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December 2003 Articles
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DV Articles
November 2003
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The year 2003 was a tumultuous one. This is a partial look at 10 trends or events each for the good and the bad of the year. . . (full article)
Yet another sordid chapter in the murky annals of Halliburton might well lead to the indictment of Dick Cheney by a French court on charges of bribery, money-laundering and misuse of corporate assets. . . (full article)
If poor Americans were a nation, the population would top Alaska, Arkansas, Delaware, Hawaii, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Maine, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Dakota, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Utah, Vermont, West Virginia, Wyoming and the District of Columbia combined. That's using the Census Bureau's lowball poverty count of 35 million Americans. If the Forbes 400 richest Americans were a nation, they could celebrate New Year's together in a hotel ballroom. Don't look for "The Simple Life" rich kids Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie. Their families don't come close to making the list. . . (full article)
Nostradamus was a man who could write a
sentence in a way that could apply to an unlimited number of occasions,
events, times and persons. If you really try, you can read anything into
one of his prophesies. On the other hand Nostradamus was cunning. Most
things he foretold were perfectly logical even if outrageous. And old
Nosty was nothing if not a shrewd observer of human psychology. George W.
Bush, Paul Wolfowitz and Dick Cheney just aren't of that caliber. . .
So far not only the future but also the present and the past are either
eluding the American ruling junta, or else their combined intellectual
capacity -- OR their combined personal integrity -- is below allowing for
the correct description of reality. We can expect to hear the comments
from Bush "the Sillier" in 2004 to be on the same level as those in the
year gone by. Not one digit correct! So, as a service to all those who
want to know what will really happen next year (and further on), here's a
short glimpse. . . (full
article) Right before the Christmas holiday Ralph Nader, the alleged spoiler of the 2000 elections, announced he would not run for president on the Green Party ticket. Nader sent a letter to the Green Party Steering Committee informing them that he may instead run as an independent. . . (full article)
Baghdad: A severed arm with a hand still attached to it lay a few metres from the broken gates of the mayor's office in Karbala yesterday, a piece of humanity every bit as bloody as the story of the seventh-century Shia martyr Hussein, the golden dome of whose shrine could be seen through the smog to the east. They said the arm belonged to a police major - one of 11 cops killed in the four ferocious attacks on Saturday in this most holy of cities - but others claimed it belonged to the man who drove the truck-bomb right up to the gates. . . (full article)
The story of the American Soldier is much more than a propaganda-laced cover in Time magazine, designed to sell copies, make profits by exploiting patriotism, create acquiescence in BushCo’s preemptive warmongering and empire building policies and in fostering approval and support of a most ambiguous war campaign. The story of the American Solider is much more than a picture of three soldiers posing in full battle gear, M-16’s in hand, ready to invade a “rogue nation,” destroy its infrastructure and kill its citizens. . . Hidden behind the illusory fantasy the corporate media portrays of noble fighting in tumultuous wars, lies a world of death, suffering and lifelong sacrifice, a world of psychological trauma and physical torture, a world of Veteran abandonment by the same government that has sent millions to kill and be killed, a world where America’s finest, along with their families, are swept underneath the rug of indifference and a world in which ethnicity, class structure and society’s deadly ills mix in a noxious concoction to form that most clandestine of military drafts that is based on poverty, lack of education and the caste one is born into. . . (full article)
One of the few roles for government on which most people of varying political stripes can agree is the defense of citizens -- including protection from terrorist attacks. So why is the U.S. government aiding the terrorists in terrorizing Americans? (full article)
There
can be little doubt that something has changed in Israel's public discourse
in the past two or three of months. Israel's rejectionism – the ideology of
the Army, turned into a state dogma when,
PM Barak, the Trojan horse, destroyed the Israeli peace camp from
within, and then consolidated by Sharon – has been showing serious cracks. .
. (full article) December 29
Bomb Las Vegas, America's gambling Mecca and glittery playground built on desert sands by mobsters such as Bugsy Siegel, Meyer Lanksy, and Frank Costello? Only al-Qaeda, we are assured, would contemplate such a depraved act -- and it stands to reason because those varmint Muslims hate our way of life. They are envious of our freedom to play the nickel slots and idle away carefree hours perched over blackjack tables -- or get no fuss, no muss marriages at Circus Circus. As it turns out, the ubiquitous al-Qaeda harbored no such plans to bomb Las Vegas -- or, for that matter, any other target in America over the most cherished and commercialized of holidays. Apparently, the whole thing was idle speculation on the part of the Washington Post. . . (full article)
It seems a never-ending battle to refute the logically inane mutterings of New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman and some may well ask, “Why bother, the guy’s a lost cause?” Well, the cause isn’t Friedman but the wide readership enjoyed by him. He is a best-selling author; his books are even used, according to his website, in some universities and high schools; his articles are in wide syndication, including the local Chronicle-Herald; he evens appears on PBS’ “News Hour.” It is a televised forum in which to spout his vitriolic nonsense. For example, when discussing “the security fence [sic],” in Occupied Palestine, he opined that it represents “... a triumph of the notion that all we can hope for is a wall to divide us.” It was a foreclosure on peace, a foreclosure on anything approaching justice. Preeminent was the security of the occupiers although the fact that the occupation was filliping the security threat was unmentioned. Clearly he reveals his sympathies with his own words. And the words are important; just look at how a wall equates to a fence. I don’t recall anyone in the west ever referring to a Berlin Fence although it was less than half the average height of the Israeli Apartheid Wall and hundreds of kilometers shorter. . . (full article)
The Silencing of Dissent:
How Do They Get Away With It?
As the onslaught on the Palestinian people continues and the hundred-year conquest of Palestine enters what may be its final stages, efforts by the Israeli, Zionist and Jewish establishments to silence any remaining criticism of Israel and Zionism intensify. At the center of these efforts is the claim that anti-Zionism equals anti-Semitism. Critics of Israel are warned that whilst like any other democratic state, Israel is open to criticism of its policies, any criticism of Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state is, by definition, anti-Semitic. . . (full article)
California Ban On GloFish
Ignites Debate Over ‘Frankenfish’ The GloFish, a zebra fish genetically engineered to glow in the dark in aquariums, was approved for sale to the public by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration on December 9. However, you won’t be able to purchase them in California when they become available in other states on January 5 because the State Fish and Game Commission ruled in December not to grant an exemption to its ban on genetically modified fish adopted earlier in the year. . . (full article)
It has been astounding that a world-scale monster such as Rupert Murdoch has thus far fared well at the hands of his various profilists and biographers. Criticisms of him have either been too broad-brush to be useful, or too tempered with Waugh-derived facetiousness about press barons. Murdoch is far too fearsome an affront to any civilized values to escape with mere facetiousness. Now at last Murdoch is properly burdened with the chronicler he deserves. . . (full article)
Throughout
the ages there has prevailed a distressing symbiosis between religion and
violence. The histories of Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, and Islam are
heavily laced with internecine vendettas, inquisitions, and wars. Again
and again, religionists have claimed a divine mandate to terrorize and
massacre heretics, infidels, and other sinners. Some people have argued
that Buddhism is different, that it stands in marked contrast to the
chronic violence of other religions. To be sure, as practiced by many in
the United States, Buddhism is more a "spiritual" and psychological
discipline than a theology in the usual sense. It offers meditative
techniques and self-treatments that are said to promote "enlightenment"
and harmony within oneself. But like any other belief system, Buddhism
must be judged not only by its teachings but by the actual behavior of its
proponents. . .
The
Bush men decorate our holidays in Homeland Security yellow, orange and
red, while demonizing Islamic green as the color of the most implacable
foes of Western “civilization.” Yet official silence conspires to hide
genocidal maniacs in our midst who have sworn to erase the Black presence
from the landscape of the United States: White Terror.
Tens of thousands of members of a racist
legion operate openly in every corner of the nation – men, women,
juveniles, extended families, cells, gangs, churches, clans, militias,
border armies, all engaged in what they consider to be a war to the death
against non-white America. George
Bush and John Ashcroft don’t want you to hear about White Terror,
understandably fearing that the lyrics of white supremacy strike the same
racial chords as the Pirates’ own War on Terror theme, itself a
rearrangement of the many martial tunes written throughout American
history in praise of Manifest Destiny. Less than a decade ago Timothy
McVeigh’s band of terrorists got carried away with the logic of America as
a White Man’s Country, and may have cost the Republicans the White House
in 1996. That’s why the homeland security colors didn’t change in May of
this year, when federal agents arrested a white racist couple dealing in
weapons of mass destruction in a small town near Tyler, Texas. The feds
seized a cyanide bomb capable of unleashing a deadly poison cloud,
chemicals and components for additional WMDs, gas masks, 100 conventional
bombs, an arsenal of automatic weapons, silencers and half a million
rounds of ammunition. . .
No doubt Lenny Bruce would have laughed with at least a tinge of bitterness if -- like millions of Americans -- he picked up a newspaper the day before Christmas 2003 and read that he’d been “pardoned” by the governor of New York for an obscenity conviction. In their own time, people who are stubbornly ahead of it usually get a lot more grief than accolades. And decades later -- in this case, 39 years after Bruce’s bust for a nightclub performance and 37 years after his death -- the belated praise from on high is predictably insufferable. . . (full article)
New
York’s Governor George Pataki pardoned comedian Lenny Bruce this holiday
season for an obscenity conviction that happened almost forty years ago.
It was the first posthumous pardon in the history of New York State and
Pataki, a Republican who has nothing politically to gain from the
decision, deserves the public’s appreciation. But the humorist himself was
unable to celebrate his vindication. He died, weighted down by his legal
troubles, a broken, bankrupt and defeated man, believing passionately that
the Bill of Rights would save him. . .
From Joy to Despair:
Iraqis Pay for Saddam's Capture Baghdad: Ali Salman Ali was the first victim of Saddam's capture, but he died on Christmas Day. As his father Salman Ghazi, 71, tells it, Ali must have been among the first of Iraq's Shia Muslims to scream his delight in the street after the former dictator emerged from his hole in the ground. "He shouted that the Americans had come to save us and liberated us from that terrible regime," Mr Ghazi said yesterday, his sun-blasted, lined face and dark eyes staring at my notebook. Behind me, the 12 cousins of Ali Salman Ali were heaving his cheap wooden coffin from the Baghdad mortuary on to the back of a rusting white pick-up with a cracked windscreen and a toy rabbit swinging from a chain over the mirror. . . (full article)
Something very unpleasant is being let loose in Iraq. Just this week, a company commander in the US 1st Infantry Division in the north of the country admitted that, in order to elicit information about the guerrillas who are killing American troops, it was necessary to "instill fear" in the local villagers. An Iraqi interpreter working for the Americans had just taken an old lady from her home to frighten her daughters and grand-daughters into believing that she was being arrested. A battalion commander in the same area put the point even more baldly. "With a heavy dose of fear and violence, and a lot of money for projects, I think we can convince these people that we are here to help them," he said. He was speaking from a village that his men had surrounded with barbed wire, upon which was a sign, stating: "This fence is here for your protection. Do not approach or try to cross, or you will be shot." . . . (full article)
Three
soldiers Tuesday. One yesterday. Two today. We have to remember that war
doesn’t stop for Christmas. Even though Christians are celebrating the
holiday season, more American soldiers are paying the ultimate sacrifice
in Iraq. Though the military seems to be announcing more victories against
Iraqi insurgents, more Americans are wondering why the United States
choose to fight this conflict, when seemingly the very real threat of Al
Qaeda is still at our doorstep. The war within Iraq is noticeably
different than the “war on terror” promised by the Bush administration. No
matter how the story is written, the result remains the same...
Mad Cows and the Market
The
recent news of mad cow disease in the U.S. was first reported in the
nation’s mass media as a business story. Such coverage led with the
countries that had refused imports of American beef. Stories also detailed
how these import restrictions sank the stock prices of some U.S.
corporations. The business growth of certain fast food outlets and
restaurants was at-risk. There are also unclear health risks to people. On
that note, cows are moved to the America market from foreign markets
without controls, then mixed in with other cows. As a result, slaughtered
cows infected with the brain-destroying disease can show up in an unclear
number of hamburger patties. What is clear is that no cure for MCD exists.
Humanity's
full potential can never be realized so long as international affairs are
self-servingly, exploitatively dominated by conservative, false-Christian,
capitalist, white males from Europe and America. The corporate interests
in whose behalf those men fervently serve have no respect for our planet's
people's needs or aspirations. Humankind is, in fact, an abusable means
toward an expedient end for these entrenched World Rulers. . . (full
article) Health Care Without Harm is a Washington, DC-based environmental group that has taken more than its share of heat from the chemical industry over its campaigns against the use of mercury in medical equipment, the incineration of highly toxic medical waste and the use of pesticides, cleaners and disinfectants. In recent weeks, a conservative religious public policy group has attacked not only the organization, but also religious leaders that support the group's campaign against the use of PVC, or vinyl plastic -- the most widely used plastic in medical devices -- which Health Care Without Harm maintains is "harmful to patients, the environment and public health." . . . (full article)
In
her annual
Christmas message Queen Elizabeth has broken with the very foundation
upon which her royalty survives: tradition. The televised message was
broadcast in documentary style and was, foremost, a paean to imperialism,
a harkening back to the good, old days of British Empire. . . The queen’s
Christmas message was directed at the many servicemen and women away from
home. It certainly wasn’t directed at ordinary Britons, the majority of
who opposed the war. It couldn’t have been the hundreds-of-thousands who
caused cancellations in the Bush agenda during his unwelcome visit in late
November. The self-same visit,
according to the Sunday Mirror, left her highness in a tizzy
because of the costly damage done to the royal gardens at Buckingham
Palace by the Bush entourage. Never mind the dying and downtrodden Iraqis.
Those plants were supposedly rare varieties having nomenclatural ties to
the monarchy, and some were reputedly planted by the queen and her mother
themselves. Now they have been trampled down and to add insult to injury
the queen’s flamingoes are “traumatized.” . . .
Crumblecake and Fish
Christmas.
Crumblecake and Fish. At least that's what I thought they said, though on
the table was roast beef, chocolate cake and various pastries, none of
them crumbly. No crumblecake. No fish. RelativeShe and RelativeHe had
watched a show about Crumblecake and Fish on some mainstream news show.
Crumblecake and Fish is a company that specializes in clothing meant for
white people, RelativeHe explained. "What white people," I asked. "How
can you specialize in clothing for white people and not yellow or brown
people?" "Well, yeah," both RelativeHe and RelativeShe agreed – especially
since RelativeShe is not white at all, but yellow or Korean or whatever
you want to call this arbitrary junk genetic distinction between human
hues. . . (full article) December 24-26
The news hit the front page of the New York Times: "Inquiry Suggests Pakistanis Sold Nuclear Secrets." The article on December 22, 2003 details how the "father" of the Pakistani bomb passed along nuclear secrets to North Korea and Iran. Buried deep in the text is this key fact: The leak originated at a uranium enrichment company in the Netherlands called Urenco. An even more crucial detail missing from the New York Times? Urenco is destined to receive a fat subsidy from the US taxpayers via the Energy Bill that succumbed to a bi-partisan filibuster in November 2003. Don't be fooled. The bill will be back in just a few weeks - in early 2004. . . (full article)
A gruesome crime of passion is once again the center stage of a mass media frenzy. What is it about the Lacey Peterson affair that impels FOX and CNN to devote so many resources to covering every minute aspect of a case so devoid of even a grain of mystery? Man kills pregnant wife to pave the path to his lover. Body found. Alibis don’t stand scrutiny. Looks like conviction is a sure thing. End of story. Next passion crime will be reported on page 11 of the Sunday edition of the Tallahassee Evening Dispatch. . . With so many Peterson angles to cover, they also manage to avoid probing certain topics. As the media titans have morphed into a virtual shadow government, they have developed an unhealthy appetite for burying real news. O J Simpson and Tracey Peterson are just convenient funerary tools of the trade. . . Consider the recent scandals that the media titans ‘forgot’ to cover. . . (full article)
Isn’t government work wonderful? No matter how badly you perform, your paycheck from Uncle Sam never gets lost in the mail. Just a brief review of the prophecies of the neo-con priesthood reveals a record that would send any private sector employee to the front of the unemployment line. As Paul Wolfowitz would put it, the neo-con ‘experts’ are always wildly off the mark. If ever there was a Keystone Cops imitation act, this is it. . . (full article)
We might glean a few insights about the semantics of the global order – and the reality it tries to mask – from the way in which the United States has framed the moral case against Saddam. Saddam’s unspeakable crime is that he has “tortured his own people.” He has “killed his own people.” He has “gassed his own people.” He has “poison-gassed his own people.” In all the accusations, Saddam stands inseparable from his own people. Rarely do his accusers charge that Saddam “tortured people,” “gassed people,” “gassed Iraqis,” or “killed Iraqis.” . . . It would appear that the indictment of Saddam gathers power, conviction, irrefutability, by adding the possessive, proprietary, emphatic ‘own’ to the people tortured, gassed or killed. What does the grammar of accusations say about the metrics of American values? (full article)
United States relations with Russia may be spicing up for the holiday season. On Monday, December 22, Russian officials offered to forgive $8 billion of Iraq's debt if the country reinstituted the oil contracts Russia had during Saddam's evil reign. The old Soviet Republic surely knows that the $8 billion will be made up in a matter of years, as profits from rich Iraqi oil fields pump into the lifeline of Russia’s weak economy. Welcome back to the global market Iraq. . . (full article)
Since 9/11, terror has become one of the most fashionable issues on both the American and the international agenda, and almost every publisher has rushed to publish a book written by one of the instantly created "experts on terrorism." These "merchants of fear," together with other interested political actors--such as the current leaders of the United States and Israel--thus unwittingly play directly into the hands of the terrorists, whose main objective is less to kill than to sow anxiety and panic. Ironically, from this perspective, Al Qaeda and the US Administration, as well as the Israeli right and Hamas, have a common aim: namely, to increase fear in order to recruit and manipulate their own people against their respective "other." . . . (full article)
In the mid-1980s Canadians granted a landslide electoral victory to the oxymoronically-labeled Progressive Conservative (Tory) Party led by Brian Mulroney. Mulroney’s victory was, arguably, more attributable to disgust with the previous Liberal government than about any fondness for the Tory platform. Nevertheless, it signaled the start of a hard slide to the right. As Linda McQuaig details in her book, The Quick and the Dead: Brian Mulroney, Big Business and the Seduction of Canada, the Mulroney years saw a tax transfer from the general public to corporate Canada and the evisceration of Canada’s hitherto much vaunted social system. Concomitant with his business-friendly government was the pursuit of friendly -- others would say obsequious -- ties with the US. . . Serving as the fiscally conservative finance minister in the Chrétien cabinet was the man who is now Canada’s prime minister, Paul Martin. . . Martin is so right of Mulroney that, unlike his rightist counterpart, it appears that he will lead Canada into collaboration on the Son of Star Wars, otherwise called the Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD) project. . . (full article)
A Time For Truth On
Depleted Uranium
The health impacts of depleted uranium (DU) munitions on soldiers who served in the Iraq and the Persian Gulf Wars will be studied by Congress' General Accounting Office, according to two congressmen who have requested a new investigation into whether the Pentagon has ignored the medical consequences of the armaments. . . (full article)
December 22-23, 2003
Top Book Choices for the Holiday and New
Year: Well it's that time again. You know, the time we're expected to be even more mindlessly consumeristic than the rest of the year. But if you can't avoid the holiday consumer impulse, why not give the greatest gift of all: the gift of knowledge and imagination . . . Books! I and some of Dissident Voice's contributing writers offer here our book recommendations for the holiday season and New Year. . . (full article)
Announcing the P.U.-Litzer
Prizes for 2003 The P.U.-litzer Prizes were established more than a decade ago to give recognition to the stinkiest media performances of the year. As usual, I have conferred with Jeff Cohen, founder of the media watch group FAIR, to sift through the large volume of entries. In view of the many deserving competitors, we regret that only a few can win a P.U.-litzer. And now, the twelfth annual P.U.-litzer Prizes, for the foulest media performances of 2003 . . . (full article)
Like a bad flu, Fear Factor Orange has returned, after its prerequisite six month absence, just in time to instill fear into our Christmas cheer. Thanks to Tom Ridge and his Department of Homeland Insecurity we must face yet another season under cover of orange gloom. It is the Fear Factor, the instrument used by this administration that conditions us all to the coming usurpation of rights, freedoms and democracy and the introduction of the police state. It is the tool by which Bush inculcates his perceived leadership into our delirious brains, thereby assuring himself of our unwillingness to abandon the President-hero, the fighter of all evil, our Crusading Commander. . . (full article)
All
people who have any concern for human rights, justice and integrity should
be overjoyed by the capture of Saddam Hussein, and should be awaiting a
fair trial for him by an international tribunal. An indictment of Saddam's
atrocities would include not only his slaughter and gassing of Kurds in
1988 but also, rather crucially, his massacre of the Shiite rebels who
might have overthrown him in 1991. At the time, Washington and its allies
held the "strikingly unanimous view (that) whatever the sins of the Iraqi
leader, he offered the West and the region a better hope for his country's
stability than did those who have suffered his repression" . . .
Iraq's Phantom "Insurgents"
Schoolboy Issam Naim Hamid is the latest of America's famous "insurgents". In Samarra - for which read Fantasyville - he was shot in the back as he tried to protect himself with his parents in his home in the Al-Jeheriya district of the ancient Abbasid city. . . (full article)
Last evening, in Amman, we met with Fadi Elayyan and Jihad Tahboub, two Palestinian young men who were imprisoned for two months, without charge, by US Occupying forces who seized them, in Baghdad, on April 10, 2003. They are trying to help four of their companions who are still held by the US military, presumably in a prison compound at Umm Qasr, in southern Iraq. . . (full article)
California’s
GOP Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has a plan to reduce the state’s budget
deficit, estimated to be $38 billion through the next two years. He is
cutting social spending for working people. This is a strategy that also
helps big businesses such as Wal-Mart Stores Inc., set to expand its
presence in Southern California. . .
One China
Not so long ago New York Times writer Jane Perlez considered that a "more benign view of China by its neighbors has emerged in the last year." Indeed some consider that China is now upstaging the US on the world stage. Heather Wokusch describes how, at the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty conference in Vienna, "China came off as a responsible, upstanding world citizen and the US came off as a detached oaf." In Cancun, at the WTO Ministerial Meeting, China came out in solidarity with the developing world. . . (full article)
Rush to Judgment: The Wen Ho Lee-ing of Capt. James Yee by Bill Berkowitz
Shortly
after the news broke, conservative columnist Mona Charon called him a spy;
Michelle Malkin said there's "something terribly wrong" when a "Muslim
chaplain can preach freely among al Qaeda and Taliban enemy combatants";
John Leo opined that "Muslim terrorists or their sympathizers may have
already figured out how to penetrate" the detention center; and Frank
Gaffney warned that proselytizing by Islamists may "give rise to a
clandestine Fifth Column activities in this country and a whole new front
in the War on Terror." Getting caught in the heat of the media spotlight
isn't always satisfying for entertainers, sports stars and politicians
whose comings and goings and ups and downs are charted by the 24/7 news
cycle, let alone regular folks whose lives can be irrevocably disrupted. .
.
An American Foreign Policy
Fable
In the December 21, 2003 edition of the New York (com)Post, there's word that the U.S. "had uncovered a plot to kidnap [Iraq's] provisional leaders in the hopes of trading them for Saddam Hussein." This got me thinking about an earlier plot to rescue a murderous despot who once enjoyed U.S. support ...and also got me wondering just who the U.S. is collaborating with these days. Commonly referred to by the German press as "Hitler's favorite commando," Otto "Scarface" Skorzeny was six feet, four inches tall and 220 pounds with, says Christopher Simpson, "appropriately arrogant 'Aryan' features and a five-inch dueling scar down his left cheek,." It was Skorzeny that Hitler called upon to execute the daring rescue of Benito Mussolini when the dictator's enemies in Italy placed him under house arrest in 1943. . . (full article)
Review of Image and Reality of the Israel-Palestine Conflict by Norman G. Finkelstein (Verso Books, Revised Edition, 2003). Ideologies are curious human constructs and can sometimes best be described as prickly organisms. However, Zionism is in a category all its own: it is a very thorny creature with hordes of apologists rushing forth as soon as one of its central tenets is challenged; these agents spin yet more mythologies to envelop and defend the host. No ideology can survive acceptance by its adherents that its origins are less than noble or that it mandates behavior incompatible with contemporary norms. Disguising Zionism's origins and ongoing reality requires frequent innovations in historical engineering - to whitewash both the steadily worsening violence against the indigenous people of the area and the sordid episodes of mass dispossession and mass killing that are being exposed as more and more state archives are opened to examination. Zionism is an exceptional ideology, not least because its heavy mythological baggage is carried by plenty of willing porters. . . (full article)
The view from the south rim of the Grand Canyon, smogged up as it is these days, still retains the power to prompt even the most secular of visitors into transcendentalist reveries as they cast theirs eyes toward Shiva's Temple and Wotan's Throne. Now tourists at the federal park in northern Arizona will be greeted with scriptural passages affixed to park signs to help interpret the religious experience of gazing into God's mighty chasm. . . (full article)
Few Americans now remember that George W. Bush's father was elected president in 1988 in one of the most racist campaigns ever staged in the United States. Now W. seems poised to follow in those tainted footsteps. But the "issue" this time won't be race, it'll be gay marriage. . . (full article)
I gave a talk on Thursday to a group of bright students from Council Rock South High School. Of course, it was about the Palestine/Israel conflict. I knew that most of the students were Jewish and likely to have strong opinions, but I was not prepared, initially at least, for an onslaught before I had presented less than five minutes of my talk. . . (full article)
At the naïve age of eighteen, while still in high school, I had the pleasure of flying across the country to Washington D.C. for a weeklong youth workshop on leadership and democracy. I remember the teary excitement I had knowing I was about to meet both of my Montana senators. Back then I was a proud registered Democrat, having joined the Party only two months prior—the prospect of rubbing shoulders with a veteran of my Party was sure to be the highlight of the trip. The swank décor of the hallways on the Hill mesmerized me as I winded through the legislative chambers. The bright carpet and gorgeous young interns meandering around the foyers made me think that perhaps politics had its subtle rewards. My intrepid journey from wing to wing led me to the bustling office of Montana Senator Max Baucus. . . (full article)
The New York Times is attempting to turn reality on its head. Mr. Bush claims removing Mr. Hussein from power was justified even without the recovery of any weapons of mass destruction (WMD). Mr. Bush still apparently clings to the hope that such weapons will turn up. Nonetheless, US weapons inspectors, with carte blanche to search as they please, have so far come up empty-handed. This despite pre-invasion claims that the US government knows Mr. Hussein has WMD and furthermore knows where he has them. . . The New York Times’ own purveyor of absurdity, Thomas Friedman, has been elevating Mr. Bush to legendary presidential status of late and so it was time to go into damage control. In this Mr. Friedman pushes the envelope of absurdity even farther. Following Mr. Bush’s discomfiting time on the not-so-hot seat with [ABC News'] Ms. Sawyer, it seemed like a good time to deflect the blame for the Iraqi debacle elsewhere. . . (full article)
Not so long ago, before the recent carnage in Istanbul, Richard Holbrooke (Bill Clinton’s ambassador to the United Nations) spoke out in the media and called the Bush administration’s request for a Turkish troop deployment in Iraq a “diplomatic fiasco.” Holbrooke may be far from a post in any administration and no one actually may have been paying any attention to what he had to say, but still, one shouldn’t dismiss the accuracy of this statement. If anything, it serves to draw attention to developments in the region that could surely pass unnoticed. . . At about the same time Holbrooke was criticizing Bush’s failure to secure Turkish soldiers for duty in Iraq, Turkey’s foreign minister Abdullah Gul announced on November 10th that American military forces had “clashed” with the PKK in Northern Iraq. As news from the new Iraq goes, this was a very unusual statement. We’ve heard of leftovers from the Saddam regime, Baath party holdouts, ill-defined insurgents or resistance fighters, looters, and of course, the hordes of foreign fighters that the US military has been fighting in Iraq since May 1st; but what is the US military doing engaging the PKK? (full article)
President Bush's promise that Saddam Hussein "will face the justice he denied to millions" took on a special meaning when I first read his words announcing the deposed Iraqi president's capture. I had just completed a friend's book manuscript on the events preceding the bloody seizure of power in Indonesia by General Suharto, a man responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands. But unlike in the case of Hussein, Washington has no desire that Suharto and his accomplices be held accountable for their crimes. The reasons why, and the fact that the United States is in position to realize its desires, painfully illustrate the poverty and hypocrisy of international justice in practice. . . (full article)
Ernest Crichlow was born June 19, 1914, in Brooklyn, New York. He has been associated with many other artists, during his long, distinguished career including Charles Alston, Romare Beardon, Elizabeth Catlett, Jacob Lawrence, and Charles White. He has taught and exhibited in many institutions, but has spent much of his life painting and teaching in Brooklyn, where he is considered a regional treasure. Also, he's one of the great American painters of the 20th Century... (full interview)
In a landmark victory for constitutional protections and the separation of powers in the post-9/11 era, a panel of the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals issued a 2-1 ruling barring the president from declaring a U.S. citizen an “enemy combatant” without congressional authorization. In a decision likely to influence another case on enemy combatants before the Supreme Court case, the federal appeals court ordered the government to release U.S. citizen Jose Padilla from military custody in thirty days, with the option of transferring Padilla to civilian authorities for a criminal trial. The ruling marks a growing judicial backlash against unfettered presidential authority during a period of war. . . (full article)
It's 8:40 am and the Sheraton Hotel ballroom thunders with the sound of plastic explosives pounding against metal. No, this is not the Sheraton in Baghdad, it's the one in Arlington, Virginia. And it's not a real terrorist attack, it's a hypothetical one. The screen at the front of the room is playing an advertisement for "bomb resistant waste receptacles": This trash can is so strong, we're told, it can contain a C4 blast. And its manufacturer is convinced that given half a chance, these babies would sell like hotcakes in Baghdad--at bus stations, Army barracks and, yes, upscale hotels. Available in Hunter Green, Fortuneberry Purple and Windswept Copper. This is ReBuilding Iraq 2, a gathering of 400 businesspeople itching to get a piece of the Iraqi reconstruction action. . . (full article)
From California to Maine, the United States is teeming with good, decent and talented Americans whose potential is as unlimited as the vast expanse of the universe. Of all creeds, colors, ethnicities and religions, those lucky enough to call this great land home find themselves living in the wealthiest nation the world has ever seen. Through our hard work we can afford to live in expensive and monotonous cookie-cutter-loss-of-individuality homes made of plywood cut down from once-pristine forests in Brazil, Africa or Indonesia. We can afford two mammoth-sized gas-guzzling tank-SUVs thirsty for Latin American or Middle East oil. Merrily this holiday season we purchase and consume numerous durable and non-durable products made by developing nations’ low-wage slave labor we support through our extravagant demand. And, of course, we eagerly devour the abundance of mercury and pesticide-laced, preservative-filled, hormone-induced, chemically injected, fat and sugar covered, artificially flavored foods, products, fruits and vegetables that we see at grocery stores and restaurants that are humbly provided to us by, who else, corporations. . . (full article)
When Robert Dreyfuss of the American Prospect asked an unspecified Bush neocon "strategist" how best to deal with the resistance in Iraq, the response he received was chilling, "It's time for 'no more Mr. Nice Guy.' All those people shouting, 'Down with America!' and dancing in the street when Americans are attacked? We have to kill them." . . . (full article)
Former British intelligence employee Katharine Gun is facing up to two years in prison for violating the Official Secrets Act when she disclosed a top-secret NSA memo in March outlining a U.S. surveillance operation directed at UN Security Council members ahead of the vote on Iraq. In the build-up to the invasion of Iraq, the British newspaper The Observer exposed a highly secret and aggressive surveillance operation directed at United Nations Security Council members by the U.S. ahead of the vote on Iraq. . . (full article, with info on how to help)
Documents just released by the Federal Election Commission show that Attorney General John Ashcroft engaged in serious campaign finance violations during his 2000 Senate campaign. Ashcroft participated in a patently phony deal that allowed a political action committee he founded and controlled to transfer a highly valuable mailing list to his campaign committee. The donation of the list—which cost more than $1.7 million to create—flaunts campaign contribution limits. Yet a divided FEC just winked at the arrangement, slapped the committees with a small penalty, and let Ashcroft himself off scot-free. . . (full article)
As I sat down to write this review, I couldn’t decide which was the most important story of 2003 – the Bush administration’s illegal war against Iraq or the new charges of child-molestation against Michael Jackson. It was a toss-up, since each of them got the same amount of coverage in the press. . . (full article)
In
America’s big media, the seizure of Saddam Hussein has been spun in step
with the Bush White House as a kind of domestic proof for the war on
terror, and Iraq invasion and occupation. This official spin has had a
large effect on the people of America, a recent NY Times/CBS News Poll
found. “Mr. Bush's approval rating jumped to 58 percent after Mr. Hussein
was captured, from 52 percent, and the number of Americans who disapproved
of his performance fell to 33 percent, from 40 percent,” the NY Times of
Dec. 17 reported. Clearly, the absence of anti-war news and views in the
corporate communication system has roused some Americans to accept as
legitimate the official version of U.S. foreign policy. . .
It
was just what the spin doctors ordered: good clean images of Saddam
Hussein nice and dirty, a triumphant end to a diplomatically disastrous
week. In the days leading up to the capture, the White House found itself
under fire from all sides — not just from its usual critics, but even from
its most loyal cheerleaders in Washington’s neo-conservative think tanks.
The charge? Grand Hypocrisy. . .
Reviewing the rise and fall of Saddam Hussein on the day of his capture by American troops, ITN’s Trevor Macdonald described yet again the gassing of civilians at Halabja in March 1988: “It was an atrocity met by a stony silence from the West who at that stage regarded the Iraqi president as a much needed ally in the Middle East.” (ITN News Special, December 14, 2003) In fact the British government’s view of the atrocity was expressed loud and clear in its doubling of export credits to Baghdad, which rose from £175 million in 1987 to £340 million in 1988. A UK Department of Trade and Industry press release of November 1988 described how “this substantial increase reflects the confidence of the British government in the long term strength of the Iraqi economy and the opportunities for an increased level of trade between our two countries following the ceasefire in the Gulf War”. . . Soon after Halabja, the US approved the export of virus cultures and a $1 billion contract to design and build a petrochemical plant that the Iraqis planned to use to produce mustard gas. Profits were the bottom line. Indeed “so powerful was the grip of the pro-Baghdad lobby on the administration of Republican President Ronald Reagan”, Dilip Hiro notes in the Observer, “that it got the White House to foil the Senate's attempt to penalize Iraq for its violation of the Geneva Protocol on Chemical Weapons to which it was a signatory”... (full article)
On Monday, December 8, Father Bill O'Donnell, the longtime pastor at St. Joseph the Worker Church in Berkeley, California, died at his desk while preparing his homily for the upcoming Sunday service. Father Bill O'Donnell's life was devoted to "speaking truth to power" and he did it with a sparkle in his eye and a smile on his face. Father Bill, as he was known to the many thousands of people whose lives he touched and influenced, was an activist priest. He not only spoke out about human rights, peace and justice, solidarity with working men and women and service to the poor, but he continuously put his body on the line in support of these issues. . . (full article)
George Bush was rattling the right wing’s weapon of mass destruction the other day. It’s a biological weapon aimed at the Democrats and it’s called “gay marriage.” In an interview with ABC’s Diane Sawyer, Mr. Bush said that he would support “whatever legal arrangements people want to make, they’re allowed to make, so long as it’s embraced by the state or at the state level.” Then, contradicting himself in order to appease core Republicans, he endorsed a constitutional amendment “which would honor marriage between a man and a woman.” In other words, gay marriage is an issue for the states to decide. But just in case they decide to allow gay marriage, he’d endorse a constitutional amendment to make it illegal. . . (full article)
A review of CounterPunch co-editor Jeff St. Clair's incredible new book on the bipartisan and corporate plunder of the environment, the degraded politics of the mainstream environmental movement, and the heroic battles on the ground to stop the pillaging you never hear about. . . (full article)
For
all intents and purposes, this weekend’s capturing of Saddam Hussein
brought to an end a long and complicated relationship between the United
States and the deposed leader, one ranging from conscious support for
Hussein’s atrocities to a determined effort towards his removal as a
barrier to US imperial ambitions. Yet behind all the sensationalism of the
capture, this weekend also marked the end of a roughly two week period
where several events occurred that further confirmed the true nature and
dynamics of the current mission in Iraq. . . (full
article) Howard Dean like most Democrats has plenty of faults. From his ugly death penalty posture to his Israel fetish, Dean is surely far from ideal. But the governor's latest comments regarding the US capture of the bearded Saddam have been right on the mark. . . (full article)
Adding to an endless list of imbecilic comments ( 'you're either with us, or with the terrorists', 'wanted dead or alive', 'bring 'em on ..' the latter, George W. Bush from the safety of Washington, effectively saying that young troops were delighted to die for Bechtel, Halliburton, Carlisle, oil, and Bush and his pals other interests, no matter how uninformed policies escalated increased resistance) we now have Viceroy Bremer (resplendent in suit and desert boots, who cowers in a fortified palace virtually twenty-four hours a day) adding to the list. 'We got him', he announced of the capture of Saddam Hussein. The subsequent baying of the US troops was reminiscent of wild west lynch mobs, when 'wanted dead or alive' posters were nailed to trees. The whoopings, bayings and facile comment flashed repeatedly round the globe, unfairly reinforcing for much of it, the impression that Americans are crass, simplistic, murderous, cowboys. Further, that Bremer, the US top terrorist 'Czar', should adopt and trigger such triumphalism, further humiliating the entire Islamic world, already largely explosive as a result of the Iraq invasion, is an act of near madness. . . (full article)
The capture of Saddam Hussein is a perfect illustration of the way relatively unimportant events are turned into seemingly spectacular public stunts attracting very wide attention and obscuring relevant facts in other areas. The way an illusionist might use a cascade of colourful scarves or flowers to draw attention away from his last mistake. But Saddam's importance is long gone and there is no reasonable proportion between the inflated media interest and the real significance of the capture. . . (full article)
Saddam
Hussein's capture and the hope he will be held accountable for crimes
against the people of Iraq and neighboring states is welcome news, no
matter what one's position on the U.S. invasion of Iraq. But this doesn't
vindicate the U.S. invasion. It doesn't change the fact that the
administration lied about Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction or
that Iraq is undergoing occupation, not liberation.
What's
common to Adolf Hitler, Saddam Hussein and Union Carbide? They all gassed
humans. The first two acquired well deserved notoriety and have been
brought to justice, but in yet another instance of corporate malfeasance
going unpunished, the Union Carbide company (acquired by Dow Chemicals in
2001) has so far escaped unscathed. . . (full
article)
Uncle Sam’s Guantanamo
Prison: Outside the Rule of Law The latest news from Guantanamo Bay is beginning to sound like a modern-day Simpsons episode. After two years of imprisoning more than 600 alleged enemy combatants without charge or counsel in a Cuban prison camp, the Administration announced earlier this month that two detainees -- one a U.S. citizen -- would be permitted limited access to an attorney. As any Simpsons buff will tell you, it’s a classic Mr. Burns move: put on a show of improving work conditions at the nuclear power plant by dressing Homer in thermal underwear. While it might be an amusing tag line typical of the most noxious character in the Simpsons repertoire, it’s a sad metaphor for the U.S. government’s abysmal treatment of designated enemy combatants. . . (full article)
The conference was crawling with scientists.
But, the scientific method was a no-show at last week's First NIST (National
Institute for Science and Technology) Symposium on Building Trust and
Confidence in Voting Systems in Gaithersburg, Maryland last week.
There was no apparent interest in addressing a fundamental question: After
115 years of Americans using voting machines, are any of
these contraptions (with or without paper printers) better, worse, or as
good as hand-counted paper ballots for accuracy, usability, and
vulnerability?
For months I've been thinking about who I'm going to support for President. For me, it's not between Kucinich, Sharpton, Dean, Gephardt or another Democrat. It's between David Cobb, Ralph Nader and Cynthia McKinney, all possible Green Party Presidential candidates. . . (full article)
Deep in the halls of Washington a putrid wind of sweeping ideology festers, swirling like a hurricane from the Atlantic seaboard, becoming a tornado in the frozen tundras of the Midwest, an impenetrable and monstrous fire wall consuming vast tracts of open expanse in the West and a sweltering drought drying up the nation’s future. This phenomenon has engendered itself onto an American landscape that remains oblivious as to its dark and ominous designs for the country and the world. . . (full article)
I’m
two states removed from
December 15, 2003
Information Clearing House has a video clip from a CNN Presents segment entitled "Fit To Kill." The video clip features the slaying of a wounded Iraqi lying prostrate on the ground "next to his gun." It is hard to discern any weapon near the man in the video; nevertheless, he was incapacitated and the marines kept firing at him. Next a bullet rips into the doomed man's body; it heaves one final time; the neck snaps back and flips forward, and his body slumps deathly limp. Whoops of merriment are plainly audible from the killers. It used to be that morality decreed that one should "never hit a man when he's down." The inescapable conclusion is either that this morality is no longer in effect or that these killers are behaving immorally. The killer of the wounded Iraqi is Sergeant Anthony Riddle. Interviewed by CNN correspondent Candy Crowley afterward, Mr. Riddle comes across as giddy. Whether this is due to nerves or not is difficult to distinguish. His words, however, ring falsely of bravado: "Like, man, you guys are dead now, you know. But it was a good feeling." . . . (full article)
"Peace" and "reconciliation" were the patois of Downing Street and the White House yesterday. But all those hopes of a collapse of resistance are doomed. Saddam was neither the spiritual nor the political guide to the insurgency that is now claiming so many lives in Iraq - far more Iraqi than Western lives, one might add - and, however happy Messrs Bush and Blair may be at the capture of Saddam, the war goes on. . . (full article)
US
President George W. Bush celebrated a second victory in Iraq here Sunday
with confirmation that occupation forces had captured fugitive former
president Saddam Hussein on Saturday evening at a farmhouse outside Tikrit.
But even the normally cocky U.S. commander-in-chief, who addressed the
nation by television from the White House, stressed that the former Iraqi
dictator's arrest will not mean a quick end to the occupation's armed
resistance. . . (full article)
I Blame God
Now
I know I can be a little neurotic. We've been in Salt Lake City for six
weeks and after the first week the shortness of breath did not go
away. Finally I sought medical advice. We quickly ruled out all the usual
reasons, before the helpful medic suggested I might be imagining it. I
gave him a scornful look and went for a drive. Less than a mile from the
city centre I drove past an oil refinery, then another and another. In
total there are five oil refineries close to Salt Lake City, each one
pumping virginal white plumes that turn tobacco-coloured as they smother
the mountains that ring this city. Then it occurred to me. It was the
pollution that was taking my breath away. It turns out that Salt Lake
City, set against some of the most spectacular mountains you'll ever see,
is one of the most polluted places in America. . . (full
article)
Smoking Gun:
Former British Intel Employee Faces
Imprisonment Few Americans have heard of Katharine Gun, a former British intelligence employee facing charges that she violated the Official Secrets Act. So far, the American press has ignored her. But the case raises profound questions about democracy and the public's right to know on both sides of the Atlantic. Ms. Gun's legal peril began in Britain on March 2, when The Observer newspaper exposed a highly secret memorandum by a top U.S. National Security Agency official. Dated Jan. 31, the memo outlined surveillance of a half-dozen delegations with swing votes on the U.N. Security Council, noting a focus on "the whole gamut of information that could give U.S. policy-makers an edge in obtaining results favorable to U.S. goals" - support for war on Iraq. . . (full article)
Adam Engel interviews Edward S. Herman, Professor Emeritus of Finance at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, and a contributor to Z Magazine. He is the author of numerous books including, The Global Media: The New Missionaries of Global Capitalism with Robert McChesney (Cassell, 1997), Triumph of the Market: Essays on Economics, Politics, and the Media (South End Press, 1995), and the recently re-issued Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media co-authored by Noam Chomsky (South End Press, 2002). They discuss the electoral system, the media, and more. . . (full article)
Former Iraqi strongman Saddam Hussein was taken into custody Saturday at 8:30p.m. Baghdad time. Various television executives, White House spin doctors and propaganda experts at the Pentagon are at this time wrestling with the question of whether to claim PFC Jessica Lynch seized the ex-potentate or that Saddam surrendered after close hand-to-hand combat with current Iraqi strongman Paul Bremer III. Ex-President Hussein himself told US military interrogators that he had surfaced after hearing of the appointment of his long-time associate James Baker III to settle Iraq's debts. "Hey, my homeboy Jim owes me big time," Mr. Hussein stated. He asserted that Baker and the prior Bush regime, "owe me my back pay. After all I did for these guys you'd think they'd have the decency to pay up." . . . (full article)
Wall fortifications have historically been erected to protect the populace of a city or region from marauding and conquering aggressors. These monoliths of defense, protection and survival are as old as our civilization, a part of the human condition that lives on regardless of time, place and technology. Built, destroyed and rebuilt again, these man made creations evolved along with man. . . .The history of mankind has been marked by perpetual war, perpetual violence. It is a symptom of our disease; our animal urge for power, territory and control, our unyielding appetite for the shedding of human blood and the usurpation of wealth and land. Walls are but testament to our fear of each other. . . (full article)
(An excerpt from Been Brown So Long It Looked Like Green to Me: The Politics of Nature, Common Courage Press, 2003) Our house sits on the rim of a canyon sheathed in Douglas-fir. The creek down below is roaring this time of year. Chinook salmon still climb its torrents. Spawn and die. We find their carcasses, picked over by ravens. There are fewer dead salmon every year. This is not a good sign. Osprey twist in the air on bent wings nearly every morning, cruising over the creek bed for live fish. Year after year they rear new broods in the craggy top of a broken hemlock, the nest an inverted igloo of found material-a model of organic architecture. The creek flows into the mighty Clackamas River a couple of miles away. At the confluence is an old mill site. The ground is saturated in creosote and PCBs, leaching remorselessly into the water, the flesh of salmon, the blood of osprey. At least one cougar still prowls the canyon. Some nights we awaken to its eerie moaning. Dogs have gone missing. Big ones. But we hear the cat less often now. The city advances, glowing with light. The canyon is an island eroded by sprawl. . . (full article)
NEW YORK — In 1998, the band Rage Against the Machine decried "the thin line between entertainment and war." Today, even that thin line is in danger of vanishing. In a new twist on President Eisenhower's concept of a "military-industrial complex," a "military-entertainment complex" has sprung up to feed both the military's desire for high-tech training techniques and the entertainment industry's desire to bring out ever-more-realistic computer and video combat games. Through video games, the military and its partners in academia and the entertainment industry are creating an arm of media culture geared toward preparing young Americans for armed conflict. . . (full article)
The more than 70,000 members of the United Food and Commercial Workers on strike against four supermarket chains in central and southern California are fighting for more than a fair and decent contract. They are fighting for more even than preserving the health benefits they’ve enjoyed for years. The strike against Safeway-owned Vons and Pavilions stores, which prompted an immediate employer lockout of workers at Kroger-owned Ralph’s and Albertsons stores, is quite simply about the future of work in the United States. It’s about whether the civilized notion that if you work for a living, you ought to be able to have a decent existence has any real meaning in today’s economy. . . (full article)
This December 2003, as Americans wrap presents with a coloratura of ribbons, carol through wintry neighborhoods bejeweled by lights, listen enraptured to Handel's ageless Messiah or attend a performance of | |
