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August 2004 Articles
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DV Articles
November 2003
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August 30 6 p.m. -- OPENING PRAYER read by Mel Gibson, while being flogged with a spiked leather strap wielded by Ann Coulter, who will enjoy it a little too much. * TOM RIDGE raises National Alert Level from beige to ecru. * LEST WE FORGET -- HONORARY ROLL CALL of All Members of (and Friends of) Bush Administration Who Might Very Well Have Been Killed In Vietnam If It Hadn't Been For Nasty Trick Knees, Anal Cysts, Recurrent Headaches, and Highly-Placed, Overly-Protective Parents. (Sponsored by Tyson Chicken) * ANTONIN SCALIA speaks -- "SLAVERY: THE ORIGINAL INTENT OF OUR FOREFATHERS, AND GREAT FOR BUSINESS!" (Sponsored by Wal-Mart).... ==> (click here for full schedule) <==
Manhattan: It was a massive sea of people on
the streets of New York City, on Sunday, August 29th, protesting the Iraq
War and the GOP Convention. On 7th Avenue, in particular, under a
scorching sun with the temperature in the low-90s, banners, signs, flags,
posters, chanting and parents pushing their infants in strollers
dominated. The entire parade lasted for over six hours and the crowd
stretched for nearly two miles....(full
article)
On the eve of the Republican National Convention, a plethora of activist groups with sharp anti-war axes to grind descend into the net of NY’s finest. Like an approaching angry tropical storm, the world braces for impact. Political weather prognosticators of all stripes presage its momentum, force and effect on the Presidential Campaign. By early Sunday morning 8/29, nearly 400 protesters had experienced the metallic taste of arrest and detention. Although predominately an anti-Bush protest, soft Kerry supporters bear signs scripted with Kerry’s Vietnam-era remark: “How do you ask a soldier to be the last person to die for a lie?” He has forgotten or perhaps he never understood. The week prior to the start of the RNC Convention, DNC Chair Terry McAuliffe, proclaimed, “Let me be crystal clear. I'd like to draw a line in the sand. We (DNC/Kerry) have nothing to do with the (RNC Convention) demonstrators.”....(full article)
In 1968, former Congressman George Herbert Walker Bush of Texas, fresh from voting to send other men’s sons to Vietnam, enlisted his own son in a very special affirmative action program, the ‘champagne’ unit of the Texas Air National Guard. There, Top Gun fighter pilot George Dubya was assigned the dangerous job of protecting Houston from Vietcong air attack. This week, former Lt. Governor Ben Barnes of Texas 'fessed up to pulling the strings to keep Little George out of the jungle. "I got a young man named George W. Bush into the Texas Air Guard - and I'm ashamed."....(full article)
Seemingly far removed from the reactionary political climate immediately following September 11, 2001 disillusionment with the current Bush administration has by now reached a broad base and runs deep, extending well beyond our own national borders. Events over the past 6 months such as the March 20 coordinated day of action against the occupation organized by United for Peace & Justice, the million person strong pro-choice march, back in late April organized by groups like Planned Parenthood and the National Organization of Women, and most recently the unprecedented popularity of Michael Moore’s film Fahrenheit 9/11, have left many people anticipating a week of historic demonstrations when the Republicans come to New York City from August 29 to September 2. What was originally supposed to be the Republican strategists crowning achievement in their tireless campaign to exploit the tragedy of September 11, the week during the convention has quickly turned into a virtual public relations nightmare for Bush and his crew....(full article)
I will defend New York, as a city and as a
way of life, when called to do so. This is a week in which we are called.
The Republicans are trying to use New York to advance a social agenda that
assaults the diversity and tolerance at the heart of the city, and to
promote a fiscal program that starves urban centers. New Yorkers are right
in refusing to provide a cheerful backdrop for the Party's week of
self-promotion....(full article)
Media Declares War on
Anti-War Protests (but more Generals, please) The August 26, 2004 New York Daily News headline blared: ANARCHY, INC. The idea, of course, was to paint the upcoming RNC protests with the broad brush of corporate media propaganda. An influential ingredient of wartime spin is shaping public perception of the anti-war movement. As a result, coverage of demonstrations is usually a tepid combination of low crowd estimates and footage of police arresting “unruly” protestors. “War, and the threat of war, sells newspapers,” says media analyst Danny Schechter. “Peace does not. The 'action' of war builds TV ratings. In contrast, the quieter work of diplomacy and negotiations is boring and not highly visual. War gives journalists a chance to show how brave they are in a macho sport where only the strong survive. Peace is far headier, an intellectual's vocation, a game for lawyers, softies and sissies.”....(full article)
The Democratic Party’s Nader bashers sunk to a new low with a television ad attacking Republican financial support for Ralph Nader’s presidential campaign--which ends with the Bush-Cheney campaign logo altered to read "Bush-Nader." The ad was paid for by TheNaderFactor.com, one of several groups connected to the Democrats that has frantically attacked Nader for daring to offer a left-wing alternative to John Kerry’s Republican Lite campaign. "[Nader] is now at a point where his entire legacy may come down to him helping Bush stay in office for another four years, and him cooperating with the right-wing groups that he’s opposed," Chris Kofnis, an adviser to the group, snarled to the New York Times. Neither Kofnis nor the Times bothered to mention that campaign contributions from known Bush supporters constitute less than 5 percent of the $1 million that the Nader campaign has raised. Still, given their sanctimonious tone, you’d think that the Nader bashers would at least set a squeaky-clean example. But you’d be wrong. According to records, TheNaderFactor.com's largest donor is a regular donor to the Republican Party....(full article)
The president—and his chance for re-election—is particularly vulnerable right now, based on what Bush did and didn't do in Iraq. But the White House isn't worried. Behind the smokescreen that's been created by dueling Swift boaters and clashing proposals for CIA restructure, Bush's people are confident that controversy will be in the cards and in the news, and that the spotlight will stay off the president's failures. Former CIA analyst McGovern explains....(full article)
The corporate Olympics hardly seem worth the time and effort to watch these days; and I’m not sure that it ever was. With apologies to the “clean” athletes, following millionaire doped-up athletes flying corporate banners in pursuit of victory at any cost is rather a contradictory pastime for progressives. A lack of sportsmanship and the emphasis on competition among countries stirs up fervent patriotism and arguably serves as a springboard for the jingoistic fervor that sees citizens of one country cheering the violent attack of another country. For George Orwell, sport was “war minus the shooting.” Indeed, the original Olympic events and athletes likeliest had their genesis in war and as agents of war....(full article)
A few nights ago while watching the Olympics I saw what People Power could do....(full article)
I've said it before
and I'll say it again. If you really want to see how the dominant
corporate-state media manufactures mass consent to American racist,
capitalist, militarist empire and inequality, you've got to look at
sports, entertainment, and (for the lack of a better phrase right now)
personal improvement media as well as the news media. Beyond its
functions of mass diversion, distraction, and infantilization, the
non-news media is loaded with authoritarian ideology, presented in ways
that are every bit as significant (maybe more significant) as what goes on
with the more officially propagandistic and openly Orwellian news and
commentary wing. Take, for example, the ongoing US Olympics coverage,
brought to us by NBC, a subsidiary of leading world “defense” contractor
General Electric....
Here's an election strategy for those who feel abandoned by their political leaders, but who are torn between voting their conscience and getting rid of the Bushies....(full article)
The other day an article by Carl Mayer appeared in Dissident Voice, attacking David Cobb’s campaign and accusing him of taking the Green Party “over a cliff.” It was the most recent in a line of attack articles that have appeared from Nader supporters. Mayer wrote that the Green Party will “implode” if we don’t dump Cobb. A pending implosion seems unlikely, but if the party does implode it won’t be because of David Cobb, but rather because of articles like that by Carl Mayer that deliberately attempt to create divisions in the Green Party and play fast and loose with the facts....(full article)
Before progressives and other readers of Dissident Voice spend the next few weeks attacking one another over the Ralph Nader candidacy for President, I hope they will pause and consider some historical points that have not heretofore been made on these pages....(full article)
On Sunday, August 22nd, state delegates of the Pennsylvania Green Party formally rejected the strategy that their presidential candidate David Cobb should run a “safe states” campaign....“The Green Party of Pennsylvania encourages the National Green Party candidates to run vigorously in Pennsylvania and in all states, regardless of projected electoral outcomes; and The Green Party of Pennsylvania rejects any ‘safe states strategy,’ and calls upon the national candidates and all state Green Parties to do the same, and we call upon all voters to reject any candidate that does not oppose the Iraq War.”....(full article)
Why are some Americans mobilizing to publicly gather and speak out about their working lives? Just ask a top organizer for the Million Worker March (MWM) protest in Washington, DC on October 17. “The MWM is a response to attacks on working people,” said Clarence Thomas, secretary-treasurer of Local 10 of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU), and co-chair of the MWM. Two examples he cited are the outsourcing of jobs abroad and privatizing of public services at home under the Bush White House. American workers have been the losers....(full article)
Two days after workers at the 36th and Madison Starbucks in New York City turned in their union cards to the NLRB for a certification election, Howard Schultz, the CEO of Starbucks, sent them a little voice message. In this dispatch from the corporate tower, Schultz—who personally brought in 17 million dollars last year—tried to appeal to the $7.75-per-hour upstarts in words that would impress George Orwell. The multi-millionaire CEO began his message by referring to his poverty-wage employees as “partners”, and stressed how Starbucks and its workers “have built great trust in one another.” He went on to explain that he viewed “treating everyone with dignity and respect as our highest priority”, and stressed the “caring and supportive culture” of the company. He ended with this note of pure authenticity: “I want to conclude by simply thanking you for everything you do each day, and for being the real heart and soul of Starbucks.” Not surprisingly, the workers saw right through this corporate textbook mumbo-jumbo. Their experience had taught them better. Their story and their ongoing struggle for the first unionized Starbucks locale of the more than 4,000 Starbucks in the United States is vitally important and in need of our support....(full article)
As a Gen Xer raised by a Boomer I was constantly fed rhetoric about how great the summer of love was, man, and how the people stood together against the man, man, and it was groovy, man. Of course, our parents were never home, man, because they were off looking for truth or Zen or some platform shoes or some such seventies pap that preceded the Yucky Yuppie era when they apparently found themselves (oh, there I am, man!) and discovered that ideology was a shit sandwich without a BMW and a nice big house in a gated community on the white side of town to wash it down with....(full article)
A review of Greg Bates' Ralph's Revolt: "Should we abandon third-party efforts to oust George W. Bush?” Greg Bates writes in the introduction to his recently published political tract. His answer: “To promote and encourage democracy, we must build the third party strategy. Even during, perhaps especially during, these most dangerous times.”....(full article)
Happy is the country
which requires no heroes,” Bertolt Brecht commented. Today, by that
standard, the United States is a very unhappy country. These days, the
public’s genuine eagerness for heroes is difficult to gauge. If media
output is any measure, the hero industry is engaged in massive
overproduction. Whether the “products” are entertainers, star athletes or
politicians, the PR efforts are unrelenting. Some brands catch on....
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld appointed the members of the Independent Panel to investigate the causes for the infamous prisoner abuse scandals and provide advice for what actions the Department of Defense can take to help prevent such incidents in the future. Rumsfeld can start by firing Lt. Gen. William Boykin....(full article)
The most contentious issue of the upcoming presidential election so far is history. Whoever expected that we’d be re-fighting thirty and forty year old arguments about the Vietnam War? In a sense, John Kerry brought it on himself. Trying to wrest patriotism from its Republican stranglehold, Kerry has over-emphasized his Vietnam record as combat hero. But the Republicans also play “capture the flag” and when they are losing re-write the rules....(full article)
President Bush has made a point of repeatedly saying “You're either with us, or you're with the terrorists.” In 2001, he told thousands of members of the 101st Airborne Division (Screaming Eagles) at Fort Campbell, Kentucky: "If you harbor terrorists, you are a terrorist. If you train or arm a terrorist, you are a terrorist. If you feed or fund a terrorist, you're a terrorist, and you will be held accountable by the United States and our friends." These remarks are at the foundation of the Bush Doctrine and his attempts to enlist other nations in the war against terrorism. What then to make of Panama’s recent decision to pardon four Cuban exiles convicted of plotting a terrorist attack? (full article)
Recently, the two leading American newspapers, the Washington Post and the New York Times, made serious and sincere efforts to review their editorial and coverage policies regarding the Iraqi war and their uncritical approach to the Bush administration's justification for that war. This trend of self-criticism is very good and encouraging news for American democracy. These two publications, while being directed at and read by a relatively narrow 'intellectual' readership, also serve to 'pull' with them the widely circulated local media, TV reporters, and popular press. As a responsibility of my profession I have been reading a wide spectrum of the American press for many years. Much of the time, I find myself puzzled by the uncritical and biased coverage of the Israeli political scene. American media is uncritical even in comparison to Israel's quality media. All too often, the American media sounds just like a mouthpiece of the Israeli government's propaganda....(full article)
Troy Skeels looks at the whacko history of intelligence conspiracist Lyndon LaRouche....(full article)
A revised version of a popular DV article from 2003. hen President Bush decided to invade Iraq, his spokesmen began comparing Saddam Hussein to Adolph Hitler, the most monstrous figure in modern history. Everybody was therefore shocked when a high German bureaucrat turned the tables by comparing Bush himself with Hitler. As to be expected, she (the bureaucrat) was forced to resign because of her extreme disrespect for an American president. However, the resemblance sticks--there are too many similarities to be ignored, some of which may be listed here....(full article)
The furniture was confused. It had done no wrong, as far as it could tell, and did not see why it should be punished. We refer to the furniture as a single unit, of course, for the sofa, wisest, oldest piece in the room, naturally serves as duly elected representative and spokespiece for all the furniture in The Parlor. The Stalwart, comfortable old Sofa had hosted human buttocks since the early nineteenth century.....(full story)
* Georgie Boy: An Election Year Ballad by Edward Jayne
Karaoke night at Burt's Tavern really tells you more about American life and politics than a stack of books ever can: I know it makes me a dinosaur, but I still think there is much to be learned in America’s small neighborhood taverns. I call it my “learning through drinking” program. Here are some things I have learned at Burt’s Westside Tavern ....(full article)
The anti-war upsurge of 2003 confirmed two facts: that the world did not buy the Bush war dance, and Bush did not much care. Civil resistance was therefore futile. The Muslim world had suspected that all along. And being more on the receiving end, its revulsion ran deeper. Even before the Iraq invasion, Saudis registered a 97% disapproval of U.S. policies. Islamic antipathy toward the U.S. was most pronounced, in fact, in areas that have shown a real fondness for McValues. In Egypt, for example, there was a sense of betrayal among the 57 percent of the population that is under 25. The fact that these youth are mesmerized by American culture only makes U.S. aggression a more personal blow to them. Many try to resolve the contradiction by distinguishing the U.S. government from the American people; but eventually the fact will sink in that Americans are quite comfortable with the new imperialism so long as it keeps gas prices low and does not trigger tax hikes....(full article)
America's campaign for Emperor is becoming nasty. What shameful accusations are being tossed around: an ambitious, privileged young John Kerry, who spent a brief stint in Vietnam beefing up the hero section of his resume, never actually did some of the things he claims or at least didn't do them under the circumstances he claims. Since his heroic deeds included chasing after a wounded man and shooting him in the back and skippering a machine gun-mounted speed boat that ran up and down rivers shooting peasants desperate enough to appear in their own fields, there is reason for concern. Polls apparently show the large group of undecided voters already having second thoughts about Kerry. You can't elect a man Emperor who distorts the truth about things like that. Much better if he actually did them....(full article)
The "Clash of Civilization" thesis is the
ideology of America’s establishment as it wages its “war against terror.”
The Muslims attacked America because they hate who we are. They want to
destroy us because they hate our freedom, our opportunities, our
democratic institutions, our way of life, our Judeo-Christian heritage. It
is a hatred that is civilizational. It is rooted in the illiberal,
intolerant, misogynist, anti-modernist, and anti-scientific culture of
Muslims and their religion. This thesis is now spun a thousand times every
day by America’s politicians, press and pundits. This ideology of the
clash of civilizations is multi-layered. First, it seeks to explain to
Americans and the rest of the world why the United States and the rest of
the world must wage this war against terror. Secondly, the clash thesis –
long championed by Zionist ideologues inside and outside Israel – is a
device for Americanizing the war Israel has waged against the Palestinians
and Arabs. Thirdly, the war against terror is itself a cover which the
United States is using to establish a more muscular control over the
world. This ideology is problematic....
They're at it again. FBI agents in recent weeks have been visiting and interrogating dozens of young activists believed to be planning or considering protests at the Democrat and Republican conventions. The New York Times exposed the FBI's home visits and intimidating interviews last week in a report headlined "FBI Goes Knocking for Political Troublemakers" -- those last two words tell us more about Times bias than about the activists in question. With Al Qaeda and similar terrorists bent on murdering as many ordinary Americans as possible, why would the FBI divert resources and personnel to protesters and nonviolent civil disobedients? (full article)
Book Review of Beat the Heat by Katya Komisaruk: Magic Words -- “I am going to remain silent. I would like to see a lawyer.” With cell phones surgically attached to their ears and Reagan buttons adorning their golf shirts, the Republicans will come swarming onto Manhattan Island at the end of August evoking images of a Hitler Youth reunion doing a GAP commercial. Joining them in the sweltering late summer heat will be legions of protestors and squadrons of police. This volatile mix guarantees we'll see a sudden evaporation of homeless people, an abundance of street closings, and arrests by the busload. “The cops are here to protect us,” we'll be told...but Katya Komisaruk sees things a little differently....(full review)
Vietnam was a chemical war, permanently contaminating large regions and countries downriver with Agent Orange, and environmentally the most devastating war in world history. But since 1991, the U.S. has staged four nuclear wars using depleted uranium weaponry, which, like Agent Orange, meets the U.S. government definition of Weapons of Mass Destruction. Vast regions in the Middle East and Central Asia have been permanently contaminated with radiation....(full article)
Najaf. Where have we seen this before?
American tanks surround the holy site of a religious sect. Troop
commanders and government officials issue bombastic orders to an inferior,
out-gunned, faith-fueled adversary to surrender or die. The guardians of
the site are armed and determined to fight rather than surrender their
charismatic leader. The pusillanimous press obediently label the
surrounded ones as dangerous fanatics led by a fiery rebel. The Americans
claim that the rebels have rigged the holy site to burn it to the ground.
The soldiers demand that the rebels surrender, disarm and submit to “an
arrest warrant.” Is this Najaf... or is it Waco?
(full article)
It's
a New World Order and America's families deserve new breeds of genetically
engineered dogs for the times we live in today.
Beneath the sandwich and cigarette wrappers on the floor of my truck, beneath this road and down hundreds of feet within the earth gleams a city planned for the Apocalypse. A complete underground city with apartments and dormitories, cafeterias, a hospital, its own transit system, a battery powered subway. It has TV communication, streets and sidewalks, a water purification system, power plant and general office buildings. A small lake fed by fresh underground springs dreams in its artificial lighting. That’s what former government workers who have served inside Mount Weather have said. Others say it is no fancier than your average Army base to be found anywhere in the world, but with a lake. Ever since the Eisenhower administration, this has been the designated place where the important people in government will go in a nuclear emergency or national disaster. Mount Weather is the hub of a nerve center of about 100 other Federal Relocation Centers, which guarantee that the really big players in the game escape even the worst disasters they create with their asses intact. In every likelihood, this “undisclosed location” sheltered Dick Cheney during 911. Employees say it did. To be in charge of the nation from the bowels of this bizarre monument to Cold War thinking would give far saner people than Cheney Doctor Strangelovian delusions. So we can only speculate what a congenitally paranoid old reptile like Cheney must have experienced. He must have had quite a time keeping that reflexive gloved hand in his lap. Throw in the fact that most of the hired help down there in the hidden city are born-again fundamentalist Christian pod people, (mainly because that’s about all we have around here) and I don’t know about you, but I cannot think of a stranger damned place on this earth....(full article)
Elizabeth Schulte and Cindy Clumb looks at the crisis of affordable housing in Bush’s America....(full article)
After a ‘truly historic’ agreement, it is now an embarrassing wake-up call for the developing countries. The big boys have done it again. This time, they have successfully managed to apply the dope trick on the developing countries – putting them in a hall of shame for letting the rich and industrialized countries not only walk away with all the trade-distorting farm subsidies but also allowing them to throw a still protective ring around agriculture. It is now official. The United States will not be reducing its huge financial support to farmers (and agribusiness companies) even after the 20 per cent cut in trade-distorting subsidies promised in the first year of implementation. The European Union too has also got a waiver. It does not need to make any cut in agricultural subsidies from the existing level. Nor will the export subsidies be removed for another ten years or so. All that the developing countries have got in return is a lollipop – some imports to be protected under the category of ‘special products’....(full article)
The Anybody But Bush plague has infected the
American left with ruthless speed and efficiency. Descrying how, why, and
under what circumstances this or that particular leftist figure has fallen
victim to it is a rather cumbersome and tedious task best left to the
coroners of history. It seems far more prudent now to identify, in
concrete terms, the most important consequences the ABB epidemic will have
on our attempts to reshape society along more just and rational lines.
Below, I outline six of them....
David Cobb is serving up his own brand of suicidal Cool-Aid to the Green Party of the United States and if, my fellow Greens and progressives, we do not dump Cobb now, he will take the party over a cliff....(full article)
I think I've heard and read the word “conscience” more in the last couple of months than almost any time in my life. This has happened mainly in connection with the position Green Party Presidential candidate David Cobb has been putting forward in battleground states, states where the polls indicate a toss-up between Bush and Kerry on November 2. In those states Cobb articulates the Green critique of both corporate parties and the urgent need for a people's alternative to them, but he then acknowledges that in those very-close states that people should “vote their conscience” as far as the Presidential race, while urging them to register Green and be sure to vote for Greens lower down on the ballot....(full article)
Peter Kurth takes us on a brief excursion through religion, urban legends, the Amish, George Bush and whoopie pie....(full article)
Were you surprised at the turn of events these past few weeks? Speculations over the imminent capture of High Value Targets (HVTs) sometime around the Democratic National Convention proved to be prophetic. Quite a number were bagged in what looked like a pan-global anti-terror coup. One of them was Qari Saifullah Akhtar, who was arrested in Dubai. He supposedly ran a terror camp near Kabul that once trained “3,500 men in combat skills, assassination and kidnapping.” That would mean a high number of “terrorists” still on the loose. Scores of operatives were nabbed in Pakistan and the United Kingdom, and once again the White House can claim to have thwarted another terror attack. There is a subtle utility about arrests conducted abroad, by independent allies. In the minds of casual observers, they can deflect, at first glance, any linkages with the November presidential polls in the United States, making it more of a genuine cooperative breakthrough than a political ploy. The fact is most of the intelligence in this latest sweep came from stale pre-9/11 data....(full article)
What, I wondered, have the reckless, Islam-bashing, oil-and-natural-gas deposits-pursuing, Israel-protecting, imperial politicking of Bush and Cheney, and their immediate GOP predecessors in the White House, made America really safer for? It occurs to me they've made America safer for opium dealers, terrorists and the warmongering Neocons....(full article)
George W. Bush
once told The Washington Post's Bob Woodward the great
thing about being president was that he didn't have to answer to anybody.
“I'm the commander,” Bush bragged. “See -- I do not need to explain why I
say things...Maybe somebody needs to explain to me why they say something,
but I don't feel like I owe anybody an explanation...” So that's it,
then. Houston -- we have your problem. And, like they say in Texas --
anybody with half sense and one eye can see it's out of control. With
this guy, the buck never seems to stop -- just veers crazily around
corners, never turns back, thunders through the halls of the
administration -- scares the hell out of those who try to corral it. The
few times it has been caught in the glare of truth's headlights, its eyes
were so wildly insane that hunters, even scandal-hardened ones like
Woodward, quickly backed off. It's time for the buck to stop. The guilty
within this destructive administration must be held accountable for the
massive damage they are causing throughout the world. Someone must pay
for the pain and humiliation suffered by human beings under our care whom
we so cavalierly torture -- literally -- to death. Someone must be held
to account for the innocent men, women and children who are nothing more
than collateral damage and who must die simply because they are there....
As the 21st century dawns, Americans have come to define patriotism as uncritical support of war and the military. In this year’s presidential campaign, John Kerry touts his war exploits in Vietnam, and those with connections to George W. Bush try to rewrite this history decades later. The president dresses up in military garb and lands on an aircraft carrier, pretending to be a war hero to make people forget that he avoided the danger of conflict years earlier. Both Bush and Kerry favored the unprovoked U.S. invasion of a sovereign nation (Iraq)—the same thing Saddam Hussein did to become a world pariah in 1990. And both the president and his challenger said they would have invaded even if they knew in advance that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction. Such militarization of U.S. society and foreign policy would cause the founders of this great nation to roll over in their graves....(full article)
In his acceptance speech at the Democratic Convention in Boston, John Kerry reassured the corporate establishment which lavished millions on the festivities that he would restore sanity to the maintenance of empire. (Both parties are swimming in corporate contributions: Money Magazine reports, "More than 125 companies, unions and private foundations, including some 50 members of the Fortune 500, will pump at least $103.5 million into the conventions of both major U.S. political parties this year, thanks to new election rules that help big donors skirt campaign finance limits.") This year's JFK intoned, "We need to make America once again a beacon in the world. We need to be looked up to and not just feared." Kerry proposes to do this by increasing the armed forces by 40,000 troops. He also pledged to double the size of U.S. special forces to fight "terrorist campaigns," then corrected himself and said "anti-terrorist campaigns." Given the behavior of CIA operatives and U.S. forces in Afghanistan and Iraq, Kerry's confusion is hardly surprising. His own experiences waging scorched-earth war in the "free fire zones" of Vietnam has given Kerry first hand knowledge of the reality, as opposed to the high flown rhetoric, of U.S. warfare for "national security" and "freedom."....(full article)
On Thursday August 20th, the Washington Post reported that the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) has branded Ralph Nader a "bigot", which is a furtive way of saying they think the independent candidate for president is a vile anti-Semite. Nader has come under attack from the ADL and their executive director Abe Foxman for suggesting that the US should proceed in a new direction regarding the Israeli-Palestinian issue....(full article)
The two masked
robbers who ran into Oslo's Munch Museum and threatened the staff with a
handgun, forcing people to lie down as they secured Edvard Munch's “The
Scream” and “Madonna”, may have done us all a favor....
The Narmada Sagar (formally the Indira Sagar Pariyojana), a multipurpose project, has been in construction for decades. It is one of the 30 large dams on the Narmada River as it passes through the states of Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and Gujarat. The Narmada watershed is home to 20 million peasants and adivasi [tribal] people whose subsistence is critically linked to land, forests and water. At 262.19 metres, the Narmada Sagar is located in east Nimar in Madhya Pradesh. It will submerge 249 villages, displace 30,739 families, 91,348 hectares of land, 41,444 of which are forests, to yield 1,000 MW of electricity and irrigate 123,000 hectares of land, a third of which is already irrigated....(full article)
Upon accepting the Democratic Party's
nomination for president, Senator John F. Kerry promised to "bring back
this nation's time-honored tradition: The United States of America never
goes to war because we want to; we only go to war because we have to."
This tradition may indeed be time-honored...but more in the breach. The
concept of a nation forced into war is, in fact, a primary component of
the inveterate "sleeping giant" spin....
One of the more significant marks of an
authoritarian society is its willingness to distort the truth while
simultaneously suppressing dissent. For instance, Umberto Eco argues that
one element of proto-fascism is the rise of an Orwellian version of
Newspeak, or what he labels as the language of “eternal fascism,” whose
purpose is to produce “an impoverished vocabulary, and an elementary
syntax [whose consequence is] to limit the instruments for complex and
critical reasoning.” Under the Bush administration, especially since the
horrible events of September 11th, we have witnessed an extension of the
concept of war to include not only traditional, strategic,
defense-oriented objectives, but also to discipline civil society,
reproduce all aspects of public life in the image of official power, and
inject the ideology of militarism as the very foundation of politics.
Accompanying this increasing form of discursive and material repression is
an attempt to refashion the tools of language, sound, and image in an
effort to diminish the capacity of the American public to think
critically. As the critical power of language is reduced in official
discourse to the simulacra of communication, it becomes more difficult for
the American public to engage in critical debates, translate private
considerations into public concerns, and recognize the distortions and
lies that underlie much of the current government policies. What happens
to critical language under the emergence of official Newspeak can be seen
in the various ways in which the Bush administration and its official
supporters both misrepresent by mis-naming government policies and simply
engage in lying to cover up their own regressive politics and policies....(full article)
Monkeywrench Hope: An
Interview with Jeffrey St. Clair CounterPunch co-editor Jeffrey St. Clair is far and away the best writer on environmental politics. St. Clair talks with DV contributing writer Joshua Frank about the bipartisan war on Nature and the 2004 election....(full article)
What do genocide by the Nazis in Europe, by the Serbs in Bosnia and Kosovo; suicidal terrorists; shooting rampages in our schools; spiraling crime rates and an increasingly amoral society all have in common? The same group, apparently, that has managed to kill twice as many Americans under its direct care between 1950 and 1990 alone as have died in all the wars we ever engaged in. Although the group is highly visible, it makes itself invisible by engaging in countless activities that are too incredible to be believed. Anyone pointing out that the emperor is wearing no clothes is usually ignored because nothing could be so off base and yet remain in a position of authority today. Explaining his excesses, Adolph Hitler once boasted that the more outrageous the deed, the less people would want or be able to believe it. We are not, today, devastated by economic collapse as the Germans were in 1933; we do not live in a police state where all the media is controlled by the government. Most of us are blessed with a sufficiently high IQ not to fall for the kind of diatribes expressed by Neo-Nazis and similar groups today. So we can surely think for ourselves and see when the wool has been pulled over our eyes. But supposing the data we have been fed as reasonable, and which we use to reach our conclusions, is actually flawed? Would we then necessarily be able to recognize what may be the greatest hoax in the last eight hundred years? (full article)
In 1973, when Richard Mellon Scaife and Joseph Coors kicked together some seed money to start the Heritage Foundation, the Democrats held the Senate and had a 50-seat majority in the House. As progressives are starting to understand, the funding, planning, and coordination of the conservative movement has led to tremendous success in elections and government policy. But another arena of ideological competition has gone largely beneath the radar. An asymmetric political war is raging at universities across the country, and once again conservatives are running circles around progressives....(full article)
Many people in Latin America and around the world have spent the past several days celebrating. On Sunday, the poor people of Venezuela crushed an attempted electoral coup d'état by that country's ruling elite. The policies of President Hugo Chavez and the Bolivarian movement received yet another mandate, this one so strong that even Jimmy Carter and the Organization of American States were forced to accept it. However, only two days in to the celebration we received a grim reminder of the fact that the struggle for justice and democracy in Latin America is far from over. In Haiti, not far off the coast of Venezuela, the democratic order has not been so fortunate in recent months. In what may be the government's most despicable act yet, a sham trial in Port-au-Prince acquitted Jodel Chamblain of the murder of a prominent Haitian activist in 1993. Chamblain, the second in command of the death squad known as FRAPH, has been described by former CIA employees as a “ruthless, cold-blooded killer.”....(full article)
For the past few years, a number of peace activists have proposed a novel way to resolve the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. The beauty of their proposal is in its simplicity. Exploiting recent advances in science, they suggest that a little clinical analysis would straighten out the warped minds of many a delusional Zionist and create a psychologically positive environment for a rational resolution to the conflict between the natives of the Holy Land and their European tormentors....(full article)
A friend e-mailed me to tell me that he recently heard John F. Kerry on television rejecting the redistribution of income, saying: “that's not what I'm about.” I haven't found this quote on the Internet, but my source is impeccable and the Kerry comment he heard is richly (no pun intended) consistent with Kerry's campaign and background. I've got an April New York Times clipping in which Kerry is quoted announcing that he is “not a redistribution Democrat” This article reported Kerry saying this to super-affluent New York City Democrats “at a $25,000-a-plate breakfast at the 21 Club in Manhattan” last Spring. “We've got to reach out,” Kerry told the select 100 audience members at this $2.5 million breakfast. “Reach out,” that is...to Republicans, hopefully drawn to his “bipartisan credentials as a fiscal conservative” (the New York Times) and to his claim that he can “manage” the “war on terror” “as effectively, or more effectively, if possible” (Kerry's words) than Bush II. The advancement of social equity in the “advanced world's” most unequal and wealth-top-heavy state by far (where the top 1 percent owns more than 40 percent of the wealth and the top 10 percent owns two-thirds) “isn't what [Kerry] is about?” No, it sure isn't. According to the Detroit News last spring, “Senator John F. Kerry and his wife Teresa Heinz Kerry, with assets of about $1 billion, would be among the richest families to ever occupy the White House, eclipsing even President Kennedy and well ahead of many other moneyed chief executives over the last century”....(full article)
It’s obvious that no mainstream news reporter has the gumption to seriously question Vice President Dick Cheney’s ethics when he was chief executive of Halliburton, the oil-field services company that is currently embroiled in a scandal with the Pentagon due to its questionable accounting practices related to its work in war-torn Iraq. Pity those journalists because this is the stuff Pulitzer’s are made of. What’s even more remarkable is that there are reams of documents in the public domain showing how Cheney cooked the books when he was CEO of Halliburton, which makes the vice president look like Ken Lay’s twin brother. The evidence is beginning to collect dust. To tell the story of how Cheney’s Halliburton used accounting sleight of hand to fool investors all you need to do is connect the dots, which is what this story will do....(full article)
The nation’s top dog of war is frisky again. Donald Rumsfeld has returned to high visibility -- after a couple of months in the media doghouse following revelations about torture at the Abu Ghraib prison -- now openly romancing the journalistic pack with his inimitable style of tough love as he growls and romps across TV screens....(full article)
When the going gets tough, the "tough" get to issuing terrorist alerts, announcing high profile arrests, and raising the terrorism threat level. Since January 2002, according to JuliusBlog, an Internet web log, there have been at least fifteen incidents where Team Bush, responding to adverse news or dipping presidential poll numbers, turned either Attorney General John Ashcroft or Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge loose to ramp up talk of terrorism and terrorist attacks....(full article)
For the Venezuelan government the result of the recall referendum last Sunday was a triumphant validation of its legitimacy, its policies and its President, Hugo Chavez. It amounts to an electoral Dien Bien Phu for the United States and its allies who have worked determinedly to destabilize Venezuela's political life in almost every conceivable way since George W. Bush and Dick Cheney took office. In particular, the mainstream international media who have consistently calumnied the Venezuelan State and its constituent entities, although chastened by the referendum victory, remain mealy-mouthed or downright hostile both in their news coverage and in their analysis....(full article)
De-Lovely,” the new film biography of songwriter Cole Porter, has a provocative theme regarding sexual preference and the universality of love. Worth seeing if only for the music (Porter wrote the words and music to dozens of our most familiar and beloved pop standards), the film suggests that some of our greatest and favorite love songs were written from a homosexual perspective....(full article)
The fact is each of us is who we are because of America’s superpower status. Each and every human being in America has materially benefited from the nation’s military budget in some way, either directly or indirectly, and the price paid for this is made painfully aware to everyone but Americans themselves -- at least so far -- in the form of the primacy of American national interests, politically and economically defined, around the globe....(full article)
The era of unalloyed globalization lasted roughly a decade, from the end of the Cold War to September 11, 2001. Never before had world affairs been entrusted so completely to “free market” forces. With power politics sidelined, or relegated to the erstwhile Third World, the Treasury and Commerce Departments won out over State and Defense as the chief power brokers for an emerging “Washington Consensus.” Even those who saw through the myth of globalization as a ticket to universal peace and prosperity were often taken in by the lesser god of TINA: “There Is No Alternative.” Clearly there were, however, alternative globalizations. While Europe took the high road of cosmopolitanism, purging foreign policy of power itself, America took the all too effective low road of power economics....(full article)
Bracing against a German assault that swiftly and brutally tore through western Russia in the summer of 1941, Josef Stalin remarked, “In the Soviet army it takes more courage to retreat than advance.” Today many radicals have joined the liberals and chattering classes in imagining themselves as partaking in an equally epic struggle with similar tactics; the Bush regime is Hitlerism reborn, an evil menace that can only be swept away by first retreating from many of the values and causes which they once rallied around in defense of the oppressed and downtrodden. But whereas the Red Army only ceded ground to reorganize and make a stronger stand around defensible positions, the battle cry of ‘Anybody But Bush’ sends its adherents scurrying towards a candidate and party which have – in no uncertain terms - fully endorsed and vowed to continue perpetrating the two most morally indefensible and politically disastrous tragedies of our time: the occupation of Iraq and Palestine. This hardly concerns our ABB intelligentsia: so entranced by their fanatical fear, zealous hatred, and personal demonization of George Bush, they have decided that removing him from power justifies abandoning any actual political position....(full article)
The turn-out in Venezuela last Sunday was
huge. 94.9 percent of the electorate voted in the recall referendum.
Venezuela, under its new Constitution, permitted the right of the citizens
to recall a President before s/he had completed their term of office. No
Western democracy enshrines this right in a written or unwritten
constitution. Chavez' victory will have repercussions beyond the borders
of Venezuela. It is a triumph of the poor against the rich and it is a
lesson that Lula in Brazil and Kirchner in Argentina should study closely.
It was Fidel Castro, not Carter, whose advice to go ahead with the
referendum was crucial. Chavez put his trust in the people by empowering
them and they responded generously. The opposition will only discredit
itself further by challenging the results....(full
article)
American athletes at the heavily fortified Olympic games in Athens have been assigned bodyguards by the U.S. State Department and have practically had to assume secret identities in an attempt to remain safe. Fearful of a terrorist attack, American spectators have stayed away from the games in droves. Both the Republicans and the Democrats seem to be throwing up their hands and capitulating to the notion that the world has simply become more dangerous. But this more dangerous world is very much one of the U.S. government's making....(full article)
Why did the administration of President George W Bush push to invade Iraq? Most left-wing critics - epitomized perhaps by Michael Moore's blockbuster documentary, Fahrenheit 9/11 - have rather reflexively argued that the economic factor, particularly the interests of Big Oil or “the ruling class,” must have been decisive. But many right-wing critics, who know the ruling class from the inside, lean to a different explanation, in part by pointing out that Big Oil, to the extent it took any position at all on the war, opposed it. As evidence, they cite the unusually public opposition to a unilateral invasion voiced quite publicly by such eminent oil and ruling class-related influentials as former president George H W Bush's national security adviser Brent Scowcroft and secretary of state James Baker. While they do not deny that some economic interests -- construction giants, such as Halliburton and Bechtel, and high-tech arms companies -- may have given the push to war some momentum, the decisive factor in their view was ideological, and the ideology, “neo-conservative”....(full article)
In this important article, former Lockport Journal reporter/columnist Chuck Richardson looks at how The Journal and the Buffalo News became PR organs for the FMC Corp, betraying the health concerns of the residents of Middleport, NY. Richardson notes that: "Vetted" shows the tip of an iceberg. What I reveal here is going on all across America, where local news media have been bought and sold. You can replace Middleport, NY with a thousand other small company towns across the country....The spotlight is always on the national level, and to a lesser extent on the state level. But the nation never takes a look at how things are working at the local level, where stuff goes on undetected constantly....(full article)
Speech by Peter McLaren: When I was a child growing up in Canada in the 1950s, I shared a fear similar to that of some of my neighborhood friends: that one day all the mannequins in the downtown department stores (the now defunct Eatons and Simpsons) would come to life and take over the world. It seems, a half century later, that my fear was justified. The department store mannequins have indeed taken over the world. They captured the Bush Jr. White House in that notorious stolen presidential election that my UCLA colleague, Doug Kellner, refers to as "grand theft 2000." Having convinced a large segment of the American population that they are the only ones capable of looking after the security and well being of United States citizens, the Bush Jr. junta took advantage of a tragic terrorist attack on the country to create a climate of fear that would rival even the skills of Sauron, a culture of intimidation and hostility that continues to serve as a smokescreen for its empire-building. The right wing hawks of the Bush Jr. administration have transformed the United States into our boy-emperor's private whirligig, spinning across the global playground. Few global leaders refuse to play along, because the stakes are too high. But they are even higher when the game is allowed to continue. It is not the world leaders that will bring the game to a halt, but the people who are suffering the most as a result....(full article)
On Sunday, August 15, the
Washington Post reported that recent polls show that President Bush's
popularity has plummeted among young adults in the past four months
because of their concerns over the war in Iraq and the sluggish economy.
The article stated, "In the latest Post-ABC News poll, taken immediately
after the Democratic Convention, Kerry led Bush 2 to 1 among registered
voters younger than thirty. Among older voters, the race was virtually
tied." It is difficult to believe that after four years of screwing all
but the rich in this country and bullying the rest of the world, that
there could be a single ordinary American with a lick of common sense --
especially older Americans who have seen the likes of this before --
who could vote to re-elect George Bush. Whatever became of those young
people who angrily cried out in protest during the sixties? "Hell no, we
wont go!" "Power to the people!" "Make love, not war!" Remember? Truth
is, their daddy's allowance ran out, and they could no longer afford their
conscience. They sold out, condemning yet another generation of young
Americans....
A friend recently asked me why I was so despairing after listening to the Democratic National Convention; had I expected something other than what was delivered? I replied that, no, I had not expected the Democrats to show up any differently. What struck me right in the solar plexus is that the American empire -- whether in its Republican guise or its Democrat guise -- is hell-bent for leather to control the world. That the die is cast is a hard truth to come face to face with. Yet at the same time there is a liberatory quality knowing the real deal, knowing our illusions about America are just that: illusions....(full article)
John Kerry recently
stated that he would have invaded Iraq even if he knew what he knows
today. If the intelligence community had assured him that Iraq possessed
no WMD stockpiles, he too would have ignited a war of aggression that
killed tens of thousands of Iraqis and set their country ablaze with a
show of “shock and awe”. Even the loss of nearly a thousand young American
lives would not have altered his decision. Had the CIA made it perfectly
clear that Iraq had no ties to Al-Qaida, the Democratic candidate would
have ignored that pesky detail and given a green light for the occupation
of Iraq. Kerry would have launched a “pre-emptive” strike even if he was
certain that Saddam’s emaciated Iraqi army was barely capable of defending
its own borders – which raises the question about what he intended to
pre-empt. In the middle of the fight against Bin Laden, he would have
diverted resources to attack a vile but feeble dictator who was already
well contained by no-fly zones and genocidal sanctions. Even George Bush
won’t go that far....(full article)
Kerry, Nader and the
Greens Need to Kill the Circular Firing Squad
It's time for the Kerry, Nader and Green campaigns to get locked in a room until they disarm the circular firing squad and focus on the real enemy, George W. Bush. Especially in swing states like ours, the endless wrangling and rancor must stop. Every boring, suicidal attack harms our ability to beat Bush....(full article)
A wide ranging essay by M. Shahid Alam on the imperial Civilizing Mission, the global economy, its past, and future prospects....(full article)
It is surprising that the media - left media included - has been relatively silent regarding Venezuela’s upcoming presidential recall referendum. Little has been reported about the importance of a Chavez win both domestically and internationally. What exactly is at stake in Venezuela’s presidential recall referendum this Sunday? (full article)
Most legends contain a small grain of truth, but none is to be found in the fraudulent images being presented each day by the BBC (and the US networks). The print media is not much better. Official propaganda is constantly repeated in sentences such as: "On June 28 the United States and its coalition partners transferred sovereign control of Iraq to an interim government headed by prime minister Ayad Allawi. The transfer of sovereignty ended more than a year of American-led occupation". Meanwhile, US intelligence agencies admit that the size of the resistance increases every day. If Moqtada al-Sadr were to be captured or killed in the fighting taking place in Najaf, the steady trickle of recruits could become a flood. In such a situation and with no official opposition to the occupation in the Commons it should be the responsibility of the media to ensure that some truth, at least, is regularly reported....(full article)
The United States has launched a war against a large part of the Iraqi people. It is the Bush Administration’s desire for total domination, not the militancy of Shia insurgents, that has triggered this latest uprising. The US is trying to tame the Shia majority....(full article)
Most sane peace-loving people agree that President-select George W. Bush and his neocon cabal are anathema and must be thrown out of office. Some progressives are defining November 2004 as being exclusively about achieving this aim. These progressives basically contend that Bush is so absolutely abhorrent that he must be disposed of no matter what. These progressives are usually lumped into what is commonly referred to as the Anybody-But-Bush camp. This, however, is not quite a true description of the camp. Truer would be the John Kerry-But-Bush camp. How else would one explain the vehemence exhibited toward presidential candidate Ralph Nader for having the audacity to present Americans with an actual anti-war option for their vote? Progressive writers Norman Solomon and Jeff Cohen turned to their articulate and knowledgeable colleague Tariq Ali to buttress the case for lesser-evilism that Kerry represents. It is granted that an expert source often lends credibility to a point-of-view. Nonetheless, quoting a name source and relying on such quotes, unless composed of pertinent facts and logic, is hardly compelling argumentation in itself. In fact it is often referred to as the fallacy of appeal to authority....(full article)
The bitter white male comments on my old Bill Cosby essay (“Bill Cosby and White America: Cosby Feeds America's 'Can't Do, Won't do Attitude,” ZNet, June 1, 2004) are STILL coming in -- just amazing, these white guys just can't leave it alone and move on. Cosby validated their racial prejudices and they're just not going to tolerate somebody pointing out that Emperor Bill has no clothes. Here's one dumb white guy message that arrived today, and my response....(full article)
Today John Kerry grovels to Wall Street and gives working people the back of his hand. Meet his teachers, the men who invented "triangulation", the art of doing all the things Republicans would be scared to take on. Like ending welfare or privatizing social security. Think John Kerry wouldn't do things like that? Here's a reality check, excerpted from our new book, Dime's Worth of Difference: Beyond the Lesser of Two Evils, hot off the presses....(full article)
The Klamath fish kill of September 2002, when 68,000 salmon died because of low, warm water conditions on the lower river, is considered the largest of its kind in U.S. history. However, another “hidden fish kill” that took place on the American River in the fall of 2001, 2002 and 2003 is now vying for this dubious distinction. Only a few short miles from the State Capitol, an unprecedented environmental tragedy took place on the American River in the heart of Sacramento metropolitan area over the past three years. Huge numbers of adult chinook salmon returned from the ocean to spawn, but 181,709 of these fish perished before spawning....(full article)
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