From the desk of Katrina vanden Heuvel

The Nation wants you to send money. Send money! It's like the scene in Hannah & Her Sisters. "And always, send money!"

Peggy Randall, whose listed on a letter as "Director" but is still (we believe) an Associate Publisher, notes the stakes right at the top of her request:

TRAITOR?
Yes, you
* if you question where the country is going in Iraq, as legions continue to die and the fury spills across the Middle East

She goes on to list other ways that the White House thinks dissent equates with traitor. She offers her greeting and then goes right into what we've quoted.

We point that out because things are a little different from the desk of Katrina vanden Heuvel (editor and publisher of The Nation). Read her letter in vain to find the word "Iraq." It's not there. And is anyone surprised at this late date?

What's the most pressing issue on many people's minds? What gave Democrats a mandate in the November elections? Iraq. (Or as Tim Russert might put it, in his best Jan Brady, "Iraq, Iraq, Iraq!") It's on the minds and lips of most. Maybe vanden Heuvel's desk was a little cluttered?

The Nation magazine certainly is. Cluttered with one get-out-the-vote drive after another. Cluttered with page after page of gas bagging and sermonettes from clouds about the Democratic Party. When the Dems elected to stand down (which, as David Swanson points out, they're still doing it even if they try to market it otherwise), you might think the 'leading' magazine of the left would call them out on that? Not a chance in hell. They're too busy, week after week, cheerleading. In fact, Katha Pollitt's lept to the bandwagon in a recent piece. It's one of her better pieces in terms of fire but it fails the logic test. How so?

She's expressing her outrage over the Court's destruction of Roe (we could have done without her apology for being angry). She doesn't just express her outrage, however. She also finds the bad guy. She tells you it's Republicans. And only Republicans. As if Bob Casey Jr. got elected on a Republican ticket? Or, more to the point for a writer who wants to bring up how the same issue was decided differently when Sandra Day O'Connor was on the bench, as if O'Connor was appointed by a Democrat? When Pollitt's telling you that it makes a difference who controls the White House and who controls Congress, it really is reaching to mention "Sandra Day O'Connor" while also pinning the blame on Republicans. (O'Connor was appointed by Ronald Reagan. And, no, we're not part of the crowd spinning myths about the "great" Sandy Day who, in fact, helped lead some of the earlier efforts to chip away at Roe.)

It's strange too that she's so quick to serve the blame to Republicans that she forgets that the table Joe Biden, et al, are sitting are waiting on their own slices of blame pie. They are the ones who, after all, elected not to filibuster either John Roberts or Samuel Alito when Bully Boy nominated them.

But then, it's a lot easier to just reduce it to Republicans bad and bite the tongue regarding the political party that's maintained they will preserve Roe for thirty-plus years. But we'll set Pollitt aside because the focus is Iraq and, let's face it, Pollitt set Iraq aside many, many moons ago.

So Katrina vanden Heuvel wants to help Peggy Randall raise money but the reality is we know several who tossed the appeal into the trash after reading the note from the desk of. Due to the fact that vanden Heuvel is such a Peace Resister these days she can't even utter the word "Iraq" while she's asking you to toss into the collection plate. (We didn't toss our letters. We never toss our letters from The Nation. They're so much fun to repeat and josh in the print edition. We save them for the "This Month's Beggers" feature.)

While vanden Heuvel makes like a punch bowl server at a Democratic coatillion, other news outlets haven't been so silent.

Last week, Salon published Gregory Levey's "Northern exposure: American soldiers are fleeing the Iraq war for Canada -- and U.S. officials may be on their trail. North of the border is no longer the safe haven it was during the Vietnam era" -- on a topic we'd begun to suspect would never give any attention. (We will note, since the article is now also being run at Der Spiegel, Jeffry House's first name has no second "e.") And Levey's article reminded us, yet again, of the silence on this issue coming from the pages of The Nation.




So we thought we'd note a few of the standouts in the past month. One article or your every-two-year editorial doesn't cut it as a standout, just FYI.

Let's start with Off Our Backs. Check out the cover illustration. "Military Power: Is It Power for Women?" Not afraid to ask the hard questions, not afraid to move beyond the Britney-Justin-Paris gossip loop that so many pass off as feminism. Not afraid to step up and address the issue of war. When C.I. started noting this issue (repeatedly and we've also noted this edition -- vol. 36/ no 2 -- twice here) there wasn't anything available online from it. Now you can read the following online:

"Women in the Military: Who's Got Your Back?" by Jane Hoppen
"The Rape of the 'Hadji Girl'" by Cheryl Lindsey Seelhoff
"Serving in the Rape Zone" by Allison Tobey

In addition to those three articles being made available online, the print edition also features:

"Feminists in the Military: Is Armed Service Compatible with Feminism?" by Taryn McCall Runck

"A Rape in Iraq: Rape, Brothel Rape and Prsostitution in Wartime" by Suki Falconberg

"U.S. Soldier Pimps Women Under His Command" by Cheryl Seelhoff

That's six features in a single issue. In The Nation's dreams, it wishes it could be this hard hitting. (Though, of course, since The Nation only believes in printing 1 woman for every 4 men, all features would have to be written by men to appear in The Nation -- see "The Nation Stats" from last week's edition.) This is the issue of Off Our Backs that did what The Nation couldn't, mention Abeer by name, tell her story. Around the time Katha Pollitt's big concern was that CODEPINK was being 'mean' to War Hawk Hillary Clinton, Off Our Backs was addressing the very real issue of the gang rape and murder of a 14-year-old girl by US soldiers (3 have confessed in court). But in The Nation? Even the 'feminist' Katha was too busy gas bagging about Hillary or sharing the 'importance' of political candidate Ned Lamont. Apparently War Crimes weren't important and gang rape and murder aren't topics that token 'feminists' tackle? (Alexander Cockburn would mention Abeer in April 2007 -- the first time her name would ever appear in The Nation. Or any details of what was done to her and her family.) And to be fair, we should mention that Patricia J. Williams is a law professor. Obama running leads her to running off at the mouth. War crimes? Williams shut down the rag's legal department to take a pass on that.

Off Our Backs did an amazingly hard hitting look at war, the military and the costs. It can be done, they proved it while others stayed silent.

Also pictured is International Socialist Review. ISR's Jan-Feb. 2007 issue features Anthony Arnove's "The occupation of Iraq: Act III of a tragedy in many parts," Lance Selfa's "The end of the Republican Revolution," Sharon Smith's "Where have all the liberals gone? A historical perspective" (though not technically an Iraq piece, this is a historical piece -- a strong one -- and we do think it goes a long way towards explaining the how's of Iraq by tracing the demise of liberalism in public office) and Ben Dalbey's "Who messed up this perfectly good war? Review of State of Denial." If we hadn't had so many problems we'd also have included ISR's March - April 2007 issue. Use the link for International Socialist Review later in the week because they've just moved that to the archives and the features in it aren't showing up ("Page cannot be displayed" is the message you'll get currently). But that issue featured Elizabeth Wrigley-Field's "The voices of war resisters" -- a review of Peter Laufer's Mission Rejected: U.S. Soldiers Who Say No to Iraq, Deepa Kuman's "Islam and Islamophobia" tackeling the stereotypes that pop up across the board (even a cover of The Progressive makes the cut), Lance Selfa's "The new face of U.S. politics" on what the Dems November 2006 victory means (warning -- not the candy fluff you get in The Nation) and Joel Geier's "Crisis of U.S. imperialism" which looks at Iraq as part of the continual war machine.

We're moving to Ms. magazine. Kat says it was something in DC that she, Wally and C.I. were in DC for that when a friend of C.I.'s dropped this issue off (Alito confirmation hearings, C.I. says that may be right or not, "Let's just finish the feature!"). It wasn't on sale yet. But it was a pick me up for all three, the Winter 2006 issue. The illustration cuts off before the top headline: "Can We Stop The War In Iraq?" Inside the magazine "Jane Fonda Talks With Robin Morgan" was a free wheeling interview addressing many topics including Iraq, Blanche Wiesen Cook's "Women and Peace: The Legacy" traced women's historical work in the peace movement, Katti Gray's "Silence = War" looked at the "new wave of feminist peace activist," Kelly Rae Kraemer and Susan McKay explained "How I Teach Peace," "Peaceful Readings" offered Blanche Wiesen Cook's recommended readings, and Julie Littman. While C.I. addressed the strong issue, as Trina noted, the Mud Flap Gals wasted everyone's time worrying about the cover (subject and photo). Jane Fonda in 2006, scoffed the Mud Flap Gals. That would be the year she landed at number one on the weekly box office charts and on the book charts. But for Mud Flap Gals to know that, they'd have to read and, as their 'review' of this issue indicated, reading's not one of their strong suits. They also felt the need to back up the very non-feminist website The Gawker in critizing the photo. Was Jane selling sex? Was she being objectified? No! But the photo looked too much (to them) like another magazine cover featuring Laura Bush and a dog. The criticism was laughable -- even more so when you grasp that the Mud Flap Gals couldn't even tell you about the magazine -- because they hadn't read it. Why waste time reading when you can (mis)judge a book by it's cover! (See "Parody: Mud Flap Gals.")

It was all lost on the little gals (even the choice of pink for the background -- CODEPINK). Reading Helen Redmond's "It's still sexim" (a book review of Ariel Levy's Female Chauvinist Pigs: Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture") in ISR's March - April 2007 issue, we felt Redmond could have been addressing the Mud Flap Gals -- of course they'd never know unless Redmond put it on YouTube with a celeb scandal.

Which brings us to The Progressive. On the January 2007 issue, C.I. noted they'd just done the strongest reporting on Iraq in indymedia for 2007 (and wondered whether any other outlet would rise the occassion). Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg contributed "Homecoming Nightmares" about PTSD and Traci Hukill offered "A Peculiar Version of Friendly Fire: Female Troops Face Double Danger" about being harassed and assaulted while serving. The May 2007 issue (noted in "Iraq snapshot" and "Iraq snapshot") features Howard Zinn's "Are We Politicians or Citizens?" and Kirk Nielsen's "War Stories" (book reviews) addresses US war resister Joshua Key's The Deserter's Tale. (The first print magazine to do so. Despite all the gas baggery to be found in The Nation's book reviews, they've yet to review any book on war resistance.)

The Nation is a weekly (unless it's a "double" issue -- that's frequently the same size as the regular issue). Over 40 issues a year. And yet it can't cover war resistance in any form -- not even book or film reviews. Though Abeer became strong news in June of 2006, you had to wait until April 2007 to finally read about her in The Nation (and we really consider that via CounterPunch since the article was written by Alexander Cockburn and also appeared at CounterPunch). They couldn't do a single article on the peace movement. Look above and you'll see articles on the peace movement. They couldn't cover the very assaults on women serving in the US military. They couldn't offer much except "Meet the Dems" (Harry Ford Jr. was a regular Blythe Danner -- or they thought so). Week after week.

Ms. and Off Our Backs publishes four times a year, ISR is bi-monthly and The Progressive is monthly. While we are grateful for the coverage they have provided, we think it's shocking that a weekly (The Nation) can't offer at least as much as magazines published far less frequently. But as Katrina vanden Heuvel indicated when she had her hand out asking for more money (Cedric: "Get your hand out my pocket!"), Iraq's not really a concern -- not one to be named or addressed. That's why Isaiah dubbed her "The Peace Resister" to begin with.