran set up a police state in Iran prior to the 1979 Iranian Revolution still remains unknown to many U.S. voters in 2009.
After opposing the Khomeini regime’s decision to release the U.S. Embassy hostages to the new Reagan Administration (following a failed attempt by the Democratic Carter Administration to “rescue” the U.S. Embassy hostages by sending some U.S. military commandos into Iran) and the Islamic Republic’s press censorship law in January 1981, the People’s Mojahadeen declared its opposition to the Khomeini regime in a June 20, 1981 street march. Twenty young Iranian women People’s Mojahadeen protesters were then arrested by Khomeini’s regime and quickly executed.
In response, the People’s Mojahadeen group bombed the headquarters of the pro-Khomeini Islamic Republican Party [IRP] headquarters on June 28, 1981 and eliminated almost the entire leadership of the Islamic Republican Party, whose members held the majority of seats in the Iranian parliament. By means of an armed uprising the People’s Mojahadeen guerrillas apparently hoped to then overthrow Khomeini’s Islamic Republic in the same way they had helped to previously overthrow the Shah’s regime during the late 1970s.
The Islamic Republic authorities responded to the People’s Mojahadeen armed revolt during Iran’s war with Iraq by quickly executing 100 more of its domestic Iranian political opponents in retaliation for the June 28, 1981 bombing of the Islamic Republican Party’s headquarters. But on August 30, 1981, the People’s Mojahadeen insurgents next bombed the headquarters of the Islamic Republic’s Prime Minister, killing 130 top leaders of the Islamic Republican Party, including Iran’s President and Premier.
In retaliation, 7,746 Iranians were then either executed by the Khomeini regime or killed in clashes with the security forces of the Kohmeini regime by 1984. Of these 7,746 Iranians, 6,221 were members of the People’s Mojahadeen, including 933 women members of the People’s Mojahadeen. (end of part 25)
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Iran History Revisited: Part 24
(See parts 1-23 below)
On April 14, 2009, the World Jewish Congress’s website noted that “Israeli president Shimon Peres has warned that military action against Iran would still be needed if U.S. president Barack Obama’s new diplomatic initiative fails” and “warned that if talks do not soften Ahmadnejad’s approach, ` we will strike him.’…”
And an article by Sheera Frenkel that was posted on the London Times website on April 18, 2009 also stated:
“The Israeli military is preparing itself to launch a massive aerial assault on Iran's nuclear facilities within days of being given the go-ahead by its new government.
"Among the steps taken to ready Israeli forces for what would be a risky raid requiring pinpoint aerial strikes are the acquisition of three Airborne Warning and Control (AWAC) aircraft and regional missions to simulate the attack.
“Two nationwide civil defence drills will help to prepare the public for the retaliation that Israel could face.
“`Israel wants to know that if its forces were given the green light they could strike at Iran in a matter of days, even hours. They are making preparations on every level for this eventuality. The message to Iran is that the threat is not just words,’ one senior defence official told The Times…
“`We would not make the threat [against Iran] without the force to back it. There has been a recent move, a number of on-the-ground preparations, that indicate Israel's willingness to act,' said another official from Israel's intelligence community.
“He added that it was unlikely that Israel would carry out the attack without receiving at least tacit approval from America...”
Yet much of the hidden history of Iran since the CIA helped the Shah of Iran set up a police state in Iran prior to the 1979 Iranian Revolution still remains unknown to many U.S. voters in 2009.
On December 1, 1979 the new Islamic Republic’s Constitution was approved by Iranian voters. The Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran of October 24, 1979 (and as later amended on July 28, 1989) does appear to contain many democratic articles. Article 13, for example, guarantees religious freedom and Article 38 prohibits torture. Article 29 guarantees the Iranian people the right to universal health care and Article 31 guarantees the Iranian people their right to housing. Article 79 of the Islamic Republic’s Constitution also prohibits martial law, Article 81 prohibits the granting of economic concessions in Iran to foreign imperialists and Article 146 prohibits the establishment of foreign military bases in Iran.
With respect to freedom of the press rights in Iran, Article 24 of the Islamic Republic’s Constitution guarantees freedom of the press “except when detrimental to fundamental principles of Islam.” And marches and demonstrations are allowed under Article 27 of the Islamic Republic’s Constitution, as long as arms are not carried by demonstrators and the demonstration is “not detrimental to Islamic principles.” Under the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran “the mass-communications media, radio and television, must” also “serve the diffusion of Islamic culture.”
After the Islamic Republic’s Constitution was approved by Iraqi voters, the Islamic Republic’s first Majlis (parliament) of 270 members was subsequently elected in the Summer of 1980. Fifteen percent of the 11 million Iraqi voters chose to vote for People’s Mohjadeen-supported parliamentary candidates.
On September 22, 1980, however, the then-pro-U.S. imperialist Ba’ath Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein launched a military attack on Iran. And the new external Iraqi military threat to Iran’s national security apparently gave Khomeini’s Islamic Republic officials an internal security pretext for restricting democratic rights in post-Shah Iran. (end of part 24)
On April 14, 2009, the World Jewish Congress’s website noted that “Israeli president Shimon Peres has warned that military action against Iran would still be needed if U.S. president Barack Obama’s new diplomatic initiative fails” and “warned that if talks do not soften Ahmadnejad’s approach, ` we will strike him.’…”
And an article by Sheera Frenkel that was posted on the London Times website on April 18, 2009 also stated:
“The Israeli military is preparing itself to launch a massive aerial assault on Iran's nuclear facilities within days of being given the go-ahead by its new government.
"Among the steps taken to ready Israeli forces for what would be a risky raid requiring pinpoint aerial strikes are the acquisition of three Airborne Warning and Control (AWAC) aircraft and regional missions to simulate the attack.
“Two nationwide civil defence drills will help to prepare the public for the retaliation that Israel could face.
“`Israel wants to know that if its forces were given the green light they could strike at Iran in a matter of days, even hours. They are making preparations on every level for this eventuality. The message to Iran is that the threat is not just words,’ one senior defence official told The Times…
“`We would not make the threat [against Iran] without the force to back it. There has been a recent move, a number of on-the-ground preparations, that indicate Israel's willingness to act,' said another official from Israel's intelligence community.
“He added that it was unlikely that Israel would carry out the attack without receiving at least tacit approval from America...”
Yet much of the hidden history of Iran since the CIA helped the Shah of Iran set up a police state in Iran prior to the 1979 Iranian Revolution still remains unknown to many U.S. voters in 2009.
On December 1, 1979 the new Islamic Republic’s Constitution was approved by Iranian voters. The Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran of October 24, 1979 (and as later amended on July 28, 1989) does appear to contain many democratic articles. Article 13, for example, guarantees religious freedom and Article 38 prohibits torture. Article 29 guarantees the Iranian people the right to universal health care and Article 31 guarantees the Iranian people their right to housing. Article 79 of the Islamic Republic’s Constitution also prohibits martial law, Article 81 prohibits the granting of economic concessions in Iran to foreign imperialists and Article 146 prohibits the establishment of foreign military bases in Iran.
With respect to freedom of the press rights in Iran, Article 24 of the Islamic Republic’s Constitution guarantees freedom of the press “except when detrimental to fundamental principles of Islam.” And marches and demonstrations are allowed under Article 27 of the Islamic Republic’s Constitution, as long as arms are not carried by demonstrators and the demonstration is “not detrimental to Islamic principles.” Under the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran “the mass-communications media, radio and television, must” also “serve the diffusion of Islamic culture.”
After the Islamic Republic’s Constitution was approved by Iraqi voters, the Islamic Republic’s first Majlis (parliament) of 270 members was subsequently elected in the Summer of 1980. Fifteen percent of the 11 million Iraqi voters chose to vote for People’s Mohjadeen-supported parliamentary candidates.
On September 22, 1980, however, the then-pro-U.S. imperialist Ba’ath Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein launched a military attack on Iran. And the new external Iraqi military threat to Iran’s national security apparently gave Khomeini’s Islamic Republic officials an internal security pretext for restricting democratic rights in post-Shah Iran. (end of part 24)
Monday, April 20, 2009
Iran History Revisited: Part 23
(See parts 1-22 below)
On April 14, 2009, the World Jewish Congress’s website noted that “Israeli president Shimon Peres has warned that military action against Iran would still be needed if U.S. president Barack Obama’s new diplomatic initiative fails” and “warned that if talks do not soften Ahmadnejad’s approach, ` we will strike him.’…”
And an article by Sheera Frenkel that was posted on the London Times website on April 18, 2009 also stated:
“The Israeli military is preparing itself to launch a massive aerial assault on Iran's nuclear facilities within days of being given the go-ahead by its new government.
"Among the steps taken to ready Israeli forces for what would be a risky raid requiring pinpoint aerial strikes are the acquisition of three Airborne Warning and Control (AWAC) aircraft and regional missions to simulate the attack.
“Two nationwide civil defence drills will help to prepare the public for the retaliation that Israel could face.
“`Israel wants to know that if its forces were given the green light they could strike at Iran in a matter of days, even hours. They are making preparations on every level for this eventuality. The message to Iran is that the threat is not just words,’ one senior defence official told The Times…
“`We would not make the threat [against Iran] without the force to back it. There has been a recent move, a number of on-the-ground preparations, that indicate Israel's willingness to act,” said another official from Israel's intelligence community.
“He added that it was unlikely that Israel would carry out the attack without receiving at least tacit approval from America...”
Yet much of the hidden history of Iran since the CIA helped the Shah of Iran set up a police state in Iran prior to the 1979 Iranian Revolution still remains unknown to many U.S. voters in 2009.
It was the traditional Islamic opposition groups led by the anti-communist religious Iranian Bazaar merchant class and the anti-communist Iranian clerical hierarchy, not the Tudeh Party, the People’s Fedayeen guerrilla group or the People’s Mojahadeen guerrilla group which soon ended up gaining Iranian state power following the collapse of the Shah of Iran’s regime in early 1979.
Led by Ayatollah Khomeini, the traditional Islamic groups were apparently able to gain political power by default because of the absence of mass-based working-class organizations in Iran in the late 1970s and the degree to which the Iranian masses were still strongly religious in 1979. Despite their hatred for the Shah of Iran’s police-state regime and the U.S. government that had installed and backed the Shah’s dictatorial regime, the Iranian masses in 1979 were apparently not willing to now throw their political support behind an effort to establish a new anti-imperialist, secular, democratic, leftist revolutionary regime in Iran.
Almost immediately after the 1979 Revolution in Iran, the People’s Mojahadeen group and the pro-Khomeini Islamic groups began to split apart. Then, in April 1979, a referendum to abolish the Iranian monarchical system of government and set up an Islamic Republic in Iran controlled by Iran’s fundamentalist clerical hierarchy under Ayatollah Khomeini’s leadership was held. Although all the secular Iranian political groups were opposed to the creation of this kind of Sh'ia-led Islamic theocracy (with Khomeini as the supreme and divine authority) within Iran, on the grounds that it would create an undemocratic post-revolutionary Iranian society, an Islamic Republic was soon established in Iran.
Ayatollah Khomeini had initially promised to organize a popularly-elected Constituent Assembly in Iran to draft the Islamic Republic’s new Constitution. But, fearing that a popularly-elected Constituent Assembly in Iran would give some representation to the People’s Mojahadeen group activists who now opposed him politically, Khomeini broke his promise. Instead, the Ayatollah set up a smaller, Islamic clergy-dominated Assembly of Experts which began drafting the Constitution for the Islamic Republic in the summer of 1979.
This new Constitution was completed around ten days before the U.S. Embassy and U.S. Embassy employees in Tehran were taken hostage on November 4, 1979 by young Iranian political activists--who were protesting against the Democratic Carter Administration’s refusal to extradite the [now-deceased] former Shah of Iran back to the new government in Iran to face a post-revolutionary Iranian war crimes tribunal. (end of part 23)
On April 14, 2009, the World Jewish Congress’s website noted that “Israeli president Shimon Peres has warned that military action against Iran would still be needed if U.S. president Barack Obama’s new diplomatic initiative fails” and “warned that if talks do not soften Ahmadnejad’s approach, ` we will strike him.’…”
And an article by Sheera Frenkel that was posted on the London Times website on April 18, 2009 also stated:
“The Israeli military is preparing itself to launch a massive aerial assault on Iran's nuclear facilities within days of being given the go-ahead by its new government.
"Among the steps taken to ready Israeli forces for what would be a risky raid requiring pinpoint aerial strikes are the acquisition of three Airborne Warning and Control (AWAC) aircraft and regional missions to simulate the attack.
“Two nationwide civil defence drills will help to prepare the public for the retaliation that Israel could face.
“`Israel wants to know that if its forces were given the green light they could strike at Iran in a matter of days, even hours. They are making preparations on every level for this eventuality. The message to Iran is that the threat is not just words,’ one senior defence official told The Times…
“`We would not make the threat [against Iran] without the force to back it. There has been a recent move, a number of on-the-ground preparations, that indicate Israel's willingness to act,” said another official from Israel's intelligence community.
“He added that it was unlikely that Israel would carry out the attack without receiving at least tacit approval from America...”
Yet much of the hidden history of Iran since the CIA helped the Shah of Iran set up a police state in Iran prior to the 1979 Iranian Revolution still remains unknown to many U.S. voters in 2009.
It was the traditional Islamic opposition groups led by the anti-communist religious Iranian Bazaar merchant class and the anti-communist Iranian clerical hierarchy, not the Tudeh Party, the People’s Fedayeen guerrilla group or the People’s Mojahadeen guerrilla group which soon ended up gaining Iranian state power following the collapse of the Shah of Iran’s regime in early 1979.
Led by Ayatollah Khomeini, the traditional Islamic groups were apparently able to gain political power by default because of the absence of mass-based working-class organizations in Iran in the late 1970s and the degree to which the Iranian masses were still strongly religious in 1979. Despite their hatred for the Shah of Iran’s police-state regime and the U.S. government that had installed and backed the Shah’s dictatorial regime, the Iranian masses in 1979 were apparently not willing to now throw their political support behind an effort to establish a new anti-imperialist, secular, democratic, leftist revolutionary regime in Iran.
Almost immediately after the 1979 Revolution in Iran, the People’s Mojahadeen group and the pro-Khomeini Islamic groups began to split apart. Then, in April 1979, a referendum to abolish the Iranian monarchical system of government and set up an Islamic Republic in Iran controlled by Iran’s fundamentalist clerical hierarchy under Ayatollah Khomeini’s leadership was held. Although all the secular Iranian political groups were opposed to the creation of this kind of Sh'ia-led Islamic theocracy (with Khomeini as the supreme and divine authority) within Iran, on the grounds that it would create an undemocratic post-revolutionary Iranian society, an Islamic Republic was soon established in Iran.
Ayatollah Khomeini had initially promised to organize a popularly-elected Constituent Assembly in Iran to draft the Islamic Republic’s new Constitution. But, fearing that a popularly-elected Constituent Assembly in Iran would give some representation to the People’s Mojahadeen group activists who now opposed him politically, Khomeini broke his promise. Instead, the Ayatollah set up a smaller, Islamic clergy-dominated Assembly of Experts which began drafting the Constitution for the Islamic Republic in the summer of 1979.
This new Constitution was completed around ten days before the U.S. Embassy and U.S. Embassy employees in Tehran were taken hostage on November 4, 1979 by young Iranian political activists--who were protesting against the Democratic Carter Administration’s refusal to extradite the [now-deceased] former Shah of Iran back to the new government in Iran to face a post-revolutionary Iranian war crimes tribunal. (end of part 23)
Sunday, April 19, 2009
Iran History Revisited: Part 22
(See parts 1-21 below)
On April 14, 2009, the World Jewish Congress’s website noted that “Israeli president Shimon Peres has warned that military action against Iran would still be needed if U.S. president Barack Obama’s new diplomatic initiative fails” and “warned that if talks do not soften Ahmadnejad’s approach, ` we will strike him.’…”
And an article by Sheera Frenkel that was posted on the London Times web site on April 18, 2009 also stated:
“The Israeli military is preparing itself to launch a massive aerial assault on Iran's nuclear facilities within days of being given the go-ahead by its new government.
"Among the steps taken to ready Israeli forces for what would be a risky raid requiring pinpoint aerial strikes are the acquisition of three Airborne Warning and Control (AWAC) aircraft and regional missions to simulate the attack.
“Two nationwide civil defence drills will help to prepare the public for the retaliation that Israel could face.
“`Israel wants to know that if its forces were given the green light they could strike at Iran in a matter of days, even hours. They are making preparations on every level for this eventuality. The message to Iran is that the threat is not just words,’ one senior defence official told The Times…
“`We would not make the threat [against Iran] without the force to back it. There has been a recent move, a number of on-the-ground preparations, that indicate Israel's willingness to act,” said another official from Israel's intelligence community.
“He added that it was unlikely that Israel would carry out the attack without receiving at least tacit approval from America...”
Yet much of the hidden history of Iran since the CIA helped the Shah of Iran set up a police state in Iran prior to the 1979 Iranian Revolution still remains unknown to many U.S. voters in 2009.
The preamble to the October 24, 1979 Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran described how the people of Iran were able to create the 1979 Iranian Revolution:
“….The employees of all government establishments took an active part in the effort to overthrow the tyrannical regime by calling a general strike and participating in street demonstrations. The wide-spread solidarity of men and women of all segments of society and of all political and religious factions, played a clearly determining role in the struggle. Especially the women were actively and massively present in the most conspicuous manner at all stages of this great struggle. The common sight of mothers with infants in their arms rushing towards the scene of battle and in front of the barrels of machineguns indicated the essential and decisive role played by this major segment of society in the struggle.”
In response to the large pro-democratization demonstrations in Iran in 1978, the Shah of Iran’s regime also agreed to release some of its Iranian political prisoners before it finally collapsed on February 12, 1979. About 200 members of the People’s Mojahadeen group, for example, were released from prison in the summer of 1978, while another 700 People’s Mojahadeen members were allowed to return to Iran from exile at the same time. By the time the mass demonstrations and general strike had finally succeeded in bringing down the Shah of Iran’s government, about 3,000 to 5,000 Iranian activists were now members of the People’s Mojahadeen group. (end of part 22)
On April 14, 2009, the World Jewish Congress’s website noted that “Israeli president Shimon Peres has warned that military action against Iran would still be needed if U.S. president Barack Obama’s new diplomatic initiative fails” and “warned that if talks do not soften Ahmadnejad’s approach, ` we will strike him.’…”
And an article by Sheera Frenkel that was posted on the London Times web site on April 18, 2009 also stated:
“The Israeli military is preparing itself to launch a massive aerial assault on Iran's nuclear facilities within days of being given the go-ahead by its new government.
"Among the steps taken to ready Israeli forces for what would be a risky raid requiring pinpoint aerial strikes are the acquisition of three Airborne Warning and Control (AWAC) aircraft and regional missions to simulate the attack.
“Two nationwide civil defence drills will help to prepare the public for the retaliation that Israel could face.
“`Israel wants to know that if its forces were given the green light they could strike at Iran in a matter of days, even hours. They are making preparations on every level for this eventuality. The message to Iran is that the threat is not just words,’ one senior defence official told The Times…
“`We would not make the threat [against Iran] without the force to back it. There has been a recent move, a number of on-the-ground preparations, that indicate Israel's willingness to act,” said another official from Israel's intelligence community.
“He added that it was unlikely that Israel would carry out the attack without receiving at least tacit approval from America...”
Yet much of the hidden history of Iran since the CIA helped the Shah of Iran set up a police state in Iran prior to the 1979 Iranian Revolution still remains unknown to many U.S. voters in 2009.
The preamble to the October 24, 1979 Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran described how the people of Iran were able to create the 1979 Iranian Revolution:
“….The employees of all government establishments took an active part in the effort to overthrow the tyrannical regime by calling a general strike and participating in street demonstrations. The wide-spread solidarity of men and women of all segments of society and of all political and religious factions, played a clearly determining role in the struggle. Especially the women were actively and massively present in the most conspicuous manner at all stages of this great struggle. The common sight of mothers with infants in their arms rushing towards the scene of battle and in front of the barrels of machineguns indicated the essential and decisive role played by this major segment of society in the struggle.”
In response to the large pro-democratization demonstrations in Iran in 1978, the Shah of Iran’s regime also agreed to release some of its Iranian political prisoners before it finally collapsed on February 12, 1979. About 200 members of the People’s Mojahadeen group, for example, were released from prison in the summer of 1978, while another 700 People’s Mojahadeen members were allowed to return to Iran from exile at the same time. By the time the mass demonstrations and general strike had finally succeeded in bringing down the Shah of Iran’s government, about 3,000 to 5,000 Iranian activists were now members of the People’s Mojahadeen group. (end of part 22)
Saturday, April 18, 2009
Iran History Revisited: Part 21
(See parts 1-20 below)
On April 14, 2009, the World Jewish Congress’s website noted that “Israeli president Shimon Peres has warned that military action against Iran would still be needed if U.S. president Barack Obama’s new diplomatic initiative fails” and “warned that if talks do not soften Ahmadnejad’s approach, ` we will strike him.’…”
And an article by Sheera Frenkel that was posted on the London Times website on April 18, 2009 also stated:
“The Israeli military is preparing itself to launch a massive aerial assault on Iran's nuclear facilities within days of being given the go-ahead by its new government.
"Among the steps taken to ready Israeli forces for what would be a risky raid requiring pinpoint aerial strikes are the acquisition of three Airborne Warning and Control (AWAC) aircraft and regional missions to simulate the attack.
“Two nationwide civil defence drills will help to prepare the public for the retaliation that Israel could face.
“`Israel wants to know that if its forces were given the green light they could strike at Iran in a matter of days, even hours. They are making preparations on every level for this eventuality. The message to Iran is that the threat is not just words,’ one senior defence official told The Times…
“`We would not make the threat [against Iran] without the force to back it. There has been a recent move, a number of on-the-ground preparations, that indicate Israel's willingness to act,' said another official from Israel's intelligence community.
“He added that it was unlikely that Israel would carry out the attack without receiving at least tacit approval from America...”
Yet much of the hidden history of Iran since the CIA helped the Shah of Iran set up a police state in Iran prior to the 1979 Iranian Revolution still remains unknown to many U.S. voters in 2009.
Abroad, during the late 1960s and 1970s, Iranian students who were members of the Confederation of Iranian Students, which had been founded in the mid-1960s, also organized protests against the U.S.-backed Shah of Iran’s dictatorial regime. When the Shah of Iran's wife, Empress Farah Pahlavi, was awarded a Columbia University presidential citation by former Columbia University President (and former member of the Texaco oil company board of directors) William McGill in July 1977, for example,, a large anti-Shah protest in Manhattan led by foreign students from Iran who wore masks (to avoid being identified by SAVAK agents) was organized by the Confederation of Iranian Students’ local members.
Mass opposition in Iran to the Shah of Iran’s dictatorial regime grew rapidly during the late 1970s. Yet the Democratic Carter Administration continued to provide support for the Shah of Iran’s regime during 1978, when the Shah of Iran tried to retain political power in Iran by ordering his troops to shoot down unarmed Iranian civilian demonstrators who dared to protest against his pro-imperialist Iranian police state.
Over 60,000 Iranian civilian demonstrators were killed and about 100,000 Iranian civilian demonstrators were wounded and disabled in 1978 by the Shah of Iran’s troops before the people of Iran were finally able to overthrow the Shah of Iran’s regime on February 12, 1979. (end of part 21)
On April 14, 2009, the World Jewish Congress’s website noted that “Israeli president Shimon Peres has warned that military action against Iran would still be needed if U.S. president Barack Obama’s new diplomatic initiative fails” and “warned that if talks do not soften Ahmadnejad’s approach, ` we will strike him.’…”
And an article by Sheera Frenkel that was posted on the London Times website on April 18, 2009 also stated:
“The Israeli military is preparing itself to launch a massive aerial assault on Iran's nuclear facilities within days of being given the go-ahead by its new government.
"Among the steps taken to ready Israeli forces for what would be a risky raid requiring pinpoint aerial strikes are the acquisition of three Airborne Warning and Control (AWAC) aircraft and regional missions to simulate the attack.
“Two nationwide civil defence drills will help to prepare the public for the retaliation that Israel could face.
“`Israel wants to know that if its forces were given the green light they could strike at Iran in a matter of days, even hours. They are making preparations on every level for this eventuality. The message to Iran is that the threat is not just words,’ one senior defence official told The Times…
“`We would not make the threat [against Iran] without the force to back it. There has been a recent move, a number of on-the-ground preparations, that indicate Israel's willingness to act,' said another official from Israel's intelligence community.
“He added that it was unlikely that Israel would carry out the attack without receiving at least tacit approval from America...”
Yet much of the hidden history of Iran since the CIA helped the Shah of Iran set up a police state in Iran prior to the 1979 Iranian Revolution still remains unknown to many U.S. voters in 2009.
Abroad, during the late 1960s and 1970s, Iranian students who were members of the Confederation of Iranian Students, which had been founded in the mid-1960s, also organized protests against the U.S.-backed Shah of Iran’s dictatorial regime. When the Shah of Iran's wife, Empress Farah Pahlavi, was awarded a Columbia University presidential citation by former Columbia University President (and former member of the Texaco oil company board of directors) William McGill in July 1977, for example,, a large anti-Shah protest in Manhattan led by foreign students from Iran who wore masks (to avoid being identified by SAVAK agents) was organized by the Confederation of Iranian Students’ local members.
Mass opposition in Iran to the Shah of Iran’s dictatorial regime grew rapidly during the late 1970s. Yet the Democratic Carter Administration continued to provide support for the Shah of Iran’s regime during 1978, when the Shah of Iran tried to retain political power in Iran by ordering his troops to shoot down unarmed Iranian civilian demonstrators who dared to protest against his pro-imperialist Iranian police state.
Over 60,000 Iranian civilian demonstrators were killed and about 100,000 Iranian civilian demonstrators were wounded and disabled in 1978 by the Shah of Iran’s troops before the people of Iran were finally able to overthrow the Shah of Iran’s regime on February 12, 1979. (end of part 21)
Friday, April 17, 2009
Iran History Revisited: Part 20
(See parts 1-19 below)
In an article, titled “Iran—Ready To Attack,” that appeared in the February 19, 2007 issue of New Statesman magazine, Dan Plesch observed that “American preparations for invading Iran are complete.” The New Statesman also reported that “what was done to Serbia and Lebanon can be done overnight to the whole of Iran,” but “we, and probably the Iranians, would not know about it until after the bombs fell.”
And on April 14, 2009, the World Jewish Congress’s website noted that “Israeli president Shimon Peres has warned that military action against Iran would still be needed if U.S. president Barack Obama’s new diplomatic initiative fails” and “warned that if talks do not soften Ahmadnejad’s approach, ` we will strike him.’…”
Yet much of the hidden history of Iran since the CIA helped the Shah of Iran set up a police state in Iran prior to the 1979 Iranian Revolution still remains unknown to many U.S. voters in 2009.
After 1965, an Iranian New Left of younger Iranian activists developed which worked for the overthrow of the Shah of Iran’s U.S.-backed dictatorship. Influenced by the Cuban Revolution, the Chinese Revolution and the Vietnamese Revolution, two New Left groups were formed in Iran which waged guerrilla warfare against the Shah of Iran’s regime between 1966 and 1978: The People’s Fedayeen and the People’s Mojahadeen.
Formed by defectors from the outlawed Tudeh Party’s youth group, in 1963 the People’s Fedayeen group was secular and Marxist-Leninist in its political orientation. Its founder, Bijan Jazani and three other former Tudeh Party Youth organization activists, had met while in prison in 1955. In 1966, Bijan Jazani and other People’s Fedayeen leaders concluded that the Shah of Iran regime’s limited land reform program had changed Iranian society internally from one dominated by feudalist Iranian landlords to one dominated by pro-imperialist Iranian businesspeople.
In 1968, the original New Left leaders of the People’s Fedayeen were arrested by the Shah of Iran’s secret police, the CIA-trained SAVAK, and sentenced to a long period of imprisonment. During the 1970s, Bijan Jazani was, subsequently, executed in Iran’s Evin Prison by the Shah of Iran’s regime. Other People’s Fedayeen leaders, like Hassan Zarif and Aziz Sarmedi, were also murdered while in prison by the Shah of Iran’s regime in the 1970s.
Despite the imprisonment and repression of its leaders, however, between 1971 and 1978 membership in the People’s Fedayeen guerrilla group grew to around 2,175. And prior to the early 1979 overthrow of the Shah’s regime, the People’s Fedayeen organized politically effective strike committees in Iran.
The founders of the religiously-oriented People’s Mojahedeen guerrilla group were former members of the non-communist National Front. Its leaders concluded in a 1969 position paper that under the Shah of Iran’s regime:
“Iran was essentially a police state where the armed forces constituted the ultimate power base. The strength and political stability of the regime was based on the effective functioning of its security bases, which were directed by the American Central Intelligence Agency.”
Given this 1969 political analysis’ conclusion, the People’s Mojahadeen group, not surprisingly, decided that the only way to establish a democratic, Islamic-oriented society in Iran was to begin urban guerrilla warfare against the Shah of Iran’s regime in 1970.
Unlike the People’s Mojahadeen, the People’s Fedayeen generally waged guerrilla warfare in rural areas of Iran, not in Iran’s cities. But both the People’s Fedayeen and the People’s Mojahadeen guerrilla groups held U.S. imperialist government policies responsible for the political repression and mass poverty that existed in Iran under the Shah’s regime. (end of part 20)
In an article, titled “Iran—Ready To Attack,” that appeared in the February 19, 2007 issue of New Statesman magazine, Dan Plesch observed that “American preparations for invading Iran are complete.” The New Statesman also reported that “what was done to Serbia and Lebanon can be done overnight to the whole of Iran,” but “we, and probably the Iranians, would not know about it until after the bombs fell.”
And on April 14, 2009, the World Jewish Congress’s website noted that “Israeli president Shimon Peres has warned that military action against Iran would still be needed if U.S. president Barack Obama’s new diplomatic initiative fails” and “warned that if talks do not soften Ahmadnejad’s approach, ` we will strike him.’…”
Yet much of the hidden history of Iran since the CIA helped the Shah of Iran set up a police state in Iran prior to the 1979 Iranian Revolution still remains unknown to many U.S. voters in 2009.
After 1965, an Iranian New Left of younger Iranian activists developed which worked for the overthrow of the Shah of Iran’s U.S.-backed dictatorship. Influenced by the Cuban Revolution, the Chinese Revolution and the Vietnamese Revolution, two New Left groups were formed in Iran which waged guerrilla warfare against the Shah of Iran’s regime between 1966 and 1978: The People’s Fedayeen and the People’s Mojahadeen.
Formed by defectors from the outlawed Tudeh Party’s youth group, in 1963 the People’s Fedayeen group was secular and Marxist-Leninist in its political orientation. Its founder, Bijan Jazani and three other former Tudeh Party Youth organization activists, had met while in prison in 1955. In 1966, Bijan Jazani and other People’s Fedayeen leaders concluded that the Shah of Iran regime’s limited land reform program had changed Iranian society internally from one dominated by feudalist Iranian landlords to one dominated by pro-imperialist Iranian businesspeople.
In 1968, the original New Left leaders of the People’s Fedayeen were arrested by the Shah of Iran’s secret police, the CIA-trained SAVAK, and sentenced to a long period of imprisonment. During the 1970s, Bijan Jazani was, subsequently, executed in Iran’s Evin Prison by the Shah of Iran’s regime. Other People’s Fedayeen leaders, like Hassan Zarif and Aziz Sarmedi, were also murdered while in prison by the Shah of Iran’s regime in the 1970s.
Despite the imprisonment and repression of its leaders, however, between 1971 and 1978 membership in the People’s Fedayeen guerrilla group grew to around 2,175. And prior to the early 1979 overthrow of the Shah’s regime, the People’s Fedayeen organized politically effective strike committees in Iran.
The founders of the religiously-oriented People’s Mojahedeen guerrilla group were former members of the non-communist National Front. Its leaders concluded in a 1969 position paper that under the Shah of Iran’s regime:
“Iran was essentially a police state where the armed forces constituted the ultimate power base. The strength and political stability of the regime was based on the effective functioning of its security bases, which were directed by the American Central Intelligence Agency.”
Given this 1969 political analysis’ conclusion, the People’s Mojahadeen group, not surprisingly, decided that the only way to establish a democratic, Islamic-oriented society in Iran was to begin urban guerrilla warfare against the Shah of Iran’s regime in 1970.
Unlike the People’s Mojahadeen, the People’s Fedayeen generally waged guerrilla warfare in rural areas of Iran, not in Iran’s cities. But both the People’s Fedayeen and the People’s Mojahadeen guerrilla groups held U.S. imperialist government policies responsible for the political repression and mass poverty that existed in Iran under the Shah’s regime. (end of part 20)
Thursday, April 16, 2009
Iran History Revisited: Part 19
(See parts 1-18 below)
In an article, titled “Iran—Ready To Attack,” that appeared in the February 19, 2007 issue of New Statesman magazine, Dan Plesch observed that “American preparations for invading Iran are complete.” The New Statesman also reported that “what was done to Serbia and Lebanon can be done overnight to the whole of Iran,” but “we, and probably the Iranians, would not know about it until after the bombs fell.”
And on April 14, 2009, the World Jewish Congress’s website noted that “Israeli president Shimon Peres has warned that military action against Iran would still be needed if U.S. president Barack Obama’s new diplomatic initiative fails” and “warned that if talks do not soften Ahmadnejad’s approach, ` we will strike him.’…”
Yet much of the hidden history of Iran since the CIA helped the Shah of Iran set up a police state in Iran prior to the 1979 Iranian Revolution still remains unknown to many U.S. voters in 2009.
To try to decrease the growing popular support for both the legal National Front and the illegal Tudeh Party among Iranian’s landless peasants in the early 1960s, the Shah of Iran’s regime finally instituted a limited land redistribution program. The Shah of Iran’s regime also finally proposed in the early 1960s that Iranian women be allowed to vote in Iranian elections.
In response to both the Shah’s land reform program and the proposal that Iranian women be allowed to vote, as well as to the dictatorial and pro-imperialist nature of the Shah’s regime, however, a widespread religious uprising against the Shah’s regime, led by the traditional Islamic opposition groups who were influenced most by Ayatollah Rouhollah Khomeini, broke out in June 1963. After three days of rioting, this 1963 religious uprising in Iran was crushed by the Shah of Iran’s military in a brutal way, with 600 protesting Iranians killed and 2,000 Iranian demonstrators injured by the Shah’s troops.
Following this June 1963 religious uprising, Khomeini was arrested and then exiled in 1964, first to Turkey and then to Iraq. In addition, the National Front opposition group was again banned by the Shah of Iran’s regime between 1963 and 1978. At the same time, the repression of the underground Tudeh Party activists in Iran continued. As Sepehr Zabith observed in his 1986 book The Left in Contemporary Iran:
“The Pahlavi regime’s suppression of the Tudeh Party was more severe than that of the National Front. While the latter’s activists received short-term imprisonment or were forced into exile (with the exception of Hossein Fatem, who was executed), the regime showed no mercy for Tudeh Party activists or those affiliated with their organization. Forty-two of its prominent leaders—mostly officers—were shot, 14 were tortured to death, and another 200 were sentenced to life imprisonment. Moreover, SAVAK continued to bear down mercilessly on the Tudeh members even after the party ceased to be a major threat.”
Iranian dissidents in the 1970s estimated that between 25,000 and 100,000 Iranians were held as political prisoners in Iran between 1963 and 1978 during the period in which the Shah of Iran’s police-state regime ruled Iran. (end of part 19)
In an article, titled “Iran—Ready To Attack,” that appeared in the February 19, 2007 issue of New Statesman magazine, Dan Plesch observed that “American preparations for invading Iran are complete.” The New Statesman also reported that “what was done to Serbia and Lebanon can be done overnight to the whole of Iran,” but “we, and probably the Iranians, would not know about it until after the bombs fell.”
And on April 14, 2009, the World Jewish Congress’s website noted that “Israeli president Shimon Peres has warned that military action against Iran would still be needed if U.S. president Barack Obama’s new diplomatic initiative fails” and “warned that if talks do not soften Ahmadnejad’s approach, ` we will strike him.’…”
Yet much of the hidden history of Iran since the CIA helped the Shah of Iran set up a police state in Iran prior to the 1979 Iranian Revolution still remains unknown to many U.S. voters in 2009.
To try to decrease the growing popular support for both the legal National Front and the illegal Tudeh Party among Iranian’s landless peasants in the early 1960s, the Shah of Iran’s regime finally instituted a limited land redistribution program. The Shah of Iran’s regime also finally proposed in the early 1960s that Iranian women be allowed to vote in Iranian elections.
In response to both the Shah’s land reform program and the proposal that Iranian women be allowed to vote, as well as to the dictatorial and pro-imperialist nature of the Shah’s regime, however, a widespread religious uprising against the Shah’s regime, led by the traditional Islamic opposition groups who were influenced most by Ayatollah Rouhollah Khomeini, broke out in June 1963. After three days of rioting, this 1963 religious uprising in Iran was crushed by the Shah of Iran’s military in a brutal way, with 600 protesting Iranians killed and 2,000 Iranian demonstrators injured by the Shah’s troops.
Following this June 1963 religious uprising, Khomeini was arrested and then exiled in 1964, first to Turkey and then to Iraq. In addition, the National Front opposition group was again banned by the Shah of Iran’s regime between 1963 and 1978. At the same time, the repression of the underground Tudeh Party activists in Iran continued. As Sepehr Zabith observed in his 1986 book The Left in Contemporary Iran:
“The Pahlavi regime’s suppression of the Tudeh Party was more severe than that of the National Front. While the latter’s activists received short-term imprisonment or were forced into exile (with the exception of Hossein Fatem, who was executed), the regime showed no mercy for Tudeh Party activists or those affiliated with their organization. Forty-two of its prominent leaders—mostly officers—were shot, 14 were tortured to death, and another 200 were sentenced to life imprisonment. Moreover, SAVAK continued to bear down mercilessly on the Tudeh members even after the party ceased to be a major threat.”
Iranian dissidents in the 1970s estimated that between 25,000 and 100,000 Iranians were held as political prisoners in Iran between 1963 and 1978 during the period in which the Shah of Iran’s police-state regime ruled Iran. (end of part 19)
Obama's $1.7 Million "Bookgate Scandal" Contract Revisited
Most people in the United States don't believe it's democratic for a German media conglomerate like Bertelsmann AG to monopolize control over the U.S. book publishing industry. Yet Democratic President Barack Obama still apparently has no program for reducing foreign corporate control of the U.S. book publishing industry and other U.S. media industries.
One reason Obama might not want to propose that U.S. anti-trust laws be enforced against German media monopoly conglomerates like Bertelsmann AG is that between Election Day 2004 and his swearing in as a Senator in 2005, Obama was given a $1.7 million two-book contract by the Random House/Crown Publishers/Alfred Knopf subsidiary division of Bertelsmann AG. By signing his lucrative book contract with the German media conglomerate's U.S. subsidiary before officially taking his seat in the U.S. Senate, Obama did not fall under various requirements for disclosure and reporting that applies to members of Congress who accept money from U.S. media conglomerates.
Like many U.S. Establishment politicians and U.S. television news correspondents and talk show hosts, Obama's 2004 book deal with the Bertelsmann AG subsidiary was arranged by Robert B. Barnett of the Washington, D.C. law firm, Williams & Connolly. Besides representing the special financial interests of U.S. Establishment politicians and U.S. television correspondents, Williams & Connolly lawyer Robert B. Barnett also represents the special interests of German corporations like Deutsche Bank and has coached Democratic Party presidential candidates before presidential debates since the 1980s.
As long ago as the 1990s, the Bertelsmann media conglomerate was the world's largest book publisher and the second-largest U.S. publisher. In 1981, Bertelsmann purchased Bantam Books and, in 1986, Bertelsmann took control of Doubleday and RCA Records. Its U.S. property by the early 1990s also included eight U.S. printing plants, Doubleday Book Shops in New York City and elsewhere, Dell Publishing, Arista Records and "Parents Magazine."
During the early 1990s, the administration of New York City's first African-American Mayor, a Democrat named David Dinkins, gave a $10.8 million special tax break to Bertelsmann AG when it purchased a 44-story Manhattan skyscraper for $119 million in March 1992.
Bertelsmann AG has been owned for many years by the family of Reinhard Mohn, who was a member of the Third Reich's Afrika Korps during World War II; and the same German firm published books for the Nazi regime in Germany between 1933 and 1945. During the early 1990s, the Mohn family still owned about 69 percent of the Bertelsmann/Doubleday/Bantam Books/Dell Publishers/Random House/Crown Publishers foreign-based media monopoly.
In his 2004 book The New Media Monopoly, Ben Bagdikian made the following reference to the German media conglomerate whose U.S. subsidiary gave President Obama a lucrative “book contract”:
“Like the other members of the Big Five that dominate the American media world, Bertelsmann’s list of media companies is lengthy. It requires nine typed pages. Thirty percent of its holdings are in the United States, bringing from this source alone $63 billion annually.
“Most of Bertelsmann’s eighty-two book subsidiaries were once freestanding, independent publishing houses, some of them household words not so many years ago—Alfred Knopf, Pantheon, Random House, Ballantine, Bantam, Crown, Doubleday, and Modern Library…
“With all its power, Bertelsmann is haunted by a ghost…
“…German sociologist Hersch Fischler discovered that, during the war, Bertelsmann had, in fact, been the largest publisher under Hitler. Among its 19 million books, it had large contracts from the Nazi Propaganda Ministry, including anti-Semitic tracts supporting Hitler’s insistence that Germans needed to take over central and western Europe…
“…Some board members and executives have been restive over Mrs. Mohn’s increasing power in replacing three executives and her appointing two of her three sons to operating influence within the giant firm…”
But don't hold your breath waiting for the stable of U.S. politicians who are represented by the Williams & Connolly corporate law firm to finally introduce some legislation to democratize power within the foreign-controlled U.S. book publishing industry in 2009 to insure that U.S. anti-trust laws are finally enforced within the U.S. mass media industry world.
An article by a Peter Osnos that was posted on The Century Foundation’s website (http://www.tcf.org/list.asp?type=NC&pubid=1425 ) on October 30, 2006 characterized Democratic President Obama’s 2004 book deal in the following way:
“…Here, as an indicator of how Obama operates in a practical realm, is the way he came to terms with the book business. In the process, he displayed ambition, real talent, luck, ruthlessness, and, in my view, questionable judgment about using public service as a personal payday.
“At Harvard Law School in February, 1990, Obama was elected president of the law review, and the New York Times did a profile of him as the first black leader of the publication. The article caught the attention of a young literary agent named Jane Dystel. A book proposal by Obama about his life was submitted to publishers and a deal was reached with Poseidon, a small imprint of Simon & Schuster, for what is known in the industry as “six figures” (about $125,000, I am told). Several years passed and Obama was too busy finishing law school and embarking on his career to get the book done. Simon & Schuster canceled the contract, which probably meant that Obama had to pay back at least some of what he had received of the advance.
“Dystel approached Henry Ferris, then a senior editor of Times Book at Random House. Ferris and I, as publisher, met with Obama, found his story fascinating, and believed he would finish the book. We paid an advance of $40,000.
“In June 1995, Dreams of My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance was published. .. The book…sold about 10,000 copies…Times Books licensed the paperback rights to Kodansha, a Japanese publisher that was doing a series of multi-cultural books in the U.S. market. Eventually, Kodansha closed and the rights went back to Random House. When the Times Books franchise was sold to Holtzbrinck, all its inventory, including Dreams of My Father, became the property of Random House’s Crown Books Division.
“…When Obama was selected to be the keynote speaker at the Democratic Convention in Boston, Dystel, who had stayed in touch with Obama, had the idea of reclaiming rights to the book and reselling it. But an alert editor at Crown had already spotted it on the proverbial shelf and it was quickly reissued in paperback…A rough guess as to the royalties the book has earned from all its versions…is about $1 million….
“Now comes the part in which Obama showed a steely side and displayed an element of character which, while completely legal and entirely within his rights as a writer, makes me uneasy. Everyone agrees that our political system and values are being corroded by money. One subset of the cash culture is that public figures use books funded by large media companies to support a lifestyle that is possible only because their service to the country makes them salable. Generals Tommy Franks and Norman Schwarzkopf came home from their Persian Gulf stints and took about $5 million each to write about their triumphs. Bill and Hillary Clinton earned tens of millions of dollars telling the stories of their lives in the White House. As soon as Newt Gingrich led the GOP to a 1994 takeover of the House of Representatives, he signed a $4 million contract with Rupert Murdoch–owned HarperCollins. Revelation of the deal backfired on Gingrich. Eventually, he took $1 and royalties on copies sold. But the episode made Gingrich a target on ethics issues…
“Between Election Day 2004 and his swearing in as a Senator, Obama signed a two-book deal with Crown for “seven figures” (probably somewhere in the vicinity of $1.5–$2.0 million). By signing the contract before taking office, which Hillary Clinton also did on her book deal, Obama does not fall under various requirements for disclosure and reporting…”
One reason Obama might not want to propose that U.S. anti-trust laws be enforced against German media monopoly conglomerates like Bertelsmann AG is that between Election Day 2004 and his swearing in as a Senator in 2005, Obama was given a $1.7 million two-book contract by the Random House/Crown Publishers/Alfred Knopf subsidiary division of Bertelsmann AG. By signing his lucrative book contract with the German media conglomerate's U.S. subsidiary before officially taking his seat in the U.S. Senate, Obama did not fall under various requirements for disclosure and reporting that applies to members of Congress who accept money from U.S. media conglomerates.
Like many U.S. Establishment politicians and U.S. television news correspondents and talk show hosts, Obama's 2004 book deal with the Bertelsmann AG subsidiary was arranged by Robert B. Barnett of the Washington, D.C. law firm, Williams & Connolly. Besides representing the special financial interests of U.S. Establishment politicians and U.S. television correspondents, Williams & Connolly lawyer Robert B. Barnett also represents the special interests of German corporations like Deutsche Bank and has coached Democratic Party presidential candidates before presidential debates since the 1980s.
As long ago as the 1990s, the Bertelsmann media conglomerate was the world's largest book publisher and the second-largest U.S. publisher. In 1981, Bertelsmann purchased Bantam Books and, in 1986, Bertelsmann took control of Doubleday and RCA Records. Its U.S. property by the early 1990s also included eight U.S. printing plants, Doubleday Book Shops in New York City and elsewhere, Dell Publishing, Arista Records and "Parents Magazine."
During the early 1990s, the administration of New York City's first African-American Mayor, a Democrat named David Dinkins, gave a $10.8 million special tax break to Bertelsmann AG when it purchased a 44-story Manhattan skyscraper for $119 million in March 1992.
Bertelsmann AG has been owned for many years by the family of Reinhard Mohn, who was a member of the Third Reich's Afrika Korps during World War II; and the same German firm published books for the Nazi regime in Germany between 1933 and 1945. During the early 1990s, the Mohn family still owned about 69 percent of the Bertelsmann/Doubleday/Bantam Books/Dell Publishers/Random House/Crown Publishers foreign-based media monopoly.
In his 2004 book The New Media Monopoly, Ben Bagdikian made the following reference to the German media conglomerate whose U.S. subsidiary gave President Obama a lucrative “book contract”:
“Like the other members of the Big Five that dominate the American media world, Bertelsmann’s list of media companies is lengthy. It requires nine typed pages. Thirty percent of its holdings are in the United States, bringing from this source alone $63 billion annually.
“Most of Bertelsmann’s eighty-two book subsidiaries were once freestanding, independent publishing houses, some of them household words not so many years ago—Alfred Knopf, Pantheon, Random House, Ballantine, Bantam, Crown, Doubleday, and Modern Library…
“With all its power, Bertelsmann is haunted by a ghost…
“…German sociologist Hersch Fischler discovered that, during the war, Bertelsmann had, in fact, been the largest publisher under Hitler. Among its 19 million books, it had large contracts from the Nazi Propaganda Ministry, including anti-Semitic tracts supporting Hitler’s insistence that Germans needed to take over central and western Europe…
“…Some board members and executives have been restive over Mrs. Mohn’s increasing power in replacing three executives and her appointing two of her three sons to operating influence within the giant firm…”
But don't hold your breath waiting for the stable of U.S. politicians who are represented by the Williams & Connolly corporate law firm to finally introduce some legislation to democratize power within the foreign-controlled U.S. book publishing industry in 2009 to insure that U.S. anti-trust laws are finally enforced within the U.S. mass media industry world.
An article by a Peter Osnos that was posted on The Century Foundation’s website (http://www.tcf.org/list.asp?type=NC&pubid=1425 ) on October 30, 2006 characterized Democratic President Obama’s 2004 book deal in the following way:
“…Here, as an indicator of how Obama operates in a practical realm, is the way he came to terms with the book business. In the process, he displayed ambition, real talent, luck, ruthlessness, and, in my view, questionable judgment about using public service as a personal payday.
“At Harvard Law School in February, 1990, Obama was elected president of the law review, and the New York Times did a profile of him as the first black leader of the publication. The article caught the attention of a young literary agent named Jane Dystel. A book proposal by Obama about his life was submitted to publishers and a deal was reached with Poseidon, a small imprint of Simon & Schuster, for what is known in the industry as “six figures” (about $125,000, I am told). Several years passed and Obama was too busy finishing law school and embarking on his career to get the book done. Simon & Schuster canceled the contract, which probably meant that Obama had to pay back at least some of what he had received of the advance.
“Dystel approached Henry Ferris, then a senior editor of Times Book at Random House. Ferris and I, as publisher, met with Obama, found his story fascinating, and believed he would finish the book. We paid an advance of $40,000.
“In June 1995, Dreams of My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance was published. .. The book…sold about 10,000 copies…Times Books licensed the paperback rights to Kodansha, a Japanese publisher that was doing a series of multi-cultural books in the U.S. market. Eventually, Kodansha closed and the rights went back to Random House. When the Times Books franchise was sold to Holtzbrinck, all its inventory, including Dreams of My Father, became the property of Random House’s Crown Books Division.
“…When Obama was selected to be the keynote speaker at the Democratic Convention in Boston, Dystel, who had stayed in touch with Obama, had the idea of reclaiming rights to the book and reselling it. But an alert editor at Crown had already spotted it on the proverbial shelf and it was quickly reissued in paperback…A rough guess as to the royalties the book has earned from all its versions…is about $1 million….
“Now comes the part in which Obama showed a steely side and displayed an element of character which, while completely legal and entirely within his rights as a writer, makes me uneasy. Everyone agrees that our political system and values are being corroded by money. One subset of the cash culture is that public figures use books funded by large media companies to support a lifestyle that is possible only because their service to the country makes them salable. Generals Tommy Franks and Norman Schwarzkopf came home from their Persian Gulf stints and took about $5 million each to write about their triumphs. Bill and Hillary Clinton earned tens of millions of dollars telling the stories of their lives in the White House. As soon as Newt Gingrich led the GOP to a 1994 takeover of the House of Representatives, he signed a $4 million contract with Rupert Murdoch–owned HarperCollins. Revelation of the deal backfired on Gingrich. Eventually, he took $1 and royalties on copies sold. But the episode made Gingrich a target on ethics issues…
“Between Election Day 2004 and his swearing in as a Senator, Obama signed a two-book deal with Crown for “seven figures” (probably somewhere in the vicinity of $1.5–$2.0 million). By signing the contract before taking office, which Hillary Clinton also did on her book deal, Obama does not fall under various requirements for disclosure and reporting…”
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
Iran History Revisited: Part 18
(See parts 1-17 below)
In an article, titled “Iran—Ready To Attack,” that appeared in the February 19, 2007 issue of New Statesman magazine, Dan Plesch observed that “American preparations for invading Iran are complete.” The New Statesman also reported that “what was done to Serbia and Lebanon can be done overnight to the whole of Iran,” but “we, and probably the Iranians, would not know about it until after the bombs fell.”
And on April 14, 2009, the World Jewish Congress’s website noted that “Israeli president Shimon Peres has warned that military action against Iran would still be needed if U.S. president Barack Obama’s new diplomatic initiative fails” and “warned that if talks do not soften Ahmadnejad’s approach, ` we will strike him.’…”
Yet much of the hidden history of Iran since the CIA helped the Shah of Iran set up a police state in Iran prior to the 1979 Iranian Revolution still remains unknown to many U.S. voters in 2009.
In the Spring of 1960, the Shah of Iran finally agreed to allow a limited amount of political freedom for certain opposition Iranian groups prior to a scheduled Summer 1960 election of a new Majlis/Iranian parliament. As a result, between 1960 and 1963 the National Front opposition group was allowed to be openly active, while the Tudeh Party was still banned from aboveground political activity in Iran.
From exile, however, the Tudeh Party’s Central Committee in August 1960 called for a broad united front to be formed to replace the pro-U.S. imperialist regime of the Shah with an anti-imperialist, nationalist democratic regime that eliminated all remnants of feudalism within Iranian society.
The Summer 1960 Iranian parliamentary election of the Shah’s regime turned out to be a fraudulent one. So by May 1961 there were public student-teacher demonstrations against the Shah’s regime in Tehran; and the first public meeting of the National Front in Iran since the CIA’s 1953 coup was held that same month which attracted a crowd of 80,000 Iranians who demanded immediate, honest, democratic elections in Iran.
In response to these demonstrations, however, the Shah of Iran’s regime began withdrawing the post-1960 political concessions it had made to the non-left, non-communist and non-Tudeh Party-affiliated groups by the summer of 1961. (end of part 18)
In an article, titled “Iran—Ready To Attack,” that appeared in the February 19, 2007 issue of New Statesman magazine, Dan Plesch observed that “American preparations for invading Iran are complete.” The New Statesman also reported that “what was done to Serbia and Lebanon can be done overnight to the whole of Iran,” but “we, and probably the Iranians, would not know about it until after the bombs fell.”
And on April 14, 2009, the World Jewish Congress’s website noted that “Israeli president Shimon Peres has warned that military action against Iran would still be needed if U.S. president Barack Obama’s new diplomatic initiative fails” and “warned that if talks do not soften Ahmadnejad’s approach, ` we will strike him.’…”
Yet much of the hidden history of Iran since the CIA helped the Shah of Iran set up a police state in Iran prior to the 1979 Iranian Revolution still remains unknown to many U.S. voters in 2009.
In the Spring of 1960, the Shah of Iran finally agreed to allow a limited amount of political freedom for certain opposition Iranian groups prior to a scheduled Summer 1960 election of a new Majlis/Iranian parliament. As a result, between 1960 and 1963 the National Front opposition group was allowed to be openly active, while the Tudeh Party was still banned from aboveground political activity in Iran.
From exile, however, the Tudeh Party’s Central Committee in August 1960 called for a broad united front to be formed to replace the pro-U.S. imperialist regime of the Shah with an anti-imperialist, nationalist democratic regime that eliminated all remnants of feudalism within Iranian society.
The Summer 1960 Iranian parliamentary election of the Shah’s regime turned out to be a fraudulent one. So by May 1961 there were public student-teacher demonstrations against the Shah’s regime in Tehran; and the first public meeting of the National Front in Iran since the CIA’s 1953 coup was held that same month which attracted a crowd of 80,000 Iranians who demanded immediate, honest, democratic elections in Iran.
In response to these demonstrations, however, the Shah of Iran’s regime began withdrawing the post-1960 political concessions it had made to the non-left, non-communist and non-Tudeh Party-affiliated groups by the summer of 1961. (end of part 18)
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
Iran History Revisited: Part 17
(See parts 1-16 below)
In an article, titled “Iran—Ready To Attack,” that appeared in the February 19, 2007 issue of New Statesman magazine, Dan Plesch observed that “American preparations for invading Iran are complete.” The New Statesman also reported that “what was done to Serbia and Lebanon can be done overnight to the whole of Iran,” but “we, and probably the Iranians, would not know about it until after the bombs fell.”
And on April 14, 2009, the World Jewish Congress’s website noted that “Israeli president Shimon Peres has warned that military action against Iran would still be needed if U.S. president Barack Obama’s new diplomatic initiative fails” and “warned that if talks do not soften Ahmadnejad’s approach, ` we will strike him.’…”
Yet much of the hidden history of Iran since the CIA helped the Shah of Iran set up a police state in Iran prior to the 1979 Iranian Revolution still remains unknown to many U.S. voters in 2009.
A CIA employee named Robert Lessard apparently “trained the Shah’s secret police in the techniques of subversion and torture, after the CIA’s overthrow of Mossadegh in 1953,” according to the 1985 book Washington’s Secret War Against Afghanistan by Phillip Bonosky.
Four different underground political tendencies, however, still emerged in Iran to oppose the Shah of Iran’s dictatorial regime following the 1953 CIA coup: the traditional Islamic groups; the constitutionalist and liberal groups; the independent left groups; and the Tudeh Party.
The constitutionalist and liberal groups drew their support mainly from Iran’s secular middle-class and Iranian government employees. Although anti-communist, the Iranian constitutionalist and liberal groups were anti-imperialist in their politics and advocated semi-socialist economic democratization reforms and the democratic political secularization of Iranian society. Together with the independent left groups and the Tudeh Party, the constitutionalist and liberal groups formed a new underground National Front in the late 1950s.
The traditional Islamic groups that opposed the Shah of Iran’s dictatorial regime were led by Iranian politicians from the religious Iranian Bazaar merchant class and the Iranian clerical hierarchy. Although they were opposed to the Shah of Iran’s regime and advocated Islamic unity against Anglo-American imperialism in the Middle East, the Islamic religious politicians were strongly anti-communist in their politics and generally hostile to the secular Tudeh Party. In addition to establishing an Iranian government which would more effectively protect Iranian businesspeople from the economic competition of foreign corporations in Iran, the leaders of the traditional Islamic groups in Iran also wanted to create a society in Iran that was governed by the principles of the Islamic religion. (end of part 17)
In an article, titled “Iran—Ready To Attack,” that appeared in the February 19, 2007 issue of New Statesman magazine, Dan Plesch observed that “American preparations for invading Iran are complete.” The New Statesman also reported that “what was done to Serbia and Lebanon can be done overnight to the whole of Iran,” but “we, and probably the Iranians, would not know about it until after the bombs fell.”
And on April 14, 2009, the World Jewish Congress’s website noted that “Israeli president Shimon Peres has warned that military action against Iran would still be needed if U.S. president Barack Obama’s new diplomatic initiative fails” and “warned that if talks do not soften Ahmadnejad’s approach, ` we will strike him.’…”
Yet much of the hidden history of Iran since the CIA helped the Shah of Iran set up a police state in Iran prior to the 1979 Iranian Revolution still remains unknown to many U.S. voters in 2009.
A CIA employee named Robert Lessard apparently “trained the Shah’s secret police in the techniques of subversion and torture, after the CIA’s overthrow of Mossadegh in 1953,” according to the 1985 book Washington’s Secret War Against Afghanistan by Phillip Bonosky.
Four different underground political tendencies, however, still emerged in Iran to oppose the Shah of Iran’s dictatorial regime following the 1953 CIA coup: the traditional Islamic groups; the constitutionalist and liberal groups; the independent left groups; and the Tudeh Party.
The constitutionalist and liberal groups drew their support mainly from Iran’s secular middle-class and Iranian government employees. Although anti-communist, the Iranian constitutionalist and liberal groups were anti-imperialist in their politics and advocated semi-socialist economic democratization reforms and the democratic political secularization of Iranian society. Together with the independent left groups and the Tudeh Party, the constitutionalist and liberal groups formed a new underground National Front in the late 1950s.
The traditional Islamic groups that opposed the Shah of Iran’s dictatorial regime were led by Iranian politicians from the religious Iranian Bazaar merchant class and the Iranian clerical hierarchy. Although they were opposed to the Shah of Iran’s regime and advocated Islamic unity against Anglo-American imperialism in the Middle East, the Islamic religious politicians were strongly anti-communist in their politics and generally hostile to the secular Tudeh Party. In addition to establishing an Iranian government which would more effectively protect Iranian businesspeople from the economic competition of foreign corporations in Iran, the leaders of the traditional Islamic groups in Iran also wanted to create a society in Iran that was governed by the principles of the Islamic religion. (end of part 17)
Monday, April 13, 2009
A.I.G.-Linked Foundation Funds Columbia University's East Asian Library With `Bonus' Grants
Since the 1980s, Columbia University’s East Asian Library has been given millions of dollars in “bonus” grants from a foundation--The Starr Foundation--which is financed largely by stock of the U.S. government bailed-out American International Group [A.I.G] and run by A.I.G insiders and former executives. As a press release that was posted on Columbia University’s web site on May 15, 2008 noted:
“Columbia University’s C. V. Starr East Asian Library today announced a three-year gift of $300,000 from The Starr Foundation to support essential services.
“Amy V. Heinrich, director of the C. V. Starr East Asian Library, said, `We are delighted to receive this grant because it provides the rarest kind of funding: money for general operations rather than for specific programs...’…
“The Library has received generous and consistent support from The Starr Foundation. The East Asian Library at Columbia was named for C. V. Starr in 1983 after a complete renovation, funded primarily by The Starr Foundation…The million-dollar donation was followed by an endowment of $3 million…The Starr Foundation awarded the Library a $1.5 million challenge grant in 2005…”
A “bonus” grant of $200,000 was also given to Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism 2007 by the A.I.G.-linked Starr Foundation, according to the foundation’s Form 990 financial filing for 2007.
In May of 2008, 15.5 million shares of A.I.G stock were owned by the Starr Foundation. Until the end of 2006, 39.1 million shares of A.I.G stock--then worth about $2.8 billion--were owned by the Starr Foundation. But “as the stock price began to slip in recent years, the foundation sold about 30 million shares of A.I.G stock between January 2006 and May 2008, or about two-thirds of its holdings,” according to an article, titled “Starr Foundation Plans Smaller Grants After A.I.G Stock Plunges,” that was posted on the Bloomberg.com site on September 24, 2008.
The Starr Foundation’s Chairman, Maurice (Hank) Greenberg, was A.I.G.’s Chairman and CEO from 1989 until 2005 and is, coincidentally, the past Chairman, Deputy Chairman and Director of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York that promoted the recent use of U.S. government taxpayer money to provide corporate welfare grants and bail-out funds for A.I.G. executives. Starr Foundation Chairman and former A.I.G. Chairman and CEO Greenberg was also accused in 2005, in a lawsuit initiated by former New York State Attorney General and former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer, of defrauding the Starr Foundation. As an article by Gretchen Morgenson that appeared in the December 15, 2005 issue of the New York Times reported:
“Eliot Spitzer, the New York attorney general, submitted a report yesterday as part of his lawsuit against Maurice R. Greenberg, the former chief executive of American International Group, contending that Mr. Greenberg unfairly enriched himself and other A.I.G. executives in a series of transactions that violated the will of Cornelius Vander Starr, the company's founder, and defrauded a foundation he created.
“The questionable transactions took place more than 35 years ago as the far-flung insurance operations built by Mr. Starr starting in 1919 were being melded into A.I.G., the report said. After Mr. Starr died in 1968, Mr. Greenberg and his colleagues, as executors of his estate, benefited by selling assets at fire-sale prices to companies they controlled, it stated.
“Almost immediately, the report said, these executives turned around and sold the assets at far higher prices to A.I.G., which then set some of them aside for use as a compensation pool for the company's executives. Because those shares ultimately amounted to 12 percent of A.I.G.'s outstanding stock, Mr. Greenberg was able to cement his control of the company.
“According to the report, Mr. Greenberg and his associates cheated the Starr Foundation…by selling assets that were worth more than $30 million for just $2 million.
“`Mr. Greenberg and the other executors directed a series of transactions that advanced their own interests in controlling A.I.G. at the expense of the foundation,’ said Michele Hirshman, first deputy attorney general…
“Yesterday's report turns up the volume in an already vehement battle between Mr. Spitzer and Mr. Greenberg, who was ousted by the A.I.G. board in March, when he refused to testify to regulators about a questionable insurance transaction.
“Mr. Spitzer has decided not to pursue possible criminal charges against Mr. Greenberg. But he still has a civil case against him, as well as against Howard I. Smith, the former chief financial officer of A.I.G., and A.I.G. itself, contending that they manipulated financial statements and misled regulators and investors. The company, which is in settlement talks with Mr. Spitzer's office, has restated its financial results for the last five years to reflect accounting practices it now says were improper…
“Even though the transactions occurred more than three decades ago, Ms. Hirshman of the attorney general's office said that the six-year statute of limitations relating to actions taken by a fiduciary starts running only when the fiduciary resigns from a position of trust. Mr. Greenberg remains chairman of the Starr Foundation, a title he has had since 1981.
“Many of the facts cited in the attorney general's report emerged in documents that Mr. Spitzer's office seized in March from A.I.G.'s offices in Bermuda. Mr. Spitzer secured the documents after receiving a tip that lawyers for Mr. Greenberg were removing boxes from A.I.G.'s offices.
“The documents, in some 80 boxes, included meeting minutes and correspondence that `raised questions about whether the estate had been appropriately compensated for certain assets,’ the report said.
“Among those documents was a memo written by a trustee of the Starr Foundation stating that just before his death in December 1968, Mr. Starr `was planning to change drastically the nature of the foundation, including its personnel, and to divorce it entirely’ from C. V. Starr & Company affairs. To achieve this end, certain unidentified board members tendered their resignations in September 1968, the report said, but in February 1969, two months after Mr. Starr died, they returned to the foundation's board.
“Mr. Starr left almost his entire holdings to his foundation. The executors of his estate were Mr. Greenberg and the other directors of C. V. Starr, who controlled a majority of the shares of all three Starr entities. As president of C. V. Starr, Mr. Greenberg oversaw the disposition of Mr. Starr's assets under the gaze of the Surrogate's Court. Mr. Starr had been Mr. Greenberg's mentor, giving him his first job in the insurance industry.
“Most of the other Starr executors were also directors of the Starr Foundation, which by law could not own stakes in private companies. This put the executors in a position of conflict - they had a duty to sell the Starr assets for the highest price to benefit the foundation but they also had an interest in keeping the price low because they owned the entities buying the shares.
“Mr. Spitzer's report contends that three asset sales victimized the Starr Foundation. In one deal, Mr. Starr's executors sold shares in a company known as Far East for $1 million in cash to the company they controlled, even though the holding was worth $7.2 million.
“The second transaction involved Mr. Starr's 24 percent stake in C. V. Starr, a domestic insurer. According to the report, Mr. Greenberg said the foundation should buy the shares using a formula that the directors of C. V. Starr had decided upon without independent advice. The cash proceeds were $1.08 million, even though Morgan Stanley at the time had estimated the value of the stake at $25 million to $30 million.
“Finally, the sale of shares in Starr International, a unit that owned foreign insurers, appears to have defrauded the foundation, Mr. Spitzer's report said. Those shares, which constituted a 20 percent stake in a company that in September 1970 was worth $100 million, were sold back to Starr International, controlled by Mr. Greenberg and other executors, for $3,000.
“Mr. Greenberg also misled the Surrogate's Court overseeing Mr. Starr's estate, the report said. His sworn statement, filed in 1978, failed to disclose critical facts on all three transactions; there was no mention of Morgan Stanley's estimated value of the C. V. Starr stake, for example…”
“Columbia University’s C. V. Starr East Asian Library today announced a three-year gift of $300,000 from The Starr Foundation to support essential services.
“Amy V. Heinrich, director of the C. V. Starr East Asian Library, said, `We are delighted to receive this grant because it provides the rarest kind of funding: money for general operations rather than for specific programs...’…
“The Library has received generous and consistent support from The Starr Foundation. The East Asian Library at Columbia was named for C. V. Starr in 1983 after a complete renovation, funded primarily by The Starr Foundation…The million-dollar donation was followed by an endowment of $3 million…The Starr Foundation awarded the Library a $1.5 million challenge grant in 2005…”
A “bonus” grant of $200,000 was also given to Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism 2007 by the A.I.G.-linked Starr Foundation, according to the foundation’s Form 990 financial filing for 2007.
In May of 2008, 15.5 million shares of A.I.G stock were owned by the Starr Foundation. Until the end of 2006, 39.1 million shares of A.I.G stock--then worth about $2.8 billion--were owned by the Starr Foundation. But “as the stock price began to slip in recent years, the foundation sold about 30 million shares of A.I.G stock between January 2006 and May 2008, or about two-thirds of its holdings,” according to an article, titled “Starr Foundation Plans Smaller Grants After A.I.G Stock Plunges,” that was posted on the Bloomberg.com site on September 24, 2008.
The Starr Foundation’s Chairman, Maurice (Hank) Greenberg, was A.I.G.’s Chairman and CEO from 1989 until 2005 and is, coincidentally, the past Chairman, Deputy Chairman and Director of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York that promoted the recent use of U.S. government taxpayer money to provide corporate welfare grants and bail-out funds for A.I.G. executives. Starr Foundation Chairman and former A.I.G. Chairman and CEO Greenberg was also accused in 2005, in a lawsuit initiated by former New York State Attorney General and former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer, of defrauding the Starr Foundation. As an article by Gretchen Morgenson that appeared in the December 15, 2005 issue of the New York Times reported:
“Eliot Spitzer, the New York attorney general, submitted a report yesterday as part of his lawsuit against Maurice R. Greenberg, the former chief executive of American International Group, contending that Mr. Greenberg unfairly enriched himself and other A.I.G. executives in a series of transactions that violated the will of Cornelius Vander Starr, the company's founder, and defrauded a foundation he created.
“The questionable transactions took place more than 35 years ago as the far-flung insurance operations built by Mr. Starr starting in 1919 were being melded into A.I.G., the report said. After Mr. Starr died in 1968, Mr. Greenberg and his colleagues, as executors of his estate, benefited by selling assets at fire-sale prices to companies they controlled, it stated.
“Almost immediately, the report said, these executives turned around and sold the assets at far higher prices to A.I.G., which then set some of them aside for use as a compensation pool for the company's executives. Because those shares ultimately amounted to 12 percent of A.I.G.'s outstanding stock, Mr. Greenberg was able to cement his control of the company.
“According to the report, Mr. Greenberg and his associates cheated the Starr Foundation…by selling assets that were worth more than $30 million for just $2 million.
“`Mr. Greenberg and the other executors directed a series of transactions that advanced their own interests in controlling A.I.G. at the expense of the foundation,’ said Michele Hirshman, first deputy attorney general…
“Yesterday's report turns up the volume in an already vehement battle between Mr. Spitzer and Mr. Greenberg, who was ousted by the A.I.G. board in March, when he refused to testify to regulators about a questionable insurance transaction.
“Mr. Spitzer has decided not to pursue possible criminal charges against Mr. Greenberg. But he still has a civil case against him, as well as against Howard I. Smith, the former chief financial officer of A.I.G., and A.I.G. itself, contending that they manipulated financial statements and misled regulators and investors. The company, which is in settlement talks with Mr. Spitzer's office, has restated its financial results for the last five years to reflect accounting practices it now says were improper…
“Even though the transactions occurred more than three decades ago, Ms. Hirshman of the attorney general's office said that the six-year statute of limitations relating to actions taken by a fiduciary starts running only when the fiduciary resigns from a position of trust. Mr. Greenberg remains chairman of the Starr Foundation, a title he has had since 1981.
“Many of the facts cited in the attorney general's report emerged in documents that Mr. Spitzer's office seized in March from A.I.G.'s offices in Bermuda. Mr. Spitzer secured the documents after receiving a tip that lawyers for Mr. Greenberg were removing boxes from A.I.G.'s offices.
“The documents, in some 80 boxes, included meeting minutes and correspondence that `raised questions about whether the estate had been appropriately compensated for certain assets,’ the report said.
“Among those documents was a memo written by a trustee of the Starr Foundation stating that just before his death in December 1968, Mr. Starr `was planning to change drastically the nature of the foundation, including its personnel, and to divorce it entirely’ from C. V. Starr & Company affairs. To achieve this end, certain unidentified board members tendered their resignations in September 1968, the report said, but in February 1969, two months after Mr. Starr died, they returned to the foundation's board.
“Mr. Starr left almost his entire holdings to his foundation. The executors of his estate were Mr. Greenberg and the other directors of C. V. Starr, who controlled a majority of the shares of all three Starr entities. As president of C. V. Starr, Mr. Greenberg oversaw the disposition of Mr. Starr's assets under the gaze of the Surrogate's Court. Mr. Starr had been Mr. Greenberg's mentor, giving him his first job in the insurance industry.
“Most of the other Starr executors were also directors of the Starr Foundation, which by law could not own stakes in private companies. This put the executors in a position of conflict - they had a duty to sell the Starr assets for the highest price to benefit the foundation but they also had an interest in keeping the price low because they owned the entities buying the shares.
“Mr. Spitzer's report contends that three asset sales victimized the Starr Foundation. In one deal, Mr. Starr's executors sold shares in a company known as Far East for $1 million in cash to the company they controlled, even though the holding was worth $7.2 million.
“The second transaction involved Mr. Starr's 24 percent stake in C. V. Starr, a domestic insurer. According to the report, Mr. Greenberg said the foundation should buy the shares using a formula that the directors of C. V. Starr had decided upon without independent advice. The cash proceeds were $1.08 million, even though Morgan Stanley at the time had estimated the value of the stake at $25 million to $30 million.
“Finally, the sale of shares in Starr International, a unit that owned foreign insurers, appears to have defrauded the foundation, Mr. Spitzer's report said. Those shares, which constituted a 20 percent stake in a company that in September 1970 was worth $100 million, were sold back to Starr International, controlled by Mr. Greenberg and other executors, for $3,000.
“Mr. Greenberg also misled the Surrogate's Court overseeing Mr. Starr's estate, the report said. His sworn statement, filed in 1978, failed to disclose critical facts on all three transactions; there was no mention of Morgan Stanley's estimated value of the C. V. Starr stake, for example…”
Sunday, April 12, 2009
New School University Got $14 Million In A.I.G.-Linked Foundation `Bonus' Grants
Since 2004, New School University has been given over $14 million in “bonus” grants from a foundation which is financed largely by stock of the U.S. government bailed-out American International Group [A.I.G] and run by A.I.G insiders and former executives. As a press release that was posted on the New School University’s web site on November 4, 2004 noted:
“…New School University announced that it has received…gifts…The Starr Foundation has given a grant of $10 million - the largest foundation gift in the University’s history - to establish the India China Institute (ICI)….
“We are very grateful to The Starr Foundation for this $10 million grant…,” said New School University President Bob Kerrey. “One of the things I came to recognize as a member of the 9-11 Commission is that: the homeland is the planet….The Starr Foundation’s funding of the India China Institute is fundamentally important for collaborative work among scholars and policy-makers here at The New School and abroad….”
“The Starr Foundation was established in 1955 by Cornelius Vander Starr, an insurance entrepreneur who founded the American International family of insurance and financial services companies, now known as American International Group, Inc. …He died in 1968 at the age of 76, leaving his estate to the Foundation. The Foundation currently has assets of approximately $3.5 billion, making it one of the largest private foundations in the United States… “
An additional “bonus” grant of $4 million was given to New School University in 2007 by the A.I.G.-linked Starr Foundation, according to the foundation’s Form 990 financial filing for 2007.
In May of 2008, 15.5 million shares of A.I.G stock were owned by the Starr Foundation. Until the end of 2006, 39.1 million shares of A.I.G stock—then worth about $2.8 billion-- were owned by the Starr Foundation. But “as the stock price began to slip in recent years, the foundation sold about 30 million shares of A.I.G stock between January 2006 and May 2008, or about two-thirds of its holdings,” according to an article, titled “Starr Foundation Plans Smaller Grants After A.I.G Stock Plunges,” that was posted on the Bloomberg.com site on September 24, 2008.
The Starr Foundation’s Chairman, Maurice (Hank) Greenberg, was A.I.G.’s Chairman and CEO from 1989 until 2005 and is, coincidentally, the past Chairman, Deputy Chairman and Director of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York that promoted the recent use of U.S. government taxpayer money to provide corporate welfare grants and bail-out funds for A.I.G. executives. Starr Foundation Chairman and former A.I.G. Chairman and CEO Greenberg was also accused in 2005, in a lawsuit initiated by former New York State Attorney General and former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer, of defrauding the Starr Foundation. As an article by Gretchen Morgenson that appeared in the December 15, 2005 issue of the New York Times reported:
“Eliot Spitzer, the New York attorney general, submitted a report yesterday as part of his lawsuit against Maurice R. Greenberg, the former chief executive of American International Group, contending that Mr. Greenberg unfairly enriched himself and other A.I.G. executives in a series of transactions that violated the will of Cornelius Vander Starr, the company's founder, and defrauded a foundation he created.
“The questionable transactions took place more than 35 years ago as the far-flung insurance operations built by Mr. Starr starting in 1919 were being melded into A.I.G., the report said. After Mr. Starr died in 1968, Mr. Greenberg and his colleagues, as executors of his estate, benefited by selling assets at fire-sale prices to companies they controlled, it stated.
“Almost immediately, the report said, these executives turned around and sold the assets at far higher prices to A.I.G., which then set some of them aside for use as a compensation pool for the company's executives. Because those shares ultimately amounted to 12 percent of A.I.G.'s outstanding stock, Mr. Greenberg was able to cement his control of the company.
“According to the report, Mr. Greenberg and his associates cheated the Starr Foundation…by selling assets that were worth more than $30 million for just $2 million.
“`Mr. Greenberg and the other executors directed a series of transactions that advanced their own interests in controlling A.I.G. at the expense of the foundation,’ said Michele Hirshman, first deputy attorney general…
“Yesterday's report turns up the volume in an already vehement battle between Mr. Spitzer and Mr. Greenberg, who was ousted by the A.I.G. board in March, when he refused to testify to regulators about a questionable insurance transaction.
“Mr. Spitzer has decided not to pursue possible criminal charges against Mr. Greenberg. But he still has a civil case against him, as well as against Howard I. Smith, the former chief financial officer of A.I.G., and A.I.G. itself, contending that they manipulated financial statements and misled regulators and investors. The company, which is in settlement talks with Mr. Spitzer's office, has restated its financial results for the last five years to reflect accounting practices it now says were improper…
“Even though the transactions occurred more than three decades ago, Ms. Hirschman of the attorney general's office said that the six-year statute of limitations relating to actions taken by a fiduciary starts running only when the fiduciary resigns from a position of trust. Mr. Greenberg remains chairman of the Starr Foundation, a title he has had since 1981.
“Many of the facts cited in the attorney general's report emerged in documents that Mr. Spitzer's office seized in March from A.I.G.'s offices in Bermuda. Mr. Spitzer secured the documents after receiving a tip that lawyers for Mr. Greenberg were removing boxes from A.I.G.'s offices.
“The documents, in some 80 boxes, included meeting minutes and correspondence that `raised questions about whether the estate had been appropriately compensated for certain assets,’ the report said.
“Among those documents was a memo written by a trustee of the Starr Foundation stating that just before his death in December 1968, Mr. Starr `was planning to change drastically the nature of the foundation, including its personnel, and to divorce it entirely’ from C. V. Starr & Company affairs. To achieve this end, certain unidentified board members tendered their resignations in September 1968, the report said, but in February 1969, two months after Mr. Starr died, they returned to the foundation's board.
“Mr. Starr left almost his entire holdings to his foundation. The executors of his estate were Mr. Greenberg and the other directors of C. V. Starr, who controlled a majority of the shares of all three Starr entities. As president of C. V. Starr, Mr. Greenberg oversaw the disposition of Mr. Starr's assets under the gaze of the Surrogate's Court. Mr. Starr had been Mr. Greenberg's mentor, giving him his first job in the insurance industry.
“Most of the other Starr executors were also directors of the Starr Foundation, which by law could not own stakes in private companies. This put the executors in a position of conflict - they had a duty to sell the Starr assets for the highest price to benefit the foundation but they also had an interest in keeping the price low because they owned the entities buying the shares.
“Mr. Spitzer's report contends that three asset sales victimized the Starr Foundation. In one deal, Mr. Starr's executors sold shares in a company known as Far East for $1 million in cash to the company they controlled, even though the holding was worth $7.2 million.
“The second transaction involved Mr. Starr's 24 percent stake in C. V. Starr, a domestic insurer. According to the report, Mr. Greenberg said the foundation should buy the shares using a formula that the directors of C. V. Starr had decided upon without `independent advice'. The cash proceeds were $1.08 million, even though Morgan Stanley at the time had estimated the value of the stake at $25 million to $30million.
“Finally, the sale of shares in Starr International, a unit that owned foreign insurers, appears to have defrauded the foundation, Mr. Spitzer's report said. Those shares, which constituted a 20 percent stake in a company that in September 1970 was worth $100 million, were sold back to Starr International, controlled by Mr. Greenberg and other executors, for $3,000.
“Mr. Greenberg also misled the Surrogate's Court overseeing Mr. Starr's estate, the report said. His sworn statement, filed in 1978, failed to disclose critical facts on all three transactions; there was no mention of Morgan Stanley's estimated value of the C. V. Starr stake, for example…”
Coincidentally, the A.I.G.-linked foundation that gave New School University $14 million in “bonus” grants is also linked to New York University [NYU]. Starr Foundation President and board member Florence Davis sits on the board of trustees of NYU and NYU’s School of Law
“…New School University announced that it has received…gifts…The Starr Foundation has given a grant of $10 million - the largest foundation gift in the University’s history - to establish the India China Institute (ICI)….
“We are very grateful to The Starr Foundation for this $10 million grant…,” said New School University President Bob Kerrey. “One of the things I came to recognize as a member of the 9-11 Commission is that: the homeland is the planet….The Starr Foundation’s funding of the India China Institute is fundamentally important for collaborative work among scholars and policy-makers here at The New School and abroad….”
“The Starr Foundation was established in 1955 by Cornelius Vander Starr, an insurance entrepreneur who founded the American International family of insurance and financial services companies, now known as American International Group, Inc. …He died in 1968 at the age of 76, leaving his estate to the Foundation. The Foundation currently has assets of approximately $3.5 billion, making it one of the largest private foundations in the United States… “
An additional “bonus” grant of $4 million was given to New School University in 2007 by the A.I.G.-linked Starr Foundation, according to the foundation’s Form 990 financial filing for 2007.
In May of 2008, 15.5 million shares of A.I.G stock were owned by the Starr Foundation. Until the end of 2006, 39.1 million shares of A.I.G stock—then worth about $2.8 billion-- were owned by the Starr Foundation. But “as the stock price began to slip in recent years, the foundation sold about 30 million shares of A.I.G stock between January 2006 and May 2008, or about two-thirds of its holdings,” according to an article, titled “Starr Foundation Plans Smaller Grants After A.I.G Stock Plunges,” that was posted on the Bloomberg.com site on September 24, 2008.
The Starr Foundation’s Chairman, Maurice (Hank) Greenberg, was A.I.G.’s Chairman and CEO from 1989 until 2005 and is, coincidentally, the past Chairman, Deputy Chairman and Director of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York that promoted the recent use of U.S. government taxpayer money to provide corporate welfare grants and bail-out funds for A.I.G. executives. Starr Foundation Chairman and former A.I.G. Chairman and CEO Greenberg was also accused in 2005, in a lawsuit initiated by former New York State Attorney General and former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer, of defrauding the Starr Foundation. As an article by Gretchen Morgenson that appeared in the December 15, 2005 issue of the New York Times reported:
“Eliot Spitzer, the New York attorney general, submitted a report yesterday as part of his lawsuit against Maurice R. Greenberg, the former chief executive of American International Group, contending that Mr. Greenberg unfairly enriched himself and other A.I.G. executives in a series of transactions that violated the will of Cornelius Vander Starr, the company's founder, and defrauded a foundation he created.
“The questionable transactions took place more than 35 years ago as the far-flung insurance operations built by Mr. Starr starting in 1919 were being melded into A.I.G., the report said. After Mr. Starr died in 1968, Mr. Greenberg and his colleagues, as executors of his estate, benefited by selling assets at fire-sale prices to companies they controlled, it stated.
“Almost immediately, the report said, these executives turned around and sold the assets at far higher prices to A.I.G., which then set some of them aside for use as a compensation pool for the company's executives. Because those shares ultimately amounted to 12 percent of A.I.G.'s outstanding stock, Mr. Greenberg was able to cement his control of the company.
“According to the report, Mr. Greenberg and his associates cheated the Starr Foundation…by selling assets that were worth more than $30 million for just $2 million.
“`Mr. Greenberg and the other executors directed a series of transactions that advanced their own interests in controlling A.I.G. at the expense of the foundation,’ said Michele Hirshman, first deputy attorney general…
“Yesterday's report turns up the volume in an already vehement battle between Mr. Spitzer and Mr. Greenberg, who was ousted by the A.I.G. board in March, when he refused to testify to regulators about a questionable insurance transaction.
“Mr. Spitzer has decided not to pursue possible criminal charges against Mr. Greenberg. But he still has a civil case against him, as well as against Howard I. Smith, the former chief financial officer of A.I.G., and A.I.G. itself, contending that they manipulated financial statements and misled regulators and investors. The company, which is in settlement talks with Mr. Spitzer's office, has restated its financial results for the last five years to reflect accounting practices it now says were improper…
“Even though the transactions occurred more than three decades ago, Ms. Hirschman of the attorney general's office said that the six-year statute of limitations relating to actions taken by a fiduciary starts running only when the fiduciary resigns from a position of trust. Mr. Greenberg remains chairman of the Starr Foundation, a title he has had since 1981.
“Many of the facts cited in the attorney general's report emerged in documents that Mr. Spitzer's office seized in March from A.I.G.'s offices in Bermuda. Mr. Spitzer secured the documents after receiving a tip that lawyers for Mr. Greenberg were removing boxes from A.I.G.'s offices.
“The documents, in some 80 boxes, included meeting minutes and correspondence that `raised questions about whether the estate had been appropriately compensated for certain assets,’ the report said.
“Among those documents was a memo written by a trustee of the Starr Foundation stating that just before his death in December 1968, Mr. Starr `was planning to change drastically the nature of the foundation, including its personnel, and to divorce it entirely’ from C. V. Starr & Company affairs. To achieve this end, certain unidentified board members tendered their resignations in September 1968, the report said, but in February 1969, two months after Mr. Starr died, they returned to the foundation's board.
“Mr. Starr left almost his entire holdings to his foundation. The executors of his estate were Mr. Greenberg and the other directors of C. V. Starr, who controlled a majority of the shares of all three Starr entities. As president of C. V. Starr, Mr. Greenberg oversaw the disposition of Mr. Starr's assets under the gaze of the Surrogate's Court. Mr. Starr had been Mr. Greenberg's mentor, giving him his first job in the insurance industry.
“Most of the other Starr executors were also directors of the Starr Foundation, which by law could not own stakes in private companies. This put the executors in a position of conflict - they had a duty to sell the Starr assets for the highest price to benefit the foundation but they also had an interest in keeping the price low because they owned the entities buying the shares.
“Mr. Spitzer's report contends that three asset sales victimized the Starr Foundation. In one deal, Mr. Starr's executors sold shares in a company known as Far East for $1 million in cash to the company they controlled, even though the holding was worth $7.2 million.
“The second transaction involved Mr. Starr's 24 percent stake in C. V. Starr, a domestic insurer. According to the report, Mr. Greenberg said the foundation should buy the shares using a formula that the directors of C. V. Starr had decided upon without `independent advice'. The cash proceeds were $1.08 million, even though Morgan Stanley at the time had estimated the value of the stake at $25 million to $30million.
“Finally, the sale of shares in Starr International, a unit that owned foreign insurers, appears to have defrauded the foundation, Mr. Spitzer's report said. Those shares, which constituted a 20 percent stake in a company that in September 1970 was worth $100 million, were sold back to Starr International, controlled by Mr. Greenberg and other executors, for $3,000.
“Mr. Greenberg also misled the Surrogate's Court overseeing Mr. Starr's estate, the report said. His sworn statement, filed in 1978, failed to disclose critical facts on all three transactions; there was no mention of Morgan Stanley's estimated value of the C. V. Starr stake, for example…”
Coincidentally, the A.I.G.-linked foundation that gave New School University $14 million in “bonus” grants is also linked to New York University [NYU]. Starr Foundation President and board member Florence Davis sits on the board of trustees of NYU and NYU’s School of Law
Saturday, April 11, 2009
Did CIA Tamper With Abbie Hoffman's Car Brakes In 1988?
Prior to his mysterious death 20 years ago on April 12, 1989, Abbie Hoffman apparently “insisted that the CIA had tampered with the brakes of his car” before his serious 1988 automobile accident “and that there was a government plot to assassinate him because his information about the arms-for-hostage deal was so damaging to the Republicans,” according to For The Hell Of It by Jonah Raskin. The same book also recalled that “Abbie collaborated on an article entitled `An Election Held Hostage’ which he felt…would cost George Bush the 1988 election;” and “Abbie insisted on delivering the manuscript in person to his editor at Playboy,” but “on the road from his home in Bucks County to Newark,…to catch a flight to Chicago, his car was hit by a truck.”
Friday, April 10, 2009
A.I.G. Exec Co-Chaired New School University's Benefit Dinner In 2002
A former CEO of the U.S. government bailed-out American International Group [A.I.G.] insurance firm named Maurice Greenberg co-chaired a New School University benefit dinner that was held on January 30, 2002 at the Sheraton New York Hotel and Towers. As a press release that was posted on New School University's web site on January 31, 2002 revealed:
“New School University held its 2002 La Guardia Award Benefit evening last evening…
"Governor George Pataki gave the keynote address. Also attending the dinner at the Sheraton New York Hotel and Towers were John Whitehead, Chairman of the Lower Manhattan Redevelopment Corporation (and former Chairman of Goldman Sachs), former Mayor Ed Koch, John L. Tishman, and many others…The evening, which was attended by close to 600 guests, raised $1.3 million…
“…Proceeds from the dinner will...support programs of New School University's Milano Graduate School headed by Dean Edward J. Blakely…
“Benefit Chairmen included Pete Peterson, Chairman of The Blackstone Group; Brian Roberts, President of Comcast, Inc.; and John L. Tishman, Chairman of Tishman Realty and Construction and Chairman of the Board of Trustees of New School University. Among the dinner's Co-Chairs are Maurice Greenberg of A.I.G. and Sanford Weill of Citigroup.”
“New School University held its 2002 La Guardia Award Benefit evening last evening…
"Governor George Pataki gave the keynote address. Also attending the dinner at the Sheraton New York Hotel and Towers were John Whitehead, Chairman of the Lower Manhattan Redevelopment Corporation (and former Chairman of Goldman Sachs), former Mayor Ed Koch, John L. Tishman, and many others…The evening, which was attended by close to 600 guests, raised $1.3 million…
“…Proceeds from the dinner will...support programs of New School University's Milano Graduate School headed by Dean Edward J. Blakely…
“Benefit Chairmen included Pete Peterson, Chairman of The Blackstone Group; Brian Roberts, President of Comcast, Inc.; and John L. Tishman, Chairman of Tishman Realty and Construction and Chairman of the Board of Trustees of New School University. Among the dinner's Co-Chairs are Maurice Greenberg of A.I.G. and Sanford Weill of Citigroup.”
Thursday, April 9, 2009
Iran History Revisited: Part 16
(See parts 1-15 below)
In January 2007, the editor-in-chief of the Kuwaiti-based Arab Times, Ahmed Al-Jarallah, reported that “A reliable source said President Bush… held a meeting with Vice President Dick Cheney, Defense Secretary Robert Gates…and other assistants in the White House where they discussed the plan to attack Iran in minute detail.” Yet in 2009 President Bush’s Defense Secretary, Robert Gates, is still the U.S. Secretary of Defense.
And as Eric Margolis observed in the February 16, 2009 issue of the Khaleeq Times:
“The CIA… funds at least one extremist Pakistani Sunni group that launches raids into Iran, attacking government posts, soldiers and civilians. Further covert American aid goes to armed separatist groups among Iran’s Arab and Azeri minorities…The US Congress has repeatedly voted hundreds of millions for such covert operations.
“The US has also waged a…financial and economic war against…Iran…
“Israeli elections produced a sharp move to the right, increasing chances Israel may make good on threats to attack Iran…”
Yet most U.S. high school social studies departments, ironically, still don’t require their students to study much 20th-century Iranian history.
Following the Republican Eisenhower Administration’s 1953 CIA coup, all Iranian political opponents of the Shah of Iran’s monarchical government were immediately repressed. Around 3,000 Tudeh Party members, for example, were either arrested or forced into exile. By January 1954 the number of Tudeh Party members in Iran had dropped to only around 4,000 and 580 Tudeh Party members remained locked up in the Shah of Iran’s prisons.
Backed by the U.S. government, the CIA-installed Shah of Iran’s dictatorial regime lasted from late August 1953 until it was finally overthrown by a mass uprising of the Iranian people in early 1979. Friendly relations with the UK imperialist government were also resumed immediately by the Shah of Iran’s government after the 1953 CIA coup in Iran. Under the Shah of Iran’s post-1953 period of rule, the Iranian government also became more closely aligned with the U.S. government and UK governments on a military level, becoming a member of the pro-Anglo-American imperialist Baghdad Pact.
With CIA and U.S. government backing, the Shah of Iran’s regime also set up a more powerful secret police force, SAVAK, to more efficiently repress the various groups that were politically opposed to the Shah of Iran’s dictatorship. By 1958, several advisers to the Shah of Iran from the U.S. were also on duty in Iran. (end of part 16)
In January 2007, the editor-in-chief of the Kuwaiti-based Arab Times, Ahmed Al-Jarallah, reported that “A reliable source said President Bush… held a meeting with Vice President Dick Cheney, Defense Secretary Robert Gates…and other assistants in the White House where they discussed the plan to attack Iran in minute detail.” Yet in 2009 President Bush’s Defense Secretary, Robert Gates, is still the U.S. Secretary of Defense.
And as Eric Margolis observed in the February 16, 2009 issue of the Khaleeq Times:
“The CIA… funds at least one extremist Pakistani Sunni group that launches raids into Iran, attacking government posts, soldiers and civilians. Further covert American aid goes to armed separatist groups among Iran’s Arab and Azeri minorities…The US Congress has repeatedly voted hundreds of millions for such covert operations.
“The US has also waged a…financial and economic war against…Iran…
“Israeli elections produced a sharp move to the right, increasing chances Israel may make good on threats to attack Iran…”
Yet most U.S. high school social studies departments, ironically, still don’t require their students to study much 20th-century Iranian history.
Following the Republican Eisenhower Administration’s 1953 CIA coup, all Iranian political opponents of the Shah of Iran’s monarchical government were immediately repressed. Around 3,000 Tudeh Party members, for example, were either arrested or forced into exile. By January 1954 the number of Tudeh Party members in Iran had dropped to only around 4,000 and 580 Tudeh Party members remained locked up in the Shah of Iran’s prisons.
Backed by the U.S. government, the CIA-installed Shah of Iran’s dictatorial regime lasted from late August 1953 until it was finally overthrown by a mass uprising of the Iranian people in early 1979. Friendly relations with the UK imperialist government were also resumed immediately by the Shah of Iran’s government after the 1953 CIA coup in Iran. Under the Shah of Iran’s post-1953 period of rule, the Iranian government also became more closely aligned with the U.S. government and UK governments on a military level, becoming a member of the pro-Anglo-American imperialist Baghdad Pact.
With CIA and U.S. government backing, the Shah of Iran’s regime also set up a more powerful secret police force, SAVAK, to more efficiently repress the various groups that were politically opposed to the Shah of Iran’s dictatorship. By 1958, several advisers to the Shah of Iran from the U.S. were also on duty in Iran. (end of part 16)
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
Iran History Revisited: Part 15
(See parts 1-14 below)
In January 2007, the editor-in-chief of the Kuwaiti-based Arab Times, Ahmed Al-Jarallah, reported that “A reliable source said President Bush… held a meeting with Vice President Dick Cheney, Defense Secretary Robert Gates…and other assistants in the White House where they discussed the plan to attack Iran in minute detail.” Yet in 2009 President Bush’s Defense Secretary, Robert Gates, is still the U.S. Secretary of Defense.
And as Eric Margolis observed in the February 16, 2009 issue of the Khaleeq Times:
“The CIA… funds at least one extremist Pakistani Sunni group that launches raids into Iran, attacking government posts, soldiers and civilians. Further covert American aid goes to armed separatist groups among Iran’s Arab and Azeri minorities…The US Congress has repeatedly voted hundreds of millions for such covert operations.
“The US has also waged a…financial and economic war against…Iran…
“Israeli elections produced a sharp move to the right, increasing chances Israel may make good on threats to attack Iran…”
Yet most U.S. high school social studies departments, ironically, still don’t require their students to study much 20th-century Iranian history.
U.S.-based transnational oil corporations profited enormously from the CIA’s illegal 1953 covert activity in Iran. As University of Alberta Professor of Economics Ed Shaffer noted in his 1983 book The United States and the Control of World Oil:
“The overthrow of Mossadegh, which was engineered by the CIA, paved the way for the displacement of Britain by the United States as the major power in Iran. The displacement took place first in oil…
“After the coup the US sent Herbert Hoover, Jr., a director of Union Oil, to negotiate a new oil pact…Oil exploration and production in southern Iran and the operation of the Abadan refinery, then the world’s largest, were to be carried out by a consortium of companies known as Iranian Oil Participants Ltd….”
Mobil, Exxon, Chevron, Texaco and Gulf Oil were each given the right to receive a 5% share of the Iranian Oil Participants Ltd.’s profits from its Iranian oil industry operations and twelve smaller U.S. oil corporations were each given the right to receive a 1% share of the consortium’s profits. Just forty percent of the Iranian Oil Participants Ltd.’s profits went to the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, now renamed British Petroleum/BP, which had previously not had to split the profits from its Iranian operations with the U.S.-based transnational oil corporations. According to The United States and the Control of World Oil:
“The establishment of the consortium was the most important factor in making the U.S. the dominant oil power in the Middle East. The entry into Iran unquestionably gave it effective control of most of the known reserves of the non-Communist world. Its basic objective, the control of world oil, had been realized.”
(end of part 15)
In January 2007, the editor-in-chief of the Kuwaiti-based Arab Times, Ahmed Al-Jarallah, reported that “A reliable source said President Bush… held a meeting with Vice President Dick Cheney, Defense Secretary Robert Gates…and other assistants in the White House where they discussed the plan to attack Iran in minute detail.” Yet in 2009 President Bush’s Defense Secretary, Robert Gates, is still the U.S. Secretary of Defense.
And as Eric Margolis observed in the February 16, 2009 issue of the Khaleeq Times:
“The CIA… funds at least one extremist Pakistani Sunni group that launches raids into Iran, attacking government posts, soldiers and civilians. Further covert American aid goes to armed separatist groups among Iran’s Arab and Azeri minorities…The US Congress has repeatedly voted hundreds of millions for such covert operations.
“The US has also waged a…financial and economic war against…Iran…
“Israeli elections produced a sharp move to the right, increasing chances Israel may make good on threats to attack Iran…”
Yet most U.S. high school social studies departments, ironically, still don’t require their students to study much 20th-century Iranian history.
U.S.-based transnational oil corporations profited enormously from the CIA’s illegal 1953 covert activity in Iran. As University of Alberta Professor of Economics Ed Shaffer noted in his 1983 book The United States and the Control of World Oil:
“The overthrow of Mossadegh, which was engineered by the CIA, paved the way for the displacement of Britain by the United States as the major power in Iran. The displacement took place first in oil…
“After the coup the US sent Herbert Hoover, Jr., a director of Union Oil, to negotiate a new oil pact…Oil exploration and production in southern Iran and the operation of the Abadan refinery, then the world’s largest, were to be carried out by a consortium of companies known as Iranian Oil Participants Ltd….”
Mobil, Exxon, Chevron, Texaco and Gulf Oil were each given the right to receive a 5% share of the Iranian Oil Participants Ltd.’s profits from its Iranian oil industry operations and twelve smaller U.S. oil corporations were each given the right to receive a 1% share of the consortium’s profits. Just forty percent of the Iranian Oil Participants Ltd.’s profits went to the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, now renamed British Petroleum/BP, which had previously not had to split the profits from its Iranian operations with the U.S.-based transnational oil corporations. According to The United States and the Control of World Oil:
“The establishment of the consortium was the most important factor in making the U.S. the dominant oil power in the Middle East. The entry into Iran unquestionably gave it effective control of most of the known reserves of the non-Communist world. Its basic objective, the control of world oil, had been realized.”
(end of part 15)
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
U.S. Pacifists and The Military-Industrial-University Complex: An Interview With `Underground' Author Mark Rudd
Mark Rudd was the chairman of the Columbia University chapter of Students for a Democratic Society [SDS] at the time of the 1968 Columbia Student Revolt; and Rudd’s autobiography, Underground: My Life with SDS and the Weathermen was finally published in March 2009.
In a recent email interview, Rudd responded to some questions about how U.S. pacifists might consider responding to the role U.S. universities play in the current historical era of “permanent war abroad and economic depression at home” and about his new book.
(1) In 2009, some U.S. pacifists seem to regard elite universities like Columbia as institutions that have, both historically and currently, opposed war and opposed racism—since they hire both anti-war and African-American professors and administrators, implement affirmative action hiring programs, set up “peace studies” and “African-American studies” departments, steer foundation grants and scholarship money in the direction of students from historically oppressed communities and to local community groups, and provide free or low-rent meeting room space for anti-war students and off-campus pacifist groups.
Yet in the preface to your book, you write that between 1965 and 1968 you were “a member of SDS at Columbia University” and “made as much noise and trouble as possible to protest the university’s pro-war and racist policies.” In what ways were Columbia University’s policies “pro-war and racist” in 1968 and in what ways are the policies of Columbia University and other elite U.S. universities “pro-war and racist” in 2009?
Mark Rudd [MR]: The specific demands we raised leading up to the spring of 1968--training and recruitment of military officers for the war in Vietnam, weapons research for the war, the building of a gym in public park land--were only the tip of the iceberg of Columbia's policies. Within months of the strike, the North American Congress on Latin America (NACLA) produced a book entitled "Who Rules Columbia," in which they detailed the military, State Dept., and CIA contracts and connections with the School of International Affairs, the various geographical "area studies," such as the East Asia Institute, as well as the revolving door between Columbia and the government; also Columbia's expansion into the surrounding community at the expense of non-white residents. Most of these connections and policies are still in place; almost all major research universities are still major war contractors. The point is that student activists have their work cut out for them to research and expose what's correctly called the military-industrial-academic complex.
(2) In chapter 1 of your book, titled “A Good German,” you recall that when you first met the then-chairman of Columbia’s Independent Committee on Vietnam (ICV) anti-war student group--current U.S. political prisoner David Gilbert—in early 1966, Gilbert mentioned that in May 1965 his group had “held an antiwar protest at the Naval ROTC graduation ceremony” at Columbia. And later in the “A Good German” chapter you mention that in March 1967 you had “taken part in a sit-in at a Naval ROTC class” at Columbia.
Why did you oppose Naval ROTC at Columbia in the 1960s? And do you think U.S. pacifists should consider opposing ROTC on U.S. university campuses in 2009?
MR: The issue is fundamentally moral. Is the training of people to wage war against other countries, carrying out a criminally aggressive military policy, appropriate in an institution that pretends to seek the truth? Our answer to this question was NO, because we believed in the necessity to oppose U.S. violence as a moral value. Remember, too, that the time we lived in was essentially post-World War II, and the problem of values in society was still being debated in the aftermath of Nazism. I have no doubt that contemporary students will be taking this up again in the near future.
(3) In chapter 2 of your book, you mention that anti-war students at Columbia protested against recruitment on campus by external organizations like the CIA and the U.S. Marines. Why did you think that it was morally wrong for Columbia University to allow external organizations like the CIA and the U.S. Marines to recruit on campus in 1967? And do you think U.S. pacifists in 2009 should also protest against U.S. universities that allow the CIA and the U.S. Marines to recruit on campus while the Pentagon’s war in Iraq and Afghanistan continues?
MR: Same response as #2 above. Whether recruitment is "external" (e.g., Marine recruiters) or "internal" (Military Science Dept. training future naval officers), it amounts to the same thing. The resources of the university are being used to help wage war.
( 4) In chapter 3 of your book, titled “Action Faction,” you write that on March 27, 1968 “SDS had fifteen hundred names on a petition calling for the severing of “ Columbia University’s “ties with the Pentagon think-tank, the Institute for Defense Analyses (IDA);” and “IDA…became the shorthand symbol for Columbia’s huge network of complicity with the war.”
In 2009, IDA still exists. Do you think that U.S. pacifists should consider demanding that IDA be finally shut down by the Democratic Obama Administration and that U.S. pacifists should consider demanding that U.S. universities like Columbia, MIT and Harvard stop performing war research for the Pentagon’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency [DARPA] in 2009?
MR: I believe that the entire US military budget should be cut back and the money used for social needs both in this country and around the world. Security would be much better served by the development of true international law, not more nuclear weapons. If that doesn't happen in the 21st century, we're doomed. All war research should immediately stop everywhere and the money be put into peace, diplomacy, law, and sustainable energy development. To do less now is not only suicidal, it's downright dumb.
(5) In your book, you mention that you and Abbie Hoffman were both arrested at a November 1967 anti-war protest in Midtown Manhattan against the Foreign Policy Association giving an award to then-Secretary of State Dean Rusk.
April 2009 marks the 20th anniversary of Abbie’s death. How would you characterize the role that Abbie Hoffman played in U.S. anti-war movement history and his historical relationship to U.S. pacifists and non-violent anti-war activists like Dave Dellinger?
MR: Abbie was essentially a comedian and an organizer. He was not at all violent; he always encouraged mass organizing, though often in the form of provocative guerilla theater, like the Yippies nominating a pig for president in 1968. I forget how he and Dave Dellinger got along in Chicago, both in 1968 and during the conspiracy trial the next year. My guess is that they respected each other. Perhaps you know more specifics.
(6) Speaking of Abbie Hoffman, how would you respond to Professor Jonah Raskin’s assertion in his review of your book which was posted on The Rag Blog that “like Abbie Hoffman, Mark Rudd wasn’t suited for the underground life—he needed attention, and attention is, of course, the last thing that any fugitive wants;” and “Underground suggests, implies, and shows that Rudd is up there, along with Abbie, near the top of the list of 1960s radicals who wanted attention, and who received far more attention than they needed…It undid Abbie, and it also helped to undo Rudd.”?
MR: I wonder if Jonah actually read my book.
(7) Why do you think the right-wing media monitoring pressure group” Accuracy In Media” [A.I.M.] apparently attempted to pressure Rupert Murdoch’s HarperCollins publishing firm to not promote your book, according to the” Accuracy In Media” web site?
MR: Just another way for the far right to try get at Obama, but it's so indirect that it makes zero sense to anybody else. There was a tiny connection between Obama and Bill Ayers, but that fact gained no votes for John McCain. These people are so stupid that they're still pursuing a tactic that's already failed. I find that a rather comforting fact.
(8) Do you think it’s likely that Columbia University’s Pulitzer Prize Board will decide to give you a Pulitzer Prize for writing Underground—after Columbia University’s current president--a current board member of the Washington Post Company/Newsweek media conglomerate named Lee Bollinger—reads what you’ve written about Columbia University?
MR: I'm a shoo-in.
In a recent email interview, Rudd responded to some questions about how U.S. pacifists might consider responding to the role U.S. universities play in the current historical era of “permanent war abroad and economic depression at home” and about his new book.
(1) In 2009, some U.S. pacifists seem to regard elite universities like Columbia as institutions that have, both historically and currently, opposed war and opposed racism—since they hire both anti-war and African-American professors and administrators, implement affirmative action hiring programs, set up “peace studies” and “African-American studies” departments, steer foundation grants and scholarship money in the direction of students from historically oppressed communities and to local community groups, and provide free or low-rent meeting room space for anti-war students and off-campus pacifist groups.
Yet in the preface to your book, you write that between 1965 and 1968 you were “a member of SDS at Columbia University” and “made as much noise and trouble as possible to protest the university’s pro-war and racist policies.” In what ways were Columbia University’s policies “pro-war and racist” in 1968 and in what ways are the policies of Columbia University and other elite U.S. universities “pro-war and racist” in 2009?
Mark Rudd [MR]: The specific demands we raised leading up to the spring of 1968--training and recruitment of military officers for the war in Vietnam, weapons research for the war, the building of a gym in public park land--were only the tip of the iceberg of Columbia's policies. Within months of the strike, the North American Congress on Latin America (NACLA) produced a book entitled "Who Rules Columbia," in which they detailed the military, State Dept., and CIA contracts and connections with the School of International Affairs, the various geographical "area studies," such as the East Asia Institute, as well as the revolving door between Columbia and the government; also Columbia's expansion into the surrounding community at the expense of non-white residents. Most of these connections and policies are still in place; almost all major research universities are still major war contractors. The point is that student activists have their work cut out for them to research and expose what's correctly called the military-industrial-academic complex.
(2) In chapter 1 of your book, titled “A Good German,” you recall that when you first met the then-chairman of Columbia’s Independent Committee on Vietnam (ICV) anti-war student group--current U.S. political prisoner David Gilbert—in early 1966, Gilbert mentioned that in May 1965 his group had “held an antiwar protest at the Naval ROTC graduation ceremony” at Columbia. And later in the “A Good German” chapter you mention that in March 1967 you had “taken part in a sit-in at a Naval ROTC class” at Columbia.
Why did you oppose Naval ROTC at Columbia in the 1960s? And do you think U.S. pacifists should consider opposing ROTC on U.S. university campuses in 2009?
MR: The issue is fundamentally moral. Is the training of people to wage war against other countries, carrying out a criminally aggressive military policy, appropriate in an institution that pretends to seek the truth? Our answer to this question was NO, because we believed in the necessity to oppose U.S. violence as a moral value. Remember, too, that the time we lived in was essentially post-World War II, and the problem of values in society was still being debated in the aftermath of Nazism. I have no doubt that contemporary students will be taking this up again in the near future.
(3) In chapter 2 of your book, you mention that anti-war students at Columbia protested against recruitment on campus by external organizations like the CIA and the U.S. Marines. Why did you think that it was morally wrong for Columbia University to allow external organizations like the CIA and the U.S. Marines to recruit on campus in 1967? And do you think U.S. pacifists in 2009 should also protest against U.S. universities that allow the CIA and the U.S. Marines to recruit on campus while the Pentagon’s war in Iraq and Afghanistan continues?
MR: Same response as #2 above. Whether recruitment is "external" (e.g., Marine recruiters) or "internal" (Military Science Dept. training future naval officers), it amounts to the same thing. The resources of the university are being used to help wage war.
( 4) In chapter 3 of your book, titled “Action Faction,” you write that on March 27, 1968 “SDS had fifteen hundred names on a petition calling for the severing of “ Columbia University’s “ties with the Pentagon think-tank, the Institute for Defense Analyses (IDA);” and “IDA…became the shorthand symbol for Columbia’s huge network of complicity with the war.”
In 2009, IDA still exists. Do you think that U.S. pacifists should consider demanding that IDA be finally shut down by the Democratic Obama Administration and that U.S. pacifists should consider demanding that U.S. universities like Columbia, MIT and Harvard stop performing war research for the Pentagon’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency [DARPA] in 2009?
MR: I believe that the entire US military budget should be cut back and the money used for social needs both in this country and around the world. Security would be much better served by the development of true international law, not more nuclear weapons. If that doesn't happen in the 21st century, we're doomed. All war research should immediately stop everywhere and the money be put into peace, diplomacy, law, and sustainable energy development. To do less now is not only suicidal, it's downright dumb.
(5) In your book, you mention that you and Abbie Hoffman were both arrested at a November 1967 anti-war protest in Midtown Manhattan against the Foreign Policy Association giving an award to then-Secretary of State Dean Rusk.
April 2009 marks the 20th anniversary of Abbie’s death. How would you characterize the role that Abbie Hoffman played in U.S. anti-war movement history and his historical relationship to U.S. pacifists and non-violent anti-war activists like Dave Dellinger?
MR: Abbie was essentially a comedian and an organizer. He was not at all violent; he always encouraged mass organizing, though often in the form of provocative guerilla theater, like the Yippies nominating a pig for president in 1968. I forget how he and Dave Dellinger got along in Chicago, both in 1968 and during the conspiracy trial the next year. My guess is that they respected each other. Perhaps you know more specifics.
(6) Speaking of Abbie Hoffman, how would you respond to Professor Jonah Raskin’s assertion in his review of your book which was posted on The Rag Blog that “like Abbie Hoffman, Mark Rudd wasn’t suited for the underground life—he needed attention, and attention is, of course, the last thing that any fugitive wants;” and “Underground suggests, implies, and shows that Rudd is up there, along with Abbie, near the top of the list of 1960s radicals who wanted attention, and who received far more attention than they needed…It undid Abbie, and it also helped to undo Rudd.”?
MR: I wonder if Jonah actually read my book.
(7) Why do you think the right-wing media monitoring pressure group” Accuracy In Media” [A.I.M.] apparently attempted to pressure Rupert Murdoch’s HarperCollins publishing firm to not promote your book, according to the” Accuracy In Media” web site?
MR: Just another way for the far right to try get at Obama, but it's so indirect that it makes zero sense to anybody else. There was a tiny connection between Obama and Bill Ayers, but that fact gained no votes for John McCain. These people are so stupid that they're still pursuing a tactic that's already failed. I find that a rather comforting fact.
(8) Do you think it’s likely that Columbia University’s Pulitzer Prize Board will decide to give you a Pulitzer Prize for writing Underground—after Columbia University’s current president--a current board member of the Washington Post Company/Newsweek media conglomerate named Lee Bollinger—reads what you’ve written about Columbia University?
MR: I'm a shoo-in.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
